He stood, the stool scraping the wood floor, and looked around the bar. If I spoke, he’d hear me. He was going to ask me out! I have got to be Murphy’s Bitch, you know? A man finally asks me out, and I go all invisible.
Shit.
Argh! I wanted to say yes. I wanted to tell him I’d meet him over at the Red Chair! But I also knew it wouldn’t be a good thing for him to hear my disembodied voice.
Not everyone likes hearing voices, you know? Not a good sign in our culture.
“Miss”—He leaned forward to get the bartender’s attention—“did you see where Zoë went?”
“No.” She looked around. “She was sitting right here.” With a glance at my untouched coffee, she scooped it up. “And she never drank her coffee.”
Daniel fished a few dollars from his pocket. “I’ll get it. Just put it on my tab. I’m going to go check the ladies’ room. She was looking a bit pale, and I might have upset her. Maybe she’s sick.” He pulled a card from his back pocket. “And give her this if you see her, okay?” Daniel handed it to the bartender.
He was getting ready to leave. I didn’t want to leave him. I almost had a date with Hottie Detective!
Within seconds I was traveling through the bar, into the street. Everything was a blur, and I was inexplicably pulled away from the detective …
… and back into my body to find my mother giving me mouth-to-mouth.
8
“I told her not to do that,” Steve said, as I scrubbed the enamel off of my teeth. I was standing—well, more like leaning—against the sink in my bathroom and on my third teeth-cleaning since coming home. “But you know how Nona can be.”
Yeah. I know. She tastes like Old Lady.
Ewwwwww.
The toothpaste numbed my tongue, and my gums were bleeding. It really didn’t help. I still had the image of my mom’s lips plastered to my own burned on the hard drive of my mind.
As for how I felt physically. Drained wasn’t even close to a good description. I needed a harsher word.
Sucked?
No, that just led to some real nasty gutter translations.
To look in the mirror, sucked worked though. I was paler than I’d ever remembered being. My Latino genes looked to be on vacation, and my Irish was hanging about. I could actually see the freckles on my nose.
And—were those more white hairs? There were more there than before—like ten?
“Is that gray hair?”
I turned and glared at Steve where he stood in the bathroom door before looking back at my reflection.
Half-moons hung beneath my eyes.
Speaking of eyes, mine looked wrong—darker than usual. Still amber in an off sort of color, but more of a caramel. I looked tired.
And I was. If Mom and Don Juan De-Ghosty here weren’t still in my condo, I’d be asleep. After a good pint of vanilla ice cream. I was famished.
I rinsed. Used some mouthwash. Minty-fresh. Hissed as the antiseptic stung my tender gums, then wiped my mouth on a towel hanging on my shower door. The bathroom smelled like soap and shampoo. Watermelon scent. “Yeah, I know my mom.”
“Well, it was pretty scary for her. She’s seen your silver cord before, like that first time you moved out of body. Only this time it was really faint, like it was disappearing. So she panicked and gave you CPR.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him and motioned for him to move out of my way. As an astral entity, I didn’t like people passing through me. So as a corporeal being, I sure as hell didn’t want Steve’s ectoplasmic goo on me. I wasn’t sure what it felt like to a real dead person to have someone walk through them.
Wasn’t sure I wanted to know. As far as I was concerned being dead wasn’t the same thing as astral traveling. Dead meant no body.
I didn’t want dead. I enjoyed my body and all its feminine parts.
Once back in my bedroom, I changed into jeans and a black sweatshirt with a yellow Wonder Woman insignia on the front. A gift from Rhonda.
Speaking of which…“Steve, did Rhonda ever figure out what it was she was looking for in that book? And do you by chance know exactly what a Wraith is?”
He’d moved to my bed and was lounging back Cleopatra style, with both legs on my nice, clean white divan. Good thing ghosts don’t track dirt. “Well, first answer is you’d have to ask Tim. He stayed behind with Rhonda at the shop, remember? On that second one…” He frowned at me and sat up, swinging his legs off of my bed. “Why do you want to know about Wraiths?”
“Honey?” Mom knocked on my door. I’m not sure she’d recovered from my glass-shattering shriek upon waking. “Can I come in? I’ve made you a hot toddy.”
A what?
“Come in,” I pulled on my bear-claw slippers when she opened the door. They made my inner child feel happy and protected. Grrr…I’m a bear. Watch out.
“You still look awful.” She still wore the navy blue sweatpants and sweatshirt, topped off by a red-and-gold scarf tied around her neck in true Boy Scout fashion.
She looked ridiculous. I’d much rather have preferred her usual caftan and slippers. Store attire.
“And you really need to talk to your hairdresser about that gray.”
Bite me.
“I feel awful.”
Mom held a steaming cup of something in front of me. I sneered at it. “What is it?”
“A hot toddy. Great comfort for when you’re sick.”
“Mom, I’m not sick. I’m tired, which I think has a lot to do with me somehow going corporeal.” I looked at her.
She frowned at me.
“You don’t get it, do you, Mom? I became solid. The detective, the one I was sent to watch, he saw me. So did the bartender.” Not to mention the cute bartender with the ponytail—I was sure he’d seen me astrally.
“Maybe he’s just one of those sensitives. You know, like me.”
“Mom.” I stood and put my hands to the sides of my head. Frustration is not a favorite emotion I like to visit. I think that’s because during my years with Mom, I’ve set up house with it. “I’m not sick.”
“Well, you look sick.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
“Now, Zoë, you know I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just worried. We came in and I found you on that bed and you looked dead.”
“I was still breathing.”
She looked pained. “I couldn’t tell.”
Apparently when I didn’t come out of the Bank of America building, Mom and Steve had gone to my condo only to discover Mom didn’t have her key or her code. So they’d driven all the way back to Euclid to her house to retrieve her set and the pass code I’d written down for her.
And apparently Rhonda had closed up the shop, and she and Tim were missing.
“Well, you blew any chance I had of getting a date with a cop, Mom. He was going to ask me out, but then your revival yanked me right back. I still had time on my clock!”
She set the cup on the nightstand beside my bed and stood, both hands on her hips. “Did it even occur to you that making yourself physical like that was sucking the life out of your body? Look at you, Zoë. Have you looked in the mirror? You were pale, and it didn’t look like you were breathing…” She turned, and I thought I saw a tear fall gently from her left eye.
Crap. I hated it when Mom went all Scarlett O’Hara on me. “Mom—it’s just that—I think Trench-Coat changed me.” She’d already seen the glaring, ugly red mark while I lay unconscious and of course demanded an explanation before allowing me to brush my teeth. Though it had been a relief finally to get it off my chest. “When he tried to take me and failed. There are things happening.” I touched my chest above my breasts as Mom turned and looked down at me. “Things that I don’t understand yet.”
“You have to tell Rhonda these things. You should have told us he touched you, Zoë. There might have been something we could have done.” A sniff.
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it.” Mom turned.
Gone was the sob.
Dried up were the tears. She was up and ready to do battle with the next adventure.
Well, that’s Mom. I think one day I’ll shoot her and have her mounted to my wall.
I let Mom and Steve answer it—I was tired. What my granddaddy called “bone tired,” when you felt it all the way to the marrow. I lay back on my pillows and closed my eyes. Geez…I could just drift off and sleep for days.
I still didn’t know who or really what Trench-Coat was. Nor did I feel anywhere near up to tackling him. I planned on driving over to Fado’s to retrieve that business card Daniel had given the bartender ASAP.
I didn’t have much of a clue as to what Mitsuri was either. I sort of wanted to go back there in body to see if I could see her the same way. Most of the time the ability to see auras and such didn’t manifest through to my physical body.
No, I saw icky, wispy, shadowy things.
In this skinny, bony, worn-out shell I was just Zoë—out-of-work midnight-checkout-convenience-store queen.
But when out of body—I was special. I was invincible. Yeah. Sure.
I just didn’t realize at that time exactly how special I was going to get.
I could go incorporeal. And there was a nice-looking detective out there that apparently liked me well enough to want to ask me out.
If I took all those things and set them up behind me three-dimensionally, then looked back—I’d probably run screaming.
Steve came to my door and knocked. I kept my eyes closed. It was just too damned hard to open them. “It’s Rhonda and Tim. Rhonda says she’s got some new information. And, she’s got a new toy.”
I smiled. Yay. I liked Rhonda’s toys.
Wonder what she’d conjured up this time.
“Who’s watching the store?”
But Steve didn’t answer. I sensed he’d moved away. I opened my eyes and glanced at the clock. It was after five. It really didn’t matter.
I stood, abruptly aware of the sore stiffness in my joints. I felt the way one normally would the day after a tough workout. Definitely a side effect of something. Shaky.
Who knew? And there really wasn’t any sort of Ask Abby in the local paper for people who did what I do. Maybe I should start a column in the National Enquirer.
Ah well.
I moved slowly out of my bedroom and into the short hallway past my office. My bed was a mess, and I’d have to clean it up soon. I’m not a neat freak or anything, but I do enjoy a nice, clean condo. That always leaves me my spare time for fun things and not housework.
Everyone was huddled around my dining table. The intoxicating aroma of Starbucks French roast permeated the air, and I took in a deep breath. Mmmm…coffee.
“What exactly does it do?” I heard my mom say. It was her standard operating question when Rhonda brought home some new toy.
“The guy I fenced it from said it’s supposed to cage bogeymen—which is why I got it for Zoë. You know, just in case Trench-Coat shows up.”
I shuffled closer as Mom stepped away. Tim did too, giving me his usual scowl. Rhonda stood on the opposite side of the table and looked up at me.
Her eyes widened, the kohl around them having faded a bit. She took a step backward. “Damn, Zoë—what the hell is wrong with you? And what’s with the hair?”
I cringed. Leave it to Rhonda to notice the gray strands.
“I mean”—Rhonda made a pained face—“if you’re gonna do a Rogue, at least do the whole front and not a piece of it.” I frowned at her. A what?
“Rogue,” Mom said as she put a hand to her chin, narrowing her eyes at me. “You know. X-men. The little girl that can’t touch people?” She paused. “You didn’t have that little streak this morning, did you?”
I reached up and touched my left temple where the discolored hair started. “Oh—yeah. It—it was the hairdresser’s idea. Yesterday. Afternoon. Before I traveled.” I said in the best it’s-not-because-of-anything-stupid voice I could muster. I didn’t have any clue as to why my hair turned white in one concentrated spot. Or how. But I definitely wanted to kick any attention to it away. “I had my hair up in a ponytail this morning—probably didn’t notice it.”
Mom puckered her red lips into a tight bow.
“Well,” Rhonda said. “You still look like hammered shit.”
“Nice to see you too, Pinky.”
She moved from around the table and took two hesitant steps toward me. After narrowing her eyes, she turned to Mom. “Don’t you see it?”
Mom nodded. “I wanted to see what you saw first.”
Okay, I was not liking being talked about with me in the room. “That’s it—I’m going to bed.” I turned and took two steps toward my bedroom, away from rude people.
“Zoë, wait,” Rhonda said. I turned back to her. “You know your mom and I can see auras and things, right?”
I nodded.
“Yours…it’s changed. Not a lot, and it’s a subtle change. You’re suddenly more purple than red.”
“Is that good?”
Rhonda grinned. “Don’t know. I’ll have to read up on it. But I hear you actually went physical in the astral?”
I laughed. It was a cool phrase. Physical in the astral. Sounded kinky.
Wonder if I could make a bumper sticker out of it.
“Yeah.” I nodded to her and moved past them right on to the kitchen counter and my coffeemaker. Java. I needed Java.
I pulled a brown coffee mug from my white cabinet and poured myself a steaming-hot cup. One sip and I felt as if my strength and stamina would return.
That is, until I turned and caught sight through the cutaway of what the others were ogling over on my dining room table.
I dropped the coffee cup. The hot beverage splashed over my slippers and beige tile floor. The crash of the ceramic on the tile turned everyone around. They stared at me wide-eyed as I pointed to my table and screamed.
“That’s Lucy Liu’s oogy dragon!”
9
I’M afraid my declaration garnered nothing more than a few confused expressions from my houseguests. But my reaction lowered the boom right where it needed to be.
“Honey”—Mom stepped forward, her hands reaching out to touch me—“are you okay? You’re even whiter now than before.”
“That…” I pointed at the dragon statue. It wasn’t lit, not like in Hirokumi’s office. But I kept imagining the smoke-made dragon-thingie opening up its jaws and swallowing me whole. “Why is that in here? Where did it come from? Get it out of here immediately.”
Rhonda shifted her position and stood in front of it, blocking my view. I did calm down.
A little.
“Hey, Zoë, relax.” The goth chick had her own hands up, palms down. “This isn’t going to hurt you.”
“Like hell!” I’d not meant to scream quite so loud, but that damned thing in my dining room was making my skin crawl. “That nasty thing nearly ate me today in Hirokumi’s office. It’s some kind of soul eater.”
Rhonda looked bug-eyed. “You know about these things?”
I forced myself to look away from it. Part of me was afraid it was the same one from this afternoon—though the more rational part (yes I have one of those—it’s ignored a lot though) of me said it couldn’t be. I yanked open a drawer and pulled out a few clean blue-and-green kitchen towels. “I want it out of my house.”
“I brought it in here to protect you.”
I whirled around and fixed Rhonda with something…something that scared her. She took a step away from me as I spoke. “That … thing…or something identical to it nearly ate me today, Rhonda. I want it out of my house.”
“What the hell…” Tim said softly as he moved from his perch on one of the stools behind the counter. He glided around to stand beside Rhonda, who was still looking at me as if I’d sprouted a second head.
Then Mom joined the two and all three stood in the entrance of my kitchen staring at me.
Steve remained beside the dragon statue, intently looking at it. �
��You two do see it, don’t you? Do you feel it?” Tim said. Mom nodded. “I sort of noticed it at breakfast, but it was really bad after she came back.”
Rhonda had her hand to her mouth. “You know, I thought it was because she was tired from her OOB (Rhonda tended to use those initial things all the time—took me forever to figure out what she meant sometimes. OOB was out of body. And I really didn’t care at that moment) but just now, when she got angry…”
Tim nodded. “I saw it.” He looked at Rhonda. “Remember what we talked about in the car? What Steve and I’ve seen over the years? Well.” He pointed at me. “That was sort of it.”
Oh this was insufferable. “WHAT?!”
Mom held up her hands. “Calm down, Zoë. Don’t make me call someone.”
That doused my anger real fast. Call someone? “Call who?”
“You need to calm down.” Mom wasn’t really looking at me. “You don’t think it was because he touched her, do you?”
Rhonda whirled on Mom. “Touched her? Who touched her?”
“Trench-Coat,” Mom blabbed.
“Trench-Coat touched her?”
“That’s what she said. Didn’t tell us anything till I gave her mouth-to-mouth.”
“Why did you give her that? Was she convulsing? You know I’ve always wondered if that could happen if she stayed away too long.”
“I wasn’t convulsing,” I finally said, though I was still lingering on Mom’s threat to call someone. “Who are you going to call and why?”
“Her cord was very light.”
Rhonda pursed her lips. “Light? As in faint?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe he actually touched you.” Rhonda looked like she wanted to step closer to me, but hesitated. “Where?”
I held up my arm so everyone could see. It really did look like a faded tattoo now. I nearly laughed when all three of them did an “Aaahhhhh” together.
“It’s still there. This could be bad.”
I ignored Rhonda. I was sick of things being bad. Seemed “bad” was the soup du jour since I’d walked into that building. “Mom, who you gonna call? For what?”
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