Smitten With Death

by Sharon Saracino

  “Morgan Kane is a big boy, and he’s fully capable of taking care of himself, Maxine. Besides, you don’t even like Buddy.”

  “Well, that may be true, but don’t forget his pesky little supernatural superpower. There’s that whole saving the world from the Zombie Apocalypse angle to consider.”

  “Yes, but as I understand it, you agreed to help Kane get him out before you even knew about his potential to create chaos and destruction.”

  Okay, so maybe Buddy wasn’t my favorite person. Maybe I’d had fantasies of giving him a high five…in the face…with a rock. Maybe he didn’t deserve the benefit of my doubt. Then again, maybe even before I knew he was the potential bringer of doom, I began to understand that maybe he was just a mixed-up kid who was trying to fit in and find a way to be happy. Maybe, being someone who had some experience with bad decisions and knee-jerk reactions, I even saw a bit of myself not so long ago.

  Don’t get excited, the similarity is hardly worth mentioning, but there it is.

  This new self-awareness crap was really starting to get on my last nerve.

  “Are you going to tell me which way to go or just let me wander the afterlife aimlessly?”

  “While that might be fun, since I can’t dissuade you, the Reaper went that way.” She pointed back the way we’d come, settled herself comfortably in her chair, and picked up her needles. Swell. It appeared I was going to have to take my lively mortal energy back through the crowd of sightless, groping souls the Grim Reaper and I had encountered on the way in.

  Did I mention they have no eyes?

  Yeah, that. And this time I wouldn’t have the benefit of Kane’s swirling aura of death to trump my bright, shiny glow of life. I closed my eyes and shivered. I had no idea how far their little enclave extended, and the Lost were going to be all over me like a bad rash because I’m, you know, alive which makes them lurve me. Fun times.

  “You wouldn’t happen to own a stun gun, would you?” I groaned, a feeling of dread creeping up my spine as I eyed the milling crowd down the street.

  “Hardly,” she replied dryly as I offered her a listless wave and started slowly in the direction of the leeches. “Look, Maxine, you do whatever you want. It’s pretty clear you’re going to anyway. But here’s a couple pieces of jerky for you to chew on along the way. First of all, Morgan Kane feels something for you beyond professional courtesy. If Cerberus picks up on it, it makes you someone who can be used against him, just like Alia.”

  Alia was Morgan’s sister whom Cerberus had taken hostage in the hopes of forcing Kane to kowtow to his self-assumed leadership of the Hellhound population. An attempted rescue was the cause of Kane’s previously disfiguring scars. Alia had managed to slip away and take refuge at the Timekeeper’s where I found her on my first official retrieval mission. She’d been a baby Hellhound at the time, and even as a confirmed cat person, I’d gotten rather attached. So much so, that after I managed to get her out, I was honestly disappointed to find I hadn’t acquired a puppy.

  Wait a minute…Granny-Apple-Head thought Kane felt something for me?

  “Did he, uh, say anything about me that makes you think so?” I asked, keeping my tone deliberately casual. The Timekeeper rolled her eyes. No small feat as they were the size of raisins and buried in the folds of her wrinkled face. I think she may have raised her brows as well, but frankly, it was next to impossible to tell.

  “Who am I, an advice columnist? Seriously Maxine, figure your relationships out for yourself. I have enough on my plate keeping the fabric of time free of tangles and knots. I don’t have the energy or brain cells left over to play matchmaker or direct people’s love lives. Not my job.”

  “Fine, be that way,” I sniffed. Truthfully, there was absolutely nothing about her that reminded me of an advice columnist, but I figured discretion was the better part of self-preservation so I kept my thoughts to myself. “But even if you’re right, both Alia and I skillfully managed to outsmart Cerberus’ sulfur spewing butt once, and there’s no reason to think I can’t do it again should the need arise.”

  “I’m thinking you probably had a short streak of dumb luck. On the other hand, Harvey does adore his leather so maybe you can at least distract him if needed.” Her beady little eyes examined me from head to toe. “Double points if he’s an ass man. Nice choice, dear.”

  “Thanks, I think.” Honestly, Granny-Apple-Head noticing my ass awesomeness ranked right up there with my father noticing on the crawly scale, but at least she finally appeared to be leaning toward instruction rather than obstruction. “So are you going to help me or what? At this rate, I’ll never catch up to Kane.”

  The Timekeeper set her knitting on the chair beside her, and rose to her feet. Standing at the top of the porch steps and looking down at me where I stood fidgeting at the bottom, she suddenly seemed a lot more menacing than she had before. She planted her hands on her ample hips, causing her gray floral housedress to ride up, giving me an unwanted glimpse of the rolled down tops of her garter-less stockings and her doughy knees. It was not pretty.

  “Let me ask you something, Maxine. Do you have feelings for Morgan Kane? Besides unbridled lust?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Let’s face it, just between us girls, Morgan Kane is chocolate covered bacon on a stick. I may be old, dear, but I’m still a woman, and I’m not blind despite the size of my peepers. Not much I can do about it anymore, but I still like to look, if you catch my drift.”

  “Um, eww?”

  The Timekeeper—who was, I don’t know, a million years old—had the hots for the Grim Reaper?

  “Get your mind out of the gutter, Maxine. I’ve known Kane since he was a boy, and I don’t think of him that way, even if I hadn’t given up dessert centuries ago. But I do enjoy his company, and you have to admit, he is rather pretty.”

  Given my unnatural preoccupation with his shoulders and posterior, I couldn’t argue with her, and she took my silence for acquiescence.

  “The bottom line is, if I help you it’s going to piss him off and maybe put the kibosh to his occasional visits, which are one of the few things in this endless existence I look forward to. I’m going to need your assurance he means more to you than a single serving of chocolate lava cake with hot fudge sauce and whipped cream.”

  “C’mon,” I hedged with a grin while shifting my weight from one foot to the other. “You have to admit a helping of chocolate lava cake with hot fudge sauce and whipped cream is pretty awesome.” Her lips didn’t even twitch, and she simply continued to stare at me with a stern expression from those dark holes nearly buried under her protruding brow.

  I sighed. This wasn’t just another one of those awkward moments when someone fails to understand my amazing sense of humor.

  Hard as it is to believe, it really does happen.

  No, this was one of those awkward moments when I had to carefully examine my heart, admit the truth to myself, admit it to the Timekeeper, and—Oh, Holy Night—admit it out loud.

  “Fine. While I do not deny the absolute appeal of chocolate lava cake with hot fudge sauce and whipped cream, I will admit the Grim Reaper surpasses even that, and ranks right up there in terms of necessity to my happiness with coffee and jelly doughnuts. Happy, old woman?”

  “What is it with you and your preoccupation with food, Retriever? But, yes, your answer is satisfactory. Follow me.” She turned, yanked the wooden screen door open, and disappeared into the house.

  I hoofed it up the steps in pursuit without so much as a stumble. However, I had no time to revel in my newfound ability to scale elevations unscathed because, dang! That old woman was quick. By the time I burst into the vestibule of the cottage, she was disappearing through another doorway about halfway down the hall. I leapt forward and grabbed for the sleeve of her gray patterned housedress.

  “Hey, wait a minute. You’re going the wrong way.”

  “Not at all, dear.” She winked with a sly smile. She descended a flight of stairs, sw
allowed up by the darkness as her voice floated up behind her. “I know a shortcut.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger and paused for a moment to consider whether I had perhaps lost my mind at last. Not so long ago I’d simply been your average bitter divorcée who didn’t do change, denying I was still hung up on my ex, and unwilling to admit the divorce had been mostly my fault in the first place. Now here I was with a supernatural sideline, killing time in the afterlife by contemplating a shortcut to Hell, and admitting to feelings for the Grim Reaper, while deluding myself he needed my help in securing the release of the Zombie King? Denise had a lot of nerve to imply I was incapable of change.

  I knew I could just sit here and wait as I’d been told, but Morgan Kane made my heart skip a beat, made my bones turn to butter, and made my girly bits quiver. The man had seen me at my worst—who am I kidding, the man had met me at my worst—and he hadn’t run away screaming yet. I couldn’t help feeling he was the guy. The guy I thought I’d never find again, the guy who really saw me, who actually got me. And who cared about me anyway. I didn’t want something to happen to him before I had the chance to find out. The bottom line is if you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you’ve always had. Polyester golf pants might be safer, they might be saner, but no matter how hard I try, they will never do it for me. Did that make me crazy?

  And just for the record, when I ask for your opinion, I don’t really want your opinion. I want you to repeat my opinion back to me in a different voice.

  “Maxine?” Granny’s voice wafted up from the darkness.

  I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out again, then put my foot on the first step. What exactly was my plan, again? Oh, that’s right. I didn’t have one.

  Of course, as we have previously established, that’d never stopped me before.

  “Coming.”

  Chapter 15

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, coordination and I have never been properly introduced. Some light would not be unwelcome,” I shouted down the steps as I felt blindly for the wall and slowly descended into the darkness of Granny-Apple-Head’s musty basement.

  “Haven’t you ever heard of energy conservation? You really are high maintenance, Maxine,” Granny grumbled as I heard a faint click and the stairwell flooded with light. High maintenance? Me? Hell, I should introduce her to Denise.

  I reached the bottom unscathed—go me—stepped down onto the packed dirt floor, and took a look around. The stone-walled basement was unremarkable, and reminded me of every other cellar I’d ever seen beneath an older home. Dusty wooden shelves lined the walls, filled with jars whose contents I refused to examine too closely, and tools that clearly hadn’t been used in ages. Thick cobwebs clogged the corners and dangled from the rafters. As I moved toward the doorway at the back, I kept my eyes open for any stray eight-legged bastards that might have ideas of avenging their kinsman whom I’d stomped into oblivion at my place earlier in the day.

  Hey, it could happen.

  I would like to say I was shocked speechless as I stepped through the doorway and got a good gander at Granny’s set-up. But honestly, my WTF meter had given up the ghost ages ago, and we all know I’m rarely if ever speechless.

  “Geeks and nerds everywhere would be proud,” I sniggered as Granny flitted from panel to panel and dial to dial. Okay, maybe flitted is a bit misleading. Lumbered might be the appropriate term. Lights flashed, screens flickered, sensors beeped, and the Timekeeper’s tiny raisin eyes took on a maniacal gleam. I freely admit I was having second thoughts about this shortcut of hers.

  “So are you planning to beam me to Hell?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Maxine. We don’t use sci-fi technology over here. Don’t need it. However, I do love my cable, and it’s almost time for my favorite show. If you get back in time, we can watch Montel together.” With a final, triumphant wheeze, she slapped her hand down on a big red button and a thirty-two-inch flat-screen on the wall sparked to life.

  “Is Montel back?” I thought that show was cancelled years ago.

  “Given the distance between dimensions...” She waddled over to a raggedy recliner positioned in front of the television and dropped her sizable bulk into it with a relieved grunt. “Afterlife cable operates on a delay. I do love my talk shows, but what I’m really waiting for is the new season of that show where everyone runs around in revealing beachwear. The Hoff…what a hottie!” She licked her index finger and touched it to her hip while making a sizzling sound. I reminded myself she probably didn’t get out much.

  “Yeah, and he sings, too. The guy is the total package, right? Soooo about that shortcut…” I prodded. My eyes darted around for anything resembling a door, seeing nothing except the way I’d come in.

  “Oh, right. The shortcut.” She yanked on a lever on the side of the chair and a footrest popped up under her puffy ankles just as the studio audience went wild with hoots and hollers and the host bounded onto the screen. In living color. After the hours already spent in the monochromatic world of the afterlife, it damn near blinded me, and I squeezed my eyes shut automatically. “Over there in the corner under the manhole cover.”

  Prying my eyes open, I shuffled over to the corner and stooped down to gauge the weight of the iron disc. I rose to my feet, flexed, stretched, and dug in my pocket for a couple of those magic beans and popped them into my pie hole. Thus fortified with chocolate and caffeine, I braced my hands against the rim and put my back into it. I crunched, I swallowed, I moaned, I groaned. The moan was in total appreciation for the awesomeness of Kane’s gift. The groan was directly related to the screaming pain shooting up my spine that I’m pretty sure indicated a herniated disc.

  “Don’t hurt yourself. It’s heavy, dear.”

  “You don’t say,” I gasped, desperately sucking air between my teeth and wondering if my Retriever job description had a workman’s compensation clause. Somehow, I doubted it. Hopefully my health insurance covered chiropractic adjustments. Or spine transplants. “Thanks for the warning.”

  Using my hands, I painfully crawled up the wall to a standing position and was relieved to discover my back loosened after a painful spasm or two, and my legs would still hold me. Narrowing my eyes, I peered down into the dark hole, knowing just how Alice must have felt when faced with the conundrum of whether or not to follow that damn rabbit. In fact, I was beginning to relate to Alice on a number of levels. Except in my case, Hell, not Wonderland, was waiting at the bottom. And let’s face it, on a scale of one to terrifying, Hellhounds and demons trump playing-card soldiers and tea parties all day long. Given the shiny technology in Granny-Apple-Head’s TV room, I admit I’d been kind of hoping to find a well-lit staircase under the cover. With bannisters. And anti-skid rubber treads. Or an elevator.

  “How deep is this thing?”

  “No idea, dear. I’ve never used it. My voluptuous curves make it a rather tight fit.”

  “Why didn’t Kane use the shortcut?”

  “Please, Maxine, have you seen those shoulders?” She tore her gaze away from the screen and glanced in my direction. Apparently, the drool trickling from the corner of my lips gave me away. “Yeah, I thought you had. He doesn’t fit either. Anyway, he prefers to take the long way. He enjoys the exercise. You, clearly, not so much.”

  “I’m sure I should be insulted on many levels, but frankly I’ve got bigger fish to fry at the moment.” Fighting panic, I lowered myself back to the floor and perched on the perimeter of the opening with my feet dangling over the edge. “So I just…uh…drop into this hole, free fall an undetermined distance for an unknown period of time, and end up… where?”

  “From what I understand, you should land just this side of the river Styx,” she replied while placidly crunching a handful of tortilla chips.

  No, I don’t know where she pulled them from, and that, combined with their unappetizing putty color, kept my junk food craving in check.

  “From what you
understand? You mean you don’t even know?” I screeched. Granny whooped as one potential baby daddy grabbed a chair and cracked it over the back of another. The audience went wild as the burly bouncers leapt into camera range and elbowed their way into the fray to separate the combatants. While chaos ensued on the screen, the Timekeeper went all exorcist impersonator and rotated her head a hundred and eighty degrees to stare at me. It was creepy, but at least she stopped short of spewing pea soup.

  We have already established it’s not my color.

  “Some things must simply be taken on faith, dear. Now, after you land, just wait for Kane to arrive. He’s got a pretty good head start so it shouldn’t take long. And Max? You might want to reconsider before you drop your ass down that hole. Kane has bigger concerns than your seeing him shift.”

  Well, gee whiz, didn’t that sound all warm and fuzzy? Every word out of Granny-Apple-Head’s mouth increased my excitement about my impending trip south. But seriously, what could the Grim Reaper possibly be worried about? In my experience, he’d always been kind, and funny, and thoughtful. Well, except for that pesky little barricading me in the bathroom incident. And the crack about me smelling like a new truck. So maybe when he was running around on all fours he peed on trees or something? Disturbing, but not a deal breaker. I mean, if I wanted to be accepted warts and all, it seemed only fair I was willing to do the same for him, right?

  “Okay, let’s see if I have this straight. Jump down the hole, pray I don’t kill myself, hunker down and wait for Morgan, pray I don’t kill myself. That sound about right?” I rubbed my damp palms on my thighs. Surprisingly, leather did not possess the same absorptive properties as denim. Hopefully the breeze on the way down would evaporate the puddles. Well, either that or maybe the moisture would lubricate the passageway should I encounter a particularly tight spot.

  “I think that’s everything. Just make sure you wait for the Reaper and don’t go traipsing off on your own. That’s the most important thing.”