“Incident?” Aidan arched a dark eyebrow.
I ignored him. “Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done and you’ve … um … passed on.”
Stan Parker glanced up at me, finally focusing on something other than his own feet – and the uneven tile pattern in his bedroom – and fixed me with a bleak stare. “Are you an angel?”
“You’ve obviously never seen her in the morning before she’s had three cups of coffee,” Aidan scoffed.
I waved him off. “I’m not an angel,” I said. “I’m a reaper.”
Stan Parker looked confused. “Like a grim reaper?”
“Exactly,” I replied, sending him my most encouraging smile as I brushed my long black hair – shot through with enough white streaks to give my father a coronary when he saw them – out of my face. “I’m here to help you get to your final destination.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Parker replied, his voice dull and his eyes lifeless -- OK, no pun intended. “You make it sound like you’re a travel agent.”
Aidan snorted. “Yes, we’re here to take you on a fabulous vacation to Greece.”
“I am kind of like a travel agent,” I said, shooting Aidan a withering glare. “I’ve got all your arrangements right here.” I tapped the file in my hand for emphasis.
“That’s a file on me?”
“It is,” I replied. “It’s all about your life.”
“It’s kind of thin.”
“It sure is,” Aidan agreed.
I kept my violet eyes trained on Stan’s face. “It’s not your whole life,” I said, “just the highlights.”
“And lowlights,” Aidan added.
He was starting to grate, which I suppose is a brother’s job. Since Aidan and I were closer than normal siblings – that whole twin thing had bonded us a little too closely – our new working relationship was starting to strain the easygoing thing we’d had going for the twenty-five years since our birth.
“What lowlights?” Stan asked, his lower lip trembling.
“I don’t think they’re important,” I lied.
“I really like the one about you sleeping with your best friend’s wife,” Aidan said. “Then, when he confided his problems with the marriage, you pretended that he was imagining things until he started seeing a shrink.” He’d moved away from Stan and was busy studying his bedroom, opening drawers and poking through the contents, something that was making Stan decidedly nervous.
“What are you doing? What is he doing?”
“Ignore him,” I said. “We should really get going, though. Aidan, bring the scepter over here.”
“The scepter?” Stan’s eyes widened. “Is that like a magic stick to beat me with?”
“Why would you ask that?” Aidan seemed genuinely curious, until his bright purple eyes narrowed under the weight of sudden knowledge. “Is that what you’re into?”
“No! Who told you that? That’s not on the list, is it?” Stan tried to peer over my hand to see what had been written into his file.
“No,” I replied, although now I was curious about what was buried in his file. I had read only the highlights. “Mr. Parker.”
“Call me Stan. We should be on a first-name basis, after all.”
“Stan,” I said, forcing myself to keep my voice pleasant. “We really need to get going. We’re kind of on a tight schedule today.”
“Doing what?”
“Collecting souls,” I explained, standing back up to my full five feet, six inches. My knees were beginning to ache from crouching.
“And this is your job?”
“It is now,” I said. “Unfortunately.”
Aidan grinned at me. “It’s not as easy as you thought, is it? It’s a lot harder than you gave us credit for.”
“I never said it was an easy job,” I argued. “I just didn’t think it was as action-packed as you made it out to be.” I glanced back down at Stan. “And I was clearly right.”
“They’re usually not this … whiny.”
“I am not whiny,” Stan said. “I’m going through a shock. I just found out I’m dead, and it wasn’t even a good death.”
“What’s a good death?” I asked.
“You know, running into a burning building and saving children from a fiery death,” Stan said. “Or pushing an old lady out of the path of a speeding bus. Or riding a supermodel until your heart just gives out.”
I glanced at Stan’s paunchy stomach and thinning hair and couldn’t help but think that all three of those scenarios were very likely outside of his wheelhouse. “You can’t control your death – unless you want to kill yourself,” I explained. “And, if you do that, you don’t go to one of the better final resting places.”
Stan looked momentarily hopeful. “Am I going to Heaven?”
“Yes,” I said, glancing at his file again for confirmation. I frowned, though, when I saw where he was really going.
“That doesn’t look like I’m going to Heaven,” Stan said, his voice rising an octave. “That looks like I’m going to the other place.”
Aidan leaned back on Stan’s bed -- blocking my view of Stan’s body, which was thankfully buried beneath his plaid bedspread covers -- and waited for me to handle the situation.
“Define the other place,” I said, taking a step so that I could again make eye contact with Stan.
“Define the other place? Define the other place? I don’t want to go to Hell!”
“Well, good news,” I replied, using my best faux tour director voice. “You’re not going to Hell.”
“I’m not?” Relief washed over Stan’s shaking body.
“Nope,” I shook my head emphatically. “You’re going to Purgatory. It’s an entirely different place.”
Stan looked shocked. “Purgatory? Isn’t that like limbo? Is that better than Hell? It certainly doesn’t sound as good as Heaven.”
He wasn’t wrong. “The good news is, your file says you’ll only be there for fifty years.”
“Fifty years!”
“Your file says you have a few things to work out,” I offered, hoping that my explanation didn’t sound as lame to Stan as it did to me.
“What does that mean exactly?” Stan pushed himself to his ethereal feet and placed his hands on his hips. I think I was getting a glimpse of his courtroom persona, which was one of the reasons he was going to Purgatory.
“Well … ,” I hedged.
“I want to know exactly what that file says about me,” Stan ordered.
“I’m not sure I’m supposed to tell you that.”
Aidan groaned from his spot on the bed. “Oh, just tell him. Otherwise we’re going to be here forever, and I’m ready for lunch.”
I didn’t know how he could think about lunch with a dead body – and the traumatized spirit that belonged to that body – in the room. “Well, under your transgressions list you have quite a few entries.”
“Such as?”
“Well, it says here you put fifteen witnesses on the stand even though you knew they were going to perjure themselves,” I replied.
Stan looked incensed. “I did no such thing!”
“Then there’s that whole sleeping with your best friend’s wife.”
“I went to confession for that!”
“Each time?” Aidan asked. “You have to go each time.”
Stan worried his lower lip with his teeth. “That wasn’t made clear to me. That’s not fair. I thought going once was a blanket confession that would absolve me of all of my sins.”
“Did you do the required penance?” Aidan pressed.
“Of course I did.” Stan was scandalized.
“That’s not what the file says. The file says you were supposed to say fifty Hail Marys, but that you didn’t say any of them.”
“The priest still absolved me of my sins,” Stan argued. “You can’t possibly be telling me that fifty Hail Marys are standing between me and Heaven. I’ll do them right now, if that’s the case.”
/> “It doesn’t work that way,” I said.
“It also doesn’t count if you don’t do the penance,” Aidan shot back. “While you’re still alive, that is. Aisling, seriously, enough with this crap. Let’s just absorb him and go.”
“I want to speak to your superior,” Stan said. “You can’t be the last word on where my fate lies.”
“We’re not even the first word,” I answered. “We’re just grunts. The list comes from higher up and we just follow it. We’re really just the last word.”
“Higher up where?” Stan didn’t look convinced.
That was too long of a conversation for this particular moment. “Just higher up.”
“Well, I still want to speak to your superior.” Stan was adamant.
“We can arrange that,” Aidan said, getting to his feet. “You have to come with us, though, and then we’ll have to make an appointment for you.”
“And how soon can I get this appointment?” Stan asked, new hope flitting across his face.
“I think the current wait time is seventy-five years,” Aidan said. I had no idea whether he was telling the truth.
“Well, that’s not fair,” Stan complained. “I demand an immediate appeal.”
I glanced at Aidan, waiting for his response. His world-class charm obviously wasn’t working today.
“We can arrange that.”
“And how soon will my argument be heard?”
“I think the current time frame is eighty-five years,” Aidan replied. He was clearly bored with the direction of the conversation, his mind already focused on the hamburger in his future.
Stan’s mouth dropped open in horror. “So, you’re saying my only options are to go with you, climbing into some weird scepter of death and spending fifty years in Purgatory making up for my crimes or wait seventy-five years to plead my case?”
“Pretty much,” Aidan said, nonplussed, “although, you don’t climb into the scepter.”
“That’s something, I guess,” Stan said, shuffling uncomfortably.
“The scepter just absorbs your soul,” Aidan added.
Terror flitted across Stan’s bland features. “Absorbs?”
“It’s not as gross as it sounds,” I offered.
“Oh, okay,” Stan said. “Um, just give me a second to get ready. It’s going to be fine. I’ll wake up in a few minutes and everything will be fine.”
“Of course.” Clearly my approach was getting us nowhere.
Stan started pacing his apartment, stopping at each photo frame to give it a long gaze. I thought it was kind of sweet. He wanted to get a last look at his loved ones. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all?
Stan was completing his circuit, moving back toward the open bedroom door when he suddenly disappeared into the living room. I glanced at Aidan worriedly. “What do you think he’s doing?”
“He’s probably running,” Aidan replied, his disinterest evident.
“Shouldn’t we stop him?”
“He’s your charge,” Aidan reminded me. “I’m just here to supervise.”
“This sucks,” I grumbled, moving into the living room to make sure Stan didn’t try to run. I shouldn’t have worried. He was standing at the door of his apartment, trying to turn the door handle so he could escape into the hallway. He clearly didn’t realize that he could simply walk through the door because he was stymied by the fact that his hand just kept moving through the handle harmlessly. That was a small favor.
I opened my mouth in an attempt to talk him down once more, but Aidan shook his head to dissuade me. He was right – and I knew it. I sighed, pulling the sterling silver scepter – shaped like a snake with ruby red eyes (don’t ask) – out of my jacket pocket and pointed it at Stan.
The scepter lit up, emitting a bright flash of light, and I could see Stan’s spirit start to break up as it filtered into the scepter. The last look he managed to muster was one of abject terror before he completely disappeared.
“Well, that went well,” I said finally.
“That’s not what Dad is going to say,” Aidan replied.
He was right. I scowled as I imagined the diatribe I was sure to be on the receiving end of later tonight. It sucks when your Dad is also your boss.
“You want lunch?” Aidan asked. He didn’t look too worried about the ass-chewing we were sure to get in a few hours.
“Make sure it’s some place we can get drinks, too.”
“We’re Irish,” Aidan laughed. “That’s a given.”
I followed him out of Stan Parker’s apartment without a backward glance. This was turning into a terrible first day of work.
Two
“So, let me get this straight, you had five souls to gather today and two of them ran while another two demanded appointments to plead their cases? That doesn’t sound like an auspicious first day.”
Cormack Grimlock is an imposing sight. He’s six feet, two inches of solid muscle, black hair and a constant five-o-clock shadow. Even in his fifties, he’s still a breathtaking (and frightening) man. He’s my father, and I love him, but I feel the weight of his disappointment like an anvil around my neck when he feels like cutting it loose. And tonight he obviously feels like cutting it loose.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” I said, throwing myself onto one of the leather couches that decorate his library. It’s really only a library in the strictest sense of the word. To a normal person – one who didn’t grow up in the dark shadow of the reaper world – it was something more akin to a library research room. The walls are covered with dark bookshelves encumbered with thousands of dusty tomes, which my father insists we might need some day. The far end of the room is dwarfed by my dad’s mahogany desk, which he sat behind.
“And how would you describe your first day on the job?”
I glanced over to the adjacent couch where my brother Aidan was sitting and studying his fingernails and tried to send him a mental SOS. He either wasn’t getting it or he was ignoring it – I had a feeling it was the latter. “Well, we did manage to gather all five souls.”
Cormack sighed, letting loose one of those patented parental grunts that can only be achieved when you have more children than you have patience. Since I was one of five children, my father had long since ceded complete control, although he still likes to pretend sometimes. “I guess we can count that as a win.”
“See,” I smiled. “There is a bright spot.”
“Don’t push it.”
Aidan snickered, leaning back on the couch and fixing me with an amused grin. “I told you.”
“I don’t know why you’re so smug,” my father said. “You were in charge. You should have had a better handle on things.”
“You said to let her do it and just step in when things got out of hand,” Aidan argued. “I was following your directions.”
My father’s back stiffened. “Apparently you and I have very different definitions of what constitutes a situation getting out of hand.”
“Well, that sounds like your problem, not mine.”
I was surprised by Aidan’s tone. Every member of my family is plagued by foot-in-mouth disease. We don’t usually put that particular trait on display with our father, when we can help it, though. It doesn’t end well. Ever.
“What did you just say to me?” I feared that if my dad’s face got any redder he might burst a blood vessel.
“I said you’re right,” Aidan sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s what I thought you said.”
When I was sure my dad wasn’t looking, I shot a triumphant smile in Aidan’s direction. He flipped me off, discreetly, but my father and his eagle eyes didn’t miss the gesture.
“I saw that.”
“Shouldn’t we get the soul transfer over with?” Aidan asked, trying to change the subject.
“Fine,” my dad replied. “Perhaps I should oversee the soul transfer, just to be on the safe side.”
“Knock yourself out,” Aidan grumbled.
My dad motioned for me to join him, holding out his hand so I could place the scepter in his palm. I watched as he took the silver staff – which was about ten inches long – and placed the bottom end into the purple urn in the corner of the room behind his desk. The process was a mild curiosity – until I joined the family business I wasn’t allowed to see this part of the operation. The urn lit up, flashing once, twice, ultimately five times, and then going dark. My dad retrieved the scepter and handed it back to me.
“At least one job was done without incident today,” he grumbled.
“The easy part,” Aidan scoffed.
My dad opened his mouth to let loose with a choice verbal smackdown but was interrupted when the door to the office opened and the rest of my family filed in. My older brothers, Redmond, Cillian and Braden, were in the middle of a deep conversation.
“She was after me,” Redmond said, sliding down onto the couch I had just vacated.
“You’re crazy,” Cillian said, his eyes flashing. “She wanted me.”
“You’ve both gone blind,” Braden interjected. “She kept touching my bicep. She wanted me.”
“She kept touching all of our biceps,” Redmond argued. “She tried to stick her tongue in my ear, though.”
“She was coughing,” Cillian replied. “That wasn’t her tongue. It was spit.”
Gross.
All of my brothers look exactly alike. No, really, they do. If not for the white streaks I had recently added to my hair, there would be no doubt that we all swam from the same gene pool. Every one of us had inky black hair and bright purple eyes, both traits passed on to us from our father. There wasn’t a lot of deviation in our ages – apparently our parents were randy in their youth – so we were extremely close, and competitive.
Redmond is the oldest, and most stable at twenty-nine. Cillian is a year behind at twenty-eight, and he is a touch more volatile (and by a touch I mean he freaks out at the drop of a hat). Braden has middle-child syndrome at twenty-seven and, while the rest of us have straight hair, his is wavy like our mother’s was before she passed away. Aidan and I are the babies at twenty-five and, if Redmond is to be believed, we were not exactly happy accidents. It’s not as though my parents didn’t love us as children, but we weren’t explicitly in their family plan. They had intended to have three children – not five – so it’s no surprise that my father’s patience often wears thin with us faster than it does with my older brothers.
Witchy Dreams Page 24
