Vivian sensed Ezra in her house when she returned home late the next afternoon. She could also tell he was pretty pissed. It may have been a pleasant seventy-five-degree spring day in Music City, complete with a light breeze, but it felt like a sauna when she walked inside. Guardians tended to run on the warmer side, but they blazed white-hot when riled.
The old spirit stood in her kitchen, puffed up like an old bullfrog and shooting daggers out of his eyes. Vivian felt about two feet tall and wished she were about anywhere else.
“Little gal, I ought to turn you over my knee and tan your hide. Don’t you ever do something like that again, you understand me?” he said, voice low and full of menace. He didn’t yell, which gave his words all the more punch.
“I’m sorry, Ezra, I really am,” she pleaded. “I didn’t mean to, but Sarah Harrow is just such a conniving, vindictive, and meddlesome hag. Did Jeanne tell you what she did?”
“The Good Book says to turn the other cheek. And if that won’t work for you, you could at least try to control that temper of yours,” he said, his face growing redder by the second.
Best let him get it out of his system and take it like a grownup, she figured, and braced herself for the next round.
He paced back and forth as he berated her, growing hotter with each step. “You ain’t a guardian, but you’re mighty close. We don’t abide by revealing ourselves to nobody livin’ except when it’s do or die, and we sure don’t abide by using our powers on the living for spite. I don’t care how bad that person’s acting.”
“You’re right,” she said, throwing her hands up in the air in frustration. So much for taking it like a grownup. “I’m not a guardian. I never wanted to be a guardian, or close to it. I’m human. I make mistakes. I can’t abide being bullied by the likes of Sarah, but I do promise that next time I’ll just punch her lights out. With my fists, mind you, though after yesterday I don’t expect there’ll be a next time.”
“I reckon you’re right about the last,” Ezra conceded. He was trying to act mad, but she thought she’d softened him up a bit. She could always hope.
But just in case…
She pulled a DVD out of her shopping bag and handed it to Ezra. “Here, why don’t you pop this baby in the DVD player and I’ll warm up the brownies and get some drinks for us, okay?”
She hurried off to the kitchen and set the oven on low, and then shouted, “Hey, I’m gonna need a new microwave.”
“You don’t have to go a-yellin’, you know.” Ezra’s voice came from directly behind her and she jumped.
Damn it.
She thought she’d get used to the random disappearing and reappearing acts someday, but she always jumped. When she turned, she could see that the old coot’s ear-to-ear grin.
“I hate it when y’all do that. You know that, right?” she said. Though her heart still raced, she got a measure of relief in seeing her guardian smile. Bribery worked. She’d have to thank Jeanne for the advice.
“’Course I do,” he said, obviously pleased with himself. Turning to her broken microwave, he shook his head back and forth and asked, “What happened to that durned contraption, anyway?”
“Junior.”
“Oh, that’s right,” he said with a chuckle. “Jeanne told me old Junior was back and took up with one of your girlfriend’s young ’uns. In that case, I reckon we do owe you. How much they run?”
“About two-fifty, three to four hundred for a good one,” Vivian replied.
“Lord have mercy, when did everything get so costly?”
“Inflation, Ezra,” Vivian said with a sigh. They had this conversation every time she asked for compensation or for cash to cover spirit-associated expenses. Vivian figured he must have been a real tightwad back in the day.
She rolled her eyes and said, “You think that’s bad, why don’t you stroll through Best Buy sometime? If you can spring for it, I’ll get us a nice flat screen, forty-two inch plasma and a Blu-ray player. I’ve already got a good surround sound system to work with. We could have a decent home theater system for movie night.”
He cocked his head and looked at her. “Well, we might be able to work out something. Got many westerns in Blu-ray?”
“They sure do,” she said, grinning. The old spirit loved westerns almost as much as he loved baked goods. “So, am I forgiven?”
He appeared to consider before saying, “As long as you behave yourself, I reckon we can let it be for now. But you need to be careful, and not just about breaking the rules. You’re making it hard for me to keep you safe from this rogue guardian.”
“And from Uriel, too?” she asked, remembering the threat she’d received from the archangel. She’d been meaning to ask Ezra more about him. “I thought you were on the same team?”
“Mostly, but you shouldn’t get on the bad side of either.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it this time. She figured Ezra would be in a heap of trouble if word got around. Still, she’d have to consider Darkmore’s offer if her guardians didn’t come up with any leads soon.
“You know,” he began, a little hesitant. “I only want what’s best for you, to keep you safe.”
“I believe you,” she said.
“We never did finish our little talk we started that night when all of this bad business began.”
“No, we didn’t.”
Ezra had used his own life story as a way of introducing her to the world of reapers, guardians, and the afterlife. It hadn’t been a pretty story. He’d suffered a stroke and been subjected to torment by Darkmore while trapped in his own battered body before the guardian spirits set him free.
He’d never told her exactly how he’d managed to escape the reaper, nor had he shared what he’d done to attract him in the first place.
She wasn’t certain she wanted to know.
She sighed, then said, “And if it’s all the same to you, I’d really rather not finish it tonight. All I want right now is to kick back, eat some brownies, and watch Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer play Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday.”
“Tombstone, eh? Now that ought to be a good one,” Ezra said, beaming. “But I do want to clear the air and come clean with you on a few more things. I reckon you’ve earned it. I’ve found out a few more things that I should tell you, and a few that I should’ve told you a while back.”
“Okay, let’s do that, but not until we solve the mystery of the rogue guardian. Between that, Sue’s wedding, and life’s little curve balls, I don’t think I can take much more, Ezra.”
He nodded, then reached out and put his arm around her, sending out warm rays of peace and harmony, which she happily and gratefully accepted. “Now let’s get down to movie night.”
Ezra enjoyed the Old West tale, especially the gun fights. He told Jeanne and Vivian that he’d been a crackerjack shot back in his day when the young guardian joined them. Wallace showed up, too, and remained friendly.
Jeanne seemed to enjoy the man candy on screen almost as much as Vivian did. It made her wonder if Jeanne missed her old life. Judging from her corporeal form, she’d been quite young and pretty when she died. Aside from the whole Pollyanna happy-crap thing she had going on, she would have made a great gal pal. Did she get lonely? Did she miss her friends or perhaps a special someone whom she’d left behind? Maybe she had a little “love in the afterlife” thing going on like Ezra did. Vivian would have to ask her sometime.
After the movie was done, they enjoyed some sandwiches and sodas before Wallace excused himself so he could get back to guarding Father Montgomery. Vivian offered them beer, but both spirits declined. She wondered if guardians weren’t allowed to drink, but she remembered that Zeke had enjoyed it.
Zeke—the ache that would never heal. Not that she really wanted to heal. She feared she’d forget him, and that would be far worse than any lingering pain.
Jeanne took her up on a glass of Riesling. Figures she’d go for the sweet stuff. Ezra still declined. Figured he’d be the party po
oper.
She bid them goodnight earlier than usual after the movie, letting them know she’d yell if she needed them. It would be better to have them out of the way if Darkmore showed up again. Besides, after last night, all she wanted was to sleep for about twelve hours.
Too bad, then, that a very agitated Junior showed up in her bedroom just as she was dozing off. Seemed there was trouble at the Clemmens household and he wanted her to go with him and help.
Figured.
***
Vivian knocked on the door with soft taps so as not to wake the children, as the doorbell surely would have done. She could hear Kay’s footfalls and noted the slight shift in the blinds that covered the door frame windows. When she didn’t open the door right away, Vivian spoke.
“Kay, it’s Vivian. I know it’s late, but can I come in, honey?”
“Give me a minute,” replied Kay’s muffled voice from the other side. It sounded raspy and rough.
“Are you okay?” Vivian asked. If Junior’s frantic call to arms hadn’t scared her already, Kay’s voice surely would have put her over the edge. The agitated spirit was hovering just behind Vivian.
“Junior,” she hissed. “Back off!”
“You gotta get in there. She’s gone crazy and she’s going to hurt someone, I’m telling you,” Junior said. He was in such a state of panic he could barely manifest.
According to Junior, Kay had had a very bad night with the kids. Boyd had been gone for nearly a week total, with only a brief stay at home the night of Sue’s shower, and Kay been getting snappier and more irascible each day. Tonight, she’d lost it and yelled at the kids for about thirty minutes straight, slamming doors, throwing household items, and collapsing in her closet in a heap of bone-chilling wails. The kids were in bed, but Scooter was pretty scared.
It scared Junior enough to make him fetch Vivian.
“I’ve got this, I promise,” Vivian said. “You want to be a guardian? Then go and look after Scooter. He’s probably still scared, too, if he’s still awake.”
That seemed to calm him, from what Vivian could tell by the fuzzy lines of the face he projected and from the drop in temperature. Good thing, too, since Vivian started sweating on account of his radiant heat. He nodded and disappeared, giving Vivian just enough time to get it together before Kay opened the door.
What Vivian saw shocked the hell out of her.
Kay Clemmens was one of the most poised and centered women she’d ever met, but no one would have guessed that looking at her now. Her eyelids were swollen from the force of angry tears shed and yet to be shed. Normally smooth and even, her complexion was mottled with angry red blotches. And she hadn’t stopped shaking since she opened the door.
Instead of her normal elegant attire, she wore her rumpled pajamas, a ratty old bathrobe, and it looked like she hadn’t bothered to comb her hair in about three day, and her eyes were filled with desperation, rage, and now embarrassment upon meeting her friend at the door in such a state.
“My God, honey, what happened?” Vivian asked, reaching out for Kay.
“Oh Vivian, I’m sorry…” Kay collapsed in her arms, fresh sobs wracking her body. “You caught me at a bad time, I’m sorry…I’m normally not like this, I—”
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just get you inside, sit down, and you tell me what’s going on.”
Kay released her grip on her friend and moved aside. Vivian walked in, taking a moment to look around the Clemmens’ home. The state of the living room mirrored that of its co-owner. Books were scattered on the floor, as were all manner of toy trucks, cars, puzzles, dolls, and other items that rendered the carpet below nearly invisible. Kaitlyn and Connor had been at it, no doubt. Signs of Annabelle were less obvious, but still discernible to Vivian’s trained eye. She always left her laptop and homework strewn out on the family computer desk in the adjacent study. Judging from the candy wrappers and empty soda cans pushed off into one corner, she’d had a bad case of the study munchies.
Vivian followed Kay into the kitchen, which was also unusually messy. Kay hated dirty dishes piling up. It was one of her biggest pet peeves. And yet, a sizable stack rested in both sides of the divided sink, jutting out of stale water, discolored bubbles floating along the water’s edges.
“Sorry about the mess,” said Kay, with a sniff. She shifted the dishes on the right side of the sink to the left, drained the water, and washed her hands before filling a couple of mugs with water. After she placed the cups into the microwave and set the timer, Vivian grabbed a towel, refilled the right side of the sink with fresh hot water and some dish soap, setting to work.
Settling into an old routine from days as roommates, Vivian washed and rinsed the dishes while Kay dried and put them away, pausing only to retrieve the cups from the microwave and make hot tea with honey for them. It was a comfortable routine, and both women worked in silence until the task was complete. Vivian wiped down the counters and Kay nodded with satisfaction.
Grabbing the mugs, Kay bid Vivian to follow her into the living room. She set their cups down on the edge, cleared some of Kaitlyn’s markers and drawings, and then placed one mug in front of Vivian while she curled up on the opposite side of the couch and took a sip. Vivian watched as her friend closed her eyes and exhaled deeply. Kay looked so weary and much older than her thirty-nine years, a shadow of the vibrant woman who rescued both of her best friends only a few nights ago and carried them through an evening of shared laughter, not to mention helping haul a drunken Vivian and distraught and pregnant bride-to-be Sue home.
How had she gone from that woman to this wreck in such a short time?
“So,” Vivian began, “I take it you’ve had a lousy day?”
“I’ve had better,” Kay replied, opening her eyes and looking at Vivian. She set her mug down and grabbed a basket full of loose clothing and set to work. Vivian followed suit, falling into another old and comfortable routine.
“Are these the same old baskets we used to keep at the duplex?” Vivian asked, eyeing the white wicker baskets lined up in front of the fireplace. Parts of them were still white, but years of bumps along brick and door frames, not to mention bumpy rides in the back of various clunkers driven by young women scraping by on student or startup salaries, had left their marks. Flecks of paint were peeling from sections of the weave, and some parts had been stripped bare to reveal pale wood byproduct that for a miracle managed to hold together.
“The very same,” said Kay with a wan smile. “Every year I tell myself I’ll throw them out and get something fancier, but I just never get around to it. Or maybe I just don’t want to. They remind me of the good days, I guess.”
“Oh, yeah.” Vivian snorted. “The good days of maxed-out credit cards, ramen noodles, and Saturday night meetings of the Lonely Hearts Club Dateless Roommate Society.”
“Yeah, somehow, those days don’t seem so lonely anymore,” Kay muttered.
“You and Boyd okay?” Vivian asked. “Did you have a fight?”
“No,” she snapped. “It takes two people to fight. Two people in the same place for more than two hours at a time.”
Kay kept at the clothing as she spoke, Scooter’s poor little blue jeans bearing the brunt of her growing frustration. One of the snaps hit the wood off the coffee table with such force that Vivian jumped a little after Kay slammed it down. She steeled herself. Kay’s fuse was lit and she was getting ready to blow. Vivian had been on the giving end of such eruptions often enough to recognize the signs, and she knew that Kay would feel better after she got it all out.
Kay struggled with one of Kaitlyn’s shirts, a hoodie. The hoodie part was getting the better of her in her efforts to fold it neatly.
Three, two, one. Here we go.
“He’s gone. He’s always gone and I’m always the one left behind to clean up the mess when he goes!” Kay screamed the last, getting up and throwing the hoodie across the room. When that didn’t satisfy, she threw the teacup at the fireplace.
“Boyd loves you,” Vivian said.
It was the wrong thing to say. She had sense enough to know that. But, she also had sense enough to know that adding a little accelerant to the fire would make it burn out faster, even if it made it burn with a more furious heat.
“He loves the convenience of me,” she hissed, spinning around and channeling her anger toward Vivian’s façade of calm. “He can get up and walk out of the fucking door to do his job without a second thought about feeding three people, yelling to get them out of their damned beds! We do the same fucking thing every day, but they still whine, they still cry, they still won’t just do anything for themselves, so I’m left with no time to go to the toilet or brush my teeth without someone hanging off my tits! ‘Help me with my sweater, help me with my shoes, help me wipe my ass. Mama, mama, mama, mama!’”
She paused for breath before unleashing another wave of frustration. “He’s still in the fucking bed watching the news while I’m up scrambling. Or behind the computer while I’m putting food on plates and milk in cups before I’ve even had the chance to take a sip of coffee—I swear to God I haven’t sat down for a meal without inhaling my food and getting up five times to do for someone else since Holland House. Does he not see it?”
She was on a roll now. Vivian sat and listened, and waited. This needed to run its course. Better that she listened to it than the kids. Maybe Boyd needed to hear some of it, but not like this. Not in the heat of anger, with Kay’s face red and the veins in her neck straining. She’d yelled so much and so loudly that she would probably be hoarse for a few days.
But there was more. Vivian sat there and took it all, giving her all the time she needed to exorcise her demons.
“I can’t count the number of times he’s walked out the door when I’ve been dead with a cold or even sick with a stomach flu, curled up on the couch in agony while he trots off to work without a care in the world. ‘Call a neighbor, call a friend.’ How can you just walk away from your wife when she’s hurting?”
“I don’t know,” Vivian said.
“He’s never missed a day of work for a sick kid, or spent the night in the hospital with a baby hooked up to IVs after watching her scream through a spinal tap, or seven hours in the ER waiting for stitches. It’s always me. And then he tells me when I fall apart to just deal with it…or worse, he says, ‘I thought you were stronger!’”
Raising the Dead Page 14
