Esprit de Corpse trr-3

by Gina X. Grant

  A knock at the door signaled Shannon’s last meeting before lunch. The entire account team arrived, bearing new creative for Shannon’s approval. I watched her work, impressed at how much she’d learned about running a public relations company, at how well she was doing.

  Within minutes, I was bored to death. Well, I was dead and bored. The order didn’t matter. While public relations had once been my life’s work, I now found it dull. Reaping was my afterlife’s work and I kept up by reading the trade publications, like Reaper’s Digest and Good Housereaping.

  If Conrad was going to show, I wished he’d do it soon. The novelty of being back was quickly wearing thin.

  I just wanted to scythe that welching skegger and go home. Dante and I needed some private time to work out our problems. I needed to apologize in new and creative ways for touching his scythe.

  Oh, damn. I’d forgotten that my family had moved in with us. That was going to put a damper on apologizing, new and creative. I knew they had decided to stay in Hell and open a restaurant, possibly purchase a franchise of Claire Voyant’s Oracles of Deli even though neither of them was psychic. They were really short on Karmic points though. Maybe I could talk to Claire about reducing the franchise fee. Much as I loved them, I really liked Dante and me having the apartment to ourselves.

  I hoped they hadn’t signed anything—nothing good ever came from signing contracts in Hell.

  Been there, done that, got the Band-Aid.

  Chapter 4

  Infest Wisely

  THE MEETING ENDED and an unfamiliar woman hustled in bearing a sandwich in spite of Shannon’s protests that food delivery wasn’t part of the new person’s job description.

  “Glad to do it. Somebody’s gotta look after you,” the woman said, placing the paper-plated meal on Shannon’s desk. “Had to get my own anyway. Done with these files?” she asked, pointing to a six-inch stack teetering in Shannon’s out-box.

  Shannon nodded. “Thanks, Willa. You’re going to do very well here.”

  Willa beamed at her apparently new boss and scooped up the files with both arms. She left the office door ajar on her way out.

  I wished I could talk with Shannon but I hadn’t yet learned the trick of making myself visible or audible to the living. And the way Dante was behaving, it wasn’t likely he’d show me anytime soon.

  Shannon had been the best friend I’d ever had. In fact, as I’d learned over the past year, she’d been my only living friend.

  Back home—and yes, I called Hell home now—I had Char, Sybil, Claire, Seiko, Kali and most of my other former classmates, not to mention Dante. (And let’s not mention Dante, ’kay?) With the exception of Shannon, they were much better friends than I’d ever had on the Coil.

  It’s a wonderful afterlife.

  Shannon took a bite of her sandwich, then shuffled through the piles of papers on her desk, finally ferreting out the contract she’d been reading as I’d followed her down the hall earlier. Grabbing a designer pen, she let the nib hover over the signature line for several minutes while she chewed the lip gloss off her bottom lip and stared at the page. Finally, she dipped the pen to the paper, the words flowing scratchily as she signed and dated it.

  It seemed weird to see blue ink instead of red.

  After recapping the pen, she hit a speed dial button on her desk phone, leaned back in her chair and waited.

  Her dad used to get his administrative assistant to place calls for him and often left people on hold even though he’d called them. My heart twisted in bitter betrayal. I hated to admit I’d once admired that man.

  “Oh, hi. How are you?” I bolted upright thinking for a moment Shannon could see me. But it was just her call finally connecting. “Yes, all signed.” She laid a hand on the contract, almost petting it. “Soon. I’m very much looking forward to getting my life back.”

  Getting her life back? Whoa! That had been my thing. I’d spent most of the past year trying to get my life back. Only to sacrifice it again minutes after I had. What did Shannon mean?

  “I’m very conflicted about this decision,” she told whoever she’d called. “Iver PR is—was—my dad’s life.” She sighed and I tried to remember what it had been like to actually need to breathe.

  A click outside the door and movement in the hallway caught my eye. I hopped off the credenza to investigate, but froze at Shannon’s next words. “It’s like when my friend Kirsty was in her coma. More than anything I wanted her to wake up and come back to work again. But I also felt, if that wasn’t going to happen, then I just wanted her to get on with it. It was selfish, I know, but I felt like it was me in that coma. My life was on hold since I was filling in for her here at the office.” She swiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “I couldn’t help but wish she’d either wake up or die.”

  Shannon had wanted me to die? Now I had tears in my eyes, too. Did that make me the grim weeper? I knew what she meant. It was a very human thing to feel, but how could she say it to my face? Hello? I was right there in the room with—Oh, never mind.

  Outside the door, footsteps hurried away. Someone had been listening in. Perhaps Willa had decided against interrupting given the nature of the conversation. I crossed the room to check out who was there, but by the time I got there, the hallway was empty.

  “Yes, everyone signed off on it but one person who couldn’t raise the buy-in fee.”

  Shannon had sure changed her manner in the past year. She used to talk like one of the Death Valley girls, like, you know? Now she sounded professional and in charge.

  And she was dressed very differently, too. When she’d worked here during her summers off from university, she’d been all casual and no business. Today she wore a somber skirted business suit. At first I’d assumed she’d bought it because she was in mourning. But upon closer examination, I saw that her outfit, while both pricey and fashionable, didn’t look new. She could have bought it used or borrowed it, but why would she? The Ivers had money. No, she must have purchased a business wardrobe after realizing I wasn’t coming back anytime soon. No doubt her father had made her.

  Small wonder she’d wished me dead.

  My death had ruined her life.

  While I had actively tried to get my old life back, it seemed Shannon had just given up. She could have found a replacement and returned to school, but she had just caved to her father’s will.

  “No, I trust her,” Shannon continued into the phone. “Plus she signed a nondisclosure agreement.” For a moment I thought she was talking about me, but the Hellish NDA I’d signed had expired when Seiko and his colleagues had revealed their time-syncing machine to all Hell the night I’d saved the world.

  “No, she won’t say anything about the new management structure.”

  Now I was confused. Was it the grad student life she wanted back? Or working as her father’s right hand? And how could a contract—an ordinary contract—give her either?

  There was another pause while she listened, tapping the pen against her teeth. Had she already arranged to shuffle her leadership team? It had only been a week.

  “Well, yes. The detective is still doing interviews, but revamping our business model isn’t something he should concern himself with, is it?” She sounded a little unsure.

  And also? What detective?

  “I’ll have it messengered over to you this afternoon.” She scribbled something on a sticky note. “Thank you.” Shannon hung up, then pressed the intercom button. “Willa, do you mind stepping into my office when you have a moment?”

  How different her management style was from that of her father. He would have ordered his assistant—or any of his employees—to drop everything. I’d been on the receiving end of those calls often enough. And yet, thanks to his Deal, we’d all loved him. If Shannon’s colleagues cared for her, it would be for real reasons, because she was genuinely worth it.

  Willa stuck her head in a moment later. Shannon handed her the signed contract along with instructions to courier it over
to Ray Mora at the offices of Greatwhite, Nurse and Hammerhead.

  The assistant collected the paperwork, trading it for a short stack of pink message slips.

  “All these clients want to talk to you about the future of their accounts. Some of ’em sounded pretty upset.” She fidgeted, switching the contract from hand to hand. “Do you want me to have one of the account execs call ’em back?”

  Shannon flipped through the messages. “No, I’d better do it. We can’t let them know I’m leaving, because we can’t yet tell them why.” She rubbed her hand over her eyes. Good thing she wasn’t wearing makeup or that would have been a real mess.

  “Do you want copies made, Shannon?”

  “Good point. I’m not thinking clearly today. Please make one master copy and lock it in this drawer with the other contract.” She pulled her bottom file drawer open a few inches by way of demonstration. Was that a parchment document in there? She slammed the drawer shut again. “We can make more copies as necessary.”

  The assistant began to say more, but Shannon smiled at her wearily. “Thanks, Willa. If you could send that right away . . . ?”

  Willa knew a polite brush-off when she heard one. She turned on her exceedingly high heels and left the office.

  “Love the shoes,” I called after her from my place near the door, knowing she couldn’t hear me. I suddenly felt frumpy in my jeans and hiking boots. I drew my beautiful Reaper robe closer around me, running one finger down the soft, velvet piping. I sighed, remembering how Dante had covered the extra cost of the piping.

  What did Shannon mean she was leaving? Could Iver PR survive losing both its Ivers in such a short time span? Surely she knew this was the worst possible time for an IPO. She needed to stay in place as CEO until she’d established that the business could thrive without her father. It would only take a year or so, then she could—

  A whoosh-bam interrupted my deep thoughts. I leaned back against the door frame, trying to look business casual and stuck out my chin as Dante materialized across the room.

  He arrived facing Shannon, but quickly realized I was behind him near the office door. He strode over to me, knuckles white where he clenched his scythe, eyes narrowed in my direction. “Kirsty, you were supposed to follow me. Now we’re going to have to start over. In fact, I think perhaps I should speak again with Colin—”

  “Did you find Conrad?”

  “—about us not . . . What?”

  “I assume you went to the hospital where I’m guessing by the lack of, oh, say, Conrad, that you didn’t find him there.”

  Dante sighed deeply, which, unlike when Shannon had done it, was strictly for show. “As I tried to tell you, I was merely using the hospital as a starting point. Now if you’ll follow me this time I’ll show you how to find a demon’s ecto-trail—”

  “But that didn’t pan out so well, did it?”

  He snapped his mouth shut on whatever he’d been going to say next, his lips thinning into a pale, straight line. His face began to darken, so I hurried on before the coming storm.

  “I assume you didn’t spend the last . . .” I checked my watch. Thank Lucy time was aligned for once. “. . . ninety minutes waiting for me to show. You already tried the ecto-thingie. With no luck. You couldn’t find Conrad and so you came here, to his office, as I suggested. Which surprises me only because I didn’t even think you were listening to me.” I gave him a look that I intended to be both smug and challenging.

  “But you had no luck, either, I see.”

  Okay, he had a point. The smug part of my expression drained away.

  “No, but it’s early days yet. Hours,” I corrected. “You said Conrad had to take the long way so he should be here any time now.”

  “Surely after the extensive and exhaustive Reaper training you have undertaken, you don’t mean to just sit here and wait. We shall do it my way and I’ll hear no more about it.”

  I pushed off the door frame and got right up into his chauvinistic (but handsome) face. “Now you listen to me, bucko.” I was mad. Really mad. I’d never called anyone “bucko” before in my life. I wasn’t even sure what it meant, although the first syllable reminded me of an interesting and appropriate four-letter word. “Just because you’re seven hundred—”

  The lights dimmed and flickered. I clapped my hands over my ears to shut out the terrible screeching noise like universes ripping apart. Suddenly, a massive, horrific demon complete with horns and forked tail appeared before us. Shannon looked up from her client call. “Callyouback,” she squeaked. She didn’t so much hang up the handset as drop it somewhere near the cradle. I could tell from her trembling jaw and brand-new lack of breathing that she could see it, too.

  As Dante had done, the demon had materialized facing Shannon, who cowered behind the big oak desk. With his back to us, he hadn’t noticed Dante and me.

  I could see him clearly now, his personal twister left somewhere along the slippery slope or the dusty red trail. Conrad’s new demonic form filled the room, his horns scraping the ceiling tiles, raining white flakes down on his shoulders like the dandruff of the damned. His hooves and the spike at the end of his tail were the same articulated gray chitin as his curved and pointy horns. Leathery wings sprouted from his shoulder blades. They didn’t look like they’d support his weight and might have evolved less as flighty appendages and more as extra places to stick talons.

  From where I stood, I couldn’t see his face and I was very, very glad. I had enough to take in as it was. He was the most horrible creature I’d seen on the Coil or in Hell, the conservative business suit doing nothing to dampen his overall ghastly appearance.

  “Hello, dear.”

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. His body may have grown oversize and grotesque, but his voice hadn’t changed. It was the same light, smarmy tone that had wrapped his junior account exec around his little finger, which was now scarlet, clawed and not so little.

  “Dad?” Shannon whispered through chattering teeth. She leaned as far away from the scary monster as the ergonomically correct chair would allow, while at the same time reaching out one hand toward him. Talk about your mixed messages.

  “I thought you said he couldn’t teleport,” I whispered to Dante.

  “Must have gone to see whoever it was that ensorcelled your stapler and got a onetime pass,” Dante answered, keeping his voice low and his eyes on demonic Conrad.

  I ground my teeth and leapt forward, thrusting myself between Conrad and Shannon, just as I had done a year ago with Conrad and Dante. “Conrad!” I shouted, gaining his full attention.

  And I was immediately sorry I had. His eyes. Oh. His eyes were the worst part. They were soft and human, like a puppy trapped in that bloated and loathsome body.

  I almost pitied him as he crouched to avoid hitting the ceiling.

  Almost.

  But any pity I felt was instantly displaced by an overwhelming urge to do something, anything, to hurt this man who’d stolen my life. An atavistic impulse kicked in—and when I say kicked . . . I did! Just as I’d kicked Dante in the brimstones back on the road to Hell, I kicked Conrad in his overgrown shin with all my might. And face-planted on the carpet as my coma-toes, and then my entire body, passed right through him.

  “You!” he cried, fear in his voice. But his eyes weren’t on me. They were on Dante.

  I hauled myself up off the carpet to stand before Conrad, yelling and waving my arms at him. But just like Shannon, he wasn’t even aware of me.

  But Dante he could see.

  My Reaper stepped up beside me, overlong hair and sexy black robe billowing about him as if the winds of justice blew for him alone.

  “I, Dante Alighieri, Reaper First Class, by the powers vested in me, hath come to collect thine soul and escort it back to Hell!”

  Gosh, he was so cute when he did that. I hadn’t appreciated his commanding performance the first time he’d come for Conrad’s soul and taken mine instead, but now I did. My knees grew weak and my heart po
unded. Five more minutes of his manly Reaper act and I might find myself forgiving him.

  He brandished his glowing scythe, holding it high and threatening.

  Behind me, Shannon had finally caught enough breath to start screaming.

  Oops, I’d forgotten all about my own scythe. If I’d been thinking straight, instead of fighting with my boyfriend, I could have reaped Conrad’s giant crimson ass by now.

  I yanked my scythe from my waist. But before I could activate my shiny repurposed farm implement, before Dante could swing his scythe, Conrad dashed around us, his hooves gouging great holes in the carpet tiles. He banked off the big oak desk, charged ’round the front and dove beneath it, out of sight.

  Shannon’s screams cut off abruptly. She ceased cowering in her dad’s chair. Instead, she sat up straight like a cheap mannequin with rebar up her, uh, back, eyes glazed, expression dazed.

  I ran around—okay, through—the desk, but I didn’t see how Conrad could fit under it. And when I checked, he hadn’t. Where had he gone?

  And then Shannon looked up. She had her father’s eyes and I don’t mean she’d inherited his genes for eye color. She actually had his eyes peering out from her otherwise familiar face.

  She opened her mouth, but no scream sounded. Instead Dante and I were treated to one of those classic villain bwa-ha-ha! laughs.

  Should have seen that coming, I thought, retracting my scythe.

  As the laugh faded away, a small moan drew my attention. Behind the big executive chair, half hidden under the credenza, a second Shannon lay sprawled. While the one in the chair seemed solid and earthbound, the one on the floor had a hazy, ethereal quality.

  “Dante,” I whispered from the corner of my mouth, turning my focus back on Conrad, who was now wearing his daughter like a bespoke suit. “He’s displaced her soul! Get him out! Get him out of her!”

  Dante’s personal wind had dropped away, leaving him with nothing more than tousled hair. More tousled than usual, that is. “I don’t know if we can. Or if we’re even allowed to.”