Heaven Painted as a Christmas Gift

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  And she was really enjoying being with Nancy. Belle was so glad the two of them had decided to take their friendship to the next level. It felt so right in so many ways.

  “Wow!” Nancy said as they walked through the door into their suite.

  And Belle had to agree. This suite was amazing and very, very comfortable. The suite was decorated in oak and brown tones, with soft couches and chairs in a huge living room area near an oak wet bar. The floor was covered in plush carpet and the room had tall ceilings and windows that seemed to just go on and on.

  Right now the natural desert light gave the room a warm glow.

  “I might never leave this room,” Belle said.

  “Wait until you see what’s in here,” Nancy said, indicating a door to the left. Beyond the door was a huge bedroom, with two closets and a bed that seemed far bigger than any king-sized bed that Belle had ever seen.

  Nancy put her suitcase against one closet door, then headed for the bathroom with Belle following her.

  “Now that’s going to be fun,” Nancy said, pointing to a huge jet tub that filled a corner of the room under a huge window that looked out over Las Vegas.

  “That it will,” Belle said, smiling at her.

  A glass-walled shower filled the other corner that was larger than some bedrooms Belle had seen.

  “The toilet seat is down, thankfully,” Nancy said, laughing and pointing.

  “Well, that makes it perfect,” Belle said.

  And it was perfect as far as she was concerned.

  She moved over and took Nancy into her arms. Nancy put her arms around Belle’s neck and just melted against her.

  “You sure feel wonderful for a dead woman,” Belle said.

  Nancy laughed. “I’m feeling a little guilty about being in such a good mood after dying so recently.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Belle said. “Should we be mourning or something?”

  “Can’t see much reason for that,” Nancy said, “since it sure feels like we are still alive.”

  “Actually,” Belle said, “it feels better.”

  And she pulled Nancy tighter and kissed her.

  After a moment Nancy pulled back slightly and smiled. “We have over an hour until we have to be back down to the buffet. You want to break in the tub, the shower, or the bed?”

  Belle laughed and then kissed the woman she was falling even deeper in love with.

  Finally she pulled away enough to say, “How about the shower and the bed.”

  “Perfect,” Nancy said, kissing her back as hard as Belle could remember ever being kissed.

  The kiss was wonderful.

  And an hour and a half later, they were only five minutes late to lunch, which Belle considered a minor miracle.

  TWENTY-THREE

  JEWEL WAS IMPRESSED at how fast Belle and Nancy picked up being Ghost Agents. They seemed to need to only be guided once and then they would run with the idea from there.

  They met for lunch, then the four of them spent the afternoon moving all over Las Vegas, working on controlling people, hiding inside people, and just learning all the basics.

  As they moved around, Jewel and Tommy explained what they knew about the overall world, which they admitted, wasn’t much at all.

  And at one point Jewel pointed out the floating office that was Poker Boy’s office. “It’s invisible to everyone but us, I guess,” Jewel said.

  Belle was stunned at the square, glass-encased room just floating way up there.

  “The view from there must be stunning,” Nancy said.

  Jewel was also impressed at how Belle and Nancy just loved to laugh and loved being ghosts. And they clearly loved each other as well. They seemed to always be touching in one form or another, which made Jewel realize that she and Tommy were the same way. They also always touched and laughed a lot.

  They all decided that instead of trying to find a restaurant, they would just go back for comfort food at the Golden Nugget buffet and talk about all they had done during the day. They were to meet K.J. in the same place in the morning with more information. Jewel was fairly convinced he would be happy at the progress Belle and Nancy had made.

  They worked their way back to the Golden Nugget buffet and by seven in the evening were talking and eating.

  Then Jewel noticed Nancy looking at the entrance beyond the cash register to the buffet. There was a small lobby out there beyond a planter wall with low green plants that divided the entrance area at the top of an escalator from the restaurant. There were three empty booths along the planter wall and no one in the lobby area that Jewel could see.

  “Something out there?” Jewel finally asked, glancing over her shoulder.

  “No, nothing,” Nancy said, laughing. “I just keep thinking that K.J. expects us to learn all this on our own, for the most part, right?”

  Jewel nodded. “Drove us crazy at first.”

  “And Tommy keeps asking him to teach you how to teleport, right?”

  Jewel looked at Tommy and he nodded.

  Jewel had no idea where this was going.

  “So I’m going to go out to the lobby,” Nancy said, squeezing Belle’s hand. “Be right back.”

  And then she just vanished.

  “Oh, shit!” Belle said.

  Then Belle waved and smiled.

  Jewel and Tommy spun around.

  Jewel flat couldn’t believe it.

  Nancy was standing in the lobby.

  Then she vanished.

  And she was again sitting next to Belle, who hugged her long and hard as Jewel and Tommy turned back around.

  Jewel just stared at Nancy. She could think of nothing to say.

  Flat nothing.

  “My turn,” Belle said, laughing.

  She stared at the lobby behind Jewel and an instant later she vanished.

  Nancy laughed and waved “hi” and then before Jewel could turn back around, Belle was back in her seat.

  “Damn this is fun,” Nancy said, the smile on her face so big it looked to Jewel like it might hurt.

  Jewel just glanced at Tommy, who looked completely shocked. Finally, Jewel leaned forward. “How did you do that?”

  “We’re dead, right?” Nancy asked.

  Jewel and Tommy nodded. Jewel had no idea what had just happened, but she really, really wanted to know, so she said nothing.

  “So all day we’ve been walking through walls and doors and sides of cars and climbing in and out of people, right?” Nancy asked.

  Again Jewel and Tommy just nodded.

  “So we’re not really restricted by physical laws that much if we don’t want to be,” Nancy said. “So I just believed I was standing in the lobby and I was.”

  “That’s all I did as well,” Belle said. “I just knew I was standing in the lobby.”

  Jewel opened her mouth to say something and flat couldn’t think of anything to say yet again.

  Tommy nodded and turned around and glanced at the lobby. Then he vanished.

  He waved from the lobby and then reappeared.

  “Give it a try,” Tommy said, touching her. “It’s as easy as they say it is.”

  Jewel nodded, doing her best to not think about anything. She felt the same as she had felt right after they had died. Scared and puzzled at the same time.

  She glanced back at the lobby and then just knew she was standing there.

  And suddenly she was standing there, right in front of a group of overweight tourists in far too tight shorts coming at her like a herd of cattle. She was between them and their food.

  She knew she was sitting at the table again and she was.

  Belle and Nancy applauded and Tommy gave her a long kiss.

  “That’s going to take some practice,” Jewel said, laughing.

  “Tomorrow,” Tommy said.

  “And there’s one more thing Nancy and I were talking about before lunch that we wondered about,” Belle said.

  “What’s that?” Tommy asked.

  “Af
ter that I’m almost afraid to ask,” Jewel said, shaking her head. And she was. These two women were clearly two of the smartest and quickest thinkers she had ever met. And they didn’t seem to think they had any restrictions at all.

  Which it seemed they didn’t.

  “We have been wondering why we can’t do this?” Nancy asked.

  Slowly, as Jewel and Tommy watched, both Belle and Nancy, hand-in-hand, just floated up off their chairs about five feet and then drifted back down.

  Jewel had her mouth open.

  And for the third time in just a few minutes, there was not a damn thing she could say.

  Finally Tommy said, “K.J., some help here.”

  “We didn’t do anything wrong, did we?” Belle asked, suddenly very worried.

  “Oh, heavens, no,” Tommy said, shaking his head. “I just need some explaining from K.J.”

  Jewel was still doing her best to just catch her breath. She had just watched the two new recruits teleport and then fly.

  “Thirty seconds,” K.J.s voice came out of thin air.

  “Do me a favor,” Tommy said, smiling. “Float up there near the ceiling until K.J. gets here.”

  Both Belle and Nancy laughed and a moment later Jewel watched the two women float up to the ceiling.

  “Smells wonderful up here,” Belle said to Jewel and Tommy.

  “Yeah,” Nancy said, “We going for seconds shortly.”

  At that both of them giggled as K.J. arrived and glanced around. “I thought you had the two new agents with you.”

  “We do,” Tommy said. “And that’s what we want to talk with you about.”

  Jewel just smiled at K.J. and pointed upward.

  K.J. glanced up as Belle and Nancy waved and then came floating back down to their chairs.

  “Oh, shit,” K.J. said, softly. “How did you two do that?”

  “I’m betting it is sort of the same way they showed us how to do this,” Tommy said.

  An instant later all five of them were standing in the middle of the lobby.

  Then they were back at the table.

  K.J. barely managed to pull up a chair and sit down before his knees gave out and he fell down.

  “What’s wrong?” Jewel asked.

  “It took me over thirty years to learn how to teleport,” K.J. said, “and I never knew Ghost Agents could fly.”

  “That’s all right,” Jewel said and patted K.J.’s hand. She winked at Belle and Nancy. “That’s what you get for recruiting two really smart women.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  BELLE MOSTLY JUST listened, sitting, holding Nancy’s hand, as K.J. gave them some tips on how to teleport to places they couldn’t really visualize.

  “You sort of slow down time right as you arrive,” he said. “Saves you landing inside something you don’t want to be inside of.”

  He pointed to a woman walking at a normal pace and then suddenly she was frozen where she stood and all the sound and everything vanished.

  Then she moved and the sounds of the restaurant and people talking and background music came smashing back in.

  Belle just sort of shook her head. It hadn’t felt that noisy in here until all noise was taken away.

  “This isn’t actually stopping time,” K.J. said, “No one can do that, but you can move between instants of time. When you teleport long distances to a place you can’t visualize, do it between instants of time and that way if you land in a wrong spot, you can adjust before coming back into time.”

  “And we can all do that?” Nancy asked.

  K.J. nodded. “Since you learned how to fly and it never dawned on me to try that, I’m sure you can. Just imagine stepping between instants of time. Nancy, you first and take us all with you by imagining a bubble around this table.”

  Nancy nodded and a moment later the sounds vanished and the few people in the buffet froze.

  “Wow, this is nifty,” she said, squeezing Belle’s hand.

  Then the sounds came back and K.J. pointed to Belle.

  She took a deep breath and just imagined a bubble around the table and that bubble slipping between a flow of time, like a rock in a river.

  Again the sounds vanished and everyone else in the buffet froze.

  “Wonderful,” Nancy said and kissed her.

  Belle had never imagined feeling this powerful. She was suddenly like a superhero. She could teleport, slip between moments of time, fly, walk through walls, and control people inside their minds. All that while being dead.

  K.J. spent the next half hour training them and giving all of them pointers on teleporting. Then he finally just looked at Belle and Nancy. “You got everything I know, how about teaching me how to fly like that.”

  Belle looked at Nancy who just shrugged. “Same principle,” Belle said.

  Nancy nodded. “Exactly. Which was what gave us the idea it was possible. We are not restricted by physical world limitations that much. So why should gravity restrict us.”

  “So we just imagined ourselves floating,” Belle said, “and we were, just as with the teleporting and the going between instants of time.”

  K.J. nodded and a moment later floated up off his chair, drifted around the room for a few moments and then came back to the table, never once moving his legs or touching the ground.

  Tommy and Jewel did the same thing next, both smiling like they had been given the perfect gift.

  K.J. nodded as Tommy and Jewel returned to their chairs. “I have another meeting tomorrow and I’ll report to the powers-that-be that you four are ready for action and can do all this now.”

  “So any leads on the big problem with Christmas?” Tommy asked just an instant before Belle could. She was loving this new state of existence. She didn’t want it to end anytime soon, let alone have the entire world end as well. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how that could happen.

  “Nothing,” K.J. said, his voice low and worried. “I’ll meet you back here for breakfast after my meeting.”

  At that he vanished.

  After a moment Belle looked at Nancy. “Ready for seconds?”

  “I am famished,” Nancy said.

  “Should we fly, walk, or teleport to the buffet?” Belle asked, laughing.

  Both Jewel and Tommy just shook their heads as Nancy said, “Teleport.”

  And an instant later they were standing in front of some of best-smelling prime rib Belle could imagine.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  THE NEXT MORNING, Jewel and Tommy had jumped from their home to the buffet and were both loading up plates when K.J. arrived and started doing the same. A moment later Belle and Nancy appeared, both with wet hair. Jewel was amazed at how both looked so radiant and happy.

  While Jewel and Tommy wore jeans and cotton shirts with light jackets, Belle and Nancy both had on white shorts that showed off their long legs and trim figures. They both wore fluffy silk blouses and matching-colored tennis shoes. Belle’s blouse was blue, Nancy’s a light green. They had clearly done some shopping after leaving the restaurant last night.

  Jewel had never seen such enjoyment in two people before. Not a word about being killed a few days before, not a sour word about the mission. They just always seemed to be smiling and laughing and figuring out new stuff, which was wonderful.

  In college and medical school, she had never really been around people like them before. All her friends and other students were always taking everything in life very seriously. Being around Belle and Nancy was like a wonderful breath of fresh air and they made her smile even more.

  K.J. today was dressed in a robin’s-egg-blue three-piece silk suit with a bright red tie and bright red sneakers. The bright red handkerchief sticking out of his breast pocket seemed to pull it all together somehow.

  Belle complimented him on his look as she got a waffle and he bowed and smiled in appreciation.

  Jewel took her standard scrambled eggs, a slice of ham, and toast with strawberry jelly, then jumped to a table near the back and off to one si
de that she doubted anyone would sit at. The buffet wasn’t that busy this morning even though it was a Saturday. There were only about forty people scattered around the huge space.

  After everyone had food and were eating, Tommy asked K.J. if there was any progress.

  “Nothing,” K.J. said. “But we do have some sort of timeline.”

  “The timeline done by the people who can look out ahead in time some?” Jewel asked.

  K.J. nodded. “The world will come to an end on the first day of December if we don’t stop this.”

  “What day is it now?” Belle asked as Jewel tried to remember the date.

  “November 15th,” K.J. said. “We have fifteen days.”

  Jewel sort of stared at her eggs and no one said a word. Only fifteen days and not even the most powerful of powerful had a clue what was going to happen. What could she do to help? She felt helpless.

  As she finally forced herself to take another bite of eggs, all sounds in the restaurant cut off and all the live people froze.

  Laverne, Lady Luck herself, appeared near K.J. and he stood so quickly he almost went over backwards.

  Laverne was again wearing a gray silk business suit that fit her perfectly and her hair was pulled back giving her face a stern appearance.

  Jewel stood almost as fast, as did Tommy and the two women.

  “Sorry to bother your breakfast,” Laverne said, “but I need you five to come with me to listen to a meeting. Nothing may come of it, but meetings at this point with Poker Boy and his team tend to bring up questions that lead to answers.”

  “Will they be able to see us?” Tommy asked.

  “I doubt it,” Laverne said. “Just listen and give me any ideas you might have.”

  A moment later all six of them were standing in a large room with what looked to be a fifties diner booth filling the middle of the room. The floor was a black and white checkered tile and the seats of the booth were bright red vinyl.

  All four walls of the room were floor to ceiling windows. The entire room appeared to be floating a thousand feet above the center of the Las Vegas strip. Jewel could see planes on approach to the airport directly even with the room.