Esprit de Corpse

by Gina X. Grant

  If his last words were about Beatrice, I was going to be so mad.

  Wait. He was holding up two fingers. A peace sign? Was he trying to make up before he faded away? And why was he then holding up only one finger and then tapping his forearm with it?

  I had to squint to see it, but it was familiar. So familiar. Where had I seen that combination of hand motions before?

  “Two words, first word, one syllable,” said a pleasant voice. What the . . . ? I turned to find Maddy’s disembodied soul staring intently at Dante’s dim outline. “Go ahead.”

  Apparently when Maddy had lost her tattoos, scars, and other bodily add-ons, she’d also lost her smoker’s cough and whisky voice. She had a pleasant voice. In another life she could have done telemarketing.

  Maybe she had and that was what had driven her insane.

  I took a second to look at her now. If I hadn’t seen her pop out of her old body, I never would have recognized her. Just as I’d lost my dyed hair and tattoo, so had Maddy. In fact, she looked like a lovely young woman, face sweet, hair naturally blond. Who dyes naturally blond hair that awful red color?

  Realizing he’d lost my attention, Dante was performing for Maddy, playing charades as if his afterlife depended on it.

  “Call in,” Maddy muttered. “What does he want you to call in?”

  I flipped open my hellphone. “No use. No bars,” I said, holding it up for Maddy to see. There weren’t a lot of places on the Coil where you could phone home.

  “No, that’s not it,” Maddy said to me. “He’s shaking his head.”

  I joined her now, the two of us, Reaper and murderous soul, playing parlor games in the women’s bathroom, trying desperately to save the afterlife of my dying boyfriend.

  Dante pointed at me, then Maddy. Okay. Got that part. Then he cupped his hands around his mouth. I could see the “Please wash your hands” sign right through him.

  “Call in. Calling,” Maddy guessed.

  Dante dropped his arms. He appeared exhausted, at least as much as I could read his expression at this point. Finally he raised his arms again. He made the peace sign again. “Second word,” Maddy announced. Then he cocked his index fingers at us and mimed firing at us repeatedly.

  “Calling Fire. Call in Fire.” Maddy jumped up and down. “He wants you to pull the fire alarm!” Her eyes gleamed. To her it was all a game.

  But to me it was afterlife and death. “No,” I said, keeping my eyes on Dante’s form. “Not fire. Shots. Call in shots.”

  Maddy turned toward me and I swear if her hands hadn’t been manacled behind her back she would have crossed her arms over her chest. “Calling Shots. That makes no sense.” Her upper lip curled in a Billy Idol sneer.

  “Yes, it absolutely does.” I focused on Dante. “You want me to go take Maddy back to Hell with me and return with help?” I asked, knowing how Lassie must have felt.

  “Hell? I’m not going to some fuckin’—Ow. What was that for?”

  I’d clunked Maddy on her no-longer-dyed-a-weird-color-of-red hair with my deactivated scythe. “Shut up. Can’t you see I’m trying to talk to my boyfriend?”

  Perhaps in Maddy’s world, thunking someone over the head and telling them to shut up passed for conversation. She peered at Dante. “He’s kinda pale, dontcha think? Cute though.”

  Great. A serial killer found my boyfriend hot. I felt so much better knowing that. Not!

  “Should I go?” I asked again.

  Dante nodded, big brown eyes looking all soft and sad. And now that I looked, they were more transparent than brown. I didn’t have long. I had to go.

  I felt like I was leaving a puppy behind. I laid one hand on Maddy’s quite-substantial arm and concentrated on the office of Sergeant Colin Schotz. I bounced my head once. That was completely unnecessary, of course, but just standing there thinking deep thoughts lacked flair

  By the time it occurred to me that I couldn’t transport Maddy with her body still alive on the Coil, I’d already done so.

  Desperation is the mother of intention. Maybe it was because her body still had a soul, or maybe it was because I was running Scythe 2.0, but no matter why, it worked.

  The last thing I saw was Dante standing there, one hand raised toward me. I could see right through his flesh to his skeleton beneath. For once he looked like a Grim Reaper and not like those late-night TV ads for hooded blankets.

  Chapter 16

  Putting the “Pun” in “Punishment”

  “HOLY SHIT!” MADDY yelled, filling Schotz’s office with foul-smelling blue smoke. I choked and waved it away. Seems all the cool kids were choking these days. Then I recalled I didn’t actually need to breathe. I’d fallen back on bad habits after my brief stint in Theresa’s body.

  “Please control your Reapee, Kirsty,” Judge Julius ordered. “We’re trying to have a meeting here. Now go wait outside.”

  “No, I need to explain. It’s that—You need—Dante, he—”

  Where to start? What’s the most efficient way to explain what happened without getting Dante and me into trouble but still gaining sympathy so they’d help us? My PR skills had grown rusty since my own fateful reapage.

  Colin Schotz—the sergeant, not the kindly professor—studied Maddy, who was calmly surveying the office, once again her body telegraphing her intention to make a break for it.

  “My, Conrad, how you’ve changed,” Schotz observed, dry as dust.

  “No, please, sir. Sirs. We’ve gotta save Dante. He’s fading fast. I don’t know how much longer he can hold on. What do I do?” A tear rolled down my cheek and I held out my free hand in supplication. My other hand kept its death grip on Maddy’s arm. I’d had quite enough of escaped souls for one afterlifetime, thank you kindly.

  The sergeant glanced at his death watch. “Oh, skeg. You have been gone way too long. Monroe! You still here?” he yelled.

  The redheaded Reaper who’d brought the wrong (but I’m not bitter) stapler to my appeal poked his head in the door. “You howled, sir?”

  “Leave those forms you’re working on and take this soul to Hell’s Cells with you. We’ll get that story later.” He turned back to the judge. “Julius, we’re gonna hafta continue this some other time. Kirsty here apologizes. Doncha, Kirsty?”

  I nodded, given that it was far from being a question.

  “Oh, but I wouldn’t miss this for the Coil.” Julius rose, activating his gavel. He’d used it to teleport the day of my appeal. I’ll bet Judge Wilson would die of envy—or the deadly sin of her choice—if she knew about that gavel.

  I released Maddy into Monroe’s custody. She immediately began making eyes at the attractive Reaper and bragging about how many people she’d strangled. She seemed to think people in Hell were impressed by violent murders. Why would she think that?

  Monroe nodded politely and led her out of the office. Last I heard of Maddy was “. . . and the bodies were never found. Isn’t that cute?”

  I hadn’t known she could giggle. It was just wrong.

  “Kirsty!” Schotz said sharply, regaining my attention. “Where’s that crystal skull you found the day time stood anything but still?”

  “The skull? But we have to save Dante.” Another tear chased the first one down my cheek. I dashed it away and tried not to sob too loudly.

  “Exactly. The skull absorbed all sorts of energy when you used it to shut down the time machine. We can use it to energize Dante. Now where is it?”

  “It’s . . .” Where had it gone? I closed my eyes and replayed that day’s events on the inside of my eyelids like Amber had instructed. Let’s see. Let’s see. I’d slap-shot the skull into the time machine. Then later, Dante had told our boss that maybe the crystal skull had fallen into the Earth’s molten core. But wait! A later memory swam up from the depths of my mind. I dove for it. It struggled, trying to slip away, but at the l
ast minute, I snagged it by a loose synapse and . . .

  That’s it! The first time I’d had coffee with Seiko post-averted-apocalypse, he’d presented it to me as a memento for saving the world.

  But I hadn’t really wanted it because I’d been the one to endanger the world in the first place. I blamed myself for the lost lives—well, not lives, exactly—for Raul and Rod, who’d been sucked into Heller that day.

  So I’d thanked Seiko for the skull and then gotten rid of it at the first opportunity. Now what had I done with it? I’d given it to someone. Someone who valued it. Someone who could use it again next semester . . .

  I opened my eyes, stepped around my boss and pointed at his display cabinet. “It’s right here, sir.”

  “Can’t be. I’d know if I had . . .” He turned to look where I pointed. “Oh.” He grabbed the skull, gifting me with a look that fell somewhere between sheepish and This is all your fault! “Let’s get going.” He activated his scythe and bobbed his head once. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who’d watched too many I Dream of Jeannie reruns.

  I activated my scythe, tried twitching my nose and failed. So head-bouncing it was. I popped back into the women’s bathroom at the courthouse. It looked exactly as it had when I’d left only now it featured fewer people and more yellow crime scene tape. Blood and one formerly ensorcelled stapler still littered the floor. They’d sure cleared out fast. I checked my own death watch. Only ten minutes had passed since I’d last been here. I still wasn’t used to Coil and Hell time syncing up. Go, time lords.

  But where was Dante? I squinted at the spot I’d last seen him, but now there was no glimmer at all. I surveyed the bathroom, turning this way and that. Was he behind me? In front? I ended up spinning around, but I was alone. I called out to Dante. If he was still there, I couldn’t see him. A third tear tracked down my damp cheek. Or was it my fourth? I’d lost track of my tears.

  And I’d lost my boyfriend, my boss and my—what exactly was Judge Julius to me? Never mind. Not important. What was important was that I was lost, alone and desperate.

  Again.

  I stood there shakily, considering my options. Should I go back to Schotz’s office? Would Reaper Monroe have a clue? Or Sybil Serpent? Sue Sayer or Claire Voyant probably would, but they were at their monthly meeting of the Seers Guild. I checked my hellphone for messages that might have downloaded during my five minutes in Hell in case either of my psychic friends had called in advance to warn me I was going to have a problem. But nada. Damn seers. Never around when you needed one. You’d think they’d have known . . .

  Should I try Vanier prison? Would the sergeant and the judge go there? What about the morgue where Theresa’s body probably lay awaiting—ewww!—an autopsy. I shuddered. I’d worn that body. I’d been Theresa. It’s always fun till somebody loses an I.

  No, wait! I snapped my fingers. The hospital. Dante would follow the contract amendment and the sergeant knew how to work the GPS in our scythes so he’d follow Dante. Judge Julius would follow Schotz.

  Toronto’s “Hospital Row” is formed by half a dozen hospital buildings lining either side of University Avenue, but I was pretty sure one of the EMTs had mentioned Mount Sinai while I spoke with Shannon. It was a place to start. I activated my scythe again and imagined myself at Mount Sinai Hospital.

  I materialized in a hospital room. It looked familiar. Oh, it was the one I’d been in when I’d first been scythed. I stepped cautiously over to the bed, barely daring to breathe. Oh, wait. Never mind that last part. Bad habits again.

  The bed housed a large balding man whom I didn’t know. I hoped he wasn’t in for anything serious. I told him pointlessly that I’d probably see him soon and went to look for my boyfriend and my best friend.

  I tried looking at the giant white boards located at each nursing station, but in the interest of confidentiality, everything was in code, even patient names. No, the only way to find Shannon, and hopefully my dead posse, was to walk through every room on every floor. I so didn’t want to do that. As a Reaper I was comfortable with either life or death but I really hated the in-between part.

  I girded my loins, whatever that meant, and began to stride through walls into patient rooms and operating theaters, trying not to look too closely at the people in either place. I’d ascertain if Shannon and my fellow souls were present and if not, move on.

  Luckily, she was in the fourteenth room I checked. Whew! If I never again heard the shrill whine of a bone saw as long as I after-lived, it’d be too soon.

  I’d been right about everyone being in the room Shannon was in. What I hadn’t figured on was that the room Shannon was in was actually Conrad’s room. After everything he’d done to her, Shannon still wanted to spend time with her dad?

  Maddy’s body lay on the bed, handcuffed to the metal frame on either side. Shannon sat in one of the hard plastic guest chairs at the foot of the bed. A uniformed policeman sat on a second chair out in the hallway, politely eavesdropping. I’m sure he wondered why the skeg she’d want to visit her former cellmate and attempted murderer. Knowing that in reality she was visiting her father and attempted murderer, I couldn’t help but agree.

  Dante stood by the bedside hale and hearty again. Was hale something like wan? I’d really have to look that up one day. Along with bombastic. He tossed the crystal skull in the air and caught it again, then pointed to something on the contract amendment Sergeant Schotz was trying to read with Judge Julius peering over his shoulder.

  “Dante!” I exclaimed. I wanted to throw myself at him but refrained, fearing another face-plant in case he wasn’t corporeal to me.

  “Oh, hi, Kirsty. Glad you could join us.”

  Oh, so two could play cool as a bat. “I see the skull did the trick.”

  “Yup.”

  He tossed the crystal skull to me and I nearly fumbled it, memories of Rod’s fatal fumble surfacing again.

  I tried to return it to Sergeant Schotz but he waved me off, focused as he was on the amendment.

  Judge Julius stood up straight, hooked his glasses over his horns and smoothed his trained caterpillars into place. “Looks in order,” he said to Shannon. Apparently we were visible to her. I willed myself to manifest for her. I had the trick of it now.

  “Oh, hi, Kirsty. When did you get here?”

  “A second ago.” I gave her a little finger wave, not anxious to draw too much attention to myself.

  “So you,” the judge continued, speaking at Shannon. “You get a twenty-five-year extens—What? Oh, I see. How am I supposed to know who’s in what body?” He harrumphed, put his glasses back on his judicious face and focused on Conrad instead. “Ah, yes. So you, Conrad Percival Iver, have found someone willing to surrender their remaining time on the Coil to you. I have communicated with Reaper Monroe at Hell’s Cells and he tells me the de-souled individual, one . . .” Julius flipped pages. I could see a note in Dante’s handwriting added underneath the bloody signature line. “. . . Madeline Ann Stryker, says she’d rather be incarcerated in Hell than here on the Coil. Says the view’s better.” He stopped to consider this, then shrugged and continued. “Plus while incarcerated down there she can earn an early release for bad behavior. So,” he summed up, “you get to keep the body you’re in. You’ve earned yourself twenty-five more years of earthly life in that nice, healthy—” He stopped, took in Maddy’s badly dyed hair, multiple tattoos and damaged throat. “Well, relatively young body, anyway. Congratulations.”

  “But—” The word sounded so abrasive even the demon judge leaned away. “Can’t—Stuck—”

  He managed to point both index fingers at his new body in spite of the handcuffs.

  The judge activated his gavel and struck Conrad lightly on the head with it. It might not have been a sharp blow, but given that Conrad had already been severely brained by me less than an hour ago, it must have hurt.

  Good.<
br />
  The judge looked at some sort of read-out on the gavel. “Huh. Looks like you’re locked in. How’d that happen?” Julius’s gaze jumped from Conrad, to Shannon to me. I tried to hide behind Dante.

  Dante merely stepped aside.

  Traitor.

  I stood up straight and adjusted my outfit, which I’d been wearing for three days now. “I think it must have been me,” I said in a tiny voice.

  “What?”

  “How?”

  “Cosa?”

  “I think I, er, um, stapled him into Maddy’s body.”

  “Stapled?”

  “With a stapler?”

  “You found the stapler?”

  “Yes, I had the stapler. Remember, Your Hon—I mean, Judge. My appeal? I told you Conrad had tried to trick me out of my soul with an ensorcelled stapler. Well, it was also the murder weapon used to end my life permanently. Because it was evidence in my murder trial, it was in the courtroom and I snagged it and when it looked like Conrad was going to get away with everything by jumping bodies again and displacing yet another . . .” At Dante’s keen look, I amended, “Displacing a soul. ”

  “And then I grabbed the stapler and stapled his head right where it was bleeding. So I think I must have stapled Conrad’s soul into Maddy’s body.” My voice grew tinier and tinier as I finished my confession. I clasped my hands behind my back trying to look as innocent as possible.

  “Are you going to punish us?” I said finally, voice cracking and quavering almost as much as Conrad’s did.

  One of Julius’s eyebrows crawled up his face. He turned and stalked over to the corner by the empty bed and waved a c’mere gesture at us. We all started walking toward him. “No, no. Only Colin.” The caterpillar brow raced back down, going head to head with its compatriot across the judge’s nose, giving him an angry look. They were really well trained.

  The judge and the head of the Reaper Corps conferred for what seemed like hours. A glance at my watch told me it had been three minutes, tops. I shook it and held it to my ear. Cerberus had nuzzled my arm last week, getting dog slobber all over it. But it seemed it takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Maybe time was out of sync again.