Jewel laughed. “That’s because dying has given them the freedom they both needed to be with each other. See how the colors of their auras are merging in places. They are in love.”
“Seriously?” Tommy asked.
“If we opened up our auras,” Jewel said, “ours would match like that as well.”
Tommy nodded. “Let’s get theirs contained and if we can’t do it, let’s call K.J. and have him teach them. Those things could be seen from space.”
“After dinner,” Jewel said, laughing. She smiled at the man she loved more than anything in the world. He was always thinking and caring about others.
“You are right,” he said. “First we need to show them how to get dinner in a buffet and restaurant.”
Jewel smiled at her partner. “That and answer about a thousand questions I’m sure they both have.”
“Yeah, good point,” Tommy said, smiling back.
Jewel was glad the air-conditioning in the restaurant wasn’t on. The restaurant was so big that the ninety-plus people in the place didn’t make the restaurant feel crowded.
Tommy found a table in the back that looked to be in a closed section and then Jewel and Tommy led both women toward the salad bar.
“This will feel just like normal,” Jewel said. “Once you get used to it. Everything has a ghost component, so you just serve yourself like normal.”
Jewel grabbed a plate from the stack, then started fixing herself a salad.
Both women watched. Finally Belle said, “That just flat looks strange. You are picking things up and filling your plate, but nothing is really moving.”
“We function on what seems to be a slightly altered plane of existence,” Tommy said.
“Too much,” Nancy said, holding up her hands. “For the moment let’s just say I grab a ghost salad and go sit down.”
Jewel laughed. “That’s how I think of it as well.”
“Perfect,” Belle said. She reached over and grabbed a cherry tomato and popped it in her mouth.
Jewel watched as Belle’s eyes got large. “My god, that’s the best tomato I have ever tasted.”
“Everything tastes wonderful,” Jewel said.
At that moment, a young waitress appeared from the kitchen carrying a large tray of food on her shoulder.
“Hold off for a minute on the salad,” Jewel said, handing her plate to Tommy. “Let’s go see what’s on the menu for the main course.”
Jewel led the two women over to where the waitress set down the huge tray on a stand. From what Jewel could tell, the tray was filled with plates of steaks and baked potatoes. There was also a couple baskets of fries and a basket of fried shrimp.
“See anything you like?” Jewel asked the two.
“What do you mean?” Nancy asked.
Jewel reached over and grabbed a plate with a steak marked medium rare and a baked potato with everything on it.
The real plate stayed in place, but Jewel could feel the heat of the plate in her hand.
“Found what I wanted,” Jewel said. “If there’s nothing on this tray that appeals to you, there will be more coming out of the kitchen regularly from the looks of this crowd.”
“This won’t affect the taste of the food for the person eating that meal?” Belle asked, pointing at the real plate still left on the tray.
“K.J. told me it didn’t when I asked that same question,” Jewel said.
She turned and threaded her way to the table in the back and put the steak on the table in a place facing the restaurant.
Then she went over and grabbed a full glass of water off another tray and some silverware and put those beside the steak. Then she headed back to the salad bar to get a small salad.
Belle and Nancy had gone back to the salad bar and were standing out of the way of an elderly couple working to get salads. Tommy already had a plate full and was headed back to the table.
“Leave my steak alone,” Jewel said to him, smiling.
“No promises,” Tommy said, giving her an air-kiss as he went past.
A couple minutes later, Jewel had a salad and was back at the table.
It took the two new recruits a little longer, but they made it, talking about what had happened when Belle accidently brushed one of the waitresses.
“The waitress was having the same problems I had in college,” Belle said as she and Nancy joined Tommy and Jewel. “Not enough money, a shitty boyfriend she doesn’t really like but who wants to get married, and pressure from trying to keep grades up to get into grad school.”
“It’s amazing what you will see in people’s lives,” Tommy said. “For the most part, they are good people.”
“The waitress was a good person,” Belle said. “Just hit home to feel her struggles.”
“You made it,” Nancy said. “She has a chance if she’s as smart as you are.”
“I married the perverted slug, remember?” Belle said, smiling at her friend.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Nancy said, and the two laughed.
Jewel was so happy to see them laughing. Especially so soon after being killed.
“Great job saving those two girls’ lives this morning,” Tommy said. “You two had an amazing first day and it’s not even done yet.”
Both nodded thanks and blushed slightly as they went back to eating their salads, commenting on how everything tasted better and clearer.
Jewel worked on her salad for a moment, then couldn’t take it any longer and pulled the steak plate over and dug into the steak and potato. She was hungry and she didn’t care what they thought, she was going to eat.
FIFTEEN
Belle couldn’t believe how amazing all the food tasted. She loved Sizzler when alive, but didn’t remember being that much in love with their food. But now it all tasted amazing, as if she had suddenly had her taste buds turned on.
She ate until she was far too full, almost unable to stop even then.
After dinner, they walked over to the mall. The streets were well-lit and clean, but very few people were out. The air was chilly, but not cold.
It was nine in the evening and the mall had just closed, but as Jewel had said, that didn’t matter at all. And Belle felt she was getting pretty good at walking through walls and closed doors. She could now even keep her eyes mostly open.
The mall had been remodeled a few years back and looked fairly new, in bright blues and browns, even though Belle knew it had been here for thirty plus years. The ceilings were high and everything was well lit. Employees were the only ones still around, working on nightly closing routines.
Christmas decorations were in most stores and windows, and it suddenly dawned on Belle that this coming Christmas was going to be very, very different. She had never really had much of a Christmas routine. Last year she and Nancy had given each other gifts, and had gone with each other to their company Christmas parties. And on Christmas Eve they had watched movies at Belle’s house and drank eggnog and decorated a small tree.
The next day Nancy had cooked them both a wonderful ham dinner and they made Christmas cookies with icing that they ate on for a week.
Neither of them had any family, and now, even more, this Christmas was going to be just the two of them.
Tommy and Jewel seemed to be old hats at finding what they wanted in stores, plus small suitcases to take it to Vegas with them. Since both Nancy and Belle both had full suitcases, they just walked along, testing what they could pick up.
Belle stayed close to Nancy, and Nancy seemed to want to stay close to Belle as well. With every hour that passed, Belle felt better and better. It was as if the weight of the live world was lifting from her shoulders.
She didn’t need to worry about money ever again, although she had no idea yet how she would find a home or apartment to live in. Food tasted wonderful, clothes were free for the taking, and she and Nancy seemed to have decided to test more limits on their friendship, which Belle had dreamed about for years.
After that wond
erful shower, all she wanted to do was touch Nancy’s wonderful smooth skin and silky brown hair.
At one point, as Tommy finished up getting some Levis, Nancy turned to Jewel and Tommy. “Does feeling better and better happen with everyone who dies?”
Tommy shrugged and Jewel laughed. “If I remember right, it happened to us over the first few days. But does it happen to everyone, we have no clue. Except for K.J., we’ve never met any other Ghost Agents before you two.”
“So there aren’t very many of us?” Belle asked, still trying to get a grip on that fact. “Everyone else just moves on to the next world?”
“K.J. says there are very, very few Ghost Agents that can stay behind. Maybe a thousand at most scattered all over the world.”
Belle just shook her head as Jewel and Tommy packed their clothes into their ghost suitcases and headed back out into the mall area.
The fact that there were only a thousand Ghost Agents just seemed impossible to Belle. She understood the part about it being her time to leave, to die, but to be handed this opportunity to stay around and keep enjoying life and feeling better and better seemed completely unbelievable.
And what was very, very strange to her was that she wasn’t angry or upset or even sad in the slightest about dying. She kept thinking she should feel something more than happiness, but she didn’t.
She was dead and she liked it a lot more than being alive so far, and it was only the first day. What did that say about her life?
Nancy asked the next question Belle was thinking.
“Why us?” Nancy asked.
“Guessing,” Tommy said, “It’s because of your skills and who you are as people. I was a cop, Jewel a doctor.”
“I know business and finance and networks,” Belle said, shrugging. “What good will that do?”
“Honestly,” Jewel said. “We don’t know. But in this modern world, I’ll bet your knowledge is going to come in handy on more than one mission. Plus look what you two did this morning. You had just come through your own death and immediately jumped in to save two young girls. I have a hunch that kind of ability to act is a large part of why you two were picked.”
“So what is your real world skill set?” Tommy asked Nancy as they headed back down the silent mall toward the door they had come through.
“Computers,” Nancy said. “Again something I’m not sure will be valuable or not.”
Both Jewel and Tommy laughed at that. “Oh, trust me, you are going to be of immense value. Both of you.”
“But I can’t touch a computer,” Nancy said.
“But that young woman sure can,” Jewel said, indicating a young blonde who was pulling down a garage door-like grate over a small store entrance to close it for the night. “And you can control her, be inside of her, and through her fingers make a computer dance the tango. Just as I did with the reservations clerk at the hotel.”
Belle suddenly started to understand. She could do the same thing when it came to corporations. And in this modern world where big corporations were treated as people, Belle could navigate that world easily, especially if she was in control of the right person.
“Come to think of it,” Jewel said after a few more steps, looking at Belle and Nancy and then at Tommy, “the four of us form a very, very powerful team.”
At that, all Belle could do was agree.
SIXTEEN
Jewel and Tommy led the way back along the sidewalk in the crisp evening air toward the hotel, both dragging small suitcases full of clothes and a few bathroom supplies to get them through the night and back to Las Vegas.
Belle and Nancy followed them about ten paces back.
At one dark area between streetlights, Jewel turned around and was almost blinded by the auras radiating off the two women. Belle and Nancy were completely glowing with bright oranges and reds and blues and other major colors dancing off their skin. It was stunningly beautiful.
And where the two auras met, Jewel felt like she was looking into the sun.
She turned back to Tommy. “Take a look behind us.”
Tommy did and said, “Wow, that’s bright. We got to do something about that.”
Tommy stopped and said clearly into the air, “K.J., need a little help here for a few minutes.”
Belle and Nancy stopped, looking puzzled.
“With clothing or without?” K.J.’s voice asked from the air around them.
“With, please,” Tommy said, shaking his head.
Belle and Nancy both laughed.
Jewel really liked K.J. The Ghost Agent could really be funny.
A few minutes later K.J. appeared in a bright blue bathrobe and pink bunny slippers. He was almost steaming, which made Jewel think he had just gotten out of a hot tub.
“Wow,” K.J. glancing at Belle and Nancy, “we have a light show to rival the 4th of July over the Bay.”
Both Nancy and Belle looked around, then looked back at K.J. clearly puzzled.
“That’s why we called you here,” Tommy said. “Figured we needed to get that wrapped up a little.”
K.J. nodded. “And I got a little more on the coming mission as well. It’s going to be interesting, to say the least.”
Jewel was feeling both excitement and dread about another mission. And if K.J. thought it interesting, who knows what it might be.
K.J. pulled his bathrobe tight around his waist, making sure the tie was secure. Then he slicked back his wet hair and stepped toward the girls. “Let’s get this done before we all go blind, and not in the fun sexual way we all love so much.”
Jewel and Tommy both chuckled, but both recruits just looked puzzled.
“Can you see anything around Jewel and Tommy?” K.J. asked the two new recruits. “Colors, auras?”
Both Belle and Nancy looked at Jewel and Tommy and shook their heads.
“Release the Kraken, or whatever you call your auras,” K.J. said.
Jewel easily released the skin-tight containment around her aura at the same moment Tommy did.
“I should have brought my sunglasses,” K.J. said, shielding his eyes.
“Wow!” both Belle and Nancy said at the same time.
Jewel had to admit that her aura and Tommy’s had gotten even brighter and more powerful and much larger over the last few months. They had just kept them contained, so she hadn’t noticed. And she was amazed how in certain areas her aura just flowed together with Tommy and joined his and his joined hers to be even brighter, just as Belle and Nancy’s did.
“Enough,” K.J. said, covering his eyes and waving his arm.
Jewel contained her aura down to her skin at the same moment Tommy did.
“Now look at each other’s auras,” K.J. said to the new recruits. “See all the bright colors? See the areas where the two of you merge, where you are in love. Given enough time, you’ll be able to read some things from auras.”
Both Belle and Nancy just stared at each other, their auras moving faster and brighter as they got more excited.
“Now, think of your aura only at your skin,” K.J. said, “like you have a tight shield around you.”
Nancy’s aura vanished down against her skin a fraction of a second before Belle’s.
Belle looked at K.J. “We can see auras because we are dead?”
“Yes, one of the many, many skills you have that will come in handy,” K.J. said. “But Tommy and Jewel were right to have me get your auras contained as soon as possible.”
“Why is that?” Nancy asked.
Jewel and Tommy both smiled.
“They will tell you tomorrow,” K.J. said.
“Can we let out our auras again?” Belle asked.
Jewel remembered asking K.J. that exact same question.
K.J. nodded. “Just think of the shield holding them against your body open.”
This time Belle slightly beat Nancy and both of them stood there staring at the colors flowing around them.
“It is so beautiful,” Belle said.
&nb
sp; “As beautiful as you,” Nancy said to Belle.
“And that’s my clue to depart,” K.J. said, shaking his head. “Close up those auras and leave them closed for now. At least until you understand them all better.”
Both women nodded and the auras around them sucked in tight against their skins.
K.J. turned to Jewel and Tommy. “Get to Vegas and get these two new recruits trained by Thanksgiving. From what I have been told, our mission starts the day after and it’s going to need all four of you and me at full power. But it might turn out to be sooner, much sooner.”
“That bad?” Tommy asked.
Jewel felt suddenly very worried.
K.J. shrugged. “Not sure how bad. I’m just repeating what my boss told me.”
“So you know anything about the mission at all?”
“Something about the fact that we have to protect Santa Claus,” K.J. said, shaking his head. “I met that old elf once and he’s going to be a job.”
“Santa Claus is real?” Tommy asked.
Jewel felt too shocked to even try to speak.
“Real and really damned annoying if you ask me,” K.J. said, shaking his head. “Just get these two new agents up to speed on all the tricks you two know and in Vegas by Thanksgiving. I’ll be having meetings and learning more tomorrow, I hope.”
With that he vanished.
Jewel looked at Tommy and then the two women.
The silence on the Boise sidewalk was stunning. Even the cool breeze seemed to have stopped for fear of disturbing that moment.
“Maybe he’s kidding,” Tommy said after a moment.
“I’m not kidding,” K.J.’s voice said in the air around them. “Wish the hell I was.”
Section Three
BASIC GHOST TRAINING
SEVENTEEN
It was only a little after ten in the evening by the time Belle and Nancy got back into their suite. They were to meet Jewel and Tommy at 9 a.m. in a nearby breakfast restaurant.
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