by Gina Ardito
Yes, for now, she’d make do with this innocuous but annoying wardrobe reject from ancient Sparta. Putting more distance between them, she strode to the bed. Perhaps with the same agenda in mind, Luc strolled to the opposite end of the room and regained his perch on the stool. Once there, he picked up a white clipboard from the counter and fanned his fingers over the empty face.
Determined to stay focused on anything but Luc, she stripped the sheets from her bed and tossed them on the floor. Silence permeated every shadowy corner of the room, broken only by the occasional snap as she flipped the sheet up and let it settle over the spring-loaded mattress.
Busy work, her mother used to call it. When they’d get caught in a thunderstorm in some bamboo hut, when the winds roared and lightning speared the sky, Mom would change sheets on cots or do laundry, or anything else that disguised the tremors in her hands. God, how she missed her mother! The loss of that wise and loving woman had carved a hole in Jodie’s heart nothing would ever fill.
She bunched the corners of the top sheet in her fist. “You know what I was wondering?”
“Hmmm?” His focus remained on the clipboard.
“In all those stories people tell…you know, the ones who died on the operating table or in an accident, saw the white light, but were sent back to Earth for some reason? They all say their loved ones—the ones who came before them—were waiting for them on the other side. How come when I came over, the only people I had contact with were a snotty desk clerk, Sherman the Afterlife garden gnome, and you? Where were my loved ones?” Like my parents.
“Another problem with your timing,” he replied. “Your loved ones weren’t expecting you any more than the staff of the Welcome Level had expected you.”
Pain sliced her in half, and she doubled over, holding the pillow against her abdomen. God, couldn’t she get anything right? Warm, wonderful Mom was the one person who might make her feel better. Or jovial Dad, with his tight bear hugs and brawn, always made her feel safe in the darkest jungle. Jodie had shuttled them both away by arriving too early. Nearly sixty years too early.
Okay…deep breaths. Think about something else.
If she kept dwelling on all the ways she’d screwed up, the Afterlife would have to reserve a padded room for her eternity. Serenity’s advice echoed in her brain. Learn from your past mistakes, but don’t dwell on them. Yes, better to look at her future, whatever that may mean. As she laid the pillow against the headboard, she forced a light tone. “Who are these spirits we go after?”
“Mostly they’re people who died with unfinished business,” Luc replied. “All those stories about haunted places on Earth? That’s them. You’ll meet victims of murder or wrongful death, and souls with an ax to grind. We get a lot of soldiers. I’ve been to Gettysburg so often I could run the tour. The thing is, just like us, spirits who remain on Earth after their death screw up the Afterlife’s natural order. Unlike us, however, the Council of Elders allows them to remain behind for a certain period of time in the hope they’ll make peace with their issues and come willingly when called.”
She punched the second pillow, hoping to smooth out the lumps. No dice. Hadn’t the Afterlife heard of that foam invented by NASA? The one that retained the shape of your hand after you removed it? “How long are the spirits allowed to stay on Earth?”
Luc shrugged. “Each case is different. Some remain for centuries, others only a few weeks. Whether or not they complete their business in their allotted time, when the Board sends us…” He flipped the clipboard’s sterile face toward her, and then flipped it back. “…we travel to Earth and escort them back here.”
As far as Jodie could tell, the job sounded fairly straightforward. So why had he put up such a fuss in Sherman’s office? She arched a brow. “You don’t think I can handle such a difficult task?”
He set the clipboard down with a clack. “Oh, I’m sure you can handle those spirits with no trouble. It’s the Furies that concern me more.”
“The Furies?” A shiver of apprehension trickled down her back. “Who are they?”
In one fluid motion, he stretched his legs out across the threadbare carpet. They seemed to extend a mile, like some jean-clad twin streams. “Some spirits remain on Earth due to their rage. Even after they arrive here in the Afterlife, they’ll escape and return to Earth time and time again.”
Escape? Hope flourished, but she kept her tone banal. “How does a spirit escape from here?” Maybe she could get back to Gabe quicker than she thought.
“There are a few ways.” He counted on his fingers. “For one, kids could get hold of a Ouija board.”
“A Ouija board?” She laughed. “Oh, come on, Luc, you’re kidding. I mean, even I played with one of those things. They’re harmless.”
One shoulder rose in a half-hearted shrug. “Usually. But anger and discontent are powerful negative energies. In the wrong hands, a Ouija board can act as a doorway between realms. The same goes for a séance. Mediums must be very careful to lock all the doors and windows at the end of a session with the dead, or a Fury might take advantage of their negligence. Still other Furies manage to regain possession of an heirloom from their earthly life. If they can connect with the heirloom’s new owner, they then can possess that poor human’s soul.”
Jodie gasped. “Like in The Exorcist? With head-spinning and pea soup vomit and speaking in tongues?”
He shook his head. “The Exorcist is a fictional work based on extreme cases of demonic possession cited in biblical texts, but yes…the idea is similar. Trying to convince a Fury to release his hold on Earth and return to the Afterlife often results in violence and destruction. These spirits are so full of hate they’ll wreak havoc rather than move on.”
“But surely if those in charge didn’t think I could handle a Fury, they wouldn’t send me after one, right?
His lips twisted in a crooked smile. “Not quite. The Board has no way of knowing how a spirit will react when a bounty hunter insists on bringing him or her home. Most are cooperative, some try to buy more time through wheedling or charm. The rarest group can become violent, to the point of causing physical harm to the hunter. And I’m not sure you have the strength or wherewithal to handle one of those.”
The shiver tickled her spine, but she tossed her hair and shifted to one hip, oozing false confidence. “Wait. I’m confused. If we’re already dead, how can anyone harm us?”
“Ever see an electrical fire? Or a generator short circuit?”
In Venezuela, lightning had struck the power shed one night. The heat and sparks had terrified Jodie, perhaps because on some subconscious level, she’d known the fate awaiting her in El Salvador. But she didn’t bother to share that information with Luc. Instead, she nodded.
“Same basic principle,” he continued. “The destruction of a hunter is a very rare occurrence, but you need to be aware it could happen. Traveling back and forth between here and Earth isn’t exactly the ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ scenario you think it is.”
An image of Gabe’s face floated into her mind, and she couldn’t fight the smile the reminder brought to her lips. “I think it’ll be exciting to revisit Earth.”
“Trust me.” He waved a hand in the air as if dispelling a bad odor. “After a few trips, the fascination wears off.”
“But we get to walk among the living—”
“Unnoticed,” he added with an upraised index finger.
“Yes, but, we’re there all the same.” Her tone took on a wistful quality she didn’t attempt to mask. “We have the ability to see those we left behind, to keep an eye on our loved ones. I think that’s wonderful.”
He frowned. “I’m not sure what you think we do, but we don’t get to come and go to Earth as we please just to check if the kids did their homework or to tell Aunt Bertha where we hid the will. We take our orders from the Board, and they’re pretty rigid about our travels back and forth.” She started to argue, but he held up a hand. “I sincerely doubt you they’d give you permi
ssion to revisit someone left behind. If you had any desire to actually do so.”
“Oh.” Her hope popped as if he’d stuck a pin into the balloon that held her dreams. “I take it you don’t want to see anyone.”
“Nope. Absolutely no such desire.” He folded his arms over his chest.
Jodie softened her harsh opinion a little. Did Luc’s unintentional action protect a fragile heart? What exactly had happened to him in his earthly life? “Don’t you want to see your wife?”
“Daphne?” Apparently saying her name was enough to screw up his face so he looked as if he’d sucked a lemon.
“You said marriage was what killed you. You’re not harboring a grudge you need to exorcise?”
He shook his head. “I’ve borne that grudge too long. You’ll see. After a while, the hatred burns away, leaving a pile of smoldering ash.” His words said one thing, but his body language, from the folded arms to the stiffened posture, communicated the direct opposite viewpoint.
“Bull.”
“No bull.” A glint of steel flashed in his eyes. “Time enough for me to confront her when she winds up here after her death.”
Despite the threat behind the words, she pointed an accusing finger his way. “So you still have a lingering bit of unfinished business on Earth.”
“Not enough to lure me there.”
“Oh, come on. You don’t want to haunt her? Make the bedroom you once shared with your wife icy at a moment’s notice? You’ve never been tempted to shift objects around, startle the cat with a little ectoplasmic mist?”
He cocked his head, his expression tightened into a grim mask. “Where the hell did you get your ideas about what goes on here?”
“Didn’t you ever see Ghostbusters? Or Ghost?” When he continued to simply stare at her like she’d challenged him to a pie-eating contest, she shrugged. “You know. Movies and stuff.”
“Movies. And stuff.” He snorted. “Figures. In any event, until my wife dies, I have no reason to see her.”
“No reason to nurse your loathing?”
The clipboard on the counter sparked to life, glowing with purple blinking lights.
Jodie jumped onto the bed as if she’d seen a rat. “What is that?”
“That,” Luc said, picking up the clipboard, “is the Board. Apparently, we have a task to complete.”
Chapter 5
Drawn by the dancing purple lights, Jodie inched toward Luc and the glowing clipboard. Her expression must have communicated her confusion because he sighed with all the exasperation of a teenager teaching a senior citizen to use email.
With a bent finger, he beckoned her closer. “Here. Look.”
When she stood a hair’s breadth from him, he grabbed her wrist, and set her palm atop the screen. The scattering characters jumped through her fingertips into her nerve impulses.
Meanwhile, a soft, feminine voice whispered inside her head. “…You’ll be retrieving Kristin Esterby…”
She blinked and stared at Luc. “Who is that?”
“The woman speaking in your head or the one we’re going after?”
“The one speaking.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “The Board’s representative, I suppose. I just call her the Voice.”
“As in the voice of God?” Awe slammed the backs of her knees. Dropping the clipboard, she gripped a stool to stay upright and came in contact with Luc’s seated behind. Tingles surged through her bloodstream, like electric shocks after removing a fork from a live outlet.
“Easy there.” In contrast to her distress, Luc’s posture turned fluid, one long draught of water in a parched desert. With his hands beneath her arms, he set her firmly back on her wobbly feet. “I don’t know if the voice belongs to God, per se. She’s more a representative of whoever’s in charge here in the Afterlife. Maybe that’s God. Or Satan. Or Death. Or a giant panda named Boru Magoo. Whatever Supreme Being fits the profile for you, I guess.”
She studied his eyes, found his mercurial orbs dancing with inscrutable sparks of light. Humor? Did he dare laugh at God? Or did he really believe a giant panda ruled the vast universe?
“Who do you think is in charge here?” she asked.
He slouched against the stool’s spindled back, fingers laced behind his head. “Don’t know, don’t care. I just do my job. Which is something you should be doing.” He jerked his chin toward the clipboard vibrating on the carpet. “So rather than wondering who’s behind the Voice, pay attention to what the Voice is saying so we know where to find our target.”
“All right, all right.” She scooped up the Board and slapped her hand on the screen. “Jeez.”
“…Socialite Kristin Esterby passed away suddenly in 1999, without a will and with little left of her once massive holdings but a crumbling estate and a few hundred thousand dollars in life insurance. Since her death, her siblings have waged an all-out war to gain control of this pittance.”
While her mind absorbed the details through the pads of her fingers, she kept her gaze locked on Luc’s bemused face. “This is like a bizarre version of Charlie’s Angels. I don’t suppose you ever saw that movie either. I wonder which character I would be.”
“I’m not sure. I didn’t see the movie, but I remember the television show.” His fingers drummed his chin. “Which one was the suicide again?”
Her breath erupted in a long sigh. God, would he never let her live that down? Or up? Or whatever? “You know, I’m more than just a loser who killed herself.”
“I sure hope so,” he muttered. “Otherwise, I’m going to get awfully tired of dragging your sorry butt around with me on these jobs. Now prove I’m wrong and finish getting the particulars so we can head out of here.”
Despite his insults, excitement ignited sparklers inside her. “You mean we’re going back to Earth? Now?”
“As soon as you get all the info, yes.”
Squelching delight, she returned her attention to the Voice.
“You will find Ms. Esterby roaming around the attic of her estate, which is located between the coordinates of thirty-six east and seventy-four south.”
Jodie paused, removed her hand from the clipboard again. “Shouldn’t I be writing this stuff down?”
Luc shook his head. “Nope. No need. Once you’ve heard the details, they’ll be stored in your memory until your task is completed. Just be sure to listen to the full message.”
“Okay.” Refocusing on the Voice, she listened intently to the sad tale of poor, spinster Kristin and her grasping relations.
When the story ended, the glowing characters dimmed, and then went black. Jodie placed the clipboard on the counter. Still the Voice hummed inside her, repeating the information like subliminal Muzak.
Luc rose. “Done?”
She nodded.
“Ready to go?”
“Sort of.” Her gaze dropped to the ugly ochre carpet. “Except I don’t know how to get there.”
“Relax,” he said. “That much I’m supposed to show you.”
“Can I keep my clothes on this time?” The words flew from her mouth before she could think twice.
Now, his gaze dropped. “Umm…yeah. Sorry about that.”
Good. At least the guy had some sense of decency—sporadic, but evident, nonetheless. She didn’t think she could face eternity, or however long her new employment would last, catching souls with a guy who had none. She waved a hand, partly to dismiss him, but also to fan the heat suddenly bursting in her cheeks. “Skip the apology and promise me you won’t do that again.”
“I didn’t do it the first time. I was trying to picture you in the prime of life. How was I supposed to know the image that would come to mind was you, naked in bed after mind-blowing sex?”
Her heart plummeted to her feet. “Oh my God! You saw that much?”
His head shot up, eyes flashing and hands upheld in surrender. “Hey! Don’t blame me. It’s not my fault your life was so miserable your happiest moment was post-coital.”
No way would she admit she’d never experienced anything close to the bliss he’d envisioned with his Vulcan mind-meld shenanigans. Instead, she set her fisted hands against her hips. “That’s an awfully big word for a Neanderthal like you.”
Eyes narrowing to apostrophes, he slouched until his knuckles skimmed his shins. “Oh, forgive me, lady,” he said, his voice thick, stumbling, and heavily accented. “Please to teach me manners so I don’t cross you again.” He hobbled toward her in the same hunchback posture. “I shall kiss the hem of your gown to show my obeisance.”
For every step he thumped closer, she danced back two. The anger in his expression sparked radioactive waves as his intensity honed in on her. Finally her back slapped the wall, and she shot up an arm to brace for the coming explosion.
Instead, rich, throaty chuckles bounced off her eardrums.
Peeking through the crook of her arm, she watched him straighten to his normal stance. The façade of amusement slipped over his features again as easily as a harlequin’s mask.
“Skittish, aren’t you?” He turned back to the counter where the clipboard sat, dark and graveyard silent. “Relax. Even if you had any inclination toward sex with a Neanderthal like me, I’m not sure it would be possible in our current forms. We’re energy, not human, remember?”
“Could we get off—” Whoops! Very poor way to phrase that! And judging by his quick reversal, eyebrows arched, he’d caught her Freudian slip. Time for some serious backpedaling.
She spoke again, this time each word carefully chosen and succinct. “Could we veer off the topic of my sex life and return to Kristin Esterby’s dilemma, please?”
His broad grin ignited flames in her cheeks that licked through her bloodstream. “Sure. But a few ground rules before we leave here.”
Suspicion snapped her to full alert. “And they are?”
“First.” He held up one finger. “You do what I tell you. No argument. Deal?”
