Rob Thurman - Grimrose path

"No problem, ma'am." I pulled the chair up to the table and sat down. "I can honestly say I feel right at home." Guns and dogs, so far she was fine by me.

"Good. Then everything is right as rain. I don't believe in dragging things out…" She lifted her eyebrows in inquiry and I hastily provided my name. "Ms. Trixa. I had a schnauzer named Trixie once. Good girl. Lived to be sixteen. Became a little senile in her old age and started doing her business in the bathtub, which is an annoying chore. Scrubbing the bathtub every day with bleach, but that's neither here nor there. I'm Mrs. Smith. You may call me Mrs. Smith, and I'll go ahead and tell you up front that whoever you want to talk to might not be around-probably won't be around-but there are no refunds. If I call for them and they've already gone on to their heavenly reward, you're still out two hundred bucks, Trixie, and don't be whining to me about it. Think of me as a phone call. Whether that person you're calling is home or not, you still have to pay for that call." A plump pink palm presented itself. "And that was two hundred, Trixie."

I started to correct her on the name, a pooping-in-the-bathtub schnauzer not the role model I longed to be connected to, but realistically, I'd been labeled worse. I put four fifties into her hand. "Now, I'd like to-"

She stopped me in my verbal tracks. "And don't be asking me to talk to Elvis or any of that nonsense either. He's not there. And anyone else famous who is, well, they'll drive you to tears and medication with their sobbing all over the place with what they've lost and who wronged them and whom they wronged. It's nothing but ego masturbation, Trixie, and I don't have the patience for it."

I gave a wary nod, beginning to lean away from the warm feeling that the guns and dogs had engendered. I hoped Elvis had moved on and Eli had been lying when he said he'd eaten him, but more than that, I hoped the woman let me finish a sentence. I had a mouth on me, yes, I did, and not being able to get a word in… That didn't happen often. "No, no Elvis. I just want-"

"Don't be expecting some sort of light show either. You want some two-bit magic, you have the whole strip to choose from. I talk to the dead. I don't set off fire-crackers and crank up the dry ice machine." She picked one hair off her sweater-one hair out of hundreds-and let it drift to the floor. "Well, Trixie, girl, let's get going. I don't have all day to waste on your dithering. Who is it you want to talk to?"

"Anybody," I said quickly before her lips, covered in a thick coating of bubblegum pink lipstick, could part again. "Anybody at all. Can you just send out a general notice? 'Dead person wanted. Big balls required.'" Back up went her eyebrows. "Or brave. Brave would get the point across. This is less of a chat and more of a job interview."

"A job interview. I have to say, missy, even my Trixie was smarter than that. The dead can't do anything but talk. They can't haunt your ex-boyfriends, of which I'm sure you have more than a few. Young people these days. We always said why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free, but nowadays, you're squirting your udder at every man who passes by. Girls calling boys. Women calling men. It's disgraceful. My neighbors are into that bisexual, couple-swapping, orgy thing. 'Try'-sexual if you ask me, 'cause they'll try anyone, do any type of perversion. They leave their blinds open a little and I see what goes on."

I bet she did. All night long, armed with binoculars and popcorn. I'm a patient person… when patience is called for. When it will actually benefit you. This was not one of those times. I snatched up her gun before her hand had more than a chance to twitch toward it. I emptied the cylinder-the bullets rolling on the table like dice in a game of craps-smacked it back down on the table, and snapped, "Dead person. Big balls. Now."

She swallowed, her head suddenly bobbing from palsy. "Oh Lord. Oh me. I'm doing the best I can, dear. There's no reason to get so snippy." And damn if she wasn't edging her hand back toward that flowered bag again. What did she have in there now? Pepper spray? A stun gun? A cattle prod? Who knew? Who didn't want to know? Me.

I grabbed both of her hands and placed them firmly on the table. I didn't hurt her. She was old, she was frail, and, more honestly, she was the only medium I'd found. I needed her. "Dead person. Go."

This time she gave in to the inevitable, although I heard the annoyed click of her dentures against each other, and closed her eyes while mumbling under her breath. Whether the mumbling was cursing at me or calling out to the spirit world, I didn't care. I just wanted my dead person. I couldn't talk to my brother. Human mediums can't reach the paien and there are no paien mediums. We don't linger like humans sometimes do. Kimano was gone, to one of our better heavens, I knew. He deserved no less. It didn't change the fact I would've given almost anything to talk to him again.

Someday. When my time was up and it was time to fall so another trickster could rise, then I would see him again… if I had to search every heaven in existence. And I would. I would feel his hand in mine again. Rough and warm. My family, and I wouldn't lose him, not for good.

"Trixa."

I exhaled, annoyed. "Mrs. Smith, I don't have the time or the patience for this. Don't make me teach you a lesson about peeping perverts and bad neighbors, because it's awfully tempting. Just do the job I hired you to do."

The eyes, magnified by the bifocals, blinked. "Trixa, it's me. Anna. Rosanna." The pink lips curved in a shy smile. "Remember? With Sir Pickles?" She blinked again. "One of the Roses." The Rose. The one for whom I'd pulled the rug out from under Hell itself. "We know what you did for us. I know what you did for me. Tell me what you need. I want to know how can I pay you back, how I can thank you. How can I save you like you saved me?"

Sweet, shy Anna. She'd hung around, not welcome in the biblical Heaven because of the deal she'd made and not ready to pick a paien heaven, because of me. She'd known what was going on once she was freed of Hell. She had known about Cronus. The dead knew a good deal more than demons or angels if you asked them the right questions. She'd waited in case I needed help. She wouldn't have been the first one I'd thought of when I thought balls, but she had them all the same. She had determination and she thought she had a duty-to thank me. In all my trickster days I think it might've been the first thank-you I'd ever received.

"Anna." I gripped the hands I held in mine. "Little Anna, I'm grateful, but I don't think this is something you will want to do. It's dangerous, even to the dead. And it's terrifying-especially to the dead."

The brightness in her eyes was twice what it had been when she'd first come to me. "I lost my face, my life, my soul, and I stepped in front of a bus." The smile was less shy now. It was confident, daring, adventurous, and what Anna should have always been if her life hadn't changed so quickly. "I think I have a resume in dangerous and terrifying."

"So you're James Bond now, are you?" I asked fondly.

"Better," she said promptly. "I won't stop and have sex with every woman I see on the way."

"Annie-girl, you are so worth it. Screwing Hell. Freeing all the Roses. You were most certainly worth it all. You are my poster girl of the year."

Her hands-in reality the dog lady's hands, but Anna's for the moment-shook mine playfully. "Then tell me. How can I help you?"

I told her, and to her credit she didn't flinch, not once. Not when I told her where I needed her to go, how difficult it was to get in, and how far more difficult it was to get out. I hoped dropping my name and the reason behind what I needed should be enough to help her pass whoever remained there, but I told her truthfully that I couldn't guarantee it.