Gina Grant - Esprit de Corpse

We waited a few minutes, or whatever was passing for time for us, until the swirl of energy seemed about the size and mass and general outline of a twenty-eight-year-old woman, but it stayed unformed. It wasn’t a person-esque dead soul like you or me.

Okay, just me, then.

“Isn’t it going to coalesce into a, you know, more person-shaped shape?” I asked.

Beatrice shook her head, but her eyes were on Theresa’s swirling soul. “Theresa Mudders. I hath come to escort thou unto Heaven.” She raised the shining sword. “Thou must— Hey! ”

While Theresa Mudders had had boundless patience in life, her spirit was apparently done with that shit. She didn’t bother waiting for Beatrice’s pretty speech. She ducked around our little grouping and shot through the flaming portal into Heaven.

“Well, I never!” Beatrice stared after the dearly departed soul, hands on hips, flaming sword point resting on the ground. She turned back to us with a grimace. “Well, gotta go. Great meeting you, Kirsty. I’ll see you ’round. Say hi to Ira for me. Dante, take care.” She looked at Shannon, a puzzled expression suffusing her angelic face. “You, too. Shannon. Don’t worry. It’ll all work out.”

She gifted us with a last bright smile and vanished into the portal, which winked out of sight instantly, much faster than its dramatic entrance.

“—one can save her now.” The guard finished saying as time kicked back along its ticking path.

Maddy screeched again about being attacked.

Conrad burst free of the guard’s restraining hand and threw himself at Theresa’s body.

The guard dove at him, but he shook her off. He slapped one hand on Theresa’s chest, the other over it. “One, two, three, four, five. Help me here! We can save her!” he shouted between chest compressions.

Instead of trying to pull him off again, the guard who’d restrained Conrad took up the relief position on Theresa’s other side, ready to take over when Conrad’s stolen arms grew tired.

I stepped closer, watching Theresa’s body for signs of life. I didn’t want her revived. She’d gotten in to Heaven. It would be like getting picked out of the lineup for the most exclusive club in town and then being told to come back later.

Could I stop Conrad? I could appear only to him, right? I closed my eyes and concentrated on materializing, just as I heard a sharp gasp.

Suddenly I felt awful. My throat ached and steel bands seemed to cut my chest in two. My head hurt and my neck hurt and my shoulders . . . Forget the list, let’s just say everything hurt. I raised one hand to my forehead but it merely fluttered limply by my side . . . just like it had back in my hospital bed when my body had been re-souled.

Now I sucked in a harsh gasp.

“She’s alive. She’s alive!” someone yelled. Lots of someones began yelling.

Oh, skeg. This was the last thing I needed. I blinked my eyes open and looked around. The guards’ worried faces hovered over me. Didn’t anyone in correctional services trim their nose hair?

“M’okay,” I rasped. “H’lp m’up.”

My voice kept cutting out, like bad phone reception. Someone helped me up onto the lower bunk where I lay, resting my back against the cold wall.

The paramedics arrived. I guess it had only taken them about four minutes, but what with the angel dropping by and all, it seemed longer. I was shifted to a gurney and wheeled to the prison’s medical facility. I kept insisting I was fine in a hoarse whisper that clearly said I was not.

I refused to go to the hospital. I did agree to let them X-ray my throat right there in the prison infirmary. While lying quietly on the gurney, I attempted to cut my spiritual tethers to Theresa’s body, but no luck. I was well and truly stuck.

I’d been sucked back into my own body when they’d tried unplugging it. I should have stood farther back from Theresa’s.

But that time, I’d been able to exit my body. It had taken extreme effort and saving my aunt’s life as incentive, but I’d done it. Well, I had Shannon’s life to save now. Why the hell couldn’t I get out?

I tried again and again, flinging my immortal soul at the edges of Theresa’s mortal body without success. Maybe because my body had lain empty for so long it had been easier to get out whereas Theresa’s body was young and healthy and not interested in giving up being alive just yet.

“You’ll have to hold still, Theresa,” the X-ray tech ordered.

And so I lay still, a plan beginning to form in my newly acquired brain.

MY THROAT STILLhurt, but a few lozenges later, I had a sexy rasp and was working on a hall pass.

“If you won’t go to a hospital, Theresa, will you at least stay here overnight?”

I considered this. Now that I had a body again, it would need to sleep. Oh, sure. I could check my pockets to see what kind of car Theresa drove and where she lived. Oops. I should say had driven and had lived. I could explain away things like not knowing which locker was mine because I’d—Hello!—just come back from the dead.

Both of us.

But what if Theresa hadn’t lived alone? She could have parents, a partner, kids. It would only hurt them to see their beloved Theresa like this. Obviously the Theresa they knew and loved was never coming back, so why put them through this? No, better they remember Theresa at full capacity rather than as Reaper-pretending-to-be-Theresa-with-partial-amnesia. Not to mention the string of nightmare bruises circling my neck and eyes as red as those of many of my friends back in Hell.

And what if Theresa’s family arranged to forcibly send me to the hospital and then I couldn’t come back here?

No. Better I stay the night here and then get up and do my job again tomorrow. Theresa’s job, I meant, reminding myself not to get too comfortable in this body.

Although it wasn’t like anyone would miss it . . .

With some trepidation, I investigated an uncomfortable bulge in my uniform pants. It turned out to be nothing requiring a change in orientation but rather a heavy ring of keys. I hoped one of the small keys opened a locker. I’d wait until the night shift was well under way, then find the locker room and try them all until I found one that worked. Theresa seemed like the kind of gal who would keep a change of uniform in her locker. And I would need one by tomorrow.

“Okay, Doc. I’ll stay.”

“Great. We’ll transfer you to the secure ward.” He gestured toward a locked room. “It’s designed to keep patients in. But in this case, it’ll be to keep the other patients from getting at you.”

He seemed to think this funny.

A quick reconnoiter of the medical facility showed me a number of scary-looking patients sporting nasty bruises and wounds. And this was only the women’s section. I suddenly understood how dangerous the job of prison guard could be. That Theresa really was a saint! Had been . . . Whatever.

I’d have to tell Mr. Kahn about this job next time he rushed through the Reincarnation Station. Might be a speedier route to a positive number in his Karmic Kredit Kolumn, I mean column, than being a member of the Frequent Diers Club, although he did insist membership had its privileges—like never living long enough to have to get a job.

I lounged around for the rest of the day, slurping down soup and some well-chewed veggies. Damn, but my throat hurt.

Dante dropped by, but I wasn’t inclined to hear him lecture me about how I should have known better. Blah, blah, blah. So I feigned sleep.

Around six, the doctor left for the day, instructing the night nurse to call him should anything happen. The night nurse apparently knew Theresa. He seemed like a nice guy. When he stopped by to see if I needed anything, I asked him a favor.