Gina Grant: Esprit de Corpse

“Resistance is futile,” said one of the courthouse security staff, obviously a Star Trek fan.

I closed my eyes and touched my scythe again, this time willing myself to manifest for Maddy. I might as well not have bothered because even when I stepped up behind her, scythe activated and raised, and began speaking for her ears alone, she couldn’t drag her eyes off Conrad.

“Neither you nor he realize it yet, Maddy Stryker, but that demon you’re looking at has gained ownership of your living body because you got your blood on his contract. You can file a Wrongful Reapage Appeal later. In the meantime, it’s my job to taketh thine soul to Hell !”

I swept my scythe down on the murderous woman.

Just like I had a year ago, her body fell to the floor. Her soul sprang up instantly, ready to charge me.

But I was a trained professional. “Maddy, look!” I shouted, pointing at her scarred and tattooed body lying on the floor. The shock of seeing herself lying there froze her long enough for me to get my Reaper manacles on her. Click , on the right wrist and click, on the left.

An EMT raced through us, quickly setting up CPR on Maddy’s body. Her soul stayed stunned and I led her out of the way.

Oh, my God. If the EMT or anyone else chanced to look into the supply closet, they’d see Conrad. Then there’d be no hope for Dante and me. We’d be in such trouble with our boss and probably Lucy Phurr, too.

There was no way to close the door even if I knew the trick of it. Maddy’s body blocked it open.

Maybe I could get Shannon to fake a seizure to draw everybody’s attention. I turned to look for her through the open doorway, but her gurney had been wheeled away. A second gurney had taken its place. Two quiet and respectful EMTs gently loaded Theresa’s body onto the new gurney.

Hearing a gasp, I turned back, expecting to see the paramedic gaping at the massive red demon hiding amid the cleaning supplies. Instead, I saw the last bit of Conrad—only the horns—blurring as Maddy’s recovering body sucked him in.

Oh, great. How were we supposed to bring him back to Hell for his creative punishment if he was stuck in another body?

Maddy’s body coughed and a smug smile bloomed on her face. Conrad believed he’d won. He’d merely ride this body out and then forcibly take another. He’d leap from one body to another, displacing souls along the way until he got one he liked. I didn’t give great odds for the poor soul—and I mean that both figuratively and literally—who had the job of Shannon’s second-in-command at Iver PR.

Or for Shannon, either, if she stood between Conrad’s newly stolen life and the job of CEO.

I still had my scythe out, glowing dark purply black. From the corner of my eye I saw an answering glow.

It was the stapler. Someone must have kicked it out of the way in all the confusion. It ended up near the last stall closest to the supply closet.

“Aaarrrrggghhh!” I yelled, more frustrated than I’ve ever been before. I dove right through the EMT as he helped Conrad into a sitting position. Through sheer force of will, I grabbed the stapler and held it high. It didn’t enter my mind that I didn’t know how to affect Coil objects. I just did it. I pressed the little button on the bottom of the stapler and the base swung out of the way. Now the “jaws” could operate independently.

I strode back over to Conrad. With my free hand, I shoved the stapler at him, connecting with the bloody gash in his new head. The bandage had slipped from Maddy’s overprocessed hair during her collapse. I pushed the device hard, not caring if the EMT saw a floating stapler hit the murderer. I pushed harder, plunging a staple into Maddy’s skull. The stapler’s purple glow winked out, as if the last of the original magic Conrad had purchased to steal my soul had finally depleted.

“Ow!” Conrad yelled, twisting away from me.

I dropped the stapler to the ground.

“Where’d this come from?” Maddy’s guard asked, joining the EMT by her charge.

For the first time, his eyes flickered up toward the closet, empty of demons at this point. “Must have slipped off a shelf.” He shrugged and added more adhesive to the bandage on Maddy’s head wound. He pulled back when she began to chuckle.

It sounded like a cement mixer filled with drunken cats.

Conrad coughed and tried to speak. “Why can’t—Voice! I . . .”

Maddy’s voice wasn’t just raspy as Theresa’s or Shannon’s had been after Maddy’s earlier attempts at strangulation. This was an abrasive squawk. Stephen Hawking would have turned down a chance to have a voice like that.

Already, bright red blood had seeped through the bandages at Maddy’s throat. Conrad had done real damage to Maddy’s vocal cords when he’d slashed her with the stapler. Never had the words he brought this on himself rung truer.

In his ruined voice, he croaked, “I may not—” He coughed. Red spittle dampened one corner of Maddy’s mouth. “See you, but—” He coughed again, his face growing pale. “You’re there. Just pop out.”

He stopped trying to speak. He clenched Maddy’s bound hands into fists and screwed up her—now his—face. After only a few moments, his face went from bloodless to red and sweaty. His new tattooed arms quivered.

Conrad made this awful sound like running a stick across corrugated iron. It might have been the sound of frustration, the damaged-vocal-cord equivalent of my earlier argh.

“Why can’t—?” he ground out.

Oh. He was trying to exit Maddy’s body. For some reason he couldn’t. He was stuck.

The EMT slipped a needle into his trembling arm. “Just a little something to relax you.” And Conrad slowly slumped back down on the dirty tiles.

“Okay, let’s get her onto a gurney and to a proper medical facility. Someone needs to get a look at her neck, but I’m pretty sure the damage is permanent.”

They scooped Conrad up and carried him to a third gurney, the other two long since wheeled away. He smiled dreamily as Maddy’s guard recuffed him to the gurney’s metal frame on both sides. Pinkish drool trailed from the corner of his new mouth.

Ignoring the remaining people who puttered around the crime scene, I fisted the air and, without taking my hand off Maddy’s soul, tried to locate my boyfriend.

Dante managed to manifest a little, looking nearly as far gone as Shannon had just before being re-homed. I forced a fake smile on my face so he wouldn’t worry. All thoughts of anger and jealousy left my body like a soul departing a fresh corpse. “You okay?” I asked. I could see right through him now. We needed to get back to Hell as quickly as possible, Conrad or no Conrad. We could always come back for that skegger.

In twenty-five years.

If Schotz let us.

If we were still Reapers.

If we were still together.

Dante returned my smile with one just as fake. And very, very faint. He knew he was in rough shape. I’d deactivated my scythe at some point. Dante didn’t look strong enough to activate his own, but I knew Reapers can transport souls of the newly dead. So why not the oldly dead? After seven centuries, Dante was well and truly dead. They didn’t get much deader than him. Oh, sure his friend Virgil was . . . I yanked my attention back and I reached out to touch Dante. As had happened back at the jail, my hand passed right through him.

Now what? I could teleport myself back to Hell, but if I couldn’t touch him, I couldn’t take him with me. Dante’s mouth moved, but even though I was a spirit now like him, I couldn’t make out what he was trying to tell me. I could barely hear a whisper, like branches rustling in the breeze.