Gina Grant - Esprit de Corpse

Previously in The Reluctant Reaper Series . . .

“C’MON, BABY.”

I don’t know how many times my hellphone played the Reaper Corps theme song as I struggled up from the deepest, darkest depths of REM sleep.

“Baby, take my ha—”

I’d been sleeping the sleep of the dead, of course. How else would I sleep? Finally I surfaced into consciousness.

“’Lo?” I answered, silencing Blue Oyster Cult midlyric.

“Kirsty? You’d better get down here right away.” Kali’s voice crackled from the tiny speaker, sounding as distressed as I’d ever heard her. I half sat up, rubbing crusty dried gunk from my eyes, the corner of my mouth and . . . never mind. Despite having no psychic abilities at all, I clearly foresaw a shower in my future.

“Down where?”

“To Hell’s Cells.”

I thumped the heel of my hand against my forehead trying to dispel some of the got-some brain fog. I had a memory once, I just forgot where I put it.

A recent memory floated within reach. I grasped for it, almost had it . . . Ahhh. Now I remembered. Dante’s friend Monroe had told us the holding facility where he worked needed an extra pair of hands. And Kali was nothing if not handy. She had six of ’em, after all.

Obviously she’d landed the job. Only Reapers need apply.

“So what’s up?” I asked. Dante rolled over and opened his eyes. I held a finger to his lips to keep him from speaking. He kissed my finger softly and my insides melted. No, not literally.

“What? I missed that, Kali. Say again, please.”

“I said, something weird is going on with that soul you brought in. That Conrad guy. You didn’t use another Reaper’s scythe on him, did you? Because if you did, I think we’ve finally figured out what happens when you do.”

As Kali described the scene in the cells, all the blood drained from my face. My stomach flip-flopped and my heart clenched.

“Oh, skeg!”

I BRIEFED DANTEon Kali’s conversation. Anger radiated off the sharp set of his shoulders. “You should not have touched my scythe!” he lectured, shaking his finger at me.

I bit my lip, knowing he was right, but really not wanting to hear it. Especially not when accompanied by patronizing hand gestures.

“So,” I continued, reluctant to have this conversation, “we need to get down there, right?”

He didn’t respond to that or anything else I said while we got dressed. And that hurt. If I happened to sniffle a little, it was just allergies.

I’m allergic to rejection.

We went from naked to ready in under five minutes. Dante left our cold, cold bedroom without waiting for me. Somehow, whenever he was mad at me, I felt all shivery and cold inside.

I ran after him, just in time to see him present my aunt Carey and her afterlife partner, Leslie, with a key to the apartment along with brief instructions to make themselves at home. He fastened his scythe through his jeans belt loop and draped his Reaper robe over one arm. “Andiamo,” he called over his shoulder.

I knew now that andiamo meant “Let’s go,” as opposed to ti amo, which meant, “I love you.” The universal translator didn’t always work perfectly and that led to the occasional misunderstanding. I wished now was one of them. But sadly, I understood exactly what he wasn’t saying: that I’d screwed up.

I said goodbye to my aunt and Leslie (grabbing a couple of Leslie’s awesome cranberry muffins), and gathered my own robe from its hook near the door. “Good luck with your meeting today. I hope you figure out a way to pay down your karmic debt and buy that Oracle Deli franchise.”

I caught up with Dante outside the apartment. He faced away from me, looking out over the city. His back radiated disapproval like a neon sign flashing, Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. I was torn between begging his forgiveness and kicking his backside. I decided on a wait-and-see strategy instead. Maybe I could get out of this with my dignity—or my relationship—intact.

Probably not both.

In a smackdown between Dante and dignity, Dante would win every time. I already had a bit of a history of begging with him, usually in bed.

I bit my lip as he yanked his scythe from his belt loop and activated it, sending two beams of black light in opposite directions, the top one curving outward into a vicious blade. I took a moment out of my pissy-fit to admire it. Watching a Reaper activate their scythe never gets old.

Since Lucy had withheld my scythe at my graduation ceremony, I didn’t have one yet. Can you miss something you’ve never had? I patted my thigh where my scythe would one day rest. I hoped that one day would be today. I’d worked so hard for the skeggin’ thing.

Where once Dante would have clasped my hand in his, now he wrapped his cold fingers around my wrist, keeping the contact to a minimum. Without so much as an I Dream of Jeannie head-bob, we whoosh-bammed to the Cells. This was the first time I’d ever been teleported on a scythe—it hadn’t worked properly when my body had been stuck in a coma on the Mortal Coil. Now that I was experiencing it, I wished it was more instantaneous and less like a roller-coaster ride on acid. In fact, it was exactly the way they showed wormhole travel on Stargate . Must be more of that bleed-through effect. My stomach flip-flopped. Cranberry muffin redux and reflux rose in the back of my throat.

We materialized at the prison’s massive front door. I’d been here once before on a Reaper Academy field trip. The building was long and low, a single story constructed of dark red brick being slowly strangled by centuries of nightmare-inducing vines. The front door perched in the middle, with wings shooting off to either side. Building-type wings, as opposed to the bat-like kind. On my previous visit, moaning, arguing and complaining had been audible even from outside. Sergeant Schotz had explained that was normal, so the fact that we could hear nothing this morning made me even more anxious.

Dante dragged open one of the big, double doors. I followed him in and down the long, spooky hallway lined with dungeon-like prison cells on either side. Sullen prisoners, angry prisoners and despairing prisoners all rushed to the bars, glaring, staring and way oversharing reasons why they should be released. I kept my eyes on the ground.

How must Dante feel knowing that he’d brought in some of these unhappy souls?

We reached the very last cell, Conrad’s. Monroe and Kali stood outside the bars, watching. Kali wore a horrified look, while Monroe, who’d worked here for decades, looked grim.

“What is the situation?” Dante asked, stepping up to Monroe.

“See for yourself.” The red-haired Reaper gestured inside.

Conrad stood in the middle of the cell, looking basically like the fifty-something corporate executive I’d reaped yesterday.

Except . . . he sweated and strained, obviously in distress. His hands clenched at his sides, his unnecessary breathing ragged.

His eyes bulged and his muscles rippled. In fact, his whole body expanded and contracted and then expanded again, one limb at a time. First his right arm swelled up to monster size, the skin stretched tight, growing lobster red. Then his left leg inflated like a fleshy, florid balloon, his right arm shrinking back down to normal again. Oddly, his bespoke three-piece suit swelled right along with his limbs. Kind of like how Bruce Banner’s pants always managed to cover his junk no matter how huge the Hulk grew.