Esprit de Corpse (2 page)

Chapter 2

A Scythe for Sore Eyes

DANTE CHASED AFTER
me, grabbing my arm and startling me. But this was Dante. No matter how macho and angry Dante was, he would never raise a hand to me. Or to anyone. He would raise his scythe to a soul in need of reaping, but never a hand.

He was only latching onto my elbow so he could teleport us to Pit U where the Reaper Academy had its headquarters.

Once again we entered the swirly portal. The partially digested cranberry muffins revisited the back of my throat, getting less and less tasty each time. I wished we’d walked.

Make that run.

We materialized in the main courtyard, then dashed to Colin Schotz’s office only to be told he wasn’t in.

“Then where is he?” Dante demanded of Schotz’s administrative persistent. “The new semester has not begun, so his other half, Professor Schotz, is not teaching yet. It is imperative we speak to Sergeant Schotz!”

“He’s not here. He’s due back in about five minutes.”

“You’re not just covering for him, are you? Because we’re not lying about it being urgent.”

“And I’m not lying about him being out.” When the AP saw me trying to sneak a peek through the sergeant’s half-open door, he sniffed and said haughtily, “Feel free to check his office.”

“Can you call his hellphone and see how long before he gets back?”

The assistant looked more ready to call Security. “Or text him. Please?” I made my best
you’re much more important and powerful than us
face at him. He seemed slightly mollified and agreed to send a text.

“Wait over there, please. I’ll let you know when he responds.”

Dante and I sat at opposite ends of a hard, cold bench. Why was everything cold this morning? Hell should be burning up. And come to think of it, things were heating up a bit. Not because Dante was starting to thaw out, but because I, not a soul known for her patience, was getting hot under the collar.

“You can relax a little bit, Kirsty,” my Reaper—or possibly ex-boyfriend—said. “I believe you are right about Conrad Iver’s intentions. He will return to the Coil. While Reapers can teleport directly to the Coil, Conrad must take the long route.”

That made sense. Only select beings can teleport. I remembered Judge Julius
whoosh-bamming
out of the courtroom after denying my appeal, using his gavel the way we used our scythes. Or would if I had one.

Conrad would have to find his way up the slippery slope, past the gee-gnomes, and through the void. That could take a few hours.

Maybe we’d get lucky and he’d get stung by a gee-gnome, although it appeared likely his DNA had already been altered. Better the known evil, I thought. Who knew what a second hellish transformation would do to him?

I was just beginning to relax a bit—if by
relax
I meant fidgeting, jittering and worrying—when my old classmates Tiffany and Crystal stomped in, snakeskin cowboy boots clunking noisily on the old stone floor. They were about to retake the first half of the Reaper studies program after failing the oral exam. They grinned at me, staring blatantly at my scytheless hip.

“Oh, Kirsty. Have you been, like, de-sensei-scythed already?” Crystal’s heavily mascara’d eyes grew wide.

“Have I been what?”

“It’s like, you know,” Crystal began. “It’s when, like, someone very old and very wise takes away your scythe so you can’t reap anyone.”

“Or, like, cut yourself,” Tiffany added, shaking her dyed blond bangs into her eyes.

I couldn’t imagine what my friend Amber had seen in these two. The three women had been joined at the hipster when I’d first met them, but now Amber was dating Ira the fallen angel and it didn’t look like the Death Valley girls would ride again anytime soon.

“No, I never got my scythe. Weren’t you at the graduation ceremony?”

They both shook their heads, straw-like hair swirling with the motion. I half expected chaff to separate and float down. Or possibly dandruff. Dyeing was so hard on the hair.

Also? Dying.

So, they hadn’t come to support Amber when she’d graduated just because they’d both flunked out. And they’d sworn to be friends for afterlife. No wonder Amber was done with them.

“Oh, that’s right. We heard Lucy Phurr, like, refused to give it to you. ’Cause you were still alive on the Coil.”

If Crystal started back in on the coma-toes thing, so help me, I’d grab Dante’s scythe—again—and reap her where she stood. I had no idea what would happen if I did. We’d only studied what happens when you reap a human whose time is up on the Coil. I was beginning to think my Reaper education was still rather sketchy, despite the semester of in-class work and the semester of fieldwork. I guess they expected us to learn on the job, which I would love to do if only my mentor were speaking to me.

“No. Well, yes. Sort of. She granted my appeal and sent me back to the Coil. I finished my unfinished business there and died for real this time.”

“So you’ve been disembodied, then?” She nodded sagely—if sages could be dumb blondes. Then screwed up her face. “Or is it discom-bod-ulated.” She looked at us helplessly. “I have such a huge-mongous vocabulary it’s hard to keep all the words straight.”

It takes a village to raise an idiot. Dante laid a hand on my arm to keep me from strangling her. He knew me so well. Plus it would be a wasted effort since we don’t breathe anymore except from habit.

“The sergeant will see you now,” Schotz’s assistant announced. At my sputtering, “But . . . but . . .” he added, “He can teleport directly into his office.”

I looked at Dante. Why did we teleport to and from big open spaces? Was he that bad at parking?

“B’bye,” Crystal and Tiffany chorused, clomping out the door. I was glad to see them fade off into the sunset.

Or sunrise, actually. It was still pretty early.

Dante and I entered Sergeant Schotz’s office, standing at attention until he growled an “At ease” in our direction.

Dante assumed parade rest while I slumped into one of the guest chairs. That earned me a glare from Schotz, so I climbed to my feet and tried my best to copy Dante’s stance. It was surprisingly restful, but I didn’t get the parade part at all.

“So I assume you two’ve heard about that soul you brought in last week.” Sergeant Schotz lifted his eye patch and rubbed the eye beneath it. He pulled the patch over the other eye, blinked a few times, then darted an angry glance between Dante and me. “That he managed to escape from the incompetent idjits that work at Hell’s Cells. In fact, if I find out—”

“Yes,” I cut in, not willing to admit we were part of the incompetent idjits club. “We, uh, know that Conrad escaped.” I deliberately said nothing about the transformation we’d witnessed. “What do you want us to do?”

“What I want you two idjits to do is hunt down that skegger and bring ’im back alive. No, dead. Er, whatever his status is now. This skegger has been reborn with an unknown assortment of demonic powers and, according to his file”—Schotz gestured toward a manila folder open on his desk, papers, parchment and not a few Post-it notes spilled out in a messy heap—“he’s not a nice guy.”

I could have told him that. I waited, hoping for some new information.

“That skegger tried to play Lucy false. Making Deals is our trademark. If word got out that he successfully flouted his Deal, it would ruin Hell’s reputation.”

Hell’s reputation was a lot worse than its bite. We all learned back on the Coil that Hell was a terrible place, but really, it’s not so bad.

Especially when you consider the alternatives. I shuddered, thinking of what I knew of Heller, the next and much worse Hell dimension over.

So this was a PR thing. We couldn’t have an escaped soul running around telling people he was too bad-ass for Hell. Or that Lucy couldn’t handle her souls. Might make us look bad. I mean good. No, I mean . . .

“So what you’re saying is that Conrad is evil and Hell really isn’t, but we don’t want people to know that, right?”

At the sergeant’s nod, I relaxed and cracked my knuckles. Time for some spin doctoring and I was just the spinster to do it. But before I could dance around the problem, Dante cut in.

“Sir, if I may?”

“Yes, Dante? What?”

“Kirsty is fresh out of the Reaper Academy. Chasing down a dangerous runner is really a job for an experienced Reaper.”

“And that’s why I’m sending you with her.”

“Permission to speak free—” At Schotz’s impatient wave, Dante leapfrogged over the rest of the formal request and dove into his actual statement. “I think perhaps Kirsty and I shouldn’t work together right now, sir. There are some issues between us that might pose a distraction.”

Oh, God. He didn’t want to be with me anymore? Was that the best excuse he could come up with?

Because I’d been a way bigger distraction when we
were
getting along.

“That’s why they call it punishment, idjit.” He glared at Dante, then at me. “Idjits, plural,” he corrected. When we both looked stunned, he rolled his eye and clarified. “This is punishment for everybody. We’re an equal opportunity Hell. This Conrad guy’ll get his when you find him. Kirsty, you caused the problem by reaping the skegger with Dante’s scythe even though you knew you weren’t supposed to.”

I ducked my head, letting my hair fall on either side of my face like snowy-white curtains.

More ostriched than ducked, actually.

“And Dante,” Schotz continued, “you let her. You should know better. Now you got another black mark on your record.” Schotz pulled out a piece of parchment and pointed to two grimy smudges on Dante’s otherwise pristine file. “So, yeah, I’m sticking the two of you together for this one. You’ll just have to grim and bear it. Plus, if you can’t get Conrad Iver this time, I’m going to have to take away your scythe for good.”

Oh, no! Hadn’t we settled that when I’d died and . . . But no, that was all about me. Judgment on Dante was still outstanding. Lucy had returned his scythe to him, circumventing the channels of . . . whatever passed for justice down here. If Dante couldn’t get his name cleared, couldn’t bring Conrad in this time, he’d have to go back into the death cycle and that would be the end of us as a couple. Not that we were getting along so great at the moment, but all couples go through rough times. I’d read
Fifty Shades
. Some couples even liked it rough.

Now I had yet another reason for bringing Conrad in.

“What sort of punishment will Conrad suffer?” Dante asked. Was he feeling sorry for Conrad or couldn’t wait to see him fry? Or possibly bake. Char-broil? Here in Hell, we like our punishments both cruel
and
unusual.

“Oh, we’ll concoct something suitable, Dante, don’t you worry. Conrad Iver will get what’s coming to him. We’re very good at dreaming up creative punishments here in Hell. Just ask Sisyphus. Oh, that reminds me. I need to give him this.” He held up a familiar music-industry, tabloid-size magazine with a picture of John Lennon on the cover.

“Well, why are you still here?” Schotz made little shooing motions with his hands. “Have you caught him yet? How ’bout now?”

“Sir?” Dante asked again. Was he crazy?

“What is it, Reaper Alighieri?” Uh-oh. We’d moved backward into formality. That was never a good sign.

“Reaper d’Arc requires her scythe, sir. You’ll recall that our gracious Underlord decided not to—”

“Yeah, yeah. I was there. Hang on. I’ve got it right here.” First he produced one of those blue rubber gloves like forensic techs wore. Or those scary brain-meddling guys on
Firefly
. He stared at me pointedly. “Wouldn’t want to touch another Reaper’s scythe, now would we?” With a flourish, he yanked on the glove—drawing it way back from his wrist and then letting it go.
“Ow!”
He rubbed at his reddened skin and glared at me like it was my fault he’d ruined his own theatrics.

Okay, maybe I’d grinned at his pain, but he was being obnoxious.

Still glaring, he pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk, reached down, reached down further, rummaged around a bit and then finally stuck his head in. Mary Poppins’s carpet bag had nothing on Schotz’s drawers. “Here it is.” He held out the scythe.

I gasped. When Lucy had held it up at the grad ceremony, it had been bright, gleaming chrome, but now it looked dull and dusty. How could it get so dirty in only a few days?

The sergeant glanced at my face, where a parade of emotions (oh, look. There’s the parade I’d looked for earlier) marched across my face: surprise, puzzlement, sadness, anger.

“Oh, it’s a little tarnished is all.” He buffed it on his Reaper robe, only serving to add a layer of grease to the grime soiling my beautiful scythe.

When I saw his mouth working, I snatched the scythe from him before he could spit on it, cradling it in my arms. He looked about ready to yank it back, and with it my future career as a Reaper, but something in my face, or possibly Dante’s, made him snap his mouth closed. He blinked his exposed eye—which could have been a wink—and told us once more we were A, idjits and B, already gone.

And with that, we were.

Chapter 3

Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow

I VELCROED MY
scythe to my belt loop as we headed back out the way we’d come. It bounced satisfyingly against my thigh with every step. It was only about eight inches long, but it was mine and I loved it. Besides, eight inches is more than respectable.

I glanced below Dante’s belt. He had a ten-incher, but I wasn’t the slightest bit envious. I’d certainly reaped the benefits of his scythe over the past year.

I have euphemisms and I’m not afraid to use them!

At least mine was prettier than Dante’s old pewter one, which was all scratched and banged up from centuries of hard use. It looked like an antique, which is nice in its own way, but I prefer my appliances to be modern and gleaming. I’d cleaned it as best I could on my own grease-free robe. It looked a little better now; nothing a good buffing with stainless steel polish wouldn’t fix. Oh, sure. They promise stainless . . .

Dante pushed off the wall he’d been leaning against, caught my eye and said, “Ahem.”

Uh-oh. Things that followed “ahem” were rarely good. Dante strode into a vacant classroom, gesturing for me to follow him.
Now
he wanted to talk? Didn’t we have a demon to catch?

He stopped near the entrance, waited for me to pass him, then shut the door.

“I feel, Kirsty, we should start the last place Conrad occupied on the Coil.”

“My hospital room? But that was a week ago. Plus we dragged him to Hell, locked him up, and then he escaped. There’s no way he’d be there now. I know Conrad and he’d go directly to—”

“If he returns to the Coil,” Dante cut in, “he will likely return the way he came. So that’s where we need to begin.”

He activated his scythe again, holding it before him like a flaming sword. “Okay, Kirsty. Now you try. As you know from your session using practice scythes, it is activated by pressing this small knob.”

To show him what I thought of his condescending course in Button Pushing 101, I pressed my scythe’s activation button with exaggerated motions. For the first time, my beautiful new scythe fired its purple-black light out both ends, the top one curving into the razor-sharp blade.

“Oooh! Ah! Yesss!”

Dante shot me a look. Those were usually noises I made during activities in which no actual scythes were required.

“Now, Kirsty. If you’ll concentrate on the hospital.”

“Dante, listen to me. He won’t be there. He’ll go to his office. In fact—”

“You heard Sergeant Schotz. I’m the experienced Reaper, so you’ll take your direction from me. I know what I’m doing.” He laid his hand on his chest to indicate . . . What? Modesty? That was laughable but somehow I didn’t feel like laughing.

“Our first stop will be your former hospital room. Then we will use the glow of our scythes to follow Conrad’s ecto-trail until we find him. Simple? Good. Now the first thing we—”

I hit the travel button on my scythe, concentrated on my desired destination and zapped out of Hell with a
whoosh-bam
all my own.

Arriving at the offices of Iver Public Relations felt both like coming home and like visiting a place I’d once dreamt of. The offices looked the same, but they felt different. New coffee-stained carpeting replaced the old coffee-stained carpeting of my day. The walls had been repainted and some new framed award-winning PR campaigns hung on the walls. I paced down the hall slowly, quietly, not wanting to disturb anything.

The sound of clapping startled me nearly out of my robe. It grew louder as someone opened the boardroom doors. It faded away and the attendees—both familiar and unfamiliar—began to collect their electronic devices and empty coffee cups. One jovial fellow I recognized from Accounting shook Shannon’s hand. “You’ll do great, Shannon. You’re your father’s daughter.”

I steamed at the insult. Hadn’t the nightly news reported that Conrad had bludgeoned me to death? Not exactly the person I’d want to be likened to.

Shannon responded in a thin voice, “My father left some pretty big shoes to fill.” She didn’t exactly radiate confidence that she could fill them.

And maybe she couldn’t. After all, his success had been dependent on the devilish Deal he’d made. Would Iver PR continue to land clients and win awards without magic?

Other people shook Shannon’s hand and congratulated her as they left the room. It felt like a wake. People seemed subdued, their clothing somber. Of course, only a week ago, their president and CEO had died after murdering his former protégée.

And that would be me.

I hadn’t realized Shannon would now be CEO, but Iver PR wasn’t a publicly traded company. It was a family business and Shannon was Conrad’s only family. His estate must have been settled very quickly.

Another man—a stranger to me—spoke softly with Shannon. I understood turnover in the public relations industry was high, but I was surprised that in the year I’d been gone, so many new people had joined the company. But just then, a few people I did know drifted out. There was my former friend Frannie, talking on her phone. I wanted to say hi, but she paced right by, her face a stony mask.

Last to leave was Shannon. She looked tired and drawn—hardly the picture of corporate power.

“Hi, Shannon. Long time no . . .” But of course she couldn’t hear me. I’d forgotten. She continued along the hall with her head down, reading a document as she walked. I moved over to walk behind her. Panic gripped me when I saw it was a contract. But then I saw it wasn’t printed on parchment and relaxed.

I could tell, though, that it wasn’t some ordinary client contract. I caught a few words, peeking out between her hands. It read like something big and overarching, probably to do with the company. Well, of course. She’d just been appointed CEO, so she’d have to sign something, right?

I followed her down the hall. In my mind, she’d taken over my office when she’d taken over my accounts, but that didn’t appear to be the case. In fact, as we passed by I saw it was Frannie who sat behind my old scratched desk. Same old desk accessories. I took a quick inventory but she had a new plastic stapler. Not the vicious metal one that had attacked me that day, beginning all my troubles. No wonder Dante had accidentally arranged for the wrong one to be retrieved for my appeal.

So where had the right one ended up?

A vague recollection nipped at my brain, but movement within my old office distracted me before I could grapple with it.

Frannie looked up as Shannon strode past. She glanced away again quickly, eyes narrowed and mouth hard. Was she not happy that Shannon was now in charge?

Shannon stopped in front of the VP’s office. I knew it was hers because the credenza displayed a picture of a very young Shannon with her mother. I’d never met Shannon’s mom; she’d died when Shannon was small. I might ask Sybil to pull up her records and let me know where she resided these days.

But instead of entering, Shannon moved on down the hallway, heading into the big corner office that had been her father’s. I guess it, along with the entire company, was hers now.

The overall atmosphere was a big downer. So Conrad had died. Big deal. It’s not like he was a great guy or anything. But no doubt a lot of these folks had fallen under his spell. It must be quite a surprise to find out the guy you hero-worshipped was actually a self-centered, murdering bastard. I know I’d been shocked as all hell when I’d finally put the pieces together. Maybe these people hadn’t reached the “I loved that guy only to find out he was a total skegger” stage of grief yet. They would have been exposed to his magical charisma right up to the day he died. Me? I’d been out from under his spell for a year now.

Plus being clubbed to death by the guy could really knock over his pedestal.

Shannon entered the office, closing the door right in my face!

How rude.

I reached out to turn the handle only to miss. Clumsy. I tried again. Oh, for the love of . . . I wasn’t missing; I couldn’t grasp the handle. I tried pushing the door open next, but my hand went right through it. Now how was I going to . . . ? Right!
Through
the door, of course. My hand was no longer solid on this plane. How soon we forget.

I slapped myself in the forehead.

Ow!

My hand was solid enough for that.

I slipped in through the door—literally—feeling foolish that I’d forgotten how things worked up here for me now. I shouldn’t be too hard on myself, really. I’d probably spent only a total of twelve hours on the Coil after my initial reapage. And even then, I’d been only half dead so things weren’t the same as now.

I patted my scythe, a habit most Reapers seem to fall into, even in public.

Once inside, I surveyed my ex-boss’s former office. It hadn’t changed much. I noticed he’d removed every picture or award associated with me: the group shot from the company picnic, the picture of us accepting the Canadian Public Relations Society Award of Excellence, the picture of Shannon and me and our dates on prom night. Instead, other faces, both familiar and strange, stared back at me from the artfully grouped photos on the wall. Conrad, of course, smiled charismatically in every shot.

The office itself seemed cavernous without Conrad’s powerful presence. The oversize furnishings dwarfed Shannon as she swiveled into the impressive executive chair behind Conrad’s big oak desk.

I plopped myself down in one of the guest chairs as I had in Schotz’s office. Only now, no one was around to reprimand me. I hunkered down, prepared to wait.

A knock at the door signaled Shannon’s last meeting before lunch. The entire account team arrived, bearing new creative for Shannon’s approval. I watched her work, impressed at how much she’d learned about running a public relations company, at how well she was doing.

Within minutes, I was bored to death. Well, I was dead and bored. The order didn’t matter. While public relations had once been my life’s work, I now found it dull. Reaping was my afterlife’s work and I kept up by reading the trade publications, like
Reaper’s Digest
and
Good Housereaping
.

If Conrad was going to show, I wished he’d do it soon. The novelty of being back was quickly wearing thin.

I just wanted to scythe that welching skegger and go home. Dante and I needed some private time to work out our problems. I needed to apologize in new and creative ways for touching his scythe.

Oh, damn. I’d forgotten that my family had moved in with us. That was going to put a damper on apologizing, new and creative. I knew they had decided to stay in Hell and open a restaurant, possibly purchase a franchise of Claire Voyant’s Oracles of Deli even though neither of them was psychic. They were really short on Karmic points though. Maybe I could talk to Claire about reducing the franchise fee. Much as I loved them, I really liked Dante and me having the apartment to ourselves.

I hoped they hadn’t signed anything—nothing good ever came from signing contracts in Hell.

Been there, done that, got the Band-Aid.