Scythe Does Matter (12 page)

“Well, Kirsty. I’ve got a special gift for you. Instead of a scythe, I’m
granting your appeal
!” She sounded exactly like Oprah during one of her “Favorite Things” episodes, complete with little hand-claps and a big, toothy smile.

“You’re
what
?” I shrieked.

“Yes, I know. It’s hard to believe. Well, away you go now. Have a nice life.”

She gave a dismissive little gesture and I levitated, like a puppet, drifting away from the stage. Away from my friends. My family. My afterlife. Dante.

“Nooo!” I screamed, unheard over the applause. Applause? Oh, great. Was everyone glad to see me go?

My soul flew faster and faster, passing through Hell’s roof, scaring the skeg out of ol’ Sol as he drove his chariot along, dragging daylight behind him.

I was getting my life back, which was what I wanted, right? But how the skeg was I going to reap Conrad without a scythe to call my own?

Chapter 14

Karmageddon

MOMENTS LATER, I
bounced into my body. I drew a great gasping breath and tried to open my eyes. It took three tries since they were nearly crusted shut with dried tears. Had I been crying in my sleep?

I lay there, trying to absorb what had just happened. I had just been handed everything I wanted. Shouldn’t I be happy?

“Nooo!”

Blinking some more, I looked around.
Ow.
Talk about a stiff neck.

The hospital room was exactly the way I’d dreamed it over the months I’d been away—except for the tragic tableau before me.

Just as I’d feared, now that Conrad couldn’t steal my aunt’s soul to guarantee his extension, he’d found another person he was willing to sacrifice. Someone with no family except her father.

And he didn’t even need to. There was no way I could locate the stapler and find a way to get it to Judge Julius in the few remaining minutes before the anniversary was up. Conrad could have just waited and his original extension would be granted. He didn’t know that, though, and so now it was up to me to do something to save Shannon’s life.

And I would, just as soon as I could remember how to make my muscles work.

I willed myself to move or yell, but fog wrapped my brain and my muscles refused to answer when I called. The spirit might be willing but the flesh was damn near useless. I could only watch in a daze as Conrad wheedled and pleaded with Shannon to sign the contract amendment.

“Okay, Dad. Okay. Calm down and let’s talk about this.” She sat in a plastic guest chair, papers and office supplies scattered on the wheeled bedside table in front of her. She must have been doing office work while she sat with me. What? I wasn’t scintillating company?

“Sign first, then we’ll talk.” Conrad waved a thin sheaf of papers at her. His fingers covered the heading, but I knew exactly what it read:
Contract Amendment.

“Sure, Dad.” Shannon’s voice had a “don’t make the crazy person crazier” tone. She picked up an ordinary pen. “Where do I sign?”

“Not with ink,” Conrad grabbed up another office item from Shannon’s temporary workspace. Even dented and speckled with Liquid Paper, I’d know it anywhere. He pressed the little release button on the bottom, allowing my old stapler to swing open like a huge, gaping jaw. My heart pounded, but even so, I could still hear the click of the staple dropping into place, its chiseled points reflecting light like a pair of vicious fangs—the vampire of the stationery world. “It has to be in blood!”

He hoisted the stapler as Shannon shot a hand up to protect her face. In a flash, Conrad slashed the stapler across her upraised palm.

“Dad, what the hell?”

“Now sign it!” he ordered, shoving all the other papers to the floor and dropping the contract amendment onto the bedside table. “Sign it,” Conrad repeated, tossing a fountain pen on top of the document. He brandished the stapler in a threatening manner. She examined her hand, her palm seeping blood from the fresh scratches.

“Okay. Okay.”

He moved toward her. She reared back, the plastic chair back creaking like a cry for help.

“Use that.” He pointed the stapler toward the fountain pen. “Draw the little lever back to get some blood inside.” He raised the heavy metal stapler again. Surely he wouldn’t—couldn’t—bash Shannon’s head in to get the blood he needed. How could he do that to his own daughter? Originally Conrad had sold his soul to save his infant daughter’s life, but now he was willing to sacrifice hers to save himself.

He’d changed in the year I’d been in a coma. He’d grown desperate and afraid, willing to give up everything that had ever meant anything to him just so he could keep control of Iver Public Relations.

Fear clogged my throat and panic filled my lungs as I realized Conrad, this man whom I had once revered and admired, really could club his own daughter to death.

Frightened and confused, Shannon cradled her wounded hand to her chest, a trail of blood trickling between her fingers.

They hadn’t noticed my return from the dead. I took a quick inventory of my situation. No feeding tube; I must have just had my massage therapy. I could feel an uncomfortable pull between my legs, though. Uh, oh. I was still leashed to that embarrassing bag.

I tried to imagine what I’d be thinking if someone wanted me to sign a contract in my own blood, wanted it badly enough to injure me for it. Shannon was probably thinking, “I should humor him.” No way was I going to allow that to happen.

“Don’t do it!” I shouted, finally getting my voice box in gear. What came out was more like,
“Nnngghl,”
and possibly some saliva. I tried again. “Shannon.” Closer. Close enough to get her attention.

“Kirsty! You’re awake!” She half rose from the guest chair. “You’re okay!”

Conrad strode over to the bed, waving the stapler at me menacingly. “Sign it or she won’t be!”

“Okay, Dad. I’ll sign. I’ll do whatever you want.” She took a step toward me. “Kirsty, I . . .” She sniffled. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’ve been deader,” I managed, stalling. I sat up on the third try. “Don’t do it, Shannon,” I begged, croaking the words out in the direction she’d been before the room started spinning. “You’ll be signing the rest of your life away.”

“It’s okay, Kirsty. It’s just a piece of paper.”

“It’s so much more than that.” I held my head still with both hands. I succeeded in stopping the room from spinning but without my hands to support me, my spine went spineless and I flopped back down on the pillow, panting with all the effort.

“Sign it or Kirsty dies.”

Killing me wouldn’t serve Conrad’s purpose, since he couldn’t use my soul twice and the first time was still in question before Hell’s courts. But threatening me might extort Shannon into giving him what he wanted.

“Please, honey. Do it for Daddy?” His face twisted into something that should have been a smile.

My gut twisted, too.

Selling your soul is supposed to slow the aging process so he should only have looked around forty. And he did, except that he’d put on weight and developed a shifty, smarmy appearance. His face was bloated and toad-like, a reflection of the man he’d become. No company would have trusted him with their public image if it hadn’t been for his soul Deal. Maybe they never would have.

I tried to recall what he’d looked like when I’d first met him. Maybe he’d always been this creepy and it was the Deal that had made me feel so warm toward him. He’d always been a father figure to me, and look what kind of father he’d turned out to be. One ready to trade away the life of his own daughter!

Willing strength into my limbs, I tossed back the sheets. The hospital gown slid down—who bothers to tie the gown on a coma patient? My arms felt rubbery and there was nothing fine about my motor skills, but I managed to disengage myself from my remaining medical tethers. Ouch!

I shoved myself to the edge of the bed using my hands to get my legs in gear. I slid off the bed and directly onto the floor, blue cotton pooling around me. I yanked the gown up over my flabby body. Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician.

Shannon knelt on the floor beside me, pulling the gown up and beginning to tie it behind my neck.

I shrugged her off; covering my pale and saggy breasts was not our main concern at the moment.

Through gritted teeth, I told Conrad, “You’re going to have to kill me or I’m going to tell the world what you did to me.”

Conrad threw back his head and laughed. “Who’d believe you? It’s just some coma-induced hallucination. Reapers. Scythes. It’s quite a good story, though. Maybe you should write a book.”

I squinted at him, unfocusing my eyes and surveying the room. Skegging Reapers. They’re never around when you need one. I was on my own here.

“Shannon will believe me.” I turned to meet her gaze. “Won’t you?”

She looked confused and skeptical.

I doubted she’d buy my story, but the way Conrad pulled back a little told me I’d hit a guilty nerve. “Shannon, your wonderful dad here made a Deal with the Devil. He’s actually lousy at public relations.”

“Why, you ungrateful bitch! I made you everything you are today! Without me—”

“Yes, you did! You made me the incapacitated, atrophied coma victim I am today. Without you, I’d still have a life. You stole a year from me!” I looked down at my out-of-shape body. After a year of lying still, moving proved painful. I hurt. (Especially “down there,” and I didn’t mean in Hell. You try removing a catheter yourself.) I sagged. I had no home. No family. No career. No friends. Everyone and everything I cared about, and everyone who cared about me, was back in Hell.

Except I did have one friend left on the Mortal Coil. One person who’d remained loyal to me through thick and thin, through sick and sin. I was going to do whatever it took to keep her from suffering the same untimely demise I had. Plus, there was no way I was letting Conrad get any more time on Earth. Lucy Phurr had totally screwed up my original plan with her stupid gift of life. I needed a new plan. I had always been fast on my feet—well, not literally at the moment, but . . . Ah-ha! Got it. Now I just have to . . .

With grim determination and a little help from Shannon, I managed to haul myself up. It was a short distance from where I swayed to where Conrad stood, wielding the stapler. With every bit of strength and willpower I possessed, I put one foot in front of the other. I moved like a zombie—dead gal walking—but I moved.

“Don’t come any closer, Kirsty. I swear I’ll brain you.”

“Do it, Conrad. You took my life from me once with that skeggin’ stapler. Go ahead and do it again. I dare you!”

I lurched another step toward him. I glanced behind me, where Shannon stood frozen, her eyes wide with fear.

“I love you, Shannon. You’ve always been a great friend to me. Like the sister I never had.”

Only a few steps remained. It was more than I could manage with my wasted muscles and weakened lungs. “Go ahead. Make my day,” I said to Conrad. I threw myself the remaining distance, more falling at him than tackling.

A moment’s hesitation, then
bam
! I heard more than felt, the sound of the heavy metal stapler crashing into my skull.

Bam! Bam! Crunch!

Shannon wailed.

Maybe I did, too.

While having one’s skull pounded like an old stump makes a distinct sound, it wasn’t enough to alert anyone outside this room. No nurse or doctor would come running and save me.

Then the pain slammed into me. My head throbbed like nothing I’d ever experienced before—not even when a five-hundred-pound air-conditioning unit had squashed me like a bug. I cried out, screaming in pain and fury.

Conrad hit me again—
bam
!

The pain was so great I couldn’t breathe, and that felt very different now that breathing was important to me again. I shuddered, slithering back down to the icy-cold floor. I realized I was counting, getting slower and slower.

Well, you can’t blame a gal for dying.

Everything went black . . . and then my soul sprang free. Half-naked, pale and saggy Kirsty lay on the floor, one side of her poor shaved head a different shape from the other. At last, I was really dead. I glanced down at myself—the spirit version of me—to see I sported the same fit body and kick-ass outfit I’d worn to my graduation.

“Bastard!” Shannon smashed a bedpan (empty, thankfully) on Conrad’s wrist. He dropped the stapler onto the bed with a howl. It bounced once, the impact causing it to open like a great, gaping mouth. It left a gory outline in red smears and gray bits.

Shannon reached for it, keeping her eyes on her father.

“No, don’t!” I screamed, not wanting her to get fingerprints on the blunt instrument that had orchestrated my final demise. But she couldn’t hear me anymore.

She wrapped her fingers around the black metal, ready to defend herself with Conrad’s weapon of choice. Why couldn’t he have used a gun like a normal person?

I heard another
bam
! Not like a stapler hitting a skull, but sort of a
whoosh-bam.
Where had I heard that before?

“You murdering bastard!” Shannon yelled, hands spasming on the stapler. “You did this. All this time I thought you cared about her. You killed my best friend. First you stole her life and then you killed her.”

Ah,
now
she believed me.

“Yes, I did. Just as she says. But sweetheart, I did it for you. I did everything for you.”

The
whoosh-bam
sound echoed again, just behind me, but I kept my attention on the family feud.

Conrad turned to me, eyes narrowed. “You! No. I’ve got something to offer. Let’s talk!” For a moment I thought he could see me, but he was looking over my shoulder. I spun around. Dante stood behind me in all his Reaper glory, the way I’d first seen him. His robe billowed out behind him, eyes furious, expression dark and grim.

I sagged with relief. I’d been expecting him. What I hadn’t expected was for him to be flanked by Sergeant Schotz and Judge Julius.

“Well?” Dante asked, half turning toward his escort.

“I’ve seen enough. His confession will stand.” The judge nodded, bad hairpiece flapping up and down with the movement.

“Thank you, Judge. And Sergeant, because that proves I mistakenly reaped Kirsty before her time, I know you’ll be confiscating my scythe again and sending me back to the Mortal Coil. I’ll turn myself in as soon as—”

“Forget that, Reaper Alighieri. It’s obvious this creep tricked you, so I’m lettin’ it slide.”

“But, sir. I—”

Judge Julius cut in. “You’re arguing with your boss, Dante? Don’t look a gift scythe in the mouth. This is Hell. We play favorites.” He opened his own mouth, fluorescent light glinting off his demonic fangs. “Besides, I had to study your poems in school. For that cruel and unusual punishment, you belong in Hell.” He raised his gavel and
whoosh-bammed
away.

Sergeant Schotz nodded, lowering his gaze to stare grimly at my half-naked body lying on the floor.

I moved to try to cover myself, but my hand passed right through the blue gown and my own chest. Dante quickly moved in to cover it for me, succeeding where I had failed. I needed to learn that trick.