The Wish List (5 page)

She tried watching TV. But it was no good. Her supernatural eyesight picked out every electron on the screen. Focusing on the pictures took real concentration.

Food, then, was the only option left to her. Not that she was hungry or anything, it was just for something to do. She pilfered a chocolate mousse from Lowrie's fridge and scooped it out with her fingers. Disgusting, certainly, but absolutely delicious.

And that was fine, just as long as Meg was actually concentrating on the mousse. But the second she stopped thinking about it, the sloppy goo began to float out through the walls of her stomach. Once they'd cleared her aura, gravity took hold and the dessert splatted onto the checkerboard linoleum.

Meg grimaced. Looked like she'd never be hungry again. But she'd never be stuffed either. Sighing mightily, the in-betweener lay on a threadbare sofa, being very careful not to think hole. Even so, memories of lost Smarties cried out to her from behind the cushions. There was a diamond ring down there too. Or there had been. It had belonged to Nora. Someone called Nora.

Lowrie inched down the stairs, eyes squinted for focus.

“Hello?” he called hesitantly. A stranger in his own house.

Meg sat up on the sofa. “Who's Nora?”

Lowrie froze, one foot halfway between steps. “Nora? Who told you about Nora?”

“The sofa,” said Meg simply.

Lowrie scanned her face for sarcasm, but found none. Why should there be? Apparently anything was possible. He limped heavily to the foot of the stairs, lowering himself, grimacing, into his easy chair. Meg could almost hear his bones creaking.

“Nora was my wife. We shared twenty-seven years of our lives.”

Meg sighed. Happy family stories always made her go mushy. “You're lucky. To stay married that long.”

“Lucky?” snorted the old man. “It's easy to tell you weren't married to her. She drank like a barrel of fish and smoked sixty cigarettes a day. Why do you think I live in this dump? That old sponge drank everything we had, including the furniture.”

“I suppose it was the drink that killed her in the end?” Meg said, trying to sound mature and sympathetic.

Lowrie nodded. “In a way. She came home plastered one night, and drank a bottle of bleach by accident.”

Now it was Meg's turn to look for sarcasm. Not a trace.

“And I'm just about getting my life in order, when in come you two and that big wolf of yours.”

Meg thought back to the tunnel. “Oh, we're paying for our crimes. Believe me.”

“That other chap. Is he in . . . you know. Down below?”

“Yep,” nodded Meg.

“And what's your punishment?”

“I'm here listening to you, aren't I?”

“Oh, ha-ha. You're a riot. Well, I'm glad you're taking death so casually.”

Meg sighed. “I'm still alive. Only different. My life wasn't any great shakes, anyway.”

Lowrie nodded glumly. He knew the feeling.

“Can I ask you something?”

Lowrie nodded cautiously. “I suppose so.”

“What's wrong with you?”

The old man paled. “What sort of question is that?”

“Well, last night, when we were . . . joined . . . I felt something inside you. I dunno, something sort of bad.”

Lowrie snorted. “
Sort of bad?
Could you give me that in layman's terms?”

“Bad, dark . . . I don't know. I'm not a doctor.”

“Go on—aren't you?”

“Oh, forget it!” scowled Meg. “I'm sorry I asked.”

Lowrie rubbed the scar on his leg. “It's my heart,” he said. “The old pump is giving out.”

“Are you . . .”

The old man nodded ruefully. “
Yes
. Couple of months. Six at the most.”

Meg squinted at him. “Don't worry. Blue aura. Straight up to the Pearlies.”

“It's not the afterlife I'm worried about. It's this one.”

“It's a bit late for that.”

“You don't understand. Youngsters! Would you shut up and listen for once in your life—or death —or whatever.”

Meg swallowed a retort. Even uncharitable thoughts caused a dozen red shoots to sprout in her aura.

“Okay. I'm listening.”

Lowrie pulled a spiral notepad from his dressing-gown pocket.

“My life's been a disaster. The whole thing. Not one high point to look back on. From marrying that old fish Nora, to getting my leg chewed by that beast.”

“There must have been something.”

Lowrie shook his head. “Nope. I've made a mess of sixty-eight years. Every single decision I ever made was the wrong one.”

Meg allowed a big “I doubt it” look to paste itself across her face.

“Wipe that look off your face. It's hard enough explaining what a pathetic human being I am, without you sneering at my every word.”

“What do you want me to do? I can't go back in time or anything.”

“Oh,” said Lowrie, disappointed.

“I'll just help you around the house for a few days until my aura goes blue, and then poof, I'm off.”

“Will you shut up about yourself, and listen! I'm sure God Almighty didn't send you down here to do the dishes!”

Meg scowled. Old guys thought they knew everything. Here was this fellow mouthing off about God, and he wasn't even dead yet.

“If you were sent back, it must be to do something special.”

A nervous feeling growled in Meg's spiritual stomach. “Like?”

“Like help me sort out my life.”

You had to laugh. So Meg did. “Sort out your life. What life? You've only got half a year left.” It was the sort of thing Meg Finn did. Blurted out a mean statement like that, and then felt guilty for months.

“Well, I didn't mean . . .” she stammered.

“No. You're right. What life? That's what I've been trying to tell you.” Lowrie's eyes were lost in past memories. “If only . . .”

He shook himself back to the present. “Too late for
if onlys
. Time to do something about it.”

He opened the spiral pad. “So, I've made a list.”

Ah! Point on the horizon, Captain. “What sort of list?”

“I've divided my life into a series of mistakes. Things I didn't do when I had the chance. It wasn't easy, I'm telling you. There was a lot to choose from. But I've narrowed it down to four.”

The old man tore a page from the pad and handed it to the reluctant spirit.
Page
, thought Meg, and took the sheet. The surface was covered with barely legible scribbles. It didn't matter. The words sang out to Meg before she even attempted to read them. Even the squiggles were bursting with emotion. The pain of compiling this list swirled from the page in ropy, moaning memories.

There were at least twenty items on the list, most of which had been crossed out. That didn't matter to Meg. Their images leaked out through the inklike ghostly reminders. Lowrie wasn't exaggerating. His life had been a disaster. Marrying an alcoholic, living with her mother, not getting fire insurance for his first house. Arriving for a holiday in Yugoslavia on the day war broke out. It went on and on. These were things that couldn't be addressed. There was no helping them. But four items were circled and numbered. Meg read them slowly, not believing what the spectral images told her.

At last, a puzzled soul looked up from the page. “I don't get it,” she said simply.

“It's not too late for these,” said Lowrie, his face shining. “They can still be done.”

Meg snorted. “You're not serious.”

“Oh, but I am, young lady. Regret is a powerful incentive.”

“I don't even know what you're talking about. I'm only fourteen, you know.”

Lowrie rubbed his scarred calf. “With your help, I can accomplish these things. I never could before. But when you . . . possessed me yesterday, I felt young again. Ready for anything.

“But these! I mean, what's the point? It's crazy.”

Lowrie nodded. “To you, maybe. To everyone else on the planet. But these were my greatest failures. Now I have a chance to put them right, even if no one cares but me.”

Meg was running out of arguments. “But what will it change, running around the country like a crazy man?”

“Nothing,” Lowrie admitted. “Except my opinion of myself. And that, young Meg, becomes very important to a person as they grow older.”

Meg felt scowl wrinkles settle across her forehead. She hated that “you'll understand it when you're older” chestnut. Especially now, as she wasn't getting any older. Ever.

She waved the flimsy sheet at him. “It has to be this? We have to travel the length and breadth of Ireland to complete four idiotic tasks? Nothing else will do you?”

“That's it,” replied Lowrie. “That's the deal. That list is the only way to heaven,” he paused pointedly, “for either of us.”

Belch was back. Sort of. Sort of Belch, and sort of back. Confused? He wasn't. Myishi had downloaded a complete “virtual help tutorial” module into his memory. Now all he had to do was think of a question, and a cyber demon would search the implants for hits. Like having a compu-geek in your head. Just as it should be. Let the real men do the real work, and the nerds play with their toys.

The Devil himself had dropped in to the departure lounge to see Belch off. For the first time since the Mettallica concert, Belch was impressed.

Satan was wearing his Rough Beast form and wasted no time filling the new arrival in on the urgency of this mission. He grabbed Belch by the throat and pinned him to the cave wall.

“Go back. Find the girl. Make her bad. Quickly.”

The Devil's eyes were round and red. Screaming souls swirled in the irises. You had to admire effects like that.

Grandstander, thought Beelzebub, quietly.

“Make her bad?” inquired Belch respectfully.

Beelzebub winced. The Master didn't do questions.

Satan's grip tightened on Belch's windpipe and the canine in him whimpered involuntarily. Sparks sizzled around the Beast's sinewy frame, singeing Belch's matted fur.

“Bad!” Satan growled. “Make her bad.”

“Fine,” gasped Belch. “Make her bad. Got it.”

“Hurrggh,” grunted the Devil doubtfully, dropping Belch to the marble floor.

“If not . . .” Satan left the sentence unfinished, vaporizing a passing spit turner to make his point.

Belch swallowed. That was clear enough.

“Yes, Master,” bobbed Belch. “Consider her baddened.”

“Hurrggh,” grunted the Lord of Darkness again, and you'd be amazed at the amount of expression he could pack into that single syllable. Then, in a flash of crisped flesh and ozone, the Beast was gone.

Beelzebub crossed to an elevator door and pressed B for basement. Belch followed in his strange half-and-half lope.

“Technically, you don't have to
make her bad
, as the Master so eloquently put it,” explained Beelzebub. “You just have to stop her being good. The target will have been sent back to help the old man. Your mission is to make sure her efforts fail. That way we get a red aura, blah-blah-blah. The Master gets his precious soul, I keep my job, and you escape an eternity in the barbecue section. And—it ain't beef bein' cooked down there, cowboy.”

Beelzebub liked to think of himself as humorous. Black humor, naturally. He was, after all, a demon. He chuckled gently at his own joke. Belch was encouraged to join in the laughter by the sparks jittering around the teeth of Number Two's trident.

“There's one thing I don't get in all this,” ventured Belch.

“Only one?” sniggered Beelzebub, on a roll now.

“That guy . . .”

“The Master?”

“Yeah, him. Well, he's got me, hasn't he? What does he want that girl for?”

Beelzebub had an answer for that one, but he could-n't even think it this close to the inner chamber. Suffice to say it contained the words stubborn and mule.

“The Master believes Meg Finn to be special. Real potential. She did something to her stepfather apparently.”

Belch swallowed. “Oh, that. Nasty stuff.”

The elevator doors dinged open. Belch stepped in gingerly, half expecting some collapsing trapdoor– ha-ha–you're-not-really-going-back-at-all type of thing. But no, just solid floor. Carpeted with some pinkish hairy material. Better not to think about that.

“How long have I got? To make her bad.”

Beelzebub shrugged. “It depends. Take it easy on the possessions, don't call home too often, and you've got enough juice for a week.”

Belch whined.

“Any problems, check the virtual help. Myishi assures me every eventuality is covered.”

“Okay, boss,” said Belch compliantly, thinking that he'd be off like a bullet as soon as this elevator spat him out on planet Earth. Sayonara, hell, and farewell, stumpy demon in the girly dress.

“It's a kaftan,” said Beelzebub coolly.

“Woof,” croaked Belch. Seemingly his quadruped side dominated in times of stress.

“That's right,” continued hell's Number Two. “I can read minds. Only weak ones, granted, but you're smack-bang in the middle of that category. Don't even think about escape, because the second your life force runs out you'll be snapped back here like a pooch on an elastic leash.”

“Right.”

Beelzebub primed his trident for a level-four whammy. Very nasty. “And you know I can't let you off with that girly dress crack, don't you?”

Belch shook a shaggy head. “Arf-arf.”

“My thoughts exactly,” grinned the demon, jabbing his buzzing staff into Belch's expectant skin.

So Belch was back. Spewed from the mouth of a sweating elevator. Back where it had all begun; correction, back where it had all ended. The gas tank at the oldtimer's apartment.

Very nice it was, too. All orange and shiny, with barely a sign of the tragedy that had occurred there. Except for a hundred shrapnel gouges in the surrounding walls.