Kiss Me Deadly: Tales of a Paranormal Romance

fact, the two of them would have never found each other, would have never fallen in love, if it weren’t for the fact that Velvet was a “dirty haunter” herself. Though, she couldn’t be blamed, could she? It’s not as though her killer could just be allowed to go on torturing and murdering young girls. Velvet wouldn’t allow it. But that issue had been cleared up long ago, or at least a few months prior, when Manny had found out Velvet’s secret.

“Whatever. Like I give a crap whether he haunts. I’ve got a job to do, and I do it well. We’re all just killing time until we dim out and move on. What’s the harm in slipping through to the other side? It don’t hurt nobody.”

“Except sometimes it does.”

Velvet thought about the shadowquakes that happen when souls set their minds to a little mischief in the land of the living. It was bad enough with all the psychics and the mediums trying to interfere in Purgatory, but add some dead apples to the mix, and it was a recipe for trouble.

Charlie shrugged and finished his counting. “One hundred and eighteen pieces.”

“Sweet.” Nick whistled.

Charlie nodded in his direction.

Nick stepped forward. “You don’t sound like you blame Old Abner for taking off.”

“Well no. Not with...” He stopped mid sentence.

Velvet thought she saw his eyes dart toward the doorway. But when she slapped the curtain open, no one was there, listening or otherwise.

“You were saying?” she asked.

“I wasn’t saying nothin’. Abner’s just gone. Isn’t it up to you guys to find him anyway? We’ve got missions and stuff to deal with. Being down a team member doesn’t exactly lighten the work load.”

He stood up and stripped off his robe immodestly.

Velvet pivoted away and dove head first through the curtain.

She heard Nick saying his good-byes and then he ducked out too.

“That was weird.”

“Uh ... yeah,” she said. “I could have gone a lifetime without seeing...”

“I meant what he was saying about Conroy.”

Back in the open area of the courtyard, they found Amie, changed into a satin tuxedo and top hat, her hair coiled about her face like a caress. She sat atop the table with her legs crossed and skirt slit open to reveal surprisingly long legs for such a short girl. All around her sat the card players, the gloom of their loss replaced by wicked laughter. Glancing across the room and eyes lighting on Velvet, Amie launched into a fit of evil giggles.

Velvet was pretty sure she was the butt of the joke.

Amie led them to a tiny gate that opened up into a field. There were so few areas of Purgatory that weren’t occupied by some sort of construction so Velvet was surprised to see a paper garden. Origami trees made of twisted metal and newsprint leaves surrounded them like an orchard and beyond that a crude stone wall beset with crepe vines and a small bronze door, no taller than if it had been made for dogs or dolls.

“What’s that?” Nick squatted and peered into the shadows.

Amie knelt down next to the door, steadying herself on the iron ashpot standing nearby—a returning soul always returns fresh and clean and bright ... blindingly bright—and produced a shiny bronze key from her pocket. She cranked the lock and opened the door, revealing a thin crack in the limestone behind it. No ordinary crack, obviously. Not like the ones you jump over to avoid breaking your mother’s back, or the kind to which you “just say no” when propositioned by a slimy guy in the 7-Eleven parking lot.

In Purgatory, cracks were doorways. Usually.

The majority of cracks in the Latin Quarter were safely protected in caves, behind big wrought-iron gates. The ones that developed later from manipulations and shadowquakes had since been sealed—or rather, most of them had.

Velvet glanced at the little door, hinges glinting in the low light of the garden.

“So this is the way, then?” Velvet asked, not really expecting a response, and not really getting one.

Amie simply gestured to the spidery crack in the limestone and stepped aside, rolling the key between her fingers.

“You wouldn’t lock us in there, now would you?” Nick joked, unbuttoning his vest, and drawing the attentions of both girls.

Velvet lingered on the shimmering glow of her boyfriend’s chest, until she felt another set of eyes perusing the merchandise, however.

She snapped in Amie’s direction. “We’ve got it from here, thanks. Unless you’ll be accompanying us?”

“Why would I?” Amie retorted. “You’re so good at your job.”

“Then maybe you should run along and give us a little privacy?”

Amie arched her neck and peered around Velvet at Nick, who continued to undress. Velvet stuck her head directly in her way. “Seriously. It’s called loitering, look it up.”

“All right,” Amie threw her hands into the air. “I was just trying to be helpful. But you’re the big Body Thief, aren’t you?”

Velvet rolled her eyes and wished for the girl to simply disappear. Then she pivoted and shielded Nick’s body as it thinned and stretched, becoming less corporeal by the second until, finally, he slid his whole self into the crack, like a letter into a mail slot.

“Stay away from him.” Velvet warned.

“Oh,” Amie cooed. She held up her delicate white fingers and brushed them against Velvet’s cheek. “And what if it’s not Nick I’m after?”

Velvet shrank back, and the girl cackled viciously, turning and striding back through the garden happily. She may have even been humming.

Doesn’t she know I’ll hurt her? Velvet fumed.

* * *

Slipping through cracks doesn’t really feel like travel. It doesn’t feel like anything. One minute you’re stretching out, naked as the day you were born, only slightly less ... there than you were before, and the next you’re popping out on the other side, looking exactly like you did the moment before you died.

Like a memory.

It might seem silly to strip down to your birthday suit for the process, but as Velvet knew from experience, when a soul pops back into the City of the Dead, it’s kind of nice to have clothes that haven’t been shredded to ribbons. It’s hard enough for Collectors like Booda Khan to bring clothing through into Purgatory, but getting them back out is another thing, entirely.

The crack let out into a bright bustling kitchen, white floors scuffed with black rubber, and men and women in tomato sauce-spattered chef whites. It took a bit of hunting to pick Nick out of the clamor, especially when Velvet could only see the back of his body, transparent and protruding from the far wall like a piece of modern art, meant only for her eyes. Or any other ghost’s, she supposed. But, to get to him, they’d have to go through her first.

“Nick!” she shouted over the din of the kitchen.

He thunked out of the wall and waved excitedly. “Over here.”

“Could you believe that bitch?” Velvet asked as she slipped her arm around his waist, or through it, as was the case. Souls in Purgatory were at least solid. In the “daylight”—as they sometimes called “being on earth”—souls were opaque and flimsy as smoke. She had to make a conscious effort to give her hands enough form to touch her boyfriend.

Nick shrugged. “What I can’t believe is how good the food looks. Reminds me of Sal-Antonio’s on First. They had the best braciole in tomata gravy.” His voice took on that affected Italian New York accent that you hear so often on TV.

Velvet glanced at the trays that passed and marveled at the shiny silver domes covering them. “Fancy,” she noted and stuck her head through the wall.

On the other side, the dining room was packed with hundreds of hungry diners, cramming forkful after forkful of delicious-looking food down their salivating maws. She watched a plate of linguine with clam sauce being delicately served to a nearby patron, a staunch and starched gentleman in a pin-striped suit with a cloth napkin shoved into the neck of his dress shirt. He already had his fork in his hand by the time the plate connected with the