Esprit de Corpse

looking proud of himself. “See. Now you try.”

It took some prodding, but finally she tried tickling her own nose—the one her dad was currently wearing— but Conrad wasn’t feeling it. Shannon sighed with frustration. Oh, wait, that was me. Dante had never tried to teach me to manipulate objects on the Coil. To be fair, this was really the first opportunity we’d had, but here he was teaching Shannon and she wasn’t even really dead!

I refused to admit I was being a lifist. After all, I’d been on the receiving end of lifist bullying from that bigoted jock, Rod, who’d been in my class at the Reaper Academy. Then I remembered how he’d been sucked through the swirling vortex and into the Heller dimension. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Even him. I felt ashamed of myself.

But not for long because we’d arrived at the precinct.

Detective Leo parked near the door and assisted Conrad from the car before marching him into the station. They’d reached what must have been Booking. A few officers toiled at desks corralled behind a long laminated counter. An equally long bench lined the opposite wall. Leo recuffed Conrad’s hands in front and then locked a short length of chain from the plastic cuffs to a metal loop in the bench. He waited his turn to check in with the booking officer.

Conrad continued his attempts to get the charges dropped, now including the booking officer in his pleas and threats. Everyone ignored him. Perhaps they’d been around this block a time or two before.

In record time, Conrad’s lawyer, Gill Hammerhead, appeared, instantly taking over with his own pleas and threats.

“She’s not a flight risk,” Hammerhead insisted. “Plus she’s got money. Shannon Iver is the CEO of a very successful public relations firm.” He dropped his voice and whispered conspiratorially, “She just lost her father, you know. She’s an orphan.”

Somehow being called an orphan is a lot more meaningful when you’re eight years old. People tended to be less sympathetic to someone in their mid-twenties losing a parent. Still, Hammerhead was good. Almost as good as Conrad.

Had he made a Deal of his own? I could ask Sybil to check.

“Bail will be set in the morning. You know that, Gill.” Detective Leo and Conrad’s lawyer were no doubt old acquaintances. “Besides, she’s got no family, friends, boyfriend or girlfriend. Not even a cat.”

I sniffled a little. With the exception of my beloved aunt and her partner, he could have been describing me.

“Plus, when I interviewed her staff, they told me she’s got no interest in running her father’s business, so she absolutely is a flight risk. I doubt the court will set bail at all, or if they do, it’ll be sky-high.”

“Well, I tried.” Gill Hammerhead glanced at his BlackBerry, thumbing through messages. He dropped it back in his briefcase. “See you tomorrow, Shannon honey.”

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Conrad yelled, Shannon’s voice taking on a tone of angry entitlement I’d never heard before.

At least not from her.

Hammerhead scowled at his client. “You get more and more like your father every day.” He turned his back and strode down the hall, briefcase swinging jauntily from one hand.

“Oh, my God,” Shannon cried. “My father’s been charged with murdering Kirsty. We have to do something!”

“Of course, we’ll do something.” I squeezed her free hand. In my head I added, Yeah, we’ll do something all right. Something like sit back and let justice take its course.

Chapter 7 The Wages of Spin

MUCH AS I wanted to see Conrad behind bars for his crimes, I couldn’t let that happen. Or at least, I couldn’t let that happen here on the Coil. Not only would Conrad skip town, er, bodies and leave Shannon’s to lie in a hospital bed like mine had, but Dante would also fail to retrieve Conrad’s soul as assigned by Sergeant Schotz. He’d be drummed out of the Reaper Corps, reincarnated and I’d lose him forever.

“Shannon,” I said, gripping her shoulders and looking her in the eye. “The first thing we need to do is prove you’re innocent. It doesn’t matter who’s in your body for the trial.”

In fact, her dad might make the better defendant. Even without the Deal, he understood persuasion and he’d had lots of practice. And as an added bonus, he’d be using his talents for good instead of evil.

But I said none of this out loud.

Instead, I told myself to start acting like Hell’s bounty hunter, which, in my new, hard-won role as Reaper, I was. So, step one in the Save Shannon Plan, hide the incriminating evidence.

“Shannon, what happened to the stapler? The one Conrad used to bash in my brains? It must have his fingerprints on it, right?”

Along with my blood and little gray bits of brain tissue. I shuddered, my head suddenly throbbing. I let my hands drop from her shoulders.

“Kirsty.” Dante gave me a look that failed to warm the cockles of my heart. In fact, could you have frozen cockles? “A word, please?”

“Just one? Okay then.”

He patted Shannon and leaned her up against a wall.

She didn’t seem to have noticed yet the way things were solid to us or not, depending on circumstances. Like if she wanted to, she’d be able to walk through that same wall that was now the only thing keeping her upright. When I’d first been scythed, I’d asked all sorts of questions like that.

Shannon? Just leaned where she’d been left.

As if to prove my point, I followed Dante through that same wall for a private word.

“So how we going to play this, Dante? Can we somehow trick Conrad into—”

“Kirsty! How could you make a vow like that? And on my behalf, too. We cannot drive Conrad from that body. It would be better if we followed protocol. Rules are in place for a reason.”

“Yes. Yes, they are. And the reason they’re in place is to make sure nothing like fairness actually happens. It’s Hell, Dante. Have you called it home so long you’ve forgotten what fair is?”

The irony that I wasn’t being fair wasn’t lost on me, but all’s fair in love and war and this fell somewhere in the middle. “We’re getting Shannon cleared of all charges and we’re getting her life back and that’s final.” He wasn’t the only one who could make blanket pronouncements.

Ignoring whatever he had to say next, I stepped back through the wall just in time to hear Shannon say, “They have it.”

“What? Who? What?”

Dante stepped through after me. “Cosa? Who? Cosa?” Damn translator app. Sometimes it worked too well and others, it gernsaple dansbow.

“You asked me about the stapler.” She pushed away from the wall, swayed a bit, but remained standing. Her jaw was set firm and her eyes were tear-free for the first time since I’d hauled her off her office floor. It appeared she’d finally pulled herself together. Well, it wasn’t like there was a timetable for coming to grips with having your soul ripped from your living body. Just because I’d handled it better . . .

“The police took it as evidence from the crime scene.”

Which matched up with what I believed had happened. Hard to recall exactly. Being bludgeoned to death tends to demand all your attention.

“Well, then they’ll use their awesome CSI technology to look at the layers of fingerprints and see that his were the last ones laid down on the . . .”

Oh, no. Memories of the final moments of my Coil life floated up from the bottom of my brainpan. I could almost grab it. I tried to relax and use one of the memory-enhancing techniques the former Death Valley girl