“Look, Dante. They’ve only got circumstantial evidence—the stapler that’s been the cause of all this trouble. And now the digital file of Shannon saying she wished me dead.”
Realizing what I’d just said, I looked away.
“What do you mean? I never wished you dead.”
“On the phone, yesterday morning. You said you felt like it was you in the coma and that you wished I’d either wake up or die.” By the end of that sentence, I’d gone from reluctant to share to angry at her for feeling that my tragedy was an imposition, then feeling betrayed and sad that she’d wished me dead.
“Oh, Kirsty. I’m so sorry. You know I didn’t mean it that way.” Shannon held out her arms. Now I got the hug I’d craved earlier. We clutched each other for long moments. “I really wished you’d wake up, Kirsty. I really did. I’ve missed you so much.”
I nodded, stepping out of the circle of her arms. She felt a little insubstantial. Like being hugged by the Michelin Man when he needed his pressure checked. I could see the light shining behind her—right through her. We’d better hurry up and get her back into her body.
Dante must have arrived at the same conclusion. He’d stood by quietly while Shannon and I worked out our issues with hugs and soft words. Now he coughed and gestured for me to continue with my thoughts on the case. Where was I? Oh, right. The recording. “So Frannie, dedicated employee that she is, recorded your side of the telephone conversation and then played it back for the police. By now, it will have been copied and emailed all over the place so there’s no point in stealing Frannie’s iPhone, but the stapler . . . The stapler is the key piece of evidence and you should go and get that.”
Dante stared at the ground and rubbed his chin. “Look, Kirsty. I know you mean well, but I think we’re going down the wrong path. I need to report our progress to Colin and see what he has to say. He may decide we should wait or maybe we should file a Wrongful Termination Appeal. This was supposed to be a straightforward capture and release into Hell and it’s gotten way out of hand. Shannon, I’m sorry but I need to take you to Hell now.”
He reached for Shannon’s hand again—like he hadn’t been holding it enough lately.
My turn now. I grabbed her other hand and jerked her toward me, right out of Dante’s grasp. I shouted nearly the same words I had the day of my own scything, “Hell, no. We won’t go!” I thrust Shannon behind me. “By all means, Dante. You go. Report in to Sergeant Schotz. Then come back to us. But you know Hell. Easy to get into, but really hard to get back out again. Plus you can’t teleport her with her body still alive, so we’d have to walk. And that means we’d have to encounter the . . .” I lowered my voice and hissed, “Gee-gnomes. What if she gets stung? Then what?”
Shannon hissed in a sharp breath. “What are gee-gnomes?”
“Dante knows,” I told her. “And that’s all that’s important right now.” Turning back to Dante, I pleaded, “Don’t do this to her. I’ll stay here with Shannon. Please?”
Dante gave me a look that was hard to interpret, but I don’t think he was pleased. He tended to be a very by-the-book guy most of the time. His honesty and trustworthiness were two of his many good points. A tiny voice at the back of my mind wanted to know how I could be jealous of someone I trusted. I stomped it down; I was busy.
“Remember what you said to me, Dante. The thing with Hell is you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.”
Dante’s stern look grew fuzzy around the edges just as his whole body had when he’d become corporeal. He couldn’t hold it any longer and he started to laugh. “Okay, Kirsty. We’ll see this through. But only another forty- eight hours.” He lowered his voice. “She’s starting to fade.” He gestured toward Shannon. “And so are we.” He held out his hand like you do when you want to see if you’ve got the shakes, but it didn’t look much different than usual.
I held out my own, squinting at it. Had it always been a little blurry around the cuticles or did I need glasses? Or a manicure. I thrust my hand in my robe pocket and decided not to think about it. A lot could happen in forty- eight hours.
Suddenly the lights came on. Wake-up call in cell block B.
Conrad mumbled something about rising and shining.
The upper bunk creaked and Maddy landed on the cell floor with a thunk.
Deus Ex-Girlfriend
“THAT’S IT. I can’t stand it anymore!” Maddy grabbed Conrad by his long brown hair, hauling him out of bed. She loomed over him, her free hand clenched. She shook with fury. “I’m closing your fuckin’ trap forever!”
Either Maddy telegraphed her punch or Shannon’s self-defense class kicked at her muscle memory, but no matter why, Conrad ducked. The momentum of Maddy’s onslaught threw her off balance. She released Shannon’s hair and grabbed the bedpost to steady herself.
“Ha!” Conrad taunted.
God, what an idiot.
Maddy recovered her balance, madder than ever, and tackled Conrad. He fell heavily to the floor, Maddy on top of him. Now she raised her fist again. He had no way of avoiding this blow.
But it never landed.
“Stop! Maddy! Shannon!” Theresa charged down the hall, radio already in hand. “Fight in cell block B. Need immediate assistance.”
Maddy lowered her fist, instead locking her hands around Conrad’s stolen throat.
Theresa panted to a halt at the cell door, swapping out the radio for the keycard. “Break it up, you two!”
Conrad tried to speak. Was he trying to beg for his life or to taunt Maddy again? He grated out nothing resembling words, scrabbling at Maddy’s hands ineffectively. Maddy’s grip tightened, her face twisted with as much evil as any demon I’d ever met.
Conrad’s face quickly turned bloated and red, a lot like his demonic form.
Shannon threw herself at her father’s attacker, but sailed through her harmlessly, bouncing along the cell floor, ending up with her head and shoulders thrust into the wall. Unlike Dante, she didn’t know the trick of becoming corporeal. I wasn’t sure she could even do it with her body still alive.
Theresa finally got the cell door open and dove into the fray, trying to yank Maddy off Conrad.
Maddy elbowed Theresa hard, sending her flying back toward the bunks. With a soft
Maddy flung herself on top of Theresa now, wrapping her big paws around the guard’s throat and squeezing hard enough to turn her own knuckles white. “I’ll kill you all!” she yelled, her face a sick mask of rage.
To my utter shock and amazement, Conrad recovered enough to leap onto Maddy’s back, trying to pull the blood-crazed inmate off her new victim. He hung on like a bull rider while Maddy tried to shrug him off without breaking her stranglehold on Theresa.
Had Conrad come to care for the saintly guard?
“Dante! Kirsty! Do something!” Shannon begged. “Save them.”
I scrunched up my eyes and concentrated, trying to make myself corporeal. If I could at least appear to them out of nowhere, maybe my unexpected materialization would be enough to shock Maddy out of her killing spree. If not, I didn’t know what I could do. Being a Reaper didn’t give you superstrength or anything. And that Maddy was big and superscary.
Before I could figure out how to manifest, I heard the sound of more soles squeaking and pounding down the hall. I opened my eyes to see three new guards charging toward us, stun guns and nightsticks at the ready.
The first to arrive slammed her nightstick against the cell. The metal bars clanged. “Shannon Iver. Maddy
