Esprit de Corpse

Heaven. It would be like getting picked out of the lineup for the most exclusive club in town and then being told to come back later.

Could I stop Conrad? I could appear only to him, right? I closed my eyes and concentrated on materializing, just as I heard a sharp gasp.

Suddenly I felt awful. My throat ached and steel bands seemed to cut my chest in two. My head hurt and my neck hurt and my shoulders . . . Forget the list, let’s just say everything hurt. I raised one hand to my forehead but it merely fluttered limply by my side . . . just like it had back in my hospital bed when my body had been re-souled.

Now I sucked in a harsh gasp.

“She’s alive. She’s alive!” someone yelled. Lots of someones began yelling.

Oh, skeg. This was the last thing I needed. I blinked my eyes open and looked around. The guards’ worried faces hovered over me. Didn’t anyone in correctional services trim their nose hair?

“M’okay,” I rasped. “H’lp m’up.”

My voice kept cutting out, like bad phone reception. Someone helped me up onto the lower bunk where I lay, resting my back against the cold wall.

The paramedics arrived. I guess it had only taken them about four minutes, but what with the angel dropping by and all, it seemed longer. I was shifted to a gurney and wheeled to the prison’s medical facility. I kept insisting I was fine in a hoarse whisper that clearly said I was not.

I refused to go to the hospital. I did agree to let them X-ray my throat right there in the prison infirmary. While lying quietly on the gurney, I attempted to cut my spiritual tethers to Theresa’s body, but no luck. I was well and truly stuck.

I’d been sucked back into my own body when they’d tried unplugging it. I should have stood farther back from Theresa’s.

But that time, I’d been able to exit my body. It had taken extreme effort and saving my aunt’s life as incentive, but I’d done it. Well, I had Shannon’s life to save now. Why the hell couldn’t I get out?

I tried again and again, flinging my immortal soul at the edges of Theresa’s mortal body without success. Maybe because my body had lain empty for so long it had been easier to get out whereas Theresa’s body was young and healthy and not interested in giving up being alive just yet.

“You’ll have to hold still, Theresa,” the X-ray tech ordered.

And so I lay still, a plan beginning to form in my newly acquired brain.

Chapter 12 Immaculate Deception

MY THROAT STILL hurt, but a few lozenges later, I had a sexy rasp and was working on a hall pass.

“If you won’t go to a hospital, Theresa, will you at least stay here overnight?”

I considered this. Now that I had a body again, it would need to sleep. Oh, sure. I could check my pockets to see what kind of car Theresa drove and where she lived. Oops. I should say had driven and had lived. I could explain away things like not knowing which locker was mine because I’d—Hello!—just come back from the dead.

Both of us.

But what if Theresa hadn’t lived alone? She could have parents, a partner, kids. It would only hurt them to see their beloved Theresa like this. Obviously the Theresa they knew and loved was never coming back, so why put them through this? No, better they remember Theresa at full capacity rather than as Reaper-pretending-to- be-Theresa-with-partial-amnesia. Not to mention the string of nightmare bruises circling my neck and eyes as red as those of many of my friends back in Hell.

And what if Theresa’s family arranged to forcibly send me to the hospital and then I couldn’t come back here?

No. Better I stay the night here and then get up and do my job again tomorrow. Theresa’s job, I meant, reminding myself not to get too comfortable in this body.

Although it wasn’t like anyone would miss it . . .

With some trepidation, I investigated an uncomfortable bulge in my uniform pants. It turned out to be nothing requiring a change in orientation but rather a heavy ring of keys. I hoped one of the small keys opened a locker. I’d wait until the night shift was well under way, then find the locker room and try them all until I found one that worked. Theresa seemed like the kind of gal who would keep a change of uniform in her locker. And I would need one by tomorrow.

“Okay, Doc. I’ll stay.”

“Great. We’ll transfer you to the secure ward.” He gestured toward a locked room. “It’s designed to keep patients in. But in this case, it’ll be to keep the other patients from getting at you.”

He seemed to think this funny.

A quick reconnoiter of the medical facility showed me a number of scary-looking patients sporting nasty bruises and wounds. And this was only the women’s section. I suddenly understood how dangerous the job of prison guard could be. That Theresa really was a saint! Had been . . . Whatever.

I’d have to tell Mr. Kahn about this job next time he rushed through the Reincarnation Station. Might be a speedier route to a positive number in his Karmic Kredit Kolumn, I mean column, than being a member of the Frequent Diers Club, although he did insist membership had its privileges—like never living long enough to have to get a job.

I lounged around for the rest of the day, slurping down soup and some well-chewed veggies. Damn, but my throat hurt.

Dante dropped by, but I wasn’t inclined to hear him lecture me about how I should have known better. Blah, blah, blah. So I feigned sleep.

Around six, the doctor left for the day, instructing the night nurse to call him should anything happen. The night nurse apparently knew Theresa. He seemed like a nice guy. When he stopped by to see if I needed anything, I asked him a favor.

“I just want to . . .” I cleared my rough throat and tried again. Being strangled takes its toll. “I just want to go and say thank you to Conrad, I mean Shannon Iver. I won’t be long.”

“You really should be resting. Doctor’s orders. You’re lucky not to have sustained permanent damage to your vocal chords.”

“Please.” I tried batting my eyelashes. “I am a trained professional.”

The nurse barked out a laugh and agreed to let me out into the hallway.

It felt weird to have a body again. Especially one with a headache and really sore throat. Still, I kind of liked it. You don’t realize how much you miss something until you’re sucked back inside it.

I walked along the quiet corridors following the signs for L wing. I’d reached a particularly barren section of hallway flanked by darkened administrative offices when I sensed someone behind me.

I swung around in a low crouch, my hand automatically reaching for my scythe. The scythe that wasn’t there. Skeg. If only I’d had that kind of timely response when Conrad had first materialized in Shannon’s office, none of this would be happening now.

“Dante!” I rasped. My Reaper took a step toward me, feet soundless on the hallway’s cheap carpeting.

“Cara,” he responded. It occurred to me that he hadn’t called me cara since all this started. “I’m so sorry. How did this happen?”

“I think I know. Remember when I got sucked back into my coma-toes, I mean, comatose body? I didn’t realize it at the time because they’d already unhooked all the monitors, but I must have died for a second, then gasped back to life. So when a body gets a reboot, it sucks in the nearest soul.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face, brushing back his perpetually overlong bangs. We do have barbers in Hell, but he always returned with his hair in his eyes, which was totally crazy. I guess he liked the lunatic fringe.