Esprit de Corpse

break for it. After all, tempus fugit.

Exhausted from having a body again, I fell asleep almost immediately. I dreamt of swarms of staplers buzzing around me like giant metal gnats. They grew scorpion-style tails similar to the dreaded gee-gnomes, only with staples for stingers. I kicked and hopped out of their metallic range, screaming for Dante to help me, but could only make muffled, underwater noises.

Then I dreamt the swirling vortex of evil reopened, but instead of sucking things in, a figure appeared in the gateway between Hell and Heller. At first it looked like the angelic Beatrice. I smiled at her, but the smile melted off my face as the interdimensional being morphed into Rod the jerk from the Reaper Academy. Instead of a scythe, a gavel or a flaming sword, he brandished a vacuum cleaner wand hooked up to some sort of jet-pack strapped to his back. In my dream, I laughed in Rod’s face, singing “Who ya gonna call?” The laughter died on my lips when he activated the device and sucked my soul into his backpack of evil.

“Lemme out! Lemme out! Lemme—!”

I sat straight up in bed, lungs heaving, blood racing, heart pounding. And I had all those things once again.

“You okay, Theresa?” the night nurse called.

Theresa, who? Oh, right. I was Theresa. I was alive again. I pushed my hair back from my sweaty face, willing the adrenaline rush to subside. “Just a nightmare,” I panted, voice less hoarse than yesterday.

“Time to get up anyway. Here’s your breakfast tray. I’m heading off. Day nurse has gone to get herself a coffee.”

I nodded, accepting the food and hoping for a shower.

Twenty minutes later I was fed, showered and lacing up Theresa’s comfortable shoes.

On the way back from my Deal-making meeting with Conrad in the night I’d taken a side trip to the women’s locker room to scavenge some clean clothes. I pulled Theresa’s fresh uniform on and futzed with my new hair. I brushed it forward and then combed it back. After trying several complicated styles, I wove it into the short braid Theresa usually wore. She had been a very attractive woman even with a severe hair style and no makeup.

Hands on hips, I swiveled right, then left. Theresa looked pretty good on me. She was slim, fit and pretty. Maybe Shannon could have this body if we couldn’t manage to oust Conrad from hers. It was a backup plan.

Or maybe I’d keep it.

I left the infirmary thinking I could stay in this body. Nobody would miss it. I’d been cheated out of mine, after all. I could have a life on the Coil and still be a Reaper after I’d lived to a ripe old age and died in my sleep.

Dante had said he’d wait for me. Or maybe we weren’t together anymore. I was pretty pissed at him for calling me the wrong name . . . again! But I was willing to forgive him, if he apologized hard enough. If only— Ow!

I hadn’t been watching where I was going and had walked into a door, expecting to pass right through it.

I rubbed the fast-rising egg on my forehead. Nice. Now I had a matching set: a purple lump on my forehead plus maroon and black finger marks ringing my borrowed throat. I stepped back and opened the door first, then walked through it.

Why would anybody want a body when they could move about the Coil without needing to eat, sleep or pee. It was liberating, freeing. Like running around naked only with clothes on.

Besides, if I was alive and Dante was dead, could we still have sex? Would we be able to keep the romance in necromancy? Assuming we still had a romance.

I rubbed my head some more and tried to swallow past my sore throat. My stomach felt queasy. Was that a cramp coming on? Five minutes ago I’d considered staying in Theresa’s body. Now I couldn’t wait to get out of this living carcass. Conrad could have it, cramps and all.

I grabbed a coffee and joined my escort detail. Maddy’s usual guard had her prisoner cuffed and ready to go. In all the body swap excitement, I’d forgotten Maddy’s preliminary hearing was piggybacking on Conrad’s.

The drive into town was busier today, largely because I had a body and a job. The job was easy: keep your eyes on your charge and your hand on your weapon. The body wasn’t. I jostled and bounced like before, once again earning myself a numb butt.

And I had to pee. Again.

I had my chance when we arrived at the courthouse. We guards escorted the prisoners to the ladies’ room, where one at a time we all used the facilities. While Maddy’s guard took her turn, I whispered to Conrad the final details of our arrangement.

Then we all trooped back into the hallway and plunked down on the long wooden bench to await our hearings.

Willa hadn’t yet shown up with the contract amendment. We’d have to deal with that after court.

Everything hinged on that amendment.

What if Willa really had quit when Conrad was arrested? What if she called in sick this morning and hadn’t picked up her message? I bit Theresa’s lower lip until I tasted blood. I had no scythe now to pop over and check. Dante wasn’t in any shape to do so. Oh, wait. I borrowed a cell phone from Maddy’s guard, dialing Iver PR’s main number from memory. Impatiently, I clicked my way through the company directory, wishing we still had a receptionist. “Oh, hi. Willa? This is Officer Theresa Mudders calling from the courthouse. Your boss asked me to call you. Her hearing is this morning and she’s just wondering . . . You are? Great. See you soon.”

One detail taken care of.

Conrad’s lawyer, Gill Hammerhead, arrived just as Shannon was called in. We moved quietly into the courtroom, sitting where Gill indicated. It was much more crowded today, with members of the press as well as nosy people looking for free entertainment.

No sooner had we taken our seats than we were asked to rise again. The court clerk called the proceeding to order and read the charges.

Then the judge made her opening remarks.

“Allow me to remind everyone here today that this is a preliminary hearing only. The Crown prosecutor will present the witnesses he intends to call should this case go to trial. Ms. Iver, via her counsel, Gill Hammerhead, will be permitted to cross-examine these witnesses.” Judge Wilson drew off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She looked tired already and it was only ten. “Lastly, let me remind you that we are not here today to determine innocence or guilt, but rather to determine whether or not there is sufficient evidence to justify a trial. Are we quite clear?”

The Crown called his first witnesses, Francesca Tick, to the stand. To think I’d once considered Frannie a friend. She swore on the Bible to tell the truth and reiterated what she’d heard when she’d eavesdropped outside of Shannon’s office. The court clerk played the recording of Shannon wishing me dead over the room’s audio system. Couldn’t people hear that she was just being wistful? There was no actual intent to kill there.

But the Crown prosecutor was good. He managed to make Frannie out to be a loyal employee who had accidentally recorded her boss’s phone conversation. “After all,” he said, “If Ms. Tick had been intending to record this incriminating evidence, she would have recorded both sides of the conversation.”

It was hard to argue with his illogic.

Then it was Gill Hammerhead’s turn. The Crown might have been good, but Hammerhead was better. Appearing to be a nice, caring guy, he asked Frannie, “How, exactly, does one accidentally stand outside one’s boss’s office and hit record on their iPhone and then stand there for five minutes?”

Hammerhead revealed Frannie to be the conniving bitch she really was. I hoped that would undermine her testimony. Behind me someone whispered that Gill’s performance redefined bombastic. I wished I’d hung onto Theresa’s phone so I could have looked up the original definition.

After that, the Crown had no further questions. Frannie stepped down from the witness box, anger and frustration staining her cheeks bright red.

I studied the judge but she was a hard read, although I finally settled on bored. Maddy’s guard had told me Judge Wilson had been around awhile and all these attempts to skew the testimony were wasted on her.