A vague notion swam up from the bottom of my brain. I put both hands on my scythe, screwed my eyes closed and wished as hard as I could that my best friend in life could see and hear me.
Feeling nothing new or different, I figured it hadn’t worked. I opened my eyes and checked myself out. If I was glowing as Dante had, it was hard to tell in the bright bathroom fluorescents. A busy EMT rushed through me. Okay, well at least I hadn’t manifested to everyone. Or corporealized. Now to see if I’d managed to manifest only to Shannon. I crept toward her voice in case the slightest movement could jar me into visibility.
I followed the sound of Shannon protesting she was fine only to find her being supported by two EMTs. So much for fine. Her voice sounded froggy but not as bad as Theresa’s had after Maddy’s previous strangulation attempt.
“Shannon. Can you see me?” I waved frantically in front of her face, my hands passing through first one EMT and then the other on the return trip.
Her eyes followed my waving hand, then crossed. She blinked a few times and cut her gaze to the medical personnel surrounding her. “Okay, Yes. Please help me up.” They lifted her onto the gurney and she lay back. One paramedic draped a blanket over her. “Does the head section raise?”
The cute paramedic turned a crank, stopping when Shannon’s head and upper body had been raised to a comfortable angle.
“Thank you. Could you please give me a moment?” She gifted EMT Cutie with a weak smile. He nodded and stepped away to speak to someone. The inevitable clipboard put in an appearance. Boxes may have been ticked.
Shannon turned my way and nodded once. She met my gaze but didn’t speak.
“That’s good, Shannon. Don’t say anything or they’ll think you’ve hit your head and you’ll have to do a bunch of tests and just don’t. ’Kay?”
She answered with the tiniest nod. I’d had twitches more enthusiastic than that. Still it was exactly what I’d told her to do. The last thing we wanted was to attract attention or have them question her sanity.
“Tell them the contract belongs to you. We need it. Don’t let anything happen to it.”
“Excuse me,” she called toward the door, her voice husky but loud. “That document. The parchment one? Is mine. It’s very important. If you could just hand it to me.” Shannon’s request was repeated to the personnel remaining in the bathroom. There were a few comments about it being evidence, but eventually someone handed it to one of the EMTs, who handed it to Shannon.
“Thank you,” she said, stuffing it under the blanket. Good thinking. Now it couldn’t fall off even if she passed out. Probably not the first time someone had gotten blood on the emergency blanket.
Suddenly, I heard shouting and the far too familiar sound of a skull smacking a wall. “Be right back,” I told Shannon as I stepped through the wall and back into the bathroom. It appeared Maddy had chosen that moment to struggle. Jeez, what was the point?
The evil murderer had managed to shake off her guard. The woman lay dazed on the floor, one hand on her head. I guessed it had been her skull I’d heard thunking against the wall.
Maddy ducked under several pairs of grasping hands and threw herself at the back wall, her own hands still cuffed behind her. She turned to face the room, where various people were saying rational things like, “Calm down now, Maddy,” and “There’s nowhere to go, Maddy.”
Two other guards had guns trained on her.
Using her cuffed hands, Maddy reached behind her to yank the supply closet door open. She then spun back toward it, probably hoping it was an exit.
Instead, she froze. I’d come up behind her, so I could see Conrad huddled in the corner, trying to make his massive demonic frame as small as possible. A roll of toilet paper had fallen hole-first onto one of his rough gray horns, a long two-ply streamer trailing across his forehead.
For the moment, Maddy’s body and the angle of the room kept the rest of the assemblage from seeing Conrad.
“If you’ll come quietly, Maddy,” said her guard, reaching out one hand in a beseeching manner, the other holding a bloody cotton pad to her own head.
“Resistance is futile,” said one of the courthouse security staff, obviously a
I closed my eyes and touched my scythe again, this time willing myself to manifest for Maddy. I might as well not have bothered because even when I stepped up behind her, scythe activated and raised, and began speaking for her ears alone, she couldn’t drag her eyes off Conrad.
“Neither you nor he realize it yet, Maddy Stryker, but that demon you’re looking at has gained ownership of your living body because you got your blood on his contract. You can file a Wrongful Reapage Appeal later. In the meantime, it’s my job to
I swept my scythe down on the murderous woman.
Just like I had a year ago, her body fell to the floor. Her soul sprang up instantly, ready to charge me.
But I was a trained professional. “Maddy, look!” I shouted, pointing at her scarred and tattooed body lying on the floor. The shock of seeing herself lying there froze her long enough for me to get my Reaper manacles on her.
An EMT raced through us, quickly setting up CPR on Maddy’s body. Her soul stayed stunned and I led her out of the way.
Oh, my God. If the EMT or anyone else chanced to look into the supply closet, they’d see Conrad. Then there’d be no hope for Dante and me. We’d be in such trouble with our boss and probably Lucy Phurr, too.
There was no way to close the door even if I knew the trick of it. Maddy’s body blocked it open.
Maybe I could get Shannon to fake a seizure to draw everybody’s attention. I turned to look for her through the open doorway, but her gurney had been wheeled away. A second gurney had taken its place. Two quiet and respectful EMTs gently loaded Theresa’s body onto the new gurney.
Hearing a gasp, I turned back, expecting to see the paramedic gaping at the massive red demon hiding amid the cleaning supplies. Instead, I saw the last bit of Conrad—only the horns—blurring as Maddy’s recovering body sucked him in.
Oh, great. How were we supposed to bring him back to Hell for his creative punishment if he was stuck in another body?
Maddy’s body coughed and a smug smile bloomed on her face. Conrad believed he’d won. He’d merely ride this body out and then forcibly take another. He’d leap from one body to another, displacing souls along the way until he got one he liked. I didn’t give great odds for the poor soul—and I mean that both figuratively and literally —who had the job of Shannon’s second-in-command at Iver PR.
Or for Shannon, either, if she stood between Conrad’s newly stolen life and the job of CEO.
I still had my scythe out, glowing dark purply black. From the corner of my eye I saw an answering glow.
It was the stapler. Someone must have kicked it out of the way in all the confusion. It ended up near the last stall closest to the supply closet.
I strode back over to Conrad. With my free hand, I shoved the stapler at him, connecting with the bloody gash in his new head. The bandage had slipped from Maddy’s overprocessed hair during her collapse. I pushed the device hard, not caring if the EMT saw a floating stapler hit the murderer. I pushed harder, plunging a staple into Maddy’s skull. The stapler’s purple glow winked out, as if the last of the original magic Conrad had purchased to steal my soul had finally depleted.
“Ow!” Conrad yelled, twisting away from me.
I dropped the stapler to the ground.
“Where’d this come from?” Maddy’s guard asked, joining the EMT by her charge.
For the first time, his eyes flickered up toward the closet, empty of demons at this point. “Must have slipped off a shelf.” He shrugged and added more adhesive to the bandage on Maddy’s head wound. He pulled back when
