Esprit de Corpse

Chapter 16 Putting the “Pun” in “Punishment”

“HOLY SHIT!” MADDY yelled, filling Schotz’s office with foul-smelling blue smoke. I choked and waved it away. Seems all the cool kids were choking these days. Then I recalled I didn’t actually need to breathe. I’d fallen back on bad habits after my brief stint in Theresa’s body.

“Please control your Reapee, Kirsty,” Judge Julius ordered. “We’re trying to have a meeting here. Now go wait outside.”

“No, I need to explain. It’s that—You need—Dante, he—”

Where to start? What’s the most efficient way to explain what happened without getting Dante and me into trouble but still gaining sympathy so they’d help us? My PR skills had grown rusty since my own fateful reapage.

Colin Schotz—the sergeant, not the kindly professor—studied Maddy, who was calmly surveying the office, once again her body telegraphing her intention to make a break for it.

“My, Conrad, how you’ve changed,” Schotz observed, dry as dust.

“No, please, sir. Sirs. We’ve gotta save Dante. He’s fading fast. I don’t know how much longer he can hold on. What do I do?” A tear rolled down my cheek and I held out my free hand in supplication. My other hand kept its death grip on Maddy’s arm. I’d had quite enough of escaped souls for one afterlifetime, thank you kindly.

The sergeant glanced at his death watch. “Oh, skeg. You have been gone way too long. Monroe! You still here?” he yelled.

The redheaded Reaper who’d brought the wrong (but I’m not bitter) stapler to my appeal poked his head in the door. “You howled, sir?”

“Leave those forms you’re working on and take this soul to Hell’s Cells with you. We’ll get that story later.” He turned back to the judge. “Julius, we’re gonna hafta continue this some other time. Kirsty here apologizes. Doncha, Kirsty?”

I nodded, given that it was far from being a question.

“Oh, but I wouldn’t miss this for the Coil.” Julius rose, activating his gavel. He’d used it to teleport the day of my appeal. I’ll bet Judge Wilson would die of envy—or the deadly sin of her choice—if she knew about that gavel.

I released Maddy into Monroe’s custody. She immediately began making eyes at the attractive Reaper and bragging about how many people she’d strangled. She seemed to think people in Hell were impressed by violent murders. Why would she think that?

Monroe nodded politely and led her out of the office. Last I heard of Maddy was “. . . and the bodies were never found. Isn’t that cute?”

I hadn’t known she could giggle. It was just wrong.

“Kirsty!” Schotz said sharply, regaining my attention. “Where’s that crystal skull you found the day time stood anything but still?”

“The skull? But we have to save Dante.” Another tear chased the first one down my cheek. I dashed it away and tried not to sob too loudly.

“Exactly. The skull absorbed all sorts of energy when you used it to shut down the time machine. We can use it to energize Dante. Now where is it?”

“It’s . . .” Where had it gone? I closed my eyes and replayed that day’s events on the inside of my eyelids like Amber had instructed. Let’s see. Let’s see. I’d slap-shot the skull into the time machine. Then later, Dante had told our boss that maybe the crystal skull had fallen into the Earth’s molten core. But wait! A later memory swam up from the depths of my mind. I dove for it. It struggled, trying to slip away, but at the last minute, I snagged it by a loose synapse and . . .

That’s it! The first time I’d had coffee with Seiko post-averted-apocalypse, he’d presented it to me as a memento for saving the world.

But I hadn’t really wanted it because I’d been the one to endanger the world in the first place. I blamed myself for the lost lives—well, not lives, exactly—for Raul and Rod, who’d been sucked into Heller that day.

So I’d thanked Seiko for the skull and then gotten rid of it at the first opportunity. Now what had I done with it? I’d given it to someone. Someone who valued it. Someone who could use it again next semester . . .

I opened my eyes, stepped around my boss and pointed at his display cabinet. “It’s right here, sir.”

“Can’t be. I’d know if I had . . .” He turned to look where I pointed. “Oh.” He grabbed the skull, gifting me with a look that fell somewhere between sheepish and This is all your fault! “Let’s get going.” He activated his scythe and bobbed his head once. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who’d watched too many I Dream of Jeannie reruns.

I activated my scythe, tried twitching my nose and failed. So head-bouncing it was. I popped back into the women’s bathroom at the courthouse. It looked exactly as it had when I’d left only now it featured fewer people and more yellow crime scene tape. Blood and one formerly ensorcelled stapler still littered the floor. They’d sure cleared out fast. I checked my own death watch. Only ten minutes had passed since I’d last been here. I still wasn’t used to Coil and Hell time syncing up. Go, time lords.

But where was Dante? I squinted at the spot I’d last seen him, but now there was no glimmer at all. I surveyed the bathroom, turning this way and that. Was he behind me? In front? I ended up spinning around, but I was alone. I called out to Dante. If he was still there, I couldn’t see him. A third tear tracked down my damp cheek. Or was it my fourth? I’d lost track of my tears.

And I’d lost my boyfriend, my boss and my—what exactly was Judge Julius to me? Never mind. Not important. What was important was that I was lost, alone and desperate.

Again.

I stood there shakily, considering my options. Should I go back to Schotz’s office? Would Reaper Monroe have a clue? Or Sybil Serpent? Sue Sayer or Claire Voyant probably would, but they were at their monthly meeting of the Seers Guild. I checked my hellphone for messages that might have downloaded during my five minutes in Hell in case either of my psychic friends had called in advance to warn me I was going to have a problem. But nada. Damn seers. Never around when you needed one. You’d think they’d have known . . .

Should I try Vanier prison? Would the sergeant and the judge go there? What about the morgue where Theresa’s body probably lay awaiting—ewww!—an autopsy. I shuddered. I’d worn that body. I’d been Theresa. It’s always fun till somebody loses an I.

No, wait! I snapped my fingers. The hospital. Dante would follow the contract amendment and the sergeant knew how to work the GPS in our scythes so he’d follow Dante. Judge Julius would follow Schotz.

Toronto’s “Hospital Row” is formed by half a dozen hospital buildings lining either side of University Avenue, but I was pretty sure one of the EMTs had mentioned Mount Sinai while I spoke with Shannon. It was a place to start. I activated my scythe again and imagined myself at Mount Sinai Hospital.

I materialized in a hospital room. It looked familiar. Oh, it was the one I’d been in when I’d first been scythed. I stepped cautiously over to the bed, barely daring to breathe. Oh, wait. Never mind that last part. Bad habits again.

The bed housed a large balding man whom I didn’t know. I hoped he wasn’t in for anything serious. I told him pointlessly that I’d probably see him soon and went to look for my boyfriend and my best friend.

I tried looking at the giant white boards located at each nursing station, but in the interest of confidentiality, everything was in code, even patient names. No, the only way to find Shannon, and hopefully my dead posse, was to walk through every room on every floor. I so didn’t want to do that. As a Reaper I was comfortable with either life or death but I really hated the in-between part.

I girded my loins, whatever that meant, and began to stride through walls into patient rooms and operating theaters, trying not to look too closely at the people in either place. I’d ascertain if Shannon and my fellow souls were present and if not, move on.

Luckily, she was in the fourteenth room I checked. Whew! If I never again heard the shrill whine of a bone saw as long as I after-lived, it’d be too soon.