Chapter 6
GERI
True to his word, Geri did not see Bazel or his dog while she had dinner at Molly and Anh’s. The auras—as pretty as they had been—were gone. She felt like herself. Sore, stiff, and bruised, but herself.
The next morning, they were still absent.
This called for a celebration: fancy coffee with lots of caramel.
Nothing said hooray the hallucinations are gone like caffeine delivered with sugar.
The walk helped ease the stiffness in her muscles and the air was crisp but not too chilly.
Then she’d take a nap and maybe actually enjoy her time off before having to return to work.
A perfect day.
Bazel and Bones waited outside the café, like a storm cloud ready to ruin her perfect day.
“You have an appointment,” he said instead of greeting her.
“Not now,” she said, holding up a hand. This was her favorite coffee shop and now it was ruined. Every time she came back, she’d associate her reaper delusion with the slices of lemon poundcake in the display case. Actually, she should get a slice.
Bones followed Geri right up to the counter and honed in immediately on the glass jar of free dog biscuits. Despite sitting, she was eye level with the jar.
Glowing red eyes.
“Your dog has to be on a leash,” the barista said.
“Sorry?”
The barista pointed to a “Pets Welcome” sign on the counter. “Store policy. Your dog had to be on a leash,” she repeated, sounding bored.
“You can see the dog?”
“Lady, your dog is impossible to miss.” Actually, the barista didn’t look bored. She looked exhausted, like she was about to fall asleep on her feet. Her aura flicked green and gold, leaving a trail behind her as she moved.
Geri blinked and rubbed her eyes. No, no, no. The hallucinations were gone.
Bones did not care about Geri’s mini crisis of reality. Her tongue lolled, as if pleased to be part of the conversation.
“Do you want a pup cup or something?” the barista asked.
Bones’s entire body vibrated. She gave Geri a look that demanded a pup cup immediately.
“Umm, yeah. She’d like one,” Geri said and gave her usual order, sans poundcake.
While they waited, Bones nudged her arm and returned to staring at the jar of treats.
“Fine, greedyguts.”
The pup cup arrived. Bones stretched up and retrieved the cup, daintily holding it in her massive, ominous jaws.
“Interesting dog. What breed is she?” the barista asked.
An ill omen.
She didn’t say that. That was unhinged and she was trying her best to keep it together. Grabbing her latte, she sputtered, “Sorry, she’s not my dog.”
Thoughts came to her one at a time, stacking on top of one another.
Someone else could see the dog.
She wasn’t hallucinating.
Bones was real.
Bazel was real.
She died, had been brought back, and now owed a debt to the grim reaper. A grim reaper, if everything he told her was true.
Understanding did not bring peace. Her heart pounded. She felt sweaty and lightheaded. She liked it much better when she thought her brain was bleeding. This was real and came with complications.
Bazel waited outside, near an empty table. Bones parked herself under the table and consumed her pup cup in one gulp.
“You!” Geri marched toward him. A phone buzzed in her pocket. Impossibly, it was important to note.
“Fucking thing,” she muttered, withdrawing the phone. The screen flashed with a message. “I left this at home, and these pockets aren’t even deep enough for a breath mint—how the hell is it here, and why can the barista see your dog?”
His cowl moved to the side, as if curious. “She saw the portent?”
“Yeah. That means she’s going to die, doesn’t it?” She waved the phone at him. “Doesn’t it?”
“You know the answer to that question. You’ve received the same message.”
She did. She saw Bones just minutes before she died. “I need you to say it.”
The cowl moved gently with a breeze that she could not feel. His skeletal hands flexed. “Yes. Once a message is delivered, it cannot be undone. She will die soon. When she does, you need to touch her. Brief contact on the hand will suffice.”
Geri slumped onto the nearest chair, tossing the phone on the table. “This is too much.”
“It is no more than you can bear, Geraldine Melnyk.”
“You’re real.” She covered her face with her hands. “You’re really real.”
“I have told you this.”
“I really died and you brought me back and now I owe you. I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“You did not want to die.”
She looked up at him, fully aware that she appeared unhinged talking to herself.
Without the earbuds, she couldn’t even pretend to be talking on the phone.
“You don’t know that. Probably, yeah, I might have jumped on that, but we’ll never know because you didn’t ask me.
You just did this to me on a whim, as far as I can figure. ”
“It was not a whim,” he said, his voice bleak and offering no further explanation to his motivation. “Would you have preferred to die while I wasted time ascertaining your wishes?”
He kept playing that tired old card and it was pissing her off.
In a mocking tone, she said, “Oh, pardon me, hate to be a bother, but you seem to be bleeding to death and I could fix that but you’d be burdened with something far more sinister than the typical medical debt.
Did I mention I’m the grim reaper? And I talk like an old-timey movie star for some reason?
” She covered her mouth in feigned surprise. “Wow, that wasn’t difficult at all.”
“I do not speak in such a manner.”
“Ya do, and of course I wanted you to ask. Sweet fucking marigolds, ask. Why are men?”
Bones shifted under the table and put her head on Geri’s knee and gave her such a mournful look that said she totally got her.
“I am not a man,” Bazel said.
That was too much. He—if anthropomorphic personifications of a natural process in the cycle of life had a gender—completely missed the point.
“I refuse,” she said. “I won’t be your hands or your instrument or whatever fancy term you cook up to make you feel better.”
Bazel said nothing, his cloak floating in the breeze only he could feel.
They stared at each other in a battle of wills. She wasn’t wrong to be upset. She wouldn’t back down. She might have been dying, but she still had the right to decide her fate.
Fuck. She really wanted a slice of lemon poundcake. No, she wasn’t eating her emotions. Be quiet.
She stood up and Bazel looked positively triumphant, for a pile of bones. “I’m not dealing with your nonsense right now. I’m getting cake.”
“Is cake nice?” he asked, gliding alongside her. Honestly, it was disturbing.
“It’s cake. Of course it’s nice.”
“I’ve never had any. My culinary experience is limited, actually. There’s no point in eating. That is not how my kind derives sustenance. I confess I’ve always been curious. You mortals take so much pleasure from consuming food that it must be more than mere survival.”
“You cannot be serious right now,” Geri muttered.
Two baristas were behind the counter, the one who saw Bones and another with a mop and bucket. “The sink leaks. You can’t empty the bucket into a leaky sink.”
“It’s too heavy to carry to the back.”
“Just get this cleaned up,” the barista said. She plastered on a forced smile as Geri arrived at the counter. “Back so soon?”
“I decided I need a slice of lemon poundcake,” Geri said.
“Good call.”
As she rang Geri up, Bazel lurked over her shoulder and said, “It is time.”
Geri shook her head.
“You cannot refuse.”
Geri folded her arms over her chest and shook her head again. He might be real and he might be death, but he was not the boss of her.
Bazel pointed a skeletal hand at her. “Geraldine Melnyk, I drained myself of my vitality to give you life. You are a revenant. Do your duty and release that soul.”
Geri recalled the vivid picture he painted about a soul trying to reseat itself inside its body, making the person little more than a walking corpse. An abomination.
“It can’t be that bad,” she said.
“The leak?” the barista asked, cutting off a piece of the poundcake. “It was just a drip last week but the manager keeps dragging his feet and won’t call a plumber.”
“Cheap bastard,” the guy with the mop added.
As the barista spun on her heel, she slipped on the wet floor.
Time slowed. The café fell silent, every person abandoning conversation as they turned to watch.
The cake went into the air as her arms cartwheeled.
For a moment she hung in the air, trying to find her footing, before finally crashing into the counter.
Geri’s heart pounded in her chest, helpless to stop the wet and hollow thud as the barista landed with the unmistakable crunch of bone.
The guy leaned on his mop. “Stop being dramatic. It’s not that bad. Carrie? Carrie!”
The golden aura flickered and faded as blood trickled out from the back of Carrie’s head. That wasn’t good.
“I think someone should call an ambulance,” Geri said, stunned.
People now crowded up to the counter, asking questions.
“Is she?”
“What happened?”
“You must release the soul before it is too late,” Bazel said.
“I think,” Geri started to say.
Carrie’s eyes flew open. She sat up and threw her head back. A scream pierced through the noise and confusion. It was unnerving. Otherworldly. A soul torn asunder and wailing.
It was that bad.
A sharp, piercing pain hit Geri behind her eyes. Something inside of her, the power that kept her heart beating, made her draw breath, demanded that she end it.
She closed her eyes. She wouldn’t. No amount of screaming would make her.
Except the barista—Carrie—sounded like she was in pain and confused. Geri’s heart hurt. She had never said more than a few friendly words with the barista and never knew her name until today. Carrie deserved better than that. She deserved to not suffer.
“It is too late. You must release the soul,” Bazel said.
The pain was worse than the post-concussion headaches. The light was too bright. The air too heavy. The world too loud.
“Fine! Fine.” She pushed herself way around the counter, staggering from the pain in her head.
The barista was on her feet, lurching down the narrow galley. She slammed into the back counter, her arm knocking over a stack of cups. A coffee pot crashed to the floor, along with bottles of flavored syrup.
“You—” Carrie said, except it was more of a gurgle. Blood streamed down her face and neck, soaking onto her shirt.
The barista reached out, hands like claws. Geri knocked one hand away but missed the second. It clamped onto her, impossible to shake.
Downside: terrifying.
Upside: Bazel said she needed skin-on-skin contact. This should do it.