Chapter 11
GERI
“I know what you did.”
“Ominous. I need a little bit of context,” Geri texted on her phone. The movie wasn’t holding her attention. This was far more interesting.
A moody photo of a metal storage shelf lined with cameras flashed on her screen. There was a gap in the tidy row of cameras. Dramatic lighting and shadows gave it a very noir feel, like the cameras were witnesses at the scene of the crime.
For all his faults, Patrick was talented. He manipulated shadow and light like a magician. He was a fantastic photographer.
A shit husband, though.
“So you finally noticed,” she wrote, not bothering to apologize for stealing the camera. He never apologized for putting his dick in another woman, after all.
“Thanks for the job lead,” he replied.
“When will I get my finder’s fee?”
“I’ll put it toward the cost of the camera you took.”
Fair.
“Why are you smiling?” Bazel asked.
“I’m not smiling.” Geri turned her phone face down to hide the screen.
“Deceitfulness is an unattractive quality.”
Geri wished someone could tell her why that made her blush because this was not a crush.
People generally wanted to be considered attractive, right?
Not that she wanted him to consider her pretty.
She didn’t. He was death—the personification of death—and uptight.
She was too old for crushes and he didn’t even have a face.
“What do you know? You’re a skeleton,” she muttered.
Bazel remained motionless, despite his black shroud moving gently in an ethereal wind.
“It was my ex.”
The shroud whipped back in a gale force wind. The light dimmed and his shadow grew long as he loomed over her on the sofa. Fiddlesticks hissed and dashed away. Bones raised her head off the floor and thumped her tail.
“The one who killed you! I forbid it. Cease contact at once.” His voice rumbled and echoed with an outrage that transcended dimensions and hit her right in the chest.
That’s what he was so worked up about?
“Patrick, my ex-husband,” she said, a hand pressed against her chest. Somehow she had leaped to her feet. She didn’t remember doing that. “I hooked him up with a wedding gig next month. I wouldn’t talk with Jaxon if you paid me.”
Bazel took a step back. The gale disappeared. Light returned to normal. “My apologies. That man hurt you and I believe it would be unwise for you to continue your association with him.”
“Yeah, well, I agree. Like I said, I’m finished with Jaxon.”
“Good,” he said in a sulky tone.
“But it’s none of your business who I text and you scared the cat,” Geri said, unimpressed with his temper tantrum. “It took her days to be chill enough to sit in the same room as you.”
“Ply her with treats.”
“I will not bribe my cat because you’re… you’re jealous.”
His eyes went wide as if surprised, which was impossible because he didn’t have eyes. Just black holes in a skeleton face. Yet she could tell. Somehow.
“I am not jealous.”
She had flung the word out, knowing it was ridiculous, but now that she had said it, it rang true. Death was jealous. Of her exes.
And she liked it.
Why did she like it? Bazel forced himself into her life, literally haunting her. He had all the red flags. Dictatorial. Withheld information. Jealous.
Undead.
And apparently going to stick around until she completed an arbitrary amount of reaps to repay her debt. He may have shared a bit of vulnerability with her but he was not crush material.
Silence fell between them, the air thick with unspoken confessions.
His jealousy. Her growing feelings. All of it unwise with nowhere to go.
He was incorporeal. Immortal, or close to it.
They couldn’t touch or kiss. While Geri knew that plenty of people had romantic relationships without sex, that didn’t interest her.
Sex was important to her, and she enjoyed it.
Could she skip it for the right person? For Bazel?
Then again, maybe they’d just have to get creative. There were toys. She certainly wouldn’t mind being told how to use those toys on herself. Still, she enjoyed touch. Being touched. When she stuck her ice-coated finger in his mouth, she felt something.
She could work with something.
“You will need to rewind your movie,” he said, breaking the silence. He took a step forward and placed a skeletal finger under her chin. His touch was cold and almost insubstantial, but it was a touch.
Geri shook her head and pushed him away. This situation was heading into dangerous territory. She needed a distraction. Now.
She threw out the biggest bomb she had. “Who took your scythe?”
His shoulders went back and his body—or the suggestion of one under the cloak, as it were—tensed.
“You know who took it, right? Or did you lose it?” Geri asked. “Pretty careless of you.”
“You are provoking me.”
“I’m asking questions. You’re incorporeal, so it doesn’t make sense that some rando took it. They’d need some flavor of paranormal to touch it, I think.” She paused, as if thinking. “A ghost? Were you mugged by a ghost?”
She really was flinging any old shit out there, wasn’t she?
“I was not mugged,” he said, irritation in his voice. “Nor was I careless and lost my scythe.”
“You claim it was stolen, but I wonder. Did you lose it gambling?” She tilted her head to one side.
Bones rose to her feet and copied the move.
“Not going to lie, that’s disappointing.
Once, my ex—you know, Patrick—lost our rent money at the track.
Talk about a red flag, and I still stayed with him. ”
“I was not gambling, and I will not be judged by you,” he said.
“Yesterday I watched a man die. I didn’t like it, Bazel.” And he put her in that position, giving her the authority to judge him.
“You are not required to enjoy the work. It is better for your soul if you do not.”
Well, that wasn’t comforting at all, although she didn’t think comfort was his aim.
It wasn’t the gore, although that was nightmare fuel; it was the standing around and waiting for the inevitable when every fiber in her being screamed to do something. To help. To prevent it.
“I can’t stand around and do nothing,” she said, every word true.
“The man’s fate was sealed. It was inescapable.”
She snorted. “No. Management sent a text and that sealed that guy’s fate.”
It felt inescapable, like the cogs in a machine whirling into unstoppable motion, but she suspected it was entirely escapable. What happened yesterday wasn’t fate. She knew soul-crushing bureaucracy when she saw it.
“You are making wild assumptions based on incomplete information,” he said.
“I am, huh? Then why don’t you fill me in?”
“That would violate confidentiality. It is in the handbook.”
This was aggravating but effective. The last thing she wanted to do was contemplate a relationship with the reaper. Her crush was officially over.
“You know where your scythe is?” she asked.
“Certainly.”
“Then let’s go,” she said. “I’d like you gone ASAP and you can’t leave until you have your scythe back, so let’s do it. I can grab my bike or get a taxi. I’ll splurge, just this once.”
“It is not that simple,” Bazel said.
“Sure it is. I’ll use my grabby mortal hands and grab.” She flexed her fingers to demonstrate her grabbing skills.
“They are too powerful.” The words sounded as if they were difficult to confess. “Seraphina is a wraith.”
“A ghost stole your scythe.”
“Nothing so simplistic as a simple ghost. A wraith. A mortal soul that did not cross the veil and subsequently soured and rotted. They are, categorically, vengeful spirits.”
“A super ghost. Fantastic.” Geri fell back onto the sofa. “How do we even fight a basic ghost?”
“If you read the handbook—”
“I read the damn book,” she snapped. “A chapter on ghosts, ghouls, and on-the-job hazards would have been nice, but no. Not a word. How can I do this job if no one tells me anything?”
She was well aware that she sounded whiny. She was whining. It was well earned. She had to get a scythe back from a wraith and all her knowledge about fighting the supernatural came from tv shows. Throwing salt at it was pretty much her only idea.
“I did not realize management sent you an abridged version.” He tossed a look to the dog, which was baffling, and reached into his robe. He held out his handbook. The leather was worn. The light caught the edge of designs worked into the cover. “Here. Read this.”
“Your handbook,” she said, not reaching for the book.
“You are correct in your assessment that you cannot perform your duties with all the information.”
“How do we fight a wraith?”
“Read and find out.”
She reached for the book, her fingers momentarily passing through the leather before it became solid. It was heavy, requiring both hands to hold. She brushed her fingers over the embossed leather. The gilding had long ago worn away, but she could see flecks of gold paint deep in the crevices.
A quick flip through the pages revealed blocks of text in an old-fashioned font, the kind with the weird f that was really an s in disguise. That would slow her down, but it was readable.
She blinked and the ink reconfigured itself into a more modern font. Benefits of having a magic book, right?
“Thank you. This is helpful,” she said.
Anticipating a long night ahead of her, she required coffee and a notebook for notes.
The handbook was nothing more than rules and regulations.
That she could do. She was a professional at navigating multiple insurance companies, none of whom wanted to pay a dime for a patient’s care.
She knew all the tricks to billing, the right codes, the right phrases for an appeal, and all the loopholes.
Banishing a super ghost? Piece of cake.
BAZEL
“Do not give me that look,” he told Bones. He kept his voice low, so as not to disturb Geri reading at the kitchen table. “I have broken no rules.”
The dog did not raise her head where it rested daintily on her front paws.
“Geri has identified a gap in her education. She is correct that she needs this knowledge to perform her duties.”
Management would feel differently. They withheld information from Geri for some unfathomable reason. If he had noticed this, then she had noticed long ago. Her mind made connections quickly. It was one of her most appealing qualities.
“She is too curious,” he told Bones. “If we do not give her something, she will ask the wrong questions. It is not a deception. It is survival.”
Bones’s tail wagged slowly, sweeping across the floor. For a moment Bazel hoped that his canine-shaped companion agreed. Instead, the cat crept into the room.
Not wishing to frighten the creature again, he remained still.
The cat ignored him and brushed up against Bones, rubbing her head against the dog’s jaw before leaving for the kitchen. It was self-centered, but he felt as if the gesture were purely to spite him.
He would win the cat’s affection. Eventually. He was a patient being.
A chair scraped across the floor. There was the murmur of Geri’s voice and the cat’s reply.
“Okay, this is what I got,” Geri said from the doorway and proceeded to read from a notebook. “The first step is negotiation. We ask the ghost to leave politely. I can’t see how that works.”
“It can. Often a soul wants to move on but they are unsure how,” he said.
“Right. Or we can finish their unfinished business. Second step, remove or destroy the object of their obsession.”
“A soul concerned with material wealth will not change in death. They will want to protect that which they value. Sometimes it is a person.”
Geri’s eyes went wide. “Fuck that. I’m not killing an innocent person because of a greedy ghost.”
“Threatening to harm the loved one is often enough to encourage the ghost to let go.”
She shook her head. “The next one is holy water. I don’t think that’s a good option for me. Seems like you have to be a true believer to make it work.”
“Correct. If you doubt, you will merely be dosing the ghost with water.”
“Fourth is cleansing. Sage, candles, or holy relics.” She looked up from the notebook. “Let’s put a question mark next to that one. Five is smudging. Basically burning sage, sweetgrass, and other herbs. Sounds like a nightmare for my asthma.”
“The effects do not last long.”
“Next up is rice. Apparently a spirit has a compulsive need to count rice if it is spilled on the ground.”
“True.”
“Finally, salt. Use it to create a barrier, trapping a ghost or preventing it from entering a space. We can also throw it because it hurts the ghost.”
“Correct.”
“Did I miss anything?”
“No. That is a very succinct review of the methods for dealing with a ghost.”
“I couldn’t find anything specifically for a wraith.”
“You will not. A wraith begins as a ghost but becomes twisted and more powerful.”
Geri folded her arms over her chest, holding the notebook tight. “They may have started as a ghost but that doesn’t mean that ghost rules apply.”
That was unfortunately true. “It is all we have.”
“Can we negotiate? Is there something it wants?”
Bazel knew exactly what Seraphina wanted and he could not give it to her. “Salt and rice will work. We must wait for my strength to return.”
“I really don’t want to roll up to this boss fight with nothing but groceries. Isn't there something else we can do? What about a cleansing?”
“A thorough cleansing is complex and takes time. We sanctify one area, the wraith moves to another. We need to corral the wraith, pin them to one location with salt.”
“We’re not rushing out tomorrow. We can plan, right? Make a map, do that whole thing with diagrams.”
“We will plan,” he agreed. He knew Seraphina’s location. She would not leave her sanctuary.