Better Off Dead (5 page)

“Nice digs. Where’s all your furniture, though
… yo?” His voice sounded much too deep for such a squat little thing—like Danny DeVito lip-synching Barry White. I did, however, manage to find some semblance of comfort in his American accent. He was American, I was American. At least we had that in common.

A
gust of cold, Scottish air wrapped itself around my legs, and I realized I hadn’t shut the front door. Never taking my eyes off my pudgy guest, even though I couldn’t say he seemed in the least bit alarming, I closed the door behind us.

“Um, who are you?” I asked, finally finding myself.

They were the first words I’d spoken since occupying my new body, and my voice wasn’t familiar. It was lighter and more sing-song than my old voice could ever hope to sound.

The man nodded, as if my question were reasonable and extended a pudgy hand with fingers that looked like white baby carrots. “I’m Bill, your guardian angel.”

“One ought to fear those things only that have power of doing harm, the others not, for they are not dreadful.”

—
   
Dante’s
Inferno

Three

I couldn’t stifle my shock. This stout little man definitely didn’t look like an angel. Not that I expected white, feathery wings, but wasn’t cleanliness next to godliness? This guy looked like he’d been plucked from the
Animal House
set and dropped unceremoniously into my living room.

I crossed my arms over my chest, uncomfortable because he was ogling my breasts as if they were his opponents in a staring contest.
’Course, the top of his head was about bust level so maybe he couldn’t help it. “You’re Bill, my angel?”

“Is a frog’s ass water tight?” he answered with a smile.

I frowned. “I guess that means yes?”

“Yessiree, Bob,” he said, smiling widely, his teeth too large for his face. “Bill’s ma name and thrills are ma game.” Then he winked. When I didn’t respond to his offered hand, he wiped it on his gray
T-shirt that had as many stains as he had freckles across the bridge of his nose. He looked like Howdy Doody’s slovenly, overweight cousin.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, still unfamiliar with the melodic tone of my voice. How long would it take to get used to the new me?

Bill plopped himself down on the floor and started retying one of his shoelaces as he turned his beady eyes up to me. “I’m your guide.” He said it like there should have been a “duh” at the end of the sentence. “And I’m here to take you on your first mission; so get ready, girly.”

“My first mission?” I repeated in disbelief.
I had no time to consider when my first mission might be, but I never imagined it would’ve been the very day I arrived in my new home. I mean, my house was still unfurnished!

“Yep, we got us an appointment with the blacksmith.”

“The what?” I asked, feeling a headache beginning behind my eyes. Everything just seemed to be happening so suddenly—first the arrival of this ... angel, and then the assignment of my first mission, a mere few minutes later? Apparently, things in the AfterLife moved lots faster than they did in my previous one.

“Yeah, the blacksmith," Bill repeated, frowning at me. "He's the dude who’s gonna set you up with your weapons. He’s gotta fit you for your sword and shiznit.”

“My sword?” I asked, my tone clearly relaying the fact that swords and Lily Harper, er, O’Shaughnessey, weren’t exactly a household item.

“How else are you gonna slay demons?” he asked, shaking his head.
“Hello, McFly! Anyone home?”

“Demons?!” I exclaimed as my stomach dropped to my toes. I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking I desperately needed to get in touch with Jason Streethorn and protest this was NOT what I signed up for.

“They ain’t so bad,” Bill said, dismissing my outburst with a wave of his pudgy fingers. “Anyways, we got us a long-ass drive, so we’d better make like a fugly one-night-stand and get the hell outta here.”

Instead of following Bill to the door, I glanced around the room, looking for a phone. Of course, there wasn’t one.

“Watcha lookin’ for?” he asked, slapping his hands on his hips.

“A phone; do you have one?”

He nodded, fishing inside his pocket. He produced a black cell phone, covered in electrical tape from having apparently been dropped too many times. I glanced at the sheet of paper with Jason’s phone number and punched the numbers into Bill’s phone. It rang … and rang. After five more rings, I didn’t expect anyone to pick up and waited for the voice mail or the machine to come on. But nothing. Another three rings, and I hung up.

“Callin’ AE?” Bill asked, his eyebrows raised in an expression of discouragement. I just nodded as he shook his head. “Good luck gettin’ through.”

“It just rang,” I said, swallowing hard.

“Yep, that’s a
bout right.”

“You mean no one ever answers?”

“Odds are that monkeys would sooner fly outta my ass.”

I just stared at him, unable
to come to terms with the fact that he was an angel, and more so, that he was mine.

“Let’s get to the blacksmith’s and you can try AE again later, although you ain’t gonna have much better luck.”

“Why is that?” I demanded, feeling my heart pounding with panic that started down deep in my gut. What had I signed up for? This job was nothing like Jason had described it!

“’Cause
AE don’t wanna hear from you,” Bill said matter of factly. “Yep, you and AE are like unrequited besties.”

“Unrequited what?”

He shook his head like I was slow. “Unrequited best friends. You think you and AfterLife Enterprises are tight, right?” he asked and smiled at me, the smile immediately dropping off his face seconds later. “Wrong! AE wants a whole lotta nothin’ to do with you, girl, so it’s time you got that into your thick little pretty head and realized you gotta paddle your own ship.”

“Canoe,” I corrected him but it didn’t seem as if he’d even realized he’d gotten the phrase wrong in the first place.
I shook my head, determined that I would get in touch with Jason and demand that he resign me from the position of soul-retriever in the Underground City. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it had to have been a mistake. I was just a novice! There was no way I’d be able to defend myself against demons! But then I remembered Jason’s letter, and how clearly he'd defined my role as a soul-retriever and there was that whole part about Dante’s
Inferno
being my guide. Maybe it hadn’t been a mistake after all? Maybe AE approached this whole thing with the shotgun mentality? Perhaps it was a numbers game and they'd rather throw me in the deep end, not really caring if I sank or swam. There were probably thousands of retrievers just like me; and according to the laws of probability, a percentage of us would no doubt swim. That must have been what AE was betting on ...

“
Where are we going?” I asked Bill, figuring I had no other options at this point.

Bill glanced down at his pocket and pulled out a wrinkled piece of paper with coffee stains all over it. “Some place called Peter
… head.” Then he started laughing uncontrollably. “Peterhead! Like dickhead! Who the hell names a city that?” he smirked, his whole belly contorting with chuckles. “Hey, Slick, what should we name our new town?” he said in a deep voice. He held his head high as he ran his hand down his filthy shirt, fisting his fingers around the fake collar of a suit jacket. Then he dropped the persona of what I imagined was supposed to be a mayor, and said, “Shit, I dunno, Mayor Peter, let’s name it after something we both like … how about head?” Then he bent over and started bellowing again, slapping his knees in time with his chortles.

I suddenly wanted to cry.

“You’re my angel?” I repeated again. This time, my tone was filled with anguished concern.

“Yep, girl, believe it
’cause it’s the truth,” he said, winking at me. “Be happy you didn’t get stuck with one of them boring a-holes.” He shook his head and grinned wide. “Me? I’m a piss-your-pants good time.”

“Weren’t you on probation?” It suddenly occurred to me that the reason
I was in this whole mess in the first place was owing to this repugnant creature. “And, by the way, I have a bone to pick with you.”

“She said bone!” he squawked, erupting into a new round of raucous laughter.

“Stop it! This isn’t funny!” I screamed at him, feeling my anger suddenly surging out of control as my voice broke. “It’s because of you that I’m in this mess to begin with!”

“CTFD,” he said and hel
d up his hands in a play of submission, but the smile never left his lips.

“What?”

“Calm the fuck down, baby,” he said and then smiled even more broadly. “I want you to know that I’m real sorry about the whole accident mess …” I shook my head, not about to believe him, but he interrupted me. "No, seriously, I really am.” He even dropped the smile before starting to eye me up and down appreciatively. “But, come on … really, I did you a favor. I mean, you’re way hotter now.”

“I don’t care about that!” I said, throwing my hands up in frustration as tears burned my eyes. I clamped them shut tightly, knowing I had to regain control of myself. If I lost control now, there was no telling if I'd be able to pick up the pieces again.

“Aw, come on, little goob, don’t start crying.”

I opened my eyes to find him smiling up at me. For some reason, and I don’t know why or how, it was reassuring. I wiped my arm across my eyes and forced a smile of my own, reminding myself that everything happened for a reason. It was time to make lemonade out of lemons. “Little goob?”

“Yeah, you know, like junior goober?” He smiled wider. “It’s okay, cream puff. We’re gonna work it all out together."

I shook my head and didn’t know what else to say or think
—Bill had a way of addling my brain with incoherent thoughts.

“
Don’t you worry your hot little ass cheeks about it, ’kay?”

I felt my jaw drop as the tears started again.
How could I have ended up in this predicament?
I would soon be headed toward the equivalent of hell, where I’d have to defend myself against God only knew what, and my only asset was … Bill?

Treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward,
I said to myself, repeating Og Mandino’s words. I focused on Bill and wondered if I had the stamina to make Mr. Mandino proud.

“And as to my probation, pah!” Bill continued, physically brushing away my concern with a chunky and indifferent hand. “You got nothin’ to worry about, girl. I’ve been on best behavior
for the last six months and my probationary period is nearly over.”

“So if you’re on probation, why were you assigned as my guide?”

He leaned against the wall with a heartfelt sigh. “I don’t think Jason Skeletor-Horn could find anyone else on such short notice.”

I sighed long, deep and hard before shaking my head against the insanity of everything I
'd experienced in the last four hours; or at least, it felt like it couldn’t have been more than four hours. “I’m not sure how I feel about any of this,” I mumbled. And that was the naked truth. I was starting to think AfterLife Enterprises had placed me at the bottom of the totem pole.

“Everything is gonna be fine, sugar nipples,” Bill said with another grin. Then he glanced at his watch and frowned. “I left the car running so we’d better get going. It’s a pretty long drive to Dickhead.”

Care, kindness and understanding …

He started for the door, shaking his head as a new round of mirth seized him. I followed, only because I wasn’t sure what else I should do. I wanted to call Jason and scream at him that this was not what I signed up for, but the phone was in Bill’s pocket and he
was convinced I wouldn’t be able to get through to Jason anyway, so what was the point?

I shut the door behind me without locking it, since there wasn’t anything inside to steal.
Then I took the stairs two at a time, with Bill directly in front of me. At the bottom of the stairwell, halfway parked in the grass and half on the pavers of the driveway, was the Audi I’d chosen in Jason’s office.

“How’d you get
…?” I started.

“Someone had to deliver it to you,” he answered with a shrug. “You wanna drive or
what?”

I couldn’t say I was in any shape to get behind the wheel.
’Course, there was that little part about Bill and his alcoholism. “Jason said you were an alcoholic.”

“I haven’t had a drink in six months, or something like that. I’m on the clean and sober path.” He said it like he wasn't exactly thrilled about it. I frowned and he continued. “Hey, I drove it over here in the first place
… give a brother a break, yo.”

I didn’t have the energy or the wherewithal to argue; and there were those British roundabouts Jason warned me about. “Fine.”

Like a scheming gnome, Bill smiled and rubbed his hands together before opening the car door. He climbed up the running board and heaved himself into the seat. I wasn’t much more graceful; after tripping over my foot, I stumbled into the passenger's seat.