He looked away, gaze scanning some invisible spot a few feet over her left shoulder. “
After Sean brought you back. And I did it because I screwed up your training,” he muttered. “I didn’t want you penalized since I didn’t give you all the information you needed to be a full-fledged bounty hunter.”
Her insides melted to a puddle of goo. Who kn
ew Luc Asante had a human side? Even if eating crow made him look like…well, like death warmed over. But something else struck her as odd. “Wait. Back up.” She held up a hand. “I’m confused. I wasn’t penalized because of my training. They yanked my solo status because I went O.R.A.L.”
“
No, they didn’t. You never had solo status, babe.”
As if aboard a ship riding a roiling sea, her stomach pitched. “Of course I did.
I went after Amanda Kroger, the Lighthouse Widow. Remember? The Fury? That was my test case.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
He shook his head. “Your going alone that day was my fault. I was supposed to accompany you, but I was playing orb ball with Sean in the basement and didn’t hear the page.”
Words skittered from her lips in fits and starts.
“But…I don’t…understand. You told them…I was ready to solo. I won our bet.”
“No, I didn’t.
I meant to corner Sherman and tell him. But I never got the chance.”
Acid flowed into her tilted gut, burning her insides.
She should have known. “You mean you never intended to keep your end of the bargain.”
Tears filled her eyes, and she turned away before he could start his usual
you’re-too-soft diatribe. She didn’t need another voice calling her names. Not with the one already screaming inside her head, the one that called her an idiot for trusting him. “I should have known.” She threw up her hands. “What do I have to do to prove myself? How many bounties did you wrangle before they let you go off on your own?”
“Actually…” His tone softened to a regretful
croon. “You’re the first trainee I know about. Most of us are provided with all the information we need to become bounty hunters while reviewing our past lives with our Elders. I think you and I were some kind of pilot program.”
Bitter laughter spilled from her lips. “Of course we are. Because I wasn’t good enough to learn the same way all you he-men learned, right?
I’m too soft-hearted or stupid or whatever for on-the-job-training. I needed a babysitter.”
“No one said that, Jodie.”
She sighed. “They don’t have to say it. It’s obvious.”
With agitation crackling her synapses, she wrung her hands. Her gaze dropped to her furiously twisting fingers, round and round, round and round. And then she spotted her scars.
Her very own badge of courage. Despite her hurt feelings, or maybe because of them, she stiffened her shoulders and remembered her resolve. The Board wanted to throw challenges at her?
Fine. Go for it. I’m tougher than I look.
With a sharp head snap, she faced him again, determination blazing in her aura like St. Elmo’s fire. “You know what? Forget it. Eventually you
and
the Board will have to admit you’re wrong about me. In the meantime, let’s go fetch our latest bounty.”
“
It’s not what you think, Jodie--”
Again, she cut him off
, this time with a quick finger slice across the throat. “No, it’s exactly what I think.”
Apparently, the Afterlife had its own glass ceiling, and she’d just
collided smack-dab into it. Well, if the Board or the Elders assumed she’d surrender so easily, they’d soon learn they’d underestimated her.
With her new resolve pounding in her core,
she spun into vapor and flew headlong to Earth.
Bring it on, guys. I’m ready.
Chapter 23
T
he air inside the Shiloh held the sickly-sweet odor of stale pot smoke. In the room where Jodie landed, at least a dozen old ghosts loitered. A turn-of-the-century playwright sat at a tiny writing desk in one corner, penning a masterpiece no one would ever read. A folk singer from the 1960’s—one of her mother’s favorites—strummed a guitar while seated cross-legged on the bed. Near the windows, a political activist, complete with unshaven cheeks, gray turtleneck and red scarf, practiced his speech regarding the rights of the Common Man to the enthusiastic applause of a dozen onlookers. Against the opposite wall, four specters sat around a table, playing poker.
The cream-colored walls reverberated with creative energy, a low hum that whispered of Lenin, Warhol
, and Lennon. With so much noise and so many ghosts, Jodie couldn’t locate their particular bounty any easier than she’d find a particular gum wrapper in a dirty subway train.
Past where Luc landed beside her, a
blur of motion caught her eye.
O
ne of the bearded card players lifted two royal blue chips in his fingers before dropping them into the kitty in the center of the table. “Call,” he said firmly.
This is ridiculous.
Frustration inched up Jodie’s spine while her gaze continued to scan the room.
Note to self: advise the Board to include a physical description along with the biography from now on…
“Tito Alexander?” she
shouted over the murmuring voices.
“Who wants to know?” The demand, crack
ing with the accent of London slums, echoed from the farthest occupant of the card table.
Aha!
Found: One punk rock star. With his F-you attitude behind haunted dark eyes lined in black, he was hard to miss. He leaned, chair balanced precariously on its two spindled back legs, his head tilted at a careless angle. Eggplant-hued hair spiked in a dozen different directions, like someone who’d spent a restless night sleeping on an open tube of Krazy Glue. Tattoos of snakes and skulls painted his bare arms. A distressed black t-shirt declared
Life sucks, then you die. And that sucks too.
Obviously, Luc shared the contents of his closet. With
Tito Alexander.
“Well, well,”
Tito said, glancing up from his splayed cards. “Look who’s here. Luc Asante, bounty hunter to the stars.”
“Tito.” Luc offered a terse nod as he floated forward to hover near the table. “Interesting hand.”
Whatever cards Tito held, he set them down and covered them by spreading his hands on the green felt table. “What do you want, Asante?”
Energy screamed in the air between the two men
, and Jodie hung back. Let the big bad alpha males have their machismo conference. Once the testosterone mist eased and she clearly understood the static between them, she’d consider jumping into the fray. Until then, these two baboons were on their own.
“
You know why I’m here.”
Tito waved in dismissal.
“Forget it.”
“I can’t forget it.
” Luc’s tone chilled the air. “You’ve been called up. You know the drill.”
“Yeah, I do.
” Tito grinned, showing gleaming white teeth behind purple painted lips. “And I also know I can burn your ass if I refuse. Ruin that perfect record of yours.”
“You’re going to let an old rivalry keep you from moving on?”
A draft slipped through Jodie, and she hugged herself to keep from shivering.
“Has nothing to do with rivalry, Luc. I’m just not leaving until Sari comes back.”
Sari. The girlfriend. The woman who had died in this very room. If she focused hard enough, Jodie could visualize that poor woman’s body, pale and cold as white marble, lying on the unmade bed. Sari Snell had suffered her death throes encased in an opium haze. Had she heard Tito’s frantic cries for her to wake up, to open her eyes, to sit up and look at him, dammit?
Shaking the horrid images from her head, Jodie stared at Tito in time to catch him surreptitiously slip a card from the deck and palm it beneath the table.
Oh, my God. The man was cheating. She quickly scanned the room. Had anyone else noticed? No. The other players were all too busy studying their own hands or watching the byplay between Tito and Luc.
“Sari’s soul has already moved on,” Luc
said. “You’d have a better chance of reuniting with her if you’d give up the ghost here and come with us.”
“You’re wasting your breath, Asante,” Tito replied. “Here’s where she died; here’s where I’ll wait.” A bland expression softened his features as he set his cards face-up before his friends. “Read ‘em and weep, suckers. Four aces.”
“You cheated!” One of the card players, a scruffy cowboy, pointed an accusatory finger at Tito. “Ain’t no way you could get that fourth ace unless you had it up your sleeve.”
“
Oh, for Chrissakes, Jesse, I don’t have sleeves,” Tito retorted, flicking imaginary dust off his shoulder.
“That
does it!” Jesse shot to vapor, but his voice remained firmly in the room. “I’m not playing with you anymore.”
“
So go, you useless sot,” Tito replied.
The cowboy’s essence washed the wall behind him in dusty clay as he zipped to the farthest corner of the room—away from the players, away from where Luc and Jodie stood. “I ain’t nobody’s fool. And I don’t play with cheats and liars.”
Screwing up his face, Tito mimicked the words Jesse threw, and then sneered. “Sore loser. Who needs ya?”
Another ghost at the table, this one decked out in a zoot suit with a black fedora perched jauntily on his head, leaned forward. “Actually,
we
do, old chap. We’re short a fourth now.”
Tito’s gaze scanned the room, finally landing with acute interest on Jodie. “Let’s get the girl to play.” He waved her forward
with all the
noblesse oblige
of a king beckoning to a serving wench. “Come on, sweetheart. What do you say?”
She barely opened her mouth before Luc zipped in
to become the impenetrable wall between her and Tito Alexander. “The girl’s with me.”
An
idea burst inside Jodie’s mind with the speed and clarity of fireworks in a cloudless midnight sky. She slinked around Luc’s bulk to stand in the open. “Umm… I’d love to—”
“What’s this, Luc?” Tito cut her off. “Don’t tell
me you’ve become such a star they got you going after two of us at the same time these days.”
Another man who talked over her head as if she were a moron?
Apparently, Luc and Tito shared the same set of manners along with their wardrobes.
Luc shook his head.
“She’s my—”
“I’d love to play,” she exclaimed before Luc divulged too much. “If you’re patient enough to teach me, that is. I’ve always wanted to learn the game.”
The punk rocker’s smile grew predatory, and he cast a quick wink at his partners around the table before turning his focus back to her. “Really?”
What the hell are you up to now?
Luc’s question thundered inside her head.
Don’t tell him who I am,
she warned Luc while she kept the innocent girl-next-door expression glued in place.
It’s the scars. He must think I’m just another bounty because I still have scars. Let him continue to think that.
Why?
We’re going to reel him in using his own vices against him. Right now, complain that we’re wasting your time.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said aloud, throwing up his hands. “I don’t have time to waste while you two play card games. Why don’t you wait until you get to the other side? You’ll have ample opportunity
to teach her any games you want while you’re both being processed.”
Tito clucked his tongue. “Aw, but you look shagged out, Luc.” Despite the assessment, his lupine gaze remained pinned on Jodie. “Consider this a brief respite before you return to your duties. Even the Afterlife’s best bounty hunter needs a break every once in a while. Besides, who’s gonna care if you get us there right now or a few hours from now? Time
doesn’t exist on the other side, remember?”
Jodie turned pleading eyes to Luc, hands clasped in prayer. “Please, Mr. Asante?” she wheedled. “One last fling before I move on?”
Meanwhile, her mind used their psychic link to give him an entirely different set of instructions.
I’m going to let him think he’s got a real shot at beating me. And then we’ll go in for the kill.
Do you even know how to play poker?
I’ve been playing since I was three. Growing up the way I did, you learn fast that a deck of playing cards is one of the few diversions you can pack in a pocket, replace easily when lost, and use in small spaces to find endless entertainment.
Like hers, Luc’s expression never changed, but he seemed to quickly catch the gist of what she was about.
How exactly did you grow up where those were the criteria for your entertainment?
Later. I’ll tell you later.
And she would. It was time for her to bare her soul to him, so to speak. Maybe he’d understand her better. Maybe he’d share a little of himself with her in return. It was worth a shot. Maybe Sean and Serenity had a point. If they knew each others’ pasts, they might find some common ground to make their partnership more successful.
A
re you any good?
Luc’s question threw her for a minute, but she shook off the stupor and sized up
Tito and his cronies with a practiced eye. She smiled.
Trust me. They won’t know what hit ‘em.
~~~~
Luc hovered near the bed, curious, but not completely certain allowing Jodie into this fray of degenerates was such a good idea. While several of the other ghosts gathered around the table to watch the unfolding spectacle, he hung back. Partly for Jodie’s protection, but also because he felt something was very wrong with his chemistry. From the moment he landed in this hotel room, he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. And the longer he lingered, the harder he had to struggle to inhale. A bluish tint tinged his normally silver aura, frigid as an ice floe. His senses swirled while his guts kinked tightly in his abdomen. When he bent slightly to loosen the knots, a sudden bout of nausea overwhelmed him.
Nausea? How could that be?
His cells itched, as if a thousand ants crawled over his skin. But…he had no skin. What the hell was happening to him? Again.
“Asante. That’s your name, right?” a voice drawled near his ear. Jesse the cowboy ghost had sidled up on his left. “You feeling all right?”
All the odd symptoms suddenly evaporated, and he managed a curt nod. “Yeah. I’m just hunky-dory.”
“Well, you look like shit,” Jesse retorted as he turned back toward his corner. “But it ain’t my concern. So long as you don’t puke on the bed. We don’t need a housemaid popping up here to change the linens. We do a pretty good job of keeping the living away from this room. Don’t screw it up for us.”
“Don’t sweat it, Tex.” Luc forced his focus back to Jodie who had inched her way into the circle of gamblers.
“
Do you know anything about the game, sweetheart?” Tito asked as she settled beside him at the table.
“A little,” she replied with the eagerness of a Labrador puppy. “I know…like…three of a kind beats a pair and a full house beats three of a kind. I’ve seen guys play poker in the movies and on television.
” Her conversation encompassed every male in the room. “There was this one show, some kind of championship game in Las Vegas? Well, those guys played for real money. I mean, hundreds of thousands of dollars. But this is just for fun, right?”