A Ghost of a Chance (24 page)

“Granted,” Reggie said, toying with a trinket on the table next to him. “But then, I have to have one to accomplish my goal.”

“Which is?”

A little light flicked in his black eyes. “Patience, mon frère. Please, have a seat and I will alleviate all your curiosities.”

“I doubt that.” Keenan made his way back to the chair and sunk into the soft cushions. He closed his eyes and let his muscles settle into the leather.

“Do you remember when I told you in college that one day you would be great?”

“I remember you used to get me drunk, fill my ear with a lot of nonsense about running the world, and then get me to streak the football game.”

The memory sent a bemused smiled across Reggie’s face. “Ah, yes. I had forgotten that. But it doesn’t change the fact that what I told you was true. You are about to become the father of the greatest creature ever born. And it’s all thanks to me.”

“Thanks.” Keenan made it as dry as bone. “The way I see it, it won’t be me at all, but you. Do I have that about right?”

“Well, yes, at this point you’re just the sperm donor. But it doesn’t have to be that way.” The sly words followed him back to his chair as he sat down. Keenan was instantly alert.

“What doesn’t have to be that way?”

“The sacrifice. I don’t need you to die to inhabit your body. I just need you to—move over a bit. The human body is pretty large real estate. We could share the responsibilities and the perks.”

Keenan nodded and sat up to put his elbows on his knees. “I get it. You move in with me—like roommates?”

“Precisely. Of course, you’ll have to make a few concessions. But I think we could work out things quite nicely.” He rubbed his hands above the desk and leveled those bleak eyes at Keenan. “I like you, Keenan, I always have. You have what we call in the vernacular a pure soul. A fellow who is untainted by lifetime after lifetime of degradation. Somewhere in your distant past, someone granted you a boon…a life without sin, if you will. Add your psychic abilities, your talent, your…physical gifts, and presto, chango, you’ve got one hell of a package. Because of that, I would prefer to do this with you intact. You bring so much to the table.” He picked up his glass, sat back, and swirled the contents slowly. “It would be a pity to leave that behind. I’m giving you an incomparable gift here, son. If you agree, I promise your life will definitely take a turn for the better. Our son is brewing right now. All you have to do is help me raise him.”

Keenan’s brain was having some problems adjusting to the fact that he was a father. “Who’s the girl—uh, the mother?”

Reggie shrugged, downed the last of the drink, and set the snifter down. “A witch, actually, although she doesn’t know
that
yet. She’ll find out soon enough. Right here in Portland, not far from here. Adorable little creature, though a bit dark for my tastes. She squealed like a chipmunk when I delivered… the bundle. A virgin, if you’re interested.”

Keenan gave him a look of disgust, folded his arms, and came to the only decision he could. “No thanks. I’m not interested in any of it, Reggie. You can take your proposition and shove it up your ass.”

Reggie pulled a long sigh into his lungs and pushed himself away from the desk. “Very well.”

In a swirl of color, the ceiling sucked the room away, taking the illusion and the light with it.

Chapter Nineteen
A Ghost of a Chance

When Keenan turned eighteen, his mother kicked him out with a hundred bucks and the clothes on his back. He had bought the clothes but assumed the hundred bucks was a lame effort to absolve eighteen years of guilt. Walking out the door, he didn’t even turn back to look at her.

He had left lots of people in his life, simply walked away from them with promises he knew he’d never keep. Life got in the way, failed goals clogged up his ambition, and even those people he actually loved fell behind, his own guilt a roadblock to his re-acquaintance. His good friend Sally, a girl named Giana he left at the chapel steps in Florence, and a parade of caring people he had abandoned marched across his memory when the room changed.

Keenan suddenly found himself standing in the middle of the chapel again, the smell of reality musty in his nose.

Reggie appeared inside a yellow glow that settled down in front of Keenan. Behind him was Constance, who was wringing her hands and shaking her head so hard the curlers clicked. The worry lines were a roadmap on her face.

“Honey, are you all right?” She tried to take a step toward him, but Reggie threw up his arms and she stopped.

“What’s she doing here?” Keenan demanded.

He was worried. Reggie knew how he felt about Constance. Just another way to get him to cooperate, he guessed, but he wished Reggie had chosen someone else. The only reason he was even considering this was largely because of Constance. The thought of this remarkable being writhing in hell would keep him up nights. He didn’t want to walk away from her too.

“I need someone to help you…loose this mortal coil. Constance can do it without damaging the integrity of my new home.”

Reggie moved toward Keenan and put a hand on either side of his head. “But first I need to do a bit of preparation. We don’t want you dying of shock, now do we? That would be unacceptable.”

In a sudden rush, Keenan’s brain began to fill with a kind of energy. It was as if Reggie were giving him some super vitamin injection. Every ache or pain went away instantly; his mind cleared for the first time in days; there was a kind of vitality that seeped into his awareness. He had never felt so strong.

In that short exchange, however, something else shot into Keenan’s conscience. It was strange, foreign, and when Keenan realized what it was, the violation left him cold. Reggie had planted some kind of seed inside him. It sat in him like a malignant cancer, beginning to unfurl at the edges. He wasn’t alone in there anymore and the thought scared the bejesus out of him.

He pushed his eyes open and Reggie’s satisfied grin greeted him.

“What a rush, huh?”

“Reggie, don’t do this,” Constance pleaded, frantically looking from one to the other. “You don’t need to do this to him. Let him go. You can guide the baby just the way you are; you don’t need to be human to do that.”

“Shut up, Constance! She betrayed me, left me to rot in Italy. This is payment for her disloyalty. Dabria will suffer for every moment I was without her.”

Reggie pulled an invisible string that propelled Constance forward. When she stood a few inches from Keenan, she tried to take a step back.

“I won’t do it,” she whispered.

When Reggie came up behind her, she crossed her arms and shivered.

“You will do it or the others go down right now.”

With a click of his fingers, the ghosts appeared all around them, like a crowd in an arena. They were a frozen mass of ectoplasm.

Keenan searched the ranks and saw hundreds of familiar faces. It was odd. For the last twenty years he had wanted nothing more than to rid himself of these pesky poltergeists, had counted the days when he might have a moment’s peace, had fantasized about being alone, if only for a minute. But now, as he considered each entity, his heart parked itself in a moment of pathos. These people had been his friends, his entertainment, his life for so long, he couldn’t imagine his world without them. The thought of losing them was crushing.

The seed inside him shifted and a horrible thought came to him. He glared past Constance at Reggie and tightened his lips. Reggie’s black soul was starting to come into focus.

“What happens to them when you’ve got what you want?”

There was the slightest flick of Reggie’s chin and a ghost of a smile dusted his lips. “Nothing, of course.”

The revelation hit Keenan between the eyes, but he had no idea where it was coming from. Reggie was lying, had been from the very beginning. Keenan took a step back and his mouth opened, but nothing came out. Reggie had no intention of letting any of them go. He wanted the world to himself—no witnesses. The thoughts bombarded Keenan’s brain until he couldn’t breathe.

In a rush of movement that amazed even Keenan, he jumped back, grabbed the gun out of his belt, and pointed it at Reggie.

“Let her go!” he demanded.

Those shark eyes glistened for only a moment. “What are you going to do, old bean? Shoot me?”

“No,” he whispered.

Keenan did something then that would never have occurred to him in a million years. He pointed the gun at his own head.

Reggie stopped dead. The dark eyes sized up Keenan’s courage in a glance. He allowed a relaxed grin to settle over his face and leaned against one leg. “You’re bluffing,” he stated as if he knew Keenan’s every thought.

It was obvious he didn’t. Keenan had never even contemplated suicide, let alone attempted it, and yet here he was. There was a certain kind of logic in what he was doing. Calm waves of ease took the shake out of his arms and stilled the hand holding the gun. He knew with absolute certainty that he could pull the trigger. The idea was freeing somehow.

“Don’t bet on it,” he answered quietly. “Let them go. All of them. Amos and Dabria, too. You do that, and I’ll give you this body without a giant hole through the brain. Otherwise, you get it with air conditioning.” A deep laugh came up from the bottom of Keenan’s lungs when the irony became clear to him. “I’d love to see you start all over again, Reggie, so don’t fuck with me.”

Reggie searched Keenan’s face a long time before answering. “Suicide is a one-way trip to hell, son. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”

“Do you honestly think I care? No, Reg. You miscalculated. You called me a pure soul. Fact of the matter is I’m not
that
pure. I just don’t like being fucked with. Let—them—go.”

Reggie tossed his head back and finally threw up his hands.

“Fine!”

With a clap, the suspended ghosts became a whirling mass of energy again. The noise from their combined voices was deafening. But they did not move. Instead, they gathered around Keenan and hung suspended high above him, hiding behind arched beams and dark corners. Reggie eyed them suspiciously, but then shrugged and turned his attention to Keenan.

“Better?” Reggie asked.

Constance still stood between them, a huddled figure of clanking curlers and drab blue robe.

“Her, too,” Keenan said.

“Come now. I think you understand that I need a way to dispatch you without harming the body. That will take a ghost. There is some kind of ironic justice in having it done by my fat little bundle of optimism here.”

“It’s all right, honey,” Constance said sneering at Reggie and squaring her shoulders. “I’d rather do it so it won’t hurt so much. I think I know what he’s got in mind.”

Keenan pushed the gun into his temple. “Where are they, Reggie?”

“I don’t know who you are talking about?”

“Cut the crap! Dabria and Amos. Where are they?”

A slow grin spread over Reggie’s face. “They’re here,” he said slowly. With a wave of his hand, Amos materialized as the entity behind him solid in his cloudy mass. “Dabria will be along soon. I’m not about to let go of my prizes until I know for sure you’ll keep your end of the bargain. I don’t know how I can assure you since I’m certain you won’t take my word on it.”

“Nope.”

“Then how about this? You put down the gun and behave yourself and I won’t mess up your pretty little girlfriend over there.”

From out of a shadow at the end of the room, a golden light flared suddenly. There in the light, completely still, stood Isabella. Her face was soft, asleep, but in one hand she held the house key Keenan had just given to her.

“You son of a bitch!” Keenan rushed to her. When he reached her, she collapsed into him, warm and soft in his arms. He tried shaking her, but she was out cold.

“And just in case you doubt my sincerity…” Reggie wrinkled his nose and snorted a laugh. Isabella stopped breathing.

“No, no, no,” Keenan whispered trying to shake her again and watching her lips turn blue. He laid her down and tried to get her mouth open for mouth to mouth, but she was as stiff as if rigor mortis had set in. Even when he pressed against her chest, it was like trying to revive a statue. He gritted his teeth and barked at Reggie, “Stop it!”

“Temper, temper. Do I have your attention now?”

“Yes,” Keenan hissed wildly. “Let her go…”

Reggie put a finger to his ear. “And the magic word is…?”

Keenan clamped her against his pounding heart. “Please.”

Isabella immediately softened in his arms. Her breath and heart went back to normal, and, with an effort, Keenan slowed his own. Gently setting her on the floor of the old chapel, he rose and crossed to the demon. There was nothing more he could do.

If he killed himself, he’d go to hell and Reggie would just start over again with another poor schmuck and destroy his friends in the process. If he allowed Reggie to take his body, then he would probably take up with Isabella, find the woman who was carrying Keenan’s kid and take the child away from her, then raise it to be…what? Probably the anti-Christ’s second cousin, for all Keenan knew. If he ran, there would be no place to go. They all knew where he lived. The piece of Reggie churning inside him settled in for the duration. He had to trust what Amos had told him, but it didn’t come easily.