A Ghost of a Chance (5 page)

“Well…” Reggie tapped his fingers against the backrest and gazed up at the murky faux Tiffany light above the booth. “Not anymore.”

“So what does it want with me?”

Reggie shrugged and rubbed his nose with a long forefinger. “They are drawn to powerful men…psychics.”

“That’s horseshit, Reggie. I’m no psychic.”

Reggie nailed him with a cold gaze and chuckled under his breath. “Let’s see…you see dead people. Not only do you see them, but you talk to them as well. As a matter of fact, some of your best friends are dead. Sounds rather psychic to me. But what do I know?”

Keenan licked his lips. “Oh.”

“May I continue?”

Keenan nodded miserably. He had never considered himself psychic and the idea left his chest tight. But it made a certain kind of sense; he had to live with the fact that his whole life had been a magic bag of paranormal bullshit. Wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Psychic was as good a word as any.

“Anyway, given your history, it’s not surprising she would select you. Maybe she wants a child…”

“Angels can have kids?”

Reggie drummed his fingers twice against the greasy oilcloth. “Not in the strictest sense. The succubus seduces a man, collects his seed, and transfers it to an incubus who changes it and delivers it to a human female. Seems to me that would just produce your garden-variety human offspring, but apparently not. The child born to the woman is called a cambion.” A shadow of a warm smile touched his cold lips. “Now,
these
little fellows are really something… ugly as sin when born, no breath or heartbeat, but it runs around like the very dickens for the first seven years or so.
Then it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate one from a human. A cambion eventually becomes devilishly cunning with the face of an angel. Persuasive too. Can talk a saint into dropping his drawers on Sunday and a nun to give up her habit.”

“So what the hell am I supposed to do?” Keenan’s senses turned to melting marshmallows the more Reggie talked.

“Haven’t the foggiest.”

“Great.” A cold breeze snuck in between Keenan’s legs, shrinking his already shriveled privates. He smashed his knees together and adjusted his coat. “Why didn’t you guys warn me? Where the hell did you all go?”

“Ghosts are not omnipotent, you know. They
are
human,” Reggie said, lifting his chin. “There are certain spirits that scare even the dead. Ghosts usually flit away before anyone can say, ‘Bob’s your uncle.’ Not me, of course,” he added, clearing his throat. “I wasn’t even there at the time. Checking the twins out again, you know.”

Anger was beating the hell out of Keenan’s better judgment and the earlier warmth was turning into a deep chill. He wasn’t sure which feeling was making his knees shake when he leaned across the table.

“So what do we do about it?” he whispered.

Reggie inspected the nails of his right hand. “Dashed if I know. Let her do it again and see how it goes?” he asked hopefully.

“Fuck you.”

Reggie smiled and rose to his ethereal feet. “Sorry I can’t be more help, old cocker, but I have to hurry off to a previous engagement.” A pair of gloves appeared out of the air that Reggie slipped onto his hands in a blink. Tucking a walking stick under his arm, he tipped his head to Keenan. “I know I’m coming across all mouth and no trousers, but I wouldn’t worry about it any. It’s probably an isolated incident, never happen again. You survived. That should bring you some comfort.”

Keenan scowled up at the apparition as he drifted past the table. “What the hell does that mean?”

Reggie stopped and regarded Keenan over his shoulder. “A succubus can kill you, old buck…and usually does after a while. I think you…how do you Americans say it… dodged a bullet?”

Without another word, Reggie disappeared, leaving Keenan to contemplate his mortality.

Chapter Four
The Spirit Is Willing…The Flash Is Weak

One blustering night years before, Keenan found himself lost in the Oltrarno district of Florence, Italy. Flanked by towering cement buildings on both sides and a narrow cobbled road under his feet, try as he might, he could not seem to find his way out of the ancient maze. Finally, being young, bold, and relatively ignorant, he stumbled into a smoky tavern.

He knew at once that this was probably a local hang out. Dark, angry men, some old, some young, glared at him when he came through the door, dripping rainwater onto a stone floor that bowed in the middle where hundreds of years of footsteps had worn it away. Keenan adjusted the portfolio tucked under his cloak when an old woman approached and led him to a table without saying a word.

She set a mug in front of him and filled it with Chianti, grabbed a bowl from a nearby sideboard, wiped it out with her apron, and then filled it from the pot sitting over an open flame. Keenan liked ribollita, a bean stew common to the area, and imagined the place only served one dish per day. The woman held out her hand in the universal gesture of “pay me” and Keenan fished some coins from his pocket to give to her. She counted the coins with a huff, then grabbed a rough loaf of black bread from the same sideboard, plopped it onto the table to accompany the stew, and then scuttled off into some hidden recess of the tavern.

Keenan ate as he watched the patrons going about their own personal business. There were four men decked out in fine clothes sitting at one table. The Italian equivalent of a bachelor party? Keenan assumed so from their merry making and what few words of Italian he could catch. They were very drunk and kept toasting a cheery faced young man sitting at the middle.

Over to his right was a wrinkled fisherman by the smell, sitting alone and concentrating on his dinner. Behind him, in the shadows, sat another man.

Keenan tried to make out his face over his bowl of beans, but the only thing coming across were the glints of the stranger’s eyes and the smoke from a cigarette. It may have been Keenan’s imagination, but it looked like the stranger was staring at him.

Without warning, a woman plopped into the seat across from Keenan, uninvited. She might have been beautiful once, but several decayed teeth and the leathery hide of an alcoholic smoker made her look as dry as yesterday’s ashes. The micro mini skirt and dangling halter-top she wore left nothing to the imagination; it was all she had on. Her bright blue eye shadow was thick and hypnotic.

“
Vuoi un buon tempo
?” The checkered smile shooting from behind large strawberry red lips looked predatory.

Keenan sat back, dropping his spoon into his bowl. His Italian was sketchy. All he could think to say was, “Scusi?”

From out of the shadows, the strange man rose and crossed to them with assured, graceful strides. He was tall, handsome, with a bushy black beard and piercing black eyes. He took the woman’s bare shoulders into his hands and squeezed. Her smile turned upside down in an instant and the look of terror was unmistakable in her eyes. She shot Keenan a pleading glance then lowered her face to the rough brown table.

“Questo non si è per voi.” The stranger’s voice was deep and menacing. The woman bolted from the chair and rushed to the door without looking back. The wind and the rain sucked her into the night.

The man gave Keenan a quick nod and bow. “Enjoy your dinner, signore.” He left the building almost as quickly as the woman had, leaving Keenan to scratch his head and wonder what just happened.

That memory crept into his thoughts as he watched the beer in his glass disappear, sitting there at
Taps
. It had always creeped him out. The disconcertion of both nights echoed one another sending a frigid quake up his sides. He was so sick of that feeling.

After finishing his beer, Keenan left
Taps
and pulled his collar up around his ears. The heat from earlier had leaked out of his arms and legs. He was freezing. Walking fast seemed the best solution until the wind meandered up his legs and into his balls.
But, baby, it’s cold outside…

Eventually, the moving muscles started to warm up and by the time he rounded the pathway to his front door, it was bearable. He took the painted cement steps two at a time and then stopped dead in his tracks.

His keys were in his jean’s pocket, sitting on top of his laundry, inside the locked house.

He tried the door but it was locked tight.

“Son of a bitch,” he said to the tall green door. The sinking feeling mingled with his frozen head and blasted a pang of panic between his ears.

Keenan scurried around the house, rubbing his hands together, trying to figure out what he should do next. The cold was getting worse. He searched the blank wall, forgetting there weren’t any entrances on this side. Running more to get his legs warmed up, he sped around the back of the house and then the other side testing every window. No luck.

When he got to his bedroom, he stopped. From outside, the beached mattress looked like a giant teeter-totter, but it wasn’t obstructing the window. The beer chose that moment to take over Keenan’s reasoning. It apparently figured a little more glass on the floor wasn’t going to hurt anything.

Grabbing his right fist in his left hand, Keenan lifted his elbow and slammed it against the window as hard as he could. As was expected, the glass gave way and shattered into the room. As was unexpected, pain bolted up Keenan’s arm, set bells and whistles off in his eardrums, and burst out of the top of his head.

He jumped up and down holding the injured arm, sending scattered profanities out into the street. When he saw a light go on in his neighbor’s house, he stopped.
Steady, boy.
The beer decided it had done enough. Keenan was instantly sober.

He flexed his arm carefully several times and knew it was still intact. He couldn’t see any blood (
small comfort
), but he knew it was going to be black and blue for a while.

It looks so flippin’ easy on TV
. Pain radiated in a tidal wave through his arm.

The shards of glass in the window beamed back at him like funhouse teeth. He pushed one back and forth until it loosened and then pulled it out, careful not to cut himself. When he got the second and third out, he was feeling a little better, but it didn’t last long. A blinding white light threw a gigantic Keenan shadow against the outside of the house.

“Freeze. Put your hands out where I can see them.”

“Fuck.” The elongated word floated out of Keenan’s mouth like a boiling teakettle and he carefully put his hands out on the wall next to the window.

He heard some mumbled cop talk then, “Sir, put your hands on your head, slowly.” The voice was deep enough to send primordial shock waves into Keenan’s back, and he did what the nice police officer told him.

“This is my house, officer.” The words didn’t sound convincing even to Keenan.

“Stay where you are. Don’t move or I
will
shoot you. Do you understand?”

That warmed Keenan some; rivulets of sweat trickled down both his sides. He nodded, but couldn’t get his mouth working.

A few seconds later, he saw more red and blue lights reflecting off his house. They played eerily over the broken glass in the window. It sounded like two more cruisers pulled up.

When the first voice sounded right behind his ear, he jumped a foot. “Lace your fingers on top of your head, sir.”

Keenan complied, but by then he was shaking like a leaf.

A hand wrapped around the first three interlocked fingers sending pangs of pain through his arms and into his head. He couldn’t have budged from the spot to save his life. Something cold clicked around Keenan’s right wrist. The officer gripped it tightly, bending the wrist forward until a new kind of pain joined the first. Not letting up on the pressure, the cop pulled the right hand behind Keenan’s back until it nearly reached his neck. That third pain completed the ensemble. The cop repeated the process with Keenan’s left hand and a second cuff zipped into place. Cold metal pinched his wrists, cutting off his circulation, but Keenan didn’t complain.

Turning his head side to side, he spotted the two other officers flanking him. They stood back with deference to let the first cop do his job. Without ceremony, that one twisted Keenan around and one of the other cops blinded him with a flashlight.

Keenan felt hands the size of catchers’ mitts on his shoulders, around each arm, chest, back, ass, and down each leg. When they got there, the hands stopped, apparently realizing Keenan was naked under that coat, and a snorted
huh
came floating up to his ears.

Without even an
excuse me
, the cop unbuttoned Keenan’s coat and opened it wide, apparently to do a visual search for weapons. Hot cauldrons of embarrassment suffused Keenan’s face and neck, warming his skin instantly.
Perv
flickered through his skull, but he didn’t make a sound.

When the cop seemed satisfied, he re-buttoned the coat and pulled the change out of Keenan’s pocket, then slipped it into a clear Ziploc bag with
Evidence
neatly printed across it. He seemed upset when he didn’t find anything else on Keenan to join the change.

As Keenan’s eyes recovered from the glare of the flashlight, the cop said, “What’s your name?”