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FATHER PATRICK AND THE other parishioners were so relieved to get Father Dominic back they had no problem calling my assistant, Trisha, to pick me up.
“I still don’t know why you don’t just get a driver’s license,” Patricia—Trisha for short—threw her keys down on her desk back at the office. Her blonde hair had been colored black, which she wore in pigtails with hot pink extensions. I was surprised the Fathers’ had even let her in the church, let alone allowed her to take me away. Churches could be judgmental like that.
“Why would I do that when I have you?” I trudged along, my strength after the demon samba still MIA. I had to remember not to do that again. The holy powers I did have were far and few between. I didn’t need to waste them on low-lives like that demon.
“And you’ll always have me, Mare, but what happens if some day—I’m not saying when—I’m not able to get you?” she crossed her arms over her black on black corset top. Trisha was what the humans liked to call quirky. Though, Trisha called it individualism, her clothing ranged from tight corsets and fishnets to plaid school-girl skirts and Mary Janes.
“Then, I’d make do,” creaking open the door to my office—which also doubled as my bedroom—I made my way to the bathroom. I’d fixed it up when I’d first rented the place. It had been a one-bedroom with a crappy mold-infested bathroom before I’d gotten my hands on it.
Now, it gleamed with new water fixtures, a full bath and shower, and fuzzy rugs that made my feet sing. There were few things in the human world I cared about. A good bathroom was numero uno.
Turning the water to scalding, I dragged my clothes off my body, each muscle aching from the movement. I hated getting possessed. It always felt like I had been beaten inside and out. It left my insides feeling like they needed a good scrubbing; something even boiling hot water wouldn’t clean out.
At least I had a water heater in which I’d dropped a holy cross. Didn’t make the water stay warmer longer, but it beat the hell out of doing an aura cleansing every other week. Not that I got possessed that often, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared.
Once I’d rinsed off the extra baggage weighing me down, I felt a hundred times better. I grabbed a towel off the rack and proceeded to dry off as I moved through the bathroom and back into my office with a bit more pep in my step.
“Uh, Mare,” Trisha sat behind my desk filing her blood-red nails. “Did you forget something again?”
“Hmm?” I bent over and grabbed a bottle of water from the mini-fridge.
“Mary, come on! I’m right here.”
I turned my head toward Trisha who was covering her eyes with her hand. I realized what she was talking about. I had forgotten clothes, again.
I’d only been living as a human for the last five years, and while I had acclimated myself to their culture, I still lacked some of the hang-ups that most humans seemed to have. Like modesty and what Trisha called tact.
I didn’t understand what the big deal was. We were all animals, and it made no difference to me. Were humans so out of control of their hormones that the mere glimpse of naked flesh would send them into a frenzy? It made me happy I was above all those animalistic urges.
“Sorry,” I muttered, grabbing a clean shirt from the supply I kept at the office.
The place I called home only had enough room for a desk and a couch that folded out into a bed. In heaven, I didn’t need to sleep at all. The longer I stayed on earth the more sleep I needed. Probably had to do with my powers waning. It wasn’t something I really liked to think about. So I slept, ate, and drank like the rest of the planet and got on with what little of a life I had here.
“So anyways, did you get paid?” Trisha pointed her nail-file at me.
Jerking my pants on, I realized I actually hadn’t even talked to the father about payment. Money. Another one of the human needs that I didn’t quite get.
When I’d escaped from hell, I’d had no idea where I was or how I would get back to heaven. I’d quickly found out that humans weren’t as wonderful as the almighty had tried to make them out to be. It took me days to find someone that would help me.
Adara.
The thought of her made me smile. The ex-demon hunter had taken one look at me and knew right away what I was and what had happened. I had no idea how; she wasn’t psychic. Either way, it worked out for me. She helped me get a new identity and taught me all about the fancy weapons the humans called guns.
I moved over to my desk and pulled my shoulder holster on. Tucking the Glock 42 into the holster, I frowned at Trisha, “Not exactly.”
Trisha frowned. “What do you mean, not exactly? Either you did or you didn’t? Please tell me you actually told them they’d have to pay.”
“I didn’t tell them,” I tugged my boots on and sighed, “Can’t you just send them an invoice?”
The young girl’s mouth dropped open before clamping shut, “Well, yeah. But it won’t do any good if you haven’t discussed payment beforehand.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Trisha snapped, “people are in it for themselves. Mare, you know I love your naïve outlook on humanity, but you have to remember there aren’t a lot of good people out there. Even priests.”
I almost let out a snort. Naïve outlook. Trisha couldn’t be further from the truth. It was hard to ignore how much evil was in the world when I could read people's intentions from across the room. Even Trisha had her dark moments, and no one was completely good. There were more bad humans than I thought were worth saving.
“Got it. No more freebies,” I nodded, ending the conversation my assistant-slash-receptionist and I seemed to have on a weekly basis.
Seemingly satisfied, the young girl started to click away on my computer, an old Windows 7 that had seen better days. “So, now that that is out of the way. How are we going to make some dough? Rent is due and you are already a month behind.” She moved the mouse around and stared at the pointer on the screen until something caught her eye. “How about a nice and easy background check?”
“A background check?”
“Yeah,” Trisha beamed at me, “This rich guy wants you to check out his prospective nanny. Make sure she’s not a child-molester or whatever. Easy peasy.”
“That sounds more like a Patricia skill than a Mary skill,” I came around the desk and leaned over her shoulder to look at the screen.
“Well, yeah, I can do all the online digging, but he wants you to use your ‘special gifts’,” she air-quoted, “to sniff out if she’s the real deal or not.”
“What am I? A bloodhound?"
“When it’s a four-digit job, you bark and roll over,” Trisha smirked at me over her shoulder.
I groaned. I didn’t like to use my powers for menial tasks as if I was some kind of circus freak that could jump through hoops on command. I was supposed to be looking for a way back to heaven, not paying bills.
As if hearing my distress, my cell phone rang.
“Wiles,” the gruff voice of Sergeant Thompson of the LAPD greeted me, “How’s my favorite PI?”
“Hi, Sergeant,” I couldn’t help but smile at his attempt at flattery, “Just had a holy water cleanse. And you?”
The sound of him choking on what I knew was a cup of coffee permanently attached to his hand, made me grin.
“Really now?” he asked when he finally caught his breath, “Where would you get one of those done?”
“Oh, you can do it at home. I’ll have to show you sometime,” I winked at Trisha who was having a laughing fit. No one would know it, but the Los Angeles Police Sergeant was a closet paranormal addict. Something that I had easily picked up on and had since used to tease him mercilessly. I found it especially funny since I, myself, was of the paranormal.
“Yeah. You’ll have to do that,” he cleared his throat and tried to sound all official, “But that’s not what I called about. We have a body.”
“Don’t you usually?”
“Your kind of body.”
My kind of body usually meant there was some kind of weird mutilation, or symbols that moved the murder from normal to paranormal—if one could call murder normal.
“Oh. Well in that case. Where do you need me?” Thompson rambled off directions to an overpass near San Fernando. Great. An hour’s drive ahead of us and that’s if the traffic was good.
“So, do we have a case?” Trisha’s eyes lit up with interest.
I snapped my phone closed after thanking the good Sergeant, and grinned, “We have a case.”
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