This time she gave in to the inevitable, although I heard the annoyed click of her dentures against each other, and closed her eyes while mumbling under her breath. Whether the mumbling was cursing at me or calling out to the spirit world, I didn’t care. I just wanted my dead person. I couldn’t talk to my brother. Human mediums can’t reach the pa?en and there are no pa?en mediums. We don’t linger like humans sometimes do. Kimano was gone, to one of our better heavens, I knew. He deserved no less. It didn’t change the fact I would’ve given almost anything to talk to him again.
Someday. When my time was up and it was time to fall so another trickster could rise, then I would see him again . . . if I had to search every heaven in existence. And I would. I would feel his hand in mine again. Rough and warm. My family, and I wouldn’t lose him, not for good.
“Trixa.”
I exhaled, annoyed. “Mrs. Smith, I don’t have the time or the patience for this. Don’t make me teach you a lesson about peeping perverts and bad neighbors, because it’s awfully tempting. Just do the job I hired you to do.”
The eyes, magnified by the bifocals, blinked. “Trixa, it’s me. Anna. Rosanna.” The pink lips curved in a shy smile. “Remember? With Sir Pickles?” She blinked again. “One of the Roses.” The Rose. The one for whom I’d pulled the rug out from under Hell itself. “We know what you did for us. I know what you did for me. Tell me what you need. I want to know how can I pay you back, how I can thank you. How can I save you like you saved me?”
Sweet, shy Anna. She’d hung around, not welcome in the biblical Heaven because of the deal she’d made and not ready to pick a pa?en heaven, because of me. She’d known what was going on once she was freed of Hell. She had known about Cronus. The dead knew a good deal more than demons or angels if you asked them the right questions. She’d waited in case I needed help. She wouldn’t have been the first one I’d thought of when I thought balls, but she had them all the same. She had determination and she thought she had a duty—to thank me. In all my trickster days I think it might’ve been the first thank-you I’d ever received.
“Anna.” I gripped the hands I held in mine. “Little Anna, I’m grateful, but I don’t think this is something you will want to do. It’s dangerous, even to the dead. And it’s terrifying—especially to the dead.”
The brightness in her eyes was twice what it had been when she’d first come to me. “I lost my face, my life, my soul, and I stepped in front of a bus.” The smile was less shy now. It was confident, daring, adventurous, and what Anna should have always been if her life hadn’t changed so quickly. “I think I have a résumé in dangerous and terrifying.”
“So you’re James Bond now, are you?” I asked fondly.
“Better,” she said promptly. “I won’t stop and have sex with every woman I see on the way.”
“Annie-girl, you are so worth it. Screwing Hell. Freeing all the Roses. You were most certainly worth it all. You are my poster girl of the year.”
Her hands—in reality the dog lady’s hands, but Anna’s for the moment—shook mine playfully. “Then tell me. How can I help you?”
I told her, and to her credit she didn’t flinch, not once. Not when I told her where I needed her to go, how difficult it was to get in, and how far more difficult it was to get out. I hoped dropping my name and the reason behind what I needed should be enough to help her pass whoever remained there, but I told her truthfully that I couldn’t guarantee it.
She tugged me across the table and kissed me on the cheek. “We’ll see. I only wish I had Sir Pickles with me. There isn’t anything alive or dead that’s not afraid of a smack from him. And when I’m done, where will I go?”
“Anywhere you want. We have more heavens than stars in the sky. Tell them I sent you, and I think you’ll find one you like. Ask for my brother, Kimano, when you knock at the doors. I know you’ll like him. All the girls do.”
The pink smile widened and then, the same as a rainbow-sheened soap bubble popping under your curious finger, she was gone. Anna was gone and I was left with the much less amiable dog lady. I didn’t blame that schnauzer at all for making a toilet out of her bathtub. She was not the most pleasant or reasonable of people. If we lived someplace colder, she’d no doubt force the dogs into ridiculous little sweaters or raincoats. Looking at the pictures on the wall again, now every canine face seemed to be pleading, help us. She brushes our teeth four times a day. She wheels us out in the yard and tries to wipe our asses with toilet paper when we go.
She did feed them though. That was something, every one of them fat and sassy on the wall of fame. It was better than the pound and near-certain death. I couldn’t swat her for embarrassing dogs. But for being rude and peeping at her neighbors, I’d put that on the back burner.
“Thank you, Mrs. Smith. Despite yourself, you were helpful. And, please, the dogs don’t care if it’s one ply or two. They’d prefer you didn’t wipe their furry butts at all.”