“No. I think you’ll be able to help us all a great deal, and not just with the dead who need us. The men who are working with Steele can only do so much.” The big man kissed Kari on the mouth and Billy had to smile. He just loved seeing them both happy.
“Carlton told me that once you’re brought from the grave, so to speak, you can be free to move where you want. The bond between you and your summoner can be broken by the living if you mess up. You aren’t planning to mess up are you, Grandda?”
He nearly missed it in his eagerness to tell them that he’d be as good as gold. Billy looked at the two of them and wondered, after all these years, if his daughter would love them as much as he did. He was nearly sure that she would…positive really.
“Grandda, huh? I like the sound of that, I do. And no, I won’t mess up. I’ll do whatever it takes to help you as much as you helped me.” He looked at Kari. “You will use me as more than just a friend, I hope.”
“Some. But I really do need you to be there for me. I never had a parent, much less a grandparent. You’ll be able to come and go as you please. Oh, and we have brought Connie with us as well. She’ll be staying here with all of us.” Billy nodded. He loved that old bird too. She’d kept him sane these last years.
“What is our first job?” Kari looked at Steele, then at him. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“I think you will.” Kari stood up and moved into the house. Billy looked at Steele when he cleared his throat.
“There are others out there that we can help.” Billy nodded. “Not the ones that want revenge, but people who genuinely need help. We want you to guide them to us. It’ll be up to you completely who we help and who we can’t. Grandmother will help you, of course, but she said that you had a way of reading people better than anyone she knew. She has agreed to do as you need her to so long as you’re not too bossy.”
“I’m rarely never bossy.” Steele laughed and he did as well. Billy thought working with these two was going to be a good deal of fun. And if he was really lucky, he’d get to see some great grandchildren in the deal. He decided that the sooner he got started, the sooner he could help a few people himself.
~~~
“It’s been five weeks.” Steele held Kari when she came to him. He knew she was frustrated, they all were, but she was taking it the hardest. “Where the hell is she?”
“I don’t know, love, but we’re looking.” Steele looked at the three men who hovered around the room with them. “Grandda and the others are looking as hard as they can. I’ve even had Donny and Carlton looking.”
“She’s out there. I just know it.” Steele turned her around so that she could see the men as well. Grandda was as frustrated as Kari was, but in a different way. He wanted to find his daughter, that was true, but he hated not being able to help Kari. The man loved her like she was his own child. All of them did. Carlton had said that he’d die again for her. Donny told him just last week that he wished he was still living so he could ask her out. It was hard for him to get upset with the kid. He was only twelve.
Carlton had been an old man when he’d passed away. He’d been found alone and dead in his home some weeks after he’d been dead for a while. The man had had no one to care for him, and when Steele had seen him, he’d been so grateful to have someone to talk to that he’d never been able to get him to leave.
Then they’d found Donny. A drive-by shooting had taken the kid out. Not that Donny hadn’t been as bad as the man who had shot him, but he hadn’t had a lot of parental guidance in his life. His father was unknown to the boy and his mother, or what Donny now called the Oven, had shown Donny how to deal drugs when he’d been no more than seven. He’d never seen the inside of a school, so could not write or read. He had a great deal of common sense, street sense, but he was still a kid and would remain one for the rest of his days as a ghost. But like Carlton and Grandda, he was in love with Steele’s wife.
“I gots me some dirt on somebodies.” Kari put her fists on her hips when Donny spoke. “I have a lead on a person.”
She’d been correcting him every time he said something incorrectly, which by Steele’s estimation was every time he opened his mouth. When he nodded at her and grinned, Kari asked him what he had.