Page 18 of Someone Save My Midlife Tonight

I moved my sword closer to his bobbing Adam’s apple. “Your name is Shitty Ritchie, not Rumpelstiltskin. I’m not playing games with a tiny Pop Tart testicle who blows up houses. You tell me or you’re leaving.”

“I can’t leave,” he screeched. “I’ll be killed!”

“By who?” I ground out.

He paused as the two brain cells in his head tried to come up with an answer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh my God,” I muttered. I was tempted to turn my sword on myself so I didn’t have to deal with Shitty Ritchie. “Gideon, do you know why the Higher Power fears Shitty Ritchie?”

“I do not,” he replied.

“Candy Vargo?”

“Nada.”

“Tim?”

“I’ve researched this for many years, but alas, I do not know, friend,” he told me.

“Heather?”

“Sorry, no,” she replied.

I was running out of Immortals to question.

“Rafe, Abby, Prue or Gabe? Any clue?”

Gabe answered as the other nodded in agreement with him. “Sorry, Daisy. We don’t know.”

“Charlie?”

He sighed. “Here’s what I know. Shitty Ritchie possesses a multitude of powers—not that I’ve witnessed much other than mass destruction. From whispers over the centuries, he fluently speaks every language ever spoken. It’s odd since the cretin has broken every law we have, but the man supposedly has the ability to recite the Immortal Book of Laws by heart. He can fly without wings.”

“I have seen that,” Tim volunteered.

“And legend has it he can harbor the dead from within,” Charlie continued.

A chill skittered up my spine. Shitty Ritchie was a Soul Keeper? Was he also an Arbitrator between the Darkness and the Light like Heather?

“He says he can touch the dead,”Charlie continued.

We could test that one out. But… did that mean the little shit was a Death Counselor as well? No. Tory could touch the dead and wasn’t a Death Counselor.

Back to the pint-sized object of our conversation. “Is all of that true, Shitty Ritchie?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, rehashing his favorite line.

Gram floated up behind me and whispered in my ear. “That little muppet-lookin’ thing is as useless as gum on a boot heel, and he’s makin’ my rump itch, but I think Charlie might be right.”

I spared Gram a quick glance. “Explain, old lady.”

“If Shitty Ritchie really has all them powers and a bag of chips, he’s like Alana Catherine,” she said so softly that I had to lean in. “I think he’s come into our lives for a reason,” she continued. “Ain’t much in our world that happens with no reason.”

“A reason other than blowing up my house?” I whispered back.

“Well, now,” she said, scratching her sparsely haired head. “That made me wanna jerk his tail in a knot, but you puntin’ that little sucker like a football was dang satisfyin’, Daisy girl. My gut tells me we need to give that there little nard a chance.”

I glanced over at Gideon. Gram might have whispered, but Immortals had excellent hearing.

---