Page 25 of Devils and the Dead
“She found it after all these years.” Maude was going to be the death of me with these visits. The. Death. Of. Me.
“No, it was a fresh pad of paper with the logo from a new real estate agent in town, and the ink was fresh. The pen was beside it.”
I wracked my brain to come up with some plausible explanation that didn’t involve a zombie breaking into one of her granddaughters houses and writing a recipe on a pad of paper. “Maybe she remembered it when she woke up, wrote it down, and forgot she’d done it?”
Rita shrugged. “Maybe. She claims it’s Maude’s handwriting, just like the original recipe, but that might be nostalgia on her part.”
I nodded, happy to accept that as truth. “So, no ghost. Just a trash bag blowing in the wind, and a lost recipe remembered.”
“I don’t know.” Rita frowned. “Aunt Edna claims to have gotten a feeling a few weeks back, like a shivery someone-walking-on-your-grave feeling. She told me it was like all the long-dead family she’d known as a child had suddenly come back. But then suddenly they were gone—all except for my great grandmother. She said she’s continued to have this feeling that my great grandmother is here, somewhere close by, watching over us all.”
“That sounds like a very comforting feeling for someone to have,” I commented, hoping Rita would write this all off as the musings of a woman who claimed to have some paranormal sensitivity and was missing the grandmother who’d died when she was a teenager.
“Itwasvery comforting to her.” Rita shifted her weight, looking down at her feet. “Would you think I was crazy if I told you I felt the same? I never knew my great grandmother, but I have felt a presence. Not the sheet-person kind of presence. More like something I can’t see or hear or even smell. It’s a vague impression that someone who loves us very much is nearby—and that this someone would protect us.”
“Huh.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. Lots of spiritual and religious people had those feelings. They might have nothing to do with Maude’s presence. But I worried that by summoning her I’d somehow tied the woman to me. If that had happened, it was equally possible that she was tied to the surviving members of her family. She’d had an emotional bond with them, and I’d summoned her and the others to protect not just Addy and me, but them as well. The feeling Rita and her aunt were experiencing could be more than just a general impression of spiritual protection. It could be specifically Maude.
And the sheet thing. I really needed to talk to her about that.
“Was…did your aunt say that Maude was wearing a sheet or something when she thought she woke up and saw her?” I asked.
Rita shook her head. “No. Her eyesight isn’t the best without her glasses on, but she said Maude looked just like she’d remembered from her funeral.”
Which meant she’d appeared in front of Edna as a zombie in her grave clothes. Great. Wonderful. I was absolutely going to have to have a talk with her when I got back from work tonight.
“Do you think…” Rita’s eyes opened wide. “Maybe it was a ghost I saw the other night, and not a trash bag. I’d thought it looked like a person wearing a sheet. Maybe it was my great grandmother, and she’d come to visit me just as she’d visited Aunt Edna. But why hadn’t she come inside? I would have welcomed her in. I would have loved to talk with her about her life and the past.”
She wouldn’t have welcomed Maude-the-zombie in. A wispy figure or someone in a sheet was one thing. A walking corpse was another.
“I’m sure it was just a trash bag,” I assured her. “But if you’re concerned, I can come by next week sometime and smudge.”
Rita thought about that a few seconds then shook her head. “Thanks, but if it’s just a trash bag, then there’s no need to smudge or anything. Besides, if it really is my great grandmother, I don’t want her to feel as if she’s unwelcome.”
As if Maude would be put off by a little sage smoke. Spirits and ghosts would definitely stay away, but a zombie with good intentions could push through the discomfort of the smoky protection and waltz right on in.
“I’ve got to run,” I told Rita, glancing up at the kitchen clock and quickly calculating how fast I’d need to drive to make it to work on time. “Lunch next week?”
“Definitely lunch next week,” she told me. “And I promise not to natter on about ghosts and my family the whole time.”
I smiled at her. “Honestly? That’s a conversation I never tire of. Ghosts are kinda my thing.”
Chapter 12
Babylon
Imanaged to make it to the bar with seconds to spare, racing through the dining area and clocking in right on the dot. Steve, the daytime bartender, let out a relieved breath when he saw me coming.
“Was getting a little worried here, Perkins,” he drawled.
“Think I’d miss Saturday night? This girl’s got bills to pay,” I teased. Friday and Saturday night were the best for tips, especially if there was a good band playing. Tonight the Bremen Shifters Band was taking the stage, and I hoped to go home with a hefty wad of cash.
True to their name, the group was composed of shifters. They had all been residents of a progressive care facility where the elderly shifters had decided to form a band. They’d gotten their start in Accident, playing at Pistol Pete’s bar before branching out to venues in the human world. They were good, and everyone loved that a bunch of old guys were up on stage playing classic rock covers. No one but me and the occasional visitor from Accident knew they were actually a donkey shifter, a canine shifter, a cat shifter, and a rooster shifter.
Steve and I overlapped bartender duties for ten minutes to transition customers and close out his tabs. Finally he clocked out, and with a wave headed out the door, leaving me with six people at the bar, two at a high-top, and drink duties for the rest of the pub. Kirk and Kristen were serving food, and I’d be pouring beer, and making the occasional mixed drink. Although tonight looked like a beer crowd to me.
The band was setting up in the corner and I was filling frosty mugs with amber ale and lager for table eight when two demons walked into the bar.
