Waking Up Dead Read online

  A weird sense of triumph filled me. Little old me, a mere mortal, defeated the Angel of Death. I watched him tuck his hair in the clip for the third time. I wanted to untie it and let him run the thick mass over my naked body. My core started to pulse in time with my heart. I counted three years, forty days, and six hours since I had been alone with a man. Jimbo, the florist I usually partnered with, didn’t count. Our relationship was strictly professional since he preferred to partner with men in his personal life.

  The voice of my dearly departed mother, Big Mama, pierced the hormone induced fog in my brain. “Simmer down now. There’s no get outta hell card for fornicating with any kind of angel.”

  “Which one are you,” I asked to distract myself from my riotous hormones.

  “Which what?”

  ”Which angel are you?”

  “My name is Suriyel. I, along with Raphael, Gabriel, and Samael are the four Angels of Death.”

  “Only four of you? I mean with people dying every second all over the world, I just thought there would be…more.”

  “There are more. But they are not the original fallen angels.”

  “Don’t tell me. I bet the other ‘reapers’ are all the descendents of the original fallen angels…right?”

  “No. Not all the descendants end up that way. Some are taken too fast. Others don’t realize they have an option to not come along quietly.” He glared at me with an air of haughtiness I found attractive in a sick sort of way.

  Thunder rolled. I jumped a mile. Perfect. Now God’s chariot is rounding the corner on its way to get me for being so obstinate. The heralding noise stopped when Suriyel whipped out his phone. Great. I got saddled with a sadistic fallen angel who uses phone chimes to scare his unwilling collections.

  He punched some buttons on the device and walked to me. “In five seconds, I have to escort the next person to the afterlife, a person who, hopefully, will be a lot more cooperative than you are. Now that you know the truth about me and your lineage, would you not rather come with me to another plane of existence?”

  “For the last time, I am not going with you until I find out who murdered me.” I slammed my hands on my hips for emphasis.

  A shrewd look crossed his face. “So if I help you find your killer, you will come with me without a fight?”

  “Why is it so damn important to send me into the afterlife, anyway?”

  “I have never been late, never missed a collection,” he said in a strained tone like a pressure cooker about to blow. “And, never, ever let one get away.”

  His eyelids lowered halfway, and he scanned the room. The action reminded me of a human with a secret he didn’t know whether he’d trust me to keep. “I have been told that Archangel Michael is considering allowing me to return to my position as a warrior in his legion because of my performance. And, that is why you are not going to ruin my record.”

  “I don’t know why I thought I wouldn’t have to meet deadlines or quotas in Heaven!” I laughed bitterly at the irony of it all.

  The heat of his anger radiated like the hot sun on asphalt, and I wasn’t wearing any shoes.

  “You have no idea, none whatsoever! I spent eternity paying for a few years of happiness. It is time I stopped paying for something I have paid for many, many times over. It is time for me to resume my place in Heaven, fighting against the evil caused by Lucifer.”

  My heart went out to him then screeched to a halt. Stop right there, missy. I’d rather be a ghost for all eternity than chance not ending up in Heaven for the time I made Kitty sick for a week from eating yellow soap I told her was lemon candy. I side-swiped Craig’s floozy’s car in the Dollar General parking lot. And, one July, I threw crayons in each box of clothing Craig packed for his move into his new woman’s condo. “Ava’s List of Things to Atone For” filled a small VW Bug.

  “All right. Find my killer, and I’ll do what you want.” I crossed my fingers behind my back.

  Relief flooded his face. “Good. We have a bargain then.” He placed his hand on my elbow as if I was an old lady who needed help across the street. “Let’s go collect the next soul. Then, we will figure out how to catch your killer so I can get you where you belong.”

  Chapter Two

  Half my stomach waited for me back in my bedroom. Only sci-fi movies portrayed being dematerialized and transported across time and space as painless. My stomach turned inside out and spun round like the Tilt-A-Whirl at the Charles County Fair.

  “You could’ve given me a warning,” I grumped, then checked to see if I had all my fingers and toes.

  “Did you think we were taking my Porsche,” he snapped as he moved toward a big cloud of dust.

  “Yeah, sure. Go ahead and laugh!” I stopped to get my bearings. I stood in the middle of a curve on a familiar country road.

  A couple of goats skittered across my path. I bet they never expected a woman wearing a ratty nightshirt to invade their farm. I prayed nothing else saw me.

  “No need to hurry on my account.” Suriyel called over his shoulder.

  I mentally shot him the bird. I didn’t want to fan the fires of hell by doing it for real.

  We approached an embankment where two red lights glowed in the darkness. What if they were the eyes of some foul-smelling demon sizing me up through the dust cloud? I shivered and waved the dust away. Suriyel argued hotly with another yummy-looking, muscular man with blonde, flowing hair who was also dressed in black. Oh, goodie. A Jonny Cash reunion.

  “I simply responded to your text for assistance, Suriyel. I escorted her to the afterlife in your place. I was doing you a favor,” blonde-guy said in a clipped British accent.

  “The text I sent said I was on my way and did not need your help,” Suriyel spat at what I assumed was another fallen angel.

  I mustered up enough nerve to make it to the rear bumper of what used to be a Mustang GT. The new version, not the classic one I always dreamed of owning. I guess the driver took the curve too hard, spun out of control and crashed into a tree.

  “Sorry to break up the party, ya’ll.” I laughed nervously.

  The blonde angel looked me up and down. The intensity of his gaze made me flush with embarrassment. Both hands flew to cover my private parts like I got yanked out of Lick Creek for skinny dipping.

  “Well, if I’d gotten the wear black memo, I would have dressed for it!” I chirped, and uncovered myself, then fiddled with the hem of my shirt.

  Blonde hunk angel turned to face Suriyel. “You brought a soul with you to another reaping? This is not like you at all, Suriyel!” He shook his head and tsked.

  “She would not come with me to the afterlife!” Suriyel yelled in frustration. He did a one-eighty and paced as he ran his fingers through his hair. His hair was more red than black in the twilight. I blushed as I wondered if it was red down south, too.

  “So? You’ve never had that problem before. You usually whisk them away without so much as a ‘How-Do-You-Do?’” The angel laughed, clearly having a good time at Suriyel’s expense.

  “She—” he waved his arm in my direction, “refuses to go until she finds her killer! And I cannot make her go because one of our kind mated with her ancestors.”

  “Really?” The blonde angel drawled as he walked over to me.

  Dead or alive I refused to be examined like a prize steer.”You’ve got some nerve!”

  The ground sloped downward and crumbled as I put some space between us. “If you think you’re going to inspect my teeth, then you better think again.” I lost my footing and fell on my backside. Gravel bit into my flesh. Maybe it was gravel. The smell was more organic.

  Hearty laughter made the angel’s features more angelic until I realized that a heavenly angel wouldn’t take such pleasure at my humiliation. To make matters worse, my T-shirt bunched around my waist and revealed my cursed granny drawers.

  Oh damn. I’m so overdue for a bikini wax. Blonde angel looked down at me in all my glory and laughed again. He grabbed my hand a
nd pulled me upright.

  “You are not a nice angel,” I said with a pout, and quickly tugged my stupid shirt over my cottage cheese thighs.

  “That is why I am a fallen angel.” He emphasized the last two words with pride. “Since Suriyel failed to introduce us, my name is Samael. You, darling, can call me ‘Sam.’”

  “I’m…uh…”

  “Ava Berry,” Suriyel said as he broke the spell and pulled me away from Samael’s warm hand. “Ava is my collection.”

  The men locked eyes, and heat flowed between them. I cowered as the tomcats marked their territory.

  “Yes. Well, she’s also your problem. How do you propose to fix it?” Sam glided out of Suriyel’s way with a thin smile on his face.

  Suriyel inhaled. A look of serious contemplation settled across his face. A rooster crowed. The fingers of the sun parted the silvery gray clouds of twilight.

  “Right on cue. Need I remind you that time has not stopped, Suri? You need to decide how to handle this unless you want me to call Archangel Michael in for you.” Sam examined his nails.

  Suriyel jumped in Sam’s face again. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Take it easy. I would never do anything to jeopardize your shot at regaining your position as a warrior. I am all for one of us graduating from our eternal penance.” He put his arm on Suriyel’s shoulder and smoothly ushered him away from me. “Let us think about how we can fix this.”

  I turned my attention to the accident scene for the first time since my less than graceful arrival. The front bumper of the GT formed a V-shape from where it hit the oak tree. Four small dents imprinted the hood. Pieces of glass from a gaping hole in the windshield dotted the dash and floorboard. I realized the victim sailed through the glass upon impact.

  Morbid curiosity forced me to scan the area in front of the wreck for the corpse. I spotted what looked like long, blue—no black, hair with blue streaks amidst the strewn fencing, chickens, goats, and two fallen angels,

  I sagged under the weight of dread as it enveloped me like a cloak. I knew somebody who dyed her mousey brown hair a Goth blue-black and drove her father’s black GT. Surely we transported to some other city, and this was someone else.

  Oh God! The misshapen body is Stacy. My niece—Kitty’s only child.

  “She was on her way to her new job in Nashville,” I sobbed. “Why?” I screamed in agony, and threw myself down beside her.

  Craig and I tried unsuccessfully to have kids. I swore Kitty had Stacy for me. I was the fun aunt who taught her how to spit through her teeth and bought Tequila shots on her eighteenth birthday.

  Stacy tried her hand at a degree in Psychiatry at Vanderbilt then opted out for culinary school. Her mother blamed me for her career choice because I always hired Stacy, Mel, and Mason to help cater large events.

  The two fallen angels just stood there staring at me. In a disgusted tone, Sam asked, “What is wrong with her now?”

  Suriyel shrugged and typed something into his phone. “Oh. I see. Stacy Avalita Summerlin is Ava’s niece.” He hesitated. “That is odd—”

  “Then, I suppose your idea of putting her in this body is simply out of the question.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked over the huge lump of grief in my throat.

  The angels looked at each other.

  “I suggested that you inhabit the body of this young lady temporarily so you could return to where your murder occurred,” Suriyel explained.

  “We agreed you might have a better chance at discovering who murdered you if returned in a different body.” Sam did a little dismissive hand wave over me and wrinkled his nose as if he had gotten a whiff of the goat pellets scattered about.

  “The sooner you are on your way to the afterlife, the better for all involved.” Suriyel almost tripped over the words saying them so fast.

  Ha! Maybe going into the light worked for him. My Magic Eight Ball read, “Highly unlikely.”

  Birds chirped as the sun pushed itself up a tiny bit higher in the sky. The fallen angels waited impatiently while I pondered the opportunity. How can a fifty-one year-old pull off being a twenty-something staying with her mother—a mother who just happened to be the real me’s sister?

  Kitty! She threw herself into dumpster diving to deal with Big Mama’s death. God knows what she’d do when she found her daughter dead. I ached for her. Suriyel’s idea was the best way to spare her the loss of her child.

  The rooster broke the silence with another irritating crow.

  “Well,” asked Suriyel, who sent me back into naughty thought land by impatiently tapping his beautiful fingers on his crossed arms.

  I picked myself up from knees and dusted off the goat pellets. “Fine, but can angels do that? I mean send someone into another person’s body with her being dead and all? It just seems a little—okay, a lot like possession.”

  Sam pshawed. “Of course it is. This involves angels, so it is in no way related to demonic possession.”

  “Actually, since this girl’s soul is already gone,” Suriyel pegged Sam with a look hot enough to melt glass, “it is more like reanimation.”

  “Like a zombie?” I shrieked.

  The angels bobbed their heads up and down in silent unison.

  Definitely repulsive. I shook the images from “Night of the Living Dead” out of my head.

  “Can any angel do it? And, what will God say when he finds out?” Did I really want to make matters worse by possessing a body?

  “You mortals think God watches you all the time! You couldn’t be further from the truth,” Sam snapped.

  “Who whizzed in your Wheaties?” I returned fire. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m dead. I just found out my niece is dead, too. If anyone should be mad, it’s me.”

  “That’s disgusting. I too, am on a tight schedule, which has been delayed by having to help Suri out. I need to be on my way.”

  Suriyel placed a halting hand on Sam’s sleeve. “You cannot go. The spell takes two of our kind to get her into that body.”

  Sam shook Suriyel’s hand off. He blew an impatient breath out in my face. “So what are you going to do? Are you going to go into this body or be a dybbuk?”

  “A what?” I wanted them to find the rewind button on this night, instead.

  “A dybbuk is a wandering soul doomed to travel the Earth burdened by its sins until it finds a body to inhabit,” Suriyel explained in an intolerant tone, yet my hormones still danced at the rich timbre of his voice.

  “It is often hard to find a body. Sometimes when you do, they call in the exorcist, which isn’t a pleasant experience at all.” Sam grimaced. I wondered if he spoke from personal experience.

  “But isn’t inhabiting Stacy’s body like being a ‘die-buck’ or whatever you call them?”

  “Sort of. But, if we put you in there, you would be grounded—tied to her body by an ancient amulet.” Suriyel made the mystical sound mundane.

  “What happens if I change my mind?”

  “It would take removing the amulet or a very powerful demon to force you out.”

  How kind of Suriyel to add the part about powerful demons. I guess being forced out meant being eaten.

  “There are many dangers out there, demons in particular, who love to feed off wandering souls.” Icy fingers played my spine like piano keys.

  I refuse to go down for the count without knowing who killed me. If I had to come back in the body of my dead niece, then it’s a plus for Kitty and me, considering the only time I was a size 4 in my life was when I wore a 4T.

  “All right. Let’s do it before I change my mind and become demon chow.”

  Suriyel and Sam let their breath out. Sam rubbed his hands together. “Goodie! We get to have some fun at last!”

  “Contain yourself, Samael. If we get caught, it is certain that none of us will have any fun for eternity.”

  “Spoil sport.” Sam said to Suriyel, and ushered me closer to Stacy’s body. “Now, dear, just lie down on to
p of her, and we’ll do the rest.”

  “But I’ll crush her.” I panicked until I realized she couldn’t feel a thing. “Which way should I lay—face-to-face, back-to-face?” I envisioned Big Mama jumping out of the grave to snatch me bald for behaving like “Sodom and Gomorrah.” She used this term for all the immoral activities she claimed she never watched on TV.

  “Stop looking at me that way, and tell me how I should do this!” I ordered as I moved to straddle Stacy’s body.

  Suriyel rolled his eyes. “It does not matter which way you lay down, but wait a second before you do.”

  A worn gold charm in the shape of a flower appeared in his hand. He studied it, rubbed the smooth metal with his fingers a few times, and brusquely shoved it at me.

  “Is this like those gold coins they put over mummy’s eyes to get them over the river and into the next life? Cause if it is, I don’t want it!” I tried to give it back to him.

  Suriyel scowled and refused to take it. “It is a Sesen. You call it a Lotus flower. It is a talisman that symbolizes rebirth.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t need a free ride to the other side.” The amulet remained in the open palm of my hand.

  “Dear, I think you’ll need it in order to get into you new body,” Sam explained impatiently.

  “Correct. Sit down, and put the amulet on your forehead.” Suriyel pointed his finger at me. “Sit.”

  My thousand-watt glare didn’t faze him. I eased down on top of my niece— back to face.

  “Darling, you’ll need to be in the reclining position to make this work,” Sam pointed out with a smile. The more grossed-out I got, the more he smiled.

  “I can’t…I just can’t do this.”

  “Lay down,” Suriyel bellowed.

  “I am not a dog,” I growled.

  Suriyel opened his mouth to answer but Sam stopped him. “No, indeed you are not. But, you will never find your killer if you don’t do exactly what we say.”

  Thanks for the reminder. I swallowed my revulsion and rotated to avoid being face to face with my niece. I expected the crunching of bones under my weight, but heard nothing as I stretched out over her body. Hip bones dug sharply into the middle of my butt cheeks as I balanced the talisman in the center of my forehead.