Heaven Painted as a Free Meal Read online

Jewel couldn’t even tell what nationality her guy was with the mask over everything but his eyes and gloves on his hands.

  Poker Boy in his usual black leather coat and black fedora-like hat appeared next to Tommy. “All the guns are empty. Great idea.”

  “Keep a sharp eye on this and if anything goes south, snap us out of time,” Tommy said.

  “We’re watching,” Poker Boy said.

  “Count us down,” Tommy said.

  “On three,” Poker Boy said loud enough for all of the ghost agents to hear.

  Jewel took a deep breath, ready for anything when she stepped into the man in the mask next to her.

  “One, two, three!”

  The sound of the casino and all the scared humans smashed back in at her as she went into the man with the mask and black outfit next to her.

  “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

  That was all she heard from the man.

  That was the only thought in his head, but it didn’t seem to be coming from him at all.

  He had no background, no opinions, nothing.

  It was as if she had stepped into a black room with a speaker shouting “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

  From somewhere the order to fire was coming into the blackness. And she could feel it being relayed to the man’s hand on the gun.

  She could hear the screams of the people as they panicked and ran, but there were no sounds of actual gunfire.

  She went into the darkness, trying to find the edge of the shield.

  And trying to trace where the command to fire was coming from.

  She finally found it. It was attached to a small device in one ear, embedded in the man’s skull.

  She stepped back out of the man and into the mass panic of hundreds of people trying to get away from men who kept firing empty weapons at them.

  She shouted upward, “Freeze it!”

  An instant later the sound vanished, leaving a ringing in her ears. People were almost trampling other people.

  Poker Boy and his team, including Stan, Patty, Ben, Screamer, and two others she didn’t recognize, instantly appeared and started pulling people off the bottom of piles and out from under other people so they would not get hurt in the mass panic.

  They were careful to not move them very far so that when time restarted, the people wouldn’t think much of being in a slightly different position, and it wouldn’t show much on the cameras. But it would be enough to save some lives and injury.

  Tommy appeared from the gunman, shaking his head. “Total blank slates,” he said as Laverne appeared beside him.

  “I traced the connection of the order to fire,” Jewel said. “It’s an implant in the bone behind their ears. I have a hunch it wipes out any idea of the man’s personality.”

  “I traced it as well,” Elliot said, coming over. “It strikes me like it also might be set to explode at a certain point.”

  Jewel was impressed and nodded at Elliot who just looked focused and stressed.

  “Damn,” Laverne said. “Think we can get the device out of there?”

  “If I operated in these time-frozen conditions,” Jewel said. “Yes. But we would need to have all these men in a secure location in case something triggers and goes wrong.”

  “We don’t dare do that,” Poker Boy said, appearing next to Laverne. “Everything here is getting filmed and will be on every news feed in the country. We just can’t explain gunmen like this vanishing.”

  Laverne nodded.

  A tall thin woman who had been helping get people into safe positions for when the time bubble released appeared next to Laverne. She was as tall as Laverne with the same dark hair and intense eyes.

  “Mom,” she said, “I was listening and if this is a device, it has to have an energy signal. I might be able to trace it.”

  Jewel felt shocked. She had no idea Laverne had a daughter.

  Laverne nodded and then introduced her daughter. “This is Sherrie. She’s a member of Poker Boy’s team.”

  “How about we put a force field around each device,” Poker Boy said. “To hold in any explosion.”

  Laverne nodded. “Stan?”

  Stan, who Jewel knew as the God of Poker and Poker Boy’s immediate boss appeared. He was the kind of guy no one would ever notice, but right now he looked as intense as the rest of them.

  “I’ll get the shields ready to clamp down on the devices,” he said, “the instant it looks like a problem.”

  Then he vanished.

  Jewel didn’t much like what they were thinking, but they had to try it.

  “I’ll touch you, Sherrie,” Jewel said, “and then I’ll go into the gunman and show you where the device is, so you can focus on it when we release the time bubble.”

  Tommy glanced at Poker Boy and Laverne. “Be quick on that time bubble coming down again.”

  Both nodded and vanished.

  The rest of Poker Boy’s team vanished.

  “Keep an eye out on all the gunmen,” Tommy said to Belle and Nancy and Elliot and K.J. “In case one of the others gets off script.”

  All nodded.

  Jewel reached out and touched Sherrie. She could feel the power in her and the hundreds and hundreds of years of living. And her love for Screamer, her husband and another member of Poker Boy’s team.

  “Can you hear me all right?” Jewel asked Sherrie.

  “As if you are standing beside me,” Sherrie said, laughing.

  “Only I didn’t say that out loud,” Jewel said.

  “Oh,” was all Sherrie said.

  Jewel put her hand into the gunman’s body.

  Blackness.

  Nothingness.

  Jewel knew that Sherrie could sense it and feel it as well.

  “Drop the time bubble,” Jewel said out loud to Tommy as she got Sherrie to the small implanted device in the head of the gunman.

  “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

  The command inside the man’s head echoed even louder.

  The same order was being repeated over and over as the wave of noise of screaming casino victims smashed back into Jewel.

  Then suddenly Jewel could sense that everything had changed inside the gunman.

  The order to fire had stopped.

  A power surge was starting to build in the device.

  “Shields!” both Jewel and Sherrie shouted at once.

  Jewel pulled out of the gunman and let go of Sherrie at the same time.

  Jewel could tell that Sherrie got no trace on the origin of the signal going to those devices. More than likely they were just on timers.

  Sherrie vanished, since she was the only one of them that could be hurt from any kind of explosion.

  The last of the hostages were streaming past the gunmen in all directions, just getting out of the area. The noise was deafening as most were screaming and shouting and numbers of people were helping others.

  After what seemed like only a moment, the dozen gunmen were all left standing, holding their useless guns, facing the now empty casino.

  Jewel shouted to Laverne. “Keep the explosions contained to as tight an area around the device as you can. It might not kill the men and we can get information from them if you keep the explosion to only the insides of the device.”

  “Understood,” Laverne said, her voice echoing now.

  “They going to blow?” K.J. asked, staring wide-eyed at the gunmen now all standing like statues. “I would hate to get ghost blood on this new suit.”

  “They’re going to blow,” Jewel said, nodding. “But no blood.”

  A moment later a pop-sound echoed over the empty casino and all twelve men slumped to the floor.

  Jewel went back to the nearest one and put her hand in him.

  His name was Ben. A carpenter and fine craftsman with two kids who should be home with his wife for dinner right now. He was very much still alive.

  Jewel stood as emergency people came flooding in from a number of directions, including a Swat Team with guns drawn.

  “We
have a problem, Laverne,” Jewel said into the air. “These men are just dupes. They had no idea what they were doing. Someone kidnapped them and blocked their thoughts.”

  “Understood,” Laverne said, again her voice sort of echoing around the space and making a few of the emergency people glance around. “Thank you.”

  “The Nugget?” Tommy asked.

  All Jewel could do was nod.

  ELEVEN

  ELLIOT GLANCED AROUND at the buffet they had transported to from the Living Time Casino floor. Stunned didn’t begin to describe how he was feeling.

  Stunned, disbelieving, and in need of about a thousand answers.

  And who knew a ghost could feel stress.

  Nancy moved over toward the hostess area of the buffet as they all took seats around a large wooden table tucked against some plants in the back.

  The room smelled wonderful and since it was still in the normal dinner-time hour, the room was about half-full of people of all ages.

  The room was in oak tones, with plants in a tall planter separating part of the buffet from a lobby area. Giant windows on the other side looked out over a pool area a story below, so the buffet must be on the second floor.

  “This is the Golden Nugget buffet in downtown Las Vegas,” Tommy said, noticing how Elliot was looking around. “We sort of consider this our team office at the moment.”

  “What’s Nancy doing?” Elliot asked as she vanished inside the hostess, then appeared a moment later and started back for them. The hostess was a large, middle-aged woman with tall brown hair that looked like it had been done in the 1960s.

  “Making sure that no one is seated at this table,” Tommy said. “She just gets Diana there to mark that management called and reserved the table for an hour or so.”

  “Diana’s grandkid survived the operation just fine and is leaving the hospital tomorrow,” Nancy said, smiling and pulling up a chair next to Belle.

  “Great to hear,” Jewel said, smiling.

  Elliot just shook his head. Clearly they came here a lot if they were worried about a grandkid of a hostess.

  “So why aren’t we helping with the gunmen anymore?” Elliot asked.

  “They’re living,” K.J. said. “Laverne, Poker Boy and his team can take it from where we left it just fine.”

  “So they are all living?” Elliot asked.

  “They are gods and superheroes,” Tommy said. “It seems that every aspect of life has a god for it and some superheroes working for that god.”

  “Poker Boy and his team are a special group,” K.J. said. “They tend to save the world a lot. We got to help them last winter on one mission. Looks like we might be helping them more often when they need our invisible talents.”

  “Seems they want this group to be special as well,” Elliot said.

  “Maybe,” K.J. said, smiling. “I sure feel special. Doesn’t everyone?”

  Tommy laughed and Belle and Nancy just smiled.

  “I don’t think the problem they are facing with those gunmen is finished yet,” Jewel said.

  “I’m betting the same thing,” Belle said.

  “Bombs in the skull just gives me a headache,” K.J. said. “I’m going to get something to eat.”

  Belle and Nancy nodded and stood.

  “Strawberry shortcake to die for here,” Nancy said to Elliot.

  “We’re already dead,” K.J. said, heading toward the buffet with his pink fluffy shoes and expensive gray suit. “So I’m not afraid of some strawberry shortcake.”

  “So we die again for it,” Belle said, laughing.

  “Yeah, worth it,” K.J. said.

  Elliot watched them go, then turned back to Jewel and Tommy.

  “I bet you have about a thousand questions,” Tommy said.

  “And great spot on the devices being a bomb,” Jewel said.

  “Just thinking the worst as any attorney is trained to do,” Elliot said.

  But the compliment felt good. If this didn’t end up being the most bizarre dream ever, he was going to pull his weight with this team. To do that, he had a lot to learn.

  “Any question you have,” Jewel said, “we’ll try to answer.”

  “The woman in gray who came and got us,” Elliot said, deciding to start with the first basic question. “Who was that?”

  “Everyone calls her Laverne,” Jewel said. “She’s a god, one of the most powerful, and has been alive for hundreds of thousands of years, far before recorded history and Atlantis. Over time she went by many names.”

  Elliot opened his mouth, but the question he had next got confused with the term Atlantis and he shut it.

  “For the best way of thinking of her,” Tommy said, “she’s Lady Luck herself.”

  “Oh,” Elliot said.

  His brain just went completely blank with that.

  Jewel and Tommy both sat there silently waiting for him to come up with a question. He had so many, he couldn’t think of one, so he decided to just back up to the start and try to make sense of all this.

  “So a number of hours ago, outside of Boise, I was going to die? Nothing to change that like we did with those people today?”

  “Laverne said that today was not those people’s time to die,” Tommy said.

  “It was your time,” Jewel said, “and nothing anyone could do to stop that without violating all sorts of time stream issues far too complex and dangerous for me to understand.”

  “So instead of crossing over, following the white light or whatever happens,” Elliot said, “I was picked to be part of this team.”

  Both nodded.

  “Who picked me?”

  “One of the major gods who can see the future in fuzzy form,” Tommy said. “A god who can see that this team needed you. More than likely Laverne was part of that decision.”

  “We had nothing to do with it,” Jewel said. “K.J. was even forty minutes late telling us you had died because of the time difference between here and Boise.”

  “And clearly,” Elliot said, “as I did with Cathy in the restaurant and the black-mind guy in the casino, I can be inside others and hear their thoughts.”

  “You will know everything about a person if you are inside them,” Tommy said.

  “And I can help them or get them to act in a certain way if I need?”

  “With training, yes,” Jewel said. “We’ll train you.”

  Elliot remembered when Jewel went over to Deanna and went inside her to help her, Jewel had said.

  Damn, with the thought of Deanna, he wanted to just curl up in a ball. Even though in a couple of hours he had helped put a killer in jail and saved hundreds of people’s lives, what he had done to Deanna by dying was almost too much for him to bear.

  “I need to tell Deanna I’m sorry,” Elliot said, his voice soft. “I never wanted to leave her. Can I do that? Can I tell her I’m sorry for leaving?”

  Jewel glanced at Tommy, then back at Elliot. “You can.”

  The relief and the gratitude were almost more than he could take.

  TWELVE

  “CAN DO WHAT?” K.J. asked as he sat down with a large bowl of strawberry shortcake.

  Jewel glanced up at him. “Tell Deanna that he’s sorry for leaving her.”

  K.J. started to open his mouth, but Jewel shook her head and thankfully K.J. caught the signal and stopped. It just wasn’t time quite yet to tell Elliot about Deanna.

  Belle and Nancy both came back with shortcake as well and Jewel had to admit it looked great.

  “Will I also be able to teleport to different places as you guys do?” Elliot asked, continuing on with his questions.

  “Again, yes, with training,” Jewel said.

  Elliot nodded. “So how many ghosts like us are there?”

  “A couple hundred around the world,” K.J. said. “We’re the only six in the western part of the United States.”

  “You ever see the others?” Elliot asked.

  “No reason to, actually,” K.J. said, shrugging and
working at the shortcake.

  Jewel just let the questions go on like that for a few more minutes.

  At one point Tommy touched her leg and signaled she should go with him to get some food, leaving the question-answering to Belle, Nancy, and K.J.

  She did, walking hand-in-hand with Tommy over to the area where there was a big bowl of fresh strawberries, some wonderful light cake, and fresh real whipped cream.

  She went and got a soup bowl since the dessert bowls were too small.

  “You know,” Tommy said, “that Elliot’s going to want to go back to his apartment tonight to see Deanna.”

  Jewel nodded. She knew he was. She had been hoping that they might get him distracted enough with finding a room to stay here in Las Vegas for a day or so before going back, but she knew that wasn’t going to work by the look on his face.

  Then she had an idea. She glanced at Tommy. “Since Deanna is going to be going downhill quickly from what I saw of that tumor in her head, and on pain meds a lot, think there is any chance we can start Deanna’s training before she comes over?”

  Tommy looked at Jewel and smiled. “Never hurts to ask.”

  They headed back to the table. Jewel set her bowl down, then asked K.J. to come with her. She had a question.

  He shrugged and followed her back toward the buffet line. “Since Deanna is joining us in a few months, and most of that time she’s going to be knocked out with pain meds or in a coma, any chance we can start her training early?”

  K.J. started to say something, then smiled. “You know, in over a hundred years, that’s never come up.”

  “Ask, would you? And find out if that stuff with the gunmen is done with us for a while.”

  “Will do,” he said, and vanished.

  She went back over to the table and sat down, getting ready to dig into her bowl of strawberry shortcake.

  “Where did K.J. go?” Belle asked.

  “Off to find out if we’re done for the night with the gunmen problem or if we have to stand ready,” Jewel said.

  “Great idea,” Tommy said. “I bet we’re done.”

  “I’m hoping,” Jewel said.

  She was done with her shortcake and had answered a few more of Elliot’s questions when K.J. showed up smiling.