Heaven Painted as a Christmas Gift Read online

  FIFTEEN

  BELLE COULDN’T BELIEVE how amazing all the food tasted. She loved Sizzler when alive, but didn’t remember being that much in love with their food. But now it all tasted amazing, as if she had suddenly had her taste buds turned on.

  She ate until she was far too full, almost unable to stop even then.

  After dinner, they walked over to the mall. The streets were well-lit and clean, but very few people were out. The air was chilly, but not cold.

  It was nine in the evening and the mall had just closed, but as Jewel had said, that didn’t matter at all. And Belle felt she was getting pretty good at walking through walls and closed doors. She could now even keep her eyes mostly open.

  The mall had been remodeled a few years back and looked fairly new, in bright blues and browns, even though Belle knew it had been here for thirty plus years. The ceilings were high and everything was well lit. Employees were the only ones still around, working on nightly closing routines.

  Christmas decorations were in most stores and windows, and it suddenly dawned on Belle that this coming Christmas was going to be very, very different. She had never really had much of a Christmas routine. Last year she and Nancy had given each other gifts, and had gone with each other to their company Christmas parties. And on Christmas Eve they had watched movies at Belle’s house and drank eggnog and decorated a small tree.

  The next day Nancy had cooked them both a wonderful ham dinner and they made Christmas cookies with icing that they ate on for a week.

  Neither of them had any family, and now, even more, this Christmas was going to be just the two of them.

  Tommy and Jewel seemed to be old hats at finding what they wanted in stores, plus small suitcases to take it to Vegas with them. Since both Nancy and Belle both had full suitcases, they just walked along, testing what they could pick up.

  Belle stayed close to Nancy, and Nancy seemed to want to stay close to Belle as well. With every hour that passed, Belle felt better and better. It was as if the weight of the live world was lifting from her shoulders.

  She didn’t need to worry about money ever again, although she had no idea yet how she would find a home or apartment to live in. Food tasted wonderful, clothes were free for the taking, and she and Nancy seemed to have decided to test more limits on their friendship, which Belle had dreamed about for years.

  After that wonderful shower, all she wanted to do was touch Nancy’s wonderful smooth skin and silky brown hair.

  At one point, as Tommy finished up getting some Levis, Nancy turned to Jewel and Tommy. “Does feeling better and better happen with everyone who dies?”

  Tommy shrugged and Jewel laughed. “If I remember right, it happened to us over the first few days. But does it happen to everyone, we have no clue. Except for K.J., we’ve never met any other Ghost Agents before you two.”

  “So there aren’t very many of us?” Belle asked, still trying to get a grip on that fact. “Everyone else just moves on to the next world?”

  “K.J. says there are very, very few Ghost Agents that can stay behind. Maybe a thousand at most scattered all over the world.”

  Belle just shook her head as Jewel and Tommy packed their clothes into their ghost suitcases and headed back out into the mall area.

  The fact that there were only a thousand Ghost Agents just seemed impossible to Belle. She understood the part about it being her time to leave, to die, but to be handed this opportunity to stay around and keep enjoying life and feeling better and better seemed completely unbelievable.

  And what was very, very strange to her was that she wasn’t angry or upset or even sad in the slightest about dying. She kept thinking she should feel something more than happiness, but she didn’t.

  She was dead and she liked it a lot more than being alive so far, and it was only the first day. What did that say about her life?

  Nancy asked the next question Belle was thinking.

  “Why us?” Nancy asked.

  “Guessing,” Tommy said, “It’s because of your skills and who you are as people. I was a cop, Jewel a doctor.”

  “I know business and finance and networks,” Belle said, shrugging. “What good will that do?”

  “Honestly,” Jewel said. “We don’t know. But in this modern world, I’ll bet your knowledge is going to come in handy on more than one mission. Plus look what you two did this morning. You had just come through your own death and immediately jumped in to save two young girls. I have a hunch that kind of ability to act is a large part of why you two were picked.”

  “So what is your real world skill set?” Tommy asked Nancy as they headed back down the silent mall toward the door they had come through.

  “Computers,” Nancy said. “Again something I’m not sure will be valuable or not.”

  Both Jewel and Tommy laughed at that. “Oh, trust me, you are going to be of immense value. Both of you.”

  “But I can’t touch a computer,” Nancy said.

  “But that young woman sure can,” Jewel said, indicating a young blonde who was pulling down a garage door-like grate over a small store entrance to close it for the night. “And you can control her, be inside of her, and through her fingers make a computer dance the tango. Just as I did with the reservations clerk at the hotel.”

  Belle suddenly started to understand. She could do the same thing when it came to corporations. And in this modern world where big corporations were treated as people, Belle could navigate that world easily, especially if she was in control of the right person.

  “Come to think of it,” Jewel said after a few more steps, looking at Belle and Nancy and then at Tommy, “the four of us form a very, very powerful team.”

  At that, all Belle could do was agree.

  SIXTEEN

  JEWEL AND TOMMY led the way back along the sidewalk in the crisp evening air toward the hotel, both dragging small suitcases full of clothes and a few bathroom supplies to get them through the night and back to Las Vegas.

  Belle and Nancy followed them about ten paces back.

  At one dark area between streetlights, Jewel turned around and was almost blinded by the auras radiating off the two women. Belle and Nancy were completely glowing with bright oranges and reds and blues and other major colors dancing off their skin. It was stunningly beautiful.

  And where the two auras met, Jewel felt like she was looking into the sun.

  She turned back to Tommy. “Take a look behind us.”

  Tommy did and said, “Wow, that’s bright. We got to do something about that.”

  Tommy stopped and said clearly into the air, “K.J., need a little help here for a few minutes.”

  Belle and Nancy stopped, looking puzzled.

  “With clothing or without?” K.J.’s voice asked from the air around them.

  “With, please,” Tommy said, shaking his head.

  Belle and Nancy both laughed.

  Jewel really liked K.J. The Ghost Agent could really be funny.

  A few minutes later K.J. appeared in a bright blue bathrobe and pink bunny slippers. He was almost steaming, which made Jewel think he had just gotten out of a hot tub.

  “Wow,” K.J. glancing at Belle and Nancy, “we have a light show to rival the 4th of July over the Bay.”

  Both Nancy and Belle looked around, then looked back at K.J. clearly puzzled.

  “That’s why we called you here,” Tommy said. “Figured we needed to get that wrapped up a little.”

  K.J. nodded. “And I got a little more on the coming mission as well. It’s going to be interesting, to say the least.”

  Jewel was feeling both excitement and dread about another mission. And if K.J. thought it interesting, who knows what it might be.

  K.J. pulled his bathrobe tight around his waist, making sure the tie was secure. Then he slicked back his wet hair and stepped toward the girls. “Let’s get this done before we all go blind, and not in the fun sexual way we all love so much.”

  Jewel and Tommy both chu
ckled, but both recruits just looked puzzled.

  “Can you see anything around Jewel and Tommy?” K.J. asked the two new recruits. “Colors, auras?”

  Both Belle and Nancy looked at Jewel and Tommy and shook their heads.

  “Release the Kraken, or whatever you call your auras,” K.J. said.

  Jewel easily released the skin-tight containment around her aura at the same moment Tommy did.

  “I should have brought my sunglasses,” K.J. said, shielding his eyes.

  “Wow!” both Belle and Nancy said at the same time.

  Jewel had to admit that her aura and Tommy’s had gotten even brighter and more powerful and much larger over the last few months. They had just kept them contained, so she hadn’t noticed. And she was amazed how in certain areas her aura just flowed together with Tommy and joined his and his joined hers to be even brighter, just as Belle and Nancy’s did.

  “Enough,” K.J. said, covering his eyes and waving his arm.

  Jewel contained her aura down to her skin at the same moment Tommy did.

  “Now look at each other’s auras,” K.J. said to the new recruits. “See all the bright colors? See the areas where the two of you merge, where you are in love. Given enough time, you’ll be able to read some things from auras.”

  Both Belle and Nancy just stared at each other, their auras moving faster and brighter as they got more excited.

  “Now, think of your aura only at your skin,” K.J. said, “like you have a tight shield around you.”

  Nancy’s aura vanished down against her skin a fraction of a second before Belle’s.

  Belle looked at K.J. “We can see auras because we are dead?”

  “Yes, one of the many, many skills you have that will come in handy,” K.J. said. “But Tommy and Jewel were right to have me get your auras contained as soon as possible.”

  “Why is that?” Nancy asked.

  Jewel and Tommy both smiled.

  “They will tell you tomorrow,” K.J. said.

  “Can we let out our auras again?” Belle asked.

  Jewel remembered asking K.J. that exact same question.

  K.J. nodded. “Just think of the shield holding them against your body open.”

  This time Belle slightly beat Nancy and both of them stood there staring at the colors flowing around them.

  “It is so beautiful,” Belle said.

  “As beautiful as you,” Nancy said to Belle.

  “And that’s my clue to depart,” K.J. said, shaking his head. “Close up those auras and leave them closed for now. At least until you understand them all better.”

  Both women nodded and the auras around them sucked in tight against their skins.

  K.J. turned to Jewel and Tommy. “Get to Vegas and get these two new recruits trained by Thanksgiving. From what I have been told, our mission starts the day after and it’s going to need all four of you and me at full power. But it might turn out to be sooner, much sooner.”

  “That bad?” Tommy asked.

  Jewel felt suddenly very worried.

  K.J. shrugged. “Not sure how bad. I’m just repeating what my boss told me.”

  “So you know anything about the mission at all?”

  “Something about the fact that we have to protect Santa Claus,” K.J. said, shaking his head. “I met that old elf once and he’s going to be a job.”

  “Santa Claus is real?” Tommy asked.

  Jewel felt too shocked to even try to speak.

  “Real and really damned annoying if you ask me,” K.J. said, shaking his head. “Just get these two new agents up to speed on all the tricks you two know and in Vegas by Thanksgiving. I’ll be having meetings and learning more tomorrow, I hope.”

  With that he vanished.

  Jewel looked at Tommy and then the two women.

  The silence on the Boise sidewalk was stunning. Even the cool breeze seemed to have stopped for fear of disturbing that moment.

  “Maybe he’s kidding,” Tommy said after a moment.

  “I’m not kidding,” K.J.’s voice said in the air around them. “Wish the hell I was.”

  Section Three

  BASIC GHOST TRAINING

  SEVENTEEN

  IT WAS ONLY a little after ten in the evening by the time Belle and Nancy got back into their suite. They were to meet Jewel and Tommy at 9 a.m. in a nearby breakfast restaurant.

  Belle felt stunned at the entire day and she could tell that Nancy did as well. She also knew she was tired, but far too wound up to sleep.

  And both of them had promised to not talk about or even think about the craziness about Santa Claus. That was just about fifty billion times too much to think about at the moment.

  But K.J.’s words about her and Nancy being in love echoed in Belle’s mind. She knew she was in love with Nancy at a hundred different levels, but to have someone see it so clearly in their matching auras was really something.

  Yet, Belle had seen the same thing clearly when Jewel and Tommy opened up their auras. It was clear to her that in a vast area, and a very bright area, Jewel and Tommy were completely joined.

  “Are you believing any of this?” Nancy asked as they sat down on the comfortable cloth furniture in the living room area of the suite, facing each other.

  “Some, yes, some no, other parts I’m just confused.”

  “My feelings exactly,” Nancy said. “I know I need sleep, but I don’t want to yet.”

  Suddenly Belle had an idea. “How about we take another walk through the hotel.”

  Nancy looked puzzled. “Why?”

  “To prove some of this stuff to ourselves,” Belle said, “without the others around.”

  “Not sure what you mean,” Nancy said, smiling, “but I’m game.”

  Belle stood and took Nancy’s hand, which felt wonderful in hers. “Follow me.”

  Belle turned and walked toward the wall where there was no door.

  “Let’s be careful to not walk into an elevator’s shaft or out a side wall,” Nancy said. “We might be dead, but I have a hunch we can’t fly yet.”

  “Good point,” Belle said, laughing.

  So instead she steered Nancy through their big main door and out into the hallway. She looked down the hallway. For about ten rooms it was nothing but one room next to another.

  Belle pulled Nancy through the door of the neighboring suite. It was dark, with just one light in the entry turned on. No bags, nothing.

  “No one home,” Belle said.

  She headed toward and through the wall into the next suite. It felt very weird to just be walking through walls like this, but she had a hunch given time she would get very used to it.

  It was about ten in the evening and a middle-aged woman was in the next suite. She was clearly alone and working at a table on some business papers. She was thin and still dressed in a gray business pantsuit, but had kicked off her high-heels. She had no wedding ring on at all.

  “That’s kind of sad,” Nancy whispered. “She looks very stark and alone.”

  Belle laughed. “No need to whisper. We’re ghosts, remember. She can’t hear us.”

  “Right,” Nancy said, shaking her head. Then in a normal voice she said, “Look at her aura.”

  After Nancy said that, Belle realized that she could hardly see the woman’s aura. The flickering light was pale and small and not full of a lot of life or color. Mostly just all the intensity and excitement had been washed out of it.

  Belle walked over and put her hand through the woman’s arm. She could instantly see the woman’s thoughts and memories and desires and hopes. Sadly, the woman had very few hopes. She wanted to be promoted, she loved her job in computer sales, she had no pets, no family, and most of the people at her home office in Denver didn’t much like her and she knew it and didn’t really care.

  The woman liked working and being alone and that was it.

  Belle pulled away from the woman and looked at Nancy. “Her aura represents her life. Basically nothing but her work.
”

  Nancy just shook her head and Belle took Nancy’s firm hand and the two of them went through the wall into the next suite. It also was vacant and dark.

  “Guess we don’t need to worry about bumping into anything,” Nancy said, laughing as they walked through the edge of a dresser.

  Belle also laughed. “I’m not going to miss those bruises on my legs from my desk at work. Not going to miss work, for that matter.”

  “But the people there are going to miss you,” Nancy said as they went through the wall and into the next suite.

  “Maybe,” Belle said, not really wanting to think about that. “Let’s think about that sort of stuff tomorrow.”

  “Agreed,” Nancy said, squeezing Belle’s hand.

  In the next suite a guy sat on the bed in his underwear watching something on television. His back was propped up against pillows and he looked to be about Belle and Nancy’s age, clearly in good shape physically.

  His wife sat at a desk working at a laptop computer in a blue bathrobe. Both had larger auras than the single businesswoman two rooms back, but there didn’t seem to be any area where the auras overlapped.

  This time Nancy walked over to the woman and touched her shoulder through the bathrobe. Belle watched as Nancy’s eyes went sort of vacant for a moment, then Nancy returned to her eyes and stepped away.

  “Wow, that’s really something to see someone’s full life just by touching them.”

  “What’s her story?” Belle asked.

  “Her name is Candice and she’s having an affair with a co-worker back in Denver.” Nancy indicated the woman at the desk and the man on the bed. “The two of them are married and haven’t made love in a long time. She’s disappointed because she really still loves him, but just doesn’t know how to connect with him again.”

  Belle nodded and went over to the guy and touched his bare shoulder. Actually, she put her hand slightly inside his skin.

  Belle could instantly see that he was madly in love with his wife and hoped that she would come to bed and make love with him. But since they had drifted apart in the last year, he knew he was going to be disappointed, so he was trying not to think about it so they wouldn’t fight.