Heaven Painted as a Free Meal Read online

  Nothing more.

  It took thirty minutes for the six of them to find all twelve women and get the bombs and guns removed.

  But Jewel didn’t think that was enough.

  “They might be sending in teams in waves,” she had said to Tommy and K.J.

  Both had agreed.

  So they kept searching people, anyone walking anywhere near that casino main floor and that power ring.

  There were six pretty major entrances to the casino floor, so they started from the center of the main casino floor and went through everyone on the floor and then each agent took an entrance and scanned everyone coming in.

  This time it was Tommy who found the next one, clearly part of a new twelve. This was a man and the guy was confused after the bomb was removed and he left.

  They found eleven more, all coming in from different exits. All were cleared, guns taken, bombs removed from their bodies.

  “Fifteen minutes left until time,” Belle said.

  “I’m betting there are more bombers coming,” Nancy said.

  Jewel could only agree.

  So they all moved just outside the ring in the entrances and kept scanning through each person who approached. Jewel again found the first one of the next wave, and then the bombers just kept coming.

  To Jewel it seemed like every fifth person had a bomb in their head. All were moving toward that edge of that old power ring.

  It turned out that there were six groups of twelve bombers this time.

  Thirty seconds before the time of the power ring surge, Laverne appeared and froze time.

  “One more sweep,” she said.

  So they each would check someone, she would stop time, they would all check another person, she would stop time again.

  They had found them all.

  Jewel had never felt so relieved in her entire life.

  But if this person was willing to send seventy-two people to this ring this time, what would he or she do for the large and last power time in three days?

  If they didn’t get this figured out and quickly, a lot of people were going to die.

  And a very nasty war was going to start.

  TWENTY-ONE

  DEANNA FELT ELLIOT cuddle in beside her.

  “I missed you,” she said.

  “Off saving the world,” he said. “How do you feel?”

  “Inside, with you here, fine,” she said. She tried to check in with her body, but found nothing really to check in with. “Numb outside.”

  “Makes sense,” he said. “Your body has gone into a coma. You won’t wake up.”

  She could feel the panic rising in her mind and Elliot just sort of calmed her. She loved that he could do that.

  “It was expected,” he said. “Remember?”

  “I do,” she said. “But not really fond of the idea of dying.”

  “Yeah,” he said, clearly amused. “Can’t say as I blame you there. But I didn’t have weeks to think about it like you have had. Kind of glad, actually.”

  “So if I am in a coma,” Deanna said, “how am I talking to you?”

  “Come on,” he said, standing beside her bed and holding her hand. “Let’s get you dressed and go talk for a while.”

  “I am so delusional,” she said, laughing. “I talk with my dead boyfriend, tell myself I am in a coma, then want to go get dressed and talk.”

  “Well,” Elliot said, holding her hand while he stood beside the bed, “I am personally glad you are delusional. So let’s go.”

  He pulled on her hand a little and she just stood like she would have normally gotten out of bed. No problem at all.

  “That’s just weird,” she said, standing there looking back at her body on the bed.

  Her closet door was closed, so Elliot showed her how to get into her closet by sticking her hand through the wooden closet door. She couldn’t feel anything but the clothes inside. She pulled a white blouse through the door and held it up.

  Then she went over and with Elliot’s help stuck her hand through into one of her clothes drawers and got some jeans.

  She was wearing underwear, so she just slipped out of her nightgown and put on the blouse, then the jeans.

  The entire time Elliot just stared at her. And she had to admit, she liked that and had missed that from him.

  “You are so good-looking,” he said after she went for her tennis shoes and sat in a kitchen chair to put them on.

  “I really love this delusion,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m complimenting myself.”

  He laughed. “Nope, that was me and I meant it.”

  “Wow, my own delusion trying to convince myself. Getting kind of twisted.”

  She stood, enjoying the feel of being healthy, even though she knew she was just dreaming it.

  “So what time is it?” she asked.

  “Just after one in the morning,” he said.

  “So where are we going?” she asked. “Now that I’m all dressed.”

  “You hungry?”

  She checked in with her stomach and nodded. “Actually, I am. Haven’t been able to keep food down lately for some reason or another.”

  “I know exactly the place,” he said.

  He took her hand and squeezed it and then a moment later they were standing in the hallway outside a really nice café. People were walking by in the wide hallway and on one side of the hall glass windows looked out over a darkened large pool area.

  The place felt alive and active, even at this time of the night. And she could smell hamburger and steak smells coming from the open front of the café.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “We’re in the Golden Nugget Casino and Hotel complex in downtown Las Vegas,” he said. He pointed to the café with a lot of tables beyond a reception desk and some low planters. “I sometimes come down here to eat at night.”

  “Come down here?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I have a suite up in the Rush Tower in this hotel that I have been living in since I died.”

  She opened her mouth, but no question came out. This delusion was going far beyond anything she could have ever imagined. And she had never been in this hotel before. In fact, she couldn’t remember even seeing pictures of it.

  “I figured I would need some help telling you what has happened,” Elliot said. “So Jewel is meeting us.”

  He indicated a woman about their age sitting at an open table in the back. The woman had short hair and a nice smile and waved when Elliot pointed at her.

  “One of your ghost team members,” Deanna asked as Elliot took her hand and started toward the back.

  “Yes, a former doctor,” Elliot said. “She died in a car accident with her boyfriend, Tommy, last year.”

  Elliot led her toward the back, but he didn’t attempt to go around tables or the planter. He just walked through them and since she was walking with him, she did the same. Tables, chairs, everything just seemed to not exist for them.

  When she got to the table with Jewel, Deanna glanced back and just shook her head. “That was very strange.”

  “You get used to it,” Jewel said, smiling and extending her hand. “Nice finally meeting you, Deanna.”

  Deanna shook Jewel’s hand, which felt solid and strong.

  “Thanks for joining us,” Elliot said as he sat down.

  Deanna did the same, feeling like any moment she should go through the chair. But she didn’t. It felt solid under her. And the table in front of her was solid, even though she had just walked through a couple of others on the way here.

  Deanna looked at Jewel and the worried expression on Elliot’s face. She needed some answers, even if she was making them up herself.

  “So want to try to explain all this?” Deanna said. “I’m kind of curious what my delusion is going to come up with next. I didn’t know cancer could cause this sort of thing.”

  “It doesn’t,” Jewel said. “If this was a normal situation and you were going to just pass on to the next lif
e when you died, you would have no thoughts at all right now, since your body slipped into a cancer-caused coma about an hour ago. In most cases, brain function pretty well stops at that point.”

  “So this is part of the brain tumor, huh?” Deanna said.

  “No,” Jewel said. “This is all very real.”

  “You and I have been picked,” Elliot said, “to stay in this real world, as ghosts like I said, to help save people.”

  “There are only a few hundred of us around the world,” Jewel said. “Now that you have joined us, our team has seven.”

  Deanna just sort of shook her head. “Wow, this delusion has taken entire new paths. I’m not even dead yet and I’m a ghost.”

  Suddenly a tall woman in an expensive business suit appeared. She had intense dark eyes and her long hair pulled back tight from her face.

  And suddenly all around them everyone froze in position. And all background sounds of other talking and eating and laughing as they walked down the wide hallway in front of the café vanished.

  Both Elliot and Jewel started to stand, but the woman motioned them to stay seated. She pulled over a chair and sat next to Elliot. Then she extended her hand. “Welcome, Deanna. My name is Laverne.”

  Deanna shook the woman’s hand, feeling extreme power and confidence coming from her.

  “You are the first ever to join a team before dying,” Laverne said. “So it’s going to be almost impossible, until your body finally dies, for these two to convince you that what you are experiencing is any more than a delusion.”

  Deanna nodded. “Got that right. But I am sure enjoying this. Better than being in that bed in pain.”

  “You are no longer attached to that body in that bed,” Laverne said. “So that pain won’t bother you. You have crossed over even though your body will continue to breathe for two more weeks.”

  That matter-of-fact statement from the clearly powerful woman sitting across from her rocked Deanna back.

  “So I really am now dead?” Deanna asked.

  “To put it bluntly,” Laverne said, “yes.”

  Jewel and Elliot were both nodding.

  “And you are dead as well?” Deanna asked.

  “No,” Laverne said. “I am very much alive. But I am here to speed up your training so you can help us in three days. I suspect we will need your help.”

  Deanna started to ask what was the problem, but Laverne put up her hand. “They will explain to you what is happening. Just let me be clear here. Earlier tonight these two and the rest of their team saved hundreds of lives and helped avert a very nasty war.”

  Deanna glanced at Elliot, but he only seemed embarrassed by the compliment, as the Elliot she loved would be.

  “Take my hand,” Laverne said. “I will give you the larger picture and clear out the idea of this being a delusion so you can work on training the next few days.”

  Deanna hesitated, then took Laverne’s extended hand.

  Suddenly she knew she was dead. That her essence that made her who she was had crossed over into this new state. That she and Elliot both were being recruited to be Ghost of a Chance agents.

  And she understood that there were gods and superheroes working in every walk of life, that the ghost team she was to be a part of would be special and report mostly directly to Laverne.

  It was as if a huge curtain to parts of the world had suddenly been drawn to one side and she could see a larger, formally hidden aspect of life.

  Then Laverne let go of her hand and smiled.

  All Deanna could do was smile back. Her body was dying, sure, but she and Elliot got the chance to keep on living and being together again. It was real.

  She knew it now.

  “I’m very glad you two have joined the team,” Laverne said, standing and nodding to Elliot and then Deanna. “We’re going to need you.”

  With that, she was gone, and the sounds from the restaurant came smashing back in. And people went back to moving.

  “Wow,” Deanna said, smiling at Elliot. “Who was that?”

  “One of the most powerful of all the gods,” Elliot said.

  “You know her as Lady Luck,” Jewel said, smiling.

  “And that’s exactly how I feel right now,” Deanna said. “Lucky. And damned hungry. Ghosts had better be able to eat or we’re all going to be in trouble.”

  Elliot and Jewel both laughed. And Deanna had her training start with learning how to get food.

  SECTION FIVE

  A Mission

  TWENTY-TWO

  JEWEL SPENT THE next two days with Elliot and Deanna, helping them both get trained, including how to be inside live people and how to go shopping for clothes.

  Laverne had been correct. Deanna was completely disconnected from her dying body up in Boise. As a doctor, Jewel found that fascinating, how going into a coma like that would cause such extreme disconnection.

  And Deanna sure seemed to mostly forget she actually had a body still alive in Boise. She spent the night with Elliot in his suite at the Golden Nugget and on the second afternoon. Belle and Nancy showed her how they reserved the suite through the hotel computers so no live humans slept in it.

  On the morning of the third day, while all seven of the team were having breakfast at the Golden Nugget buffet, time stopped around them and Laverne appeared.

  Laverne pulled a chair over to their table and sat down next to K.J.

  K.J. was dressed almost conservatively in a powder-blue suit and red tie and blue shoes. His hat matched his suit, so only his red tie brought the outfit a streak of color.

  The rest of them were in their normal jeans, light shirts, and tennis shoes.

  Laverne had on a black pinstriped suit and had her dark hair pulled back tight. As always, she looked powerful and impressive.

  “Any luck finding out who is behind the attacks?” K.J. asked.

  Laverne shook her head. “We are no closer than we were two days ago I’m afraid. And the peak power point is at 6 p.m. this evening. We will have a lot of people there to stop this.”

  They talked for a time about when the team should be at the Living Time Casino and decided on an hour ahead. Jewel had never seen Laverne look so worried and down. This really, really had one of the most powerful gods of all time worried.

  Finally it was Belle that asked the question that Jewel had been thinking.

  “Can’t we just close off the hotel, make sure no one is in there for some reason?”

  Laverne nodded. “If we haven’t figured this out by thirty minutes before the power point, we’re going to do a fake fire alarm and evacuate the entire hotel. If that doesn’t do the trick, we’re going to shut off all cameras and just teleport people out of there and wipe their memory as they go.”

  “So what can we do?” Jewel asked.

  “Be there ahead and see if you can figure out anything that might be going on that we don’t see.”

  “How about we go in there right after breakfast?” Tommy said. “We’ll spend the entire day in the hotel, scouring everything and everyone.”

  K.J. nodded and so did Laverne.

  “Thank you,” Laverne said.

  Then she vanished and the sounds of the buffet came smashing back in as all the live people eating breakfast and talking resumed.

  “Let’s hope she is thanking us when this is all finished.” K.J. said.

  Jewel glanced at the worried look on Tommy’s face. “Looks like we had better get a good breakfast. We’re going to be very busy for the rest of the day.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  DEANNA WAITED UNTIL they were mostly finished with their main breakfast plates before asking a couple of questions that had been bothering her.

  “This power ring from the ancient past hits its peak at 6 p.m. tonight. Right?”

  K.J. nodded.

  “So why is that ring right on the casino floor?” Deanna asked. “Land around here has risen, if my ancient geography lessons are remembered right.”

  “You rem
embered that stuff?” Tommy asked. “Wow, I’m impressed.”

  “Can’t access actual details,” Deanna said, feeling slightly embarrassed. “Just a general memory.”

  “I think you might be right, though, now that you mention that.” Nancy said. “I’ll check that.”

  Deanna watched as Nancy stood and went over to a woman working on a laptop near the big window overlooking the pool. Nancy then disappeared into the woman. Deanna knew that Nancy was having the woman look up the information.

  It was amazing what ghosts could do without ever actually being able to touch anything in the real world.

  Everyone went back to eating until Nancy came back.

  “Deanna is right,” Nancy said. “The ground area here has risen a long ways since it was marsh lands back in the time of Atlantis.”

  “That’s why Laverne and Stan went down into the ground that first time,” Belle said.

  “So the casino floor means nothing,” Deanna said. “It’s not a ring but a tube coming up from the ground that needs to have the killing done inside of it. Right?”

  “Sub-basements, any upper floors,” Elliot said, nodding. “We need to really, really expand our search.”

  “There could already be hostages and bombers in suites and rooms on upper floors,” Deanna said, “just waiting to cause a blood bath.”

  That was what had been bothering her, but she hadn’t wanted to say anything until now.

  And there was one other thing that was really, really bothering her.

  K.J. started to stand to go tell Laverne when Deanna said, “I have one more problem I can’t seem to figure out.”

  K.J. sat down. His funny comments held in check at the moment as he focused on the task at hand.

  “I understand I’m only a few days into this and all,” Deanna said.

  “We’re all new at this,” Jewel said. “So go on.”

  Everyone nodded to that.

  “This feels like a distraction to me,” Deanna said, worried about what they would think.