near a video store that glared with a multitude of neon lights, and the driver stepped on it, peeling away into the night. Certainly was able to catch only the tiny logo on the back door of the white hearse, a pentacle overlaid with what looked like a vacuum cleaner and the words Jiffy Clean.
A patron from the video store walked out, and, staggering, CJ bumped into him. The man cursed him in French and shoved him aside. CJ stepped out onto the street, following the retreating red taillights.
“You are all right, monsieur?” the man who had cursed him called, though he was still walking away down the sidewalk.
Certainly nodded and gestured with a wave that he was indeed better than all right. But now he had to find that hearse and the woman who had sneezed at him. She’d worn white from head to toe, so he had no idea what she actually looked like. Her eyes had been green though; he’d seen as much in the glow of the headlights.
“That woman.” He slapped a hand over his pounding heart. “She exorcized one of my demons.”
Chapter 2
“Vika, what’s wrong?” Libby sorted their cleaning gear in the supply room, placing their hazmat suits in the work sink designated for cleaning away the debris. The pink fringes dancing about her sleeves dusted the air. “I don’t think the guy saw anything. We had the whole area cleaned and everything packed up by the time he wandered onto the scene.”
Vika glided through the kitchen and pushed through the French doors leading into the living room. A spiraling stairway curled up to the second floor, matching the curved architecture of the house.
Intent on slipping out of her clingy work pants, Vika called down the stairway, “I know that, Libby. I’m just— He saw through the wards. And did you see the way he looked at me?”
“How could I?” Libby soared up the stairs behind her. “All that long black hair was hanging in his face. Poor guy must have been a derelict looking for a handout. Oh, snap, I should have given him the change in my pocket. Karma is so going to bite me for that one.’’
Vika rolled her eyes at her sister’s worry. Witches and karma? Libby had a broad definition of the practice of witchcraft. On the other hand, it didn’t matter what a person called the union with the universe that enhanced their life’s path, so long as they respected its awesome power.
Unzipping her pants and tugging off the thin T-shirt in preparation to slip into a nice, hot shower, Vika paused near the open bedroom doorway. A clatter downstairs alerted her. It was a familiar sort of mild booming clatter she and her sister knew well. It announced his arrival.
Eyes widening, Libby pressed her fingers to her lips. “He’s here already?” She patted her hands over her purple skirt and ran toward her bedroom. “He always just appears! Why can he never announce himself or make an appointment? At least then I’d have a chance to comb my hair and freshen up my lipstick.”
“I’ll walk down slowly,” Vika called.
Tugging her shirt on and zipping her pants along the hip, she padded the high-glossed hardwood floor in the hallway. Thanks to lemon oil, it gleamed. Fresh, clean things made her feel good about herself. Peaceful.
The chandelier lighting the circular living room below glowed softly, yet it also blocked the view of their visitor. It had been over a week, so Vika expected him. Though never actually knowing the exact day or moment he would arrive, she did appreciate what he did for her.
She slid a hand along the white marble railing she kept polished to a shine. The house had been designed by Alphonse Fouquet in the nineteenth century and had been in the St. Charles family since. It was designed with eight walls in a round shape. Half the walls faced the four points of the compass, and the other half faced representative elements. The dwelling was very receptive to the angelic, which was a good thing, as far as their visitor was concerned.
Libby zoomed by her, taking the stairs as if in a track race, click-click-clicking in the high heels she’d slapped on. Without welcoming the visitor, her sister dashed into the kitchen. Vika smirked to know what she was up to.
“Reichardt,” Vika called in greeting to the stoic man attired in his usual black.
He stood beneath the chandelier, hands crossed solemnly before him. Broad and bold, he looked a misplaced warrior from a previous millennium who should be wielding an ax or some form of roughly forged iron weapon. He wore a goatee this evening, and the thick jot of blackness on his chin gave Vika a smile. The man had never a care for his appearance, though he was always neat, which appealed to her cleanliness fetish, so a little style was certainly a surprise.
“Looking rather chic this evening,” she commented.
Before she could ask after his new fashion statement, Libby breezed into the room and stopped beside her in a fury of fringe. Her sister, giddy with anticipation, held out a plate of chocolate chip cookies she’d baked earlier this evening before they’d gotten the cleaning call.
“Cookie?” she offered sweetly.
The soul bringer glanced at the plate as if Libby held forth a stew of rusty nuts, bolts and chirping crickets, and he wasn’t certain if one should eat it or build something with it.
Reichardt adjusted his attention toward Vika. “Take off your clothes.”
Sensing Libby’s pout, Vika tugged her shirt over her head again. “The cookies are excellent.”
“I grate chocolate into the mix,” Libby said proudly. “It makes them super chocolaty.”
Dropping her pants about her feet, Vika was thankful she’d worn a bra and panties today. Often, she forwent undergarments, preferring the sensual feel of fabric sliding against her skin. But when on a job, she wore as many layers as possible. Seemed to keep the unclean away for reasons she knew were superficial yet clung to anyway.
“Step back, please,” Reichardt said to Libby, ignoring the proffered treats.
Her sister dutifully complied, though Vika could sense Libby’s dismay at not being able to pawn off a cookie on the man.
Reichardt was a psychopomp, a soul bringer whose only job was to deliver the souls of the recently departed to Above or Beneath. The soul bringer put out his hands before him, palms flat, and drew them over Vika’s body, without touching. He utilized a form of catoptromancy—his silvered eyes were the mirrors—that would draw the wandering souls out of her body. He would pass over her many times, each time drawing up warmth to her skin and then pulling up a tickle as each soul left hers in a sparkle of phosphorescent light and attached to him.
Corpse lights, they were called in that moment of release from a body when they gleamed giddily. Yet they were lost and wandering souls not moved on to either Above or Beneath, usually due to a violent death—and an absent soul bringer.
Vika had a sticky soul, and when out on a cleaning job, she tended to pick up the wandering souls. It wasn’t purposeful; they attached to her for reasons of which she could never be sure. It was a condition she’d become aware of only since taking on the cleaning jobs.
She had developed an agreement with Reichardt years ago. Once a week he scrubbed her of the souls because they did belong to him, and he could not abide losing one. Which served her well because the idea of walking around with dozens of souls clinging to
