A Most Excellent Midlife Crisis - Robyn Peterman Page 0,68
instinctual. I didn’t realize I’d done it until after it was done.
Swiping my hand through the air, I put out the fire. It still smoldered, but the flames were gone.
Clarissa’s scream of fury was so shrill, I slapped my hands over my ears.
“How?” she demanded. “Explain!”
“No.”
She eyed me with hatred and paced the room like a madwoman. The glass crunched beneath her stiletto-clad feet as she muttered obscenities.
On a dime, she shifted. Her fury was replaced by a sweetness so repulsive, I almost laughed.
I didn’t. I was smarter than that.
“Okay, Daisy,” she said, seating herself on the edge of the broken coffee table. “I’m looking for a troublesome old soul. A woman. She’s wanted in Heaven, and I can’t seem to locate her. I think you have her.”
“A ghost?” I questioned as I braced myself against the wall due to the fact that my knees had turned to jelly. If this was going where I thought it was going, then this was a really bad time to pass out.
Clarissa tilted her head to the side and got lost in thought. “I suppose she could be in ghost form, but last time I saw her, she was more of a blob.”
“A blob?” I asked, squinting at her.
She nodded and rolled her eyes. “Are you hard of hearing?” she snapped. “A soul looks like a blob. A ghost looks like a ghost.”
“Umm… I just have ghosts, and ghosts look like ghosts,” I said, still feeling light-headed. I wanted to scream with joy, but I wasn’t sure I was correct. “No blobs. Can you tell me anything else about this blob?”
“Are you making fun of me?” she asked, raising her hand to destroy more of my house.
The Angel was deranged and unpredictable, which made her incredibly dangerous. Her behavior was batshit crazy. It was going to be hard to take her down if it couldn’t be determined what she would do next.
Shit.
“Not making fun of you at all,” I insisted, trying to keep my tone light and the hatred buried deep. “I’m actually fascinated by your knowledge. As the Death Counselor, I’ve never actually witnessed a soul blob, just ghosts.”
She nodded and bought it hook, line and sinker. “When a human perishes, the soul shoots out of the body—looks like a blob. It’s disgusting. If the soul has unfinished business, it becomes a ghost.”
“I see,” I said. “So, you saw this soul right after it died and then lost it?”
“Something like that,” she said, staying vague. “Have you seen it?”
“No. If it had unfinished business, it might have come to me as a ghost. I can ask around,” I told her. “How long ago did this human die?”
I held my breath and waited.
Her smile was positively nightmare-inducing. “Playing me is a very bad plan, Daisy the Death Counselor. You know exactly who I’m looking for, and I think you’re hiding her. It makes sense, and I’m a very logical Angel. Families tend to stick together.”
The bitch did not have my mother’s soul. I was sure of it now. Where it was, I had no clue. But if Clarissa didn’t have it, her punishment wouldn’t affect my mother.
She’d lied to Michael. She’d killed my mother and made sure my father disowned me. She’d also killed my husband to try to destroy me. She was the worst kind of abomination—and I loathed her with every fiber in my being.
How much should I tell her?
A whole bunch. It was time to mess with her and make her sloppy.
“Does the soul happen to have died thirty-five years ago?” I asked. “Is her name Alana?”
Clarissa’s face reddened and her eyes literally sparked with menace and hatred. “Give her to me,” she snarled.
“I don’t have her,” I said calmly. “However, since we’re coming clean here, I know who my father is. Michael touched me when I went into Steve’s mind and everyone saw what you did when he sent it to the other Immortals. Your ass is grass. Your guilt has been recorded and you are fucked.”
“You lie!” she shouted, diving forward.
Barely dodging the bolt of lightning she threw at me, I reared back and delivered a left hook to her face that sent her flying across the room. Her crazed grunt of fury didn’t bode well for me living into the next hour, but if I was going down, I was going down fighting.
“My nose,” she hissed as blood ran down her lips and onto her dress. “You broke it.”