Stolen Ghouls Read online

  “Huh.” I stuck a piece of tiropita into my mouth. The phyllo had the perfect amount of crunch, the feta the perfect amount of bite.

  “Nothing strange about it. It was just his time to go.”

  I kept eating.

  Leo was watching me across the table. “What are you thinking?”

  “Who says I’m thinking?”

  “There’s steam coming out your ears and there’s a faraway look in your eyes.”

  “Roger Wilson was murdered.”

  “Panos Grekos and his medical degree say he wasn’t.”

  “Panos Grekos still buys his porn from the periptero instead of getting it for free on the internet like everyone else.”

  “Really? That’s weird.”

  “I know. Who does that?”

  “Where do you get yours?”

  My cheeks went up in flames. I sidestepped his question, postponing my answer for a conversation that didn’t involve death. “Roger Wilson was murdered, and that’s a fact.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Ghosts can’t bounce right back unless they’ve been murdered. Kyrios Wilson was in the shop after Panos wheeled his body away. We spoke.” I didn’t mention the pot that had connected with my skull. Leo had enough on his plate—literally and figuratively—without having to worry about my safety.

  There was a long, comfortable pause while he shoved a meatball into his mouth. Followed by spanakopita. Then he ate bread.

  Finally he said: “Do you have a living source?”

  “Hey, ghosts might be dead people but that doesn’t mean they’re not alive-ish.”

  “That’s exactly what it means.”

  “Ooooh, they’re arguing again. I can’t stand the tension,” said a woman’s voice behind me. A second voice chimed in—also female.

  “Just remember he is ours, little ghost whisperer.”

  I rolled my eyes. Couldn’t we get through just one food-related event without these pair of demonic nitwits showing up? For some reason the succubi showed up for meals. Funny, because they looked like they existed on Saltines and cigarettes. They were whippet thin and beautiful, a designer’s idea of the perfect female coat hangers. Both demons embraced the less is more philosophy when it came to picking out bandage dresses. In the beginning I’d referred to them as Choker and Bleeder because that’s how they’d shown up to my first date with Leo: bleeding and choking. Since then they had abandoned the props but the names stuck. Something told me I wouldn’t be able to pronounce their real names without a weak gag reflex.

  “Okay,” Leo said, oblivious to the succubi on the couch, “if Roger Wilson was murdered, who killed him?”

  “He doesn’t know. Or at least that’s what he said.”

  “You think he was lying?”

  “I think he’s a malakas. Also he’s concerned that something will kaka in his soul.”

  Leo stopped chewing. He stared at me.

  “I know it sounds crazy, but he struck me as scared,” I said.

  “I can’t base an investigation on that.”

  The cheese pie in my mouth dried up to sawdust. The flavor vanished. No tastebud tickling from the wine either. This not-dinner was on the fast track to over. Pity; the food was excellent and the company was easy on the eyes. Leo was right and I knew it. But I wanted him to be wrong.

  His eyes flitted to my mouth. “Do you have anything else?”

  With the help of a mouthful of wine, I swallowed the sawdust. “Nothing.”

  “If you find something that suggests it’s a homicide, committed by a human being I can arrest, let me know.”

  “Are you saying I should put on my sleuth hat and investigate Roger Wilson’s murder?”

  “I’m saying I can’t—not if there’s no evidence of a murder.”

  “And if the killer doesn’t turn up?”

  “Then Roger Wilson died of a heart attack, just as the coroner determined.”

  Not the answer I wanted. But it was the answer I expected, so my disappointment level wasn’t off the charts.

  I swiveled around in the chair. The succubi on the couch were flipping through magazines they must have brought with them from their pocket dimension. Leo didn’t strike me as a Vogue kind of guy. “I don’t suppose you two know who killed Roger Wilson?”

  “Was he young, muscular, sexy?” Bleeder wanted to know.

  The Englishman was thin, watery, with the sex appeal of paste. “Not exactly.”

  Leo’s forehead crumpled. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Your peanut gallery.”

  Choker raised her hand. “I am allergic to peanuts.”

  Bleeder elbowed her. “No, you are not.”

  “You are right. I have never had peanuts.”

  “Because we do not eat.”

  Choker made a duckface worthy of MySpace. “Well, not peanuts.”

  The pair collapsed in a pile of giggles and stiletto heels.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” I said, tired of their routine.

  Leo refilled the glasses. “The succubi again?”

  “They like interrupting our dinner dates,” I said.

  “I thought we weren’t going to call this dinner.”

  Bleeder fanned herself with a magazine. “I love it when they argue. You should have sex with him.”

  Her friend nodded like her head was going to fall off. “We want to watch.”

  I raised an eyebrow at them. “You haven’t seen that before?”

  “Not him and not with you,” Choker said.

  “He’s new,” Bleeder said. Her skanky demon friend elbowed her. “Oww! That hurt. Just joking, I do not have feelings. Do it—”

  Her words quit mid-sentence. The succubi jerked bolt upright, hissing. For a split second their pretty wrapping paper vanished, revealing the ick under the shiny. Rotten, lumpy ground beef pressed into humanoid forms. Vast wings of leathery skin stretched over bleached bone. Twenty liters of vomit packed into a pair of curvy eight liter bottles. One blink later they were woman-shaped again, although no human alive looked that good without Photoshop.

  My eyes swiveled to Leo’s front door, the source of whatever was making them hiss. There was a soft pop and Roger Wilson appeared, disheveled and furtive, a spook on the run. He glanced around the room, zeroed in on me holding another forkful of sawdust shaped like a dolmada. When it came to food I wasn’t a quitter.

  “Downstairs. Now. Your place.”

  Pop.

  Goodbye, Roger Wilson.

  I stuck a vine leaf parcel in my mouth. Still dusty. Too bad.

  Pop.

  Roger Wilson was back. “Which part of now don’t you bloody well understand? You Greeks and your Greek time. How you wankers conquered most of the civilized world is beyond me.”

  Pop.

  The obnoxious little weasel vanished.

  Chances were slim that he’d leave me alone anytime soon, so I excused myself. Someone was about to win a slap upside the head with a piece of my mind—the sharp piece I’d inherited from my grandmother.

  Pop.

  “Never mind. I’ll wait right here until you can be bothered getting up off your arse. Before I die of old age would be nice.”

  “You’re already dead,” I snapped.

  Roger Wilson’s ghost flipped me off, British-style, using two fingers instead of one.

  Leo looked concerned. “Talking to yourself?”

  “Ghost.”

  He glanced around. “Here?”

  “By your door.”

  “Who?”

  “Roger Wilson.”

  I hoofed it downstairs as quickly as I could in these boots, wondering what the spook’s emergency was and whether or not Leo had bought my ghost excuse. As skeptical as he was he probably thought I needed the bathroom. And the longer I took …

  “Thanks, Mr. Wilson,” I muttered. Just one date—just one damn date without ghosts, succubi, and arguments about their existence.

  Jimmy was still hogging my couch
, television blaring. Where was Wilson, and how was a conversation supposed to happen?

  Right on time, Roger Wilson stuck his head out of my bedroom. “In here. I don’t want your friend eavesdropping.”

  “Not my friend,” I muttered.

  Jimmy barely glanced at me as I slid past. “Slow night on your usual corner?”

  “Your mother was hogging the johns.” I walked away, whistling the Oompa Loompa tune.

  By the time I reached the bedroom Wilson had vanished.

  “In here.” His voice filtered through the closet door.

  One of the best things about people is that you can shut a door to get away from them. Not ghosts. They wouldn’t know personal boundaries if those boundaries bit them on their transparent butts. I stepped into the closet, which was roomy, thank goodness. I’d never appreciated that until I was stuck inside one, chatting to a ghost.

  “Why are we in my closet?” I whispered. I turned on my phone for light.

  He hovered just above my shoes. My winter coats were visible though his body.

  “Looking for Narnia, of course. What the bloody hell do you think I’m doing in a wardrobe? I’m hiding.”

  “From the ghost buggering that’s physically impossible, or the soul pooping, which is also physically impossible?”

  You have to do something for me.”

  “No.”

  “Why the heck not?”

  “Because you’re what your fellow countrymen call an arsehole.”

  “Arsehole,” he scoffed. “If I wanted to hear someone mangle the English language I’d fart God Save the Queen.”

  “Well, you can’t fart because you’re dead, so I guess today is my lucky day! Now get out before I call an exorcist.”

  “Ha-ha,” he said anemically. “I’m not leaving until it’s safe out there. What you need to do is put a ring of salt around this whole apartment so I don’t have to stay in a wardrobe.”

  “You’re out of your mind. I’m not salting the whole apartment.”

  “Why not?”

  “My one and only pet is a ghost cat. If I salt the apartment he won’t be able to go.”

  “Does it matter? Your cat is dead.”

  “Newsflash: so are you.”

  He pulled himself in a tight, indignant column. “So … are you saying you won’t help me then? Is that what you’re fooking saying?”

  “Come back when you’re less of a dick, and your demands don’t put a crimp in my cat’s afterlife.”

  Rat-a-tat-tat.

  A tiny fist tapped on the closet door.

  “Why are you talking in your closet? You got a girlfriend stashed in there? You do, don’t you? That’s okay. Nothing to be ashamed about. Lesbians are cool. They taught me everything I know.”

  Unbelievable. If salt kept Jimmy Kontos out of my apartment probably I’d give it a whirl.

  “They didn’t teach you how to be taller,” I said.

  There came a scuffling sound, then scraping, then an ominous clash between metal and wood as Willow Ufgood jammed one of my chairs up under the closet’s handle.

  “Hey!” I kicked the door. “You can’t lock me in here. This is my closet!”

  Tiny footsteps shuffled away from the closet door. A moment later, the television’s volume rose. The little squirt was watching my TV, on my couch, while I was locked in my closet. Well, the joke was on him.

  Okay, it was on me.

  “As soon as I get out of here I’m going to go all Aragorn and toss you!”

  Nothing—just the wall of background music as men pumped bullets into other men on the small screen.

  Fabulous.

  Good thing I’d ducked into the closet with my handbag. I pulled out my phone and fired off a text message to Leo.

  I’m trapped in the closet. Help.

  Chapter Six

  Good news: I was out of the closet.

  Bad news: Roger Wilson was still hiding out in my closet.

  More bad news: Jimmy hadn’t left for King’s Landing to visit his incestuous kin. He and his Shrek jammies were a persistent infestation.

  “Get out,” I said, shaking him by the ear. “Show up uninvited again and I’ll call the police.”

  “Ha! My cousin is the police.” Jimmy hooked his thumb at Leo, who was somewhere between amused and exasperated.

  “How much do you weigh?” I asked him.

  “What?”

  I shook him again. “You heard me.”

  “Ow!” The little guy’s bunny slippers flailed. “Why?”

  Without ceremony I scooped him up under the armpits, marched to the door, and tossed him into the hallway. Then I slammed the door.

  Hands deep in his pockets, Leo laughed.

  “He broke into my apartment,” I said in my defense.

  “He broke into your apartment.”

  “And locked me in a closet.”

  “And locked you in a closet—wait, how did he get you into the closet?”

  “Roger Wilson wanted to talk, and he wanted to do his talking in the closet.”

  “I can hear you,” Roger Wilson said through the wood.

  Leo rubbed his forehead. I had that effect on him. “Talk about what? I don’t suppose he happened to mention who allegedly murdered him.”

  “Coppers on this island are even dumber than the coppers back home,” Roger Wilson yelled. “I bet he even thinks my murder was natural causes. Well, there’s nowt natural about my dying on that cake shop’s floor. You can tell him that.”

  Color me confused. “Nowt? What’s nowt? Now with a t tacked onto the end?”

  “Nowt is nowt,” Roger Wilson barked.

  “I don’t know what a nowt is,” I told Leo, whose forehead looked like toilet paper in the hand of a three-year-old.

  “I have no idea what is going on,” the cop said.

  “Virgin Mary.” I grabbed my phone to Google nowt. “Nothing! It means nothing!”

  “That I believe,” Leo said.

  “Why couldn’t you just say nothing?” I aimed my words in the direction of my closet door.

  “Daft cow,” Roger Wilson barked. “What’s wrong with you? All you have to do is open your trap and tell him he’s a git.”

  Fine. If that’s what he wanted. “He thinks the police are stupid and that there’s nothing natural about what happened to him.”

  “Is that what he thinks?” A light danced in his eyes. Someone—it was Leo—thought I was making this up. Still.

  So much for progress.

  “Ghosts are real,” I said.

  “Of course they’re bloody well real,” Roger called out. “I should know, I am one.”

  Leo shrugged. “Again, I can’t base an investigation on something that may or may not exist and that I can’t see.”

  I liked Leo. I liked Leo a lot. I’d even liked him as a person when we were teenagers and he was swapping spit with my sister. Right now I wanted to poke him in the eye.

  “Thanks for the rescue,” I said in a huff.

  He folded his arms and rocked back on his heels. “Wait—are you angry?”

  “Frustrated. I thought we’d moved on from this and that you were at least open to the possibility that ghosts are real.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  I held my hands out, palms up, imploring. “Can’t you at least believe in me?”

  “I do believe in you. That’s why I’m still standing here.” He glanced away, then back. “Why do you believe in ghosts?”

  “Because they’re real and they talk to me. Sometimes too much.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Ghosts have fewer social filters than the living.” I told him about Kyrios Moustakas, who spent his afterlife scooting across Merope’s main road with his walker, frank and beans hanging through the slit of his striped pajamas.

  “He used to do that when he was alive, too,” Leo said.

  “Yes, but at least he put it away when someone called him on it. Now it’s always out, s
winging in the breeze.”

  “Gamo tin panayia mou,” Leo muttered.

  Was he boning the Virgin Mary because of my ghost-seeing abilities or Kyrios Moustakas’ unaltered penchant for flashing? Hard to say. Too many good arguments for both sides.

  Leo increased the rubbing pressure on his temples.

  “Kyrios Wilson wanted me to sprinkle salt around my whole apartment so he could hide out here safely. I said no, of course.”

  “Why salt?”

  “It’s a supernatural forcefield. Nothing spooky can come in or go out when they’re trapped in a salt circle. Probably it doesn’t have to be a circle. I bet a square would work fine.”

  He fell silent for a moment. Then: “Want to come up and finish dinner?”

  “No, but I’ll help you finish off the mezedes.”

  “Deal.”

  Roger Wilson had something to say about that. “Wait—are you leaving? That’s about bloody right. Should’ve known better than to go to an American for help. You can stick your salt up your fanny!”

  I ignored the voice coming from my closet and let Leo hold my hand, which really helped with the high heeled boots situation on the stairs. He shoved open his front door. Jimmy was at the table, mouth furiously chewing, a tiropita in each hand. The plates were empty.

  “You ate all that food?” I yelped.

  “Sure did.” Crumbs sprayed in every direction.

  “Where do you put it? You’re the size of a fourth-grader!”

  He patted his crotch. “It all goes here.”

  Leo laughed. Not me. I was too busy vomiting in my mouth.

  The sawn-off malaka had the nerve to grin. “Don’t believe me? Watch my videos. I’m twenty-five percent poutsa.”

  I swiveled on one boot heel. “On that horrifying note, I’m going to look at puppies and kittens on the internet until that mental image vanishes forever.”

  “We could order from Crusty Dimitri’s,” Leo said.

  The succubi flipped sassy little waves at me from across the room. I scratched my nose with my middle finger in their direction. They bent over and mooned me. Succubi aren’t big on class, apparently, but it was clear they never missed butt day at the gym, damn them.

  Leo and I kept making plans, and those plans never worked out. We were a comedy of errors. I was beginning to think this was the universe giving me the side-eye for trying to date my sister’s high school boyfriend. A cosmic Haha, nice try, jerk. And what kind of sister are you anyway?