"Doesn't look very appetizing to me, either," I said.
This time she didn't jump, just turned and glared.
"You know what I don't get?" I said, taking the seat across from her. "How they can serve weeds like dandelion greens and expect people to pay triple what they would for regular lettuce."
"Leave me alone," she said, without moving her lips.
"I just want to talk to you."
"And this seems like a good place to do it?" she whispered. "Do you know what I'm doing right now? I'm talking to myself."
Her gaze cut to the table beside her, where an elderly woman stared, brow furrowed, at the poor woman carrying on a conversation with an empty chair.
"Damn. That is a problem."
"Which is why you aren't supposed to contact me in public," she said, again trying to talk without moving her lips.
"You want to go outside?"
"I'm eating."
"Doesn't look like it."
Another glare. She forked a few weeds into her mouth.
"Tell you what, then," I said. "You eat, I'll talk."
She opened her mouth to snap something back, then stopped and rubbed a hand over her eyes. Her shoulders sagged, and when she pulled her hand away, there was an exhaustion in her face that no makeup could hide.
"Go ahead," she murmured.
She listened, without comment, to an edited version of my story. Then she stifled a snort of laughter.
"Eve Levine, on a mission from God. I really must be wearing my stupid face today."
"Trust me, if I were making this up, I'd have come up with something more believable. Remember a couple of years ago when Paige and Lucas ended up in the ghost world? Ever wonder how they got back? I cut a deal. Paige was there. Call her up and ask. She's not supposed to talk about it, but she'll confirm it."
"Oh, don't worry, I will make that call. As soon as I'm near a phone."
"Good. Please do that."
Some of her unease evaporated, but there was still a healthy dose of caution behind her shuttered gaze. Nothing new for me. I'd spent my life trying to build a reputation as a fair dealer, but when you've also built a rep in the black arts, no one ever gives a shit about how fair you are. Blast a person's eyes from their sockets, and you can be sure that story will blow through the grapevine faster than an energy bolt, but somehow, the part about the "victim" siccing a demon on you gets lost in the transmission.
I opened my mouth to say more, when something across the cafe caught my attention. I'm not easily distracted, but this was a sight to divert even the most focused mind. A man, in his early thirties, weaving between tables, with his head in his hands-literally, his severed head in his hands. Gore trickled from his neck stump, congealing on the collar of his dress shirt. Intestine poked through a small hole in his shirt. All around him people continued to eat and talk and laugh. Which could only mean one thing.
"Ghost at ten o'clock," I murmured to Jaime. "And it's a ripe one."
She turned and gave a tiny groan, then sank into her chair.
"Not a first-time visitor, I'm guessing," I said.
The man strode up to the table. His gaze cut to me.
"What are you looking at, spook?" he snarled.
"Exactly what you want me to be looking at," I said. "Kill the theatricals. The necro is not impressed, and neither am I."
"Oh, does the horror of my death offend you? Well, excuse me. Next time, I'll make sure I die all neat and tidy." He slammed his head onto Jaime's salad plate. "There. Better?"
Jaime's cheeks paled. I swung my gaze up to glare at the ghost… only his eyes weren't there, which made the move slightly less effective. I glowered down at him.
"She's not talking to you until you put your head back on," I said.
"Fuck y-"
"Put your goddamned head back on now."
He crossed his arms. "Make me."
I slammed my open palm into his ear. His head flew off the table, rolled across the floor, and settled in front of a seeing-eye dog. The dog lifted its muzzle, and its nostrils flared as it picked up the whiff of decay.
"Yum," I said. "Go on, boy. Take a bite."
The ghost's body flew across the restaurant, plowing through tables and diners. Beside me, Jaime made muffled snorting noises, stifling laughter. She mouthed, "Thank you."
The decapitated ghost stomped back to the table. Only he was decapitated no more, having apparently decided his head was safer attached to his shoulders. He'd also freshened up his wardrobe. This would be his normal ghost self. The headless accountant look was a glamour, a trick some ghosts used to revert to their death body-the condition they'd been in when they'd died-either to play on a necromancer's sympathy or to scare the bejesus out of humans with a little necro blood.
"Now, doesn't that feel better?" I said.
"Oh, you thought that was funny, did you?" he said, advancing on me. "It's always funny to pick on those less fortunate than yourself. Maybe when you're done here, you can go back to paradise, and have a good laugh, tell them how you abused the earth-spook."
"Earth-spook?"
"I'm a spirit in torment," the man said, his voice rising like a preacher at the pulpit. "Condemned to tread the earthly realm until my soul finds peace. For five years-five unimaginably long years-I've been trapped here, unable to move into the light, seeking only a few minutes of a necromancer's time-"
Jaime thudded face-first onto the table and groaned. The elderly woman at the next table inched her chair in the other direction.
"See how she treats me?" the man said to me. "She could set me free, but no, she's too busy going on talk shows, telling people how she helps tormented spirits find peace. When it comes to an actual spirit, though? In actual torment? Who only wants to avenge himself on the driver who ended his life, left his wife a widow, his children orphans-"
"You don't have any children," Jaime said through her teeth.
"Because I died before I could!"
I leaned toward Jaime and lowered my voice. "Look, the guy's a jerk, but if you helped him, you could get him off your back-"
She swung to her feet and strode toward the door. When I jogged up beside her, she said in a low voice, "Ask him how he died."
The ghost was right behind me, and answered before I could ask. "I remember it well. The last day of my life. I was happy, at peace with the world-"
"There's no Oscar for death scenes," I said. "The facts."
"I was driving home after a business meeting," he began.
"A meeting held in a bar," Jaime added as she turned into an alley.
"It was after office hours," he said. "Nothing wrong with a drink or two."
"Or five or six." She stopped, out of earshot of the sidewalk now, and turned to me. "Coroner reported a blood-alcohol level of at least point two five."
"Sure, okay, I was drunk," the man said. "But that wasn't the problem. The problem was a seventeen-year-old kid joyriding in my lane!"
"You were in her lane," Jaime said. "Got a police report to prove it. Who killed you? The idiot who got behind the wheel of his convertible, so pissed he couldn't even fasten his seat belt. That kid you hit will spend the rest of her life wearing leg braces. And you want me to help you exact revenge on her?"
I turned on the man, eyes narrowing. He met my gaze and took a slow step back, then wheeled and stalked away.
"Don't think this is done!" he called over his shoulder. "I'm coming back. And next time you won't have your ghost-bitch bodyguard to protect you."