She was going to pay dearly for that.
But now? Now, it was looking like I was about to bite the big one in a field where I was supposed to build my dream home with Gideon. If I was pushing up daisies—pun pathetically intended—I couldn’t exact payback from the crazed Angel who’d done a fine job of destroying my life. I had thought that seeing ghosts and diving into their minds was nuts. I was wrong. I was living nuts this very second.
“What in the ever-lovin’ hey-hey? I’m not made of rubber,” I screeched as Tim tried to push my leg over my head.
“Relax.” Tim chuckled. “It’s still in the socket.”
“Not for long,” I growled, shoving him away and hopping around to make sure I could still run if I had to. “Look, I understand what you guys are trying to do, but this feels like a surefire way for me to end up in the hospital… for years, and I—”
In a flash of silver lightning, Charlie appeared right in front of me.
I screamed.
He gave me a lopsided grin and a friendly pat on the head. Dropping down on all fours, Charlie examined the ground.
I glanced over at Gideon in confusion, but his focus was on Charlie. Everyone’s focus was on Charlie. Had Charlie lost his marbles? Was I about to get attacked by the nicest man I knew?
Backing away slowly, I put a few feet between us so if I had to run, I would have a head start.
“What is he doing?” I whispered to Candy Vargo as she approached and eyed Charlie crawling around in the dirt.
Candy pulled the toothpick out of her mouth and pointed it at Charlie. “Lookin’.”
I rolled my eyes. Candy could end me with a flick of her unmanicured pinky finger, but my gut told me she wouldn’t. “For?” I snapped, needing to clarify his actions weren’t some weird ritualistic prequel to me getting my ass handed to me by the badass Immortal Enforcer.
“A footprint,” Gideon said, coming up from behind and wrapping his arms around me. “He’s trying to detect if you have one.”
“Everyone has footprints,” I said, then paused. Gideon didn’t mean a normal footprint.
All Immortals had a magical footprint, so to speak. As far as I knew, I didn’t. Or at least I hadn’t… However, I had other Immortal attributes that I refused to put too much thought into. Wrapping my mind around the possibility of living forever made me queasy. “Well?” I asked Charlie with some trepidation.
“Nothing,” he said, sitting back on his haunches and rubbing his balding head. “Not a trace of a footprint.”
Charlie looked to be in his sixties. In reality, he was far older—as in centuries older. He was slightly overweight with a contagious laugh and twinkling blue eyes. He worshiped the ground my dear friend June walked on, and as an Immortal, he was able to age along with her. June had no clue what her husband was, and it was probably best that way.
“Close your eyes,” Tim suggested to Charlie. “Might make it clearer.”
Glancing over my shoulder at Gideon, I squinted up at him. He kissed the tip of my nose and smiled. “Not everything can be seen with the eyes, Daisy,” he whispered. “Sometimes what we see is not the truth. Deprivation of senses can strip away the obvious and lead you to the objective.”
“What does a footprint look like?” I asked.
“For me, it’s a feeling,” Gideon replied.
“That’s kind of vague,” I pointed out.
He nodded and rested his chin on the top of my head. “Yep. But it’s the best way I can explain it.”
“For me, it’s a scent,” Tim explained. “The olfactory sense is a powerful tool. Did you know that putting some dry tea bags in running shoes will absorb the musky scent while imparting some of the tea bag’s more pleasant aroma?”
My eyes narrowed and I tried not to laugh. “Are you implying my running shoes are stinky?”
Tim giggled. It was adorable even though the man had just insulted me. “If the shoe fits…”
I rolled my eyes. “Coffee. I really need coffee.”
“Interesting you should bring up coffee,” Tim continued. “In actuality, coffee tastes nothing like it smells. Three hundred of the six hundred and thirty-one chemicals that combine to create the wonderful aroma are destroyed by saliva. This causes the flavor to mutate before we swallow it.”
Candy dropped her toothpick, retrieved it off the ground and put it back into her mouth. “Tim, you’re gonna need to shut your cakehole or I’m gonna shut it for you. Do not mess with my intimate relationship with wakey high octane brain juice by putting bullcrap into my freakin’ frontal lobe. You’re giving me gas with all that nonsense.”
Tim grinned and shrugged. “As you wish. But speaking of gas, during the 1665 bubonic plague in London, one of the cures recommended by doctors—and I use that term loosely—was a fart jar.”
I really didn’t want to ask, but I really had no choice. It would drive me batty if he didn’t finish the disgusting story. My mind would come up with something far worse if I didn’t know the truth. “And?” I asked with a wince.
“And what?” Tim asked with a little smirk.
“Leave it, Daisy,” Gideon said. “Not worth it.”
“Can’t,” I shot back with a groan. “Tim, you can’t end the story there. You have to finish it. I’m imagining some pretty rank things right now.”
Tim nodded and primly clasped his hands together. “To fight the plague, the ill would flatulate into the jar and then sniff the fumes.”
“Shut the front door,” I gagged out.
“It’s true,” Candy said, paling a bit. “Lived in London back then.”
The truth had beaten my imagination by a long shot. Reminder to self… stop asking Tim to clarify. It just didn’t end well. Ever. And while I knew Candy was old, it was statements like the one she’d just made that brought the unreal reality home.
“Did it work?” Tim inquired of Candy as Charlie continued to crawl on the ground, but now with his eyes closed.
“No, it didn’t work, numbnuts,” Candy grunted, flicking her used toothpick at Tim. “Sniffing tush coughs didn’t do anything except make me want to headbutt idiots.”
“Mmkay, I need a new fact to remove that junk from my head,” I muttered, picturing Candy Vargo with a glass jar in hand and a toothpick in her mouth.
“You’re a glutton for punishment,” Gideon pointed out with a chuckle.
“Correct,” I said, hoping Tim had something a little less gag-inducing to share.
“I would be delighted to oblige,” Tim said, pulling a piece of paper out of the pocket of his mail carrier uniform and clearing his throat.
“Nope,” Gideon cut in. “I’ve got this.”
“Oh my God.” I groaned. “You’re full of random facts as well?”
“I’m old,” he replied with a grin that sent a happy shiver through me. “Sue me.”
“Shoulda said do me,” Candy chimed in with a grunt of laughter and waggling eyebrows. “Get it?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Gideon replied dryly. “Moving on. Dogs have bacteria on their paws that make them smell like corn chips. The phenomenon is known as Frito Feet.”