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the time is right.”
    A flash of her stepfather’s face
and the smell of burning flesh made her stomach twist. The thick scar tissue on
her back itched at the memory. “Who is this person that you want killed?” she
asked.
    “You’ll get all the details when
you agree to do it,” he said.
    Redi looked around the room.
There were more ghosts there than ever before. All people she had killed,
including the occasional dog or cat, pets of her hits that starved to death.
She sighed.
    “You’re right, one more dead
person isn’t a big deal,” she said, grounding out the cigarette in a brass
ashtray. “Here’s the thing, I need more incentive if I’m going to add to my
entourage.”
    He closed his eyes again and
pressed on his temples with fingers so long they looked like they had an extra
joint.
    “Okay,” he said. “I can offer you
revenge against your stepfather.”
    She jerked back on the couch.
“He’s dead.”
    He waved his hand dismissively.
“I have access to his essence. I can choose to interrupt his eternal suffering
so you can have some quality time with him.”
    “You’re more than a ghost, aren’t
you?” she asked.
    He nodded.
    “Are you the Devil?”
    He laughed. “No, but you might
say I’m second-in-command.”
    Redi stood up and walked to the
window overlooking her busy street. “Can I have time to think about your
offer?” She turned to face him.
    He pressed in close. She held her
ground. A stench of burning flesh surrounded him. “One night.”
    She thought for a second that he
was going to kiss her, but he inhaled deeply as though breathing in her scent,
and turned quickly.
    The two-headed dog rose and
followed him across the room.
    “Sleep well, Redi Thomas.” He
snapped his fingers and all the other ghosts disappeared. He smiled at her,
bowed and sank through the floor with the dog.
    She leaned against the wall and
looked at the room, the empty room. It had been so long since she had been
alone here. Perhaps she could sleep without nightmares this one night.
     
     
    The Gate of Relentless Congruity:
     
    Redi sipped her second cup of
coffee and lit another cigarette. She had one dream last night. The one
recurring train dream she’d had for years. The conductor was a pale, bloated
man with black eyes and a belt of keys. The dream ended as it always did, with
her and the conductor working on her stepfather while he was tied to a table in
one of the train cars.
    She smiled at the memory of his
imagined screams.
    The talking ghost rose through
the floor with his dog. “We can make him scream together,” he said, sitting
down opposite her. The dog walked over to Redi and sniffed her with its twin
heads, whined and sat on the floor.
    Redi thought she heard a whisper
under the dog’s whine, but couldn’t make out the words. “Okay. Who do you want
me to kill?”
     
    Ana Sanchez, the accountant. Redi
should have known it wasn’t going to be a stranger. She had nothing against the
woman, but her feelings or lack of feelings for a hit had never stopped her
from completing a contract in the past.
    “I’ll have to leave town, change
identities,” she said. “No one will hire a bodyguard with a dead client.”
    “Do what you need, but it must be
done this weekend and — “
    “I got it the first time, leave
her body where her family will find it,” she said.
    He smiled widely.
    “I do this and I get to make him
suffer?” she asked.
    “Oh, we don’t have to wait. Your
word is good enough. Let’s take that train ride.” He leaned close to her, his
hand brushed her face. Redi didn’t feel his hand but there was a jolt of scalding
air on her skin. She closed her eyes.
     
    Clanging metal jolted Redi
upright in her seat, her knees bumping against the back of a train seat. The
clink of heavy chains and metal tools jostling against each other sang out from
under the conductor’s long blue coat as he walked down the aisle. His mouth was
a dark wound in a pasty face, his eyes