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Author's Note: David Streeter thought he was tough, but there is always someone tougher and meaner. Finding that out wasn't a huge suprise, but discovering what can happen once one dies turned out to be the biggest one of his life --err death...
 

I was a dead man even though I was still breathing. You know the worst part of that one? Not that I was dying, coughing up blood every time I tried taking a breath, but that I could have avoided this.

I didn’t need to die.

I could have let the cops know what was going on and let them handle the thing, then gone home, had a drink, watched a ball game on the tube and congratulated myself for being a good citizen.

But did I do that? Oh, no not a chance. Not the tough, street wise private security specialist all the rich guys paid really good money to so they didn’t have to deal with annoyances like someone wanting to kill them. I could handle anything that came my way, or so I thought.

The nutcase grinning down at me as I coughed and bled my life out was more than a simple annoyance for rich folks, though.

“You should have stayed out of this one, Streeter.” Iggy, short for Ignace and maybe that was why he was such a bastard — I know I’d have been a long time forgiving my parents for hanging a name like that on me — Forester stared at me and shrugged. “Your client owed me, I came to collect. It was business, that’s all. Then you just had to get in the way.”

Yeah, I got in the way, and took a bullet that wasn’t meant for me. But my client was way to pretty to get one in the face like my killer had planned. Plus I had entertained the idiot fantasy that Iggy really wasn’t going to hurt her.

Right. Ignace Forester was a nasty piece of work. Really nasty. Prostitution? He was into it whether the girls he used wanted to do it or not. Drugs? He was the player all the big dealers in town got their stuff from. Blackmail? No one could outdo Iggy on that one. The slime had something on just about everyone in town and used it with an unholy glee.

Then there was the fact that my client, and lover, Erica Stanfield, one of the more prominent and upscale whores he made use of was dead anyway. I’d failed her and myself in more ways than I could even start to count. That hurt more than dying.

If rage could keep someone alive, I’d have been assured of walking out of that penthouse the next morning. If hate could keep someone with his lungs punctured by nine millimeter rounds was something that would keep him from leaving the scene in a body bag while bloody froth of bubbling blood and air escaped his mouth I would have been home free.

But that wasn't enough, not near enough.

And the one thing I hadn’t counted on in all this was the grief.

Grief over what you ask? Not my own death. I was one of those people who had always known I was expendable just from the job I did. Goes with the territory, get over it, things like that.

But losing poor sweet Erica. That was more than I could bear.

And I hadn’t even told her once that I loved her.

Oh, she would probably have laughed in my face at that admission, but the point is, I hadn’t told her. And I couldn’t keep her from dying. So now, I’d never be able to tell her. Unless we ran into each other in the afterlife.

Things were going gray, then dark. The last thing I really recall from that time was fixing Iggy’s grinning face in my mind and wishing to god, the devil, or anything watching that I had the chance to wipe that damned grin off the shithead’s countenance for good.

Then it was over. I died.

Really died, as in the whole funeral and coffin thing, mourners and all. Though I hadn’t really left anyone behind who cared enough to mourn me. On reflection, as things faded into black, I thought that really sucked even if it was my own fault.

“David Streeter.” The voice, almost a monotone but filled with a thrumming power that no voice in existence should have interrupted my segue into hell.

“What?” I questioned while noticing that I could see nothing around me. No light, no dark, no fog, just nothing. I’d faced off with some really nasty sorts before Iggy got me, been in the military special forces and seen, done things, that would have driven most people insane, but this was more than I was ready to handle or was able to take. “What the Hell is going on here?”

“Not Hell, David, but close.” The voice answered with a hint of malicious amusement that I couldn’t miss. “You failed.”

“And now I’m dead.” I shot back. “Yeah, yeah, I know that. So why are you tormenting me with that? Send me on and let the demons or whatever have their fun with me.”

“I could do that.” The voice chuckled. “But if I did I couldn’t make you this offer.”

“Offer?” I was starting to pay closer attention now. “What kind of offer are we talking about here? If you want my soul, check the pawn shop on 35th. I sold that a long time ago.”

“Do you wish to leave things as there were when you left mortality?” The voice questioned. “Wouldn’t you prefer to get retribution for your death, and for Erica’s?”

“Yeah, who wouldn’t?” I shot back then shrugged even though I didn’t seem to have a body to do that with. “What? Are you offering to send me back so I can take care of unfinished business?”

“Something like that, David.”

“Are you going to heal my very dead body and breathe life back into it?” I questioned and laughed. “Sure, that happens all the time. I’m no holy man to deserve resurrection and sure don’t want to be some lurching zombie. Or are you going to put me in some other body?”

“Agree to do what I ask and you’ll find out.” Voice said without a hint of humor or anger at my tirade.

“If it keeps me out of Hell, I’ll go with it.” I answered.

“You may wish to listen to my proposition before agreeing.”

“Fine, tell me what you want. Then I’ll agree.” I told who, or whatever was talking to me. “I’m not ready to be dead yet.”

“I require an agent… An avenger.” I was told. “One who will punish people who need it.”

“Can I get some of my own back while I’m doing that?”

“Of course, David.”

Thinking of Iggy Forester’s ugly grinning face as he watched me die I nodded. “Let’s do it then.”

“You freely give yourself to me?” Voice questioned. “Give this some thought, David. I am a harsh taskmaster.”

“Whatever you want.” I answered. “Just so long as I can go back and pay some people off.”

“So be it.”

Then things really went wonky.

I could feel my body again. Only it felt wrong. Really wrong.

I wasn’t complaining though, I was alive. At least I was breathing.

Slowly, not really believing what I’d just gone through, I opened my eyes.

To see the interior of a dingy, run down motel room that couldn’t even claim to be third rate.

It was the kind of place infamous for sticky sheets, and hourly rates. And there wasn’t even a television.

“What the Hell?” I asked nothing in particular then grabbed my throat. My voice sounded different, a lot different.

No adam’s apple on my neck, I noticed while my poor overworked brain started cataloguing other differences as I sat up.

Weight on my chest that shifted with every breath I took. Soft yielding weight. Something soft and heavy tickling my ears, neck shoulders and back. A definite feel of something missing between my legs.

My balance was off, too. When I stood up I felt like my center of gravity had shifted from the chest level sense I’d always known. Now that was all concentrated at my hips and let me tell you it felt really weird.

“Oh, no.” I whispered in that strange, musical voice I now had. “Oh, HELL NO!”

Perotesting didn’t work, trying not to believe this was real didn’t either.

I was a girl.

No ifs ands or buts about it. I was a genuine, card carrying female. I didn’t need to feel myself up anywhere to know that much. There was just this internal sense that flatly told me what was and what wasn’t.

And what I wasn’t was a guy.

Fade to black. Again.

Awake again, and staring into the cracked, foggy mirror the sorry excuse for a room I had found myself had to offer.

I did NOT like what I was seeing. Nope, not at all.

The girl staring into the wavy, cloudy glass of the mirror looked like a ghost. Pale, no make that chalk white skin gleamed in the light, and there was one hell of a lot of skin showing too.

She would have been sexy if she didn’t look so terrified.

Great figure. Nice full breasts that showed no sag at all, probably a C cup at least I figured, narrow waist that followed body curves designed to make a man drool all over himself into a pair of hips that made promises no good girl would make to a stranger, and legs that just went on and on.

Heart shaped face, nice cheekbones, pouty lips that glistened with a soft red health the rest of her complexion lacked, small nose with just that hint of an uptilt that guys liked so much, and large, almond shaped eyes. She would have been a real beauty except for one thing. Those eyes. They were red. Glowing red.

“And what’s with all this hair?” I asked, still in shock at what I was seeing in the mirror while lifting some of that off one slim shoulder. It was thick, soft, and a flame red so bright it almost glowed. And went down to the sweet butt that I still didn’t want to examine too closely.

“No way.” I shook my head and plopped that very nice, if ghostly derriere onto the bed so I could work at gathering thoughts that weren’t cooperating at all.

And went straight through the bed to plant myself on the floor.

“Ack!!!”

Not something cool or smart in the way of responses, but you try and see how together you are looking at your reflection with only the top half of your body poking out of a bed or any other piece of furniture.

I won’t repeat the things I said after that one. But I could almost have sworn that I did see the air around me tinge to blue for a bit.

“Dammit!” I made myself breathe while staring into the mirror again. The image it gave back just wouldn’t go away.

The girl in the mirror grabbed a tit — okay, since it seemed to be mine — breast and squeezed. Which pulled out a gasp and wince from me. Note to self on that one. Gently next time.

I’d already explored the familiar, but unfamiliar landscape between my legs. And still didn’t believe it.

Me, David Streeter, the hard, tough guy people counted on to do the bad stuff when things got nasty, was a hot goth chick with glowing red eyes. At least I didn’t have fangs, I’d checked that right off the bat. So I knew I wasn’t a vampire. Or hoped I wasn’t anyway.

“This can’t be happening.” I told myself for at least the hundredth time since I first woke up. But whatever passed for reality at the moment insisted that it not only was happening, it went on to make it very clear that I couldn’t make this nightmare go away.

“Finsished yet?” A horribly familiar voice intruded on my — umm — growing panic.

“What did you do to me?!!”

“Remade you, Diana.” Voice answered and I could have sworn I heard amusement in it. “I created my avenger on Earth.”

“Diana?” I stopped my rant before it got started, that startled me so much.

“Well, you have to admit that David just doesn’t fit you any longer, does it?”

Staring at the pasty skinned thing in the mirror I couldn’t argue with that one. Not even if I’d wanted to do it.

“Damn you.”

“Ahh, but my dear Diana, you accepted damnation without a qualm earlier, why curse me now when it is done?”

“Take me back.” I whispered. “Let me die and go to Hell.”

“Ahh, but there is the rub, as one of your bards said.” The voice answered. “You are in Hell, Diana. And you have work to do.”

I cried, really cried, like a baby, or — like a girl, once I heard that. And my tears were as blood red as my eyes. “But why as a girl?”

“There are still lessons to be learned, Diana.” Voice told me with something that nearly sounded like compassion. “Lessons that you wouldn’t have learned as a returned David Streeter. Hell is more than simple punishment, it is designed to point the wayward towards eventual redemption.”

Redemption. I didn’t even know what that meant just then.

I got over that after awhile. I’d never been one to fight things I couldn’t do anything about no matter how messed up they were.

At least I was dressed now. Sort of.

I had on a skimpy little bra, yes, bra, of shiny green material that held the still unfamiliar weights on my chest firmly enough even if it still showed off more female flesh than most hookers displayed. A matching bikini bottom covered territory I still wasn’t quite willing to admit I had. Then there were the boots. Knee length, pointy toes, and sporting a four inch heel. In a lady’s size five, by the way.

“I’m going to break my neck and kill myself with these things you know.” I groused while lifting first one boot encased foot then the other.

“You’re already dead.” Voice answered imperturbably. “You’ll get used to them soon enough.”

“And what’s with this cape?” I almost shouted while holding up the gleaming green silk garment. Self respecting ten dollar whores wouldn’t be caught dead in something like this!”

“It’s a cloak.” Voice replied. “With a hood and some special properties. Put it on, and you’re already…”

“Dead, I know, I know.” I grumbled while getting the thing over my shoulders and making sure my hair wasn’t caught in it then pulling the hood over my head. Which really made me look like a red eyed ghost. “Now what?”

“Now, Ms Spectre.” Voice told me. “As I said, you have work to do.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I sighed, knowing that cussing, screaming, or even —god forbid — crying wasn’t going to end this nightmare. “Point the way, and let’s get this show on the road.”

“That’s my girl.” Voice said with evident satisfaction. “But remember this. You’re just getting started, my dear Diana. You and I are going to going to be ‘seeing’ a lot of each other from now on. For a very long time.”

I didn’t like the sound of that at all. Not even a little.

At least I was out of that dingy, two-bit motel room. But I really wondered if where I was could be considered an improvement.

I was floating, not flying, not falling, not much of anything other than floating, above the city as a breeze caused my cloak to flap against my still unaccustomed anatomy. Which, I might add was almost as distracting as finding myself hundreds of feet above the tallest building in town.

At least I hadn’t screamed when I just appeared in that spot without any kind of transition from the motel room. Not that I wouldn’t have, but my breath all left in one huge gasp and that took a little time to get under control. By then it occurred to me that if I was going to fall I’d already be tasting pavement, so I did what I’d been doing since I died. Went with the flow and hoped nothing even weirder happened.

As the saying goes, dream on.

I was not only floating high in the air, I was drifting. Against the wind, I might add.

“There.” Voice managed to show me one building in particular without actually physically pointing. “That is your destination tonight. Go to the penthouse.”

I recognized the place as I somehow started moving towards it. Not that I really wanted to go near the place. It was where I had died.

“What am I supposed to do there?” I questioned.

“Whatever is required, my avenger.”

“That’s a lot of help.” I groused as the building grew closer, and I could have sworn that I actually heard faint gunshots coming from in there.

Then I was there. Just there. No sense of moving through walls, roof, or whatever. I was in the room and looking at my own dying body and Erica’s corpse. With Ignace Forester and his goons watching me, the old me die.

“What the...!” I started to ask only to be silenced by a feeling that it wasn’t up to me to question things at the moment. I was here to exact some punishment, not dawdle around trying to puzzle out time related conundrums.

I listened to Iggy tell the dying me the last thing I’d heard on earth. Again. This was seriously weird. Watching myself die from the perspective I had now was pretty unsettling as well, and filled me with something like righteous anger. But nothing about me was even close to righteous. Not now, not then, probably not ever.

My cloak flapped in a sudden wind and all of a sudden every living person in the room was gawking at me in open mouthed disbelief. Couldn’t much blame them, since I was having a hard time believing what was happening myself.

“Who the Hell, what the Hell, are you?” Iggy questioned as I moved to face him.

“Retribution.” I answered without thinking. And it was right, so right, to say that just then.

His two goons pulled their pieces and opened fire. It hurt, and I could see blood on my alabaster flesh, but it did nothing at all to even slow me down. The bullet holes in my chest and back shrank, then faded into pristine flesh as I watched in as much amazement as the goons and Iggy were showing.

"You can’t kill something that’s already dead.” I told them and took one of the goon’s pieces from him. Along with the hand that held it. I tossed the hand back to the guy almost negligently then just shot him in the face. And I killed the other one with even less emotion on my part.

“It’s time to pay for the things you’ve done, Ignace Forester.” I couldn’t believe how hollow my voice sounded, like it was echoing in a large, cold, dank tomb or something. Which did seem kind of appropriate just then. “You’ve harmed the last person you ever will in this life. I hope you enjoy Hell.”

And I shot him. Just like that. No extra theatrics, no sense of revenge fulfilled, no satisfaction other than knowing I’d done the thing I was meant to do.

“Goodbye, Iggy.” I whispered then gave the two bodies I actually cared anything at all about in that room a last look. “I love you, Erica. David, I’m going to miss you.”

I was done there.

The surroundings went smoky and vague then I found myself somewhere else.