Chapter Text
Debt owed. Her mom would have to marry him. Was that even enough? It would be necessary, they needed the three times thing off. But even if he took them out, they were ghosts too. They couldn’t be killed. Then what, the contracts? It sounded like there would be thousands.
Contracts. Contracts had limits, just like the one he had with mom. Maybe that was a place to start? “Is there an expiration date for each one, or a clause that terminates it?”
Beetlejuice blinked. “Impressive. These contracts aren’t the same, hell, I came up with them, they just copied them. This bioexorcism thing was mine, all mine. I covered everything, and these aren’t really governed by the living world or the neitherworld. That way I can run back and forth to get my prey. Get it?”
He made the contracts. “The enforcer to the contract was just you.”
“When you are killing people? You tend to be enough enforcement,” he answered.
Hmm. “You must know any weaknesses it has then.”
“No weaknesses. I made these iron clad,” he insisted. Oh, he was proud of it.
“Okay, but if you were expected to be really good, then when did it end?” Maybe that was the way to go.
He blew out air. “I never went long. Didn’t have to think about it, I’m excellent at what I do.”
Okay, less bragging. Did he have a date on it? “Your clients needed to trust you. Didn’t you have a date to promise results back?”
“Three to six months,” he said. “Standard jargon, not needed, usually finished within a day or two. Hours.”
Okay, he was a real bragger.
“People want results. Person can be anywhere, Neitherworld or Timbuktu, wherever. Normally, they run six months. Some take a year.”
“Then, can you put us somewhere that no one could find us at?” Maybe that could work.
Beetlejuice swayed with her mom’s body. “I could for a short time. A week. Maybe two, tops. But? I’ve got this soul sucking ex-wife. Literally. If she comes back from the waiting room and figures it out, that’s it. We’re all dead. Anything after two weeks there is risky.”
The best they had was two weeks, and even then, someone else might still find them to kill them.
“Alright, time’s up,” he said. “You got anything?”
Astrid couldn’t think of anything else. She would have to hear what he had.
“Okay. I’m not a desperate sap looking for twenty bucks from new ghosts anymore,” he said. “I don’t have that kind of time to pursue. So, this is what I can do for you, and this is it,” he said as a retainer appeared in his mouth. “I can be on a retainer. Starts with marriage. Lasts until the contracts go out.”
Retainer? “What’s that?”
“You can pay for my services ahead of time,” he said. “Instead of me popping up and getting payment or, more likely than not with you lot, shortchanged? I get taken care of first, so I can take care of you later.”
Reasonable, but he wanted marriage. Although, she did just think of something. “Your clients, you don’t marry them. What do they pay?”
“Money.”
Her mom could pay money. Her show made her a lot of money. She stashed a good chunk away. The only thing was that they needed that curse off, or Beetlejuice would just be sent back and forth. I’ve got it. “Marriage is the retainer.”
“Yeah, obviously.” He didn’t look impressed by her.
Strange how that kind of bothered her. She shouldn’t care how impressed he’d been. But. She still had her senses all messed up. It felt like her dad was around. “Part of the retainer,” she fully explained. “We need you for so long, just like people need legal help. Right?”
Okay, he was starting to look a little impressed.
She really shouldn’t care about that. Why did she care about that? “The marriage is part of the retainer, plus the fee for everyone that you defeat. If, at the end of it all, mom can’t afford the fee of it all, you get married. If mom can afford the fee, then you just walk away.”
He wasn’t immediately discounting her idea but he wasn’t reaching for it either. He didn’t really say anything.
Mom had stacked up a lot of money from the show. She should be okay. “She could pay the standards that you use to get rid of humans.”
“Oh I don’t know about that. My prices went up high,” he said. “It’s a side job, to a required job. See, uh? My little stunts last time around didn’t go unnoticed.” He jiggled his hand. “Eternity is an afterlife call center.” He looked at a watch on his wrist. “In fact, unless you guys want to free me, I am going to have to get back to work.”
He had a job? “What about us?”
“Sucks to be you, what do you want me to say?” he asked. “I don’t get a choice about it. I’m just the manager. Unless-”
“Mom marries you and frees you.” Damn. They really needed to figure something out. “What are your prices?”
“First, I’m required to see if they can’t handle things themselves. Then, I have to give some guidance over the phone. I’ve got others looking over my work, so?” He shrugged. “My freelance time is high. Here you go.”
He moved her mom around enough for him to reach in his jacket. He gave her a business card.
Bioexorcist. Bouncer. Escorter. Roper. Last Chance. “I know bioexorcist. What’s the rest?”
“Bouncer. I get people out without killing them,” he answered. “Works well for the freshly dead that still have a lot of feelings for them. Escorter. Sending other ghosts back to the waiting room. Roper. When the dead have other company and lose it, I go get it. The amount of people who don’t get why they are in sandworms is astounding. Last Chance, that one was brilliant. Your mom used me for that. When the living are actually exorcising a ghost, I come in and stop it. Now that one?” He half gestured, half pointed at her. “That one is desperation. Yeah. Usually other services that happen during it are free.”
“How much are your services? Can you convert it into dollars?” Astrid asked. She was trying to keep him in his business state of mind. If she could do that, and appeal to his greed instead, maybe she could save her mom from a lifetime of marriage.
Beetlejuice moved Lydia around again for a calculator. He held it up with magic, and dialed on it until it burned out. “Sure. I got your numbers. Hand me my card back.”
Astrid gave him the card back. He wrote down on it and gave it back to her. Whoah. “You’re kidding.”
“It’s not my prices, I can’t go lower, or I’ll do too well that I’ll try and bust out. I mean, that’s what the Neitherworld thinks,” he told her. “Standard rates.” He scoffed. “People wonder why I went rogue.”
“This is so expensive.” Was he telling the truth?
“Do you know how annoying the living are to live with? Most people are getting rid of one, maybe two of them. Sometimes a family. They can eventually figure out how to pay if they are desperate enough.”
Astrid looked at the prices. What would be the best way to do this? “What if they get away, and you can’t get them to the waiting room again?”
“Then it was a bouncer fee.”
Bouncer. Then they would still come back.
“Hey?” He gestured to her. “I’m not gonna drag something out just to make more. It’s a business. I take care of it. Now, I’m really good at parties and finding a good time, but I’m a real professional at what I do.”
Mom had a lot of money saved. Astrid didn’t know how much though, and it was hard to tell how long it would take. “Most would probably be standard. Three to six months.”
“You’ll have some outliers, but probably not many. Longest I’ve seen is two centuries. With most of them out of the way, I should be able to chase down the outliers.”
“Centuries?”
“Yeah, but most clients wouldn’t want to give something that long. Living or dead, nobody wants to wait around forever for stuff to happen, you know?”
Okay. That covered information on the fees, but she still had a major problem to face. “Only two to three weeks of safety? Is there anything else we can do? We can lie.”
He just chuckled, his top teeth really showing. “Good at lying, huh.”
“I’m not good at it, but we can lie,” she offered. For her life, she could lie.
“Nice to hear. Did I mention, uh, I’m being watched a lot now?” he reiterated. “Anything I do is finagling but legal. Eventually it’s gonna get unfinagled. Without marriage, I can’t get away.”
They needed months, not weeks.
“Marriage has to be fast too, I’m still paying for that last job I just did for you guys,” he reminded her. “I’ve got a Wolf on my tail.”
Marriage. Astrid was trying to look at all the corners. “Is it illegal to marry someone who’s alive?”
“Betelgeuse!”
“I didn’t do anything!” He yelled back as someone from the wedding approached him.
Oh okay, if Beetlejuice didn’t know anything, then maybe this guy did? He was actually law enforcement. “Wait!” Astrid said to him. “We need help.”
He just cocked his head at her. “Help? You need help? Everyone needs help in this crazy world.”
Okay, a little weird. That was melodramatic. “My mom and I have a thousand contracts against us now. My mom nearly died just now, he barely saved her. We need his help.”
“Then summon him in his off hours, he’s gotta go back to work,” the law person said.
Really. “We are going to die if you take him away. Is there a way that we can pay for him to be out to help us?”
The law person looked funny. “Someone actually wants this guys help? Look, little girl.” He bent down toward her, taking a long dramatic sigh. “This world is hard and it’s cruel. We all try to get by in it. We lift ourselves up each day, and just keep on going.”
“I can,” Astrid said slowly, “if I can live. Don’t take him. Help us.”
“Yeah, don’t take me,” Beetlejuice agreed. “If life is at stake and there's a death that you could have prevented, you’ll get written up, Officer Wolf.”
“Okay. What kind of contracts are coming?” Wolf asked her.
“Bioexorcist contracts.”
“That isn’t governed by the Neitherworld, those are outside contracts by individuals that are often illegal.” He glanced toward Beetlejuice.
“Mine are by the books now, I even gave her the rates,” Beetlejuice insisted.
“Yeah, they better be,” Wolf said to him. “The Neitherworld is never pretty. Not every Tom, Dick, and Harry should be hiring killers.”
“Look. We can pay whatever. We can do whatever,” Astrid said. “We just need to get rid of these contracts, or keep him somehow to help.”
“Living world is not my department,” Wolf said. “I do have a heart though. I may be missing some of my head, but boy, I still do have my heart. Tell me all the details you have, and I’ll give you the skinny. Straight, blunt, and without frills ‘cause that’s how I handle things. No frills.”
“When me and my mother, Lydia Deetz, were in the Neitherworld, people made contracts on us for mom’s show, Ghost House. A lot of people. We are going to need some real help to survive.” If he cared, maybe he could help? If it wasn’t all just smoke. “We just need to stay safe until the contracts expire, but we’ve already been found by several exorcists within hours.”
“Yeah, they tend to be good at their illegal craft.” Wolf looked back at Beetlejuice, then back at her.
“Mister Wolf,” Astrid said. “We don’t have anywhere else to turn to.” He was really big into melodrama, she might as well try his way. “My mom and I? We’re going to die, and we don’t want to die. Look at my mom, look at her!” She yelled and pointed to her in Beetlejuice’s arms. “She was only saved because of him, but this is going to keep happening. Please? Don’t leave a little girl and her mom at death’s doorstep? Help us?”
“Come on, Officer Wolf,” Beetlejuice added to it. “A kid is begging you.”
“Is it illegal for my mom to marry him for our safety?” She’d just outright ask it.
“Oh, absolutely,” Wolf said easily.
Beetlejuice cleared his throat. “Check her records, Wolf.”
“Records?” Wolf was confused but started to dig them out. “Oh. Fascinating. You already live with one foot in each side.”
What did he mean by that?
“Just tell her whether it's possible,” Beetlejuice told him.
“Right, right. Yes, you two qualify, but on the few occasions it happens, it is no picnic. You will have to spend time in the Neitherworld for months.”
Months. Perfect.
“It will be intense.” Wolf looked at Beetlejuice. “He knows.”
Beetlejuice rolled his eyes around, and eventually started dipping his head in different directions as he started to talk fast. “I gotta bring her and any children over, willingly, and get them evaluated. I have to get signed confessions of release from any marriage they had in process while they were alive, I have to get my own questionable marriage in order, and then I have to send in papers for any of the ceremony stuff. It has to be half living world contained and half dead contained. We have to agree on the worlds we want to stay in together. How long. With whom. We have to get written permission for a place to stay in both worlds. The owner in the physical world has to have ties to the undead world, and has to have read the Handbook for the Recently Deceased at least once. Permissions from the other world’s residence to have living people in it, then there’s the death circumstances, when, if, how it happens, jobs, more permissions, tests over handbook, permissions, minors, permissions, it just goes on and on and on!”
Oh, “Because it’s going to take a really long time.”
“Right!” He agreed. “No!” He disagreed. “Ugh.”
That was it. “Mister Wolf, can he marry my mom like that?”
“To get married, in this crazy world full of crazy people,” he answered. “You gotta know some tough answers about some tough things, and you can’t share those answers with nobody. You become a stranger to the world you belong in, to walk, with one foot in the other side.” He spread his hands around in gestures. “You don’t even really feel alive anymore with all these secrets buried so deep. And if it ever gets to be too much and you break rules about sharing? Ah.” He shook his head so sadly. “It’s a one way ticket straight to hell. No time in the Neitherworld. No makeup. No nothing.”
“All that has to happen, to have mom marry him?” she asked. “A quick ceremony is-”
“Illegal, yes, extremely, all permissions must be secured!” Wolf propped up and looked over at Beetlejuice with accusing eyes.
“What? I didn’t do anything this time,” he said.
“This time. You’ve tried twice before,” Wolf warned him. “You aren’t getting away with it. I can see your moves, before you even make them. Yeah.” He nodded his head. “You won’t get away with anything with Wolf Jackson watching you.”
“Well, I’m not gonna, Officer Wolf,” he said to him. “Because the little number I’m carrying in my arms? Hasn’t done anything but betray me.”
“Yes, I saw that,” Wolf smiled. “The Deetzes are good people. They put you right back where you belong.”
“What we talked about before?” Astrid said to Beetlejuice.
Beetlejuice sighed. “Officer Wolf Jackson?” He glanced over to him. “I need one day off to get some affairs in order. It could save lives. My team can hold down the fort. Come on. I’ve been good. I saved Astrid’s soul not real long ago.”
“It has to be initiated by the dead first and that takes a couple of weeks,” Wolf said. “After that, they can come into the Neitherworld. They just need to figure out how to survive until then. If they can.”
“Nah, I got it,” Beetlejuice said. “Legally, I can get them in. I just need the rest of today off. That’s it.”
Wolf eyed him for about a minute. “Fine. You get the rest of the day, but you go back to work tomorrow.” He held his finger at him. “You better not be up to something illegal. I will catch you if you are.”
As the officer left, Astrid stared at him. It sounded like he’d take it. Was he finally going to take it?