Page 46 of How (Not) To Raise The Dead

Barbara? Who the fuck is Barbara Winbeck?

Valak nods appreciatively, giving me a greasy, slow-motion wink. “Alright, little lady. You watch yourself with Skath here. He’s a slippery one. Don’t let him borrow any money or any vital organs.”

He turns back to Malachi, propping his elbows on the counter. “So, how are the quarterlies going? I heard you moved over to the Environmental Team. Still hitting your quotas?”

A cold spike of panic drives through my chest.

Valak looks utterly, painfully normal—a heavyset human in a stained white tank top, dripping sweat into the vat. But then the details start to bleed through. His eyes track the movement of a passing fly with a predatory, high-speed twitch. A glob of bubbling oil pops out of the fryer, landing square on his bare forearm, and he doesn’t even blink.

There’s a cockroach underneath that flesh, and he must think Malachi’s the Harvester.

Fuck.

I grip Malachi’s arm, my fingers digging into the woollen sleeve, silently begging him—screaming at him—not to start a scene.

Please do not kill this thing in front of the family eating corn dogs five feet away.

“The work is... consistent,” Malachi clips out, his jaw is so tight I can hear the bone creak. “The environment provides plenty of opportunities for... optimization.”

Valak snorts. “Optimization. Corporate-speak for making ‘em sigh louder, eh? Well, keep at it. Management likes initiative. Keeps the gears turning.”

“Indeed,” Malachi drawls, his focus entirely on the sizzling vat with pure hunger. “Now. Give me the fried circle. Heavy on the white dust.”

Valak grunts, fishing a golden, dripping disc out of the bubbling fat with a pair of rusted tongs. As he flops the funnel cake onto a flimsy paper plate and buries it under a landslide of powdered sugar, I reach into my pocket, pull out a crumpled ten-dollar bill, and toss it across the sticky counter. I don't want the change. I don't want to linger long enough for Valak to remember my face.

Malachi snatches up the warm paper plate and steers me away from the stand, back into the bustling crowd.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers. “There is no way for him to have effectively poisoned the dough. You are statistically unlikely to die.”

My eyes widen, looking from the sugary disc to his very serious face.

“Statistically unlikely?” I hiss. “Malachi what? Why would it be poisoned?”

“Low-level demons love giving mortals dysentery,” he says, looking down at the funnel cake. “However I am confident the thermal output of that fryer was sufficient to sterilize whatever biological agents he might have sneezed into the batter.”

“Sneezed into...” I choke out, my hand flying to my mouth. I wasn’t planning on touching it anyway, but now it looks even more like a biological weapon. “I... I think I’m going to pass.”

“Suit yourself,” he shrugs. Then he tears off a massive chunk and shoves it into his mouth, groaning immediately.

“Your loss,” he mumbles through a mouthful of grease and sugar. “It’s fucking delicious.”

As he attacks the pastry with the focused intensity of a starving wolf, oblivious to the powdered sugar dusting the lapels of Matthew’s coat, I look away, my gaze drifting over the kaleidoscope of the carnival. It’s a gaudy, screaming mess of neon lights and peeling paint. Around us, teenagers are shrieking on the Tilt-A-Whirl and parents are dragging sticky-faced toddlers toward the exit.

It’s lunchtime on a weekday.

I should be at work. I should be rotting in a beige cubicle, bathed in the migraine-hum of fluorescent lights, deleting passive-aggressive emails about quarterly projections. I should be worrying about rent. About laundry. About whether I remembered to defrost the chicken for dinner or if I’m just going to eat cereal over the sink again.

Instead, I’m standing next to an overflowing trash can at a county fair, watching a demon from Hell dissect a funnel cake while wearing the stolen skin of another demon he murdered in an alleyway last night.

“Observe,” he says suddenly.

“What?” I groan. “What is it now?”

He lifts a hand and points a sugar-dusted finger toward the end of the midway. It’s a dilapidated structure, painted black and covered in fake cobwebs, with a sign that reads THE CRYPT OF TERROR in dripping, red paint.

“A simulated haunting,” he announces, his eyes gleaming with a malicious, electric delight. “Shall we enter? Perhaps your Corpse-Boy’s—sorry, Matthew’s—ghost is hiding out in there.”

The air punches out of my lungs and I freeze, the smell of diesel fumes and deep-fried dough turning sour in my nose. I just stare at him.