Page 6 of How (Not) To Raise The Dead

I blink hard, waiting for the world to stop spinning. The apartment steadies itself in a dim, fractured kaleidoscope of orange candlelight and grey smoke.

Well. I’m not dead. That’s a start.

Oh, and she’s right there. Just a few feet away, her back still turned to me, so close I could reach out and brush the hair from her neck.

I probably shouldn’t. I definitely want to.

I swallow the urge, forced to school my expression into something vaguely approachable instead of just outright ravenous. I need to look like a guest, not a hunter. I blow out a slow, appreciative whistle and take a second to adjust the cuffs of my shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles from my inter-dimensional commute.

“Hello, little summoner.”

If it weren’t for the faint tremble of her left hand against the wood of the table, I’d think she’d flatlined.

“Hey,” I say, snapping my fingers to break the trance. “Come on. Don’t be shy now. Turn around. I want to get a proper look at the girl who plays with blood and poetry for ghosts.”

She stands, her breath hitching. Then slowly, she turns, her movements fluid with fear.

Saints below.

She’s a mess. Her eyes are rimmed with red and her cheeks are tracked with mascara, but all I can see is the plush, trembling curve of her lower lip. For a mortal, she’s a masterpiece of bone and grief—deliciously soft in all the places I’m sharp. I wonder if her skin feels as silk-thin as it looks, or if it would bruise as easily as a ripening fruit under a bit of pressure.

I stand there, tracking the pulse in the hollow of her throat, savoring how delicious this realm tastes, because on top of the rain and mortal air, it’s peaches—peaches that have been left out in the sun too long, sugary and delectable.

Her face warps through a dozen emotions: pure horror, shattered disbelief, and then, that gorgeous, dawning realization that she is utterly, irrevocably fucked.

Fuck, I want to bottle that look and wear it like a damn trophy.

For a micro-second, nothing happens.

Then, with a speed that’s frankly impressive for someone in a cardigan, she lunges, her hand blurring as she snatches a chipped mug from the coffee table and launches it right at my sternum with every trembling ounce of mortal strength she can summon.

It smacks dead-center, splattering cold, dreg-heavy tea across my white shirt in a brown arc before clattering to the floor. I look down at the stain soaking into the cotton, then back at her, slowly raising one eyebrow.

She lets out a full-on squeak and retreats across the room like a cornered rabbit, the heavy heave of her chest sending a fresh spike of adrenaline through my marrow. She hits the far wall, trapped and panting, her eyes wide and wet.

I run my tongue along a fang, relishing the familiar sting, my gaze never leaving the way her cardigan slips just a fraction off one rounded shoulder.

“Really?” I drawl, the word dripping with disappointment. “I just tore myself through a structural dimensional barrier, risking a total essence-shredding, and your big opening move is… wet leaves in dishware?”

Chapter 3

Eden

Skin lights up under a flash of lightning.

Grey.

Not pale. Not cold. Not ‘in need of some vitamin D.’

Actual grey—full-blown, storm-cloud skin stretched over muscle that looks human at first glance… and then doesn’t. Not unless the male in the business-casual suit that’s now dripping with my cold tea, consumed a biblical amount of colloidal silver and developed a catastrophic case of argyria. But even that wouldn’t explain the rest of what I think I’m seeing.

He has horns—fucking horns—curling out from under a mess of black hair, swept back from his forehead like a mountain ram’s, ending in wicked, tapering points. And every single time he blinks, his pupils split and contract like a snake’s, swallowing up his molten-gold irises.

Between the sleep deprivation, the ritualistic nonsense, and the months of not dealing with anything properly, maybe the trauma to my skull has finally decided to stage its big comeback tour in the form of a horrific, very disturbing hallucination that just appeared from thin air behind my couch.

And I just threw my tea at it.

“Come on, little summoner. Introduce yourself. I know you can speak.” He tilts his head and grins, flashing a set of pearly-white fangs—a set of fangs too?! Oh, God. “I heard you reciting shitty poetry a few minutes ago. Unless my ethereal beauty has stunned you so much you’re stuck in this very convincing impression of a goldfish?”