Page 62 of How (Not) To Raise The Dead

The Warden lets out a long sigh. “I hit her with a sensory dampener in the parking lot, borrowed the image, and here we are. It’s remarkably efficient. She won't remember a thing—just a migraine and a missing hour when she wakes up behind the wheel. Though I must say, her internal monologue is loud, and its preoccupation with her 'failed' relationship is... exhausting.”

I don't have to see Eden to know her face has gone bloodless; I can feel her fingers twitching against my bicep, her nails digging in so hard she’s at the point of piercing the flesh.

“Now. Enough of the chatter,” the Warden says as reaches into the air and pulls out a pair of manacles forged from iron and knotted sinew, pulsing with a sickly violet light. “You’re coming home.”

Beside us, the House-Beast goes feral, turning into a blurred arc of puffed-up fur and unsheathed claws, scrambling backward toward the kitchen in a skittering, low-bellied panic, her hisses drowned out by the heavy, atmospheric pressure now curdling the air in the room.

“No,” I say, shifting my weight to make sure Eden stays behind my outstretched arm.

With a deeply put-upon sigh, as if I’m a child throwing a tantrum over a toy, Piper reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a narrow shard of dark glass, its surface etched with shifting symbols. She lifts it, scanning it over me from head to toe, cataloguing me into the system.

It emits a series of sharp chirps as a strobe of harsh violet light sweeps over my chest and bleeds into Eden behind me. The glass begins to vibrate, the smoke within it turning from a sickly grey to a pulsing crimson that illuminates the Warden’s borrowed face in deathly flashes.

“Oh, you absolute moron.” She moves the glass to her lips, her eyes narrowing in disbelief. “Warden Seven-Two-Nine to Dispatch. Subject Virezeal has initiated a biological tether to the mortal Veraxia warned us about. The readings are off the charts. It’s... messy.”

A static hiss erupts from the shard. “Define 'messy,' Seven-Two-Nine. What kind of tether?”

“It’s a blood-bind,” the Warden mutters with a look of pure irritation.

The words smack me right in the gut.

So it wasn’t just some sickness leftover from crossing the Veil?

No. That’s impossible.

For the first time since I stepped through the portal—since I tasted mortal air and decided consequences were a future problem—I realize something with absolute, sickening clarity.

I fucked up.

The Warden speaks into the glass again. “She’s fully anchored to his core. Do you require me to still perform the memory wipe on the mortal? I haven’t worked a case like this before.”

“Negative,” the voice from the glass snaps. “We don't have time for the paperwork. Terminate the mortal. The shock of the death will snap the bind, then we can bring Virezeal back with force and send a clean-up crew.”

My heart stops. The world goes silent, save for the roar of the blood in my ears and Eden’s quiet whimper behind me as her fingers clutch at my arm.

“Is Veraxia okay with that?” the Warden asks, idly testing the weight of the manacles.

“She doesn’t need to know,” the voice crackles back. “She wanted him back; we’re bringing him back. The mortal is an unauthorized variable. End her.”

“Understood.” She pockets the device, drops the manacles to the table, and in one fluid, nauseating motion, her delicate fingers burst, bony pincers tearing through the fingertips. Its swallowed-up eyes land right on my little summoner, and the world turns a violent, searing red.

“You should have settled on the paperwork,” I snarl.

I hit the creature with the force of a falling star, the momentum slamming us both across the room. I don’t give it a second to breathe. I pin it against the wall and drive the heel of my palm into its chest, the ribs snapping and grinding like dry kindling.

Needle-sharp fangs sink into my shoulder, piercing through my shell, deep into the silver flesh underneath.

A guttural roar of pain tears from my throat as blood bursts through the punctures.

In a flash of movement, Eden’s by my side, her face a mask of primal, terrified determination. With a deep, gritted breath, she plunges a kitchen knife deep into the side of the creature's neck. It releases my shoulder, its head snapping back as my essence sprays from the wound, coating Eden’s hands.

Seeing her like that—my little summoner, blood-stained and ferocious, protecting the monster she’s supposed to be afraid of—ignites a burning surge of adrenaline in my gut.

Fuck yes.

I don't waste the opening.

There’s a sickening crunch as my fists meets the center of its face. The nasal bone collapses and the orbital sockets shatter inward. In one smooth move, I grab it by the jaw and the top of its skull. And I twist. Then my hand digs into its chest and rips through the sternum. Within the tangle of grey viscera and bone, a solid, barely pulsing weight meets my palm.