Page 74 of How (Not) To Raise The Dead

Malachi

It’s the morning rush in the Ninth.

Miserable face after miserable face passes by—the walking dead of the Division, their skin the color of damp ash, eyes glazed with the kind of soul-crushing apathy that only centuries of filing paperwork can produce. They shuffle along the iron-grated walkways in a rhythmic, soul-dead march, heading to their dread-inducing nine-to-fives. I feel a flicker of phantom, paperwork-induced nausea just looking at them.

He’s got to be somewhere in this sea of grey suits and weeping shadows.

Where are you, you feathery idiot…

There. Near the fountain in the center of the Trader’s Square, where the water runs the color of bile. I reach back and snag Eden’s wrist, tugging her through the press of bodies like a plow through wet dirt. I make a beeline for a familiar, tattered pair of wings standing near a news kiosk.

I snatch him by a wing, spinning him around until we’re nose-to-nose. For a heartbeat, the creature’s predatory instincts flare—his hand twitches toward a concealed blade—but then his face breaks into a wide, shit-eating grin that reveals far too many teeth.

“Mal! What the shit, man!” Rhaziel barks. His wings kick out in a dusty, reflexive flutter, sending a cloud of grey soot over a passing commuter. “Where the fuck have you been? Rumor was you’d finally annoyed Veraxia enough to get yourself liquidated. I had a bet going that they’d turned you into a decorative coat rack.”

A muscle in my jaw jumps. So, Veraxia hasn't talked. She’s kept it all tight lipped. Good.

“Rhaziel,” I say, my voice cutting through his exuberance like a razor through silk. “You have to come with me. Now.”

His grin falters, eyes darting between my expression and the churning crowd before he checks a battered watch strapped to his wrist. “I can’t, Mal. I’ve got to punch the clock in… twenty minutes. If I’m late again, they’ll put me on soul-sorting in the furnace rooms.”

“Take the day off sick,” I snap. “Tell them you’ve contracted a case of soul-rot or spontaneous combustion. This is urgent.”

He groans, running a hand through his long, black hair. “You know I have to file three sets of paperwork in triplicate for that shit, Mal. Veraxia will have my head on a pike.”

“Say it was unavoidable,” I rumble, jerking my chin toward Eden, who’s currently staring at the floor. “This is urgent. Life-and-death urgent.”

He finally looks at her, and blinks, his head tilting at an inquisitive, bird-like angle. Then he leans in, his nostrils flared, taking a long, deep draw of the air around her.

“Is that a…?”

“Privacy. NOW.”

I snag him by the collar and Eden by the elbow, dragging them both into a narrow alcove between two leaning, salt-stained structures, where the roar of the commute muffles into a dull thrum.

“Speak,” he says, tucking his wings tight against his spine in a desperate attempt to avoid making contact with the filth-crusted walls of the alley.

I take a breath, the smog stinging my lungs like swallowed needles. If there is one creature in this sprawl who won't sell me out for a promotion or a slightly better parking spot in the pits, it's him. Probably.

“We’re blood-bound, Rhaz,” I say quietly. “The real deal. Blood, parchment, and a spectacular amount of mortal incompetence.”

“Satan's teeth,” he mutters, a low whistle escaping his teeth. “You? Tethered to a... Mal, she looks like she’d break if you sneezed on her.”

“I need your sister, Rhaz. I need Serena.”

The alarm that crosses his face is instantaneous. “Serena? Why in the name of the Veil do you need Serena of all people?”

“Because she knows the architecture of a bind better than anyone who isn't a pile of sentient ash,” I snap, reaching out, my fingers tightening on his arm until the bone creaks beneath the fabric of his suit. “This isn't a request, Rhaziel. It’s a requirement. We need her. Now.”

He hesitates, chewing the inside of his cheek, eyes darting toward the mouth of the alley as if expecting a group of Wardens to materialize out of the humid rot. His wings give a nervous shudder, shedding a cloud of grey dander.

“Fine,” he groans with the weight of a dozen future regrets. “But she isn’t in her offices anymore. She managed a promotion a while ago. She’s working as a consultant in the Silken District now.”

My stomach drops, a cold stone falling into a well of bile. “The Silken District? That’s halfway across the Ninth. We’ll never make it through the checkpoints on foot. Not like this.”

He nods, his expression turning grim, his eyes reflecting the sickly neon glow of the city above. “We aren't going over. We’re going under. We’ll have to take the Vein.”

The iron carriage arrives in the Vein with a shriek of metal on metal, and as the doors hiss open, a wave of humid heat and the pungent stench of sweat pours out, making Eden gag into the lace.