Graveyard Waltz by Jessie Thomas

6

Pain was no longer evena thought when every part of me had gone numb from the words that Lily unleashed in the attic. Didn’t feel the aches and bruises when I ran down the staircase because the fear that gripped my chest had wasted no time turning itself into something that was halfway useful. Covered in dust and spider webs, I moved across the empty upstairs hall with fast, stealthy footsteps.

The door to my apartment had been unlocked—no sign that someone had splintered the door or broken it to get in. It stood open a few inches. Just enough to freak me out, because the door hadn’t been unlocked when I’d left the boarding house last night. Not a chance in hell. I locked it. I knew I locked it. Always do.

Who gets in without a key?

Some questions you just did not want answers to, and I’d stumbled on far too many of those lately.

This is that part of the slasher horror flick where the shrieking violin music gets more intense to signal the impending body count, right?

Charlie always said I had a knack for attracting danger. Kind of like a fly to one of those bug zappers. Except I felt more like the poor fly burned to a crisp.

My fingers curled around the hilt of the dagger holstered to my thigh as I leaned my shoulder into the door. Easing it open with my heart pounding furiously in my ears, I found the apartment left behind by the daylight. Late afternoon meant the sun had already shifted to fill the rooms on the other side of the house. Still bright enough that you didn’t need to flick the switch, but the dappled shadows made Ellie’s recent vacancy more palpable.

First thing I noticed was Leafy.

Our beloved garden gnome and longtime guardian of the extra house key that Ellie and I had liberated from our childhood home lay shattered on the living room floor. Brittle, jagged pieces coated in chipped paint were all that remained of poor Leafy. The pieces didn’t look big enough to slap back together with ultra-strength super glue. And my necromantic powers of healing didn’t extend to inanimate garden creatures.

Second thing was the general disarray: sketchbook paper all over the floor with the art supplies I kept on the table, mine and Ellie’s bedroom doors flung wide open, the feeling that someone—and probably not a ghostly someone—had violated my home. Had walked into the boarding house undetected and intended to hurt me.

But could’ve hurt anyone else who’d crossed into their path.

I left a tread mark on a sheet of good drawing paper, my attention drawn to the open bedroom doors. Looking for signs of movement. The dagger came loose from its leather casing with a satisfying little ring.

Come out, come out, wherever you are…

Or don’t. I’m not really amped about confronting a stalker hiding in my closet.

And then I noticed the dirt.

It wound an uneven trail through my small living space. Most of it dry, strewn in powdery clumps. Some of it turned to mud and left in streaks. I couldn’t figure out if it had been someone’s footprints, but there was something else…

Because, let’s face it, there was always something else.

It squelched under my boot, and I made a face. Dropping to one knee, I didn’t want to touch it, but I knew what it was. Thick, stringy, scented with decay. It embedded itself in the grooves between the antique floorboards with the consistency and color of wet cement. Same residue as the handprint on the mirror in the attic. My prior experience with other people’s spell work up close had been limited to next to nothing, but my suspicions continued to lean toward witchcraft.

An old lock on an old door wasn’t much of a defense against a magic user with a few lock picking spells handy.

But Ellie still has a key.

“She couldn’t have.” I shook off the offending thought, convinced it would do more harm than good, or that the denial was stronger. “No. Nope, we’re not doing that.”

A sound from one of the bedrooms made me bristle, and I turned my head sharply, loose strands of hair sticking to my bottom lip with the motion. My knuckles were taut around the dagger.

Creaky floor. Shuffling, maybe. Like slow, deliberate steps. My heart pitched into my ribs and I stayed there, completely still, not even daring to exhale. I watched a shape peel away from the furthest wall of my bedroom, watched its silhouette slink toward the open doorway. Toward me.

I finally let out a shuddering breath. “Ellie?”

Her name was a gasp that broke the silence.

Only I knew it wasn’t my sister.

I wanted it to be, but my storied past told me I wouldn’t get so lucky. Because whatever emerged from the threshold dragged itself there with an unsteady, shambling gait. Crawled slowly on all fours and stirred the reek of decomposition that left me choking on it. Milky gray eyes found me from the long shadows that fell between us.

It could’ve been a feral, but the eyes were different. There was an eerie light in them—nothing as vibrant as the life they might’ve once had, but a wicked enchantment that gave them a cold, pale glow. More sinister than a feral vampire’s vacant gaze. This had intent behind it.

So much for thinking the dirt in the hallway had been innocent.

A necromancer’s instincts are seldom wrong.

“Seraphina Mason.” The corpse spoke in a discordant hiss that had another voice woven through it like Griffin’s. I fought to hear it over the hysterical drumbeat in my ears.

A corpse calling me by name? That’ll ruin a day pretty fast.

With awkward, almost painful movements that would’ve made a contortionist wince, the corpse pushed itself from the floor and left splotches of decay gunk all over the hardwood. More of it leaked from her emaciated eye sockets, as if I was watching her decompose in real time. “I heard…you were looking for me.”

“Oh, no.” My mouth dropped open. She hunched forward, peering at me through strands of messy hair. And I realized exactly who I was staring at.

Barefoot, her skin between a shade of moldy blue and death gray, toes carrying the remnants of graveyard dirt, my runaway client shuffled a step and a half. Her delicate sapphire engagement ring glittered from her left hand where dirt encrusted her broken fingernails. She’d been buried in a black evening gown, but that had been two years ago now. The gown had signs of wear—the hem ripped to shreds, the edges of the half-length sleeves eaten away by underground critters, and a gaping hole on one side. Fabric flapped with her halting steps, but beneath the large tear her skin and muscles were gone, her ribcage shiny bone-white.

This wasn’t two years of decay. This was all wrong. A monster posing as a human risen from her grave. Almost as if…and I hated to even let the thought cross my mind…possessed.

“No.” I got to my feet, shaking, the dagger brandished in front of me. Not as a weapon. That was strictly against my personal code. “I’m sorry…I’m so sorry—”

I kept my eyes on the reanimated corpse while the blade bit into my thumb. Once I felt the stickiness of blood on my skin, I traced the sigils along the dagger by touch alone. Smelled the hint of iron that rose to greet the decay in the room. A jolt of recharged necromantic energy electrified the air and coiled around my fingertips.

“I don’t know who did this to you, but I can fix it. Please, let me fix it…I’ll help you. I can make this right.”

The laugh that spilled from her peeling, gray lips caught me off guard. More of the corpse goo ran down her chin like cloudy dishwater that’d been left to grow a film. I grimaced. This wasn’t the bright, beautiful woman whose time had been cut short by a thoughtless drunk driver. Whatever controlled her spoke through her now, as it had done while it’d inhabited Griffin’s murdered corpse. It taunted me. It knew me.

But I refused to believe it was too late for her.

Raising the dagger in front of me, the rosy pink light curling upward from the ignited sigils, the words flew off my tongue without wavering.

“Heal her,” I commanded to the energy that coiled in the space between like a spring about to snap. “Let this woman back into her body. Reunite her with her soul—her real soul—and cast the darkness out. Bring this lost one home. Heal—”

Necromantic energy strained against that invisible supernatural barrier, the pressure knocking straight into my chest. I pushed back, but it swelled twice as strong and forced me onto my shaking knees. A gust of ethereal wind toyed with my hair until the shockwave hit. Wasn’t as jarring as the last one, but it was enough to send me sliding backward across the floor. My jeans squeaked along the hardwood, then one of my elbows, and I let out a pained hiss at the discarded art supplies that scraped across my back. I stopped short of the wall that separated my apartment from the one next to it, the dagger spinning wildly until it disappeared under the table.

Shit. Not good. Not good at all.

I pushed myself up onto my bruised elbows. The corpse of my former client continued to shuffle toward me. A foul, pathetic sight that belied a greater power nestled inside it. Feet away from my reach, my necromancy dagger glinted in the weak daylight. Tease.

“Please,” I begged, as if it would do anything. “Don’t do this. Let her go. She has a family—she’s got nothing to do with me. She doesn’t deserve to be your little undead marionette. Don’t you see how screwed up that is?”

Of course they did, but it wasn’t like they cared. Their cackling, warbled laugh said about as much. Another awful noise for the soundtrack of my latest nightmares.

Someone else had started screaming, and it wasn’t me. Despite the shot of fear that coursed through my veins, I was too pissed to scream. Leaving the apartment door wide open with a walking corpse in full view of the hallway outside would’ve elicited a reaction from anyone who happened to pass by sooner or later. I tried my best to keep my work behind closed doors, but this time the work had followed me home and made its own rules.

“She is beyond your power now,” the voice that was and wasn’t hers answered, those milky eyes scowling behind a veil of greasy, tangled hair. “Her soul is long gone.”

Keeping low to the floor, I twisted onto my side, grit my teeth, and groped for the dagger somewhere under the table. The tip of the blade nudged my finger, barely, then spun in the opposite direction. Shit.

I couldn’t see the light of the sigils anymore, yet the strange, painful weight continued to press into my shoulders, pinning my chest and hips to the floor. I flopped onto my back so I could breathe, but even that came in shallow gasps. I squeezed my eyes shut, fingers roving, straining to grab the blade. If there was ever a time for one of our house ghosts to show up and lend me a hand, this would’ve been it. I’d take Robert at this point. Desperation was a strange thing.

Hair disheveled around my face from shaking my head while pressed into the floor. The weight seemed to shift and settle onto my abdomen. My voice came out in a pained grunt from the pressure on my guts. “She can’t be.”

“She’s gone,” the creature insisted. “You were too late, and it seemed a little too easy for me. I just couldn’t help myself.” I heard her bones creak when she shifted her weight. “I thought you would be a challenge, but here you are…so weak. So…pitiful. Really takes all the fun out of it.”

“What did you do to her?” I demanded. “Where did you take her?”

“What do you mean?” The corpse’s mouth twisted into a wicked grin and left ribbons of dark gray dripping down the hollow of her withered throat. It stained her teeth, made her look more grotesque. “She’s right here. I brought her to you. I did you a favor.”

The dagger tipped further away from my fingertips and I swore. “That’s not what I meant, and I think you know that. She wasn’t yours to violate like this. Stop it.”

Another demonic cackle. “This is only the beginning of our dance,” the corpse and the voice speaking from its lips promised. “Expect me at every turn. In the shadows that pass at the corner of your eye. Behind your reflection in the mirror.” I shivered. The dagger seemed to be a lost cause. “In your nightmares where I can hear you cry, and scream, and beg. In the night when you think no one else is watching.”

I hated that the terror had crept into my voice, made it shake. “Why? What have I done to you?”

The reanimated corpse didn’t answer. But the weight that crushed into me left a thin trail of blood from one nostril. I felt the warm drip, felt it slide sideways down my jaw.

“Maybe you’ll find the fight in you with the time you have left. Move fast, Seraphina, it’s already running out.” I didn’t like the serpentine lilt of my name, the teasing drawl that the creature seemed to take pleasure in. “I’d make it quick…and painless, but that’s no way to fight, now is it? I think you and I deserve a spectacle more entertaining than that.”

I sucked in a weak breath. “Are you Lazarus?”

The gross, decaying mouth opened to respond, but the voice that sliced through the apartment didn’t belong to the power speaking through it or its former mortal occupant. This voice was new, and familiar, and lit a spark of hope at the center of my chest that I thought had been gone forever. The words sounded purposeful, and spoken in a language that maybe could’ve been Latin but I wasn’t completely sure. I lifted my head up just enough to catch her wide brown eyes and copper curls behind the shadow of the reanimated corpse.

“Ellie,” I whispered.

Her focus wasn’t on me. She repeated the spell, incantation, hex—whatever it was, not that I’d be able to tell the difference. Part of me wondered if she controlled it, but that thought was only a fleeting, unpleasant one.

Caught by surprise, the corpse shuddered, let out a violent shriek that pierced right through me, and rounded on Ellie. I exhaled a strangled gasp when the invisible pressure finally let me up and I seized the blade from under the table. Ellie stood her ground, her voice strident, rising with vicious resolve. The words rang out for a third time, and the unholy light behind the corpse’s gray eyes faded to a dull glow until it was snuffed out altogether. With one final, eardrum-shattering cry, the reanimated body collapsed between us in a heap of dirt and decomposed goo.

The dagger dropped from my fist just as I’d struggled to my knees and landed with a hard thump on the edge of the rug. Ellie stared at me from the other side of the corpse’s remains with a wide, slightly panicked look. Her breaths were as quick and anxious as mine, both of us too frazzled to break the tension that still hung there. Outside in the hall somewhere, Mrs. Trevino called our names in between horrified gasps of “oh my” and “oh, dear.”

“Ellie,” I tried again, but talking felt like wringing water out of a dry dishtowel. “What…what was that thing? How’d you do that?” A few words had destroyed what my dagger and I couldn’t, though destruction hadn’t been the game plan.

Her chin wobbled. She steeled herself against it, though, and pivoted on her heel with her eyes cast to her bare toes. I stared, mouth parted, as she dashed out of the apartment without giving me any sort of explanation to what the hell that was. I heard Mrs. Trevino’s insistent concerns go unanswered, then the sharp echo of Rhys’ apartment door slamming closed.

Did that count as progress?

At least Ellie still loves me enough that she’ll stop a possessed zombie from murdering me. What kind of magic had she been hiding this whole time? That’s some powerful shit.

To say I barely recognized Ellie felt as though I was making some kind of wild understatement. Because this was…well, it was a lot.

“Seraphina?” Mrs. Trevino ducked around the corner of the doorframe, her fingers pressed to her mouth, scandalized. A pair of round, tortoise shell sunglasses nestled like a crown on her head. I had a feeling she’d be dipping into her wine rack tonight while she recounted the whole bizarre ordeal to her husband. The story would form its own ecosystem and probably no less than three embellishments by tomorrow afternoon. I could only imagine what that might’ve looked like to her. “Seraphina, is everything okay?”

I sighed. “Yeah, it’s fine. Ellie…took care of it.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the pile of remains. “Sorry if it scared you.”

“You’re not hurt, are you, dear?”

“No.” I wiped at my right nostril with the side of my finger, and it came away red, but it hadn’t bled that much. No deluge a la The Shining to mop up this time. The memory of being pinned down, unable to move or fight back, stayed behind. “I’m all good here, Mrs. Trevino. Maybe go check on Ellie, though. See if she’s all right.”

With a melodic hum of agreement, Mrs. Trevino whisked herself away from the apartment door and left me alone in the quiet that stung at my ears to consider the mess Ellie had made. I knew Ellie’s instinct had been to save me, but the price had been greater than what I probably deserved.

Moving gingerly on my hands and knees, I groaned once the stench of decay hit me right in the face. Sifting through the mound of—it wasn’t ashes, exactly. A sickening compost pile of graveyard dirt and…you really don’t need to know the rest, but maybe you can conjure up the disturbing images of a decomposing body that’s been reduced to slop.

A life destroyed, a soul lost somewhere in a dark abyss. The whine that escaped from the very fiber my being once I plucked my client’s engagement ring out of the pile was really unpleasant. I let it roll into my palm, squirming at the trail of gunk it left in its path across my skin. The sapphire reflected thin sunlight despite the sludge that coated it.

I raked a palm down my face with an enraged groan, then drew my fingers back through my hair to shove it out of my eyes.

I’m sorry.I willed the universe to deliver the message to wherever she’d gone. I’m so sorry I failed you.

Another damn mess I couldn’t fix.

* * *

Nate held my face in his hands and kissed me deeply, slowly, the moment he walked into my apartment. Which I figured was the only sensible reaction when your girlfriend called you in a panic while she shoveled goopy human remains into a jar and told you that some zombie creature tried to kill her. He didn’t let go when I broke our kiss for a soft inhale, searching my face for anything wrong. I barely felt the heat of the waning summer day that encroached on the boarding house once his cold hands were on me.

I blinked up at him and tried to memorize the flecks of blue that swam in the glacial ice of his eyes. The words the creature had promised about time slipping away ran like cold rain down my spine.

A hard crease had formed between his dark brows. All of the worry and fear leftover from last night had relit that flame. Made worse because he hadn’t been there with me.

“Nate, I told you I’m fine.”

“You almost weren’t.” His thumb brushed along the swell of my cheek. “I can tell when you’re lying. Have you forgotten that part?”

“Which part?”

“Your pulse is racing.”

“Oh, that.” I shied away from the accusation even though I didn’t have to and toyed with one of the buttons on the front of his silk waistcoat. My other hand dipped into his pocket and closed around the rounded edge of the watch, the silver engravings icy on my fingers. I felt the muscles of his abdomen tense a little. “Yeah, no, that’s not—you can take credit for that. I’m holding you entirely responsible, not the zombie. You can’t just walk in here and kiss me like that and not expect—”

“You were trembling,” he said, a low murmur close to my ear as he released me to circle his arms around my waist, “long before I kissed you. I heard your heartbeat halfway down the hall. If your sister had not been here, neither of us would be so fortunate right now. I have reason to thank her.”

“It’s an improvement,” I relented. “And I’d hold off on that if I were you. She may have saved my life, but she didn’t say a single word to me. Doubt she’ll want to hear anything from you, even if it’s sincere. No offense.”

“One day, then, perhaps.”

I hummed, thoughtful. “Maybe.”

Sighing heavily, I wilted into Nate’s chest and his hold on me tightened. I could’ve fallen asleep there. “I have to make a call that I don’t want to make at some point tonight because I owe it to her fiancé. I…how the hell am I going to tell him that the woman he loved is in a jar and all I have left is her engagement ring? How?”

“Delicately.” His chin settled on the top of my head, and I was once again grateful that he towered over me. That he could make the rest of the world disappear for a few moments and all I inhaled was the rich woodsy spices of cologne and crisp leaves and clean linen. I had a sudden, unprovoked wish to somehow hear the beat of his dead heart. To make it race like he’d done to mine. “You know all of the right words to say to him, you just need to find the courage to say them. However painful that may be. He deserves the truth.”

“She deserved better.” Anger struck a bitter chord and forced the words out of me. “They both did. I should’ve…I don’t know, I should’ve done more. I didn’t pay attention, and now the one thing that man hired me to do for him, I can’t even…I failed them both.”

“Don’t carry the blame too close to your heart, it won’t help you,” Nate soothed. “How were you to know what greater evil was at work? That’s no fault of yours. And, all is not lost.” He untangled one arm from my waist to knead his fingers into my hair. I closed my eyes and yielded to his touch, relaxing. “We don’t yet know whether you’ll be able to recover her soul or not. You shouldn’t lose hope this quickly, Sera.”

“Mmm.” I buried my face in Nate’s shirt and breathed in the autumnal scent so it’d make my nerves chill a bit. “This is making me doubt everything about myself. About what I’m capable of. The power I felt…I don’t know what the hell it is. It scares me that I might not be able to stop it.”

I hadn’t told him about the second threat the corpse had made on my life. He didn’t need to hear it. Didn’t need to know I’d nearly had the life choked out of me and it felt like I was already running out of time.

“You won’t be facing it alone, I will make sure of that. We’ll find a way to end this.” Nate’s voice was a low, pleasant rumble against my ear. There was more optimism in it than I could summon right now. “Until that time, I think it would be best if you moved into the manor.”

I pulled away from him. “And bring this crap to you and Violet and Teddy? Wherever I go, that thing’s going to follow.”

“Precisely.”

“No.” I backed out of his arms and he let them drop to his sides, though reluctantly. “I can’t do that to you. Violet’s got the ball to plan, and this is the last supernatural headache Teddy needs right now. I’d just be putting everyone around me in danger.”

“And what do you suppose would be the alternative?” Nate asked. “That you stay and allow this creature to lay waste to everyone here, including your sister? Lead it away from the people going about their lives without interference from our world. This is, by no means, the first brush with peril any of us has encountered. Whatever danger you walk into, let me be there to stand beside you and fight it.”

Much as I hated to admit, he was right. Ellie could probably take the creature, or entity, or warlock if it showed up for another round. But I didn’t want her to. This was my problem.

And Nate’s. Apparently.

“Wow.” I smirked. “Never thought I’d hear that from you.”

“Nor did I,” he teased, and the hard edge of worry that shadowed his face dissipated for the moment. “And yet we continue to surprise even ourselves. I may have grown rather fond you, necromancer.”

* * *

Devyn’s phone continued to ring, unanswered, as I paced back and forth between my small bedroom and the bags lined up across the couch cushions. While I’d been busy shoving my whole summer wardrobe into them, Nate had decided to help by wrangling the art supplies off the living room floor. He’d already swept up Leafy’s shattered remains and deposited them into a plastic garbage bag because I couldn’t bear to part with the old man. Call me nostalgic to a fault or whatever. Maybe one of Ellie’s new witch friends had a spell or charm to put him back together again.

I was attempting to cram three more sundresses into the last bag so the zipper wouldn’t get stuck when Dev finally picked up. She sounded like she was in a rush, and Buttercream’s excited barking cut through her agitated response.

I grimaced. “This a bad time?”

“…down in a sewer up to my knees in the nastiest fucking…a feral den.” Static muddled some of her words and completely dropped others while Buttercream’s barks left a tinny, loud echo. Told me everything I needed to know about her cell phone service underground. “Timing…fu…ing…impeccable…always.”

“You’re hunting,” I said slowly, piecing it together, “with Buttercream?”

Dev had rescued the adorable, fluffy Borzoi after we’d tossed her former owner/cult leader into a pit swarming with ferals. I really couldn’t blame her for jumping on the opportunity to liberate the dog once the damage had been done. Though trawling the sewers after ferals seemed like a serious downgrade from being pampered by a magazine-perfect, albeit homicidal, cupcake baker.

“Loves it.” I heard the proud smile in Dev’s voice. She must’ve moved to a spot with better reception because the static quieted down. “You should see her. I don’t know why it took me this long to get a dog for a hunting partner. To hell with these other hacks.” A whistle, and then the Borzoi’s barking ceased, met with hushed praise from Dev. “What’s up? You never call unless there’s some crisis.”

“Oh, yeah. Big problem.”

“You hurt?”

“I’m okay,” I assured. “Mostly. Getting there. Anyway, that thing that possessed Griff took over one of my clients and paid me a nice little visit at home.”

Dev sucked in an audible breath. “Holy shit.”

“It’s a mess.”

“When is it ever anything else?” she countered. “Sure you’re okay?”

I hummed an indifferent note, dodging the inquiry. “If you have time, would you look into something for me? Ask around? I have a name that might give us a thread to pull on. The little ghost girl in my attic told me that this guy calls himself Lazarus.”

“Dare you to come up with a creepier sentence than that,” Dev said through a breathy laugh. “What the fuck.”

“Don’t know if he’s a warlock or what, but if he targeted Griff for a reason, maybe another hunter knows him.”

“He must think highly of himself,” Nate muttered from behind me. “Presuming that it’s the name he chose, not the one given to him.”

“All of the overt religious stuff, stealing bodies from their graves,” I added. “It’s our guy. Entity. Whatever. I don’t want to find out what else he’s capable of, but I’d sure love to dump his ass on the detective’s doorstep.”

Vindication is mine. With a side of pettiness.

“We have to move fast,” I said. “Sounded to me like he might be gearing up for another kill.”

“I’m on it,” Devyn said. “Just, y’know…be careful. This thing’s not fucking around.”

I zipped up the last bag. “I’m moving into the manor,” I told her, and waited for a smartass comment that didn’t materialize. I almost wished it did. “Strength in numbers and all that. Look, you should probably watch your back out there, too. If this guy’s zeroing in on me, then he’s got to have eyes on everyone else in my orbit. Don’t get hurt.”

“I can handle a little zombie action, Sera. It’s basically my job.”

“Dev. Please.”

“I heard you,” she promised. “Buttercream’s getting antsy and I’ve got a nest to clear before the fumes knock me on my ass. Talk to you later. Be careful.”

How could I do that when it was impossible to hide from an omniscient, possessive… creature?

My life can’t get any weirder. And no, that’s not a challenge to the universe so it can test my patience for supernatural bullshit.

Chivalrous to his subzero core, Nate took the entire load of my luggage, which left me with the jar of my client’s remains tucked under my arm and her sapphire engagement ring stowed away inside my pocket. I locked the door not knowing when I’d return. It felt strange to run away. To be forced out.

My new living arrangements—and the 24/7 company—were a welcomed upgrade, obviously, but the boarding house was still home. I’d miss it. Even the twice daily bathroom traffic jams, thin walls, and the frat boys.

Not Robert. Definitely not Robert.

Maybe Paz would catch my scent and follow it to the manor once in a while, if only so Teddy would finally be able to meet him. Almost statuesque, he stood guard outside Rhys’ apartment door with his frizzy tail curled around his paws. His head tilted at me and Nate curiously as we approached, while I wondered why he’d been neglected in the hallway. I stopped to offer my knuckles for an appeasing sniff. Of course, he immediately found the fresh, raw cut along my second knuckle and the mark my dagger had left on my thumb.

“I’m moving house on a temporary basis,” I told him, as if he would be able to say anything back. Our one-sided conversations persisted for the same reasons other pet owners talked to their furry companions, but Paz seemed smart enough. “Don’t be a stranger, Paz. If you want a change of scenery, come find me, okay? Unless Nate has a no pet policy at the manor.”

A laugh from behind me. “I believe Teddy would make him feel right at home.”

The door opened with an abrupt squeak and a draft of outside air soaked in the aroma of grass clippings. I barely had enough time to process Ellie standing inches from me, which wasn’t enough to withdraw my hand after Paz jumped up and scurried away into the apartment through her legs. Ellie’s hair was a windblown nest of frizzy curls, her deep eyes settled on mine but lightyears beyond me. She’d been crying, that much I knew right away. I saw traces of it lingering on her skin. My first instinct was to pull her into a hug, but I froze. And everything I wanted to tell her got caught in my throat.

“Miss Ellie,” came Nate’s silvery reply from behind my shoulder to fill up the void. He’d somehow unlocked the secret to fighting past the awkwardness that’d left me silently dying inside. “How fortuitous that our paths were able to cross before we left.” It sure sounded like he was being genuine, though Ellie’s teary frown didn’t budge. “With all due respect to your personal misgivings, I wanted to thank you—and I hope you will accept it—for what you did this afternoon. You most certainly saved Sera’s life.”

It took roughly two seconds for the door to slam in our faces. And really, that was a lot longer than I thought Ellie would give Nate, considering she let him finish his sentence before offering a silent, yet absolutely clear, response.

I spun around to pat the center of his chest and tried not to look too disappointed. The thunderclap of the door in my ear still smarted. “I’d say don’t take it personally, but…that’s about as personal as it gets.”

Nate was pensive and wordless as we left the boarding house—and the Trevinos, who gaped at us over the tops of their sunglasses—for his car parked by the front curb. Remnants of a faded sunset left orange and gold streaks across the hood, the shadows growing longer, the night closing in. He didn’t say anything until my bags were piled in the backseat and I’d wrenched open the passenger side door, attempting to dodge the nosy stares from the revelers in the backyard. I slipped the jar onto the seat first so their questioning looks wouldn’t develop more rumors. Considering my reputation as the household weirdo, though, I figured they couldn’t do any more harm.

His expression didn’t give me a lot to work with. He seemed to be mulling over his words carefully while he leaned against the side of the car. Straightening the folds of his sleeves. Staring off into the yards a few houses down. I thought for a moment that maybe Ellie’s reaction had seriously wounded him. With all of the petty insults we’d flung back and forth, he’d never been particularly disturbed. A little irked, maybe, but never speechless.

“Did you and Miss Shaw ever catch him?” The question was a delicate murmur, a thing that could’ve been easily swept up by the summer wind.

“Who?”

“The vampire who killed your sister.”

I blew out a long breath. “There was never enough to go on,” I explained, remembering that we hadn’t covered this when I’d finally told him about why the rift between us existed. “Never any leads…no security footage. One witness, but she couldn’t give us a description or a name. Ellie’s memory was too much of a blur when she came back. We tried to hunt him, and when we came up with nothing, we always assumed he’d skipped town. I hesitate to ask, but…why?”

“It would not assuage her pain—emotional or otherwise—but perhaps it would help her if he was no longer permitted to carry on draining the lives of others while she continues to grieve her own loss.”

“You want to hunt him.”

“I won’t ask Ellie for redemption,” Nate said. “But if I can be of some use, I would like to help her. Any vampire who still considers humans nothing but prey should not reap the benefits of immortality. There is no room for those of us who are truly monsters.”

Honorable, kindhearted Nate is so much better than the guy who tried to intimidate me with his fangs.

“It’s been years,” I reminded. “I’ll bet there’s even less to work with now than when Dev and I tried to track his slimy, murdering ass down, but I do appreciate the effort. Ellie might not, but I do. It’s sweet of you. Which is, for the record, a word I never thought I’d use in a sentence to describe you.”

“Perhaps when this is over,” he said, still quiet, “it would be worth looking into again.”

“Right.” I sighed. “One supernatural crisis at a time.”