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Richelle Mead’s next Georgina Kincaid novel,
SUCCUBUS HEAT,
now on sale!
Sleeping with my therapist was a bad idea.
I knew it too, but I couldn’t really help it. There were only so many times I could hear “Why don’t you explain that” and “Tell me how you feel.” So, I finally snapped and decided to show the guy how I felt. I’ve gotta say, for someone so moral who had never cheated on his wife, he wasn’t that hard to take advantage of. And by “not hard,” I mean “ridiculously easy.” His pseudo morals gave me a strong succubus energy fix, and when you consider that what we did was probably the most productive thing that ever took place on his couch, it was almost like I did a good deed.
Still, I knew my boss was going to be pissed, seeing as he was the one who’d ordered me to seek counseling in the first place.
“Do not tell Jerome,” I warned my friends, tapping my cigarette against the ashtray. “I don’t want to deal with that kind of fallout.”
My friends and I were sitting at a booth in Cold July, an industrial club down in Seattle’s Belltown district. Because it was a private club, they didn’t have to adhere to the city’s public smoking ban, which was a perk for me. In the last few months, I’d found nicotine was one of the essential things helping me cope. Other things on the essential list: vodka, Nine Inch Nails, a steady supply of moral men, and an all-purpose bitchy attitude.
“Look, Georgina,” said my friend Hugh. He was an imp, a type of hellish legal assistant who bought souls for our masters and did assorted middle management tasks. “I’m no expert in mental health, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that probably wasn’t a helpful step on the road to healing.”
I shrugged and let my eyes scan the crowded room for potential victims. There were some pretty good pickings here. “Well, he wasn’t that good. At therapy, I mean. Besides, I don’t think I need it anymore.”
Silence met me, in as much as silence could meet me in a place so noisy. I turned back to my friends. Hugh was making no pretense of hiding his you’re fucking crazy look. Our vampire friends, Peter and Cody, at least had the decency to avert their eyes. I narrowed mine and put out the cigarette.
“I don’t suppose,” said Peter at last, “that this is anybody you’d maybe, uh, like to date long term?”
“Yeah,” agreed Cody. “I bet a therapist would be a great listener. And you wouldn’t even have to pay for it.”
“My insurance pays for it,” I snapped. “And I don’t really appreciate your passive aggressive attitude about my boyfriend.”
“You could do better, sweetie,” said Hugh.
“The guy’s corrupt and going to Hell. How is this a problem for you? And you didn’t like my last boyfriend either. Maybe you should stop worrying about my love life and go back to figuring out how to get your latest secretary into bed.”
In what had to be a weird twist of the universe, none of my friends liked my current boyfriend, a black magician named Dante. Dante’s morals were pretty nonexistent, and he owned stock in bitterness and cynicism. That would make you think he’d fit in perfectly with this group of damned souls, but for whatever reason, it didn’t.
“You aren’t meant to be with someone bad,” said Cody. Cody was young compared to the rest of us immortals. Hugh claimed almost a century. Peter and I had millennia. As such, there was almost a naïveté about Cody, a charming idealism that rivaled the kind I used to have.
It had been shattered when my previous boyfriend, a human named Seth, had left me for a friend of mine. Seth was a good soul, quiet and infinitely kind. He’d made me believe in better things, like that maybe there was hope for a succubus like me. I’d thought I was in love—no, I had been in love. Even I could admit that. But being a succubus, I brought a dangerous element to any relationship. When I had sex with a guy (or a girl—it worked either way), I stole their life energy, which was the power that fueled every human soul. It kept me alive and sustained my immortal existence. The purer the guy, the more energy I took. The more energy I took, the more I shortened his life. With Dante, I had almost no effect. He had little energy to give, so our sex life was relatively “safe,” and I therefore sought my fixes from meaningless guys on the side.
With Seth . . . well, that had been a different story. Sleeping with him would have had detrimental effects—and I’d refused to do it. For a while, we’d lived on love alone, our relationship being about a lot more than a physical act. Over time, however, that had taken its toll, as had a number of simple relationship complications. Things had finally blown up when Seth had slept with my friend Maddie. I think he’d done it to encourage me to break up, hoping to spare me future pain. Whatever the initial intent, he and Maddie had actually gone on to establish a fairly serious relationship in the following months.
I hadn’t taken that very well.
“There’s no pleasing you guys,” I growled, beckoning the waiter for another drink. He ignored me, darkening my mood. “You don’t like good ones. You don’t like bad ones. What the fuck does it take?”
A new voice suddenly cut into our circle. “Please tell me we’re discussing your romantic hijinks, Georgie. There’s nothing I enjoy more.”
There he was, standing beside our table: my boss Jerome, archdemon of Seattle and its greater metropolitan area. I glared. I didn’t appreciate the mocking tone—or him calling me Georgie. He sat down beside Hugh, and the waiter I’d been trying to summon dashed over immediately. We ordered new drinks.
Jerome was clearly in a good mood today, which always made our lives easier. He had on a black designer suit, like always, and his hair was styled exactly the same as John Cusack’s had been in a recent TV interview I watched. That probably bears mentioning: Jerome’s human body of choice was a clone of John Cusack. Succubi can change shape because that’s part of what helps us with seduction. Demons can change shape simply because they’re insanely powerful. Because of a weird fan obsession that he adamantly denied, Jerome chose to interact in the mortal world looking like the actor. The strange thing is that when we were out like this, humans never seemed to notice.
“You haven’t been out with us in a while,” I pointed out, hoping to change the subject. “I thought you’ve been busy with demon stuff.” Rumor had it that Jerome was sparring with another demon, though none of us knew the details.
He took one of my cigarettes out of the pack without asking. A moment later, the end of the cigarette lit on its own. Showoff.
“Things have actually taken a pleasant turn,” he said. He inhaled deeply and then let the smoke swirl around him. “One less thing to deal with. I’d hoped the incessant babbling about your romantic woes was also going away, but I suppose that’s too much to hope for. Are you still with that charlatan?”
I threw up my hands. “Why does everyone hate Dante? You guys should be embracing him as a brother.”
Jerome considered, dark eyes thoughtful. “He annoys me. You can do better.”
“Jesus Christ,” I said.
“Maybe she’d see that if she’d stop doing stupid shit like sleeping with her therapist,” noted Hugh, in what was apparently supposed to be a helpful tone.
I turned on him, eyes wide. “Did you listen to anything I just said?”
“Plenty,” he said dryly.
Meanwhile, Jerome’s lazy, pleased expression disappeared. He fixed his gaze on me, eyes like flame yet inexplicably making me feel cold all over. He smashed the cigarette out and shot up from his seat. Grabbing my arm, he jerked me up from my own spot and started dragging me from the table.
“Come with me,” he hissed.
I stumbled with him out to the hall that led to the restrooms. Once out of the sight of others, he pushed me against a wall and leaned toward me, face filled with fury. It was a sign of his agitation that he was behaving like a human. He could have simply transported both of us to some isolated place.
“You fucked your therapist?” he exclaimed.
I gulped. “I wasn’t making much progress.”
“Georgie!”
“Why is this a problem? He was a good soul. I thought that was what you wanted me to do!”
“I wanted you to get this fucking chip off your shoulder that you’ve had ever since that boring mortal dumped you.”
I flinched. It was kind of a weird thing. I’d been so depressed after the Seth breakup that Jerome had finally flipped out and told me to go seek help because he was tired of listening to me “bitch and moan.” The weirdness of a demon encouraging counseling for one of his employees wasn’t lost on me. But honestly, how could he understand? How could he understand what it was like to have your heart smashed? To be ripped from the person you loved most in the world? My whole existence had lost meaning, and eternity had seemed impossible to bear. For weeks, I wouldn’t go out or talk much to anybody. I’d isolated myself, lost in my own grief. That was when Jerome had thrown up his hands and demanded I snap out of it.
And I had, kind of. I’d swung the other way. I’d suddenly become angry—so, so angry at the way life had treated me. Some of my misfortunes were my own fault. But Seth? I didn’t know. I didn’t know what happened there, and I felt wronged by the world. So, I’d started getting back at it. I’d stopped caring. I’d thrown myself into full succubus mode: seeking out the most moral men I could, stealing their life, and breaking their hearts. It helped with the pain. A little.
“I’m doing what I’m supposed to!” I yelled. “I’m scoring soul after soul. You have nothing to complain about.”
“You have a bitchy attitude and keep picking fights with everyone—and you aren’t getting better. I’m tired of it. And I’m tired of you.”
I froze, my antagonism turning to pure fear. When a demon said he was tired of you, it often resulted in being recalled to Hell. Or being smote.
“Jerome . . .” I tried to assess my best strategy here. Charm? Contrition?
He stepped away and took a deep, calming breath. It didn’t help much. His anger came through loud and clear.
“I’m sending you away. I’m going to outsource you to someone.”
“What?” My anger returned, pushing my fear away momentarily. Outsourcing was a huge insult to a succubus. “You can’t do that.”
“I can do whatever I fucking want. You answer to me.” A lanky guy turned down the hall, heading toward the restroom. Jerome fixed him with a piercing, terrifying look. The guy yelped and hastily headed back the other way. “There’s an archdemon in Vancouver who wants someone to keep an eye on a cult he has an interest in up there.”
“Up there . . .” My mouth dropped open. “You mean Vancouver, BC? You’re sending me to Canada?” Fuck. I really had gone too far. There was also a Vancouver in Washington. That wouldn’t have been so bad.
“He’d wanted a succubus since he only has one and couldn’t spare her. They’ve got their work cut out for them up there, you know. I was going to send him Grace.” He made a face at the mention of his antisocial lieutenant demoness. “She’s not optimal, but I didn’t have any other choice since Tawny’s in Bellingham and out of my control. I hadn’t wanted to give up you . . . but, well, I think it’ll be worth missing my succubus for a while to get you out of my hair, so I can get some peace.”
“Look, Jerome,” I pleaded. “I’ll go find another therapist, okay? A woman. An ugly one. And I’ll try to lay off the attitude and—”
“That’s my decision, Georgie. You need something to occupy you, and this’ll make Cedric happy. He figures a succubus is the best choice to infiltrate his little devil worshipping cult.”
I stared. “Canadian Satanists? You’re sending me to a group of Canadian Satanists?”
His only answer was a shrug.
“If this were happening to anyone else, it would be hilarious,” I said. “But why are you doing it? Since when do you help anyone—let alone another demon?” Demons tended to be insanely competitive with each other.
Again, Jerome didn’t answer. He took out a cigarette—honestly, if he had his own, why’d he steal mine earlier?—and did the lighting trick again.
“Something else is going on,” I said warily. “You’re using me to use him. What’s this really about?”
“Altruism,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Jerome . . .”
“Georgina,” he returned, eyes hard. “You have no right to question this, not as much as you’ve pissed me off lately. Now go pack your things and brush up on the metric system.”
Just typical. No love life to speak of for months, then all at once, every horny creature in the Otherworld wants to get in your pants . . .
Eugenie Markham is a powerful shaman who does a brisk trade banishing spirits and fey who cross into the mortal world. Mercenary, yes, but a girl’s got to eat. Her most recent case, however, is enough to ruin her appetite. Hired to find a teenager who has been taken to the Otherworld, Eugenie comes face-to-face with a startling prophecy—one that uncovers dark secrets about her past and claims that Eugenie’s firstborn will threaten the future of the world as she knows it.
Now Eugenie is a hot target for every ambitious demon and Otherworldy ne’er-do-well, and the ones who don’t want to knock her up want her dead. Eugenie handles a Glock as smoothly as she wields a wand, but she needs some formidable allies for a job like this. She finds them in Dorian, a seductive fairy king with a taste for bondage, and Kiyo, a gorgeous shape-shifter who redefines animal attraction. But with enemies growing bolder and time running out, Eugenie realizes that the greatest danger is yet to come, and it lies in the dark powers that are stirring to life within her . . .
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
STORM BORN,
Book One in Richelle Mead’s
DARK SWAN series!
I’d seen weirder things than a haunted shoe but not many.
The Nike Pegasus sat on the office desk, inoffensive, colored in shades of gray, white, and orange. The laces were loosened, and a bit of dirt clung to the soles. It was the left shoe.
As for me, well . . . underneath my knee-length coat, I had a Glock 22 loaded with bullets carrying a higher-than-legal steel content. A cartridge of silver ones rested in my coat pocket. Two athames lay sheathed on my other hip, one silver-bladed and one iron. Stuck into my belt near them was my wand, hand-carved oak and loaded with enough charmed gems to blow up the desk in the corner if I’d wanted to.
To say I felt overdressed was something of an understatement.
“So,” I said, keeping my voice as neutral as possible, “what makes you think your shoe is . . . uh, possessed?”
Brian Montgomery, late thirties, with a receding hairline in serious denial, eyed the shoe nervously and moistened his lips. “It always trips me up when I’m out running. Every time. And it’s always moving around. I mean, I never actually see it, but . . . like, I’ll take them off near the door, then I come back and find this one under the bed or something. And sometimes . . . sometimes I touch it, and it feels cold . . . really cold . . . like . . .” He groped for similes and finally picked the tritest one. “Like ice.”
I nodded and glanced back at the shoe, not saying anything.
“Look, Miss . . . Odile . . . or whatever. I’m not crazy. That shoe is haunted. It’s evil. You’ve gotta do something, okay? I’ve got a marathon coming up, and until this started happening, these were my lucky shoes. And they’re not cheap, you know. They’re an investment.”
It sounded crazy to me—which was saying something—but there was no harm in checking, seeing as I was already out here. I reached into my coat pocket, the one without ammunition, and pulled out my pendulum. It was a simple one, a thin silver chain with a small quartz crystal hanging from it. New Age stores that sold more elaborate ones were ripping you off.
I laced the end of the chain through my fingers and held my flattened hand over the shoe, clearing my mind and letting the crystal hang freely. A moment later, it began to slowly rotate of its own accord.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I muttered, stuffing the pendulum back in my pocket. There was something there. I turned to Montgomery, attempting some sort of badass face because that was what customers always expected. “It might be best if you stepped out of the room, sir. For your own safety.”
That was only half true. Mostly I just found lingering clients annoying. They asked stupid questions and could do stupider things, which actually put me at more risk than them.
He had no qualms about getting out of there. As soon as the door closed, I found a jar of salt in my satchel and poured a large ring on the floor. I tossed the shoe into the middle of it and invoked the four cardinal directions with the silver athame. Ostensibly the circle didn’t change, but I felt a slight flaring of power indicating it had sealed us in.
Trying not to yawn, I pulled out my wand and kept holding the silver athame. It had taken four hours to drive to Las Cruces, and doing that on so little sleep had made the distance seem twice as long. Sending some of my will into the wand, I tapped it against the shoe and spoke in a singsong voice.
“Come out, come out, whoever you are.”
There was a moment’s silence, then a high-pitched male voice snapped, “Go away, bitch.”
Great. A shoe with attitude. “Why? You got something better to do?”
“Better things to do than waste my time with a mortal.”
I smiled. “Better things to do in a shoe? Come on. I mean, I’ve heard of slumming it, but don’t you think you’re kind of pushing it here? This shoe isn’t even new. You could have done so much better.”
The voice kept its annoyed tone, not threatening but simply irritated at the interruption. “I’m slumming it? Do you think I don’t know who you are, Eugenie Markham? Dark-Swan-Called-Odile. A blood traitor. A mongrel. An assassin. A murderer.” He practically spit out the last word. “You are alone among your kind and mine. A bloodthirsty shadow. You do anything for anyone who can pay you enough for it. That makes you more than a mercenary. That makes you a whore.”
I affected a bored stance. I’d been called most of those names before. Well, except for my own name. That was new—and a little disconcerting. Not that I’d let him know that.
“Are you done whining? Because I don’t have time to listen while you stall.”
“Aren’t you being paid by the hour?” he asked nastily.
“I charge a flat fee.”
“Oh.”
I rolled my eyes and touched the wand to the shoe again. This time, I thrust the full force of my will into it, drawing upon my own body’s physical stamina as well as some of the power of the world around me. “No more games. If you leave on your own, I won’t have to hurt you. Come out.”
He couldn’t stand against that command and the power within it. The shoe trembled, and smoke poured out of it. Oh, Jesus. I hoped the shoe didn’t get incinerated in the process. Montgomery wouldn’t be able to handle that.
The smoke billowed out, coalescing into a large, dark form about two feet taller than me. With all his wisecracks, I’d sort of expected a saucy version of one of Santa’s elves. Instead, the being before me had the upper body of a well-muscled man while his lower portion resembled a small cyclone. The smoke solidified into leathery gray-black skin, and I had only a moment to act as I assessed this new development. I swapped the wand for the gun, ejecting the clip as I pulled it out. By then, he was lunging for me, and I had to roll out of his way, confined by the circle’s boundaries.
A keres. A male keres—most unusual. I’d anticipated something fey, which required silver bullets; or a spectre, which required no bullets. Keres were ancient death spirits originally confined to canopic jars. When the jars wore down over time, keres tended to seek out new homes. There weren’t too many of them left in this world, and soon, there’d be one less.
He bore down on me, and I took a nice chunk out of him with the silver blade. I used my right hand, the one on which I wore an onyx-and-obsidian bracelet. Those stones alone would take a toll on a death spirit like him without the blade’s help. Sure enough, he hissed in pain and hesitated a moment. I used that delay, scrambling to load the silver cartridge.
I didn’t quite make it because soon he was on me again. He hit me with one of those massive arms, slamming me against the walls of the circle. They might be invisible, but they felt as solid as bricks. One of the downsides of trapping a spirit in a circle was that I got trapped too. My head and left shoulder took the brunt of that impact, and pain shot through me in small starbursts. He seemed pretty pleased with himself, as overconfident villains so often are.
“You’re as strong as they say, but you were a fool to try to cast me out. You should have left me in peace.” His voice was deeper now, almost gravelly.
I shook my head, both to disagree and get rid of the dizziness. “It isn’t your shoe.”
I still couldn’t swap that goddamned cartridge. Not with him ready to attack again, not with both hands full. Yet I couldn’t risk dropping either weapon.
He reached for me, and I cut him again. The wounds were small, but the athame was like poison. It would wear him down over time—if I could stay alive long enough. I moved to strike at him once more, but he anticipated me and seized hold of my wrist. He squeezed it, bending it in an unnatural position and forcing me to drop the athame and cry out in pain. I hoped he hadn’t broken any bones. Smug, he grabbed me by the shoulders with both hands and lifted me up so that I hung face-to-face with him. His eyes were yellow with slits for pupils, much like some sort of snake’s. His breath was hot and reeked of decay as he spoke.
“You are small, Eugenie Markham, but you are lovely and your flesh is warm. Perhaps I should beat the rush and take you myself. I’d enjoy hearing you scream beneath me.”
Ew. Had that thing just propositioned me? And there was my name again. How in the world did he know that? None of them knew that. I was only Odile to them, named after the dark swan in Swan Lake, a name coined by my stepfather because of the form my spirit preferred to travel in while visiting the Otherworld. The name—though not particularly terrifying—had stuck, though I doubted any of the creatures I fought knew the reference. They didn’t really get out to the ballet much.
The keres had my upper arms pinned—I would have bruises tomorrow—but my hands and forearms were free. He was so sure of himself, so arrogant and confident, that he paid no attention to my struggling hands. He probably just perceived the motion as a futile effort to free myself. In seconds, I had the clip out and in the gun. I managed one clumsy shot and he dropped me—not gently. I stumbled to regain my balance again. Bullets probably couldn’t kill him, but a silver one in the center of his chest would certainly hurt.
He stumbled back, surprised, and I wondered if he’d ever even encountered a gun before. It fired again, then again and again and again. The reports were loud; hopefully Montgomery wouldn’t foolishly come running in. The keres roared in outrage and pain, each shot making him stagger backward until he was against the circle’s boundary. I advanced on him, retrieved athame flashing in my hands. In a few quick motions, I carved the death symbol on the part of his chest that wasn’t bloodied from bullets. An electric charge immediately ran through the air. Hairs stood up on the back of my neck, and I could smell ozone, like just before a storm.
He screamed and leapt forward, renewed by rage or adrenaline or whatever else these creatures ran on. But it was too late for him. He was marked and wounded. I was ready. In another mood, I might have simply banished him to the Otherworld; I tried not to kill if I didn’t have to. But that sexual suggestion had just been out of line. I was pissed off now. He’d go to the world of death, straight to Persephone’s gate.
I fired again to slow him, my aim a bit off with the left hand but still good enough to hit him. I had already traded the athame for the wand. This time, I didn’t draw on the power from this plane. With well-practiced ease, I let part of my consciousness slip this world. In moments, I reached the crossroads to the Otherworld. That was an easy transition; I did it all the time. The next crossover was a little harder, especially with me being weakened from the fight, but still nothing I couldn’t do automatically. I kept my own spirit well outside of the land of death, but I touched it and sent that connection through the wand. It sucked him in, and his face twisted with fear.
“This is not your world,” I said in a low voice, feeling the power burn through me and around me. “This is not your world, and I cast you out from it. I send you to the black gate, to the lands of death where you can either be reborn or fade to oblivion or burn in the flames of hell. I really don’t give a shit. Go.”
He screamed, but the magic caught him. There was a trembling in the air, a buildup of pressure, and then it ended abruptly, like a deflating balloon. The keres was gone too, leaving only a shower of gray sparkles that soon faded to nothing.
Silence. I sank to my knees, exhaling deeply. My eyes closed a moment, as my body relaxed and my consciousness returned to this world. I was exhausted, but exultant too. Killing him had felt good. Heady, even. He’d gotten what he deserved, and I had been the one to deal it out.
Minutes later, some of my strength returned. I stood and opened the circle, suddenly feeling stifled by it. I put my tools and weapons away and went to find Montgomery.
“Your shoe’s been exorcised,” I told him flatly. “I killed the ghost.” No point in explaining the difference between a keres and a true ghost; he wouldn’t understand.
He entered the room with slow steps, picking up the shoe gingerly. “I heard gunshots. How do you use bullets on a ghost?”
I shrugged. It hurt from where the keres had slammed my shoulder to the wall. “It was a strong ghost.”
He cradled the shoe like one might a child and then glanced down with disapproval. “There’s blood on the carpet.”
“Read the paperwork you signed. I assume no responsibility for damage incurred to personal property.”
With a few grumbles, he paid up—in cash—and I left. Really, though, he was so stoked about the shoe, I probably could have decimated the office.
In my car, I dug out a Milky Way from the stash in my glove box. Battles like that required immediate sugar and calories. As I practically shoved the candy bar in my mouth, I turned on my cell phone. I had a missed call from Lara.
Once I’d consumed a second candy bar and was on I-10 back to Tucson, I called her back.
“Yo,” I said.
“Hey. Did you finish the Montgomery job?”
“Yup.”
“Was the shoe really possessed?”
“Yup.”
“Huh. Who knew? That’s kind of funny too. Like, you know, lost souls and soles in shoes . . .”
“Bad, very bad,” I chastised her. Lara might be a damned good secretary, but there was only so much I could be expected to put up with. “So what’s up? Or were you just checking in?”
“No. I just got a weird job offer. Some guy—well, honestly, I thought he sounded kind of schizo. But he claims his sister was abducted by fairies, er, gentry. He wants you to go get her.”
I fell silent at that, staring at the highway and clear blue sky ahead without consciously seeing either one. Some rational part of me attempted to process what she had just said. I didn’t get that kind of request very often. Okay, never. A retrieval like that required me to cross over physically into the Otherworld. “I don’t really do that.”
“That’s what I told him.” But there was uncertainty in Lara’s voice.
“Okay. What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing, I guess. I don’t know. It’s just . . . he said she’s been gone almost a year and a half now. She was fourteen when she disappeared.”
My stomach sank a little at that. God. What an awful fate for someone so young. It made the keres’ lewd comments to me downright trivial.
“He sounded pretty frantic.”
“Does he have proof she was actually taken?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t get into it. He was kind of paranoid. Seemed to think his phone was being tapped.”
I laughed at that. “By who? The gentry?” “Gentry” was what I called the beings that most of Western culture referred to as fairies or sidhe. They looked just like humans but embraced magic instead of technology. They found “fairy” a derogatory term, so I respected that—sort of—by using the term old English peasants used to use. Gentry. Good folk. Good neighbors. A questionable designation, at best. The gentry actually preferred the term “shining ones,” but that was just silly. I wouldn’t give them that much credit.
“I don’t know,” Lara told me. “Like I said, he seemed a little schizo.”
Silence fell as I held on to the phone and passed a car doing forty-five in the left lane.
“Eugenie! You aren’t really thinking of doing this.”
“Fourteen, huh?”
“You always said that was dangerous.”
“Adolescence?”
“Stop it. You know what I mean. Crossing over.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.”
It was dangerous—super dangerous. Traveling in spirit form could still get you killed, but your odds of fleeing back to your earthbound body were better. Take your own body over, and all the rules changed.
“This is crazy.”
“Set it up,” I told her. “It can’t hurt to talk to him.”
I could practically see her biting her lip to hold back protests. But at the end of the day, I was the one who signed her paychecks, and she respected that. After a few moments, she filled the silence with info about a few other jobs and then drifted on to more casual topics: a sale at Macy’s, a mysterious scratch on her car . . .
Something about Lara’s cheery gossip always made me smile, but it also disturbed me that most of my social contact came via someone I never actually saw. The majority of my face-to-face interactions came from spirits and gentry lately.
It was after dinnertime when I arrived home, and my housemate, Tim, appeared to be out for the night, probably at a poetry reading. Despite a Polish background, genes had inexplicably given him a strong Native American appearance. In fact, he looked more Indian than some of the locals. Deciding this was his claim to fame, Tim had grown his hair out and taken on the name “Timothy Red Horse.” He made his living reading faux-Native poetry at local dives and wooing naïve tourist women by using expressions like, “my people” and “the Great Spirit” a lot. It was despicable to say the least, but it got him laid pretty often. What it did not do was bring in a lot of money, so I let him live with me in exchange for housework and cleaning. It was a pretty good deal as far as I was concerned. After battling the undead all day, scrubbing the bathtub just seemed like a bit much.
Scrubbing my athames, unfortunately, was a task I had to do myself. Keres blood could stain.
I ate dinner afterward, then stripped and sat in my sauna for a long time. I liked a lot of things about my little house out in the foothills, but the sauna was one of my favorites. It might seem kind of pointless in the desert, but Arizona had mostly dry heat, and I liked the feel of the moisture on my skin. I leaned back against the wooden wall, enjoying the sensation of sweating out the stress. My body ached—some parts more fiercely than others—and the heat let some of the muscles loosen up.
The solitude also soothed me. Pathetic as it was, I probably had no one to blame for my lack of a social life except myself. I spent a lot of time alone and didn’t mind. When my stepfather, Roland, had first trained me as a shaman, he’d told me that in a lot of cultures, shamans lived outside of normal society. The idea had seemed crazy to me at the time, being in junior high, but it made more sense now that I was older.
I wasn’t a complete misanthrope, but I found I often had a hard time interacting with other people. Talking in front of groups was murder. Even talking one-on-one was uncomfortable. I had no pets or children to ramble on about, and I couldn’t exactly talk about things like the incident in Las Cruces. Yeah, I had kind of a long day. Drove four hours, fought an ancient minion of evil. After a few bullets and knife wounds, I obliterated him and sent him on to the world of death. God, I swear I’m not getting paid enough for this crap, you know? Cue polite laughter.
When I left the sauna, I had another message from Lara, telling me the appointment with the distraught brother had been arranged for tomorrow. I made a note in my day planner, took a shower, and retired to my room where I threw on black silk pajamas. For whatever reason, nice pajamas were the one indulgence I allowed myself in an otherwise dirty and bloody lifestyle. Tonight’s selection had a cami top that showed serious cleavage, had anyone been there to see it. I always wore a ratty robe around Tim.
Sitting at my desk, I emptied out a new jigsaw puzzle I’d just bought. It depicted a kitten on its back clutching a ball of yarn. My love of puzzles ranked up there with the pajama thing for weirdness, but they eased my mind. Maybe it was the fact that they were so tangible. You could hold the pieces in your hand and make them fit together, as opposed to the insubstantial stuff I usually worked with.
While my hands moved the pieces around, I kept turning over the knowledge that the keres had known my name. What did that mean? I’d made a lot of enemies in the Otherworld. I didn’t like the thought of them being able to track me personally. I preferred to stay Odile. Anonymous. Safe. Probably not much point worrying about it, I supposed. The keres was dead. He wouldn’t be telling any tales.
Two hours later, I finished the puzzle and admired it. The kitten had brown tabby fur, its eyes an almost azure blue. The yarn was red. I took out my digital camera, snapped a picture, and then broke up the puzzle, dumping it back into its box. Easy come, easy go.
Yawning, I slipped into bed. Tim had done laundry today; the sheets felt crisp and clean. Nothing like that new sheets smell. Despite my exhaustion, however, I couldn’t fall asleep. It was one of life’s ironies. While awake, I could slide into a trance with the snap of a finger. My spirit could leave my body and travel to other worlds. Yet for whatever reason, sleep was elusive. Doctors had recommended a number of sedatives, but I hated to use them. Drugs and alcohol bound the spirit to this world, and while I did indulge occasionally, I generally liked being ready to slip over on a moment’s notice.
Tonight I suspected my insomnia had something to do with a teenage girl . . . But no. I couldn’t think about that. Not yet. Not until I spoke with the brother.
Sighing, needing something else to ponder, I rolled over and stared at my ceiling, at the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars. I started counting them, as I had so many other restless nights. There were exactly thirty-three of them, just like last time. Still, it never hurt to check.