Any city is bound to collect restless dead. Armed with the notebook of Icelandic magic his ex boyfriend, Bone, gave him, Edward Grey has been tasked with removing troubled spirits or finding ways for the living and the dead to coexist in harmony. Between planning his wedding with his undead Canadian fiancé, Kit Ward, and his continued studies as a medical student, Edward didn’t need another commitment, but he can’t
turn away people who are frightened or in danger.
A particularly vicious ghost gives Edward an ominous warning—they’re coming—and a few days later Edward’s notebook is stolen from him. While he’s attempting to find it, he and his mentor, Mariel, are confronted by a very powerful necromancer and barely escape with their lives.
On the run, Edward is pursued everywhere he goes, until the necromancers following him manage to capture Kit.
Edward’s hunt for his kidnapped fiancé will take him to the underworld and beyond.
I did, and one of them was probably still playing video games. If I had enough energy for that when I finally got home. “It’s no problem, Mr....” I’d forgotten his name.
“Please, call me Bruce. Come on in.” Bruce stepped aside, and I followed him into his house.
This time, I saw the ghost immediately. She was a young woman—I couldn’t have said how old exactly, I’m terrible at guessing ages—with brown hair and green eyes. Her clothing looked dated, from sometime in the 20th century, but I couldn’t have pinpointed what decade it was from. Kit could probably have given the exact year.
When she noticed me, well, noticing her, she gave a little wave and smiled.
I smiled back.
She looked harmless, but then, the most dangerous ghost I’d encountered to date—and hoped, very fervently, I would ever meet—had been a very young girl. Judging ghosts based on their appearances could be a fatal mistake.
Bruce sat on one end of the couch, and the ghost sat on the other. Because he couldn’t see her, he was looking at me. She was looking at him. It looked like he was ignoring her, as though they were a couple in the middle of an argument. It was almost funny.
Bruce kept crossing and uncrossing his ankles, nervously. “I just hope I haven’t brought you here for nothing. I’ve lived here for seven years. My boyfriend moved in recently, and he has a cat. I’ve known the cat—and, uh, my boyfriend, obviously—for almost a year, and as soon as the cat set foot in my house, she started acting…weird.”
Huh. Maybe that was some proof cats were able to sense the supernatural. “‘Weird’ how?” I asked. It didn’t really matter, when I could see the ghost sitting right beside him in plain sight, but I was curious.
“She’s never done anything like this before. She’ll just stare into space, or behind people, right at the height of a person. It’s creepy as hell. And then there’s the spot.”
“The…spot?”
Wiping his hands on his thighs, Bruce stood, motioning for me to follow. He stopped in the hallway, precisely between two doors. The ghost followed us. Interesting.
She still hadn’t said anything; maybe she didn’t think I’d be able to hear her.
I never wanted to be a ghost.
A calico cat emerged from one of the doorways. She nuzzled Bruce’s leg, then mine—then the ghost’s.
Bruce didn’t notice the last affectionate rub, which was probably a good thing, given how nervous he seemed already.
“Anyway, the cat just sits right here, in this same exact spot, for hours. Sometimes she’ll paw at the wall, sometimes she’ll just howl. Neither of us really believe in this ghost crap. Sorry. I didn’t mean….”
I shrugged, and the ghost and I exchanged grins again.
“But…a friend of Jake’s suggested we might have a ghost in the house. I don’t know. We took the cat to the vet,” he added. “There’s nothing wrong with her. And sometimes...stuff isn’t where I remember putting it, but that just happens, you know?”
I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince himself or me.
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