Drop Dead (Tess Skye Book 1)

by D. N. Erikson

  Because I have to be. That’s the only explanation for why he’s currently there.

  But she’s rubbing the side of his pants with her hands to dry them off, and he’s not disappearing into the ether.

  Javy reaches back to shut off the water. His lean is relaxed, easy. His steel-blue gaze sparkles like there’s nothing wrong at all.

  In that whiskey-velvet voice he says, “Good to see you, too, Tess.”

  “You—you…” I keep the gun leveled at him.

  “I’m assuming you heard about Carter? From your neighbor?” He shakes his head. “Sorry about the living room. He won’t be bothering us again.”

  I finally drop my arms, but my expression remains unchanged. “I don’t understand.”

  Javy shares a wink with Catalina. “Hey, guess that means she can burn the catsuit, right?”

  “Oh my god, no, that thing makes your ass look perfect,” Catalina says. “You cannot. I will not allow it.”

  I look at Javy as if to say we need to talk. He nods. But answers will have to wait until later. I holster the gun and give Catalina a hug.

  “You have to work on your greetings, Tess. This is way better than a gun.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “You bring your kit?”

  “For sure.”

  “Good.” I release my embrace, roll up the sleeve of my shirt. “Because I have a bullet hole in my shoulder, too, that hurts like a son of a bitch.”

  “Should I even ask? Dead vampires and bullet holes?”

  I look her in the eye and say the truest words that have ever been spoken. “You really don’t want to know.”

  Thirty-Two

  Catalina patches me up, saying that although the gunshot wound was a through and through, so no bullet to dig out, she strongly recommended surgery. But it isn’t strictly necessary.

  Being no fan of hospitals, I take her strong recommendation under no advisement whatsoever and tell her I’ll meet up with her for drinks tomorrow.

  The door shuts with a creaky groan as she leaves. I see her hold up her pinky and thumb in a call me motion aimed at Javy right before she leaves.

  I roll my eyes and slide the vial of drawn blood into my pocket, then I wheel around to face him. “I saw you die.”

  “Tess.” He holds up his hands. “Coming in hot here.”

  “No. I saw it. In Rillo’s own damn memories.”

  “I heard he bit the dust.” His lips purse in grim satisfaction. “Figured that was you.”

  “You’re dodging the main subject.”

  “Why don’t you sit down.” He gestures toward the faded couch, the upholstery starting to fray. I refuse to replace it. It’ll feel less like home if I do.

  I also refuse to sit down. “I’m good standing right here.”

  “Carter was waiting here,” Javy says. “Actually, he was going to try to set you up.”

  “For what?”

  “Killing me. Brought my body here.”

  “And then what?”

  “He’s in the bathroom.”

  I head over to the bathroom and fling the door open.

  Sure enough, my day seems destined to end the same way it began: with a vampire in the bathtub.

  I feel for his pulse, ignoring the stream of memories as best I can.

  Not that I doubt Javy’s skills. But I thought Carter was a goner this morning, and he turned the day into a train wreck. I’d prefer not to repeat the same mistake a second time.

  Satisfied he’s dead for good, I return to the living room.

  “So how’d you do it?”

  “Got him with the coffee table.” Javy points down. One of the splintered legs looks like a stake—and it’s soaked in blood.

  “That’s not what I meant.” Although being staked was a nice and painful way for that asshole to die.

  “Not much else to say.”

  “You were dead.”

  “Not quite, Tess.”

  “Did you get your hands on some Vitalysm?” I walk over until I’m nose-to-nose with him. He still smells the same. Pleasant, but not overpowering. Looks the same. Handsome. Relaxed.

  Hardly like a man who just died.

  But I’m suspicious.

  I touch his cheek.

  “It’s me, Tess.”

  “So you say.” Then I pinch the skin. Hard.

  “Oww.”

  “Just checking to make sure you’re—”

  Then a cascade of memories unlike anything I’ve ever felt washes over me.

  Washes isn’t the right word.

  It’s like being caught in the ocean during a tsunami.

  I crash to the ground, narrowly missing the jagged remnants of the coffee table. Even though I’m no longer touching his skin, the memories keep surging through my synapses.

  So many deaths.

  A lion’s jaws wrapping around his neck, piercing the jugular.

  A sword through the heart in the time of the Roman emperors.

  Being drawn and quartered in medieval times.

  Dozens more flash by, piling on top of each other like cars in an endless collision of suffering.

  And finally, the bullet in his head not even an hour ago.

  “You felt it.” Concern floods over Javy’s face. “All of it.”

  That’s never happened before. I’ve never been able to read someone’s memories who was alive. But judging from what I’ve seen, I’m not sure Javy Diaz qualifies.

  I scramble away, the rug bunching up beneath my sweaty palms. “Get away from me.”

  “Just take a deep breath, Tess.”

  “What the fuck are you?” I draw the gun. Even though it’s entirely pointless.

  He’ll just come back to life after all, right?

  He sighs, the weight of thousands of years seemingly condensed into a single word. “Immortal.”

  “That’s—that’s impossible. They’re not real.”

  “We are. You saw it.”

  “No.” I shake my head, resisting the urge to projectile vomit. “Not at all.”

  “It’s okay to feel it.”

  “Feel what?” My heart is pounding at a million miles an hour.

  It’s not just the revelation regarding what he is.

  It’s that I experienced all those deaths. Thousands of years’ worth of them. In under a minute.

  And I felt each one, from the lion’s sharp fangs, to the hoofbeats of the horses against the soil as they galloped away, ripping his limbs roped to their hindquarters asunder.

  “The fear.” His voice is somber. “Humanity’s biggest gift. And your biggest curse. It grants you meaning and love. Everything good and bad comes from the fact that a mortal soul is little more than ash, destined to drift away in the breeze.

  “But fear is the same voice that causes you to pillage, plunder, and kill in the name of legacy, fame, and fortune. The thirst for even a taste of immortality.”

  “Sounds like diet soda,” I say. “A shitty imitation of the real thing.”

  “The real thing has more drawbacks than its sweet exterior might suggest.” Somehow, I can see every year of his infinite lifespan etched into his flawless complexion. “Every conscious creature believes, somehow, that their exploits will grant them purpose. But lifespan alone does not provide meaning.”

  I look up at him, still holding the gun. “What’s the point of living at all, then?”

  “To find yourself.”

  “That’s some deep shit, man.”

  “Alas, but for most fear is a straitjacket. Humans waste their lives on ephemeral trinkets and accolades and petty grievances.” He reaches down to help me up. I stare at his hand. “But without a finish, there can be no start to anything great. That’s where you’re different.”

  For some reason, I put the gun down and grab his hand.

  Back on my feet, we stare at one another.

  That’s when his expression changes. Into one bordering on reverence.

  “In all my years, Tess Skye, I’ve never seen one
use fear as you do. Using it as fuel to do what is right, rather than immolate yourself and others.”

  The words hang in the air.

  I take deep breaths. My heart slows from an all-out sprint to merely a brisk run.

  My phone buzzes, interrupting this little philosophical interlude. It’s Finn.

  “Hello?”

  “All done,” he says. “The FBI picked up Stella Reynolds a few minutes ago trying to flee town.”

  I close my eyes. Goddamn has it been a long day. But I'm not done yet. “I’ve got the blood here. Should be a slam dunk.”

  “Good. Someone will be by your place to grab it up later.” He pauses. “They said you could get your old job back if you want. Or even a position at the FBI, potentially.”

  I look over at Javy. My work’s not done. Not by a long shot.

  But I think I’ll be taking my own path.

  On my own terms.

  Each Soulwalk starts with the same refrain. A ritual to ground me in the new body.

  Let’s begin, Tess.

  It’s time to do just that. Time to start over.

  Time to live.

  So I say, “I think I’ll pass.”

  Finn sounds surprised. “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” I glance at Javy, who’s looking at me with a curious expression. “I found what I want to do.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “No,” I say. “I’m right where I belong. Talk soon.”

  The call ends, and silence hangs in the room for a moment.

  Then I look at Javy and say with a smile, “So, who needs our help next, partner?”

  Epilogue

  One week later

  My feet are propped up on the rickety desk as I read Properties of Rare and Exotic Creatures. I may have declined the FBI’s overtures, but they threw me a bone for saving the entire town, delivering this book from Rillo’s personal library at my request.

  The tome itself totals over a thousand pages, but the Soulwalker section clocks in at a rather sparse four. Still, I’ve learned things I never knew about myself. Turns out Soulwalkers are on the same anima frequency as certain animals—dogs being one of them. Which means I can read their thoughts when they’re alive, so long as I’m physically touching them.

  Hooray. Not crazy.

  I can actually talk with Ella, who I’m currently watching for Toby while he goes on a widows and widowers dating retreat. Seems a little morbid—like maybe regular online dating could fill that gap better—but hey, whatever works.

  As for why this particular ability manifested itself when I was thirty, rather than, say, when I was ten: working with a Navigator enhances a Soulwalker’s more subtle senses, making them more attuned to such frequencies.

  It’s the same reason it didn’t feel like I was being crushed under a wave of memories the first time I met Javy and shook his hand. It was a matter of training. I couldn’t experience what I can now.

  And it looks like I have some work ahead with Finn, because the book cryptically hints at “latent abilities as-yet-undocumented but potentially fantastic in nature.”

  Whatever that means.

  I put the book down and lean back in the chair.

  Light barely creeps through the office’s yellowed shades, casting spindly shadows on the cracking drywall. The ceiling fan unleashes a death-gargle every twenty minutes or so, scaring the shit out of Ella every single time.

  But I’m all smiles.

  Because this is mine. Before, I ran my PI practice off my cell phone and from coffee shops or fast food joints. It was no way to run an actual business. And it always felt like I was adrift. A nomad being carried along by the slipstream of life.

  Now I have a second home. Look around the bare space, imagining where it all could lead.

  First thing I’m getting is a mini fridge. This place could use some snacks.

  My daydreams are shattered by Ella’s sharp bark.

  “What is it, girl?” I pat the husky on her snout.

  Her surprisingly high-pitched voice reverberates in my mind. A man is at the door, Tessie.

  “Could you be a little bit more descriptive?” I peer through the door’s distorted glass, trying to make out who it might be from the blur of colors and shadows.

  He is a magus extractor. I can smell the dirt and silver on his hands.

  Magus is one of the two core magical elements—the other one being anima, the life force within all creatures. Magus is the force that imbues magical creatures with their actual powers. It can be transmuted into an almost limitless number of possible outcomes in the hands of a skilled alchemist or other practitioner.

  Veins are occasionally found running through mountains or beneath rivers, but the most common way of producing it is through extraction from rare metals like silver, platinum, and gold. Suffice to say, demand for magus has sent the price of precious metals into the stratosphere.

  “Is he some sort of creature?”

  No. Just a man. He smells like hope.

  “I didn’t know hope had a smell.” I raise my eyebrow as I continue scratching her ears.

  The husky stares back intently with her emerald-green eyes, looking earnest.

  I’m not convinced. Dogs always look earnest, even after they just got done chewing a hole in your new couch.

  Lots of things have smells, Tessie. One time, a squirrel I was chasing—

  “Let’s stay on topic, here, Ella.” I haven’t talked with any other dogs, so I don’t know if this a common trait, but razor-sharp long-term focus is not her strong suit.

  Ella barks and curls her lip at me.

  Don’t need a translator for that one.

  “Fine, we’ll do this the old fashioned way.” I rise from the squeaky chair and head to the door. I take a deep breath, then open it and say with a warm smile, “Hello, welcome to Tess Skye Investigations. What can I help you with today?”

  THE END

  Tess Skye returns in Smoke Show, available on Amazon at dnerikson.com/tess.