Hungry Graves: A Rue Hallow Mystery

by Amanda A. Allen

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  Also by Amanda A. Allen

  Author’s Note

  Copyright

  Hungry Graves

  A Rue Hallow Mystery, Book 2

  by Amanda A. Allen

  Dedication

  For Emily Pavlina

  CHAPTER 1

  I’m Rue Hallow and I’m the eldest of the eldest of the eldest of the Hallow line. There was a lot of baggage and garbage that went with that accident of birth. Being poor wasn’t some of it.

  Until me, damn it.

  I pasted a fake smile on my face and reached down below the bar to pull out the prepared bottles. Using a very practiced movement, I brought them out, spinning along my palms to catch the attention of my audience. The party guests. Also known as those with enough cash to buy the ridiculous potions I’d brewed.

  The music was pounding, the lights were flashing, and I didn’t have friends beyond my roomies—Felix and Chrysie. Which meant everyone here was a stranger. Except the group lurking by the fireplace.

  “They here for the Talisman?” Felix asked as he flipped his dreads over his shoulder.

  “Obviously," Chrysie and I said in unison staring towards the group dressed in black--the ones who didn't belong.

  The problem? The Talisman hadn’t been seen since the last keeper had been killed. Everyone thought that was because my mother had somehow hidden it in my house. A house that had been locked by magic until the rightful heir came along—me. I was the heir. I did not have the Talisman. And, I didn’t want it.

  Maybe I'd seen it. Maybe I'd carefully tossed it to the floor in my bedroom. Maybe my house Martha had taken it back. I had the feeling she was mad at me about that. She was a magic house, after all, built with spells in her very foundation, and more laid on her over the decades. She had grown a personality of her own all powdered by what had been done to and inside of her. Which was why my bed was now just a little less fresh and my shower--not quite the temperature I liked. She wasn't trying to drive me away. Only making her feelings known.

  What was chapping the shiz out of my hide was how the Hallow Family Council—those jerks who had my money—had created a team of necromancers who worked together to protect the dead and undead, etc, etc. And those schmos were crashing my party. Which would have been irritating enough.

  But because life was both beautiful and unfair, the eyes of the leader were heavy on me. I mean, I hadn’t wanted to notice how pretty he was. Especially when I was flinging magic and potions around with real, I-should-probably-focus sleight of hand. They were a team of 7, and yes, it took a whole team to do what I was supposed to do by myself. It irritated me beyond belief that they had crashed the party. I assume to find the Talisman and prevent me from becoming the keeper. Bad enough that they were here to steal the Talisman from the house—and me—but honestly, did they have to make me feel like they were examining my every move at the same time?

  Examining and finding me wanting.

  On the one hand, I did not want to have to hunt up ghosts feeding off of the living or send back ghosts haunting some random suburban house or country church or whatever. And I did not want to track and stop necromancers who were abusing the dead. And…I didn’t want to be involved in any of this drama. I wanted to go to school. Study too hard. Make friends. Learn nerdy things.

  But. On the other, other hand, just because I didn’t want it, didn’t mean they could just take it.

  "I blame you," I told Felix who was grinning at one particular member of the keeper Team.

  "What? Why?" His innocence was poorly feigned, and his eyes were still fixed on his girlfriend, Monica. She of the black leggings and flashy jewelry. She was beautiful, rich, and well-connected. I suspected that Felix with his over-thinness, dreadlocks, and ambiguous morals was her college rebellion. I wasn't, however, sure that he knew that.

  "You should be mad she lied to you, Felix," Chrysie said with a concerned gaze towards him. She was capable of being sweet and caring even while she ate us out of house and home. It wasn't her fault. She was a vampire and that was a disease you fed with food and magic.

  "You should tell your mom you're a vampire," Felix countered, his goatee and sharp cheekbones were different in the flashing lights. He seemed--more. More than the skinny upperclassman who lived in the servant's quarters and engineered the sales of our black market potions. He seemed tall and strong and powerful. It was funny what lack of light could do to disguise a person.

  My two roomies looked at each other with loaded gazes.

  "You should both fight somewhere else because I am going to spray these interlopers with these potions and the Dare one isn't easily replaced.”

  "Don't do that kitten. I'm not sure you can handle another party." Felix said for the joy of watching my eyes glow red with fury. I was, after all, a witch. I'd kill him slowly. I was not a kitten. Though I did have claws.

  I didn't sigh when I glanced up at the crowd in front of me. I told myself it was worth it for the money. Time to focus on the job at hand. I opened the bottles with my magic, sending the corks flying across the room and against the wall with a very intentional flare, and a shout of laughter accompanied the sight of it banging off the walls.

  I poured the potions into shot glasses and lined them up on trays. The shots were red for Truth, green for Dare. The red one smoked. The green chilled the glass until it clouded. They were, I congratulated myself, awesome. This would be the most epic game of truth or dare ever.

  The pretty leader of the Keeper Team, Finn, had moved to the other side of the bar while I had been distracted. Chrysie was with me, but Felix was looking with lascivious puppy eyes at his girlfriend. I didn't have time for Felix's mistakes. Not with Finn watching me measure dollops of my potions into the final line of shot glasses with a flourish.

  “Aren’t you too young to drink?”

  “Potions?” I didn’t smirk, but inside I was completely cackling--witch style--at the twitch in his eye.

  “Potions are dangerous things that shouldn’t be made by children and passed around to other children.”

  I admit that his words made me want to reach across the bar and peel the flesh from his face. Because I am not a child, however, I contained myself. Just because he was a grad student did not make him a master of all things magic. And just because he was all tall and dark and handsome with broody eyes and thick dark hair didn’t mean I had to notice. Damn it. He was, quite simply, too pretty for real life.

  But then he continued his lecture. “You know how serious this is. I’m not unaware how well you passed the entrance exams,” he said, face a serious, responsible scowl.

  Oh man. This know-it-all jerk and the family council were passing around my secrets. Sweet Hecate, of course. Of course, they were.

  I smiled at him and then sipped from my water cup. If the shots had been alcoholic rather than potion-based, I’d have downed one of them. But I really, really didn’t want to truth serum myself while interacting with Mr. Heroic Archetype.

  “They’re for a game.”

  “A game?”

  “Truth or dare.”

  His eyes narrowed, and then he said, “Truth or dare?”
>
  It wasn’t a question. It was an invitation. No, not that. A challenge. A challenge to play truth or dare with him.

  “But they were made by a child,” I said. I watched his eye flicker. It was irritation and filled me with so much joy.

  But he said, “Truth or dare.”

  There he went. Challenging me again. And by Hecate’s eyes. He had me. I glanced past him and realized that Felix had gathered everyone around while I poured. Felix gave me a look that demanded I take the challenge. This was a sales deal. Someone had to show the potions off, be all Vanna White with them, pretend to like the crowd in order to persuade them to buy the many bottles I'd made, etc. This sucked. Hard.

  There was, however, only one reply, “Dare.”

  He raised his perfect, manly brow, and I barely prevented myself from flipping the shot on his too-white shirt and downed it instead.

  I waited for a moment and then the rush hit me hard and fast. I was ready for anything. I bounced up onto my toes and couldn’t quite keep myself from keeping the bounce going. The potion wouldn’t make me do something that I didn’t want to do. More it gave me the courage to do just about anything. Although, I had carefully worked it to ensure that it didn’t leave the taker helpless against something they knew not to do. I wasn’t about to run in front of a train because I’d been dared, but I might jump from the bridge over the lake into the water. One was survivable. One wasn’t. It was a brilliant piece of potion-making if I did say so myself.

  And I did. I loved to brew. I heard my cousin and roommate, Chrysie, gasp as I winked at Finn, waiting for whatever gauntlet he was going to throw down.

  “You know Devil’s Ridge?”

  I nodded.

  “Afraid to go there at night?”

  Gods no, I thought, my sister had dragged me everywhere in the middle of the night when we’d snuck out back home. I shrugged. If he was going to dare me to something that seemed scary to him, it was too bad if he failed to actually scare me. I could see he wanted to test me.

  And fine. Maybe it would make him leave me alone. But I doubted it. Not as long as the Talisman was inside of my house. I supposed for a normal teenager this would be terrifying. But I had been raised with a daredevil, and I worked out my inner madness by going for midnight runs.

  I shrugged again and glanced down. I was wearing a pair of shorter leggings, a black tank dress, and black All-stars. It would do.

  I knew what else he was doing. He was getting rid of me. The fool thought he could dare me to go off and have fun searching my panties drawer for the Talisman. Hecate save me from know-it-all idiots.

  “It’s haunted,” he said. “Climb it, find the ghost, send it through the thinning.”

  My eyes narrowed. Well that was different, wasn’t it? I wasn’t some trained necromancer. I mean…I was enrolled in Necromancy 101 at school and had to use the tutoring services the school provided. Most necromancers had received basic training from their families. Not me.

  None of my thoughts showed on my face. I had dispelled a ghost or two. Probably I could do this. Mostly, though, this dare let me go for a late night climb while Felix’s charm and Chrysie’s adorable shyness sold potions. We had quite the stash in the cabinet behind the bar and quite the stack of bills to pay. I shot Felix a commanding look and got the wink in return.

  There weren’t only bills. We had to feed a baby vampire. Chrysie had only been changed for a few weeks, and she hadn’t stopped eating in all of that time. She ate at the school—a lot—but it wasn’t enough. Even now she was popping something into her mouth.

  And, I reminded myself, I didn’t have to succeed at dispelling the ghost, I had to disappear and let the roomies do the rest of the work. No one would be checking up on what I did. Not while these sales were going down, and I was sure my potions would sell themselves after this.

  “First,” I said, “Truth.”

  And then I handed him the shot glass of truth serum, OJ, and theatrical magics. I waited, and I could see that he didn’t want to drink it. I don’t know why he thought he’d get away with daring me without payback, but he downed it as quickly as I had and shot me a glance.

  “Why are you here?”

  “The Talisman,” he replied without shame. “Among other things.”

  It was what I needed to know.

  “Martha,” I told my house, “take care of it.” Martha was the house. She was pretty much an individual in house form. If she knew where the Talisman was, and I knew she did, no one would be getting it tonight.

  And then because I was prideful, and I’d been dared, and I wasn’t having fun, I stepped out of the house and onto the grounds of my estate. The property ran straight into the Oak Grove that extended far beyond my property, through the town and onto the campus. And the Oak Grove bordered the ancient Hallow property where the cemetery of my family was, as well as the cypress grove that called to me even now. I was pretty sure the old Hallow property was mine legally as well. But it didn't matter since the Hallow Family Council was trying to steal all of that away too.

  None of which mattered in relation to the dare. I needed to focus as I darted to the edge of the property, bounded onto a lion statue and over the side of the iron fence with a push of magic to keep me afloat a little longer and higher than I could have managed without magic.

  I couldn’t help but think over the last few weeks. I’d come to school, realized my mother had been lying to me my whole life, fought off a necromancer who’d become possessed by a freaking legion of ghosts. We, my mother and I, had barely survived. And the necromancer and her legion of ghosts had been ended. That didn’t change the fact that generations of my family had been murdered by the creature.

  I could hear the echo of footfalls behind me and didn’t need to know that Finn had decided to ensure I followed through on my dare.

  Interesting. After all, I’d left the house wide open as far as he knew beyond my comment to my house, Martha. Or perhaps he realized that I’d bonded with the house and that nothing was going to happen there without my consent. Who knew?

  I was not a trained necromancer.

  He was.

  He was, in fact, Dr. Hallow’s assistant, a grad student, and Finn even taught some of the 101 classes. Thankfully not mine. I already had a hard enough time with things before I had the guy who led the team of keepers harassing me in class. Here’s the thing about the team of keepers. They were doing fine as far as I knew. Except for that massive, multi-generational murdering possessed necromancer.

  But, in the past, for supposedly always, the Keeper Team hadn't existed. They hadn’t needed to. That role had been filled by a member of the Hallow Family.

  Except, the multi-generational possessed evil bad had gone ahead and murdered my grandparents and then my great-aunt killing the two most recent official keepers. And in so doing, the murderer had spooked my mother who took off, leaving St. Angelus, the Hallow House, and the Hallow Family behind. And because my mother was something of a super-villain, she’d also locked down the Hallow House where the supernatural Talisman of the Keepers had supposedly been left behind.

  The Hallow kid who had caught the murderer of her line. The murderer, Mandi—who knew her real name—had faced and defeated my Great Uncle Dominque the last Keeper of the Talisman. And my grandparents before her. And who knew how many necromancers since then.

  I hadn’t won because I was the super-necromancer. I’d won because Mandi had injured my mother, set me alight with fury, and then had the gall to set up in the Hallow Cemetery. It had been a long while since any Hallow had bothered to bond with the ghosts there. I, however, had fled to that cemetery in the days before I faced off with Mandi and the help my kindred dead gave me was enough to save my life and get rid of Mandi.

  I wasn’t talented.

  I was lucky.

  Stupid, stupid lucky.

  Devil’s Ridge was on the opposite side of the campus. It was a rock really. But there was also a steep switchback trail that led to
a summit. I took off running, making Finn work for his stalking. The path around the lake was about a mile. I wasn’t track team fast, but I was faster than the average runner.

  I let the pounding of my feet against the pavement, the feel of the wind on my face, and the caress of the moonlight against my skin fill me with joy despite my worries and I pushed faster. I wanted to feel the burn in my legs and in my lungs. I wanted it to hurt. Devil’s Ridge was ahead, and I used my magic to push faster. I didn’t want Finn to see me fumble at getting rid of the ghost.

  I was, at least, going to try. I was basing my goals off of the hope that Finn wouldn’t tell me to get rid of an innocent ghost. It must be one who was sending ripples of darkness through the ether that made him feel like it had to go.

  Right?

  Hecate’s eyes, I hoped so. I didn’t see the point of shoving ghosts back to the world of the dead if they weren’t doing anything to make them dangerous. I’d read enough of my textbooks to know many necromancers didn’t feel the same. There were whole lines of thought and theory on the subject.

  Supposedly all ghosts did things to engender emotion—like terrorize the living. I had zero problem with shoving those back to through the thinning. But there was a story of a ghost who haunted the Paris Opera House. It lived by snacking on the littlest bits of joy and wonder of the patrons. I didn’t see how that was that much worse than eating a burger.

  In fact, now I wanted a burger. With bacon, cheese, more cheese and avocado. Felix and Chrysie better be selling so many of the potions it was ridiculous. We needed to be able to do crazy things like stock up our pantry. And get the occasional burger.

  There was, of course, some cash in the house. The Hallow family had been quite wealthy. There was a lot of it. But I wasn’t sure about things like property taxes and other grown-up type things.

  The entrance to the switch-back trail was only feet ahead. I knew it was there more with my witch senses rather than my eyes. It was dark. It was, in fact, far darker than it should have been. Rather than making the leap I was planning, I stopped and cocked my head to examine what I was seeing.