The Deadening

by Yvonne Heidt

  Shade thought nothing of cutting people to pieces with her sarcasm. If that didn’t make them leave her alone, she readily shared what it was she did for a living. The gruesome title of Necromancer ensured most people would give her a wide berth. She liked it that way.

  As she approached the desk by the window, the woman’s energy signature grew stronger with each step. This wasn’t just anyone off the street; the new hire possessed power of her own.

  She heard the flurry of beating wings from somewhere above her and stopped. The air shifted and stilled, but the receptionist didn’t appear to notice the disturbance.

  Shade mentally filed the sign away. She might as well set the tone right away and assert how she liked things done at work, the quicker the better. Shade approached quietly so as not to draw attention to herself, and tapped her fingers on the large desk. She smiled when the girl startled. “I’m Shade. Are there any messages for me?”

  “Oh, you scared me! I’ve been waiting for you to show up.”

  Shade was distracted by her striking looks, and more than a bit disarmed by her big smile. It wasn’t a normal, how-do-you-do-smile—it was full of sultry recognition. Her mind raced to fill in the blank when the woman stood up to come around the desk. “Sorry I left in a hurry this morning. I didn’t want to be late on my first day.”

  Shade’s feet felt frozen to the floor as the woman hugged her and she was enveloped in the tantalizing mystery scent that filled her bedroom that morning. “Um…”

  The woman pulled away and looked at Shade, her nostrils flared slightly, and temper fired in her eyes. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Uh oh. She thought of the beating wings and took a leap. “Raven, right?”

  *

  Raven answered three phone calls and hung up on a crank caller before she had a chance to process how Shade leaving so abruptly affected her. She’d had high expectations this morning, and every one of them had been crushed with Shade’s shocked utterance of her name as a question.

  Raven, right?

  The absolute look of horror on Shade’s face when Raven stepped away flustered her. What was that about?

  Raven had been at a table with her cousin Lyric when Shade entered and sat at the bar. What were the odds that the object of her passion would come into the same place Raven was celebrating becoming an adult? She’d considered it a sign. She and Lyric decided to split up, and Raven tried to gather more confidence; the feeling of butterflies low in her belly only made her more nervous. Finally, after managing a quick internal spell, she found the courage to take the stool next to her. Shade’s dark, enigmatic energy swirled and danced with her own earth magic, creating a level of sexual tension Raven had never reached before.

  The bar had been giving her free drinks to celebrate her twenty-first birthday, and she’d been a little drunk herself, but she’d no idea Shade was so inebriated she wouldn’t remember who she took home.

  So much for signs and feeling special and unique.

  Shade’s energy still echoed through her and hummed along Raven’s skin. It was better than she’d imagined over the years. As she thought back to the first time she’d met her, she recognized the exact moment the seed of fate had been planted. Raven had never forgotten the rush of power she’d felt that day.

  She’d been nearly twelve, and had run to answer a knock on the front door. She’d heard her mother’s pounding footsteps in the hall behind her before Raven was ordered to stop, and it was her mother who answered the door.

  Shade had walked in wearing a long, leather trench coat, her hair the color of midnight and chopped into different lengths and spikes. She was fascinating, but it was her eyes that drew Raven in. Dark, rimmed with black eyeliner, they almost looked too big over her sharp cheekbones, and they appeared fathomless, like Cleopatra’s, whom they were studying in history class.

  Raven had felt her power sizzle in the air around her, electrifying the tiny hairs on her arms. In contrast, her mother’s body language was stiff and controlled. She greeted the stranger respectfully by her title, Necromancer, then by name, Shade.

  Even then, Raven had recognized the thrill that rushed through her along with a tiny prickle of fear.

  Her mother had ejected her from the room, but she promptly hid in the hall to listen through the wall in their old house. Shade had come to discuss a spell that would bring someone named Sunny back to her. Raven heard her mother’s warning of backlash, and if she loved this woman, she would let her go.

  The rest of the conversation between Shade and her mother was lost to her over the years, but she’d never forget the vow she’d made to herself.

  Shade had been on her way out the door when she’d locked eyes with her. Raven couldn’t look away from the painful fire behind her gaze, so she’d continued to look back, turned it into an old-fashioned staring contest. Finally, the corner of Shade’s mouth twitched, and she winked at her before she’d left.

  I’m going to marry her one day.

  Even at that young age, she’d felt the certainty of the promise. Raven’s heart pounded in her chest long after the front door closed behind Shade.

  But right alongside what she’d deemed a moment of fate, was the warning her mother spoke that afternoon.

  “Never tangle with a necromancer, mija. They walk a hard life with one foot here, in this world, and the other in the land of the dead. Nothing but darkness surrounds them. Heartache is a way of life, and no one ever loves them enough to stay.”

  Raven held that moment in stasis. She’d known the only course for her was to wait. Even at eleven and a half, she’d known.

  As she grew older, she worked in the family’s metaphysical store, Whispering Winds. Her sister, Lark, ran the online sales; her brother, Hawk Jr., marketing; and her mother the spells, rituals, and candles. Her oldest sister, Starling, married and moved away, but was still involved in merchandising, making charms and talismans. Raven usually worked in purchasing, keeping their elusive vendors up-to-date, and buying rare supplies from places that would never be found on any of the Internet search sites.

  Shade came into the store occasionally, but if her mother noticed her entering, she sent Raven off to do something else. Regardless of how frustrated that made her, she knew her future rested with Shade.

  As Raven got older, and her cousins and siblings were dating members of the opposite sex, she held herself apart. She hadn’t met anyone she wanted to get close to.

  Once, when she was sixteen, she’d bent under peer pressure and accepted a date from a boy in high school. Everything about the evening felt wrong. Raven rarely did anything she didn’t want to, and after a short dinner, she’d had him drop her off at Whispering Winds.

  Shade had been walking out the door with a bag under her arm. She’d nodded slightly as she passed. Raven had stood in the middle of the sidewalk and watched Shade get in her car and drive away. She’d been sure that was a sign as well.

  The phone rang, and Raven came back to the present. “Good afternoon, this is SOS. How may I help you?” She raised an eyebrow when she heard the whispered reply.

  “I see dead people!”

  “Really?” Raven grinned when she heard muffled giggling. “Me too,” she whispered back dramatically. “And just so you know—my dead people can kick your dead people’s butts.” She chuckled when the line immediately disconnected.

  She didn’t have time to sift through her memories or continue to reminisce. She picked up the receiver before it rang. “Hello, Lyric.”

  “How did it go when Shade got to the office? Was she worth waiting for all those years?”

  “It was wonderful,” Raven said. “But when she got here she didn’t remember taking me home. She dismissed me, then walked out.”

  “Ouch.” Lyric drew the word out into three syllables.

  “Right?” Raven hated the gathering tears.

  “Well, maybe it’s because you were in a work situation.”

  Raven looked out the window and noticed
it was raining again. “Maybe.”

  “Good thing I have a distraction for you then,” Lyric said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s a DJ party at one of the new clubs downtown tonight. You can ride with me.”

  “We went out last night. I don’t think—”

  “We’re young, sexy as hell, and single. I’m not taking no for an answer. We can sleep when we’re dead.”

  Raven knew that to change Lyric’s mind would involve a long argument. She was too tired to engage, not to mention it was her first day at work, and she didn’t want to seem like she was loafing.

  “Fine, I’ll go with you. Bye.” She could think of a good excuse between now and then.

  *

  What the fuck had she done?

  Shade ran out of the building as if three banshees from hell were following. And if Juanita, Raven’s mother, found out that Shade had slept with Raven? It might be one of the nicer consequences.

  After she pulled back into her driveway, she realized she had the balled up pink messages in her lap. She unwrinkled the first to find she hadn’t had to go into the office after all.

  Seth had cancelled his appointment to reach his great-great-dead uncle. Just as well, she thought. He was creepy. His uncle times-two had died in an airplane crash, and those sessions were never pretty. And they sure as hell weren’t the first thing she wanted to deal with after drinking so much tequila last night.

  With Raven.

  Shade’s head hurt. It was like trying to think with oatmeal stuffed into her brain. She had no business even thinking about Raven in that way. When had she grown out of her ponytails?

  How could she do something so stupid? It was a good thing she left the building. If she’d stayed too long, Sunny would hover, asking questions about how Shade was doing, asking if she could help. It was a nice and civilized way for her to let Shade know Sunny was on to her and knew what she was doing in her off hours. It was becoming increasingly difficult to evade her. If she were honest, she held more than a trace of resentment over the fact that Sunny chose Jordan over her. It was small of her, she knew, but she couldn’t help how she felt. Besides, Sunny would perceive in a second what happened between Shade and Raven.

  Shade cringed. Just how pathetic and needy was she? Forever wanting to be with someone who couldn’t—wouldn’t—be with her. Not because Sunny didn’t love her, she knew she did, but because loving Shade had made her miserable.

  She should probably talk to Tiffany and get some help, but there was no way she would bother her with it. The last several weeks had been horrific for all of them, and she wouldn’t load her with anything else.

  And damn, she’d never been prouder of Tiffany. The sister they thought needed the most protection of all, had avenged herself and several other murder victims with one swing of a baseball bat. Shade wasn’t sorry Mark was dead. When Tiffany had been taken prisoner, Shade thought she might literally explode with rage. She didn’t know how her body had contained it all, and she couldn’t help but wish she’d been the one to wield the bat. Tiffany was sensitive, and none of them knew how it could affect her psychologically or spiritually in the future, even though she appeared to be dealing with it just fine at the moment.

  The whole past life thing she vaguely remembered being a part of was fucking cool, but thinking about Mark reminded her of Beenie, the woman she’d been with who had been paid to set Shade up so motherfucking Mark could hit her in the head with a pipe. She hoped Beenie had enough drugs to keep her hidden for a while, because Shade was going to find her.

  Sooner or later.

  Great. The adrenaline releasing with her anger was causing her head to pound. She got out of the van and went into her dim house, where the drapes always stayed closed.

  She made a beeline down the hall to the master bathroom. She leaned on the counter for a moment and looked in the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot and belied the fact she’d been relaxed and feeling excellent this morning. Her reflection was proof she was back in familiar territory, stressed out, hating herself, and balled up with tension.

  She could fix that—temporarily. Shade reached for the orange prescription bottle she’d had refilled the previous day and shook out two oval yellow pills. After Mark had bashed her head in, the doctor had no problem prescribing them for her headaches. In addition to relieving the migraines, Shade had fallen in love with the way they made her feel.

  From experience, she knew twenty minutes or so after swallowing them, a little burst of sunshine would flow through her bloodstream, filling her with hope and a rush of happy feelings. The effects were utterly foreign to her usual nature, and oh, so welcome.

  She felt as if she could accomplish anything put in front of her. Even better, the dead quieted down. They didn’t disappear entirely, but they were much easier to ignore, as if the volume had been turned way down on a loud stereo that had been playing full blast since she was a child.

  Shade was aware her problems weren’t going away, and that the drug-induced feelings were an illusion. But the peace she found far outweighed the possibility of becoming dependent on the pills.

  Shade dry swallowed the two in her hand, and with only a moment’s hesitation, shook another one out of the bottle and popped it in her mouth as well, before heading into the kitchen to grab a beer to chase them with.

  That third pill just might squelch the anxiety she felt about sleeping with Juanita’s daughter.

  Maybe.

  After getting a cold one, she flopped in her recliner, tipped her bottle in a toast to the dead musician staring at her from the corner, and turned on the television. She flipped through the channels and stopped on the show about a forensic anthropologist who read bones.

  She could totally relate. Except, of course, the bones Shade talked to—talked back.

  *

  At ten to five, Raven saw Jordan come around the corner of the hallway just as Sunny was descending the stairs.

  They met in perfect unison at the front of her desk.

  “Hey, she lasted the whole day.” Jordan chuckled. “Major points for that, by the way.” She smiled at Raven. “I didn’t hear any screams.”

  “It was great.” Raven returned the smile. “Sunny, here are your messages.”

  Raven hoped the blast of cold air she felt was a stray breeze and not from Sunny. She really wanted this job.

  “Thank you.” She read the one on the top of the stack. “Oh, damn. It’s Layla, for the Bristol Terrace investigation.” Sunny shook her head.

  “It’s not like we weren’t caught up in a serial murder case or anything,” Jordan said. “She’ll understand we need to reschedule.”

  “Can I go too?” Raven asked.

  Sunny looked up from her message. “Have you done an investigation before?”

  Raven stared at her blue eye, then her green one. Sunny’s gaze was intense and probing. Raven smiled inwardly and tightened her mental blocks, but not before pushing back slightly.

  Sunny tipped her head. “Very good,” she said.

  “Are you kidding?” Raven asked. “On Dia de Los Muertos? All of our dead relatives officially show up for three days once a year, but in reality, they’re always hanging around.”

  “We’ll see,” Sunny said. “We’ll have a few cases between now and that one, and you can familiarize yourself with our routines during an investigation.”

  “Seriously?” Raven couldn’t hide her wide smile or the excitement from her voice. How awesome was it that she joined a paranormal society that included a ghost hunting team?

  She silently thanked Aura once more for the opportunity to work here, but Shade’s rejection still stung, dampening her enthusiasm. The second Raven thought of it, she watched Sunny’s eyebrows rise, as if she’d read her mind, and had questions.

  Jordan also appeared to have noticed it and put her arm around Sunny’s shoulder. “Time to go, babe.” She steered Sunny toward the front door, which she held open for her
. “See you, Raven.”

  “Bye.” Raven was sure she discerned a pinch of jealous energy from Sunny. As far as she was concerned, Sunny had no right to be. She’d been the one to throw Shade and her darkness away years ago.

  Shade’s demons didn’t scare Raven one bit. She had a few of her own.

  Chapter Two

  Shade leaned against the back wall of the club and watched the people gyrate on the dance floor. She’d thought about staying home, but habit drove her out of the house. She’d also received a personal invitation from the new owner. Tara was one of the few girls she’d gone out with more than once, and they’d remained friends over the years. How could she resist a club named The Devil’s Divas? The hard rock music settled in her chest, and her heart beat rhythmically right along with it. Loud music, alcohol, and beautiful girls. There was little chance she would leave alone tonight.

  She had already made nice with Tara’s new wife, and was on her second drink when Raven walked in the door arm in arm with another woman. Shade tracked her path over to the bar, while she talked with her date. The sharp twist in her gut rattled her. Was it jealousy or anxiety? She couldn’t decide.

  Neither was acceptable.

  Awesome. Now she needed a distraction from her distraction.

  She deliberately looked away, back to the dancers. Not more than four feet away from where she stood, a woman made eye contact with her as she danced with a group of women. Shade let her gaze travel from her face to her breasts, and down to her bare legs and the killer red high heels. The woman smiled at her, licked her forefinger, and ran the tip of it down her neck and between her cleavage.

  Blatant. Shade liked that. She blinked slowly then nodded. The twinge she felt this time was much better. Cleaner, without any kind of problems attached, and no need to fake small talk.

  How the hell had she gone home last night with Raven anyway? And at the intrusion of her name, Shade’s jaw tensed, and she sought her out again.