How to Save an Undead Life (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 1)

by Hailey Edwards

  “Call if you need me.” I checked to make sure my cell was fully charged. “I promise I’ll come straight home tonight. No pit stops.”

  The phone in my hand blared Miranda Lambert’s “The House That Built Me,” and my heart cracked open wider. She didn’t want me to go. For once, her paranoia was founded. But that didn’t change the fact that I couldn’t hole up here forever. We needed money to keep the power on and the pantry stocked. And though I would never say so to her, Dame Lawson had proven I was no safer here than I was out in the wide world.

  “I’ll start making inquiries, see if I can’t find someone willing to help me repair the foundation.” Odette was my best bet. Others would ask more of me than I could give. “Just sit tight.”

  The old house creaked a pitiful sound that stoked the fire smoldering in my belly.

  “Everything is going to be okay,” I promised her, and I hoped it wasn’t a lie.

  Leaving her unguarded made me feel just as helpless and alone as Dame Lawson had no doubt intended.

  The ride to work blurred, and the tours dragged into eternity. Tips were low, more salt in the wound. I couldn’t blame my victims, though. Tonight my heart wasn’t in spooking people, not when I had been so thoroughly spooked myself, and it showed. On my way out the door, I paused to beg a favor of Neely then cut a path through the gloomy parking lot.

  I pulled up short when I noticed a man inspecting Jolene with a covetous eye. No, not a man. A vampire. The one whose warning had come too late. “Not you again.”

  “I had one of these once.” His pale fingers stroked the leather seat. “A long time ago.”

  “Good for you.” I jingled my keys in my palm. “Step aside.” I wasn’t about to get close to him while I was defenseless. “I need to get home.”

  “Have you given any more thought to what we discussed?” He glanced up, quicksilver eyes flashing. “You seem like a nice girl, and I don’t like breaking pretty things.”

  “That escalated quickly.” I balled my fists to hide their trembling. “Is this a three strikes, you’re out kind of a deal?”

  “You received an invitation.” He sidestepped answering me. “Are you going to accept?”

  As well-informed as he appeared to be, I didn’t see the harm in telling him the truth. “I don’t have much choice.”

  “The inauguration is in two days.” He scuffed a black cowboy boot on the pavement. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours to decide if my master sends you a car and driver or if he sends me instead.”

  “Clan Volkov has offered me an alliance with their heritor.” The thin bluff was all the protection I could muster. “Danill won’t be pleased to hear another clan is threatening an interest of his.”

  The vampire smiled, fangs on display. “I can hear your mother in your voice.”

  The barb struck home. “How do you know my mother?”

  “There are a lot of things I know about you, Grier. Maybe I’ll tell you a few of them sometime.” He tipped the brim of an imaginary hat and strolled across the lot into the shadows. “Night, ma’am.”

  Wait.

  I had to snap my jaw shut to keep the word from escaping, but my arm shot out all on its own, fingers curling with the urge to call him back. It was a trick. It had to be. Mom had no family left, and Maud and Odette were the only friends she had mentioned. This male was a predator, and he read in me a weakness he could exploit. That was all.

  I climbed on Jolene and sped away before curiosity got the better of me.

  Woolly gusted a sigh of relief in the form of rattling floor registers when I walked through the front door.

  “All’s well?” I padded to the empty birdcage and stared at the swing like that might bring Keet back. “No trouble while I was gone?”

  The floorboards groaned a nervous affirmation.

  “I’m going to walk the perimeter.” I pocketed the bottle of ink and the brush just in case. “I want to get another look at things before I call it a day.”

  The front door stuck a bit on my way out, but she let me go. Three hours later, dawn was a pink smudge on the horizon, and I was still clearing away the brittle vines and lichen covering the foundation to better see the etched sigils when the gate creaked behind me.

  “What are you doing out here?” Amelie drifted closer. “I figured you’d be in bed by now.”

  “Not that I mind you skulking through my yard at dawn when you think I’m asleep—” I grunted as I stood “—but do I get to know the reason?”

  “Boaz.” She hiccupped a sob. “He’s been drafted.”

  “Drafted.” The word, so unexpected, stumped me. Try as I might, I couldn’t draw a straight line between that word and his name. “But he’s already in the army.”

  “No, not the army.” She wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “The sentinels.”

  Cold sweat beaded down my spine as memories of black-clad enforcers prowling darkened hallways surfaced. Batons in hand, they’d clanged the metal rods against the bars, against fingers, often breaking them, when inmates woke from their stupors long enough to plead for mercy that was never granted.

  “They draft from the Low Society to fill their ranks, but he was passed over when he was eighteen.” Crossing to me in a daze, she rested her head on my shoulder, and I wrapped my arms around her. “We thought he was safe.”

  “Until he came home fully trained,” I finished for her, a shudder in my breath.

  I ought to be used to fate kicking me when I was down, but this… I just got Boaz back. I didn’t want to lose him again so soon.

  “Mom got a letter a few days ago. I brought it to her while she was dusting, and she broke the crystal bowl Gran got her as a wedding gift. It slipped through her fingers while she read.” As the matron of their family, the news would have gone to her and not him. “Turns out Boaz wasn’t given leave. He was discharged. The paperwork got pushed through right after he left. He didn’t believe it until he called his commander to verify.”

  The Society had ended his career with a letter, and he would despise them for that. Like he needed another reason.

  “They won’t station him at Atramentous,” she said, like that made this any better. “He protested when you were taken. He was arrested twice. Bet he didn’t tell you that.” She gave a watery laugh. “He was on a watch list for a while. That’s why our folks encouraged him to join the army. They wanted him as far away from the Society as possible.”

  “That idiot,” I murmured against her hair, my heart swelling.

  “He really is.” She sniffled. “But he’s an asset, and they’re willing to overlook his record.”

  I bit my lip to keep from asking again what exactly the army had had him doing, but she wouldn’t rat him out, and he wasn’t ready to share.

  “What do your parents think?” I held her at arm’s length. “Can your mom…?”

  “No.” Her bottom lip trembled. “She told us tonight she’s been fighting it for the past two years, since before he re-upped. She thought that might keep him out of their clutches, but it’s no use. Dad has a sterling service record, and Boaz followed in his footsteps. You know how big the Society is on bloodlines. They expect families to stay pigeonholed.”

  “Plus, he can’t cause them trouble if he’s somewhere they can monitor him.”

  Amelie went quiet, and again I wondered what I was missing.

  As much as I had looked forward to spilling my guts when she got home, I couldn’t dump my problems on top of hers while she was one sob away from shattering. My troubles would keep for another day.

  “Want me to walk you home?” I dusted off my knees and my hands. “I can regale you with tales from the tours you missed, including that goth bridal shower.” I didn’t wait for an answer but flung my arm around her shoulders and aimed us toward her house. “I had to confiscate a dead pigeon from the maid of honor. I don’t know where she got it. I didn’t ask. All I could think was I didn’t want to witness her biting its head off or worse.”<
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  She leaned her head against mine. “I always miss the good stuff.”

  I escorted her home, and she stole another hug before vanishing inside the house.

  “Grier,” a weathered voice rasped. “Do you have a minute?”

  “Mr. Pritchard.” I whirled toward the driveway and the older man standing there. “Hi.”

  “Amelie told you the news.” His sigh conveyed his thoughts on the draft. “We worried this day might come. Boaz is a good man, a good soldier, but he’s reckless and pigheaded and bighearted too. It’s a dangerous combination.”

  Unsure what response he wanted from me, I stood there and listened while he vented.

  “They’re going to send him away. There are no prisons near here that require his…specialty.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “You three have always been as thick as thieves, and I know this is going to be hard on Amelie and on you.”

  “Yes, sir.” On that we agreed. “Boaz is one of my best friends. I’ll miss him.”

  “I’m glad to hear you call him a friend, that things haven’t…” he coughed once into his fist, “…progressed.”

  Oh, to be a specter and able to turn invisible at will.

  “We only have to look as far as your house to find him these days.” He spread the fingers of one hand. “I just don’t want to see either of you get hurt. Long-distance relationships are hard. You can ask his mother about that. She didn’t see much of me for the first three years of our marriage. I came home a stranger to a stranger. We had grown up, grown apart, and it took a dedicated effort on our part to mend our relationship.”

  Theirs had been an arranged marriage, one of the few good matches I could name, but that left them no choice except to mend those bridges. Divorces were taboo among Society members. Lifetime estrangement from spouses were far more common, and the details much juicier besides.

  A cold stone dropped into my stomach. “I see.”

  “Me too,” Boaz drawled from behind me. “Thanks for the pep talk, Dad. Grier and I can take this from here.”

  Father and son entered a staring contest over my head, and I got the feeling Mr. Pritchard lost since he backed down first. Turning on his heel, he marched into the house with a stiff set to his shoulders. The class divide had kept the Pritchards from embracing me as they had Amelie’s other friends. Factor in my raging crush on Boaz, an attachment Maud had been willing to humor so long as it wasn’t reciprocal, and I got how they might have viewed me as a ticking time bomb of teenage hormones.

  It just sucked they were apparently still waiting for me to go boom.

  “Walk you home?” He offered his arm like a gentleman. “I could use the exercise after being cooped up in a car all night.” I hooked my arm through his but kept a respectable distance between us. After we crossed the property line, he murmured, “So.”

  “So,” I said in agreement. “When do you leave?” I forced myself not to haul him closer to prove he was still here. “Did they give you an estimate or…?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “Two weeks.”

  “Is there an echo out here?” He jabbed me in the ribs. “Stop feeding me my words and dish out some of your own.”

  “You want the truth?” Asking was a formality. I already knew his answer.

  “Always.”

  “I hate that you’re leaving. I wish you could stay. I don’t want you to go.”

  “You’re going to make me blush.” He tugged me closer until our sides were flush. “If I’d known the draft was what it took to win you over, I would have volunteered a long time ago.”

  “Liar.” I snorted a laugh. “You keep trying to twist things around, but I’m the one who nursed a crush for like ten years. You probably wouldn’t have noticed I was gone if I hadn’t sprouted boobs there at the end.”

  “That’s not true. What happened to you—” The muscles in his arm tightened beneath my hand. “Forget I said anything. I know you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m getting there.” For the first time, it felt like that might not be a lie. “You better get back before your dad sends out a rescue party.” I unlinked our arms. “Try not to be too hard on him, okay?”

  “The old coot is trying to scare you off,” he said, incredulous. “That is not okay.”

  “He’s got a point.” As much as I hated to see the hurt flash in Boaz’s eyes, there was no denying that. “I can’t leave Woolly, and you can’t stay. Army or the sentinels, you have to leave either way.”

  After all these years of pining after him, I wasn’t sure I had much more patience left in me.

  I was done waiting for my life to start. I wanted to live while I could in case this taste of freedom soured.

  “I hate when you use logic against me.” Quick as a flash, he stole a kiss from me, just a brush of his lips that set mine tingling. “Good thing I’m too stubborn for that nonsense to stick.”

  “Y-you kissed me,” I stammered.

  “That’s not a kiss.” His knuckles scored a line down my cheek. “However, I am willing to demonstrate the proper method. With tongue.”

  My very first kiss, and from the glint in his eyes, he knew it too. Jerk. Yet he claimed he didn’t count. Fine. Neither would I.

  “Go home, Boaz.” I shoved him back with a palm to his chest. “Next time, keep your lips to yourself.”

  “What fun would that be?” His cocky grin resurfaced. “You taste like cinnamon.”

  “And you taste like the breath mint you popped knowing you were going to put the moves on me.”

  “Ouch.” He clutched his chest. “You wound me. Can’t a man be both minty fresh and spontaneous with his affection?”

  “Buh-bye.”

  I waved him off and headed inside the house. The empty birdcage stood in the corner of the living room like an accusation. Keet hadn’t been with us long this time, but his absence radiated through the silent room stained with a psychic oil spill from where the wraith had lingered while he left his message.

  There was nothing left but to wait out the inauguration. When the bird poop would really hit the fan.

  Six

  Cinderella was never going to be my favorite fairy tale. That whole scrubbing until your fingers pruned and blistered did not appeal. But, as dry and cracked as my hands were from all the rubbing, digging and scraping around Woolly’s foundation, I glowed with a sense of accomplishment. I had been lacking a purpose since my return, besides the daily grind of survival, but it seemed I’d found a project to occupy me.

  Woolly was getting a defensive overhaul. All I needed was a smidgen of guidance to get me started.

  But a visit to Odette would have to wait. I had more pressing obligations this fine Monday night. As in, I planned to press Volkov for every scrap of information he could give me on my stalker. Who he might be, what he might want, what master pulled his strings. And how Mom fit into his equation.

  With Amelie’s help, I had dressed to thrill in a swishy sundress I hoped would win me points with Volkov. Figurative ones. Not fangs. She had piled my hair on top of my head in a half twist that left tendrils framing my face. A few deft strokes of concealer hid the bags growing darker under my eyes, and the gloss she swiped over my lips plumped what little I had to work with in that department. The matching ballet flats kept the look casual, but I hadn’t been this done up in ages outside of work, and it felt good to be both girly and able to breathe at the same time.

  I spun out the front door, humming a popular country song, and smacked into a wall of vampire.

  “Oof” didn’t sound sexy, no matter how dolled up you were.

  “I thought we agreed to meet at the fountain.” As per his texted instructions. I scooted forward and pulled the door shut behind me, not that it would stop Woolly if she wanted to invite him in later. “Did I misunderstand?”

  “I was in the neighborhood and…” The obvious lie caused his lips to curve with amusement when he noticed my budding scowl. “Perhaps it i
s more honest to say I made certain I was in the neighborhood.”

  A sleek black car awaited us at the end of my driveway, and the same thin male dressed in a black suit held open the rear passenger door. His jaunty chauffer’s hat made me grin. “Ma’am.”

  “Fancy,” I teased Volkov, who shrugged as though his wealth and my perception of it didn’t bother him.

  A male comfortable in his own skin. I admired that. Particularly since his skin was built to weather eternity.

  I ducked inside and breathed in the new-leather smell. Forget eternal life, this right here was a perk worth not-dying for.

  Volkov joined me, and I realized my mistake. His scent drifted around me, much more potent in an enclosed space, and my gut clenched. I was eyeballing the bench seat and wondering if he had ever gotten friendly with a “just friend” back here, when he scooted until our thighs brushed and put his arm behind me.

  At my side, I gave the bangle a subtle shake like it was a glow stick in need of activating.

  “Where does the tour begin?” His fingertips toyed with my shoulder, and he released a contented sigh as the car pulled out into traffic.

  The more he relaxed, the tighter I wound until I couldn’t stop my leg from bouncing. “This isn’t a date, is it?”

  “Do you want it to be?” he flung back at me.

  Do you want to date the nice vampire would eventually segue into Do you want to feed the nice vampire, and the answer was, “No.”

  “Then we will remain friends.” He frowned down at our proximity and gave his head a little shake. “My apologies.” His fingers circled my wrist, his thumb stroking the skin, the veins, under the bangle. “The sight of blood arouses.” A growl roughened his voice. “The sight of you wearing mine…” He loosened his fingers one by one, as if the effort cost him, and rested his palm flat on his thigh. “I was unprepared for the effect.”

  “It’s fine.” I tried not to think about how we still pressed together from hip to knee. At least now my stomach had settled. “How about we get things started?” I swallowed my nerves and donned my tour-guide persona. “I can’t say I’ve narrated a driving tour, but I’m sure I can manage.” I twisted a bit to give myself a few precious inches of breathing room and picked the first landmark I recognized. “See that pub? It’s a favorite of all the locals. You don’t find too many tourists there. Too smoky, too loud and too wild on ladies’ night.”