Until then, keep reading for the first chapter of Grave Promise: How to Be a Necromancer Book 1!
Chapter 1
In a silent basement room, a well-dressed corpse lay, hands folded on his chest, waiting for his final family gathering before the long solitude of the grave.
I looked down into his pale face—familiar and foreign in the way of old family photos—and dabbed more blush onto his cheeks.
It was a good face, heavy with laugh lines. Even with his eyes glued and his jaw wired shut for the open casket funeral, he had the look of a trickster. Like at any moment he’d sit up, announce it was all an elaborate prank, and ask me to pull his finger.
The fact most of his organs had been removed made that unlikely but, considering his family history, not entirely out of the question.
I never met Great-Uncle Ptolemy but, from what I’ve been told, if I had, he probably would have flattered me into buying him alcohol and then done something to get himself banned from whatever establishment had the misfortune of hosting us. Since he was an old-fashioned eccentric and a lush, I regretted never having met him only for the hell we might have raised together.
Looking down at him lying on the table in the prep room of the Rosenfield Funeral Home as I touched up his makeup for his last public appearance, I felt sorry for him. Aunt Persephona told me once that he had a touch of the gift in him. Not enough to do anything but just enough to make him open to the influence of the other world. According to her, it had driven him a little wacky.
That certainly seemed to be the case. Though he’d been pushing eighty, he hadn’t managed to put together a proper will. Yet he had left strict instructions he was to be buried barefoot, wearing his favorite bow tie. It was rainbow, with a staring plastic eyeball in the center. I straightened it with a grimace. I hadn’t seen anything that tacky since my first stumbling attempts into counterculture fashion back in middle school. I’d grown out of my Tripp pants and ironically pop culture accessories. Uncle Ptolemy apparently had not.
But then, discovering you had real, dangerous power over death itself can do a lot to make a person lose their sense of whimsy.
I adjusted the foundation on Ptolemy’s forehead with an artist’s care, but my mind wandered, reaching out for the senses that lingered outside the edge of normal perception. Death hung in the room, in a way that wasn’t so much feeling as it was a parasympathetic response in the vagus nerve to something less tangible. I was aware in a very particular way of not just Uncle Ptolemy on the table in front of me but also the four bodies waiting in the mortuary refrigerators along the wall.
The best way to describe it? A low chime so quick you barely heard it . . . but always present. When my work took me to graveyards, I was surrounded by a constant murmuring wind chime chorus, glittering faintly like the stars on a clear night. And in Ptolemy himself, so close at hand, I noticed something else—an emptiness yawning open, waiting to be filled. I bit my lip, considering. It had been a while since I’d siphoned any power. If I let it continue to build up, it would become an uncomfortable pressure and eventually difficult to control. And who better to use my powers on than Ptolemy, who was in a unique position to understand my predicament?
“Just about done there, Vexa?”
My boss, Mr. Gould, stepped into the prep room with his customary caution. He had a way of moving like an anxious deer, slow and quiet, waiting to be spooked. Or, more accurately, wanting to avoid spooking his customers. One of the first things I learned working here was never to move too fast or make too much noise. Startling the bereaved was likely to lead to emotional outbursts no one wanted to deal with.
“Just about,” I replied, checking Uncle Ptolemy over one last time before shutting my makeup case. So much for my plan. Maybe later. “Are we all ready to go out there?”
“The first of the guests are already in the lobby,” Gould replied, stepping closer to check my work. “He was one of yours, wasn’t he? Related to you, I mean?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed, taking off my apron and smoothing my dress, checking to make sure I hadn’t spilled anything. “This is the first time I’ve had to prep a relative.”
There was a mirror over the prep table to help with preparing the body, and I adjusted it to look at myself. The sleek, black cotton dress was both formal and practical, tea-length with long sleeves and a white Peter Pan collar and cuffs. Simple and elegant, it was one of my favorites for working in. I checked my long, blond hair, letting it out of the ponytail I’d put it in while I worked and arranged my bangs properly. The color was natural, but I had to straighten it meticulously every morning to get that waterfall Morticia Addams effect . . . if Morticia had been a blonde.
“Are you all right?” Gould asked with a sympathetic frown he’d probably practiced in a mirror, unless he’d been born with it on his dour, mustachioed face, looking like an undertaker.
“Oh yeah, it’s no big deal,” I assured him, checking my matte-black acrylic nails. “I didn’t know Great-Uncle Ptolemy. He was Great-Aunt Persephona’s brother, but they’d been out of touch for a while. And yes, before you ask, my whole family does have names like that—Tzarnavaras family tradition.”
“Is that how you ended up with . . .?” Gould trailed off, unsure if it was passé to bring up my full name.
“Vexatious?” I finished for him, busy fixing my earrings of simple black crosses. “Yeah. My parents wanted to carry on the tradition but didn’t feel like doing the research I guess, so they just picked something that sounded nice without checking what it meant. You won’t be able to ask them about the logic of that decision because my uncle and my parents rarely acknowledge each other’s presence. They won’t even be here for the ceremony.”
“Well, it does seem to suit you, anyway,” Gould said, trying to be nice.
I cast a sardonic smile in his direction. “Careful,” I warned him. “Some people would take that as an insult.”
He realized his mistake and fumbled to apologize, but I laughed him off.
“Are we ready to wheel Ptolemy out?” I asked.
“Yes, but I’ll take care of that,” Gould said, straightening his suit, relieved to have left the subject behind. “I need you to go up to the office. Apparently, there’s another issue with the estate and the lawyer’s tense shoulders indicated he could use some backup. I’m fairly certain Georgiana will start tearing throats out soon.”
“Why am I not surprised?” I said with a sigh. “I’ll keep an eye on the situation.”
“Just make sure they’re ready for the service to start in a half an hour,” he said, checking his watch. “We have two more today and if we let this one run late, we’ll be here all night again.”
I gave the room and Ptolemy one last check to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, then headed upstairs into the somber, dark, wood-paneled halls of the funeral home proper. Gould kept the place stately, sedate, old-fashioned in a way that was comforting rather than alienating. But I had little time to appreciate the décor. As soon as I closed the door to the stairs, I heard shouting coming from the office we used for will readings and negotiating payment plans on caskets and memorials.
“You were never even part of his life!”
“And you were?”
“You had every intention of letting him rot in a nursing home if he hadn’t killed himself first!”
Great-Uncle Ptolemy, in addition to being a certified eccentric, had apparently been something of a ladies’ man when he was younger. He’d never married, but he fathered plenty of children, chief among them Georgiana Claire and Roland Darte. They were both in their fifties, entitled and unbearable, and had been fighting over Ptolemy’s estate since the moment his heart had finally given out under the stress of his prolific drinking.
“At least I spent time with him!” Georgiana had all the dulcet tones of a tornado siren and more sharp angles than a pile of broken glass. I’d never been out to eat with her, but I bet she was the type to send her meal back to the kitch
en twice and refuse to leave a tip. “Maybe he would have bothered to leave you something if you hadn’t been so preoccupied with that sham of an acting career!”
“Excuse you!” Roland sputtered, red-faced. He was a tall, broad man with an air of Shakespearian theatricality that had, apparently, not done him any favors in the world of actual theater. “I was on Broadway!”
“Oh please.” Georgiana rolled her eyes so hard I worried for the safety of her designer sunglasses. “Your unnamed part in the off-off-Broadway revival of Urinetown is nothing to brag about, Roland.”
“I suppose my time would have been better spent swindling a string of elderly widowers,” Roland replied, and the acid in his voice could have stripped paint. Georgiana clapped a heavily beringed hand to her chest as though wounded as he continued. “At least I have a career! You’ve made your living swooping in to steal inheritances, and you’re doing the same thing now!”
“Please, Mr. Darte, Ms. Claire.” Uncle Ptolemy’s lawyer stepped between them, looking excruciatingly bored. He’d been dealing with these two since the dispute began, and I did not envy him the job.
Mr. Greenwood was a man whose age I could never pin down. There were moments he acted like he was too young to be out of law school, with his pale skin and blond hair. And others where a kind of ancient world-weariness echoed from his narrow green eyes, making him seem like the oldest person in the room. He was handsome, whatever his age. He’d been in and out of the funeral home for the last two weeks helping to arrange things for the service, and I’d found myself finding excuses to be in the same room with him. He was almost hypnotic.
“As I have stated multiple times,” Greenwood said with a sigh, “this is not a matter of who was closer to Mr. Tzarnavaras or who deserves it more. As he left no will, his estate can only be divided equally between claimants. Since his other children and grandchildren have not expressed interest in inheriting, you both stand to inherit half of the estate, if you would just sit down and decide on a division of the assets—”
“He will not get a penny!” Georgiana shrieked. “Over my dead body!”
“I would rather see the bank claim it all than one single thing fall into her greedy clutches!”
They both screamed at one another again and Mr. Greenwood, looking like he desperately wanted a nap, left them to it.
“Sorry,” I whispered, taking the spot next to him against the wall as he retreated from the fight. “Mr. Gould sent me up to help you, but I’m not sure there’s anything I can do.”
“It will take a miracle to make those two cooperate,” Greenwood said with a shrug. His hair was long, a bit past shoulder-length, and I had thought it was unprofessional at first. But tied back neatly with a black ribbon, it had the same kind of quaintly old-fashioned feeling as the rest of the funeral home. It gave him the aristocratic old-world charm of a Jane Austen character, only emphasized by how stiffly polite and put out he appeared right now. “That or a blood relative with a more legitimate claim to the inheritance willing to make a bid for it. Mr. Tzarnavaras didn’t have any legal descendants, but he had plenty of extended family.”
“Yeah, Aunt Persephona assumed the estate would go to her until those two showed up,” I replied, watching Georgiana threaten Roland with an umbrella. “But apparently he didn’t actually have that much. Not enough to be worth fighting with those two, anyway.”
“He didn’t have much in savings,” Greenwood agreed. “But he did have some significant wealth tied up in his art collection. Not that I think either of them will know how to manage such a thing. Sorry, did you say Aunt Persephona? As in the deceased’s sister?”
He looked down at me with sudden interest, and I ignored the way my heart skipped a beat, laughing it off.
“Yeah, I’m Mr. Tzarnavaras's great-niece,” I explained. “I’m close with my great-aunt but I never met her brother.”
“You know,” Greenwood pointed out, raising a dark eyebrow. “That does give you a stronger claim than his illegitimate children.”
“No, thank you,” I said quickly, waving my hands to ward him off. “I wouldn’t know what to do with an art collection any more than they would, and I’d rather avoid the fight. I’m just here to dress the corpse.”
“Indeed.” Greenwood, amused by my candor, folded his hands behind his back and a thoughtful half smile appeared on his lips. He leaned forward a fraction and a slip of fine blond hair escaped the ribbon to fall across his face. For a moment I thought I saw a mischievous spark in his green eyes. From this angle, the white seemed entirely subsumed in deep, verdant green. There was a wilderness there that I could easily lose myself in. I struggled to pull myself back as he kept speaking. “This is an unusual career choice for a young woman. What drew you to the funeral industry?”
“Aunt Percy got me the job,” I said honestly, a bit dazed by the stare. “I’m not sure I’ll do it forever. I’m saving up for post-grad to become a medical examiner. But in the meantime, the pay is nice and I like the excuse to dress up every day.”
Greenwood considered me for a moment, then suddenly pushed away from the wall and straightened his suit jacket.
“Follow me for a moment,” he said, and headed out into the hall, leaving Georgiana and Roland to their fight. I followed him without thinking twice. It was a relief to get away from the screaming, even without a hot lawyer involved.
“What’s up?” I asked as he led me to one of the spare rooms farther down the hall.
“We’re keeping some of Mr. Tzarnavaras’s more valuable pieces here until the estate can be divided,” he explained, bowing at the waist to wave me into the room. “I thought you might like to see.”
Intrigued, I followed him inside. Several canvases stood by one wall, covered in linen sheets, which he removed one by one. The paintings were lovely—beautiful impressionist landscapes and few old classical portraits—though not really my style. However, one of the portraits caught my eye as Greenwood moved to open a slightly dusty chest in the corner.
“They’re all originals, of course,” Greenwood explained, his back to me as he sorted through the chest. “And some of them quite old. The artists aren’t especially notable, but the age alone is enough to make them valuable. A few are family heirlooms, as I understand it.”
I bent to look at the portrait, which lay on its side, tilting my head to see it properly. The subject was a man in a black velvet tunic and golden jewelry, standing before a bleak background and holding a tall, black candle in a strange silver cage. He was probably not that much older than me and, I realized, surprisingly familiar. His long blond hair could easily be mistaken for mine, though his hadn’t been straightened. His fell in heavy, golden waves. There was something in the face as well, and in those pitch-black eyes . . .
“Your ancestor, I believe.”
I jumped a little, realizing Greenwood stood next to me.
“Prince Aethon Tzarnavaras,” the lawyer went on, “painted, we believe, sometime in the fourteenth century. The artist is unknown, as is whatever country Aethon was a prince of. But, we do have this.”
He held out a long, ebony, wood box. I took it curiously, carefully lifting the lid, which moved soundlessly on fine, silver hinges. Within, nestled in deep black velvet, was the black candle in its silver cage.
“It appears to have been of some great importance,” Greenwood said as I marveled, “to have been featured in the portrait and passed down all this time. Go ahead, touch it. It’s not fragile.”
I almost did what he said immediately, but something in the eagerness of his voice made me pause.
“What’s your game here?” I asked, suspicious.
He smiled at me winningly. “Only hoping to spark your interest,” he confessed. “After all, if I could get you to make a case for inheriting your great-uncle’s estate, I would be spared the indignity of handing anything over to your odious cousins in the other room.”
I laughed, convinced.
“Yeah, I can’t blame you for t
hat.” I closed the lid carefully, telling myself I imagined the ghost of disappointment crossing Greenwood’s face.
“They’ll only sell the collection,” Greenwood tried again. “These have been in your family for centuries. It would be an enormous shame to see them sold off to pay for Georgiana’s tacky designer purses or to fund another of Roland’s one-man plays.”
I looked at the art with a sigh. He was right, but I couldn’t. It’d only end up damaged or lost, crammed in my tiny apartment or, worse, in some storage facility.
“I’ll talk to Aunt Persephona about it,” I promised. “Maybe she’d be willing to fight Georgiana and Roland for them. It really would suck to see them sold.”
Greenwood looked like he might press the issue for a moment, but only smiled.
“That’s all I can ask,” he said genially, then checked his watch with a frown. “The service is going to start soon. I had better make one last attempt to wrangle the Sackville-Bagginses.”
The reference caught me off guard, startling a laugh from me, which pleased him. He offered me a hand and, when I took it, surprised me by pressing a kiss to the back of my fingers, brief and cool.
“I hope I’ll see you again soon, Miss Tzarnavaras,” he said.
“Vexa,” I said quickly. “Please.”
He pursed his lips to hide a smile and looked down, eyes bright through the dark frame of his lashes.
“Vexa,” he repeated. “One such as you should not be so free with her name.”
A strange thrill ran down my spine as he looked at me again, the power behind his gaze suddenly humming in the air. For no reason I could easily identify, both fear and excitement stirred in my blood.
But Greenwood only winked and in the next second was gone, slipping back out into the hall.
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