How to Live an Undead Lie (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 5)

by Hailey Edwards

  “We can use the upstairs shower and change clothes to decontaminate ourselves. You can go first.” He led the way into the building, through the cavernous downstairs with poured concrete floors that echoed with our footsteps, and up the black metal stairs near the back. A few steps past the landing, he indicated a small bathroom with clean towels stacked on the lip of the sink. A few still had price stickers. “There’s a shop a few buildings down. I’ll procure us clothing and then work on transportation.”

  “Should you do that before you shower? Won’t you just transfer the powder?”

  Replaying it in my head, it sounded like I was offering to let him join me, and he must have thought so too if the tips of his ears reddening were any indication.

  “I’ll give them our sizes and have someone else bag my selections. That ought to minimize any cross contamination.”

  I trailed my fingers over the terrycloth. “Did you stock the place yourself?”

  His gaze touched on the shampoo and soap in the shower, both his favorite brands. “I did.”

  “Hmm.”

  He followed me one step into the room. “What does that mean?”

  “You expected to shower here?” I noticed the other things then. Toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant.

  “Work,” he said, and his eyes went distant. “Some nights I wash it off before I go home.”

  “Even in Savannah?” Lately, we tromped home together, dirty or otherwise.

  “Especially in Savannah,” he said, voice soft as he left.

  The reminder that secrets lingered between us shouldn’t have stung as much as it did, but there you go.

  I got naked, eager to drown the carousel of thoughts circling through my head under the shower.

  Having full control of the water was odd. The lack of running commentary was peculiar too. I didn’t like it much. I was too used to having Woolly in my head, her presence a vibrant spark that brightened my days. This building felt like a brick-encased corpse by comparison.

  After I scrubbed until my skin turned pink, I emerged from the shower smelling like Linus. No complaints there. I dried off then wrapped the largest towel around my torso to keep me modest while I scrubbed the contents of my pockets clean of bronze powder then went exploring.

  The upstairs apartment was all pine heart floors and elegant period details, lovingly restored. Whoever had lived here sank a substantial amount of time and money into renovating the living area. Too bad the economy couldn’t support many boutiques or galleries long term, even if their unique offerings charmed the tourists. I hated imagining the previous owner sacrificing this labor of love to salvage their finances.

  The first bedroom, the larger of the two, caught my eye. Well, the king-size bedframe made from twisted wrought iron did. Foam wrapped the elegant posts, and a plush mattress still in its plastic sleeve leaned against the wall. Sheets in their zippered bags and pillows stuffed in boxes filled the far corner.

  The prickling awareness I was being watched brought a smile to my lips, but when I turned, I was alone.

  “Bathing here I get,” I called, figuring Linus must be in the hall. “But do you really need a bed?”

  No response.

  “Linus?”

  No answer.

  Proving I could learn, I didn’t investigate. I darted for the bathroom and the knife I had left to dry on the sink after its cleaning.

  Quiet pervaded the space, and I almost convinced myself the noise had been the unfamiliar building settling around me, but a sixth sense warned me I wasn’t alone. I didn’t waste time wondering. I sliced open my index finger and drew protective runes down my arm then set myself in a protective circle.

  A soft chuckle echoed up to me from the stairwell, and then the heavy presence retreated.

  I counted the seconds by the pounding of my heart until I heard the front door click shut.

  Clutching my towel, I lowered the seat on the toilet and sat down to wait on Linus.

  Four

  Linus arrived ten minutes later dangling a large paper shopping bag from his fingertips. He held it as far away from his body as the length of his arm allowed to avoid contaminating its contents. It hit the floor when he spotted me sitting in my magic bubble on the toilet.

  “Have any luck?” I indicated the toppled contents spilling across the floor. “I’m getting chilly.”

  “What happened?” He righted the bag, but his eyes never left mine. “You’re in a circle.”

  Using the edge of my towel, I rubbed off the sigils. “I sensed a presence and called out, but they didn’t respond except to laugh at me before they left.”

  Thankfully, he paid me the courtesy of not asking if I was certain my mind hadn’t played a trick on me.

  The vampire archers hadn’t attacked since the incident on River Street, the truce with my grandfather appeared to be holding, and the Marchands hadn’t left their sprawling family estate in Raleigh since the night of my ball. A necromancer pressing their case was a possibility, but why would he—and the laugh had sounded masculine—flee after cornering me in a vulnerable position?

  The lull in activity was one of the reasons Linus embraced me joining him on his patrols. All the trouble we found was someone else’s drama. A refreshing break from the insanity that was my own life.

  “I want to hold you.” He lingered in the doorway. “But you’ve showered, and we don’t have much time.”

  “You can make it up to me on the ride home.”

  I eased around him, gathered the clothes, and carried the bundle into the master bedroom. I left the bag with its contaminated handles on the floor. We would have to come back later and clean up after ourselves.

  A flicker of black near the tall window startled me.

  “Oh, Cletus.” I exhaled with relief and waved him in. “It’s just you.”

  This building wasn’t warded against wraiths, not yet, so he drifted through the glass and joined me.

  Hopefully, this meant Hood and Lethe were safe and not that Cletus had abandoned the gwyllgi for me.

  “Turn around, please.” I sorted my clothes from Linus’s. “This won’t take but a minute.”

  The wraith faced the window, the wisps of his cloak more substantial than the first time we met.

  I pulled on clean underwear, each piece taken from a padded hanger, and slid a floral sundress over my head. A pair of classy flip-flops, a thing I hadn’t known existed, had been wrapped in the material. The dress would have been too small if not for its trapeze cut, and the toe thong pinched the top of my foot, but all in all, he did good.

  “All right.” I started finger-combing my hair. “Let’s clear out and give Linus the room.”

  I bumped into him in the hall, and I wish I had bumped him a little harder, maybe copped a feel in the bargain.

  A large towel wrapped his hips, and the intricate tattoos branding him were on full display. I pretended not to gawk. It didn’t go very well. Despite the number of times I had seen his bare chest, I couldn’t get used to the sight.

  So much skin. So much corded muscle. So much ink.

  “You can’t look at me like that when I’m only wearing a towel,” he said, water dripping from his damp hair. “Let me get dressed first.”

  “The fact you aren’t dressed is what’s causing the problem.” I fanned myself. “I’m getting hot flashes.”

  The wall kissed my spine before I saw him move, and then his lips were on mine. I took it as an invitation to explore his back with my fingertips, and I moaned into his mouth when he broke away to plant stinging bites down my throat.

  Heat pooled low in my gut, but I startled when icy fingers brushed my shoulder. Weird. Linus was gripping my hips, pinning me to the wall, and he hadn’t sprouted a third arm that I had noticed.

  The wraith faded through Linus until I was almost kissing the black hole of his fathomless cowl.

  Recoiling from the grim visage, I gagged. “Cletus.”

  A flick of Linus’s wrist ordered the wr
aith away. “I’ll try not to take triggering your gag reflex personally.”

  “I like Cletus, but I’m not ready for that level of kink.” I laughed. “I still have my training wheels on.”

  Linus made a pleased sound low in his throat as he rested his forehead against mine and shut his eyes.

  “You sound happy,” I pointed out. “I didn’t just greenlight a threesome with Cletus, did I?”

  “Ah, no.” A powerful shudder rippled through him. “Necrophilia isn’t a fetish of mine.”

  Snorting at the comment that left me wondering where vampires fell on that scale, I smiled. “Glad to hear it.”

  “And…” he kissed the tip of my nose, “…I am happy.”

  Heart full to bursting, I jerked my chin toward the wraith. “What blew smoke up his cloak?”

  “He’s concerned about us staying here.” Linus withdrew, but the pleasant chill of his touch lingered. “He shouldn’t be capable of worry.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “He shouldn’t have emotions at all.”

  “Oops?”

  “Oops indeed.”

  “Does the fact he’s back mean Lethe and Hood are with the healer?”

  “Hood has finished treatment, and they were on their way to Woolly when Cletus left them.”

  The wraith would have escorted them all the way home if he hadn’t picked up on Linus’s concern and come to investigate, but this latest evidence of Cletus’s independent thought process made me wonder.

  Had the wraith come to me because Linus was rattled or because the wraith itself worried?

  And how much trouble would I get in if the answer turned out to be the latter rather than the former?

  “Get dressed.” I shoved Linus through the bedroom door then regretted putting my hands on him again. More to the point, I regretted not putting my hands on more of him. “I have to get home before Oscar and Woolly blow up the house. Plus, we need to check on Corbin.”

  Fine, so she was the house. I doubted she would set herself on fire or allow Oscar to manifest near a box of matches, but I still didn’t trust those two. They were troublemakers, the both of them.

  Linus dressed in the time it took me to work up the nerve to investigate the stairwell for signs of my visitor. No convenient footprints led the way, no lingering cologne perfumed the air, and there was no message written in the settled dust.

  “See anything?” He examined the walls and steps as well. “I didn’t notice any oddities on my way in.”

  “Nothing.” I rubbed the base of my neck. “I’m starting to wonder if it was a figment of my imagination.”

  Yeah, yeah. Him doubting me was one thing. Me doubting me was—any day ending in Y, honestly.

  “Don’t discount your instincts. You wouldn’t have raised that circle if you hadn’t been certain someone was there.” He took my elbow and guided me downstairs. “I believe you.” He held me close, and I suppressed a grin at the subtle protective gesture. “We’ll set wards before we begin rehabbing the building.”

  Outside, I used his keys to lock up the place while he scanned the street for lurkers. “Who’s giving us a lift home?”

  “You’ll see.” Having deemed the area safe, he escorted me to the curb to wait. “It’s a lovely night.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.” I tipped back my head. “Clear skies. Bright stars. Quarter moon. Not bad.”

  That’s when I heard our ride approaching with the clip-clop, clip-clop of hooves on asphalt.

  Laughter bubbled up in me. “You booked us a horse and carriage?”

  They were popular with tourists, and I loved watching them parade around downtown, but I hadn’t ridden in one since the year I begged Maud to rent one for my birthday. I was nine or ten, I think. I had fallen asleep on the bench seat, curled around Amelie, and Boaz had to carry me in before dawn.

  Pleased with himself, Linus waved to the coachman. “I thought the fresh air might do us good.”

  And the longer trip promised extended cuddle time. “This is perfect.”

  “Evening, folks,” the older gentleman said with a syrupy drawl. “These are my friends, Prince and Bowie, and we’re pleased to be your escort home.”

  Linus opened the half door on the carriage and helped me up onto the bench facing forward. He joined me a moment later, and I tucked myself under his arm before he finished lifting it.

  “I won’t break,” I promised. “You can hold on as tight as you want.”

  Permission granted, he pulled me across his chest and rested his chin on the crown of my head. His arms came around me, and he held me like he might never get another chance.

  Maybe my run-in with the chuckler in the hall had made him nervous, but a tiny part of me worried there was another reason.

  These were the moments when I braced for the worst, when I expected the other shoe to drop. I waited and waited, and the longer I kept vigil, the more convinced I became that the impact would level what I was building with Linus.

  He told me once that he was a secret bound in a thin skin of humanity.

  I knew that. I accepted that. I respected that.

  But I had been hurt so many times I couldn’t shake the dread this would be the deepest cut yet.

  Linus might worry that I would get tired of him, that I would leave him, but I was the one who hadn’t burned our marriage contract.

  After the driver set out, I took the liberty of testing a sigil I had been toying with for the past few days. I used the modified pen to draw it on each of us then settled in to discuss options for dealing with Corbin.

  “How certain are you that this sigil works?” Linus twisted his hand back and forth, admiring my work.

  “I tested it out on Hood. I figure if a gwyllgi can’t hear me blasting music through my Bluetooth speaker, then a human won’t hear me having a conversation.” I worried my bottom lip between my teeth and then admitted, “I’ll be honest. It’s had a fifty percent success rate. I also tried it on Lethe, but she found me.”

  “Why do I feel there’s more to the story?”

  Pulling back to see his face, I tried to act offended. “Why are you so suspicious?”

  “With you two, there’s always more. Hood had no idea what he was unleashing when he introduced her to you.”

  “I might have been eating a cheeseburger at the time,” I confessed. “She sniffed me out.”

  “That I can believe.”

  “She’s eating for two,” I reminded him in the same tone she used. “She needs those extra calories.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” He tightened his arms around me. “I’m glad they’re your responsibility and not mine.”

  “On the topic of responsibilities…” I buried my face against his chest. “Corbin needs to learn how to vampire. He’s a danger to humans until he’s taught how to feed. He needs outside connections for blood when donors aren’t an option. Given his history, he’ll never forgive himself if he hurts someone.”

  “We could send him to Reardon.” Linus cupped the back of my head. “He would be safe at Strophalos.”

  “Reardon is a dysfunctional vampire, and a shut-in.”

  Reardon McAllister was a made vampire with no clan affiliation since his necromancer wife turned him against his will after he sustained life-threatening injuries in a carriage accident early in their marriage. He was a human victimized by vampires, and that placed him under the Grande Dame’s purview. Since Corbin was running from the Grande Dame, no matter how secure Strophalos was, he wasn’t safe there.

  “I will admit Reardon might not be the best choice to teach a fledgling vampire to hunt when he can’t leave campus. The faculty frowns on eating students.”

  “I have a crazy thought.” I looked up at him. “What if we dump him in Grandpa’s lap?”

  “Your grandfather would take him in.” His lips thinned. “He would love to have a Deathless in his ranks. I worry what it would mean for your relationship with Mother. She won’t take kindly to losing her prize.”

  “I’ve been thin
king about that.” I sat up straighter. “You had trouble believing he busted out of prison. I can’t speak to the facility where they sent him—it sounds like minimum security at best—but I can tell you the sentinels take their jobs seriously. I can’t see him escaping without help. I’m not saying he’s lying. He might believe he got lucky, but I don’t.”

  Any narrower and his mouth would disappear. “You think she let him go.”

  “Why would she feed him all that information about me—down to my city—if she didn’t intend for him to run straight to me? She knew his history, knew his family would shun him, knew the vampires would kill him outright, knew the necromancers wouldn’t dare hide him for fear of retribution. He has no one, nothing. He’s alone in the world, and she knows me well enough to guess I would take him in.”

  “You saved his life.”

  “Did I?” Life was a loaded word for the existence he faced now. “Or did I condemn him?”

  Most humans would be grateful for this turn of events, but most hadn’t grown up hunting the very thing he now was either.

  “Ultimately, that’s up to him to decide. Eternity is what he makes of it.”

  “You’re very Team Grier.” I leaned in closer. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

  “No.” He pitched his voice low. “Though I’m sure others have suspected.”

  The reality of what we were contemplating sank in as the humor of the moment faded.

  “Your mother knew I wouldn’t shelter him long term.” I might help him disappear, but I wouldn’t make a production out of it. “Given Lacroix’s doting-grandparent act at the ball, she must be gambling he would be eager to make amends for his transgressions. He wants to give that appearance anyway. She expects me to yank on those family ties to protect my progeny out of a sense of obligation.” I whistled softly. “She wants a plant among Lacroix’s vampires.”

  Lost in thought, he let the scenery draw his eye. “The trap does appear to be set.”

  “Corbin fosters with Lacroix, learns the ins and outs of vampirehood, and maps how the organization works.” I put it all in words to test how crazy it sounded. “Assuming the intel is good, your mother offers him amnesty for his past crimes.”