Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Dead Things Series Book 1) (2 page)

2

MACE

M
ace kept his head down and his sopping wet hood up. It may not have protected him against the weather but it afforded him some anonymity. She had seen him in the cemetery, forcing him to hang back further than usual. He wasn’t afraid of losing her. The girl only had three destinations; the funeral parlor, the cemetery or that ramshackle apartment she called home. He was more concerned with her getting herself killed along the way.

He weaved through drunken revelers, doing his best to keep her in his sights despite the crowd. She paid no attention to her surroundings, drifting along in a daze. She stepped in front of a cab, earning her a honk and a shout in creole. She didn’t even acknowledge him. He couldn’t tell if the girl had left her father’s funeral with a death wish or if she was still suffering from the effects of whatever happened in the cemetery.

It honestly didn’t matter to him either way. He’d spent the last seven days bored out of his mind; it would be a shame if she was hit by a bus just when things finally got interesting. He couldn’t fault her for his boredom, he supposed. It’s not as if she knew he followed and it seemed unreasonable and somewhat impolite to task somebody with keeping their stalker entertained.

Keeping him entertained was an impossible task, really. Immortality sounded great in the brochure but after the first hundred years, everything seemed redundant. His life had become a tedious loop of Stalk. Kill. Repeat. He had to eat, but it didn’t make hunting any less monotonous. Take now for instance; he was famished but when he looked at the crowd, not one of them seemed more appealing than following the girl. He’d rather go hungry. Besides, cleanup in a crowd like this would be messy. People shouldn’t let the media fool them; murder wasn’t that exciting after the first fifty bodies or so.

His eyes landed on a group of drunken college guys currently harassing one of the street musicians, eyes lingering long enough one of them might mistake his intentions. He glanced at his charge, still wandering through the crowd like a ghost, before looking back at his meal options. He shouldn’t, not in this crowd. Really, though, would the world even notice one less douchebag in boat shoes and a backwards ball cap? He would be providing a public service.

He shook his head as one of the boys tried to snatch the wig off a female impersonator getting a right hook to the face for his trouble. Call it what you will, natural selection, Darwinism, king of the food chain some people just didn’t make the cut. He rarely went after humans. They didn’t provide much of a challenge but sometimes he was willing to make an exception for the greater good.

With one last glance, he shook it off and went back to following the girl. He was certain those boys would be around later. The rain started once again, just as the girl made it to her apartment. Mace pulled himself further into his damp hoodie, grateful the cold didn’t affect him. If he weren’t immortal, he’d likely die of hypothermia between the frigid air and his wet clothes. Instead, he was just very uncomfortable.

He settled himself on the roof across from her building, tugging his sleeping bag around his shoulders, grateful for the overhang that shielded him from some of the rain. He tucked his knees against his chest, resting his elbows there as she came into view in the window. She flung off her wet sweater and moved out of view only to reappear in her bedroom window. When she yanked her dress over her head, he dropped his gaze to his phone, glancing at the time. It was almost time for check-in. He was to call every six hours, no exceptions. It was part of the reason he’d almost declined the offer. He wasn’t much for deadlines; he felt it stifled his…creativity.

They were quite insistent he be the one who watched the girl, despite his taste for exotic cuisine and his penchant for homicide. It made no sense. Mace knew where he ranked among his kind. He was very much a last resort. He wasn’t a babysitter or a bodyguard. They didn’t hire him to follow humans, no matter how bizarre they appeared. They didn’t even hire him to kill humans.

He pulled a granola bar from his bag and tore into it. It didn’t satisfy his hunger but it gave him something to do with his hands. As he watched, she stopped to answer the phone. She became more agitated as the call went on, finally slamming the phone down in its cradle and ripping it from the wall. She smashed it on the floor. His brows knitted together, she was acting quite strange since the funeral.

He wanted to talk to her. He needed to know what she was, but his orders were clear. Observe her behavior and report what he sees. Do not interact with her. Do not to kill her. They stated the latter explicitly…twice. He was to report anything unusual immediately.

The term unusual was subjective, it would seem, because everything about this girl was unusual. She had no friends, she interacted with very few people, she only went to school once in the last four days and when she had, she’d kept her head down and hadn’t spoken a single word. Her classmates hadn’t been so kind. It seemed not even the death of a parent, could stop people from being people. She didn’t acknowledge them in any outward way.

She hadn’t been back since. Instead, she chose to hide in the cemetery. He’d first thought her there to visit her father. He’d been wrong. She was familiar with the cemetery in a way no girl her age should be. She knew everybody, literally, every…body. She spent hours putting single flowers on the graves of the deceased. She lit the candles often left as tribute. She carefully righted trinkets friends and family left behind. She wasn’t respectful of the dead; she was reverent.

When she wasn’t tending the dead, she was talking to them. Before that first day in the cemetery, he’d thought her mute. Then, he’d watched her have a forty-five minute conversation with a mausoleum with the name Arsenault etched across the top. As she carried on her one sided chat, she drew, pencil flying as she sketched the face of an old man dressed in his Sunday best and a beat up fedora.

It was safe to say his new charge had a singular preoccupation with the dead. Perhaps they were speaking to her. Even so, it wouldn’t explain why he was watching her; his employers rarely concerned themselves with the special humans. But after what he’d just witnessed in the cemetery, he supposed it was safe to put her firmly in the non-human column, breed undetermined.

Given her fascination with the dead, he would almost think Valkyrie or reaper but power didn’t seek them out. He’d watched that power come for her, swirling up from the ground and swallowing her whole. She’d stood there paralyzed, helpless to do anything. Had she unwittingly called that power to her, or had it come for her of its own free will? He wasn’t sure which was worse.

He supposed she could be a witch but she hadn’t been in control of the power. If she was a witch, she was very new or completely incompetent. Perhaps if he could get close enough to see her mark it would give him a clue as to her origins but that would mean getting closer. He’d already gotten too close. He’d already interfered. He’d disobeyed his direct orders.

They knew what they were getting into when they’d picked him so the fault lay entirely with them. He had no idea why he did it really, other than just to see what would happen. So much energy surrounded her, how could he not try to tap into it? He was curious by nature. They had to know he wouldn’t be able to leave something so tempting alone, not when they dangled it right in front of him.

Theoretically, it shouldn’t have worked. His magic should have had no effect on hers. Very rarely could you temper somebody else’s magic by adding your own. If anything, he ran the risk of creating a much bigger complication, such as killing a large crowd of people at a funeral and rendering himself unemployed.

It had worked though. Her magic had practically rolled over and purred at his and his magic had responded in kind, wrapping itself around hers and making itself at home. Witch magic didn’t do that. It was maddening. He felt like he was missing something, something important. It gnawed at the corners of his mind, just out of reach.

A flash of color caught his attention at the window. She had changed into jeans and a bulky sweater, tattered purple duffle bag in her hands. She stuffed clothing, her sketchbook, shoes and anything else she could fit into the bag. She went to the kitchen and pulled out a coffee can from the top shelf, pulling out cash and stuffing it into her jeans pocket.

Interesting.

His phone vibrated in his hand, startling him out of his thoughts.

“Mace,” he answered.

“It’s like you are trying to piss him off.”

“Echo,” he grimaced at her tone, picturing her pinched face. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Check your watch. You’re late checking in.”

He glanced at his phone. “Ah, right you are, Luv.” He’d lost track of time.

“So, anything to report?” Echo prompted, annoyance creeping into her voice.

The girl flitted around the apartment, a rare smile blooming on her face. The rain began to fall harder, coming in sideways. She rushed to the window, hands on the edge, making to close it against the sudden assault. She looked up and froze.

He did too.

There was no way she could see him, not from this distance, not with the rain. He squinted as she turned away just a bit before looking back, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. Maybe she could see him? She’d seen him in the cemetery earlier. He couldn’t help but stare back. Her cloud of orange hair was billowing in the chilly air and even with the rain gusting in her face, she looked…captivating, like some vengeful spirit out of a gothic novel. She stared for another second before slamming the window shut hard enough to rattle the glass in its frame.

He blinked, spell broken.

“Hello?” Echo said through clenched teeth.

He opened his mouth to tell her what he’d seen but faltered. If he told them she was a…well, a not human, there was a very good chance his next assignment would be to kill her, like the others. It had to be why they’d chosen him for this assignment. Nothing else made sense. They’d obviously wanted him to ensure she was supernatural and now they would want her dead.

He wasn’t quite ready for that. He had to know what she was. He’d been around a long time and he’d never seen somebody who appeared to leach power from the ground they stood on. His fingers flexed. His magic wanted to know too.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry, bad reception up here. Nothing to report yet. The girl is dismally boring. I should charge him triple for forcing me to endure this type of torture.” He lowered his voice, attempting a flirty tone. “Any chance you feel like telling me what he wants with her? Since when did we start concerning ourselves with humans?”

She snorted, “That’s hardly any of your business, is it?”

“No need to get snippy, Luv. It was a fleeting curiosity.”

“He doesn’t pay you to be curious; he pays you to do as you’re told.”

“Well, somebody has her sassy pants on today. What has your knickers in such a twist?”

The girl’s voice dropped into a whisper. “Please, please, don’t do anything stupid, Mace. Just watch the girl and report what you see. A trained monkey could do it.”

“Yes,” he told her. “That’s the thing of it. He could have assigned anybody to watch the girl, why the homicidal maniac? Why hire a killer to babysit one tiny human girl? Seems like a terrible staffing choice, really, like hiring an alcoholic to tend your bar.”

“Just mind your business, do your job and don’t do anything that is going to get you in trouble.”

“What’s he going to do? Kill me? I’m immortal.”

She made a grunt of frustration. “Yes, well there are far worse things than death as you well remember. Whatever she is, she’s got him on edge. Don’t make him mad.”

He sighed, “I’ll be in touch.”

He ended the call just as she opened the old laptop that sat on the coffee table. She sat on the floor typing furiously for the next few hours, her attention never wavering. The rain had disappeared by the time she hoisted her bag over her shoulder and headed for her front door. She didn’t even bother to lock it behind her.

“Now where are you headed?” he asked the empty rooftop.

3

KAI

K
ai Lonergan hated math. You would think being a supernatural creature in a supernatural town would make you exempt from mundane things like math and econ, but no; the authorities forced shifters, witches and even reapers like himself to endure the horrors of high school. The town claimed they had their reasons; keeping up appearances-blah, blah, blah-but as far as he could see it was just good old-fashioned torture.

He dropped his chin to his hand and sighed dramatically. “I hate this,” he told his sister. Tristin didn’t even look up from her notebook. He leaned to peer past the waterfall of her dark hair. She sat hunched over her desk, tongue poking from the side of her mouth. His sister was no artist but he could see she was doodling dismembered stick figures with pools of black ink at their feet. Great, as if people didn’t already think they were freaks. The school therapist would have a field day with that.

He continued his conversation despite his sister’s lack of participation. “Hate’s not even a strong enough word,” he decided. “I loathe math. Detest it. I hate math more than I hate asparagus, more than I hate that weird fruit thing Isa makes us choke down every Christmas. I hate math more than I hate,” he shuddered, “marshmallows.”

His sister shook her head and grunted but didn’t otherwise acknowledge him. If Quinn were there, he’d understand. Quinn understood his hatred of squishy weird foods because he was the best, best friend ever. However, Quinn was in smart people math where they started throwing in hearts and hieroglyphics and alchemical symbols, most of which he was sure they just made up. Quinn assured him it wasn’t so but he knew no good could ever come from putting math and chemistry together.

“Come on, Tristin, commiserate with me. Be my sister, let us band together over a mutual hatred of math.”

A desk chair scraped behind him and a shadow loomed over his desk. Warm air puffed against his skin as an angry werewolf rumbled, “Shut. Up.”

Kai grimaced. He’d managed to forget Rhys’ annoying presence for almost ten whole minutes. That was a new record for him. In Kai’s defense, it was hard to forget a six foot six slab of muscle who shadowed your every move. It was especially hard when they wore their shirts tight enough to count their abs and smelled like rain and sex and poor life choices. He closed his eyes, attempting to regulate his teenage hormones and wildly thumping heart before Rhys smelled it on him.

He needed a distraction. He decided on the easiest course of action, annoying the wolf. It was a win-win. He leaned back until his head was resting on Rhys’ desk and grinned up at his perpetually grumpy face. “From this angle it looks like you’re actually smiling.” He laughed softly. “It’s like an optical illusion.”

Rhys growled low in his throat. “Get off my desk.”

Kai schooled his expression into a pout. “Now you’re just hurting my feelings on purpose. Tell me I’m pretty and maybe I’ll relinquish your desk.” He batted his eyes, satisfaction warming him as Rhys turned an unnatural shade of purple. “Come on,” he coaxed. “Use your words.”

Rhys started to partially shift into wolf mode, eyes glowing, the light bringing out the gold flecks in his brilliant green eyes, his canines elongating dramatically. Kai snorted a laugh, “You’re so easy to rile up. One little joke and you go all flashy eyes. Those stopped working on me when I was like seven, dude.”

The wolf moved closer until his face hovered just over his, a lock of mahogany hair falling across his forehead. Kai’s mouth went dry and he swallowed convulsively, definitely not imagining the epic upside down Spiderman kiss they could be reenacting. Rhys made a choked noise that was as close to a laugh as he got. Kai knew it was because he heard his heartbeat stutter. Stupid werewolf hearing; It was such an invasion of privacy.

“Pay attention or I’m going to tell Isa you requested that weird pickled herring recipe she made last year and I’ll ask her to put that clotted cream sauce on it too.”

Kai shuddered at the memory of the alpha’s attempt at foreign cuisine and stuck his tongue out at Rhys, relinquishing the desk. “You suck.”

“You wish.”

His sister snorted at that, glancing up long enough to laugh at her brother. She thought Rhys was hilarious. They were two peas in an emotionally constipated pod.

Their teacher, Mr. Keller, appeared, looking as thrilled to be there as the rest of them. He took one last slug from his Styrofoam cup before throwing it in the trash. He dropped his bag on the floor loud enough to cut off the low murmur of restless students and waited until all eyes were forward. “Okay, who wants to get us started on last night’s quadratic equations homework?”

Crap. He knew he’d forgotten something. Kai dropped his head onto his desk with a loud thump.

“Has math finally killed you, Mr. Lonergan?” The teacher asked, sounding far too hopeful to Kai.

He heard the snickers of his classmates and lifted his head just enough to make eye contact with the aging witch. “No. Unfortunately, I’m still here but I think my brain is literally melting.” He dropped his head back on his arms.

“Tristin,” Mr. Keller said, “You seem to be working very hard on what I’m sure are your notes. Perhaps you could share them with your brother?”

Kai rolled his head towards his sister with a smirk, brow raised, eying her morbid drawings. “Yes, Tristin, you take the best notes, perhaps you could share with the whole class.” Her pen slowed and she looked up from her grizzly masterpiece long enough to scowl at her brother and shoot him the finger from her lap.

She forced her face into some semblance of a smile, “Of course, Mr. Keller. I’d be happy too.”

“I guess your sister absorbed the brains and the manners in the womb. Did she leave anything for you?” Keller asked.

Kai leaned back with a grin, tapping his pencil against his notebook, “She got the brains and the manners but I got the looks and the personality.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Sunshine,” his sister retorted as she flipped to a clean sheet of notebook paper and started a new picture.

The teacher eyed him, “Mr. Lonergan, do you think I can get through the rest of class without you derailing my lesson any further?”

Kai looked pained, the tapping of his pencil increasing, “Hard to say really. I can’t help it, dude. Math physically hurts me.”

“Don’t call me dude.” The teacher’s eyes dropped to the pencil, warning clear as he gritted out, “Mr. Lonergan.”

Kai opened his mouth to promise his best behavior when Rhys’ hand appeared snatching his pencil and snapping it in half before dropping it on his desk.

Kai’s mouth fell open. That was his only pencil. He went to say so but went temporarily mute as he felt a familiar burning at his wrist. He didn’t look at first, just rubbed absently at the spot, dread pooling in his stomach. Why did collections always seem to come on a Friday? Nobody should have to die on a Friday. It was the best day of the week. Whoever makes these decisions should reserve deaths for awful days like Monday. People shouldn’t have to work all week long just to kick the bucket just before things got good. Not that anybody cared about the opinion of one novice reaper.

He glanced at his sister, wondering if he should tell her now he wouldn’t be at work tonight. He pushed the sleeve of his shirt up just enough to peer at the name, more curiosity than anything. He skimmed over the name, letting his sleeve drop back into place, before yanking it up again in confusion. The hitch in his breathing sounded loud in the sudden silence.

There was no way that was right.

Rhys sat forward enough to whisper, “What is your problem now?”

“Can I help you?” Kai snapped, yanking his sleeve down to cover the name, sounding scandalized.

Rhys stared at him for a good thirty seconds before he opened his mouth. Whatever scathing retort he had planned was lost as Tristin’s pen fell from her fingers. She looked at her brother, eyes bleeding red as a shriek ripped from her lips. Everybody whipped around in their seats, hands covering their ears, cringing away from her.

Goosebumps erupted along his skin. Tristin covered her mouth with her hand, eyes wide as she looked at him. Kai’s heart slammed against his chest as he stared at his sister.

“Well, that was unexpected.” He said to nobody in particular.