How to Survive an Undead Honeymoon (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 8)

by Hailey Edwards

  “Sorry about that,” Hood apologized. “Eva connected her cell phone to our radio, and we can’t figure out how to override hers with ours, so it keeps dropping calls.”

  Ah, the joys of parenthood and having a tech-savvy kid. “I totally understand.”

  We made goodbye noises, and I flopped back in bed to wait on Linus.

  I was halfway to dozing when a mournful baying raised the hairs down my arms.

  “There’s no way.” I slid off the bed and hobbled to the window. “She wouldn’t…”

  The noise didn’t come again, and I started doubting whether I had heard it in the first place. Probably wishful thinking. Our situation was getting more intense, and backup wouldn’t be the worst idea ever, not that I would admit it to Cletus. I was no longer sure we could solve this haunting within our time limit, but the potentate in me felt obligated to try.

  The door swung open before I reached the bed.

  Busted.

  “What are you doing up?” Linus entered with a tray he must have found downstairs in his hands. “Did you see something outside?”

  “I heard something.” I tottered in his direction. “I probably imagined it.”

  Noticing the phone on the quilt, he asked, “Any news?”

  “Bishop touched base with me.” I sat on the mattress and pulled up the message. “No families of any shape or size have gone missing in a fifty-mile radius during the last thirty days, so that’s a break in the pattern.”

  “Or it hasn’t been reported yet.” He joined me. “If they were traveling or on vacation, it might take time for their family and friends to realize something is wrong.”

  “True.” I set my cell aside. “I was hoping for a neon sign or flashing lights or something.”

  “Sadly, villains tend not to advertise their dastardly deeds until after they’ve been successfully committed.”

  “And yet, I haven’t given up hope of it happening one day, preferably on a high-profile case without any other leads to follow. Then bam! A glowing arrow pointing to the bad guy.”

  Handing over a bowl of his famously buttery popcorn plus a box of Raisinets and Junior Mints, he tucked me against him. “We can dream.”

  We settled down to watch a movie with our most excellent snacks, and I filled him in on my odd call with Lethe while we snuggled. Linus slept on top of the covers with his clothes on. That is to say he made himself comfortable and resumed adding notes to a book he was writing on the goddess-touched condition meant for me and any future goddess-touched necromancers in the family.

  I drifted to sleep listening to the scratch of his pen across paper and the soothing coolness of his skin next to mine.

  Seven

  Linus sat in bed next to Grier and stared at the paragraph he wrote an hour ago. The more times he read over it, the less sense it made. His concentration was shot, so he set aside his work and sucked in a long, calming breath.

  The howl of dark magics in his blood demanded satisfaction for Grier’s injuries, and he was tempted to give himself over to that power. But that’s not who he was, and he reined in the familiar impulse with effort that broke sweat across his brow.

  He had put off leaving Grier for as long as he dared, but he had business to attend before she rose at dusk. Careful not to wake her, he eased out of bed and exited the room, locking her in before he confronted the guilty wraith.

  Fading as the sun rose, Cletus bobbed on unfelt air currents, and Linus waited for him to confess.

  “You might as well tell me what you’ve done.” Linus searched the hall and the stairs, but he found nothing amiss on his way to the foyer. “I’m about to find out whether you own up to it or not.”

  Stubborn to a fault, a new personality quirk that reminded him painfully of Maud, the wraith kept his silence.

  The vampires were nowhere in sight, and Linus sighed with relief. He didn’t mind sharing the house. He would never tell Grier he preferred more victims to shift the target off her back, but she knew him well enough to guess he wouldn’t turn down anyone who could defend themselves if they asked for a room.

  “I know you’re out here,” Linus called from the porch after shutting the front door behind him. “The question is why.”

  Dark figures loped into view, two large dogs covered in rough scales, their tongues lolling.

  When he turned to address Cletus, the wraith was nowhere to be found and refused to answer a summons.

  The smaller beast transformed in a swirl of crimson magic into a compact woman with bright-blue hair.

  “Cletus appeared to us.” She jogged up the steps and joined him. “He moaned what I interpreted as Grier being in danger.” Lethe spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “So here we are.”

  Grier’s relationship with Lethe, Hood, and their pack was best described as…complicated.

  Lethe was her best friend, but Grier was also Lethe’s daughter’s godmother. Even if those two things hadn’t been the case, Grier was also a member of the Savannah gwyllgi pack by virtue of a debt Hood and Lethe felt was owed to her on her mother’s behalf.

  A magically enforced NDA the alpha pair signed prevented them from sharing the details, but it had been made clear to us that their failure to protect Grier’s mother had created an imbalance, in their minds, in need of rectifying.

  Technically, after the wedding, Linus had joined the pack as well. All that added up to a lot of red tape he thought he had already cut through in order to escape with Grier for a handful of days.

  “I told her we should call first,” Hood said after his own transformation. “She refused on the basis that Grier is—”

  “—my best friend.” Lethe elbowed him in the side, and he bent over coughing.

  “Yeah,” Hood wheezed, glaring at her. “That.”

  As social intricacies often eluded him, Linus felt no shame in asking, “Am I missing something?”

  Hood looked anywhere but at him while Lethe widened her eyes in a failed attempt at innocence.

  “You might as well join us.” Linus gestured toward the inn. “A vampire couple showed up last night and requested a room. What are two more guests?”

  Lethe bristled, her lip twitching with the promise of a growl. “Anything we should worry about?”

  Usually, Linus respected her heightened overprotective streak where her packmates were concerned. Even umbrella members such as Grier and himself. Tonight, he selfishly regretted it. Just a bit.

  “I don’t think so.” He hesitated. “They claim they’re here because of the haunting.”

  A neat line knitted her brow. “Okay, that’s weird.”

  As undead creatures, vampires preferred to surround themselves with life, not death.

  “They have evidence that supports their story.”

  Lethe wasn’t letting go. “What kind?”

  “Video and photos from the house during previous years.”

  “Have you spoken to the owners?” Hood stared off in the direction of a small cottage set behind the main house. “Someone had to check them in, right?”

  “They self-checked, but I spoke to Mr. Oliphant first. He wanted to make certain we didn’t mind the intrusion.” He thought back on the conversation, but their host had been courteous to a fault, the same as he had been at their own check-in. “The Rogoffs claim to be regular patrons, but he didn’t recognize their names. That’s to be expected. It’s not as if they could use the same identity each time without drawing suspicion.”

  An inn this small, in a town so remote, with a history so dark, could use all the business it could get. It could be the owners didn’t mind who filled the rooms as long as they got paid. Shortsighted if this event was a draw for regular customers, since he and Grier wouldn’t be coming back, but it was hard to turn down the promise of a rather large payday, regardless of what future complications their present actions set in motion.

  “Let’s give it a few hours.” Hood flared his nostrils. “Then I think we should go talk to them.”


  “Not all vampires are murderous fiends,” Linus said dryly. “Most are perfectly average.”

  “I’m not saying the whole species is a wash,” Lethe countered, arms crossed, “but even you have to admit they tend to kidnap first and ask questions never around Grier.”

  Forced to agree with her, Linus summoned Cletus. “Go check on the Oliphants.”

  The wraith shimmered, a faint smudge, then vanished again, off to fulfil its duty.

  “Are you going to tell Grier we’re here?” Lethe scuffed her boot in the grass. “I don’t want her to think I’m a codependent psycho who can’t deal with her best friend leaving for a few days.”

  The lack of eye contact made him curious. “How did you get here so fast?”

  Savannah was an eight-hour drive or about a four-hour flight, counting the unavoidable layover, if they left from Atlanta. The incident with Grier on the stairs happened only a few hours earlier. Cletus could appear to Lethe and Hood to convey his message in an instant, but they couldn’t traverse space in a blink the same way.

  “She’s a codependent psycho who can’t deal with her best friend leaving for a few days.” Hood wiped the smile off his face with his hand, but his eyes still grinned. “We were already on our way when the wraith popped in to say hello.”

  Lethe and Grier were as close as sisters, but Lethe wasn’t usually this clingy. “Any particular reason why you’re worried about Grier?”

  Lethe scrunched up her face, working through her options, which didn’t bode well, when Cletus shot a warning jolt down the bond he shared with Linus. The connection was instinctual after so many years together, and he peered through the wraith’s eyes to view the issue.

  “We have a problem.” He spared one last glance toward the inn before an ingrained sense of duty from his tenure as the Potentate of Atlanta urged him toward the cottage. Vision flickering between his own and Cletus’s, he picked his way across the unfamiliar landscape. “We need to go to the Oliphants.”

  The gwyllgi followed him, but they hung back when they reached the cottage.

  “I smell it.” Lethe rubbed at her nose. “This is not going to be a social call.”

  Again, he found himself staring after the inn. And again, he forced his thoughts back on task.

  “There are bodies in there,” Hood confirmed. “Fresh ones.”

  “The Oliphants.” Linus had already viewed the brutal tableau secondhand. “They’re both dead.”

  Kylie was around the same age as Grier was when she stumbled across Maud in a pool of blood gone cold. Linus regretted that security had been ripped away from them both so young, but this time he could ward the cottage and spare Kylie from the nightmares Grier still carried with her. It wasn’t much, but it was the best he could do. That, and find the person or persons responsible.

  A hazy dawn broke before he could order Cletus back to Grier. With the vampires asleep for the day, and the shadow cats banished until nightfall, she would be safe behind the sigil on her door. He had the time before she woke to begin working toward justice for the Oliphants.

  “The door is locked.” Falling into old habits, he began his investigation. “Windows are too.” He circled the cottage, checking all entry points until he reached the back door. “There are signs this lock was jimmied.” He examined it more closely. “The wood has weathered beneath the damage. That means it’s old.” He straightened. “This was not how the killers gained access.”

  “Agree,” the gwyllgi chimed in.

  Consulting with the alpha pair, he gave them room to work. “Are you picking up any unusual scents?”

  “Human and vampire.” Hood checked with Lethe. “The human ones are layered, a product of time. They belonged to the residents. The vampires are new and recent.”

  A gnawing suspicion blossomed in his gut. “There are more than one?”

  “A pair,” Lethe confirmed. “Male and female.”

  “There’s overlap within them too,” Hood added. “I’m guessing a mated couple.”

  Another thought occurred to him. “Any traces of accelerant?”

  “See those red metal cans? Gasoline.” Lethe pointed to an ancient lawnmower parked under a weather-beaten awning extending off the rear of the house. “There’s a splash of diesel too, but that might be from a vehicle.”

  “Why do you ask?” Hood poked around, but he circled back with a shrug. “What am I missing?”

  The weight of Lethe’s stare fell on Linus, and he grasped too late that Grier hadn’t told her everything.

  Pinching the bridge of his nose, he told them about the trip to the library and the visit from the arsonist.

  “Ha.” Lethe stabbed Hood in the chest. “I told you Grier needed us.”

  Once Lethe finished being smug, which took a while, they returned to the front of the cottage.

  “The vampires walked right onto the porch.” Hood flared his nostrils. “They didn’t touch the knob or the door, but they used the railing. They must have been let in before they could knock.”

  “The Oliphants have been innkeepers for generations. It’s likely they would have welcomed prospective guests into their home.” Linus thought back on his phone conversation with Mr. Oliphant, which gave an approximate time of death. “The Rogoffs must have called to book a room, learned the inn was full, then came here for information on who was occupying the house.”

  “Pros,” Hood murmured. “They wanted to tailor their cover story to fit whoever they encountered.”

  And they had settled on the lovey-dovey couple act to con a pair of honeymooners since they were a mated pair.

  “Are we going in?” Lethe squared her shoulders. “You can pop the lock, right?”

  “Yes.” He did so with a sigil drawn using his pen. “Disturb as little as possible.” He hesitated with a hand on the knob and met their eyes. “I’ll have to call the cleaners, but not yet. I would prefer to avoid a reprimand for contaminating evidence, so let’s make this quick.”

  Activity on that scale at the cottage would draw the vampires’ attention, and Linus didn’t want them to bolt until he divined their true purpose in coming here. Justice for the Oliphants was beyond the reach of human law now, but the murderers were still within his grasp.

  Once Linus confirmed these were vampire kills, the cleaners would take over, coordinating with local law enforcement after they had collected their evidence. Then they would dispose of the bodies and all signs of supernatural involvement.

  The lock twisted with a grating metallic shift, and Linus opened the door. As he did so, a black cat prowled out and stropped his leg with a purr. Upon noticing Lethe and Hood, it hissed, fur bristling, and vanished into the night.

  “I hope that wasn’t the family pet,” Lethe murmured then added on a hopeful note. “Maybe it’s allowed outside?”

  Concerns for the cat vanished when the scent hit Linus, and he started breathing through his mouth.

  Entering the house, he located the bodies, coughing when the sour, meaty tang hit the back of his throat. The wife had died first, by her own hand. A knitting needle protruded from the side of her neck, and her fingers were soaked with blood that had poured down her shoulder to ruin her clothes and the chair where she sat. Her expression was oddly peaceful. Her husband, on the other hand, died with his face contorted, the fingers of one hand broken, the digits twisted out of shape.

  “The wife committed suicide.” Hood knelt beside her. “The vampires didn’t lay a finger on her.”

  “They tortured the husband,” Lethe growled. “What could two little old people have known that was worth this?”

  The average person would break long before their second finger, but they had worked over Mr. Oliphant. He had held on until they got what they wanted and they killed him, or else they ran out of time to extract the information because he died from his injuries. What had been worth their lives to protect?

  “Look how they ripped out his throat.” Hood kept his tone level. “That speaks of te
mper.”

  “He was out here, alone with the body of his wife, while I was talking to him on the phone.” Linus’s temper crackled, and the noise in his head, the darkness, howled. “The vampires must have circled back to finish this after I carried Grier up to our room.”

  “If he was out here alone, then they were certain he would play his part. They must have glamoured him out of his mind.” Hood eyed the man with pity. “He couldn’t have asked for help even if he realized he needed it. The glamour wouldn’t allow it.”

  “This isn’t your fault.” Lethe jutted out her chin. “Fight me.”

  “What she means,” Hood said, clasping him on the shoulder, “is that what happened to the Oliphants is part of what’s been happening here for generations. You didn’t set these events in motion.”

  “That’s what I said,” Lethe protested. “It’s not his fault.”

  Hood rubbed his face then let his hands fall to his sides before sighing, “Yes, dear.”

  The gwyllgi bantering only worked so long before Linus could no longer ignore the gruesome scene.

  As regret burned in his gut, he turned away from the Oliphants.

  The vampires hadn’t fed on them. They had let their blood waste.

  There was an insult in that, not only in the taking of a life but the squandering of a life once taken.

  “Mr. Oliphant didn’t give it up, whatever it was,” Lethe said, drawing Linus from his grim thoughts. “Otherwise, I don’t see the vampires inviting themselves to the inn knowing you and Grier were there.” Lethe prowled around the space. “They must still be searching for whatever brought them here.”

  Linus drifted through each room, searching without making it obvious so the cleaners could do their jobs with minimal interference later. The house was neat, everything in its place, and the decor dated back to the sixties. Even the crucifixes on the walls, and there were dozens, came in the popular turquoise shade of the appliances from that era. So did the frames for all the paintings of saints.

  He located the source of the Rogoffs’ elaborate costumes in the master closet. Apparently square dancing was a hobby the Oliphants had enjoyed together. The Rogoffs must have stolen the clothes to fit their story about traveling for a competition. With the couple dead, there was no one to expose them for the theft. Except for Kylie.