How to Claim an Undead Soul

by Hailey Edwards

  I squinted at him, certain this must be some kind of trick. No man was this reasonable.

  “Taslima?” Eternity, bleak and endless, swirled in his eyes. “Teach her. Don’t use her as a punching bag.” Linus tossed me the damp rag to wipe my face. “You can’t beat lessons into your students’ heads, or I would carry a mallet instead of a tablet to class with me.”

  With his chastisement ringing in my ears, Linus retreated and left Taslima and me staring at one another.

  Sensing Taz was waiting on me to decide if I’d suffered enough abuse for one day, I balled up the cloth and flung it on the back steps. “Again?”

  Cackling merrily, Taz sank into a fighting stance and waited for me to mimic her. “Again,” she agreed. “This time, I won’t pull my punches.”

  Maybe her earlier hits had given me brain damage. I don’t know why else that would have made me smile.

  Linus held his tongue while playing nurse after Taz finished tenderizing my face, and I was grateful he was willing to let me pursue my independence how I saw fit. I took a selfie before he broke out his pen, tempted to send it to Boaz as a thank you for today, but a lifetime of knowing him counseled it was better he didn’t see this caterpillar until she emerged from her cocoon. Still, I owed him some thanks for keeping his word and settled for a quick call as I wandered the garden.

  “Go out with me.”

  “Hello, Boaz. How are you? Me? I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

  “Hello, Grier. How are you? I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” A smile warmed his voice. “Go out with me.”

  I plucked a few dead leaves from a thorny stem. “What if I say no?”

  “I’ll give you time to see the error of your ways then ask again.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” The man was energy caged in skin. He couldn’t sit or stand still. He wouldn’t last a full day if I turned him down before he was asking again, and each time would be harder to deny than the last. “What if I say yes?”

  “Then I promise to be a gentleman and treat you with the care and respect you deserve.”

  I laughed until I realized he wasn’t chuckling with me. “You’re serious.”

  “As a heart attack.”

  Talk about hitting a nail on the head. The idea of a date with Boaz gave me arrhythmia. “I’ll think about it.”

  “You do that.” Satisfaction deepened his voice. “All day long, while you’re sleeping in my shirt, you think about how much fun we’re going to have.”

  I lost focus and pricked my finger. “I haven’t said yes yet.”

  “You will.” He sounded so sure, so cocky, I almost turned him down on principle. But then his tone softened, and a shy hint of the boy who’d helped me get into trouble most of my life peeked through. “I hope you will.”

  There might be a girl somewhere in the world able to resist Boaz Pritchard when he shucked his charm and became earnest, but that girl was not I. Each glimpse of his big heart made me hungrier for the next. And yet… Though I had already made up my mind—as if there had ever been any doubt—I relished holding the upper hand for once.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said again, breathless.

  He must be fluent in the language of my exhales, because I heard his relief. “You do that, Squirt.”

  “I have to go.” I climbed onto the back porch. “I’ll see you soon, right?”

  “Only if you’re a very good girl,” he teased. “Or a very bad one.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing then said my goodbyes before he distracted me again. Not until after I hung up did it hit me. All his talk of dating had derailed my reason for calling, and I forgot to thank him for sending Taz, which I did in a text rather than tempting fate by hitting redial.

  A plan had taken shape while I was trying to keep my head attached to my body with moderate success, and I was eager to set it in motion. But first, I had one more call to make.

  “Odette?”

  Odette Lecomte was a seer. The desperate, the hungry, and the curious traveled from all over the world to beg for an audience with her. Clients paid in favors and promises, gold and jewels, and other more precious things to sift their futures through her gnarled fingers. Those glimpses into other lives, other minds, made her a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge both common and forbidden. And she had been one of Maud’s best friends. That made her as good as an honorary aunt to me.

  “Ma coccinelle.” My ladybug. The endearment, shouted over the crash of waves, was better than a hug. “You called for an update, yes?”

  “Yes.” I crossed my fingers tight. “Have you found anything?”

  “Nothing good, bébé, nothing good. Let me get in the house, and I will tell you what I’ve found.” The steady roar quit like a pulled cord on a noise machine. “There. That’s better.” Her breath caught before she groaned, a long exhalation, and I imagined her sinking into her plush couch. “I spoke with Dame Marchand.”

  Dame Severine Marchand, my maternal grandmother, whose name Maud had forbidden spoken in her presence, whose existence had been all but scrubbed from my memories, until it occurred to me she might have answers about my absent father and Odette a way to get them. “And?”

  “The Marchands have disowned Evangeline and wiped her from the family histories. Her own mother attempted to pretend she had no idea who Evie was until I reminded her with whom she was speaking.”

  Evangeline Marchand, my mother, died when I was five. I don’t recall much about her. The way she smelled when she peppered my face with kisses, the melodious current of her voice when she sang to me in her native tongue, those things were lost to time. Thanks to Maud’s photo albums, I know I’m the spitting image of her. We share the same thin lips, high cheekbones, and sharp chin. Whoever my father was, his only contributions had been the wave in my dark hair and the color of my eyes.

  “Oh.” Mom hadn’t been close to her people, but disownment within the Society was an irrevocable severance of the bloodline. There was no going back even if a reconciliation was reached. I tried to laugh it off, but the words got hung in my throat. “That would explain why they skipped her funeral.”

  This also shed light on why my grandparents had never come to claim me. Maud would have fought them tooth and nail to keep me, but she had never had to sharpen her claws. I had no memory of them, I wasn’t sure I had ever met them, but none of that mattered now. As far as they were concerned, I was no one and nothing to them.

  “Evie’s relationship with her mother and stepfather was always strained, she never explained why, but I had no idea such extreme measures had been taken. Though this explains why she sought asylum with Maud. Without her family name, no other Society family would have acknowledged her, let alone aided her.”

  I sank into one of the rockers bracketing the back door before my legs gave out on me. “Do you think Maud knew?”

  “Maud wouldn’t have cared if she had known. She loved your mother fiercely. She wouldn’t have allowed the Society—or anyone else—to dictate the rules of hospitality in her own home.”

  Hearing that allowed me to relax enough to push off the planks with my toes. Maud was to Mom what Amelie was to me. “Do you have any idea when they disowned her?”

  She hesitated long enough I could tell the answer pained her, and that it would hurt me too. “The day you were born.”

  I shut my eyes and focused on my breathing until I was certain I could hold myself together for Odette. “Do they know who…?”

  “Dame Marchand swore Evie kept his identity a secret.” Odette paused for a moment. “For what it’s worth, I believe her. The risk of scandal would have been too high for her mother to ignore. I imagine they would have given her the choice of her family or you.”

  So much for holding myself together. Fat tears rolled down my cheeks. “And she chose me.”

  “She was your maman.” Her voice wavered. “Of course she did. Every time. Always.”

  “I appreciate your help,” I said weakly, eager to sev
er our connection and lick my wounds in private. “I’ll drive out to see you soon.”

  “You know where to find me. Je t’adore.”

  “Love you too.”

  I ended the call and sat there for a while, listening to the night birds and the buzz of insects.

  “Things can never be simple,” I complained to the old house. “A phone call to clear up my paternity was asking for too much.” I ground the heels of my palms in my eyes. “Someone must know or at least suspect his identity. We just have to find them.”

  The porch light flared in encouragement.

  Hinges groaned as Woolly opened the back door, urging me in away from the mosquitoes, and I heeded her advice. After a hot shower to loosen my twinging muscles, I set the plan Taz helped shake loose into motion by dressing in my nicest jeans and least holey top.

  I was going to beg Cricket to give me my job back.

  I might fail just as hard on this front as I had on all the others, but I needed an outlet, and being a Haint meant something to me. Plus, knocking around the house alone for a week had me bored out of my gourd.

  Since Linus hadn’t fitted me with an ankle monitor, and Boaz hadn’t tied me to a chair before he left, I assumed whatever security measures they had put in place after Volkov’s attack comforted them enough not to bother me with the fine print.

  The odds were better than good that the Grande Dame had bankrolled a protective detail to skulk after me whenever I left the house. All things considered, I ought to be more grateful, but it took so little to feel cold stone beneath my cheek, to hear my cellmates sobbing, that any restrictions placed on my movements sent spasms through my chest.

  Hopping on Jolene was, as always, a revelation. Her steady rumble between my thighs, her roar in my ears, the night stretching long and dark before us, unclenched the spot between my shoulders that kept hitching tighter and tighter the farther I strayed from home.

  The sensation of being watched, I chalked up to paranoia that vampires were out to get me.

  Except vampires were out to get me. And it was only a matter of time before others joined in the hunt.

  The last seven days might have passed in blissful quiet, but only a fool would expect that trend to last.

  Reaching HQ unmolested left me shaking with relief. Going out alone for the first time since I had been kidnapped had me jitterier than if I’d tossed back six shots of expresso.

  A few of the girls waved or called out to me, but they were on their way to lead tours and couldn’t stop to chat. Depending on how things shook out in the next few minutes, there would be gossip aplenty waiting on them when they got back.

  I spotted Cricket Meacham sitting at her desk, victory rolls pinned neatly on top of her blonde head, unlit cigarette pinched between her lips, and marched into her office. Head held high, I listed my demands. Well, demand. “I want my old job back.”

  She didn’t glance up from her schedule. “Not happening, honey.”

  This nut was going to be harder to crack than I’d thought. “I know I messed up—”

  “You’re flakier than fish food, Grier.” She penned in a few more names. “I need guides I can rely on, and that’s not you.” After matching groups to guides, she capped her pen. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re one of the best I’ve got. When you’re here. But you tend to ghost on me, and I only pay for spooks when they’re part of the tour.”

  “I was—” imprisoned for five years the first time I bailed and kidnapped by a vampire the second, “—very inconsiderate. I understand that. But I need this job. Please.”

  Boredom was a handy excuse, but the truth was all the upheaval in my life had made me desperate for an anchor. Haint Misbehavin’ could be that for me. I loved the work, it kept a portion of my nights occupied, and it allowed me to hang with my friends. The Haints gave me a safe place where I could feel like the old Grier, the one who had a dawn curfew before Maud started making phone calls.

  “I can’t help you.” She went back to her paperwork. “Though I will admit I was impressed you bothered to return your costume and accoutrements. Guess you learned that lesson at least.”

  Her one requirement for taking me on a second time had been that I pay her back every cent of my previous costume’s worth since there had been no opportunity to return mine after my sentencing. I had been a tad too busy never seeing the light of day again to fret over a few hundred dollars’ worth of skirt and corset. But, as a result, I’d lived on ketchup and crackers at one point to stretch my budget to fit her repayment schedule. For her to say I had returned my things meant Amelie had covered for me.

  “I don’t have to be a guide,” I blurted. “Let me help Neely or Dom. There must be something I can do.”

  “Dom called in sick.” Her sigh rustled the papers on her desk. “You can scrub toilets for minimum wage if you want. That’s it. That’s all I got.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Cricket squinted up at me, noticing my face for the first time. “Damn girl. Good thing you’re not working the beat tonight. Your face is as purple as an eggplant.”

  I touched my cheek. “I fell.”

  Her humorless snort caught me off-guard. “Honey, that’s what they all say.”

  Ducking my head, I figured it was better she thought I was a domestic-abuse victim than if she knew the truth of how I’d spent my evening picking grass out of my teeth. Or maybe the other way around was more accurate. “I’ll go get started.”

  “The to-do list is tacked on the wall in the downstairs bathroom.” Her attention settled back on her work. “Use the dry eraser to wipe the board clean, then mark off each task as you finish.” She pointed her pen at me. “And for the love of God, stay out of sight. I don’t want you spooking the victims prior to departure.”

  I backed out into the hallway, pulling her door shut behind me, and sagged as relief swept over me.

  “Grier.”

  I had no time to brace for impact. One minute I was standing there, counting my blessings, and the next a blur of buttery yellow satin torpedoed into my side, knocking me against the wall. “Oomph.”

  With her golden-brown hair pinned in a corona around her head and her brown eyes blazing with fury, Amelie embodied a wrathful sun goddess. The matching parasol clutched in her gloved hand might as well have been a scepter given the imperious way she waved it under my nose.

  “What happened to your face?” She covered her mouth with her empty hand. “Who did this to you?”

  “I had my first self-defense lesson.” I smiled, and it pulled on my healing lip. “Taslima is fierce.”

  “Taz did this?” Amelia growled through her fingers. “I’m going to kill my brother.”

  Given her reaction to my appearance, I left out the part where Linus had worked his mojo on me. She didn’t need to know how much worse I had looked before I loaned myself out as a guinea pig to test one of his new healing sigils.

  “I asked Boaz for help.” I clutched her arms to hold her steady. “It’s fine. Really.”

  “This is all my fault,” she groaned. “I never should have told him you left the house. He must have called her.”

  “You told him—?” The little sneak had used my text against me. “That explains Taz’s miraculous timing. I figured she must have been hiding out in the garden, stalking her prey before going in for the kill.”

  Amelie flushed, but she didn’t apologize. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to ask for my old job back.”

  “Are you insane?” She hooked her arm through mine and dragged me into the parlor where the female Haints changed. “You could buy this place if you wanted. Why would you work here again?”

  “Things are changing so fast. I’m having trouble coping.” I sank onto the spindly Victorian couch parked in the corner. “Nothing changed in Atramentous. You lived the same day over and over and over. I’m trying to catch my balance. I did for a while there, but then—”

  “Volkov happened,” she supplied.
“Vampy bastard.”

  Tempting as it was to blame it all on him, he’d had help overloading my circuits.

  “The pardon happened. The release happened. The return home happened. The scraping together of a life happened.” And then it was all blown out of the water. “I was getting a handle on things until the inauguration.” When the Grande Dame had reinstated my title as the Woolworth heir, Dame Woolworth, and shared with me the true reason for my release. I was goddess-touched. I could make true immortals. And she got dollar signs in her eyes every time she looked at me. “And then, yeah. Volkov happened.”

  “When you put it like that…” Amelie perched beside me. “I get it.”

  I grunted what passed for a gloomy acknowledgment.

  “Get this through your thick skull.” She rapped me hard on the knee with her parasol. “You’ve got this. You made it out. You’re not going to stop until you own your power.” She fluttered her lashes. “Besides, this means more girl time for us. Pretty sure if we hit Mallow after work together it halves the calories.”

  “Not exactly.” I winced. “Cricket wouldn’t let me have my old job back. She offered me Dom’s spot for the night, and I accepted. I need to keep my hands busy while my brain works out what I want to do next.”

  “Far be it from me to come between a woman and her coping mechanism.” Amelie wrinkled her nose. “Also? The janitor gig might not be as long term as Cricket let you believe.”

  “We’re not losing someone, are we?” A few Haints were seasonal hires, but the core group had remained the same for years. “As much as I want to move up in the world, I don’t want it to be at someone else’s expense.”

  “No, it’s nothing like that.” She stood and searched each dressing room stall to make sure we were alone. “Cricket bought shares in River Street Steam. She’s cooked up a scheme with the owner to start running nightly haunted dinner cruises aboard the Cora Ann in addition to the standard packages offered now. She’ll have to bring on at least a dozen more girls, and putting you to work as a guide means no learning curve.”