Undeadly

by Michele Vail

  “If you didn’t want me to stay around,” he whispered, his lip curling into a sneer, “then you shouldn’t have let her kill me.”

  “I didn’t,” I said. “That was a long time ago, Rennie. You don’t have to do this. Be like this.”

  Rennie flipped me the bird before he walked through the back wall of the room. Awesome. I really did feel sorry for him. I wished I could reap him, but...ghosts were a different kind of reap.

  Maybe I could talk to Rath about it. If Rennie was even interested. Spirits who chose to stay earthbound had issues.

  I went into my massive closet, trying to find a pair of shoes that looked good with my jeans. Rick would be here any moment, and then we’d head over to Autumn’s room for junk food and horror movies.

  “You are useless.”

  Hearing Irina’s acerbic Russian voice behind me nearly scared me outta my denims. I whirled around, slapping a hand against my chest. She eyed me from the closet doorway, and then sighed deeply.

  “You learn nothing.” She tapped her lower lip, her gaze assessing. Then she offered a small shrug. “Anubis insists. So, you go.”

  “Go where?”

  Irina gave me another measuring look, and then she snorted. “Ah! You are still too soft. So, soft, dumb girl, you must complete a task. I do not have high hopes you will.” She reached out and awkwardly patted my shoulder. “Work on your ruthlessness.”

  “Yes, Irina.”

  She turned to go. “Come.”

  “Now?”

  “Da.”

  “Um...no da,” I said. “I have plans.”

  She turned back toward me, one blond brow raised. “You must learn sacrifice, Molly. Being the champion of Anubis does not mean you fit your duties in between your plans.”

  “But why now?” My voice verged on whiny. “How about later?”

  Irina covered her ears. “Oh, your screeching enters my brain like acidic worms.” She removed her hands from her head. “Do you really choose to ignore the will of Anubis?”

  I wanted to, but I suspected this was part of the challenges that everyone was always going on about.

  “It’s a test,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Irina. She gave me a long look, the kind that made my stomach squeeze. “I suggest you pass.”

  I dressed in dark clothes as Irina directed. It seemed silly to go CIA-ish, but what did I know? I had no idea what Irina had in store for me.

  It was disappointing not to see my friends, but I was sucking it up. Mostly. Also, it was a little exciting to go out on some kind of secret mission. I wondered what Anubis expected of me.

  Irina looked at my outfit then nodded in approval. “Let’s go.”

  I texted Rick and Autumn that I had puked up my guts and was totally staying in bed until I no longer felt like dying. Ironic, right? Autumn texted back immediately with directions about some kind of vegan stomach cure, and Rick...well, Rick didn’t text back at all.

  Chapter 15

  “Rumors abound that some of the very wealthy collect famous spirits. In fact, a certain computer genius is said to have a special museum that displays his collection of spirits along with some of the items they owned in life. Of course, we’ll never really know—such accumulation of ghosts is an illegal act.”

  ~Heddy Dalmar, gossip columnist

  “Irina said you were...discreet.” Mitzy Neuberg sat on the velvet sofa opposite the one that Irina and I occupied. The couches faced an antique coffee table where a tea service had been set up. She’d been taking my measure since inviting me inside, and I let her. Irina had told me it was better if I said nothing, if I waited for Mitzy to make her judgment and move on to the problem. In the end, Molly, no matter what people think of you, your clothes, your demeanor, your hair, they will dismiss their concerns in favor of utilizing your gifts.

  Mrs. Neuberg was obviously waiting for someone to speak. Irina slanted me a look with one quirked eyebrow.

  “Yes, Mrs. Neuberg,” I said, glancing at the portly woman. “I’m discreet.”

  “Ah. Good. Very good. So, the problem...” She offered a quick, tight smile. “My husband’s great aunt passed last October. They were not...close. I’m afraid he found a vast amount of pleasure in raising her spirit to work in the kitchen. You see, she was never fond of cooking and, in fact, made her own kitchen staff’s life a living hell. I must admit to enjoying the delightful irony in Aunt Myra doing dishes and serving food.” Mitzy paused and cleared her throat, maybe trying to clear her conscience, too. “You are aware that some of the recently raised spirits are not as...bound to their haunting. There’s been some speculation that the new batch of Ruddard’s SEER machines are experiencing...issues.”

  Mitzy’s way of speaking quickly and then pausing was getting on my nerves. Seriously. I tried to focus on the problem, which was apparently to get back Great Aunt Myra.

  “Irina said your abilities were quite strong. I’m curious how you manage to reattach the spirits to the SEER.”

  My mouth dropped open. She thought I could attach spirits to SEERs? Crap. I pressed my lips together. I was a zombie maker. A soul wrangler. A freaking reaper. But a ghost slaver?

  No way.

  “She’s persuasive,” said Irina. She’d gone tense, and it was probably from the effort not to slap the back of my head. “The spirits listen to her.”

  “I see.” Mitzy didn’t see at all (and neither did I). She stood up, giving us one of those polite stick-up-your-ass smiles. She wore a white dress that did not suit her doughy form, and a lot of fancy gold jewelry. Everything about her screamed, I have money!

  “You’re rather young, aren’t you?” asked Mitzy as we followed her out of the formal living room, down a wide hallway and through a set of double wood doors. “I mean for your line of work. Most girls your age are worried about college entrance exams and parties and driving.”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Mrs. Neuberg reminded me a lot of Mrs. Woodbine, the zombie abuser.

  “I’m not most girls.”

  She glanced over her shoulder, her brown eyes questioning. I merely smiled and shrugged.

  We passed through a dining room and then another door.

  Mitzy paused. “Here we are. The kitchen.” She looked around the space as if she hadn’t seen it before. Like the other rooms in the house, it was huge. Above the center island hung a pot rack dripping with copper pans. The gleaming appliances included two refrigerators, a double oven, a stove with eight burners, and black marble counters free of unsightly cooking debris.

  “How long has Aunt Myra been gone?” asked Irina. She studied the kitchen as though she were planning a military siege on the appliances.

  “Since this morning.” Mrs. Neuberg glanced at me. “You were not my first choice to handle this situation.”

  What did that mean? I glanced at Irina, but her expression was like glass.

  “My husband remains...unaware of the situation. You understand it would be best if things were resolved before he arrives home this evening.” She smiled and her eyes went cold. “Ten o’clock, every weekday night. Never late, my Harold.”

  So it wasn’t marital bliss in the Neuberg household. Big surprise. I glanced at the wall clock in the kitchen. It was almost 8:30 p.m., which gave me about an hour and a half to find the ghost and get it back to its SEER tether. And, oh yeah, figure out how to do that. Maybe finishing my SEER paper for Mrs. Dawson would have helped....

  “Rush jobs cost more,” said Irina. “Double the fee.”

  “That’s outrageous!”

  “So you will tell your husband that you have lost his great aunt Myra?” Irina’s voice was as cold and smooth as ice.

  Mitzy sucked in a breath. She vibrated with outrage, but her desperation won out. “Fine,” she said in a hissing voice. “Fifty-thousand dollars.”

  I looked at the floor to keep from giving away my shock. That was double the fee? Holy crap. Then I hesitated. Why would Anubis charge for anything? Did gods need money
?

  I was getting a bad feeling about this whole thing.

  Irina was a reaper. She was my instructor. And it seemed like she was using her powers for things outside of the reaper realm. Had this operation really been authorized by Anubis?

  I didn’t know. But I was stuck here with Irina. If I just did what was asked of me, she’d take me back to Nekyia. And maybe Anubis could contact me when he actually wanted me to do something.

  Mitzy looked around the huge kitchen as if she might see Aunt Myra floating around. Regular people couldn’t see ghosts, not without the SEER. “I’ll leave you to your work. I expect Aunt Myra to resume her duties within the next hour.”

  She strode out, obviously still angry that Irina had blackmailed her into a higher rate. Irina walked around the massive island, staring at its shiny marble surface. “So rich. So stupid.”

  “Irina, we’re charging her?”

  “I have expenses. Do not worry. Anubis does not mind that I charge for our services.”

  “I didn’t think reaping was a money-making business.”

  Irina snorted. “You have much to learn.”

  No doubt. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Catch the ghost. Put her on the machine.”

  “I’ve never done that before.”

  “So?”

  “Isn’t this psychic work?” In this day and age, saying you were psychic was like saying the sky was blue. People went to school to open their chakras and third eyes and stuff.

  “Most psychics are frauds,” said Irina. “And they are liars.”

  It sounded like Irina might’ve had a run in or two with some psychics. I wondered if she’d whacked them with her scythe.

  “We will check the kitchen to make sure we are alone,” she said.

  The place was cavernous, but obviously empty. Still, I went around with Irina to make sure no one was lurking. When we were sure nobody living—aside from us—wasn’t hanging around, Irina pulled me into the center of the room. “Open your senses. Like I showed you. She is hiding, Molly. And she’s close.”

  “If you know where she—”

  “Shh!” She snapped her fingers in front of my face. “You must learn what I’m teaching you. Open your senses. Figure out what is different. Feel where she might be.”

  I inhaled, closed my eyes and opened up my senses the way Irina had taught me. I didn’t know what I was looking for, and I have to admit that I was freaked. I was a reaper, not some sort of ghost buster. I didn’t like the SEER machines in the same way I thought black market zombification sucked.

  People should be allowed to choose what they wanted for their lives—and their deaths.

  “Concentrate!” The directive was punctuated by a sharp slap to the back of my skull.

  Ow! I bit my lip to stop the complaint from rolling out of my mouth. You know that saying...you get two for flinching? Well, Irina was more of the opinion that you get three for flinching, bitching or not doing it right the first time.

  Her way of teaching made me miss Rath.

  I wished he’d come back.

  I kept my eyes closed, deepened my breath and concentrated. I focused on the kitchen, moving from point to point until...huh. “I feel a sorta blank spot.” I opened my eyes and then looked behind me at Irina.

  She gave a sharp nod, approval in her gaze. “Good.”

  The blank spot seem to hover in the pantry. With Irina following behind me, I grabbed the handle and yanked open the pantry door. We stepped inside the massive supply closet.

  Aunt Myra, dressed in furs and dripping in diamonds, cowered in the back next to a shelf of canned goods.

  “Wow,” I muttered. “They really like green beans.”

  Irina snorted. “Look at her. Most raised spirits come back in the clothes they died in or their funeral clothes. Stronger ghosts figure out how to manipulate their own energy and create whatever clothing they want.” She slanted me a look. “Or not. Trust me, Molly. Naked ghosts are not delightful to view.”

  “I would never be naked!” trilled Aunt Myra. “I’ve been in here all day. I can’t go any farther. Stupid machine. I wished I’d written my great nephew out of my will!”

  It seemed like the SEER had weakened just enough to let Myra go invisible, but not completely out of range. Most SEERs emanated a magnetic “net” that prevented ghosts from leaving the vicinity, even if they did manage to wrest their energy from the attachment device. I was surprised other psychics hadn’t been able to find Aunt Myra.

  Unease crawled through me. Something was wiggy with the situation, but I couldn’t bail. Irina would kick my ass. And I would disappoint Anubis.

  Maybe.

  “Grab them,” said Irina. She pointed to the ethereal chains snapped around Myra’s substantial ankles.

  “Don’t you dare!” Aunt Myra attempted to scramble up the wall, but the chains groaned in protests. “I demand a lawyer.”

  “Shut up,” snapped Irina. She looked at me sternly. “A reaper controls all aspects of the dead. You will grab the chains, and we will take her back to the SEER and reattach her to it.”

  I didn’t want to do that. Not only because I sooooo didn’t want to touch Aunt Myra, but also because SEER machines were cruel devices. Still. I could guess what would happen if I didn’t.

  “Okay,” I said, as though I’d had some kind of choice. I reached down and slowly I wrapped my hands around the ghost chains.

  Myra stared at me. “You can let me go,” she said. “Don’t send me back to that dreadful machine!”

  “Sorry,” I said. “But you’ll have to work that out with your great nephew.” Who sounded like a real prize—but then again Aunt Myra didn’t sound like a spiffy human being herself. At least, when she’d been one.

  “No!” cried Myra. “I demand that you reap my soul!” Then she looked down at my hands, which gripped the chains. Man, it felt really weird.

  “Ew! You can touch it.” Myra sounded horrified. Then she grabbed on to one of the top shelves, digging her well-heeled feet into a long row of canned creamed corn. Had she forgotten she was a ghost? There was no hanging on, for Anubis’s sake!

  “Oh, I can do more than just touch these tethers,” I said, my voice hardening.

  I pulled, and she held on for dear life, her manicured fingers digging into the wood. “My dear girl, I will give you anything, anything in the world, if you will free me.”

  I was having a difficult time finding any sympathy for Myra. I kinda understood why her family had stolen her spirit to humiliate her. “I suggest you let go or this whole thing’s gonna get a lot worse.”

  “We’ve heard such things before,” said Irina. “All spirits offer the promise of buried treasure or a forgotten lockbox or hidden jewelry.” She wagged her finger at Myra. “Ghosts will do anything, including lie, to get away from the SEERs.”

  I didn’t blame spirits for not wanting to spend their afterlives working, especially for crappy family members. It was worse than zombie enslavement—that was just reanimating somebody’s abandoned corpse. The soul didn’t reside there anymore. A SEER machine trapped the entire soul—from sheut to ka, and the people knew what they were suffering.

  “I’ll tell you where the diamonds are,” screeched Myra. “I hid them!”

  “Why should we care about diamonds?” asked Irina in a bored voice.

  Ectoplasm felt kinda squishy and sticky. Like old chewing gum. I tightened my grip and yanked. Myra was ripped away from the shelf. She floated above me, arms crossed, her expression angry.

  “What did they promise you?”

  Irina shrugged. “A hundred thousand dollars,” she lied. She offered a small, mean smile. “They must like you very much.”

  “Ha!” Myra tapped her bottom lip. “That’s a lot of hatred money. And it doesn’t seem like my idiot nephew’s style.” She studied Irina, obviously suspicious. Then she pursed her lips. “Fine. The diamonds are worth more than half a million.”

  Irina rolled her ey
es. “So you say. We let you go, you lead us to some grave or dark woods, and then nothing. You are free, but we are still poor.” She shook her head, her blond ponytail bouncing. “No. We won’t take such risks. Molly, escort her to the SEER.”

  Reluctantly, I took Aunt Myra out of the pantry and into the kitchen, holding on to her SEER chain. Crud. I had no idea where the SEER machine was located. I glanced up at Myra questioningly, and she snorted.

  “I’m not going to tell you,” she said. “Let me go, and I’ll give you the diamonds.”

  “Do I look like a diamond merchant?” I asked. “I’m a kid, not a cat burglar.”

  “You’re a reaper! And you’re supposed to reap souls, not make them suffer.”

  “Don’t tell me how to do my job,” I said, offended even though I was a reaper-in-training. I had no practical soul escorting experience. Rath had basically abandoned me, too, so everything I’d learned so far was from Irina—and her motives weren’t exactly on the side of good.

  “Mitzy and Harold are terrible people,” said Aunt Myra, trying another useless tactic. She should’ve gone for the sympathy first, and then bribery.

  “Most people are,” I said.

  Irina had stayed in the pantry, but I heard her voice drift out of the opened door. She was speaking in Russian.

  I started opening cabinets; most were filled with dishes or foodstuffs. I’d assumed that the Neubergs would buy a top-of-the-line SEER, maybe one of the new ones that... Oh.

  I walked to the refrigerators that were side by side.

  “No!” Myra sucked in a breath, realizing too late she’d confirmed my suspicions.

  The first one I checked was an actual fridge, which meant that the other was the SEER.

  “Please,” wailed Myra. “I’ll do anything. Anything!”

  “Sorry,” I said. And I was. A little.

  Chapter 16

  “A ghost cannot inhabit a zombie. Many spirits have tried, but nearly all have failed. Oh, sure. There are a very few instances of ghosts squeezing into the walking dead, but they never last for long. Part of zombification includes protections against spirit invaders, though it was likely the Egyptians were trying to keep demons from having corporeal forms.”