Affairs of the Dead

by A. J. Locke

  “We have to take you into custody,” head witch, whose name was Tielle, said. “Then we will decide what to do with you.” She motioned one of the officers forward, and I was immediately on my feet, as was Ilyse. She took a step forward.

  “Where is your warrant?” she asked. They hesitated, and it was clear they did not have one; they had simply tracked me down after scooping up my dog. Despite how desperate the government was to strip reanimators, there was still protocol, and a warrant was needed before they could round me up.

  “It will not take us more than twenty-four hours to get one,” Tielle said icily.

  “Yes, but then do you want to risk the frenzy Selene’s story will cause in the media?” Ilyse continued. “You should know better than I do that the outrage against what is done to reanimators is so great it would be impossible to go about this quietly, especially with all the witnesses we have. Selene saved a lot of lives today. Would you rather the news focus on that or the fact that you hauled her off to jail?” Again, there was hesitation among the dead witches. A few moments later, they all stood up.

  “Selene Vanream, for the time being, you will remain free,” Tielle said. “But make no mistake, once we convene with our higher-ups and are granted a warrant, we will come for you.” I could have collapsed with relief; it might be only temporary freedom, but I’d take it. I was sure the government would find some way to strip me. I just had to hope they didn’t fear reanimation magic so much that they were willing to kill me to ensure my power died.

  Once the dead witches left, Ilyse spent some time drawing ghost energy off me, and she didn’t have to say a word to let me know how much ghost energy had been clinging to me and what that meant for the Rot. Well, what could I do about it now, right?

  I wanted to go visit Micah, but when I called the hospital, they said he was still in surgery and urged me to visit him tomorrow. So in the end, Ethan and I called a cab and went home. After a long, hot shower, I ordered food and came into the living room to find Ethan huddled on the couch. I sat down next to him.

  “Do you hate me?” I asked. He looked at me for a long time, his face sad and expressionless, before he answered.

  “No,” he said softly. “I…I know you only wanted to help me. I just…my body…” Tears welled in his eyes, and I felt all kinds of horrible as I looked at him sitting there with my pillow clutched to his chest.

  “I want to say something that’ll make you feel better,” I said. “But I know there isn’t anything I could say. I wish things had turned out differently. I didn’t think your body would be lost…”

  “I know,” he said, sighing. “It’s just not easy for me to accept that this is my new reality, for however long it may be.” Meaning there was no telling what the government would decide to do to us. “I’m a ghost, except I’m solid. I can eat and drink but can’t sleep or go to the bathroom, which makes me wonder where the food goes, by the way. I’m some weird, in-between thing. And I’m slowly killing you. And I already killed a man.”

  We had left that detail out of our story to the dead witches. It worked out to maintain that Larry in Ethan’s body had killed Andrew. He had been there for that purpose after all.

  “It’s a hell of a lot, I know,” I said. “But I’m here for you.”

  “And I have no home,” he continued. “It was burned down.”

  “What?” I asked sharply.

  “I never got a chance to tell you, but one of the reasons I was coming back here after I left was because someone set fire to my house while I was hiding out in it.”

  “Larry and Trevor must have done that after Larry saw I used a tracking rune to find him,” I said. “So they must have decided to burn down your house so I couldn’t use any more of your belongings to track your body again.”

  “Couldn’t they just have stolen everything?” Ethan muttered. “All my things are gone now. Did you know I can take my clothes off? I changed when I went home, but now I have nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  “We’ll go shopping,” I said.

  “Yeah, then everything will be all better.” He sighed. “All of this because I was in the wrong place at the right time. What will I do about school? What will my family think when they see my picture on the news in connection with murder?”

  “You can still see your family,” I said. “And maybe you can even go to school. You’re a ghost, but you’re a tangible ghost.” I reached out and took his hand, giving it a squeeze. “You’re not even that cold. You could still have your life. You don’t have to resort to haunting an abandoned amusement park or something.”

  He didn’t smile at my attempt at a joke. “It won’t be the same. You know that.”

  “Yes, I know,” I said. “Nothing will be the same for you or for me going forward. That just means we have to create our new normal.”

  “New normal,” he repeated. “New, terrible, unbearable normal.” He sighed again.

  “This is still too new and mind blowing and depressing, I understand that,” I said. “So I’ll let you wallow for now, and if it helps to blame this all on me and hate me, then that’s okay too.”

  “I don’t hate you. I told you that,” Ethan mumbled against the pillow.

  “Then can I hug you?” I asked. “I know I could use one, and I have a feeling you could too.”

  His face crumpled, and I took that as my cue and pulled him into my arms. Ethan wrapped his arms around me and sobbed into my neck, and I felt my eyes grow wet as he cried. Ethan clung to me with such hopeless desperation that I would have done anything to get his body back. I felt so helpless. I also realized that this was the most physical contact I’d had with Ethan since we’d met, and that he probably could have used a hug long before now.

  It was less than two weeks since we’d met and hell had unleashed around us, but it felt like we were old friends. I wanted to protect Ethan, but right now I knew I had failed at that.

  I held Ethan for a long time, and the only thing that interrupted us was the sound of my doorbell ringing, which made both of us tense up. Couldn’t be the dead witches coming to round us up, could it? Then I remembered I had ordered food and relaxed a little. Ethan detached himself and slumped against the sofa, and I went to answer the door. Luna pranced around my feet; I hadn’t paid her much attention since I’d gotten home. I picked her up as I opened the door, but it wasn’t a horde of dead witches standing there, or a delivery person. I didn’t think I could be shocked any more for the day, but I was.

  Andrew’s wife, Cecilia, stood on my doorstep.

  “Selene,” she said. Everything about her was what you would expect from a woman from the Upper East Side. She was tall and rigidly slender, though I suspected it was mostly from the plastic surgeon’s office, not the gym, and her blonde hair was brushed back from her face in a slight pompadour style. Her makeup was neat, but it only enhanced a face that wasn’t that remarkable to begin with.

  I was never sure what Andrew saw in her, though seeing as he’d shamelessly cheated on her, I was going to bet he didn’t think of her along the lines of soul mate. The look she gave me was probing, and she held something in her hands.

  “My husband is dead, as you know,” she said. She couldn’t possibly be here to accuse me of his death, right? Had she found out about the affair and figured I’d killed Andrew since I couldn’t have him to myself?

  “Yes,” I said slowly. “We’re all still shaken by it, and I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Looks like I should be saying that to you,” she said, thrusting the papers she’d been holding at my chest. When I looked at them, my eyes widened.

  “Divorce papers?” I said, staring at her.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Indeed. This is what I came home from my trip to Paris to find: my husband murdered, divorce papers, and a letter stating that he was leaving me to be with you.”

  If looks could kill, I’d have long been dead. I had absolutely no idea what to make of this.

  “You were having an affa
ir with my husband,” she said icily.

  I swallowed hard. No use denying it now.

  “Yes,” I said. Her eyes narrowed further. “But I…I never wanted him to leave you for me. I wasn’t interested in…in becoming his girlfriend or new wife or whatever.”

  “No,” she said. “You were just interested in fucking him, then sending him home to not fuck me.”

  Oh, if words could kill too.

  “Mrs. McNabb, I’m so sor—” She slapped me across the face. Then she turned and stalked off. I watched her go with a stinging pain in my cheek, stunned. The indignant part of me wanted to run after her and return the favor, but the rest of me knew that was a well-deserved slap. I stepped back and closed the door, then turned to Ethan, who was looking at me in surprise.

  “Well, isn’t that the cherry on top of this wonderful day?” I said, dropping onto the sofa again.

  “That was like from a television show,” Ethan said. “A…a soap opera.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I should get some ice for my cheek, but I’m too exhausted to move.”

  Ethan shifted and leaned his head against my shoulder, and Luna stood on her hind legs so she could reach my cheek and give it a lick.

  “Thanks, Luna,” I muttered. “If only your tongue was made of ice.”

  “Andrew was going to divorce her for you,” Ethan said. “That’s…”

  “Un-fucking-believable,” I said. “Why the hell would he do that?”

  “Maybe he cared about you more than you thought,” he said.

  I gave a snort of laughter. “Andrew wanted to own me. I don’t call that caring. It’s just like him to choose to leave his wife for me without saying a damn thing to me. Like he just assumed I would be with him.”

  “Doesn’t matter now, though,” Ethan said.

  “I guess it doesn’t.” I still found the entire thing unbelievable. “Where to go from here?”

  Right now, it seemed like all the roads led only to dark places.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Two weeks later, Ethan and I were still free. Ilyse had kept me informed about our case with the government, and so far, it looked like we’d be okay for a while since no one could conclude what to do with us that wouldn’t involve someone losing his or her life. There was some push to lock me up, but since they could not yet strip me, the court wouldn’t grant them a warrant to put me into custody. There were a lot of people in the government who opposed the stripping practice, thankfully. They could stay in a stalemate for the next eighty years, and it would be fine with me.

  Micah was out of the hospital, and I forced him to recover at my house so I could take care of him, though I didn’t really have to force him; he was very willing. His chest and head were bandaged, and he was on a slew of pain medications that made him all kinds of woozy, which Ethan and I made the most of by making him say silly things.

  In the aftermath of Andrew’s death and the showdown that had ensued with Larry, Affairs of the Dead was closed for the time being, and I was enjoying the mini vacation even though it meant our competitors were using our reprieve to steal our clients away. I was okay with that though. I’d had enough of ghosts for a while. Except the one I was bound to, of course.

  I sat on my bed with Micah, enjoying what I could see of his shirtless body around the bandage. His hair was rumpled, and he had that “just woke up” look, which was more than a little sexy to me. He took my hand and gave it a tight squeeze. Even though the bedroom door was closed, we could hear the gunshots from the video game Ethan was playing. He was also shouting and swearing.

  “Ethan seems to be doing a little better,” Micah said.

  “He has good days and not-so-good days,” I said, lacing my fingers with his. “Like me.”

  “Have you been able to convince him to go see his family?”

  “Nope,” I said. “I talked to them though.”

  The news coverage of this whole ordeal had been enough to turn anyone’s head upside down, and Ethan’s face had been a heavy presence during the newscasts even though it was in conjunction with Larry being inside his body. I could only imagine what Ethan’s family and friends had thought when they saw that. I had tried to talk him into going with me to see them and explaining everything, but he said he wasn’t ready to face his old life again.

  Therefore, I drove to upstate New York without him and spent a very long afternoon talking to his flabbergasted parents, who had an understandably hard time accepting what their son had become and what someone else had done while in his body. But in the end, they understood enough that they still wanted to see Ethan, and I promised them that once Ethan got a better hold on his new reality, he would visit. I just didn’t think that would happen any time soon.

  I was happy to see that he didn’t spend every day in the fetal position on the couch. The video game system I’d bought him seemed to greatly help with that. Ghost or not, he was still a college-aged boy after all.

  “Feels almost surreal that the investigation is finally over,” Micah said. “Even more surreal that Andrew is dead.”

  “Yeah,” I said softly.

  Andrew’s funeral had been last week, and it had been a huge event, or so I had heard. I’d told Micah about Cecelia’s showing up and slapping me, and he’d agreed that I shouldn’t go to the funeral. He couldn’t go because he was in recovery, so we’d stayed in. Afterward, Ilyse had come over to check in and tell us how it had gone. Despite knowing her husband was a philandering jerk, Cecilia had pulled out all the stops when it came to his funeral. Probably for the sake of appearances.

  “We’re not out of the woods yet, what with the whole world knowing I’m a reanimator bound to a ghost and slowly dying of the Rot, but I’m going to try not to think about it too much so I don’t lose my mind.”

  Ilyse had been coming over every other day to draw ghost energy off me and had told me that the Rot had spread. It was hard to not think about that, but I was doing my best. I didn’t feel sick yet, but it was only a matter of time.

  “Hey,” Micah said, refocusing my attention on him. “I would do anything to save you, you know that, right?”

  I smiled at him. Micah had the ability to make me smile no matter what.

  “Well, you can start by getting healed up so you can take me on a real date,” I said. “I hope you didn’t think partnering with you on a murder investigation counted.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t, don’t worry.” He tugged my hand, so I came closer and he slid his hand through my hair to cup the back of my neck. “Our first date will be one you’ll never forget.”

  A thrill went through me. Micah pulled me even closer and kissed me thoroughly enough to make it hard to speak for a few moments after. I laid my head on his shoulder, and he put his arm around me, sighing into my hair.

  “This is a perfect moment,” I said. “Despite my Rot, your injuries, and the ghost in my living room screaming at Call of Duty.” Micah chuckled. “I want it to last as long as it possibly can.”

  “Me too,” he said.

  We stayed like that for a while, so long that Micah dozed off, but I remained cuddled against him, listening to the sound of his breathing. I never knew how much I wanted and needed moments like this until I actually had them. It was a wonderfully mind-blowing revelation.

  “Selene?”

  Sometime later I heard Ethan’s hesitant voice at the bedroom door. I was prepared to ignore him and make him think we were sleeping, but he called again.

  “Selene, someone is, um…at the door.” The tone of his voice was odd enough to make me wonder if it was that horde of dead witches we feared were going to swoop down on us. I gently extricated myself from Micah’s arms without waking him up and tiptoed to the door. Ethan had a weird look on his face.

  “Did you see who it was?” I asked as he followed me out to the living room.

  “Didn’t look,” he said, stopping near the couch. “But he was saying things…”

  I frowned as I looked from Eth
an to the front door, then walked over and opened it. And almost slammed it closed when I saw who was standing there. As it was, my body went rigid, and I felt like I had turned into a block of ice. All because my unexpected guest was the ghost of Andrew McNabb.

  “Selene,” he said, giving me a slow smile. He was dressed in a fabulous suit, his hair was neatly gelled, and he stood in front of me looking very much like a dapper gentleman who was just paying me a visit. But the fact that he looked extremely pale and was outlined in a white glow gave him away as not just a gentleman but a ghost. I had to work to make my jaw close so I could attempt speech.

  “A-Andrew,” I finally said. His smile never wavered. Why had I never anticipated that Andrew McNabb of all people would have unfinished business that would cause his ghost to rise, and said unfinished business would have to do with me?

  “You look beautiful, as always,” Andrew said, looking me up and down. Yeah, my shorts, tank top, and tousled hair were about to get me on the cover of a magazine. Even in death, his lascivious look didn’t fail.

  “Why are you here?” I whispered, though I really didn’t want to know the answer.

  “Why do ghosts rise, Selene?” Andrew asked smoothly.

  “Unfinished business,” I replied, swallowing past the dryness in my throat. It suddenly felt like I had been choking down sand from the hottest part of the Sahara on the hottest day. “So, you’re here to kill me. Or try to. You’re Larry part two.”

  It would be just my luck to have a ghost out for my blood now. Andrew laughed though, a real hearty laugh, and I stood there watching him, utterly bewildered and very much wishing this conversation wasn’t happening.

  “No, my darling Selene,” Andrew said when he finally stopped laughing. “My unfinished business isn’t that I want you dead. It’s that I want you.”