How to Save an Undead Life (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 1)

by Hailey Edwards

  “Don’t sound so suspicious.” He had the nerve to act hurt. “I came to offer you a ride to work.”

  “Thanks to you, I have a ride.” I pushed the button on my fob to raise the garage door. “Besides, I have a date with your sister after work. No boys allowed.”

  “Here’s the thing.” He rubbed the base of his neck. “I stayed up last night thinking about…everything.” He cut his eyes toward the shadows like he expected one to break off from the cluster and start gunning for me. “You’re pinging on the vamps’ radar. They might not know exactly what you can do, but I’m betting there’s a reason Volkov popped up when he did, and I’m guessing that means the Grande Dame isn’t the only one with contacts inside the prison.”

  “That makes sense.” I leaned against the side of the building. “The guards are necromancers, but the inmates are all kinds.”

  “You get what that means, right?” Boaz waited for me to piece it together. “You can’t go out alone. Not until the dust settles, and we know what we’re up against.”

  Leave it to Boaz to lump us together. I might as well be an honorary Pritchard considering how he treated me as if I were one of their own. The feeling of belonging, well, it didn’t suck.

  “You can’t babysit me. That’s not fair to you.” I fingered the fresh plastic in my pocket, newly activated, and considered him. “I could hire you. Plenty of military and law enforcement guys do security.”

  He snorted like I’d told the most hilarious joke ever. “Get on the bike.”

  “You’re not the boss of me.” I followed up that zinger by planting my feet and refusing to budge. “I’m not going to take advantage of you.”

  “Crush my dreams, why don’t you.”

  “Can you be serious for five minutes?”

  “I want to take care of you.” His eyes narrowed to irritated slits. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing.” I wilted at his exasperation, hating how he viewed my craving for independence as rejection. Boaz smothered me because he loved me, I knew that, but I was tired of accepting his handouts without ever giving anything back. Even tonight, when I ought to hop on and avoid risking a ticket, I couldn’t unstick my feet without saying my piece. “I just want to take care of myself for a change.”

  “We can get you there,” he said after a minute. “But you have to crawl before you can walk, and, Squirt, you’re still on your back with your legs kicking in the air like a flipped baby turtle.”

  Amelie was right. He really did have a weird fixation about getting me on my back.

  “Gee, thanks.” I glowered at him. “I’m humbled by your faith in me.”

  “You want your independence? Fine.” He grinned, a slow and feral thing. “Earn it. Work with me on self-defense. I’ll have time to teach you the basics before I leave, and I’ll hook you up with a former army friend. Taslima.” He sighed at my finger quotes around the word friend. “I didn’t have sex with her. She shot me down. So you already have that in common. Taz can keep the classes going.”

  Working all night and then coming home to a butt-whooping from Boaz before dawn? I could think of a million things I’d rather do, but not a single one I ought to choose over what he was offering. I had too much riding on my ability to fend for myself to turn up my nose at his offer.

  “Well?” he taunted, and stuck out his hand. “What do you say?”

  For better or for worse, I shook his hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  Twelve

  Boaz dropped me off a half-dozen steps from the front doors of Haint Misbehavin’, like I could manage to get in trouble between him and the entryway. I wasn’t sure if I ought to be insulted six feet was as far as he trusted me or grateful I didn’t have to risk another late-night rendezvous with my stalkerpire.

  “Shift ends in six hours.” I climbed off the bike. “I’ll catch a ride with Amelie to Mallow. Are you headed home?”

  “I’ll be around,” he said vaguely. “Got your phone?”

  “Yes, Mom.” I patted my cross-body purse. “I have ibuprofen in case of headaches and bandages in case of blisters too.”

  “Good girl.” He let my sarcasm slide right off him and twisted his mouth up into a smile that promised nothing but trouble. “Have fun.”

  Worried about what that smile promised, I hurried inside and bumped into Amelie.

  “Was that Boaz?” She craned to see over my shoulder. “I thought I heard that stupid bike of his.”

  “He gave me a ride.”

  Her nose crinkled. “How literal are we talking?”

  “For the millionth time, I’m not having sex with your brother.” Or any sex at all, despite the ridiculous injection of testosterone my life had received. “But since you spend so much time imagining us bumping uglies, if our uglies ever do bump, you’ll be the first person I call with all the juicy details.”

  “You could have just told me to keep my nose out of your business.”

  “We’re practically sisters.” We had been stuck like glue since I came to live with Maud, way before my boy-crazy phase made me forget about that time I caught Boaz eating his own boogers on a dare. Mostly. Okay, so not even hormones could erase some horrors. “That makes it my solemn duty to inflict as much emotional distress and mental anguish on you as humanly possible.”

  “If that was your plan, then you succeeded beyond your wildest dreams.”

  Voices drifted down the hall from the room where Neely held court, meaning we had a few minutes until our turns with hair and makeup. Amelie led the way into the women’s parlor, and we started pulling on our costumes. Her gown was buttery yellow and complemented her golden-blonde hair and warm, brown eyes.

  The room bustled with the other female Haints prepping for the long night ahead, so we kept conversation light and didn’t talk about any of the things that mattered until Neely called for us.

  While Neely worked on Amelie, I thumbed through a few of the magazines he kept scattered around his workspace. Several sported blank sticky notes over brunette models with builds similar to mine, confirming my suspicions that I dressed so poorly he had resorted to shopping for me in his head as a form of therapy.

  A petite woman edging toward fifty popped her head in the room. Dressed in a black satin swing dress straight out of the fifties, with her blonde hair pinned in victory rolls, Cricket was less Southern belle and more rockabilly in mourning.

  “Neely,” she mouthed around an unlit cigarette. “Enough with the primping. Amelie, get your butt in my office.” She snapped her fingers. “Move it.”

  Being a good little employee, Amelie hopped straight to her feet and followed Cricket out.

  Neely guided me into the chair then leaned around the corner to make sure the coast was clear.

  “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Amelie, but I’ve been dying to ask.” He vibrated with excitement. “How did your date go with Volkov?”

  “It was…” life-changing, terrifying, amazing, “…not bad. He’s a decent guy.”

  Decent in the vampire sense of the word, which was not quite the same as the human one.

  “That hardly sounds like a declaration of undying love.”

  Undying. Good one. “I haven’t known him long enough for him to inspire more than the occasional hot flash.”

  Honestly? I wasn’t sure how much of that was true attraction versus the lure, and I might not ever be.

  “Chemistry is important.” He tapped my nose with the end of his brush. “It’s not as important as mutual respect, financial solvency or humor, but it’s up there. It’s been my experience the better you know a person, the more connected you feel to them, and the more attractive they become to you.”

  Comforted by the tickle of soft bristles over the bridge of my nose, it struck me why these sessions appealed to me when I was ultimately too lazy to learn how to apply more than mascara and lip gloss. Neely’s medium might not be ink, but his brushes had been the only ones on my skin for the longest time. />
  “What about Boaz?” Neely shot me a look that dared me to deny we shared a spark. “The polite thing to do would have been to go with a man on each arm. They both put so much effort into impressing you. Seems a shame you had to choose. Why let one go to waste?”

  “I’m not starting a harem.” Though a blond and a brunette wasn’t a bad place to start…

  The grapevine would be buzzing after last night with rumors circulating about whose arm I arrived on and whose car I left in. None of that factored in Boaz’s swoon-worthy save either. I would have appeared quite the social butterfly, or worse, when nothing was further from the truth.

  All I needed was for the pearl-clutchers and uptight suits with daughters of a marriageable age to think I was collecting eligible bachelors from all levels of Society. That would win me allies. Or, you know, a knife through my kidney.

  “This is a judgment-free zone.” He started twisting my hair into a thick braid. “So I expect you not to judge me when I say you should get out there and see what life has to offer before you settle down with one guy for the rest of your life. You’re young. Have some fun. Break some rules.”

  Most days it felt like I had broken enough rules to last a lifetime. “How much did life offer you before you settled down?”

  “Enough,” he said with a sharp exhale.

  I met his gaze in the mirror. “Is everything okay?”

  “People just suck sometimes.”

  Recalling Cruz’s hostility, I had to ask, “You’d tell me if you were having problems with someone at work, right?”

  “You need this job more than I do.” He squeezed my shoulder then reached for the curling iron. “The last thing I’d do is let you step in this flaming-hot mess.”

  Warmth flooded my chest that he would place my financial problems above his own equally serious ones, but that was just Neely. He had no idea this job was now a hobby for me, and selfish as it might be, I didn’t want him viewing me in a different light. Everyone else was already sizing me up for their own purposes. Until I put in my notice or Amelie blabbed, I was content to be my old ramen-slurping self where he was concerned.

  But, as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility, and I wasn’t about to let this abuse go unpunished.

  “Let me know if you change your mind.” I gave myself a once-over when he stepped back to admire his work, understanding more now than I had last night what Neely meant when he said this was my character look, not my me look. “I’m off to spook the pants off my victims.”

  “Just make sure you go through their pockets before you donate them.” He gave me a saucy wink. “Bring your waterproof parasol. There are showers in the forecast.”

  “Ugh.” The odds for more than a good misting must be low or else Cricket would have put the kibosh on tonight’s tours. Cancellations weren’t for our benefit, naturally, but for the preservation of the dresses, suits, hats and parasols, and to save on her dry-cleaning bill. “Good thing I’ll be leaving with Amelie. I hate riding Jolene in the rain.”

  A shudder rippled through him. “I don’t know how you can stand to ride her at all.”

  “Bikes are freedom.”

  “Motorcycles are what happened when a man looked at a perfectly respectable bicycle and thought, How can I transform this into a flaming death machine?”

  A laugh sneak attacked me, and I wheezed through the corset. “It’s not for everyone, but still. Don’t knock it until you try it. Bring Cruz to my house sometime. I’ll give you guys lessons.”

  His demeanor softened. “He would look good in leather.”

  “See?” I swished toward the door. “It’s a win/win.”

  On my way past the bulletin board, I pulled down the envelope with my list of victims and skimmed the details on each group. Fifteen in one and eight in another. A grumble worked its way past my lips before I remembered tips weren’t do-or-die tonight. Armed with that comforting thought, I headed to The Point of No Return.

  “Excuse me, miss,” an all-too-innocent voice drawled behind me. “I’m a last-minute addition to your tour. Here’s my ticket.”

  I stopped walking and started counting backwards from ten. “Boaz, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “Cricket said your groups were light tonight.” He pressed a torn stub into my hand. “She was thrilled to sell me tickets for back-to-back tours.” He rubbed his hands together. “Let’s see what you got.”

  Mentally, I rerouted the later tour so he wouldn’t have to trudge along the same path. “I expect you to behave.”

  “I’m a paying customer.” He slapped his palm over his heart. “Whatever happened to the customer’s always right?”

  “That only counts for actual customers and not annoying big-brother types.”

  With a twist of my wrist, I stuck out the parasol I’d been using as a walking stick, a habit Cricket abhorred, out in front of him. Busy watching the swish of my skirts, Boaz tripped and stumbled into an awkward crouch on the pavement.

  “Oh, sir. Are you all right?” I projected my voice to reach my victims and cranked up the charm. “I do apologize. Please forgive little ol’ me. I hope you aren’t injured.”

  “No harm done.” His smile promised retribution. “Can you give me a hand up?”

  It was a trap. It had to be. I did not want to give that man my hand while he had that look in his eyes, but we had the crowd’s attention now, and there was no going back. “Of course.”

  He stood without applying an ounce of pressure on me and brought my hand up to his mouth where he pressed a lingering kiss into my palm then closed my fingers over the spot his lips had caressed. I angled my body away from the group then rolled my eyes so hard they whirled like tops.

  Still in character, I bobbed in a neat curtsey, reclaimed my hand and strolled toward the gathering. Several of the women sized Boaz up with slow perusals, wetting their lips like they couldn’t wait to taste him. A few of the men puffed up at the shift in attention away from them, but their chests deflated upon noticing I was the sole target of Boaz’s lethal charm.

  Lucky me.

  We set out after I gave the booze talk, Boaz leading the pack, and I guided us down one of my favorite routes, the one that passed a haunted brewery open to the public on the weekends.

  “The Clark family owns the Black Dog Brewery. The bar is street level, and there’s a fantastic garden out back. I highly recommend the stuffed jalapenos, but I’ve heard good things about their burgers too. The downstairs is under renovation at the moment, and it’s got its own creepy history, but tonight we’re going to focus on the two stories above the bar that are so haunted the ghosts refuse to allow the renovations necessary for the business to expand.”

  I got a few interested murmurs out of that one, so I pushed ahead.

  “The last time Mr. Clark attempted to have the second floor brought up to code, he got calls from his furious workers demanding compensation for their ruined equipment. Apparently, several guys had left their larger, and therefore more expensive, power tools upstairs overnight, and when they came back the next morning, all the windows had been thrown open—even the ones painted shut—and their drills, saws and nail guns had been tossed out onto the street.”

  “That can’t be true,” a gruff man argued.

  The teen boy next to him smirked. “What? You don’t believe in ghosts, man?”

  “No.” He shifted on his feet, uncomfortable in the spotlight. “I don’t believe that thousands of dollars’ worth of power tools would still be on the street in the morning.”

  Tittering laughter rippled through the crowd, and I joined in. “I can’t argue that logic.”

  “How do you know this stuff actually happened?” a girl asked from under the boy’s arm. “Are y’all given a script or something?”

  Unlike my annoyance with out-and-out skeptics who seemed to book tours for the sole purpose of making the guides’ nights miserable, I could appreciate a healthy dose of honest doubt.

&
nbsp; “Each guide is required to study the history of the locations on every individual route. That information is pulled from books, old newspaper clippings and the internet.” I gave what I hoped was a winning smile to the man who asked the original question. “We’re all guilty of exaggeration to create a juicier story.” I held up a hand to forestall their next questions. “But, and this is an important but, the bare bones are true. Go home. Google. You’ll find all the information I covered tonight and so much more.”

  “Cool,” the teens murmured in sync, cementing my assumption of their coupledom.

  “Any more questions?” I must have done something right because the crowd shook its head in unison. “In that case, y’all can follow me right across the street to the oldest restaurant in Savannah.”

  “You’ve got them eating out of the palm of your hand,” Boaz murmured near my elbow.

  “Stepping into a role is freeing.” The job helped me feel normal for a few hours a night. As much as any Southern belle spewing grisly horror stories for tips can be called normal. “It’s a fun job.”

  “Amelie’s always loved it.” He appeared thoughtful. “She’s going to miss it when she graduates and picks up full-time work in her field.”

  “Once a Haint, always a Haint.” I twirled my parasol. “She can always pitch in at Halloween if she starts pining for the good old days.”

  “Hard to believe she’ll have her MBA in a few years.” He shook his head like it might help him absorb the fact his little sister was growing up. “A Master’s in Business Administration. What will she even do with that?”

  Jealousy, that old green-eyed monster, reared its ugly head, and I’m ashamed how long it took me to defang. I hated that petty side of me. Hated how I envied Amelie’s bright future. Hated being so screwed up I kept enabling the cycle.

  We had always planned on sharing a dorm room, or maybe getting a small apartment off-campus, but that hadn’t happened. Obviously. Living at home had to be saving her a ton of money, though. So there was a bright side in there. And it’s not like it was her fault that when I held the future we’d planned against the one I’d been handed, I fell short.