Alphas for the Holidays

by Mandy M. Roth

  The next time Isoke had any great ideas about finding her a man, she'd tie his beak shut with a fire hose.

  He examined the Moon position. "Now that looks interesting," he said, his fingers splayed wide over a couple having a lot more fun that Amie ever had. She felt the heat rise to her cheeks.

  "Stop it. We're not doing Kama Sutra. We're not going to fall in love. I don't even know you."

  "I wouldn't be here if we weren't meant to be together," he said, as if he was informing her of the weather or how the Hornets had played the night before. "Would you like me to prove it?"

  "Only if you can do it without any more kissing,” Amie said flippantly.

  He closed the book and placed it back on the shelf, seeming to forget about the Moon, the Lotus, and the rest of the positions she couldn't quite get out of her head. "Come. You will go with me back to my grave." He took her hands in his and kissed them.

  "You know what?" Amie said, removing her hands from his grip. A plan of her own had begun to take shape. "You have a good idea. Let's go see where you were buried." She really didn't want to put him back to earth right here in the storage room. There was the matter of the body. Or his bones. Or whatever would be left of him. She couldn't just carry him down Canal Street and back to the cemetery. But if she could follow him back to his grave, it would be like zombie express delivery.

  His face lit up. "Excellent. No one has visited my grave since the Cleveland administration."

  "You have to wait right here while I get ready, okay?"

  "Absolutely." He resumed his assault on her bookcase, one hand at his waist holding his silk wrapper closed.

  She paused on the bottom step. "I'll also find you something to wear."

  Amie almost asked him what he wanted to show her at his grave, but stopped herself. She didn't want to be any more involved in his undead life than she had to be. Besides, she'd put him down as soon as they arrived. "Be back soon," she said, taking the steep stairs as fast as she could manage.

  "During that time, do you mind if I remove a few pansies from the planter outside? We'll be passing my grandmother's crypt on the way in."

  "Knock yourself out," Amie called. She'd prefer her zombie outside anyway.

  Amie dashed into the library and found her spell book. She flopped it on the kitchen table. "Zombie…zombie care, zombie feeding, zombie summoning…

  On rare occasions, the dead can be called with a spell in order to assist with a task.

  Ah, so that's what her love life had come down to. A task. Evidently, his job had been to kiss her silly.

  A zombie will deteriorate and die again once it has fulfilled its purpose or once the voodoo mambo no longer requires its services.

  Well, Amie didn't require his services. And she certainly wasn't going to let him fulfill his purpose—not if he thought it meant becoming her one and only. Or marrying her.

  She flipped through the book again and pressed her finger to a final entry, "zombie termination." She made a mental list of the ingredients she needed before shoving the book in her bag. Digging through her kitchen drawers, she found a flashlight and a box of matches.

  Amie caught her reflection in the hand decorated mirror above her kitchen sink. Her black hair had come out of its twists and frizzed about her face. Her eyes were wide with shock.

  "If I get out of this," she told herself, "I will never wish for another date. Because this is what happens." Men were trouble every time.

  And undead men were worse.

  Amie blew out a breath. She didn't have time to be feeling sorry for herself.

  In less than a minute, she'd changed into a long orange skirt and a yellow top. She pulled on her barely used tennis shoes, grabbed him a pair of sweat pants, and headed down for the shop.

  "Hi."

  "Ga!" She clutched her chest and pitched forward. She fell the last three steps and directly into his arms. He was warm, strong.

  She lurched away. "What are you doing? You were supposed to be outside." He didn't feel dead. She remembered what it felt like to have his arms wrapped around her. And his kiss had been downright electrifying. Didn't matter. He was dead.

  He smoothed the hair out of her eyes. "Here I am, bursting into your home, ready to marry you tomorrow." He raised a brow. "Or tonight if you know a priest." When she couldn't quite move her mouth to respond, he continued. "Then it occurred to me that we haven't been properly introduced."

  Every cell in her body screamed for her to close the distance between them. Feeling his arms around her reminded her too much of how it had felt when he kissed her. That's what she got for making him her first kiss in nine years. Damn the man.

  He was clearly wrong in more ways than one. She refused to marry a dead man, or kiss him again. She didn't even want to talk to him.

  Amie took a deep breath. Patience. She'd made a mistake and she'd fix it.

  "I don't need to know your name," she said, inching past his massive form and plucking an extra cleaning rag from under the counter. She'd be glad to have it if things got messy.

  "I am Dante Montenegro," he said, bowing slightly, his accent even more pronounced.

  Okay, well good. At least she knew what grave they needed to find.

  "Put these on." She handed him a pair of her largest sweatpants, the kind with the string tie.

  He held them up. "Canary yellow?"

  "Beggars can’t be choosers."

  He ignored her sarcasm like the gentleman he was. "Actually, I used to own a pair of breeches in this very shade."

  His civility was making her uncomfortable. "Okay, well just put them on," she said, turning away. She did not need to see his sexy, muscled rear end again. Or anything else for that matter. Plus, she needed one more thing from the shop.

  She had to find something of hers that she could burn, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. It should be small, so she could carry it. It had to have been in the presence of magic. "Preferably something I've owned for years," she said to herself, as the perfect sacrifice came to mind. She hated to lose the Rudolph the red nosed reindeer keychain she had looped over the corner of her register. His lighted nose even blinked when you pressed his belly. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

  Amie stuffed the keychain into her bag.

  Let's see, she had candles, Florida water, Rudolph-with-his-nose-so-bright, grave dust, a zombie. She glanced back at the stud behind her. She'd give him one thing—he was the Don Juan of the zombie world.

  She shook her head. It didn't matter. He didn't belong here.

  "After you," he said, as she led them out into the night.

  Chapter 4

  Laughter and conversation from the party crowd erupted in waves on the other side of the wall of buildings as Amie and Dante hurried down the alley that led to Canal Street. For the first time in her life, Amie wished she could be one of them, instead of running side-by-side with a hot, dead Romeo through the back streets of New Orleans.

  How had she gotten herself into this?

  He actually believed he was going to marry her.

  If he thought he was going to convince her based on something they'd find in a cemetery at one in the morning, he was even crazier than she'd imagined. No true love of hers would act this way.

  This little trip through la-la land was her penance for thinking, believing, dreaming she could step out of her normal life and expect more than she had any right to have. Hadn't her mother taught her that? Her grandmother? The women of her line were destined to be alone. She had to stop listening to bossy red monsters and start behaving like a proper voodoo mambo.

  She shivered at the chill in the air. New Orleans winters didn’t bring snow or even a deep freeze, but they could feel nippy to a Southern-bred girl.

  Amie felt a familiar tug as the white stone walls of the graveyard came into view. Her calling as a voodoo mambo gave her a certain kinship with the dead. It was part of the job. Still, she didn't like the way the ingredients in her bag began to stir. />
  St. Louis Cemetery Number One used to be located at the outskirts of the city, which now meant the edge of the French Quarter. The cemetery closed at dusk to keep vandals and criminals at bay. Visitors were often robbed in broad daylight. Drug deals went down day and night. Tourists were always encouraged to visit in groups.

  More than one hundred thousand former New Orleans residents rested inside the aged, whitewashed walls. Most had been buried in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Entire extended families shared mausoleums separated by narrow pathways. Many of the dead had practiced voodoo, and now their power called to her. She'd have to put her zombie down quietly and get the heck out.

  Amie kept a hand on her bag as she followed the zombie down the deserted sidewalk past the front entrance, with its tall gate topped by a simple wrought-iron cross. She stiffened as they passed the crumbling tombs inside. A red spiral of energy curled from one of the graves closest to her, the filmy tendril reaching for her.

  She'd never seen a red apparition before. Her breath hitched. She really didn't want to learn anything new tonight.

  "This way," he said, leading her to an area at the north edge where the streetlights were widely spaced and foot traffic was nonexistent. He mounted the thick white stone wall like a Marine and reached down for her.

  "Oh no," she said, refusing his outstretched hand. While Amie was all for getting inside, she was even more interested in having a way out. "Can't we find a back gate or something?"

  "Trust me, my love," he said, his face obscured by shadows as he reached for her again.

  "I'm not your love." She took a step backward. "And you can't possibly expect me to—eek!" He caught her by the wrists and vaulted her up onto the top of the wall.

  She pushed against his chest, but it was like fighting with a boulder. "Listen, Tarzan. I don't know what century you're from, but—"

  "Quickly, now." He wrapped an arm around her waist as they thundered to the ground. She felt the impact vibrate through his body as her toes scraped the rocky path on the other side of the wall.

  She shoved away from him. This time, he let her. "You could have killed me!" she hissed. She could have broken her neck or smashed her head in or—

  He shot her a glare. "Death is not something to speak of lightly," he said in a coarse whisper. "Now come. We are not alone."

  Lovely, just lovely.

  Amie glanced back at the eight-foot-high wall. Last night, she'd been snuggled in bed with a book. Tonight, she was in a haunted cemetery with no way out and a dead guy telling her what to do.

  As they left the shadows of the trees, the moon lit their path. She followed him, cursing at his firm backside as he wound through mausoleums of all shapes and sizes. The place smelled like rot, concrete, and grave dust. Wrought-iron gates with thick spikes hugged some of the white stone vaults, while others lay neglected, their plaster falling away to expose redbrick skeletons. Still others had sunk into the ground, their inscriptions worn and barely visible as the earth swallowed them whole.

  Amie paused as she heard men's voices a few rows away. They sounded tense and angry. Wonderful. Amie cringed. She just hoped they were grave robbers instead of muggers. Either way, she didn't want to run into them.

  Dante touched a hand to her shoulder and silently bid her to continue. Amie nodded. They needed to keep moving.

  The cemetery was alive. She caught another wisp spiraling skyward, like a paranormal spotlight. It was a fine time to be trapped.

  She held her bag to her side, wishing she was hauling around a ferret instead of restless spell ingredients. The zombie moved silently ahead of her, like a bloodhound on a scent.

  That was another problem. After she put him back to ground, what was she going to do? Avoid the muggers and the apparitions until the gates opened in the morning? She certainly couldn't scale the wall.

  "Stop," he whispered, reaching back to steady her.

  "What?" she rasped, trying to keep her Maglite from clanking against the bottle of Florida water.

  "Dominga Deloroso El Montenegro," he said, bowing his head before a squat white vault. The plaster had crumbled away around the arched top, revealing brick and a small cropping of weeds.

  Right, his grandmother.

  He placed the pansies on the uneven pavement at the front of the tomb. The moonlight played off his handsome features as he bowed his head. "Que oró por mi segunda oportunidad," he said, "y ahora está aquí."

  Amie fidgeted. He'd said something about second chances. Written Spanish she could do. Hearing it out loud could be tough to translate. And she didn't like to think of him having a grandma—or a life.

  She studied the other names etched into the gray stone and stiffened as she read the curling inscription dedicated to the memory of Dante Montenegro 1779–1811. El hombre adoro demasiado.

  He loved too much?

  He'd also died too young. Well, she'd known that already. Her stomach quivered. Seeing it in stone made it so real.

  His arm brushed hers. "Now I will show you," he said. "You see?" He touched a circular area on the front of his tomb where some of the rock had been chipped away. "It is a symbol of the sun. Placed here when I decided to wait for voodoo to bring me back. You etched it deeper when you brought me back tonight."

  She'd never heard of anything like it. Of course, she didn't know any zombie raisers. Amie squinted at the crude carving. It looked more like a squashed bug than a sun. "You think I'm going to fall in love with you because of a defaced piece of rock?"

  He flinched as if he'd been slapped. "This is proof."

  "Not in my world."

  She hated to burst his bubble. Or hurt him, but, she wasn’t going to lie, either.

  Anger rolled off him. "You want more proof?" He turned back to the tomb and placed his hands on either side of the stone marker. "Fine. I will go get it."

  Amie's stomach twisted and her jaw slackened as he lifted the stone away, opening the grave. She wasn't going to ask. She just stared at the gaping hole that led into the crypt.

  She wrapped her arms around her as an unwelcome chill seeped through her. She'd called up a man from the dead. Now she was hurting him in ways she'd never imagined. The shocks just kept coming. And the guilt.

  On top of that, she was scared to death.

  If her ancestors could only see her now.

  Amie's fingernails dug into her arms. Please help me fix this.

  A cloud moved over the moon and the cemetery plunged into even deeper darkness. She fought to ignore the churning in her stomach, almost glad for the shadows as the zombie crawled back inside his grave.

  Scraping sounds echoed from inside the vault as Amie set her bag on the concrete path and unloaded her supplies. This will all be over soon.

  Please let this be over soon.

  Everything was too dark and too scary and too…dead.

  She had to make this right.

  Amie quickly lit the black candles and rubbed their sides with the grave dust he'd left on her arms when he touched her. She sprinkled Florida water over everything.

  "How's it going?" she asked in a rough whisper, forcing her voice to remain even. She needed to focus her power, but she'd have a hard time concentrating knowing Dante could pop out of his grave at any moment.

  A frustrated sigh echoed from the tomb. "I'm having trouble finding it. It's dark. There are many fragile things on all sides."

  Yeah, like bones.

  He grumbled under his breath. "I am too large. I feel like a clumsy ox."

  Amie adjusted her candles, one in front of her and one behind. Their flames created twin oases of orange light. If she did this right, he'd be just another pile of bones.

  She closed her eyes and focused her power.

  Earth to earth. Dust to dust.

  She felt her life force well up inside of her. Amie took her Rudolph keychain and held it over the flame in front of her, watching the plastic smoke and curl.

  "I give of my magic," she whispered. "I giv
e of myself. To let this man go back to ground."

  Please, let me fix this.

  Amie removed the ring she'd woven and dug her fingers into it, separating the black and red strands.

  "We are not connected. We are not bound. As it began, so does it end."

  She felt the power stir inside her.

  She stood slowly.

  She almost had him.

  Amie approached him from behind, her fingers burrowing into the pocket of her skirt for the two dirty paper hearts she had unearthed from the planter outside her door. She ripped them in half and sprinkled them over the only part of him she could see—a muscular calf and a very large foot. The magic shot off orange sparks where it touched him.

  Such a waste, she thought as she willed him back down, into the ground, to the earth.

  "Ow!" He banged against something inside the tomb and came out rubbing his head. He brushed the torn hearts away like they were fireplace embers.

  "What is this?" He saw her supplies and his eyes went narrow. "Are you trying to kill me?"

  Amie's breath hitched. She really didn't want to watch this—watch him turn from a fine man to dust and bones. Her heart tugged.

  In his own deluded way, the creature had loved her.

  She held her breath. Waiting for the collapse. This was her doing. Her mistake. She owed it to him to watch him go back to ground. As if forcing her to witness what she'd done, the moon chose that moment to emerge from behind the cloud. It shone full once more on the man Amie had condemned.

  Amie waited for the end.

  And waited…

  And waited.

  Instead of crumbling to powder, he straightened and stood over her, looking gorgeous and unkempt with a smudge of dirt along his cheek.

  Amie stared at him.

  Damn the man. He should have been dead. She couldn't mess this up too. She chewed her lip as she ran through her spell in her mind. She'd done it correctly.

  So why was he still here?

  "I ask you again"—he took a powerful step toward her—"my love." He ground out each word as she took three steps back, scattering her candles across the pavement, "Are you trying to kill me?"