How to Live an Undead Lie (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 5)

by Hailey Edwards

  The bald statement would have sounded like a brag coming from anyone else, but Linus was a power in his own right. Factor in his mother’s title, her current location, and yeah. It made more sense to put him behind the wheel. Plus, I had other texts to send. Calls might be better, but it was harder to end those. Ignoring a written response was faster and easier than a verbal one, and both of those things sounded great right about now.

  Linus clasped hands with me, and we set off at a sprint down the street. The neighbors on the other side of Woolly were shut-ins, an older couple who hadn’t left their home since Maud adopted me. Tabitha and Ron Meyer. They were High Society, from a dying bloodline. They had no children, and the only guests they entertained hoped to worm into their good graces to avoid the Meyer fortune being left to the Society to disburse as it saw fit.

  “What are we doing here?” The Meyers made for such quiet neighbors I often forgot they were there.

  “You haven’t wondered where Hood parks the van when it’s not in use?”

  “Yes.” But I wasn’t about to admit to my Batcave theory. That would mean admitting I sometimes called him Batman or Bruce Wayne in my head. “Did you make an arrangement with the Meyers?”

  “The Meyers passed away three months ago, and their property and fortune went into the Society trust. I purchased this property when it came up for auction last week.”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “Since the property abuts yours, and the house is three times the size of Woolworth House, I thought it might be worth holding on to in case the Kinases decide to make Savannah their permanent home.”

  “You made this gesture for our friends out of the goodness of your heart, right?” I slanted him a look. “Not to add extra layers of security around Woolly and me?”

  “Goodness might be a secondary motive in this case.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “I kept the purchase quiet to avoid pressuring them into staying. It’s a conclusion they ought to arrive to on their own. If they decide to leave, I’ll sell the property. To you.” He frowned. “I’ve kept an eye on the Pritchard property as well, but it appears that Boaz’s impending marriage to Adelaide has stabilized their situation. They won’t be selling any time soon.”

  The notion of owning so much land, of insulating Woolly, caused my brain to fizzle in wonder.

  An inkling of understanding scratched at my brain. “You own a lot of property, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re investments, right?” I eyed his back as he led me toward the sprawling house. “You’re not trying to buy Savannah brick by brick or anything?”

  “I was born here. I do have a certain fondness for the town.”

  “Am I going to find out one day that Cricket is renting her building from you?”

  I laughed.

  He didn’t.

  “Linus.”

  “I’m sentimental.”

  “How long have you owned it?”

  “About five years.”

  The length of time I spent curled in my own filth in a cell in Atramentous.

  “I didn’t have much else left of you,” he said quietly. “I held on to what mattered most.”

  To me.

  What mattered most to me.

  He had no affiliation with the Haints otherwise. He bought the building, ensuring Cricket could run the Haints until she retired or sold off the business.

  “You have a big heart.” I squeezed his fingers. “A good heart.”

  “No,” he said, leading me up the driveway to the garage. “I have an average-size heart with an average amount of goodness in it.” We reached the rolling door, and he paused, turning back to me. “But where you’re concerned, there are no limits to my capacity for love or goodness. Or, if there are, I’ve never found them.”

  “I’m going to make out with you as soon as this is over.” I walked my fingers up his chest. “Consider this your early warning. This is not a test.”

  Eyes twinkling, he unlocked the garage and hauled the door up to reveal the van…sitting next to yet another identical van.

  Resisting the urge to rub my forehead, I walked into the gloom. “Do luxury vans multiply in the dark?”

  “Your pack keeps growing,” he said reasonably. “Purchasing a second vehicle is prudent, I think.”

  Without the gwyllgi hogging the front seats, we claimed them. He slid behind the wheel, and I got in beside him then pulled out my phone. As he rolled down the drive, my thumbs started flying.

  I hit Marit up first.

  Where are you?

  >>You remembered I exist!

  Where are you?

  >>In the office, where else? What’s up?

  You need to get somewhere safe. Lock the doors and windows. Don’t come out until morning.

  >>What’s going on? I haven’t seen anything weird on the news.

  The streets are dangerous tonight. Trust me. Please. I’ll explain everything later. I promise.

  Depending on how things shook out tonight, all our covers might be blown.

  For my human friends, I was willing to risk the fallout with the Grande Dame over edifying them.

  Come to my house if you don’t have anywhere else to go.

  >>I’ll take you up on that. Dad’s out of town, and you’re closer.

  >>I’m flattered you chose me for your zombie apocalypse team, btw.

  Rolling my eyes, I texted back. Amelie is there. She’ll let you in.

  >>Cool. See you guys soon.

  With that handled, I touched base with Neely. I would have hit him up first, but I was pretty sure he was still in Atlanta with Cruz. He might not like it, but I could warn him off coming home until this blew over.

  You need to stay out of Savannah.

  >>Hello to you too.

  I’m serious. It’s not safe here.

  >>You couldn’t have told me this four hours ago? We just got back. I have a family thing this weekend.

  Come to my house. Bring Cruz and anything you might need to spend a few days.

  >>You’re scaring me. What’s up?

  You remember the wreck in Savannah? It’s like that. But worse. The whole city will be on lockdown soon.

  >>Promise me answers when I get there?

  Since I wouldn’t be here, the promise was easy to give. Sure.

  The only human left to warn was Cricket, and I waffled over getting her involved. We hadn’t spoken since I resigned as a River Haint, and I hadn’t bumped into Detective Russo in weeks. The break from the latter had been nice. Granted, it was harder for Russo to stalk me now that I didn’t have a set routine. Still, I couldn’t let it go. I had to warn Cricket and hope she had enough faith in her least trustworthy former employee to listen without demanding all the nitty-gritty details.

  Bring the guides in. End the tours early.

  >>Refunds costs me money and earn me bad reviews. Give me a damn good reason first.

  The streets aren’t safe tonight. Not for them, or you, or anyone.

  >>That’s not an answer.

  You love your Haints. I know you do. Do this for them. Keep them safe.

  >>You owe me answers in the morning.

  I was running up quite the tally. All I could do was hope I could afford to pay the bill when it came due.

  Thumb smoothing over the screen, I considered dialing Russo. She had the resources to issue a blanket statement to the city that could save lives. Except I couldn’t tell her the truth, and nothing but the truth would convince her to put her neck on the line for me with the department.

  Humans would die if Lacroix was targeting Savannah versus the Society, there was no way around it, and they wouldn’t be the only casualties. An emergency bulletin or evacuation order would incite panic. Innocents would flee into the night to escape a fictional fate only to experience a very real one.

  The best thing for the humans would be keeping them in the dark and hoping they were safer there.

  Basically, bu
siness as usual.

  “We’re here.” Linus broke into my thoughts. “They ought to be, but Bull Street is clear.”

  There had been no Elite checkpoints, either. Meaning Boaz had overestimated their ability to contain the situation.

  “What is his endgame?” I wondered. “Lacroix can’t mean to out vampires to humans.”

  Vampires, for all their inhuman strength and longevity, could die.

  “He’s made it clear he has no love for humanity,” Linus said, parking in front of city hall. “However, he ought to appreciate the danger humans pose to us all.”

  “Unlike us, they’re vulnerable in daylight.” They might terrorize the city tonight, but tomorrow the residents of Savannah, paranormal or otherwise, would be free to retaliate. “Whatever statement he’s trying to make, he only has until dawn to do it.”

  “Lacroix only needs to take the Lyceum.” Linus got out and waited on me to join him. “His people could retreat belowground during daylight hours, and the recent security upgrades would protect them from retaliation while they slept. At dusk, they would be free to roam the city and wreak havoc on the supernatural—and mundane—population.”

  “Goddess, my family is one rung short of a ladder on both sides.”

  “We don’t get to choose our families.” He examined the exterior of the building. “What they do, how they act, is not a reflection on us.”

  Having just witnessed the gwyllgi pack, one family within its ranks at least, commit the same mistake twice, I wasn’t so sure. I would be judging the rest of them by their traitorous tendencies until they proved themselves trustworthy. Better to be careful than dead.

  “I’m going to text Boaz, let him know we’re here.”

  “All right.” Linus drifted toward the back of the van. “I’ll gather our supplies.”

  We’re at the Lyceum. Standing on the front steps. Where are the vamps?

  >>E. President Street. They changed direction about three blocks ago.

  “What’s on E. President Street?” I called to Linus. “Boaz said—”

  “The tunnel mouth exits at Liberty Terminals. Mother keeps watercraft docked nearby in the event of an emergency.” Linus slammed the doors shut, locked the van, and slung my bag across my shoulders before doing the same with his on himself. “We have to go. The rear access is the weakest entry point.”

  We set out at a run, and I had never been more grateful for all the practice I had gotten lately.

  “What about your mother?” He hadn’t mentioned her once.

  “A Grande Dame can’t allow the Lyceum to fall on her watch.” He stared straight ahead. “She’ll be deposed if she runs, and she knows it. She’ll stand and fight.”

  “The title isn’t worth losing her life,” I protested. “Surely she can see that.”

  “All she sees is a threat to her power.”

  There was no easy answer for that, and it had to hurt him to know she was choosing to go down with the ship rather than join her son in a life raft.

  The recent insult to her pride didn’t help matters, but she had another think coming if she planned on going out in a blaze of glory for the sole purpose of burdening him with the knowledge that if he hadn’t hurt her feelings, she might have listened to reason and gone to her own safe room at their family home rather than sit at her desk and wait for the vampires to descend on her.

  All right, all right. Even she wasn’t that much of a drama queen, and I doubted she would sacrifice herself so early in her career—before distinguishing herself as a rival to Maud—over a tiff with him. Her ego was too inflated to believe she would actually lose her son to me. She might think it was an infatuation he would get over now that he was living with the real deal and not the unobtainable ideal. But she didn’t understand that memory only took you so far.

  Perfect example: Boaz and me. My silly childhood fantasies and teenage dreams about him had crashed and burned around me. I got my shot with him, and it started out with a bang, but we still went up in smoke.

  Linus might have held a vision of me in his mind while we were apart, but the first time I woke him screaming in the night from across the lawn, she swirled out of his grasp. The Grier he loved as a boy hadn’t made it out of Atramentous. Not all of her anyway. But, as he got to know the new me, and I got to know him, I wondered how I hadn’t seen him for what he was back then. I had been so blind. But I saw him now, and I would never look away from him again.

  We skidded to a halt where General McIntosh Boulevard curves into E. President Street, and my stomach dropped into my feet.

  There must have been five hundred vampires, enough to fill every seat in the Lyceum, tromping their way toward the not-so-secret tunnel entrance. Out of the vampires Lacroix had taken, more than a few would have been escorted through the Grande Dame’s private entrance during their long lives. And it would have cost him nothing to coerce the location from them while they were under the spell of his lure.

  “What do we do?” The Elite were nowhere in sight. I spotted the bodies of a few sentinels, slumped in the road, their weapons trampled under the vampires’ feet. “We can’t take on so many alone.”

  “Lacroix must have ordered the power to the Lyceum shut off,” he murmured. “Otherwise, they would have left guards at city hall in case anyone used the elevator to escape out the front. They’re placing all their eggs in one basket.”

  “The lights were on out front,” I reminded him.

  “The Lyceum is on a separate circuit, so we don’t have to explain to the city why their power bill runs so high.”

  Huh. I always assumed the Society had placed someone on the board who kept two accounting ledgers. One for the city and one for the Society. His way was simpler.

  “Wait—what?” If the power was out, the elevator was out, meaning there was no way out. Period.

  Linus wove black mist through his fingers. “Anyone still down there is penned on both sides.”

  Ice spread through my veins when I fully grasped the implications. His mother, the Grande Dame, was entombed in the bowels of the Lyceum. Without power, we couldn’t bring her up through the front elevator. Without manpower, we couldn’t carve a path through the vampires to bring her out the rear.

  “Tell me what to do.” I flattened my hand between his rigid shoulder blades. “How can I help?”

  “We need to pinpoint Lacroix’s whereabouts. Once Lethe and Hood arrive with the other gwyllgi, they can distract the horde while we attempt reasoning with their master.”

  “And if we can’t?”

  Midnight fluttered on the air around him, cloaking him in a gauzy shroud. “We kill him.”

  Eighteen

  Nestled between buildings and hidden behind a dumpster to help mask our scent, Linus and I watched. Lacroix was easy to spot. We didn’t see him, exactly, but the knot of vampires frothing at the mouth in the center of the mass gave us a pretty good idea of where to find him. He wouldn’t be out there walking alone where the Elite could pick him off. He would be hiding among his followers, using them as a living—or undead—shield.

  “Now that we’ve found him,” I asked Linus, “how do we get to him?”

  “No word from Lethe?”

  I checked my phone again. “No.”

  Just to spite me, it pinged once I stuck it back in my pocket.

  >>All hell is breaking loose. Get ready.

  What’s happening?

  >>The pack is tearing its way through the rear guard.

  Thanks for the heads-up. We’re moving on Lacroix.

  There were other, less pressing, notifications. Marit, Cruz, and Neely had reached Woolworth House. They were safe within her wards. Cricket had pulled the Haints in and sent them home early. They wanted answers and updates, but all I could do was mute those conversations and hope I could get back to them later.

  “That was Boaz.” Nerves tingled in my fingertips. “The pack has already made their move.”

  Linus kept sweeping over the vampires w
ith his gaze. “Then we wait for our opening.”

  “Let me refresh your sigil.” I unbuttoned his dress shirt a few inches then tugged on the neck of his undershirt until I could draw on bare skin. I stuck to the impervious sigil and prayed it held fast against Lacroix and his vampires. “I brought the artifact. Goddess-touched necromancers are half-Last Seed and half-necromancer, so it makes sense it would work against them too.”

  “Good thinking.” He arched an eyebrow when I removed it from my bra. “I had no idea you hid such fascinating things in there.”

  “You can strip-search me later.” I winked at him. “For now, let’s go knock some vampire heads together.”

  A heavy dose of bravado never hurt anyone, right? Between Linus and the pack, I would just be the mouthpiece for our operation, and that suited me fine.

  Cool fingers closed over my upper arm. “Your sigil.”

  “Already done.” I showed him my arm. “I got bored around the time that one guy walked past holding his cellphone over his head in one hand while blasting ‘The Electric Slide’ from the Bluetooth speaker in his other.”

  His wannabe boombox was giving away his age. He was too young by vampire standards to be a threat, except to our eardrums.

  Over the din of their incisors scraping in a rhythmic, nails-on-chalkboard screech that made my ears ache, a chorus of throaty howls raised the hairs down my arms.

  The cavalry had arrived.

  Within minutes, Lethe found us. Crimson drool strung from her jaw, but her tail wagged. Hood was right on her heels, ears perked, a growl rumbling through his thick chest.

  “We think Lacroix is there.” I pointed to the tightest clot of vampires. “We need to reach him, see if I can talk sense into him. His people are supposed to capture me, not kill me. Worst-case scenario, they march me right to him.”

  “Worst-case scenario, he cages you.” As the crisp words left his mouth, the night unspooled around Linus. “We’ll have to fight our way out past every vampire in the streets if he catches a whiff of you.”

  A ball of dread formed in my gut, worry he might leave me behind. “What are you saying?”

  “That I want you to be careful.” He palmed my cheek. “That I want you to take every precaution.”