Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2)(79)

“What do I know about you?” I asked, and the skin around his eyes tightened in a smal flinch, as if my question could wound. I lowered my gaze.

When I was a teenager, I’d had a major crush on Death.

Yeah, imagine that, a teenager with a crush on Death—it took emo to a whole new level. He’d visited me less often then, stopping by apparently at random for reasons unknown. I think, back then, my company was an amusement or maybe an interesting novelty—a mortal who could see him, interact with him. For me, he was that dreamy, dark and mysterious older guy. I guess he was stil al of those things, but I’d thought I’d outgrown that teenage crush. Clearly it had just grown up with me.

I took a deep breath, relishing the thril of his hands on me, of his touch. Of the fact that we could touch. A month ago it would have been uncomfortable, him too cold and me too hot. But now things had changed.

Looking up again, I studied his face, recognizing every line of his jaw, the curve of his eyebrows. In some ways, he was my closest friend. In others he was a complete stranger. But even with our relationship in this strange, awkward, morphing mess of, wel , whatever it was, I stil felt like I could talk to him. Could tel him anything, everything, even if he couldn’t do the same. After al , no one kept even if he couldn’t do the same. After al , no one kept secrets like Death.

“You’ve always told me not to push,” I said, moving my arms to his, my hands at his elbows, my forearms on top of his. We were too close for me not to touch him without making things more awkward. “Not to push for answers you can’t give me, for secrets you can’t reveal. Wel , now it’s my turn. Don’t push me for commitments I can’t make.”

He closed his eyes and then leaned forward, propping his chin on the top of my head. The movement brought me in contact with his chest, and I leaned into him as wel , feeling the softness of his T-shirt against my cheek—a T-shirt that I was pretty sure didn’t exist, at least not in the terms with which I was familiar. I felt the sigh that escaped him as he wrapped his arms around me.

“Okay.” His fingers trailed over the sliver of skin exposed between my halter top and my hip-huggers. “Okay, I’l stop pushing. But I expect you to tel him the same thing.”

“Trust me, I intend to.” Now, if Falin would listen? That would be a miracle.

As if he could hear my thoughts, Death laughed, one hard bark of air. “He’s stubborn. You know he continued to talk at me—at empty air, for al he knew—for an hour after you fel asleep.”

I hid my smile against Death’s shoulder. “Yeah, he’s stubborn.”

“You could kick him out.”

I groaned and pushed away from Death. “I told you, he’s helping me with my investigation.” I hadn’t intended to rub Death’s nose in the fact that he wasn’t the one helping me, but it was there, in his eyes. He looked away, as if he knew I could see it.

“What marks the end of life?” Death asked, hooking his thumbs in his pockets.

“What?” Where did that question come from? Death didn’t answer, or repeat himself; he just looked at me, his eyes intense, as if the words he wasn’t saying were trying to eyes intense, as if the words he wasn’t saying were trying to burn through his gaze.

“Philosophical y, scientifical y, or . . . ?” I let the question trail off and lifted my hands, palms up, as I shrugged.

Stil he didn’t answer.

“Okay.” I frowned and leaned back against the sink’s counter. “Science would say life ends after the last breath leaves the body and the heart ceases to beat, or perhaps when brain activity stops. But . . .”

Death inclined his head, as if encouraging me to continue. He was a col ector and I talked to the dead, so a scientific explanation probably wasn’t what he was looking for. I’d seen bodies continue to have scientific signs of life for up to a minute or two after their souls had been col ected, but I knew from experience that if I raised the shade of one of them, his memory would last only until the soul left the body. I’d also seen, though thankful y not often, bodies that had lost al signs of life but retained souls—their shades remembered being dead. “Mortal life ends when the soul leaves the body.”

Death smiled, but it wasn’t exactly a happy smile. “So what is the fuel of life, and where else have you seen it?” he asked. Then he vanished.

I stared at the space where he’d been. Souls. Souls as fuel. And I knew exactly where I’d seen souls recently—the constructs.

When I left the bathroom, I found Falin poking around my fridge, wearing only a pair of jeans.

“You need to go shopping,” he said without looking up.

“Typical y.”

I grabbed PC’s bag of kibble and flicked the coffeemaker on as I passed it. The coffee had only just begun brewing by the time the smal dog was chomping away at his meal. I pul ed a mug out of the cabinet, then away at his meal. I pul ed a mug out of the cabinet, then jerked the pot out of the coffeemaker and held my mug directly under the steaming liquid. When I looked up I found Falin grinning at me.

“Impatient?”

“In a hurry.”

“You always need that stuff to wake you?”

No, having two of the best-looking guys I knew in my bedroom had pretty much taken care of getting my pulse moving. Not that I was going to tel either of them that. I shoved the pot back under the stream of coffee and cupped my half-ful mug in my hands.