How to Claim an Undead Soul (Beginner's Guide to Necromancy #2)
Hailey Edwards
One
A scream got hung in my throat, and I choked awake with it lodged halfway to my lips. I registered the unyielding press of the hardwood floor under my butt and the comforting wedge of the corner where I invariably spent my days huddled in a nest of sheets. I cracked open my eyes, which were damp with tears, and then I screamed again, louder and longer, until my uvula swung like a clacker against the sides of a cowbell.
A wraith billowed in front of me, its emaciated arm extended, its skeletal fingers outstretched.
Alerted by my frantic shrieks, Woolly flipped on every light in my bedroom and cranked them to blinding levels like halogen alone might banish the creature.
“What do you want?” I touched my stinging cheek, the skin beneath my probing fingers icy where it had caressed me. “What are you doing in here?”
The creature didn’t voice an answer—I wasn’t certain it could do more than wail—but it did swing its withered arm toward the window.
I flicked my wrists, shooing it away before shoving to my feet. Keeping a wary eye on it, I crossed the bedroom, but it just hovered there. Through the glass, I spotted my new neighbor standing in the grass, gazing up at me. Through me, really. His main focus centered on controlling the wraith.
Linus Andreas Lawson III wore a pair of green-and-white-striped cotton pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt. His dark-auburn hair, mussed from sleep, hung around his face. His full lips mashed into an unforgiving line, and his jaw flexed with his concentration. His eyes, so blue they appeared black from this distance, brimmed with power.
Hands trembling, I fumbled open the latch, nudged up the sash, and leaned out the window. “What is that thing doing in my room?”
Thirty seconds lapsed, tracked by the alarm clock on my desk, before he blinked clear of the darkness swirling through his eyes.
“I heard you.” He cleared his raw throat, as though he had been the one screaming. “Woolly wouldn’t let me in, so I sent the wraith to check on you.”
The last time Linus unleashed his wraith, it stole my undead parakeet right out of its cage and left behind an invitation I couldn’t refuse.
“You broke into my house?” I snarled up my lip, grateful my heart pounded now for reasons other than terror. “Again?”
“Woolly granted me permission.” He had the nerve to act offended I would suggest otherwise. “She was worried about you too.”
“Is that true?” I jerked my head back in the window. “You let it in here?”
A guilty moan escaped the floorboards under my desk.
“You haven’t left your house in a week. The only person you’re allowing in or out is Amelie.” An undercurrent of annoyance rippled through him. “We’re wasting time.”
Ah. Message received. What he meant was I was wasting his time.
And maybe I was. Just a little. Mostly to mess with him since I was still irked he had been foisted on me. But I had also been digging through boxes in the attic, thumbing through tomes in the library, exploring all the old girl’s nooks and crannies, in search of clues that might help solve the mystery of what had happened to Maud, and to me. Only the basement, sealed behind its spelled door, escaped my grasping hands.
The floor register hummed an inquiring noise, and the latch on the window flicked open and then shut.
While I appreciated the sentiment, I waved away her offer. “There’s no use locking him out now.”
A quick scan of the room proved the wraith had vanished along with Linus’s concentration, so there was that. I turned back to the man standing in my garden.
“Join me for breakfast.” He made it an order. “We need to establish a schedule.”
Facts were facts. I couldn’t avoid him forever. And he had offered to feed me. “Okay.”
The window squeaked an apology when I lowered it, and the latch snicked back into place.
“I’m not mad.” I trailed a finger down the cool glass. “I was just startled, that’s all.”
I shot Amelie a brief text to let her know I was venturing out into the world—or, you know, across the yard—so she wouldn’t worry if she popped by and found the house empty for a change.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” I told Woolly as I pulled on clothes. “Unless the breakfast is lame. Say a bowl of those high fiber cereals served with almond, soy, or cashew milk. In which case, I will scurry home for my usual bowl of strawberry oatmeal with real dehydrated apple bits—” masquerading as strawberries, “—and full-fat milk.”
Let Boaz keep his frozen blueberry waffles and imitation maple syrup. I had standards.
On my way through the living room, I stopped to check on Keet, who hung upside down from his swing like a bat from a cave ceiling. I reached through the bars and scratched his cheek. “Stay weird, my friend.”
Barefoot, I padded through the kitchen and out onto the back porch where I checked the wards. Weak, a faint melody that tickled my ears, but steady. Pleased our meager protections were holding, I hit the stone path that wound through the rose garden and led to the carriage house.
The mingled scents of coffee and frying meat hit my nose when I walked through the door Linus had left propped open, and my stomach rumbled in appreciation for the spread decorating the kitchen counter.