Dead of Night (Ghosts & Magic #1) Read Free Page A

Black's chain the moment he ceased to be alive. While I wasn't too concerned that they would know I was the one who ended him, I was concerned about that information being discovered so soon. It was better to do the job and call it in, and let them learn about me that way. If the job was important enough, and for two million up front it sure seemed like it was, this particular sin would be forgiven.
    We descended the fire escape that Caroline had been waiting on for the last sixteen hours, out of view of the window. The dead were perfect for stakeouts, or for anything that required waiting extreme amounts of time without a twitch. That's why it twisted me that she couldn't wait an extra ten seconds. That's why I knew it had to be intentional. Even so, it was going to be a shame to have to retire her before I went home. She had been a good night's digging, a fortunate gem in a pile of trash. Too many people didn't die pretty, and were too damaged to work with, their bodies desecrated in any number of ways. I'd needed someone who could walk out into a crowd, and in the end I had come to enjoy her company.
    That was the thing about animating the dead. They weren't like zombies in the movies, or the people who got cursed with the Rot. They weren't mindless bodies following some programmed command to eat brains. When you brought a corpse back to life, you were pulling their soul from wherever it was souls went and forcing it to re-inhabit the flesh, no matter what condition that flesh was in. You were putting the person back in there, albeit with a reduced ability to express their own free will. Reduced, not gone, and it was the strength of the summoner's will, and the will of the soul, that determined how much control you actually had. Caroline was a stubborn one, and while my will was strong enough to get her to do what I wanted, it wasn't strong enough to keep her from bitching about it.
    Anyway, she looked like any other corpse now. Bodies like that were a dime a dozen, and despite my attachment she was too unreliable to be worth keeping around. She'd need to be replaced at some point.  
    Not tonight. I was too tired tonight.
    We reached the alley, and I told her to wait while I walked across the street to the public lot where I had left my van. It was a large, white delivery van, an old thing with rust eaten corners and 'Flowers by Jack' in large, faded blue script along the sides. It got me where I needed to be and had plenty of room in the back for a couple of big coolers.  
    That was the other thing about the dead. Bringing them back didn't change the chemistry of a rotting corpse. If the day had been warm and sunny, Gucci would have smelled Caroline long before she had gone through the window.
    I hopped in the van and closed the door, pausing once to cough my lungs up before I started it up and drove over to the alley. I checked the mirrors a few times for onlookers before backing it in, climbing to the rear, and opening the receiving end.
    "Come on." I extended my hand, and Caroline took it, her flesh cold in my grip. I pulled her up, and then leaned out to swing the doors closed behind her.
    "MMmmmffffff."
    She had lifted the lid of one of the coolers, and was standing at the edge.
    "Not tonight, Caroline," I said. "If you had come in on time, maybe you wouldn't have gotten your jaw blown off."  
    Or maybe that was the point. I didn't know if the souls I called back liked being back. They didn't seem to be capable of answering that question. Sometimes I wondered if it just depended on where their soul was otherwise. Other times, I just wondered where otherwise was. The only thing I knew for sure about the beyond is that when whatever lived in the dice claimed its prize, there was nothing I could do to get a refund.
    That was one of the things that drove me to stay alive. Fear, the great motivator. I knew some of the secrets of death. It didn't make it easier to accept. It made it harder. I didn't want to be