Grave Robber for Hire Read Free Page B

directly from the sky as if from the sun itself. The beam focused onto Vig’s chest and radiated until he turned luminescent.
    Oh shit, what was happening? Could I stop it and save him?
    He roared. Loud and heartrending. It sounded the way I imagine a dinosaur did millions of years ago—as the asteroid hit and stole its world. His body started to flop and squirm. Eternity or a minute passed before he stopped. He rolled to his side and hacked up huge lungfuls of nothing.
    Tears filled my eyes and overflowed, pooling in the dirt beneath my cheek. On my stomach still, the hot earth heated the metal studs on my vest and the dry grass scratched at my bare skin. I inched my hand toward him. “Viggo. You. Okay?” Could he croak it even if his human body died centuries ago?
    Viggo nodded, reached over touched my face, and poofed out.
    Shit. Shit. Shit.
    Although Vig’s not alive, he’s my family, and I love him. “Viggo?” I hissed through my horror. He’d better be okay. His job description had never been to save me this way. Of course, I’d never been occupied by evil before. Before today, the most he’d done was scowl or knock my hand off some writing or beat up my nasty-serial killing twin brother.
    My brain couldn’t assimilate the facts into a coherent thought or identify what just happened—to either of us. The horror and pain and adrenaline still slithered around my body in a vile cocktail. I would definitely be skipping any re-enactments to find out how we could have fought such terrors more appropriately. Unlike the spider swallowing lady song, that evil shit had jiggled, but sure hadn’t tickled inside me.
    “Viggo, come back.” A middle aged couple strolled towards me, so I spoke softly. Besides it hurt to talk since Vig had hit my chest with such enthusiasm. After nineteen years of cohabitating, he probably had some repressed anger issues.
    I hacked up more black shit. It left my mouth tasting as if I’d sucked on the tail pipe of a seventy’s V8. I struggled to my feet and dusted myself down. With a quick finger comb, I hoped my blond mass was not too wild witch.
    “Viggo?” Come back. Please come back. My legs trembled and bent as if they were made of sponge foam. I struggled to stay upright and whispered to the air. “Show me you’re okay.” Please show me. “I won’t leave until you do.”
    The couple was closer now; the lady frowning. An elderly lady talking to a gravestone glanced over then continued her chat. Shit, I didn’t need the police called to arrest the Goth weirdo standing on a grave and talking to the sky. But I wasn’t leaving until I knew Vig was okay.
    Having people stare wasn’t a new experience. Sharing a life with Vig often makes it hard to appear normal. Invisible to everyone but me, without thinking I talk to him, and we laugh at shit, and people stare.
    Usually this embarrasses me. Right now, the whole of freaking Brisbane could upload it onto YouTube.
    “Vig?”
    A rumbling disembodied voice drifted from the sky, “Hayyel. I safe.”
    I jumped, but grinned stupidly. “You’re safe?”
    “Yes. Go, Hayyel.”
    “Okay, Vig. See you at home—yes?” The couple stopped walking, and laughed nervously. What? Never seen someone talk to the sky before?
    “Yes. Go.” He sounded exasperated enough that I imagined him rolling his eyes.
    I grabbed my bag and rooted around for the water bottle and breath-mints I kept for sweltering days, and I-spy-a-hot-guy, emergencies.
    I gulped water and shoved a handful of mints in my mouth to diffuse the leftover black sludge taste.
    Feeling a little less ambushed, I teetered toward the exit on my stiletto spikes that I regretted wearing now that I’d been eviled up. I wanted away from dead-freak-Clyde’s grave more than I wanted my next orgasm.
    I gave the cemetery a quick glance and shuddered. Since Clyde croaked more than a hundred and forty years ago, today I’d faced only his residual evil. Alive, he must have been the Prince