No Humans Involved Read Free Page A

I looked around as I rose.
    "Hello?" I said.
    Someone touched my arm. I wheeled, but no one was there. I rubbed the spot. Probably a butterfly brushing past. It wouldn't be a ghost—with them I only got sight and sound, no touch.
    I checked the schedule Becky had given me. Three interviews plus—
    Fingers clasped my free hand. Resisting the urge to yank away, I looked down. Nothing. Yet I could feel the unmistakable sensation of a hand holding mine.
    My gut went cold. This was how it had started with Nan. A lifetime of seeing what shouldn't be there and eventually she started imagining what she knew couldn't be there. That's what happens to necromancers, and that's what I am, same as my Nan.
    Like most supernatural powers, necromancy runs in the blood. It often skips a generation or two, but in our family no one is spared. We see and hear the dead, and they are relentless in their quest to be heard. I may have learned a way to profit from my powers, but if I could be free of the ghosts, I'd give it up in a heartbeat and muddle through like every other con artist in the business. Better that than this long, cursed road that ends in madness.
    The fingers slid from my hand. I squeezed my eyes shut.
    Once before I'd had a ghost who'd been able to touch me. Didn't hold my hand, though. She'd sunk her fangs into my neck and nearly killed me, all because she couldn't make contact the normal way. Typical vampire—thinks the world exists to serve them.
    But the chance that I'd encounter another dead vamp was remote. Extremely rare to begin with, they're so uncommon in the afterlife that I'd found only unconfirmed ancient tales of necromancers contacting one. If a vampire is already dead when it walks this world, where does one go when it passes into the next?
    Somehow Natasha had clawed her way back and made contact with me, physical contact, as this ghost had now done. I rubbed the spot on my neck and cast a nervous glance around.
    I let my mind shift to the semitrance state that would let me see ghosts too weak or inexperienced to pass over. Around me, everything seemed to go still, the wind chimes faint and distant, the gardens blurring.
    "Hello?" I said. "Is anyone here?"
    I kept turning and calling out, but no one answered. A sharp shake of my head and I was back to Earth.
    "Ms. Vegas?"
    I spun as a security guard peeked around a hedge.
    "Didn't mean to startle you. Were you calling for someone?"
    "Actually, yes," I said with a rueful smile. "I'm hopelessly lost."
    He laughed. "This place is a maze, isn't it? Come on then, and I'll walk you back."

The Angel Of The South
    DURING A BREAK BETWEEN INTERVIEWS, I decided to send the babies a get-well gift. As for what to send… well, that was a problem. I get a kick out of the twins—I even babysat them during one council meeting— but they were the only little ones I'd had extended contact with since I'd been a child myself.
    My first thought was a balloon bouquet… until the FTD florist in Syracuse told me they didn't recommend balloons for kids— choking hazard, apparently. So I went with stuffed animals. Rabbits. Perfect.
    I spent the rest of the afternoon following my schedule and using the spare time to poke around the house and meet the crew. To my disappointment, I didn't bump into Bradford Grady.
    Grady was a bona fide star with a wildly popular show exploring haunted European locales. That was where the money was: television. Right now, I had a prime monthly spot on The Keni Bales Show and I was a regular guest on Knight at Night . But my own show? That was the dream. Always had been… even though I personally preferred a stage to a soundstage. With Keni's show skyrocketing in the ratings, now the second hottest daytime talk show in America, I had two offers—one from a major network, the other an up-and-coming netlet.
    Whether those offers turned into an actual time slot depended largely on how I performed on this show. Spending a week learning from a master