“Why was he keeping me prisoner? How the hell should I know? All I cared about at that point was getting out of there. I don’t know what his deal is orwhyhe’s creepy and evil. All I know is that heiscreepy and evil.”
“Don’t get defensive,” I say. “I’m just trying to understand.”
“There’s nothing else to understand. I ran from Brighton and came to Concordia, the city full of witches. Did you know there are covens dedicated to never losing your car keys and seasoning food perfectly? Concordia caters to every kind of witchcraft imaginable, except one. Except necromancy.” Dodgerscowls at me. “And not only did I strike out in finding other witches like me, I got stuck withyou.”
Dodger pointedly shoves his headphones back over his ears, tuning me out once again. Trying to evaluate him isn’t easy. Dodger’s young, just barely old enough to drink. He’s skinny, all sharp angles and ghostly pale skin, with a curtain of black hair perpetually falling into his eyes. Sure, his feisty attitude and waifish, ethereal good looks might be appealing in other circumstances, but not while I’m on the clock.
Do I trust him? Dodger went to the trouble of faking his death and finding Alpha bodyguards to hide and protect him while in the witch-run city. He’s clearly terrified ofsomething.Not only is someone well-connected supposedly gunning for him, he’s a fledgling necromancer who stumbled onto the supernatural world and doesn’t know how to control his powers yet.
Is he telling me the full truth? Unclear. He doesn’t trust me. Until I know for sure whether his claims are true or not, I can’t share too much with the force back home. My bosses back in Brighton are breathing down my neck after I let Marlow go free. They’re demanding answers about the case and exactly what ‘new evidence’ warranted releasing a suspected murderer. I’ve got nothing to give them except a dead man who isn’t dead and a chief who might be everything Dodger claims he is.
“—building is on fire,” Dodger says, waving a hand in front of my face.
“No, it’s not.” I’d smell the smoke.
“Had to get your attention somehow. You’re hogging the sugar.”
I stare at Dodger while passing it back, the defiance practically radiating off of him. He’s not going to make this easy. I’m stuck with him and a mess that’s getting messier by the second.
“We’re going to find a way out of this,” I say, more to myself than to him.
“Good luck with that,” he laughs. “Me being dead was a lot simpler.”
He’s right. But I’m not about to admit it.
Trouble and Tentacles
Dodger
Detective Ethan Harper may be easy on the eyes but he’s hell on my peace of mind. He gets on my last nerve and totally ruins my appetite, too. I abandon my spoon in the cereal bowl and shove back from the table.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the self-appointed werewolf bodyguard grumbles right on cue.
“Going to my room. Why? Do you think I’m gonna run away?”
“You go by Dodger,” he muses. “Something tells me this wouldn’t be the first time you’ve left a guy with a check and headed out the back.”
Is that actual amusement flickering across his face? Impossible. Detective Stick-Up-His-Ass wouldn’t recognize fun if it bit him on his perfectly sculpted jaw.
“The breakfast was free,” I say. And tasted like it too. “Don’t follow me, or I’ll open a passageway to hell and strand your furry ass there for eternity.” A total bluff. I’d be lucky to open up a passageway three feet to the right. My powers don’t exactly listen to me. But Harper actually flinches and lets me go. Of course. He’s the one with claws and yet little ol’ me and myspooky evil magicscares him.
The elevator doors slide shut behind me, and I jab the button for my floor harder than necessary. I think about hownecromancy is the gift that keeps on giving. Around age ten, I started seeing monsters. It did not make me fun at birthday parties. Then came the strange glowing holes in the world with swirling mist and darkness inside, and eerie shapes there in the void. Giant winged beasts, goblins, and creatures with too many eyes or teeth, even the occasional ghost.
My aunt raised me and thought I was cursed. I learned to keep my head down and keep all the crazy things I saw to myself. Then I started running from the strange occurrences. Doing what I could to make some money, never staying in one place too long.
That’s how I got the nickname Dodger. Always running, staying one step ahead of the monsters.
Recently, I learned about the supernatural world. Like that it existed. And that I was a necromancer capable of summoning creatures, usually from the underworld and spiritual planes of existence.
Once I’m in my room and pull off my hoodie, I decide to practice my skills. “Gotta learn sometime.” I’m going to learn to control my gifts and stop running from them.
First, I put on music. Music is my happy place and my safe place. I never go anywhere without the used iPod I won in a poker game or my brother’s old headphones.
Alright. Here goes nothing. The headphones around my neck pump out an old Foo Fighters track, the familiar rhythm anchoring me to this reality even as I try to tear open another one. I try to find the space between planes of existence. Because that’s what I’d been seeing since I was young, an endless neutral nothingness where it was possible to slip from one plane to another or call on beings from other places.
