My life would be a lot easier if the dead in this town would just cooperate. Maybe it was the living. They never seemed to cooperate, either.

I hefted one eyelid by sheer force of will and spied the time on my alarm clock. That alarm clock was just for show. No one—not even me—used them much anymore. Lately, it was there so I didn’t have to look at the time on my phone. Said alarm clock was blinking 12:00 at me.

The power had gone out sometime since I’d fallen into bed. Figures. It didn’t matter that I lived in a nice neighborhood. Mother Nature was a testy woman on the best of days, but in the spring in this part of the country? She was downright spiteful.

The knock—well, more like pounding—on my front door rattled through my house again, which was what had woken me up from a very deep, much-needed sleep in the first damn place. I knew that insistent cop-knock. Jay was pounding on my door like the badge-wielding tool he was. Granted, I, too, had a badge, but I wasn’t the jerk accosting his door at oh-butt-thirty in the morning.

Groaning, I peeled myself from my oh-so-soft mattress and stomped to my door, yanking it open before Jay could splinter the wood.

“What?” Yeah, it came out more like a bark, but it wasn’t even dawn, and I was in no mood.

Instead of saying anything at all, Jay waved a to-go cup of coffee in my face as a peace offering. I fell on the caffeine-laden cup like a junkie, sucking down the brew like my life—or more accurately, Jay’s life—depended on it.

Only after the cup was half-drained did I let him pass the threshold into my living room. Shuffling past me, he plopped onto my overstuffed sofa like he owned it. He didn’t, but Jeremiah Cooper, AKA, Jay, was my best friend—hell, my only friend—and he’d spent many a morning, evening, and afternoon on that couch.

Jay wasn’t the only person sitting there, but he paid exactly zero attention to the slightly see-through dead man perched right next to him, lounging on the cushions like the Queen of Sheba. Jay—and everyone else in my life—couldn’t see him.

No one could.

No one but me.

Dead guy was Hildenbrand O’Shea, and he’d died sometime in the 1840s. Hildy couldn’t tell me the exact year he’d passed, and records were scant, so it was anyone’s guess when he’d actually kicked the bucket. Hildy was adamant about the decade at least, even if the story of his demise changed every time he told it. 

Hildy had a lot of fun messing with the living. At present, he was making grotesquely funny faces about two inches from Jay’s nose which was at odds with his posh knee-length jacket, waistcoat, and slacks—the markings of high society in the decade he’d passed. I wasn’t positive on the coloring of his clothes because Hildy wasn’t exactly solid, but I could tell he had light hair and eyes, wore a cravat with a paisley pattern, and sometimes held a walking stick and a top hat, even though he didn’t have either right now. He appeared to be in his late thirties, with a sharp knife blade of a nose and square jaw.

Typically, I’d be trying not to laugh, but half a cup of coffee was a losing battle against my tired body. I was in no mood. I was all in favor of crawling right back into my bed and waking up at the super-reasonable hour of seven. 

Maybe even eight.

I’d spent the last three weeks solving a trio of homicides and was just about done with the people in this town killing each other for a good long while. Those three weeks should have been one, but like I’d said, the dead never wanted to cooperate.

“We’ve got a case, D. You’re going to have to get dressed.”

My gaze reluctantly moved from Hildy to Jay. Jay was dressed in a suit like every other time we’d been called in at the ass crack of dawn. He, too, was sipping coffee, but he didn’t look happy about it. No. Jay’s gray face said that coffee would be coming back up sometime in the near future.

Dammit. If people could stop killing each other for about three days, that would be gravy.

Heaving a sigh, I shuffled back to my bedroom and called over my shoulder for him to make me some more coffee. It was a fifty-fifty shot whether or not he’d do it. Jay could be a contrary bitch sometimes.

It didn’t take me too long to handle my business, brush my teeth, and put on my suit pants and tank. The only real trouble was what to do with my hair. Thick, wavy, and a middle-of-the-road blonde, it defied the laws of physics, gravity, and nature. Doing the best I could, I shoved it into a haphazard bun and called it good.

I didn’t bother with makeup, even though I probably needed it. I knew without looking in the mirror that I had bags under my eyes big enough to drive a truck through. But I also knew without a doubt at some point in the day I was going to start crying, almost vomit, actually vomit, or all of the above.

Makeup was a waste of time.

By rote, I strapped on my vest, slid my service weapon into the Kydex spine holster, and slipped a blessed rosary around my neck. My rosary wasn’t there for religious purposes—at least not on my part. I wasn’t particularly religious, to be honest. 

Did I think there was an afterlife? Yes. 

Did I subscribe to any one way to get there? Not so much, no. 

But the prayer beads had been blessed by a priest and had stopped particularly nasty specters from causing bodily harm on more than one occasion. Pissed-off ghosts were not my favorite, and poltergeists were the freaking worst.

Tucking the rosary under my vest, I shrugged on my blouse and jacket, stuffed my feet into low-heeled leather boots, and hit the road. And by road, I meant my living room, following the smell of freshly brewed coffee.

Jay was the bestest friend a girl could have. If I were even a little interested—or if his preference swung anywhere near my gender—we’d have been the perfect couple. Sadly, neither of those things were ever going to happen, much to his mother’s dismay.

I slugged down a healthy gulp of steaming coffee and sighed with blissful glee as the caffeine hit my system. Only then did I really focus on Jay. He was pale-faced and pinched. Neither of those were his norm. Jeremiah Cooper was a golden boy of Haunted Peak, Tennessee ever had one. Dark-haired and tan-skinned, with the palest of blue eyes, Jay was a football star and straight-A student in high school. Graduated with honors right next to me at the University of Tennessee and was a well-respected member of the community—even if he was BFFs with the town weirdo.

Jay hadn’t been pale-faced and pinched a day in his life.

“I’ve consumed enough caffeine to not rip your head off. Spill it.” My delivery could have used a little work, but I’d checked the time on my phone. It was barely after three in the morning on a Tuesday. I had a good reason to be cranky—especially since I’d done the lion’s share of the legwork on our last case.

“We know her, Darby. And…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but Hildy did.

“It’s another weird one,” Hildy chirped from Jay’s shoulder, busy poking his spectral finger into Jay’s ear.

This was Hildy’s way of trying to cheer me up, and like every other time he’d done it, it not only did not work, it creeped me out. If I’d told him once, I’d told him a thousand times: Don’t mess with the living, and they won’t mess with the dead. Like always, Hildy didn’t listen to my warnings. And as was the norm, Hildy kept right on talking.

“Ya went to school with her, lass. Brenda, Barbara, Blanca, somebody. Cut up like a Thanksgiving turkey, too.” The burr of Hildy’s Irish accent raked against my nerves. Hildy was up on all the gossip, and he knew when just about anyone died in this town. Even though he was an excellent source to have in my hip pocket, no one wanted guessing games at the ass crack of dawn—especially with his flair for the dramatic.

“Blair?” I blurted, too tired and too irritated to bite my tongue. Shit.

Rule number one was never converse with the dead in front of living people. That said, I broke rule one so often, it was a miracle I was still a cop—even with a damn near perfect close rate.

As expected, Jay’s eyes went round, his face paling like I’d tapped his jugular and cranked it wide. I’d guessed right.  

“I swear to god, it freaks me the fuck out when you do that.”

Playing it cool, I asked, “Do what? Extrapolate data based on your mood and make a hypothesis? It’s literally my job.”

Jay smacked his mug down on the counter so hard I was surprised it didn’t break, crossing his arms as he sized me up. “You know damn well that’s not what you were doing. You were talking to a ghost just now, weren’t you?”

He was way too with it this early in the morning.

Jay was the only person in my life that knew I saw the dead long after they’d gone off to their final rest. He wasn’t cool with it by any stretch of the imagination, but he still hadn’t carted me off to a psychiatric hospital to have me committed, so at least there was that. Granted, it had taken me talking to his deceased grandma Marcy to get the goods on him, but it was nice not to worry that my best friend thought I was crazy.

Well, Jay thought I was crazy, he just didn’t think I needed medication.

“It’s too early to hide it, man. Cut me some slack. Do you know how hard it is to try and keep a straight face every minute of every day while the dead just chatter on like I’m in their freaking knitting circle?” I stopped my rant to slug back more nectar of the gods, drained the cup dry, and smacked it back down onto the counter. “It’s fucking exhausting, and I’m tapped out. So quit being a bitch about it.”

Jay’s face got that irritated, squinty quality I hated before it fell away. I got the “big sigh” that said he would forgive my weirdness, and he pulled me into a huge bear hug. “I’m sorry I was a dick, D. But do me a favor, don’t talk to any ghosts while we’re out there.”

His warning gave me a niggle of unease. He knew I never planned to, but that didn’t stop me from slipping up on occasion.

“You got a reason?” Did I accidentally use my cop voice on my BFF? Maybe. But even though Jay was my partner and had heard that tone about a zillion times in the last fifteen years, he still answered me like a perp.

He sighed, pouted at his empty mug, and answered, “We aren’t the only ones investigating this one. Word is there’s a Fed there.”

A Fed was stomping all over my crime scene? I cursed loud enough and inventive enough that both Jay and Hildy were threatening to wash my mouth out with soap. I ignored them both, snagging my badge and clipping it to my belt before I tossed my messenger bag over my shoulder and tagged my keys.

“What the hell are you doing just standing there?” I growled, my hand already on the doorknob, my key in the lock.

It took three ages and half a millennium for Jay to get his ass in gear, but when I made for my Jeep, Jay snagged my sleeve and redirected me.

“We don’t need to drive,” he muttered, nodding toward the end of our block that was just past the apex of a hill. 

Only then did I see the faint flash of lights from a black-and-white at the end of my street.

Waking up in the middle of a cemetery was never high on my bucket list—not that I had a bucket list at twenty-two—but if I had one at all, hanging out in a graveyard wasn’t ever going to be on it.

Of all the things that could have woken me up, it was the grainy yet damp sensation of dirt on my hands that did the trick.

Not the rain pelting me. Not the lash of wind chilling me to the bone. Not the fact that I was outside when I should be warm in my bed. No, those kernels of awareness came later. It was those simple granules of earth on my fingertips.

My first thought before I took in the world around me was, Mom’s gonna be pissed. Yes, even being a twenty-two-year-old college senior, I gave a shit what my mommy thought. Especially when my mother was the reigning queen of finding me asleep in my bed with a spent charcoal in my hand and losing her freaking mind. 

To my credit, I hadn’t been the one who decided I should live at home while I went to college. Nor had I been the one who’d insisted on crisp white sheets for a person who was perpetually covered in the remnants of whatever art medium she’d used that day.

Nope, that was on her.

Aching and groggy, it took a full minute to understand that I was, A—outside, and B—in the middle of a cemetery. At night. In a damp, nearly see-through nightgown that had never once graced my wardrobe.

Seemed legit.

Honestly, if I weren’t in so much pain—if my gut wasn’t roiling with hunger and my head wasn’t feeling like someone had taken a pickax to it, I could’ve sworn I was dreaming. Well, not dreaming exactly. Having a nightmare would be more like it. I mean, why else would I be covered in dirt, sitting on the freshly dug mound of a grave?

It took a hell of a lot of concentration to read the headstone, but I wasn’t at all surprised to read my own name: Sloane Emerson Cabot, with my birth and death date right underneath it.

As nightmares went, this was pretty solid. Too bad I had the sneaking suspicion I was in no way dreaming. After what seemed like ages, I moved, struggling to stand on unsteady legs. I stumbled, tripping over my own feet as I plopped back down on the loose earth of another freshly dug grave. 

I didn’t want to look at the headstone, but it was hard to miss. It was double-sized, the granite slab meant for a couple. 

The cold finally touched me then. 

The rain lashed at my face, the pain smashing into me in a wave so vast it threatened to pull me under as I read the names etched into the stone. 

Rosalind and Peter Cabot. Right underneath their names was a death date that matched mine. 

I heaved, even though my stomach was empty and had been for what felt like a year. When it finally calmed down, I stood again, wobbled, but managed to stay vertical long enough to recognize the cemetery. I passed it every day on my way to school. Whispering Pines Cemetery was three blocks away from my house. In the opposite direction, closer to campus, was the police station.

Dithering, freezing, and hungrier than I’d ever been in my life, I fought with myself.

Should I go see if this was all a bad dream and hope my parents were sitting in their favorite chairs in our living room? Or did I go with my gut, knowing this wasn’t fake or a dream or some elaborate prank? Did I go to the police—the only people I could think of who might be able to help me understand this mess?

You could go to Aunt Julie.

That thought streaked across my brain, like a flare in the darkness. Aunt Julie wasn’t my aunt, but my mother’s best friend. She might know what happened. But Julie was on the other side of town, not two blocks down the street. Cops first. They could call Aunt Julie. They could tell me if this was all one big joke. 

Or they could lock you up in an insane asylum. That was an option, too.

No. Someone had done something to me. Someone had hurt me—hurt us. The police would help. They would call Aunt Julie. They would straighten this whole mess out. Or I’d wake up. That was still on the table.

My stomach wrenched, the pain so acute, I stumbled to my knees again. But I had a purpose. I had a place to go and a job to do. So, I got up, pointed my feet to the station, and put one foot in front of the other until I was moving. 

My first obstacle was a chained gate, the arched metal moving with the wind. It screeched back and forth, almost like it was laughing at me. I grabbed the padlock, the bulky metal unyielding in my hand one second, and then cracking and breaking into little bits the next. It was true that I might have had a minor hissy fit when I saw the chained and padlocked wrought-iron gate. But my temper tantrum broke the likely rusted-out lock, and I pushed the stupidly heavy gate open. The hinges squealed even more, loud enough to wake the dead. At that thought, I started cackling like I had lost the very last bit of my mind. 

But soon, laughing hurt my ribs, and my stomach pitched once more, causing me to catch myself on the trunk of a young poplar tree before I went down again. I stumbled toward my goal—the stone-faced municipal building that was half-jail and half-police station, the courthouse right across the street. 

One foot in front of the other, Sloane. Keep moving.

For some reason, I heard that in my mother’s voice. It reminded me of all the family hikes we’d gone on, the ones that we seemed to turn into a competitive sport with me losing every single time. Who thought ruck marches in the mountains for time was a family bonding moment? My parents, that's who. 

Don’t look back, sweet girl. Only forward.

The streetlight was my beacon in the darkness—all I had to do was follow my mother’s words, and I’d be okay. It would all be okay. I trudged along, deciding to take a shortcut through the alley instead of following the sidewalk around the block when I retched on the pavement. 

The contents of my stomach were a dark viscous liquid that smelled heavily of pennies. I didn’t look too hard at what came up, but I didn’t have a whole lot of time. I didn’t feel so hot.

The brick walls of the alley buffeted the wind and a bit of the rain that seemed to want to lash sideways at me. The shivers didn’t rattle my bones so hard, and at that tiny bit of relief, I wanted to curl up in the filth of the neglected lane and fall asleep. But, I only had a little bit farther to go.

Keep going, girl.

I heard the man before I saw him. Smelled him, too. But I was too busy staring at the blue and white Whispering Pines Police Department sign that kept me moving to really realize what the back of my brain was trying to tell me.

My hindbrain was screaming “Danger!” while my stupid front brain only thought about a cheeseburger and a bed and finding my parents. Still, I didn’t see him until he was damn near on top of me—the burn of liquor on his breath making me gag. 

His hands were pale, like the thin fingers of death under his billowing sweatshirt and thick jacket. His face was mostly obscured by the hood, so I didn’t catch the red to his eyes or length of his fangs until he’d shoved me against the bricks, their rough exterior digging into my shoulders.

I kicked—my only option since my wrists were caught in his long-fingered grip. He squeezed so hard the bones ground together—but my feeble attempts to injure him were met with a chuckle, eerie enough to keep me up at night.

“You think a fledgling is going to stop me? Pfft.” His scoff was punctuated by a resounding crack across my face before he yanked my wrists over my head and pulled me up, my feet dangling above the ground. 

“Your maker should have told you to stay out of another vampire’s territory. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I suppose I’ll just have to send them a message. Your dead body should do just fine.”

None of his words made much sense other than “dead body.” Those I got loud and clear. 

The rest? Not so much.

My stomach took that particular moment to wrench as if someone was reaching into my middle and yanking it out. Given the red-eyed man was currently licking his chops, I had to look down to make sure my flesh was still intact. Without a better option, I brought my knee up, catching him in the middle. He dropped me with a pained “oof!” and I fell to the dirty street. 

Only then did I rake my hand across his face, my pitiful nails not hurting him too much, but drawing blood all the same. 

“You little shit,” he growled, backhanding me—knocking me back into the rough bricks. But I barely felt the pain of his blow. 

No, I was too focused on the heavenly scent coming from his skin. It smelled like the juiciest steak, and my hunger rose, punching me so hard I felt my mouth water and my gut twist. Before I could fully comprehend what was happening, my teeth were in his throat. 

Not at. In.

They had punched through his flesh while my body wrapped around him like a barnacle—latching onto anything that would keep the dark, blissfully tangy liquid running down my throat. It was like life was flowing into me, and it was all I could do to keep it.

All at once, images flooded my brain. Flashes of scenes no one wanted to see. Like the man—Jacob was his name—stealing the innocence of a girl who regrettably crossed his path. Or when he snapped the neck of an elderly bespectacled man in a tweed jacket who only asked him for the time. Or a mother and her baby… 

Jacob had lived a very long time, and all the while, he’d hurt every single human who’d been unlucky enough to have been in his general vicinity. He hated humans. He hated everyone, and he meted out that hate at any and every opportunity. 

I barely felt it when he fell to his knees, or when his ancient heart stopped beating. I drank and drank until there was nothing left. And then I tried to drink a little more. The pair of us were crumpled in the filth of that alley, and I didn’t care one bit. 

All I wanted—no, needed—was more of that delicious liquid. My teeth were buried in Jacob’s throat, even though there was nothing left of him to take. 

Still, I hungered. And still, I took. 

I couldn’t say for sure when I knew I was consuming his soul—when I knew I was taking everything that he was—to satiate my need. It was definitely during the act itself, but I couldn’t say how I knew. But only after I’d consumed the very last bit of his life force, did I fully realize what I’d done. 

How I’d changed. 

What I had become.

Shakily, I stood—staring down at the blood-soaked nightgown and the filth on my feet and the withered husk of Jacob’s body that was quickly crumbling to ash. 

Jacob had been a monster, and now, so was I. 

My gaze slowly rose to the blue and white sign, that just a few minutes ago, was a beacon in the night, a place to seek refuge. Now it was nothing but a glaring reminder of what I had just done. 

I couldn’t go to the police. I couldn’t go to Aunt Julie. Not if I could do to her what I’d done to him. 

All I knew for sure was there was a grave in Whispering Pines Cemetery with my name on it. 

Maybe it would be a good idea to just stay dead.

I was burned at the stake when I was fourteen years old.

At nineteen, I was dissected by a zealot “physician” who knew less than a pile of cow shit about medicine. 

I was drowned in a lake when I was twenty-four. 

At twenty-seven, I was stoned in a public square. 

When I was thirty—long after I quit aging—I finally got smart. If I stopped helping people, if I stopped trying to save the humans who were so ungrateful for my assistance, no one would know what I could do. I wouldn’t hear the word “witch” from the lips of men who didn’t know the first thing about me.

Sure, it meant more people would die, but with as many times as I’d been “killed” for my gift, they deserved it.

I made rules—ways of hiding in plain sight. 

One: never, ever, on literal pain of death, live in a small town. There is no hiding there, no way to keep nosy people out of your business. Also, when the town magistrate happens to go “missing,” they are going to look at the strange girl who keeps to herself. 

Yes, I killed him, and no, I’m not sorry. 

He deserved it.

Two: no matter how much I may want to, don’t cast in public. It doesn’t matter if some asshole parent is beating their kid, mistreating their dog, or driving like a blind monkey on uppers. Don’t do it. 

Memory spells are slippery and difficult to execute.

Three: Don’t talk about history or politics with people. You run the risk of talking about the French Revolution as if you were actually there—I was. Then some jerkoff history buff—who swears by the books he so ardently clings to—will start to get nosy. 

It’s bad news all around.

I remind myself of my rules—especially rule two—as I walk the dark and rather dirty streets of Denver’s warehouse district. While I suppose I could get scolded for being a beautiful woman walking alone at night in a big city in a decidedly seedy part of town, I just don’t give a shit. I wasn’t leaving my cherry-red Chevelle anywhere but in a highly secure parking garage, even with the three-block walk on five-inch spiked heels. 

And I’d break rule two in a heartbeat if a man—or woman, I’m equal opportunity—came at me in this part of town. Like the shady-looking fellow giving me the “V” sign as he adjusts his crotch, his tongue waggling through his fingers like some sort of deranged animal.

I contemplate just what I could turn him into. A trash barrel, or maybe a port-a-john, or even a mailbox. Transmogrification spells aren’t too hard if you’re working with something of equal mass. All it would take is a snap of my fingers and the right words in Latin. 

My plans are derailed by my phone ringing in my clutch. Lucky prick.

Someone just saved your life, pal.

I fish the slim, yet annoying device from the creamy pink satin of my bag and answer it. 

“You just saved someone’s life and ruined my fun. I hope you know I’m going to make the next tattoo I do on you hurt,” I grouse, stomping my way down the cracked sidewalk toward my destination.

“No, you won’t,” Aurelia says, “and sweetheart, if you could make me feel pain, I’d lick your freaking pumps. Why are you planning murder?” 

Aurelia Constantine has been one of my best friends for the better part of a century. We bonded over being cast out of our respective families and our mutual love of tattoos—me giving them, and Ari receiving them. Aurelia is a phoenix—like, no shit, flaming-wings-and-everything phoenix. I, on the other hand, am something altogether different. 

“Like you don’t already know. Some jackoff is making a rude gesture at me. Speaking of, what would be a worse fate? Life as a port-a-john or trashcan? I can see significant downsides to both,” I muse, my fingertips itching to snap.

“Stop plotting the silly human’s demise for a minute. Are you coming to my wedding or not, woman? You keep flip-flopping and I can’t see what you’re going to do.” Aurelia is a rare and powerful psychic, and newly crowned leader, along with her twin, Mena of the American Phoenix Legion, and if she can’t see what I’m going to decide, it really must be up in the air. 

In all honesty, I can’t see myself—a Rogue witch—hobnobbing with all of the powerful Ethereal leaders that will deign to be there. It sounds like a sure-fire way to get myself thrown in a teensy pocket dimension to never be heard from again. 

Yeah, I don’t think so.

“I feel horrible, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it, babe. It seems too risky. All it takes is one coven leader to be there, and then I’ll be carted off to some dank hole in the ground praying to die. I really want to be there, but…” I trail off, unwilling to disappoint one of the few people who has made this long, lonely life somewhat bearable.

“I get it, sweetie. Don’t beat yourself up. You still planning on coming to the bachelorette party? Evan is cooking up something weird and probably hilarious as hell.”

Evangeline Carmichael, Queen Wraith and all-around pixie badass, is an odd duck but a hilarious one. Whatever she’s planning for a bachelorette party is sure to be a smashing success.

“This, I can do. You swear you’re not upset?” It isn’t every day that one of your besties gets married—even though technically this is her second wedding, and she has been bound to her husband Rhys for the better part of two centuries. 

“Darling girl, if there was anyone in this world who understood hiding out, it would be me. No worries. I’ll see you in a few days.”

“You’re bringing the twins into the shop, right? I need to squeeze those little balls of baby goodness.”

Aurelia’s twins, Henry and Olivia, are a solid bright spot in my life. I can’t wait to see them grow up. There isn’t anything in the world I wouldn’t do to keep them safe. 

“Yes, if I can get Rhys to tone down the bodyguard detail. Oh, shit! I need to go, babe. Henry is hungry, and if Rhys picks him up, well…” She trails off. Her son Henry inherited some of the Constantine family traits. Namely the Aegis ability—one which shields and electrocutes anything within a ten-foot radius. I foresee his toddler years to be pure hell.

“Okay, babe. Have fun with that,” I say as I disconnect, picking up the pace on my black suede peep-toes on the uneven sidewalk. If I wreck these shoes, I will murder Striker on principle. 

Striker Voss is my business partner and other best friend. And his ignorant ass convinced me to get dressed up and meet him out here in the ass end of nowhere to get into an exclusive club. How Strike managed to get a plus-one, I’m not sure, and with his abilities, I probably don’t want to know. 

But here I am in what I think is the perfect club number—a royal-blue velvet, off-the-shoulder wiggle dress from the ’50s. The gathered bust and tulip-style pencil skirt make it classy and racy. Plus, the three-quarter sleeves show off a hint of my tattoos—just enough to keep people guessing—and the blue of the dress compliments the freshly dyed indigo of my hair. 

The nearly silent purr of the motor pulling up next to me yanks my eyes from my feet and my awareness from the man across the street. The whir of a window lowering is followed closely by Striker’s low whistle. He pulls into a parking lot a hundred feet down the road, and exits his Tesla Roadster like he’s a model strutting down a runway. 

Striker is beautiful in a way that is almost unearthly. Wavy blond, shoulder-length hair, cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass, a jaw dreams were made of, and a pair of lips I know for a fact are just as soft and yet just as firm as one would hope them to be. Eyelashes that would make a model weep brush his cheekbones as he blinks, and I swear, if I didn’t already know we weren’t compatible in bed, I would hold him hostage and drain him dry. 

But I do know how incompatible we are. 

Margaritas plus an unfortunate anniversary, equaled a solid degeneration to straight tequila and a rather fumbling night together in the 1940s. Striker is a giver—given his species, it’s understandable—but in bed, I need a taker. He couldn’t be a taker if I held a gun to his head, thus, no more naughty times with Striker. 

It was awkward for about two seconds until we both laughed about it and moved on with our lives. Living as long as we do, little things like sleeping with your best friend tend to get swept under the rug. What doesn’t get swept away is the dick move of dragging me out into the middle of Stab Central in a club dress.

“Yeah, I know I look good. Could you pretty please tell me why you dragged me out here? I almost turned a thug into a port-a-john for Fate’s sake.”

Typically, Striker is the one bitching about something, but tonight my back is sore from hunching over one body part or another, inking fresh designs on smooth skin. I love my shop, love my job, but nights like tonight, I’d rather soak in my garden tub and drink a big old glass of wine than go out to this club Strike’s been raving about for the last five years.

“All in good time. I swore I would take you to the hottest club in town, but before we go in, there are rules.”

Rules, my fabulous ass. What am I, nine?

“I’m nearly four hundred years old, Strike. Not, in fact, the teenager you are treating me as.”

Striker gives me the raised eyebrow of impatience and carries on. “As I was saying. Let me open the door for you. Only members can access the building. Don’t pay the bartender. Drinks are free and they work for tips only. Do not hand him money, put it in the tip jar. If he touches you, he’ll know you’re not a member and that is bad news all around. Try and stick to my booth when we get in, and for Fate’s sake, do not go on the dance floor. It’s like a Roman fucking orgy in there. I plan on sticking to you like glue, but if we get separated, be careful. I swear this place is pure shenanigans. It’s like the witches took a look at Fae clubs and decided to go one bigger. Ugh. Like they can compete with Fae clubs.”

This rigmarole tells me something hinky is going on. 

Wait a minute…

“You don’t have a plus-one at all, do you? You’re sneaking me in? Have you lost your damn mind?”

I may not have ever been to a witch club, but I know enough about them to know only accepted coven members are allowed admittance for one, and two, they have a rule about no Rogues. Striker assured me he could get me into the local club since he had an in.

“You know me, it’s better to ask for forgiveness, blah, blah, blah. Just come on. Have I ever steered you wrong?” he asks as he pulls me by the elbow.

“Yes. Several times in the last century, you asshole.”

“Okay, but”—He pauses, opening the creaky warehouse door which seems to have appeared out of nowhere—“look at this place.”

Striker is about to get me in a world of trouble, I just know it.

It starts just like they always do, from the blackness of a sleep so deep, the fabric of what is real and what is dream weaves together to make what would be.

An entryway or vestibule, the room seemed small. A little girl had opened the door, a lovely walnut wood, inlaid with a stained-glass window. The mother’s heels clicked against the cream-colored marble floor with an urgent gait as she hurried toward her daughter, her pink skirt suit swishing against her legs as she fiddled with the simple strand of understated pearls at her neck. 

“I thought I told you not to—”

The girl’s white-blonde hair practically gleamed against her skin as her mouth formed an “O” of surprise. She was young, maybe six or seven, and deeply tan, as only children could be with their terminable immunity to the heat and sun.

Moving behind the girl, the shock on the mother’s face morphed into fear so quickly her features seemed to warp, like a piece of untreated wood that had been left to the elements to rot.

She gripped her daughter’s shoulders, shaking her violently in an attempt to get the poor girl to move, to back away from the looming shadow. Clearly male, the figure was backlit by the rising sun. The woman recognized the man, however. She didn’t need to see his face to know what danger lay before them—she could easily see the large caliber handgun gripped in his meaty palm.

Shrieking for her daughter to run, the mother roughly tugged the poor girl behind her back. But her daughter was either in shock or too scared to move because she stayed rooted to the spot, clutching the hem of her mother’s designer suit.

Slowly, calmly, the man raised his gun as if he had all the time in the world to take his shot. The muzzle fired once, and a tiny hole appeared in the woman’s chest. A small trickle of blood bloomed over the heart of her blouse. She went down slowly, dropping first to her knees, sliding to her bottom, and then to her side. Even in death, she was careful not to fall on her child. Again, the muzzle fired, and this time, the daughter collapsed, her wound considerably less pretty, given the caliber of the gun and her small size.

And in that tiny little vestibule, in what was surely a beautiful home of a nice family, the mother and daughter were left to cool in their drying lifeblood.

* * *

I should wake up screaming, but I don’t. After these many years, dreaming night after night of the horrors people inflict on one another, I stopped screaming several decades ago. As per usual, though, I sit bolt upright in my bed, sheets tangled around my legs, damp with cold sweat.

My best friend Evan would call me a psychic, but I tell her on the regular she’s full of shit. Psychics know things before they happen, and I do. On occasion. 

But not enough for me to actually make a difference. 

Not enough to save the people who need saving.

And just once? I’d really like to be wrong.

For curiosity’s sake, I pull my laptop onto the bed, praying I don’t blow up this beautiful piece of equipment. I have a bad habit of frying electrical devices when I’m upset, and watching a mom and daughter get gunned down in their home definitely puts me in the “agitated” column. In fact, this is my fourth laptop this year.

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath. Once marginally centered, I type the local news site into the browser. Sure enough, the breaking news story is of Victoria Ness, thirty-four, and Vivian Ness, seven, who were gunned down in their University Park home two hours ago. The shooter, Victoria’s estranged husband, then turned the gun on himself.

Figures.

What kind of psychic am I? Well, evidently, I’m the shitty kind. I maybe see ten percent of what I should, and I can’t alter a single second of it. I see what I see, and then I brace myself because it’s going to happen. There’s nothing I can do.

Believe me, I’ve tried. 

Just once I’d like to have a vision I could change. 

Just once I’d like to see something other than how and when someone will die.

But I know my fate, and sanity just isn’t in the cards for me.

Staring out the huge picture window, I take in the view of the mountain range beyond. The craggy rocks and giant boulders are so vastly different from where I started my life. There are fewer trees here in the subalpine Rockies than in the Pacific Northwest, and the sun shines more days throughout the year. The heat, the sun, the smell of dry earth—all these differences help me breathe when I wake from a new vision. 

A new death. 

Seeing that blue sky goes a long way to calm me down when I should be rocking in a corner.

Getting out of bed, I immediately rip off the sweat-soaked sheets. It’s a ritual of sorts. A fresh start. A means of washing away a death I can’t change, and the helplessness of another life gone. Snapping the clean sheets on the bed, I begin bracing myself for the total freaking production tonight will be.

I have an art show this evening, and though it’s July in Denver, I’ll be covered from neck to ankles to hide the ink on my skin, wear contacts to cloak the eyes that mark me as what I am, and pray that no one finds me. Yes, it’s Denver, and yes, even grandmothers are inked these days, but it’s the eyes that get people.

As a seer, I was born with the ability to observe events that will come to pass in vivid Technicolor right inside my little noggin. And my eyes? They marked me before I ever had my first vision. My irises are an extraordinarily pale, milky green. Like in old westerns where the elderly guy is blind, and he has those freaky eyes where the iris and pupil nearly blend into the sclera? Yep, that’s what I’ve got going on here.

But my sight is better than most humans. Likely better than most Ethereals, too. But the Ethereal community prefers not to remember we even exist—our presence reminding them that there’s no such thing as a true immortal. Everything dies. Witch or warlock, wraith, or even a meager human, they all perish in the end. And when they do, flames and wings are what you better hope you see.

It’s better than the alternative. 

And let’s not get into the fact that sometimes I randomly electrocute people without meaning to. If people weren’t already looking at me funny before—which they are, because my eyes freak people way the hell out—they would after I randomly zapped them.

So I wear contacts when I leave my home, because if I don’t, people assume I’m blind, for one, and they act all awkward and try to help me do stuff or get around. Or numero dos: their faces say they are skeeved way the hell out. Also, when I’m pissed, they kind of, well, glow. 

Like an incandescent bulb, glow.

So the fact that I’m different is really fucking obvious and that doesn’t even touch on the flames. 

Or the wings.

Hello, my name is Aurelia Constantine, and I am a phoenix.

No offense to Greek mythology, but I’m not a damn bird. I’m a person. I just so happen—on occasion—to burst into flames, have visions, and electrocute people with a shield that I can’t seem to control. Oh, and those wings? Very, very real. 

And they’re persnickety little bitches to boot.

My last phase totally ruined my favorite leather jacket. I’ve had that jacket for the past twenty years. They just don’t make leather like they used to. Replacing it was a pain in the ass, and in the end, I had to have it custom made.

Also, I don’t age. Or die. Wait. I take that back. I’ve died. A lot. I just don’t stay dead.

I’ve looked thirty-ish for the last one hundred and fifty years or so. Since I was born about thirty years prior to the aging halt, I’m assuming my kind ages at a normal rate until we reach our bodies’ maturity. Then we stop aging altogether.

Or it could just be me.

I should know all these details for sure, should be knowledgeable about the basic facets of my species, but escaping my Legion at twenty means I was never taught several important aspects of being what I am.

What I do know is that when you’re a seer in my culture and reach maturity, you get permanently blinded so your visions will be “pure”—whatever the hell that means—transforming a lowly seer into an oracle. 

Our visions are important. Seers and oracles alike foresee visions of death, and in predicting death, we can direct the gentry to the dead or dying to send the souls on to be reborn. Seers cannot change the outcome of their visions. Oracles, however, have enough advanced warning and the power to change the future.

In my mind, it is the only advantage for the price they paid when they gave away their eyes.

One hundred and eighty years I’ve been alive, and for nearly all of them, I’ve been running. Hiding amongst the humans so ignorant of our existence. Trying so hard to blend in, not get caught again by the people I once called family. Doing my best to make sure I don’t lose what little autonomy I have left. 

But all it takes is one person to put two and two together and realize I’m not human. 

All it takes is one person to notice my differences or see me change into what I really am.  

All it takes is one person to remember me, and I’ll be fucked. 

Truth be told, I’d prefer not to go to the show at all and just get the check for any of my work that’s sold. I’d rather change into fresh pajamas, order takeout, and binge Supernatural for the five-zillionth time. But Evan, who does double duty as the curator for the James Gallery and the poor soul who calls herself my best friend, has decided I’m a shut-in long enough three hundred or so days a year. 

Every single opening, she makes me go and pretend to look at my art like a real live person, who breathes and speaks and shit. It’s utterly exhausting. Personally, I think she’s overexaggerating. I go out. Occasionally. To get tattoos and groceries—but so what? That counts as out, dammit. 

Why she’s my friend, I’ll never know.

I say that, but I know why. She’s my friend, because when I was at my lowest, when I thought I couldn’t go on another day, she crashed into my life and gave me someone to look after. She is the yin to my yang, the Disco to my Heavy Metal.

In reality, she’s a wraith princess, the only child of John Black, the Wraith King. Phoenixes and wraiths are supposed to hate each other, but I couldn’t hate that girl if someone paid me. Other wraiths are a bit sketchy, but Evan, she is the light in the darkness.

I just wish she’d let me stay home and avoid this whole mess.

So far, I’ve managed to maintain my anonymity. That’s what Evan is for—because she can be in the spotlight when I can’t. She has the freedom to move from city to city, selling, curating, being an all-around wonderkid where I cannot.

All because of my stupid Legion.

So tonight, I’ll be hiding in plain sight, eating finger food and drinking cheap wine like any other art-consuming hipster, pretending I’m not the one who painted the pretty pictures.

Suddenly, “Shake Your Groove Thing” blasts from the speakers of my phone. Why Evan thought Peaches & Herb was an appropriate ringtone, I’ll never know.

“What?” I answer, knowing she is T-minus three seconds from an Opening Day meltdown of Chernobyl proportions.

“Where in the blue fuck are you? You were supposed to be down the mountain already and driving into Denver, and your ass is probably still sitting in bed! You do this to me every single time. Dammit, Ari, get your ass in gear.”

“I’m getting a very bad feeling about tonight,” I whisper, but I say this each and every time.

This time, though, it’s the whisper that catches her attention.

“You see anything?” she breathes.

Evan knows too much. Well, Evan knows pretty much everything. I know she feeds most of the information to Rhys, but I can’t muster up the courage to tell her to stop. Evan is like a dog with a bone.

“Nothing but a murder this morning. You know the Ness family?”

“Yeah, I do,” is all that comes through the line on a broken gasp. “They’re huge patrons. They’re supposed to be here tonight.”

A bone-deep chill races down the length of my spine. 

Houston, we have a problem.

“Well, they’re not coming. I don’t think I am, either.”

“We’ve been through this.” She sighs heavily. “You have to be here, Ari. You have to see how your work affects people, how it moves them. If anything, I’m begging you to be here for me. Victoria was a friend.”

I feel horrible. I’m sad for that family, but only on the periphery. Evan actually knew her.

“I don’t have to do anything. Especially since you’ve been ditching our sparring sessions and avoiding me for the last month.”

“But—”

“But, I will…for you. Give me ten and I’ll be heading down the mountain.”

“Thank you.” The relief in her voice hits me square in the chest.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t make me regret it,” I say with a roll of my eyes she can’t see. “There better be yummy snacks.”

“Of course there’ll be yummy snacks. What kind of operation do you think I’m running here? I have to give the patrons something since the artist is conspicuously missing. Again,” Evan huffs. “The things I do for you.”

“Snacks.”

“Yeah, yeah. I got your snacks.”

“Thanks. See you in forty-five.”

Ending the call, I rush through the disguise prep, but instead of the dowdy outfit I was planning on, I opt to dress in attire that will be easier to fight in. In lieu of the brown suit, whose added fabric will hinder my movement and ease of weapon retrieval, I pick a nice pair of fitted black straight-legged slacks with a good, thick heft to them. I pair it with the matching jacket that helps conceal my tattoos and spine holster.

I choose a blousy, sapphire peplum top to go under the jacket (because I’m a freaking girl and I need the pretty). In the same vein, I pick my black leather, four-inch wedge-heeled booties with the weapon loops sewn into the inner lining. One would think I couldn’t run, fight, or walk in these beauties, but they’d be wrong. These are the most comfortable pair of shoes I own, and likely, they’re the most functional.

Shakily, I still put in the emerald-green contacts, put my hair in a bun at the back of my head, and throw in a few stainless-steel spikes as hair sticks. I love them because they are as thin as knitting needles, sharp as knives, and hide in plain sight.

Just in case the shiver of fear I feel is the real thing, I slide three thin throwing knives in the holder in my right bootie, and load and stow a Glock 19 in the specialty-made left-handed spine holster.

And Evan wonders why I don’t go outside. Wearing enough weapons to satisfy me is a production and a half.

As I head out to the garage, a cool finger of dread prickles at the base of my neck. Just in case, I step back inside and carefully open the gun cabinet disguised as a full-length mirror. Picking up a few extra mags, I stow them in the ammo loops of my left bootie.

Ready as I’ll ever be.

Let’s just hope I don’t die again.