Read Online Shadow Burns: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Preternatural Affairs Book 4) by S.M. Reine - Free Book Online
Authors: S.M. Reine
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yeah, it’s tacky, but that’s all it is—tacky. Anyway, everyone died in the house. Service is in there.” I nodded to the rec hall.
She rubbed her upper arms like she was cold. “Tacky and morbid.” Despite being a death witch, Isobel wasn’t much of a fan of dealing with the dead. I sympathized. Really.
“I told you that you don’t have to do this.”
“And you don’t need to protect me.” A smile crept over her full lips. “I appreciate it, though.”
I offered my hand to her. She looped her arm through mine.
Impressively, Isobel didn’t lean on me at all as we walked across the grass and uneven paving stones. Don’t ask me how women can manage to look composed, even graceful, while wearing stilts for shoes. It’s got to be some kind of inborn power for the female species. I would have broken my ankle in three steps or less.
A little girl played on the lawn. She was wearing a white dress, kinda like a nightgown, and her hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed in weeks. That never would have flown in my house as a kid. Pops had always been after my sister’s hair with combs and scissors. Used to say that an unkempt kid reflected an unloving family.
Maybe this girl did have an unloving family, since she was ripping grass out by the fistful and flinging it at the empty house. Her fingernails were dirty. She made little growling noises as she rampaged through the garden.
“Classy,” I remarked. “Bringing a monster to a group funeral. Real classy.”
“What?” Isobel looked too distracted to notice the kid’s behavior. Her fingers were digging into my arm.
“Never mind.”
Everything about the recreation hall was as cramped, old, and dreary as the house itself. The chairs looked like antique torture devices. Nobody in the early twentieth century knew anything about ergonomics, let me tell you. Ten minutes sitting in one of those tiny seats with a rigid back and I’d be more uncomfortable than a thirteen-year-old boy at a nude beach.
Bouquets of lilies and white roses decorated the aisles, roped together with gauzy white material leading to a pulpit. There was no priest in sight. A few family members stood against the wall talking, and half the chairs were filled.
When Isobel and I entered, the conversations died off. Dozens of eyes turned on us.
There was no way that any of those people could have recognized me. I’d never seen any of them before, and they’d never seen me. Even if some douchebag had given them my address for an invitation, I was a spook, like Herbert had said.
But they still looked accusatory. Hateful.
Angry.
I felt real conspicuous as I moved to sit in the back row, but Isobel stopped me. “Where are the bodies, Cèsar?”
I looked again. There were no caskets for viewing anywhere in the room where the service was being held.
Weird. The invitation had said the memorial would include a viewing of the bodies.
I patted my pockets down for the invitation. I found it inside my jacket.
The crumpled card was blank. No time, no address, no list of events. Both sides were as clean as though they’d never been touched by a drop of ink.
My heart rate jacked into high gear. “What the fuck?”
My cell phone rang and the tone sounded distorted, as though it were ringing from inside a toilet bowl. Fritz’s name blinked on the screen. But when I pressed the button to answer it, the screen went black, as though the battery was dead.
Just like Fritz’s phone had drained in the basement, too.
“Cèsar,” Isobel hissed.
I punched the power button, trying to get my phone to turn on again. “What?”
Finally, I looked up.
We were alone in the rec hall. The chairs had moved from organized rows in the center of the room to stacks along the walls. They were piled up against the windows as though waiting to be burned on a pyre.
I hadn’t heard them move. Not even a scrape of wood.
Isobel was starting to hyperventilate. I pulled her to my chest. I wasn’t sure if it
She rubbed her upper arms like she was cold. “Tacky and morbid.” Despite being a death witch, Isobel wasn’t much of a fan of dealing with the dead. I sympathized. Really.
“I told you that you don’t have to do this.”
“And you don’t need to protect me.” A smile crept over her full lips. “I appreciate it, though.”
I offered my hand to her. She looped her arm through mine.
Impressively, Isobel didn’t lean on me at all as we walked across the grass and uneven paving stones. Don’t ask me how women can manage to look composed, even graceful, while wearing stilts for shoes. It’s got to be some kind of inborn power for the female species. I would have broken my ankle in three steps or less.
A little girl played on the lawn. She was wearing a white dress, kinda like a nightgown, and her hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed in weeks. That never would have flown in my house as a kid. Pops had always been after my sister’s hair with combs and scissors. Used to say that an unkempt kid reflected an unloving family.
Maybe this girl did have an unloving family, since she was ripping grass out by the fistful and flinging it at the empty house. Her fingernails were dirty. She made little growling noises as she rampaged through the garden.
“Classy,” I remarked. “Bringing a monster to a group funeral. Real classy.”
“What?” Isobel looked too distracted to notice the kid’s behavior. Her fingers were digging into my arm.
“Never mind.”
Everything about the recreation hall was as cramped, old, and dreary as the house itself. The chairs looked like antique torture devices. Nobody in the early twentieth century knew anything about ergonomics, let me tell you. Ten minutes sitting in one of those tiny seats with a rigid back and I’d be more uncomfortable than a thirteen-year-old boy at a nude beach.
Bouquets of lilies and white roses decorated the aisles, roped together with gauzy white material leading to a pulpit. There was no priest in sight. A few family members stood against the wall talking, and half the chairs were filled.
When Isobel and I entered, the conversations died off. Dozens of eyes turned on us.
There was no way that any of those people could have recognized me. I’d never seen any of them before, and they’d never seen me. Even if some douchebag had given them my address for an invitation, I was a spook, like Herbert had said.
But they still looked accusatory. Hateful.
Angry.
I felt real conspicuous as I moved to sit in the back row, but Isobel stopped me. “Where are the bodies, Cèsar?”
I looked again. There were no caskets for viewing anywhere in the room where the service was being held.
Weird. The invitation had said the memorial would include a viewing of the bodies.
I patted my pockets down for the invitation. I found it inside my jacket.
The crumpled card was blank. No time, no address, no list of events. Both sides were as clean as though they’d never been touched by a drop of ink.
My heart rate jacked into high gear. “What the fuck?”
My cell phone rang and the tone sounded distorted, as though it were ringing from inside a toilet bowl. Fritz’s name blinked on the screen. But when I pressed the button to answer it, the screen went black, as though the battery was dead.
Just like Fritz’s phone had drained in the basement, too.
“Cèsar,” Isobel hissed.
I punched the power button, trying to get my phone to turn on again. “What?”
Finally, I looked up.
We were alone in the rec hall. The chairs had moved from organized rows in the center of the room to stacks along the walls. They were piled up against the windows as though waiting to be burned on a pyre.
I hadn’t heard them move. Not even a scrape of wood.
Isobel was starting to hyperventilate. I pulled her to my chest. I wasn’t sure if it
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