Kiss Me Deadly: Tales of a Paranormal Romance

Vermillion BY DANIEL MARKS

“This is Amie Shin.” The Station Agent gestured in the direction of a petite Asian girl bunched up at one end of the settee like a snowdrift.

Unlike so many in Purgatory, where a quick rub of ash sufficed to dim the glare of their souls, this girl was immaculately painted, her face powdered white, her brows dark with kohl, a deep spot of crimson dotting her tiny pert lips. If it weren’t for the bold glow of memory burnishing her eyes, she might have passed for living.

She untangled her legs from underneath her and crossed the slickly polished stone of Manny’s office, her ornately embroidered robe fluttering around her and slippered-feet softly shuffling. Extending her hand and nodding sweetly, she said, “I’ve heard much about your thievery.”

Velvet slipped her hand into Amie’s and squeezed. “Pleased to meet you ... I guess. I won’t lie, I’ve never heard of you.”

She noticed a sinister assessment in the girl’s eyes that traveled all the way down to a grip that lingered longer than any handshake known to man. Velvet jerked away and rubbed at her hand uncomfortably.

She spun toward Nick, widening her eyes to indicate that they might be dangerously close to a crazy person. “Um ... this is my boyfriend,” she said.

Ever the people pleaser, Nick stabbed his arm between them, a big Prom-King smile plastered on his lips, but not for long.

“I’m Nick,” he said.

His hand hung in midair. Amie recoiled from it for a moment like he’d slapped some roadkill onto the floor between them. A smile flittered on her lip, brief as a facial tic, and then it was gone. Nick withdrew and gave Velvet a quick glance that verified her assessment that the girl was likely criminally insane.

Amie backed away and curled up again on the couch, glaring at them both. Velvet shivered. Nick gulped audibly.

Manny raised an eyebrow and crossed to the other side of the mammoth room. A study in gray Hollywood glamor, the gunmetal-colored silk gown draped on her slim figure like a cascade of water, and the short train was shirred elegantly. Her hair coiled about her lovely face in perfectly coiffed waves. She flipped open a carved wooden box, set atop a mirrored bureau, and pulled out a pale pink envelope and a slip of folded paper and retired to her writing desk where she jotted notes as they talked.

“We’ve uncovered an issue,” she said, voice echoing across the expanse. She tapped the edge of the envelope into the palm of her hand. “A haunting, of course. But this one is marked by both its chronicity and audacity. Amie was sent to fill us in on the details, so I expect she’ll do that.”

Manny wove her hands together and gazed across the temple of her index fingers.

Velvet and Nick watched Amie as she rose and paced back and forth between the settee and the Station Agent’s kidney-shaped desk, weaving in between the columns of light cast by the gas lanterns, like a vampire would daylight.

“The tremors started only a couple of weeks ago. A light rumbling soon gave way to more moderate shaking and the appearance of the inky shadows rushing into Vermillion like a dense fog,” Amie said.

“You got yourself some shadowquakes.” Nick flopped into the armchair and pulled Velvet into his lap, hand resting gently on her stomach.

Velvet snuggled in and yawned. “Obviously.”

Amie stopped for a moment and glowered before Manny encouraged her to continue. “You must understand, we run a very tight ship in our district and hauntings have declined rapidly in the past quarter. So it comes as a surprise, but not nearly as much of a surprise as who we believe is causing the disturbance.”

The girl paused dramatically, scanning their faces. Probably checking to make sure they were enthralled.

Holy crap, Velvet thought. She’s totally full of herself.

Normally, hauntings are a pretty simple fix. You can count on a shadowquake when there’s some sort of psychic meddling going on in the world of the living, but that’s not always the case. Velvet knew from experience that ghosts traveling through the cracks could create just as many, if not more, problems than any medium, fortune-teller, witch, or telephone psychic ever could. But, you merely had to scare humans badly enough to put a stop to their shenanigans—a well-placed undertaker and a corpse will suffice, on that count—or just snare the ghost and bring it back to the City of the Dead for a proper comeuppance. Who in the business didn’t know that? Velvet wasn’t sure how they did things in Vermillion, but the Latin Quarter had a massive cellar full of ghosts who were absolutely, positively sorry for what they’d done.

“So who is it?” Velvet asked, taking the bait.

“Our undertaker, Abner Conroy.”

It was as though the news stripped the room of oxygen, of sound. Velvet glanced at Nick. His mouth hung open, horrified at the possibility that his counterpart in Vermillion would perpetrate such an offense. Though they were both adept at possessing bodies, Nick’s expertise was in raising the dead, not burying them as his job title implied. They didn’t make the rules, any more than they picked their occupations. If they had, Velvet would have christened Nick ‘The Zombie Guy,’ which is way more appropriate. But that’s neither here nor there.

“How do you know?” Nick snapped.

“We’ve long suspected Abner.” Amie tossed a hand flippantly. “Well, for the past two weeks, anyway. He was never quiet about his desire to join the revolution, so we were surprised he didn’t vacate Purgatory during that exodus with the rest of the criminals. Now he’s gone missing. It’s been two weeks and the shadowquakes have increased. So what do you think? Who else could it be?”

Velvet pushed herself off Nick’s lap, bristled the crinoline of her skirt and straightened the stocking seam rising from her combat boots. “You’re sure he hasn’t moved on to another of Purgatory’s boroughs? You’ve gone in? You’ve searched?”

“Of course, we’ve searched,” the girl spat. “We’re no amateurs...” She struggled for a word.“...Miss.”

Manny’s eyes narrowed in Velvet’s direction. She took it as a cue to ease the tensions building since their introduction to the strange and possibly schizophrenic girl. The last thing Velvet wanted to do was get on the Station Agent’s bad side. Manny had nearly as bad a temper as Velvet’s.

“Of course not, Amie. I only meant to cover the bases,” Velvet smiled. Amie straightened and gave a little nod of acquiescence. “Okay.”

“So what is it your team needs from us?” Velvet asked.

“Well, I’m not convinced we need you,” Amie said huffily. “But our Station Agent is of a different mind about all this, and we are rather busy, just now.”

“What does your Station Agent want, then?” Nick sat forward on the chair, elbows resting on his knees and head cocked to the side. He had that easy comfort about him that Velvet never quite got a handle on, as though he’d never be out of place anywhere ... even in death. Plus he was smokin’ hot. She never turned down a chance to ogle him, profusely.

“He wants you to go in and search, though there’s really no need. I’ve personally exhausted every trail.” Amie’s voice was condescending and haughty, two words Velvet imagined were carved into the girl’s headstone.

Actually, she was kind of sure of it.

Velvet sneered at her.

Amie glowered back.

“Velvet and her team are the best we have,” Manny said, breaking the tension. She folded the stationery and slipped the paper into the envelope. “See that this gets to Howard Barker at the Temple of the Nomadic Star.”

Velvet gripped the corner of the envelope and tugged but Manny didn’t let go. She glanced up. The Station Agent had a serious look gracing her normally placid face.

“And don’t open it please.”

“What? Of course, I wouldn’t.” Velvet chuckled uncomfortably and glanced at Nick, who shrugged in silent judgment. “Really? You have to ask?” She turned the envelope over between her fingers, examining Manny’s luxuriant cursive. Letters are so romantic, she thought and shot a suspicious glance in the Station Agent’s direction.

The woman cocked her brow, daring Velvet to ask.

“Now, Amie will accompany you on the journey to Vermillion. She’s to be your guide. I’m sure that won’t be a problem.”

“Oh no, not at all,” Velvet said. But what she meant was:

Huge problem. Ginormous problem.

The next morning came terribly early.

Velvet set her bags on the dark platform and sneered at the commotion coming up the ramp. Amie had somehow coerced Nick into carrying her luggage—the biggest trunk in the world. Probably via a little helpless woman routine that made Velvet want to throw up nerve endings in a nice wet sparking pile ... preferably all over Amie.

Nick was, of course, polite about it, but underneath, Velvet searched for a clue that he was seething with irritation, as she was.

He’d better be, she thought.

“Thank you sooo much,” Amie said, her face tortured into what was supposed to be a pretty smile but looked like constipation, as far as Velvet was concerned. “I don’t know what I’d have done, if I didn’t have a strong man to help. I suppose it should teach me to pack lighter, huh?”

Those things at the ends of Velvet’s arms were called fists, and she was pumping them furiously and debating whether to hammer them into the girl’s face. It seemed like the only logical response. Stereotype much?

Nick put the epic leather trunk down next to his girlfriend’s carpetbag. Velvet reached down and made sure there was a gap between the two, even just an inch—you never could tell where the dreaded asshole virus would strike next, so precautions are often necessary.

“Good morning, Amie.” Velvet choked the words from her vocal chords. What she’d wanted to say was: Are you wearing skin-colored headphones? Because those ears are massive! Damn.

And at least that would have been the truth. With ears as large as Amie’s, you don’t wear your hair back. It’s just not okay. Ever.

“Ah.” The girl’s face brightened dramatically when she saw Velvet. “You look so pretty today, with your hair up like that.”

Yes, Velvet thought, I have normal, human-sized ears. I can wear it like this.

Amie reached up and stroked a length of dreadlock hanging from the pile atop Velvet’s head. Velvet resisted the urge to jerk away and simply eked out a curt smile.

Nick ran up next to them, his blond hair flopping about on his forehead and a grin plastered across his face that she hoped wasn’t genuine, though she suspected actually was. It was her curse to be in love with someone so nice. And the fact that he was legitimately hot—and not just average, as all her living boyfriends had been—filled her with two things: pride and proprietary jealousy.

Her eyes ricocheted off Nick’s brilliant smile and back toward the girl who was eying not Nick, as she’d suspected, but ... her. Amie was watching her in an odd, assessing way.

“How long did you say this trip would take?” Velvet asked.

“No more than a day. So, plenty of time for us to get to know each other. Won’t that be great?”

“Awesome,” Velvet said sarcastically.

Nick on the other hand was excited. “Can’t wait. It gets so boring hanging out in the Latin Quarter. Same old ashen souls wandering the streets every day. ‘Hello, how are you?’ ‘Fine and you?’ Ugh. Vermillion, though. Now that sounds exotic to me. Like Chinatown or something, but with less hobos.”

“Mmm. Sweet and sour,” Velvet said. “Remember that?”

Of course he did. Everyone in the entire City of the Dead could get in on that conversation as though someone had wheeled up a watercooler or screamed “gossip!” in a crowded cafeteria.

“The barbecue pork with hot mustard was my favorite.” Nick’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as he searched for the pleasurable memory.

“Fried chicken feet at Uncle’s Dim Sum.” Amie added, trying to join in.

Velvet startled, her mouth agape. “Chicken’s feet?”

“Oh yeah, they are delicious ... and so crunchy. You could just suck the skin right off the bone...”

The girl continued to wax nostalgic about her disturbing meal, while Velvet glanced at Nick, happy to see that his face was a sour as hers. Uncle’s Dim Sum must have been a mental institution. Maybe Amie just thought it was a Chinese restaurant. She seemed easily confused.

Nick leaned over to Velvet and whispered, “Um ... no. That’s so not delicious.”

Thank you, Velvet thought. Chicken’s feet are for one thing, so that chickens can walk around a barnyard. What’s next, a big plate of fried beaks? Gross.

She glanced back at Amie and noticed that, at some point during the exchange, she’d stopped talking about gross things that weren’t actually food and was staring directly at the two of them. Velvet shuffled her feet uncomfortably.

“That’s probably something you have to be brought up eating. It just kind of sounds...” Nick searched for the word. “Different. To us. You know?”

Amie’s face softened, and she nodded, agreeing. “Sure.”

Thankfully, the funicular creaked into the station at that moment. A rickety wooden car with several doors down each side, each fitted with fringed café curtains and brass handles, jerked and heaved as it came to a stop before them. The doors opened and a fresh crop of souls, not an hour between their death and arrival in Purgatory, flooded out onto the platform. They were truly strangers. As strange as they come, ash spread on their skin in a sloppy amateurish way and the glow of lingering nerves beaming from patches of cosmetically neglected flesh. Souls who’ve been around know to ash generously. The glow can be a real eyesore.

Suffice it to say, they looked a mess.

And for once, Velvet was glad she wasn’t responsible for their education.

She glanced at Nick, and thought of their first meeting, months ago, in that gothed-out storefront, amidst tons of black candles, stuffed ravens, and one unscrupulous fortune-teller named Madame Despot who was in possession of an imprisoned soul—a sixteen-year-old sporto guy, the kind Velvet wouldn’t ever have even talked to had she been alive. Nick. Velvet and her team had been sent to free him and arrest the Madame.

At the time, Velvet was in the body of a particularly crotchety-looking nurse in her mid-fifties, so it was probably a tad inappropriate to be crushing on the unnervingly hot spirit that spilled out of Despot’s shattered crystal ball. It’s not that she was being pervy, exactly, it’s that she wasn’t in her seventeen-year-old ghost form. But that didn’t stop Velvet from eyeing Nick greedily. Even balled up in a fetal position, sandy hair tussled and blue eyes drilling into her brain like lasers, Nick was mesmerizing. And he’d taken to the afterlife so quickly, with aplomb even.

New souls sort of shuffled and moped. Nick stood proud, broad shoulders erect, like he were still alive, and in many ways, of course, he was. More alive than anyone she’d ever known. She’d saved him that day, and later he’d returned the favor. She guessed they’d saved each other.

He tossed their bags on the rack atop the funicular and opened the door for the two young women.

“Such a gentleman,” Amie said.

There was something in both the words and the tone that irritated Velvet. Though at that moment, nothing the girl said would have filled her with a warm happy feeling.

Velvet slipped into the funicular and sat back on the long bench, making sure she was between Nick and Amie—there’d be no casual brushing of hands or flirting on her watch.

Not. A. Chance.

The funicular, really no more than a low-tech train pulled along on a single rail, ambled a path through the boroughs, districts, and shantytowns of Purgatory. The Latin Quarter, where they lived, gave way to Little Cairo with its flapping awnings and wide-open markets. In the real Cairo, there’d have been the rich scent of spices piled high in metal bowls, instead of the fragrance-free pigments sold in the City of the Dead. Fantastically colored wool carpets were replaced by stacks of newsprint as tall as the biggest men, some teetering, threatening to fall on the women underneath, rolling them into tubes for the dusty souls to carry home.

Little Cairo spilled into Hipstertown, which despite its name was more longhaired-hippie-types and less expensive-cocktail-bars-with- sidewalk-verandas-and- tons-of-chain-smokers. Though, Velvet had heard that the Salons there were quite risqué. Only the most irreverent souls ended up settling in Hipstertown. She watched its denizens with speculative intent as the gears and pulleys cranked underneath the car. It shuddered forward past the smirking souls in tight pants and Hello Kitty backpacks, stolen and brought across the gap by their resident Collector, Booda Khan.

“Are you watching for Booda?” Nick asked, leaning toward Velvet. His foot was propped on the bench ahead of them casually, his ankle glowing from the break between his cuff and the wingtip shoes he wore, sockless.

She shrugged, “Of course. He’s a legend.” Velvet glanced at Amie who was, likewise, eying the bit of flesh Nick was selling.

“Like the religious guy?” the girl asked. Making deliberate eye contact with Velvet, or so she presumed, so as not to eyeball Velvet’s boyfriend any longer than would seem unusual or slutty.

“He’s only the coolest operator in Collections today,” Velvet said. “How can you not have heard of him?”

The girl shrugged. Her eyes traveled down the length of Velvet’s body, lighting on the silver buckle of her pants. “That’s pretty.”

Velvet looked down at the intersecting loops that formed the symbol for infinity and smiled. “It is, isn’t it? A friend brought it back from the world of the living.”

Amie sat up straight. “A boy?” she asked suggestively, eyes drifting toward Nick.

And before Velvet could stop herself, she let it escape. “Yes. His name was Porter.”

“Ahem,” Nick’s eyes were all squinty with suspicion.

“It was a long time ago,” she said. “He’s not even around anymore. Dimmed and moved on, back before you showed up.”

“Hmm,” he grunted and crossed his arms across his chest, clearly done with the conversation and none too happy to be in competition with a dead boy, or even a dimmed one as the case may be.

She neglected to go into details. Velvet had been quite fond of Porter, not in love with him mind you, but in a deep ... like, let’s say. She’d been holding his hand as he dimmed, the light going out within his soul, eyes darkening, his pale translucent flesh crumbling away like a burnt husk, collapsing. If she’d been nostalgic, as so many are, she’d have honored his passing by spreading his ash on her skin. But she had the silver belt buckle instead and that was plenty to remind her of their brief time together. Of their sweet kisses.

Velvet glanced in Amie’s direction and found her grinning evilly. Nick had amped up his irritation to a full glower. In fact, he wouldn’t even meet Velvet’s gaze, no matter how hard she tried.

“Oh Nyx,” Velvet cooed, using his secret pet name. She attempted to slip her hand into his, but he pulled away, glaring out the window at the passing scenery.

Velvet fumed.

This girl wasn’t going to drive a wedge between her and Nick, Velvet would see to that. But that seemed to be exactly Amie’s plan. Though for what reason, she couldn’t imagine. They’d just met, after all.

It usually takes at least three days for people to hate me, Velvet reminisced. Of course, her own judgments ran much quicker than that, and she had Amie directly in her rifle sights.

“You’re dead meat,” she mouthed at the girl, who merely cocked an eyebrow and continued to smirk.

Velvet rolled her eyes and huffed. Staring down the center of the car, she prayed for a violent derailment.

When Velvet finally ventured a look out the windows again, the first thing to catch her eye was the fading red-lacquered glory of the Pagoda of Vermillion rising high into the sky like a monument. It was in full view, despite the fact that they were technically still traveling through the shacks of Boondock Holler, apparently the place hillbillies went to die. Seriously. Velvet saw no less than three toothless souls with banjos. It was quite fascinating in a National Geographic, don’t-break-down-here-if- it’s-the-last thing-you-do sort of way.

“Your neighbors are colorful, at least,” Velvet snarked.

“They are a wonderful, welcoming group. I do adore them.” Amie said sweetly.

Velvet glanced at Nick to find him pleasantly agreeing with the girl. So she sank back into the bench cushion. Of course, she thought. I’m the jerk. That’s me. Of course!

“So, Amie. Why don’t you tell us about this errant undertaker we’re supposed to capture. Do you know him well?”

She nodded.

“You didn’t chase him off, did ya?” Velvet winked at her opponent. “I mean with your sparkling personality.”

Amie grinned mischievously. “He’s handicapped.”

Velvet’s breath caught in her throat.

The girl went on, “He can’t run at all. He wheels himself around in an antique wooden desk chair. It’s quite empowering really. Gets him where he needs to go.”

She glanced at Nick, whose only response was, “Nice going.”

Vermillion’s funicular platform was completely deserted except for a pair of bored adolescents, hands jammed in the pockets of their jeans. When the train car stopped, they rushed to pull the luggage from the roof rack and trailed behind Velvet and Nick, as Amie stomped off ahead.

Amie led them under the high lacquered arch in the stone wall. The ends of the crosspost depicted dragons breathing fire, though the intensity of the flames was diminished by a thick coat of ash settled in their grooves, like some knick-knack you’d find in your grandma’s dusty house. Beyond this, the courtyard of the temple complex spread out like a tent city. A hodgepodge of low structures with corrugated metal roofs—unlike the blue tile Velvet remembered from Chinese action movies—lined up in tight rows. Candles flickered inside cheap dollar-store paper lanterns, a few of them burnt down to expose the wire coil forms that made them look like globes.

Salvaged and often shoddy fixtures and building materials were a sad reality in Purgatory. Most everything needed to be stolen from the land of the living and brought through the cracks between the worlds without being noticed. Oddly enough, the need for subterfuge was the reason the dead were so well-dressed. What else could be misplaced so easily but couture clothing that never sold because of its outlandishness? Velvet hated such extravagant rags, preferring simple factory seconds and combat boots.

A timeless classic.

At the far end of the passage, an open pavilion revealed itself. Inside, sitting cross-legged by a low table, flipping through no less than three books at once in a flurry of page turning, was a middle-aged man in an argyle sweater and wool trousers. Unlike so many they’d passed in Vermillion, this soul left his skin unburnished of either powders or ash. He glowed a vivid amber and, noticing them, brightened both in flesh and smile.

“Amie,” he called, rising from the floor elegantly. “Bring our guests up here this minute. I’ve been so excited to meet Jayne’s charges.”

Velvet noticed two more things about the man. He spoke in a refined British accent and he’d referred to Manny by what she assumed was her first name. Jayne. It was weird to hear it. She’d heard people call her “Mansfield,” and many of the older souls talked about her pin-ups and movies when she’d been a living person, but never to her face. You just didn’t do that kind of thing with a Station Agent. Whether she was a sex symbol or not earthside, dead she was a government official. One with certain charms, certainly. And by charms Velvet meant the dagger-like vessels that hung from the hundreds of keys in the Agent’s office. It just wasn’t sexy to watch her gouge a man’s thoughts from the center of his forehead like she was picking pineapple out of some sweet and sour pork.

Sweet and sour. Mmm.

“I’m Howard Barker, the Salvage Father of these little heathens.” He gestured playfully in Amie’s direction.

The girl grimaced and planted her hand on her hip. “What did I tell you about those racist comments?”

“Hush girl, we’re all souls now. Dead is dead and that’s all that matters.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Velvet said and then remembered the envelope. “Oh wait. Manny gave me something for you.”

Nick rushed forward to shake the man’s hand politely as Velvet dug in her pockets for the correspondence.

“Nick Jessup,” he said.

“I’ve heard tales about your exploits. The both of you. You’re quite famous now.”

Velvet pressed the envelope into his palm. “Well, I don’t know about that.”

Barker retraced his steps to the short table, picked up an opener and slit the pink envelope open like he’d skewered an opponent. He read the letter silently, closing his eyes once he’d finished and holding the note to his heart.

Just as Velvet suspected. A love letter.

It was difficult to imagine Manny cultivating any sort of relationship, with all of her responsibilities as an agent, but clearly there was something going on between these two. If she’d had any doubt, the expression of complete serenity on Howard’s face confirmed the truth.

Velvet wasn’t sure what to say—she couldn’t just ask if they were getting it on—so she opted for the next best thing: changing the subject entirely. Scanning the room, her eyes lit on a desk and behind it a wooden chair on rollers. She cocked her head, layered on the most sympathetic expression she could conjure and said, “Oh, that must be Abner’s chair.”

Amie began to giggle immediately.

“Whatever do you mean? Abner’s chair?”

Velvet should have caught on, but by the time Amie’s giggle had turned into full-blown and very mean-spirited laughter, she’d already started to speak. “You know, the one he’d roll around in, what with his ... handicap?”

“I assure you, there’s no such thing as a disabled spirit,” Barker gruffed. “If you’re looking for some reason to pity the boy, then I’m not sure you’re the right one for the job.”

“I ... uh ... I,” she stuttered, glancing again at Amie’s hideous grin.

“Well.” He slipped the folded piece of paper back in the envelope and trapped it in his pocket. “You’ll be needing to get some rest, I suspect. As you’re clearly suffering from exhaustion.”

Nick, thank God, intervened. “It must have been the fumes from the Boondock Holler bogs or something. Velvet will be fine in a second, sir. I swear.”

Barker softened, brows lilting in a clearly paternal way. “Of course.”

Velvet glared at Amie, raising her fist threateningly as Barker turned away and sank onto his knees in front of the table again.

“I take it Amie has filled you in sufficiently?” he asked, fluffing the silk cushion before settling in.

“I have.” Amie’s stare dared her to disagree.

Velvet smirked—vengeance would be hers like a new pair of combat boots. No one pulled a prank like Amie’s without retribution. “She’s told us the bare minimum, I’m afraid, and about some things there’s likely been a misunderstanding. What we do know is you have an undertaker on the haunt and a need to reel him in.”

“True, true,” Barker said. “Mr. Conroy has been in the daylight for several weeks now. His team started noticing his absences and, when confronted, he’d lie that he’d been taking a walk or welcoming the recently dead. Later, we found that he’d been missing for hours on end. Those hours turned into days. Those days into a week. Not to mention the shadowquakes, but I don’t have to tell you about those.”

Velvet shuddered. They were still rebuilding after the last big shadowquake in the Latin Quarter. They were just lucky to still have a dorm to house the team—half of their block had crumbled like Gorgonzola on a salad.

“How long has he been earthside this time?” she asked.

Barker turned to Amie for the answer.

“Nine days or so,” she sighed, a look of concern on her otherwise miserable face.

“That’s a long time,” Nick said.

“Yeah, it is. We really need him back, too. Abner’s absence has had a disheartening effect on both Amie and our poltergeists.”

Velvet’s team had a pair of poltergeists, too. Logan and Luisa were a brother-and-sister act known for their impressively vicious fighting skill and dogged loyalty. In that moment, Velvet missed the two terribly. Not least of all to have some other friendly faces to offset Amie’s near constant venom.

“Can we speak to them? Your poltergeists?” Velvet asked, ignoring Amie. From the corner of her eye, she saw the girl shift, her hand propped on her hip like a warning.

That made Velvet smile.

“Tomorrow,” Amie intervened. “They’re probably sleeping just now. Don’t you think, Howard?”

Barker shrugged. “How would I know?”

The girl rolled her eyes and then stared back into Velvet’s scrutinizing gaze.

“Could we check?” Velvet pressed.

Amie huffed and turned to the two boys who had lugged her trunk from the platform. “Put that in my room while I take these strangers to meet Ho and Charlie.”

Velvet thought she heard the boys mumble the word “witch,” though it was undoubtedly and deservedly something a little harsher. Either way, they were right and Amie deserved it. They stumbled off in the direction of one of the little residences, and Amie stomped off in the other, neglecting to say good-bye to Howard or even direct Nick and Velvet to follow her.

Amie was right though, Ho Min was asleep, but the other team poltergeist, Charlie, was up playing cards with a table of grouchy-looking men. He was a kid of no more than ten when he died, if he was a day; most poltergeists were small and nimble—perfectly suited to their profession as troublemakers. Charlie brightened when he saw Amie approach and, grinning devilishly at the gathered men, tossed his cards on the table.

“Ace-high flush, gentlemen.”

The men groaned, slapped the table, and cursed.

“That’s called getting your ass handed to you.” Charlie gathered the stacks of pressed-paper coins in the center of the table and shoveled them into a cloth sack he produced from the pocket of his robe. “And with that, gentlemen, I’m off to see what my friends want.”

More groans.

Velvet liked the kid instantly. She liked any kid that was a little rough around the edges and didn’t mind showing it. Filled her with a sense of warmth. “You cleaned them out,” she said. “Respect.”

Charlie nodded proudly and looked her up and down. “Thank you, and respect right back. That body is slammin’.”

Velvet gulped. Despite being dead for three years, it always slipped her mind that the “kids” in the City of the Dead might not actually be so child-like. Take this little card shark, for instance.

“So you’ve been around, I take it?” Velvet smirked.

“Long enough.” Charlie slipped past, patted her on the butt, and kept walking.

Velvet leaned in to Nick’s ear. “I’m liking that kid less and less.”

“I think he’s pretty funny.”

“Whatever.”

Amie stood where she was, not even attempting to stop the boy’s retreat. Velvet had to dodge around her to follow Charlie, sprinting down the stone path between the outer wall of the compound and a row of well-appointed houses with gaslight instead of candles, casting warm glows against the painted stone walls.

“Hey,” she called, Nick beating the ground with his feet as he caught up. “Wait a minute.”

The boy ducked into the last house on the left, letting the canvas fabric in the doorway flap close behind him. Velvet poked her head in without knocking.

“Dude, that was too rude.” She pointed at herself and Nick. “Guests here. You understand that concept?”

“Yeah. Yeah. What you want?” He emptied out the sack and started to count the coins on his unmade bed, the covers coiled up on the floor like a dog’s chew toy.

“What can you tell us about Abner Conroy?”

“He’s an okay guy.”

“Okay?” Nick asked. “But he’s a dirty haunter.”

Velvet glanced at Nick, brows raised. He shrugged. His heart wasn’t in those words and never would be. In fact, the two of them would have never found each other, would have never fallen in love, if it weren’t for the fact that Velvet was a “dirty haunter” herself. Though, she couldn’t be blamed, could she? It’s not as though her killer could just be allowed to go on torturing and murdering young girls. Velvet wouldn’t allow it. But that issue had been cleared up long ago, or at least a few months prior, when Manny had found out Velvet’s secret.

“Whatever. Like I give a crap whether he haunts. I’ve got a job to do, and I do it well. We’re all just killing time until we dim out and move on. What’s the harm in slipping through to the other side? It don’t hurt nobody.”

“Except sometimes it does.”

Velvet thought about the shadowquakes that happen when souls set their minds to a little mischief in the land of the living. It was bad enough with all the psychics and the mediums trying to interfere in Purgatory, but add some dead apples to the mix, and it was a recipe for trouble.

Charlie shrugged and finished his counting. “One hundred and eighteen pieces.”

“Sweet.” Nick whistled.

Charlie nodded in his direction.

Nick stepped forward. “You don’t sound like you blame Old Abner for taking off.”

“Well no. Not with...” He stopped mid sentence.

Velvet thought she saw his eyes dart toward the doorway. But when she slapped the curtain open, no one was there, listening or otherwise.

“You were saying?” she asked.

“I wasn’t saying nothin’. Abner’s just gone. Isn’t it up to you guys to find him anyway? We’ve got missions and stuff to deal with. Being down a team member doesn’t exactly lighten the work load.”

He stood up and stripped off his robe immodestly.

Velvet pivoted away and dove head first through the curtain.

She heard Nick saying his good-byes and then he ducked out too.

“That was weird.”

“Uh ... yeah,” she said. “I could have gone a lifetime without seeing...”

“I meant what he was saying about Conroy.”

Back in the open area of the courtyard, they found Amie, changed into a satin tuxedo and top hat, her hair coiled about her face like a caress. She sat atop the table with her legs crossed and skirt slit open to reveal surprisingly long legs for such a short girl. All around her sat the card players, the gloom of their loss replaced by wicked laughter. Glancing across the room and eyes lighting on Velvet, Amie launched into a fit of evil giggles.

Velvet was pretty sure she was the butt of the joke.

Amie led them to a tiny gate that opened up into a field. There were so few areas of Purgatory that weren’t occupied by some sort of construction so Velvet was surprised to see a paper garden. Origami trees made of twisted metal and newsprint leaves surrounded them like an orchard and beyond that a crude stone wall beset with crepe vines and a small bronze door, no taller than if it had been made for dogs or dolls.

“What’s that?” Nick squatted and peered into the shadows.

Amie knelt down next to the door, steadying herself on the iron ashpot standing nearby—a returning soul always returns fresh and clean and bright ... blindingly bright—and produced a shiny bronze key from her pocket. She cranked the lock and opened the door, revealing a thin crack in the limestone behind it. No ordinary crack, obviously. Not like the ones you jump over to avoid breaking your mother’s back, or the kind to which you “just say no” when propositioned by a slimy guy in the 7-Eleven parking lot.

In Purgatory, cracks were doorways. Usually.

The majority of cracks in the Latin Quarter were safely protected in caves, behind big wrought-iron gates. The ones that developed later from manipulations and shadowquakes had since been sealed—or rather, most of them had.

Velvet glanced at the little door, hinges glinting in the low light of the garden.

“So this is the way, then?” Velvet asked, not really expecting a response, and not really getting one.

Amie simply gestured to the spidery crack in the limestone and stepped aside, rolling the key between her fingers.

“You wouldn’t lock us in there, now would you?” Nick joked, unbuttoning his vest, and drawing the attentions of both girls.

Velvet lingered on the shimmering glow of her boyfriend’s chest, until she felt another set of eyes perusing the merchandise, however.

She snapped in Amie’s direction. “We’ve got it from here, thanks. Unless you’ll be accompanying us?”

“Why would I?” Amie retorted. “You’re so good at your job.”

“Then maybe you should run along and give us a little privacy?”

Amie arched her neck and peered around Velvet at Nick, who continued to undress. Velvet stuck her head directly in her way. “Seriously. It’s called loitering, look it up.”

“All right,” Amie threw her hands into the air. “I was just trying to be helpful. But you’re the big Body Thief, aren’t you?”

Velvet rolled her eyes and wished for the girl to simply disappear. Then she pivoted and shielded Nick’s body as it thinned and stretched, becoming less corporeal by the second until, finally, he slid his whole self into the crack, like a letter into a mail slot.

“Stay away from him.” Velvet warned.

“Oh,” Amie cooed. She held up her delicate white fingers and brushed them against Velvet’s cheek. “And what if it’s not Nick I’m after?”

Velvet shrank back, and the girl cackled viciously, turning and striding back through the garden happily. She may have even been humming.

Doesn’t she know I’ll hurt her? Velvet fumed.

Slipping through cracks doesn’t really feel like travel. It doesn’t feel like anything. One minute you’re stretching out, naked as the day you were born, only slightly less ... there than you were before, and the next you’re popping out on the other side, looking exactly like you did the moment before you died.

Like a memory.

It might seem silly to strip down to your birthday suit for the process, but as Velvet knew from experience, when a soul pops back into the City of the Dead, it’s kind of nice to have clothes that haven’t been shredded to ribbons. It’s hard enough for Collectors like Booda Khan to bring clothing through into Purgatory, but getting them back out is another thing, entirely.

The crack let out into a bright bustling kitchen, white floors scuffed with black rubber, and men and women in tomato sauce-spattered chef whites. It took a bit of hunting to pick Nick out of the clamor, especially when Velvet could only see the back of his body, transparent and protruding from the far wall like a piece of modern art, meant only for her eyes. Or any other ghost’s, she supposed. But, to get to him, they’d have to go through her first.

“Nick!” she shouted over the din of the kitchen.

He thunked out of the wall and waved excitedly. “Over here.”

“Could you believe that bitch?” Velvet asked as she slipped her arm around his waist, or through it, as was the case. Souls in Purgatory were at least solid. In the “daylight”—as they sometimes called “being on earth”—souls were opaque and flimsy as smoke. She had to make a conscious effort to give her hands enough form to touch her boyfriend.

Nick shrugged. “What I can’t believe is how good the food looks. Reminds me of Sal-Antonio’s on First. They had the best braciole in tomata gravy.” His voice took on that affected Italian New York accent that you hear so often on TV.

Velvet glanced at the trays that passed and marveled at the shiny silver domes covering them. “Fancy,” she noted and stuck her head through the wall.

On the other side, the dining room was packed with hundreds of hungry diners, cramming forkful after forkful of delicious-looking food down their salivating maws. She watched a plate of linguine with clam sauce being delicately served to a nearby patron, a staunch and starched gentleman in a pin-striped suit with a cloth napkin shoved into the neck of his dress shirt. He already had his fork in his hand by the time the plate connected with the tablecloth.

“Enjoy-a!” the waiter pronounced and trotted off with a little skip.

It was too much to take. They’d been talking about sweet and sour pork and stuff and now all this yummy food? Velvet couldn’t resist.

She glanced at Nick’s head sticking out of the wall next to her like a hunting trophy. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”

“Probably.”

“Well I’m thinkin’ we do a quick little possession and fill our mouths with some yum.”

He nodded. “Then yeah. We’re thinkin’ the same thing. Yeah.”

They didn’t need a count of three, just rushed forward. Velvet dove headfirst into Mr. Pin-Stripe Suit, his cheeks already puffed out with creamy, garlicky clams. He was in a state of such taste-bud ecstasy that he barely noticed Velvet locking his mind away and taking possession. She always imagined encasing minds in an imaginary box near the subject’s left ear. Whether there was a box or not, she could care less. The visualization was the important thing, you understand.

Nick struck out for the man’s date, a woman in a poofy gown. She could have been his daughter, but she wasn’t—Velvet felt the girl’s hand on the man’s thick knee the minute she slid him on like a new outfit. She watched as Nick took hold of the girl’s brain and jerked her hand away prudishly.

“It’s just me, knucklehead.” Velvet chided.

“Yeah,” he said. “But right now, you’re kind of a guy.”

Velvet ignored him and glanced down at the plate. Swoon. It was hard to figure out what to do first. The extent of a Purgatory-bonded soul’s nourishment was the entertainments they took in at the weekly Salons. But this. This was real food. And she planned to cherish the experience.

She scraped a clam out of its shell and spun it in the creamy sauce, plunging the tines of the fork deep in the noodles and spinning. She didn’t much care if she was making the guy look like a pig or not. She shoved the giant ball of slippery noodles and seafood into his mouth and chomped like a pig at the trough. The garlicky goodness exploded throughout her senses, and she closed her eyes, munching quietly as the clamor of the room was washed away in her rapture.

“Oh, oh. I think that’s our guy!” A woman’s voice stuttered.

It took Velvet a second to realize the voice came from Nick. She opened her eyes to see Mr. Pin-Stripe Suit’s date, face smudged with chunks of marinara and noodle debris, pointing across the room. Velvet followed her gaze and noticed a man, wearing sunglasses and a waiter’s uniform, shoving his arms into a raincoat.

She shoved one more forkful of pasta into the man’s mouth and gave it a final loving chew before dispossessing the body and darting through the room after their prey. Turning around mid-run to scream for Nick, she noticed she was waist high in the center of one of the round tables, a fluttering hurricane lamp glowing inside her abdomen.

She chuckled a bit at the sight.

Once Nick had given up on his food—the man’s date spasmed a bit as he disentangled from her—he joined her, running flat across the restaurant. Nick wasn’t nearly as proficient with the living as he was the dead. You should see him maneuver a corpse, though, Velvet thought. Fast zombies do exist. At least when Nick was working on them. But she didn’t have the stomach for the job and, thankfully, she’d only had to steer a dead body once.

Velvet darted for the door, Nick hot on her heels.

They sped out the front door and into a dark rainy street. Huge drops pelted off car roofs in sharp tink s, a salty wind blew, and the shadows of young lovers holding each other under umbrellas stretched toward them like freaky mushrooms grown up out of the sidewalk.

There was no sign of Abner Conroy.

“Do you think he saw us?” Velvet asked. “Or you rather, since you were pointing at him like you’d seen an alien or something.”

“Um ... I was distracted.”

She nodded. “Mmm hmm. Well, he’s definitely working in the restaurant. So close to the crack, he’s literally on top of it. It doesn’t make sense that the Vermillion team couldn’t find him.”

“Maybe they weren’t looking,” Nick suggested.

Velvet thought about that for a moment. They had said they were terribly busy. But what had she and Nick really seen? The kid spent his evening conning old souls out of their paper coins, Amie was busy all right—being a bitch and a tease, to put it mildly—and the other poltergeist enjoyed her snooze time. Not quite as active as Amie had led them to believe, it’s true.

“I think you’re right, but we’ll have to get to the bottom of it tomorrow. Tonight we’ll have to go back and endure some more of Vermillion’s warm and cheery hospitality.” She turned, and they padded back into the restaurant.

Velvet slipped her feet between the horribly scratchy sheets draped over her thin canvas cot, a far cry from the comfy pillow-topped mattress that she’d earned in the Latin Quarter Salvage dorm as the leader of the team. It was like she was in the military or something. Clearly Vermillion had something to learn about comfort.

She’d hardly made a dent in the paper-thin pillow supplied before she heard a soft rap of knuckles against wood.

“Are you busy?” Nick was no more than a shadow in the doorway, barely visible if it weren’t for the glowing orbs of his eyes.

“Nope just thinking.” Velvet slid her legs out from under the flimsy afterthought of a blanket and reached out for him.

A moment later they were in each other’s arms, Nick’s lips pressed against her throat, into the clefts of her shoulders. “Whatcha thinkin’?” he murmured.

Velvet pondered the question. What had she been thinking?

Nick didn’t wait for an answer. He pressed soft kisses onto her eyelids, down each cheek. He covered her mouth with his, nibbling at the flesh there, beseeching her with tiny invasions from his tongue, cradling her head to pull her more deeply into his affections.

Oh my God, she thought.

The boy could kiss. But he could also make her forget.

From the first days of their acquaintance, Nick was her biggest distraction. A welcome one, at the time, but dangerous. Loving him put everything she held dear at risk: her job, her friends, her reputation. It was against the rules to fraternize with your team members. So they hid. Making out in the shadows. Sharing kisses in those brief moments of privacy.

Lucky for them—and it was that: pure luck—a wicked turn of events and a show of heroism allotted some leniency. Manny had pulled the necessary strings and now they could be together openly.

Lucky.

But even then, wound up in shrouds of blankets like a pair of mummies, Velvet and Nick couldn’t be entirely open about their love. The dorm was quiet. Their voices had to be hushed.

“Nyx,” she whispered his secret epithet, the word stretching out into a whimper.

A smile played across the boy’s lips, the flesh around them rubbed clean of ash and glowing like the blush from a slap. “Velvet,” he moaned and trailed the tips of his fingers down to her waist.

Then the bed began to shake, but it had nothing to do with them.

“Nick,” she said.

He hummed some unintelligible response into the flesh of her neck.

What started as a low rumble from deep beneath them, soon shook the walls of the cinderblock cell. Grits showered from gaps in the rattling metal roof. Screams filled the air.

“Dammit!” Nick yelled and in an attempt to scramble from the bed, crashed to the floor, dragging Velvet off, too, their feet twisted in the bed sheets.

She was about to shout, “Shadowquake!” But the darkness was already coiling around the gas lamp outside the door, squeezing the last of the light and casting Velvet and Nick into the darkest of shadows.

They bumped into each other, stumbling. Velvet replaced her pajamas with a pair of tights and her plaid skirt. She crammed her feet into her unlaced boots, while Nick buttoned his shirt and hurridly tucked it into the waistband of his pants. She wiped the ash from her hands and forearms onto the scratchy sheet. Then she held her hands before her like a pair of lanterns. Nick looked up from tying the laces on his wingtips and squinted.

“We gotta hurry,” Velvet said, pushing past him. “We might be able to catch Conroy in the act, bust this case wide open, and get out of this hellhole!”

But shortly after taking their first wobbly steps into the slender alley between the cottage rows, the shaking and darkness subsided. The inky tentacles that always accompanied shadowquakes receded into the dark corners of walls, into the eaves.

Velvet’s heart sank. Time was running out, they needed to cross over quickly.

The courtyard was a flurry of activity as they raced through it. Barker gathered the bulk of the temple’s residents under the pavilion. Charlie and a girl, Ho Min, flanked him.

“Is there anyone missing?” Velvet yelled in the man’s direction. “I haven’t seen Am—” he started.

“I’m here!” Amie yelled from the back of the crowd glowing bright and totally free of ash.

Velvet pulled Nick close. “You see that? Either she’s got a great skin care regimen, or she’s fresh from a trip through the crack.”

Nick nodded.

Velvet glared at the girl. Amie stared right back, a crooked smile curled onto her lip like it was caught on a fishhook.

“I’m going back. Stay here and watch her. I don’t trust her for a second, and something’s wrong.” Velvet raced off.

Velvet didn’t have to search for the source of the shadowquake after all.

She stumbled out of the crack and into a destroyed version of the busy kitchen they’d passed through earlier. Gas stove-top burners raged with flame, but their pots were overturned on the linoleum floor, crimson sauce splattered up the walls like blood spray on a forensics TV show. Knives and carving forks protruded from the ceiling and, as Velvet looked closer, she saw a carrot sticking out of the wall.

Pretty stereotypical haunting-type stuff, she thought. But it seemed a little over-the-top. Most hauntings didn’t show any outward signs, but rather were simple unwarranted possessions. This one seemed—she took another look around—amateurish.

On the far end of the kitchen, near the swinging doors, sat the waiter she’d assumed was being possessed by Conroy.

Approaching him, Velvet realized if this were the same guy, the undertaker had since disposed of his body. It was empty. The eyes were flat, dim—no ghost, no matter how skilled, was able to mask their glow through a body’s eyes. She glanced around the room for signs of another spirit lingering in the shadows, to no avail.

Just then, the swinging doors crashed open and a petite, young waitress with short-cropped brown hair like a pixie and a nose as narrow and blunt as a pencil eraser ran into the room.

“Emile, the police are here. They want to talk to you.”

The waiter’s face fell into his palms, and he shook his head, groaning.

Pixie Girl squatted beside him, concern spread across her features. She pulled a napkin from her apron pocket and dabbed at a trickle of blood trailing from the battered guy’s ear down his neck.

“Just tell them what we all know,” she whispered.

Velvet leaned in closer, intrigued.

Emile, as the waiter’s name apparently was, slapped his hands against his thighs and glared at the young woman, furiously. “They’re not going to believe that all this...” He flailed his arms about.

Pixie Girl’s eyes followed his. She chewed at her lip, discouraged.

“...That all this was done by some invisible entity. They just won’t.”

So they know, Velvet thought.

The amount of energy it took to do the kind of damage on display at Il Fortuna was definitely enough bad juju to cause a shadowquake but, clearly, from the looks of Emile, the kitchen hadn’t been the target. The haunting wasn’t about the restaurant at all. As though they’d heard Velvet’s epiphany, the two waiters continued:

“But it’s not been just this once,” Pixie Girl said. “And it’s always you that gets hurt. Look at you this time! Your black eyes were just beginning to fade, too.”

Emile nodded, clutching at his hair. “I know. I know. But it doesn’t matter. They’ll just think I’m crazy. Better just to lie and say it was a vagrant or something.”

“Maybe you should ask for some time off. Get out of here.”

“I need the cash. The tips. It’s not like there are jobs out there, you know.”

From the dining room, Velvet heard the sound of heavy boots stomping, getting louder as they approached; the cops coming with their questions.

Questions. She had some of her own. What did Abner have against this particular guy? Who was this waiter anyway—this Emile?

She listened through the police officer’s bland and patently uninteresting line of interrogation. When none of her questions were even remotely touched upon, and the restaurant had emptied out and darkened for the night, Velvet slipped back into the perplexing world of Vermillion. She was going to figure that place out, if it was the last thing she did.

The courtyard was quiet.

She didn’t notice a single ashen soul upon her return until Barker coughed from the shadows. A second later she saw a match flare and the wick of incense begin to glug its pungent smoke into the air.

“Come.” Barker beckoned, patting the cushion next to him. “What have you learned?”

She padded over and sank down. “A whole lot and not enough, I’m afraid. Abner apparently has a grudge against some guy named Emile, a waiter at a restaurant called Il Fortuna. He was beaten bloody tonight by an ‘invisible entity.’ His words, not mine. The place was a wreck, too. Abner is a pretty angry guy.”

The words felt false in her mouth. What had the little card shark said? Abner was an okay guy. It was like they didn’t even know him. Velvet and Nick were close friends with their poltergeists. They knew each other. These people seemed to be skirting around the issue. Hiding something.

“That’s unfortunate ... ironically.” Barker spun the stick of incense between his fingers until the smoke spiraled like a ribbon on a present.

“Do you know if Abner had any connections to that place?” Velvet asked.

“Not at all. But I’m certain you’ll find out.”

“I wish I was so certain.” She glanced around. The place was deserted. She didn’t notice even the creepiest resident of the temple complex lurking. “Where is everyone, anyway?”

“I sent them to bed.” A glint from the nearby gaslight caught in Barker’s eye, as he stared at her, contemplating his next statement. “You know, Abner was very close to Amie.”

The tiny hairs on Velvet’s neck stood up at the mention of the girl’s name. “In what sense?”

“I think he had a crush on her. She, being Amie, had very little interest in him. In fact, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, our Body Thief can be a bit abrasive. I suspect,” he paused. “I suspect she has some unresolved issues from her death. She ‘struggles,’ if you know what I mean.”

“We all do. It’s no reason to be a...” Velvet was going to say ‘bitch,’ but thought better of it. “...mean person.”

Barker shrugged.

“So I guess I should talk to Amie.” Velvet sighed.

The man shrugged again and stubbed out the incense. “In the morning. It’s quiet now, and I don’t expect it’d stay that way if you confronted her this evening, considering the animosity I sense brewing.”

Velvet took that as a cue to head back to her bed. She thought about Barker’s final words. About the “animosity.” Why was Amie so hateful toward her?

The girl had made it perfectly clear that she was engaging their services under duress, but what was it specifically that bothered her about Velvet and Nick?

“Velvet?” Amie’s horrid voice crept in, destroying the quiet solitude of Velvet’s cell and waking her ... rudely.

She pushed herself up on her elbows and sighed. “What do you want, Amie?”

The girl slunk across the shadowy room and sank onto the foot of the mattress.

“It’s just that I feel like we have quite a connection, you and I.” When Velvet didn’t respond, she continued. “Since we share the same job and all.”

Velvet stared. She had no clue what the girl was talking about. Didn’t Amie hate her? Hadn’t that been established? They were both Body Thieves, that was true, but beyond that, as far as she could tell, they had absolutely nothing connecting them. Since Velvet wasn’t a complete skeez.

“You look pretty in the soft glow of the candle light.” Amie slipped her hand under the sheet and inched it toward Velvet’s calf.

She threw the sheet off and glared at Amie’s hand, then up to her surprised face and back to the hand. Velvet was glowing all right, but this time it was the furious glow of the remnants of her nerves being pushed to the far side of enough.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Velvet demanded as the girl snatched her hand back into her own lap and hung her head in shame. Then Amie broke into sobs and darted out of the room.

What the heck was that about? Velvet wondered. Apparently it’s crazy time.

Was she putting out some sort of lesbian vibe? She knew she could be a little butch, but she liked to think of that as assertive. And she certainly thought other girls were pretty, because they were—some boys too. But she’d never made any passes at Amie, unless the girl viewed contempt as a come-on.

Velvet decided she wouldn’t be able to sleep unless she got to the bottom of this. She hopped out of the sorry excuse for a bed, out the door, and into the open-air hall. Behind the thin doors and drapes that rustled in the doorways, she heard the soft snores of sleeping souls; saw the flicker of candles and the acrid scent of incense wafting through Vermillion’s air from the balconies of the massive pagoda.

She crept toward the far end of the row, half expecting Amie to jump out from the shadows and pin her to the wall with a kiss as unwanted as a tissue full of ether. Or scurry past with someone’s bunny, ready to boil it alive.

Outside the canvas flap draped across Nick’s doorway, Velvet heard whispers, soft cooing.

She shook her head, the ire rising inside her like bile, thick as curdled milk.

You didn’t run far, did you Amie?

Bitch.

Craning to listen, Velvet curled her fingers around the tattered edge of the curtain and gripped it with such intensity her knuckles glowed a metallic color in the cracks of her skin. “You’re so beautiful Nick,” the girl whispered. “So strong. What do you see in that girl? That horrible ugly girl?”

What the hell? Um ... no. This was not happening.

Velvet tore at the curtain with such force the rod holding it dislodged from the wall and clattered against the cobbled hall. Inside, Amie gasped and fumbled to cover her nude torso with the edge of Nick’s blanket. The boy looked genuinely stunned, the light from the globes of gaslight on the far wall lit up a face so groggy that Velvet could almost mistake it for deep sleep—if she didn’t know better.

If she didn’t know what Amie was capable of.

Dirty whore.

She wouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest to find the girl smothering Nick with kisses.

“What’s going on?” Nick growled, inching up onto his elbows and grinding sleep crumbs from his eyes like a four-year-old.

“Why don’t you ask your friend?” Velvet didn’t like the sound of insanity creeping into her voice, the high-pitched lilt of the super jealous didn’t suit her and she knew it.

“What?” Nick startled and jerked his feet up and away from Amie. “What? What?”

“Oh for chrissakes!” Velvet shouted. “Cut the crap, Nick. I heard her. I saw her!”

“It’s true, Nick,” Amie sighed. “She was right outside. She knows everything. It’s useless to deny it. Tell her.” She urged him with a sympathetic nod.

Velvet simmered. Eyes darting from the girl to Nick, back again.

“Tell her what?” he howled, slapping the mattress angrily.

The girl simply shrugged, letting the sheet fall loose from her nakedness.

Velvet cringed, turning to search Nick’s face, watching him go from tense teeth-grinding anger to a shocked realization that he was caught, no doubt.

His mouth dropped open.

“You don’t deny it then?” Velvet challenged. “You’ve done things with ... this...” She flipped a hand in Amie’s direction. “Walking STD?”

“Hell, yes, I deny it.” Nick snatched the sheet away from Amie and bound it around his waist, hiding the lucky clover boxers Velvet had given him for his birthday, but not his magnificent torso. It would have been easier to be disgusted with him, if he didn’t look so hot, but Velvet was pretty sure she could still manage it.

He rushed across the floor toward Velvet. “I don’t know what kind of game she’s playing.” His head whipped in Amie’s direction, and he yelled at her. “Put your top on! Jeez.”

Velvet turned and stomped outside, her feet tangling up in the drape and nearly tripping her. She would have fallen flat on her face if Nick hadn’t caught her mid-dive and twirled her into his arms.

“You’re crazier than her if you think something happened in there!” he shouted, eyes wild with terror.

She jerked her head away, staring off down the passageway.

The dead are nosier than you’d imagine. Soon after the yelling started gray heads were poking out of doorways and around corners, whispering intently, hot for some new gossip.

Vultures, she thought.

She pushed Nick away. “Just stay away from me, unless you want to be picking nerve endings out of your smashed skull.”

Letting go of her, Nick crossed his arms and glared. “Fine!”

“Fine is right,” she mumbled over her shoulder as she marched back toward her room, glowering at each and every startled soul on the way and slamming the flimsy door behind her.

A crack splintered up its shoddy center.

Velvet glowered back at it and flinched.

She wished they’d never come to Vermillion. And more than that, she wished they’d never met Amie Shin. And more than that she wished Nick had never laid eyes on the skinny bitch.

Amie.

This was all her fault, after all. Of course, how hard is it to push a tiny Asian girl off your junk? Damn boys and their weak fortitude. It was all only a matter of time, she supposed. It’s not like she’d ever had a relationship work out.

Even when she was alive, boys had been a fleeting quantity. All façade. And all the same inside. Pervs.

But she’d thought Nick was different. She was sure of it.

She glanced up at the door and whispered, “If you’re different Nick Jessup, you’ll knock on that door in the next five minutes.”

Velvet lay on her side and stared at the crack and waited.

And waited.

Until finally she drifted off to sleep.

In the morning—or what passed as morning in Purgatory: just a different shade of night, as far as anyone could tell—Velvet piled her dreads atop her head and bound them in strips of leather from her suitcase. She smeared her face and arms with ash where it rubbed off on the flimsy pillow overnight, covering the soft glow of her flesh. Outside of her quarters, there was movement, a scuffing against the cobblestone path.

The dorm coming to life, she imagined.

Freshly gray souls gathered themselves up for the day, readying to bind paper, go on collection runs through sanctioned cracks into the world of the living, or join up with their salvage teams, lining up to get instructions for the day from their Station Agent.

She found she missed Manny and her friends in the Latin Quarter dorms, but most of all Luisa, one of the twin poltergeists on their team. She’d have helped her to think this whole Nick/Amie thing out.

Velvet peered up at the towering pagoda; its faded red paint chipping away like dry skin. She noticed a faint hue on the cobble at her feet and wondered if the whole of Vermillion were sprinkled in the color, if it all came from the pagoda or if there was something else at play here.

She wondered lots of things.

Whether Manny and Howard met in Purgatory or whether they knew each other when they were living. She imagined that the card players in the courtyard were previous participants in the World Poker Tour that seemed to be on TV every day when she’d come home from school when she was alive.

But mostly she wondered about anything, just to stop thinking about Nick.

It was a pleasant morning otherwise, and she found herself wandering uninterrupted into the secret paper orchard behind the temple compound. Gravel grated under the soles of her combat boots, and the paper leaves and wire branches crinkled in the dark breeze. Overhead, the sky glowed with passing souls, like shooting stars. There seemed to be thousands that day, speeding past. Constant reminders that the rest of them were all stuck in the City of the Dead until their time came to dim and fade away.

The souls mocked her—all blinky and happy. She imagined them flipping her off as they passed on to heaven, or wherever.

Jerks.

“They’re beautiful,” Nick said as he stepped into the garden.

Velvet said nothing.

He didn’t try anything as stupid as touching her. He had enough sense to know she was still angry. But he did keep talking. “I don’t know what you heard last night Velvet, but you have to believe me, I was asleep.”

She shrugged as though she didn’t care. As if the whole thing were behind them and they’d moved on to a strictly business relationship, for that was all it should have ever been.

For chrissakes, they worked together.

“We have a job to do,” she said and strode off in the direction of the little bronze door.

But when she got there, she realized she’d have to disrobe in front of him. In front of the one who’d wronged her. She suddenly felt vulnerable and clenched her arms around herself.

“You’ve got to give me the benefit of the doubt here!” Nick lunged in front of her, forcing eye contact.

Or attempting to.

She looked away. Did she have any doubts? Was there reason to believe he hadn’t been involved?

Only one.

Amie had gone straight to him, after Velvet had shot her down. That part didn’t make sense. But the stuff she was saying was so ugly. And, well, she had been as topless as a diseased stripper, too.

She shook her head and opened the wooden hamper next to the metal door in the wall. Starting to pull her boots off, she nearly fell over, but Nick was there to steady her. His strong hands on her shoulders, his breath on the back of her neck, lips so close to that sensitive flesh.

“I love you, Velvet,” he whispered. “And this thing with Amie isn’t going to change that. And your doubts aren’t going to change that. And Amie sure as hell isn’t going to change that.”

Something in her softened and she craned her neck a bit and nodded that she’d heard him.

Softened but not accepted.

Velvet stuffed her clothing into the box and used the key to open the little door, revealing the portal crack behind it.

A moment later they were speeding through the freshly cleaned kitchen. Hair-netted sous-chefs chopped onions into piles like anthills, and pots of sauces were lined up on the stoves bubbling with salty tomatoey lava and rich cream. It must have been lunch. Fewer customers ringed the white tablecloths, and only a handful of waiters bustled around, none of whom was Emile, hiding his bruises behind sunglasses.

“Where are we headed?” Nick spoke in as delicate a manner as someone as deep in crap as he was should.

He was getting good at this part, Velvet noted. Meaning: dancing around the issue at hand. Of course, he’d said everything he needed to, regardless of its implausibility. And to be honest, Velvet’s doubts were gaining on the circumstantial evidence. No matter how she played it out, the timing seemed off.

What was the girl up to? Trying to seduce both of them?

That was just plain weird, if not the most slutty thing ever.

She didn’t answer and, instead, swept through a door marked office and straight to the single file cabinet in the dark room.

“Whatcha doin’?” Nick asked.

Velvet traced the word employees on one of the drawers and forced her head through the metal, cramming her hands in the sides of the cabinet. Ghosts don’t glow enough to draw attention to themselves in the daylight, but in a pitch black space, it was enough. She thumbed through the files until she found Emile’s address and withdrew.

“2622 Colonial. Let’s find the waiter.”

She ran from the room, an idea starting to form in her head. Why had they been called to find Abner Conroy, when clearly Amie was not a busy salvage team? Why couldn’t Amie’s team find him themselves? Why couldn’t Amie’s team provide some, even a little, protection to Emile?

“If Amie and Vermillion really needed our help, why has she been so mean?” Velvet asked as they ran down the street. “And then alternately so aggressively sexual ... and not just with you?”

Nick’s brow arched.

“What do you mean?”

Velvet stopped, shrugging limply. “Before I caught her in your room, she’d come to mine.”

He shook his head, the idea not quite catching. “Amie came on to you? What?”

Velvet ignored the panicked tone in Nick’s voice and, in one smooth sidestep, plunged into a stranger waiting at the bus stop, asked a passerby for directions to 2622 Colonial, and stepped back out, leaving the person only slightly confused.

Velvet stared at the woman she’d just recently possessed. Her face was scrunched up like she thought something was wrong but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.

And that was it. That was the thought bouncing around in Velvet’s head, just underneath all the Amie-anger.

“She’s trying to confuse us,” she said.

“Sexual subterfuge!” Nick shouted.

Velvet shook her head. “What?”

“It’s like this,” he said, suddenly animated and waving his hands around wildly. “You watch enough spy movies, and you start to catch on. Amie is like Mata Hari.”

“Who’s that?”

“She was a double agent in World War I. Seduced guys on both sides of the war and funneled information back to Germany. Eventually they beheaded her.”

“I know someone in need of a good beheading.” Velvet started in the direction of Emile’s apartment.

“So yeah. She’s using both of us, but for the same purpose.” He said the last words emphatically, as though he’d figured everything out and was exonerated entirely.

Velvet didn’t have the venom in her to correct Nick—it wasn’t like Amie was getting valuable information from them, nor were they on opposite sides of a war. She waived it off. “And what about Abner Conroy? Or Emile? How do they fit into all this?”

Nick shrugged, sheepishly, scurrying along beside her. “Don’t know.”

“Well then, we better find out because I’ve no intention of spending another hell night in Vermillion.” Velvet stomped back toward the restaurant. “This ends today!”

Emile was just leaving his apartment as Velvet and Nick slipped through the wall. Nick stared at the sheer amount of bruises on the guy, and they both noted he was walking with a limp as he stepped outside and locked the door behind him.

Emile’s studio was simply decorated, a futon on a wooden frame seemed to function as the only seating in the place. Besides a TV and a small dresser with a few framed photos, the place was bare.

Nick wandered over to the photos and stood there, mouth hanging open.

“What?” Velvet asked.

He simply pointed at one of the photographs.

In it, Emile was all smiles and bruise-free, his arm around a petite Asian girl, her black hair pulled back in a tight chignon.

Amie.

At about five o’clock, Emile and his sunglasses limped into Il Fortuna and gave his jacket to the coat check girl with a wicked wink. Her response was a likewise lascivious meow, which grossed Velvet out but coaxed a saucy “ooh,” from Nick.

Velvet spun around and elbowed Nick in the ribs, or through them, actually. “Follow him!”

They popped out from their hiding place inside the coat-checked coats, and Nick ran straight through the girl’s desk after Emile, while Velvet took a moment to come up with a plan.

She knew she was going to have to possess the girl—Willa was the name on her name tag—but for what purpose? Velvet thought a moment, and then a broad grin spread across her face. Obviously Emile and Willa had some sort of relationship. She’d use that to get the goods on Amie, once and for all!

She hunched down beside Willa’s back and thrust herself up, through her and inside her as if Willa was a tight-fitting dress that Velvet had to shimmy into. The girl twitched a bit, but that was to be expected—Velvet was a big girl.

Good thing ghosts don’t cause stretch marks, she thought.

With no more than a “What the...?” from Willa, Velvet constricted Willa’s thoughts into that imaginary box and took her over.

“So easy,” Velvet said. The voice came out child-like and irritating to her ear. “Oh God. Nice baby voice.”

She glanced down behind the desk and found a sign that read, be right back, amicis. Velvet left her post and skipped toward the dining room.

There she saw Emile running; being chased was a more accurate description. A man in a mustard-colored blazer and a bushy goatee rushed toward the waiter with a fork, eyes blazing like someone had set fire to his brain.

Must be Abner.

“Abner!” Velvet screamed, but neither the man nor the ghost inside him seemed to hear anything.

They bolted, one after the other, through the swinging door into the kitchen, followed by an opaque presence she hoped was Nick. Velvet scrambled after them and bolted into the busy kitchen in time to see them all pass through the metal exit door.

There was a brawl going on in the dank shadows of the dusky alley. Colonel Mustard, both possessed and incredibly pissed off, pummeled Emile with fists the size of Easter hams. Emile, defending himself valiantly, seemed to have picked up a ghostly passenger of his own. His eyes radiated in the shadows, freckling his bruised cheeks with rays of light.

Nick?

“Stop it, Abner!” Velvet shouted at the goateed Colonel Mustard. “We’ve got you now.”

Emile ducked another punch, bobbing toward her and getting enough of a gap between him and the other guy to shout, “That’s not, Abner,” in a thick British accent.

“Why are you talking like that, Nick?”

“I’m not Nick, I’m Abner!” The ghost inside Emile shouted.

Velvet flinched. “Then where’s Nick?”

At that precise moment, the door banged open and a little girl rushed out, fists balled and ready for a fight, the blunt end of pizza crust bouncing from the corner of her lips like a cigar.

So if Abner is in Emile, who’s in the Colonel ... and the kid?

Colonel Mustard stopped dead and exploded into laughter. “You’re all ridiculous. You should hear yourselves.”

Abner/Emile rushed forward and pushed the Colonel through the open doorway and back into the kitchen, pulling the door shut and bracing it closed with a broken piece of board from a stack of pallets so the Colonel was trapped in the kitchen and couldn’t get back into the alley.

“So what’s going on here?” Abner asked. “Who are you? And who’s this?” He pointed at the little girl.

“My undertaker, Nick, is my guess,” Velvet replied, staring at the girl and shaking her head, judgmentally.

The little girl pushed up her sleeves, as though she was about to start throwing punches. “We know everything, Abner.”

“And what’s that? What do you think you know?”

Velvet interjected. “We know that Amie had some kind of relationship with the body you’re possessing. If it’s some kind of sick domestic violence thing then, seriously, you two couldn’t have played that out without getting an innocent living person involved? That’s really low.”

“No doubt,” Nick said, shaking his head. “Do we haul you back to Vermillion, or get you a guest spot on Oprah?”

Abner scowled and reached for his belt as though he’d go after the little girl/Nick, but the door behind them boomed and clattered. The board shook and shifted, threatening to fall loose and unleash the big brute from the kitchen.

“She’ll break through soon.”

“She?” Velvet echoed.

“Amie.” Emile/Abner sighed and shook his head.

Abner shook his head. “I’m protecting this body.”

“Just not very well?” she asked.

“Listen, Amie and Emile were together ... before she died. After she was gone, she couldn’t let him go. She found a way back earthside, through that crack you two traveled through, and when he wouldn’t accept her advances—she’d possess a variety of different girls to try to tempt him—she started to act out. Violently. So I intervened, of course.” He shrugged. “Well, as often as I could.”

“But why are you even here, Abner?” Velvet asked. “You could guard the crack from the other side, you know? Or even tell someone and get the crack filled in. Alerting Barker about all this might have been helpful.”

“I—” Abner started.

“The whole thing is pathetic,” Nick said, balling the little girl’s fists up and scowling furiously.

The little girl looked like she was going to throw a tantrum, and Velvet almost giggled at the thought. She wished Nick could see himself and the spectacle he was creating, but in that moment, a crackling sound issued from the kitchen, and while the door didn’t move a bit, Velvet knew someone was about to pass through it. Someone terrible.

Someone slutty.

Abner was already moving away, stumbling toward the green Dumpster. Afraid. Velvet and Nick stood their ground.

Tentacles of white smoke spilled from the cracks around the door, spreading over the brick like a vine, curling and undulating and, worst of all, thickening to the size of tree trunks. They weren’t dealing with Colonel Mustard anymore.

It wasn’t the first time they’d encountered a banshee—the more a ghost haunted, the more evil it exuded, the more it was deformed and ravaged by its own intent. But Amie didn’t look right. She had too many arms and legs, and they were really stinking big. When she pulled her head and torso through the door, though, Velvet could see that it was definitely Amie. But she was different. More voluminous.

“Gee Amie, you look so much ... fatter earthside,” Velvet said without really thinking.

The girl banshee hissed and flicked a tentacle out with a whip crack that cut a blood red line up Willa’s arm. Velvet was stunned. Her mother had always told her that her mouth would get her in trouble one day.

Or on many days, concurrently, as she’d discovered.

“Watch your mouth,” Amie shrieked, the sound echoing off the walls like the squelch of a poorly tuned guitar.

“Hey,” Velvet hissed. “You’re the one in the wrong here. Beating up your ex-boyfriend.”

“What else could I do? He was going to leave me!”

“You’re dead!” Velvet shouted. “ You’r e the one that left.”

Amie twisted and writhed, even as a banshee she was dramatic and irritating. “Yeah, but only temporarily,” she whined. “I was there for him. I came back.”

“And I’m sure he appreciated that,” Velvet said sarcastically.

Velvet clutched her bloody limb and backed away. She couldn’t let Amie hurt Willa’s body. Not again.

She spun and dashed for the street end of the alley. Behind her, bricks clacked against concrete and Abner started shouting, “They’re onto you Amie!”

Velvet dispossessed Willa mid-stride, and the girl continued to jog a few steps out onto the sidewalk, shaking her head a couple times before noticing her dripping arm and dashing toward the front of the restaurant.

When Velvet twisted to peer back down the alley, she froze. Amie was orbiting Abner like a solar flare, her gaseous tendrils wafting in the breeze like toilet paper off a tree that had been pranked. Conroy wasn’t giving up any ground. Nick’s little girl was nowhere to be seen and though Velvet felt woefully unprepared considering the turn of events, she knew they couldn’t let anything happen to the child Nick had possessed.

“Nick!” she screamed, expecting to see a tiny hand gesture from one of the piles of rubble littering the alley. But there was none. The door to the kitchen was slightly ajar. She hoped he’d gotten the girl out of there and to her safety, but as she approached, readying herself to launch at the banshee, the door slammed open. The little girl rushed out, pigtails slapping the sides of her head, a big empty saucepot in one hand and its lid in the other.

Nick was thinking ahead. They’d need a metal container to hold her. But his timing, as usual, was a bit off. One smoky banshee tentacle shot out and flattened the little girl to the wall. The pot went clattering off the pavement, rocking back and forth to a standstill.

Velvet rushed forward, all her thoughts focused on her hands, on making them a solid enough entity to connect with the banshee. Beside her, she saw Abner disconnect from Emile and crouch; the freed waiter ran in the direction of the door.

Abner was older than she’d expected, in his ghostly wavering form. He looked like a college student really, in an argyle sweater, jeans, and penny loafers. His hair was short enough to have been shaved, and he wore glasses over eyes that were probably too large for his head, unless you were into Japanese anime.

She and Abner both lunged, tackling Amie’s contorting form at chest height. Velvet wrapped herself around Amie, holding the banshee with her legs as though riding a horse, squeezing against her. Velvet stole a glance upward. Abner climbed higher up the banshee’s undulating frame and promptly head-butted her.

Amie wailed dramatically, her tentacles beating them across their backs. “Let go! I’ll kill you!”

Velvet thought she heard a thud, and when she peered down from the struggle, saw Nick’s little girl stealthily forcing one of Amie’s tentacles inside the metal pot.

“Abner!” Velvet cried. “Pull!”

The action was akin to wringing out a wet towel. The more they twisted and tightened on the banshee’s struggling form, the thinner she became until, high above, Abner was whipping about the evil witch as though he was a flag on a pole.

“No!” Amie screamed. “Noooo!”

They were making headway.

They had to.

Nick yanked at the smoky trunk of the banshee, scrolling her into the pot like a hose on a feeder. Amie shrieked with anger and tried to pull herself away. Unable to dislodge herself, she fell finally, the entirety of her smoky mass dropping straight into the pot. Nick slapped on the lid with a wet tomato saucey squish.

“Nice choice going with a dirty pot,” Velvet admired.

The little girl nodded and wiped her marinara covered hands on the yoke of her dress. “Now for you, Abner. Are you going to go quietly?”

“Hey, guys,” Abner said. “You got me all wrong. Every time I tried to sneak back out to tell people about what she was doing, I’d bounce right back. It’s like I’m trapped here or something.”

“You’re locked in,” Velvet said. The vision of Amie with the shiny bronze key scrolled through her head.

“What?” Abner cocked an eyebrow.

“She’s right, the crack is covered up by this metal door. Amie had the key. She was reluctant to even have us slip through.”

Velvet nodded. “Definitely reluctant. But it’s open now or she wouldn’t have been able to get through herself. You can go on back and explain what’s been happening.” She jabbed a thumb in the direction of the pot. “We’ve got some work to do to get this one off to the Station cellar where she belongs.”

Abner smiled and reached out his ethereal hand. Velvet made the effort to touch it, despite being exhausted. The show of effort was the thing. People shake hands all the time—it’s easy and familiar—but when a ghost does it you know it really means something because they have to focus all their intentions on the action.

Nick stepped out of the girl and offered his own hand. The little girl wandered around for a moment, not sure what was happening. After he shook Abner’s hand, Nick glanced at Velvet—more of a gaze, really—a sad smile curled on his lips. He lingered a moment, and then repossessed the girl, to walk her back to her parents, presumably.

“I really thought he’d cheated on me with Amie,” Velvet said, but Conroy just shook his head.

“Why would he when he’s got you?”

Velvet cringed, who was this guy, a relationship counselor? “How do you know?”

“Jesus, did you see the way he looked at you? He’s so into you, it’s scary.”

“You think? Like serial killer scary?” she asked. The conversation was getting a little too serious with this stranger.

But then he said, “Yep,” and started to walk toward the door.

“Hey,” Velvet called after him, chuckling. “Where’s the closest morgue, or cemetery?”

Abner grimaced, holding his stomach, sympathetically. “County Coroner is on Fourth. Two blocks that way.” He pointed.

“I know what you mean, disposing of these things...” she gestured toward the pot. “It isn’t my favorite thing either, but this one I don’t think I’ll mind too much.”

He nodded and waved as he disappeared through the door.

It’s true what they say. Anyone can thieve a body, but it takes a real specialist to be an undertaker. There are the worms and flies to deal with, obviously, and the smells. She didn’t begrudge Nick a single thing.

Later, after the flies Nick had accelerated from the Jane Doe at the morgue had carried Amie to her prison under the pagoda—in tiny, incredibly gross, bite-sized portions, no less—Nick and Velvet held hands and took a long walk on the nearby beach.

“You know I’d never do that to you, right?” Nick said, pulling her close and pressing his lips against hers.

“Chase me into the world of the living with your tentacles?” she kidded.

“I got your tentacles, right here.” He smiled and held out his arms, then chased her up to the boardwalk and back toward the restaurant.

Back in Vermillion, the compound was in an uproar, people chattered back and forth about the events of the day, about Amie’s deception and treachery and the stranglehold she’d had the community under with the shadowquakes.

Howard waved them into his quarters and held his hands out. “Please accept my most genuine apologies,” he said. “Manny and I debated letting you in on the plan, but couldn’t risk Amie catching wind of it, lest she elope and evade capture. Which, by the way, was brilliant salvage work. Simply brilliant.”

He handed Velvet the pink envelope from the robe of his pocket. Inside folded twice was the letter from Manny.

Dear Howard,

You’re quite right. This girl is a master of manipulation. In our short time together she has attempted, on no less than two occasions to determine the whereabouts of our keys. No doubt to unleash her fellow banshees in our cellar. A most heinous criminal, who I have no doubt in my mind, Velvet and Nyx—as Nick is sometimes called—will be able to find out and dispatch. I pray for the safekeeping of your salvage team and your missing undertaker. Let’s hope that all shall come to their just rewards in a timely fashion.

Sincerely,

Jayne

Velvet slipped the note back into its envelope. “You know, I thought this was a love letter.”

Howard chuckled briefly and then waved a quick good-bye.

“You know what?” Nick whispered in her ear. “He didn’t deny it.”

And he hadn’t.