Rachel Vincent - Before I Wake

Em rolled her eyes. “I know. Everyone who’s ever seen him knows. The Hudsons have freakishly good genes. What else?”

“I love him. Like, to-the-end-of- time love him. Is that silly? Because I’ve truly lost all perspective. Is it naive of me to think he’ll be the only one. Like, ever? ”

Em laughed. “Could you have imagined this moment a year ago? You’re up to the hilt of your magical dagger in demon guts one minute, then ready to vow forever to an angel swinging a scythe the next.”

“He doesn’t actually have a scythe, you know.”

“My point stands.”

“So, have I lost it? Am I crazy for even mentioning forever?”

Emma shrugged. “Normally I’d say that’s the postcoital euphoria talking, but considering that the two of you are facing eternity together, I think you’re feeling exactly what you’re supposed to be feeling.” Emma shrugged. “That said, I don’t think you understand how this is supposed to work. Your details are adorable and sweet. Like, diabetic-coma sweet. But I’d really appreciate anything in the neighborhood of time, place, or position.”

“Position?” I could feel my face flame.

“Never mind. Time and place, then.”

“Um, right before you got here. My room.”

Em glanced around, suddenly paranoid. “Is he still here?”

“No, he had to go back to work, and I still have to meet with Madeline, so…”

“You want me to go?”

“No, I want you to stay. I told you Thane’s back, right?” I said, already hating the change in subject, and she nodded. “Well, he’s not alone. Avari’s here, Em.”

“Here, as in…?”

“In the human world. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but he killed a woman at the mall, and—” My phone beeped from my pocket, and I pulled it out to find an incomprehensible text from Madeline.

T at you3.

I was still frowning at the screen when she materialized in my living room, and Styx started growling from his perch in my father’s chair. “I apologize, Kaylee, but there doesn’t appear to be enough buttons on my phone to actually type a complete sentence, and I don’t see the point of text messaging, when we could just as easily speak on the phone or in person.” She stopped when she noticed Emma, who obviously could neither see nor hear her. But she could see me staring at an empty spot in my living room, and she’d been around long enough to know what that meant.

“Tell her to leave,” Madeline said, crossing both arms over her chest, phone still clutched in one hand. “We have business to discuss.”

“Emma’s involved in that business, so she stays.”

“This is not up for negotiation, Ms. Cavanaugh.” Madeline always used my last name when she was frustrated with me. Which was most of the time.

“Unless you’ve recruited a new extractor in the past couple of hours, I don’t see that you have much of a choice. You need me. We need each other. And Emma is involved, so she gets to hear everything I get to hear.” Until and unless I decided that knowing too much would put her in more danger than she was already in.

Madeline scowled, and a week ago, that alone would have made me give in. But not anymore. Not now that I understood just how many people’s lives were at stake.

Finally, she nodded and perched on the edge of an armchair, and I knew Em could see her when she jumped a little. “Madeline, this is Emma Marshall. Em, Madeline.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Madeline said, though she sounded anything but.

Em nodded. “Thanks for letting me join your reindeer games.”

“Excuse me?” Madeline said, but before I could explain, the doorbell rang.

I peeked through the window to find Nash and Sabine on my porch, and Luca on the sidewalk behind them. “Great. The gang’s all here,” I said, pulling the door open.

The necromancer followed Nash and Sabine inside, and suddenly my living room was crowded. Styx decided we’d exceeded the maximum capacity defined by the fire code and started growling at everyone, so I had to put her in the backyard.

“Luca told us you left for an extraction, then never came back,” Nash said, eyeing me like I might be secretly broken as I closed the back door.

“I told them you were here with Tod, and that you were fine,” Luca added.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” Nash said. Sabine groaned and pushed my front door shut. “What?” he demanded, scowling at her. “This morning she insists that all we have is one another, but this afternoon she won’t answer my calls. How am I supposed to take that?”

“I didn’t get any calls,” I said, pulling my phone from my pocket again. But there they were. Three missed calls and two voice mails. All from Nash. All between twenty-five and thirty-two minutes earlier. When I was otherwise occupied, and wouldn’t have noticed an explosion in the living room, much less my phone buzzing from the pocket of my pants. On my bedroom floor.

I flushed, and Sabine’s gaze narrowed on me. “Sorry,” I said. “It was on silent. I didn’t hear it ring.”

“This is not a high-school social,” Madeline said. “Your friends will have to leave.”

“They don’t call them that anymore, Aunt Madeline,” Luca said, and it was obvious that only he and Emma could see and hear her.

Madeline frowned. “Friends?”

Luca laughed. “No, socials. They’re called dances now.”

“Wait a minute, aunt? ” I said. “You’re his aunt?”

“What the hell is going on here?” Sabine demanded, glancing at those of us she could see.

“Okay, that’s it!” I stood in the middle of the room and glanced around until I was sure I had everyone’s attention. “We are now operating under a full-disclosure policy. Everyone in this room knows who and what I am, and they all have experiences or skills that could come in handy. So, Madeline, show yourself.”

“Ms. Cavanaugh, this is completely inappropriate… .”

I turned on her, and my temper got the better of me. “I’m an eleventh-grade girl who was murdered in her own bed by a mystical dagger-wielding incubus posing as a math teacher, about an hour before I was resurrected in order to extract stolen souls from monsters for the rest of my unnatural life. What part of that led you to assume anything I do or say will be appropriate by traditional standards?”

Madeline gaped at me for a second. Then she blinked and nodded. “A valid point.”

“Good. Then make yourself visible and introduce yourself to the rest of your crew.”

“My crew?”

“What crew? What the hell is going on here, Kaylee?” Nash asked.

I could tell the minute Madeline appeared to the room in general, because both Nash and Sabine focused on her instantly. “Madeline, this is Nash Hudson. You saved him from going down for my murder. And this is Sabine Campbell, his…Nightmare.” I wasn’t sure how else to explain their relationship. “Madeline is my boss in the reclamation department. And evidently Luca’s aunt. That part’s new to me.”

“Great-great-aunt,” Madeline supplied. “I was originally recruited for my own abilities as a necromancer, but they turned out not to extend into the afterlife—evidently being dead interferes with one’s ability to detect the dead. When I realized we would need the skills I lost, I brought my nephew on board, because his mother didn’t inherit the gift. It seems to skip random generations.”

“My parents think I’m at some fancy boarding school, on a soccer scholarship,” Luca added with a conspiratorial smile.

“So, what kind of crew is this, and why do you need us on it?” Sabine asked.

“It’s the reclamation department,” I said, just as Madeline said, “I don’t need you.”