Page 11 of Death Raiser

I scoffed and shook my head. “I never doubted your honour, Kang.”

He reached forward and trailed his finger along my neck and down my collar bone before hooking it around the gold chain of my necklace. With a gentle tug, he lifted the pendant. “You’ve worn this every time I’ve seen you since our first case together. Is it your father’s?”

“In a way,” I said. “He had one made for me and Logan to match the one he has. Had. My brother refuses to wear his, but he keeps it in a box on his dresser.”

“But you wear yours.”

I plucked the dangling pendant and tilted it so the nearby light glinted off the surface. Someone had meticulously engraved a griffin clutching and chomping down on a skull in the center of the circular pendant. The symbol for descendants of the Morcant bloodline.

“I’ll never give up hope,” I said.

Kang dropped his hand to his side. “Neither will I.”

Chapter Three

I mumbled the incantation to bring forth the spirit to the living realm. Johnny Wheeler’s spirit had a light blue shine and a wispy appearance. He hovered over his remains and shook his head. His living wife stood a few feet behind me, waiting for her deceased husband to arrive. She had no idea he was already here. Drabs couldn’t see spirits. Hell, most glamies couldn’t, either.

The moon cast an eerie glow over the cemetery, creating long shadows over the hallowed ground and illuminating the gravestones that stood in the tidy rows.

“Get in your corpse, Johnny.” I shoved more magic at him, but he kept his position and continued to shake his head.

Standing beside Johnny’s wife, Peter Schmidt waited patiently. I worked with this lawyer regularly, though Peter usually covered estate law, not spousal closure requests.

Monica, the wife, shifted her feet. “He’s…he’s here?”

“Yes, but he’s being a little ornery. Sometimes spirits don't wish to reanimate their corpses.”

“Why not?”

“I had a soul describe it like getting into dirty, wet clothes.” They needed extra motivation.

“Last chance,” I warned Johnny.

He swayed back and forth over his coffin as if to mock me.

Fine.

I knelt down, touched one of the exposed bones from his decaying body and pushed my magic in.

Johnny squealed. My magic yanked his spirit into his body.

“There we go,” I whispered. “Home sweet home.”

Johnny flailed his arms.

Monica gasped.

I muttered another incantation to get him to obey my commands and keep control of him. The last thing anyone in Victoria needed was a zombie running loose. Their bites weren’t infectious, they were just a nuisance.

Usually.

“Feel your body, Johnny. Reconnect with it and stand up,” I ordered.

He scrambled to his feet and swayed, waiting for his next command. A wind rustled through the nearby trees, unusually cold for this time of year.

I turned to allow Monica an unobstructed view of her deceased husband. She held her hand to her mouth as if it would somehow block the smell of decay or take away the intrusion of the resting spirit.

“Babe?” Monica dropped her hand and stepped forward “Is that you?”

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