Page 13 of Death Raiser

“You’re sure?”

“I had a vasectomy three years ago.”

“You what?” Monica started to breathe heavily. Pain streaked across her expression.

Without asking, I knew, just knew, Johnny hadn’t told his wife about the vasectomy. I’d just met Johnny, but so far, he seemed like a complete piece of shit.

“Did you need anything else from him?” I asked, Johnny might be stubborn, but he wasn’t particularly strong. I could hold him for longer. If Monica needed closure, though, hopefully, this was enough. Spending even one more second with this piece of work was a waste of our time.

“No,” Monica whispered. “I got what I needed.”

I glanced at Peter again and he nodded. They had the confirmation they needed. With a deep breath, I withdrew my power. Normally, spirits were ready to race away to the veil.

Not Johnny.

After I detached his spirit from his body and his corpse crumpled back into the open coffin with a thud, Johnny’s spirit remained.

The blue spectre hovered over the open grave, bobbing a couple of feet away from my face, eerily silent. I gathered my magic to banish him to the veil when he sped forward.

“What the—”

“He wants a word.” Johnny latched onto me and used my magic to send us both hurtling to the land of the dead.

Chapter Four

I slammed into the cold ground and death magic swirled around me so fast it threatened to steal the air from my lungs. I released Johnny’s spirit and clambered to my feet. A breeze whipped my hair in every direction. There was always a constant wind in this place. Death magic flowed around me, and curious spirits whirled by, swirling like little tornadoes of energy trying to vie for my attention. An ethereal mist rolled over the barren, uneven ground.

Pain stabbed at my fingers as my nails grew into long, dark talons. I watched as they elongated. Would I ever find out why my body reacted to the veil this way?

“We meet again.” A deep voice made me jump and spin around.

The Lord of the Veil stood a few feet away, his castle looming close behind him. The structure rose from rocky terrain with a long winding path leading to the wrought iron gate at its main entrance. Outside the gate, a row of skeletons hanging on spikes acted as a better deterrent than any alarm system or guard dog. The gothic castle screamed danger and death and yet my curiosity begged me to get inside and have a look.

Logan would love this place.

Instead of running away, I faced the owner of the castle. With dark hair, dark eyes, flawless bone structure, perfectly symmetrical features and a body worthy of any romance book cover, Leviathan had a too-perfect, granite statue kind of beauty that made him both hard to look at and hard to look away from. He wore a flowy white shirt, metal plated leather pants and a wide smile that showed his long, glistening white fangs. I might’ve drooled over him if he didn’t scare the ever-loving shit out of me.

“Hello, Leviathan,” I said.

“I thought I told you to call me Levi.”

I scrunched up my face. We were not friends.

“Please.”

I didn’t want to. If I started calling him cute nicknames, I ran the risk of forgetting just how powerful and dangerous he could be. No one knew exactly what kind of glamy Leviathan was or where he came from. Some sites on the internet hypothesized he was part beast and controlled the barghests who roamed the veil. Others claimed he was the first original necromancer and became lost in the veil because he didn’t have an anchor to bring him back. He survived by using the souls of the dead and other lost necromancers to sustain him and over time he transformed into something else.

Some raunchy fanfiction claimed he was a naughty fae capable of devious bedroom acts, and other sources claimed he was a god, banished for past transgressions, forever held apart from his brethren.

At the end of the day, who or what Leviathan was or wasn’t didn’t matter. Not if I was dead. There was no point in pursuing that information either. At least not yet. Especially not right now. I needed to focus on getting away first.

“Did you seriously send a spirit after me?” I asked.

Leviathan cocked his head. “How could you even think that? If I recall correctly, you’re the one who called him.”

But Johnny had been prepped. Leviathan had given the cheating bastard orders before I called him to the living realm. That meant Leviathan either held some sort of control over all the souls in the veil or he detected my call in advance and somehow reached Johnny before I drew him to the living realm.

How did he know I’d summon Johnny tonight? Or at all? Was he capable of spying on the living realm? Could he travel there? Or…

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