Page 11 of Deader than Dead

“A necromancer!” Alfred said. “Like someone who brings people back from the dead?”

“Yes, you, you complete and utter…” Whatever insult Maria had been going to use, she apparently thought better of, perhaps realizing that her current approach was getting her nowhere. Her voice softened. “I need the account details, darling, so that I can access the money you moved. I’m sure you meant to tell me, and it just slipped your mind.”

Muscles straining with the effort, my face squashed against the side of the bed, I finally managed to hook the candle and send it rolling back my way. I stood, adding it to the bag with the others, and then fastening it.

“I… erm…” Alfred seemed lost for words, which told me—and presumably Maria as well—that him moving the money and not telling her had been intentional.

I slung the bag over my shoulder, pulling a face as I caught sight of the crusted blood on my palm. The cut might have healed, but it had left behind a mess. A mess that would invite way too many stares on the tube, and possibly—given that it had happened before—prompt a call to the police, which would lead to me spending the evening convincing them I was a necromancer and not a serial killer. Not to mention that police cells weren’t that pleasant a place to hang out. I glanced Maria’s way, the woman too busy glaring at her husband to pay me any attention. Yeah, she’d definitely reached the same conclusion I had. I cleared my throat. “Can I use your bathroom?” I held my palm up. “I just need to wash the blood off before I leave.”

No response. Maria’s gaze didn’t even shift my way, all her focus remaining on Alfred. She narrowed her eyes at him. “You… Erm… What?”

I took a step toward the door. “You know what? I can find it myself. You don’t need to trouble yourself.”

The first door I tried was the airing cupboard. The second was another bedroom. Thankfully, the third was a bathroom, raised voices floating down the corridor as I turned the tap on and stuck my hand beneath it. I tuned them out as I washed the blood off. I already knew far more than I wanted to know about their relationship. Although, I was curious to know if Alfred would give up the information. He’d clearly had his reasons for not wanting Maria to get her hands on the money. Another woman? Given Maria’s scathing criticism of his bedroom technique, I doubted it. Had he worked out that she’d only married him for his money? At least that was the assumption I’d made in the five minutes that I’d spent with them.

They’d escalated to name calling by the time I’d dried my hands and left the bathroom. I stuck my head into the bedroom without venturing back inside. “I’ll see myself out, shall I? And you’re welcome.”

Just as I’d expected, neither spared me so much as a glance. As I let myself out of the house, I pondered the last time I’d been so eager to leave a job. It had been a while.

Chapter Six

John

My phone rang when I was just a couple of streets away. “I’m at work, Mum,” I said as I answered it. “I’ve asked you not to call during the day.”

“But it’s an emergency.”

“An emergency!” I stopped dead, a curly-haired man with an equally curly-haired poodle narrowly avoiding walking into me. The man tutted. Because it didn’t have the vocal cords for a tut, the poodle growled instead. “What sort of emergency?” Nightmare scenarios flashed through my head. Was the house on fire? Was my mum ill? Did I need to call the fire brigade? An ambulance?

“I needed to know how your date went last night?”

I let out a breath. “That is not an emergency.”

“It’s important. I worry about you.”

“Important and an emergency are not the same thing. They’re not even in the same ballpark.”

My mum made a dismissive noise. “Words mean different things to different people, John.”

“I don’t think anyone would…” I caught myself. If I went down that route, we’d go round in circles for hours, and I hadn’t been joking about the fact that I was on the clock. “What do you want to know?”

“What was he wearing? Did he smell nice? How did it go? Are you seeing him again?”

A nearby wall provided a handy seat. “Black trousers and a pale blue shirt. No tie. I didn’t really get close enough to sniff him. It was okay, but just okay. And no, I won’t be seeing him again. He wasn’t the one.”

“Oh, John…”

They might only have been two words, but my mother imbued them with a great deal of emotion. “Don’t,” I said before she could start. “He’s out there. I know he is.” He had to be. It was written in lore, that along with the powers that gave me necromancy, came that perfect match, the man who was the yin to my yang. The man who I would only have to look at to know that he was mine, and I was his.

“And what if you never meet this man that you’re so convinced you’re destined to be with? What if you spend your whole life waiting for him and he never shows up? What if you already met him, but you didn’t realize and you walked straight past him?”

All questions that I’d asked myself, and all valid. Only when my mother voiced them, they got my back up. “Then I guess I’ll grow old alone. I’ll have to get lots of cats. What’s the male equivalent of a spinster?”

There was a long pause while my mother thought about it. “A bachelor.”

I frowned. “Wow! That’s sexist. It hardly has the same connotation, does it?”

“Maybe you should give this man another chance. Was it a nice shirt?”

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