Page 59 of Malice

Trapped.

Well that’s fucking great.

I enter the kitchen, scanning the ceiling and corners for the Horror, but only catch a shimmer of light. It’s good to know he’s depleted right now. I need time to figure out my next steps.

Crash appears next to me on the counter while I prep the coffee pot. “Soooo?”

“Yes?” I pour water into the back of the machine.

“You and the writer are an item, huh?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. You didn’t watch us, right?”

“Nope.” He makes a gesture like an X over his chest. “Cross my heart. Two of the house spirits watched. They were fascinated. Some of the others peeked but were scandalized.”

Chuckling, I shake my head. “Awesome.” A flicker of guilt niggles the back of my mind. “Did I break any rules?”

“When?”

I give him a hard look. “When I hooked up with my client?”

“Ooooh.” He does a little shimmy on the counter. “Nope. It’sextremelycommon. It’s practically a perk. Obviously, not all client-Chaser partnerships are compatible ones, but you’dbe surprised how often they are. If I had to guess, I’d say there’s something in the selection criteria that makes for affable pairings.”

“Interesting.” I lean against the counter while the coffee brews. “So I’m not getting a stern look from Farnsworth anytime soon?”

“Not for that.” His face lights up. “I was helping this new Chaser years ago. He had to help a married couple, and long story short, he ended up being their boyfriend when all was said and done. He still is.”

That news causes an odd flutter in my stomach. “You can stay with people?”

Crash tilts his head, a sympathetic look coming over his features. “You didn’t read the love bond section, did you?”

“I mean, yeah, but I didn’t really focus on it. Why?”

“Dude. It’s how you keep people.”

“I don’t understand.”

Crash shakes his head, but then with a flick of his wrist, an open book appears in front of me, stopped on the page describing the love bond.

“‘When a Soul Chaser chooses a human soul to unite with, the Love Bond Ceremony must be conducted to seal their life forces,’” Crash reads aloud with a strange tone to his voice, like he’s suddenly become an old-school movie trailer narrator.

“What does ‘seal their life forces’ mean?”

Crash gives me another ‘are you kidding me’ look before he continues reading. “‘Upon sealing your life forces, the mortal takes on the Chaser’s immortality and strong defenses.’” Then he levels me with a look. “You don’t die, he doesn’t die. You die, he dies.”

As the words sink in, I open my mouth to speak, but I’m literally speechless.

“I know,” Crash says. “It’s heavy, but you’d get to keep him. You can be partners in soul chasing.”

“Wait.” I rub my forehead. “He’d be a Soul Chaser too?”

“Well, not officially, but what we’ve seen is there tends to be a natural partnership over time.”

“Wow.”

“There are some risks though.” He swipes his finger through the air to turn the page. “Your soul partner is often a target for a tenacious Horror. The biggest risk though is that if anything happens to you, it happens to him.”

“But it’s hard for me to die.”

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