How to Fail at Escaping an Alpha Orc (How to Fail #3)

1. Chapter OneDaria

Chapter One

Daria

A s I looked down at the burnt, noseless form of a recently deceased corpse, I began to rethink my life’s choices. This was not how I wanted to spend a Friday night. Not that I ever had exciting plans on Friday nights. When I wasn’t working, I was cozied up on my plush couch with a glass of sparkling wine, a bowl of popcorn, and a spicy romance novel on my e-reader. Sometimes, I’d replace the reading with watching a good movie on one of my too many streaming subscription services. And on rare occasions, I could be seen out in the urban wild with one of my very limited amount of friends. However, nothing compared to standing in the city morgue looking at dead bodies.

How had I sunken so low?

I looked across the body on the table to the two detectives who had knocked on my apartment door earlier that evening to drag me here. Detective Carl Wong gave me an expectant look and his partner, Detective Devin Thomas, crossed his arms, giving me a tight smile. I shook my head. “I can’t believe I’m doing this right now instead of living my best life,” I muttered.

Devin snorted, rolling his alien topaz eyes. In his human form, he was still over six feet, with a muscular build, short, curly black hair, and a trimmed goatee against smooth brown skin. His demon form was something more monstrous and larger, and I was thankful I’d never seen it, but I’d heard stories. “You were wearing your pajamas earlier. Seemed like you were about to go to bed at,” he looked down at his watch, “8:30pm on a Friday night.”

There was a lot of judgement in that sentence that I did not appreciate. I narrowed my eyes at the orange-eyed demon in human form. “I was wearing pajamas while I was deciding what I wanted to wear to go out.”

They didn’t have to know that by going out, I meant strolling through Targets. I’d known both demon detectives for a couple of years, helping them with some of their cases. The Baltimore City police department often tried to recruit me full-time, but this was not how I wanted to live my life. However, with paranormal crime on the rise in our city, I couldn’t sit on the sidelines anymore. Which was why I was here on a Friday night.

“Remind me again, what happened and who he was?” I asked, looking down again at the body. Sadly, I was used to seeing corpses, some in much worse states, so this was not so upsetting to my stomach or psyche.

Carl cleared his throat, maintaining professional mode. He was average height and tanned with a buzz cut and wise demeanor, appearing to be in his early thirties. He was the more straight-laced of the partnership. “Victim’s name is Donovan Peters. Age 53. He was found burned to death in his car down an alley near a mini-mart off North Avenue. No witnesses. Nothing caught on camera.”

I grimaced. What an awful way to go. And he was in demon territory. That explained why Carl and Devin were looking into this. They were involved in any crimes related to demons or in paranormal neighborhoods.

The door opened to the morgue and a teary-eyed woman walked in. She was pretty, perhaps in her 40s, with a short black pixie haircut and a tiny frame. She dabbed at her face with tissues as a male police officer escorted her to the body. She looked down at the burned body, and her shoulders started to shake before loud sobs echoed in the room. “Donny, no.”

She reached for the body, seemingly not bothered by the now disfigured form of her dearly departed loved one. Carl stood in her path, carefully placing comforting hands on her arms. “Sorry, Mrs. Peters, we need to allow space for Ms. Newman to work and help find out who did this to your husband.”

Mrs. Peters paused and looked over to me on the other side of the table, her watery eyes confused. I supposed she didn’t know what I was about to do. It would be disturbing and downright scary.

“Hi, Mrs. Peters,” I began, giving a short, awkward wave. “I’m Daria Newman. I’m a necromancer. We’re going to bring your husband back for a short moment to find out what happened to him.”

Her eyes widened.

Necromancy was rare and cost an impressive sum to those who wanted its use. However, it still was shocking to observe, and most people didn’t encounter necromancers outside of the celebrities on reality shows. It was a rare skill and much sought after. I’d come from a particularly powerful line of necromancers who could restore the mind and body of most recently departed, but it was a draining endeavor, especially when it came to returning the being to full autonomy.

“It’s important you don’t speak,” I continued. “It will distract him, and we really need to get to the bottom of what happened.

She gave a wordless, wide-eyed nod.

Right, well, I guess it was time to get things started and help this guy get his justice. I hovered my hands over the body and closed my eyes. A slightly numbing magic tickled the tips of my fingers, racing up my arms and stopping at my shoulders. Seconds passed, and an electric current of air raised the hairs on the back of my arms and neck. I heard Devin whisper a swear word, obviously feeling the static air.

And then the silence of the room was pierced by an agonizing moan that would have terrified me if I hadn’t expected it. This was the cry of the dead whose mind was still wrapped in the moments of his death. I heard Mrs. Peters scream, and there was a bit of shuffling. I assumed she dropped to her knees or that she fainted. Not the first time that’d happened.

I opened my eyes and looked down at Donovan. A translucent cloudiness bled into the one remaining eye, no longer covered by an eyelid. His crusted, lipless mouth continued to belt the terror-filled cry. I dropped my hands and gently laid fingers onto his cold and leathery exposed arm. It was not a comfortable touch, but this wasn’t about me. It was about helping someone whose mind was still stuck in the horrors of being burned alive.

I had the powers to raise and control the undead. But most importantly, I had the power to help, and I would do just that tonight. “Donovan, it’s okay. It’s all over now. You aren’t in that car, and the fire is gone.”

His cries quieted to a choked sob, and then his tense shoulders relaxed. “Where am I?”

“Somewhere safe,” I stated. It was never a good idea to tell the undead that they were, well, dead . It tended to distract them from focusing on anything else, understandably.

Also, we didn’t have much time. While I could raise the dead, keeping them alive was another thing. I was pretty powerful, descended from a long line of necromancers, but keeping an undead alive still could be draining if I planned to keep controlling them. Sure, I could wake them and have them saunter off into the world, but that was like letting go of a rabid dog because most undead had no intellectual faculties without necromancy control. This could change if the undead being was particularly powerful in their own right or the necromancer could give control fully, and then the undead could be autonomous. I’d never done such a thing, and I wasn’t even sure I could, but I knew it was possible. Still, in most cases, necromancy involved raising the dead for a short time or with a strong hold over the being.

Donovan looked around with his one remaining eye. “Is this a hospital?”

Devin took a step forward. “Yes. And we’re detectives.” He gestured to himself and Carl. “We need to ask you a few questions.”

I eyed him carefully. Devin wasn’t new to this, so he knew how to ask the questions in such a way that it wouldn’t signify that the victim was dead. Asking someone ‘who killed you,’ while direct, was never helpful.

“Where’s Carla? My wife?” Donovan shifted on the table but did not try to get up. That was a good thing. We’d blocked his view of his surroundings with curtains, but if he tried to go exploring, it wouldn’t be helpful. Putting him in a proper hospital room was an option, but resources weren’t available, and if he tried to get out and saw himself or others saw him, well, it wasn’t going to be pretty. Plus, I was trying to keep my necromancing less public. It was a rare skill that tended to attract a lot of unwanted attention.

I looked up to Mrs. Peters and silently shook my head. While it would be a nice gesture to give her some closure with him, it could upset her more when I would have to send him back to death. People tended not to understand that they couldn’t keep the undead with them without my close supervision and control. They tried. I got offers of payments and gifts, but it was not work I wanted. Especially if I had to keep up control.

“Mr. Peters, we will contact your wife. However, we really need to speak with you,” Devin began, putting on a neutral face to hide his lie. “Someone tried to set you on fire in your car. Do you remember going to the mini- mart off North Avenue a few hours ago?”

Donovan scrunched his face, giving him an even more gruesome appearance beneath the burned skin. “Someone tried to set me on fire!?! Wait, shit, I remember. I had just grabbed something to drink and headed to my car. I heard what sounded like a woman singing, but it wasn’t in any language I knew. Figured it was from a car. As soon as I opened the door, someone came from out of nowhere calling my name.”

“Did you see the person?”

Donovan shook his head. “No, but I heard the voice. It sounded like my friend Kareem. But it was dark, and I felt like I was zapped with something before I could turn around, maybe like a taser. Then I blacked out. Next thing I know, I’m in my car and everything’s fucking burning around me like I woke up in hell.”

Carl, who had been taking notes on a small tablet with an electronic pen, looked up. “What’s Kareem’s last name?”

“Sullivan. He couldn’t have had anything to do with this. That’s my boy.”

“So, you didn’t have any argument? No reason to believe he would attack you?”

Donovan frowned. “Nah. ‘Cept, I was sure it was him I heard.”

Devin rubbed his chin. “If he saw you get attacked, he’d help you, wouldn’t he?”

“Yeah, man, but?” he paused. “No, wait, I was in the car when it was on fire. I looked out the windows and pulled at the door handles to get out. They were burning my fucking hands.”

He raised his hands, and I pushed them down so he wouldn’t see them and become suspicious. They were destroyed and nothing more than encrusted skeleton. He did not resist, under my control.

“What did you see when you looked out of the window, Donovan?” I asked.

“I saw Kareem standing at a distance. He had a skull cap on and was wearing all black. I was in this dark alley, and he was just standing there, staring at me at the end of the alley.” His voice became agitated as more of his memory started to return. “I’m fucking screaming for my life, and he’s staring at me with these lifeless eyes. And he seemed to be glowing some green aura around him. It wasn’t him. At least it didn’t seem like he was himself.”

No, it didn’t seem to make sense. The obvious next question would be if he had any enemies who would do such a thing, and the detectives asked. They asked if he’d ever done drugs, and he said no. The dead don’t lie. Unless under certain circumstances, this was not one of them. However, it nagged at me that he saw and heard his friend. It could have been a shapeshifter. Anything was possible. I wasn’t the detective. I just raised the dead so they could solve a crime. So far, it didn’t feel like I’d been much help.

“Why would he be green?” I asked.

There was a long pause before his burned face distorted to anger, but before he could respond, Mrs. Peters cried out. Not in sadness but more like a song. A wordless, melodic sound that seemed to wrap around us, inside our heads, ringing in our ears. It felt like a vice was squeezing my brain, pushing out my eyes. I covered my ears, scrunching my face at the intensity of the pain. Wetness seeped down my cheeks and from my ears. It dripped over my lips, and I tasted the bitter tang of blood. My blood. At this rate, my head would explode. I looked to Carl and Devin, who were also succumbing to the blinding pain, grabbing at their heads.

Mrs. Peters continued to sing, and it was no doubt that this chick was behind our pain. Just our luck, she was a banshee.

Carl placed a hand on his gun holster, but she turned to him, slightly shifting her note. He froze as if his body had become a statute. Devin raced toward her, but she sang a higher note, and he paused mid-run. Crap, she was going to kill us all.

“Sorry, I have to do this,” she sang the words, pressure building in my head. “But that fucking cheater had to go. I was good to him, and he never cared.”

“Get a divorce,” I spat.

I put a shaky hand on Donovan’s arm and looked at him. I didn’t need to direct him out loud. I needed to think, and he would follow.

Stop her. I willed in my mind to him.

Carla could control the living with her voice, but her singing would have no effect on the dead.

Donovan wasted no time and shot off the slab. He leapt onto Carla, tackling her to the cold floor and cutting off her singing. He wrapped his hands around her neck and squeezed. “It was you!” he snarled. “You tried to kill me.”

Clearly, he was still angry because he had yet to notice the state of his hands or body. Carla clawed at them with her own hands, eyes bulged, and I knew he was going to kill her if I didn’t stop him. But if she still had that voice, she would kill us. I’d never killed anyone or anything, and I was hoping to avoid that today.

The pressure around my head released suddenly, causing me to stumble to the side as if I’d been pushed. Movement from my left caught my attention, and I looked to see Carl, now unfrozen, raise his gun in her direction and fire. Her body stopped squirming under Donovan, eyes closing. I wasn’t sure if Carl had killed her; the bullet hadn’t gone in her head. Had I been indecisive for too long? Had Donovan killed her?

Devin sped past me and easily lifted Donovan off Carla, tossing the undead man across the room. “Thanks, Mr. Peters, for your time. Now go the fuck to sleep.”

He looked at me with wide, expectant eyes, and I snapped into action. It was time to take Donovan Peters back to the land of the dead. I jogged over to Donovan before he got back up and touched his shoulder, pushing my magic into him. In seconds, his body relaxed, and he was back to the corpse he’d been only moments ago.

“What the hell just happened?” I asked, standing up and walking away from the body. “Is she dead?”

Carl pressed fingers to her neck, searching for a pulse. “No.”

“What’d you shoot her with?”

“Tranquilizer gun.”

That made sense. Better than killing her. She needed to pay for her crimes. “Why would him mentioning a green aura set her off like that?

“Green aura means someone with mind control magic is controlling a person. Kareem might be a regular human, but Donovan was not. Records show he was a magic identifier.”

Being able to tell the type of paranormal a being was or magic a person had was a exceptional talent. “So, being a banshee, Carla was in the shadows using her voice to control Kareem and make him kill his friend? Why not just get a divorce?”

Devin nodded, walking over to Donovan’s body. He picked it up and laid it back on the slab as if it was nothing. “Guess she needed the life insurance?”

Carl walked over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder, eyes patient. “You did well, Daria. I’m not sure we could figure this out without knowing about Kareem and the green aura. This could at least prevent an innocent man from going to prison. Your payment is on the way. Sorry to interrupt your evening.”

My evening was interrupted indeed. I’d almost lost my life and was now a bloody mess. There were horror movies less exciting.

As we drove back to my place, I thought about how awful humans, or any being, could be to each other. It was a major reason why I decided not to go into necromancy professionally. It was draining to confront it all.

Devin turned slightly to me from the front passenger seat of Carl’s car. “So, that was fun, right? Better than staying at home with your books.”

I cut my eyes at him. “No, actually it was not. My books don’t try to kill me.”

“I know I always ask you this, but are you sure you don’t want to get into this full time? I heard necromancy is good money.”

It was ugly work, both physically and mentally. Some people, like psychics or even mediums, could make talking to the dead glamorous. But if you had to raise the dead to speak with those in the afterlife, it was never pretty work.

“I’m sorry, were we not in the same room just now? I had a banshee try to explode my head off my shoulders. This might be just another day for you, but it’s not my idea of a turn-up. I’m used to looking at the dead, but I don’t enjoy it. People always want to use you for more, and if things don’t go how they want, regardless of you warning them that it might be that way, it becomes thankless. They get mad if you can’t restore their loved ones back to the way they were before. I can’t repair someone and make them as beautiful as they were when they were alive. Not to mention the trying-to-murder-you thing for digging up secrets from the dead. That sucks. Also, it gets depressing to keep hearing how awful someone died. And how scared they are. Talking to children is the worst. I feel so awful for them.”

Not to mention that the dead were attracted to you like a moth to a flame. That was especially scary when I was a child and still learning my power. My family celebrated when our newly deceased rabbit, Rusty, dug out of his grave and bunny-hopped his way into my lap when I played on the swing in my backyard. I was six, and I peed my pants at the appearance of my dead pet. They were happy to see I had the gift, as they called it. I was nearly fainting and kept screaming and crying.

And it kept going all my life. Kids dared me to raise the dead in cemeteries, then ran and screamed when I did, telling others I killed people. Some hater spread a rumor in high school that I had a zombie boyfriend. I did some of the necromancing work with my family when I was in college, but a boyfriend told me I smelled of the dead, and he couldn’t get past it. He was actually a were panther with a sensitive nose, but my family made a living amongst the dead every day, so it was no surprise.

Carl turned onto my street, breaking my thoughts. I lived in an older apartment building on North Charles Street near the arts district. It was a relatively quiet area with cute neighborhood pubs and restaurants. While my building was not as up-to-date as other newer places, it at least had lovely hardwood floors, and my landlord let me paint the walls. Also, my neighbors were older and quiet—just the environment I needed for a night of reading.

“Well, it must be hard doing that work,” Carl began, “I don’t blame you for turning to baking instead.”

I shrugged. “Cupcakes smell better than death.”

Devin twisted back around toward me. “Speaking of sweets, you’re still making my wedding cake, right?”

I nodded. “Yes, your fiancée called me and said you both agreed on a caramel cake. Good choice.”

He grinned. Ever since he met his fiancée, Shante, I noticed his change. He seemed jolly, which wasn’t a word I’d ever used to describe Devin. I’d heard he’d toss cars in a fit of rage. That tended to happen with berserkers. It seemed Shante had made the difference.

I sighed. I wasn’t against finding a life-altering love myself. Until then, I guess it would be me and my safe and spicy romance books. A girl could dream.

And get a shower. I smelled like death, blood, and sweat. Not a good look.