20. Unmurder
twenty
Unmurder
Archer
“Itold you, you cannot keep taking the neighbour’s chickens!”
“Kraa!” Edgar shouts back at me.
“He’ll be over here, yelling at me about it!”
“Kraa!” Edgar throws back. And he’s right. This had to be fast, the animal had to be big, and for fuck’s sake, I could have really handled not having to resurrect anyone today.
“He was begging for it,” Simon drawls, the scent of his ghost cigarette acrid in my nostrils, which seems rather unfair since they’re not even bloody real.
“I don’t want to hear a word from you right now,” I seethe at him through gritted teeth, pulling Fabian’s legs out long, then shuffling up to adjust his head. “Did you really have to strangle him?”
“He wanted me to!”
“If he wanted you to jump off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge?”
“Well, I mean… probably.” He laughs to himself and Jesus fuck, I wish I could slap ghosts sometimes. This guy’s far more trouble than he’s worth every single day.
I dig my fingers into the soft feathers of the still-warm chicken corpse, drawing up its life essence.
“Oh, do you really have to?” Simon whines, suddenly in front of me on the other side of Fabian’s corpse. “Do you even know the last time I had sex like that?”
The energy drops out of me, back into the bird as I physically reject the words. “I don’t want to hear about it.
“He was so freshly dead and so… into it.”
“Shut up, shut up!” I press my eyes closed, sinking fingers into the chicken. I can’t lose the energy again, or I’ll have to send Edgar for another chicken. And Liam will probably be down here any second wondering where the hell I’ve gone. Then the jig will well and truly be up.
That blue energy rushes through my fingers, up my wrist, screaming through my veins, pressing my heart into that vise. My stomach folds in like I’m going to be sick.
But when I slam my hand down on Fabian, I already know it’s going to be easier than yesterday. Faster. He’s only dead, and newly dead at that. No bones to knit back together, no ripped and torn skin, no blood loss. Just a slightly crushed windpipe.
It still takes its toll. When his body starts to show signs of coming back, I feel my own weakening. Him taking it—taking my life essence. Taking a piece of me that I should have had days, months, years to replenish.
Nausea sweeps over me just as the breath rips into him and his heart comes alive again.
I throw myself back on the grass, gasping for air, just like Fabian.
Only Fabian gathers himself much quicker, like he’s woken from a dream.
His hands fly to his neck the second he’s upright, and he searches around, barely paying attention to me lying on the ground in favour of eye-fucking Simon. “You’re here?”
“Of course, darling,” Simon says with an infuriatingly flirtatious note in his voice.
Fabian reaches for him, his hand going straight through the well-tailored leg. Falling on the grass, he stretches out his own hand, as if he’d like to look straight through it, but instead sits there, wondering at the solidity of his human form.
Then he realises. Then his head snaps across to me. “You did this.”
My breath still coming laboured, I rasp out, “Yes, I did.”
“Then put me back!” He flings his eyes up. “Simon, put me back!”
“I’m afraid I can’t, darling. Boss here won’t allow it.”
“Why should he get to decide our fate?” He scowls at me like I just turned on all the lights at the high school dance, then implores Simon, “Don’t let him do it! He can’t come between us.”
Simon looks as confused as I am by the strange and sudden declaration, but handles it far more smoothly than I’m capable of. He drops down by his side and says, “It was but a summer.” Then fades out of view like an asshole, leaving me to deal with the mess.
“How could you do this?” Fabian wails at me, tears in his eyes.
“Archer?”
My head snaps across, and there’s Liam, just around the corner, frozen in his tracks, staring at us. I try to push myself up, but the world spins, and my shoulder falls hard into the grass, darkness filling my vision before the touch of Liam’s hands obliterates it. “Archer! What happened to you?”
“It’s nothing,” I lie. “Just ghost things.” Some truth there are least.
“Look at me!” Fabian half cries, half shouts. “I don’t want to live like this!” He jumps to his feet, twists in a circle, calling out, “Simon! Simon!”
And Liam, who obviously has no idea this guy was dead ten seconds ago, sits there with his arm around my shoulder, supporting me, not at all sure what to make of it.
But he doesn’t have long to think about it.
Very suddenly, Fabian stops dead, announces, “No body can hold me!” then darts, head first, towards the tree.
A split second later, he’s flat on the ground again, utterly motionless.
Fuck.