Queen of the Dead

What?

The strength of whatever was pulling me into Lily gave a great yank, tugging me down until my whole arm was part of her and my chin was melding with her shoulder. And I started to panic.

This force inside Lily’s body was slowly pulling me inside. I needed to get out. Now. My message would have to wait until later.

I tried to pull back and found I couldn’t even force myself into a standing position.

Crap.

“Jason, she’s here! She’s doing it right now,” Lily’s mom said excitedly into the phone. “You need to come see her.”

The voice on the other end said something I couldn’t hear over the roar of blood in my ears. The weak, light- headed sensation that usually accompanied my vanishing act was now cascading over me. By the strength of it, I was guessing I didn’t have much of me left below the knee. The power of my fear was dissolving me where I stood even as Lily’s body tightened its grip on what was left.

Lily’s mother frowned down at our hand on the board. “Nothing right this second, but she was just doing it,” she said into the phone.

The heart monitor in the corner beeped faster and louder now.

“Lily?” Mrs. Turner asked. “Are you still there?”

Calm down. Think happy thoughts. I had to stop the disappearing.

The suffocating heat closed over my face then, drawing me down, filling my nose until I couldn’t breathe.

I freaked and lashed out with everything I had left, tryingto break free…and my fingers, inside Lily’s, spasmed. That was it.

I heard the planchette skitter off the smooth wood, and Mrs. Turner gave an anguished cry. The heart monitor shrieked…and then nothing.

7 Will

“Are you okay?” Sam, my boss and my mom’s semi-boyfriend, stopped by the booth I was cleaning on his way back to the kitchen. “You haven’t said much today.” He sounded concerned.

“I’m fine.” Nothing that about ten hours of sleep and way less frustration in my life wouldn’t solve.

I’d chased after Alona when she’d fled this morning, but she was too quick for me, what with me actually having to open doors to get outside. Then I’d driven over to her mother’s house, thinking I might catch up with her before she got there, but no such luck. Either she’d gone somewhere else, or she’d gotten there faster than I would have thought possible and was already safely ensconced inside by the time I got there. It wasn’t as if I could ring the doorbell and ask for her.

While I was there, I couldn’t help but notice the small mountain of black trash bags at the foot of her mother’s driveway, lending credence to Alona’s story. Ignoring the strange looks from the few neighbors who were out and about, I’d snagged a few bags at random for Alona and tossed them in my trunk. Here was hoping I’d managed to grab something other than a week’s worth of her mom’s takeout containers or whatever. I hadn’t been trying to hurt her this morning. It was just…everything was so confusing now.

Then I’d come back home and spent three fruitless, grainy-eyed hours searching on the Internet only to find virtually nothing about any Order of the Guardians — other than a few vague allusions on a conspiracy theory message board — and way too many Blackwells in the St. Louis area.

Now what? I had no idea.

And Alona was furious with me. That couldn’t possibly end well. It wasn’t like her to be gone for this long, even if she was angry. Especially if she was angry. Her theory when it came to conflict was that it was only effective if the other person was made painfully aware of your perspective — emphasis on “pain”—until he or she had no choice but to surrender. And Alona was all about winning.

But right now, at a little after nine at night, it had been more than twelve hours since I’d seen her last.

“Do you maybe want to move on to a different table then?” Sam asked, drawing my attention back to the conversation at hand.

I looked down to find the once crumb-covered and syrup-sticky table gleaming and shiny wet. The booths on either side of me, which I swore had been full of people just a second ago, were now empty except for the piles of dirty dishes and balled up napkins for me to take away. How long had I been zoned out? I needed caffeine. Immediately. “Right,” I said. “Sorry. I just need some more sleep, I guess.”

Assuming Alona would let me. I envisioned a mob of angry ghosts gathering at my house — knowing Alona, in my freaking bedroom — right now.

“Well, go home, then.” Sam grinned. “You were due to clock out fifteen minutes ago anyway.”

“Oh.” Wake up, Will.

“I’m all for the extra help, but I think your mom’ll start getting nervous if you’re not home soon,” he said.

I nodded. He was right, as usual.

“Also”—he leaned a little closer—“just so you know, table sixteen has been staring holes through you for the last ten minutes.” His mouth quirked. “Whatever you did, I hope it was worth it.” He patted me on the shoulder and walked away.

For a second, my mind supplied the image of Alona glaring at me from the corner of booth, but I knew that wasn’t possible. Well, it was, but Sam wouldn’t have been able to see her.

I turned and counted tables until I reached the general vicinity of the teens. I still didn’t have the layout memorized, so I wasn’t entirely sure which one was sixteen.

Then again, it turned out not to matter because once I was close, I saw exactly who Sam was talking about. Mina. And “staring holes at me” was a polite way of phrasing it. It was more like if she could have set me on fire with a look, she would have done it and gleefully watched me burn.

What the hell? Like she had reason to be angry with me? That took nerve.

I dropped my washrag on the table and stalked across the restaurant to her booth.

“Thank God,” she said with an irritated sigh as I approached. “I was beginning to think I was going to need to rent a neon sign to get your attention.” She was still wearingthe clothes I’d seen her in last night, but she looked considerably more rumpled, and the faint stain of a bruise now darkened her left cheek. A half-empty cup of coffee sat on the table in front of her, surrounded by a half dozen empty sweetener packets.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “I thought you’d be home, celebrating your success and laughing at the dumbass you left behind to get caught.” Me, angry? No, of course not.

“Funny thing about that.” She smiled bitterly. “They were watching.”

“Who?” I reached for the knot at the back of my apron totake the thing off, so Rosalee, the lead server and technically my supervisor, wouldn’t interrupt us to bitch at me for “chatting” during work time. I hadn’t clocked out yet, but Rosalee would probably assume I had if I weren’t wearing the apron.

“Leadership.” Mina nodded tightly. “They said it was for my protection, but now…now I’m not so sure about that, considering they’re far more interested in you than theyare in the fact that I cheated.” She touched her cheek gingerly with an unhappy sounding laugh.

“I don’t understand,” I said slowly, and sat down on the opposite side of the table.

“It was a risk, one they couldn’t be sure would pay off, but it was only my life, my future at stake.” Mina shook her head.

“What are you talking about?”

She leaned forward across the table, her hair skimming the top of her coffee cup. “You should have told me who you were,” she hissed.

“I wasn’t the one who refused to give a name,” I argued back.

She laughed again. “Right. I should have just known. Sorry, but memorizing your family history has never been a top priority.”