LITMIR.BIZ

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got tired of kissing him), he got out and opened my door for me. The second I stepped out of the car, a strange chill breeze wrapped itself around me. All the hairs on my arms stood up in response. Shivering, I hugged Lend tightly, ignoring my bruises.

      “Don’t do it, okay?” he whispered.

      “Do what?”

      “Work for IPCA again. Just—just don’t do it.”

      I looked up into his face. “What if I can do some good?”

      “You’re doing enough good being yourself. I worry about what might happen to you.”

      I frowned, making a noncommittal noise, which he seemed to take as an agreement, judging by his smile. “I’ll see you Saturday.” He kissed me again and then waited for me to walk up the steps before getting back in his car and driving away.

      Long-distance relationships? Suck. Majorly.

      Sighing, I walked in and through the brightly lit diner. David bought On the Hoof a decade ago as a front for his paranormal-hiding operation. It provided jobs for paranormals in need and a good place for everyone to meet and keep track of one another. The decor was cheerful, a slightly tired fifties theme. Nona, the manager, waved at me, her gorgeous blond glamour hovering over oaky brown skin and greenish, mosslike hair. Allegedly she lived in the upstairs apartment with Arianna and me, but really she went back to the forest at night, setting down roots until the sun came up. Tree spirits—another species of paranormals I’d never met on bag-and-tag duty at IPCA. I was all about the violence and mayhem back then.

      I nodded distractedly at several of the regulars, mostly vamps and werewolves, noting yet another new paranormal I’d never met, who made my heart hurt a little—she looked like a cross between Lish and a human, complete with gills on her neck and fins lining her bare legs beneath the glamour. Lately we’d been seeing more and more species neither David nor I had ever come across.

      Come to think of it, a lot of new paranormals other than the werewolf or vamp variety had been visiting Nona, hanging around the diner or meeting her out back. And the sylph was certainly new. Maybe Nona would—

      I shrieked, narrowly avoiding tripping over the kitchen gnome, a particularly grouchy specimen named Grnlllll. At least, I think that was her name. Or his name. Hard to tell with gnomes. Maybe that’s why she—he?—hated me. The glare seemed pretty feminine, though.

      The desire to get away from Grnlllll’s baleful looks outweighed my desire to talk to Nona, and I slipped through the kitchen door. Upstairs at last, I collapsed onto the faded, floral couch.

      “Evie?”

      “Yup.”

      Arianna skipped into the room, a glass in her hand. I deliberately did not look at what was in it. I never avoided looking at Arianna, though, even if her shriveled corpse body beneath her normal glamour (if you considered freakishly white skin and spiked red and black hair normal) creeped me out like all vamps did. It hurt her feelings, and despite our rough start last spring, I really did think of her as a friend. It wasn’t like she asked to be what she was, and she never drank human blood. Plus, she could be pretty fun when she wasn’t pissed off at me.

      “Big afternoon?” Arianna settled onto the love seat and grabbed the remote, turning the television to our show.

      “You could say that.” I rubbed my tender hip, wondering how black and blue I’d be in the morning.

      “Okay. Loser does dishes for a week. I bet Landon and Cheyenne hook up but have a fight and break it off by the end of the episode.”

      Trying to sound more enthusiastic than I felt, I countered. “No, Cheyenne rejects him because of some misunderstanding, and he starts shooting up again.”

      “You’re on.” Arianna leaned forward, devouring the drama playing out on the screen in front of us.

      I looked forlornly at the ceiling, trying to ignore the faint tingling sensation in my fingertips. I knew I should listen to Lend, stay away from IPCA, be grateful for my normal, boring life. I should live for the weekends, when I got to see him, and ignore the nagging pain always pulling at the back of my mind that it didn’t matter how much time I spent with him, how much I loved him, he could never really be mine because I was temporary and he was forever.

      I was fine. This was enough. Besides, Lend didn’t want me to help IPCA.

      But Lend wasn’t here, was he?

      

      

up,” a voice like water rippling over rocks whispered in my ear. I smiled and reached out my arms until I found Lend’s neck. I knew what I would see when I opened my eyes—almost nothing. My Lend in his true form. Squinting against the midmorning light, I looked into his water eyes.

      “Good morning,” he said, and I melted.

      “Morning.” I tried to pull him down next to me, but he laughed and ducked out from under my arms.

      “Get up, lazy. Unless you want to sleep instead of hanging out with me?”

      “I don’t know.” I closed my eyes again. “I am pretty tired.”

      He answered by tossing a pillow onto my face. I laughed and rolled out of bed, brushing my teeth and changing while he chatted with Arianna out in the living room. My room was tiny—a glorified walk-in closet, really—but I’d painted the walls “obnoxiously pink,” to quote Arianna. I missed my posters from the Center, but I was slowly making the place mine. Sketches from Lend took up most of the free space, which made me feel like he was around even when he wasn’t.

      “Of course I’m a necromancer,” Arianna explained to Lend. She was sitting in front of the sleek desktop, her favorite game running. “It’s ironic. In real life I’m one of the hordes of the living dead, and in my online life I control them.”

      She spent nearly every daylight hour there, running quests with violet-skinned, scantily clad digital cohorts. A few weeks ago I was annoyed at never being able to check email and snarked that she should find something productive to do with her time. She made a point of showing me just how long a vampire can go without moving from a single spot.

      It’s a long time.

      But even worse, a couple of days into her sit-in, I overheard her sobbing. I haven’t mentioned anything since about how she uses her time. Having eternal life seems like a cool enough idea, but having it forced on you in that form? Not so much. Immortals like Nona try out being humanish every now and again for fun, but they were built to be forever. People weren’t, and Arianna’s corpse body under her glamour was a constant reminder to me of that.

      “And that’s why I had to kill him—the Knife of O’orlenthaal should have been mine all along, the little skunk. Now we have to fight his guild, which is where my ability to raise armies of the dead comes in handy.”

      “So what you’re saying is, you’ve been busy.” Lend grinned at her, and Arianna laughed. She treated him like a little brother. Lend, in turn, treated her like she was totally normal. I loved that about him; he took every paranormal at face value, and I could tell that it meant the world to ones like Arianna and most of the werewolves, who struggled with what they were. Lend had an amazing knack for balancing paranormal and normal and making everyone feel like they belonged.

      “Totally busy. I also designed a few dresses—those reality show morons have nothing on me.”

      “I’m telling you, start a website! You could make everything here and then sell online. You show me your dress sketches, I’ll make the site, and you and Evie can model.”

      Arianna shrugged, squirming in her seat. She had been in fashion design school when she was changed. Lend was always trying to get her to pick it up again, but for some reason she never went through with it.

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