Free Romancing The Dead by Tate Hallaway

Sebastian.
    This was a very personal room.
    Reaching deep inside, I unlocked the door that held back my magical sight. Suddenly, the room swirled with the black tendrils of Sebastian’s residue energy. Darker spots hovered over places he’d lingered—one photo on the dresser was completely obscured. I resolved to look more closely at that picture once my work was done.
    I relaxed deeper into a meditative state and felt myself floating just above my body. Looking down, I searched for the thin thread that bound Sebastian and me. It was silver, worked through with gold and badly frayed. I ’d sensed that our empathic tie was growing weaker, and it was obvious in the astral plane. I gave the cord a tug, and felt the firmness of a connection. Sebastian was still alive, at least. If he wasn’t, there would be no resistance, and the cord would have come back severed. I was just about to pull myself along the cord when I started at the sight of a man standing in front of me. Tall and reedy, built like a farmer, he had mouse-brown hair and a day’s worth of stubble on his chin. He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him.
    “Garnet?” Though I’d never heard him speak before, I recognized his voice instantly.
    “Benjamin?”
    It was Sebastian’s house ghost.
    He looked as solid as the bedpost he leaned against. I ’d never seen him this way; it was like I ’d suddenly switched to highdefinition TV after years of rabbit ears and no cable.
    “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Are you dead?”
    “I hope not,” I said, glancing down at my body. Other than the fact that every time I saw myself like this I couldn’t help but think it was time to start getting serious about diet and exercise, I appeared to be breathing normally. “I’m looking for Sebastian.”
    “He’s not here,” Benjamin said. A scowl darkened his face. “But that boy of his is.”
    I smiled. “I don’t like Mátyás much either.”
    He grunted. “Sebastian changed the wards last week. Told me I had to let the brat in.”
    Last week? Sebastian must have done it as part of his plan to ask me to marry him. “You could always go downstairs and throw some things around,” I suggested mischievously. Benjamin was technically a poltergeist; he could knock pictures off the wall, flip light switches, and all that kind of annoyingly creepy stuff. “You know, rattle his cage.”
    “Gypsy boy might cast a hex on me,” Benjamin said in the direction of the stairs, with a shake of his head, but he didn’t sound really concerned. “Anyway, I promised Sebastian I wouldn’t scare his boy too much.”
    Lucky Mátyás, I thought. I never got the special treatment.
    “Heck, sure you do, ma’am. I’m under strict orders not to kill you.”
    Well, wasn’t that nice? “Uh, thank you.”
    “My pleasure,” he said kindly, though his eyes watched me darkly. His image flickered slightly, and I thought I caught the glimpse of a more sinister image beneath— something gaunt, empty-eyed, and hungry. Though it was gone so quickly, I wasn’t sure I hadn’t imagined it.
    “So, how are you fixing to find Sebastian?”
    “Oh,” I said, lifting the thread in my hand to show him. “I thought I’d follow this.”
    Shielding his eyes, he peered into the distance in the direction the thread seemed to be leading. “I can’t see the end of it. You sure it’s still connected?”
    I shrugged. “It’s all I have.”
    “Is he in trouble?”
    I was beginning to think so. I nodded.
    “You’d better go,” he said. “I’ll watch over this end of you.”
    I wasn’t entirely sure how comfortable I felt with that idea, especially given the way Benjamin stared at my naked body. On the bed, my body shifted as though in response to his predatory gaze. Quickly, I wove a protection spell triggered to wake me if Benjamin came within an inch of me. Sebastian might have asked him not to kill me, but he might have forgotten to include a clause about