Free Revenant by Phaedra Weldon Page A

well. It was still my usual—dark pants and shirt—but my bunny slippers had red eyes and fangs.
    And my nails—I’d seen those talons before. When I’d killed Rhonda in her uncle’s home. I’d seen this body before. And I knew that spread out behind me were wings so much like the ones I’d first had that same night, and again while battling the Horror.
    I didn’t know what they looked like. Not sure I wanted to.
    So once again I stood in my mother’s house, shifting my body from physical plane to Wraith. From human—to not so human. From innocent.
    To damned.
    Going OOB had nothing on this sensation. Before it was like stepping out of a second skin without feeling. Removing shades from my eyes so that I could see the shadow world around me.
    But like this? This was different. Like this I could feel. And I could smell and taste, and I could see. See things I really didn’t want to. Sense things just along a certain perimeter around myself. And as I stood there and changed and the world around me grew and shifted, I sensed something—
    What’s that?
    I opened my eyes and looked around the shop. Shadows moved and warped, some sprawled across the floor like dark dry ice, while other things—and there was no other phrase but other things —called out like haunted cicadas and a preternatural catbird.
    Yeah. Who knew the Abysmal plane had a sound track?
    I pushed up, rising through the ceiling, through my bedroom, and finally into the air above the shop. I hovered there, only slightly aware of my wings beating softly behind me. I could sense and see others below me, driving, getting out of their cars, grilling on back porches.
    It was June now . . . and summer was here.
    I should be grilling at my condo—long sold. Rhonda inside making her killer frappuccinos, Mom making roasted potatoes, with Dags outside with the—
    Wait.
    WTF?
    I said Dags, didn’t I?
    Shiiiitt. I mean Daniel. DANIEL. He would be outside grilling, and I would be happy and not bothered by any of this shit.
    ...
    It really bothered me that I said Dags.
    Skip it.
    It was June and damn hot. Let’s stick with that.
    And those below me? If they had noticed me at all, it would have been the distant beating of wings. No, I didn’t make that up. TC told me.
    Now the dogs? I could just breeze by overhead and set one of those things off in a New York minute.
    Something . . . I rose higher and hovered again. What was it I was hearing? Or smelling? Or both? It felt . . . familiar. But somehow . . . not.
    Will you stop fucking around?
    Cursing, I moved farther up and followed TC. I couldn’t really see him, but I could sense him. And though directionally if I wasn’t on a Georgia road, I would get lost. I don’t do aerial travel. So I just followed him and eventually touched down in front of the morgue.
    Parking lot was empty, kinda like it had been this morning. Even the Bentley was gone.
    “I don’t sense anything,” TC said. He stood in front of the double doors, but he wasn’t making any moves to go in.
    He might not have—but I was registering something. And it had the oogy meter of doom pushing into the red. It was that old smell again—something ancient.
    In fact—it felt a lot like—“Lex?”
    TC turned to me. “Who?”
    “She’s the—” But then I thought better of saying anything. Lex had gone through centuries hiding her identity. And since TC had a less-than-stellar opinion of First Borns—Revenants—in general, I decided it wasn’t my place to out her either. It was also apparent I could sense her and TC couldn’t, giving more credit to his story of how the First Borns burying themselves in humans made them difficult to find. “No, it’s nothing.”
    “You got something?” He looked back at the door. Why wasn’t he going in? I’d never known TC to hesitate.
    “No,” I lied. I wondered if Lex was inside. I assumed that if she was, then, being a Revenant, she could take care of herself around TC, right? I don’t