Free Shadow Burns: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Preternatural Affairs Book 4) by S.M. Reine Page A

the direction of the rec hall.
    The orderly.
    I moved to put myself between Isobel and Nichols, lifting my hands. I wasn’t sure if it was in a soothing gesture or a defensive one.
    How are you supposed to deal with a dead assailant?
    He emerged from the fog, just as gray-skinned and dead as he had been the last time I saw him. He was ephemeral, a piece of the colorless nothing surrounding us. Didn’t even make the grass move when he walked through it.
    I’d seen zombies before. Hell, I’d given one a freaking makeover, trying to make her look like she was still alive. I knew what zombies looked like.
    This guy looked a lot more like a ghost than a zombie.
    No such thing as ghosts.
    “Hey there, Nichols,” I said.
    He wasn’t looking at me. Isobel had the entirety of his attention. “No hope,” Nichols said again. “You shouldn’t have ever come here. You know what has to happen now.”
    “Actually, we don’t.” I kept my tone level, same way I talked to any crazy person, living or dead. “Want to enlighten us? Tell us what you did in the basement and how to fix it?”
    He gave a wet sob. Black fluid trickled afresh from the hole in his forehead. “I had to do it. He said he could break me from the contract, but he didn’t want me—he wanted her . She’s the only one he took for himself. He didn’t care about me at all.” Nichols took a step toward Isobel, but he stopped when I pushed her behind me. “Ander smelled you on this guy. You were screwed the instant someone called in to report ghosts.”
    It sounded like he was getting personal with Isobel, like he already knew her. “What’s he talking about, Isobel?” I asked. “Who’s Ander?”
    Before she could respond, Nichols said, “Isobel? Is that your name now?” He looked so confused.
    She screamed and hurled herself at him, brandishing the antenna from the car.
    “Jesus, Izzy, stop!”
    She didn’t listen to me. She slipped out of my reach before I could seize her arm.
    The antenna came whistling down, and she smashed it into the man’s shoulder. It made a pretty solid noise connecting with his pale form. Like, clavicle-breakingly solid.
    I wasn’t exactly an expert, but I was willing to bet that ghosts wouldn’t have had clavicles to break if they existed.
    Nichols dropped to his knees. Isobel whipped the antenna across his face, snapping his head to the side.
    “No hope! No!” he cried.
    He seized her wrists. Dragged her down with him.
    They scuffled in the grass, Isobel raining blows on his face, Nichols tearing at her hair.
    I tried to rip her off of him and earned a kick in the shin. Couldn’t tell whose foot that had been. I didn’t back off. Dead or not, Nichols was a lot bigger than Isobel—he could hurt her.
    She managed to roll on top of him, pinning him down as he beat at her shoulders with his fists. She panted as she wrenched one of the feathers out of her hair. The tip glinted with metal like a quill, though it had a needle instead of a nib.
    That didn’t look like an ordinary hair decoration.
    Nichols tossed her off of him. The sound Isobel made when she hit the ground got every one of my protective instincts raging.
    It wasn’t in me to stand back while a woman got her ass kicked, even if she seemed up for the fight.
    I put the orderly in a headlock. He felt real enough. Solid and bony. His skin was slippery, like a fish without scales. “You’ve got to talk now,” I said to the struggling man in my arms. “How do we get out of here?”
    If he planned on answering me, I’d never know.
    Isobel got to her feet. Her cheek was a brilliant shade of red where Nichols had landed a blow. She lifted the needle-tipped feather and snapped her arm forward with all the speed of a striking snake.
    The point buried into Nichols’s chest with a thunk .
    And he died instantly.
    His glassy eyes rolled into the back of his head. He went limp. The sudden weight made me sag, and I dropped him to the grass.
    Nichols didn’t move