Free Queen of the Dead by Stacey Kade Page A

Brewster’s office. I took the opportunity to get a better look at her, and though I tried to make it as intimidating and hard a stare as hers, I doubted I succeeded.
    She was still wearing her worn-out cargo pants and combat boots. Silver duct tape was wrapped around the toe of one boot, seemingly holding it together. Her dark hair, which I had thought was going to give Alona fits earlier, still stood around her head in a halo, but now it seemed less a result of poor hygiene and more the product of wildly curly hair and possibly being jammed in the hood I could now see at the back of her shirt.
    “You know, I had you all wrong,” she said finally, using her toes to spin my chair a few inches in one direction and then back, over and over again.
    “What does that mean?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.
    She settled herself more comfortably in my chair, as though it were her own. “At first, I thought you were just a curiosity seeker, or some no-talent local out to see what he could see.”
    Um, ouch?
    “Then I thought you were maybe a Casper lover trying to interfere.” Her mouth twisted in distaste.
    There was that term again. I understood the meaning from the context—and clearly it was meant as an insult—but it was the way she said it, like it was a real thing. Some acknowledged piece of vocabulary I’d somehow missed during SAT prep.
    “But”—she leaned closer—“then I had some time to think about it, and you’re not any of those things, are you? You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”
    “Well, the no-talent thing was pretty clear,” I said.
    She grinned and something dangerous gleamed in her eyes, which, I noted with a bit of shock, appeared to be two different colors, blue and green.
    “Funny. I like that,” she said.
    And third time’s a charm.… “So what do you—”
    “I’m proposing an arrangement,” she said, choosing her words carefully.
    “Uh-huh.” Even I could hear the suspicion in my voice.
    “You help me out with a little something, and I give you information.”
    “Information about what?”
    She grinned again. “Everything you don’t know.”
    “What makes you think I don’t—”
    She pulled something small, shiny, and silver from one of her pockets, holding it up and waggling it at me. It was, I was fairly certain, the device that had saved my life by vanquishing Mrs. Ruiz right before my eyes. I could see it had buttons on the top and wires sticking out of one end, details I’d missed before. “Standard issue,” she said.
    “For who?” I couldn’t help myself from asking.
    She smirked. She knew she had me then.
    Then her expression grew more guarded. “First things first. You can see them, can’t you? I mean, better than I can.” Her mouth tightened as if admitting that last fact had actually pained her.
    I assumed she was talking about ghosts. “I don’t know. I can—”
    “You knew when my aim was off,” she said sharply.
    Boy, she was not fond of letting me finish a thought. “Yeah, but it wasn’t off by that much.…”
    “When they move, I lose them,” she said bitterly. “I can see them just fine while they’re still, but when they start moving around, I can’t get a bead on them.” She shook her head. “It’s like my eyes can’t keep up with my brain.”
    That was, oddly enough, something I’d never considered before, when I’d been thinking of the possibility that there would be other ghost-talkers out there. That there would be disparities in level of ability. Though it kind of made sense. Just because a bunch of people could play the trumpet didn’t mean they could all play it equally well, with equal aptitude for the high and low notes or whatever.
    She looked up at me with a glare, as though daring me to feel sorry for her. “I can hear them better than anyone, though. I heard the princess whining long before I ever saw her.” She scowled at me. “How on earth did you end up with that tagalong?”
    Somehow I