It's ice-cold in the shadows,
one foot in the grave.
Devil Inside - CRMNL

I DIDN'T MEAN to smack my celebrity crush with a forearm crutch.

But ghosts shouldn't be allowed to sneak up on me, and it passed right through Blaize's head without injury. If only he found that comforting.

I didn't, either, but I wasn't about to admit it.

"What was that for?" Blaize reached up to sweep a hand through his perfectly messy locks, only for his translucent hand to phase through. If he'd had blood or veins, I was sure his ghastly complexion would've turned pink.

I blinked. My mouth fell open, but my words were as existent as his life. I'd never met a celebrity before, let alone a musician who'd consumed my life from his first single. My brain cells didn't know how to cope.

"You're Blaize Steele."

Genius, Sam. Great introduction.

With his knit brows and the nervous lick of his lips, he looked as thrilled as I felt—and as shirtless as I remembered. Spirits didn't change from the moment of their demise, whether they left our world fully intact or dismembered. But Death had been kind to a man who suffered from anaphylactic shock. Instead of a swollen face and splotchy skin, he had the same flawless complexion as he did on his fans' shirts. Purple dragged down his undereyes like bruises, but his irises remained bright as sea foam on a summer evening.

God, he was a beautiful man. A dead man, but beautiful nonetheless.

And he stared at me like I was the ghost.

It was the first time a spirit rendered me speechless. While I racked my brain for anything more coherent than calling myself a "romancer of necks," the cold moisture on my skin distracted me.

I had just showered. With the bathroom door open.

"How long have you been here?" I demanded, swinging my crutch above his transparent shoulder. The silicone tip pressed gently against the vanity mirror.

Blaize raised his hands in defense as if I could actually re-kill him. If I hadn't lost my job, then he'd have reason to fear. Now, I'd be lucky if I could bribe a low-level demon into giving tickle-torture.

"I didn't watch you."

Guilty as charged. "You were here the entire time. Invisible."

"Ghosts can turn around, you know."

I lowered my crutch from the mirror and slammed it back against the floor with a menacing tap. While my iridescent Styx had made the hotel clerk uncomfortable, they didn't have that effect on Blaize. Sympathy didn't pang his eyes. Only terror.

Even though he kept trying to run his fingers through hair that would never move and rub an arm that had no physical properties, he wasn't oblivious to his predicament.

"You know you're dead." It wasn't a question, but it was just as surprising.

Blaize's ocean eyes, still locked with mine, stared much farther away than my face. "Hard not to when you've stood over your own body."

He stepped forward. Violent cold shattered my bones as his wispy form merged with mine. The breath rushed from my lungs in a foggy gasp. My throat tightened; black spots blurred my vision. Everything was numb and dark. A sharp ringing in my ears drowned out all else, and before I knew it, my body went weightless.

Spirits' memories were always fuzzy, but Blaize's erupted with vivid detail. His body lay at my feet, his pale eyes open, skin red and splotchy, and with a pretty face more swollen than my last foster father's ego. Paramedics swarmed in dizzying circles, as if moving in both slow motion and hyperspeed. Every one that passed through my body rattled me with a new shockwave of panic.

They couldn't see me. Not the me that watched in horror as they hollered orders. They could only see the remnants of a beloved musician gone too soon.

I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead.

Blaize's thoughts melded with my own until I no longer felt myself. A voice that sang me to sleep most of my life was now mine, echoing endlessly in my head.

I'm dead.

And then, I was alive. The moment in Blaize Steele's afterlife dissipated with the chill in my bones. My breath no longer fogged as it rushed past my lips. The burning in my lungs continued, however, and my tongue still felt too large when it brushed against my teeth. I leaned into my crutches with legs that trembled more than my fingers.

Blaize sat carefully on the plaid-sheeted bed, bracing himself as if he would plummet through the mattress—which he could if he allowed himself. Spirits could pass through almost anything non-warded. But the gods must have felt kind when they determined the endless rules of non-living beings, because if not for their allowance of consent, Blaize would have sunk to the center of the Earth.

Guilt swam in my chest, mingling with the phantom reaction symptoms that threatened to steal my breath. Blaize, the heartthrob with a smoldering grin and eyes that could melt the Grinch's smallest heart, was the picture of misery. Yesterday, he had been prepared to perform for thousands of screaming fans.

Half-strung apologies churned in my brain. How did you apologize to someone you killed? It was different standing over someone's grave, whispering through tears. They were six feet under with no ability to reject your words. Closure was semi-attainable.

Apparently, even ex-necromancers were denied that luxury.

"I'm sorry."

Two words had never felt more pathetic.

"Not sure why." His breathless laugh caught me off guard. "Isn't like you did it."

And five more words had never felt so relieving. Did Blaize not know? The dead held worse grudges than the living, so strong that it corrupted them into aggressive entities. Necromancers weren't only good for raising the dead—since the Underworld's last layoffs, we became a task force for dealing with the overpopulation of angry spirits. Usually, we caught them once a few flickering lights and picture frames knocked off walls panicked whoever resided in their preferred haunt.

We didn't mention the times a necromancer was late. The housewife thrown across her home was physically fine, anyway—and it sounded like she was making bank off horror movie deals.

It was amazing how easily trauma turned into cash.

I approached the bed, trying not to look his way for more than a second. But whether it was to keep him from calling my bluff or me from getting lost in his eyes, I wasn't sure.

Ever since I was thirteen, I'd spent countless nights fantasizing over meeting him: the perfect outfit to capture his attention, the words that would make him remember me forever, the way he would sweep me onto his tour bus and drag me around like he did in the fan fictions I pored over until the sun rose. I wouldn't have to use those damn Styx anymore—he would carry me in his arms instead.

Being the failed necromancer to his sad ghost was not how I expected it to go.

"That's why they sent you, though," he said. "Isn't it?"

I stopped mid-step, blinking at the tilted lampshade on the bedside table. "What do you think?"

Deflection was key to gathering information I didn't have, but needed to appear like I did. He was surely desperate enough for answers to not question my passive response. I headed for the disrupted lamp to keep from giving away the nerves likely written across my face.

"You're a necromancer." Blaize stood so soundlessly that I never heard his echoing steps. He appeared in front of me, leaving wisps of evaporating, icy fog in his path. "I think you were sent to give me a second chance."

I gathered the bravery to look at him rather than through him. Blue mist swirled delicately around his form, emitting a chill that washed my skin in gooseflesh. He was nervous—afraid, even—and while his circumstance was more than enough reason to be, it didn't seem to be his undead form that brought worry lines to his perfectly chiseled face.

It was me.

"Not many humans know about us." I tried to play it cool, and while it wasn't my strong suit, Blaize's nerves must have left him blind to my clear tells—like my white knuckles gripping the crutch handle, or the way I swallowed much harder than needed. "You must have quite the story, Mr. Steele."

"Cade."

If my nonchalance was already cracked, his voice made it shatter. "Who's that?"

"This is a test." If Blaize's face could go pale, he would've blended with the off-white walls. "Of course Rinzor would test me. I promise, I know what I've done. He spelled the consequences out very clearly. You don't have to trick me into seeing if I'll weasel out of it."

Rinzor. The biggest bastard of a demon the Underworld had ever produced.

Was he the laziest asshole on this side of purgatory? Absolutely. But he was good at his job, tempting mortals into their worst desires and gobbling their souls like Reese's Pieces.

Composure felt a mile away. A cold sweat dampened the black of my neck, and I hoped it was indistinguishable from the lingering moisture from my shower. My stomach churned. If I didn't figure something out soon, I was going to literally shit myself in front of my idol.

This was so much worse than killing a random celebrity.

I tried to scoff, but it sounded more like I was choking. "Death enjoys being cryptic. If you think he's going to give sensitive information to us plebs, you clearly don't know anything."

It wasn't a lie. We always went into assignments with minimal information and even less of a plan. Nothing taught us to think on our feet faster than expecting a simple exorcism and walking head-first into a possessed WWE star with a machete.

Blaize's mist filled the space between us like the racing thoughts that clouded my brain. When he finally opened his mouth, the words poured out with bone-chilling fog.

"My real name is Cade Hawkins... and I sold my soul to a demon."