Dead Tired by Steve K Peacock

Author:Steve K Peacock [Peacock, Steve K]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Magister Books
Published: 2021-08-30T04:00:00+00:00

Four

Millie had bought an overpriced concoction from the Goths on the way out and was already regretting it. The overpriced honey-milk-burdock flavoured goo was actually helping with the pain in her throat and having a decent effect on the splitting headache that was still thumping away in her temples, which was really the final insult. How dare those charlatans sell something useful.

She held the flask in both hands and leant on her knees. The park was only fifteen minutes’ walk from the Goths’ shop, but it was as far as she could go before she needed a rest. The bench – dedicated to some local do-gooder who had died in the nineties – was nicely shaded by an oak in sore need of a tree surgeon. She felt a certain kinship with the manky old tree.

Once the oxygen had remembered how to reach the important parts of her brain again, she had found the hidden nuggets of wisdom in Death’s words easily. Maybe she was smart, or perhaps Death had just been unsubtly shoving the revelation down her throat. Millie had gone back and forth on which was most likely a few times.

Of course, van Ives was hiding something from her. Why wouldn’t she? The woman was public enemy number one, even if she had wanted to be forthcoming – which, again, why would she? – surely that was a personality trait that you had to cull if you wanted to stay one step ahead of the warlocks. Doubly so if you wanted to be a visible pain in their authoritarian arseholes at the same time.

But that didn’t exactly help her, now did it? Knowing someone was a lying rat meant nothing without being able to work around the lie. And she couldn’t do that without…

What was it Death had said about van Ives? Something about her ripping the head off a vampire?

Wingard had told her very little about vampires – we’ll deal with more local dangers first, before we look into the exotic – but he had taken the time to disabuse her of any lingering teenage romanticism brought about from the very sexy vampire novels that had clogged the public consciousness during her youth. Anyone who could overpower a vampire and rip its head off should have no trouble staring down a ghost. It wasn’t even as though Kaitlyn van Ives wasn’t known to be a consummate badass already, Millie had just let that sit by the wayside under the flattery of being recruited for her limited skills.

Christ, dealing with people was exhausting. Ghosts were better. Way more straightforward.

She took another gulp of the horrible but helpful drink. It coated the back of her throat nicely.

There were too many loose ends there for her to stitch this all together. Even if she could work out what omissions or outright lies van Ives had told her, she would still need to get her head around the whole murderous ghost-shoebox-battery-weapon thing, and that was completely new to her. She could focus on that first, though – no reason to believe that Death had been lying about that.

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