Page 2 of Definitely Dead (Happily Ever Afterlife #1)

Chapter two

T he scent of old leather and crisp pages filled the library, along with the strong odor of lemon and disinfectant. A hint of sweet magnolia lingered near the entrance, carried inside on the spring breeze as patrons came and went throughout the day.

Industrial air conditioners worked overtime, their loud hum heard throughout the building as they struggled to chase away the Louisiana heat. Behind the reception desk, a grandfather clock ticked down the hour, while creaks and groans joined the symphony as the place settled in for the night.

It was Sunne Tanaka’s favorite time of day.

He enjoyed interacting with the townspeople—whether that be discussing books or local gossip—but he always looked forward to closing time, when he had the library to himself.

A gentle rain pattered against the windowpanes, streaking the fogged glass and creating halos around the streetlamps outside. On the upper floor, a single light burned, casting shadows over the railing of the wide staircase.

Other staff members often claimed to feel unsettled in the place after dark, but Sunne had always found it peaceful. Soothing.

At twenty-four, books remained his first and only love. The real world could never compete with the thrill of an unsolved mystery or the lure of a well-constructed fantasy adventure. Besides, he understood books. The plot, the structure, the flow…it made sense.

People? Not so much.

As he moved about, reshelving books and dusting shelves, he tried to be as unintrusive as possible out of respect for the residents. While he had never actually seen a ghost, he remained a firm believer in the afterlife, and the library purportedly played host to at least three spirits.

He’d hate it if someone came into his home and started stomping around like a wounded rhino. He figured it only made sense to show the dead the same courtesy.

When he finished, he headed back to the circulation desk to retrieve a box of new arrivals. Thankfully, they had already been logged into the system and indexed. They just needed to be shelved in the restricted section.

According to the head librarian, they had always maintained a collection of spellbooks and magical reference materials. Miss Opal had told him that before the Awakening—when paranormals had come out of the secrecy closet—that kind of information had been hidden away like contraband.

Now, fifteen years later, the world had changed. Witches and elves came through the doors every day. The library hosted special nighttime hours twice a week for their vampire patrons.

At the same time, a lot of stigma still existed around magic. In an effort to serve the magical clientele while also navigating public opinion, Miss Opal had created a restricted section in an old conference room, away from casual browsers.

That way, people who wanted to access the books had the option. They just couldn’t remove them from the library.

Looking through the box, he chuckled at the odd assortment of new additions. A magical cookbook. A large tome on the history of magic and witchcraft in the South. A guide to communing with spirits. And a self-help book with a bright red cover and big block letters titled How to Hex Your Ex.

Retrieving the key to the restricted section from the center drawer, he slipped it into the front pocket of his jeans. With the box cradled in his arms, he made his way past the rows of bookshelves and quiet study areas to the back of the building.

Situated next to the public restrooms, the forest-green door with mahogany trim didn’t look remarkable or mysterious. If not for the Restricted sign posted on the wall beside it, no one would guess the room beyond housed anything more exciting than cleaning supplies and extra toilet paper.

Balancing the box on his hip, he unlocked the door and repocketed the key before turning the knob. The moment the door swung open, he knew something was wrong.

Heavy bookshelves lined the walls, interspersed with glass display cases, while cozy chairs and small tables filled the center of the room. His gaze was immediately drawn to a table by the arched windows, to the lamplight that illuminated the otherwise dark space.

Seated in a straight-back chair, a mane of strawberry blond locks tangled around her face, a young girl had her head bent over a stained leather-bound book. Though he couldn’t make out her words, he could see her lips moving, could hear her voice echoing in a frantic murmur.

She hadn’t noticed his arrival.

“Lizzie? How did you get in here?”

Elizabeth Nelsen had been a regular at the library since he had started working there. Sixteen now, with a new driver’s license and her own vehicle, her visits had become even more frequent since her birthday. And concerningly, had involved a lot of trips to the restricted section.

She didn’t look up or acknowledge him. Instead, she spoke faster, her cadence hurried and clumsy as she stumbled over words she clearly didn’t understand.

“Lizzie, look at me.”

Still, she chanted, her face so close to the book, her lips practically kissed the pages.

After placing the case of new releases on top of one of the display shelves, he shuffled closer, moving slowly so as not to startle her. Nearing the desk, he could better make out her frenzied mumblings, but it only raised more questions. He recognized a few words and phrases as Latin, but he didn’t know what most of them meant.

Judging by the charged atmosphere and icy temperatures that enveloped that corner of the room, however, he had a feeling it was nothing good.

“You need to stop.” He placed his hand on the edge of the desk but didn’t reach for her. “Lizzie, look at me.”

Instead, she mumbled even faster, her voice rising in volume, every syllable laced with desperation. Trails of vapor streamed from her lips as the temperature continued to plummet, and veins of ice encircled the spellbook, spreading across the surface of the desk.

While Sunne didn’t know exactly what she hoped to accomplish, he had a vague idea as to what had started her down this path.

The past year had been a dark one for the entire town, but especially for Lizzie, beginning with an accident on a construction site at the edge of town. Three men, including her father, had been lost in the tragedy, and the rumors that followed only made matters worse. It had started with whispers, with quiet speculation, but the ponderings had quickly grown louder and more confident with each passing day.

Many of the townspeople had blamed Lizzie’s father for the incident. Some claimed he’d been negligent. Others insisted he had known the risks but didn’t care. Whether true or not, it didn’t matter. Their musings wouldn’t change what had happened, and no one had stopped to consider the effect their words had on a grieving teenage girl.

Then, barely six months later, Lizzie’s mother had remarried, rekindling the gossip mill. While the town had collectively decided they liked her new husband, they disapproved of the timing of the union.

Not uncommon in a small town, where Saturday night mishaps made Sunday morning headlines. That didn’t make it right, though, and he would never understand that kind of callous disregard for someone else’s pain.

At the same time, no one talked about the fact that Lizzie had visibly lost weight, or that she looked paler these days. They didn’t mention that she had been skipping school frequently, or that her grades had been on a steady decline since the start of the new year.

“Lizzie, please stop. Talk to me. Whatever’s going on, this isn’t the answer.”

Ice crystals crawled across the carpet and up the walls, spreading like glistening spiderwebs. The windows crackled as the glass froze beneath an opaque layer of frost, and the light from the desk lamp surged and flickered.

A heaviness settled over the room, a physical manifestation of the magic Lizzie conjured. Sunne’s shoulder rounded from the weight, and pressure built in his temples as he fought to pull oxygen into his lungs.

Lizzie’s fingers had turned an inky black where they gripped the edges of the grimoire, the rot spreading across her skin like a disease. A trickle of crimson seeped from her nose and spilled over her lips, and while she didn’t seem to notice, Sunne couldn’t ignore it.

He had tried to be gentle, to give her agency to do the smart thing, to make the right choice, but he refused to watch as she continued to hurt herself.

“Enough!” Lunging across the desk, he reached for the book, only to be knocked back by an unseen force.

Lizzie’s head snapped up, her powder-blue eyes wide and glazed. She opened her mouth again, but no words came out this time. Only a rasping, inhuman scream that resonated through every corner of the building and rattled the windows.

Not knowing what else to do, Sunne rushed forward again, his hands reaching for the spellbook. Nothing tried to stop him this time. No magic forced him back, but the tome glowed with a blinding light as he tried to wrest it from her grasp.

The pages heated beneath his touch, scorching his fingers and palms, but he didn’t let go. “Lizzie, stop!”

Tendrils of green smoke curled from the book, as if the very words had been burned away, and a deafening, high-pitched whine filled his ears. The pressure in his head continued to build, the pain nearly unbearable, and every panted breath came shallower than the last.

They wrestled for control, Lizzie fighting him with an unnatural strength. Fire seared through his hands and up his arms, though it felt more like being burned from the inside out. Still, he kept fighting.

“Give it to me, damn it!” Tensing every muscle, he yanked on his half of the book, rending it right down the middle.

A heartbeat of stillness followed, a sigh before the storm.

Then he was flying, soaring backward through the air from the force of the explosion.

Glass shattered. The walls cracked. Shelves toppled, spilling their contents across the floor, and the library groaned as it shook from the blast.

And then…quiet.

Dust from the crumbling drywall floated in the air, the particles illuminated by the streetlights outside. A humid breeze swept across the destruction, rustling the pages of open books, and rain soaked the carpet beneath the broken windows.

Sprawled on his back on the other side of the room, Sunne closed his eyes and tried to assess the damage. Surprisingly, however, he felt fine. The pressure in his head had vanished. His chest didn’t feel like it had a boulder sitting on it anymore, and his hands had stopped burning.

He moved, only a little at first, but grew more confident when everything appeared to be in working order. No broken bones or aching muscles. No weird pains or bleeding lacerations. Nothing that would indicate he had just survived a magical attack.

“Lizzie?”

With a gasp, he clambered to his feet, squinting into the darkness as he searched for the teenager. It didn’t take him long to find her beneath a broken desk, her hair fanned around her head, and those bright blue eyes open but unseeing.

“No, no, no. Lizzie? Lizzie, say something.” He rushed to her side, his heart lodged in his throat. “You’re okay. Everything is going to be okay.”

He reached for the splintered wood, intending to lift it off her, but froze when his hands sank right through the surface. What the fuck? Shaking his head to clear it, he tried again. And again. Each time with the same confusing results.

“Sunne?”

He jerked around, his eyes rounding when he found Lizzie standing by the closed door, her expression a mixture of guilt and confusion. His relief lasted for only a moment, though. Glancing back at the lifeless body on the floor, his heart sank as his mind reached for an answer it couldn’t quite grasp.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just wanted to talk to my dad. I didn’t mean to…to…”

“Hey, it’s okay.”

It wasn’t. Not even a little, but what else was he supposed to say?

Stepping over broken furniture and torn books, he reached out, relieved when his hands didn’t pass through her like they had the desk. He pulled the girl into his arms, offering her comfort in the only way he knew how.

“Everything is going to be okay.”

“Indeed,” came a deep, rumbling voice from behind him. “Everything will be fine now.”

Spinning on his heels, Sunne held his arm out, ushering Lizzie behind him as he eyed the male standing in the middle of the room. At least a head taller than him, his wide frame blocking the light from the center window, the newcomer arched an eyebrow, returning his assessing gaze with a haughty grin.

“You have questions,” he surmised.

“A few,” Sunne confirmed, pushing Lizzie back toward the door. “Who are you?”

“My name is Bane. You can think of me as your personal Reaper, here to escort you to the afterlife.”

“The…” It took a second too long for the words to register, but when they did, Sunne immediately began shaking his head. “No, this isn’t right. She’s just a kid.”

“A dead kid.”

Tactless much? “Look, just take me.”

“I plan on it.”

“But let her stay. She doesn’t deserve this. She didn’t know what she was doing.”

“Debatable.”

Somehow, he didn’t think punching a Reaper in the face would end well for him, but that did nothing to tame the desire. “Will you just listen?”

“No. Now, are you coming or not?” Bane lifted his arm and glanced down at his bare wrist. “I have places to be. Other souls to reap.”

Sunne straightened, his eyes narrowing and his chin jutting in defiance. “You’re kind of an asshole, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.” Bane dropped his arm and adjusted the cuffs of his dark suit jacket. “Ready?”

“No, I’m not ready .”

“Sunne, it’s okay.” Gripping his arm, Lizzie pushed it down to his side and stepped forward to stand beside him. When she spoke again, it was to the Reaper. “Will I get to see my dad?”

Bane’s eyes softened, and the hard lines of his face relaxed into something almost kind. “That’s not for me to say, but you certainly won’t find him here.”

“Then I’m ready.”

“Wait.” Sunne held his hands up. “Just pause for a second, okay?” Taking Lizzie by the shoulders, he pulled her around to face him. “Think about what you’re saying. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

“Not to be a stickler for details, but she really doesn’t.”

Sunne shot the Reaper a cold glare, but otherwise ignored him. “What about your mom?”

Her smile was a little sad, a little self-deprecating, but she didn’t look afraid. “She has Andrew now. He’ll make sure she’s okay.”

“But what—”

“Sunne, I didn’t mean for this to happen, but it did. It’s over, and we can’t take it back.”

“Listen to her,” Bane interjected. “She’s smart.”

“I’m just so sorry you got caught in the middle of it,” she continued. “If anyone should get to stay, it’s you.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

Yeah, being dead kind of sucked, but it honestly wasn’t the worst thing to ever happen to him. Hell, he doubted anyone would even notice his absence.

“Look, I really do have to go. You can come with me and have a shot at a pretty decent afterlife, or you can stay here and haunt the library.” Bane pulled his shoulders back and adjusted his scarlet tie. “It’s up to you, but decide now.”

As much as he loved the old library, he had no wish to become another footnote in the town’s mythos. Besides, the great beyond was supposed to be all singing cherubs and streets paved in gold. How bad could it be?

Taking Lizzie’s hand, he nodded. “Okay, we’re ready, but when we—”

The rest of the sentence became lodged in his throat when the library dissolved, the walls melting around him, leaving him standing atop a hill of black sand. Granted, he had never teleported before—or died, for that matter—but somehow, he had expected the experience to be…different.

“Damn,” Bane muttered. “Overshot the landing.” Then he shrugged and turned away. “Oh, well. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” He glanced over his shoulder and tipped an imaginary hat. “Good luck.”

“Wait, this isn’t—” But the Reaper was already gone, vanishing without so much as a disturbance of the air. “Asshole.”

“What do we do now?” Lizzie asked, her fingers digging into the top of his hand. “Should we ask someone?”

“Who? Where?” All he saw was endless miles of onyx sand and a vast river aglow with a haunting blue light.

“Um, Sunne?” She tugged on his hand. “Turn around.”

“What are you—oh.”

Okay, he hadn’t expected there to be a whole ass town in the middle of the nothingness. Although “town” might be a bit too generous. He would barely call it a village. A settlement, maybe?

While it did, indeed, have streets, they were paved with smooth stones rather than gold, and he didn’t see a single chubby-cheeked angel in sight, singing or otherwise.

He couldn’t deny it. He was definitely dead, and frankly, the entire experience was vastly underwhelming.

Still, he supposed it could have been worse. They could have been dropped into the full fire-and-brimstone experience. So, silver lining and whatnot.

“Come on.” Smiling, he gave Lizzie’s hand a light tug. “I’m sure there’s someone here who can tell us what’s going on.”

He had taken only a single step, right onto the edge of the stone street, when a mountain of a man emerged between two of the rickety buildings. With thick, corded muscles and a permanent scowl etched into the lines of his face, he had danger written all over him.

But he also happened to be the only person in sight.

“Hey,” Sunne said, adopting the same cherry expression he used to greet patrons at the library. “We’re a little lost.”

The guy paused at the mouth of the alley, his big frame visibly tense. A thick beard covered the lower half of his face, obscuring his features, but his eyes pinched at the corners as if Sunne’s very existence offended him.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” the stranger said, his voice quiet with a hint of gravel.

Obviously. He thought he’d made that clear. “Right. So, uh, if you could just point us in the right direction, that would be great.”

The man’s eyes—one a deep, rich brown, and the other a bright, burning amber—flickered to his and Lizzie’s clasped hands, and a low growl sounded from his chest.

Okay, weird, and kind of rude. Sure, the guy was stupid hot, but he really needed to work on his people skills.

Lizzie immediately shook off his grip and took a measured step to the side, creating distance between them.

Sunne sighed as he shot her a wounded glare.

“Traitor,” he muttered from the side of his mouth before focusing on the male again. “Anyway, if you could just tell us where we’re supposed to go, we’ll be on our way.”

“Hey, Tyr, wait up.” Another muscle-bound male dressed in solid black jogged out of the alleyway, pausing across the street when he spotted Sunne and Lizzie. “You’re new.” Striding forward, he offered his hand, his lips stretching into a grin. “I’m Rune. Welcome to the Underworld.”

“I’m Sunne.”

He reached forward but froze when the other man—Tyr, apparently—growled again. Tired, confused, and just wanting answers, he pulled his hand back and huffed out an irritated breath.

“Seriously, what is your problem?”

Tyr’s entire body trembled, from anger or something else, it wasn’t clear. A pale light glowed from his dual-colored eyes, and his upper lip peeled back to reveal an impressive set of elongated canines.

Scary.

Kind of hot.

Utterly unhelpful.

“Well?” Sunne demanded. “Say something.”

Another deep, harsh growl spilled from his lips, and when he finally spoke, it was only a single word.

“Mine.”