Page 1 of Hot Ghoul Summer (Pine Ridge Universe)

D eath takes a vacation.

No, literally, every year, I get use of the “family” beach house at Silver Shores on Lake Erie.

First person to make a joke about Death and Erie (eerie) gets a year off his life.

(I’m just kidding! Like I would do that!)

Anyway, I usually work the Scranton, PA, to Pine Ridge, NY, corridor, following the northeast Ley Line to the triple intersection in Pine Ridge. That’s a good place to live if you’re in the supernatural business, which I am.

But I’m a member of RMGA Local 17 (the Reapers, Morrigans, and Guardian Angels union), so I take my two weeks’ paid vacation every year, like clockwork. I make sure I get my zone covered by my pal Sera, the morrigan who works at the funeral home in Pine Ridge, and I head to the beach.

I don’t really tan, but I love the fishing, and for a few weeks, my life as Death is just another job.

Okay, I bet you have questions.

There are many Deaths—big D or little d. Death comes to pretty much everyone—although if you are very, very good at making deals, you might get to skip your own and take the job of a Reaper. That’s what happened to me a long, long, looong time ago. (1640. Debtors’ prison. I wasn’t so good at deals back then.)

Anyway, to make a long story short, the Death that came to collect me had just had his wife and sons die in an outbreak of plague, and he wanted to hand off the job to someone else so he could join them. He explained that it was a very demanding job, but it didn’t have to be scary. Reapers in his department—yes, even back then, they had departments —were responsible for tracking the souls of the righteous who were ready to sever from their shells, meeting them when it was time for them to depart, guiding them from this life to the immortal plane, and handing them off to one of the Guardian Angels (who weren’t in our union back then), before slipping back down to the mortal coil to start the process all over again.

So, don’t think of me as some big scary guy with a scythe. I’m sort of scrappy looking, scruffy even, and my tool of choice is a switchblade. All right, yes, I do look a little rough, and I still have a bit of a Fish and Chips accent even though it’s been almost 500 years, but I’m a sweetheart. I’m a guide dog, basically. I make sure you don’t have to go alone when you’ve gotta go. I’ve gotten outstanding rankings for empathy, efficiency, and expertise for the last forty years!

I’m only the thing in your nightmares if you mess with me or someone I care about. And I don’t have anyone I care about.

Well. Until yesterday.

See, yesterday, I was out fishing and fell asleep in the rowboat. I must have drifted a little bit, and when I woke up, confused, I was under one of the piers.

Above me, I could hear the most blasphemous language and someone getting the absolute shit kicked out of him.

I went invisible (handy) and slipped up between the worn wooden slats in time to see a man sliding his brass knuckles back into his pocket. He pulled out a gun from the other one.

“Sorry, Gary. I want something for my time and money. And since you don’t have it—”

“I—I have something better! I have something much, much better.” The bleeding, sobbing mess at the man’s feet flung his cracked phone toward his attacker—and me, as I stood behind him.

My heart doesn’t beat, but for a second, it leaped.

She looked like Molly, the girl who lived in the street next to me when I was growing up. Coppery brown and blonde curls framed her pretty heart-shaped face. Wide mouth. Freckles. Laughing, sparkling eyes.

Molly made over again, half a millennia later.

Well, obviously not, but my heart didn’t know that.

“Your phone? I don’t want your piece of shit phone.” The thug stamped on it with his boot.

“Not the phone. The picture! The girl in the picture. My stepdaughter, Martina. We call her Molly.”

“Holy switchblades.”

I slammed my invisible hand over my mouth. Yes, I said that out loud.

Both men on the pier froze.

“Did you—”

“Talk, Gary. What about this pretty little fresh-faced thing? How old is she?”

“Twenty-something. A nursing student at Penn State. I—I’ll bring her to you. She’s got a body that won’t quit. I know. It’s the reason her mother left me. Caught me looking too many times.”

I flexed my hand, and my blade was suddenly in it, hot and glowing red.

I was about to violate my contract. But I’m too old not to know a sign when I see one, and that was a sign.

God, there’s going to be so much paperwork.

“So... you, you piece of scum, would give me your ex-wife’s daughter to settle the score?”

“Hey, better her head than mine. Besides, you won’t kill her. She’ll walk away when you’re done with her. Right?”

The other man didn’t say anything for a minute. I flexed my other hand, and the thug’s scroll appeared in my palm. Everyone has a scroll—even me.

Nicky Cross.

Yeah. He wasn’t one of mine. He wasn’t even handled by my union. He’s supposed to go to Local 49 of the DHR. (Demons, Hellhounds, and Reapers.)

So, so much paperwork.

I might get fired.

“She might not walk away, motherfucker. You think I’ll let her live after I’m done with her? After my boys go through her?”

Well. That was it.

Like lightning, I zoomed forward and punched through Nicky Cross’ chest, my blade snipping his soul right outta him.

I let it fall through the cracks in the planks instead of picking it up with the tender, loving care I usually show my clients. One of the boys from DHR will find him soon, wandering around lost, terrified, and eleven years too early.

Good.

“Nicky! Nicky? Oh, God.” Gary sank back on his haunches, wiping blood from his face, breathing out shaking, metallic-smelling sobs. “Oh... Good.” The panicked sobs slowed.

I went solid and visible, and he screamed.

“Nicky just had a heart attack. I’m taking over.” I let him see the knife in my hand. To him, it probably looked like a machete. Maybe a machine gun. I didn’t care enough to calm his fears, so he saw whatever he dreaded most.

“You—you want Molly?”

“No. I want you,” I snarled, lunging—and then I stopped.

I stopped and did a horrible, terrible thing that is definitely going to get me fired.

“I want you—but I want Molly here first .” I pointed in the direction of the old family beach house. “Bring her to 34 Silverlake Way by tomorrow, and I might let you live.”

For another day or two. I wanted Molly to be safe. I hadn’t had time to pull up this dude’s scroll, but I knew his type. He’ll always be in trouble, and now that he’s thought of a way to get out of it by offering someone else up as his scapegoat, his stepdaughter would always be on the menu. She’ll never be safe.

But... But maybe she could be safe with me. Maybe she’d even learn to like me a little.

Or a lot.

Maybe she could be the reason I quit this job someday, so I can have a forever with someone.

Don’t call me crazy. I’ve been around for half a millennia. I know stuff.

I knew that I hadn’t felt anything like that in centuries, that my heart zoomed back into my chest and took over just from a glimpse of her picture on a cracked phone screen.

“Wh—what are you going to do with her?”

I sneered. “Funny that you asked me, but not Nicky. Trust me, I won’t do anything worse than you would do.” No. I’ll do so much better. I’ll keep her safe—and if at the end of my vacation, Molly wants to leave, she can leave.

I’ll just go back to living my unlife, alone. She’ll get to have a nice, long life without looking over her shoulder. I’ll do that for her.

And I’ll make sure dear Gary joins his associate pretty damn quick.

“Don’t ask any more questions. I could kill you now and solve all of our problems,” I whispered, twirling the blade expertly in my hand. “You can choose. Option one, Molly, at that address by midnight tomorrow. Option two, you, in the water with Nicky Cross in five minutes, because that’s where I’m going to shove his filthy corpse in a moment.”

That last bit was a bluff. I like to catch the fish here and I didn’t want to contaminate my dinner.

The bluff worked. Gary scrambled away. “I’ll bring her! I swear!”

I let him run. He limped and stumbled, one arm flopping. Broken. Battered. His hair was matted with blood, and his trousers reeked of urine.

When Gary made it back to a dented Chevy two-door, I suddenly popped in the passenger seat.

His scream was pure delight to my angry ears.

“Don’t try to double cross me. Because I’m everywhere, Gary. Do you understand?” I ran the tip of my knife over the knuckles of his good hand.

He whimpered. “She’ll be there. I promise.”

“That’s good. Or I’ll take you instead.”

YEAH. SO THAT WAS THE second day of my vacation. Today is the third. It’s ten in the evening, and that means one of two things will happen.

One, Molly will show up in the next two hours.

Two, Gary will suddenly have a nasty single-car accident as he tries to outrun me.

Oh, and a third thing will happen as well, no matter what.

I’ll spend the next two days doing paperwork.

Molly’s life is worth it.