Alex nodded slowly. “Those who deal in death hide their faces from the beauty of life.”
I shared a look with Poppy, trying to keep my eyebrows down. “Well said, Alex, well said.”
“Alex, you stay in the car. We need to make sure she doesn’t see you.”
Alex tilted his head. “I often go unseen by those who confuse darkness with despair.”
Peasblossom narrowed her eyes at Alex from her position on the dashboard as she slipped on the straps that held the small warming stone I’d given her to her chest. “Do you always talk like this, or are you having us on?”
“I like it,” Poppy said, patting Alex on the shoulder. “I think he’s poetic.”
“All of life’s a stage,” Alex said seriously.
Peasblossom jumped off the dashboard and glided to myshoulder, flying lower than usual with the extra weight of the stone. “We need to work on attracting a less weird clientele.”
“I’m a witch helping people with Otherworld-related crime,” I reminded her, a hint of indignance pushing my voice up a notch. “Weird comes with the job.”
“Got that right,” Poppy agreed, grabbing her backpack from the floor of the back seat. Jenkins’s skull slid side to side, the rustle of the rest of his bones emanating from the backpack. “Let’s go take care of this weird so we can move on to more entertaining weird.”
She unzipped her backpack and scowled. “Damn.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, pausing with my hand on the door handle.
“I’m out of Reese’s hearts. All I have left is the regular peanut butter cups my neighbor gave me.”
I nodded sympathetically. “The cups aren’t as good.”
“You know what I really need right now?”
“Reese’s eggs,” I guessed.
Poppy beamed. “Too right. They’re the best.”
“Truer words.” I rubbed my stomach. Great, now I had a sugar craving.
I opened the car door, turning to make sure Alex was out of sight of anyone passing by before I got out. The gothic young man had obediently slid down in his seat, hiding his head from view.
“Where are we?” Poppy asked as she got out of the car. She looked around the suburban neighborhood, squinting at the combination of neatly kept houses and homes that looked like they were either about to be condemned or were soon to be featured in a Hollywood horror movie. “There’s something familiar about this place.”
“This neighborhood was a victim of the housing collapse of2008–2009.” I pointed to the house in front of us. “The people who lived here were evicted, but the bank didn’t transfer the house title out of their name and never bothered to tell the evicted tenants. It’s what people in the industry call a ‘zombie house.’ Pretty much just an abandoned property.”
“So some of these houses have people living in them and some are abandoned?” Poppy frowned. “Weird, but that’s not why it looks familiar. I just can’t put my finger on it.”
We headed up the driveway to the door. There was no car but ours in the driveway or the street in front of the house, so we must have beaten the other witch here.
“My main concern was avoiding collateral damage to other people, and this house has an empty lot next to it.” I gestured at the overgrown field next to the house sitting on the end of the block.
“I just hope she shows up.” Poppy climbed the stairs to the porch, careful to avoid the broken boards. “Anyone without the sense to stick around to lay down a zombie they’ve raised is too dangerous to have running around the city.”
“If she doesn’t show, we’ll find another way to track her down,” I promised, opening the front door to let Poppy go inside first. I watched the dog skull clinking against the backpack’s zipper as she passed me, reflecting that Poppy was one of the most creative necromancers I’d ever known.
Not many people had a zombie-raising service dog.
“Shade, she’s here.”
“What?” I followed Poppy’s voice, picking my way through a litter-strewn living room to the window that looked out over the backyard and the empty lot next door. “I didn’t see a car anywhere.”
“Maybe she parked close by and walked.” Poppy pointed to afigure standing underneath one of the trees in the backyard. “I’m guessing that’s her.”
