Wayward Souls (Souls of the Road #1) - Devon Monk

Chapter One

Illinois

Lu wanted the truck.

“It’s too old,” I repeated.

There were two things going against me winning this argument. One: I was dead, so she couldn’t hear me, and two: I was her husband, so she probably wouldn’t listen to me anyway.

“I like it.” She ran a palm along the hood as if she could tell its life story through touch alone. With her abilities, I wouldn’t put it past her. Touching things and knowing their value was likely the only good she’d gotten out of the day we’d died.

Her wedding ring, worn down to a thin gold band, winked dully in the afternoon light and caught like a sharp hook in my heart. I’d told her she could take it off. Told her she should let me go.

I hadn’t won that argument either, and didn’t I love her all the more for it?

“What do you think, Lorde?” she asked.

“That dog couldn’t spot a bad front-end alignment if she were chewing on the axle,” I groused.

The dog in question tipped her big, fuzzy black head. She was part chow chow, and part shepherd. From the way her eyes tracked me, as I leaned against the back bumper of the truck, I knew at least one of my girls was listening.

I bent forward so my face was closer to the dog. “Tell her Brogan says it has a bad radiator, it’s leaking oil, and the electrical is shot.”

Lorde panted, her black tongue almost disappearing against all that black fur. She barked once.

“Atta girl,” I said. “Front. End. Alignment.”

She dutifully barked three times.

“Okay, okay,” Lu said. “I get it. You like the truck too.”

The dog wagged her tail. I groaned.

Lu plucked the weathered FOR SALE sign off the cracked windshield and marched toward the crooked front stoop of the house, determination in every lean line of her.

“That was a no!” I threw my arms up and stared at the wide blue arc of Illinois sky.

“You’re gonna spend twice as much time under that thing as in it,” I said. “Lu. Lula, just…touch the watch. Listen to me. Talk to me.” I strode up to the house with her, an easy lope. Moving as a spirit through the world meant the world had very little impact upon me, and I didn’t have much on it either.

Unless I got angry.

Then I could tear this world to shreds.

But this wasn’t something that needed my anger.

A frown put three lines between her auburn eyebrows. Her wide mouth tightened at the corners like she was half chewed through a lemon. That, along with the look of resolve in her eyes, just made me love her more.

She was being a bit of a sap about the truck, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to pull her in my arms and kiss the hell out of her.

“Listen.” I put a little more energy behind the command this time.

Lu paused, one foot on the rickety first step. Her hand lifted toward the heavy gold pocket watch hung on a thick chain around her neck. She didn’t touch it. Not yet.

She was beautiful, my Lu. Cherry hair wild around a pale face that freckled good and hard but never tanned, even before, when she was much more alive, and much more human.

Now she was a thrawan—that step between being almost killed by a vampire, but not turning out to be either of those things: killed or a vampire. I supposed she’d scan as human in any of those computerized machines the world used for medicine now.

The only outward hint that she was something else, something other, was that she was incredibly strong, sensitive to magic, and lonelier than anyone deserved to be.

The loneliness was my fault too.

Somehow, a shred of my soul beat fiercely inside her, just as a slip of her soul had stuck deep in me.

Neither of us knew how we’d traded pieces of our souls. It might have been during the attack, as I lay dying, watching the monster feed on her.

Our gazes had locked and then…

…then everything had gone black. It was a good blackness. Peaceful, warm.

Until I’d woke into the shattering of her scream.

She: bent over my unbreathing, unresponsive body.

Me: standing above myself—poor dead bastard—unable to close the deal, finish the story.

There was no white light guiding me up, no red flames dragging me down. I wouldn’t have wanted them anyway. All I wanted was her.

I was more dead than alive, she was more alive than dead, and as far as we could tell, we were stuck