Netherworld: Drop Dead Sexy(4)

The woman’s terribly frizzed hair matched my shade of copper penny red. I always iron my hair after spraying it into submission with three different smoothing products. Southeast Georgia’s humidity plays heck with a girl’s tresses. I would never walk out of my apartment with my hair looking like that.

“Sorry, but I don’t really see it,” I said out loud. “I guess I can understand how you might think it’s me, since you don’t know me. And even if it was, I can be dead in a dream and it won’t matter.”

My cheeks tickled something fierce. I rubbed at them, surprised to find wetness on my hands. Why was I crying? It was just a dream. Just a stupid nightmare that had been going on and on for what felt like forever now.

Just a dream.

Dan gathered me in his big, strong arms again from behind. “Let’s go, baby girl.”

Lana spoke softly. “Go with Dan, sweetie. It’s all over now. You’re going to be okay.”

Taylor added, “Death isn’t the end. You’ll see.”

Dan’s breath warmed my ear. “Hold on and don’t let go. This’ll only take a sec.”

Suddenly the world around me blurred in the muted earth tones of brown and green and froze in a smear. Then, as if someone had thrown a bucket of multicolored paint over our surroundings, hues of golden sunlight mixed with ivory splashed around me.





Chapter Two





Our surroundings solidified into a library that looked familiar, though I was sure I’d never been in it before. Lamps cast soft gold illumination over the long wooden tables that marched in a row down the center of the main room. Banks of gleaming wooden shelves filled with books surrounded us. An older woman stood before one shelf, reading a slim book. I blinked to see she wore Victorian-era clothing. Perhaps she was part of a presentation?

I continued my examination of my surroundings, turning a slow circle. I identified the familiar comforting musty smell from my childhood when I’d go to children’s story time. I also scented an undertone of smoke, as if someone had burned paper recently.

I could have spent hours sitting on the nearby leather couch, reading everything in sight. Cozy, welcoming and eerily familiar. I fell in love with the place right off the bat.

“Where are we?” I asked Dan.

He released me, stepped back and looked around the room with an aura of contentment. “It’s the original Fulton Falls library.”

I looked around, now recognizing the room from the pictures that decorated the only library I’d ever known in Fulton Falls. “That burned down decades ago in the Big Fire of ’36.”

“Right. The current Fulton Falls is built on top of the old Fulton Falls.”

“You mean we’re underground?”

“Right.”

I listened hard, noting the silence. I heard a faraway hum, the whisper of traffic noise coming from a great distance. That was all.

Were we breathing? I watched Dan to see if his chest rose and fell. He looked back at me, his expression calmly waiting. I couldn’t tell if he breathed or not. And I … I couldn’t sense my own respiration. No flow of air moved my chest. I waited for my heart to lurch in fear, but it too refused to announce itself.

I’ve never been one to shrink from bad news, even when every cell of my being screams for me to run like all get out. I would face this head on too. “Am I dead?”

Dan took my hand and tugged me to the couch. We sat next to each other, close enough that our thighs touched. He put an arm around my shoulders. “You really are dead, Brandilynn. I’m sorry.”

I looked at him. Felt him beside me. I sensed pressure, the sensation of touch, but no warmth from him. “You’re dead too?”

“For the last 22 years.”

Dead. I felt the truth of it. I wasn’t having a nightmare. I, Brandilynn Payson, had died. Been murdered, in fact, by the vampire serial killer who left his drained victims in the pine farms all over Ford County.





But it made no sense that I had crossed paths with the Fulton Falls Ripper. I should have been safe because I wasn’t a street prostitute. I worked as an escort whose clients were the most powerful men in Fulton Falls, as well as the rest of the state of Georgia. I wasn’t one of those pathetic blood groupies who offered themselves to the long-toothed. Still, the evil had somehow found me.

I was dead.

Okay, I’m not in pain, and I’m not burning in Hell. This isn’t so bad. I can handle it, right? Yep, Miss Brandilynn is still here and still rocking this joint. No problem.

Sure. No problem at all.

To Dan I said, “This is screwy as heck. We’re ghosts?”

He nodded and watched me, as if waiting for me to fly apart in a flood of tears.