In the Shadows by Lillith Devero (ebook audio reader txt) 📖

“It has to be around here somewhere.” The werewolf said, readjusting the crowbar on his shoulder for what seemed like the thousandth time, as he tried to make out the names on the headstones around them.
“Why in the hell are we out here in the dead of night anyway?” The man with him whined. Why had he decided to bring him along anyway? Oh yeah, he didn’t feel like being the one being eaten tonight.
“Our presence was requested.” The werewolf replied. If he could, he would kill this foolish mortal himself, but he needed the man to replenish Him from his long rest.
“By who anyway? This is just stupid!” He dropped his shovel on the ground and leaned up against the tree.
The wolf grabbed the man by his throat and hoisted him above the ground.
“Never insult Him that way ever again.” He dropped the mortal on the ground, picked up the crowbar and continued to search the stones.
Fifteen minutes of silence later they happened upon the correct stone. The wolf instructed the man to begin digging. Which lead to a lot of cursing and whining from him.
When the hole was about halfway dug, a thunderous rain picked up.
“Seriously? This is insane! Can’t we just do this tomorrow?” The mortal said as he tried to climb from the hole. The rain had quickly turned the dirt into mud, which was much harder to climb out of. He just ended up sliding back down.
“Keep digging.”
“Why don’t you get down here and help me?” He yelled up at the wolf, as if he had the authority to command him.
“Only since you insist that you can’t do it yourself.” He said, insulting the man’s strength, as he gracefully jumped into the hole.
The man grunted, the irritated man version of “Okay.” At that point he really didn’t care if his manliness was insulted; he just wanted to get out of here.
Both of the men dug shovel after shovel of mud out of the hole until they hit something hard beneath a layer of mud.
The wolf whispered, “Yes. Finally,” as he climbed from the muddy hole with ease to retrieve the crowbar.
The man seemed excited. Probably because he thought that they were going to get out of the rain, but little did he know that he would never be leaving this dreary cemetery.
Once back in the hole, he shoved aside the mud that remained on the coffin and he began to pry the lid off. With his supernatural strength he was able to pop the lid off as if it were nothing more than the lid to a jar.
The man could only stand there in shock and irritation, not even noticing the burst of supernatural strength. “I thought that there was supposed to be gold!” In the coffin lay a rotting corpse that was of little worth to anyone, except the wolf.
“Lord Tempest is a treasure worth much more than gold.” At that, the wolf grabbed and cut open the man’s wrist. The man screamed as the skin was broken but then he quieted down to small whimpering, as if knowing that what was to come was inevitable. The wolf hadn’t the need to kill him, so he only cut so deep as to only let a little trickle of blood flow. He had dreamed of His awakening for many months, knowing that Tempest had been calling him from his prison under the Earth. He held the man’s wrist in his iron grip over the coffin, squeezing his wrist to increase the flow over the corpse’s mouth.
Once the blood touched his lips, the corpse’s eyes burst open and he attached himself to the man’s wrist. The man screamed and tried to shake his grasp with all of his strength, but even as a rotting corpse, there was no way that he was going to get away from the vampire alive. As he gradually took in the man’s blood, the vampire’s rotting flesh began to piece itself back together, and his heartbeat began to quicken as the man’s grew slower, until it gave one last flutter and grew deathly quiet.
The werewolf let go of the man and let him fall in the mud as he rushed to the vampire’s aid. “Are you alright sir? I heard your summons.”
“Yes. I am now, and I am immensely grateful.” The vampire stood, with assistance from the wolf. “What now Wolfram?”
“Now, we align ourselves with the most powerful vampire,” he paused respectfully, “in this day in age.”
“And who would that be?” The vampire asked as he was helped from the hole as the rain continued falling.
“Yarwood Adalsteinn.”

The bell completely refused to ring.
It had been one of those terrible days that you just wanted to either curl up in a ball and cry or die in a hole; whichever happened to be easier.
The only boy in the whole entire world that she would ever even consider dating had dumped her because she was ‘too distant and weird’. On the last day of school no less! Two minutes left of this terrible school day and she still wasn’t sure if she was going to survive. She decided to do what everyone else seemed to be doing to distract herself; lean her head against her hand and stare at the clock, counting down the seconds.
She sighed. The only thing that could make this day any worse was…
She felt a cool chill go down her spine. No! Not here! Not now!
She bolted from her seat with a minute left. Mr. Sanders screamed after her as the door began to close behind her. “Abigale Raclaw! Get back here and sit in your seat!”
Abby couldn’t, not with one of them in the school with her! She had to run. In her head she kept chanting, Not here… Not here…
She ducked inside a broom closet on the second floor as the bell signaled the end of this retched school year. Almost immediately, you could hear the sounds of a teen stampede in progress, with everyone trying to get to the nearest door as if there was a fire in the building. There was also a good amount of screaming to go along with it too.
That couldn’t lighten her mood though, as one of them had followed her into the broom closet; as she inevitably known it would.
She gasped for breath as the stench of the newly dead was in the air; sometimes it smelled like hospitals, sometimes like blood, and other times just like rotting flesh, but all had an indescribable scent of death along with it. No matter how many times they appeared, she could never brace herself for the smell. Today’s ghost was an old man with what used to be white hair and kind brown eyes, and he smelled kind of like a hospital morgue.
“Do you know what happened to you?” She asked and braced herself for the reaction of the ghost as taught to her by her grandmother.
“I died.” He said more calmly than she had hoped, and he slowly, gradually disappeared. But before he could completely, he whispered a warning, “Horrible things are in store for you dear Abigale Raclaw, horrible things. Stay on your guard and don’t trust anyone.” He faded then into the Otherworld.
She sighed she had been getting the same message for the past week, along with a larger amount of ghosts. But for now, her job was done. The rest was up to the Deciders. When older people died, they knew that it was their time and they didn’t try to resist the pull of the Otherworld like the young ones did, and all you had to do was ask if they knew what happened. She had once had to help a newborn. It was the most heart wrenching thing that she had ever had to do. The baby had barely moved and had to be fetched by one of the Enforcers who had to carry the baby in ‘manually’ as he put it. The Enforcers were frightening beings but necessary, they prevented all of the hauntings that you see in movies all of the time. Enforcers, when seen by humans, who know nothing of the true afterlife, most times mistook them for demons, but they are very cautious and are only seen in extremely rare cases.
Pulling Abby back to the ‘real’ world, was a knock at the door of the broom closet.
“Abby are you okay sweetie?” A voice that she welcomed asked.
“Yeah Sammy. Come on in.” She smiled as the blonde walked in. Well, in all technicality, she wasn’t a true blonde, because the tips of her spikey blonde were dyed bright pink. Sammy had to readjust her leather skirt as she sat down on the floor with an ‘oof’. Her gothic attire today consisted of, platform boots, fishnet leggings, the previously mentioned leather skirt, an army patterned tank top that accented her green eyes that were surrounded with an absurd amount of eyeliner (to anyone that wasn’t Goth, like them, that is), assorted jewelry and a leather jacket topped it off since the tank top wasn’t school appropriate.
They sat there in silence for a while. Sammy knew enough about the apparitions not to talk to Abby about it until she had time to cool off.
Abby finally sighed after a few minutes and stood, wiping the nonexistent dirt off of her skinny jeans. Sammy had always questioned her use of skinny jeans, saying that they seemed to Diva-ish. She only replied by saying, ‘Hey. They make it much easier to put on platform boots.’ Then the arguments stopped. You can’t deny the results. “I should probably be getting home. Mom will be worried.” She said.
When Sammy stood up too, she pulled Abby into a reluctant hug. Abby started to ask why but Sammy only shushed her and said, “I hate to say, ‘I told you so’ but I told you Goths don’t date jocks.”
“Does everyone in the entire school know?” She almost screamed.
“Yeah, pretty much. The Divas were spreading it like wild fire.” She replied still hugging her. “You just have to remember, he was always destined to be a Diva pet.” The Divas, the school’s ‘popular girls’ had always had it out for Abby and had always been grooming Travis to be their ‘boy toy’. She had tried to steal him away from them, but their pull was just too strong, even for her.
Abby sighed and said, “Come on lets go. I just want to get out of here.”
Sammy pulled Abby with her as she walked out of the closet. They walked over to a window at the end of the hall that opened to the fire escape. They always went that way when