Page 25 of How to Survive Your Own Death

Honestly? Same. Geri could have happily gone the rest of her life without learning about reapers and whatnot.

The oven timer dinged and she pulled out the pizza. With a slice in hand, she scrolled through the handbook.

Nonexhaustive List of Psychopomps and the Undead.

Well, that sounded like fun reading.

Portents: aya-aye, bats, black dogs, black horse, butterflies, cicadas, crows, jackal, magpies, moths, owls, raven, white deer, and xoloitzcuintle.

Psychopomp, Anthropomorphic entities: reaper, angel, demon.

Undead, Corporeal: mummies, revenants, zombies.

Undead, Incorporeal: ghosts, wraiths…

Geri went a little cross-eyed scanning the nonexhaustive list. Maybe later. She skipped to the next section.

Essential duties for a reaper.

Now that seemed relevant to her interests.

Essential duties include reaping souls, escorting them to the next phase of existence, and opening the veil for tainted souls. A simple touch will reap a mortal soul. Prolonged contact is not necessary.

Which was a wonderfully vague statement that raised more questions than it answered. All the questions were gross. She skipped to the next section.

Code of Conduct.

Yawn. Skip.

Duties cannot be transferred to another.

That seemed misleading. Wasn’t that exactly what Bazel did to her?

She rubbed the bridge of her nose. Staring at the screen was not doing her head any favors. She’d finish reading later, after she gave her eyes a rest.

CHAPTER 8

GERI

It was entirely too crowded in her apartment. Bazel spent the day lurking and she spent the day ignoring him. Bones took up the entire couch, happy to lounge. Fiddlesticks kept standing in front of Geri and expressing her disappointment with the arrangement—and could management please do something about the ghost dog?

It was too much. Her unwelcomed guests got under her skin, her cat was unhappy, and the whole thing set her teeth on edge. She needed breathing space.

Geri grabbed her phone and her keys.

“Where are you going?” Bazel asked, because he was a nosy bitch.

“I’m taking a walk,” she snapped. All day he never spoke and lurked. So much lurking. “Is that allowed?”

Bones was at the door, tail wagging furiously. Her feet pranced.

Geri’s irritation melted away. How could she be grumpy when Bones was so excited to take a walk?

“Come on, Bones. We could use some fresh air.”

Her apartment wasn’t fancy. The location was, though. It was directly across from Washington Square, in the heart of Center City Philadelphia. Built in the mid-twentieth century, the highrise building had been part of an effort to rehabilitate the neighborhood. It was gloriously modern—for certain values of a very dated 1960s modern—amid colonial era buildings and cobblestone streets.

Geri loved her simple one-bedroom apartment. She loved the blue tile bathroom. The balcony that overlooked the square. The sound of traffic and people drifting up on warm days. The way the snow fell over a silent city in the winter.