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He chuckles to himself. “Maybe I can give him his coat back if we find him.”

“That isn't funny,” I whisper, my voice trembling under the noise around us.

He dumps the empty paper plate into the trash, and before I can protest, his hand clamps around my wrist.

“Come along, baby girl,” he commands, dragging me toward the neon-lit entrance. “Let’s go see what you mortals consider 'scary.’”

Chapter 18

Malachi

My little summoner’s gripping my arm with a force that suggests she’s trying to sever my brachial artery as her wide eyes dart around the gloom.

“Malachi,” she hisses. “I hate this. I hate you.”

It’s pitch black, save for the flickering strobe lights. And the mechanical whir of cheap hydraulics grinds inside the walls, audible even over the fake screams.

It is pathetic. Truly.

But Eden’s shaking like we’ve walked directly into a lion’s den, her breath coming in short, terrified bursts. “It’s just a ride, it’s just a ride,” she mutters, squeezing her eyes shut.

I look down at her, unimpressed. “Open your eyes, little summoner. If you’re going to be terrified, at least look at the threat. Stumbling blindly is how you get eaten first.”

“Shut up,” she gasps.

Oh, she would not last five minutes in my realm.

We round a corner, stepping onto a section of floor designed to wobble and Eden lets out a gasp, clinging tighter to my bicep.

With a clatter of rattling tin and a roar that sounds like a lawnmower choking on a rock, a figure lunges out of the shadows.

Eden lets out a startled shriek. I, however, do not so much as blink.

A mortal male—likely an adolescent—wearing a rubber mask that is peeling at the neck and holding a can of rocks, groans theatrically, waving it in our faces.

I blow out a long, heavy breath, head cocked. “Really?” I deadpan.

The boy stops groaning and lowers the can slightly, the aggression leaking out of his posture as he realizes I’m not currently pissing my pants.

I reach out, taking his chin between my thumb and forefinger, tilting the rubber mask side to side to inspect the paint job. He freezes, clearly too confused to slap my hand away.

“Your necrotic tissue is too green,” I inform him, releasing his face with a look of utter disdain. “You look like a cucumber, not a corpse. Do better.”

The boy stares at me through the eyeholes of his mask. “Uh… what?”

“Decomposition,” I lecture, crossing my arms over my chest. “It should be grey. Muddled with purples and blacks where the blood pools. This shade of verdant green suggests you are mimicking a vegetable, not the undead. Honestly, it’s insulting to the actual dead. If I looked like a salad ingredient, I’d stay in my grave out of pure embarrassment.”

Eden slowly peels her face away from my shoulder, blinking one eye open. She looks from me, to the teenager holding the rattle can, and then back to me.

“Did you just give the zombie notes?” she whispers.

“Someone had to,” I say, grabbing her elbow and steering her past the baffled actor. “Come along, Eden. Let’s see if the vampire in the next room is wearing plastic fangs. I might actually die of laughter, which would be a terrifying twist, wouldn't it?”

We press onward, shuffling through a curtain of black strips into the next chamber, which is bathed in a jarring red light, evidently intended to simulate a slaughterhouse.

It fails. Miserably.

The walls are splattered with a substance that smells distinctly of corn syrup and food dye, and there are rubber limbs zip-tied to the ceiling in a display that lacks both artistic merit and structural logic. I pause in front of a particularly offensive arrangement of bones hanging from a meat hook and squint at it, tilting my head.