Suck My Life (Sucking Dead #1) - Andie M. Long Page 0,26

so take a seat and I’ll go fetch that for you.”

She held a hand up. “No, stay there. I can get it myself. I’ll drink it in the kitchen and come back. Also, I’m sequestering one of these upstairs rooms for an office, for us both. It’s not appropriate for me to be seen keeping coming to your bedroom.”

“As you wish. The house is yours.”

“So you keep saying, but I want you to know it’s yours too. Yes, you have to share this floor with the souls, but this is your home.”

“Thank you, Mya.”

“Okay. I’m going to feed. Don’t touch the parcel.” She placed it on the desk next to The Book of the Dead and then she walked out, closing the door behind her.

I’d spent a lot of today thinking about the woman I’d made queen. I’d met so many people in my time on earth and I’d got an in-depth knowledge and understanding of people. Huh, I knew more about some than they knew about themselves. I could recognise Mya’s inner strength. She might be mentally fatigued right now, but she’d still gone to feed, ready to return to meet the spirit. She was strong and I knew that once she was used to where her undeath was, she would thrive.

When she returned, her face was flushed with evidence of her feed, and her eyes shone bright.

“God, I feel amazing now,” she declared.

“Mentally too?” I queried.

“Yeah, I feel refreshed, so we can meet the spirit now.”

“Right now?” I looked at the package.

“Ooooh.” Mya placed a finger on her lips. “Shall we do the gift before or after?”

“You might be too tired after.”

“We’d better do it now then.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief as she picked the parcel up and added, “or shall we wait?”

“Are you ticklish, Mya Malone? Because in a minute we shall find out.”

She threw the parcel at me. I caught it one-handed and sat on the bed and carefully took off the wrapping paper so I could re-use it. It was Amazon packaging paper smoothed out and tied with string.

“Mya, it’s exquisite. I love it.” I held up the smoking jacket. It was velvety, crimson in colour, and there were matching trousers to it.

“Now you have loungewear after all, but it’s sophisticated loungewear befitting your status, don’t you think?”

I held it up against me while I looked in the tall, thin mirror I had hanging on the wall. “I do. I really do.” I couldn’t stop feeling the fabric.

“Did you get something equally flamboyant? You are a queen now after all.”

“I sleep naked,” she announced, and I almost choked on fresh air. “Though I have bought some fluffy pjs for temporary use given how filthy everything is.”

Yup, especially my mind right now.

“Oh, and that reminds me. I have a question. Who launders your clothes because that washing machine is as dead as you and I are?”

“There’s a laundry service in Gnarly.”

“There is? So I have no need of a washing machine? I can send all my stuff out and it will return clean and pressed?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure this isn’t Heaven?”

“No, but you can get there through the attic room.”

“What attic room?” Between her brows creased. She looked so cute when that happened.

“If you look at the ceiling when we step outside, there’s a loft hatch. When you open it, there’s a fold out ladder that leads up to that space. Heaven’s that way for spirits.”

“And you make them use a loft ladder?”

“Of course not. They just float up there. The loft ladder is for you, if you want to access that space, which you won’t need to unless you wish to talk to the angelic realm for some reason. If you do, that’s the room, up there. There’s a phone. You press the gold button if you need them.”

“So I’m guessing that if I go in the basement there’s a phone there too, for in case I wish to consult a demon?”

“No, they’re demons. They make you communicate via text message on a very old mobile phone. It’s painful.”

“Suddenly, I’m starting to feel mentally drained again. Take me to this spirit so I can do this and go to bed,” Mya rolled her eyes.

“You asked,” I told her, “it’s not my fault you don’t like my answers. Anyway, the first thing you need to do is look in The Book of the Dead. Ask it to tell you about Nancy Deaton.

Mya read about the woman who was stuck here due to stabbing her husband.

“Okay. Let’s