Suck My Life (Sucking Dead #1) - Andie M. Long Page 0,4

drink the rum straight from the keg.” He stared and me and then chuckled. “Like I ever used a glass.” He moved on, walking past me. I could hear the familiar sound of his dragging leg getting further away from me as I checked in on some of the other residents before moving to my office.

I only had one room in the house. A large room, it housed a bed, a wardrobe and a desk. After pushing open the door, I walked over and pulled open the curtains. It being a dull day, my dark room didn’t really benefit from the action. The walls were dark grey, the carpet an even darker one. The wardrobe and desk were black. I had a chrome floor lamp, a main light in the centre of the ceiling, and lighting above my bed, along with two small lamps on bedside tables at either side.

My bed hadn’t been slept in or laid on for a very long time.

You see, Death never slept. And with no girlfriend, there’d been no other use for it. In fact, the throw over the top of the duvet cover actually bore dust bunnies.

My wardrobe had two spare outfits the exact same as I wore already and a couple of extra pairs of boots in the bottom. The chest of drawers were full of clean underwear, and my desk held a computer and The Book of the Dead. I had an en suite bathroom, and I didn’t need to eat. I could eat, but I was dead. No need for nutrition here.

I pulled out my black velvet chair and sat down at my desk. My hands reached over for The Book of the Dead and I opened it, waving my hand across it and saying the words, “Mya Malone.”

The information appeared on the pages once more. The information that had caused more interest in me about a forthcoming death than I’d had in a long while.

Mya Malone.

Age twenty-nine.

Single.

Lives in Bexleyheath, London, in a one-bedroomed ground-floor flat.

Works for Booked Up in Piccadilly, London.

Family background: Estranged from all family.

Friends: No close friends.

Personality assessment: Loner. Disappointments in her life have led to Mya closing herself off from relationships. She socialises infrequently with work colleagues. Last relationship was over a year ago and lasted one month. Stoic personality due to past and has a ‘take no nonsense’ approach to life.

Interests: The paranormal. Reads the supernatural genre. Watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns.

Date of upcoming death: 11 November 2011.

Circumstances behind death: Agrees a date with the vampire Lawrence Letwine of the Letwine ancestral line. Will bleed out in an alley near Wine Office Court at 23:11.

What had struck me straight away about Mya was her being so alone. She was used to it. Hardened to it. Her very personality screamed out as a suitable candidate for Queen. And the date and time of her death were mystical: 11/11/11 at 11:11.

Along with her paranormal knowledge, she just seemed perfect. And that was before I looked at the woman herself. Slim, but clearly worked out. 5ft 8, long dark brown hair and doe-like brown eyes. It shouldn’t have helped my decision making, but it did. I might be dead, but I was still male.

And I could, given my role, give Mya the choice of whether she left the earth and sat in the silence of a vampire death, or whether she carried on un-living, as Queen of the Wayward.

Closing the book, I went into the en suite. I would shower and change into fresh clothes. I’d even put on some of my best aftershave because I wanted to make a good second impression. And then I needed to make my way back to the centre of London because after the meal, Lawrie was going to suggest a drink at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese and after that, Mya Malone’s death and destiny would be revealed.

And I would either get a new person to share my existence with in Gnarly Fell, or I’d watch as the first woman to interest me in years bled out at my feet and I had to take her soul to the Field of the Drained.

I looked down to see that I’d crossed my fingers. Sometimes the human parts of me still appeared, for which I was thankful. Because never ending death drained you, even if you had no soul of your own.

Mya

It took me an hour to travel to work, but I quite enjoyed it. It wasn’t like I had much else to do.