Page 48 of Definitely Dead

“Okay.” Dorian’s lips pulled back into the semblance of a smile, but his hazel eyes tightened with concern. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He waved his hand, and the pages began to turn, flipping with a quiet rustle before coming to a stop. Sunne bit his lip, his eyes rounding when he realized the faint glow emanating off the pages came from the inked words written there.

Well, not words exactly. At least, not in any language he recognized.

“Can you read this?”

Dorian snorted, flattening the collar of his pink undershirt and smoothing down the front of his charcoal sweater vest. “Of course.”

Of course.How silly of him to question it.

Honestly, he still hadn’t figured out what the guy was, and Dorian hadn’t volunteered the information. Certainly not human, but not Otherling either. More like…something in between. A god maybe? A lesser deity?

“Okay, here we are.” He pressed his index finger to the page, skimming it over the words. “Aster Hornby. Last known physical location was Salem, Massachusetts.”

Sunne rolled his eyes. Not very original. “What do you meanphysicallocation?”

“Do you want to hear this or not?”

He held his hands up, palms out. “Sorry. Keep going.”

“The Aster you met here in the Underworld was not a soul. You might think of him more like an astral projection.”

“So, he wasn’t dead?”

Dorian shook his head, his eyes still moving across the parchment. “No, he wasn’t dead. He invoked forbidden magic to enter the Underworld.”

“And murdered thirteen people in the process,” Sunne muttered, the words bitter on his tongue. While all very interesting, it didn’t answer his most pressing question. “Why?”

Tyr had told him some parts. That was how he’d learned about the sacrifices, and that Aster had planned the soul-grab to trap Sunne in eternal punishment. Other things, he had worked out for himself. Like the fact that Aster had used his innate abilities to manipulate Sunne’s dreams, keeping him tired, weak, and on edge so he’d be more receptive when it came time to trade places.

The end goal, he understood. It was the catalyst that still confused him.

“He summoned and bound a Reaper,” Dorian read. “Then he forced the Reaper to give him the powers of necromancy.”

Sunne chewed his lip, his eyes glazing over as he pictured the candlelit courtyard, the hooded figure, and the circle of runes. When he had awoken in Aster’s apartment, he had thought it was a dream. Now, he realized, it had been remnants of a memory.

“But that kind of exchange demands a price.”

“Are we talking like crossroads deals? Fame and fortune in exchange for your soul?”

Dorian glanced at him from the corner of his eye, his expression dull…and vaguely disheartened. “Every soul, good or bad, ends up in the Underworld, Sunne. Reapers don’t have to make deals to meet a quota.”

“Right.” How stupid of him. Because any of this made sense. “Sorry. You were saying?”

“He was never meant to have that type of magic. It festers and corrodes the soul.”

“He was dying,” Sunne surmised. Similar to the wolf in the Whisper Woods. Rotting from the inside out.

Dorian dipped his head. “Yes.”

“And after he strapped me with his sins, he planned to return to his body.”

“Correct again.”

“Would it have worked?” Not that it mattered now. Poor timing had ended his plan. Permanently.

“I don’t know.” With a shrug, Dorian closed the book and turned to face him. “That’s where the record ends.” His expression softened, a sympathetic smile curving his lips. “Did you get your answers?”

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