Abra Cadaver Read Online Free PDF Page A

teacher. Off for the summer. Looking forward to going back at the end of the month. The end.” Holly shrugged. Easy to make herself sound so…normal.
    When Luke glanced back at her, she compared his eyes to Keane’s. Though the green was deep and rich, Luke’s eyes didn’t have the intensity that filled her current roommate’s. Her unwanted, current roommate’s. Luke’s tanned skin was also a direct contrast to Keane’s pale complexion. A fairness that only made Keane’s black hair more shocking, more dramatic, around his ever-solemn face.
    Why are you comparing them? she asked herself. You’re rid of Keane for the weekend. Enjoy it.
    She shook her head and focused on Luke. The muscles in his legs were taut under that sun-soaked skin. Grains of sand glistened on his flesh giving him a sparkly sheen.
    “I’ve found that people who try to make themselves seem ordinary rarely are.” Luke knocked his knee against her leg.
    “I’m the definition of ordinary. Trust me.”
    “Well, I like ordinary. How about dinner tonight?”
    “Wow.” She gathered her tousled red tresses and twisted them into the clip she had stuck on the shoulder strap of her bikini top. “You work fast, Luke.”
    “I’ll have plenty of time to waste when I’m dead.”
    She cringed. “Right. Well, I’m afraid I have dinner plans at my parents’ tonight.”
    “Then I guess it’s a date. Mona invited me to dinner at the beach house this evening.” Luke’s victorious smile irritated her, but she could go with the flow. The flow her mother created for her apparently.
    “You realize my mother is a terrible cook, right?”
    “I’m not going for the food.” He winked at her.
    She was about to launch into a speech where she brilliantly and convincingly conveyed the fact that she was not looking to get into a relationship at the moment. Sweet Mary, she could just picture it. Bring a man home. Sneak him past Keane to her bedroom. Have crazy, but quiet sex until her body could take no more. Wake up in the middle of the night after a horrific nightmare to get a drink of water and run into Keane dragging a demon corpse into the backyard. Lovely. Just lovely.
    “Help!”
    The word had Luke leaping off the lifeguard chair and bolting for the water.
    “See you later, Holly.”
    While she had to admit that the view was spectacular as Luke ran through the sand and dove into the water, she knew all she could do was look. She couldn’t touch. Not until she’d gotten rid of Keane.
    Alone on the lifeguard station, she listened for other sounds of distress. Perhaps the beach could offer her the opportunity to do something heroic. Something important that would send Keane onto his next save.
    Next victim is more like it. The way she lived right now didn’t feel like salvation. It felt like condemnation.

Chapter Five
    The house was cemetery quiet without Holly. Although watching her find ways to not be in the same room with him was painful, not having her around at all was worse.
    “You idiot,” Keane said. “She’ll be back in two days.” And why did he care if she ever came back?
    He pressed his palms down onto the coffee table in Holly’s living room. The TV was on, but he wasn’t watching it. He’d wanted the noise while he combed through the newspaper looking for his next target. Always plenty to choose from. Plenty of rotten demons in human bodies doing rotten things every rotten damn day.
    Too bad he couldn’t take the demons out before they ever got the chance to overtake human hosts and do their evil. Then maybe he could have saved his brother from being gutted like an animal by the leader of an opposing army centuries ago. A leader who attacked Eliah in the woods while he rode alone and unarmed on a day reserved for mourning the dead between battles. Every soldier knew of the day. Knew that no fighting would take place on the battlefield out of respect for the fallen. This leader, however, saw the skill and passion with which