Dead Matter Read Online Free PDF Page B

along the outside of the graveyard until I came to an entrance around the next block that was closer to the main building of Trinity Church itself. The gates there were already pushed open with a person-sized gap in them. Without hesitation, I slid my way through into the cold darkness of the graveyard.
    Jane grabbed my hand through the bars of the gate. “You’re going in with just your bat?” she asked.
    I nodded.
    She wrinkled her nose and looked uncomfortable. “I know I’m relatively new to this whole doing-good thing,” she said, “and I’m not part of your precious Other Division, but shouldn’t this be a job for Things That Go Bump in the Night? Aren’t they the ghost guys?”
    I smiled and grabbed her hand, feeling the warmth of her skin in contrast against the late-March chill.
    “I’m not just Other Division,” I said, squeezing it. “I’m also part of the Fraternal Order of Goodness. Both of those more than qualify me to check this out. Improvisation is our middle name.”
    “Actually,” Jane said, “wouldn’t that make ‘Order’ your middle name?”
    “Shush,” I said. I pushed the gate closed between us. “Technically, this was a direct request from the Inspectre.
    That means I’m not supposed to involve other divisions. Just wait here, okay?”
    Jane looked worried. “You know, the feminist in me really wants to smack you for that, but the rest of me is a little bit too terrified to care. Just be careful, all right?”
    “Don’t worry,” I said, hoping to reassure her. “I’m just going to scope things out. Hell, I’d rather you come with me, if it wasn’t for all the paperwork. You saw all the Other Division and joint-venture paperwork I had to do for the monster attack last night.”
    Jane nodded, but the look of concern in her eyes told me she was putting up a brave front. I was learning that getting closer to someone meant there was more freaking out to be had when danger crossed either of our paths.
    “I’ll wait right here,” she said with conviction in her voice. She gave me a thumbs-up. “You know, to avoid all that paperwork.”
    I turned away after giving her a final smile and concentrated on the graveyard. Despite the lights of New York City rising up all around us, most of the graveyard was hidden in the shadow of the church and all I could make out in the darkness was a flurry of activity about fifty feet away from me. A cool wind cut into me as I moved among the headstones with cautious steps, using my bat as a walking stick to help guide me. Moving closer to whatever was going on, my eyes began to adjust to the low light, and I almost wish they hadn’t. The ghostly activity I had seen from outside the graveyard was far more terrifying now that I was closer to it, the apparitions and specters looking far more solid up close. Numerous haunts in varying states of decay filled the center of the graveyard, all of them swarming around a lone shadowy figure pressed up against the side of one of the mausoleums. It looked like we had a live one. Who was this civilian and why wasn’t he running? The lifeless, rotting faces of the long-dead filled the air, and it was more than enough to get me shivering.
    As spooked as I felt, I forced myself to put on a brave front. If there was one thing that those four sessions of Cool with Ghouls had taught me, it was that bold talk was a convincing substitute for actual bravado when it came to dealing with the formerly living.
    I took a deep breath and tapped my bat on one of the sturdier-looking headstones. It rang out with a metallic clank that ground against the stone.
    “Everybody back off the civilian,” I said with anger in my voice. “The cleanup crew is here.”
    New patterns arose from the cloud of ghostly figures and a new energy seemed to fill the area. “Him,” a collective voice rang out from them.
    I turned to look over at Jane back outside the gates. “They know me!” I said. I could barely contain my