Dead to Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

videos, and postcards showing the New York skyline were scattered all around. There was also an odd assortment of broken clay pieces mixed in with everything, but they didn’t look like any kind of tourist chatchke I knew of. I stepped carefully over the mess and moved closer to Connor.
     
    “What’s with all the broken pottery?” I asked. “Did someone drop their kiln?”
     
    Connor shrugged. He looked distracted and there was a shortness when he spoke. “That was already here before the tourists dropped all their stuff. Maybe it has something to do with the ghost. I dunno. I’m too busy trying not to die right now.”
     
    “Sorry,” I said, “but isn’t this a job for Haunts-General? Ghosts aren’t really my thing. They give me the stone cold heebie-jeebies. I’m not trained for this.”
     
    I eyed Connor’s streak again and ran my hand through my own jet-black mop of hair, hoping it wouldn’t meet the same fate.
     
    “Don’t fall apart on me now, kid,” Connor said. “You had all the training sessions.”
     
    “Training sessions?” I said. I threw my hands up. “The Enchancellors haven’t even covered apparitions with me yet. When I asked one of them about ghosts, they handed me a pamphlet entitledTen Simple Ways Your Job Will Disfigure You ! Nothing I’ve learned at the Department has trained me to tangle with anything like that. If it gets ahold of me as well, the other investigators will be calling us the Skunk Twins.”
     
    “Look,” Connor said. “No one from Haunts responded and I was nearby…”
     
    A clatter that sounded like overturning garbage cans interrupted him. I stared into the darkness, but in the pitch black of the alley there might as well have been an entire army of zombies riding in giant zombie tanks. Still, if itwas zombies, I had at least read a pamphlet on them.
     
    Connor spoke again, this time his voice dropping to an exasperated whisper. “I just happened to be at the wrong place at the right time, okay, kid? There were all these people standing around, snapping pictures of the damn thing like it’s some goddamn movie star, so I start moving in on it. It must have sensed I wasn’t afraid of it, because it hauled ass down this alley in the opposite direction, which is what I expected. At that point, I figured it could do one of two things: If it was aware it’s a ghost, it’d just pass through an alley wall and I’d have lost it, but if it thinks it’s still alive, it would feel cornered when the alley dead-ended. It wouldn’t have anywhere to go and I could keep it at bay until Haunts-General showed up.”
     
    Something in the shadows moved closer, but I still couldn’t make out what it was or even where it was. I felt pretty close to useless.
     
    Connor signaled for me to move farther along the right side of the alley. Since he outranked me in the Department and had a hell of a lot more experience, I complied. Connor crept down the other side of the alley, but kept whispering.
     
    “I didn’t expect this phantasm to make a break back up the alleytoward me, though. Before I could react, it phased right into me, but I resisted its energy. This spirit isn’t acting like anything I’ve ever encountered before. Something weird is up. Now it’s cornered somewhere back here.”
     
    Keeping a noncorporeal being from passing through an agent hadn’t been covered in any of the assigned reading, handouts, or company e-mails.
     
    “It actuallyphased through you?” I asked. “What did it feel like?”
     
    The thunderous sound of another trashcan overturning rang out. I jumped, hating myself for reacting like such a noob in front of my mentor. Connor didn’t even flinch. He tugged at the white streak in his hair again.
     
    “You don’t ever wanna feel it, kid. It felt like someone running electrical current straight through me. It was like a billion fist-sized rocks pummeling my body all at once.”
     
    He tugged harder at the strand so he could