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  Raise the Stakes

  Cantankerous Cadavers – Book 1

  Bones Monroe

  Copyright © 2019 by Bones Monroe

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Chapter 1

  The night was dark, unnaturally dark. The stars were hiding, gone off cavorting to where only stars go cavort, leaving the rest of the Earthly peons in pitch black, inky darkness. 16-year-old Grace looked up at the sky and, although she was not religious, sent a tiny prayer of thanks to whoever was working the illegal magic responsible for the darkness. Casting an unsanctioned spell as major as darkening the moon and hiding the stars (which would affect an entire region and cause mass panic) would get the authorities involved.

  No doubt she would hear about it tomorrow at school. Probably some wizard or witch trying to make a name for themselves. Probably in North Wellon. She shook her head. It was bad enough that North Wellon already had the reputation of being the worst place in the city. This stunt wouldn’t help the situation any. CURE agents would probably be staging an ‘operation’ to quell any undead unrest.

  CURE, the Council for Undead Relations and Education. The name sounded very positive and beneficial to humans, an organization that helped the inhumans live in a human world and took care of the undesirable, violent inhumans. For the inhumans, CURE was the organization that was to be avoided at all costs. Using trumped up charges and unfair laws, they swept into inhuman neighborhoods to capture and imprison innocent inhumans that were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  She pushed the thoughts from her head and concentrated on the task at hand. She had to get home. Quickly and quietly.

  Grace slipped off her kitten heels, stuffed them in her bag and slipped on her sensible shoes. She crept up to her house, sticking to the deepest shadows. All the windows were dark. She tiptoed to her window and listened. She could barely hear the TV in the living room. Her father would probably be playing on his phone or better yet, asleep in front of the TV. She let out a small sigh of relief.

  She carefully, ever so carefully, lifted the window sash, inch by inch, the slight scraping sound magnified tenfold in the dark night. Just a few more minutes and she would be home free.

  With the window open just enough for her to slide inside, she squirmed her way into her room and pulled her bag behind her.

  She lay in the floor under her window to let the stress wash out of her. She hated her curfew. While all her friends were out hanging out, watching movies or playing video games, Grace was stuck at home. Homework and chores. Homework and chores. That’s all her father allowed her to do!

  Why couldn’t her father understand that there was more to life than school and work? There was fun! What was life with no fun?

  She smiled in the darkness reliving the evening she had with her friends. Her father would have a fit if he knew she was hanging around with a new werewolf friend she met at school and that several of her best friends were undead. Or ‘those people’ as he liked to call them.

  It’s not like she was an undead groupie or anything like that. Heaven’s no. She just fell into that crowd when she got to this school. Grace and her dad moved a lot, and it was tough making friends.

  Luckily for them, Ben’s string of bad luck had broken. He had managed to hold on to this job for over a year. Things were looking up for them and they had a sense of stability.

  The undead, although lacking hearts, were friendlier to her than the human kids for the most part. She had to keep her wits about her when the vampires were around, though. They lusted for her blood.

  She was tempted to just have a necking session and go ‘all the way’ with a vampire, but her father would probably kick her out for that. He was strict, and lack of a heartbeat would be tough to hide.

  She let out a slow, measured breath. She would change into her pj’s and go out to chitchat with her dad.

  “You had quite an evening, didn’t you?” a voice said from the dark corner of her room.

  “Ack!” she yelped in surprise. “Dad! I thought you were watching TV.”

  “And I thought you were in your room studying.” He flicked on the lights and looked at her sternly. His steel-gray eyes under his frosted eyebrows bored into her. He stroked his graying, close-cropped beard, a sure sign of his displeasure.

  “But Dad, I finished all my homework,” she said, pleading her case. “And I did all the extra problems you wanted me to do. I mean, really, how many times in my life am I going to need to use the quadratic formula? I just wanted to see my friends.”

  Her father’s tone didn’t change. “On a school night no less. What kind of friends do you have that go out at all hours of the night? Don’t their parents care? Don’t they have a curfew?”

  Grace rolled her eyes. “Faaa-ther, yes they care. We were at a friend’s house,” she said, conveniently omitting that her friends were inhumans (the general term for the vampires, shifters, zombies, warlocks and any other differently-lifed individuals she hung out with at school) and had much more lenient curfews.

  “Whose house? I want to call the parents.”

  Grace’s heart jumped into her throat. “You most certainly will not do that! How embarrassing. You calling my friend's parents. You’ll make me the laughingstock of the entire school. And after I worked so hard to make friends here! It’s taken me months to make some friends, and you want to ruin everything. You can’t do that!” she pouted.

  Her father huffed his indignation. “You think you can just sneak out of the house whenever you want? I am responsible for you. We’ve talked about this before. How am I supposed to trust you? I thought we had an agreement.”

  Grace gave her father a sullen stare.

  Ben smacked his lips together. “Tastes funny.”

  “What?” Grace asked.

  “Just that all of a sudden, I got this, I don’t know, very bitter taste in my mouth. Quite strange.”

  He smacked his lips a few more times, puckered his lips and moved his tongue around searching for something in his mouth.

  “It's bitter with a hint of offal and something sour. Definitely unpleasant,” he said.

  “I don’t know. What did you have for dinner?” Grace asked happy to change the subject.

  “Ahhhh, it’s in deep,” Ben mumbled as he reached into the recesses of his mouth and poked around his molars.

  Grace looked at him in confusion and mild disgust as he brought out his index finger, rubbed it against his thumb and inspected it.

  “You see this? Do you know what this is?” he said while waving his wet finger in the air.

  “Plaque?” she guessed.

  “No, it is not plaque. You know better than that. We take dental hygiene very seriously in this household, don’t we?”

  “Yes, we do,” Grace answered.

  “Say it,” Ben commanded.

  “Really? Now? After all these years? C’mon Dad,” she pleaded.

  Ben raised his eyebrows expectantly. Grace knew he would not let this go. He never did.

  “Foolish I am not,” she began in a singsong voice.

  “My teeth will not decay,

  Every day without fail,

  I brush my teeth,” she droned on, tossing her long dark hair over her shoulder in annoyance.

  Ben beamed. “You know, I made that up when you were much younger.”

  “Mhmmmm, you say that every time. You know it doesn’t rhyme, right?” she asked.

  “It’s free verse! I’ve told you that a thousand times,” he said in his defense. “But that’s not the point. The point is this horrible taste in m
y mouth and it’s all your fault!”

  “My fault? What are you talking about? How can you blame me for a taste in your mouth?” Grace complained.

  “Because,” Ben said in a low, menacing tone, “it’s not food that caused this. It’s something worse, something that will stay with me for a long time. Something that will make me remember this day for years to come … years to come.”

  Grace furrowed her brows in confusion.

  After a dramatic pause, Ben continued.

  “Disappointment, Grace Coleman! I'm tasting the bitter seeds of disappointment. Seeds that you, yes you! Have sown with your deceit!” Ben pointed his wet finger at her accusingly.

  Grace rolled her eyes. “Ohhh gawd, such melodrama, Father. Go brush your teeth with the toothpaste of delight. I think you bought some yesterday. I was just out for a little while, having fun. You know. Remember what fun is?”

  “Do I know these friends of yours? Have you been hanging out with ‘those people’?” Ben asked pointedly.

  Grace shook her head. “Absolutely not. You raised me better than that. I stay away from them.”

  “That’s my girl. Those inhumans are all bad news. You are better than that. You have a bright future ahead of you. That’s why you study.”

  “I know but—”

  “No ‘buts’,” Ben interrupted her. “I will think about the appropriate punishment for this repeat infraction.”

  Ben smacked his lips again for effect. “I am going to have to brush my teeth again. Toothpaste of delight huh?” He opened the door but turned around before stepping out. “To start with, I think I’ll take this.” He grabbed Grace’s phone and tucked it in his pocket.

  “No Dad, not my phone! C’mon. Please?”

  “Go to bed. You need to go to school tomorrow. And darlin’, just so you know, I changed the security codes for the house when I saw you were gone. Don’t open that window unless you want the cops to come looking for you.”

  “FINE,” Grace huffed.

  There is no way he changed the security codes. He can barely work his cellphone. And he’s lazy. He’s bluffing, she thought as she sat in the dark room.

  She crawled into bed, the stress of the night’s events catching up to her. After fluffing her pillow, she promptly fell asleep and never noticed the bright pair of yellow eyes that watched her from the other side of her window.

  Chapter 2

  The next day, Ben got in extra early to work. It wasn’t on purpose, there was just no traffic. Usually, there was always some accident or other on the roads. Either some teenage werewolves were chasing cars slaves to their hunting instincts or poltergeists were crossing the street in a semi-translucent state. The poltergeists were banking on a distracted driver to swerve and cause an accident. The former was mischievous while the latter was malevolent. Either way, they both caused chaos.

  “Hey Brenda, how’s it going?” Ben asked the portly lady when she walked into the break room.

  “Meh,” she shrugged, her dark brown hair remaining tightly bound in a bun. “My computer crashed. I thought I’d come get a snack while it rebooted. Not that I care. That thing can burst into flames, and I’d just roast marshmallows on it.”

  “Such dedication to workplace safety,” Ben snarked.

  “Yeah, yeah, this place is just a paycheck. I work here and I go home. That’s the extent of my commitment.”

  “Shhhh,” Ben said looking around in mock fear. “You don’t want management to hear that kind of talk. You know they love to say ‘we are all a big family,’” Ben said with a wink.

  “If they knew my family, they wouldn’t say that. Nothing happy about those malcontents. But you know, speaking of malcontents, how’s Grace doing? Is that girl ever happy?”

  “Don’t even get me started. She snuck out of the house again last night. I went to check on her and her room was empty. She went out the window to who knows where. I’m getting a bad feeling about the people she’s hanging out with.”

  Brenda rolled her eyes. “Teenagers. That’s why I never had children. If I wanted to hear the pitter patter of tiny feet, I would have bought a ferret and linoleum floors.”

  Ben laughed, sending his coffee sloshing over the side of his mug.

  “Hee hee, glad you liked that gem.” Brenda’s torso shook with her delight at her joke. “Call facilities, though. Don’t want anyone to slip and fall on your spill and get hurt. Workplace safety and all that jazz, you know. After all, we are just a big happy family, right?”

  Ben called facilities on the wall phone in the break room and made more coffee.

  Facilities arrived while they were chatting it up.

  Ben looked at the janitor with disdain. “Look at him. Can you believe that slackjaw?” he whispered to Brenda.

  “Now, now, Ben, you know that's not the correct term for those people. The proper term is necrotic. And he looks like a perfectly respectable zombie. Well dressed, not missing any appendages, no maggots. What’s not to like?” she asked.

  Ben called the janitor. “Hey, sorry about spilling the coffee. What’s your name?”

  The janitor shook his head, pointed to his mouth and wagged his finger. He shrugged apologetically and continued mopping.

  “See? He can’t talk. I bet a raccoon ate his tongue,” Ben groused.

  “He’s quiet, Brenda said. “Minding his own business. No harm in that.” Brenda tried looking at the bright side of being an exanimate.

  “Brenda, stop defending him. I didn’t know you were such a zombie lover. I mean really? He’s dead. Literally dead. His heart’s not beating. They aren’t human,” Ben said, narrowing his eyes and giving her a glare he usually reserved for Grace.

  Brenda quickly disagreed, flashing her small, brown eyes. “That’s not his fault, is it? I mean, you don’t know his story. Maybe he’s cursed or a djinn perverted his wish and made him that way. You know how petty djinn’s can be. You have to have a lawyer craft a wish if you have any chance of it not backfiring on you. I bet you that happened to him. Look at him, he’s a fresh corpse. I am sure he was attractive when he was animate.”

  “Ohh Brenda,” Ben scoffed. “Now you’ve really gone too far. An exanimate love affair? That’s the stuff of outlandish fetish right there. I would looove to see your browsing history. I bet you’ve been a naughty girl,” Ben smirked.

  “Pshaw. Nothing wrong with exploring your options. I’ve surfed through ZombieFriendFinder. There are some ok looking guys there.” Brenda waved him off. “Regardless, I’m just saying you can’t judge a person—pardon me, an exanimate, by his looks. They have anti-exanimate laws on the books now, you know.”

  Ben stared at the janitor at work. He finished up mopping, wrung the mop one last time, gave them a perfunctory wave and shuffled away.

  “Let me ask you, Ben, wouldn’t you take the chance to do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “You know. At the end, do that. Exanimate.”

  Ben looked at Brenda aghast. He had to remind himself to close his mouth. “Absolutely not! That is against the natural order of things. Death is the end. Should be the end. That is how things should be. When it’s your time, it’s your time. This exanimate thing is just … wrong.”

  “I’d do it. I mean, it’s like a second chance.”

  “Brenda. A zombie? Really? You would slowly rot and lose limbs. The atrophy. You wouldn’t! Would you?” Ben asked.

  Brenda thought about it for a minute. “Ok, maybe not a zombie exanimate. They do have a shelf life. Their bodies aren’t hardy. Maybe a vampire. I was also thinking that there are some benefits of being a skeleton. No cellulite to worry about but …”

  “But?” Ben prompted.

  “But, I’m kinda hippish. I don’t think a pear-shaped skeleton would be that attractive.”

  “You’re not hippish, you’re just big boned.”

  “Hardy har,” Brenda said lightly punching Ben on the shoulder.

  “C’mon let’s go. We should do some work
today. I’ll walk you to your cube,” Ben offered.

  “Why Ben, you are such a gentleman. I’d love that. And, I have something to show you,” she said mysteriously.

  Chapter 3

  “What is that?” Ben said when they arrived at Brenda’s cube. He was pointing to a white object on Brenda’s desk. It was fist-sized, with what looked like a rosary around it and several feathers haphazardly pasted on top.

  “That’s what I wanted to show you. Was on my desk this morning with a note from Magon,” she said turning the object to reveal it as a small skull.

  “Magon?” Ben said with wide-eyed amazement. “The facilities manager? Is that thing real?” Ben took a step back.

  “He’s sweet on me. Leaves me little things here and there. It’s nice to be fawned over,” she said, batting her eyelashes. “Big bones or not, I still got it.”

  “Brenda, Brenda, Brenda,” Ben said, his eyes wide with surprise. “You know better than to accept gifts from a voodoo priest. He’s bad news,” Ben scolded her. “I mean. That thing looks real. He gave you a shrunken head. Now you are in his control or something like that. He’ll eat your soul.”

  Brenda batted his remark away with her hand. “Oh, stop it with your drama. My soul is perfectly fine. What? You don’t like him either? He’s human. Voodoo priesting helps him manage the necrotics working in the facilities.”

  “It’s not that. I mean, yeah it is that. He cavorts with the undead, Brenda. He creates them for God’s sake. He’s part of the problem and you’re accepting gifts from him? He deals in the Dark Arts, Brenda. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into!”

  Ben waved his hands in front of him as if trying to ward off any evil spirits that might be loitering near the shrunken head.

  “Stop right there!” Brenda hissed while Ben was backpedaling.

  “Brenda—”

  “Don’t move!” She grabbed his shirt and pulled him toward her.

  “What’s gotten into you?” he asked stumbling forward and crashing into her.