Netherworld: Drop Dead Sexy (10 page)

Dan tugged me closer. “This is
Isabella. She’ll be your channel.”

I bit my lip. “What exactly am I going
to be doing?”

Isabella smiled at no one. “I will
begin now.”

She swept one foot across the finely
woven Oriental rug she stood on, as if brushing aside something.
Then she crouched on the floor, crossing her legs to sit
Indian-style. Her eyes closed and I watched as her ample bosom rose
and fell slowly with even breaths.

“What the heck? Why doesn’t she sit on
a sofa?” I asked Dan. An extremely comfy-looking one, all done up
in soft red velvet, sat empty right behind her.

“Because there aren’t any on the
physical plane. She can’t see the spirit of the hotel.”

Oh. “This is so weird,” I
complained.

“Pay attention. She’s putting herself
in a trance in which she’ll make room for your spirit to enter her
body.”

“How?” A million butterflies took
flight in my stomach. Did I really have to do this?

Dan shrugged, his neverending patience
unperturbed by my constant questions. “I don’t know. Some things
you just have to accept as what they are.” His gaze on Isabella
sharpened. “Get ready.”

The channel’s face went lax. Her
shoulders sagged, but her body remained upright in its seated
position.

“Okay, Brandilynn.” Dan motioned to the
woman.

I stared at her. “What do I do? Just
crawl in her? How? And shouldn’t we be properly introduced first? I
mean, this is kind of an intimate situation—”

Dan gave me a none-too gentle shove,
knocking me off my feet. I fell towards Isabella and screamed, my
hands flying out in front of me to stop my fall. There was no way
to avoid her, and I winced in the split second before our bodies
collided.

No crash. Instead, a strange heaviness
enveloped me, cloaking my body with unaccustomed weight. I blinked
and saw two lobbies at once. One was the beautiful, richly
appointed one I’d grown used to already, teeming with the wealthy
of bygone eras. The other was dark, lit only by the thin beams of
Isabella and Lana’s flashlights. I peered around, heartbroken to
see the charred wooden beams of the King George’s blackened husk.
Nothing of the richly papered walls remained. The paneled ceiling
had disappeared, leaving the lobby open to the concrete floor of
the world above. My head swam as I tried to focus on both worlds,
the dead and the living. My stomach — or Isabella’s stomach —
lurched with nausea.

Channeling felt wrong on too many
different levels. My — Isabella’s — heart sped up with panic. “How
do I get back out? Dan!” I screeched. The voice was not my own,
husky despite the upper octaves I reached in my terror.

“It’s okay, Brandilynn,” Lana said,
catching my — Isabella’s — tottering frame, keeping us from falling
over on the debris-strewn floor as I flailed.

At the same time, Dan kneeled on the
Oriental rug before me. “Relax Brandilynn. You’re not trapped.
After a little while Isabella will wake and push you out naturally.
Stand up and let’s go. We don’t have much time.”

I felt ungainly in Isabella’s body. Her
frame was shorter and thicker than mine. Her breath and a heartbeat
thundered in my ears after spending the day in my own completely
silent essence. I flopped about helplessly as I tried to make
Isabella stand. I caught Charles the desk clerk staring in
openmouthed shock. I noted the profanity-laced graffiti on the
charred wall behind him. He looked away as soon as he realized I
stared back at him. Resuming his professional mien, he busied
himself at a desk that no longer existed.

Heaven help me, this sucked harder than
a Hoover vacuum cleaner. Never again, I vowed. If the living wanted
to communicate with me, they could break out a Ouija
board.

Lana pulled at me, her doughy arms
stronger than they looked. I used her as kind of a ladder, climbing
up her powder-scented body with effort while making sure I didn’t
claw her with Isabella’s long, pink-polished fingernails. Bless her
sweet heart, Lana bore it all cheerfully, saying, “There you go.
That’s got it. You’ll be fine, honey.”

At last I gained Isabella’s feet,
swaying drunkenly as my dual sight played holy heck with my
balance. Lana patted my arm in congratulations. “Hi,
Brandilynn.”

“Hi.” I suppressed an urge to pull the
snug jeans away from Isabella’s legs. I never wear jeans, and they
felt awfully scratchy, especially where her thighs rubbed
together.

“Are you up to walking?” Dan’s face was
oh-so serious, but I saw the amusement in his eyes.
Jerk.

I took a few unsteady steps,
acquainting myself with this body that felt so different from mine.
Lana hovered nearby, her arms outstretched to catch me if I
stumbled. Bless her again. Too much makeup or not, she was an
absolute sweetheart.

“I think I’ve got it.” I tried to turn
right. Isabella’s legs went left.

“Then let’s go.” Dan headed off to a
brightly lit hallway off the lobby in his reality. In Isabella’s,
the hall became a black tunnel, the kind of place where the
bogeyman might be hiding, waiting to eat me up. Swinging the
flashlight I clutched in a death grip to ward off any beasts
lurking in the dark, I followed Dan. The channel’s legs wandered as
I navigated the rubble-strewn floor, making me reel like a
drunkard.

“Wait up!” I called to the rapidly
moving Dan. “This body doesn’t want to do what I’m telling it to.
God, it would be easier walking in quicksand.”

Lana was there, her bulk warm against
my side as she put an arm around my waist. “Lean on me until you
get your sea legs, honey.”

I wrapped my arm around her gratefully.
“Thanks Lana. Take my advice. When you die, don’t ever do
this.”

Over her happy chuckle, Dan said, “Come
on, Brandilynn. You’re tougher than this. Stop being such a
baby.”

I bared Isabella’s teeth at him. “Oh,
you haven’t seen baby yet. You just wait.” Isabella’s feet nearly
tripped over themselves, and he grinned at me.

I was so getting him back for this
indignity.

I gained the hallway entrance and found
it wasn’t as Stygian black as Isabella’s eyes had first informed
me. Light emitted from wide doors at the far end of the hall, like
a beacon in a storm. The sound of muttering voices came from there,
and that’s where we headed.

While the dead version of the King
George’s hallway looked much lovelier with its patterned tile floor
and gilt-framed paintings, I focused my vision on Isabella’s view
of the blackened carcass. The ceiling here remained intact, though
soot obscured it. The floor had been swept clean, but it buckled in
places, creating numerous tripping hazards. I already had to
concentrate hard just to maneuver. Getting through the humped areas
was like navigating an obstacle course on stilts.

As we reached the lit doorway, Dan
announced, “This is the old ballroom. Tristan has converted it for
his use.”

We stepped into the room, and my two
different views of my surroundings slid together in a harmonious
whole. The feeling of vertigo dissipated, and I no longer felt so
wobbly as I took in my surroundings.

The ballroom existed in both planes
exactly the same. As it was in the living realm, so it was in the
netherworld. Large chandeliers hung overhead. The parquet wood
floor no doubt set someone back a bank account or two.

It left prettiness behind after that.
Three rows of utilitarian desks marched across the room. It looked
like office hell in sumptuous surroundings with computers, ringing
phones, and people bunched here and there in watercooler gangs. At
the far end of the room, two large dark wooden desks sat on a
bandstand. The desks, both high-end enough for Fortune 500 CEOs,
were also outfitted with computers. A giant whiteboard hung
on

the wall behind them. I could see
scribbling on the board, but at this distance I couldn’t make out
what was written.

What I could see was that all the
people in the room weren’t exactly people in a human sense. I’d
stepped into Paranormal Central. I suddenly felt very vulnerable in
Isabella’s too mortal body and wondered what would happen to me if
she died while I remained trapped inside her.

I let go of Lana and tottered a bit
despite the absence of vertigo. I felt like I might overbalance at
any moment. I fought hard for my equilibrium and dignity. “Why is
this so hard? I was in a physical body only days ago!”

Lana patted my arm. “This isn’t your
body. Usually the spirits Isabella channels don’t have to walk
around. If you ask me, you’re adjusting very well.”

I smiled at her kind words, feeling all
too well how the facial muscles under my command worked. Gosh, this
was so weird.

We advanced into the room, and I gawked
openly at the ‘people’ working. Most were weres, their shifter
identities obvious from the animal-like characteristics blended
with human forms.

The ‘Zoo Flu’ that turned humans into
shapeshifters wasn’t a flu at all. Usually, victims that survived
the animal-hopping virus possessed genetic abnormalities that
predisposed them to becoming weres, needing only the illness to
finish the job.

A location’s predominant flavor of
werecritter depended on the local fauna in the area. For southeast
Georgia, we have mostly alligators, feral hogs, and rattlesnakes.
The werepanthers, once major players in Fulton Falls’ shifter
community, are now rare as the Southern panther itself has gone
extinct. All that keeps that particular population of shapeshifters
going is passing the virus from were to human. Since humans are
very leery of hanging out with weres, the panther shifters are on
the brink of extinction themselves. You won’t find a ‘Save the
Werepanther’ movement, as no sane person contracts Zoo Flu by
choice. The virus kills more often than not.

I saw mostly werehogs, their pointed
ears sitting high on their heads and snouted noses sniffing nonstop
at the musty burnt air of the room. Fingers fused permanently into
the Star Trek ‘live long and prosper’ signs tapped carefully on
computer keyboards. Tiny eyes peered myopically around; many
werehogs wore goggles outfitted with corrective lenses. Second most
prevalent were the weregators, their armor-like skin greenish-gray.
I watched one laughing with a wizened doll-sized gargoyle, its
dagger-toothed smile heartstopping.

“It’s like Halloween in here,” I
muttered. “I’ve never seen so many paras at once.”

“You’re one of them now,” Lana gently
reminded me. “Mind your manners. Here comes Patricia.”

My skin crawled as I looked at the
tall, dark-haired vampire stalking towards us. God help me, I came
face to face with a bloodsucker, something I usually tried to avoid
at all costs.

One of those monsters had killed me.
For all I knew, it was this woman.

She looked vaguely familiar, but since
I don’t mix with her kind, I couldn’t quite place her. I had to
give credit where it was due. Patricia was a beauty. Somehow her
bluish pale skin suited her. Her long, lithe body made me feel even
more ungainly within my Isabella suit. Her sleek, almost black hair
stopped just short of her shoulders, and she wore an emerald green
pantsuit that set off her lean body to advantage. I wondered where
she’d found the outfit; it looked so professional without
detracting from her femininity. Lovely.

Trust fashion to distract me, even from
walking death. I forced myself to attend the threat before
me.

More human looking than most of the
paras who populated the room, there was still no missing the cold
otherness that set her apart from the breathing. She was pure
huntress, and I shivered in fear for Lana as the vampire addressed
her.

“Is Dan here?” Patricia’s voice sounded
like chipped ice, but she showed no fangs. I knew from television
and gossip the fangs were always there, but most bloodsuckers chose
to glamour their appearance to mask them.

Lana nodded, her smile as agreeably
sweet as if greeting a member of the Garden Club at high tea. She
gestured towards Dan, who looked bored. “He’s here and this is
Brandilynn.”

Patricia barely spared me a look, for
which I felt profoundly glad. Staring in Dan’s general direction,
she said. “He’s waiting for you. He’s been waiting for
you.”

She turned on her heel and started
towards the bandstand where more vampires and shifters clustered
and broke apart, clustered in different groups, and broke apart
again. If not for the metaphysical nature of the participants, it
might have been a typical corporate American scene. They moved with
purpose; a hive of undead and half-animal worker bees getting para
business done.

As we followed Patricia, I snorted,
“Long on manners around here, aren’t we?”

The vampire flung a fanged grin over
her shoulder at me. “Only when we’re trying to charm someone out of
their blood.” Her gray-pink tongue traced her lips, and she
tittered when my eyes widened. She hurried ahead, pulling well
ahead of us.

Okay, now I was grumpy. “Who is
Morticia, exactly?” I whispered to Dan and Lana.

The corner of Dan’s mouth quirked.
“Tristan’s sister. Behave yourself. She’s not one for
foolishness.”