Book by Strout Anton
Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Praise for
DEAD TO ME
“Simon Canderous is a reformed thief and a psychometrist. By turns despondent over his luck with the ladies (not always living) and his struggle with the hierarchy of his mysterious department (not always truthful), Simon’s life veers from crisis to crisis. Following Simon’s adventures is like being the pinball in an especially antic game, but it’s well worth the wear and tear.”
—Charlaine Harris, New York Times bestselling author of From Dead to Worse
—Rachel Vincent, author of Stray and Rogue
—Kelly McCullough, author of CodeSpell
—SFRevu
—Monsters and Critics
—Cameron Hughes, CHUD.com
—Carolyn Turgeon, author of Rain Village
—Romantic Times
Ace Books by Anton Strout
DEAD TO ME
deader still
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
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Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
DEADER STILL
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author
printing HISTORY
Ace mass-market edition / March 2009
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
eISBN : 978-1-101-01450-9
ACE
Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
For Donna Marie Strout,
whose sense of humor lives on through me
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, this book is to you, my readerly little friends. Perhaps you’ve just picked me up for the first time. Maybe you are part of the Undead Approved, who have already read Dead to Me. Whatever way you came to this book, thanks for being here. The adventures of Simon Canderous are nothing without you, and for that you have my sincere and deepest appreciation. Welcome aboard; thanks for joining us. Tell your friends. Say hi to your mother for me.
As for the rest of my hive of scum and villainy? It’s time to thank them. Hold your applause to the end, please. My personal kudos are extended to: my wife, Orly, whose patience and love are infinite; my family—those by blood and those by association; Jessica Wade, the editor whose verbosity makes my inanity palatable; superagent Kristine Dahl and Laura Neely at ICM, who put up with my authorly neuroses; copy editor Jessica McDonnell; Annette Fiore DeFex, Judith Murello, and Don Sipley, for another amazing cover; Michelle Kasper; the Dorks of the Round Table—authors Jeanine Cummins and Carolyn Turgeon—for taking time to bruise their eyes on the first draft of this book (support their books, too!); beta reader and cheer-leader Missy Sawmiller; beta reader and glamazon Lisa Trevethan; Patrick Rothfuss, my arch nemesis and author of The Name of the Wind, who graciously took the time to read a wee baby draft of the manuscript; and the fans, whose snowball effect keeps people coming to the series.
And finally, a special shout-out to all of the various departments at Penguin Group (USA) Inc. that make this book look as pretty as it does, especially my friends and colleagues in the paperback sales department who keep me humble and—more importantly—on bookshelves everywhere. Your names are legion, for you are many.
Revenge is a dish best served . . . erk!
—Anonymous quote found in the Gauntlet archives
attributed to a long-deceased member of
the Fraternal Order of Goodness
1
“Watch out for the elves, Simon,” Connor Christos said, tugging at my arm. And since I had come to trust my partner in Other Division, I didn’t resist.
He pulled me to my left, allowing me to narrowly avoid two “elves.” One wore glasses with black Buddy Holly frames, and the other couldn’t have been more than five feet tall.
“Lothlorien sure ain’t making ’em like they used to,” I said.
“Welcome to New York Comic Con, kid.”
“Nerdtacular,” I said. All walks of life crowded the hangarlike convention hall. The giant glass structure of the Javits Center on Manhattan’s west side looked like it had been conjured straight out of a futuristic fantasy world.
“Would you rather be back at our desks at the Department of Extraordinary Affairs?” Connor asked.
“Lower your voice,” I said, looking around.
“Relax,” Connor said. “We’re the most normal-looking guys in here.”
Connor looked like the older and stranger of the two of us, with a white stripe running through his messy mop of sandy brown hair. His Bogart-style trench coat hid his rugged frame, but even that had been no match for the ghost who had streaked his hair. Comparatively, I was the picture of youth, with my own hair black, through and through, still untouched by ghostly harm. Even my knee-length black leather coat was more fashionable, and did double duty—both hiding my retractable bat and paying homage to the one the do-gooder vampire Angel always wore on television.
“Even so,” I said, “I’d prefer it if you kept it down about the D.E.A.”
Connor shook his head. “No one here’s even going to bat an eye at our supersecret government agency.” He cupped his hand over his mouth and shouted, “Paranormal investigators in the house!”
Very few people turned to look at us. A few woots rose out of the crowd, and when I turned to look we were being cheered on by a group of guys dressed as Ghostbusters, pumping the business ends of their proton packs in the air.
“See?” he said. “Now don’t tell me you’d rather be in the office . . .”
I thought of the pile of paperwork waiting for me—ghost sightings, zombie infestations, demons rollicking through hipster bars out in Williamsburg, the usual.
“Actually, this freak show is looking pretty good to me right now.” I held up my writing hand and flexed it, hearing it pop and crack as I did so. “Besides, if I have to fill out another form in triplicate, I think my hand will fall off. And not in the cool, zombie-rotting way, either . . .”
Connor shook his head. “Less than a year in the Department, and you’re already burned out on the red tape, huh?” He pointed at the crowd before us. “Then this place should take your mind off of all that for a bit. You’ve got every type of geekdom out here in full force. Your fans of everything come out for this one, dressed to the nines: superheroes, elves, robots, Jedis, Trekkies. Pirates are really big this year.”
“Great,” I said. “That should help me stay focused today.”
“Just relax,” he said. “Every agent’s been put through the Oubliette.”
“And passed it?”
“Well,” Connor said, pausing. “No . . .”
“I don’t want that to be me,” I said, feeling my nerves rising. I’d joined the New York Department of Extraordinary Affairs seven months ago. I was blessed (or cursed) with psychometry, the ability to touch an object and divine information about its past, so getting the job had turned a power that had ruined many a relationship and been a major burden into a highlight of my résumé. Connor had been assigned as my mentor for these past few months, and I appreciated that, but I wanted to pass the Oubliette and earn my stripes as his full-fledged partner. “I don’t want to wait another year to retake the test if I fail it.”
“Relax,” Connor repeated. “You’ll do fine.”
“Easy to say for someone who passed it years ago and actually got to test on the Oubliette the Department owns.”
“Owned,” Connor corrected. “With the budget cuts down at City Hall, I don’t think the Department’s going to be able to afford to fix it. And trust me, from what I’ve heard, you definitely don’t want to be going into that Oubliette. Something’s living in it now. I don’t know exactly what, but Inspectre Quimbley said it was quite unsavory.”
“Well, who am I to argue with the director of Other Division?”
“And don’t forget he’s your superior in the Fraternal Order of Goodness,” Connor added. “Not that I’m part of your precious little organization.”
I noted the hint of bitterness in Connor’s voice.
“Hey,” I said. “I was just as surprised as you were when I got their letter adopting me into their ranks. Their initiation felt like a cross between a toga party and the Skull and Bones society.”
Connor started playing the world’s tiniest violin between his fingers, so I decided it was best to avoid the subject even though it had only happened a few short months ago. It was like being in high school all over again, except I was in all the advanced-placement classes now. F.O.G. wasn’t technically part of the official New York government function of the D.E.A. anyway. I didn’t even fully understand where the line between the two was drawn, but I knew that the Fraternal Order of Goodness predated the Department by several hundred years and functioned more like the Freemasons, only they didn’t seem to issue cool swords. However, they did have resources the Department didn’t have, and they weren’t bogged down by nearly as much red tape.
“Still,” I said, trying to steer the conversation back to why we had come to Comic Con. “I wouldn’t normally think of a comic book convention as a place to rent a magical Oubliette.”
Connor shrugged. “But here we are. You’d be surprised at what can pass unnoticed in an environment like this. You ready to go all MacGyver?”
“MacGyver?”
“You know,” Connor said. “You ready to improvise on whatever harsh battle conditions the Oubliette decides to put you through?”
I shrugged. “As ready as I can be. I’ve studied as much as I could over at Tome, Sweet Tome.”
“Oh, so Jane helped?” Connor asked. At the mention of my ex-cultist girlfriend, I got a case of the warm fuzzies.
“Director Wesker’s been putting her through all this cataloging work while they try to figure out how Mandalay had the place organized before we took it over,” I said. “But even with all that busy work, she found some time to help me go over various Oubliette scenarios. We read up on the two carnival wheels that determine my fate. Then we played out the various combinations of weapons it could give to aid me and what the different challenges thrown at me might be. I’m hoping I get a good combo. I’d love it if the Oubliette gave me a silver-tipped crossbow and matched it up with a werewolf. Fingers crossed!”
“I can’t tell which is...
It’s hard to defeat evil on a budget. Just ask Simon Canderous.
FROM THE AUTHOR OF DEAD TO ME.
View our feature on Anton Strout’s Deader Still.
It’s been 737 days since the Department of Extraordinary Affairs’ last vampire incursion, but that streak appears to have ended when a boat full of dead lawyers is found in the Hudson River. Using the power of psychometry—the ability to divine the history of an object by touching it—agent Simon Canderous discovers that the booze cruise was crashed by something that sucked all the blood out of the litigators. Now, his workday may never end—until his life does.Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.
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