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Living with the Dead (Women of the Otherworld, Book 9) - Hardcover

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9780679314868: Living with the Dead (Women of the Otherworld, Book 9)

Synopsis

The men and women of the Otherworld – witches, werewolves, demons, vampires – live unseen among us. Only now a reckless killer has torn down the wall, trapping one very human woman in the supernatural crossfire.

Robyn moved to LA after her husband died to try to put some distance between herself and the life they had together. And the challenges of her job as the PR consultant to a Paris Hilton wannabe are pretty distracting. But then her celebutante is gunned down in a night club, and Robyn is suddenly the prime suspect. The two people most determined to clear her are her old friend, the half-demon tabloid reporter Hope Adams, and a homicide detective with an uncanny affinity for the dead.

Soon Robyn finds herself in the heart of a world she never even knew existed – and which she was safer knowing nothing about . . .

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About the Author

Kelley Armstrong lives in rural Ontario with her husband, three children and far too many pets. She is the author of nine bestselling Women of the Otherworld novels, as well as a crime series featuring female hitwoman Nadia Stafford, and a young adult trilogy, Darkest Powers.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Adele

To call Portia Kane a waste of space was being charitable. She was negative space – a vacuum that sucked in everything around her. An entire industry had grown up to service this spoiled “celebutante.” Lives were wasted catering to her whims, feeding her ego, splashing her vapid face across the news.

And for what? She wasn’t smart, wasn’t talented, wasn’t pretty, wasn’t even interesting. Adele should know. She’d spent the last two years wallowing in the oatmeal mush that was Portia’s mind. But soon she’d be free. If she dared.

Adele stabbed a ripe baby tomato. The innards squirted down the front of her shirt. The insanely expensive white shirt she’d bought just for this meeting. She grabbed a linen napkin, but only ground the pulp into a bloody smear.

A tinkling laugh rose above the murmur of the lunch crowd. Adele turned to see Portia leaning over the table, whispering to Jasmine Wills. Laughing. At Adele? No. To them, she was invisible. That was the goal – never let your prey know it’s being stalked.

Paparazzi. An ugly word, with an uglier reputation. The kumpania never used it. They weren’t like those curs, endlessly chasing their prey, trying to corner it, provoke it, snatching mouthfuls of flesh where they could. Kumpania photographers were clever foxes, staying out of the fray and getting the most profitable shots through cunning, craft and clairvoyance.

A man cut through the gathering near the restaurant entrance. Was that him? They’d only spoken by phone, but she was sure it was. He had their look – the thinning blond hair, the unnaturally blue eyes, the arrogant tilt of the chin, the razor-sharp cut of the suit.

And he was looking right at her. Smiling at her. Coming toward her. In that moment, Adele knew how a fox felt when it saw its first grizzly.

All sensible supernaturals feared the Cabals, those corporations run by sorcerers whose idea of severance packages usually involved the removal of body parts. For clairvoyants, though, that fear rose to outright terror. By the time clairvoyants finished working for a Cabal, they’d lost the most vital body part of all – their minds.

The power of clairvoyance came with the price tag of insanity, a fate the kumpania promised to save them from...in return for a lifetime of servitude. They also promised to protect their clairvoyants from the Cabals, which would woo them with promises of wealth, then drain their powers and retire them to a padded cell, drooling and raving, brought out only for horrific experiments.

And now Adele was willingly meeting with a Cabal sorcerer. Willingly offering herself to his corporation. Was she mad? She had to run, escape while she still could.

She gripped her thighs, squeezing until the pain crystallized her fear into resolve. The grizzly might be the biggest predator in the forest, but a clever fox could use that. A clever clairvoyant could use the Cabals, make her fortune and get out while she was still sane enough to enjoy it.

Adele touched her stomach. In it, she carried the ultimate bargaining chip. With it, she didn’t need to flee the grizzly. She could run to it, hide behind it, use it to escape the kumpania and get the kind of life she deserved.

The man stopped beside her table. “Adele Morrissey?” He extended his hand. “Irving Nast. A pleasure to meet you. We have a lot to talk about.”
Robyn

The world was a shitty place; no one knew that better than Robyn Peltier. Every day for the past six months, she’d scoured the news for a story that proved it. She sometimes had to check two newspapers, but never more than that.

No common murder or assault would do. What Robyn looked for were the stories that made people call over their shoulders, “Hey, hon, can you believe this?” The ones you really didn’t want to believe because they supported a sneaking suspicion that this world was an ugly, fucked-up place where no one gave a damn about anyone else.

The experts blamed everything from video game violence to hormones in the milk to the wrath of God. People wrung their hands and moaned about what the world was coming to, as if callous disregard for human life was some new phenomenon. Bullshit. It started back when the first caveman clubbed a buddy for his wicked new spear.

But it’s easier to tell yourself the world is a good, civilized place, filled with good, civilized people, because that’s what you need to believe to keep going. And it works just fine until the day the ugliness seeps to the surface and sucks your life into the cesspool.

Today, Robyn found her story on page two of the L.A. Times. A man had shot a kid for walking across his lawn and thought he was perfectly justified – because, after all, it was his lawn. She clipped the article, laid it on a fresh page of her bulging scrapbook, then smoothed the plastic over it. Number 170.

Before she put the scrapbook back on the shelf, she flipped back to page one and read the headline, as she had 170 times before: “Good Samaritan Gunned Down on Highway.” She touched the face in the photo, tracing his cheek, where the plastic covering was almost worn through, and she thought, for the 170th time, what a crappy picture it was.

There was no excuse for picking a bad photo. As a public relations consultant, Robyn knew better than anyone the importance of providing the right picture to convey your message. She thought of all the ones she could have given the press. Damon playing hoops with his nephews. Damon treating his tenth-grade class to post-exam pizza. Damon goofing around with his garage band. Damon grinning at their wedding.

Damn it, any picture of him smiling would have done. How hard was that? The man was a born performer – stick a camera in his face and he lit up. After five years together, she had hundred of photos of him, any one of which would have shown the world what it had lost that night.

But when asked for a photo, she’d been dealing with the press, the police, the funeral arrangements, everyone clamoring for her attention when all she’d wanted to do was slam the door, fall to the floor and sob until exhaustion blessed her with sleep. She’d grabbed the first picture she could find – his somber college graduation shot – and shoved it into their hands.

Robyn’s cell phone rang. “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Portia had set up the ring tone. Not that Portia needed her own special one. These days, if Robyn’s phone rang, it was almost always Portia, who kept her busier than her dozen clients back in Philadelphia. In this business, the only job crazier than doing PR for Paris Hilton was doing PR for the girl who wanted to be the next Paris Hilton.

She put the scrapbook back on the shelf, then answered.

“Finally,” Portia breathed. “It rang, like, ten times, Rob.”

Three, but Robyn knew better than to correct her. “Sorry, I was in the other room.”

Silence, as Portia contemplated the concept of being, even momentarily, cell phone free.

“So how was lunch with Jasmine?” Robyn asked.

She braced for the answer and prayed if cleanup was required, it wouldn’t involve posting bail this time. The tabloids called Jasmine Wills a “frenemy” of Portia’s, but if there was any “friend” in the equation, Robyn had yet to see it.

The two young women hadn’t spoken since Jasmine stole Brock DeBeers, the former boy-band heartthrob who really had made Portia’s heart throb. Robyn had warned Portia not to accept the invitation to a makeup lunch, but Portia had only laughed, saying Robyn didn’t understand the game yet, and besides, she hadn’t really liked Brock that much. She only kept his photo in her room because she hadn’t found time to redecorate.

Apparently, Jasmine had spent the entire meal regaling Portia with tales of her wild sex life with Brock. Man’s inhumanity to man. Sometimes it was shooting a helpful stranger, sometimes it was beating your BFF’s dignity into the ground with a crowbar.

“But I’m going to get her back. I have a plan.”

Portia’s singsong cracked at the edges, and Robyn bled a little for her. She wished she could write Portia off as a vacuous twit who was sucking her dry with her neediness, but she supposed it would take another 170 articles in her scrapbook to drain her last ounce of sympathy.

Or maybe Robyn just liked to bleed. Maybe that was why she’d taken the job. Representing Portia Kane was the lowest, most meaningless form of PR work she could imagine. But after Damon’s death, she’d had enough of representing not-for-profit organizations for a pittance. No one else cared. Why should she?

“Oh, and then, just before the bill came, Penny called and guess what? They can’t make it to Bane tonight because – get this – they’re going to the opening of Silhouette with Jasmine. How much you want to bet Jasmine told Penny to call at lunch so she could watch my reaction?”

Every dollar I have, thought Robyn. Portia wasn’t stupid. That was the problem. It’d be so much easier if Robyn could write her off as a vacuous twit. But then she’d show some spark of intelligence, some proof that she could do more with her life than grace club openings.

“So what about that benefit concert tonight?” Robyn asked. “If you’re skipping Bane, I can call and get you back on the list–”

“Benefit concert? Oh God, Rob, kill me now. No, I’m still going to Bane, and you’re coming with me.”

How lonely did you need to be to invite y...

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  • PublisherRandom House Canada
  • Publication date2008
  • ISBN 10 0679314865
  • ISBN 13 9780679314868
  • BindingHardcover
  • Number of pages384
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