City of the Dead by Greg Jolley
Summary:
Publication date: October 1st 2021
Jayden has just seven nights to rescue her ownership of the Cimetière du Dernier Vol. cemetery in the backwaters of Northern Florida, by any means necessary, including murder.
Welcome to her world, where life among the dead goes on forever.
Jayden has the means, and certainly knows the ways. But the clock is ticking. On the seventh night, the annual Grand Soirée is to be held. If she can pull it off, her future is secure. The problem is the four chairs that she must fill as her part of the event, a planned money-making scheme involving a grim act of necromancy. Four messengers will be put to death and sent over to acquire lucrative market knowledge for the attending gullible investors.
Can anyone stop her?
Two escaped victims are trying. April Danser and her twelve-year-old criminal partner Kazu, both mangled and frightened, have only a few nights to derail Jayden’s deadly train of murder and madness. At times teaming up with other residents of the cemetery – a ghastly cast of recluses – April and Kazu are in the fight of their lives, not only to end Jayden’s deadly plans, but also to survive her repeated attacks.
Taking place during seven nights in the once famous cemetery, City of the Dead is a dance between good and evil with everything at risk, including life and sanity.
Author Bio:
Author Links
https://thedansers.com/
https://www.facebook.com/greg.jolley.581
https://www.instagram.com/gfjolle/
https://twitter.com/Gfjolle
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8261931.Greg_Jolley
Giveaway
Excerpt
Grunting and drenched with sweat, Jayden lifted the dead weight of the body until she had it almost standing on its own. Her hands clenching his shirt, she shoved Reynard hard and he toppled back over the wheelbarrow side. Not having the strength, she didn’t bother with turning his hips and getting his legs inside.
She turned a full circle, taking in the rows of headstones and mausoleums rolling out into the darkness.
“That little girl…” She frowned. “Out there somewhere.”
Turning away from that strange worry, she looked through the tall fence of the Joubert’s grand plot to the sound of the languid music and the four girls dancing in the heat and candlelight, one drinking a bottle of water, another pouring one on her head and down the front of her white silk dress.
“I wish,” Jayden whispered, jealous of their enjoyment of each other and their dance. A fast vignette played, the teen with the wet dress front handing her one of the chilled bottles.
She touched the back of her head, shoulders hunching at the pain. Her fingers came away red with blood from the stitches Reynard had opened when he pounded the back of her skull on the ground.
Lifting the wheelbarrow handles, she tested the mean weight. She rolled it back from the tall fence, along the marble table crypt and across the grass out to the Avenue Principale. The going was easier with the front wood wheel rolling on the cobblestones. Straining under the weight, thirsty and tired, she came up to the edge of the blue reflection pool. The black swans were huddled in the corner to her left, avoiding the voices and circular ripples from Allan and Jacqueline. The couple was still in the water, at its side, pulling on their clothing. Their post-coital argument had something to do with Underhill.
“Not jealous,” Allan’s voice was hot. “Underhill is a lecher, a quim chaser, a dog sniffing for any open legs.”
“He was there no more than five minutes. Admiring my mausoleum, not me.”
“Trying to get a look-see inside, I’m sure. I’ve warned you.”
“Endless times, over and over. And no, he didn’t get a look-see inside my home.”
Jayden left them to all that, rolling the wheelbarrow off the side of the lane and onto the grass to pass by them in the shadows, not risking either of them seeing Reynard’s dangling legs.
Twenty exhausting minutes later, she wheeled Reynard through the courtyard gate. Unlocking her building, she rolled him across the landing above her basin bed and into the hall to the left. Opening the grated cage door of her elevator, she had to raise and shove his dangling lower legs and boots to the side to fit him in. After hitting the up button, the old and cranky basement engine pulled the chains. She squeezed alongside the wheelbarrow and opened the crisscross door leading into her kitchen from beside the pantry.
Hefting the handles, she struggled with the heavy load across the kitchen and into the hall to the holding room. She brought the wheelbarrow to its final stop beside the recliner the boy had occupied. At her back were Tandy and Mrs. Thawl. On the other side of the empty recliner, Eiffel slept with her caged gator at her feet. A sniff told her she needed to clean up Tandy. She also had to undress Reynard and get him into a diaper.
“It can wait.” She went to work getting the man out of the wheelbarrow and into the recliner.
Working in the flickering light from the fireplace, she swabbed his forearm, inserted an IV needle, and taped it in place. Circling to the armoire, she started sedation and nutrient drips and the monitor the boy had been connected to. With Reynard IV’d, tubed, and wired, she left the holding room.
“I’ve got this,” she said, entering her kitchen. Even with her thoughts dulled from the head-bashing, there was some satisfaction in having four messengers ready to go. Then she remembered.
That little girl, ghost, angel, whatever.
At the sink, she filled a pitcher with water and drank half of it. The threat followed her: that child with an elusively familiar face. A witness, no matter how young.
“What to do about her?” she asked her sparse kitchen and living room just beyond.
“It’ll come to me.” She turned to the spiral staircase.
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