Dead to Me: The Harry Russo Diaries, #5

By Lisa Emme

LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING…

Angharad “Harry” Russo is a half-vampire witch with the power to raise the dead. No surprise that her life is not what you would call normal, but that won’t stop her from trying.  So maybe she was almost disemboweled by a demon, that’s no reason for her sexy boyfriend, homicide detective Cian Nash to give her the cold shoulder, is it?  One thing’s for sure, Harry’s not going to let his behaviour slide.  She’ll get to the bottom of it even if it means sitting him down and tying him to a chair.  But first there’s the little mystery of some damaged roses and stolen jewels to solve.  Add in a flirty stranger with mysterious powers, a cat burglar and a feathered accomplice, and Harry’s off on another adventure.  Unfortunately, it’s not all fun and games.  When the leaders of the supernatural community go missing, the race is on to find who’s behind their abductions before it’s too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lisa Emme
• Release date: May 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781988117157

Lisa Emme

Lisa has been practising to be a storyteller almost since the day she started to talk.  Known to have told a tall tale or two as a child, she has always had an over-active imagination.  A voracious reader, Lisa has been preparing for this adventure in writing since she first became hooked on Fantasy novels at the age of ten.  After reading hundreds, if not thousands of books, she finally felt it was time to put her thoughts on paper (well, computer screen, but that doesn't sound as catchy). The Harry Russo Diaries is one of the first ideas to battle its way out of the deep dark crevices of her imagination.  

Book preview

Chapter One

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Harry!

Harry, I need–

Just this one thing! This one–

Excuse me, Miss? Can you really see me?

Ugh. I used all my will power to avoid rolling my eyes and instead adjusted the urn of flowers a smidge to the right before dusting off my hands and backing away to survey my work. The funeral I’d been hired to provide flowers for started in a little over an hour, and I wanted to make sure I was well clear of the area beforehand. It hadn’t been easy getting things done, what with my quickly growing entourage and the funeral home staff setting up nearby. I did my best to ignore them – the entourage, not the staff – but it’s kind of hard to do when they’re floating around you, getting in your face and drawing on your life energy to fuel their own existence. It’s the main reason I prefer to avoid cemeteries almost as much as I do hospitals – all the dead people.

You’d think it would be the other way around, after all, a cemetery’s bread and butter is the dead, but those are just corpses, empty shells. No, my problem is the spirits that once inhabited those rotting bodies. My name is Angharad Russo – but my friends call me Harry – and I see dead people.

So why would someone who can commune with ghosts choose to own a flower shop, a job that’s pretty much guaranteed to take them to the two places they would least want to go? Well, it makes more sense when you factor in the whole hedge witch part of my genetic make-up. You could say I was born with two green thumbs. I can grow almost anything, anywhere – a skill set that comes in handy when you run a flower shop. Add in the fact that I’m a dhamphir – half human, half vampire – and some would say that makes me quite the special snowflake. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I haven’t even mentioned the zombie queen part yet.

While to say I’m a queen – drag or otherwise – is a misnomer, it is true I’m a necromancer. I can raise the dead, but more importantly, I can also command them, a talent that, as you can imagine, makes vampires rather twitchy. In past centuries, once discovered, a gift like mine would have ensured a swift death, but I have one more ace up my sleeve – Salvador Arroyo, the Magister of the Cimmerian, the kingpin of the supernatural underworld, the biggest, baddest vampire in town, and, as it turns out, my father.

Salvador’s the reason I’m still alive after my powers started to mature. Of course, he’s also the reason I ended up outing myself to the entire vampire community to begin with, so it’s a bit of a trade-off as far as I’m concerned. I didn’t know Salvador was my father until a few months ago, and I’m still adjusting to the whole idea.

This was my first time back in a cemetery since having raised a zombie to settle a dispute about a will, and I was feeling a little antsy. It’s not that the zombie raising hadn’t gone well, it’s what happened after that still had me spooked. Almost being dragged to hell by a demon will do that to you.

But Seth Zaebos, a.k.a. Set, the former Egyptian god and now lieutenant of the demon Asmodeus, is gone and everything is back to normal, or at least as normal as it ever is for me.

Harry, c’mon–

Please, Miss. I really need–

Ignoring the ghosts as best I could – a task more difficult than it should have been because they were so much louder than usual – I grabbed the dolly cart and wheeled it back towards my truck. One particularly persistent ghost didn’t get out of the way in time, and it took extra effort not to visibly shudder at the cold chill scampering down my spine as I passed through its filmy presence. With a nod to the funeral crew, I loaded my cart onto the back of my truck, wincing at the loud clatter it made, and hopped in the cab with a sigh of relief, the slamming door signalling to all but the most stubborn spirit to take a hike.

I took another deep breath, enjoying the peace and quiet. I’d have to quit scheduling myself for cemetery deliveries. Now that I think about it, I didn’t need to be doing any deliveries at all. Not since George, my newest hire, started part time to give Jimmy, my other delivery guy, a hand. With sales at the flower shop up and the new café doing well, I was a regular entrepreneur. I now had a staff of six at the coffee shop, not counting Isaac who was more like my business partner or Hilde who refused to take a salary but still baked up a storm every night. In the flower shop, George and Jimmy had been joined by Izzy, a recent hire to help Mrs. Potts keep up with the increased orders. Other than tending the roof top garden that supplied most of the flowers for the shop and drawing up the weekly work schedule, I was hardly needed at all.

Pardon me.

With a start, I flung out my hand defensively. Holy sh–

I bit back the rest of my sentence as I turned towards the voice in the passenger seat. The occupant was a delicate-looking woman dressed in a garish turquoise pant suit with an equally blinding orange floral patterned blouse. Her hair was pulled up in a chignon, held back by a matching silk scarf.

Miss Penny! You scared the bejeezus out of me.

I’m terribly sorry, my dear. I don’t mean to be a bother, but I need your help. They’ll die if you don’t do something.

What? Who’ll die? What are you talking about? I stared at the elderly spirit in confusion. Miss Penny was one of the few ghosts I’d ever met who didn’t appear to have shaved at least a few years off her spectral appearance. She looked exactly like she did the day she died three years ago – like an eighty-year-old escapee from the seventies.

The roses, dear. The roses. Miss Penny wrung her hands together, shaking her head. That brute trampled my roses. She turned to me, her eyes pleading. Please, Harry. You have to help them.

Oh man, I hate it when they look at me with their puppy eyes. With another loud sigh, I turned the key in my truck and the engine roared to life. Fine. I’ve got time to kill anyway. Tell me where to go.

***

And then the ruffian came sailing over the fence landing right in my roses. He crushed the poor florabundas and trampled the polyanthas as he ran off across the lawn. Miss Penny waved her hand out over the cemetery indicating the general direction of the offending rose-crusher’s escape.

We were in one of the older sections of the cemetery where the vacancy rate was low – the only empty plots were already spoken for, waiting for their owners’ eventual demise – and so I rarely came to this part of the grounds.

I eyed the damage. The jerk, whoever he was, had done a number on the little rose garden. Built along the stone fence in the southeast corner of the cemetery, the section had been modeled after a formal English Tea Garden, but it was looking rather forlorn and neglected, something I was sure only contributed to Miss Penny’s agitated state. I had met her a couple of times when she was alive and still puttering around the gardens, and she’d come across as someone overly dedicated to her work. I mean you’d have to be to continue to work for free long past the age of your retirement. I had encountered her more often since her death. Mainly because I was the only one who could listen to her complaints about her wastrel nephew who was doing a shoddy job running the cemetery since taking over the business twenty years ago from Miss Penny’s deceased husband. Not to mention the lazy good-for-nothing gardener they now had in charge of the landscaping who she loved to complain about. Although, judging by the state of this garden, maybe she had cause.

Can you save them?

Miss Penny’s plaintive words interrupted my thoughts, and I glanced down at the cracked and broken shrubs in front of me. I think so, I replied, kneeling to examine a woody cane that had been snapped nearly in two.

Rising back to my feet, I took a deep, cleansing breath and closed my eyes only to have the ground fall out from beneath me. Well, at least figuratively. I went down on one knee, temporarily overwhelmed by the call of the dead surrounding me.

Harry! Miss Penny hovered over me, a look of worry on her face.

I’m fine. I waved her off with my hand. Her ethereal presence wasn’t helping the tingling feeling I had running over my skin. I just need a minute.

I let out another long, slow breath. My necromantic powers had grown, ever since I raised William Koenig’s zombie – on purpose for a change – the month before, but this was the first time they had almost overwhelmed me without me deliberately calling them.

I shakily rose to my feet, giving Miss Penny a reassuring smile. Alright, let’s try this again, shall we?

I shook off the tingling feeling, rolling my shoulders and shaking my arms like a runner warming up for a race and then closed my eyes again, this time visualizing the plants made whole. It was early spring, the buds of the new leaves barely beginning to swell, but the roses were impatient now that they were awake. They eagerly sipped the magical energy I offered, allowing me to direct it to the damaged areas to mend the broken branches.

Miss Penny gasped behind me, astonished to witness my magic in action as branch after branch slowly returned to its original state. Amazing, she whispered in awe. Oh, Harry, I knew you could help them.

It’s a good thing I was here today, otherwise more of the damage would have been permanent. As it is, some of these breaks are already sealed over, and the branches can’t be fixed. To demonstrate, I stripped away a broken cane and pointed to the plug of new growth forming in its place. When did this happen?

Miss Penny’s brow furrowed and she shook her head. I should have known better than to ask – the dead don’t have a very good concept of time – but sometimes I forget I’m talking to a ghost. This was one of those times. Don’t worry about it, Miss Penny.

No, dear…I… She tilted her head, looking up in thought. It was the same day as Lester Pierce’s funeral. I remember because after ravaging my roses, the brute went on to desecrate Mr. Pierce’s grave, tossing trash into the open plot, right on top of the casket. That lazy George Haskell had yet to fill it in after the funeral earlier in the day.

Trash?

Yes, when he came over the fence and into my poor roses, he was carrying a bag, like one of those hideous fast food restaurant bags. He ran off, clutching it to his chest, and when he came to Mr. Pierce’s grave he tossed it in and then kept running across the lawn and out the gate.

Hmmm, I replied, biting my lip in thought. Something she’d said was ringing a bell, but I didn’t know why. With a shrug, I moved towards the stone wall, arms open, brushing my hands across the tops of the rose bushes. At the fence line, the thick canes of a climbing variety of rose had also been damaged by the mystery man’s less than graceful entrance to the cemetery. As I touched a broken stalk, the plant trembled, hungrily drawing the earth magic I offered. All around me, I could feel the plants waking, yearning towards me and the energy I radiated. Even the grass was greener than it had been a few moments before. It was time to shut things down before it got out of control. Removing my hand from the branch, I started to step away only to pull my arm back in pain. I stared at my finger in surprise to see a small drop of blood where a thorn had pricked me. Before I could react, the blood drop fell to the ground followed quickly by another, where they were immediately sucked up by the rich, black soil.

Oops, I said, even as I felt the magic tremble under my feet. Pinching my finger against my thumb to stop the bleeding, I watched in surprise as the trees around me instantly leafed out. The magic flowed out and away from me like a ripple in a pond, any plant in its path springing to life and instant health.

Oh, my! Miss Penny’s eyes grew wide as the magical effects on the vegetation spread across the garden. Even the plants on the far side of the fence appeared to benefit from my inadvertent blood magic, the ancient cherry trees in the park across the street, bursting to life in full bloom.

Well, that’s not good, I said with a sigh. Maybe I’ll be lucky and no one will notice.

Those trees have been dead for more than two years, dear, Miss Penny replied, concern in her voice.

So much for luck.

Chapter Two

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A little while later I was back at the café. It was the mid-afternoon lull so I’d sent Barbie to the bank, leaving me alone in the shop with Tiffy who, as usual, was polishing everything in sight. Being a brownie – a member of the Fae – it was in her nature to clean which is not a bad trait to have in an employee. Mrs. Potts, the previous owner of the flower shop who now works for me, is Tiffy’s aunt and the reason Tiffy is here on some sort of brownie internship. The building where I live and work is a converted firehall in a slowly gentrifying area of the city. Mrs. P is the resident brownie of the building – another something I didn’t know until recently.

I was enjoying the quiet, sitting in my reserved booth and drinking a mochaccino while trying not to worry about my blatant use of magic or what sort of trouble it might have gotten me into when Tess, my best friend and roommate, burst in, her face flushed with excitement.

Harry! Where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.

Why? I jumped up from my seat and glanced around guiltily. Besides Tiffy, there were only a couple customers in the shop. I lowered my voice and continued. What have you heard?

Tess gave me a puzzled frown and then held up an envelope. Look what came in the mail today!

What is it? I asked, grabbing for the envelope.

Tess snatched it out of my reach and grinned. What have I wanted more than anything lately?

Your very own functional lightsaber? The keys to a Lamborghini? For the guy who played Poe Dameron to stop by the gym wanting to hire a personal trainer?

Tess scowled and waved the enveloped at me again. No. She shrugged, her expression turning thoughtful. Well, yes, all of those would be cool, but I mean this last month. What have I been studying for and talking about?

You got it? Excited for her, I reached out, pulling her into a big hug. Congratulations! That’s fantastic. I gave her another squeeze before letting go. I’m so proud of you. Let me see it.

Tess opened the envelope and pulled out the letter, making a sweeping gesture over it. Ta-dah! You are now looking at an officially licensed private investigator. How cool is that?

How wonderful for you, Tess, Tiffy said, coming to join us. She gave Tess a tentative pat on her shoulder – a huge step for the once extremely shy brownie – and then stepped back with a frown. But does that mean you’re leaving? You’ll go away to work at a detective firm? She seemed unusually saddened at the thought.

No, no, Tess waved her hands in protest. Of course not. Harry and I are going to open our own agency.

We are? I raised an eyebrow at Tess and slid back down across the bench seat of the booth. It was the first time I’d heard that particular plan.

Tess grinned, ignoring my skeptical expression. Think about it – Moonlight Investigations. She motioned her hand slowly in front of her as if reading something on a marquee. With my natural sleuthing skills and your access to the dead, not to mention Bryce and his hacking skills, we’ll be the busiest detective agency in town.

I rolled my eyes. What is it with werewolves and naming everything after the moon? If the pack is ever outed, you’re all going to wish you hadn’t put that word on everything you own. Besides, in the T.V. show, Bruce Willis’s character worked at the ‘City of Angels’ detective agency.

Yeah, but then it was changed to ‘Blue Moon Investigations’ because Cybill Shepherd’s character was the Blue Moon Shampoo spokesperson. I’ve watched just as many episodes as you. She slid into the booth across the table from me. I meant it as a homage to the show, not to copy it exactly.

Homage? Seriously? If you’re going to pay homage to a T.V. detective agency, you should call it Remington Investigations after the way you went ga-ga for Pierce Brosnan. Or there’s the Rockford Files. You know your uncle would want you to name it after that.

Alright, fine. We can figure out the name later. Tess huffed out a breath.

TBD, Tiffy said, setting a cappuccino down in front of Tess. To be determined.

I glanced at Tiffy in surprise as her words sunk in. TBD Investigations! You’re a genius, Tiffy. I turned to Tess and smiled. The name should be TBD Investigations because whatever the case is, it will be determined by your investigation.

Tess’s eyes grew wide and she started to slowly nod in agreement. Yeah…yeah. I like it! She turned to Tiffy. Thanks, Tiffy. A look of instant regret crossed Tess’s face. I mean…I didn’t mean…

Don’t worry about it, I said, putting her out of her misery. "Tiffy has

Reviews for Dead to Me

[Linda Ivey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved the ending of this tale. Harry is stronger than even her newly acquired family realized. Nash was disappointing in this 5th book because he wasn’t ride or die. His wolf is a flake. The ghost have really enhanced Harry’s paranormal presence and Salvador has stepped up his game of getting to know daughter as it is revealed that he has always looked out for her. Tess is a true friend and it is obvious all the other we’re have no problems with Harry. Finally the detective agency is off to a huge success that to the ghost in the machine and Tess’s bad azz ness. Wish there was more but it looks like this is it.

[Mimi Johnson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I shared this review on Amazon already but I will share it here as well.

I liked this installment and the growth of Harry's character. Other reviewers felt she was being immature but she actually took charge in this book. It was very fast moving.

possible spoilers



So, the way this book ended left me thinking that even though Harry is with Nash, there is something between her and Jonah. It seems as if Jonah's wish to the Queen was to have Harry as a hunter with him. How will that play out with her and Nash.
Speaking of Nash, it seems that his character needed a little more development. His and Harry's relationship seemed not quite believable.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this series and I actually read all 5 books back to back. I don't really like series that go beyond 3 or 4 books but I feel like this series could use another two. There seems to be more to wrap up with Tess and Max, Salvadore's relationship as Harry's father and other things that didn't seem fleshed out.

Having read this series from this author, I am definitely open to reading other books by her.

[Michelle Ellis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book! What makes the Harry Russo books so much fun to read, are the relationships between Harry and her friends. I just love the way the vampire, werewolf, and witch communities come together fight the bad guys. And Emme’s dialogue is so witty!