Song for the Dead: An Ada Palomino Novel Read online

  Song for the Dead

  An Ada Palomino Novel

  Karina Halle

  Copyright © 2021 by Karina Halle

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: Hang Le Designs

  Edited by: Laura Helseth

  Proofed by: Kara Malinczak

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Playlist

  Prologue

  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

  Afterword & Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Karina Halle

  For Scott

  Always, evermore, and on and on

  “It is not the end, it ain’t if you fall, but how you rise that says who you really are. So get up and go through.”

  – Fortress, Queens of the Stone Age

  Author’s Note

  Song for the Dead is an urban fantasy/paranormal romance that follows Veiled in the Ada Palomino series.

  This series also intertwines with Experiment in Terror (which tells the ongoing saga of Perry & Dex). They compliment each other. You don’t need to read EIT to enjoy or understand Veiled, but it does help add to the worldbuilding. You can get started on the series easily, with the first book, Darkhouse, free at all retailers, and the second book, Red Fox, just $0.99.

  And if you HAVE already read EIT, you must then read Ghosted and Came Back Haunted before reading this book. Trust me.

  One last thing: Enter this book with an open-mind and enjoy the ride until that very last page.

  Playlist

  Queens of the Stone Age completely fueled this book (if you can’t tell by the title of the book, which makes it the third book I have with the name of a QOTSA song), so it makes sense to include my playlist along with it. Also, anytime there’s some car chasing and demon fighting going on, just know that “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now” was always playing in my head.

  Also, I didn’t want to keep repeating myself, so all the songs for each chapter are also QOTSA, just so you know.

  Song for the Dead

  Fortress

  You Can’t Quit Me Baby

  Feet Don’t Fail Me Now

  The Vampyre of Time and Memory

  Into the Hollow

  The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret

  In the Fade

  Better Living Through Chemistry

  The Evil Has Landed

  No One Knows

  Everybody Knows That You’re Insane

  Head Like a Haunted House

  Feel Good Hit of the Summer

  Hideaway

  I Appear Missing

  Sick, Sick, Sick

  Skin on Skin

  I Sat By the Ocean

  Un-Reborn Again

  Go With the Flow

  Villains of Circumstance

  Prologue

  A few days after Halloween

  “Life is a trip when you’re psycho in love.”

  – You Can’t Quit Me Baby, Queens of the Stone Age

  It’s the middle of the night when I wake up, unable to breathe.

  I sit straight up in bed, hand at my chest, wondering why I’m suddenly underwater. I know I’m not. I’m in my bedroom, it’s quiet and dark. I should be safe.

  But inside it feels like I’m coming apart at the seams, my chest heavy, waterlogged, like I’ve just lost everything I care about.

  I bring my knees up to my chest, hugging them, holding tight, like I’m about to float away.

  What’s happening?

  No, that’s not quite right.

  What’s going to happen?

  Suddenly the air in my room begins to warp and shimmer and I feel Jay’s presence before he steps through. It should make me feel rooted, grounded, but it doesn’t.

  Then he appears.

  Looking beautiful.

  As always.

  Though, surprisingly, he’s wearing jeans and a hoodie.

  Usually when he visits me in the middle of the night, he’s wearing his boxers and a T-shirt or sometimes nothing at all.

  “Where have you been?” I ask him, eying his clothes, as the Veil behind him fades away.

  He doesn’t move. Stands where he is.

  The sick feeling in my chest gets worse.

  What’s happening?

  Why does this feel weird?

  “I was out,” he says. Jaw stern, clenched. Like he’s holding something back. Is that why I’m feeling so much? Is there something wrong with him?

  “Are you okay? Why are you out in the middle of the night?”

  “I had some business to attend to.”

  “Demon business?”

  He shakes his head. Why are his eyes so cold?

  “Jacob,” he says.

  “Ah,” I say with a nod. “And what did the All-Powerful Oz say?”

  A pained look comes across his face for a moment.

  Jay doesn’t show a lot of emotion. He doesn’t really have a lot of emotion, to be honest. So this crack in his façade has my chest feeling tighter.

  I sit up straighter and swing my legs over the side of the bed, walking over to him.

  “Stay right there,” he says, holding out his palm.

  “What? Why?”

  “You’re going to make this more difficult.”

  I stare at him, so fucking tired and not understanding any of this. “What the hell are you talking about? Make what more difficult?”

  You know, something whispers inside me. You know that lately he’s been distant. That he’s not over much. That he never invites you over anymore. That he hasn’t said he loves you in a while. You know all this.

  Stop pretending.

  I nearly choke on those thoughts, shoving them into the back of my brain.

  He runs his hand over his jaw, and in the dim light I can see his fingers are trembling. Jay, usually as steady as anything, nothing ever gets to him. And yet…

  “I had a talk with Jacob,” he goes on. “He thinks it’s best if I move on. Stop training you. Go help someone else.”

  His words fall in the room like lead.

  I open my mouth, but no words come out.

  This isn’t happening.

  He didn’t really say that.

  He’s talking shit.

  “I don’t understand,” I tell him. “You can’t just…stop.”

  “I can,” he says. “I have to. It’s the only way.”

  “The only way?!” I explode. “What the fuck Jay? You’re not considering this, are you? You’re supposed to be with me until I’m ready, and all I hear from you and Jacob is that I’m not ready.”

  “I know,” he says, running his hand down his face. “And I know you’re not ready. But I don’t have a choice, Ada. He wants me to move on.”

  “Well, why?!” I yell, hoping my dad doesn’t hear me. “Why do you have to move on?”

  “We’re no good together.”

  I blink at him. Feels like I’m dying inside.

  �
�No good…that’s…well, that’s a lie for one, and what the fuck does our relationship have to do with this?”

  “Everything.” He shakes his head, looking disappointed. “It’s everything. It’s clouding things. It’s making things complicated between us, and between what we do. I’m having…I’m having a hard time here separating you from the job. I worry about you too much. I worry…I worry you’re going to hurt yourself. Or worse. And I can’t shake that. I don’t know how.”

  I walk over to him, grabbing his arm, digging my nails into his hoodie. Fuck staying away from him.

  “Jay,” I hiss at him, trying to keep myself from exploding. In anger or pain, I don’t know, it all feels the same. “You don’t have to worry about me. Okay? And don’t fucking move on to someone else because of that. We can work through this. The better I get, the more you’ll trust me. The more you’ll believe in me. I’m a badass, Jay. You know this. You know what I can do, you just have to have a little faith in me.”

  “It’s not so simple,” he says, averting his eyes. “Even if that were all true, what’s done is done.”

  “What’s done is done?!” I exclaim. I tug on his arm, hard. “Hey, look at me!”

  He reluctantly meets my eyes. The blue in them seems glacier cold, enough to make me freeze. There’s no fire in him, only ice.

  Won’t even melt a little.

  “I have to go,” Jay says, wiggling his jaw. “I was given my orders. I’m to leave you. I’m moving away, I’m helping someone else that I’m of more use to. I’d never let you reach your full potential, Ada. My feelings…my feelings for you have complicated everything. I have failed.”

  “No. No, no, no.” I shake my head, trying not to cry, trying not to scream. “Don’t say that. We’ll talk to Jacob. He’ll understand.”

  “I report to him. There is no undoing this. He said maybe down the line I can return, after he’s trained you, but I have to go.”

  “Jacob training me?! Fuck that!” Then I smack him across the arm. “And fuck you! Fuck you for just giving up. How about you just not go and stay with me? Is that so hard?”

  He’s getting angry now, nostrils wide. “It is hard, Ada. It’s hard because I have to go. I can’t stay with you, and there’s nothing you can do or say that will make me stay.”

  My mouth drops open, like I’ve been slapped.

  “Ouch,” I say softly, trying to blink back tears. “Not even that I love you? That you supposedly love me?”

  “I do love you,” he says, grabbing my arms, eyes searching mine. “I love you Ada. But I am what I am, and we knew this. I have a job to do and I answer to that job. I don’t answer to you.”

  I rip out of his grasp, turning my back to him, covering my face with my hands. “Oh no. No please, please, let this be a bad dream.”

  Silence passes between us. So heavy I don’t think I’ll ever feel light again.

  “It’s not a dream, Ada,” Jay says softly. “It’s what’s real. And believe me, I am so fucking sorry that I have to do this, you have to understand that this is tearing me apart, I feel so much for you, I love you, I—”

  “Lies!” I roar, turning around, my heart vicious. “You are a fucking liar! You don’t love me! If you loved me, you would choose me. You would stay. You would stay for me. But you’re not. You’re not.”

  He reaches out for me, but I smack his hand away. “Get the fuck out of here!” I scream. “You’ve made your choice!”

  He blinks at me, mouth gaping.

  “Ada!” my father’s anxious voice carries from down the hall.

  Shit.

  “Go!” I yell at Jay. “Go have fun with someone else. Hope you get your memory wiped so it makes things a little easier for you. Wish someone could do the same for me.”

  “Ada…”

  “Now!” I yell.

  My father barges in through the door just as Jay shimmers away into the air, disappearing, though I know he’s only right next door.

  But not for long.

  “Ada,” my father says to me, flicking on the lights, trying to put on his glasses. “What’s happening?”

  I’m trying so hard to hide the fact that I’m shaking, that my heart was just ripped in half. “I had a bad dream,” I tell him.

  “Are you sure?” he says, looking around the room. “You were screaming. Are you dreaming about clowns again?”

  I nod. “Yeah. Clowns. Could you get me a glass of water?”

  He frowns. “Sure, of course. Coming right up.”

  He turns and leaves the room, and it takes everything in me not to collapse to my knees. I press my hand into my chest, trying to will myself to breathe, to just get through this with my father so he doesn’t think anything is amiss.

  But everything is amiss.

  And it will never be right again.

  My father comes back from the washroom with the glass of water and I take it, telling him I’m going back to sleep, that he shouldn’t worry. He looks so harried that I have no doubt he won’t be sleeping for a while either.

  Then, when he leaves, and I’m alone in the dark again, that’s when I let go.

  Fall to my knees.

  Curled over.

  Heart scooped out.

  And I’m drowning.

  One

  December 26th - Seattle

  “Imagine I’d be your one and only, instead I’m the lonely one.

  You, me, and a lie.”

  – I Sat by the Ocean

  You can do this.

  I know I can.

  So why are you nervous?

  I don’t know. Why am I having a conversation with myself?

  I catch Perry giving me an odd look and have to wonder if she’s picking up on what I’m thinking. It’s one thing to have conversations with your sister in your head, it’s another for you to have conversations with yourself.

  Then again, things are fucking weird right now. I expected to spend the day after Christmas in my pajamas all day, eating chocolate, drinking spiked coffee, and crying over Jay, not dressed in Buffy cosplay, standing outside a haunted house and portal to hell, on a rescue mission to get a long-lost friend from the Veil. Not to mention my sister is currently possessed by her husband. Literally.

  I suppose I should be happy for the distraction though. The last six weeks since Jay left have been absolute torture for me, full-flung emotional carnage. I’ve cried so hard that even my most waterproof mascara decided to give in, black rivers etched into my face like a canyon of doom. I’ve succumbed to every single broken-hearted cliché that you’ve seen in the movies, from staying in my pajamas all day, to eating ice cream straight from the pint, to watching romantic comedies and bawling my eyes out. My poor dad didn’t know how to handle me other than turning a blind eye whenever I took some of his red wine. And that was every night.

  It wasn’t until the other day when Perry pulled me aside and told me that she needed my help that I actually felt useful for once. Like I had purpose. And to be honest, it felt extra good to be needed by her.

  You see, I’ve been a bit of a brat lately. Or maybe a lot of a brat. I don’t have much to blame it on, other than the fact that Jay leaving me was totally out of left field and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I still don’t, to be honest. I didn’t tell Perry that we broke up because she and Dex are so damn happy all the time, or at least that’s what it seems like to me. I didn’t want her to look down on me or feel pity. I wanted to seem strong and in control, even though everything inside me was slowly crumbling away.

  So I took a lot of it out on Perry. She wanted to talk about what happened, but I pushed her away. I got mean. And so, I’d been grappling with the guilt over that as well as the emotional suckage that Jay put me through.

  I figured doing this, tonight, would make up for the fact that I was a less than desirable sister.

  And what is this exactly?

  To be honest, I’m not sure.

  But let me try to get you up to speed before we go into th
e house of horrors.

  So, years ago, Perry and Dex had this frenemy named Maximus, a six-foot-four, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested handsome redhead (yes, they exist) with the most amazing hair (no surprise they called him Ginger Elvis, amongst other less mature nicknames). The three of them had a complicated relationship from all angles. They weren’t like a “throuple” or anything like that (at least, ew, I hope not), but Maximus was Dex’s friend from way back, then when Dex and Perry had a falling out, Max slept with Perry. Perry was possessed at the time (long story), and Max turned out to be a major douchecanoe because he kind of turned on Perry and sided with our parents, who wanted Perry to go to a psych ward.

  Anyway, Dex and Perry ended up getting back together after that (Dex saved the day by getting a shaman in Idaho to perform an exorcism—told you it was a long story), and Maximus was briefly brought on to be their partner in their ghost-hunting reality show, Experiment In Terror.

  At that point, I think they let bygones be bygones (which says a lot since Dex does not forgive easily), and then they found out that Maximus is this supernatural being called a Jacob (the same as my Jay), and that he’d fallen in love with a woman named Rose and gave up his Jacob role and immortality to be with her and it didn’t work out. How is that for a bummer?

  Anyway, this is where things get really heavy, something I don’t like to think about too often for a number of reasons but…

  Three years ago, my mother died in New York City. She died saving me. And shortly before that, Maximus died, both of them by the demon named Michael. Since Maximus was no longer immortal, Michael dragged him to Hell.