Chapter One: Early Arrival

  The fog hung low, a gray shroud swallowing the world beyond the county road. It clung to the pines, muffling sound until everything felt submerged.

  Then came the growl—low, hungry, defiant.

  A battered Triumph motorcycle tore through the mist, chipped black paint flaking, chrome dulled by rust. Its engine snarled, raw and alive.

  Jace Carter, seventeen, rode it, wiry and hunched, leaning like he could outrun his past. His dad’s leather jacket flapped too big on his frame, the only thing left of the man besides the Triumph. Dark hair whipped under his half-helm, eyes narrowed against the damp air.

  School was a memory he’d torched hours ago.

  It started at lunch. Back steps of the school.

  Pictures of You crackled through his earbuds, the rain streaking his cracked phone screen.

  Callum Price and his pack had the younger kid cornered—thin, nervous, glasses slipping down his nose, clutching his backpack straps like a lifeline.

  “Come on,” Callum said, voice low and venomous, stepping closer.

  “Lunch money, or do you want to find out what happens if you don’t pay up?”

  The kid swallowed hard, eyes darting between the group.

  “I… I don’t have—”

  Callum’s sneer deepened.

  “Don’t lie. Everyone’s got something. Empty pockets don’t get you out of this.”

  One of Callum’s mates jostled the kid, knocking him against the wall.

  The kid’s breath hitched.

  Jace stepped forward, voice steady but quiet.

  “Leave him alone.”

  Callum spun around, eyes narrowing.

  “Not your business, Carter.”

  Jace moved. A heartbeat later, Callum was flat, wind punched out by a knee to the gut. One mate lunged; Jace swept his leg, dropped him hard. The third hesitated.

  Jace’s eyes burned.

  “Go.”

  He went.

  The kid blinked up, awed.

  “Th-thanks.”

  Jace nodded—right into Mr. Thornwell’s grip.

  “You again,” the vice principal snarled. “What’ve you done now?”

  Two hours later, Jace stood outside the office, suspension slip in hand.

  Instigated a violent altercation. Final warning.

  Callum’s lie: Jace attacked unprovoked. No witnesses. The kid stayed quiet. No justice. Usual.

  Jace crumpled the slip, hurled it into a bin, swung a leg over his dad’s Triumph, and tore out of the lot like something was chasing him.

  Maybe it was.

  The road swallowed him. Throttle wide, engine vibrating his bones, he rode.

  Out here, things made sense.

  No teachers with pitying looks. No whispers about his dad’s overdose, the needle in his arm when Jace found him three years back. No single mom, eyes hollow from double shifts and debt collectors.

  Move. Don’t stop. Don’t look back. Just ride.

  The fog thickened, swallowing the road.

  A flicker in the mist—small, fleeting.

  Gone.

  He shook it off, leaned into a curve—and saw it.

  A kid. Ten, maybe. School uniform. Backpack. Standing in the road.

  Behind him—a van.

  No headlights. Wrong side. Speeding.

  Jace didn’t think.

  He turned hard, laid the bike down, launched himself.

  His body hit the kid’s, shoving him into the grass.

  Metal screamed. Glass shattered.

  Fog swallowed it all.

  Then—nothing.

  Jace opened his eyes.

  No rain. No pain.

  Just the harsh glare of fluorescent lights humming overhead.

  Somewhere, Careless Whisper droned on, slow and dead inside this strange place.

  He wasn’t sure where he was—somewhere sterile and banal, like a supermarket lost in time.

  Signs hung cracked and faded:

  Welcome to Afterlife Services

  No Returns. Take a Number or Be Forgotten.

  Behind the counter, a guy leaned back, sipping a Monster Energy drink, eyes half-lidded over a paperback.

  His badge read GARY – AFTERLIFE SERVICES.

  “Number?” the man said without looking up.

  Jace blinked, confusion twisting inside him.

  “What the hell?”

  Gary pointed at a ticket dispenser.

  “Take a number. Wait your turn.”

  “This is a joke.”

  Gary shrugged.

  “Tell that to the queue.”

  He nodded toward the line of ghosts—faces blurred in sorrow and rage.

  A bride with a veil burned black.

  A kid with a skateboard through his chest.

  A man clutching his own severed head like it was a treasure.

  The air shifted.

  The lights flickered.

  Then the automatic doors swished open.

  She stepped inside.

  Raven-black hair teased high and wild,

  held in place by enough hairspray to defy gravity.

  Strands fell in tangled waves around her pale face.

  Thick black eyeliner framed eyes that glinted like emerald daggers—

  cold, unreadable.

  Her leather boots were scuffed but sharp,

  laced tight to her calves.

  Her long, heavy coat hung like a shadow trailing smoke in the stale air.

  Around her neck, a choker of black velvet and silver spikes caught the dim light.

  She carried a scythe-shaped umbrella—

  silent, lethal.

  No warmth. No mercy.

  She didn’t smile.

  Didn’t ask questions.

  “Jace Carter,” she said,

  voice low and smooth—

  like velvet dragging over stone.

  He stared.

  “Who… are you?”

  She flipped a badge clipped to her coat:

  MORRíGAN – EARLY DEPARTURES UNIT.

  “You’re dead.”

  No softness, no pity.

  “Wrong place, wrong time. Happens more than you’d think.”

  “I was saving a kid.”

  She flicked a clipboard, iridescent with faint, shifting light.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Van would’ve swerved. Kid gets a scrape. You? Flattened.”

  Jace’s breath hitched.

  “I died… for nothing?”

  “You died nobly.”

  Morrígan’s gaze didn’t waver.

  “That counts for a lot. You made a choice most wouldn’t. That matters.”

  A scroll of glowing script floated into view.

  “We’re recruiting. Provisional reinstatement. Work off your death debt. Spirit mediation. Paranormal cleanup.”

  She gave him a look sharp enough to cut.

  “Optional banter.”

  Jace rubbed his temples, the weight of it pressing down.

  “Do I get a choice?”

  “Sure.”

  She stepped closer, voice a cold whisper.

  “Don’t sign, and I’ll see you at the Oblivion Queue. Bring a snack.”

  He glanced at the sobbing bride.

  He signed.

  Morrígan’s eyes flickered once, just the barest hint of something like approval.

  Then she snapped her fingers, and the room seemed to exhale around him.

  He woke coughing, soaked, sprawled in a ditch.

  His dad’s Triumph was a wreck, steam hissing.

  The fog was thicker, curling with purpose.

  His right arm burned.

  He pushed up his sleeve—jagged lines, like lightning through cracked glass, pulsed red, syncing with his heartbeat.

  A hum—low, guttural, not human—came from the mist.

  A shape peeled free.

  A monstrous hound, larger than any beast, its body smoke and bone, eyes dripping like molten wax.

  Jagged mouths snapped along its flanks, howling in discordant shrieks.

  It was known as a Barghest, a spectral hound of monstrous size, Jace would later learn.

  Jace rolled his neck. Flexed his fist.

  Something surged—hot, electric—sharpening his senses.

  Not magic.

  Just… will.

  The Barghest’s eyes locked on him, burning with accusation.

  A voice, not sound but thought, cut through his skull:

  You can’t outrun death, boy.

  “Right then,” Jace muttered.

  “First day on the job.”

  The Barghest lunged, claws tearing sparks from the asphalt.

  Jace met it head-on, fists blazing with thunder.

  His first punch cracked its flank, smoke swirling, the ground trembling.

  The beast reeled, mouths shrieking, but charged again, faster, teeth snapping.

  Jace dodged low, boot slamming its side, sparks flying.

  Instinct kicked in.

  He raised his hand, fingers shaped like a gun, thumb cocked.

  A crack split the air.

  Lightning shot from his fingertips, searing the Barghest’s eyes.

  It howled, blinded, staggering.

  The beast shimmered, glitched, grew larger, mouths howling in chorus.

  Jace squared his shoulders.

  “Let’s dance.”

  He surged forward, punches like thunderclaps, kicks like lightning strikes.

  Another finger-gun snap—lightning lashed its chest, crashing it to the ground.

  The Barghest writhed, smoke billowing, eyes flickering.

  Jace wiped sweat from his brow, breathing steady.

  “Just the beginning.”

  The Barghest dissolved into shadows, and Jace dropped to one knee, power flickering out.

  A whoosh of wind cut the fog, and Morrígan descended on a broomstick, wild black curls framing a pale face, green eyes sparkling with mischief.

  Torn black lace, combat boots, coat trailing like smoke—punk goth witch incarnate.

  “Well,” she smirked, “expected less thunder, more grumbling. Not bad, rookie.”

  Jace rubbed his arm.

  “You again? What’s with the Halloween getup?”

  Morrígan chuckled.

  “Spirit wrangler, not ghost babysitter. You’re lucky I showed before that beast ate your soul.”

  Jace scoffed.

  “Didn’t ask for a bodyguard.”

  “You’ve got thunder in you now,” she said, eyes gleaming.

  “Gods’ meddling or fate’s joke—doesn’t matter. You’re not done.”

  Jace glanced at his crackling arm.

  “So I’m a lightning rod. Great.”

  She stepped closer, voice a teasing whisper.

  “Better than a sitting duck. You’ll punch harder, shoot sharper. Trust me.”

  Jace smirked.

  “Goth motorcycle club queen, huh?”

  He let his gaze linger on her leather-clad silhouette.

  “What’s the initiation like? Do I have to get a tattoo… or just buy you a drink?”

  Morrígan's laugh curled through the mist like smoke from a dying cigarette—dark, melodic, and just bitter enough to be interesting.

  “Exactly.

  Get up and head home, hero.”

  She swung onto her broom with practiced ease, the lace of her sleeves fluttering like tattered battle flags.

  “Try not to die like the last ones.

  I'd hate to finish my tea tomorrow only to find you're already haunting some alley.”

  Jace stood as she vanished, the fog swallowing her whole.

  Dawn's pale fingers crept through the mist, turning the world the color of old bruises.

  The city groaned awake around him—a distant car horn blaring, the metallic protest of a trash truck's hydraulics, the first shuffling footsteps of early risers who'd never know what prowled the night.

  His keys felt suddenly heavy in his palm, the night's adrenaline leaching away to leave only the familiar ache in his bones.

  Six blocks to his apartment.

  Coffee.

  Shower.

  Sleep.

  The mundane checklist of survival.

  The alley spat him back onto the sidewalk where normal people lived their normal lives.

  His smirk felt rusty as he turned back to where his father's Triumph lay wrecked in the ditch.

  No way in hell he was leaving it.

  That bike had outlasted his old man—it would damn well outlast whatever supernatural bullshit London could throw at it.

  He rolled his shoulders, hearing joints pop like gunshots in the quiet morning.

  "Guess I'm learning motorcycle repair now," he muttered, fingers already tracing the dented frame.

  Some relics were worth saving.

  The Triumph rose from its grave of fog and asphalt, groaning like a wounded beast as Jace righted it.

  What remained was less a motorcycle now than a promise—twisted chrome catching the dawn, rubber scuffed raw from its meeting with the road, its engine silent but not yet stilled.

  He gripped the handlebars, feeling the ghost of his father's hands overlapping his own, and began the long walk home.

  The bike rolled unevenly beside him, its broken parts singing a metallic lament with every revolution.

  Jace matched its limping rhythm, step by painful step, two survivors of the night dragging themselves toward daylight.

  The city yawned awake around them, oblivious to their battle scars, to the lightning still flickering in Jace's veins, to the way death's fingerprints lingered on them both.

  But the Triumph still rolled.

  And Jace still walked.

  For now, that was enough.