Among Us: A Supernatural Novel written by Carver Edlund

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Taking a bite of a sweet potato fry, Aya watched their server walk across the dining room of Spanky's Roadhouse—and the soul trailing behind him, his small cheeks mottled with the same distinctive maroon flush. Spring evenings tended to be too cool for comfort. The little boy reached for the button that lowered the garage door wall of the diner at the same time as their server, but of course, he couldn't manipulate it. He pouted, bottom lip pushed out, as the door rattled downward to shut out the blue-green twilight. Then he tried again at the second one with the same amount of success.

The music blaring from the ceiling-mounted speakers overlapped the rush of traffic and the first cricket songs of the year. Three flatscreens played three separate programs above the bar, while patrons clustered around the tall tables to unwind from a long day, eating, drinking, and, in the case of the many college students, flirting. Sam had assured her that talking in a place like this was more private than in a motel room; the crowd, yelling to be heard over the music, would mask anything they said if they kept their voices down.

Vengeful spirits could make themselves visible to anyone, could interact with the physical world if their anger, their grief, or their fear were strong enough. There was another word for them, poltergeist, or noisy ghost. They, Sam had explained, were what hunters like he and his older brother dealt with, forcefully sending them on their way no matter how much they didn't want to go. A hunter's job: To protect the living from the things that went bump in the night. Vampires. Werewolves. Djinn. Witches. Shapeshifters. Wendigos. Changelings. Curses and cursed objects. The list went on and on. But there were so many earthbound souls quietly going about their non-lives, drifting in and out of the Veil, forgotten by the world around them, hurting no one. She'd never met anyone else, besides her obaa-chan, who could see them.

Castiel could; he was watching the little soul, too. She studied him, trying not to be obvious about it and probably failing. An angel of the Lord, he'd said. She didn't consider herself of any religion, though her family casually participated in Shinto practices brought over with her grandparents. She knew next to nothing about angels except that their flowing robes, bare feet, Caucasian faces, blond hair, and white dove wings influenced a lot of popular culture. They were supposed to be glorious. Ethereal. Otherworldly. Beatific.

Castiel's overall appearance, though clean, was disheveled. His thick, dark brown hair was, to put it nicely, tousled. Below that, the look of a man royally hungover smudged a face that outed him on the wrong side of thirty. He wore a dark suit under a beige trench coat, the shirt collar undone. A loosened blue tie hung crookedly against the shirt like an afterthought. He sat sideways in the booth next to Dean as though he'd claimed the spot by accident, one plain-toed oxford ready to trip an unwary server, his place setting untouched.

From head to toe, he looked harmless. Vulnerable. Like a pencil-pushing amnesiac wandering the streets on the bad side of town, about to get jumped and totally unprepared for it.

Aya selected another fry, comforted by its soft texture. The unkempt clothes, the slight build, the tired face, they did not belong to Castiel, but if there was another soul in there with him, she couldn't see it. The angel overpowered every other presence. Whatever he'd done to her reikan didn't block it completely, either. If she held still and let her eyes lose focus, she could catch the shadows of wings rising above his shoulders like water-damaged spots on a photograph, and the white-hot gleam, like the pilot light of a gas stove, simmering in the depths of his wide-set, cobalt-blue eyes.

Eyes that turned toward her, though his head did not move.

She froze, unhappy about being caught staring. Also—Yikes. Harmless, vulnerable, unprepared? Try strike them all down with a bolt of lightning if they pissed him off. She blushed and dropped her gaze to her Irish cream milkshake. Her nerves warned her that he could go up in golden flame and fill the diner with burning eyes, prisms, and black holes at any moment.