Billy Cooper (Cocker Brothers Book 20)

coming right at me, groaning from his real mouth, the jaw falling off in ashes.
I scream like I’ve never screamed.
Another zombie springs from the fake pack, groaning in my left ear and making me scream again.
The broom is lamely gripped in shaking fingers as I yelp and break into a sprint all the way into the main room that is slashed by laser lights, hanging frights, and…are those bats?
I look over my shoulder to see if the undead are still chasing me, but the zombies have reclaimed their places amongst the statues and I can’t tell which are which! So weird.
“They got to you, huh?”
I flip around, red contacts nearly popped out of bugging eyes as I try, and fail, to answer the question. I’m made speechless by the guy who asked it.
He’s adorable.
That’s the accurate summation of how best to describe him. And it’s not just the fuzzy dog costume, floppy ears pinned over his human ones, or nose-tip painted black. It’s those twinkling eyes filled to the brim with amusement at my terror, that are mesmerizing. And his lips, curved in the cutest grin that just keeps growing, have me smiling back at him.
He offers, “I’ll take that as a yes. I might have gone overboard with those guys, but you only live once, right?”
My tongue reclaims the English language once more at the impressed realization, “You’re Billy Cooper?!”
“Tonight I’m Spot.” He gets on his knees with fuzzy paws in begging stance, sticks his pink tongue out and pants! “Got a treat?”
Why yes. Yes, I do.

CHAPTER 3
HAVEN
Someone has pulled the host away to take care of a problem, leaving me staring after Billy’s backside and wondering how I could go from scared out of my mind to completely charmed and lightheadedly girlish in the span of a tight thirty seconds.
Gather yourself together, lady! Witches don’t get stunned. We do the stunning. It’s one of the reasons I love playing this role once a year. I get to pretend I’m above the normal, flawed human condition.
Who wants to be vulnerable?
Certainly not me.
Or most of the population.
And maybe that’s our problem?
Still, I’m not alone in the knowledge that if they sold an impenetrable wall to be erected around my body, mind, spirit, every day of every week of every year, I would sign up, open my wallet, and claim an early edition.
You won’t see me standing in line for a phone, but for a forcefield against pain? Sign me the fuck up!
It is one of the failings of women that we feel so damn much. Some of us have learned to contain it, and I count myself among you.
Because screw pain.
Screw anger.
Screw failure.
I’ll play it nice and safe all on my own, thanks.
Or…will I?
Because as much as those zombies scared the bejeezus out of me, it was really fun nearly peeing my bright red panties.
I head into the room, fingering my wig to make sure it’s still glorious. The many appreciative smiles from other elaborate costumes tell me I’ve done well with this choice. That’s as good a mirror as I’ll get in this dark dungeon of a party.
The warehouse I’m told Billy Cooper rents has been overhauled with platforms and room-dividers promising spooky adventures hidden away in enclosures I’m now wary to approach.
Ghosts are projected and floating along the ceiling.
I’m not convinced those aren’t real bats.
The air smells of food which feels odd as I pass a graveyard with the names of famous rockstars we all know and miss. Even cooler though is that standing by the stones with their epithets are look-a-likes dressed in tattered garb, skin pasty white, the makeup expertly applied so that nobody could verbally detract from their believability.
I walk to the ghost of Amy Winehouse and tilt my head as my jaded heart aches more than it should. She mimics my gesture, only her eyes are lifeless, gaze distant as if she sees through me.
“Amy, I wish you’d stayed around so we could hear your voice some more. But maybe that’s just selfish.”
Her eyes lock onto me, and it’s really eerie.
I move on, mental notes taken to be used in my article later. Everything is precisely planned out. I’m very impressed by what he’s done here.
My gown whisks me to a manufactured room where Dracula’s brides hiss at me. It takes me a minute to recognize Lexi, Samantha, and Zoe Cocker, fully thrown into their performance. I know the Cocker family well from the stories my paper has written about the more famous ones.
Eric Cocker is the star quarterback for the Falcons. Gabriel is a huge rockstar, his twin brother following his father’s infamous political footprint.
Samantha and Lexi are daughters of the hugely successful music producer Jason Cocker who constructs his nephew’s albums along with a host of huge names.
When I was a teenager, my dad took me to eat dinner at the restaurant, Crash, owned by Jeremy and Meagan Cocker, Zoe’s parents. She wasn’t there, but she’s pictured with her family enough for me to recognize her.
So I have to forgive myself for staring at these beautiful women so near my age as they hiss and claw at the air in front of me.
“Come closer,” Lexi urges. With her red hair and the blood dripping from her matching lips, it’s tempting.
Samantha is as blonde as if it came from a bottle—but it didn’t, that’s how tow-headed her dad is, too—and with that pasty-white makeup she looks more ghost than vampire.
But Zoe is the most enigmatic because when I’ve seen her around town she always seemed to be from another planet where the women were born from flower petals. Her skin glows and there’s something incredibly innocent about her eyes. Fangs on her? Really confusing.
Other people are enjoying the show as well, each beckoned to get closer to the girls. The only reason they won’t be attacked is because a simulation of sunlight is striped between us, a forbidden streak of cannot-cross-or-you-will-die. True for both sides, I guess.
Lexi crooks her red-nailed