The knock sounded around midafternoon. Just about the time for his nap. How rude, especially since he really needed the rest.

He’d spent the morning looking for more bits and pieces he’d missed. Apparently, he’d missed some stuff when raking, and a grieving widow happened upon a severed finger. The screams woke him from a sound sleep in the mausoleum where he’d first attempted to catch up on some z’s.

Management called him into the office and demanded answers. Chris blamed it on groundhogs digging at the soil. Management ordered him to set more traps. He totally planned to bill them for it and use the money for beer.

Alcohol was his cure for the annoyance of the past few days. Cleaning up the zombies had proven a hell of a lot less fun than the fight. And even the fight had been overrated.

But at least the uprising created a sign, a sign of what he couldn’t have said; however, something had changed that night. Since that moment, he’d felt himself adrift. As if his feet no longer rested firmly on the ground. As if his future hung in the balance. Madame’s words didn’t help.

What did she mean there were pretenders? Did she really think Chris wasn’t the one with a destiny?

Impossible. He could feel greatness inside him, now if only he could tap it.

Speaking of tapping, he’d not had any pussy since his encounter with the hot duckie. No one, and he meant not a single freaking woman—or man—attracted him.

Unheard of, especially since his cock didn’t appear broken. On the contrary, he only had to think of duckie’s perfect little mouth and he got erect.

She ruined me.

He just wished he could find her so she could fix him.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The strident rapping came again, and he rolled off the couch while glaring at the door. How dare they interrupt his nap?

He’d give them a piece of his mind and add them to his get-revenge-on list for when he took power.

Flinging open the door, Chris prepared to tell whoever stood there to fuck off. Instead, Chris found himself staring at the woman of his dreams. Wet dreams. The things she did in them…

Schwing. The remembrance caused him to lose track of her words for a moment, lack of blood and all, but he heard, “…help me.”

Help her with what? Her burning desires? With taking off her clothes?

Given he couldn’t be sure, he uttered a very encompassing, “Um, what was that?”

“I said, I think our city has a necromancer problem.”

“Wasn’t me.” The standard reply in these kinds of cases. The psychiatrists never liked it when you alluded to having otherworldly powers.

Her nose wrinkled. “I never said it was you. I was asking if you wanted to help me find out who might be causing the dead to rise.”

Duh. Everyone knew that answer. “Isn’t the cause a virus? Some kind of lab outbreak or maybe a meteor with weird alien microbes?”

Wrong answer, apparently, because her lips flattened. “I should have never come here. You don’t know anything.”

Not as much as he’d like, no, but he did know that she knew more than he knew, you know? Confusing? Yes. In simple terms, this woman had answers he needed. “What makes you think a person is doing this?”

“Because who else but a necromancer would know how to make the dead rise from their graves?” She rolled her eyes.

“Who else, really,” he muttered. His Antichrist manual didn’t exactly explain. For those suddenly wondering if he had a fucking book…seriously? As the Antichrist, evil deeds and world domination should come easily and without the help of a textbook. Studying was for nerds. He’d been too busy scoring pussy and getting high in school to care about grades. “Could a witch have done it?” He threw that out there and, once again, managed to offend her.

Her eyes narrowed. “Is there any particular reason you’re insulting my lineage?”

“Um, no?” How dare she keep not answering the way he expected? “Listen, you obviously think you know what’s causing it, so why are you here?” Then it hit him. “You changed your mind.”

“About?”

“Don’t play coy. Go ahead, ask me for it. Or if you can’t say it, then touch it.” He winked and angled his hips. “You came back because you couldn’t stop thinking about me. Admit it, duckie. You hunger for my body.”

The truth somehow managed to make her look horrified instead of struck by lust.

“You are so gross. I don’t know what I was thinking coming here.” As she whirled to walk away, he grabbed her by the arm, his fingers closing around the fabric of her rough wool jacket. In the distance, thunder rumbled.

“Don’t stomp off in a hissy.”

She cast him a glance over her shoulder. “I am not stomping. I am leaving because you’re wasting my time.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help.”

“What exactly can you do? You don’t even know what a necromancer is, do you?”

“Dude who plays with dead people.” He smiled, proud to know the answer.

“A necromancer is more than that.”

“Apparently, so why don’t you come inside and tell me all about it.” Hopefully, she’d ignore the fact that he’d not tidied in a while. As in…yeah, never. His place was a little bit messy.

She walked in and wrinkled her nose. “This is disgusting.”

“I prefer the term disarray due to my busy work schedule.” He lied. He was okay with it.

“Call it what you will. That doesn’t make it any less gross,” she said, looking around his place.

He couldn’t help but cast a glance, too, and even he felt a little shame. The eventual overlord of humanity shouldn’t live in a hut where dirty underwear adorned the floor, and dirty dishes were piled in the sink. “My, um, maid has the week off.”

“Your lack of cleaning ability is not my problem,” she muttered under her breath as she entered. She found a clear spot to stand in before clasping her hands. “Your inability to live like a normal person doesn’t matter. You mentioned you thought the zombies were created by a virus? Because I could use a good laugh, why don’t you explain why you’d think that?”

“Because I watch The Walking Dead. And I’ve seen Z Nation. Zombies are usually created by a virus. Unless it’s aliens, then we’re probably looking at a parasite.”

“You’re basing your theory on cinema?”

“Well, yeah. It’s not like I ever ran into them before. And just so you know, they’ve been quiet since.”

“So you’ve never had a body rise before while working here?”

“It was my first time.” He winked.

For some reason, she blushed and ducked her head. “Were we alone that night?”

“Yup.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I have an app.”

“An app?”

“It has motion detectors in place so that I know if anything moves.”

“That’s how you knew I was there,” she muttered. “You weren’t patrolling at all.”

“Why would I do that when I have an alarm system to catch teenagers before they make me work?”

“So you weren’t watching for a zombie uprising?” She seemed somehow disappointed.

“I always knew it would happen one day. It’s why I even put sensors on the mausoleum doors.”

“Your alarm system is motion activated? So how can you be sure we were alone? With all the movement of the dead, surely you wouldn’t be able to tell on your app how many of us there were,” she said with a mocking sneer. “A caller of the dead could have been present.”

“And never left? My reports only show two breaks in the outer perimeter. Both times coincided with you arriving and then leaving. So when it comes to living people, it was only you and me in the cemetery that night, duckie.”

“Are you implying…” She drew herself straight. “It wasn’t me.”

“Says you.” He loomed closer. “How do I know you didn’t make them rise?”

“Because I don’t have that kind of magic.”

“I beg to differ. I think there’s plenty magically delicious about you.”

At his teasing words, she chewed her lower lip.

He really wanted to chew her lower lip—and he didn’t mean just the one on her face.

“Would you stop that?” she exclaimed.

“Stop what?”

“Staring at me like I’m some kind of juicy steak.”

“First off, staring is a compliment, so you’re welcome, and two, I never eyeball my steak. Stab it, yes. Chew it with evident delight, even a few moans, sure, but I’ve never wanted to rub my meat against it.” He might have done a small hip thrust.

She made a face. “You are disgusting, and coming here was such a bad idea.”

Before she could make a beeline for the door, he threw himself in front of it. “Don’t go.” He still didn’t know her name or how to find her. More importantly, he didn’t want her to leave.

“I can’t stay. You obviously don’t know how to talk like a normal person. Everything with you is a sexual innuendo.”

“Only because I find you attractive.” Ugh, the truth came out of him and made him want to gag.

For a moment, he thought he’d done it, finally found the words to drop her panties. She gasped, her mouth parted, and her cheeks turned a lovely pink.

Then she tilted her chin. “Finding me attractive doesn’t give you license to be a pig and say those things to me.”

“But how else am I supposed to express my admiration for your assets?” He leered and waggled his brows.

She glared, not at all finding it cute.

His most charming move, wasted.

“How about you express your like by being respectful for one? I am more than just a body. How about speaking to me as if I were a person?”

“Respect?” He cringed as he said the word. Way to take all the fun out of their chat. “I guess we could try that if you insist.”

“I do insist. And get rid of that.” She pointed.

He looked down at the tent in his athletic pants. He grinned. “I can’t control it. He rises whenever he feels like it.”

“I guess the lack of blood to your brain explains your stupidity then. I’ve never met a more dense man.”

The insult caused him to gape. It also deflated his ego below the belt. “I’m not stupid.”

“Are you sure? Because you’ve yet to say a single intelligent thing to me.”

First, she rejected his advances, and now she called his intelligence into question. Enough. “I’ll have you know that I’m destined for great things.”

No mistaking the disparagement as she looked around. “Yes, I can see that.”

For the first time ever, his cheeks heated with…with…embarrassment? It roused his temper. “You’re awfully rude and judgmental for someone who came crawling to me for help.”

“Crawling?” The word took on a certain pitch. She drew herself tall, which meant probably to about his chin. “I thought that perhaps you might like to do something other than waste away here in the cemetery.”

“Who says I’m wasting? I’m living the high life. I make my own hours. Report to myself.”

“You’re a gravedigger.”

“I’m more than that. I’m—” Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Fuck it. He wasn’t ashamed. He owned it. “The Antichrist.”

Her eyes didn’t widen in wonder. Nor did she flee, making a sign of the cross.

She laughed.

Laughed hard.

So hard, tears ran down her cheeks.

Times like this, he wished he could waggle his fingers and prove it. “Stop laughing. I’m telling you, I’m the Antichrist, the one prophesied to end the world,” he insisted.

“Oh, dear,” she gasped between chortles. “I do believe you’re convinced of that. How sad.”

“Not sad because it’s true. I am the Antichrist, Christopher Lucius Baphomet, the first.”

Still she giggled. “The first? Oh, please. Now you’re just being silly. Do you know how many Antichrists the world has already destroyed?”

“Pretenders. I am the real deal.”

“Sure you are.” She bobbed her head. “Next thing I know, you’ll be claiming that because you’re half demon, you like to drink blood and sacrifice virgins.”

“Actually, the cult I was raised in preferred to deflower them.” They really enjoyed the orgy part of their rituals.

“A fanciful fantasy you’ve weaved, but I think I’d know if you were the evil progeny of the lord of Hell.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“Because you don’t carry about the stench of brimstone,” she said with utmost seriousness, then laughed. “Demons can never walk long among us because of the smell. It gives them away every time.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about demons.”

“My family is very learned and well connected.”

“Well, now it’s even better connected since you know me.” He might have struck a regal pose, one elegant enough to become a statue that the world could worship.

She snickered. “Oh, you poor thing. It seems almost a shame to burst your bubble, but Lucifer doesn’t have a son.”

“And how would you know?”

“My grandfather plays chess with him. Not often, though, because they both cheat.”

To think she accused him of living in a fantasy world, but listen to her pretending to know religious icons. “Now who’s lying? We both know there is no such thing as Lucifer.”

That quelled her giggles. She cocked her head. “How can you say that and yet call yourself the Antichrist?”

“Antichrist is more a state of being. Total anarchy and all that.”

“No, being the Antichrist means your mother was impregnated by Lucifer.”

“Lucifer doesn’t exist. He’s just a religious myth.”

She blinked. “I hate to break it to you, but he’s very real.”

“I call bullshit because if there was a Devil, don’t you think he would have claimed me by now? I mean, I’ve sinned enough for my supposed demonic father to notice me a hundred times over.” His psychiatrists claimed his acting out was a call to his supposed dad. A sire who never once tried to claim him. “I’ve never kept my parentage a secret. And yet, not one brimstone visit. Not one bounced support check.”

“So because the Dark Lord never visited you, you refuse to believe in him.” She wrinkled her nose. “I can understand that. What I don’t get is why you’d call yourself the Antichrist? I mean, what’s the point?”

“It’s what my mother called me.”

“But you don’t believe it.”

“No.” But he did believe his father was something more than a human. How else to explain the fucked-up shit? Unless the shrinks were right. Maybe it is all in my head.

“If you don’t believe, why keep perpetrating the myth?”

Why indeed? She’d pinpointed the problem with his existence. If he believed his mom when she said that he was the Devil’s son, then why did the Devil never claim him? Unless the Devil didn’t exist. But if the Devil didn’t exist, then what did that make him?

“If I don’t call myself the Antichrist and believe in a greater destiny, then I’d have to admit I’m just an ordinary guy who got shafted in the parent department and who will never achieve anything of worth.” The revolting truth spewed out of him and brought a foul taste to his mouth. A truth that scared him so much he drank, trying to bury the doubt.

Revealing it to someone felt icky. He’d admitted his weakness. The pitiful words made him want to stick his head in the toilet and give himself a swirly.

Yet, she didn’t seem to mind the shriveling of his manhood. She took a step toward him and put a hand on his chest and said—

I want to take off my clothes and pleasure you.

Bend over so you can ride me like a jockey close to the finish line.

“We have company.”

Fuck. Cock blocked again!