Afterlife excerpt

I just got permission to post an excerpt from my upcoming novel, Afterlife: The Resurrection Chronicles. So, here's the teaser copy from the first inside page:

Babysitting 101: Don’t turn your back on a Newbie. Especially on Day One.

I rounded a corner and found her, kneeling in front of the burial tomb of a legendary voodoo queen. She stared at the stone slab as if it belonged to her; she was running her fingers through a fresh pile of Mardi Gras beads left by pilgrims seeking favors from the dead, a puzzled expression on her face.

I picked her up, checked her pulse, sheltered her in my arms for a moment while my head cleared. “She’s fine,” I said to myself, as if I needed some sort of reassurance.

But deep down inside I knew that wasn’t true. There was something wrong here, too much information was trying to get through. Almost as if whoever did her jump didn’t know what the hell they were doing.

I was too tired to care about another Newbie whose life just got mangled and torn in Fresh Start machinery. Too tired to realize that there might be more going on here than just a rugged jump.

It was the first mistake I would make on this case. But that didn’t really matter. Because I was about to make plenty more.