1 IF THERE’S ONE THING I HATE, IT’S SPEAKING IN FRONT OF A group. That’s why my job is so perfect for me. No reports to give, no presentations to make. I go in, I kill the demons, and I get out. Simple. So I wished somebody would explain to me what the hell I was doing sitting on a folding metal chair, facing a room of teenage zombies, their greenish faces attentive, as I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and waited for my turn to speak. When Tina, the zombie who’d briefly been my apprentice a few months back, asked me to speak to her class for Career Night, the answer had been easy. “No.” “Why not?” she’d demanded, her bottom lip jutting out. “You’re not my apprentice anymore. You quit, remember? What would be the point of me talking to your classmates about a career that none of them will ever pursue? It would be a huge waste of everyone’s time.” “But you have to.” I looked at her, trying to pick one of the several dozen reasons I didn’t have to, just to get started. “We’ve been working on our career projects all year,” she said. “When I dropped out of school to sing backup for Monster Paul, I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ I mean, who thinks about some