The reign of the departed - 1

Errol Greyson hadn't intended to commit suicide. Or so he told himself. But waking up after his 'cry for help' trapped in the body of a wood-and-metal construct magically animated by Aster - the strange girl from school - was not a result he could have imagined.

Aster's wild explanations about needing help on a quest to find the water of health that would cure her father seemed as unreal as her description of Errol's own half-dead existence, his consciousness stuck in an enchanted automaton while his real body was in a coma from which it might never wake. And of course, they would need to recruit a girl who had been dead for thirty years - a virgin, no less - to lead them through something called the Pale, beyond which a bunch of magical kingdoms existed.

Plus, the threat that Aster could turn him off like a light switch, sending him into a hellish oblivion, was a convincing incentive to cooperate.