Harold Gaynor's house sat in the middle of intense
green lawn and the graceful sweep of trees. The house gleamed in
the hot August sunshine. Bert Vaughn, my boss, parked the car on
the crushed gravel of the driveway. The gravel was so white, it
looked like handpicked rock salt. Somewhere out of sight the soft
whir of sprinklers pattered. The grass was absolutely perfect in
the middle of one of the worst droughts Missouri has had in over
twenty years. Oh, well. I wasn't here to talk with Mr. Gaynor about
water management. I was here to talk about raising the dead.
Not resurrection. I'm not that good. I mean zombies.
The shambling dead. Rotting corpses. Night of the living dead. That
kind of zombie. Though certainly less dramatic than Hollywood would
ever put up on the screen. I am an animator. It's a job, that's
all, like selling.
Animating had only been a licensed business for about
five years. Before that it had just been an embarrassing curse, a
religious experience, or a tourist attraction. It still is in parts
of New Orleans, but here in St. Louis it's a business. A profitable
one, thanks in large part to my boss. He's a rascal, a scalawag, a
rogue, but damn if he doesn't know how to make money. It's a good
trait for a business manager.
Bert was six-three, a broad-shouldered, ex-college
football player with the beginnings of a beer gut. The dark blue
suit he wore was tailored so that the gut didn't show. For eight
hundred dollars the suit should have hidden a herd of elephants.
His white-blond hair was trimmed in a crew cut, back in style after
all these years. A boater's tan made his pale hair and eyes
dramatic with contrast.
Bert adjusted his blue and red striped tie, mopping a
bead of sweat off his tanned forehead. "I heard on the news there's
a movement there to use zombies in pesticide-contaminated fields.
It would save lives."
"Zombies rot, Bert, there's no way to prevent that,
and they don't stay smart enough long enough to be used as field
labor."
"It was just a thought. The dead have no rights under
law, Anita."
"Not yet."
It was wrong to raise the dead so they could slave
for us. It was just wrong, but no one listens to me. The government
finally had to get into the act. There was a nationwide committee
being formed of animators and other experts. We were supposed to
look into the working conditions of local zombies.
Working conditions. They didn't understand. You can't
give a corpse nice working conditions. They don't appreciate it
anyway. Zombies may walk, even talk, but they are very, very
dead.
Bert smiled indulgently at me. I fought an urge to
pop him one right in his smug face, "I know you and Charles are
working on that committee," Bert said. "Going around to all the
businesses and checking up on the zombies. It makes great press for
Animators, Inc."
"I don't do it for good press," I said.
"I know. You believe in your little cause."
"You're a condescending bastard," I said, smiling
sweetly up at him.
He grinned at me. "I know."
I just shook my head; with Bert you can't really win
an insult match. He doesn't give a damn what I think of him, as
long as I work for him.
My navy blue suit jacket was supposed to be summer
weight but it was a lie. Sweat trickled down my spine as soon as I
stepped out of the car.
Bert turned to me, small eyes narrowing. His eyes
lend themselves to suspicious squints. "You're still wearing your
gun," he said.
"The jacket hides it, Bert. Mr. Gaynor will never
know." Sweat started collecting under the straps of my shoulder
holster. I could feel the silk blouse beginning to melt. I try not
to wear silk and a shoulder rig at the same time. The silk starts
to look indented, wrinkling where the straps cross. The gun was a
Browning Hi-Power 9mm, and I liked having it near at hand.
"Come on, Anita. I don't think you'll need a gun in
the middle of the afternoon, while visiting a client." Bert's voice
held that patronizing tone that people use on children. Now, little
girl, you know this is for your own good.
Bert didn't care about my well-being. He just didn't
want to spook Gaynor. The man had already given us a check for five
thousand dollars. And that was just to drive out and talk to him.
The implication was that there was more money if we agreed to take
his case. A lot of money. Bert was all excited about that part. I
was skeptical. After all, Bert didn't have to raise the corpse. I
did.
The trouble was, Bert was probably right. I wouldn't
need the gun in broad daylight. Probably. "All right, open the
trunk."
Bert opened the trunk of his nearly brand-new Volvo.
I was already taking off the jacket. He stood in front of me,
hiding me from the house. God forbid that they should see me hiding
a gun in the trunk. What would they do, lock the doors and scream
for help?
I folded the holster straps around the gun and laid
it in the clean trunk. It smelled like new car, plastic and faintly
unreal. Bert shut the trunk, and I stared at it as if I could still
see the gun.
"Are you coming?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said. I didn't like leaving my gun behind,
for any reason. Was that a bad sign? Bert motioned for me to come
on.
I did, walking carefully over the gravel in my
high-heeled black pumps. Women may get to wear lots of pretty
colors, but men get the comfortable shoes.
Bert was staring at the door, smile already set on
his face. It was his best professional smile, dripping with
sincerity. His pale grey eyes sparkled with good cheer. It was a
mask. He could put it on and off like a light switch. He'd wear the
same smile if you confessed to killing your own mother. As long as
you wanted to pay to have her raised from the dead.
The door opened, and I knew Bert had been wrong about
me not needing a gun. The man was maybe five-eight, but the orange
polo shirt he wore strained over his chest. The black sport jacket
seemed too small, as if when he moved the seams would split, like
an insect's skin that had been outgrown. Black acid-washed jeans
showed off a small waist, so he looked like someone had pinched him
in the middle while the clay was still wet. His hair was very
blond. He looked at us silently. His eyes were empty, dead as a
doll's. I caught a glimpse of shoulder holster under the sport
jacket and resisted an urge to kick Bert in the shins.
Either my boss didn't notice the gun or he ignored
it. "Hello, I'm Bert Vaughn and this is my associate, Anita Blake.
I believe Mr. Gaynor is expecting us." Bert smiled at him
charmingly.
The bodyguard—what else could he be—moved away from
the door. Bert took that for an invitation and walked inside. I
followed, not at all sure I wanted to. Harold Gaynor was a very
rich man. Maybe he needed a bodyguard. Maybe people had threatened
him. Or maybe he was one of those men who have enough money to keep
hired muscle around whether they need it or not.
Or maybe something else was going on. Something that
needed guns and muscle, and men with dead, emotionless eyes. Not a
cheery thought.
The air-conditioning was on too high and the sweat
gelled instantly. We followed the bodyguard down a long central
hall that was paneled in dark, expensive-looking wood. The hall
runner looked oriental and was probably handmade.
Heavy wooden doors were set in the right-hand wall.
The bodyguard opened the doors and again stood to one side while we
walked through. The room was a library, but I was betting no one
ever read any of the books. The place was ceiling to floor in dark
wood bookcases. There was even a second level of books and shelves
reached by an elegant sweep of narrow staircase. All the books were
hardcover, all the same size, colors muted and collected together
like a collage. The furniture was, of course, red leather with
brass buttons worked into it.
A man sat near the far wall. He smiled when we came
in. He was a large man with a pleasant round face, double-chinned.
He was sitting in an electric wheelchair, with a small plaid
blanket over his lap, hiding his legs.
"Mr. Vaughn and Ms. Blake, how nice of you to drive
out." His voice went with his face, pleasant, damn near
amiable.
A slender black man sat in one of the leather chairs.
He was over six feet tall, exactly how much over was hard to tell.
He was slumped down, long legs stretched out in front of him with
the ankles crossed. His legs were taller than I was. His brown eyes
watched me as if he were trying to memorize me and would be graded
later.
The blond bodyguard went to lean against the
bookcases. He couldn't quite cross his arms, jacket too tight,
muscles too big. You really shouldn't lean against a wall and try
to look tough unless you can cross your arms. Ruins the effect.
Mr. Gaynor said, "You've met Tommy." He motioned
towards the sitting bodyguard. "That's Bruno."
"Is that your real name or just a nickname?" I asked,
looking straight into Bruno's eyes.
He shifted just a little in his chair. "Real
name."
I smiled.
"Why?" he asked.
"I've just never met a bodyguard who was really named
Bruno."
"Is that supposed to be funny?" he asked.
I shook my head. Bruno. He never had a chance. It was
like naming a girl Venus. All Brunos had to be bodyguards. It was a
rule. Maybe a cop? Naw, it was a bad guy's name. I smiled.
Bruno sat up in his chair, one smooth, muscular
motion. He wasn't wearing a gun that I could see, but there was a
presence to him. Dangerous, it said, watch out.
Guess I shouldn't have smiled.
Bert interrupted, "Anita, please. I do apologize, Mr.
Gaynor . . . Mr. Bruno. Ms. Blake has a rather peculiar sense of
humor."
"Don't apologize for me, Bert. I don't like it." I
don't know what he was so sore about anyway. I hadn't said the
really insulting stuff out loud.
"Now, now," Mr. Gaynor said. "No hard feelings.
Right, Bruno?"
Bruno shook his head and frowned at me, not angry,
sort of perplexed.
Bert flashed me an angry look, then turned smiling to
the man in the wheelchair. "Now, Mr. Gaynor, I know you must be a
busy man. So, exactly how old is the zombie you want raised?"
"A man who gets right down to business. I like that."
Gaynor hesitated, staring at the door. A woman entered.
She was tall, leggy, blond, with cornflower-blue
eyes. The dress, if it was a dress, was rose-colored and silky. It
clung to her body the way it was supposed to, hiding what decency
demanded, but leaving very little to the imagination. Long pale
legs were stuffed into pink spike heels, no hose. She stalked
across the carpet, and every man in the room watched her. And she
knew it.
She threw back her head and laughed, but no sound
came out. Her face brightened, her lips moved, eyes sparkled, but
in absolute silence, like someone had turned the sound off. She
leaned one hip against Harold Gaynor, one hand on his shoulder. He
encircled her waist, and the movement raised the already short
dress another inch.
Could she sit down in the dress without flashing the
room? Naw.
"This is Cicely," he said. She smiled brilliantly at
Bert, that little soundless laugh making her eyes sparkle. She
looked at me and her eyes faltered, the smile slipped. For a second
uncertainty filled her eyes. Gaynor patted her hip. The smile
flamed back into place. She nodded graciously to both of us.
"I want you to raise a
two-hundred-and-eighty-three-year old corpse."
I just stared at him and wondered if he understood
what he was asking.
"Well," Bert said, "that is nearly three hundred
years old. Very old to raise as a zombie. Most animators couldn't
do it at all."
"I am aware of that," Gaynor said. "That is why I
asked for Ms. Blake. She can do it."
Bert glanced at me. I had never raised anything that
old. "Anita?"
"I could do it," I said.
He smiled back at Gaynor, pleased.
"But I won't do it."
Bert turned slowly back to me, smile gone.
Gaynor was still smiling. The bodyguards were
immobile. Cicely looked pleasantly at me, eyes blank of any
meaning.
"A million dollars, Ms. Blake," Gaynor said in his
soft pleasant voice.
I saw Bert swallow. His hands convulsed on the chair
arms. Bert's idea of sex was money. He probably had the biggest
hard-on of his life.
"Do you understand what you're asking, Mr. Gaynor?" I
asked.
He nodded. "I will supply the white goat." His voice
was still pleasant as he said it, still smiling. Only his eyes had
gone dark; eager, anticipatory.
I stood up. "Come on, Bert, it's time to leave."
Bert grabbed my arm. "Anita, sit down, please."
I stared at his hand until he let go of me. His
charming mask slipped, showing me the anger underneath, then he was
all pleasant business again. "Anita. It is a generous payment."
"The white goat is a euphemism, Bert. It means a
human sacrifice."
My boss glanced at Gaynor, then back to me. He knew
me well enough to believe me, but he didn't want to. "I don't
understand," he said.
"The older the zombie the bigger the death needed to
raise it. After a few centuries the only death 'big enough' is a
human sacrifice," I said.
Gaynor wasn't smiling anymore. He was watching me out
of dark eyes. Cicely was still looking pleasant, almost smiling.
Was there anyone home behind those so blue eyes? "Do you really
want to talk about murder in front of Cicely?" I asked.
Gaynor beamed at me, always a bad sign. "She can't
understand a word we say. Cicely's deaf."
I stared at him, and he nodded. She looked at me with
pleasant eyes. We were talking of human sacrifice and she didn't
even know it. If she could read lips, she was hiding it very well.
I guess even the handicapped, um, physically challenged, can fall
into bad company, but it seemed wrong.
"I hate a woman who talks constantly," Gaynor
said.
I shook my head. "All the money in the world wouldn't
be enough to get me to work for you."
"Couldn't you just kill lots of animals, instead of
just one?" Bert asked. Bert is a very good business manager. He
knows shit about raising the dead.
I stared down at him. "No."
Bert sat very still in his chair. The prospect of
losing a million dollars must have been real physical pain for him,
but he hid it. Mr. Corporate Negotiator. "There has to be a way to
work this out," he said. His voice was calm. A professional smile
curled his lips. He was still trying to do business. My boss did
not understand what was happening.
"Do you know of another animator that could raise a
zombie this old?" Gaynor asked.
Bert glanced up at me, then down at the floor, then
at Gaynor. The professional smile had faded. He understood now that
it was murder we were talking about. Would that make a
difference?
I had always wondered where Bert drew the line. I was
about to find out. The fact that I didn't know whether he would
refuse the contract told you a lot about my boss. "No," Bert said
softly, "no, I guess I can't help you either, Mr. Gaynor."
"If it's the money, Ms. Blake, I can raise the
offer."
A tremor ran through Bert's shoulders. Poor Bert, but
he hid it well. Brownie point for him.
"I'm not an assassin, Gaynor," I said.
"That ain't what I heard," Tommy of the blond hair
said.
I glanced at him. His eyes were still as empty as a
doll's. "I don't kill people for money."
"You kill vampires for money," he said.
"Legal execution, and I don't do it for the money," I
said.
Tommy shook his head and moved away from the wall. "I
hear you like staking vampires. And you aren't too careful about
who you have to kill to get to 'em."
"My informants tell me you have killed humans before,
Ms. Blake," Gaynor said.
"Only in self-defense, Gaynor. I don't do
murder."
Bert was standing now. "I think it is time to
leave."
Bruno stood in one fluid movement, big dark hands
loose and half-cupped at his sides. I was betting on some kind of
martial arts.
Tommy was standing away from the wall. His sport
jacket was pushed back to expose his gun, like an old-time
gunfighter. It was a .357 Magnum. It would make a very big
hole.
I just stood there, staring at them. What else could
I do? I might be able to do something with Bruno, but Tommy had a
gun. I didn't. It sort of ended the argument.
They were treating me like I was a very dangerous
person. At five-three I am not imposing. Raise the dead, kill a few
vampires, and people start considering you one of the monsters.
Sometimes it hurt. But now . . . it had possibilities. "Do you
really think I came in here unarmed?" I asked. My voice sounded
very matter-of-fact.
Bruno looked at Tommy. He sort of shrugged. "I didn't
pat her down."
Bruno snorted.
"She ain't wearing a gun, though," Tommy said.
"Want to bet your life on it?" I said. I smiled when
I said it, and slid my hand, very slowly, towards my back. Make
them think I had a hip holster at the small of my back. Tommy
shifted, flexing his hand near his gun. If he went for it, we were
going to die. I was going to come back and haunt Bert.
Gaynor said, "No. No need for anyone to die here
today, Ms. Blake."
"No," I said, "no need at all." I swallowed my pulse
back into my throat and eased my hand away from my imaginary gun.
Tommy eased away from his real one. Goody for us.
Gaynor smiled again, like a pleasant beardless Santa.
"You of course understand that telling the police would be
useless."
I nodded. "We have no proof. You didn't even tell us
who you wanted raised from the dead, or why."
"It would be your word against mine," he said.
"And I'm sure you have friends in high places." I
smiled when I said it.
His smile widened, dimpling his fat little cheeks.
"Of course."
I turned my back on Tommy and his gun. Bert followed.
We walked outside into the blistering summer heat. Bert looked a
little shaken. I felt almost friendly towards him. It was nice to
know that Bert had limits, something he wouldn't do, even for a
million dollars.
"Would they really have shot us?" he asked. His voice
sounded matter-of-fact, firmer than the slightly glassy look in his
eyes. Tough Bert. He unlocked the trunk without being asked.
"With Harold Gaynor's name in our appointment book
and in the computer?" I got my gun out and slipped on the holster
rig. "Not knowing who we'd mentioned this trip to?" I shook my
head. "Too risky."
"Then why did you pretend to have a gun?" He looked
me straight in the eyes as he asked, and for the first time I saw
uncertainty in his face. Ol' money bags needed a comforting word,
but I was fresh out.
"Because, Bert, I could have been wrong."
Chapter 2
The bridal shop was just off 70 West in St. Peters.
It was called The Maiden Voyage. Cute. There was a pizza place on
one side of it and a beauty salon on the other. It was called Full
Dark Beauty Salon. The windows were blacked out, outlined in
bloodred neon. You could get your hair and nails done by a vampire,
if you wanted to.
Vampirism had only been legal for two years in the
United States of America. We were still the only country in the
world where it was legal. Don't ask me; I didn't vote for it. There
was even a movement to give the vamps the vote. Taxation without
representation and all that.
Two years ago if a vampire bothered someone I just
went out and staked the son of a bitch. Now I had to get a court
order of execution. Without it, I was up on murder charges, if I
was caught. I longed for the good old days.
There was a blond mannequin in the wedding shop
window wearing enough white lace to drown in. I am not a big fan of
lace, or seed pearls, or sequins. Especially not sequins. I had
gone out with Catherine twice to help her look for a wedding gown.
It didn't take long to realize I was no help. I didn't like any of
them.
Catherine was a very good friend or I wouldn't have
been here at all. She told me if I ever got married I'd change my
mind. Surely being in love doesn't cause you to lose your sense of
good taste. If I ever buy a gown with sequins on it, someone just
shoot me.
I also wouldn't have chosen the bridal dresses
Catherine picked out, but it was my own fault that I hadn't been
around when the vote was taken. I worked too much and I hated to
shop. So, I ended up plunking down $120 plus tax on a pink taffeta
evening gown. It looked like it had run away from a junior high
prom.
I walked into the air-conditioned hush of the bridal
shop, high heels sinking into a carpet so pale grey it was nearly
white. Mrs. Cassidy, the manager, saw me come in. Her smile
faltered for just a moment before she got it under control. She
smiled at me, brave Mrs. Cassidy.
I smiled back, not looking forward to the next
hour.
Mrs. Cassidy was somewhere between forty and fifty,
trim figure, red hair so dark it was almost brown. The hair was
tied in a French knot like Grace Kelly used to wear. She pushed her
gold wire-framed glasses more securely on her nose and said, "Ms.
Blake, here for the final fitting, I see."
"I hope it's the final fitting," I said.
"Well, we have been working on the . . . problem. I
think we've come up with something." There was a small room in back
of the desk. It was filled with racks of plastic-covered dresses.
Mrs. Cassidy pulled mine out from between two identical pink
dresses.
She led the way to the dressing rooms with the dress
draped over her arms. Her spine was very straight. She was gearing
for another battle. I didn't have to gear up, I was always ready
for battle. But arguing with Mrs. Cassidy about alterations to a
formal beat the heck out of arguing with Tommy and Bruno. It could
have gone very badly, but it hadn't. Gaynor had called them off,
for today, he had said.
What did that mean exactly? It was probably
self-explanatory. I had left Bert at the office still shaken from
his close encounter. He didn't deal with the messy end of the
business. The violent end. No, I did that, or Manny, or Jamison, or
Charles. We, the animators of Animators, Inc, we did the dirty
work. Bert stayed in his nice safe office and sent clients and
trouble our way. Until today.
Mrs. Cassidy hung the dress on a hook inside one of
the dressing stalls and went away. Before I could go inside,
another stall opened, and Kasey, Catherine's flower girl, stepped
out. She was eight, and she was glowering. Her mother followed
behind her, still in her business suit. Elizabeth (call me Elsie)
Markowitz was tall, slender, black-haired, olive skinned, and a
lawyer. She worked with Catherine and was also in the wedding.
Kasey looked like a smaller, softer version of her
mother.
The child spotted me first and said, "Hi, Anita.
Isn't this dress dumb-looking?"
"Now, Kasey," Elsie said, "it's a beautiful dress.
All those nice pink ruffles."
The dress looked like a petunia on steroids to me. I
stripped off my jacket and started moving into my own dressing room
before I had to give my opinion out loud.
"Is that a real gun?" Kasey asked.
I had forgotten I was still wearing it. "Yes," I
said.
"Are you a policewoman?"
"No."
"Kasey Markowitz, you ask too many questions." Her
mother herded her past me with a harried smile. "Sorry about that,
Anita."
"I don't mind," I said. Sometime later I was standing
on a little raised platform in front of a nearly perfect circle of
mirrors. With the matching pink high heels the dress was the right
length at least. It also had little puff sleeves and was an
off-the-shoulder look. The dress showed almost every scar I
had.
The newest scar was still pink and healing on my
right forearm. But it was just a knife wound. They're neat, clean
things compared to my other scars. My collarbone and left arm have
both been broken. A vampire bit through them, tore at me like a dog
with a piece of meat. There's also the cross-shaped burn mark on my
left forearm. Some inventive human vampire slaves thought it was
amusing. I didn't.
I looked like Frankenstein's bride goes to the prom.
Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad, but Mrs. Cassidy thought it was.
She thought the scars would distract people from the dress, the
wedding party, the bride. But Catherine, the bride herself, didn't
agree. She thought I deserved to be in the wedding, because we were
such good friends. I was paying good money to be publicly
humiliated. We must be good friends.
Mrs. Cassidy handed me a pair of long pink satin
gloves. I pulled them on, wiggling my fingers deep into the tiny
holes. I've never liked gloves. They make me feel like I'm touching
the world through a curtain. But the bright pink things did hide my
arms. Scars all gone. What a good girl. Right.
The woman fluffed out the satiny skirt, glancing into
the mirror. "It will do, I think." She stood, tapping one long,
painted fingernail against her lipsticked mouth. "I
believe I have come up with something to hide that, uh . . . well .
. ." She made vague hand motions towards me.
"My collarbone scar?" I said.
"Yes." She sounded relieved.
It occurred to me for the first time that Mrs.
Cassidy had never once said the word "scar." As if it were dirty,
or rude. I smiled at myself in the ring of mirrors. Laughter caught
at the back of my throat.
Mrs. Cassidy held up something made of pink ribbon
and fake orange blossoms. The laughter died. "What is that?" I
asked.
"This," she said, stepping towards me, "is the
solution to our problem."
"All right, but what is it?"
"Well, it is a collar, a decoration."
"It goes around my neck?"
"Yes."
I shook my head. "I don't think so."
"Ms. Blake, I have tried everything to hide that,
that . . . mark. Hats, hairdos, simple ribbons, corsages . . ." She
literally threw up her hands. "I am at my wit's end."
This I could believe. I took a deep breath. "I
sympathize with you, Mrs. Cassidy, really I do. I've been a royal
pain in the ass."
"I would never say such a thing."
"I know, so I said it for you. But that is the
ugliest piece of fru-fru I've ever laid eyes on."
"If you, Ms. Blake, have any better suggestions, then
I am all ears." She half crossed her arms over her chest. The
offending piece of "decoration" trailed nearly to her waist.
"It's huge," I protested.
"It will hide your"—she set her mouth
tight—"scar."
I felt like applauding. She'd said the dirty word.
Did I have any better suggestions? No. I did not. I sighed. "Put it
on me. The least I can do is look at it."
She smiled. "Please lift your hair."
I did as I was told. She fastened it around my neck.
The lace itched, the ribbons tickled, and I didn't even want to
look in the mirror. I raised my eyes, slowly, and just stared.
"Thank goodness you have long hair. I'll style it
myself the day of the wedding so it helps the camouflage."
The thing around my neck looked like a cross between
a dog collar and the world's biggest wrist corsage. My neck had
sprouted pink ribbons like mushrooms after a rain. It was hideous,
and no amount of hairstyling was going to change that. But it hid
the scar completely, perfectly. Ta-da.
I just shook my head. What could I say? Mrs. Cassidy
took my silence for assent. She should have known better. The phone
rang and saved us both. "I'll be just a minute, Ms. Blake." She
stalked off, high-heels silent on the thick carpet.
I just stared at myself in the mirrors. My hair and
eyes match, black hair, eyes so dark brown they look black. They
are my mother's Latin darkness. But my skin is pale, my father's
Germanic blood. Put some makeup on me and I look not unlike a china
doll. Put me in a puffy pink dress and I look delicate, dainty,
petite. Dammit.
The rest of the women in the wedding party were all
five-five or above. Maybe some of them would actually look good in
the dress. I doubted it.
Insult to injury, we all had to wear hoop skirts
underneath. I looked like a reject from Gone With the Wind.
"There, don't you look lovely." Mrs. Cassidy had
returned. She was beaming at me.
"I look like I've been dipped in Pepto-Bismol," I
said.
Her smile faded around the edges. She swallowed. "You
don't like this last idea." Her voice was very stiff.
Elsie Markowitz came out of the dressing rooms. Kasey
was trailing behind, scowling. I knew how she felt. "Oh, Anita,"
Elsie said, "you look adorable."
Great. Adorable, just what I wanted to hear.
"Thanks."
"I especially like the ribbons at your throat. We'll
all be wearing them, you know."
"Sorry about that," I said.
She frowned at me. "I think they just set off the
dress."
It was my turn to frown. "You're serious, aren't
you?"
Elsie looked puzzled. "Well, of course I am. Don't
you like the dresses?"
I decided not to answer on the grounds that it might
piss someone off. I guess, what can you expect from a woman who has
a perfectly good name like Elizabeth, but prefers to be named after
a cow?
"Is this the absolutely last thing we can use for
camouflage, Mrs. Cassidy?" I asked.
She nodded, once, very firmly.
I sighed, and she smiled. Victory was hers, and she
knew it. I knew I was beaten the moment I saw the dress, but if I'm
going to lose, I'm going to make someone pay for it. "All right.
It's done. This is it. I'll wear it."
Mrs. Cassidy beamed at me. Elsie smiled. Kasey
smirked. I hiked the hoop skirt up to my knees and stepped off the
platform. The hoop swung like a bell with, me as the clapper.
The phone rang. Mrs. Cassidy went to answer it, a
lift in her step, a song in her heart, and me out of her shop. Joy
in the afternoon.
I was struggling to get the wide skirt through the
narrow little door that led to the changing rooms when she called,
"Ms. Blake, it's for you. A Detective Sergeant Storr."
"See, Mommy, I told you she was a policewoman," Kasey
said.
I didn't explain because Elsie had asked me not to,
weeks ago. She thought Kasey was too young to know about animators
and zombies and vampire slayings. Not that any child of eight could
not know what a vampire was. They were pretty much the media event
of the decade.
I tried to put the phone to my left ear, but the
damned flowers got in the way. Pressing the receiver in the bend of
my neck and shoulder, I reached back to undo the collar. "Hi,
Dolph, what's up?"
"Murder scene." His voice was pleasant, like he
should sing tenor.
"What kind of murder scene?"
"Messy."
I finally pulled the collar free and dropped the
phone.
"Anita, you there?"
"Yeah, having some wardrobe trouble."
"What?"
"It's not important. Why do you want me to come down
to the scene?"
"Whatever did this wasn't human."
"Vampire?"
"You're the undead expert. That's why I want you to
come take a look."
"Okay, give me the address, and I'll be right there."
There was a notepad of pale pink paper with little hearts on it.
The pen had a plastic cupid on the end of it. "St. Charles, I'm not
more than fifteen minutes from you."
"Good." He hung up.
"Good-bye to you, too, Dolph." I said it to empty air
just to feel superior. I went back into the little room to
change.
I had been offered a million dollars today, just to
kill someone and raise a zombie. Then off to the bridal shop for a
final fitting. Now a murder scene. Messy, Dolph had said. It was
turning out to be a very busy afternoon.
Chapter 3
Messy, Dolph had called it. A master of
understatement. Blood was everywhere, splattered over the white
walls like someone had taken a can of paint and thrown it. There
was an off-white couch with brown and gold patterned flowers on it.
Most of the couch was hidden under a sheet. The sheet was crimson.
A bright square of afternoon sunlight came through the clean,
sparkling windows. The sunlight made the blood cherry-red,
shiny.
Fresh blood is really brighter than you see it on
television and the movies. In large quantities. Real blood is
screaming fire-engine red, in large quantities, but darker red
shows up on the screen better. So much for realism.
Only fresh blood is red, true red. This blood was old
and should have faded, but some trick of the summer sunshine kept
it shiny and new.
I swallowed very hard and took a deep breath.
"You look a little green, Blake," a voice said almost
at my elbow.
I jumped, and Zerbrowski laughed. "Did I scare
ya?"
"No," I lied.
Detective Zerbrowski was about five-seven, curly
black hair going grey, dark-rimmed glasses framed brown eyes. His
brown suit was rumpled; his yellow and maroon tie had a smudge on
it, probably from lunch. He was grinning at me. He was always
grinning at me.
"I gotcha, Blake, admit it. Is our fierce vampire
slayer gonna upchuck on the victims?"
"Putting on a little weight there, aren't you,
Zerbrowski?"
"Ooh, I'm hurt," he said. He clutched hands to his
chest, swaying a little. "Don't tell me you don't want my body, the
way I want yours."
"Lay off, Zerbrowski. Where's Dolph?"
"In the master bedroom." Zerbrowski gazed up at the
vaulted ceiling with its skylight. "Wish Katie and I could afford
something like this."
"Yeah," I said. "It's nice." I glanced at the
sheet-covered couch. The sheet clung to whatever was underneath,
like a napkin thrown over spilled juice. There was something wrong
with the way it looked. Then it hit me, there weren't enough
bumps to make a whole human body. Whatever was under there was
missing some parts.
The room sort of swam. I looked away, swallowing
convulsively. It had been months since I had actually gotten sick
at a murder scene. At least the air-conditioning was on. That was
good. Heat always makes the smell worse.
"Hey, Blake, do you really need to step outside?"
Zerbrowski took my arm as if to lead me towards the door.
"Thanks, but I'm fine." I looked him straight in his
baby browns and lied. He knew I was lying. I wasn't all right,
but I'd make it.
He released my arm, stepped back, and gave me a mock
salute. "I love a tough broad."
I smiled before I could stop it. "Go away,
Zerbrowski."
"End of the hall, last door on the left. You'll find
Dolph there." He walked away into the crowd of men. There are
always more people than you need at a murder scene, not the gawkers
outside but uniforms, plainclothes, technicians, the guy with the
video camera. A murder scene was like a bee swarm, full of frenzied
movement and damn crowded. I threaded my way through the crowd. My
plastic-coated ID badge was clipped to the collar of my navy-blue
jacket. It was so the police would know I was on their side and
hadn't just snuck in. It also made carrying a gun into a crowd of
policemen safer.
I squeezed past a crowd that was gathered like a
traffic jam beside a door in the middle of the hall. Voices came,
disjointed, "Jesus, look at the blood . . . Have they found the
body yet? . . . You mean what's left of it? . . . No."
I pushed between two uniforms. One said, "Hey!" I
found a cleared space just in front of the last door on the
left-hand side. I don't know how Dolph had done it but he was alone
in the room. Maybe they were just finished in here.
He knelt in the middle of the pale brown carpet. His
thick hands, encased in surgical gloves, were on his thighs. His
black hair was cut so short it left his ears sort of stranded on
either side of a large blunt face. He saw me and stood. He was
six-eight, built big like a wrestler. The canopied bed behind him
suddenly looked small.
Dolph was head of the police's newest task force, the
spook squad. Official title was the Regional Preternatural
Investigation Team, R-P-I-T, pronounced "rip it." It handled all
supernatural crime. It was a place to dump the troublemakers. I
never wondered what Zerbrowski had done to get on the spook squad.
His sense of humor was too strange and absolutely merciless. But
Dolph. He was the perfect policeman. I had always sort of figured
he had offended someone high up, offended them by being too good at
his job. Now that I could believe.
There was another sheet-covered bundle on the carpet
beside him.
"Anita." He always talks like that, one word at a
time.
"Dolph," I said.
He knelt between the canopy bed and the blood-soaked
sheet. "You ready?"
"I know you're the silent type, Dolph, but could you
tell me what I'm supposed to be looking for?"
"I want to know what you see, not what I tell you
you're supposed to see."
For Dolph it was a speech. "Okay," I said, "let's do
it."
He pulled back the sheet. It peeled away from the
bloody thing underneath. I stood and I stared and all I could see
was a lump of bloody meat. It could have been from anything: a cow,
horse, deer. But human? Surely not.
My eyes saw it, but my brain refused what it was
being shown. I squatted beside it, tucking my skirt under my
thighs. The carpeting squeezed underfoot like rain had gotten to
it, but it wasn't rain.
"Do you have a pair of gloves I can borrow? I left my
crime scene gear at the office."
"Right jacket pocket." He lifted his hands in the
air. There were blood marks on the gloves. "Help yourself. The wife
hates me to get blood on the dry cleaning."
I smiled. Amazing. A sense of humor is mandatory at
times. I had to reach across the remains. I pulled out two surgical
gloves; one size fits all. The gloves always felt like they had
powder in them. They didn't feel like gloves at all, more like
condoms for your hands.
"Can I touch it without damaging evidence?"
"Yes."
I poked the side of it with two fingers. It was like
poking a side of fresh beef. A nice, solid feel to it. My fingers
traced the bumps of bone, ribs under the flesh. Ribs. Suddenly I
knew what I was looking at. Part of the rib cage of a human being.
There was the shoulder, white bone sticking out where the arm had
been torn away. That was all. All there was. I stood too quickly
and stumbled. The carpet squeeshed underfoot.
The room was suddenly very hot. I turned away from
the body and found myself staring at the bureau. Its mirror was
splattered so heavily with blood, it looked like someone had
covered it in layers of red fingernail polish. Cherry Blossom Red,
Carnival Crimson, Candy Apple.
I closed my eyes and counted very slowly to ten. When
I opened them the room seemed cooler. I noticed for the first time
that a ceiling fan was slowly turning. I was fine. Heap big vampire
slayer. Ri-ight.
Dolph didn't comment as I knelt by the body again. He
didn't even look at me. Good man. I tried to be objective and see
whatever there was to see. But it was hard. I liked the remains
better when I couldn't figure out what part of the body they were.
Now all I could see was the bloody remains. All I could think of
was this used to be a human body. "Used to be" was the operative
phrase.
"No signs of a weapon that I can see, but the coroner
will be able to tell you that." I reached out to touch it again,
then stopped. "Can you help me raise it up so I can see inside the
chest cavity? What's left of the chest cavity."
Dolph dropped the sheet and helped me lift the
remains. It was lighter than it looked. Raised on its side there
was nothing underneath. All the vital organs that the ribs protect
were gone. It looked for all the world like a side of beef ribs,
except for the bones where the arm should have connected. Part of
the collarbone was still attached.
"Okay," I said. My voice sounded breathy. I stood,
holding my blood-spattered hands out to my sides. "Cover it,
please."
He did, and stood. "Impressions?"
"Violence, extreme violence. More than human
strength. The body's been ripped apart by hand."
"Why by hand?"
"No knife marks." I laughed, but it choked me. "Hell,
I'd think someone had used a saw on the body like butchering a cow,
but the bones..." I shook my head. "Nothing mechanical was used to
do this."
"Anything else?"
"Yeah, where is the rest of the fucking body?"
"Down the hall, second door on the left."
"The rest of the body?" The room was getting hot
again.
"Just go look. Tell me what you see."
"Dammit, Dolph, I know you don't like to influence
your experts, but I don't like walking in there blind."
He just stared at me.
"At least answer one question."
"Maybe, what?"
"Is it worse than this?"
He seemed to think about that for a moment. "No, and yes."
"Damn you."
"You'll understand after you've seen it."
I didn't want to understand. Bert had been thrilled
that the police wanted to put me on retainer. He had told me I
would gain valuable experience working with the police. All I had
gained so far was a wider variety of nightmares.
Dolph walked ahead of me to the next chamber of
horrors. I didn't really want to find the rest of the body. I wanted
to go home. He hesitated in front of the closed door until I stood
beside him. There was a cardboard cutout of a rabbit on the door
like for Easter. A needlework sign hung just below the bunny.
Baby's Room.
"Dolph," my voice sounded very quiet. The noise from
the living room was muted.
"Yes."
"Nothing, nothing." I took a deep breath and let it
out. I could do this. I could do this. Oh, God, I didn't want to do
this. I whispered a prayer under my breath as the door swung
inward. There are moments in life when the only way to get through
is with a little grace from on high. I was betting this was going
to be one of them.
Sunlight streamed through a small window. The
curtains were white with little duckies and bunnies stitched around
the edges. Animal cutouts danced around the pale blue walls. There
was no crib, only one of those beds with handrails halfway down. A
big boy bed, wasn't that what they were called?
There wasn't as much blood in here. Thank you, dear
God. Who says prayers never get answered? But in a square of bright
August sunshine sat a stuffed teddy bear. The teddy bear was
candy-coated with blood. One glassy eye stared round and surprised
out of the spiky fake fur.
I knelt beside it. The carpet didn't squeeze, no
blood soaked in. Why was the damn bear sitting here covered in
congealing blood? There was no other blood in the entire room that
I could see.
Did someone just set it here? I looked up and found
myself staring at a small white chest of drawers with bunnies
painted on it. When you have a motif, I guess you stick with it. On
the white paint was one small, perfect handprint. I crawled towards
it and held up my hand near it comparing size. My hands aren't big,
small even for a woman's, but this handprint was tiny. Two, three,
maybe four. Blue walls, probably a boy.
"How old was the child?"
"Picture in the living room has Benjamin Reynolds,
age three, written on the back."
"Benjamin," I whispered it, and stared at the bloody
handprint. "There's no body in this room. No one was killed
here."
"No."
"Why did you want me to see it?" I looked up at him,
still kneeling.
"Your opinion isn't worth anything if you don't see
everything."
"That damn bear is going to haunt me."
"Me, too," he said.
I stood, resisting the urge to smooth my skirt down
in back. It was amazing how many times I touched my clothing
without thinking and smeared blood on myself. But not today.
"Is it the boy's body under the sheet in the living
room?" As I said it, I prayed that it wasn't.
"No," he said.
Thank God. "Mother's body?"
"Yes."
"Where is the boy's body?"
"We can't find it." He hesitated, then asked, "Could
the thing have eaten the child's body completely?"
"You mean so there wouldn't be anything left to
find?"
"Yes," he said. His face looked just the tiniest bit
pale. Mine probably did, too.
"Possible, but even the undead have a limit to what
they can eat." I took a deep breath. "Did you find any signs of -
regurgitation."
"Regurgitation." He smiled. "Nice word. No, the
creature didn't eat and then vomit. At least we haven't found
it."
"Then the boy's probably still around somewhere."
"Could he be alive?" Dolph asked.
I looked up at him. I wanted to say yes, but I knew
the answer was probably no. I compromised. "I don't know."
Dolph nodded.
"The living room next?" I asked.
"No." He walked out of the room without another word.
I followed. What else could I do? But I didn't hurry. If he wanted
to play tough, silent policeman, he could damn well wait for me to
catch up.
I followed his broad back around the corner through
the living room into the kitchen. A sliding glass door led out onto
a deck. Glass was everywhere. Shiny slivers of it sparkled in the
light from yet another skylight. The kitchen was spotless, like a
magazine ad, done in blue tile and rich light-colored wood. "Nice
kitchen," I said.
I could see men moving around the yard. The party had
moved outside. The privacy fence hid them from the curious
neighbors, as it had hidden the killer last night. There was just
one detective standing beside the shiny sink. He was scribbling
something in a notebook.
Dolph motioned me to have a closer look. "Okay," I
said. "Something crashed through the sliding glass door. It must
have made a hell of a lot of noise. This much glass breaking even
with the air-conditioning on . . . You'd hear it."
"You think so?" he asked.
"Did any of the neighbors hear anything?" I
asked.
"No one will admit to it," he said.
I nodded. "Glass breaks, someone comes to check it
out, probably the man. Some sexist stereotypes die hard."
"What do you mean?" Dolph asked.
"The brave hunter protecting his family," I said.
"Okay, say it was the man, what next?"
"Man comes in, sees whatever crashed through the
window, yells for his wife. Probably tells her to get out. Take the
kid and run."
"Why not call the police?" he asked.
"I didn't see a phone in the master bedroom." I
nodded towards the phone on the kitchen wall. "This is probably the
only phone. You have to get past the bogeyman to reach the
phone."
"Go on."
I glanced behind me into the living room. The
sheet-covered couch was just visible. "The thing, whatever it was,
took out the man. Quick, disabled him, knocked him out, but didn't
kill him."
"Why not kill?"
"Don't test me, Dolph. There isn't enough blood in
the kitchen. He was eaten in the bedroom. Whatever did it wouldn't
have dragged a dead man off to the bedroom. It chased the man into
the bedroom and killed him there."
"Not bad, want to take a shot at the living room
next?"
Not really, but I didn't say it out loud. There was
more left of the woman, Her upper body was almost intact. Paper
bags enveloped her hands. We had samples of something under her
fingernails. I hoped it helped. Her wide brown eyes stared up at
the ceiling. The pajama top clung wetly to where her waist used to
be. I swallowed hard and used my index finger and thumb to raise
the pajama top.
Her spine glistened in the hard sunshine, wet and
white and dangling, like a cord that had been ripped out of its
socket.
Okay. "Something tore her apart, just like the . . .
man in the bedroom."
"How do you know it's a man?"
"Unless they had company, it has to be the man. They
didn't have a visitor, did they?"
Dolph shook his head. "Not as far as we know."
"Then it has to be the man. Because she still has all
her ribs, and both arms." I tried to swallow the anger in my voice.
It wasn't Dolph's fault. "I'm not one of your cops. I wish you'd
stop asking me questions that you already have the answers to."
He nodded. "Fair enough. Sometimes I forget you're
not one of the boys."
"Thank you for that."
"You know what I mean."
"I do, and I even know you mean it as a compliment,
but can we finish discussing this outside, please?"
"Sure." He slipped off his bloody gloves and put them
in a garbage sack that was sitting open in the kitchen. I did the
same.
The heat fastened round me like melting plastic, but
it felt good, clean somehow. I breathed in great lungfuls of hot,
sweating air. Ah, summer.
"I was right though, it wasn't human?" he asked.
There were two uniformed police officers keeping the
crowd off the lawn and in the street. Children, parents, kids on
bikes. It looked like a freaking circus.
"No, it wasn't human. There was no blood on the glass
that it came through."
"I noticed. What's the significance?"
"Most dead don't bleed, except for vampires."
"Most?"
"Freshly dead zombies can bleed, but vampires bleed
almost like a person."
"You don't think it was a vampire then?"
"If it was, then it ate human flesh. Vampires can't
digest solid food."
"Ghoul?"
"Too far from a cemetery, and there'd be more
destruction of the house. Ghouls would tear up furniture like wild
animals."
"Zombie?"
I shook my head. "I honestly don't know. There are
such things as flesh-eating zombies. They're rare, but it
happens."
"You told me that there have been three reported
cases. Each time the zombies stay human longer and don't rot."
I smiled. "Good memory. That's right. Flesh-eating
zombies don't rot, as long as you feed them. Or at least don't rot
as quickly."
"Are they violent?"
"Not so far," I said.
"Are zombies violent?" Dolph asked.
"Only if told to be."
"What does that mean?" he asked.
"You can order a zombie to kill people if you're
powerful enough."
"A zombie as a murder weapon?"
I nodded. "Something like that, yes."
"Who could do something like that?"
"I'm not sure that's what happened here," I said.
"I know. But who could do it?"
"Well, hell, I could, but I wouldn't. And nobody I
know that could do it would do it."
"Let us decide that," he said. He had gotten his
little notebook out.
"You really want me to give you names of friends so
you can ask them if they happened to have raised a zombie and sent
it to kill these people?"
"Please."
I sighed. "I don't believe this. All right, me, Manny
Rodriguez, Peter Burke, and. . ." I stopped words already forming a
third name.
"What is it?"
"Nothing. I just remembered that I've got Burke's
funeral to go to this week. He's dead so I don't think he's a
suspect."
Dolph was looking at me hard, suspicion plain on his
face. "You sure this is all the names you want to give me?"
"If I think of anyone else, I'll let you know," I
said. I was at my wide-eyed most sincere. See, nothing up my
sleeve.
"You do that, Anita."
"Sure thing."
He smiled and shook his head. "Who are you
protecting?"
"Me," I said. He looked puzzled. "Let's just say I
don't want to get someone mad at me."
"Who?"
I looked up into the clear August sky. "You think
we'll get rain?"
"Dammit, Anita, I need your help."
"I've given you my help," I said.
"The name."
"Not yet. I'll check it out, and if it looks
suspicious, I promise to share it with you."
"Well, isn't that just generous of you?" A flush was
creeping up his neck. I had never seen Dolph angry before. I feared
I was about to.
"The first death was a homeless man. We thought he'd
passed out from liquor and ghouls got him. We found him right next
to a cemetery. Open and shut, right?" His voice was rising just a
bit with each word.
"Next we find this couple, teenagers caught necking
in the boy's car. Dead, still not too far from the cemetery. We
called in an exterminator and a priest. Case closed." He lowered
his voice, but it was like he had swallowed the yelling. His voice
was strained and almost touchable with its anger.
"Now this. It's the same beastie, whatever the hell
it is. But we are miles from the nearest frigging cemetery. It
isn't a ghoul, and maybe if I had called you in with the first or
even the second case, this wouldn't have happened. But I figure I'm
getting good at this supernatural crap. I've had some experience
now, but it isn't enough. It isn't nearly enough." His big hands
were crushing his notebook.
"That's the longest speech I've ever heard you make,"
I said.
He half laughed. "I need the name, Anita."
"Dominga Salvador. She's the voodoo priest for the
entire Midwest. But if you send police down there she won't talk to
you. None of them will."
"But they'll talk to you?"
"Yes," I said.
"Okay, but I better hear something from you by
tomorrow."
"I don't know if I can set up a meeting that
soon."
"Either you do it, or I do it," he said.
"Okay, okay, I'll do it, somehow."
"Thanks, Anita. At least now we have someplace to
start."
"It might not be a zombie at all, Dolph. I'm just
guessing."
"What else could it be?"
"Well, if there had been blood on the glass, I'd say
maybe a lycanthrope."
"Oh, great, just what I need—a rampaging
shapeshifter."
"But there was no blood on the glass."
"So probably some kind of undead," he said.
"Exactly."
"You talk to this Dominga Salvador and give me a
report ASAP."
"Aye, aye, Sergeant."
He made a face at me and walked back inside the
house. Better him than me. All I had to do was go home, change
clothes, and prepare to raise the dead. At full dark tonight I had
three clients lined up or would that be lying down?
Ellen Grisholm's therapist thought it would be
therapeutic for Ellen to confront her child-molesting father. The
trouble was the father had been dead for several months. So I was
going to raise Mr. Grisholm from the dead and let his daughter tell
him what a son of a bitch he was. The therapist said it would be
cleansing. I guess if you have a doctorate, you're allowed to say
things like that.
The other two raisings were more usual; a contested
will, and a prosecution's star witness that had had the bad taste
to have a heart attack before testifying in court. They still
weren't sure if the testimony of a zombie was admissible in court,
but they were desperate enough to try, and to pay for the
privilege.
I stood there in the greenish-brown grass. Glad to
see the family hadn't been addicted to sprinklers. A waste of
water. Maybe they had even recycled their pop cans, newspapers.
Maybe they had been decent earth-loving citizens. Maybe not.
One of the uniforms lifted the yellow Do-Not-Cross
tape and let me out. I ignored all the staring people and got in my
car. It was a late-model Nova. I could have afforded something
better but why bother? It ran.
The steering wheel was too hot to touch. I turned on
the air-conditioning and let the car cool down. What I had told
Dolph about Dominga Salvador had been true. She wouldn't talk to
the police, but that hadn't been the reason I tried to keep her
name out of it.
If the police came knocking on Señora
Dominga's door, she'd want to know who sent them. And she'd find
out. The Señora was the most powerful vaudun priest I had
ever met.
Raising a murderous zombie was just one of many
things she could do, if she wanted to.
Frankly, there were things worse than zombies that
could come crawling through your window some dark night. I knew as
little about that side of the business as I could get away with.
The Señora had invented most of it.
No, I did not want Dominga Salvador angry with me. So
it looked like I was going to have to talk with her tomorrow. It
was sort of like getting an appointment to see the godfather of
voodoo. Or in this case the godmother. The trouble was this
godmother was unhappy with me. Dominga had sent me invitations to
her home. To her ceremonies. I had politely declined. I think my
being a Christian disappointed her. So I had managed to avoid a
face to face, until now.
I was going to ask the most powerful vaudun priest in
the United States, maybe in all of North America, if she just
happened to raise a zombie. And if that zombie just happened to be
going around killing people, on her orders? Was I crazy? Maybe. It
looked like tomorrow was going to be another busy day.
Chapter 4
The alarm screamed. I rolled over swatting at the
buttons on top of the digital clock. Surely to God, I'd hit the
snooze button soon. I finally had to prop myself up on one elbow
and actually open my eyes. I turned off the alarm and stared at the
glowing numbers. 6:00 A.M. Shit. I'd only gotten home at three.
Why had I set the alarm for six? I couldn't remember.
I am not at my best after only three hours of sleep. I lay back
down in the still warm nest of sheets. My eyes were fluttering shut
when I remembered. Dominga Salvador.
She had agreed to meet me at 7:00 A.M. today. Talk
about a breakfast meeting. I struggled out of the sheet, and just
sat on the side of the bed for a minute. The apartment was
absolutely still. The only sound was the hush-hush of the
air-conditioning. Quiet as a funeral.
I got up then, thoughts of blood-coated teddy bears
dancing in my head.
Fifteen minutes later I was dressed. I always
showered after coming in from work no matter how late it was. I
couldn't stand the thought of going to bed between nice clean
sheets smeared with dried chicken blood. Sometimes it's goat blood,
but more often chicken.
I had compromised on the outfit, caught between
showing respect and not melting in the heat. It would have been
easy if I hadn't planned to carry a gun with me. Call me paranoid,
but I don't leave home without it.
The acid washed jeans, jogging socks, and Nikes were
easy. An Uncle Mike's inter-pants holster complete with a Firestar
9mm completed the outfit. The Firestar was my backup piece to the
Browning Hi-Power. The Browning was far too bulky to put down an
inter-pants holster, but the Firestar fit nicely.
Now all I needed was a shirt that would hide the gun,
but leave it accessible to grab and shoot. This was harder than it
sounded. I finally settled on a short, almost middrift top that
just barely fell over my waistband. I turned in front of the
mirror.
The gun was invisible as long as I didn't forget and
raise my arms too high. The top, unfortunately, was a pale, pale
pink. What had possessed me to buy this top, I really didn't
remember. Maybe it had been a gift? I hoped so. The thought that I
had actually spent money on anything pink was more than I could
bear.
I hadn't opened the drapes at all yet. The entire
apartment was in twilight. I had special-ordered very heavy drapes.
I rarely saw sunlight, and I didn't miss it much. I turned on the
light over my fish tank. The angelfish rose towards the top, mouths
moving in slow-motion begging.
Fish are my idea of pets. You don't walk them, pick
up after them, or have to housebreak them. Clean the tank
occasionally, feed them, and they don't give a damn how many hours
of overtime you work.
The smell of strong brewed coffee wafted through the
apartment from my Mr. Coffee. I sat at my little two-seater
kitchen table sipping hot, black Colombian vintage. Beans fresh
from my freezer, ground on the spot. There was no other way to
drink coffee. Though in a pinch I'll take it just about any way I
can get it.
The doorbell chimed. I jumped, spilling coffee onto
the table. Nervous? Me? I left my Firestar on the kitchen table
instead of taking it to the door with me. See, I'm not paranoid.
Just very, very careful.
I checked the peephole and opened the door. Manny
Rodriguez stood in the doorway. He's about two inches taller than I
am. His coal-black hair is streaked with grey and white. Thick
waves of it frame his thin face and black mustache. He's fifty-two,
and with one exception, I would still rather have him backing me in
a dangerous situation than anyone else I know.
We shook hands, we always do that. His grip was firm
and dry. He grinned at me, flashing very white teeth in his brown
face. "I smell coffee."
I grinned back. "You know it's all I have for
breakfast." He walked in, and I locked the door behind him,
habit.
"Rosita thinks you don't take care of yourself." He
dropped into a near-perfect imitation of his wife's scolding voice,
a much thicker Mexican accent than his own. "She doesn't eat right,
so thin. Poor Anita, no husband, not even a boyfriend." He
grinned.
"Rosita sounds like my stepmother. Judith is sick
with worry that I'll be an old maid."
"You're what, twenty-four?"
"Mm-uh."
He just shook his head. "Sometimes I do not
understand women."
It was my turn to grin. "What am I, chopped
liver?"
"Anita, you know I didn't mean..."
"I know, I'm one of the boys. I understand."
"You are better than any of the boys at work."
"Sit down. Let me pour coffee in your mouth before
your foot fits in again."
"You are being difficult. You know what I meant." He
stared at me out of his solid brown eyes, face very serious.
I smiled. "Yeah, I know what you meant."
I picked one of the dozen or so mugs from my kitchen
cabinet. My favorite mugs dangled from a mug-tree on the
countertop.
Manny sat down, sipping coffee, glancing at his cup.
It was red with black letters that said, "I'm a coldhearted bitch
but I'm good at it." He laughed coffee up his nose.
I sipped my own coffee from a mug decorated with
fluffy baby penguins: I'd never admit it, but it is my favorite
mug.
"Why don't you bring your penguin mug to work?" he
asked.
Bert's latest brainstorm was that we all use
personalized coffee cups at work. He thought it would add a homey
note to the office. I had brought in a grey on grey cup that said,
"It's a dirty job and I get to do it." Bert had made me take it
home.
"I enjoy yanking Bert's chain."
"So you're going to keep bringing in unacceptable
cups."
I smiled. "Mm-uh."
He just shook his head.
"I really appreciate you coming to see Dominga with
me."
He shrugged. "I couldn't let you go see the devil
woman alone, could I?"
I frowned at the nickname, or was it an insult?
"That's what your wife calls Dominga, not what I call her."
He glanced down at the gun still lying on the
tabletop. "But you'll take a gun with you, just in case."
I looked at him over the top of my cup. "Just in
case."
"If it comes to shooting our way out, Anita, it will
be too late. She has bodyguards all over the place."
"I don't plan to shoot anybody. We are just going to
ask a few questions. That's all."
He smirked. "Por favor, Señora
Salvador, did you raise a killer zombie recently?"
"Knock it off, Manny. I know it's awkward."
"Awkward?" He shook his head. "Awkward, she says. If
you piss off Dominga Salvador, it's a hell of a lot more than just
awkward."
"You don't have to come."
"You called me for backup." He smiled that brilliant
teeth flashing smile that lit up his entire face. "You didn't call
Charles or Jamison. You called me, and, Anita, that is the best
compliment you could give an old man."
"You're not an old man." And I meant it.
"That is not what my wife keeps telling me. Rosita
has forbidden me to go vampire hunting with you, but she can't
curtail my zombie-related activities, not yet anyway."
The surprise must have shone on my face, because he
said, "I know she talked to you two years back, when I was in the
hospital."
"You almost died," I said.
"And you had how many broken bones?"
"Rosita made a reasonable request, Manny. You have
four children to think of."
"And I'm too old to be slaying vampires." His voice
held irony, and almost bitterness.
"You'll never be too old," I said.
"A nice thought." He drained his coffee mug. "We
better go. Don't want to keep the Señora waiting."
"God forbid," I said.
"Amen," he said.
I stared at him as he rinsed his mug out in the sink.
"Do you know something you're not telling me?"
"No," he said.
I rinsed my own cup, still staring at him. I could
feel a suspicious frown between my eyes. "Manny?"
"Honest Mexican, I don't know nuthin'."
"Then what's wrong?"
"You know I was vaudun before Rosita converted me to
pure Christianity."
"Yeah, so?"
"Dominga Salvador was not just my priestess. She was
my lover."
I stared at him for a few heartbeats. "You're
kidding?"
His face was very serious as he said, "I wouldn't
joke about something like that."
I shrugged. People's choices of lovers never failed
to amaze me. "That's why you could get me a meeting with her on
such short notice."
He nodded.
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
"Because you might have tried to sneak over there
without me."
"Would that have been so bad?"
He just stared at me, brown eyes very serious.
"Maybe."
I got my gun from the table and fitted it to the
inter-pants holster. Eight bullets. The Browning could hold
fourteen. But let's get real; if I needed more than eight bullets,
I was dead. And so was Manny.
"Shit," I whispered.
"What?"
"I feel like I'm going to visit the bogeyman."
Manny made a back and forth motion with his head.
"Not a bad analogy."
Great, just freaking, bloody great. Why was I doing
this? The image of Benjamin Reynolds's blood-coated teddy bear
flashed into my mind. All right, I knew why I was doing it. If
there was even a remote chance that the boy could still be alive,
I'd go into hell itself—if I stood a chance of coming back out. I
didn't mention this out loud. I did not want to know if hell was a
good analogy, too.
Chapter 5
The neighborhood was older houses; fifties, forties.
The lawns were dying to brown for lack of water. No sprinklers
here. Flowers struggled to survive in beds close to the houses.
Mostly petunias, geraniums, a few rosebushes. The streets were
clean, neat, and one block over you could get yourself shot for
wearing the wrong color of jacket.
Gang activity stopped at Señora Salvador's
neighborhood. Even teenagers with automatic pistols fear things you
can't stop with bullets no matter how good a shot you are. Silver
plated bullets will harm a vampire, but not kill it. It will kill a
lycanthrope, but not a zombie. You can hack the damn things to
pieces, and the disconnected body parts will crawl after you. I've
seen it. It ain't pretty. The gangs leave the Señora's turf
alone. No violence. It is a place of permanent truce.
There are stories of one Hispanic gang that thought
it had protection against gris-gris. Some people say that the
gang's ex-leader is still down in Dominga's basement, obeying an
occasional order. He was great show-and-tell to any juvenile
delinquents who got out of hand.
Personally, I had never seen her raise a zombie. But
then I'd never seen her call the snakes either. I'd just as soon
keep it that way.
Señora Salvador's two-story house is on about
a half acre of land. A nice roomy yard. Bright red geraniums flamed
against the whitewashed walls. Red and white, blood and bone. I was
sure the symbolism was not lost on casual passersby. It certainly
wasn't lost on me.
Manny parked his car in the driveway behind a cream
colored Impala. The two-car garage was painted white to match the
house. There was a little girl of about five riding a tricycle
furiously up and down the sidewalk. A slightly older pair of boys
were sitting on the steps that led up to the porch. They stopped
playing and looked at us.
A man stood on the porch behind them. He was wearing
a shoulder holster over a sleeveless blue T-shirt. Sort of blatant.
All he needed was a flashing neon sign that said "Bad Ass."
There were chalk markings on the sidewalk. Pastel
crosses and unreadable diagrams. It looked like a children's game,
but it wasn't. Some devoted fans of the Señora had chalked
designs of worship in front of her house. Stubs of candles had
melted to lumps around the designs. The girl on the tricycle
peddled back and forth over the designs. Normal, right?
I followed Manny over the sun-scorched lawn. The
little girl on the tricycle was watching us now, small brown face
unreadable.
Manny removed his sunglasses and smiled up at the
man. "Buenos días, Antonio. It has been a long
time."
"Sí, " Antonio said. His voice was
low and sullen. His deeply tanned arms were crossed loosely over
his chest. It put his right hand right next to his gun butt.
I used Manny's body to shield me from sight and
casually put my hands close to my own gun. The Boy Scout motto,
"Always be prepared." Or was that the Marines?
"You've become a strong, handsome man," Manny
said.
"My grandmother says I must let you in," Antonio
said.
"She is a wise woman," Manny said.
Antonio shrugged. "She is the Señora." He
peered around Manny at me. "Who is this?"
"Señorita Anita Blake." Manny stepped back so I could
move forward. I did, right hand loose on my waist like I had an
attitude, but it was the closest I could stay to my gun.
Antonio looked down at me. His dark eyes were angry,
but that was all. He didn't have near the gaze of Harold Gaynor's
bodyguards. I smiled. "Nice to meet you."
He squinted at me suspiciously for a moment, then
nodded. I continued to smile at him, and a slow smile spread over
his face. He thought I was flirting with him. I let him think
it.
He said something in Spanish. All I could do was
smile and shake my head. He spoke softly, and there was a look in
his dark eyes, a curve to his mouth. I didn't have to speak the
language to know I was being propositioned. Or insulted.
Manny's neck was stiff, his face flushed. He said
something from between clenched teeth.
It was Antonio's turn to flush. His hand started to
go for his gun. I stepped up two steps, touching his wrist as if I
didn't know what was going on. The tension in his arm was like a
wire, straining.
I beamed up at him as I held his wrist. His eyes
flicked from Manny to me, then the tension eased, but I didn't let
go of his wrist until his arm fell to his side. He raised my hand
to his lips, kissing it. His mouth lingered on the back of my hand,
but his eyes stayed on Manny. Angry, rage-filled.
Antonio carried a gun, but he was an amateur.
Amateurs with guns eventually get themselves killed. I wondered if
Dominga Salvador knew that? She may have been a whiz at voodoo but
I bet she didn't know much about guns, and what it took to use one
on a regular basis. Whatever it took, Antonio didn't have it. He'd
kill you all right. No sweat. But for the wrong reasons. Amateur's
reasons. Of course, you'll be just as dead.
He guided me up on the porch beside him, still
holding my hand. It was my left hand. He could hold that all day.
"I must check you for weapons, Manuel."
"I understand," Manny said. He stepped up on the
porch and Antonio stepped back, keeping room between them in case
Manny jumped him. That left me with a clear shot of Antonio's back.
Careless; under different circumstances, deadly.
He made Manny lean against the porch railing like a
police frisk. Antonio knew what he was doing, but it was an angry
search, lots of quick jerky hand movements, as if just touching
Manny's body enraged him. A lot of hate in old Tony.
It never occurred to him to pat me down for weapons.
Tsk-tsk.
A second man came to the screen door. He was in his
late forties, maybe. He was wearing a white undershirt with a plaid
shirt unbuttoned over it. The sleeves were folded back as far as
they'd go. Sweat stood out on his forehead. I was betting there was
a gun at the small of his back. His black hair had a pure white
streak just over the forehead. "What is taking so long, Antonio?"
His voice was thick and held an accent.
"I searched him for weapons."
The older man nodded. "She is ready to see you
both."
Antonio stood to one side, taking up his post on the
porch once more. He made a kissing noise as I walked past. I felt
Manny stiffen, but we made it into the living room without anyone
getting shot. We were on a roll.
The living room was spacious, with a dining-room set
taking up the left-hand side. There was a wall piano in the living
room. I wondered who played. Antonio? Naw.
We followed the man through a short hallway into a
roomy kitchen. Golden oblongs of sunshine lay heavy on a black and
white tiled floor. The floor and kitchen were old, but the
appliances were new. One of those deluxe refrigerators with an ice
maker and water dispenser took up a hunk of the back wall. All the
appliances were done in a pale yellow: Harvest Gold, Autumn
Bronze.
Sitting at the kitchen table was a woman in her early
sixties. Her thin brown face was seamed with a lot of smile lines.
Pure white hair was done in a bun at the nape of her neck. She sat
very straight in her chair, thin-boned hands folded on the
tabletop. She looked terribly harmless. A nice old granny. If a
quarter of what I'd heard about her was true, it was the greatest
camouflage I'd ever seen.
She smiled and held out her hands. Manny stepped
forward and took the offering, brushing his lips on her knuckles.
"It is good to see you, Manuel." Her voice was rich, a contralto
with the velvet brush of an accent.
"And you, Dominga." He released her hands and sat
across from her.
Her quick black eyes flicked to me, still standing in
the doorway. "So, Anita Blake, you have come to me at last."
It was a strange thing to say. I glanced at Manny. He
gave a shrug with his eyes. He didn't know what she meant either.
Great. "I didn't know you were eagerly awaiting me,
Señora."
"I have heard stories of you, chica.
Wondrous stories." There was a hint in those black eyes, that
smiling face, that was not harmless.
"Manny?" I asked.
"It wasn't me."
"No, Manuel does not talk to me anymore. His little
wife forbids it." That last sentence was angry, bitter.
Oh, God. The most powerful voodoo priestess in the
Midwest was acting like a scorned lover. Shit.
She turned those angry black eyes to me. "All who
deal in vaudun come to Señora Salvador eventually."
"I do not deal in vaudun."
She laughed at that. All the lines in her face flowed
into the laughter. "You raise the dead, the zombie, and you do not
deal in vaudun. Oh, chica, that is funny." Her voice
sparkled with genuine amusement. So glad I could make her day.
"Dominga, I told you why we wished this meeting. I
made it very clear. . ." Manny said.
She waved him to silence. "Oh, you were very careful
on the phone, Manuel." She leaned towards me. "He made it very
clear that you were not here to participate in any of my pagan
rituals." The bitterness in her voice was sharp enough to choke
on.
"Come here, chica," she said. She held out
one hand to me, not both. Was I supposed to kiss it as Manny had
done. I didn't think I'd come to see the pope.
I realized then that I didn't want to touch her. She
had done nothing wrong. Yet, the muscles in my shoulders were
screaming with tension. I was afraid, and I didn't know why.
I stepped forward and took her hand, uncertain what
to do with it. Her skin was warm and dry. She sort of lowered me to
the chair closest to her, still holding my hand. She said something
in her soft, deep voice.
I shook my head. "I'm sorry I don't understand
Spanish."
She touched my hair with her free hand. "Black hair
like the wing of a crow. It does not come from any pale skin."
"My mother was Mexican."
"Yet you do not speak her tongue."
She was still holding my hand, and I wanted it back.
"She died when I was young. I was raised by my father's
people."
"I see."
I pulled my hand free and instantly felt better. She
had done nothing to me. Nothing. Why was I so damn jumpy? The man
with the streaked hair had taken up a post behind the
Señora. I could see him clearly. His hands were in plain
sight. I could see the back door and the entrance to the kitchen.
No one was sneaking up behind me. But the hair at the base of my
skull was standing at attention.
I glanced at Manny, but he was staring at Dominga.
His hands were gripped together on the tabletop so tightly that his
knuckles were mottled.
I felt like someone at a foreign film festival
without subtitles. I could sort of guess what was going on, but I
wasn't sure I was right. The creeping skin on my neck told me some
hocus-pocus was going on. Manny's reaction said that just maybe the
hocus-pocus was meant for him.
Manny's shoulders slumped. His hands relaxed their
awful tension. It was a visible release of some kind. Dominga
smiled, a brilliant flash of teeth. "You could have been so
powerful, mi corazón."
"I did not want the power, Dominga," he said.
I stared from one to the other, not exactly sure what
had just happened. I wasn't sure I wanted to know. I was willing to
believe that ignorance was bliss. It so often is.
She turned her quick black eyes to me. "And you,
chica, do you want power?" The creeping sensation at the
base of my skull spread over my body. It felt like insects marching
on my skin. Shit.
"No." A nice simple answer. Maybe I should try those
more often.
"Perhaps not, but you will."
I didn't like the way she said that. It was
ridiculous to be sitting in a sunny kitchen at 7:28 in the morning,
and be scared. But there it was. My gut was twitching with it.
She stared at me. Her eyes were just eyes. There was
none of that seductive power of a vampire. They were just eyes, and
yet . . . The hair on my neck tried to crawl down my spine.
Goose bumps broke out on my body, a rush of prickling
warmth. I licked my lips and stared at Dominga Salvador.
It was a slap of magic. She was testing me. I'd had
it done before. People are so fascinated with what I do. Convinced
that I know magic. I don't. I have an affinity with the dead.
It's not the same.
I stared into her nearly black eyes and felt myself
sway forward. It was like falling without movement. The world sort
of swung for a moment, then steadied. Warmth burst out of my body,
like a twisting rope of heat. It went outward to the old woman. It
hit her solid, and I felt it like a jolt of electricity.
I stood up, gasping for air. "Shit!"
"Anita, are you all right?" Manny was standing now,
too. He touched my arm gently.
"I'm not sure. What the hell did she do to me?"
"It is what you have done to me, chica,"
Dominga said. She looked a little pale around the edges. Sweat
beaded on her forehead.
The man stood away from the wall, his hands loose and
ready. "No," Dominga said, "Enzo, I am all right." Her voice was
breathy as if she had been running:
I stayed standing. I wanted to go home now,
please.
"We did not come here for games, Dominga," Manny
said. His voice had deepened with anger and, I think, fear. I
agreed with that last emotion.
"It is not a game, Manuel. Have you forgotten
everything I taught you. Everything you were?"
"I have forgotten nothing, but I did not bring her
here to be harmed."
"Whether she is harmed or not is up to her, mi
corazón."
I didn't much like that last part. "You're not going
to help us. You're just going to play cat and mouse. Well, this
mouse is leaving." I turned to leave, keeping a watchful eye on
Enzo. He wasn't an amateur.
"Don't you wish to find the little boy that Manny
said was taken? Three years old, very young to be in the hands of
the bokor."
It stopped me. She knew it would. Damn her. "What is
a bokor?"
She smiled. "You really don't know, do you?"
I shook my head.
The smile widened, all surprised pleasure. "Place
your right hand palm up on the table, por favor."
"If you know something about the boy, just tell me.
Please."
"Endure my little tests, and I will help you."
"What sort of tests?" I hoped I sounded as suspicious
as I felt.
Dominga laughed, an abrupt and cheery sound. It went
with all the smile lines in her face. Her eyes were practically
sparkling with mirth. Why did I feel like she was laughing at
me?
"Come, chica, I will not hurt you," she
said.
"Manny?"
"If she does anything that may harm you, I will say
so."
Dominga gazed up at me, a sort of puzzled wonder on
her face. "I have heard that you can raise three zombies in a
night, night after night. Yet, you truly are a novice."
"Ignorance is bliss," I said.
"Sit, chica. This will not hurt, I
promise."
This will not hurt. It promised more painful things
later. I sat. "Any delay could cost the boy his life." Try to
appeal to her good side.
She leaned towards me. "Do you really think the child
is still alive?" Guess she didn't have a good side.
I leaned back from her. I couldn't help it, and I
couldn't lie to her. "No."
"Then we have time, don't we?"
"Time for what?"
"Your hand, chica, por favor,
then I will answer your questions."
I took a deep breath and placed my right hand on the
table, palm up. She was being mysterious. I hated people who were
mysterious.
She brought a small black bag from under the table,
as if it had been sitting in her lap the whole time. Like she'd
planned this.
Manny was staring at the bag like something noisome
was about to crawl out. Close. Dominga Salvador pulled something
noisome out of it.
It was a charm, a gris-gris made of black feathers,
bits of bone, a mummified bird's foot. I thought at first it was a
chicken until I saw the thick black talons. There was a hawk or
eagle out there somewhere with a peg leg.
I had visions of her digging the talons into my
flesh, and was all tensed to pull away. But she simply placed the
gris-gris on my open palm. Feathers, bits of bone, the dried hawk
foot. It wasn't slimy. It didn't hurt. In fact, I felt a little
silly.
Then I felt it, warmth. The thing was warm, sitting
there in my hand. It hadn't been warm a second ago. "What are you
doing to it?"
Dominga didn't answer. I glanced up at her, but her
eyes were staring at my hand, intent. Like a cat about to
pounce.
I glanced back down. The talons flexed, then spread,
then flexed. It was moving in my hand. "Shiiit!" I wanted to stand
up. To fling the vile thing to the floor. But I didn't. I sat there
with every hair on my body tingling, my pulse thudding in my
throat, and let the thing move in my hand. "All right," my voice
sounded breathy, "I've passed your little test. Now get this thing
the hell out of my hand."
Dominga lifted the claw gently from my hand. She was
careful not to touch my skin. I didn't know why, but it was a
noticeable effort.
"Dammit, dammit!" I whispered under my breath. I
rubbed my hand against my stomach, touching the gun hidden there.
It was comforting to know that if worse came to worst, I could just
shoot her. Before she scared me to death. "Can we get down to
business now?" My voice sounded almost steady. Bully for me.
Dominga was cradling the claw in her hands. "You made
the claw move. You were frightened, but not surprised. Why?"
What could I say? Nothing I wanted her to know. "I
have an affinity with the dead. It responds to me like some people
can read thoughts."
She smiled. "Do you really believe that your ability
to raise the dead is like mind reading? Parlor tricks?"
Dominga had obviously never met a really good
telepath. If she had, she wouldn't have been scornful: In their own
way, they were just as scary as she was.
"I raise the dead, Señora. It is just a
job."
"You do not believe that any more than I do."
"I try real hard," I said.
"You've been tested before by someone." She made it a
statement.
"My grandmother on my mother's side tested me, but
not with that." I pointed to the still flexing foot. It looked like
one of those fake hands that you can buy at Spencer's. Now that I
wasn't holding it, I could pretend it just had tiny little
batteries in it somewhere. Right.
"She was vaudun?"
I nodded.
"Why did you not study with her?"
"I have an inborn gift for raising the dead. That
doesn't dictate my religious preferences."
"You are Christian." She made the word sound like
something bad.
"That's it." I stood. "I wish I could say it's been a
pleasure, but it hasn't."
"Ask your questions, chica."
"What?" The change of subject was too fast for
me.
"Ask whatever you came here to ask," she said.
I glanced at Manny. "If she says she will answer, she
will answer." He didn't look completely happy about it.
I sat down, again. The next insult and I'm outta
here. But if she could really help . . . oh, hell, she was dangling
that thin little thread of hope. And after what I'd seen at the
Reynolds house, I was grabbing for it.
I had planned to be as polite as possible on the
wording of the question, now I didn't give a shit. "Have you raised
a zombie in the last few weeks?"
"Some," she said.
Okay. I hesitated over the next question. The feel of
that thing moving in my hand flashed back on me. I rubbed my hand
against my pants leg as if I could rub the sensation away. What was
the worst she could do to me if I offended her? Don't ask. "Have
you sent any zombies out on errands . . . of revenge?" There; that
was polite, amazing.
"None."
"Are you sure?" I asked.
She smiled. "I'd remember if I loosed murderers from
the grave."
"Killer zombies don't have to be murderers," I
said.
"Oh?" Her pale eyebrows raised. "Are you so very
familiar with raising 'killer' zombies?"
I fought the urge to squirm like a schoolchild caught
at a lie. "Only one."
"Tell me."
"No." My voice was very firm. "No, that is a private
matter." A private nightmare that I was not going to share with the
voodoo lady.
I decided to change the subject just a little. "I've
raised murderers before. They weren't more violent than regular
undead."
"How many dead have you called from the grave?" she
asked.
I shrugged. "I don't know."
"Give me an"—she seemed to be groping for a word -
"estimation."
"I can't. It must have been hundreds."
"A thousand?" she asked.
"Maybe, I haven't kept count," I said.
"Has your boss at Animators, Incorporated, kept
count?"
"I would assume that all my clients are on file,
yes," I said.
She smiled. "I would be interested in knowing the
exact number."
What could it hurt? "I'll find out if I can."
"Such an obedient girl." She stood. "I did not raise
this `killer' zombie of yours. If that is what is eating citizens."
She smiled, almost laughed, as if it were funny. "But I know people
that would never speak to you. People that could do this horrible
deed. I will question them, and they will answer me. I will have
truth from them, and I will pass this truth on to you, Anita."
She said my name like it was meant to be said,
Ahneetah. Made it sound exotic.
"Thank you very much, Señora Salvador."
"But there is one favor I will ask in return for this
information," she said.
Something unpleasant was about to be said, I'd have
bet on it. "What would that favor be, Señora?"
"I want you to pass one more test for me."
I stared at her, waiting for her to go on, but she
didn't. "What sort of test?" I asked.
"Come downstairs, and I will show you." Her voice was
mild as honey.
"No, Dominga," Manny said. He was standing now.
"Anita, nothing the Señora could tell you would be worth
what she wants."
"I can talk to people and things that will not talk
to you, either of you. Good Christians that you are."
"Come on, Anita, we don't need her help." He had
started for the door. I didn't follow him. Manny hadn't seen the
slaughtered family. He hadn't dreamed about blood-coated teddy
bears last night. I had. I couldn't leave if she could help me.
Whether Benjamin Reynolds was dead or not wasn't the point. The
thing, whatever it was, would kill again. And I was betting it had
something to do with voodoo. It wasn't my area. I needed help, and
I needed it fast.
"Anita, come on." He touched my arm, pulling me a
little towards the door.
"Tell me about the test."
Dominga smiled triumphantly. She knew she had me. She
knew I wasn't leaving until I had her promised help. Damn.
"Let us retire to the basement. I will explain the
test there."
Manny's grip on my arm tightened. "Anita, you don't
know what you're doing."
He was right, but. . . "Just stay with me, Manny,
back me up. Don't let me do anything that will really hurt.
Okay?"
"Anita, anything she wants you to do down there will
hurt. Maybe not physically, but it will hurt."
"I have to do this, Manny." I patted his hand and
smiled. "It'll be all right."
"No," he said, "it won't be."
I didn't know what to say to that, except that he was
probably right. But it didn't matter. I was going to do it.
Whatever she asked, within reason, if it would stop the killings.
If it would fix it so that I never had to see another half-eaten
body.
Dominga smiled. "Let us go downstairs." '
"May I speak with Anita alone, Señora, por
favor," Manny said. His hand was still on my arm. I could feel
the tension in his hand.
"You will have the rest of this beautiful day to talk
to her, Manuel. But I have only this short time. If she does this
test for me now, I promise to aid her in any way I can to catch
this killer."
It was a powerful offer. A lot of people would talk
to her just out of pure terror. The police can't inspire that. All
they can do is arrest you. It wasn't enough of a deterrent. Having
the undead crawl through your window . . . that was a
deterrent.
Four, maybe five people were already dead. It was a
bad way to die. "I've already said I'd do it. Let's go."
She walked around the table and took Manny's arm. He
jumped like she'd struck him. She pulled him away from me. "No harm
will come to her, Manuel. I swear."
"I do not trust you, Dominga."
She laughed. "But it is her choice, Manuel. I have
not forced her."
"You have blackmailed her, Dominga. Blackmailed her
with the safety of others."
She looked back over her shoulder. "Have I
blackmailed you, chica?"
"Yes," I said.
"Oh, she is your student, corazón.
She has your honesty. And your bravery."
"She is brave, but she has not seen what lies
below."
I wanted to ask what exactly was in the basement, but
I didn't. I really didn't want to know. I've had people warn me
about supernatural shit before. Don't go in that room; the monster
will get you. There usually is a monster, and it usually tries to
get me. But up till now I've been faster or luckier than the
monsters. Here's to my luck holding.
I wished that I could heed Manny's warning. Going
home sounded very good about now, but duty reared its ugly head.
Duty and a whisper of nightmares. I didn't want to see another
butchered family.
Dominga led Manny from the room. I followed with Enzo
bringing up the rear. What a day for a parade.
Chapter 6
The basement stairs were steep, wooden slats. You
could feel the vibrations in the stairs as we tromped down them. It
was not comforting. The bright sunlight from the door spilled into
absolute darkness. The sunlight faltered, seemed to fade as if it
had no power in this cavelike place. I stopped on the grey edge of
daylight, staring down into the night-dark of the room. I couldn't
even make out Dominga and Manny. They had to be just in front of
me, didn't they?
Enzo the bodyguard waited at my back like some
patient mountain. He made no move to hurry me. Was it my decision
then? Could I just pack up my toys and go home?
"Manny," I called.
A voice came distantly. Too far away. Maybe it was an
acoustic trick of the room. Maybe not. "I'm here, Anita."
I strained to see where the voice was coming from,
but there was nothing to see. I took two steps farther down into
the inky dark and stopped like I'd hit a wall. There was the damp
rock smell of most basements, but under that something stale, sour,
sweet. That almost indescribable smell of corpses. It was faint
here at the head of the stairs. I was betting it would get worse
the farther down I went.
My grandmother had been a priestess of vaudun. Her
Humfo had not smelled like corpses. The line between good and evil
wasn't as clear cut in voodoo as in Wicca or Christianity and
satanism, but it was there. Dominga Salvador was on the wrong side
of the line. I had known that when I came. It still bothered
me.
Grandmother Flores had told me that I was a
necromancer. It was more than being a voodoo priestess, and less. I
had a sympathy with the dead, all dead. It was hard to be vaudun
and a necromancer and not be evil. Too tempting, Grandma said. She
had encouraged my being Christian. Encouraged my father to cut me
off from her side of the family. Encouraged it for love of me and
fear for my soul.
And here I was going down the steps into the jaws of
temptation. What would Grandma Flores say to that? Probably, go
home. Which was good advice. The tight feeling in my stomach was
saying the same thing.
The lights came on. I blinked on the stairs. The one
dim bulb at the foot of the staircase seemed as bright as a star.
Dominga and Manny stood just under the bulb, looking up at me.
Light. Why did I feel instantly better? Silly, but
true. Enzo let the door swing shut behind us. The shadows were
thick, but down a narrow bricked hallway more bare light bulbs
dangled.
I was almost at the bottom of the stairs. That sweet,
sour smell was stronger. I tried breathing through my mouth, but
that only made it clog the back of my throat. The smell of rotting
flesh clings to the tongue.
Dominga led the way between the narrow walls. There
were regular patches in the walls. Places where it looked like
cement had been put over—doors. Paint had been smoothed over the
cement, but there had been doors, rooms, at regular intervals. Why
wall them up? Why cover the doors in cement? What was behind
them?
I rubbed fingertips across the rough cement. The
surface was bumpy and cool. The paint wasn't very old. It would
have flaked in this dampness. It hadn't. What was behind this
blocked up door?
The skin just between my shoulder blades started to
itch. I fought an urge to glance back at Enzo. I was betting he was
behaving himself. I was betting that being shot was the least of my
worries.
The air was cool and damp. A very basement of a
basement. There were three doors, two to the right, one to the left
that were just doors. One door had a shiny new padlock on it. As we
walked past it, I heard the door sigh as if something large had
leaned against it.
I stopped. "What's in there?"
Enzo had stopped when I stopped. Dominga and Manny
had rounded a corner, and we were alone. I touched the door. The
wood creaked, rattling against its hinges. Like some giant cat had
rubbed against the door. A smell rolled out from under the door. I
gagged and backed away. The stench clung to my mouth and throat. I
swallowed convulsively and tasted it all the way down.
The thing behind the door made a mewling sound. I
couldn't tell if it was human or animal. It was bigger than a
person, whatever it was. And it was dead. Very, very dead.
I covered my nose and mouth with my left hand. The
right was free just in case. In case that thing should come
crashing out. Bullets against the walking dead. I knew better, but
the gun was still a comfort. In a pinch I could shoot Enzo. But
somehow I knew that if the thing rattling the door got out, Enzo
would be in as much danger as I was.
"We must go on, now," he said.
I couldn't tell anything from his face. We might have
been walking down the street to the corner store. He seemed
impervious, and I hated him for it. If I'm terrified, by God,
everyone else should be, too.
I eyed the supposedly unlocked door to my left. I had
to know. I yanked it open. The room was maybe eight by four, like a
cell. The cement floor and whitewashed walls were clean, empty. It
looked like a cell waiting for its next occupant. Enzo slammed the
door shut. I didn't fight him. It wasn't worth it. If I was going
to go one on one with someone who outweighed me by over a hundred
pounds, I was going to be picky about where I drew the line. An
empty room wasn't worth it.
Enzo leaned against the door. Sweat glimmered across
his face in the harsh light. "Do not try any other doors, señorita.
It could be very bad."
I nodded. "Sure, no problem." An empty room and he
was sweating. Nice to know something frightened him. But why this
room and not the one with the mewling stench behind it? I didn't
have a clue.
"We must catch up with the Señora." He made a
gracious motion like a maître d' showing me to a chair. I went
where he pointed. Where else was I going to go?
The hallway fed into a large rectangular chamber. It
was painted the same startling white as the cell had been. The
whitewashed floor was covered in brilliant red and black designs.
Verve it was called. Symbols drawn in the voodoo sanctuary to
summon the lao, the gods of vaudun.
The symbols acted as walls bordering a path. They led
to the altar. If you stepped off the path you messed up all those
carefully formed symbols. I didn't know if that would be good or
bad. Rule number three hundred sixty-nine when dealing with
unfamiliar magic: when in doubt, leave it alone.
I left it alone.
The end of the room gleamed with candles. The warm,
rich light flickered and filled the white walls with heat and
light. Dominga stood in the midst of that light, that whiteness,
and gleamed with evil. There was no other word for it. She wasn't
just bad, she was evil. It gleamed around her like darkness made
liquid and touchable. The smiling old woman was gone. She was a
creature of power.
Manny stood off to one side. He was staring at her.
He glanced at me. His eyes were showing a lot of white. The altar
was directly behind Dominga's straight back. Dead animals spilled
off the top of it to form a pool on the floor. Chickens, dogs, a
small pig, two goats. Lumps of fur and dried blood that I couldn't
identify. The altar looked like a fountain where dead things flowed
out of the center, sluggish and thick.
The sacrifices were fresh. No smell of decay. The
glazed eyes of a goat stared at me. I hated killing goats. They
always seemed so much more intelligent than chickens. Or maybe I
just thought they were cuter.
A tall woman stood to the right of the altar. Her
skin gleamed nearly black in the candlelight as .if she had been
carved of some heavy, gleaming wood. Her hair was short and neat,
falling to her shoulders. Wide cheekbones, full lips, expert
makeup. She wore a long silky dress, the bright scarlet of fresh
blood. It matched her lipstick.
To the right of the altar stood a zombie. It had once
been a woman. Long, pale brown hair fell nearly to her waist.
Someone had brushed it until it gleamed. It was the only thing
about the corpse that looked alive. The skin had turned a greyish
color. The flesh had narrowed down around the bones like shrink
wrap. Muscles moved under the thin, rotting skin, stringy and
shrunken. The nose was almost gone, giving it a half-finished look.
A crimson gown hung loose and flapping on the skeletal remains.
There was even an attempt at makeup. Lipstick had
been abandoned when the lips shriveled up but a dusting of mauve
eye shadow outlined the bulging eyes. I swallowed very hard and
turned to stare at the first woman.
She was a zombie. One of the best preserved and most
lifelike I had ever seen, but no matter how luscious she looked,
she was dead. The woman, the zombie, stared back at me. There was
something in her perfect brown eyes that no zombie has for long.
The memory of who and what they were fades within a few days,
sometimes hours. But this zombie was afraid. The fear was like a
shiny, bright pain in her eyes. Zombies didn't have eyes like
that.
I turned back to the more decayed zombie and found
her staring at me, too. The bulging eyes were staring at me. With
most of the flesh holding the eyes in the socket gone, her facial
expressions weren't as good, but she managed. It managed to be
afraid. Shit.
Dominga nodded, and Enzo motioned me farther into the
circle. I didn't want to go.
"What the hell is going on here, Dominga?"
She smiled, almost a laugh. "I am not accustomed to
such rudeness."
"Get used to it," I said. Enzo sort of breathed down
my back. I did my best to ignore him. My right hand was sort of
casually near my gun, without looking like I was reaching for my
gun. It wasn't easy. Reaching for a gun usually looks like reaching
for a gun. No one seemed to notice though. Goody for our side.
"What have you done to the two zombies?"
"Inspect them yourself, chica. If you are as
powerful as the stories say, you will answer your own
question."
"And if I can't figure it out?" I asked.
She smiled, but her eyes were as flat and black as a
shark's. "Then you are not as powerful as the stories."
"Is this the test?"
"Perhaps."
I sighed. The voodoo lady wanted to see how tough I
really was. Why? Maybe there wasn't a reason. Maybe she was just a
sadistic power-hungry bitch. Yeah, I could believe that. Then
again, maybe there was a purpose to the theatrics. If so, I still
didn't know what it was.
I glanced at Manny. He gave a barely perceivable
shrug. He didn't know what was going on either. Great.
I didn't like playing Dominga's games, especially
when I didn't know the rules. The zombies were still staring at me.
There was something in their eyes. It was fear, and something
worse—hope. Shit. Zombies didn't have hope. They didn't have
anything. They were dead. These weren't dead. I had to know. Here's
hoping that curiosity didn't kill the animator.
I stepped around Dominga carefully, watching her out
of the corner of my eye. Enzo stayed behind blocking the path
between the verve. He looked big and solid standing there, but I
could get past him, if I wanted it bad enough. Bad enough to kill
him. I hoped I wouldn't want it that bad.
The decayed zombie stared down at me. She was tall,
almost six feet. Skeletal feet peeked out from underneath the red
gown. A tall, slender woman, probably beautiful, once. Bulging eyes
rolled in the nearly bare sockets. A wet, sucking sound accompanied
the movements.
I'd thrown up the first time I heard that sound. The
sound of eyeballs rolling in rotting sockets. But that was four
years ago, when I was new at this. Decaying flesh didn't make me
flinch anymore or throw up. As a general rule.
The eyes were pale brown with a lot of green in them.
The smell of some expensive perfume floated around her. Powdery and
fine, like talcum powder in your nose, sweet, flowery. Underneath
was the stink of rotting flesh. It wrinkled my nose, caught at the
back of my throat. The next time I smelled this delicate, expensive
perfume, I would think of rotting flesh. Oh, well, it smelled too
expensive to buy, anyway.
She was staring at me. She, not it, she. There was
the force of personality in her eyes. I call most zombies "it"
because it fits. They may come from the grave very alive-looking,
but it doesn't last. They rot. Personality and intelligence goes
first, then the body. It's always that order. God is not cruel
enough to force anyone to be aware while their body decays around
them. Something had gone very wrong with this one.
I stepped around Dominga Salvador. For no reason that
I could name, I stayed out of reach. She had no weapon, I was
almost sure of that. The danger she represented had nothing to do
with knives or guns. I simply didn't want her to touch me, not even
by accident.
The zombie on the left was perfect. Not a sign of
decay. The look in her eyes was alert, alive. God help us. She
could have gone anywhere and passed for human. How had I known she
wasn't alive? I wasn't even sure. None of the usual signs were
there, but I knew dead when I felt it. Yet . . . I stared up at the
second woman. Her lovely, dark face stared back. Fear screamed out
of her eyes.
Whatever power let me raise the dead told me this was
a zombie, but my eyes couldn't tell. It was amazing. If Dominga
could raise zombies like this, she had me beat hands down.
I have to wait three days before I raise a corpse. It
gives the soul time to leave the area. Souls usually hover around
for a while. Three days is average. I can't call shit from the
grave if the soul's still present. It has been theorized that if an
animator could keep the soul intact while raising the body, we'd
get resurrection. You know, resurrection, the real thing, like in
Jesus and Lazarus. I didn't believe that. Or maybe I just know my
limitations.
I stared up at this zombie and knew what was
different. The soul was still there. The soul was still inside both
bodies. How? How in Jesus' name did she do it?
"The souls. The souls are still in the bodies." My
voice held the distaste I felt. Why bother to hide it?
"Very good, chica."
I went to stand to her left, keeping Enzo in sight.
"How did you do it?"
"The soul was captured at the moment it took flight
from the body."
I shook my head. "That doesn't explain anything."
"Don't you know how to capture souls in a
bottle?"
Souls in a bottle? Was she kidding? No, she wasn't.
"No, I don't." I tried not to sound superior as I said it.
"I could teach you so much, Anita, so very much."
"No, thanks," I said. "You captured their souls, then
you raised the body, and put the soul back in." I was guessing, but
it sounded right.
"Very, very good. That is it exactly." She was
staring at me so hard that it was uncomfortable. Her empty, black
eyes were memorizing me.
"But why is the second zombie rotting? The theory is
with the soul intact, the zombie won't decay?"
"It is no longer a theory. I have proved it," she
said.
I stared at the rotted corpse, and it stared back.
"Then why is that one rotting, and this one isn't?" Just two
necromancers talking shop. Tell me, do you raise your zombies only
during the dark of the moon?
"The soul may be put into the body, then removed
again, as often as I wish."
I stared at Dominga Salvador now. I stared and tried
not to let my jaw drop, not to let the dawning horror slip across
my face. She would enjoy shocking me. I didn't want her taking
pleasure from me, for any reason.
"Let me test my understanding here," I said in my
best executive trainee voice. "You put the soul into the body and
it didn't rot. Then you took the soul out of the body, making it an
ordinary zombie, and it did rot."
"Exactly," she said.
"Then you put the soul back in the rotted corpse, and
the zombie was aware and alive again. Did the rotting stop when the
soul went back in?"
"Yes. "
Shit. "So you could keep the zombie over there rotted
just that much forever?"
"Yes."
Double shit. "And this one?" I pointed this time,
like I was doing a lecture.
"Many people would pay dearly for her."
"Wait a minute, you mean sell her as a sex
slave?"
"Perhaps."
"But. . ." The idea was too horrible. She was a
zombie, which meant she didn't need to eat or sleep or anything.
You could keep her in a closet and take her out like a toy. A
perfectly obedient slave.
"Are they as obedient as normal zombies, or does the
soul give them free will?"
"They seem to be very obedient."
"Maybe they're just scared of you," I said.
She smiled. "Perhaps."
"You can't just keep the soul imprisoned
forever."
"I can't," she said.
"The soul needs to go on."
"To your Christian heaven or hell?"
"Yes," I said.
"These were wicked women, chica. Their own
families gave them to me. Paid me to punish them."
"You took money for this?"
"It is illegal to tamper with dead bodies without
permission of the family," she said.
I don't know if she had planned to horrify me. Maybe
not. But with that one sentence she let me know that what she was
doing was perfectly legal. The dead had no rights. This was the
reason we needed some laws to protect zombies. Shit.
"No one deserves to spend eternity locked in a
corpse," I said.
"We could do this to criminals on death row,
chica. They could be made to serve society after
death."
I shook my head. "No, it's wrong."
"I have created a non-rotting zombie, chica.
Animators, I believe you call yourselves, have been searching for
the secret for years. I have it, and people will pay for it."
"It's wrong. I may not know much about voodoo, but
even among your own people, it's wrong. How can you keep the souls
prisoner and not allow them to go on and join with the lao?"
She shrugged and sighed. She suddenly looked tired.
"I was hoping, chica, that you would help me. With two of
us working, we could create more zombies much faster. We could be
wealthy beyond our dreams."
"You've asked the wrong girl."
"I see that now. I had hoped that since you were not
vaudun, you would not see it as wrong."
"Christian, Buddhist, Moslem, you name it, Dominga,
no one's going to think it's all right."
"Perhaps, perhaps not. It does not hurt to ask."
I glanced at the rotted zombie. "At least put your
first experiment out of its misery."
Dominga glanced at the zombie. "She makes a powerful
demonstration, does she not?"
"You've created a non-rotting zombie, great. Don't be
sadistic."
"You think I am being cruel?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Manuel, am I being cruel?"
Manny stared at me while he answered. His eyes were
trying to tell me something. I couldn't tell what. "Yes,
Señora, you are being cruel."
She glanced over at him then, surprise in the
movement of her body, her face. "Do you really think I am cruel,
Manuel? Your beloved amante?"
He nodded slowly. "Yes."
"You were not so quick to judge a few years back,
Manuel. You slew the white goat for me, more than once."
I turned towards Manny. It was like that moment in a
movie where the main character has a revelation about someone.
There should be music and camera angles when you learn one of your
best friends participated in human sacrifice. More than once she
had said. More than once.
"Manny?" My voice was a hoarse whisper. This, for me,
was worse than the zombies. The hell with strangers. This was
Manny, and it couldn't be true.
"Manny?" I said it again. He wouldn't look at me. Bad
sign.
"You didn't know, chica? Didn't your Manny
tell you of his past?"
"Shut up," I said.
"He was my most treasured helper. He would have done
anything for me."
Shut up!" I screamed it at her. She stopped, her face
thinning with anger. Enzo took two steps into the altar area.
"Don't." I wasn't even sure who I was saying it to. "I need to hear
from him, not from you."
The anger was still in her face. Enzo loomed like an
avalanche about to be unleashed. Dominga gave one sharp nod. "Ask
him then, chica."
"Manny, is she telling the truth? Did you perform
human sacrifices?" My voice sounded so normal. It shouldn't have.
My stomach was so tight, it hurt. I wasn't afraid anymore, or at
least not of Dominga. The truth; I was afraid of the truth.
He looked up. His hair fell across his face framing
his eyes. A lot of pain in those eyes. Almost flinching.
"It's the truth, isn't it?" My skin felt cold.
"Answer me, dammit." My voice still sounded ordinary, calm.
"Yes," he said.
"Yes, you committed human sacrifice?"
He glared at me now, anger helping him meet my eyes.
"Yes, Yes!"
It was my turn to look away. "God, Manny, how could
you?" My voice was soft now, not ordinary. If I didn't know better,
I'd say it sounded like I was on the verge of tears.
"It was nearly twenty years ago, Anita. I was vaudun
and a necromancer. I believed. I loved the Señora. Thought I
did."
I stared up at him. The look on his face made my
throat tight. "Manny, dammit."
He didn't say anything. He just stood there looking
miserable. And I couldn't reconcile the two images. Manny Rodriguez
and someone who would slaughter the hornless goat in a ritual. He
had taught me right from wrong in this business. He had refused to
do so many things. Things not half as bad as this. It made no
sense.
I shook my head. "I can't deal with this right now."
I heard myself say it out loud, and hadn't really meant to. "Fine,
you've dropped your little bombshell, Señora Salvador. You
said you'd help us, if I passed your test. Did I pass?" When in
doubt, concentrate on one disaster at a time.
"I wanted to offer you a chance to help me with my
new business venture."
"We both know I'm not going to do that," I said.
"It is a pity, Anita. With training you could rival
my powers."
Be just like her when I grew up. No thanks. "Thanks
anyway, but I'm happy where I am."
Her eyes flicked to Manny, back to me. "Happy?"
"Manny and I will deal with it, Señora. Now
will you help me?"
"If I help you without you helping me in some way,
you will owe me a favor."
I didn't want to owe her a favor. "I would rather
just trade information."
"What could you possibly know that would be worth all
the effort I will expend hunting for your killer zombie?"
I thought about that for a moment. "I know that
legislation is being written right now, about zombies. Zombies are
going to have rights, and laws protecting them soon." I hoped it
was soon. No need to tell her how early in the process the
legislation was.
"So, I must sell a few non-rotting zombies soon,
before it becomes illegal."
"I wouldn't think illegal would bother you much.
Human sacrifice is illegal, too."
She gave a tiny smile. "I do not do such things
anymore, Anita. I have given up my wicked ways."
I didn't believe that, and she knew I didn't believe
it. Her smile widened. "When Manuel left, I stopped such evil
practices. Without his urgings, I became a respectable bokar."
She was lying, but I couldn't prove it. And she knew
that, too. "I gave you valuable information. Now will you help
me?"
She nodded graciously. "I will search among my
followers to see if any knows of your killer zombie." I had the
sense that she was quietly laughing at me.
"Manny, will she help us?"
"If the Señora says she will do a thing, it
will be done. She is good that way."
"I will find your killer if it has anything to do with
vaudun," she said.
"Great." I didn't say thank you, because it seemed
wrong. I wanted to call her a bitch and shoot her between the eyes,
but then I would have had to shoot Enzo, too. And how would I
explain that to the police? She was breaking no laws. Dammit.
"I don't suppose appealing to your better nature
would make you forget this mad scheme to use your new improved
zombies for slaves?"
She smiled. "Chica, chica, I will
be rich beyond your wildest dreams. You can refuse to join me, but
you cannot stop me."
"Don't bet on it," I said.
"What will you do, go to the police? I am breaking no
laws. The only way to stop me is to kill me." She looked directly
at me while she said it.
"Don't tempt me."
Manny moved up beside me. "Don't, Anita, don't
challenge her."
I was sort of mad at him, too, so what the hell. "I
will stop you, Señora Salvador. Whatever it takes."
"You call death magic against me, Anita, and it is
you who will die."
I didn't know death magic from frijoles. I shrugged.
"I was thinking something more down to earth, like a bullet."
Enzo surged into the altar area, moving to stand
between his boss-lady and me. Dominga stopped him. "No, Enzo, she
is angry this morning, and shocked." Her eyes were still laughing
at me. "She knows nothing of the deeper magics. She cannot harm me,
and she is too morally superior to commit cold-blooded murder."
The worst part about it was that she was right. I
couldn't just put a bullet between her eyes, not unless she
threatened me. I glanced at the waiting zombies, patient as the
dead, but underneath that endless patience was fear, and hope, and.
. . God, the line between life and death was getting thinner all
the time.
"At least lay to rest your first experiment. You've
proved you can put the soul in and out multiple times. Don't make
her watch."
"But, Anita, I already have a buyer for her."
"Oh, Jesus, you don't mean . . . Oh, God, a
necrophiliac."
"Those that love the dead better than you or I ever
will, will pay extraordinary amounts for such as her."
Maybe I could just shoot her. "You are a
cold-hearted, amoral bitch."
"And you, chica, need to learn respect for
your elders."
"Respect has to be earned," I said.
"I think, Anita Blake, that you need to remember why
people fear the dark. I will see that very soon you have a visitor
to your window. Some dark night when you are fast asleep in your
warm, safe bed. Something evil will creep into your room. I will
earn your respect, if that is the way you want it."
I should have been afraid, but I wasn't. I was angry
and wanted to go home. "You can force people to be afraid of you,
Señora, but you can't force them to respect you."
"We shall see, Anita. Call me after you have gotten
my gift. It will be soon."
"Will you still help locate the killer zombie?"
"I said I would, and I will."
"Good," I said. "May we go now?"
She waved Enzo back beside her. "By all means run out
into the daylight where you can be brave."
I walked to the pathway. Manny stayed right with me.
We were careful not to look at each other. We were too busy
watching the Señora and her pets. I stopped just inside the
path. Manny touched my arm lightly, as if he knew what I was about
to say. I ignored him.
"I may not be willing to kill you in cold blood, but
hurt me first, and I'll put a bullet in you some bright, sunshiny
day."
"Threats will not save you, chica," she
said.
I smiled sweetly. "You either, bitch."
Her face went all thin and angry. I smiled wider.
"She does not mean it, Señora," Manny said.
"She will not kill you."
"Is this true, chica?" Her voice was a rich
growl of sound, pleasant and frightening at the same time.
I gave Manny a quick dirty look. It was a good
threat. I didn't like weakening it with common sense, or truth. "I
said, I'd shoot you. I didn't say I'd kill you. Now did I?"
"No, you did not."
Manny grabbed my arm and started pulling me backwards
towards the stairs. He was pulling on my left arm, leaving my right
free for my gun. Just in case.
Dominga never moved. Her black, angry eyes stared at
me until we rounded the corner. Manny pulled me into the hallway
with its cement covered doors. I pulled free of him. We stared at
each other for a heartbeat.
"What's behind the doors?"
"I don't know."
Doubt must have shown on my face because he said,
"God as my witness, Anita, I don't know. It wasn't like this twenty
years ago."
I just stared at him as if looking would change
things. I wish Dominga Salvador had kept Manny's secret to herself.
I had not wanted to know.
"Anita, we have to get out of here, now." The light
bulb over our head went out, like someone had snuffed it. We both
looked up. There was nothing to see. My arms broke out in goose
bumps. The bulb just ahead of us dimmed, then blinked off.
Manny was right. We needed to leave now. I broke into
a half jog towards the stairs. Manny stayed with me. The door with
its shiny padlock rattled and thumped as if the thing were trying
to get out. Another light bulb flashed off. The darkness was
snapping at our heels. We were at a full run by the time we hit the
stairs. There were two bulbs left.
We were halfway up the stairs when the last light
vanished. The world went black. I froze on the stairs unwilling to
move without being able to see. Manny's arm brushed mine, but I
couldn't see him. The darkness was complete. I could have touched
my eyeballs and not seen my finger. We grabbed hands and held on.
His hand wasn't much bigger than mine. It was warm and familiar,
and damn comforting.
The cracking of wood was loud as a shotgun blast in
the dark. The stench of rotting meat filled the stairwell. "Shit!"
The word echoed and bounced in the blackness. I wished I hadn't
said it. Something large pulled itself into the corridor. It
couldn't be as big as it sounded. The wet, slithering sounds moved
towards the stairs. Or sounded like they did.
I stumbled up two steps. Manny didn't need any
urging. We stumbled through the darkness, and the sounds below
hurried. The light under the door was so bright, it almost hurt.
Manny flung open the door. The sunlight blazed against my eyes. We
were both momentarily blinded.
Something screamed behind us, caught in the edge of
daylight. The scream was almost human. I started to turn, to look.
Manny slammed the door. He shook his head. "You don't want to see.
I don't want to see."
He was right. So why did I have this urge to yank the
door open, to stare down into the dark until I saw something pale
and shapeless? A screaming nightmare of a sight. I stared at the
closed door, and I let it go.
"Do you think it will come out after us?" I
asked.
"Into the daylight?" Manny asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"I don't think so. Let's leave without finding
out."
I agreed. The August sunlight streamed into the
living room. Warm and real. The scream, the darkness, the zombies,
all of it seemed wrong for the sunlight. Things that go bump in the
morning. It didn't sound quite right.
I opened the screen door calmly, slowly. Panicked,
me? But I was listening so hard I could hear blood rush in my ears.
Listening for slithery sounds of pursuit. Nothing.
Antonio was still on guard outside. Should we warn
him about the possibility of a Lovecraftian horror nipping at our
heels?
"Did you fuck the zombie downstairs?" Antonio
asked.
So much for warning old Tony.
Manny ignored him.
"Go fuck yourself," I said.
He said, "Heh!"
I kept walking down the porch steps. Manny stayed
with me. Antonio didn't draw his gun and shoot us. The day was
looking up.
The little girl on the tricycle had stopped by
Manny's car. She stared up at me as I got in the passenger side
door. I stared back into huge brown eyes. Her face was darkly
tanned. She couldn't have been more than five.
Manny got in the driver's side door. He put the car
in gear, and we pulled away. The little girl and I stared at each
other. Just before we turned the corner she started pedaling up and
down the sidewalk again.
Chapter 7
The air conditioner blasted cold air into the car.
Manny drove through the residential streets. Most of the driveways
were empty. People off to work. Small children playing in the
yards. A few moms out on the front steps. I didn't see any daddies
at home with the kids. Things change, but not that much. The
silence stretched out between us. It was not a comfortable
silence.
Manny glanced at me furtively out of the corner of
his eye.
I slumped in the passenger seat, the seat belt
digging across my gun. "So," I said, "you used to perform human
sacrifice."
I think he flinched. "Do you want me to lie?"
"No, I want to not know. I want to live in blessed
ignorance."
"It doesn't work that way, Anita," he said.
"I guess it doesn't," I said. I adjusted the lap
strap so it didn't press over my gun. Ah, comfort. If only
everything else were that easy to fix. "What are we going to do
about it?"
"About you knowing?" he asked. He glanced at me as he
asked. I nodded.
"You aren't going to rant and rave? Tell me what an
evil bastard I am?"
"Doesn't seem much point in it," I said.
He looked at me a little longer this time.
"Thanks."
"I didn't say it was alright, Manny. I'm just not
going to yell at you. Not yet, anyway."
He passed a large white car full of dark-skinned
teenagers. Their car stereo was up so loud, my teeth rattled. The
driver had one of those high-boned, flat faces, straight off of an
Aztec carving. Our eyes met as we moved by them. He made kissing
motions with his mouth. The others laughed uproariously.
I resisted the urge to flip them off. Mustn't
encourage the little tykes.
They turned right. We went straight. Relief.
Manny stopped two cars back from a light. Just beyond
the light was the turnoff 40 West. We'd take 270 up to Olive and
then a short jaunt to my apartment. We had forty-five minutes to an
hour of travel time. Not a problem normally. Today I wanted away
from Manny. I wanted some time to digest. To decide how to
feel.
"Talk to me, Anita, please."
"Honest to God, Manny, I don't know what to say."
Truth, try to stick to the truth between friends. Yeah.
"I've known you for four years, Manny. You are a good
man. You love your wife, your kids. You've saved my life. I've
saved yours. I thought I knew you."
"I haven't changed."
"Yes," I looked at him as I said it, "you have. Manny
Rodriguez would never under any circumstance take part in human
sacrifice."
"It's been twenty years."
"There's no statute of limitations on murder."
"You going to the cops?" His voice was very
quiet.
The light changed. We waited our turn and merged into
the morning traffic. It was as heavy as it ever got in St. Louis.
It's not the gridlock of L.A., but stop and jerk is still pretty
darn annoying. Especially this morning.
"I don't have any proof. Just Dominga Salvador's
word. I wouldn't exactly call her a reliable witness."
"If you had proof?"
"Don't push me on this, Manny." I stared out the
window. There was a silver Miada with the top down. The driver was
white-haired, male, and wore a jaunty little cap, plus racing
gloves. Middle-age crisis.
"Does Rosita know?" I asked.
"She suspects, but she doesn't know for sure."
"Doesn't want to know," I said.
"Probably not." He turned and stared at me then.
A red Ford truck was nearly in front of us. I yelled,
"Manny!"
He slammed on the brakes, and only the seat belt kept
me from kissing the dashboard.
"Jesus, Manny, watch your driving!"
He concentrated on traffic for a few seconds, then
without looking at me this time, "Are you going to tell
Rosita?"
I thought about that for about a second. I shook my
head, realized he couldn't see it, and said, "I don't think so.
Ignorance is bliss on this one, Manny. I don't think your wife
could deal with it."
"She'd leave me and take the kids."
I believed she would. Rosita was a very religious
person. She took all the commandments very seriously.
"She already thinks I'm risking my eternal soul by
raising the dead," Manny said.
"She didn't have a problem until the pope threatened
to excommunicate all animators unless they stopped raising the
dead."
"The Church is very important to Rosita."
"Me, too, but I'm a happy little Episcopalian now.
Switch churches."
"It's not that easy," he said.
It wasn't. I knew that. But, hey, you do what you
can, or what you have to. "Can you explain why you would do human
sacrifice? I mean, something that will make sense to me?"
"No," he said. He pulled into the far lane. It seemed
to be going a little faster. It slowed down as soon as we pulled
in. Murphy's law of traffic.
"You won't even try to explain?"
"It's indefensible, Anita. I live with what I did. I
can't do anything else."
He had a point. "This has to change the way I think
about you, Manny."
"In what way?"
"I don't know yet." Honesty. If we were very careful,
we could still be honest with each other. "Is there anything else
you think I should know? Anything that Dominga might spill later
on?"
He shook his head. "Nothing worse."
"Okay," I said.
"Okay," he said. "That's it, no interrogation?"
"Not now, maybe not ever." I was tired all at once.
It was 9:23 in the morning, and I needed a nap. Emotionally
drained. "I don't know how to feel about this, Manny. I don't know
how it changes our friendship, or our working relationship, or even
if it does. I think it does. Oh, hell, I don't know."
"Fair enough," he said. "Let's move on to something
we aren't confused about."
"And what would that be?" I asked.
"The Señora will send something bad to your
window, just like she said she would."
"I figured that."
"Why did you threaten her?"
"I didn't like her."
"Oh, great, just great," he said. "Why didn't I think
of that?"
"I am going to stop her, Manny. I figured she should
know."
"Never give the bad guys a head start, Anita. I
taught you that."
"You also taught me that human sacrifice is
murder."
"That hurt," he said.
"Yes," I said, "it did."
"You need to be prepared, Anita. She will send
something after you. Just to scare you, I think, not to really
harm."
"Because you made me 'fess up to not killing her," I
said.
"No, because she doesn't really believe you'll kill
her. She's intrigued with your powers. I think she'd rather convert
you than kill you."
"Have me as part of her zombie-making factory."
"Yes."
"Not in this lifetime."
"The Señora is not used to people saying no,
Anita."
"Her problem, not mine."
He glanced at me, then back to the traffic. "She'll
make it your problem."
"I'll deal with it."
"You can't be that confident."
"I'm not, but what do you want me to do, break down
and cry. I'll deal with it when, and if, something noisome drags
itself through my window."
"You can't deal with the Señora, Anita. She is
powerful, more powerful than you can ever imagine."
"She scared me, Manny. I am suitably impressed. If
she sends something I can't handle, I'll run. Okay?"
"Not okay. You don't know, you just don't know."
"I heard the thing in the hallway. I smelled it. I'm
scared, but she's just human, Manny. All the mumbo jumbo won't keep
her safe from a bullet."
"A bullet may take her out, but not down."
"What does that mean?"
"If she were shot, say in the head or heart, and
seemed dead, I'd treat her like a vampire. Head and heart taken
out. Body burned." He glanced at me sort of sideways.
I didn't say anything. We were talking about killing
Dominga Salvador. She was capturing souls and putting them into
corpses. It was an abomination. She would probably attack me first.
Some supernatural goodie come creeping into my home. She was evil
and would attack me first. Would it be murder to ambush her? Yeah.
Would I do it anyway? I let the thought take shape in my head.
Rolled it over like a piece of candy, tasting the idea. Yeah, I
could do it.
I should have felt bad that I could plan a murder,
for any reason, and not flinch. I didn't feel bad. It was sort of
comforting to know if she pushed me, I could push back. Who was I
to cast stones at Manny for twenty-year-old crimes? Yeah, who
indeed.
Chapter 8
It was early afternoon. Manny had dropped me off
without a word. He hadn't asked to come up, and I hadn't offered. I
still didn't know what to think about him, Dominga Salvador, and
non-rotting zombies, complete with souls. I decided not to think.
What I needed was good physical activity. As luck would have it, I
had judo class this afternoon.
I have a black belt, which sounds a lot more
impressive than it really is. In the dojo with referees and rules,
I do okay. Out in the real world where most bad guys outweigh me by
a hundred pounds, I trust a gun.
I was actually reaching for the doorknob when the
bell chimed. I put the overstuffed gym bag by the door and used the
little peephole. I always had to stand on tiptoe to see out of
it.
The distorted image was blond, fair-eyed, and barely
familiar. It was Tommy, Harold Gaynor's muscle-bound bodyguard.
This day was just getting better and better.
I don't usually take a gun to judo class. It's in the
afternoon. In the summer that means daylight. The really dangerous
stuff doesn't come out until after dark. I untucked the red polo
shirt I was wearing and clipped my inter-pants holster back in
place. The pocket-size 9mm dug in just a little. If I had known I
was going to need it, I would have worn looser jeans.
The doorbell rang again. I hadn't called out to let
him know I was in here. He didn't seem discouraged. He rang the
doorbell a third time, leaning on it.
I took a deep breath and opened the door. I looked up
into Tommy's pale blue eyes. They were still empty, dead. A perfect
blankness. Were you born with a stare like that, or did you have to
practice?
"What do you want?" I asked.
His lips twitched. "Aren't you going to invite me
in?"
"I don't think so."
He shrugged massive shoulders. I could see the straps
of his shoulder holster imprinted on his suit jacket. He needed a
better tailor.
A door opened to my left. A woman came out with a
toddler in her arms. She locked the door before turning and seeing
us. "Oh, hi." She smiled brightly.
"Hello," I said.
Tommy nodded.
The woman turned and walked towards the stairs. She
was murmuring something nonsensical and high-pitched to the
toddler.
Tommy looked back at me. "You really want to do this
in the hallway?"
"What are we doing?"
"Business. Money."
I looked at his face, and it told me nothing. The
only comfort I had was that if Tommy meant to do me harm he
probably wouldn't have come to my apartment to do it. Probably.
I stepped back, holding the door very wide. I stayed
out of arm's reach as he walked into my apartment. He looked
around. "Nice, clean."
"Cleaning service," I said. "Talk to me about
business, Tommy. I've got an appointment."
He glanced at the gym bag by the door. "Work or
pleasure?" he asked.
"None of your business," I said.
Again that bare twist of lips. I realized it was his
version of a smile. "Down in the car I got a case full of money. A
million five, half now, half after you raise the zombie."
I shook my head. "I gave Gaynor my answer."
"But that was in front of your boss. This is just you
and me. No one'll know if you take it. No one."
"I didn't say no because there were witnesses. I said
no because I don't do human sacrifice." I could feel myself
smiling. This was ridiculous. I thought about Manny then. Alright,
maybe it wasn't ridiculous. But I wasn't doing it.
"Everyone has their price, Anita. Name it. We can
meet it."
He had never once mentioned Gaynor's name. Only I
had. He was being so bloody careful, too careful. "I don't have a
price, Tommy-boy. Go back to Mr. Harold Gaynor and tell him
that."
His face clouded up then. A wrinkling between his
eyes. "I don't know that name."
"Oh, give me a break. I'm not wearing a wire."
"Name your price. We can meet it," he said.
"There is no price."
"Two million, tax-free," he said.
"What zombie could be worth two million dollars,
Tommy?" I stared at his softly frowning face. "What could Gaynor
hope to gain that would allow him to make a profit on that kind of
expenditure?"
Tommy just stared at me. "You don't need to know
that."
"I thought you'd say that. Go away, Tommy. I'm not
for sale." I stepped back towards the door, planning to escort him
out. He moved forward suddenly, faster than he looked. Muscled arms
wide to grab me.
I pulled the Firestar and pointed it at his chest. He
froze. Dead eyes, blinking at me. His large hands balled into
fists. A nearly purple flush crept up his neck into his face.
Rage.
"Don't do it," I said, my voice sounded soft.
"Bitch," he wheezed it at me.
"Now, now, Tommy, don't get nasty. Ease down, and we
can all live to see another glorious day."
His pale eyes flicked from the gun to my face, then
back to the gun. "You wouldn't be so tough without that piece."
If he wanted me to offer to arm wrestle him, he was
in for a disappointment. "Back off, Tommy, or I'll drop you here
and now. All the muscle in the world won't help you."
I watched something move behind his dead eyes, then
his whole body relaxed. He took a deep breath through his nose.
"Okay, you got the drop on me today. But if you keep disappointing
my boss, I'm gonna find you without that gun." His lips twitched.
"And we'll see how tough you really are."
A little voice in my head said, "Shoot him now." I
knew as surely as I knew anything that dear Tommy would be at my
back someday. I didn't want him there, but . . . I couldn't just
kill him because I thought he might come after me someday. It
wasn't a good enough reason. And how would I ever have explained it
to the police?
"Get out, Tommy." I opened the door without taking
either my gaze or the gun off the man. "Get out and tell Gaynor
that if he keeps annoying me, I'll start sending his bodyguards
home in boxes."
Tommy's nostrils flared just a bit at that, veins
straining in his neck. He walked very stiffly past me and out into
the hall. I held the gun at my side and watched him, listening to
his footsteps retreat down the stairs. When I was as sure as I
could be that he was gone, I put my gun back in its holster,
grabbed my gym bag, and headed for judo class. Mustn't let these
little interruptions spoil my exercise program. Tomorrow I would
miss my workout for sure. I had a funeral to attend. Besides, if
Tommy really did challenge me to arm wrestling, I was going to need
all the help I could get.
Chapter 9
I hate funerals. At least this one wasn't for anyone
I had particularly liked. Cold, but true. Peter Burke had been an
unscrupulous SOB when alive. I didn't see why death should
automatically grant him sainthood. Death, especially violent death,
will turn the meanest bastard in the world into a nice guy. Why is
that?
I stood there in the bright August sunlight in my
little black dress and dark sunglasses, watching the mourners. They
had set up a canopy over the coffin, flowers, and chairs for the
family. Why was I here, you might ask, if I had not been a friend?
Because Peter Burke had been an animator. Not a very good one, but
we are a small, exclusive club. If one of us dies, we all come.
It's a rule. There are no exceptions. Maybe your own death, but
then again being that we raise the dead, maybe not.
There are things you can do to a corpse so it won't
rise again as a vampire, but a zombie is a different beast. Short
of cremation, an animator can bring you back. Fire was about the
only thing a zombie respected or feared.
We could have raised Peter and asked him who put a
gun to his head. But they had put a 357 Magnum with an expanding
point just behind his ear. There wasn't enough left of his head to
fill a plastic bag. You could raise him as a zombie, but he
couldn't talk. Even the dead need mouths.
Manny stood beside me, uncomfortable in his dark
suit. Rosita, his wife, stood spine absolutely straight. Thick
brown hands gripping her black patent leather purse. She is what my
stepmother used to call large-boned. Her black hair was cut just
below the ears and loosely permed. The hair needed to be longer. It
emphasized how perfectly round her face was.
Charles Montgomery stood just behind me like a tall
dark mountain. Charles looks like he played football somewhere. He
has the ability to frown and make people run for cover. He just
looks like a hard ass. Truth is, Charles faints at the sight of
anything but animal blood. It's lucky for him he looks like such a
big black dude. He has almost no tolerance for pain. He cries at
Walt Disney movies, like when Bambi's mother dies. It's endearing
as hell.
His wife, Caroline, was working. She hadn't been able
to switch shifts with anyone. I wondered how hard she had tried.
Caroline is okay but she sort of looks down on what we do. Mumbo
jumbo she calls it. She's a registered nurse. I guess after dealing
with doctors all day, she has to look down on someone.
Up near the front of the crowd was Jamison Clarke. He
was tall; thin, and the only red-haired, green-eyed black man I've
ever met. He nodded at me across the grave. I nodded back.
We were all here; the animators of Animators,
Incorporated. Bert and Mary, our daytime secretary, were holding
down the fort. I hoped Bert didn't book us in anything we couldn't
handle. Or would refuse to handle. He did that if you didn't watch
him.
The sun slapped my back like a hot metal hand. The
men kept pulling at their ties and high collars. The smell of
chrysanthemums was thick like wax at the back of my throat. No one
ever gives you football mums unless you die. Carnations, roses,
snapdragons, they all have happier lives, but mums, and glads -
they're the funeral flowers. At least the tall spires of gladiolus
had no scent.
A woman sat in the front line of chairs under the
canopy. She was leaning over her knees like a broken doll. Her sobs
were loud enough to drown out the words of the priest. Only his
quiet, soothing rhythm reached me as I stood near the back.
Two small children were gripping the hands of an
older man. Grampa? The children were pale, hollow-eyed. Fear vied
with tears on their faces. They watched their mother break down
completely, useless to them. Her grief was more important than
theirs. Her loss greater. Bullshit.
My own mother had died when I was eight. You never
really filled in the hole. It was like a piece of you gone missing.
An ache that never quite goes away. You deal with it. You go on,
but it's there.
A man sat beside her, rubbing her back in endless
circles. His hair was nearly black, cut short and neat. Broad
shouldered. From the back he looked eerily like Peter Burke. Ghosts
in sunlight.
The cemetery was dotted with trees. The shade rustled
and flickered pale grey in the sunlight. On the other side of the
gravel driveway that twined through the cemetery were two men. They
stood quietly, waiting. Grave diggers. Waiting to finish the
job.
I looked back at the coffin under its blanket of pink
carnations. There was a bulky mound just behind it, covered in
bright green fake grass. Underneath was the fresh dug earth waiting
to go back in the hole.
Mustn't let the loved ones think about red-clay soil
pouring down on the gleaming coffin. Clods of dirt hitting the
wood, covering your husband, father. Trapping them forever inside a
lead-lined box. A good coffin will keep the water and worms out,
but it doesn't stop decay.
I knew what would be happening to Peter Burke's body.
Cover it in satin, wrap a tie round its neck, rouge the cheeks,
close the eyes; it's still a corpse.
The funeral ended while I wasn't looking. The people
rose gratefully in one mass movement. The dark-haired man helped
the grieving widow to stand. She nearly fell. Another man rushed
forward and supported her other side. She sagged between them, feet
dragging on the ground.
She looked back over her shoulder, head almost
lolling on her neck. She screamed, loud and ragged, then flung
herself on the coffin. The woman collapsed against the flowers,
digging at the wood. Fingers scrambling for the locks on the
coffin. The ones that held the lid down.
Everyone just froze for a moment, staring. I saw the
two children through the crowd still standing, wide-eyed. Shit.
"Stop her," I said it too loud. People turned to stare. I didn't
care.
I pushed my way through the vanishing crowd and the
aisles of chairs. The dark-haired man was holding the widow's hands
while she screamed and struggled. She had collapsed to the ground,
and her black dress had worked up high on her thighs.
She was wearing a white slip. Her mascara had run
like black blood down her face.
I stood in front of the man and the two children. He
was staring at the woman like he would never move again. "Sir," I
said. He didn't react. "Sir?"
He blinked, staring down at me like I had just
appeared in front of him. "Sir, do you really think the children
need to see all this?"
"She's my daughter," he said. His voice was deep and
thick..
Drugged or just grief?
"I sympathize, sir, but the children should go to the
car now."
The widow had begun to wail, loud and wordless, raw
pain. The girl was beginning to shake. "You're her father, but
you're their grandfather. Act like it. Get them out of here."
Anger flickered in his eyes then. "How dare you?"
He wasn't going to listen to me. I was just an
intrusion on their grief. The oldest, a boy of about five, was
staring up at me. His brown eyes were huge, his thin face so pale
it looked ghostly.
"I think it is you who should go," the grandfather
said.
"You're right. You are so right," I said. I walked
around them out into the grass and the summer heat. I couldn't help
the children. I couldn't help them, just as no one had been there
to help me. I had survived. So would they, maybe.
Manny and Rosita were waiting for me. Rosita hugged
me. "You must come to Sunday dinner after church."
I smiled. "I don't think I can make it, but thanks
for asking."
"My cousin Albert will be there," she said. "He is an
engineer. He will be a good provider."
"I don't need a good provider, Rosita."
She sighed. "You make too much money for a woman. It
makes you not need a man."
I shrugged. If I ever did marry, which I'd begun to
doubt, a it wouldn't be for money. Love. Shit, was I waiting for
love? Naw, not me.
"We have to pick up Tomas at kindergarten," Manny
said. He was smiling at me apologetically around Rosita's shoulder.
She was nearly a foot taller than he. She towered over me, too.
"Sure, tell the little guy hi for me."
"You should come to dinner," Rosita said, "Albert is
a very handsome man."
"Thanks for thinking of me, Rosita, but I'll skip
it."
"Come on, wife," Manny said. "Our son is waiting for
us."
She let him pull her towards the car, but her brown
face was set in disapproval. It offended some deep part of Rosita
that I was twenty-four and had no prospects of marriage. Her and my
stepmother.
Charles was nowhere to be seen. Hurrying back to the
office to see clients. I thought Jamison had, too, but he stood in
the grass, waiting for me.
He was dressed impeccably, crossed-lapels, narrow red
tie with small dark dots on it. His tie clip was onyx and silver.
He smiled at me, always a bad sign.
His greenish eyes looked hollow, like someone had
erased part of the skin. If you cry enough, the skin goes from
puffy red to hollow white. "I'm glad so many of us showed up," he
said.
"I know he was a friend of yours, Jamison. I'm
sorry."
He nodded and looked down at his hands. He was
holding a pair of sunglasses loosely. He looked up at me, eyes
staring straight into mine. All serious.
"The police won't tell the family anything," he said.
"Peter gets blown away, and they don't have a clue who did it."
I wanted to tell him the police were doing their
best, because they were. But there are a hell of a lot of murders
in St. Louis over a year. We were giving Washington, D.C. a run for
their money as murder capital of the United States. "They're doing
their best, Jamison."
"Then why won't they tell us anything?" His hands
convulsed. The sound of breaking plastic was a crumbling sharp
sound. He didn't seem to notice.
"I don't know," I said.
"Anita, you're in good with the police. Could you
ask?" His eyes were naked, full of such real pain. Most of the time
I could ignore, or even dislike, Jamison. He was a tease, a flirt,
a bleeding-heart liberal who thought that vampires were just people
with fangs. But today . . . today he was real.
"What do you want me to ask?"
"Are they making any progress? Do they have any
suspects? That sort of thing."
They were vague questions, but important ones. "I'll
see what I can find out."
He gave a watery smile. "Thanks, Anita, really,
thanks." He held out his hand. I took it. We shook. He noticed his
broken sunglasses. "Damn, ninety-five dollars down the tubes."
Ninety-five dollars for sunglasses? He had to be
kidding. A group of mourners were taking the family away at last.
The mother was smothered in well-meaning male relatives. They were
literally carrying her away from the grave. The children and Grampa
brought up the rear. No one listens to good advice.
A man stepped away from the crowd and walked towards
us. He was the one who reminded me of Peter Burke from the back. He
was around six feet, dark-complected, a black mustache, and thin
almost goateelike beard framing a handsome face. It was handsome,
a dark movie-star face, but there was something about the way he
moved. Maybe it was the white streak in his black hair just over
the forehead. Whatever, you knew that he would always play the
villain.
"Is she going to help us?" he asked, no preamble, no
hello.
"Yes," Jamison said. "Anna Blake, this is John Burke,
Peter's brother."
John Burke, the John Burke, I wanted to ask. New
Orleans's greatest animator and vampire slayer? A kindred spirit.
We shook hands. His grip was strong, almost painfully so, as if he
wanted to see if I would flinch. I didn't. He let go. Maybe he just
didn't know his own strength? But I doubted it.
"I am truly sorry about your brother," I said. I
meant it. I was glad I meant it.
He nodded. "Thank you for talking to the police about
him."
"I'm surprised you couldn't get the New Orleans
police to give you some juice with our local police," I said.
He had the grace to look uncomfortable. "The New
Orleans police and I have had a disagreement."
"Really?" I said, eyes wide. I had heard the rumors,
but I wanted to hear the truth. Truth is always stranger than
fiction.
"John was accused of participating in some ritual
murders," Jamison said. "Just because he's a practicing vaudun
priest."
"Oh," I said. Those were the rumors. "How long have
you been in town, John?"
"Almost a week."
"Really?"
"Peter had been missing for two days before they
found the . . . body." He licked his lips. His dark brown eyes
flicked to the scene behind me. Were the grave diggers moving in? I
glanced back, but the grave looked just the same to me.
"Anything you could find out would be most
appreciated," he said.
"I'll do what I can."
"I have to get back to the house." He shrugged, as if
to loosen the shoulder muscles. "My sister-in-law isn't taking it
well."
I let it go. I deserved brownie points for that. One
thing I didn't let go. "Can you look after your niece and
nephew?"
He looked at me, a puzzled frown between his black
eyebrows.
"I mean, keep them out of the really dramatic stuff
if you can."
He nodded. "It was rough for me to watch her throw
herself on the coffin. God, what must the kids be thinking?" Tears
glittered in his eyes like silver. He kept them open very wide so
the tears wouldn't spill out.
I didn't know what to say. I did not want to see him
cry. "I'll talk to the police, find out what I can. I'll tell
Jamison when I have anything."
John Burke nodded, carefully. His eyes were like a
glass where only the surface tension kept the water from spilling
over.
I nodded to Jamison and left. I turned on the
air-conditioning in my car and let it run full blast. The two men
were still standing in the hot sunshine in the middle of summer
brown grass when I put the car in gear and drove away.
I would talk to the police and find out what I could.
I also had another name for Dolph. John Burke, biggest animator in
New Orleans, voodoo priest. Sounded like a suspect to me.
Chapter 10
The phone was ringing as I shoved the key into my
apartment door. I yelled at it, "I'm coming, I'm coming!" Why do
people do that? Yell at the phone as if the other person can hear
you and will wait?
I shoved the door open and scooped up the phone on
the fourth ring. "Hello."
"Anita?"
"Dolph," I said. My stomach tightened. "What's
up?"
"We think we found the boy." His voice was quiet,
neutral.
"Think," I said. "What do you mean, think?"
"You know what I mean, Anita," he said. He sounded
tired.
"Like his parents?" It wasn't a question.
"Yeah."
"God, Dolph, is there much left?"
"Come and see. We're at the Burrell Cemetery. Do you
know it?"
"Sure, I've done work there."
"Be here as soon as you can. I want to go home and
hug my wife."
"Sure, Dolph, I understand." I was talking to myself.
The phone had gone dead. I stared at the receiver for a moment. My
skin felt cold. I did not want to go and view the remains of
Benjamin Reynolds. I did not want to know. I pulled a lot of air in
through my nose and let it out slowly.
I stared down at the dark hose, high heels, dress. It
wasn't my usual crime scene attire, but it would take too long to
change. I was usually the last expert called in. Once I was
through, they could cover the body. And everyone could go home. I
grabbed a pair of black Nikes for walking over grass and through
blood. Once you got bloodstains on dress shoes, they never come
clean.
I had the Browning Hi-Power, complete with holster
sort of draped atop my little black clutch purse. The gun had been
in my car during the funeral. I couldn't figure out a way to carry
a gun of any kind while wearing a dress. I know you see thigh
holsters on television, but does the word "chafing" mean anything
to you?
I hesitated on getting my backup gun and shoving it
in my purse, but didn't. My purse, like all purses, seems to have a
traveling black hole in it. I'd never get the gun out in time if I
really needed it.
I did have a silver knife in a thigh sheath under the
short black skirt. I felt like Kit Carson in drag, but after
Tommy's little visit, I didn't want to be unarmed. I had no
illusions what would happen if Tommy did catch me with no gun.
Knives weren't as good, but they beat the hell out of kicking my
little feet and screaming.
I had never yet had to try to fast draw a knife from
a thigh sheath. It was probably going to look vaguely obscene, but
if it kept me alive . . . hey, I can take a little
embarrassment.
Burrell Cemetery is at the crest of a hill. Some of
the gravestones go back centuries. The soft, weathered limestone is
almost unreadable, like hard candy that's been sucked clean. The
grass is waist tall, luxuriant with only the headstones standing
like tired sentinels.
There is a house on the edge of the cemetery where
the caretaker lives, but he doesn't have to take care of much. The
graveyard is full and has been for years. The last person buried
here could remember the 1904 World's Fair.
There is no road into the graveyard anymore. There is
a ghost of one, like a wagon track where the grass doesn't grow
quite so high. The caretaker's house was surrounded by police cars
and the coroner's van. My Nova seemed underdressed. Maybe I should
get some buggy whip antennae, or plaster Zombies "R" Us on the side
of the car. Bert would probably get mad.
I got a pair of coveralls from the trunk and slipped
into them. They covered me from neck to ankle. Like most coveralls
the crotch hit at knee level, I never understood why, but it meant
my skirt didn't bunch up. I bought them originally for vampire
stakings, but blood is blood. Besides, the weeds would play hell
with my panty hose. I got a pair of surgical gloves from the little
Kleenex-like box in the trunk. Nikes instead of dress shoes, and I
was ready to view the remains.
Remains. Nice word.
Dolph stood like some ancient sentinel, towering over
everyone else in the field. I worked my way towards him, trying not
to trip over broken bits of headstone. A wind hot enough to scald
rustled the grass. I was sweating inside the overalls.
Detective Clive Perry came to meet me, as if I needed
an escort. Detective Perry was one of the most polite people I had
ever met. He had an old-world courtliness to him. A gentleman in
the best sense of the word. I always wanted to ask what he had done
to end up on the spook squad.
His slender black face was beaded with sweat. He
still wore his suit jacket even though it had to be over a hundred
degrees. "Ms. Blake."
"Detective Perry," I said. I glanced up at the crest
of the hill. Dolph and a handful of men were standing around like
they didn't know what to do. No one was looking at the ground.
"How bad is it, Detective Perry?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Depends on what you compare it
to."
"Did you see the tapes and pictures of the Reynolds
house?"
"I did."
"Is it worse than that?" It was my new "worst thing I
ever saw" measurement. Before this it had been a vampire gang that
had tried to move in from Los Angeles. The respectable vampire
community had chopped them up with axes. The parts were still
crawling around the room when we found them. Maybe this wasn't
worse. Maybe time had just dimmed the memory.
"It isn't bloodier," he said, then he hesitated, "but
it was a child. A little boy."
I nodded. He didn't need to explain. It was always
worse when it was a child. I never knew exactly why. Maybe it was
some primal instinct to protect the young. Some deep hormonal
thing. Whatever, kids were always worse. I stared down at a white
tombstone. It looked like dull, melted ice. I didn't want to go up
the hill. I didn't want to see.
I went up the hill. Detective Perry followed. Brave
detective. Brave me.
A sheet rested on the grass like a tent. Dolph stood
closest to it. "Dolph," I said.
"Anita."
No one offered to pull back the sheet. "Is this
it?"
"Yeah."
Dolph seemed to shake himself, or maybe it was a
shiver. He reached down and grabbed the edge of the sheet. "Ready?"
he asked.
No, I wasn't ready. Don't make me look. Please don't
make me look. My mouth was dry. I could taste my pulse in my
throat. I nodded.
The sheet flew back, caught by a gust of wind like a
white kite. The grass was trampled down. Struggles? Had Benjamin
Reynolds been alive when he was pulled down into the long grass?
No, surely not. God, I hoped not.
The footed pajamas had tiny cartoon figures on them.
The pajamas had been pulled back like the skin of a banana. One
small arm was flung up over his head like he was sleeping.
Long-lashed eyelids helped the illusion. His skin was pale and
flawless, small cupid-bow mouth half open. He should have looked
worse, much worse.
There was a dirty brown stain on his pajamas, the
cloth covering his lower body. I did not want to see what had
killed him. But that was why I was here. I hesitated, fingers
hovering over the torn cloth. I took a deep breath, and that was a
mistake. Hunkered over the body in the windy August heat the smell
was fresh. New death smells like an outhouse, especially if the
stomach or bowels have been ripped open. I knew what I'd find when
I lifted the bloody cloth. The smell told me.
I knelt with a sleeve over my mouth and nose for a
few minutes, breathing shallow and through my mouth, but it didn't
really help. Once you caught a whiff of it, your nose remembered.
The smell crawled down my throat and wouldn't let go.
Quick or slow? Did I jerk the cloth back or pull it?
Quick. I jerked on the cloth, but it stuck, dried blood catching.
The cloth peeled back with a wet, sucking sound.
It looked like someone had taken a giant ice cream
scoop and gutted him. Stomach, intestines, upper bowels, gone. The
sunshine swam around me, and I had to put a hand on the ground to
keep from falling.
I glanced up at the face. His hair was pale brown
like his mother's. Damp curls traced his cheeks. My gaze was pulled
back to the gaping ruin that was his abdomen. There was some dark,
heavy fluid leaking out of the end of his small intestine.
I stumbled away from the crime scene, using the
tombstones to help me stand. I would have run if I hadn't known I
would fall. The sky was spinning to meet the ground. I collapsed in
the smothering grass and vomited.
I threw up until I was empty and the world stopped
spinning. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and stood up using a
crooked headstone for support.
No one said a word as I walked back to them. The
sheet was covering the body. The body. Had to think of it that way.
Couldn't dwell on the fact that it had been a small child.
Couldn't. I'd go mad.
"Well?" Dolph asked.
"He hasn't been dead long. Dammit to hell, Dolph, it
was late morning, maybe just before dawn. He was alive, alive when
that thing took him!" I stared up at him and felt the hot
beginnings of tears. I would not cry. I had already disgraced
myself enough for one day. I took a deep careful breath and let it
out. I would not cry.
"I gave you twenty-four hours to talk to this Dominga
Salvador. Did you find out anything?"
"She says she knows nothing of it. I believe
her."
"Why?"
"Because if she wanted to kill people she wouldn't
have to do anything this dramatic."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"She could wish them to death," I said.
He widened his eyes. "You believe that?"
I shrugged. "Maybe. Yes. Hell, I don't know. She
scares me."
He raised one thick eyebrow. "I'll remember
that."
"I have another name to add to your list though," I
said.
"Who?"
"John Burke. He's up from New Orleans for his
brother's funeral."
He wrote the name in his little notebook. "If he's
just visiting, would he have time?"
"I can't think of a motive, but he could do it if he
wanted to. Check him out with the New Orleans police. I think he's
under suspicion down there for murder."
"What's he doing traveling out of state?"
"I don't think they have any proof," I said. "Dominga
Salvador said she'd help me. She's promised to ask around and tell
me anything she turns up."
"I've been asking around since you gave me her name.
She doesn't help anyone outside her own people. How did you get her
to cooperate?"
I shrugged. "My winning personality."
He shook his head.
"It wasn't illegal, Dolph. Beyond that I don't want
to talk about it."
He let it go. Smart man. "Tell me as soon as you hear
anything, Anita. We've got to stop this thing before it kills
again."
"Agreed." I turned and looked out over the rolling
grass. "Is this the cemetery near where you found the first three
victims?"
"Yes."
"Maybe part of the answer's here then," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"Most vampires have to return to their coffins before
dawn. Ghouls stay in underground tunnels, like giant moles. If it
was either of those I'd say the creature was out here somewhere
waiting for nightfall."
"But," he said.
"But if it's a zombie it isn't harmed by sunlight and
it doesn't need to rest in a coffin. It could be anywhere, but I
think it originally came from this cemetery. If they used voodoo
there will be signs of the ritual."
"Like what?"
"A chalk verve, drawn symbols around the grave, dried
blood, maybe a fire." I stared off at the rustling grass. "Though I
wouldn't want to start an open fire in this place."
"If it wasn't voodoo?" he asked.
"Then it was an animator. Again you look for dried
blood, maybe a dead animal. There won't be as many signs and it's
easier to clean up."
"Are you sure it's some kind of a zombie?" he
asked.
"I don't know what else it could be. I think we
should act like that's what it is. It gives us someplace to look,
and something to look for."
"If it's not a zombie we don't have a clue," he
said.
"Exactly."
He smiled, but it wasn't pleasant. "I hope you're
right, Anita."
"Me, too," I said.
"If it did come from here, can you find what grave it
came from?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe?" he said.
"Maybe. Raising the dead isn't a science, Dolph.
Sometimes I can feel the dead under the ground. Restlessness. How
old without looking at the tombstone. Sometimes I can't." I
shrugged.
"We'll give you any help you need."
"I have to wait until full dark. My . . . powers are
better after dark."
"That's hours away. Can you do anything now?"
I thought about that for a moment. "No. I'm sorry but
no."
"Okay, you'll come back tonight then?"
"Yeah," I said.
"What time? I'll send some men out."
"I don't know what time. And I don't know how long it
will take. I could be wandering out here for hours and find
nothing."
"Or?"
"Or I could find the beastie itself."
"You'll need backup for that, just in case."
I nodded. "Agreed, but guns, even silver bullets,
won't hurt it."
"What will?"
"Flamethrowers, napalm like the exterminators use on
ghoul tunnels," I said.
"Those aren't standard issue."
"Have an exterminator team standing by," I said.
"Good idea." He made a note.
"I need a favor," I said.
He looked up. "What?"
"Peter Burke was murdered, shot to death. His brother
asked me to find out what progress the police are making."
"You know we can't give out information like
that."
"I know, but if you can get the facts I can feed just
enough to John Burke to keep in touch with him."
"You seem to be getting along well with all our
suspects," he said.
"Yeah."
"I'll find out what I can from homicide. Do you know
what jurisdiction he was found in?"
I shook my head. "I could find out. It would give me
an excuse to talk to Burke again."
"You say he's suspected of murder in New
Orleans."
"Mm-huh," I said.
"And he may have done this." He motioned at the
sheet.
"Yep."
"You watch your back, Anita."
"I always do," I said.
"You call me as early tonight as you can. I don't
want all my people sitting around twiddling their thumbs on
overtime."
"As soon as I can. I've got to cancel three clients
just to make it." Bert was not going to be pleased. The day was
looking up.
"Why didn't it eat more of the boy?" Dolph asked.
"I don't know," I said.
He nodded. "Okay, I'll see you tonight then."
"Say hello to Lucille for me. How's she coming with
her master's degree?"
"Almost done. She'll have it before our youngest gets
his engineering degree."
"Great."
The sheet flapped in the hot wind. A trickle of sweat
trailed down my forehead. I was out of small talk. "See you later,"
I said, and started down the hill. I stopped and turned back.
"Dolph?"
"Yes?" he said.
"I've never heard of a zombie exactly like this one.
Maybe it does rise from its grave more like a vampire. If you kept
that exterminator team and backup hanging around until after dark,
you might catch it rising from the grave and be able to bag
it."
"Is that likely?"
"No, but it's possible," I said.
"I don't know how I'll explain the overtime, but I'll
do it."
"I'll be here as soon as I can."
"What else could be more important than this?" he
asked.
I smiled. "Nothing you'd like to hear about."
"Try me," he said.
I shook my head.
He nodded. "Tonight, early as you can."
"Early as I can," I said.
Detective Perry escorted me back. Maybe politeness,
maybe he just wanted to get away from the corpus delicti. I didn't
blame him. "How's your wife, Detective?"
"We're expecting our first baby in a month."
I smiled up at him. "I didn't know.
Congratulations."
"Thank you." His face clouded over, a frown puckering
between his dark eyes. "Do you think we can find this creature
before it kills again?"
"I hope so," I said.
"What are our chances?"
Did he want reassurance or the truth. Truth. "I
haven't the faintest idea."
"I was hoping you wouldn't say that," he said.
"So was I, Detective. So was I."
Chapter 11
What was more important than bagging the critter that
had eviscerated an entire family? Nothing, absolutely nothing. But
it was a while until full dark, and I had other problems. Would
Tommy go back to Gaynor and tell him what I said? Yes. Would Gaynor
let it go? Probably not. I needed information. I needed to know how
far he would go. A reporter, I needed a reporter. Irving Griswold
to the rescue.
Irving had one of those pastel cubicles that passes
for an office. No roof, no door, but you got walls. Irving is
five-three. I'd like him for that reason if nothing else. You don't
meet many men exactly my height. Frizzy brown hair framed his bald
spot like petals on a flower. He wore a white dress shirt, sleeves
rolled up to the elbow, tie at half-mast. His face was round,
pink-cheeked. He looked like a bald cherub. He did not look like a
werewolf, but he was one. Even lycanthropy can't cure baldness.
No one on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch knew
Irving was a shapeshifter. It is a disease, and it's illegal to
discriminate against lycanthropes, just like people with AIDS, but
people do it anyway. Maybe the paper's management would have been
broad-minded, liberal, but I was with Irving. Caution was
better.
Irving sat in his desk chair. I leaned in the doorway
of his cubicle. "How's tricks?" Irving said.
"Do you really think you're funny, or is this just an
annoying habit?" I asked.
He grinned. "I'm hilarious. Ask my girlfriend."
"I'll bet," I said.
"What's up, Blake? And please tell me whatever it is
is on the record, not off."
"How would you like to do an article on the new
zombie legislation that's being cooked up?"
"Maybe," he said. His eyes narrowed, suspicion
gleamed forth. "What do you want in return?"
"This part is off the record, Irving, for now."
"It figures." He frowned at me. "Go on."
"I need all the information you have on Harold
Gaynor."
"Name doesn't ring any bells," he said. "Should it?"
His eyes had gone from cheerful to steady. His concentration was
nearly perfect when he smelled a story.
"Not necessarily," I said. Cautious. "Can you get the
information for me?"
"In exchange for the zombie story?"
"I'll take you to all the businesses that use
zombies. You can bring a photographer and snap pictures of
corpses."
His eyes lit up. "A series of articles with lots of
semi-gruesome pictures. You center stage in a suit. Beauty and the
Beast. My editor would probably go for it."
"I thought he might, but I don't know about the
center stage stuff."
"Hey, your boss will love it. Publicity means more
business."
"And sells more papers," I said.
"Sure," Irving said. He looked at me for maybe a
minute. The room was almost silent. Most had gone home. Irving's
little pool of light was one of just a few. He'd been waiting on
me. So much for the press never sleeps. The quiet breath of the air
conditioner filled the early evening stillness.
"I'll see if Harold Gaynor's in the computer," Irving
said at last.
I smiled at him. "Remembered the name after me
mentioning it just once, pretty good."
"I am, after all, a trained reporter," he said. He
swiveled his chair back to his computer keyboard with exaggerated
movements. He pulled imaginary gloves on and adjusted the long
tails of a tux.
"Oh, get on with it." I smiled a little wider.
"Do not rush the maestro." He typed a few words and
the screen came to life. "He's on file," Irving said. "A big file.
It'd take forever to print it all up." He swiveled the chair back
to look at me. It was a bad sign.
"I'll tell you what," he said. "I'll get the file
together, complete with pictures if we have any. I'll deliver it to
your sweet hands."
"What's the catch?"
He put his fingers to his chest. "Moi, no
catch. The goodness of my heart."
"All right, bring it by my apartment."
"Why don't we meet at Dead Dave's, instead?" he
said.
"Dead Dave's is down in the vampire district. What
are you doing hanging around out there?"
His sweet cherubic face was watching me very
steadily. "Rumor has it that there's a new Master Vampire of the
City. I want the story."
I just shook my head. "So you're hanging around Dead
Dave's to get information?"
"Exactly."
"The vamps won't talk to you. You look human."
"Thanks for the compliment," he said. "The vamps do
talk to you, Anita. Do you know who the new Master is? Can I meet
him, or her? Can I do an interview?"
"Jesus, Irving, don't you have enough troubles
without messing with the king vampire?"
"It's a him then," he said.
"It's a figure of speech," I said.
"You know something. I know you do."
"What I know is that you don't want to come to the
attention of a master vampire. They're mean, Irving."
"The vampires are trying to mainstream themselves.
They want positive attention. An interview about what he wants to
do with the vampire community. His vision of the future. It would
be very up-and-coming. No corpse jokes. No sensationalism. Straight
journalism."
"Yeah, right. On page one a tasteful little headline:
THE MASTER VAMPIRE OF ST. LOUIS SPEAKS OUT."
"Yeah, it'll be great."
"You've been sniffing newsprint again, Irving."
"I'll give you everything we have on Gaynor.
Pictures."
"How do you know you have pictures?" I said.
He stared up at me, his round, pleasant face
cheerfully blank.
"You recognized the name, you little son of. . ."
"Tsk, tsk, Anita. Help me get an interview with the
Master of the City. I'll give you anything you want."
"I'll give you a series of articles about zombies.
Full-color pictures of rotting corpses, Irving. It'll sell
papers."
"No interview with the Master?" he said.
"If you're lucky, no," I said.
"Shoot."
"Can I have the file on Gaynor?"
He nodded. "I'll get it together." He looked up at
me. "I still want you to meet me at Dead Dave's. Maybe a vamp will
talk to me with you around."
"Irving, being seen with a legal executioner of
vampires is not going to endear you to the vamps."
"They still call you the Executioner?"
"Among other things."
"Okay, the Gaynor file for going along on your next
vampire execution?"
"No," I said.
"Ah, Anita. . ."
"No."
He spread his hands wide. "Okay, just an idea. It'd
be a great article."
"I don't need the publicity, Irving, not that kind
anyway."
He nodded. "Yeah, yeah. I'll meet you at Dead Dave's
in about two hours."
"Make it an hour. I'd like to be out of the District
before full dark."
"Is anybody gunning for you down there? I mean I
don't want to endanger you, Blake." He grinned. "You've given me
too many lead stories. I wouldn't want to lose you."
"Thanks for the concern. No, no one's after me. Far
as I know."
"You don't sound real certain."
I stared at him. I thought about telling him that the
new Master of the City had sent me a dozen white roses and an
invitation to go dancing. I had turned him down. There had been a
message on my machine and an invitation to a black tie affair. I
ignored it all. So far the Master was behaving like the courtly
gentleman he had been a few centuries back. It couldn't last.
Jean-Claude was not a person who took defeat easily.
I didn't tell Irving. He didn't need to know. "I'll
see you at Dead Dave's in an hour. I'm gonna run home and
change."
"Now that you mention it, I've never seen you in a
dress before."
"I had a funeral today."
"Business or personal?"
"Personal," I said.
"Then I'm sorry."
I shrugged. "I've got to go if I'm going to have time
to change and then meet you. Thanks, Irving."
"It's not a favor, Blake. I'll make you pay for those
zombie articles."
I sighed. I had images of him making me embrace the
poor corpse. But the new legislation needed attention. The more
people who understood the horror of it, the better chance it had to
pass. In truth, Irving was still doing me a favor. No need to let
him know that, though.
I walked away into the dimness of the darkened
office. I waved over my shoulder without looking back. I wanted to
get out of this dress and into something I could hide a gun on. If
I was going into Blood Square, I might need it.
Chapter 12
Dead Dave's is in the part of St. Louis that has two
names. Polite: the Riverfront. Rude: the Blood Quarter. It is our
town's hottest vampire commercial district. Big tourist attraction.
Vampires have really put St. Louis on the vacation maps. You'd
think that the Ozark Mountains, some of the best fishing in the
country, the symphony, Broadway level musicals, or maybe the
Botanical Gardens would be enough, but no. I guess it's hard to
compete with the undead. I know I find it difficult.
Dead Dave's is all dark glass and beer signs in the
windows. The afternoon sunlight was fading into twilight. Vamps
wouldn't be out until full dark. I had a little under two hours.
Get in, look over the file, get out. Easy. Ri-ight.
I had changed into black shorts, royal-blue polo
shirt, black Nikes with a matching blue swish, black and white
jogging socks, and a black leather belt. The belt was there so the
shoulder holster had something to hang on. My Browning Hi-Power was
secure under my left arm. I had thrown on a short-sleeved dress
shirt to hide the gun. The dress shirt was in a modest black and
royal-blue print. The outfit looked great. Sweat trickled down my
spine. Too hot for the shirt, but the Browning gave me thirteen
bullets. Fourteen if you're animal enough to shove the magazine
full and carry one in the chamber.
I didn't think things were that bad, yet. I did have
an extra magazine shoved into the pocket of my shorts. I know it
picks up pocket lint, but where else was I going to carry it? One
of these days I promise to get a deluxe holster with spaces for
extra magazines. But all the models I'd seen had to be cut down to
my size and made me feel like the Frito Bandito.
I almost never carry an extra clip when I've got the
Browning. Let's face it, if you need more than thirteen bullets,
it's over. The really sad part was the extra ammo wasn't for Tommy,
or Gaynor. It was for Jean-Claude. The Master Vampire of the City.
Not that silver-plated bullets would kill him. But they would hurt
him, make him heal almost human slow.
I wanted out of the District before dark. I did not
want to run into Jean-Claude. He wouldn't attack me. In fact, his
intentions were good, if not exactly honorable. He had offered me
immortality without the messy part of becoming a vampire. There was
some implication that I got him along with eternity. He was tall,
pale, and handsome. Sexier than a silk teddy.
He wanted me to be his human servant. I wasn't
anyone's servant. Not even for eternal life, eternal youth, and a
little compromise of the soul. The price was too steep. Jean-Claude
didn't believe that. The Browning was in case I had to make him
believe it.
I stepped into the bar and was momentarily blind,
waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dimness. Like one of those old
westerns where the good guy hesitates at the front of the bar and
views the crowd. I suspected he wasn't looking for the bad guy at
all. He had just come out of the sun and couldn't see shit. No one
ever shoots you while you're waiting for your eyes to adjust. I
wonder why?
It was after five on a Thursday. Most of the bar
stools and all the tables were taken. The place was cheek to jowl
with business suits, male and female. A spattering of work boots
and tans that ended at the elbow, but mostly upwardly mobile types.
Dead Dave's had become trendy despite efforts to keep it at
bay.
It looked like happy hour was in high gear. Shit. All
the yuppies were here to catch a nice safe glimpse of a vampire.
They would be slightly sloshed when it happened. Increase the
thrill I guess.
Irving was sitting at the rounded corner of the bar.
He saw me and waved. I waved back and started pushing my way
towards him.
I squeezed between two gentlemen in suits. It took
some maneuvering, and a very uncool-looking hop to mount the bar
stool.
Irving grinned broadly at me. There was a nearly
solid hum of conversation in the air. Words translated into pure
noise like the ocean. Irving had to lean into me to be heard over
the murmuring sound.
"I hope you appreciate how many dragons I had to slay
to save that seat for you," he said. The faint smell of whiskey
breathed along my cheek as he spoke.
"Dragons are easy, try vampires sometimes," I
said.
His eyes widened. Before his mouth could form the
question, I said, "I'm kidding, Irving." Sheesh, some people just
don't have a sense of humor. "Besides, dragons were never native to
North America," I said.
"I knew that."
"Sure," I said.
He sipped whiskey from a faceted glass. The amber
liquid shimmered in the subdued light.
Luther, daytime manager and bartender, was down at
the far end of the bar dealing with a group of very happy people.
If they had been any happier they'd have been passed out on the
floor.
Luther is large, not tall, fat. But it is solid fat,
almost a kind of muscle. His skin is so black, it has purple
highlights. The cigarette between his lips flared orange as he took
a breath. He could talk around a cig better than anyone I'd ever
met.
Irving picked up a scuffed leather briefcase from off
the floor near his feet. He fished out a file over three inches
thick. A large rubber band wrapped it together.
"Jesus, Irving. Can I take it home with me?"
He shook his head. "A sister reporter is doing a
feature on local upstanding businessmen who are not what they seem.
I had to promise her dibs on my firstborn to borrow it for the
night."
I looked at the stack of papers. I sighed. The man on
my right nearly rammed an elbow in my face. He turned. "Sorry,
little lady, sorry. No harm done." Little came out liddle, and
sorry slushed around the edges.
"No harm," I said.
He smiled and turned back to his friend. Another
business type who laughed uproariously at something. Get drunk
enough and everything is funny.
"I can't possibly read the file here," I said.
He grinned. "I'll follow you anywhere."
Luther stood in front of me. He pulled a cigarette
from the pack he always carried with him. He put the tip of his
still burning stub against the fresh cigarette. The end flared red
like a live coal. Smoke trickled up his nose and out his mouth.
Like a dragon.
He crushed the old cig in the clear glass ashtray he
carried with him from place to place like a teddy bear. He chain
smokes, is grossly overweight, and his grey hair puts him over
fifty. He's never sick. He should be the national poster child for
the Tobacco Institute.
"A refill?" he asked Irving.
"Yeah, thanks."
Luther took the glass, refilled it from a bottle
under the bar, and set it back down on a fresh napkin.
"What can I get for ya, Anita?" he asked.
"The usual, Luther."
He poured me a glass of orange juice. We pretend it
is a screwdriver. I'm a teetotaler, but why would I come to a bar
if I didn't drink?
He wiped the bar with a spotless white towel. "Gotta
message for you from the Master."
"The Master Vampire of the City?" Irving asked. His
voice had that excited lilt to it. He smelled news.
"What?" There was no excited lilt to my voice.
"He wants to see you, bad."
I glanced at Irving, then back at Luther. I tried to
telepathically send the message, not in front of the reporter. It
didn't work.
"The Master's put the word out. Anybody who sees you
gives you the message."
Irving was looking back and forth between us like an
eager puppy. "What does the Master of the City want with you,
Anita?"
"Consider it given," I said.
Luther shook his head. "You ain't going to talk to
him, are you?"
"No," I said.
"Why not?" Irving asked.
"None of your business."
"Off the record," he said.
"No."
Luther stared at me. "Listen to me, girl, you talk to
the Master. Right now all the vamps and freaks are just
supposed to tell you the Master wants a powwow. The next order will
be to detain you and take ya to him."
Detain, it was a nice word for kidnap. "I don't have
anything to say to the Master."
"Don't let this get outta hand, Anita," Luther said.
"Just talk to him, no harm."
That's what he thought. "Maybe I will." Luther was
right. It was talk to him now or later. Later would probably be a
lot less friendly.
"Why does the Master want to talk to you?" Irving
asked. He was like some curious, bright-eyed bird that had spied a
worm.
I ignored the question, and thought up a new one.
"Did your sister reporter give you any highlights from this file? I
don't really have time to read War and Peace before
morning."
"Tell me what you know about the Master, and I'll
give you the highlights."
"Thanks a lot, Luther."
"I didn't mean to sic him on you," he said. His cig
bobbed up and down as he spoke. I never understood how he did that.
Lip dexterity. Years of practice.
"Would everybody stop treating me like the bubonic
fucking plague," Irving said. "I'm just trying to do my job."
I sipped my orange juice and looked at him. "Irving,
you're messing with things you don't understand. I cannot give you
info on the Master. I can't."
"Won't," he said.
I shrugged. "Won't, but the reason I won't is because
I can't."
"That's a circular argument," he said.
"Sue me." I finished the juice. I didn't want it
anyway. "Listen, Irving, we had a deal. The file info for the
zombie articles. If you're going to break your word, deal's off.
But tell me it's off. I don't have time to sit here and play twenty
damn questions."
"I won't go back on the deal. My word is my bond," he
said in as stagy a voice as he could manage in the murmurous noise
of the bar.
"Then give me the highlights and let me get the hell
out of the District before the Master hunts me up."
His face was suddenly solemn. "You're in trouble,
aren't you?"
"Maybe. Help me out, Irving. Please."
"Help her out," Luther said.
Maybe it was the please. Maybe it was Luther's
looming presence. Whatever, Irving nodded. "According to my sister
reporter, he's crippled in a wheelchair."
I nodded. Nondirective, that's me.
"He likes his women crippled."
"What do you mean?" I remembered Cicely of the empty
eyes.
"Blind, wheelchair, amputee, whatever, old Harry'll
go for it."
"Deaf," I said.
"Up his alley."
"Why?" I asked. Clever questions are us.
Irving shrugged. "Maybe it makes him feel better
since he's trapped in a chair himself. My fellow reporter didn't
know why he was a deviant, just that he was."
"What else did she tell you?"
"He's never even been charged with a crime, but the
rumors are real ugly. Suspected mob connections, but no proof. Just
rumors."
"Tell me," I said.
"An old girlfriend tried to sue him for palimony. She
disappeared."
"Disappeared as in probably dead," I said.
"Bingo."
I believed it. So he'd used Tommy and Bruno to kill
before. Meant it would be easier to give the order a second time.
Or maybe Gaynor's given the order lots of times, and just never
gotten caught.
"What does he do for the mob that earns him his two
bodyguards?"
"Oh, so you've met his security specialist."
I nodded.
"My fellow reporter would love to talk to you."
"You didn't tell her about me, did you?"
"Do I look like a stoolie?" He grinned at me.
I let that go. "What's he do for the mob?"
"Helps them clean money, or that's what we
suspect."
"No evidence?" I said.
"None." He didn't look happy about it.
Luther shook his head, tapping his cig into the
ashtray. Some ash spilled onto the bar. He wiped it with his
spotless towel. "He sounds like bad news, Anita. Free advice, leave
him the hell alone."
Good advice. Unfortunately. "I don't think he'll
leave me alone."
"I won't ask, I don't want to know." Someone else was
frantically signaling for a refill. Luther drifted over to them. I
could watch the entire bar in the full-length mirror that took up
the wall behind the bar. I could even see the door without turning
around. It was convenient and comforting.
"I will ask," Irving said, "I do want to know."
I just shook my head.
"I know something you don't know," he said.
"And I want to know it?"
He nodded vigorously enough to make his frizzy hair
bob.
I sighed. "Tell me."
"You first."
I had about enough. "I have shared all I am going to
tonight, Irving. I've got the file. I'll look through it. You're
just saving me a little time. Right now, a little time could be
very important to me."
"Oh, shucks, you take all the fun out of being a
hard-core reporter." He looked like he was going to pout.
"Just tell me, Irving, or I'm going to do something
violent."
He half laughed. I don't think he believed me. He
should have. "Alright, alright." He brought out a picture from
behind his back with a flourish like a magician.
It was a black and white photo of a woman. She was in
her twenties, long brown hair down in a modern style, just enough
mousse to make it look spiky. She was pretty. I didn't recognize
her. The photo was obviously not posed. It was too casual and there
was a look to the face of someone who didn't know she was being
photographed.
"Who is she?"
"She was his girlfriend until about five months ago,"
Irving said.
"So she's . . . handicapped?" I stared down at the
pretty, candid face. You couldn't tell by the picture.
"Wheelchair Wanda."
I stared at him. I could feel my eyes going wide.
"You can't be serious."
He grinned. "Wheelchair Wanda cruises the streets in
her chair. She's very popular with a certain crowd."
A prostitute in a wheelchair. Naw, it was too weird.
I shook my head. "Okay, where do I find her?"
"I and my sister reporter want in on this."
"That's why you kept her picture out of the
file."
He didn't even have the grace to look embarrassed.
"Wanda won't talk to you alone, Anita."
"Has she talked to your reporter friend?"
He frowned, the light of conquest dimming in his
eyes. I knew what that meant. "She won't talk to reporters will
she, Irving?"
"She's afraid of Gaynor."
"She should be," I said.
"Why would she talk to you and not us?"
"My winning personality," I said.
"Come on, Blake."
"Where does she hang out, Irving?"
"Oh, hell." He finished his dwindling drink in one
angry swallow. "She stays near a club called The Grey Cat."
The Grey Cat, like that old joke, all cats are grey
in the dark. Cute. "Where's the club?"
Luther answered. I hadn't seen him come back. "On the
main drag in the Tenderloin, corner of Twentieth and Grand. But I
wouldn't go down there alone, Anita."
"I can take care of myself."
"Yeah, but you don't look like you can. You don't
want to have to shoot some dumb shmuck just because he copped a
feel, or worse. Take someone who looks mean, save yourself the
aggravation."
Irving shrugged. "I wouldn't go down there
alone."
I hated to admit it, but they were right. I may be
heap big vampire slayer but it doesn't show much on the outside.
"Okay, I'll get Charles. He looks tough enough to take on the Green
Bay Packers, but his heart is oh so gentle."
Luther laughed, puffing smoke. "Don't let of Charlie
see too much. He might faint."
Faint once in public and people never let you
forget.
"I'll keep Charles safe." I put more money down on
the bar than was needed. Luther hadn't really given me much
information this time, but usually he did. Good information. I
never paid full price for it. I got a discount because I was
connected with the police. Dead Dave had been a cop before they
kicked him off the force for being undead. Shortsighted of them. He
was still pissed about that, but he liked to help. So he fed me
information, and I fed the police selected bits of it.
Dead Dave came out of the door behind the bar. I
glanced at the dark glass windows. It looked the same, but if Dave
was up, it was full dark. Shit. It was a walk back to my car
surrounded by vampires. At least I had my gun. Comforting that.
Dave is tall, wide, short brown hair that had been
balding when he died. He lost no more hair but it didn't grow back
either. He smiled at me wide enough to flash fangs. An excited
wiggle ran through the crowd, as if the same nerve had been touched
in all of them. The whispers spread like rings in a pool. Vampire.
The show was on.
Dave and I shook hands. His hand was warm, firm, and
dry. Have you fed tonight, Dave? He looked like he had, all rosy
and cheerful. What did you feed on, Dave? And was it willing?
Probably. Dave was a good guy for a dead man.
"Luther keeps telling me you stopped by but it's
always in daylight. Nice to see you're slumming after dark."
"Truthfully, I planned to be out of the District
before full dark."
He frowned. "You packing?"
I gave him a discreet glimpse of my gun.
Irving's eyes widened. "You're carrying a gun." It
only sounded like he shouted it.
The noise level had died down to a waiting murmur.
Quiet enough for people to overhear. But then, that's why they had
come, to listen to the vampire. To tell their troubles to the dead.
I lowered my voice and said, "Announce it to the world,
Irving."
He shrugged. "Sorry."
"How do you know newsboy over here?" Dave asked.
"He helps me sometimes with research."
"Research, well la-de-da." He smiled without showing
any fang. A trick you learn after a few years. "Luther give you the
message?"
"Yeah."
"You going to be smart or dumb?"
Dave is sorta blunt, but I like him anyway. "Dumb
probably," I said.
"Just because you got a special relationship with the
new Master, don't let it fool you. He's still a master vampire.
They are freaking bad news. Don't fuck with him."
"I'm trying to avoid it."
Dave smiled broad enough to show fang. "Shit, you
mean . . . Naw, he wants you for more than good tail."
It was nice to know he thought I'd be good tail. I
guess. "Yeah," I said.
Irving was practically bouncing in his seat. "What
the hell is going on, Anita?"
Very good question. "My business, not yours."
"Anita. . ."
"Stop pestering me, Irving. I mean it."
"Pestering? I haven't heard that word since my
grandmother."
I looked him straight in the eyes and said,
carefully, "Leave me the fuck alone. That better?"
He put his hands out in an I-give-up gesture. "Heh,
just trying to do my job."
"Well, do it somewhere else."
I slid off the bar stool.
"The word's out to find you, Anita," Dave said. "Some
of the other vampires might get overzealous."
"You mean try to take me?"
He nodded.
"I'm armed, cross and all. I'll be okay."
"You want me to walk you to your car?" Dave
asked.
I stared into his brown eyes and smiled. "Thanks,
Dave, I'll remember the offer, but I'm a big girl." Truth was a lot
of the vampires didn't like Dave feeding information to the enemy.
I was the Executioner. If a vampire stepped over the line, they
sent for me. There was no such thing as a life sentence for a vamp.
Death or nothing. No prison can hold a vampire.
California tried, but one master vampire got loose.
He killed twenty-five people in a one-night bloodbath. He didn't
feed, he just killed. Guess he was pissed about being locked up.
They'd put crosses over the doors and on the guards. Crosses don't
work unless you believe in them. And they certainly don't work once
a master vampire has convinced you to take them off.
I was the vampire's equivalent of an electric chair.
They didn't like me much. Surprise, surprise.
"I'll be with her," Irving said. He put money down on
the bar and stood up. I had the bulky file under my arm. I guess he
wasn't going to let it out of his sight. Great.
"She'll probably have to protect you, too," Dave
said.
Irving started to say something, then thought better
of it. He could say, but I'm a lycanthrope, except he didn't want
people to know. He worked very, very hard at appearing human.
"You sure you'll be okay?" he asked. One more chance
for a vampire guard to my car.
He was offering to protect me from the Master. Dave
hadn't been dead ten years. He wasn't good enough. "Nice to know
you care, Dave."
"Go on, get outta here," he said.
"Watch yourself, girl," Luther said.
I smiled brightly at both of them, then turned and
walked out of the near silent bar. The crowd couldn't have
overheard much, if any, of the conversation, but I could feel them
staring at my back. I resisted an urge to whirl around and go
"boo." I bet somebody would have screamed.
It's the cross-shaped scar on my arm. Only vampires
have them, right? A cross shoved into unclean flesh. Mine had been
a branding iron specially made. A now dead master vampire had
ordered it. Thought it would be funny. Hardy-har.
Or maybe it was just Dave. Maybe they hadn't noticed
the scar. Maybe I was overly sensitive. Make friendly with a nice
law-abiding vampire, and people get suspicious. Have a few funny
scars and people wonder if you're human. But that's okay. Suspicion
is healthy. It'll keep you alive.
Chapter 13
The sweltering darkness closed around me like a hot,
sticky fist. A streetlight formed a puddle of brilliance on the
sidewalk, as if the light had melted. All the streetlights are
reproductions of turn-of-the-century gas lamps. They rise black and
graceful, but not quite authentic. Like a Halloween costume. It
looks good but is too comfortable to be real.
The night sky was like a dark presence over the tall
brick buildings, but the streetlights held the darkness back. Like
a black tent held up by sticks of light. You had the sense of
darkness without the reality.
I started walking for the parking garage just off
First Street. Parking on the Riverfront is damn near impossible.
The tourists have only made the problem worse.
The hard soles of Irving's dress shoes made a loud,
echoing noise on the stone of the street. Real cobblestones.
Streets meant for horses, not cars. It made parking a bitch, but it
was . . . charming.
My Nike Airs made almost no sound on the street.
Irving was like a clattery puppy beside me. Most lycanthropes I've
met have been stealthy. Irving may have been a werewolf but he was
more dog. A big, fun-loving dog.
Couples and small groups passed us, laughing,
talking, voices too shrill. They had come to see vampires. Real-live
vampires, or was that real-dead vampires? Tourists, all of
them. Amateurs. Voyeurs. I had seen more undead than any of them.
I'd lay money on that. The fascination escaped me.
It was full dark now. Dolph and the gang would be
awaiting me at Burrell Cemetery. I needed to get over there. What
about the file on Gaynor? And what was I going to do with Irving?
Sometimes my life is too full.
A figure detached itself from the darkened buildings.
I couldn't tell if he had been waiting or had simply appeared.
Magic. I froze, like a rabbit caught in headlights, staring.
"What's wrong, Blake?" Irving asked.
I handed him the file and he took it, looking
puzzled. I wanted my hands free in case I had to go for my gun. It
probably wouldn't come to that. Probably.
Jean-Claude, Master Vampire of the City, walked
towards us. He moved like a dancer, or a cat, a smooth, gliding
walk. Energy and grace contained, waiting to explode into
violence.
He wasn't that tall, maybe five-eleven. His shirt was
so white, it gleamed. The shirt was loose, long, full sleeves made
tight at the wrist by three-buttoned cuffs. The front of the shirt
had only a string to close the throat. He'd left it untied, and the
white cloth framed the pale smoothness of his chest. The shirt was
tucked into tight black jeans, and only that kept it from billowing
around him like a cape.
His hair was perfectly black, curling softly around
his face. The eyes, if you dared to look into them, were a blue so
dark it was almost black. Glittering, dark jewels.
He stopped about six feet in front of us. Close
enough to see the dark cross-shaped scar on his chest. It was the
only thing that marred the perfection of his body. Or what I'd seen
of his body.
My scar had been a bad joke. His had been some poor
sod's last attempt to stave off death. I wondered if the poor sod
had escaped? Would Jean-Claude tell me if I asked? Maybe. But if
the answer was no, I didn't want to hear it.
"Hello, Jean-Claude," I said.
"Greetings, ma petite," he said. His voice
was like fur, rich, soft, vaguely obscene, as if just talking to
him was something dirty. Maybe it was.
"Don't call me ma petite," I said.
He smiled slightly, not a hint of fang. "As you
like." He looked at Irving. Irving looked away, careful not to meet
Jean-Claude's eyes. You never looked directly into a vampire's
eyes. Never. So why was I doing it with impunity. Why indeed?
"Who is your friend?" The last word was very soft and
somehow threatening.
"This is Irving Griswold. He's a reporter for the
Post-Dispatch. He's helping me with a little
research."
"Ah," he said. He walked around Irving as if he were
something for sale, and Jean-Claude wanted to see all of him.
Irving gave nervous little glances so that he could
keep the vampire in view. He glanced at me, widening his eyes.
"What's going on?"
"What indeed, Irving?" Jean-Claude said.
"Leave him alone, Jean-Claude."
"Why have you not come to see me, my little
animator?"
Little animator wasn't much of an improvement over
ma petite, but I'd take it. "I've been busy."
The look that crossed his face was almost anger. I
didn't really want him mad at me. "I was going to come see you," I
said.
"When?"
"Tomorrow night."
"Tonight." It was not a suggestion.
"I can't."
"Yes, ma petite, you can." His voice was
like a warm wind in my head.
"You are so damn demanding," I said.
He laughed then. Pleasant and resonating like
expensive perfume that lingers in the room after the wearer has
gone. His laughter was like that, lingering in the ears like
distant music. He had the best voice of any master vampire I'd ever
met. Everyone has their talents.
"You are so exasperating," he said, the edge of
laughter still in his voice. "What am I to do with you?"
"Leave me alone," I said. I was utterly serious. It
was one of my biggest wishes.
His face sobered completely, like someone had flipped
a switch. On, happy, off, unreadable. "Too many of my followers
know you are my human servant, ma petite. Bringing you
under control is part of consolidating my power." He sounded almost
regretful. A lot of help that did me.
"What do you mean, bringing me under control?" My
stomach was tight with the beginnings of fear. If Jean-Claude
didn't scare me to death, he was going to give me an ulcer.
"You are my human servant. You must start acting like
one."
"I am not your servant."
"Yes, ma petite, you are."
"Dammit, Jean-Claude, leave me alone."
He was suddenly standing next to me. I hadn't seen
him move. He had clouded my mind without me even blinking. I could
taste my pulse at the back of my throat. I tried to step back, but
one pale slender hand grabbed my right arm, just above the elbow. I
shouldn't have stepped back. I should have gone for my gun. I hoped
I would live through the mistake.
My voice came out flat, normal. At least I'd die
brave. "I thought having two of your vampire marks meant you
couldn't control my mind."
"I cannot bewitch you with my eyes, and it is harder
to cloud your mind, but it can be done." His fingers encircled my
arm. Not hurting. I didn't try to pull away. I knew better. He
could crush my arm without breaking a sweat, or tear it from its
socket, or bench press a Toyota. If I couldn't arm wrestle Tommy, I
sure as hell couldn't match Jean-Claude.
"He's the new Master of the City, isn't he?" It was
Irving. I think we had forgotten about him. It would have been
better for Irving if we had.
Jean-Claude's grip tightened slightly on my right
arm. He turned to look at Irving. "You are the reporter that has
been asking to interview me."
"Yes, I am." Irving sounded just the tiniest bit
nervous, not much, just the hint of tightness in his voice. He
looked brave and resolute. Good for Irving.
"Perhaps after I have spoken with this lovely young
woman, I will grant you your interview."
"Really?" Astonishment was plain in his voice. He
grinned widely at me. "That would be great. I'll do it any way you
want. It. . ."
"Silence." The word hissed and floated. Irving fell
quiet as if it were a spell.
"Irving, are you alright?" Funny me asking. I was the
one cheek to jowl with a vampire, but I asked anyway.
"Yeah," Irving said. That one word was squeezed small
with fear. "I've just never felt anything like him."
I glanced up at Jean-Claude. "He is sort of one of a
kind."
Jean-Claude turned his attention back to me. Oh,
goody. "Still making jokes, ma petite."
I stared up into his beautiful eyes, but they were
just eyes. He had given me the power to resist them. "It's a way to
pass the time. What do you want, Jean-Claude?"
"So brave, even now."
"You aren't going to do me on the street, in front of
witnesses. You may be the new Master, but you're also a
businessman. You're mainstream vampire. It limits what you can
do."
"Only in public," he said, so soft that only I heard
him.
"Fine, but we both agree you aren't going to do
violence here and now." I stared up at him. "So cut the theatrics
and tell me what the bloody hell you want."
He smiled then, a bare movement of lips, but he
released my arm and stepped back. "Just as you will not shoot me
down in the street without provocation."
I thought I had provocation, but nothing I could
explain to the police. "I don't want to be up on murder charges,
that's true."
His smile widened, still not fangs. He did that
better than any living vampire I knew. Was living vampire an
oxymoron? I wasn't sure anymore.
"So, we will not harm each other in public," he
said.
"Probably not," I said. "What do you want? I'm late
for an appointment."
"Are you raising zombies or slaying vampires
tonight?"
"Neither," I said.
He looked at me, waiting for me to say more. I
didn't. He shrugged and it was graceful. "You are my human servant,
Anita."
He'd used my real name, I knew I was in trouble now.
"Am not," I said.
He gave a long sigh. "You bear two of my marks."
"Not by choice," I said.
"You would have died if I had not shared my strength
with you."
"Don't give me crap about how you saved my life. You
forced two marks on me. You didn't ask or explain. The first mark
may have saved my life, great. The second mark saved yours. I
didn't have a choice either time."
"Two more marks and you will have immortality. You
will not age because I do not age. You will remain human, alive,
able to wear your crucifix. Able to enter a church. It does not
compromise your soul. Why do you fight me?"
"How do you know what compromises my soul? You don't
have one anymore. You traded your immortal soul for earthly
eternity. But I know that vampires can die, Jean-Claude. What
happens when you die? Where do you go? Do you just go poof? No, you
go to hell where you belong."
"And you think by being my human servant you will go
with me?"
"I don't know, and I don't want to find out."
"By fighting me, you make me appear weak. I cannot
afford that, ma petite. One way or another, we must
resolve this."
"Just leave me alone."
"I cannot. You are my human servant, and you must
begin to act like one."
"Don't press me on this, Jean-Claude."
"Or what, will you kill me? Could you kill me?"
I stared at his beautiful face and said, "Yes."
"I feel your desire for me, ma petite, as I
desire you."
I shrugged. What could I say? "It's just a little
lust, Jean-Claude, nothing special." That was a lie. I knew it even
as I said it.
"No, ma petite, I mean more to you than
that."
We were attracting a crowd, at a safe distance. "Do
you really want to discuss this in the street?"
He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "Very
true. You make me forget myself, ma petite."
Great. "I really am late, Jean-Claude. The police are
waiting for me."
"We must finish this discussion, ma petite,"
he said.
I nodded. He was right. I'd been trying to ignore it,
and him. Master vampires are not easy to ignore. "Tomorrow
night."
"Where?" he asked.
Polite of him not to order me to his lair. I thought
about where best to do it. I wanted Charles to go down to the
Tenderloin with me. Charles was going to be checking the zombie
working conditions at a new comedy club. Good a place as any. "Do
you know The Laughing Corpse?"
He smiled, a glimpse of fang touching his lips. A
woman in the small crowd gasped. "Yes."
"Meet me there at, say, eleven o'clock."
"My pleasure." The words caressed my skin like a
promise. Shit.
"I will await you in my office, tomorrow night."
"Wait a minute. What do you mean, your office?" I had
a bad feeling about this.
His smile widened into a grin, fangs glistening in
the streetlights. "Why, I own The Laughing Corpse. I thought you
knew."
"The hell you did."
"I will await you."
I'd picked the place. I'd stand by it. Dammit. "Come
on, Irving."
"No, let the reporter stay. He has not had his
interview."
"Leave him alone, Jean-Claude, please."
"I will give him what he desires, nothing more."
I didn't like the way he said desires. "What are you
up to?"
"Me, ma petite, up to something?" He smiled.
"Anita, I want to stay," Irving said.
I turned to him. "You don't know what you're
saying."
"I'm a reporter. I'm doing my job."
"Swear to me, swear to me you won't harm him."
"You have my word," Jean-Claude said.
"That you will not harm him in any way."
"That I will not harm him in any way." His face was
expressionless, as if all the smiles had been illusions. His face
had that immobility of the long dead. Lovely to look at, but empty
of life as a painting.
I looked into his blank eyes and shivered. Shit. "Are
you sure you want to stay here?"
Irving nodded. "I want the interview."
I shook my head. "You're a fool."
"I'm a good reporter," he said.
"You're still a fool."
"I can take care of myself, Anita."
We looked at each other for a space of heartbeats.
"Fine, have fun. May I have the file?"
He looked down at his arms as if he had forgotten he
was holding it. "Drop it by tomorrow morning or Madeline is going
to have a fit."
"Sure. No problem." I tucked the bulky file under my
left arm as loosely as I could manage it. It hampered my being able
to draw my gun, but life's imperfect.
I had information on Gaynor. I had the name of a
recent ex-girlfriend. A woman scorned. Maybe she'd talk to me.
Maybe she'd help me find clues. Maybe she'd tell me to go to hell.
Wouldn't be the first time.
Jean-Claude was watching me with his still eyes. I
took a deep breath through my nose and let it out through my mouth.
Enough for one night. "See you both tomorrow." I turned and walked
away. There was a group of tourists with cameras. One was sort of
tentatively raised in my direction.
"If you snap my picture, I will take the camera away
from you and break it." I smiled while I said it.
The man lowered his camera uncertainly. "Geez, just a
little picture."
"You've seen enough," I said. "Move on, the show's
over." The tourists drifted away like smoke when the wind blows
through it. I walked down the street towards the parking garage. I
glanced back and found the tourists had drifted back to surround
Jean-Claude and Irving. The tourists were right. The show wasn't
over yet.
Irving was a big boy. He wanted the interview. Who
was I to play nursemaid on a grown werewolf? Would Jean-Claude find
out Irving's secret? If he did, would it make a difference? Not my
problem. My problem was Harold Gaynor, Dominga Salvador, and a
monster that was eating the good citizens of St. Louis, Missouri.
Let Irving take care of his own problems. I had enough of my
own.
Chapter 14
The night sky was a curving bowl of liquid black.
Stars like pinprick diamonds gave a cold, hard fight. The moon was
a glowing patchwork of greys and goldish-silver. The city makes you
forget how dark the night, how bright the moon, how very many
stars.
Burrell Cemetery didn't have any streetlights. There
was nothing but the distant yellow gleam of a house's windows. I
stood at the top of the hill in my coveralls and Nikes,
sweating.
The boy's body was gone. It was in the morgue waiting
for the coroner's attentions. I was finished with it. Never had to
look at it again. Except in my dreams.
Dolph stood beside me. He didn't say a word, just
looked out over the grass and broken tombstones, waiting. Waiting
for me to do my magic. To pull the rabbit out of the hat. The best
that could happen was the rabbit to be in and to destroy it. Next
best thing was finding the hole it had come from. That could tell
us something. And something was better than what we had right
now.
The exterminators followed a few paces behind. The
man was short, beefy, grey hair cut in a butch. He looked like a
retired football coach, but he handled the flamethrower strapped to
his back like it was something alive. Thick hands caressing it.
The woman was young, no more than twenty. Thin blond
hair tied back in a ponytail. She was a little taller than me,
small. Wisps of hair trailed across her face. Her eyes were wide
and searched the tall grass, side to side. Like a gunner on
point.
I hoped she didn't have an itchy trigger finger. I
didn't want to be eaten by a killer zombie, but I didn't want to be
plastered with napalm either. Burned alive or eaten alive? Is there
anything else on the menu?
The grass rustled and whispered like dry autumn
leaves. If we did use the flamethrowers in here, it'd be a grass
fire. We'd be lucky to outrun it. But fire was the only thing that
could stop a zombie. If it was a zombie and not something else
altogether.
I shook my head and started walking. Doubts would get
us nowhere. Act like you know what you're doing; it was a rule I
lived by.
I am sure that Señora Salvador would have had
a specific rite or sacrifice to find a zombie's grave. Her way of
doing all this had more rules than my way. Of course her way
enabled her to trap souls in rotting corpses. I had never hated
anyone enough to do that to them. Kill them, yes, but entrap their
soul and make it sit and wait and feel its body rotting. No, that
was worse than wicked. It was evil. She needed to be stopped, and
only death would do that. I sighed. Another problem for another
night.
It bothered me to hear Dolph's footsteps echoing
mine. I glanced back at the two exterminators. They killed
everything from termites to ghouls, but ghouls are cowards,
scavengers mostly. Whatever we were after wasn't a scavenger.
I could feel the three of them at my back. Their
footsteps seemed louder than mine. I tried to clear my mind and
start the search, but all I could hear was their footsteps. All I
could sense was the woman's fear. They were messing up my
concentration.
I stopped. "Dolph, I need more room."
"What does that mean?"
"Hang back a little. You're ruining my
concentration."
"We might be too far away to help."
"If the zombie rises out of the ground and leeches on
me . . ." I shrugged. "What are you going to do, shoot it with
napalm and crispy-critter me, too?"
"You said fire was the only weapon," he said.
"It is, but if the zombie actually grapples with
anyone, tell the exterminators not to fry the victim."
"If the zombie grabs one of us, we can't use the
napalm?" he said.
"Bingo."
"You could have said this sooner."
"I just thought of it."
"Great," he said.
I shrugged. "I'll take point. My oversight. Just hang
back and let me do my job." I stepped in close to him to whisper,
"And watch the woman. She looks scared enough to start shooting
shadows."
"They're exterminators, Anita, not police or vampire
slayers."
"For tonight, our lives could depend on them, so keep
an eye on her, okay?"
He nodded and glanced back at the two exterminators.
The man smiled and nodded. The girl just stared. I could almost
smell her fear.
She was entitled to it. Why did it bother me so much?
Because she and I were the only women here, and we had to be better
than the men. Braver, quicker, whatever. It was a rule for playing
with the big boys.
I walked out into the grass alone. I waited until the
only thing I could hear was the grass; soft, dry, whispering. Like
it was trying to tell me something in a scratchy, frantic voice.
Frantic, fearful. The grass sounded afraid. That was stupid. Grass
didn't feel shit. But I did, and there was sweat on every inch of
my body. Was it here? Was the thing that had reduced a man to so
much raw meat, here in the grass, hiding, waiting?
No. Zombies weren't smart enough for that, but of
course, it had been smart enough to hide from the police. That was
smart for a corpse. Too smart. Maybe it wasn't a zombie at all. I
had finally found something that scared me more than vampires.
Death didn't bother me much. Strong Christian and all that. Method
of death did. Being eaten alive. One of my top three ways not to go
out.
Who would ever have thought I'd be afraid of a
zombie, any kind of zombie? Nicely ironic that. I'd laugh later
when my mouth wasn't so damn dry.
There was that quiet waiting that all cemeteries
have. As if the dead held their collective breath, waiting, but for
what? The resurrection? Maybe. But I've dealt with the dead too
long to believe in just one answer. The dead are like the living.
They do different things.
Most people die and go to heaven or hell, and that's
that. But a few, for whatever reason, don't work that way. Ghosts,
restless spirits, violence, evil, or simple confusion; all of these
can trap a spirit on earth. I'm not saying that it traps the soul.
I don't believe that, but some memory of the soul, the essence,
lingers.
Was I expecting some specter to rise from the grass
and rush screaming towards me? No. I had never seen a ghost yet
that could cause actual physical harm. If it causes physical
damage, it isn't a ghost; demon maybe, or the spirit of some
sorcerer, black magic, but ghosts don't hurt.
That was almost a comforting thought.
The ground sloped out from under my feet. I stumbled
and caught myself on one of the leaning headstones. Sunken earth, a
grave without a marker. A tingling shock ran up my leg, a whisper
of ghostly electricity. I jerked back and sat down hard on the
ground.
"Anita, you all right?" Dolph yelled.
I glanced back at him and found the grass completely
hid me from view. "I'm fine," I yelled. I got to my feet careful to
avoid stepping on the old grave. Whatever person lay under the
earth, he, or she, was not a happy camper. It was a hot spot, not a
ghost, or even a haunt, but something. It had probably been a
full-blown ghost once, but time had worn it away. Ghosts wear out
like old clothes and go on to wherever old ghosts go.
The sunken grave would fade away, probably in my
lifetime. If I could avoid killer zombies for a few years. And
vampires. And gun-toting humans. Oh, hell, the hot spot would
probably outlast me.
I looked back to find Dolph and the exterminators
maybe twenty yards back. Twenty yards, wasn't that awfully far? I
had told them to hang back, but I hadn't meant for them to leave me
hanging in the wind. I was just never satisfied.
If I called them to come closer, you think they'd get
mad? Probably. I started walking again, trying not to step on any
more graves. But it was hard with most of the stones hidden in the
long grass. So many unmarked graves, so much neglect.
I could wander aimlessly all bloody night. Had I
really thought that I could just accidentally walk over the right
grave?
Yes. Hope springs eternal, especially when the
alternative isn't very human.
Vampires were once ordinary human beings; zombies,
too. Most lycanthropes start out human, though there are a few rare
inherited curses. All the monsters start out normal except me.
Raising the dead wasn't a career choice. I didn't sit down in the
guidance counselor's office one day and say, "I'd like to raise the
dead for a living." No, it wasn't that neat or clean.
I have always had an affinity for the dead. Always.
Not the newly dead. No, I don't mess with souls, but once the soul
departs, I know it. I can feel it. Laugh all you want. It's the
truth.
I had a dog when I was little. Just like most kids.
And like most kids' dogs, she died. I was thirteen. We buried Jenny
in the backyard. I woke up a week after Jenny died and found her
curled up beside me. Thick black fur coated with grave dirt. Dead
brown eyes following my every move, just like when she was
alive.
I thought for one wild moment she was alive. It had
been a mistake, but I know dead when I see it. Feel it. Call it
from the grave. I wonder what Dominga Salvador would think about
that story. Calling an animal zombie. How shocking. Raising the
dead by accident. How frightening. How sick.
My stepmother, Judith, never quite recovered from the
shock. She rarely tells people what I do for a living. Dad? Well,
Dad ignores it, too. I tried ignoring it, but couldn't. I won't go
into details, but does the term "road kill" have any significance
for you? It did for Judith. I looked like a nightmare version of
the Pied Piper.
My father finally took me to meet my maternal
grandmother. She's not as scary as Dominga Salvador, but she's . .
. interesting. Grandma Flores agreed with Dad. I should not be
trained in voodoo, only in enough control to stop the . . .
problems. "Just teach her to control it," Dad said.
She did. I did. Dad took me back home. It was never
mentioned again. At least not in front of me. I always wondered
what dear stepmother said behind closed doors. For that matter Dad
wasn't pleased either. Hell, I wasn't pleased.
Bert recruited me straight out of college. I never
knew how he heard about me. I refused him at first, but he waved
money at me. Maybe I was rebelling against parental
expectations? Or maybe I had finally realized that there is damn
little employment opportunity for a B.S. in biology with an
emphasis on the supernatural. I minored in creatures of legend.
That was real helpful on my resume.
It was like having a degree in ancient Greek or the
Romantic Poets, interesting, enjoyable, but then what the hell can
you do with it? I had planned to go on to grad school and teach
college. But Bert came along and showed me a way to turn my natural
talent into a job. At least I can say I use my degree every
day.
I never puzzled about how I came to do what I do.
There was no mystery. It was in the blood.
I stood in the graveyard and took a deep breath. A
bead of sweat trickled down my face. I wiped it with the back of my
hand. I was sweating like a pig, and I still felt cold. Fear, but
not of the bogeyman, of what I was about to do.
If it were a muscle, I would move it. If it were a
thought, I would think it. If it were a magic word, I could say it.
It is nothing like that. It is like my skin becomes cool even under
cloth. I can feel all my nerve endings naked to the wind. And even
in this hot, sweating August night, my skin felt cool. It is almost
like a tiny, cool wind emanates from my skin. But it isn't wind, no
one else can feel it. It doesn't blow through a room like a
Hollywood horror movie. It isn't flashy. It's quiet. Private.
Mine.
The cool fingers of "wind" searched outward. Within a
ten-to-fifteen-foot circle I would be able to search the graves. As
I moved, the circle would move with me, searching.
How does it feel to search through the hard-packed
earth for dead bodies? Like nothing human. The closest I can come
to describing it is like phantom fingers rifling through the dirt,
searching for the dead. But, of course, that isn't quite what it
feels like either. Close but no cigar.
The coffin nearest me had been water-ruined years
ago. Bits of warped wood, shreds of bone, nothing whole. Bone and
old wood, dirt, clean and dead. The hot spot flared almost like a
burning sensation. I couldn't read its coffin. The hot spot could
keep its secrets. It wasn't worth forcing the issue. It was a life
force of sorts, trapped to a dead grave until it faded. That is
bound to make you grumpy.
I walked slowly forward. The circle moved with me. I
touched bones, intact coffins, bits of cloth in newer graves. This
was an old cemetery. There were no decaying corpses. Death had
progressed to the nice neat stage.
Something grabbed my ankle. I jumped and walked
forward without looking down. Never look down. It's a rule. I got a
brief glimpse just behind my eyes of something pale and mist-like
with wide screaming eyes.
A ghost, a real-live ghost. I had walked over its
grave and it had let me know it didn't like it. A ghost had grabbed
me round the ankles. Big deal. If you ignored them, the spectral
hands would fade. If you noticed them, you gave them substance, and
you could be in deep shit.
Important safety tip with most of the spiritual
world: if you ignore it, it has less power. This does not work with
demons or other demi-beings. Other exceptions to the rule are
vampires, zombies, ghouls, lycanthropes, witches . . . Oh, hell,
ignoring only works for ghosts. But it does work.
Phantom hands tugged at my pants leg. I could feel
skeletal fingers pulling upwards, as if it would use me to pull
itself from the grave. Shit! I was eating my pulse between my
teeth. Just keep walking. Ignore it. It will go away. Dammit to
hell.
The fingers slipped away, reluctantly. Some types of
ghost seem to bear a grudge against the living. A sort of jealousy.
They cannot harm you, but they scare the bejesus out of you and
laugh while they're doing it.
I found an empty grave. Bits of wood decaying into
the earth, but no trace of bone. No body. Empty. The earth above it
was thick with grass and weeds. The earth was hard-packed and dry
from the drought. The grass and weeds had been disturbed. Bare
roots were showing, almost as if someone had tried to pull the
grass up. Or something had come up underneath the grass and left a
trail.
I knelt on all fours above the dying grass. My hands
stayed on top of the hard, reddish dirt, but I could feel the
inside of the grave like rolling your tongue around your teeth. You
can't see it, but you can feel it.
The corpse was gone. The coffin was undisturbed. A
zombie had come from here. Was it the zombie we were looking for?
No guarantees. But it was the only zombie raising I could
sense.
I stared out away from the grave. It was hard using
just my eyes to search the grass. I could almost see what lay under
the dirt. But the grave showed behind my eyes in my head somewhere
where there were no optic nerves. The graveyard that I could see
with my eyes ended at a fence maybe five yards away. Had I walked
it all? Was this the only grave that was empty?
I stood and looked out over the graves. Dolph and the
two exterminators were still with me about thirty yards back.
Thirty yards? Some backup.
I had walked it all. There was the grabby ghost. The
hot spot was there. The newest grave over there. It was mine now. I
knew this cemetery. And everything that was restless. Everything
that wasn't quite dead was dancing above its grave. White misty
phantoms. Sparkling angry lights. Agitated. There was more than one
way to wake the dead.
But they would quiet down and sleep, if that was the
word. No permanent damage. I glanced back down at the empty grave.
No permanent damage.
I waved Dolph and the others over. I got a Ziploc bag
out of the coverall pocket and scooped some grave dirt into it.
The moonlight suddenly seemed dimmer. Dolph was
standing over me. He did sort of loom.
"Well?" he asked.
"A zombie came out of this grave," I said.
"Is it the killer zombie?"
"I don't know for sure."
"You don't know?"
"Not yet."
"When will you know?"
"I'll take it to Evans and let him do his
touchie-feelie routine on it."
"Evans, the clairvoyant," Dolph said.
"Yep."
"He's a flake."
"True, but he's good."
"The department doesn't use him anymore."
"Bully for the department," I said. "He's still on
retainer at Animators, Inc."
Dolph shook his head. "I don't trust Evans."
"I don't trust anybody," I said. "So what's the
problem?"
Dolph smiled. "Point taken."
I had rolled some of the grass and weeds, roots
carefully intact, inside a second bag. I crawled to the head of the
grave and spread the weeds. There was no marker. Dammit! The pale
limestone had been chipped away at the base. Shattered. Carried
away. Shit.
"Why would they destroy the headstone?" Dolph
asked.
"The name and date could have given us some clue to
why the zombie was raised and to what went wrong."
"Wrong, how?"
"You might raise a zombie to kill one or two people
but not wholesale slaughter. Nobody would do that."
"Unless they're crazy," he said.
I stared up at him. "That's not funny."
"No, it isn't."
A madman that could raise the dead. A murderous
zombie corpse controlled by a psychotic. Great. And if he, or she,
could do it once. . .
"Dolph, if we have a crazy man running around, there
could be more than one zombie."
"And if it is crazy, then there won't be a pattern,"
he said.
"Shit."
"Exactly."
No pattern meant no motive. No motive meant we might
not be able to figure this out. "No, I don't believe that."
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because if I do believe it, it leaves us no place to
go." I took out a pocketknife that I brought for the occasion and
started to chip at the remains of the tombstone.
"Defacing a gravemarker is against the law," Dolph
said.
"Isn't it though." I scrapped a few smaller pieces
into a third bag, and finally got a sizable chunk of marble, big as
my thumb.
I stuffed all the bags into the pockets of my
coveralls, along with the pocketknife.
"You really think Evans will be able to read anything
from those bits and pieces?"
"I don't know." I stood and looked down at the grave.
The two exterminators were standing just a short distance away.
Giving us privacy. How very polite. "You know, Dolph, they may have
destroyed the tombstone, but the grave is still here."
"But the corpse is gone," he said.
"True, but the coffin might be able to tell us
something. Anything might help."
He nodded. "Alright, I'll get an exhumation
order."
"Can't we just dig it up now, tonight?"
"No," he said. "I have to play by the rules." He
stared at me very hard. "And I don't want to come back out here and
find the grave dug up. The evidence won't mean shit if you tamper
with it."
"Evidence? You really think this case will go to
court?"
"Yes."
"Dolph, we just need to destroy the zombie."
"I want the bastards that raised it, Anita. I want
them up on murder charges."
I nodded. I agreed with him, but I thought it
unlikely. Dolph was a policeman, he had to worry about the law. I
worried about simpler things, like survival.
"I'll let you know if Evans has anything useful to
say," I said.
"You do that."
"Wherever the beastie is, Dolph, it isn't here."
"It's out there, isn't it?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Killing someone else while we sit here and chase our
tails."
I wanted to touch him. To let him know it was all
right, but it wasn't all right. I knew how he felt. We were chasing
our tails. Even if this was the grave of the killer zombie, it
didn't get us any closer to finding the zombie. And we had to find
it. Find it, trap it, and destroy it. The
sixty-four-thousand-dollar question was, could we do all that
before it needed to feed again? I didn't have an answer. That was a
lie. I had an answer. I just didn't like it. Out there somewhere,
the zombie was feeding again.
Chapter 15
The trailer park where Evans lives is in St. Charles
just off Highway 94. Acres of mobile homes roll out in every
direction. Of course, there's nothing mobile about them. When I was
a kid, trailers could be hooked to the back of a car and moved.
Simple. It was one of their appeals. Some of these mobile homes had
three and four bedrooms, multiple baths. The only thing moving
these puppies was a semitruck, or a tornado.
Evans 's trailer is an older model. I think, if he
had to, he could chain it to the back of a pickup and move. Easier
than hiring a moving van, I guess. But I doubt Evans will ever
move. Hell, he hasn't left the trailer in nearly a year.
The windows were golden with light. There was a
little makeshift porch complete with an awning, guarding the door.
I knew he would be up. Evans was always up. Insomnia sounded so
harmless. Evans had made it a disease.
I was back in my black shorts outfit. The three bags
of goodies were stuffed in a fanny pack. If I went in there waving
them around, Evans would freak. I needed to work up to it, be
subtle. Just thought I'd drop by to see my old buddy. No ulterior
motives here. Right.
I opened the screen door and knocked. Silence. No
movement. Nothing. I raised my hand to knock again, then hesitated.
Had Evans finally gotten to sleep? His first decent night's sleep
since I'd known him. Drat. I was still standing there with my hand
half-raised when I felt him staring at me.
I looked up at the little window in the door. A slice
of pale face was staring out from between the curtains. Evans's
blue eye blinked at me.
I waved.
His face disappeared. The door unlocked, then opened.
There was no sight of Evans, just the open door. I walked in. Evans
was standing behind the door, hiding.
He closed the door by leaning against it. His
breathing was fast and shallow as if he'd been running. Stringy
yellow hair trailed over a dark blue bathrobe. His face was covered
in bristly reddish beard.
"How are you doing, Evans?"
He leaned against the door, eyes too wide. His
breathing was still too fast. Was he on something?
"Evans, you all right?" When in doubt, reverse your
word order.
He nodded. "What do you want?" His voice was
breathy.
I didn't think he was going to believe I had just
stopped by. Call it an instinct. "I need your help."
He shook his head. "No."
"You don't even know what I want."
He shook his head. "Doesn't matter."
"May I sit down?" I asked. If directness wouldn't
work, maybe politeness would.
He nodded. "Sure."
I glanced around the small living-room area. I was
sure there was a couch under the newspapers, paper plates,
half-full cups, old clothes. There was a box of petrified pizza on
the coffee table. The room smelled stale.
Would he freak if I moved stuff? Could I sit on the
pile that I thought was the couch without everything collapsing? I
decided to try. I'd sit in the freaking moldy pizza box if Evans
would agree to help me.
I perched on a pile of papers. There was definitely
something large and solid under the newspapers. Maybe the couch.
"May I have a cup of coffee?"
He shook his head. "No clean cups."
This I could believe. He was still pressed against
the door as if afraid to come any closer. His hands were plunged
into the pockets of his bathrobe.
"Can we just talk?" I asked.
He shook his head. I shook my head with him. He
frowned at that. Maybe somebody was home.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"I told you, your help."
"I don't do that anymore."
"What?" I asked.
"You know," he said.
"No, Evans, I don't know. Tell me."
"I don't touch things anymore."
I blinked. It was an odd way to phrase it. I stared
around at the piles of dirty dishes, the clothes. It did look
untouched. "Evans, let me see your hands."
He shook his head. I didn't imitate him this time.
"Evans, show me your hands."
"No," it was loud, clear.
I stood up and started walking towards him. It didn't
take long. He backed away into the corner by the door and the
doorway into the bedroom. "Show me your hands."
Tears welled in his eyes. He blinked, and the tears
slid down his cheeks. "Leave me alone," he said.
My chest was tight. What had he done? God, what had
he done? "Evans, either you show me your hands voluntarily, or I
make you do it." I fought an urge to touch his arm, but that was
not allowed.
He was crying harder now, small hiccupy sobs. He
pulled his left hand out of the robe pocket. It was pale, bony,
whole. I took a deep breath. Thank you, dear God.
"What did you think I'd done?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Don't ask."
He was looking at me now, really looking at me. I did
have his attention. "I'm not that crazy," he said.
I started to say, "I never thought you were," but
obviously I had. I had thought he had cut his hands off so he
wouldn't have to touch anymore. God, that was crazy. Seriously
crazy. And I was here to ask him to help me with a murder. Which of
us was crazier? Don't answer that.
He shook his head. "What are you doing here, Anita?"
The tears weren't even dry on his face, but his voice was calm,
ordinary.
"I need your help with a murder."
"I don't do that anymore. I told you."
"You told me once that you couldn't not have visions.
Your clairvoyance isn't something you can just turn off."
"That's why I stay in here. If I don't go out, I
don't see anybody. I don't have visions anymore."
"I don't believe you," I said.
He took a clean white handkerchief out of his pocket
and wrapped it around the doorknob. "Get out."
"I saw a three-year-old boy today. He'd been eaten
alive."
He leaned his forehead into the door. "Don't do this
to me, please."
"I know other psychics, Evans, but no one with your
success rate. I need the best. I need you."
He rubbed his forehead against the door. "Please
don't."
I should have gone then, left, done what he said, but
I didn't. I stood behind him and waited. Come on, old buddy, old
pal, risk your sanity for me. I was the ruthless zombie raiser. I
didn't feel guilt. Results were all that mattered. Ri-ight.
But in a way, results were all that mattered. "Other
people are going to die unless we can stop it," I said.
"I don't care," he said.
"I don't believe you."
He stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket and
whirled around. "The little boy, you're not lying about that, are
you?"
"I wouldn't lie to you."
He nodded. "Yeah, yeah." He licked his lips. "Give me
what ya got."
I got the bags out of my purse and opened the one
with the gravestone fragments in it. Had to start somewhere.
He didn't ask what it was, that would be cheating. I
wouldn't even have mentioned the boy except I needed the leverage.
Guilt is a wonderful tool.
His hand shook as I dropped the largest rock fragment
into his palm. I was very careful that my fingers did not brush his
hand. I didn't want Evans inside my secrets. It might scare him
off.
His hand clenched around the stone. A shock ran up
his spine. He jerked, eyes closed. And he was gone.
"Graveyard, grave." His head jerked to the side like
he was listening to something. "Tall grass. Hot. Blood, he's wiping
blood on the tombstone." He looked around the room with his closed
eyes. Would he have seen the room if his eyes had been open?
"Where does the blood come from?" he asked that. Was
I supposed to answer? "No, no!" He stumbled backwards, back
smacking into the door. "Woman screaming, screaming, no, no!"
His eyes flew open wide. He threw the rock fragment
across the room. "They killed her, they killed her!" He pressed his
fists into his eyes. "Oh, God, they slit her throat."
"Who is they?"
He shook his head, fists still shoved against his
face. "I don't know."
"Evans, what did you see?"
"Blood." He stared at me between his arms, shielding
his face. "Blood everywhere. They slit her throat. They smeared the
blood on the tombstone."
I had two more items for him. Dare I ask? Asking
didn't hurt. Did it? "I have two more items for you to touch."
"No fucking way," he said. He backed away from me
towards the short hall that led to the bedroom. "Get out, get out,
get the fuck out of my house. Now!"
"Evans, what else did you see?"
"Get out!"
"Describe one thing about the woman. Help me,
Evans!"
He leaned in the doorway and slid to sit on the
floor. "A bracelet. She wore a bracelet on her left wrist. Little
dangling charms, hearts, bow and arrow, music." He shook his head
and buried his head against his eyes. "Go away now."
I started to say thank you, but that didn't cut it. I
picked my way over the floor searching for the rock fragment. I
found it in a coffee cup. There was something green and growing in
the bottom of it. I picked up the stone and wiped it on a pair of
jeans on the floor. I put it back in the bag and shoved all of it
inside the purse.
I stared around at the filth and didn't want to leave
him here. Maybe I was just feeling guilty for having abused him.
Maybe. "Evans, thanks."
He didn't look up.
"If I had a cleaning person drop by, would you let
her in to clean?"
"I don't want anybody in here."
"Animators, Inc., could pick up the tab. We owe you
for this one."
He looked up then. Anger, pure anger was all that was
in his face. "Evans, get some help. You're tearing yourself
apart."
"Get-the-fuck-out-of-my-house." Each word was hot
enough to scald. I had never seen Evans angry. Scared, yes, but not
like this. What could I say? It was his house.
I got out. I stood on the shaky porch until I heard
the door lock behind me. I had what I wanted, information. So why
did I feel so bad? Because I had bullied a seriously disturbed man.
Okay, that was it. Guilt, guilt, guilt.
An image flashed into my head, the blood-soaked sheet
on the brown patterned couch. Mrs. Reynolds's spine dangling wet
and glistening in the sunlight.
I walked to my car and got in. If abusing Evans could
save one family, then it was worth it. If it would keep me from
having to see another three-year-old boy with his intestines ripped
out, I'd beat Evans with a padded club. Or let him beat me.
Come to think of it, wasn't that what we'd just
done?
Chapter 16
I was small in the dream. A child. The car was
crushed in front where it had been broadsided by another car. It
looked like it was made of shiny paper that had been crushed by
hand. The door was open. I crawled inside on the familiar
upholstery, so pale it was almost white. There was a dark liquid
stain on the seat. It wasn't all that large. I touched it,
tentatively.
My fingers came away smeared with crimson. It was the
first blood I'd ever seen. I stared up at the windshield. It was
broken in a spiderweb of cracks, bowed outward where my mother's
face had smashed into it. She had been thrown out the door to die
in a field beside the road. That's why there wasn't a lot of blood
on the seat.
I stared at the fresh blood on my fingers. In real
life the blood had been dry, just a stain. When I dreamed about it,
it was always fresh.
There was a smell this time. The smell of rotten
flesh. That wasn't right. I stared up in the dream and realized it
was a dream. And the smell wasn't part of it. It was real.
I woke instantly, staring into the dark. My heart
thudding in my throat. My hand went for the Browning in its second
home, a sheath attached to the headboard of my bed. It was firm and
solid, and comforting. I stayed on the bed, back pressed against
the headboard, gun held in a teacup grip.
Through a tiny crack in the drapes moonlight spilled.
The meager light outlined a man's shape. The shape didn't react to
the gun or my movement. It shuffled forward, dragging its feet
through the carpet. It had stumbled into my collection of toy
penguins that spilled like a fuzzy tide under my bedroom window. It
had knocked some of them over, and it didn't seem able to pick its
feet up and walk over them. The figure was wading through the
fluffy penguins, dragging its feet as if wading in water.
I kept the gun pointed one-handed at the thing and
reached without looking to turn on my bedside lamp. The light
seemed harsh after the darkness. I blinked rapidly willing my
pupils to contract, to adjust. When they did, and I could see, it
was a zombie.
He had been a big man in life. Shoulders broad as a
barn door filled with muscle. His huge hands were very strong
looking. One eye had dehydrated and was shriveled like a prune. The
remaining eye stared at me. There was nothing in that stare, no
anticipation, no excitement, no cruelty, nothing but a blankness. A
blankness that Dominga Salvador had filled with purpose. Kill she
had said. I would have bet on it.
It was her zombie. I couldn't turn it. I couldn't
order it to do anything until it fulfilled Dominga's orders. Once
it killed me, it would be docile as a dead puppy. Once it killed
me.
I didn't think I'd wait for that.
The Browning was loaded with Glazer Safety Rounds,
silver-coated. Glazer Safety Rounds will kill a man if you hit him
anywhere near the center of the body. The hole will be too big for
salvage. A hole in its chest wouldn't bother the zombie. It would
keep coming, heart or no heart. If you hit a person in the arm or
leg with Safety Rounds, it will take off that arm or leg. Instant
amputee. If you hit it right.
The zombie seemed in no hurry. He shuffled through
the fallen stuffed toys with that single-minded determination of
the dead. Zombies are not inhumanly strong. But they can use every
ounce of strength; they don't save anything. Almost any human being
could do a superhuman feat, once. Pop muscles, tear cartilage, snap
your spine, but you can lift the car. Only inhibitors in the brain
prevent us all from destroying ourselves. Zombies don't have
inhibitors. The corpse could literally tear me apart while it tore
itself apart. But if Dominga had really wanted to kill me, she
would have sent a less-decayed zombie. This one was so far gone I
might have been able to dodge around it, and make the door. Maybe.
But then again . . .
I cupped the butt of the gun in my left, the right
where it was supposed to be, my finger on the trigger. I pulled the
trigger and the explosion was incredibly loud in the small room.
The zombie jerked, stumbled. Its right arm flew off in
a welter of flesh and bone. No blood, it had been
dead too long for that.
The zombie kept coming.
I sighted on the other arm. Hold your breath,
squee-eeze. I was aiming for the elbow. I hit it. The two arms lay
on the carpet and began to worm their way towards the bed. I could
chop the thing to pieces, and all the pieces would keep trying to
kill me.
The right leg at the knee. The leg didn't come loose
completely, but the zombie toppled to one side, listing. It fell on
its side, then rolled onto its stomach and began pushing with its
remaining leg. Some dark liquid was leaking out of the shattered
leg. The smell was worse.
I swallowed, and it was thick. God. I got off the bed
on the far side away from the thing. I walked around the bed coming
in behind the thing. It knew instantly that I had moved. It tried
to turn and come at me, pushing with that last leg. The crawling
arms turned faster, fingers scrambling on the carpet. I stood over
it and blasted the other leg from less than two feet away. Bits and
pieces of it splattered onto my penguins. Damn.
The arms were almost at my bare feet. I fired two
quick shots and the hand shattered, exploding on the white carpet.
The handless arms flopped and struggled. They were still trying to
reach me.
There was a brush of cloth, a sense of movement just
behind me, in the darkened living room. I was standing with my back
to the open door. I turned and knew it was too late.
Arms grabbed me, clutching me to a very solid chest.
Fingers dug into my right arm, pinning the gun against my body. I
turned my head away, using my hair to shield my face and neck.
Teeth sank into my shoulder. I screamed.
My face was pressed against the thing's shoulder. The
fingers were digging in. It was going to crush my arm. The gun
barrel was pressed against its shoulder. Teeth tore at the flesh of
my shoulder, but it wasn't fangs. It only had human teeth to work
with. It hurt like hell, but it would be alright, if I could get
away.
I turned my face forward away from the shoulder and
pulled the trigger. The entire body jerked backwards. The left arm
crumbled. I rolled out of its grip. The arm dangled from my
forearm, fingers hanging on.
I was standing in the doorway of my bedroom staring
at the thing that had almost got me. It had been a white male,
about six-one, built like a football player. It was fresh from the
farm. Blood spattered where the shoulder had torn away. The fingers
on my arm tightened. It couldn't crush my arm, but I couldn't make
it let go either. I didn't have the time.
The zombie charged, one arm wide to grab me. I seemed
to have all the time in the world to lift the gun, two-handed. The
arm struggled and fought me as if it were still connected to the
zombie's brain. I got off two quick shots. The zombie stumbled, its
left leg collapsing, but it was too late. It was too close. As it
fell, it took me with it.
We landed on the floor with me on the bottom. I
managed to keep the Browning up, so that my arms were free and so
was the gun. His weight pinned my body, nothing I could do about
it. Blood glistened on his lips. I fired point-blank, closing my
eyes as I pulled the trigger. Not just because I didn't want to
see, but to save my eyes from bone shards.
When I looked, the head was gone except for a thin
line of naked jawbone and a fragment of skull. The remaining hand
scrambled for my throat. The hand still attached to my arm was
helping its body. I couldn't get the gun around to shoot the arm.
The angle was wrong.
A sound of something heavy sliding behind me. I
risked a glance, craning my neck backwards to see the first zombie
coming towards me. Its mouth, all that it had left to hurt me with,
was open wide.
I screamed and turned back to the one on top of me.
The attached hand fluttered at my neck. I pulled it away and gave
it its own arm to hold. It grabbed it. With the brain gone, it
wasn't as smart. I felt the fingers on my arm loosen. A shudder ran
through the dangling arm. Blood burst out of it like a ripe melon.
The fingers spasmed, releasing my arm. The zombie crushed its own
arm until it spattered and bones snapped.
The scrambling sounds behind me were closer.
"God!"
"Police! Come out with your hands up!" The voice was
male and loud from the hallway.
The hell with being cool and self-sufficient. "Help
me!"
"Miss, what's happening in there?"
The scrambling sounds were right next to me. I craned
my neck and found myself almost nose to nose with the first zombie.
I shoved the Browning in its open mouth. Its teeth scrapped on the
barrel, and I pulled the trigger.
A policeman was suddenly in the doorway framed
against the darkness. From my angle he was huge. Curly brown hair,
going gray, mustache, gun in hand. "Jesus," he said.
The second zombie dropped its crushed arm and reached
for me again. The policeman took a firm grip of the zombie's belt
and pulled him upward with one hand. "Get her out of here," he
said.
His partner moved in, but I didn't give him time. I
scrambled out from under the half-raised body, scuttling on all
fours into the living room. You didn't have to ask me twice. The
partner lifted me to my feet by one arm. It was my right and the
Browning came up with it.
Normally, a cop will make you drop your gun before
anything else. There, is usually no way to tell who the bad guy is.
If you have a gun, you are a bad guy unless proven otherwise.
Innocent until proven guilty does not work in the field.
He scooped the gun from my hand. I let him. I knew
the drill.
A gunshot exploded behind us. I jumped, and the cop
did, too. He was about my age, but right then I felt about a
million years old. We turned and found the first cop shooting into
the zombie. The thing had struggled free of his hand. It was on its
feet, staggered by the bullets but not stopped.
"Get over here, Brady," the first cop said. The
younger cop drew his gun and moved forward. He hesitated, glancing
at me.
"Help him," I said.
He nodded and started firing into the zombie. The
sound of gunfire was like thunder. It filled the room until my ears
were ringing and the reek of gunpowder was almost overpowering.
Bullet holes blossomed in the walls. The zombie kept staggering
forward. They were just annoying it.
The problem for police is that they can't load up
with Glazer Safety Rounds. Most cops don't run into the
supernatural as much as I do. Most of the time they're chasing
human crooks. The powers that be frown on taking off the leg of
John Q. Public just 'cause he fired at you. You're not really
supposed to kill people just because they're trying to kill you.
Right?
So they had normal rounds, maybe a little silver
coating to make the medicine go down, but nothing that could stop a
zombie. They were being backed up. One reloaded while the other
fired. The thing staggered forward. Its remaining arm sweeping in
front of it, searching. For me. Shit.
"My gun's loaded with Glazer Safety Rounds," I said.
"Use it."
The first cop said, "Brady, I told you to get her out
of here."
"You needed help," Brady said.
"Get the civilian the fuck out of here."
Civilian, me?
Brady didn't question again. He just backed towards
me, gun out but not firing. "Come on, miss, we gotta get out of
here."
"Give me my gun."
He glanced at me, shook his head.
"I'm with the Regional Preternatural Investigation
Team." Which was true. I was hoping he would assume I was a cop,
which wasn't true.
He was young. He assumed. He handed me back the
Browning. "Thanks."
I moved up with the older cop. "I'm with the Spook
Squad."
He glanced at me, gun still trained on the advancing
corpse. "Then do something."
Someone had turned on the living-room light. Now that
no one was shooting it, the zombie was moving out. It walked like a
man striding down the street, except it had no head and only one
arm. There was a spring in its step. Maybe it sensed I was
close.
The body was in better condition than the first
zombie's had been. I could cripple it but not incapacitate it. I'd
settle for crippled. I fired a third round into the left leg that I
had wounded earlier. I had more time to aim, and my aim was
true.
The leg collapsed under it. It pulled itself forward
with the one arm, leg pushing against the rug. He was on his last
leg. I started to smile, then to laugh, but it choked in my throat.
I walked around the far side of the couch. I didn't want any
accidents after what I'd seen it do to its own body. I didn't want
any crushed limbs.
I came in behind it, and it scrambled quicker than it
should have to try to face me. It took two shots for the other leg.
I couldn't remember how many bullets I'd used. Did I have one more
left, or two, or none?
I felt like Dirty Harry, except that this punk didn't
give a damn how many bullets I had left. The dead don't scare
easy.
It was still pulling itself and its damaged legs
along. That one hand. I fired nearly point-blank, and the hand
exploded like a crimson flower on the white carpet. It kept coming,
using the wrist stump to push along.
I pulled the trigger, and it clicked empty. Shit.
"I'm out," I said. I stepped back away from it. It followed me.
The older cop moved in and grabbed it by both ankles.
He pulled it backwards. One leg slid slowly out of the pants and
twisted free in his hand. "Fuck!" He dropped the leg. It wiggled
like a broken-backed snake.
I stared down at the still determined corpse. It was
struggling towards me. It wasn't making much progress. The
policeman was holding it one-legged sort of in the air. But the
zombie kept trying. It would keep trying until it was incinerated
or Dominga Salvador changed her orders.
More uniformed cops came in the door. They fell on
the butchered zombie like vultures on a wildebeest. It bucked and
struggled. Fought to get away, to finish its mission. To kill me.
There were enough cops to subdue it. They would hold it until the
lab boys arrived. The lab boys would do what they could on-site.
Then the zombie would be incinerated by an exterminator team. They
had tried taking zombies down to the morgue and holding them for
tests, but little pieces kept escaping and hiding out in the
strangest places.
The medical examiner had decreed that all zombies
were to be truly dead before shipping. The ambulance crew and lab
techs agreed with her. I sympathized but knew that most evidence
disappears in a fire. Choices, choices.
I stood to one side of my living room. They had
forgotten me in the melee. Fine, I didn't feel like wrestling any
more zombies tonight. I realized for the first time that I was
wearing nothing but an oversize T-shirt and panties. The T-shirt
clung wetly to my body, thick with blood. I started towards the
bedroom. I think I meant to get a pair of pants. The sight on the
floor stopped me.
The first zombie was like a legless insect. It
couldn't move, but it was trying. The bloody stump of a body was
still trying to carry out its orders. To kill me.
Dominga Salvador had meant to kill me. Two zombies,
one almost new. She had meant to kill me. That one thought chased
round my head like a piece of song. We had threatened each other,
but why this level of violence? Why kill me? I couldn't stop her
legally. She knew that. So why make such a damned serious attempt
to kill me?
Maybe because she had something to hide? Dominga had
given her word that she hadn't raised the killer zombie, but maybe
her word didn't mean anything. It was the only answer. She had
something to do with the killer zombie. Had she raised it? Or did
she know who had? No. She'd raised the beast or why kill me the
night after I talked to her? It was too big a coincidence. Dominga
Salvador had raised a zombie, and it had gotten away from her. That
was it. Evil as she was, she wasn't psychotic. She wouldn't just
raise a killer zombie and let it loose. The great voodoo queen had
screwed up royally. That, more than anything else, more than the
deaths, or the possible murder charge, would piss her off. She
couldn't afford her reputation to be trashed like that.
I stared past the bloody, stinking remnants in the
bedroom. My stuffed penguins were covered in blood and worse. Could
my long suffering dry cleaner get them clean? He did pretty good
with my suits.
Glazer Safety Rounds didn't go through walls. It was
another reason I liked them. My neighbors didn't get shot up. The
police bullets had pierced the bedroom walls. Neat round holes were
everywhere.
No one had ever attacked me at home before, not like
this. It should have been against the rules. You should be safe in
your own bed. I know, I know. Bad guys don't have rules. It's one
of the reasons they're bad guys.
I knew who had raised the zombie. All I had to do was
prove it. There was blood everywhere. Blood and worse things. I was
actually getting used to the smell. God. But it stank. The whole
apartment stank. Almost everything in my apartment is white; walls,
carpet, couch, chair. It made the stains show up nicely, like fresh
wounds. The bullet holes and cracked plaster board set off the
blood nicely.
The apartment was trashed. I would prove Dominga had
done this, then, if I was lucky, I'd get to return the favor.
"Sweets to the sweet," I whispered to no one in
particular. Tears started to burn at the back of my throat. I
didn't want to cry, but a scream was sort of tickling around in my
throat, too. Crying or screaming. Crying seemed better.
The paramedics came. One was a short black woman
about my own age. "Come on, honey, we got to take a look at you."
Her voice was gentle, her hands sort of leading me away from the
carnage. I didn't even mind her calling me honey.
I wanted very much to crawl up into someone's lap
about now and be comforted. I needed that badly. I wasn't going to
get it.
"Honey, we need to see how bad you're bleeding before
we take you down to the ambulance."
I shook my head. My voice sounded far away, detached.
"It's not my blood."
"What?"
I looked at her, fighting to focus and not drift.
Shock was setting in. I'm usually better than this, but hey, we all
have our nights.
"It's not my blood. I've got a bite on the shoulder,
that's it."
She looked like she didn't believe me. I didn't blame
her. Most people see you covered in blood, they just assume part of
it has to be yours. They do not take into account that they are
dealing with a tough-as-nails vampire slayer and corpse raiser.
The tears were back, stinging just behind my eyes.
There was blood all over my penguins. I didn't give a damn about
the walls and carpet. They could be replaced, but I'd collected
those damned stuffed toys over years. I let the paramedic lead me
away. Tears trickling down my cheeks. I wasn't crying, my eyes were
running. My eyes were running because there were pieces of zombie
all over my toys. Jesus.
Chapter 17
I'd seen enough crime scenes to know what to expect.
It was like a play I'd seen too many times. I could tell you all
the entrances, the exits, most of the lines. But this was
different. This was my place.
It was silly to be offended that Dominga Salvador had
attacked me in my own home. It was stupid, but there it was. She
had broken a rule. One I hadn't even known I had. Thou shalt not
attack the good guy in his, or her, own home. Shit.
I was going to nail her hide to a tree for it. Yeah,
me and what army? Maybe, me and the police.
The living-room curtains billowed in the hot breeze.
The glass had been shattered in the firefight. I was glad I had
just signed a two-year lease. At least they couldn't kick me
out.
Dolph sat across from me in my little kitchen area.
The breakfast table with its two straight-backed chairs seemed tiny
with him sitting at it. He sort of filled my kitchen. Or maybe I
was just feeling small tonight. Or was it morning?
I glanced at my watch. There was a dark, slick smear
obscuring the face. Couldn't read it. Would have to chip the damn
thing clean. I tucked my arm back inside the blanket the paramedic
had given me. My skin was colder than it should have been. Even
thoughts of vengeance couldn't warm me. Later, later I would be
warm. Later I would be pissed. Right now I was glad to be
alive.
"Okay, Anita, what happened?"
I glanced at the living room. It was nearly empty.
The zombies had been carried away. Incinerated on the street no
less. Entertainment for the entire neighborhood. Family fun.
"Could I change clothes before I give a statement,
please?"
He looked at me for maybe a second, then nodded.
"Great." I got up gripping the blanket around me,
edges folded carefully. Didn't want to accidentally trip on the
ends. I'd embarrassed myself enough for one night.
"Save the T-shirt for evidence," Dolph called.
I said, "Sure thing," without turning around.
They had thrown sheets over the worst of the stains
so they didn't track blood all over the apartment building. Nice.
The bedroom stank of rotted corpse, stale blood, old death. God.
I'd never be able to sleep in here tonight. Even I had my
limits.
What I wanted was a shower, but I didn't think Dolph
would wait that long. I settled for jeans, socks, and a clean
T-shirt. I carried all of it into the bathroom. With the door
closed, the smell was very faint. It looked like my bathroom. No
disasters here.
I dropped the blanket on the floor with the T-shirt.
There was a bulky bandage over my shoulder where the zombie had
bitten me. I was lucky it hadn't taken a hunk of flesh. The
paramedic warned me to get a tetanus booster. Zombies don't make
more zombies by biting, but the dead have nasty mouths. Infection
is more of a danger but a tetanus booster is a precaution.
Blood had dried in flaking patches on my legs and
arms. I didn't bother washing my hands. I'd shower later. Get
everything clean at once.
The T-shirt hung almost to my knees. A huge
caricature of Arthur Conan Doyle was on the front. He was peering
through a huge magnifying glass, one eye comically large. I gazed
into the mirror over the sink, looking at the shirt. It was soft
and warm and comforting. Comforting was good right now.
The old T-shirt was ruined. No saving it. But maybe I
could save some of the penguins. I ran cold water into the bathtub.
If it was a shirt, I'd soak it in cold water. Maybe it worked with
toys.
I got a pair of jogging shoes out from under the bed.
I didn't really want to walk over the drying stains in only socks.
Shoes were made for such occasions. Alright, so the creator of Nike
Airs never foresaw walking over drying zombie blood. It's hard to
prepare for everything.
Two of the penguins were turning brown as the blood
dried. I carried them gingerly into the bathroom and laid them in
the water. I pushed them under until they soaked up enough water to
stay partially submerged, then I turned the water off. My hands
were cleaner. The water wasn't. Blood trailed out of the two soft
toys like water squeezed out of a sponge. If these two came clean,
I could save them all.
I dried my hands on the blanket. No sense getting
blood on anything else.
Sigmund, the penguin I occasionally slept with, was
barely spattered. Just a few specks across his fuzzy white belly.
Small blessings. I almost tucked him under my arm to hold while I
gave a statement. Dolph probably wouldn't tell. I put Sigmund a
little farther from the worst stains, as if that would help. Seeing
the stupid toy tucked safely in a corner did make me feel better.
Great.
Zerbrowski was peering at the aquarium. He glanced my
way. "These are the biggest freaking angelfish I've ever seen. You
could fry some of 'em up in a pan."
"Leave the fish alone, Zerbrowski," I said.
He grinned. "Sure, just a thought."
Back in the kitchen Dolph sat with his hands folded
on the tabletop. His face unreadable. If he was upset that I'd
almost cashed it in tonight, he didn't show it. But then Dolph
didn't show much of anything, ever. The most emotion I'd ever seen
him display was about this case. The killer zombie. Butchered
civilians.
"You want some coffee?" I asked.
"Sure."
"Me, too," Zerbrowski said.
"Only if you say please."
He leaned against the wall just outside the kitchen.
"Please." I got a bag of coffee out of the freezer.
"You keep the coffee in the freezer?" Zerbrowski
said.
"Hasn't anyone ever fixed real coffee for you?" I
asked.
"My idea of gourmet coffee is Taster's Choice."
I shook my head. "Barbarian."
"If you two are finished with clever repartee," Dolph
said, "could we start the statement now?" His voice was softer than
his words.
I smiled at him and at Zerbrowski. Damned if it
wasn't nice to see both of them. I must have been hurt worse than I
knew to be happy to see Zerbrowski.
"I was asleep minding my own business when I woke up
to find a zombie standing over me." I measured beans and poured
them into the little black coffee grinder that I'd bought because
it matched the coffee maker.
"What woke you?" Dolph asked.
I pressed the button on the grinder and the rich
smell of fresh ground coffee filled the kitchen. Ah, heaven.
"I smelled corpses," I said.
"Explain."
"I was dreaming, and I smelled rotting corpses. It
didn't match the dream. It woke me."
"Then what?" He had his ever present notebook out.
Pen poised.
I concentrated on each small step to making the
coffee and told Dolph everything, including my suspicions about
Señora Salvador. The coffee was beginning to perk and fill
the apartment with that wonderful smell that coffee always has by
the time I finished.
"So you think Dominga Salvador is our zombie raiser?"
Dolph said.
"Yes."
He stared at me across the small table. His eyes were
very serious. "Can you prove it?"
"No."
He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment.
"Great, just great."
"The coffee smells done," Zerbrowski said. He was
sitting on the floor, back propped against the kitchen doorway.
I got up and poured the coffee. "If you want sugar or
cream, help yourself." I put the cream, real cream, out on the
kitchen counter along with the sugar bowl. Zerbrowski took a lot of
sugar and a dab of cream. Dolph went for black. It was the way I
took it most of the time. Tonight I added cream and sweetened it.
Real cream in real coffee. Yum, yum.
"If we could get you inside Dominga's house, could
you find proof?" Dolph asked.
"Proof of something, sure, but of raising the killer
zombie . . . " I shook my head. "If she did raise it and it got
away, then she won't want to be tied to it. She'll have destroyed
all the proof, just to save face."
"I want her for this," Dolph said.
"Me, too."
"She might also try and kill you again," Zerbrowski
said from the doorway. He was blowing on his coffee to cool it.
"No joke," I said.
"You think she'll try again?" Dolph asked.
"Probably. How the hell did two zombies get inside my
apartment?"
"Someone picked the lock," Dolph said. "Could the
zombie . . ."
"No, a zombie would rip a door off its hinges, but it
wouldn't take the time to pick a lock. Even if it had the fine
motor skill to do it."
"So someone with skill opened the door and let them
in," Dolph said.
"Appears so," I said.
"Any ideas on that?"
"I would bet one of her bodyguards. Her grandson
Antonio or maybe Enzo. A big guy in his forties who seems to be her
personal protection. I don't know if either of them have the skill,
but they'd do it. Enzo, but not Antonio."
"Why cross him off?"
"If Tony had let the zombies in, he'd have stayed and
watched."
"You sure?"
I shrugged. "He's that kind of guy. Enzo would do
business and leave. He'd follow orders. The grandson wouldn't."
Dolph nodded. "There's a lot of heat from upstairs to
solve this case. I think I can get us a search warrant in
forty-eight hours."
"Two days is a long time, Dolph."
"Two days without one piece of proof, Anita. Except
for your word. I'm going out on a limb for this one."
"She's in it, Dolph, somehow. I don't know why, and I
don't know what could have caused her to lose control of the
zombie, but she's in it."
"I'll get the warrant," he said.
"One of the brothers in blue said you told him you
were a cop," Zerbrowski said.
"I told him I was with your squad. I never said I was
a cop."
Zerbrowski grinned. "Mmm-huh."
"Will you be safe here tonight?" Dolph asked.
"I think so. The Señora doesn't want to get on
the bad side of the law. They treat renegade witches sort of like
renegade vampires. It's an automatic death sentence."
"Because people are too scared of them," Dolph
said.
"Because some witches can slip through the fucking
bars."
"How about voodoo queens?" Zerbrowski said.
I shook my head. "I don't want to know."
"We better go, leave you to get some sleep," Dolph
said. He left his empty coffee cup on the table. Zerbrowski hadn't
finished his, but he put it on the counter and followed Dolph
out.
I walked them to the door.
"I'll let you know when we get the warrant," Dolph
said.
"Could you arrange for me to see Peter Burke's
personal effects?"
"Why?"
"There are only two ways to lose control of a zombie
this badly. One, you are strong enough to raise it, but not to
control it. Dominga can control anything she can raise. Second,
someone of near equal power interferes, sort of a challenge." I
stared up at Dolph. "John Burke might just be strong enough to have
done it. Maybe if I'm helpful enough to take John down to go over
his brother's effects—you know, does any of this look out of place,
that type of thing—maybe this Burke will let something slip."
"You've already got Dominga Salvador pissed at you,
Anita. Isn't that enough for one week?"
"For one lifetime," I said. "But it's something we
can do while we wait for the warrant."
Dolph nodded. "Yeah. I'll arrange it. Call Mr. Burke
tomorrow morning and set up a time. Then call me."
"Will do."
Dolph hesitated in the doorway for a moment. "Watch
your back."
"Always," I said.
Zerbrowski leaned into me and said, "Nice penguins."
He followed Dolph down the hallway. I knew the next time I saw the
rest of the spook squad they'd all know I collected toy penguins.
My secret was out. Zerbrowski would spread it far and wide. At
least, he was consistent.
It was nice to know something was.
Chapter 18
Stuffed animals are not meant to be submerged in
water. The two in the bathtub were ruined. Maybe spot remover? The
smell was thick and seemed permanent. I put an emergency message on
my cleaning service's answering machine. I didn't give a lot of
details. Didn't want to frighten them off.
I packed an overnight bag. Two changes of clothes and
one penguin with his tummy freshly scrubbed, Harold Gaynor's file,
and I was set. I also packed both guns: the Firestar in its inner
pants holster; the Browning under my arm. A windbreaker hid the
Browning from view. I had extra ammo in the jacket pockets. Between
both guns I had twenty-two bullets. Twenty-two bullets. Why didn't
I feel safe?
Unlike most walking dead, zombies can bear the touch
of sunlight. They don't like it, but they can exist with it.
Dominga could order a zombie to kill me in daylight just as easily
as moonlight. She wouldn't be able to raise the dead during
daylight, but if she planned it right, she could raise the dead the
night before and send it out to get me the next day. A voodoo
priestess with executive planning skills. It would be just my
luck.
I didn't really believe that Dominga had backup
zombies waiting to jump me. But somehow I was feeling paranoid this
morning. Paranoia is just another word for longevity.
I stepped out into the quiet hallway, glancing both
ways as if it were a street. Nothing. No walking corpses hiding in
the shadows. No one but us fraidy-cats. The only sound was the hush
of the air-conditioning. The hallway had that feel to it. I came
home often enough at dawn to know the quality of silence. I thought
about that for a minute. I knew it was almost dawn. Not by clock or
window, but on some level deeper than that. Some instinct that an
ancestor had found while hiding in a dark cave, praying for
light.
Most people fear the dark in a vague way. They fear
what might be out there. I raise the dead. I've slain over a dozen
vampires. I know what's out there in the dark. And I am terrified
of it. People are supposed to fear the unknown, but ignorance is
bliss when knowledge is so damn frightening.
I knew what would have happened to me if I had failed
last night. If I had been slower or a worse shot. Two years ago
there had been three murders. Nothing connected them except the
method of death. They had been torn apart by zombies. They had not
been eaten. Normal zombies don't eat anything. They may bite a time
or two, but that's the worst of it. There had been the man whose
throat was crushed, but that had been accidental. The zombie just
bit down on the nearest body part. It happened to be a killing
blow. Blind luck.
A zombie will normally just wrestle you to pieces.
Like a small boy tearing pieces off of a fly.
Raising a zombie for the purposes of being a murder
weapon is an automatic death sentence. The court system has gotten
rather quick on the draw the last few years. A death sentence meant
what it said these days. Especially if your crime was supernatural
in some way. You didn't burn witches anymore. You electrocuted
them.
If we could get proof, the state would kill Dominga
Salvador for me. John Burke, too, if we could prove he had
knowingly caused the zombie to go ape-shit. The trouble with
supernatural crimes is proving them in court. Most juries aren't up
on the latest spells and incantations. Heck, neither am I. But I've
tried explaining zombies and vampires in court before. I've learned
to keep it simple and to add any gory details the defense will
allow me. A jury appreciates a little vicarious adventure. Most
testimony is terribly boring or heartbreaking. I try to be
interesting. It's a change of pace.
The parking area was dark. Stars still glimmered
overhead. But they were fading like candles in a steady wind. I
could taste dawn on the air. Roll it around on my tongue. Maybe
it's all the vampire hunting I do, but I was more attuned to the
passage of light and dark than I had been four years ago. I hadn't
been able to taste the dawn.
Of course my nightmares were a lot less interesting
four years ago. You gain something, you lose something else. It's
the way life works.
It was after 5:00 A.M. when I got in my car and
headed out for the nearest hotel. I wouldn't be able to stand my
apartment until the cleaning crew got the smell out. If they could
get the smell out. My landlord was not going to be pleased if they
couldn't.
He was going to be even less pleased with the bullet
holes and shattered window. Replace the window. Replaster the
walls, maybe? I really didn't know what you did to repair bullet
holes? Here I was hoping my lease couldn't be challenged in
court.
The first hint of dawn was slipping over the eastern
sky. A pure white light that spread like ice over the darkness.
Most people think dawn is as colorful as sunset but the first color
of dawn is white, a pure not-color, that is almost an absence of
night.
There was a motel, but all its rooms were on one or
two stories, some of them awfully isolated. I wanted a crowd. I
settled on The Stouffer Concourse which wasn't terribly cheap but
it would force zombies to ride up in elevators. People tended to
notice the smell in an elevator. The Stouffer Concourse also had
room service at this ungodly hour of dawn. I needed room service.
Coffee, give me coffee.
The clerk gave me that
wide-eyed-I'm-too-polite-to-say-it-out-loud look. The elevators
were mirrored, and I had nothing to do for several floors but look
at my reflection. Blood had dried in a stiff darkness in my hair. A
stain went down the right side of my face just below the hairline
and trailed down my neck. I hadn't noticed it in the mirror at
home. Shock will make you forget things.
It wasn't the bloodstains that had made the clerk
look askance. Unless you knew what to look for, you wouldn't know
it was blood. No, the problem was that my skin was deathly pale,
like clean paper. My eyes that are perfectly brown looked black.
They were huge and dark and . . . strange. Startled, I looked
startled. Surprised to be alive. Maybe. I was still fighting off
the edge of shock. No matter how together I felt, my face told a
different story. When the shock wore off, I'd be able to sleep.
Until then, I'd read Gaynor's file.
The room had two double beds. More room than I
needed, but what the heck. I got out clean clothes, put the
Firestar in the drawer of the nightstand, and took the Browning
into the bathroom with me. If I was careful and didn't turn the
shower on full blast, I could fasten the shoulder holster to the
towel rack in the back of the stall. It wouldn't even get wet.
Though truthfully with most modern guns, wet doesn't hurt them. As
long as you clean them afterwards. Most guns will shoot
underwater.
I called room service wearing nothing but a towel.
I'd almost forgotten. I ordered a pot of coffee, sugar, and cream.
They asked if I wanted decaf. I said no thank you. Pushy. Like
waiters asking if I wanted a diet Coke when I didn't ask for it.
They never ask men, even portly men, if they want diet Cokes.
I could drink a pot of caffeine and sleep like a
baby. It doesn't keep me awake or make me jumpy. It just tastes
better.
Yes, they would leave the cart outside the door. No,
they wouldn't knock. They would add the coffee to my bill. That was
fine, I said. They had a credit card number. When they have
plastic, people are always eager to add on to your bill. As long as
the limit holds.
I propped the straight-backed chair under the
doorknob to the hallway. If someone forced the door, I'd hear it.
Maybe. I locked the bathroom door and had a gun in the shower with
me. I was as secure as I was going to get.
There is something about being naked that makes me
feel vulnerable. I would much rather face bad guys with my clothes
on than off. I guess everyone's like that.
The bite on my shoulder with its thick bandage was a
problem when I wanted to wash my hair. I had to get the blood out,
bandage or no bandage.
I used their little bottles of shampoo and
conditioner. They smelled like flowers are supposed to smell but
never do. Blood had dried in patches on my body. I looked spotted.
The water that washed down the drain was pinkish.
It took the entire bottle of shampoo before my hair
was squeaky clean. The last rinse water soaked through the bandage
on my right shoulder. The pain was sharp and persistent. I'd have
to remember to get that tetanus booster.
I scrubbed my body with a washcloth and the munchkin
bar of soap. When I had washed and soaked every inch of myself, and
was as clean as I was going to get, I stood under the hot needling
spray. I let the water pour over my back, down my body. The bandage
had soaked through long ago.
What if we couldn't tie Dominga to the zombies? What
if we couldn't find proof? She'd try again. Her pride was at stake
now. She had set two zombies on me, and I had wasted them both.
With a little help from the police. Dominga Salvador would see it
as a personal challenge.
She had raised a zombie and it had escaped her
control completely. She would rather have innocent people
slaughtered than to admit her mistake. And she would rather kill me
than have me prove it. Vindictive bitch.
Señora Salvador had to be stopped. If the
warrant didn't help, then I'd have to be more practical. She'd made
it clear that it was her or me. I preferred it to be her. And if
necessary, I'd make sure of it.
I opened my eyes and turned off the water. I didn't
want to think about it anymore. I was talking about murder. I saw
it as self-defense, but I doubted a jury would. It'd be damn hard
to prove. I wanted several things. Dominga out of the picture, dead
or in jail. To stay alive. Not to be in jail on a murder charge. To
catch the killer zombie before it killed again. Fat chance that. To
figure out how John Burke fit into this mess.
Oh, and to keep Harold Gaynor from forcing me to
perform human sacrifice. Yeah, I almost forgot that one.
It had been a busy week.
The coffee was outside the door on a little tray. I
set it inside on the floor, locked the door, and put the chair
against the doorknob again. Only then did I set the coffee tray on
a small table by the curtained windows. The Browning was already
sitting on the table, naked. The shoulder holster was on the
bed.
I opened the drapes. Normally, I would have kept the
drapes closed, but today I wanted to see the light. Morning had
spread like a soft haze of light. The heat hadn't had time to creep
up and strangle that first gentle touch of morning.
The coffee wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. Of
course, the worst coffee I've ever had was still wonderful. Well,
maybe not the coffee at police headquarters. But even that was
better than nothing. Coffee was my comfort drink. Better than
alcohol, I guess.
I spread Gaynor's file on the table and started to
read. By eight that morning, earlier than I usually get up, I had
read every scribbled note, gazed at every blurry picture. I knew
more about Mr. Harold Gaynor than I wanted to, none of it
particularly helpful.
Gaynor was mob-connected, but it couldn't be proven.
He was a self-made multimillionaire. Bully for him. He could afford
the million five that Tommy had offered me. Nice to know a man can
pay his bills.
His only family had been a mother who died ten years
ago. His father was supposed to have died before he was born. There
was no record of the father's death. In fact, the father didn't
seem to exist.
An illegitimate birth, carefully disguised? Maybe. So
Gaynor was a bastard in the original definition of the word. So
what? I'd already known he was one in spirit.
I propped Wheelchair Wanda's picture against the
coffeepot. She was smiling, almost like she'd known the picture was
being taken. Maybe she was just photogenic. There were two pictures
with her and Gaynor together. In one they were smiling, holding
hands as Tommy pushed Gaynor's wheelchair and Bruno pushed Wanda.
She was gazing at Gaynor with a look I had seen in other women.
Adoration, love. I'd even experienced it myself for a brief time in
college. You get over it.
The second picture was almost identical to the first.
Bruno and Tommy pushing them. But they weren't holding hands.
Gaynor was smiling. Wanda wasn't. She looked angry. Cicely of the
blond hair and empty eyes was walking on the other side of Gaynor.
They were holding hands. Ah-ha.
So Gaynor had kept both of them around for a while.
Why had Wanda left? Jealousy? Had Cicely arranged it? Had Gaynor
tired of her? The only way to know was to ask.
I stared at the picture with Cicely in it. I put it
beside the laughing close-up of Wanda's face. An unhappy young
woman, a scorned lover. If she hated Gaynor more than she feared
him, Wanda would talk to me. She would be a fool to talk to the
papers, but I didn't want to publish her secrets.
I wanted Gaynor's secrets, so I could keep him from
hurting me. Barring that, I wanted something to take to the
police.
Mr. Gaynor would have other things to worry about if
I could get him in jail. He might forget all about one reluctant
animator. Unless, of course, he found out I'd had something to do
with him being arrested. That would be bad. Gaynor struck me as
vengeful. I had Dominga Salvador mad at me. I didn't need anyone
else.
I closed the drapes and left a wake-up call for noon.
Irving would just have to wait for his file. I had unintentionally
given him the interview with the new Master of the City. Surely
that cut me a little slack. If not, to hell with it. I was going to
bed.
The last thing I did before going to bed was call
Peter Burke's house. I figured that John would be staying there. It
rang five times before the machine kicked on. "This is Anita Blake,
I may have some information for John Burke on a matter we discussed
Thursday." The message was a little vague, but I didn't want to
leave a message saying, "Call me about your brother's murder." It
would have seemed melodramatic and cruel.
I left the hotel's number as well as my own. Just in
case. They probably had the ringers turned off. I would. The story
had been front page because Peter was, had been, an animator.
Animators don't get murdered much in the run-of-the-mill muggings.
It's usually something more unusual.
I would drop off Gaynor's file on the way home. I
wanted to drop it off at the receptionist desk. I didn't feel like
talking to Irving about his big interview. I didn't want to hear
that Jean-Claude was charming or had great plans for the city. He'd
be very careful what he told a reporter. It would look good in
print. But I knew the truth. Vampires are as much a monster as any
zombie, maybe worse. Vamps usually volunteer for the process,
zombies don't.
Just like Irving volunteered to go off with
Jean-Claude. Of course, if Irving hadn't been with me the Master
would have left him alone. Probably. So it was my fault, even if it
had been his choice. I was achingly tired, but I knew I'd never be
able to sleep until I heard Irving's voice. I could pretend I'd
called to tell him I was dropping the file off late.
I wasn't sure if Irving would be on his way to work
or not. I tried home first. He answered on the first ring.
"Hello."
Something tight in my stomach relaxed. "Hi, Irving,
it's me."
"Ms. Blake, to what do I owe this early morning
pleasure?" His voice sounded so ordinary.
"I had a bit of excitement at my apartment last
night. I was hoping I could drop the file off later in the
day."
"What sort of excitement?" His voice had that "tell
me" lilt to it.
"The kind that's police business and not yours," I
said.
"I thought you'd say that," he said. "You just
getting to bed?"
"Yeah."
"I guess I can let a hardworking animator sleep in a
little. My sister reporter may even understand."
"Thanks, Irving."
"You alright, Anita?"
No, I wanted to say, but I didn't. I ignored the
question. "Did Jean-Claude behave himself?"
"He was great!" Irving's enthusiasm was genuine, all
bubbly excitement. "He's a great interview." He was quiet for a
moment. "Hey, you called to check up on me. To make sure I was
okay."
"Did not," I said.
"Thanks, Anita, that means a lot. But really, he was
very civilized."
"Great. I'll let you go then. Have a good day."
"Oh, I will, my editor is doing cartwheels about the
exclusive interview with the Master of the City."
I had to laugh at the way he rolled the title off his
tongue. "Good night, Irving."
"Get some sleep, Blake. I'll be calling you in a day
or two about those zombie articles."
"Talk to you then," I said. We hung up.
Irving was fine. I should worry more about myself and
less about everyone else.
I turned off the lights and cuddled under the sheets.
My penguin was cradled in my arms. The Browning Hi-Power was under
my pillow. It wasn't as easy to get to as the bed holster at home,
but it was better than nothing.
I wasn't sure which was more comforting, the penguin
or the gun. I guess both were equally comforting, for very
different reasons.
I said my prayers like a good little girl. I asked
very sincerely that I not dream.
Chapter 19
The cleaning crew had a cancellation and moved my
emergency into the slot. By afternoon my apartment was clean and
smelled like spring cleaning. Apartment maintenance had replaced
the shattered window. The bullet holes had been smeared with white
paint. The holes looked like little dimples in the wall. All in
all, the place looked great.
John Burke had not returned my call. Maybe I'd been
too clever. I'd try a more blunt message later. But right at this
moment I had more pleasant things to worry about.
I was dressed for jogging. Dark blue shorts with
white piping, white Nikes with pale blue swishes, cute little
jogging socks, and tank top. The shorts were the kind with one of
those inside pockets that shut with Velcro. Inside the pocket was a
derringer. An American derringer to be exact; 6.5 ounces, .38
Special, 4.82 total length. At 6.5 ounces, it felt like a lumpy
feather.
A Velcro pocket was not conducive to a fast draw. Two
shots and spitting would be more accurate at a distance, but then
Gaynor's men didn't want to kill me. Hurt me, but not kill me. They
have to get in close to hurt me. Close enough to use the derringer.
Of course, that was just two shots. After that, I was in
trouble.
I had tried to figure out a way to carry one of my
9mms, but there was no way. I could not jog and tote around that
much firepower. Choices, choices.
Veronica Sims was standing in my living room. Ronnie
is five-nine, blond hair, grey eyes. She is a private investigator
on retainer to Animators, Inc. We also work out together at least
twice a week unless one of us is out of town, injured, or up to our
necks in vampires. Those last two happen more often than I would
like.
She was wearing French-cut purple shorts, and a
T-shirt that said, "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." There are reasons why
Ronnie and I are friends.
"I missed you Thursday at the health club," she said.
"Was the funeral awful?"
"Yeah."
She didn't ask me to elaborate. She knows funerals
are not my best thing. Most people hate funerals because of the
dead. I hate all the emotional shit.
She was stretching long legs parallel to her body,
low on the floor. In a sort of stretching crouch. We always warm up
in the apartment. Most leg stretches were never meant to be done
while wearing short shorts.
I mirrored her movement. The muscles in my upper
thighs moved and protested. The derringer was an uncomfortable but
endurable lump.
"Just out of curiosity," Ronnie said, "why do you
feel it necessary to take a gun with you?"
"I always carry a gun," I said.
She just looked at me, disgust plain in her eyes. "If
you don't want to tell me, then don't, but don't bullshit me."
"Alright, alright," I said. "Strangely enough, no
one's told me not to tell anyone."
"What, no threats about not going to the police?"
she asked.
"Nope."
"My, how terribly friendly."
"Not friendly," I said, sitting flat on the floor,
legs out at angles. Ronnie mirrored me. It looked like we were
going to roll a ball across the floor. "Not friendly at all." I
leaned my upper body over my left leg until my cheek touched my
thigh.
"Tell me about it," she said.
I did. When I was done, we were limbered and ready to
run.
"Shit, Anita. Zombies in your apartment and a mad
millionaire after you to perform human sacrifices." Her grey eyes
searched my face. "You're the only person I know who has weirder
problems than I do."
"Thanks a lot," I said. I locked my door behind us
and put my keys in the pocket along with the derringer. I know it
would scratch hell out of it, but what was I supposed to do, run
with the keys in my hand?
"Harold Gaynor. I could do some checking on him for
you."
"Aren't you on a case?" We clattered down the
stairs.
"I'm doing about three different insurance scams.
Mostly surveillance and photography. If I have to eat one more fast
food dinner, I'm going to start singing jingles."
I smiled. "Shower and change at my place. We'll go
out for a real dinner."
"Sounds great, but you don't want to keep Jean-Claude
waiting."
"Cut it out, Ronnie," I said.
She shrugged. "You should stay as far away from that
. . . creature as you can, Anita."
"I know it." It was my turn to shrug. "Agreeing to
meet him seemed the lesser of evils."
"What were your choices?"
"Meeting him voluntarily or being kidnapped and taken
to him."
"Great choices."
"Yeah."
I opened the double doors that led outside. The heat
smacked me in the face. It was staggeringly hot, like stepping into
an oven. And we were going to jog in this?
I looked up at Ronnie. She is five inches taller than
I am, and most of that is leg. We can run together, but I have to
set the pace and I have to push myself. It is a very good workout.
"It has to be over a hundred today," I said.
"No pain, no gain," Ronnie said. She was carrying a
sport water bottle in her left hand. We were as prepared as we were
going to get.
"Four miles in hell," I said. "Let's do it." We set
off at a slow pace, but it was steady. We usually finished the run
in a half hour or less. The air was solid with heat. It felt like
we were running through semisolid walls of scalding air. The
humidity in St. Louis is almost always around a hundred percent.
Combine the humidity with hundred-plus temperatures and you get a
small, damp slice of hell. St. Louis in the summertime, yippee.
I do not enjoy exercise. Slim hips and muscular
calves are not incentive enough for this kind of abuse. Being able
to outrun the bad guys is incentive. Sometimes it all comes down to
who is faster, stronger, quicker. I am in the wrong business. Oh,
I'm not complaining. But 106 pounds is not a lot of muscle to throw
around.
Of course, when it comes to vampires, I could be
two-hundred-plus of pure human muscles and it wouldn't do me a damn
bit of good. Even the newly dead can bench press cars with one
hand. So I'm outclassed. I've gotten used to it.
The first mile was behind us. It always hurts the
worst. My body takes about two miles to be convinced it can't talk
me out of this insanity.
We were moving through an older neighborhood. Lots of
small fenced yards and houses dating to the fifties, or even the
1800s. There was the smooth brick wall of a warehouse that dated to
pre-Civil War. It was our halfway point. Two miles. I was feeling
loose and muscled, like I could run forever, if I didn't have to do
it very fast. I was concentrating on moving my body through the
heat, keeping the rhythm. It was Ronnie who spotted the man.
"I don't mean to be an alarmist," she said, "but why
is that man just standing there?"
I squinted ahead of us. Maybe fifteen feet ahead of
us the brick wall ended and there was a tall elm tree. A man was
standing near the trunk of the tree. He wasn't trying to conceal
himself. But he was wearing a jean jacket. It was much too hot for
that, unless you had a gun under it.
"How long's he been there?"
"Just stepped out from around the tree," she
said.
Paranoia reigns supreme. "Let's turn back. It's two
miles either way."
Ronnie nodded.
We pivoted and started jogging back the other way.
The man behind us did not cry out or say stop. Paranoia, it was a
vicious disease.
A second man stepped out from the far corner of the
brick wall. We jogged towards him a few more steps. I glanced back.
Mr. Jean Jacket was casually walking towards us. The jacket was
unbuttoned, and his hand was reaching under his arm. So much for
paranoia.
"Run," I said.
The second man pulled a gun from his jacket
pocket.
We stopped running. It seemed like a good idea at the
time.
"Un-uh," the man said, "I don't feel like chasing
anyone in this heat. All ya gotta be is alive, chickie, anything
else is gravy." The gun was a .22 caliber automatic. Not much
stopping power, but it was perfect for wounding. They'd thought
this out. That was scary.
Ronnie was standing very stiff beside me. I fought
the urge to grab her hand and squeeze it, but that wouldn't be very
tough-as-nails vampire slayer, would it? "What do you want?"
"That's better," he said. A pale blue T-shirt gapped
where his beer gut spilled over his belt. But his arms had a beefy
look to them. He may have been overweight, but I bet it hurt when
he hit you. I hoped I didn't have to test the theory.
I backed up so the brick wall was to my back. Ronnie
moved with me. Mr. Jean Jacket was almost with us now. He had a
Beretta 9mm loose in his right hand. It was not meant for
wounding.
I glanced at Ronnie, then at Fatty who was nearly
right beside her. I glanced at Mr. Jean Jacket, who was nearly
beside me. I glanced back at Ronnie. Her eyes widened just a bit.
She licked her lips once, then turned back to stare at Fatty. The
guy with the Beretta was mine. Ronnie got the .22. Delegation at
its best.
"What do you want?" I said again. I hate repeating
myself.
"You to come take a little ride with us, that's all."
Fatty smiled as he said it.
I smiled back, then turned to Jean Jacket, and his
tame Beretta. "Don't you talk?"
"I talk," he said. He took two steps closer to me,
but his gun was very steadily pointed at my chest. "I talk real
good." He touched my hair, lightly, with his fingertips. The
Beretta was damn near pressed against me. If he pulled the trigger
now, it was all over. The dull black barrel of the gun was getting
bigger. Illusion, but the longer you stare at a gun, the more
important it gets to be. When you're on the wrong end of it.
"None of that, Seymour," Fatty said. "No pussy and we
can't kill her, those are the rules."
"Shit, Pete."
Pete, alias Fatty, said, "You can have the blonde. No
one said we couldn't have fun with her."
I did not look at Ronnie. I stared at Seymour. I had
to be ready if I got that one second chance. Glancing at my friend
to see how she was taking the news of her impending rape was not
going to help. Really.
"Phallic power, Ronnie. It always goes to the
gonads," I said.
Seymour frowned. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means, Seymour, that I think you're stupid and
what brains you have are in your balls." I smiled pleasantly while
I said it.
He hit me with the flat of his hand, hard. I
staggered but didn't go down. The gun was still steady, unwavering.
Shit. He made a sound deep in his throat and hit me, closed fist. I
went down. For a moment I lay on the gritty sidewalk, listening to
the blood pound in my ears. The slap had stung. The closed fist
hurt.
Someone kicked me in the ribs. "Leave her alone!"
Ronnie screamed.
I lay on my stomach and pretended to be hurt. It
wasn't hard. I groped for the Velcro pocket. Seymour was waving the
Beretta in Ronnie's face. She was screaming at him. Pete had
grabbed Ronnie's arms and was trying to hold her. Things were
getting out of hand. Goody.
I stared up at Seymour's legs and struggled to my
knees. I shoved the derringer into his groin. He froze and stared
down at me.
"Don't move, or I'll serve up your balls on a plate,"
I said.
Ronnie drove her elbow back into Fatty's solar
plexus. He bent over a little, hands going to his stomach. She
twisted away and kneed him hard in the face. Blood spurted from his
nose. He staggered back. She smashed him in the side of the face,
getting all her shoulder and upper body into it. He fell down. She
had the .22 in her hand.
I fought an urge to yell "Yea Ronnie," but it didn't
sound tough enough. We'd do high-fives later. "Tell your friend not
to move, Seymour, or I'll pull this trigger."
He swallowed loud enough for me to hear it. "Don't
move, Pete, okay?"
Pete just stared at us.
"Ronnie, please get Seymour's gun from him. Thank
you."
I was still kneeling in the gravel with the derringer
pressed into the man's groin. He let Ronnie take his gun without a
fight. Fancy that.
"I've got this one covered, Anita," Ronnie said. I
didn't glance at her. She would do her job. I would do mine.
"Seymour, this is a .38 Special, two shots. It can
hold a variety of ammunition, .22, .44, or .357 Magnum." This was a
lie, the new lightweight version couldn't hold anything higher than
.38s, but I was betting Seymour couldn't tell the difference.
"Forty-four or .357 and you can kiss the family jewels good-bye.
Twenty-two, maybe you'll just be very, very sore. To quote a role
model of mine, 'Do you feel lucky today?' "
"What do you want, man, what do you want?" His voice
was high and squeaky with fear.
"Who hired you to come after us?"
He shook his head. "No, man, he'll kill us."
"Three-fifty-seven Magnum makes a fucking big hole,
Seymour."
"Don't tell her shit," Pete said.
"If he says anything else, Ronnie, shoot his kneecap
off," I said.
"My pleasure," Ronnie said. I wondered if she would
really do it. I wondered if I'd tell her to do it. Better not to
find out.
"Talk to me, Seymour, now, or I pull the trigger." I
shoved the gun a little deeper. That must have hurt all on its own.
He sort of tried to tippy-toe.
"God, please don't."
"Who hired you?"
"Bruno."
"You asshole, Seymour," Pete said. "He'll kill
us."
"Ronnie, please shoot him," I said.
"You said the kneecap, right?"
"Yeah."
"How about an elbow instead?" she asked.
"Your choice," I said.
"You're crazy," Seymour said.
"Yeah," I said, "you remember that. What exactly did
Bruno tell you?"
"He said to take you to a building off Grand, on
Washington. He said to bring you both, but we could hurt the blonde
to get you to come along."
"Give me the address," I said.
Seymour did. I think he would have told me the secret
ingredient in the magic sauce if I had asked.
"If you go down there, Bruno will know we told ya,"
Pete said.
"Ronnie," I said.
"Shoot me now, chickie, it don't matter. You go down
there or send the police down there, we are dead."
I glanced at Pete. He seemed very sincere. They were
bad guys but. . . "Okay, we won't bust in on him."
"We aren't going to the police," Ronnie asked.
"No, if we did that, we might as well kill them now.
But we don't have to do that, do we, Seymour?"
"No, man, no."
"How much ol' Bruno pay you?"
"Four hundred apiece."
"It wasn't enough," I said.
"You're telling me."
"I'm going to get up now, Seymour, and leave your
balls where they are. Don't come near me or Ronnie again, or I'll
tell Bruno you sold him out."
"He'd kill us, man. He'd kill us slow."
"That's right, Seymour. We'll just all pretend this
never happened, right?" He was nodding vigorously.
"That okay with you, Pete?" I asked.
"I ain't stupid. Bruno'd rip out our hearts and feed
them to us. We won't talk." He sounded disgusted.
I got up and stepped carefully away from Seymour.
Ronnie covered Pete nice and steady with the Beretta. The .22 was
tucked into the waistband of her jogging shorts. "Get out of here,"
I said.
Seymour's skin was pasty, and a sick sweat beaded his
face. "Can I have my gun?" He wasn't very bright.
"Don't get cute," I said.
Pete stood. The blood under his nose had started to
dry. "Come on, Seymour. We gotta go now."
They moved on down the street side by side. Seymour
looked hunched in upon himself as if he were fighting an urge to
clutch his equipment.
Ronnie let out a great whoosh of air and leaned back
against the wall. The gun was still clutched in her right hand. "My
God," she said.
"Yeah," I said.
She touched my face where Seymour had hit me. It
hurt. I winced. "Are you all right?" Ronnie asked.
"Sure," I said. Actually, it felt like the side of my
face was one great big ache, but it wouldn't make it hurt any less
to say it out loud.
"Are we going down to the building where they were to
drop us?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I know who Bruno is and who gives him orders. I know
why they tried to kidnap me. What could I possibly learn that would
be worth two lives?"
Ronnie thought about that for a moment. "You're
right, I guess. But you aren't going to report the attack to the
police?"
"Why should I? I'm okay, you're okay. Seymour and
Pete won't be back."
She shrugged. "You didn't really want me to shoot his
kneecap off, did you? I mean we were playing good cop, bad cop,
right?" She looked at me very steadily as she asked, her solid grey
eyes earnest and true.
I looked away. "Let's walk back home. I don't feel
much like jogging."
"Me either."
We set off walking down the street. Ronnie untucked
her T-shirt and stuck the Beretta in the waistband. The .22 she
sort of cupped in her hand. It wasn't very noticeable that way.
"We were pretending, right? Being tough, right?"
Truth. "I don't know."
"Anita!"
"I don't know, that's the truth."
"I couldn't have shot him to pieces just to keep him
from talking."
"Good thing you didn't have to then," I said.
"Would you really have pulled the trigger on that
man?"
There was a cardinal singing somewhere off in the
distance. The song filled the stale heat and made it seem
cooler.
"Answer me, Anita. Would you really have pulled the
trigger?"
"Yes."
"Yes?" There was a lilt of surprise in her voice.
"Yes."
"Shit." We walked on in silence for a minute or two,
then she asked, "What ammo is in the gun today?"
"Thirty-eights."
"It would have killed him."
"Probably," I said.
I saw her look at me sideways as we walked back.
There was a look I'd seen before. A mixture of horror and
admiration. I'd just never seen it on a friend's face before. That
part hurt. But we went out to dinner that night at The Miller's
Daughter in Old St. Charles. The atmosphere was pleasant. The food
wonderful. As always.
We talked and laughed and had a very good time.
Neither of us mentioned what had happened this afternoon. Pretend
hard enough and maybe it will go away.
Chapter 20
At 10:30 that night I was down in the vampire
district. Dark blue polo shirt, jeans, red windbreaker. The
windbreaker hid the shoulder holster and the Browning Hi-Power.
Sweat was pooling in the bends of my arms but it beat the hell out
of not having it.
The afternoon fun and games had turned out all right,
but that was partly luck. And Seymour losing his temper. And me
being able to take a beating and keep on ticking. Ice had kept the
swelling down, but the left side of my face was puffy and red, as
if some sort of fruit was about to burst out of it. No
bruise—yet.
The Laughing Corpse was one of the newest clubs in
the District. Vampires are sexy. I'll admit that. But funny? I
don't think so. Apparently, I was in the minority. A line stretched
away from the club, curling round the block.
It hadn't occurred to me that I'd need a ticket or
reservations or whatever just to get in. But, hey, I knew the boss.
I walked along the line of people towards the ticket booth. The
people were mostly young. The women in dresses, the men in dressy
sports wear, with an occasional suit. They were chatting together
in excited voices, a lot of casual hand and arm touching. Dates. I
remember dates. It's just been a while. Maybe if I wasn't always
ass deep in alligators, I'd date more. Maybe.
I cut ahead of a double-date foursome. "Hey," one man
said.
"Sorry," I said.
The woman in the ticket booth frowned at me. "You
can't just cut in line like that, ma'am."
Ma'am? "I don't want a ticket. I don't want to see
the show. I am supposed to meet Jean-Claude here. That's it."
"Well, I don't know. How do I know you're not some
reporter?"
Reporter? I took a deep breath. "Just call
Jean-Claude and tell him Anita is here. Okay?"
She was still frowning at me.
"Look, just call Jean-Claude. If I'm a nosy reporter,
he'll deal with me. If I'm who I say I am, he'll be happy that you
called him. You can't lose."
"I don't know."
I fought an urge to scream at her. It probably
wouldn't help. Probably. "Just call Jean-Claude, pretty please," I
said.
Maybe it was the pretty please. She swiveled on her
stool and opened the upper half of a door in the back of the booth.
Small booth. I couldn't hear what she said, but she swiveled back
around. "Okay, manager says you can go in."
"Great, thanks." I walked up the steps. The entire
line of waiting people glared at me. I could feel their hot stares
on my back. But I've been stared at by experts, so I was careful
not to flinch. No one likes a line jumper.
The club was dim inside, as most clubs are. A guy
just inside the door said, "Ticket, please?"
I stared up at him. He wore a white T-shirt that
said, "The Laughing Corpse, it's a scream." A caricature of an
openmouthed vampire was drawn very large across his chest. He was
large and muscled and had bouncer tattooed across his forehead.
"Ticket, please," he repeated.
First the ticket lady, now the ticket man? "The
manager said I could come through to see Jean-Claude," I said.
"Willie," the ticket man said, "you send her
through?"
I turned around, and there was Willie McCoy. I smiled
when I saw him. I was glad to see him. That surprised me. I'm not
usually happy to see dead men.
Willie is short, thin, with black hair slicked back
from his forehead. I couldn't tell the exact color of his suit in
the dimness, but it looked like a dull tomato-red. White button-up
shirt, large shiny green tie. I had to look twice before I was
sure, but yes, there was a glow-in-the-dark hula girl on his tie.
It was the most tasteful outfit I'd ever seen Willie wear.
He grinned, flashing a lot of fang. "Anita, good to
see ya."
I nodded. "You, too, Willie."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
He grinned even wider. His canines glistened in the
dim light. He hadn't been dead a year yet.
"How long have you been manager here?" I asked.
"'Bout two weeks."
"Congratulations."
He stepped closer to me. I stepped back. Instinctive.
Nothing personal, but a vampire is a vampire. Don't get too close.
Willie was new dead, but he was still capable of hypnotizing with
his eyes. Okay, maybe no vampire as new as Willie could actually
catch me with his eyes, but old habits die hard.
Willie's face fell. A flicker of something in his
eyes—hurt? He dropped his voice but didn't try to step next to me.
He was a faster study dead than he ever had been alive. "Thanks to
me helping you last time, I'm in real good with the boss."
He sounded like an old gangster movie, but that was
Willie. "I'm glad Jean-Claude's doing right by you."
"Oh, yeah," Willie said, "this is the best job I ever
had. And the boss isn't . . ." He waggled his hands back and forth.
"Ya know, mean."
I nodded. I did know. I could bitch and complain
about Jean-Claude all I wanted, but compared to most Masters of the
City, he was a pussycat. A big, dangerous, carnivorous pussycat,
but still, it was an improvement.
"The boss's busy right this minute," Willie said. "He
said if you was to come early, to give ya a table near the
stage."
Great. Aloud I said, "How long will Jean-Claude
be?"
Willie shrugged. "Don't know for sure."
I nodded. "Okay, I'll wait, for a little while."
Willie grinned, fangs flashing. "Ya want me to tell
Jean-Claude to hurry it up?"
"Would you?"
He grimaced like he'd swallowed a bug. "Hell no."
"Don't sweat it. If I get tired of waiting, I'll tell
him myself."
Willie looked at me sorta sideways. "You'd do it,
wouldn't you?"
"Yeah."
He just shook his head and started leading me between
the small round tables. Every table was thick with people. Laughing,
gasping, drinking, holding hands. The
sensation of being surrounded by thick, sweaty life was nearly
overwhelming.
I glanced at Willie. Did he feel it? Did the warm
press of humanity make his stomach knot with hunger? Did he go home
at night and dream of ripping into the loud, roaring crowd? I
almost asked him, but I liked Willie as much as I could like a
vampire. I did not want to know if the answer was yes.
A table just one row back from the stage was empty.
There was a big white cardboard foldy thing that said "Reserved."
Willie tried to hold my chair for me, I waved him back. It wasn't
women's liberation. I simply never understood what I was supposed
to do while the guy shoved my chair in under me. Did I sit there
and watch him strain to scoot the chair with me in it?
Embarrassing. I usually hovered just above the chair and got it
shoved into the backs of my knees. Hell with it.
"Would you like a drink while ya wait?" Willie
asked.
"Could I have a Coke?"
"Nuthin' stronger?"
I shook my head.
Willie walked away through the tables and the people.
On the stage was a slender man with short, dark hair. He was thin
all over, his face almost cadaverous, but he was definitely human.
His appearance was more comical than anything, like a long-limbed
clown. Beside him, staring blank-faced out at the crowd, was a
zombie.
Its pale eyes were still clear, human-looking, but he
didn't blink. That familiar frozen stare gazed out at the audience.
They were only half listening to the jokes. Most eyes were on the
standing deadman. He was just decayed enough around the edges to
look scary, but even one row away there was no hint of odor. Nice
trick if you could manage it.
"Ernie here is the best roommate I ever had," the
comedian said. "He doesn't eat much, doesn't talk my ear off,
doesn't bring cute chicks home and lock me out while they have a
good time." Nervous laughter from the audience. Eyes glued on ol'
Ernie.
"Though there was that pork chop in the fridge that
went bad. Ernie seemed to like that a lot."
The zombie turned slowly, almost painfully, to stare
at the comedian. The man's eyes flickered to the zombie, then back
to the audience, smile in place. The zombie kept staring at him.
The man didn't seem to like it much. I didn't blame him. Even the
dead don't like to be the butt of jokes.
The jokes weren't that funny anyway. It was a novelty
act. The zombie was the act. Pretty inventive, and pretty sick.
Willie came back with my Coke. The manager waiting on
my table, la-de-da. Of course, the reserved table was pretty good,
too. Willie set the drink down on one of those useless paper lace
dollies. "Enjoy," he said. He turned to leave, but I touched his
arm. I wish I hadn't.
The arm was solid enough, real enough. But it was
like touching wood. It was dead. I don't know what else to call it.
There was no feeling of movement. Nothing.
I dropped his arm, slowly, and looked up at him.
Meeting his eyes, thanks to Jean-Claude's marks. Those brown eyes
held something like sorrow.
I could suddenly hear my heartbeat in my ears, and I
had to swallow to calm my own pulse. Shit. I wanted Willie to go
away now. I turned away from him and looked very hard at my drink.
He left. Maybe it was just the sound of all the laughing, but I
couldn't hear Willie walk away.
Willie McCoy was the only vampire I had ever known
before he died. I remembered him alive. He had been a small-time
hood. An errand boy for bigger fish. Maybe Willie thought being a
vampire would make him a big fish. He'd been wrong there. He was
just a little undead fish now. Jean-Claude or someone like him
would run Willie's "life" for eternity. Poor Willie.
I rubbed the hand that had touched him on my leg. I
wanted to forget the feel of his body under the new tomato-red
suit, but I couldn't. Jean-Claude's body didn't feel that way. Of
course, Jean-Claude could damn near pass for human. Some of the old
ones could do that. Willie would learn. God help him.
"Zombies are better than dogs. They'll fetch your
slippers and don't need to be walked Ernie'll even sit at my feet
and beg if I tell him to."
The audience laughed. I wasn't sure why. It wasn't
that genuine ha-ha laughter. It was that outrageous shocked
sound.
The I-can't-believe-he-said-that laughter.
The zombie was moving toward the comedian in a sort
of slow-motion jerk. Crumbling hands reached outward and my stomach
squeezed tight. It was a flashback to last night. Zombies almost
always attack by just reaching out. Just like in the movies.
The comedian didn't realize that Ernie had decided
he'd had enough. If a zombie is simply raised without any
particular orders, he usually reverts to what is normal for him. A
good person is a good person until his brain decays, stripping him
of personality. Most zombies won't kill without orders, but every
once in a while you get lucky and raise one that has homicidal
tendencies. The comedian was about to get lucky.
The zombie walked towards him like a bad Frankenstein
monster. The comedian finally realized something was wrong. He
stopped in mid-joke, turning eyes wide. "Ernie," he said. It was as
far as he got. The decaying hands wrapped around his throat and
started to squeeze.
For one pleasant second I almost let the zombie do
him in. Exploiting the dead is one thing I feel strongly about, but
. . . stupidity isn't punishable by death. If it was, there would
be a hell of a population drop.
I stood up, glancing around the club to see if they
had planned for this eventuality. Willie came running to the stage.
He wrapped his arms around the zombie's waist and pulled, lifted
the much taller body off its feet, but the hands kept
squeezing.
The comedian slipped to his knees, making little argh
sounds. His face was going from red to purple. The audience was
laughing. They thought it was part of the show. It was a heck of a
lot funnier than the act.
I stepped up to the stage and said softly to Willie,
"Need some help?"
He stared at me, still clinging to the zombie's
waist. With his extraordinary strength Willie could have ripped a
finger at a time off the man's neck and probably saved him. But
super-vampire strength doesn't help you if you don't think how to
use it. Willie never thought. Of course, the zombie might crush the
man's windpipe before even a vampire could peel its fingers away.
Maybe. Best not to find out.
I thought the comedian was a putz. But I couldn't
stand there and watch him die. Really, I couldn't.
"Stop," I said. Low and for the zombie's ears. He
stopped squeezing, but his hands were still tight. The comedian was
going limp. "Release him."
The zombie let go. The man fell in a near faint on
the stage. Willie straightened up from his frantic tugging at the
deadman. He smoothed his tomato-red suit back into place. His hair
was still perfectly slick. Too much hair goop for a mere zombie
wrestling to displace his hairdo.
"Thanks," he whispered. Then he stood to his full
five feet four and said, "The Amazing Albert and his pet zombie,
ladies and gentlemen." The audience had been a bit uncertain, but
the applause began. When the Amazing Albert staggered to his feet,
the applause exploded. He croaked into the microphone. "Ernie
thinks it's time to go home now. You've been a great audience." The
applause was loud and genuine.
The comedian left the stage. The zombie stayed and
stared at me. Waiting, waiting for another order. I don't know why
everyone can't speak and have zombies obey them. It doesn't even
feel like magic to me. There is no tingle of the skin, no breath of
power. I speak and the zombies listen. Me and E. F. Hutton.
"Follow Albert and obey his orders until I tell you
otherwise." The zombie looked down at me for a second, then turned
slowly and shuffled after the man. The zombie wouldn't kill him
now. I wouldn't tell the comedian that, though. Let him think his
life was in danger. Let him think he had to let me lay the zombie
to rest. It was what I wanted. It was probably what the zombie
wanted.
Ernie certainly didn't seem to like being the
straight man in a comedy routine. Hecklers are one thing. Choking
the comic to death is a little extreme.
Willie escorted me back to my table. I sat down and
sipped my Coke. He sat down across from me. He looked shaken. His
small hands trembled as he sat across from me. He was a vampire,
but he was still Willie McCoy. I wondered how many years it would
take for the last remnants of his personality to disappear. Ten
years, twenty, a century? How long before the monster ate the
man?
If it took that long. It wouldn't be my problem. I
wouldn't be there to see it. To tell the truth, I didn't want to
see it.
"I never liked zombies," Willie said.
I stared at him. "Are you afraid of zombies?"
His eyes flickered to me, then down to the table.
"No."
I grinned at him. "You're afraid of zombies. You're
phobic."
He leaned across the table. "Don't tell. Please don't
tell." There was real fear in his eyes.
"Who would I tell?"
"You know."
I shook my head. "I don't know what you're talking
about, Willie."
"The MASTER." You could hear "master" was in all
caps.
"Why would I tell Jean-Claude?"
He was whispering now. A new comedian had come up on
stage, there was laughter and noise, and still he whispered.
"You're his human servant, whether you like it or not. When we
speak to you, he tells us we're speaking to him."
We were leaning almost face-to-face now. The gentle
brush of his breath smelled like breath mints. Almost all vampires
smell like breath mints. I don't know what they did before mints
were invented. Had stinky breath, I guess.
"You know I'm not his human servant."
"But he wants you to be."
"Just because Jean-Claude wants something doesn't
mean he gets it," I said.
"You don't know what he's like."
"I think I do. . ."
He touched my arm. I didn't jerk back this time. I
was too intent on what he was saying. "He's been different since
the old master died. He's a lot more powerful than even you
know."
This much I had suspected. "So why shouldn't I tell
him you're afraid of zombies?"
"He'll use it to punish me."
I stared at him, our eyes inches apart. "You mean
he's torturing people to control them."
He nodded.
"Shit."
"You won't tell?"
"I won't tell. Promise," I said.
He looked so relieved, I patted his hand. The hand
felt like a hand. His body didn't feel wood hard anymore. Why? I
didn't know, and if I asked Willie, he probably wouldn't know
either. One of the mysteries of . . . death.
"Thanks."
"I thought you said that Jean-Claude was the kindest
master you've ever had."
"He is," Willie said.
Now that was a frightening truth. If being tormented
by your darkest fear was the kindest, how much worse had Nikolaos
been. Hell, I knew the answer to that one. She'd been psychotic.
Jean-Claude wasn't cruel just for the sake of watching people
squirm. There was reason to his cruelty. It was a step up.
"I gotta go. Thanks for helping with the zombie." He
stood.
"You were brave, you know," I said.
He flashed a grin my way, fangs glinting in the dim
light. The smile vanished from his face like someone had turned a
switch. "I can't afford to be anything else."
Vampires are a lot like wolf packs. The weak are
either dominated or destroyed. Banishment is not an option. Willie
was moving up in the ranks. A sign of weakness could stop that rise
or worse. I'd often wondered what vampires feared. One of them
feared zombies. It would have been funny if I hadn't seen the fear
in his eyes.
The comic on stage was a vampire. He was the new
dead. Skin chalk-white, eyes like burned holes in paper. His gums
were bloodless and receding from canines that would have been the
envy of any German shepherd. I had never seen a vampire look so
monstrous. They all usually made an effort to appear human. This
one wasn't.
I had missed the audience's reaction to his first
appearance, but now they were laughing. If I had thought the zombie
jokes were bad, these were worse. A woman at the next table laughed
so hard, tears spilled down her cheeks.
"I went to New York, tough city. A gang jumped me,
but I put the bite on them." People were holding their ribs as if
in pain.
I didn't get it. It was genuinely not funny. I gazed
around the crowd and found every eye fixed on the stage. They
peered up at him with the helpless devotion of the bespelled.
He was using mind tricks. I'd seen vampires seduce,
threaten, terrify, all by concentrating. But I had never seen them
cause laughter. He was forcing them to laugh.
It wasn't the worst abuse of vampiric powers I'd ever
seen. He wasn't trying to hurt them. And this mass hypnosis was
harmless, temporary. But it was wrong. Mass mind control was one of
the top scary things that most people don't know vampires can
do.
I knew, and I didn't like it. He was the fresh dead
and even before Jean-Claude's marks, the comic couldn't have
touched me. Being an animator gave you partial immunity to
vampires. It was one of the reasons that animators are so often
vampire slayers. We've got a leg up, so to speak.
I had called Charles earlier, but I still didn't see
him. He is not easy to miss in a crowd, sort of like Godzilla going
through Tokyo. Where was he? And when would Jean-Claude be ready to
see me? It was now after eleven. Trust him to browbeat me into a
meeting and then make me wait. He was such an arrogant son of a
bitch.
Charles came through the swinging doors that led to
the kitchen area. He strode through the tables, heading for the
door. He was shaking his head and murmuring to a small Asian man
who was having to quick-run to keep up.
I waved, and Charles changed direction towards me. I
could hear the smaller man arguing, "I run a very good, clean
kitchen."
Charles murmured something that I couldn't hear. The
bespelled audience was oblivious. We could have shot off a
twenty-one-gun salute, and they wouldn't have flinched. Until the
vampire comic was finished, they would hear nothing else.
"What are you, the damn health department?" the
smaller man asked. He was dressed in a traditional chef's outfit.
He had the big floppy hat wadded up in his hands. His dark uptilted
eyes were sparkling with anger.
Charles is only six-one, but he seems bigger. His
body is one wide piece from broad shoulders to feet. He seems to
have no waist. He is like a moving mountain. Huge. His perfectly
brown eyes are the same color as his skin. Wonderfully dark. His
hand is big enough to cover my face.
The Asian chef looked like an angry puppy beside
Charles. He grabbed Charles's arm. I don't know what he thought he
was going to do, but Charles stopped moving. He stared down at the
offending hand and said very carefully, voice almost painfully
deep, "Do not touch me."
The chef dropped his arm like he'd been burned. He
took a step back. Charles was only giving him part of the "look."
The full treatment had been known to send would-be muggers
screaming for help. Part of the look was enough for one irate
chef.
His voice was calm, reasonable when he spoke again,
"I run a clean kitchen."
Charles shook his head. "You can't have zombies near
the food preparation. It's illegal. The health codes forbid corpses
near food."
"My assistant is a vampire. He's dead."
Charles rolled his eyes at me. I sympathized. I'd had
the same discussion with a chef or two. "Vampires are not
considered legally dead anymore, Mr. Kim. Zombies are."
"I don't understand why."
"Zombies rot and carry disease just like any dead
body. Just because they move around doesn't mean they aren't a
depository for disease."
"I don't . . . "
"Either keep the zombies away from the kitchen or we
will close you down. Do you understand that?"
"And you'd have to explain to the owner why his
business was not making money," I said, smiling up at both of
them.
The chef looked a bit pale. Fancy that. "I . . . I
understand. It will be taken care of."
"Good," Charles said.
The chef darted one frightened look at me, then began
to thread his way back to the kitchen. It was funny how Jean-Claude
was beginning to scare so many people. He'd been one of the more
civilized vampires before he became head bloodsucker. Power
corrupts.
Charles sat down across from me. He seemed too big
for the table. "I got your message. What's going on?"
"I need an escort to the Tenderloin."
It's hard to tell when Charles blushes, but he
squirmed in his chair. "Why in the world do you want to go down
there?"
"I need to find someone who works down there."
"Who?"
"A prostitute," I said.
He squirmed again. It was like watching an
uncomfortable mountain. "Caroline is not going to like this."
"Don't tell her," I said.
"You know Caroline and I don't lie to each other,
about anything."
I fought to keep my face neutral. If Charles had to
explain his every move to his wife, that was his choice. He didn't
have to let Caroline control him. He chose to do it. But it grated
on me like having your teeth cleaned.
"Just tell her that you had extra animator business.
She won't ask details." Caroline thought that our job was gross.
Beheading chickens, raising zombies, how uncouth.
"Why do you need to find this prostitute?"
I ignored the question and answered another one. The
less Charles knew about Harold Gaynor, the safer he'd be. "I just
need someone to look menacing. I don't want to have to shoot some
poor slob because he made a pass at me. Okay?"
Charles nodded. "I'll come. I'm flattered you
asked."
I smiled encouragingly at him. Truth was that Manny
was more dangerous and much better backup. But Manny was like me.
He didn't look dangerous. Charles did. I needed a good bluff
tonight, not firepower.
I glanced at my watch. It was almost midnight.
Jean-Claude had kept me waiting an hour. I looked behind me and
caught Willie's gaze. He came towards me immediately. I would try
to use this power only for good.
He bent close, but not too close. He glanced at
Charles, acknowledging him with a nod. Charles nodded back. Mr.
Stoic.
"What ya want?" Willie said.
"Is Jean-Claude ready to see me or not?"
"Yeah, I was just coming to get ya. I didn't know you
was expecting company tonight." He looked at Charles.
"He's a coworker."
"A zombie raiser?" Willie asked.
Charles said, "Yes." His dark face was impassive. His
look was quietly menacing.
Willie seemed impressed. He nodded. "Sure, ya got
zombie work after you see Jean-Claude?"
"Yeah," I said. I stood and spoke softly to Charles,
though chances were that Willie would hear it. Even the newly dead
hear better than most dogs.
"I'll be as quick as I can."
"Alright," he said, "but I need to get home
soon."
I understood. He was on a short leash. His own fault,
but it seemed to bother me more than it bothered Charles. Maybe it
was one of the reasons I'm not married. I'm not big on
compromise.
Chapter 21
Willie led me through a door and a short hallway. As
soon as the door closed behind us, the noise was muted, distant as
a dream. The lights were bright after the dimness of the club. I
blinked against it. Willie looked rosy-cheeked in the bright light,
not quite alive, but healthy for a deadman. He'd fed tonight on
something, or someone. Maybe a willing human, maybe animal.
Maybe.
The first door on the left said "Manager's Office."
Willie's office? Naw.
Willie opened the door and ushered me in. He didn't
come in the office. His eyes flicked towards the desk, then he
backed out, shutting the door behind him.
The carpeting was pale beige; the walls
eggshell-white. A large black-lacquered desk sat against the far
wall. A shiny black lamp seemed to grow out of the desk. There was
a blotter perfectly placed in the center of the desk. There were no
papers, no paper clips, just Jean-Claude sitting behind the
desk.
His long pale hands were folded on the blotter. Soft
curling black hair, midnight-blue eyes, white shirt with its
strange button-down cuffs. He was perfect sitting there, perfectly
still like a painting. Beautiful as a wet dream, but not real. He
only looked perfect. I knew better.
There were two brown metal filing cabinets against
the left wall. A black leather couch took up the rest of the wall.
There was a large oil painting above the couch. It was a scene of
St. Louis in the 1700s. Settlers coming downriver in flatboats. The
sunlight was autumn thick. Children ran and played. It didn't match
anything in the room.
"The picture yours?" I asked.
He gave a slight nod.
"Did you know the painter?"
He smiled then, no hint of fangs, just the beautiful
spread of lips. If there had been a vampire GQ, Jean-Claude would
have been their cover boy.
"The desk and couch don't match the rest of the
decor," I said.
"I am in the midst of remodeling," he said.
He just sat there looking at me. "You asked for this
meeting, Jean-Claude. Let's get on with it."
"Are you in a hurry?" His voice had dropped lower,
the brush of fur on naked skin.
"Yes, I am. So cut to the chase. What do you
want?"
The smile widened, slightly. He actually lowered his
eyes for a moment. It was almost coy. "You are my human servant,
Anita."
He used my name. Bad sign that. "No," I said, "I'm
not."
"You bear two marks, only two more remain." His face
still looked pleasant, lovely. The expression didn't match what he
was saying.
"So what?"
He sighed. "Anita. . ." He stopped in midsentence and
stood. He came around the desk. "Do you know what it means to be
Master of the City?" He leaned on the desk, half sitting. His shirt
gaped open showing an expanse of pale chest. One nipple showed
small and pale and hard. The cross-shaped scar was an insult to
such pale perfection.
I had been staring at his bare chest. How
embarrassing. I met his gaze and managed not to blush. Bully for
me.
"There are other benefits to being my human servant,
ma petite." His eyes were all pupil, black and drowning
deep.
I shook my head. "No."
"No lies, ma petite, I can feel your
desire." His tongue flicked across his lips. "I can taste it."
Great, just great. How do you argue with someone who
can feel what you're feeling? Answer: don't argue, agree. "Alright,
I lust after you. Does that make you happy?"
He smiled. "Yes." One word, but it flowed through my
mind, whispering things that he had not said. Whispers in the
dark.
"I lust after a lot of men, but that doesn't mean I
have to sleep with them."
His face was almost slack, eyes like drowning pools.
"Casual lust is easily defeated," he said. He stood in one smooth
motion. "What we have is not casual, ma petite. Not lust,
but desire." He moved towards me, one pale hand outstretched.
My heart was thudding in my throat. It wasn't fear. I
didn't think it was a mind trick. It felt real. Desire, he called
it, maybe it was. "Don't," my voice was hoarse, a whisper.
He, of course, did not stop. His fingers traced the
edge of my cheek, barely touching. The brush of skin on skin. I
stepped away from him, forced to draw a deep shaking breath. I
could be as uncool as I wanted, he could feel my discomfort. No
sense pretending.
I could feel where he had touched me, a lingering
sensation. I looked at the ground while I spoke. "I appreciate the
possible fringe benefits, Jean-Claude, really. But I can't. I
won't." I met his eyes. His face was a terrible blankness. Nothing.
It was the same face of a moment ago, but some spark of humanity,
of life, was gone.
My pulse started thudding again. It had nothing to do
with sex. Fear. It had a lot to do with fear.
"As you like, my little animator. Whether we are
lovers or not, it does not change what you are to me. You are my
human servant."
"No," I said.
"You are mine, Anita. Willing or not, you are
mine."
"See, Jean-Claude, here's where you lose me. First
you try seducing me, which has its pleasant side. When that doesn't
work, you resort to threats."
"It is not a threat, ma petite. It is the
truth."
"No, it isn't. And stop calling me ma
fucking petite."
He smiled at that.
I didn't want him amused by me. Anger replaced fear
in a quick warm rush. I liked anger. It made me brave, and stupid.
"Fuck you."
"I have already offered that." His voice made
something low jerk in my stomach.
I felt the rush of heat as I blushed. "Damn you,
Jean-Claude, damn you."
"We need to talk, ma petite. Lovers or not,
servant or not, we need to talk."
"Then talk. I haven't got all night."
He sighed. "You don't make this easy."
"If it was easy you wanted, you should have picked on
someone else."
He nodded. "Very true. Please, be seated." He went
back to lean on the desk, arms crossed over his chest.
"I don't have that kind of time," I said.
He frowned slightly. "I thought we agreed to talk
this out, ma petite."
"We agreed to meet at eleven. You're the one who
wasted an hour, not me."
His smile was almost bitter. "Very well. I will give
you a . . . condensed version."
I nodded. "Fine with me."
"I am the new Master of the City. But to survive with
Nikolaos alive, I had to hide my powers. I did it too well. There
are those who think I am not powerful enough to be the Master of
all. They are challenging me. One of the things they are using
against me is you."
"How?"
"Your disobedience. I cannot even control my own
human servant. How can I possibly control all the vampires in the
city and surrounding areas?"
"What do you want from me?"
He smiled then, wide and genuine, flashing fangs. "I
want you to be my human servant."
"Not in this lifetime, Jean-Claude."
"I can force the third mark on you, Anita." There was
no threat as he said it. It was just a fact.
"I would rather die than be your human servant."
Master vampires can smell the truth. He would know I meant it.
"Why?"
I opened my mouth to try to explain, but didn't. He
would not understand. We stood two feet apart but it might have
been miles. Miles across some dark chasm. We could not bridge that
gap. He was a walking corpse. Whatever he had been as a living man,
it was gone. He was the Master of the City, and that was nothing
even close to human.
"If you force this issue, I will kill you," I
said.
"You mean that." There was surprise in his voice. It
isn't often a girl gets to surprise a centuries-old vampire.
"Yes."
"I do not understand you, ma petite."
"I know," I said.
"Could you pretend to be my servant?"
It was an odd question. "What does pretending
mean?"
"You come to a few meetings. You stand at my side
with your guns and your reputation."
"You want the Executioner at your back." I stared at
him for a space of heartbeats. The true horror of what he'd just
said floated slowly through my mind. "I thought the two marks were
accident. That you panicked. You meant all along to mark me, didn't
you?"
He just smiled.
"Answer me, you son of a bitch."
"If the chance arose, I was not averse to it."
"Not averse to it!" I was almost yelling. "You
cold-bloodedly chose me to be your human servant! Why?"
"You are the Executioner."
"Damn you, what does that mean?"
"It is impressive to be the vampire who finally
caught you."
"You haven't caught me."
"If you would behave yourself, the others would think
so. Only you and I need know that it is pretense."
I shook my head. "I won't play your game,
Jean-Claude."
"You will not help me?"
"You got it."
"I offer you immortality. Without the compromise of
vampirism. I offer you myself. There have been women over the years
who would have done anything I asked just for that."
"Sex is sex, Jean-Claude. No one's that good."
He smiled slightly. "Vampires are different, ma
petite. If you were not so stubborn, you might find out how
different."
I had to look away from his eyes. The look was too
intimate. Too full of possibilities.
"There's only one thing I want from you," I said.
"And what is that, ma petite?"
"All right, two things. First, stop calling me ma
petite; second, let me go. Wipe these damn marks away."
"You may have the first request, Anita."
"And the second?"
"I cannot, even if I wanted to."
"Which you don't," I said.
"Which I don't."
"Stay away from me, Jean-Claude. Stay the fuck away
from me, or I'll kill you."
"Many people have tried through the years."
"How many of them had eighteen kills?"
His eyes widened just a bit. "None. There was this
man in Hungary who swore he killed five."
"What happened to him?"
"I tore his throat out."
"You understand this, Jean-Claude. I would rather
have my throat torn out. I would rather die trying to kill you than
submit to you." I stared at him, trying to see if he understood any
of what I said. "Say something."
"I have heard your words. I know you mean them." He
was suddenly standing in front of me. I hadn't seen him move,
hadn't felt him in my head. He was just suddenly inches in front of
me. I think I gasped.
"Could you truly kill me?" His voice was like silk on
a wound, gentle with an edge of pain. Like sex. It was like velvet
rubbing inside my skull. It felt good, even with fear tearing
through my body. Shit. He could still have me. Still take me down.
No way.
I looked up into his so-blue eyes and said,
"Yes."
I meant it. He blinked once, gracefully, and stepped
back. "You are the most stubborn woman I have ever met," he said.
There was no play in his voice this time. It was a flat
statement.
"That's the nicest compliment you've ever paid
me."
He stood in front of me, hands at his sides. He stood
very still. Snakes or birds can stand utterly still but even a
snake has a sense of aliveness, of action waiting to resume.
Jean-Claude stood there with no sense of anything, as if despite
what my eyes told me, he had vanished. He was not there at all. The
dead make no noise.
"What happened to your face?"
I touched the swollen cheek before I could stop
myself. "Nothing," I lied.
"Who hit you?"
"Why, so you can go beat him up?"
"One of the fringe benefits of being my servant is my
protection."
"I don't need your protection, Jean-Claude."
"He hurt you."
"And I shoved a gun into his groin and made him tell
me everything he knew," I said.
Jean-Claude smiled. "You did what?"
"I shoved a gun into his balls, alright?"
His eyes started to sparkle. Laughter spread across
his face and burst out between his lips. He laughed
full-throated.
The laugh was like candy: sweet, and infectious. If
you could bottle Jean-Claude's laugh, I know it would be fattening.
Or orgasmic.
"Ma petite, ma petite, you are
absolutely marvelous."
I stared at him, letting that wonderful, touchable
laugh roll around me. It was time to go. It is very hard to be
dignified when someone is laughing uproariously at you. But I
managed.
My parting shot made him laugh harder. "Stop calling
me ma petite."
Chapter 22
I stepped back out into the noise of the club.
Charles was standing beside the table, not sitting. He looked
uncomfortable from a distance. What had gone wrong now?
His big hands were twisted together. Dark face
scrunched up into near pain. A kind God had made Charles look big
and bad, because inside he was all marshmallow. If I'd had
Charles's natural size and strength, I'd have been a guaranteed bad
ass. It was sort of sad and unfair.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I called Caroline," he said.
"And?"
"The baby-sitter's sick. And Caroline's been called
in to the hospital. Someone has to stay with Sam while she goes to
work."
"Mm-huh," I said.
He didn't look the least bit tough when he said, "Can
going down to the Tenderloin wait until tomorrow?"
I shook my head.
"You're not going to go down there alone," Charles
said. "Are you?"
I stared up at the great mountain of a man, and
sighed. "I can't wait, Charles."
"But the Tenderloin." He lowered his voice as if just
saying the word too loud would bring a cloud of pimps and
prostitutes to descend upon us. "You can't go down there alone at
night."
"I've gone worse places, Charles. I'll be all
right."
"No, I won't let you go alone. Caroline can just get
a new sitter or tell the hospital no." He smiled when he said it.
Always happy to help a friend. Caroline would give him hell for it.
Worst of all, now I didn't want to take Charles with me. You had to
do more than look tough.
What if Gaynor got wind of me questioning Wanda? What
if he found Charles and thought he was involved? No. It had
been selfish to risk Charles. He had a four-year-old
son. And a wife.
Harold Gaynor would eat Charles raw for dinner. I
couldn't involve him. He was a big, friendly, eager-to-please bear.
A lovable, cuddly bear. I didn't need a teddy bear for backup.
I needed someone who would be able to take any heat
that Gaynor might send our way.
I had an idea.
"Go home, Charles. I won't go alone. I promise."
He looked uncertain. Like maybe he didn't trust me.
Fancy that. "Anita, are you sure? I won't leave you hanging like
this."
"Go on, Charles. I'll take backup."
"Who can you get at this hour?"
"No questions. Go home to your son."
He looked uncertain, but relieved. He hadn't really
wanted to go to the Tenderloin. Maybe Caroline's short leash was
what Charles wanted, needed. An excuse for all the things he really
didn't want to do. What a basis for a marriage.
But, hey, if it works, don't fix it.
Charles left with many apologies. But I knew he was
glad to go. I would remember that he had been glad to go.
I knocked on the office door. There was a silence,
then, "Come in, Anita."
How had he known it was me? I wouldn't ask. I didn't
want to know.
Jean-Claude seemed to be checking figures in a large
ledger. It looked antique with yellowed pages and fading ink.
The ledger looked like something Bob Crachit should have been
scribbling in on a cold Christmas Eve.
"What have I done to merit two visits in one night?"
he said.
Looking at him now, I felt silly. I spent all this
time avoiding him. Now I was going to invite him to accompany me on
a bit of sleuthing? But it would kill two bats with one stone. It
would please Jean-Claude, and I really didn't want him angry with
me, if I could avoid it. And if Gaynor did try to go up against
Jean-Claude, I was betting on Jean-Claude.
It was what Jean-Claude had done to me a few weeks
ago. He had chosen me as the vampire's champion. Put me up against
a monster that had slain three master vampires. And he had bet that
I would come out on top against Nikolaos. I had, but just
barely.
What was sauce for the goose was sauce for the
gander. I smiled sweetly at him. Pleased to be able to return the
favor so quickly.
"Would you care to accompany me to the
Tenderloin?"
He blinked, surprise covering his face just like a
real person. "To what purpose?"
"I need to question a prostitute about a case I'm
working on. I need backup."
"Backup?" he asked.
"I need backup that looks more threatening than I do.
You fit the bill."
He smiled beatifically. "I would be your
bodyguard."
"You've given me enough grief, do something nice for
a change."
The smile vanished. "Why this sudden change of heart,
ma petite?"
"My backup had to go home and baby-sit his kid."
"And if I do not go?"
"I'll go alone," I said.
"Into the Tenderloin?"
"Yep."
He was suddenly standing by the desk, walking towards
me. I hadn't seen him rise.
"I wish you'd stop doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Clouding my mind so I can't see you move."
"I do it as often as I can, ma petite, just
to prove I still can."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I gave up much of my power over you when I gave you
the marks. I practice what little games are left me." He was
standing almost in front of me. "Lest you forget who and what I
am."
I stared up into his blue, blue eyes. "I never forget
that you are the walking dead, Jean-Claude."
An expression I could not read passed over his face.
It might have been pain. "No, I see the knowledge in your eyes of
what I am." His voice dropped low, almost a whisper, but it wasn't
seductive. It was human. "Your eyes are the clearest mirror I have
ever seen, ma petite. Whenever I begin to pretend to
myself. Whenever I have delusions of life. I have only to look into
your face and see the truth."
What did he expect me to say? Sorry, I'll try to
ignore the fact that you're a vampire. "So why keep me around?" I
asked.
"Perhaps if Nikolaos had had such a mirror, she would
not have been such a monster."
I stared at him. He might be right. It made his
choice of me as human servant almost noble. Almost. Oh, hell. I
would not start feeling sorry for the freaking Master of the City.
Not now. Not ever.
We would go down to the Tenderloin. Pimps beware. I
was bringing the Master as backup. It was like carrying a
thermonuclear device to kill ants. Overkill has always been a
specialty of mine.
Chapter 23
The Tenderloin was originally the red light district
on the Riverfront in the 1800s. But the Tenderloin, like so much of
St. Louis, moved uptown. Go down Washington past the Fox Theater,
where you can see Broadway traveling companies sing bright musical.
Keep driving down Washington to the west edge of downtown St. Louis
and you will come to the resurrected carcass of the Tenderloin.
The night streets are neon-coated, sparkling,
flashing, pulsing-colors. It looks like some sort of pornographic
carnival. All it needs is a Ferris wheel in one of the empty lots.
They could sell cotton candy shaped like naked people. The kiddies
could play while Daddy went to get his jollies. Mom would never
have to know.
Jean-Claude sat beside me in the car. He had been
utterly silent on the drive over. I had had to glance at him a time
or two just to make sure he was still there. People make noise. I
don't mean talking or belching or anything overt. But people, as a
rule, can't just sit without making noise. They fidget, the sound
of cloth rubbing against the seats; they breathe, the soft intake
of air; they wet their lips, wet, quiet, but noise. Jean-Claude
didn't do any of these things as we drove. I couldn't even swear he
blinked. The living dead, yippee.
I can take silence as good as the next guy, better
than most women and a lot of men. Now, I needed to fill the
silence. Talk just for the noise. A waste of energy, but I needed
it.
"Are you in there, Jean-Claude?"
His neck turned, bringing his head with it. His eyes
glittered, reflecting the neon signs like dark glass. Shit.
"You can play human, Jean-Claude, better than almost
any vampire I've ever met. What's all this supernatural crap?"
"Crap?" he said, voice soft.
"Yeah, why are you going all spooky on me?"
"Spooky?" he asked, and the sound filled the car. As
if the word meant something else entirely.
"Stop that," I said.
"Stop what?"
"Answering every question with a question."
He blinked once. "So sorry, ma petite, but I
can feel the street."
"Feel the street? What does that mean?"
He settled back against the upholstery, leaning his
head and neck into the seat. His hand clasped over his stomach.
"There is a great deal of life here."
"Life?" He had me doing it now.
"Yes," he said, "I can feel them running back and
forth. Little creatures, desperately seeking love, pain,
acceptance, greed. A lot of greed here, too, but mostly pain and
love."
"You don't come to a prostitute for love. You come
for sex."
He rolled his head so his dark eyes stared at me.
"Many people confuse the two."
I stared at the road. The hairs at the back of my
neck were standing at attention. "You haven't fed yet tonight, have
you?"
"You are the vampire expert. Can you not tell?" His
voice had dropped to almost a whisper. Hoarse and thick.
"You know I can never tell with you."
"A compliment to my powers, I'm sure."
"I did not bring you down here to hunt," I said. My
voice sounded firm, a tad loud. My heart was loud inside my
head.
"Would you forbid me to hunt tonight?" he asked.
I thought about that one for a minute or two. We were
going to have to turn around and make another pass to find a
parking space. Would I forbid him to hunt tonight? Yes. He knew the
answer. This was a trick question. Trouble was I couldn't see the
trick.
"I would ask that you not hunt here tonight," I
said.
"Give me a reason, Anita."
He had called me Anita without me prompting him. He
was definitely after something. "Because I brought you down here.
You wouldn't have hunted here, if it hadn't been for me."
"You feel guilt for whomever I might feed on
tonight?"
"It is illegal to take unwilling human victims," I
said.
"So it is."
"The penalty for doing so is death," I said.
"By your hand."
"If you do it in this state, yes."
"They are just whores, pimps, cheating men. What do
they matter to you, Anita?"
I don't think he had ever called me Anita twice in a
row. It was a bad sign. A car pulled away not a block from The Grey
Cat Club. What luck. I slid my Nova into the slot. Parallel parking
is not my best thing, but luckily the car that pulled away was
twice the size of my car. There was plenty of room to maneuver,
back and forth from the curb.
When the car was lurched nearly onto the curb but
safely out of traffic, I cut the engine. Jean-Claude lay back in
his seat, staring at me. "I asked you a question, ma
petite, what do these people mean to you?"
I undid my seat belt and turned to look at him. Some
trick of light and shadow had put most of his body in darkness. A
band of nearly gold light lay across his face. His high cheekbones
were very prominent against his pale skin. The tips of his fangs
showed between his lips. His eyes gleamed like blue neon. I looked
away and stared at the steering wheel while I talked.
"I have no personal stake in these people,
Jean-Claude, but they are people. Good, bad, or indifferent, they
are alive, and no one has the right to just arbitrarily snuff them
out."
"So it is the sanctity of life you cling to?"
I nodded. "That and the fact that every human being
is special. Every death is a loss of something precious and
irreplaceable." I looked at him as I finished the last.
"You have killed before, Anita. You have destroyed
that which is irreplaceable."
"I'm irreplaceable, too," I said. "No one has the
right to kill me, either."
He sat up in one liquid motion, and reality seemed to
collect around him. I could almost feel the movement of time in the
car, like a sonic boom for the inside of my head, instead of my
ear.
Jean-Claude sat there looking entirely human. His
pale skin had a certain flush to it. His curling black hair,
carefully combed and styled, was rich and touchable. His eyes were
just midnight-blue, nothing exceptional but the color. He was human
again, in the blink of an eye.
"Jesus," I whispered.
"What is wrong, ma petite?"
I shook my head. If I asked how he did it, he'd just
smile.
"Why all the questions, Jean-Claude? Why the worry
about my view of life?"
"You are my human servant." He raised a hand to stop
the automatic objection. "I have begun the process of making you my
human servant, and I would like to understand you better."
"Can't you just . . . scent my emotions like you can
the people on the street?"
"No, ma petite. I can feel your desire but
little else. I gave that up when I made you my marked servant."
"You can't read me?"
"No."
That was really nice to know. Jean-Claude didn't have
to tell me. So why did he? He never gave anything away for free.
There were strings attached that I couldn't even see. I shook my
head. "You are just to back me up tonight. Don't do anything to
anybody unless I say so, okay?"
"Do anything?"
"Don't hurt anyone unless they try to hurt us."
He nodded, face very solemn. Why did I suspect that
he was laughing at me in some dark corner of his mind? Giving
orders to the Master of the City. I guess it was funny.
The noise level on the sidewalk was intense. Music
blared out of every other building. Never the same song, but
always loud. The flashing signs proclaimed, "Girls, Girls, Girls.
Topless." A pink-edged sign read, "Talk to the Naked Woman of Your
Dreams." Eeek.
A tall, thin black woman came up to us. She was
wearing purple shorts so short that they looked like a thong
bikini. Black fishnet panty hose covered her legs and buttocks.
Provocative.
She stopped somewhere between the two of us. Her eyes
flicked from one to the other. "Which one of ya does it, and which
one of ya watches?"
Jean-Claude and I exchanged glances. He was smiling
ever so slightly. "Sorry, we were looking for Wanda," I said.
"A lot of names down here," she said. "I can do
anything this Wanda can do, and do it better." She stepped very
close to Jean-Claude, almost touching. He took her hand in his and
lifted it gently to his lips. His eyes watched me as he did it.
"You're the doer," she said. Her voice had gone
throaty, sexy. Or maybe that was just the effect Jean-Claude had on
women. Maybe.
The woman cuddled in, against him. Her skin looked
very dark against the white lace of his shirt. Her fingernails were
painted a bright pink, like Easter basket grass.
"Sorry to interrupt," I said, "but we don't have all
night."
"This is not the one you seek then," he said.
"No," I said.
He gripped her arms just above the elbows and pushed
her away. She struggled just a bit to reach him again. Her hands
grabbed at his arms, trying to pull herself closer to him. He held
her straight-armed, effortlessly. He could have held a semitruck
effortlessly.
"I'll do you for free," she said.
"What did you do to her?" I asked.
"Nothing."
I didn't believe him. "Nothing, and she offers to do
you for free?" Sarcasm is one of my natural talents. I made sure
that Jean-Claude heard it.
"Be still," he said.
"Don't tell me to shut up."
The woman was standing perfectly still. Her hands
dropped to her sides, limp. He hadn't been talking to me at
all.
Jean-Claude took his hands away from her. She never
moved. He stepped around her like she was a crack in the pavement.
He took my arm, and I let him. I watched the prostitute, waiting
for her to move.
Her straight, nearly naked back shuddered. Her
shoulders slumped. She threw back her head and drew a deep
trembling breath.
Jean-Claude pulled me gently down the street, his
hand on my elbow. The prostitute turned around, saw us. Her eyes
never even hesitated. She didn't know us.
I swallowed hard enough for it to hurt. I pulled
free of Jean-Claude's hand. He didn't fight me. Good for him.
I backed up against a storefront window. Jean-Claude
stood in front of me, looking down. "What did you do to her?"
"I told you, ma petite, nothing."
"Don't call me that. I saw her, Jean-Claude. Don't
lie to me."
A pair of men stopped beside us to look in the
window. They were holding hands. I glanced in the window and felt
color creep up my cheeks. There were whips, leather masks, padded
handcuffs, and things I didn't even have a name for. One of the men
leaned into the other and whispered. The other man laughed. One of
them caught me looking. Our eyes met, and I looked away, fast. Eye
contact down here was a dangerous thing.
I was blushing and hating it. The two men walked
away, hand in hand.
Jean-Claude was staring in the window like he was out
for a Saturday afternoon of window-shopping. Casual.
"What did you do to that woman?"
He stared in the storefront. I couldn't tell exactly
what had caught his attention. "It was careless of me, ma . . .
Anita. My fault entirely."
"What was your fault?"
"My . . . powers are greater when my human servant is
with me." He stared at me then. His gaze solid on my face. "With
you beside me, my powers are enhanced."
"Wait, you mean like a witch's familiar?"
He cocked his head to one side, a slight smile on his
face. "Yes, very close to that. I did not know you knew anything
about witchcraft."
"A deprived childhood," I said. I was not going to be
diverted from the important topic. "So your ability to bespell
people with your eyes is stronger when I'm with you. Strong enough
that without trying, you bespelled that prostitute."
He nodded.
I shook my head. "No, I don't believe you."
He shrugged, a graceful gesture on him. "Believe what
you like, ma petite. It is the truth."
I didn't want to believe it. Because if it were true,
then I was in fact his human servant. Not in my actions but by my
very presence. With sweat trickling down my spine from the heat, I
was cold. "Shit," I said.
"You could say that," he said.
"No, I can't deal with this right now. I can't." I
stared up at him. "You keep whatever powers we have between us in
check, okay?"
"I will try," he said.
"Don't try, dammit, do it."
He smiled wide enough to flash the tips of his fangs.
"Of course, ma petite."
Panic was starting in the pit of my stomach. I
gripped my hands into fists at my sides. "If you call me that one
more time, I'm going to hit you."
His eyes widened just a bit, his lips flexed. I
realized he was trying not to laugh. I hate it when people find my
threats amusing.
He was an invasive son of a bitch; and I wanted to
hurt him. To hurt him because he scared me. I understand the urge,
I've had it before with other people. It's an urge that can lead to
violence. I stared up at his softly amused face. He was a
condescending bastard, but if it ever came to real violence between
us, one of us would die. Chances were good it would be me.
The humor leaked out of his face, leaving it smooth
and lovely, and arrogant. "What is it, Anita?" His voice was soft
and intimate. Even in the heat and movement of this place, his
voice could roll me up and under. It was a gift.
"Don't push me into a corner, Jean-Claude. You don't
want to take away all my options."
"I don't know what you mean," he said.
"If it comes down to you or me, I'm going to pick me.
You remember that."
He looked at me for a space of heartbeats. Then he
blinked and nodded. "I believe you would. But remember, ma . . .
Anita, if you hurt me, it hurts you. I could survive the strain of
your death. The question, amante de moi, is could you
survive mine?" Amantedemoi? What the
hell did that mean? I decided not to ask. "Damn you, Jean-Claude,
damn you."
"That, dear Anita, was done long before you met
me."
"What does that mean?"
His eyes were as innocent as they ever were. "Why,
Anita, your own Catholic Church has declared all vampires as
suicides. We are automatically damned."
I shook my head. "I'm Episcopalian, now, but that
isn't what you meant."
He laughed then. The sound was like silk brushed
across the nape of the neck. It felt smooth and good, but it made
you shudder.
I walked away from him. I just left him there in
front of the obscene window display. I walked into the crowd of
whores, hustlers, customers. There was nobody on this street as
dangerous as Jean-Claude. I had brought him down here to protect
me. That was laughable. Ridiculous. Obscene.
A young man who couldn't have been more than fifteen
stopped me. He was wearing a vest with no shirt and a pair of torn
jeans. "You interested?"
He was taller than me by a little. His eyes were
blue. Two other boys just behind him were staring at us.
"We don't get many women down here," he said.
"I believe you." He looked incredibly young. "Where
can I find Wheelchair Wanda?"
One of the boys behind him said, "A crip lover,
Jesus."
I agreed with him. "Where?" I held up a twenty. It
was too much to pay for the information, but maybe if I gave it to
him, he could go home sooner. Maybe if he had twenty dollars, he
could turn down one of the cars cruising the street. Twenty
dollars, it would change his life. Like sticking your finger in a
nuclear meltdown.
"She's just outside of The Grey Cat. At the end of
the block."
"Thanks." I gave him the twenty. His fingernails had
grime embedded in them.
"You sure you don't want some action?" His voice was
small and uncertain, like his eyes. Out of the comer of my eye I
saw Jean-Claude moving through the crowd. He was coming for me. To
protect me. I turned back to the boy. "I've got more action than I
know what to do with," I said.
He frowned, looking puzzled. That was all right. I
was puzzled, too. What do you do with a master vampire that won't
leave you alone? Good question. Unfortunately, what I needed was a
good answer.
Chapter 24
Wheelchair Wanda was a small woman sitting in one of
those sport wheelchairs that are used for racing. She wore workout
gloves, and the muscles in her arms moved under her tanned skin as
she pushed herself along. Long brown hair fell in gentle waves
around a very pretty face. The makeup was tasteful. She wore a
shiny metallic blue shirt and no bra. An ankle-length skirt with at
least two layers of multicolored crinoline and a pair of stylish
black boots hid her legs.
She was moving towards us at a goodly pace. Most of
the prostitutes, male and female, looked ordinary. They weren't
dressed outrageously, shorts, middrifts. In this heat who could
blame them? I guess if you wear fishnet jumpsuits, the police just
naturally get suspicious.
Jean-Claude stood beside me. He glanced up at the
sign that proclaimed "The Grey Cat" in a near blinding shade of
fuchsia neon. Tasteful.
How does one approach a prostitute, even just to
talk? I didn't know. Learn something new every day. I stood in her
path and waited for her to come to me. She glanced up and caught me
watching her. When I didn't look away, she got eye contact and
smiled.
Jean-Claude moved up beside me. Wanda's smile
broadened or deepened. It was a definite "come along smile" as my
Grandmother Blake used to say.
Jean-Claude whispered, "Is that a prostitute?"
"Yes," I said.
"In a wheelchair?" he asked.
"Yep."
"My," was all he said. I think Jean-Claude was
shocked. Nice to know he could be.
She stopped her chair with an expert movement of
hands.
She smiled, craning to look up at us. The angle
looked painful.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," I said.
She continued to smile. I continued to stare. Why did
I suddenly feel awkward? "A friend told me about you," I said.
Wanda nodded.
"You are the one they refer to as Wheelchair
Wanda?"
She grinned suddenly, and her face looked real.
Behind all those lovely but fake smiles was a real person. "Yeah,
that's me."
"Could we talk?"
"Sure," she said. "You got a room?"
Did I have a room? Wasn't she supposed to do that?
"No."
She waited.
Oh, hell. "We just want to talk to you for an hour,
or two. We'll pay whatever the going rate is."
She told me the going rate.
"Jesus, that's a little steep," I said.
She smiled beatifically at me. "Supply and demand,"
she said. "You can't get a taste of what I have anywhere else." She
smoothed her hands down her legs as she said it. My eyes followed
her hands like they were supposed to. This was too weird.
I nodded. "Okay, you got a deal." It was a business
expense. Computer paper, ink pens medium point, one prostitute,
manila file folders. See, it fit right in.
Bert was going to love this one.
Chapter 25
We took Wanda back to my apartment. There are no
elevators in my building. Two flights of stairs are not exactly
wheelchair accessible. Jean-Claude carried her. His stride was even
and fluid as he walked ahead of me. Wanda didn't even slow him
down. I followed with the wheelchair. It did slow me down.
The only consolation I had was I got to watch
Jean-Claude climb the stairs. So sue me. He had a very nice
backside for a vampire.
He was waiting for me in the upper hallway, standing
with Wanda cuddled in his arms. They both looked at me with a
pleasant sort of blankness.
I wheeled the collapsed wheelchair over the
carpeting. Jean-Claude followed me. The crinoline in Wanda's skirts
crinkled and whispered as he moved.
I leaned the wheelchair against my leg and unlocked
the door. I pushed the door all the way back to the wall to give
Jean-Claude room. The wheelchair folded inwards like a cloth baby
stroller. I struggled to make the metal bars catch, so the chair
would be solid again. As I suspected, it was easier to break it
than to fix it.
I glanced up from my struggles and found Jean-Claude
still standing outside my door. Wanda was staring at him,
frowning.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I have never been to your apartment."
"So?"
"The great vampire expert . . . come, Anita."
Oh. "You have my permission to enter my home."
He gave a sort of bow from the neck. "I am honored,"
he said.
The wheelchair snapped into shape again. Jean-Claude
set Wanda in her chair. I closed the door. Wanda smoothed her long
skirts over her legs.
Jean-Claude stood in the middle of my living room and
gazed about. He gazed at the penguin calendar on the wall by the
kitchenette. He rifled the pages to see future months, gazing at
pictures of chunky flightless birds until he'd seen every
picture.
I wanted to tell him to stop, but it was harmless. I
didn't write appointments on the calendar. Why did it bother me
that he was so damned interested in it?
I turned back to the prostitute in my living room.
The night was entirely too weird. "Would you like something to
drink?" I asked. When in doubt, be polite.
"Red wine if you have it," Wanda said.
"Sorry, nothing alcoholic in the house. Coffee, soft
drinks with real sugar in them, and water, that's about it."
"Soft drink," she said.
I got her a can of Coke out of the fridge. "You want
a glass?"
She shook her head.
Jean-Claude was leaning against the wall, staring at
me as I moved about the kitchen. "I don't need a glass either," he
said softly.
"Don't get cute," I said.
"Too late," he said.
I had to smile.
The smile seemed to please him. Which made me frown.
Life was hard around Jean-Claude. He sort of wandered off towards
the fish tank. He was giving himself a tour of my apartment. Of
course, he would. But at least it would give Wanda and I some
privacy.
"Shit, he's a vampire," Wanda said. She sounded
surprised. Which surprised me. I could always tell. Dead was dead
to me, no matter how pretty the corpse.
"You didn't know?" I asked.
"No, I'm not coffin-bait," she said. There was a
tightness to her face. The flick of her eyes as she followed
Jean-Claude's casual movements around the room was new. She was
scared.
"What's coffin-bait?" I handed her the soft
drink.
"A whore that does vampires."
Coffin-bait, how quaint. "He won't touch you."
She turned brown eyes to me then. Her gaze was very
thorough, as if she were trying to read the inside of my head. Was
I telling the truth?
How terrifying to go away with strangers to rooms and
not know if they will hurt you or not. Desperation, or a death
wish.
"So you and I are going to do it?" she asked. Her
gaze never left my face.
I blinked at her. It took me a moment to realize what
she meant. "No." I shook my head. "No, I said I just wanted to
talk. I meant it." I think I was blushing.
Maybe the blush did it. She popped the top on the
soda can and took a drink. "You want me to talk about doing it with
other people, while you do it with him?" She motioned her head
towards the wandering vampire.
Jean-Claude was standing in front of the only picture
I had in the room. It was modern and matched the decor. Grey, white,
black, and palest pink. It was one of those designs that the longer
you stared at it, the more shapes you could pick out.
"Look, Wanda, we are just going to talk. That's it.
Nobody is going to do anything to anybody. Okay?"
She shrugged. "It's your money. We can do what you
want."
That one statement made my stomach hurt. She meant
it. I'd paid the money. She would do anything I wanted. Anything?
It was too awful. That any human being would say "anything" and
mean it. Of course, she drew the line at vampires. Even whores have
standards.
Wanda was smiling up at me. The change was
extraordinary. Her face glowed. She was instantly lovely. Even her
eyes glowed. It reminded me of Cicely's soundless laughing
face.
Back to business. "I heard you were Harold Gaynor's
mistress a while back." No preliminaries, no sweet talk. Off with
the clothes.
Wanda's smile faded. The glow of humor died in her
eyes, replaced by wariness. "I don't know the name."
"Yeah, you do," I said. I was still standing, forcing
her to look up at me in that near painful angle.
She sipped her drink and shook her head without
looking up at me.
"Come on, Wanda, I know you were Gaynor's sweetie.
Admit you know him, and we'll work from there."
She glanced up at me, then down. "No. I'll do you.
I'll let the vamp watch. I'll talk dirty to you both. But I don't
know anybody named Gaynor."
I leaned down, putting my hands on the arms of her
chair. Our faces were very close. "I'm not a reporter. Gaynor will
never know you talked to me unless you tell him."
Her eyes had gotten bigger. I glanced where she was
staring. The Windbreaker had fallen forward. My gun was showing,
which seemed to upset her. Good.
"Talk to me, Wanda." My voice was soft. Mild. The
mildest of voices is often the worst threat.
"Who the hell are you? You're not cops. You're not a
reporter. Social workers don't carry guns. Who are you?" That last
question had the lilt of fear in it.
Jean-Claude strolled into the room. He'd been in my
bedroom. Great, just great. "Trouble, ma petite?"
I didn't correct him on the nickname. Wanda didn't
need to know there was dissent in the ranks. "She's being
stubborn," I said.
I stepped back from her chair. I took off the
Windbreaker and laid it over the kitchen counter. Wanda stared at
the gun like I knew she would.
I may not be intimidating, but the Browning is.
Jean-Claude walked up behind her. His slender hands
touched her shoulders. She jumped like it had hurt. I knew it
hadn't hurt. Might be better if it did.
"He'll kill me," Wanda said.
A lot of people seemed to say that about Mr. Gaynor.
"He'll never know," I said.
Jean-Claude rubbed his cheek against her hair. His
fingers kneading her shoulders, gently. "And, my sweet coquette, he
is not here with you tonight." He spoke with his lips against her
ear. "We are." He said something else so soft I could not hear.
Only his lips moved, soundlessly for me.
Wanda heard him. Her eyes widened, and she started to
tremble. Her entire body seemed in the grip of some kind of fit.
Tears glittered in her eyes and fell down her cheeks in one
graceful curve.
Jesus.
"Please, don't. Please don't let him." Her voice was
squeezed small and thin with fear.
I hated Jean-Claude in that moment. And I hated me. I
was one of the good guys. It was one of my last illusions. I wasn't
willing to give it up, not even if it worked. Wanda would talk or
she wouldn't. No torture. "Back off, Jean-Claude," I said.
He gazed up at me. "I can taste her terror like
strong wine." His eyes were solid, drowning blue. He looked blind.
His face was still lovely as he opened his mouth wide and fangs
glistened.
Wanda was still crying and staring at me. If she
could have seen the look on Jean-Claude's face, she would have
been screaming.
"I thought your control was better than this,
Jean-Claude?"
"My control is excellent, but it is not endless." He
stood away from her and began to pace the room on the other side of
the couch. Like a leopard pacing its cage. Contained violence,
waiting for release. I could not see his face. Had the spook act
been for Wanda's benefit? Or real?
I shook my head. No way to ask in front of Wanda.
Maybe later. Maybe.
I knelt in front of Wanda. She was gripping the soda
can so hard, she was denting it. I didn't touch her, just knelt
close by. "I won't let him hurt you. Honest. Harold Gaynor is
threatening me. That's why I need information."
Wanda was looking at me, but her attention was on the
vampire in back of her. There was a watchful tension in her
shoulders. She would never relax while Jean-Claude was in the room.
The lady had taste.
"Jean-Claude, Jean-Claude."
His face looked as ordinary as it ever did when he
turned to face me. A smile crooked his full lips. It was an act.
Pretense. Damn him. Was there something in becoming a vampire that
made you sadistic?
"Go into the bedroom for a while. Wanda and I need to
talk in private."
"Your bedroom." His smile widened. "My pleasure,
ma petite."
I scowled at him. He was undaunted. As always. But he
left the room as I'd asked.
Wanda's shoulders slumped. She drew a shaky breath.
"You really aren't going to let him hurt me, are you?"
"No, I'm not."
She started to cry then, soft, shaky tears. I didn't
know what to do. I've never known what to do when someone cries.
Did I hug her? Pat her hand comfortingly. What?
I finally sat back on the ground in front of her,
leaning back on my heels, and did nothing. It took a few moments,
but finally the crying stopped. She blinked up at me. The makeup
around her eyes had faded, just vanished. It made her look
vulnerable, more rather than less attractive. I had the urge to
take her in my arms and rock her like a child. Whisper lies, about
how everything would be alright.
When she left here tonight, she was still going to be
a whore. A crippled whore. How could that be alright? I shook my
head more at me than at her.
"You want some Kleenex?"
She nodded.
I got her the box from the kitchen counter. She wiped
at her face and blew her nose softly, very ladylike.
"Can we talk now?"
She blinked at me and nodded. She took a shaky sip of
pop.
"You know Harold Gaynor, right?"
She just stared at me, dully. Had we broken her? "If
he finds out, he will kill me. Maybe I don't want to be
coffin-bait, but I sure as hell don't want to die either."
"No one does. Talk to me, Wanda, please."
She let out a shaky sigh. "Okay, I know Harold."
Harold? "Tell me about him."
Wanda stared at me. Her eyes narrowed. There were
fine lines around her eyes. It made her older than I had thought.
"Has he sent Bruno or Tommy after you yet?"
"Tommy came for a personal meeting."
"What happened?"
"I drew a gun on him."
"That gun?" she asked in a small voice.
"Yes."
"What did you do to make Harold mad?"
Truth or lie? Neither. "I refused to do something for
him."
"What?"
I shook my head. "It doesn't matter."
"It can't have been sex. You aren't crippled." She
said the last word like it was hard. "He doesn't touch anyone who's
whole." The bitterness in her voice was thick enough to taste.
"How did you meet him?" I asked.
"I was in college at Wash U. Gaynor was donating
money for something."
"And he asked you out?"
"Yeah." Her voice was so soft, I had to lean forward
to hear it.
"What happened?"
"We were both in wheelchairs. He was rich. It was
great." She rolled her lips under, like she was smoothing lipstick,
then out, and swallowed.
"When did it stop being great?" I asked.
"I moved in with him. Dropped out of college. It was
. . . easier than college. Easier than anything. He couldn't get
enough of me." She stared down at her lap again. "He started
wanting variety in the bedroom. See, his legs are crippled, but he
can feel. I can't feel." Wanda's voice had dropped almost to a
whisper. I had to lean against her knees to hear. "He liked to do
things to my legs, but I couldn't feel it. So at first I thought
that was okay, but . . . but he got really sick." She looked at me
suddenly, her face only inches from mine. Her eyes were huge,
swimming with unshed tears. "He cut me up. I couldn't feel it, but
that's not the point, is it?"
"No," I said.
The first tear trailed down her face. I touched her
hand. Her fingers wrapped around mine and held on.
"It's alright," I said, "it's alright."
She cried. I held her hand and lied. "It's alright
now, Wanda. He can't hurt you anymore."
"Everyone hurts you," she said. "You were going to
hurt me." There was accusation in her eyes.
It was a little late to explain good cop, bad cop to
her. She wouldn't have believed it anyway.
"Tell me about Gaynor."
"He replaced me with a deaf girl."
"Cicely," I said.
She looked up, surprised. "You've met her?"
"Briefly."
Wanda shook her head. "Cicely is one sick chickie.
She likes torturing people. It gets her off." Wanda looked at me as
if trying to gauge my reaction. Was I shocked? No.
"Harold slept with both of us at the same time,
sometimes. At the end it was always a threesome. It got real
rough." Her voice dropped lower and lower, a hoarse whisper.
"Cicely likes knives. She's real good at skinning things." She
rolled her lips under again in that lipstick-smoothing gesture.
"Gaynor would kill me just for telling you his bedroom
secrets."
"Do you know any business secrets?"
She shook her head. "No, I swear. He was always very
careful to keep me out of that. I thought at first it was so if the
police came, I wouldn't be arrested." She looked down at her lap.
"Later, I realized it was because he knew I would be replaced. He
didn't want me to know anything that could hurt him when he threw
me away."
There was no bitterness now, no anger, only a hollow
sadness. I wanted her to rant and rave. This quiet despair was
aching. A hurt that would never heal. Gaynor had done worse than
kill her. He'd left her alive. Alive and as crippled inside as
out.
"I can't tell you anything but bedroom talk. It won't
help you hurt him."
"Is there any bedroom talk that isn't about sex?" I
asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Personal secrets, but not sex. You. were his sweetie
for nearly two years. He must have talked about something other
than sex."
She frowned, thinking. "I . . . I guess he talked
about his family."
"What about his family?"
"He was illegitimate. He was obsessed with his real
father's family."
"He knew who they were?"
Wanda nodded. "They were rich, old money. His mother
was a hooker turned mistress: When she got pregnant, they threw her
out."
Like Gaynor did to his women, I thought. Freud is so
often at work in our lives. Out loud I said, "What family?"
"He never said. I think he thought I'd blackmail them
or go to them with his dirty little secrets. He desperately wants
them to regret not welcoming him into the family. I think he only
made his money so he could be as rich as they were."
"If he never gave you a name, how do you know he
wasn't lying?"
"You wouldn't ask if you could hear him. His voice
was so intense. He hates them. And he wants his birthright. Their
money is his birthright."
"How does he plan to get their money?" I asked.
"Just before I left him, Harold had found where some
of his ancestors were buried. He talked about treasure. Buried
treasure, can you believe it?"
"In the graves?"
"No, his father's people got their first fortune from
being river pirates. They sailed the Mississippi and robbed people.
Gaynor was proud of that and angry about it. He said that the whole
bunch of them were descended from thieves and whores. Where did
they get off being so high and mighty to him?" She was watching my
face as she spoke the last. Maybe she saw the beginnings of an
idea.
"How would knowing the graves of his ancestors help
him get their treasure?"
"He said he'd find some voodoo priest to raise them.
He'd force them to give him their treasure that had been lost for
centuries."
"Ah," I said.
"What? Did that help?"
I nodded. My role in Gaynor's little scheme had
become clear. Painfully clear. The only question left was why me?
Why didn't he go to someone thoroughly disreputable like Dominga
Salvador? Someone who would take his money and kill his hornless
goat and not lose any sleep over it. Why me, with my reputation for
morality?
"Did he ever mention any names of voodoo
priests?"
Wanda shook her head. "No, no names. He was always
careful about names. There's a look on your face. How could what I
have told you just now help you?"
"I think the less you know about that, the better,
don't you?"
She stared at me for a long time but finally nodded.
"I guess so."
"Is there any place . . ." I let it trail off. I was
going to offer her a plane ticket or a bus ticket to anywhere.
Anywhere where she wouldn't have to sell herself. Anywhere where
she could heal.
Maybe she read it in my face or my silence. She
laughed, and it was a rich sound. Shouldn't whores have cynical
cackles?
"You are a social worker type after all. You want to
save me, don't you?"
"Is it terribly naive to offer you a ticket home or
somewhere?"
She nodded. "Terribly. And why should you want to
help me? You're not a man. You don't like women. Why should you
offer to send me home?"
"Stupidity," I said and stood.
"It's not stupid." She took my hand and squeezed it.
"But it wouldn't do any good. I'm a whore. Here at least I know the
town, the people. I have regulars." She released my hand and
shrugged. "I get by."
"With a little help from your friends," I said.
She smiled, and it wasn't happy. "Whores don't have
friends."
"You don't have to be a whore. Gaynor made you a
whore, but you don't have to stay one."
There were tears trembling in her eyes for the third
time that night. Hell, she wasn't tough enough for the streets. No
one was.
"Just call a taxi, okay. I don't want to talk
anymore."
What could I do? I called a taxi. I told the driver
the fare was in a wheelchair like Wanda told me to. She let
Jean-Claude carry her back downstairs because I couldn't do it. But
she was very tight and still in his arms. We left her in her chair
on the curb.
I watched until the taxi came and took her away.
Jean-Claude stood beside me in the golden circle of light just in
front of my apartment building. The warm light seemed to leech
color from his skin.
"I must leave you now, ma petite. It has
been very educational, but time grows short."
"You're going to go feed, aren't you?"
"Does it show?"
"A little."
"I should call you ma vérité,
Anita. You always tell me the truth about myself."
"Is that what vérité means?
Truth?" I asked.
He nodded.
I felt bad. Itchy, grumpy, restless. I was mad at
Harold Gaynor for victimizing Wanda. Mad of Wanda for allowing it.
Angry with myself for not being able to do anything about it. I was
pissed at the whole world tonight. I'd learned what Gaynor wanted
me to do. And it didn't help a damn bit.
"There will always be victims, Anita. Predators and
prey, it is the way of the world."
I glared up at him. "I thought you couldn't read me
anymore."
"I cannot read your mind or your thoughts, only your
face and what I know of you."
I didn't want to know that Jean-Claude knew me that
well. That intimately. "Go away, Jean-Claude, just go away."
"As you like, ma petite." And just like that
he was gone. A rush of wind, then nothing.
"Show-off," I murmured. I was left standing in the
dark, tasting the first edge of tears. Why did I want to cry over a
whore whom I'd just met? Over the unfairness of the world in
general?
Jean-Claude was right. There would always be prey and
predator. And I had worked very hard to be one of the predators. I
was the Executioner. So why were my sympathies always with the
victims? And why did the despair in Wanda's eyes make me hate
Gaynor more than anything he'd ever done to me?
Why indeed?
Chapter 26
The phone rang. I moved nothing but my eyes to glance
at the bedside clock: 6:45 A.M. Shit. I lay there waiting, half
drifted to sleep again when the answering machine picked up.
"It's Dolph. We found another one. Call my pager. .
."
I scrambled for the phone, dropping the receiver in
the process. "H'lo, Dolph. I'm here."
"Late night?"
"Yeah, what's up?"
"Our friend has decided that single family homes are
easy pickings." His voice sounded rough with lack of sleep.
"God, not another family."
"'Fraid so. Can you come out?"
It was a stupid question, but I didn't point that
out. My stomach had dropped into my knees. I didn't want a repeat
of the Reynolds house. I didn't think my imagination could stand
it.
"Give me the address. I'll be there."
He gave me the address.
"St. Peters," I said. "It's close to St. Charles, but
still . . ."
"Still what?"
"It's a long way to walk for a single family home.
There are lots of houses that fit the bill in St. Charles. Why did
it travel so far to feed?"
"You're asking me?" he said. There was something
almost like laughter in his voice. "Come on out, Ms. Voodoo Expert.
See what there is to see."
"Dolph, is it as bad as the Reynolds house?"
"Bad, worse, worst of all," he said. The laughter was
still there, but it held an edge of something hard and self
deprecating.
"This isn't your fault," I said.
"Tell that to the top brass. They're screaming for
someone's ass."
"Did you get the warrant?"
"It'll come in this afternoon late."
"No one gets warrants on a weekend," I said.
"Special panic-mode dispensation," Dolph said. "Get
your ass out here, Anita. Everyone needs to go home." He hung
up.
I didn't bother saying bye.
Another murder. Shit, shit, shit. Double shit. It was
not the way I wanted to spend Saturday morning. But we were getting
our warrant. Yippee. The trouble was I didn't know what to look
for. I wasn't really a voodoo expert. I was a preternatural crimes
expert. It wasn't the same thing. Maybe I should ask Manny to come
along. No, no, I didn't want him near Dominga Salvador in case she
decided to cut a deal and give him to the police. There is no
statute of limitations on human sacrifice. Manny could still go
down for it. It'd be Dominga's style to trade my friend for her
life. Making it, in a roundabout way, my fault. Yeah, she'd love
that.
The message light on my answering machine was
blinking. Why hadn't I noticed it last night? I shrugged. One of
life's mysteries. I pressed the playback button.
"Anita Blake, this is John Burke. I got your message.
Call me anytime here. I'm eager to hear what you have." He gave the
phone number, and that was it.
Great, a murder scene, a trip to the morgue, and a
visit to voodoo land, all in one day. It was going to be a busy and
unpleasant day. It matched last night perfectly, and the night
before. Shit, I was on a roll.
Chapter 27
There was a patrol cop throwing up his guts into one
of those giant, elephant-sized trash cans in front of the house.
Bad sign. There was a television news van parked across the street.
Worse sign. I didn't know how Dolph had kept zombie massacres out
of the news so long. Current events must have been really hopping
for the newshounds to ignore such easy headlines. ZOMBIES MASSACRE
FAMILY. ZOMBIE SERIAL MURDERER ON LOOSE. Jesus, it was going to be
a mess.
The camera crew, complete with microphone-bearing
suit, watched me as I walked towards the yellow police tape. When I
clipped the official plastic card on my collar, the news crew moved
like one animal. The uniform at the police tape held it for me, his
eyes on the descending press. I didn't look back. Never look back
when the press are gaining on you. They catch you if you do.
The blond in the suit yelled out, "Ms. Blake, Ms.
Blake, can you give us a statement?"
Always nice to be recognized, I guess. But I
pretended not to hear. I kept walking, head determinedly down.
A crime scene is a crime scene is a crime scene.
Except for the unique nightmarish qualities of each one. I was
standing in a bedroom of a very nice one-story ranch. There was a
white ceiling fan that turned slowly. It made a faint whirring
creak, as if it wasn't screwed in tight on one side.
Better to concentrate on the small things. The way
the east light fell through the slanting blinds, painting the room
in zebra-stripe shadows. Better not to look at what was left on the
bed. Didn't want to look. Didn't want to see.
Had to see. Had to look. Might find a clue. Sure, and
pigs could fucking fly. But still, maybe, maybe there would be a
clue. Maybe. Hope is a lying bitch.
There are roughly two gallons of blood in the human
body. As much blood as they put on television and the movies, it's
never enough. Try dumping out two full gallons of milk on your
bedroom floor. See what a mess it makes, now multiply that by . . .
something. There was too much blood for just one person. The carpet
squeeched underfoot, and blood came up in little splatters like mud
after a rain. My white Nikes were spotted with scarlet before I was
halfway to the bed.
Lesson learned: wear black Nikes to murder scenes.
The smell was thick in the room. I was glad for the
ceiling fan. The room smelled like a mixture of slaughterhouse and
outhouse. Shit and blood. The smell of fresh death, more often than
not.
Sheets covered not just the bed, but a lot of the
floor around the bed. It looked like giant paper towels thrown over
the world's biggest Kool-Aid spill. There had to be pieces all
over, under the sheets. The lumps were so small, too small to be a
body. There wasn't a single scarlet-soaked bump that was big enough
for a human body.
"Please don't make me look," I whispered to the empty
room.
"Did you say something?"
I jumped and found Dolph standing just behind me.
"Jesus, Dolph, you scared me."
"Wait until you see what's under the sheets. Then you
can be scared."
I didn't want to see what was under the army of
blood-soaked sheets. Surely, I'd seen enough for one week. My quota
of gore had to have been exceeded, night before last. Yeah, I was
over my quota.
Dolph stood in the doorway waiting. There were tiny
pinched lines by his eyes that I had never noticed. He was pale and
needed a shave.
We all needed something. But first I had to look
under the sheets. If Dolph could do it, I could do it. Ri-ight.
Dolph stuck his head out in the hallway. "We need
some help in here lifting the sheets. After Blake sees the remains
we can go home." I think he added that last because no one had
moved to help. He wasn't going to get any volunteers. "Zerbrowski,
Perry, Merlioni, get your butts in here."
The bags under Zerbrowski's eyes looked like bruises.
"Hiya, Blake."
"Hi, Zerbrowski, you look like shit."
He laughed. "And you still look fresh and lovely as a
spring morning." He grinned at me.
"Yeah, right," I said.
Detective Perry said, "Ms. Blake, good to see you
again."
I had to smile. Perry was the only cop I knew who
would be gracious even over the bloody remains. "Nice to see you,
too, Detective Perry."
"Can we get on with this," Merlioni said, "or are the
two of you planning to elope?" Merlioni was tall, though not as
tall as Dolph. But then who was? He had grey curling hair cut short
and buzzed on the sides and over his ears. He wore a white dress
shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a tie at
half-mast. His gun stuck out on his left hip like a lumpy
wallet.
"You take the first sheet then, Merlioni, if you're
in such a damn hurry," Dolph said.
Merlioni sighed. "Yeah, yeah." He stepped to the
sheet on the floor. He knelt. "You ready for this, girlie?"
"Better girlie than dago," I said.
He smiled.
"Do it."
"Showtime," Merlioni said. He raised the sheet and it
stuck in a wet swatch that pulled up one wet inch at a time.
"Zerbrowski, help him raise the damn thing," Dolph
said.
Zerbrowski didn't argue. He must have been tired. The
two men lifted the sheet in one wet motion. The morning sunlight
streamed through the red sheet and painted the rug even redder than
it was, or maybe it didn't make any difference. Blood dripped from
the edges of the sheet where the men held it. Wet, heavy drops,
like a sink that needed fixing. I'd never seen a sheet saturated
with blood before. A morning of firsts.
I stared at the rug and couldn't make sense of it. It
was just a pile of lumps, small lumps. I knelt beside them. Blood
soaked through the knee of my jeans, it was cold. Better than warm,
I guess.
The biggest lump was wet and smooth, about five
inches long. It was pink and healthy-looking. It was a scrap of
upper intestine. A smaller lump lay just beside it. I stared at the
lump but the longer I stared the less it looked like anything. It
could have been a hunk of meat from any animal. Hell, the intestine
didn't have to be human. But it was, or I wouldn't be here.
I poked the smaller glob with one gloved finger. I
had remembered my surgical gloves this time. Goody for me. The glob
was wet and heavy and solid. I swallowed hard, but I was no closer
to knowing what it was. The two scraps were like morsels dropped
from a cat's mouth. Crumbs from the table. Jesus.
I stood. "Next." My voice sounded steady, ordinary.
Amazing.
It took all four men lifting from different corners
to peel the sheet back from the bed. Merlioni cursed and dropped
his corner, "Dammit!"
Blood had run down his arm onto the white shirt. "Did
um's get his shirt messy?" Zerbrowski asked.
"Fuck yes. This place is a mess."
"I guess the lady of the house didn't have time to
clean up before you came, Merlioni," I said. My eyes flicked down
to the bed and the remains of the lady of the house. But I looked
back up at Merlioni instead. "Or can't the dago cop take it?"
"I can take anything you can dish out, little lady,"
he said.
I frowned and shook my head. "Betcha can't."
"I'll take some of that action," Zerbrowski said.
Dolph didn't stop us, tell us this was a crime scene,
not a betting parlor. He knew we needed it to stay sane. I could
not stare down at the remains and not make jokes. I couldn't. I'd
go crazy. Cops have the weirdest sense of humor, because they have
to.
"How much you bet?" Merlioni said.
"A dinner for two at Tony's," I said.
Zerbrowski whistled. "Steep, very steep."
"I can afford to foot the bill. Is it a deal?"
Merlioni nodded. "My wife and I haven't been out in
ages." He offered his blood-soaked hand. I took it. The cool blood
clung to the outside of my surgical gloves. It felt wet, like it
had soaked through to the skin, but it hadn't. It was a sensory
illusion. I knew that when I took off the gloves my hands would be
powder dry. It was still unnerving.
"How we prove who's toughest?" Merlioni asked.
"This scene, here and now," I said.
"Deal."
I turned my attention back to the carnage with
renewed determination. I would win the bet. I wouldn't let Merlioni
have the satisfaction. It gave me something to concentrate on
rather than the mess on the bed.
The left half of a rib cage lay on the bed. A naked
breast was still attached to it. The lady of the house? Everything
was brilliant scarlet red, like someone had poured buckets of red
paint on the bed. It was hard to pick out the pieces. There a left
arm, small, female.
I picked up the fingers and they were limp, no rigor
mortis. There was a wedding band set on the third finger. I moved
the fingers back and forth. "No rigor mortis. What do you think,
Merlioni?"
He squinted down at the arm. He couldn't let me outdo
him so he fiddled with the hand, turning it at the wrist. "Could be
rigor came and went. You know the first rigor doesn't last."
"You really think nearly two days have passed?" I
shook my head. "The blood's too fresh for that. Rigor hasn't set
in. The crime isn't eight hours old yet."
He nodded. "Not bad, Blake. But what do you make of
this?" He poked the rib cage enough to make the breast jiggle.
I swallowed hard. I would win this bet. "I don't
know. Let's see. Help me roll it over." I stared into his face
while I asked. Did he pale just a bit? Maybe.
"Sure."
The three others were standing at the side of the
room, watching the show. Let them. It was a lot more diverting than
thinking of this as work.
Merlioni and I moved the rib cage over on its side. I
made sure to give him the fleshy parts, so he ended up groping the
dead body. Was breast tissue breast tissue? Did it matter that it
was bloody and cold? Merlioni looked just a little green. I guess
it mattered.
The insides of the rib cage were snatched clean like
Mr. Reynolds's rib cage. Clean and bloody smooth. We let the rib
cage fall back on the bed. It splattered blood in a faint spray
onto us. His white shirt showed it worse than my blue polo shirt
did. Point for me.
He grimaced and brushed at the blood specks. He
smeared blood from his gloves down the shirt. Merlioni closed his
eyes and took a deep breath.
"Are you alright, Merlioni?" I asked. "I wouldn't
want you to continue if it's upsetting you."
He glared at me, then smiled. A most unpleasant
smile. "You ain't seen it all, girlie. I have."
"But have you touched it all?"
A trickle of sweat slid down his face. "You won't
want to touch it all."
I shrugged. "We'll see." There was a leg on the bed,
from the hair and the one remaining tennis shoe it looked male. The
round, wet mound of the ball socket gleamed out at us. The zombie
had just torn the leg off, tearing flesh without tearing bone.
"That must have hurt like a son of a bitch," I
said.
"You think he was alive when the leg was pulled
off?"
I nodded. "Yeah." I wasn't a hundred percent sure.
There was too much blood to tell who had died when, but Merlioni
looked a little paler.
The rest of the pieces were just bloody entrails,
globs of flesh, bits of bone. Merlioni picked up a handful of
entrails. "Catch."
"Jesus, Merlioni, that isn't funny." My stomach was
one tight knot.
"No, but the look on your face is," he said.
I glared at him and said, "Throw it or don't,
Merlioni, no teasing."
He blinked at me for a minute, then nodded. He tossed
the string of entrails. They were awkward to throw but I managed to
catch them. They were wet, heavy, flaccid, squeeshy, and altogether
disgusting, like touching raw calf's liver but more so.
Dolph made an exasperated sound. "While you two are
playing gross out, can you tell me something useful?"
I dropped the flesh back on the bed. "Sure. The
zombie came in through the sliding glass door like last time. It
chased the man or woman back in here and got them both." I stopped
talking. I just froze.
Merlioni was holding up a baby blanket. Some trick
had left a corner of it clean. It was edged in satiny pink with
tiny balloons and clowns all over it. Blood dripped heavily from
the other end of it.
I stared at the tiny balloons and clowns while they
danced in useless circles. "You bastard," I whispered.
"Are you referring to me?" Merlioni asked.
I shook my head. I didn't want to touch the blanket.
But I reached out for it. Merlioni made sure that the bloody edge
slapped my bare arm. "Dago bastard," I said.
"You referring to me, bitch?"
I nodded and tried to smile but didn't really manage
it. We had to keep pretending that this was alright. That this was
doable. It was obscene. If the bet hadn't held me I'd have run
screaming from the room.
I stared at the blanket. "How old?"
"Family portrait out front, I'd guess three, four
months."
I was finally on the other side of the bed. There was
another sheet-draped spot. It was just as bloody, just as small.
There was nothing whole under the sheet. I wanted to call the bet
off. If they wouldn't make me look I'd take them all to Tony's.
Just don't make me lift that last sheet. Please, please.
But I had to look, bet or no bet, I had to see what
there was to see. Might as well see it and win, as run and
lose.
I handed the blanket back to Merlioni. He took it and
laid it back on the bed, up high so the clean corner would stay
clean.
I knelt on one side of the sheet. He knelt on the
other. Our eyes met. It was a challenge then, to the gruesome end.
We peeled back the sheet.
There were only two things under the sheet. Only two.
My stomach contracted so hard I had to swallow vomit. I coughed and
almost lost it there, but I held on. I held on.
I'd thought the blood-soaked form was the baby, but
it wasn't. It was a doll. So blood-soaked I couldn't tell what
color its hair had been, but it was just a doll. A doll too old for
a four-month-old baby.
A tiny hand lay on the carpet, covered in gore like
everything else, but it was a hand. A tiny hand. The hand of a
child, not a baby. I spread my hand just above it to size it.
Three, maybe four. About the same age as Benjamin Reynolds. Was
that coincidence? Had to be. Zombies weren't that choosy.
"I'm breast-feeding the baby, maybe, when I hear a
loud noise. Husband goes to check. Noise wakes the little girl, she
comes out of her room to see what's the matter. Husband sees the
monster, grabs the child, runs for the bedroom. The zombie takes
them here. Kills them all, here." My voice sounded distant,
clinical. Bully for me.
I tried to wipe some of the blood off the tiny hand.
She was wearing a ring like Mommy. One of those plastic rings you
get out of bubble gum machines.
"Did you see the ring, Merlioni?" I asked. I lifted
the hand from the carpet and said, "Catch."
"Jesus!" He was on his feet and moving before I could
do anything else. Merlioni walked very fast out the door. I
wouldn't really have thrown the hand. I wouldn't.
I cradled the tiny hand in my hands. It felt heavy,
as if the fingers should curl round my hand. Should ask me to take
it for a walk. I dropped the hand on the carpet. It landed with a
wet splat.
The room was very hot and spinning ever so slightly.
I blinked and stared at Zerbrowski. "Did I win the bet?"
He nodded. "Anita Blake, tough chick. One night of
delectable feasting at Tony's on Merlioni's tab. I hear they make
great spaghetti."
The mention of food was too much. "Bathroom,
where?"
"Down the hall, third door on the left," Dolph
said.
I ran for the bathroom. Merlioni was just coming out.
I didn't have time to savor my victory. I was too busy tossing my
cookies.
Chapter 28
I knelt with my forehead against the cool linoleum of
the bathtub. I was feeling better. Lucky I hadn't taken time to eat
breakfast.
There was a tap on the door.
"What?" I said.
"It's Dolph. Can I come in?"
I thought about that for a minute. "Sure."
Dolph came in with a washcloth in his hand. Linen
closet, I guessed. He stared at me for a minute or two and shook
his head. He rinsed the washrag in the sink and handed it to me.
"You know what to do with it."
I did. The rag was cold and felt wonderful on my face
and neck. "Did you give Merlioni one, too?" I asked.
"Yeah, he's in the kitchen. You're both assholes, but
it was entertaining."
I managed a weak smile.
"Now that you're through grandstanding, any useful
observations?" He sat on the closed lid of the stool.
I stayed on the floor. "Did anybody hear anything,
this time?"
"Neighbor heard something around dawn, but he went on
to work. Said, he didn't want to get involved in a domestic
dispute."
I stared up at Dolph. "Had he heard fighting from
this house before?"
Dolph shook his head.
"God, if he had just called the police," I said.
"You think it would have made a difference?" Dolph
asked.
I thought about that for a minute. "Maybe not to this
family, but we might have trapped the zombie."
"Spilled milk," Dolph said.
"Maybe not. The scene is still very fresh. The zombie
killed them, then took the time to eat four people. That isn't
quick. At dawn the thing was still killing them."
"Your point."
"Seal the area."
"Explain."
"The zombie has to be nearby, within walking
distance. It's hiding, waiting for nightfall."
"I thought zombies could go out in daylight," Dolph
said.
"They can, but they don't like it. A zombie won't go
out in the day unless ordered to."
"So the nearest cemetery," he said.
"Not necessarily. Zombies aren't like vamps or
ghouls. It doesn't need to be coffins or even graves. The zombie
will just want to get out of the light."
"So where do we look?"
"Sheds, garages, any place that will shield it."
"So he could be in some kid's tree house," Dolph
said.
I smiled. Nice to know I still could. "I doubt the
zombie would climb if given a choice. Notice that all the houses
are one-stories."
"Basements," he said.
"But no one runs down to the basement," I said.
"Would it have helped?"
I shrugged. "Zombies aren't great at climbing, as a
rule. This one is faster and more alert but . . . At best the
basement might have delayed it. If there were windows, they might
have gotten the children out." I rubbed the cloth on the back of
my neck. "The zombie picks one-story houses with sliding glass
doors. It might rest near one."
"The medical examiner says the corpse is tall, six
feet, six-two. Male, white. Immensely strong."
"We knew the last, and the rest doesn't really
help."
"You got a better idea?"
"As a matter of fact," I said, "have all the officers
about the right height walk the neighborhood for an hour. Then
block off that much of the area."
"And search all the sheds and garages," Dolph
said.
"And basements, crawl spaces, old refrigerators," I
said.
"If we find it?"
"Fry it. Get an exterminator team out here."
"Will the zombie attack during the day?" Dolph
asked.
"If disturbed enough, yes. This one's awfully
aggressive."
"No joke," he said. "We'd need a dozen exterminator
teams or more. The city'll never go for that. Besides, we could
walk a pretty damn wide circle. We might search and miss it
completely."
"It'll move at dark. If you're ready, you'll find it
then."
"Okay. You sound like you're not going to help
search."
"I'll be back to help, but John Burke returned my
call."
"You taking him to the morgue?"
"Yeah, in time to try to use him against Dominga
Salvador. What timing," I said.
"Good. You need anything from me?"
"Just access to the morgue for both of us," I
said.
"Sure thing. You think you'll really learn anything
from Burke?"
"Don't know till I try," I said.
He smiled. "Give it the old college try, eh?"
"Win one for the Gipper," I said.
"You go visit the morgue and deal with voodoo John.
We'll turn this fucking neighborhood upside down."
"Nice to know we've both got our days planned," I
said.
"Don't forget this afternoon we check out Salvador's
house."
I nodded. "Yeah, and tonight we hunt zombies."
"We're going to end this shit tonight," he said.
"I hope so."
He looked at me, eyes narrowed. "You got a problem
with our plans?"
"Just that no plan is perfect."
He was quiet a moment, then stood. "Wish this one
was."
"Me, too."
Chapter 29
The St. Louis County morgue was a large building. It
needs to be. Every death not attended by a physician comes to the
morgue. Not to mention every murder. In St. Louis that made for
some very heavy traffic.
I use to come to the morgue fairly regularly. To
stake suspected vampire victims so they wouldn't rise and feast on
the morgue attendants. With the new vamp laws, that's murder. You
have to wait for the puppies to rise, unless they've left a will
strictly forbidding coming back as a vampire. My will says to put
me out of my misery if they think I'm coming back with fangs. Hell,
my will asks for cremation. I don't want to come back as a zombie
either, thank you very much.
John Burke was as I remembered him. Tall, dark,
handsome, vaguely villainous. It was the little goatee that did it.
No one wears goatees outside of horror movies. You know, the ones
with strange cults that worship horned images.
He looked a little faded around the eyes and mouth.
Grief will do that to you even if your skin tone is dark. His lips
were set in a thin line as we walked into the morgue. He held his
shoulders as if something hurt.
"How's it going at your sister-in-law's?" I
asked.
"Bleak, very bleak."
I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't. So I
let it go. If he didn't want to talk about it, that was his
privilege.
We were walking down a wide empty corridor. Wide
enough for three gurneys to wheel abreast. The guard station looked
like a WWII bunker, complete with machine guns, In case the dead
should rise all at once and make for freedom. It had never happened
here in St. Louis, but it had happened as close as Kansas City.
A machine gun will take the starch out of any walking
dead. You're only in trouble if there are a lot of them. If there
is a crowd, you're pretty much cooked.
I flashed my ID at the guard. "Hi, Fred, long time no
see."
"I wish they let you come down here like before.
We've had three get up this week and go home. Can you believe
that?"
"Vampires?"
"What else? There's going to be more of them than of
us someday."
I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. He was
probably right. "We're here to see the personal effects of Peter
Burke. Sergeant Rudolph Storr was supposed to clear it."
Fred checked his little book. "Yeah, you're
authorized. Take the right corridor, third door on the left. Dr.
Saville is waiting for you."
I raised an eyebrow at that. It wasn't often that the
chief medical examiner did errands for the police or anybody else.
I just nodded as if I had expected royal treatment.
"Thanks, Fred, see you on the way out."
"More and more people do," he said. He didn't sound
happy about it.
My Nikes made no sound in the perpetual quiet. John
Burke wasn't making any noise either. I hadn't pegged him as a
tennis shoe man. I glanced down, and I was right. Soft-soled brown
tie-ups, not tennis shoes. But he still moved beside me like a
quiet shadow.
The rest of his outfit sort of matched the shoes. A
dressy brown sport jacket so dark brown it was almost black, over a
pale yellow shirt, brown dress slacks. He only needed a tie, and he
could have gone to corporate America. Did he always dress up, or
was this just what he had brought for his brother's funeral? No,
the suit at the funeral had been perfectly black.
The morgue was always quiet, but on a Saturday
morning it was deathly still. Did the ambulances circle like planes
until a decent hour on the weekend? I knew the murder count went up
on the weekend, yet Saturday and Sunday morning were always quiet.
Go figure.
I counted doors on the left-hand side. Knocked on the
third door. A faint "Come in," and I opened the door.
Dr. Marian Saville is a small woman with short dark
hair bobbed just below her ears, an olive complexion, deeply brown
eyes, and fine high cheekbones. She is French and Greek and looks
it. Exotic without being intimidating. It always surprised me that
Dr. Saville wasn't married. It wasn't for lack of being pretty.
Her only fault was that she smoked, and the smell
clung to her like nasty perfume.
She came forward with a smile and an offered hand.
"Anita, good to see you again."
I shook her hand, and smiled. "You, too, Dr.
Saville."
"Marian, please."
I shrugged. "Marian, are those the personal
effects?"
We were in a small examining room. On a lovely
stainless steel table were several plastic bags.
"Yes."
I stared at her, wondering what she wanted. The chief
medical examiner didn't do errands. Something else was up, but
what? I didn't know her well enough to be blunt, and I didn't want
to be barred from the morgue, so I couldn't be rude. Problems,
problems.
"This is John Burke, the deceased's brother," I
said.
Dr. Saville's eyebrows raised at that. "My
condolences, Mr. Burke."
"Thank you." John shook the hand she offered him, but
his eyes were all for the plastic bags. There was no room today for
attractive doctors or pleasantries. He was going to see his
brother's last effects. He was looking for clues to help the police
catch his brother's killer. He had taken the notion very
seriously.
If he wasn't involved with Dominga Salvador, I would
owe him a big apology. But how was I to get him to talk with Dr.
Marian hovering around? How was I supposed to ask for privacy? It
was her morgue, sort of.
"I have to be here to make sure no evidence is
tampered with," she said. "We've had a few very determined
reporters lately."
"But I'm not a reporter."
She shrugged. "You're not an official person, Anita.
New rules from on high that no nonofficial person is to be allowed
to look at murder evidence without someone to watch over them."
"I appreciate it being you, Marian."
She smiled. "I was here anyway. I figured you'd
resent my looking over your shoulder less than anyone else."
She was right. What did they think I was going to do,
steal a body? If I wanted to, I could empty the damn place and get
every corpse to play follow the leader.
Perhaps that was why I needed watching. Perhaps.
"I don't mean to be rude," John said, "but could we
get on with this?"
I glanced up at his handsome face. The skin was tight
around the mouth and eyes as if it had thinned. Guilt speared me in
the side. "Sure, John, we're being thoughtless."
"Your forgiveness, Mr. Burke," Marian said. She
handed us both little plastic gloves. She and I slipped into them
like pros, but John wasn't used to putting on examining gloves.
There is a trick to it—practice. By the time I finished helping him
on with his gloves, he was grinning. His whole face changed when he
smiled. Brilliant and handsome and not the least villainous.
Dr. Saville popped the seal on the first bag. It was
clothing.
"No," John said, "I don't know his clothing. It may
be his, and I wouldn't know. Peter and I had . . . hadn't seen each
other in two years." The guilt in those last words made me
wince.
"Fine, we'll go on to the smaller items," Marian
said, and smiled as she said it. Nice and cheery, practicing her
bedside manner. She so seldom got to practice.
She opened a much smaller bag and spilled the
contents gently on the shiny silver surface. A comb, a dime, two
pennies, a movie ticket stub, and a voodoo charm. A gris-gris.
It was woven of black and red thread with human teeth
worked into the beading. More bones dangled all the way around it.
"Are those human finger bones?" I asked.
"Yes," John said, his voice very still. He looked
strange as he stood there, as if some new horror were dawning
behind his eyes.
It was an evil piece of work, but I didn't understand
the strength of his reaction to it.
I leaned over it, poking it with one finger. There
was some dried skin woven in the center of it all. And it wasn't
just black thread, it was black hair.
"Human hair, teeth, bones, skin," I said softly.
"Yes," John repeated.
"You're more into voodoo than I am," I said. "What
does it mean?"
"Someone died to make this charm."
"Are you sure?"
He glared down at me with withering contempt. "Don't
you think if it could be anything else I wouldn't say it? Do you
think I enjoy learning my brother took part in human
sacrifice?"
"Did Peter have to be there? He couldn't have just
bought it afterwards?"
"NO!" It was almost a yell. He turned away from us,
pacing to the wall. His breathing was loud and ragged.
I gave him a few moments to collect himself, then
asked what had to be asked. "What does the gris-gris do?"
He turned a calm enough face to us, but the strain
showed around his eyes. "It enables a less powerful necromancer to
raise older dead, to borrow the power of some much greater
necromancer."
"How borrow?"
He shrugged. "That charm holds some of the power of
the most powerful among us. Peter paid dearly for it; so he could
raise more and older dead. Peter, God, how could you?"
"How powerful would you need to be to share your
power like this?"
"Very powerful," he said.
"Is there any way to trace it back to the person who
made it?"
"You don't understand, Anita. That thing is a piece
of someone's power. It is one substance to what soul they have
left. It must have been a great need or great greed to do it. Peter
could never have afforded it. Never."
"Can it be traced back?"
"Yes, just get it in the room with the person who
truly owns it. The thing will crawl back to him. It's a piece of
his soul gone missing."
"Would that be proof in court?"
"If you could make the jury understand it, yes, I
guess so." He stepped towards me. "You know who did this?"
"Maybe. "
"Who, tell me who?"
"I'll do better than that. I'll arrange for you to
come on a search of their house."
A grim smile touched his lips. "I'm beginning to like
you a great deal, Anita Blake."
"Compliments later."
"What's this mean?" Marian asked. She had turned the
charm completely over. There, shining among the hair and bone, was
a small charm, like from a charm bracelet. It was in the shape of a
musical symbol—a treble clef.
What had Evans said when he touched the grave
fragments; they slit her throat, she had a charm bracelet with a
musical note on it and little hearts. I stared at the charm and
felt the world shift. Everything fell together in one motion.
Dominga Salvador hadn't raised the killer zombie. She had helped
Peter Burke raise it. But I had to be sure. We only had a few hours
until we'd be back at Dominga's door trying to prove a case.
"Are there any women that came in around the same
time as Peter Burke?"
"I'm sure there are," Marian said with a smile.
"Women with their throats slit," I said.
She stared at me for a heartbeat. "I'll check the
computer."
"Can we take the charm with us?"
"Why?"
"Because if I'm right, she had a charm bracelet with
a bow and arrow and little hearts on it, and this came from the
bracelet." I held the gold charm up to the light. It sparkled
merrily as if it didn't know its owner was dead.
Chapter 30
Death turns you grey before any other color. Oh, a
body that loses a lot of blood will look white or bluish. But once
a body starts to decay, not rot, not yet, it looks greyish.
The woman looked grey. Her neck wound had been
cleaned and searched. The wound looked puckered like a second giant
mouth below her chin.
Dr. Saville pulled her head back casually. "The cut
was very deep. It severed the muscles in the neck and the carotid
artery. Death was fairly quick."
"Professionally done," I said.
"Well, yes, whoever cut her throat knew what they
were doing. There are a dozen different ways to injure the neck
that won't kill or won't kill quickly."
John Burke said, "Are you saying that my brother had
practice?"
"I don't know," I said. "Do you have her personal
effects?"
"Right here." Marian unfastened a much smaller bag
and spilled it out on an empty table. The golden charm bracelet
sparkled under the fluorescent lights.
I picked the bracelet up in my still gloved hand. A
tiny strung bow complete with arrow, a different musical note, two
entwined hearts. Everything Evans had said.
"How did you know about the charm and the dead
woman?" John Burke asked.
"I took some evidence to a clairvoyant. He saw the
woman's death and the bracelet."
"What's that got to do with Peter?"
"I believe a voodoo priestess had Peter raise a
zombie. It got away from him. It's been killing people. To hide
what she's done, she killed Peter."
"Who did it?"
"I have no proof unless the gris-gris will be proof
enough."
"A vision and a gris-gris." John shook his head.
"Hard sell to a jury."
"I know. That's why we need more proof."
Dr. Saville just watched us talk, like an eager
spectator.
"A name, Anita, give me a name."
"Only if you swear not to go after her until the law
has its chance. Only if the law fails, promise me."
"I give you my word."
I studied his face for a minute. The dark eyes stared
back, clear and certain. Bet he could lie with a clear conscience.
"I don't trust just anybody's word." I stared at him a moment
longer. He never flinched. I guess my hard-as-nails look has faded
a little. Or maybe he meant to keep his word. It happens
sometimes.
"Alright, I'll take your word. Don't make me regret
it."
"I won't," he said. "Now give me the name."
I turned to Dr. Saville. "Excuse us, Marian. The less
you know about all this, the greater your chances of never waking
to a zombie crawling through your window." An exaggeration, sort
of, but it made my point.
She looked like she wanted to protest but finally
nodded. "Very well, but I would dearly love to hear the complete
story someday, if it's safe."
"If I can tell it, it's yours," I said.
She nodded again, shut the drawer the Jane Doe lay
on, and left. "Yell when you're finished. I've got work to do," she
said and the door closed behind her.
She left us with the evidence still clutched in our
hands. Guess she trusted me. Or us?
"Dominga Salvador," I said.
He drew a sharp breath. "I know that name. She is a
frightening force if all the stories are true."
"They're true," I said.
"You've met her?"
"I've had the misfortune."
There was a look on his face that I didn't much like.
"You swore no revenge."
"The police will not get her. She is too crafty for
that," he said.
"We can get her legally. I believe that."
"You aren't sure," he said
What could I say? He was right. "I'm almost
sure."
"Almost is not good enough for killing my
brother."
"That zombie has killed a lot more people than just
your brother. I want her, too. But we're going to get her legally,
through the court system."
"There are other ways to get her," he said.
"If the law fails us, feel free to use voodoo. Just
don't tell me about it."
He looked amused, puzzled. "No outrage about me using
black magic?"
"The woman tried to kill me once. I don't think
she'll give up."
"You survived an attack by the Señora?" he
asked. He looked amazed.
I didn't like him looking amazed. "I can take care of
myself, Mr. Burke."
"I don't doubt that, Ms. Blake." He smiled. "I've
bruised your ego. You don't like me being so surprised, do
you?"
"Keep your observations to yourself, okay?"
"If you have survived a head-on confrontation with
what Dominga Salvador would send to you, then I should have
believed some of the stories I heard of you. The Executioner, the
animator who can raise anything no matter how old."
"I don't know about that last, but I'm just trying to
stay alive, that's all."
"If Dominga Salvador wants you dead that won't be
easy."
"Damn near impossible," I said.
"So let us get her first," he said.
"Legally," I said.
"Anita, you are being naive."
"The offer to come on a raid of her house still
stands."
"You're sure you can arrange that?"
"I think so."
His eyes had a sort of dark light to them, a
sparkling blackness. He smiled, tight-lipped, and very unpleasant,
as if he were contemplating tortures for one Dominga Salvador. The
private vision seemed to fill him with pleasure.
The skin between my shoulders crept with that look. I
hoped John never turned those dark eyes on me. Something told me he
would make a bad enemy. Almost as bad as Dominga Salvador. Almost
as bad, but not quite.
Chapter 31
Dominga Salvador sat in her living room smiling. The
little girl who had been riding her tricycle on my last trip here
was sitting in her grandma's lap. The child was as relaxed and
languorous as a kitten. Two older boys sat at Dominga's feet. She
was the picture of maternal bliss. I wanted to throw up.
Of course, just because she was the most dangerous
voodoo priestess I'd ever met didn't mean she wasn't a grandma,
too. People are seldom just one thing. Hitler liked dogs.
"You are more than welcome to search, Sergeant. My
house is your house," she said in a candy-coated voice that had
already offered us lemonade, or perhaps iced tea.
John Burke and I were standing to one side, letting
the police do their job. Dominga was making them feel silly for
their suspicions. Just a nice old lady. Right.
Antonio and Enzo were also standing to one side. They
didn't quite fit this picture of grandmotherly bliss, but evidently
she wanted witnesses. Or maybe a shootout wasn't out of the
question.
"Mrs. Salvador, do you understand the possible
implications of this search?" Dolph said.
"There are no implications because I have nothing to
hide." She smiled sweetly. Damn her.
"Anita, Mr. Burke," Dolph said.
We came forward like props in a magic show. Which
wasn't far off. A tall police officer had the video camera ready to
go.
"I believe you know Ms. Blake," Dolph said.
"I have had the pleasure," Dominga said.
Butter wouldn't have melted in her lying mouth.
"This is John Burke."
Her eyes widened just a little. The first slip in her
perfect camouflage. Had she heard of John Burke? Did the name worry
her? I hoped so.
"So glad to meet you at last, Mr. John Burke," she
said finally.
"Always good to meet another practitioner of the
art," he said.
She bowed her head slightly in acknowledgment. At
least she wasn't trying to pretend complete innocence. She admitted
to being a voodoo priestess. Progress..
It was obscene for the godmother of voodoo to be
playing the innocent.
"Do it, Anita," Dolph said. No preliminaries, no
sense of theater, just do it. That was Dolph for you.
I took a plastic bag out of my pocket. Dominga looked
puzzled. I pulled out the gris-gris. Her face became very still,
like a mask. A funny little smile curled her lips. "What is
that?"
"Come now, Señora," John said, "do not play
the fool. You know very well what it is."
"I know that it is a charm of some kind, of course.
But do the police now threaten old women with voodoo?"
"Whatever works," I said.
"Anita," Dolph said.
"Sorry." I glanced at John, and he nodded. I sat the
gris-gris on the carpet about six feet from Dominga Salvador. I had
had to take John's word on a lot of this. I had checked some of it
over the phone with Manny. If this worked and if we could get it
admitted into court, and if we could explain it to the jury, then
we might have a case. How many ifs was that?
The gris-gris just sat there for a moment, then the
finger bones rippled as if an invisible finger had ruffled
them.
Dominga lifted her granddaughter from her lap and
shooed the boys over to Enzo. She sat alone on the couch and
waited. The strange little smile was still on her face, but it
looked sickly now.
The charm began to ooze towards her like a slug,
pushing and struggling with muscles it did not have. The hairs on
my arms stood to attention.
"You recording this, Bobby?" Dolph asked.
The cop with the video camera said, "I'm getting it.
I don't fucking believe it, but I'm getting it."
"Please, do not use such words in front of the
children," Dominga said.
The cop said, "Sorry, ma'am."
"You are forgiven." She was still trying to play the
perfect hostess while that thing crawled towards her feet. She had
nerve. I'd give her that.
Antonio didn't. He broke. He strode forward as if he
meant to pluck the thing from the rug.
"Don't touch it," Dolph said.
"You are frightening my grandmother with your
tricks," he said.
"Don't touch it," Dolph said again. This time he
stood. His bulk seemed to fill the room. Antonio looked suddenly
small and frail beside him.
"Please, you are frightening her." But it was his
face that was pale and covered with a sheen of sweat. What was ol'
Tony in such a fret about? It wasn't his ass going to jail.
"Stand over there," Dolph said, "now, or do we have
to cuff you?"
Antonio shook his head. "No, I . . . I will go back."
He did, but he glanced at Dominga as he moved. A quick, fearful
glance. When she met his eyes, there was nothing but rage in them.
Her black eyes glittered with rage. Her face was suddenly contorted
with it. What had happened to strip the act away? What was going
on?
The gris-gris made its painful way to her. It fawned
at her feet like a dog, rolling on the toes of her shoes in abandon
like a cat who wants its belly rubbed.
She tried to ignore it, to pretend.
"Would you refuse your returned power?" John
asked.
"I don't know what you mean." Her face was under
control again. She looked puzzled. Gosh, she was good. "You are a
powerful voodoo priest. You are doing this to trap me."
"If you don't want the charm, I will take it," he
said. "I will add your magic to mine. I will be the most powerful
practitioner in the States." For the first time, John's power
flowed across my skin. It was a breath of magic that was
frightening. I had begun to think of John as ordinary, or as
ordinary as any of us get. My mistake.
She just shook her head.
John strode forward and knelt, reaching for the
writhing gris-gris. His power moved with him like an invisible
hand.
"No!" She grabbed it, cradling it in her hands.
John smiled up at her. "Do you acknowledge that you
made this charm? If not, I can take it and use it as I see fit. It
was found in my brother's effects. It's legally mine, correct,
Sergeant Storr?"
"Correct," Dolph said.
"No, you cannot."
"I can and I will, unless you look into that camera
and admit making it."
She snarled at him. "You will regret this."
"You will regret having killed my brother."
She stared at the video camera. "Very well, I made
this charm, but I admit nothing else. I made the charm for your
brother, but that is all."
"You performed human sacrifice to make this charm,"
John said.
She shook her head. "The charm is mine. I made it for
your brother, that is all. You have the charm but nothing
else."
"Señora, forgive me," Antonio said. He looked
pale and shaken and very, very scared.
"Calenta," she said, "shut up!"
"Zerbrowski, take our friend here into the kitchen
and take his statement," Dolph said.
Dominga stood at that. "You fool, you miserable fool.
Tell them anything more, and I will rot the tongue out of your
mouth."
"Get him out of here, Zerbrowski."
Zerbrowski led a nearly weeping Antonio from the
room. I had a feeling that of Tony had been responsible for getting
the charm back. He failed, and he was going to pay the
consequences. The police were the least of his problems. If I were
him, I'd make damn sure grandma was locked up tonight. I wouldn't
want her near her voodoo paraphernalia. Ever.
"We're going to search now, Mrs. Salvador."
"Help yourself, Sergeant. You will find nothing else
to help you."
She was very calm when she said it. "Even the stuff
behind the doors?" I asked.
"They are gone, Anita. You will find nothing that is
not legal and . . . wholesome." She made that last sound like a bad
word.
Dolph glanced my way. I shrugged. She seemed awfully
sure.
"Okay, boys, take the place apart." Uniforms and
detectives moved like they had a purpose. I started to follow Dolph
out. He stopped me.
"No, Anita, you and Burke stay up here."
"Why?"
"You're civilians."
A civilian, me? "Was I a civilian when I walked the
cemetery for you?"
"If one of my people could have done it, I wouldn't
have let you do that either."
"Let me?"
He frowned. "You know what I mean."
"No, I don't think I do."
"You may be a bad ass, you may even be as good as you
think you are, but you aren't police. This is a job for cops. You
stay in the living room with the civies just this once. When it's
all clear, you can come down and identify the bogeymen for us."
"Don't do me any favors, Dolph."
"I didn't peg you for a pouter, Blake."
"I am not pouting," I said.
"Whining?" he said.
"Cut it out. You've made your point. I'll stay
behind, but I don't have to like it."
"Most of the time you're ass deep in alligators.
Enjoy being out of the line of fire for once, Anita." With that he
led the way towards the basement.
I hadn't really wanted to go down into the darkness
again. I certainly didn't want to see the creature that had chased
Manny and I up the stairs. And yet . . . I felt left out. Dolph was
right. I was pouting. Great.
John Burke and I sat on the couch. Dominga sat in the
recliner where she had been since we hit the door. The children had
been shooed out to play, with Enzo to watch them.
He looked relieved. I almost volunteered to go with
them. Anything was better than just sitting here straining to hear
the first screams.
If the monster, and that was the only word that
matched the noises, was down there, there would be screaming. The
police were great with bad guys, but monsters were new to them. It
had been simpler, in a way, when all this shit was taken care of by
a few experts. A few lone people fighting the good fight. Staking
vampires. Turning zombies. Burning witches. Though there is some
debate whether I might have ended up on the receiving end of some
fire a few years back. Say, the 1950s.
What I did was undeniably magic. Before we got all
the bogeymen out in the open, supernatural was supernatural.
Destroy it before it destroys you. Simpler times. But now the
police were expected to deal with zombies, vampires, the occasional
demon. Police were really bad with demons. But then who isn't?
Dominga sat in her chair and stared at me. The two
uniforms left in the living room stood like all police stand, blank
faced, bored, but let anyone move and the cops saw it. The boredom
was just a mask. Cops always saw everything. Occupational
hazard.
Dominga wasn't looking at the police. She wasn't even
paying attention to John Burke, who was much closer to her equal.
She was staring at little old me.
I met her black gaze and said, "You got a
problem?"
The cop's eyes flicked to us. John shifted on the
couch. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"She's staring at me."
"I will do a great deal more than stare at you,
chica." Her voice crawled low. The hairs at the nape of my
neck tried to crawl down my shirt.
"A threat." I smiled. "I don't think you're going to
be hurting anybody anymore."
"You mean this." She held out the charm. It writhed
in her hand as if thrilled that she had noticed it. She crushed it
in her hand. It made futile movements as if pushing against her.
Her hand covered it completely. She stared straight at me, as she
brought her hand slowly to her chest.
The air was suddenly heavy, hard to breathe. Every
hair on my body was creeping down my skin.
"Stop her!" John said. He stood.
The policeman nearest her hesitated for only an
instant, but it was enough. When he pried her fingers open, they
were empty.
"Sleight of hand, Dominga. I thought better of you
than that."
John was pale. "It isn't a trick." His voice was
shaky. He sat down heavily on the couch beside me. His dark face
looked pale. His power seemed to have shriveled up. He looked
tired.
"What is it? What did she do?" I asked.
"You have to bring back the charm, ma'am," the
uniform said.
"I cannot," she said.
"John, what the hell did she do?"
"Something she shouldn't have been able to do."
I was beginning to know how Dolph must feel having to
depend on me for information. It was like pulling fucking teeth.
"What did she do?"
"She absorbed her power back into herself," he
said.
"What does that mean?"
"She absorbed the gris-gris into her body. Didn't you
feel it?"
I had felt something. The air was clearer now, but it
was still heavy. My skin was tingling with the nearness of
something. "I felt something, but I still don't understand."
"Without ceremony, without help from the loa, she
absorbed it back into her soul. We won't find a trace of it. No
evidence."
"So all we have is the tape?"
He nodded.
"If you knew she could do this, why didn't you speak
up earlier? We wouldn't have let her hold the thing."
"I didn't know. It's impossible without ceremonial
magic."
"But she did it."
"I know, Anita, I know." He sounded scared for the
first time. Fear didn't sit well on his darkly handsome face. After
the power I'd felt from him, the fear seemed even more out of
place. But it was real nonetheless.
I shivered, like someone had walked on my grave.
Dominga was staring at me. "What are you staring at?"
"A dead woman," she said softly
I shook my head. "Talk is cheap, Señora.
Threats don't mean squat."
John touched my arm. "Do not taunt her, Anita. If she
can do that instantly, there's no telling what else she can
do."
The cop had had enough. "She's not doing anything. If
you so much as twitch wrong, lady, I'm going to shoot you."
"But I am just an old woman. Would you threaten
me?"
"Don't talk either."
The other uniform said, "I knew a witch once who
could bespell you with her voice."
Both uniforms had their hands near their guns. Funny
how magic changes how people perceive you. They were fine when they
thought she needed human sacrifice and ceremony. Let her do one
instant trick, and she was suddenly very dangerous. I'd always
known she was dangerous.
Dominga sat silently under the watchful eyes of the
cops. I had been distracted by her little performance. There were
still no screams from downstairs. Nothing. Silence.
Had it gotten them all? That quickly, without a shot
fired. Naw. But still, my stomach was tight, sweat trickled down my
spine. Are you alright, Dolph? I thought.
"Did you say something?" John asked.
I shook my head. "Just thinking really hard."
He nodded as if that made sense to him.
Dolph came into the living room. I couldn't tell
anything by his face. Mr. Stoic.
"Well, what was it?" I asked.
"Nothing," he said.
"What do you mean, nothing?"
"She's cleaned the place out completely. We found the
rooms you told me about. One door had been busted from inside, but
the room's been scrubbed down and painted." He held up one big
hand. It was stained white. "Hell, the paint's still wet."
"It can't all be gone. What about the cement-covered
doors?"
"Looks like someone took a jackhammer to them.
They're just freshly painted rooms, Anita. The place stinks of pine
scented bleach and wet paint. No corpses, no zombies. Nothing."
I just stared at him. "You've got to be kidding."
He shook his head. "I'm not laughing."
I stood in front of Dominga. "Who warned you?"
She just stared up at me, smiling. I had a great urge
to slap that smile off her face. Just to hit her once would feel
good. I knew it would.
"Anita," Dolph said, "back off."
Maybe the anger showed on my face, or maybe it was
the fact that my hands were balled into fists and I seemed to be
shaking. Shaking with anger and the beginnings of something else.
If she didn't go to jail, that meant she was free to try to kill me
again tonight. And every night after that.
She smiled as if she could read my mind. "You have
nothing, chica. You have gambled all on a hand with
nothing in it."
She was right. "Stay away from me, Dominga."
"I will not come near you, chica, I will not
need to."
"Your last little surprise didn't work out so well.
I'm still here."
"I have done nothing. But I am sure there are worse
things that could come to your door, chica."
I turned to Dolph. "Dammit, isn't there anything we
can do?"
"We got the charm, but that's it."
Something must have showed on my face because he
touched my arm. "What is it?"
"She did something to the charm. It's gone."
He took a deep breath and stalked away, then back.
"Dammit to hell, how?"
I shrugged. "Let John explain. I still don't
understand it." I hate admitting that I don't know something. It's
always bothered me to admit ignorance. But hey, a girl can't be an
expert on everything. I had worked hard to stay away from voodoo.
Work hard and where does it get you? Staring into the black eyes of
a voodoo priestess who's plotting your death. A most unpleasant
death by the looks of it.
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I went back to
her. I stood and stared into her dark face and smiled. Her own
smile faltered, which made my smile bigger.
"Someone tipped you off and you've been cleaning up
this cesspit for two days." I leaned over her, putting my hands on
the arms of the chair. It brought our faces close together.
"You had to break down your walls. You had to let out
or destroy all your creations. Your inner sanctum, your hougun, is
cleaned and whitewashed. All the verve gone. All the animal
sacrifices gone. All that slow building of power, line by line,
drop by bloody drop, you're going to have to start over, you bitch.
You're going to have to rebuild it all."
The look in those black eyes made me shiver, and I
didn't care. "You're getting old to rebuild that much. Did you
have to destroy many of your toys? Dig up any graves?"
"Have your joke now, chica, but I will send
what I have saved to you some dark night."
"Why wait? Do it now, in daylight. Face me or are you
afraid?"
She laughed then, and it was a warm, friendly sound.
It startled me so much I stood up straight, almost jumped back.
"Do you think I am foolish enough to attack you with
the police all around? You must think me a fool."
"It was worth a try," I said.
"You should have joined with me in my zombie
enterprises. We could have been rich together."
"The only thing we're likely to do together is kill
each other," I said.
"So be it. Let it be war between us."
"It always was," I said.
She nodded and smiled some more.
Zerbrowski came out of the kitchen. He was grinning
from ear to ear. Something good was up.
"The grandson just spilled the beans."
Everyone in the room stared at him. Dolph said,
"Spilled what?"
"Human sacrifice. How he was supposed to get the
gris-gris back from Peter Burke after he killed him, on his
grandmother's orders, but some joggers came by and he panicked.
He's so afraid of her"—he motioned to Dominga—"he wants her behind
bars. He's terrified of what she'll do to him for forgetting the
charm."
The charm that we didn't have anymore. But we had the
video and now we had Antonio's confession. The day was looking
up.
I turned back to Dominga Salvador. She looked tall
and proud and terrifying. Her black eyes blazed with some inner
light. Standing this close to her, the power crawled over my skin,
but a good bonfire would take care of that. They'd fry her in the
electric chair, then burn the body and scatter the ashes at a
crossroad.
I said softly, "Gotcha."
She spit at me. It landed on my hand and burned like
acid. "Shit!"
"Do that again and we'll shoot you, and save the
taxpayers some money," Dolph said. He had his gun out.
I went in search of the bathroom to wash her spit off
my hand. A blister had formed where it had hit. Second fucking
degree burns from her spit. Dear God.
I was glad Antonio had broken. I was glad she was
going to be locked away. I was glad she was going to die. Better
her than me.
Chapter 32
Riverridge was a modern housing development. Which
meant that there were three models to choose from. You could end up
with four identical houses in a row, like cookies on a baking
sheet. There was also no river within sight. No ridge either.
The house that was the center of the police search
area was identical to its neighbor, except for color. The murder
house, which is what the news was calling it, was grey with white
shutters. The house that had been passed safely by was blue with
white shutters. Neither's shutters worked. They were just for show.
Modern architecture is full of perks that are just for show;
balcony railings without a balcony, peaked roofs that make it look
like you have an extra room that you don't have, porches so narrow
that only Santa's elves could sit on them. It makes me nostalgic
for Victorian architecture. It might have been overdone, but
everything worked.
The entire housing project had been evacuated. Dolph
had been forced to give a statement to the press. More's the pity.
But you can't evacuate a housing development the size of a small
town and keep it quiet. The cat was out of the bag. They were
calling them the zombie massacres. Geez.
The sun was going down in a sea of scarlet and
orange. It looked like someone had melted two giant crayons and
smeared them across the sky. There wasn't a shed, garage, basement,
tree house, playhouse, or anything else we could think of that had
been left unsearched. Still, we had found nothing.
The newshounds were prowling restlessly at the edge
of the search area. If we had evacuated hundreds of people and
searched their premises without a warrant and found no zombie . . .
we were going to be in deep fucking shit.
But it was here. I knew it was here. Alright, I was
almost sure it was here.
John Burke was standing next to one of those giant
trash cans. Dolph had surprised me by allowing John to come on the
zombie hunt. As Dolph said, we needed all the help we could
get.
"Where is it, Anita?" Dolph asked.
I wanted to say something brilliant. My God, Holmes,
how did you know the zombie was hiding in the flower pot? But I
couldn't lie. "I don't know, Dolph. I just don't know."
"If we don't find this thing . . ." He let the
thought trail off, but I knew what he meant.
My job was secure if this fell apart. Dolph's was
not. Shit. How could I help him? What were we missing? What?
I stared at the quiet street. It was eerily quiet.
The windows were all dark. Only the streetlights pushed back the
coming dark. Soft halos of light.
Every house had a mailbox on a post near the sidewalk
that edged the curb. Some of the mailboxes were unbelievably cute.
One had been shaped like a sitting cat. Its paw went up if there
was mail in its tummy. The family name was Catt. It was too
precious.
Every house had at least one large super duper trash
can in front of it. Some of them were bigger than I was. Surely,
Sunday couldn't be trash day. Or had today been trash day, and the
police line had stopped it?
"Trash cans," I said aloud.
"What?" Dolph asked.
"Trash cans." I grabbed his arm, feeling almost
lightheaded. "We've stared at those fucking trash cans all day.
That's it."
John Burke stood quietly beside me, frowning.
"Are you feeling okay, Blake?" Zerbrowski came up
behind us, smoking. The end of his cigarette looked like a bloated
firefly.
"The cans are big enough for a large person to hide
in."
"Wouldn't your arms and legs fall asleep?" Zerbrowski
asked.
"Zombies don't have circulation, not like we do."
Dolph yelled, "Everybody check the trash cans. The
zombie is in one of them. Move it!"
Everyone scattered like an anthill stirred with a
stick, but we had a purpose now. I ended up with two uniformed
officers. Their nameplates said "Ki" and "Roberts." Ki was Asian
and male. Roberts was blond and female. A nicely mixed team.
We fell into a rhythm without discussing it. Officer
Ki would move up and dump the trash can. Roberts and I would cover
him with guns. We were all set to yell like hell if a zombie came
tumbling out. It would probably be the right zombie. Life is seldom
that cruel.
We'd yell and an exterminator team would come
running. At least, they'd better come running. This zombie was
entirely too fast, too destructive. It might be more resistant to
gunfire. Better not to find out. Just french-fry the sucker and be
done with it.
We were the only team working on the street. There
was no sound but our footsteps, the rubber crunch of trash cans
overturning, the rattle of cans and bottles as the trash spilled.
Didn't anybody tie their bags up anymore?
Darkness had fallen in a solid blackness. I knew
there were stars and a moon up there somewhere, but you couldn't
prove it from where we stood. Clouds as thick and dark as velvet
had come in from the west. Only the streetlights made it
bearable.
I didn't know how Roberts was doing, but the muscles
in my shoulders and neck were screaming. Every time Ki put his
hands to the can and pushed, I was ready. Ready to fire, ready to
save him before the zombie leapt up and ripped his throat out. A
trickle of sweat dripped down his high-cheekboned face. Even in the
dim light it glimmered.
Glad to know I wasn't the only one feeling the
effort. Of course, I wasn't the one putting my face over the
possible hiding place of a berserk zombie. Trouble was, I didn't
know how good a shot Ki was, or Roberts either for that matter. I
knew I was a good shot. I knew I could slow the thing down until
help arrived. I had to stay on shooting detail. It was the best
division of labor. Honest.
Screams. To the left. The three of us froze. I
whirled towards the screaming. There was nothing to see, nothing
but dark houses and pools of streetlight. Nothing moved. But the
screams continued high and horrified.
I started running towards the screams. Ki and Roberts
were at my back. I ran with the Browning in a two-handed grip
pointed up. Easier to run that way. Didn't dare holster the gun.
Visions of blood-coated teddy bears, and the screams. The screams
sort of faded. Someone was dying up ahead.
There was a sense of movement everywhere in the
darkness. Cops running. All of us running but it was too late. We
were all too late. The screaming had stopped. No gunshots. Why not?
Why hadn't someone gotten off a shot?
We ran down the side yards of four houses when we hit
a metal fence. Had to holster the guns. Couldn't climb it with one
hand. Dammit. I did my best to vault the fence using my hands for
leverage.
I stumbled to my knees in the soft dirt of a flower
bed. I was trampling some tall summer flowers. On my knees I was
considerably shorter than the flowers. Ki landed beside me. Only
Roberts landed on her feet.
Ki stood up without drawing his gun. I drew the
Browning while I crouched in the flowers. I could stand up after I
was armed.
I had a sense of rushing movement but not clear
sight. The flowers obscured my vision. Roberts was suddenly
tumbling backwards, screaming.
Ki was drawing his gun, but something hit him,
knocked him on top of me. I rolled but was still half under him. He
lay still on top of me.
"Ki, move it, dammit!"
He sat up and crawled towards his partner, his gun
silhouetted against the streetlight. He was staring down at
Roberts. She wasn't moving.
I searched the darkness trying to see something,
anything. It had moved more than human fast. Fast as a ghoul. No
zombie moved like that. Had I been wrong all along? Was it
something else? Something worse? How many lives would my mistake
cost tonight? Was Roberts dead?
"Ki, is she alive?" I searched the darkness, fighting
the urge to look only at the lighted areas. There was shouting, but
it was confusion, "Where is it? Where did it go?" The sounds were
getting farther away.
I screamed, "Here, here!" The voices hesitated, then
started our way. They were making so much noise, like a heard of
arthritic elephants.
"How bad is she hurt?"
"Bad." He'd put his gun down. He was pressing his
hands over her neck. Something black and liquid was spreading over
his hands. God.
I knelt on the other side of Roberts, gun ready,
searching the darkness. Everything was taking forever, yet it was
only seconds.
I checked her pulse, one-handed. It was thready, but
there. My hand came away covered in blood. I wiped it on my pants.
The thing had damn near slit her throat.
Where was it?
Ki's eyes were huge, all pupil. His skin looked
leprous in the streetlight. His partner's blood was dripping out
between his fingers.
Something moved, too low to the ground to be a man,
but about that size. It was just a shape creeping along the back of
the house in front of us. Whatever it was had found the deepest
shadow and was trying to creep away.
That showed more intelligence than a zombie had. I
was wrong. I was wrong. I was fucking wrong. And Roberts was dying
because of it.
"Stay with her. Keep her alive."
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"After it." I climbed the fence one-handed. The
adrenaline must have been pumping because I made it.
I gained the yard and it was gone. A streaking shape
fast as a mouse caught in the kitchen light. A blur of speed, but
big, big as a man.
It rounded the corner of the house and I lost sight
of it. Dammit. I ran as far from the wall as I could, my stomach
tight with anticipation of fingers ripping my throat out. I came
round the house gun pointed, two-handed, ready. Nothing. I scanned
the darkness, the pools of light. Nothing.
Shouts behind me. The cops had arrived. God, let
Roberts live.
There, movement, creeping across the streetlight
around the edge of another house. Someone shouted, "Anita!"
I was already running towards the movement. I shouted
as I ran, "Bring an exterminator team!" But I didn't stop. I didn't
dare stop. I was the only one in sight of it. If I lost it, it was
gone.
I ran into the darkness, alone, after something that
might not be a zombie at all. Not the brightest thing I've ever
done, but it wasn't going to get away. It wasn't.
It was never going to hurt another family. Not if I
could stop it. Now. Tonight.
I ran through a pool of light and it made the
darkness heavier, blinding me temporarily. I froze in the dark,
willing my eyes to adjust faster.
"Perssisstent woman," a voice hissed. It was to my
right, so close the hair on my arms stood up.
I froze, straining my peripheral vision. There, a
darker shape rising out of the evergreen shrubs that hugged the
edge of the house. It rose to its full height, but didn't attack.
If it wanted me, it could have me before I could turn and fire. I'd
seen it move. I knew I was dead.
"You arrre not like the resst." The voice was
sibilant, as if parts of the mouth were missing, so it put great
effort into forming each word. A gentleman's voice decayed by the
grave.
I turned towards it, slowly, slowly.
"Put me back."
I had turned my head enough to be able to see some of
it. My night vision is better than most. And the streetlights made
it lighter than it should have been.
The skin was pale, yellowish-white. The skin clung to
the bones of his face like wax that had half-melted. But the eyes,
they weren't decayed. They burned out at me with a glitter that was
more than just eyes.
"Put you back where?" I asked.
"My grave," he said. His lips didn't work quite
right, there wasn't enough flesh left on them.
Light blazed into my eyes. The zombie screamed,
covering his face. I couldn't see shit. It crashed into me. I
pulled the trigger blind. I thought I heard a grunt as the bullet
hit home. I fired the gun again one-handed, throwing an arm across
my neck. Trying to protect myself as I fell half-blind.
When I blinked up into the electric-shot darkness, I
was alone. I was unhurt. Why? Put me back, it had said. In my
grave. How had it known what I was? Most humans couldn't tell.
Witches could tell sometimes, and other animators always spotted
me. Other animators. Shit.
Dolph was suddenly there, pulling me to my feet.
"God, Blake, are you hurt?"
I shook my head. "What the hell was that light?"
"A halogen flashlight."
"You damn near blinded me."
"We couldn't see to shoot," he said.
Police had run past us in the darkness. There were
shouts of, "There it is!" Dolph and I and the offending flashlight,
bright as day, were left behind as the chase ran merrily on.
"It spoke to me, Dolph," I said. .
"What do you mean, it spoke to you?"
"It asked me to put it back in its grave." I stared
up at him as I said it. I wondered if my face looked like Ki's had,
pale, eyes wide and black. Why wasn't I scared?
"It's old, a century at least. It was a voodoo
something in life. That's what went wrong. That's why Peter Burke
couldn't control it."
"How do you know all this? Did it tell you?"
I shook my head. "The way it looked, I could judge
the age. It recognized me as someone who could lay it to rest. Only
a witch or another animator could have recognized me for what I am.
My money's on an animator."
"Does that change our plan?" he asked.
I stared up at him. "It's killed how many people?" I
didn't wait for him to answer. "We kill it. Period."
"You think like a cop, Anita." It was a great
compliment from Dolph, and I took it as one.
It didn't matter what it had been in life. So it had
been an animator, or rather a voodoo practioner. So what? It was a
killing machine. It hadn't killed me. Hadn't hurt me. I couldn't
afford to return the favor.
Shots echoed far way. Some trick of the summer air
made them echo. Dolph and I looked at each other.
I still had the Browning in my hand. "Let's do
it."
He nodded.
We started running, but he outdistanced me quickly.
His legs were as tall as I was. I couldn't match his pace. I might
be able to run him into the ground, but I'd never match his
speed.
He hesitated, glancing at me.
"Go on, run," I said.
He put on an extra burst of speed and was gone into
the darkness. He didn't even look back. If you said you were fine
in the dark with a killer zombie on the loose, Dolph would believe
you. Or at least he believed me.
It was a compliment but it left me running alone in
the dark for the second time tonight. Shouts were coming from two
opposite directions. They had lost it. Damn.
I slowed. I had no desire to run into the thing
blind. It hadn't hurt me the first time, but I'd put at least one
bullet into it. Even a zombie gets pissed about things like
that.
I was under the cool darkness of a tree shadow. I was
on the edge of the development. A barbed-wire fence cut across the
entire back of the subdivision. Farmland stretched as far as I
could see. At least the field was planted in beans. The zombie'd
have to be lying flat to hide in there. I caught glimpses of
policemen with flashlights, searching the darkness, but they were
all about fifty yards to either side of me.
They were searching the ground, the shadows, because
I'd told them zombies didn't like to climb. But this wasn't any
ordinary zombie. The tree rustled over my head. The hair on my neck
crawled down my spine. I whirled, looking upwards, gun
pointing.
It snarled at me and leapt.
I fired twice before its weight hit me and knocked us
both to the ground. Two bullets in the chest, and it wasn't even
hurt.
I fired a third time, but I might as well have been
hitting a wall.
It snarled in my face, broken teeth with dark stains,
breath foul as a new opened grave. I screamed back, wordless, and
pulled the trigger again. The bullet hit it in the throat. It
paused, trying to swallow. To swallow the bullet?
Those glittering eyes stared down at me. There was
someone home, like Dominga's soul-locked zombies. There was someone
looking out of those eyes. We froze in one of those illusionary
seconds that last years. He was straddling my waist, hands at my
throat, but not pressing, not hurting, not yet. I had the gun under
his chin. None of the other bullets had hurt him; why would this
one?
"Didn't mean to kill," it said softly, "didn't
understand at firsst. Didn't remember what I wass."
The police were there on either side, hesitating.
Dolph screamed, "Hold your fire, hold your fire,
dammit!"
"I needed meat, needed it to remember who I wass.
Tried not to kill. Tried to walk past all the houssess, but I could
not. Too many houssess," he whispered. His hands tensed, stained
nails digging in. I fired into his chin. His body jerked backwards,
but the hands squeezed my neck.
Pressure, pressure, tighter, tighter. I was beginning
to see white star bursts on my vision. The night was fading from
black to grey. I pressed the gun just above the bridge of his nose
and pulled the trigger again, and again.
My vision faded, but I could still feel my hands,
pulling the trigger. Darkness flowed over my eyes and swallowed the
world. I couldn't feel my hands anymore.
I woke to screams, horrible screams. The stink of
burning flesh and hair was thick and choking on my tongue.
I took a deep shaking breath and it hurt. I coughed
and tried to sit up. Dolph was there supporting me. He had my gun
in his hand. I drew one ragged breath after another and coughed
hard enough to make my throat raw. Or maybe the zombie had done
that.
Something the size of a man was rolling over the
summer grass. It burned. It flamed with a clean orange light that
sent the darkness shattering in fire shadows like the sun on
water.
Two exterminators in their fire suits stood by it,
covering it in napalm, as if it were a ghoul. The thing screamed
high in its throat, over and over, one loud ragged shriek after
another.
"Jesus, why won't it die?" Zerbrowski was standing
nearby. His face was orange in the firelight.
I didn't say anything. I didn't want to say it out
loud. The zombie wouldn't die because it had been an animator when
alive. That much I knew about animator zombies. What I hadn't known
was that they came out of the grave craving flesh. That they
remembered only when they ate flesh.
That I hadn't known. Didn't want to know.
John Burke stumbled into the firelight. He was
cradling one arm to his chest. Blood stained his clothing. Had the
zombie whispered to John? Did he know why the thing wouldn't
die?
The zombie whirled, the fire roaring around it. The
body was like the wick of a candle. It took one shaking step
towards us. Its flaming hand reached out to me. To me.
Then it fell forward, slowly, into the grass. It fell
like a tree in slow motion, fighting for life. If that was the
word. The exterminators stayed ready, taking no chances. I didn't
blame them.
It had been a necromancer once upon a time. That
burning hulk, slowly catching the grass on fire, had been what I
was. Would I be a monster if raised from the grave? Would I? Better
not to find out. My will said cremation because I didn't want
someone raising me just for kicks. Now I had another reason to do
it. One had been enough.
I watched the flesh blacken, curl, peel away. Muscles
and bone popped in miniature explosions, tiny pops of sparks.
I watched the zombie die and made a promise to
myself. I'd see Dominga Salvador burned in hell for what she'd
done. There are fires that last for all eternity. Fires that make
napalm look like a temporary inconvenience. She'd burn for all
eternity, and it wouldn't be half long enough.
Chapter 33
I was lying on my back in the emergency room. A white
curtain hid me from view. The noises on the other side of the
curtain were loud and unfriendly. I liked my curtain. The pillow
was flat, the examining table was hard. It felt white and clean and
wonderful. It hurt to swallow. It even hurt a little bit just to
breathe. But breathing was important. It was nice to be able to do
it.
I lay there very quietly. Doing what I was told for
once. I listened to my breathing, the beating of my own heart.
After nearly dying, I am always very interested in my body. I
notice all sorts of things that go unnoticed during most of life. I
could feel blood coursing through the veins in my arms. I could
taste my calm, orderly pulse in my mouth like a piece of candy.
I was alive. The zombie was dead. Dominga Salvador
was in jail. Life was good.
Dolph pushed the curtain back. He closed the curtain
like you'd close a door to a room. We both pretended we had privacy
even though we could see people's feet passing under the hem of the
curtain.
I smiled up at him. He smiled back. "Nice to see you
up and around."
"I don't know about the up part," I said. My voice
had a husky edge to it. I coughed, tried to clear it, but it didn't
really help.
"What'd the doc say about your voice?" Dolph
asked.
"I'm a temporary tenor." At the look on his face, I
added, "It'll pass."
"Good."
"How's Burke?" I asked.
"Stitches, no permanent damage."
I had figured as much after seeing him last night,
but it was good to know.
"And Roberts?"
"She'll live."
"But will she be alright?" I had to swallow hard. It
hurt to talk.
"She'll be alright. Ki was cut up, too, on the arm.
Did you know?"
I shook my head and stopped in mid-motion. That hurt,
too. "Didn't see it."
"Just a few stitches. He'll be fine." Dolph plunged
his hands in his pants pockets. "We lost three officers. One hurt
worse than Roberts, but he'll make it."
I stared up at him. "My fault."
He frowned. "How do you figure that?"
"I should have guessed," I had to swallow, "it wasn't
an ordinary zombie."
"It was a zombie, Anita. You were right. You were the
one who figured out it was hiding in one of those damn trash cans."
He grinned down at me. "And you nearly died killing it. I think
you've done your part."
"Didn't kill it. Exterminators killed it." Big words
seemed to hurt more than little words.
"Do you remember what happened as you were passing
out?"
"No."
"You emptied your clip into its face. Blew its damn
brains out the back of its head. You went limp. I thought you were
dead. God"—he shook his head—"don't ever do that to me again."
I smiled. "I'll try not to."
"When its brains started leaking out the back of its
head, it stood up. You took all the fight out of it."
Zerbrowski pushed into the small space, leaving the
curtain gaping behind him. I could see a small boy with a bloody
hand crying into a woman's shoulder. Dolph swept the curtain
closed. I bet Zerbrowski was one of those people who never shut a
drawer.
"They're still digging bullets out of the corpse. And
every bullet's yours, Blake."
I just looked at him.
"You are such a bad ass, Blake."
"Somebody has to be with you around, Zerbrow. . ." I
couldn't finish his name. It hurt. It figures.
"Are you in pain?" Dolph asked.
I nodded, carefully. "The doc's getting me
painkiller. Already got tetanus booster."
"You've got a necklace of bruises blossoming on that
pale neck of yours," Zerbrowski said.
"Poetic," I said.
He shrugged.
"I'll check in on the rest of the injured one more
time, then I'll have a uniform drive you back to your place," Dolph
said.
"Thanks."
"I don't think you're in any condition to drive."
Maybe he was right. I felt like shit, but it was
happy shit. We'd done it. We'd solved the crime, and people were
going to jail for it. Yippee.
The doctor came back in with the painkillers. He
glanced at the two policemen. "Right." He handed me a bottle with
three pills in it. "This should see you through the night and into
the next day. I'd call in sick if I were you." He glanced at Dolph
as he said it. "You hear that, boss?"
Dolph sort of frowned. "I'm not her boss."
"You're the man in charge, right?" the doctor
asked.
Dolph nodded.
"Then..."
"I'm on loan," I said.
"Loan?"
"You might say we borrowed her from another
department," Zerbrowski said.
The doctor nodded. "Then tell her superior to let her
off tomorrow. She may not look as hurt as the others, but she's had
a nasty shock. She's very lucky there was no permanent damage."
"She doesn't have a superior," Zerbrowski said, "but
we'll tell her boss." He grinned at the doctor.
I frowned at Zerbrowski.
"Well, then, you're free to go. Watch those scratches
for infection. And that bite on your shoulder." He shook his head.
"You cops earn your money." With that parting wisdom, he left.
Zerbrowski laughed. "Wouldn't do for the doc to know
we'd let a civie get messed up."
"She's had a nasty shock," Dolph said.
"Very nasty," Zerbrowski said.
They started laughing.
I sat up carefully, swinging my legs over the edge of
the bed. "If you two are through yukking it up, I need a ride
home."
They were both laughing so hard that tears were
creeping out of their eyes. It hadn't been that funny, but I
understood. For tension release laughter beats the hell out of
tears. I didn't join them because I suspected strongly that
laughing would hurt.
"I'll drive you home," Zerbrowski gasped between
giggles.
I had to smile. Seeing Dolph and Zerbrowski giggling
was enough to make anyone smile.
"No, no," Dolph said. "You two in a car alone. Only
one of you would come out alive."
"And it'd be me," I said.
Zerbrowski nodded. "Ain't it the truth."
Nice to know there was one subject we agreed on.
Chapter 34
I was half asleep in the back of the squad car when
they pulled up in front of my apartment building. The throbbing
pain in my throat had slid away on a smooth tide of pain
medication. I felt nearly boneless. What had the doctor given me?
It felt great, but it was like the world was some sort of movie
that had little to do with me. Distant and harmless as a dream.
I'd given Dolph my car keys. He promised to have
someone park the car in front of my apartment building before
morning. He also said he'd call Bert and tell him I wouldn't be in
to work today. I wondered how Bert would take the news. I wondered
if I cared. Nope.
One of the uniformed police officers leaned back over
the seat and said, "You going to be alright, Miss Blake?"
"Ms.," I corrected automatically.
He gave me a half smile as he held the door for me.
No door handles on the inside of a squad car. He had to hold the
door for me, but he did it with relish, and said, "You going to be
alright, Ms. Blake?"
"Yes, Officer"—I had to blink to read his name tag—
"Osborn. Thank you for bringing me home. To your partner, too."
His partner was standing on the other side of the
car, leaning his arms on the roof of the car. "It's a kick to
finally meet the spook squad's Executioner." He grinned as he said
it.
I blinked at him and tried to pull all the pieces
together enough to talk and think at the same time. "I was the
Executioner long before the spook squad came along."
He spread his hands, still grinning. "No
offense."
I was too tired and too drugged to worry about it. I
just shook my head. "Thanks again."
I was a touch unsteady going up the stairs. I
clutched the railing like it was a lifeline. I'd sleep tonight. I
might wake up in the middle of the hallway, but I'd sleep.
It took me two tries to put the key in the door lock.
I staggered into my apartment, leaning my forehead against the door
to close it. I turned the lock and was safe. I was home. I was
alive. The killer zombie was destroyed. I had the urge to giggle,
but that was the pain medication. I never giggle on my own.
I stood there leaning the top of my head against the
door. I was staring at the toes of my Nikes. They seemed very far
away, as if distances had grown since last I looked at my feet. The
doc had given me some weird shit. I would not take it tomorrow. It
was too reality-altering for my taste.
The toes of black boots stepped up beside my Nikes.
Why were there boots in my apartment? I started to turn around. I
started to go for my gun. Too late, too slow, too fucking bad.
Strong brown arms laced across my chest, pinning my
arms. Pinning me against the door. I tried to struggle now that it
was too late. But he had me. I craned my neck backwards trying to
fight off the damn medication. I should have been terrified.
Adrenaline pumping, but some drugs don't give a shit if you need
your body. You belong to the drug until it wears off, period. I was
going to hurt the doctor. If I lived through this.
It was Bruno pinning me to the door.
Tommy came up on the right. He had a needle in his
hands.
"NO!"
Bruno cupped his hand over my mouth. I tried to bite
him, and he slapped me. The slap helped a little but the world was
still cotton-coated, distant. Bruno's hand smelled like
after-shave. A choking sweetness.
"This is almost too easy," Tommy said.
"Just do it," Bruno said.
I stared at the needle as it came closer to my arm. I
would have told them that I was drugged already, if Bruno's hand
hadn't been clasped over my mouth. I would have asked what was in
the syringe, and whether it would react badly with what I had
already taken. I never got the chance.
The needle plunged in. My body stiffened, struggling,
but Bruno held me tight. Couldn't move. Couldn't get away. Dammit!
Dammit! The adrenaline was finally chasing the cobwebs away, but it
was too late. Tommy took the needle out of my arm and said, "Sorry,
we don't have any alcohol to swab it off with." He grinned at
me.
I hated him. I hated them both. And if the shot
didn't kill me, I was going to kill them both. For scaring me. For
making me feel helpless. For catching me unaware, drugged, and
stupid. If I lived through this mistake, I wouldn't make it again.
Please, dear God, let me live through this mistake.
Bruno held me motionless and mute until I could feel
the injection taking hold. I was sleepy. With a bad guy holding me
against my will, I was sleepy. I tried to fight it, but it didn't
work. My eyelids fluttered. I struggled to keep them open. I
stopped trying to get away from Bruno and put everything I had into
not closing my eyes.
I stared at my door and tried to stay awake. The door
swam in dizzying ripples as if I were seeing it through water. My
eyelids went down, jerked up, down. I couldn't open my eyes. A
small part of me fell screaming into the dark, but the rest of me
felt loose and sleepy and strangely safe.
Chapter 35
I was in that faint edge of wakefulness. Where you
know you're not quite asleep, but don't really want to wake up
either. My body felt heavy. My head throbbed. And my throat was
sore.
The last thought made me open my eyes. I was staring
at a white ceiling. Brown water marks traced the paint like spilled
coffee. I wasn't home. Where was I?
I remembered Bruno holding me down. The needle. I sat
up then. The world swam in clear waves of color. I fell back onto
the bed, covering my eyes with my hands. That helped a little. What
had they given me?
I had an image in my mind that I wasn't alone.
Somewhere in that dizzying swirl of color had been a person. Hadn't
there? I opened my eyes slower this time. I was content to stare up
at the water-ruined ceiling. I was on a large bed. Two pillows,
sheets, a blanket. I turned my head carefully and found myself
staring into Harold Gaynor's face. He was sitting beside the bed.
It wasn't what I wanted to wake up to.
Behind him, leaning against a battered chest of
drawers was Bruno. His shoulder holster cut black lines across his
blue short-sleeved dress shirt. There was a matching and equally
scarred vanity table near the foot of the bed. The vanity sat
between two high windows. They were boarded with new,
sweet-smelling lumber. The scent of pine rode the hot, still
air.
I started to sweat as soon as I realized that there
was no air-conditioning.
"How are you feeling, Ms. Blake?" Gaynor asked. His
voice was still that jolly Santa voice with an edge of sibilance.
As if he were a very happy snake.
"I've felt better," I said.
"I'm sure you have. You have been asleep for over
twenty-four hours. Did you know that?"
Was he lying? Why would he lie about how long I'd
been asleep? What would it gain him? Nothing. Truth then,
probably.
"What the hell did you give me?"
Bruno eased himself away from the wall. He looked
almost embarrassed. "We didn't realize you'd already taken a
sedative."
"Painkiller," I said.
He shrugged. "Same difference when you mix it with
Thorazine."
"You shot me up with animal tranquilizers?"
"Now, now, Ms. Blake, they use it in mental
institutions, as well. Not just animals," Gaynor said.
"Gee," I said, "that makes me feel a lot better."
He smiled broadly. "If you feel good enough to trade
witty repartee, then you're well enough to get up."
Witty repartee? But he was probably right.
Truthfully, I was surprised I wasn't tied up. Glad of it, but
surprised.
I sat up much slower than last time. The room only
tilted the tiniest bit, before settling into an upright position. I
took a deep breath, and it hurt. I put a hand to my throat. It hurt
to touch the skin.
"Who gave you those awful bruises?" Gaynor asked.
Lie or truth? Partial lie. "I was helping the police
catch a bad guy. He got a little out of hand."
"What happened to this bad guy?" Bruno asked.
"He's dead now," I said.
Something flickered across Bruno's face. Too quick to
read. Respect maybe. Naw.
"You know why I've had you brought here, don't
you?"
"To raise a zombie for you," I said.
"To raise a very old zombie for me, yes."
"I've refused your offer twice. What makes you think
I'll change my mind?"
He smiled, such a jolly old elf. "Why, Ms. Blake,
I'll have Bruno and Tommy persuade you of the error of your ways. I
still plan on giving you a million dollars to raise this zombie.
The price hasn't changed."
"Tommy offered me a million five last time," I
said.
"That was if you came voluntarily. We can't pay full
price when you force us to take such chances."
"Like a federal prison term for kidnapping," I
said.
"Exactly. Your stubbornness has cost you five hundred
thousand dollars. Was it really worth that?"
"I won't kill another human being just so you can go
looking for lost treasure."
"Little Wanda has been bearing tales."
"I was just guessing, Gaynor. I read a file on you
and it mentioned your obsession with your father's family." It was
an outright lie. Only Wanda had known that.
"I'm afraid it's too late. I know Wanda talked to
you. She's confessed everything."
Confessed? I stared at him, trying to read his
blankly good humored face. "What do you mean, confessed?"
"I mean I gave her to Tommy for questioning. He's not
the artist that Cicely is, but he does leave more behind. I didn't
want to kill my little Wanda."
"Where is she now?"
"Do you care what happens to a whore?" His eyes were
bright and birdlike as he stared at me. He was judging me, my
reactions.
"She doesn't mean anything to me," I said. I hoped my
face was as bland as my words. Right now they weren't going to kill
her. If they thought they could use her to hurt me, they might.
"Are you sure?"
"Listen, I haven't been sleeping with her. She's just
a chippie with a very bent angle."
He smiled at that. "What can we do to convince you to
raise this zombie for me?"
"I will not commit murder for you, Gaynor. I don't
like you that much," I said.
He sighed. His apple-cheeked face looked like a sad
Kewpie doll. "You are going to make this difficult, aren't you, Ms.
Blake?"
"I don't know how to make it easy," I said. I put my
back to the cracked wooden headboard of the bed. I was comfortable
enough, but I still felt a little fuzzy around the edges. But it
was as good as it was going to get for a while. It beat the hell
out of being unconscious.
"We have not really hurt you yet," Gaynor said. "The
reaction of the Thorazine with whatever other medication you had in
you was accidental. We did not harm you on purpose."
I could argue with that, but I decided not to. "So
where do we go from here?"
"We have both your guns," Gaynor said. "Without a
weapon you are a small woman in the care of big, strong men."
I smiled then. "I'm used to being the smallest kid on
the block, Harry."
He looked pained. "Harold or Gaynor, never
Harry."
I shrugged. "Fine."
"You are not in the least intimidated that we have
you completely at our mercy?"
"I could argue that point."
He glanced up at Bruno. "Such confidence, where does
she get it?"
Bruno didn't say anything. He just stared at me with
those empty doll eyes. Bodyguard eyes, watchful, suspicious, and
blank all at the same time.
"Show her we mean business, Bruno."
Bruno smiled, a slow spreading of lips that left his
eyes dead as a shark's. He loosened his shoulders, and did a few
stretching exercises against the wall. His eyes never left me.
"I take it, I'm going to be the punching bag?" I
asked.
"How well you put it," Gaynor said.
Bruno stood away from the wall, limber and eager. Oh,
well. I slid off the bed on the opposite side. I had no desire for
Gaynor to grab me. Bruno's reach was over twice mine. His legs went
on forever. He had to outweigh me by nearly a hundred pounds, and
it was all muscle. I was about to get badly hurt. But as long as
they didn't tie me up, I'd go down swinging. If I could cause him
any serious damage, I'd be satisfied.
I came out from behind the bed, hands loose at my
side. I was already in that partial crouch that I used on the judo
mat. I doubted seriously if Bruno's fighting skill of choice was
judo. I was betting karate or tae kwon do.
Bruno stood in an awkward-looking stance, halfway
between an x and a t. It looked like someone had taken his long
legs and crumbled them at the knees. But as I moved forward he
scooted backwards like a crab, fast and out of reach.
"Jujitsu?" I made it half question.
He raised an eyebrow. "Most people don't recognize
it."
"I've seen it," I said.
"You practice?"
"No."
He smiled. "Then I am going to hurt you."
"Even if I knew jujitsu, you'd hurt me," I said.
"It'd be a fair fight."
"If two people are equal in skill, size matters. A
good big person will always beat a good small person." I shrugged.
"I don't have to like it, but it's the truth."
"You're being awful calm about this," Bruno said.
"Would being hysterical help?"
He shook his head. "Nope."
"Then I'd just as soon take my medicine like, if
you'll excuse the expression, a man."
He frowned at that. Bruno was accustomed to people
being scared of him. I wasn't scared of him. I'd decided to take
the beating. With the decision came a certain amount of calm. I was
going to get beat up, not pleasant, but I had made my mind up to
take the beating. I could do it. I'd done it before. If my choices
were a) getting beat up or b) performing human sacrifice, I'd take
the beating.
"Ready or not," Bruno said.
"Here you come," I finished for him. I was getting
tired of the bravado. "Either hit me or stand up straight. You look
silly crouched down like that."
His fist was a dark blur. I blocked it with my arm.
The impact made the arm go numb. His long leg kicked out and
connected solidly with my stomach. I doubled over like I was
supposed to, all the air gone in one movement. His other foot came
up and caught me on the side of the face. It was the same cheek of
Seymour had smashed. I fell to the floor not sure what part of my
body to comfort first.
His foot came for me again. I caught it with both
hands. I came up in a rush, hoping to trap his knee between my arms
and pop the joint. But he twisted away from me, totally airborne
for a moment.
I dropped to the ground and felt the air pass
overhead as his legs kicked out where my head had been. I was on
the ground again, but by choice. He stood over me, impossibly tall
from this angle. I lay on my side, knees drawn up.
He came for me, evidently planning to drag me to my
feet. I kicked out with both feet at an angle to his kneecap. Hit
it just right above or below and you dislocate it.
The leg buckled, and he screamed. It had worked. Hot
damn. I didn't try to wrestle him. I didn't try to grab his gun. I
ran for the door.
Gaynor grabbed for me, but I flung open the door and
was out in a long hallway before he could maneuver his fancy chair.
The hallway was smooth with a handful of doors and two blind
corners. And Tommy.
Tommy looked surprised to see me. His hand went for
his shoulder holster. I pushed on his shoulder and foot-swept his
leg. He fell backwards and grabbed me as he fell. I rode him down,
making sure my knee ground into his groin. His grip loosened enough
for me to slip out of reach. There were sounds behind me from the
room. I didn't look back. If they were going to shoot me, I didn't
want to see it.
The hallway took a sharp turn. I was almost to it
when the smell slowed me from a run to a walk. The smell of corpses
was just around the corner. What had they been doing while I
slept?
I glanced back at the men. Tommy was still lying on
the floor, cradling himself. Bruno leaned against the wall, gun in
hand, but he wasn't pointing it at me. Gaynor was sitting in his
chair, smiling.
Something was very wrong.
Around the blind corner came that something that was
wrong, very, very wrong. It was no taller than a tall man, maybe
six feet. But it was nearly four feet wide. It had two legs, or
maybe three, it was hard to tell. The thing was leprously pale like
all zombies, but this one had a dozen eyes. A man's face was
centered where the neck would have been. Its eyes dark and seeing,
and empty of everything sane. A dog's head was growing out of the
shoulder. The dog's decaying mouth snapped at me. A woman's leg
grew out of the center of the mess, complete with black high-heeled
shoe.
The thing shambled towards me. Pulling with three of
a dozen arms, dragging itself forward. It left a trail behind it
like a snail.
Dominga Salvador stepped around the corner. "Buenas
noches, chica. "
The monster scared me, but the sight of Dominga
grinning at me scared me just a little bit more.
The thing had stopped moving forward. It squatted in
the hallway, kneeling on its inadequate legs. Its dozens of mouths
panted as if it couldn't get enough air.
Or maybe the thing didn't like the way it smelled. I
certainly didn't. Covering my mouth and nose with my arm didn't
block out much of the smell. The hallway suddenly smelled like bad
meat.
Gaynor and his wounded bodyguards had stayed at the
end of the hall. Maybe they didn't like being near Dominga's little
pet. I know it didn't do much for me. Whatever the reason we were
isolated. It was just her and me and the monster.
"How did you get out of jail?" Better to deal with
more mundane problems first. The mind-melting ones could wait for
later.
"I made my bail," she said.
"This quickly on a murder involving witchcraft?"
"Voodoo is not witchcraft," she said.
"The law sees it as the same thing when it comes to
murder."
She shrugged, then smiled beatifically. She was the
Mexican grandmother of my nightmares.
"You've got a judge in your pocket," I said.
"Many people fear me, chica. You should be
one of them."
"You helped Peter Burke raise the zombie for
Gaynor."
She just smiled.
"Why didn't you just raise it yourself?" I asked.
"I didn't want someone as unscrupulous as Gaynor to
witness me murdering someone. He might use it for blackmail."
"And he didn't realize that you had to kill someone
for Peter's gris-gris?"
"Correct," she said.
"You hid all your horrors here?"
"Not all. You forced me to destroy much of my work,
but this I saved. You can see why." She caressed a hand down the
slimy hide.
I shuddered. Just the thought of touching that
monstrosity was enough to make my skin cold. And yet . . .
"How did you make it?" I had to know. It was so
obviously a creation of our shared art that I had to know.
"Surely, you can animate bits and pieces of the
dead," Dominga said.
I could, but no one else I had ever met could do it.
"Yes," I said.
"I found I could take these odds and ends and meld
them together."
I stared at the shambling thing. "Meld them?" The
thought was too horrible.
"I can create new creatures that have never existed
before."
"You make monsters," I said.
"Believe what you will, chica, but I am here
to persuade you to raise the dead for Gaynor."
"Why don't you do it?"
Gaynor's voice came from just behind us. I whirled,
putting the wall at my back so I could watch everybody. What good
that would do me, I wasn't sure. "Dominga's power went wrong once.
This is my last chance. The last known grave. I won't risk it on
her."
Dominga's eyes narrowed, her age-thinned hands
forming fists. She didn't like being dismissed out of hand.
Couldn't say I blamed her.
"She could do it, Gaynor, easier than I could."
"If I truly believed that, I would kill you because I
wouldn't need you anymore."
Hmm, good point. "You've had Bruno rough me up. Now
what?"
Gaynor shook his head. "Such a little girl to have
taken both my bodyguards down."
"I told you ordinary methods of persuasion will not
work on her," Dominga said.
I stared past her at the slathering monster. She
called this ordinary?
"What do you propose?" Gaynor asked.
"A spell of compulsion. She will do as I bid, but it
takes time to do such a spell for one as powerful as she. If she
knew any voodoo to speak of, it would not work at all. But for all
her art, she is but a baby in voodoo."
"How long will you need?"
"Two hours, no more."
"This had better work," Gaynor said.
"Do not threaten me," Dominga said.
Oh, goody, maybe the bad guys would fight and kill
each other.
"I am paying you enough money to set up your own
small country. I should get results for that."
Dominga nodded her head. "You pay well, that is true.
I will not fail you. If I can compel Anita to kill another person,
then I can compel her to help me in my zombie business. She will
help me rebuild what she forced me to destroy. It has a certain
irony, no?"
Gaynor smiled like a demented elf. "I like it."
"Well, I don't," I said.
He frowned at me. "You will do as you are told. You
have been very naughty."
Naughty? Me?
Bruno had worked himself close to us. He was leaning
heavily on the wall, but his gun was very steadily pointed at the
center of my chest. "I'd like to kill you now," he said. His voice
sounded raw with pain.
"A dislocated knee hurts like hell, doesn't it?" I
smiled when I said it. Better dead than a willing servant of the
voodoo queen.
I think he ground his teeth. The gun wavered just a
little, but I think that was rage, not pain. "I will enjoy killing
you."
"You didn't do so good last time. I think the judges
would have given the match to me."
"There are no fucking judges here. I am going to kill
you."
"Bruno," Gaynor said, "we need her alive and
whole."
"After she raises the zombie?" Bruno asked.
"If she is a willing servant of the Señora,
then you are not to hurt her. If the compulsion doesn't work, then
you may kill her."
Bruno gave a fierce flash of teeth. It was more snarl
than smile. "I hope the spell fails."
Gaynor glanced at his bodyguard. "Don't let personal
feelings interfere with business, Bruno."
Bruno swallowed hard. "Yes, sir." It didn't sound
like a title that came easily to him.
Enzo came around the corner behind Dominga. He stayed
near the wall as far from her "creation" as he could get.
Antonio had finally lost his job as bodyguard. It was
just as well. He was much better suited to stool pigeon.
Tommy came limping down the hall, still sort of
scrunched over himself. The big Magnum was in his hands. His face
was nearly purple with rage, or maybe pain. "I'm gonna kill you,"
he hissed.
"Take a number," I said.
"Enzo, you help Bruno and Tommy tie this little girl
to a chair in the room. She's a lot more dangerous than she seems,"
Gaynor said.
Enzo grabbed my arm. I didn't fight him. I figured I
was safer in his hands than either of the other two. Tommy and
Bruno both looked as if they were looking forward to me trying
something. I think they wanted to hurt me.
As Enzo led me past them, I said, "Is it because I'm
a woman or are you always this bad at losing?"
"I'm gonna shoot her," Tommy grunted.
"Later," Gaynor said, "later."
I wondered if he really meant that. If Dominga's
spell worked, I'd be like a living zombie, obeying her will. If the
spell didn't work, then Tommy and Bruno would kill me, a piece at a
time. I hoped there was a third choice.
Chapter 36
The third choice was being tied to a chair in the
room where I woke up. It was the best of the three choices, but
that wasn't saying much. I don't like being tied up. It means your
options have gone from few to none. Dominga had clipped some of my
hair and the tips of my fingernails. Hair and nails for her
compulsion spell. Shit.
The chair was old and straight-backed. My wrists were
tied to the slats that made up the back of the chair. Ankles tied
separately to a leg of the chair. The ropes were tight. I tugged at
the ropes, hoping for some slack. There wasn't any.
I had been tied up before, and I always have this
Houdini fantasy that this time I'll have enough slack to wiggle
free. It never works that way. Once you're tied up, you stay tied
up until someone lets you go.
The trouble was when they let me go, they were going
to try a nasty little spell on me. I had to get away before then.
Somehow, I had to get away. Dear God, please let me get away.
The door opened as if on cue, but it wasn't help.
Bruno entered, carrying Wanda in his arms. Blood had
dried down the right side of her face from a cut above the eye. Her
left cheek was ripe with a huge bruise. The lower lip had burst in
a still bleeding cut. Her eyes were shut. I wasn't even sure she
was conscious.
I had an aching line on the left side of my face
where Bruno had kicked me, but it was nothing to Wanda's
injuries.
"Now what?" I asked Bruno.
"Some company for you. When she wakes up, ask her
what else Tommy did to her. See if that will persuade you to raise
the zombie."
"I thought Dominga was going to bespell me into
helping you."
He shrugged. "Gaynor doesn't put much faith in her
since she screwed up so badly."
"He doesn't give second chances, I guess," I
said.
"No, he doesn't." He laid Wanda on the floor near me.
"You best take his offer, girl. One dead whore and you get a
million dollars. Take it."
"You're going to use Wanda for the sacrifice," I
said. My voice sounded tired even to me.
"Gaynor don't give second chances."
I nodded. "How's your knee?"
He grimaced. "I put it back in place."
"That must have hurt like hell," I said.
"It did. If you don't help Gaynor, you're going to
find out exactly how much it hurt."
"An eye for an eye," I said.
He nodded and stood. He favored his right leg. He
caught me looking at the leg.
"Talk to Wanda. Decide what you want to end up as.
Gaynor's talking about making you a cripple, then keeping you
around as his toy. You don't want that."
"How can you work for him?"
He shrugged. "Pays real well."
"Money isn't everything."
"Spoken by somebody who's never gone hungry."
He had me there. I just looked at him. We stared at
each other for a few minutes. There was something human in his eyes
at last. I couldn't read it though. Whatever emotion it was, it was
nothing I understood.
He turned and left the room.
I stared down at Wanda. She lay on her side without
moving. She was wearing another long multicolored skirt. A white
blouse with a wide lace collar was half-ripped from one shoulder.
The bra she wore was the color of plums. I bet there had been
panties to match before Tommy got hold of her.
"Wanda," I said it softly. "Wanda, can you hear
me?"
Her head moved slowly, painfully. One eye opened wide
and panic-stricken. The other eye was glued shut with dried blood.
Wanda pawed at the eye, frantic for a moment. When she could open
both eyes, she blinked at me. Her eyes took a moment to focus and
really see who it was. What had she expected to see in those first
few panicked moments? I didn't want to know.
"Wanda, can you speak?"
"Yes." The voice was soft, but clear.
I wanted to ask if she was alright, but I knew the
answer to that. "If you can get over here and free me, I'll get us
out of here."
She looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "We can't get
out. Harold's gonna kill us." She made that last sound like a
statement of pure fact.
"I don't believe in giving up, Wanda. Untie me and
I'll think of something."
"He'll hurt me if I help you," she said.
"He's planning on you being the human sacrifice to
raise his ancestor. How much more hurt can you get?"
She blinked at me, but her eyes were clearing. It was
almost as if panic were a drug, and Wanda was fighting off the
influence. Or maybe it was Harold Gaynor who was the drug. Yeah,
that made sense. She was a junkie. A Harold Gaynor junkie. Every
junkie is willing to die for one more fix. But I wasn't.
"Untie me, Wanda, please. I can get us out of
this."
"And if you can't?"
"Then we're no worse off," I said.
She seemed to think about that for a minute. I
strained for sounds from the hallway. If Bruno came back while we
were in the middle of escaping, it would be very bad.
Wanda propped herself up on her arms. Her legs
trailed out behind her under the skirt, dead, no movement at all.
She began dragging herself towards me. I thought it would be slow
work, but she moved quickly. The muscles in her arms bunched and
pushed, working well. She was by the chair in a matter of
minutes.
I smiled. "You're very strong."
"My arms are all I have. They have to be strong,"
Wanda said.
She started picking at the ropes that bound my right
wrist. "It's too tight."
"You can do it, Wanda."
She picked at the knot with her fingers, until after
what seemed hours, but was probably about five minutes, I felt the
rope give. Slack, I had slack. Yea!
"You've almost got it, Wanda." I felt like a
cheerleader.
The sound of footsteps clattered down the hall
towards us. Wanda's battered face stared up at me, terror in her
eyes. "There's not time," she whispered.
"Go back where you were. Do it. We'll finish later,"
I said.
Wanda hand-walked back to where Bruno had laid her.
She had just arranged herself into nearly the same position when
the door opened. Wanda was pretending to be unconscious, not a bad
idea.
Tommy stood in the doorway. He'd taken off his jacket
and the black webbing of the shoulder rig stood out on his white
polo shirt. Black jeans emphasized his pinched-in waist. He looked
top-heavy from lifting so many weights.
He'd added one new thing to the outfit. A knife. He
twirled it in his hand like a baton. It was almost a perfect sheen
of light. Manual dexterity. Wowee.
"I didn't know you used a knife, Tommy." My voice
sounded calm, normal, amazing.
He grinned. "I have a lot of talents. Gaynor wants to
know if you've changed your mind about the zombie raising."
It wasn't exactly a question, but I answered it. "I
won't do it."
His grin widened. "I was hoping you'd say that."
"Why?" I was afraid I knew the answer.
"Because he sent me in here to persuade you."
I stared at the glittering knife, I couldn't help
myself. "With a knife?"
"With something else long and hard, but not so cold,"
he said.
"Rape?" I asked. The word sort of hung there in the
hot, still air.
He nodded, grinning like a damn Cheshire cat. I
wished I could make him disappear except for his smile. I wasn't
afraid of his smile. It was the other end I was worried about.
I jerked at the ropes helplessly. The right wrist
gave a little more. Had Wanda loosened the rope enough? Had she?
Please God, let it be.
Tommy stood over me. I stared up the length of his
body and what I saw in his eyes was nothing human. There were all
sorts of ways to become a monster. Tommy had found one. There was
nothing but an animal hunger in his gaze. Nothing human left.
He put a leg on either side of the chair, straddling
me without sitting down. His flat stomach was pressed against my
face. His shirt smelled of expensive after-shave. I jerked my head
back, trying not to touch him.
He laughed and ran fingers through the tight waves of
my hair. I tried to jerk my head out of his reach, but he grabbed a
handful of hair and forced my head back.
"I'm going to enjoy this," he said.
I didn't dare jerk at the ropes. If my wrist came
free he'd see it. I had to wait, wait until he was distracted
enough not to notice. The thought of what I might have to do to
distract him, allow him to do to me, made my stomach hurt. But
staying alive was the goal. Everything else was gravy. I didn't
really believe that, but I tried.
He sat down on me, his weight settling on my legs.
His chest was pressed against my face, and there was nothing I
could do about it.
He rubbed the flat of the knife across my cheek. "You
can stop this anytime. Just say yes, and I'll tell Gaynor." His
voice was already growing thick. I could feel him growing hard
where he was pressed against my belly.
The thought of Tommy using me like that was almost
enough to make me say yes. Almost. I jerked on the ropes and the
right one gave a little more. One more hard tug and I could get
free. But I'd have just one hand to Tommy's two, and he had a gun
and a knife. Not good odds, but it was the best I was going to get
tonight.
He kissed me, forcing his tongue in my mouth. I
didn't respond, because he wouldn't have believed that. I didn't
bite his tongue either because I wanted him close. With only one
hand free, I needed him close. I needed to do major damage with one
hand. What? What could I do?
He nuzzled my neck, face buried in my hair on the
left side. Now or never. I pulled with everything I had and the
right wrist popped free. I froze. Surely he'd felt it, but he was
too busy sucking on my neck to notice. His free hand massaged my
breast.
He had his eyes closed as he kissed to the right side
of my neck. His eyes were closed. The knife was loose in his other
hand. Nothing I could do about the knife. Had to take the chance.
Had to do it.
I caressed the side of his face, and he nuzzled my
hand. Then his eyes opened. It had occurred to him that I was
supposed to be tied. I plunged my thumb into his open eye. I dug it
in, feeling the wet pop as his eye exploded.
He shrieked, rearing back, hand to his eye. I grabbed
the wrist with the knife and held on. The screams were going to
bring reinforcements. Dammit.
Strong arms wrapped around Tommy's waist and pulled
him backwards. I grabbed the knife as he slid to the floor. Wanda
was struggling to hold him. The pain was so severe, it hadn't
occurred to him to go for his gun. Putting out an eye hurts and
panics a lot more than a kick to the groin.
I cut my other hand free and nicked my arm doing it.
If I hurried too much, I'd end up slitting my own wrist. I forced
myself to be more careful slicing my ankles free.
Tommy had managed to get free of Wanda. He staggered
to his feet, one hand still over the eye. Blood and clear liquid
trailed down his face. "I'll kill you!" He reached for his gun.
I reversed my grip on the knife and threw it. It
thunked into his arm. I'd been aiming for his chest. He screamed
again. I picked up the chair and smashed it into his face. Wanda
grabbed his ankles, and Tommy went down.
I pounded at his face with the chair until the chair
broke apart in my hands. Then I beat him with a chair leg until his
face was nothing but a bloody mess.
"He's dead," Wanda said. She was tugging at my pants
leg. "He's dead. Let's get out of here."
I dropped the blood-coated chair leg and collapsed to
my knees. I couldn't swallow. I couldn't breathe. I was splattered
with blood. I'd never beaten someone to death before. It had felt
good. I shook my head. Later, I'd worry about it later.
Wanda put an arm over my shoulders. I grabbed her
around the waist, and we stood. She weighed a lot less than she
should have. I didn't want to see what was under the pretty skirt.
It wasn't a full set of legs, but for once that was good. She was
easier to move.
I had Tommy's gun in my right hand. "I need this hand
free, so hold on tight."
Wanda nodded. Her face was very pale. I could feel
her heart pounding against her ribs. "We're going to get out of
this," I said.
"Sure," but her voice was shaky. I don't think she
believed me. I wasn't sure I believed me.
Wanda opened the door, and out we went.
Chapter 37
The hallway was just like I remembered it. A long
stretch with no cover, then a blind corner at each end.
"Right or left?" I whispered to Wanda.
"I don't know. This house is like a maze. Right I
think."
We went right, because at least it was a decision.
The worst thing we could do was just stand there waiting for Gaynor
to come back.
I heard footsteps behind us. I started to turn, but
with Wanda in my arms, I was slow. The gunshot echoed in the
hallway. Something hit my left arm, around Wanda's waist. The
impact spun me around and sent us both crashing to the floor.
I ended up on my back with my left arm trapped under
Wanda's weight. The left arm was totally numb.
Cicely stood at the end of the hallway. She held a
small caliber handgun two-handed. Her long, long legs were far
apart. She looked like she knew what she was doing.
I raised the .357 and aimed at her, still lying flat
on my back on the floor. It was an explosion of sound that left my
ears ringing. The recoil thrust my hand skyward, backwards. It was
everything I could do not to drop the gun. If I'd needed a second
shot I'd have never gotten it off in time. But I didn't need a
second shot.
Cicely lay crumpled in the middle of the hallway.
Blood was spreading on the front of her blouse. She didn't move,
but that didn't mean anything. Her gun was still gripped in one
hand. She could be pretending, then when I walked up, she'd shoot
me. But I had to know.
"Can you get off my arm, please?" I asked.
Wanda didn't say anything, but she lifted herself to
a sitting position, and I could finally see my arm. It was still
attached. Goody. Blood was seeping down my arm in a crimson line. A
point of icy burning had started to chase away the numbness. I
liked the numbness better.
I did my best to ignore the arm as I stood up and
walked towards Cicely. I had the Magnum pointed at her. If she so
much as twitched, I'd hit her again. Her miniskirt had hiked up her
thighs, displaying black garters and matching underwear. How
undignified.
I stood over her, staring down. Cicely wasn't going
to twitch, not voluntarily. Her silk blouse was soaked with blood.
A hole big enough for me to put my fist through took up most of her
chest. Dead, very dead.
I kicked the .22 out of her hand, just in case. You
can never tell with someone who plays voodoo. I've had people get
up before with worse injuries. Cicely just lay there, bleeding.
I was lucky she'd had a ladylike caliber pistol.
Anything bigger and I might have lost the arm. I stuck her pistol
in the front of my pants, because I couldn't figure out where else
to put it. I did click the safety on first.
I'd never been shot before. Bitten, stabbed, beaten,
burned, but never shot. It scared me because I wasn't sure how
badly I was hurt. I walked back to Wanda. Her face was pale, her
brown eyes like islands in her face. "Is she dead?"
I nodded.
"You're bleeding," she said. She tore a strip from
her long skirt. "Here, let me wrap it."
I knelt and let her tie the multicolored strip just
above the wound. She wiped the blood away with another piece of
skirt. It didn't look that bad. It looked almost like a raw, bloody
scrap.
"I think the bullet just grazed me," I said. A flesh
wound, nothing but a flesh wound. It burned and was almost cold at
the same time. Maybe the cold was shock. One little bullet graze,
and I was going into shock? Surely not.
"Come on, we've got to get out of here. The shots
will bring Bruno." It was good that I had pain in the arm. It meant
I could feel and I could move the arm. The arm did not want to be
wrapped around Wanda's waist again, but it was the only way to move
her and keep my right hand free.
"Let's go left. Maybe Cicely came in this way," Wanda
said. There was a certain logic to that. We turned and walked past
Cicely's body.
She lay there, blue eyes staring impossibly wide.
There is never a look of horror on the face of the newly dead, more
surprise than anything. As if death had caught them while they
weren't looking.
Wanda stared down at the body as we passed it. She
whispered, "I never thought she'd die first."
We rounded the corner and came face-to-face with
Dominga's monster.
Chapter 38
The monster stood in the middle of a narrow little
hall that seemed to take up most of the back of the house.
Many-paned windows lined the wall. And in the middle of those
windows was a door. Through the windows I could see black night
sky. The door led outside. The only thing standing between us and
freedom was the monster.
The only thing, sheesh.
The shambling mound of body parts struggled towards
us. Wanda screamed, and I didn't blame her. I raised the Magnum and
sighted on the human face in the middle. The shot echoed like
captive thunder.
The face exploded in a welter of blood and flesh and
bone. The smell was worse. Like rotten fur on the back of my
throat. The mouths screamed, an animal howling at its wound. The
thing kept coming, but it was hurt. It seemed confused as to what
to do now. Had I taken out the dominant brain? Was there a dominant
brain? No way to be sure.
I fired three more times, exploding three more heads.
The hallway was full of brains and blood and worse. The monster
kept coming.
The gun clicked on empty. I threw the gun at it. One
clawed hand batted it away. I didn't bother trying the .22. If the
Magnum couldn't stop it, the .22 sure as hell couldn't.
We started backing down the hallway. What else could
we do? The monster pulled its twisted bulk after us. It was that
same sliding sound that had chased Manny and I out of Dominga's
basement. I was looking at her caged horror.
The flesh between the different textures of skin,
fur, and bone was seamless. No Frankenstein stitches. It was like
the different pieces had melted together like wax.
I tripped over Cicely's body, too busy watching the
monster to see where my feet were. We sprawled across her body.
Wanda screamed.
The monster scrambled forward. Misshapen hands
grabbed at my ankles. I kicked at it, struggling to climb over
Cicely's body, away from it. A claw snagged in my jeans and pulled
me towards it. It was my turn to scream. What had once been a man's
hand and arm wrapped around my ankle.
I grabbed onto Cicely's body. Her flesh was still
warm. The monster pulled us both easily. The extra weight didn't
slow it down. My hands scrambled at the bare wood floor. Nothing to
hold on to.
I stared back at the thing. Eager rotting mouths
yawned at me. Broken, discolored teeth, tongues working like putrid
snakes in the openings. God!
Wanda grabbed my arm, trying to hold me, but without
legs to brace she just succeeded in being pulled closer to the
thing. "Let go!" I screamed it at her.
She did, screaming, "Anita!"
I was screaming myself, "No! Stop it! Stop it!" I put
everything I had into that yell, not volume, but power. It was just
another zombie, that was all. If it wasn't under specific orders,
it would listen to me. It was just another zombie. I had to believe
that, or die.
"Stop, right now!" My voice broke with the edge of
hysteria. I wanted nothing more than just to start screaming and
never stop.
The monster froze with my foot halfway to one of its
lower mouths. The mismatched eyes stared at me, expectantly.
I swallowed and tried to sound calm, though the
zombie wouldn't care. "Release me."
It did.
My heart was threatening to come out my mouth. I lay
back on the floor for a second, relearning how to breathe. When I
looked up, the monster was still sitting there, waiting. Waiting
for orders like a good little zombie.
"Stay here, do not move from this spot," I said.
The eyes just stared at me, obedient as only the dead
can be. It would sit there in the hallway until it got specific
orders contradicting mine. Thank you, dear God, that a zombie is a
zombie is a zombie.
"What's happening?" Wanda asked. Her voice was broken
into sobs. She was near hysterics.
I crawled to her. "It's alright. I'll explain later.
We have a little time, but we can't waste it. We've got to get out
of here."
She nodded, tears sliding down her bruised face.
I helped her up one last time. We limped towards the
monster. Wanda shied away from it, pulling on my sore arm.
"It's alright. It won't hurt us, if we hurry." I had
no idea how close Dominga was. I didn't want her changing the
orders while we were right next to it. We stayed near the wall and
squeezed past the thing. Eyes on the back of the body, if it had a
back and a front, followed our progress. The smell from the running
wounds was nearly overwhelming. But what was a little gagging
between friends?
Wanda opened the door to the outside world. Hot
summer wind blew our hair into spider silk strands across our
faces. It felt wonderful.
Why hadn't Gaynor and the rest come to the rescue?
They had to have heard the gunshots and the screaming. The gunshots
at least would have brought somebody.
We stumbled down three stone steps to the gravel of a
turn around. I stared off into the darkness at hills covered in
tall, waving grass and decaying tombstones. The house was the
caretaker's house at Burrell Cemetery. I wondered what Gaynor had
done to the caretaker.
I started to lead Wanda away from the cemetery
towards the distant highway, then stopped. I knew why no one had
come now.
The sky was thick and black and so heavy with stars
if I'd had a net I could have caught some. There was a high, hot
wind blowing against the stars. I couldn't see the moon. Too much
starlight. On the hot seeking fingers of the wind I felt it. The
pull. Dominga Salvador had completed her spell. I stared off into
the rows of headstones and knew I had to go to her. Just as the
zombie had had to obey me, I had to obey her. There was no saving
throw, no salvaging it. As easy as that I was caught.
Chapter 39
I stood very still on the gravel. Wanda moved in my
arms, turning to look at me. Her face by starlight was incredibly
pale. Was mine as pale? Was the shock spread over my face like
moonlight? I tried to take a step forward. To carry Wanda to
safety. I could not take a step forward. I struggled until my legs
were shaking with the effort. I couldn't leave.
"What's the matter? We have to get out of here before
Gaynor comes back," Wanda said.
"I know," I said.
"Then what are you doing?"
I swallowed something cold and hard in my throat. My
pulse was thudding in my chest. "I can't leave."
"What are you talking about?" There was an edge of
hysteria to Wanda's voice.
Hysterics sounded perfect. I promised myself a
complete nervous breakdown if we got out of here alive. If I could
ever leave. I fought against something that I couldn't see, or
touch, but it held me solid. I had to stop or my legs were going to
collapse. We had enough problems in that direction already. If I
couldn't go forward, maybe, backwards.
I backed up a step, two steps. Yeah, that worked.
"Where are you going?" Wanda asked.
"Into the cemetery," I said.
"Why!"
Good question, but I wasn't sure I could explain it
so that Wanda would understand. I didn't understand. it myself. How
could I explain it to anyone else? I couldn't leave, but did I have
to take Wanda back with me? Would the spell allow me to leave her
here?
I decided to try. I laid her down on the gravel.
Easy, some of my choices were still open.
"Why are you leaving me?" She clutched at me,
terrified.
Me, too.
"Make it to the road if you can," I said.
"On my hands?" she asked.
She had a point, but what could I do? "Do you know
how to use a gun?"
"No."
Should I leave her the gun, or should I take it with
me, and maybe get a chance to kill Dominga? If this worked like
ordering a zombie, then I could kill her if she didn't specifically
forbid me to do it. Because I still had free will, of a sort.
They'd bring me, then send someone back for Wanda. She was to be
the sacrifice.
I handed her the .22. I clicked off the safety. "It's
loaded and it's ready to fire," I said. "Since you don't know
anything about guns, keep it hidden until Enzo or Bruno is right on
top of you, then fire point-blank. You can't miss at point-blank
range."
"Why are you leaving me?"
"A spell, I think," I said.
Her eyes widened. "What kind of spell?"
"One that allows them to order me to come to them.
One that forbids me to leave."
"Oh, God," she said.
"Yeah," I said. I smiled down at her. A reassuring
smile that was all lie. "I'll try to come back for you."
She just stared at me, like a kid whose parents left
her in the dark before all the monsters were gone.
She clutched the gun in her hands and watched me walk
off into the darkness.
The long dry grass hissed against my jeans. The wind
blew the grass in pale waves. Tombstones loomed out of the weeds
like the backs of small walls, or the humps of sea monsters. I
didn't have to think where I was going, my feet seemed to know the
way.
Was this how a zombie felt when ordered to come? No,
you had to be within hearing distance of a zombie. You couldn't do
it from this far away.
Dominga Salvador stood at the crown of a hill. She
was highlighted against the moon. It was sinking towards dawn. It
was still night, but the end of night. Everything was still velvet,
silver, deep pockets of night shadows, but there was the faintest
hint of dawn on the hot wind.
If I could delay until dawn, I couldn't raise the
zombie. Maybe the compulsion would fade, too. If I was luckier than
I deserved.
Dominga was standing inside a dark circle. There was
a dead chicken at her feet. She had already made a circle of power.
All I had to do was step into it and slaughter a human being. Over
my dead body, if necessary.
Harold Gaynor sat in his electric wheelchair. on the
opposite side of the circle. He was outside of it, safe. Enzo and
Bruno stood by him, safe. Only Dominga had risked the circle.
She said, "Where is Wanda?"
I tried to lie, to say she was safe, but truth
spilled out of my mouth, "She's down by the house on the
gravel."
"Why didn't you bring her?"
"You can only give me one order at a time. You
ordered me to come. I came."
"Stubborn, even now, how curious," she said. "Enzo,
go fetch the girl. We need her."
Enzo walked away over the dry, rustling grass without
a word. I hoped Wanda killed him. I hoped she emptied the gun into
him. No, save a few bullets for Bruno.
Dominga had a machete in her right hand. Its edge was
black with blood. "Enter the circle, Anita," she said.
I tried to fight it, tried not to do it. I stood
there on the verge of the circle, almost swaying. I stepped across.
The circle tingled up my spine, but it wasn't closed. I don't know
what she'd done to it, but it wasn't closed. The circle looked
solid enough but it was still open. Still waiting for the
sacrifice.
Shots echoed in the darkness. Dominga jumped. I
smiled.
"What was that?"
"I think it was your bodyguard biting the big one," I
said.
"What did you do?"
"I gave Wanda a gun."
She slapped me with her empty hand. It wouldn't
really have hurt, but she slapped the same cheek Bruno and
what's-his-name had hit. I'd been smacked three times in the same place.
The bruise was going to be a beaut.
Dominga looked at something behind me and smiled. I
knew what it would be before I turned and saw it.
Enzo was carrying Wanda up the hill. Dammit. I'd
heard more than one shot. Had she panicked and shot too soon,
wasted her ammunition? Damn.
Wanda was screaming and beating her small fists
against Enzo's broad back. If we were alive come morning, I would
teach Wanda better things to do with her fists. She was crippled,
not helpless.
Enzo carried her over the circle. Until it closed
everyone could pass over it without breaking the magic. He dropped
Wanda to the ground, holding her arms out behind her at a painful
angle. She still struggled and screamed. I didn't blame her.
"Get Bruno to hold her still. The death needs to be
one blow," I said.
Dominga nodded. "Yes, it does." She motioned for
Bruno to enter the circle. He hesitated, but Gaynor told him, "Do
what she says."
Bruno didn't hesitate after that. Gaynor was his
greenback god. Bruno grabbed one of Wanda's arms. With a man on
each arm, and her legs useless, she was still moving too much.
"Kneel and hold her head still," I said.
Enzo dropped first, putting a big hand on the back of
Wanda's head. He held her steady. She started to cry. Bruno knelt,
putting his free hand on her shoulders to help steady her. It was
important for the death to be a single blow.
Dominga was smiling now. She handed me a small brown
jar of ointment. It was white and smelled heavily of cloves. I used
more rosemary in mine, but cloves were fine.
"How did you know what I needed?"
"I asked Manny to tell me what you used."
"He wouldn't tell you shit."
"He would if I threatened his family." Dominga
laughed. "Oh, don't look so sad. He didn't betray you,
chica. Manuel thought I was merely curious about your
powers. I am, you know."
"You'll see soon enough, won't you," I said.
She gave a sort of bow from the neck. "Place the
ointment on yourself in the appointed places."
I rubbed ointment on my face. It was cool and waxy.
The cloves made it smell like candy. I smeared it on over my heart,
under my shirt, both hands. Last the tombstone.
Now all we needed was the sacrifice.
Dominga told me, "Do not move."
I stayed where I was, frozen as if by magic. Was her
monster still frozen in the hallway, like I was now?
Dominga laid the machete on the grass near the edge
of the circle, then she stepped out of the circle. "Raise the dead,
Anita," she said.
"Ask Gaynor one question first, please." That please
hurt, but it worked.
She looked at me curiously. "What question?"
"Is this ancestor also a voodoo priest?" I asked.
"What difference does it make?" Gaynor asked.
"You fool," Dominga said. She whirled on him, hands
in fists. "That is what went wrong the first time. You made me
think it was my powers!"
"What are you babbling about?" he asked.
"When you raise a voodoo priest or an animator,
sometimes the magic goes wrong," I said.
"Why?" he asked.
"Your ancestor's magic interfered with my magic,"
Dominga said. "Are you sure this ancestor had no voodoo?"
"Not to my knowledge," he said.
"Did you know about the first one?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Dominga said. Her power
blazed around her like a dark nimbus. Would she kill him, or did
she want the money more?
"I didn't think it was important."
I think Dominga was grinding her teeth. I didn't
blame her. He'd cost her her reputation and a dozen lives. He saw
nothing wrong with it. But Dominga didn't strike him dead. Greed
wins out.
"Get on with it," Gaynor said. "Or don't you want
your money?"
"Do not threaten me!" Dominga said.
Peachy keen, the bad guys were going to fight among
themselves.
"I am not threatening you, Señora. I merely
will not pay unless this zombie is raised."
Dominga took a deep breath. She literally squared her
shoulders and turned back to me. "Do as I ordered, raise the
dead."
I opened my mouth to think of some other excuse to
delay. Dawn was coming. It had to come.
"No more delays. Raise the dead, Anita, now!" That
last word had the tone of a command.
I swallowed hard and walked towards the edge of the
circle. I wanted to get out, to leave, but I couldn't. I stood
there, leaning against that invisible barrier. It was like beating
against a wall that I couldn't feel. I stayed there straining until
my entire body trembled. I took a deep shaking breath.
I picked up the machete.
Wanda said, "No, Anita, please, please don't!" She
struggled, but she couldn't move. She would be an easy kill. Easier
than beheading a chicken with one hand. And I did that almost every
night.
I knelt in front of Wanda. Enzo's hand on the back of
her head kept her from moving. But she whimpered, a desperate sound
low in her throat.
God, help me.
I placed the machete under her neck and told Enzo,
"Raise her head up so I can make sure of the kill."
He grabbed a handful of hair and bowed her neck at a
painful angle. Her eyes were showing a lot of white. Even by
moonlight I could see the pulse in her throat.
I placed the machete back against her neck. Her skin
was solid and real under the blade. I raised it just above her
flesh, not touching for an instant. I drove the machete straight up
into Enzo's throat. The point speared his throat. Blood gushed out
in a black wave.
Everyone froze for an instant, but me. I jerked the
machete out of Enzo and plunged it into Bruno's gut. His hand with
the gun half-drawn fell away. I leaned on the machete and drew it
up towards his throat. His insides spilled out, in a warm rush.
The smell of fresh death filled the circle. Blood
sprayed all over my face, chest, hands, coating me. It was the last
step, and the circle closed.
I'd felt a thousand circles close, but nothing like
this. The shock of it left me gasping. I couldn't breathe over the
rush of power. It was like an electric current was running over my
body. My skin ached with it.
Wanda was covered in other people's blood. She was
having hysterics in the grass. "Please, please, don't kill me.
Don't kill me! Please!"
I didn't have to kill Wanda. Dominga had told me to
raise the dead, and I would do just that.
Killing animals never gave me this kind of rush. It
felt like my skin was going to crawl off on its own. I shoved the
power flowing through me into the ground. But not just into the
grave in the circle. I had too much power for just one grave. Too
much power for just a handful of graves. I felt the power spreading
outward like ripples in a pool. Out and out, until the power was
spread thick and clean over the ground. Every grave that I had
walked for Dolph. Every grave but the ones with ghosts. Because
that was a type of soul magic, and necromancy didn't work around
souls.
I felt each grave, each corpse. I felt them coalesce
from dust and bone fragments to things that were barely dead at
all.
"Arise from your graves all dead within sound of my
call. Arise and serve me!" Without naming them all I shouldn't have
been able to call a single one from the grave, but the power of two
human deaths was too much for the dead to resist.
They rose upward like swimmers through water. The
ground rippled underfoot like a horse's skin.
"What are you doing?" Dominga asked.
"Raising the dead," I said. Maybe it showed in my
voice. Maybe she felt it. Whatever, she started running towards the
circle, but it was too late.
Hands tore through the earth at Dominga's feet. Dead
hands grabbed her ankles and sent her sprawling into the long
grass. I lost sight of her but I didn't lose control of the
zombies. I told them, "Kill her, kill her."
The grass shuddered and surged like water. The sound
of muscles pulling away from bone in wet thick pieces filled the
night. Bones broke with sharp cracks. Over the sounds of tearing
flesh, Dominga shrieked.
There was one last wet sound, thick and full.
Dominga's screams broke off abruptly. I felt the dead hands tearing
out her throat. Her blood splattered the grass like a black
sprinkler.
Her spell shredded on the wind, but I didn't need her
urging now. The power had me. I was riding it like a bird on a
current of air. It held me, lifted me. It felt solid and
insubstantial as air.
The dry sunken earth cracked open over Gaynor's
ancestor's grave. A pale hand shot skyward. A second hand came
through the crack. The zombie tore the dry earth. I heard other old
graves breaking in the still, summer night. It broke its way out of
his grave, just like Gaynor had wanted.
Gaynor sat in his wheelchair on the crest of the
hill. He was surrounded by the dead. Dozens of zombies in various
stages of decay crowded close to him. But I hadn't given the order
yet. They wouldn't hurt him unless I told them to.
"Ask him where the treasure is," Gaynor shouted.
I stared at him and every zombie turned with my eyes
and stared at him, too. He didn't understand. Gaynor was like a lot
of people with money. They mistake money for power. It isn't the
same thing at all.
"Kill the man Harold Gaynor." I said it loud enough
to carry on the still air.
"I'll give you a million dollars for having raised
him. Whether I find the treasure or not," Gaynor said.
"I don't want your money, Gaynor," I said.
The zombies were moving in on every side, slow, hands
extended, like every horror movie you've ever seen. Sometimes
Hollywood is accurate, whatta ya know.
"Two million, three million!" His voice was breaking
with fear. He'd had a better seat for Dominga's death than I had.
He knew what was coming. "Four million!"
"Not enough," I said.
"How much?" he shouted. "Name your price!" I couldn't
see him now. The zombies hid him from view.
"No money, Gaynor, just you dead, that's enough."
He started screaming, wordlessly. I felt the hands
begin to rip at him. Teeth to tear.
Wanda grabbed my legs. "Don't, don't hurt him.
Please!"
I just stared at her. I was remembering Benjamin
Reynolds's blood-coated teddy bear, the tiny hand with that stupid
plastic ring on it, the blood-soaked bedroom, the baby blanket. "He
deserves to die," I said. My voice sounded separate from me,
distant and echoing. It didn't sound like me at all.
"You can't just murder him," Wanda said.
"Watch me," I said.
She tried to climb my body, but her legs betrayed her
and she fell in a heap at my feet, sobbing.
I didn't understand how Wanda could beg for his life
after what he had done to her. Love, I suppose. In the end she
really did love him. And that, perhaps, was the saddest thing of
all.
When Gaynor died, I knew it. When pieces of him
stained almost every hand and mouth of the dead, they stopped. They
turned to me, waiting for new orders. The power was still buoying
me up. I wasn't tired. Was there enough to lay them all to rest? I
hoped so.
"Go back, all of you, go back to your graves. Rest in
the quiet earth. Go back, go back."
They stirred like a wind had blown through them, then
one by one they went back to their graves. They lay down on the
hard dry earth and the graves just swallowed them whole. It was
like magic quicksand. The earth shuddered underfoot like a sleeper
moving to a more comfortable position.
Some of the corpses had been as old as Gaynor's
ancestor, which meant that I didn't need a human death to raise one
three-hundred-year-old corpse. Bert was going to be pleased. Human
deaths seemed to be cumulative. Two human deaths and I had emptied
a cemetery. It wasn't possible. But I'd done it anyway. Whatta ya
know?
The first light of dawn passed like milk on the
eastern sky. The wind died with the light. Wanda knelt in the
bloody grass, crying. I knelt beside her.
She jerked back at my touch. I guess I couldn't blame
her, but it bothered me anyway.
"We have to get out of here. You need a doctor," I
said.
She stared up at me. "What are you?"
Today for the first time I didn't know how to answer
that question. Human didn't seem to cover it. "I'm an animator," I
said finally.
She just kept staring at me. I wouldn't have believed
me either. But she let me help her up. I guess that was
something.
But she kept looking at me out of the edge of her
eyes. Wanda considered me one of the monsters. She may have been
right.
Wanda gasped, eyes wide.
I turned, too slowly. Was it the monster?
Jean-Claude stepped out of the shadows.
I didn't breathe for a moment. It was so
unexpected.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Your power called to me, ma petite. No dead
in the city could fail to feel your power tonight. And I am the
city, so I came to investigate."
"How long have you been here?"
"I saw you kill the men. I saw you raise the
graveyard."
"Did it ever occur to you to help me?"
"You did not need any help." He smiled, barely
visible in the moonlight. "Besides, would it not have been tempting
to rend me to pieces, as well?"
"You can't possibly be afraid of me," I said.
He spread his hands wide.
"You're afraid of your human servant? Little ol' moi?"
"Not afraid, ma petite, but cautious."
He was afraid of me. It almost made some of this shit
worthwhile.
I carried Wanda down the hill. She wouldn't let
Jean-Claude touch her. A choice of monsters.
Chapter 40
Dominga Salvador missed her court date. Fancy that.
Dolph had searched for me that night, after he discovered that
Dominga had made bail. He had found my apartment empty. My answers
about where I had gone didn't satisfy him, but he let it go. What
else could he do?
They found Gaynor's wheelchair, but no trace of him.
It's one of those mysteries to tell around campfires. The empty,
blood-coated wheelchair in the middle of the cemetery. They did
find body parts in the caretaker's house: animal and human. Only
Dominga's power had held the thing together. When she died, it
died. Thank goodness. Theory was that the monster got Gaynor. Where
the monster came from no one seemed to know. I was called in to
explain the body parts, that's how the police knew they'd once been
attached.
Irving wanted to know what I really knew about
Gaynor's vanishing act. I just smiled and played inscrutable.
Irving didn't believe me, but all he had were suspicions.
Suspicions aren't a news story.
Wanda is waiting tables downtown. Jean-Claude offered
her a job at The Laughing Corpse. She declined, not politely. She'd
saved quite a bit of money from her "business." I don't know if
she'll make it or not, but with Gaynor gone, she seems free to try.
She was a junkie whose drug of choice was dead. It was better than
rehab.
By Catherine's wedding the bullet wound was just a
bandage on my arm. The bruises on my face and neck had turned that
sickly shade of greenish-yellow. It clashed with the pink dress. I
gave Catherine the option of me not being in the wedding. The
wedding coordinator was all for that, but Catherine wouldn't hear
of it. The wedding coordinator applied makeup to the bruises and
saved the day.
I have a picture of me standing in that awful dress
with Catherine's arm around me. We're both smiling. Friendship is
strange stuff.
Jean-Claude sent me a dozen white roses in the
hospital. The card read, "Come to the ballet with me. Not as my
servant, but as my guest."
I didn't go to the ballet. I had enough problems
without dating the Master of the City.
I had performed human sacrifice, and it had felt
good. The rush of power was like the memory of painful sex. Part of
you wanted to do it again. Maybe Dominga Salvador was right. Maybe
power talks to everyone, even me.
I am an animator. I am the Executioner. But now I
know I'm something else. The one thing my Grandmother Flores feared
most. I am a necromancer. The dead are my specialty.
Harold Gaynor's house sat in the middle of intense
green lawn and the graceful sweep of trees. The house gleamed in
the hot August sunshine. Bert Vaughn, my boss, parked the car on
the crushed gravel of the driveway. The gravel was so white, it
looked like handpicked rock salt. Somewhere out of sight the soft
whir of sprinklers pattered. The grass was absolutely perfect in
the middle of one of the worst droughts Missouri has had in over
twenty years. Oh, well. I wasn't here to talk with Mr. Gaynor about
water management. I was here to talk about raising the dead.
Not resurrection. I'm not that good. I mean zombies.
The shambling dead. Rotting corpses. Night of the living dead. That
kind of zombie. Though certainly less dramatic than Hollywood would
ever put up on the screen. I am an animator. It's a job, that's
all, like selling.
Animating had only been a licensed business for about
five years. Before that it had just been an embarrassing curse, a
religious experience, or a tourist attraction. It still is in parts
of New Orleans, but here in St. Louis it's a business. A profitable
one, thanks in large part to my boss. He's a rascal, a scalawag, a
rogue, but damn if he doesn't know how to make money. It's a good
trait for a business manager.
Bert was six-three, a broad-shouldered, ex-college
football player with the beginnings of a beer gut. The dark blue
suit he wore was tailored so that the gut didn't show. For eight
hundred dollars the suit should have hidden a herd of elephants.
His white-blond hair was trimmed in a crew cut, back in style after
all these years. A boater's tan made his pale hair and eyes
dramatic with contrast.
Bert adjusted his blue and red striped tie, mopping a
bead of sweat off his tanned forehead. "I heard on the news there's
a movement there to use zombies in pesticide-contaminated fields.
It would save lives."
"Zombies rot, Bert, there's no way to prevent that,
and they don't stay smart enough long enough to be used as field
labor."
"It was just a thought. The dead have no rights under
law, Anita."
"Not yet."
It was wrong to raise the dead so they could slave
for us. It was just wrong, but no one listens to me. The government
finally had to get into the act. There was a nationwide committee
being formed of animators and other experts. We were supposed to
look into the working conditions of local zombies.
Working conditions. They didn't understand. You can't
give a corpse nice working conditions. They don't appreciate it
anyway. Zombies may walk, even talk, but they are very, very
dead.
Bert smiled indulgently at me. I fought an urge to
pop him one right in his smug face, "I know you and Charles are
working on that committee," Bert said. "Going around to all the
businesses and checking up on the zombies. It makes great press for
Animators, Inc."
"I don't do it for good press," I said.
"I know. You believe in your little cause."
"You're a condescending bastard," I said, smiling
sweetly up at him.
He grinned at me. "I know."
I just shook my head; with Bert you can't really win
an insult match. He doesn't give a damn what I think of him, as
long as I work for him.
My navy blue suit jacket was supposed to be summer
weight but it was a lie. Sweat trickled down my spine as soon as I
stepped out of the car.
Bert turned to me, small eyes narrowing. His eyes
lend themselves to suspicious squints. "You're still wearing your
gun," he said.
"The jacket hides it, Bert. Mr. Gaynor will never
know." Sweat started collecting under the straps of my shoulder
holster. I could feel the silk blouse beginning to melt. I try not
to wear silk and a shoulder rig at the same time. The silk starts
to look indented, wrinkling where the straps cross. The gun was a
Browning Hi-Power 9mm, and I liked having it near at hand.
"Come on, Anita. I don't think you'll need a gun in
the middle of the afternoon, while visiting a client." Bert's voice
held that patronizing tone that people use on children. Now, little
girl, you know this is for your own good.
Bert didn't care about my well-being. He just didn't
want to spook Gaynor. The man had already given us a check for five
thousand dollars. And that was just to drive out and talk to him.
The implication was that there was more money if we agreed to take
his case. A lot of money. Bert was all excited about that part. I
was skeptical. After all, Bert didn't have to raise the corpse. I
did.
The trouble was, Bert was probably right. I wouldn't
need the gun in broad daylight. Probably. "All right, open the
trunk."
Bert opened the trunk of his nearly brand-new Volvo.
I was already taking off the jacket. He stood in front of me,
hiding me from the house. God forbid that they should see me hiding
a gun in the trunk. What would they do, lock the doors and scream
for help?
I folded the holster straps around the gun and laid
it in the clean trunk. It smelled like new car, plastic and faintly
unreal. Bert shut the trunk, and I stared at it as if I could still
see the gun.
"Are you coming?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said. I didn't like leaving my gun behind,
for any reason. Was that a bad sign? Bert motioned for me to come
on.
I did, walking carefully over the gravel in my
high-heeled black pumps. Women may get to wear lots of pretty
colors, but men get the comfortable shoes.
Bert was staring at the door, smile already set on
his face. It was his best professional smile, dripping with
sincerity. His pale grey eyes sparkled with good cheer. It was a
mask. He could put it on and off like a light switch. He'd wear the
same smile if you confessed to killing your own mother. As long as
you wanted to pay to have her raised from the dead.
The door opened, and I knew Bert had been wrong about
me not needing a gun. The man was maybe five-eight, but the orange
polo shirt he wore strained over his chest. The black sport jacket
seemed too small, as if when he moved the seams would split, like
an insect's skin that had been outgrown. Black acid-washed jeans
showed off a small waist, so he looked like someone had pinched him
in the middle while the clay was still wet. His hair was very
blond. He looked at us silently. His eyes were empty, dead as a
doll's. I caught a glimpse of shoulder holster under the sport
jacket and resisted an urge to kick Bert in the shins.
Either my boss didn't notice the gun or he ignored
it. "Hello, I'm Bert Vaughn and this is my associate, Anita Blake.
I believe Mr. Gaynor is expecting us." Bert smiled at him
charmingly.
The bodyguard—what else could he be—moved away from
the door. Bert took that for an invitation and walked inside. I
followed, not at all sure I wanted to. Harold Gaynor was a very
rich man. Maybe he needed a bodyguard. Maybe people had threatened
him. Or maybe he was one of those men who have enough money to keep
hired muscle around whether they need it or not.
Or maybe something else was going on. Something that
needed guns and muscle, and men with dead, emotionless eyes. Not a
cheery thought.
The air-conditioning was on too high and the sweat
gelled instantly. We followed the bodyguard down a long central
hall that was paneled in dark, expensive-looking wood. The hall
runner looked oriental and was probably handmade.
Heavy wooden doors were set in the right-hand wall.
The bodyguard opened the doors and again stood to one side while we
walked through. The room was a library, but I was betting no one
ever read any of the books. The place was ceiling to floor in dark
wood bookcases. There was even a second level of books and shelves
reached by an elegant sweep of narrow staircase. All the books were
hardcover, all the same size, colors muted and collected together
like a collage. The furniture was, of course, red leather with
brass buttons worked into it.
A man sat near the far wall. He smiled when we came
in. He was a large man with a pleasant round face, double-chinned.
He was sitting in an electric wheelchair, with a small plaid
blanket over his lap, hiding his legs.
"Mr. Vaughn and Ms. Blake, how nice of you to drive
out." His voice went with his face, pleasant, damn near
amiable.
A slender black man sat in one of the leather chairs.
He was over six feet tall, exactly how much over was hard to tell.
He was slumped down, long legs stretched out in front of him with
the ankles crossed. His legs were taller than I was. His brown eyes
watched me as if he were trying to memorize me and would be graded
later.
The blond bodyguard went to lean against the
bookcases. He couldn't quite cross his arms, jacket too tight,
muscles too big. You really shouldn't lean against a wall and try
to look tough unless you can cross your arms. Ruins the effect.
Mr. Gaynor said, "You've met Tommy." He motioned
towards the sitting bodyguard. "That's Bruno."
"Is that your real name or just a nickname?" I asked,
looking straight into Bruno's eyes.
He shifted just a little in his chair. "Real
name."
I smiled.
"Why?" he asked.
"I've just never met a bodyguard who was really named
Bruno."
"Is that supposed to be funny?" he asked.
I shook my head. Bruno. He never had a chance. It was
like naming a girl Venus. All Brunos had to be bodyguards. It was a
rule. Maybe a cop? Naw, it was a bad guy's name. I smiled.
Bruno sat up in his chair, one smooth, muscular
motion. He wasn't wearing a gun that I could see, but there was a
presence to him. Dangerous, it said, watch out.
Guess I shouldn't have smiled.
Bert interrupted, "Anita, please. I do apologize, Mr.
Gaynor . . . Mr. Bruno. Ms. Blake has a rather peculiar sense of
humor."
"Don't apologize for me, Bert. I don't like it." I
don't know what he was so sore about anyway. I hadn't said the
really insulting stuff out loud.
"Now, now," Mr. Gaynor said. "No hard feelings.
Right, Bruno?"
Bruno shook his head and frowned at me, not angry,
sort of perplexed.
Bert flashed me an angry look, then turned smiling to
the man in the wheelchair. "Now, Mr. Gaynor, I know you must be a
busy man. So, exactly how old is the zombie you want raised?"
"A man who gets right down to business. I like that."
Gaynor hesitated, staring at the door. A woman entered.
She was tall, leggy, blond, with cornflower-blue
eyes. The dress, if it was a dress, was rose-colored and silky. It
clung to her body the way it was supposed to, hiding what decency
demanded, but leaving very little to the imagination. Long pale
legs were stuffed into pink spike heels, no hose. She stalked
across the carpet, and every man in the room watched her. And she
knew it.
She threw back her head and laughed, but no sound
came out. Her face brightened, her lips moved, eyes sparkled, but
in absolute silence, like someone had turned the sound off. She
leaned one hip against Harold Gaynor, one hand on his shoulder. He
encircled her waist, and the movement raised the already short
dress another inch.
Could she sit down in the dress without flashing the
room? Naw.
"This is Cicely," he said. She smiled brilliantly at
Bert, that little soundless laugh making her eyes sparkle. She
looked at me and her eyes faltered, the smile slipped. For a second
uncertainty filled her eyes. Gaynor patted her hip. The smile
flamed back into place. She nodded graciously to both of us.
"I want you to raise a
two-hundred-and-eighty-three-year old corpse."
I just stared at him and wondered if he understood
what he was asking.
"Well," Bert said, "that is nearly three hundred
years old. Very old to raise as a zombie. Most animators couldn't
do it at all."
"I am aware of that," Gaynor said. "That is why I
asked for Ms. Blake. She can do it."
Bert glanced at me. I had never raised anything that
old. "Anita?"
"I could do it," I said.
He smiled back at Gaynor, pleased.
"But I won't do it."
Bert turned slowly back to me, smile gone.
Gaynor was still smiling. The bodyguards were
immobile. Cicely looked pleasantly at me, eyes blank of any
meaning.
"A million dollars, Ms. Blake," Gaynor said in his
soft pleasant voice.
I saw Bert swallow. His hands convulsed on the chair
arms. Bert's idea of sex was money. He probably had the biggest
hard-on of his life.
"Do you understand what you're asking, Mr. Gaynor?" I
asked.
He nodded. "I will supply the white goat." His voice
was still pleasant as he said it, still smiling. Only his eyes had
gone dark; eager, anticipatory.
I stood up. "Come on, Bert, it's time to leave."
Bert grabbed my arm. "Anita, sit down, please."
I stared at his hand until he let go of me. His
charming mask slipped, showing me the anger underneath, then he was
all pleasant business again. "Anita. It is a generous payment."
"The white goat is a euphemism, Bert. It means a
human sacrifice."
My boss glanced at Gaynor, then back to me. He knew
me well enough to believe me, but he didn't want to. "I don't
understand," he said.
"The older the zombie the bigger the death needed to
raise it. After a few centuries the only death 'big enough' is a
human sacrifice," I said.
Gaynor wasn't smiling anymore. He was watching me out
of dark eyes. Cicely was still looking pleasant, almost smiling.
Was there anyone home behind those so blue eyes? "Do you really
want to talk about murder in front of Cicely?" I asked.
Gaynor beamed at me, always a bad sign. "She can't
understand a word we say. Cicely's deaf."
I stared at him, and he nodded. She looked at me with
pleasant eyes. We were talking of human sacrifice and she didn't
even know it. If she could read lips, she was hiding it very well.
I guess even the handicapped, um, physically challenged, can fall
into bad company, but it seemed wrong.
"I hate a woman who talks constantly," Gaynor
said.
I shook my head. "All the money in the world wouldn't
be enough to get me to work for you."
"Couldn't you just kill lots of animals, instead of
just one?" Bert asked. Bert is a very good business manager. He
knows shit about raising the dead.
I stared down at him. "No."
Bert sat very still in his chair. The prospect of
losing a million dollars must have been real physical pain for him,
but he hid it. Mr. Corporate Negotiator. "There has to be a way to
work this out," he said. His voice was calm. A professional smile
curled his lips. He was still trying to do business. My boss did
not understand what was happening.
"Do you know of another animator that could raise a
zombie this old?" Gaynor asked.
Bert glanced up at me, then down at the floor, then
at Gaynor. The professional smile had faded. He understood now that
it was murder we were talking about. Would that make a
difference?
I had always wondered where Bert drew the line. I was
about to find out. The fact that I didn't know whether he would
refuse the contract told you a lot about my boss. "No," Bert said
softly, "no, I guess I can't help you either, Mr. Gaynor."
"If it's the money, Ms. Blake, I can raise the
offer."
A tremor ran through Bert's shoulders. Poor Bert, but
he hid it well. Brownie point for him.
"I'm not an assassin, Gaynor," I said.
"That ain't what I heard," Tommy of the blond hair
said.
I glanced at him. His eyes were still as empty as a
doll's. "I don't kill people for money."
"You kill vampires for money," he said.
"Legal execution, and I don't do it for the money," I
said.
Tommy shook his head and moved away from the wall. "I
hear you like staking vampires. And you aren't too careful about
who you have to kill to get to 'em."
"My informants tell me you have killed humans before,
Ms. Blake," Gaynor said.
"Only in self-defense, Gaynor. I don't do
murder."
Bert was standing now. "I think it is time to
leave."
Bruno stood in one fluid movement, big dark hands
loose and half-cupped at his sides. I was betting on some kind of
martial arts.
Tommy was standing away from the wall. His sport
jacket was pushed back to expose his gun, like an old-time
gunfighter. It was a .357 Magnum. It would make a very big
hole.
I just stood there, staring at them. What else could
I do? I might be able to do something with Bruno, but Tommy had a
gun. I didn't. It sort of ended the argument.
They were treating me like I was a very dangerous
person. At five-three I am not imposing. Raise the dead, kill a few
vampires, and people start considering you one of the monsters.
Sometimes it hurt. But now . . . it had possibilities. "Do you
really think I came in here unarmed?" I asked. My voice sounded
very matter-of-fact.
Bruno looked at Tommy. He sort of shrugged. "I didn't
pat her down."
Bruno snorted.
"She ain't wearing a gun, though," Tommy said.
"Want to bet your life on it?" I said. I smiled when
I said it, and slid my hand, very slowly, towards my back. Make
them think I had a hip holster at the small of my back. Tommy
shifted, flexing his hand near his gun. If he went for it, we were
going to die. I was going to come back and haunt Bert.
Gaynor said, "No. No need for anyone to die here
today, Ms. Blake."
"No," I said, "no need at all." I swallowed my pulse
back into my throat and eased my hand away from my imaginary gun.
Tommy eased away from his real one. Goody for us.
Gaynor smiled again, like a pleasant beardless Santa.
"You of course understand that telling the police would be
useless."
I nodded. "We have no proof. You didn't even tell us
who you wanted raised from the dead, or why."
"It would be your word against mine," he said.
"And I'm sure you have friends in high places." I
smiled when I said it.
His smile widened, dimpling his fat little cheeks.
"Of course."
I turned my back on Tommy and his gun. Bert followed.
We walked outside into the blistering summer heat. Bert looked a
little shaken. I felt almost friendly towards him. It was nice to
know that Bert had limits, something he wouldn't do, even for a
million dollars.
"Would they really have shot us?" he asked. His voice
sounded matter-of-fact, firmer than the slightly glassy look in his
eyes. Tough Bert. He unlocked the trunk without being asked.
"With Harold Gaynor's name in our appointment book
and in the computer?" I got my gun out and slipped on the holster
rig. "Not knowing who we'd mentioned this trip to?" I shook my
head. "Too risky."
"Then why did you pretend to have a gun?" He looked
me straight in the eyes as he asked, and for the first time I saw
uncertainty in his face. Ol' money bags needed a comforting word,
but I was fresh out.
"Because, Bert, I could have been wrong."
Chapter 2
The bridal shop was just off 70 West in St. Peters.
It was called The Maiden Voyage. Cute. There was a pizza place on
one side of it and a beauty salon on the other. It was called Full
Dark Beauty Salon. The windows were blacked out, outlined in
bloodred neon. You could get your hair and nails done by a vampire,
if you wanted to.
Vampirism had only been legal for two years in the
United States of America. We were still the only country in the
world where it was legal. Don't ask me; I didn't vote for it. There
was even a movement to give the vamps the vote. Taxation without
representation and all that.
Two years ago if a vampire bothered someone I just
went out and staked the son of a bitch. Now I had to get a court
order of execution. Without it, I was up on murder charges, if I
was caught. I longed for the good old days.
There was a blond mannequin in the wedding shop
window wearing enough white lace to drown in. I am not a big fan of
lace, or seed pearls, or sequins. Especially not sequins. I had
gone out with Catherine twice to help her look for a wedding gown.
It didn't take long to realize I was no help. I didn't like any of
them.
Catherine was a very good friend or I wouldn't have
been here at all. She told me if I ever got married I'd change my
mind. Surely being in love doesn't cause you to lose your sense of
good taste. If I ever buy a gown with sequins on it, someone just
shoot me.
I also wouldn't have chosen the bridal dresses
Catherine picked out, but it was my own fault that I hadn't been
around when the vote was taken. I worked too much and I hated to
shop. So, I ended up plunking down $120 plus tax on a pink taffeta
evening gown. It looked like it had run away from a junior high
prom.
I walked into the air-conditioned hush of the bridal
shop, high heels sinking into a carpet so pale grey it was nearly
white. Mrs. Cassidy, the manager, saw me come in. Her smile
faltered for just a moment before she got it under control. She
smiled at me, brave Mrs. Cassidy.
I smiled back, not looking forward to the next
hour.
Mrs. Cassidy was somewhere between forty and fifty,
trim figure, red hair so dark it was almost brown. The hair was
tied in a French knot like Grace Kelly used to wear. She pushed her
gold wire-framed glasses more securely on her nose and said, "Ms.
Blake, here for the final fitting, I see."
"I hope it's the final fitting," I said.
"Well, we have been working on the . . . problem. I
think we've come up with something." There was a small room in back
of the desk. It was filled with racks of plastic-covered dresses.
Mrs. Cassidy pulled mine out from between two identical pink
dresses.
She led the way to the dressing rooms with the dress
draped over her arms. Her spine was very straight. She was gearing
for another battle. I didn't have to gear up, I was always ready
for battle. But arguing with Mrs. Cassidy about alterations to a
formal beat the heck out of arguing with Tommy and Bruno. It could
have gone very badly, but it hadn't. Gaynor had called them off,
for today, he had said.
What did that mean exactly? It was probably
self-explanatory. I had left Bert at the office still shaken from
his close encounter. He didn't deal with the messy end of the
business. The violent end. No, I did that, or Manny, or Jamison, or
Charles. We, the animators of Animators, Inc, we did the dirty
work. Bert stayed in his nice safe office and sent clients and
trouble our way. Until today.
Mrs. Cassidy hung the dress on a hook inside one of
the dressing stalls and went away. Before I could go inside,
another stall opened, and Kasey, Catherine's flower girl, stepped
out. She was eight, and she was glowering. Her mother followed
behind her, still in her business suit. Elizabeth (call me Elsie)
Markowitz was tall, slender, black-haired, olive skinned, and a
lawyer. She worked with Catherine and was also in the wedding.
Kasey looked like a smaller, softer version of her
mother.
The child spotted me first and said, "Hi, Anita.
Isn't this dress dumb-looking?"
"Now, Kasey," Elsie said, "it's a beautiful dress.
All those nice pink ruffles."
The dress looked like a petunia on steroids to me. I
stripped off my jacket and started moving into my own dressing room
before I had to give my opinion out loud.
"Is that a real gun?" Kasey asked.
I had forgotten I was still wearing it. "Yes," I
said.
"Are you a policewoman?"
"No."
"Kasey Markowitz, you ask too many questions." Her
mother herded her past me with a harried smile. "Sorry about that,
Anita."
"I don't mind," I said. Sometime later I was standing
on a little raised platform in front of a nearly perfect circle of
mirrors. With the matching pink high heels the dress was the right
length at least. It also had little puff sleeves and was an
off-the-shoulder look. The dress showed almost every scar I
had.
The newest scar was still pink and healing on my
right forearm. But it was just a knife wound. They're neat, clean
things compared to my other scars. My collarbone and left arm have
both been broken. A vampire bit through them, tore at me like a dog
with a piece of meat. There's also the cross-shaped burn mark on my
left forearm. Some inventive human vampire slaves thought it was
amusing. I didn't.
I looked like Frankenstein's bride goes to the prom.
Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad, but Mrs. Cassidy thought it was.
She thought the scars would distract people from the dress, the
wedding party, the bride. But Catherine, the bride herself, didn't
agree. She thought I deserved to be in the wedding, because we were
such good friends. I was paying good money to be publicly
humiliated. We must be good friends.
Mrs. Cassidy handed me a pair of long pink satin
gloves. I pulled them on, wiggling my fingers deep into the tiny
holes. I've never liked gloves. They make me feel like I'm touching
the world through a curtain. But the bright pink things did hide my
arms. Scars all gone. What a good girl. Right.
The woman fluffed out the satiny skirt, glancing into
the mirror. "It will do, I think." She stood, tapping one long,
painted fingernail against her lipsticked mouth. "I
believe I have come up with something to hide that, uh . . . well .
. ." She made vague hand motions towards me.
"My collarbone scar?" I said.
"Yes." She sounded relieved.
It occurred to me for the first time that Mrs.
Cassidy had never once said the word "scar." As if it were dirty,
or rude. I smiled at myself in the ring of mirrors. Laughter caught
at the back of my throat.
Mrs. Cassidy held up something made of pink ribbon
and fake orange blossoms. The laughter died. "What is that?" I
asked.
"This," she said, stepping towards me, "is the
solution to our problem."
"All right, but what is it?"
"Well, it is a collar, a decoration."
"It goes around my neck?"
"Yes."
I shook my head. "I don't think so."
"Ms. Blake, I have tried everything to hide that,
that . . . mark. Hats, hairdos, simple ribbons, corsages . . ." She
literally threw up her hands. "I am at my wit's end."
This I could believe. I took a deep breath. "I
sympathize with you, Mrs. Cassidy, really I do. I've been a royal
pain in the ass."
"I would never say such a thing."
"I know, so I said it for you. But that is the
ugliest piece of fru-fru I've ever laid eyes on."
"If you, Ms. Blake, have any better suggestions, then
I am all ears." She half crossed her arms over her chest. The
offending piece of "decoration" trailed nearly to her waist.
"It's huge," I protested.
"It will hide your"—she set her mouth
tight—"scar."
I felt like applauding. She'd said the dirty word.
Did I have any better suggestions? No. I did not. I sighed. "Put it
on me. The least I can do is look at it."
She smiled. "Please lift your hair."
I did as I was told. She fastened it around my neck.
The lace itched, the ribbons tickled, and I didn't even want to
look in the mirror. I raised my eyes, slowly, and just stared.
"Thank goodness you have long hair. I'll style it
myself the day of the wedding so it helps the camouflage."
The thing around my neck looked like a cross between
a dog collar and the world's biggest wrist corsage. My neck had
sprouted pink ribbons like mushrooms after a rain. It was hideous,
and no amount of hairstyling was going to change that. But it hid
the scar completely, perfectly. Ta-da.
I just shook my head. What could I say? Mrs. Cassidy
took my silence for assent. She should have known better. The phone
rang and saved us both. "I'll be just a minute, Ms. Blake." She
stalked off, high-heels silent on the thick carpet.
I just stared at myself in the mirrors. My hair and
eyes match, black hair, eyes so dark brown they look black. They
are my mother's Latin darkness. But my skin is pale, my father's
Germanic blood. Put some makeup on me and I look not unlike a china
doll. Put me in a puffy pink dress and I look delicate, dainty,
petite. Dammit.
The rest of the women in the wedding party were all
five-five or above. Maybe some of them would actually look good in
the dress. I doubted it.
Insult to injury, we all had to wear hoop skirts
underneath. I looked like a reject from Gone With the Wind.
"There, don't you look lovely." Mrs. Cassidy had
returned. She was beaming at me.
"I look like I've been dipped in Pepto-Bismol," I
said.
Her smile faded around the edges. She swallowed. "You
don't like this last idea." Her voice was very stiff.
Elsie Markowitz came out of the dressing rooms. Kasey
was trailing behind, scowling. I knew how she felt. "Oh, Anita,"
Elsie said, "you look adorable."
Great. Adorable, just what I wanted to hear.
"Thanks."
"I especially like the ribbons at your throat. We'll
all be wearing them, you know."
"Sorry about that," I said.
She frowned at me. "I think they just set off the
dress."
It was my turn to frown. "You're serious, aren't
you?"
Elsie looked puzzled. "Well, of course I am. Don't
you like the dresses?"
I decided not to answer on the grounds that it might
piss someone off. I guess, what can you expect from a woman who has
a perfectly good name like Elizabeth, but prefers to be named after
a cow?
"Is this the absolutely last thing we can use for
camouflage, Mrs. Cassidy?" I asked.
She nodded, once, very firmly.
I sighed, and she smiled. Victory was hers, and she
knew it. I knew I was beaten the moment I saw the dress, but if I'm
going to lose, I'm going to make someone pay for it. "All right.
It's done. This is it. I'll wear it."
Mrs. Cassidy beamed at me. Elsie smiled. Kasey
smirked. I hiked the hoop skirt up to my knees and stepped off the
platform. The hoop swung like a bell with, me as the clapper.
The phone rang. Mrs. Cassidy went to answer it, a
lift in her step, a song in her heart, and me out of her shop. Joy
in the afternoon.
I was struggling to get the wide skirt through the
narrow little door that led to the changing rooms when she called,
"Ms. Blake, it's for you. A Detective Sergeant Storr."
"See, Mommy, I told you she was a policewoman," Kasey
said.
I didn't explain because Elsie had asked me not to,
weeks ago. She thought Kasey was too young to know about animators
and zombies and vampire slayings. Not that any child of eight could
not know what a vampire was. They were pretty much the media event
of the decade.
I tried to put the phone to my left ear, but the
damned flowers got in the way. Pressing the receiver in the bend of
my neck and shoulder, I reached back to undo the collar. "Hi,
Dolph, what's up?"
"Murder scene." His voice was pleasant, like he
should sing tenor.
"What kind of murder scene?"
"Messy."
I finally pulled the collar free and dropped the
phone.
"Anita, you there?"
"Yeah, having some wardrobe trouble."
"What?"
"It's not important. Why do you want me to come down
to the scene?"
"Whatever did this wasn't human."
"Vampire?"
"You're the undead expert. That's why I want you to
come take a look."
"Okay, give me the address, and I'll be right there."
There was a notepad of pale pink paper with little hearts on it.
The pen had a plastic cupid on the end of it. "St. Charles, I'm not
more than fifteen minutes from you."
"Good." He hung up.
"Good-bye to you, too, Dolph." I said it to empty air
just to feel superior. I went back into the little room to
change.
I had been offered a million dollars today, just to
kill someone and raise a zombie. Then off to the bridal shop for a
final fitting. Now a murder scene. Messy, Dolph had said. It was
turning out to be a very busy afternoon.
Chapter 3
Messy, Dolph had called it. A master of
understatement. Blood was everywhere, splattered over the white
walls like someone had taken a can of paint and thrown it. There
was an off-white couch with brown and gold patterned flowers on it.
Most of the couch was hidden under a sheet. The sheet was crimson.
A bright square of afternoon sunlight came through the clean,
sparkling windows. The sunlight made the blood cherry-red,
shiny.
Fresh blood is really brighter than you see it on
television and the movies. In large quantities. Real blood is
screaming fire-engine red, in large quantities, but darker red
shows up on the screen better. So much for realism.
Only fresh blood is red, true red. This blood was old
and should have faded, but some trick of the summer sunshine kept
it shiny and new.
I swallowed very hard and took a deep breath.
"You look a little green, Blake," a voice said almost
at my elbow.
I jumped, and Zerbrowski laughed. "Did I scare
ya?"
"No," I lied.
Detective Zerbrowski was about five-seven, curly
black hair going grey, dark-rimmed glasses framed brown eyes. His
brown suit was rumpled; his yellow and maroon tie had a smudge on
it, probably from lunch. He was grinning at me. He was always
grinning at me.
"I gotcha, Blake, admit it. Is our fierce vampire
slayer gonna upchuck on the victims?"
"Putting on a little weight there, aren't you,
Zerbrowski?"
"Ooh, I'm hurt," he said. He clutched hands to his
chest, swaying a little. "Don't tell me you don't want my body, the
way I want yours."
"Lay off, Zerbrowski. Where's Dolph?"
"In the master bedroom." Zerbrowski gazed up at the
vaulted ceiling with its skylight. "Wish Katie and I could afford
something like this."
"Yeah," I said. "It's nice." I glanced at the
sheet-covered couch. The sheet clung to whatever was underneath,
like a napkin thrown over spilled juice. There was something wrong
with the way it looked. Then it hit me, there weren't enough
bumps to make a whole human body. Whatever was under there was
missing some parts.
The room sort of swam. I looked away, swallowing
convulsively. It had been months since I had actually gotten sick
at a murder scene. At least the air-conditioning was on. That was
good. Heat always makes the smell worse.
"Hey, Blake, do you really need to step outside?"
Zerbrowski took my arm as if to lead me towards the door.
"Thanks, but I'm fine." I looked him straight in his
baby browns and lied. He knew I was lying. I wasn't all right,
but I'd make it.
He released my arm, stepped back, and gave me a mock
salute. "I love a tough broad."
I smiled before I could stop it. "Go away,
Zerbrowski."
"End of the hall, last door on the left. You'll find
Dolph there." He walked away into the crowd of men. There are
always more people than you need at a murder scene, not the gawkers
outside but uniforms, plainclothes, technicians, the guy with the
video camera. A murder scene was like a bee swarm, full of frenzied
movement and damn crowded. I threaded my way through the crowd. My
plastic-coated ID badge was clipped to the collar of my navy-blue
jacket. It was so the police would know I was on their side and
hadn't just snuck in. It also made carrying a gun into a crowd of
policemen safer.
I squeezed past a crowd that was gathered like a
traffic jam beside a door in the middle of the hall. Voices came,
disjointed, "Jesus, look at the blood . . . Have they found the
body yet? . . . You mean what's left of it? . . . No."
I pushed between two uniforms. One said, "Hey!" I
found a cleared space just in front of the last door on the
left-hand side. I don't know how Dolph had done it but he was alone
in the room. Maybe they were just finished in here.
He knelt in the middle of the pale brown carpet. His
thick hands, encased in surgical gloves, were on his thighs. His
black hair was cut so short it left his ears sort of stranded on
either side of a large blunt face. He saw me and stood. He was
six-eight, built big like a wrestler. The canopied bed behind him
suddenly looked small.
Dolph was head of the police's newest task force, the
spook squad. Official title was the Regional Preternatural
Investigation Team, R-P-I-T, pronounced "rip it." It handled all
supernatural crime. It was a place to dump the troublemakers. I
never wondered what Zerbrowski had done to get on the spook squad.
His sense of humor was too strange and absolutely merciless. But
Dolph. He was the perfect policeman. I had always sort of figured
he had offended someone high up, offended them by being too good at
his job. Now that I could believe.
There was another sheet-covered bundle on the carpet
beside him.
"Anita." He always talks like that, one word at a
time.
"Dolph," I said.
He knelt between the canopy bed and the blood-soaked
sheet. "You ready?"
"I know you're the silent type, Dolph, but could you
tell me what I'm supposed to be looking for?"
"I want to know what you see, not what I tell you
you're supposed to see."
For Dolph it was a speech. "Okay," I said, "let's do
it."
He pulled back the sheet. It peeled away from the
bloody thing underneath. I stood and I stared and all I could see
was a lump of bloody meat. It could have been from anything: a cow,
horse, deer. But human? Surely not.
My eyes saw it, but my brain refused what it was
being shown. I squatted beside it, tucking my skirt under my
thighs. The carpeting squeezed underfoot like rain had gotten to
it, but it wasn't rain.
"Do you have a pair of gloves I can borrow? I left my
crime scene gear at the office."
"Right jacket pocket." He lifted his hands in the
air. There were blood marks on the gloves. "Help yourself. The wife
hates me to get blood on the dry cleaning."
I smiled. Amazing. A sense of humor is mandatory at
times. I had to reach across the remains. I pulled out two surgical
gloves; one size fits all. The gloves always felt like they had
powder in them. They didn't feel like gloves at all, more like
condoms for your hands.
"Can I touch it without damaging evidence?"
"Yes."
I poked the side of it with two fingers. It was like
poking a side of fresh beef. A nice, solid feel to it. My fingers
traced the bumps of bone, ribs under the flesh. Ribs. Suddenly I
knew what I was looking at. Part of the rib cage of a human being.
There was the shoulder, white bone sticking out where the arm had
been torn away. That was all. All there was. I stood too quickly
and stumbled. The carpet squeeshed underfoot.
The room was suddenly very hot. I turned away from
the body and found myself staring at the bureau. Its mirror was
splattered so heavily with blood, it looked like someone had
covered it in layers of red fingernail polish. Cherry Blossom Red,
Carnival Crimson, Candy Apple.
I closed my eyes and counted very slowly to ten. When
I opened them the room seemed cooler. I noticed for the first time
that a ceiling fan was slowly turning. I was fine. Heap big vampire
slayer. Ri-ight.
Dolph didn't comment as I knelt by the body again. He
didn't even look at me. Good man. I tried to be objective and see
whatever there was to see. But it was hard. I liked the remains
better when I couldn't figure out what part of the body they were.
Now all I could see was the bloody remains. All I could think of
was this used to be a human body. "Used to be" was the operative
phrase.
"No signs of a weapon that I can see, but the coroner
will be able to tell you that." I reached out to touch it again,
then stopped. "Can you help me raise it up so I can see inside the
chest cavity? What's left of the chest cavity."
Dolph dropped the sheet and helped me lift the
remains. It was lighter than it looked. Raised on its side there
was nothing underneath. All the vital organs that the ribs protect
were gone. It looked for all the world like a side of beef ribs,
except for the bones where the arm should have connected. Part of
the collarbone was still attached.
"Okay," I said. My voice sounded breathy. I stood,
holding my blood-spattered hands out to my sides. "Cover it,
please."
He did, and stood. "Impressions?"
"Violence, extreme violence. More than human
strength. The body's been ripped apart by hand."
"Why by hand?"
"No knife marks." I laughed, but it choked me. "Hell,
I'd think someone had used a saw on the body like butchering a cow,
but the bones..." I shook my head. "Nothing mechanical was used to
do this."
"Anything else?"
"Yeah, where is the rest of the fucking body?"
"Down the hall, second door on the left."
"The rest of the body?" The room was getting hot
again.
"Just go look. Tell me what you see."
"Dammit, Dolph, I know you don't like to influence
your experts, but I don't like walking in there blind."
He just stared at me.
"At least answer one question."
"Maybe, what?"
"Is it worse than this?"
He seemed to think about that for a moment. "No, and yes."
"Damn you."
"You'll understand after you've seen it."
I didn't want to understand. Bert had been thrilled
that the police wanted to put me on retainer. He had told me I
would gain valuable experience working with the police. All I had
gained so far was a wider variety of nightmares.
Dolph walked ahead of me to the next chamber of
horrors. I didn't really want to find the rest of the body. I wanted
to go home. He hesitated in front of the closed door until I stood
beside him. There was a cardboard cutout of a rabbit on the door
like for Easter. A needlework sign hung just below the bunny.
Baby's Room.
"Dolph," my voice sounded very quiet. The noise from
the living room was muted.
"Yes."
"Nothing, nothing." I took a deep breath and let it
out. I could do this. I could do this. Oh, God, I didn't want to do
this. I whispered a prayer under my breath as the door swung
inward. There are moments in life when the only way to get through
is with a little grace from on high. I was betting this was going
to be one of them.
Sunlight streamed through a small window. The
curtains were white with little duckies and bunnies stitched around
the edges. Animal cutouts danced around the pale blue walls. There
was no crib, only one of those beds with handrails halfway down. A
big boy bed, wasn't that what they were called?
There wasn't as much blood in here. Thank you, dear
God. Who says prayers never get answered? But in a square of bright
August sunshine sat a stuffed teddy bear. The teddy bear was
candy-coated with blood. One glassy eye stared round and surprised
out of the spiky fake fur.
I knelt beside it. The carpet didn't squeeze, no
blood soaked in. Why was the damn bear sitting here covered in
congealing blood? There was no other blood in the entire room that
I could see.
Did someone just set it here? I looked up and found
myself staring at a small white chest of drawers with bunnies
painted on it. When you have a motif, I guess you stick with it. On
the white paint was one small, perfect handprint. I crawled towards
it and held up my hand near it comparing size. My hands aren't big,
small even for a woman's, but this handprint was tiny. Two, three,
maybe four. Blue walls, probably a boy.
"How old was the child?"
"Picture in the living room has Benjamin Reynolds,
age three, written on the back."
"Benjamin," I whispered it, and stared at the bloody
handprint. "There's no body in this room. No one was killed
here."
"No."
"Why did you want me to see it?" I looked up at him,
still kneeling.
"Your opinion isn't worth anything if you don't see
everything."
"That damn bear is going to haunt me."
"Me, too," he said.
I stood, resisting the urge to smooth my skirt down
in back. It was amazing how many times I touched my clothing
without thinking and smeared blood on myself. But not today.
"Is it the boy's body under the sheet in the living
room?" As I said it, I prayed that it wasn't.
"No," he said.
Thank God. "Mother's body?"
"Yes."
"Where is the boy's body?"
"We can't find it." He hesitated, then asked, "Could
the thing have eaten the child's body completely?"
"You mean so there wouldn't be anything left to
find?"
"Yes," he said. His face looked just the tiniest bit
pale. Mine probably did, too.
"Possible, but even the undead have a limit to what
they can eat." I took a deep breath. "Did you find any signs of -
regurgitation."
"Regurgitation." He smiled. "Nice word. No, the
creature didn't eat and then vomit. At least we haven't found
it."
"Then the boy's probably still around somewhere."
"Could he be alive?" Dolph asked.
I looked up at him. I wanted to say yes, but I knew
the answer was probably no. I compromised. "I don't know."
Dolph nodded.
"The living room next?" I asked.
"No." He walked out of the room without another word.
I followed. What else could I do? But I didn't hurry. If he wanted
to play tough, silent policeman, he could damn well wait for me to
catch up.
I followed his broad back around the corner through
the living room into the kitchen. A sliding glass door led out onto
a deck. Glass was everywhere. Shiny slivers of it sparkled in the
light from yet another skylight. The kitchen was spotless, like a
magazine ad, done in blue tile and rich light-colored wood. "Nice
kitchen," I said.
I could see men moving around the yard. The party had
moved outside. The privacy fence hid them from the curious
neighbors, as it had hidden the killer last night. There was just
one detective standing beside the shiny sink. He was scribbling
something in a notebook.
Dolph motioned me to have a closer look. "Okay," I
said. "Something crashed through the sliding glass door. It must
have made a hell of a lot of noise. This much glass breaking even
with the air-conditioning on . . . You'd hear it."
"You think so?" he asked.
"Did any of the neighbors hear anything?" I
asked.
"No one will admit to it," he said.
I nodded. "Glass breaks, someone comes to check it
out, probably the man. Some sexist stereotypes die hard."
"What do you mean?" Dolph asked.
"The brave hunter protecting his family," I said.
"Okay, say it was the man, what next?"
"Man comes in, sees whatever crashed through the
window, yells for his wife. Probably tells her to get out. Take the
kid and run."
"Why not call the police?" he asked.
"I didn't see a phone in the master bedroom." I
nodded towards the phone on the kitchen wall. "This is probably the
only phone. You have to get past the bogeyman to reach the
phone."
"Go on."
I glanced behind me into the living room. The
sheet-covered couch was just visible. "The thing, whatever it was,
took out the man. Quick, disabled him, knocked him out, but didn't
kill him."
"Why not kill?"
"Don't test me, Dolph. There isn't enough blood in
the kitchen. He was eaten in the bedroom. Whatever did it wouldn't
have dragged a dead man off to the bedroom. It chased the man into
the bedroom and killed him there."
"Not bad, want to take a shot at the living room
next?"
Not really, but I didn't say it out loud. There was
more left of the woman, Her upper body was almost intact. Paper
bags enveloped her hands. We had samples of something under her
fingernails. I hoped it helped. Her wide brown eyes stared up at
the ceiling. The pajama top clung wetly to where her waist used to
be. I swallowed hard and used my index finger and thumb to raise
the pajama top.
Her spine glistened in the hard sunshine, wet and
white and dangling, like a cord that had been ripped out of its
socket.
Okay. "Something tore her apart, just like the . . .
man in the bedroom."
"How do you know it's a man?"
"Unless they had company, it has to be the man. They
didn't have a visitor, did they?"
Dolph shook his head. "Not as far as we know."
"Then it has to be the man. Because she still has all
her ribs, and both arms." I tried to swallow the anger in my voice.
It wasn't Dolph's fault. "I'm not one of your cops. I wish you'd
stop asking me questions that you already have the answers to."
He nodded. "Fair enough. Sometimes I forget you're
not one of the boys."
"Thank you for that."
"You know what I mean."
"I do, and I even know you mean it as a compliment,
but can we finish discussing this outside, please?"
"Sure." He slipped off his bloody gloves and put them
in a garbage sack that was sitting open in the kitchen. I did the
same.
The heat fastened round me like melting plastic, but
it felt good, clean somehow. I breathed in great lungfuls of hot,
sweating air. Ah, summer.
"I was right though, it wasn't human?" he asked.
There were two uniformed police officers keeping the
crowd off the lawn and in the street. Children, parents, kids on
bikes. It looked like a freaking circus.
"No, it wasn't human. There was no blood on the glass
that it came through."
"I noticed. What's the significance?"
"Most dead don't bleed, except for vampires."
"Most?"
"Freshly dead zombies can bleed, but vampires bleed
almost like a person."
"You don't think it was a vampire then?"
"If it was, then it ate human flesh. Vampires can't
digest solid food."
"Ghoul?"
"Too far from a cemetery, and there'd be more
destruction of the house. Ghouls would tear up furniture like wild
animals."
"Zombie?"
I shook my head. "I honestly don't know. There are
such things as flesh-eating zombies. They're rare, but it
happens."
"You told me that there have been three reported
cases. Each time the zombies stay human longer and don't rot."
I smiled. "Good memory. That's right. Flesh-eating
zombies don't rot, as long as you feed them. Or at least don't rot
as quickly."
"Are they violent?"
"Not so far," I said.
"Are zombies violent?" Dolph asked.
"Only if told to be."
"What does that mean?" he asked.
"You can order a zombie to kill people if you're
powerful enough."
"A zombie as a murder weapon?"
I nodded. "Something like that, yes."
"Who could do something like that?"
"I'm not sure that's what happened here," I said.
"I know. But who could do it?"
"Well, hell, I could, but I wouldn't. And nobody I
know that could do it would do it."
"Let us decide that," he said. He had gotten his
little notebook out.
"You really want me to give you names of friends so
you can ask them if they happened to have raised a zombie and sent
it to kill these people?"
"Please."
I sighed. "I don't believe this. All right, me, Manny
Rodriguez, Peter Burke, and. . ." I stopped words already forming a
third name.
"What is it?"
"Nothing. I just remembered that I've got Burke's
funeral to go to this week. He's dead so I don't think he's a
suspect."
Dolph was looking at me hard, suspicion plain on his
face. "You sure this is all the names you want to give me?"
"If I think of anyone else, I'll let you know," I
said. I was at my wide-eyed most sincere. See, nothing up my
sleeve.
"You do that, Anita."
"Sure thing."
He smiled and shook his head. "Who are you
protecting?"
"Me," I said. He looked puzzled. "Let's just say I
don't want to get someone mad at me."
"Who?"
I looked up into the clear August sky. "You think
we'll get rain?"
"Dammit, Anita, I need your help."
"I've given you my help," I said.
"The name."
"Not yet. I'll check it out, and if it looks
suspicious, I promise to share it with you."
"Well, isn't that just generous of you?" A flush was
creeping up his neck. I had never seen Dolph angry before. I feared
I was about to.
"The first death was a homeless man. We thought he'd
passed out from liquor and ghouls got him. We found him right next
to a cemetery. Open and shut, right?" His voice was rising just a
bit with each word.
"Next we find this couple, teenagers caught necking
in the boy's car. Dead, still not too far from the cemetery. We
called in an exterminator and a priest. Case closed." He lowered
his voice, but it was like he had swallowed the yelling. His voice
was strained and almost touchable with its anger.
"Now this. It's the same beastie, whatever the hell
it is. But we are miles from the nearest frigging cemetery. It
isn't a ghoul, and maybe if I had called you in with the first or
even the second case, this wouldn't have happened. But I figure I'm
getting good at this supernatural crap. I've had some experience
now, but it isn't enough. It isn't nearly enough." His big hands
were crushing his notebook.
"That's the longest speech I've ever heard you make,"
I said.
He half laughed. "I need the name, Anita."
"Dominga Salvador. She's the voodoo priest for the
entire Midwest. But if you send police down there she won't talk to
you. None of them will."
"But they'll talk to you?"
"Yes," I said.
"Okay, but I better hear something from you by
tomorrow."
"I don't know if I can set up a meeting that
soon."
"Either you do it, or I do it," he said.
"Okay, okay, I'll do it, somehow."
"Thanks, Anita. At least now we have someplace to
start."
"It might not be a zombie at all, Dolph. I'm just
guessing."
"What else could it be?"
"Well, if there had been blood on the glass, I'd say
maybe a lycanthrope."
"Oh, great, just what I need—a rampaging
shapeshifter."
"But there was no blood on the glass."
"So probably some kind of undead," he said.
"Exactly."
"You talk to this Dominga Salvador and give me a
report ASAP."
"Aye, aye, Sergeant."
He made a face at me and walked back inside the
house. Better him than me. All I had to do was go home, change
clothes, and prepare to raise the dead. At full dark tonight I had
three clients lined up or would that be lying down?
Ellen Grisholm's therapist thought it would be
therapeutic for Ellen to confront her child-molesting father. The
trouble was the father had been dead for several months. So I was
going to raise Mr. Grisholm from the dead and let his daughter tell
him what a son of a bitch he was. The therapist said it would be
cleansing. I guess if you have a doctorate, you're allowed to say
things like that.
The other two raisings were more usual; a contested
will, and a prosecution's star witness that had had the bad taste
to have a heart attack before testifying in court. They still
weren't sure if the testimony of a zombie was admissible in court,
but they were desperate enough to try, and to pay for the
privilege.
I stood there in the greenish-brown grass. Glad to
see the family hadn't been addicted to sprinklers. A waste of
water. Maybe they had even recycled their pop cans, newspapers.
Maybe they had been decent earth-loving citizens. Maybe not.
One of the uniforms lifted the yellow Do-Not-Cross
tape and let me out. I ignored all the staring people and got in my
car. It was a late-model Nova. I could have afforded something
better but why bother? It ran.
The steering wheel was too hot to touch. I turned on
the air-conditioning and let the car cool down. What I had told
Dolph about Dominga Salvador had been true. She wouldn't talk to
the police, but that hadn't been the reason I tried to keep her
name out of it.
If the police came knocking on Señora
Dominga's door, she'd want to know who sent them. And she'd find
out. The Señora was the most powerful vaudun priest I had
ever met.
Raising a murderous zombie was just one of many
things she could do, if she wanted to.
Frankly, there were things worse than zombies that
could come crawling through your window some dark night. I knew as
little about that side of the business as I could get away with.
The Señora had invented most of it.
No, I did not want Dominga Salvador angry with me. So
it looked like I was going to have to talk with her tomorrow. It
was sort of like getting an appointment to see the godfather of
voodoo. Or in this case the godmother. The trouble was this
godmother was unhappy with me. Dominga had sent me invitations to
her home. To her ceremonies. I had politely declined. I think my
being a Christian disappointed her. So I had managed to avoid a
face to face, until now.
I was going to ask the most powerful vaudun priest in
the United States, maybe in all of North America, if she just
happened to raise a zombie. And if that zombie just happened to be
going around killing people, on her orders? Was I crazy? Maybe. It
looked like tomorrow was going to be another busy day.
Chapter 4
The alarm screamed. I rolled over swatting at the
buttons on top of the digital clock. Surely to God, I'd hit the
snooze button soon. I finally had to prop myself up on one elbow
and actually open my eyes. I turned off the alarm and stared at the
glowing numbers. 6:00 A.M. Shit. I'd only gotten home at three.
Why had I set the alarm for six? I couldn't remember.
I am not at my best after only three hours of sleep. I lay back
down in the still warm nest of sheets. My eyes were fluttering shut
when I remembered. Dominga Salvador.
She had agreed to meet me at 7:00 A.M. today. Talk
about a breakfast meeting. I struggled out of the sheet, and just
sat on the side of the bed for a minute. The apartment was
absolutely still. The only sound was the hush-hush of the
air-conditioning. Quiet as a funeral.
I got up then, thoughts of blood-coated teddy bears
dancing in my head.
Fifteen minutes later I was dressed. I always
showered after coming in from work no matter how late it was. I
couldn't stand the thought of going to bed between nice clean
sheets smeared with dried chicken blood. Sometimes it's goat blood,
but more often chicken.
I had compromised on the outfit, caught between
showing respect and not melting in the heat. It would have been
easy if I hadn't planned to carry a gun with me. Call me paranoid,
but I don't leave home without it.
The acid washed jeans, jogging socks, and Nikes were
easy. An Uncle Mike's inter-pants holster complete with a Firestar
9mm completed the outfit. The Firestar was my backup piece to the
Browning Hi-Power. The Browning was far too bulky to put down an
inter-pants holster, but the Firestar fit nicely.
Now all I needed was a shirt that would hide the gun,
but leave it accessible to grab and shoot. This was harder than it
sounded. I finally settled on a short, almost middrift top that
just barely fell over my waistband. I turned in front of the
mirror.
The gun was invisible as long as I didn't forget and
raise my arms too high. The top, unfortunately, was a pale, pale
pink. What had possessed me to buy this top, I really didn't
remember. Maybe it had been a gift? I hoped so. The thought that I
had actually spent money on anything pink was more than I could
bear.
I hadn't opened the drapes at all yet. The entire
apartment was in twilight. I had special-ordered very heavy drapes.
I rarely saw sunlight, and I didn't miss it much. I turned on the
light over my fish tank. The angelfish rose towards the top, mouths
moving in slow-motion begging.
Fish are my idea of pets. You don't walk them, pick
up after them, or have to housebreak them. Clean the tank
occasionally, feed them, and they don't give a damn how many hours
of overtime you work.
The smell of strong brewed coffee wafted through the
apartment from my Mr. Coffee. I sat at my little two-seater
kitchen table sipping hot, black Colombian vintage. Beans fresh
from my freezer, ground on the spot. There was no other way to
drink coffee. Though in a pinch I'll take it just about any way I
can get it.
The doorbell chimed. I jumped, spilling coffee onto
the table. Nervous? Me? I left my Firestar on the kitchen table
instead of taking it to the door with me. See, I'm not paranoid.
Just very, very careful.
I checked the peephole and opened the door. Manny
Rodriguez stood in the doorway. He's about two inches taller than I
am. His coal-black hair is streaked with grey and white. Thick
waves of it frame his thin face and black mustache. He's fifty-two,
and with one exception, I would still rather have him backing me in
a dangerous situation than anyone else I know.
We shook hands, we always do that. His grip was firm
and dry. He grinned at me, flashing very white teeth in his brown
face. "I smell coffee."
I grinned back. "You know it's all I have for
breakfast." He walked in, and I locked the door behind him,
habit.
"Rosita thinks you don't take care of yourself." He
dropped into a near-perfect imitation of his wife's scolding voice,
a much thicker Mexican accent than his own. "She doesn't eat right,
so thin. Poor Anita, no husband, not even a boyfriend." He
grinned.
"Rosita sounds like my stepmother. Judith is sick
with worry that I'll be an old maid."
"You're what, twenty-four?"
"Mm-uh."
He just shook his head. "Sometimes I do not
understand women."
It was my turn to grin. "What am I, chopped
liver?"
"Anita, you know I didn't mean..."
"I know, I'm one of the boys. I understand."
"You are better than any of the boys at work."
"Sit down. Let me pour coffee in your mouth before
your foot fits in again."
"You are being difficult. You know what I meant." He
stared at me out of his solid brown eyes, face very serious.
I smiled. "Yeah, I know what you meant."
I picked one of the dozen or so mugs from my kitchen
cabinet. My favorite mugs dangled from a mug-tree on the
countertop.
Manny sat down, sipping coffee, glancing at his cup.
It was red with black letters that said, "I'm a coldhearted bitch
but I'm good at it." He laughed coffee up his nose.
I sipped my own coffee from a mug decorated with
fluffy baby penguins: I'd never admit it, but it is my favorite
mug.
"Why don't you bring your penguin mug to work?" he
asked.
Bert's latest brainstorm was that we all use
personalized coffee cups at work. He thought it would add a homey
note to the office. I had brought in a grey on grey cup that said,
"It's a dirty job and I get to do it." Bert had made me take it
home.
"I enjoy yanking Bert's chain."
"So you're going to keep bringing in unacceptable
cups."
I smiled. "Mm-uh."
He just shook his head.
"I really appreciate you coming to see Dominga with
me."
He shrugged. "I couldn't let you go see the devil
woman alone, could I?"
I frowned at the nickname, or was it an insult?
"That's what your wife calls Dominga, not what I call her."
He glanced down at the gun still lying on the
tabletop. "But you'll take a gun with you, just in case."
I looked at him over the top of my cup. "Just in
case."
"If it comes to shooting our way out, Anita, it will
be too late. She has bodyguards all over the place."
"I don't plan to shoot anybody. We are just going to
ask a few questions. That's all."
He smirked. "Por favor, Señora
Salvador, did you raise a killer zombie recently?"
"Knock it off, Manny. I know it's awkward."
"Awkward?" He shook his head. "Awkward, she says. If
you piss off Dominga Salvador, it's a hell of a lot more than just
awkward."
"You don't have to come."
"You called me for backup." He smiled that brilliant
teeth flashing smile that lit up his entire face. "You didn't call
Charles or Jamison. You called me, and, Anita, that is the best
compliment you could give an old man."
"You're not an old man." And I meant it.
"That is not what my wife keeps telling me. Rosita
has forbidden me to go vampire hunting with you, but she can't
curtail my zombie-related activities, not yet anyway."
The surprise must have shone on my face, because he
said, "I know she talked to you two years back, when I was in the
hospital."
"You almost died," I said.
"And you had how many broken bones?"
"Rosita made a reasonable request, Manny. You have
four children to think of."
"And I'm too old to be slaying vampires." His voice
held irony, and almost bitterness.
"You'll never be too old," I said.
"A nice thought." He drained his coffee mug. "We
better go. Don't want to keep the Señora waiting."
"God forbid," I said.
"Amen," he said.
I stared at him as he rinsed his mug out in the sink.
"Do you know something you're not telling me?"
"No," he said.
I rinsed my own cup, still staring at him. I could
feel a suspicious frown between my eyes. "Manny?"
"Honest Mexican, I don't know nuthin'."
"Then what's wrong?"
"You know I was vaudun before Rosita converted me to
pure Christianity."
"Yeah, so?"
"Dominga Salvador was not just my priestess. She was
my lover."
I stared at him for a few heartbeats. "You're
kidding?"
His face was very serious as he said, "I wouldn't
joke about something like that."
I shrugged. People's choices of lovers never failed
to amaze me. "That's why you could get me a meeting with her on
such short notice."
He nodded.
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
"Because you might have tried to sneak over there
without me."
"Would that have been so bad?"
He just stared at me, brown eyes very serious.
"Maybe."
I got my gun from the table and fitted it to the
inter-pants holster. Eight bullets. The Browning could hold
fourteen. But let's get real; if I needed more than eight bullets,
I was dead. And so was Manny.
"Shit," I whispered.
"What?"
"I feel like I'm going to visit the bogeyman."
Manny made a back and forth motion with his head.
"Not a bad analogy."
Great, just freaking, bloody great. Why was I doing
this? The image of Benjamin Reynolds's blood-coated teddy bear
flashed into my mind. All right, I knew why I was doing it. If
there was even a remote chance that the boy could still be alive,
I'd go into hell itself—if I stood a chance of coming back out. I
didn't mention this out loud. I did not want to know if hell was a
good analogy, too.
Chapter 5
The neighborhood was older houses; fifties, forties.
The lawns were dying to brown for lack of water. No sprinklers
here. Flowers struggled to survive in beds close to the houses.
Mostly petunias, geraniums, a few rosebushes. The streets were
clean, neat, and one block over you could get yourself shot for
wearing the wrong color of jacket.
Gang activity stopped at Señora Salvador's
neighborhood. Even teenagers with automatic pistols fear things you
can't stop with bullets no matter how good a shot you are. Silver
plated bullets will harm a vampire, but not kill it. It will kill a
lycanthrope, but not a zombie. You can hack the damn things to
pieces, and the disconnected body parts will crawl after you. I've
seen it. It ain't pretty. The gangs leave the Señora's turf
alone. No violence. It is a place of permanent truce.
There are stories of one Hispanic gang that thought
it had protection against gris-gris. Some people say that the
gang's ex-leader is still down in Dominga's basement, obeying an
occasional order. He was great show-and-tell to any juvenile
delinquents who got out of hand.
Personally, I had never seen her raise a zombie. But
then I'd never seen her call the snakes either. I'd just as soon
keep it that way.
Señora Salvador's two-story house is on about
a half acre of land. A nice roomy yard. Bright red geraniums flamed
against the whitewashed walls. Red and white, blood and bone. I was
sure the symbolism was not lost on casual passersby. It certainly
wasn't lost on me.
Manny parked his car in the driveway behind a cream
colored Impala. The two-car garage was painted white to match the
house. There was a little girl of about five riding a tricycle
furiously up and down the sidewalk. A slightly older pair of boys
were sitting on the steps that led up to the porch. They stopped
playing and looked at us.
A man stood on the porch behind them. He was wearing
a shoulder holster over a sleeveless blue T-shirt. Sort of blatant.
All he needed was a flashing neon sign that said "Bad Ass."
There were chalk markings on the sidewalk. Pastel
crosses and unreadable diagrams. It looked like a children's game,
but it wasn't. Some devoted fans of the Señora had chalked
designs of worship in front of her house. Stubs of candles had
melted to lumps around the designs. The girl on the tricycle
peddled back and forth over the designs. Normal, right?
I followed Manny over the sun-scorched lawn. The
little girl on the tricycle was watching us now, small brown face
unreadable.
Manny removed his sunglasses and smiled up at the
man. "Buenos días, Antonio. It has been a long
time."
"Sí, " Antonio said. His voice was
low and sullen. His deeply tanned arms were crossed loosely over
his chest. It put his right hand right next to his gun butt.
I used Manny's body to shield me from sight and
casually put my hands close to my own gun. The Boy Scout motto,
"Always be prepared." Or was that the Marines?
"You've become a strong, handsome man," Manny
said.
"My grandmother says I must let you in," Antonio
said.
"She is a wise woman," Manny said.
Antonio shrugged. "She is the Señora." He
peered around Manny at me. "Who is this?"
"Señorita Anita Blake." Manny stepped back so I could
move forward. I did, right hand loose on my waist like I had an
attitude, but it was the closest I could stay to my gun.
Antonio looked down at me. His dark eyes were angry,
but that was all. He didn't have near the gaze of Harold Gaynor's
bodyguards. I smiled. "Nice to meet you."
He squinted at me suspiciously for a moment, then
nodded. I continued to smile at him, and a slow smile spread over
his face. He thought I was flirting with him. I let him think
it.
He said something in Spanish. All I could do was
smile and shake my head. He spoke softly, and there was a look in
his dark eyes, a curve to his mouth. I didn't have to speak the
language to know I was being propositioned. Or insulted.
Manny's neck was stiff, his face flushed. He said
something from between clenched teeth.
It was Antonio's turn to flush. His hand started to
go for his gun. I stepped up two steps, touching his wrist as if I
didn't know what was going on. The tension in his arm was like a
wire, straining.
I beamed up at him as I held his wrist. His eyes
flicked from Manny to me, then the tension eased, but I didn't let
go of his wrist until his arm fell to his side. He raised my hand
to his lips, kissing it. His mouth lingered on the back of my hand,
but his eyes stayed on Manny. Angry, rage-filled.
Antonio carried a gun, but he was an amateur.
Amateurs with guns eventually get themselves killed. I wondered if
Dominga Salvador knew that? She may have been a whiz at voodoo but
I bet she didn't know much about guns, and what it took to use one
on a regular basis. Whatever it took, Antonio didn't have it. He'd
kill you all right. No sweat. But for the wrong reasons. Amateur's
reasons. Of course, you'll be just as dead.
He guided me up on the porch beside him, still
holding my hand. It was my left hand. He could hold that all day.
"I must check you for weapons, Manuel."
"I understand," Manny said. He stepped up on the
porch and Antonio stepped back, keeping room between them in case
Manny jumped him. That left me with a clear shot of Antonio's back.
Careless; under different circumstances, deadly.
He made Manny lean against the porch railing like a
police frisk. Antonio knew what he was doing, but it was an angry
search, lots of quick jerky hand movements, as if just touching
Manny's body enraged him. A lot of hate in old Tony.
It never occurred to him to pat me down for weapons.
Tsk-tsk.
A second man came to the screen door. He was in his
late forties, maybe. He was wearing a white undershirt with a plaid
shirt unbuttoned over it. The sleeves were folded back as far as
they'd go. Sweat stood out on his forehead. I was betting there was
a gun at the small of his back. His black hair had a pure white
streak just over the forehead. "What is taking so long, Antonio?"
His voice was thick and held an accent.
"I searched him for weapons."
The older man nodded. "She is ready to see you
both."
Antonio stood to one side, taking up his post on the
porch once more. He made a kissing noise as I walked past. I felt
Manny stiffen, but we made it into the living room without anyone
getting shot. We were on a roll.
The living room was spacious, with a dining-room set
taking up the left-hand side. There was a wall piano in the living
room. I wondered who played. Antonio? Naw.
We followed the man through a short hallway into a
roomy kitchen. Golden oblongs of sunshine lay heavy on a black and
white tiled floor. The floor and kitchen were old, but the
appliances were new. One of those deluxe refrigerators with an ice
maker and water dispenser took up a hunk of the back wall. All the
appliances were done in a pale yellow: Harvest Gold, Autumn
Bronze.
Sitting at the kitchen table was a woman in her early
sixties. Her thin brown face was seamed with a lot of smile lines.
Pure white hair was done in a bun at the nape of her neck. She sat
very straight in her chair, thin-boned hands folded on the
tabletop. She looked terribly harmless. A nice old granny. If a
quarter of what I'd heard about her was true, it was the greatest
camouflage I'd ever seen.
She smiled and held out her hands. Manny stepped
forward and took the offering, brushing his lips on her knuckles.
"It is good to see you, Manuel." Her voice was rich, a contralto
with the velvet brush of an accent.
"And you, Dominga." He released her hands and sat
across from her.
Her quick black eyes flicked to me, still standing in
the doorway. "So, Anita Blake, you have come to me at last."
It was a strange thing to say. I glanced at Manny. He
gave a shrug with his eyes. He didn't know what she meant either.
Great. "I didn't know you were eagerly awaiting me,
Señora."
"I have heard stories of you, chica.
Wondrous stories." There was a hint in those black eyes, that
smiling face, that was not harmless.
"Manny?" I asked.
"It wasn't me."
"No, Manuel does not talk to me anymore. His little
wife forbids it." That last sentence was angry, bitter.
Oh, God. The most powerful voodoo priestess in the
Midwest was acting like a scorned lover. Shit.
She turned those angry black eyes to me. "All who
deal in vaudun come to Señora Salvador eventually."
"I do not deal in vaudun."
She laughed at that. All the lines in her face flowed
into the laughter. "You raise the dead, the zombie, and you do not
deal in vaudun. Oh, chica, that is funny." Her voice
sparkled with genuine amusement. So glad I could make her day.
"Dominga, I told you why we wished this meeting. I
made it very clear. . ." Manny said.
She waved him to silence. "Oh, you were very careful
on the phone, Manuel." She leaned towards me. "He made it very
clear that you were not here to participate in any of my pagan
rituals." The bitterness in her voice was sharp enough to choke
on.
"Come here, chica," she said. She held out
one hand to me, not both. Was I supposed to kiss it as Manny had
done. I didn't think I'd come to see the pope.
I realized then that I didn't want to touch her. She
had done nothing wrong. Yet, the muscles in my shoulders were
screaming with tension. I was afraid, and I didn't know why.
I stepped forward and took her hand, uncertain what
to do with it. Her skin was warm and dry. She sort of lowered me to
the chair closest to her, still holding my hand. She said something
in her soft, deep voice.
I shook my head. "I'm sorry I don't understand
Spanish."
She touched my hair with her free hand. "Black hair
like the wing of a crow. It does not come from any pale skin."
"My mother was Mexican."
"Yet you do not speak her tongue."
She was still holding my hand, and I wanted it back.
"She died when I was young. I was raised by my father's
people."
"I see."
I pulled my hand free and instantly felt better. She
had done nothing to me. Nothing. Why was I so damn jumpy? The man
with the streaked hair had taken up a post behind the
Señora. I could see him clearly. His hands were in plain
sight. I could see the back door and the entrance to the kitchen.
No one was sneaking up behind me. But the hair at the base of my
skull was standing at attention.
I glanced at Manny, but he was staring at Dominga.
His hands were gripped together on the tabletop so tightly that his
knuckles were mottled.
I felt like someone at a foreign film festival
without subtitles. I could sort of guess what was going on, but I
wasn't sure I was right. The creeping skin on my neck told me some
hocus-pocus was going on. Manny's reaction said that just maybe the
hocus-pocus was meant for him.
Manny's shoulders slumped. His hands relaxed their
awful tension. It was a visible release of some kind. Dominga
smiled, a brilliant flash of teeth. "You could have been so
powerful, mi corazón."
"I did not want the power, Dominga," he said.
I stared from one to the other, not exactly sure what
had just happened. I wasn't sure I wanted to know. I was willing to
believe that ignorance was bliss. It so often is.
She turned her quick black eyes to me. "And you,
chica, do you want power?" The creeping sensation at the
base of my skull spread over my body. It felt like insects marching
on my skin. Shit.
"No." A nice simple answer. Maybe I should try those
more often.
"Perhaps not, but you will."
I didn't like the way she said that. It was
ridiculous to be sitting in a sunny kitchen at 7:28 in the morning,
and be scared. But there it was. My gut was twitching with it.
She stared at me. Her eyes were just eyes. There was
none of that seductive power of a vampire. They were just eyes, and
yet . . . The hair on my neck tried to crawl down my spine.
Goose bumps broke out on my body, a rush of prickling
warmth. I licked my lips and stared at Dominga Salvador.
It was a slap of magic. She was testing me. I'd had
it done before. People are so fascinated with what I do. Convinced
that I know magic. I don't. I have an affinity with the dead.
It's not the same.
I stared into her nearly black eyes and felt myself
sway forward. It was like falling without movement. The world sort
of swung for a moment, then steadied. Warmth burst out of my body,
like a twisting rope of heat. It went outward to the old woman. It
hit her solid, and I felt it like a jolt of electricity.
I stood up, gasping for air. "Shit!"
"Anita, are you all right?" Manny was standing now,
too. He touched my arm gently.
"I'm not sure. What the hell did she do to me?"
"It is what you have done to me, chica,"
Dominga said. She looked a little pale around the edges. Sweat
beaded on her forehead.
The man stood away from the wall, his hands loose and
ready. "No," Dominga said, "Enzo, I am all right." Her voice was
breathy as if she had been running:
I stayed standing. I wanted to go home now,
please.
"We did not come here for games, Dominga," Manny
said. His voice had deepened with anger and, I think, fear. I
agreed with that last emotion.
"It is not a game, Manuel. Have you forgotten
everything I taught you. Everything you were?"
"I have forgotten nothing, but I did not bring her
here to be harmed."
"Whether she is harmed or not is up to her, mi
corazón."
I didn't much like that last part. "You're not going
to help us. You're just going to play cat and mouse. Well, this
mouse is leaving." I turned to leave, keeping a watchful eye on
Enzo. He wasn't an amateur.
"Don't you wish to find the little boy that Manny
said was taken? Three years old, very young to be in the hands of
the bokor."
It stopped me. She knew it would. Damn her. "What is
a bokor?"
She smiled. "You really don't know, do you?"
I shook my head.
The smile widened, all surprised pleasure. "Place
your right hand palm up on the table, por favor."
"If you know something about the boy, just tell me.
Please."
"Endure my little tests, and I will help you."
"What sort of tests?" I hoped I sounded as suspicious
as I felt.
Dominga laughed, an abrupt and cheery sound. It went
with all the smile lines in her face. Her eyes were practically
sparkling with mirth. Why did I feel like she was laughing at
me?
"Come, chica, I will not hurt you," she
said.
"Manny?"
"If she does anything that may harm you, I will say
so."
Dominga gazed up at me, a sort of puzzled wonder on
her face. "I have heard that you can raise three zombies in a
night, night after night. Yet, you truly are a novice."
"Ignorance is bliss," I said.
"Sit, chica. This will not hurt, I
promise."
This will not hurt. It promised more painful things
later. I sat. "Any delay could cost the boy his life." Try to
appeal to her good side.
She leaned towards me. "Do you really think the child
is still alive?" Guess she didn't have a good side.
I leaned back from her. I couldn't help it, and I
couldn't lie to her. "No."
"Then we have time, don't we?"
"Time for what?"
"Your hand, chica, por favor,
then I will answer your questions."
I took a deep breath and placed my right hand on the
table, palm up. She was being mysterious. I hated people who were
mysterious.
She brought a small black bag from under the table,
as if it had been sitting in her lap the whole time. Like she'd
planned this.
Manny was staring at the bag like something noisome
was about to crawl out. Close. Dominga Salvador pulled something
noisome out of it.
It was a charm, a gris-gris made of black feathers,
bits of bone, a mummified bird's foot. I thought at first it was a
chicken until I saw the thick black talons. There was a hawk or
eagle out there somewhere with a peg leg.
I had visions of her digging the talons into my
flesh, and was all tensed to pull away. But she simply placed the
gris-gris on my open palm. Feathers, bits of bone, the dried hawk
foot. It wasn't slimy. It didn't hurt. In fact, I felt a little
silly.
Then I felt it, warmth. The thing was warm, sitting
there in my hand. It hadn't been warm a second ago. "What are you
doing to it?"
Dominga didn't answer. I glanced up at her, but her
eyes were staring at my hand, intent. Like a cat about to
pounce.
I glanced back down. The talons flexed, then spread,
then flexed. It was moving in my hand. "Shiiit!" I wanted to stand
up. To fling the vile thing to the floor. But I didn't. I sat there
with every hair on my body tingling, my pulse thudding in my
throat, and let the thing move in my hand. "All right," my voice
sounded breathy, "I've passed your little test. Now get this thing
the hell out of my hand."
Dominga lifted the claw gently from my hand. She was
careful not to touch my skin. I didn't know why, but it was a
noticeable effort.
"Dammit, dammit!" I whispered under my breath. I
rubbed my hand against my stomach, touching the gun hidden there.
It was comforting to know that if worse came to worst, I could just
shoot her. Before she scared me to death. "Can we get down to
business now?" My voice sounded almost steady. Bully for me.
Dominga was cradling the claw in her hands. "You made
the claw move. You were frightened, but not surprised. Why?"
What could I say? Nothing I wanted her to know. "I
have an affinity with the dead. It responds to me like some people
can read thoughts."
She smiled. "Do you really believe that your ability
to raise the dead is like mind reading? Parlor tricks?"
Dominga had obviously never met a really good
telepath. If she had, she wouldn't have been scornful: In their own
way, they were just as scary as she was.
"I raise the dead, Señora. It is just a
job."
"You do not believe that any more than I do."
"I try real hard," I said.
"You've been tested before by someone." She made it a
statement.
"My grandmother on my mother's side tested me, but
not with that." I pointed to the still flexing foot. It looked like
one of those fake hands that you can buy at Spencer's. Now that I
wasn't holding it, I could pretend it just had tiny little
batteries in it somewhere. Right.
"She was vaudun?"
I nodded.
"Why did you not study with her?"
"I have an inborn gift for raising the dead. That
doesn't dictate my religious preferences."
"You are Christian." She made the word sound like
something bad.
"That's it." I stood. "I wish I could say it's been a
pleasure, but it hasn't."
"Ask your questions, chica."
"What?" The change of subject was too fast for
me.
"Ask whatever you came here to ask," she said.
I glanced at Manny. "If she says she will answer, she
will answer." He didn't look completely happy about it.
I sat down, again. The next insult and I'm outta
here. But if she could really help . . . oh, hell, she was dangling
that thin little thread of hope. And after what I'd seen at the
Reynolds house, I was grabbing for it.
I had planned to be as polite as possible on the
wording of the question, now I didn't give a shit. "Have you raised
a zombie in the last few weeks?"
"Some," she said.
Okay. I hesitated over the next question. The feel of
that thing moving in my hand flashed back on me. I rubbed my hand
against my pants leg as if I could rub the sensation away. What was
the worst she could do to me if I offended her? Don't ask. "Have
you sent any zombies out on errands . . . of revenge?" There; that
was polite, amazing.
"None."
"Are you sure?" I asked.
She smiled. "I'd remember if I loosed murderers from
the grave."
"Killer zombies don't have to be murderers," I
said.
"Oh?" Her pale eyebrows raised. "Are you so very
familiar with raising 'killer' zombies?"
I fought the urge to squirm like a schoolchild caught
at a lie. "Only one."
"Tell me."
"No." My voice was very firm. "No, that is a private
matter." A private nightmare that I was not going to share with the
voodoo lady.
I decided to change the subject just a little. "I've
raised murderers before. They weren't more violent than regular
undead."
"How many dead have you called from the grave?" she
asked.
I shrugged. "I don't know."
"Give me an"—she seemed to be groping for a word -
"estimation."
"I can't. It must have been hundreds."
"A thousand?" she asked.
"Maybe, I haven't kept count," I said.
"Has your boss at Animators, Incorporated, kept
count?"
"I would assume that all my clients are on file,
yes," I said.
She smiled. "I would be interested in knowing the
exact number."
What could it hurt? "I'll find out if I can."
"Such an obedient girl." She stood. "I did not raise
this `killer' zombie of yours. If that is what is eating citizens."
She smiled, almost laughed, as if it were funny. "But I know people
that would never speak to you. People that could do this horrible
deed. I will question them, and they will answer me. I will have
truth from them, and I will pass this truth on to you, Anita."
She said my name like it was meant to be said,
Ahneetah. Made it sound exotic.
"Thank you very much, Señora Salvador."
"But there is one favor I will ask in return for this
information," she said.
Something unpleasant was about to be said, I'd have
bet on it. "What would that favor be, Señora?"
"I want you to pass one more test for me."
I stared at her, waiting for her to go on, but she
didn't. "What sort of test?" I asked.
"Come downstairs, and I will show you." Her voice was
mild as honey.
"No, Dominga," Manny said. He was standing now.
"Anita, nothing the Señora could tell you would be worth
what she wants."
"I can talk to people and things that will not talk
to you, either of you. Good Christians that you are."
"Come on, Anita, we don't need her help." He had
started for the door. I didn't follow him. Manny hadn't seen the
slaughtered family. He hadn't dreamed about blood-coated teddy
bears last night. I had. I couldn't leave if she could help me.
Whether Benjamin Reynolds was dead or not wasn't the point. The
thing, whatever it was, would kill again. And I was betting it had
something to do with voodoo. It wasn't my area. I needed help, and
I needed it fast.
"Anita, come on." He touched my arm, pulling me a
little towards the door.
"Tell me about the test."
Dominga smiled triumphantly. She knew she had me. She
knew I wasn't leaving until I had her promised help. Damn.
"Let us retire to the basement. I will explain the
test there."
Manny's grip on my arm tightened. "Anita, you don't
know what you're doing."
He was right, but. . . "Just stay with me, Manny,
back me up. Don't let me do anything that will really hurt.
Okay?"
"Anita, anything she wants you to do down there will
hurt. Maybe not physically, but it will hurt."
"I have to do this, Manny." I patted his hand and
smiled. "It'll be all right."
"No," he said, "it won't be."
I didn't know what to say to that, except that he was
probably right. But it didn't matter. I was going to do it.
Whatever she asked, within reason, if it would stop the killings.
If it would fix it so that I never had to see another half-eaten
body.
Dominga smiled. "Let us go downstairs." '
"May I speak with Anita alone, Señora, por
favor," Manny said. His hand was still on my arm. I could feel
the tension in his hand.
"You will have the rest of this beautiful day to talk
to her, Manuel. But I have only this short time. If she does this
test for me now, I promise to aid her in any way I can to catch
this killer."
It was a powerful offer. A lot of people would talk
to her just out of pure terror. The police can't inspire that. All
they can do is arrest you. It wasn't enough of a deterrent. Having
the undead crawl through your window . . . that was a
deterrent.
Four, maybe five people were already dead. It was a
bad way to die. "I've already said I'd do it. Let's go."
She walked around the table and took Manny's arm. He
jumped like she'd struck him. She pulled him away from me. "No harm
will come to her, Manuel. I swear."
"I do not trust you, Dominga."
She laughed. "But it is her choice, Manuel. I have
not forced her."
"You have blackmailed her, Dominga. Blackmailed her
with the safety of others."
She looked back over her shoulder. "Have I
blackmailed you, chica?"
"Yes," I said.
"Oh, she is your student, corazón.
She has your honesty. And your bravery."
"She is brave, but she has not seen what lies
below."
I wanted to ask what exactly was in the basement, but
I didn't. I really didn't want to know. I've had people warn me
about supernatural shit before. Don't go in that room; the monster
will get you. There usually is a monster, and it usually tries to
get me. But up till now I've been faster or luckier than the
monsters. Here's to my luck holding.
I wished that I could heed Manny's warning. Going
home sounded very good about now, but duty reared its ugly head.
Duty and a whisper of nightmares. I didn't want to see another
butchered family.
Dominga led Manny from the room. I followed with Enzo
bringing up the rear. What a day for a parade.
Chapter 6
The basement stairs were steep, wooden slats. You
could feel the vibrations in the stairs as we tromped down them. It
was not comforting. The bright sunlight from the door spilled into
absolute darkness. The sunlight faltered, seemed to fade as if it
had no power in this cavelike place. I stopped on the grey edge of
daylight, staring down into the night-dark of the room. I couldn't
even make out Dominga and Manny. They had to be just in front of
me, didn't they?
Enzo the bodyguard waited at my back like some
patient mountain. He made no move to hurry me. Was it my decision
then? Could I just pack up my toys and go home?
"Manny," I called.
A voice came distantly. Too far away. Maybe it was an
acoustic trick of the room. Maybe not. "I'm here, Anita."
I strained to see where the voice was coming from,
but there was nothing to see. I took two steps farther down into
the inky dark and stopped like I'd hit a wall. There was the damp
rock smell of most basements, but under that something stale, sour,
sweet. That almost indescribable smell of corpses. It was faint
here at the head of the stairs. I was betting it would get worse
the farther down I went.
My grandmother had been a priestess of vaudun. Her
Humfo had not smelled like corpses. The line between good and evil
wasn't as clear cut in voodoo as in Wicca or Christianity and
satanism, but it was there. Dominga Salvador was on the wrong side
of the line. I had known that when I came. It still bothered
me.
Grandmother Flores had told me that I was a
necromancer. It was more than being a voodoo priestess, and less. I
had a sympathy with the dead, all dead. It was hard to be vaudun
and a necromancer and not be evil. Too tempting, Grandma said. She
had encouraged my being Christian. Encouraged my father to cut me
off from her side of the family. Encouraged it for love of me and
fear for my soul.
And here I was going down the steps into the jaws of
temptation. What would Grandma Flores say to that? Probably, go
home. Which was good advice. The tight feeling in my stomach was
saying the same thing.
The lights came on. I blinked on the stairs. The one
dim bulb at the foot of the staircase seemed as bright as a star.
Dominga and Manny stood just under the bulb, looking up at me.
Light. Why did I feel instantly better? Silly, but
true. Enzo let the door swing shut behind us. The shadows were
thick, but down a narrow bricked hallway more bare light bulbs
dangled.
I was almost at the bottom of the stairs. That sweet,
sour smell was stronger. I tried breathing through my mouth, but
that only made it clog the back of my throat. The smell of rotting
flesh clings to the tongue.
Dominga led the way between the narrow walls. There
were regular patches in the walls. Places where it looked like
cement had been put over—doors. Paint had been smoothed over the
cement, but there had been doors, rooms, at regular intervals. Why
wall them up? Why cover the doors in cement? What was behind
them?
I rubbed fingertips across the rough cement. The
surface was bumpy and cool. The paint wasn't very old. It would
have flaked in this dampness. It hadn't. What was behind this
blocked up door?
The skin just between my shoulder blades started to
itch. I fought an urge to glance back at Enzo. I was betting he was
behaving himself. I was betting that being shot was the least of my
worries.
The air was cool and damp. A very basement of a
basement. There were three doors, two to the right, one to the left
that were just doors. One door had a shiny new padlock on it. As we
walked past it, I heard the door sigh as if something large had
leaned against it.
I stopped. "What's in there?"
Enzo had stopped when I stopped. Dominga and Manny
had rounded a corner, and we were alone. I touched the door. The
wood creaked, rattling against its hinges. Like some giant cat had
rubbed against the door. A smell rolled out from under the door. I
gagged and backed away. The stench clung to my mouth and throat. I
swallowed convulsively and tasted it all the way down.
The thing behind the door made a mewling sound. I
couldn't tell if it was human or animal. It was bigger than a
person, whatever it was. And it was dead. Very, very dead.
I covered my nose and mouth with my left hand. The
right was free just in case. In case that thing should come
crashing out. Bullets against the walking dead. I knew better, but
the gun was still a comfort. In a pinch I could shoot Enzo. But
somehow I knew that if the thing rattling the door got out, Enzo
would be in as much danger as I was.
"We must go on, now," he said.
I couldn't tell anything from his face. We might have
been walking down the street to the corner store. He seemed
impervious, and I hated him for it. If I'm terrified, by God,
everyone else should be, too.
I eyed the supposedly unlocked door to my left. I had
to know. I yanked it open. The room was maybe eight by four, like a
cell. The cement floor and whitewashed walls were clean, empty. It
looked like a cell waiting for its next occupant. Enzo slammed the
door shut. I didn't fight him. It wasn't worth it. If I was going
to go one on one with someone who outweighed me by over a hundred
pounds, I was going to be picky about where I drew the line. An
empty room wasn't worth it.
Enzo leaned against the door. Sweat glimmered across
his face in the harsh light. "Do not try any other doors, señorita.
It could be very bad."
I nodded. "Sure, no problem." An empty room and he
was sweating. Nice to know something frightened him. But why this
room and not the one with the mewling stench behind it? I didn't
have a clue.
"We must catch up with the Señora." He made a
gracious motion like a maître d' showing me to a chair. I went
where he pointed. Where else was I going to go?
The hallway fed into a large rectangular chamber. It
was painted the same startling white as the cell had been. The
whitewashed floor was covered in brilliant red and black designs.
Verve it was called. Symbols drawn in the voodoo sanctuary to
summon the lao, the gods of vaudun.
The symbols acted as walls bordering a path. They led
to the altar. If you stepped off the path you messed up all those
carefully formed symbols. I didn't know if that would be good or
bad. Rule number three hundred sixty-nine when dealing with
unfamiliar magic: when in doubt, leave it alone.
I left it alone.
The end of the room gleamed with candles. The warm,
rich light flickered and filled the white walls with heat and
light. Dominga stood in the midst of that light, that whiteness,
and gleamed with evil. There was no other word for it. She wasn't
just bad, she was evil. It gleamed around her like darkness made
liquid and touchable. The smiling old woman was gone. She was a
creature of power.
Manny stood off to one side. He was staring at her.
He glanced at me. His eyes were showing a lot of white. The altar
was directly behind Dominga's straight back. Dead animals spilled
off the top of it to form a pool on the floor. Chickens, dogs, a
small pig, two goats. Lumps of fur and dried blood that I couldn't
identify. The altar looked like a fountain where dead things flowed
out of the center, sluggish and thick.
The sacrifices were fresh. No smell of decay. The
glazed eyes of a goat stared at me. I hated killing goats. They
always seemed so much more intelligent than chickens. Or maybe I
just thought they were cuter.
A tall woman stood to the right of the altar. Her
skin gleamed nearly black in the candlelight as .if she had been
carved of some heavy, gleaming wood. Her hair was short and neat,
falling to her shoulders. Wide cheekbones, full lips, expert
makeup. She wore a long silky dress, the bright scarlet of fresh
blood. It matched her lipstick.
To the right of the altar stood a zombie. It had once
been a woman. Long, pale brown hair fell nearly to her waist.
Someone had brushed it until it gleamed. It was the only thing
about the corpse that looked alive. The skin had turned a greyish
color. The flesh had narrowed down around the bones like shrink
wrap. Muscles moved under the thin, rotting skin, stringy and
shrunken. The nose was almost gone, giving it a half-finished look.
A crimson gown hung loose and flapping on the skeletal remains.
There was even an attempt at makeup. Lipstick had
been abandoned when the lips shriveled up but a dusting of mauve
eye shadow outlined the bulging eyes. I swallowed very hard and
turned to stare at the first woman.
She was a zombie. One of the best preserved and most
lifelike I had ever seen, but no matter how luscious she looked,
she was dead. The woman, the zombie, stared back at me. There was
something in her perfect brown eyes that no zombie has for long.
The memory of who and what they were fades within a few days,
sometimes hours. But this zombie was afraid. The fear was like a
shiny, bright pain in her eyes. Zombies didn't have eyes like
that.
I turned back to the more decayed zombie and found
her staring at me, too. The bulging eyes were staring at me. With
most of the flesh holding the eyes in the socket gone, her facial
expressions weren't as good, but she managed. It managed to be
afraid. Shit.
Dominga nodded, and Enzo motioned me farther into the
circle. I didn't want to go.
"What the hell is going on here, Dominga?"
She smiled, almost a laugh. "I am not accustomed to
such rudeness."
"Get used to it," I said. Enzo sort of breathed down
my back. I did my best to ignore him. My right hand was sort of
casually near my gun, without looking like I was reaching for my
gun. It wasn't easy. Reaching for a gun usually looks like reaching
for a gun. No one seemed to notice though. Goody for our side.
"What have you done to the two zombies?"
"Inspect them yourself, chica. If you are as
powerful as the stories say, you will answer your own
question."
"And if I can't figure it out?" I asked.
She smiled, but her eyes were as flat and black as a
shark's. "Then you are not as powerful as the stories."
"Is this the test?"
"Perhaps."
I sighed. The voodoo lady wanted to see how tough I
really was. Why? Maybe there wasn't a reason. Maybe she was just a
sadistic power-hungry bitch. Yeah, I could believe that. Then
again, maybe there was a purpose to the theatrics. If so, I still
didn't know what it was.
I glanced at Manny. He gave a barely perceivable
shrug. He didn't know what was going on either. Great.
I didn't like playing Dominga's games, especially
when I didn't know the rules. The zombies were still staring at me.
There was something in their eyes. It was fear, and something
worse—hope. Shit. Zombies didn't have hope. They didn't have
anything. They were dead. These weren't dead. I had to know. Here's
hoping that curiosity didn't kill the animator.
I stepped around Dominga carefully, watching her out
of the corner of my eye. Enzo stayed behind blocking the path
between the verve. He looked big and solid standing there, but I
could get past him, if I wanted it bad enough. Bad enough to kill
him. I hoped I wouldn't want it that bad.
The decayed zombie stared down at me. She was tall,
almost six feet. Skeletal feet peeked out from underneath the red
gown. A tall, slender woman, probably beautiful, once. Bulging eyes
rolled in the nearly bare sockets. A wet, sucking sound accompanied
the movements.
I'd thrown up the first time I heard that sound. The
sound of eyeballs rolling in rotting sockets. But that was four
years ago, when I was new at this. Decaying flesh didn't make me
flinch anymore or throw up. As a general rule.
The eyes were pale brown with a lot of green in them.
The smell of some expensive perfume floated around her. Powdery and
fine, like talcum powder in your nose, sweet, flowery. Underneath
was the stink of rotting flesh. It wrinkled my nose, caught at the
back of my throat. The next time I smelled this delicate, expensive
perfume, I would think of rotting flesh. Oh, well, it smelled too
expensive to buy, anyway.
She was staring at me. She, not it, she. There was
the force of personality in her eyes. I call most zombies "it"
because it fits. They may come from the grave very alive-looking,
but it doesn't last. They rot. Personality and intelligence goes
first, then the body. It's always that order. God is not cruel
enough to force anyone to be aware while their body decays around
them. Something had gone very wrong with this one.
I stepped around Dominga Salvador. For no reason that
I could name, I stayed out of reach. She had no weapon, I was
almost sure of that. The danger she represented had nothing to do
with knives or guns. I simply didn't want her to touch me, not even
by accident.
The zombie on the left was perfect. Not a sign of
decay. The look in her eyes was alert, alive. God help us. She
could have gone anywhere and passed for human. How had I known she
wasn't alive? I wasn't even sure. None of the usual signs were
there, but I knew dead when I felt it. Yet . . . I stared up at the
second woman. Her lovely, dark face stared back. Fear screamed out
of her eyes.
Whatever power let me raise the dead told me this was
a zombie, but my eyes couldn't tell. It was amazing. If Dominga
could raise zombies like this, she had me beat hands down.
I have to wait three days before I raise a corpse. It
gives the soul time to leave the area. Souls usually hover around
for a while. Three days is average. I can't call shit from the
grave if the soul's still present. It has been theorized that if an
animator could keep the soul intact while raising the body, we'd
get resurrection. You know, resurrection, the real thing, like in
Jesus and Lazarus. I didn't believe that. Or maybe I just know my
limitations.
I stared up at this zombie and knew what was
different. The soul was still there. The soul was still inside both
bodies. How? How in Jesus' name did she do it?
"The souls. The souls are still in the bodies." My
voice held the distaste I felt. Why bother to hide it?
"Very good, chica."
I went to stand to her left, keeping Enzo in sight.
"How did you do it?"
"The soul was captured at the moment it took flight
from the body."
I shook my head. "That doesn't explain anything."
"Don't you know how to capture souls in a
bottle?"
Souls in a bottle? Was she kidding? No, she wasn't.
"No, I don't." I tried not to sound superior as I said it.
"I could teach you so much, Anita, so very much."
"No, thanks," I said. "You captured their souls, then
you raised the body, and put the soul back in." I was guessing, but
it sounded right.
"Very, very good. That is it exactly." She was
staring at me so hard that it was uncomfortable. Her empty, black
eyes were memorizing me.
"But why is the second zombie rotting? The theory is
with the soul intact, the zombie won't decay?"
"It is no longer a theory. I have proved it," she
said.
I stared at the rotted corpse, and it stared back.
"Then why is that one rotting, and this one isn't?" Just two
necromancers talking shop. Tell me, do you raise your zombies only
during the dark of the moon?
"The soul may be put into the body, then removed
again, as often as I wish."
I stared at Dominga Salvador now. I stared and tried
not to let my jaw drop, not to let the dawning horror slip across
my face. She would enjoy shocking me. I didn't want her taking
pleasure from me, for any reason.
"Let me test my understanding here," I said in my
best executive trainee voice. "You put the soul into the body and
it didn't rot. Then you took the soul out of the body, making it an
ordinary zombie, and it did rot."
"Exactly," she said.
"Then you put the soul back in the rotted corpse, and
the zombie was aware and alive again. Did the rotting stop when the
soul went back in?"
"Yes. "
Shit. "So you could keep the zombie over there rotted
just that much forever?"
"Yes."
Double shit. "And this one?" I pointed this time,
like I was doing a lecture.
"Many people would pay dearly for her."
"Wait a minute, you mean sell her as a sex
slave?"
"Perhaps."
"But. . ." The idea was too horrible. She was a
zombie, which meant she didn't need to eat or sleep or anything.
You could keep her in a closet and take her out like a toy. A
perfectly obedient slave.
"Are they as obedient as normal zombies, or does the
soul give them free will?"
"They seem to be very obedient."
"Maybe they're just scared of you," I said.
She smiled. "Perhaps."
"You can't just keep the soul imprisoned
forever."
"I can't," she said.
"The soul needs to go on."
"To your Christian heaven or hell?"
"Yes," I said.
"These were wicked women, chica. Their own
families gave them to me. Paid me to punish them."
"You took money for this?"
"It is illegal to tamper with dead bodies without
permission of the family," she said.
I don't know if she had planned to horrify me. Maybe
not. But with that one sentence she let me know that what she was
doing was perfectly legal. The dead had no rights. This was the
reason we needed some laws to protect zombies. Shit.
"No one deserves to spend eternity locked in a
corpse," I said.
"We could do this to criminals on death row,
chica. They could be made to serve society after
death."
I shook my head. "No, it's wrong."
"I have created a non-rotting zombie, chica.
Animators, I believe you call yourselves, have been searching for
the secret for years. I have it, and people will pay for it."
"It's wrong. I may not know much about voodoo, but
even among your own people, it's wrong. How can you keep the souls
prisoner and not allow them to go on and join with the lao?"
She shrugged and sighed. She suddenly looked tired.
"I was hoping, chica, that you would help me. With two of
us working, we could create more zombies much faster. We could be
wealthy beyond our dreams."
"You've asked the wrong girl."
"I see that now. I had hoped that since you were not
vaudun, you would not see it as wrong."
"Christian, Buddhist, Moslem, you name it, Dominga,
no one's going to think it's all right."
"Perhaps, perhaps not. It does not hurt to ask."
I glanced at the rotted zombie. "At least put your
first experiment out of its misery."
Dominga glanced at the zombie. "She makes a powerful
demonstration, does she not?"
"You've created a non-rotting zombie, great. Don't be
sadistic."
"You think I am being cruel?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Manuel, am I being cruel?"
Manny stared at me while he answered. His eyes were
trying to tell me something. I couldn't tell what. "Yes,
Señora, you are being cruel."
She glanced over at him then, surprise in the
movement of her body, her face. "Do you really think I am cruel,
Manuel? Your beloved amante?"
He nodded slowly. "Yes."
"You were not so quick to judge a few years back,
Manuel. You slew the white goat for me, more than once."
I turned towards Manny. It was like that moment in a
movie where the main character has a revelation about someone.
There should be music and camera angles when you learn one of your
best friends participated in human sacrifice. More than once she
had said. More than once.
"Manny?" My voice was a hoarse whisper. This, for me,
was worse than the zombies. The hell with strangers. This was
Manny, and it couldn't be true.
"Manny?" I said it again. He wouldn't look at me. Bad
sign.
"You didn't know, chica? Didn't your Manny
tell you of his past?"
"Shut up," I said.
"He was my most treasured helper. He would have done
anything for me."
Shut up!" I screamed it at her. She stopped, her face
thinning with anger. Enzo took two steps into the altar area.
"Don't." I wasn't even sure who I was saying it to. "I need to hear
from him, not from you."
The anger was still in her face. Enzo loomed like an
avalanche about to be unleashed. Dominga gave one sharp nod. "Ask
him then, chica."
"Manny, is she telling the truth? Did you perform
human sacrifices?" My voice sounded so normal. It shouldn't have.
My stomach was so tight, it hurt. I wasn't afraid anymore, or at
least not of Dominga. The truth; I was afraid of the truth.
He looked up. His hair fell across his face framing
his eyes. A lot of pain in those eyes. Almost flinching.
"It's the truth, isn't it?" My skin felt cold.
"Answer me, dammit." My voice still sounded ordinary, calm.
"Yes," he said.
"Yes, you committed human sacrifice?"
He glared at me now, anger helping him meet my eyes.
"Yes, Yes!"
It was my turn to look away. "God, Manny, how could
you?" My voice was soft now, not ordinary. If I didn't know better,
I'd say it sounded like I was on the verge of tears.
"It was nearly twenty years ago, Anita. I was vaudun
and a necromancer. I believed. I loved the Señora. Thought I
did."
I stared up at him. The look on his face made my
throat tight. "Manny, dammit."
He didn't say anything. He just stood there looking
miserable. And I couldn't reconcile the two images. Manny Rodriguez
and someone who would slaughter the hornless goat in a ritual. He
had taught me right from wrong in this business. He had refused to
do so many things. Things not half as bad as this. It made no
sense.
I shook my head. "I can't deal with this right now."
I heard myself say it out loud, and hadn't really meant to. "Fine,
you've dropped your little bombshell, Señora Salvador. You
said you'd help us, if I passed your test. Did I pass?" When in
doubt, concentrate on one disaster at a time.
"I wanted to offer you a chance to help me with my
new business venture."
"We both know I'm not going to do that," I said.
"It is a pity, Anita. With training you could rival
my powers."
Be just like her when I grew up. No thanks. "Thanks
anyway, but I'm happy where I am."
Her eyes flicked to Manny, back to me. "Happy?"
"Manny and I will deal with it, Señora. Now
will you help me?"
"If I help you without you helping me in some way,
you will owe me a favor."
I didn't want to owe her a favor. "I would rather
just trade information."
"What could you possibly know that would be worth all
the effort I will expend hunting for your killer zombie?"
I thought about that for a moment. "I know that
legislation is being written right now, about zombies. Zombies are
going to have rights, and laws protecting them soon." I hoped it
was soon. No need to tell her how early in the process the
legislation was.
"So, I must sell a few non-rotting zombies soon,
before it becomes illegal."
"I wouldn't think illegal would bother you much.
Human sacrifice is illegal, too."
She gave a tiny smile. "I do not do such things
anymore, Anita. I have given up my wicked ways."
I didn't believe that, and she knew I didn't believe
it. Her smile widened. "When Manuel left, I stopped such evil
practices. Without his urgings, I became a respectable bokar."
She was lying, but I couldn't prove it. And she knew
that, too. "I gave you valuable information. Now will you help
me?"
She nodded graciously. "I will search among my
followers to see if any knows of your killer zombie." I had the
sense that she was quietly laughing at me.
"Manny, will she help us?"
"If the Señora says she will do a thing, it
will be done. She is good that way."
"I will find your killer if it has anything to do with
vaudun," she said.
"Great." I didn't say thank you, because it seemed
wrong. I wanted to call her a bitch and shoot her between the eyes,
but then I would have had to shoot Enzo, too. And how would I
explain that to the police? She was breaking no laws. Dammit.
"I don't suppose appealing to your better nature
would make you forget this mad scheme to use your new improved
zombies for slaves?"
She smiled. "Chica, chica, I will
be rich beyond your wildest dreams. You can refuse to join me, but
you cannot stop me."
"Don't bet on it," I said.
"What will you do, go to the police? I am breaking no
laws. The only way to stop me is to kill me." She looked directly
at me while she said it.
"Don't tempt me."
Manny moved up beside me. "Don't, Anita, don't
challenge her."
I was sort of mad at him, too, so what the hell. "I
will stop you, Señora Salvador. Whatever it takes."
"You call death magic against me, Anita, and it is
you who will die."
I didn't know death magic from frijoles. I shrugged.
"I was thinking something more down to earth, like a bullet."
Enzo surged into the altar area, moving to stand
between his boss-lady and me. Dominga stopped him. "No, Enzo, she
is angry this morning, and shocked." Her eyes were still laughing
at me. "She knows nothing of the deeper magics. She cannot harm me,
and she is too morally superior to commit cold-blooded murder."
The worst part about it was that she was right. I
couldn't just put a bullet between her eyes, not unless she
threatened me. I glanced at the waiting zombies, patient as the
dead, but underneath that endless patience was fear, and hope, and.
. . God, the line between life and death was getting thinner all
the time.
"At least lay to rest your first experiment. You've
proved you can put the soul in and out multiple times. Don't make
her watch."
"But, Anita, I already have a buyer for her."
"Oh, Jesus, you don't mean . . . Oh, God, a
necrophiliac."
"Those that love the dead better than you or I ever
will, will pay extraordinary amounts for such as her."
Maybe I could just shoot her. "You are a
cold-hearted, amoral bitch."
"And you, chica, need to learn respect for
your elders."
"Respect has to be earned," I said.
"I think, Anita Blake, that you need to remember why
people fear the dark. I will see that very soon you have a visitor
to your window. Some dark night when you are fast asleep in your
warm, safe bed. Something evil will creep into your room. I will
earn your respect, if that is the way you want it."
I should have been afraid, but I wasn't. I was angry
and wanted to go home. "You can force people to be afraid of you,
Señora, but you can't force them to respect you."
"We shall see, Anita. Call me after you have gotten
my gift. It will be soon."
"Will you still help locate the killer zombie?"
"I said I would, and I will."
"Good," I said. "May we go now?"
She waved Enzo back beside her. "By all means run out
into the daylight where you can be brave."
I walked to the pathway. Manny stayed right with me.
We were careful not to look at each other. We were too busy
watching the Señora and her pets. I stopped just inside the
path. Manny touched my arm lightly, as if he knew what I was about
to say. I ignored him.
"I may not be willing to kill you in cold blood, but
hurt me first, and I'll put a bullet in you some bright, sunshiny
day."
"Threats will not save you, chica," she
said.
I smiled sweetly. "You either, bitch."
Her face went all thin and angry. I smiled wider.
"She does not mean it, Señora," Manny said.
"She will not kill you."
"Is this true, chica?" Her voice was a rich
growl of sound, pleasant and frightening at the same time.
I gave Manny a quick dirty look. It was a good
threat. I didn't like weakening it with common sense, or truth. "I
said, I'd shoot you. I didn't say I'd kill you. Now did I?"
"No, you did not."
Manny grabbed my arm and started pulling me backwards
towards the stairs. He was pulling on my left arm, leaving my right
free for my gun. Just in case.
Dominga never moved. Her black, angry eyes stared at
me until we rounded the corner. Manny pulled me into the hallway
with its cement covered doors. I pulled free of him. We stared at
each other for a heartbeat.
"What's behind the doors?"
"I don't know."
Doubt must have shown on my face because he said,
"God as my witness, Anita, I don't know. It wasn't like this twenty
years ago."
I just stared at him as if looking would change
things. I wish Dominga Salvador had kept Manny's secret to herself.
I had not wanted to know.
"Anita, we have to get out of here, now." The light
bulb over our head went out, like someone had snuffed it. We both
looked up. There was nothing to see. My arms broke out in goose
bumps. The bulb just ahead of us dimmed, then blinked off.
Manny was right. We needed to leave now. I broke into
a half jog towards the stairs. Manny stayed with me. The door with
its shiny padlock rattled and thumped as if the thing were trying
to get out. Another light bulb flashed off. The darkness was
snapping at our heels. We were at a full run by the time we hit the
stairs. There were two bulbs left.
We were halfway up the stairs when the last light
vanished. The world went black. I froze on the stairs unwilling to
move without being able to see. Manny's arm brushed mine, but I
couldn't see him. The darkness was complete. I could have touched
my eyeballs and not seen my finger. We grabbed hands and held on.
His hand wasn't much bigger than mine. It was warm and familiar,
and damn comforting.
The cracking of wood was loud as a shotgun blast in
the dark. The stench of rotting meat filled the stairwell. "Shit!"
The word echoed and bounced in the blackness. I wished I hadn't
said it. Something large pulled itself into the corridor. It
couldn't be as big as it sounded. The wet, slithering sounds moved
towards the stairs. Or sounded like they did.
I stumbled up two steps. Manny didn't need any
urging. We stumbled through the darkness, and the sounds below
hurried. The light under the door was so bright, it almost hurt.
Manny flung open the door. The sunlight blazed against my eyes. We
were both momentarily blinded.
Something screamed behind us, caught in the edge of
daylight. The scream was almost human. I started to turn, to look.
Manny slammed the door. He shook his head. "You don't want to see.
I don't want to see."
He was right. So why did I have this urge to yank the
door open, to stare down into the dark until I saw something pale
and shapeless? A screaming nightmare of a sight. I stared at the
closed door, and I let it go.
"Do you think it will come out after us?" I
asked.
"Into the daylight?" Manny asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"I don't think so. Let's leave without finding
out."
I agreed. The August sunlight streamed into the
living room. Warm and real. The scream, the darkness, the zombies,
all of it seemed wrong for the sunlight. Things that go bump in the
morning. It didn't sound quite right.
I opened the screen door calmly, slowly. Panicked,
me? But I was listening so hard I could hear blood rush in my ears.
Listening for slithery sounds of pursuit. Nothing.
Antonio was still on guard outside. Should we warn
him about the possibility of a Lovecraftian horror nipping at our
heels?
"Did you fuck the zombie downstairs?" Antonio
asked.
So much for warning old Tony.
Manny ignored him.
"Go fuck yourself," I said.
He said, "Heh!"
I kept walking down the porch steps. Manny stayed
with me. Antonio didn't draw his gun and shoot us. The day was
looking up.
The little girl on the tricycle had stopped by
Manny's car. She stared up at me as I got in the passenger side
door. I stared back into huge brown eyes. Her face was darkly
tanned. She couldn't have been more than five.
Manny got in the driver's side door. He put the car
in gear, and we pulled away. The little girl and I stared at each
other. Just before we turned the corner she started pedaling up and
down the sidewalk again.
Chapter 7
The air conditioner blasted cold air into the car.
Manny drove through the residential streets. Most of the driveways
were empty. People off to work. Small children playing in the
yards. A few moms out on the front steps. I didn't see any daddies
at home with the kids. Things change, but not that much. The
silence stretched out between us. It was not a comfortable
silence.
Manny glanced at me furtively out of the corner of
his eye.
I slumped in the passenger seat, the seat belt
digging across my gun. "So," I said, "you used to perform human
sacrifice."
I think he flinched. "Do you want me to lie?"
"No, I want to not know. I want to live in blessed
ignorance."
"It doesn't work that way, Anita," he said.
"I guess it doesn't," I said. I adjusted the lap
strap so it didn't press over my gun. Ah, comfort. If only
everything else were that easy to fix. "What are we going to do
about it?"
"About you knowing?" he asked. He glanced at me as he
asked. I nodded.
"You aren't going to rant and rave? Tell me what an
evil bastard I am?"
"Doesn't seem much point in it," I said.
He looked at me a little longer this time.
"Thanks."
"I didn't say it was alright, Manny. I'm just not
going to yell at you. Not yet, anyway."
He passed a large white car full of dark-skinned
teenagers. Their car stereo was up so loud, my teeth rattled. The
driver had one of those high-boned, flat faces, straight off of an
Aztec carving. Our eyes met as we moved by them. He made kissing
motions with his mouth. The others laughed uproariously.
I resisted the urge to flip them off. Mustn't
encourage the little tykes.
They turned right. We went straight. Relief.
Manny stopped two cars back from a light. Just beyond
the light was the turnoff 40 West. We'd take 270 up to Olive and
then a short jaunt to my apartment. We had forty-five minutes to an
hour of travel time. Not a problem normally. Today I wanted away
from Manny. I wanted some time to digest. To decide how to
feel.
"Talk to me, Anita, please."
"Honest to God, Manny, I don't know what to say."
Truth, try to stick to the truth between friends. Yeah.
"I've known you for four years, Manny. You are a good
man. You love your wife, your kids. You've saved my life. I've
saved yours. I thought I knew you."
"I haven't changed."
"Yes," I looked at him as I said it, "you have. Manny
Rodriguez would never under any circumstance take part in human
sacrifice."
"It's been twenty years."
"There's no statute of limitations on murder."
"You going to the cops?" His voice was very
quiet.
The light changed. We waited our turn and merged into
the morning traffic. It was as heavy as it ever got in St. Louis.
It's not the gridlock of L.A., but stop and jerk is still pretty
darn annoying. Especially this morning.
"I don't have any proof. Just Dominga Salvador's
word. I wouldn't exactly call her a reliable witness."
"If you had proof?"
"Don't push me on this, Manny." I stared out the
window. There was a silver Miada with the top down. The driver was
white-haired, male, and wore a jaunty little cap, plus racing
gloves. Middle-age crisis.
"Does Rosita know?" I asked.
"She suspects, but she doesn't know for sure."
"Doesn't want to know," I said.
"Probably not." He turned and stared at me then.
A red Ford truck was nearly in front of us. I yelled,
"Manny!"
He slammed on the brakes, and only the seat belt kept
me from kissing the dashboard.
"Jesus, Manny, watch your driving!"
He concentrated on traffic for a few seconds, then
without looking at me this time, "Are you going to tell
Rosita?"
I thought about that for about a second. I shook my
head, realized he couldn't see it, and said, "I don't think so.
Ignorance is bliss on this one, Manny. I don't think your wife
could deal with it."
"She'd leave me and take the kids."
I believed she would. Rosita was a very religious
person. She took all the commandments very seriously.
"She already thinks I'm risking my eternal soul by
raising the dead," Manny said.
"She didn't have a problem until the pope threatened
to excommunicate all animators unless they stopped raising the
dead."
"The Church is very important to Rosita."
"Me, too, but I'm a happy little Episcopalian now.
Switch churches."
"It's not that easy," he said.
It wasn't. I knew that. But, hey, you do what you
can, or what you have to. "Can you explain why you would do human
sacrifice? I mean, something that will make sense to me?"
"No," he said. He pulled into the far lane. It seemed
to be going a little faster. It slowed down as soon as we pulled
in. Murphy's law of traffic.
"You won't even try to explain?"
"It's indefensible, Anita. I live with what I did. I
can't do anything else."
He had a point. "This has to change the way I think
about you, Manny."
"In what way?"
"I don't know yet." Honesty. If we were very careful,
we could still be honest with each other. "Is there anything else
you think I should know? Anything that Dominga might spill later
on?"
He shook his head. "Nothing worse."
"Okay," I said.
"Okay," he said. "That's it, no interrogation?"
"Not now, maybe not ever." I was tired all at once.
It was 9:23 in the morning, and I needed a nap. Emotionally
drained. "I don't know how to feel about this, Manny. I don't know
how it changes our friendship, or our working relationship, or even
if it does. I think it does. Oh, hell, I don't know."
"Fair enough," he said. "Let's move on to something
we aren't confused about."
"And what would that be?" I asked.
"The Señora will send something bad to your
window, just like she said she would."
"I figured that."
"Why did you threaten her?"
"I didn't like her."
"Oh, great, just great," he said. "Why didn't I think
of that?"
"I am going to stop her, Manny. I figured she should
know."
"Never give the bad guys a head start, Anita. I
taught you that."
"You also taught me that human sacrifice is
murder."
"That hurt," he said.
"Yes," I said, "it did."
"You need to be prepared, Anita. She will send
something after you. Just to scare you, I think, not to really
harm."
"Because you made me 'fess up to not killing her," I
said.
"No, because she doesn't really believe you'll kill
her. She's intrigued with your powers. I think she'd rather convert
you than kill you."
"Have me as part of her zombie-making factory."
"Yes."
"Not in this lifetime."
"The Señora is not used to people saying no,
Anita."
"Her problem, not mine."
He glanced at me, then back to the traffic. "She'll
make it your problem."
"I'll deal with it."
"You can't be that confident."
"I'm not, but what do you want me to do, break down
and cry. I'll deal with it when, and if, something noisome drags
itself through my window."
"You can't deal with the Señora, Anita. She is
powerful, more powerful than you can ever imagine."
"She scared me, Manny. I am suitably impressed. If
she sends something I can't handle, I'll run. Okay?"
"Not okay. You don't know, you just don't know."
"I heard the thing in the hallway. I smelled it. I'm
scared, but she's just human, Manny. All the mumbo jumbo won't keep
her safe from a bullet."
"A bullet may take her out, but not down."
"What does that mean?"
"If she were shot, say in the head or heart, and
seemed dead, I'd treat her like a vampire. Head and heart taken
out. Body burned." He glanced at me sort of sideways.
I didn't say anything. We were talking about killing
Dominga Salvador. She was capturing souls and putting them into
corpses. It was an abomination. She would probably attack me first.
Some supernatural goodie come creeping into my home. She was evil
and would attack me first. Would it be murder to ambush her? Yeah.
Would I do it anyway? I let the thought take shape in my head.
Rolled it over like a piece of candy, tasting the idea. Yeah, I
could do it.
I should have felt bad that I could plan a murder,
for any reason, and not flinch. I didn't feel bad. It was sort of
comforting to know if she pushed me, I could push back. Who was I
to cast stones at Manny for twenty-year-old crimes? Yeah, who
indeed.
Chapter 8
It was early afternoon. Manny had dropped me off
without a word. He hadn't asked to come up, and I hadn't offered. I
still didn't know what to think about him, Dominga Salvador, and
non-rotting zombies, complete with souls. I decided not to think.
What I needed was good physical activity. As luck would have it, I
had judo class this afternoon.
I have a black belt, which sounds a lot more
impressive than it really is. In the dojo with referees and rules,
I do okay. Out in the real world where most bad guys outweigh me by
a hundred pounds, I trust a gun.
I was actually reaching for the doorknob when the
bell chimed. I put the overstuffed gym bag by the door and used the
little peephole. I always had to stand on tiptoe to see out of
it.
The distorted image was blond, fair-eyed, and barely
familiar. It was Tommy, Harold Gaynor's muscle-bound bodyguard.
This day was just getting better and better.
I don't usually take a gun to judo class. It's in the
afternoon. In the summer that means daylight. The really dangerous
stuff doesn't come out until after dark. I untucked the red polo
shirt I was wearing and clipped my inter-pants holster back in
place. The pocket-size 9mm dug in just a little. If I had known I
was going to need it, I would have worn looser jeans.
The doorbell rang again. I hadn't called out to let
him know I was in here. He didn't seem discouraged. He rang the
doorbell a third time, leaning on it.
I took a deep breath and opened the door. I looked up
into Tommy's pale blue eyes. They were still empty, dead. A perfect
blankness. Were you born with a stare like that, or did you have to
practice?
"What do you want?" I asked.
His lips twitched. "Aren't you going to invite me
in?"
"I don't think so."
He shrugged massive shoulders. I could see the straps
of his shoulder holster imprinted on his suit jacket. He needed a
better tailor.
A door opened to my left. A woman came out with a
toddler in her arms. She locked the door before turning and seeing
us. "Oh, hi." She smiled brightly.
"Hello," I said.
Tommy nodded.
The woman turned and walked towards the stairs. She
was murmuring something nonsensical and high-pitched to the
toddler.
Tommy looked back at me. "You really want to do this
in the hallway?"
"What are we doing?"
"Business. Money."
I looked at his face, and it told me nothing. The
only comfort I had was that if Tommy meant to do me harm he
probably wouldn't have come to my apartment to do it. Probably.
I stepped back, holding the door very wide. I stayed
out of arm's reach as he walked into my apartment. He looked
around. "Nice, clean."
"Cleaning service," I said. "Talk to me about
business, Tommy. I've got an appointment."
He glanced at the gym bag by the door. "Work or
pleasure?" he asked.
"None of your business," I said.
Again that bare twist of lips. I realized it was his
version of a smile. "Down in the car I got a case full of money. A
million five, half now, half after you raise the zombie."
I shook my head. "I gave Gaynor my answer."
"But that was in front of your boss. This is just you
and me. No one'll know if you take it. No one."
"I didn't say no because there were witnesses. I said
no because I don't do human sacrifice." I could feel myself
smiling. This was ridiculous. I thought about Manny then. Alright,
maybe it wasn't ridiculous. But I wasn't doing it.
"Everyone has their price, Anita. Name it. We can
meet it."
He had never once mentioned Gaynor's name. Only I
had. He was being so bloody careful, too careful. "I don't have a
price, Tommy-boy. Go back to Mr. Harold Gaynor and tell him
that."
His face clouded up then. A wrinkling between his
eyes. "I don't know that name."
"Oh, give me a break. I'm not wearing a wire."
"Name your price. We can meet it," he said.
"There is no price."
"Two million, tax-free," he said.
"What zombie could be worth two million dollars,
Tommy?" I stared at his softly frowning face. "What could Gaynor
hope to gain that would allow him to make a profit on that kind of
expenditure?"
Tommy just stared at me. "You don't need to know
that."
"I thought you'd say that. Go away, Tommy. I'm not
for sale." I stepped back towards the door, planning to escort him
out. He moved forward suddenly, faster than he looked. Muscled arms
wide to grab me.
I pulled the Firestar and pointed it at his chest. He
froze. Dead eyes, blinking at me. His large hands balled into
fists. A nearly purple flush crept up his neck into his face.
Rage.
"Don't do it," I said, my voice sounded soft.
"Bitch," he wheezed it at me.
"Now, now, Tommy, don't get nasty. Ease down, and we
can all live to see another glorious day."
His pale eyes flicked from the gun to my face, then
back to the gun. "You wouldn't be so tough without that piece."
If he wanted me to offer to arm wrestle him, he was
in for a disappointment. "Back off, Tommy, or I'll drop you here
and now. All the muscle in the world won't help you."
I watched something move behind his dead eyes, then
his whole body relaxed. He took a deep breath through his nose.
"Okay, you got the drop on me today. But if you keep disappointing
my boss, I'm gonna find you without that gun." His lips twitched.
"And we'll see how tough you really are."
A little voice in my head said, "Shoot him now." I
knew as surely as I knew anything that dear Tommy would be at my
back someday. I didn't want him there, but . . . I couldn't just
kill him because I thought he might come after me someday. It
wasn't a good enough reason. And how would I ever have explained it
to the police?
"Get out, Tommy." I opened the door without taking
either my gaze or the gun off the man. "Get out and tell Gaynor
that if he keeps annoying me, I'll start sending his bodyguards
home in boxes."
Tommy's nostrils flared just a bit at that, veins
straining in his neck. He walked very stiffly past me and out into
the hall. I held the gun at my side and watched him, listening to
his footsteps retreat down the stairs. When I was as sure as I
could be that he was gone, I put my gun back in its holster,
grabbed my gym bag, and headed for judo class. Mustn't let these
little interruptions spoil my exercise program. Tomorrow I would
miss my workout for sure. I had a funeral to attend. Besides, if
Tommy really did challenge me to arm wrestling, I was going to need
all the help I could get.
Chapter 9
I hate funerals. At least this one wasn't for anyone
I had particularly liked. Cold, but true. Peter Burke had been an
unscrupulous SOB when alive. I didn't see why death should
automatically grant him sainthood. Death, especially violent death,
will turn the meanest bastard in the world into a nice guy. Why is
that?
I stood there in the bright August sunlight in my
little black dress and dark sunglasses, watching the mourners. They
had set up a canopy over the coffin, flowers, and chairs for the
family. Why was I here, you might ask, if I had not been a friend?
Because Peter Burke had been an animator. Not a very good one, but
we are a small, exclusive club. If one of us dies, we all come.
It's a rule. There are no exceptions. Maybe your own death, but
then again being that we raise the dead, maybe not.
There are things you can do to a corpse so it won't
rise again as a vampire, but a zombie is a different beast. Short
of cremation, an animator can bring you back. Fire was about the
only thing a zombie respected or feared.
We could have raised Peter and asked him who put a
gun to his head. But they had put a 357 Magnum with an expanding
point just behind his ear. There wasn't enough left of his head to
fill a plastic bag. You could raise him as a zombie, but he
couldn't talk. Even the dead need mouths.
Manny stood beside me, uncomfortable in his dark
suit. Rosita, his wife, stood spine absolutely straight. Thick
brown hands gripping her black patent leather purse. She is what my
stepmother used to call large-boned. Her black hair was cut just
below the ears and loosely permed. The hair needed to be longer. It
emphasized how perfectly round her face was.
Charles Montgomery stood just behind me like a tall
dark mountain. Charles looks like he played football somewhere. He
has the ability to frown and make people run for cover. He just
looks like a hard ass. Truth is, Charles faints at the sight of
anything but animal blood. It's lucky for him he looks like such a
big black dude. He has almost no tolerance for pain. He cries at
Walt Disney movies, like when Bambi's mother dies. It's endearing
as hell.
His wife, Caroline, was working. She hadn't been able
to switch shifts with anyone. I wondered how hard she had tried.
Caroline is okay but she sort of looks down on what we do. Mumbo
jumbo she calls it. She's a registered nurse. I guess after dealing
with doctors all day, she has to look down on someone.
Up near the front of the crowd was Jamison Clarke. He
was tall; thin, and the only red-haired, green-eyed black man I've
ever met. He nodded at me across the grave. I nodded back.
We were all here; the animators of Animators,
Incorporated. Bert and Mary, our daytime secretary, were holding
down the fort. I hoped Bert didn't book us in anything we couldn't
handle. Or would refuse to handle. He did that if you didn't watch
him.
The sun slapped my back like a hot metal hand. The
men kept pulling at their ties and high collars. The smell of
chrysanthemums was thick like wax at the back of my throat. No one
ever gives you football mums unless you die. Carnations, roses,
snapdragons, they all have happier lives, but mums, and glads -
they're the funeral flowers. At least the tall spires of gladiolus
had no scent.
A woman sat in the front line of chairs under the
canopy. She was leaning over her knees like a broken doll. Her sobs
were loud enough to drown out the words of the priest. Only his
quiet, soothing rhythm reached me as I stood near the back.
Two small children were gripping the hands of an
older man. Grampa? The children were pale, hollow-eyed. Fear vied
with tears on their faces. They watched their mother break down
completely, useless to them. Her grief was more important than
theirs. Her loss greater. Bullshit.
My own mother had died when I was eight. You never
really filled in the hole. It was like a piece of you gone missing.
An ache that never quite goes away. You deal with it. You go on,
but it's there.
A man sat beside her, rubbing her back in endless
circles. His hair was nearly black, cut short and neat. Broad
shouldered. From the back he looked eerily like Peter Burke. Ghosts
in sunlight.
The cemetery was dotted with trees. The shade rustled
and flickered pale grey in the sunlight. On the other side of the
gravel driveway that twined through the cemetery were two men. They
stood quietly, waiting. Grave diggers. Waiting to finish the
job.
I looked back at the coffin under its blanket of pink
carnations. There was a bulky mound just behind it, covered in
bright green fake grass. Underneath was the fresh dug earth waiting
to go back in the hole.
Mustn't let the loved ones think about red-clay soil
pouring down on the gleaming coffin. Clods of dirt hitting the
wood, covering your husband, father. Trapping them forever inside a
lead-lined box. A good coffin will keep the water and worms out,
but it doesn't stop decay.
I knew what would be happening to Peter Burke's body.
Cover it in satin, wrap a tie round its neck, rouge the cheeks,
close the eyes; it's still a corpse.
The funeral ended while I wasn't looking. The people
rose gratefully in one mass movement. The dark-haired man helped
the grieving widow to stand. She nearly fell. Another man rushed
forward and supported her other side. She sagged between them, feet
dragging on the ground.
She looked back over her shoulder, head almost
lolling on her neck. She screamed, loud and ragged, then flung
herself on the coffin. The woman collapsed against the flowers,
digging at the wood. Fingers scrambling for the locks on the
coffin. The ones that held the lid down.
Everyone just froze for a moment, staring. I saw the
two children through the crowd still standing, wide-eyed. Shit.
"Stop her," I said it too loud. People turned to stare. I didn't
care.
I pushed my way through the vanishing crowd and the
aisles of chairs. The dark-haired man was holding the widow's hands
while she screamed and struggled. She had collapsed to the ground,
and her black dress had worked up high on her thighs.
She was wearing a white slip. Her mascara had run
like black blood down her face.
I stood in front of the man and the two children. He
was staring at the woman like he would never move again. "Sir," I
said. He didn't react. "Sir?"
He blinked, staring down at me like I had just
appeared in front of him. "Sir, do you really think the children
need to see all this?"
"She's my daughter," he said. His voice was deep and
thick..
Drugged or just grief?
"I sympathize, sir, but the children should go to the
car now."
The widow had begun to wail, loud and wordless, raw
pain. The girl was beginning to shake. "You're her father, but
you're their grandfather. Act like it. Get them out of here."
Anger flickered in his eyes then. "How dare you?"
He wasn't going to listen to me. I was just an
intrusion on their grief. The oldest, a boy of about five, was
staring up at me. His brown eyes were huge, his thin face so pale
it looked ghostly.
"I think it is you who should go," the grandfather
said.
"You're right. You are so right," I said. I walked
around them out into the grass and the summer heat. I couldn't help
the children. I couldn't help them, just as no one had been there
to help me. I had survived. So would they, maybe.
Manny and Rosita were waiting for me. Rosita hugged
me. "You must come to Sunday dinner after church."
I smiled. "I don't think I can make it, but thanks
for asking."
"My cousin Albert will be there," she said. "He is an
engineer. He will be a good provider."
"I don't need a good provider, Rosita."
She sighed. "You make too much money for a woman. It
makes you not need a man."
I shrugged. If I ever did marry, which I'd begun to
doubt, a it wouldn't be for money. Love. Shit, was I waiting for
love? Naw, not me.
"We have to pick up Tomas at kindergarten," Manny
said. He was smiling at me apologetically around Rosita's shoulder.
She was nearly a foot taller than he. She towered over me, too.
"Sure, tell the little guy hi for me."
"You should come to dinner," Rosita said, "Albert is
a very handsome man."
"Thanks for thinking of me, Rosita, but I'll skip
it."
"Come on, wife," Manny said. "Our son is waiting for
us."
She let him pull her towards the car, but her brown
face was set in disapproval. It offended some deep part of Rosita
that I was twenty-four and had no prospects of marriage. Her and my
stepmother.
Charles was nowhere to be seen. Hurrying back to the
office to see clients. I thought Jamison had, too, but he stood in
the grass, waiting for me.
He was dressed impeccably, crossed-lapels, narrow red
tie with small dark dots on it. His tie clip was onyx and silver.
He smiled at me, always a bad sign.
His greenish eyes looked hollow, like someone had
erased part of the skin. If you cry enough, the skin goes from
puffy red to hollow white. "I'm glad so many of us showed up," he
said.
"I know he was a friend of yours, Jamison. I'm
sorry."
He nodded and looked down at his hands. He was
holding a pair of sunglasses loosely. He looked up at me, eyes
staring straight into mine. All serious.
"The police won't tell the family anything," he said.
"Peter gets blown away, and they don't have a clue who did it."
I wanted to tell him the police were doing their
best, because they were. But there are a hell of a lot of murders
in St. Louis over a year. We were giving Washington, D.C. a run for
their money as murder capital of the United States. "They're doing
their best, Jamison."
"Then why won't they tell us anything?" His hands
convulsed. The sound of breaking plastic was a crumbling sharp
sound. He didn't seem to notice.
"I don't know," I said.
"Anita, you're in good with the police. Could you
ask?" His eyes were naked, full of such real pain. Most of the time
I could ignore, or even dislike, Jamison. He was a tease, a flirt,
a bleeding-heart liberal who thought that vampires were just people
with fangs. But today . . . today he was real.
"What do you want me to ask?"
"Are they making any progress? Do they have any
suspects? That sort of thing."
They were vague questions, but important ones. "I'll
see what I can find out."
He gave a watery smile. "Thanks, Anita, really,
thanks." He held out his hand. I took it. We shook. He noticed his
broken sunglasses. "Damn, ninety-five dollars down the tubes."
Ninety-five dollars for sunglasses? He had to be
kidding. A group of mourners were taking the family away at last.
The mother was smothered in well-meaning male relatives. They were
literally carrying her away from the grave. The children and Grampa
brought up the rear. No one listens to good advice.
A man stepped away from the crowd and walked towards
us. He was the one who reminded me of Peter Burke from the back. He
was around six feet, dark-complected, a black mustache, and thin
almost goateelike beard framing a handsome face. It was handsome,
a dark movie-star face, but there was something about the way he
moved. Maybe it was the white streak in his black hair just over
the forehead. Whatever, you knew that he would always play the
villain.
"Is she going to help us?" he asked, no preamble, no
hello.
"Yes," Jamison said. "Anna Blake, this is John Burke,
Peter's brother."
John Burke, the John Burke, I wanted to ask. New
Orleans's greatest animator and vampire slayer? A kindred spirit.
We shook hands. His grip was strong, almost painfully so, as if he
wanted to see if I would flinch. I didn't. He let go. Maybe he just
didn't know his own strength? But I doubted it.
"I am truly sorry about your brother," I said. I
meant it. I was glad I meant it.
He nodded. "Thank you for talking to the police about
him."
"I'm surprised you couldn't get the New Orleans
police to give you some juice with our local police," I said.
He had the grace to look uncomfortable. "The New
Orleans police and I have had a disagreement."
"Really?" I said, eyes wide. I had heard the rumors,
but I wanted to hear the truth. Truth is always stranger than
fiction.
"John was accused of participating in some ritual
murders," Jamison said. "Just because he's a practicing vaudun
priest."
"Oh," I said. Those were the rumors. "How long have
you been in town, John?"
"Almost a week."
"Really?"
"Peter had been missing for two days before they
found the . . . body." He licked his lips. His dark brown eyes
flicked to the scene behind me. Were the grave diggers moving in? I
glanced back, but the grave looked just the same to me.
"Anything you could find out would be most
appreciated," he said.
"I'll do what I can."
"I have to get back to the house." He shrugged, as if
to loosen the shoulder muscles. "My sister-in-law isn't taking it
well."
I let it go. I deserved brownie points for that. One
thing I didn't let go. "Can you look after your niece and
nephew?"
He looked at me, a puzzled frown between his black
eyebrows.
"I mean, keep them out of the really dramatic stuff
if you can."
He nodded. "It was rough for me to watch her throw
herself on the coffin. God, what must the kids be thinking?" Tears
glittered in his eyes like silver. He kept them open very wide so
the tears wouldn't spill out.
I didn't know what to say. I did not want to see him
cry. "I'll talk to the police, find out what I can. I'll tell
Jamison when I have anything."
John Burke nodded, carefully. His eyes were like a
glass where only the surface tension kept the water from spilling
over.
I nodded to Jamison and left. I turned on the
air-conditioning in my car and let it run full blast. The two men
were still standing in the hot sunshine in the middle of summer
brown grass when I put the car in gear and drove away.
I would talk to the police and find out what I could.
I also had another name for Dolph. John Burke, biggest animator in
New Orleans, voodoo priest. Sounded like a suspect to me.
Chapter 10
The phone was ringing as I shoved the key into my
apartment door. I yelled at it, "I'm coming, I'm coming!" Why do
people do that? Yell at the phone as if the other person can hear
you and will wait?
I shoved the door open and scooped up the phone on
the fourth ring. "Hello."
"Anita?"
"Dolph," I said. My stomach tightened. "What's
up?"
"We think we found the boy." His voice was quiet,
neutral.
"Think," I said. "What do you mean, think?"
"You know what I mean, Anita," he said. He sounded
tired.
"Like his parents?" It wasn't a question.
"Yeah."
"God, Dolph, is there much left?"
"Come and see. We're at the Burrell Cemetery. Do you
know it?"
"Sure, I've done work there."
"Be here as soon as you can. I want to go home and
hug my wife."
"Sure, Dolph, I understand." I was talking to myself.
The phone had gone dead. I stared at the receiver for a moment. My
skin felt cold. I did not want to go and view the remains of
Benjamin Reynolds. I did not want to know. I pulled a lot of air in
through my nose and let it out slowly.
I stared down at the dark hose, high heels, dress. It
wasn't my usual crime scene attire, but it would take too long to
change. I was usually the last expert called in. Once I was
through, they could cover the body. And everyone could go home. I
grabbed a pair of black Nikes for walking over grass and through
blood. Once you got bloodstains on dress shoes, they never come
clean.
I had the Browning Hi-Power, complete with holster
sort of draped atop my little black clutch purse. The gun had been
in my car during the funeral. I couldn't figure out a way to carry
a gun of any kind while wearing a dress. I know you see thigh
holsters on television, but does the word "chafing" mean anything
to you?
I hesitated on getting my backup gun and shoving it
in my purse, but didn't. My purse, like all purses, seems to have a
traveling black hole in it. I'd never get the gun out in time if I
really needed it.
I did have a silver knife in a thigh sheath under the
short black skirt. I felt like Kit Carson in drag, but after
Tommy's little visit, I didn't want to be unarmed. I had no
illusions what would happen if Tommy did catch me with no gun.
Knives weren't as good, but they beat the hell out of kicking my
little feet and screaming.
I had never yet had to try to fast draw a knife from
a thigh sheath. It was probably going to look vaguely obscene, but
if it kept me alive . . . hey, I can take a little
embarrassment.
Burrell Cemetery is at the crest of a hill. Some of
the gravestones go back centuries. The soft, weathered limestone is
almost unreadable, like hard candy that's been sucked clean. The
grass is waist tall, luxuriant with only the headstones standing
like tired sentinels.
There is a house on the edge of the cemetery where
the caretaker lives, but he doesn't have to take care of much. The
graveyard is full and has been for years. The last person buried
here could remember the 1904 World's Fair.
There is no road into the graveyard anymore. There is
a ghost of one, like a wagon track where the grass doesn't grow
quite so high. The caretaker's house was surrounded by police cars
and the coroner's van. My Nova seemed underdressed. Maybe I should
get some buggy whip antennae, or plaster Zombies "R" Us on the side
of the car. Bert would probably get mad.
I got a pair of coveralls from the trunk and slipped
into them. They covered me from neck to ankle. Like most coveralls
the crotch hit at knee level, I never understood why, but it meant
my skirt didn't bunch up. I bought them originally for vampire
stakings, but blood is blood. Besides, the weeds would play hell
with my panty hose. I got a pair of surgical gloves from the little
Kleenex-like box in the trunk. Nikes instead of dress shoes, and I
was ready to view the remains.
Remains. Nice word.
Dolph stood like some ancient sentinel, towering over
everyone else in the field. I worked my way towards him, trying not
to trip over broken bits of headstone. A wind hot enough to scald
rustled the grass. I was sweating inside the overalls.
Detective Clive Perry came to meet me, as if I needed
an escort. Detective Perry was one of the most polite people I had
ever met. He had an old-world courtliness to him. A gentleman in
the best sense of the word. I always wanted to ask what he had done
to end up on the spook squad.
His slender black face was beaded with sweat. He
still wore his suit jacket even though it had to be over a hundred
degrees. "Ms. Blake."
"Detective Perry," I said. I glanced up at the crest
of the hill. Dolph and a handful of men were standing around like
they didn't know what to do. No one was looking at the ground.
"How bad is it, Detective Perry?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Depends on what you compare it
to."
"Did you see the tapes and pictures of the Reynolds
house?"
"I did."
"Is it worse than that?" It was my new "worst thing I
ever saw" measurement. Before this it had been a vampire gang that
had tried to move in from Los Angeles. The respectable vampire
community had chopped them up with axes. The parts were still
crawling around the room when we found them. Maybe this wasn't
worse. Maybe time had just dimmed the memory.
"It isn't bloodier," he said, then he hesitated, "but
it was a child. A little boy."
I nodded. He didn't need to explain. It was always
worse when it was a child. I never knew exactly why. Maybe it was
some primal instinct to protect the young. Some deep hormonal
thing. Whatever, kids were always worse. I stared down at a white
tombstone. It looked like dull, melted ice. I didn't want to go up
the hill. I didn't want to see.
I went up the hill. Detective Perry followed. Brave
detective. Brave me.
A sheet rested on the grass like a tent. Dolph stood
closest to it. "Dolph," I said.
"Anita."
No one offered to pull back the sheet. "Is this
it?"
"Yeah."
Dolph seemed to shake himself, or maybe it was a
shiver. He reached down and grabbed the edge of the sheet. "Ready?"
he asked.
No, I wasn't ready. Don't make me look. Please don't
make me look. My mouth was dry. I could taste my pulse in my
throat. I nodded.
The sheet flew back, caught by a gust of wind like a
white kite. The grass was trampled down. Struggles? Had Benjamin
Reynolds been alive when he was pulled down into the long grass?
No, surely not. God, I hoped not.
The footed pajamas had tiny cartoon figures on them.
The pajamas had been pulled back like the skin of a banana. One
small arm was flung up over his head like he was sleeping.
Long-lashed eyelids helped the illusion. His skin was pale and
flawless, small cupid-bow mouth half open. He should have looked
worse, much worse.
There was a dirty brown stain on his pajamas, the
cloth covering his lower body. I did not want to see what had
killed him. But that was why I was here. I hesitated, fingers
hovering over the torn cloth. I took a deep breath, and that was a
mistake. Hunkered over the body in the windy August heat the smell
was fresh. New death smells like an outhouse, especially if the
stomach or bowels have been ripped open. I knew what I'd find when
I lifted the bloody cloth. The smell told me.
I knelt with a sleeve over my mouth and nose for a
few minutes, breathing shallow and through my mouth, but it didn't
really help. Once you caught a whiff of it, your nose remembered.
The smell crawled down my throat and wouldn't let go.
Quick or slow? Did I jerk the cloth back or pull it?
Quick. I jerked on the cloth, but it stuck, dried blood catching.
The cloth peeled back with a wet, sucking sound.
It looked like someone had taken a giant ice cream
scoop and gutted him. Stomach, intestines, upper bowels, gone. The
sunshine swam around me, and I had to put a hand on the ground to
keep from falling.
I glanced up at the face. His hair was pale brown
like his mother's. Damp curls traced his cheeks. My gaze was pulled
back to the gaping ruin that was his abdomen. There was some dark,
heavy fluid leaking out of the end of his small intestine.
I stumbled away from the crime scene, using the
tombstones to help me stand. I would have run if I hadn't known I
would fall. The sky was spinning to meet the ground. I collapsed in
the smothering grass and vomited.
I threw up until I was empty and the world stopped
spinning. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and stood up using a
crooked headstone for support.
No one said a word as I walked back to them. The
sheet was covering the body. The body. Had to think of it that way.
Couldn't dwell on the fact that it had been a small child.
Couldn't. I'd go mad.
"Well?" Dolph asked.
"He hasn't been dead long. Dammit to hell, Dolph, it
was late morning, maybe just before dawn. He was alive, alive when
that thing took him!" I stared up at him and felt the hot
beginnings of tears. I would not cry. I had already disgraced
myself enough for one day. I took a deep careful breath and let it
out. I would not cry.
"I gave you twenty-four hours to talk to this Dominga
Salvador. Did you find out anything?"
"She says she knows nothing of it. I believe
her."
"Why?"
"Because if she wanted to kill people she wouldn't
have to do anything this dramatic."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"She could wish them to death," I said.
He widened his eyes. "You believe that?"
I shrugged. "Maybe. Yes. Hell, I don't know. She
scares me."
He raised one thick eyebrow. "I'll remember
that."
"I have another name to add to your list though," I
said.
"Who?"
"John Burke. He's up from New Orleans for his
brother's funeral."
He wrote the name in his little notebook. "If he's
just visiting, would he have time?"
"I can't think of a motive, but he could do it if he
wanted to. Check him out with the New Orleans police. I think he's
under suspicion down there for murder."
"What's he doing traveling out of state?"
"I don't think they have any proof," I said. "Dominga
Salvador said she'd help me. She's promised to ask around and tell
me anything she turns up."
"I've been asking around since you gave me her name.
She doesn't help anyone outside her own people. How did you get her
to cooperate?"
I shrugged. "My winning personality."
He shook his head.
"It wasn't illegal, Dolph. Beyond that I don't want
to talk about it."
He let it go. Smart man. "Tell me as soon as you hear
anything, Anita. We've got to stop this thing before it kills
again."
"Agreed." I turned and looked out over the rolling
grass. "Is this the cemetery near where you found the first three
victims?"
"Yes."
"Maybe part of the answer's here then," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"Most vampires have to return to their coffins before
dawn. Ghouls stay in underground tunnels, like giant moles. If it
was either of those I'd say the creature was out here somewhere
waiting for nightfall."
"But," he said.
"But if it's a zombie it isn't harmed by sunlight and
it doesn't need to rest in a coffin. It could be anywhere, but I
think it originally came from this cemetery. If they used voodoo
there will be signs of the ritual."
"Like what?"
"A chalk verve, drawn symbols around the grave, dried
blood, maybe a fire." I stared off at the rustling grass. "Though I
wouldn't want to start an open fire in this place."
"If it wasn't voodoo?" he asked.
"Then it was an animator. Again you look for dried
blood, maybe a dead animal. There won't be as many signs and it's
easier to clean up."
"Are you sure it's some kind of a zombie?" he
asked.
"I don't know what else it could be. I think we
should act like that's what it is. It gives us someplace to look,
and something to look for."
"If it's not a zombie we don't have a clue," he
said.
"Exactly."
He smiled, but it wasn't pleasant. "I hope you're
right, Anita."
"Me, too," I said.
"If it did come from here, can you find what grave it
came from?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe?" he said.
"Maybe. Raising the dead isn't a science, Dolph.
Sometimes I can feel the dead under the ground. Restlessness. How
old without looking at the tombstone. Sometimes I can't." I
shrugged.
"We'll give you any help you need."
"I have to wait until full dark. My . . . powers are
better after dark."
"That's hours away. Can you do anything now?"
I thought about that for a moment. "No. I'm sorry but
no."
"Okay, you'll come back tonight then?"
"Yeah," I said.
"What time? I'll send some men out."
"I don't know what time. And I don't know how long it
will take. I could be wandering out here for hours and find
nothing."
"Or?"
"Or I could find the beastie itself."
"You'll need backup for that, just in case."
I nodded. "Agreed, but guns, even silver bullets,
won't hurt it."
"What will?"
"Flamethrowers, napalm like the exterminators use on
ghoul tunnels," I said.
"Those aren't standard issue."
"Have an exterminator team standing by," I said.
"Good idea." He made a note.
"I need a favor," I said.
He looked up. "What?"
"Peter Burke was murdered, shot to death. His brother
asked me to find out what progress the police are making."
"You know we can't give out information like
that."
"I know, but if you can get the facts I can feed just
enough to John Burke to keep in touch with him."
"You seem to be getting along well with all our
suspects," he said.
"Yeah."
"I'll find out what I can from homicide. Do you know
what jurisdiction he was found in?"
I shook my head. "I could find out. It would give me
an excuse to talk to Burke again."
"You say he's suspected of murder in New
Orleans."
"Mm-huh," I said.
"And he may have done this." He motioned at the
sheet.
"Yep."
"You watch your back, Anita."
"I always do," I said.
"You call me as early tonight as you can. I don't
want all my people sitting around twiddling their thumbs on
overtime."
"As soon as I can. I've got to cancel three clients
just to make it." Bert was not going to be pleased. The day was
looking up.
"Why didn't it eat more of the boy?" Dolph asked.
"I don't know," I said.
He nodded. "Okay, I'll see you tonight then."
"Say hello to Lucille for me. How's she coming with
her master's degree?"
"Almost done. She'll have it before our youngest gets
his engineering degree."
"Great."
The sheet flapped in the hot wind. A trickle of sweat
trailed down my forehead. I was out of small talk. "See you later,"
I said, and started down the hill. I stopped and turned back.
"Dolph?"
"Yes?" he said.
"I've never heard of a zombie exactly like this one.
Maybe it does rise from its grave more like a vampire. If you kept
that exterminator team and backup hanging around until after dark,
you might catch it rising from the grave and be able to bag
it."
"Is that likely?"
"No, but it's possible," I said.
"I don't know how I'll explain the overtime, but I'll
do it."
"I'll be here as soon as I can."
"What else could be more important than this?" he
asked.
I smiled. "Nothing you'd like to hear about."
"Try me," he said.
I shook my head.
He nodded. "Tonight, early as you can."
"Early as I can," I said.
Detective Perry escorted me back. Maybe politeness,
maybe he just wanted to get away from the corpus delicti. I didn't
blame him. "How's your wife, Detective?"
"We're expecting our first baby in a month."
I smiled up at him. "I didn't know.
Congratulations."
"Thank you." His face clouded over, a frown puckering
between his dark eyes. "Do you think we can find this creature
before it kills again?"
"I hope so," I said.
"What are our chances?"
Did he want reassurance or the truth. Truth. "I
haven't the faintest idea."
"I was hoping you wouldn't say that," he said.
"So was I, Detective. So was I."
Chapter 11
What was more important than bagging the critter that
had eviscerated an entire family? Nothing, absolutely nothing. But
it was a while until full dark, and I had other problems. Would
Tommy go back to Gaynor and tell him what I said? Yes. Would Gaynor
let it go? Probably not. I needed information. I needed to know how
far he would go. A reporter, I needed a reporter. Irving Griswold
to the rescue.
Irving had one of those pastel cubicles that passes
for an office. No roof, no door, but you got walls. Irving is
five-three. I'd like him for that reason if nothing else. You don't
meet many men exactly my height. Frizzy brown hair framed his bald
spot like petals on a flower. He wore a white dress shirt, sleeves
rolled up to the elbow, tie at half-mast. His face was round,
pink-cheeked. He looked like a bald cherub. He did not look like a
werewolf, but he was one. Even lycanthropy can't cure baldness.
No one on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch knew
Irving was a shapeshifter. It is a disease, and it's illegal to
discriminate against lycanthropes, just like people with AIDS, but
people do it anyway. Maybe the paper's management would have been
broad-minded, liberal, but I was with Irving. Caution was
better.
Irving sat in his desk chair. I leaned in the doorway
of his cubicle. "How's tricks?" Irving said.
"Do you really think you're funny, or is this just an
annoying habit?" I asked.
He grinned. "I'm hilarious. Ask my girlfriend."
"I'll bet," I said.
"What's up, Blake? And please tell me whatever it is
is on the record, not off."
"How would you like to do an article on the new
zombie legislation that's being cooked up?"
"Maybe," he said. His eyes narrowed, suspicion
gleamed forth. "What do you want in return?"
"This part is off the record, Irving, for now."
"It figures." He frowned at me. "Go on."
"I need all the information you have on Harold
Gaynor."
"Name doesn't ring any bells," he said. "Should it?"
His eyes had gone from cheerful to steady. His concentration was
nearly perfect when he smelled a story.
"Not necessarily," I said. Cautious. "Can you get the
information for me?"
"In exchange for the zombie story?"
"I'll take you to all the businesses that use
zombies. You can bring a photographer and snap pictures of
corpses."
His eyes lit up. "A series of articles with lots of
semi-gruesome pictures. You center stage in a suit. Beauty and the
Beast. My editor would probably go for it."
"I thought he might, but I don't know about the
center stage stuff."
"Hey, your boss will love it. Publicity means more
business."
"And sells more papers," I said.
"Sure," Irving said. He looked at me for maybe a
minute. The room was almost silent. Most had gone home. Irving's
little pool of light was one of just a few. He'd been waiting on
me. So much for the press never sleeps. The quiet breath of the air
conditioner filled the early evening stillness.
"I'll see if Harold Gaynor's in the computer," Irving
said at last.
I smiled at him. "Remembered the name after me
mentioning it just once, pretty good."
"I am, after all, a trained reporter," he said. He
swiveled his chair back to his computer keyboard with exaggerated
movements. He pulled imaginary gloves on and adjusted the long
tails of a tux.
"Oh, get on with it." I smiled a little wider.
"Do not rush the maestro." He typed a few words and
the screen came to life. "He's on file," Irving said. "A big file.
It'd take forever to print it all up." He swiveled the chair back
to look at me. It was a bad sign.
"I'll tell you what," he said. "I'll get the file
together, complete with pictures if we have any. I'll deliver it to
your sweet hands."
"What's the catch?"
He put his fingers to his chest. "Moi, no
catch. The goodness of my heart."
"All right, bring it by my apartment."
"Why don't we meet at Dead Dave's, instead?" he
said.
"Dead Dave's is down in the vampire district. What
are you doing hanging around out there?"
His sweet cherubic face was watching me very
steadily. "Rumor has it that there's a new Master Vampire of the
City. I want the story."
I just shook my head. "So you're hanging around Dead
Dave's to get information?"
"Exactly."
"The vamps won't talk to you. You look human."
"Thanks for the compliment," he said. "The vamps do
talk to you, Anita. Do you know who the new Master is? Can I meet
him, or her? Can I do an interview?"
"Jesus, Irving, don't you have enough troubles
without messing with the king vampire?"
"It's a him then," he said.
"It's a figure of speech," I said.
"You know something. I know you do."
"What I know is that you don't want to come to the
attention of a master vampire. They're mean, Irving."
"The vampires are trying to mainstream themselves.
They want positive attention. An interview about what he wants to
do with the vampire community. His vision of the future. It would
be very up-and-coming. No corpse jokes. No sensationalism. Straight
journalism."
"Yeah, right. On page one a tasteful little headline:
THE MASTER VAMPIRE OF ST. LOUIS SPEAKS OUT."
"Yeah, it'll be great."
"You've been sniffing newsprint again, Irving."
"I'll give you everything we have on Gaynor.
Pictures."
"How do you know you have pictures?" I said.
He stared up at me, his round, pleasant face
cheerfully blank.
"You recognized the name, you little son of. . ."
"Tsk, tsk, Anita. Help me get an interview with the
Master of the City. I'll give you anything you want."
"I'll give you a series of articles about zombies.
Full-color pictures of rotting corpses, Irving. It'll sell
papers."
"No interview with the Master?" he said.
"If you're lucky, no," I said.
"Shoot."
"Can I have the file on Gaynor?"
He nodded. "I'll get it together." He looked up at
me. "I still want you to meet me at Dead Dave's. Maybe a vamp will
talk to me with you around."
"Irving, being seen with a legal executioner of
vampires is not going to endear you to the vamps."
"They still call you the Executioner?"
"Among other things."
"Okay, the Gaynor file for going along on your next
vampire execution?"
"No," I said.
"Ah, Anita. . ."
"No."
He spread his hands wide. "Okay, just an idea. It'd
be a great article."
"I don't need the publicity, Irving, not that kind
anyway."
He nodded. "Yeah, yeah. I'll meet you at Dead Dave's
in about two hours."
"Make it an hour. I'd like to be out of the District
before full dark."
"Is anybody gunning for you down there? I mean I
don't want to endanger you, Blake." He grinned. "You've given me
too many lead stories. I wouldn't want to lose you."
"Thanks for the concern. No, no one's after me. Far
as I know."
"You don't sound real certain."
I stared at him. I thought about telling him that the
new Master of the City had sent me a dozen white roses and an
invitation to go dancing. I had turned him down. There had been a
message on my machine and an invitation to a black tie affair. I
ignored it all. So far the Master was behaving like the courtly
gentleman he had been a few centuries back. It couldn't last.
Jean-Claude was not a person who took defeat easily.
I didn't tell Irving. He didn't need to know. "I'll
see you at Dead Dave's in an hour. I'm gonna run home and
change."
"Now that you mention it, I've never seen you in a
dress before."
"I had a funeral today."
"Business or personal?"
"Personal," I said.
"Then I'm sorry."
I shrugged. "I've got to go if I'm going to have time
to change and then meet you. Thanks, Irving."
"It's not a favor, Blake. I'll make you pay for those
zombie articles."
I sighed. I had images of him making me embrace the
poor corpse. But the new legislation needed attention. The more
people who understood the horror of it, the better chance it had to
pass. In truth, Irving was still doing me a favor. No need to let
him know that, though.
I walked away into the dimness of the darkened
office. I waved over my shoulder without looking back. I wanted to
get out of this dress and into something I could hide a gun on. If
I was going into Blood Square, I might need it.
Chapter 12
Dead Dave's is in the part of St. Louis that has two
names. Polite: the Riverfront. Rude: the Blood Quarter. It is our
town's hottest vampire commercial district. Big tourist attraction.
Vampires have really put St. Louis on the vacation maps. You'd
think that the Ozark Mountains, some of the best fishing in the
country, the symphony, Broadway level musicals, or maybe the
Botanical Gardens would be enough, but no. I guess it's hard to
compete with the undead. I know I find it difficult.
Dead Dave's is all dark glass and beer signs in the
windows. The afternoon sunlight was fading into twilight. Vamps
wouldn't be out until full dark. I had a little under two hours.
Get in, look over the file, get out. Easy. Ri-ight.
I had changed into black shorts, royal-blue polo
shirt, black Nikes with a matching blue swish, black and white
jogging socks, and a black leather belt. The belt was there so the
shoulder holster had something to hang on. My Browning Hi-Power was
secure under my left arm. I had thrown on a short-sleeved dress
shirt to hide the gun. The dress shirt was in a modest black and
royal-blue print. The outfit looked great. Sweat trickled down my
spine. Too hot for the shirt, but the Browning gave me thirteen
bullets. Fourteen if you're animal enough to shove the magazine
full and carry one in the chamber.
I didn't think things were that bad, yet. I did have
an extra magazine shoved into the pocket of my shorts. I know it
picks up pocket lint, but where else was I going to carry it? One
of these days I promise to get a deluxe holster with spaces for
extra magazines. But all the models I'd seen had to be cut down to
my size and made me feel like the Frito Bandito.
I almost never carry an extra clip when I've got the
Browning. Let's face it, if you need more than thirteen bullets,
it's over. The really sad part was the extra ammo wasn't for Tommy,
or Gaynor. It was for Jean-Claude. The Master Vampire of the City.
Not that silver-plated bullets would kill him. But they would hurt
him, make him heal almost human slow.
I wanted out of the District before dark. I did not
want to run into Jean-Claude. He wouldn't attack me. In fact, his
intentions were good, if not exactly honorable. He had offered me
immortality without the messy part of becoming a vampire. There was
some implication that I got him along with eternity. He was tall,
pale, and handsome. Sexier than a silk teddy.
He wanted me to be his human servant. I wasn't
anyone's servant. Not even for eternal life, eternal youth, and a
little compromise of the soul. The price was too steep. Jean-Claude
didn't believe that. The Browning was in case I had to make him
believe it.
I stepped into the bar and was momentarily blind,
waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dimness. Like one of those old
westerns where the good guy hesitates at the front of the bar and
views the crowd. I suspected he wasn't looking for the bad guy at
all. He had just come out of the sun and couldn't see shit. No one
ever shoots you while you're waiting for your eyes to adjust. I
wonder why?
It was after five on a Thursday. Most of the bar
stools and all the tables were taken. The place was cheek to jowl
with business suits, male and female. A spattering of work boots
and tans that ended at the elbow, but mostly upwardly mobile types.
Dead Dave's had become trendy despite efforts to keep it at
bay.
It looked like happy hour was in high gear. Shit. All
the yuppies were here to catch a nice safe glimpse of a vampire.
They would be slightly sloshed when it happened. Increase the
thrill I guess.
Irving was sitting at the rounded corner of the bar.
He saw me and waved. I waved back and started pushing my way
towards him.
I squeezed between two gentlemen in suits. It took
some maneuvering, and a very uncool-looking hop to mount the bar
stool.
Irving grinned broadly at me. There was a nearly
solid hum of conversation in the air. Words translated into pure
noise like the ocean. Irving had to lean into me to be heard over
the murmuring sound.
"I hope you appreciate how many dragons I had to slay
to save that seat for you," he said. The faint smell of whiskey
breathed along my cheek as he spoke.
"Dragons are easy, try vampires sometimes," I
said.
His eyes widened. Before his mouth could form the
question, I said, "I'm kidding, Irving." Sheesh, some people just
don't have a sense of humor. "Besides, dragons were never native to
North America," I said.
"I knew that."
"Sure," I said.
He sipped whiskey from a faceted glass. The amber
liquid shimmered in the subdued light.
Luther, daytime manager and bartender, was down at
the far end of the bar dealing with a group of very happy people.
If they had been any happier they'd have been passed out on the
floor.
Luther is large, not tall, fat. But it is solid fat,
almost a kind of muscle. His skin is so black, it has purple
highlights. The cigarette between his lips flared orange as he took
a breath. He could talk around a cig better than anyone I'd ever
met.
Irving picked up a scuffed leather briefcase from off
the floor near his feet. He fished out a file over three inches
thick. A large rubber band wrapped it together.
"Jesus, Irving. Can I take it home with me?"
He shook his head. "A sister reporter is doing a
feature on local upstanding businessmen who are not what they seem.
I had to promise her dibs on my firstborn to borrow it for the
night."
I looked at the stack of papers. I sighed. The man on
my right nearly rammed an elbow in my face. He turned. "Sorry,
little lady, sorry. No harm done." Little came out liddle, and
sorry slushed around the edges.
"No harm," I said.
He smiled and turned back to his friend. Another
business type who laughed uproariously at something. Get drunk
enough and everything is funny.
"I can't possibly read the file here," I said.
He grinned. "I'll follow you anywhere."
Luther stood in front of me. He pulled a cigarette
from the pack he always carried with him. He put the tip of his
still burning stub against the fresh cigarette. The end flared red
like a live coal. Smoke trickled up his nose and out his mouth.
Like a dragon.
He crushed the old cig in the clear glass ashtray he
carried with him from place to place like a teddy bear. He chain
smokes, is grossly overweight, and his grey hair puts him over
fifty. He's never sick. He should be the national poster child for
the Tobacco Institute.
"A refill?" he asked Irving.
"Yeah, thanks."
Luther took the glass, refilled it from a bottle
under the bar, and set it back down on a fresh napkin.
"What can I get for ya, Anita?" he asked.
"The usual, Luther."
He poured me a glass of orange juice. We pretend it
is a screwdriver. I'm a teetotaler, but why would I come to a bar
if I didn't drink?
He wiped the bar with a spotless white towel. "Gotta
message for you from the Master."
"The Master Vampire of the City?" Irving asked. His
voice had that excited lilt to it. He smelled news.
"What?" There was no excited lilt to my voice.
"He wants to see you, bad."
I glanced at Irving, then back at Luther. I tried to
telepathically send the message, not in front of the reporter. It
didn't work.
"The Master's put the word out. Anybody who sees you
gives you the message."
Irving was looking back and forth between us like an
eager puppy. "What does the Master of the City want with you,
Anita?"
"Consider it given," I said.
Luther shook his head. "You ain't going to talk to
him, are you?"
"No," I said.
"Why not?" Irving asked.
"None of your business."
"Off the record," he said.
"No."
Luther stared at me. "Listen to me, girl, you talk to
the Master. Right now all the vamps and freaks are just
supposed to tell you the Master wants a powwow. The next order will
be to detain you and take ya to him."
Detain, it was a nice word for kidnap. "I don't have
anything to say to the Master."
"Don't let this get outta hand, Anita," Luther said.
"Just talk to him, no harm."
That's what he thought. "Maybe I will." Luther was
right. It was talk to him now or later. Later would probably be a
lot less friendly.
"Why does the Master want to talk to you?" Irving
asked. He was like some curious, bright-eyed bird that had spied a
worm.
I ignored the question, and thought up a new one.
"Did your sister reporter give you any highlights from this file? I
don't really have time to read War and Peace before
morning."
"Tell me what you know about the Master, and I'll
give you the highlights."
"Thanks a lot, Luther."
"I didn't mean to sic him on you," he said. His cig
bobbed up and down as he spoke. I never understood how he did that.
Lip dexterity. Years of practice.
"Would everybody stop treating me like the bubonic
fucking plague," Irving said. "I'm just trying to do my job."
I sipped my orange juice and looked at him. "Irving,
you're messing with things you don't understand. I cannot give you
info on the Master. I can't."
"Won't," he said.
I shrugged. "Won't, but the reason I won't is because
I can't."
"That's a circular argument," he said.
"Sue me." I finished the juice. I didn't want it
anyway. "Listen, Irving, we had a deal. The file info for the
zombie articles. If you're going to break your word, deal's off.
But tell me it's off. I don't have time to sit here and play twenty
damn questions."
"I won't go back on the deal. My word is my bond," he
said in as stagy a voice as he could manage in the murmurous noise
of the bar.
"Then give me the highlights and let me get the hell
out of the District before the Master hunts me up."
His face was suddenly solemn. "You're in trouble,
aren't you?"
"Maybe. Help me out, Irving. Please."
"Help her out," Luther said.
Maybe it was the please. Maybe it was Luther's
looming presence. Whatever, Irving nodded. "According to my sister
reporter, he's crippled in a wheelchair."
I nodded. Nondirective, that's me.
"He likes his women crippled."
"What do you mean?" I remembered Cicely of the empty
eyes.
"Blind, wheelchair, amputee, whatever, old Harry'll
go for it."
"Deaf," I said.
"Up his alley."
"Why?" I asked. Clever questions are us.
Irving shrugged. "Maybe it makes him feel better
since he's trapped in a chair himself. My fellow reporter didn't
know why he was a deviant, just that he was."
"What else did she tell you?"
"He's never even been charged with a crime, but the
rumors are real ugly. Suspected mob connections, but no proof. Just
rumors."
"Tell me," I said.
"An old girlfriend tried to sue him for palimony. She
disappeared."
"Disappeared as in probably dead," I said.
"Bingo."
I believed it. So he'd used Tommy and Bruno to kill
before. Meant it would be easier to give the order a second time.
Or maybe Gaynor's given the order lots of times, and just never
gotten caught.
"What does he do for the mob that earns him his two
bodyguards?"
"Oh, so you've met his security specialist."
I nodded.
"My fellow reporter would love to talk to you."
"You didn't tell her about me, did you?"
"Do I look like a stoolie?" He grinned at me.
I let that go. "What's he do for the mob?"
"Helps them clean money, or that's what we
suspect."
"No evidence?" I said.
"None." He didn't look happy about it.
Luther shook his head, tapping his cig into the
ashtray. Some ash spilled onto the bar. He wiped it with his
spotless towel. "He sounds like bad news, Anita. Free advice, leave
him the hell alone."
Good advice. Unfortunately. "I don't think he'll
leave me alone."
"I won't ask, I don't want to know." Someone else was
frantically signaling for a refill. Luther drifted over to them. I
could watch the entire bar in the full-length mirror that took up
the wall behind the bar. I could even see the door without turning
around. It was convenient and comforting.
"I will ask," Irving said, "I do want to know."
I just shook my head.
"I know something you don't know," he said.
"And I want to know it?"
He nodded vigorously enough to make his frizzy hair
bob.
I sighed. "Tell me."
"You first."
I had about enough. "I have shared all I am going to
tonight, Irving. I've got the file. I'll look through it. You're
just saving me a little time. Right now, a little time could be
very important to me."
"Oh, shucks, you take all the fun out of being a
hard-core reporter." He looked like he was going to pout.
"Just tell me, Irving, or I'm going to do something
violent."
He half laughed. I don't think he believed me. He
should have. "Alright, alright." He brought out a picture from
behind his back with a flourish like a magician.
It was a black and white photo of a woman. She was in
her twenties, long brown hair down in a modern style, just enough
mousse to make it look spiky. She was pretty. I didn't recognize
her. The photo was obviously not posed. It was too casual and there
was a look to the face of someone who didn't know she was being
photographed.
"Who is she?"
"She was his girlfriend until about five months ago,"
Irving said.
"So she's . . . handicapped?" I stared down at the
pretty, candid face. You couldn't tell by the picture.
"Wheelchair Wanda."
I stared at him. I could feel my eyes going wide.
"You can't be serious."
He grinned. "Wheelchair Wanda cruises the streets in
her chair. She's very popular with a certain crowd."
A prostitute in a wheelchair. Naw, it was too weird.
I shook my head. "Okay, where do I find her?"
"I and my sister reporter want in on this."
"That's why you kept her picture out of the
file."
He didn't even have the grace to look embarrassed.
"Wanda won't talk to you alone, Anita."
"Has she talked to your reporter friend?"
He frowned, the light of conquest dimming in his
eyes. I knew what that meant. "She won't talk to reporters will
she, Irving?"
"She's afraid of Gaynor."
"She should be," I said.
"Why would she talk to you and not us?"
"My winning personality," I said.
"Come on, Blake."
"Where does she hang out, Irving?"
"Oh, hell." He finished his dwindling drink in one
angry swallow. "She stays near a club called The Grey Cat."
The Grey Cat, like that old joke, all cats are grey
in the dark. Cute. "Where's the club?"
Luther answered. I hadn't seen him come back. "On the
main drag in the Tenderloin, corner of Twentieth and Grand. But I
wouldn't go down there alone, Anita."
"I can take care of myself."
"Yeah, but you don't look like you can. You don't
want to have to shoot some dumb shmuck just because he copped a
feel, or worse. Take someone who looks mean, save yourself the
aggravation."
Irving shrugged. "I wouldn't go down there
alone."
I hated to admit it, but they were right. I may be
heap big vampire slayer but it doesn't show much on the outside.
"Okay, I'll get Charles. He looks tough enough to take on the Green
Bay Packers, but his heart is oh so gentle."
Luther laughed, puffing smoke. "Don't let of Charlie
see too much. He might faint."
Faint once in public and people never let you
forget.
"I'll keep Charles safe." I put more money down on
the bar than was needed. Luther hadn't really given me much
information this time, but usually he did. Good information. I
never paid full price for it. I got a discount because I was
connected with the police. Dead Dave had been a cop before they
kicked him off the force for being undead. Shortsighted of them. He
was still pissed about that, but he liked to help. So he fed me
information, and I fed the police selected bits of it.
Dead Dave came out of the door behind the bar. I
glanced at the dark glass windows. It looked the same, but if Dave
was up, it was full dark. Shit. It was a walk back to my car
surrounded by vampires. At least I had my gun. Comforting that.
Dave is tall, wide, short brown hair that had been
balding when he died. He lost no more hair but it didn't grow back
either. He smiled at me wide enough to flash fangs. An excited
wiggle ran through the crowd, as if the same nerve had been touched
in all of them. The whispers spread like rings in a pool. Vampire.
The show was on.
Dave and I shook hands. His hand was warm, firm, and
dry. Have you fed tonight, Dave? He looked like he had, all rosy
and cheerful. What did you feed on, Dave? And was it willing?
Probably. Dave was a good guy for a dead man.
"Luther keeps telling me you stopped by but it's
always in daylight. Nice to see you're slumming after dark."
"Truthfully, I planned to be out of the District
before full dark."
He frowned. "You packing?"
I gave him a discreet glimpse of my gun.
Irving's eyes widened. "You're carrying a gun." It
only sounded like he shouted it.
The noise level had died down to a waiting murmur.
Quiet enough for people to overhear. But then, that's why they had
come, to listen to the vampire. To tell their troubles to the dead.
I lowered my voice and said, "Announce it to the world,
Irving."
He shrugged. "Sorry."
"How do you know newsboy over here?" Dave asked.
"He helps me sometimes with research."
"Research, well la-de-da." He smiled without showing
any fang. A trick you learn after a few years. "Luther give you the
message?"
"Yeah."
"You going to be smart or dumb?"
Dave is sorta blunt, but I like him anyway. "Dumb
probably," I said.
"Just because you got a special relationship with the
new Master, don't let it fool you. He's still a master vampire.
They are freaking bad news. Don't fuck with him."
"I'm trying to avoid it."
Dave smiled broad enough to show fang. "Shit, you
mean . . . Naw, he wants you for more than good tail."
It was nice to know he thought I'd be good tail. I
guess. "Yeah," I said.
Irving was practically bouncing in his seat. "What
the hell is going on, Anita?"
Very good question. "My business, not yours."
"Anita. . ."
"Stop pestering me, Irving. I mean it."
"Pestering? I haven't heard that word since my
grandmother."
I looked him straight in the eyes and said,
carefully, "Leave me the fuck alone. That better?"
He put his hands out in an I-give-up gesture. "Heh,
just trying to do my job."
"Well, do it somewhere else."
I slid off the bar stool.
"The word's out to find you, Anita," Dave said. "Some
of the other vampires might get overzealous."
"You mean try to take me?"
He nodded.
"I'm armed, cross and all. I'll be okay."
"You want me to walk you to your car?" Dave
asked.
I stared into his brown eyes and smiled. "Thanks,
Dave, I'll remember the offer, but I'm a big girl." Truth was a lot
of the vampires didn't like Dave feeding information to the enemy.
I was the Executioner. If a vampire stepped over the line, they
sent for me. There was no such thing as a life sentence for a vamp.
Death or nothing. No prison can hold a vampire.
California tried, but one master vampire got loose.
He killed twenty-five people in a one-night bloodbath. He didn't
feed, he just killed. Guess he was pissed about being locked up.
They'd put crosses over the doors and on the guards. Crosses don't
work unless you believe in them. And they certainly don't work once
a master vampire has convinced you to take them off.
I was the vampire's equivalent of an electric chair.
They didn't like me much. Surprise, surprise.
"I'll be with her," Irving said. He put money down on
the bar and stood up. I had the bulky file under my arm. I guess he
wasn't going to let it out of his sight. Great.
"She'll probably have to protect you, too," Dave
said.
Irving started to say something, then thought better
of it. He could say, but I'm a lycanthrope, except he didn't want
people to know. He worked very, very hard at appearing human.
"You sure you'll be okay?" he asked. One more chance
for a vampire guard to my car.
He was offering to protect me from the Master. Dave
hadn't been dead ten years. He wasn't good enough. "Nice to know
you care, Dave."
"Go on, get outta here," he said.
"Watch yourself, girl," Luther said.
I smiled brightly at both of them, then turned and
walked out of the near silent bar. The crowd couldn't have
overheard much, if any, of the conversation, but I could feel them
staring at my back. I resisted an urge to whirl around and go
"boo." I bet somebody would have screamed.
It's the cross-shaped scar on my arm. Only vampires
have them, right? A cross shoved into unclean flesh. Mine had been
a branding iron specially made. A now dead master vampire had
ordered it. Thought it would be funny. Hardy-har.
Or maybe it was just Dave. Maybe they hadn't noticed
the scar. Maybe I was overly sensitive. Make friendly with a nice
law-abiding vampire, and people get suspicious. Have a few funny
scars and people wonder if you're human. But that's okay. Suspicion
is healthy. It'll keep you alive.
Chapter 13
The sweltering darkness closed around me like a hot,
sticky fist. A streetlight formed a puddle of brilliance on the
sidewalk, as if the light had melted. All the streetlights are
reproductions of turn-of-the-century gas lamps. They rise black and
graceful, but not quite authentic. Like a Halloween costume. It
looks good but is too comfortable to be real.
The night sky was like a dark presence over the tall
brick buildings, but the streetlights held the darkness back. Like
a black tent held up by sticks of light. You had the sense of
darkness without the reality.
I started walking for the parking garage just off
First Street. Parking on the Riverfront is damn near impossible.
The tourists have only made the problem worse.
The hard soles of Irving's dress shoes made a loud,
echoing noise on the stone of the street. Real cobblestones.
Streets meant for horses, not cars. It made parking a bitch, but it
was . . . charming.
My Nike Airs made almost no sound on the street.
Irving was like a clattery puppy beside me. Most lycanthropes I've
met have been stealthy. Irving may have been a werewolf but he was
more dog. A big, fun-loving dog.
Couples and small groups passed us, laughing,
talking, voices too shrill. They had come to see vampires. Real-live
vampires, or was that real-dead vampires? Tourists, all of
them. Amateurs. Voyeurs. I had seen more undead than any of them.
I'd lay money on that. The fascination escaped me.
It was full dark now. Dolph and the gang would be
awaiting me at Burrell Cemetery. I needed to get over there. What
about the file on Gaynor? And what was I going to do with Irving?
Sometimes my life is too full.
A figure detached itself from the darkened buildings.
I couldn't tell if he had been waiting or had simply appeared.
Magic. I froze, like a rabbit caught in headlights, staring.
"What's wrong, Blake?" Irving asked.
I handed him the file and he took it, looking
puzzled. I wanted my hands free in case I had to go for my gun. It
probably wouldn't come to that. Probably.
Jean-Claude, Master Vampire of the City, walked
towards us. He moved like a dancer, or a cat, a smooth, gliding
walk. Energy and grace contained, waiting to explode into
violence.
He wasn't that tall, maybe five-eleven. His shirt was
so white, it gleamed. The shirt was loose, long, full sleeves made
tight at the wrist by three-buttoned cuffs. The front of the shirt
had only a string to close the throat. He'd left it untied, and the
white cloth framed the pale smoothness of his chest. The shirt was
tucked into tight black jeans, and only that kept it from billowing
around him like a cape.
His hair was perfectly black, curling softly around
his face. The eyes, if you dared to look into them, were a blue so
dark it was almost black. Glittering, dark jewels.
He stopped about six feet in front of us. Close
enough to see the dark cross-shaped scar on his chest. It was the
only thing that marred the perfection of his body. Or what I'd seen
of his body.
My scar had been a bad joke. His had been some poor
sod's last attempt to stave off death. I wondered if the poor sod
had escaped? Would Jean-Claude tell me if I asked? Maybe. But if
the answer was no, I didn't want to hear it.
"Hello, Jean-Claude," I said.
"Greetings, ma petite," he said. His voice
was like fur, rich, soft, vaguely obscene, as if just talking to
him was something dirty. Maybe it was.
"Don't call me ma petite," I said.
He smiled slightly, not a hint of fang. "As you
like." He looked at Irving. Irving looked away, careful not to meet
Jean-Claude's eyes. You never looked directly into a vampire's
eyes. Never. So why was I doing it with impunity. Why indeed?
"Who is your friend?" The last word was very soft and
somehow threatening.
"This is Irving Griswold. He's a reporter for the
Post-Dispatch. He's helping me with a little
research."
"Ah," he said. He walked around Irving as if he were
something for sale, and Jean-Claude wanted to see all of him.
Irving gave nervous little glances so that he could
keep the vampire in view. He glanced at me, widening his eyes.
"What's going on?"
"What indeed, Irving?" Jean-Claude said.
"Leave him alone, Jean-Claude."
"Why have you not come to see me, my little
animator?"
Little animator wasn't much of an improvement over
ma petite, but I'd take it. "I've been busy."
The look that crossed his face was almost anger. I
didn't really want him mad at me. "I was going to come see you," I
said.
"When?"
"Tomorrow night."
"Tonight." It was not a suggestion.
"I can't."
"Yes, ma petite, you can." His voice was
like a warm wind in my head.
"You are so damn demanding," I said.
He laughed then. Pleasant and resonating like
expensive perfume that lingers in the room after the wearer has
gone. His laughter was like that, lingering in the ears like
distant music. He had the best voice of any master vampire I'd ever
met. Everyone has their talents.
"You are so exasperating," he said, the edge of
laughter still in his voice. "What am I to do with you?"
"Leave me alone," I said. I was utterly serious. It
was one of my biggest wishes.
His face sobered completely, like someone had flipped
a switch. On, happy, off, unreadable. "Too many of my followers
know you are my human servant, ma petite. Bringing you
under control is part of consolidating my power." He sounded almost
regretful. A lot of help that did me.
"What do you mean, bringing me under control?" My
stomach was tight with the beginnings of fear. If Jean-Claude
didn't scare me to death, he was going to give me an ulcer.
"You are my human servant. You must start acting like
one."
"I am not your servant."
"Yes, ma petite, you are."
"Dammit, Jean-Claude, leave me alone."
He was suddenly standing next to me. I hadn't seen
him move. He had clouded my mind without me even blinking. I could
taste my pulse at the back of my throat. I tried to step back, but
one pale slender hand grabbed my right arm, just above the elbow. I
shouldn't have stepped back. I should have gone for my gun. I hoped
I would live through the mistake.
My voice came out flat, normal. At least I'd die
brave. "I thought having two of your vampire marks meant you
couldn't control my mind."
"I cannot bewitch you with my eyes, and it is harder
to cloud your mind, but it can be done." His fingers encircled my
arm. Not hurting. I didn't try to pull away. I knew better. He
could crush my arm without breaking a sweat, or tear it from its
socket, or bench press a Toyota. If I couldn't arm wrestle Tommy, I
sure as hell couldn't match Jean-Claude.
"He's the new Master of the City, isn't he?" It was
Irving. I think we had forgotten about him. It would have been
better for Irving if we had.
Jean-Claude's grip tightened slightly on my right
arm. He turned to look at Irving. "You are the reporter that has
been asking to interview me."
"Yes, I am." Irving sounded just the tiniest bit
nervous, not much, just the hint of tightness in his voice. He
looked brave and resolute. Good for Irving.
"Perhaps after I have spoken with this lovely young
woman, I will grant you your interview."
"Really?" Astonishment was plain in his voice. He
grinned widely at me. "That would be great. I'll do it any way you
want. It. . ."
"Silence." The word hissed and floated. Irving fell
quiet as if it were a spell.
"Irving, are you alright?" Funny me asking. I was the
one cheek to jowl with a vampire, but I asked anyway.
"Yeah," Irving said. That one word was squeezed small
with fear. "I've just never felt anything like him."
I glanced up at Jean-Claude. "He is sort of one of a
kind."
Jean-Claude turned his attention back to me. Oh,
goody. "Still making jokes, ma petite."
I stared up into his beautiful eyes, but they were
just eyes. He had given me the power to resist them. "It's a way to
pass the time. What do you want, Jean-Claude?"
"So brave, even now."
"You aren't going to do me on the street, in front of
witnesses. You may be the new Master, but you're also a
businessman. You're mainstream vampire. It limits what you can
do."
"Only in public," he said, so soft that only I heard
him.
"Fine, but we both agree you aren't going to do
violence here and now." I stared up at him. "So cut the theatrics
and tell me what the bloody hell you want."
He smiled then, a bare movement of lips, but he
released my arm and stepped back. "Just as you will not shoot me
down in the street without provocation."
I thought I had provocation, but nothing I could
explain to the police. "I don't want to be up on murder charges,
that's true."
His smile widened, still not fangs. He did that
better than any living vampire I knew. Was living vampire an
oxymoron? I wasn't sure anymore.
"So, we will not harm each other in public," he
said.
"Probably not," I said. "What do you want? I'm late
for an appointment."
"Are you raising zombies or slaying vampires
tonight?"
"Neither," I said.
He looked at me, waiting for me to say more. I
didn't. He shrugged and it was graceful. "You are my human servant,
Anita."
He'd used my real name, I knew I was in trouble now.
"Am not," I said.
He gave a long sigh. "You bear two of my marks."
"Not by choice," I said.
"You would have died if I had not shared my strength
with you."
"Don't give me crap about how you saved my life. You
forced two marks on me. You didn't ask or explain. The first mark
may have saved my life, great. The second mark saved yours. I
didn't have a choice either time."
"Two more marks and you will have immortality. You
will not age because I do not age. You will remain human, alive,
able to wear your crucifix. Able to enter a church. It does not
compromise your soul. Why do you fight me?"
"How do you know what compromises my soul? You don't
have one anymore. You traded your immortal soul for earthly
eternity. But I know that vampires can die, Jean-Claude. What
happens when you die? Where do you go? Do you just go poof? No, you
go to hell where you belong."
"And you think by being my human servant you will go
with me?"
"I don't know, and I don't want to find out."
"By fighting me, you make me appear weak. I cannot
afford that, ma petite. One way or another, we must
resolve this."
"Just leave me alone."
"I cannot. You are my human servant, and you must
begin to act like one."
"Don't press me on this, Jean-Claude."
"Or what, will you kill me? Could you kill me?"
I stared at his beautiful face and said, "Yes."
"I feel your desire for me, ma petite, as I
desire you."
I shrugged. What could I say? "It's just a little
lust, Jean-Claude, nothing special." That was a lie. I knew it even
as I said it.
"No, ma petite, I mean more to you than
that."
We were attracting a crowd, at a safe distance. "Do
you really want to discuss this in the street?"
He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "Very
true. You make me forget myself, ma petite."
Great. "I really am late, Jean-Claude. The police are
waiting for me."
"We must finish this discussion, ma petite,"
he said.
I nodded. He was right. I'd been trying to ignore it,
and him. Master vampires are not easy to ignore. "Tomorrow
night."
"Where?" he asked.
Polite of him not to order me to his lair. I thought
about where best to do it. I wanted Charles to go down to the
Tenderloin with me. Charles was going to be checking the zombie
working conditions at a new comedy club. Good a place as any. "Do
you know The Laughing Corpse?"
He smiled, a glimpse of fang touching his lips. A
woman in the small crowd gasped. "Yes."
"Meet me there at, say, eleven o'clock."
"My pleasure." The words caressed my skin like a
promise. Shit.
"I will await you in my office, tomorrow night."
"Wait a minute. What do you mean, your office?" I had
a bad feeling about this.
His smile widened into a grin, fangs glistening in
the streetlights. "Why, I own The Laughing Corpse. I thought you
knew."
"The hell you did."
"I will await you."
I'd picked the place. I'd stand by it. Dammit. "Come
on, Irving."
"No, let the reporter stay. He has not had his
interview."
"Leave him alone, Jean-Claude, please."
"I will give him what he desires, nothing more."
I didn't like the way he said desires. "What are you
up to?"
"Me, ma petite, up to something?" He smiled.
"Anita, I want to stay," Irving said.
I turned to him. "You don't know what you're
saying."
"I'm a reporter. I'm doing my job."
"Swear to me, swear to me you won't harm him."
"You have my word," Jean-Claude said.
"That you will not harm him in any way."
"That I will not harm him in any way." His face was
expressionless, as if all the smiles had been illusions. His face
had that immobility of the long dead. Lovely to look at, but empty
of life as a painting.
I looked into his blank eyes and shivered. Shit. "Are
you sure you want to stay here?"
Irving nodded. "I want the interview."
I shook my head. "You're a fool."
"I'm a good reporter," he said.
"You're still a fool."
"I can take care of myself, Anita."
We looked at each other for a space of heartbeats.
"Fine, have fun. May I have the file?"
He looked down at his arms as if he had forgotten he
was holding it. "Drop it by tomorrow morning or Madeline is going
to have a fit."
"Sure. No problem." I tucked the bulky file under my
left arm as loosely as I could manage it. It hampered my being able
to draw my gun, but life's imperfect.
I had information on Gaynor. I had the name of a
recent ex-girlfriend. A woman scorned. Maybe she'd talk to me.
Maybe she'd help me find clues. Maybe she'd tell me to go to hell.
Wouldn't be the first time.
Jean-Claude was watching me with his still eyes. I
took a deep breath through my nose and let it out through my mouth.
Enough for one night. "See you both tomorrow." I turned and walked
away. There was a group of tourists with cameras. One was sort of
tentatively raised in my direction.
"If you snap my picture, I will take the camera away
from you and break it." I smiled while I said it.
The man lowered his camera uncertainly. "Geez, just a
little picture."
"You've seen enough," I said. "Move on, the show's
over." The tourists drifted away like smoke when the wind blows
through it. I walked down the street towards the parking garage. I
glanced back and found the tourists had drifted back to surround
Jean-Claude and Irving. The tourists were right. The show wasn't
over yet.
Irving was a big boy. He wanted the interview. Who
was I to play nursemaid on a grown werewolf? Would Jean-Claude find
out Irving's secret? If he did, would it make a difference? Not my
problem. My problem was Harold Gaynor, Dominga Salvador, and a
monster that was eating the good citizens of St. Louis, Missouri.
Let Irving take care of his own problems. I had enough of my
own.
Chapter 14
The night sky was a curving bowl of liquid black.
Stars like pinprick diamonds gave a cold, hard fight. The moon was
a glowing patchwork of greys and goldish-silver. The city makes you
forget how dark the night, how bright the moon, how very many
stars.
Burrell Cemetery didn't have any streetlights. There
was nothing but the distant yellow gleam of a house's windows. I
stood at the top of the hill in my coveralls and Nikes,
sweating.
The boy's body was gone. It was in the morgue waiting
for the coroner's attentions. I was finished with it. Never had to
look at it again. Except in my dreams.
Dolph stood beside me. He didn't say a word, just
looked out over the grass and broken tombstones, waiting. Waiting
for me to do my magic. To pull the rabbit out of the hat. The best
that could happen was the rabbit to be in and to destroy it. Next
best thing was finding the hole it had come from. That could tell
us something. And something was better than what we had right
now.
The exterminators followed a few paces behind. The
man was short, beefy, grey hair cut in a butch. He looked like a
retired football coach, but he handled the flamethrower strapped to
his back like it was something alive. Thick hands caressing it.
The woman was young, no more than twenty. Thin blond
hair tied back in a ponytail. She was a little taller than me,
small. Wisps of hair trailed across her face. Her eyes were wide
and searched the tall grass, side to side. Like a gunner on
point.
I hoped she didn't have an itchy trigger finger. I
didn't want to be eaten by a killer zombie, but I didn't want to be
plastered with napalm either. Burned alive or eaten alive? Is there
anything else on the menu?
The grass rustled and whispered like dry autumn
leaves. If we did use the flamethrowers in here, it'd be a grass
fire. We'd be lucky to outrun it. But fire was the only thing that
could stop a zombie. If it was a zombie and not something else
altogether.
I shook my head and started walking. Doubts would get
us nowhere. Act like you know what you're doing; it was a rule I
lived by.
I am sure that Señora Salvador would have had
a specific rite or sacrifice to find a zombie's grave. Her way of
doing all this had more rules than my way. Of course her way
enabled her to trap souls in rotting corpses. I had never hated
anyone enough to do that to them. Kill them, yes, but entrap their
soul and make it sit and wait and feel its body rotting. No, that
was worse than wicked. It was evil. She needed to be stopped, and
only death would do that. I sighed. Another problem for another
night.
It bothered me to hear Dolph's footsteps echoing
mine. I glanced back at the two exterminators. They killed
everything from termites to ghouls, but ghouls are cowards,
scavengers mostly. Whatever we were after wasn't a scavenger.
I could feel the three of them at my back. Their
footsteps seemed louder than mine. I tried to clear my mind and
start the search, but all I could hear was their footsteps. All I
could sense was the woman's fear. They were messing up my
concentration.
I stopped. "Dolph, I need more room."
"What does that mean?"
"Hang back a little. You're ruining my
concentration."
"We might be too far away to help."
"If the zombie rises out of the ground and leeches on
me . . ." I shrugged. "What are you going to do, shoot it with
napalm and crispy-critter me, too?"
"You said fire was the only weapon," he said.
"It is, but if the zombie actually grapples with
anyone, tell the exterminators not to fry the victim."
"If the zombie grabs one of us, we can't use the
napalm?" he said.
"Bingo."
"You could have said this sooner."
"I just thought of it."
"Great," he said.
I shrugged. "I'll take point. My oversight. Just hang
back and let me do my job." I stepped in close to him to whisper,
"And watch the woman. She looks scared enough to start shooting
shadows."
"They're exterminators, Anita, not police or vampire
slayers."
"For tonight, our lives could depend on them, so keep
an eye on her, okay?"
He nodded and glanced back at the two exterminators.
The man smiled and nodded. The girl just stared. I could almost
smell her fear.
She was entitled to it. Why did it bother me so much?
Because she and I were the only women here, and we had to be better
than the men. Braver, quicker, whatever. It was a rule for playing
with the big boys.
I walked out into the grass alone. I waited until the
only thing I could hear was the grass; soft, dry, whispering. Like
it was trying to tell me something in a scratchy, frantic voice.
Frantic, fearful. The grass sounded afraid. That was stupid. Grass
didn't feel shit. But I did, and there was sweat on every inch of
my body. Was it here? Was the thing that had reduced a man to so
much raw meat, here in the grass, hiding, waiting?
No. Zombies weren't smart enough for that, but of
course, it had been smart enough to hide from the police. That was
smart for a corpse. Too smart. Maybe it wasn't a zombie at all. I
had finally found something that scared me more than vampires.
Death didn't bother me much. Strong Christian and all that. Method
of death did. Being eaten alive. One of my top three ways not to go
out.
Who would ever have thought I'd be afraid of a
zombie, any kind of zombie? Nicely ironic that. I'd laugh later
when my mouth wasn't so damn dry.
There was that quiet waiting that all cemeteries
have. As if the dead held their collective breath, waiting, but for
what? The resurrection? Maybe. But I've dealt with the dead too
long to believe in just one answer. The dead are like the living.
They do different things.
Most people die and go to heaven or hell, and that's
that. But a few, for whatever reason, don't work that way. Ghosts,
restless spirits, violence, evil, or simple confusion; all of these
can trap a spirit on earth. I'm not saying that it traps the soul.
I don't believe that, but some memory of the soul, the essence,
lingers.
Was I expecting some specter to rise from the grass
and rush screaming towards me? No. I had never seen a ghost yet
that could cause actual physical harm. If it causes physical
damage, it isn't a ghost; demon maybe, or the spirit of some
sorcerer, black magic, but ghosts don't hurt.
That was almost a comforting thought.
The ground sloped out from under my feet. I stumbled
and caught myself on one of the leaning headstones. Sunken earth, a
grave without a marker. A tingling shock ran up my leg, a whisper
of ghostly electricity. I jerked back and sat down hard on the
ground.
"Anita, you all right?" Dolph yelled.
I glanced back at him and found the grass completely
hid me from view. "I'm fine," I yelled. I got to my feet careful to
avoid stepping on the old grave. Whatever person lay under the
earth, he, or she, was not a happy camper. It was a hot spot, not a
ghost, or even a haunt, but something. It had probably been a
full-blown ghost once, but time had worn it away. Ghosts wear out
like old clothes and go on to wherever old ghosts go.
The sunken grave would fade away, probably in my
lifetime. If I could avoid killer zombies for a few years. And
vampires. And gun-toting humans. Oh, hell, the hot spot would
probably outlast me.
I looked back to find Dolph and the exterminators
maybe twenty yards back. Twenty yards, wasn't that awfully far? I
had told them to hang back, but I hadn't meant for them to leave me
hanging in the wind. I was just never satisfied.
If I called them to come closer, you think they'd get
mad? Probably. I started walking again, trying not to step on any
more graves. But it was hard with most of the stones hidden in the
long grass. So many unmarked graves, so much neglect.
I could wander aimlessly all bloody night. Had I
really thought that I could just accidentally walk over the right
grave?
Yes. Hope springs eternal, especially when the
alternative isn't very human.
Vampires were once ordinary human beings; zombies,
too. Most lycanthropes start out human, though there are a few rare
inherited curses. All the monsters start out normal except me.
Raising the dead wasn't a career choice. I didn't sit down in the
guidance counselor's office one day and say, "I'd like to raise the
dead for a living." No, it wasn't that neat or clean.
I have always had an affinity for the dead. Always.
Not the newly dead. No, I don't mess with souls, but once the soul
departs, I know it. I can feel it. Laugh all you want. It's the
truth.
I had a dog when I was little. Just like most kids.
And like most kids' dogs, she died. I was thirteen. We buried Jenny
in the backyard. I woke up a week after Jenny died and found her
curled up beside me. Thick black fur coated with grave dirt. Dead
brown eyes following my every move, just like when she was
alive.
I thought for one wild moment she was alive. It had
been a mistake, but I know dead when I see it. Feel it. Call it
from the grave. I wonder what Dominga Salvador would think about
that story. Calling an animal zombie. How shocking. Raising the
dead by accident. How frightening. How sick.
My stepmother, Judith, never quite recovered from the
shock. She rarely tells people what I do for a living. Dad? Well,
Dad ignores it, too. I tried ignoring it, but couldn't. I won't go
into details, but does the term "road kill" have any significance
for you? It did for Judith. I looked like a nightmare version of
the Pied Piper.
My father finally took me to meet my maternal
grandmother. She's not as scary as Dominga Salvador, but she's . .
. interesting. Grandma Flores agreed with Dad. I should not be
trained in voodoo, only in enough control to stop the . . .
problems. "Just teach her to control it," Dad said.
She did. I did. Dad took me back home. It was never
mentioned again. At least not in front of me. I always wondered
what dear stepmother said behind closed doors. For that matter Dad
wasn't pleased either. Hell, I wasn't pleased.
Bert recruited me straight out of college. I never
knew how he heard about me. I refused him at first, but he waved
money at me. Maybe I was rebelling against parental
expectations? Or maybe I had finally realized that there is damn
little employment opportunity for a B.S. in biology with an
emphasis on the supernatural. I minored in creatures of legend.
That was real helpful on my resume.
It was like having a degree in ancient Greek or the
Romantic Poets, interesting, enjoyable, but then what the hell can
you do with it? I had planned to go on to grad school and teach
college. But Bert came along and showed me a way to turn my natural
talent into a job. At least I can say I use my degree every
day.
I never puzzled about how I came to do what I do.
There was no mystery. It was in the blood.
I stood in the graveyard and took a deep breath. A
bead of sweat trickled down my face. I wiped it with the back of my
hand. I was sweating like a pig, and I still felt cold. Fear, but
not of the bogeyman, of what I was about to do.
If it were a muscle, I would move it. If it were a
thought, I would think it. If it were a magic word, I could say it.
It is nothing like that. It is like my skin becomes cool even under
cloth. I can feel all my nerve endings naked to the wind. And even
in this hot, sweating August night, my skin felt cool. It is almost
like a tiny, cool wind emanates from my skin. But it isn't wind, no
one else can feel it. It doesn't blow through a room like a
Hollywood horror movie. It isn't flashy. It's quiet. Private.
Mine.
The cool fingers of "wind" searched outward. Within a
ten-to-fifteen-foot circle I would be able to search the graves. As
I moved, the circle would move with me, searching.
How does it feel to search through the hard-packed
earth for dead bodies? Like nothing human. The closest I can come
to describing it is like phantom fingers rifling through the dirt,
searching for the dead. But, of course, that isn't quite what it
feels like either. Close but no cigar.
The coffin nearest me had been water-ruined years
ago. Bits of warped wood, shreds of bone, nothing whole. Bone and
old wood, dirt, clean and dead. The hot spot flared almost like a
burning sensation. I couldn't read its coffin. The hot spot could
keep its secrets. It wasn't worth forcing the issue. It was a life
force of sorts, trapped to a dead grave until it faded. That is
bound to make you grumpy.
I walked slowly forward. The circle moved with me. I
touched bones, intact coffins, bits of cloth in newer graves. This
was an old cemetery. There were no decaying corpses. Death had
progressed to the nice neat stage.
Something grabbed my ankle. I jumped and walked
forward without looking down. Never look down. It's a rule. I got a
brief glimpse just behind my eyes of something pale and mist-like
with wide screaming eyes.
A ghost, a real-live ghost. I had walked over its
grave and it had let me know it didn't like it. A ghost had grabbed
me round the ankles. Big deal. If you ignored them, the spectral
hands would fade. If you noticed them, you gave them substance, and
you could be in deep shit.
Important safety tip with most of the spiritual
world: if you ignore it, it has less power. This does not work with
demons or other demi-beings. Other exceptions to the rule are
vampires, zombies, ghouls, lycanthropes, witches . . . Oh, hell,
ignoring only works for ghosts. But it does work.
Phantom hands tugged at my pants leg. I could feel
skeletal fingers pulling upwards, as if it would use me to pull
itself from the grave. Shit! I was eating my pulse between my
teeth. Just keep walking. Ignore it. It will go away. Dammit to
hell.
The fingers slipped away, reluctantly. Some types of
ghost seem to bear a grudge against the living. A sort of jealousy.
They cannot harm you, but they scare the bejesus out of you and
laugh while they're doing it.
I found an empty grave. Bits of wood decaying into
the earth, but no trace of bone. No body. Empty. The earth above it
was thick with grass and weeds. The earth was hard-packed and dry
from the drought. The grass and weeds had been disturbed. Bare
roots were showing, almost as if someone had tried to pull the
grass up. Or something had come up underneath the grass and left a
trail.
I knelt on all fours above the dying grass. My hands
stayed on top of the hard, reddish dirt, but I could feel the
inside of the grave like rolling your tongue around your teeth. You
can't see it, but you can feel it.
The corpse was gone. The coffin was undisturbed. A
zombie had come from here. Was it the zombie we were looking for?
No guarantees. But it was the only zombie raising I could
sense.
I stared out away from the grave. It was hard using
just my eyes to search the grass. I could almost see what lay under
the dirt. But the grave showed behind my eyes in my head somewhere
where there were no optic nerves. The graveyard that I could see
with my eyes ended at a fence maybe five yards away. Had I walked
it all? Was this the only grave that was empty?
I stood and looked out over the graves. Dolph and the
two exterminators were still with me about thirty yards back.
Thirty yards? Some backup.
I had walked it all. There was the grabby ghost. The
hot spot was there. The newest grave over there. It was mine now. I
knew this cemetery. And everything that was restless. Everything
that wasn't quite dead was dancing above its grave. White misty
phantoms. Sparkling angry lights. Agitated. There was more than one
way to wake the dead.
But they would quiet down and sleep, if that was the
word. No permanent damage. I glanced back down at the empty grave.
No permanent damage.
I waved Dolph and the others over. I got a Ziploc bag
out of the coverall pocket and scooped some grave dirt into it.
The moonlight suddenly seemed dimmer. Dolph was
standing over me. He did sort of loom.
"Well?" he asked.
"A zombie came out of this grave," I said.
"Is it the killer zombie?"
"I don't know for sure."
"You don't know?"
"Not yet."
"When will you know?"
"I'll take it to Evans and let him do his
touchie-feelie routine on it."
"Evans, the clairvoyant," Dolph said.
"Yep."
"He's a flake."
"True, but he's good."
"The department doesn't use him anymore."
"Bully for the department," I said. "He's still on
retainer at Animators, Inc."
Dolph shook his head. "I don't trust Evans."
"I don't trust anybody," I said. "So what's the
problem?"
Dolph smiled. "Point taken."
I had rolled some of the grass and weeds, roots
carefully intact, inside a second bag. I crawled to the head of the
grave and spread the weeds. There was no marker. Dammit! The pale
limestone had been chipped away at the base. Shattered. Carried
away. Shit.
"Why would they destroy the headstone?" Dolph
asked.
"The name and date could have given us some clue to
why the zombie was raised and to what went wrong."
"Wrong, how?"
"You might raise a zombie to kill one or two people
but not wholesale slaughter. Nobody would do that."
"Unless they're crazy," he said.
I stared up at him. "That's not funny."
"No, it isn't."
A madman that could raise the dead. A murderous
zombie corpse controlled by a psychotic. Great. And if he, or she,
could do it once. . .
"Dolph, if we have a crazy man running around, there
could be more than one zombie."
"And if it is crazy, then there won't be a pattern,"
he said.
"Shit."
"Exactly."
No pattern meant no motive. No motive meant we might
not be able to figure this out. "No, I don't believe that."
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because if I do believe it, it leaves us no place to
go." I took out a pocketknife that I brought for the occasion and
started to chip at the remains of the tombstone.
"Defacing a gravemarker is against the law," Dolph
said.
"Isn't it though." I scrapped a few smaller pieces
into a third bag, and finally got a sizable chunk of marble, big as
my thumb.
I stuffed all the bags into the pockets of my
coveralls, along with the pocketknife.
"You really think Evans will be able to read anything
from those bits and pieces?"
"I don't know." I stood and looked down at the grave.
The two exterminators were standing just a short distance away.
Giving us privacy. How very polite. "You know, Dolph, they may have
destroyed the tombstone, but the grave is still here."
"But the corpse is gone," he said.
"True, but the coffin might be able to tell us
something. Anything might help."
He nodded. "Alright, I'll get an exhumation
order."
"Can't we just dig it up now, tonight?"
"No," he said. "I have to play by the rules." He
stared at me very hard. "And I don't want to come back out here and
find the grave dug up. The evidence won't mean shit if you tamper
with it."
"Evidence? You really think this case will go to
court?"
"Yes."
"Dolph, we just need to destroy the zombie."
"I want the bastards that raised it, Anita. I want
them up on murder charges."
I nodded. I agreed with him, but I thought it
unlikely. Dolph was a policeman, he had to worry about the law. I
worried about simpler things, like survival.
"I'll let you know if Evans has anything useful to
say," I said.
"You do that."
"Wherever the beastie is, Dolph, it isn't here."
"It's out there, isn't it?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Killing someone else while we sit here and chase our
tails."
I wanted to touch him. To let him know it was all
right, but it wasn't all right. I knew how he felt. We were chasing
our tails. Even if this was the grave of the killer zombie, it
didn't get us any closer to finding the zombie. And we had to find
it. Find it, trap it, and destroy it. The
sixty-four-thousand-dollar question was, could we do all that
before it needed to feed again? I didn't have an answer. That was a
lie. I had an answer. I just didn't like it. Out there somewhere,
the zombie was feeding again.
Chapter 15
The trailer park where Evans lives is in St. Charles
just off Highway 94. Acres of mobile homes roll out in every
direction. Of course, there's nothing mobile about them. When I was
a kid, trailers could be hooked to the back of a car and moved.
Simple. It was one of their appeals. Some of these mobile homes had
three and four bedrooms, multiple baths. The only thing moving
these puppies was a semitruck, or a tornado.
Evans 's trailer is an older model. I think, if he
had to, he could chain it to the back of a pickup and move. Easier
than hiring a moving van, I guess. But I doubt Evans will ever
move. Hell, he hasn't left the trailer in nearly a year.
The windows were golden with light. There was a
little makeshift porch complete with an awning, guarding the door.
I knew he would be up. Evans was always up. Insomnia sounded so
harmless. Evans had made it a disease.
I was back in my black shorts outfit. The three bags
of goodies were stuffed in a fanny pack. If I went in there waving
them around, Evans would freak. I needed to work up to it, be
subtle. Just thought I'd drop by to see my old buddy. No ulterior
motives here. Right.
I opened the screen door and knocked. Silence. No
movement. Nothing. I raised my hand to knock again, then hesitated.
Had Evans finally gotten to sleep? His first decent night's sleep
since I'd known him. Drat. I was still standing there with my hand
half-raised when I felt him staring at me.
I looked up at the little window in the door. A slice
of pale face was staring out from between the curtains. Evans's
blue eye blinked at me.
I waved.
His face disappeared. The door unlocked, then opened.
There was no sight of Evans, just the open door. I walked in. Evans
was standing behind the door, hiding.
He closed the door by leaning against it. His
breathing was fast and shallow as if he'd been running. Stringy
yellow hair trailed over a dark blue bathrobe. His face was covered
in bristly reddish beard.
"How are you doing, Evans?"
He leaned against the door, eyes too wide. His
breathing was still too fast. Was he on something?
"Evans, you all right?" When in doubt, reverse your
word order.
He nodded. "What do you want?" His voice was
breathy.
I didn't think he was going to believe I had just
stopped by. Call it an instinct. "I need your help."
He shook his head. "No."
"You don't even know what I want."
He shook his head. "Doesn't matter."
"May I sit down?" I asked. If directness wouldn't
work, maybe politeness would.
He nodded. "Sure."
I glanced around the small living-room area. I was
sure there was a couch under the newspapers, paper plates,
half-full cups, old clothes. There was a box of petrified pizza on
the coffee table. The room smelled stale.
Would he freak if I moved stuff? Could I sit on the
pile that I thought was the couch without everything collapsing? I
decided to try. I'd sit in the freaking moldy pizza box if Evans
would agree to help me.
I perched on a pile of papers. There was definitely
something large and solid under the newspapers. Maybe the couch.
"May I have a cup of coffee?"
He shook his head. "No clean cups."
This I could believe. He was still pressed against
the door as if afraid to come any closer. His hands were plunged
into the pockets of his bathrobe.
"Can we just talk?" I asked.
He shook his head. I shook my head with him. He
frowned at that. Maybe somebody was home.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"I told you, your help."
"I don't do that anymore."
"What?" I asked.
"You know," he said.
"No, Evans, I don't know. Tell me."
"I don't touch things anymore."
I blinked. It was an odd way to phrase it. I stared
around at the piles of dirty dishes, the clothes. It did look
untouched. "Evans, let me see your hands."
He shook his head. I didn't imitate him this time.
"Evans, show me your hands."
"No," it was loud, clear.
I stood up and started walking towards him. It didn't
take long. He backed away into the corner by the door and the
doorway into the bedroom. "Show me your hands."
Tears welled in his eyes. He blinked, and the tears
slid down his cheeks. "Leave me alone," he said.
My chest was tight. What had he done? God, what had
he done? "Evans, either you show me your hands voluntarily, or I
make you do it." I fought an urge to touch his arm, but that was
not allowed.
He was crying harder now, small hiccupy sobs. He
pulled his left hand out of the robe pocket. It was pale, bony,
whole. I took a deep breath. Thank you, dear God.
"What did you think I'd done?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Don't ask."
He was looking at me now, really looking at me. I did
have his attention. "I'm not that crazy," he said.
I started to say, "I never thought you were," but
obviously I had. I had thought he had cut his hands off so he
wouldn't have to touch anymore. God, that was crazy. Seriously
crazy. And I was here to ask him to help me with a murder. Which of
us was crazier? Don't answer that.
He shook his head. "What are you doing here, Anita?"
The tears weren't even dry on his face, but his voice was calm,
ordinary.
"I need your help with a murder."
"I don't do that anymore. I told you."
"You told me once that you couldn't not have visions.
Your clairvoyance isn't something you can just turn off."
"That's why I stay in here. If I don't go out, I
don't see anybody. I don't have visions anymore."
"I don't believe you," I said.
He took a clean white handkerchief out of his pocket
and wrapped it around the doorknob. "Get out."
"I saw a three-year-old boy today. He'd been eaten
alive."
He leaned his forehead into the door. "Don't do this
to me, please."
"I know other psychics, Evans, but no one with your
success rate. I need the best. I need you."
He rubbed his forehead against the door. "Please
don't."
I should have gone then, left, done what he said, but
I didn't. I stood behind him and waited. Come on, old buddy, old
pal, risk your sanity for me. I was the ruthless zombie raiser. I
didn't feel guilt. Results were all that mattered. Ri-ight.
But in a way, results were all that mattered. "Other
people are going to die unless we can stop it," I said.
"I don't care," he said.
"I don't believe you."
He stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket and
whirled around. "The little boy, you're not lying about that, are
you?"
"I wouldn't lie to you."
He nodded. "Yeah, yeah." He licked his lips. "Give me
what ya got."
I got the bags out of my purse and opened the one
with the gravestone fragments in it. Had to start somewhere.
He didn't ask what it was, that would be cheating. I
wouldn't even have mentioned the boy except I needed the leverage.
Guilt is a wonderful tool.
His hand shook as I dropped the largest rock fragment
into his palm. I was very careful that my fingers did not brush his
hand. I didn't want Evans inside my secrets. It might scare him
off.
His hand clenched around the stone. A shock ran up
his spine. He jerked, eyes closed. And he was gone.
"Graveyard, grave." His head jerked to the side like
he was listening to something. "Tall grass. Hot. Blood, he's wiping
blood on the tombstone." He looked around the room with his closed
eyes. Would he have seen the room if his eyes had been open?
"Where does the blood come from?" he asked that. Was
I supposed to answer? "No, no!" He stumbled backwards, back
smacking into the door. "Woman screaming, screaming, no, no!"
His eyes flew open wide. He threw the rock fragment
across the room. "They killed her, they killed her!" He pressed his
fists into his eyes. "Oh, God, they slit her throat."
"Who is they?"
He shook his head, fists still shoved against his
face. "I don't know."
"Evans, what did you see?"
"Blood." He stared at me between his arms, shielding
his face. "Blood everywhere. They slit her throat. They smeared the
blood on the tombstone."
I had two more items for him. Dare I ask? Asking
didn't hurt. Did it? "I have two more items for you to touch."
"No fucking way," he said. He backed away from me
towards the short hall that led to the bedroom. "Get out, get out,
get the fuck out of my house. Now!"
"Evans, what else did you see?"
"Get out!"
"Describe one thing about the woman. Help me,
Evans!"
He leaned in the doorway and slid to sit on the
floor. "A bracelet. She wore a bracelet on her left wrist. Little
dangling charms, hearts, bow and arrow, music." He shook his head
and buried his head against his eyes. "Go away now."
I started to say thank you, but that didn't cut it. I
picked my way over the floor searching for the rock fragment. I
found it in a coffee cup. There was something green and growing in
the bottom of it. I picked up the stone and wiped it on a pair of
jeans on the floor. I put it back in the bag and shoved all of it
inside the purse.
I stared around at the filth and didn't want to leave
him here. Maybe I was just feeling guilty for having abused him.
Maybe. "Evans, thanks."
He didn't look up.
"If I had a cleaning person drop by, would you let
her in to clean?"
"I don't want anybody in here."
"Animators, Inc., could pick up the tab. We owe you
for this one."
He looked up then. Anger, pure anger was all that was
in his face. "Evans, get some help. You're tearing yourself
apart."
"Get-the-fuck-out-of-my-house." Each word was hot
enough to scald. I had never seen Evans angry. Scared, yes, but not
like this. What could I say? It was his house.
I got out. I stood on the shaky porch until I heard
the door lock behind me. I had what I wanted, information. So why
did I feel so bad? Because I had bullied a seriously disturbed man.
Okay, that was it. Guilt, guilt, guilt.
An image flashed into my head, the blood-soaked sheet
on the brown patterned couch. Mrs. Reynolds's spine dangling wet
and glistening in the sunlight.
I walked to my car and got in. If abusing Evans could
save one family, then it was worth it. If it would keep me from
having to see another three-year-old boy with his intestines ripped
out, I'd beat Evans with a padded club. Or let him beat me.
Come to think of it, wasn't that what we'd just
done?
Chapter 16
I was small in the dream. A child. The car was
crushed in front where it had been broadsided by another car. It
looked like it was made of shiny paper that had been crushed by
hand. The door was open. I crawled inside on the familiar
upholstery, so pale it was almost white. There was a dark liquid
stain on the seat. It wasn't all that large. I touched it,
tentatively.
My fingers came away smeared with crimson. It was the
first blood I'd ever seen. I stared up at the windshield. It was
broken in a spiderweb of cracks, bowed outward where my mother's
face had smashed into it. She had been thrown out the door to die
in a field beside the road. That's why there wasn't a lot of blood
on the seat.
I stared at the fresh blood on my fingers. In real
life the blood had been dry, just a stain. When I dreamed about it,
it was always fresh.
There was a smell this time. The smell of rotten
flesh. That wasn't right. I stared up in the dream and realized it
was a dream. And the smell wasn't part of it. It was real.
I woke instantly, staring into the dark. My heart
thudding in my throat. My hand went for the Browning in its second
home, a sheath attached to the headboard of my bed. It was firm and
solid, and comforting. I stayed on the bed, back pressed against
the headboard, gun held in a teacup grip.
Through a tiny crack in the drapes moonlight spilled.
The meager light outlined a man's shape. The shape didn't react to
the gun or my movement. It shuffled forward, dragging its feet
through the carpet. It had stumbled into my collection of toy
penguins that spilled like a fuzzy tide under my bedroom window. It
had knocked some of them over, and it didn't seem able to pick its
feet up and walk over them. The figure was wading through the
fluffy penguins, dragging its feet as if wading in water.
I kept the gun pointed one-handed at the thing and
reached without looking to turn on my bedside lamp. The light
seemed harsh after the darkness. I blinked rapidly willing my
pupils to contract, to adjust. When they did, and I could see, it
was a zombie.
He had been a big man in life. Shoulders broad as a
barn door filled with muscle. His huge hands were very strong
looking. One eye had dehydrated and was shriveled like a prune. The
remaining eye stared at me. There was nothing in that stare, no
anticipation, no excitement, no cruelty, nothing but a blankness. A
blankness that Dominga Salvador had filled with purpose. Kill she
had said. I would have bet on it.
It was her zombie. I couldn't turn it. I couldn't
order it to do anything until it fulfilled Dominga's orders. Once
it killed me, it would be docile as a dead puppy. Once it killed
me.
I didn't think I'd wait for that.
The Browning was loaded with Glazer Safety Rounds,
silver-coated. Glazer Safety Rounds will kill a man if you hit him
anywhere near the center of the body. The hole will be too big for
salvage. A hole in its chest wouldn't bother the zombie. It would
keep coming, heart or no heart. If you hit a person in the arm or
leg with Safety Rounds, it will take off that arm or leg. Instant
amputee. If you hit it right.
The zombie seemed in no hurry. He shuffled through
the fallen stuffed toys with that single-minded determination of
the dead. Zombies are not inhumanly strong. But they can use every
ounce of strength; they don't save anything. Almost any human being
could do a superhuman feat, once. Pop muscles, tear cartilage, snap
your spine, but you can lift the car. Only inhibitors in the brain
prevent us all from destroying ourselves. Zombies don't have
inhibitors. The corpse could literally tear me apart while it tore
itself apart. But if Dominga had really wanted to kill me, she
would have sent a less-decayed zombie. This one was so far gone I
might have been able to dodge around it, and make the door. Maybe.
But then again . . .
I cupped the butt of the gun in my left, the right
where it was supposed to be, my finger on the trigger. I pulled the
trigger and the explosion was incredibly loud in the small room.
The zombie jerked, stumbled. Its right arm flew off in
a welter of flesh and bone. No blood, it had been
dead too long for that.
The zombie kept coming.
I sighted on the other arm. Hold your breath,
squee-eeze. I was aiming for the elbow. I hit it. The two arms lay
on the carpet and began to worm their way towards the bed. I could
chop the thing to pieces, and all the pieces would keep trying to
kill me.
The right leg at the knee. The leg didn't come loose
completely, but the zombie toppled to one side, listing. It fell on
its side, then rolled onto its stomach and began pushing with its
remaining leg. Some dark liquid was leaking out of the shattered
leg. The smell was worse.
I swallowed, and it was thick. God. I got off the bed
on the far side away from the thing. I walked around the bed coming
in behind the thing. It knew instantly that I had moved. It tried
to turn and come at me, pushing with that last leg. The crawling
arms turned faster, fingers scrambling on the carpet. I stood over
it and blasted the other leg from less than two feet away. Bits and
pieces of it splattered onto my penguins. Damn.
The arms were almost at my bare feet. I fired two
quick shots and the hand shattered, exploding on the white carpet.
The handless arms flopped and struggled. They were still trying to
reach me.
There was a brush of cloth, a sense of movement just
behind me, in the darkened living room. I was standing with my back
to the open door. I turned and knew it was too late.
Arms grabbed me, clutching me to a very solid chest.
Fingers dug into my right arm, pinning the gun against my body. I
turned my head away, using my hair to shield my face and neck.
Teeth sank into my shoulder. I screamed.
My face was pressed against the thing's shoulder. The
fingers were digging in. It was going to crush my arm. The gun
barrel was pressed against its shoulder. Teeth tore at the flesh of
my shoulder, but it wasn't fangs. It only had human teeth to work
with. It hurt like hell, but it would be alright, if I could get
away.
I turned my face forward away from the shoulder and
pulled the trigger. The entire body jerked backwards. The left arm
crumbled. I rolled out of its grip. The arm dangled from my
forearm, fingers hanging on.
I was standing in the doorway of my bedroom staring
at the thing that had almost got me. It had been a white male,
about six-one, built like a football player. It was fresh from the
farm. Blood spattered where the shoulder had torn away. The fingers
on my arm tightened. It couldn't crush my arm, but I couldn't make
it let go either. I didn't have the time.
The zombie charged, one arm wide to grab me. I seemed
to have all the time in the world to lift the gun, two-handed. The
arm struggled and fought me as if it were still connected to the
zombie's brain. I got off two quick shots. The zombie stumbled, its
left leg collapsing, but it was too late. It was too close. As it
fell, it took me with it.
We landed on the floor with me on the bottom. I
managed to keep the Browning up, so that my arms were free and so
was the gun. His weight pinned my body, nothing I could do about
it. Blood glistened on his lips. I fired point-blank, closing my
eyes as I pulled the trigger. Not just because I didn't want to
see, but to save my eyes from bone shards.
When I looked, the head was gone except for a thin
line of naked jawbone and a fragment of skull. The remaining hand
scrambled for my throat. The hand still attached to my arm was
helping its body. I couldn't get the gun around to shoot the arm.
The angle was wrong.
A sound of something heavy sliding behind me. I
risked a glance, craning my neck backwards to see the first zombie
coming towards me. Its mouth, all that it had left to hurt me with,
was open wide.
I screamed and turned back to the one on top of me.
The attached hand fluttered at my neck. I pulled it away and gave
it its own arm to hold. It grabbed it. With the brain gone, it
wasn't as smart. I felt the fingers on my arm loosen. A shudder ran
through the dangling arm. Blood burst out of it like a ripe melon.
The fingers spasmed, releasing my arm. The zombie crushed its own
arm until it spattered and bones snapped.
The scrambling sounds behind me were closer.
"God!"
"Police! Come out with your hands up!" The voice was
male and loud from the hallway.
The hell with being cool and self-sufficient. "Help
me!"
"Miss, what's happening in there?"
The scrambling sounds were right next to me. I craned
my neck and found myself almost nose to nose with the first zombie.
I shoved the Browning in its open mouth. Its teeth scrapped on the
barrel, and I pulled the trigger.
A policeman was suddenly in the doorway framed
against the darkness. From my angle he was huge. Curly brown hair,
going gray, mustache, gun in hand. "Jesus," he said.
The second zombie dropped its crushed arm and reached
for me again. The policeman took a firm grip of the zombie's belt
and pulled him upward with one hand. "Get her out of here," he
said.
His partner moved in, but I didn't give him time. I
scrambled out from under the half-raised body, scuttling on all
fours into the living room. You didn't have to ask me twice. The
partner lifted me to my feet by one arm. It was my right and the
Browning came up with it.
Normally, a cop will make you drop your gun before
anything else. There, is usually no way to tell who the bad guy is.
If you have a gun, you are a bad guy unless proven otherwise.
Innocent until proven guilty does not work in the field.
He scooped the gun from my hand. I let him. I knew
the drill.
A gunshot exploded behind us. I jumped, and the cop
did, too. He was about my age, but right then I felt about a
million years old. We turned and found the first cop shooting into
the zombie. The thing had struggled free of his hand. It was on its
feet, staggered by the bullets but not stopped.
"Get over here, Brady," the first cop said. The
younger cop drew his gun and moved forward. He hesitated, glancing
at me.
"Help him," I said.
He nodded and started firing into the zombie. The
sound of gunfire was like thunder. It filled the room until my ears
were ringing and the reek of gunpowder was almost overpowering.
Bullet holes blossomed in the walls. The zombie kept staggering
forward. They were just annoying it.
The problem for police is that they can't load up
with Glazer Safety Rounds. Most cops don't run into the
supernatural as much as I do. Most of the time they're chasing
human crooks. The powers that be frown on taking off the leg of
John Q. Public just 'cause he fired at you. You're not really
supposed to kill people just because they're trying to kill you.
Right?
So they had normal rounds, maybe a little silver
coating to make the medicine go down, but nothing that could stop a
zombie. They were being backed up. One reloaded while the other
fired. The thing staggered forward. Its remaining arm sweeping in
front of it, searching. For me. Shit.
"My gun's loaded with Glazer Safety Rounds," I said.
"Use it."
The first cop said, "Brady, I told you to get her out
of here."
"You needed help," Brady said.
"Get the civilian the fuck out of here."
Civilian, me?
Brady didn't question again. He just backed towards
me, gun out but not firing. "Come on, miss, we gotta get out of
here."
"Give me my gun."
He glanced at me, shook his head.
"I'm with the Regional Preternatural Investigation
Team." Which was true. I was hoping he would assume I was a cop,
which wasn't true.
He was young. He assumed. He handed me back the
Browning. "Thanks."
I moved up with the older cop. "I'm with the Spook
Squad."
He glanced at me, gun still trained on the advancing
corpse. "Then do something."
Someone had turned on the living-room light. Now that
no one was shooting it, the zombie was moving out. It walked like a
man striding down the street, except it had no head and only one
arm. There was a spring in its step. Maybe it sensed I was
close.
The body was in better condition than the first
zombie's had been. I could cripple it but not incapacitate it. I'd
settle for crippled. I fired a third round into the left leg that I
had wounded earlier. I had more time to aim, and my aim was
true.
The leg collapsed under it. It pulled itself forward
with the one arm, leg pushing against the rug. He was on his last
leg. I started to smile, then to laugh, but it choked in my throat.
I walked around the far side of the couch. I didn't want any
accidents after what I'd seen it do to its own body. I didn't want
any crushed limbs.
I came in behind it, and it scrambled quicker than it
should have to try to face me. It took two shots for the other leg.
I couldn't remember how many bullets I'd used. Did I have one more
left, or two, or none?
I felt like Dirty Harry, except that this punk didn't
give a damn how many bullets I had left. The dead don't scare
easy.
It was still pulling itself and its damaged legs
along. That one hand. I fired nearly point-blank, and the hand
exploded like a crimson flower on the white carpet. It kept coming,
using the wrist stump to push along.
I pulled the trigger, and it clicked empty. Shit.
"I'm out," I said. I stepped back away from it. It followed me.
The older cop moved in and grabbed it by both ankles.
He pulled it backwards. One leg slid slowly out of the pants and
twisted free in his hand. "Fuck!" He dropped the leg. It wiggled
like a broken-backed snake.
I stared down at the still determined corpse. It was
struggling towards me. It wasn't making much progress. The
policeman was holding it one-legged sort of in the air. But the
zombie kept trying. It would keep trying until it was incinerated
or Dominga Salvador changed her orders.
More uniformed cops came in the door. They fell on
the butchered zombie like vultures on a wildebeest. It bucked and
struggled. Fought to get away, to finish its mission. To kill me.
There were enough cops to subdue it. They would hold it until the
lab boys arrived. The lab boys would do what they could on-site.
Then the zombie would be incinerated by an exterminator team. They
had tried taking zombies down to the morgue and holding them for
tests, but little pieces kept escaping and hiding out in the
strangest places.
The medical examiner had decreed that all zombies
were to be truly dead before shipping. The ambulance crew and lab
techs agreed with her. I sympathized but knew that most evidence
disappears in a fire. Choices, choices.
I stood to one side of my living room. They had
forgotten me in the melee. Fine, I didn't feel like wrestling any
more zombies tonight. I realized for the first time that I was
wearing nothing but an oversize T-shirt and panties. The T-shirt
clung wetly to my body, thick with blood. I started towards the
bedroom. I think I meant to get a pair of pants. The sight on the
floor stopped me.
The first zombie was like a legless insect. It
couldn't move, but it was trying. The bloody stump of a body was
still trying to carry out its orders. To kill me.
Dominga Salvador had meant to kill me. Two zombies,
one almost new. She had meant to kill me. That one thought chased
round my head like a piece of song. We had threatened each other,
but why this level of violence? Why kill me? I couldn't stop her
legally. She knew that. So why make such a damned serious attempt
to kill me?
Maybe because she had something to hide? Dominga had
given her word that she hadn't raised the killer zombie, but maybe
her word didn't mean anything. It was the only answer. She had
something to do with the killer zombie. Had she raised it? Or did
she know who had? No. She'd raised the beast or why kill me the
night after I talked to her? It was too big a coincidence. Dominga
Salvador had raised a zombie, and it had gotten away from her. That
was it. Evil as she was, she wasn't psychotic. She wouldn't just
raise a killer zombie and let it loose. The great voodoo queen had
screwed up royally. That, more than anything else, more than the
deaths, or the possible murder charge, would piss her off. She
couldn't afford her reputation to be trashed like that.
I stared past the bloody, stinking remnants in the
bedroom. My stuffed penguins were covered in blood and worse. Could
my long suffering dry cleaner get them clean? He did pretty good
with my suits.
Glazer Safety Rounds didn't go through walls. It was
another reason I liked them. My neighbors didn't get shot up. The
police bullets had pierced the bedroom walls. Neat round holes were
everywhere.
No one had ever attacked me at home before, not like
this. It should have been against the rules. You should be safe in
your own bed. I know, I know. Bad guys don't have rules. It's one
of the reasons they're bad guys.
I knew who had raised the zombie. All I had to do was
prove it. There was blood everywhere. Blood and worse things. I was
actually getting used to the smell. God. But it stank. The whole
apartment stank. Almost everything in my apartment is white; walls,
carpet, couch, chair. It made the stains show up nicely, like fresh
wounds. The bullet holes and cracked plaster board set off the
blood nicely.
The apartment was trashed. I would prove Dominga had
done this, then, if I was lucky, I'd get to return the favor.
"Sweets to the sweet," I whispered to no one in
particular. Tears started to burn at the back of my throat. I
didn't want to cry, but a scream was sort of tickling around in my
throat, too. Crying or screaming. Crying seemed better.
The paramedics came. One was a short black woman
about my own age. "Come on, honey, we got to take a look at you."
Her voice was gentle, her hands sort of leading me away from the
carnage. I didn't even mind her calling me honey.
I wanted very much to crawl up into someone's lap
about now and be comforted. I needed that badly. I wasn't going to
get it.
"Honey, we need to see how bad you're bleeding before
we take you down to the ambulance."
I shook my head. My voice sounded far away, detached.
"It's not my blood."
"What?"
I looked at her, fighting to focus and not drift.
Shock was setting in. I'm usually better than this, but hey, we all
have our nights.
"It's not my blood. I've got a bite on the shoulder,
that's it."
She looked like she didn't believe me. I didn't blame
her. Most people see you covered in blood, they just assume part of
it has to be yours. They do not take into account that they are
dealing with a tough-as-nails vampire slayer and corpse raiser.
The tears were back, stinging just behind my eyes.
There was blood all over my penguins. I didn't give a damn about
the walls and carpet. They could be replaced, but I'd collected
those damned stuffed toys over years. I let the paramedic lead me
away. Tears trickling down my cheeks. I wasn't crying, my eyes were
running. My eyes were running because there were pieces of zombie
all over my toys. Jesus.
Chapter 17
I'd seen enough crime scenes to know what to expect.
It was like a play I'd seen too many times. I could tell you all
the entrances, the exits, most of the lines. But this was
different. This was my place.
It was silly to be offended that Dominga Salvador had
attacked me in my own home. It was stupid, but there it was. She
had broken a rule. One I hadn't even known I had. Thou shalt not
attack the good guy in his, or her, own home. Shit.
I was going to nail her hide to a tree for it. Yeah,
me and what army? Maybe, me and the police.
The living-room curtains billowed in the hot breeze.
The glass had been shattered in the firefight. I was glad I had
just signed a two-year lease. At least they couldn't kick me
out.
Dolph sat across from me in my little kitchen area.
The breakfast table with its two straight-backed chairs seemed tiny
with him sitting at it. He sort of filled my kitchen. Or maybe I
was just feeling small tonight. Or was it morning?
I glanced at my watch. There was a dark, slick smear
obscuring the face. Couldn't read it. Would have to chip the damn
thing clean. I tucked my arm back inside the blanket the paramedic
had given me. My skin was colder than it should have been. Even
thoughts of vengeance couldn't warm me. Later, later I would be
warm. Later I would be pissed. Right now I was glad to be
alive.
"Okay, Anita, what happened?"
I glanced at the living room. It was nearly empty.
The zombies had been carried away. Incinerated on the street no
less. Entertainment for the entire neighborhood. Family fun.
"Could I change clothes before I give a statement,
please?"
He looked at me for maybe a second, then nodded.
"Great." I got up gripping the blanket around me,
edges folded carefully. Didn't want to accidentally trip on the
ends. I'd embarrassed myself enough for one night.
"Save the T-shirt for evidence," Dolph called.
I said, "Sure thing," without turning around.
They had thrown sheets over the worst of the stains
so they didn't track blood all over the apartment building. Nice.
The bedroom stank of rotted corpse, stale blood, old death. God.
I'd never be able to sleep in here tonight. Even I had my
limits.
What I wanted was a shower, but I didn't think Dolph
would wait that long. I settled for jeans, socks, and a clean
T-shirt. I carried all of it into the bathroom. With the door
closed, the smell was very faint. It looked like my bathroom. No
disasters here.
I dropped the blanket on the floor with the T-shirt.
There was a bulky bandage over my shoulder where the zombie had
bitten me. I was lucky it hadn't taken a hunk of flesh. The
paramedic warned me to get a tetanus booster. Zombies don't make
more zombies by biting, but the dead have nasty mouths. Infection
is more of a danger but a tetanus booster is a precaution.
Blood had dried in flaking patches on my legs and
arms. I didn't bother washing my hands. I'd shower later. Get
everything clean at once.
The T-shirt hung almost to my knees. A huge
caricature of Arthur Conan Doyle was on the front. He was peering
through a huge magnifying glass, one eye comically large. I gazed
into the mirror over the sink, looking at the shirt. It was soft
and warm and comforting. Comforting was good right now.
The old T-shirt was ruined. No saving it. But maybe I
could save some of the penguins. I ran cold water into the bathtub.
If it was a shirt, I'd soak it in cold water. Maybe it worked with
toys.
I got a pair of jogging shoes out from under the bed.
I didn't really want to walk over the drying stains in only socks.
Shoes were made for such occasions. Alright, so the creator of Nike
Airs never foresaw walking over drying zombie blood. It's hard to
prepare for everything.
Two of the penguins were turning brown as the blood
dried. I carried them gingerly into the bathroom and laid them in
the water. I pushed them under until they soaked up enough water to
stay partially submerged, then I turned the water off. My hands
were cleaner. The water wasn't. Blood trailed out of the two soft
toys like water squeezed out of a sponge. If these two came clean,
I could save them all.
I dried my hands on the blanket. No sense getting
blood on anything else.
Sigmund, the penguin I occasionally slept with, was
barely spattered. Just a few specks across his fuzzy white belly.
Small blessings. I almost tucked him under my arm to hold while I
gave a statement. Dolph probably wouldn't tell. I put Sigmund a
little farther from the worst stains, as if that would help. Seeing
the stupid toy tucked safely in a corner did make me feel better.
Great.
Zerbrowski was peering at the aquarium. He glanced my
way. "These are the biggest freaking angelfish I've ever seen. You
could fry some of 'em up in a pan."
"Leave the fish alone, Zerbrowski," I said.
He grinned. "Sure, just a thought."
Back in the kitchen Dolph sat with his hands folded
on the tabletop. His face unreadable. If he was upset that I'd
almost cashed it in tonight, he didn't show it. But then Dolph
didn't show much of anything, ever. The most emotion I'd ever seen
him display was about this case. The killer zombie. Butchered
civilians.
"You want some coffee?" I asked.
"Sure."
"Me, too," Zerbrowski said.
"Only if you say please."
He leaned against the wall just outside the kitchen.
"Please." I got a bag of coffee out of the freezer.
"You keep the coffee in the freezer?" Zerbrowski
said.
"Hasn't anyone ever fixed real coffee for you?" I
asked.
"My idea of gourmet coffee is Taster's Choice."
I shook my head. "Barbarian."
"If you two are finished with clever repartee," Dolph
said, "could we start the statement now?" His voice was softer than
his words.
I smiled at him and at Zerbrowski. Damned if it
wasn't nice to see both of them. I must have been hurt worse than I
knew to be happy to see Zerbrowski.
"I was asleep minding my own business when I woke up
to find a zombie standing over me." I measured beans and poured
them into the little black coffee grinder that I'd bought because
it matched the coffee maker.
"What woke you?" Dolph asked.
I pressed the button on the grinder and the rich
smell of fresh ground coffee filled the kitchen. Ah, heaven.
"I smelled corpses," I said.
"Explain."
"I was dreaming, and I smelled rotting corpses. It
didn't match the dream. It woke me."
"Then what?" He had his ever present notebook out.
Pen poised.
I concentrated on each small step to making the
coffee and told Dolph everything, including my suspicions about
Señora Salvador. The coffee was beginning to perk and fill
the apartment with that wonderful smell that coffee always has by
the time I finished.
"So you think Dominga Salvador is our zombie raiser?"
Dolph said.
"Yes."
He stared at me across the small table. His eyes were
very serious. "Can you prove it?"
"No."
He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment.
"Great, just great."
"The coffee smells done," Zerbrowski said. He was
sitting on the floor, back propped against the kitchen doorway.
I got up and poured the coffee. "If you want sugar or
cream, help yourself." I put the cream, real cream, out on the
kitchen counter along with the sugar bowl. Zerbrowski took a lot of
sugar and a dab of cream. Dolph went for black. It was the way I
took it most of the time. Tonight I added cream and sweetened it.
Real cream in real coffee. Yum, yum.
"If we could get you inside Dominga's house, could
you find proof?" Dolph asked.
"Proof of something, sure, but of raising the killer
zombie . . . " I shook my head. "If she did raise it and it got
away, then she won't want to be tied to it. She'll have destroyed
all the proof, just to save face."
"I want her for this," Dolph said.
"Me, too."
"She might also try and kill you again," Zerbrowski
said from the doorway. He was blowing on his coffee to cool it.
"No joke," I said.
"You think she'll try again?" Dolph asked.
"Probably. How the hell did two zombies get inside my
apartment?"
"Someone picked the lock," Dolph said. "Could the
zombie . . ."
"No, a zombie would rip a door off its hinges, but it
wouldn't take the time to pick a lock. Even if it had the fine
motor skill to do it."
"So someone with skill opened the door and let them
in," Dolph said.
"Appears so," I said.
"Any ideas on that?"
"I would bet one of her bodyguards. Her grandson
Antonio or maybe Enzo. A big guy in his forties who seems to be her
personal protection. I don't know if either of them have the skill,
but they'd do it. Enzo, but not Antonio."
"Why cross him off?"
"If Tony had let the zombies in, he'd have stayed and
watched."
"You sure?"
I shrugged. "He's that kind of guy. Enzo would do
business and leave. He'd follow orders. The grandson wouldn't."
Dolph nodded. "There's a lot of heat from upstairs to
solve this case. I think I can get us a search warrant in
forty-eight hours."
"Two days is a long time, Dolph."
"Two days without one piece of proof, Anita. Except
for your word. I'm going out on a limb for this one."
"She's in it, Dolph, somehow. I don't know why, and I
don't know what could have caused her to lose control of the
zombie, but she's in it."
"I'll get the warrant," he said.
"One of the brothers in blue said you told him you
were a cop," Zerbrowski said.
"I told him I was with your squad. I never said I was
a cop."
Zerbrowski grinned. "Mmm-huh."
"Will you be safe here tonight?" Dolph asked.
"I think so. The Señora doesn't want to get on
the bad side of the law. They treat renegade witches sort of like
renegade vampires. It's an automatic death sentence."
"Because people are too scared of them," Dolph
said.
"Because some witches can slip through the fucking
bars."
"How about voodoo queens?" Zerbrowski said.
I shook my head. "I don't want to know."
"We better go, leave you to get some sleep," Dolph
said. He left his empty coffee cup on the table. Zerbrowski hadn't
finished his, but he put it on the counter and followed Dolph
out.
I walked them to the door.
"I'll let you know when we get the warrant," Dolph
said.
"Could you arrange for me to see Peter Burke's
personal effects?"
"Why?"
"There are only two ways to lose control of a zombie
this badly. One, you are strong enough to raise it, but not to
control it. Dominga can control anything she can raise. Second,
someone of near equal power interferes, sort of a challenge." I
stared up at Dolph. "John Burke might just be strong enough to have
done it. Maybe if I'm helpful enough to take John down to go over
his brother's effects—you know, does any of this look out of place,
that type of thing—maybe this Burke will let something slip."
"You've already got Dominga Salvador pissed at you,
Anita. Isn't that enough for one week?"
"For one lifetime," I said. "But it's something we
can do while we wait for the warrant."
Dolph nodded. "Yeah. I'll arrange it. Call Mr. Burke
tomorrow morning and set up a time. Then call me."
"Will do."
Dolph hesitated in the doorway for a moment. "Watch
your back."
"Always," I said.
Zerbrowski leaned into me and said, "Nice penguins."
He followed Dolph down the hallway. I knew the next time I saw the
rest of the spook squad they'd all know I collected toy penguins.
My secret was out. Zerbrowski would spread it far and wide. At
least, he was consistent.
It was nice to know something was.
Chapter 18
Stuffed animals are not meant to be submerged in
water. The two in the bathtub were ruined. Maybe spot remover? The
smell was thick and seemed permanent. I put an emergency message on
my cleaning service's answering machine. I didn't give a lot of
details. Didn't want to frighten them off.
I packed an overnight bag. Two changes of clothes and
one penguin with his tummy freshly scrubbed, Harold Gaynor's file,
and I was set. I also packed both guns: the Firestar in its inner
pants holster; the Browning under my arm. A windbreaker hid the
Browning from view. I had extra ammo in the jacket pockets. Between
both guns I had twenty-two bullets. Twenty-two bullets. Why didn't
I feel safe?
Unlike most walking dead, zombies can bear the touch
of sunlight. They don't like it, but they can exist with it.
Dominga could order a zombie to kill me in daylight just as easily
as moonlight. She wouldn't be able to raise the dead during
daylight, but if she planned it right, she could raise the dead the
night before and send it out to get me the next day. A voodoo
priestess with executive planning skills. It would be just my
luck.
I didn't really believe that Dominga had backup
zombies waiting to jump me. But somehow I was feeling paranoid this
morning. Paranoia is just another word for longevity.
I stepped out into the quiet hallway, glancing both
ways as if it were a street. Nothing. No walking corpses hiding in
the shadows. No one but us fraidy-cats. The only sound was the hush
of the air-conditioning. The hallway had that feel to it. I came
home often enough at dawn to know the quality of silence. I thought
about that for a minute. I knew it was almost dawn. Not by clock or
window, but on some level deeper than that. Some instinct that an
ancestor had found while hiding in a dark cave, praying for
light.
Most people fear the dark in a vague way. They fear
what might be out there. I raise the dead. I've slain over a dozen
vampires. I know what's out there in the dark. And I am terrified
of it. People are supposed to fear the unknown, but ignorance is
bliss when knowledge is so damn frightening.
I knew what would have happened to me if I had failed
last night. If I had been slower or a worse shot. Two years ago
there had been three murders. Nothing connected them except the
method of death. They had been torn apart by zombies. They had not
been eaten. Normal zombies don't eat anything. They may bite a time
or two, but that's the worst of it. There had been the man whose
throat was crushed, but that had been accidental. The zombie just
bit down on the nearest body part. It happened to be a killing
blow. Blind luck.
A zombie will normally just wrestle you to pieces.
Like a small boy tearing pieces off of a fly.
Raising a zombie for the purposes of being a murder
weapon is an automatic death sentence. The court system has gotten
rather quick on the draw the last few years. A death sentence meant
what it said these days. Especially if your crime was supernatural
in some way. You didn't burn witches anymore. You electrocuted
them.
If we could get proof, the state would kill Dominga
Salvador for me. John Burke, too, if we could prove he had
knowingly caused the zombie to go ape-shit. The trouble with
supernatural crimes is proving them in court. Most juries aren't up
on the latest spells and incantations. Heck, neither am I. But I've
tried explaining zombies and vampires in court before. I've learned
to keep it simple and to add any gory details the defense will
allow me. A jury appreciates a little vicarious adventure. Most
testimony is terribly boring or heartbreaking. I try to be
interesting. It's a change of pace.
The parking area was dark. Stars still glimmered
overhead. But they were fading like candles in a steady wind. I
could taste dawn on the air. Roll it around on my tongue. Maybe
it's all the vampire hunting I do, but I was more attuned to the
passage of light and dark than I had been four years ago. I hadn't
been able to taste the dawn.
Of course my nightmares were a lot less interesting
four years ago. You gain something, you lose something else. It's
the way life works.
It was after 5:00 A.M. when I got in my car and
headed out for the nearest hotel. I wouldn't be able to stand my
apartment until the cleaning crew got the smell out. If they could
get the smell out. My landlord was not going to be pleased if they
couldn't.
He was going to be even less pleased with the bullet
holes and shattered window. Replace the window. Replaster the
walls, maybe? I really didn't know what you did to repair bullet
holes? Here I was hoping my lease couldn't be challenged in
court.
The first hint of dawn was slipping over the eastern
sky. A pure white light that spread like ice over the darkness.
Most people think dawn is as colorful as sunset but the first color
of dawn is white, a pure not-color, that is almost an absence of
night.
There was a motel, but all its rooms were on one or
two stories, some of them awfully isolated. I wanted a crowd. I
settled on The Stouffer Concourse which wasn't terribly cheap but
it would force zombies to ride up in elevators. People tended to
notice the smell in an elevator. The Stouffer Concourse also had
room service at this ungodly hour of dawn. I needed room service.
Coffee, give me coffee.
The clerk gave me that
wide-eyed-I'm-too-polite-to-say-it-out-loud look. The elevators
were mirrored, and I had nothing to do for several floors but look
at my reflection. Blood had dried in a stiff darkness in my hair. A
stain went down the right side of my face just below the hairline
and trailed down my neck. I hadn't noticed it in the mirror at
home. Shock will make you forget things.
It wasn't the bloodstains that had made the clerk
look askance. Unless you knew what to look for, you wouldn't know
it was blood. No, the problem was that my skin was deathly pale,
like clean paper. My eyes that are perfectly brown looked black.
They were huge and dark and . . . strange. Startled, I looked
startled. Surprised to be alive. Maybe. I was still fighting off
the edge of shock. No matter how together I felt, my face told a
different story. When the shock wore off, I'd be able to sleep.
Until then, I'd read Gaynor's file.
The room had two double beds. More room than I
needed, but what the heck. I got out clean clothes, put the
Firestar in the drawer of the nightstand, and took the Browning
into the bathroom with me. If I was careful and didn't turn the
shower on full blast, I could fasten the shoulder holster to the
towel rack in the back of the stall. It wouldn't even get wet.
Though truthfully with most modern guns, wet doesn't hurt them. As
long as you clean them afterwards. Most guns will shoot
underwater.
I called room service wearing nothing but a towel.
I'd almost forgotten. I ordered a pot of coffee, sugar, and cream.
They asked if I wanted decaf. I said no thank you. Pushy. Like
waiters asking if I wanted a diet Coke when I didn't ask for it.
They never ask men, even portly men, if they want diet Cokes.
I could drink a pot of caffeine and sleep like a
baby. It doesn't keep me awake or make me jumpy. It just tastes
better.
Yes, they would leave the cart outside the door. No,
they wouldn't knock. They would add the coffee to my bill. That was
fine, I said. They had a credit card number. When they have
plastic, people are always eager to add on to your bill. As long as
the limit holds.
I propped the straight-backed chair under the
doorknob to the hallway. If someone forced the door, I'd hear it.
Maybe. I locked the bathroom door and had a gun in the shower with
me. I was as secure as I was going to get.
There is something about being naked that makes me
feel vulnerable. I would much rather face bad guys with my clothes
on than off. I guess everyone's like that.
The bite on my shoulder with its thick bandage was a
problem when I wanted to wash my hair. I had to get the blood out,
bandage or no bandage.
I used their little bottles of shampoo and
conditioner. They smelled like flowers are supposed to smell but
never do. Blood had dried in patches on my body. I looked spotted.
The water that washed down the drain was pinkish.
It took the entire bottle of shampoo before my hair
was squeaky clean. The last rinse water soaked through the bandage
on my right shoulder. The pain was sharp and persistent. I'd have
to remember to get that tetanus booster.
I scrubbed my body with a washcloth and the munchkin
bar of soap. When I had washed and soaked every inch of myself, and
was as clean as I was going to get, I stood under the hot needling
spray. I let the water pour over my back, down my body. The bandage
had soaked through long ago.
What if we couldn't tie Dominga to the zombies? What
if we couldn't find proof? She'd try again. Her pride was at stake
now. She had set two zombies on me, and I had wasted them both.
With a little help from the police. Dominga Salvador would see it
as a personal challenge.
She had raised a zombie and it had escaped her
control completely. She would rather have innocent people
slaughtered than to admit her mistake. And she would rather kill me
than have me prove it. Vindictive bitch.
Señora Salvador had to be stopped. If the
warrant didn't help, then I'd have to be more practical. She'd made
it clear that it was her or me. I preferred it to be her. And if
necessary, I'd make sure of it.
I opened my eyes and turned off the water. I didn't
want to think about it anymore. I was talking about murder. I saw
it as self-defense, but I doubted a jury would. It'd be damn hard
to prove. I wanted several things. Dominga out of the picture, dead
or in jail. To stay alive. Not to be in jail on a murder charge. To
catch the killer zombie before it killed again. Fat chance that. To
figure out how John Burke fit into this mess.
Oh, and to keep Harold Gaynor from forcing me to
perform human sacrifice. Yeah, I almost forgot that one.
It had been a busy week.
The coffee was outside the door on a little tray. I
set it inside on the floor, locked the door, and put the chair
against the doorknob again. Only then did I set the coffee tray on
a small table by the curtained windows. The Browning was already
sitting on the table, naked. The shoulder holster was on the
bed.
I opened the drapes. Normally, I would have kept the
drapes closed, but today I wanted to see the light. Morning had
spread like a soft haze of light. The heat hadn't had time to creep
up and strangle that first gentle touch of morning.
The coffee wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. Of
course, the worst coffee I've ever had was still wonderful. Well,
maybe not the coffee at police headquarters. But even that was
better than nothing. Coffee was my comfort drink. Better than
alcohol, I guess.
I spread Gaynor's file on the table and started to
read. By eight that morning, earlier than I usually get up, I had
read every scribbled note, gazed at every blurry picture. I knew
more about Mr. Harold Gaynor than I wanted to, none of it
particularly helpful.
Gaynor was mob-connected, but it couldn't be proven.
He was a self-made multimillionaire. Bully for him. He could afford
the million five that Tommy had offered me. Nice to know a man can
pay his bills.
His only family had been a mother who died ten years
ago. His father was supposed to have died before he was born. There
was no record of the father's death. In fact, the father didn't
seem to exist.
An illegitimate birth, carefully disguised? Maybe. So
Gaynor was a bastard in the original definition of the word. So
what? I'd already known he was one in spirit.
I propped Wheelchair Wanda's picture against the
coffeepot. She was smiling, almost like she'd known the picture was
being taken. Maybe she was just photogenic. There were two pictures
with her and Gaynor together. In one they were smiling, holding
hands as Tommy pushed Gaynor's wheelchair and Bruno pushed Wanda.
She was gazing at Gaynor with a look I had seen in other women.
Adoration, love. I'd even experienced it myself for a brief time in
college. You get over it.
The second picture was almost identical to the first.
Bruno and Tommy pushing them. But they weren't holding hands.
Gaynor was smiling. Wanda wasn't. She looked angry. Cicely of the
blond hair and empty eyes was walking on the other side of Gaynor.
They were holding hands. Ah-ha.
So Gaynor had kept both of them around for a while.
Why had Wanda left? Jealousy? Had Cicely arranged it? Had Gaynor
tired of her? The only way to know was to ask.
I stared at the picture with Cicely in it. I put it
beside the laughing close-up of Wanda's face. An unhappy young
woman, a scorned lover. If she hated Gaynor more than she feared
him, Wanda would talk to me. She would be a fool to talk to the
papers, but I didn't want to publish her secrets.
I wanted Gaynor's secrets, so I could keep him from
hurting me. Barring that, I wanted something to take to the
police.
Mr. Gaynor would have other things to worry about if
I could get him in jail. He might forget all about one reluctant
animator. Unless, of course, he found out I'd had something to do
with him being arrested. That would be bad. Gaynor struck me as
vengeful. I had Dominga Salvador mad at me. I didn't need anyone
else.
I closed the drapes and left a wake-up call for noon.
Irving would just have to wait for his file. I had unintentionally
given him the interview with the new Master of the City. Surely
that cut me a little slack. If not, to hell with it. I was going to
bed.
The last thing I did before going to bed was call
Peter Burke's house. I figured that John would be staying there. It
rang five times before the machine kicked on. "This is Anita Blake,
I may have some information for John Burke on a matter we discussed
Thursday." The message was a little vague, but I didn't want to
leave a message saying, "Call me about your brother's murder." It
would have seemed melodramatic and cruel.
I left the hotel's number as well as my own. Just in
case. They probably had the ringers turned off. I would. The story
had been front page because Peter was, had been, an animator.
Animators don't get murdered much in the run-of-the-mill muggings.
It's usually something more unusual.
I would drop off Gaynor's file on the way home. I
wanted to drop it off at the receptionist desk. I didn't feel like
talking to Irving about his big interview. I didn't want to hear
that Jean-Claude was charming or had great plans for the city. He'd
be very careful what he told a reporter. It would look good in
print. But I knew the truth. Vampires are as much a monster as any
zombie, maybe worse. Vamps usually volunteer for the process,
zombies don't.
Just like Irving volunteered to go off with
Jean-Claude. Of course, if Irving hadn't been with me the Master
would have left him alone. Probably. So it was my fault, even if it
had been his choice. I was achingly tired, but I knew I'd never be
able to sleep until I heard Irving's voice. I could pretend I'd
called to tell him I was dropping the file off late.
I wasn't sure if Irving would be on his way to work
or not. I tried home first. He answered on the first ring.
"Hello."
Something tight in my stomach relaxed. "Hi, Irving,
it's me."
"Ms. Blake, to what do I owe this early morning
pleasure?" His voice sounded so ordinary.
"I had a bit of excitement at my apartment last
night. I was hoping I could drop the file off later in the
day."
"What sort of excitement?" His voice had that "tell
me" lilt to it.
"The kind that's police business and not yours," I
said.
"I thought you'd say that," he said. "You just
getting to bed?"
"Yeah."
"I guess I can let a hardworking animator sleep in a
little. My sister reporter may even understand."
"Thanks, Irving."
"You alright, Anita?"
No, I wanted to say, but I didn't. I ignored the
question. "Did Jean-Claude behave himself?"
"He was great!" Irving's enthusiasm was genuine, all
bubbly excitement. "He's a great interview." He was quiet for a
moment. "Hey, you called to check up on me. To make sure I was
okay."
"Did not," I said.
"Thanks, Anita, that means a lot. But really, he was
very civilized."
"Great. I'll let you go then. Have a good day."
"Oh, I will, my editor is doing cartwheels about the
exclusive interview with the Master of the City."
I had to laugh at the way he rolled the title off his
tongue. "Good night, Irving."
"Get some sleep, Blake. I'll be calling you in a day
or two about those zombie articles."
"Talk to you then," I said. We hung up.
Irving was fine. I should worry more about myself and
less about everyone else.
I turned off the lights and cuddled under the sheets.
My penguin was cradled in my arms. The Browning Hi-Power was under
my pillow. It wasn't as easy to get to as the bed holster at home,
but it was better than nothing.
I wasn't sure which was more comforting, the penguin
or the gun. I guess both were equally comforting, for very
different reasons.
I said my prayers like a good little girl. I asked
very sincerely that I not dream.
Chapter 19
The cleaning crew had a cancellation and moved my
emergency into the slot. By afternoon my apartment was clean and
smelled like spring cleaning. Apartment maintenance had replaced
the shattered window. The bullet holes had been smeared with white
paint. The holes looked like little dimples in the wall. All in
all, the place looked great.
John Burke had not returned my call. Maybe I'd been
too clever. I'd try a more blunt message later. But right at this
moment I had more pleasant things to worry about.
I was dressed for jogging. Dark blue shorts with
white piping, white Nikes with pale blue swishes, cute little
jogging socks, and tank top. The shorts were the kind with one of
those inside pockets that shut with Velcro. Inside the pocket was a
derringer. An American derringer to be exact; 6.5 ounces, .38
Special, 4.82 total length. At 6.5 ounces, it felt like a lumpy
feather.
A Velcro pocket was not conducive to a fast draw. Two
shots and spitting would be more accurate at a distance, but then
Gaynor's men didn't want to kill me. Hurt me, but not kill me. They
have to get in close to hurt me. Close enough to use the derringer.
Of course, that was just two shots. After that, I was in
trouble.
I had tried to figure out a way to carry one of my
9mms, but there was no way. I could not jog and tote around that
much firepower. Choices, choices.
Veronica Sims was standing in my living room. Ronnie
is five-nine, blond hair, grey eyes. She is a private investigator
on retainer to Animators, Inc. We also work out together at least
twice a week unless one of us is out of town, injured, or up to our
necks in vampires. Those last two happen more often than I would
like.
She was wearing French-cut purple shorts, and a
T-shirt that said, "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." There are reasons why
Ronnie and I are friends.
"I missed you Thursday at the health club," she said.
"Was the funeral awful?"
"Yeah."
She didn't ask me to elaborate. She knows funerals
are not my best thing. Most people hate funerals because of the
dead. I hate all the emotional shit.
She was stretching long legs parallel to her body,
low on the floor. In a sort of stretching crouch. We always warm up
in the apartment. Most leg stretches were never meant to be done
while wearing short shorts.
I mirrored her movement. The muscles in my upper
thighs moved and protested. The derringer was an uncomfortable but
endurable lump.
"Just out of curiosity," Ronnie said, "why do you
feel it necessary to take a gun with you?"
"I always carry a gun," I said.
She just looked at me, disgust plain in her eyes. "If
you don't want to tell me, then don't, but don't bullshit me."
"Alright, alright," I said. "Strangely enough, no
one's told me not to tell anyone."
"What, no threats about not going to the police?"
she asked.
"Nope."
"My, how terribly friendly."
"Not friendly," I said, sitting flat on the floor,
legs out at angles. Ronnie mirrored me. It looked like we were
going to roll a ball across the floor. "Not friendly at all." I
leaned my upper body over my left leg until my cheek touched my
thigh.
"Tell me about it," she said.
I did. When I was done, we were limbered and ready to
run.
"Shit, Anita. Zombies in your apartment and a mad
millionaire after you to perform human sacrifices." Her grey eyes
searched my face. "You're the only person I know who has weirder
problems than I do."
"Thanks a lot," I said. I locked my door behind us
and put my keys in the pocket along with the derringer. I know it
would scratch hell out of it, but what was I supposed to do, run
with the keys in my hand?
"Harold Gaynor. I could do some checking on him for
you."
"Aren't you on a case?" We clattered down the
stairs.
"I'm doing about three different insurance scams.
Mostly surveillance and photography. If I have to eat one more fast
food dinner, I'm going to start singing jingles."
I smiled. "Shower and change at my place. We'll go
out for a real dinner."
"Sounds great, but you don't want to keep Jean-Claude
waiting."
"Cut it out, Ronnie," I said.
She shrugged. "You should stay as far away from that
. . . creature as you can, Anita."
"I know it." It was my turn to shrug. "Agreeing to
meet him seemed the lesser of evils."
"What were your choices?"
"Meeting him voluntarily or being kidnapped and taken
to him."
"Great choices."
"Yeah."
I opened the double doors that led outside. The heat
smacked me in the face. It was staggeringly hot, like stepping into
an oven. And we were going to jog in this?
I looked up at Ronnie. She is five inches taller than
I am, and most of that is leg. We can run together, but I have to
set the pace and I have to push myself. It is a very good workout.
"It has to be over a hundred today," I said.
"No pain, no gain," Ronnie said. She was carrying a
sport water bottle in her left hand. We were as prepared as we were
going to get.
"Four miles in hell," I said. "Let's do it." We set
off at a slow pace, but it was steady. We usually finished the run
in a half hour or less. The air was solid with heat. It felt like
we were running through semisolid walls of scalding air. The
humidity in St. Louis is almost always around a hundred percent.
Combine the humidity with hundred-plus temperatures and you get a
small, damp slice of hell. St. Louis in the summertime, yippee.
I do not enjoy exercise. Slim hips and muscular
calves are not incentive enough for this kind of abuse. Being able
to outrun the bad guys is incentive. Sometimes it all comes down to
who is faster, stronger, quicker. I am in the wrong business. Oh,
I'm not complaining. But 106 pounds is not a lot of muscle to throw
around.
Of course, when it comes to vampires, I could be
two-hundred-plus of pure human muscles and it wouldn't do me a damn
bit of good. Even the newly dead can bench press cars with one
hand. So I'm outclassed. I've gotten used to it.
The first mile was behind us. It always hurts the
worst. My body takes about two miles to be convinced it can't talk
me out of this insanity.
We were moving through an older neighborhood. Lots of
small fenced yards and houses dating to the fifties, or even the
1800s. There was the smooth brick wall of a warehouse that dated to
pre-Civil War. It was our halfway point. Two miles. I was feeling
loose and muscled, like I could run forever, if I didn't have to do
it very fast. I was concentrating on moving my body through the
heat, keeping the rhythm. It was Ronnie who spotted the man.
"I don't mean to be an alarmist," she said, "but why
is that man just standing there?"
I squinted ahead of us. Maybe fifteen feet ahead of
us the brick wall ended and there was a tall elm tree. A man was
standing near the trunk of the tree. He wasn't trying to conceal
himself. But he was wearing a jean jacket. It was much too hot for
that, unless you had a gun under it.
"How long's he been there?"
"Just stepped out from around the tree," she
said.
Paranoia reigns supreme. "Let's turn back. It's two
miles either way."
Ronnie nodded.
We pivoted and started jogging back the other way.
The man behind us did not cry out or say stop. Paranoia, it was a
vicious disease.
A second man stepped out from the far corner of the
brick wall. We jogged towards him a few more steps. I glanced back.
Mr. Jean Jacket was casually walking towards us. The jacket was
unbuttoned, and his hand was reaching under his arm. So much for
paranoia.
"Run," I said.
The second man pulled a gun from his jacket
pocket.
We stopped running. It seemed like a good idea at the
time.
"Un-uh," the man said, "I don't feel like chasing
anyone in this heat. All ya gotta be is alive, chickie, anything
else is gravy." The gun was a .22 caliber automatic. Not much
stopping power, but it was perfect for wounding. They'd thought
this out. That was scary.
Ronnie was standing very stiff beside me. I fought
the urge to grab her hand and squeeze it, but that wouldn't be very
tough-as-nails vampire slayer, would it? "What do you want?"
"That's better," he said. A pale blue T-shirt gapped
where his beer gut spilled over his belt. But his arms had a beefy
look to them. He may have been overweight, but I bet it hurt when
he hit you. I hoped I didn't have to test the theory.
I backed up so the brick wall was to my back. Ronnie
moved with me. Mr. Jean Jacket was almost with us now. He had a
Beretta 9mm loose in his right hand. It was not meant for
wounding.
I glanced at Ronnie, then at Fatty who was nearly
right beside her. I glanced at Mr. Jean Jacket, who was nearly
beside me. I glanced back at Ronnie. Her eyes widened just a bit.
She licked her lips once, then turned back to stare at Fatty. The
guy with the Beretta was mine. Ronnie got the .22. Delegation at
its best.
"What do you want?" I said again. I hate repeating
myself.
"You to come take a little ride with us, that's all."
Fatty smiled as he said it.
I smiled back, then turned to Jean Jacket, and his
tame Beretta. "Don't you talk?"
"I talk," he said. He took two steps closer to me,
but his gun was very steadily pointed at my chest. "I talk real
good." He touched my hair, lightly, with his fingertips. The
Beretta was damn near pressed against me. If he pulled the trigger
now, it was all over. The dull black barrel of the gun was getting
bigger. Illusion, but the longer you stare at a gun, the more
important it gets to be. When you're on the wrong end of it.
"None of that, Seymour," Fatty said. "No pussy and we
can't kill her, those are the rules."
"Shit, Pete."
Pete, alias Fatty, said, "You can have the blonde. No
one said we couldn't have fun with her."
I did not look at Ronnie. I stared at Seymour. I had
to be ready if I got that one second chance. Glancing at my friend
to see how she was taking the news of her impending rape was not
going to help. Really.
"Phallic power, Ronnie. It always goes to the
gonads," I said.
Seymour frowned. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means, Seymour, that I think you're stupid and
what brains you have are in your balls." I smiled pleasantly while
I said it.
He hit me with the flat of his hand, hard. I
staggered but didn't go down. The gun was still steady, unwavering.
Shit. He made a sound deep in his throat and hit me, closed fist. I
went down. For a moment I lay on the gritty sidewalk, listening to
the blood pound in my ears. The slap had stung. The closed fist
hurt.
Someone kicked me in the ribs. "Leave her alone!"
Ronnie screamed.
I lay on my stomach and pretended to be hurt. It
wasn't hard. I groped for the Velcro pocket. Seymour was waving the
Beretta in Ronnie's face. She was screaming at him. Pete had
grabbed Ronnie's arms and was trying to hold her. Things were
getting out of hand. Goody.
I stared up at Seymour's legs and struggled to my
knees. I shoved the derringer into his groin. He froze and stared
down at me.
"Don't move, or I'll serve up your balls on a plate,"
I said.
Ronnie drove her elbow back into Fatty's solar
plexus. He bent over a little, hands going to his stomach. She
twisted away and kneed him hard in the face. Blood spurted from his
nose. He staggered back. She smashed him in the side of the face,
getting all her shoulder and upper body into it. He fell down. She
had the .22 in her hand.
I fought an urge to yell "Yea Ronnie," but it didn't
sound tough enough. We'd do high-fives later. "Tell your friend not
to move, Seymour, or I'll pull this trigger."
He swallowed loud enough for me to hear it. "Don't
move, Pete, okay?"
Pete just stared at us.
"Ronnie, please get Seymour's gun from him. Thank
you."
I was still kneeling in the gravel with the derringer
pressed into the man's groin. He let Ronnie take his gun without a
fight. Fancy that.
"I've got this one covered, Anita," Ronnie said. I
didn't glance at her. She would do her job. I would do mine.
"Seymour, this is a .38 Special, two shots. It can
hold a variety of ammunition, .22, .44, or .357 Magnum." This was a
lie, the new lightweight version couldn't hold anything higher than
.38s, but I was betting Seymour couldn't tell the difference.
"Forty-four or .357 and you can kiss the family jewels good-bye.
Twenty-two, maybe you'll just be very, very sore. To quote a role
model of mine, 'Do you feel lucky today?' "
"What do you want, man, what do you want?" His voice
was high and squeaky with fear.
"Who hired you to come after us?"
He shook his head. "No, man, he'll kill us."
"Three-fifty-seven Magnum makes a fucking big hole,
Seymour."
"Don't tell her shit," Pete said.
"If he says anything else, Ronnie, shoot his kneecap
off," I said.
"My pleasure," Ronnie said. I wondered if she would
really do it. I wondered if I'd tell her to do it. Better not to
find out.
"Talk to me, Seymour, now, or I pull the trigger." I
shoved the gun a little deeper. That must have hurt all on its own.
He sort of tried to tippy-toe.
"God, please don't."
"Who hired you?"
"Bruno."
"You asshole, Seymour," Pete said. "He'll kill
us."
"Ronnie, please shoot him," I said.
"You said the kneecap, right?"
"Yeah."
"How about an elbow instead?" she asked.
"Your choice," I said.
"You're crazy," Seymour said.
"Yeah," I said, "you remember that. What exactly did
Bruno tell you?"
"He said to take you to a building off Grand, on
Washington. He said to bring you both, but we could hurt the blonde
to get you to come along."
"Give me the address," I said.
Seymour did. I think he would have told me the secret
ingredient in the magic sauce if I had asked.
"If you go down there, Bruno will know we told ya,"
Pete said.
"Ronnie," I said.
"Shoot me now, chickie, it don't matter. You go down
there or send the police down there, we are dead."
I glanced at Pete. He seemed very sincere. They were
bad guys but. . . "Okay, we won't bust in on him."
"We aren't going to the police," Ronnie asked.
"No, if we did that, we might as well kill them now.
But we don't have to do that, do we, Seymour?"
"No, man, no."
"How much ol' Bruno pay you?"
"Four hundred apiece."
"It wasn't enough," I said.
"You're telling me."
"I'm going to get up now, Seymour, and leave your
balls where they are. Don't come near me or Ronnie again, or I'll
tell Bruno you sold him out."
"He'd kill us, man. He'd kill us slow."
"That's right, Seymour. We'll just all pretend this
never happened, right?" He was nodding vigorously.
"That okay with you, Pete?" I asked.
"I ain't stupid. Bruno'd rip out our hearts and feed
them to us. We won't talk." He sounded disgusted.
I got up and stepped carefully away from Seymour.
Ronnie covered Pete nice and steady with the Beretta. The .22 was
tucked into the waistband of her jogging shorts. "Get out of here,"
I said.
Seymour's skin was pasty, and a sick sweat beaded his
face. "Can I have my gun?" He wasn't very bright.
"Don't get cute," I said.
Pete stood. The blood under his nose had started to
dry. "Come on, Seymour. We gotta go now."
They moved on down the street side by side. Seymour
looked hunched in upon himself as if he were fighting an urge to
clutch his equipment.
Ronnie let out a great whoosh of air and leaned back
against the wall. The gun was still clutched in her right hand. "My
God," she said.
"Yeah," I said.
She touched my face where Seymour had hit me. It
hurt. I winced. "Are you all right?" Ronnie asked.
"Sure," I said. Actually, it felt like the side of my
face was one great big ache, but it wouldn't make it hurt any less
to say it out loud.
"Are we going down to the building where they were to
drop us?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I know who Bruno is and who gives him orders. I know
why they tried to kidnap me. What could I possibly learn that would
be worth two lives?"
Ronnie thought about that for a moment. "You're
right, I guess. But you aren't going to report the attack to the
police?"
"Why should I? I'm okay, you're okay. Seymour and
Pete won't be back."
She shrugged. "You didn't really want me to shoot his
kneecap off, did you? I mean we were playing good cop, bad cop,
right?" She looked at me very steadily as she asked, her solid grey
eyes earnest and true.
I looked away. "Let's walk back home. I don't feel
much like jogging."
"Me either."
We set off walking down the street. Ronnie untucked
her T-shirt and stuck the Beretta in the waistband. The .22 she
sort of cupped in her hand. It wasn't very noticeable that way.
"We were pretending, right? Being tough, right?"
Truth. "I don't know."
"Anita!"
"I don't know, that's the truth."
"I couldn't have shot him to pieces just to keep him
from talking."
"Good thing you didn't have to then," I said.
"Would you really have pulled the trigger on that
man?"
There was a cardinal singing somewhere off in the
distance. The song filled the stale heat and made it seem
cooler.
"Answer me, Anita. Would you really have pulled the
trigger?"
"Yes."
"Yes?" There was a lilt of surprise in her voice.
"Yes."
"Shit." We walked on in silence for a minute or two,
then she asked, "What ammo is in the gun today?"
"Thirty-eights."
"It would have killed him."
"Probably," I said.
I saw her look at me sideways as we walked back.
There was a look I'd seen before. A mixture of horror and
admiration. I'd just never seen it on a friend's face before. That
part hurt. But we went out to dinner that night at The Miller's
Daughter in Old St. Charles. The atmosphere was pleasant. The food
wonderful. As always.
We talked and laughed and had a very good time.
Neither of us mentioned what had happened this afternoon. Pretend
hard enough and maybe it will go away.
Chapter 20
At 10:30 that night I was down in the vampire
district. Dark blue polo shirt, jeans, red windbreaker. The
windbreaker hid the shoulder holster and the Browning Hi-Power.
Sweat was pooling in the bends of my arms but it beat the hell out
of not having it.
The afternoon fun and games had turned out all right,
but that was partly luck. And Seymour losing his temper. And me
being able to take a beating and keep on ticking. Ice had kept the
swelling down, but the left side of my face was puffy and red, as
if some sort of fruit was about to burst out of it. No
bruise—yet.
The Laughing Corpse was one of the newest clubs in
the District. Vampires are sexy. I'll admit that. But funny? I
don't think so. Apparently, I was in the minority. A line stretched
away from the club, curling round the block.
It hadn't occurred to me that I'd need a ticket or
reservations or whatever just to get in. But, hey, I knew the boss.
I walked along the line of people towards the ticket booth. The
people were mostly young. The women in dresses, the men in dressy
sports wear, with an occasional suit. They were chatting together
in excited voices, a lot of casual hand and arm touching. Dates. I
remember dates. It's just been a while. Maybe if I wasn't always
ass deep in alligators, I'd date more. Maybe.
I cut ahead of a double-date foursome. "Hey," one man
said.
"Sorry," I said.
The woman in the ticket booth frowned at me. "You
can't just cut in line like that, ma'am."
Ma'am? "I don't want a ticket. I don't want to see
the show. I am supposed to meet Jean-Claude here. That's it."
"Well, I don't know. How do I know you're not some
reporter?"
Reporter? I took a deep breath. "Just call
Jean-Claude and tell him Anita is here. Okay?"
She was still frowning at me.
"Look, just call Jean-Claude. If I'm a nosy reporter,
he'll deal with me. If I'm who I say I am, he'll be happy that you
called him. You can't lose."
"I don't know."
I fought an urge to scream at her. It probably
wouldn't help. Probably. "Just call Jean-Claude, pretty please," I
said.
Maybe it was the pretty please. She swiveled on her
stool and opened the upper half of a door in the back of the booth.
Small booth. I couldn't hear what she said, but she swiveled back
around. "Okay, manager says you can go in."
"Great, thanks." I walked up the steps. The entire
line of waiting people glared at me. I could feel their hot stares
on my back. But I've been stared at by experts, so I was careful
not to flinch. No one likes a line jumper.
The club was dim inside, as most clubs are. A guy
just inside the door said, "Ticket, please?"
I stared up at him. He wore a white T-shirt that
said, "The Laughing Corpse, it's a scream." A caricature of an
openmouthed vampire was drawn very large across his chest. He was
large and muscled and had bouncer tattooed across his forehead.
"Ticket, please," he repeated.
First the ticket lady, now the ticket man? "The
manager said I could come through to see Jean-Claude," I said.
"Willie," the ticket man said, "you send her
through?"
I turned around, and there was Willie McCoy. I smiled
when I saw him. I was glad to see him. That surprised me. I'm not
usually happy to see dead men.
Willie is short, thin, with black hair slicked back
from his forehead. I couldn't tell the exact color of his suit in
the dimness, but it looked like a dull tomato-red. White button-up
shirt, large shiny green tie. I had to look twice before I was
sure, but yes, there was a glow-in-the-dark hula girl on his tie.
It was the most tasteful outfit I'd ever seen Willie wear.
He grinned, flashing a lot of fang. "Anita, good to
see ya."
I nodded. "You, too, Willie."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
He grinned even wider. His canines glistened in the
dim light. He hadn't been dead a year yet.
"How long have you been manager here?" I asked.
"'Bout two weeks."
"Congratulations."
He stepped closer to me. I stepped back. Instinctive.
Nothing personal, but a vampire is a vampire. Don't get too close.
Willie was new dead, but he was still capable of hypnotizing with
his eyes. Okay, maybe no vampire as new as Willie could actually
catch me with his eyes, but old habits die hard.
Willie's face fell. A flicker of something in his
eyes—hurt? He dropped his voice but didn't try to step next to me.
He was a faster study dead than he ever had been alive. "Thanks to
me helping you last time, I'm in real good with the boss."
He sounded like an old gangster movie, but that was
Willie. "I'm glad Jean-Claude's doing right by you."
"Oh, yeah," Willie said, "this is the best job I ever
had. And the boss isn't . . ." He waggled his hands back and forth.
"Ya know, mean."
I nodded. I did know. I could bitch and complain
about Jean-Claude all I wanted, but compared to most Masters of the
City, he was a pussycat. A big, dangerous, carnivorous pussycat,
but still, it was an improvement.
"The boss's busy right this minute," Willie said. "He
said if you was to come early, to give ya a table near the
stage."
Great. Aloud I said, "How long will Jean-Claude
be?"
Willie shrugged. "Don't know for sure."
I nodded. "Okay, I'll wait, for a little while."
Willie grinned, fangs flashing. "Ya want me to tell
Jean-Claude to hurry it up?"
"Would you?"
He grimaced like he'd swallowed a bug. "Hell no."
"Don't sweat it. If I get tired of waiting, I'll tell
him myself."
Willie looked at me sorta sideways. "You'd do it,
wouldn't you?"
"Yeah."
He just shook his head and started leading me between
the small round tables. Every table was thick with people. Laughing,
gasping, drinking, holding hands. The
sensation of being surrounded by thick, sweaty life was nearly
overwhelming.
I glanced at Willie. Did he feel it? Did the warm
press of humanity make his stomach knot with hunger? Did he go home
at night and dream of ripping into the loud, roaring crowd? I
almost asked him, but I liked Willie as much as I could like a
vampire. I did not want to know if the answer was yes.
A table just one row back from the stage was empty.
There was a big white cardboard foldy thing that said "Reserved."
Willie tried to hold my chair for me, I waved him back. It wasn't
women's liberation. I simply never understood what I was supposed
to do while the guy shoved my chair in under me. Did I sit there
and watch him strain to scoot the chair with me in it?
Embarrassing. I usually hovered just above the chair and got it
shoved into the backs of my knees. Hell with it.
"Would you like a drink while ya wait?" Willie
asked.
"Could I have a Coke?"
"Nuthin' stronger?"
I shook my head.
Willie walked away through the tables and the people.
On the stage was a slender man with short, dark hair. He was thin
all over, his face almost cadaverous, but he was definitely human.
His appearance was more comical than anything, like a long-limbed
clown. Beside him, staring blank-faced out at the crowd, was a
zombie.
Its pale eyes were still clear, human-looking, but he
didn't blink. That familiar frozen stare gazed out at the audience.
They were only half listening to the jokes. Most eyes were on the
standing deadman. He was just decayed enough around the edges to
look scary, but even one row away there was no hint of odor. Nice
trick if you could manage it.
"Ernie here is the best roommate I ever had," the
comedian said. "He doesn't eat much, doesn't talk my ear off,
doesn't bring cute chicks home and lock me out while they have a
good time." Nervous laughter from the audience. Eyes glued on ol'
Ernie.
"Though there was that pork chop in the fridge that
went bad. Ernie seemed to like that a lot."
The zombie turned slowly, almost painfully, to stare
at the comedian. The man's eyes flickered to the zombie, then back
to the audience, smile in place. The zombie kept staring at him.
The man didn't seem to like it much. I didn't blame him. Even the
dead don't like to be the butt of jokes.
The jokes weren't that funny anyway. It was a novelty
act. The zombie was the act. Pretty inventive, and pretty sick.
Willie came back with my Coke. The manager waiting on
my table, la-de-da. Of course, the reserved table was pretty good,
too. Willie set the drink down on one of those useless paper lace
dollies. "Enjoy," he said. He turned to leave, but I touched his
arm. I wish I hadn't.
The arm was solid enough, real enough. But it was
like touching wood. It was dead. I don't know what else to call it.
There was no feeling of movement. Nothing.
I dropped his arm, slowly, and looked up at him.
Meeting his eyes, thanks to Jean-Claude's marks. Those brown eyes
held something like sorrow.
I could suddenly hear my heartbeat in my ears, and I
had to swallow to calm my own pulse. Shit. I wanted Willie to go
away now. I turned away from him and looked very hard at my drink.
He left. Maybe it was just the sound of all the laughing, but I
couldn't hear Willie walk away.
Willie McCoy was the only vampire I had ever known
before he died. I remembered him alive. He had been a small-time
hood. An errand boy for bigger fish. Maybe Willie thought being a
vampire would make him a big fish. He'd been wrong there. He was
just a little undead fish now. Jean-Claude or someone like him
would run Willie's "life" for eternity. Poor Willie.
I rubbed the hand that had touched him on my leg. I
wanted to forget the feel of his body under the new tomato-red
suit, but I couldn't. Jean-Claude's body didn't feel that way. Of
course, Jean-Claude could damn near pass for human. Some of the old
ones could do that. Willie would learn. God help him.
"Zombies are better than dogs. They'll fetch your
slippers and don't need to be walked Ernie'll even sit at my feet
and beg if I tell him to."
The audience laughed. I wasn't sure why. It wasn't
that genuine ha-ha laughter. It was that outrageous shocked
sound.
The I-can't-believe-he-said-that laughter.
The zombie was moving toward the comedian in a sort
of slow-motion jerk. Crumbling hands reached outward and my stomach
squeezed tight. It was a flashback to last night. Zombies almost
always attack by just reaching out. Just like in the movies.
The comedian didn't realize that Ernie had decided
he'd had enough. If a zombie is simply raised without any
particular orders, he usually reverts to what is normal for him. A
good person is a good person until his brain decays, stripping him
of personality. Most zombies won't kill without orders, but every
once in a while you get lucky and raise one that has homicidal
tendencies. The comedian was about to get lucky.
The zombie walked towards him like a bad Frankenstein
monster. The comedian finally realized something was wrong. He
stopped in mid-joke, turning eyes wide. "Ernie," he said. It was as
far as he got. The decaying hands wrapped around his throat and
started to squeeze.
For one pleasant second I almost let the zombie do
him in. Exploiting the dead is one thing I feel strongly about, but
. . . stupidity isn't punishable by death. If it was, there would
be a hell of a population drop.
I stood up, glancing around the club to see if they
had planned for this eventuality. Willie came running to the stage.
He wrapped his arms around the zombie's waist and pulled, lifted
the much taller body off its feet, but the hands kept
squeezing.
The comedian slipped to his knees, making little argh
sounds. His face was going from red to purple. The audience was
laughing. They thought it was part of the show. It was a heck of a
lot funnier than the act.
I stepped up to the stage and said softly to Willie,
"Need some help?"
He stared at me, still clinging to the zombie's
waist. With his extraordinary strength Willie could have ripped a
finger at a time off the man's neck and probably saved him. But
super-vampire strength doesn't help you if you don't think how to
use it. Willie never thought. Of course, the zombie might crush the
man's windpipe before even a vampire could peel its fingers away.
Maybe. Best not to find out.
I thought the comedian was a putz. But I couldn't
stand there and watch him die. Really, I couldn't.
"Stop," I said. Low and for the zombie's ears. He
stopped squeezing, but his hands were still tight. The comedian was
going limp. "Release him."
The zombie let go. The man fell in a near faint on
the stage. Willie straightened up from his frantic tugging at the
deadman. He smoothed his tomato-red suit back into place. His hair
was still perfectly slick. Too much hair goop for a mere zombie
wrestling to displace his hairdo.
"Thanks," he whispered. Then he stood to his full
five feet four and said, "The Amazing Albert and his pet zombie,
ladies and gentlemen." The audience had been a bit uncertain, but
the applause began. When the Amazing Albert staggered to his feet,
the applause exploded. He croaked into the microphone. "Ernie
thinks it's time to go home now. You've been a great audience." The
applause was loud and genuine.
The comedian left the stage. The zombie stayed and
stared at me. Waiting, waiting for another order. I don't know why
everyone can't speak and have zombies obey them. It doesn't even
feel like magic to me. There is no tingle of the skin, no breath of
power. I speak and the zombies listen. Me and E. F. Hutton.
"Follow Albert and obey his orders until I tell you
otherwise." The zombie looked down at me for a second, then turned
slowly and shuffled after the man. The zombie wouldn't kill him
now. I wouldn't tell the comedian that, though. Let him think his
life was in danger. Let him think he had to let me lay the zombie
to rest. It was what I wanted. It was probably what the zombie
wanted.
Ernie certainly didn't seem to like being the
straight man in a comedy routine. Hecklers are one thing. Choking
the comic to death is a little extreme.
Willie escorted me back to my table. I sat down and
sipped my Coke. He sat down across from me. He looked shaken. His
small hands trembled as he sat across from me. He was a vampire,
but he was still Willie McCoy. I wondered how many years it would
take for the last remnants of his personality to disappear. Ten
years, twenty, a century? How long before the monster ate the
man?
If it took that long. It wouldn't be my problem. I
wouldn't be there to see it. To tell the truth, I didn't want to
see it.
"I never liked zombies," Willie said.
I stared at him. "Are you afraid of zombies?"
His eyes flickered to me, then down to the table.
"No."
I grinned at him. "You're afraid of zombies. You're
phobic."
He leaned across the table. "Don't tell. Please don't
tell." There was real fear in his eyes.
"Who would I tell?"
"You know."
I shook my head. "I don't know what you're talking
about, Willie."
"The MASTER." You could hear "master" was in all
caps.
"Why would I tell Jean-Claude?"
He was whispering now. A new comedian had come up on
stage, there was laughter and noise, and still he whispered.
"You're his human servant, whether you like it or not. When we
speak to you, he tells us we're speaking to him."
We were leaning almost face-to-face now. The gentle
brush of his breath smelled like breath mints. Almost all vampires
smell like breath mints. I don't know what they did before mints
were invented. Had stinky breath, I guess.
"You know I'm not his human servant."
"But he wants you to be."
"Just because Jean-Claude wants something doesn't
mean he gets it," I said.
"You don't know what he's like."
"I think I do. . ."
He touched my arm. I didn't jerk back this time. I
was too intent on what he was saying. "He's been different since
the old master died. He's a lot more powerful than even you
know."
This much I had suspected. "So why shouldn't I tell
him you're afraid of zombies?"
"He'll use it to punish me."
I stared at him, our eyes inches apart. "You mean
he's torturing people to control them."
He nodded.
"Shit."
"You won't tell?"
"I won't tell. Promise," I said.
He looked so relieved, I patted his hand. The hand
felt like a hand. His body didn't feel wood hard anymore. Why? I
didn't know, and if I asked Willie, he probably wouldn't know
either. One of the mysteries of . . . death.
"Thanks."
"I thought you said that Jean-Claude was the kindest
master you've ever had."
"He is," Willie said.
Now that was a frightening truth. If being tormented
by your darkest fear was the kindest, how much worse had Nikolaos
been. Hell, I knew the answer to that one. She'd been psychotic.
Jean-Claude wasn't cruel just for the sake of watching people
squirm. There was reason to his cruelty. It was a step up.
"I gotta go. Thanks for helping with the zombie." He
stood.
"You were brave, you know," I said.
He flashed a grin my way, fangs glinting in the dim
light. The smile vanished from his face like someone had turned a
switch. "I can't afford to be anything else."
Vampires are a lot like wolf packs. The weak are
either dominated or destroyed. Banishment is not an option. Willie
was moving up in the ranks. A sign of weakness could stop that rise
or worse. I'd often wondered what vampires feared. One of them
feared zombies. It would have been funny if I hadn't seen the fear
in his eyes.
The comic on stage was a vampire. He was the new
dead. Skin chalk-white, eyes like burned holes in paper. His gums
were bloodless and receding from canines that would have been the
envy of any German shepherd. I had never seen a vampire look so
monstrous. They all usually made an effort to appear human. This
one wasn't.
I had missed the audience's reaction to his first
appearance, but now they were laughing. If I had thought the zombie
jokes were bad, these were worse. A woman at the next table laughed
so hard, tears spilled down her cheeks.
"I went to New York, tough city. A gang jumped me,
but I put the bite on them." People were holding their ribs as if
in pain.
I didn't get it. It was genuinely not funny. I gazed
around the crowd and found every eye fixed on the stage. They
peered up at him with the helpless devotion of the bespelled.
He was using mind tricks. I'd seen vampires seduce,
threaten, terrify, all by concentrating. But I had never seen them
cause laughter. He was forcing them to laugh.
It wasn't the worst abuse of vampiric powers I'd ever
seen. He wasn't trying to hurt them. And this mass hypnosis was
harmless, temporary. But it was wrong. Mass mind control was one of
the top scary things that most people don't know vampires can
do.
I knew, and I didn't like it. He was the fresh dead
and even before Jean-Claude's marks, the comic couldn't have
touched me. Being an animator gave you partial immunity to
vampires. It was one of the reasons that animators are so often
vampire slayers. We've got a leg up, so to speak.
I had called Charles earlier, but I still didn't see
him. He is not easy to miss in a crowd, sort of like Godzilla going
through Tokyo. Where was he? And when would Jean-Claude be ready to
see me? It was now after eleven. Trust him to browbeat me into a
meeting and then make me wait. He was such an arrogant son of a
bitch.
Charles came through the swinging doors that led to
the kitchen area. He strode through the tables, heading for the
door. He was shaking his head and murmuring to a small Asian man
who was having to quick-run to keep up.
I waved, and Charles changed direction towards me. I
could hear the smaller man arguing, "I run a very good, clean
kitchen."
Charles murmured something that I couldn't hear. The
bespelled audience was oblivious. We could have shot off a
twenty-one-gun salute, and they wouldn't have flinched. Until the
vampire comic was finished, they would hear nothing else.
"What are you, the damn health department?" the
smaller man asked. He was dressed in a traditional chef's outfit.
He had the big floppy hat wadded up in his hands. His dark uptilted
eyes were sparkling with anger.
Charles is only six-one, but he seems bigger. His
body is one wide piece from broad shoulders to feet. He seems to
have no waist. He is like a moving mountain. Huge. His perfectly
brown eyes are the same color as his skin. Wonderfully dark. His
hand is big enough to cover my face.
The Asian chef looked like an angry puppy beside
Charles. He grabbed Charles's arm. I don't know what he thought he
was going to do, but Charles stopped moving. He stared down at the
offending hand and said very carefully, voice almost painfully
deep, "Do not touch me."
The chef dropped his arm like he'd been burned. He
took a step back. Charles was only giving him part of the "look."
The full treatment had been known to send would-be muggers
screaming for help. Part of the look was enough for one irate
chef.
His voice was calm, reasonable when he spoke again,
"I run a clean kitchen."
Charles shook his head. "You can't have zombies near
the food preparation. It's illegal. The health codes forbid corpses
near food."
"My assistant is a vampire. He's dead."
Charles rolled his eyes at me. I sympathized. I'd had
the same discussion with a chef or two. "Vampires are not
considered legally dead anymore, Mr. Kim. Zombies are."
"I don't understand why."
"Zombies rot and carry disease just like any dead
body. Just because they move around doesn't mean they aren't a
depository for disease."
"I don't . . . "
"Either keep the zombies away from the kitchen or we
will close you down. Do you understand that?"
"And you'd have to explain to the owner why his
business was not making money," I said, smiling up at both of
them.
The chef looked a bit pale. Fancy that. "I . . . I
understand. It will be taken care of."
"Good," Charles said.
The chef darted one frightened look at me, then began
to thread his way back to the kitchen. It was funny how Jean-Claude
was beginning to scare so many people. He'd been one of the more
civilized vampires before he became head bloodsucker. Power
corrupts.
Charles sat down across from me. He seemed too big
for the table. "I got your message. What's going on?"
"I need an escort to the Tenderloin."
It's hard to tell when Charles blushes, but he
squirmed in his chair. "Why in the world do you want to go down
there?"
"I need to find someone who works down there."
"Who?"
"A prostitute," I said.
He squirmed again. It was like watching an
uncomfortable mountain. "Caroline is not going to like this."
"Don't tell her," I said.
"You know Caroline and I don't lie to each other,
about anything."
I fought to keep my face neutral. If Charles had to
explain his every move to his wife, that was his choice. He didn't
have to let Caroline control him. He chose to do it. But it grated
on me like having your teeth cleaned.
"Just tell her that you had extra animator business.
She won't ask details." Caroline thought that our job was gross.
Beheading chickens, raising zombies, how uncouth.
"Why do you need to find this prostitute?"
I ignored the question and answered another one. The
less Charles knew about Harold Gaynor, the safer he'd be. "I just
need someone to look menacing. I don't want to have to shoot some
poor slob because he made a pass at me. Okay?"
Charles nodded. "I'll come. I'm flattered you
asked."
I smiled encouragingly at him. Truth was that Manny
was more dangerous and much better backup. But Manny was like me.
He didn't look dangerous. Charles did. I needed a good bluff
tonight, not firepower.
I glanced at my watch. It was almost midnight.
Jean-Claude had kept me waiting an hour. I looked behind me and
caught Willie's gaze. He came towards me immediately. I would try
to use this power only for good.
He bent close, but not too close. He glanced at
Charles, acknowledging him with a nod. Charles nodded back. Mr.
Stoic.
"What ya want?" Willie said.
"Is Jean-Claude ready to see me or not?"
"Yeah, I was just coming to get ya. I didn't know you
was expecting company tonight." He looked at Charles.
"He's a coworker."
"A zombie raiser?" Willie asked.
Charles said, "Yes." His dark face was impassive. His
look was quietly menacing.
Willie seemed impressed. He nodded. "Sure, ya got
zombie work after you see Jean-Claude?"
"Yeah," I said. I stood and spoke softly to Charles,
though chances were that Willie would hear it. Even the newly dead
hear better than most dogs.
"I'll be as quick as I can."
"Alright," he said, "but I need to get home
soon."
I understood. He was on a short leash. His own fault,
but it seemed to bother me more than it bothered Charles. Maybe it
was one of the reasons I'm not married. I'm not big on
compromise.
Chapter 21
Willie led me through a door and a short hallway. As
soon as the door closed behind us, the noise was muted, distant as
a dream. The lights were bright after the dimness of the club. I
blinked against it. Willie looked rosy-cheeked in the bright light,
not quite alive, but healthy for a deadman. He'd fed tonight on
something, or someone. Maybe a willing human, maybe animal.
Maybe.
The first door on the left said "Manager's Office."
Willie's office? Naw.
Willie opened the door and ushered me in. He didn't
come in the office. His eyes flicked towards the desk, then he
backed out, shutting the door behind him.
The carpeting was pale beige; the walls
eggshell-white. A large black-lacquered desk sat against the far
wall. A shiny black lamp seemed to grow out of the desk. There was
a blotter perfectly placed in the center of the desk. There were no
papers, no paper clips, just Jean-Claude sitting behind the
desk.
His long pale hands were folded on the blotter. Soft
curling black hair, midnight-blue eyes, white shirt with its
strange button-down cuffs. He was perfect sitting there, perfectly
still like a painting. Beautiful as a wet dream, but not real. He
only looked perfect. I knew better.
There were two brown metal filing cabinets against
the left wall. A black leather couch took up the rest of the wall.
There was a large oil painting above the couch. It was a scene of
St. Louis in the 1700s. Settlers coming downriver in flatboats. The
sunlight was autumn thick. Children ran and played. It didn't match
anything in the room.
"The picture yours?" I asked.
He gave a slight nod.
"Did you know the painter?"
He smiled then, no hint of fangs, just the beautiful
spread of lips. If there had been a vampire GQ, Jean-Claude would
have been their cover boy.
"The desk and couch don't match the rest of the
decor," I said.
"I am in the midst of remodeling," he said.
He just sat there looking at me. "You asked for this
meeting, Jean-Claude. Let's get on with it."
"Are you in a hurry?" His voice had dropped lower,
the brush of fur on naked skin.
"Yes, I am. So cut to the chase. What do you
want?"
The smile widened, slightly. He actually lowered his
eyes for a moment. It was almost coy. "You are my human servant,
Anita."
He used my name. Bad sign that. "No," I said, "I'm
not."
"You bear two marks, only two more remain." His face
still looked pleasant, lovely. The expression didn't match what he
was saying.
"So what?"
He sighed. "Anita. . ." He stopped in midsentence and
stood. He came around the desk. "Do you know what it means to be
Master of the City?" He leaned on the desk, half sitting. His shirt
gaped open showing an expanse of pale chest. One nipple showed
small and pale and hard. The cross-shaped scar was an insult to
such pale perfection.
I had been staring at his bare chest. How
embarrassing. I met his gaze and managed not to blush. Bully for
me.
"There are other benefits to being my human servant,
ma petite." His eyes were all pupil, black and drowning
deep.
I shook my head. "No."
"No lies, ma petite, I can feel your
desire." His tongue flicked across his lips. "I can taste it."
Great, just great. How do you argue with someone who
can feel what you're feeling? Answer: don't argue, agree. "Alright,
I lust after you. Does that make you happy?"
He smiled. "Yes." One word, but it flowed through my
mind, whispering things that he had not said. Whispers in the
dark.
"I lust after a lot of men, but that doesn't mean I
have to sleep with them."
His face was almost slack, eyes like drowning pools.
"Casual lust is easily defeated," he said. He stood in one smooth
motion. "What we have is not casual, ma petite. Not lust,
but desire." He moved towards me, one pale hand outstretched.
My heart was thudding in my throat. It wasn't fear. I
didn't think it was a mind trick. It felt real. Desire, he called
it, maybe it was. "Don't," my voice was hoarse, a whisper.
He, of course, did not stop. His fingers traced the
edge of my cheek, barely touching. The brush of skin on skin. I
stepped away from him, forced to draw a deep shaking breath. I
could be as uncool as I wanted, he could feel my discomfort. No
sense pretending.
I could feel where he had touched me, a lingering
sensation. I looked at the ground while I spoke. "I appreciate the
possible fringe benefits, Jean-Claude, really. But I can't. I
won't." I met his eyes. His face was a terrible blankness. Nothing.
It was the same face of a moment ago, but some spark of humanity,
of life, was gone.
My pulse started thudding again. It had nothing to do
with sex. Fear. It had a lot to do with fear.
"As you like, my little animator. Whether we are
lovers or not, it does not change what you are to me. You are my
human servant."
"No," I said.
"You are mine, Anita. Willing or not, you are
mine."
"See, Jean-Claude, here's where you lose me. First
you try seducing me, which has its pleasant side. When that doesn't
work, you resort to threats."
"It is not a threat, ma petite. It is the
truth."
"No, it isn't. And stop calling me ma
fucking petite."
He smiled at that.
I didn't want him amused by me. Anger replaced fear
in a quick warm rush. I liked anger. It made me brave, and stupid.
"Fuck you."
"I have already offered that." His voice made
something low jerk in my stomach.
I felt the rush of heat as I blushed. "Damn you,
Jean-Claude, damn you."
"We need to talk, ma petite. Lovers or not,
servant or not, we need to talk."
"Then talk. I haven't got all night."
He sighed. "You don't make this easy."
"If it was easy you wanted, you should have picked on
someone else."
He nodded. "Very true. Please, be seated." He went
back to lean on the desk, arms crossed over his chest.
"I don't have that kind of time," I said.
He frowned slightly. "I thought we agreed to talk
this out, ma petite."
"We agreed to meet at eleven. You're the one who
wasted an hour, not me."
His smile was almost bitter. "Very well. I will give
you a . . . condensed version."
I nodded. "Fine with me."
"I am the new Master of the City. But to survive with
Nikolaos alive, I had to hide my powers. I did it too well. There
are those who think I am not powerful enough to be the Master of
all. They are challenging me. One of the things they are using
against me is you."
"How?"
"Your disobedience. I cannot even control my own
human servant. How can I possibly control all the vampires in the
city and surrounding areas?"
"What do you want from me?"
He smiled then, wide and genuine, flashing fangs. "I
want you to be my human servant."
"Not in this lifetime, Jean-Claude."
"I can force the third mark on you, Anita." There was
no threat as he said it. It was just a fact.
"I would rather die than be your human servant."
Master vampires can smell the truth. He would know I meant it.
"Why?"
I opened my mouth to try to explain, but didn't. He
would not understand. We stood two feet apart but it might have
been miles. Miles across some dark chasm. We could not bridge that
gap. He was a walking corpse. Whatever he had been as a living man,
it was gone. He was the Master of the City, and that was nothing
even close to human.
"If you force this issue, I will kill you," I
said.
"You mean that." There was surprise in his voice. It
isn't often a girl gets to surprise a centuries-old vampire.
"Yes."
"I do not understand you, ma petite."
"I know," I said.
"Could you pretend to be my servant?"
It was an odd question. "What does pretending
mean?"
"You come to a few meetings. You stand at my side
with your guns and your reputation."
"You want the Executioner at your back." I stared at
him for a space of heartbeats. The true horror of what he'd just
said floated slowly through my mind. "I thought the two marks were
accident. That you panicked. You meant all along to mark me, didn't
you?"
He just smiled.
"Answer me, you son of a bitch."
"If the chance arose, I was not averse to it."
"Not averse to it!" I was almost yelling. "You
cold-bloodedly chose me to be your human servant! Why?"
"You are the Executioner."
"Damn you, what does that mean?"
"It is impressive to be the vampire who finally
caught you."
"You haven't caught me."
"If you would behave yourself, the others would think
so. Only you and I need know that it is pretense."
I shook my head. "I won't play your game,
Jean-Claude."
"You will not help me?"
"You got it."
"I offer you immortality. Without the compromise of
vampirism. I offer you myself. There have been women over the years
who would have done anything I asked just for that."
"Sex is sex, Jean-Claude. No one's that good."
He smiled slightly. "Vampires are different, ma
petite. If you were not so stubborn, you might find out how
different."
I had to look away from his eyes. The look was too
intimate. Too full of possibilities.
"There's only one thing I want from you," I said.
"And what is that, ma petite?"
"All right, two things. First, stop calling me ma
petite; second, let me go. Wipe these damn marks away."
"You may have the first request, Anita."
"And the second?"
"I cannot, even if I wanted to."
"Which you don't," I said.
"Which I don't."
"Stay away from me, Jean-Claude. Stay the fuck away
from me, or I'll kill you."
"Many people have tried through the years."
"How many of them had eighteen kills?"
His eyes widened just a bit. "None. There was this
man in Hungary who swore he killed five."
"What happened to him?"
"I tore his throat out."
"You understand this, Jean-Claude. I would rather
have my throat torn out. I would rather die trying to kill you than
submit to you." I stared at him, trying to see if he understood any
of what I said. "Say something."
"I have heard your words. I know you mean them." He
was suddenly standing in front of me. I hadn't seen him move,
hadn't felt him in my head. He was just suddenly inches in front of
me. I think I gasped.
"Could you truly kill me?" His voice was like silk on
a wound, gentle with an edge of pain. Like sex. It was like velvet
rubbing inside my skull. It felt good, even with fear tearing
through my body. Shit. He could still have me. Still take me down.
No way.
I looked up into his so-blue eyes and said,
"Yes."
I meant it. He blinked once, gracefully, and stepped
back. "You are the most stubborn woman I have ever met," he said.
There was no play in his voice this time. It was a flat
statement.
"That's the nicest compliment you've ever paid
me."
He stood in front of me, hands at his sides. He stood
very still. Snakes or birds can stand utterly still but even a
snake has a sense of aliveness, of action waiting to resume.
Jean-Claude stood there with no sense of anything, as if despite
what my eyes told me, he had vanished. He was not there at all. The
dead make no noise.
"What happened to your face?"
I touched the swollen cheek before I could stop
myself. "Nothing," I lied.
"Who hit you?"
"Why, so you can go beat him up?"
"One of the fringe benefits of being my servant is my
protection."
"I don't need your protection, Jean-Claude."
"He hurt you."
"And I shoved a gun into his groin and made him tell
me everything he knew," I said.
Jean-Claude smiled. "You did what?"
"I shoved a gun into his balls, alright?"
His eyes started to sparkle. Laughter spread across
his face and burst out between his lips. He laughed
full-throated.
The laugh was like candy: sweet, and infectious. If
you could bottle Jean-Claude's laugh, I know it would be fattening.
Or orgasmic.
"Ma petite, ma petite, you are
absolutely marvelous."
I stared at him, letting that wonderful, touchable
laugh roll around me. It was time to go. It is very hard to be
dignified when someone is laughing uproariously at you. But I
managed.
My parting shot made him laugh harder. "Stop calling
me ma petite."
Chapter 22
I stepped back out into the noise of the club.
Charles was standing beside the table, not sitting. He looked
uncomfortable from a distance. What had gone wrong now?
His big hands were twisted together. Dark face
scrunched up into near pain. A kind God had made Charles look big
and bad, because inside he was all marshmallow. If I'd had
Charles's natural size and strength, I'd have been a guaranteed bad
ass. It was sort of sad and unfair.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I called Caroline," he said.
"And?"
"The baby-sitter's sick. And Caroline's been called
in to the hospital. Someone has to stay with Sam while she goes to
work."
"Mm-huh," I said.
He didn't look the least bit tough when he said, "Can
going down to the Tenderloin wait until tomorrow?"
I shook my head.
"You're not going to go down there alone," Charles
said. "Are you?"
I stared up at the great mountain of a man, and
sighed. "I can't wait, Charles."
"But the Tenderloin." He lowered his voice as if just
saying the word too loud would bring a cloud of pimps and
prostitutes to descend upon us. "You can't go down there alone at
night."
"I've gone worse places, Charles. I'll be all
right."
"No, I won't let you go alone. Caroline can just get
a new sitter or tell the hospital no." He smiled when he said it.
Always happy to help a friend. Caroline would give him hell for it.
Worst of all, now I didn't want to take Charles with me. You had to
do more than look tough.
What if Gaynor got wind of me questioning Wanda? What
if he found Charles and thought he was involved? No. It had
been selfish to risk Charles. He had a four-year-old
son. And a wife.
Harold Gaynor would eat Charles raw for dinner. I
couldn't involve him. He was a big, friendly, eager-to-please bear.
A lovable, cuddly bear. I didn't need a teddy bear for backup.
I needed someone who would be able to take any heat
that Gaynor might send our way.
I had an idea.
"Go home, Charles. I won't go alone. I promise."
He looked uncertain. Like maybe he didn't trust me.
Fancy that. "Anita, are you sure? I won't leave you hanging like
this."
"Go on, Charles. I'll take backup."
"Who can you get at this hour?"
"No questions. Go home to your son."
He looked uncertain, but relieved. He hadn't really
wanted to go to the Tenderloin. Maybe Caroline's short leash was
what Charles wanted, needed. An excuse for all the things he really
didn't want to do. What a basis for a marriage.
But, hey, if it works, don't fix it.
Charles left with many apologies. But I knew he was
glad to go. I would remember that he had been glad to go.
I knocked on the office door. There was a silence,
then, "Come in, Anita."
How had he known it was me? I wouldn't ask. I didn't
want to know.
Jean-Claude seemed to be checking figures in a large
ledger. It looked antique with yellowed pages and fading ink.
The ledger looked like something Bob Crachit should have been
scribbling in on a cold Christmas Eve.
"What have I done to merit two visits in one night?"
he said.
Looking at him now, I felt silly. I spent all this
time avoiding him. Now I was going to invite him to accompany me on
a bit of sleuthing? But it would kill two bats with one stone. It
would please Jean-Claude, and I really didn't want him angry with
me, if I could avoid it. And if Gaynor did try to go up against
Jean-Claude, I was betting on Jean-Claude.
It was what Jean-Claude had done to me a few weeks
ago. He had chosen me as the vampire's champion. Put me up against
a monster that had slain three master vampires. And he had bet that
I would come out on top against Nikolaos. I had, but just
barely.
What was sauce for the goose was sauce for the
gander. I smiled sweetly at him. Pleased to be able to return the
favor so quickly.
"Would you care to accompany me to the
Tenderloin?"
He blinked, surprise covering his face just like a
real person. "To what purpose?"
"I need to question a prostitute about a case I'm
working on. I need backup."
"Backup?" he asked.
"I need backup that looks more threatening than I do.
You fit the bill."
He smiled beatifically. "I would be your
bodyguard."
"You've given me enough grief, do something nice for
a change."
The smile vanished. "Why this sudden change of heart,
ma petite?"
"My backup had to go home and baby-sit his kid."
"And if I do not go?"
"I'll go alone," I said.
"Into the Tenderloin?"
"Yep."
He was suddenly standing by the desk, walking towards
me. I hadn't seen him rise.
"I wish you'd stop doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Clouding my mind so I can't see you move."
"I do it as often as I can, ma petite, just
to prove I still can."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I gave up much of my power over you when I gave you
the marks. I practice what little games are left me." He was
standing almost in front of me. "Lest you forget who and what I
am."
I stared up into his blue, blue eyes. "I never forget
that you are the walking dead, Jean-Claude."
An expression I could not read passed over his face.
It might have been pain. "No, I see the knowledge in your eyes of
what I am." His voice dropped low, almost a whisper, but it wasn't
seductive. It was human. "Your eyes are the clearest mirror I have
ever seen, ma petite. Whenever I begin to pretend to
myself. Whenever I have delusions of life. I have only to look into
your face and see the truth."
What did he expect me to say? Sorry, I'll try to
ignore the fact that you're a vampire. "So why keep me around?" I
asked.
"Perhaps if Nikolaos had had such a mirror, she would
not have been such a monster."
I stared at him. He might be right. It made his
choice of me as human servant almost noble. Almost. Oh, hell. I
would not start feeling sorry for the freaking Master of the City.
Not now. Not ever.
We would go down to the Tenderloin. Pimps beware. I
was bringing the Master as backup. It was like carrying a
thermonuclear device to kill ants. Overkill has always been a
specialty of mine.
Chapter 23
The Tenderloin was originally the red light district
on the Riverfront in the 1800s. But the Tenderloin, like so much of
St. Louis, moved uptown. Go down Washington past the Fox Theater,
where you can see Broadway traveling companies sing bright musical.
Keep driving down Washington to the west edge of downtown St. Louis
and you will come to the resurrected carcass of the Tenderloin.
The night streets are neon-coated, sparkling,
flashing, pulsing-colors. It looks like some sort of pornographic
carnival. All it needs is a Ferris wheel in one of the empty lots.
They could sell cotton candy shaped like naked people. The kiddies
could play while Daddy went to get his jollies. Mom would never
have to know.
Jean-Claude sat beside me in the car. He had been
utterly silent on the drive over. I had had to glance at him a time
or two just to make sure he was still there. People make noise. I
don't mean talking or belching or anything overt. But people, as a
rule, can't just sit without making noise. They fidget, the sound
of cloth rubbing against the seats; they breathe, the soft intake
of air; they wet their lips, wet, quiet, but noise. Jean-Claude
didn't do any of these things as we drove. I couldn't even swear he
blinked. The living dead, yippee.
I can take silence as good as the next guy, better
than most women and a lot of men. Now, I needed to fill the
silence. Talk just for the noise. A waste of energy, but I needed
it.
"Are you in there, Jean-Claude?"
His neck turned, bringing his head with it. His eyes
glittered, reflecting the neon signs like dark glass. Shit.
"You can play human, Jean-Claude, better than almost
any vampire I've ever met. What's all this supernatural crap?"
"Crap?" he said, voice soft.
"Yeah, why are you going all spooky on me?"
"Spooky?" he asked, and the sound filled the car. As
if the word meant something else entirely.
"Stop that," I said.
"Stop what?"
"Answering every question with a question."
He blinked once. "So sorry, ma petite, but I
can feel the street."
"Feel the street? What does that mean?"
He settled back against the upholstery, leaning his
head and neck into the seat. His hand clasped over his stomach.
"There is a great deal of life here."
"Life?" He had me doing it now.
"Yes," he said, "I can feel them running back and
forth. Little creatures, desperately seeking love, pain,
acceptance, greed. A lot of greed here, too, but mostly pain and
love."
"You don't come to a prostitute for love. You come
for sex."
He rolled his head so his dark eyes stared at me.
"Many people confuse the two."
I stared at the road. The hairs at the back of my
neck were standing at attention. "You haven't fed yet tonight, have
you?"
"You are the vampire expert. Can you not tell?" His
voice had dropped to almost a whisper. Hoarse and thick.
"You know I can never tell with you."
"A compliment to my powers, I'm sure."
"I did not bring you down here to hunt," I said. My
voice sounded firm, a tad loud. My heart was loud inside my
head.
"Would you forbid me to hunt tonight?" he asked.
I thought about that one for a minute or two. We were
going to have to turn around and make another pass to find a
parking space. Would I forbid him to hunt tonight? Yes. He knew the
answer. This was a trick question. Trouble was I couldn't see the
trick.
"I would ask that you not hunt here tonight," I
said.
"Give me a reason, Anita."
He had called me Anita without me prompting him. He
was definitely after something. "Because I brought you down here.
You wouldn't have hunted here, if it hadn't been for me."
"You feel guilt for whomever I might feed on
tonight?"
"It is illegal to take unwilling human victims," I
said.
"So it is."
"The penalty for doing so is death," I said.
"By your hand."
"If you do it in this state, yes."
"They are just whores, pimps, cheating men. What do
they matter to you, Anita?"
I don't think he had ever called me Anita twice in a
row. It was a bad sign. A car pulled away not a block from The Grey
Cat Club. What luck. I slid my Nova into the slot. Parallel parking
is not my best thing, but luckily the car that pulled away was
twice the size of my car. There was plenty of room to maneuver,
back and forth from the curb.
When the car was lurched nearly onto the curb but
safely out of traffic, I cut the engine. Jean-Claude lay back in
his seat, staring at me. "I asked you a question, ma
petite, what do these people mean to you?"
I undid my seat belt and turned to look at him. Some
trick of light and shadow had put most of his body in darkness. A
band of nearly gold light lay across his face. His high cheekbones
were very prominent against his pale skin. The tips of his fangs
showed between his lips. His eyes gleamed like blue neon. I looked
away and stared at the steering wheel while I talked.
"I have no personal stake in these people,
Jean-Claude, but they are people. Good, bad, or indifferent, they
are alive, and no one has the right to just arbitrarily snuff them
out."
"So it is the sanctity of life you cling to?"
I nodded. "That and the fact that every human being
is special. Every death is a loss of something precious and
irreplaceable." I looked at him as I finished the last.
"You have killed before, Anita. You have destroyed
that which is irreplaceable."
"I'm irreplaceable, too," I said. "No one has the
right to kill me, either."
He sat up in one liquid motion, and reality seemed to
collect around him. I could almost feel the movement of time in the
car, like a sonic boom for the inside of my head, instead of my
ear.
Jean-Claude sat there looking entirely human. His
pale skin had a certain flush to it. His curling black hair,
carefully combed and styled, was rich and touchable. His eyes were
just midnight-blue, nothing exceptional but the color. He was human
again, in the blink of an eye.
"Jesus," I whispered.
"What is wrong, ma petite?"
I shook my head. If I asked how he did it, he'd just
smile.
"Why all the questions, Jean-Claude? Why the worry
about my view of life?"
"You are my human servant." He raised a hand to stop
the automatic objection. "I have begun the process of making you my
human servant, and I would like to understand you better."
"Can't you just . . . scent my emotions like you can
the people on the street?"
"No, ma petite. I can feel your desire but
little else. I gave that up when I made you my marked servant."
"You can't read me?"
"No."
That was really nice to know. Jean-Claude didn't have
to tell me. So why did he? He never gave anything away for free.
There were strings attached that I couldn't even see. I shook my
head. "You are just to back me up tonight. Don't do anything to
anybody unless I say so, okay?"
"Do anything?"
"Don't hurt anyone unless they try to hurt us."
He nodded, face very solemn. Why did I suspect that
he was laughing at me in some dark corner of his mind? Giving
orders to the Master of the City. I guess it was funny.
The noise level on the sidewalk was intense. Music
blared out of every other building. Never the same song, but
always loud. The flashing signs proclaimed, "Girls, Girls, Girls.
Topless." A pink-edged sign read, "Talk to the Naked Woman of Your
Dreams." Eeek.
A tall, thin black woman came up to us. She was
wearing purple shorts so short that they looked like a thong
bikini. Black fishnet panty hose covered her legs and buttocks.
Provocative.
She stopped somewhere between the two of us. Her eyes
flicked from one to the other. "Which one of ya does it, and which
one of ya watches?"
Jean-Claude and I exchanged glances. He was smiling
ever so slightly. "Sorry, we were looking for Wanda," I said.
"A lot of names down here," she said. "I can do
anything this Wanda can do, and do it better." She stepped very
close to Jean-Claude, almost touching. He took her hand in his and
lifted it gently to his lips. His eyes watched me as he did it.
"You're the doer," she said. Her voice had gone
throaty, sexy. Or maybe that was just the effect Jean-Claude had on
women. Maybe.
The woman cuddled in, against him. Her skin looked
very dark against the white lace of his shirt. Her fingernails were
painted a bright pink, like Easter basket grass.
"Sorry to interrupt," I said, "but we don't have all
night."
"This is not the one you seek then," he said.
"No," I said.
He gripped her arms just above the elbows and pushed
her away. She struggled just a bit to reach him again. Her hands
grabbed at his arms, trying to pull herself closer to him. He held
her straight-armed, effortlessly. He could have held a semitruck
effortlessly.
"I'll do you for free," she said.
"What did you do to her?" I asked.
"Nothing."
I didn't believe him. "Nothing, and she offers to do
you for free?" Sarcasm is one of my natural talents. I made sure
that Jean-Claude heard it.
"Be still," he said.
"Don't tell me to shut up."
The woman was standing perfectly still. Her hands
dropped to her sides, limp. He hadn't been talking to me at
all.
Jean-Claude took his hands away from her. She never
moved. He stepped around her like she was a crack in the pavement.
He took my arm, and I let him. I watched the prostitute, waiting
for her to move.
Her straight, nearly naked back shuddered. Her
shoulders slumped. She threw back her head and drew a deep
trembling breath.
Jean-Claude pulled me gently down the street, his
hand on my elbow. The prostitute turned around, saw us. Her eyes
never even hesitated. She didn't know us.
I swallowed hard enough for it to hurt. I pulled
free of Jean-Claude's hand. He didn't fight me. Good for him.
I backed up against a storefront window. Jean-Claude
stood in front of me, looking down. "What did you do to her?"
"I told you, ma petite, nothing."
"Don't call me that. I saw her, Jean-Claude. Don't
lie to me."
A pair of men stopped beside us to look in the
window. They were holding hands. I glanced in the window and felt
color creep up my cheeks. There were whips, leather masks, padded
handcuffs, and things I didn't even have a name for. One of the men
leaned into the other and whispered. The other man laughed. One of
them caught me looking. Our eyes met, and I looked away, fast. Eye
contact down here was a dangerous thing.
I was blushing and hating it. The two men walked
away, hand in hand.
Jean-Claude was staring in the window like he was out
for a Saturday afternoon of window-shopping. Casual.
"What did you do to that woman?"
He stared in the storefront. I couldn't tell exactly
what had caught his attention. "It was careless of me, ma . . .
Anita. My fault entirely."
"What was your fault?"
"My . . . powers are greater when my human servant is
with me." He stared at me then. His gaze solid on my face. "With
you beside me, my powers are enhanced."
"Wait, you mean like a witch's familiar?"
He cocked his head to one side, a slight smile on his
face. "Yes, very close to that. I did not know you knew anything
about witchcraft."
"A deprived childhood," I said. I was not going to be
diverted from the important topic. "So your ability to bespell
people with your eyes is stronger when I'm with you. Strong enough
that without trying, you bespelled that prostitute."
He nodded.
I shook my head. "No, I don't believe you."
He shrugged, a graceful gesture on him. "Believe what
you like, ma petite. It is the truth."
I didn't want to believe it. Because if it were true,
then I was in fact his human servant. Not in my actions but by my
very presence. With sweat trickling down my spine from the heat, I
was cold. "Shit," I said.
"You could say that," he said.
"No, I can't deal with this right now. I can't." I
stared up at him. "You keep whatever powers we have between us in
check, okay?"
"I will try," he said.
"Don't try, dammit, do it."
He smiled wide enough to flash the tips of his fangs.
"Of course, ma petite."
Panic was starting in the pit of my stomach. I
gripped my hands into fists at my sides. "If you call me that one
more time, I'm going to hit you."
His eyes widened just a bit, his lips flexed. I
realized he was trying not to laugh. I hate it when people find my
threats amusing.
He was an invasive son of a bitch; and I wanted to
hurt him. To hurt him because he scared me. I understand the urge,
I've had it before with other people. It's an urge that can lead to
violence. I stared up at his softly amused face. He was a
condescending bastard, but if it ever came to real violence between
us, one of us would die. Chances were good it would be me.
The humor leaked out of his face, leaving it smooth
and lovely, and arrogant. "What is it, Anita?" His voice was soft
and intimate. Even in the heat and movement of this place, his
voice could roll me up and under. It was a gift.
"Don't push me into a corner, Jean-Claude. You don't
want to take away all my options."
"I don't know what you mean," he said.
"If it comes down to you or me, I'm going to pick me.
You remember that."
He looked at me for a space of heartbeats. Then he
blinked and nodded. "I believe you would. But remember, ma . . .
Anita, if you hurt me, it hurts you. I could survive the strain of
your death. The question, amante de moi, is could you
survive mine?" Amantedemoi? What the
hell did that mean? I decided not to ask. "Damn you, Jean-Claude,
damn you."
"That, dear Anita, was done long before you met
me."
"What does that mean?"
His eyes were as innocent as they ever were. "Why,
Anita, your own Catholic Church has declared all vampires as
suicides. We are automatically damned."
I shook my head. "I'm Episcopalian, now, but that
isn't what you meant."
He laughed then. The sound was like silk brushed
across the nape of the neck. It felt smooth and good, but it made
you shudder.
I walked away from him. I just left him there in
front of the obscene window display. I walked into the crowd of
whores, hustlers, customers. There was nobody on this street as
dangerous as Jean-Claude. I had brought him down here to protect
me. That was laughable. Ridiculous. Obscene.
A young man who couldn't have been more than fifteen
stopped me. He was wearing a vest with no shirt and a pair of torn
jeans. "You interested?"
He was taller than me by a little. His eyes were
blue. Two other boys just behind him were staring at us.
"We don't get many women down here," he said.
"I believe you." He looked incredibly young. "Where
can I find Wheelchair Wanda?"
One of the boys behind him said, "A crip lover,
Jesus."
I agreed with him. "Where?" I held up a twenty. It
was too much to pay for the information, but maybe if I gave it to
him, he could go home sooner. Maybe if he had twenty dollars, he
could turn down one of the cars cruising the street. Twenty
dollars, it would change his life. Like sticking your finger in a
nuclear meltdown.
"She's just outside of The Grey Cat. At the end of
the block."
"Thanks." I gave him the twenty. His fingernails had
grime embedded in them.
"You sure you don't want some action?" His voice was
small and uncertain, like his eyes. Out of the comer of my eye I
saw Jean-Claude moving through the crowd. He was coming for me. To
protect me. I turned back to the boy. "I've got more action than I
know what to do with," I said.
He frowned, looking puzzled. That was all right. I
was puzzled, too. What do you do with a master vampire that won't
leave you alone? Good question. Unfortunately, what I needed was a
good answer.
Chapter 24
Wheelchair Wanda was a small woman sitting in one of
those sport wheelchairs that are used for racing. She wore workout
gloves, and the muscles in her arms moved under her tanned skin as
she pushed herself along. Long brown hair fell in gentle waves
around a very pretty face. The makeup was tasteful. She wore a
shiny metallic blue shirt and no bra. An ankle-length skirt with at
least two layers of multicolored crinoline and a pair of stylish
black boots hid her legs.
She was moving towards us at a goodly pace. Most of
the prostitutes, male and female, looked ordinary. They weren't
dressed outrageously, shorts, middrifts. In this heat who could
blame them? I guess if you wear fishnet jumpsuits, the police just
naturally get suspicious.
Jean-Claude stood beside me. He glanced up at the
sign that proclaimed "The Grey Cat" in a near blinding shade of
fuchsia neon. Tasteful.
How does one approach a prostitute, even just to
talk? I didn't know. Learn something new every day. I stood in her
path and waited for her to come to me. She glanced up and caught me
watching her. When I didn't look away, she got eye contact and
smiled.
Jean-Claude moved up beside me. Wanda's smile
broadened or deepened. It was a definite "come along smile" as my
Grandmother Blake used to say.
Jean-Claude whispered, "Is that a prostitute?"
"Yes," I said.
"In a wheelchair?" he asked.
"Yep."
"My," was all he said. I think Jean-Claude was
shocked. Nice to know he could be.
She stopped her chair with an expert movement of
hands.
She smiled, craning to look up at us. The angle
looked painful.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," I said.
She continued to smile. I continued to stare. Why did
I suddenly feel awkward? "A friend told me about you," I said.
Wanda nodded.
"You are the one they refer to as Wheelchair
Wanda?"
She grinned suddenly, and her face looked real.
Behind all those lovely but fake smiles was a real person. "Yeah,
that's me."
"Could we talk?"
"Sure," she said. "You got a room?"
Did I have a room? Wasn't she supposed to do that?
"No."
She waited.
Oh, hell. "We just want to talk to you for an hour,
or two. We'll pay whatever the going rate is."
She told me the going rate.
"Jesus, that's a little steep," I said.
She smiled beatifically at me. "Supply and demand,"
she said. "You can't get a taste of what I have anywhere else." She
smoothed her hands down her legs as she said it. My eyes followed
her hands like they were supposed to. This was too weird.
I nodded. "Okay, you got a deal." It was a business
expense. Computer paper, ink pens medium point, one prostitute,
manila file folders. See, it fit right in.
Bert was going to love this one.
Chapter 25
We took Wanda back to my apartment. There are no
elevators in my building. Two flights of stairs are not exactly
wheelchair accessible. Jean-Claude carried her. His stride was even
and fluid as he walked ahead of me. Wanda didn't even slow him
down. I followed with the wheelchair. It did slow me down.
The only consolation I had was I got to watch
Jean-Claude climb the stairs. So sue me. He had a very nice
backside for a vampire.
He was waiting for me in the upper hallway, standing
with Wanda cuddled in his arms. They both looked at me with a
pleasant sort of blankness.
I wheeled the collapsed wheelchair over the
carpeting. Jean-Claude followed me. The crinoline in Wanda's skirts
crinkled and whispered as he moved.
I leaned the wheelchair against my leg and unlocked
the door. I pushed the door all the way back to the wall to give
Jean-Claude room. The wheelchair folded inwards like a cloth baby
stroller. I struggled to make the metal bars catch, so the chair
would be solid again. As I suspected, it was easier to break it
than to fix it.
I glanced up from my struggles and found Jean-Claude
still standing outside my door. Wanda was staring at him,
frowning.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I have never been to your apartment."
"So?"
"The great vampire expert . . . come, Anita."
Oh. "You have my permission to enter my home."
He gave a sort of bow from the neck. "I am honored,"
he said.
The wheelchair snapped into shape again. Jean-Claude
set Wanda in her chair. I closed the door. Wanda smoothed her long
skirts over her legs.
Jean-Claude stood in the middle of my living room and
gazed about. He gazed at the penguin calendar on the wall by the
kitchenette. He rifled the pages to see future months, gazing at
pictures of chunky flightless birds until he'd seen every
picture.
I wanted to tell him to stop, but it was harmless. I
didn't write appointments on the calendar. Why did it bother me
that he was so damned interested in it?
I turned back to the prostitute in my living room.
The night was entirely too weird. "Would you like something to
drink?" I asked. When in doubt, be polite.
"Red wine if you have it," Wanda said.
"Sorry, nothing alcoholic in the house. Coffee, soft
drinks with real sugar in them, and water, that's about it."
"Soft drink," she said.
I got her a can of Coke out of the fridge. "You want
a glass?"
She shook her head.
Jean-Claude was leaning against the wall, staring at
me as I moved about the kitchen. "I don't need a glass either," he
said softly.
"Don't get cute," I said.
"Too late," he said.
I had to smile.
The smile seemed to please him. Which made me frown.
Life was hard around Jean-Claude. He sort of wandered off towards
the fish tank. He was giving himself a tour of my apartment. Of
course, he would. But at least it would give Wanda and I some
privacy.
"Shit, he's a vampire," Wanda said. She sounded
surprised. Which surprised me. I could always tell. Dead was dead
to me, no matter how pretty the corpse.
"You didn't know?" I asked.
"No, I'm not coffin-bait," she said. There was a
tightness to her face. The flick of her eyes as she followed
Jean-Claude's casual movements around the room was new. She was
scared.
"What's coffin-bait?" I handed her the soft
drink.
"A whore that does vampires."
Coffin-bait, how quaint. "He won't touch you."
She turned brown eyes to me then. Her gaze was very
thorough, as if she were trying to read the inside of my head. Was
I telling the truth?
How terrifying to go away with strangers to rooms and
not know if they will hurt you or not. Desperation, or a death
wish.
"So you and I are going to do it?" she asked. Her
gaze never left my face.
I blinked at her. It took me a moment to realize what
she meant. "No." I shook my head. "No, I said I just wanted to
talk. I meant it." I think I was blushing.
Maybe the blush did it. She popped the top on the
soda can and took a drink. "You want me to talk about doing it with
other people, while you do it with him?" She motioned her head
towards the wandering vampire.
Jean-Claude was standing in front of the only picture
I had in the room. It was modern and matched the decor. Grey, white,
black, and palest pink. It was one of those designs that the longer
you stared at it, the more shapes you could pick out.
"Look, Wanda, we are just going to talk. That's it.
Nobody is going to do anything to anybody. Okay?"
She shrugged. "It's your money. We can do what you
want."
That one statement made my stomach hurt. She meant
it. I'd paid the money. She would do anything I wanted. Anything?
It was too awful. That any human being would say "anything" and
mean it. Of course, she drew the line at vampires. Even whores have
standards.
Wanda was smiling up at me. The change was
extraordinary. Her face glowed. She was instantly lovely. Even her
eyes glowed. It reminded me of Cicely's soundless laughing
face.
Back to business. "I heard you were Harold Gaynor's
mistress a while back." No preliminaries, no sweet talk. Off with
the clothes.
Wanda's smile faded. The glow of humor died in her
eyes, replaced by wariness. "I don't know the name."
"Yeah, you do," I said. I was still standing, forcing
her to look up at me in that near painful angle.
She sipped her drink and shook her head without
looking up at me.
"Come on, Wanda, I know you were Gaynor's sweetie.
Admit you know him, and we'll work from there."
She glanced up at me, then down. "No. I'll do you.
I'll let the vamp watch. I'll talk dirty to you both. But I don't
know anybody named Gaynor."
I leaned down, putting my hands on the arms of her
chair. Our faces were very close. "I'm not a reporter. Gaynor will
never know you talked to me unless you tell him."
Her eyes had gotten bigger. I glanced where she was
staring. The Windbreaker had fallen forward. My gun was showing,
which seemed to upset her. Good.
"Talk to me, Wanda." My voice was soft. Mild. The
mildest of voices is often the worst threat.
"Who the hell are you? You're not cops. You're not a
reporter. Social workers don't carry guns. Who are you?" That last
question had the lilt of fear in it.
Jean-Claude strolled into the room. He'd been in my
bedroom. Great, just great. "Trouble, ma petite?"
I didn't correct him on the nickname. Wanda didn't
need to know there was dissent in the ranks. "She's being
stubborn," I said.
I stepped back from her chair. I took off the
Windbreaker and laid it over the kitchen counter. Wanda stared at
the gun like I knew she would.
I may not be intimidating, but the Browning is.
Jean-Claude walked up behind her. His slender hands
touched her shoulders. She jumped like it had hurt. I knew it
hadn't hurt. Might be better if it did.
"He'll kill me," Wanda said.
A lot of people seemed to say that about Mr. Gaynor.
"He'll never know," I said.
Jean-Claude rubbed his cheek against her hair. His
fingers kneading her shoulders, gently. "And, my sweet coquette, he
is not here with you tonight." He spoke with his lips against her
ear. "We are." He said something else so soft I could not hear.
Only his lips moved, soundlessly for me.
Wanda heard him. Her eyes widened, and she started to
tremble. Her entire body seemed in the grip of some kind of fit.
Tears glittered in her eyes and fell down her cheeks in one
graceful curve.
Jesus.
"Please, don't. Please don't let him." Her voice was
squeezed small and thin with fear.
I hated Jean-Claude in that moment. And I hated me. I
was one of the good guys. It was one of my last illusions. I wasn't
willing to give it up, not even if it worked. Wanda would talk or
she wouldn't. No torture. "Back off, Jean-Claude," I said.
He gazed up at me. "I can taste her terror like
strong wine." His eyes were solid, drowning blue. He looked blind.
His face was still lovely as he opened his mouth wide and fangs
glistened.
Wanda was still crying and staring at me. If she
could have seen the look on Jean-Claude's face, she would have
been screaming.
"I thought your control was better than this,
Jean-Claude?"
"My control is excellent, but it is not endless." He
stood away from her and began to pace the room on the other side of
the couch. Like a leopard pacing its cage. Contained violence,
waiting for release. I could not see his face. Had the spook act
been for Wanda's benefit? Or real?
I shook my head. No way to ask in front of Wanda.
Maybe later. Maybe.
I knelt in front of Wanda. She was gripping the soda
can so hard, she was denting it. I didn't touch her, just knelt
close by. "I won't let him hurt you. Honest. Harold Gaynor is
threatening me. That's why I need information."
Wanda was looking at me, but her attention was on the
vampire in back of her. There was a watchful tension in her
shoulders. She would never relax while Jean-Claude was in the room.
The lady had taste.
"Jean-Claude, Jean-Claude."
His face looked as ordinary as it ever did when he
turned to face me. A smile crooked his full lips. It was an act.
Pretense. Damn him. Was there something in becoming a vampire that
made you sadistic?
"Go into the bedroom for a while. Wanda and I need to
talk in private."
"Your bedroom." His smile widened. "My pleasure,
ma petite."
I scowled at him. He was undaunted. As always. But he
left the room as I'd asked.
Wanda's shoulders slumped. She drew a shaky breath.
"You really aren't going to let him hurt me, are you?"
"No, I'm not."
She started to cry then, soft, shaky tears. I didn't
know what to do. I've never known what to do when someone cries.
Did I hug her? Pat her hand comfortingly. What?
I finally sat back on the ground in front of her,
leaning back on my heels, and did nothing. It took a few moments,
but finally the crying stopped. She blinked up at me. The makeup
around her eyes had faded, just vanished. It made her look
vulnerable, more rather than less attractive. I had the urge to
take her in my arms and rock her like a child. Whisper lies, about
how everything would be alright.
When she left here tonight, she was still going to be
a whore. A crippled whore. How could that be alright? I shook my
head more at me than at her.
"You want some Kleenex?"
She nodded.
I got her the box from the kitchen counter. She wiped
at her face and blew her nose softly, very ladylike.
"Can we talk now?"
She blinked at me and nodded. She took a shaky sip of
pop.
"You know Harold Gaynor, right?"
She just stared at me, dully. Had we broken her? "If
he finds out, he will kill me. Maybe I don't want to be
coffin-bait, but I sure as hell don't want to die either."
"No one does. Talk to me, Wanda, please."
She let out a shaky sigh. "Okay, I know Harold."
Harold? "Tell me about him."
Wanda stared at me. Her eyes narrowed. There were
fine lines around her eyes. It made her older than I had thought.
"Has he sent Bruno or Tommy after you yet?"
"Tommy came for a personal meeting."
"What happened?"
"I drew a gun on him."
"That gun?" she asked in a small voice.
"Yes."
"What did you do to make Harold mad?"
Truth or lie? Neither. "I refused to do something for
him."
"What?"
I shook my head. "It doesn't matter."
"It can't have been sex. You aren't crippled." She
said the last word like it was hard. "He doesn't touch anyone who's
whole." The bitterness in her voice was thick enough to taste.
"How did you meet him?" I asked.
"I was in college at Wash U. Gaynor was donating
money for something."
"And he asked you out?"
"Yeah." Her voice was so soft, I had to lean forward
to hear it.
"What happened?"
"We were both in wheelchairs. He was rich. It was
great." She rolled her lips under, like she was smoothing lipstick,
then out, and swallowed.
"When did it stop being great?" I asked.
"I moved in with him. Dropped out of college. It was
. . . easier than college. Easier than anything. He couldn't get
enough of me." She stared down at her lap again. "He started
wanting variety in the bedroom. See, his legs are crippled, but he
can feel. I can't feel." Wanda's voice had dropped almost to a
whisper. I had to lean against her knees to hear. "He liked to do
things to my legs, but I couldn't feel it. So at first I thought
that was okay, but . . . but he got really sick." She looked at me
suddenly, her face only inches from mine. Her eyes were huge,
swimming with unshed tears. "He cut me up. I couldn't feel it, but
that's not the point, is it?"
"No," I said.
The first tear trailed down her face. I touched her
hand. Her fingers wrapped around mine and held on.
"It's alright," I said, "it's alright."
She cried. I held her hand and lied. "It's alright
now, Wanda. He can't hurt you anymore."
"Everyone hurts you," she said. "You were going to
hurt me." There was accusation in her eyes.
It was a little late to explain good cop, bad cop to
her. She wouldn't have believed it anyway.
"Tell me about Gaynor."
"He replaced me with a deaf girl."
"Cicely," I said.
She looked up, surprised. "You've met her?"
"Briefly."
Wanda shook her head. "Cicely is one sick chickie.
She likes torturing people. It gets her off." Wanda looked at me as
if trying to gauge my reaction. Was I shocked? No.
"Harold slept with both of us at the same time,
sometimes. At the end it was always a threesome. It got real
rough." Her voice dropped lower and lower, a hoarse whisper.
"Cicely likes knives. She's real good at skinning things." She
rolled her lips under again in that lipstick-smoothing gesture.
"Gaynor would kill me just for telling you his bedroom
secrets."
"Do you know any business secrets?"
She shook her head. "No, I swear. He was always very
careful to keep me out of that. I thought at first it was so if the
police came, I wouldn't be arrested." She looked down at her lap.
"Later, I realized it was because he knew I would be replaced. He
didn't want me to know anything that could hurt him when he threw
me away."
There was no bitterness now, no anger, only a hollow
sadness. I wanted her to rant and rave. This quiet despair was
aching. A hurt that would never heal. Gaynor had done worse than
kill her. He'd left her alive. Alive and as crippled inside as
out.
"I can't tell you anything but bedroom talk. It won't
help you hurt him."
"Is there any bedroom talk that isn't about sex?" I
asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Personal secrets, but not sex. You. were his sweetie
for nearly two years. He must have talked about something other
than sex."
She frowned, thinking. "I . . . I guess he talked
about his family."
"What about his family?"
"He was illegitimate. He was obsessed with his real
father's family."
"He knew who they were?"
Wanda nodded. "They were rich, old money. His mother
was a hooker turned mistress: When she got pregnant, they threw her
out."
Like Gaynor did to his women, I thought. Freud is so
often at work in our lives. Out loud I said, "What family?"
"He never said. I think he thought I'd blackmail them
or go to them with his dirty little secrets. He desperately wants
them to regret not welcoming him into the family. I think he only
made his money so he could be as rich as they were."
"If he never gave you a name, how do you know he
wasn't lying?"
"You wouldn't ask if you could hear him. His voice
was so intense. He hates them. And he wants his birthright. Their
money is his birthright."
"How does he plan to get their money?" I asked.
"Just before I left him, Harold had found where some
of his ancestors were buried. He talked about treasure. Buried
treasure, can you believe it?"
"In the graves?"
"No, his father's people got their first fortune from
being river pirates. They sailed the Mississippi and robbed people.
Gaynor was proud of that and angry about it. He said that the whole
bunch of them were descended from thieves and whores. Where did
they get off being so high and mighty to him?" She was watching my
face as she spoke the last. Maybe she saw the beginnings of an
idea.
"How would knowing the graves of his ancestors help
him get their treasure?"
"He said he'd find some voodoo priest to raise them.
He'd force them to give him their treasure that had been lost for
centuries."
"Ah," I said.
"What? Did that help?"
I nodded. My role in Gaynor's little scheme had
become clear. Painfully clear. The only question left was why me?
Why didn't he go to someone thoroughly disreputable like Dominga
Salvador? Someone who would take his money and kill his hornless
goat and not lose any sleep over it. Why me, with my reputation for
morality?
"Did he ever mention any names of voodoo
priests?"
Wanda shook her head. "No, no names. He was always
careful about names. There's a look on your face. How could what I
have told you just now help you?"
"I think the less you know about that, the better,
don't you?"
She stared at me for a long time but finally nodded.
"I guess so."
"Is there any place . . ." I let it trail off. I was
going to offer her a plane ticket or a bus ticket to anywhere.
Anywhere where she wouldn't have to sell herself. Anywhere where
she could heal.
Maybe she read it in my face or my silence. She
laughed, and it was a rich sound. Shouldn't whores have cynical
cackles?
"You are a social worker type after all. You want to
save me, don't you?"
"Is it terribly naive to offer you a ticket home or
somewhere?"
She nodded. "Terribly. And why should you want to
help me? You're not a man. You don't like women. Why should you
offer to send me home?"
"Stupidity," I said and stood.
"It's not stupid." She took my hand and squeezed it.
"But it wouldn't do any good. I'm a whore. Here at least I know the
town, the people. I have regulars." She released my hand and
shrugged. "I get by."
"With a little help from your friends," I said.
She smiled, and it wasn't happy. "Whores don't have
friends."
"You don't have to be a whore. Gaynor made you a
whore, but you don't have to stay one."
There were tears trembling in her eyes for the third
time that night. Hell, she wasn't tough enough for the streets. No
one was.
"Just call a taxi, okay. I don't want to talk
anymore."
What could I do? I called a taxi. I told the driver
the fare was in a wheelchair like Wanda told me to. She let
Jean-Claude carry her back downstairs because I couldn't do it. But
she was very tight and still in his arms. We left her in her chair
on the curb.
I watched until the taxi came and took her away.
Jean-Claude stood beside me in the golden circle of light just in
front of my apartment building. The warm light seemed to leech
color from his skin.
"I must leave you now, ma petite. It has
been very educational, but time grows short."
"You're going to go feed, aren't you?"
"Does it show?"
"A little."
"I should call you ma vérité,
Anita. You always tell me the truth about myself."
"Is that what vérité means?
Truth?" I asked.
He nodded.
I felt bad. Itchy, grumpy, restless. I was mad at
Harold Gaynor for victimizing Wanda. Mad of Wanda for allowing it.
Angry with myself for not being able to do anything about it. I was
pissed at the whole world tonight. I'd learned what Gaynor wanted
me to do. And it didn't help a damn bit.
"There will always be victims, Anita. Predators and
prey, it is the way of the world."
I glared up at him. "I thought you couldn't read me
anymore."
"I cannot read your mind or your thoughts, only your
face and what I know of you."
I didn't want to know that Jean-Claude knew me that
well. That intimately. "Go away, Jean-Claude, just go away."
"As you like, ma petite." And just like that
he was gone. A rush of wind, then nothing.
"Show-off," I murmured. I was left standing in the
dark, tasting the first edge of tears. Why did I want to cry over a
whore whom I'd just met? Over the unfairness of the world in
general?
Jean-Claude was right. There would always be prey and
predator. And I had worked very hard to be one of the predators. I
was the Executioner. So why were my sympathies always with the
victims? And why did the despair in Wanda's eyes make me hate
Gaynor more than anything he'd ever done to me?
Why indeed?
Chapter 26
The phone rang. I moved nothing but my eyes to glance
at the bedside clock: 6:45 A.M. Shit. I lay there waiting, half
drifted to sleep again when the answering machine picked up.
"It's Dolph. We found another one. Call my pager. .
."
I scrambled for the phone, dropping the receiver in
the process. "H'lo, Dolph. I'm here."
"Late night?"
"Yeah, what's up?"
"Our friend has decided that single family homes are
easy pickings." His voice sounded rough with lack of sleep.
"God, not another family."
"'Fraid so. Can you come out?"
It was a stupid question, but I didn't point that
out. My stomach had dropped into my knees. I didn't want a repeat
of the Reynolds house. I didn't think my imagination could stand
it.
"Give me the address. I'll be there."
He gave me the address.
"St. Peters," I said. "It's close to St. Charles, but
still . . ."
"Still what?"
"It's a long way to walk for a single family home.
There are lots of houses that fit the bill in St. Charles. Why did
it travel so far to feed?"
"You're asking me?" he said. There was something
almost like laughter in his voice. "Come on out, Ms. Voodoo Expert.
See what there is to see."
"Dolph, is it as bad as the Reynolds house?"
"Bad, worse, worst of all," he said. The laughter was
still there, but it held an edge of something hard and self
deprecating.
"This isn't your fault," I said.
"Tell that to the top brass. They're screaming for
someone's ass."
"Did you get the warrant?"
"It'll come in this afternoon late."
"No one gets warrants on a weekend," I said.
"Special panic-mode dispensation," Dolph said. "Get
your ass out here, Anita. Everyone needs to go home." He hung
up.
I didn't bother saying bye.
Another murder. Shit, shit, shit. Double shit. It was
not the way I wanted to spend Saturday morning. But we were getting
our warrant. Yippee. The trouble was I didn't know what to look
for. I wasn't really a voodoo expert. I was a preternatural crimes
expert. It wasn't the same thing. Maybe I should ask Manny to come
along. No, no, I didn't want him near Dominga Salvador in case she
decided to cut a deal and give him to the police. There is no
statute of limitations on human sacrifice. Manny could still go
down for it. It'd be Dominga's style to trade my friend for her
life. Making it, in a roundabout way, my fault. Yeah, she'd love
that.
The message light on my answering machine was
blinking. Why hadn't I noticed it last night? I shrugged. One of
life's mysteries. I pressed the playback button.
"Anita Blake, this is John Burke. I got your message.
Call me anytime here. I'm eager to hear what you have." He gave the
phone number, and that was it.
Great, a murder scene, a trip to the morgue, and a
visit to voodoo land, all in one day. It was going to be a busy and
unpleasant day. It matched last night perfectly, and the night
before. Shit, I was on a roll.
Chapter 27
There was a patrol cop throwing up his guts into one
of those giant, elephant-sized trash cans in front of the house.
Bad sign. There was a television news van parked across the street.
Worse sign. I didn't know how Dolph had kept zombie massacres out
of the news so long. Current events must have been really hopping
for the newshounds to ignore such easy headlines. ZOMBIES MASSACRE
FAMILY. ZOMBIE SERIAL MURDERER ON LOOSE. Jesus, it was going to be
a mess.
The camera crew, complete with microphone-bearing
suit, watched me as I walked towards the yellow police tape. When I
clipped the official plastic card on my collar, the news crew moved
like one animal. The uniform at the police tape held it for me, his
eyes on the descending press. I didn't look back. Never look back
when the press are gaining on you. They catch you if you do.
The blond in the suit yelled out, "Ms. Blake, Ms.
Blake, can you give us a statement?"
Always nice to be recognized, I guess. But I
pretended not to hear. I kept walking, head determinedly down.
A crime scene is a crime scene is a crime scene.
Except for the unique nightmarish qualities of each one. I was
standing in a bedroom of a very nice one-story ranch. There was a
white ceiling fan that turned slowly. It made a faint whirring
creak, as if it wasn't screwed in tight on one side.
Better to concentrate on the small things. The way
the east light fell through the slanting blinds, painting the room
in zebra-stripe shadows. Better not to look at what was left on the
bed. Didn't want to look. Didn't want to see.
Had to see. Had to look. Might find a clue. Sure, and
pigs could fucking fly. But still, maybe, maybe there would be a
clue. Maybe. Hope is a lying bitch.
There are roughly two gallons of blood in the human
body. As much blood as they put on television and the movies, it's
never enough. Try dumping out two full gallons of milk on your
bedroom floor. See what a mess it makes, now multiply that by . . .
something. There was too much blood for just one person. The carpet
squeeched underfoot, and blood came up in little splatters like mud
after a rain. My white Nikes were spotted with scarlet before I was
halfway to the bed.
Lesson learned: wear black Nikes to murder scenes.
The smell was thick in the room. I was glad for the
ceiling fan. The room smelled like a mixture of slaughterhouse and
outhouse. Shit and blood. The smell of fresh death, more often than
not.
Sheets covered not just the bed, but a lot of the
floor around the bed. It looked like giant paper towels thrown over
the world's biggest Kool-Aid spill. There had to be pieces all
over, under the sheets. The lumps were so small, too small to be a
body. There wasn't a single scarlet-soaked bump that was big enough
for a human body.
"Please don't make me look," I whispered to the empty
room.
"Did you say something?"
I jumped and found Dolph standing just behind me.
"Jesus, Dolph, you scared me."
"Wait until you see what's under the sheets. Then you
can be scared."
I didn't want to see what was under the army of
blood-soaked sheets. Surely, I'd seen enough for one week. My quota
of gore had to have been exceeded, night before last. Yeah, I was
over my quota.
Dolph stood in the doorway waiting. There were tiny
pinched lines by his eyes that I had never noticed. He was pale and
needed a shave.
We all needed something. But first I had to look
under the sheets. If Dolph could do it, I could do it. Ri-ight.
Dolph stuck his head out in the hallway. "We need
some help in here lifting the sheets. After Blake sees the remains
we can go home." I think he added that last because no one had
moved to help. He wasn't going to get any volunteers. "Zerbrowski,
Perry, Merlioni, get your butts in here."
The bags under Zerbrowski's eyes looked like bruises.
"Hiya, Blake."
"Hi, Zerbrowski, you look like shit."
He laughed. "And you still look fresh and lovely as a
spring morning." He grinned at me.
"Yeah, right," I said.
Detective Perry said, "Ms. Blake, good to see you
again."
I had to smile. Perry was the only cop I knew who
would be gracious even over the bloody remains. "Nice to see you,
too, Detective Perry."
"Can we get on with this," Merlioni said, "or are the
two of you planning to elope?" Merlioni was tall, though not as
tall as Dolph. But then who was? He had grey curling hair cut short
and buzzed on the sides and over his ears. He wore a white dress
shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a tie at
half-mast. His gun stuck out on his left hip like a lumpy
wallet.
"You take the first sheet then, Merlioni, if you're
in such a damn hurry," Dolph said.
Merlioni sighed. "Yeah, yeah." He stepped to the
sheet on the floor. He knelt. "You ready for this, girlie?"
"Better girlie than dago," I said.
He smiled.
"Do it."
"Showtime," Merlioni said. He raised the sheet and it
stuck in a wet swatch that pulled up one wet inch at a time.
"Zerbrowski, help him raise the damn thing," Dolph
said.
Zerbrowski didn't argue. He must have been tired. The
two men lifted the sheet in one wet motion. The morning sunlight
streamed through the red sheet and painted the rug even redder than
it was, or maybe it didn't make any difference. Blood dripped from
the edges of the sheet where the men held it. Wet, heavy drops,
like a sink that needed fixing. I'd never seen a sheet saturated
with blood before. A morning of firsts.
I stared at the rug and couldn't make sense of it. It
was just a pile of lumps, small lumps. I knelt beside them. Blood
soaked through the knee of my jeans, it was cold. Better than warm,
I guess.
The biggest lump was wet and smooth, about five
inches long. It was pink and healthy-looking. It was a scrap of
upper intestine. A smaller lump lay just beside it. I stared at the
lump but the longer I stared the less it looked like anything. It
could have been a hunk of meat from any animal. Hell, the intestine
didn't have to be human. But it was, or I wouldn't be here.
I poked the smaller glob with one gloved finger. I
had remembered my surgical gloves this time. Goody for me. The glob
was wet and heavy and solid. I swallowed hard, but I was no closer
to knowing what it was. The two scraps were like morsels dropped
from a cat's mouth. Crumbs from the table. Jesus.
I stood. "Next." My voice sounded steady, ordinary.
Amazing.
It took all four men lifting from different corners
to peel the sheet back from the bed. Merlioni cursed and dropped
his corner, "Dammit!"
Blood had run down his arm onto the white shirt. "Did
um's get his shirt messy?" Zerbrowski asked.
"Fuck yes. This place is a mess."
"I guess the lady of the house didn't have time to
clean up before you came, Merlioni," I said. My eyes flicked down
to the bed and the remains of the lady of the house. But I looked
back up at Merlioni instead. "Or can't the dago cop take it?"
"I can take anything you can dish out, little lady,"
he said.
I frowned and shook my head. "Betcha can't."
"I'll take some of that action," Zerbrowski said.
Dolph didn't stop us, tell us this was a crime scene,
not a betting parlor. He knew we needed it to stay sane. I could
not stare down at the remains and not make jokes. I couldn't. I'd
go crazy. Cops have the weirdest sense of humor, because they have
to.
"How much you bet?" Merlioni said.
"A dinner for two at Tony's," I said.
Zerbrowski whistled. "Steep, very steep."
"I can afford to foot the bill. Is it a deal?"
Merlioni nodded. "My wife and I haven't been out in
ages." He offered his blood-soaked hand. I took it. The cool blood
clung to the outside of my surgical gloves. It felt wet, like it
had soaked through to the skin, but it hadn't. It was a sensory
illusion. I knew that when I took off the gloves my hands would be
powder dry. It was still unnerving.
"How we prove who's toughest?" Merlioni asked.
"This scene, here and now," I said.
"Deal."
I turned my attention back to the carnage with
renewed determination. I would win the bet. I wouldn't let Merlioni
have the satisfaction. It gave me something to concentrate on
rather than the mess on the bed.
The left half of a rib cage lay on the bed. A naked
breast was still attached to it. The lady of the house? Everything
was brilliant scarlet red, like someone had poured buckets of red
paint on the bed. It was hard to pick out the pieces. There a left
arm, small, female.
I picked up the fingers and they were limp, no rigor
mortis. There was a wedding band set on the third finger. I moved
the fingers back and forth. "No rigor mortis. What do you think,
Merlioni?"
He squinted down at the arm. He couldn't let me outdo
him so he fiddled with the hand, turning it at the wrist. "Could be
rigor came and went. You know the first rigor doesn't last."
"You really think nearly two days have passed?" I
shook my head. "The blood's too fresh for that. Rigor hasn't set
in. The crime isn't eight hours old yet."
He nodded. "Not bad, Blake. But what do you make of
this?" He poked the rib cage enough to make the breast jiggle.
I swallowed hard. I would win this bet. "I don't
know. Let's see. Help me roll it over." I stared into his face
while I asked. Did he pale just a bit? Maybe.
"Sure."
The three others were standing at the side of the
room, watching the show. Let them. It was a lot more diverting than
thinking of this as work.
Merlioni and I moved the rib cage over on its side. I
made sure to give him the fleshy parts, so he ended up groping the
dead body. Was breast tissue breast tissue? Did it matter that it
was bloody and cold? Merlioni looked just a little green. I guess
it mattered.
The insides of the rib cage were snatched clean like
Mr. Reynolds's rib cage. Clean and bloody smooth. We let the rib
cage fall back on the bed. It splattered blood in a faint spray
onto us. His white shirt showed it worse than my blue polo shirt
did. Point for me.
He grimaced and brushed at the blood specks. He
smeared blood from his gloves down the shirt. Merlioni closed his
eyes and took a deep breath.
"Are you alright, Merlioni?" I asked. "I wouldn't
want you to continue if it's upsetting you."
He glared at me, then smiled. A most unpleasant
smile. "You ain't seen it all, girlie. I have."
"But have you touched it all?"
A trickle of sweat slid down his face. "You won't
want to touch it all."
I shrugged. "We'll see." There was a leg on the bed,
from the hair and the one remaining tennis shoe it looked male. The
round, wet mound of the ball socket gleamed out at us. The zombie
had just torn the leg off, tearing flesh without tearing bone.
"That must have hurt like a son of a bitch," I
said.
"You think he was alive when the leg was pulled
off?"
I nodded. "Yeah." I wasn't a hundred percent sure.
There was too much blood to tell who had died when, but Merlioni
looked a little paler.
The rest of the pieces were just bloody entrails,
globs of flesh, bits of bone. Merlioni picked up a handful of
entrails. "Catch."
"Jesus, Merlioni, that isn't funny." My stomach was
one tight knot.
"No, but the look on your face is," he said.
I glared at him and said, "Throw it or don't,
Merlioni, no teasing."
He blinked at me for a minute, then nodded. He tossed
the string of entrails. They were awkward to throw but I managed to
catch them. They were wet, heavy, flaccid, squeeshy, and altogether
disgusting, like touching raw calf's liver but more so.
Dolph made an exasperated sound. "While you two are
playing gross out, can you tell me something useful?"
I dropped the flesh back on the bed. "Sure. The
zombie came in through the sliding glass door like last time. It
chased the man or woman back in here and got them both." I stopped
talking. I just froze.
Merlioni was holding up a baby blanket. Some trick
had left a corner of it clean. It was edged in satiny pink with
tiny balloons and clowns all over it. Blood dripped heavily from
the other end of it.
I stared at the tiny balloons and clowns while they
danced in useless circles. "You bastard," I whispered.
"Are you referring to me?" Merlioni asked.
I shook my head. I didn't want to touch the blanket.
But I reached out for it. Merlioni made sure that the bloody edge
slapped my bare arm. "Dago bastard," I said.
"You referring to me, bitch?"
I nodded and tried to smile but didn't really manage
it. We had to keep pretending that this was alright. That this was
doable. It was obscene. If the bet hadn't held me I'd have run
screaming from the room.
I stared at the blanket. "How old?"
"Family portrait out front, I'd guess three, four
months."
I was finally on the other side of the bed. There was
another sheet-draped spot. It was just as bloody, just as small.
There was nothing whole under the sheet. I wanted to call the bet
off. If they wouldn't make me look I'd take them all to Tony's.
Just don't make me lift that last sheet. Please, please.
But I had to look, bet or no bet, I had to see what
there was to see. Might as well see it and win, as run and
lose.
I handed the blanket back to Merlioni. He took it and
laid it back on the bed, up high so the clean corner would stay
clean.
I knelt on one side of the sheet. He knelt on the
other. Our eyes met. It was a challenge then, to the gruesome end.
We peeled back the sheet.
There were only two things under the sheet. Only two.
My stomach contracted so hard I had to swallow vomit. I coughed and
almost lost it there, but I held on. I held on.
I'd thought the blood-soaked form was the baby, but
it wasn't. It was a doll. So blood-soaked I couldn't tell what
color its hair had been, but it was just a doll. A doll too old for
a four-month-old baby.
A tiny hand lay on the carpet, covered in gore like
everything else, but it was a hand. A tiny hand. The hand of a
child, not a baby. I spread my hand just above it to size it.
Three, maybe four. About the same age as Benjamin Reynolds. Was
that coincidence? Had to be. Zombies weren't that choosy.
"I'm breast-feeding the baby, maybe, when I hear a
loud noise. Husband goes to check. Noise wakes the little girl, she
comes out of her room to see what's the matter. Husband sees the
monster, grabs the child, runs for the bedroom. The zombie takes
them here. Kills them all, here." My voice sounded distant,
clinical. Bully for me.
I tried to wipe some of the blood off the tiny hand.
She was wearing a ring like Mommy. One of those plastic rings you
get out of bubble gum machines.
"Did you see the ring, Merlioni?" I asked. I lifted
the hand from the carpet and said, "Catch."
"Jesus!" He was on his feet and moving before I could
do anything else. Merlioni walked very fast out the door. I
wouldn't really have thrown the hand. I wouldn't.
I cradled the tiny hand in my hands. It felt heavy,
as if the fingers should curl round my hand. Should ask me to take
it for a walk. I dropped the hand on the carpet. It landed with a
wet splat.
The room was very hot and spinning ever so slightly.
I blinked and stared at Zerbrowski. "Did I win the bet?"
He nodded. "Anita Blake, tough chick. One night of
delectable feasting at Tony's on Merlioni's tab. I hear they make
great spaghetti."
The mention of food was too much. "Bathroom,
where?"
"Down the hall, third door on the left," Dolph
said.
I ran for the bathroom. Merlioni was just coming out.
I didn't have time to savor my victory. I was too busy tossing my
cookies.
Chapter 28
I knelt with my forehead against the cool linoleum of
the bathtub. I was feeling better. Lucky I hadn't taken time to eat
breakfast.
There was a tap on the door.
"What?" I said.
"It's Dolph. Can I come in?"
I thought about that for a minute. "Sure."
Dolph came in with a washcloth in his hand. Linen
closet, I guessed. He stared at me for a minute or two and shook
his head. He rinsed the washrag in the sink and handed it to me.
"You know what to do with it."
I did. The rag was cold and felt wonderful on my face
and neck. "Did you give Merlioni one, too?" I asked.
"Yeah, he's in the kitchen. You're both assholes, but
it was entertaining."
I managed a weak smile.
"Now that you're through grandstanding, any useful
observations?" He sat on the closed lid of the stool.
I stayed on the floor. "Did anybody hear anything,
this time?"
"Neighbor heard something around dawn, but he went on
to work. Said, he didn't want to get involved in a domestic
dispute."
I stared up at Dolph. "Had he heard fighting from
this house before?"
Dolph shook his head.
"God, if he had just called the police," I said.
"You think it would have made a difference?" Dolph
asked.
I thought about that for a minute. "Maybe not to this
family, but we might have trapped the zombie."
"Spilled milk," Dolph said.
"Maybe not. The scene is still very fresh. The zombie
killed them, then took the time to eat four people. That isn't
quick. At dawn the thing was still killing them."
"Your point."
"Seal the area."
"Explain."
"The zombie has to be nearby, within walking
distance. It's hiding, waiting for nightfall."
"I thought zombies could go out in daylight," Dolph
said.
"They can, but they don't like it. A zombie won't go
out in the day unless ordered to."
"So the nearest cemetery," he said.
"Not necessarily. Zombies aren't like vamps or
ghouls. It doesn't need to be coffins or even graves. The zombie
will just want to get out of the light."
"So where do we look?"
"Sheds, garages, any place that will shield it."
"So he could be in some kid's tree house," Dolph
said.
I smiled. Nice to know I still could. "I doubt the
zombie would climb if given a choice. Notice that all the houses
are one-stories."
"Basements," he said.
"But no one runs down to the basement," I said.
"Would it have helped?"
I shrugged. "Zombies aren't great at climbing, as a
rule. This one is faster and more alert but . . . At best the
basement might have delayed it. If there were windows, they might
have gotten the children out." I rubbed the cloth on the back of
my neck. "The zombie picks one-story houses with sliding glass
doors. It might rest near one."
"The medical examiner says the corpse is tall, six
feet, six-two. Male, white. Immensely strong."
"We knew the last, and the rest doesn't really
help."
"You got a better idea?"
"As a matter of fact," I said, "have all the officers
about the right height walk the neighborhood for an hour. Then
block off that much of the area."
"And search all the sheds and garages," Dolph
said.
"And basements, crawl spaces, old refrigerators," I
said.
"If we find it?"
"Fry it. Get an exterminator team out here."
"Will the zombie attack during the day?" Dolph
asked.
"If disturbed enough, yes. This one's awfully
aggressive."
"No joke," he said. "We'd need a dozen exterminator
teams or more. The city'll never go for that. Besides, we could
walk a pretty damn wide circle. We might search and miss it
completely."
"It'll move at dark. If you're ready, you'll find it
then."
"Okay. You sound like you're not going to help
search."
"I'll be back to help, but John Burke returned my
call."
"You taking him to the morgue?"
"Yeah, in time to try to use him against Dominga
Salvador. What timing," I said.
"Good. You need anything from me?"
"Just access to the morgue for both of us," I
said.
"Sure thing. You think you'll really learn anything
from Burke?"
"Don't know till I try," I said.
He smiled. "Give it the old college try, eh?"
"Win one for the Gipper," I said.
"You go visit the morgue and deal with voodoo John.
We'll turn this fucking neighborhood upside down."
"Nice to know we've both got our days planned," I
said.
"Don't forget this afternoon we check out Salvador's
house."
I nodded. "Yeah, and tonight we hunt zombies."
"We're going to end this shit tonight," he said.
"I hope so."
He looked at me, eyes narrowed. "You got a problem
with our plans?"
"Just that no plan is perfect."
He was quiet a moment, then stood. "Wish this one
was."
"Me, too."
Chapter 29
The St. Louis County morgue was a large building. It
needs to be. Every death not attended by a physician comes to the
morgue. Not to mention every murder. In St. Louis that made for
some very heavy traffic.
I use to come to the morgue fairly regularly. To
stake suspected vampire victims so they wouldn't rise and feast on
the morgue attendants. With the new vamp laws, that's murder. You
have to wait for the puppies to rise, unless they've left a will
strictly forbidding coming back as a vampire. My will says to put
me out of my misery if they think I'm coming back with fangs. Hell,
my will asks for cremation. I don't want to come back as a zombie
either, thank you very much.
John Burke was as I remembered him. Tall, dark,
handsome, vaguely villainous. It was the little goatee that did it.
No one wears goatees outside of horror movies. You know, the ones
with strange cults that worship horned images.
He looked a little faded around the eyes and mouth.
Grief will do that to you even if your skin tone is dark. His lips
were set in a thin line as we walked into the morgue. He held his
shoulders as if something hurt.
"How's it going at your sister-in-law's?" I
asked.
"Bleak, very bleak."
I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't. So I
let it go. If he didn't want to talk about it, that was his
privilege.
We were walking down a wide empty corridor. Wide
enough for three gurneys to wheel abreast. The guard station looked
like a WWII bunker, complete with machine guns, In case the dead
should rise all at once and make for freedom. It had never happened
here in St. Louis, but it had happened as close as Kansas City.
A machine gun will take the starch out of any walking
dead. You're only in trouble if there are a lot of them. If there
is a crowd, you're pretty much cooked.
I flashed my ID at the guard. "Hi, Fred, long time no
see."
"I wish they let you come down here like before.
We've had three get up this week and go home. Can you believe
that?"
"Vampires?"
"What else? There's going to be more of them than of
us someday."
I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. He was
probably right. "We're here to see the personal effects of Peter
Burke. Sergeant Rudolph Storr was supposed to clear it."
Fred checked his little book. "Yeah, you're
authorized. Take the right corridor, third door on the left. Dr.
Saville is waiting for you."
I raised an eyebrow at that. It wasn't often that the
chief medical examiner did errands for the police or anybody else.
I just nodded as if I had expected royal treatment.
"Thanks, Fred, see you on the way out."
"More and more people do," he said. He didn't sound
happy about it.
My Nikes made no sound in the perpetual quiet. John
Burke wasn't making any noise either. I hadn't pegged him as a
tennis shoe man. I glanced down, and I was right. Soft-soled brown
tie-ups, not tennis shoes. But he still moved beside me like a
quiet shadow.
The rest of his outfit sort of matched the shoes. A
dressy brown sport jacket so dark brown it was almost black, over a
pale yellow shirt, brown dress slacks. He only needed a tie, and he
could have gone to corporate America. Did he always dress up, or
was this just what he had brought for his brother's funeral? No,
the suit at the funeral had been perfectly black.
The morgue was always quiet, but on a Saturday
morning it was deathly still. Did the ambulances circle like planes
until a decent hour on the weekend? I knew the murder count went up
on the weekend, yet Saturday and Sunday morning were always quiet.
Go figure.
I counted doors on the left-hand side. Knocked on the
third door. A faint "Come in," and I opened the door.
Dr. Marian Saville is a small woman with short dark
hair bobbed just below her ears, an olive complexion, deeply brown
eyes, and fine high cheekbones. She is French and Greek and looks
it. Exotic without being intimidating. It always surprised me that
Dr. Saville wasn't married. It wasn't for lack of being pretty.
Her only fault was that she smoked, and the smell
clung to her like nasty perfume.
She came forward with a smile and an offered hand.
"Anita, good to see you again."
I shook her hand, and smiled. "You, too, Dr.
Saville."
"Marian, please."
I shrugged. "Marian, are those the personal
effects?"
We were in a small examining room. On a lovely
stainless steel table were several plastic bags.
"Yes."
I stared at her, wondering what she wanted. The chief
medical examiner didn't do errands. Something else was up, but
what? I didn't know her well enough to be blunt, and I didn't want
to be barred from the morgue, so I couldn't be rude. Problems,
problems.
"This is John Burke, the deceased's brother," I
said.
Dr. Saville's eyebrows raised at that. "My
condolences, Mr. Burke."
"Thank you." John shook the hand she offered him, but
his eyes were all for the plastic bags. There was no room today for
attractive doctors or pleasantries. He was going to see his
brother's last effects. He was looking for clues to help the police
catch his brother's killer. He had taken the notion very
seriously.
If he wasn't involved with Dominga Salvador, I would
owe him a big apology. But how was I to get him to talk with Dr.
Marian hovering around? How was I supposed to ask for privacy? It
was her morgue, sort of.
"I have to be here to make sure no evidence is
tampered with," she said. "We've had a few very determined
reporters lately."
"But I'm not a reporter."
She shrugged. "You're not an official person, Anita.
New rules from on high that no nonofficial person is to be allowed
to look at murder evidence without someone to watch over them."
"I appreciate it being you, Marian."
She smiled. "I was here anyway. I figured you'd
resent my looking over your shoulder less than anyone else."
She was right. What did they think I was going to do,
steal a body? If I wanted to, I could empty the damn place and get
every corpse to play follow the leader.
Perhaps that was why I needed watching. Perhaps.
"I don't mean to be rude," John said, "but could we
get on with this?"
I glanced up at his handsome face. The skin was tight
around the mouth and eyes as if it had thinned. Guilt speared me in
the side. "Sure, John, we're being thoughtless."
"Your forgiveness, Mr. Burke," Marian said. She
handed us both little plastic gloves. She and I slipped into them
like pros, but John wasn't used to putting on examining gloves.
There is a trick to it—practice. By the time I finished helping him
on with his gloves, he was grinning. His whole face changed when he
smiled. Brilliant and handsome and not the least villainous.
Dr. Saville popped the seal on the first bag. It was
clothing.
"No," John said, "I don't know his clothing. It may
be his, and I wouldn't know. Peter and I had . . . hadn't seen each
other in two years." The guilt in those last words made me
wince.
"Fine, we'll go on to the smaller items," Marian
said, and smiled as she said it. Nice and cheery, practicing her
bedside manner. She so seldom got to practice.
She opened a much smaller bag and spilled the
contents gently on the shiny silver surface. A comb, a dime, two
pennies, a movie ticket stub, and a voodoo charm. A gris-gris.
It was woven of black and red thread with human teeth
worked into the beading. More bones dangled all the way around it.
"Are those human finger bones?" I asked.
"Yes," John said, his voice very still. He looked
strange as he stood there, as if some new horror were dawning
behind his eyes.
It was an evil piece of work, but I didn't understand
the strength of his reaction to it.
I leaned over it, poking it with one finger. There
was some dried skin woven in the center of it all. And it wasn't
just black thread, it was black hair.
"Human hair, teeth, bones, skin," I said softly.
"Yes," John repeated.
"You're more into voodoo than I am," I said. "What
does it mean?"
"Someone died to make this charm."
"Are you sure?"
He glared down at me with withering contempt. "Don't
you think if it could be anything else I wouldn't say it? Do you
think I enjoy learning my brother took part in human
sacrifice?"
"Did Peter have to be there? He couldn't have just
bought it afterwards?"
"NO!" It was almost a yell. He turned away from us,
pacing to the wall. His breathing was loud and ragged.
I gave him a few moments to collect himself, then
asked what had to be asked. "What does the gris-gris do?"
He turned a calm enough face to us, but the strain
showed around his eyes. "It enables a less powerful necromancer to
raise older dead, to borrow the power of some much greater
necromancer."
"How borrow?"
He shrugged. "That charm holds some of the power of
the most powerful among us. Peter paid dearly for it; so he could
raise more and older dead. Peter, God, how could you?"
"How powerful would you need to be to share your
power like this?"
"Very powerful," he said.
"Is there any way to trace it back to the person who
made it?"
"You don't understand, Anita. That thing is a piece
of someone's power. It is one substance to what soul they have
left. It must have been a great need or great greed to do it. Peter
could never have afforded it. Never."
"Can it be traced back?"
"Yes, just get it in the room with the person who
truly owns it. The thing will crawl back to him. It's a piece of
his soul gone missing."
"Would that be proof in court?"
"If you could make the jury understand it, yes, I
guess so." He stepped towards me. "You know who did this?"
"Maybe. "
"Who, tell me who?"
"I'll do better than that. I'll arrange for you to
come on a search of their house."
A grim smile touched his lips. "I'm beginning to like
you a great deal, Anita Blake."
"Compliments later."
"What's this mean?" Marian asked. She had turned the
charm completely over. There, shining among the hair and bone, was
a small charm, like from a charm bracelet. It was in the shape of a
musical symbol—a treble clef.
What had Evans said when he touched the grave
fragments; they slit her throat, she had a charm bracelet with a
musical note on it and little hearts. I stared at the charm and
felt the world shift. Everything fell together in one motion.
Dominga Salvador hadn't raised the killer zombie. She had helped
Peter Burke raise it. But I had to be sure. We only had a few hours
until we'd be back at Dominga's door trying to prove a case.
"Are there any women that came in around the same
time as Peter Burke?"
"I'm sure there are," Marian said with a smile.
"Women with their throats slit," I said.
She stared at me for a heartbeat. "I'll check the
computer."
"Can we take the charm with us?"
"Why?"
"Because if I'm right, she had a charm bracelet with
a bow and arrow and little hearts on it, and this came from the
bracelet." I held the gold charm up to the light. It sparkled
merrily as if it didn't know its owner was dead.
Chapter 30
Death turns you grey before any other color. Oh, a
body that loses a lot of blood will look white or bluish. But once
a body starts to decay, not rot, not yet, it looks greyish.
The woman looked grey. Her neck wound had been
cleaned and searched. The wound looked puckered like a second giant
mouth below her chin.
Dr. Saville pulled her head back casually. "The cut
was very deep. It severed the muscles in the neck and the carotid
artery. Death was fairly quick."
"Professionally done," I said.
"Well, yes, whoever cut her throat knew what they
were doing. There are a dozen different ways to injure the neck
that won't kill or won't kill quickly."
John Burke said, "Are you saying that my brother had
practice?"
"I don't know," I said. "Do you have her personal
effects?"
"Right here." Marian unfastened a much smaller bag
and spilled it out on an empty table. The golden charm bracelet
sparkled under the fluorescent lights.
I picked the bracelet up in my still gloved hand. A
tiny strung bow complete with arrow, a different musical note, two
entwined hearts. Everything Evans had said.
"How did you know about the charm and the dead
woman?" John Burke asked.
"I took some evidence to a clairvoyant. He saw the
woman's death and the bracelet."
"What's that got to do with Peter?"
"I believe a voodoo priestess had Peter raise a
zombie. It got away from him. It's been killing people. To hide
what she's done, she killed Peter."
"Who did it?"
"I have no proof unless the gris-gris will be proof
enough."
"A vision and a gris-gris." John shook his head.
"Hard sell to a jury."
"I know. That's why we need more proof."
Dr. Saville just watched us talk, like an eager
spectator.
"A name, Anita, give me a name."
"Only if you swear not to go after her until the law
has its chance. Only if the law fails, promise me."
"I give you my word."
I studied his face for a minute. The dark eyes stared
back, clear and certain. Bet he could lie with a clear conscience.
"I don't trust just anybody's word." I stared at him a moment
longer. He never flinched. I guess my hard-as-nails look has faded
a little. Or maybe he meant to keep his word. It happens
sometimes.
"Alright, I'll take your word. Don't make me regret
it."
"I won't," he said. "Now give me the name."
I turned to Dr. Saville. "Excuse us, Marian. The less
you know about all this, the greater your chances of never waking
to a zombie crawling through your window." An exaggeration, sort
of, but it made my point.
She looked like she wanted to protest but finally
nodded. "Very well, but I would dearly love to hear the complete
story someday, if it's safe."
"If I can tell it, it's yours," I said.
She nodded again, shut the drawer the Jane Doe lay
on, and left. "Yell when you're finished. I've got work to do," she
said and the door closed behind her.
She left us with the evidence still clutched in our
hands. Guess she trusted me. Or us?
"Dominga Salvador," I said.
He drew a sharp breath. "I know that name. She is a
frightening force if all the stories are true."
"They're true," I said.
"You've met her?"
"I've had the misfortune."
There was a look on his face that I didn't much like.
"You swore no revenge."
"The police will not get her. She is too crafty for
that," he said.
"We can get her legally. I believe that."
"You aren't sure," he said
What could I say? He was right. "I'm almost
sure."
"Almost is not good enough for killing my
brother."
"That zombie has killed a lot more people than just
your brother. I want her, too. But we're going to get her legally,
through the court system."
"There are other ways to get her," he said.
"If the law fails us, feel free to use voodoo. Just
don't tell me about it."
He looked amused, puzzled. "No outrage about me using
black magic?"
"The woman tried to kill me once. I don't think
she'll give up."
"You survived an attack by the Señora?" he
asked. He looked amazed.
I didn't like him looking amazed. "I can take care of
myself, Mr. Burke."
"I don't doubt that, Ms. Blake." He smiled. "I've
bruised your ego. You don't like me being so surprised, do
you?"
"Keep your observations to yourself, okay?"
"If you have survived a head-on confrontation with
what Dominga Salvador would send to you, then I should have
believed some of the stories I heard of you. The Executioner, the
animator who can raise anything no matter how old."
"I don't know about that last, but I'm just trying to
stay alive, that's all."
"If Dominga Salvador wants you dead that won't be
easy."
"Damn near impossible," I said.
"So let us get her first," he said.
"Legally," I said.
"Anita, you are being naive."
"The offer to come on a raid of her house still
stands."
"You're sure you can arrange that?"
"I think so."
His eyes had a sort of dark light to them, a
sparkling blackness. He smiled, tight-lipped, and very unpleasant,
as if he were contemplating tortures for one Dominga Salvador. The
private vision seemed to fill him with pleasure.
The skin between my shoulders crept with that look. I
hoped John never turned those dark eyes on me. Something told me he
would make a bad enemy. Almost as bad as Dominga Salvador. Almost
as bad, but not quite.
Chapter 31
Dominga Salvador sat in her living room smiling. The
little girl who had been riding her tricycle on my last trip here
was sitting in her grandma's lap. The child was as relaxed and
languorous as a kitten. Two older boys sat at Dominga's feet. She
was the picture of maternal bliss. I wanted to throw up.
Of course, just because she was the most dangerous
voodoo priestess I'd ever met didn't mean she wasn't a grandma,
too. People are seldom just one thing. Hitler liked dogs.
"You are more than welcome to search, Sergeant. My
house is your house," she said in a candy-coated voice that had
already offered us lemonade, or perhaps iced tea.
John Burke and I were standing to one side, letting
the police do their job. Dominga was making them feel silly for
their suspicions. Just a nice old lady. Right.
Antonio and Enzo were also standing to one side. They
didn't quite fit this picture of grandmotherly bliss, but evidently
she wanted witnesses. Or maybe a shootout wasn't out of the
question.
"Mrs. Salvador, do you understand the possible
implications of this search?" Dolph said.
"There are no implications because I have nothing to
hide." She smiled sweetly. Damn her.
"Anita, Mr. Burke," Dolph said.
We came forward like props in a magic show. Which
wasn't far off. A tall police officer had the video camera ready to
go.
"I believe you know Ms. Blake," Dolph said.
"I have had the pleasure," Dominga said.
Butter wouldn't have melted in her lying mouth.
"This is John Burke."
Her eyes widened just a little. The first slip in her
perfect camouflage. Had she heard of John Burke? Did the name worry
her? I hoped so.
"So glad to meet you at last, Mr. John Burke," she
said finally.
"Always good to meet another practitioner of the
art," he said.
She bowed her head slightly in acknowledgment. At
least she wasn't trying to pretend complete innocence. She admitted
to being a voodoo priestess. Progress..
It was obscene for the godmother of voodoo to be
playing the innocent.
"Do it, Anita," Dolph said. No preliminaries, no
sense of theater, just do it. That was Dolph for you.
I took a plastic bag out of my pocket. Dominga looked
puzzled. I pulled out the gris-gris. Her face became very still,
like a mask. A funny little smile curled her lips. "What is
that?"
"Come now, Señora," John said, "do not play
the fool. You know very well what it is."
"I know that it is a charm of some kind, of course.
But do the police now threaten old women with voodoo?"
"Whatever works," I said.
"Anita," Dolph said.
"Sorry." I glanced at John, and he nodded. I sat the
gris-gris on the carpet about six feet from Dominga Salvador. I had
had to take John's word on a lot of this. I had checked some of it
over the phone with Manny. If this worked and if we could get it
admitted into court, and if we could explain it to the jury, then
we might have a case. How many ifs was that?
The gris-gris just sat there for a moment, then the
finger bones rippled as if an invisible finger had ruffled
them.
Dominga lifted her granddaughter from her lap and
shooed the boys over to Enzo. She sat alone on the couch and
waited. The strange little smile was still on her face, but it
looked sickly now.
The charm began to ooze towards her like a slug,
pushing and struggling with muscles it did not have. The hairs on
my arms stood to attention.
"You recording this, Bobby?" Dolph asked.
The cop with the video camera said, "I'm getting it.
I don't fucking believe it, but I'm getting it."
"Please, do not use such words in front of the
children," Dominga said.
The cop said, "Sorry, ma'am."
"You are forgiven." She was still trying to play the
perfect hostess while that thing crawled towards her feet. She had
nerve. I'd give her that.
Antonio didn't. He broke. He strode forward as if he
meant to pluck the thing from the rug.
"Don't touch it," Dolph said.
"You are frightening my grandmother with your
tricks," he said.
"Don't touch it," Dolph said again. This time he
stood. His bulk seemed to fill the room. Antonio looked suddenly
small and frail beside him.
"Please, you are frightening her." But it was his
face that was pale and covered with a sheen of sweat. What was ol'
Tony in such a fret about? It wasn't his ass going to jail.
"Stand over there," Dolph said, "now, or do we have
to cuff you?"
Antonio shook his head. "No, I . . . I will go back."
He did, but he glanced at Dominga as he moved. A quick, fearful
glance. When she met his eyes, there was nothing but rage in them.
Her black eyes glittered with rage. Her face was suddenly contorted
with it. What had happened to strip the act away? What was going
on?
The gris-gris made its painful way to her. It fawned
at her feet like a dog, rolling on the toes of her shoes in abandon
like a cat who wants its belly rubbed.
She tried to ignore it, to pretend.
"Would you refuse your returned power?" John
asked.
"I don't know what you mean." Her face was under
control again. She looked puzzled. Gosh, she was good. "You are a
powerful voodoo priest. You are doing this to trap me."
"If you don't want the charm, I will take it," he
said. "I will add your magic to mine. I will be the most powerful
practitioner in the States." For the first time, John's power
flowed across my skin. It was a breath of magic that was
frightening. I had begun to think of John as ordinary, or as
ordinary as any of us get. My mistake.
She just shook her head.
John strode forward and knelt, reaching for the
writhing gris-gris. His power moved with him like an invisible
hand.
"No!" She grabbed it, cradling it in her hands.
John smiled up at her. "Do you acknowledge that you
made this charm? If not, I can take it and use it as I see fit. It
was found in my brother's effects. It's legally mine, correct,
Sergeant Storr?"
"Correct," Dolph said.
"No, you cannot."
"I can and I will, unless you look into that camera
and admit making it."
She snarled at him. "You will regret this."
"You will regret having killed my brother."
She stared at the video camera. "Very well, I made
this charm, but I admit nothing else. I made the charm for your
brother, but that is all."
"You performed human sacrifice to make this charm,"
John said.
She shook her head. "The charm is mine. I made it for
your brother, that is all. You have the charm but nothing
else."
"Señora, forgive me," Antonio said. He looked
pale and shaken and very, very scared.
"Calenta," she said, "shut up!"
"Zerbrowski, take our friend here into the kitchen
and take his statement," Dolph said.
Dominga stood at that. "You fool, you miserable fool.
Tell them anything more, and I will rot the tongue out of your
mouth."
"Get him out of here, Zerbrowski."
Zerbrowski led a nearly weeping Antonio from the
room. I had a feeling that of Tony had been responsible for getting
the charm back. He failed, and he was going to pay the
consequences. The police were the least of his problems. If I were
him, I'd make damn sure grandma was locked up tonight. I wouldn't
want her near her voodoo paraphernalia. Ever.
"We're going to search now, Mrs. Salvador."
"Help yourself, Sergeant. You will find nothing else
to help you."
She was very calm when she said it. "Even the stuff
behind the doors?" I asked.
"They are gone, Anita. You will find nothing that is
not legal and . . . wholesome." She made that last sound like a bad
word.
Dolph glanced my way. I shrugged. She seemed awfully
sure.
"Okay, boys, take the place apart." Uniforms and
detectives moved like they had a purpose. I started to follow Dolph
out. He stopped me.
"No, Anita, you and Burke stay up here."
"Why?"
"You're civilians."
A civilian, me? "Was I a civilian when I walked the
cemetery for you?"
"If one of my people could have done it, I wouldn't
have let you do that either."
"Let me?"
He frowned. "You know what I mean."
"No, I don't think I do."
"You may be a bad ass, you may even be as good as you
think you are, but you aren't police. This is a job for cops. You
stay in the living room with the civies just this once. When it's
all clear, you can come down and identify the bogeymen for us."
"Don't do me any favors, Dolph."
"I didn't peg you for a pouter, Blake."
"I am not pouting," I said.
"Whining?" he said.
"Cut it out. You've made your point. I'll stay
behind, but I don't have to like it."
"Most of the time you're ass deep in alligators.
Enjoy being out of the line of fire for once, Anita." With that he
led the way towards the basement.
I hadn't really wanted to go down into the darkness
again. I certainly didn't want to see the creature that had chased
Manny and I up the stairs. And yet . . . I felt left out. Dolph was
right. I was pouting. Great.
John Burke and I sat on the couch. Dominga sat in the
recliner where she had been since we hit the door. The children had
been shooed out to play, with Enzo to watch them.
He looked relieved. I almost volunteered to go with
them. Anything was better than just sitting here straining to hear
the first screams.
If the monster, and that was the only word that
matched the noises, was down there, there would be screaming. The
police were great with bad guys, but monsters were new to them. It
had been simpler, in a way, when all this shit was taken care of by
a few experts. A few lone people fighting the good fight. Staking
vampires. Turning zombies. Burning witches. Though there is some
debate whether I might have ended up on the receiving end of some
fire a few years back. Say, the 1950s.
What I did was undeniably magic. Before we got all
the bogeymen out in the open, supernatural was supernatural.
Destroy it before it destroys you. Simpler times. But now the
police were expected to deal with zombies, vampires, the occasional
demon. Police were really bad with demons. But then who isn't?
Dominga sat in her chair and stared at me. The two
uniforms left in the living room stood like all police stand, blank
faced, bored, but let anyone move and the cops saw it. The boredom
was just a mask. Cops always saw everything. Occupational
hazard.
Dominga wasn't looking at the police. She wasn't even
paying attention to John Burke, who was much closer to her equal.
She was staring at little old me.
I met her black gaze and said, "You got a
problem?"
The cop's eyes flicked to us. John shifted on the
couch. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"She's staring at me."
"I will do a great deal more than stare at you,
chica." Her voice crawled low. The hairs at the nape of my
neck tried to crawl down my shirt.
"A threat." I smiled. "I don't think you're going to
be hurting anybody anymore."
"You mean this." She held out the charm. It writhed
in her hand as if thrilled that she had noticed it. She crushed it
in her hand. It made futile movements as if pushing against her.
Her hand covered it completely. She stared straight at me, as she
brought her hand slowly to her chest.
The air was suddenly heavy, hard to breathe. Every
hair on my body was creeping down my skin.
"Stop her!" John said. He stood.
The policeman nearest her hesitated for only an
instant, but it was enough. When he pried her fingers open, they
were empty.
"Sleight of hand, Dominga. I thought better of you
than that."
John was pale. "It isn't a trick." His voice was
shaky. He sat down heavily on the couch beside me. His dark face
looked pale. His power seemed to have shriveled up. He looked
tired.
"What is it? What did she do?" I asked.
"You have to bring back the charm, ma'am," the
uniform said.
"I cannot," she said.
"John, what the hell did she do?"
"Something she shouldn't have been able to do."
I was beginning to know how Dolph must feel having to
depend on me for information. It was like pulling fucking teeth.
"What did she do?"
"She absorbed her power back into herself," he
said.
"What does that mean?"
"She absorbed the gris-gris into her body. Didn't you
feel it?"
I had felt something. The air was clearer now, but it
was still heavy. My skin was tingling with the nearness of
something. "I felt something, but I still don't understand."
"Without ceremony, without help from the loa, she
absorbed it back into her soul. We won't find a trace of it. No
evidence."
"So all we have is the tape?"
He nodded.
"If you knew she could do this, why didn't you speak
up earlier? We wouldn't have let her hold the thing."
"I didn't know. It's impossible without ceremonial
magic."
"But she did it."
"I know, Anita, I know." He sounded scared for the
first time. Fear didn't sit well on his darkly handsome face. After
the power I'd felt from him, the fear seemed even more out of
place. But it was real nonetheless.
I shivered, like someone had walked on my grave.
Dominga was staring at me. "What are you staring at?"
"A dead woman," she said softly
I shook my head. "Talk is cheap, Señora.
Threats don't mean squat."
John touched my arm. "Do not taunt her, Anita. If she
can do that instantly, there's no telling what else she can
do."
The cop had had enough. "She's not doing anything. If
you so much as twitch wrong, lady, I'm going to shoot you."
"But I am just an old woman. Would you threaten
me?"
"Don't talk either."
The other uniform said, "I knew a witch once who
could bespell you with her voice."
Both uniforms had their hands near their guns. Funny
how magic changes how people perceive you. They were fine when they
thought she needed human sacrifice and ceremony. Let her do one
instant trick, and she was suddenly very dangerous. I'd always
known she was dangerous.
Dominga sat silently under the watchful eyes of the
cops. I had been distracted by her little performance. There were
still no screams from downstairs. Nothing. Silence.
Had it gotten them all? That quickly, without a shot
fired. Naw. But still, my stomach was tight, sweat trickled down my
spine. Are you alright, Dolph? I thought.
"Did you say something?" John asked.
I shook my head. "Just thinking really hard."
He nodded as if that made sense to him.
Dolph came into the living room. I couldn't tell
anything by his face. Mr. Stoic.
"Well, what was it?" I asked.
"Nothing," he said.
"What do you mean, nothing?"
"She's cleaned the place out completely. We found the
rooms you told me about. One door had been busted from inside, but
the room's been scrubbed down and painted." He held up one big
hand. It was stained white. "Hell, the paint's still wet."
"It can't all be gone. What about the cement-covered
doors?"
"Looks like someone took a jackhammer to them.
They're just freshly painted rooms, Anita. The place stinks of pine
scented bleach and wet paint. No corpses, no zombies. Nothing."
I just stared at him. "You've got to be kidding."
He shook his head. "I'm not laughing."
I stood in front of Dominga. "Who warned you?"
She just stared up at me, smiling. I had a great urge
to slap that smile off her face. Just to hit her once would feel
good. I knew it would.
"Anita," Dolph said, "back off."
Maybe the anger showed on my face, or maybe it was
the fact that my hands were balled into fists and I seemed to be
shaking. Shaking with anger and the beginnings of something else.
If she didn't go to jail, that meant she was free to try to kill me
again tonight. And every night after that.
She smiled as if she could read my mind. "You have
nothing, chica. You have gambled all on a hand with
nothing in it."
She was right. "Stay away from me, Dominga."
"I will not come near you, chica, I will not
need to."
"Your last little surprise didn't work out so well.
I'm still here."
"I have done nothing. But I am sure there are worse
things that could come to your door, chica."
I turned to Dolph. "Dammit, isn't there anything we
can do?"
"We got the charm, but that's it."
Something must have showed on my face because he
touched my arm. "What is it?"
"She did something to the charm. It's gone."
He took a deep breath and stalked away, then back.
"Dammit to hell, how?"
I shrugged. "Let John explain. I still don't
understand it." I hate admitting that I don't know something. It's
always bothered me to admit ignorance. But hey, a girl can't be an
expert on everything. I had worked hard to stay away from voodoo.
Work hard and where does it get you? Staring into the black eyes of
a voodoo priestess who's plotting your death. A most unpleasant
death by the looks of it.
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I went back to
her. I stood and stared into her dark face and smiled. Her own
smile faltered, which made my smile bigger.
"Someone tipped you off and you've been cleaning up
this cesspit for two days." I leaned over her, putting my hands on
the arms of the chair. It brought our faces close together.
"You had to break down your walls. You had to let out
or destroy all your creations. Your inner sanctum, your hougun, is
cleaned and whitewashed. All the verve gone. All the animal
sacrifices gone. All that slow building of power, line by line,
drop by bloody drop, you're going to have to start over, you bitch.
You're going to have to rebuild it all."
The look in those black eyes made me shiver, and I
didn't care. "You're getting old to rebuild that much. Did you
have to destroy many of your toys? Dig up any graves?"
"Have your joke now, chica, but I will send
what I have saved to you some dark night."
"Why wait? Do it now, in daylight. Face me or are you
afraid?"
She laughed then, and it was a warm, friendly sound.
It startled me so much I stood up straight, almost jumped back.
"Do you think I am foolish enough to attack you with
the police all around? You must think me a fool."
"It was worth a try," I said.
"You should have joined with me in my zombie
enterprises. We could have been rich together."
"The only thing we're likely to do together is kill
each other," I said.
"So be it. Let it be war between us."
"It always was," I said.
She nodded and smiled some more.
Zerbrowski came out of the kitchen. He was grinning
from ear to ear. Something good was up.
"The grandson just spilled the beans."
Everyone in the room stared at him. Dolph said,
"Spilled what?"
"Human sacrifice. How he was supposed to get the
gris-gris back from Peter Burke after he killed him, on his
grandmother's orders, but some joggers came by and he panicked.
He's so afraid of her"—he motioned to Dominga—"he wants her behind
bars. He's terrified of what she'll do to him for forgetting the
charm."
The charm that we didn't have anymore. But we had the
video and now we had Antonio's confession. The day was looking
up.
I turned back to Dominga Salvador. She looked tall
and proud and terrifying. Her black eyes blazed with some inner
light. Standing this close to her, the power crawled over my skin,
but a good bonfire would take care of that. They'd fry her in the
electric chair, then burn the body and scatter the ashes at a
crossroad.
I said softly, "Gotcha."
She spit at me. It landed on my hand and burned like
acid. "Shit!"
"Do that again and we'll shoot you, and save the
taxpayers some money," Dolph said. He had his gun out.
I went in search of the bathroom to wash her spit off
my hand. A blister had formed where it had hit. Second fucking
degree burns from her spit. Dear God.
I was glad Antonio had broken. I was glad she was
going to be locked away. I was glad she was going to die. Better
her than me.
Chapter 32
Riverridge was a modern housing development. Which
meant that there were three models to choose from. You could end up
with four identical houses in a row, like cookies on a baking
sheet. There was also no river within sight. No ridge either.
The house that was the center of the police search
area was identical to its neighbor, except for color. The murder
house, which is what the news was calling it, was grey with white
shutters. The house that had been passed safely by was blue with
white shutters. Neither's shutters worked. They were just for show.
Modern architecture is full of perks that are just for show;
balcony railings without a balcony, peaked roofs that make it look
like you have an extra room that you don't have, porches so narrow
that only Santa's elves could sit on them. It makes me nostalgic
for Victorian architecture. It might have been overdone, but
everything worked.
The entire housing project had been evacuated. Dolph
had been forced to give a statement to the press. More's the pity.
But you can't evacuate a housing development the size of a small
town and keep it quiet. The cat was out of the bag. They were
calling them the zombie massacres. Geez.
The sun was going down in a sea of scarlet and
orange. It looked like someone had melted two giant crayons and
smeared them across the sky. There wasn't a shed, garage, basement,
tree house, playhouse, or anything else we could think of that had
been left unsearched. Still, we had found nothing.
The newshounds were prowling restlessly at the edge
of the search area. If we had evacuated hundreds of people and
searched their premises without a warrant and found no zombie . . .
we were going to be in deep fucking shit.
But it was here. I knew it was here. Alright, I was
almost sure it was here.
John Burke was standing next to one of those giant
trash cans. Dolph had surprised me by allowing John to come on the
zombie hunt. As Dolph said, we needed all the help we could
get.
"Where is it, Anita?" Dolph asked.
I wanted to say something brilliant. My God, Holmes,
how did you know the zombie was hiding in the flower pot? But I
couldn't lie. "I don't know, Dolph. I just don't know."
"If we don't find this thing . . ." He let the
thought trail off, but I knew what he meant.
My job was secure if this fell apart. Dolph's was
not. Shit. How could I help him? What were we missing? What?
I stared at the quiet street. It was eerily quiet.
The windows were all dark. Only the streetlights pushed back the
coming dark. Soft halos of light.
Every house had a mailbox on a post near the sidewalk
that edged the curb. Some of the mailboxes were unbelievably cute.
One had been shaped like a sitting cat. Its paw went up if there
was mail in its tummy. The family name was Catt. It was too
precious.
Every house had at least one large super duper trash
can in front of it. Some of them were bigger than I was. Surely,
Sunday couldn't be trash day. Or had today been trash day, and the
police line had stopped it?
"Trash cans," I said aloud.
"What?" Dolph asked.
"Trash cans." I grabbed his arm, feeling almost
lightheaded. "We've stared at those fucking trash cans all day.
That's it."
John Burke stood quietly beside me, frowning.
"Are you feeling okay, Blake?" Zerbrowski came up
behind us, smoking. The end of his cigarette looked like a bloated
firefly.
"The cans are big enough for a large person to hide
in."
"Wouldn't your arms and legs fall asleep?" Zerbrowski
asked.
"Zombies don't have circulation, not like we do."
Dolph yelled, "Everybody check the trash cans. The
zombie is in one of them. Move it!"
Everyone scattered like an anthill stirred with a
stick, but we had a purpose now. I ended up with two uniformed
officers. Their nameplates said "Ki" and "Roberts." Ki was Asian
and male. Roberts was blond and female. A nicely mixed team.
We fell into a rhythm without discussing it. Officer
Ki would move up and dump the trash can. Roberts and I would cover
him with guns. We were all set to yell like hell if a zombie came
tumbling out. It would probably be the right zombie. Life is seldom
that cruel.
We'd yell and an exterminator team would come
running. At least, they'd better come running. This zombie was
entirely too fast, too destructive. It might be more resistant to
gunfire. Better not to find out. Just french-fry the sucker and be
done with it.
We were the only team working on the street. There
was no sound but our footsteps, the rubber crunch of trash cans
overturning, the rattle of cans and bottles as the trash spilled.
Didn't anybody tie their bags up anymore?
Darkness had fallen in a solid blackness. I knew
there were stars and a moon up there somewhere, but you couldn't
prove it from where we stood. Clouds as thick and dark as velvet
had come in from the west. Only the streetlights made it
bearable.
I didn't know how Roberts was doing, but the muscles
in my shoulders and neck were screaming. Every time Ki put his
hands to the can and pushed, I was ready. Ready to fire, ready to
save him before the zombie leapt up and ripped his throat out. A
trickle of sweat dripped down his high-cheekboned face. Even in the
dim light it glimmered.
Glad to know I wasn't the only one feeling the
effort. Of course, I wasn't the one putting my face over the
possible hiding place of a berserk zombie. Trouble was, I didn't
know how good a shot Ki was, or Roberts either for that matter. I
knew I was a good shot. I knew I could slow the thing down until
help arrived. I had to stay on shooting detail. It was the best
division of labor. Honest.
Screams. To the left. The three of us froze. I
whirled towards the screaming. There was nothing to see, nothing
but dark houses and pools of streetlight. Nothing moved. But the
screams continued high and horrified.
I started running towards the screams. Ki and Roberts
were at my back. I ran with the Browning in a two-handed grip
pointed up. Easier to run that way. Didn't dare holster the gun.
Visions of blood-coated teddy bears, and the screams. The screams
sort of faded. Someone was dying up ahead.
There was a sense of movement everywhere in the
darkness. Cops running. All of us running but it was too late. We
were all too late. The screaming had stopped. No gunshots. Why not?
Why hadn't someone gotten off a shot?
We ran down the side yards of four houses when we hit
a metal fence. Had to holster the guns. Couldn't climb it with one
hand. Dammit. I did my best to vault the fence using my hands for
leverage.
I stumbled to my knees in the soft dirt of a flower
bed. I was trampling some tall summer flowers. On my knees I was
considerably shorter than the flowers. Ki landed beside me. Only
Roberts landed on her feet.
Ki stood up without drawing his gun. I drew the
Browning while I crouched in the flowers. I could stand up after I
was armed.
I had a sense of rushing movement but not clear
sight. The flowers obscured my vision. Roberts was suddenly
tumbling backwards, screaming.
Ki was drawing his gun, but something hit him,
knocked him on top of me. I rolled but was still half under him. He
lay still on top of me.
"Ki, move it, dammit!"
He sat up and crawled towards his partner, his gun
silhouetted against the streetlight. He was staring down at
Roberts. She wasn't moving.
I searched the darkness trying to see something,
anything. It had moved more than human fast. Fast as a ghoul. No
zombie moved like that. Had I been wrong all along? Was it
something else? Something worse? How many lives would my mistake
cost tonight? Was Roberts dead?
"Ki, is she alive?" I searched the darkness, fighting
the urge to look only at the lighted areas. There was shouting, but
it was confusion, "Where is it? Where did it go?" The sounds were
getting farther away.
I screamed, "Here, here!" The voices hesitated, then
started our way. They were making so much noise, like a heard of
arthritic elephants.
"How bad is she hurt?"
"Bad." He'd put his gun down. He was pressing his
hands over her neck. Something black and liquid was spreading over
his hands. God.
I knelt on the other side of Roberts, gun ready,
searching the darkness. Everything was taking forever, yet it was
only seconds.
I checked her pulse, one-handed. It was thready, but
there. My hand came away covered in blood. I wiped it on my pants.
The thing had damn near slit her throat.
Where was it?
Ki's eyes were huge, all pupil. His skin looked
leprous in the streetlight. His partner's blood was dripping out
between his fingers.
Something moved, too low to the ground to be a man,
but about that size. It was just a shape creeping along the back of
the house in front of us. Whatever it was had found the deepest
shadow and was trying to creep away.
That showed more intelligence than a zombie had. I
was wrong. I was wrong. I was fucking wrong. And Roberts was dying
because of it.
"Stay with her. Keep her alive."
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"After it." I climbed the fence one-handed. The
adrenaline must have been pumping because I made it.
I gained the yard and it was gone. A streaking shape
fast as a mouse caught in the kitchen light. A blur of speed, but
big, big as a man.
It rounded the corner of the house and I lost sight
of it. Dammit. I ran as far from the wall as I could, my stomach
tight with anticipation of fingers ripping my throat out. I came
round the house gun pointed, two-handed, ready. Nothing. I scanned
the darkness, the pools of light. Nothing.
Shouts behind me. The cops had arrived. God, let
Roberts live.
There, movement, creeping across the streetlight
around the edge of another house. Someone shouted, "Anita!"
I was already running towards the movement. I shouted
as I ran, "Bring an exterminator team!" But I didn't stop. I didn't
dare stop. I was the only one in sight of it. If I lost it, it was
gone.
I ran into the darkness, alone, after something that
might not be a zombie at all. Not the brightest thing I've ever
done, but it wasn't going to get away. It wasn't.
It was never going to hurt another family. Not if I
could stop it. Now. Tonight.
I ran through a pool of light and it made the
darkness heavier, blinding me temporarily. I froze in the dark,
willing my eyes to adjust faster.
"Perssisstent woman," a voice hissed. It was to my
right, so close the hair on my arms stood up.
I froze, straining my peripheral vision. There, a
darker shape rising out of the evergreen shrubs that hugged the
edge of the house. It rose to its full height, but didn't attack.
If it wanted me, it could have me before I could turn and fire. I'd
seen it move. I knew I was dead.
"You arrre not like the resst." The voice was
sibilant, as if parts of the mouth were missing, so it put great
effort into forming each word. A gentleman's voice decayed by the
grave.
I turned towards it, slowly, slowly.
"Put me back."
I had turned my head enough to be able to see some of
it. My night vision is better than most. And the streetlights made
it lighter than it should have been.
The skin was pale, yellowish-white. The skin clung to
the bones of his face like wax that had half-melted. But the eyes,
they weren't decayed. They burned out at me with a glitter that was
more than just eyes.
"Put you back where?" I asked.
"My grave," he said. His lips didn't work quite
right, there wasn't enough flesh left on them.
Light blazed into my eyes. The zombie screamed,
covering his face. I couldn't see shit. It crashed into me. I
pulled the trigger blind. I thought I heard a grunt as the bullet
hit home. I fired the gun again one-handed, throwing an arm across
my neck. Trying to protect myself as I fell half-blind.
When I blinked up into the electric-shot darkness, I
was alone. I was unhurt. Why? Put me back, it had said. In my
grave. How had it known what I was? Most humans couldn't tell.
Witches could tell sometimes, and other animators always spotted
me. Other animators. Shit.
Dolph was suddenly there, pulling me to my feet.
"God, Blake, are you hurt?"
I shook my head. "What the hell was that light?"
"A halogen flashlight."
"You damn near blinded me."
"We couldn't see to shoot," he said.
Police had run past us in the darkness. There were
shouts of, "There it is!" Dolph and I and the offending flashlight,
bright as day, were left behind as the chase ran merrily on.
"It spoke to me, Dolph," I said. .
"What do you mean, it spoke to you?"
"It asked me to put it back in its grave." I stared
up at him as I said it. I wondered if my face looked like Ki's had,
pale, eyes wide and black. Why wasn't I scared?
"It's old, a century at least. It was a voodoo
something in life. That's what went wrong. That's why Peter Burke
couldn't control it."
"How do you know all this? Did it tell you?"
I shook my head. "The way it looked, I could judge
the age. It recognized me as someone who could lay it to rest. Only
a witch or another animator could have recognized me for what I am.
My money's on an animator."
"Does that change our plan?" he asked.
I stared up at him. "It's killed how many people?" I
didn't wait for him to answer. "We kill it. Period."
"You think like a cop, Anita." It was a great
compliment from Dolph, and I took it as one.
It didn't matter what it had been in life. So it had
been an animator, or rather a voodoo practioner. So what? It was a
killing machine. It hadn't killed me. Hadn't hurt me. I couldn't
afford to return the favor.
Shots echoed far way. Some trick of the summer air
made them echo. Dolph and I looked at each other.
I still had the Browning in my hand. "Let's do
it."
He nodded.
We started running, but he outdistanced me quickly.
His legs were as tall as I was. I couldn't match his pace. I might
be able to run him into the ground, but I'd never match his
speed.
He hesitated, glancing at me.
"Go on, run," I said.
He put on an extra burst of speed and was gone into
the darkness. He didn't even look back. If you said you were fine
in the dark with a killer zombie on the loose, Dolph would believe
you. Or at least he believed me.
It was a compliment but it left me running alone in
the dark for the second time tonight. Shouts were coming from two
opposite directions. They had lost it. Damn.
I slowed. I had no desire to run into the thing
blind. It hadn't hurt me the first time, but I'd put at least one
bullet into it. Even a zombie gets pissed about things like
that.
I was under the cool darkness of a tree shadow. I was
on the edge of the development. A barbed-wire fence cut across the
entire back of the subdivision. Farmland stretched as far as I
could see. At least the field was planted in beans. The zombie'd
have to be lying flat to hide in there. I caught glimpses of
policemen with flashlights, searching the darkness, but they were
all about fifty yards to either side of me.
They were searching the ground, the shadows, because
I'd told them zombies didn't like to climb. But this wasn't any
ordinary zombie. The tree rustled over my head. The hair on my neck
crawled down my spine. I whirled, looking upwards, gun
pointing.
It snarled at me and leapt.
I fired twice before its weight hit me and knocked us
both to the ground. Two bullets in the chest, and it wasn't even
hurt.
I fired a third time, but I might as well have been
hitting a wall.
It snarled in my face, broken teeth with dark stains,
breath foul as a new opened grave. I screamed back, wordless, and
pulled the trigger again. The bullet hit it in the throat. It
paused, trying to swallow. To swallow the bullet?
Those glittering eyes stared down at me. There was
someone home, like Dominga's soul-locked zombies. There was someone
looking out of those eyes. We froze in one of those illusionary
seconds that last years. He was straddling my waist, hands at my
throat, but not pressing, not hurting, not yet. I had the gun under
his chin. None of the other bullets had hurt him; why would this
one?
"Didn't mean to kill," it said softly, "didn't
understand at firsst. Didn't remember what I wass."
The police were there on either side, hesitating.
Dolph screamed, "Hold your fire, hold your fire,
dammit!"
"I needed meat, needed it to remember who I wass.
Tried not to kill. Tried to walk past all the houssess, but I could
not. Too many houssess," he whispered. His hands tensed, stained
nails digging in. I fired into his chin. His body jerked backwards,
but the hands squeezed my neck.
Pressure, pressure, tighter, tighter. I was beginning
to see white star bursts on my vision. The night was fading from
black to grey. I pressed the gun just above the bridge of his nose
and pulled the trigger again, and again.
My vision faded, but I could still feel my hands,
pulling the trigger. Darkness flowed over my eyes and swallowed the
world. I couldn't feel my hands anymore.
I woke to screams, horrible screams. The stink of
burning flesh and hair was thick and choking on my tongue.
I took a deep shaking breath and it hurt. I coughed
and tried to sit up. Dolph was there supporting me. He had my gun
in his hand. I drew one ragged breath after another and coughed
hard enough to make my throat raw. Or maybe the zombie had done
that.
Something the size of a man was rolling over the
summer grass. It burned. It flamed with a clean orange light that
sent the darkness shattering in fire shadows like the sun on
water.
Two exterminators in their fire suits stood by it,
covering it in napalm, as if it were a ghoul. The thing screamed
high in its throat, over and over, one loud ragged shriek after
another.
"Jesus, why won't it die?" Zerbrowski was standing
nearby. His face was orange in the firelight.
I didn't say anything. I didn't want to say it out
loud. The zombie wouldn't die because it had been an animator when
alive. That much I knew about animator zombies. What I hadn't known
was that they came out of the grave craving flesh. That they
remembered only when they ate flesh.
That I hadn't known. Didn't want to know.
John Burke stumbled into the firelight. He was
cradling one arm to his chest. Blood stained his clothing. Had the
zombie whispered to John? Did he know why the thing wouldn't
die?
The zombie whirled, the fire roaring around it. The
body was like the wick of a candle. It took one shaking step
towards us. Its flaming hand reached out to me. To me.
Then it fell forward, slowly, into the grass. It fell
like a tree in slow motion, fighting for life. If that was the
word. The exterminators stayed ready, taking no chances. I didn't
blame them.
It had been a necromancer once upon a time. That
burning hulk, slowly catching the grass on fire, had been what I
was. Would I be a monster if raised from the grave? Would I? Better
not to find out. My will said cremation because I didn't want
someone raising me just for kicks. Now I had another reason to do
it. One had been enough.
I watched the flesh blacken, curl, peel away. Muscles
and bone popped in miniature explosions, tiny pops of sparks.
I watched the zombie die and made a promise to
myself. I'd see Dominga Salvador burned in hell for what she'd
done. There are fires that last for all eternity. Fires that make
napalm look like a temporary inconvenience. She'd burn for all
eternity, and it wouldn't be half long enough.
Chapter 33
I was lying on my back in the emergency room. A white
curtain hid me from view. The noises on the other side of the
curtain were loud and unfriendly. I liked my curtain. The pillow
was flat, the examining table was hard. It felt white and clean and
wonderful. It hurt to swallow. It even hurt a little bit just to
breathe. But breathing was important. It was nice to be able to do
it.
I lay there very quietly. Doing what I was told for
once. I listened to my breathing, the beating of my own heart.
After nearly dying, I am always very interested in my body. I
notice all sorts of things that go unnoticed during most of life. I
could feel blood coursing through the veins in my arms. I could
taste my calm, orderly pulse in my mouth like a piece of candy.
I was alive. The zombie was dead. Dominga Salvador
was in jail. Life was good.
Dolph pushed the curtain back. He closed the curtain
like you'd close a door to a room. We both pretended we had privacy
even though we could see people's feet passing under the hem of the
curtain.
I smiled up at him. He smiled back. "Nice to see you
up and around."
"I don't know about the up part," I said. My voice
had a husky edge to it. I coughed, tried to clear it, but it didn't
really help.
"What'd the doc say about your voice?" Dolph
asked.
"I'm a temporary tenor." At the look on his face, I
added, "It'll pass."
"Good."
"How's Burke?" I asked.
"Stitches, no permanent damage."
I had figured as much after seeing him last night,
but it was good to know.
"And Roberts?"
"She'll live."
"But will she be alright?" I had to swallow hard. It
hurt to talk.
"She'll be alright. Ki was cut up, too, on the arm.
Did you know?"
I shook my head and stopped in mid-motion. That hurt,
too. "Didn't see it."
"Just a few stitches. He'll be fine." Dolph plunged
his hands in his pants pockets. "We lost three officers. One hurt
worse than Roberts, but he'll make it."
I stared up at him. "My fault."
He frowned. "How do you figure that?"
"I should have guessed," I had to swallow, "it wasn't
an ordinary zombie."
"It was a zombie, Anita. You were right. You were the
one who figured out it was hiding in one of those damn trash cans."
He grinned down at me. "And you nearly died killing it. I think
you've done your part."
"Didn't kill it. Exterminators killed it." Big words
seemed to hurt more than little words.
"Do you remember what happened as you were passing
out?"
"No."
"You emptied your clip into its face. Blew its damn
brains out the back of its head. You went limp. I thought you were
dead. God"—he shook his head—"don't ever do that to me again."
I smiled. "I'll try not to."
"When its brains started leaking out the back of its
head, it stood up. You took all the fight out of it."
Zerbrowski pushed into the small space, leaving the
curtain gaping behind him. I could see a small boy with a bloody
hand crying into a woman's shoulder. Dolph swept the curtain
closed. I bet Zerbrowski was one of those people who never shut a
drawer.
"They're still digging bullets out of the corpse. And
every bullet's yours, Blake."
I just looked at him.
"You are such a bad ass, Blake."
"Somebody has to be with you around, Zerbrow. . ." I
couldn't finish his name. It hurt. It figures.
"Are you in pain?" Dolph asked.
I nodded, carefully. "The doc's getting me
painkiller. Already got tetanus booster."
"You've got a necklace of bruises blossoming on that
pale neck of yours," Zerbrowski said.
"Poetic," I said.
He shrugged.
"I'll check in on the rest of the injured one more
time, then I'll have a uniform drive you back to your place," Dolph
said.
"Thanks."
"I don't think you're in any condition to drive."
Maybe he was right. I felt like shit, but it was
happy shit. We'd done it. We'd solved the crime, and people were
going to jail for it. Yippee.
The doctor came back in with the painkillers. He
glanced at the two policemen. "Right." He handed me a bottle with
three pills in it. "This should see you through the night and into
the next day. I'd call in sick if I were you." He glanced at Dolph
as he said it. "You hear that, boss?"
Dolph sort of frowned. "I'm not her boss."
"You're the man in charge, right?" the doctor
asked.
Dolph nodded.
"Then..."
"I'm on loan," I said.
"Loan?"
"You might say we borrowed her from another
department," Zerbrowski said.
The doctor nodded. "Then tell her superior to let her
off tomorrow. She may not look as hurt as the others, but she's had
a nasty shock. She's very lucky there was no permanent damage."
"She doesn't have a superior," Zerbrowski said, "but
we'll tell her boss." He grinned at the doctor.
I frowned at Zerbrowski.
"Well, then, you're free to go. Watch those scratches
for infection. And that bite on your shoulder." He shook his head.
"You cops earn your money." With that parting wisdom, he left.
Zerbrowski laughed. "Wouldn't do for the doc to know
we'd let a civie get messed up."
"She's had a nasty shock," Dolph said.
"Very nasty," Zerbrowski said.
They started laughing.
I sat up carefully, swinging my legs over the edge of
the bed. "If you two are through yukking it up, I need a ride
home."
They were both laughing so hard that tears were
creeping out of their eyes. It hadn't been that funny, but I
understood. For tension release laughter beats the hell out of
tears. I didn't join them because I suspected strongly that
laughing would hurt.
"I'll drive you home," Zerbrowski gasped between
giggles.
I had to smile. Seeing Dolph and Zerbrowski giggling
was enough to make anyone smile.
"No, no," Dolph said. "You two in a car alone. Only
one of you would come out alive."
"And it'd be me," I said.
Zerbrowski nodded. "Ain't it the truth."
Nice to know there was one subject we agreed on.
Chapter 34
I was half asleep in the back of the squad car when
they pulled up in front of my apartment building. The throbbing
pain in my throat had slid away on a smooth tide of pain
medication. I felt nearly boneless. What had the doctor given me?
It felt great, but it was like the world was some sort of movie
that had little to do with me. Distant and harmless as a dream.
I'd given Dolph my car keys. He promised to have
someone park the car in front of my apartment building before
morning. He also said he'd call Bert and tell him I wouldn't be in
to work today. I wondered how Bert would take the news. I wondered
if I cared. Nope.
One of the uniformed police officers leaned back over
the seat and said, "You going to be alright, Miss Blake?"
"Ms.," I corrected automatically.
He gave me a half smile as he held the door for me.
No door handles on the inside of a squad car. He had to hold the
door for me, but he did it with relish, and said, "You going to be
alright, Ms. Blake?"
"Yes, Officer"—I had to blink to read his name tag—
"Osborn. Thank you for bringing me home. To your partner, too."
His partner was standing on the other side of the
car, leaning his arms on the roof of the car. "It's a kick to
finally meet the spook squad's Executioner." He grinned as he said
it.
I blinked at him and tried to pull all the pieces
together enough to talk and think at the same time. "I was the
Executioner long before the spook squad came along."
He spread his hands, still grinning. "No
offense."
I was too tired and too drugged to worry about it. I
just shook my head. "Thanks again."
I was a touch unsteady going up the stairs. I
clutched the railing like it was a lifeline. I'd sleep tonight. I
might wake up in the middle of the hallway, but I'd sleep.
It took me two tries to put the key in the door lock.
I staggered into my apartment, leaning my forehead against the door
to close it. I turned the lock and was safe. I was home. I was
alive. The killer zombie was destroyed. I had the urge to giggle,
but that was the pain medication. I never giggle on my own.
I stood there leaning the top of my head against the
door. I was staring at the toes of my Nikes. They seemed very far
away, as if distances had grown since last I looked at my feet. The
doc had given me some weird shit. I would not take it tomorrow. It
was too reality-altering for my taste.
The toes of black boots stepped up beside my Nikes.
Why were there boots in my apartment? I started to turn around. I
started to go for my gun. Too late, too slow, too fucking bad.
Strong brown arms laced across my chest, pinning my
arms. Pinning me against the door. I tried to struggle now that it
was too late. But he had me. I craned my neck backwards trying to
fight off the damn medication. I should have been terrified.
Adrenaline pumping, but some drugs don't give a shit if you need
your body. You belong to the drug until it wears off, period. I was
going to hurt the doctor. If I lived through this.
It was Bruno pinning me to the door.
Tommy came up on the right. He had a needle in his
hands.
"NO!"
Bruno cupped his hand over my mouth. I tried to bite
him, and he slapped me. The slap helped a little but the world was
still cotton-coated, distant. Bruno's hand smelled like
after-shave. A choking sweetness.
"This is almost too easy," Tommy said.
"Just do it," Bruno said.
I stared at the needle as it came closer to my arm. I
would have told them that I was drugged already, if Bruno's hand
hadn't been clasped over my mouth. I would have asked what was in
the syringe, and whether it would react badly with what I had
already taken. I never got the chance.
The needle plunged in. My body stiffened, struggling,
but Bruno held me tight. Couldn't move. Couldn't get away. Dammit!
Dammit! The adrenaline was finally chasing the cobwebs away, but it
was too late. Tommy took the needle out of my arm and said, "Sorry,
we don't have any alcohol to swab it off with." He grinned at
me.
I hated him. I hated them both. And if the shot
didn't kill me, I was going to kill them both. For scaring me. For
making me feel helpless. For catching me unaware, drugged, and
stupid. If I lived through this mistake, I wouldn't make it again.
Please, dear God, let me live through this mistake.
Bruno held me motionless and mute until I could feel
the injection taking hold. I was sleepy. With a bad guy holding me
against my will, I was sleepy. I tried to fight it, but it didn't
work. My eyelids fluttered. I struggled to keep them open. I
stopped trying to get away from Bruno and put everything I had into
not closing my eyes.
I stared at my door and tried to stay awake. The door
swam in dizzying ripples as if I were seeing it through water. My
eyelids went down, jerked up, down. I couldn't open my eyes. A
small part of me fell screaming into the dark, but the rest of me
felt loose and sleepy and strangely safe.
Chapter 35
I was in that faint edge of wakefulness. Where you
know you're not quite asleep, but don't really want to wake up
either. My body felt heavy. My head throbbed. And my throat was
sore.
The last thought made me open my eyes. I was staring
at a white ceiling. Brown water marks traced the paint like spilled
coffee. I wasn't home. Where was I?
I remembered Bruno holding me down. The needle. I sat
up then. The world swam in clear waves of color. I fell back onto
the bed, covering my eyes with my hands. That helped a little. What
had they given me?
I had an image in my mind that I wasn't alone.
Somewhere in that dizzying swirl of color had been a person. Hadn't
there? I opened my eyes slower this time. I was content to stare up
at the water-ruined ceiling. I was on a large bed. Two pillows,
sheets, a blanket. I turned my head carefully and found myself
staring into Harold Gaynor's face. He was sitting beside the bed.
It wasn't what I wanted to wake up to.
Behind him, leaning against a battered chest of
drawers was Bruno. His shoulder holster cut black lines across his
blue short-sleeved dress shirt. There was a matching and equally
scarred vanity table near the foot of the bed. The vanity sat
between two high windows. They were boarded with new,
sweet-smelling lumber. The scent of pine rode the hot, still
air.
I started to sweat as soon as I realized that there
was no air-conditioning.
"How are you feeling, Ms. Blake?" Gaynor asked. His
voice was still that jolly Santa voice with an edge of sibilance.
As if he were a very happy snake.
"I've felt better," I said.
"I'm sure you have. You have been asleep for over
twenty-four hours. Did you know that?"
Was he lying? Why would he lie about how long I'd
been asleep? What would it gain him? Nothing. Truth then,
probably.
"What the hell did you give me?"
Bruno eased himself away from the wall. He looked
almost embarrassed. "We didn't realize you'd already taken a
sedative."
"Painkiller," I said.
He shrugged. "Same difference when you mix it with
Thorazine."
"You shot me up with animal tranquilizers?"
"Now, now, Ms. Blake, they use it in mental
institutions, as well. Not just animals," Gaynor said.
"Gee," I said, "that makes me feel a lot better."
He smiled broadly. "If you feel good enough to trade
witty repartee, then you're well enough to get up."
Witty repartee? But he was probably right.
Truthfully, I was surprised I wasn't tied up. Glad of it, but
surprised.
I sat up much slower than last time. The room only
tilted the tiniest bit, before settling into an upright position. I
took a deep breath, and it hurt. I put a hand to my throat. It hurt
to touch the skin.
"Who gave you those awful bruises?" Gaynor asked.
Lie or truth? Partial lie. "I was helping the police
catch a bad guy. He got a little out of hand."
"What happened to this bad guy?" Bruno asked.
"He's dead now," I said.
Something flickered across Bruno's face. Too quick to
read. Respect maybe. Naw.
"You know why I've had you brought here, don't
you?"
"To raise a zombie for you," I said.
"To raise a very old zombie for me, yes."
"I've refused your offer twice. What makes you think
I'll change my mind?"
He smiled, such a jolly old elf. "Why, Ms. Blake,
I'll have Bruno and Tommy persuade you of the error of your ways. I
still plan on giving you a million dollars to raise this zombie.
The price hasn't changed."
"Tommy offered me a million five last time," I
said.
"That was if you came voluntarily. We can't pay full
price when you force us to take such chances."
"Like a federal prison term for kidnapping," I
said.
"Exactly. Your stubbornness has cost you five hundred
thousand dollars. Was it really worth that?"
"I won't kill another human being just so you can go
looking for lost treasure."
"Little Wanda has been bearing tales."
"I was just guessing, Gaynor. I read a file on you
and it mentioned your obsession with your father's family." It was
an outright lie. Only Wanda had known that.
"I'm afraid it's too late. I know Wanda talked to
you. She's confessed everything."
Confessed? I stared at him, trying to read his
blankly good humored face. "What do you mean, confessed?"
"I mean I gave her to Tommy for questioning. He's not
the artist that Cicely is, but he does leave more behind. I didn't
want to kill my little Wanda."
"Where is she now?"
"Do you care what happens to a whore?" His eyes were
bright and birdlike as he stared at me. He was judging me, my
reactions.
"She doesn't mean anything to me," I said. I hoped my
face was as bland as my words. Right now they weren't going to kill
her. If they thought they could use her to hurt me, they might.
"Are you sure?"
"Listen, I haven't been sleeping with her. She's just
a chippie with a very bent angle."
He smiled at that. "What can we do to convince you to
raise this zombie for me?"
"I will not commit murder for you, Gaynor. I don't
like you that much," I said.
He sighed. His apple-cheeked face looked like a sad
Kewpie doll. "You are going to make this difficult, aren't you, Ms.
Blake?"
"I don't know how to make it easy," I said. I put my
back to the cracked wooden headboard of the bed. I was comfortable
enough, but I still felt a little fuzzy around the edges. But it
was as good as it was going to get for a while. It beat the hell
out of being unconscious.
"We have not really hurt you yet," Gaynor said. "The
reaction of the Thorazine with whatever other medication you had in
you was accidental. We did not harm you on purpose."
I could argue with that, but I decided not to. "So
where do we go from here?"
"We have both your guns," Gaynor said. "Without a
weapon you are a small woman in the care of big, strong men."
I smiled then. "I'm used to being the smallest kid on
the block, Harry."
He looked pained. "Harold or Gaynor, never
Harry."
I shrugged. "Fine."
"You are not in the least intimidated that we have
you completely at our mercy?"
"I could argue that point."
He glanced up at Bruno. "Such confidence, where does
she get it?"
Bruno didn't say anything. He just stared at me with
those empty doll eyes. Bodyguard eyes, watchful, suspicious, and
blank all at the same time.
"Show her we mean business, Bruno."
Bruno smiled, a slow spreading of lips that left his
eyes dead as a shark's. He loosened his shoulders, and did a few
stretching exercises against the wall. His eyes never left me.
"I take it, I'm going to be the punching bag?" I
asked.
"How well you put it," Gaynor said.
Bruno stood away from the wall, limber and eager. Oh,
well. I slid off the bed on the opposite side. I had no desire for
Gaynor to grab me. Bruno's reach was over twice mine. His legs went
on forever. He had to outweigh me by nearly a hundred pounds, and
it was all muscle. I was about to get badly hurt. But as long as
they didn't tie me up, I'd go down swinging. If I could cause him
any serious damage, I'd be satisfied.
I came out from behind the bed, hands loose at my
side. I was already in that partial crouch that I used on the judo
mat. I doubted seriously if Bruno's fighting skill of choice was
judo. I was betting karate or tae kwon do.
Bruno stood in an awkward-looking stance, halfway
between an x and a t. It looked like someone had taken his long
legs and crumbled them at the knees. But as I moved forward he
scooted backwards like a crab, fast and out of reach.
"Jujitsu?" I made it half question.
He raised an eyebrow. "Most people don't recognize
it."
"I've seen it," I said.
"You practice?"
"No."
He smiled. "Then I am going to hurt you."
"Even if I knew jujitsu, you'd hurt me," I said.
"It'd be a fair fight."
"If two people are equal in skill, size matters. A
good big person will always beat a good small person." I shrugged.
"I don't have to like it, but it's the truth."
"You're being awful calm about this," Bruno said.
"Would being hysterical help?"
He shook his head. "Nope."
"Then I'd just as soon take my medicine like, if
you'll excuse the expression, a man."
He frowned at that. Bruno was accustomed to people
being scared of him. I wasn't scared of him. I'd decided to take
the beating. With the decision came a certain amount of calm. I was
going to get beat up, not pleasant, but I had made my mind up to
take the beating. I could do it. I'd done it before. If my choices
were a) getting beat up or b) performing human sacrifice, I'd take
the beating.
"Ready or not," Bruno said.
"Here you come," I finished for him. I was getting
tired of the bravado. "Either hit me or stand up straight. You look
silly crouched down like that."
His fist was a dark blur. I blocked it with my arm.
The impact made the arm go numb. His long leg kicked out and
connected solidly with my stomach. I doubled over like I was
supposed to, all the air gone in one movement. His other foot came
up and caught me on the side of the face. It was the same cheek of
Seymour had smashed. I fell to the floor not sure what part of my
body to comfort first.
His foot came for me again. I caught it with both
hands. I came up in a rush, hoping to trap his knee between my arms
and pop the joint. But he twisted away from me, totally airborne
for a moment.
I dropped to the ground and felt the air pass
overhead as his legs kicked out where my head had been. I was on
the ground again, but by choice. He stood over me, impossibly tall
from this angle. I lay on my side, knees drawn up.
He came for me, evidently planning to drag me to my
feet. I kicked out with both feet at an angle to his kneecap. Hit
it just right above or below and you dislocate it.
The leg buckled, and he screamed. It had worked. Hot
damn. I didn't try to wrestle him. I didn't try to grab his gun. I
ran for the door.
Gaynor grabbed for me, but I flung open the door and
was out in a long hallway before he could maneuver his fancy chair.
The hallway was smooth with a handful of doors and two blind
corners. And Tommy.
Tommy looked surprised to see me. His hand went for
his shoulder holster. I pushed on his shoulder and foot-swept his
leg. He fell backwards and grabbed me as he fell. I rode him down,
making sure my knee ground into his groin. His grip loosened enough
for me to slip out of reach. There were sounds behind me from the
room. I didn't look back. If they were going to shoot me, I didn't
want to see it.
The hallway took a sharp turn. I was almost to it
when the smell slowed me from a run to a walk. The smell of corpses
was just around the corner. What had they been doing while I
slept?
I glanced back at the men. Tommy was still lying on
the floor, cradling himself. Bruno leaned against the wall, gun in
hand, but he wasn't pointing it at me. Gaynor was sitting in his
chair, smiling.
Something was very wrong.
Around the blind corner came that something that was
wrong, very, very wrong. It was no taller than a tall man, maybe
six feet. But it was nearly four feet wide. It had two legs, or
maybe three, it was hard to tell. The thing was leprously pale like
all zombies, but this one had a dozen eyes. A man's face was
centered where the neck would have been. Its eyes dark and seeing,
and empty of everything sane. A dog's head was growing out of the
shoulder. The dog's decaying mouth snapped at me. A woman's leg
grew out of the center of the mess, complete with black high-heeled
shoe.
The thing shambled towards me. Pulling with three of
a dozen arms, dragging itself forward. It left a trail behind it
like a snail.
Dominga Salvador stepped around the corner. "Buenas
noches, chica. "
The monster scared me, but the sight of Dominga
grinning at me scared me just a little bit more.
The thing had stopped moving forward. It squatted in
the hallway, kneeling on its inadequate legs. Its dozens of mouths
panted as if it couldn't get enough air.
Or maybe the thing didn't like the way it smelled. I
certainly didn't. Covering my mouth and nose with my arm didn't
block out much of the smell. The hallway suddenly smelled like bad
meat.
Gaynor and his wounded bodyguards had stayed at the
end of the hall. Maybe they didn't like being near Dominga's little
pet. I know it didn't do much for me. Whatever the reason we were
isolated. It was just her and me and the monster.
"How did you get out of jail?" Better to deal with
more mundane problems first. The mind-melting ones could wait for
later.
"I made my bail," she said.
"This quickly on a murder involving witchcraft?"
"Voodoo is not witchcraft," she said.
"The law sees it as the same thing when it comes to
murder."
She shrugged, then smiled beatifically. She was the
Mexican grandmother of my nightmares.
"You've got a judge in your pocket," I said.
"Many people fear me, chica. You should be
one of them."
"You helped Peter Burke raise the zombie for
Gaynor."
She just smiled.
"Why didn't you just raise it yourself?" I asked.
"I didn't want someone as unscrupulous as Gaynor to
witness me murdering someone. He might use it for blackmail."
"And he didn't realize that you had to kill someone
for Peter's gris-gris?"
"Correct," she said.
"You hid all your horrors here?"
"Not all. You forced me to destroy much of my work,
but this I saved. You can see why." She caressed a hand down the
slimy hide.
I shuddered. Just the thought of touching that
monstrosity was enough to make my skin cold. And yet . . .
"How did you make it?" I had to know. It was so
obviously a creation of our shared art that I had to know.
"Surely, you can animate bits and pieces of the
dead," Dominga said.
I could, but no one else I had ever met could do it.
"Yes," I said.
"I found I could take these odds and ends and meld
them together."
I stared at the shambling thing. "Meld them?" The
thought was too horrible.
"I can create new creatures that have never existed
before."
"You make monsters," I said.
"Believe what you will, chica, but I am here
to persuade you to raise the dead for Gaynor."
"Why don't you do it?"
Gaynor's voice came from just behind us. I whirled,
putting the wall at my back so I could watch everybody. What good
that would do me, I wasn't sure. "Dominga's power went wrong once.
This is my last chance. The last known grave. I won't risk it on
her."
Dominga's eyes narrowed, her age-thinned hands
forming fists. She didn't like being dismissed out of hand.
Couldn't say I blamed her.
"She could do it, Gaynor, easier than I could."
"If I truly believed that, I would kill you because I
wouldn't need you anymore."
Hmm, good point. "You've had Bruno rough me up. Now
what?"
Gaynor shook his head. "Such a little girl to have
taken both my bodyguards down."
"I told you ordinary methods of persuasion will not
work on her," Dominga said.
I stared past her at the slathering monster. She
called this ordinary?
"What do you propose?" Gaynor asked.
"A spell of compulsion. She will do as I bid, but it
takes time to do such a spell for one as powerful as she. If she
knew any voodoo to speak of, it would not work at all. But for all
her art, she is but a baby in voodoo."
"How long will you need?"
"Two hours, no more."
"This had better work," Gaynor said.
"Do not threaten me," Dominga said.
Oh, goody, maybe the bad guys would fight and kill
each other.
"I am paying you enough money to set up your own
small country. I should get results for that."
Dominga nodded her head. "You pay well, that is true.
I will not fail you. If I can compel Anita to kill another person,
then I can compel her to help me in my zombie business. She will
help me rebuild what she forced me to destroy. It has a certain
irony, no?"
Gaynor smiled like a demented elf. "I like it."
"Well, I don't," I said.
He frowned at me. "You will do as you are told. You
have been very naughty."
Naughty? Me?
Bruno had worked himself close to us. He was leaning
heavily on the wall, but his gun was very steadily pointed at the
center of my chest. "I'd like to kill you now," he said. His voice
sounded raw with pain.
"A dislocated knee hurts like hell, doesn't it?" I
smiled when I said it. Better dead than a willing servant of the
voodoo queen.
I think he ground his teeth. The gun wavered just a
little, but I think that was rage, not pain. "I will enjoy killing
you."
"You didn't do so good last time. I think the judges
would have given the match to me."
"There are no fucking judges here. I am going to kill
you."
"Bruno," Gaynor said, "we need her alive and
whole."
"After she raises the zombie?" Bruno asked.
"If she is a willing servant of the Señora,
then you are not to hurt her. If the compulsion doesn't work, then
you may kill her."
Bruno gave a fierce flash of teeth. It was more snarl
than smile. "I hope the spell fails."
Gaynor glanced at his bodyguard. "Don't let personal
feelings interfere with business, Bruno."
Bruno swallowed hard. "Yes, sir." It didn't sound
like a title that came easily to him.
Enzo came around the corner behind Dominga. He stayed
near the wall as far from her "creation" as he could get.
Antonio had finally lost his job as bodyguard. It was
just as well. He was much better suited to stool pigeon.
Tommy came limping down the hall, still sort of
scrunched over himself. The big Magnum was in his hands. His face
was nearly purple with rage, or maybe pain. "I'm gonna kill you,"
he hissed.
"Take a number," I said.
"Enzo, you help Bruno and Tommy tie this little girl
to a chair in the room. She's a lot more dangerous than she seems,"
Gaynor said.
Enzo grabbed my arm. I didn't fight him. I figured I
was safer in his hands than either of the other two. Tommy and
Bruno both looked as if they were looking forward to me trying
something. I think they wanted to hurt me.
As Enzo led me past them, I said, "Is it because I'm
a woman or are you always this bad at losing?"
"I'm gonna shoot her," Tommy grunted.
"Later," Gaynor said, "later."
I wondered if he really meant that. If Dominga's
spell worked, I'd be like a living zombie, obeying her will. If the
spell didn't work, then Tommy and Bruno would kill me, a piece at a
time. I hoped there was a third choice.
Chapter 36
The third choice was being tied to a chair in the
room where I woke up. It was the best of the three choices, but
that wasn't saying much. I don't like being tied up. It means your
options have gone from few to none. Dominga had clipped some of my
hair and the tips of my fingernails. Hair and nails for her
compulsion spell. Shit.
The chair was old and straight-backed. My wrists were
tied to the slats that made up the back of the chair. Ankles tied
separately to a leg of the chair. The ropes were tight. I tugged at
the ropes, hoping for some slack. There wasn't any.
I had been tied up before, and I always have this
Houdini fantasy that this time I'll have enough slack to wiggle
free. It never works that way. Once you're tied up, you stay tied
up until someone lets you go.
The trouble was when they let me go, they were going
to try a nasty little spell on me. I had to get away before then.
Somehow, I had to get away. Dear God, please let me get away.
The door opened as if on cue, but it wasn't help.
Bruno entered, carrying Wanda in his arms. Blood had
dried down the right side of her face from a cut above the eye. Her
left cheek was ripe with a huge bruise. The lower lip had burst in
a still bleeding cut. Her eyes were shut. I wasn't even sure she
was conscious.
I had an aching line on the left side of my face
where Bruno had kicked me, but it was nothing to Wanda's
injuries.
"Now what?" I asked Bruno.
"Some company for you. When she wakes up, ask her
what else Tommy did to her. See if that will persuade you to raise
the zombie."
"I thought Dominga was going to bespell me into
helping you."
He shrugged. "Gaynor doesn't put much faith in her
since she screwed up so badly."
"He doesn't give second chances, I guess," I
said.
"No, he doesn't." He laid Wanda on the floor near me.
"You best take his offer, girl. One dead whore and you get a
million dollars. Take it."
"You're going to use Wanda for the sacrifice," I
said. My voice sounded tired even to me.
"Gaynor don't give second chances."
I nodded. "How's your knee?"
He grimaced. "I put it back in place."
"That must have hurt like hell," I said.
"It did. If you don't help Gaynor, you're going to
find out exactly how much it hurt."
"An eye for an eye," I said.
He nodded and stood. He favored his right leg. He
caught me looking at the leg.
"Talk to Wanda. Decide what you want to end up as.
Gaynor's talking about making you a cripple, then keeping you
around as his toy. You don't want that."
"How can you work for him?"
He shrugged. "Pays real well."
"Money isn't everything."
"Spoken by somebody who's never gone hungry."
He had me there. I just looked at him. We stared at
each other for a few minutes. There was something human in his eyes
at last. I couldn't read it though. Whatever emotion it was, it was
nothing I understood.
He turned and left the room.
I stared down at Wanda. She lay on her side without
moving. She was wearing another long multicolored skirt. A white
blouse with a wide lace collar was half-ripped from one shoulder.
The bra she wore was the color of plums. I bet there had been
panties to match before Tommy got hold of her.
"Wanda," I said it softly. "Wanda, can you hear
me?"
Her head moved slowly, painfully. One eye opened wide
and panic-stricken. The other eye was glued shut with dried blood.
Wanda pawed at the eye, frantic for a moment. When she could open
both eyes, she blinked at me. Her eyes took a moment to focus and
really see who it was. What had she expected to see in those first
few panicked moments? I didn't want to know.
"Wanda, can you speak?"
"Yes." The voice was soft, but clear.
I wanted to ask if she was alright, but I knew the
answer to that. "If you can get over here and free me, I'll get us
out of here."
She looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "We can't get
out. Harold's gonna kill us." She made that last sound like a
statement of pure fact.
"I don't believe in giving up, Wanda. Untie me and
I'll think of something."
"He'll hurt me if I help you," she said.
"He's planning on you being the human sacrifice to
raise his ancestor. How much more hurt can you get?"
She blinked at me, but her eyes were clearing. It was
almost as if panic were a drug, and Wanda was fighting off the
influence. Or maybe it was Harold Gaynor who was the drug. Yeah,
that made sense. She was a junkie. A Harold Gaynor junkie. Every
junkie is willing to die for one more fix. But I wasn't.
"Untie me, Wanda, please. I can get us out of
this."
"And if you can't?"
"Then we're no worse off," I said.
She seemed to think about that for a minute. I
strained for sounds from the hallway. If Bruno came back while we
were in the middle of escaping, it would be very bad.
Wanda propped herself up on her arms. Her legs
trailed out behind her under the skirt, dead, no movement at all.
She began dragging herself towards me. I thought it would be slow
work, but she moved quickly. The muscles in her arms bunched and
pushed, working well. She was by the chair in a matter of
minutes.
I smiled. "You're very strong."
"My arms are all I have. They have to be strong,"
Wanda said.
She started picking at the ropes that bound my right
wrist. "It's too tight."
"You can do it, Wanda."
She picked at the knot with her fingers, until after
what seemed hours, but was probably about five minutes, I felt the
rope give. Slack, I had slack. Yea!
"You've almost got it, Wanda." I felt like a
cheerleader.
The sound of footsteps clattered down the hall
towards us. Wanda's battered face stared up at me, terror in her
eyes. "There's not time," she whispered.
"Go back where you were. Do it. We'll finish later,"
I said.
Wanda hand-walked back to where Bruno had laid her.
She had just arranged herself into nearly the same position when
the door opened. Wanda was pretending to be unconscious, not a bad
idea.
Tommy stood in the doorway. He'd taken off his jacket
and the black webbing of the shoulder rig stood out on his white
polo shirt. Black jeans emphasized his pinched-in waist. He looked
top-heavy from lifting so many weights.
He'd added one new thing to the outfit. A knife. He
twirled it in his hand like a baton. It was almost a perfect sheen
of light. Manual dexterity. Wowee.
"I didn't know you used a knife, Tommy." My voice
sounded calm, normal, amazing.
He grinned. "I have a lot of talents. Gaynor wants to
know if you've changed your mind about the zombie raising."
It wasn't exactly a question, but I answered it. "I
won't do it."
His grin widened. "I was hoping you'd say that."
"Why?" I was afraid I knew the answer.
"Because he sent me in here to persuade you."
I stared at the glittering knife, I couldn't help
myself. "With a knife?"
"With something else long and hard, but not so cold,"
he said.
"Rape?" I asked. The word sort of hung there in the
hot, still air.
He nodded, grinning like a damn Cheshire cat. I
wished I could make him disappear except for his smile. I wasn't
afraid of his smile. It was the other end I was worried about.
I jerked at the ropes helplessly. The right wrist
gave a little more. Had Wanda loosened the rope enough? Had she?
Please God, let it be.
Tommy stood over me. I stared up the length of his
body and what I saw in his eyes was nothing human. There were all
sorts of ways to become a monster. Tommy had found one. There was
nothing but an animal hunger in his gaze. Nothing human left.
He put a leg on either side of the chair, straddling
me without sitting down. His flat stomach was pressed against my
face. His shirt smelled of expensive after-shave. I jerked my head
back, trying not to touch him.
He laughed and ran fingers through the tight waves of
my hair. I tried to jerk my head out of his reach, but he grabbed a
handful of hair and forced my head back.
"I'm going to enjoy this," he said.
I didn't dare jerk at the ropes. If my wrist came
free he'd see it. I had to wait, wait until he was distracted
enough not to notice. The thought of what I might have to do to
distract him, allow him to do to me, made my stomach hurt. But
staying alive was the goal. Everything else was gravy. I didn't
really believe that, but I tried.
He sat down on me, his weight settling on my legs.
His chest was pressed against my face, and there was nothing I
could do about it.
He rubbed the flat of the knife across my cheek. "You
can stop this anytime. Just say yes, and I'll tell Gaynor." His
voice was already growing thick. I could feel him growing hard
where he was pressed against my belly.
The thought of Tommy using me like that was almost
enough to make me say yes. Almost. I jerked on the ropes and the
right one gave a little more. One more hard tug and I could get
free. But I'd have just one hand to Tommy's two, and he had a gun
and a knife. Not good odds, but it was the best I was going to get
tonight.
He kissed me, forcing his tongue in my mouth. I
didn't respond, because he wouldn't have believed that. I didn't
bite his tongue either because I wanted him close. With only one
hand free, I needed him close. I needed to do major damage with one
hand. What? What could I do?
He nuzzled my neck, face buried in my hair on the
left side. Now or never. I pulled with everything I had and the
right wrist popped free. I froze. Surely he'd felt it, but he was
too busy sucking on my neck to notice. His free hand massaged my
breast.
He had his eyes closed as he kissed to the right side
of my neck. His eyes were closed. The knife was loose in his other
hand. Nothing I could do about the knife. Had to take the chance.
Had to do it.
I caressed the side of his face, and he nuzzled my
hand. Then his eyes opened. It had occurred to him that I was
supposed to be tied. I plunged my thumb into his open eye. I dug it
in, feeling the wet pop as his eye exploded.
He shrieked, rearing back, hand to his eye. I grabbed
the wrist with the knife and held on. The screams were going to
bring reinforcements. Dammit.
Strong arms wrapped around Tommy's waist and pulled
him backwards. I grabbed the knife as he slid to the floor. Wanda
was struggling to hold him. The pain was so severe, it hadn't
occurred to him to go for his gun. Putting out an eye hurts and
panics a lot more than a kick to the groin.
I cut my other hand free and nicked my arm doing it.
If I hurried too much, I'd end up slitting my own wrist. I forced
myself to be more careful slicing my ankles free.
Tommy had managed to get free of Wanda. He staggered
to his feet, one hand still over the eye. Blood and clear liquid
trailed down his face. "I'll kill you!" He reached for his gun.
I reversed my grip on the knife and threw it. It
thunked into his arm. I'd been aiming for his chest. He screamed
again. I picked up the chair and smashed it into his face. Wanda
grabbed his ankles, and Tommy went down.
I pounded at his face with the chair until the chair
broke apart in my hands. Then I beat him with a chair leg until his
face was nothing but a bloody mess.
"He's dead," Wanda said. She was tugging at my pants
leg. "He's dead. Let's get out of here."
I dropped the blood-coated chair leg and collapsed to
my knees. I couldn't swallow. I couldn't breathe. I was splattered
with blood. I'd never beaten someone to death before. It had felt
good. I shook my head. Later, I'd worry about it later.
Wanda put an arm over my shoulders. I grabbed her
around the waist, and we stood. She weighed a lot less than she
should have. I didn't want to see what was under the pretty skirt.
It wasn't a full set of legs, but for once that was good. She was
easier to move.
I had Tommy's gun in my right hand. "I need this hand
free, so hold on tight."
Wanda nodded. Her face was very pale. I could feel
her heart pounding against her ribs. "We're going to get out of
this," I said.
"Sure," but her voice was shaky. I don't think she
believed me. I wasn't sure I believed me.
Wanda opened the door, and out we went.
Chapter 37
The hallway was just like I remembered it. A long
stretch with no cover, then a blind corner at each end.
"Right or left?" I whispered to Wanda.
"I don't know. This house is like a maze. Right I
think."
We went right, because at least it was a decision.
The worst thing we could do was just stand there waiting for Gaynor
to come back.
I heard footsteps behind us. I started to turn, but
with Wanda in my arms, I was slow. The gunshot echoed in the
hallway. Something hit my left arm, around Wanda's waist. The
impact spun me around and sent us both crashing to the floor.
I ended up on my back with my left arm trapped under
Wanda's weight. The left arm was totally numb.
Cicely stood at the end of the hallway. She held a
small caliber handgun two-handed. Her long, long legs were far
apart. She looked like she knew what she was doing.
I raised the .357 and aimed at her, still lying flat
on my back on the floor. It was an explosion of sound that left my
ears ringing. The recoil thrust my hand skyward, backwards. It was
everything I could do not to drop the gun. If I'd needed a second
shot I'd have never gotten it off in time. But I didn't need a
second shot.
Cicely lay crumpled in the middle of the hallway.
Blood was spreading on the front of her blouse. She didn't move,
but that didn't mean anything. Her gun was still gripped in one
hand. She could be pretending, then when I walked up, she'd shoot
me. But I had to know.
"Can you get off my arm, please?" I asked.
Wanda didn't say anything, but she lifted herself to
a sitting position, and I could finally see my arm. It was still
attached. Goody. Blood was seeping down my arm in a crimson line. A
point of icy burning had started to chase away the numbness. I
liked the numbness better.
I did my best to ignore the arm as I stood up and
walked towards Cicely. I had the Magnum pointed at her. If she so
much as twitched, I'd hit her again. Her miniskirt had hiked up her
thighs, displaying black garters and matching underwear. How
undignified.
I stood over her, staring down. Cicely wasn't going
to twitch, not voluntarily. Her silk blouse was soaked with blood.
A hole big enough for me to put my fist through took up most of her
chest. Dead, very dead.
I kicked the .22 out of her hand, just in case. You
can never tell with someone who plays voodoo. I've had people get
up before with worse injuries. Cicely just lay there, bleeding.
I was lucky she'd had a ladylike caliber pistol.
Anything bigger and I might have lost the arm. I stuck her pistol
in the front of my pants, because I couldn't figure out where else
to put it. I did click the safety on first.
I'd never been shot before. Bitten, stabbed, beaten,
burned, but never shot. It scared me because I wasn't sure how
badly I was hurt. I walked back to Wanda. Her face was pale, her
brown eyes like islands in her face. "Is she dead?"
I nodded.
"You're bleeding," she said. She tore a strip from
her long skirt. "Here, let me wrap it."
I knelt and let her tie the multicolored strip just
above the wound. She wiped the blood away with another piece of
skirt. It didn't look that bad. It looked almost like a raw, bloody
scrap.
"I think the bullet just grazed me," I said. A flesh
wound, nothing but a flesh wound. It burned and was almost cold at
the same time. Maybe the cold was shock. One little bullet graze,
and I was going into shock? Surely not.
"Come on, we've got to get out of here. The shots
will bring Bruno." It was good that I had pain in the arm. It meant
I could feel and I could move the arm. The arm did not want to be
wrapped around Wanda's waist again, but it was the only way to move
her and keep my right hand free.
"Let's go left. Maybe Cicely came in this way," Wanda
said. There was a certain logic to that. We turned and walked past
Cicely's body.
She lay there, blue eyes staring impossibly wide.
There is never a look of horror on the face of the newly dead, more
surprise than anything. As if death had caught them while they
weren't looking.
Wanda stared down at the body as we passed it. She
whispered, "I never thought she'd die first."
We rounded the corner and came face-to-face with
Dominga's monster.
Chapter 38
The monster stood in the middle of a narrow little
hall that seemed to take up most of the back of the house.
Many-paned windows lined the wall. And in the middle of those
windows was a door. Through the windows I could see black night
sky. The door led outside. The only thing standing between us and
freedom was the monster.
The only thing, sheesh.
The shambling mound of body parts struggled towards
us. Wanda screamed, and I didn't blame her. I raised the Magnum and
sighted on the human face in the middle. The shot echoed like
captive thunder.
The face exploded in a welter of blood and flesh and
bone. The smell was worse. Like rotten fur on the back of my
throat. The mouths screamed, an animal howling at its wound. The
thing kept coming, but it was hurt. It seemed confused as to what
to do now. Had I taken out the dominant brain? Was there a dominant
brain? No way to be sure.
I fired three more times, exploding three more heads.
The hallway was full of brains and blood and worse. The monster
kept coming.
The gun clicked on empty. I threw the gun at it. One
clawed hand batted it away. I didn't bother trying the .22. If the
Magnum couldn't stop it, the .22 sure as hell couldn't.
We started backing down the hallway. What else could
we do? The monster pulled its twisted bulk after us. It was that
same sliding sound that had chased Manny and I out of Dominga's
basement. I was looking at her caged horror.
The flesh between the different textures of skin,
fur, and bone was seamless. No Frankenstein stitches. It was like
the different pieces had melted together like wax.
I tripped over Cicely's body, too busy watching the
monster to see where my feet were. We sprawled across her body.
Wanda screamed.
The monster scrambled forward. Misshapen hands
grabbed at my ankles. I kicked at it, struggling to climb over
Cicely's body, away from it. A claw snagged in my jeans and pulled
me towards it. It was my turn to scream. What had once been a man's
hand and arm wrapped around my ankle.
I grabbed onto Cicely's body. Her flesh was still
warm. The monster pulled us both easily. The extra weight didn't
slow it down. My hands scrambled at the bare wood floor. Nothing to
hold on to.
I stared back at the thing. Eager rotting mouths
yawned at me. Broken, discolored teeth, tongues working like putrid
snakes in the openings. God!
Wanda grabbed my arm, trying to hold me, but without
legs to brace she just succeeded in being pulled closer to the
thing. "Let go!" I screamed it at her.
She did, screaming, "Anita!"
I was screaming myself, "No! Stop it! Stop it!" I put
everything I had into that yell, not volume, but power. It was just
another zombie, that was all. If it wasn't under specific orders,
it would listen to me. It was just another zombie. I had to believe
that, or die.
"Stop, right now!" My voice broke with the edge of
hysteria. I wanted nothing more than just to start screaming and
never stop.
The monster froze with my foot halfway to one of its
lower mouths. The mismatched eyes stared at me, expectantly.
I swallowed and tried to sound calm, though the
zombie wouldn't care. "Release me."
It did.
My heart was threatening to come out my mouth. I lay
back on the floor for a second, relearning how to breathe. When I
looked up, the monster was still sitting there, waiting. Waiting
for orders like a good little zombie.
"Stay here, do not move from this spot," I said.
The eyes just stared at me, obedient as only the dead
can be. It would sit there in the hallway until it got specific
orders contradicting mine. Thank you, dear God, that a zombie is a
zombie is a zombie.
"What's happening?" Wanda asked. Her voice was broken
into sobs. She was near hysterics.
I crawled to her. "It's alright. I'll explain later.
We have a little time, but we can't waste it. We've got to get out
of here."
She nodded, tears sliding down her bruised face.
I helped her up one last time. We limped towards the
monster. Wanda shied away from it, pulling on my sore arm.
"It's alright. It won't hurt us, if we hurry." I had
no idea how close Dominga was. I didn't want her changing the
orders while we were right next to it. We stayed near the wall and
squeezed past the thing. Eyes on the back of the body, if it had a
back and a front, followed our progress. The smell from the running
wounds was nearly overwhelming. But what was a little gagging
between friends?
Wanda opened the door to the outside world. Hot
summer wind blew our hair into spider silk strands across our
faces. It felt wonderful.
Why hadn't Gaynor and the rest come to the rescue?
They had to have heard the gunshots and the screaming. The gunshots
at least would have brought somebody.
We stumbled down three stone steps to the gravel of a
turn around. I stared off into the darkness at hills covered in
tall, waving grass and decaying tombstones. The house was the
caretaker's house at Burrell Cemetery. I wondered what Gaynor had
done to the caretaker.
I started to lead Wanda away from the cemetery
towards the distant highway, then stopped. I knew why no one had
come now.
The sky was thick and black and so heavy with stars
if I'd had a net I could have caught some. There was a high, hot
wind blowing against the stars. I couldn't see the moon. Too much
starlight. On the hot seeking fingers of the wind I felt it. The
pull. Dominga Salvador had completed her spell. I stared off into
the rows of headstones and knew I had to go to her. Just as the
zombie had had to obey me, I had to obey her. There was no saving
throw, no salvaging it. As easy as that I was caught.
Chapter 39
I stood very still on the gravel. Wanda moved in my
arms, turning to look at me. Her face by starlight was incredibly
pale. Was mine as pale? Was the shock spread over my face like
moonlight? I tried to take a step forward. To carry Wanda to
safety. I could not take a step forward. I struggled until my legs
were shaking with the effort. I couldn't leave.
"What's the matter? We have to get out of here before
Gaynor comes back," Wanda said.
"I know," I said.
"Then what are you doing?"
I swallowed something cold and hard in my throat. My
pulse was thudding in my chest. "I can't leave."
"What are you talking about?" There was an edge of
hysteria to Wanda's voice.
Hysterics sounded perfect. I promised myself a
complete nervous breakdown if we got out of here alive. If I could
ever leave. I fought against something that I couldn't see, or
touch, but it held me solid. I had to stop or my legs were going to
collapse. We had enough problems in that direction already. If I
couldn't go forward, maybe, backwards.
I backed up a step, two steps. Yeah, that worked.
"Where are you going?" Wanda asked.
"Into the cemetery," I said.
"Why!"
Good question, but I wasn't sure I could explain it
so that Wanda would understand. I didn't understand. it myself. How
could I explain it to anyone else? I couldn't leave, but did I have
to take Wanda back with me? Would the spell allow me to leave her
here?
I decided to try. I laid her down on the gravel.
Easy, some of my choices were still open.
"Why are you leaving me?" She clutched at me,
terrified.
Me, too.
"Make it to the road if you can," I said.
"On my hands?" she asked.
She had a point, but what could I do? "Do you know
how to use a gun?"
"No."
Should I leave her the gun, or should I take it with
me, and maybe get a chance to kill Dominga? If this worked like
ordering a zombie, then I could kill her if she didn't specifically
forbid me to do it. Because I still had free will, of a sort.
They'd bring me, then send someone back for Wanda. She was to be
the sacrifice.
I handed her the .22. I clicked off the safety. "It's
loaded and it's ready to fire," I said. "Since you don't know
anything about guns, keep it hidden until Enzo or Bruno is right on
top of you, then fire point-blank. You can't miss at point-blank
range."
"Why are you leaving me?"
"A spell, I think," I said.
Her eyes widened. "What kind of spell?"
"One that allows them to order me to come to them.
One that forbids me to leave."
"Oh, God," she said.
"Yeah," I said. I smiled down at her. A reassuring
smile that was all lie. "I'll try to come back for you."
She just stared at me, like a kid whose parents left
her in the dark before all the monsters were gone.
She clutched the gun in her hands and watched me walk
off into the darkness.
The long dry grass hissed against my jeans. The wind
blew the grass in pale waves. Tombstones loomed out of the weeds
like the backs of small walls, or the humps of sea monsters. I
didn't have to think where I was going, my feet seemed to know the
way.
Was this how a zombie felt when ordered to come? No,
you had to be within hearing distance of a zombie. You couldn't do
it from this far away.
Dominga Salvador stood at the crown of a hill. She
was highlighted against the moon. It was sinking towards dawn. It
was still night, but the end of night. Everything was still velvet,
silver, deep pockets of night shadows, but there was the faintest
hint of dawn on the hot wind.
If I could delay until dawn, I couldn't raise the
zombie. Maybe the compulsion would fade, too. If I was luckier than
I deserved.
Dominga was standing inside a dark circle. There was
a dead chicken at her feet. She had already made a circle of power.
All I had to do was step into it and slaughter a human being. Over
my dead body, if necessary.
Harold Gaynor sat in his electric wheelchair. on the
opposite side of the circle. He was outside of it, safe. Enzo and
Bruno stood by him, safe. Only Dominga had risked the circle.
She said, "Where is Wanda?"
I tried to lie, to say she was safe, but truth
spilled out of my mouth, "She's down by the house on the
gravel."
"Why didn't you bring her?"
"You can only give me one order at a time. You
ordered me to come. I came."
"Stubborn, even now, how curious," she said. "Enzo,
go fetch the girl. We need her."
Enzo walked away over the dry, rustling grass without
a word. I hoped Wanda killed him. I hoped she emptied the gun into
him. No, save a few bullets for Bruno.
Dominga had a machete in her right hand. Its edge was
black with blood. "Enter the circle, Anita," she said.
I tried to fight it, tried not to do it. I stood
there on the verge of the circle, almost swaying. I stepped across.
The circle tingled up my spine, but it wasn't closed. I don't know
what she'd done to it, but it wasn't closed. The circle looked
solid enough but it was still open. Still waiting for the
sacrifice.
Shots echoed in the darkness. Dominga jumped. I
smiled.
"What was that?"
"I think it was your bodyguard biting the big one," I
said.
"What did you do?"
"I gave Wanda a gun."
She slapped me with her empty hand. It wouldn't
really have hurt, but she slapped the same cheek Bruno and
what's-his-name had hit. I'd been smacked three times in the same place.
The bruise was going to be a beaut.
Dominga looked at something behind me and smiled. I
knew what it would be before I turned and saw it.
Enzo was carrying Wanda up the hill. Dammit. I'd
heard more than one shot. Had she panicked and shot too soon,
wasted her ammunition? Damn.
Wanda was screaming and beating her small fists
against Enzo's broad back. If we were alive come morning, I would
teach Wanda better things to do with her fists. She was crippled,
not helpless.
Enzo carried her over the circle. Until it closed
everyone could pass over it without breaking the magic. He dropped
Wanda to the ground, holding her arms out behind her at a painful
angle. She still struggled and screamed. I didn't blame her.
"Get Bruno to hold her still. The death needs to be
one blow," I said.
Dominga nodded. "Yes, it does." She motioned for
Bruno to enter the circle. He hesitated, but Gaynor told him, "Do
what she says."
Bruno didn't hesitate after that. Gaynor was his
greenback god. Bruno grabbed one of Wanda's arms. With a man on
each arm, and her legs useless, she was still moving too much.
"Kneel and hold her head still," I said.
Enzo dropped first, putting a big hand on the back of
Wanda's head. He held her steady. She started to cry. Bruno knelt,
putting his free hand on her shoulders to help steady her. It was
important for the death to be a single blow.
Dominga was smiling now. She handed me a small brown
jar of ointment. It was white and smelled heavily of cloves. I used
more rosemary in mine, but cloves were fine.
"How did you know what I needed?"
"I asked Manny to tell me what you used."
"He wouldn't tell you shit."
"He would if I threatened his family." Dominga
laughed. "Oh, don't look so sad. He didn't betray you,
chica. Manuel thought I was merely curious about your
powers. I am, you know."
"You'll see soon enough, won't you," I said.
She gave a sort of bow from the neck. "Place the
ointment on yourself in the appointed places."
I rubbed ointment on my face. It was cool and waxy.
The cloves made it smell like candy. I smeared it on over my heart,
under my shirt, both hands. Last the tombstone.
Now all we needed was the sacrifice.
Dominga told me, "Do not move."
I stayed where I was, frozen as if by magic. Was her
monster still frozen in the hallway, like I was now?
Dominga laid the machete on the grass near the edge
of the circle, then she stepped out of the circle. "Raise the dead,
Anita," she said.
"Ask Gaynor one question first, please." That please
hurt, but it worked.
She looked at me curiously. "What question?"
"Is this ancestor also a voodoo priest?" I asked.
"What difference does it make?" Gaynor asked.
"You fool," Dominga said. She whirled on him, hands
in fists. "That is what went wrong the first time. You made me
think it was my powers!"
"What are you babbling about?" he asked.
"When you raise a voodoo priest or an animator,
sometimes the magic goes wrong," I said.
"Why?" he asked.
"Your ancestor's magic interfered with my magic,"
Dominga said. "Are you sure this ancestor had no voodoo?"
"Not to my knowledge," he said.
"Did you know about the first one?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Dominga said. Her power
blazed around her like a dark nimbus. Would she kill him, or did
she want the money more?
"I didn't think it was important."
I think Dominga was grinding her teeth. I didn't
blame her. He'd cost her her reputation and a dozen lives. He saw
nothing wrong with it. But Dominga didn't strike him dead. Greed
wins out.
"Get on with it," Gaynor said. "Or don't you want
your money?"
"Do not threaten me!" Dominga said.
Peachy keen, the bad guys were going to fight among
themselves.
"I am not threatening you, Señora. I merely
will not pay unless this zombie is raised."
Dominga took a deep breath. She literally squared her
shoulders and turned back to me. "Do as I ordered, raise the
dead."
I opened my mouth to think of some other excuse to
delay. Dawn was coming. It had to come.
"No more delays. Raise the dead, Anita, now!" That
last word had the tone of a command.
I swallowed hard and walked towards the edge of the
circle. I wanted to get out, to leave, but I couldn't. I stood
there, leaning against that invisible barrier. It was like beating
against a wall that I couldn't feel. I stayed there straining until
my entire body trembled. I took a deep shaking breath.
I picked up the machete.
Wanda said, "No, Anita, please, please don't!" She
struggled, but she couldn't move. She would be an easy kill. Easier
than beheading a chicken with one hand. And I did that almost every
night.
I knelt in front of Wanda. Enzo's hand on the back of
her head kept her from moving. But she whimpered, a desperate sound
low in her throat.
God, help me.
I placed the machete under her neck and told Enzo,
"Raise her head up so I can make sure of the kill."
He grabbed a handful of hair and bowed her neck at a
painful angle. Her eyes were showing a lot of white. Even by
moonlight I could see the pulse in her throat.
I placed the machete back against her neck. Her skin
was solid and real under the blade. I raised it just above her
flesh, not touching for an instant. I drove the machete straight up
into Enzo's throat. The point speared his throat. Blood gushed out
in a black wave.
Everyone froze for an instant, but me. I jerked the
machete out of Enzo and plunged it into Bruno's gut. His hand with
the gun half-drawn fell away. I leaned on the machete and drew it
up towards his throat. His insides spilled out, in a warm rush.
The smell of fresh death filled the circle. Blood
sprayed all over my face, chest, hands, coating me. It was the last
step, and the circle closed.
I'd felt a thousand circles close, but nothing like
this. The shock of it left me gasping. I couldn't breathe over the
rush of power. It was like an electric current was running over my
body. My skin ached with it.
Wanda was covered in other people's blood. She was
having hysterics in the grass. "Please, please, don't kill me.
Don't kill me! Please!"
I didn't have to kill Wanda. Dominga had told me to
raise the dead, and I would do just that.
Killing animals never gave me this kind of rush. It
felt like my skin was going to crawl off on its own. I shoved the
power flowing through me into the ground. But not just into the
grave in the circle. I had too much power for just one grave. Too
much power for just a handful of graves. I felt the power spreading
outward like ripples in a pool. Out and out, until the power was
spread thick and clean over the ground. Every grave that I had
walked for Dolph. Every grave but the ones with ghosts. Because
that was a type of soul magic, and necromancy didn't work around
souls.
I felt each grave, each corpse. I felt them coalesce
from dust and bone fragments to things that were barely dead at
all.
"Arise from your graves all dead within sound of my
call. Arise and serve me!" Without naming them all I shouldn't have
been able to call a single one from the grave, but the power of two
human deaths was too much for the dead to resist.
They rose upward like swimmers through water. The
ground rippled underfoot like a horse's skin.
"What are you doing?" Dominga asked.
"Raising the dead," I said. Maybe it showed in my
voice. Maybe she felt it. Whatever, she started running towards the
circle, but it was too late.
Hands tore through the earth at Dominga's feet. Dead
hands grabbed her ankles and sent her sprawling into the long
grass. I lost sight of her but I didn't lose control of the
zombies. I told them, "Kill her, kill her."
The grass shuddered and surged like water. The sound
of muscles pulling away from bone in wet thick pieces filled the
night. Bones broke with sharp cracks. Over the sounds of tearing
flesh, Dominga shrieked.
There was one last wet sound, thick and full.
Dominga's screams broke off abruptly. I felt the dead hands tearing
out her throat. Her blood splattered the grass like a black
sprinkler.
Her spell shredded on the wind, but I didn't need her
urging now. The power had me. I was riding it like a bird on a
current of air. It held me, lifted me. It felt solid and
insubstantial as air.
The dry sunken earth cracked open over Gaynor's
ancestor's grave. A pale hand shot skyward. A second hand came
through the crack. The zombie tore the dry earth. I heard other old
graves breaking in the still, summer night. It broke its way out of
his grave, just like Gaynor had wanted.
Gaynor sat in his wheelchair on the crest of the
hill. He was surrounded by the dead. Dozens of zombies in various
stages of decay crowded close to him. But I hadn't given the order
yet. They wouldn't hurt him unless I told them to.
"Ask him where the treasure is," Gaynor shouted.
I stared at him and every zombie turned with my eyes
and stared at him, too. He didn't understand. Gaynor was like a lot
of people with money. They mistake money for power. It isn't the
same thing at all.
"Kill the man Harold Gaynor." I said it loud enough
to carry on the still air.
"I'll give you a million dollars for having raised
him. Whether I find the treasure or not," Gaynor said.
"I don't want your money, Gaynor," I said.
The zombies were moving in on every side, slow, hands
extended, like every horror movie you've ever seen. Sometimes
Hollywood is accurate, whatta ya know.
"Two million, three million!" His voice was breaking
with fear. He'd had a better seat for Dominga's death than I had.
He knew what was coming. "Four million!"
"Not enough," I said.
"How much?" he shouted. "Name your price!" I couldn't
see him now. The zombies hid him from view.
"No money, Gaynor, just you dead, that's enough."
He started screaming, wordlessly. I felt the hands
begin to rip at him. Teeth to tear.
Wanda grabbed my legs. "Don't, don't hurt him.
Please!"
I just stared at her. I was remembering Benjamin
Reynolds's blood-coated teddy bear, the tiny hand with that stupid
plastic ring on it, the blood-soaked bedroom, the baby blanket. "He
deserves to die," I said. My voice sounded separate from me,
distant and echoing. It didn't sound like me at all.
"You can't just murder him," Wanda said.
"Watch me," I said.
She tried to climb my body, but her legs betrayed her
and she fell in a heap at my feet, sobbing.
I didn't understand how Wanda could beg for his life
after what he had done to her. Love, I suppose. In the end she
really did love him. And that, perhaps, was the saddest thing of
all.
When Gaynor died, I knew it. When pieces of him
stained almost every hand and mouth of the dead, they stopped. They
turned to me, waiting for new orders. The power was still buoying
me up. I wasn't tired. Was there enough to lay them all to rest? I
hoped so.
"Go back, all of you, go back to your graves. Rest in
the quiet earth. Go back, go back."
They stirred like a wind had blown through them, then
one by one they went back to their graves. They lay down on the
hard dry earth and the graves just swallowed them whole. It was
like magic quicksand. The earth shuddered underfoot like a sleeper
moving to a more comfortable position.
Some of the corpses had been as old as Gaynor's
ancestor, which meant that I didn't need a human death to raise one
three-hundred-year-old corpse. Bert was going to be pleased. Human
deaths seemed to be cumulative. Two human deaths and I had emptied
a cemetery. It wasn't possible. But I'd done it anyway. Whatta ya
know?
The first light of dawn passed like milk on the
eastern sky. The wind died with the light. Wanda knelt in the
bloody grass, crying. I knelt beside her.
She jerked back at my touch. I guess I couldn't blame
her, but it bothered me anyway.
"We have to get out of here. You need a doctor," I
said.
She stared up at me. "What are you?"
Today for the first time I didn't know how to answer
that question. Human didn't seem to cover it. "I'm an animator," I
said finally.
She just kept staring at me. I wouldn't have believed
me either. But she let me help her up. I guess that was
something.
But she kept looking at me out of the edge of her
eyes. Wanda considered me one of the monsters. She may have been
right.
Wanda gasped, eyes wide.
I turned, too slowly. Was it the monster?
Jean-Claude stepped out of the shadows.
I didn't breathe for a moment. It was so
unexpected.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Your power called to me, ma petite. No dead
in the city could fail to feel your power tonight. And I am the
city, so I came to investigate."
"How long have you been here?"
"I saw you kill the men. I saw you raise the
graveyard."
"Did it ever occur to you to help me?"
"You did not need any help." He smiled, barely
visible in the moonlight. "Besides, would it not have been tempting
to rend me to pieces, as well?"
"You can't possibly be afraid of me," I said.
He spread his hands wide.
"You're afraid of your human servant? Little ol' moi?"
"Not afraid, ma petite, but cautious."
He was afraid of me. It almost made some of this shit
worthwhile.
I carried Wanda down the hill. She wouldn't let
Jean-Claude touch her. A choice of monsters.
Chapter 40
Dominga Salvador missed her court date. Fancy that.
Dolph had searched for me that night, after he discovered that
Dominga had made bail. He had found my apartment empty. My answers
about where I had gone didn't satisfy him, but he let it go. What
else could he do?
They found Gaynor's wheelchair, but no trace of him.
It's one of those mysteries to tell around campfires. The empty,
blood-coated wheelchair in the middle of the cemetery. They did
find body parts in the caretaker's house: animal and human. Only
Dominga's power had held the thing together. When she died, it
died. Thank goodness. Theory was that the monster got Gaynor. Where
the monster came from no one seemed to know. I was called in to
explain the body parts, that's how the police knew they'd once been
attached.
Irving wanted to know what I really knew about
Gaynor's vanishing act. I just smiled and played inscrutable.
Irving didn't believe me, but all he had were suspicions.
Suspicions aren't a news story.
Wanda is waiting tables downtown. Jean-Claude offered
her a job at The Laughing Corpse. She declined, not politely. She'd
saved quite a bit of money from her "business." I don't know if
she'll make it or not, but with Gaynor gone, she seems free to try.
She was a junkie whose drug of choice was dead. It was better than
rehab.
By Catherine's wedding the bullet wound was just a
bandage on my arm. The bruises on my face and neck had turned that
sickly shade of greenish-yellow. It clashed with the pink dress. I
gave Catherine the option of me not being in the wedding. The
wedding coordinator was all for that, but Catherine wouldn't hear
of it. The wedding coordinator applied makeup to the bruises and
saved the day.
I have a picture of me standing in that awful dress
with Catherine's arm around me. We're both smiling. Friendship is
strange stuff.
Jean-Claude sent me a dozen white roses in the
hospital. The card read, "Come to the ballet with me. Not as my
servant, but as my guest."
I didn't go to the ballet. I had enough problems
without dating the Master of the City.
I had performed human sacrifice, and it had felt
good. The rush of power was like the memory of painful sex. Part of
you wanted to do it again. Maybe Dominga Salvador was right. Maybe
power talks to everyone, even me.
I am an animator. I am the Executioner. But now I
know I'm something else. The one thing my Grandmother Flores feared
most. I am a necromancer. The dead are my specialty.