
Paul and Brady Get Hoodoo with the Voodoo
Scouting Jasmine
Jasmine Parks leaned against a maple tree at the edge of a grassy path, one booted ankle crossed over the other. Her left hand clutched a knife nearly as long as a machete. In her right she held the Walther PPK that had made her the envy of every other assassin in her department. She called it Grief, and Vayl noted that she had already transformed it into crossbow mode as it rested against her thigh. He supposed it would serve her well once again in her mission to smoke Almont, the Vulture of Indianapolis.
Vayl had never met the vampire himself. But he had heard enough. In fact, the only reason he had refused the opportunity to eliminate a nestleader, with the audacity to turn a state's governor and either blackmail or bully its top authorities into transforming its capital into his own personal fiefdom, was because it interested him to see how Jasmine would handle the assignment. After all, she had become something of a mythic figure within the CIA's most obscure section.
A fragile beauty with a halo of fiery hair who spoke tersely when she deigned to talk at all, Jasmine had never failed to hit her target. According to the file Vayl had purloined, she seemed to have an uncanny ability to know where her prey crouched before they managed to pinpoint her position. And despite increasingly daring exploits, she had so far escaped unharmed. He found her methods fascinating and wished to observe her work firsthand.
At least that was what he had told Pete. And himself.
But now, watching from the cover of a monument so large it dwarfed the cedar tree beside it, Vayl found it difficult to perpetuate the lie. Though the night was sultry for May, Jasmine had chosen black leather for her jacket, pants, and boots. Perhaps not such a bad decision considering the woods at her back were filled with thornbushes and the crypt before her was stacked with vampires, but as far as Vayl was concerned, the outfit could not have been more perfect, either. He thanked the fates that a man born to fret over the endless layers of a woman's skirts could have lived long enough to slide his eyes over an outfit so supple that it seemed to celebrate the curves of her hips, to invite his hands to explore her soft belly and high breasts.
He felt his breath come faster and let his forehead rest against the stone marker before him. He reminded himself that a general lay beneath his feet. That he and Jasmine stood within one of the largest cemeteries in the country, and if either of them lost their heads, Pete would be forced to dig new graves alarmingly similar to these old ones. Besides---he looked up at the woman who had lost everything that mattered to her less than five months before---she was not interested in new attachments. He could see it even now, when she raked her eyes across the space between them. They held only death.
Even though she should not be able to see him, Vayl called up the power that would distract her vision and make him seem to be part of the marble that hid him. He twirled the tiger-carved cane in his hand, promising himself he would only use it if she found herself backed into an impossible corner. Then he allowed himself a moment's relief that Almont and his fledglings were late risers. Given that, he still would never have reached this location in time if he had not spent the day sheltering beneath a hollow log insulated by generous piles of dead leaves.
He ran a hand through his hair for the twentieth time and sniffed at his wine-red shirt. No debris fell from his tight black curls, but he smelled like old rot. That decided him. Even if he approved of Jasmine's tactics tonight and her actions convinced him she deserved special training, he would avoid a face-to-face meeting. Let Pete introduce him from a distance so that when they did meet, her first thoughts would not run to the grave.
He watched her study the front wall of a vault that had been built into one of the slopes of Crown Hill Cemetery. It was well hidden in a corner section whose old stones had been swallowed by trees. Though the path had been mowed for wanderers who might want to leave a flower at the memorial, people rarely followed it down the hill and around the corner to where large squares had been carved out of the cement. Some of them held the names of the dead. Helen Farley, Wife of Dundee Farley, Born 1821--Died 1853. And beside her, Dundee himself, who had lived another thirty-two years. Isaiah Farley had lived to be over a hundred. But Sharon, his wife, had also died in her thirties. Several of the stones remained blank, as if the family had forgotten they had reserved a place in which to bury their dead.
Vayl crept closer, his vantage point at the end of the trail partially obscured by some sort of orange-flowering ivy. He moved more quietly than a deer, his camouflage so firmly in place that not even another vampire could have seen him.
Jasmine went into a crouch, Grief aimed just to the left of his head, her eyes searching the air around him. "Stop right where you are, you fucking bloodsucker!" she demanded.
Vayl heard the click of the safety releasing. She can sense me! How is that possible?
And then six of the tomb's facades exploded behind her.
\*
All of Vayl's instincts roared for him to rush to her rescue, but the cursing gave him pause. And if he had learned anything in over eight decades with the Agency, it was that jumping into another assassin's setup was the best way to get him or her killed. So he stood perfectly still.
And she shot at him! She had no time left to improve the fuzzy aim her vampire sensitivity had provided for her, so the finely crafted wooden bolt went high. It would have sailed over his left shoulder, except that he had folded his arms across his chest. His right hand still held his cane, the thicker end of which protruded nearly six inches above his collarbone. As a result, the bolt slammed into it.
Vayl glared at his wounded walking stick. The bolt dropped from it, as if embarrassed that it had dared such a mission and then muffed it. The puncture it left was deep enough that only a trip to India would suffice if he wanted the cane to be repaired correctly. All right, now I am annoyed!
He stared down the path at the stranger who had already nearly destroyed him and left a semipermanent scar on his old friend. He stopped himself from grinding his teeth just before chips began to fly, then realized he might not have to concern himself with reckonings after all. Because Almont's nest had risen.
They emerged from their temporary rest weeping, screaming, and tearing off their outer layers of clothing. Among the wailing, Vayl heard the word garlic several times. He laid his eyes upon Jasmine with new interest. Pete had told him she had personal connections to a brilliant scientist who occasionally consulted with the Agency and to be on the lookout for inventive approaches because of it. This must be the garlic grenade he had heard tell of. Similar to a bug bomb, it sent a mist of the vegetable into the cracks and crevices of an edifice she had obviously not cared to penetrate on a more personal level. Because this plan was working better. Before the panic subsided, Jasmine shot two of the vampires with a calm proficiency that proved her reputation was based on more than flimsy fairy tales. The men fell with Grief's bolts cleaving their hearts, and moments later all that remained were wisps of silk and cotton mixed with bone fragments and a thick swirl of vapor that, though Vayl had seen it countless times in his long life, still captured his full attention. This is how you end, it seemed to whisper as it wafted into the sky.
The remaining vampires cleared their streaming eyes. Alerted to the danger, all of their attention centered on the kneeling human whose blood they could smell even at a distance of fifty yards, they charged.
Jasmine rose and whipped around in a single smooth movement that stirred something deep within Vayl. He watched her sprint straight up the path, Grief in one pumping hand, her long knife firm in the other. He clenched his hands to keep them from urging her forward as he saw the vampires close the distance between themselves and Jasmine. He wanted to run to her, beside her. Instead he held himself utterly still while his mind captured each moment separately, to be stored and pored over later: Jasmine running, hair streaming out behind her like a crimson flag, lips curled back in a snarl of determination, eyes dark with terrible purpose. Four vampires in pursuit. Two women in legal secretary attire, high heels sinking into the ground with each step, Gucci handbags slapping against their hips. Two men in matching black vests and trousers, grave dust flying from their ties as they outpaced their female counterparts. None of them, Vayl noted, the Vulture Jasmine had been sent to kill.
He stepped forward, anticipating where he would need to intercept Almont's people, but before he could move again, Jasmine leaped into the air, and he realized she had set a wire across the path. One quick check showed him what it triggered. Instinct put him back behind the monument once more, though he would much rather that miles stood between him and the flamethrower she had assembled and hidden at the edge of the wood.
As soon as Jasmine landed, she swung her knife straight down and back, severing the wire. She instantly dropped to the ground and rolled forward. For a single beat her pursuers gazed at her with a sort of amused surprise.
And then fire snapped across the path, catching the men in its greedy maw. They ignited like kindling, their screams filling the air with a horror that was reflected in Jasmine's bottomless eyes. Eventually she put the burning men out of their misery. Then she watched their colleagues consult one another from the crypt side of the fire. When they took a step back, as if they meant to fade into the woods, she held up both hands. With one touch of a finger, she transformed Grief back into a typical gun. Then she holstered it, tucking it inside her jacket so securely Vayl could not even tell she carried it concealed. She dropped the knife on the ground.
From where Vayl stood he could see the gleam of triumph in Almont's fledgling ladies' eyes. He wanted to shake Jasmine and growl, "What do you think you are doing, fool? They clearly intend to massacre the entire human race, starting with you!" But already he had begun to believe in her. He held himself in check while she waited for them to skirt the flames. They came at her from opposite directions, rushing in at the same time.
She slumped, as if in surrender, and for a moment all he could see were two voracious vampires trying to claw their way through the leather on Jasmine's back, chest, and legs. Then he caught a slight movement in her right wrist. A sort of jab, followed by a quick withdrawal. And suddenly one of Almont's women was on the ground, writhing in pain as blisters bubbled across her skin.
Vayl barely had time to admire the swift and secret administration of holy water, for the last vampire had shoved Jasmine's jacket back, and only repeated punches to her face, which scraped Jasmine's knuckles raw, had kept the vampire's fangs from sinking into the assassin's shoulder. Vayl could not imagine why Jasmine had allowed herself to become bloodied, when the rest of her plan had worked so beautifully.
Then he realized she was pulling the vampire toward an open grave. She continued the close combat, throwing kicks and elbows, taking two stunning blows that would have felled her had she not been holding tight to the vampire's frilly collar, all in the name of walking backward. At the last moment she offered her throat, as a dog will show its belly. The vampire lunged. Jasmine sidestepped, and her opponent fell, arms flailing helplessly, into the grave. But she did not fall with the typical thud Vayl would have expected from a six-foot hole in the ground. It sounded much more like a splat-squoosh. He waited for the smoke to rise and then realized the vampire had not been staked, but merely impaled in such a way that she could not move without incredibly severe pain.
Jasmine leaned over the opening. "Where's Almont?" she asked.
The reply came faintly, laced with agony. "I do not know."
"Sure you do. You're his little bimbo, Helen. Yeah, I know you. Didn't really die in 1853, didja, Mrs. Farley? But you will tonight if you don't give me some answers." Jasmine drew Grief and readied it for vampire killing.
Vayl heard the confession from inside the grave. "Almont is prowling the city. We were supposed to meet him downtown tonight at a club called the Spit & Hiss."
"There now, was that so hard?" Jasmine took aim.
Disbelief mingled with the pain in the vampire's voice as she pleaded, "You are not going to kill me now? You gave me your word!"
"Technically, no, I didn't. And even if I had..." She squeezed the trigger and finished the sentence, speaking into thin air, "...Never trust the word of an assassin."
Vayl did not wait for Jasmine to turn Grief on him next. He sped out of the cemetery, his coat billowing at his back like a sail. He imagined it caught the wind, speeding him onward for the several more blocks he needed to run until he came to the private lot where his rental vehicle was parked. Though he had not enjoyed driving since he had been forced to trade reins for a steering wheel, he was proficient enough to direct the black Pontiac toward the city's center. Now that Vayl knew where the next act of this drama was to be played out, he must find the best spot from which to view it. The sooner the better, too, because it would take all the extra time he could muster to convince himself not to become a participant.
Oh, he knew Jasmine could handle this assignment without his help. Clearly she planned her hits as meticulously as he did his own. But he had looked into her eyes while death raced her to the finish line tonight, and he recognized the expression in them because he had seen it in the mirror every day after the murders of his sons. Jasmine might still be running against those who would see her dead, but she no longer cared if she won.
\*
Vayl stood on the hood of his car. He did not bother to melt into the background because the crowd filling the street outside the Spit & Hiss had no interest in his presence. A few of them had even climbed street signs or friend's shoulders, attempting to get a better view of their new leader as he emerged from Indy's most popular after-dark destination.
Almont appeared as if he had just won a boxing match, both fists pumping the air as the crowd, which was liberally scattered with vampire supporters, broke into applause at his appearance. He wore a typical politician's uniform---charcoal-gray pinstripes set off by gleaming black loafers, an out-of-the-wrapper white shirt, and a power-red tie. He had slicked back his thin brown hair so that it looked painted on, as did his neatly trimmed mustache.
He walked up to a podium that had been placed on the sidewalk between two expired parking meters. His glittering brown eyes continuously scanned the faces of his listeners as he spoke, pausing between phrases to let them ponder what he had said. "My friends, we have begun a new era for Indiana, and I am proud to be your state's new steward. I know you are wondering what that will mean for you. Change, my friends. Change for the better!"
He paused for more clapping, nodding when he wanted it to subside. "But you must help. Start tonight by voting. Because we are having new elections next month, and in those elections you will decide whether or not this state will continue to be part of the rotting corpse that is America or whether we will excise ourselves and become a free republic!"
As he spoke, members of his personal guard began to filter among the people in the crowd. They carried clipboards. And AK-47s.
Almont said, "If you are already a registered voter, we have absentee ballots you can sign right now. And we believe it would be in your best interests to mark YES for the Almont ticket.
"My new administration will---"
A voice from the crowd interrupted him. Loud, strident, and definitely female, it shouted, "Will do what, Almont? Fill the capitol building with vampires?"
Almont smoothly ignored the heckler and continued, "We will see to it that every adult in the state has a job."
"Yeah!" said the woman from a different spot in the crowd. "Opening a vein for the steward's posse!"
Almont gave up trying and spoke to a dapper little man to his left who wore a Bluetooth in one ear and a diamond stud in the other. He signaled to two of the crowd workers, broad-shouldered vamps who towered over the people obediently signing their votes away. Tucking their clipboards in their belts, the vamps brought their guns into position and began to wade through the onlookers in search of the troublemaker.
Vayl had been watching Jasmine's attempts to instigate a riot, and though he gave her high marks for effort, he thought her plan foolhardy. Almont had turned his personal guards with an eye toward physical intimidation. None of the five Vayl had counted stood under six feet tall, and each one looked as if he could pile the other four on a table, lift the entire piece over his head, and propel it several yards through the air. He began to wonder if he should retrieve the backup weapon from the trunk of his rental car.
Jasmine yelled from yet a third position, "Didja tell everyone what just went on inside that club, Almont? How you branded everybody with an electronic sensor that works like a shock collar if they try to leave the state, only the charge they get will kill them? How you demanded that they give your little weasel there their cell phone numbers so you could keep better track of your new constituents? How, if somebody doesn't kill you now, in another year this state is going to feel like the inside of a POW camp?"
"Get her!" roared Almont.
Vayl leaped off the car and popped the trunk. Inside, already armed, sat a wooden crossbow older than himself. He could not say why he kept the weapon with which his grandfather had once meant to kill him. Even now, some memories would not bear close scrutiny. He only knew that it had saved his life many times in the years since, and tonight it might save hers. But she could not know. If he intervened, it must be with the utmost delicacy. Because if she found out... He imagined her eyes flashing as she dressed him down. She would be harsh, probably obscene.
And grand.
He felt his lips quirk at the vision in his mind and slammed the trunk with a feeling he could not place at first it had been so long. Ah, yes, now he remembered. Jasmine Parks had reminded him once again of the joys of anticipation.
He felt his heart lift, realized he had thrown his shoulders and head back like a werewolf preparing to howl at the moon. He heard himself laugh out loud as she raced past his vantage point, drawing the bodyguards away from their charge. If she had been his partner, Vayl would have eliminated Almont by now. Instead he waited for the last guard in the squad to separate himself from the crowd. He was a lumbering giant who, had he lived after the invention of basketball, might have spent his adult years guarding a net-hung hoop. Remembering well his bow's idiosyncrasies, Vayl sighted high and to the left. The bolt speared Almont's tallest bodyguard in the center of his back. He died silently, leaving behind no sign that Jasmine had beaten death once again.
Since rearming the bow would take too long, Vayl slid it under the car and gave chase, holding his cane firmly (and yes, a little hopefully) in his right hand. Perhaps he could decapitate another goon before the remarkable woman running before him decided it was time to make her stand.
\*
Jasmine ran with an economy of motion that reflected the track training she had received in college. Though she had competed in field events, Vayl knew she had often practiced with the relay teams. Never mind that her position as the alternate never won her any trophies, it stood her in good stead now.
He watched with admiration as she lost only a step or two in the block she sprinted, her goal becoming clear when the brake lights of an oversized Chevrolet work van blinked on and the driver's side door clicked open.
Cries of outrage split the air as Almont's bodyguards called to one another. Vayl eavesdropped as he rushed to catch up to them.
Enormous Viking look-alike who kept shooting but could not seem to hit anything but asphalt: "That's our van!"
Square-headed man whose gun had jammed the moment he cleared the crowd: "She stole the family's wheels!"
A broad-shouldered woman whose sex everyone had to confirm by looking at her 38DD chest apparently wanted to beat Jasmine to death with her bare hands, because she had not bothered to put her AK-47 to use yet. "The family wouldn't allow that! She's killed them!"
"Bitch!" screamed a woman with hair so orange it glowed. Vayl's mouth actually fell open when her weapon jammed as well.
Do these people never maintain their weapons?
She pulled a Glock out of her thigh holster and, before he could stop her, shot Jasmine in the back.
Vayl's entire world went silent as the woman he had already begun to care for flew forward, the impact from the bullet shoving her onto the street as if she had been hit by a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball.
Unable to watch her die, he twisted the jewel topping his cane and held the sheath tight with his left hand so the sword inside came out with a jerk. Speeding forward, he paused only long enough for a single, sweeping swing. A head with orange hair flew in the air---and then disintegrated. All that remained after a moment was a poof of smoke. Through it Vayl saw the Viking, Square Head, and 38DD, still ignorant of their comrade's demise, pause to confer.
The woman, 38DD, nodded her head. "I agree," she said in response to the men's mumbled suggestions. She gestured to the Viking. "Shoot her again, just to be sure."
At the same time, Vayl was raising his power, feeling a storm of ice well up from deep within. Just before he released it, he glanced at Jasmine one last time...and realized she was not bleeding. In fact, she was rolling to her feet!
The scientist, his mind whispered. The man of the garlic bomb. He must have fashioned her a bulletproof vest that melds to her like a second skin and yet prevents certain death!
Without looking back, Jasmine leaped into the van.
The Viking peppered the back window with bullets, sending glass flying, but it did not deter the driver. She gunned the engine, and suddenly Vayl realized he was about to be left behind.
So did Almont's people.
"Get to the car!" roared Square Head. He dug into the pocket of his trousers for the keys as he spun, heading for one of several vehicles that were parked down the street.
Vayl fed all the power he had raised into convincing the vampires he was not there.
Just another pothole or perhaps a construction cone to be avoided as they raced back to their vehicle.
Now they realized they had lost people. He capitalized on their consternation, pushing their attention deeper into their confusion so that he could run as fast as his strength could push him, and all they would notice was a passing breeze.
He chased down the speeding van and jumped onto the back bumper, maintaining his balance by holding hard to the handles of the doors and hoping to whatever powers moved him that they did not choose this moment to fly open.
The precariousness of his position became clear when Jasmine screeched around a corner and both of his feet slipped off their perch. His legs flew into the air, and for a moment he felt like a diver, spread-eagle above the water just before the tuck and roll, except if he did not pull his legs in soon enough, they would hit a UPS van and break in multiple places. That decided him.
He climbed onto the roof, where a rack had been attached to hold ladders, or perhaps well-disguised coffins. Moving quietly so as not to tip off the crazed driver careening through the streets of the city, jumping curbs to miss pedestrians, and turning left from the right-hand lane, Vayl found a somewhat-stable position on the front of the roof, where he could hold tight to the steel rods with both hands in front of him and still brace his legs against the side supports.
He just began to suppose Jasmine had made her escape when the bodyguards' blue Volvo turned onto the street behind them with a screech of tires that reminded Vayl of a parrot attempting to sing. And if it had, the words would sound something like, "You are so sca-rewed!"
Jasmine seemed to feel differently. In fact, she welcomed the chase, laughing out loud at the following vehicle, even taking her hand off the wheel long enough to shove her arm out the window and show them her middle finger.
This infuriated the driver, who laid on the horn, and the passenger, who let fly a barrage of bullets. Some of them actually hit the van's back doors, which was somewhat of a surprise considering the erratic path Jasmine was taking. But it made Vayl even happier that he had chosen a higher position from which to view the proceedings.
After fifteen blocks of chasing, Jasmine had led the vamps' sedan into what seemed to be a warehouse district. Oh, wait, Vayl had heard of these places. They were storage units. What a shame they had not been around during World War II. He might still have that Mauser.
"Now's the time, boys!" Jasmine yelled out her window.
Vayl wanted badly to tell her one of her opponents was female, but only to give himself an excuse to poke his head in the window and ask for an orchestra seat for the big event. He bit his lip as the van skidded and went into a spin.
What is she doing? No. Surely she is not driving straight for that Volvo?
Then he remembered. Jasmine was always wrecking cars. Pete said her record was the reason why only a couple of hairs remained on his head.
Vayl tightened his grip. Then he realized if the autos collided head-on and he tried to maintain his hold, the force of the impact might tear his arms off. He would have to time it just right and leap off the van just before impact. His injuries would still be severe, but he should be able to keep all his parts.
He watched as the Volvo closed in on them. He heard Jasmine laugh. It sounded almost...crazed.
He saw Square Head's eyes widen when he realized she did not intend to swerve. Beside him, 38DD screamed. At the last moment, Square Head jerked the wheel hard to the left. Tires squealed, and 38DD's screams intensified, joined now by the shouts of her colleagues as the sedan failed to right itself. It jumped the curb and slammed straight into an electric pole. Jasmine brought the van to a screeching halt.
Vayl jumped clear and found a quiet spot between two of the storage buildings from which to observe.
Jasmine exited the van, pulled out Grief, and switched it to crossbow mode. She took a moment to view what he could also see through the Volvo's back window: A backseat full of glass and a humped figure on the floor. Two bodies in the front resting against their air bags.
She went to the driver's side, found she couldn't wrench the door open, and decided to try the passenger side. That door obeyed her touch.
Two shots later the front seat held only scraps of material and some fragments of what had been two very large threats to Jasmine's well-being. She jerked open the back door and the last member of Almont's guards stirred.
"Get out," she said.
After a struggle that involved both of them, Jasmine dragged the Viking onto the faded concrete drive that led to one of the blank garage doors, behind which some random human had stored an entire home's worth of precious belongings.
Jasmine did not seem impressed by her surroundings, but the man's face---that seemed to have struck a chord.
"I know you." But she sounded unsure, as if she wanted him to confirm her suspicions.
His eyes had been half-closed against the pain of an injury that left his face covered in blood. Now he forced them open, stared into her eyes, and shied away.
What? He is twice her size!
Through broken teeth he murmured, "You. How can you be here?"
Jasmine shoved the muzzle of her gun against his chest. "You haven't always been with Almont, have you? Why did you leave Aidyn Strait's nest?"
His laugh was supposed to be bitter, but the wounds he had sustained forced it into a sigh.
"Anyone who gets the chance to leave takes it."
She shoved her knee into his chest, grinding it between his ribs. "But you were happy to be part of his attack against my Helsingers, weren't you? I saw you grinning when you tore into Thea's throat."
He groaned. "Don't kill me. Please! I'll do anything!"
Vayl could hardly contain his amazement. The Viking was hurt, but surely not that badly. Yet in this moment, he seemed to be paralyzed, and Jasmine had the strength of ten angels.
She leaned over him and whispered, "How about you bring my crew back you murdering son of a bitch?"
His eyes went wide as boiling pots. "But---but---but I saw you. I saw Aidyn...Who are you?"
She spoke so softly Vayl had to strain to hear. "Just call me retribution." She shoved Grief's muzzle against the Viking's chest, her pupils so large they seemed otherworldly.
And then she fired.
\*
Jasmine sat in the van she had stolen from Almont's dead fledglings, staring straight ahead, gripping the wheel as if it were keeping her above water. She held that position for so long Vayl began to wonder if he had been wrong about her. Perhaps she was, from no fault of her own, too damaged for the plans he had made for her---in fact, not the woman he had been searching for after all.
For a moment she put both of her hands over her ears, as if trying to elude a sound even Vayl could not hear. The intensity of her emotions felt like a wall of fire between his nook in the shadows and her seat, parked on the empty road beside the blank-faced storehouses. He could not believe it when he felt the heat build. It must be unbearable to try to contain such ravenous feelings within a frame so flammable. He could not imagine how she did it.
She said, "Goddamn that hurt!"
Vayl could have assumed she meant the Glock's blow to her back. She would certainly be sore for days. But he knew she meant more when she rammed the steering wheel, hard, with the palm of her hand.
He nodded. Yes, do it again. This is better than nothing. Much better than letting it burn you alive. As if she could hear him, she attacked the wheel with focused vengeance, delivering short, sharp jabs that shook it to its stem. And each time she yelled. Incoherent words that pierced the air like spears with their power, their rage. Suddenly the entire top half snapped off, leaving her with a driving apparatus similar to a pilot's helm.
She stared at what remained for a moment and then leaned forward, pulling the broken half off the dashboard. "What a cheap piece of crap."
She threw it on the seat next to her and started the van, her previous fit forgotten in a whirlwind of action that included reloading Grief's bolts, checking her other weapons, and searching through the radio stations until she found one that was playing a song she liked, quite a lot if the volume at which she chose to listen to it was any clue. She began singing along from the start, which meant drivers three blocks over could hear her harmonizing with Molly Hatchet, tipping them off to her plans. "I'm travelin' down the road, and I'm flirtin' with disaster."
She peeled out of the parking space with a squeal of tires that left a haze of smoke in her wake, echoes of the carnage she would have left behind if vampires left any remains worth discussing.
Vayl strode to the wrecked Volvo and tried the key Square Head had left in the ignition. It made a brave attempt to start but coughed itself to death shortly after. He sighed. Hopefully it would not be this difficult to keep up with Jasmine once they began working together.
He began tearing open storage space doors, one after another, until at last he came to one that held a Buell Blast, complete with key and helmet. Four kicks of the starter later, he was roaring back the way he had come, his face securely hidden behind the tinted visor so that, if worst came to worst, Jasmine would only register a vampire riding a sturdy silver motorcycle. But he did not anticipate that issue arising again. If he knew that Almont would be waiting back at the Spit & Hiss for a report on his guards' success, so did Jasmine. Which meant all her energies would now be directed on finishing her mission. He just hoped he got there in time to witness the finale.
\*
Vayl located the van a block away from the nightclub. He parked across the street from it and walked the rest of the way, jamming his cane into the sidewalk as he pondered the new feelings competing with one another for dominance within his chest. He actually felt anxious! He was afraid he would be too late for the final showdown. It was not that he cared to see Almont vanish as so many vicious criminals had before him. He feared missing another chance to admire Jasmine in her element, even as he dreaded being seen or, worse, shot by her. He imagined trying to explain to Pete why he had sustained a crossbow wound from one of his own people and...laughed.
Careful, Vayl. If you do not keep control of your emotions, when you finally do meet this woman, she may still take a shot at you.
Vayl laughed again, already looking forward to Jasmine's famously unpredictable reactions. He increased his speed to a late-to-my-meeting stride, rounded a corner, and passed a brightly lit deli and a closed bookstore before the neon of the Spit & Hiss came into view. He nearly grinned with relief when he spied Almont standing outside the door, greeting customers as if he were the owner, which he might as well be, because they could not enter the establishment until they had completed one of the ballots he handed them. His assistant kept one eye on the proceedings and another on traffic, which had been allowed to continue down the street once Almont's speech concluded.
Vayl slowed his pace, taking the chance to absorb his surroundings more fully so that, perhaps, he could anticipate Jasmine's next move. The Spit & Hiss facade was built to resemble a tiger's head, with its eyes glowing blue and its roaring mouth forming the entryway. It took up half the block, the bass of its prerecorded dance music thumping out to meet him as he passed by. Metal grated beneath his feet, and he looked down. Would Jasmine try the storm sewer approach? Surely not. It seemed so...stealthy.
An enormous flowerpot containing masses of pink petunias and multihued vines marked the end of the block. The next one, also sporting flowers at its corner, held a hotel. Across the street was a steady succession of restaurants and bars, most offering outdoor seating, the advantage of which Vayl failed to understand, given the mainly concrete-and-glass view and the constant smell of exhaust.
Where are you, Jasmine? He lifted his nose to the air, as if he could pull in her scent the way she somehow found his. But as soon as he closed his eyes, he knew she would not allow herself to be tracked. Better to follow his original tactic. Wait. And watch.
He posted himself at a diagonal from the club, sitting on the edge of a third flower container, disguising himself to passersby, and hoping enough vampires lingered among Almont's crowd so that Jasmine would not find herself compelled to come after him again this evening. Or...perhaps that would be enjoyable. Ah, if only he had time. He could lure Almont to a less populated area, then get Jasmine to chase him to the beast's position. Hmm, how could he arrange that without being see---
Movement. A blur in the air as something flew toward Almont's position. Screams when it landed and those closest to it realized it was burning at one end and liable to explode at the other.
"Dynamite!"
"Run!"
"Get outta my way, dammit!"
Vayl linked his hands in his lap expectantly.
Almont shoved his way through the people like a stampeding bull, knocking his elbow into resisting flesh, toppling them like they were pieces on a chessboard. His assistant swam in his wake, squeaking desperately into his Bluetooth and then tapping on it as if it had developed an irritating squawk.
The dynamite sat in the tiger's mouth like a giant semidispensed Pez and did not explode. In fact, it popped, rather like a piece of movie butter--flavored corn, and from the resulting white rose of paper waved a small gold-handled flag.
Vayl snorted.
Almont ran across the street toward what was evidently his limousine. A slender blond woman wearing a floppy pink hat had paused beside it to dig in her pocket for her keys.
"Get out of my way!" he shouted, trying to shove her aside. She was surprisingly difficult to move given her size and his strength. However something had to give, and it was her hat, which flew backward, giving Vayl a glimpse of her face. Even the big sunglasses could not disguise the familiar curve of her pale cheek, the generous pout of her lower lip.
Vayl smiled at Jasmine's costume, wondering just how many she had hanging in her closet. But his fantasies must wait for another day. She had pulled a knife from her pocket, the same one he had seen in the cemetery. It was a military-issue weapon that seemed to have been slightly modified for her use, just as her gun had been. Almont had not seen the arming. He had already turned away, leaning forward to open the limousine's door.
Jasmine timed her attack perfectly. The knife, held in both her hands and swung with all the force of her body behind it, severed his head completely.
Almont's assistant, standing so close that he breathed in his boss's smoke, suffered from her backswing. It turned out to be just as lethal. His remains dropped into the road beside his master's, and moments later no one would have known the knife existed. A redheaded woman shaking out her lovely curls strolled away from the scene as if it were an action shot on a movie lot that she had already seen rehearsed a dozen times. Vayl watched her go.
I want her.
How convenient that he worked for an agency that knew better than to tell him no.
The Golem Hunt
I wiped the sweat off my upper lip and promised myself again that I wouldn't bolt. The Moses Temple of Champaign, Illinois, had a reputation for beauty. Its ceiling soared overhead, a circular masterpiece of artistry and engineering. Angels spread their wings from an altarpiece so impressive I'd have been inclined to kneel---if it hadn't been split and splattered with blood. Rows of wooden pews leading up to double podiums tried to warn me, but they were too broken to carry weight anymore. So all I could do was stare down at what was left of Rabbi Gordon Klein and hope I didn't have to stay so long that puking became an option.
Vayl waited outside. Okay, lurked was probably a better word for it. Avoiding the holy steamies, waiting impatiently for me to get an eyeful, make a judgment, and book. His need for speed appealed on every level. Beyond the sheer pleasure of putting miles between myself and the temple-fulla-gore, the truth was we had a hell of a hunt ahead of us and, from the looks of the remains, a target who wouldn't politely curtsy before lying down and dying.
I wiped my hands down my face, like that could cleanse the stench of shredded intestines. "Mr. Miller, are you absolutely sure?" I asked, fixing the pale, old council member with as stern a stare as I could manage considering the fact that he was gripping the cracked pew in front of him with both hands so he wouldn't collapse.
He squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. "I was there when Rabbi Klein made the golem. We were desperate. The BAI had sent us a letter."
I watched him shudder and understood. The BAI didn't piss around. Once a place of worship received notice, they generally lost a minister or priestess or in this case a rabbi within forty-eight hours. Considered extreme even among extremists, the BAI went after every religion that fell outside their code, which was so narrow even John the Baptist barely squeaked by with a pass.
Knowing this, the recently departed had flipped through the pages of the Sefer Yetzirah, summoned the magic of his ancestors, and brought forth a monster made of---well---Mr. Miller said clay. But either he hadn't spilled the whole truth or he was really ignorant. The golem's purpose had been to protect the rabbi and his synagogue. Instead it had gone mad and torn both to pieces. Untainted clay doesn't break like that.
Since the building didn't matter as much as the awakening, I said, "I need you to think. Once the golem was formed, did Rabbi Klein put a piece of parchment in its mouth?"
Council member Miller shook his head, his wrinkled throat wagging like a turkey's wattle. "He walked circles around it, chanting words I didn't understand. And then he stuck his thumb in the blood of a sacrificial lamb and wrote letters on its forehead."
"Okay, you've been very helpful." I led him toward the exit. "You can call the cops as soon as we leave. I just have to ask. Why did you phone us first?"
"Vayl was a friend of my mother's." The old man's eyes wavered away from mine. I blinked away the red haze that suddenly rimmed my eyes and ordered myself to listen. "He said if I ever needed him I should call. So..."
"I see." I turned away.
"He came to the funeral."
I looked back, surprised to find that only now had tears formed in the corners of his eyes. "Excuse me?"
"When my mother died, Vayl hadn't seen her in, oh, thirty years. He didn't have to come. And when he showed up, he was pale and limping, like he'd just been in a car wreck or some such thing. But he came anyway, looking just as young and handsome as he did when I was fifteen. Only by then I was forty-five." He squinted at me. "I don't care what he is, miss. He's always been good to me and mine. If anyone can save this temple, it's Vayl."
I nodded, finally understanding why Vayl had said he didn't want to talk to Abe Miller. Knowing my boss, he'd probably treated the boy like a son. He'd had to watch them bury Abe's mom, who he might've loved. And someday sooner rather than later, he'd follow the same routine for her kid. I was betting recruiters glossed over that little detail of the vampire experience when they went out looking for willing turnees.
I said, "Thank you, Mr. Miller. We'll be in touch."
I walked out of the synagogue, careful not to tread in the bloody footprints of Rabbi Klein's killer, telling myself not to be shaken by the fact that they were twice the size of my own. Joining Vayl at the base of the front door's access ramp, I said, "The carnage in there is epic. You were right about a golem. The rabbi brought it with the bloody forehead routine."
We stared at each other, silently rehearsing the coming battle. The word that Klein had spelled on the golem meant "life," but if we cut off a single letter, it became "death." So I knew Vayl was seeing the same visual as me. One well-timed swing of the sword sheathed in his cane and we could boogie back to Chicago.
"I may have found something out here as well," Vayl said. "Come. Take a look."
Moments later I was running back inside. "Mr. Miller!"
"Please, call me Abe."
"Did Rabbi Klein usually drive to work?"
"Yes."
"The only other vehicle in the lot outside is a beige Toyota pickup."
"That's mine." Abe scratched at his chin. "I know the rabbi's white Jetta was parked in his space when I got here."
"Well, it's gone now."
"All right." He looked at me blankly.
Dumbass. This is how men of God get transformed into chum.
"The golem must've taken it," I explained. "It'll want to find water soon." I waited for the light to turn on. It didn't. Which meant the rabbi had left him far too deep in the dummy cave. Which was no excuse. This dude was old enough to know he should've asked some pertinent questions.
Time for a lesson, Abe.
I said, "Golems need to live near water because they're constantly washing their hands. Having seen the damage this one caused, I can tell you it's gonna want to soak its digits for a while." I slowed down and tried to enunciate better so gramps couldn't plead I didn't know on my watch. "Where is your nearest lake or pond?"
"Oh! That would be in Berringwood Park."
\*
"Jasmine, I did not realize your Corvette was capable of going this slowly." Vayl's fingers, gliding smoothly across my dash, distracted me.
Wow, wouldn't that feel great against bare skin?
Concentrate, dammit.
I said, "It's perfectly legal to drive this far below the speed limit."
Despite suspecting his stare might be burning a hole in my temple, I kept my eyes on the road, an unlit stretch of asphalt winding between thick stands of trees that led to what had once been a private estate. Now it belonged to my alma mater, the University of Illinois. The school used the buildings for its own purposes but shared the grounds with the public. In college I'd been too busy trying to pass Advanced Demonology to visit them. Now I wished I'd come, even once. It would've been nice to feel like this was home turf during the upcoming battle.
If I'd thought silence would detour Vayl, I was wrong. He said, "Driving like your great-grandmother will not change the fact that your father was hit by a van. Or that you were not there to stop it." He paused. I felt him reach out to me, change his mind. "Albert will be fine."
"How do you know?"
"Because you looked so relieved when I arrived at his hospital room. Admit it, Jasmine. You were at the end of your patience with him."
I had to force myself to pull my nails out of the steering wheel cover as I remembered. "Would you believe that son of a bitch told his roommate, who is dying of cancer mind you, to cut out the snoring or he was going to rig the TV to broadcast everything in French? I wanted to crawl under the bed! Then he informed me that Shelby, his visiting nurse, gave him foot rubs every afternoon at five p.m. But since I was there instead I'd have to do the honors."
"Did you?" Vayl had leaned forward. Like he was entertained or something!
"Are you kidding? That old fart's probably got hooves! Do I look like a farrier to you?"
"Er, no." He paused long enough that I finally darted a look in his direction. Dammit! Did he have to do that half smile all the time? It made his lips look so...
Nibblicious?
Shut up!!
I pulled a poker chip out of my pocket and began turning it between my fingers. Just like that, I felt myself breathing easier. We'd kill this monster. Then we'd return to the hospital where my dad would recover, despite his age and the diabetes. Because Vayl and I were working this deal as a team. And we never lost. Ever.
But Albert was nearly killed while you were off in Iran playing with demons, I reminded myself. How can you not count that as a loss?
I had no answer for that one.
\*
Berringwood Park rolls across about two hundred acres of this-is-why-we-live-in-Illinois. Berringwood Manor sits on a putting green of a hill overlooking the dark blue waters of Sophia's Lake, but not so close as to breed familiarity. So while you could imagine a couple sitting on the veranda speaking to each other over the tops of their pinched noses, you couldn't visualize them or their kids running toward the swimming area, shucking off their shoes, and screaming encouraging statements to each other like, "Last one in's a rotten egg!"
Refined restraint hadn't saved them, though. In the end they'd died, leaving a son with barely enough drive to set foot off the estate. So nobody was surprised when he kicked, too, leaving no heirs to the plantation-style house, the gardens that surrounded it, or that placid azure lake backed by a pine forest so thick even the deer hesitated to wander in it too far for fear of never finding their way out again.
As I drove toward the enormous white building, whose pillars and balconies nicely disguised the fact that it had been repurposed for use as a retreat and lecture center, I said, "Vayl? You called Pete, yes?"
"Of course."
"You told him to evacuate the grounds."
"He vowed instant movement."
"That's the problem," I said, my eyes tracking around the parking lot that led to the raised patio, which abutted a wraparound back porch. "I don't see any."
Judging by the angles of some of the vehicles in the lot, people had tried to leave, but few had made it. Definitely not the guy who'd plowed into one of the spruces growing along its south end. Maybe the folks who'd collided right behind him. But I doubted it.
I pulled into the lot just far enough to turn around and let my Vette settle on the shoulder. Locking it seemed a little paranoid until I recalled that the golem had managed to get himself here on four wheels, and I'd be damned if he left in mine.
Speaking of which... "Vayl." I pointed. Rabbi Klein's Jetta had been driven down an asphalt path and up the three steps that gave access to the patio. Well...partway. The little car had disagreed with the whole notion of stairs, blown both front tires, dumped its rear bumper, and expired with its front rims digging into the top step like a mountaineer stuck on a cliff face. Oil trickled from underneath its back tires like blood.
The French doors that led into the house, torn from their hinges and thrown into a couple of the wrought-iron benches that decorated the patio, marked the golem's passage. I said, "Do you think it's still in there?"
Vayl had been striding around the parking lot, searching vehicles. "We should check. I only see parts of people out here, so I doubt anyone inside survived. But---"
A scream. From the other side of the lake.
Vayl held his hand out to me. Already I could feel his powers swirling like snowflakes around my head. I locked my fingers in his and we ran, hunting the monster who was chasing down a defenseless woman.
\*
We found it crouching beside one of the streams that fed the lake. Washing its hands. The water pooled at its feet before cruising over a series of rocks so smooth, women had been trying to emulate their soft curves for centuries. Tendrils of blood crawled onto those rocks before the stream pounded them away.
Goddammit! We're too late! I shoved my hand into my right pocket and withdrew the long knife I kept sheathed there.
The golem hadn't seen us yet. About time we caught a break. Vayl's camouflage worked on Claymation, but it would only help me while I stood among the trees that lined the stream, within his sphere of influence. Which was about to disappear.
He motioned for me to stay where I was, standing across the water maybe twenty feet from the golem, with nothing between us but a couple of sugar maples, some prickle bushes, a few saplings, and a fallen tree that had been dead so long it was more compost than log.
I watched Rabbi Klein's creation try to cleanse itself while Vayl moved into position. Even crouched, the creature looked intimidating, a hulking piece of mountain shaped into a man outline. Its lack of eyeballs, nostrils, or a mouth opening made it seem more like a mud slide victim than a serial killer, until I caught sight of the red letters slashed across its forehead. They moved, expanding and contracting like parasitic slugs.
When the golem pulled its hands out of the water and went listening-for-noises still, I didn't wait to see what had caught its attention. Vayl's success depended on my ability to distract the son of a bitch. And I knew just how to do it.
"Hey!" I stepped forward, hiding my weapon behind my back.
The golem rose to its feet. Damn, it was fast. And big. Like tall enough to dunk a basketball without jumping, broad enough to fill a doorway and take big chunks out of the trim. And though its hands dripped clear water, its chest, arms, and legs were splattered with blood and gore.
Its head turned, as if it was scanning the area, making me wonder how it located its victims until I spoke up again. "I'm over here, Gumby. Come and get me. Or are you afraid to play with girls who fight back?"
The blood letters jumped like blipping sonar and he turned, zoning in on me as if he could see every detail, from the black leather jacket that covered my Rabid Rabbits T-shirt to my oldest jeans, the ones I'd worn because they were just tight enough to piss my dad off. I rose on the balls of my feet, wishing I'd switched my running shoes for the black boots I usually wore. If this sucker stomped my foot in the melee to come, I'd be the one tapping down the sidewalks with Vayl's cane from now on.
The noise the golem made rattled my eardrums, a mouthless howl that reached through my chest, circled my spine, and shook me. I brought out my knife and tried not to gasp as the creature stepped into the water, giving me line of sight to its latest kill, which lay in the brush behind it.
He'd torn her in half. Her torso lay on its side, her eyes staring into mine, empty as jewelry glass. But her expression didn't let me off the hook. I flinched from the agony. Did my best to ignore the flesh and bone scattered around the blood-soaked ground below her waist like the remains of a lion's feast.
I took a firm grip on my bolo as the monster rushed me, branches snapping at its approach. "I'm gonna destroy you," I growled, measuring its reach as it came. I'd have to be quick. Strike and move if I didn't want to lose vital parts.
When Vayl leaped in front of the golem, I felt actual disappointment. The girl's death stare had made this fight personal, but now my role was over. I watched my boss twist the blue gem at his cane's tip, saw the tigers a long-dead artist had carved into its body take flight as the sheath shot into the golem's chest.
It batted the missile aside like a horse swatting flies.
Vayl sprang forward, his movements so quick they were nearly a blur. The golem's bellow, though it sounded like it came from the bottom of a well, signaled a hit. When my boss stepped back, I expected the rabbi's creation to hit its knees because Vayl had sliced away a full quarter of its skull, including the section that held the key letter.
The golem staggered and backhanded Vayl, sending him flying into a thicket of thorns that wrapped around him like man-eating vines.
What the f--- No time to finish the thought. It was coming for me. Still functioning...because the letters that should've spelled death had disappeared from its forehead. In the space of time it took for the golem to close the distance between us, the librarian in my head bustled to her counter to tick off a few key facts.
Ahem, she said as she made a fractional adjustment to her cat's-eye glasses. The "life" rune is now located on the golem's bicep. Such a transfer, which happens when the golem is in danger of being vanquished, causes it immense pain during the act and chronic pain in between. But, of course, allows it a certain level of invincibility. It also requires special skills to initiate. Rabbi Klein was no amateur. In addition, I can see bone sticking out from the monster's wound. Skull fragments, to be exact, along with...ewww! Are those maggots? No wonder the creature is demented. Not only is it suffering constant pain, its shell is molded around a rotting corpse! You try to stay sane under such circumstances!
I gave her a mental glare. We are not sympathizing with the lady shredder. Got it?
Yes.
Good. Now duck!
I hit the ground, rolling between the golem's widespread legs as it came at me. The second I was behind it, I kicked, my heel landing hard behind its knee. It went down like a logger's dream. But it came back up as quickly as I could stand.
I slashed at it, but only succeeded in spilling a fresh load of maggots from its forearm because its reach was just too long. I couldn't get inside it without taking major damage.
The golem charged me. For a second I thought I hadn't reacted fast enough, it was that quick. I felt its shoulder brush the back of my jacket as I darted out of its path. We spun to face each other again, and I suddenly realized this must be what a matador feels like, facing down thousands of pounds of fury with little more than a cape, athleticism, and an uncanny sense of where not to be three seconds from now.
"But the hat is so not my style. And I'd look like a tractor trailer in those pants," I said.
The golem paused and cocked its head sideways like it was listening. But probably not to me because Vayl had risen to his feet, and he was gathering his powers like a general masses his troops.
The ring Vayl had given me sent a shower of heat up my arm, across my shoulder and chest, and down my torso. I glanced his way. He nodded once. I pressed my lips together. Orders were orders, even if they had to be interpreted from the other side of a clearing. I backed up, letting Vayl become the distracter while I got busy with my bolo.
Vayl and the golem faced each other, centuries of finely honed skill against new, raw power. I shoved up the sleeve of my jacket, hoping my professors had been right about what I was about to attempt. Because if it didn't work, I knew that no matter how the battle between vampire and golem ended, the winner would probably wish he was dead before dawn.
They collided like a couple of locomotives. Vayl's sword flashed. Skin split, but the rune skipped to another location before it could be severed.
I sliced into my forearm. Blood rose in a stinging stream.
The golem grabbed Vayl's arms with both massive hands and tried to tear them from his body, but my boss fought free and delivered another sword stroke. As fast as he could strike, the letters that instilled life were faster. They reappeared on the monster's ankle, stretching up its leg like a holographic tattoo as it leaped to its feet.
I swiped my first three fingers through my blood. "Throw him over here, Vayl!"
Snort of irritation. "He is not a beanbag!" He closed on the creature again, locking arms with it like a heavyweight wrestler. They pulled and shoved, moving in a tight circle, neither gaining a sure advantage. Vayl's muscles bulged as he strained for control. The golem moaned from deep in its throat. A sudden move threw the golem off balance, and it hit the ground. Vayl slashed at its ankle. Even slow motion wouldn't have shaken off the blur. But the runes beat him again.
I knelt down. Avoiding the ick that seeped from the creature's head wound, I drew three new letters across its forehead and jumped back as its eyes snapped open.
"Jasmine!" I'd never heard such horror in Vayl's voice. "What have you done?"
For a second my ears rang, though nobody had slammed a gong. Because the golem's eyes were green, exactly like mine.
I sucked in a breath, looked up, and met the gaze of the dead girl.
"Jaz," I whispered, reading the new rune I'd written. "Obey me. Serve me. Live for me," I chanted, understanding that the command wouldn't work like it was originally meant to because the golem was already crazed. Still, all we needed was a permanent rune.
Vayl pulled me away from the creature just as it reached for my neck, its crushing blow barely missing my throat.
"Kill it!" I said.
"I could never..." Vayl gave me an anguished frown. "It is yours now. Part of you."
"The worst part. Christ, Vayl." I grabbed his sword. The golem had leaped to its feet and begun tearing at its ears, like it was a little kid who couldn't stand hearing its parents argue. But I figured the sounds it heard were coming from inside what was left of its head: warring commands demanding violence, but only within specific parameters that the golem's rotting framework couldn't---or wouldn't---accept.
I shoved the sword through my name into clay, bone, reeking flesh. The golem and I both screamed, its protest an echo of the pain I felt piercing my head. We went to our knees. I couldn't see anymore, but I didn't care. One more push, and the pain ended.
Vayl pulled me back. The sword came with me. My sight returned in time for me to see the monster fall. To watch its shell crack, releasing a flood of maggots. I sighed.
Good. It's done.
I felt myself lifted. Spun. Ruh-roh. Da boss looks pissed.
"That was not the plan," Vayl said.
"You sent me one of your ring-tickling messages! You nodded!"
"Of course I did! I nodded for you to get out of the way so I could finish it off!"
"I thought you wanted me to do it!"
Frustrated sigh. "I had everything under control, Jasmine."
"Yeah, you were doing a great job---missing the rune every time you swiped at it."
"That was just my initial tactic. Had that failed, I would have torn the golem limb from limb."
"Like it did its victims?"
"Sometimes that is a clue as to how a creature can be vanquished."
"Why do you always end up sounding like a stodgy old professor?"
"Stodgy?" He pulled me close. His words dropped onto my lips as he said, "Far from it, my avhar. I am constantly afire. And afraid. And amazed. For you. You...make me feel...too much." He stepped back, but I recognized that red glint in his eyes.
"You're pissed off, too."
"We rarely confuse our communications. So, yes, I am. We must work to correct that before one of us is seriously hurt." He stared at the dead girl, but I knew he was imagining me in her place.
"Okay," I said. "Look at me." He dragged his eyes to mine. "Think about something you really want to do." I held up my hand as his dimple appeared. "Something within reason." When his hands moved down my arms and his lips quirked, I knew he had it. "Okay, now tell me. Don't say it out loud, just tell me."
I studied his face, the angles and planes that had become more familiar to me than my own. When his eyes lightened and I saw the glint of fang, I knew. "You're shitting me."
"What?"
"You want to drive my car?"
His brows lifted, but the sparkle brightened in his eyes. "It is quite a beauty." I saw more there that he wasn't ready to say, that it wasn't time for me to hear. And I began to smile. Only three people had ever driven my Vette: Gramps Lew, Matt, and me.
I dug the keys out of my pocket and laid them in his hand. "Be gentle. She's a classic, you know."
His fingers closed around the keys as he smiled down at me. "I will treat her like a queen."
An Evening for Vayl and Jaz
Cassandra, this is an emergency!" My phone beeped. Crap! Why do they put so many buttons on the side when they know sometimes you need to squeeze it like a stress ball? I probably just texted Dave's flight arrangements to the head of the FBI.
"Jaz? Do you know what time it is?"
"You're a freaking psychic! I figured you'd be waiting up for my call!"
"Which is about what?"
I blew my breath out of my nose and ran my eyes around the hotel room one more time, like the antique desk or the handwoven rug might jump up and accuse me of the very crime I was trying to avoid. "Clothes, Cassandra! Jeez, can't you tell when I'm desperate?"
"Ummm."
"Are you falling asleep on me?"
"It's four in the morning!"
"Well, I'm sorry! It's only eight p.m. here, and Vayl wants to treat me to dinner to celebrate our success, and we're in this don't-touch-our-stuff hotel so you know the dining room is going to be full of tuxedos and gowns, and all I have to wear are some blood-spattered pants or a dress that only a dog could love. I'm being literal about that, by the way. If I don't get something decent to wear, I'm pretty sure the luxury police are going to throw me in a deep, dark dungeon where they only feed you pizza and beer. Which would be fine by me. Except I'm flying out of Patras tomorrow, and if I miss my plane, Pete will have a stroke."
"Is this what happens when you have a breakdown?"
"Are you laughing? Because this isn't funny!"
"I would never laugh at you, Jaz. You carry a gun."
I sat on the bed at the edge because the spread looked to have been embedded with genuine gold threads, and I was afraid if I mussed it, I'd be liable. Damn Vayl for always having to check us into ooh-la-la-land! "Come on, Cassandra. Hold the phone really tight, and tell me you can see exactly what I should be wearing tonight and where the hell I can find it within the next hour."
"I don't get visions over the phone."
Despite the risk to my bank account, I fell back on the bed. "Then I'm doomed."
"No, you're not. Put on your bloodstained pants, go downstairs to one of the elite boutiques the hotel probably runs, and buy something beautiful."
"How will I know it's right for me?" I knew I sounded desperate, but at this point, I didn't care. When you're out of your element, it's past time to call in the pros. "I have no clue about these things, Cassandra. Evie's always the one who tells me if the outfit looks okay or if I should hang it back up before somebody puts me in a slasher movie. Seriously, I never would've bought that dress in Corpus Christi if you hadn't told me it would go great with my hair."
I heard a very unladylike sound. "Cassandra! Are you snoring?"
"I don't snore! Look, follow these rules and you'll be fine: Spend more money than you think you can afford, try a style you wouldn't normally wear, and ask the first man you see what he thinks. Don't listen to his words; look into his eyes. If you get the wow-baby stare, buy it."
"What if he's gay?"
"Even better."
Long pause while I tried hard not to let on how much I wanted the next twenty minutes to be over.
"Jasmine?"
"Yeah?"
"Take Grief with you."
"Really? You think it's okay to do that?"
"The way you sound, I think it's vital. Just, you know, don't shoot the salesgirl."
"I can do that." I felt a lot better when we hung up, even though I thought I heard Cassandra mutter something about Dave's crazy family before she had completely severed her connection. Well, hey, she had to figure it out sooner or later. Better that I should ease her into it than she should get the quick and dirty from my aunt Frank.
\*
Vayl stood in the lobby of the Iliad, waiting for Jasmine to appear while diamond-studded people to whom she would refer as the lipo clique filed past him on their way to fulfilling yet another sensual pleasure. He found himself gritting his teeth until he tasted blood. Jasmine, what is keeping you?
He licked his lips and dropped his gaze to the floor, forcing his eyes to follow the intricate pattern of red petals on honey-gold carpeting. Plush softness beneath his feet. Mirrors on the walls reflecting the finest beauty that cosmetic surgery could create. Gleaming counters behind which worked the most obsequious clerks imaginable---the kind whom Vayl had always promised himself would someday wait upon his desires. And before the tall glass windows, elephantine planters bursting with red and yellow blooms.
Once he would have found immense satisfaction in these surroundings. Now he could barely force himself to stand in one place. It was as if the centuries had swept away and he was a young man again, his entire being directed toward the conquest of a single woman. Except this time he was old enough to know the difference between pretense and reality.
He felt her just before the elevator doors opened, Cirilai and their blood bond sending him a sense of her anxiety at the tightness of her enclosure. It did not explain the level of her stress, but he preferred not to guess at the other source right now. Instead, he wished to celebrate her building excitement and the fact that she felt no physical discomfort. The doctor had pronounced her collarbone fracture minor, one that could easily heal within four to six weeks. He had prescribed painkillers that Vayl made her promise to take and immobilized her arm. But not in the sling she currently wore. This one came in cream to match the most elegant gown he had ever seen gracing her slender curves.
Vayl strode toward her, the orchids he had brought hanging forgotten at his side. He ached for her to find him among the other black-suited gentlemen. Surely if they were truly meant to be, her eyes would inevitably track to his. And yet, he would not begrudge himself this moment to feast upon the sight of her fiery hair, drawn up in a curly crown, to draw in the picture of her long slender neck standing proud above her strong shoulders.
His eyes wandered lower to the soft folds of her dress, which molded to her breasts in a way that made his throat ache. The skirt flowed away from her rib cage in a fashion so reminiscent of older days he suspected that if he glanced outside, he would see a line of coaches waiting for their owners to return, happy and well fed, ready for their slow ride home.
Such a fragile beauty had his Jasmine, and yet Vayl knew that under that skirt, strapped to a thigh he often dreamed of stroking, was her small-caliber handgun. Just as well did he know that the reason she wore low-heeled sandals was so she would be able to give chase if the situation called for such a response. And in the pearl-strap bag hanging from her good shoulder was not just her room key, but also Grief, because she found the weapon so difficult to leave behind.
Her eyes found his, widening slightly as she recognized him, her sverhamin, among the glittering strangers. His heart swelled as she came to him, oblivious to the stares her beauty elicited from other men. He wanted to shout with joy because her smile, nearly as rare as his own, lit her face only for him. But decades of living among the Vampere could not be shrugged away. When your slightest emotions can be used to manipulate you, you learn to protect them like American presidents. And so Vayl schooled his face to reflect serenity as she closed the distance between them, though he could not stop his feet from rushing toward her. They met beside a painting awash with color, the artist of which had gained national renown within the past decade.
"Spiffy!" she said, tugging at his lapel with her free hand as she grinned. "You look like James Bond. Only, you know, without the suggestive eyebrow wiggle."
It took every bit of his self-control to stand still underneath her touch, to respond with the merest ghost of a smile. "Thank you, I think. You look lovely. Your dress..." He shook his head. "Fantastic."
"What, this old thing?" She looked down at herself, nearly succeeding in hiding a triumphant grin. "Thanks." She went on, "What's with the lobby meet? I figured, you know, since the restaurant's on the top floor, you'd want to get together up there."
Excellent! She has no inkling of the plans I have made! And she calls herself a spy!
Since his lie supported a good cause, it rolled easily off his tongue. "Our reservation is not for some time, so I thought perhaps you would like to take a drive first. We so rarely get to explore the cities we visit."
"Oh. Sure."
He offered her his arm and sensed her surprise and pleasure when he led her to the shining white limousine parked in front of the hotel.
"Vayl," she whispered. "Does this one have a TV?"
"Jasmine, I believe this one even has a foot massager."
She pulled the lace-inlaid hem of her dress up to consider the straps of her sandals. Then she nodded decisively. "Cool."
\*
All thoughts of HBO and toe rubs dropped from my mind as Vayl slid into the limo beside me. I wanted to groove on the fact that a vehicle designed to move bodies from one location to another could also contain a snow cone machine. But he kept looking at me with those bottomless-well eyes, reminding me so clearly of our last kiss that my lips ached. I ran my tongue across them, trying to ease the burn, but that just made things worse. He went still, his attention riveted on my mouth. I felt him jerk, like he'd tried to move toward me and then yanked himself back. If that was the case, I knew why. Because I'd already told him.
I cleared my throat, waiting until his eyes rose to mine before I said, "So, you're still planning on going to Romania? To...settle things?"
"Yes." His accent, usually so slight that even linguists had a hard time placing his roots, began to thicken as he spoke---a sure sign that he was repressing some pretty intense emotions. "I will not be accompanying you back to America, and I do not know when I will return. We could be apart for some time."
"Oh." I looked out the window. We were passing a historically significant church that neither of us commented on. So much for the sights. "Of course. Do what you need to do." Without me? Really? I thought---
As if he could read my mind he said, "Please forgive my need for solitude. I cannot explain it. Only know that I will think of you every day." He reached out, his fingers brushing Cirilai, rolling the ring on my finger until his entire hand covered mine. "And know that part of me walks with you always."
I looked up, only to realize he had leaned in much closer than I'd thought. "Will you miss me?" I asked.
His lips twitched. "You are my avhar. When we are apart, it feels as if half of my soul is gone. That is why we must make tonight special. One for the yearbook." His eyebrows twisted. "Or is it scrapbook?"
"I dunno," I replied. "I never kept either one." As his fingers dipped into my hair and his thumb caressed the worry lines on my forehead, I wanted to let my head fall back onto the cool black leather of the seat. But I held myself steady as he said, "No, I do not suppose you would. All of your memories must be locked in this wondrous mind of yours, yes? And I have made it my goal to surpass every one."
I pulled in a deep breath. In the time it took for me to exhale, my inner bimbo howled cynically and the part of me that would always belong to Matt muttered, Like hell! But the word that sighed across my lips was, "Oh."
Vayl sat back, dropping both hands to his lap, which was when I said, "You don't have your cane!"
"No. I surmised the odds against swordplay tonight were rather astronomical. So I left it in my room."
"But...you always bring your cane along."
"We are always working."
"I'm armed!"
Again with the barely smile, this one more wicked than the last. "Then perhaps I must disarm you. Shall I start with my first surprise?"
"Uh."
He nodded toward the window that divided us from the chauffeur. "If you were to look out the front of the car, you would see we were driving into the countryside."
I got his drift right away. "You mean I spent two months' rent on a new dress for nothing?"
His eyes swept over me, and this time I didn't have to guess what he thought of my outfit. His reaction was worth every penny. "Oh no, my pretera, not for nothing. I have a most elegant evening planned for us."
And that was it. Despite my badgering, he wouldn't say another word until the car stopped fifteen minutes later, at which time I was so frustrated by my lack of solving-the-mystery progress that I refused to exit the car.
"Why are you so angry?" he asked as he sat, his fingers primed to unlatch the door.
"I don't like not knowing what's going on!" I exclaimed.
"What is the point of a surprise then?"
"They suck!"
"Not when you are with me."
"I don't know that."
He held out his free hand. "Then you are about to learn." His voice had deepened, the way it did when he'd had enough of my bullshit and he wanted me to figure out the lesson he was trying to teach now.
Come on, Jaz. You've jumped into a lot of unknowns with him during missions, and he's never yet let you down. It's just one evening. Just a sweet memory he wants to add to balance out all the horrific ones. Give him a chance.
I slipped my fingers into his.
\*
Vayl hid his delight at the feel of Jasmine's hand in his own. He knew how close she stood to passion's edge, how easily he could make her fall. As well, he understood the price of breaking her trust. Only that allowed him to control his own will-battering desires, to let her go the moment she emerged from the limousine, leaving the flowers he had brought her safe on the seat for their return trip.
She looked about, no doubt fixing the most likely locations for an ambush clear in her mind. "Where are we?" she asked, her gaze encompassing the glade with its pleasing plantings of olive trees surrounding a structure so old it had grown its own aura. He knew she had already deduced the best ways to defend or destroy the building, depending on their situation. Now if he could only get her to see it through his eyes.
Vayl swept his hand around the clearing, which was nestled in an elbow of Mount Panachaikon. He turned her attention to the gas lamps hanging from strategically placed metal hooks, hoping she also noted the beauty of the burnished white columns topped by a cylindrical roof, all of which was reflected in the clear blue pool that stood before the building's entrance.
"This was once a shrine to Aphrodite, but some time before I came to Patras, those who had made it their life's work to stamp out the old gods pulled it apart. They desecrated the temple with blood and fire, leaving little more than a shell. But their destruction allowed one such as myself to walk the temple's length and breadth without fear of burning." He glanced at her, wondering if he risked her laughter now, but their relationship would never cement itself if they could not share these secrets. He took a breath. "I fell in love. I found the landowner, paid him twice the value of the land, and rebuilt. It became my sanctuary."
She did not mock him. Only let her piercing eyes stare deep into his before moving them, more slowly this time, around the ancient site. She nodded slowly. "I've always wondered what it would be like to find a special place. You know, one you really felt you belonged to. Is it nice?"
His heart leaped. Ahh, Jasmine, I should have known you would at least try to understand. "I always imagined it was like a loving mother's embrace."
She nodded. "Or maybe a granny's."
"Indeed." He led her past the pool up four marble steps to a pair of plain, whitewashed doors. Above them, artists had added moldings that depicted men in chariots racing across the beaches of Patras, Vayl explained, celebrating the birth of their goddess with a day of fellowship and competition.
He paused to add, almost as an afterthought, "I have never brought anyone here before."
Her quick intake of breath told him how much that meant to her. "Why not?"
"I never met anyone worthy of the secret until now." He threw the doors open. "Welcome to my Patras home."
Her sigh upon stepping over his threshold warmed him as only Jasmine's utterings could. He saw his refurbished temple through her eyes: the floor of dark-stained pine covered by a series of rugs in intricate patterns the artist had called his blue immortal set; an arrangement of couches and chairs upholstered in sumptuous white velvet, surrounded by tables and shelves stacked with well-worn books, was made cozy by three false walls formed of ceiling-to-floor indigo curtains.
"I gotta see," she said, moving to their right, where the curtains did not quite meet the wall.
"Of course." He followed her into the bedroom, where he had slept safe from Trust intrigue from the moment he had devised a foolproof security system. She pointed to the bed with its lumpy mattress, red-wine coverlet, and wrought-iron headboard.
"Just you?" she asked.
"Always."
She nodded. "I can see why."
He made a mental note to call a local designer the following evening. "Would you like to see the rest?" he asked.
"Yup."
He took her out through another break in the curtains behind the living room, where a serving cart laden with covered dishes sat beside a dining table for two. It had been covered with a white cloth, set with silver, sparkling crystal, and red roses. Against the real wall to the table's right, burnished cabinetry held fine china and cooking utensils while upgraded appliances in stainless steel hummed a quiet undertone to the music that had begun playing the moment she entered the dining room.
"Do you like it?" he asked, trying to mask a sudden anxiety. Perhaps she would not appreciate his efforts to spare her the discomfort restaurants always gave her.
She raised her eyebrows as she scanned the room and nodded. "Pretty. Nope, I think I mean beautiful." She turned to him. "And we don't have to sit with our backs to the wall or worry about rug rats running into the line of fire. So I have to say I'm stoked about the whole deal."
He lowered his eyes so she would miss the rush of triumph that tempted him to pump a fist in the air the way her friend Cole sometimes did. Instead, he gestured toward another curtain opening that revealed an actual door. "Shall we complete the tour?"
When she opened it, she laughed. "When did you put in the bathroom? I mean, it's like something out of a magazine!" She stepped in to run her hand over the gold faucets, the dark blue tile. "Wait a minute. Two sinks? I thought you'd never brought anyone else here?" When she turned to him, her eyes snapped, whiplike, aiming for his soul. He wondered how many men had felt their sting.
"I do not lie to you, Jasmine." He heard the sternness in his own voice and wondered once more if he had missed his calling. Perhaps he should have spent his human days as a schoolmaster. "Come into the next room. I do not know if you will believe me, but you should at least allow me the courtesy of an explanation."
Pressing her lips together, she followed him out of the bathroom, through the living room, and into another partitioned space. This one held an enormous concrete bowl full of clear water that eddied in a slow circle as if some invisible chef stirred it. "It is set over a spring," Vayl explained. "I built the bench that surrounds it. The columns on which the urns stand were original to the building." He directed her attention to the corners of the room, but she would not be distracted from the statue that dominated the east wall.
"Who's that?" she asked.
"It is Aphrodite. I knew I risked a great deal bringing her likeness into her former abode. But I felt she had blessed it in some way. So I gave her this room. And in return..." He paused. If Jasmine did not believe him, he knew that nothing would ever be the same between them.
She did not demand, but simply waited for him to continue. He sank onto the bench, watching her discreetly as she gazed upon the goddess. "When the dawn comes, I know no more. I do not dream. Nor plan. It is as if I cease to exist until I rise at dusk. It has always been thus. Except for one night, when she came to me." He nodded toward the statue.
Jasmine turned to him then. "You...had a vision?"
"I remember it more as a visitation. Aphrodite was pleased that the temple had been raised, even if it no longer brought worshippers to her knees. Because of this, she told me something that changed my life forever."
"What was it?"
Vayl fixed his gaze on Jasmine, willing her to listen, although he knew his powers held no sway. "She said I would meet a woman with hair the color of flame who would make my heart burn anew. She predicted that together we would save the world, and in so doing, rescue one another. She may even bring you redemption, my Vampere friend, but you must do your part as well. Love only works when it is fully embraced, she told me softly before she left."
"How..." Jasmine cleared her throat. "How can you be sure it was her? The goddess, I mean. It could've been, you know, a demon or something."
Vayl shrugged. "When I woke, my skin was steaming. And later, as I bathed, I discovered a dolphin, one of her symbols, branded upon the inside of my thigh. I would show you but"---he smiled---"we have not even had our appetizers yet."
His heart unclenched and began to beat double-time when she responded to the wickedness in his tone with a chuckle. "You're lucky she didn't burn off your eyebrows. What if they'd grown back all bushy and gray?"
"Indeed, I am fortunate."
"Don't you forget it!"
He shook his head resolutely. "Never."
\*
At first I thought the shrill ringing in my ear was the fire alarm. Goddammit, Miles has blown up the kitchen again! Then I realized I wasn't back in college. I had been sleeping, but this wasn't a dream, either. Which meant Albert or Evie was about to find out how sincerely I meant, "Don't call me early on flight day unless Godzilla has just eaten through your roof!"
I shot up in bed, the red silk sheets sliding onto the floor to join the carefully folded bedspread as I yelled, "Don't let the monster eat the baby!" Then I realized how ridiculous that sounded. As if Godzilla would make it clear to Indy without the Marines shoving a nuke up its ass. Plus E.J. had her own innate powers of protection. Still, I found my phone and flipped it open.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing! I just wanted to know how your evening went!"
If I'd been a cartoon, the artists would've hit slo-mo so the audience could see my brains explode into a pink cloud and then reassemble themselves in the shape of a question mark above my head. "Cassandra? Nobody has this number. How'd you get it? Did Albert give it to you? I'm gonna slide a pipe wrench around that old fart's head and twist until---"
"No! Nothing like that. You called me from this number. At four in the morning as I recall," she replied, laying on the syrup thick enough so that I knew she was up to no good.
"Yeah, and you gave me great advice. The dress was a big hit."
"That's what I wanted to hear. Go on."
"What do you mean, go on? It's freaking three a.m.!"
"Really? How could that be? It's only about eleven here. Almost time for lunch. What are you having?"
"Huh?"
"For lunch?"
"This is a revenge call, isn't it?"
Short pause, during which I could hear her covering the mouthpiece, but not well enough to muffle the laughter. "Your date's over. I helped you dress for it. So now I get my reward. I want every detail. Backwards. Did he kiss you good night?"
I rescued my sheets, already getting good at the one-armed work, although the twinge in my shoulder told me the pain meds were about to expire. I rearranged the covers, lumpy but leg warming, so I could have a few seconds to wake up, stew, decide if I really wanted to be friends with Cassandra, or if I could cut the connection and make up some wild story about a brownie incursion when the recriminations finally caught up to me. I sighed. "No, I think he knew better than to kiss me." Because if he had, in Aphrodite's old temple, could either of us have stopped there?
"Aww."
"Jeez, Cassandra, we're not even, you know."
"No, I don't know."
I blew a frustrated breath out through my nose. "Me neither. His place was amazing, though." I described it to her, encouraged by her squeals of delight to lay on the detail.
"So what did you eat?"
I tried to remember. "Seafood, I think. Yeah, some kind of fish. I remember butter."
She snorted. "I'll bet you were too busy looking deep into his eyes, saying things like, 'Oh Vayl, I have waited so long for your touch.' Don't deny it. Deep down you're a big sap."
She laughed as I made gagging sounds. "Nah. We just, we were so busy talking. God, I thought I'd traveled. But he's been freaking everywhere! Have you even heard of Nmbuuti?" Pause while she waited for me to figure out the obvious. "Okay, well, considering your age you probably have. Which means you and I could spend a week at the beach and never even put a dent in your stories."
"True," she admitted. "So...you just talked?"
"Yeah. Lame, huh?"
"Well, I was hoping it would be so good you'd have to censor it for me. But this is better. You know what it means, don't you?"
"That he really should get out more?"
"No! That your personalities are compatible!"
"We already knew that. You can't assassinate bad guys on a regular basis without getting along with your partner. Surrounded with all the stuff that goes slice, dice, and boom? It's just too easy to kill each other if you don't."
"That's not what I---never mind. Too bad about the kiss, though."
"Yeah. Maybe next time. You know, if there is one."
"If?"
"Well, he's flying to Romania pretty soon, so we didn't really make plans. And he's still...there's a lot...it's complicated."
"What isn't with you?"
"True."
We talked a while longer, and then Cassandra took pity and hung up. I'd just dozed off again when Cirilai gave warning just before a tap at the door woke me fully. Though I knew who stood outside, I took Grief with me. Because you never knew.
Vayl looked old-school dashing, wearing his black leather duster, his cane held in one hand, while his suitcase stood at his side. "I am on my way to the airport." His eyes did a slow Jaz tour. "Do you always sleep in a man's T-shirt?" His eyes hardened. "And what man gave it to you?"
"It's mine. I get them big on purpose. And yeah, I usually do. They're comfy. Why are you here?"
He stood so still he might've been posing for a tintype photograph. "I like your hair when it is mussed from sleep. It makes you look...hopeful."
I felt my brows start to cross. If this got any weirder, I was going to test my boss for doppelgängers. "I am hopeful...that I'm going to get some sleep before my flight," I snapped.
"Then I shall not keep you any longer. I simply realized I had forgotten something earlier, and I could not fly away without it." He looked over my shoulder, as if he'd left it in my room, so I turned to do a quick search myself.
"I don't know what it could've been. You weren't even here---"
"Jasmine." My name, like music when spoken in his husky baritone, pulled me back around. "Kiss me good-bye."
My toes curled into the carpet as he reached for me. I leaned into his arms, my lips already throbbing as they met his. Thought stopped. Time melted. And maybe the outcome of that mind-bending touch would've been different if I'd already invited him across my threshold. But I hadn't. So when I came up for air, he stepped back.
I leaned against the doorjamb, gasping like a marathon runner. We stared at each other, speaking without words, our wishes written clearly on our faces.
"Wait for me," he said. Before I could respond, he turned away.
I didn't watch him leave. I closed the door and went back to bed. If I couldn't have him there with me, maybe I could dream of him. I ran my fingers through my hair, throwing a few more tangles into the mix. I could always hope.
Paul and Brady Get Hoodoo with the Voodoo
How do I look?" Paul's hands shot out straight from his sides, and he began to take tiny, little circle steps so Brady could get the full effect before commenting. Since becoming his roommate, Paul had learned that Brady could be depended on for a lot, but fashion tips were always right at the top of the list.
Brady said, "You look nervous, okay? I haven't even parked my bike yet! Hang on. This darned kickstand will never just---oh, there. Wait, spin the other way. Yes, just as I thought." He picked a piece of road dust from Paul's lily-white shirt, tightened the knot on his tie, and said, "Fix your hair. Oh, and I don't think she'll be very impressed by that, either." He pointed to the clip that kept the right leg of Paul's trousers from flapping into his bicycle chain.
"Oh! Right." Paul pulled off the clip and shoved it in his pocket before smoothing down his unruly, brown hair. Brady's hair, blond and limp as that cheerleader they'd found in the lobby after the first home game, didn't need flattening. He just shook his head the way he did now when he wanted to "fluff the do" and waited until Paul said, "Now?"
"You're fine." Brady's expression said he wasn't so sure about the neighborhood. "This is the right address?"
Paul checked his map. "One-twelve East Locust, yes, that's what she told me."
Brady looked up and down the street. "Somehow I thought a voodoo queen would live in something a little more...palatial."
They stood next to a long metal fence through which they could see tall weeds waving cheerfully, like kids playing hooky from school. Beyond the neglected lawn squatted a building that reminded Paul more of a frog than a house. All that green, he guessed. Siding, shutters, trim, even the shingles on the roof were the color of pond scum.
"Maybe she's not actually a queen," Paul ventured. "I mean, this is Wisconsin. Maybe she's more of a...CEO."
"We could ask," Brady suggested.
"Only if she has time. She's probably pretty busy." They nodded at each other wisely, and then Brady went to the rusty old gate.
"Wait!" Paul patted himself down. "Okay, I remembered to bring the money." Thank goodness Mom and Daddy still gave him a weekly allowance, or he'd never be able to afford to pay Voodoo Queen (or maybe CEO) Vicky to do the job.
Brady, his hand already on the latch, a handkerchief guarding against the germs his Sweet Mama Jo had warned him were like ninjas that would kill him in his sleep, said, "Calm down! You look fine. You're here ten minutes early. You've got the money. What could go wrong?"
Paul sighed. Nothing, of course, especially not when he was in the company of the best-dressed freshman from Wisconsin University State School ever. It was a real pleasure to share a dorm at WUSS with a trendsetter like Brady. Today, despite the heat of the mid-September afternoon, he'd chosen to wear a black suit coat over his baby-blue dress shirt. The red tie, he said, was for energy, as were the red pants. The best part was his signature tube socks, pulled up high to his knee and then carefully rolled down to the tops of his steel-toed boots, which he kept in pristine condition. Paul looked down at his old jeans and Reeboks and wished he had Brady's sense of style.
"Are you ready to pay the voodoo queen to break up with your girlfriend for you?" asked Brady patiently.
Paul marched himself over to stand beside his new---and only---friend. "Open the gate."
\*
Brady pushed the latch up and kicked the arched bars out of Paul's way. Paul stepped through the gap, jumping forward as he felt Brady's shoulder bump into his at the same time that the gate screeched shut.
"Heh-heh. That's loud," Brady said.
"Yes. I should fix that. I'll get my tools." Paul spun around, heading back toward his bicycle, a red Roadmaster that his grandfather had once ridden clear to Baraboo to see Perry Como in concert.
Brady grabbed his shirtsleeve, pulling him back with short tugs that almost worked like Morse code to communicate his get-back-to-business message. "I appreciate the fact that you want to be helpful. Even more so, that you're always prepared to be."
"It's the Eagle Scout in me."
"Obviously. But Sweet Mama Jo says it's the height of rudidity to be late for an appointment you have made. And"---he checked his Timex---"yes, we only have one minute to get to the door. I'm afraid you'll have to fix the gate after the voodoo queen CEO agrees to help you."
Paul looked longingly over his shoulder. Somehow he thought that if he could get back to his bike right now, his life would turn out just like he'd always hoped it would. But that was a silly notion. If he did that, he'd be in the same quandary as ever: how to break off a three-year romance that had seemed headed straight to the altar until WUSS had opened his eyes. Now he knew he could never be happy living with Mary. It wasn't just that other girls shaved their legs, but he had to admit that weighed heavily in the balance.
"Penny for your thoughts."
Paul sighed, "Well, I was th---"
"No, I don't really care. But that always seems to get people's attention. So, do you hear that strange sound, or is it just me?" he asked, jerking his head hard enough toward the far end of the yard that his lank hair flipped like a flapper's skirt.
Paul stared off in that direction. All he could see were tall, green weeds dotted with white and purple wildflowers and a couple of scraggly trees that had been nearly choked to death by deep green vines. "No, I don't hear anything."
Brady shrugged. "Maybe it was a cat. Mysteriously powerful women always have cats you know," he said as he moved off toward the door, stomping down the milkweeds and Queen Anne's lace to give Paul a path to follow as he went. "Did you have cats as a kid?"
"No. My mom said they could be tools of the devil, so..."
"Ah. I forgot how religious you said she was. So we probably shouldn't tell her about this trip to Voodoo Vicky's house?"
"Er, no."
Clunk.
They stopped. Brady whispered, "You heard that?"
Paul tried to whisper back, "Yes." But the word didn't come out along with the air that poofed from his mouth, so he nodded fast and darted his eyes toward the metallic sound. A line of weeds bowed under the weight of something that moved toward them at an uncomfortably quick pace. The movement stopped. A rust-covered paint can popped into the air and then fell back into the pasture that passed for Voodoo Vicky's front lawn.
Brady whispered, "We should go." He pointed toward the green wooden doorway and the five cement steps leading up to it that sat ten yards from their present position. "In fact, we should run."
They bolted toward the steps, yelling, "Voodoo Vicky! Open up! We're here!"
Three more clunks. Paul glanced back just as a can of cat food came winging toward his forehead. He ducked and it hit Brady, who squealed and stumbled but continued his sprint toward the door. Right behind him, Paul grunted as something heavy struck him between the shoulder blades. He went down.
"Brady!" he yelled as he felt ropes wrap around his ankles and drag him backward. He looked down at his legs. No, not ropes. Vines. The same ones that had encased the ailing trees. Even while he watched, more of them reached out of the weeds, erupted from the ground, wrapped around his knees and his thighs. He stopped dragging and started...sinking.
"Ahhh! Brady! My pants are ripping! My skin! The vines are---biting me! Help!" He yanked them out, tearing them in two, but that just seemed to encourage them. New plants grew from the oozing parts of the old. The entire bottom third of his body already looked like a field of poison ivy. "Hurry, Brady! It's inside my underwear!"
Paul tried to roll, hoping it would tear at the vines. The muscles of his legs shrieked as they struggled to obey.
And then Brady was there, leaning over him with a bottle of...Hai Karate! "Take that, you rotten tomato!" he yelled as he squirted the cologne onto the plant. It worked. The leaves curled. The stems turned yellow and split like dried twigs. Paul kicked one leg free.
"Don't stop now!" Paul yelled. "Keep spraying!"
Golden droplets swooshed from the black-labeled bottle onto the vine like breath spray on deep-throated halitosis as Brady attacked the hungry plant.
"Take that!" he shouted. "And that! And some more of that!" It struck Paul that his friend's sweet mama probably should've included jaunty banter lessons among at least a couple of her homeschooling classes, but maybe she never saw Brady as the type who would win enough fights that he'd have need of them. They could work on that later. For now, he was satisfied that the spray acted like acid on the plant's sensitive leaves. Yellow holes began to eat their way through the spots the cologne hit, and tendrils of smoke rose from the edges of the affected leaves. The vine jerked and bucked, making a sound like the whine of a failing jet engine.
Another kick and Paul was free. He shot both arms to the sky in victory. Brady took advantage of the chance to grab one arm and jerk him to his feet. Together they ran toward Voodoo Vicky's front door.
\*
Paul kept waving his free arm in case the voodoo queen was peeking at them from behind one of her deep green shades. Brady, still holding tight to the other, had just looked over his shoulder to say, "I think we're safe!" when they both stepped on the brown, woven WELCOME mat lying at the bottom of the front steps. Paul had a second to think, It's like base in a lethal game of tag! We're going to be okay now! and then the mat buckled in the middle, sending them both tumbling into the darkness below.
Brady screamed into Paul's ear, grabbing him around the neck as if his friend had worn a parachute under his dress shirt and planned a last-minute rescue. He yelled again when they hit bottom, probably because Paul landed mostly on top of him.
"Sorry about that," Paul said as he rolled to the side. He winced as pain shot up his left calf.
Brady touched his ribs and coughed. "Has anybody ever told you what sharp elbows you have?" He groaned.
"They're alive, Gigi."
The boys sat up quicker than they should've, but the voice that had just spoken---deeper than the grave and disappointed at their vitality---squirted adrenaline all over their bruises, just long enough to push them upright.
Paul and Brady stared at the enormous, bald black man seated on the white leather chair in front of them, and unconsciously, they scooted closer together. The man wore a purple vest that hardly covered his bare, muscular chest and purple silk pants that stopped just below his knees. His feet, crossed comfortably in front of him, were so big they probably required made-to-order shoes, which made Paul wonder how much he'd had to pay for the amethyst-encrusted flip-flops that exactly matched the polish covering his toe-and fingernails.
Beside the man sat a massive pit bull the color of crematory ash. It wore a glittering silver collar but wasn't leashed or chained. Paul immediately began to look for the nearest exit, which was when he realized they'd fallen into Voodoo Vicky's storm cellar. The floor, dirty concrete that someone had once painted green, had been cleared in the middle where they'd fallen and the big man sat with his scary dog. The wall to their left was lined with closets. No, they had windows. And locks. Which meant, oh God! Paul grabbed Brady's elbow. Those are cells!
Paul looked away, his eyes searching desperately for a sign of hope. He didn't find it in the line of human-shaped dolls that hung from small nooses all across the ceiling beams or the shelves of jars, along the wall to his right, that held everything from pickled frogs to human eyeballs. But behind the man, breaking up the shadows at the back of the room? Yes! Steps leading up to a green-painted door! If they could just---
Brady said, "Who are you?"
What kind of question was that? Anybody who lured you into their homemade prison wasn't the type of person they needed to get to know!
The giant said, "I am Voodoo Vicky. And I suppose you're the boys from WUSS?" He still sounded disappointed.
"Yes, we are," Brady replied. "We had an appointment with the voodoo queen. But we thought---"
"What?" asked Vicky. "That I'd be a woman?" He snorted. "People are such slaves to stereotypes. For instance, the way you gents are dressed, I could easily assume your mother was overbearing and ignorant." He jabbed a finger at Brady. "And you"---he pointed at Paul---"are still recovering from spending the last four years attending a parochial school."
"My sweet mama is not ignorant!" Brady shouted. When Gigi, the pit bull, started to growl, he whispered, "Sorry, but she's not."
"How many women do you know?" asked Voodoo Vicky.
"Counting my professors?"
The big man rolled his eyes. They came to rest on Paul. "How about you, tough guy? Do you have anything brilliant to say before I sic my dog on you?"
"Don't! I mean, you did say we could come."
"That was when you had money to pay for my services."
Paul slammed a hand against his back pocket, which wasn't there anymore. In fact, his clothes had been completely torn away in that spot, leaving a big gap where his butt cheek shone through and he ended up slapping it painfully. Voodoo Vicky laughed and pointed.
"Ah-ha-ha-ha! The look on your face! Priceless!"
"My money's still in your yard! Your plant stole it right before it nearly killed us!"
The huge man frowned. Just the way his eyebrows came down over his eyes, shadowing them so they became black, glittering orbs, made Paul's heart try to find a bigger rib to hide behind. "You should've fought harder," he growled.
"You did accept our appointment," Brady reminded him.
"You're late," said Vicky.
Brady frowned down at his watch. Tapped the crystal. "But we got here early! How could..." He smiled admiringly at the queen. "You can manipulate time? That's so boss! Then you can definitely help my friend, Paul, here!"
Voodoo Vicky shook his head, which was when Paul realized his skull had been tattooed with strange symbols that started over his ears and seemed to continue on around to the back of his neck. He said, "You have the persistence of a runty little pit bull. Which I like. But you talk like a Happy Days rerun. You were homeschooled, weren't you?"
"See!" Brady clapped his hands. "You're exactly what we need! Maybe we can still make a deal!"
Vicky dropped his chin into his hand and sighed heavily. "This would've been so much more satisfying if you'd just broken your necks in the fall."
"Why?" Brady asked.
Paul wanted to yell, Quit being nice to the attempted murderer! But he wasn't really in a position to demand anything. His ankle had started to throb, which meant it was twisted, maybe even sprained, so he wasn't getting to those stairs by speed alone. Maybe his roommate had an actual plan that would save them, and he should, at least for now, just shut up and play along.
Vicky said, "I lost all my zombies in Hurricane Katrina, which is why I'm stuck in Milwaukee instead of grooving to the drumbeat of New Orleans. Do you know how hard it is to compete with the female establishment when you're a male voodoo queen whose zombies have floated away? Don't answer that." Brady made sympathetic noises as Vicky said sadly, "You two could've been my first replacements."
Paul realized his breath had begun to come in little gasps. Was this what they called hyperventilation? The gap in his learning had never seemed so extreme until now, when he wished his mom and dad could've afforded something a little fancier than the Amish school down the road from their trailer. Then, maybe, he'd have a clue about how to clear his vision while he struggled to say, "You want us to be your z-z-z-zombies?"
\*
Vicky leaned forward, speaking so earnestly that Paul felt compelled to listen despite the fact that the toes of his left foot had begun inching toward the exit, ignoring the protests of his whining ankle, while the rest of his body decided if they made it past the pit bull, it was coming along for the ride.
Vicky said, "Zombies are to voodoo queens as dowries are to Indian maidens. The more you have, the more attractive you can make yourself to prospective beaus. In my case, that would be fat cats from the West Coast who want to lose twenty pounds in three days. Or erase their wives' memories of walking in on them with their mistresses. You get me, man? I need obedient servants who will carry out my orders without questioning why I tell them to beat a rattlesnake against a rock until it's dead, cut it into sixteen pieces, and then immerse the pieces for forty seconds into a certain someone's iced tea pitcher."
Brady cleared his throat. "That seems like a lot of directions to follow. You know, for somebody whose brain is rotting. At least, I would assume---"
"Assume nothing!" Vicky bellowed. Somewhere upstairs a bird shrieked. "Although you're correct in thinking it's better for me to start with fresh corpses."
Vicky sat back in his chair, making the leather snap and crackle like bubble wrap. His hand fluttered up to smooth the lines that had appeared between his eyes, the diamond in his pinkie ring nearly blinding Paul as it flashed in quick circles, reflecting the basement's double line of bright white bulbs. "Look, boys, I treat my people well. I won't let your parts fall off. No maggots or even the slightest stench allowed."
"Oh," Paul said faintly. "Great."
"Take Gigi, here," the voodoo queen suggested, running his other finger down the center of the pit bull's broad gray head.
"We really shouldn't," Paul said, looking at Brady for support. "Dogs are such a big responsibility."
"They poop on the rug," Brady agreed. When he noticed the veins in Vicky's eyes start to go red, he said, "Well, sometimes they poop on the rug. My sweet mama says---"
"No!" Vicky shrieked. "I mean look at her! She's in top physical shape! And see what she can do?" He spun his finger in front of the dog's nose. She stood on her hind legs and hopped around in a circle. He pointed to the floor and Gigi lay down, waiting for him to crook his finger forward, at which point she crept toward Paul and Brady like she was sneaking through the jungle, a predator so fierce she'd jumped right to the tip-top of the food pyramid. "Isn't that something special?" Vicky asked. "And I just dug her up a week ago!"
"Dug? As in---unburied?" asked Paul.
As Vicky nodded, Brady applauded. "What a great show! Is there more?"
"The grand finale!" Vicky announced. He snapped his fingers, and she ran straight for Paul, jumping onto his chest like a karate expert. He went down under her attack. Before he hit the floor, he managed to grab hold of her collar so she couldn't sink her teeth into his neck. But even in a zombie state, Gigi fought like a pit bull. She refused to give up or even back down.
Paul yelled, "Stop! Please! I don't want to die! I don't wanna die! I wanna liiiiiive!"
"Let him up! He hasn't even been to third base yet!" pleaded Brady as he jumped on Gigi's back. She didn't even flinch, just stood there while Brady's momentum carried him right over her head. He landed flat on his back, wheezing like he'd suddenly developed asthma.
Vicky came off his throne so he could tower over Paul, Brady, and Gigi the zombie dog. He stared down at them for a full ten seconds. Then he held out his hands. "I like you boys. You have spunk and initiative. Plus, it's hard to explain missing WUSSes. So maybe I'll leave you alive. If you agree to help me rebuild my staff. What do you say?"
Paul strained to pull himself away from Gigi's hot breath and her long, sharp fangs. He couldn't. He was trapped and he knew it. "O-okay," he said, begging Brady with his eyes to make the same agreement even as his heart sank. Now he was going to have to marry Mary and become an Amish farmer. All because he'd squeezed her breast once behind the woodshed. What was his mom going to tell the priest?
"I'll help you with your zombie problem," Brady said. "But that's where it stops. Your wardrobe issues are not my responsibility."
"Then we have a deal!" Vicky whistled. Gigi stepped off Paul's chest, sat down beside him, and panted gently like they'd just been for a run together.
Vicky asked, "Do you know where Muenster Cemetery is located?"
\*
Neither Paul nor Brady had ever set foot in the Muenster Cemetery, but they'd heard of it from the pale, stoic kid who lived across the hall. Though Dillon looked even spookier than the stories he told, everybody listened because they were so good---including the one that described the worst criminals in Wisconsin's history being killed during police pursuit and then buried in their city's very own boneyard. The serial killer Clint Spakes had a grave site that people regularly defaced there, although if he stayed dead long enough, maybe they'd start to bring bottles of whiskey and flowers, which was what collected in front of the tombstone of the 1920s bank and train robber, "Waltzing" Hank Woodridge.
When Brady had asked Dillon why they called him "Waltzing" Hank, he said it was because the dude always showed up to his heists in a black tuxedo and he'd never left without dancing the prettiest lady around the room, or dining car, depending. He also made sure his hostages always got a cut of the take. Brady sighed with understanding when Dillon explained that Waltzing Hank was so charming nobody ever gave a good description of him, so the cops didn't catch up to him until he was unlucky enough to rob a bank who'd hired a security guard with ambition. The guy plugged him in the shoulder, forcing him to run wounded, which was how the cops tracked him to the farm where the last shoot-out took place.
Brady was still looking for the famous graves among the rows and rows of tombstones as they braked their bikes at the site where Voodoo Vicky had told them to meet him for their first lesson in zombie raising. The half-moon didn't shed much light on the spot, which was a dip between two hills covered with expensive markers and cedar trees. Luckily this new addition to Muenster had just enough pole lights to keep a grave robber from tripping over the sites and breaking his neck.
"Do you think we're in the right place?" asked Brady, craning his head over his shoulder for a peek at the spotlit grave of "Waltzing" Hank Woodridge. It must be on the other side, in the older section, thought Paul.
Shoot. Wait, that's what Waltzing Hank would've done! Hee-hee!
Paul said, "Yeah, Vicky said the grave we're supposed to meet him at is in the new section east of the Wilson mausoleum, and there's the mausoleum." He pointed to the miniature cathedral that housed at least seven generations of the Wilson family.
Brady cast his eyes over the rectangular stones in front of them, each flanked by smooth green grass. "These bodies have been here for a while. I don't see---oh, there!" He pointed at the middle of a row about ten steps to their right. Then he dropped his arm. "Darn it all, Sweet Mama Jo says it's not polite to point. Why do I keep forgetting that one?"
"I think there's an exception for when you're about to go to zombie school," Paul said. He hooked his thumbs into the reinforced backpack he wore so his hands wouldn't shake as they walked toward the fresh mound of dirt covered with wreaths and bouquets of flowers. It sat just at the edge of the nearest light's reach, so the stone describing the identity of its owner stood in shadow. So did Voodoo Vicky's giant form. Paul would've suspected it was a sturdy tree if he hadn't stood next to Vicky himself a few hours before, as he'd slid off the purple silk cape he now wore over his shoulders, giving himself the outline of a healthy young spruce.
Vicky said, "It's about time. I have a social life, you know." He tapped the dial of his diamond-studded watch to emphasize his point. "Where were you?"
"Gathering the ingredients you told us to get," Paul said, throwing the backpack on the ground beside the grave. He watched its edges squirm as the creatures he'd carried inside scrambled to find their way free. His stomach squeezed, but he ignored it, reminding himself that he couldn't possibly vomit anything else up tonight. Grateful that at least Vicky had left his zombie dog at home for this part of his project, he said, "We appreciate you letting us, uh, dip into your, ah, larder for the tortoiseshell powder and the ant urine. But it's not as easy as you think to capture live rats and cockroaches. Even at college."
"I trust you have them all stored separately," Vicky said.
"Oh yes," Brady said eagerly. "Everything is in those cute, little white bottles you gave us in the front pocket of the backpack. Except for the rats. They wouldn't fit."
"Well, their noses would," Paul corrected.
"True," Brady admitted. "We did get their noses in the bottles. And I think one of them might have sneezed, so it's possible that we have some rat snot somewhere in there for you. Does that help with---"
"Enough!" Vickie hissed. "I'm expecting a call, in case you hadn't gotten the idea earlier, so the quicker you two get the lead out, the sooner I can plan the rest of my evening."
"What do you want us to do?" Paul asked reluctantly.
Vicky nodded happily, a teacher who's finally gotten the right answer from a class full of dumbbells. He said, "Take all the flowers off the grave. They interfere with my mojo."
Brady dug right in, though he did pause a couple of times to admire the florist's style. "I'll have to find out who did these," he said once. "Whoever tied these bows is a creative genius!"
"It was probably Chenise over at Flower You with Flowers," said Vicky. "I use her for all my formal occasions."
Paul was trying to imagine what kinds of events a voodoo queen would arrange that required a professional flower arranger when Vicky's phone rang. When he squealed happily, both boys jumped.
"I knew he'd call!" Vicky gushed as he pulled an iPhone from his front pocket. He waved it at the guys as they stared in amazement. "I'm a little psychic, so I know you two are wondering why I don't just use a disembodied ear for all my important communications." He rolled his eyes at them. "Silly boys. That's my home phone." He thumbed himself into talk mode. "Hello? Larayjay? How are you?"
He stepped away to talk, giving Paul the chance to murmur, "Brady, I'm so freaked out I think my back teeth are grinding right into my gums."
"Relax," Brady whispered. "I've got your back."
"I don't even know what that means. It sounds like you're just hanging around waiting to take a picture when you happen to see my back in an interesting pose. And what if he stabs me in the back?"
"Then I'll make a lot of money from the tabloids."
"Brady!"
"Paul, get a hold of yourself," Brady said as he grasped his friend by the shoulders. "Nobody who dresses like a Disney character is going to put one over on Sweet Mama Jo's boy. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to raise this corpse just like Vicky tells us to. Then, as soon as we can, we're going to bike out of here so fast our wheels will be smoking. We're going to ride straight to Reverend Stiflal's house and let him fix this whole mess."
Paul thought a minute. Reverend Stiflal prayed so hard at the Sunday services he and Brady attended that the sweat dripped down onto the microphone and made plopping noises that sounded like God applauding the high points. In fact, ideally he'd bring along his wireless mike for the showdown, which would sound something like, "God-a is a good God-a. Until you tick him off. Voodoo Vicky, you have annoyed-a your maker by threatening and manipulating two of his precious sons-a." Plop. "Now back off-a before I have to sic-a the heavenly host on you." Yeah, Brady was right. If anybody could protect them from the wrath of Vicky, it was Reverend Stiflal.
But first they had to survive the zombie raising, which Vicky seemed eager to begin. He shoved his phone back into his pocket and rushed back to the graveside. "I have a date! Larayjay's finally broken up with his boyfriend, and he wants to see me!" He paused for their responses, which were so quiet that he said, "Well, quit looking so surprised. Love's no fun if you're always shoving potions down people's throats. The thing is, he wants to meet me in an hour, which means I have to run back home, take a shower, press my suit...." He waited. When they still didn't answer, he said, "Just follow these directions." He handed them a dirt-smudged index card. "After the zombie's climbed out of his grave, give him directions to my house. Gigi will guard him until I get home to train him."
Vicky turned away. Paul said, "Wait!" He winced when Vicky swung back, his eyes snapping like bear traps. But Paul's steadily dimming future forced him to go on. "When we first talked, you said you'd help me with my problem. We've done everything you asked so far. But when we finish, you'll be the only one who's gotten what he wants out of this deal. That doesn't seem fair to me."
Voodoo Vicky seemed just about ready to shove his fist through Paul's face. Then his hand went to the pocket that held the iPhone, and he smiled. "What was it that you wanted again?" he asked.
"I need you to break up with my girlfriend, Mary, for me." Paul had never felt so brave or stupid, and definitely not at the same time.
Vicky stared. "Mary who?"
"Mary Rockenfeffer. She's an Amish girl I went to school with." Paul took a deep breath. "I just can't marry her! Not now that I've seen girls like the ones who go to WUSS! Some of them even work at Hooters!"
Vicky said, "How am I supposed to contact her? It's not like she's in the phone book."
"She works at a grocery store. They have a phone. I can give you the number," Paul said hopefully.
"Fine. Consider yourself single. Just raise that zombie for me. Pronto!"
"Yessir!"
Vicky rushed off, leaving Brady to read from the card like it was a recipe from hell while Paul followed the directions---almost happily now that he knew he wouldn't die a pre-engaged man.
"Sprinkle the tortoiseshell powder and ant urine on the four corners of the grave," said Brady.
Paul dug the ingredients out of the backpack's front pocket and did as he was ordered.
Brady read, "Drill a hole to the casket." He paused. "Oooo."
"What?"
He cleared his throat. "Do that---what I just said---and then drop the rats and cockroaches into the hole."
"That's awful."
"It's not as bad as having to slit their little throats." Which was what they'd been dreading, and neither one of them could figure out how to slit a cockroach's throat or if they even had one.
"Okay," said Paul.
He looked around for the tool he needed and found that Vicky had left an electric auger lying behind the tombstone. He'd been avoiding reading it all this time, but now he couldn't help but see that a fifty-five-year-old man named Ralph Creever had been buried in front of it only the day before. Paul tried not to think about why Ralph had died or the sad people who'd buried him as he dug the hole and shook the squeaking, scrabbling contents of the bag down into it. Hopefully Reverend Stiflal would be able to send him straight back to heaven as soon as he found out what insanity Voodoo Vicky had put them up to.
Brady started reading. "Wake, rise, you unclaimed soul. Spark into service. Leave the silence of your hole. Run." Brady looked at Paul. "Oh, I think that last part was for us."
"You mean, we're supposed to run?"
"Yes."
The earth under their feet began to rumble. They stared at each other for a second, and then they both yelled, "Run!"
They raced for the shelter of the mausoleum as clods of dirt began to explode in the air behind them.
"They're plopping!" yelled Paul.
"I know!" Brady yelled back. "They sound like Reverend Stiflal!"
Another rumble. Paul wanted to look over his shoulder, but he was afraid of what he'd see. Maybe a half-rotted hand shooting out of the earth, or maybe Ralph's dirt-covered suit rising from the muck while his head stayed stuck underneath and his hands scrabbled to unbury himself. Paul laughed hysterically at the image as he and Brady swung around to the back of the minicathedral, where they skidded to a halt, their hands already rising in the face of the double-barreled shotgun. The openings where the slugs come out loomed so huge that Paul was almost surprised he noticed the brown-eyed girl guarding the trigger end. And then he wasn't sure how anything could've distracted him from her, until she said, "What the hell did you just do?"
\*
Paul opened his mouth to confess everything, starting with that April evening when he was twelve and his mom had caught him jerking off to her JCPenney catalog. She'd screamed that his soul was burning like tar on a cross and called the Lutheran school, who pitched her such a high price for tuition that she told the secretary to call Judas and tell him he'd invested his silver well. Then she marched down to the Amish school, signed Paul up for half the price, and that was how he wound up in a cemetery full of serial killers and gangsters raising Ralph Creever zombies in the middle of Wisconsin. He drew in a big breath, amazed that one pair of soft brown eyes could gouge the truth out of him without even batting a lash. But before he could begin, Brady flopped onto his back and started jiggling like a victim of ants-in-the-pants syndrome.
Paul knelt by his convulsing friend, trying to remember if he was supposed to shove a stick in his mouth or just let him bang his head against the ground until he'd twitched himself unconscious, when he realized Brady was trying to rub the dirt from Ralph's grave off his back by wriggling against the grass like a flipped turtle trying to right itself. At the same time, he was squealing furiously, banging his arms and fists up and down as he yelled, "It's ruined! It took me hours to put this cemetery ensemble together! I ironed this flannel shirt for half an hour straight, trying to get out all the wrinkles that Goodwill store cretin had scrunched into it by hanging it in an overpopulated row like some sort of prison inmate. And now it's covered in graveyard muck. And these pants. I have never washed or worn them before this evening, and now they're stained. Stained! Do you have any idea what that means?"
The brown-eyed girl said, "That you're gay?"
Brady had freaked out so badly, he didn't even acknowledge her as he screeched, "Sweet Mama Jo says clothes never wear the same once they're washed, and if you stain them the first time, you've run the luck right out of them." He pounded his hands on his thighs. "These are now unlucky pants!"
His rage had brought a froth to his lips and made the toes of his work boots click together like they wanted to reassure each other that they, at least, still retained their good fortune.
Paul traded a bewildered glance with the brown-eyed girl, whose spiky black hair gave her the look of a pixie. He said, "I'm Paul. That's my roommate, Brady. We've both been under a lot of strain because a voodoo queen named Vicky has sort of threatened our lives. Also, Brady's clothes mean the world to him."
She nodded. "I can see that. I'm D. D. Carmi. Not Dee-Dee, like the name," she explained as she raised the shotgun to make sure he understood the difference. "Like the initials."
"I got it," he said. He glanced down. "Brady? Are you going to be okay?"
His roommate had pulled a handkerchief from his front pocket and was dabbing his lips in delicate little pokes. "I think so." He glanced forlornly over his shoulder. "Maybe I can Shout it out."
"Ssstt," hissed D.D. as she anchored the butt of the shotgun into her shoulder. "Backs to the wall," she ordered. They scrambled to flatten themselves against the mausoleum's cold support, thinking they'd seen the bitter end until they realized she wasn't even looking at them. Her concentration had moved, like a laser, to the corner of the building, beyond which they could now hear the soft sounds of movement backed by an occasional muffled sob.
Brady whispered, "Paul? Is that what I think it is?"
Paul nodded. "It's Zombie Ralph Creever. And he doesn't sound happy."
"Can't we just tell him to go to Voodoo Vicky's like---"
"You can't send him to that maniac," D.D. interrupted. "It'd be no different than dropping a picnic basket full of plutonium into Iran's presidential palace."
The sobbing had turned into muffled growls. Somewhere close by, a headstone cracked. Apparently Zombie Ralph didn't like wandering around without directions. He was getting pissed.
Paul sent a pleading look to D.D., whose eyes had suddenly gone as hard as the wall at his back. "We have to follow Vicky's directions or else he'll make us take Ralph's place."
"Never happen."
"Why not? Brady, here, just wet his unlucky pants, and I can only stay awake for forty-eight hours. Vicky has a zombie pit bull that can track us down in about ten minutes, and then all it has to do is wait."
D.D. cocked her gun. The sound might as well have been a whistle. Zombie Ralph yelled triumphantly and came shambling around the corner as she said, "I'll protect you."
She trained her sights on the dirt-caked head of the former CPA who'd suddenly developed a craving for living flesh. As he reached for his prey, she fired both barrels into his face, blowing away everything that had made him look even remotely human, while Brady screamed and hid his face in Paul's shoulder.
Paul couldn't look away, though he tried to unsee the whole thing by knocking his head back against the mausoleum wall so hard that for an instant his sight was rimmed in black. Unfortunately it returned right away so that he witnessed Zombie Ralph's head suddenly burst into flame as D.D. backed away. The fire flared three feet into the sky, burning so hot that he felt warmed from a distance away of fifteen feet. Then it died, leaving the headless zombie to pitch to the ground. Paul heaved a sigh of relief, which turned into a gasp when he saw the zombie's hands were still trying to pull its body toward D.D.
"What the hell?" he asked as Brady exclaimed, "Oh my God, oh my Lord, that is so wrong! He's wearing white socks with his suit!"
D.D. seemed to have forgotten they existed. She'd clipped her gun to some sort of metallic holster at her back and gone to a bag Paul hadn't seen before that she had left near the other corner of the mausoleum. From it, she pulled a can of lighter fluid and a lighter. While she doused the aimlessly crawling body, she muttered to herself like a mathematician working out a difficult problem. "Maybe the fault is in the trajectory. If I shot from above, the slug would go through the head and into the body. Then the fire would ignite more mass. But how often am I going to get that chance? No, I think the explosion needs to occur at a higher temperature to begin with."
"What are you mumbling about?" asked Brady accusingly. "Can't you see we're traumatized over here?"
"I'm firing up the zombie, aren't I?" she asked.
"So that's how you kill them?" Paul said.
"Yeah. Cremation, just like the family should've done to begin with. That's what my slug should've accomplished, but I haven't been able to get the formula quite right yet." She sighed. "Maybe soon, and then they'll have to promote me." She flicked the lighter and quickly set Zombie Ralph's remains ablaze.
As she came to stand beside them, Brady asked, "Who'll have to promote you? To what?" He nodded to the burning body. "Is this your job?"
She shrugged. "Kind of. It doesn't pay as well as Hooters, which is why I still have to work there too. Which isn't easy when you're trying to ace physics with Dr. Ford, I can tell you."
Oh! Oh! Smart and sexy! If I fell at her feet and kissed her dimpled knees, I'm sure she'd punch me, but would it be worth the bloody nose? She was still talking, but Paul lost the next few words in a happy daze as he let his eyes, and his imagination, wander over D.D.'s high cheekbones and full, red-coated lips. Her neck, so long and graceful, led his eyes to the generous bust that had been well disguised by her extra-large sweatshirt. Since her camouflage shorts didn't complement her nearly as much as Hooters' orange ones would, he promised himself to go grab a plate of hot wings before Voodoo Vicky could zombify him.
When Paul tuned back into the conversation, D.D. was saying, "The group I work for is called the People's Assembly, because it wasn't formed by any branch of government. Just a bunch of concerned citizens who got together and decided to protect themselves and their community from people like Voodoo Vicky, who'd figured out how to manipulate entire communities sometimes without ever really breaking the law."
"So what are you?" asked Brady faintly as he watched the Creever corpse burn. "Like, a militia member?"
She shrugged. "I don't know what you'd call it. The PA's a big organization, and I'm just a grunt who's been assigned to guard this cemetery so nobody turns Clint Spakes or 'Waltzing' Hank Woodridge into the walking dead."
"That would be bad?" asked Brady.
She nodded down at Zombie Ralph. "A lot worse than this."
Paul said, "Thanks for saving us," as he walked forward and hugged her. It was a little awkward because he ended up holding her shotgun as well. Still, it was worth it, even when she said, "Don't touch me."
He backed off. "Okay. But you said you'd protect us," he reminded her.
She sighed and motioned for them to follow her. "I will."
As soon as they left the shelter of the mausoleum, they could see the damage Voodoo Vicky's spell had caused, tearing open the ground like it was no harder than a piece of cake, splattering dirt (they soon discovered) clear to the gates of the cemetery. Although strangely, the spell had also left a large pyramid of earth right beside Zombie Ralph's grave, like a blanket he'd tossed aside just before hopping out of bed.
"Look, Paul," Brady exclaimed, pointing at the pile. "That's a hoodoo. We just learned about it in geology class."
Paul began, "Wouldn't it have to be made of rock if---"
But Brady wasn't listening. He'd become enchanted with the idea. "We got a hoodoo out of our voodoo. How cool is that?"
D.D. snapped her head around. Paul thought she was going to grab Brady by the collar and tell him exactly how tired she was after saving his sorry ass and burning the corpse of the zombie who could well have chewed his cheeks off if she hadn't blasted its mouth away, so the last thing she wanted to hear right now was some vain little gay dude gushing about voodoo hoodoos. Instead she said, "Brady? That shirt? Fabulous pick for the cemetery scene. I hope you can get it clean."
"What? Oh, this? Thanks!" He stopped talking, started humming, and every once in a while brushed off a hunk of dirt that had dried enough not to leave a smudge on his fingertips.
Paul came up beside D.D. and said, "So, if you're going to protect us, does that mean you'll be hanging around with us a lot more often?"
"Probably not," she said. "The PA will assign somebody to you until you've learned enough to protect yourselves."
"Learned? What does that mean?"
She looked up at him and smiled. "Paul, once a guy like Voodoo Vicky has you in his sights, you can't be neutral anymore. You're in this now."
Holding hard to a rising sense of panic, Paul repeated, "Like I said, what does that mean?"
"You are now a member of the People's Assembly." She reached into her pocket, pulled something out, and slapped it into his hand. He looked down and saw that he held a big red button, the kind that would have maybe fallen off a clown suit. D.D. slapped him on the shoulder and said, "Welcome to the trenches."
Rindall Hunt leaned against the tallest tombstone in Browen Cemetery. Naturally the name carved across the base of the obelisk spelled BROWEN. Herbert John (born 1825, died 1899) slumbered on the south side of the plot. As far as Rindall knew, he'd never risen on Halloween, called or not. Neither had his second wife, Deborah Jane, RIPing on the opposite side of the stone. But his first love, Elizabeth Marie, who'd died in childbirth at the age of twenty-four, moved around so often that nothing grew on her grave but weeds.
Rindall slammed his hand against the monument, wincing at the clacking sound that reminded him his digits hadn't quite fleshed out yet. He bellowed, "Rise and shine, Bets. We've got work to do!"
"What's taking her so long?" Josh Payley paced the length of her grave. His stride was barely a shamble because he'd been dead the shortest amount of time, which meant he pulled himself together faster. The only gaping hole left on him was his nose.
Rindall shook his head. Josh had to be reminded of everything at first. It was like that skull fracture had killed part of his memory for eternity. Rindall said, "She's old, which means it takes her brain longer to reform."
Plus, Bets liked to look her best when she emerged. Almost as good as the day she'd died. Josh, on the other hand, had been aboveground within five minutes, spitting beetle larvae and shaking worms out of his cracks.
"So what's the plan?" Josh asked as he hopped to the top of a nearby monument and teetered across it.
"A big failure if you fall," Rindall snapped. "How many times do I have to warn you about your reckless risks? I mean this; you break it, you dangle it."
"Dude, tell me you weren't this big of a wuss when you were building skyscrapers."
Rindall snorted. "Not until I took a dive off one. Now get the hell down. Seriously, I'm not taping any more of your parts back together tonight."
"This is why your wife hired that dude to kill you. You know that, right? Although"---Josh paused, giving Rindall the once-over---"it might also have something to do with those threads. Even if it was the seventies, you should've known better than to buy a powder-blue suit."
Rindall threw up his hands. "Can't we get through one invocation without---"
A stirring at Rindall's feet brought them both to the head of the stone. Just like in the horror flicks Josh had devoured in life and relentlessly retold in death, Elizabeth Marie Browen's hand punched through the earth as if it was furious that somebody had allowed the crabgrass to spread so far. The second fist emerged quickly after, its fingers rising to give the guys a ladylike wave.
But it wasn't just a premature hello. Bets was signaling. Get me out! I have business to attend to! Also, my feet are stuck in the coffin again!
They each took hold of a hand and heaved---but gently. Bets would be beside herself if one of her arms popped off this early in the festivities. Luckily she'd already wound new flesh around her old parts, and everything stayed together for the extraction. She heaved out of the earth, shook her hair to release the extra soil, and then flung it back to reveal huge brown eyes in a Tinker Bell face.
"You are so pretty." Josh said this every time they rose, but Bets never tired of it.
She smiled. "I know. It comes of dying young. You are mighty handsome yourself." She poked him with a finger, the tip of which was still bony. "So how is my drunken cuss?"
Josh sighed. "One DUI and I'm stuck with a crap nickname for eternity."
Rindall shrugged. "Well, you did wrap yourself around a telephone pole."
"Can we not talk about me? We've been invoked, people! So where's the party?"
"Follow me."
Rindall led them to the corner of Browen Cemetery farthest from the gravel road that wound past it. A thick wood full of shadows and night creature noises walled them in on two sides, making for what the ghost hunters liked to call a spooktastic experience. But that was in the dark. Tonight, squint-till-your-eyes-water lights had been set up around a long table covered in red silk. Two television cameras faced the table from different angles, and a long, fat microphone was manned by bored-looking union men.
"There you are!" A sexy, young thing dressed in Armani and black pumps tiptoed up to them, trying not to get her heels stuck in any of the mole runs that dominated the yard. "You're late!" she snapped, her glossy red lips folding in on each other, threatening to leave a stain on her unnaturally white teeth. "Contestants are supposed to arrive half an hour before the show. What happened to you? By the way, I'm Holly. But you knew that." She motioned to three chairs lined up on one side of the table and bustled off to talk to a tiny man wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard.
Rindall, Bets, and Josh exchanged thoughtful glances. The caterers Rindall had summoned had already turned Holly's real contestants away at the gate. It hadn't been hard. One look at the caterers' skeletal outlines (the youngest had passed in 1789, so it would be hours before the flesh began to form) had sent the publicity-hungry hounds baying in the opposite direction. Until now, Rindall had never considered the idea of replacing them.
"Oh, why not?" Bets finally whispered. "What's a party without a game of charades?"
Rindall shrugged. Josh grinned, scratching the tip of his completed nose. And they took their seats.
The hostess joined them, taking so long to adjust her clothing, hair, and microphone that Bets forgot her good intentions and reached for the woman's arm with a meat-raking claw.
Rindall slapped the back of her hand. "Cut that out. You know the rules!"
"I'm hungry!"
Josh said, "For such a little thing, you eat way more than I ever would have guessed."
The hostess barked out a laugh. "Well, we have plenty to offer you tonight." She nodded to clipboard man. "Our director, Tony, has found some...interesting edibles for you." Another chuckle, but the hardness in her eyes robbed it of humor. "Of course, you know how it works on our show. We couldn't call it Scared Stiff if we didn't ask you to subject yourselves to some...icky moments."
"We're comfortable with icky," Josh informed her.
She raised a perfect half-moon eyebrow as she eyed his fancy black suit. "But none of you seems to have dressed for it. And what's this?" she asked, fingering Bets's long blue skirt.
"My Sunday best, and a sight more presentable it is than yours," she declared. "You do realize if you lean forward any farther, those girls of yours may fall clean out of your blouse? Then where will you be?"
"On the cover of every magazine in America," Holly said with a smirk.
"Thirty seconds!" called Tony.
Holly raised her hand, like she expected time to stop until she was ready to continue. "We need some napkins here. Otherwise, our players might ruin their fancy clothes." She touched a long, red-tipped finger to her straight, blond hair. "How do I look?"
Rindall grinned. "I'd say you look good enough to eat, but Josh keeps telling me that these days comments like that will get me slapped."
"She does look yummy," Bets agreed.
Holly lowered her eyes to half-mast, pleased that the peons were suitably awed.
Tony delivered the napkins and began a short countdown, after which a light went on in front of one of the cameras and Holly sailed into her introduction.
Ignoring the jabber, Rindall checked their perimeter. Vague, misty movement told him that their client and the caterers were in position. Nodding briefly to his companions, he tuned back in to Holly's spiel.
"So the first game is always a tough one for our contestants." She gave them a friendly smile. Rindall decided he liked her better when she was acting. "But that's why you were chosen for our show. Because you believe you have the guts to meet our challenges."
As she spoke, Tony brought out three covered, plastic bowls and set one in front of each of them. Rindall peered into his and saw a mass of small black spiders. Josh had slugs, and Bets was shaking a container full of maggots.
"What do you want us to do with these?" asked Bets.
"In order to stay on the show, you're going to have to eat them," Holly said brightly. "But if you're scared stiff..." She paused to give the red-light camera a significant look. "You'll be forced to take the walk of shame."
She pointed out to the yard, inviting the second camera to look as well. What they all saw was a path lined with the glowing crosses that the grieving buy to decorate the graves of their lost ones.
"Now, Holly, that's just tacky," said Rindall. While the hostess worked to keep her smile in place, he went on, "I think we should institute different rules. Starting with freeing these poor, defenseless creatures." Rindall, Josh, and Bets popped off their lids and dumped the creepers onto the table. They all immediately crawled to the opposite side, moving in such concert together that Rindall wouldn't have been surprised to raise a magnifying glass and see the lead spider waving a flag and playing the retreat on a tiny bugle.
Holly's cheeks blazed. "What? What?"
"I'll show you what." Rindall crooked his forefinger and the caterers moved forward, easily overpowering Holly's crew and setting them in a manageable bunch at the foot of one of the lights.
"What?" she screeched, digging her fingernails into her cheeks at the sight of nearly thirty skeletons moving like the well-trained regiment they'd once been.
Josh tapped Holly on the shoulder, making her jump and scream. He grinned. "I move quiet for a dead guy, right?" He pointed to his bare feet. "Best sneakers in town! Good enough to turn the tables on you, Miss America. Yeah." He nodded vigorously as her eyes widened. "We're playing a new game now."
"What do you mean?" she croaked.
Josh grinned. "Now, Holly, we've heard that people say you eat interns for breakfast, but we've also been informed you gotta be tough to survive in this business. So instead of shredding you like roadkill, we're giving you a choice. The caterers will offer you three types of food. Two have been laced with enough arsenic to empty the voting booths in Dubois."
As Josh spoke, the caterers stepped forward, setting a rose-patterned china plate in front of her. It contained three items: a paste made from flour, water, and the ashes of the cremated woman in row nineteen; the deep-fried eyeballs of her newly buried neighbor; and a dead frog that had been gutted and stuffed with wild greens.
"All right," Bets said cheerfully. "Your turn, Holly."
Rindall watched her decide, wondering if vanity had anything to do with her choice of the frog. He was sure it would pack on fewer pounds than the other two. And according to the report, she had personally made a new food group out of diet pills. But no, the frog probably just seemed harder to poison.
She struggled to swallow and was clutching her severely cramping stomach within five minutes. She jerked forward, nearly hitting her head on the table as pain racked her. Rindall was amazed that her hair didn't move the entire time. It must be glued with one of those gels Josh had once described. He wished he had some now as he shoved a heavy lock of hair out of his eyes.
"Help me," she gasped.
"Of course. That's the whole point of invocations," said Rindall.
"What do you mean?"
Bets sat her up in her chair so she could gaze into the girl's watery eyes. "We have a cure. But you should know that it comes with side effects."
"I don't care. Give it."
Bets turned to Josh. "You heard the girl."
Josh grinned and knelt at Bets's side. She pulled a paring knife from her skirt pocket. "Just enough," Josh warned.
"Of course."
He turned to Rindall. "Would you do it tonight? You're always quicker than me."
Rindall nodded, stepped forward, and clutched Josh by the hair, which grew in straighter and thinner than his. But it still worked as a handhold. "On three," Rindall said. "One. Two." He felt Josh brace under his hand just as Bets reached over to cut off Holly's earlobe. "Bets!" he roared as he yanked. He wasn't sure who jumped the highest: Bets, who hid her hands and sat up straight in her chair, like a kid who's been caught passing notes in school, or Josh, who could feel the back of his skull coming free in Rindall's fist, the sound of sucking skin and running juices making even their stomachs turn.
Screams from the crew, followed by a mass escape attempt. For a minute, all Rindall could see were scrambling bodies chased by relentless skeletons. Then the caterers snagged the living and dragged them back into the light.
Holly stared with horror as Josh turned to give Bets better access to his wet, eel-sleek brain. Bets sliced off a sliver and put it on her plate.
"Eat it," she said.
Holly shook her head.
Rindall leaned on the table. "If you eat it, you'll be a star."
"Why?" she whispered.
Josh jumped to his feet and pushed the plate toward her. "We've been invoked tonight because your mom's afraid your career's going to go down the toilet if you do another season of this piece of crap show. And she knows that eating my brain will download a sort of aura in you that others will find hu-hu-hot. You'll be on your way, baby. Of course, after you die, you'll rise occasionally, just like we do. But that's such a small price to pay, especially compared to what your mother's paid to invoke us in the first place."
Holly's eyes widened as someone new stepped out of the shadows, adjusting her shiny black jacket as she noted one of the cameras was still recording.
"Mom?"
"It's what we always wanted, Holly. You'll be bigger than Angelina Jolie! Can't you just see it? Brad Pitt for a husband? Houses all over the world? Cameras in your face morning, noon, and night?" The lust in Holly's face said she could. Her mom went on, "It'll be worth it. I swear. I had the procedure done a couple of years ago and look at me now!" She held out her arms. "I've lost forty pounds. I look ten years younger. And I've sold every house the market has thrown at me!"
Rindall settled Josh's skull back into place and nodded at two caterers who stepped forward, carving knives in hand.
"What...what's that?" Holly swallowed as more caterers surrounded her. They lifted her to the table as Rindall, Bets, and Josh tucked their napkins into their collars.
"Don't worry," Holly's mom said. "It's worth the pain." She smiled as her daughter began to scream. "You'll see, honey. I'm gonna make you a star."
Author Jennifer Rardin. Photo © Cindy Pringle.
Jennifer Rardin began writing at the age of 12. She penned eight Jaz Parks novels in her life. She passed away in September 2010.
JAZ PARKS NOVELS
Once Bitten, Twice Shy
Another One Bites the Dust
Biting the Bullet
Bitten to Death
One More Bite
Bite Marks
Bitten in Two
The Deadliest Bite
JAZ PARKS SHORT STORIES
"Scouting Jasmine"
"The Golem Hunt"
"An Evening for Jaz and Vayl"
"Paul and Brady Get Hoodoo with the Voodoo"
"Zombie Jamboree"
If you enjoyed QUICK BITES, look out for
A Jane True novel
by Nicole Peeler
Living in small town Rockabill, Maine, Jane True always knew she didn't quite fit in with so-called normal society.
During her nightly, clandestine swim in the freezing winter ocean, a grisly find leads Jane to startling revelations about her heritage: she is only half-human.
Now, Jane must enter a world filled with supernatural creatures that are terrifying, beautiful, and deadly -- all of which perfectly describe her new "friend," Ryu, a gorgeous and powerful vampire.
It is a world where nothing can be taken for granted: a dog can heal with a lick; spirits bag your groceries; and whatever you do, never -- ever -- rub the genie's lamp.
I eyeballed the freezer, trying to decide what to cook for dinner that night. Such a decision was no mean feat, since a visiting stranger might assume that Martha Stewart not only lived with us but was preparing for the apocalypse. Frozen lasagnas, casseroles, pot pies, and the like filled our icebox nearly to the brim. Finally deciding on fish chowder, I took out some haddock and mussels. After a brief, internal struggle, I grabbed some salmon to make extra soup to---you guessed it---freeze. Yeah, the stockpiling was more than a little OCD, but it made me feel better. It also meant that when I actually had something to do for the entire evening, I could leave my dad by himself without feeling too guilty about it.
My dad wasn't an invalid---not exactly. But he had a bad heart and needed help taking care of things, especially with my mother gone. So I took up the slack, which I was happy to do. It's not like I had much else on my plate, what with being the village pariah and all.
It's amazing how being a pariah gives you ample amounts of free time.
After putting in the laundry and cleaning the downstairs bathroom, I went upstairs to take a shower. I would have loved to walk around all day with the sea salt on my skin, but not even in Rockabill was Eau de Brine an acceptable perfume. Like many twentysomethings, I'd woken up early that day to go exercise. Unlike most twentysomethings, however, my morning exercise took the form of an hour or so long swim in the freezing ocean. And in one of America's deadliest whirlpools. Which is why I am so careful to keep the swimming on the DL. It might be a great cardio workout, but it probably would get me burned at the stake. This is New England, after all.
As I got dressed in my work clothes---khaki chinos and a long-sleeved pink polo-style shirt with Read It and Weep embroidered in navy blue over the breast pocket---I heard my father emerge from his bedroom and clomp down the stairs. His job in the morning was to make the coffee, so I took a moment to apply a little mascara, blush, and some lip gloss, before brushing out my damp black hair. I kept it cut in a much longer---and admittedly more unkempt---version of Cleopatra's style because I liked to hide my dark eyes under my long bangs. Most recently, my nemesis, Stuart Gray, had referred to them as "demon eyes." They're not as Marilyn Manson as that, thank you very much, but even I had to admit to difficulty determining where my pupil ended and my iris began.
I went back downstairs to join my dad in the kitchen, and I felt that pang in my heart that I get sometimes when I'm struck by how he's changed. He'd been a fisherman, but he'd had to retire about ten years ago, on disability, when his heart condition worsened. Once a handsome, confident, and brawny man whose presence filled any space he entered, his long illness and my mother's disappearance had diminished him in every possible way. He looked so small and gray in his faded old bathrobe, his hands trembling from the anti-arrhythmics he takes for his screwed-up heart, that it took every ounce of self-control I had not to make him sit down and rest. Even if his body didn't agree, he still felt himself to be the man he had been, and I knew I already walked a thin line between caring for him and treading on his dignity. So I put on my widest smile and bustled into the kitchen, as if we were a father and daughter in some sitcom set in the 1950s.
"Good morning, Daddy!" I beamed.
"Morning, honey. Want some coffee?" He asked me that question every morning, even though the answer had been yes since I was fifteen.
"Sure, thanks. Did you sleep all right?"
"Oh, yes. And you? How was your morning?" My dad never asked me directly about the swimming. It's a question that lay under the auspices of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that ruled our household. For example, he didn't ask me about my swimming, I didn't ask him about my mother. He didn't ask me about Jason, I didn't ask him about my mother. He didn't ask me whether or not I was happy in Rockabill, I didn't ask him about my mother...
"Oh, I slept fine, Dad. Thanks." Of course I hadn't, really, as I only needed about four hours of sleep a night. But that's another thing we never talked about.
He asked me about my plans for the day, while I made us a breakfast of scrambled eggs on whole wheat toast. I told him that I'd be working till six, then I'd go to the grocery store on the way home. So, as usual for a Monday, I'd take the car to work. We performed pretty much the exact same routine every week, but it was nice of him to act like it was possible I might have new and exciting plans. On Mondays, I didn't have to worry about him eating lunch, as Trevor McKinley picked him up to go play a few hours of cheeky lunchtime poker with George Varga, Louis Finch, and Joe Covelli. They're all natives of Rockabill and friends since childhood, except for Joe, who moved here to Maine about twenty years ago to open up our local garage. That's how things were around Rockabill. For the winter, when the tourists were mostly absent, the town was populated by natives who grew up together and were more intimately acquainted with each other's dirty laundry than their own hampers. Some people enjoyed that intimacy. But when you were more usually the object of the whispers than the subject, intimacy had a tendency to feel like persecution.
We ate while we shared our local paper, The Light House News. But because the paper mostly functioned as a vehicle for advertising things to tourists, and the tourists were gone for the season, the pickings were scarce. Yet we went through the motions anyway. For all of our sins, no one could say that the True family wasn't good at going through the motions. After breakfast, I doled out my father's copious pills and set them next to his orange juice. He flashed me his charming smile, which was the only thing left unchanged after the ravages to his health and his heart.
"Thank you, Jane," he said. And I knew he meant it, despite the fact that I'd set his pills down next to his orange juice every single morning for the past twelve years.
I gulped down a knot in my throat, since I knew that no small share of his worry and grief was due to me, and kissed him on the cheek. Then I bustled around clearing away breakfast, and bustled around getting my stuff together, and bustled out the door to get to work. In my experience, bustling is always a great way to keep from crying.
Tracy Gregory, the owner of Read It and Weep, was already hard at work when I walked in the front door. The Gregorys were an old fishing family from Rockabill, and Tracy was their prodigal daughter. She had left to work in Los Angeles, where she had apparently been a successful movie stylist. I say apparently because she never told us the names of any of the movies she'd worked on. She'd only moved back to Rockabill about five years ago to open Read It and Weep, which was our local bookstore, café, and all-around tourist trap. Since tourism replaced fishing as our major industry, Rockabill can just about support an all-year-round enterprise like Read It and Weep. But other things, like the nicer restaurant---rather unfortunately named The Pig Out Bar and Grill---close for the winter.
"Hey girl," she said, gruffly, as I locked the door behind me. We didn't open for another half hour.
"Hey Tracy. Grizelda back?"
Grizelda was Tracy's girlfriend, and they'd caused quite a stir when they first appeared in Rockabill together. Not only were they lesbians, but they were as fabulously lesbionic as the inhabitants of a tiny village in Maine could ever imagine. Tracy carried herself like a rugby player, and dressed like one, too. But she had an easygoing charisma that got her through the initial gender panic triggered by her reentry into Rockabill society.
And if Tracy made heads turn, Grizelda practically made them spin Exorcist style. Grizelda was not Grizelda's real name. Nor was Dusty Nethers, the name she used when she'd been a porn star. As Dusty Nethers, Grizelda had been fiery haired and as boobilicious as a Baywatch beauty. But in her current incarnation, as Grizelda Montague, she sported a sort of Gothic-hipster look---albeit one that was still very boobilicious. A few times a year Grizelda disappeared for weeks or a month, and upon her return home she and Tracy would complete some big project they'd been discussing, like redecorating the store or adding a sunroom onto their little house. Lord knows what she got up to on her profit-venture vacations. But whatever it was, it didn't affect her relationship with Tracy. The pair were as close as any husband and wife in Rockabill, if not closer, and seeing how much they loved each other drove home to me my own loneliness.
"Yeah, Grizzie's back. She'll be here soon. She has something for you... something scandalous, knowing my lady love."
I grinned. "Awesome. I love her gifts."
Because of Grizzie, I had a drawer full of naughty underwear, sex toys, and dirty books. Grizzie gave such presents for every occasion; it didn't matter if it was your high school graduation, your fiftieth wedding anniversary, or your baby's baptism. This particular predilection meant she was a prominent figure on wedding shower guest lists from Rockabill to Eastport, but made her dangerous for children's parties. Most parents didn't appreciate an "every day of the week" pack of thongs for their eleven-year-old daughter. Once she'd given me a gift certificate for a "Hollywood" bikini wax and I had to Google the term. What I discovered made me way too scared to use it, so it sat in my "dirty drawer," as I called it, as a talking point. Not that anyone ever went into my dirty drawer with me, but I talked to myself a lot, and it certainly provided amusing fodder for my own conversations.
It was also rather handy---no pun intended---to have access to one's own personal sex shop during long periods of enforced abstinence... such as the last eight years of my life.
"And," Tracy responded with a rueful shake of her head, "her gifts love you. Often quite literally."
"That's all right, somebody has to," I answered back, horrified at the bitter inflection that had crept into my voice.
But Tracy, bless her, just stroked a gentle hand over my hair that turned into a tiny one-armed hug, saying nothing.
"Hands off my woman!" crowed a hard-edged voice from the front door. Grizelda!
"Oh, sorry," I apologized, backing away from Tracy.
"I meant for Tracy to get off you," Grizzie said, swooping toward me to pick me up in a bodily hug, my own well-endowed chest clashing with her enormous fake bosoms. I hated being short at times like these. Even though I loved all five feet and eleven inches of Grizzie, and had more than my fair share of affection for her ta-ta-riddled hugs, I loathed being manhandled.
She set me down and grasped my hands in hers, backing away to look me over appreciatively while holding my fingers at arm's length. "Mmm, mmm," she said, shaking her head. "Girl, I could sop you up with a biscuit."
I laughed, as Tracy rolled her eyes.
"Quit sexually harassing the staff, Grizzly Bear," was her only comment.
"I'll get back to sexually harassing you in a minute, passion flower, but right now I want to appreciate our Jane." Grizelda winked at me with her florid violet eyes---she wore colored lenses---and I couldn't help but giggle like a school girl.
"I've brought you a little something," she said, her voice sly.
I clapped my hands in excitement and hopped up and down in a little happy dance.
I really did love Grizzie's gifts, even if they challenged the tenuous grasp of human anatomy imparted to me by Mrs. Renault in her high school biology class.
"Happy belated birthday!" she cried as she handed me a beautifully wrapped package she pulled from her enormous handbag. I admired the shiny black paper and the sumptuous red velvet ribbon tied up into a decadent bow---Grizzie did everything with style---before tearing into it with glee. After slitting open the tape holding the box closed with my thumbnail, I was soon holding in my hands the most beautiful red satin nightgown I'd ever seen. It was a deep, bloody, blue-based red, the perfect red for my skin tone. And it was, of course, the perfect length, with a slit up the side that would rise almost to my hip. Grizzie had this magic ability to always buy people clothes that fit. The top was generously cut for its small dress size, the bodice gathered into a sort of clamshell-like tailoring that I knew would cup my boobs like those hands in that famous Janet Jackson picture. The straps were slightly thicker, to give support, and crossed over the very low-cut back. It was absolutely gorgeous---very adult and sophisticated---and I couldn't stop stroking the deliciously watery satin.
"Grizzie," I breathed. "It's gorgeous... but too much! This must have cost a fortune."
"You are worth a fortune, little Jane. Besides, I figured you might need something nice... since Mark's 'special deliveries' should have culminated in a date by now."
Grizzie's words trailed off as my face fell and Tracy, behind her, made a noise like Xena, Warrior Princess, charging into battle.
Before Tracy could launch into just how many ways she wanted to eviscerate our new letter carrier, I said, very calmly, "I won't be going on any dates with Mark."
"What happened?" Grizzie asked, as Tracy made another grunting declaration of war behind us.
"Well..." I started, but where should I begin? Mark was new to Rockabill, a widowed employee of the U.S. Postal Service, who had recently moved to our little corner of Maine with his two young daughters. He'd kept forgetting to deliver letters and packages, necessitating second, and sometimes third, trips to our bookstore, daily. I'd thought he was sweet, but rather dumb, until Tracy had pointed out that he only forgot stuff when I was working.
So we'd flirted and flirted and flirted over the course of a month. Until, just a few days ago, he'd asked me out. I was thrilled. He was cute; he was new; he'd lost someone he was close to, as well. And he "obviously" didn't judge me on my past.
You know what they say about assuming...
"We had a date set up, but he cancelled. I guess he asked me out before he knew about... everything. Then someone must have told him. He's got kids, you know."
"So?" Grizzie growled, her smoky voice already furious.
"So, he said that he didn't think I'd be a good influence. On his girls."
"That's fucking ridiculous," Grizzie snarled, just as Tracy made a series of inarticulate chittering noises behind us. She was normally the sedate, equable half of her and Grizzie's partnership, but Tracy had nearly blown a gasket when I'd called her crying after Mark bailed on me. I think she would have torn off his head, but then we wouldn't have gotten our inventory anymore.
I lowered my head and shrugged. Grizzie moved forward, having realized that Tracy already had the anger market cornered.
"I'm sorry, honey," she said, wrapping her long arms around me. "That's... such a shame."
And it was a shame. My friends wanted me to move on, my dad wanted me to move on. Hell, except for that tiny sliver of me that was still frozen in guilt, I wanted to move on. But the rest of Rockabill, it seems, didn't agree.
Grizzie brushed the bangs back from my eyes, and when she saw tears glittering she intervened, Grizelda-style. Dipping me like a tango dancer, she growled sexily, "Baby, I'm gonna butter yo' bread..." before burying her face in my exposed belly and giving me a resounding zerbert.
That did just the trick. I was laughing again, thanking my stars for about the zillionth time that they had brought Grizzie and Tracy back to Rockabill because I didn't know what I would have done without them. I gave Tracy her own hug for the present, and then took it to the back room with my stuff. I opened the box to give the red satin one last parting caress, and then closed it with a contented sigh.
It would look absolutely gorgeous in my dirty drawer.
We only had a few things to do to get the store ready for opening, which left much time for chitchat. About a half hour of intense gossip later, we had pretty much exhausted "what happened when you were gone" as a subject of conversation and had started in on plans for the coming week, when the little bell above the door tinkled. My heart sank when I saw it was Linda Allen, self-selected female delegate for my own personal persecution squad. She wasn't quite as bad as Stuart Gray, who hated me even more than Linda did, but she did her best to keep up with him.
Speaking of the rest of Rockabill, I thought, as Linda headed toward romance.
She didn't bother to speak to me, of course. She just gave me one of her loaded looks that she could fire off like a World War II gunship. The looks always said the same things. They spoke of the fact that I was the girl whose crazy mother had shown up in the center of town out of nowhere, naked, in the middle of a storm. The fact that she'd stolen one of the most eligible Rockabill bachelors and ruined him for life. The fact that she'd given birth to a baby without being married. The fact that I insisted on being that child and upping the ante by being just as weird as my mother. That was only the tip of the vituperative iceberg that Linda hauled into my presence whenever she had the chance.
Unfortunately, Linda read nearly as compulsively as I did, so I saw her at least twice a month when she'd come in for a new stack of romance novels. She liked a very particular kind of plot: the sort where the pirate kidnaps some virgin damsel, rapes her into loving him, and then dispatches lots of seamen while she polishes his cutlass. Or where the Highland clan leader kidnaps some virginal English Rose, rapes her into loving him, and then kills entire armies of Sassenachs while she stuffs his haggis. Or where the Native American warrior kidnaps a virginal white settler, rapes her into loving him, and then kills a bunch of colonists while she whets his tomahawk. I hated to get Freudian on Linda, but her reading patterns suggested some interesting insights into why she was such a complete bitch.
Tracy had received a phone call while Linda was picking out her books, and Grizelda was sitting on a stool far behind the counter in a way that clearly said "I'm not actually working, thanks." But Linda pointedly ignored the fact that I was free to help her, choosing, instead, to stand in front of Tracy. Tracy gave that little eye gesture where she looked at Linda, then looked at me, as if to say, "She can help you," but Linda insisted on being oblivious to my presence. Tracy sighed and cut her telephone conversation short. I knew that Tracy would love to tell Linda to stick her attitude where the sun don't shine, but Read It and Weep couldn't afford to lose a customer who was as good at buying books as she was at being a snarky snake face. So Tracy rang up Linda's purchases and bagged them for her as politely as one can without actually being friendly and handed the bag over to Linda.
Who, right on cue, gave me her parting shot, the look I knew was coming but was never quite able to deflect.
The look that said, There's the freak who killed her own boyfriend.
She was wrong, of course. I hadn't actually killed Jason. I was just the reason he was dead.
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Contents
Paul and Brady Get Hoodoo with the Voodoo
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Rardin
("Scouting Jasmine" © 2011; "The Golem Hunt" © 2011; "An Evening for Vayl and Jaz" © 2011; "Paul and Brady Get Hoodoo with the Voodoo" © 2011; "Zombie Jamboree" © 2011)
Excerpt from Tempest Rising copyright © 2009 by Nicole Peeler
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author's rights.
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First e-book edition: December 2011
ISBN 978-0-316-21734-7

