“Oh, I can’t wait. When that bitch starts to sing, I want to be up close, right where she can see me.” Carrying her drink, Sheyenne drifted across the room. We picked an unclaimed table up front. I looked around—still no sign of Miranda. Twenty minutes late now. I thought she would have been anxious to hear what we had found in her husband’s study....
Taking care of business, I handed Sheyenne the Zom-Be-Fresh sachet and the goo specimen from the disintegrating puddle of Franklin Galworthy in front of the mission. After I told her what had happened to the dapper zombie, she looked appalled. “I need you to contact your friend at the chem lab. There’s got to be some clue here as to what made Mr. Galworthy dissolve.”
Sheyenne took the samples, regarded the Fresh Loam sachet. “I’ll call in a few favors again, but I’ll bet it comes up negative.”
The tone of background conversation inside the lounge changed as Ivory emerged from backstage. The big vamp came into the bar area, swaying in an exaggerated half-corkscrew walk to accentuate her assets. Each time she turned, her breasts swayed with the movement about a half turn out of sync, trying to catch up. Her smile was very wide to emphasize her full set of teeth and fangs, which sparkled as if she had recently endured a very expensive tooth-whitening process.
Sheyenne hissed under her breath, ready to claw the diva’s eyes out. “That bitch poisoned me. I just know it.”
“Play it cool for now,” I said. “Can’t prove it—yet.”
Ivory came forward, smiling even wider when she recognized Sheyenne. “Hoping to steal the show again, sugar? Take my place?” The vamp’s friendly tone sounded as cuddly as an iron maiden. “Good luck if you want to try.”
Sheyenne had her spectral hackles up. “I was good at singing, but I didn’t need it—I would have moved on soon enough. I have a lot of talents. You never had anything to worry about.”
Ivory gave a throaty laugh. “I was never worried about a scrawny little waif like you, sugar. With that warbly voice?”
“Then you didn’t need to kill me,” Sheyenne said point-blank.
Now the buxom vampire laughed even louder. “You think I killed you? Why would I bother? The competition helps me keep my edge. I always have the whole audience in the palm of my hand.”
Now the vamp turned to me, working the full glamour of her personality. “I’m so glad you’re here to listen tonight, Dan.” Ivory leaned forward to make sure I got a good view of her cleavage; the chasm was so enormous it could have been seen from two blocks away. “I’ll do a special number for you, make you forget all about that willowy little ghost. It’s not as if you can do anything with her now.”
Sheyenne lifted her glass of bourbon and water and threw it directly in Ivory’s face. The big vamp spluttered. “You little bitch!” Ivory extended her clawlike nails, thrust out her fangs, and the audience gasped in shock. Instinctively, I lurched to my feet to put myself between the two, although a vampire couldn’t touch a ghost anyway.
Just then I heard an edgy, cackling laugh. “I had no idea this was audience participation night, sweethearts.” Miranda Jekyll had arrived and instantly became the center of attention. Ivory stormed off to regain her dignity and clean up.
“Sorry about the drama, Mrs. Jekyll.” I gestured Miranda to the empty chair. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
In a fluid movement, she slithered into the offered seat. “I eagerly await your report, Mr. Chambeaux, but first things first. Isn’t somebody going to buy me a drink?” Though Fletcher was dismayed to watch the retreating diva, he hurried over to our table. Miranda looked up at him. “Ah, there you are at last. I’ll have a gin martini, please, three olives, very large, very dry, and very dirty.”
The conversation in the nightclub grudgingly returned to normal. I noticed that the three zombie cougars—Victoria, Sharon, and Cindy—had also ensconced (or entombed) themselves at the bar, gaunt and skeletal, fully painted. Compared to those three, Miranda Jekyll looked ravishing. The trio of cadaverous women ordered colorful fruity concoctions and sat together, waiting for someone to hit on them.
Before long, Brondon Morris did. He entered Basilisk wearing a different plaid suit this time—I imagined he must have a whole closet full of them—and chatted up the three undead women, paid for their round of drinks.
When Miranda followed my gaze, she emitted a low growl from her throat. Jealous? Another piece clicked into place. She’d been quite open about the fact that she had her own affairs. Was she cheating on Harvey Jekyll with that man?
“Brondon Morris is a loathsome human being,” she said as if reading my mind, not tearing her eyes from him. “A little turd in a bad suit.”
All right, probably not an affair, then.
“Brondon isn’t my favorite person, either,” I said. “I have my own reasons. What do you have against him?”
“He’s an ambitious opportunistic climber who wormed his way into JLPN and wants to be a big fish. He’ll keep looking for ponds until he finds an empty one just his size.”
“So you two don’t have any sort of . . . romantic history?” I asked.
She let out a peal of laughter that caused heads to turn. “Oh, sweetheart, please! I prefer a man with more hair on his chest.” She drew a sharp red-enameled fingernail across the cocktail table, leaving a deep scratch. She gave me an appraising look, then addressed Sheyenne’s ghost. “And someone who has hot blood pumping. You have nothing to worry about, sweetheart. Dan Chambeaux’s not my type.”
At the bar, Brondon drifted away from the three cougars and engaged in an intense conversation with Fletcher. He handed over several samples from his case before shaking the bartender’s hand and turning with a generalized wave of farewell to the clientele in Basilisk, although no one but me was looking at him. Then he scuttled away.
Miranda’s martini arrived, and she drank half of it in a gulp, as if to wash away her thoughts of Brondon Morris, or of garish plaid in general. “Now then, to business. You said you made some progress? What did you find in Harvey’s study?”
I leaned closer, lowering my voice. “Something that might be useful in leveraging a settlement.”
“My, I love leverage,” she chortled. “What is it?”
I told her how Sheyenne had slipped into the study, looking in the locked drawer where Miranda had suggested. “Not only is your husband involved in Straight Edge, he’s very involved. In fact, he’s the Grand Wizard himself.”
Miranda chuckled. “Now, isn’t that an embarrassing little detail about a man who’s launching a new line of products for unnaturals! Harvey, Harvey, you evil little man—Grand Wizard of the Straight Edgers! Threatening to expose that ring will make Harvey squirm, all right. Silly little boys with their silly little prejudices and silly little costumes.”
I added, “Only a few hours ago, someone—something—broke into the Straight Edge offices and slaughtered four human volunteers. That’s going to put the group squarely in the news. Lots of publicity.”
Sheyenne wasn’t so convinced. “Yes, but they were murdered by a monster. What if public sympathy shifts to the poor Straight Edge victims torn apart by intolerant unnaturals?”
Someone chose that moment to let out a piercing scream that turned our attention to the bar. Cougar Sharon reeled back in horror as Cindy’s appletini glass slipped from her grasp and shattered on the floor. The grayish necrotic skin on Cindy’s forearm and hand also slipped off the bone, like a thick floppy rubber glove. She put her other hand to her face and let out a scream, just before her jawbone fell off. Her fingers pressed into her cheek and sank through to the skull. Her other arm fell off. She collapsed onto the bar stool and kept falling to the floor in dripping, dissolving pieces.
Other patrons made sounds of disgust. Many backed away.
Next, Sharon’s head lolled to one side. As she reached up to hold it in place, the head fell completely off. She managed to catch her hair, dangling her detached head for a moment as her face continued to contort and scream. Then
the hair ripped off the scalp like a hunk of sod, and Sharon’s head fell face-first to the nightclub floor. Her body slumped forward.
Victoria had an extra five seconds of stunned panic that turned to sad resignation as she also flash-rotted like a time-lapse video and fell into a pile of suppurating goo that mingled with her two companions, pooling together around the three now-empty cocktail dresses.
The zombie patrons of Basilisk were the first to flee. Vampires and werewolves, who were not usually squeamish, looked grossed out.
“We should get out of here, Mrs. Jekyll.” I wasn’t sure what was causing this gooey crisis, but I feared it might spread. First Mr. Galworthy and now the cougars. Could it be some kind of undeadly epidemic? And what if I was vulnerable too.
Miranda finished the rest of her martini in a gulp. “I believe you’re right, Mr. Chambeaux.” With remarkable speed, she flitted out of the nightclub in the crowd of retreating patrons.
Wearing a sour expression, Fletcher Knowles went to the back room and brought out a mop and bucket.
Ivory stepped out onto the stage, freshly made up and ready for her set. In disbelief she watched her admirers stampede for the doors. She grabbed the microphone, but saw it was a lost cause. She shot an angry glance toward Sheyenne, as if the ghost had caused the disaster.
With pure showmanship, Ivory announced, “Thank you for coming. That’s our show for tonight, but I’m here all week!” She ducked back to her dressing room at the rear of the club.
CHAPTER 36
Next morning, Sheyenne hand-delivered the chemical samples for analysis to her friend at the lab, asking for results as soon as possible.
After the uproar of the previous night, a divorce settlement—however bitter—seemed less important than zombies falling apart in the middle of their daily activities. What if the horrific affliction spread across the Unnatural Quarter? It could turn into a real zombie apocalypse.
Nevertheless, I had a responsibility to our clients. I checked to make sure that Jekyll’s Grand Wizard ring remained locked in the office safe. I needed to figure out how to deliver an ultimatum to Harvey Jekyll, let him know the leverage we had, and convince the man it was in his best interests to reach a settlement with Miranda. Robin was far too innocent for that type of work.
My overture (I considered it negotiation rather than blackmail) had to come from an unexpected quarter. Maybe I could recruit Tiffany from the All-Day/All-Nite Fitness Center. Considering how much the tough vamp despised the Straight Edgers, she might do the job just to watch the Grand Wizard squirm.
I spent the morning trying to work out details in my head. Shortly before lunch, the telephone rang, and Sheyenne called for me. “It’s Officer McGoohan. He sounds upset.”
I took the phone. “What is it, McGoo?”
On the other end of the line I could hear his quick breathing, the rasp in his voice. “Shamble . . . that client of yours—Sheldon Fennerman, the vampire?”
“Yes, I was about to close the case.” The vampire’s problems should be over now that the Wannovich sisters had cast their gruesome protection spell . . . and since the Straight Edge kids had all been torn limb from limb, they weren’t going to harass him anymore.
“Don’t close it yet.” I heard him swallow hard. “You’d better get down here right away.”
By the time I reached the vampire’s brownstone, two other police units had arrived and uniformed officers were keeping the crowd back. I saw the trollish landlord chatting with the people on the street. “He complained that his neighbors had been killed, but I didn’t believe him. Now how am I ever going to rent to vampires again?” He lifted his pumpkin-like head, stared around with beady eyes at the people. “I do have apartments for rent, if anybody’s interested? Some of them zoned for dual use, daytime and nighttime. There’s a move-in special this month. I—”
I went directly to the troll landlord. “Where’s Sheldon?”
He flinched back. “I’m just trying to make a living here!”
One of the cops who worked with McGoo called me over. “Dan Chambeaux? Right this way—Officer McGoohan told us to expect you.”
He led me around the corner to the alley behind Sheldon’s brownstone. McGoo was standing there, his face drawn, expression gray. “Shamble,” he said, and shook his head. “Sorry I told you to hurry—not much point. I was just upset. There’s nothing you can do.”
Sheldon Fennerman hung dead, suspended three feet off the ground. A long wooden stake the size of a laundry pole had been shoved through the center of his chest and directly into the crumbling brick wall of the alley. The nervous vampire had been pinned there like a piece of meat stuck on a fondue fork.
I reeled. “Oh, Sheldon . . . I let you down.”
McGoo took off his cap and wiped his forehead, then replaced it. “What could have the strength to do that?”
My throat was as dry as grave dust. “We both know what has the strength.”
“But why go after a nervous little vampire who wasn’t hurting anyone?”
“Why smash Mrs. Saldana’s mission either? Why slaughter a bunch of Straight Edgers? What’s the connection?”
I saw genuine fear in McGoo’s eyes. “Unless it’s just running amok. I’ve got to get that monster off the streets, Shamble—but I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley unless I’m carrying a bazooka.”
I wondered if they made silver-jacketed heavy ordnance against unnaturals. Probably a special order.
I looked down at the ground again. Among the garbage strewn in the alley, I saw dozens of large cockroaches curled up on their backs, legs waving weakly in the air. They were bigger than any roaches I’d ever seen.
McGoo ground one under his heel. “Now, what’s all that about?”
Remembering the special incantation that Mavis Wannovich had cast, I realized that her threat had been literal, not just a scare tactic. “Sheldon Fennerman was shielded by a protection spell: Anyone who harmed him or his apartment would get a stomach full of living cockroaches.”
“Some protection spell,” McGoo said.
“Well, it worked.” I nudged one of the writhing, dying insects with the toe of my shoe. “It just wasn’t strong enough to stop this brute.”
At the other end of the alley, the morgue truck rolled up and the three ghouls bounded out again, ready for a new customer, but I didn’t let them near Sheldon. Once the crime scene techs took all the photos and gathered the evidence they needed, they set about removing Sheldon’s body with all the finesse of baggage handlers testing the durability of various brands of luggage. I shooed them away. Sometimes, you just have to do what’s right. I wrapped my hands around the shaft that pinned the vampire to the wall. “McGoo, help me get him down.”
We had to wiggle the pole up and down until it broke free from the bricks. As gently as possible, we eased Sheldon down to the ground and worked the stake out of his chest.
I bent down next to him. His face had a startled look, more fear and surprise than pain. He probably hadn’t known what was happening when he bumped into the monster in the alley.
It couldn’t have been a random attack. Why would the brute have carried a long wooden pole with him? He must have been coming for the vampire.
“I’m so sorry, Sheldon,” I whispered, and closed his eyes. My heart felt more leaden than usual. I swore that one way or another I was going to get that hulking bastard—not just for Sheldon, but for myself as well.
CHAPTER 37
At Chambeaux & Deyer, we encounter many impossible things, not to mention clients. Even so, it strained credulity that we received the chemical results in a day. Full analysis of the Mr. Galworthy goo and the Zom-Be-Fresh sample found in his coat pocket.
I shook my head in amazement at Sheyenne. “Even the police department can’t manage an emergency turnaround like that! How the hell did you get an analysis so fast?”
Sheyenne gave me a coy smile. “You have to know somebody. And I know somebody.” I saw on the envel
ope a handwritten “For Anne,” with a little heart drawn next to it. “He was a fellow med student—Andy,” she explained. “And he had a crush on me. Very sweet. Now he works in the analysis lab, so I asked a favor. He’d do anything for me—even now.”
Anne and Andy? I tried my damndest to pretend I didn’t feel a twinge of jealousy.
“Andy found out about my death too late. I should have thought to call him when I was dying in the hospital. He did come to my funeral, though. Spiky brown hair, heavy-rimmed glasses, tends to blush at the drop of a hat.”
I remembered somebody like that at her funeral. Not many had attended, so he stood out. I’d never known who he was until now.
“And no, he’s not a suspect,” Sheyenne said, glancing at my expression. “Just a friend.”
She spread the chem reports on her desk, and we studied the analysis. There had to be some connection, some smoking gun in all of the numbers in the columns. Andy had already typed his conclusions at the bottom.
“Dear Anne, This analysis found nothing on the list of harmful chemicals. A full roster of trace elements and proprietary substances, but I compared them with known toxins, caustic agents, acids. I can’t identify anything that could have caused the cellular breakdown of the victims.”
Andy had gone the extra step—bless him, he must have had one hell of a crush on her (and who could blame the guy?)—of comparing all of these detailed results with the earlier sample of Zom-Be-Fresh she had given him, the one that caused her severe skin reaction. The substance found in the packet of the Galworthy goo was a pre-release sample from JLPN’s new Fresh Loam line. There were slight differences in the list of chemical additives from the earlier sample, as would be expected with a new formulation and fragrance, but nothing that should cause the undead to disintegrate.
“I don’t buy any of this.” I was sure Jekyll Lifestyle Products and Necroceuticals had something to do with it. I’d seen Brondon Morris with Victoria, Cindy, and Sharon more than once, and not long before their unfortunate demise. And dapper Mr. Galworthy of Black Glass, Inc. had used more than his share of JLPN colognes and deodorants.
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