by Aleah Barley
“The President doesn’t want to upset people.” D.S. slid his badge back into his blue jeans. He shrugged his broad shoulders. “There are still some humans who feel like Biters can’t be trusted.”
“Imagine that.” Mom nodded. “And a DUA agent needs my daughter’s help because?”
“The DUA is a new branch of the government. We are expanding rapidly. However, we don’t have agents everywhere.” He grinned sheepishly. “Don’t tell the FBI, but occasionally we contract with local experts. You daughter has proven herself extremely… useful.”
There was a long pause while my mother considered the available information. “She’s a smart girl. Takes after her father.” There was a short pause. “Want to tell me why the two of you look like you got caught in a meat grinder?”
“Biters.” My mouth was dry.
The walls of my office felt like they were closing in. I swallowed hard and shifted towards my mother.
“There were Biters. An entire gang of them. Last night. They attacked us.” I swallowed hard, thinking about the ambush the night before. All those dead eyes staring in my direction. Flat. Angry. Hungry. The scent of blood had been heavy in the air, and I hadn’t been able to escape. I’m a Hunter. I’m pretty damn good but still.
Being cornered in an alley by a dozen dead men wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time.
I licked my lips, choosing my words carefully. “D.S. saved me.”
“And you came back here? You didn’t go to the hospital?”
Hospitals are nice places, but they lock potential Biters away in padded rooms. Alone. That hadn’t been an option.
I shrugged. “It was late.”
“Honestly, Gemma…” My mother was about to go ballistic. All the signs were there. Her skin was red. Her expression was pinched. Her hand went up idly to toy with the pearls around her neck. Any moment now, and she’d be screaming. Three. Two. One—
“There needs to be a deposit.” Her gaze flicked back to D.S. “Anytime we work for the government, we require a deposit. Several days payment in advances. I’m sure Gemma told you.”
This was the first I’d heard about a deposit.
I held my breath.
D.S. nodded. “I’ll write a check as soon as I get back to my hotel room. We agreed on a hundred and fifty an hour?”
For one brief moment, my mother’s body was perfectly still. Someone who didn’t know better might think she was dead. Or dying. Her pale skin flushed a deep mauve. “One hundred and fifty dollars an hour.” Her smile filled her entire face, reaching all the way to her eyes. “A reasonable amount given the severity of the situation—searching for missing paperwork—I’ll just go and draw up a contact. An estimate for our time—” Her nostrils flared as she gave me one last quick once over. “Expenses.”
Then she was gone, with a swish of her skirt and a swing of her hip, hurrying away before D.S. could change his mind about the money.
It was an awful lot of money.
The door swung closed, and I let out the breath I’d been holding. Damn. I should have set an alarm. I should have woken up earlier. I should have cleaned up the preparation room before my mother got in. Of course, I was counting on being dead by dawn.
The down side of being alive was I still had an ass for my mother to chew out.
“I’m sorry about her,” I said.
“She’s a little intense,” D.S. allowed. “I’m sure she cares about you very much.”
Uh huh, that was why she’d given me the stink eye when she saw the damage on my legs and grinned like a banshee when I told her about the money.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “What are your parents like?” He wouldn’t remember. Not anything specific from his life. Just a feeling. A vague emotion of love or longing.
D.S. grinned. “My parents were Irish immigrants. They owned a bakery in Five Points, back in the day. It wasn’t much, but in that neighborhood… They did the best they could.” There was a slight pause. “I guess you could say we were well off. In comparison to everyone else. My mother saw I got three square meals a day. I got an education. My father kept a roof over our heads. They worked hard.”
It sounded ideal.
“Have you seen them since you died?”
“Once.” D.S. stood up and made an attempt to tidy his clothes. It didn’t help. “It wasn’t the same.” He let out a long, melancholy side.
It might have been sad if it weren’t so obvious. I might not be the sharpest thing in the thing, but I know when I’m being played. I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “Let me guess, you’d give anything for one last day with them? Family’s the most-valuable thing in the world? I should appreciate my mother more?”
“Something along those lines.” D.S.’s curved lips twitched up into a broad smile. “Your parents love you no matter what. That’s a valuable thing.”
“I had a parent who loved me no matter what. My father. He died. Now, I’ve just got my mom.”
Enough of this interpersonal crud, I needed to work some energy out. I double-checked my shirt to make sure everything was in the right place and pulled my silky blonde hair up into a messy ponytail. “I’m going to try to clean up. You want to grab some steaks, and we’ll hunt down a zombie? Fight a monster?”
“Anybody I know?”
“Andrea Mitchell,” I said. “The steak’s for the dog.”
14.
The dog was sleeping on the front porch of the bungalow when we pulled up. It was bigger than I remembered, or maybe it had grown in the last forty-eight hours. Either way, he was a bruiser. His sand colored fur stood up on the back of his neck when we climbed out of the truck, but he didn’t move.
“Maybe it’s all for show,” I said. “Maybe he’s really just a big softy.”
The animal started to growl, the noise rattling out of his throat like a truck on the freeway.
“Uh huh,” D.S. said, “And I’ve just got a really slow resting pulse.”
Okay, so the animal was a menace. That didn’t mean it couldn’t be reasoned with. I dealt with brainless Biters every day.
The dog was no more terrifying than a fetid zombie.
Maybe a little more terrifying.
The house was a two-story bungalow with white vinyl siding and a spray of flowers planted in the front yard. It had pink shutters and a flower box hanging radically off one of the downstairs windows. Whoever lived in it last had taken the time to board up the downstairs windows with plywood, but upstairs the glass had been shattered by the elements—or kids with rocks—leaving everything open and exposed. The roof was sagging, and I didn’t want to think about what it looked like on the inside.
I’ve been in enough Detroit dumps to know nothing kills drywall like open windows and weather. Caving in walls, sagging floors, and dark mold that clawed at the air.
It could have been worse. It could have been a burnt out husk.
Actually, that might have been an improvement.
“It’s disgusting,” D.S. said. “You sure she’s in there?”
“Not all Biters are as fastidious as you.”
We’d stopped at his hotel on the way—one of those grand old places that littered downtown and only made money during the auto show—I’d loitered in the lobby like a young offender while he’d run upstairs to take a quick shower and change his clothes. Now, he was looking neat and tidy in a pair of jeans that fit him snugly in all the right places, a black t-shirt, and a pair of aviator glasses that hid his eyes.
He’d left his DUA issued windbreaker in the truck.
D.S. shrugged. “I’ve lived in worse places than this—not recently—I’m just saying: is it where you’d want to be if you were an eleven-year-old girl?”
“She’s a Biter.”
“She’s also a kid.”
He had a point. I crossed my arms in front of my chest and leaned back against the truck door, considering his words. I’d been an eleven-year old girl once. Not too long ago in fact. Back then I’d wanted three thing
s: permission to walk to school by myself, a real bike with twenty-one speeds, and a castle… in no particular order.
The house had pink shutters. It definitely wasn’t a castle, but there was something about it that might appeal to a kid.
Like the flowers that were blooming in the yard, pansies, petunias, and lilies planted in haphazard rows and awkward clumps. Were they the efforts of generations of nut-crazed squirrels, or the work of a little girl trying to turn the abandoned property into her own secret garden?
“I think she came here while she was alive.”
“Uh huh.” D.S. shrugged, clearly doubtful. “Maybe she should stay there. Why are we doing this again?”
“For the money.” My mom was happy to be getting a hundred and fifty dollars an hour from the government, but that didn’t mean she’d forgotten about the Mitchell job. Andrea’s parents were willing to pay top dollar for her return, and—almost as important—getting in with the Indian Village crowd could mean some more high-class jobs in the future. Steady work from people too scared to get their own hands dirty.
“I thought you’d be all excited,” I said. “Saving baby Biters—rescuing kittens from trees—I thought that was what the DUA was all about.”
“The DUA is about establishing equal laws for all Americans—regardless of their breath capacity—this…” He broke off, waving at the house. “This is a local issue. Her parents should call the cops.”
It took everything I had not to fall down on the ground laughing my ass off. “Seriously? The cops? This is Detroit. The cops might come running for a missing kid, but not a Biter. Even then, it’s going to be a fifty minute response time.”
I popped open the door to the truck and pulled out a bag of meat. I’d bought a slab of steak from the butcher in Eastern Market. Primo stuff. It had taken a chunk out of my checking account, but I’d get it back when I wrote up the expenses for Andrea’s parents. I waved the meat in the air, trying to get the dog’s attention.
The animal yawned.
D.S. wasn’t quite so immune. I’d had the butcher double bag the meat when I’d bought it, but after a twenty-minute drive with the steak on his lap the Biter’s control was starting to slip. He looked tense. His lips pulled back revealing strong white teeth. His muscles tightened. The vein on the side of his neck would have been throbbing… if he had a pulse.
When I waved the meat in the air, his gaze was intent and predatory.
I’d had some granola bars in the car, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen D.S. eat. “You hungry?”
“I could eat the damn dog.”
“Right.” I shifted backwards half a step, careful not to get too close while I still had blood on my fingers.
The dog was staring straight at me now. I waved the remaining steak. It yawned again. Clearly the beast was only interested in eating fresh meat if it was my ass.
I ground my teeth together. If zombies could make do with a nice bloody steak then so could the carnivorous canine.
Of course, why just distract the animal when I could scare him off permanently?
“Here.” I wagged the meat under D.S.’s nose.
“Don’t do that,” he growled.
“Do what?” I wiggled the steak a second time.
“Don’t do it,” he warned.
Too late. I was trusting D.S. not to take a chunk out of me when there was a bloodier alternative, but that was more a hope and a prayer than blind faith. Once I had his attention, I needed to move fast.
I aimed quickly and threw in an easy overhand motion.
Once the meat was in the air, instinct took over. The dog lunged forward, heading straight for the bloody Frisbee. He wasn’t the only one. D.S. moved at the same time, long legs propelling him forward at a fast clip.
The clean-cut government agent from the day before was gone.
He finally looked like a Biter.
Hell, he looked like something someone would pay me to hunt.
D.S. snatched the steak out of the air with one hand and took a big ol’ bite. His teeth flashed. Blood dripped down his chin.
When the dog reached him a moment later, D.S. let out a low growl from deep in his chest. Predator against predator, they circled each other warily. The Biter was still ripping at the steak with his mouth, blood spilling onto the ground. The dog lunged forward, growling. It hit D.S. solidly in the side, sinking its teeth into his shoulder.
D.S. shook himself, shaking the dog off onto the ground. Was he going to be okay? The animal growled at him savagely, and he growled back. The sound was low in the back of his throat, but it seemed to get the point across.
The man was going to be okay. It was time to get to work.
I edged around the side of the yard, up the little house’s front steps, and through the open front door.
The interior of the house was dark and dingy. The wallpaper was yellowing unevenly from the elements, and the curtains were in tatters.
The only noise came from the animals tussling outside on the front lawn.
I held my breath as I edged my way forward into the body of what had once been a living room, pausing when the floorboards groaned underneath my feet. Nothing happened. I waited one second then another. Still nothing.
Okay, so the house was a little creaky. At least it seemed structurally sound. I glanced around, taking a little more time to look at Andrea’s hideout. Her castle. There was a jar full of wilting flowers on the windowsill.
There were two ways out of the living room: up the stairs to the house’s second story and through a narrow door in the back of the room to the combination kitchen and dining room. I headed for the kitchen. The house seemed solid enough, but I wasn’t about to take any chances without an okay from a structural engineer, or someone to catch me when I fell.
The kitchen had pink tile floors the same color as the window treatments outside. The counter was pink too. I could definitely tell why the place might interest an eleven-year-old girl. What I couldn’t figure out was why her parents had let her come here by herself.
The bag of Whacko burgers I’d given Andrea the night before was crumpled on the floor. The dining room table had been taken out when the homeowners left, but some of the chairs were still grouped awkwardly in the corner where they’d been moved to make room for a battered couch. It had a pink blanket on top and a handful of fantasy novels scattered on top. I was beginning to sense a theme.
I was halfway across the room before I realized that I wasn’t alone. The baby Biter was sitting on the floor behind two of the chairs. Not saying anything. Not moving. She was staring dead ahead.
It had been more than sixty-four hours. The danger zone was over. Maybe. Without an experienced person helping her through the transition, there was no way to tell whether Andrea had begun to recognize familiar settings or whether she’d gone full on monster.
“Hi, sweetheart,” I said softly. The words sounded pretty freaking disingenuous. I slipped my stun gun out of my pocket and tried again. “My name’s Gemma Sinclair. Your parents sent me. Do you remember them?”
Nothing. It was like talking to a wall.
“Your name’s Andrea. Andrea Mitchell.”
The girl’s eyes flickered. She opened her mouth like she was going to take a breath—the action pure reflex—then closed it again. She nodded. “Andrea. Mitchell.”
“That’s you.” I knelt down slowly a few feet away. “Your parents have been missing you. They want you to come home.”
Andrea glanced around the bungalow’s big kitchen. Like she was searching for something. “Home.”
“I can take you there if you want.”
“Home,” she repeated, drawing her legs up even closer. She looked so damn small, so vulnerable. After three days on her own, her long blonde hair was a tangled mess. Her once white clothes were covered in mud and dust. They were a mottled brown color that matched her stained fingers and bare feet. “Parents.”
“Do you want to go home?”
&
nbsp; “Home.” Her teeth dug into her bottom lip. “Parents.”
This wasn’t getting me anywhere. “I’m not exactly an expert on happy families, but it looked like you’ve got a pretty good setup.” Whatever her life had been like, it was over. There would be no more rushing off to school every morning or playing with her friends at night. The girl was dead. A Biter. A zombie. I shrugged. “They’ve got food for you.”
“Food.” Her pale lips pulled up into a toothy grin. Damn, she was young. Two of her front teeth were missing. Now they’d never grow in. “Want. Food.”
“Okay,” I held out a hand. “Come with me, and I’ll find you some food.”
Andrea stood up and grabbed my hand. Her skin was cold and clammy to the touch, but her smile was genuine. “Want. Food.”
“Uh huh.” I should have saved some of the steak for Andrea. “Let’s go. We still have to get past the dog outside—.”
“Lucky,” Andrea interrupted.
She couldn’t remember her parents, but the dog got an immediate response. Lucky seemed like a pretty ironic name for the dragon in the yard, but I wasn’t about to object. Not if it meant that Andrea could get us out.
“Lucky is a big dog.”
Her grip tightened on my hand. “Mine.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not taking him home.”
If I never saw Lucky again then, it would be too soon.
I led Andrea through the living room and outside.
The battle in the yard was over. Lucky was settled back down in position on the front porch. He glanced up when he saw us walk out the door but settled back down when Andrea waggled a finger in his direction. D.S. was leaning against the side of the truck. His shirt was torn, there was a cut on his shoulder, but the color had returned to his high cheeks. He looked satiated.
He also looked pissed. “You do that again, and I’ll eat you.”
Definitely pissed.
“We needed a distraction.”
“I’m not a distraction. I’m a DUA agent. I might not have a pulse, but I’ve got a heart and a brain. We could have figured something else out.” He glanced at the slender girl still grasping my hand. “That her?”