The Wild Side: Urban Fantasy with an Erotic Edge

by Mark L. Van Name

  “You want me to help clear my own name?” Victor scoffed.

  “Who better?” Lucy said.

  “Good point,” he said. “I suppose we could do an Origins Spell.”

  “What’s an Origins Spell?” Lucy asked.

  “It’s a spell cast to call the maker back to its spawn,” Victor said.

  “We already have werewolves doing that,” Michael said.

  “All the werewolves do is track the scent. I can bring the maker here.”

  “How?” Lucy asked.

  “We use a vial of blood from one of the zombies, something organic from the site where you were attacked, and magic to bind it together.”

  “Can’t you use my blood?” Michael asked.

  “I could. However, that would be breaking the law, because you’re still a living zombie. Until you clear my name, I’m not taking any more chances. Lucy can get the blood from the zombies at the morgue.”

  “It won’t be admissible in a court of law,” Lucy said. “The laws are very strict about the use and misuse of magic. Too many witches have been caught altering evidence or manufacturing clues to frame innocent people.”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” Michael said.

  “Can you do the spell here?” I asked.

  “I can. In fact, I insist on it. I’m not leaving this room until you prove I had nothing to do with this attack.” He set his chair flat on the ground. “I’ll give you a list of what I’ll need from my lab.”

  Michael turned to us. “Lucy, you’re in charge of blood. Grig, will you get dirt and grass from the clearing?”

  “Of course,” Grig said. “I live to serve.” He ran out.

  “Sylvie, you and I will get the supplies from the lab.”

  “Use my car,” said Lucy. “My offices are just around the corner. I’ll walk.” She tossed me her keys as she left.

  I rummaged through my purse, found a pen and an old receipt, and set them on the table in front of Victor. “Write down exactly what we need.”

  “There is a way to slow the process, buy you a little more time,” Victor said as he handed me the list.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Humans have a natural defense against the virus. By revving Michael’s system, like an engine, it can supercharge his immune system. Every time his body goes through a build and release of energy, it starts the cycle again.”

  “Okay. Let’s do that then,” I said.

  Victor laughed. “You need to do that. I don’t do boys.”

  I started laughing. “You’re kidding. You want us to . . . now?”

  “I’m serious, Sylvie,” Victor said. “Sex is the answer.”

  “No,” Michael said. “I refuse to endanger Sylvie. What if I infected her?”

  “You can’t infect her,” Victor said. “You’re not undead yet.”

  “You’re serious?” I said, still giggling.

  “It works especially well when someone else is watching,” he said.

  “That’s not going to be you,” I said as I pulled Michael from the room.

  “This is the first time all day that I feel like there’s something I can do to help you,” I said to Michael.

  “Help away,” Michael said as he led me, stumbling and still giggling, to a broom closet. The fear of being discovered added excitement and an element of danger to our play. We nibbled and nipped our way across every exposed piece of flesh, tearing at clothing in our haste to be together. Michael pushed aside my bra and drew my nipple into his mouth, sucking hard. I shuddered. I reached my hand down the front of his jeans, squeezing his rock-hard cock and stroking him with one hand while I pushed down his pants with the other.

  “Come on, baby.” Michael was busy too. His fingers slid into me, his fingers and mouth creating a rhythm that impeded my breathing. My mouth went dry, and I felt my body flush and spasm around his fingers. “Yes,” he moaned against my breast. The sound reverberated through my body, making me twitch.

  I groaned a protest as he removed his hand and mouth from my body, then groaned again as he grabbed my hips and lifted me before lowering me onto his cock. I exploded. Once. Twice. He continued to pound his way into me, his hands digging into my hips as he held me against the wall. When he finally went over the edge, I was a limp bundle in his arms.

  “Look what I did!” I said, pointing to his ripped shirt.

  “You’re an animal,” he said, kissing me. “Don’t worry, it just adds to my zombie mystique.”

  I laughed. “Come on, Zombie Boy. Now that we’ve reset your clock, we have a crime to solve.”

  When we got to Victor’s, police cordons blocked the property, and zombie freak was spray-painted, in dripping red letters, across his front door.

  “Jail is probably the safest place for Victor right now,” Michael said.

  “They’re treating him the same way the super community is treating us,” I observed.

  Michael said nothing as he opened the front door and entered the house.

  I expected to see evidence of Victor’s peculiar hobbies, but there was nothing unusual, just books everywhere with old comfortable chairs and overstuffed couches piled high with paperwork. We went into the basement laboratory and gathered the things on Victor’s list. I crammed everything but the fishing rod into a cloth grocery bag I found in the kitchen.

  We were the first to arrive back at the stationhouse.

  “What happened to you?” I asked Grig as he walked in a few minutes later. “You look like you’ve been in a battle with a lawnmower and lost.” His pants were tattered and torn at the hem. “Where’s your uniform jacket?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  There were long, ugly scratches across his chest and welts covering both arms. Luckily, fairies are quick healers. He’d be as good as new in a few hours.

  “I’d make a joke about Toro mowers and your jacket as a cape, but I can see you’re not in the mood,” I said with a smile.

  “Olé,” said Michael.

  “Your werewolf cop friend attacked me, if you must know. I had to defend myself. I’ll be sending you the bill for a new uniform,” Grig said. He handed two baggies to Victor.

  “You saw Alex there?” I asked.

  “They thought I had something to do with the zombies,” Grig said.

  “Did you?” Michael asked.

  “You two just had sex, didn’t you?” Grig asked in disgust. “I can smell it, and you’re both acting like giddy schoolchildren. What if you infect her?” He snarled at Michael.

  “No chance,” Victor said. “And it’s my fault. I told them to.”

  Grig snorted and stood as far away from us as he could in the small room.

  “I wonder what’s taking Lucy so long,” Michael looked at his watch. “She should have been back before all of us. We’re running out of time.”

  “I’ll go check on her,” Grig said.

  “We’ll go with you,” Michael said. He grabbed my hand, and we followed Grig from the room. Victor never even looked up.

  “Why are we going with Grig?” I whispered to Michael.

  “I don’t trust him,” Michael whispered back.

  “Oh, please,” I said. “Now you’re being paranoid.” I patted his arm, but I was nervous. Paranoia was a symptom. How much time did we have left?

  Everything was fine until we reached Lucy’s building.

  I bumped into Michael as he stumbled getting out of the car. A tremor passed through his body as I clutched his shoulder to keep from falling.

  “Michael?”

  He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. A spasm distorted his face as another, more violent, tremor shook him from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. His face turned an alarming shade of red, and sweat exploded from every pore in his body, drenching his clothes.

  “Michael!” I cried. He closed his eyes and sagged against me, the hectic color fading from his cheeks as his muscles relaxed.

  “Blowjob?” He whispered.

/>   I let out a choked sob of relief. “Let’s find Lucy first,” I said.

  I put my arm through his, throwing a glamour around us as we walked into the building. Grig led us down the stairs to the morgue. There was no way anyone would see Michael as normal now. He was almost zombie.

  The door to Lucy’s office stood ajar. Grig pushed it further with the tip of his sword. It opened with a squeak, but that was the only sound.

  “Lucy?” He called through the doorway. “Are you in here?”

  “Yes.” She burst into noisy sobs.

  I pushed past Grig. Lucy sat in a heap on the floor. Broken glass and scattered paperwork surrounded her. Her office looked like a tornado had touched down in it.

  “What happened?” asked Grig as he helped Lucy to her feet.

  “I don’t know,” she said sniffling. “I remember coming in here to get the samples, and then I woke up on the floor with a headache the size of Montana.”

  “This can’t be good.” I pointed to an overturned container with the red-lettered warning BIOHAZARD stamped on all sides. The lock was missing, and there was nothing in it.

  “They bit off more than they could chew when they opened that. The zombie pieces from your wedding were in there.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Zombies need to be incinerated to destroy them. Hacking a zombie to pieces will only slow it. That box must have exploded with creepy-crawlies when they opened it. In fact . . .”

  Lucy dropped to her knees and started crawling around the floor, pushing paper and other debris out of her way.

  She looked up at us. “If one of the pieces got away, we’d still be able to use it for the spell. Help me look.”

  We all spent a fruitless ten minutes sifting through the overturned office searching for specimens.

  “Sylvie,” Grig pulled me aside. “How well do you know Alex?”

  I moved closer. “What do you mean?” I whispered.

  Grig shrugged. “He knew we were coming here. His cohorts attacked me. What if he’s behind the zombie attack?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “He’s Michael’s partner.”

  Michael’s phone rang.

  “What?” He spat into it. “Damn it, Alex. Of course, the crime scene and the forest reek of fairy magic. The entire Fey Guard was there!” He threw the phone across the room; it shattered against the far wall.

  “Michael’s starting to fall apart, Sylvie,” Grig said.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Grig’s right, Sylvie.” Michael slumped against the wall and scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’m losing myself. The paranoia. The hair-trigger temper,” he sighed. “The sex didn’t help. I’m turning even faster than normal. Grig needs to kill me before I hurt someone.”

  “NO!” I said. “I’ll take you to Faery.”

  “It’s too late,” Grig said. “I’m sorry, Sylvie, but Michael’s too far gone. Nothing dead can enter Faery. And he’s definitely dead.”

  “I don’t feel so good,” Lucy said, swaying on her feet.

  Grig caught her before she fell. “You two go to Victor. I’ll look after her.” He guided Lucy to her office chair, forcing her head between her knees.

  Michael stumbled on the steps out of the building and rolled down them, landing in a heap at the bottom.

  “Michael!” I rushed down the stairs after him.

  “I can do this by myself!” He shoved me as he staggered to his feet. “Leave me alone!”

  “We may not have much time left, Michael,” I sobbed. “Please don’t push me away.”

  He reached over and pulled me close. “I’m sorry,” he said, burying his face in my neck. His skin was fever hot.

  Michael was shambling by the time we got to Victor.

  Victor paced the small room, mumbling under his breath after we told him the bad news.

  “Get Alex,” Michael mumbled. “Gun.”

  “No,” I said. “We’ve come this far. We can do this. Don’t give up on me.” Under the harsh fluorescent lights, Michael looked awful. The circles under his eyes were black, and his eyes showed more red than blue. I glamoured the two-way mirror to make sure he never saw the zombie in his reflection.

  “Alright,” Victor said. “I’ll use Michael’s blood. There’s no mistaking him for the living dead now anyway.” He grabbed the edge of the table. “Help me move this thing.”

  We pushed the table against the wall. Victor removed all of the objects from the bag I’d brought from his lab and lined them up along the top of the table. He laid out a piece of papyrus and placed a chip of elephant tusk across its center.

  “What does that do?” I asked.

  “Do you know anything about fetishes or magic?” he asked.

  “Not human magic,” I said.

  “Ahhh . . . Well, in this case, I want to lure our practitioner here with their senses. The ivory is for thought.” He picked up the hawk’s feather. “This is for sight.” He placed it alongside the ivory. “For taste, I add a drop of mead. Just a touch of pheromone for smell.” He drew the stopper from a little bottle, sniffing it, before dripping it along the feather. “I’ll finish it with the sound of a siren’s call”—he waved a tiny crystal vial under my nose before placing it in his pocket—“once I’ve closed the circle.”

  Victor pricked the tip of Michael’s finger with a fountain pen; the pen sucked up the blood before it could drip to the floor.

  “It’s a leech pen,” Victor explained at my look of disgust.

  Victor used Michael’s blood to scribble runes on the paper. Then, in a series of intricate moves, he folded the papyrus around its contents.

  “It looks like a koi,” I said.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” he retrieved a fishing lure that had snagged in the bag and tied it to the outside of the koi, leaving the wicked barb jutting from the front like a harpoon.

  “Voila!” He laid the completed charm in the middle of the floor next to the fishing rod and a little mound of dirt and grass from the clearing.

  “Give me as much room as you can,” he said. I grabbed Michael and backed into the far corner.

  Victor drew a circle around himself with chalk. Then he attached the lure to the fishing rod. He began chanting something in a language I didn’t understand. There was a rhythmic cadence to his humming.

  The energy in the small space shifted.

  The hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood on end.

  Electricity filled the air.

  Taking the little crystal bottle from his pocket, he removed the glass stopper and used it to paint a blue smile across the face of the koi.

  I heard nothing, but Michael jerked.

  “Hold him, Sylvie.” Victor’s lips never moved. His voice was in my head.

  I held Michael as Victor cast his lure. The bait dangled a foot from the floor.

  Victor looked into space as he sat in the protected circle. A shiver ran across my body. There was more to him than met the eye.

  Suddenly, the lure disappeared and the fishing line went taut.

  “Gotcha!” Victor reeled in the line.

  Lucy walked in.

  “Perfect timing, Lucy,” Victor grunted, sweat beading his brow. “Any second now, the person who perpetrated this atrocity will come walking through that door and clear my name.”

  Lucy said nothing, tears in her eyes. Victor pulled on the line again. Lucy moved forward. Victor watched her as he released the tension again. She relaxed. He gave a giant yank on the line, and Lucy fell forward, stopping as she hit the invisible barrier of the protective circle.

  Lucy burst into tears. “I’m so sorry. I tried to tell you so many times. This is so out of control.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” I said, shaking my head. “If you released the zombies, why help us?”

  Lucy’s words came in a rush. “I still can’t believe it. I left the room for just a minute. When I got back, the morgue was empty.” She wiped her streaming eyes on her
sleeve.

  “You left a room full of zombies alone?” Victor asked.

  “They weren’t zombies,” Lucy sobbed. “I ran all the tests. They showed no infection.”

  “You must have missed something,” Victor said.

  “I don’t know,” Lucy said. “All I know is that when I heard there were zombies on the loose, I rushed out to help.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” I yelled. “We could have saved hours! Look at Michael!”

  “I was going to confess when I gave you the blood, but somebody knocked me out and destroyed the evidence.”

  “How convenient.” I said.

  “It’s not my fault!” she said.

  I took her down with a flying tackle. “Bitch!”

  Victor pulled me off her before I could do her serious harm.

  I turned my anger and frustration on him. “She started this whole fiasco. They arrested you because of her!”

  “I know,” he said. “And she’ll pay for it. But right now, we need to . . .”

  In the corner of the room, Michael let out an ear-splitting scream, then gasped, clutching his chest as he collapsed, convulsing, to the floor. His back arched like a bow, every muscle in his body rigid.

  “Sex,” I said.

  “Too late,” Victor said. “He’s entering the last stage. His time is up. We have to get him out of here now.”

  Lucy picked up Michael’s feet. “Grab the other end, Sylvie.”

  I pushed her away. “Haven’t you done enough damage?” I said.

  “I can help,” she said.

  “She knows as much as I do about zombies,” Victor said. “Let her help.”

  I rubbed my hands across my face and slowly nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.” I bent to pick up Michael’s head.

  “I can’t leave,” Victor said. “I’m still under arrest.”

  Shit. I laid Michael’s head down again. I tried calling Alex, but his phone went straight to voicemail.

  Michael began twitching on the floor, his face glowing with fever, his skin so dry it looked like it would crack if I touched it.

  Panic and fear bubbled in me. I tamped them down. “Focus,” I told myself, tearing my gaze from Michael.

  I looked at Lucy. She stared back at me blankly.