Dead Sexy

by Tate Hallaway

  Actually, that was a lie. Like all vampires, Sebastian slept like the dead. In Sebastian's case he sleeps in the exact position he died in. Sebastian died violently in some kind of sword fight (he still had nasty scars on his back and on his abdomen), and his arms stretch out in odd, uncomfortable looking angles. And, stranger, his eyes are open.

  But, in that position, he was a bit of a bed hog, and impossible to rouse or move. I conceded his point.

  "I don't like it, but I understand."

  He kissed me lightly on the cheek, and stood up to go. He seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but apparently coming to some silent conclusion about me or the situation, he turned on his heel and left. I heard his bare feet slapping softly on the uncarpeted hallway, as he made his way to the guest room.

  I didn't think I could sleep knowing that he was so close and yet so far away, but I did.

  * * * *

  When I next opened my eyes, there was sun. The storm front must have been slow moving because the dark cover of clouds persisted a bit, but shafts of light broke through. They cast broken, spidery patterns on the nubby remains of the harvested cornfield. The air smelled fresh, scrubbed clean. I took in a deep breath and smelled coffee. A large thermos sat at my bedside. I looked around for one of Sebastian's usual notes, but didn't find any. Something about being deprived the exercise of deciphering Sebastian's florid script depressed me.

  I found the mug Sebastian had set out for me. It was my usual cup. Of all of the nice pottery he had, I always preferred the cup he had hidden in the back of the cabinet that advertised the Fitzgerald Hotel in Vegas. I smiled as I remembered coaxing the story of how he'd gotten it out of him.

  I gasped when I tried to reach with my left hand to twist off the top. The pain was intense. After taking a moment to breathe through it, I tried again. Only this time I kept my left arm as still as possible and using my right hand managed to get the top off.

  I was just about to pour when I noticed my mug was already a quarter full of some mysterious amber liquid. I looked around for a place to dump it out. It dawned on me that this gunk was probably my "medicine." A sniff told me it was going to taste nasty. I thought about getting rid of the stuff on general principles, but as I was still reeling from the attempt to move my arm, I decided to risk drinking it. I poured the coffee on top of the mystery liquid. I took my first swallow without tasting it.

  Hell, my first cup was all about the drugs anyway; I needed the caffeine.

  I sipped and stared at all the stuff in Sebastian's bedroom that I'd come to think of as "ours." By my second cup, I decided I didn't want to be in this house anymore. The third cup fortified me enough to hunt up some clothes from my stash in his closet. I downed the fourth and fifth while dialing Izzy's cell.

  "Where have you been?" She said before I could even say hello. "William tells me you took off with that sexy FBI guy, and no one hears from you for days. What's been going on?"

  "Days?" I was scrounging through Sebastian's kitchen for something to eat. I'd found a rock-hard bagel, some slightly withered grapes, and a jar of kosher pickles. Mmmm, breakfast. I was so hungry that the first crunch of pickle actually tasted good. I fished two more out of the brine. "What day is it?"

  "Sunday."

  Izzy's answer caused a near fatal snort of pickle juice. Sunday? I lost two days somewhere in there.

  "Are you okay? What happened? Where are you?" Then, in a whisper, "Have you been arrested?"

  "I'm at Sebastian's," I said, giving the bagel an experimental gnaw. When I nearly chipped a tooth, I gave up. Tossing it into the microwave, I hit thirty seconds. "If you think you could come get me, I'll tell you everything. Hey," I added, suddenly remembering. "What happened with you and the zombies? I tried to stop by your place to see if you were okay, but I had a very weird run-in with a crow."

  "Really?" Izzy laughed. "I can't wait to hear about it. Still, sounds like the usual Garnet-Witchy-fare. As for the zombies… Well, I'll explain everything that happened when I get there."

  "Sounds great."

  With a heavy clunk, I replaced the red plastic phone in its cradle on the wall, and marveled at the anachronistic cord that hung in tight ringlets between the receiver and the base. Sebastian had one other working rotary telephone in the house, which I swore he kept around just to amaze guests. I smiled, plucking at the wire just to watch it snap back into a coil.

  The microwave beeped. The bagel steamed. The edges had turned into inedible rubber, but I could choke down the gummy middle, especially after liberal application of currant jelly. I drank even more coffee, feeling stiff and sore and sad.

  Sebastian's kitchen was in full fall-harvest mode. Bundles of culinary herbs, like sage and oregano, hung from hooks over the doorway. Medicinal plants steeped in oils and alcohols housed in colored bottles arrayed haphazardly on the windowsills. A professional-grade dehydrator filled the kitchen with the scent of slow-drying mint and bee balm.

  Glancing around at the bright linoleum countertops, I remembered the pleasant time we'd passed bottling, distilling, and canning all Sebastian's annual bounty. I'd learned I was slightly allergic to essential oils of rue that weekend. My hands had turned bright red with raised welts. Of course, Sebastian had some homemade hand lotion that had fixed me right up… and then we used the rest of the lotion in much more creative and exotic ways.

  I put my dishes in the sink and glanced at the clock, wishing Izzy would break a few speed limits getting here. If I stayed too much longer, I'd cry.

  It was still gray enough outside that I had the overhead light on. I jumped when Benjamin made it snap off and then flicker back to life. I guess he felt I was overstaying my welcome, as well.

  I filled up my mug one more time and went outside, preferring to wait for Izzy at the end of the muddy drive rather than spend another moment with my memories.

  Outside, everything was wet. The wind cut straight across the empty cornfields. A pair of mourning doves cooed to each other on the swaying overhead electrical wire. Sebastian's tidy front lawn was mostly brown, though a few stubborn patches held a trace of green. The flowerbeds were neatly cleared of debris and the perennials covered with a thick mound of straw.

  The driveway was a beige sludge of sandstone gravel. As I made my way to the end of the drive where the mailbox stood, the cold wetness made my shoulder ache. I stared down the narrow asphalt stretch of county highway and tried to conjure Izzy's white truck.

  I'd drunk the last dregs of my coffee and was starting to consider retreating inside to warm up when Izzy finally arrived with a honk and a wave.

  I had a little trouble pulling myself up into the seat with my shoulder bandages, but I managed it. Izzy watched me with a deep frown.

  "You're hurt," she pronounced after I'd grunted and groaned the safety belt into position.

  "I miss your little Toyota or Honda or whatever it was," I said. At least the heat was on full blast. I could feel the moisture wicking away from my face.

  "I needed the hauling room," Izzy said, putting the truck in gear. When she bought it, Izzy's bungalow had been listed as having a lot of "old-world charm." She'd told me she quickly discovered that had been some kind of real estate code phrase for "needs remodeling work."

  I nodded. "Yeah, so, anyway, I was shot."

  The truck veered suddenly. Izzy jerked it back over to our side of the dotted yellow line. "Like with a bullet? From a gun?"

  Given that the last time anyone was shot in our circle of friends a longbow was involved, I supposed it wasn't an unreasonable question. Still, I laughed a little. "Yeah. Just like that."

  I watched Izzy's face; she watched the road. She gripped the steering wheel with whitening knuckles. "Please tell me this story doesn't end with a dead FBI agent."

  "I'm fairly certain it doesn't."

  "Lilith," she said quietly, almost to herself.

  Maybe it was my guilty conscience or perhaps there was something of an accusation in her tone, but I found
myself suddenly on the defensive. "He was going to arrest me for obstruction."

  "So you unleashed the Queen of Evil on his ass?"

  Okay, so when she put it like that, it did kind of sound like using a wrecking ball to swat a fly.

  "Sometimes," Izzy said. "I think you should seriously consider an anger management course."

  I think she meant it as a joke, but there was a serious overtone. I turned to watch the haystacks roll past. Each pothole we bounced over jarred my shoulder, and I tried to decide if she was right.

  "This whole thing with the FBI? It scares me," Izzy admitted, still pretending that the Sunday-morning traffic required her undivided attention. "Somehow when you tell me vampires are real and there's a secret order of assassins who kill Witches for the pope, I can deal. The FBI. Damn, girl. That's real heavy shit, you know?"

  I knew. Not only did the FBI spell trouble for me, but also for all my friends and relations. Pretty soon, if they hadn't already done so, agents would start hauling people in for questioning. The crap I'd brought down on my friends in the past hadn't really touched them in the same way because the Vatican agents were only after people who practiced true magic—in other words, just Sebastian and me. The bureau would be sniffing around everyone even vaguely associated with me to try to build the case. Dominguez had already threatened William.

  "I'm sorry," I said.

  "It's okay," she said, though I knew it wasn't.

  We drove in silence for a while. We'd started down Mineral Point Road, which was technically still the highway, but it went near the center of town. A few houses had jack-o'-lanterns out already, even though Halloween wasn't for a few more days. When we passed a grocery store that had painted cartoon images of ghosts and mummies in the large windows, I thought to ask, "Whatever happened to those zombies that were after you?"

  "Salted them. Worked like a charm. They turned and headed back to their graves, I hope."

  When you fed salt to zombies they returned to wherever they'd died. "You hope?"

  Izzy shrugged, changing lanes. "Most of these dudes looked like frat boys. The paper didn't say anything about a bunch of college-age kids dying, and you know they love to make a big deal about all that. 'Frat Party Ends in Tragedy'—it's very front-page news. It made me wonder if they'd been buried at all."

  "For the ritual, do they have to be buried?" I asked. Izzy was much more of an expert on voodoo than I was; she had family in Louisiana.

  Izzy tapped her index fingers on the steering wheel. "I suppose you can feed someone the zombie poisons at any time. Like slip it into spiked punch."

  "At a party," I finished the thought for her, and we both nodded, considering it. An image of a bunch of zombies returning to lie dead in the front lawn of some house on frat row flashed through my mind. "Like some fraternity version of Jonestown."

  Izzy nodded slightly, "Yeah, like that. Makes sense. Suzette used to hang with those crazy party-boy types."

  I waited for a long moment, wondering if I was supposed to know what Izzy was talking about. "Um, who?"

  "From my work. The little perky blonde with the piercings."

  That must describe half the baristas from here to Poughkeepsie.

  "With the Eeyore tat on her bicep."

  I nodded. I had a vague impression now. Not that I had any idea what we were talking about. "What happened to Suzette exactly?"

  "Just showed up one morning dead." She nodded, turning onto my street. "Things got rough when I told her I had to fire her."

  "For being dead?"

  "Partly. The whole shuffling and moaning thing was getting on my nerves, but it was more that I couldn't stand being part of the scam."

  "What scam?"

  Izzy shifted in her seat making the vinyl creak. Her long, gold-polished fingernails tapped on the wheel.

  "The scam?" I prompted again.

  She watched the road intently. "Yeah, you know how these people keep going back to their jobs? What do you think is happening to their paychecks?"

  "Being direct deposited as usual?"

  Izzy shook her head. "The coffee shop gets too much turn around to be set up for that. We hand out actual checks."

  "So, you think the voodoo sorcerer is ordering his zombies to cash out their checks for money?"

  She nodded.

  Murdering a bunch of college kids and turning them into zombies just to collect their meager minimum-wage salary seemed like a lot of effort for very little gain. Although, I supposed, if you got enough of them it could become pretty lucrative. Plus, then you'd have all these able bodies around to shovel the walk, do the dishes, take out the trash, and all the other jobs around the house no one wanted to do. Sounded kind of nice to the part of me that loathed housework. Nice, except for the whole killing and soul-slavery thing.

  "Do you really suppose it's just for the money?" I asked.

  "Who knows?"

  "But, why go to the trouble? Why make zombies at all? What are they usually used for?"

  "Working in fields. Drudge work."

  "Flipping burgers doesn't seem all that different," I observed.

  "Slinging lattes, you mean," Izzy said with a frown.

  "Slinging lattes, selling books, it's all a matter of degree. Lots of people think jobs like ours are soul suckers."

  Izzy snorted a dark chuckle.

  "What do you think?" I asked. "Is this sorcerer doing us wage slaves a favor? Taking away our pain? Stealing our souls before our jobs crush them? Maybe this person is kind of doing the opposite of Marx, you know, instead of liberating the proletariat, he's providing an opiate for the masses."

  Izzy raised one finely sculpted eyebrow at time. "Where'd you learn that? Did you even take Communism 101?"

  "I dated a Marxist once."

  "One of your SNAGs, right?"

  Madison was known for its overabundance of SNAGs, Sensitive New-Age Guys. Before Sebastian, I seemed to be some kind of magnet for that intellectually buff, but otherwise deeply beta sort of male. I nodded.

  "Figures." She snorted. "But you know that's just crazy talk."

  I flashed Izzy a weak smile. "Sounded better in my head."

  "So many things do."

  I stuck my tongue out at her.

  She started to pull up to the curb when I noticed a shiny navy-blue minivan parked at the end of the block. There were a fair number of families down the street, but my neighbors tended to be the sort to buy used when they bought new. Besides, the van was particularly noticeable for its lack of political bumper stickers.

  "Go around the block," I said.

  "You think the Feds have your apartment staked out?"

  I pointed to the van as we passed it. The tinted windows reflected the white of Izzy's truck.

  "I really can't deal with this," Izzy said with a shake of her head. "Give me a zombie army any day."

  My sentiments exactly.

  Izzy slowed as she turned another corner. "Are you sure you should risk it? Maybe you should hang at my place."

  I didn't really need anything at the apartment. I wanted to talk to Parrish—especially since Dominguez had confirmed that they were looking for him as well, but he wasn't available until sundown, which was hours from now. I worried about Barney, but she'd be okay for a little while longer. After all, she'd been known to rip into the Ritz crackers if she felt she hadn't been fed often enough.

  I couldn't go back to the store. They'd certainly come looking for me there.

  "I don't want to involve you in this," I said to her.

  "Honestly, I don't want to be involved, but you're my friend. I already am."

  * * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, we parked the truck in Izzy's garage. Sebastian's medicine had begun to wear off and my shoulder throbbed at the slightest movement. Getting out of the seat belt exhausted me. By the time Izzy got me lowered into the easy chair in her living room, I'd broken out in a cold sweat.

  "I'm going to heat up some soup or something." I started to pro
test that she didn't need to fuss over me, but my stomach chose that moment to gurgle with anticipation. Plus, when she returned with a big, fleece blanket, I began to appreciate the luxury of having someone else care-take me for a while. "Thanks," I said.

  She pursed her lips as though to remind me that she really didn't want to be harboring a fugitive from justice. "Try to get some rest. You look terrible."

  I gave her a smile.

  She pressed a remote into my hand and went off to the kitchen. I watched her through the pass-through as she gathered up various ingredients and equipment. I knew from previous experience that I was in for a treat. When Izzy made soup, it wasn't from a can. She had vegetable stock already in her refrigerator. Noodles dried on a rack.

  The TV dominated the wall directly opposite my chair. Bookcases overflowing with DVDs and old videotapes surrounded either side. Some of the cases were clearly store-bought, but the majority was identified only by Izzy's precise drafting-style print. She had movies, TV series, and even video games. Several types of game consoles littered the area around the monitor.

  Besides the chair I occupied, there was a slightly sagging purple suede couch under the window. Paperbacks covered the bookshelves that filled the available wall space.

  Despite the amassed clutter, Izzy's house was clean. Wood floors gleamed. The warmly painted walls reflected morning sun. There was no trace of cobwebs on the chandelier that hung in the center of the living room.

  The smell of sautéing onions drifted in from the kitchen. I put the remote down on the glass coffee table beside the chair and picked up the nearest paperback. It was some kind of space adventure—not my usual fare, but it was pleasantly distracting. I found my eyelids drooping after a paragraph or so.

  * * * *

  I woke up with a naggingly full bladder and that startling sense of being somewhere unfamiliar. Stiffly, I managed to extricate myself from the chair and make my way to the toilet. Izzy's bathroom was one of those typically cramped spaces you find in older houses, but she'd livened it up by painting the walls a shocking yellow and decorating liberally with cartoon fish.