The Reburialists

by J. C. Nelson

  Amy went to the kitchen to put on the coffeepot. “Why would the old one dare call upon her name? Consider what it has said. It has created a spawn without her permission, allowed it to be captured, and failed to recover her heart, kill Brynner Carson, or free the spawn.”

  I hadn’t thought about it quite like that, but then again, as an atheist, I tended to leave quibbling about nonexistent deities to other people. Except that this one might be more existent than I felt comfortable admitting.

  “If I were the old one, I would never speak Ra-Ame’s name, for fear she might hear and find me.” Amy smiled at me.

  A knock on the door broke my reverie, and with great reluctance I answered.

  A BSI dispatcher stood on the other side, a field duffel bag at his feet, a weapons case in hand. “Amy Rust? You’re going on assignment immediately. Report to dispatch in five.” He turned to walk away and added, “Don’t get dead.”

  Amy went back to her room and brought out another duffel. “Are you going?”

  “I can’t. The director kicked me off his field team, and I doubt Brynner would want me there, either.” I wouldn’t dare mention her threat to my daughter.

  Amy dropped the bag at my feet. “I did not ask those things. I asked if you are going. If you want to go, come with me. If you do not, I will see you when we are both dead, or sooner if we succeed.”

  “I can’t. Don’t get dead.”

  “Then do not.” She picked up the bag at the door and walked out. “Do not get dead here, either.”

  The elevator doors had barely closed before I dumped Heinrich’s journals into the bag, hefted it onto my shoulder, and ran for the stairs. After ten flights down I hit the button just as the elevator arrived. The door slid open and Amy nodded to me, stepping to the side. “It is good when women do what they want, and not what they are told.”

  “Then I’m being very good right now.”

  Then I hit the basement button. “I’m taking five minutes to get ready.”

  “You may not have it.”

  I looked over to her with a grin. “I didn’t ask if I had it, did I?”

  “I will not let them leave without you.” She got off at the ground floor, sauntering toward the dispatch desk, looking better than I would after hours of makeover.

  At the basement, I switched to the secure elevator, holding my breath until the guards let me pass. I nearly ran over Dr. Thomas on the way out, carrying a gym bag filled with weapons and my spare clothes. “Grace, where are you going? And why are you carrying that?”

  I could have lied, but he’d allowed me to work with him. “Field trials. Unauthorized field trials.”

  He laughed, shaking and holding on to his cane. “My favorite kind. You’ll make full notes on what does and does not work, if you survive, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well then, I wish you luck, and may you not wind up on a slab in the crematorium.” He went back to admiring the waterfall, and I ran to my makeshift lab. Bolts and blades, three dozen syringes of my dopamine-serotonin mixture, and a handheld solar flare light went into my bag.

  When the elevator door opened to the lobby, Amy stood alone, her arms folded.

  “You said you wouldn’t let him leave without me.”

  “You said you needed five minutes. It is seven and one half.” After a moment, she laughed. “I told Brynner I am having woman’s problems, that I would meet him there. He could not stop asking questions fast enough.”

  I pushed open the door, nodding to the building guards. “You’re scary, you know that?”

  Amy followed, carrying her bag like a feather. “I know, Grace Roberts.”

  And as we drove to the private airport, the flaws in my plan became more and more evident. “You know, I don’t think he’ll be able to miss me on the plane.”

  “I do not think he would be able to miss you anywhere. His eyes wander you like a desert, whenever he thinks you are not looking.” The casual way in which she said it made me wonder what else I’d missed about him.

  I pulled up at the private airport, showing my badge to the guard, who thankfully verified that we were BSI, but nothing else. When I rolled up beside the sleek private jet, Amy got out first. “Give me ten seconds, then follow me up the stairs,” she said.

  “Got it.” I hurried after her, waiting at the flight door as Amy entered, throwing her bag into the first seat.

  “Brynner.” She strode toward him. Amy wrapped her arms around him, spinning him around and kissing him on the lips.

  I stared in shock as he flailed for a moment, then ceased.

  He pushed her back and wiped his mouth. “Amy, I—I don’t think that’s exactly how you want to greet me.”

  Amy fixed me with a stare, nodding her head toward the seats.

  I threw myself into the first seat, hoping he hadn’t followed her gaze.

  Amy spoke with mock innocence. “It is a sign of affection. Did you not enjoy it?”

  “No.” Brynner’s frustration came through loud and clear, though he’d taken a long time to push her away. “You going to be okay to fly with your . . . problems?”

  I could almost hear Amy’s eyes rolling in her head. “I am not dying, Brynner Carson.”

  “Good. We’re ready.” Brynner called to the pilot. I put my head over and lay still while the pilot bolted the door, and while we taxied to take off, I listened each time the radio crackled for someone to announce I was missing from BSI headquarters.

  The drone of the engines lulled me off to sleep. I stirred when we touched down, bounced out of a dream in which no one had died gruesome deaths or told awful lies or made mistakes.

  When the front door slammed open, I jolted fully awake. Brynner stood over me, his arms crossed, a look like a thunderstorm on his face. Behind him, the exit door hung open, revealing inky sky.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Twenty-Nine

  BRYNNER

  Grace lying about my network access: not okay. Accessing private videos of one of the most painful days of my life: definitely not okay. Stowing away on an airplane to Vegas, where I meant to find and kill a deadly monster?

  No way in hell okay.

  When I asked her to come, I’d planned to take an entire tech support crew, including a set of personal guards assigned only to Grace. Guards I’d left back in Seattle when I thought Grace refused.

  “I asked her to come.” Amy picked up her bag and blew me a kiss as she walked down the stairs. “Are you two ready?”

  “Are you trying to get her killed?” An ugly thought occurred to me. “Wait, was she on board when you—greeted me?”

  Grace whacked me in the chest as she got off. “I most certainly was. You say hello to all the ladies like that?”

  How did this go from being about her stowing away to Amy kissing me? I yelled down the ramp. “Did I miss something again?”

  Grace waited at the bottom. “Yes. Someone was probably kissing you.”

  “It wasn’t me this time,” said Amy.

  I grabbed the pilot as he exited. “You can fly this thing back, right?” I’d give Grace the opportunity for another in-flight nap. At least she’d be safer in the air.

  “We aren’t going anywhere.” The pilot brushed my hand off. “We’ve got to refuel, and we’re last in line. Probably be three or four hours.”

  I couldn’t leave Grace sitting in a plane on a runway, a perfect target for a mob rush of pitifully weak corpses. I stomped down the stairs and glared at Grace. “Do you have any idea what sort of danger you’ve put yourself in? What were you thinking?”

  Grace spun around like a whirlwind, stepping to within an inch of me before poking her finger in my chest. “I was thinking that maybe you might be a little less cavalier with your life if you were thinking about someone else. I’m not afraid of a fight. Women have always been warriors, all the way back to ancient Egypt.” She looked over to Amy. “Right?”

  Amy nodded. “Some of the most deadly. If
only you knew how Grave Services deals with the dead, you would be grateful she fights by your side. When the restless dead come like waves at sea, it is the women who take up their knives and do battle.”

  It was goddamned mutiny.

  A little show of force might be in order. “I know more about Grave Services than you think. Like, for instance, that their elderly or ill field ops have a habit of setting themselves on fire to prevent the Re-Animus taking them over at the moment of death.”

  Amy crossed her arms and looked away. “It is an act of defiance, to deny the enemy any foothold. Besides, only a fool thinks they will escape life alive.”

  I glanced to Grace. Amy had a point, but I’d made my peace with the inevitable by embracing the pleasures of life as often as I could. Warm sun, cool water, and the touch of a woman. When I died, I’d take those memories with me to whatever waited and count myself lucky to have known them.

  “Fine, she can come,” I said to Amy. “You’re on point now. Grace, you’re my shadow until we find this thing, then you hang back. I don’t want to have to rescue you.”

  Grace’s mouth fell open, and she flushed bright red. “You did not just say that.” She unzipped her bag and held up her Deliverator. “You’re carrying a pair of steak knives. I’ve got a Deliverator full of co-org ammo, a crossbow full of syringes, and a handheld sun. Go find yourself another damsel to rescue.”

  That was not at all the tone I expected from her. Amy laughed at me as I carried my bags to the car.

  The outskirts of Vegas, dark and dusty, whizzed by as I drove us to the strip. I didn’t brief the others on my plan, because, in truth, my plan ended at “find the pyramid, hang out near it, and wait for something bad to happen.”

  Grace pulled a tablet out of her purse. “You want to avoid the main strip, head for the card houses on the north end. There’s nightly co-org activity there, and you need to see and be seen, but you don’t want to have it out with the ReAanimus at night.”

  Like I didn’t know that. Well, I didn’t know about the meat-skins coming out to play, but I did know I couldn’t kill it, not permanently, without the sun. “I’m not. We’ll piss it off tonight. Kill a few of its hosts, make it angry enough to try something stupid during the day.”

  Following Grace’s directions, we drove to a nastier, lowerclass area of town—exactly my sort of place. The cheap neon here flickered, and even the working girls shied away from the dark, gathering in the pools of light at street corners like rats on an island.

  “Look,” said Amy, pointing into the darkness. “There.”

  I looked, but couldn’t see anything. “Does Amy stand for ‘bat’ in Egyptian?”

  “Amy means ‘better than you at everything,’” she replied. “There’s one there. Get to it before the private patrols.”

  I turned, trusting Amy’s eyesight and cursing myself for not having a good comeback ready. In the distant headlight beams, a woman stumbled, the telltale gait of a shambler. “This one’s no good. I need to find one the Re-Animus is actually possessing. We can just run this one down. Grace, want to try one of your darts?”

  “Listen.” Amy leaned forward and put her mouth near my ear. “For an old one this powerful, it is many places at once. Kill its vessel slowly. Make sure it has time to understand and recognize you.”

  I slowed the car and unlocked the doors. “How will I know when the Re-Animus recognizes me?”

  Amy undid the door and stepped out before I’d even come to a stop. “You will know. Grace Roberts, take the wheel and be ready. You do not know where or when it will come, or what it may look like.”

  Grace climbed over the seat, still scowling.

  I opened the door and ejected. “You are a piece of work, you know that, Grace? Do you even feel bad about lying to me?”

  “I’m still pissed at you for that ‘rescue’ comment.”

  I gave her my stern look. “Not even a little bad?”

  For a moment, she softened. “If I say yes, will you back out of this?”

  I shook my head.

  Grace pursed her lips, her eyes closed. “Then go tease that tiger. Don’t get dead and I’ll apologize.”

  I slammed the door, attracting the co-org’s attention. “Why do I feel like I’m the one who screwed up here?”

  Amy laughed from the shadows. “Because you’re a man. Four thousand years of history say you either did or will so soon it doesn’t matter. Move. Take the host before it gets away.”

  Get away, not bloody likely. I hefted the spikes I’d gotten from the armory, fresh yellow pine, sticky to the touch, sharpened to a point. The daggers would work better, but I didn’t want better. The shambling monster picked up speed, running toward me. Sprinting.

  For one brief moment, it occurred to me just how bad of an idea this might have been. If the shamblers on the Sin Eater’s home turf sprinted, what would a body it cared for and spent time building up act like? I let it swing at me and rolled with the punch, not even trying to dodge.

  And came up backhanding the spike into it.

  It stumbled. Knelt, and rose, no longer moving like an Olympic sprinter.

  “Hey, meat-skin. I carved a turkey in better shape than you.” I whipped out a blade and took off one finger.

  It froze, head going slack. For the length of a heartbeat, I thought I might have killed it. Then the head snapped up, the eyes pitch-black. “Brynner Carson.”

  “Say good night.” I slammed the dagger into its head, looking away as the Re-Animus exploded like the smoke from a carpet fire. The corpse fell to the ground, dead, and I let it. “I think I got his attention. Amy? You out there?”

  She called from a side alley, where she stood among a pile of dead meat-skins. “Did you manage to kill that one yet? I found these and did not want to bother you.”

  Sweet Jesus, if I could do that . . . No, I could never do that. “Like I said. I got his attention, I think.”

  From around us came wails of rage and anger, unearthly voices with inhuman tongues.

  “Yes, Brynner Carson.” Amy pointed to the shadows, where dozens of shapes converged. “I think you have.”

  Thirty

  GRACE

  I sat in the car fuming over Brynner’s question. Did I feel bad? I didn’t feel bad. I felt awful. What a stupid question. If he weren’t on a mission to get himself killed, I’d be working on a way to make it up to him. Whatever it was, I wasn’t about to jump into bed with him just to say I was sorry. I had a perfectly good voice for that.

  I’d pulled the car down the block and turned around, figuring Brynner could handle one little co-org by itself. I turned off the lights and cut the ignition, peering through the tinted glass. Under the streetlamp, Brynner had the co-org staked. Then he knifed the thing, killing it again.

  Part of me hoped he got the message through to the Re- Animus. The rest of me hoped he didn’t. I rolled down the window to call him, but before I could speak, the night found its voice.

  The cacophony of wails that rose around me sounded like someone had set a pet shop full of parrots on fire. The wailing grew louder, louder, and fell silent.

  Which bothered me as much as the noise.

  A whisper of cloth against the car sent a bolt of fear through me. And another one, from the other side. Then the car shook, and just outside my window, a corpse moved past.

  I didn’t breathe. I didn’t blink. I couldn’t trigger the door locks, or they’d know the parked car wasn’t empty. Once I drew attention to myself, how long would it take the Re-Animus to ram a brick through the windshield? Or someone’s spare head?

  And the crowd continued, ringing Brynner in. He stood in the middle, under a streetlight that cast his gray BSI uniform in purple and orange light.

  “Brynner Carson.” The crowd of co-orgs spoke as one, that same guttural voice I’d heard back at the farm. “You come to my home. You kill a perfectly good body. You mock me.”

  Brynner turned from side to side, a blade in each hand, and
shouted back. “Of course I mock you. Your choice of any face, and these are the best you can come up with? You know, I didn’t come here to fight. I came here to gamble, but that one was so ugly I thought I’d do you a favor.”

  As a group, the corpses howled in rage, then stumbled forward, crushing one another in a desperate attempt to get at him. Since the game was on, I opened the car door and let fly with the dopamine-syringe crossbow.

  Shooting a crossbow takes practice I’d only had against paper targets. In the real world, against a live target, I gauged and re-gauged my shot. I aimed for the chest, and nailed my first one in the calf. It fell over, a tornado of black gushing from its mouth. Which is where my second toy came in handy. The pocket sun put out a ten-million-candle-power beam of light for about thirty seconds at a time. Any longer and it would melt the plastic case, and probably my hand.

  I hit the cloud with a beam from my pocket sun, and it caught fire in a burst of purple light. In half a second I had the attention of half the crowd. Where Brynner was, I couldn’t say, and didn’t really have time to worry about. I shot the first five with the crossbow, then pulled out the Deliverator in one hand, the pocket sun in the other.

  Shoot and shine, shoot and shine, this is why I’d been ticked at Brynner’s comment. I didn’t need a rescue. If I was on a pedestal, it was so I could get a better shot. The sooner he figured that out, the better.

  I didn’t mind the idea that a man would want to treat me like that. That part was sweet, but not as sweet as the respect he’d give me for standing on my own.

  The co-orgs kept coming, and the pocket sun smelled like I’d baked a plastic pie. I dropped it to lock another magazine into the Deliverator, and the lens shattered. Darkness swirled around me, killing my ability to see more than a few inches.

  “Grace Roberts. I owe you agony for what you did to my spawn.”

  I shot the corpse speaking in the mouth, but another one, just two steps behind it, continued.