The Reburialists

by J. C. Nelson

  “And?” I waited.

  “The Dallas office has one trapped in a bomb shelter. At dawn they’ll blow off the roof and gun it down. The one in Los Angeles fled its primary host under fire from saltwater pressure washers.”

  “So it is war you want.” Amy shook her head. “And the heart? What of Ra-Ame’s demand?”

  Director Bismuth’s eyes lit up with anger. “They prey upon us, treating us like cattle, and now we have the power to fight back. We will hunt them like dogs and kill them where they hide.”

  Amy shot to her feet, leaning over the table. “Ra-Ame is coming. Ask Brynner Carson if you do not believe me, and if legends are true, she brings with her an army the likes of which you cannot imagine.” She pounded the table, causing all of us to jump. “I have seen one with my own eyes. Salt water and sunlight will not stop these creatures any more than it will her.”

  “Stopped the one in Vegas cold,” said Grace, her tone dangerously close to a challenge.

  Amy spun to face her. “Grace Roberts, that one was young. Not more than two centuries, at most. Ra-Ame has seen four ages come and go. Legends say she has gathered her army that long. Monsters with skin like stone, eyes like eagles, and claws like dragon’s teeth.”

  “I’m not going to wish her away. I’m going to shatter her, and anything else that comes with her.” Grace took a hunk of white rock out of her purse and set it on the table. “This is a piece of the skin from the one we killed earlier. It’s flexible when stretched, hard as stone when hit. We’ll be making armor based on the design soon enough.”

  I nodded. “That sounds fantastic.”

  Grace laughed. “If you like that, you’re going to love this. This ‘skin like stone’? That’s how we kill them. They’re vulnerable to sonic shock. The key is going to be finding which frequencies and patterns. It won’t be a steady tone—their skin stretches and moves as they do.”

  She took a small vial from her purse and dumped it on the table, leaving a pile of white sand. “This was a second chunk of skin that I cut from the Vegas Re-Animus with a diamond saw, then subjected to shock waves. It took me four hours to find the right frequency, but once I did, you can see how much good ‘skin like stone’ did.”

  Amy put her head in her hands. “Call Grave Services. Beg them to tell you everything about Ra-Ame. Would it not be wiser to return her heart and let her return to slumber?”

  Director Bismuth laughed. “If I had it, I’d give it to her, all right. Use it as the bait for a trap. These things may be immortal, but that doesn’t mean they can’t die. Brynner, where do you strike next?”

  I cleared my throat. “I don’t. I’m taking my mom’s body home once it’s cremated, and mingling her ashes with my dad’s.”

  She shook her head. “I need you fighting. Ra-Ame may have legendary monsters, but you are our legend. You are my general. Humanity’s general.”

  The vial in Grace’s fist shattered, and her fingers welled with blood in half a dozen places. She gasped in pain but kept her eyes locked on the director. “You don’t treat him like a general.”

  “Unless you have the heart of Ra-Ame to offer me, you are dismissed, Ms. Roberts.” Director Bismuth looked to Amy and me. “I ask you to reconsider. We’ve found evidence of a weaker Re-Animus in Detroit.”

  Grace ran her fingers along the table, creating a smear of blood. “You said we started a war back in Bentonville.”

  “Your point?”

  “Why weren’t there guards with Brynner’s aunt and uncle? You knew what we’d done. You knew there’d be reprisal. You knew damn well the Re-Animus could find his aunt and uncle.” Grace rose, her fist clenched. “You said there would be sacrifices. Acceptable ones. Horrible ones. Which ones were they?”

  And with those words, it became true to me. Obvious to me. How could I not have seen this, or known it? I met the director’s gaze, realizing for the first time she had to look up to speak to me. “Why didn’t you post guards at their house?”

  “I was preparing for a war. I didn’t have spare field operatives to wait—”

  I rose. “Protective custody. You couldn’t move them? Help them run? Give them a warning? Do you know what you’ve cost me?”

  Grace put one hand on me, and Amy took my other arm. I hadn’t realized I was shaking so badly. Then Grace turned to me. “That’s not all. She encouraged you to go after the one in Vegas. Hoping you’d be so full of rage you wouldn’t think straight. When I called for a medic, who did they send? A media team.”

  Amy spat on the table. “Even the old ones have more compassion.”

  The director picked up her phone. “One more word, Ms. Roberts, and I will have you detained under National Security Directive 5.2.8, section C.”

  “Stow it. Brynner, you should hear a voice memo I recorded between the director and me. Yes, she offered me money if I got you to come back, but I turned her down. That would be when she threatened—” Grace’s phone chirped three times in a singsong pattern. She fumbled for it and stared at the screen before looking up with teary eyes. Her voice came out so soft the air conditioner drowned it out. “I have to go.”

  “To your quarters, Ms. Roberts. Brynner, you should get some sleep. I’ll pick a new target for you tomorrow, when you are rested and healed.” The director waited, phone in hand. “Are we clear?”

  “I have to go. Now.” Grace grabbed her purse and ran for the door.

  Which remained shut, no matter how Grace turned the knob.

  Director Bismuth rose, keeping one hand on the emergency lockdown button under her desk. “Grace Roberts, by order of the Bureau of Special Investigation, I place you under arrest. You will go nowhere without a level-zero clearance escort. Return to your quarters, or I will have you held in jail. The jail is outside this building, remarkably insecure.”

  While I had questions I would force the director to answer, I also had priorities, and first among those was keeping Grace from committing a murder. I lunged forward, intercepting Grace’s charge and picking her up. Maggie unlocked the door under my withering stare, and I carried Grace out to the elevator with Amy following behind. Once I pressed the call button, I set Grace on her feet. “Calm down, and tell me everything.”

  She shook her head. “I have to go now. Right now. Right now.” Tears ran down her cheeks.

  Grace just didn’t understand. “The only way you’re getting out of this building is if I go with you. I was born with level-zero clearance.”

  Amy stood in the corner of the elevator, muttering to herself. “You should not go out. The old ones have eyes and ears everywhere, and they will most certainly kill you both to earn Ra-Ame’s favor.”

  That was the last thing we needed. “Killing us would do that?”

  “If they believe it will, does the truth matter?” She put a finger on my chest, over my heart. “You are the son of the woman who stole her heart, the son of the man who hid it, and the slayer of an old one.” She turned to Grace. “You stole a spawn and learned from it terrible knowledge. They will kill you both as a matter of course.” Amy cut a strip from her top, leaving just enough fabric to not get arrested for indecency. She wrapped Grace’s hand and tied the cloth off, then offered the rest as a handkerchief to Grace.

  Grace put her arm around Amy. “We’ll be safe.”

  Amy shook her head as the elevator door opened to her floor and she stepped out. “I do not think you will be safe anywhere.”

  We rode down to the bottom floor, where I showed my badge and escorted Grace out of the building to the motor pool. With the keys to a coupe in my pocket, we headed to the parking garage, where Grace stopped.

  “Brynner, I need you to do something for me.”

  “A nything.”

  Grace wiped the tears from her eyes. “I need you to stay here and let me handle this alone.”

  “Not gonna happen. I’ve got a better outlook than Amy, but she’s right—it’s not safe out there. Not by a long shot. And the Re-Animus might hate you more than
me.”

  “Please.” She put a hand on me, running it up my side.

  And I took it off. “You don’t look like you should be driving. Where do you want to go?”

  Grace bit her lip. “Portland.”

  I could lose my job for taking her out of the building. Get thrown in the brig again. But Grace was a woman of reason, and she had to have one. “What’s in Portland that’s worth risking a trip?”

  She hung her head and turned away. “My daughter. That text was from her caregiver. My daughter’s in the hospital.”

  Thirty-Four

  GRACE

  “Let’s get going. Portland’s a long drive.” Brynner ushered me to the car and got in. If he had comments, or questions, he kept them to himself. I was asking so much of him, to take me out of the building, violating the director’s orders. I had to get to my daughter. Whatever consequences came next, I’d deal with.

  On the highway, Brynner lit up the flashing light and floored the accelerator, reaching Portland in record time. The morning traffic snarled streets, which made Brynner glance about nervously, as if he expected the dead to attempt a carjacking. We took to side roads, winding our way around the city until we reached the children’s hospital. Finally, we pulled up into the parking lot, and Brynner got out with me.

  I tried to block him. “You can wait in the car if you want. You don’t have to do this.”

  “Grace, I want to go with you.” He tenderly took my hand, avoiding the slices where the glass cut me.

  And then I saw the truck. A battered, banana yellow truck with rust spots and a bashed front fender. I knew the truck, recognized it, since I was the one who bashed in the fender five years ago. “Will you do something else for me?”

  He tossed his head from side to side, hmming to himself. “Well, let’s see. You nearly killed me with the car, but I’m almost certain you saved me in the pool. I guess I could float you this one.”

  “There’s a reason I wanted to do this alone. I try not to think about this part of my life, and I didn’t want you—or anyone else to see it. I need you to keep your mouth shut. Don’t get goaded into saying or doing things we’ll both regret.”

  He put both hands in his pockets and whistled as he walked along behind me into the hospital. At the desk I showed my ID and waited. After minutes or years, a nurse walked out. She glanced at her tablet, then called, “Ms. Aker?”

  I held up my hand, trying to ignore how Brynner’s eyes narrowed. “It’s actually Roberts now.”

  She shrugged and waved toward the door. “Follow me.” I did, with Brynner hulking behind me, his mouth closed in a tight frown.

  There, in the intensive care unit, lay my little girl, Esther. Beside her bed, an older Hispanic woman slept on a roll-out cot. I shook her gently. “Juanita?”

  She sat up, looking to Esther, and then back to me. “Ms. Grace, I was so worried. I checked her lungs every day, and yesterday, I was thinking she needed sun, so I rolled her outside.”

  “Juanita, you didn’t cause her to get pneumonia by rolling her out in the sun.” Juanita had cared for Esther in the old home. My only request to Personal Resources was that she continue in that duty. I looked around the empty room. “Where is he? I saw the truck.”

  She held her fist up, imitating a phone. “Outside, making calls. I did not want him in, but the nurses said he is on the papers.”

  Another mistake I’d correct shortly.

  “Brynner, this is my daughter, Esther Rose.” I took his hand and pulled him to the bedside. “I told you I was in a relationship. With her.”

  He studied her face, his eyes glancing up to look at me from time to time. “Hello, Esther Rose.” He looked up at the wall of machines. “What . . . what happened to her?”

  “Her brain didn’t develop during gestation.” I stroked her face as I spoke. “Doctors told me she wouldn’t live to be six months old. Or one year. Or three. But she’s a fighter.”

  He sat down in the chair beside the bed. “The credit cards—”

  “You try paying for a full-time nurse on an analyst’s hours. I wasn’t even getting salary. The life insurance from Mom and Dad, my trust fund, you have no idea how much it costs.” I tried not to let bitterness creep into my voice.

  Brynner sighed. “The worst costs aren’t the ones in the checkbook, are they? You didn’t have to do this alone.”

  “That’s what I told her six years ago. Turns out Grace likes to do things alone,” said a man in the doorway.

  That’s how an awful, beyond awful, day went from bad to worse. Trevor Aker.

  He walked in, offering Brynner his hand. “Grace, why don’t introduce me to your friend?”

  I bit my lip to avoid a fight. “Brynner, this is Trevor Aker. He was Esther’s father.”

  He let that same sneer that always followed him spread across his face. “Funny, you say ‘was,’ but look who they called.”

  “I’ll fix the paperwork to prevent that from happening again. You can go. I had your parental rights terminated.” I kept my voice calm.

  “Don’t make me out to be the bad guy, Grace. You’re good at that. The lone woman, carrying such a heavy load.” He looked at Brynner. “She’ll tell you I left her. She won’t tell you the doctors wanted her to take Esther off life support at two days. And at a week. And a month.”

  The same fights as before. The same discussions. I couldn’t help myself as I shouted back,“Look at her. Look at my daughter and tell me that’s right.”

  He did. “I’m looking, Grace. I guess I just don’t see the same thing. You chose this. You chose this over me. So work your job. Get another ten credit cards and file bankruptcy, but I would have been with you while you grieved.”

  I hissed at him. “Like you’ve been with me the last six years? You’d support me the way you supported me the last six years? I’d rather be alone. Get out.”

  Trever took a step toward me, and Brynner’s chair creaked as he shifted his weight. “You didn’t want me around. I told you I couldn’t handle this. Never living, never dying, this isn’t life. This is just you making yourself feel better, because you don’t have the guts or the courage to make hard decisions.”

  Brynner stood, drawing himself to full height, looking down at Trevor. “Courage isn’t walking into a building with a thing that will tear your arms off. It’s going to work every single day at a job that kills you, just to take care of someone.”

  Trevor crossed his arms. “Bullshit. She just wants to make up for things she regrets.”

  “I don’t regret my daughter. I regret you.” I stood and pointed to the door. “Get the hell out, Trevor.”

  Trevor walked to the doorway and then looked back at Brynner. “You want to know the secret to getting Grace into bed? Smile at her. Lie and tell her she’s pretty, and then take her out to a fast-food restaurant. It worked for me every Friday night for two years straight.”

  BRYNNER

  I’d broken men beefier than Trevor Akers the way I wanted to break him right then. How easily he spewed bile at Grace made me sick. Unlike dealing with a Re-Animus, I didn’t need any special blades or syringes or lightbulbs for what I had in mind. My fists would do just fine.

  I looked over to Grace, whose cheeks flushed bright red, her eyes brimming with tears. “Can I hit him? Please?”

  “No. He’d love that. Don’t give him the satisfaction.” She closed her eyes, and tears streaked her cheeks.

  “I’d love it, too.” I looked down at the thin, worthless man, trying to figure out how to say what I felt without my fists. “You don’t deserve Grace. I don’t deserve her. If she figures out a way to stop the storm that’s coming, it won’t be because of you. It will be because of that little girl. You’ll still live in this world because of her.”

  For just one moment, I think he considered a snappy reply, and I had five fingers’ worth of comeback just waiting. Grace would get over being angry, and it wouldn’t be my first assault charge. He met my gaze for a moment, t
hen shrank from the room like a shadow and walked away.

  I thought things might be better once he left us. If anything, they were more awkward. Grace kept staring at me every time I turned around, and the look on her face wasn’t one of the two I was familiar with. “Woman about to sleep with you” and “woman not going to sleep with you” were all I’d needed to recognize for so many years.

  She confused me. Bewildered me.

  Juanita excused herself to the senorita’s room, leaving Grace and me with a silence that could give birth to a thousand conversations, none of them comfortable.

  “Go ahead.” She spoke to me but kept her eyes on Esther Rose.

  And I didn’t know what to ask. If there was something to ask. “Akers or Roberts? Which one is your name?”

  “Roberts. I was only Mrs. Grace Akers for a year. He could be sweet. Funny, and charming. It wasn’t all sad.”

  “Why don’t you just tell people about Esther?”

  She stroked her daughter’s cheek again. “It was easier to let people believe what they wanted to. ‘Woman has credit problems’ is easy. ‘Woman can’t let go of daughter who will never know her name’ isn’t. People understand what they want to understand.”

  A tall man with a gray beard and mustache knocked on the door, introducing himself as the attending doctor, and I left Grace and him to discuss pneumonia treatment options, recovery, therapy. Down at the nurses station, they gathered, watching the television.

  “Evening, ladies.” I couldn’t summon my super-charm voice. “Anything new?”

  One of them pointed to the screen, and I stepped forward to see it.

  The BSI headquarters leaked smoke from dozens of windows, most of which were broken out. One nurse looked back at me. “There’s been another attack.”

  I ran to Grace’s room. “Grace, I have to get back to Seattle.”