Metal

by Olivia R. Burton

  Discipline, Belial had said. A Reaper must control his or her soul or it would try to take over, butting up against the souls of others in a fight for dominance that would only leave the Reaper exhausted and desperate.

  “I’m okay,” she breathed, willing herself to believe it. The souls of those nearby were not hers to take, and she had more important things to worry about than whether or not her magic agreed. “I’m okay.”

  “You seem it,” Alex quipped, threatening Veruca’s control for another moment. Taking a heavy breath, Veruca turned to face the room, looking around at the mess that had been left, noting once again that Finn was absent.

  “I’m going to ask again. What happened here?”

  Donald met Connie’s eye for a moment before taking a breath and carefully beginning his explanation.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Like the limo, the bedroom in which Finn woke up was pretty spiffy. The curtains were heavy and fancy, the bed plush and soft as a kitten’s fur, and the dim light was coming from a curving lamp that seemed to be made of still water.

  It was all very impressive, but not at all Veruca’s taste. That realization brought back the events of the day, and Finn shot upward. He regretted it immediately, plummeting back into the feathery embrace of the down comforter with a whoof of sound and a slight cloud of dust.

  “Oh, sh—” Finn cut off, realizing his situation had gone past worse into a realm where oh, shit had lost all meaning. “Fuck.”

  “You should be better,” said an unpleasantly familiar voice from the doorway. “I brought someone in to clean you up, to care for you. I don’t know what happened before, but you’re better now. Are you better now?”

  For a few seconds, Finn couldn’t figure out where he was or what was going on. Anxiety and discomfort stuffed his insides like he was a holiday goose, as confusion swirled in his head and pressed against the backs of his eyeballs until he thought they might burst. He’d been here before, stretched out in pain in bed while Diana watched him from the doorway, her heavy eyes half hidden by dark curls. She watched him, as she always had, like she wanted him, which wasn’t normally something Finn worried about, but Diana was different.

  She’d shown up a little strange and as Mort had put her through her necromancy paces, a little had become a whole, big, fat lot.

  “Diana,” Finn whispered, swallowing hard and forcing himself to sit up again. As she’d said, he seemed to be better, but it wasn’t quite as Connie would have done it. This felt like little scrapes still lay beneath his skin, leaving rough patches that complained as he moved.

  “You do remember,” she said, her small mouth curving in a smile. Her movements reminded Finn of the lamia as she closed in, the way she tipped her head slightly to the left, then to the right as if she needed to see him from different angles to get a proper picture. “I wasn’t sure when I found you at the house.”

  “Where are we? Back at—what house?”

  “No. I have a new house. I got it for you. I remember you like pretty things.” She rushed the last few steps to the bed and Finn looked her over once as worry for her safety crept into his throat, an echo of when they’d been young. She looked sickly, pale with a slightly yellow hue to her flesh, except across her features, which seemed bruised under her thin skin. She’d lost a lot of weight since he’d left her, and it made her long neck look stretched rather than elegant. When Finn didn’t say anything, she rolled her gaze to the side, her jaw tightening slightly before she spoke again.

  “If it’s not good enough, we can choose one together. I have money. Not that we need it.” She smiled to herself before sitting gingerly on the foot of the bed. Her underweight body barely seemed to make a dent, and she ran brittle nails over the bedspread.

  Suddenly concerned she might try to lay those skeletal hands on him, Finn rolled to the side, pushing off the bed and backing away, looking around for any sort of exit. The window was close, but he could see they were up high, and barring Finn sprouting wings or extendable legs, he felt that wasn’t the best option. The doorway opened to a long hall lined with undead standing idly between the bedroom and the stairway. They looked like normal zombies, as far as Finn was concerned, no more terrifying than any other corpse that could go rogue and eat your face at any moment.

  Except one, Finn realized. He was definitely dead like the others, but Finn had never before seen a zombie look terrified.

  ****

  “I didn’t even notice them,” Veruca said, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. Donald had explained everything that had happened while she’d been writhing on the floor, but it really boiled down to zombies busting in and kidnapping Finn. “I should have sensed the entire on-duty bell-staff being zombified before they got a chance to even open the door.”

  “That’s your power?” Alex said, shaking her head. “Sounds mostly useless.”

  “It’s not all I can do, Doris,” Veruca said, hoping she’d hear the threat. “They shot me first, regardless. I don’t know if that means the necro— Wait! You said you know his name!”

  “Careful, zombie whisperer,” Alex said, bracing as Veruca took a step toward her. “Terry Crews here was no trouble. I can take you too.”

  Donald frowned at the reference, but Veruca figured it was more the threat itself and not the mention of race. Despite the fact that she wanted to close in and show Alex exactly how much more dangerous she could be than Donald, Veruca stayed where she was, swallowing her frustration.

  “You said you know who the necromancer is. That means we can find him.”

  “Not necessarily, but we don’t need to find her at this point. She’s got Finn, and him we can find. I’m assuming she figured the same and that’s how she showed up here to Romero every twenty-something hipster on your staff.”

  “She?” Veruca asked, realizing she still hadn’t gotten all the information Alex claimed she’d brought home with Finn.

  “Oh, right, we didn’t get that far. The necromancer’s name is Diana Merighi. Your boy went a little bananas when he found out. I’m guessing maybe they came off the same assembly line.”

  Veruca thought about the comment, wondering if maybe Alex was on to something. Finn was mostly ignorant of his childhood, remembering little before he was taken from his family and raised by a sadistic man who tried to mold his necromancy into something dark. He hadn’t mentioned a sister, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t had one. If the man had taken Finn, there was nothing to say he hadn’t taken his sister as well.

  “Veruca?” Donald said, pulling her out of her thoughts for a second. “You should pack some things up. I’ve got some people on their way up to handle this. It’s not going to be clean and ready for a few days, though.”

  Veruca looked around at the carnage, feeling a pang of sadness for the lives lost because she’d chosen to handle the problem on her own instead of taking Belial’s offered help. Staying in the hotel seemed a dangerous idea, going after this Diana herself only slightly less so. She wasn’t ready to drop the matter, though. Finn was missing and so far Diana had shown no hesitation to kill for what she wanted. If Finn was what she wanted and he wasn’t happy with that prospect, Veruca couldn’t be sure where he’d end up.

  “Okay. I’ll change. Connie, you should go home, Alex and I have some people to see.”

  “I should—” Donald started. Veruca silenced him with a look.

  “You got knocked around too. I know you’re good, but I need you here. There’s too much at stake.”

  “I can handle myself.”

  Alex snorted but only Connie gave her a dirty look. Donald ignored the dig.

  “I need you to handle the hotel. I’ll get out of these bloody clothes, throw what I need in a bag, and we’ll be out in five. Connie, do you want me to call you a ride?”

  “Nope, I can handle myself too. Might just handle myself right through a liquor store on the way. This is a hell of a thing.”

  “I’m sorry you had to see all this,” Ver
uca said, wincing. “I didn’t realize when I called you…”

  “Of course you didn’t. I’ve seen bad before, this isn’t the first time. I haven’t always been a jet-setting arteeste, you know.”

  “You used to be an accountant,” Donald said, a smile tugging at his attractive lips. Connie frowned his way and shushed him as if he’d ruin her reputation.

  “You try dealing with rich folks’ money and tell me it doesn’t get a little bloody here and there. Besides, in my day, you couldn’t shake a stack of W-4s without hitting a paper cut. You two girls go. Let me know if you get shot again.”

  ****

  “Are you okay?” Finn asked the zombie, hoping it would answer instead of sprinting across the lush carpet to munch his face.

  “He’s dead,” Diana said, as if it was ridiculous that Finn was paying the corpse any attention. “I needed him to fix you, and you can get anything if you know where to look. Even a healer.”

  “You found a zombie healer?” Aghast, Finn turned to Diana, forgetting for the moment that she was just as likely to murder him than try to hug him. “Zombies can heal?”

  “Well, I had to make him a zombie before I brought him home. He can be part of the family. You’re feeling better, though, right? It’s my first healing.”

  “Your first? He—what’s his name?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think?” Diana stood, making her way across the room like she had before, with little tilts of her head side to side, before settling to the right and staring up at the dead man. The tendons in her slight hands looked tense, as if she was clenching her fists against pain. “I like Josh. You can pick something if you want. I didn’t get to pick my name, and I would let him do it, but I don’t like what he says when I let him speak.”

  “Let? He can speak on his own?” Thoroughly lost, and not a little worried about Diana’s sanity, Finn retreated another step, dismayed to find he’d backed himself into the dresser.

  “Of course. He can’t heal without his essence, so I had to put it back in. You should know that.” She rolled her eyes and abruptly turned to close in on Finn, holding her hands out. Her wrists were hard to look at, bony and fragile as if she’d been mummified. Finn tried to figure out how a person in her condition could move, let alone be of any danger to society at large. He’d met people with eating disorders and Diana fit the bill in a way that almost made Finn pity her. “You’re here, though, and you’re okay. Are you hungry? I can have something brought home. It’s past dinnertime, and I doubt you had a chance to eat. I don’t know if your … friend feeds you.”

  “Friend?” Realizing she meant Veruca, Finn tensed, shying away even further. Unfazed, Diana grabbed Finn’s hands and forced him to touch her. She felt as cold and bony as she had in the car, and her grip was just as dry but surprisingly gentle. He wondered if she was capable of squeezing his hands or if she didn’t have the muscle mass.

  “Yes. I found her this morning. She was alone, but I had hoped to find you. I have pets that were able to track her down. I couldn’t find where you were staying that way, though. I had to get to you another way, so I took her phone. We’re together now, and I think we should sit down to dinner like a family. Like we used to.”

  Finn was shaking his head, flashes of memory blinding him to anything other than fear and worry. There was no part of his past with Diana that he wanted to relive. She’d been part of the reason he’d decided to run off on his own and risk starvation and betrayal rather than stay in the home that had been created for him by a madman.

  “What’s wrong?” Diana asked, leaning in to wrap her skinny arms around him. It was like being embraced by a coatrack. “Don’t worry, Mort can’t hurt you anymore. I’ve made him behave. I won’t invite him if you don’t want me to. It’ll be just the two of us, okay? Okay, Finny?”

  “Okay,” Finn squeaked, hoping her disconnect from reality would make it impossible for her to see how much he wanted to flee. She hadn’t tried to hurt him so far and had always cared for him in her own unpleasant way. He’d dealt with bad before, talked his way out of worse situations than being faced with one weak girl who seemed to want only his company.

  At least, he hoped his company was all she wanted. It hadn’t always been.

  ****

  “Sensing names and zombies, right? That’s what you’ve got going for you?” Alex asked once they were on the road. Veruca shook her head, unwilling to clarify what she could do for someone so dangerous and selfish.

  “Not in a sharing mood, but I think you should be. How’d you get the name? Can you get more? A location? I can get hold of a witch if necessary but if you’ve got an in, you should use it. It’s what I’m paying you for,” Veruca said, glancing over to find Alex had propped the heel of her boot onto the passenger seat so she could lean her knee against the window.

  “I doubt I’d get lucky a second time, but if you want to step into the ring I can see what’s on offer. You should just track Finn, though. You’ve got his phone number and you seem a little clingy. I’m betting you’ve got some app on your phone that shows you his exact location down to the millimeter.”

  “Usually I can, but I’m guessing Diana’s figured that out, since my phone thinks Finn’s hanging out somewhere below the five-twenty bridge.”

  “Maybe she’s a mermaid,” Alex quipped, making herself smile. “At least he’ll die happy.”

  “Jesus,” Veruca breathed, shaking her head. She knew little of life off land, but had heard unpleasant truths about mermaids. She’d never heard of one raising the dead, though, so Finn was probably safe from a watery death.

  “There are other ways to track someone, all you need is a little bit. You’ve probably had Finn’s bits all over you, lucky girl, so pluck a pube off your clothes and let’s hit that witch.”

  “I’m still not clear on what you did to Finn to get the other necromancer’s name, on why he came home beaten and stupid.”

  “The stupid was part of his original programming, but the rest was his fault. He had a perfectly good pixie, an only slightly-blind yeti, and a werewolf at his beck, and he wasted the opportunity by running around in circles and getting himself dropped on his head. He’s just lucky the lamia had fed recently. She probably would have gone straight for his jugular if she was hungry. To the blood, sure, but humans can bleed a lot.”

  Veruca couldn’t quite quantify the rage that sprung up inside her at hearing Alex speak so casually of Finn’s safety. Only traffic and the statutes on murder kept her from pulling the car to the edge of the road and going for Alex’s throat. She took a deep breath, trying to tamp down the burbling chaos broiling her insides and forced herself to speak carefully.

  “You still haven’t explained what happened.”

  “You haven’t been to the Coliseum? Not even as a spectator? I would have pictured you showing up in a sasquatch-fur coat and basilisk-skin pumps to clap politely and mumble, ‘oh my’ and ‘excellent form’ to some of your other rich, asshole friends.”

  “I really want to punch you right now,” Veruca said without thinking. Alex erupted to a fit of laughter, shifting in her seat to drop her dirty boot to the floorboard and more easily face Veruca.

  “Okay, fair enough. Honesty, I like that. The Coliseum is pretty much what it sounds like. You go to watch or take part in fights. You don’t pay in cash, since the fae mostly don’t give a shit about that. You can pay in items or ideas, jars of laughter, or vials of dread, that sort of Harry Potter-sounding shit. Sometimes you get lucky and you get a high-up, titled something-or-other who shows up out of boredom and donates something like knowledge or a favor. Mostly you get paid in parts of creatures or weapons, which can be useful too. I checked, found that I could get a rich marquess to do a sweep of the area over the last few months and tell me who’s been mucking about with the dead and voila, your girl’s name. Not quite as voila as one would hope, since she was sort of an asshole about the whole matter, but I wormed—ha ha—my way in and got what we needed
. She wasn’t impressed with Finn’s skills, though, so I’m sure she’s not still hanging around.”

  “What else was on offer?”

  “I didn’t ask for the whole catalog, just a few things. Marv might be willing to get you a list, but if you’ve got a witch up your sleeve, we should just go with that. I know they’re nuts, but if they’ve got enough power they can usually find just about anything.”

  “Do you have somewhere else to be?” Veruca asked as they pulled up in front of a row of cute stores on a tree-lined street.

  “Not at the moment, but I’ve got some stuff brewing. I’ll honor my contract, assuming you’re going to pay, but I would like to have this solved sooner rather than later. Plus, I’m thinking you don’t like me much, which doesn’t make me want to hang around.”

  “At least you’re perceptive,” Veruca said, climbing out of the car.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Think, Finn told himself. You’re probably not in danger. Diana’s always liked you—a little too much, actually. You can use that. You can use that and run away and if all else fails, you can just overpower her because Lord knows she barely weighs more than a wet sock.

  Shaking his head, hoping to dislodge the pity trying once again to well up inside him, Finn cleared his throat and gently pushed Diana back so he could hunch and look down into her face, smiling at her as if she were still fourteen years old.

  “So, eh. Long time. What have you … been up to?”

  Head tilted, Diana dropped her mouth open slightly as if it needed time to warm up before she spoke again. “Well. I’ve been mostly on my own. I’ve made it okay. You still look good. Pretty. Your tie is very shiny.”