The vein on Horton’s neck throbbed. “Just how many lives are you willing to gamble?”
Guillory swept his hand around his estate. “I’m an oil magnate, Horton. This dinner cost more than you make in a month. The governor’s security is here, and so is mine. There isn’t a terrorist motherfucker alive who stands a chance of getting to the governor tonight.”
“What about dead ones?” I asked. “We’re talking about biters here, not Ali Atwa. What do your men know about fighting the undead?”
Thornton eyed me like a bug. “Who the hell are you?”
“Allie Nighthawk, and this is my partner, FBI Agent Sean Ferris. Governor, you and I share a past with Toussaint Le Clerc, the man who’s gunning for you.”
“Le Clerc?” Thornton paused and then shrugged. “Afraid I don’t recall the name.”
“Think back to your days as a prosecutor, sir. Le Clerc’s wife Sabine was infected with the Z-virus. When he refused to put her down, I did it for him. He wanted me charged with murder, and you refused to prosecute. He blames us both. Me, for killing Sabine, and you, for not punishing me.”
“Ah, revenge, the hazard of being a prosecutor. I remember. But why now, after all this time?”
“I left New Orleans not long after your decision. Le Clerc has taken…great pains…to draw me back. Now he has us together—where he wants us.”
Ferris nodded. “Le Clerc has killed before, sir. Director Horton is right. As important as this night is, for your safety and the safety of all concerned, you should cancel the event.”
“Duly noted,” Thornton said. “But the event is still on. I’m not one to cut and run. And I never kowtow to the whims of psychotic thugs. I’m confident that our existing security team can handle Le Clerc.” He nodded to Horton. “I appreciate your concern. Ms. Nighthawk and Agent Ferris can stay as my guests and keep their eyes open for trouble. Discreetly. I don’t want my guests alarmed. Good day, gentlemen, Ms. Nighthawk. If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Guillory and I have a fundraiser to throw.”
Governor Thornton marched back to the mansion with Alpha Guillory nipping at his heels, discussing the dynamics of the seating arrangements.
Dickhead stared after them, hands on his hips, looking like he was ready to chew the bark off a tree. “You heard the Governor,” he snapped. “You’ll attend the party as his guests, keeping a low profile. God help us if we spook his well-heeled patrons.”
Dickhead leaned forward and pulled his lips back in a snarl. “You will also function as my internal eyes and ears. I will supervise from a remote location and coordinate with Agent Boudreaux to have the HRT folks in position and ready to respond should the need arise.”
“Gotcha,” I said. “Oh, and can we have a cool code word if we have to call for help? Like Zushi, maybe?”
“Knock yourself out,” Dickhead mumbled, handing Ferris a lapel mic. Our fearless director stomped back to his car, leaving us alone in the middle of the driveway.
“We’ve got a lot of moving pieces here. What could possibly go wrong?” Ferris asked, running his hand through his hair.
“Never, ever ask that question,” I said, drilling his bicep with my fist. “It’s the surest way of finding out.”
31
Prelude to a Clusterfuck in D Minor
With the governor’s real guests due to arrive inside the hour, Ferris and I decided to poke around a little, running our own last-minute security check. As we strolled through the mansion, arm in arm, nodding at the strategically placed security monkeys, their eyes pegged us for the unwelcome and over-dressed interlopers we were.
The view from the arched palladium windows in the foyer found the guard at the gated entrance checking the arriving food trucks and vendors against his clipboard, and waving them through, with barely a glance inside them.
“That’s a problem,” Ferris muttered, as we swept deeper into the interior of the mansion.
The ballroom doors were propped wide open. The hardwood floor had been set up for the orchestra earlier. Musicians, dressed in their symphony black attire, scurried here and there, tuning their instruments, checking their plugs, and reviewing their sheet music.
How hard would it be to infiltrate the perimeter wearing a black suit and a hokey musician’s union ID card?
A set of heavy wooden doors opened off one side of the ballroom to a multi-level library, filled with thousands of books, and leather furniture covered with throws and nail-head trim, a crystal chandelier, and an antique Rookwood fireplace. Multiple sets of beveled glass doors on the other side of the ballroom opened to a veranda.
A passage, with security guards positioned at each end, connected the ballroom and the dining hall, where ten massive mahogany round tables were set with linens, fine china, silver and crystal.
We wandered to the back of the dining hall, toward a set of swinging wooden doors, and watched as servants bustled in and out, giving us a glimpse of the room that lay beyond.
“That’s the biggest kitchen I’ve ever seen,” I whispered.
Ferris pushed through the swinging doors and we slipped into the kitchen, unnoticed. The chef barked orders at the prep cooks, while the busy wait staff zipped past us, back and forth through the café doors, completing last minute preparations. In the far right corner, near the pantry, I spotted the partial logo of a delivery truck peeking through a swag-covered window in the kitchen door.
Little Allie’s voice warbled in my brain. The vendors have been using the delivery entrance near the old servant’s quarters.
Before I could get a better look, a human mountain barreled out from between the prep tables and blocked me.
“May I help you?”
None of these muscle-bound security monkeys had been pleasant, but this gorilla shot laser beams from his eyes. He closed the distance between us and puffed out his chest, trying to push me back. Ferris pulled his ID and shoved it at the man’s nose. “FBI, big guy. Step off.”
“Hiya, Clyde,” I said, shoving past the over-grown ape. “This place looks fun. How ’bout you let us in?”
“How ’bout you take a flying leap?”
Alpha Guillory pushed the swinging door open from behind. “Bruno, that’s no way to treat our guests.”
“Sorry, Mr. G. They got no business back here, so I told ’em to scram.”
“Thank you, Bruno. I’ll handle it from here.” Guillory pivoted toward Ferris and me, flashing an effervescent smile. “I apologize. Bruno has been with me for over twenty years. He’s as loyal as they come, but a bit unpolished. Was there something you needed?”
Ferris feigned his own poster-boy smile. “Just checking the place. Discreetly, like you asked.”
“The guests should be arriving soon. Perhaps you’d care to profile them as they enter the premises. Keep your eyes open for undesirables, carrying weapons and the like.”
“The problem,” I said, taking Guillory’s arm as he escorted us back to the foyer, “is that these undesirables don’t carry weapons—other than their teeth. They’ll be easy to distinguish from your guests, though. They’ll be the shambling, smelly ones with their flesh falling off.”
Guillory blinked and opened his mouth as if he had something to say, but simply turned and walked away.
For some reason, I get that reaction a lot.
At the top of the hour, chamber music wafted out from the ballroom, and valets took their stations at the door. Moments later, guests drifted into the mansion under the watchful eyes of private security, as well as Ferris. Guillory, already a couple of drinks in by my count, circulated through the crowd, glad-handing and slathering on his southern charm with a trowel.
With Ferris rooted like a potted plant at the entry, I did a little circulating of my own, watching the body language of rich bitches and eavesdropping on their hoity-toity twaddle—all while standing on five-inch railroad spikes and wearing a tight black slinky. My toes cried for mercy, the balls of my feet blazed, and my ankles buckled like a newborn deer’s. God hel
p me and the seams on my dress if I had to run.
Little Allie thought a Jack Daniel’s slushie would help. So did I. But when I joined the line at the bar, Ferris caught my eye and shook his head.
Spoil sport. Surely one of the princesses in that place had to have a Percocet.
Once the guests were accounted for and cocktail hour was in full swing, Ferris left his post at the entrance and sidled up alongside me. “Boudreaux’s got his team in place.”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “Whatever’s going to happen better happen soon, or I’ll be crawling into action. Next time, you wear the slutty silver shoes.”
The rest of the cocktail hour featured blue-haired saber-tooths circling the room, clawing their way toward Ferris, the hottest guy in the place and one of the few under forty. He knew how to work it, too, smiling his impossible smile and oozing that rakish charm.
Like he does with you? The brain bitch asked.
If that mouthy head hag wasn’t careful, she’d end up wearing a silver stiletto like a fascinator.
When dinner was announced at 8:45 p.m., I nearly cried, knowing that food and a chair were in my future. I sat beside Ferris, slipped off my shoes under the table and rubbed my blisters. Any illusions I had about filling up disappeared when a bowl of lettuce soup arrived, along with three steamed green beans, and a quartered red potato.
No way,” I hissed. “You can’t tell me it took all those prep cooks to come up with this.”
I pushed back my chair, feigned a smile and stood, slipping my silver clutch under my arm.
“Where are you going, dear?” Ferris asked, pulling at my arm. “Everyone else is here.”
“That’s right, dear,” I said, bending to his ear. “I’m going to the kitchen to check out that delivery truck. And maybe snag a crust of bread while I’m at it.”
Ferris and I slipped quietly away from the tables and wandered toward the foyer. Accessing the kitchen through the swinging doors in the back of the dining hall would draw too much attention, so we strolled out the front entrance and boldly walked the outer perimeter of the mansion, like the conscientious security minions we were. Once we reached the back of the manse, we darted behind the corner of the carriage house for cover.
The truck that had been backed up to the kitchen door was still there, but its doors were now swung wide open, obscuring our view.
“What the hell’s in there?” I whispered.
“You twos shoulda listened to me earlier.”
Ferris and I froze.
“Turn around, nice and easy like. Don’t be makin’ any moves.”
I pivoted to find Bruno, the human mountain with an attitude, aiming a .45 at us. He’d taken off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves since I’d seen him last. The tattoo worn by Toussaint’s crew, a likeness of Baron Samedi, the Voudon Lord of Death, peeked out from beneath the rolled cuff of Bruno’s sleeve.
I crossed my arms and glared at Ferris. “See? I told you this wasn’t the way to the bathroom.”
32
Code Zushi
Ferris threw a roundhouse into Bruno’s chest, sprawling him across the driveway. The .45 in Bruno’s hand tumbled airborne, end over end, coming to rest on the grass beside the sidewalk. Bruno scrambled toward the gun but Ferris slammed his right Italian loafer into Bruno’s jaw, knocking the thug into next Tuesday. Ferris twisted a stainless-steel bracelet around Bruno’s massive wrist, cuffing him to the rusted remains of a long-forgotten basketball post that bordered the driveway.
We sprinted toward the kitchen entrance and peered silently through the gap between the hinges of the opened truck doors. The last three biters shambled from the truck, through the enclosed passageway, and into the mansion.
“How many deadheads you think came out of this sucker?” Ferris whispered.
“Two hundred.”
“Really?”
“How the hell should I know? Too damn many.”
Ferris rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe what I’m about to say.” He turned his head toward his lapel mic. “Code Zushi. Repeat Code Zushi.”
I unzipped my new silver clutch, pulled out Baby and felt an instant pang of regret. “No disrespect, girlfriend,” I said, kissing her muzzle. “But I wish this purse held a bigger gun. I think I’m gonna need it.”
Ready or not, it was time to save the day. Ferris stood shoulder to shoulder with me and started the count. “On three. One, two…” Ferris paused and did a double take. “Nighthawk, where the hell are your shoes?”
“Under the table. Trust me, I’ll run faster without them.”
“Three!”
Pandemonium exploded from the direction of the dining room. Glass breaking, people screaming, furniture smashing, and zombies keening. We tore through the back door and into the kitchen, toward the source of the chaos, following a sickly-sweet smell I knew all too well.
Dozens of freshies, flesh-eaters, and corpsicles, frenzied by the smell of fresh meat, ravaged the dining room, stumbling and crawling over each other, snapping their jaws and chattering their teeth. Panicked guests, who had flipped over their tables to use as shields, were being overrun. The private security guards scattered across the room shot into the horde, creating a deadly crossfire. Flesh and body parts flew through the air like shrapnel. The screams of dying rich people came and went quickly, and then came again. The walls ran red like in some cheesy vampire flick, and the Persian rugs that covered the hardwood floors squished wet beneath my feet.
Boudreaux’s HRT teams burst into the dining room from the ballroom and opened fire.
“Remember, head shots,” I screamed. “Head shots.”
In between rounds, the TAC agents pulled the survivors they could reach to safety. The governor, trapped on the far side of the room, brandished a broken table leg, defending a squadron of quivering blue-hairs behind him.
Baby had ten in the mag and one in the pipe. That wouldn’t last long. My Ka-Bar was more of a Hail Mary option. Hand-to-hand combat with a shit-ton of Zs, coming at me from all directions, would be beyond risky.
Ferris and I battled across the room, taking out more than a dozen deadheads as we made our way to the governor. Two down, four down. I snatched the extra mag and knife from my clutch and slid them down my cleavage for easy access, hoping I wouldn’t hear an embarrassing clink against the floor.
A corpsicle latched onto my left ankle and damn near brought me down. I did a forward lunge to keep my balance, tearing my tight new dress to shreds. The stinking rotter refused to let go; it kept bobbing and weaving from one side to the other, snapping its gnarly teeth at my calf. A shot at the wrong time could end up with me bleeding out, so I used my bare right foot to disconnect the biter’s head from its shoulders, punting it into the ballroom. Holy stank on a stick! Talk about trench foot!
I clambered to my nastified feet, hyperventilating and miffed. To hell with the damned dress and that stupid silver purse. It’s hard to fight a horde when you’re dressed like Angelina Jolie. There’s a reason I do this shit in zombie stompers. I yanked out my Ka-Bar and shoved that piece of shit silver clutch into the mouth of the closest biter.
Sometimes, even zombie hunters have to vent. Now, I was ready to war.
Thornton drilled his table leg into a biter’s brain, taking it out with one blow. But the wooden leg splintered, leaving him with nothing to defend himself. A rotter rushed him from the right, knocking him and several of the old biddies to the floor. Ferris nailed the biter between its eyes with his .45, while I took out a deadhead that shambled in from the left.
“I got two bullets, a shredded dress, and no shoes,” I said. “You?”
Ferris slammed in a new mag. “A ruined tux and more kills than you.”
Everything’s a competition with this guy.
We were out in the open with no cover, but almost to Thornton’s side. I got a twofer by drilling back-to-back corpsicles with one bullet. A biter blindsided Ferris, so I swung Baby into position and f
ired. Booyah!
“Cover me,” I yelled, reaching down my cleavage for my last mag and praying I wouldn’t come up empty. I fished it out with a sigh of relief and slammed it home, ready for the next round of rotters in the night’s deadly game of Drill that Deadhead.
Ferris and I positioned ourselves in front of the governor, backing both him and his band of blue hairs up against the wall to eliminate any surprise attacks from behind. I fired into the horde time and again, uncharacteristically losing count along the way. My chest tightened; my vision skewed.
I shook my head, trying to end the blurriness, and block out Little Allie, who’d begun whining. Something about needing to look.
Look where? I thought. I am looking.
Look up, she screamed.
Toussaint’s translucent face loomed below the massive eighteen-foot ceiling of the dining room, smiling on the waves of rotters that waged his war below. His eyes found mine, and his smile grew cold.
“Little Bird,” he cooed inside my mind. “Why waste your time here, when I have what you seek?”
A snippet of Rico flooded my brain. He’d been beaten and tied to a chair, head lolled to one side, eyes closed, and jaw slack. But still alive. No doubt about that. If for no other reason than to draw me close.
“Nighthawk!” Ferris smacked my shoulder. “What the hell?”
He slapped me hard, and then resumed firing.
“What’s wrong with you?” he screamed.
The visions melted before my eyes. No more Toussaint. No more Rico. Just an undeniable need to be somewhere else. But where? The bastard could have given me that much, at least.
I wiped a trickle of sweat from my eyes, raised Baby, then aimed and fired at the remaining Z’s. Boudreaux’s HRT guys and the remaining private security guards had taken out the bogeys that had infiltrated the ballroom and beyond. Soon, the firing slowed to a chorus of pops, and finally, to a few shots here and there. Thornton was safe. Alpha Guillory hadn’t fared as well. He lay sprawled against a wall with his throat ripped out. Apparently, his blue blood tasted as good as any other. I ambled across the floor, pumping what was left of my mag into the brains of the slaughtered victims, saving the last bullet for Guillory. One of the nearby biters, whose legs had been shot out from beneath him, growled and swiped at me. With the last of my ammo gone, I had to drive my Ka-Bar through his skull and into his brain.
Corpse Whisperer Sworn Page 21