The Down Home Zombie Blues

by Linnea Sinclair

  Suzanne—in a very familiar move—smacked Zeke on the arm. He stopped squinting at Jorie’s eyes. “Suzy—”

  “I believe Jorie is who she says she is.”

  “What?” Zeke straightened.

  “So is Tamlynne,” Suzanne continued. “Though whether they’re actually from this Chalv, Cal…”

  “Chalvash,” Jorie said.

  “Thank you. Chalvash System—that, I don’t know. But I do know that small scanner of hers is far beyond any kind of medical equipment we have. Nothing I’ve seen even comes close.”

  Zeke looked at his wife. “You can’t really think that—”

  “I do. I watched Jorie sonically seal my incision. I do know what I’m talking about, Zeke. Nothing we have here—nothing—can do that.”

  Zeke switched a look from his wife to Jorie and back to his wife again. “So she’s not wearing contacts?”

  Suzanne angled her face around toward Jorie’s. “Nope. Interesting eye color, almost feline. Do you know if it’s a dominant or recessive gene?” she asked Jorie.

  “It’s what my parents chose,” Jorie said.

  It took a moment for Theo to realize what she said, and then it startled him. Evidently the Tresh weren’t the only ones who played with biological engineering.

  Zeke shoved the flashlight back in his duty belt, disbelief playing across his features. “This is crazy.”

  “I so know that feeling,” Theo intoned wryly. He clapped Zeke on the back. “Now that we have that settled, let me give you the bad news: Jorie and her people aren’t the only outer-space aliens here. And the zombies aren’t the only issue. We’ve got problems, big problems, amigo. Go fire up that coffeepot. We need to tell you about the Tresh.”

  Zeke was skeptical. No, more than skeptical. He could not, did not want to believe Jorie was a Guardian who’d come to Florida via a spaceship right out of Star Trek. Theo could see it in the way the detective leaned back in the chair in the staff room, arms across his chest, eyes narrowed.

  “C’mon, Theo,” Zeke said, when Jorie paused in her recounting of the Tresh Devastators showing up in Theo’s house. “Don’t you think NASA or NO-RAD or one of those agencies would notice a bunch of space cruisers hanging out up there?” He waved his hand in a circle over his head.

  Theo rested his elbows on his knees and scrubbed his hands over his face. It was almost eleven o’clock. The end—or what should be the end—of another grueling, confusing day.

  Another hour and it was Christmas.

  Christ.

  “We take considerable efforts not to be noticed by nil-techs,” Jorie said. She too had her arms crossed over her chest and leaned back in her chair across the small staff room from Zeke.

  This was not going well.

  “I know it’s hard to believe,” Theo said finally. “I’m still having a difficult time processing what I’ve seen. But I can’t change the facts: these zombie things are here, the Tresh are here, and Jorie’s ship and crew are gone. We need help. But if you don’t want to get involved, I understand. Suzanne’s removing that implant from Tammy is above and beyond the call. We really have no right to ask for anything more.” His own implant could wait. He shoved himself to his feet. “If Suzanne says it’s okay, we’ll take Tammy back home now.”

  Zeke grimaced, his mouth twisting slightly. “You really believe all this shit, don’t you?”

  “I wish I didn’t,” Theo answered honestly.

  “Let me print her,” Zeke said. “Her and her friend. I want name, DOB, everything. Run them through NCIC.”

  “You’re not going to find anything.”

  “Then what are you worried about?” Zeke replied smoothly.

  Shit. Standard interrogation setup, and he’d walked right into it. He would have laughed out loud, but he was too tired. “You got a kit in your car? Go get it.”

  Zeke strolled out and Theo explained the procedure to a frowning Jorie.

  “Why would there be a record of my biological signature in your criminal files?” she asked.

  “There won’t be. That’s why I’m saying it’s no big deal. Not important,” he amended. “But he’s a friend. And friends double-check each other sometimes.”

  “He thinks I’m deceiving you.”

  “He thinks it’s a possibility, because he hasn’t seen what I have. So he has to gather his own information, to be sure.”

  “Nils,” Jorie said softly as Zeke returned, but a corner of her mouth quirked up in a grin and she let Zeke take her prints. She had no idea what a Social Security number was. Her response to his request for date of birth was equally perplexing.

  “Esare three nine seven Tal one Nifarris,” she told him, and even obliged by writing it down.

  “Which makes you how old?” Zeke asked.

  “My age on my world? Thirty-nine.”

  He’d thought she was younger, but then, he didn’t know if his years were the same as Chalvash System years, or wherever in hell she was from. She could be thirty-nine or nineteen or seventy-nine. He had no way to know.

  “And you have no driver’s license, no identification?” Zeke was asking.

  Jorie pulled her scanner out from under her long sweater and flicked through several screens. “This.”

  Theo stepped forward, craning his neck, and saw a small head-shot image of a very serious Jorie with shorter hair, and then lines of squiggly or angular characters to the left of the image. Characters like the ones that had scrolled down the screen of Mr. Crunchy’s laptop and had graced the corridor walls of her ship.

  “Can you translate that to Vekran?” he asked.

  “Trans…ah!” She tapped the screen a few times. The angular letters shifted until Theo saw a somewhat recognizable alphabet.

  Not totally English. But, damn, he could almost read it.

  COMMANDER JORIE MIKKALAH, GUARDIAN FORCE HUNTER STATUS C7-1.

  He saw the word Sakanah and recognized it as the name of her ship. Then there were lots of numbers that meant nothing and a couple of symbols that meant even less.

  Zeke made some more notations on his pad, then left to find out if Suzanne was ready to give Tammy medical clearance.

  “You see why we don’t work with nil-techs?” Jorie asked as Zeke’s footsteps faded.

  “You worked with me.”

  “You’re…” And she closed her eyes briefly. “Different. Special.”

  He almost asked her to define special but didn’t want to get his hopes up that she meant something personal. It was safer to respond as a cop. “And that’s why you came looking for me?”

  She sighed. “Unlike what Zeke Martinez believes, I did not come looking for you. I wanted my agent’s T-MOD, which you had. Had you relinquished it when you should have, we would not now be having this conversation.”

  Okay, score one for Jorie Mikkalah. Yes, he had hoped to catch her off guard and get her to admit she’d targeted him. Listening to Zeke had opened that small, worrisome doubt. Illogical because he’d seen the zombies, the Tresh, her ship.

  But he also saw himself starting to care very much about what happened to her, and not just because heat roared through his body when she did that head-tilt thing. It had moved beyond that—he didn’t know quite when and where, because the past two days were now becoming a serious blur.

  Like all cops, he was trained to never become emotionally involved with an investigation—especially not with the subject of an investigation.

  With Jorie Mikkalah, he’d broken that rule, big-time. And that scared him almost as much as being Baker-Acted to the psych ward.

  It would be so much easier if Zeke was right and Jorie Mikkalah was some kind of foreign superspy with James Bond–like toys. He could arrest her, turn her over to FDLE, which would in turn send her off to the FBI. He could forget her. And they could deport her back to…the Chalvash System.

  Except that not the FBI, the CIA, hell, not even NASA would know how to send her there.

  Which was just as well. He didn
’t want her to leave. He wanted her here, with him.

  And that scared the hell out of Theo Petrakos even more.

  Tamlynne should, would be fine. Jorie let that one worry drift away from her as Theo guided the white land vehicle—the Essuvee, she corrected herself—back to his structure. Her fears for her ship, for Captain Pietr, for Rordan, Trenat, Lorik, and everyone else plagued her. Maybe she should have asked Prow if the Sakanah had been destroyed. Not that she believed he’d have told her the truth, but perhaps she could have inferred something from his tone, the shift of his eyes. Then, at least, she’d know.

  Not knowing was eating her up inside.

  Once Tamlynne regained full consciousness—Jorie checked on her lieutenant with another glance over her shoulder at the rear seat—she might have some answers to a few of those questions. But up to this point, with the pain from the implant lacing through her body, Lieutenant Tamlynne Herryck had been able to provide little coherent information about the Tresh attack in Theo’s structure.

  Jorie didn’t discount that the Tresh might have interfered with Tamlynne’s memory of their arrival and subsequent actions. She doubted Dr. Suzanne Martinez—as skilled as she was—would have any way of restoring that. Her tech, like most everything else on this ball of dirt, was rudimentary.

  Peculiar world, this planet named for dirt. So many large gaps in technology. Yet some of the nils—the inhabitants—she’d met were so…special. Extraordinary.

  She turned back to find Theo watching her, though in the vehicle’s dark interior she felt his gaze more than saw it. The vehicle was stopped, idling, because of the colored-light edict. Foolish and unnecessary, as there were no other vehicles in the immediate vicinity. She shifted in her seat, but Theo didn’t move his gaze. She couldn’t read his expression, but, oddly, what she felt more than saw pulled at her. Heat blossomed on her cheeks, and she was suddenly very aware of his presence mere minmeters from her. His strength. His warmth.

  “Theo?” she asked softly, not wanting to wake Tamlynne. Suzanne Martinez had given her a medication to encourage a healing rest.

  He said nothing for a moment, then shook his head and turned away. The vehicle moved forward again.

  She shook off the sensation. She was stressed and tired. That was all.

  When Theo pulled behind his structure, she already had her scanner out, verifying shield integrity before she temporarily disengaged it. No breaches. Whether any had been attempted she wouldn’t know until she went inside and checked her tech.

  “I’ll take her,” Theo said, after Jorie had hopped out of her seat and was opening the rear door. He pushed that metal ring he always carried into her hand, then picked out a short object from the bunch. “To open the kitchen door.

  “It’s a key,” he said, when she held it up in his back porch light to examine it.

  “Ah.” She nodded.

  “Key to my heart.” His tone was light, but his voice was soft.

  Heart? She knew he referred to his structure as a house. She shot him a puzzled glance and was about to ask for an explanation when he shrugged.

  “Never mind. It’s…it’s just a joke.” He gathered Tamlynne’s limp form into his arms.

  They’d reached Theo’s bedroom door when a possible problem occurred to Jorie. “I’ll need to work in there. And she needs someplace quiet to rest. Best I move my tech—”

  “It would be better to open the sofa bed in the spare room. Let her stay there. That way I don’t have to bother her to access my stuff.”

  “Sofa bed?”

  Theo set Tamlynne down on his bed. “I’ll leave her here for now. Come with me.”

  The sofa bed turned out to be a colorful couch with a bed folded within. Not unlike the recessed bunks on Kedrian troop ships but much nicer. Jorie ran her hand over the mattress, then helped Theo secure the sheets and blanket he’d pulled from a corridor closet.

  She moved the broken remnants of the Guardian MOD-tech to the corner behind his exercise machine. Theo brought Tamlynne in.

  “Nice, so nice,” her lieutenant murmured in Alarsh as she snuggled against the blanket. Jorie pulled off Tamlynne’s boots and loosened the top of her uniform. They would need clothes, clean clothes, soon. There was nowhere to get supplies. The ship…

  She pushed it away.

  “So nice,” Tamlynne whispered again.

  Jorie sat on the edge of the mattress and brushed the curls off Tamlynne’s forehead. “Nap, Tam.” Whatever medicine Suzanne gave Tamlynne must be working. Her skin was less clammy.

  Tamlynne sighed, her eyes slitting open for a moment. “Theo is…so nice.”

  Theo? Yes, Theo. Even Tamlynne wasn’t immune to his very good face or his delicious grin, it seemed. Though it had been a while since Jorie’d seen the latter. “Yes, he is, Tam. Now nap. I’ll be in the next room, working.”

  “You work too much. Sir.” Tamlynne smiled dreamily. “Theo likes you.”

  “And you’re hallucinating.” Jorie smiled back.

  “Do you…like him?”

  Did she like Theo Petrakos? Her body heated in answer. “Of course.”

  “A lot?”

  “Yes, a lot,” she admitted, surprised by her own truthfulness. But less surprised at the reasons why she felt that way. Images of Theo handling her weapons with ease, firing on the zombies, escorting her all over his city without question, breathing life into a failing Tamlynne filled her mind. Yes, he had the Guardian implant in his shoulder, but she knew that wasn’t what motivated him. It wasn’t why he brought her glasses of precious water or showed her how to make peanut butter and bread meals. It wasn’t why he pushed himself as hard as she did.

  There was an uncommon courage and dedication in him. It made her feel stronger just being with him.

  “Good,” Tamlynne whispered. “I think you two—”

  “Close your eyes and your mouth.” She tapped Tamlynne teasingly on the nose. “That’s an order, Lieutenant.”

  “Sir. Yes…sir.” The last word was muffled as Tamlynne turned her face into the pillow.

  Jorie smoothed the blanket around Tam, then got slowly to her feet. Tamlynne would be more herself by sunwake. And if the Tresh hadn’t tampered with her memories, she’d be able to provide answers as to Rordan and the Sakanah. She’d be functional, coherent, not babbling silliness about—

  Theo. Standing just behind her, leaning against the edge of the doorway. He’d removed his security vest. His tight-fitting black shirt clung only too well to his broad shoulders and defined, only too well, the outlines of the muscles on his chest and arms.

  Her breath caught, embarrassingly so. He was looking at her. She could see an intensity in his eyes that she’d only felt before in the darkened vehicle.

  Had he heard…? But no, she and Tam had spoken only in Alarsh.

  Hadn’t they?

  “Everything okay?” His voice was a deep rumble.

  “A good nap will help,” she said, moving away from the sofa bed. “I need to…” and she waved one hand in the direction of his structure where her tech still gathered data. But she couldn’t think of what he called that room or even how to describe what she needed to do. Because the way he was looking at her incinerated every sensible thought in her head.

  Theo curled his fingers around her wrist and pulled her toward him. She went without resistance, as if she were a ship caught in a tow field. He stepped back into the corridor and she followed, his gentle pressure on her arm guiding her closer. Then he reached behind her and shut the door.

  “Jorie.” His arm slid around her waist. The fingers holding her wrist raised her hand to his mouth. He brushed a lingering kiss across her palm. The incinerator in her brain unleashed a flash of heat that rushed down her body and flared between her thighs.

  Trembling, she uncurled her fingers. She traced the rough line of his jaw, then her thumb found the softness of his lower lip.

  He pulled her more tightly against him. He lowered his face but she was already r
aising hers, her mouth seeking his, not with the hard, desperate intensity of their earlier feigned kisses but more gently. Carefully. Something was happening, changing between them. It made no rational sense. She knew with the same, unerring clairvoyance that had kept her alive all these years that what she was doing was dangerous. Theo Petrakos was dangerous.

  She didn’t care. But she would be careful.

  His mouth brushed hers, the warmth of his breath flowing across her face. She answered with the smallest of kisses, the slightest meeting of tongues. She dropped her hand from his face and splayed her fingers against his chest. She could feel his heart beating rapidly.

  It matched her own.

  He rubbed his face against hers, his mouth touching her cheekbone, her jaw, and, as she angled her head, trailing down her neck. A soft heat, gentle and searing at the same time.

  He took another step back, bringing her with him as he leaned against the wall. She went willingly. His hand at her waist pressed her to him, clothes and weapons—bulky—merging.

  His light kisses were sheer torture, but she didn’t push, didn’t ask for more, because his restraint was as much of an aphrodisiac as his touch. A powerful man controlling his power.

  A passionate man willing to take his time.

  Her own desire teetered on the edge of exploding. It would be so easy to tear Theo’s clothes off and blank her mind, lose her worries in a hard, driving sexual encounter with this man whose body trembled under her fingers.

  But that wasn’t what he was asking for. And it wasn’t what she wanted.

  She was very aware that what he wanted and what she wanted might never come to pass. There were the Tresh and the zombies. There was a city about to be under siege. There was the very real problem of survival.

  And if—when—the Sakanah returned, she would leave. It was her duty. Just as it was his duty to protect his city.

  A low chuckle rumbled in his chest as he ran his hands up the length of her back, as if he too suddenly realized this was a desperate foolishness. His voice was a husky whisper in her ear. “You make me crazy, agapi mou.”

  Jorie understood crazy—especially as it related to Theo Petrakos—only too well, though his other phrase was lost on her. She turned her face, brushing his mouth with hers, then moved away. His arms loosened around her, but he didn’t let go.