“Hampson’s calling it yellow?” I was surprised. “Even after another Morfran possession tonight?”
“It’s not entirely up to Hampson. As commissioner, he makes the initial call, but the guy hates paranormals so much he’d keep it at red all the time. There’s pressure on him not to overdo it. The mayor’s office, for example.” Mayor Milliken’s daughter had been caught in the zombie plague and now lived on my block. “And businesses that employ werewolves don’t like their staff to miss too much work. Some of those companies have a lot of pull.”
Nice to see we monsters occasionally had somebody on our side.
“Of course,” Daniel continued, “Foster’s probably singing a song to Hampson right now about what happened tonight. So you’re right—Hampson might try to keep the code level where it is, or go down half a step to orange. But so far no word of that has come through. I think it’ll drop to yellow.”
With another promise to get official approval for me to carry Hellforged into Boston, Daniel said good night. Between the checkpoints, the New Combat Zone was strangely quiet. Nobody lingered on the street. Buildings were dark. Boards covered the windows smashed in this morning’s riot. The only place open was Creature Comforts. I paused, wondering if I should stop in. I wanted to see how Axel was doing. Plus Juliet was probably there, along with half the vampires of Deadtown, hunting among the humans who visit the bar to mingle with the monsters. Even if word of the riot scared casual thrill-seekers away, there’d be a good supply of vampire junkies offering themselves up for dinner.
I wasn’t in the mood to watch vampires flirt with their prey. I needed to figure out what was going on with the Morfran. And to do that, I had to go home and spend some time with The Book of Utter Darkness. A shudder went through me, and I almost ran to Axel’s front door to yank it open, greet some friends, have a drink, engage in mindless conversation. Anything to avoid that damn book.
But the Morfran’s reemergence meant fate was pushing onward. And only the book could show me the signs to watch for and suggest where they were pointing.
Shoulders hunched, I trudged toward the checkpoint into Deadtown.
On the other side, zombies thronged the streets. Tomorrow’s Code Yellow would mean nothing to them. There were no zombies on the Code Yellow list. It wasn’t until things calmed down to the level of Code Green—normal restrictions—that zombies could leave Deadtown. And that was only with a permit and a norm sponsor.
So it was no wonder, I thought as I pushed through the turnstile and stepped into Deadtown, that the zombies gathered here were giving me dirty looks.
If you’ve ever gotten a dirty look from a zombie, chances are it took . . . oh, about a week before the possibility of a good night’s sleep returned. And here were six or seven of them all trying to outdo each other with nightmare-inducing scowls.
I can scowl, too. I did, and I kept walking.
One zombie, a beefy guy in camouflage pants and a black T-shirt, stepped off the curb. I stopped and looked him straight in the eye. He was even more scary-looking than most zombies. The right side of his face looked like it had been attacked with a cheese grater, and there was a golf ball–size hole in his neck. I didn’t blink as we locked stares.
“I saw you leave before, after they called the Code Red.” His voice came out in a growl. “What are you, some kind of spy?”
My right forearm began tingling. “You think spies waltz in and out where everyone can see them? I had business to attend to.”
“Business?” His fingers clamped into a fist. “What kind of business?”
“None of yours, that’s for damn sure.” Who the hell did this guy think he was? The tingling intensified, rapidly heating as it spread up my arm. Sunburn. Flames. Molten lava. Before the feeling reached “nuclear meltdown,” I slowed my breathing and started counting. One . . . two . . . three . . . I pushed down the burning, fast-rising anger. Anger that wasn’t mine. Wasn’t me. The anger of the Destroyer.
The zombie got in my face. “I said, ‘What kind of business?’”
Four . . . five . . . My demon mark blazed with pain. I could almost smell charred flesh. Six . . . I bit the inside of my cheek.
Two of his friends were behind him now. He reached out and gave me a shove—almost gentle, but hard enough to let me feel his strength.
Shit, what number was I on? My arm burned. Six. I remembered counting to six. Seven . . . If I gave into this rage, it would possess me. I’d become a puppet of the Destroyer. Eight . . . But damn it, so what? This zombie was a bully. I hate bullies. I quit counting and clenched my fists. I’d like nothing better than to pound his head into the pavement, over and over until the left side matched the shredded right. Until I heard the crack of his skull fracturing. I’d stomp his brains into mush and then—
“What’s going on?” a woman’s voice asked in a tough, don’t-mess-with-me tone, as someone stepped between me and Mr. Ugly.
I blinked away the image of the zombie’s broken body turning to pulp under my boots. The pain still surged; the rage still wanted out. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard—once, twice, three times—trying to regain control. Breathe, Vicky. Better. A little.
When I opened my eyes, I got an extreme close-up of the face of Pam McFarren, the Goon Squad sergeant. Her expression was a strange mixture of annoyance and concern. “You all right?” she asked.
I nodded. I was still focused on swallowing and didn’t trust my voice.
McFarren turned to Mr. Ugly and his friends. “Go home. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’re only making things worse.” Four other Goons, all zombies, flanked her in a line, their backs to me. Nobody moved.
“Go on!” she shouted. “Get out of here. Now!”
Feet shuffled; zombies fell back. Mr. Ugly made an overelaborate bow, like something a ham actor would do in a Shakespeare play, and backed away.
The male Goons advanced, making sure the zombies dispersed.
McFarren spun around to face me. This time, her face was pure anger. “Again?” she sputtered. “What the hell did you think you were doing? Picking a fight with a guy like that, when all his buddies are itching to back him up. Are you nuts?”
I rubbed my demon mark. “Something like that. Look, thank you for stepping in again. I’ve been lucky you were around.”
“Lucky? What the hell do you think luck has to do with it? I’ve got orders to protect you. As if I need anything extra on my to-do list right now. For some reason, you get special treatment, while I’m trying to keep the peace with a fraction of my usual staff.”
I stared at her. “I didn’t know.”
She continued her tirade like she hadn’t heard me. “All PDH patrols are working overtime. The brass is keeping our human partners off the streets for now. Too dangerous. And that’s for trained officers who pack exploding bullets. I know you’re not a norm, but you look too much like one to be playing chicken with a gang of pissed-off zombies.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You know what? I was wrong—you were lucky. I got word you’d passed through the checkpoint, and I could scrounge up enough cops to make those guys back off. But we can’t be everywhere. This is the worst I’ve seen it in Deadtown. Everyone’s at each other’s throats. Tonight, two werewolves were critically injured when their pack tried to take on a group like the one you were just staring down.”
Werewolves. Kane. But no, it wouldn’t be Kane. He was a lone wolf who didn’t belong to a pack. Relief opened some breathing room in my chest.
Maybe Kane’s unity rally would do some good. Unity was exactly what Deadtown needed right now.
“Okay,” I assured McFarren, “I promise I won’t pick any fights with roving zombie mobs.”
She gave me a long, hard look. “Don’t joke,” she said. “Something’s brewing. I haven’t felt this level of tension in Deadtown since I woke up after the plague.”
MCFARREN WAS RIGHT. THE TENSION SHE DESCRIBED WAS everywhere. It was physical, l
ike thick, oily smog hanging over the streets. Normally, an after-dark walk through Deadtown wasn’t all that different from walking along other city streets. As long as you belonged in the neighborhood, people left you alone. Like anyone else, zombies had their own concerns: job, family, making ends meet, getting a little downtime, stuffing as much food as they could fit into their faces.
Wait.
That was part of the strange atmosphere. The zombies weren’t eating.
A chill shivered up my spine. Deadtown without zombies munching away on junk food is like a spring day without birds singing. Eerie.
Yet it was true. The hot dog carts, ice cream trucks, and falafel stands that line Deadtown’s streets were out in force, same as always. But there were no lines in front of them. The vendors stood listlessly, heads hanging, as zombies walked by, ignoring their offerings. The hot dog seller who usually ate his wares with one hand while serving customers with the other leaned against his cart, both arms dangling as he stared into space.
I stopped and asked if he was okay.
He shrugged. “Business is a little slow tonight, I guess.” Hope stole across his face. “You want a hot dog?”
I didn’t, really. But I bought one.
The hot dog seller got busy, slathering on mustard and onions. “You know,” he commented, “most nights I eat a dog or two for every one I sell. But tonight . . .”
A group of zombies passed on the sidewalk. The smell of onions and steamed hot dogs wafted from the open cart, but not a single head turned. It wasn’t just eerie; it was downright weird.
I overpaid for the hot dog and told the guy to keep the change, which got me a zombie grimace-smile. As I walked away, I bit into the hot dog. A little salty, but not bad. Maybe I should’ve made the guy’s night and bought two.
ONCE AGAIN, I DIDN’T TURN DOWN KANE’S STREET. ONCE again, I thought about how much I wanted to see him, imagined the feel of his arms around me. And once again, I turned away.
Excuses? I had a fistful of ’em. It was late. He’d be sleeping. He had a million things to do before his rally. With the restriction dropping to Code Yellow, he’d be up extra early to make up for work he’d missed today. The last thing he needed was a middle-of-the-night drop-in from yours truly.
I was in my building, waiting for the elevator, when I finally admitted the real reason I was avoiding Kane. We needed to talk. And I had absolutely no idea what to say.
9
MY APARTMENT WAS EMPTY—AND QUIET. NO TV BLARED. As I’d thought, Juliet was out hunting. Dad was probably roosting somewhere out in Needham, near Gwen’s house. I kinda wished they were here, staring at the screen and scarfing popcorn, because then I could hang out with them and not do what I knew I had to do.
Strange things were happening. The Morfran was possessing zombies and driving them to acts of violence before consuming them. My father had brought the prophesied white falcon out of the Darklands and into the human world. Even the fact that Deadtown’s zombies had lost their appetites en masse seemed like some kind of omen.
I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had to consult the book.
Please, I thought, not knowing who or what I was beseeching, not another vision.
The Book of Utter Darkness waited on the kitchen table, where it had been since Dad’s last attempt to read it. You’d think it would look innocent, ordinary. An everyday sight. Just a book lying flat on a tabletop.
Not this book. It pulsed with menace—literally—like some kind of force field emanated from it, rippling the air. When I hovered my hand a couple of inches from its cover, icy sparks snapped against my fingertips. The snapping resolved into a rhythm, like a beating heart: duh DUM duh DUM duh DUM duh DUM.
The pulse traveled up my arm—buzzing through my demon mark, then going past my elbow, through my shoulder, down into my chest. It swirled around my heart, as though it were trying to hijack its rhythm.
Duh DUM duh DUM.
I shivered and pulled my hand away. The pulse faded. Feeling ill, I let both hands drop into my lap. I closed my eyes and rested my left hand on my right. The right was cold, stinging with the book’s energy, but the left covered it like a blanket. Warmth dispelled some of the iciness.
I got up and went to the sink, where I grabbed a pair of rubber gloves. Juliet had bought them, not that she’d ever washed a dish in her life—or her undeath, for that matter. She’d seen on TV that the gloves would keep your hands soft and, later, was disgusted to learn they only performed this magical feat in the context of doing housework. She’d tossed them aside and forgotten about them.
But I’d discovered that the gloves were good for something else. They insulated me from The Book of Utter Darkness.
I pulled them on. They were hot pink—not what you’d call my color—and clumsy. But they let me touch the book without feeling like the damn thing was trying to grab me and pull me into its pages.
Of course, the gloves were also the most likely reason I’d gotten nothing from the book lately. They insulated me from the book’s power—great—yet they probably also broke the psychic connection that let the book transfer information to its reader. I almost didn’t care. The last several visions the book had given me had been horrible and so overwhelming they knocked me out of my chair. Boston in flames. Corpses littering the streets. Demons rampaging—attacking women, children. Smoke. Blood. Screaming. Death, death, and more death. I’d wake up on the floor, curled tight in the fetal position, covering my ears against the shrieks and demonic laughter. For one blessed moment I’d feel relief, like when you wake up from your worst-ever nightmare and realize it was only a dream. But relief fled as I remembered that what the book was showing me was real; it just hadn’t happened yet.
That vision—Hell throwing open its gates, sending an army of demons to destroy the human world—was the final goal of Pryce’s schemes. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t just a vision. It was his plan.
So I had to try. If I could find out how Pryce would turn those horrible visions into reality, I’d have a chance of stopping him.
I stared at my rubbery, neon pink hands. I’d probably have to do this without the gloves. I knew that, and the knowledge made the sick feeling in my stomach expand to fill my whole body. I did not want to touch that book. I’d rather jump into a pit of cobras.
But maybe the gloves didn’t really do anything. The book sometimes remained silent for days or weeks at a time. Maybe it was in one of its sulky moods. I’d try once more with the gloves. If I didn’t get anything, I’d bite the bullet and go bare-handed next time. Tomorrow. I couldn’t bring myself to touch it now.
I reached out and lay my gloved hand on the cover, testing. No pulse. No icy sparks. The sight was absurd—bright pink plastic on the pale leather cover. That cover had been crafted from the skin of some poor human who’d died centuries ago. He’d been flayed alive—the book had made sure to show me that in vivid detail.
Now, though, no visions rose up as I opened to a random page. It didn’t matter where I began. It was impossible to read The Book of Utter Darkness like a normal book. For one thing, it was written in the language of Hell—a language forbidden to anyone outside the infernal regions. Google Translate doesn’t do Hellish to English. But even if it could, it wouldn’t have helped, anyway. The Book of Utter Darkness was enchanted. It released its secrets when it wished, as it wished. The book taunted anyone who opened it. It teased, it hinted, it tried to trick would-be readers. It didn’t lie, but it fed out bits of information designed to confuse, to nudge toward false conclusions. The book knew I was its enemy, and it wanted a demonic victory every bit as much as Pryce did.
If I couldn’t decode its secrets, they’d win.
I shoved such thoughts aside. Breathing slowly, I tried to let my mind go blank. I stared at the incomprehensible jumble of strange letters. The ink was a faded rusty brown, and I had a flash of insight—it had been made with the blood of humans. Many humans. They’d been destroyed to create a book foretelli
ng the destruction of their world.
It was an ugly thought, one that weighed in my gut, hard and cold, as if I’d swallowed a lump of lead. But I put it from my mind. People had suffered and died to make this book, but their tragedies happened long ago. I couldn’t do anything for them now. I was trying to protect others, people who lived and breathed and loved and hoped and walked the Earth now. Those who hadn’t yet come to harm.
My mind settled back to blankness as I made myself stare. The letters blurred, then doubled. I blinked to uncross my eyes. Damn, I wished this thing had an index. Then I could just flip to the back and look up Zombies, possession of by Morfran or Maddox, Pryce, how to thwart his evil plan. Save a lot of time.
Turning the page sometimes helped. The new set of letters would be equally impossible to read, but sometimes a fresh page would send a flood of understanding into my mind. Or there might be a picture; the book was illustrated, but the illustrations seemed to change and move around at will.
Worth a try. I reached out with a hot-pink-gloved finger.
The page wouldn’t budge.
I licked my finger—the rubber tasted gross, like licking a tire—and tried again. Nothing. I laid my hand flat on the page and slid it, but the page still refused to turn. I tried going back a page. Nope. Neither the right-hand page nor the left would move at all. It was like somebody had glued them down.
Damn it.
I knew what I had to do—not tomorrow, but now. My hands were sweating inside the stupid gloves, anyway. I yanked them off and threw them on the floor, where they lay like two beached pink whales.
“Talk to me, damn you!” I grabbed the page with my bare hand. I yanked it so hard I jerked the book off the table.
The page flipped easily. For a fraction of a second, I stared at another block of reddish-brown letters, my fingers resting on the page I’d turned. Then the book’s energy slammed into me like a lightning bolt. A charge shot up my arm. Fireworks exploded in my demon mark. The room went black, then crimson, and then I was no longer in my kitchen. I wasn’t anywhere at all.
Hellhound (A Deadtown Novel) Page 7