Heaven can Wait

by Nicola Lawson

  ". . . So far the authorities have yet to release a statement. Both the police department and local NIRU offices are declining to answer any questions from the press. Speculation is rife that this incident is the latest in a string of similarly horrific murders."

  My attention was drawn away from studying the ring by the voice of the newscaster on the television.

  "Sources within the police department claim that NIRU agents were brought in to investigate following two similar attacks. Unconfirmed reports indicate that this latest attack could be the fourth or fifth such murder in as few as two weeks. The involvement of the non-human investigation and response unit clearly indicates that the authorities suspect non-human involvement in the murders. Given the horrific nature in which this latest crime was carried out it seems correct to assume that the perpetrator was something non-human in origin.

  "With the Supernatural Registration Act currently being debated in preparation for the vote scheduled to take place towards the end of the year, what effects will this latest spate of attacks have on the likelihood of the act being passed. On both sides of the debate-"

  I turned the television off. So there had been another murder when I was in custody. Probably that was why Stern had acquiesced so easily to my release, he had bigger things to worry about. There would be a statement by either Stern or the police department in the morning to try and curb some of the rumours but unless they had turned up some more information when I was locked up or from this latest scene there wouldn't be much they could say. The press weren't stupid, they would pick up on how little they were being told and then come to whatever conclusion would get them the most exposure. It could turn into anything; from a report on the apparent lack of ability of the police and NIRU to catch who- or whatever was behind the killings, to an attack on anything and everything slightly non-human, or even to some wild conspiracy that had non-humans who had somehow insinuated in positions of authority attempting to orchestrate some sort of cover up. And they were just what I could come up with.

  But that wasn't my concern. They had had me removed from the investigation long before this, long before I became a suspect in the copycat killing of my friend. They had made it abundantly clear that they didn't want my input on this.

  Try as I might I couldn't quite keep my thoughts away from the case. It was all connected. Selene had been looking into the killings as a favour to me. She had been on to something and then she had been killed. The Mr X thing, her fear of this Alavigne person, they were just asides. Despite that their forensics said Selene's killer had been different from whatever did the other killings, I knew Stern was wrong. Her death was related to those others.

  As I sat there trying to work it out I absently fingered Selene's ring. I had left the fine chain around my neck so that it was just the silver band that I played with in my hand. I turned the ring in the light trying to recapture a glimpse of the pattern or script that adorned it.

  I held the ring in my left hand and placed the nail of the ring finger on my right hand through the hole. I judged it's width against my finger. It looked like it should fit pretty well. I slipped the tip of my finger into the hole and then slid the rest of my finger in. The ring fit snugly, but not tight. It could have been made for me.

  "When it became yours it was."

  I jerked back and looked around. I was sure I had heard that voice, at the same time I was equally certain that I had imagined it.

  "No, you aren't imagining me," Selene said. "I've been trying to get through to you since Fluvius gave you the ring. I know you saw what happened to me but until you put the ring on properly I had no way to initiate contact with you directly."

  Even with everything I had been through, or perhaps because of what I had been through recently, I didn't know what to make of this. My dead friend was talking to me inside my own head. Fair enough I was pretty well aquainted with speaking to the deceased, and I had technically been the first of us to invade the others mind when I witnessed her death, but that hadn't been my fault. Besides I hadn’t made any of the proper preparations, and I wasn’t in my astral form. I pinched my arm just to be sure, I was definitely still in my body.

  "Selene, what is going on?"

  Selene laughed again, wryly this time. "That would take a long time to explain."

  "You know what I meant."

  There was no laughter now. Yes, I know what you meant. But where to begin?"

  "The beginning?"

  "That would still take too long."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  "Well, we'll just have to make sure we get the bastards who did this to me."

  Her voice was a glacier in my head and it made me shiver to hear it. "You know who killed you?"

  "Of course."

  "Who?"

  Selene was vaguely dismissive. "Some of the guards at the Zone. But they can wait. They're just flunkies and if we go after them too soon we expose ourselves to the players behind the scenes who orchestrated this whole thing. We need to get to the big fish first or else it will come along and gobble us up while we are distracted by the minnows."

  Since I was the only one out of the two of us with a skin to worry about keeping intact I was thankful for Selene's concern.

  "So, who is the big fish that's behind these killings?"

  "That I don't know."

  "You don't know?" I tried not to sound incredulous, I failed.

  "Hey, you don't know either and you've had an extra day to figure it out."

  "I've had a lot of other things on my mind today."

  "And I've been dead."

  There was no way I could top that for an excuse, I should never have tried in the first place.

  "So we are no closer to solving this and topping these killings than we were when I got you involved." I dropped onto the sofa/bed.

  "I'm sorry I dragged you into this." My voice dropped to a whisper. "I'm sorry I got you killed."

  "Hey, this isn't your fault."

  "I asked you help me look into these killings. I got you asking questions that brought you to the attention of the wrong people. That's why those guards had to kill you, to cover up what was going on. I might as well have put a gun to your head and pulled the trigger myself."

  "Fine, have it your way. Yes, if you look at it like that you set me on the path that killed me. It is your fault that I am dead. But I could have refused to walk that path or stepped off it at any time. Those men didn't have to kill me. They didn't have to cut me up so that there would be no vessel for my essence to return to. There are simply too many other factors to take into account for you to make any claim that you killed me.

  "Are you partly to blame? Yes. But if you take all of the blame on your own shoulders you absolve those who are more directly responsible of their guilt. And if you do that I won't get to enjoy taking my revenge half as much as I should."

  "But where do we start?"

  "I don't know who is behind the killings, but I know how they were done."

  It is more difficult than you would imagine, having a conversation with somebody residing inside your own head that is, I was stuck having to imagine Selene's expressions and having nowhere to direct my own. Even when talking on a telephone you have somewhere to direct yourself, some focal point to concentrate on. That's why people look at their telephone even when using speakerphone capabilities. In the end I ended up just making expressions and waving my hands in the air as if Selene could see me, it was easier than not doing it.

  I raised my hands in an exasperated, eager gesture. "What?"

  Selene wasn't about to put me out of my misery that easily. "You told me that you got no emotion from whatever did the killing at any of the scenes."

  "I got nothing. However evil a thing might be, nothing can kill and feel nothing."

  "What if the killer was already dead?"

  I frowned, even though she couldn't see that expression either. "Vampires and other undead still feel and I don't have a problem reading their emotio
ns."

  "Not undead, dead. Whatever killed those people and tore them apart didn't feel anything because the dead don't feel."

  "You mean . . ."

  "What we are looking for, Faith my dear, is a zombie. Or a group of them."

  "Zombies have to be raised and given instructions. They don't have the capacity to function otherwise."

  "Whoever is behind the guards who killed me is pulling the strings on the zombies as well."

  She made sense. "I had a visit from a representative of the Temple. He didn't hold you in particularly high esteem."

  "I don't doubt it. The Temple tends to frown on anything that they consider unholy."

  "This representative bashed my door in, and was waiting here for me with a trio of zombies to make sure I was listening to what he had to say."

  "Sounds as good a place to start as any."

  I continued talking to myself, hah, like I hadn't been doing that all along. "But he was part of my alibi, he visited me this morning. If the guards thought you were close enough that they had to take you out why would he risk exposing himself by bringing zombies along to try and intimidate me? Why risk exactly what has happened when he could just have brought some human muscle along?"

  "All good points. We will have to remember to ask him when we are questioning him."

  "Wait a second." I held up my hands as though telling her to stop. "We should call Agent Frost and tell him what we know."

  "We don't know anything. Even if he's willing to follow up on this and try for something he can convict with, where are you going to say this information came from. You can't tell anyone about me, even if you thought anyone would believe you if you did."

  I deflated. "I don't know if I can do this alone."

  "But you aren't alone."

  Stern had used the card that the Temple representative left for me to confirm that I had had a visit from them. I had had the card returned to me along with my other personal effects at the police station. The card was still in the inside pocket of my jacket.

  I took the card out of the pocket and looked at it properly for the first time. There was a name, number and the address of the Temple church printed under the logo of a sword positioned like a crucifix. If the name was accurate my caller had been one Edward Johnson.

  I had been all ready to head straight off to question Mr Johnson when I realised just what time it was. I told Selene I needed to rest and she left me to go off wherever the dead reside. I did think that she would have pestered me to get off after Johnson right then, but she seemed to sense that I was close to being burnt out. I wasn't kidding when I told Selene that I had had one heck of a day.

  I was unsure how to get in touch with Selene. She had initiated our first contact but did that mean I would have to slip into my astral state to start the conversation from my end. I decided to try a quicker war first, calming my mind I moved part way through the ritual I used to contact the dead.

  “Selene?” I asked the empty room

  “Nice to have you back with me. Now get yourself armed and let's get on with this."

  I suppose I shouldn’t have expected death to make her any more patient. "Armed? Oh no, no thanks." I shook my head.

  "You can't trust somebody who could be behind all this to suddenly start playing fair now," Selene said, talking to me as if I was a child. "You need to be able to defend yourself, to defend the both of us, if our suspicions are confirmed."

  "And what if I'm stopped and searched again. If the police find me armed to the teeth they are going to take me in."

  "We'll deal with that situation if it ever comes up. Why did you bring the weapons here from my offices if you weren't prepared to use them?"

  She had me there and she knew it. I selected a small pistol, a girl's gun Selene told me with a certain amount of scorn and when Selene insisted I took a couple of small blades with me, just in case according to Selene. I just think that she found the weapons comforting for herself, sure she couldn't exactly die again but I was her only link to the world of the living. If I died who would she be able to use to exact her revenge?

  I didn't call ahead, I just turned up at the Temple church and asked to speak to Mr Edward Johnson. The young woman at the desk in the entrance area just smiled politely and asked my name to pass on to Mr Johnson.

  "It's Faith Jones."

  "Okay, if you would care to take a seat Mr Johnson will be down as soon as possible."

  I thanked her and crossed over to the other side of the room where there were seats for visitors to the church to use. There were a couple of low tables spaced around and between the seats. At first I took the materials on the tables to be just ordinary newspapers and magazines. A closer look revealed that they were all publications of the Temple or their associate and affiliate groups. I didn't need to pick any of them up to get an idea of the sorts of things they would contain. I had received the Temple's propaganda leaflets through my door before and I knew exactly what they were about. Anything that they considered impure or unholy should be sent back where they belonged at the earliest opportunity. Since they considered most of the non-human entities to be hell spawn, although I knew very few actually came from there, sending them back where they belonged involved killing rather then buying them a plane ticket.

  "Miss Jones, I'm glad to see you have had a chance to think about our discussion," the educated wrestler was suddenly there in front of me offering me his hand. I didn't offer him mine and stood.

  "We need to talk." He had been polite but I was in a blunt mood.

  "Of course." He took his hand back and kept the same impersonal smile on his face. "What in particular would you like to discuss?"

  I looked around. "I would rather we talked in private."

  "No problem. If you would follow me?"

  He took me a little deeper into the church. Selene had instructed me on where best to hide the weapons she had forced me to bring. The pistol was in a holster down the front of my jeans, a baggy T-shirt and denim jacket kept it hidden from view, but the didn't stop it from chafing. Selene had said the chafing hurt a lot less than getting shot because I had no way to defend myself. I had to take her word for that. One of the blades was in a sheath that was tied around my left ankle under my jeans. The tip of the blade stopped just above the edge of my trainers. The second blade was even smaller and was actually secreted inside my bra. I had nicked myself twice because I hadn't positioned it exactly right and when I moved the flesh of my breast pressed into the blade. I had finally got it positioned properly. Apparently Selene had a selection of clothes and underwear specifically designed with hiding places for all sorts of weapons in mind. "You should stop by the offices and see what will fit."

  I told her that I would keep that in mind. In truth I didn't plan on carrying weapons often enough to need them, but who knew what the future would hold.

  Johnson moved behind a desk and invited me to take a chair across from him. We sat, before he could speak again I said; "Have you been ordering your zombies to murder people for you"?

  "Subtle."

  Johnson blinked behind his wire frame glasses. "I beg your pardon."

  "When you stopped by my home you had three zombies with you. Have you been ordering them to murder innocent people for you? I notice that they aren't here now."

  Johnson stared across the desk at me. His face flashed through a dozen or so emotions. It finally settled on anger.

  "You're accusing me?"

  I was struggling to maintain my resolve. I wanted nothing more than to bolt for the door, call Frost or Braun and let them handle this.

  "Steady."

  I managed to maintain my composure. "Yes."

  Johnson's face did that shifting thing again. "I have nothing to hide." This time he managed to keep whatever he was feeling from showing on his face.

  Well he might be able to keep me from seeing what he was feeling but he couldn't keep me from feeling what he was feeling. I dropped my shields. He was still a li
ttle angry but he wasn't worried. Either he had nothing to hide or he wasn't afraid of whatever I could learn.

  "Miss Jones, the reason those zombies who accompanied me to your apartment are not present now is because they are not my zombies. They accompanied me yesterday on loan. Sort of a try before you buy thing."

  "He's lying."

  "No." Nothing I got from him said he was lying.

  Before Johnson could ask why I was saying 'no' to him I said: "So, whose zombies were they?"

  "I got them from the law firm of Delco, Diablo and Caine. They handle all sorts of business for the Temple. It was a young man who was my contact for the zombie leasing."

  Johnson flicked through a notebook on his desk. "Yes, my contact was a young man called Christopher Thyme. If you want to talk about zombies you should contact the firm and talk to him. And if you have any other wild accusation to make you can also talk to my lawyers. Now if that is all . . ."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  "Christopher Thyme?"

  I was, we were, on our way to meet Thyme to discuss what Johnson had told me and Selene wanted to know everything I knew about the young lawyer. To say that I had agreed to date him what I knew about him amounted to very little. I told her the small amount that I knew.

  "You were going to let this guy get into your pants and you don't really know anything about him?"

  "No, I wasn't going to let him into my pants." I didn't let on that the thought had crossed my mind. "The whole point of agreeing to go on dates with him was so that I could get to know him."

  "So, what happened to the cute little NIRU agent?"

  She was going to love this. "We agreed to date as well."