*
Jezebel put her hands on her hips. “There's no need to lie about your skills, Paxton Hart.”
I look at Gram, her face turned, sleeping peacefully. All the color is back. She looks like my Gram.
I swipe my hand against my eyes.
“I didn't lie. I didn't know. I'm a standard three in my world.”
She harrumphs at me and I face her, cocking my head to the side.
“Really,” I say.
“Well, you’re more than that. One, you’re alive. Two, you bring a second-degree relation who has classic breast cancer—the easiest to fix—so late we almost can’t. Then you tell that ugly fib about being a three…”
“I am. I don’t know why my talents are all messed up here.”
“Talents?”
“Yeah, my paranormal mojo.”
Jezebel’s confusion mars her brow. “Only Organics are allowed here. There are no other talents.”
I stand there with a supreme case of the dumbs. “What?”
Jezebel shakes her head, shrugging. “My world—and I haven't even asked you how you manage to be a Dimensional—eradicated all paranormals other than Organics.”
I whistle. “You got lucky, then.” My mind touches on how disturbing that is. “You mean”—I look at her—“how do they make sure there are only Organics.”
“Oh, Paxton.” She pats my hand. “They’re killed at birth.”
I back away. Noise from the front of the building crowding the silence of our space. “Are you shitting me?”
Her eyebrows really corkscrew.
Not kidding.
They kill babies on this earth. It’s like that weird shit a hundred years ago, when China killed all the female babies. Fucked shit up big time. Natural order and all that.
Morons.
“No... what is it—what is it like where you live?”
I shake my head.
The wall vibrates as something crashes into it. I’ve completely forgotten about the rest of the group.
“Not like this. God—the bots, the weird ass murdering everyone. No. Bad place. I mean”—I meet her eyes—“that’s cool that you’ve got the cure for cancer, but damn.” I shiver. “Anyone who’s paranormal gets the ax”—I swipe my finger across my throat—“but they’ll save someone who’s got cancer. Yeah, makes perfect sense.”
“Not to me, either. But you have to remember, this is how it’s been for many years. And you coming from a better Earth doesn’t give you the right to judge mine.”
Weird.
“Thank you for helping my grandma,” I say.
She pulls her irritation under control, and our hands reach out for each other’s as the door bangs open.
It doesn’t just hit the wall; the doorknob impales itself and pins the door against it.
Mitch looks at me. “Where is Deegan?”
He doesn’t give two shits and an eff about Gram. Or anyone.
It’s the typical, single-minded focus of the dead.
I shrug. “I don’t have the Dee watch, corpse-boy. She’ll turn up. There’s, like, a posse of defenders. Chill.”
Mitch is depressingly serious.
He's at my throat in one second, lifting me up by my shirt.
Jezebel screams as the rest of the troupe barrels through the door, crowding inside.
“She is”—he shakes me and I feel my teeth rattle—“missing, you selfish jerk.”
He shakes me again and drops me on my ass. My teeth slam together, and I bite my tongue.
Prick.
I jump up, socking him in the jaw as I do. Skin comes off against my knuckles.
His eyes meet mine.
I do the math, and he watches me as I do.
For him to degrade, Dee’s been MIA for an hour.
I drop my hands.
“Do you see?” he seethes.
I nod. I fucking do see. I search for my dad.
“Do you feel your sister, Pax?”
I cast my mind’s reel out for Dee. It comes back blank.
My stomach seizes, fear running over my flesh in a wave of pebbles.
Mitch grips my shoulders. “Where is she?”
I say the dreaded words.
“I don't know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Deegan
My scalp is on fire as Brad drags me out of the water, shaking me by my hair.
I don't cry out. Maybe he'll figure I'm too out of it.
No luck.
He plunges me back in and I suck breath before I break the surface.
I know it's a torture technique. Waterboarding.
“Tell me where you’re from!” he shouts as if I’m deaf.
He jerks me out of the water, my wrists zip tied again. I keep the panic at bay through sheer willpower.
Paxton! my mind wails.
Plunge.
I try to hold my breath. In the end, I can’t and water rushes in where air should be.
That's right, I think with the last of my consciousness, he's a Null.
Pax can't get me. No one can.
I sink.
Drowning.
*
Pax
“Gramps!” I shout.
He straightens. I use Jezebel's phrasing. “Gram's out of the woods, and we got another problem.”
I know he receives the good news about his daughter’s life only by his eyes softening. “Yup.”
The zombies crowd against his back. Dad is standing with Mom beside him.
“I got something from Dee, but it’s weak.”
“Me too,” Mitch says. “But it’s like an echo.”
Dad puts his head in his hands.
“We’ve got a pile of those cyborg assholes up our butts,” Tiff says, and John grins.
“Where?” I ask.
Sophie says, “I didn’t wear the right shoes for this shebang.”
We look at her feet. Animal print flats.
“Those are hot, but maybe not that practical, baby girl,” Jonesy says.
“You never were great with wardrobe choices,” Tiff comments.
“Okay!” I put up my palms. “Let's get out of here.”
“I can't leave Ali here,” Grandpa Kyle says in a flat voice.
“Wouldn't expect anything different from ya,” Gramps says. “We'll swing back and pick you two up after the ground search for Deedie.”
Grandpa Kyle bows his head, crying where he stands. Witnessing his sadness makes it harder to breathe with the threat of my own tears.
Jezebel approaches. “You the husband?”
He nods, and she grasps his hand. “It’s okay, sir—it’s not every day you get your wife back.”
He brushes the wetness off his cheeks. “No,” he says simply.
“Buck up, Kyle. We got our Ali.” Gramps claps Grandpa on the back.
“Yes.”
“We have garnered the wrong kind of attention here,” Clyde says.
We can hear the bots coming down the hall like a swarm of artificial locusts.
I look at Jezebel, a standing question in my eyes.
When you’ve been close with someone, it doesn’t take much to communicate your thoughts. Together, we brought Gram back from the brink of death. It does something to a relationship.
“Yes, I’ll be okay—and so will they. Go!” she says in a hushed shout.
We do.
The bots are waiting.
Mitch and I look at each other. We both understand we need to divert and escape.
And rescue.
We start plowing through the ALB like two tornadoes on the Midwestern plains.
*
Caleb
I don’t normally have trouble admitting I can’t do something.
But I'm not accustomed to the handicap of not having my AFTD in this weird world.
I haven’t said anything to Pax.
The instant he throws me the death energy pass, I’ll fumble it. It’s like being numb. Blind.
Deaf an
d dumb.
I have only the skills any other mundane would have.
I thought it’d be a relief. But with Deegan out there somewhere unprotected, I’d kill to have an army of the dead with me.
Hell, there’s always plenty of dead. I can’t imagine any parallel Earth where there wouldn’t be any.
Jade touches me, her eyes wide as we make our way out of the horrible clinic, where I have to leave the parents behind with only an Organic’s word that they’ll be okay.
As I am now, they have nothing. It’s rotten to be a mundane.
“Hey, Hart—wake up, bud.”
It's Jonesy, snapping his fingers in front of my face. “Having some trouble with the old juice.”
My eyebrows pop, but before I have time to admit my own mundane transformation, the zombies are getting overwhelmed by the ABTs.
Dammit.
I put Jade behind me.
Pax and Deegan's undead said these cyborg things have near-zombie strength.
And they're mowing through our front line.
“Stay behind me, Jade.”
Her hands are on me. “You think we're in trouble.”
I glance behind me. Our eyes meet. “How do you know?”
“I know everything here.”
Oh, shit.
I’m Mr. Undead dipshit, and my wife is Empath Central.
Nice. Gripping her narrow shoulders, I kiss her forehead. Instead of asking time-suck questions, I yell over the din of the mechanical crunch coming toward us, “Find Deegan!”
Jade races outside, moving to the greenbelt’s temporary safety.
There's something great about having been a paranormal as long as I have. I just know how to find it within me.
I guess I'm not as much of a fool as I thought. I picture a deck of cards in my mind.
I ignore the smell of alien flesh and violence.
I sift through each unique one, chucking the AFTD card into the “can’t use” pile.
I keep rifling through others.
One shines out from the pack, and I pluck it from the “deck.”
Pyrokinetic.
The irony of that ability doesn't escape me. Carson Hamilton is probably spinning in his grave.
Hopefully.
The thought makes me grin.
I throw a fireball at the nearest bot and miss.
Mitch turns to me, hissing.
I just set his feet on fire.
I guess I don't have very good skills.
“What the fuck is going on!” Jonesy screams.
Mitch's feet aren’t all that I just torched.
I set the building on fire.
With my parents inside of it.
“Caleb!” Jade screams from the greenbelt. “I've found her!”
The bots turn to her. Their mouths open as one.
I slap my hands over my ears when the sound begins. They drop a moment later when I hear the word exterminate.
I know that one.
*
Mac
Though I never thought I'd be around this long, I do enjoy the fray.
Until my grandson starts setting everything on fire.
Just as I get a head of steam on this pack of robots, the kid has to come in and screw it six ways to Sunday. He had that trouble with the injuns too.
Kids.
“Jones!” I holler.
His dark face springs up in the center of the commotion, of course.
“Give these robots some circuit screwing, champ!”
“Can't, Mac—I don't have that here.”
Swell.
One bot moves to me and I assess its eyeballs looks almost like a human set. I grunt, taking a deep inhale from the cig, and peg the thing right in the eye with the burning ember.
It staggers around, arms out in front of it like a zombie-bot. Its eye goop singes, making the three meter radius reek.
Frying like an egg. Perfect.
Two of its buddies troupe over.
“Bring it, bot-nuts!” I scream as I pick up a piece of rebar hanging around from a hundred years ago.
Handy piece of steel.
I meet Clyde’s gaze, and he winks. We sure see things eye-to-eye. I chuckle at my inside joke, cranking the thin, twisted steel over my head as if I just scored a hole-in-one. I strike the first bozo in the neck.
It torques the whole head to the left, one eyeball popping like a boil.
“Four!” I shout with a grunt.
“Come on, bottie-boys, bring it!”
“Mac!” a female voice screams, “Look out.”
I was a Marine back in the day. When a man went hard, it was balls to the wall. None of this sissy bullshit where you don’t feel it and get a pussy punch card. Now it’s hand-to-bionic. Pound for pound, my strength is five times that of a human male.
Thank you very much, tech freaks. This clown is playing in the circus.
I ram the rebar behind me in a strike, as they taught us for ground warfare.
With bayonets.
I turn with the strike, twisting as I do and punching the one-meter rod deeper.
I chortle as I skewer the thing in its mechanical guts, breaking into a little hum.
“Robot-kabob!” I shout.
This age regeneration is choice.
I lift the rebar, robot and all, and toss it into a pile where the other five I gutted lay in a twisting, chirping, discombobulated mess.
I have a moment of basic pride.
Like I do when I clean out the garage. Feels good.
Then Jade shrieks, and Caleb sets everything on fire.
Kids.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Deegan
I awake to fingers gripping my chin, the sides of my cheeks mashed into my teeth.
“If it wasn’t for you and your stupid family, I’d be a free citizen.”
Brad Thompson can’t possibly expect a response when his grip has frozen my face, my lips like a blowfish.
I guess he does, because he lets go long enough to backhand me. My face swings to the side, blood spraying as my teeth sink into my cheek again.
I groan, spitting out the blood.
“You’re not free? Listen,” I choke, “Brad… I don’t know what I ever did to you…” I really choke then. Rolling over onto my side, I vomit water helplessly.
“Disgusting bitch.” Brad kicks me in the ribs, and I can’t protect myself because I’m bound. I scream in agony as I feel one give.
I’m so mad I can’t think. I level my eyes at him, and I know he sees my hate.
He grins. “That’s right, because of you and your entire family, my dad disowned me. I can’t have fun with the zombies anymore. I can’t do the things I like.”
Fun?
I gasp, taking in his words, my ribs on fire. My mind works furiously, a dark idea forming. I can’t look at it.
It's too awful. It can't be true. In a dim corner of my mind, I'm ashamed I can even think it.
“If your nosey-ass parents, do-gooder grandparents and cock-bite of a brother hadn't stuck their noses in the zombie rights bullshit, I'd still be enjoying the spoils.” He shakes his head. “Nope. Not anymore.”
“You killed my family—here.”
He rolls his eyes. They’re dark like my dad’s but lack the warmth.
Black chips of coal regard me without compassion.
“Yes, you dumb crack. Dad was fine with it. He just didn’t want me to get caught and have it lead back to him. Now he’s gotta put on a front so he looks good.”
I swallow hard, and even that small movement lights up my throat, reverberating to my ribs. If I could just sit up, I’d feel so much better.
Instead I lay on my side in agony, watching psycho Brad rant. “You… your dad is Sanction Police chief here, too?” I say as distraction.
He stares at me. “This is going to be so fun. Let me put it to you this way: I am the prince of the station quality control. He is the king of the SP. He makes up the work for the zombies, and I se
e it through.”
His hands go to his hips. Brad taps his foot, and I can’t help the nervous eye flick to that ceaselessly moving appendage.
He notices. “Don’t worry, Dee-gan, I want to keep you in one piece. You see, I can slowly break you down. I’ll get myself a piece of the action after there’s no fight left.” He pumps his hips in a gross parody of humping.
My heart lurches.
Adrenaline shoots through me, paralyzing my lungs, my everything.
“Then!” He lifts a finger in the air, obviously pleased with his plans. “I will make you my sex slave after you’re dead.”
Oh my God.
I roll onto my back, using abs strong from the dojo. My ribs howl as I shoot up onto my butt.
Brad's brows come together. “Where are you going? There is nowhere to go. And lots of revenge to dish out,” he says thoughtfully.
I inch worm backward using my knees and the fisted knuckles of my locked hands.
I breathe hard. Anguish like lava flows around where he kicked. My back touches something hard and Brad smiles, crouching down in front of me. “You were fun to kill the first time. Poisoning your entire family while they slept was too easy.”
Hot tears for my family in this world blur my vision.
“Now your brother has released them from their station. He’s left quite a mess in his wake.” Brad scowls and shrugs. “But—that’s for daddy dearest to figure out.” Brad reaches out, taking a piece of my hair between his fingers. He yanks it suddenly, and I yelp. “Now tell me where the fuck you’re from, and where all the loose ends of the fam are, and I might spare you.”
He won’t spare anything.
I glare. “You won’t spare anyone. You’re in a corrupt Earth, you haven’t been punished for being the murderer you are, and you do stuff”—I choke on that word—“to people.”
“Zombies, Deegan.” He sounds bored. “They’re not people anymore. And being a pimp of dead chicks really works out. I keep a powerful four-level AFTD on board at all times, and he keeps the rot at bay. I have a really reliable dude who’s in control of the biggest brothel in all of Kent. He commands it, and we take the money.”
A slow smile spreads across his face as he adds, “Take turns, too.”
Seconds squeeze by while I fight my gorge.
It wins.
When I throw up this time, it’s because of what he said, not the near drowning or the kick to the ribs.
Death 07 - For the Love of Death Page 14