“Do you really think it’s a great idea to broadcast that we’ve got a zombie invasion on our hands?” I asked with a near shriek, regretting it almost immediately.
I heard one of the cops behind me say, “Did he just say that there’s a zombie invasion going on?”
“I believe he did,” the other replied.
“That’s it,” said cop number one. “I’m leaving this fucking town. Maybe I’ll move to Iowa or something. Nothing ever happens there. I’ll be a goddamn meter maid in a quiet little town and forget about all this crap.”
“Yeah, because quiet little towns in the middle of nowhere never have any issues,” replied cop number two.
“Exactly.”
“Have you ever seen any horror movies?”
I sniffed at that and turned my attention back to Paula. She wasn’t happy and that was just too bad.
“Look,” I said, lowering my voice, “you have a job to do and so do I. If you get me to announce zombies on the news right now, you’ll be squashing our ability to stop the necromancer who is causing all of this. We don’t have the manpower to answer phones, go to every false call that’ll come in, and take down the bad guys.” I let that sink in before adding, “And remember that you’ll be making your own life harder in the process, too, because now everyone is going to be looking for zombies. Do you really want to have to spin that?”
She scoffed at that argument. “Only supers hear my broadcast.”
“You know better than that,” I replied evenly. “There are plenty of normals who know about us.”
“Name one.”
“You.”
“Name two.”
“No.”
She crossed her arms.
“Fine.” I threw up my hands. “Cops, bellhops, concierge, dealers, damn near every business owner from the mom and pop level all the way to the top floor of the biggest casinos, the…”
“Okay, okay,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I get it. And, yes, I do know about all of them. But that’s not the point. They don’t all watch the supernatural stations, and even if they did they’re sworn to secrecy.”
I actually laughed out loud at that comment.
The notion of people being able to contain a secret was asinine. Yes, there were a select few who were capable of taking even the darkest knowledge to their grave, but most people couldn’t hold a juicy tidbit to themselves if their lives depended on it. The fact was there were already far too many normals in-the-know. Revealing the fact that zombies were riding zip lines and exploding on contact, and apparently biting people, was like opening Pandora’s Box.
“Paula,” I said as gently as I could, recognizing that she wanted something out of this, “I can’t let you tell anyone about this yet. It’s too dangerous.” I held up a hand before she could argue. “But we’re getting closer to catching this guy. Once we do, I’ll get you an exclusive with him.”
Her eyes opened wide at that prospect.
“Seriously?”
“You have my word.”
That seemed to appease her. In fact, I believe the smile she was wearing now was actually genuine.
And that look in her eye was familiar, too.
“I miss arguing with you,” she said mischievously. “You rarely ever win, but when you do it’s kind of hot.”
I gulped.
She leaned in and added, “I could always braid my hair, if you’re game?” She then looked up. “No strings.”
“No strings?”
“Rope, certainly,” she noted with a wink, “but no strings.”
“I, uh… well…”
“I’ll be at your place in the morning.”
She turned and started walking seductively away. It was one of those walks that made me whimper. Apparently it made cops one and two feel the same way because they were both coughing all of the sudden.
“Okay,” I said as Paula departed, “I’ll see you in a few hours. But be careful. There was a succubus there this morning and I don’t know if she’s left yet.”
Paula stopped.
“Way to kill the moment, Ian,” she said, looking disgustedly over her shoulder.
Then she continued walking without the swaying hips. It was back to that business like strut that said she’d lost interest. I used to see that walk a lot.
“Does that mean you’re not coming over?” I called out.
She replied with a single finger held high in the air.
“So…no?”
Chapter 29
We’d wrapped up everything on Freemont. Serena had healed the kid under the guise of being a doctor from the other side of town. She had the paramedics put on bandages and such, but she magically cleaned the wound and set it to healing. She then explained to the kid that he wasn’t to remove the bandage for a couple of days. It’d heal within the hour, but Serena didn’t want him to know that. It’d raise too many questions. The paramedic crew knew the real situation, of course, so they played along nicely.
Portman and his crew would be cleaning up goop for a couple of hours still. I was starting to feel worse for them than I was for myself. Yeah, I was getting coated with zombie juice a lot, but the morgue team had to deal with all these decomposing bodies, grave placements, refilling mounds of dirt, soaping down sidewalks and parking lots, and making sure that the dead were all placed back in their proper burial spots.
That thought gave me pause.
“Portman?” I said just before my two officers and I left the area, “you are putting the bodies back in their proper graves, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, let’s say that Bessie Maybell Cahill was one of the corpses and…”
“Who?”
“It’s just a name I made up as an example.”
He pursed his lips. “Why not just use Jane Doe?”
“Huh?”
“I’m just saying there’s no point going deep into a backstory for something like this. We don’t know any of these people.” He looked up thoughtfully for a moment. “I don’t think so, anyway.”
“Fine,” I said, giving up. Creativity just wasn’t allowed these days. “So you made sure that Jane Doe was buried in her own grave, right?”
“There is no real Jane Doe, Dex,” He replied with a concerned look on his face. Concerned about my intellect, no doubt. Then he chewed his lip for a second. “Actually, I suppose there are plenty of people with that name out there. Kind of rough when you think about it.”
“Portman,” I said, jolting him from his thoughts, “I’m just asking if you put the people back into the same graves they came out of.”
“Oh, no,” he replied with a laugh. “That would have been impossible. I mean, I’m sure we got lucky on getting some of them right, but there were way too many bodies, Dex. The logistics would have been an enormous pain in the ass. Just think of what we’d have to do to accomplish that.” He began counting on his fingers. “Dental record research, DNA matching, the…”
“I get it, I get it.”
He shrugged. “Besides, who’s gonna know?”
“Their spirits might,” I replied with a hint of accusation, instantly recognizing that it wasn’t the brightest thing to say aloud.
“What?”
“Yeah,” said Rachel, “what?”
“Are you trying to say that you’re worried about ghosts, Chief?” Serena asked slowly.
They were all looking at me as if I’d lost my mind. Okay, so I was the one who watched a lot of silly horror movies, and many of them had pissed-off ghosts in them. They tormented people, haunted houses and cemeteries, and were just downright freaky.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said.
“You mean we shouldn’t look at you like we think you’re stupid?” Rachel said. “Sorry, but I was never any good at dramatic acting.”
“Nice.” I took a deep breath. “I don’t think there are ghosts either, gang.” They clearly didn’t believe me. “But if we were having this conversation last
week and I mentioned zombies, you’d all be giving me the same looks you’re giving me now.”
“Fair enough,” Rachel said finally, nodding her acquiescence. “I doubt that Fred is going to take that angle, though. It’s a totally different tract on necromancy for him. He might be good enough to have mastered both, but I kind of doubt it.”
“Still…”
“And even if he was going that route, Chief,” Serena added, “he wouldn’t need an excuse for the ghosts to come out.”
“True, but…”
“Dex,” Portman interrupted, “I’ll make a deal with you. If we suddenly get an influx of ghosts terrorizing the town, we’ll dig up the bodies again and stick them in their correct spots. Until then, I’m letting my crew rest up whenever possible.”
It was hard to argue the point, so I just nodded, said my goodbyes and headed back to the Aston Martin.
Nobody spoke along the way.
I knew what they were thinking and that was okay. Like I said, the concept of zombies was ridiculous, too. But I had to admit that our seeing ghosts was asinine.
Still, Fred had shown himself to be pretty sneaky so far.
And that was my real concern at the moment.
What did he have planned for us next?
So far he’d spent his time toying with us. It was almost like he had no major plan. He just wanted to torment us—me for some reason. But I couldn’t buy that because he was adding facets to his creatures. They started out as simple drones, but he’d added more to them each time. Changed their dynamics. And he also attacked my mages through triggers.
The vision I had was the clincher though.
Shitfaced Fred was an apprentice to a necromancer who had once raised a zombie army. He seemed to be heading down that same path. Why he was choosing the methods he did in order to accomplish it, I couldn’t say, but there was just too much evidence to think his intentions were anything but dubious.
“Puddin’?” Lydia said as I climbed into the car.
I put my head on the steering wheel, wondering what could possibly be going on now.
Just a few weeks ago Rachel and I were complaining about being in a rut. Careful what you wish for, I suppose.
“Hey, Lydia,” I replied tiredly through the connector. “What’s up?”
“Are you sitting down?”
I tilted my head to the side and glanced at Rachel.
She shrugged.
“Yes,” I said at length.
“I just received a message from The Spin,” she replied. “The van was stopped on their way back to the office and everyone inside was knocked out.”
My blood ran cold.
“Stopped by whom?” asked Rachel.
“The necromancer,” she replied. “He’s taken Paula Rose.”
Chapter 30
Shitfaced Fred was making it personal now.
I didn’t know what his game was, but he’d moved from zombies you could kill by shooting them in the head, to requiring that they be shot in the heart, to pointless skeletons, back to exploding zombies, and now kidnapping.
But he didn’t just kidnap anyone. He kidnapped my ex, meaning he was targeting me.
Then again, maybe I was being too self-involved here. Paula was a TV personality, her disappearance would make for a hell of a story, bringing Fred into the spotlight pretty heavily. Plus, my crew had been targeted too. The mages anyway. But even that could have been in an attempt to weaken me.
Why would he want that, though? Wouldn’t it be better for him to stay in the shadows until he had his final attack in place? The thought of him building out some grandiose plan that involved zombies and the city of Vegas made me groan.
Why couldn’t he have picked a place like New York or London? They had much larger Paranormal Police Departments there that could more readily handle this type of situation.
But they didn’t have me.
Self-involved or not, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was his target.
“There has to be more to this,” Serena said calmly as I sped down the street and back to base. “It’s obvious he doesn’t like you, Ian, but why?”
Rachel turned in her seat and looked at me. “Did you bone his wife?”
“What?” I shot her an irritated glance. “No!” Then I chewed my lip. “I don’t think so anyway.” The memory of the vision came back. “No, I couldn’t have. He’s old and while I don’t mind a silver fox now and then, I always check them out first to make sure they’re single.”
“Ew,” said Rachel.
Serena laughed. “I’d love to be a fly on the wall at your psych evals.”
“Anyway, I’m pretty sure I didn’t bone this guy’s wife. I’m careful about stuff like that. Adultery isn’t my bag.” I gripped the wheel tighter. “I even broke up with Paula because I didn’t want to cheat on her, as you both may recall.”
That quieted them. I may have been many things, but cheater wasn’t on the list. And these two knew that about me. Yeah, I’m a player, but I don’t hurt people…unless we have a safe word established, of course.
“Hey, Chief,” came the voice of Turbo to interrupt our silence, “I took the liberty of connecting our cams and a few satellites to the code that I made for spotting the zombies.”
“Great, Turbo,” I replied without much enthusiasm. “What’s that buy us, exactly?”
“I can spot instantly if any dead bodies are walking around. Anywhere we have visual, and with satellites, I can see the entire city and the outlying areas.”
“Oh, well that’s cool.”
I hung a left on to Convention Center Drive and slammed the pedal toward Paradise Road.
“It’s really cool,” Turbo said with so much enthusiasm that it lifted my mood one percentage point. “But there’s a problem.”
There went that percentage point.
A quick left and a right toward the back of the convention center took us to a major null zone where a hidden tunnel took us underground.
“Isn’t there always a problem?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, so what is it?”
“Well, I used the satellite tracking system and started scanning the main areas,” he was speaking rapidly. “I didn’t want to just look everywhere because that wouldn’t be very efficient, so I started targeting different cemeteries and I also scanned the major areas of the strip.”
Turbo had a knack for dragging things out for an eternity. Where you may say, “I finally got my oil changed,” Turbo would say, “The day started with a dark cloud hovering over my rumbling vehicle. The check engine light flickered multiple times, but it never stayed on full. I knew something was amiss so I drove to town, only to get caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Time felt like it stopped. People were honking their horns and two men had stepped out of their cars to settle a dispute regarding the right to merge at the last second. The small guy won. The cops showed up and I got to the shop thirty minutes later. They checked every aspect of my car until finally determining that I needed an oil change.”
I took a deep breath.
“And what did you find, Turbo?”
“Zombies.”
I got out of the car and handed my keys to a tech. He took one whiff of the air and groaned, obviously catching that lovely scent of zombie. I shrugged in response and then cracked open the door to the main building.
“Meet us in the conference room, Turbo,” I commanded, preparing myself to wring his neck for wasting my time. “Lydia, please get everyone else there as well.”
“They’re already in there, honey.”
“Great.”
We walked in the building and headed directly for the conference room. Turbo was already running around on the table, obviously finding it difficult to contain his excitement. Pixies got excited whether news was good or bad.
Fortunately for him, he wasn’t close enough for me to grab him.
The magic users were going through documents that had funny drawings all over them, whi
le Felicia and Chuck looked to be taking inventory of their weapons.
I’d get to all of them in a second. Right now I needed to know what Turbo was all hyped up about.
“All right, Turbo,” I said as I took my seat at the head of the table, “enough babbling about. Tell us precisely what you found please.”
“Zombies,” he said again. “I told you that before.”
“We already know about the zombies,” I replied, blinking. “You built us glasses to spot them, remember? We’ve found more of the damn things than I can count!”
“Seventy-seven in all,” Griff chimed in. “That does not include the skeletons, but it does take into account the ones that exploded.”
“I was being rhetorical, Griff, but thanks.”
“Ah.”
I leveled my stare at Turbo. He quit pacing.
“Can you please tell me exactly what you’ve seen?” I asked. He went to speak, but I creased my eyes menacingly. “And do it clearly and succinctly.”
He swallowed hard and looked from face to face. Everyone wore the same grim expression that I was holding. This was not excited-pixie time.
“Right,” he said in a hoarse voice. “There is a massive army of zombies heading toward the city.”
Chapter 31
Not a word was said after I dropped the zombie army bomb on the Directors. They were either shocked, surprised, freaked out, or beside themselves trying to come up with a way to respond…or, in the case of EQK, watching cartoons on the net.
“Sirs?” I ventured finally.
“Has Turbo determined precisely how many of them there are?” asked Zack.
“Just over five hundred.”
“You’re not going to be able to handle that many,” O noted.
“Your powers of deduction never fail to amaze, O,” Silver stated.
Here we go again. Whatever these two had against each other must have gone back a ways. My guess was that they were at odds in some war or something.
“I’m growing weary of your remarks, Director Silver.”
“Oooh,” EQK piped up, “you used his full title. Are you guys going to fight? If so, I’ll get some popcorn.”
The Ian Dex Supernatural Thriller Series: Books 1 - 4 (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department Box Sets) Page 23