Hellforged d-2

by Nancy Holzner

  I landed on my side and kept sliding. The floor was covered with the slippery stuff. And so was I—my hand, my arm, all down my right side and leg. I came to a stop and rolled over to sit up. The smell was so bad my stomach heaved, and I swallowed hard a couple of times to get control. I lifted my hand; a gob of blackish slime dripped from my palm. What the hell was it? The stench of it made me retch again. Good thing I hadn’t had breakfast. My first stop, after I’d retrieved my watch, would be the ladies’ room to wash this gunk off me.

  Disgusting. No matter how good T.J. was with customers, Axel would fire the kid when he saw this mess.

  Gingerly, I put my left hand on the floor next to me so I could use both hands to push myself up. A lump pressed into my palm. I picked it up: a gold ring, shaped into the initials T.J.

  A ragged stub of finger still wore it.

  I hurled the ring away. It skittered across the floor and came to rest against the back wall. I tried to scramble to my feet but slipped and fell again, landing hard on my ass. My hand came down on a scrap of fabric. It was turquoise, with part of an orange hibiscus petal. The rest of the room came into focus now: other bits of fabric, scraps of flesh, bone shards, clumps of sandy hair. Something had torn T.J. to pieces. Or worse. There wasn’t enough flesh here to make a whole zombie. I looked again at the slimy black gunk dripping in strings from my hand. Dear God. What could turn a zombie into this?

  Slowly, with effort, I climbed to my feet. As fast as I could without sprawling again, I made my way across the room. Past a bucket and mop, which stood there as if waiting for T.J. to get to work. Past tables, some of them, I now noticed, toppled over. Past the end of the long bar. At the back, the floor was cleaner. I pounded on the locked door that Norden hadn’t got through, the door to Axel’s lair.

  “Axel!” I screamed. “Axel, get up here!” I pressed my ear against the door, but I couldn’t hear a thing. Was it sound-proofed? Damn it all, Axel had to know about this. I kept on pounding and screaming. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  My hand felt like I’d fractured at least a couple of bones and I was starting to go hoarse when I heard a lock click, and then two more. The door swung open toward me, and I had to jump back to avoid being hit. That made me fall again, thanks to the slime on the soles of my boots. Axel’s angry face loomed way, way up there, somewhere near the ceiling. But his expression changed to alarm when he saw me.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t—All this—” The words weren’t coming. I gestured around the bar. “T.J.”

  Axel’s brow lowered as he surveyed the room. “T.J. made this mess?”

  I shook my head and saw a glint of metal on the floor a couple of feet away. I reached over and picked up T.J.’s ring, touching only the metal. A splinter of bone, absurdly white, stuck out of what was left of the finger. Wordlessly, I handed Axel the ring and the lump of flesh it encircled.

  He squinted at it, turning it over in his big paw. He looked around the bar again, at the black, stinking goo, the bits of cloth and bone and hair. His hand closed around the ring as he squeezed his eyes shut. He stayed that way for a minute, completely still.

  He opened his eyes and walked to the bar, where he set the ring down carefully, gently even. Then Axel did something that, a mere hour ago, I’d have sworn he’d never do. He picked up the phone and called the Goon Squad.

  6

  BACK BEFORE THE PLAGUE, CREATURE COMFORTS WASN’T A bar. The space had been occupied by one of those thirty-minute circuit-training gyms. Lucky for me. Axel’s storeroom had been a locker room, and it still had a working shower. It was heaven to stand under a stream of hot water and get clean. The Goons, I knew, would be annoyed, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t stand to have that stuff—whatever it was—all over me. Axel had dug out one of the old staff uniforms: a pair of chinos and a black polo shirt with FIT-IN-30 embroidered on the pocket. The clothes were a little big and smelled musty, but they were clean.

  By the time I emerged from the storage room, rubbing my hair with a bar towel, the Goons had arrived. Norden and Sykes—damn, I’d hoped their shift had ended—stood talking to Axel as Sykes scribbled in a notebook. All around them, crime scene technicians wearing gloves, surgical masks, and bags over their shoes, swabbed samples of black slime and tweezered up scraps of what used to be T.J., depositing them in plastic bags.

  Norden poked Axel with his finger, but the big bartender didn’t seem to notice. He looked over Norden’s head, staring with glassy eyes at the mess. As I came down the hallway, Norden’s head snapped around and he stopped in mid-poke. “I’m not kidding,” he said to Axel, while he kept his beady eyes on me. “This is a murder scene now. You’re going to let us through that door, or I’m going to send for a battering ram and bash it off its hinges.”

  Norden stepped in front of me. “You,” he sneered. “I should’ve known. How come whenever something bad happens, you’re right in the middle of it?”

  I wasn’t going to bother answering that. “Do you want me to make a statement or not? Because I’d rather be home in bed than hanging around waiting for you to decide if you want to talk to me.” Not that I’d be able to sleep, not after what I’d found here.

  “Sykes will take your statement.” Norden shot Axel a significant look. “I’ve gotta make a phone call.”

  One booth in the back of the room was relatively slime-free. Sykes and I made our way there and sat down facing each other. Across the room, Norden finished his phone call and went back to poking Axel.

  “Why on earth do you put up with that jerk?” I asked.

  Sykes shrugged. “We were partners before the plague. After this happened”—he gestured to indicate his zombified self—“my choices were join the Goon Squad or quit the force. Elmer could’ve transferred, but he stuck with me.”

  I didn’t know which was more of a shock, the fact that Norden had a first name—and it was Elmer—or that he’d taken a job he obviously hated to stay with his partner. If I had to list Norden’s good qualities, I’d say he was rude, annoying, and an all-around prick. Somehow, “loyal” wouldn’t have come to mind.

  “Yeah, he’s loyal,” Sykes said, like he’d read my mind. “And he’s braver than you’d think. But you’re right; the guy’s a jerk. Always has been. Even his own mother couldn’t stand him. He swore the feeling was mutual, but he went to visit her at the nursing home twice a week. I don’t know, maybe they enjoyed getting on each other’s nerves. Then she caught pneumonia and died a couple of days before the plague hit.” Sykes tapped his pen on the table. “I’m no psychiatrist, but I always thought he got mad at us zombies for coming back to life while his ma stayed dead.”

  I watched Norden poking Axel, to make sure I’d stay mad at the guy. I did not want to come down with a case of the warm fuzzies for Elmer Norden. The less I knew about what made him tick, the better.

  Sykes flipped a page in his notebook. “So tell me what happened.” He fished a pair of half-moon reading glasses from his pocket and perched them on his nose.

  “I found …” I was going to say the body, but there was no body. “I found this.” I swept my arm to encompass the horror of the room.

  “Start from the beginning. What time did you leave here this morning?”

  “Right around closing time. Six, maybe a little before.” As Sykes took notes, I described how I’d realized I’d left my watch at Creature Comforts and how T.J. had promised to drop it off at my building.

  “If you expected him to leave it with your doorman, why did you come back here?”

  I didn’t feel like explaining that Difethwr had invaded my dream and spooked me. I was already spooked enough by whatever had happened here, so I settled for a half-truth. “I couldn’t sleep. It’s a valuable watch, and I was worried. Since I was awake anyway, I figured I’d save T.J. the trouble. I thought once I had my watch back, I’d quit obsessing about it and be able to sleep.”

  Sykes nodded as he wrote, then peered over his glas
ses with crimson eyes. “May I see it?”

  “What, my watch?” Until that moment, I hadn’t thought to look for my watch. “I don’t have it. T.J. said he’d put it behind the bar.”

  We went to the far side of the bar and looked around. On a shelf beneath the cash register was a cardboard box with LOST & FOUND written in thick black marker on the side. I rummaged through it. There were baseball caps, sunglasses, umbrellas, a black lace bra (I’d have to ask Axel about that one), a set of keys, and two watches—neither one was mine.

  “It’s not here.” Queasiness clenched my gut as I flashed back to Difethwr in my dream, taunting me with the watch and then destroying it. It couldn’t have been my actual watch; it must have been a dream-image. Boston was protected by a magic shield, maintained by witches from every coven in the city, whose sole purpose was to keep Hellions out. There’d been a breach in the shield last fall, but since then the witches had strengthened the spell. No way Difethwr could’ve waltzed into town to steal my watch.

  So where was it?

  Axel stood guard in front of his apartment’s door. I called his name and he turned to me, shaggy eyebrows raised. “I left a watch here last night. If T.J. put it aside for me, where would it be? It’s not in the lost-and-found box.”

  After a glance at Norden, who was talking to one of the techs, Axel joined us behind the bar. He looked in a couple of cupboards, opened the cash register drawer, and then stood there scratching his beard. “Dunno,” he finally said.

  “T.J. was going to bring it to your building,” Sykes pointed out. “Maybe he stuck it in his pocket.”

  Without wanting to, I turned to look at the mess that spattered the room. The goo was everywhere, along with scraps of fabric and lumps of … stuff. If T.J. had pocketed my watch, I doubted we’d find so much as a gear.

  “Stuck what in whose pocket?” Norden heaved himself onto a bar stool.

  “Ms. Vaughn’s watch,” Sykes said. “The victim said—”

  “We’ve got a murder investigation and you’re back there trying to solve the Mystery of the Missing Watch? Jesus, Sykes, are you kidding me?”

  He turned to Axel. “A SWAT team is on the way. They’re gonna smash that damned door wide open. When they do, I’m gonna take a dozen cops downstairs—whatever’s down there, we’re gonna tear it apart. And I’ll bet you a month’s pay we find something.”

  “Oh, come on, Norden,” I said. “You don’t believe Axel murdered T.J.”

  “Who said anything about murder? All kinds of illegal crap could be down there. Drugs, weapons, stolen property. Hell, if I find so much as an expired driver’s license, I’m shutting the place down.”

  For the first time, Axel looked worried. Whether that was because he had something to hide or he thought Norden would plant something downstairs, I couldn’t tell. Maybe he just didn’t want a team of cops invading his privacy. Axel was big on privacy.

  The front door opened. “Must be the SWAT guys.” Norden grinned malevolently. “I’m looking forward to this.”

  The smile dropped from his face, and Sykes swore under his breath. I looked over to see what the Goons were scowling at. Two men, humans, stood inside the door, unwinding their scarves. Their I-own-the-place attitude broadcast they were detectives.

  That would explain the Goons’ scowls. Boston PD and the Goon Squad shared an unfriendly rivalry, and Creature Comforts, in the middle of the New Combat Zone, was definitely on Goon Squad turf. These norm cops were overstepping a boundary.

  I braced for the inevitable conflict that would erupt when the new detectives came over to confront Norden and Sykes. But instead, each went to a different member of the CSI team, drawing them aside and speaking in low voices. Within a minute, the team was packing its equipment.

  Sykes and Norden exchanged a look and rushed over to one of the detectives, a bald guy in a camel coat. “What’s going on?” Sykes demanded. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  The norm didn’t even glance at the zombie; he answered to Norden instead. “I’m commandeering this forensic team. We need them at a crime scene.”

  “This is a crime scene,” Sykes said.

  The norm kept his eyes on Norden, his gaze cool. “I don’t see any evidence of a crime.”

  “Are you kidding?” Norden said. “A PDH was killed.”

  “PDH? Oh, you mean a zombie. Like I said, no evidence of a crime.” He smirked. “You can’t murder something that’s already dead.”

  Sykes gaped, like he couldn’t believe the norm had actually said that. Norden puffed himself up and took a step toward the detective, fists clenched. “You can’t blow this off. PDHs have rights in this state.”

  “Our authorization comes from Hampson.” Fred Hampson, Boston’s police commissioner, was not a friend to paranormals. Given the chance, he’d be leading the torch-and-pitchfork crowd himself. “Anyway, show me a zombie who’s had his rights violated. I don’t see anything here but a big, stinking mess.” He gave his partner a look. “See? This is why I never go out in the Zone. Filthy goddamn monsters.”

  “Who are you calling a monster, blood bag?” Sykes launched himself at the cop, who crashed to the floor. Sykes kneeled on the norm’s chest, his arms pumping like pistons. He landed a couple of good punches—zombie-strength punches—before Axel ran over and, with help from Norden, dragged him off the guy.

  The norm detective sat up, pressing both hands to his face. Blood gushed from his nose, pouring through his fingers and staining his coat.

  Uh-oh. Not good. If you’re a human and there’s a zombie around, bleeding is definitely a bad idea.

  Everyone looked at Sykes.

  The big zombie’s nostrils twitched as he caught the scent. He shook off his partner like he was flicking dandruff from his shoulder. Even Axel couldn’t hold him. Sykes took two staggering steps toward the detective, dragging Axel behind. The detective screamed, high-pitched like a terrified animal. He tried to climb to his feet, but he couldn’t get his legs under him. The best he could do was push himself halfway under a table. He lay on his side, cupping his hands around his nose like he could hide the blood with his fingers.

  I ran to help Axel, grabbing Sykes’s arm and doing my best to dig my heels into the slippery floor. Maybe the two of us could hold Sykes back. The last thing this city needed was a Goon Squad zombie chomping one of Boston’s finest.

  But I’d forgotten about the second detective. He stepped in front of his partner, gun drawn. “I’ve got exploding bullets,” he warned.

  Sykes lurched forward.

  “For God’s sake, shoot him!” shouted the detective on the ground.

  “You do and you’re dead.” To my left, Norden had his gun out, too, pointed at the armed detective.

  Sykes seemed oblivious. He pulled his arm from my grasp and yanked free of Axel. He took two heavy steps toward the norm, who covered his head with his arms.

  The norm with the gun looked back and forth between Sykes and Norden, his eyes wild. He kept the gun on Sykes.

  Then Sykes stopped.

  He stood in the center of the room, his shoulders shaking, his face contorted. He made a strangled, gasping noise. And he turned around. Sykes actually turned and walked away from a cowering, bleeding human.

  I’d never seen anything like it. When zombies smell human blood, they have to feed. It’s their nature.

  Sykes staggered behind the bar and tore open a bag of peanuts. He tilted his head back and emptied the packet down his throat. Then he did it again. And again. He stopped and looked at his hand, where blood streaked the knuckles. He sniffed. A black tip of tongue appeared between his lips. But he didn’t taste the blood. Instead, he picked up a bar towel and wiped it from his hand. Then he went back to demolishing Axel’s peanut supply.

  “You better get the hell out of here,” Norden told the detectives, but there was no need for him to say it. The bashed-up one was already on his feet and halfway to the door.

  “Commissioner Hampson’s go
ing to hear about this,” he shouted. He didn’t wait for a reply before he ran out into the daylight.

  The CSI team wasn’t far behind. They finished packing their gear, every single one of them giving exaggerated concentration to the task to avoid catching either Goon’s eye. Within five minutes, the bar was empty except for Axel, the two Goons, and me.

  Sykes stood ankle-deep in crumpled peanut bags. He pulled out a wallet. “How much do I owe you?” he asked Axel.

  Axel shook his head, slowly. “On the house.”

  Norden whirled on me. “What the hell are you hanging around for? You can go back to bed now that those assholes have pulled the goddamn rug out from under our investigation.”

  “What investigation?” Sykes said bitterly. “There can’t be an investigation if there’s no crime.”

  “Maybe I can help,” I said. They looked at me like I’d just suggested we all join hands and play Ring Around the Rosie. “No, really. I know Alexander Kane, and he—”

  “Kane is in D.C., all tied up in that Supreme Court case,” said Sykes.

  “Yes, I know, but …” I didn’t finish the sentence. But what? What was I thinking? Kane was putting in a hundred hours a week on his case. He hoped to make history. What was one local, shut-down investigation next to that? Kane would care—I didn’t doubt that for a second. But he had no time to do anything about it.

  “That’s why Hampson’s pushing it,” said Sykes. “No paranormal rights lawyer in town to give him a hard time. This isn’t the first time the commissioner has yanked resources from a JHP case.”

  JHP? Oh, right. Joint Human-Paranormal Task Force. Not quite as catchy as “Goon Squad,” but a little more dignified.

  Norden was right, much as I hated to admit it; there was no point in my hanging around. I said good-bye to Axel, nodded to the Goons, and pushed through the door into the cold, clear day.

  As I headed home, I thought about T.J.—smiling, friendly, eager to please. Something had obliterated that poor kid. And nobody cared. Nobody who counted, anyway.