2 Death Rejoices

by A. J. Aalto

  I stood my ground. “That's what we're calling being a dick, now? Honesty?”

  His chuckle was full of warmth and spice; I could smell the cinnamon gum on his breath and knew his tongue would be hot with it. My toes curled inside my sneakers.

  “We might not always like each other, but we're very close, Marnie.” The way he said it, it sounded like a promise. Something low in my belly began to purr. “Painfully close.”

  “It's certainly painful for me,” I agreed.

  “Poor baby.” His big hand hovered near my hip, testing the air. “Should I kiss it better?”

  I was unable to look away from his mouth. When his tongue darted out to wet his lips, I heard myself whimper and my voice went breathy without my permission.

  “We haven't got much time.” Wait, what? Did I just say that?

  “Is that a problem for you?”

  “Fuck, no.”

  His reply was an enthusiastic growl; when his hips pressed up against mine and I felt how hard he was under his jeans, my remaining resistance melted and steamed out my ears. Our lips were desperate gatekeepers for hungry tongues; snatching the air from each other's mouths, smothering each other's eager noises, we kissed like we'd been starving for each other and savored every second of it.

  His hands plunged up the back of my shirt to find my bra clasp with able fingers. When it surrendered to him, he pressed both hands against my bare shoulder blades and squeezed my body against his. When he shifted to rub his hard-on against me, I got dizzy and grabbed at his shirt to pull apart.

  Two jerks later, his shirt gave with the popping of buttons. I recoiled, one hand flying to my face. “Button in the eye! Button in the eye!” I yelped.

  “Can't even begin to tell you how sexy that was,” Batten teased, shrugging out of his shirt. He let it fall to the carpet while his teeth began a slow exploration of my right earlobe.

  My trembling, excited hands toured his hard, naked back before making short work of his belt and tugged at the top button of his jeans like it was blocking my way on purpose. He laughed into my mouth at my struggle and helped himself to a soft handful of breast.

  “What's going on down there? World War Three?”

  “Declan's gonna be here soon, and I can't get your goddamned pants off,” I whispered angrily.

  “Dork.”

  I snarled unkind words about his stubborn button fly, yanking savagely.

  “Jesusfuck, woman, what are you doing?”

  “Whatever it takes,” I swore.

  “You drive me fucking crazy. Good thing you're cute.” His chin dipped to my neck and his breathing became ragged in my ear. “God, you smell good.”

  My head darted back so I could get a look at him. “We have time for that?”

  “We're making time,” he promised. “Ignore the door. Let him wait. Just—” He lost patience with my fumbling at his jeans. “Would you stop? Here.”

  He tore his button fly open with one tug, stepped out of the jeans and flung them aside. I must have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing I knew, a very naked Mark Batten stood before me, dizzyingly stiff and thick and ready. He was every bit as beautiful as I remembered.

  I blinked rapidly. “Hot damn.”

  The corner of his lips curled in a move that transformed his entire face into something predatory and foxlike. “Thanks. Now you.”

  I touched my t-shirt. “Holy shit, how am I still wearing clothes?”

  He barked a laugh and snatched for my elbow, grabbing me up next to his nakedness. What little brainpower I had abandoned me in an electric snap and animal instinct took over. I pulled him onto the bed on top of me. My thighs had a mind of their own, yielding to the raw power of his body.

  “Mark, please,” I moaned, pulling him to where I needed him, digging my hands into the hard meat of his ass to get him wedged tighter between my legs.

  “Not yet.” He withdrew his hips from mine. “I want to taste you again. Let me taste you.”

  My answer was an eager, pleading gasp, which he stifled with one more hungry kiss. My fingernails dug into the muscles of his shoulders as he unzipped my jeans. I thought about softening my approach a little when multiple pops, like fireworks, sounded from the parking lot.

  Batten's mouth retreated from mine reluctantly and he let out a soft curse.

  I said, “Fireworks. It has to be,” even though I knew it wasn't.

  Then a car horn bleated, three choked-off sounds, non-committal, experimental almost.

  “Does this fall under your ‘ignore the door’ command?” I whimpered. “Please say yes.”

  Two more gunshots rang out, muffled, as if from a homemade silencer. Batten shoved off the bed to throw a shoulder against the window frame and peer through the blinds. I followed him, which he disapproved of with a growl and a big hand on my forehead, shoving me away from the window.

  “Head down,” he ordered. I ignored him, taking up a spot on the other side of the window, copying his covert posture and peering through my side of the blinds.

  Hood's headlights were on; they illuminated the giant in the half-mangled fursuit pounding on the front windshield, and the two punks shrinking in horror in the front seat.

  The huff of my breath moved my bangs out of my eyes. “Fuck me, that's one big beaver.”

  CHAPTER 44

  I'M NOT SWORN TO PROTECT PEOPLE; that protect and serve crap, that's the domain of the police, the Sheriff's department, the FBI, and the fine agents of the PCU. Heaven help the poor schlub who relies on me to save them. Most days, I can barely keep my own ass covered. Today, it was not my uncovered ass I was worried about, but the not-insignificant, custard-white moon belonging to Cosmo Winkle.

  I heard myself demand, “Toss me your backup gun!” though my common sense wanted me to run screaming into the bathroom and lock the door.

  Jerking my gloves back on, I asked myself for the bajillionth time, how did I end up working for these people? Was this my idea? The outside world is a nuisance. On my best days, I'm a casual witch, a casual worker, a casual consultant. And this? I looked at the half-naked zombie leaving trails of fetid slobber across the front windshield of Hood's SUV. Yeah, this was just one more example of how not-casual my life had become. Well, okay, the no-pants dress code was pretty casual of him, but there was still the matter of him trying to tear the truck apart.

  Batten's kit jostled open with a clink. When I looked at him, he'd managed to mostly dress; so much for naked monster hunting.

  “You're not getting my gun,” he said. “Where the hell is yours?”

  I crouched beside him. “My bedside table. You made me leave so fast, I didn't have a chance to grab it. Also, some jerk entered my Taser-blaster into evidence and hasn't returned it. Got a light?”

  “No.”

  “Got salt?”

  “No.”

  “Well, now that your pants are on, what fucking good are you?” I cried.

  “We got interrupted before I could demonstrate,” he replied, husky promise in his voice that implied much.

  “From now on, you truck around a couple of cans of Morton's salt in your kit, got it?”

  “Check.”

  “Quick review,” I said. “Two types of zombies: shamblers and berserkers. Cosmo is a berserker, Type-C, contagious, infectious, there-fore quick-moving, ravenously hungry, merciless, myopic—”

  “English.”

  “They can't see well. They also can't smell you. They're barely functional, but up close they're extremely dangerous. Supernatural bursts of speed and strength, combined with massive hunger and temper tantrums. Don't get bitten. I repeat: do not get bitten. One bite, you're done. No cure, no recovery, got it?”

  “Got it. Is this zombie being controlled by one of those bookworms?”

  “Bokor, jeez. And no, I think Cosmo's freelance,” I said mock-cheerfully. “You want the zombie, or the car thieves?”

  “I thought we'd let the humans go, and deal with the big picture.”
>
  “I thought we'd kill the zombie and arrest the punks all in one fell swoop, since we're badass like that,” I said.

  Batten's eyebrow did its merry dance upward, and he shook his head.

  “Minimize the risk to the public,” he lectured, sounding a lot like SSA Chapel. “You call Dr. Varney at the CDC, I'll take the zombie.”

  The truck's front end rocked up again, and the two punks inside squealed like kids on a too-big roller coaster, their hands beating the dashboard in sheer terror. Call Dr. Varney, he says. I'd rather mud wrestle that zombie beaver buck naked with both arms tied behind my back. And then it hit me: the rain. The mud. Mud wrestle. I readied myself to launch.

  “One punch and he'd be through that glass.” I said. “Man, he's thick. On a completely unrelated note, where are his pants?”

  “Left them at the morgue?” Batten suggested, wordlessly yielding to me his back-up gun, the Taurus. The last time I'd held this gun, I'd neatly blown off Neil Dunnachie's skull cap. Not that it had stopped him, or even slowed him down, but it was nice to know I was pretty awesome with it. Uselessly awesome, that's me.

  “This time,” I said, pressing my free hand to my jittering belly, “we aim for ankles and kneecaps. Scared yet?”

  Batten slid his gaze sideways at me, eyebrows pinched like I'd just said something stupid.

  “You're not scared at all!” I accused.

  “This is going to be a nightmare,” he said under his breath.

  “Why? Do you know something I don't?”

  “I know you're all I've got to work with.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, but since it was dim in the room, I'm not sure he saw it. I debated kicking him in the shin. “We need fire, salt, steel and/or sodium bentonite.”

  “No fire, steel or salt. Don't know what that other thing is. Now what?”

  “Clay.” I pointed at the next room. “Get Declan. If he didn't hear the shots, it means he's super hungover. He's got booze and a lighter. I'll rescue the miscreants.”

  “You get your assistant,” he said.

  “I can handle this.”

  “Let me.” His voice started dialing down to Kill-Notch-Loses-It.

  “I'm clearly better, who could even argue?”

  “Go get Declan,” he ordered, “before I lock you in the manager's office.”

  “This is some bullshit. And after that hardcore two-and-a-half-minute interlude we just narrowly escaped?” I said. “This is why you don't get cute nicknames.”

  The gunshots from the SUV had disturbed some other motel guests, and lights were flipped on to pierce the stormy grey light. One motel door swung open and a half-naked business man peered out, adjusting his toupee.

  Before Batten could say another word, I barreled out into the hissing rain with a spark in my ass, ignoring his angry bark behind me. The rain drummed hard enough against the parking lot that it created a low-hanging mist, so I could barely see. Probably Gary Chapel, with his little tortoiseshell glasses, would have been completely blinded. Ahead of me, the ground-shuddering thud of a two and a half ton vehicle landing solidly on its front wheels again and again led the way.

  All 6’8” of Zombie Cosmo was, under the partially-torn beaver suit, rotting quickly, as Type C zombies do. When its young face turned to stare blankly at me, I could see that it was pocked not with acne but with putrid green-black blisters teeming with decay, and its nose leaked bloodstained fluid. I had to destroy it before it bit anyone, especially me.

  I skidded around the passenger's side to get a better look at the situation. The zombie's vacant gaze followed me. I couldn't tell if he'd half-dressed on autopilot after he turned, or if the morgue attendants hadn't got around to undressing him for his post-mortem yet. In any case, beneath the black hem, his wanger flapped in the breeze. Any lingering sexy thoughts I had crawled away to die.

  “Awesome,” I whispered. “Zombie schlong. Just the thing to start my day.”

  Cosmo careened around the left side of the truck's hood, palms thumping metal, taking three wobbling steps toward me. His mouth drooped open like he'd had a stroke, slack jaw jutting sideways.

  He let out a familiar, “Ergggggggh.”

  The odor of his death-breath hit me even through the mist and rain. Retreating warily, I twisted my Keds in the mud, wriggling them side-to-side: the grippy soles caught and held like I knew they would. Cosmo's badly stained bare feet slid and squished forward another tilting pace.

  “That's right, Cosmo, here we go, buddy,” I soothed, waving my free hand in wide arcs to keep his attention. “Lots of yummy brain-chow, right this way. I'm easy prey, or so they tell me.”

  The theory went, fire would destroy any undead creature, a mouthful of salt would return a raised zombie to its grave, and steel would combine with clay to command an infectious zombie into the ground, where presumably they'd stay. The problem with theories is that they are theories until they're tested. How much was I willing to bet on the presumed expertise of those who taught me? Bet it all? Or listen to my gut? I'd already blown holes in the headshot theory. Literally.

  Fire would be difficult: the rain would hamper the efforts, not to mention Cosmo was fresh and gooey. I gazed at his pustule-ridden face. Okay, relatively fresh. Definitely gooey, though. Living human bodies, regardless of what Hollywood would have you believe, do not burn easily. We're not whirling matchsticks, and we don't burn like dry tinder. Too much water in the tissues, especially in the heart and intestines.

  One of the punks inside the truck's cab screamed what sounded like an apology, like they thought the zombie was a pet I was using to scare away car thieves, and through the crack of the passenger window, shot a key ring.

  I watched the keys flash as they flew through the air. Batten, in his hurry to get into the motel, had left the keys in the ignition. If I survived, I was never going to stop giving him shit about it. The keys landed at Winkle's feet, tumbled to a halt in the puddle. The zombie's attention strayed from me, to look down at them blankly.

  He won't go for them, I thought. Why would he? He's mindless, now. He doesn't remember keys and locks. A far more morbid part of my brain reported: But they sure are shiny just before he bent to swipe them up; by some human habit, he crammed them somewhere under his fursuit-top.

  “Why the suit?” I asked aloud, really more to myself. “Did you put it back on, or did it never come off? Why cover yourself? Are you in there, Cosmo? A little bit?”

  I tried to make eye contact, but the zombie's blank, rapacious stare had gone back to the yummy, multi-tattooed, morsels in the shell of the nut he needed to crack. He turned his pale, pasty ass cheeks to me, and one fist thumped the passenger side door in greedy frustration. The door frame buckled with a metallic squeal and the punks let out a chorus of shrieks. Cosmo threw his head back and made a weird, yipping caterwaul. Ribbons of decayed tissue spouted from his raw throat and hit the window with a splut.

  I diagnosed the situation: these guys weren't going to voluntarily jump out of the truck. They'd been too stunned to drive away; they were running on fumes due to shock. I was going to have to force the issue.

  Sparing a quick glance behind me to watch Batten rounding up citizens and shepherding them back into their rooms, I saw wide-eyed faces straining to see past him as he spread his arms and barked short orders. As soon as their doors closed, their blinds and curtains opened, and cell phones were pressed to their ears. I wondered howlong it would be before one of them posted this on Facebook or YouTube.

  I knew zombies were single-minded, and by and large pretty stupid, but just how stupid? I sidled to my right, simultaneously transferring the gun to my left hand and placing myself directly behind the lumbering, decomposing mass. I tested Cosmo's limited brainpower, and maybe my own, by stepping closer.

  Did he hear me, or notice? I froze in place, mouthed wordlessly over and over a desperate mantra: If I giggle at zombie wiener, I will reveal my position. If I giggle at zombie wiener, I will reveal my position. Every ner
ve on edge, ready to jolt backward if I needed to, I stepped forward once more.

  Okay, Marnie. Niiiiiice and easy, I told myself, slinking one testing arm close to his armpit, in the general area where he'd shoved the keys. There was a large, sopping gap there.

  Dread Aradia, hear my plea / don't let Agent Batten catch me, I thought fiercely. Not pick-pocketing a zombie, Dark Lady, not that.

  I pinched the wet fabric, thankful for my gloves, shook the suit a tiny bit, hoping the keys would dislodge from wherever he'd tucked them and fall to the asphalt. Nothing happened. Since he hadn't noticed, I jogged it a bit more. Zombie Cosmo howled at the glass but thudded his fists against the metal of the roof. If and when he figured out the glass would be easier to get through, those boys were screwed; the glass would only withstand one solid punch.

  The aroma of him this close was astonishingly bad, spoiled meat and rampant disease, ripe cheese and anal leakage. The back of his legs, where the rain and mud wasn't spattered, was coated with a greasy-foamy greenish substance. Black splotches mottled and swam visibly underneath his skin. The tops of his feet were puffed up where blood had pooled, livid purple and jiggling with every move he made, like fetid water balloons ready to burst.

  There must be an actual pocket. I wriggled one gloved hand into the fursuit, praying for caution, while the punks in the car went eerily silent, watching me aghast with eyes wide as moons and their mouths in little puckers that might have been comical any other time.

  I mouthed around Cosmo's side angrily at them, Make noise!

  The bald one with the teardrop tattoo was more with-it than the driver. He nodded silently and started waving one hand feebly at the zombie, giving a half-hearted, “Hey! Hey you! Hey, keep watching, man!” When the driver slugged him, he started ranting in rapid Spanish that I couldn't follow; the flailing and punching seemed to interest Cosmo a lot, whose rain-plastered head pitched forward toward the glass a bit too hard. The glass cracked, but didn't shatter.