by A. J. Aalto
“You call me French pet names that I have to Google. And you eavesdrop.”
“I have preternatural hearing that cannot be helped,” he pointed out. “You refuse to relax.”
“You change my phone to annoying ringtones.”
“You second-guess yourself.”
“You drive like a maniac.”
“You drive like a septuagenarian.”
“You think you're so much smarter than me.”
“Am I not?”
“No, you've just been around for-fucking-ever. Also: you're too good at yoga. You make me look bad.”
“Oh, sweetness, you hardly need me to make you look bad,” Harry said. He pointed at my damp t-shirt. “You dress like a slob.”
“And you're a snob.” We sat in silence for a few not-unaffectionate minutes, during which I could have sworn I saw a smirk sneak across his lips, quickly hidden. I opened my mouth to point it out, when something dark shot across my field of vision and went flap, flap, smack into my forehead.
I rocketed out of my chair, sending it crashing, slapping to backhand a meaty little fluff ball away from my head. It shrieked and stuck little hook-like feet into my hair, at which point I ran across the room like a wild invalid, yelling “Harry, get it, get it!” because I'm super brave when my Cold Company has my back.
The thing shoved off my temple and spiraled through the air, landing on the kitchen table with a fuzzy floof. I pointed at the waddling gob of brown-grey fur with open-mouthed shock.
“Why is there a bat in my house?” I demanded.
“Such a fuss you make,” Harry said placidly. “He's perfectly harmless.”
“It tried to gnaw my brains out.”
Harry huffed. “He's a tad ungainly, I'll admit, but that's no call to be ill-mannered.”
“Ill-mannered? Harry, there's vermin on my table!”
“Shhhh,” Harry chided. “You'll upset the lad. He's doing his best.”
“Lad?” I crossed my arms over my chest, a sinking feeling in my gut. “Harry, please tell me that isn't… you didn't…”
“I told you we had some lovely surprises for you; this is the first, and dare I say, the grandest.”
“You turned my brother into a flying rat?”
“I did nothing of the sort. He did it himself, and I believe he did a passable job, considering it was his first time. What is the matter?”
I motioned unhappily to the little bat on my table. “My brother turned into frickin’ vermin, and what I'd like to know is… well, since when is that an option?”
“He is a rather pitiable specimen.”
“A vampire bat. Isn't that a little clichéd?”
“To be sure, your brother has a dreadfully limited creative well from which to draw.”
“Are you saying, if he could have pictured something else, he could have become it?”
“Naturally,” he said, “as long as the choice was within reason. I daresay, he could not have become a centaur or a dragon, and had he tried, the transformation would have gone very badly indeed. Happily, I do not believe those options ever occurred to him.”
I scratched the back of my neck, thinking about this while Harry went about warming blood from Shield in a glass measuring cup in the microwave. He tipped a tiny bit more warm blood from the cup in the saucer for Wesley to lap at.
At first, the bat nearly tumbled into the dish, and then flapped a wing in it, casting sprinkles of blood on the Formica table. My brother, the spastic bat.
Harry said, “Come, chap, don't muck about,” and helped maneuver him to a better drinking position.
I couldn't watch the bat's little tongue dipping in and out, and had to look away.
“So, forgive me for having trouble wrapping my brain around this, Harry, but what sorts of animals can you shape-shift into?”
Harry turned to run the water in the sink, washing the measuring cup and shaking the drips from it, setting it in the dish drain.
“Not going to tell me?” I asked.
“Why should you be interested in such mundane matters?”
“Mundane ma— Harry! Shape-shifting is the very antithesis of mundane. And I'm interested because I was under the impression… scratch that, the whole scientific community is under the impression that revenants shape-shifting into bats and rats and wolves is bullshit.”
“Legend. Myth, perhaps,” Harry corrected, his Queen's English crisp, “but respectable scientists do not say ‘bullshit’.”
“I'm a scientist.”
“You may note my emphasis on respectability,” he said.
“Don't change the subject. I want to know what animals you've turned into.”
“One wonders what you could possibly gain from the knowledge, dearest.”
I boggled. “You're kidding me! You're really not going to tell me?”
“I don't see why I should. If you'd been paying attention, you could have easily discerned the answers yourself.”
“You've done this while I was around?”
“Numerous times,” Harry admitted; I thought his smile looked rather smug.
“I don't like this side of you, vampire,” I grumbled, holding up my hand before he corrected the term. “Yeah, I said it. You heard it.”
The mudroom door creaked open, and I knew it would be Batten; I wasn't sure how or why, but the V-word only ever slipped into my vocabulary when he was nearby.
“We're going to talk about this later,” I warned Harry.
“If you insist, though I ought to warn you: you shall get no further with your inquiries.”
“What's up with Batface?” Batten grumbled, opening the fridge and helping himself to a beer. Harry drew himself up to retort when Batten cut him off with an impatient wave of the brown bottle at the bat. “I meant Wesley.”
I froze. “What makes you think…” I laughed as if he were nuts. “That hideous little bat is my brother?”
“For one, you have a bat in your fucking kitchen and you're not freaking out.”
“I almost never freak out,” I said, daring him to argue. Also, you got here too late to see the freaking out portion of the proceedings.
“And secondly,” Batten continued between draws on the bottle, “during transformation, Wes was unable to form fur on the left side of his face because of the holy water scarring.”
It hurt me to hear him say that in so casual a tone, until I saw the faint sheen in his eye.
“Revenants can't transform into bats,” I said. “That's Hollywood bullshit.”
Batten just grinned with his lips on the beer bottle.
“What?” I demanded.
“You didn't know they could do it,” Batten said. Not a question.
“You did?”
He leaned back against the refrigerator and nodded. “Noob.”
I wilted. “I suppose I deserved that.”
“Felt great to say it, too.”
“How did you know?”
“I'm not just another pretty face, babe.”
Harry shot him a look at the term of endearment, sniffed the air unhappily, but said nothing. Through the Bond, I felt a quiver of unease.
I fished both of the phones from my go-bag, handed Batten the evidence bag that contained the one that had been in Cosmo's fursuit, and turned mine on. “Do you think Wes would show up if I took some pictures?”
“Unlikely,” Harry replied. “Wesley has not become the bat, he is merely in the animal's form. He is still as he was, as he will be evermore. That is to say, undead. And it is the power of Eternal Grace which prevents your picture-taking.”
Wesley wobbled close to the edge of the table, beat his soft-crinkly wings rapidly, and fell, tumbling end over end, landing with a furry little thud.
I leaned across the corner of the table to peer down as the tangled pile of wings and limbs writhed to regain his footing. I wrinkled my nose. “For someone with Eternal Grace, he's as lame as a two-legged show toad.”
Harry bent to whisk Wesley up
into the protective cup of his hands and hold him away from me. “He's new,” he said crisply. “You leave him be. He's doing an awful lot better than you would ever do, considering he shares your ungainly Baranuik genes.”
“God, Harry, I've never seen you like this. You're like a proud papa teaching his baby to walk.”
“We needn't listen to this codswallop,” Harry told the bat, scratching Wes behind the ear. “MJ, I shall be in my room. Please do knock before entering. Viktor is finding the weather quite unbearable and often goes unclothed.”
Trying not to think of the ogre half-breed naked or wonder if he was hung like a bull moose, I watched Harry retreat to the pantry with the bat cradled in the crook of his arm; I could have sworn I heard him cooing encouragements on the way down.
Declan came clomping in just in time to watch Harry usher the little bat away. “Your brother made bat?” Declan's eyebrows went sky-high, impressed. “I thought he was new dead.”
“You knew they could do that?” I righted my chair and slumped into it.
“Have you forgotten what I am?” Declan asked.
I grumbled, “A smart-assed leprechaun who's about to get shit-canned?”
Batten let out a bark of laughter.
“Are you okay, Dr. B? You seem a little dazed.”
I scowled at him. “Let's see. I battled a zombie in a beaver suit and discovered my brother can shape-shift into vermin. Also, there might be a naked ogre in my basement. No, I'm not okay. I need a box of cookies. No, I need a case of cookies. I need to mug a Girl Scout.”
“Fig Newton?” Declan offered.
I flicked Batten a dirty look. “I can't.”
“Why'd you look at me when you said that?” Batten asked, and then held up a hand to stop me from explaining. He was thumbing Cosmo's phone with one hand, holding his beer with the other. “Taking this over to de Cabrera, see if he can hack the password and trace the last call. Was that zombie wearing a Bluetooth headset?”
I nodded. “I'll let Chapel know,” I said, waggling my phone at him, omitting that Chapel wouldn't be surprised.
The mudroom screen door creaked open and banged shut.
Declan joined me at the table. “Agent Batten's going to want to go out there.”
“Where? Malas’ mansion?” I asked, puffing air up at my bangs. He was right, of course, and though I knew I couldn't let Batten go out there alone, I was too tired to consider the prospect of joining him. Maybe I could just send my assistant on my behalf, and spend the rest of the day curled up in a bubble bath with a juicy Jackie Collins novel and a bag of Jujubes.
“Who gave Cosmo Winkle a Bluetooth headset and a cell phone?” Declan asked.
“I'm assuming the bokor did it.”
“When?”
“Cosmo didn't have it in his ear when his body was found, so I'm guessing it was at the morgue.”
“Why?”
“To control him.”
Declan nodded; deep in thought, we stared at the wet spot that Batten's cold beer bottle had left on the aquamarine Formica.
“It would be almost impossible to control a berserker zombie,” he said.
“I guess that's why he got away. I doubt the bokor sent Cosmo to kill a couple of random carjackers.”
“Carjackers outside our motel rooms. In Hood's truck.”
“I see your point.”
“You knew he'd have a Bluetooth,” Declan said, not a question, “and a phone. You weren't surprised.”
“Harry found a melted scrap in the remains of Zombie Dunnachie.”
“You didn't mention it to me,” Declan said. “You don't trust me?”
I peeled my gloves off and rubbed my face with my sweaty hands. “I gave the scraps to Chapel and let him make the call. It was a need-to-know thing.”
“You can trust me, Dr. B.,” he said, “and I can't help you if I don't have the whole story.”
I said nothing, but I thought he looked sincere. As always, he was impossible to read. His wall was every bit as impenetrable as Batten's.
“Anything else you haven't told me about?” he asked.
Just then, something rattled in the pocket of my jeans like a tiny vibrator accidentally knocked into high speed. The Waterloo tooth, my brain supplied, immediately also supplying blerg.
I tapped my forehead. “Lots of shit up here, Dr. Edgar.” I said. “But I promise, if I think I need your help with any of it, I'll let you know. Now if you'll excuse me, there's an ogre to check on, my revenant needs to be fed and tucked in, and then I'm taking a bath.”
Declan consulted his iPad. “It's Tuesday tomorrow. Isn't Tuesday your day off?”
My lips peeled into a big smile. “Best news I've had all day. Boy, I do love having an assistant.”
“I'll check on Chapel and the team.” He swung out of his chair and knocked meaningfully on the table. “You didn't get much sleep, maybe you should go rest. If we need you, I'll call.”
CHAPTER 46
FEEDING HARRY relieved some of my headache and lifted my brain out of the fog I'd assumed was mostly hangover. The flu, however, was not getting any better; my fever was still high, and sometimes a rush of chills would race up and down my arms and legs. After a rather heated text dispute with Batten regarding my not immediately telling him about Dunnachie's Bluetooth bits, a cup of tea, and a long, hot bath, I threw myself into bed in a tank top and underpants — just to rest my eyes — and fell asleep fast and hard.
Bad dreams are rehearsals for the struggle to survive; they exist to prepare us in the waking world. Even knowing that, and even though most of my dreams are lucid, I still wake drenched in sweat from regular nightmares.
It began like a typical escape dream: me, alone, running away from something in the dark. Must go faster, must go faster, it's almost on me, it's going to get me. When I looked back to see what the it-du-jour was, the darkness cloaked all but a hand. A rotting hand. A squirming hand. That wedding ring. Dunnachie's hand. Then it was Malas’ withered hand, rising in the dark, sending off sparks. Then it became Cosmo's hand, holding a phone. Hood's hand, grabbing my wrist, over and over. Batten's hand, grabbing my hip, cupping my ass. My mind lingered on that, played with the sensations of Mark's magic hand, stroking me fondly, sliding under my clothes. Harry's hand, bringing me to the brink and spilling me into ecstasy. Now Chapel's hand, reaching for my shoulder. Rot. Pestilence. Skin slipping. A brightly-painted, lime-green fingernail fell off. Closer, he's closer. Too close. The stench overwhelmed me. Chapel's cheeks pale as a corpse. Wet, smacking noises behind a dentist's paper mask. Running through mud. The asphalt melting underfoot. I had to get away, but my shoes were sticking, pulling through melted tar and hot muck. My thighs burned with effort. Sweat rolled down my face. The palm of Chapel's reaching hand sprouted a mouth. Chapped lips, peeling. Pus-filled blisters. Broken teeth jutting from a raw, red slash. A black stump of a tongue slurped out.
When the hand finally landed with a triumphant slap, I physically felt it and woke to darkness with a gurgle-shriek. I flipped out of bed, face-planting on the carpet, mashing my nose and rug-burning my upper lip. My hands flew up to grapple with the drawer of my nightstand, and wrenched it open. Felt for my mini-gun. Gripped the wrong weapon. Prepared for battle, I went to one knee and aimed, only to realize I was kneeling in tank top and a G-string, threatening my bleary-eyed boss with my vibrator.
Chapel's voice was as composed and soothing as ever, like this was an every-night occurrence, my waving a sex toy in his face. He opened his arms, showed me his empty hands, maintained his distance, dropped his chin and half-smiled apologetically.
“Marnie, it's me. It's just Gary. You're okay. It's all right. Are you awake? You slept all day…”
I held my breath and stared up at him for one heart-strafing minute, peering through the messy wisps of my bangs, seeing him in a white undershirt and business-casual cotton Dockers, no dentist's mask. I waited for a zombie-mouth on his hand to open and snarl. When it didn't, I let my muscles go
lax and exhaled hard.
“Don't mind me,” I said, “I'm just enjoying a little recreational paranoia.”
“Bad dream?”
“I dreamed about you.”
“Not in a good way, I take it.”
No, your hands were not the ones sexing me up, they were the ones rotting off. “You were a zombie.”
“Dreams are a result of the brain moving information from short term to long term memory across the dream center, right?”
I nodded, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand. “Some say. You were a large part of the dream. I must be worried about you.”
“You don't have to worry about me, Marnie.”
“Maybe not,” I said, “but you were my dhaugir, and I take care of stuff that belongs to me.”
He looked sweaty, pale, and generally unwell, but managed to drum up a smile for me. “I was your dhaugir, Marnie. Past tense. Back to bed?”
I nodded, and he offered his hand to help me up; it was warm enough that I wondered if he'd been holding a hot mug of coffee before coming into my room. The clock said eleven P.M. Kinda late for caffeine.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“I banged my kneecap pretty hard. I'm glad you asked. That means you aren't feeling my pain anymore.” I threw Mr. Buzz back in my drawer and slammed it shut. “You're right. Past tense.”
“For the most part,” he added.
I squinted at him. “Gary? You're sweaty. Why are you sweaty? The heat wave broke and it's not even warm tonight.”
“A summer cold.” He used one finger to poke under his eyeglasses and rub the inside corner of his eye. “Climb in.” When I didn't get back into bed, he frowned. “Marnie?”
“I'm sorry I woke you,” I said warily.
“You didn't.” He smiled benevolently. “I was sitting up reading with Harry.”
That explained why Harry hadn't come in to check on me after the nightmare; under normal circumstances, he'd be lounging in the doorway, complaining about the fuss I make, reminding me that real monsters could dispel the imaginary ones.
“Couldn't sleep?” I asked. When Chapel nodded, I added, “Too much caffeine and too many monsters?”