2 Death Rejoices

by A. J. Aalto

  “On my day off?” I felt my upper lip curl. “That's uncalled-for.”

  Despite my complaint, I felt an odd sense of relief; with Golden gone, Agent Chapel down, and my brother incapacitated, our manpower had dwindled significantly. Hood had been spending time comforting Mrs. Dunnachie, (“Eat wife. Eat Paula.”) who was grieving all over again at the news of her husband's exploding zombie corpse. As much as I disliked Golden personally, of all my PCU acquaintances, she was the one I'd take with Batten into battle. De Cabrera was a fit pair of hands in a fight, but as a preternatural crime fighter, he was awfully fresh. Declan was fast with the info-searches and a wealth of dark art knowledge, but I wouldn't take him to another zombie fight if I could help it. He was delicate and bookish and perpetually late.

  I told everyone to fuck off until I had a solid plan of attack. Batten was slightly more professional, and told them to report to the CDC at the fish camp and check in with Dr. Varney's team. Before he left to do the same, he caught me eyeballing Declan as he plodded across the lawn to the Buick.

  I asked Batten, “What do you really think of him?”

  “Unlike Harry, who's a glorified butler who fucks you sometimes, Declan's useful,” he said. “Why? Got a crush?”

  “I'm too old for that.” I scowled. “Besides, I'm committed.”

  “Wish you were, but the institutions won't take you.” He smirked. “I checked.”

  “To have a crush at my age would be ridiculous. That's why I'm a stalker.”

  “So, my sources were correct. There is something going on between you.”

  “Only until I destroy him.”

  “More of a short-lived fling, then.” He nodded. “You don't intend to keep him hanging in your gallery of torture like you do me.”

  “I don't keep you. I've tried to ditch you like a hundred times.”

  “Don't know why I talk to you.”

  “How could I make fun of you if you didn't say anything?” I winced as my headache flared.

  “Look like you need some aspirin,” he noted, but approvingly.

  “What I could really use is a hug, but you're about as soft and snuggly as a concrete block.”

  “Maybe if you asked nicely,” he suggested. “If you threw in some tulips and a pack of Double-Stuf Oreos, I'd think about it.”

  My jaw dropped. I was positive I'd said the same thing to him in the distant past; the victorious light in his eyes proved it beyond a doubt. “You're getting some sort of sick enjoyment out of this. I'm injured, and Gary Chapel isn't hurting on my behalf, and you love that,” I accused.

  “Proud of you,” he corrected. “You released him. Didn't think you'd come through.”

  I hadn't entirely, but Batten didn't need to know that; I'd promised Chapel I wouldn't say. I narrowed my eyes at him. “It's my day off, be nice.”

  “Zombie horde. Day off is cancelled.”

  “Just give me a goddamned hug, Hunkypants.”

  A genuine Mark Batten smile lit up his face. The old vinyl chair creaked as he lifted out of it. “Keep your panties on, Snickerdoodle, hugs incoming.”

  “They better be good since I'm putting up with your shit parade.”

  And they were. I was relieved to find that Batten was good for something other than killing things and driving me nuts. He couldn't make coffee to save his life, and he wore on my last nerve, but his embrace was incredible. I could have slept in it, my head on his rock of a shoulder, smelling his warm, faintly soapy skin and his holy-water-Brut-combination, listening to the strong, reassuringly alive thud of his heart pumping away in his very mortal chest, feeling his exhale blow on my forehead. I tried not to compare it to Harry's cool, otherworldly touch, but it was impossible. I had missed this, the feel of another human next to me. It had been a while. Batten was as comforting as my own pulse.

  I was really going to miss him when he was dead.

  CHAPTER 50

  IF YOU'RE ANYTHING LIKE ME, you have one or two jobs you don't want to do, and three or four imaginary jobs you can't do because they don't exist, like Hot Cop Wrangler or Chief Cookie Taster. Easy solution to the first part: I take Tuesdays off. So when a black SUV pulled into my driveway, I leaned back into the comfort of my lawn recliner and let fly with the curse words like Clark Griswold on a Hap-Hap-Happy Christmas eve, preemptively inventing five new combinations with which to melt Agent Golden's face.

  The SUV sat ticking in the shade, cooling off for a good minute before Golden got out carrying a bag of Rold Gold pretzels and pushing her sunglasses up on the bridge of her nose. I felt wholly unworthy to be in the same yard as her, never mind on the same team. She was dressed like a typical federal agent: navy dress pants ironed to sharp creases, white shirt, jacket, ID tag, shoulder holster, gun. I was rocking frayed denim cut-off shorts, a black-and-white polka-dot bandeau bikini top and bright orange flip flips. Compared to her effortless style, I looked like I should be dashing through a sprinkler and drinking from the hose. That had been earlier, but she didn't need to know it.

  I'd been practicing non-reactive facial expressions in the mirror to prepare for our next encounter, and I figured if I could pull it off, I stood a chance at maintaining some dignity. Failing that, I was fucked. Golden had a body that made Angelina Jolie look like Angela Lansbury. Unfortunately, she had a brain, too, and that brain had already decided I was a bug that needed squashing; dealing with her was going to take a little finesse. I had a feeling that, left to her own devices, she'd nail me like a blood-fly on a troll's ass. Lucky for me, I knew exactly how to deal.

  The minute she got close to my lawn chair, I slap-chopped the bag of pretzels out of her hand; I'd meant to show supreme authority on my own property, but all it showed was that I'm willing to eat pretzels out of the grass.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I am enjoying my goddamned day off,” I announced around a pretzel stick that bobbed like a cigarillo between my teeth, “because fuck you, zombie horde. I always get Tuesdays off, so you can ransack the countryside all you want, but it's not cutting into my regularly scheduled sunbathing.”

  Golden thought about that a beat. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Oh.” I frowned at the lounger beside me. “Okay. I've got lemonade and magazines.”

  She sat, removing the navy suit jacket and slinging it over the back of the lounger. Her crisp white shirt was short-sleeved, but she rolled them up further on her biceps and exposed pale flesh to the sun. Track marks from hospital needles marred her skin. She kicked off her sensible shoes and socks and wriggled her bare toes. My toenails were pink. Hers were black. That was unexpected, and I said so.

  “Grew up goth. The toenail polish is the only thing I haven't given up.” She eyed me over her sunglasses. “No suntan lotion?”

  “Lotion's for pussies.”

  “You're sun-burnt.”

  “I'm just red hot,” I said, trying with futility to squint cross-eyed at my pinking nose. “I can't help that.”

  She settled back and gave my bikini top some side-eye. “What are you wearing, a blindfold for your tits?”

  “Wouldn't want the poor li'l things to have to look at your ugly mug.” When she didn't have a bitchy comeback, I felt like an ass, but it was fleeting. I wasn't quite sure what was going on; furthermore, I wasn't entirely sure I wasn't enjoying myself.

  “I'm legally and morally obligated to tell you,” I said, “this rash on my belly is corpsepox. You can't catch it from me.”

  “I can't believe I'm saying this, but in the past few days, I've seen worse.”

  “You're not dead,” I noted.

  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Lucky Batten didn't try and shoot that spider off your head. His aim is a lot worse than mine.” I told her about Zombie Dunnachie, and how I'd blown half his head off.

  “A .38 to the head would be a great cure for all your problems,” she said helpfully.

  I slapped an issue of National Geographic on her lap. “Let
me know if you need me to sound out the big words for you.”

  “I'm not even going to ask about the webs,” she said, motioning to the gaudy pink spider webs still littering my yard like a silly string explosion.

  “You wouldn't understand,” I grumbled.

  “Fuck something up?”

  “Okay, well, if you knew, then why'd you ask?”

  We read and sipped lemonade and ate pretzels out of the grass in a strangely companionable silence. I removed my gloves to make my pretzel-eating easier. She slid her sunglasses on top of her wig. It, like everything else about her, was perfect: I couldn't tell it from her real hair. Her skin was a bit wan; not surprising, considering what she'd been through.

  “So, did you cast some sort of love spell on his eyes?” she asked, letting her magazine fall.

  It took me half a second to clue in. “Which one? I mean… of course not, love spells are black magic.”

  “But love is a good thing.”

  “Not forced-by-magic love. That's like heart rape.”

  She nodded. “Raping a heart can't be good.”

  “It's one of the worst things you can do to a person: take away their free will and their own genuine emotions. I'd turn him into a toad before I forced him to love me.” I scowled, feeling exposed. “Not that I could. Or would even consider looking up how. Anyways, I don't know who you're talking about. And why the hell do you ask?”

  “Batten,” she said, not fooled but humoring me. “He's so far out of your league. It makes no sense for him to be looking at you the way he does. I can't figure out what he's seeing.”

  I bared my teeth at her in what was surely the most maniacal fake smile that had ever lain upon my face. “Maybe it's my warm, sparkling personality.”

  “Shit's warm, and icebergs sparkle.”

  My lips twitched, and I had to admit, if she were aiming that sharp tongue at anyone else, I'd be laughing.

  “Maybe I bring a little charming clarity to his otherwise crushingly dark existence.”

  The eye-roll that engendered made it very, very easy to picture ankh-shaped eyeliner being big part of her past. Nobody disses a poorly-executed mope harder than a former goth.

  I poured her another glass of lemonade. She looked suspiciously into it, as if I'd waste my time poisoning her. “It's fine, you're not worth going to prison for.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Maybe it's the youth thing?” I suggested.

  She looked like she was giving that serious consideration. “Meaning?”

  “Well, I know I'm plain. But in fifty years, I'll still look like a plain-faced twenty-five-year-old. You're a lot better looking than me now, truth be told, but by then you'll be a wrinkly-ass old hag with a prolapsed vagina and permanent titty-sag.” I smiled sweetly.

  Golden's lips pinched together and she went back to reading, or pretending to read. A few minutes more passed, during which the crunch of our pretzels was punctuated by bird song and a softly whispering breeze.

  “You did okay,” she said finally. “At the fish camp, I mean.”

  I didn't know what to say; I had done okay. Who would have predicted that?

  “I'm not going to pretend I understand much of it,” she continued, “but I appreciate what you did for me at the shed. I'm sorry I gave you a hard time.” She pressed her cool glass against her forehead. “I should maybe learn to listen better.”

  “Are you being human?”

  She gave a one-shouldered shrug.

  “Don't do that, you're creeping me out,” I said, and tried not to smile. She tried not to either.

  “So, what do you see in him?”

  I gave her an are-you-shitting-me stare.

  “Besides the obvious,” she said. “Sure, he's hot, but big deal. He can be such a hard-ass. Is he romantic?”

  “Mark Batten is about as romantic as a Valentine's Day card that says ‘Just the tip, baby’.”

  “And the other one?” she asked. “The skinny-dipping vampire?”

  “Saw that, huh?”

  “We all did. When Chapel helped him out of the lake, after you stormed off, I got quite an eyeful.”

  “Fun fact: most types of undead avoid water, because that's where their power fades, and running water is worse.” I turned a magazine page, looking at stuff I'd never buy, mentally purchasing things and imagining how I'd use them. “Shaw's Fist has currents that dull Harry's power.”

  “What about rivers?”

  “Yep, and showers. Or draining bathtubs, even.”

  “Come on,” Golden scoffed.

  “How many times have you seen the living dead in a bathtub? Between zero and three times? That's what I thought.”

  “But the zombie deputy came out of the lake, you said.”

  “He had no choice, he'd been raised th—” My jaw dropped open.

  “What?”

  “Oh, I'm such a dumbass. If he was raised there …” I thumbed Batten's number on my cell. “There's got to be evidence along the coastline. The cadaver dogs should be able to find the spot, at least. Hey,” I said when Batten answered.

  “Don't start.”

  “Start what?”

  “I don't want to hear any whining about Golden.”

  “I'm not whining about Golden,” I said, rolling my eyes over at her. “She's a perfectly lovely person, if you hadn't noticed.”

  “Just get her up to speed and don't give me grief.”

  I held the phone away from my mouth so I wouldn't take his head off. “Yeah,” I whispered to Golden. “Romantic. And so charming, did I mention the fucking charm?”

  I said into the phone, “Take the K9 units along the north shore of the lake again, all the way around. Focus on where Hood found the snowmobile. The cadaver dogs will freak out in the spot where the bokor raised Dunnachie. There's got to be the taint of death and UnDeath there. Maybe the CSIU or the CDC guys can pick up some evidence of whatever the bokor used there in the ritual. If you get me something I can Grope, I can bust this case open.”

  For a moment, he was quiet. I waited for an apology, knowing pigs would fly before I'd get one.

  “Right. On it,” was his gruff reply. “Any ideas where Spicer's hiding out, yet?”

  I flipped another magazine page, dream-bought some shoes. “I'm putting the full weight of my subconscious to work on it while I space-out. That almost never fails.”

  He hung up on me.

  I glared at the phone. “Good work, Dr. Baranuik. Why, thank you, Special Agent Cockbucket.”

  Golden gave me a commiserating little moue of her lips.

  I rested my head back against the lounger and let the sun warm my face. “This is great. I hardly hate you at all now.”

  “Ditto.” She crossed her bare feet at the ankles. “Can I confess something to you?

  “You probably shouldn't,” I advised. “I'll mock you if it's silly, and I suck at secret-keeping.”

  “I transferred from behavioral sciences because I thought the whole monster thing would be…” She foundered.

  “Less mundane? Weird? Creepy-fun? Sexy?”

  She admitted, “Maybe. And my first couple cases were exciting. Challenging. The zombie thing, though, it's getting to me. I can't sleep. I can't even relax, really. There's a knot in my gut like back at the academy when all I could think of were my grades, where all my focus was on this one thing. Now, I can't stop washing my hands; I keep thinking there's plague on them. Everything I touch, I wonder if a zombie brushed by it, and if it would be tainted. And I have nightmare after nightmare about being eaten.”

  “Zombies aren't scary because they eat you.” I mowed through a few more pretzel sticks, because I do subtle about as well as Batten does charming. “Lots of things can eat you. A mountain lion can eat you. Agent Batten can eat you.”

  Golden crooked an eyebrow and I gave her a girl-to-girl oh, yeah look. To my surprise, her head rocked back and she gave a loud, stress-busting laugh.

  “That good?” she asked.


  “I don't like you enough to dish details,” I said, “but try not to be annoying for the rest of the day and maybe I'll tell you later. Which will make my sister absolutely fucking weep with jealousy; because she's such a bitch, I haven't told her a thing yet.”

  “So, if zombies aren't scary because of the eating thing, why can't I sleep?”

  “Zombies are scary because they infect you. They make you one of them.”

  She looked away from me to stare at the yard in thought; her face drained in a rush, and the Blue Sense flared. My belly responded to a hiccup of terror from her direction. She pointed, finger shaking, at the end of the drive.

  “So I shouldn't be terrified that that zombie will eat me?”

  I blinked in open-mouthed astonishment and we sprang out of the loungers in unison like a dance team beginning a well-choreographed number, her in bare feet, me in my flip-flops. Tactical dress, not so much.

  Just beyond the driveway, where the road met a ditch, a zombie stood fingering his fly-speckled mouth. It was pretty easy to peg as a Type C on sight, what with the skin slipping off the bones in a fleshy avalanche from the knees down; it looked like it had puffy tan skin-socks rolled down to the ankle. In the underlight of the shaded road, it sapped all rationality from behind my eyes right before devouring all expectation of my ever sleeping again.

  Its soft gibbering was a low, slobbering mockery of language, like words from a drug-softened tongue. This one had disintegrated quickly, and the only thing marking it as the late Roger Kelly was the crusty uppermost half of a curly-tailed, tawny-brown chimp suit.

  That, and the missing top half of his skull.

  CHAPTER 51

  “AHHH! Zombie dentist in a chimp suit! Zombie dentist in a chimp suit!” I danced away on the balls of my feet, shaking my hands in quicksilver horror. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuckanut!”

  “Marnie?” Golden prompted. She had her Glock in her hands. It would do no good: Roger Kelly had no brain to shoot. The head was an open bowl from the back; I'd seen it at the fish shack two days ago, and it couldn't have improved much.

  Zombie Roger began to run at us, full-out. My brain tilted from fight to flight.