by A. J. Aalto
Batten made a sad, thoughtful noise. “When did he take Stuart the DaySitter out?”
“Malas noticed Stuart gone on the Thursday night when we were there, so shortly before that.”
“Think Stuart is alive?”
“Doubt it,” I said.
“I still don't like it.”
“You're not supposed to like it,” I reminded him. “It's shitty people doing shitty things.”
“No, the explanation. The Vodou still doesn't fit.”
I knew what he meant; something was hinky, but I couldn't figure out what. I stared at the board some more. “Maybe Spicer meant to make a hybrid, and was purposefully waiting for Malas to make a female revenant for him?”
“With or without Malas’ knowledge?”
I shrugged. “I don't know. And I don't know why Spicer would make a hybrid out of a female revenant and a zombie.”
Batten drummed his thick thumb on the table. “Why would anyone make a zombie, period?”
I chewed on the cap of the dry-erase marker. “Well, slave labor, in Haiti. To work on the sugar plantations for free.” In Haiti. In the heat. All that bloat and rot, I thought, and felt my upper lip curl. Like Roger Kelly and his puffy legs. Blerg.
Batten took a light green slip of paper out of the back pocket of his jeans: the stake warrant for Malas Nazaire, given by a ballsy judge hours after Malas’ deadly party. He tapped the green paper on the steel rim of the Formica table. “I don't really need to know whether Malas was in on it or not.”
I didn't buy it. Batten had the warrant, but hadn't made any effort to go stake Malas yet; I think he needed to know whether or not Malas was truly guilty of a bigger crime than fighting to defend himself at the Fur Party. He needed to know for his conscience. I thought this was an improvement for Kill-Notch, a man who once had no problem staking a revenant just because he was one.
“Questions need answers,” I disagreed. “And I know just where we can go to Grope for clues.” I hopped off the table. “Ready?”
He put his empty bottle down with a thunk. “Where do you think you're going?”
“If breaking and entering isn't the answer, I really don't understand the question.”
Batten's eyes narrowed to slits; in the dim light, they were the color of dryer lint after a dark wash. “Under no circumstance are you going to a Telekinetic vampire's mansion, breaking in, and tossing the fucking place for clues.”
“Revenant,” I corrected. “And not me, dipwad. We.”
“No,” Batten said.
“Why not?”
He reached into his back pocket, and flipped out his FBI badge.
“Oh. That.” I shrugged. “You need a warrant. Lucky for me, I'm not a cop.”
“Lucky for everyone,” he agreed, “and it's against the law for you, too.”
“If I got caught,” I scoffed, “which I totally wouldn't, cuz I'm super-stealthy. Obviously, we do it during the daytime so Malas is at rest, and—”
“Absolutely not,” Batten said, his voice cranking like someone twisted the volume knob on an old stereo. “No bumbling around like Scooby Doo.”
“Jeez, who snapped the waistband of your underoos?” I plunked into my chair and exhaled hard. “Fine. Then we go arrest John Spicer, and destroy Anne later.”
“We don't even know where Spicer is. We did a tower dump on your phone. I couldn't track half the calls that came in to you, including Spicer's.” His left eyebrow crept up. “The other half were outgoing, most of them to one number. A phone sex service.”
“Don't judge.” I flushed pink, chewed my thumbnail. “If you were messing with a badass revenant and his zombie-revenant pet, and that revenant figured you out, where would you sleep?”
“Sleep,” he repeated.
“Presumably, you'd have to sleep at some point. You're only human.”
Batten didn't seem to appreciate that reminder, as was evidenced by the downward turn at the corners of his mouth. “I'd sleep during the day. Someplace safe, even if—” He stood, staring at the white board, a look of sudden determination clouding his face, and made a move for the hall.
“Whoa, where are you goin’ so fast, Kill-Notch?”
“Not your concern.” He pointed at me. “Tend to Chapel. I'm leaving you in charge.”
“Oh no, you have to take me with you,” I said.
“So many problems with that plan, I don't even know where to start.”
“Such as?”
“First, I'm not taking you anywhere near Spicer, Malas, Anne, or zombies.”
“Why the hell not?”
He scowled at me like I'd suggested charbroiling puppies.
I propped my fists on my hips. “You're not taking me anywhere, I'm going. Big difference.”
“Second, you're not Goon Squad. You're Geek Squad, and Geek Squad stays put. If you're not in this cabin when I get back…”
I used one hand to mime a duck quacking in my ear. “It's an hour before full dark,” I said. “What flowers should I bring to your funeral?”
“Bring your favorites. Tulips, right?”
“Don't think being cute is going to derail my train of thought.” Much. “Are you waking Chapel?” I asked. “Are you at least grabbing Golden and de Cabrera on your way out?”
Batten dropped his chin to glare at his shoes. Remembering Jack Batten and the team, and reading regret on his face, I softened my tone.
“This is not like before,” I said. “Sometimes you do need a crew. Let me grab Declan, and we'll be your back-up.”
He looked like he was considering it, and at last made a long, unhappy noise. “Don't make me do this.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Mark, I won't let you down.” I reached for his hand; he took mine, but didn't hold onto it long, shaking out of my grasp.
He grimaced. “Christ, woman. Grab your assistant and your go-bag and meet me next door. I've got to repack mine.”
“You? Unprepared? Thought you were a boy scout,” I teased.
He didn't smile back.
“Cheer up, Batten, what's the worst that could happen?”
He didn't answer that; he turned on his heel and hustled off. I left the front door ajar and watched him jog that tight ass across the lawn; turning to hurry to my room, I collided with a wet-haired, freshly-showered Declan Edgar coming into the kitchen. He frowned at me.
“Hey, I replaced your melted Keds like you asked. Where are you off to?”
“We. Batten thinks he knows where Spicer is.”
“You mean Ben Sahelian,” Declan corrected, pointing at the white board. “How about that, eh? Dude using his real name as his fake name.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah, we ran the name. Turns out that's John Spicer's actual name at birth. Here's his recent activity.” He ran a finger to wake up his iPad and showed me the run-down of everywhere Spicer had been, including a farm in Haiti, near the border of the Dominican Republic.
Ben Sahelian owned land in Haiti. A farm. A sugar plantation.
“Oh, holy crap,” I said, staring at the white board, seeing what Batten must have seen. “This is about slave labor. Zombie labor.” But zombies rot. They don't last. I grabbed the marker for the white board and started doing the math, how long both types of zombie would last, factoring in the Revenant Coefficient and the average local temperatures in Haiti. I drew an arrow between zombies and Anne Bennett-Dixon.
“Revenants don't rot,” I said. But male revenants can only be out after sundown. “Declan, would Anne Bennett-Dixon be able to go outside in full sun, now that she's a hybrid?”
Declan frowned, looked down at his iPad, up to me, over at the white board, then back to me. “I'm not sure. All I know about female revenant physiology is that they've got all nine Talents.”
I ditched the marker and grabbed him by the elbow. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“We're going with Batten to arrest Spicer; then we'll swing over to Malas’ pl
ace and take Anne out,” I said. “It's going down, grab your bag.”
“Really? Batten's taking us?”
“Of course.”
“Willingly?” he said uncertainly.
“He saw the wisdom in it,” I said. “Also, he was unable to resist my charm.”
“That doesn't sound like him. Where is he?”
“He just needs to go repack.”
He grimaced. “Sure about that, Dr. B.?”
He jerked his chin past me, in the direction of the front yard. The Bugatti was roaring back out of the driveway without us.
CHAPTER 55
UNDETERRED, I crammed my feet into my new red Keds, grabbed my go-bag and my assistant, and hauled them to my Hulkmobile, muttering foul things about Jerkface, glaring holes in the public service announcement he'd put on my front gate, trying not to see the fluorescent pink spider webbing in the trees next to the Hummer.
“Batten would have taken you,” Declan said, “if he thought it was safe.”
“Oh, no he wouldn't,” I said. “He wants all the glory. He's a glory-hog.”
“Or he's trying to keep you out of danger.”
“Also, he lives to ruin my life.” I searched my pockets for my car keys. “He's a life-ruiner.”
“You should make him a t-shirt.”
“If I get his glory-hogging, life-ruining ass safely home, I just might.” I dug in my go-bag, which was little more than a backpack with many pockets, then rattled the pockets of my jeans, looking for keys and coming up empty. “Of course, this all has to happen on my day off.”
“We could drive to the store, get some cookies, and let Batten handle the bad stuff.” Declan hooked an elbow over the hood of the Hummer.
“We can't even do that,” I groaned, letting my head fall back. “Harry took all the car keys, remember?”
“My Buick?”
“He knows better than to leave those keys for me,” I said.
“Well, that ends that adventure,” Declan said with a shrug. “I forgot we were grounded.”
I scanned the driveway and my eyes fell on the Kawasaki, leaning uncovered in the pale glow of the porch light. “Dr. Edgar, do you think Batten can handle this takedown alone?”
“No,” he answered without hesitation. “He shouldn't even entertain the notion of going it alone. We should inform SSA Chapel.”
“Chapel is in no condition.” I set my lips in a grim line, texting Golden, Need you and de Cabrera. “It's on us.”
Declan followed my gaze to the motorcycle and made a doubtful noise. “I really don't like driving motorcycles.”
“I've driven it before,” I said. He didn't look convinced. “The day we met. In the rain, even. Keys are usually on the table in the hallway, helmets are in the closet.”
“Do we ride around aimlessly until we spot the Bugatti?”
I marched into the hall with Declan on my heels, and tossed him Harry's helmet. I strapped mine on and snatched Harry's keys.
Golden texted me back. Trouble with CDC dipshits.
I answered. Fuck ’em.
Nerd sex? No thanks.
I thumbed-in an address for her and added: Meet you there. Do not enter without me. I hadn't had any nerd sex of my own, so I didn't know whether it was something to stick up for or join in her derision. Maybe Harry would quote Monty Python at me in the sack sometime and put it solidly into the “Hell Yes” column. If I lived through this, I'd have to ask him to make me his little shrubbery.
The modified Taser was in the mudroom; after some searching, I spotted it on the shelf above the washing machine. I suspected someone had put it up high, thinking I wouldn't find it. I hoisted myself up on the dryer to snatch the zombie-zapper and check its little fuel cell. I landed with a fairly graceful thud.
There was a note wrapped around the Taser, held on with a rubber band. It said, in black marker, Keep out of reach of wannabe superheroes and spastic nitwits. It was signed with a little sketch of a cartoon frog with fangs.
I breathed, “You are dick-up dead to me, Jerkface,” and shoved the modified zombie ass-blaster in the front pocket of my jeans. It stuck out a lot, and walking with it that way made me feel like John Wayne with a six-shooter at the hip, if John Wayne had ever fought zombies and revenants. Which, obviously, would have been awesome.
I popped into my bedroom for my Beretta Cougar. The bullet fairy hadn't loaded it for me, but I thought Batten would be impressed — or, more probably, concerned — with the speed with which I did so now.
“We have to think like Kill-Notch,” I told Declan, strutting back to the Kawasaki.
“How do we do that?” he asked.
“Pretend we have massive testicles and no tractability whatsoever.”
He smiled weakly. “We really should check in with SSA Chapel.”
“Batten didn't check in. WWBD: What Would Batten Do?” I asked, pulling on my gloves.
“I think we both know what Batten would do.”
“Other than fake taking me seriously.” I said. “Batten would tackle a problem head-on.”
“Where's he headed?”
I tried to give him a squinty, hard-eyed stare. “I hear Malas Nazaire likes to party.”
He swallowed audibly and gave me a worried smile. “Oh, aye?”
“He's not the best host. He's kinda bite-y and he likes to throw stuff with his brain. But he's never drugged my tea like Ruby Valli, and he did give me a magic tooth.”
“That's better?”
“Nope.” I flexed my hands and the leather gloves creaked. “Pull up your big boy pants, Dr. Edgar. We're going on a monster hunt.”
Declan grimaced with a chaser nod of reluctant approval and settled behind me on the Kawasaki. I gunned it, chewing up the unkempt road, plunging down the winding streets toward Ten Springs and on to Denver with abandon, pushing well beyond the speed limit, anxious to catch up to Kill-Notch before he did something else stupid. Declan clung to me as I whipped across a bump in the road and the wheels left asphalt. My stomach swam up and I let off the gas a bit.
I heard him through the helmet speaker. “It's a long drive, Marnie. Let's not get killed, yeah?”
“Wreck the bike? Harry would never forgive me,” I said. “Hey, that wine you brought Harry? The Chateau frou-frou neuf-de-neuf?”
“Chateau de Santenay Hautes Côtes de Beaune Blanc. What about it?”
“Why did you choose that one?”
“There was a Dreppenstedt estate in the Burgundy region of France, long before Guy Harrick was turned, back in the time of Philip the Bold, the first Duke of Burgundy.”
“Never heard of Philip the Bold.”
“Premier Valois, Duc de la Grande Bourgogne,” he said, as if that would help.
“Harry was very pleased with the wine.”
“Yes.” I heard the satisfaction in his voice. “Yes, he seemed to be.”
“And that made you happy.”
“Why are you asking me this, Dr. B?”
“Do you care whether Harry likes you or not? You don't approve of his past, or the things he's supposed to have done, but you seem desperate for his approval.”
“His approval? Hardly.”
“Yes,” I argued, slowing while I poured the Kawasaki into a tunnel and the purr of its engine intensified. “You don't like him very much, but you crave his approval.” Like a rejected child who both hates and craves the love of a distant parent, I thought, recognizing my own complicated feelings about my father in Declan's annoyed grunt. “Tell me why?”
“It hardly matters, Dr. B.”
“I think it does.”
“You're very wrong about that,” Declan said in a solemn tone that would brook no argument. “My feelings mean absolutely nothing to anyone on this planet. Nor should they.”
I utterly failed to appreciate Emo McLeprechaun's rendition of “Poor Me Lament”. I'd sung it enough myself. I never realized how annoying it was, but fighting with his self-pity would just push him deeper into that cyc
le, so I let it hang and made busy with keeping us shiny side up.
I remembered the subdivision in Denver where I'd once passed a tomcat licking his bits in the driveway, recognized the turn up the steep hill that wound up and behind the suburbs, but did not recognize the balls-out bravery that was thrumming through my veins. It had to be Batten's fault. At the top of this hill were the mansion, and Malas, and his hybrid pet, and possibly Batten getting his ass walloped. Again. The thought made my gloved hands clench, and the Kawasaki lurched up the incline with a feline growl.
I parked near the Bentley. The Bugatti was nowhere to be seen, but Golden's black SUV was there, parked in deeper cover beside the detached garage. Golden and de Cabrera slid quietly out of shadow toward us, in tactical black, moving on mink-quick feet.
The sky was softening toward evening, and even when Declan and I removed our helmets and the wind blew the sweat off our brows, the heat was clingy and oppressive. My assistant began digging through his doctor's bag.
De Cabrera scanned the front of the house. “Can't believe we're taking orders from Baranuik.”
Golden countered, “Batten's not answering. Chapel's not answering. Geek Squad's got a plan.”
“I'm betting it's a stupid plan,” de Cabrera said under his breath, just loud enough for me to hear it. “Can't wait to hear it.”
“Put this on under your shirt,” Declan said to me, pressing something into my gloved hand. I opened my palm: a crucifix, large and plain and made of solid silver.
“I'm going to put ‘burn a cross-shaped scar between my tits’ in the maybe pile,” I said.
“It won't burn you,” he urged, “you're not damned.”
“I'm not?” I considered the three revenants in my house, the pseudo-Vodou I'd performed, the grey-area moth-in-chains spell Declan had done to amplify my powers, my recent tomfoolery with the demon king Asmodeus, and the ring of his that was tucked into my pocket beside Malas’ Waterloo tooth. “How sure about that are you, on a scale of one to whoops?”
“I am quite sure. Please.” Declan ran a hand through his black curls, then took off his own crucifix and handed it to Agent Golden. “And you, Agent de Cabrera, you have a cross on? Malas Nazaire is not a creature you want to underestimate.”