Hellfire
The Deadwood Sisters: The Unlucky Book two
Lisa Manifold
Copyright © 2019 by Lisa Manifold
Hellfire: The Unlucky Book 2
The Deadwood Sisters
Cover by Atlantis Book Designs
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
For my father
Who taught me to never give up.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Dark Pact
About the Author
Also by Lisa Manifold
Chapter One
When a zombie comes shuffling through town in broad daylight, there aren’t many options. I heard about it from someone in the shop. It was a day that all three of us—me, Deirdre, and Daniella—were working, and our customer, Kitty Knowlton, was in a chatty mood. She was a good source of gossip normally, but this had her all spun up.
“I heard on the scanner that they got a couple of reports of this fellow dragging along the highway. Down highway 85, the CanAm,” she added. “I don’t think the police have done anything, but the descriptions are just weird!” She gazed at me with wide eyes.
As the owners of Nightingale Tea & Herbs, my sisters and I were seen as people who might be able to explain about the weird and the strange. It was an unfortunate assumption, even as it was true.
The Nightingale women had been the protectors of Deadwood since our Granny moved here in 1876, and while she and our mother, known as Meema, were gone, we kept up the family business.
And yes, we’re all over one hundred years old. One hundred and seventeen, to be exact, but after a hundred, who’s counting? Not me.
“That’s crazy,” I agreed with Kitty. “What do people say he looked like?” I kept my eyes on the tea I was measuring for her—a jasmine blend—because I didn’t want her to see how interested I was.
“Well, everyone is saying his clothes are kind of ragged, and he looks gray,” she finished. “How is it that gray is the main word?”
“I don’t know. It is weird. Hopefully, they find him and get him some help. Sounds like he needs it,” I added, handing over the tea.
Kitty paid and waved as she left.
I turned to Deirdre, who was hovering in the background. “Think it’s a zombie?”
“What else is dragging along, raggedy, and gray? I mean, we could take some guesses.”
Deirdre was good at the sarcasm.
“Who’s up?”
Deirdre’s finger shot up to the side of her nose. “Not it!” She shouted.
“Not it!” I heard from the back room where Daniella was stocking.
“Damn it, and damn the two of you,” I sighed. I was never fast enough at our ‘Not it’ game. “All right. You’re on the front. I need to go change my shoes.” When dealing with zombies, it was better to have good boots. Zombies were not all that stable and physically, they tended to fall apart at any real provocation.
Literally.
“Just gross,” I muttered as I walked through the back to find my boots. “Not how I saw today going.”
“Maybe ask Zane if he’s got anything going on?” Daniella suggested as I walked by her.
“Yeah, probably a good idea.” I ignored anything else Daniella might have been suggesting.
Zane was our resident necromancer. Normally, we would have kicked his ass, and then kicked him out of Deadwood, but he’d showed up about a month ago and told me that John Henry Holliday, also known as Doc Holliday, yes, that Doc Holliday, also known as my grandfather, wanted to be free of us and he was there to help Doc get his wishes met and let Doc move on.
He also didn’t do a lot in the zombie business, which was the necromancer stock in trade. He’d been helpful with our recent situation with… what would you call it? The Granny business? The pesky demon business? Our family history is screwed business? Regardless, he’d been really helpful since he showed up, so we’d allowed him to stay, with no ass kicking whatsoever. And he’d been helpful in the latest business of having to pick up stray zombies that were showing up in Deadwood.
There was also the small issue that I found I liked him, but I wasn’t dealing with that issue. And by not dealing with it, I meant that I was ignoring it every time my traitorous brain brought it up.
I tied on my hiking books and headed toward the back alley where we all parked. “I’m taking the truck,” I yelled. Someone answered me, but I wasn’t sure who it was. I grabbed a bag of chicken out of the fridge and walked out.
There was no way in hell I was taking my pristine 911 out to chase down some zombie. No way. We had an old truck used for the less… unsavory aspects of our calling.
As I climbed into the truck, I noticed that it kind of smelled like zombie. We collected grave dirt in this truck, which, as evidenced by its name, meant that there could be some of the dearly departed floating around in the cemetery compost. So the zombie smell, gross as it was, made sense.
“Call Zane,” I told my earbuds. I loved these things. The phone dialed him.
He picked up on the second ring. “Desdemona,” he said in his quiet, deep voice.
“You know anything about a wandering zombie?” I asked, speaking a little louder than normal over the rumble of the truck.
“No. It’s not really my interest, as you know—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. There wasn’t accusation there,” I cut him off. “Just wanted to know if you knew of any colleagues of yours in the area.”
“No,” he said slowly.
It was that slowness that caught my attention. “What?”
“Come and get me,” he said and without waiting for an answer, hung up.
He’d been hanging around me too long. He wasn’t this abrupt when we’d met. I obligingly turned toward the direction of Pearl Street, where our house was. Zane lived a few houses down from us.
Our house had started off life on Main Street, next to our shop, but Meema got tired of all the traffic, especially as Sturgis brought more and more people to Deadwood, and she’d badgered the town council until they let her move the house. We’d left the tea and herb shop where it was and moved home base up to Pearl Street. I liked where our place was now. It was quieter up here.
I passed by our house, which was quiet in the afternoon sun. I continued on to Zane’s. He was waiting on the porch and came walking to me as I stopped in front of his place.
“What are you thinking?” I asked as he got into the seat beside me. He smelled good—like fresh air and honeysuckle. I thought it might be his hair gel. His hair was always just so.
“I don’t know, but I’ve heard some rumblings. Not a lot—you know I’m not really considered a true necromancer,” he added.
“No, I don’t. You’ve never told me much outside of your father trained you as a necromancer, and you moved away from it, and studied with a witch,” I said, reminding myself that no matter how good he smelled, I’d known him a month, and didn’t really know him.
He glanced at me. “I’ll have to share that with you.”
“
Yes, you will. But at the moment, we need to see if the shuffler on the highway is really a zombie.”
“Was your source good?” Zane asked.
I shrugged. “It was one of our customers. She’s a police scanner junkie.”
Zane laughed, a rich sound that filled the cab of the truck. “Don’t you ladies have a scanner at home and at the shop?”
“Yes. But it’s on low. Kitty is one of those people who has a cup of coffee and listens to it.”
“Listen to you and your semantics,” Zane said. “What did Kitty hear?”
“That a man in ragged clothes, who is mostly gray, is shuffling along the highway. She didn’t say it, but I’d bet our Mr. Gray doesn’t seem fussed by all the traffic, or anything most of us would consider a health hazard.”
“How did he get there, if it is a zombie?” Zane asked.
“Good question,” I said, taking a left onto Highway 85, also known as the CanAm. I wanted to head south, because Mt. Moriah Cemetery, where Granny and Meema were buried, was off of 85. It was a tourist destination, but not in regular use unless you had already purchased family plots. We still have four left, Granny being a planner. Mt. Moriah would be a good place to go if you wanted to dig up a body. Less chance of getting caught. We’d have to go and look after we checked out Mr. Gray-n-shuffling.
Zane and I were silent as we drove down the CanAm. When we got close to Deadwood Gulch, which despite the grand sounding name, was just the end of a gulch with nothing in it, I slowed.
“There. There he is.” I pointed.
He was gray. I remember Kitty saying she thought it was odd that ‘gray’ was the main descriptor, but it fit. And he was raggedy as could be. I pulled the truck into the parking lot of one of the small motels and got out. I heard Zane’s door slam, and we moved closer to the shuffling body.
“Oh, jeez,” I said, putting my hand over my nose. I could smell him from here, and we were still a good twenty feet away. “If it’s not a zombie, it’s the worst non-bather I’ve ever encountered.”
“Hello,” Zane called.
The zombie stilled. Slowly, the head turned to look at us. Whoever this was, it wasn’t one of our historical dead. I’d give it less than five years, given the clothes and general lack of decomposition.
“Eww,” I said as bugs slid down his face. “Who were you, you poor thing? And what the hell are you doing out here in the daytime?” I always felt sorry for the zombies we caught. Even as I hated seeing them go after pets, they were still once people. And some asshole, probably a necromancer, or someone equally self-absorbed with their own greatness, had dragged this sad bastard out of the grave.
It was one of the reasons I liked to deal with zombies toot sweet. We never knew if it was someone who was related to those still here—we’d come across a couple of zombies over the years that we knew, and it was a shock—and I didn’t want someone’s mom to see their kid zombie-ing along one fine afternoon.
Another reason I hated those who created zombies. No respect for those still here. Like I said, self-absorbed assholes usually.
“Do you have any food?” Zane asked.
“Got it,” I waved the bag I’d taken from the shop. As I opened it, I held out a piece of the chicken breast still in the bag and waved it in the direction of the zombie. “Hey, buddy? You hungry?”
The head turned even further to where Zane and I stood. I hoped it wouldn’t fall off. That would be a lot of explanation we didn’t need.
“Well, come on. We’re happy to feed you if you come with us,” I said. “Zane, go get the truck. We can’t walk him along here.” I pulled the keys from my pocket, tossing them to him without taking my eyes off the zombie.
The zombie slowly shifted, directing himself to me. I wondered why he was headed toward the gulch. There was nothing there, although it was surrounded by a couple of houses, a campground, and an inn on either side. I sighed. We’d need to look there, too. Since that appeared to be where this guy was heading.
The truck started behind me, and I walked backward, hoping no one passing by was looking too closely at our little tableau.
Zane stopped the truck behind me. When I glanced around, I saw that he’d backed it up. This was one of the reasons I liked him. It was obviously not his first rodeo in supernatural clean up. That made my life easier, fluttering heart aside.
I opened the tailgate and tossed the chicken breast inside. Then I backed away.
The zombie continued to shuffle forward, and when it bumped the tailgate, it stopped. Slowly, so slowly I wanted to scream, the head turned, the black eye sockets looking back to the gulch. It stayed very still, staring at the gulch for what seemed like a frickin’ eternity.
Weird.
Then it looked forward to where the chicken breast glistened tantalizingly in the front of the bed of the truck, and it scrambled clumsily into the truck.
As soon as its feet, still in shoes, made it in, I slammed the bed of the truck, exhaling. “Let’s get out of here,” I said. I went to the passenger side and slid in. As I glanced over my shoulder to the bed, I could see Mr. Gray gnawing at the chicken.
“Where to? I haven’t actually seen you in zombie removal action, despite the reputation,” Zane said. He stopped the truck right before getting back onto the CanAm highway.
“We go to the shop first. We have a place where we can put him. We’re going to need to see if he’s from one of the cemeteries here. Then we put him back where he belongs,” I said. I looked back again.
The zombie had stopped eating and was staring at Deadwood Gulch. As Zane pulled the truck out onto the CanAm, the zombie watched the gulch where he’d been heading. After the truck went around a corner, and Deadwood Gulch was no longer visible, he returned his attention to the chicken.
What was that about?
“Sounds like a plan,” Zane said.
“Since you’re still here, you helping?” I asked. I didn’t want to ponder the zombie’s odd behavior right this minute.
He nodded.
“I have extra gloves at the shop,” I said. We needed to get back there now.
Chapter Two
We made it back to the shop in record time, and I directed Zane to drive down the alley and backed the truck into the garage that led to the shop. We’d gotten lucky with this building. It had a vault, as a former bank, and a basement to hold the vault, and a garage, presumably for the transfer of money in and out of the bank. It made it perfect for our uses. Granny had been smart when she bought this building.
“What are you going to do with him?” Zane got out, jerking a thumb at the zombie, who was still chewing on chicken breast.
“We have a place to keep him contained,” I said. “We need to get him to the basement, though.”
“You have more chicken?”
“We always have chicken. We waste a lot of it—or we did, until Beeval moved in.”
Beeval was our house demon, who had recently helped me escape from Hell. In a major showdown with his former boss, Ashlar, also a demon and a major asshat, who had made a deal with my granny and screwed her over, and Sojin, Ashlar’s boss, we had freed our family from the special attentions Ashlar was planning on visiting upon the Nightingales. Beeval had escaped Hell and come to live with me, and he was here for good.
Beeval was also a massive bacon fan. I could understand it, but it had gotten to the point where we had to buy a pig from one of the local farmers. Deirdre had brought home the not-quite-spoiled chicken for him one night and cooked it up. He loved it.
At least our bait meat wasn’t going to waste. That was a good thing.
I pulled out another bag of chicken from the fridge, and opened it, walking back to the bed of the truck to wave it in the zombie’s direction.
“He’s got something pinned to him, Desdemona,” Zane said, who had stayed close to the truck.
“What?” I kept waving the chicken. “Where?”
“Look at his front.”
The zombie had been bur
ied in a three-piece suit. Peeking out of his suit jacket, tucked near the pocket of the vest was a white scrap. Zane was right—it didn’t belong. It looked like a piece of paper that had been pinned to the vest.
I couldn’t see anything else because the zombie was moving towards me and my tantalizing chicken. I opened the tailgate and hoped he made it when he fell out of the truck. Otherwise, we’d have to dispatch him here, and this was harder to clean.
I backed away, and the zombie crawled forward, falling slowly out as his hands met air past the tailgate.
“This is really painful to watch,” Zane said.
“Hence my major objection to zombies,” I said, watching ours carefully.
With agonizing slowness, we coaxed the zombie downstairs. I got him locked in our cage—that always sounded so bad, even when I just thought the words—and Zane and I went back up to give my sisters the update. Zane went into the bathroom to wash his hands. I got it. I’d already washed the gross chicken off of me downstairs, but zombies had that effect. You felt like you wanted to scrub yourself all over.
A thought struck me, and I was smiling as I I came into the shop. “Hey,” I said, walking into the public portion of the shop where Deirdre and Daniella were both working.
They both looked up. “Well?” Daniella said.
“It was exactly as we thought. He’s a recent, like last five years.” I sighed.
“Great. Cemeteries tonight?” Deirdre asked.
“For you two!” I laughed. “I have zombie detail.”
It wasn’t often I silenced my sisters, even for a nanosecond, but they looked at me with twin expressions of ‘WTF’? It made me grin even wider.
“Damn it,” Deirdre said, looking back down at the tea in front of her.
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