by C. T. Adams
The nearest branch of my bank was on the first floor of one of the office towers. I’d come to this same building many times for work purposes as well. One of my best former clients, a jewelry designer and gem buyer, had an office on the tenth floor. A part of me still missed Morris Gold-stein, despite the fact he’d gone host and had tried to capture me for Monica.
But more than that, I missed all the other people involved with my Tel Aviv runs. From Gerry Friedman, the old Jewish cutter who was a flirt, to Marta, the receptionist here in Denver. I’d lost a lot of people the day I fought Monica—more than just those who’d died, and there was no bringing them back. It reminded me forcibly that I needed to get back to work—the sooner the better. The longer I was out of the game, the more likely my customers would be permanently snapped up by the competition. I’d worked too hard to build my client base to have to start again from scratch. And … I missed my old life. A lot.
“Can I help you?” The bank teller brought my attention back to the present. While I’d been daydreaming, the line had moved forward until it was now my turn.
“Yes, thank you.” I smiled and went to the open space at the counter, sliding the deposit slip across the desk to her. “I want to make a deposit.”
“And how would you like your cash back?”
“Small bills, please.”
She counted out my cash, putting it into a bank envelope with the deposit ticket before handing it back to me.
“Is there a phone where I can call a cab?”
“You can use the one at reception if you want, but there are always cabs waiting at the hotel across the street.”
Of course there were. That made perfect sense. I felt stupid for not having thought of it myself. “Thank you. I’ll catch one there.”
By the time the cab dropped me off at the church, the rain had stopped altogether. Bright sunlight speared through the clouds and a breathtaking rainbow arched through the sky. I closed my eyes, making a wish the way my mother had taught me.
Rob and Bryan were outside, playing catch, heedless of the muddy grass. In that moment, my brother looked absolutely normal, the sunlight catching the red and gold of his hair until it shone. He was laughing, his handsome features open and happy. My heart lurched in my chest and I remembered for an instant how it used to be before the drugs took him. I wanted that back, so badly I ached from the wanting. But the chances of it were worse than slim. Not impossible. I believe in miracles. But we’d already had one miracle. No other Eden zombie had ever recovered even this much. I should be grateful, and was … but still, I couldn’t help but wish for more.
“Hey, Kate!” Rob called out with a wave.
Bryan turned around to see and missed catching the ball completely. It bounced past him to stop at my feet.
I squatted down to pick it up for him. When I rose, I looked up, and for the first time saw what he was wearing.
It was a black hooded sweatshirt from back when he’d played baseball in high school. It had the imprint that read “Our Lady of Perpetual Hope.” It had a tiger. But it was not the same logo as when I’d been in school. This tiger had a paw sticking up.
Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good. I had a flash of insight and just suddenly knew who else would have a shirt like this; who would steal Monica’s eggs if she could. My stomach lurched, and my lunch moved restlessly at the thought.
Amanda.
I remembered the last time I’d seen her. It had been in my apartment, after Monica had died, taking the hive with her.
Amanda slid her fingers into the metal guides of the massive veterinary needle and held out her other arm, where I could see a string of puncture wounds in a trailing line below her elbow. “I thought so, too, but there’s another way. It wasn’t easy to figure out how, but I’ve got the technique down. Once you’re a queen, you’ll be alone. All alone, like Monica was. Will you go insane? Or will you turn all your friends? What will you do to survive, Kate? Monica told me that not everything goes away. You’ll remember them. You’ll know what you’ve done, but you won’t be able to stop yourself.”
My heart was beating like a triphammer. She was insane. What the hell had she done to herself?
“Kate, are you all right?” Mike’s words jerked me back to the present like a lifeline. He and Rob had joined us. I hadn’t seen them move. I think Armageddon could’ve started in the couple of minutes when I had that brainstorm and I wouldn’t have noticed it.
“When did they change the mascot logo of the school? The crouching one?” I asked Mike as I pointed to the symbol on Bryan’s chest.
“The year after you graduated. Why?”
Amanda was in Mary’s class, a year behind me. She was a cheerleader, a gymnast, and played varsity softball. She would’ve bought a letter jacket and the school warm-ups, just like the rest of us.
“Ka-tie?” Bryan’s voice was a deep baritone, but the tone was somehow childlike. It wasn’t the voice itself, but the phrasing he used, the little break between the first and second syllables of my name.
“I’m right here, Bryan. I’m just thinking.”
Rob let out a low growl. “You’re thinking at them, aren’t you?”
“No. Just thinking.” I tried to keep my voice neutral when I said it. Rob’s a friend, but he’s a werewolf, one of Tom’s pack mates. I really couldn’t expect him to be reasonable about the Thrall, despite championing me with the pack. I didn’t think Rob knew about my working for the Thrall, but I hadn’t told Mike it was a secret. Stupid of me; I should have. Because working with the Thrall was bound to piss off all the wolves, and that was a complication I really didn’t need in my life right now.
“Kate?” Mike’s concern was obvious in the way he said my name. “Are you in trouble?”
“I’m always in trouble, Mike.” I tried to make it a joke, but it fell flat. “It’s my basic nature.”
“Then why don’t the two of us take this inside?” He gestured in the direction of the front steps of the church.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” I agreed. I turned, tossing the ball underhand. Rob caught it easily. I gave him a little salute and started up the steps with Mike behind me.
In my peripheral vision I saw Bryan start to follow, but Rob stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm. “Come on, Bryan,” Rob offered, “let’s play some more catch. We can talk to Ka-tie later.” I thought it was nice how he said my name the same way as Bryan.
“Okay,” Bryan agreed readily, his head nodding before he started to skip back across the grass. Until he was out of sight, every few steps Bryan would turn around and wave. It made me laugh and I waved back. Mike joined me. But his face sobered a moment later.
“How bad is it?” He pushed on the brass plate to open the door to the church.
As I stepped into the foyer I gave an involuntary shudder. I rubbed my arms from a chill that stemmed not from cold, but from a particularly intense memory. It had happened here.
I’d laid on that marble floor, let Brooks handcuff me to the baptismal font. I’d stared at the painted ceiling, where hidden in the clouds were the images of angels and saints, while my arm was sliced open and one by one the eggs Monica had implanted there were pulled from my vein to burn and sizzle in a silver bowl of alcohol.
I felt a wave of rage from the Thrall hive. Instinctively I slammed shut the door in my mind. Blessed silence. I said a heartfelt prayer for the soul of Henri Tané. If it hadn’t been for him I’d still be trapped living my life to an increasingly loud soundtrack. It really was because of him that I was now able to live alone in my own head most of the time.
I turned to Mike. “Before I forget, I’d like to arrange a mass to be said in someone’s honor.”
“Whose?”
“His name was Henri Tané.”
Mike pulled his keys from the pocket of his trousers and unlocked the door to his parish office. It was a small space, crowded with vestments, a battered old desk, and the various other tools of his trade. “Wasn’
t he the guy you were working with from Haiti?”
“Yes.”
Mike led me into his office. He sat down and pulled out a desk drawer. He took out a journal calendar and pen and set them onto the desk in front of him.
I sat across from him and watched, trying to hide my amusement. Just recently he’d started getting absentminded. I’d tried to tease him, but he was too sensitive about it. He’d gotten seriously angry the one time I had. It didn’t make sense to me, but I wasn’t stupid enough to make the same mistake more than once.
“When did he die?” Mike flipped pages in the journal until he found the one he wanted, then used the pen to scribble notes across the page.
“A few days ago … I think.”
“Was this what you wanted to talk about?”
I sighed. He just had to burst my balloon. “Not really. It’s just sort of an aside. One of the questions I had got solved outside.”
I glanced around the room, buying time to organize my thoughts. The place was cluttered with the stuff of his work. All of it was familiar to me, giving me a strong sense of belonging, from the spare candles and prayer books to the long-handled crucifix that Rob had used to bar the church doors against the vampires. Everything was familiar. Even the silver fruit bowl was back on his desk. I reached out to run a finger along the rim of the cool metal. This, too, had been used that night. It was the same one that had held the alcohol they’d used to kill the eggs and the hatchling.
The phone rang. Mike excused himself to take the call. I wasn’t sorry, it gave me an excuse to wander the church to “give him privacy.”
There were so many memories here in this church. Most of them were good. I’d had my first communion here, with Father John presiding. My confirmation was here, too. I’d even planned to marry Dylan here, before I’d found out he’d betrayed me, both with Amanda and Monica.
I loved this place, but there was a sadness to it today. It felt, somehow, as though the life of the building were drawing to a close. It didn’t make sense, really, but I felt it nonetheless. There were tears in my eyes as I stared up at what was still the most beautiful stained-glass window I’d ever seen. The Pietà, the afternoon sun streaming through it until the colors were almost too much for the eye to bear.
I had hoped that, if things worked out, Tom and I could wed here. Somehow, though, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not here … not ever, and I couldn’t figure out why. But it made my heart wrench in my chest.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Mike spoke softly from the doorway that led from the lobby to the main church.
“They’re going to close the parish, aren’t they?” I didn’t take my eyes off of the window.
He stared at me for a long, silent moment. “Sometimes you really do scare me, Kate. I just got the call, but you already knew.”
“When?”
“I have until the end of the quarter. Then they’ll close our doors and I’ll be reassigned.”
“I’m sorry.” This time I did look at Mike, let him see the tears in my eyes.
“Do you know what the monsignor told me?” Mike acted as though I should know, but I didn’t. I shook my head, watching as he walked into the church proper and lowered himself onto one of the polished wood pews. “To everything there is a season.”
“It’s been coming for a while, hasn’t it?” I knew it had, just as I’d known the church was closing. There was no real parish here now, only a soup kitchen, and the home for the zombies. The church and school buildings were old, in need of repairs, with no income to support it. It had only been a matter of time. And the time was almost up.
“I managed to talk them into running a mobile soup kitchen, bringing food and supplies down to the poor in a van from one of the suburban churches. I’m still working with them about the zombies.”
“They’ll be all right,” I told him.
His eyes looked like his heart was breaking at the thought. “You don’t know that.”
I smiled then. “Have a little faith.”
He laughed then, and there was a trace of bitterness in it. “That’s rich, you preaching to me about faith.”
“Apparently you need it.”
He snorted—a bit of his old hockey self. “Smartass.”
“Always.” I sat next to him on the pew. “So, where is your next parish going to be? Or did they tell you?”
He gave me a meaningful look. I caught the anger, and frustration, but there was something positive there, too. A level of excitement, liberally mixed with guilt. As if they’ve offered him something he’s always wanted, but with strings attached. He wants it, but he doesn’t trust it.
“I’m not getting a parish.” He spoke with a soft intensity. “In fact, if I could be sure my charges would be safe, I’d say this was the most amazing thing that could happen in my life.”
“So what is it?”
He took a shaky breath. His eyes locked with mine, as though he were looking to me for reassurance. “I’ve been invited to go to Rome.”
“Rome … as in Italy, where the Pope lives Rome?” I know my eyes were a little wide.
He nodded mutely, his eyes searching my face.
“Holy shit!”
“I suppose that’s there, too.” His nervous laugh was a little shrill, but I didn’t blame him. This was huge. I was so proud and happy for him I felt as though I might burst from it. I threw my arms around him.
“That’s wonderful! What do they want you to do?”
“The church has an International Commission on Youth. They’ve got a committee going, studying the problems of drug abuse in general, and Eden in particular, along with the resulting Zombie problem. They want me on the committee.”
“Um … wow!”
He grinned, and it was his old grin. “Yeah. Wow. If I could only be sure—” He turned his head in the direction of the building that he’d converted from nuns’ housing to a home for the zombies and the grin faded. I didn’t need any psychic ability to follow his thoughts.
“They’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. You’ll see.” I slugged him playfully on the arm. “God really does know what he’s doing, you know.”
“Oh shut up!” He gave me a gentle shove in return. We wrestled like kids for a couple of minutes, like we used to in grade school, before we started thinking of each other as more than just friends. But eventually, breathless and laughing, we settled back down into behaving like the adults we were supposed to be.
“You said the end of the quarter? That’s not very long.”
“Only a few weeks. I’ll have to push hard to wrap things up here, get a passport. That sort of thing.” He ran a hand through his hair at the mere thought of everything he needed to accomplish in the short time he’d been given.
“Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.”
“As a matter of fact—” His voice took on the wheedling tone I knew so well.
I sighed, knowing that I would be here for hours working my ass off. Still, if I hadn’t meant it, I shouldn’t have made the offer. “Fine, what do you want?”
“Lots and lots of things. You’ll be working for hours. And just so you don’t ruin that nice outfit I’ll dig you up another of the old sets of warm-ups. We’ve got a bunch of them downstairs.”
“That reminds me.” I glanced over at the file cabinets tucked up against the wall. There were only two of them. I might be out of luck. Still, there was no harm in asking. “Do you have the old school records? I’d really like to know if Amanda had one of the warm-up sets with the new logo.”
“The records are in the basement.” He grinned at me, his blue eyes sparkling. The same basement, coincidentally, that I need to start cleaning out.”
“Oh goody.”
I followed him into the basement. I hadn’t been down there in a while. Either my memory was off, or it had gotten even more cluttered than I remembered. Cleaning it out was going to be a serious pain.
“We had to move the school records in here,
” Mike explained, gesturing toward six stacks of boxes, each stack containing five neatly labeled cartons. They took up the entire center portion of the basement, not quite blocking the door to the storage room or the staircase leading up to the rectory. I noticed that one or two of the cartons had water stains on them and stank of mildew. “The school roof started leaking.”
I wrinkled my nose and fought off a sneeze. “Ick.”
He nodded his agreement before he disappeared into the storage room, reappearing with plastic-encased clothing in his arms. “These should fit you.” He passed them to me.
“They’re brand-new!”
“Yeah. Apparently the coach ordered a bunch for all the teams, thinking the school would be open the next year. When the archbishop decided to close our doors, the church got stuck with them. They’ve been locked in storage ever since. I just found them a couple of days ago.” I could see the frustration in his face. “If I’d known I would have distributed them to the homeless. They always need warm clothes in winter.”
I heaved an inward sigh of relief. If he had, then there would be no way to know who would have had a set from way back when. This way, I might have a chance. Because while I was pretty sure I knew who the culprit was, hard evidence would be useful in convincing the police and the Thrall.
The boxes were clearly labeled and well organized, so it only took me a few minutes to find the right records. Amanda had ordered five sets of sweats, three with hooded shirts, two without, along with five of the matching tee-shirts. Her mother had paid by personal check. Mike told me I could keep the file, if I carried the rest of the box out to the dumpster. Apparently the only records he was going to deliver to the diocese were the old academic records. Everything else had to go.
I changed clothes in the restroom upstairs, and spent several hours working on inventory and cleaning out the basement. Mike wouldn’t let me lift anything heavy. He was worried I’d rip up my shoulder. So he had Rob and Bryan help by loading boxes onto a dolly and wheeling them either to the dumpster, or out to the van. Mike went back upstairs to deal with his other parish duties. He wanted to accomplish as much as he could while the zombies in his care were at the free clinic getting their monthly check-ups because he could never manage to get everything done otherwise. I finally got around to apologizing to him for having been an ass the previous night, an apology he accepted with only the minimal amount of ribbing. At four o’clock we piled into his car and Mike drove Rob and me home. Rob seemed happy and excited about his job, and I didn’t feel like bringing him down with the news that he wouldn’t have it for long. I didn’t even want to think about what that would mean to my life.
