Life After Humanity

by Gillian St. Kevern

  And then it had moved beyond them, leaving Nate gasping for breath, surrounded by the werewolves—transformed back into naked men and happy to see the police officers there to arrest them.

  “Yeah. I did.” He hesitated and then decided that with Gunn’s driving, this was hardly going to make things worse. He slapped the officer on his arm. “And I’m pretty sure the lemur saved my life.”

  Gunn snorted. “You’ve got the worst self-preservation instincts of anyone I know, and that’s really saying something.” He leaned over, fiddling with the car radio. “How do you feel about jazz, Nate?”

  “Hate it.”

  “Perfect.” Gunn cranked the volume up. “Jazz it is.”

  OLD CEMETERY WAS the most famous of New Camden’s many cemeteries. It dated back to when New Camden’s settlers innocently looked forward to a prosperous future, untroubled by the knowledge of the supernatural already present among them. Its dead were housed in elegant marble crypts with the expectation they would stay there. Stone angels placed their hands together in attitudes of solemnity, something of their silence extending to the police officer stationed at the wrought-iron gates. He caught sight of Gunn and flinched, snapping to attention as if stung.

  “Sir! The—”

  “I know the place.” Gunn waved the officer aside. “Like old times, isn’t it Nate? Can’t think of the last time I was here. Oh wait. Yes, I can. You locked me in a crypt.”

  He should have known Gunn wasn’t over that. Nate hunched his shoulders, concentrating on the path. Twilight had been and gone, and the night gave the cemetery even more gravitas. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “A good idea. I don’t know what happens inside that pretty head of yours, Nathaniel, but it bears no resemblance to thought—” Gunn stopped suddenly.

  Nate barely avoided stumbling into his back. He looked over Gunn’s shoulders to the path ahead. They were in one of the more modern areas of the cemetery, where marble had been replaced by quartz and crypts and statues by plain slabs. The wrought-iron lamp posts illuminated an orange tent set up over a grave and uniformed officers milling around outside. Nate caught sight of the stocky figure of Kenzies, Gunn’s long-suffering deputy among them. She stood next to another woman in the Department Seven uniform. “There’s Kenzies.” Nate felt some of his tension ease. Kenzies did not share Gunn’s attitude to their work.

  Gunn’s nostrils flared. He stalked over to the tent, fury evident in every line of his wiry body. “What are you doing here?”

  Nate gave the Department Seven officer a second glance. She looked just as startled by Gunn’s appearance as the others, turning a pale face toward them. Her blonde hair was streaked with gray. Nate would have put her around forty. She looked ordinary, far too ordinary for Department Seven, and Nate frowned, wondering what on earth this mild-looking woman had done to rouse Gunn’s ire.

  It was then he became aware of the smell of leaves in autumn, and like the brush of a cobweb, the consciousness of a presence that made his skin leap. Vampire.

  A figure with his back to them turned. Nate saw that what he’d taken for a uniform jacket was actually a navy peacoat. “Evening, Isaiah.” Hunter’s dark eyes glittered with amusement, and his sultry drawl made his use of Gunn’s name sound affectionate, rather than the calculated provocation it was. “You took your time.”

  Gunn growled. “Kenzies, I gave you orders to boot any spectators.”

  “ARX was just as involved as Nate in this case.” Kenzies bore Gunn’s anger with stoic indifference. “Hunter has a right to be here, and we could benefit from his insight.”

  Gunn grit his teeth. “If you called him in—”

  “Give us some credit.” Hunter casually rearranged his scarf. Two of the female officers and one of the men slowed what they were doing to watch him smooth his scarf and lift his shoulder-length hair free of it. “ARX has monitored this graveyard ever since the incident. I knew as soon as I woke tonight. I have a right to be here.”

  “Go about your work,” Gunn snapped at the staring officers. He glared at Kenzies. “And I suppose you’ve been passing the time instead of scouting the scene.”

  Kenzies smiled at him. “I knew you’d prefer that someone kept a close eye on Hunter.”

  Gunn dug in his habitual bomber jacket for a cigarette. “A close eye, she says.” He turned his glare back onto Hunter. “No flirting with my staff.”

  Hunter shrugged. “We were merely making polite conversation. I’m aware that ‘polite’ isn’t in your vocabulary, but you might want to try it some time.”

  “Catch more flies with honey, you mean?” Gunn scowled. “I’ll pass.”

  “There’re no flies on your staff,” Hunter said. “I haven’t even been allowed to view the corpse yet. And I did ask, very nicely.” He turned his gaze on Nate, his eyes lingering. “Hello, Nathan. You look well.”

  Nate gulped. Even with the warning he’d been given, Hunter’s gaze was still a shock. It didn’t matter how much time he spent in the vampire’s presence, it was still hard to think of anything beyond the man’s physical presence when he was there. Nate deliberately ran through a list of Hunter’s flaws—callous indifference to taking advantage of others to get his own ends, manipulative, questionably honest, way too charming for anyone’s good, tried to kill him—and still he found himself breathless. “Hunter. I didn’t expect to see you.” The effort of speaking made his voice sound gruff, and Nate winced. He summoned the calmness of an oak to meet the vampire. “What’s going on?”

  Hunter raised an eyebrow in surprise and opened his mouth, but Gunn cut him off. “I want Nate to see the scene without any preconceptions. Kenzies?”

  “Nothing’s been touched,” she reported. “The crime scene photographers have been in, but no one else.”

  Nate looked toward the tent with trepidation. “I’m no expert on investigations. I don’t know what you expect me to do here.”

  The third member of the Department Seven staff cleared her throat. “If he isn’t an expert…?”

  “Right. Forgot you’d missed the fun.” Gunn waved his cigarette toward Nate. “Nathan Granger. Pretty much single-handedly kept the city’s police forces occupied while you were off relaxing.”

  “Hospital isn’t exactly what I’d call R and R.” The woman’s eyes settled on Nate with undisguised interest. “Well, well. I’ve heard some interesting things about you. Helen Tremaine.”

  Nate returned her handshake. “I was trying to help.” He turned to Kenzies. “I still have no idea what you want me to do.”

  Kenzies beckoned him to follow her and started toward the tent. “We’d like your opinion on the scene.”

  Nate followed slowly. “I know nothing about forensics. I don’t even watch CSI.”

  Tremaine snorted. “That’s a mark in your favor.”

  “Just give us your honest impressions,” Kenzies assured him. “We’ve got experts for the rest of it.”

  If they have experts, why are they wasting their time with me at all? Nate was uneasily conscious of the curious glances of the white-coated forensics officers standing around waiting. What did they think of this all? Did they know who—what—Nate was?

  Kenzies held the tent flap aside and ushered Nate in. Immediately, he was assailed with a familiar scent. The metallic tang of blood was underlain with a potpourri-like smell of herbs that even the smoke couldn’t muffle. Nate felt a cold hand settle on his skin, the rain that fell the night he died running again down his neck. He knew what he would see before he raised his eyes to the gravestone. “No!”

  The man sprawled like a puppet with its strings cut. He was shirtless, with jagged red lines carved into his bare chest. With the smooth gray slab of the grave beneath him, he looked like some bizarre entree served at a horrifying feast.

  Nate looked helplessly at Kenzies. “He was supposed to stay dead. To be gone for good!”

  Kenzies’s eyes softened, but her voice remained crisply matter of fact. “Who a
re you referring to, Nate?”

  “The necromancer. Peter de Silver.” Nate looked down at the man and immediately wished he hadn’t. “You have to see it. Who else worked like this?”

  “You’re the only person living who saw de Silver’s work.” Gunn’s voice was right behind him and made Nate jump. He turned to see that Gunn and Hunter had both joined him in the tent, watching him closely. “Well, his unofficial work at least.” He sneered at Hunter.

  The vampire ignored him. “I, too, had the chance to observe his handiwork,” he said. “I agree with Nate. This is too much to be coincidence, especially given the location.”

  The location? Nate knew that asking would do him no favors. Gunn operated on a need-to-know basis, especially in front of Hunter with whom he shared an acrimonious history. Instead, he took a hesitant step toward the body. He looked at the name on the headstone. “In memoriam, Austin Hawick,” he read aloud. “This wasn’t on the job description.” He frowned. “Hawick.” The name sounded familiar. Intimately familiar. So why was it coming up blank?

  “Former ARX employee,” Gunn said. “On whose grave the first of the necromancer’s victims was discovered.”

  “Brook.” The memory came back to Nate with a guilty start. Brook had been murdered because of his association with Hunter, an association Nate had briefly shared.

  “I’m starting to wonder if old Hawick was the virtuous staff member you took him for. I mean, once is bad enough, but to have two guys murdered on your grave…”

  “Austin was a stalwart opponent of black magic, the last person to encourage a necromancer,” Hunter said promptly. “I’m entirely at a loss as to why the necromancer would fixate on him at all, unless he was jealous of Austin’s position within my household. But even that doesn’t make sense. Austin died a year before he made his bid for power.”

  The necromancer. Nate watched Hunter closely. Odd that he would call him what he was known to the public rather than by his name. When he’d worked for ARX, he’d been ‘Peter.’ Or was the name too bitter a reminder? After all, Peter had been an integral part of Hunter’s staff.

  “There’s a lot I don’t understand,” Tremaine said quietly. “I was reading the case files on the way over here. One of you censored it?”

  “I wish,” Kenzies said promptly. “It’s hard enough getting Gunn to fill out reports at all. I’ve given up attempting to moderate his language. If I had time to go through them—”

  Tremaine shook his head. “Not like that. If you read through the notes, there are large chunks of text missing.” She held out a manila file.

  “Missing text?” Hunter sounded interested.

  Gunn glared at him. “You’ve seen what you’re here to see. Scram.”

  “Perhaps I can offer my assistance. I was heavily involved in the case, as you might remember.”

  Kenzies skimmed through the file. “Strange. It seems as though any reference to one particular person has been erased.”

  “Not just that, but anything that might give us a clue as to what their relationship was to the case is gone with it.” Tremaine looked hopefully at Kenzies. “You don’t remember?”

  “I should,” Kenzies said. “I don’t.” She held the file out to Gunn, snapping his fingers for the document.

  Gunn’s lips moved as he read over the report. His scowl deepened. “Who was the last person to read this?”

  “I’ll have to check the records back at the Department,” Tremaine started.

  Nate edged closer to the corpse. Now that the initial horror had worn off, a new one had taken its place. Was this death following the pattern that Peter had established? Hunter had a particular type when it came to men, and Nate had been very lucky not to end up dead like Brook. He had to know. Could this have been him?

  The man’s hair was a light brown, very different from Nate’s short black hair. He was older, with a heavily lined face, and deep purple bags around his eyes. At first glance, Nate had taken him as toned, but looking closer, he could see that the man was merely extremely thin—

  The man’s eyes jerked open.

  Nate’s mouth moved, but he couldn’t speak. He could only stare, caught by the dangerous glitter in the eyes that should not be working at all.

  The man’s mouth stretched wide, baring wickedly sharp teeth in a smile that promised violence. He raised himself from the stone, his movements at odds with his body. Little things like pain from twisted muscles or balance didn’t mean much to a revenant. They registered only one thing: insatiable hunger. The man growled and leaped.

  Run! The thought came much too late for Nate, trapped by the awful certainty of death. He stumbled backward.

  Thunder boomed suddenly, unexpectedly. The corpse swayed. A hole appeared in his chest, driving him backward. There was another crack of thunder, and he dropped to his knees. A rough hand jerked Nate away from him, and a storm of gunfire broke out. Nate saw the man twitch and spasm in a gross parody of life and finally fall.

  “God.”

  Kenzies kept her gun leveled at the body. “Hurt, Nate?”

  It took Nate a startled second to grasp her meaning. He looked down at himself, registering for the first time that the hand on his arm was Hunter’s, and that the vampire was positioned in front of him. “No. Just…shaken.”

  Gunn lowered his pistol and approached the corpse. “Where were you standing, Nate? Here?” He crouched. “Looks like you were right, Tremaine. A deliberate trap.”

  “And you let me spring it?” Nate couldn’t keep the dismay out of his voice.

  “No one else could. We figured knowing who the trap was aimed at would tell us a lot about who set it.” Gunn looked down at the body with a frown. “If it helps, Hunter was going to be our next attempt.”

  “Your manner is charming as ever.” Hunter dusted himself off. “Though, I hate to admit your method is not without result.”

  Nate wrapped his arms around himself. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” The tent was thick with the smell of gunpowder, but Gunn still lit a cigarette. “I imagine there’s a few people in New Camden who would like to take a shot at you, but only one with the knowledge to rig up a revenant to attack you—and only you.”

  Nate had felt sick before. Now he felt nauseated. “Peter’s back.”

  Gunn took a long drag on the cigarette. “Back, and it looks like he’s out for revenge.” He grinned. “It’s been far too quiet around here.”

  CENTURY WAS PACKED. Nate squeezed through the foyer after Gunn. The crowd was so thick that the Department Seven officer, who’d made the unusual decision to change into uniform for the visit, did not raise any eyebrows, any more than Nate did, dressed down in his battered T-shirt and jeans.

  When they reached the staff-only staircase, Gunn stopped Nate. “I’d like to talk to your boss alone. Wait here.”

  “Sure.” Nate did not object to the chance to gather his thoughts. He loitered in the stairwell, listening to the music pumped through Century’s speakers with a feeling of dislocation. The beat was fast, with an accelerating baseline that spoke directly to the pulse. In any other circumstance, that would have Nate on the dance floor in an instant. Now, dancing was the last thing on his mind.

  Nate clenched his fists. Another guy dead because of me.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about the dead man. He had a worn face, the kind acquired through a mortgage, a partner, and kids. He must have family somewhere, people who missed him. Perhaps right now his family was learning that he wouldn’t be coming home ever again.

  And he was dead, just to set a trap for Nate. It’s my fault—just like Peter’s death was my fault. Nate winced, but he couldn’t escape the thought. He leaned back against the wall of the staircase, wrapping his arms around himself. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. I didn’t know my magic would kill him! It was the first time he had used his powers on purpose. They were still new. Even now, Nate was unsure what exactly had happened.

/>   I took control of Peter’s necromancy, turned it into plants… Nate frowned. That much was clear. In trying to control Nate, Peter had inadvertently linked them, allowing Nate access to the workings of his spells. But I went too far. Somehow, I turned Peter into a plant—

  “Nate!” Aki barreled into him. “You should have told me you were here! I’ve been so worried!”

  Nate squirmed. He’d hoped to avoid notice by sticking to the staff-only areas. Clothes aside, he felt ill at ease at the club. With everything he’d seen, the idea that other people were having fun, enjoying life, was too much to take. “I sent you a text. Told you I was okay.”

  “You don’t get attacked by a revenant and be okay!” Aki released Nate from his chokehold and stepped back, eyeing him critically. “I know you. You might not be hurt, but there’s no way you’re not shaken.”

  Aki knew him well. Sometimes too well. “I’ll be fine. I’m just not in a social mood.”

  Aki snorted. “Reassuring your best friend that you’re not going to do something stupid isn’t socializing. It’s a necessity.” He eyed Nate. “Please tell me you don’t feel sorry for that thing.”

  “He was a person until tonight.” Nate bit his lip.

  “Nate!” Aki stomped his foot. “This is what gets you into trouble! You have to stop feeling sorry for monsters and concentrate on taking care of yourself!”

  “This is different. The guy that got killed, it was a trap aimed at me. I can’t just shrug it off and say it’s none of my business.”

  Aki narrowed his eyes. “Can’t you? Because I can—”

  An electronic buzzing sound interrupted him.

  They both looked down at Nate’s wristband. The sleek black band was standard issue for Century staff, but the technology contained within the seemingly benign device was anything but ordinary. The wristband contained a credit-card reader, GPS system, heart-rate monitor, emergency alarm, and other features designed to keep Century’s workers safe. It also contained the in-house messaging system currently being employed.