by Debra Dunbar
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied breathlessly.
“Nonsense. Don’t worry; I’m not going to tell anyone. Keep your secret if you like.” The woman pushed past her into the room. Boomer wagged his tail, and Nyalla relaxed slightly, figuring that the dog was probably a better judge of character than she was.
“Michelle told me you had a grave–robbing problem.”
Ah, Aunt Marie. Nyalla felt her shoulders slump in relief. “Maybe. I’m not sure. Can I offer you some coffee? Leftover pizza?”
Aunt Marie looked at her approvingly. “Nice to see you’ve got some manners, unlike that little crossroads demon who owns this place. She’s a piece of work that one.”
The woman patted Boomer on the head then sashayed around the main room of the house, taking in various artworks and book titles. Nyalla trailed after her, noting with surprise that someone so large could move with such ease and grace.
“You going to the beach?” Aunt Marie pointed a finger at the brochures neatly arranged on the dining–room table.
“Someday….”
Aunt Marie grunted and turned her attention to the kitchen with its array of pots and pans. “Forget these local beaches. You need to go to Aruba. Or Jamaica.”
Nyalla cringed at the thought of being so far away from her safe space. And airplane travel — it was too much to even contemplate at this point. Someday.
Seemingly satisfied with her examination of the house, Aunt Marie plopped herself on the couch and folded her hands neatly in her lap. “So sit down, child, and tell me how you managed to come across such a thing. From what my Michelle tells me, it sounds quite exciting.”
Nyalla sat as commanded, Boomer curled at her feet, and recounted the whole tale. Aunt Marie nodded throughout the story, interjecting an occasional “mmm”. When she was done, the woman nodded, an expression of interest on her face.
“Well, your police friend is right that regular ‘ole grave desecration is usually drunken young people committing an act of vandalism. Digging up a body, though, is something else entirely — not what bored teens normally do.”
“John Mayfield’s body is missing. And another one. Boomer found a finger and brought it home, but that was the only body part left in the cemetery.”
Aunt Marie sat up straight, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “A finger? Well, why didn’t you say so, girl! Go get it and we’ll have this mystery solved by suppertime.”
“The police took it.” Darn. For once she wished she still had the thing behind the mint chip in the freezer.
The woman made a clucking noise, shaking her head. “Shame that. I could have ruled out a lot just from looking at the point where it had been severed. Plus there’s all sorts of residual energy left behind when someone does these types of workings. Guess you can’t steal it back from them, huh?”
“No.” She had no idea where the police even kept things like that — some sort of refrigerated evidence locker, no doubt.
“From what you’ve told me, I’m suspecting this is most likely black magic. Could be some crazy person thinking they got powerful juju going on, or could be someone with the real thing.”
“But what about that man with the glowing eyes at the cemetery last night? What kind of mage would have glowing eyes?”
Aunt Marie waved a hand to silence her. “I’m getting to that. Let’s first think about what kind of magical rites use dead bodies. You said the two stolen were recent burials?”
“The one recent. The other less than a year.”
“Well, Paleros use bones as part of their nganga. The grave robber may be a practitioner taking human bones for that or other purposes. I don’t personally know any Paleros, but there could be one around. Or it could be some nutcase who’s been surfing the internet and thinks he’s going to throw some stuff in a pot and rule the world.”
Nyalla chewed on her lip and thought. If it was a nutcase, then there wouldn’t likely be any supernatural occurrence. The police could just take care of it. If not… .
“If it’s a Palero, what would he or she use the bones for?”
Aunt Marie shrugged. “Bones have spiritual energy. They can be used in all sorts of magic, much of it not necessarily evil. The old religions all had energy transference as a rite — bones of the powerful, blood, animal sacrifice, sometimes even human sacrifice. Practitioners have changed their worship to not break modern laws, but some still hold to the old ways.”
“But why would they take a whole body if they just needed a bone? Why not just take a finger?”
“Normally just one bone is all that’s needed, and the Palero would want to be discrete in acquiring it. The only reason I could think of to take a whole body and run the risk of winding up in jail is if they didn’t want anyone else gaining access to the dead person’s energy, or if the energy was powerful enough that they could gain by selling it. Who were the missing dead people? Were they influential, rich, known for their intellect?”
Nyalla pursed her lips. “I don’t think so. John Mayfield was a young man with a wife and child. The news reports didn’t say where he worked, but he didn’t seem to be famous. He was a normal person, living a normal life, from what I read. I don’t know about the other corpse. I’m sure Eric would have mentioned to me if it was a famous person.”
“Mmmm, better check. If this is a Palero, they’d need a good reason to take a whole body.”
Nyalla made a mental note to research both of the dead further.
“So what does the Palero do with this spell? Is the resulting magic the threat I should be concerned with, or the grave robberies?”
Aunt Marie chuckled, waving a ring–covered hand toward Nyalla. “I doubt the Palero is targeting you, child, even if he is performing black magic. It wouldn’t be a wide scale working, more likely a curse toward a specific person, either one who is a threat to the practitioner, or a curse performed for pay.”
That sounded like a problem for the police too. Nyalla sighed in relief. Grave robbery for a curse was really the same as buying or commissioning magical spells in Hel. The components were unusual compared to what the sorcerers normally used, but the dead were dead. The desecration was a violation of human law, and any black–magic spells would carry their own price. She didn’t have the skills to handle either one.
“Of course, it could be something totally different. The fact that this Mayfield person’s grave was cleanly excavated makes me wonder if someone rose him up.”
Nyalla felt her skin crawl. “What do you mean ‘rose him up’? I thought it was a human stealing body parts for a curse.”
“Well, there are rituals that allow the dead to rise up and be servants. They’re not too smart, and they smell bad, but they’re obedient and will perform any task they’re given. Plus they’re dead, so it don’t matter much if the task results in breaking the law or bodily harm to the zombie.”
Zombies. She was sitting on a couch having a conversation with a woman about raising the dead. Of course, she was a changeling, a former slave to the elves in Hel. Who was she to cast stones?
“So the man that attacked me was a zombie and not a Palero?” Nyalla rubbed her palms against her jeans, drying the sweat from them. It was one thing to be chased by a crazy person, or a human mage, a totally different thing to have some kind of undead chase her through a graveyard.
The woman shrugged her fuchsia–covered shoulders. “Might have been. There are a few things that don’t fit though. I know all the practitioners in the area that would be capable of such a thing, and none of them have risen–up anyone in the last five years. It sticks in my craw to admit an amateur might be able to raise the dead. It’s not an easy thing, but fools have been known to get lucky on occasion.”
“So what should I do?” Which was a stupid question. Nothing was the appropriate answer. Fighting zombies on one of Wyatt’s video games was not the same as going up against a real one.
“Zombies are not a threat. They don’t eat;
they don’t drink; they just do whatever they’re told. So if someone went to the bother of raising one, and is having it tear up a bunch of gravesites, then that’s what you need to look at. What do the other graves have in common? Where’s the motivation? And why was this particular deceased man chosen to raise? There’s a connection.”
That seemed like a lot of work. Wouldn’t it be easier to just kill the zombie?
“So do I blow its head off? Rip out its heart? Burn it? How do I kill this thing?”
Aunt Marie threw back her head and laughed. The sound echoed through the room, and the woman’s entire body trembled and shook, bouncing in time with the guffaws. It was an amazing thing to observe. Clearly Aunt Marie put her entire being into her mirth.
“Child, that’s like taking a gun away from a murderer and sending him back out onto the street. He’ll just get another gun. That zombie won’t do nothing to you. You gotta find the one who raised it and deal with him. He can send it back, or not. He’s the one you need to go after, not that poor mindless dead body.”
Drat. Because shooting the head off a zombie seemed a whole lot easier than tracking down motives and investigating who might have raised it. Nyalla thought of Eric. This would be a police kind of thing, but he’d never believe her. Zombies. She couldn’t even tell him about her real past, let alone that there could be a zombie running loose. No, she’d have to handle this one all on her own.
“So, if the one that raised them dies, the zombie dies too?”
“Not necessarily. Zombies don’t last forever. Some return to the grave after a few days, others keep going for a year or so. Guess if their master died, they’d just wander around aimlessly until they died a second death. Or until someone blew their brains out.”
“Why would someone do such a thing?” Nyalla mused. “Raise a zombie, I mean, not blow one’s head off.”
“Honestly, I can’t see having a mindless slave. In the nineteenth century they were used for farm labor. With tractors and all, there’s really not much use for a zombie workforce anymore.”
Nyalla giggled. She couldn’t help it — the idea of a modern company staffed by zombies in tattered business suits was macabre. “Maybe those call–center people are zombies. It would save a lot more money than outsourcing.”
Aunt Marie chuckled, her whole body bouncing. “That would explain a lot. I think my cable company is probably using them.”
“Palero or zombie. Which one do you think is most likely?”
“I can’t say for sure one way or the other. Wish you still had that finger you found. If I was you, I’d hope for zombie. It’s more work to find out who’s raising one, but I’d rather deal with that than a Palero doing curses or selling body parts.”
With that, Aunt Marie jumped up and announced she wanted to be informed once Nyalla determined the culprit. Nyalla walked her to the door, thanking her for her time and for coming all the way from Ellicott City to see her.
Once she’d closed the door on Aunt Marie and her tiny BMW convertible, Nyalla pondered her options. Was the monster who chased her across the cemetery a harmless zombie carrying out tasks for its master? Somehow he’d seemed more sinister than that, but a Palero? Black magic had its own terrible price. She wasn’t the one to give out judgment, still, it bothered her. A little research wouldn’t be a big deal. It’s not like she had anything else to do with her days beyond sunning by the pool.
10
Eric looked down at the contents of the plate before him, and back at Nyalla, his expression a mixture of confusion and amusement. “So I take it a culinary career is not on your short list? No dreams of being a Top Chef contestant?”
Nyalla pried the cap from the cold beer and sat it beside his plate. What did he mean? She’d warmed the leftover pizza to the appropriate temperature. Perhaps he didn’t like his with mushrooms? Or maybe he preferred the frozen kind from the grocery store? This is what human women here did when they liked a man, didn’t they? Invite a potential boyfriend over for a home–cooked meal?
“I have some deep–dish from Wednesday. Would you rather have that?”
“No, no. This is wonderful. Thank you so much.”
Eric crammed a piece into his mouth as Nyalla eyed him suspiciously. She got the feeling he was struggling not to laugh. Cautiously, she took a bite of her slice. It was good, with gooey cheese and spicy sauce. For dessert she had a package of cookies and ice cream. Hopefully he didn’t mind the fact that there’d been a finger in a baggie next to it up until last night.
“How did work go? Did the detective find the man who was robbing the graves?”
He shook his head, taking a quick drink of beer. “There were two other cemeteries hit last night besides the one you were at. Recent interments were dug up; no remains were found. This is really some sicko doing this, Nyalla.”
If this were a Palero, then they surely would have had enough bones for their magic by now. And from what she’d researched on the Internet after Aunt Marie had left, it didn’t seem to matter the age of the bones — it was the power and status of the deceased that was important. But if it were a zombie, why would his master direct him to dig up the recently dead and take their bodies?
“Do the vandalized graves have anything in common — either the deceased or their families? Did they work for the same company, go to the same school or church? Did their kids all play little league together?”
“We’re working on that, but so far haven’t found any connection besides the fact that the cemeteries are all within a five–mile radius and all the deceased died within the last year.”
All local. This was a close–knit community with many small towns. There had to be a connection somewhere between these people. How many graves had been dug up? How many families were suffering, their grief like a re–opened wound? Nyalla thought of John Mayfield, of his wife who was probably not much older than she was, and of their little baby.
“It must be terrible to have that happen to a loved one.”
“Especially John Mayfield,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “I went to school with his wife, Shelly, and knew him well enough to recognize him getting coffee before work or at the volunteer fireman fundraisers.”
“They had a baby too. That’s especially tragic.”
“A little boy, only two–months old. He’ll never know his daddy.”
Nyalla swallowed a lump in her throat and blinked back tears. She’d never known her father either, and her mother would forever be Mrs. Lowry to her. Her heart ached for this little boy, and she was glad he still had his mother and other family to love him.
“Shelly was devastated. First the accident, then to learn he’d never come out of the coma. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’d fought with John’s mother about taking him off life support. His brother was no help at all. Ben couldn’t even bring himself to visit John in the hospital. He didn’t even come to the funeral.”
“Poor woman, not to have a shoulder to lean on when she needed it most. Do you think I could bring her some food?”
Eric eyed his pizza with alarm. “No, I don’t think leftover pizza would help. If you’re really sincere, I could introduce you. She really could use a friend — her high school ones all went off to college or moved away, and she quit work just before the wedding.”
Nyalla smiled. “I could use a friend, too. It would be nice to know someone local, and close to my age.”
“I offered to babysit little Jack tomorrow while she meets with the lawyer to go over estate stuff, would you like to come with me and help out? I could introduce you and see if you both hit it off.”
Nyalla felt something tighten inside her chest. She didn’t know much about human relationships, but it seemed odd that Eric would be babysitting for a woman he hadn’t seen since high school. Was his interest in her more than platonic? Shelly could probably cook up more than leftover pizza and didn’t have a panic attack every time she left the house. The thought made her feel guilty. This woman had lost
her husband and was estranged from his family. And if that wasn’t enough, her husband’s remains had been stolen from his grave not even twenty–four hours after he’d been buried. She was a horrible person to be feeling jealous of John Mayfield’s wife.
“I’d enjoy that. I don’t have much experience with babies, but I’d love to help you. It would be nice to meet a potential friend, too.”
Eric looked relieved. “Thanks. That’s actually a load off my mind. Between the two of us, I’m hoping we manage to keep the baby alive for a few hours.”
Nyalla eyed him in concern. “Oh no, are they that fragile? Perhaps we should bring in a professional.” She’d feel terrible if the baby died while left in her care. The elves were very protective of their infant changelings and their own offspring. She’d never been within fifty feet of a child under the age of five. Maybe she wasn’t the right choice to help watch a baby.
“I was joking. Of course, I was hoping you’d be the one to change any diapers.”
“Sure.” Great. One more thing to research on the Internet. She hadn’t the foggiest idea how to change a diaper.
“Anyway, detectives are still working on the cemetery case. Small town like this, if there was a cult going on you’d think we’d know about it. Heck, you can’t get a new pair of shoes around here without it being announced at church on Sunday.”
Nyalla frowned. Palero or zombie–raiser, it had to be someone local, she suddenly realized. These cemeteries were remote and would be difficult for an out–of–towner to find. Plus strangers stuck out; everyone noticed them. Less than a day after she’d arrived, everyone within six miles had known Amber had a friend in town from college who knew no English and was staying with that scary woman Wyatt was dating. Someone odd enough to be robbing graves or raising the dead would surely attract notice.
“On a more pleasant topic, I brought over some movies.” Eric’s green eyes twinkled as he pulled three square cases out of his duffle bag. Nyalla peeked into it, before he zipped it shut, and saw what appeared to be workout clothing and some running shoes. Did he plan on spending the night? She hoped so.
