Walking Dead

by C. E. Murphy

  Under no circumstances could I imagine gaining any comfort from a look of gut-level belief covered by a stoic refusal to let emotion through. What was I supposed to say, Go me, the dread Morrison’s finally on board? I turned my face away, gaze fixed on a tall, slim glass clock on one of the captain’s bookshelves. It read 6:17 p.m., which meant in the worst-case scenario I had five hours and forty-three minutes to live. The clock’s tick and my heart both seemed very loud in the face of Morrison’s silence, but I couldn’t make myself look back at him.

  The clock clicked over to 6:18 p.m. and quite a few seconds before Morrison finally spoke. “Why are you telling me this?”

  I set my lips, looked back at him, and looked away again, then did it all a second time before managing to fix my eyes on the desk in front of him, if not on my boss himself. “Billy thought that the boss man should make the decision about whether I was going to go off and potentially get myself killed.”

  “Bullshit.”

  My gaze popped up to his. “No, really, that’s why. I’d have just gone and done it without asking, otherwise.”

  Morrison spread his hands on his desk and leaned forward. He didn’t get up, but he didn’t have to: the whole effect was one of looming anyway. “And if I say no?”

  “C’mon, Captain.” My voice softened and I tilted my head, a sad smile creeping up from somewhere. “You’re not going to say no. You know that as well as I do. Even if you did…” I shrugged. “I have to go anyway. It’s my job.”

  “So I’m not going to say no and you wouldn’t listen if I did. Why’d you bother?”

  Because Billy told me to was clearly not going to cut it. The other obvious, if sticky, answer was one I’d closed the door on back in July when I’d taken the promotion to detective, and had maybe locked shut when I started dating Thor. Well, if it was locked, there was still a major draft blowing through the cracks. I wasn’t sure there was anything to be done about that, or that I really wanted there to be. It made dating safer, knowing my heart was tangled up somewhere else.

  Man, I was really a piece of work. Thor deserved better. I either had to break up with him or get over Morrison. Or get murdered by a cauldron, if the first two choices were too hard. And all that thinking about other things gave my mouth the opportunity to say, “I came to say goodbye,” without checking in with my brain first. “Just in case.”

  The captain turned purple. “Y—”

  “Morrison. You asked, okay? I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight. I personally think it’s going to involve banishing the living dead, retrieving a stolen cauldron and hopefully solving a murder. But Suzanne’s having visions about my death, so there’s a non-zero possibility that I might not survive. I’m hard to kill. You know that. You’ve seen the tapes. But you wanted to know why I came to talk to you, and I’m telling you.” I looked away, suddenly tired. “There aren’t very many people I’d want to say goodbye to, in the event of. You’re one of the few. So I’m saying it. You can give me shit later when I come through just fine.”

  “Walker…”

  I sighed and got up. “Next time there’s a death warrant on my head, we’ll just let this stand as writ, okay? I’ve said my melodramatic little goodbye. No more fuss after this. Just me, getting out of your hair.” I managed a tired little smile. “Your weird-colored hair.”

  If it’d been me, I’d have at least put a hand to my head. Morrison didn’t. “Could I talk you out of going, if I tried?”

  “Do you want to?”

  “You’re an officer under my command. I don’t want you walking into a death trap.”

  I ducked my head and let go a soft breath of laughter. Somehow Morrison dancing around his own evident impulse to protect me made my own inability to face certain truths a little more palatable. I looked up, still smiling. “That didn’t answer the question, boss.”

  Chagrin deepened the lines of his face. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to call him on avoiding the topic, so instead of making him actually answer, I said, “You can’t order me not to go, because I won’t listen, and asking me not to go will just make it harder. Don’t make it harder, okay?”

  Morrison gave me a hard look that ended in an over-blown sigh. “You’re a pain in the ass, Walker.”

  I’m almost certain that in no way should that have made an idiotic grin bloom across my face. I snapped a jaunty salute, said, “Yes, sir,” with genuine cheer, and strutted off to face the next demon on my list.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The next demon didn’t go over so well.

  Thor was bigger than me, which I knew on an intellectual level. I also appreciated it on a sort of frothy-girl-likes-big-guy level which, prior to Thor—well, really prior to Mark Bragg, but never mind that—I’d never really considered, and which now kind of made me cringe with girl cooties if I thought too much about it. I mean, I knew other guys who were taller than me; Billy and Gary both were, for example, but I was still accustomed to being one of the tallest people in any given room. Taller than me got its own quirky mental box in my mind, and not many people fit in it.

  It turned out that when Thor got his temper up, he didn’t so much fit into it himself. He more popped out of it, à la the Incredible Hulk, albeit without the green and with a considerably better vocabulary. At least, it’d been better while I explained Suzy’s premonition. After that it reduced to “No way are you—you are not going out there to—” interspersed with my “Yeah, I am, Edward. Edward, yes, I am—”

  We were on round three, and the entire motor-pool crew had gathered around to watch. Even my old boss, Nick, who hadn’t looked at me comfortably since things went wonky in January, was sitting on the hood of Rodridgez’s patrol car—the axle was probably out of alignment again—watching us like we were the last match at Wimbledon. I felt strongly that someone should be selling popcorn and hot dogs.

  “Look,” I finally hissed. Don’t tell me you can’t hiss a word without an S. There’s not a better name for that particular pitch, full of emotion and sharper than a whisper, but much too quiet to be a full voice. Besides, I had plenty of esses in the words that followed. “I appreciate you don’t want me doing something dangerous, but this is my job. You don’t get to tell me I can’t do it.”

  “I—” He finally noticed our audience, and didn’t quite catch my arm to haul me away from the gawkers. Just as well, too, because if he had I’d have been obliged to hit him. Instead, he clenched his fists and jerked his head toward the stairs, where we could continue our discussion with a modicum of privacy. Someone’d finally replaced the fluorescent light in the stairwell, so there was no longer a patch of semidarkness to hide in, but at least the crew couldn’t see us without coming around the foot of the stairs, which I thought might be a little too obvious, even for them.

  Once we were half hidden, some of Thor’s puffed-upedness ran out of him in a sigh. “What am I supposed to do, Joanie? I want to protect you.”

  “You can’t.” Man. I hadn’t known so many emotions could fit into two small words. Regret, sorrow, resignation, and maybe most of all, implacability. “Thor—Edward—you can’t protect me. God knows people’ve helped me out, and I’ve needed it. I’ll no doubt need it again. But you can’t actually protect me. When we’re talking about the kind of thing I’ve been dealing with, there’s literally nobody else who can do what I have to do. I might not get out of this thing alive tonight, but I’ve got a better shot at surviving than anyone else.”

  His hands turned into fists. “I can’t accept that. I can’t just let you go off—”

  My heart tightened up as much as his hands had. “You have to. I need you to trust me. Trust that I’ll be okay.”

  “I can’t. I have to be able to do something, Joanie. I have to be able to help. I can’t just stand back and wait to pick up the pieces. I can’t be—”

  “The soldier’s partner? The one she comes home to?” I closed my eyes and tried to breathe around an ache so big it overflowed my chest. “The
n this isn’t going to work. Because I signed up to be a soldier, and I need a partner. Not a protector.”

  “Holliday’s your partner. How the hell do I fit in to that?”

  “Billy’s my partner on the job. He’s got the skill set to deal with at least some of what I deal with. I’m not talking about on the job, Edward. I’m talking about the rest of my life. I need somebody who trusts me to do my job and come home.”

  A bitter, crackling edge came into Thor’s voice: “Would this conversation be different if you were talking to the captain?”

  The ache in my chest burst, sending phantom pain through my whole body. My hands curled against emotional misery turned physical, and my calves cramped from trying to stay steady when all I wanted to do was curl up. “It was different when I talked to Morrison, Thor. He didn’t tell me not to go.” I was a big girl, and big girls weren’t supposed to cry, but my throat was tight and my eyes hot as I whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  Thor didn’t say anything else. He just stood there and looked at me, and after a minute I turned and ran from the garage.

  A Joanne who really had her shit together would’ve breezed back into Homicide all calm, cool and collected, ready for action. Me, I bounced off the half-open door on my way through it, and kept my gaze locked on the floor, like that would keep everybody from noticing my face was red and puffy and blotched with tears. It obviously didn’t: a cone of silence rippled around me as I made my way toward my desk. I grabbed a tissue, tried to blow my nose discreetly, and instead sounded like a beacon for every Canadian goose on the planet.

  It also signaled everybody around me to suddenly get very busy, and the noise level suddenly shot back up where it belonged. Only Billy and Suzy were left looking at me worriedly, and neither of them seemed in the slightest bit convinced when I said, “It’s nothing. Forget it. Billy, you think Chan’s ghost might still be around?”

  “Not if he’s lucky. Why?”

  I could see him not asking what’d brought on my crying jag. I was more grateful than I could say. “Because he’s our only witness as to what happened to the cauldron and Redding, and I want to see if there’s anything else he can remember. I don’t know where else to start. Can you call Sonata and have her meet you at the museum to try a séance?” I pinched the bridge of my nose, which was still swollen with tears. “I mean, can mediums actually call spirits who’ve crossed over back again to talk? I know you can’t, but—”

  “Sonny’s stronger than I am,” Billy said without rancor. “She might be able to. I’ll call and find out, but what do you mean, meet me? Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to go get Gary and my drum. If Sonny can call Jason back as far as the Dead Zone, I ought to be able to talk to him there.”

  “What about me?” Suzanne’s voice said she knew exactly what the answer was, but I gave her props for asking.

  “You’re staying here. It’s not that I don’t think you’d be helpful, Suzy, because you probably would be. But you’re fourteen, and this is a kidnapping and murder case, and there are zombies out there.”

  “I’m old enou—”

  “Yes. You are. You’re old enough to take care of yourself. But you’re also my responsibility right now, okay? You put yourself in my hands by coming up here. Let me try to keep you safe, Suzy. Please. I don’t know what happens if I’m trying to watch out for you, as well as myself.” I wondered if that argument would have gone over well with Thor. It didn’t go over all that well with Suzanne, but her shoulders slumped in agreement anyway. I said, “Thank you,” and meant it. “Call me if you get any more future flashes, okay?” I wrote down both Billy’s and my cell numbers, and Suzy folded the paper into her hand.

  “Be careful, Detective Walker.”

  “I will be.” I gave her another quick hug and grabbed my belongings as I headed for the door. Billy fell into step behind me, catching my elbow at the door and pulling a bulletproof vest off the wall. “Zombies don’t use guns, Billy. They chew you to death. Have you heard from Patrick? Did the holy-water brigade do any good?”

  “Put it on anyway.” Billy sealed a vest in place across his own broad chest. I struggled into mine on the way down the stairs while he dialed Patrick, though the sigh he let out at the end of the conversation didn’t fill me with confidence. “It worked in a lot of places, but not everywhere. Sonata’s out with a lot of the other talent in the city, trying to keep things calm. I’ll call her from the car.”

  “Talent.” I scraped a little snort of laughter. “Is that what we call ourselves? All the witches and mediums and shamans?”

  “Oh my,” Billy said a bit compulsively. “And, yeah, it is. Joanie.” He touched my shoulder as we hit the parking lot, and I turned back to him with a frown. “What happened with Morrison?”

  For a few seconds the question just didn’t make sense. Then understanding flooded me, and color burned my face. “Nothing. Nothing. Morrison and I are fine. It’s Thor. I—we—we just broke up.”

  Dismay made Billy’s face long. “Oh. Oh, crap. I’m sorry, Joanne. I thought things were going pretty well for you two. What happened?”

  I looked down at myself. I was wearing a bulletproof vest and a gun, and a still-glowing sword at my hip. I could see hints of light from my necklace and bracelet, and if I thought about it I could feel the weight of my esoteric shield on my left arm. The Sight washed on, making all of those things much clearer, and I lifted my gaze again to meet Billy’s, knowing full well my eyes had gone gold and spooky. “What do you think happened?”

  “Yeah,” he said after a long minute. “Yeah, I guess I can see that. Sorry.”

  “Yeah.” I pulled the rapier from my hip and tossed it into Petite’s backseat. “So am I.”

  My apartment was only a five-minute drive from the precinct building. I ran up the stairs, noticing that the vest’s extra weight didn’t slow me down. It would have, not that long ago. I’d become studly sometime in the last year. I grabbed my drum and thudded back down five stories while phoning Gary. “You said you didn’t want to miss out on any more fun stuff. Does fighting off hordes of undead sound like fun?”

  “Lady, you got a weird idea of fun.” Gary sounded thrilled. “Where’re we meeting?”

  “That depends on where you are.”

  “Home, but I can get into the city fast.” Gary lived in a three-bedroom ranch-style house on the edge of Bellevue. It’d been paid off thirty years ago and recently renovated. I figured if he sold the place he’d be a millionaire.

  “I’m in Petite. It’ll be faster for me to come get you.” That wasn’t precisely true, but I no longer had Doherty on my tail and I had a serious urge to bury my sorrows in speed. The one danger in driving like a bat out of hell—aside from the inherent danger of driving like a bat out of hell, that is—was that Petite was a very recognizable car. There weren’t that many liquid purple classic Mustangs out there, and only one of them had a license plate reading PETITE. Still, I’d yet to meet the cop car I couldn’t outrun, and I might even get away with claiming police business if I did get caught. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. If you’ve got a shotgun, bring it along.”

  “Fifteen? Since when do you have a transporter bea—”

  I hung up and made it to Gary’s house in eleven and a half minutes. He was waiting outside the front door, a sawed-off shotgun over one shoulder and an expression of disapproving delight marring his features. I didn’t bother killing the engine, letting Petite grumble as Gary slid the gun into the backseat with my sword, then crawled in the passenger side to say, “What kept you?”

  “The bridge slowed me down.” At least there hadn’t been any zombies on it, just ordinary traffic. I filled him in on the day as I sped back into Seattle proper, ending with, “So I want you to drum me under for the séance. If we can get anything from Chan, then we go monster hunting.”

  “What if we don’t?” It was possible I was driving too fast. Classic Mustangs didn’t have oh-shit handles, but Gary kept
reaching for one. “And you think I drive by using the Force?”

  “At least I look where I’m going.” We spun out coming into the museum parking lot, though if it hadn’t been empty I wouldn’t have indulged. Look, driving fast cars was the next best thing to sex, and I’d just written off any hope of a sex life for the foreseeable future. I wanted my thrills where I could take them.

  Gary let go a bellow that sounded one part terrified and two parts excited, then fell back in his seat, clutching his heart. “I had a heart attack four months ago, you crazy dame!”

  I called up a handful of healing magic and thumped my hand over his, against his chest. It fluttered and sank in, and I smiled. “Yeah, and the doctor said you’ve now got the heart of a twenty-five-year-old. You can handle a joyride or two, Muldoon.”

  “You’re dangerous, lady.”

  “You have no idea.” I got out of the car not knowing why I’d said that, but it made me feel strong and confident, which, right then, I was glad of. Gary collected his gun and my drum. I put the rapier back on and looked up to find him frowning at me.

  “The dye’s smearing, Jo. Didja get it wet?” He tested the drum’s surface just like I had two nights ago, and found it as taut and smooth as it had ever been.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong. I think it’s…” All my confidence drained away. “I dunno. I always thought that was a wolf, but now I’m wondering if it’s a coyote and it’s been ruined because he’s gone.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Jo, that sounds…” I could see him struggling between a couple choices of words: silly was one, and like magic was the other. Both were true. It sounded silly and it sounded like magic. Gary shrugged his bushy gray eyebrows. “Guess that could be it, then.”

  “Yeah.” We sat down together on the museum’s front steps and I nerved myself up to take a look at the city with the Sight. I didn’t think I could see holy water sprinkling down and washing the cauldron’s black goo out of the air, but at least I should be able to see where the stuff had been washed away.