The Laughing Corpse abvh-2

by Laurell Kaye Hamilton

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “Then you put the soul back in the rotted corpse, and the zombie was aware and alive again. Did the rotting stop when the soul went back in?”

  “Yes. “

  Shit. “So you could keep the zombie over there rotted just that much forever?”

  “Yes.”

  Double shit. “And this one?” I pointed this time, like I was doing a lecture.

  “Many people would pay dearly for her.”

  “Wait a minute, you mean sell her as a sex slave?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “But...” The idea was too horrible. She was a zombie, which meant she didn’t need to eat or sleep or anything. You could keep her in a closet and take her out like a toy. A perfectly obedient slave.

  “Are they as obedient as normal zombies, or does the soul give them free will?”

  “They seem to be very obedient.”

  “Maybe they’re just scared of you,” I said.

  She smiled. “Perhaps.”

  “You can’t just keep the soul imprisoned forever.”

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “The soul needs to go on.”

  “To your Christian heaven or hell?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “These were wicked women, chica. Their own families gave them to me. Paid me to punish them.”

  “You took money for this?”

  “It is illegal to tamper with dead bodies without permission of the family,” she said.

  I don’t know if she had planned to horrify me. Maybe not. But with that one sentence she let me know that what she was doing was perfectly legal. The dead had no rights. This was the reason we needed some laws to protect zombies. Shit.

  “No one deserves to spend eternity locked in a corpse,” I said.

  “We could do this to criminals on death row, chica. They could be made to serve society after death.”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s wrong.”

  “I have created a non-rotting zombie, chica. Animators, I believe you call yourselves, have been searching for the secret for years. I have it, and people will pay for it.”

  “It’s wrong. I may not know much about voodoo, but even among your own people, it’s wrong. How can you keep the souls prisoner and not allow them to go on and join with the lao?”

  She shrugged and sighed. She suddenly looked tired. “I was hoping, chica, that you would help me. With two of us working, we could create more zombies much faster. We could be wealthy beyond our dreams.”

  “You’ve asked the wrong girl.”

  “I see that now. I had hoped that since you were not vaudun, you would not see it as wrong.”

  “Christian, Buddhist, Moslem, you name it, Dominga, no one’s going to think it’s all right.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. It does not hurt to ask.”

  I glanced at the rotted zombie. “At least put your first experiment out of its misery.”

  Dominga glanced at the zombie. “She makes a powerful demonstration, does she not?”

  “You’ve created a non-rotting zombie, great. Don’t be sadistic.”

  “You think I am being cruel?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Manuel, am I being cruel?”

  Manny stared at me while he answered. His eyes were trying to tell me something. I couldn’t tell what. “Yes, Seсora, you are being cruel.”

  She glanced over at him then, surprise in the movement of her body, her face. “Do you really think I am cruel, Manuel? Your beloved amante?”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes.”

  “You were not so quick to judge a few years back, Manuel. You slew the white goat for me, more than once.”

  I turned towards Manny. It was like that moment in a movie where the main character has a revelation about someone. There should be music and camera angles when you learn one of your best friends participated in human sacrifice. More than once she had said. More than once.

  “Manny?” My voice was a hoarse whisper. This, for me, was worse than the zombies. The hell with strangers. This was Manny, and it couldn’t be true.

  “Manny?” I said it again. He wouldn’t look at me. Bad sign.

  “You didn’t know, chica? Didn’t your Manny tell you of his past?”

  “Shut up,” I said.

  “He was my most treasured helper. He would have done anything for me.”

  Shut up!” I screamed it at her. She stopped, her face thinning with anger. Enzo took two steps into the altar area. “Don’t.” I wasn’t even sure who I was saying it to. “I need to hear from him, not from you.”

  The anger was still in her face. Enzo loomed like an avalanche about to be unleashed. Dominga gave one sharp nod. “Ask him then, chica.”

  “Manny, is she telling the truth? Did you perform human sacrifices?” My voice sounded so normal. It shouldn’t have. My stomach was so tight, it hurt. I wasn’t afraid anymore, or at least not of Dominga. The truth; I was afraid of the truth.

  He looked up. His hair fell across his face framing his eyes. A lot of pain in those eyes. Almost flinching.

  “It’s the truth, isn’t it?” My skin felt cold. “Answer me, dammit.” My voice still sounded ordinary, calm.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Yes, you committed human sacrifice?”

  He glared at me now, anger helping him meet my eyes. “Yes, Yes!”

  It was my turn to look away. “God, Manny, how could you?” My voice was soft now, not ordinary. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounded like I was on the verge of tears.

  “It was nearly twenty years ago, Anita. I was vaudun and a necromancer. I believed. I loved the Seсora. Thought I did.”

  I stared up at him. The look on his face made my throat tight. “Manny, dammit.”

  He didn’t say anything. He just stood there looking miserable. And I couldn’t reconcile the two images. Manny Rodriguez and someone who would slaughter the hornless goat in a ritual. He had taught me right from wrong in this business. He had refused to do so many things. Things not half as bad as this. It made no sense.

  I shook my head. “I can’t deal with this right now.” I heard myself say it out loud, and hadn’t really meant to. “Fine, you’ve dropped your little bombshell, Seсora Salvador. You said you’d help us, if I passed your test. Did I pass?” When in doubt, concentrate on one disaster at a time.

  “I wanted to offer you a chance to help me with my new business venture.”

  “We both know I’m not going to do that,” I said.

  “It is a pity, Anita. With training you could rival my powers.”

  Be just like her when I grew up. No thanks. “Thanks anyway, but I’m happy where I am.”

  Her eyes flicked to Manny, back to me. “Happy?”

  “Manny and I will deal with it, Seсora. Now will you help me?”

  “If I help you without you helping me in some way, you will owe me a favor.”

  I didn’t want to owe her a favor. “I would rather just trade information.”

  “What could you possibly know that would be worth all the effort I will expend hunting for your killer zombie?”

  I thought about that for a moment. “I know that legislation is being written right now, about zombies. Zombies are going to have rights, and laws protecting them soon.” I hoped it was soon. No need to tell her how early in the process the legislation was.

  “So, I must sell a few non-rotting zombies soon, before it becomes illegal.”

  “I wouldn’t think illegal would bother you much. Human sacrifice is illegal, too.”

  She gave a tiny smile. “I do not do such things anymore, Anita. I have given up my wicked ways.”

  I didn’t believe that, and she knew I didn’t believe it. Her smile widened. “When Manuel left, I stopped such evil practices. Without his urgings, I became a respectable bokar.”

  She was lying, but I couldn’t prove it. And she knew that, too. “I gave you valuable information. Now will you
help me?”

  She nodded graciously. “I will search among my followers to see if any knows of your killer zombie.” I had the sense that she was quietly laughing at me.

  “Manny, will she help us?”

  “If the Seсora says she will do a thing, it will be done. She is good that way.”

  “I will find your killer if it has anything to do with vaudun,” she said.

  “Great.” I didn’t say thank you, because it seemed wrong. I wanted to call her a bitch and shoot her between the eyes, but then I would have had to shoot Enzo, too. And how would I explain that to the police? She was breaking no laws. Dammit.

  “I don’t suppose appealing to your better nature would make you forget this mad scheme to use your new improved zombies for slaves?”

  She smiled. “Chica, chica, I will be rich beyond your wildest dreams. You can refuse to join me, but you cannot stop me.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” I said.

  “What will you do, go to the police? I am breaking no laws. The only way to stop me is to kill me.” She looked directly at me while she said it.

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  Manny moved up beside me. “Don’t, Anita, don’t challenge her.”

  I was sort of mad at him, too, so what the hell. “I will stop you, Seсora Salvador. Whatever it takes.”

  “You call death magic against me, Anita, and it is you who will die.”

  I didn’t know death magic from frijoles. I shrugged. “I was thinking something more down to earth, like a bullet.”

  Enzo surged into the altar area, moving to stand between his boss-lady and me. Dominga stopped him. “No, Enzo, she is angry this morning, and shocked.” Her eyes were still laughing at me. “She knows nothing of the deeper magics. She cannot harm me, and she is too morally superior to commit cold-blooded murder.”

  The worst part about it was that she was right. I couldn’t just put a bullet between her eyes, not unless she threatened me. I glanced at the waiting zombies, patient as the dead, but underneath that endless patience was fear, and hope, and...God, the line between life and death was getting thinner all the time.

  “At least lay to rest your first experiment. You’ve proved you can put the soul in and out multiple times. Don’t make her watch.”

  “But, Anita, I already have a buyer for her.”

  “Oh, Jesus, you don’t mean...oh, God, a necrophiliac.”

  “Those that love the dead better than you or I ever will, will pay extraordinary amounts for such as her.”

  Maybe I could just shoot her. “You are a cold-hearted, amoral bitch.”

  “And you, chica, need to learn respect for your elders.”

  “Respect has to be earned,” I said.

  “I think, Anita Blake, that you need to remember why people fear the dark. I will see that very soon you have a visitor to your window. Some dark night when you are fast asleep in your warm, safe bed. Something evil will creep into your room. I will earn your respect, if that is the way you want it.”

  I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. I was angry and wanted to go home. “You can force people to be afraid of you, Seсora, but you can’t force them to respect you.”

  “We shall see, Anita. Call me after you have gotten my gift. It will be soon.”

  “Will you still help locate the killer zombie?”

  “I said I would, and I will.”

  “Good,” I said. “May we go now?”

  She waved Enzo back beside her. “By all means run out into the daylight where you can be brave.”

  I walked to the pathway. Manny stayed right with me. We were careful not to look at each other. We were too busy watching the Seсora and her pets. I stopped just inside the path. Manny touched my arm lightly, as if he knew what I was about to say. I ignored him.

  “I may not be willing to kill you in cold blood, but hurt me first, and I’ll put a bullet in you some bright, sunshiny day.”

  “Threats will not save you, chica,” she said.

  I smiled sweetly. “You either, bitch.”

  Her face went all thin and angry. I smiled wider.

  “She does not mean it, Seсora,” Manny said. “She will not kill you.”

  “Is this true, chica?” Her voice was a rich growl of sound, pleasant and frightening at the same time.

  I gave Manny a quick dirty look. It was a good threat. I didn’t like weakening it with common sense, or truth. “I said, I’d shoot you. I didn’t say I’d kill you. Now did I?”

  “No, you did not.”

  Manny grabbed my arm and started pulling me backwards towards the stairs. He was pulling on my left arm, leaving my right free for my gun. Just in case.

  Dominga never moved. Her black, angry eyes stared at me until we rounded the corner. Manny pulled me into the hallway with its cement covered doors. I pulled free of him. We stared at each other for a heartbeat.

  “What’s behind the doors?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Doubt must have shown on my face because he said, “God as my witness, Anita, I don’t know. It wasn’t like this twenty years ago.”

  I just stared at him as if looking would change things. I wish Dominga Salvador had kept Manny’s secret to herself. I had not wanted to know.

  “Anita, we have to get out of here, now.” The light bulb over our head went out, like someone had snuffed it. We both looked up. There was nothing to see. My arms broke out in goose bumps. The bulb just ahead of us dimmed, then blinked off.

  Manny was right. We needed to leave now. I broke into a half jog towards the stairs. Manny stayed with me. The door with its shiny padlock rattled and thumped as if the thing were trying to get out. Another light bulb flashed off. The darkness was snapping at our heels. We were at a full run by the time we hit the stairs. There were two bulbs left.

  We were halfway up the stairs when the last light vanished. The world went black. I froze on the stairs unwilling to move without being able to see. Manny’s arm brushed mine, but I couldn’t see him. The darkness was complete. I could have touched my eyeballs and not seen my finger. We grabbed hands and held on. His hand wasn’t much bigger than mine. It was warm and familiar, and damn comforting.

  The cracking of wood was loud as a shotgun blast in the dark. The stench of rotting meat filled the stairwell. “Shit!” The word echoed and bounced in the blackness. I wished I hadn’t said it. Something large pulled itself into the corridor. It couldn’t be as big as it sounded. The wet, slithering sounds moved towards the stairs. Or sounded like they did.

  I stumbled up two steps. Manny didn’t need any urging. We stumbled through the darkness, and the sounds below hurried. The light under the door was so bright, it almost hurt. Manny flung open the door. The sunlight blazed against my eyes. We were both momentarily blinded.

  Something screamed behind us, caught in the edge of daylight. The scream was almost human. I started to turn, to look. Manny slammed the door. He shook his head. “You don’t want to see. I don’t want to see.”

  He was right. So why did I have this urge to yank the door open, to stare down into the dark until I saw something pale and shapeless? A screaming nightmare of a sight. I stared at the closed door, and I let it go.

  “Do you think it will come out after us?” I asked.

  “Into the daylight?” Manny asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I don’t think so. Let’s leave without finding out.”

  I agreed. The August sunlight streamed into the living room. Warm and real. The scream, the darkness, the zombies, all of it seemed wrong for the sunlight. Things that go bump in the morning. It didn’t sound quite right.

  I opened the screen door calmly, slowly. Panicked, me? But I was listening so hard I could hear blood rush in my ears. Listening for slithery sounds of pursuit. Nothing.

  Antonio was still on guard outside. Should we warn him about the possibility of a Lovecraftian horror nipping at our heels?

  “Did you fuck the zombie downstair
s?” Antonio asked.

  So much for warning old Tony.

  Manny ignored him.

  “Go fuck yourself,” I said.

  He said, “Heh!”

  I kept walking down the porch steps. Manny stayed with me. Antonio didn’t draw his gun and shoot us. The day was looking up.

  The little girl on the tricycle had stopped by Manny’s car. She stared up at me as I got in the passenger side door. I stared back into huge brown eyes. Her face was darkly tanned. She couldn’t have been more than five.

  Manny got in the driver’s side door. He put the car in gear, and we pulled away. The little girl and I stared at each other. Just before we turned the corner she started pedaling up and down the sidewalk again.

  Chapter 7

  The air conditioner blasted cold air into the car. Manny drove through the residential streets. Most of the driveways were empty. People off to work. Small children playing in the yards. A few moms out on the front steps. I didn’t see any daddies at home with the kids. Things change, but not that much. The silence stretched out between us. It was not a comfortable silence.

  Manny glanced at me furtively out of the corner of his eye.

  I slumped in the passenger seat, the seat belt digging across my gun. “So,” I said, “you used to perform human sacrifice.”

  I think he flinched. “Do you want me to lie?”

  “No, I want to not know. I want to live in blessed ignorance.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Anita,” he said.

  “I guess it doesn’t,” I said. I adjusted the lap strap so it didn’t press over my gun. Ah, comfort. If only everything else were that easy to fix. “What are we going to do about it?”

  “About you knowing?” he asked. He glanced at me as he asked. I nodded.

  “You aren’t going to rant and rave? Tell me what an evil bastard I am?”

  “Doesn’t seem much point in it,” I said.

  He looked at me a little longer this time. “Thanks.”

  “I didn’t say it was alright, Manny. I’m just not going to yell at you. Not yet, anyway.”

  He passed a large white car full of dark-skinned teenagers. Their car stereo was up so loud, my teeth rattled. The driver had one of those high-boned, flat faces, straight off of an Aztec carving. Our eyes met as we moved by them. He made kissing motions with his mouth. The others laughed uproariously.