That’s not fair. Wasn’t this what I was afraid of? I sighed, and put away the Beretta. I didn’t want to feel sorry for him, but I did.
I stared into his brilliant green eyes, and felt that he was telling the truth. I had no reason to trust him beyond our initial encounter, which may or may not have been something he’d set up. There was still a question about why I’d passed out when I’d met him.
I could feel the power—magic, or whatever—emanating from him, just like when I was around Abe. He didn’t mean to hurt us, or he would’ve done it already. I couldn’t imagine what he could hope to gain by creating the whole scenario today.
Gut instinct told me he really was lost, and looking for a way back. Since I’d seen right through his seduction routine, I assumed I would be able to see through any of his other tricks too.
“I don’t see how I can help.”
“Bless you!” He got to his feet right away. “I need a place such as this to recuperate, and regain my strength. I cannot imagine anyone would think to search for me here. The ghost likes me not, but I believe I may aid her as well.”
“Aid her?”
“She is very strong. She must learn to harness that strength. She could almost be her human self, which I discern as someone to fear, with a little knowledge.”
He was right about Addie being someone to fear! I’d been terrified of her when I’d first met Jacob. I wasn’t sure that was something I wanted him to do, but it could only be good for Kate.
“As for you, my good lady.” He touched my face carefully. “I sense you are in the thrall of some foul magic. When I have regained my power, I shall free you.”
“Foul magic?”
He bent and touched my foot. My heel tingled. “It is there the demon has you, is it not?”
“Sit down, Lucas.”
He bowed again. “After you, lady.”
He had some idea of what was going on anyway. I thought it might be better if I explained that there was no foul magic involved. It was good magic.
Lucas frowned as I explained about Abe, and how I was still alive. “This is not good magic, my lady. This is—something else. I shall need to recover more fully to understand your situation, yet I swear to free you from it.”
“Then I’d be dead.”
He put his hand to his head. “Let me consider your plight.”
“I only told you so we’re clear on my ‘magic’. Without Abe, I’m magic-less—or whatever you call it. Right now, things are working for me. Don’t screw it up. I’ll help you figure out what your problem is, as much as I can. But no more tricks from you. No illusion or seduction or glamour. I’ve seen vampire movies.”
“I swear an oath not to use magic on you, or your family,” he vowed, all but crossing his heart and hoping to die. His face was tense and serious.
“I’ll give you a few days.” I managed to frown, and make my words gruff and to the point, despite him looking like a woeful reject from a Halloween party. “You can’t hole up here forever.”
“You have a good heart.” He took my hand. “I swear you will not regret your kindness to a passing stranger.”
When he touched my hand, something like static electricity zinged between us, and I snatched it back from him.
“You promised no magic,” I reminded him.
“And I used none.” But his slow smile was sly. “There is magic, Skye, and there is magic. Some, between a man and a woman, is only natural.”
“Well, keep the natural kind of magic to yourself too.”
“You need not fear me.”
“I don’t.” I grabbed his shirt collar. “But if you screw up my life, you may need to fear me!”
Chapter Eleven
I wasn’t sure about leaving Lucas alone with Addie and Kate, but Addie told me she could handle the situation. I was eager to talk to Martin about Mr. Welk, and Abe’s reaction to the death, so I took her at her word.
“You know he says he can help you.” Kate and Lucas were watching TV.
“Help me?” Her face showed her distaste. “Only if he knows how to do maintenance on this old place, and is good at cutting grass!”
I didn’t think I had to worry about him charming her.
I told Kate I was going out to work. She smiled, and kissed me goodnight. “Come and tuck me in when you get back? No matter what time it is. Promise.”
“I will. Don’t stay up too late, and listen to Grandma.”
“I will.”
I hugged her, and started toward the back of the house.
Lucas came quickly behind me. “I offer my services, if I might be of aid. My sword is yours.”
The idea made me grin. “I don’t think so. Thanks anyway.”
He was upset by my refusal. “I realize that I am not as powerful as your friend, Abe, but I may still be of use.”
“I’m sure you could be. But this is gonna be two officers of the law discussing a case the old-fashioned way. I don’t think magic would really make a difference. Maybe you should work on trying to figure out who you are, and how you got here, instead.”
He nodded, but he wasn’t happy about it. “Of course. Goodnight, Skye.”
I thought about him as I left the house, and got back on the dark highway. Sorcerers and zombies—two things I never thought I’d need to understand.
***
I met Martin at an old tavern. The building was run down, but lights blazed from inside. I heard laughter and music as I got out of the van.
It had started raining right before I arrived. That meant some slick spots on the road as temperatures dropped. It could be bad getting home, but I figured it was worth it if Martin knew something, or we could work out some details together.
I went inside, and glanced around in the dimly lit, smoky bar. As usual, my old law enforcement instincts kicked in.
The clientele seated at the bar and tables were seedy. I pegged one as a drug dealer, and another one as an escaped felon. There was at least one nervous-looking man, with a suspicious bulge in his jacket. He was running from the law.
An angry, pathetic-looking woman stared at the door as though she was waiting for her boyfriend or husband. From the look on her face, I’d say she had nothing good in mind for him.
None of those things were my problem anymore. The only thing that mattered was that there was only one other zombie there, and it was Martin.
I joined him at the table he’d secured near the back, which gave him clear sight of everything going on in the bar. “Nice place. Come here often?”
He chuckled. “Best whiskey in town. Guaranteed to rot your liver quick.”
A woman in tight jeans, her bleached blond hair showing dark roots, tossed a dirty glass on the wood table. “What’ll you have?”
“What have you got?”
“Whiskey and beer.” She stared at the ceiling as though my choice meant very little to her.
“Beer. Thanks.”
She shuffled away. I stared at Martin, waiting for him to speak.
“Life is weird, Skye,” he mused. “Zombies are only on late night movies, right?”
“Nah. They’re everywhere now. Not our kind, but the brain-sucking ones. I saw a romance novel with zombies falling in love.”
“At least we don’t have to suck brains.” The waitress dropped off my beer. Martin saluted her with his empty glass. “I’ll have another, Cissy.”
She nodded, and was gone again.
A few paranoid-looking men were playing pool at the back of the bar. Their furtive eyes kept roaming the room as though they were expecting trouble.
The woman near the door was crying as she put some money into an old jukebox to play a romantic tune from the 1980s.
“So what’s up?” I finally asked him. Whatever it was, he seemed reluctant to talk about it. I hoped I didn’t have to coax it out of him.
He waited for Cissy to refill his glass. When she’d left us again, he nodded. “You young folks. Always in a hurry. What have you got
better to do than share a drink with an old friend?”
“Go home and drink hot chocolate with my daughter.”
“That’s right. I wish I had someone in my life who could anchor me to everything. My wife has been dead so long I can hardly recall her face. I don’t see my kids. I guess they don’t really want to see me either.”
I sighed, feeling bad for him, but not bad enough to sit here all night. “Martin—you called me.”
“I know.” He swallowed the whiskey down in one gulp, and finally seemed to get his thoughts together. “Mr. Welk this afternoon. There have been more of those deaths.”
“You mean murdered zombies that belong to Abe. How do you know?”
“I looked it up.”
“How the hell did you do that? Do you have some kind of zombie directory?”
He glanced around like the conversation made him nervous. “I had a chance to copy some pages from a file on Abe’s desk one day. I took it. I don’t have his zombie workforce, but I have enough to know that five of us have died in the last two weeks.”
I thought about what he was saying. No wonder Abe was so angry to see Mr. Welk in that condition. “Did they all die the same way?”
He nodded. “It seems Abe’s promises about twenty years aren’t always ones he can keep.”
“Someone is after him. I could see it in his face today. He knows who it is, too.” I tipped my glass in his direction. “Mr. Welk just happened to be on the end of his twenty year cycle, or we might not have known for a long time. I take it the rest weren’t scheduled to go yet.”
“I don’t think so.”
The sad, slow song on the jukebox slowly died away. The woman near the door was sobbing loudly now. No one even glanced in her direction.
“Got any ideas about what to do?” I asked Martin.
He shrugged. “It’s not like the law, Skye. It’s something I love about being a deputy. Everything is black and white, wrong and right. I don’t know where I am anymore with that. I do what Abe tells me. Sometimes I don’t believe I think for myself at all.”
“I saw him today with Mr. Welk. I’ve never seen him angry before. He knows what’s happening. Maybe he doesn’t know how to stop it.”
“I checked with the homicide detectives who are working the cases with the other zombies. There was a gold wedding band found with each of them.” Martin signaled Cissy for another drink.
I leaned closer to him. “Abe had me check on who called in Mr. Welk’s death. It was a woman named Mary Gable. Sound familiar?”
“Not to me. I can check back through the files I took.”
“You think she’s another zombie?”
“It would make sense. That’s the only connection these folks have that I could find. Maybe one of us started feelin’ like he’d been treated unfairly, and decided to take it out on the others.”
“You could do some research into that.” I finished my beer, and glanced around the tavern again. “You might be right. Abe might not be able to protect us from Mary Gable— or whoever is ripping out zombie hearts. We might need to take that on ourselves.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” Cissy brought another whiskey and Martin swallowed it before she’d had time to get back to the bar. “You know, sometimes I wonder why I even took Abe up on his deal. What do I want with another twenty years?”
“It’s a chance to make things right with your kids before you go,” I suggested. “Twenty years is a long time. You could climb Mount Everest, hike through a South American jungle, or find a lost pirate treasure.”
He smiled at me as though he was considering the possibilities. “Nah. I don’t want to do any of those things. I’m just a selfish old bastard who wanted to squeeze in a few more times getting drunk and falling asleep in my underwear in front of the TV. Those other things make my head hurt.”
I shrugged. “To each his own. Let me know what you find out. I’ll keep you updated from my end.”
Martin surprised me when he got to his feet and hugged me. It was one of those awkward, wooden movements, but I could see in his eyes that it meant something to him.
I hugged him back as he patted my shoulder.
“Look at me.” He wiped a tear from his eye and sniffled. “I think being a zombie has made me an emotional mess. Take care, Skye. I’ll talk to you later.”
“You too.” I glanced toward the door. The crying woman was gone. Two more men walked in with half dressed women hanging on them. It was time for me to leave. “Goodnight, Martin.”
I appreciated the fresh air as I walked outside. The rain had stopped after coating everything with a thin veil of ice. I had to pound on the van door to get it open, and the windows didn’t want to defrost. Still, it was better than active freezing rain. Kate would be disappointed in the morning when there was school—unless the ice started up again later.
The crying woman from inside was splayed on the hood of her car. Smarter me would have ignored her. Maybe Martin was right about being a zombie making a person more emotional. I got out of the van, walked over to her, and asked if she was okay, even though it wasn’t my job.
When she didn’t respond, I shook her a little. She was in no shape to drive, even on clear roads. “Ma’am?”
She slid to the frozen pavement at my feet. I checked her pulse. She was not only dead, but stone cold already. Common sense told me it wasn’t possible. She hadn’t been out here that long.
Her yellow-tinged eyes were open, with tears frozen at the corners of them. Her wild, white hair almost stood straight up on her head. Her mouth was very large and red compared to the pallor of her skin.
Something wasn’t right. She wasn’t a zombie, but maybe something else that I hadn’t encountered. When parents told their kids not to be afraid of the dark, they lied. There were things out there that couldn’t be explained, and should definitely be feared.
I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. I was alone in the parking lot with her. I pulled out my phone, and sent Martin a text. He’d be better able to handle this situation than me.
The door to the motley tavern opened. Martin waved when he saw me. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. She was out here on the car when I found her.” I stared hard into his eyes. “She’s already cold, but she hasn’t been dead that long. I’m not sure what we should do with her.”
“Maybe not a normal ambulance call, hmm?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.” I took a deep breath, not wanting to volunteer but not seeing any other way around it. “I could take her to Abe. Maybe he could figure it out.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Are you sure? You’re a zombie, but you can still die.”
“I’m sure.” He grinned. “She looks like a party girl to me. Maybe she and I can have a little party of our own. You go on home to your daughter. I’ll stay until I hear back from Abe. We’ll see what he thinks.”
“Thanks.” I started toward the van.
“It never goes away, does it?” He called out after me. “That urge to figure it out, and help when you see someone who needs it. It doesn’t matter what Abe says. You and me and Jacob—God rest his soul—we were all made that way.”
“I guess so. Goodnight, Martin.”
Chapter Twelve
Kate was still up when I got home. Addie indulged her whenever she could. If it meant staying up late or eating too many sweets, she was the typical grandmother.
“I’m glad you’re back.” Kate hugged me. “I didn’t want to go to bed until I knew you were safe.”
I glanced at Addie. She shrugged and disappeared. “What made you think I wasn’t safe?”
“I don’t know. I worry about you, Mommy. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
“I don’t think that’s a good excuse for staying up too late on a school night.” I kept my tone light and teasing, but her words had hit a nerve. I didn’t want her to worry about me. That wasn’t her job.
We w
ent upstairs to her room, and I read her a story. Kate stared at the ceiling with her bunny friend in her arms as I read.
When I was finished, she asked, “What would happen to me if you died?”
“Where is all of this coming from?” I looked into her pretty face. “Did someone say something at school?”
I was envisioning kids teasing her because she only had one parent or because her mother was a zombie taxi driver. I knew there was no way anyone could know that. Your mind plays tricks on you when you let it.
“One of the girls in my class. Her name is Judy. Her mother died. Her dad came to get her at school. Everyone was crying.” Kate drew a deep breath. “If you died, no one could come and get me. Grandma can’t leave the house. What would happen?”
Was this one of those times to be brutally honest? It’s always so hard to tell.
“You’d be taken care of,” I assured her, landing somewhere between honesty and not really knowing what to say. “But you don’t have to worry about it. Nothing is going to happen to me until you’re grown up.”
“Maybe Judy’s mom thought nothing was going to happen to her either.”
“Maybe she did.” I stared into her eyes. “But I know for sure nothing is going to happen to me. You never have to think about that again.”
She sniffed. “Did Daddy think something would happen to him?”
I hugged her close, my throat raw with unshed tears. “No. He didn’t. But sometimes angels make special arrangements for parents to stay alive.”
“Is that what you did?”
“That’s exactly what I did.” I kissed her forehead, and turned off the light next to her bed. “Everything is going to be fine. Now go to sleep. You’ve got that spelling test tomorrow.”
She groaned. “Does that mean I have to eat oatmeal for breakfast?”
“That’s right. You have to eat oatmeal when you’re having a test. Goodnight, Kate.”
“Goodnight, Mommy. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I stood outside her room for a long time, thinking about what she’d said. I couldn’t break down every time Kate talked about Jacob. I had to be stronger. I had to fulfill my promise to keep everything together, and stay alive, until she grew up.
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