Afterlife: The Resurrection Chronicles

by Merrie Destefano

  “Neville’s running that auction,” the human beast wearing the ancient VR suit said. “And he has your niece.”

  I didn’t realize I was trembling until Angelique took my hand. Blood-hot rage coursed through my veins, forced its way into my chest. I felt like a pressure cooker ready to explode, ready to burst into metallic shrapnel. But I had to hold it in, I had to complete this deal.

  All the way or not at all.

  “Send me your evidence on Neville,” I said, a slight tremor in my voice. “Immediately.” I couldn’t let him know our plans, I had to ask for more. “And give me his coordinates, give me info on the layout of his hideout. Once you send that, we’ll make arrangements for you to get the serum.”

  “Risky. But fair.” He turned and spoke to some invisible companion behind him. He was facing me again. “Okay, you should have it now.”

  I scrolled through my in-box. Found a message titled “For Your Eyes Only: Neville Saturno.” Opened it and read. It was worth the trade. Too bad this guy wasn’t going to get what he asked for.

  “Did you get it?” a voice said in my ear. Skellar.

  “Yes, this is exactly what I wanted,” I said.

  “Good,” Skellar continued in a voice only I could hear. “’Cause my boys got this guy’s place surrounded. They’re gonna cut off all his communications in a second. Can’t have him tippin’ off old Neville. Keep him on the line for another minute or two.”

  “This is good,” I said. “You’re sure Neville has my niece and that he hasn’t hurt her?”

  The VR creature nodded. Silent.

  “Just remember, if you’re lying, immortality won’t protect you from me. I can still make you wish you were never born—”

  Just then his transmission sputtered. He looked over his shoulder as if startled. He didn’t have time to say anything, his VR just zapped out. Gone.

  A moment later Skellar walked back around the corner.

  “We got him.” He was chuckling. “He’s not happy, I can tell you that much. Good catch, Domingue. This guy just happens to be a U.S. senator. Raffaele Greco from New York—looks like the government is involved in this somehow. He’s gonna be fun to interrogate. I had to tell my boys to wait for me. Don’t want to miss this one.”

  “I’d like to be in on that.”

  “It can be arranged,” he answered. Then his face turned serious again, must have just gotten some update from his bust. “Yeah, I figured as much,” he said to one of his boys. Then he glanced up at me. “Your niece ain’t there. At least he was tellin’ ya the truth about that, so there’s a good chance Neville really does have her.”

  Angelique was rubbing her forehead. She leaned against the wall.

  “You okay?” I asked. “Are you sure you’re up for what we have to do?”

  “You won’t find the serum without me.” Her eyes were closed and beads of perspiration glistened on her face. The poison was still working its way out of her system.

  “I told you we could use a placebo—”

  “Do you really want to take a chance with Isabelle’s life?” She unbuttoned her collar and pulled her hair back. Her skin was flushed, like she still had a low-grade fever.

  I walked over to her and cupped her face in mine. She felt like she was on fire. “No,” I answered. “But I don’t want to take a chance with yours either.”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” she said, licking her lips. “You do what you have to and I’ll go to the lab and give myself a shot of antibiotics.”

  “You’ll be ready in about half an hour?”

  She nodded.

  I glanced at Skellar. He grinned. I still couldn’t believe that I trusted him. I think he probably felt the same way.

  “I’ll already be there, waiting,” he said. “You won’t see me, but I’ll be able to see you. And keep your Verse on, that way I’ll be able to hear everything.”

  Pete’s clone lay on the gurney, quiet, waiting for life. Within a few minutes his download would be complete. His new body didn’t look much like the old one, but I wasn’t surprised. Everybody wanted to upgrade. One-Timers stick out in a crowd, with all their pores and pimples and childhood scars. The room filled with a soft glow as the transfer of his memories completed. He was breathing now, slow and rhythmic, peaceful. I almost hated to bring him back here.

  “Wake up. It’s Day One,” I said. I could see Angelique outside the Plexiglas wall. She and Skellar were arguing about something, and it looked like he was winning.

  Pete’s eyes flicked open. Brown eyes, dark hair, skin the color of weathered oak. He looked he could have been my brother. He smiled. It felt strange to have someone recognize me immediately.

  “How you feel?” I asked.

  “Sleepy. Excited.” His voice was different, a shade deeper than before. “Like ten things is goin’ on inside my head at once. Did ya finds Isabelle?”

  “Not yet.”

  He tried to sit up, but I put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not ready yet, bruh. I need you to stay here and rest.”

  He yawned.

  “You might not like it,” I told him, “but right now you’re goin’ back to sleep.”

  “Yur not supposed to uses those Master Keys on me,” he said, yawning again. Then he lay back down and closed his eyes. In less than a minute he fell back to sleep.

  I sighed, wished he was able to come with me. I glanced back through the window. Angelique and Skellar were both gone. It was obvious that they didn’t want to work together, that we were all stretched past our limits. Our chances for success were pretty low, although I refused to admit it, even to myself.

  I glanced at my watch. We had to get in position, fast.

  Isabelle’s auction ended in an hour.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  Angelique:

  Sometimes you die all at once. It’s over before you even see it coming. And then sometimes you die a little bit at a time, a tiny sliver every day. It’s like watching a door close, knowing that outside everybody else is still at the party, the lights are sparkling, the fountain of life is flowing. But inside, it’s growing a little darker by the second.

  That was how I felt right now. Ever since I got shot with that dart.

  Heat flowed through me, my chest tightened. I left Chaz and headed toward the lab, walking on stiff, unresponsive legs. Stopped to lean against a wall, felt my eyes close. I thought I was alone, but I wasn’t.

  “You’re not up to this.”

  My favorite man in blue. Skellar.

  “Maybe none of us are up to it,” I answered, my voice weaker than I expected. “But that doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “You’re a liability. You’re not even fully cooked. What day are ya on?”

  I frowned. “Is that was this is about? The fact that I’m a Newbie?” I realized that we were right outside the resurrection chamber, I could see Chaz and Pete through the Plexiglas. I turned my back to the window. “Or maybe you’re just trying to find out where I put the key to eternal life. So you can slink over there and take it for yourself.”

  Skellar grinned, a nightmarish sight as we stood alone in shadowy halls. “You don’t trust me, do ya?”

  The fever felt like it was rising, my throat was dry. “For some reason, Chaz trusts you,” I said finally, “and he’s the quarterback on our little team, so—”

  He pushed his face closer to mine, lowered his voice to a threatening whisper. “You wouldn’t be doin’ all this to get back at Russ, now, would ya? Cause there’s a little girl out there that needs some help. If I find out that ya’ll are just playin’ some double-cross trick, you won’t get no next life. I got my own connections, sister, I’ll make sure ya jump into an infected clone.”

  I felt a chill wash over me. I wished I could credit Skellar and his feeble threat, but I knew it was the fever, moving on to the next level. I closed my eyes again.

  “You better go get your meds,” he said, almost as a concession when I didn’t reply. “But just remembe
r, I’m gonna be watchin’ ya. If I see you do anything suspicious, I’ll take ya down myself. You won’t need to worry ’bout your old pal Neville.”

  “Glad you’re on my team, Lieutenant,” I said.

  And I walked away.

  I stood in the doorway, squinting when the fluorescent lights flashed on, bathing the room in a garish brilliance. The desks were in the same place, the computer monitors dark. The left side of the room was still lined with empty cages.

  I forced my body to move, to obey my commands. It wanted to stay out in the hall, it wanted to run away. A scream lodged in my throat, deep inside, like it was caught and couldn’t get out. I passed the spot where I fell, four days ago.

  Where Russ pinned me to the ground and strangled me.

  A dark shadow seemed to move through the room, following me. At times I felt a chill, like it touched me, draped a black hand on my shoulder. Memories of my own death haunted me. I could almost hear the screams—my own—the lungful of air that I should have bellowed when he attacked me. But I didn’t cry out. At least I don’t remember if I did.

  I flung a drawer open and grabbed a syringe, rifled through a bank of refrigerated cabinets until I found some antibiotics. I hastily filled the syringe and gave myself a shot. Then I grabbed an extra syringe, stuffed it in my pocket.

  Might as well be prepared to introduce Neville to eternity.

  I paused beside the cages; one door hung open. Omega’s cage.

  I knelt beside it, imagined that I could see his chestnut-brown eyes peering at me through the bars. He always watched me with hope in his eyes. Maybe he had known that I wanted to help him. And that I loved him.

  Maybe he felt the same way.

  I stood, my legs wobbly, my head spinning. I wondered if Omega and his pack were still roaming around the City of the Dead.

  Dear God, I hope not. Please, let him be back in the bayou, or in some dark alley. Don’t let him get anywhere near Neville and his Backatown demons. Not today. Not ever.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  Omega:

  A sea of broken-down cars glistened in the noonday sun; overhead, a competition of hazy blue and gold, underneath, a metallic accordion of rusted fenders, broken taillights and shattered windshields. Patches of dry grass bristled between flat tires; hoods and trunks hung open like lizards yawning in a sun-dappled swamp.

  Omega and his pack lounged in the shade of three ancient Cadillacs, the cars piled on top of one another like the tiers of a chrome wedding cake. The dogs lay panting, mouths open, ears back. People didn’t wander through the junkyard very often. They didn’t seem interested in the old cars. Occasionally a rabbit or a squirrel had the misfortune to come scurrying past. But they never made it back it out again.

  A gentle breeze sifted through the canyon of automobile carcasses. Omega lifted his nose, sniffed.

  Something was coming. He’d felt it all day, like a tremor in the earth’s skin. He could feel it in his paws, could almost taste it, sharp, on the back of his tongue.

  A taste like blood.

  It made him hungry and cautious.

  He trotted over to a puddle and drank, water falling from his muzzle when he finally lifted his head. The air blew cold and brisk. He glanced at the Others. Two of the males and one female were sleeping. His mate met his gaze. She watched him almost all the time now, ever since she’d died and he brought her back.

  Since he stole her from Death.

  She rested her head on her front paws, but her eyes continued to follow his movements. He lifted his snout and took another deep breath. The river of air was changing, currents shifting, he could almost see a dark pattern taking shape overhead. Swirling, sinuous. Dangerous. His muscles tensed and his hackles rose. He raised his head to the sky and howled, long, mournful.

  The Others were awake now, standing up, watching him. They all began to howl.

  It was coming, whatever it was, and it would be here soon.

  Omega padded off, following the currents. The Others tried to follow him, but he turned and barked, teeth bared. They all backed up, sat down at the edge of the junkyard. Only his mate refused. She stayed far enough away that he couldn’t see her.

  He continued to follow the river of air, knew where it would lead him.

  And as long as his mate stayed far enough behind him, where no one else would see her, then she would be safe. The taste of blood was strong in his mouth now.

  And on top of it, he could smell her. The woman who had given him eternal life.

  She was coming back to the City of the Dead.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  Chaz:

  Light fell like sparks from heaven; it grazed sun-bleached tombs, cast staccato shadows through rusted gates. It fell in radiant beams between the vaults built to look like tiny houses replete with iron fences. It exposed narrow paths that stretched through this village of the dead, twists and turns hidden from view, where murderers and muggers often lurked. But the faithful and the curious still came. Even in the daylight, votive candles burned a quiet testimonial. They glimmered between cloth bags filled with dried herbs, chicken bones and hoodoo money.

  The fragrance of death hung in the air, a scent old and fragile, like papery flesh.

  “Over here.”

  Angelique walked ahead of me through the maze of stone monuments. Her long silvery-blonde hair caught in the breeze, seemed to float around her like she was a mermaid swimming through a coral reef. An ache centered in my chest when I watched her pause at a turn in the path. Despite all the confidence I had allowed myself up to this point, I knew now that this still might not work. Neville might refuse to make the trade. Maybe he never really cared about immortality. Maybe he was just doing what his boss told him to do, and now that we had his boss in custody, the parameters of this game were going to change.

  Angelique glanced back at me, her face flushed, her cheeks a deep pink. The fever never really left. She should be back in the hospital.

  I scanned the surrounding rooftops and wondered where Skellar was hiding. Was he watching us? Had he seen her stumble and almost fall a minute ago?

  She was kneeling now, before a tomb littered with tokens.

  “Here, this one,” she said, pulling on a necklace that hung around the neck of a stone angel.

  I looked at it, nodded. It didn’t look special. A simple glass vial strung on a leather cord. It didn’t look like something that would turn the world upside down.

  “This is where we were the other night,” I said, noting the landmarks. “Where you collapsed.”

  “Yes. I was looking for something, but couldn’t remember what. I guess I was on autopilot.” She tried to smile as she looked up at me. I could see the pain in her eyes. “Here, you take it.” She started to untangle the cord from the other necklaces woven around the statue’s neck.

  “No.” I changed my mind. We were going to do this differently than we planned. “Leave it there. For now.” I helped her to her feet, then we headed back toward the cemetery entrance, shadows drifting as we passed ancient tombs that belonged to pirates, politicians and voodoo queens.

  Somehow it seemed fitting that the secret to eternal life would be hidden here.

  In the last City of the Dead.

  Throughout the centuries, death couldn’t be hidden in this city that pulsed with exotic blood. Because of the high water table, grave plots filled with water before we could bury our dead and coffins often floated away. Our early settlers had tried lining the caskets with stones or drilling them with holes, but it didn’t matter.

  In this delta land, the earth didn’t want our dead.

  And neither did we.

  The wind picked up and turned cold, like it suddenly carried slivers of ice. Clouds were forming overhead and a shower of darkness descended as I called Neville. It was as if the heavens were rebelling against what I was about to do.

  But they couldn’t stop me.

  I was supposed to go to his house, we were going to surrou
nd him with a perimeter of glittering VR mugs, like shining sentinels. But I realized that I couldn’t trust this to a team of mugs. Angelique was right. Too many of them were on some hidden payroll. I wasn’t even convinced that they were going to be able to keep that senator in jail long enough for us to pull this off.

  High noon.

  Isabelle’s auction would end in twenty minutes.

  “What does ya wants, Domingue?” Neville answered the call immediately, an unexpected slur in his words. He’d probably just jammed another gen-spike in his arm. “I hasn’t heards nothin’ bout ya makin’ no deals. Do ya thinks ya can just toss some jive-sweet words at me and I’s gonna hands over yur little princess?”

  “Your boss turned you in, Neville,” I said.

  He laughed. “What the hell is ya talkin’ bout?”

  “Your senator friend Greco, he gave us enough evidence to fry you and stop you from jumping. He even told me where you’re at right now. End of the line, bruh.”

  “I doesn’t really works for him,” he answered. I could almost hear the gears shifting inside his head, as if he were looking for a way to still come out on top.

  “The deal is between you and me now.”

  “It always was.”

  “Then put me down as the winning bidder in Isabelle’s auction,” I said. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

  “I wants the serum.”

  I grinned. Good answer. “Bring Isabelle and meet me at the City of the Dead. Be here in fifteen minutes or the deal is off. And don’t bring your gutter-punk friends, unless you want me to kill every last one of them.”