by Julie Kenner
Her brows lifted in curiosity.
“For saving my butt back there. Tossing the cat was a stroke of brilliance.”
The smile she flashed me was at least as broad as the grin from her second-grade class picture. “No problem, Mom. I think we make a pretty good team.”
"Um ... is it supposed to keep doing that?”
I looked down at the arm that was crawling toward me, powered by five determined fingers. I stepped out of the way and then stomped on the disgusting thing. “Unfortunately, yes. Hacking zombies apart only slows them down. It doesn’t kill them.”
“You have got to be kidding me!” Allie said, starting to sound a tad freaked out.
I had to laugh. She’d just spent the last fifteen minutes watching her mother whack the limbs off a zombie with a dull ax she found in the storage shed. And now she was freaking out.
“At least there’s no blood,” she said, her nose wrinkling as she scooted out of the way of the other spiderlike hand that was scrambling over the gravel toward her.
“Be careful around that thing,” I warned. “It may look funny, but those hands are still deadly. It grabs hold of your ankle and climbs up to your neck, and I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to pry those fingers off.”
“Right.” She stomped down hard on it, and the hand flattened into the gravel. “So can it still talk?” She nodded toward the eyeless head that had lolled to one side, mouth moving and tongue wagging. Kabit, stupid cat that he is, trotted up and sniffed it, then batted at the nose with one curious paw.
“They can’t talk, period,” I said. “Dismembered or not.”
“Oh.” She glanced uneasily at it. “That’s good.”
“That pretty much sums up my feelings.”
“So how do we kill it?”
“We don’t,” I said. “You need to get inside and get some sleep. As for why you were out here in the first place, I’ll give you a pass for tonight since you saved my life. Tomorrow, though, I think we need to have a little talk.”
“Now you’re sending me inside? I already saw the übergross part.” Her forehead creased. “Didn’t I?”
“Allie . . .”
“Mom, please? Please, please, pleeeeeze? I really, really want to help.”
She got down on her knees, her hands clasped in front of her. When she did, of course, she released the squashed zombie hand, and I had to admit I was more than a little impressed with the lightning-quick reflexes that snatched the thing back as it tried to scurry away.
She wasn’t queasy, she was determined, and I really did need the help.
I probably wasn’t going to win Mother of the Year by letting my fourteen-year-old daughter help me clean up a dead demon and a dismembered zombie, but maybe I could write it down to mother-daughter bonding.
“Fine,” I said. “You can stay. But that means you talk now. What were you doing in the yard at three in the morning?”
“Can’t you tell me how we kill this guy first?”
“Allie,” I said, edging toward my Wrath of Mom voice.
“Fine, fine. Whatever.”
I twirled my hand, hopefully prompting forward motion in the confession department. At the same time, I picked up the ax again and prepared to hack off the fingers. I’d been serious in my admonition to Allie. And though I didn’t relish more zombie mutilation, once I removed the fingers, the zombie would be more or less harmless.
Gross, but harmless.
“I overheard you on the phone,” she said, as I brought the ax down, neatly removing two fingers in one blow.
I picked up the fingers and dropped them in an empty flowerpot, making a mental note to not forget they were there. Considering they weren’t going to decay anymore, zombie fingers were never going to become the new rage in fertilizing products. “You did? When?”
“Well, I didn’t exactly hear you. But early this morning, you got a call on your cell. And you looked at the number and then said you needed to get something out of your car to answer the question. And you told Stuart it had to do with an oil change or something.”
“So?”
She rolled her eyes. “Like you could answer a question about an oil change.”
The kid had a point. Put like that, it was a wonder Stuart hadn’t picked up on my little game of smoke and mirrors.
“That still doesn’t answer why you were in the backyard at three A.M.”
“I figured it was Daddy on the phone,” she said. She added a little shrug, shifting her weight a bit as she looked at the ground instead of at me. “He’s been gone for so long and, well, you got that look on your face when you answered the phone.”
“A look? What look?”
“Just . . . you know.”
I had a feeling I did know, and decided not to press the point. I made a mental note to suppress any and all looks upon answering my cell phone. Especially if my husband happened to be in the room.
“So you figured it was David,” I prompted, intentionally using his new name. “Then what?” I knew Allie understood intellectually that David couldn’t slide back into the daddy role. Emotionally, though, I think she was still processing.
“That’s all,” she said, looking up to meet my eyes. I held her gaze, trying hard to project myself as the understanding mom. I knew this was hard on Allie—it was hard on me. More than that, though, I had no road map for helping her through this. We were both floundering, and the only thing that was going to get us through this was love and trust and faith that we’d come through unscathed.
“I watched from the front door while you talked,” Allie continued. “But I couldn’t hear anything. It’s not like I was eavesdropping. Honest.”
“I believe you,” I said. “But?”
“But then I heard you go out in the middle of the night, and so I figured you guys must have planned to meet up somewhere. And that must mean that he was back. Here, I mean. In San Diablo.”
“So that’s it?” I asked gently.
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
“And you came into the backyard to wait for me . . . why?”
“To find out if I was right,” she said, her tone suggesting duh even if she didn’t voice the word.
“Why not ask me in the morning?”
She tilted her head up to look at me. Her eyes glistened with tears, and my heart started to shatter. “Mom,” she said. “He’s my dad. How come he didn’t call to talk to me?”
“Oh, baby,” I said, my heart breaking. “It’s not like that at all. Your father loves you desperately.” I held out my arms, but she didn’t come to me. Instead she let loose with a hysterical “Aaaahhh.”
She kicked, shaking her leg to try to release the hand that was making its way up her shin.
“Allie!” I abandoned my mutilated arm to rush toward my daughter and grab the runaway limb immediately below the wrist. “Pull,” I yelled, even as I tugged from my end, my fingers prying at the dead fingers clutching my daughter’s leg.
“Mom,” she wailed as the fingers clutched tighter. “It hurts.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry.” I looked wildly around. I was managing to keep the thing from crawling up her leg, but I wasn’t having any luck getting it off her. And those fingers were just going to get tighter and tighter.
“Okay,” I said. “This way.”
With me still holding the zombie limb, I scooted backwards toward the shed. “Did you see the pruning shears when you got the ax?”
She shook her leg, trying ineffectively to shake the thing off. “I think they’re hanging just inside the door.”
We maneuvered in that direction and with me still holding the zombie at bay—and Allie balancing on one foot so that I could reach inside without letting go of her new companion—I managed to grab the shears off the peg.
“Okay,” I said. “Now hold still.”
Her eyes widened. “This is so totally disgusting.”
“Well, if it offends you, we could just leave it on. But people will ask que
stions. Especially at cheerleading. And I think it’ll mess up your balance.”
She scowled and rolled her eyes. “Just do it, already.”
I opened the shears, then tried to pry a finger up to get the bottom blade underneath. No luck. I ended up cutting from the top, little by little, until I’d managed to slice off an entire finger.
It dropped harmlessly to the ground, and I went to work on the other four.
“This is absolutely the grossest thing ever,” Allie said.
I tended to agree. “Just be glad there’s no blood.” I shot her a wry look. “And when you’re all grown up, I don’t ever want to hear you say that we never did anything together when you were a kid.”
“Ha, ha. Just get it off me, okay?”
“Working on it.”
“What about the legs?”
“Not much they can do,” I said, casting a sideways glance at a zombie foot that was tapping time, impatiently waiting to kick a little Demon Hunter ass. “With shoes on, they can’t crawl. And so long as you don’t get close—”
Allie held her hands up in a familiar surrender gesture. “Don’t worry,” she said as I finally snapped through the last digit. I get it.” She looked around at our backyard, now more or less resembling the set of a horror movie. “What now?”
“Now we clean up.” I stood up and wiped my hands on my jeans. I looked around the yard. “We need a box or something. Then we can take these things to Father Ben and let him deal with them.”
“How?” Allie said. “You never told me how to kill them.”
I frowned, because I’d been hoping she’d forget about that little detail.
“Mom,” she said, her tone filled with teenage insistence. “I just had a zombie hand crawl up my leg. I think we’ve moved beyond protecting the teenager.”
I wasn’t entirely sure her logic was dead-on, but she was right about one thing: If there was one zombie, there were probably more. And I wanted my daughter paying attention to her surroundings—and not hanging out in our backyard at three A.M.
“Zombies die two ways. Either when they’re completely incinerated—bones and all—or when their maker dies.”
She turned around and stared pointedly at the dead demon by the sandbox.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what’s bothering me.”
“I don’t get it. What?”
“He wasn’t the zombie’s maker.”
“Okay, wait,” she protested as she tossed the zombie’s head into Timmy’s Radio Flyer wagon. “You said earlier that the reason the zombie was just sort of standing there after you killed Dumbo over there was because he didn’t know what to do once his master died.”
“Exactly.”
I watched her face, saw the flash of understanding as it all sank in. “So there’s another demon running around? That dead one was his master, but somebody else was his maker?”
“That’s my best guess.”
She turned frantically, scoping out our yard and the darkness beyond.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I don’t think he’s nearby.” I had no idea where he was, but if he was sending newly formed demons to do his dirty work, he was probably laying low, ensuring that he didn’t end up back in the ether before the Big Demonic Ritual went down. How did I know we were facing a Big Demonic Ritual?
Easy. Call it Kate’s First Law of Demons: The level of demonic activity in a neighborhood is directly proportional to the number of domestic chores Kate must accomplish within a certain period of time. And it just so happened that I had only one week to pull together an amazing Easter fair for the neighborhood. I had no time to spare on Big Demonic Rituals. So, naturally, one had to be brewing. (And, yes, the cryptic comments about vengeance and revenge and mysterious swords were also a bit of a clue.)
Fortunately, David was back in town. He might be rogue—and I might be terribly curious as to why—but for better or for worse, he was still my partner.
Completely unaware of my internal meanderings, Allie’s face scrunched up in a frown. “So, if the maker isn’t nearby, where is he?”
“Staying safely away from the local Hunter, I’d think.”
“Oh. Okay. So, um, the maker hires a master to boss the zombie around? Why can’t the zombie just do whatever it wants?”
I had to laugh. “Zombies aren’t demons themselves,” I said. “Not like the ones you’ve seen inhabiting bodies or clawing their way out of portals to hell.”
“There are more?” she asked, eyebrows riding high. “More kinds of demons?”
“You have no idea.”
“Shit.”
“Mmm,” I said agreeably, ignoring the language faux pas that, under our new deal, should earn me one toilet-scrubbing credit, to be cashed in any time I wanted. “Here’s the thing,” I continued. “Only demons can make zombies. It’s not common, and it requires the desecration of a holy relic. That’s part of a Hunter’s job, you know. Protecting relics and tracking down any demons that make it their business to steal or desecrate them.”
“Okay. Got it.” Her forehead creased. “So if zombies aren’t demons, then what are they?”
“Real zombies are just . . . well, they’re just animated flesh.”
“I’m going to hate asking, but what did you mean by ‘real’ zombies?”
I glanced at my watch—ten past four. “We don’t really have time for—” I stopped as light from my bedroom window flooded the backyard.
“Oh, shit!” Allie said.
“Allie . . .” I warned, but I shared the sentiment. Stuart, I realized, was awake.
Three
"Kate!” Stuart’s voice called from the bedroom window.
I stiffened, my mind whirring as I ran through possible explanations for what Allie and I could possibly be doing with all these body parts. Not too surprisingly, none seemed particularly viable.
“Are you out there?” And then, more to himself, “Dammit, I can’t see a bloody thing.”
I exhaled, realizing that between the trees and the dark, we were essentially invisible.
I heard the window slam shut and reached out to grab Allie. “Quick! Hide the parts.”
“Already on it!”
I turned to find her frantically tossing zombie bits into Timmy’s dinosaur sandbox. Personally, I would have chosen the storage shed, but at least the kid thought fast on her feet.
“Good girl. You finish that, I’ll take care of him.” I trotted over and grabbed the dead demon by the ankles, then tugged and pulled until I got him behind the shed. I didn’t have anything to cover him with, so I just pushed him as far under the gardening bench as I could manage.
The creak of the back door opening burst through the night like a shot. “Kate? Are you out here?”
I cringed, expecting him to focus a flashlight on us, but the light didn’t come, and so I hurried toward Allie, my feet crunching on the gravel that surrounded the sandbox.
“Right here,” I called brightly. “Hang on a sec!”
“What the hell are you doing?”
Allie tossed the last of the body parts into the dinosaur, and we both bent over to grab the lid, managing to bonk our heads in the process. “Ouch! Dammit!”
“Kate!”
I motioned for Allie to get the lid on the sandbox while I hurried toward Stuart, intercepting him before he stepped off the porch. “Right here,” I said. “I’m here. I’m fine.”
I stepped into the circle of light emitted by the back porch bulb and gave my husband an enthusiastic hug. “What on earth are you doing awake?” I asked, sounding oh-so-chipper, as if I’d merely gotten up early to enjoy the night air.
“I thought I heard someone scream,” he said, his voice laced with controlled panic. “Are you okay? Why are you outside?”
“Uh—oh,” I stammered, pulling back and looking out over the yard. As I’d hoped, everything beyond the patio was a dark blur; the only way Stuart would notice Allie or the body or, for that matter, the body parts, was if he
decided to take that moment to catch up on yard work.
“Kate,” he pressed, the panic edging out and anger edging in. I knew that transition intimately, having experienced it myself when the kids did something both stupid and dangerous. “What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing,” I assured him. “I, you know, wanted some quiet time. In case you’ve forgotten, we have a toddler in the house.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” he said, his voice making perfectly clear he didn’t find the joke funny at all. “It’s the middle of the night—”
"It’s getting close to dawn,” I protested. “In L.A., people are already commuting to work.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We don’t live in Los Angeles, and that’s not the point. I wake up, alone, and then hear a scream, and you’re not willing to give me a straight answer? Forgive me if I’m a little worried. I think I’ve got every right to be.”
“Stuart,” I began, but I honestly didn’t know where to go next.
“It’s about me,” a small voice said, filling the gap. I turned, startled, and saw Allie step into the light. “Mom’s trying to protect me.”
Stuart’s jawline tightened. “From what, exactly?”
Her head hung low, and when she lifted it to look her stepfather in the eye, I saw a strength that no longer surprised me. “I snuck out of the house,” Allie said. “And when Mom realized, we had a fight.”
Stuart looked at me for confirmation, and I worked to erase the expression of bafflement and replace it with my best stern mommy expression. I waved a hand in Allie’s direction, hopefully signaling permission for her to continue telling the story of her descent into teenage disobedience.
She took a deep breath, then looked at me for only a second before focusing on her toes. The position gave the impression of contrite submission, but I suspected she was afraid that she’d smile at me if our eyes met, proud of herself for saving my ass twice now. Once by tossing the cat, and again by conning my husband.
“I’m waiting, young lady,” Stuart said.
“It’s just that it’s Friday night, you know? And Aunt Laura told Mindy that she could go, but I wanted to go, too.”
