Death 07 - For the Love of Death

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  They're built like guys. Bigger.

  “What do you want, Brad?”

  “Who, me?” he asks innocently, flipping his longish hair. It falls back over one eye. Those eyes puncture holes of twin gold, such an amazing color, through me. Arresting. It’s so sad he aims them at me with hate. It’s an emotion I buffer with some frequency. Randoms are generally hated.

  “What I always want: a Random on a stick.”

  I fold my arms at his old argument. “You’re a Null, Brad.”

  He’s cutting the distinction pretty close.

  His torture twins edge closer, moving in for a flank. My heart ticks faster. My arms fall to my sides in a studied casualness I don’t feel.

  I’m trying not to bring in Pax like an baby. I’m almost seventeen, and I can’t always rely on him. Not only that, he’s not stable right now. He just about wiped out that doctor. It’s another strike against him.

  Three Random incidents and it could lead to incarceration. Pax had two during his juvenile period. He doesn’t need one on his adult record.

  I swallow hard, and my throat clicks painfully.

  This is pure posturing here. I can do this. “Call off your dogs.”

  Brad cocks his head to the side and taps his long finger on an angular chin. “Ah… no. I think not.”

  My shoulders sag.

  My power begins to build, and Brad wags his finger.

  “Don’t even think it, Deegan.” He tips up his chin. “It’s a first-class felony for you to use your powers against a mundane.”

  I clench my fists. “You. Are. A. Null,” I seethe.

  His dark eyes hold mine. “However, our wonderful government has seen fit to include me with my contemporaries.”

  I grunt in disgust. The ass bone.

  “Eric, Carlos, come.” Brad cups his hand.

  I smirk. “See, dogs.”

  I’m not always smart, though my IQ is the highest recorded in Washington State, courtesy of my grandpa.

  It doesn't mean I always use it.

  The dogs, Carlos and Eric, snarl. Well, that’s not exactly accurate. They say words, but I just hear sounds.

  Woof, woof, woof. Barking I ignore. Happily.

  I flex my paranormal muscle, and they blow off their feet, landing on their asses. Their shoes separate from their body as diseased plastic thrones kick back, taken with them in their impromptu flight.

  Brad smiles at my display, and dread covers me in a shroud.

  A numbing wash engulfs me.

  It’s horrible. It’s wonderful.

  There’s something great about a tide that comes to your shore when it brings peace. Like Uncle John.

  Pax and I both agree it’s so peaceful to be around John. All the abilities take a break.

  Not with this POS. What Uncle John does with tenderness and finesse, Brad Thompson does with a hammer.

  And I’m the nail.

  I stagger, dropping to my knees.

  Too bad the authorities don't understand how he steals power as well as he squelches it. That's certainly not part of the Null repertoire.

  Brad throws his head back, basking in the energy suck.

  My energy.

  A stealthy sound breaks through my fugue. Brad doesn’t hear, but I feel him like a balm to my soul.

  Clyde.

  “What in the seven hells is happening here?” The rich timbre of his voice slices through the fog, and I kick up my chin. My senses sharpen as they always do around the dead, though I can’t raise them. Well, not all.

  I’m still so weak I don’t move my head. Can’t.

  “Clyde,” I whisper. My mind throws one of the old-fashioned white donut rings into the water. I envision Clyde pulling me in from the sea.

  S.O.S.

  I shouldn’t have ditched my guard. It was beyond dumb.

  “No, let the corpse into our little soiree. Welcome.” Brad sweeps his arm back to include Clyde.

  Clyde looks every bit the thirty-year-old he was when he died saving a busload of kids in 1929.

  He carries himself differently from anyone I've ever known. His ethics and history hang off him like a finely tailored suit. Clyde moves with grace and purpose, living in the moment, owning it.

  I struggle to my feet, and Clyde’s hard hazel eyes sweep me head to toe. Then he turns his attention to Brad.

  “I am not privy to what is happening here, swine. However, I am not beyond teaching a lesson where one is warranted.”

  “I see,” Brad says thoughtfully. He wrenches me up by my elbow, and I suck in air, biting my lip to keep from screaming.

  Clyde hisses, his body tensing.

  You can take the man out of the zombie but not the zombie out of the man.

  “Unhand her, vile excuse for a man.”

  “I shall not, for I choose not to.”

  Did I mention how much better teaching we receive with the great teacher-to-student ratio? There has been a return to more formal speech. I liked slang.

  Brad buries his fingertips in my black hair, jerking me painfully the rest of the way. My scalp catches fire.

  He shakes me and Clyde steps forward, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling them to the elbow.

  “Your moral compass spins, ne’er-do-well. I shall right it.”

  “No ya won’t!” Brad sings, spinning me into Clyde. He grasps my shoulders to stop the momentum, and I flinch from his strength.

  “Are you unharmed?” His eyes hold mine for a second of profound tenderness.

  I think of all my psyche’s small wounds but shake my head. “I’m fine.”

  “You”—Brad points at Clyde—“should think better of dancing with someone like me. You’re one of the horde that has a pass. But if you transgress against the living, you will be put to work. And I know just the person to select your station.”

  Stations are occupations for the dead, and some are better than others. AFTDs run them. A two-point or higher within a few meters arrests the zombies’ decomposition.

  “A nice mile-deep mineshaft would be a good fit for you.” Brad rocks back on his heels, arms folded as though considering it.

  Clyde’s body tension ratchets higher. No AFTD is down there. The zombies would rot then be renewed when they were no better than sludge.

  “You cannot abuse your power due to your familial tie.”

  Brad chuckles. “Why ever not? And speaking of which, how much time do you have from wifey before your shit slides downhill?”

  Clyde doesn’t have long. If he’s away from Bobbi Gale for more than several hours, he will begin to rot. The earth is always waiting to reclaim its dead.

  “Accidents happen,” Clyde says lightly.

  Brad narrows his eyes at Clyde. “To whom?”

  “To everyone, of course.” He gives Brad the weight of his hazel eyes. They glitter their intent.

  Brad stares back, the gauntlet thrown.

  Without a backward glance, Clyde takes me out of the dump.

  Brad's laughter follows us.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Pax

  We break apart. Gramps holds my gaze, and I let him. It should be totally awkward, but here’s the deal: it never is with him. We’re both broken up by Gram’s impending death. We’re in the same headspace.

  He’s old school, so his eyes are dry. I cry for us both. I’m from another era. We’re not above crying if our lives get flushed down the toilet.

  He claps me on my shoulder, handing me the grease rag, and I rub my fingers off.

  “Better clean up—use the mechanic soap.”

  “Yeah, I know, Gramps.” I smile.

  It’s short-lived, that little reprieve. I feel him.

  Clyde.

  And Deegan.

  “Gramps,” I call, and his sharp gaze finds me.

  No preamble, no pleasantries.

  His eye slim down on me, interpreting my expression. “We got a little disaster making its way here?”

  I nod.

  “Well.” Gra
mps hikes up his old-guy pressed blue jeans. “Bring it.” He pops open his door and grabs the twelve-gauge.

  A guffaw bursts out of me. “Gramps—damn, settle. It’s just Clyde and Dee.”

  Gramps’ tension doesn’t ease up. “Yeah?” He jams a new cig in his mouth and lights it one-handed, scowling through the smoke. “We’ll see if they’ve got a tailwind of bad.” Gramps of the Paranoia squared. ’Course, he’d been through some heavy shit in his time. Dad had told me some of it.

  Not all.

  And Dad couldn’t say dick to me about my temper. His had been legendary. I think it still could be, given the right circumstances.

  Clyde appeared holding Dee in his arms. Gooseflesh sprouted like a disease over my arms. I was moving before I knew I’d begun.

  “What the fuck, Clyde?” My gaze roamed my sister for injury.

  “Language, young master.”

  I scowl. “Yeah, okay, but you’re coming in here like a cannon with Dee all, I don’t know—what’s wrong with her?”

  I looked my sister over. At first glance, she looks like Mom. But even a casual scrutiny brings out what she really looks like. One hundred percent Native American.

  And boy, in this time, it's as rare as red hair.

  Gram and Grandpa did the genealogical testing to determine their origins. Because that’s just the way Grandpa Kyle rolled, being a geneticist and all, and they’d found Grandpa was an eighth-blood. Hadn’t even known it. With the Indigenous Peoples Act, all native blood was sacred.

  So when my Cherokee mother had married my dad, the drops mixed, and Deegan turned out looking more like full blood than the half she possessed.

  Right now, her dusky skin was a little on the pale side.

  Not that I let her know my concern. Not on a bet.

  Gramps cocking the shotgun one-handed made us all flinch. Not an easy skill. Gramps can bring it.

  “What in the blue blazes is going on, Clyde?” A billow of smoke wafted between us.

  Clyde’s nose twitches. “Mac.”

  Dee's eyes pop open. “I’m okay, Pax. Chill.”

  Clyde sets Dee on the ground, and she comes to my shoulder. I drag a hand through my hair. “God, you had me sphinctering out.”

  “She was at the dump,” Clyde explains.

  I frown. “Why, Dee?”

  She shrugs. The knees of her jeans are full of stains. “I just went for a walk….” She looks down at her feet. “Ditched my Null.”

  Dumb. “God! Dee, ya could’ve—eff me. Something bad could have happened.”

  “Clearly, something did, Paxton.” Gramps holds his loaded shotgun at his side, stamping out the offending cigarette with a boot. Meaty treads demolish it into cement older than Dad.

  “Okay, start from the beginning, Dee.” I say it calmly, but I’m getting worked into a lather. Dee doesn’t like to bother me with issues. But then there's the consequence. It's always worse. Always.

  She says quietly, “I don’t want you to get another strike, Pax.”

  I tie my longish hair in a band at my nape. “Here’s the thing. We’ve got us”—I point to her then my own chest—“and that’s it.”

  “Bull hokey,” Gramps says.

  I move my gaze to his shotgun and wave a palm in the air. “You know I dig ya, Gramps. That’s not what I mean. I mean—I think I know what this is about, and I gotta say, I needed you to reach me, Dee.”

  “Who was it this time?”

  Clyde turns away, stuffing his hands in his trousers and pacing off. He watches the small waves in distant Lake Tapps, and I turn back to my sister.

  “It’s that energy-sucking Null.”

  I narrow my eyes, and she shrinks. “I’m not mad at you, Dee, but I want to kick his ass. Thompson, right?”

  She nods.

  I slap my fist into my palm. “I effing knew it.”

  Gramps puffs on his cig, the end a cherry on fire. “Who’s this punk?”

  I slide a glance his way. “Probably don’t need the shotgun, Gramps. It’s not a load and go.”

  Gramps makes a noise of disbelief in the back of his throat. “Yeah?” he asks casually, when he’s anything but. “Is he over sixteen?”

  Shit. “Yeah, Gramps.”

  Deegan giggles. I turn to her, and she tries not to laugh. From personal experience, it’s nearly impossible to restrain myself once I feel like laughing. Dee’s the same.

  “Don’t encourage Gramps’ manic shit, Dee.”

  “Young man, you have a foul mouth,” Clyde says to the water.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Gramps sighs. “We’re all upset about Ali. I understand you kids need to work out your”—Gramps waves around his free hand, obviously searching his emotional framework for the right word. My lips twitch. A total challenge. He gives me a look. “Grief.”

  He’s triumphant, and even Clyde gives a small smile. Now that’s a hard dude.

  Zombie.

  His death energy beats like the heart in my chest.

  I’m a five-point AFTD like my dad. Everyone is constantly romancing me for zombie work.

  Doesn’t interest me.

  Deegan’s a four-point, and personally, I think her brand is worse. She claims she can’t raise corpses, but that’s a ready defense mechanism from the trauma of what she can raise. People who die violently. People who have killed the same way.

  Well that's a helluva lot, actually.

  I answer Gramps' question. “He's this douche nozzle that is a champion for all the mundanes, but he's really a Null.”

  Gramps' face scrunches. “Let me put on my thinking cap.” We wait. Gramps isn't big on interruptions when he's puzzling through something. He wags a finger at me. “If he's a Null, he's a Random.”

  I shake my head.

  Clyde says, “No. Our wonderful government has taken it upon themselves to catalog Nulls as mundanes.”

  “You said this putz sucked on Deegan?” Gramps pushes his teeth out. “Like a vamp?” He cups his hands slightly by his shoulders, in a ready pouncing stance.

  I laugh. Vampires, what a load of shit. “Kinda. But he’s some siphon who hasn’t been caught. There isn’t a category for Drainers.”

  Gramps sweeps his palm to me. Throwing the safety of his shotgun on, he gives a last wary glance into the gloom outside his fortress. “You got a name for him?”

  I put my hands on my hips, see grease in my fingernails, and let them fall. Mom will have my ass if she has to degrease another pair of jeans. I shrug. “It’s just a made up thing. Like Dad’s name for the Helix Complex.”

  Gramps tips his head back. “Ah, the Graysheets.”

  “Turd central,” Dee mutters.

  Gramps gives Dee a hard glance. “Did they hurt you, pumpkin?”

  Dee keeps her crap together, but I note the fine tremble of her lip. “Not really. He just scared me. Him and his goon squad.”

  Gramps nods. “Yes. There’s a ready solution for that.” He looks like he’s going to offer something, but we all say no at the same time.

  He kinda growls low in his throat, part affirmation, part disgust. “How do I know these ruffians won’t be stopping by?”

  “He got what he wanted,” Dee says.

  My eyes meet Clyde's.

  “And Clyde happened along, missy?” Gramps asks.

  She nods and Clyde's eyes go to hoods.

  Gramps studies Clyde's expression. “Bullshit. You're keeping an eye on the youngsters.”

  Youngsters. “Gramps…”

  “Save it, Pax. When you’re older than dirt, everyone is young.”

  “Except me,” Clyde says neutrally.

  Gramps stares at him for a long moment. “True.”

  His gaze goes to Deegan. “Did ya call Clyde?”

  Dee shakes her head. “Not on purpose.”

  Gramps palms his chin, a five o’clock shadow rasping with the movement. “I don’t like that Deedie has no way to defend herself if these losers come calling. They had to have be
en following you.”

  He doesn't wait for confirmation.

  She nods and gives me an uneasy glance.

  God, it just gets worse and worse. This is why I don't want to take some of those seven figure jobs they keep enticing me with. Who's here to protect the fam?

  Nobody. I look from Clyde to Gramps. Not that Clyde can't toss cars.

  Not that Gramps can't bring the home defense. Hell, Dad told me about his creativity with a socket wrench incident.

  If you're a Random, you need another Random to watch over you.

  “I can take care of myself,” Dee says softly.

  Clyde arches an eyebrow, his hands knotted behind his muscular body. My gaze goes skyward.

  Gramps’ gaze narrows. Whether to see through the smokescreen he creates or because he wants to force her to confess, I can’t tell.

  No, Dee, I say silently.

  I’m tired of hiding, Pax. So tired.

  I close my eyes in resignation. Two kids born of parents that should have been sterile. One powerfully gifted in Affinity for the Dead, the other a strong Empath. And that's the paranormal tip of the iceberg for us.

  Caleb Hart’s latent genome possesses all paranormal markers. Dormant until passed.

  Recessive until realized.

  Deegan looks up at me with crocodile tears in her mossy green eyes. “I could have taken care of them.”

  Jesus, Dee. I scrub my face with my palm. She might not get over that. Like ever.

  “What?” Gramps stamps out his cig and grips her shoulders, his gaze going to me.

  “I can send them away.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Clyde’s eyebrows draw together as he comes to stand beside us.

  Dee flicks her gaze to Clyde. “Somewhere…”

  “You mean a Dimensional,” Gramps says hopefully, while he and Clyde reserve a disquieting stare for each other.

  I shake my head.

  “No, like a black hole.”

  The silence is its own presence.

  Gramps is speechless while tears stream down Dee’s face.

  Clyde wraps his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t fret, dear heart.”

  Dee swipes at her nose, and Clyde offers her his handkerchief. “That’s a very interesting talent,” he offers. But I see his face.

  Gramps’s gaze is for me.

  I exhale in a rush. “Yeah, you can say that.”