Death 07 - For the Love of Death

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

Lewis Archer sits carefully on an upturned milk crate. He's a professional burglar. He used to be able to manipulate locks when he was paranormal. He's still doing it, just differently.

  He's a kick-ass dresser and talks kinda like Grandpa Kyle.

  The zombies stand by their AFTDs. They keep Tiff and Dad in sight. They know who has the Affinity for the Dead.

  Uncle Clyde taps his foot, standing by the hole of the hideaway.

  “She coming?” Dad asks.

  He nods. “Momentarily.”

  “She bringing the kids?”

  Clyde shakes his head. “No, Roberta handed them off to her parents.”

  “Is that safe?”

  He nods. “The Sanction Police are searching for me. Not for my offspring.”

  Dad cups his chin, getting that look he has when he’s thinking hard.

  “What is it?” Mitchell whispers beside me.

  I rise on my tiptoes, whispering in his ear, “We’re waiting for my Uncle Clyde’s wife.”

  He jerks his chin back. “He’s a zombie.”

  “It—it is against the law now, but before they made it one….”

  “How is that possible?” Mitchell draws his brows together.

  I sigh. “He—she's an AFTD like me. She can keep him like that if he's around her.”

  Mitchell looks at Uncle Clyde for a full minute. “She's not here right now.”

  “He can go a few hours without rotting.”

  I know what he wants to ask. It’s in the careful neutrality of his face.

  Heat rises in my own. “I don’t have… very good control.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means she’s keeping you alive by accident,” Pax butts in.

  He pisses me off. The know-it-all. “Pax, shut up.”

  “Pax, don’t belittle Deegan,” Mom says.

  Pax rolls his eyes. “Miss Genius IQ. I think she can survive anything.”

  I cross my arms. “That’s not true. I had to raise a zombie to survive the stupid, in whatever Earth you blinked us to. Then you had to figure out a way to try and save me.”

  Pax’s lips quirk. “True. I guess I’m not so dumb after all.”

  “Nobody’s saying you’re dumb Pax,” Dad says. “And we don’t have the time for sibling rivalry right now, guys.”

  Bobbi Gale pops through the tunnel. She's just now starting to look a little older than Uncle Clyde.

  “Hi.” She looks around at our solemn faces, her lips turning down. “What'd I miss?”

  “Pity party,” Tiff says, sober enough now to be her old caustic self.

  “Thanks for the warning.” Bobbi winks. She stands on her toes, her palms on Clyde’s chest. “Hey, baby.” She kisses him, and the tips of his ears turn pink.

  “Wow,” Mitchell says.

  “Yeah.” My own face is hot with my secret thoughts of crushing on my zombie.

  Why can’t I like a normal guy? Yʼknow, a live one.

  “So what’s a girl gotta do to get some answers around here?” she asks.

  Gramps tells her what’s going on, and Bobbi folds her arms. “Huh. Well that’s a class-A clusterfuck.”

  Gramps grins and Mom sighs, hoping all the profanity won’t affect my innocent ears. Good luck with that.

  Bobbi looks at Tiff, eyes narrowing. “So what’s the plan?”

  Tiff’s face is clearer but angry. “Why are you looking at me?”

  “Because I think you’re pissed off enough to pull this thing off.”

  “What thing?”

  “The thing where we get rid of the zombies in their own world, then hightail it back here and figure out why there's a pack of Randoms up Paxton's ass.”

  “Roberta,” Clyde says.

  “Sorry, honey, I always forget your aversion to profanity.” She kisses his cheek and he moves his lips to her palm, brushing them against it.

  I cover my mouth with a hand so they can’t see me smile. Uncle Clyde is so romantic.

  Mitchell says Wow again.

  Something occurs to me as I watch my Aunt Tiff who really isn’t.

  I turn to Mitchell again, and he bends down so I can reach him.

  I whisper a very important question to him.

  He looks at me for a long moment then slowly nods.

  I'm so happy with his answer I feel dizzy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Pax

  Dad gets that blank look everyone does when they receive a pulse-com.

  “Dad?” I ask, and he lifts his finger.

  I wait.

  He blows out a breath and swipes the non-existent hair on the top of his head with a hand.

  “It’s Gram,” he says, avoiding everyone’s eyes.

  I read the grief in his face. “Fuck me.”

  Gramps is suddenly there. “You curse like that again, and I’ll knock your block off, son. Grandkid or not. Grow up. Right now.”

  I look down into Gramps’ face. I’ve been a class-A jerk off. Gramps is hurting. Dad, Mom—hell, everyone loves Ali Hart.

  Gramps goes on, “No strangling doctors. Button that filthy trap and stand by your parents while my daughter dies, got it?”

  Yeah, I get it. But I don't have to like it. I'm a reactor, always have been.

  Dad ignores Grampsʼ interchange with me. “How do we get inside the hospital with a rash of SPs gunning for us?”

  Archer comes forward, tall and slim, GQ dresser, IQ a million. “Leave that to me.”

  “Will it be illegal?” Mom chews her fingernails.

  “Always.”

  Mom looks down at her feet. Silent tears come.

  Jonesy watches her.

  Sophie puts an arm around Mom and squeezes her. “We all love Ali, toots. It doesn’t get harder than this.”

  Sophie’s seawater eyes look into mine then move to Dee. “I’m sorry, guys, I know this sucks.”

  Sucks doesn’t cover it, but I nod. I feel like an industrial vacuum has sucked out the V in my vim and vigor.

  “Let's go,” Tiff says, hopping to her feet.

  Mitch gives Dee a significant look, as if they share a secret. I like his big ass less and less.

  “Wait.” Uncle Clyde looks around at us. “If it were I, the hospital would be the first place I would lie in wait. How are we sure that it is not a ploy enlisted by the SP to lure us there?”

  I hesitate for a second then plow forward. “With all we can bring, I think we can get in there and out.”

  “What is happening?” Mitch asks.

  Dee turns to him. “There’s not a lot of time to explain, but my grandma is dying of cancer, and she’s taken a turn for the worse…”

  Dee glances at Dad as though for permission, and he simply nods.

  Knew it.

  Mitch interrupts, “What kind?”

  My brows screw up into a knot. “Why?”

  He exhales in a rush, clearly annoyed. Big for his goddamned britches, as Gramps would say.

  “Breast,” Mom answers instead of me.

  “Why?” I repeat, moving a step closer to Mitch.

  Mitch squares off with me. “We're cancer-free in my earth.”

  “All?” Dad asks.

  Mitch nods.

  “Why the bots, then?” Dee asks.

  Mitch looks at Dee, and his face softens.

  Irritating.

  “They must have used artificial body parts first, perfected that, then made the bots after fixing the populace.” Mitch shrugs. “I’m speculating. I died at twenty in 2010. That was…”

  “Almost forty years ago,” John Terran says.

  “I have bionic everything,” Gramps says. “There’s still a ton of cancer that remains uncured here.”

  “Bionic?” Mitch asks.

  Gramps smiles. “It’s an expression that means something to me. ‘Artificial replacement’ is the term nowadays.”

  John turns to Dad. “I don’t want to interject something here, but I’m going to say the thing that no one else will.�
�

  Dad gives John a sharp look.

  “Let's get my mom to this—Mitch's world. If Pax can blink it, she can be cured.”

  “Seems simple,” Jonesy says.

  Dad shakes his head, rueful. “That stuff always does, but then things happen like ALB and…”

  “My family are zombies in that world.”

  The whole hideaway goes silent. I can hear only the hiss of an outmoded and illegally fueled propane lantern.

  “I guess we missed that detail,” Jonesy says in the tomb-like space. He cocks his head. “That’s great, Pax. How’d you happen to figure that out?”

  “I called the dead, and that’s who came.”

  “Me too?” Gramps asks, his lips twitching.

  “You were the most… practical,” I admit.

  He grins. “Glad I still have follow-through, even dead.”

  Right. He doesn’t know just how much.

  “I don’t know if it’ll be safe to move her… what we’ll do. What Dad will do.” Dee rolls her lip into her mouth and gnaws on it.

  Gramps seals the deal, as usual. “We don’t have anything to lose. But peanut.” His gaze move around the group, settling on Dad. “We take her to bot Earth”—Gramps chuckles at his wording—“and find an Organic that will…” He swirls his hand around.

  “Cure her,” Mitch says dryly.

  I give him a sidelong look.

  “Of course, there are a few obstacles,” he adds.

  “Knew it.” Jonesy plops his chin in his hand and sighs loudly.

  “If what Pax says is true…”

  I whip my head in his direction. “No, I’m effing lying.”

  Mitch comes into my space, our chests almost touching. We're just about on physical par. About the same age, different era, same level of testosterone.

  “Boys, play nice,” Gramps says, “or I'll use these new guns I have to clunk some skulls, feel me?”

  “Go Mac,” Jonesy says in a deadpan voice.

  I keep staring at Mitch-boy. “If what you say is true, your grandma is already accounted for in our world. As a corpse. She won't have clearance for med care because technically, she's no longer living.”

  I glower. Then brighten. “My Organic is exactly the same in your earth.”

  Mitch stares at me for a heartbeat. “She could do it. But a few questions: did you put your family to rest again before you went? What happened to the Organic after she fixed your arm?” He raises his dark brows, and I notice for the first time his eyes aren’t brown, they’re deep blue.

  They’re also arrogant, and he pisses me off.

  I don’t have the answers to those questions.

  “Did ya leave a bunch of corpses running around in some parallel earth?” Tiff asks, her voice sharp without the booze to soften it.

  My face heats. “Yeah.”

  “Well shit, that was dumb, Pax.”

  I glare at Tiff. “I was doing what I could. They have these devil bots from hell, and Dee was running around somewhere.”

  Tiff glances at Dee. “What happened to you?”

  Dee laces her hands together tightly. “Brad Thompson is in that world.”

  Tiff keeps steady eyes on my sister. “Is he… what’s his MO?”

  “He’s a bully. His dad is the head of the SPs.”

  Tiff whistles, shifting her gaze to Uncle John.

  Uncle John cocks a brow, and Tiff glares at him. “You can say his name out loud, ya know.”

  Uncle John’s face flames red, pained. “I don’t want to recount those painful memories.”

  Tiff grunts and returns her gaze to Dee. “Tell me about this guy.”

  Dee does, briefly skating over the asshole’s highlights.

  “I guess there's always a Carson Hamilton. No matter what year, no matter who is around.”

  Dee replies, “I don't know who Carson Hamilton is. But if he's as much of a bully as this guy, he was bad.”

  “He was bad,” Tiff says, her face tight.

  She doesn't shrug off the hand John puts on her shoulder. Instead, she covers it with her own.

  Dee meets her eyes. “He killed me in this other Earth.”

  “What happened when you went there by accident?”

  “I broke his neck.”

  I think back to what she said about it. “He’ll heal that.” Because according to Dee, in that world, they have auto-healing.

  I can see her swallow from here. “He was.”

  “What’s with this bozo?” Tiff snaps a firecracker’s worth of bubbles from her gum.

  “What’s with him? He’s powerful in that world, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had our entire family killed somehow.”

  I take in everyone. “We were all dead in this other world. Yet Brad Thompson’s alive? ʼCause he’s such a great dude? No.” My chin juts back in obvious disbelief. “Dee got the drop on him because she kicked his ass and he wasn’t expecting it.”

  I blow out a sigh, turning to my sister. “How come you didn’t telekinesis his ass?”

  “I can’t there.”

  “Oh, wow.” Jonesy blows out a low keen of a whistle. He throws his laced hands on his head. “So some of our abilities will work there but not all?”

  Dee nods.

  Dad scrubs his face. “It certainly makes for things to get exciting.”

  “Not in a good way,” Sophie says.

  “My AFTD is fine there.” I sweep my palm out toward Dee. “And Dee raised Mitch.” I choke his name out.

  “What about us mundanes?” Bry Weller asks as Mia stands beside him.

  I shrug. “I don’t know.”

  Gramps says, “The more the merrier. But your track record is a little iffy.”

  Bry grins and nods. “I’ll do my best not to get my ass kicked.”

  Jonesy chuckles. “Famous last words, Weller.”

  Bry flips him the bird.

  Jonesy stands and whips his arms out, doing a little pelvic swivel. “Sit and spin, Bry—sit and spin.”

  Mia rolls her eyes, and Bry’s face is all smiles.

  Seems like a private joke.

  Mitch laughs. I toss him a glare, throwing a little hate his way.

  Tiff bounces off a crate and sidles up beside John. Uncle John looks worn out, but wraps his arm around her.

  “It’s settled. I say the chance is worth taking to get Ali back. And these guys need to go to ground anyway?” She jabs a thumb at my silent zombie family then gives Mitch a speculative look.

  I nod. The faster Mitch goes back to his Earth, the better.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Caleb

  It feels great to have the gang back together. We’re missing Sims and Randi, but we’ll survive. Their round-the-world shenanigans have kept them absent for the past six months. Besides, the Random thing we have going on isn’t a part of their lives anymore.

  Archer being on board is sheer luck.

  As Clyde thought might happen, more security is in place.

  What I wouldn’t do for an Aura Reader about now.

  Jade moves up beside me as we leave the Outback behind. It nests inside branches from a nearby tree, folding its shape into something more compact.

  “Baby, can you figure out what’s happening here?”

  I think camouflage, and the exterior bleeds to mimic the leaves and shadow of the nearby foliage.

  Jade exhales slowly, shaking her head. “I’m not sure. Yesterday, we were living our lives. Your mom’s illness was a sad reality, our kids were giving us hell, but we were basically happy. Then these Random freaks go after Pax, the kids react badly, go to an alternate Earth, and here we are.”

  A tear slips out of her eye.

  “C’mere, hun. There’s nothing we can do but deal. That’s all.”

  “I just thought all this was behind us and we could have a normal life. Like we have had.”

  I don’t mention how abnormal having two kids like Pax and Deegan is. Not a good time.

  Or the zo
mbie contingent.

  I hook my gaze on Gramps, and he winks at me.

  I feel the weight of unspoken responsibility.

  Behind me, Bry claps me a solid one on the back. “Hey, Hart. Ready and waiting to have my ass kicked.”

  I laugh. “Nice.”

  He’s older but built like a brick shithouse. His landscaping business has taken off, and he’s kept with the eco-driven times, adjusting as he needs to. However, you still have to plant a tree the same way: with your two bare hands. His were muscled and calloused. He’s a huge guy, such a contrast to his younger sister.

  “Tiffie,” Bry says loudly, and she starts.

  “Hey, meathead—hello. Circumspect, pal.”

  “Right.” Bry scratches his head and smiles at me. I smile back. Tiff had been so cool before booze.

  But I remember when she went downhill.

  John almost left her.

  I can see why he didn’t.

  Love. It’s etched in the lines of his face. Not every one is worry and regret. Some are from smiling and laughter. His orange hair is a faded red, and his eyes remain a clear blue, sharper than when we were young.

  Wise.

  Lewis Archer is dressed in all black and it strikes me as funny. I somehow manage the crooked mouth but the effort is ugly.

  He’s wearing a pair of glasses with hinged lenses. He loosley holds a card with thin sheets of paper in his left hand.

  “There are three points of entry. Pulse driven, with security pulse identification.”

  “How are we going to possibly see my mom?”

  “Follow me.”

  I catch his arm. Archer turns, every gold hair in place. A thin spear of moonlight through branches fully illuminates his pale eyes and sharp cheekbones. “My entire family and our friends are on the line. If ya don’t think you can pull this off, don’t.”

  Archer smirks. “I can. And for the record, I’d do anything for you guys.”

  We stare at each other. I’d called dead things to battle when Archer was in need. He never forgot.

  I’d do it again. I take a deep breath. “Okay.”

  “Let’s go.” He looks at the group standing behind us.

  I look for my kids.

  Paxton is behind me and to the right, Deegan beside him. Their zombies are directly behind them.

  My death energy passes through them and the family sighs.

  Mitchell does not, and it puzzles me.