by A. J. Aalto
In the silence that followed, I lifted my face to the night sky and croaked, “Thanks for the slug, Morrigan.”
CHAPTER 31
I DIDN'T NOTICE BATTEN WAS THERE until he was nearly to the truck, running full-tilt with his keys jingling in his pockets and his Colt .45 naked in his hand. I flapped the tarp off my head, sucked in a lungful of air gratefully, then moaned it back out again.
His gaze jumped from me, to his abandoned Taurus, to the shotgun, to the charred remains strewn everywhere, to the still-flaming propane tank hissing hotly at the end of the drive, and back to me. After looking around for a solid thirty seconds, Batten didn't seem to know what to say.
“Banging on all cylinders now,” I reported with a weak salute, surprised at the crustiness of my voice. For a moment, I wanted to cough up a lung, but the urge went away when I nearly blacked out. “Good times.”
“Gonna live?” Batten said watchfully, touching something on my cheek that made me wince. He picked it off. It was a thin sliver of skin that didn't belong to me.
My forehead felt like a frozen pork chop where the zombie had walloped me. My left nostril was clogged with congealing blood, and I was pretty sure the back of my head had dented the truck or vice versa. My ears were still buzzing. I carefully crawled out of the back of the truck, nearly fainted, rolled off the tailgate, and landed spread-eagle on my back in the driveway. When I cracked an eyelid, I saw Batten's concerned face hovering above mine.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked.
“Just hemorrhaging. Nothing to get kooky about. What are you doing?”
He scratched the back of his neck. “Not getting kooky.”
“Boy, that's a relief.”
“You going to tell me what happened here, or should I guess?”
I tried to get up, and my stomach rolled over. I said something that sounded like, “Blerg-ulk,” and sat back down fast.
“Stay put, Snickerdoodle,” he said, reaching for his phone. I stopped him.
“Don't bother, just get me inside and to Harry and I'll be fine.”
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
He held up a bunch. I didn't bother trying to count. “Eighteen. Bet some of them don't belong to you.”
“Hit your head pretty hard. Might have a concussion.”
“Nothing Harry can't fix,” I growled, struggling to swing myself to hands and knees. “Dude, you missed it. I was a bin full of awesome.”
“That so?” He pushed away from the truck and it made a metallic crumpling sound. “Let me guess. Zombie ambushed you on the way back. You…” He crouched, cocked his head, wiped goo off my chin, and flicked it in the grass with a look of minor disgust. “Fought with it hand-to-hand.” His eyes took me in, head-to-Keds, in the stone driveway, then checked out Hood's truck. “Cut through the dog-lady's yard, tried to shoot a propane tank with a .38, failed, broke into Hood's cab, and used his shotgun to blow up a propane tank, blowing the zombie to bits.”
“You missed the part where I turned around and shot half the zombie's face off. I'm a natural, I've got kickass aim. Who knew?”
“That so?” He sounded doubtful.
“Very Charlie's Angels. If Charlie had ever sent them after dead guys. It totally rocked.”
“Did it?”
“Well, except for the part where it didn't do shit to stop the thing. Pow! Right in the chest. Blam! His jaw went…” I belched and pinched my lips together while my eyebrows squeezed, tried again. “It went …” Another belch, hotter this time, was my only warning. I rolled away and dry heaved at the grass. It may have gone “ker-pow” and “ka-blam” or maybe “splort,” but I was only capable of going “Hlhhlluuurrrggghhhh.”
I felt Batten's hand lightly on my back. He stroked me there while I quivered, then slid the shotgun away from me, probably to protect it from the wrath of my guts.
Well, that's fantastic. Kill-Notch smelled Labradoodle shit on my shoes and had just watched me barf. So not sexy. When I looked up, he was giving me what passed for privacy by keeping his eyes on his phone while he texted. “I don't know how he missed the blast, but Harry's now—”
The front door blew open, a pale streaking blur flew across the lawn before Harry appeared in a windless rush at my side, bucket in hand, brows pulled down severely. Without a word, he hit me in the face with a gallon of cold tap water.
I blinked rapidly and let out an unintelligible roar-yelp, shaking off the drips. Shaking had been a bad idea, and I groaned.
He took in the fire, the scattered zombie giblets, the shotgun, and my state with one sweeping glare. Apparently, he decided I was going to live, so he tossed the empty bucket over his shoulder and let rip.
“Why are you of a nature to ride tantivy into disaster with trumpets blaring at every single opportunity?” he bellowed, removing his morning dress gloves so he could punctuate each word with a furious whip of his gloves against the crisp pleat of his grey flannel trousers. “Harken unto my words, woman! I am very nearly at the end of my thread with your excursions of whim and fancy!”
I croaked up at him, shoving wet hair out of my face. “Whim and fancy, Harry? Really?”
“And you!” He wheeled on Batten. “You staggeringly stupid, insolent, cumberworld. You play wolf's head a mere cockstride from ruin, when you ought to snool and snivel—”
“Harry…” I raised my voice.
“To go wolward and wetshod for your crimes, nay, to be slathered in tar and tossed vivum excoriari—”
“Harry!” I shouted, but the fumes from the tank choked my bile-burned throat and I collapsed into a coughing fit.
“Yes,” he declared, raising one finger in the air, full-on drama king now, “alive in the gibbet to be pecked to death by reechy crows until your body screams for the merciful release of death!”
Batten waited calmly for the tirade to end.
When it did, Harry adjusted the pin in his ascot and tidied the front of his soft grey morning jacket, then took to smoothing one shaking finger along his eyebrow to the piercings, over and over. Olympic relay smoothing.
“It was Marnie who blew up the propane tank,” Batten said pleasantly. “She shot it with Sheriff Hood's shotgun.”
Harry went still; his stare of disbelief only lasted until the likelihood of the story being true hit home. “Well, I'll be shinnicked.”
“Batten was a mile behind me,” I told Harry. “He had nothing to do with this.”
“I see.”
“Say you're sorry to the nice vampire hunter, Harry.”
“You must have hit your head,” Harry noted.
“I did, but that's beside the point. Apologize to Batten. All he's guilty of is not holding my hair while I puke.”
“Me, apologize to this ill-tempered crosspatch of a mortal?” He looked Batten up and down with his familiar blend of enthusiastic distaste and infinitesimal tolerance. “How could you suggest such a thing? Pretty damned cheeky, if you ask me.”
“No, it's fine,” Batten said, rocking back on his heels with a smile. He crammed both hands in his pockets. “Lot of men aren't capable of admitting they're wrong. Guess the same applies for old dead guys.”
For a moment, they stared one another down while the air around me ran hot and cold. I sucked all my yucky bile-tasting spit out of my teeth and hoarked into the grass, more to startle Harry with my unladylike behavior than to clear my mouth.
Harry shot a disapproving look down at me, and then pursed his lips primly. “Perhaps he did not deserve such a severe reproof.”
Batten gave an exaggerated shrug and waited so see if there was more.
“I beg you would excuse me, Agent Batten,” Harry yielded. “I am rarely shaken out of my reserve in such an indefensible and ungentlemanly fashion. I assure you, I am only unruly when sufficiently provoked.”
“By satin negligees and plunging necklines, for example,” I offered.
“Quite right,” Harry agreed. “Would you be so kind as to forgive me, A
gent Batten?”
Batten let out a long-suffering sigh. “Do I have a choice?”
“You could refuse, and then I would be quite justified in being wroth with you, varlet.” Harry dropped his gaze to inspect me. His upper lip curled off one very human-looking canine with disgust. “Darling, put aside the fowling piece and go clean up. You look like a drowned rat.”
“Gee, thanks,” I drawled. “My life partner gives good zombie aftercare.”
“Hmm, yes, and pray tell, what is that in your hair?” Harry pantomimed bouncing some curls behind his right ear.
I reached up to where he'd indicated and came away with a small, unquiet piece of Dunnachie. “A finger? Oh, ewwww.” I chucked it away, and followed its trajectory across the lawn towards the walkway that led to the front door.
It was then I noticed, with not as much surprise as one might expect, that there was an ogre on my porch.
CHAPTER 32
THERE MUST BE SOMETHING really nice about a half-breed ogre revenant standing on your porch at barely dawn, because for a moment I was happy to see him. Overwhelming relief flooded me; I couldn't have said why. (Guide my hand to do what's right.) Viktor's arms were crossed like bulging tree trunks over his barrel chest. The halogen porch light washed out what little color he had to begin with. When I gave my head a hard shake, my logic did not return: I was still very glad to see him. And shaking my head still made me want to throw up.
“What is Viktor doing here?”
Harry's smile burst forth the like sun through a fleeting spring storm. “Ah, how lovely that you remember our Mr. Domitrovich, I shall not have to perform tedious introductions.”
I clambered to my knees, pointing. “Harry, he can't be here.” I eyeballed Batten, who was assessing the eight-foot-tall undead ogre with flat eyes that almost certainly hid some alarm. Viktor looked like the world's most intimidating bouncer, and he had claimed my front door. I had better be on the VIP list. Maybe I could get a velvet rope to keep out the holy water-throwing riff-raff.
My cell phone rang, and the number displayed didn't look familiar. I flashed it at Batten, who shrugged. I pulled off the glove on my right hand and warned Harry, “We're gonna talk about this Viktor thing in a minute.”
I drummed up some psi. The caller's jumbled emotions came through very clearly, thanks to the residual effects of Declan's moth-in-chains spell: anticipation, the thrill of pursuit. And, oddly enough, the frantic need for conversation, as though this were a luxury he was not always afforded.
“I can't do any more things,” I announced frankly into the phone, to whomever.
“I need you.” Male. Slightly familiar.
There's something I never hear in a good way. “Oh, I'm so afraid to ask, but who are you and what do you need?”
“You have to help me corner it.”
“What do I need to corner,” I asked, “and why does your voice sound awfully familiar?”
“You know who I am, Ms. Baranuik. I only came to fight the abomination.”
Spicer. “You're speaking English at me this time.” And you're lying, but about what?
“I must see it to the end. I cannot let—gurk!”
“Are you John Spicer, the Bavarian Cream Pie?” I motioned at Batten from my knees, pointing at the phone. “What abomination, and why do you need my help?”
“That monstrosity. It must be —” Something stopped him, and he struggled with his tongue. The Blue Sense flared briefly against the side of my face: terror, followed by fiercely-determined calm. “The half-breed.”
“Oh, that.” I flicked a glance at Viktor the ogre's massive jaw and pocked face. “I admit, he's pretty horrifying. And I haven't even seen him naked yet.”
Spicer's unanticipated relief flooded through the phone. “I am so glad we agree on that. You must help me catch it.”
“Harry chased it away days ago,” I said.
Spicer's silence was guarded. “I cannot possibly believe that.”
“Paranoia is the first sign of mental illness, Spicer.”
“I've learned not to trust DaySitters when they speak of their Companions’ misbehavior.”
“I don't allow my Companion to misbehave,” I said. Batten rolled his eyes, and Harry chuckled, retrieving the bucket. I ignored them both, adding, “I don't really want that freak in my house.”
“I certainly understand that. It must have been a great shock, to discover what the old man has fathered.”
“What old man? Harry certainly didn't father it.”
“Perhaps not literally, though you must understand the part he has played.”
I frowned at this, but before I could speak, Spicer went on, struggling to force his words out, battling for control of his own tongue. “I assure you, this thing is twice as dangerous as you think it is. Since it's not with Malas, little squirrel, it must be with you. Tell me where it's being kept.”
I chose my words carefully. “Maybe it translocated to St. Petersburg again?”
“What do you mean, ‘translocate’?”
“You didn't know?” I described the speed with which Viktor had appeared on my front porch the first time, and how it was awake during broad daylight, and how huge it was. I cringed at the ease with which the word it kept tumbling from my mouth, considering I'd always staunchly defended a revenant's right to be called he.
“Do not let its size deceive you,” he said, “nor its seeming fragility.”
Fragile? Viktor? Unless Faberge had started making tanks, nothing his size really fit the description.
“It is a half-breed of unknown powers; we have not even begun to guess at its abilities.” Gurgle. “I must capture it. Do you understand how disastrous it would be if the abomination returned to the wrong hands?”
I found my gaze creeping up to the ogre on my porch again, scanning him from ear to ankle, no longer liking what I saw. The ogre dropped his black eyes to me in response; the revenant sensed my growing unease, heard my pulse quickening, smelled my sweat. It was full night now. He'd be far more dangerous than he had been the first time I saw him. He had to weigh three hundred pounds more than I did, and not fat pounds, but hard, powerful muscle. Dizziness stole my breath; all those pounds of unstoppable, undead freak show flying at me would be bad times all around. At least all that muscle's not sexy, an incredibly unhelpful part of me chided. No! No boffing the necrophiliac ogre.
“So, if I see it, I should keep it here?” I suggested.
“If you can contain this creation, and deliver it to me, I will take control from there.”
This creation? Fathered? Did he think Malas and Harry made Viktor? That made no sense. Was it possible? Also, where the fuck was I going to find a shipping envelope big enough? I didn't even own a forklift, so this whole “delivery” thing was looking pretty iffy.
He said, “We can work together on this, Ms. Baranuik?”
I nodded hesitantly then realized he couldn't see me through the phone. “First, promise me that you will make no more attempts on Harry.”
“Other Priors have come to Colorado, Ms. Baranuik, vampire hunters who have their own agenda. The attack on Dreppenstedt did not come from me, nor did I consent to it.”
“Revenant,” I warned. “Even if I believed that, Spicer, you should know, you touch a hair on Harry's head and this will end badly for you.”
Spicer choked, and several slurred French exclamations were ground to bits behind his teeth. The Blue Sense jabbed through the phone. Anger. Desperation. Dismay.
“You leave my people alone,” I said, eyeballing Batten, who had assumed his suspicious cop stance in front of me: arms crossed, glowering eyes, tight jaw. “Especially Harry.”
“I can't make any promises. Dreppenstedt is a dangerous creature, and may be hunting me.” He was maintaining his hard-won cool, but Spicer's voice vibrated. “I will not be the prey, here, Ms. Baranuik.”
“Harry is not hunting you,” I said flatly. “He's got better things to do with his time.” Like me.<
br />
“You can't know that. He is active while you are asleep.”
“If that means reading Chaucer and talking smack about my wardrobe choices to an audience of homemade brownies, you're right. Leave my Companion alone, he's off limits.”
“I am sorry that you are so stubborn, woman. You may come to regret it.”
I hung up and shoved my phone in my back pocket, dismayed to find my jeans sticky in addition to being wet. I put my gloves back on, checking them for icky spots.
Batten cleared his throat. “That was Spicer?”
I nodded. “He was speaking English this time, not garbled French nonsense. Something is definitely wrong with him. He called me a squirrel.”
“Anyone with access to the media could have known that,” Batten reasoned.
“The media has pictures of me in the damned squirrel suit?” My eyelids fell shut and I took a deep, cleansing breath. “Perfect. Just perfect. Harry, Spicer mentioned the ‘abomination’ and called it a half-breed. I think he's after Viktor,” I said, “and if so, he'll probably try to come for him here.”
“Maybe that's a good thing,” Batten said. “Lure him here, use Viktor as bait.”
I shook my head. “Too dangerous. Viktor can't be in my house.”
“Oh, indeed he can, love, for you have not yet uninvited him,” Harry reported, “and I pray you would not, as Wesley and I have found use for him.”
“I'm so afraid to ask, but exactly what use would that be?” I asked.
“As luck would have it, the ogre makes an especially deferential servant once shown his place by a firm male hand,” Harry said. “I only had to lay bare my authority once, and he's been an absolute kitten ever since.”
“A kitten,” I repeated, eyeballing the ogre uncertainly. “What about his… preferences?”
Batten shot me an alarmed look that I ignored.
“Wesley and I have decided that there are worse things in the world than being worshiped in such a way. He only indulges when we are resting, and he has promised to limit himself to exposed skin. Besides, his saliva seems to be helping Wesley heal.”
