2 Death Rejoices

by A. J. Aalto

  “Think.”

  “My think-machine is on the fritz,” I cried. “You're about as useless as a fuck-stain on the carpet; do something!”

  “Use that magic spell that injured the ghoul in the funeral home,” Batten ordered.

  I hadn't called down the moon since, and knew I'd never get the words right. It was one of the few instances where words were as important as intention.

  “I'm going to put ‘blowing up a whole hospital’ in the bad ideas column.” Batten had stoked my memory enough for me to remember who I was, what I was; I held onto the chair in a white-knuckled grip while my brain made the decision between fight or flight and started struggling past the nerve-frazzling horror of Anne Bennett-Dixon's walking corpse to see some way out of this mess.

  Magic.

  Magic tooth. I slammed my hand into the pocket of my jeans, figuring this would be the one time the stalking tooth hadn't followed me from home, but it was there, nestled into a linty corner. I dug it out and held it tightly in my palm.

  (“…use this to call upon me in your time of need.”)

  The tooth vibrated against my latex-covered skin. Is this what Malas meant? Was this an emergency? Could he come this far?

  “I've got a plan, Kill-Notch.”

  “How much am I going to hate it?” he asked.

  “A lot. Get behind the chair.”

  I heard him mutter under his breath.

  (“Mark the sound of my reply. I will come for you.”)

  Did I have to call Malas aloud? The request came out more a squeal than summoning, and I wasn't sure what words I should use, so I imagined what language Harry might respond to. As soon as I began, the flesh between my shoulder blades began a tingling crawl.

  “Death Rejoices, Malas Nazaire, maréchal Toussaint, vicomte de Brisbois. This humble servant of the Eversea calls to you in her time of need—”

  The window exploded into the room, the glass fractured into a tumbling surge of chunky, bouncing hailstones. Batten hit the deck. I flinched into a crouch behind the hospital bed. A blur of white and grey took shape as it slowed to a speed that could be registered by the human eye; I recognized the withered arm and single enormous fang before anything else.

  Once settled into a creeping pace between us and Anne, shoulders shedding foul green smoke like a doused campfire made of rotten logs and worse, Malas Nazaire turned his attention on us. The equipment on the wall behind him rattled warningly, buzzed and snapped as the power surging through the air fried circuits. An alarm began to wail, then died abruptly. Monitor lights blinked furiously before winking out for good. Something wound-down with a motorized groan. A pressurized tank started hissing. The fact that his phantasm form could cause such destruction was a wake-up call; this was nothing like a ghost. It might not have Malas’ full power, but it wasn't a harmless wisp.

  “Oh, hi,” I said to Malas.

  The revenant's cornflower blue eyes lit with gold streaks and his face went through a waterfall of ages: Malas as a child, Malas as an old man, Malas as the handsome knight who gleefully plucked Napoleon's last nerve. His phantasm settled into a more cohesive phase, less vaporous, more solid.

  “Couldn't you have appeared inside the room, instead of outside the window?” I asked. “Save yourself the trouble of breaking in?”

  “You summon me to your aid, only to question my methods?” Malas’ hand shot out, and Batten's gun whipped through the air into the corner of the room.

  “No,” I promised, lifting slightly from my crouch to show him my latex-blued hands. “You just startled the nice policeman. He's not going to hurt you.”

  Malas blinked at me in disbelief, and his head rocked back with the force of his raspy laughter. I guess my assuming Malas had any fear of Batten or his gun was fairly amusing from his perspective. Witnessing the meltdown of everything in the revenant's wake, I suppose it was.

  Anne the zombie-thing made a move in my direction, a heart-juddering scramble, and before I'd completed my face-plant to the tiles, Malas had Anne by the ear with his sharp command.

  “Non.” His voice was something that the deranged might consider soothing. She slinked away from me and towards Dr. Murakami's mangled body.

  Malas spoke to her again, his raspy voice low and stern. “Non. Viens ici.”

  Casting regretful, hungry glances at the body, she continued on all fours to her master's feet.

  Malas levitated clear off the floor and sailed backward out the window, creating a sucking vortex of chart papers, latex gloves, paper cups, and knocked-loose electronics.

  The zombie investigated the gap in the glass, and Batten scrambled to get his gun back.

  “We're okay,” I said, “unless zombies can fl— oh, shit!”

  Anne hurled herself out the window like a jumping spider. Despite my new balls-out enthusiasm, I wasn't about to follow. Instead, I did a quick power-slide across the floor to Dr. Murakami's side to check his vitals, latex-ghostly fingers prodding chewed-up throat, ear bent to hear if he was still breathing. He wasn't. I hadn't really held out much hope that he was alive after the attack. His fixed pupils told the ceiling the story of his horrible end.

  Batten, shoulders fallen and head hanging, crouched to check the nurse, then shook his head at me. “I have to go after them.”

  I. Not we. In the wake of the adrenalin rush, I put off trying to over-analyze my exclusion from that statement. As the commotion died to a dull roar in my ears, I realized the alarm in the hall had not stopped screaming; we had been joined by a SWAT team and the health department in full HAZMAT gear, none of whom had entered the room. They watched us through the containment glass, guns held ready, eyes goggling through visors like a bunch of preschoolers seeing their first monkey sex at the zoo.

  The voice that came through the intercom was scratchy, hollow, and metallic. “Remain where you are. You're to be held under quarantine by orders of the CDC until we can ascertain—”

  The rest was obliterated by a too-early click-off. He tried to repeat it, and again his fingers fumbled on the button. New, or freaking out. Either way, we got the gist of it. There was a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “Guess we'll be here a while,” I said.

  The metallic voice came again. “Stand apart to prevent cross-contamination. One on either side of the room. Best we can do until we get some cultures, folks.”

  Batten ignored the intercom. He put his gun on the chair, stared at it like he was seriously considering shooting me, then drew both hands over his face, as if washing without water.

  Intercom guy chided, “Don't touch your face, sir.” Someone in the hall must have corrected him, because he came back with, “Agent Batten, don't touch your face.”

  “Mark?” I said. He looked at me like he only just noticed I was there. “Don't touch your face, just in case.”

  His expression hardened in a rush; even furious, he was death-blow handsome.

  “I know what you're going to say,” I said, backing toward the fresh night air streaming through the broken window, “but this isn't entirely my fault.”

  “I told you,” he started, “to wait in the fucking car.”

  “Yeah, but, then, the uh—” I pointed at Dr. Murakami's ravaged corpse. “He said.”

  Batten inspected his shoes; when he was done surveying the blood splattered on them, he glared up at me from beneath dark, stormy brows. “Your boss, SSA Chapel, remember him?”

  I bristled. “Don't talk to me like I'm a moron.”

  “Oh, you do remember him. Good.” He stepped toward me.

  The intercom squawked. “Stand apart, sir.”

  Batten ignored it. “Do you remember your boss telling you to wait in the fucking car?”

  “I did not turn that girl into a monster.” I held up my empty hands. “That was not

  my doing.”

  “And if Harry were here,” Batten continued, gathering steam, “he'd have told you to wait in the fucking car, too.”

  �
�Harry wouldn't say ‘fucking’.”

  Batten's jaw muscles were marbles rolling under the skin. “No?”

  “He'd use some word we'd have to Google. Besides, you're all wrong.” I flung one hand at the broken window. “It's better this way.”

  “Better,” he repeated, tucking his lips in and squeezing his eyes shut as though physically bottling his next words.

  “Yes. Whatever she is, Malas can manage her better than we can. You saw that.”

  His eyes popped open as though he'd made an amazing discovery. “Oh. The creepy monster can handle it.”

  “Don't bring his looks into this. You're no prize either,” I lied, choosing not to ogle the rippling muscles of his folded arms.

  “Creepy killer vamp and his pregnant zombie pet, they're gonna be great now.”

  I squirmed. “Pretty sure I never said ‘great’; pretty sure I said ‘better’.”

  “Creepy killer vamp and his zombie pet lurking in the Denver suburbs,” he said, like he was trying to understand a difficult math equation. “That's all fine with you. That's just peachy?”

  “We can talk about it later over coffee, when you're not…” I flapped a hand at him. “Wallowing in failure and committing epic douchebaggery?”

  He made a grab for me, and I yipped like a puppy with a pinched tail. I expected something other than the crushing bear hug I got, and it took me a second to realize he wasn't going to punt me like a football; by the time I relaxed into it, he was pulling away. I slid my arms around his waist and gave him one last squeeze.

  His voice was tired. “You all right?”

  “I could use a day without pestilent horror.” His tiredness was overwhelmingly contagious. “Is there an official FBI requisition form for that?”

  The metallic voice from the box demanded, “Stand apart. Opposite sides of the room. I won't tell you again.”

  Batten and I looked at each other, gave the window the finger in unison.

  “Your funeral,” the metallic voice said sourly, but he was replaced with another, more insistent voice, who took up the don't touch your face, don't touch her face, opposite sides of the room litany, over and over, angrier each time.

  Batten exhaled hard. “Tell me we're not sick, Marnie.”

  “We're fine,” I said. “She didn't bite us. We didn't get anything in our mouths or eyes. Let me see your hands.”

  He held them out for inspection, two big calloused palms up. I ran my fingers over them, pretending to look for rips in the latex gloves, open sores or fresh wounds, but secretly remembering the last time these hands had been on my body, cupping a breast, easing a trembling thigh to one side. If it weren't for the possible droplets of contagion in the room and the mess of two dead bodies on the floor, I might have been tempted to take advantage of our enforced togetherness; nothing like a little near-death experience to get the blood pumping.

  “All good?” he asked, his voice gone low and tentative.

  I avoided his eyes, swallowed hard, maintained my cool. “Yep. All good.” I watched his chest rise and fall for a comforting moment, imagined I could hear the steady, vigorous pump of his heart, and silently thanked the Dark Lady that Kill-Notch had made it through yet another close call. I felt him move away and didn't like it.

  “Why ‘Death Rejoices’?” he asked. “Why would Death rejoice about vampirism? Isn't being immortal the exact opposite of what Death would want?”

  “It's from an old Latin phrase. You find it in morgues sometimes.” I tried not to look at either of the bodies on the floor while a flurry of activity outside the plate glass window reminded me that I was stuck with corpses and contagion. “Taceant colloquia; effugiat risus. Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae. Roughly translated, ‘Let conversation cease; let laughter flee. This is the place where Death rejoices to teach the living’.”

  “I see what that has to do with a coroner's work, but what does it have to do with vamps?”

  I heard the V-word, but after what I'd just witnessed, it didn't sound offensive. He could have said monster and it wouldn't have fazed me. “You're not going to like the answer.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Death Rejoices is used by DaySitters to mark the difference between us and them, a submissive display. We are Bonded, but we are not partners, not equal. Death still comes for the DaySitter, still rejoices to claim us in the end. To the old ones, this distinction is a comfort; that's why DaySitters offer it. That phrase exalts the revenant. It reminds him that he is special, untouchable. Death may rejoice to claim me, but the revenant denies Death his victory.”

  The vampire hunter's lips curled. “Wanna bet? I'm going to hunt; Death will rejoice when it claims the thing that just flew out the window.”

  “Fine. Just don't expect an end-of-the-rainbow jackpot waiting for you.”

  His sigh was weary. “Of all the people who suck at crime fighting, you suck the most.”

  “I'm ridiculously competitive like that,” I agreed. “Also, failing to die properly isn't a crime, last time I checked.”

  “I should have insisted you quit after that Psychic Watch show started a dead pool on you.”

  “You put money on when I'd buy the farm? Dick.”

  “November fifteenth. Try to live that long.” When my eyes narrowed, he gave a what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it shrug. “You make Scooby Doo look like an evil genius.”

  “If I wasn't still holding out for one more filthy night of passion with you, I'd drop your ass through this floor.”

  “Ditto.” He mimed strangling me, both hands tiredly playful at my throat; I quelled the urge to dive-tackle him onto the bed.

  “CDC is coming in, please remain where you are,” the intercom informed us, and we slumped apart, turning to face the guys in the big white suits.

  CHAPTER 41

  “IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT,” I muttered to myself, trying the motel swipe card again, “and while she struggled like a moron to open her door, the monsters ate her head, the end.”

  We'd found a little motel on I-70, the Starlight Dreams, which happened to be the only motel along I-70 that had a vacancy. I could see why: the place looked like it should have been condemned before I was born.

  It was nearly four A.M. and as dark as Leviathan's asshole. The streetlight nearest the parking lot was burnt out and there were no other lights in the area. Rain pelted the sidewalk around me. Wet, tired, scared, and tired of being scared, I bent over, squinting like a drunk trying to fit car keys into an evasive lock. The red dot mocked me with my failure. I swiped the card again. Fail.

  Before trying once more, I cracked my knuckles, because sometimes when you show inanimate objects that you're serious, it works, at which point I discovered I scream the exact same way whether I'm being tapped on the shoulder or mugged by a Yeti. I wheeled around with a desperate shriek.

  “It's just thunder,” a drippy Batten misdiagnosed as I attempted to swallow my heart back into my chest cavity.

  “You scared me,” I said.

  Batten took the key card from my hand, flipped it over, swiped it, and opened the door. “Get in, you're soaked.”

  “Is Declan okay?”

  “He had no trouble with his lock,” Batten said. I sensed that inside he was laughing at me; it made me want to sweep his feet from under him, straddle him, and strangle him with my underpants. I might even take them off first.

  Outside, the storm threw buckets of water against the big window while howling wind shoved against the building, making it seem unsettlingly flimsy. The windows sounded like they might break under the pelting. The back of my legs were drenched from the slanting rain as I came into the cool hush of the room and threw my backpack in the corner.

  “I've been wondering about something,” he started.

  “Careful, unkind words about my character will not be tolerated.”

  “How can an Empath be so unsympathetic?”

  I propped my fists on my hips. “Just because I'm forced to feel
everything with my Talent doesn't mean it's bright for me to get attached. That serves no one. I prefer to do my science at a prudent distance.”

  “I noticed.”

  “But I also don't like being excluded.”

  “It bothered you when Chapel ordered you to the car.”

  “You remember Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom? I'd be Marlin Perkins, and you'd be Jim. You go ahead and grapple the wildlife. I'll be there, but only to take pictures and provide commentary. Ooooh, I wonder if Harry could impersonate David Attenborough. That man could narrate making waffles and make it sound enthralling.”

  He looked at me dubiously. “Waffles.”

  “Speaking of wildlife,” I said, “did you get a whiff of the motel office?”

  “The owner has three cats.”

  “And three litter boxes, all in that tiny room. The piss fumes nearly melted my retinas.”

  “I don't think the hookers in the first two rooms mind the smell.”

  “I'd be the only hooker on Earth to haul around Glade plug-ins in her ‘ho bag’. Is that the PC term for hooker-purse?”

  “You're asking the wrong guy, I just have my kit.”

  Someone rapped on the door behind him, sparing him a withering cut-down about his grandfather's man-purse. “Besides, so what if I'm good at remaining clinically detached? You're not?”

  I went to unlock the door and Batten pushed me aside. His big palm hit the door. He eyeballed the peephole then unlocked it, shooting me a dirty look. “You always open the door without checking who it is?”

  “It's Declan.” I rolled my eyes. “I knew it wasn't the boogeyman without looking, dude. I could feel his little leprechaun vibes out there.” To Declan I said, “Come in. Why aren't you sleeping?”

  “Why are you two standing here arguing in the dark?”

  “Why shed any light onto the farce that is my life?” I asked.

  “Why do I bother?” Batten said brusquely, and disappeared into the rain.

  “Why do you only travel by boat?” I asked Declan, frowning at Batten's retreating form until I lost him in the fog. “You said that once, and that needs to be answered before we play any more of the ‘why’ game.”