2 Death Rejoices

by A. J. Aalto

  The berserker. Its putrid head craned to look at Spicer with a gaze so empty of everything but hunger that it made my lungs cramp, and I was afraid for all of us, including Spicer. For a split second, I only saw human against monster, and all my muscles tensed to spring.

  Declan's hand was a vice on my arm. “Don't,” he breathed hotly into my ear.

  Spicer regained control over his words and the zombies stilled as a unit. Anne scuttled down the wall at them, trailing the dead baby across the dirt and stone floor behind her. The zombies gave a hungry keen in unison. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Anne noticed the baby. She reached down between her legs and, in a vulgar mockery of maternal instinct, scooped up the little, unmoving body and cradled it for a moment. Then she chewed into its face.

  I crammed my eyes shut so I wouldn't have to watch, but Anne's smacking, ripping noises and the jilted-child whine of the other zombies made my gorge rise, and I tried not to moan in despairing horror. There was a wet snap of tiny bones and my mind retreated inward to try and search for any possible escape.

  We couldn't get past Anne, or Spicer, or the zombies without taking on all of the above. Spicer might be manageable on his own, but we'd have to get past the zombies first, and while Spicer protected them, Anne would rip us up. We couldn't fade back into the darker corridors of the mine, because there wouldn't be enough oxygen down there to survive very long. The gas masks would keep us from succumbing to anything toxic, but they didn't supply breathable air. Besides, the gas masks were on the floor by the table, so they might as well have been back in the cabin. Spicer wanted to keep Anne, but now that I'd released her astral, he'd know she was different and realize someone else was down here, especially when he got her under control and noticed all reagents strewn about. The boxes were poor long-term cover. As soon as he checked on Batten, we'd be found.

  Again, Declan breathed into my ear and extended his arm slowly. “There.”

  I looked where he indicated; a key ring hung from the belt loop of Spicer's filthy pants. One key was a lot smaller and simpler than the others. Batten's handcuff key.

  If I could release Batten, it'd be three against five. My belly performed a hopeful somersault. Maybe, I thought with the wild optimism that happens when you're desperate, Batten counted as two or three guys, evening the odds further.

  Declan poked my shoulder and pointed behind the boxes lined up along the wall. He crept his pointer and middle finger like legs to mime someone walking in that direction, then jerked his chin at Spicer's key ring.

  I nodded. Declan started very quietly crawling away from mebehind the boxes, keeping his head down, moving slowly so as not to make any noise. Spicer and the zombies had their backs to us, their full attention on cornering Anne as she chowed down on her baby.

  If I kept the baddies busy, Declan could swipe the keys.

  Keep the baddies busy.

  What would Batten do? I glanced at him. Apparently, Batten would sit roped and cuffed to an iron bar on the wall, glaring at me. Sexy, but very ineffective. He was waiting to see what I'd do. That was not a good sign. That was the exact opposite of a good sign.

  Okay, screw WWBD. WWMD: What would Marnie do? My cruel brain taunted, something stupid, but my legs were already unfolding, and before I could even contemplate what I was going to do, I stood up.

  Batten made a sound like he was swallowing oysters whole and not liking the experience one bit. I shuffled to the opening of the passageway and cleared my throat.

  Spicer whipped around, and to his rocketing eyebrows, I said, “Oh, hi,” and waved, pasting a super-friendly smile on my face.

  Batten's gluk turned into a low, moaning curse so foul that I eagerly filed it away for future use.

  The zombies did a choreographed side-shuffle at Spicer's command, tightening their circle around Anne. When they'd penned her in, Spicer used his incredulous facial expression to demand an explanation. His distress woke the Blue Sense, which roared his indignation under my skin.

  “Heh. Bet you didn't expect to find me here, huh?” I said.

  Something was beginning a warm thrum under my palms, something uncomfortable but familiar, something that belonged to me distinctly. Closer, now. I didn't know what it was, only that I wanted it to reach me. I needed to stall. I showed Spicer my empty hands in a gesture that was all Gary Chapel and his body language tricks: See? Nothing to worry about here.

  “You might explain yourself,” Spicer suggested, lilting effortlessly back into the hushed incantations of his necromancy. He ran a hand over his sweaty, pox-scarred forehead. “I suppose you came to rescue your man, there.”

  “Who, that jackwagon?” I scrunched my eyebrows up and flapped a hand at Batten, who was making a last-ditch effort to peel his hands out of the handcuffs. “Oh, no, that guy is a huge pain in my ass. You can keep him. You're doing me a big favor by taking him off my hands.”

  To my left, I heard the faint sound of Declan's shoes scraping floor behind the boxes and hurried to cover the sound. “So, uh, nice zombies. They sure will be useful, cutting and hauling sugar cane on that plantation of yours. Don't they get it all goopy? The rotting zombies, I mean, not the nice clean hybrids. How do you keep the sugar from getting contaminated with plague? And how do you control the berserkers? I thought that was impossible. Of course, what I know about zombie-making could fill one of those soul jars, there. I should maybe get you a label-maker.”

  Spicer kept one half of his focus on maintaining his control of his pets while he dialed his suspicion to determination. The Blue Sense warned me that his patience was fading fast. A brilliant I-will-kill-you gleam set up shop in the pools of his eyes and my heart felt like it toppled down through my belly and into my shoes.

  “So, is it nice?” I asked. “Your plantation? Sounds nice. Haiti. Boy. Hot down there.” I sucked my teeth, crammed my tingling hands in my pockets and rocked back on my feet. “How do you, uh, get the zombies down there? Private airfield? Got a plane of your own?”

  “This is why you came? To make small talk?” His jaw did a reproduction of the clench-unclench dance Batten's always does. “Where is your team, Miss Baranuik?”

  “What team?”

  “Don't be an idiot.”

  “I'll try,” I promised.

  “Where are the FBI?”

  “Well, there's one,” I pointed helpfully to Batten, whose struggles had caused his tightly-cuffed wrists to start bleeding. “And, uh, there's another guy, but he's in bed sick. You gave him corpsepox in the car on the way to Malas’ house. Remember Jim? Yeah, he's not really a Furry.”

  “And where is your companion, DaySitter?”

  “Who, Harry?” I tried to smile, but it wobbled on my lips until it fell off. “You know I can't bring him to Ashcroft. That's why you picked this place. The Castle Creek Slaughter. Ghosts aplenty. Doesn't seem to bother half-revenant hybrids, like Anne and—” I nearly said Declan, and swallowed that back with a yurp. “Malas can't come either. None of the immortals can. Kinship of the Departed, you know. You're safe, as far as revenant backlash goes. At least, until you leave this place. Then again, Malas is trapped in his casket, isn't he? Nice work, by the way.”

  I gave him space to accept my congratulations. He just scowled.

  “Besides,” I said, “Harry wouldn't dare harm a human like you, because he'd be breaking the law. So, I suppose you're safe from most local revenant backlash.”

  “Yes,” Spicer said, calmly taking out a familiar looking gun, Batten's Colt .45. “I'm pretty sure I'm fine. Thanks for your concern.”

  “Hey, no worries.”

  “Why did you come alone? You're not fool enough to think you can stop me by yourself?”

  “I'm not that stupid,” I agreed. “But I suspect you're leaving soon, now that you have what you came for, and you, uh…” Declan's shoes scraped the floor loudly this time. “You promised me an autographed copy of your book back at Fur Con, but didn't get around to giving me one.”

  “That's fai
rly stupid also,” he informed me, muttering something to his zombies. The zombie circle tightened around Anne, who looked like she was enjoying her meal, like a toddler with spaghetti.

  “I feel like I should apologize,” I said.

  “I don't have time for this.”

  “The truth is, Three-Face sent me.”

  “Come again?”

  “Erm, the Overlord. Demon King. The one whose name starts with A?” For a moment, Spicer looked alarmed, but I shook my head. “Don't worry, I won't say it aloud. He sent me to kill you, and to claim Anne on his behalf. Hard to say no to a guy like that.”

  Spicer nodded like he understood and faux-sympathized.

  “I was supposed to put this ring on her finger,” I dug it out of my pocket and showed it to him. “And He'd do the rest.”

  “But you didn't.”

  “Well,” I said defensively, “she's scary. Also, his plan was a little more ballsy than I'm comfortable with.”

  “So your plan was to kill my masterpiece how, exactly?”

  I grimaced at the word “masterpiece” and looked at Anne, surrounded by zombies, legs spread, just diggin’ on fetus.

  “Witchcraft?” I said, making it a question.

  He looked at the pentagram on the floor, candles, herbs, smashed jars. “White magic.”

  “Yep.”

  “Against necromancy.”

  “Indeed.”

  Spicer's pox-ravaged lips twitched. “Candlelight and lavender.”

  “And other cool stuff,” I said defensively.

  “Oh, I'm sure. Wolfsbane and good intentions.” His eyes gleamed feverishly. “Puppy kisses and dew drops.”

  Declan's shoes stopped scuffling and I felt a coiled tension in the Blue Sense, not from Declan, or from Batten, neither of whom I could ever read. Someone else was waiting to spring forth. The zombies were firmly fixated on Anne. Spicer's ego and confidence had recovered enough to cram his irritation down. I swung my gaze to the ramp at the entrance to the chamber.

  There in the shadows, Gary Chapel pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose with one hand. I had no idea how he got there, and frankly didn't care. In that moment, I could have kissed him. There was no mistaking the faith in the hazel look he leveled at me, the go-ahead in his nod. Faith, I marveled, in me? I noticed that Gary's other hand held his gun, and felt a surge of unfounded invincibility.

  “Kitchen witchery,” Spicer repeated with no small amount of awe. “Sage and meadow sweet.”

  “I had some other herbs, too. Was thinking maybe whipping up some focaccia for after.”

  “May the loa protect me from your fearsome attack,” the bokor said with a smirk.

  I joined Spicer's smirk with my own, and meant it. “The power of spice compels you!”

  “Is that…” He peered at the table. “Is that basil?”

  “Hey, you can fuck off into a bucket of shit. That basil totally could have worked.”

  Spicer blinked in disbelief, and then to my surprise, burst out laughing. I joined him helplessly, nodding that yes, I am in fact that ridiculous. He pointed with Batten's gun at the dried herbs and powers lacing the table, bent over and pressed a hand to his thigh as glee whistled out of him.

  The zombies’ reaction to the drop in control was instantaneous. They bellowed, a chorus of garbled wet noises and gibbering hunger, and fell on Anne as a group, hands clawing, cloth ripping, flesh tearing. In response, Anne hucked aside the remains of her meal and opened her fanged mouth to latch on to the closest throat.

  Declan scuttled out of his hiding spot with hand outstretched. Simultaneously, I lurched forward with my fist to punch Spicer in the throat. He tried to swing around to aim the Colt at the moving blur of Declan's body, but my punch landed solidly and Spicer's shot went wide. Declan's swipe missed the key ring and he bolted out of the gun's path.

  Batten shook his cuffs and shouted, “The Taurus!” and I knew exactly what he meant for me to do with it. I hurried to his side and grabbed Batten's ropes; I had them bundled in my fist when Spicer's movement caught my eye.

  He rolled to the left, brought up the Colt again, and trained it on a moving target: Chapel. For a hair-raising second, I braced to witness my boss's murder. A cry caught in the back of my throat as I flashed forward on a life without Gary Chapel, and time slowed for me in a thick slide. I saw Chapel running across my backyard at Dead Danika Sherlock the ghoul, his gun drawn out of instinct, rushing into danger to save me. I saw Chapel heaving his guts in my toilet as my dhaugir revealed himself, how he'd taken my pain and never once asked me to release him from his bond. I saw Chapel hiring me, believing in me, stepping up whenever Harry or I needed him. The thought that Spicer's bullet might tear him open was enough to make me see stars.

  Declan took two running steps toward Spicer before my eyes blurred with panic-tears. He pulled something from my backpack in passing. The Taser. Spicer turned his focus from Chapel to Declan, but he was too late. Without hitting the butane, Declan fired the Taser's probes and gave him a good, long zap.

  I watched the bokor take it with a body-rocking, molar-squeezing “Grg-grg-gunh-grrng,” muscles stiffening, but he didn't go down. His lunatic noise in the zombie's Bluetooth headsets made two of them perk up. Thing One was lost to Anne's ripping fangs. Thing Two waited for instructions that didn't come. The berserker roared.

  Spicer regained enough focus to realize he was quickly losing control of the situation and commanded his zombies to leave Anne and attack us. Chapel fired off three rounds, taking off Thing Two's head in a red and white fan of brain and blood. The berserker came for him. It was now or never.

  I grabbed Batten's binding ropes, bundled them in my fist, put the nose of the Taurus directly against the rope's twists, hauled the whole mess to face the berserker, shouted, “Heads up!” at Chapel, and fired.

  The bullet tore through the rope. The good news was, Batten was free. The bad news was, the heavy twists of rope altered the bullet's trajectory. While Chapel hit the deck and dodged the berserker, the bullet did not hit the zombie, as I'd intended. Instead, the slug ricocheted through the chamber, drilled through the corner of the table, and hit Spicer in the same shoulder where his daughter, the Kitty, had staked him.

  Spicer went down with a cry, dropping the .45. Chapel and Declan both dove for it, but Declan got there first. No matter. Chapel had his own, and wheeled it around to aim it at Spicer's head. He shouted something that sounded fairly official, but in my keyed-up state, I didn't hear it. All I could hear was Spicer's rambling, his foreign words tumbling in a hysterical litany over and over. Perhaps in an effort to salvage his work, Spicer commanded the freshest zombie — the skinny berserker — to rush back up the ramp towards the entrance of the mine. The zombie disappeared in a rapid zigzag.

  I made a wordless complaint, complete with frantic pointing at Declan, who somewhat miraculously translated my meaning, hoisting the Taser in one hand and the Colt in the other, and took off after the last zombie.

  Chapel repeated, “Stand down, John Spicer. You are under arrest.”

  I handed the Taurus to Batten, who received it as he rose to assist in the arrest. My entire body vibrated with tension, waiting for more danger to spring out from somewhere, anywhere. I watched the zombie remains for signs of movement. Only Anne showed signs of life, such as it was. She twitched on the floor, clawing, rancid fingers clutching stone.

  I barely heard Batten reading Spicer his rights. I barely heard the gunshots topside, out in Ashcroft proper, though part of my brain registered that maybe Declan had finished the last zombie. I barely heard Chapel and Batten conferring as Chapel slapped his cuffs on Spicer's corpsepox-ravaged wrists.

  Something was still wrong. The Blue Sense was firing darts at all my nerve endings. Someone had intentions. Dark intentions. Murderous intentions.

  I was up and running before I even knew I was going to move. At the same time, Anne pounced, bowling Chapel and Batten back from her bokor. Her eyes flared with s
omething like life.

  I'd tried everything else, and nothing had worked, and the bags that I stopped beside were all empty except for the cans of diet Dr. Pepper. Anne had Spicer by the throat. Chapel and Batten were back up, approaching her with guns drawn. Spicer wheezed and his eyes bulged as Anne's inhumanly powerful grip tightened.

  At a loss, I grabbed a can of soda, thinking maybe I could beat her head in with it. I launched over Declan's bag and ran across the floor with the shaken Dr. Pepper. Naturally, I tripped over one of the table legs as I passed. I fell forward, my finger hooking the pull-tab open and spraying the zombie's herb-encrusted face.

  Whatever combination of herbs and liquids actually did the trick, I'm pretty sure I'll never know, but the instant the diet soda hit the zombie's face, her body started crumbling to ash. Spicer was able to slip free of the zombie's grip and roll to safety as the monster lost cohesiveness and thrashed to the floor.

  Anne gradually stopped moving, except for the bits of her flesh turning to ash and disintegrating in a slow slide to the floor. A cold burn crumbled her extremities, fingers first, then rushing down the length of her arms. Cinders drifted from her stone-still body.

  Spicer hacked and groaned, rolling away from her. Batten backed away, too, training his Taurus on Spicer, while I grabbed the last can of diet soda and emptied it over her face for good measure. Our collective stunned silence was filled with flesh sizzling and carbonated drips hitting the floor.

  “Wow, that aspartame is some serious shit,” I panted, my breath moving my bangs out of my face. “I'm switching back to regular.” I waited for her to move again, in case she was playing some zombie version of possum, and any second she'd burst off the ground, shake off the flakes to lunge at us.

  “That shouldn't have worked,” Spicer croaked.

  “That's not your line, villain,” I told him, pointing sternly. “Try again.”

  Spicer heaved, coughing bits of ash onto the dirt floor.

  I sighed. “I gotta do everything around here. Try, ‘You haven't won yet,’ or, ‘You haven't seen the last of me!’ Even an, ‘I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for you stinking kids,’ would be better than nothing.”