Flesh Circus (17 page)

Number one or number two, Jill? The one ahead or the one on the right? It makes sense to check the one dead ahead first.

It bothered me. The smell should be worse, if it was so nice and warm in here.

The stealthy non-sounds grew more and more intense, but I couldn’t get a fix on them. There’s a certain frequency where you
can’t tell if the sound is truly audible or just a mental echo of something else going on; it burrows under the skin and strokes
at your eardrums with little hairy legs. A shiver of loathing went down my skin. My blue eye only caught the stirring of ambient
energy, a slow lethargic swirl that told me nothing.

I debated reaching for the doorknob with my left hand or just plain kicking it. The first rule of any scene is to offer assistance
to the living, but I was pretty sure nothing was left living in here. Still, if I went around kicking doors in…

Take it easy, there, Jill. Think for a second.

The smell was wrong. The silence was wrong. The newspapers, front lawn, blank walls, empty kitchen, and most of all the unlocked
door were
wrong.

My left hand flicked toward another gun just as all hell broke loose. The door crumpled and shattered outward, little splinters
peppering me and the wall as a zombie lurched through, dry tendons screaming and half-eaten face working soundlessly. It was
dripping with little bits of plated light—it took me a split second to determine the thing was crawling with roaches, each
with the familiar little red dot on its back. But worst of all was the smell that belched out of the small close bedroom,
and the zombie lifted its shattered arms and blurred forward with the eerie speed of the recently reanimated, roaches plopping
off and scuttling for my boots over the cheap carpet.

I’d found Trevor Watson. And he wasn’t alone.

The trouble with zombies is that the motherfuckers just won’t stay
dead.
I stamped down hard, a short sound of disgust escaping tight-pursed lips, and the skull gave way under my steel-toed and
-heeled boot with a sound like a ripe melon splitting. Zombie bones get porous after a little while, something about the body
cannibalizing itself to provide enough chemical energy for their restless motion.

The roaches scuttled, but my aura flared, pushing them away from my feet. They ran with greasy green smoke, popping out of
existence like Orville Redenbacher’s ugliest nightmare. My fist blurred out, hellbreed strength pumping through my bones,
and caught the fourth one in the face as well. It exploded, bits of rotting brainmatter splattering me and the walls liberally.

Guns won’t do much good against zombies in close quarters. The ones whose heads I’d shattered were still scrabbling weakly
on the carpet, sorcerous force bleeding away. Green smoke rose from the sludge their noncirculating blood had become. Identification
of these bodies was going to be tricky—they were juicy as all get-out. But it explained why the smell was just awful and not
truly, blindingly massive.

And I’d ID’d the first one before he’d tried to chew me into bits. He shouldn’t have ended up here and dead, for God’s sake.
But I had other problems to worry about right now.

The roaches made little whispering sounds, puffing out of existence. Both bedrooms were awash with green smoke hanging at
knee level, and a roving hand splatted dully against my ankle. I stamped again, felt flesh and sponge-bones give.

Two left, where did they go, spooky fuckers, they move so fast
—I skipped to the side. When you don’t have a high-powered rifle or particular ammo for headshots that will make the entire
skull explode, you’re down to fisticuffs and whip-work. Unfortunately, the area was too confined for the whip. Knife-work
wouldn’t do me any good.

I was wishing for my sunsword when one of the remaining zombies made a scuttling run, humping up out of the smoke and heading
straight for the wall. I grabbed it, fingers popping skin and sinking into worm-eaten muscle tissue before, and broke the
neck with a quick twist. That didn’t do much—they’re sorcerously impelled, not relying on nerve endings much—but it did slow
it down long enough for me to take its legs out, get it on the floor, and stamp its head in.

Everything I’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours tried to declare mutiny, but I was too busy hunting around for the last
zombie. It dodged out the door and I gave chase, wading through waves of roaches and spluttering, still-moving corpses awash
in bloodsludge and green smoke.

Well, that answers that—the cases are connected. Hallelujah, but I hate to be right.
I bolted down the hall, my left hand heading down for the whip.

It zigged around the corner and so did I, clipping the wall with my shoulder and taking away a good-sized chunk of it. Out
into the clean, cold night air, where I saw two things—first, Avery was outside the Jeep, standing near the hood and staring
at me.

Second, the zombie was scuttling straight for him.

If it reached him, it would probably tear his throat out. Just because I’m tough to kill doesn’t mean regular humans are,
especially if you’re a spooky-quick, sorcerously engineered corpse bent on mayhem. A corpse just aching to do its master’s
bidding.

Then I’d have to deal with Avery’s body too, and right in front of Eva.

I screamed and leapt, the whip coming free and flicking forward, silver flechettes jingling as it wrapped around one of the
zombie’s legs and almost tore itself out of my hand. The leather popped hard, once, like a good open-hand shot to the face
or a piece of wet laundry shaken in just the right way, and the zombie went down in a splattering heap.

“
Get in the fucking car!
” I yelled. Then I was on the thing, its foul sponginess running away as I broke its neck with a louder crack than the other
ones.
This guy must be pretty fresh, too.
I balled up my right fist, my knees popping foul, slipping skin and sinking through muscle turned to ropy porridge.

I
punched,
pulling it at the last second so my fist didn’t go through the head and straight on into the dying lawn. Newspapers ruffled
in a sudden burst of cold air and the smell of natron. The wet splorching sound was louder than it had any right to be, and
brain oatmeal splattered. The body twitched feebly.

No, they don’t rely on nerve pathways much. But the head as the “seat” of consciousness carries a magical meaning all its
own, and the symbol of breaking the head breaks the force the zombie is operating under.

I just wished it wasn’t so messy. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, though.

I considered retching, but Avery was already doing enough for both of us. He was still gamely trying to make it around the
car to the driver’s side. Eva stared out through the windshield, her mouth ajar and her eyes wide enough to turn into plates.

Bits of dead zombie plopped off my coat as I rose, heavily. Shook myself like a dog heaved free of an icy lake. More bits
splattered.

“J-J-J—” Avery was trying to get my name out through retches.

“Get in the car!”
I yelled at him again. The scene wasn’t safe, for Chrissake.

“Behind you!”
Eva screamed, but I was already turning, hip swinging first, skipping aside as the whip sliced air. The silver jangled, bits
of rotting flesh torn free, and it hit the zombie I hadn’t counted before full in the face.

The thing did an amazing leap, dead nerves trying like hell to respond, the same kind of unholy quick reflex motion a small,
partially crushed animal makes as the body dies. It jittered and jived there on the lawn, and I was on it in a heartbeat.
When it was finally twitching out its last, I cast a quick glance back at Avery, who finally managed to make his legs work
and scurried around the front end of the Jeep. I turned back to the house, waited until he was in the car and had the engine
going before taking another step toward it, senses quivering. The whip had transferred itself to my right hand, and my left
fingers found my largest knife. It would brace my fist and I could probably lop a hand off if the zombie was old enough.

The sudden wash of sensory acuity turned me into a mass of raw nerve endings. I exhaled, made sure of clear play on the whip
by shaking it a little, listening to the flechettes jangle.
Christ. Wish I had my sword. Or that Saul was here.

But wishes didn’t get the job done. I had a whole house to check, and who knew how many zombies to deal with.

I eyed it. One-story, no cellar unless it was hiding around the back, and I’d already cleared out two rooms with two zombies
each. Where had the last one come from?

Lord God above,
I thought,
I hate attics. Almost as much as I hate basements.

I got to work.

P
iper wasn’t happy about bodies spread out in fast-decaying bits, but she took my word that they wouldn’t rise again. I’d cleared
the whole house and found three more wet ones—not up in the attic or in a surprise cellar, but in the small crawl space underneath.
It made sense—they like dark spaces. It was hard to believe so many people had lived here, but the kitchen held dry goods
and the bedrooms had mattresses as well as two altars. It was clear the altars were where all the money had gone. They were
elaborate three-story affairs, candles burned down, dishes of flyblown sticky candy and bottles of Barbancourt, cigars that
cost as much as the television. Whoever lived here was serious, though the wide bloodstain in the weedy backyard under a canopy
was probably chicken or goat instead of human. They even had a firepit to grill things, and I wondered how many “barbecues”
they’d thrown a month.

Still, the rest of the house was too empty. “It looks like a front,” was Piper’s only comment, and I didn’t have to tell her
how right she was.

It was the empty fridge that convinced me, actually.

Piper loaned me her cell phone, too, and I called Avery’s desk number. It was a relief when he picked up.

“You okay?” I tried not to sound sarcastic, or too relieved.

He let out a gusty sigh. “Kind of. Jill—”

“The next time I tell you to get in the car, Ave, you
do
it.”

“Christ, Jill, I
know.
Don’t rub it in. Listen, I—”

“You shouldn’t have been outside. If that thing had caught you, Eva would be very unhappy.”

“Will you quit? Ricardo’s gone. Tore a hole right through the door—the cell is a mess. The circle in there is broken. Something
ground the concrete up and broke it, made a gap.”

My knees didn’t falter, but it was damn close. Bright lights were on inside the house, starring the night. The neighbors didn’t
come out to check, and I wondered how many of them had an idea about the backyard at this place, and the drumming that would
go on all night sometimes. I could have had a homicide pair out here at this scene too, but really, what was the point? I
knew where I had to go next.

“He’s gone?”

“Completely AWOL.”

Goddammit. What do you want to bet he won’t end up a zombie too?
“All right. See what you can do about getting the room repaired.”

“I
hate
contractors,” he muttered. “Jill, I’m sorry. I was trying to get around into the driver’s side to get us away if we had to.
I was just about to go.”

That’s what I thought.
I took a deep breath, watching the shadows of forensic techs in the living room, played against the bright golden windows.
“Everything’s copacetic. First encounter with a zombie?”

“Yeah. You know, no matter how many times you see weird shit, it always knocks the wind out of you.”

Don’t I know it.
But I didn’t really agree. It’s amazing what the human mind will accommodate, given a strong enough framework. And the training
helps.

Training made me think of Gilberto on my front step again. What would Saul do if the kid was still there? Ignore him, hopefully.
And more hopefully, maybe the little gangbanger would have gone on his merry way.

Still, he had the look. Which meant he was a problem I would have to solve soon.

After, of course, I figured out who was attacking Cirque performers and strewing zombies all over. And after I figured out
what Saul was—

“Jill?” Avery sounded uncertain.

“It certainly does,” I agreed. “See what you can do about that room, and if anything looks hinky during
any
exorcism, buzz me. Don’t even go on a call if it feels weird. Make sure Eva and the rest know that, too.”

“Okay. Any idea what’s going on?”

“Do you really want to know?” I took his silence for a negative answer and smothered a laugh. “I’ll be in touch.”

I flipped Piper’s phone closed. It was time for God’s honest truth.

I might not have looked very hard for the perpetrator if it had just been a couple Cirque performers dead, or just Lorelei.
If black sorcerers and hellbreed were looking to off each other, it made my life a little easier. It was the chance they took
when they signed up for their kinds of fun and games.