Revenant (7 page)

Joe smiled.
Meet your new bodyguards.
He pointed to himself and Mastiff.
The new Crocket and Tubbs.

I never watched
Miami Vice
. But I knew the characters. And these two were more like Starsky and Hutch. The remake version.

After Mastiff’s initial blow, Mom hustled us inside. Jemmy was there, puttering in the kitchen. The shop wasn’t officially open till after ten since it was a Wednesday. I could smell the aroma of buttered eggs, biscuits, bacon, sausage, orange juice, and spicy gravy before I even came through the door.

Okay. Before, when we left, I wasn’t hungry. But by then I was
starving
.

And with the news of Daniel’s disappearance and reappearance—food was the best form of comfort. Right?

About that—

“The word is no one saw him leave,” Mastiff was saying as he buttered a biscuit. If there was one thing Joe’s new partner enjoyed, it was Nona’s breakfasts. Good old Southern boy at heart. “Since his internment, Frasier’s been the model patient. They took him off the tranqs about a week after he arrived, and he’s been very docile. Almost agreeable.”

I frowned, remembering that day in front of the Foxx—leaving the Bridgetown Grill and Daniel wielding that gun—rounding it on me . . .

Cooper jumping in front of it. Daniel firing—and then screaming at me.

Blaming me because he’d shot his boss.

And then the death masks came . . .

“. . . till midnight. All the beds are checked every two hours. So”—Mastiff shrugged—“they’re not sure how he escaped. No sign of forced exit. All doors locked. And no one saw anything.”

I blinked. Looked at him. “Nothing? Not even a scratch or a sign that he’d cracked that lock?”

Mastiff shook his head as he bit into the fluffy biscuit, butter squishing out on the sides.

Joe was across from us, his plate barely touched, his arms crossed over his chest. He was staring at his food but not seeing it.

I decided to intrude on his thoughts. And why not? He did it to me all the time.

Eh?
He kept his head tilted down but looked at me across the table.
Trying to figure out if maybe Daniel was possessed by a Horror again. I mean—is it possible?

I pursed my lips.
I—I don’t know. If he was—it wasn’t from me.
Not this time. No. I was whole. Literally so.
Maybe it’s something else?

True. I didn’t like the way that sounded—making Daniel out to be a whore-dog of some kind. But . . .
You think maybe he did, and they let him out, then relocked the door?

Joe nodded.

I voiced this to Mastiff, who nodded.

“Yeah, they thought about that. And the room’s been fingerprinted. But—that’s not really going to prove anything. They have an accounting of staff who regularly go in and out of that room—not to mention patients who wander in during the day. And as for the security cameras—they conveniently went on the fritz for that period of time.” He used his right hand to gesture while holding the biscuit in his left. “One minute he was in the bed. The next—he was gone.”

Nona set her fork down and picked up her coffee. Tim sat beside me, listening and watching. Mastiff couldn’t see him unless Tim wanted to be seen. Steve was apparently absent. Lately, he hadn’t joined in any of the reindeer games. I wondered why. “Now—how was he spotted here in Atlanta? And how did he get here?”

Mastiff shook his head. “He was spotted on a closed-circuit video screen. Here.” He wiped his hand on his napkin and reached inside his suit jacket. He pulled out a five-by-seven picture and handed it to Mom. “That was taken at a convenience store on LaVista yesterday. So he’s in the area.”

After looking at it with her eyebrows arched high, Mom handed it to me. Rhonda started for it, but I snatched it back. Mine! When I looked at it—my heart leapt into my throat.

The image was grainy—like any photo taken as a capture from video. But it was him, standing on the other side of the register purchasing something. He looked good, his hair longer than it had been, cupping around his face. He wore a gray hoodie of some sort, with a blazer.

He looked good. Not crazy. “So when you catch him,” I said, handing it to Rhonda, “what are you going to do?”

“Bring him in for questioning.”

Joe sat forward quickly and waved at Mastiff. He made the sign,
“What for?”

“Oh, come on, Joe. You know we can’t talk about that in front of the ladies. Or at breakfast.”

“You mean question him about the bodies with the drained blood and the wacky carvings?” Rhonda spoke up, her attention still on the photo.

The expression on Mastiff’s face was priceless. He blinked a few times and downed some OJ. “Uh . . . how did . . .”

“Society,” I piped up.

He nodded. That seemed to explain a lot in this group. Not that the rest of the Atlanta PD knew about them or their purpose in the South. Most of the members—including Rhonda—came from money, and with money, well, you gets respect.

Joe was waving again and this time grabbed up the pen and notepad by his plate. He scribbled. I used to scribble too. WHY 4 THOSE? NO EVDENCE HE WS INVOLVE.

I winced at his misspellings. I used to do that too.

Mastiff shrugged. “Not my call. Talk to the captain.”

I could tell by the look on Joe’s face that was exactly what he was going to do.

“Anyway,” Mastiff said, “one of us will be with you at all times, Zoë. Or at least our presence will be known.”

Ominous.

Not.

“Are you first on duty?” Jemmy asked from where she’d been eyeing the poor detective from her perch beside Nona.
Yeah . . . he’s cute, Jemmy, but a half and more younger than you. Down girl. Woof.

Mastiff nodded. “Yes. Halloran here was up early with the latest body.” He winced—but I wasn’t sure if it was from the taste of Mom’s coffee or the fact that we already knew about those. “I’ve put in to have the other two bodies moved to Dekalb. Made it a central hub of activity for the time being.”

So all the bodies were going to be in one place.

Rhonda asked, “You mean like that’ll be done today?”

Mastiff nodded. Rhonda looked at me, and I thought,
Uh-oh. What is she plotting?
I was making nefarious plans to grab Archer tonight and show him the bodies to get his opinion. And to find out if he’d maybe gotten an idea on that hair-monster thing. Pick his Symbiont brain about the First Borns.

With a full stomach—I was ready for sleep. Whether I wanted it or not. I gathered up my dishes, dropped them in the sink, and turned to find Rhonda directly behind me. I backed up, blinking. “Hello?”

“Going to bed?”

I looked past her to the tea shop, where everyone was gathered at the main table still eating and talking. Except for Joe, who was watching us. Refocusing on Rhonda, I nodded. “Yeah—like you said. Sneaking out. Tired.” And I even yawned on cue. Not made up.

But she wasn’t moving out of my way.

Instead, Rhonda narrowed her kohl-rimmed eyes at me. “You weren’t sneaking out to meet Dags—not like I thought. You didn’t even know he was in town.”

I didn’t have time for this. If I didn’t get at least a few hours of sleep, I was never going to last tonight while zooming to the morgue. I sighed. Okay . . . a half-truth was better than a no truth. Right? “Okay. Fine. No, I wasn’t sneaking out to see Dags. But first you have to tell me how you know. You keeping spies on me too?”

Rhonda’s reaction was perfect. She actually looked stunned. “Well, no . . . it’s just that you’re always sleeping. So I figured you were doing something at night and not sleeping.”

“I’m practicing—okay? I went nearly a month with no OOB, then poof”—I held up my hands for emphasis—“I’m not only a Wraith but part of a Horror. And then I’m slammed back together. So, yeah, I’ve been out practicing. Learning what it is I can do.”

She almost looked . . . happy. At least she didn’t look mad anymore. Instead, she reached out and hugged me. And I mean gave me the huge squish. I returned the hug, feeling a bit awkward. Then she pulled back and smiled. “I’m sorry. I just—I lost you for a while, and it was awful. And I thought because you felt you couldn’t trust me—you’d leave me out of what’s happening in your life. And I’m still interested. I still want to help.”

I grinned. “That’s good. But the best way to help right now”—I reached out my arm and pushed her to the side—“is to let me get a few hours of deep sleep.” Moving past her, I waved at the table. “Mastiff, you’ll have a great shift. I plan on sleeping all afternoon.”

“What about helping me?” Mom said, looking mockingly upset with a hand to her chest, her eyebrows raised.

I went to the steps beside the kitchen and waved them off. “Get Steve to do it. He’s great with the customers.”

Which was far from the truth. Already, the man had managed to frighten off two pregnant women and a gaggle of Girl Scouts. All because he appeared in front of them and said boo.

But even as I fell into my bed, my mind gathered up all the events and mushed them together in a single troubled list.

Daniel was missing—either having escaped by mundane or extraordinary means.

Something unknown attacked Archer and killed a Fetch—something that had visibly upset the Symbiont.

Someone was using an old ritual created to destroy First Borns—and had killed a ghoul. They’d also made it look like vampires had done it. Why?

And to top it all off—why hadn’t Dags returned my phone calls?

Suddenly unable to sleep, I pulled my iPhone from my back pocket—hey, I could talk again, so I had gone after the coolest phone I could find—and pulled up his number. I didn’t have a picture—not a single one. I only had my memory of him. And even that was getting fuzzy, even after one month.

What I could remember was his touch—gentle and soft—and his warm body against mine.

I hit the CONNECT button and waited. It rang once, twice, then the same message in his voice mail, “Greetings and salutations—you’ve reached the voice mail of Darren McConnell. I’m not available to take your call—”

I disconnected. What was the point in leaving another message?

I’d already left five.

MOM
tried to wake me up at some point—yammering about a guest downstairs. One of Rhonda’s friends—but I was having none of it. I wanted sleep, and nothing was going to get in my way.

Eventually, I did crawl up from the depths of unconsciousness. It was dark outside, and I stumbled to the bathroom to shower and change into my usual black clothes. After tying up my hair, I meandered downstairs to a completely empty shop. There was a note taped to the microwave from Mom.

I opened the microwave and pulled out a massive helping of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, and biscuits. Uhm . . . this might have looked appetizing an hour or two ago. But now it was more like coagulated grease and starch. Stepping on the garbage-can release, I raked all of it in, gave it last rites, and closed it up. Tossing the dish in the sink, I looked in the refrigerator. Hum . . . sandwich meats, cheese, fruit—chocolate cake!

I pulled out the plate with half of a hunk on it—looked like my Mom’s devilishly rich chocolate mousse cake. Mm . . . a piece of this, then a dollop of whipped cream—and coffee. Needed to make coffee.

I stood, shut the door, and turned—

And let out a thunderclap of a scream.

TC reached out and capped my mouth with his hand. “I hate it when you do that.”

I stood in my mom’s kitchen, holding a plate of chocolate cake with Vin Diesel’s hand over my mouth. Life was not exactly boring, was it? I reached up and pulled his hand back. “Then stop popping in and out like that without warning. I was getting something to eat.”

“No time,” he said, and stepped into the front area of the tea shop, looking around. “We need to get to the morgue.”

Okay, that got my attention. I set the cake on the counter and followed him. “The Dekalb morgue? You mean where the bodies drained of blood are?”

He spun so fast I didn’t see him move. Instead, he was in front of me before I could take a step back. Sometimes being with Archer was a lot like playing with a half-feral tiger. Not something you wanted to take lightly. “You know about the bodies?”

I blinked and finally stepped away, my back against the dessert display cabinet. “Well, yeah—I saw one of them earlier today. Drained of blood, bite marks, and symbols carved in their skin.”

His eyes narrowed. Dead eyes. “So you know about the Revenants?”

I shook my head slowly. “No . . . I don’t think anyone brought them in.” Uhm. “Who are they?”

He turned away from me with a disgusted noise and sneered. “Deserters is what they are. Weaklings. So afraid of taking what they deserve, they hide deep inside the souls of the physical plane. We call them Revenants because that’s what they are—revenants of an age long gone from the planes.”

I had to wonder if he was talking about the First Borns—and I also decided to play it dumb. Not a hard stretch most days. “Uhm . . . you care to help me out on this? Joe brought me and Rhonda to the morgue to see the bodies—see if maybe Rhonda knew what the symbols meant.”

He turned to me, and it was the most serious I’d ever seen him. “They mean destruction. Annihilation.”