I hung up and walked over to Mom’s grave. With no one around, I started shoveling dirt. As soon as the gravediggers finished their statements to the police, they came back over and grabbed their shovels again. I introduced myself and we finished filling in Mom’s grave together.
I slid the handle of my shovel into the rack on the back of the gravediggers’ work cart and said, “Thanks, guys. It’s been a hell of a day.”
The taller of the two gravediggers racked his shovel next to mine and sat down on the back of the cart. He was a rangy Southerner with tattoos praising the USMC and NASCAR. He nodded and said, “I guess. Lord, the dead rising from the grave is one thing, but why these guys? I buried some of these folks, and let me tell you, there was one or two stood no chance of seeing the Rapture, know what I mean?”
“Sitting close to the fire, right?”
“You got it.” He pointed to one of the open graves. “That dude there, didn’t believe in medicine. Thought praying with snakes would cure his little girl’s diabetes, so he wouldn’t let her see a doctor. Beat her mama for trying, so she throws a basket full of rattlesnakes at the dude. Oh, he wanted the doctor then! He died in the ambulance, screaming ‘help me, help me’.”
He pointed to another grave, a bit further away. “That woman killed herself driving drunk. Didn’t hurt anyone else, thank God, but none of her friends believed the police report. She was one of them damn church ladies. Always sitting in judgment, throwing stones at some poor sinner. Guess you give enough money in the offering basket, people refuse to see what’s right in front of them.”
“Money does that,” I said. “Do you know anything about the others? The ones who didn’t rise?”
“Oh, yeah!” He walked over to a grave with new sod on it and a temporary marker instead of a headstone. “This boy here, ten years old. Born with all kinds of medical issues, lived in a wheel chair. Had a surgery to fix some seizures he was having and never woke up. Really sad. That was a big funeral. His church did a lot of fund raising for his medical bills.”
The other gravedigger was a Hispanic man in his late fifties. He pointed out a grave and said, “I went to church with this woman. She was feisty. Always trying to get our priest to go back to doing Mass in Latin. Just the nicest person you’d ever want to know.” He looked around and lowered his voice. “I think God protected her from whatever happened here. She was a good person. A good Catholic, all her life. A person of simple faith. I bet you look at the ones who rose, they were all sinners. This was Satan’s work, and the Devil called his own.”
I decided not to mention being Pagan and gave them each fifty bucks to keep an eye on Mom’s plot. I picked up my suit coat and tie and made my way through the police tape to our limo.
On the way out of the cemetery, I had a thought and asked the driver to turn around. My friend Tony’s grave wasn’t far from Mom’s. I went over to check it out, and, sure enough, one of the graves near it had been opened. Tony’s grave was in the area affected by Thain’s spell, but he hadn’t risen, either. Considering his last words were, “Blood for Odin” I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a good Catholic.
I left a stone on Tony’s headstone and got back in the limo. I called Dad and told him we’d finished with Mom’s plot. He was home and Audrey was staying with him tonight. She was a wreck, and would be for a while, but life would go on. I told Dad to tell her I loved her, and hung up.
The best thing about limousines is the bar. And having a driver. I fixed myself a tall rum and Coke and cried into it all the way home.
Frikkin’ Clowns
“So what’s your theory?” Rose tossed back her whiskey and poured another. “I assume you do have a theory?”
“Not yet,” Arwydd replied. “I could have told more if I could have actively analyzed the spells as he cast them. I could tell the energy did not flow from the land, nor from ley lines, nor did he pull from the life energy around him, as he did in downtown Boulder. The dust and river sludge he left behind there had residual necromantic energies, but the energy he used today had no such traces. Only necromancy can animate the dead, and this was not necromancy. It could be divine will in action, but we’ve seen no sign of intervention by the divine powers of this world.”
I said, “Is there any reason he can’t use both? The times we’ve met, he seems as much priest as sorcerer.”
“Combining both is impossible. Magic requires knowledge. Channeling divine energy is a matter of faith.” Arwydd waved her hand. “The laws of magic are set up that way to limit what power one can attain.”
“On your world,” I said. “I’m pretty sure Earth has different rules.”
“What is your theory?” Arwydd asked.
“He’s from a culture similar to ancient Egypt. He used a spell on me that weighed the goodness in my heart against the feather of truth, which is a ritual Egyptian souls go through in the Netherworld. He said surviving it proved I was a noble and upright soul. The thing is, weighing the heart and judging it are the duties of the god Anubis, and Thain was wearing a full-head mask of Anubis when I met him.
“When he was casting his spells, some of them he had to write out in midair.” I pulled up a photograph from the papyrus of Ani on my phone and showed it to Arwydd. “Egyptians believed that writing something out was itself a form of magic. Writing a spell down or carving it in the wall was the act by which the magic was gathered, directed, and released. Prayers and spells were pretty much the same thing.”
Arwydd pondered for a few minutes before nodding. “A solid theory. How do you account for some rising and some not?”
“Faith. Not what faith they followed, but how sincere they were in following one.” I started listing people on my fingers. “The woman who was a life-long Catholic. The boy in the wheelchair had a big church supporting him. He was probably one of the faithful. The minister was obviously a true believer. Mom believed in herself and her capacity to shape her own destiny. Tony died in battle, praising Odin like a good Viking—exactly what he needed to do in order to attain Valhalla.”
I switched to my other hand. “Two of the zombies were outwardly devout but they either lost their faith or they were false to it. Steve claimed to be a Christian but he didn’t act like one. I think that’s the key. Thain can’t raise the faithful because authentic faith means they’re already spoken for.”
Rose said, “It’s not a bad theory. Hopefully Thain will keep assuming David interfered with his spells and not work out the real reason. He certainly seemed as confused by the results as we were.”
Arwydd stood up. “I’m going to go do some research. I’ll let you know if I find anything.” She gave Rose a hug and headed downstairs to the portal in the laundry room.
I sat back in my chair and stared out the window. “Why is this guy screwing with me? Why isn’t he focusing on his super-secret master plan for world domination?”
“As far as he knows, you’re the only person on the planet who can do magic,” Rose said. “That makes you a threat he has to neutralize. Without your mother as a bargaining chip, and with the assumption that you were able to block his spells, I think his next move will be to kill you.”
“Charming.” I rubbed my hands over my face. I felt like I was sinking into a well of hopelessness, until the memory of Maraz’s fist knocked some sense into me. I looked up at Rose and grinned. “Your world has seen guys like this before, right?”
She nodded. “Several times.”
“So let’s hire some professionals. We get some Earth items adventurers will go crazy for, I’ll find a dark tavern in the bad part of a big town, and we hire whoever wins the next bar fight.”
Rose laughed, but shook her head. “Humans won’t work for you, and will just try to kill me. Besides, that’s not how you hire sell-swords. You go to the mercenary’s guild hall for that.”
“Oh, fine. Just ruin a perfectly overused fantasy trope.” After a moment, I asked, “What about Stonewall?”
“What about it?”
“Let’s talk to them. Talk to the Superior Master. There’s a small army of righteous berserkers there, which has to be an ass–load of physical and magical firepower. With them, you, your mom, maybe your brother and as many of his friends as we can recruit, that should be more than enough to take down one undead necromancer.”
“Especially one without an army.” Rose raised her eyebrow at me. “You aren’t suggesting this just so you can see Maraz again, are you?”
I honestly didn’t know what to say. “I wasn’t actually thinking of her when I suggested that, but, yes, I liked her. A lot. If we were both free agents and she was interested, I’d hop into bed with her in a heartbeat. You picked her because you knew I’d be attracted to her. It worked.”
Rose tilted her head to the side. “You’re the one who said you couldn’t perform for a woman with a beard. It’s a silly prejudice, so I arranged for you to meet one I thought you’d like. I’m glad to see your horizons were broadened.”
“Point made. However, I was talking about the clerics as a group. Do you think we could get them to help us?”
“They might, but I doubt it. Unless we have proof Thain is an imminent threat to them, no one back home is going to take up arms.” Rose held her hands up in surrender. “I know it’s foolish and short-sighted, but no one works together unless there’s no other choice. The way they see it, marching on Thain will alert him to the existence of our world. Even though they could destroy him while he’s weak, they won’t risk being discovered.” She saw a glint in my eye and added, “Don’t tell him, either. That would be bad.”
“I don’t intend to tell him anything, don’t worry. I just… It would be nice to have some heavy artillery to call on, since he’s probably going to try to kill me.” I looked at the clock and sighed. “Playa Azul is still open, and I’m starving. Fajitas?”
Rose nodded. “Sounds good. Let me go change. You should too.”
She was right. I hung up my suit and grabbed some jeans. I checked the locks on the doors while tucking in my shirt, and glanced out the front window. Down at the far end of the park, a soccer game had just ended and the road was filled with a herd of SUVs. I dropped the curtain and called out, “Tourists blocking the road. Shall we walk?”
Rose hopped over the railing on the second floor landing. She landed with a little bounce and said, “Sure. Did you get used to walking everywhere?”
“You know, I think I did.” I opened the door and held it for her. “I’ll still take the car over a scurrier any day, though.”
“Never ridden one, but I do like roasted rat.” As she stepped out, Thirteen padded around her legs and hopped up on our split-rail fence. He opted to stay silent on the culinary merits of ginormous rat flesh.
The Playa is a great little family-run place parked between a liquor store and a tattoo shop/paraphernalia store that stays open until midnight for tarot readings. It’s owned by three sisters with conflicting life goals, none of whom makes enough to get their own place. All this corner needs is a gun store and a computer shop to max out the possibilities for bad decision making.
A teenage girl in a Playa T-shirt was out front talking on a cell phone when she spotted us crossing the street. She opened the restaurant door and called out, “
Mama! La gringa chupacabra es aqui!
”
Rose scowled. “Oh, no, that will not do at all. I am not going to let her get away with calling me that.”
“That’s what you get for not chewing your food,” I said. “Humans use knives and forks, remember?”
“Just because you can’t filet a moose with your bare hands—” Rose smiled at the teenager and body-blocked her from shooing Thirteen away.
Mama’s proper name was Lucia, but only her priest and her doctor called her that. She set chips and salsa on our table and said, “I’m sorry, the cat can’t stay. Service animals only.”
I said, “Can we make an exception? He’s a paying customer. Besides, he’s really more of an escaped genetic experiment on the run from a secret government lab.” To prove the point, Thirteen snagged a menu and started browsing through it.
Mama said, “Fine, if you’re paying for him, he can stay. What can I get you guys to drink?”
Right on cue, before we could even order our dinner, a couple of clowns came in and screwed the whole evening up. Sadly, that isn’t even a colorful description. They really were clowns. Evil and stupid clowns, but clowns nonetheless.
The first one was about my height but half again the mass, crammed into bib overalls a couple sizes too small. Under that, he had several layers of shirts topped with an unmarked sweatshirt. He had spiky blue patches around his eyes, an ear-to-ear smile, and a long-slide .45 stuffed up the middle of a rubber chicken.
His buddy was short and round, with a green fright wig, sunglasses covered in glitter, and a bandanna pulled up over his nose. Instead of a gun, he had a seltzer bottle labeled
gasoline
and one of those propane torches chefs use to make crème brûlée.
The big guy waved his gun around and shouted, “This is a robbery! Get your hands in the air and don’t try anything funny!”
I couldn’t help it—I snorted and said, “Because that’s your job, right?”
Short Round pointed at me and said, “Don’t be a hero, because you know what a hero is? It’s someone who grafts skin from other people on their friends, so shut up!” His hands were shaking so hard he nearly dropped the seltzer bottle.
Big Hoss tossed a duffle bag onto the counter and shouted, “Fill it with money! I want the register, the deposits, and all your wallets.” He pointed the rubber chicken at us and added, “Gimme your wallets, too!”
Rose stood up and said, “You two don’t really want to hurt anyone. Put your weapons on the counter and lie down on the floor.”
Short Round started to obey, but Big Hoss smacked him on the back of the head. “Don’t listen to her, you idiot!” He stepped closer to the counter, shouting, “Now give me the money!”
Rose repeated the order in Draconic. Short Round started sobbing and complied. Big Hoss tried to aim at Rose, but his hand kept creeping toward the counter. He grabbed his wrist with his free hand, trying to pull it back toward him. Screaming profanity, Big Hoss lost the battle with his hand and slapped the gun down on the counter. His finger was still on the trigger.