“Alas for the good old days. But maybe this zombie head will lead us back to our target. Sarge says there’s some kind of invisible cord or something still attached.”
“The web of the necromancer. A crude, yet effective magic. I’m surprised Sarge knew of it.”
I sighed. Having a vampire around for night ops was a terrific plus, but dealing with
this
particular vampire and his Nova Scotia-sized ego could try my patience. “Let me know if the zombie says anything important while you’re washing your jockstrap, will you, Stefan? And for Heaven’s sake, keep that unsanitary thing out of the kitchen. Now that I think of it, keep your jockstrap out of the kitchen too.”
I left him to his emo brooding and went looking for Sarge. I wanted to discuss our plans for the zombie head—namely my suggestion we light it on fire and have done with it.
Sometimes our house seemed cramped and small, with everybody tripping over each other and sneaking the last slice of pizza or putting the milk back in the fridge empty. Other times the place seemed cavernous, a lonely, haunted manse with me as a specter, drifting down empty hallways. Drinking scotch whiskey. While the song “American Pie” played through the PA speakers. Go figure.
Mai and Tiffany lounged in the main living area. That damn replica sword had been rammed back into the wall. Somebody had hung an umbrella on the hilt. I definitely needed to hire another cleaning agency post-haste.
They both stopped talking as soon as I walked in, setting off all sorts of internal alarms inside my skull. Nothing screamed guilty like sudden, uncomfortable silence when one’s superior officer showed up unannounced. I put my hands on my hips and arched an eyebrow. “So who wants to come out with it first?”
Tiffany showed me only wide-eyed innocence…a difficult trick for a face that was a Renaissance artist’s wet dream (barring perhaps the slit pupils, which might get said artist in trouble with certain prominent religious institutions and goat-advocacy groups). “Out with what, Captain?”
Mai concentrated on petting the kitten in her lap and wouldn’t look at me. The kitten had bright crimson fur and icy blue eyes. It stared at me as if I were a five-and-a-half-foot-tall tuna sandwich.
I snapped my fingers. “Out with whatever you two were saying about me before I waltzed in.”
“Oh.”
“It was nothing,” Mai said. “Girl chat.”
“So. I’m a girl. Chat me.”
“Um.” Tiffany twisted and shifted in her seat as if trying to find a place to put her overly large, male-sexual-fantasy breasts. “Nothing. It wasn’t anything really. Just. You know. How good you and Jake—I mean Captain Sanders—looked together today.”
“Yeah, Captain. You both looked great. I wish I had some hot hunk of man candy running around shielding me.” Mai leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. The kitten chewed on her thumb. “Maybe an animal lover with an appreciation for the small and the furry. A veterinarian even. And we’d make love like horny minks on the riverbank at dawn.”
Tiffany nodded, and then said in a stage whisper, “He kept looking at your ass today. Captain Sanders, I mean.”
“Captain Sanders is more concerned with getting his Mission Accomplished star than my
ass
ets.”
Mai favored me with a skeptical look. “What creature of the male persuasion has ever
not
been interested in an ass of some sort?”
Now that she put it that way… “Don’t you two have better things to do than sit around and gossip?”
“No,” they said in unison.
“Look. Captain Sanders will be on his way to Fort Bragg or wherever soon enough. He’s not a Zero Dog. He’s not my boyfriend. So cool it.”
Mai grinned. “What about a quick…?” She made a hole with one hand and slid the finger of her other hand rapidly in and out. Tiffany giggled, yes,
giggled
, and gave Mai a playful shove.
“If you two are interested, be my guest.” I tried on a smile. The smile felt decidedly shark-like.
“He isn’t interested in us,” Tiffany said, sounding far too cheery. “I don’t even think my seduction magic would work on him. He’s locked on you like a laser-guided bomb. It’s so romantic.”
Mai nodded. “
Really
romantic, Captain.”
I had to walk away, shaking my head. My skin felt warm, maybe even a bit flushed, from their conspiratorial laughter. Why was my love life anybody’s topic of conversation in the first place? I knew they meant well, but the whole giggling-schoolgirl thing had gone straight up my ass like a crowbar turned sideways. I enjoyed attention as much as anybody, hell, I wouldn’t be a leader if I didn’t, but this kind of scrutiny unnerved me. It seemed as if people and events conspired to funnel me toward Jake, whether I wanted him or not. I didn’t like that.
Sarge sat in the kitchen, eating a piece of fried chicken and reading a huge, leather-bound book splayed open on the marble counter. He perched on the stool like a huge purple-skinned gargoyle and glanced up at me. “Hungry, Captain?”
“No. I just came from the laundry room, where Stefan put a zombie head in my ex-laundry basket and killed my appetite.”
“The head could be the key to tracking the necromancer.”
“That’s what I came to see you about. Stefan mentioned something about the necromancer’s web. You and Jake talked about a silver cord earlier, but I didn’t catch it all.” I’d had more important things to do at the time. Like finding a place to feed a bunch of hungry mercenaries.
“It’s like the wire guide on a TOW missile. He has to remain connected to keep the zombies under his control. Once a necromancer has an army of zombies it’s hard to keep track of threads leading to combat-ineffective zombies, especially after a big battle.”
“So what do we do about it?”
He shifted his bulk and the stool gave a tortured groan. “I’m looking for a spell that’ll allow us to trace back along the silver thread. But I might need help.”
“I don’t know demon magic.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll manage the spell. I just need you, and maybe Jake, as batteries. Something to tap for extra power.”
Jake again. A girl couldn’t escape him, it seemed. Annoying.
“Wait.” An idea flashed in my mind and my stomach churned. “If we can track him…can he see us? Through the zombie?”
Sarge took another bite and chewed slowly. “I’ve heard necromancers can see through their servant’s eyes. Don’t know if they can use their servants like homing beacons. Might be safest to believe they can.”
Shit. “Then fucking terminate the thing. I didn’t fucking think it might work against us. What if he attacks here?”
Sarge stayed silent for a long moment, and his gaze dropped to the spell book. “It’s a risk. But without that head we have nothing.”
Dammit
. “What’s our exposure on this?”
“He’s in retreat. If he attacks here, he’ll be operating understrength. I have the head isolated so he can’t gain direct intel from it.”
I chewed on my lip. Our property had either eight-foot iron fencing or concrete and stone walls around its entirety. The witness who’d seen Jeremiah Hansen flee in the bus had estimated forty or so zombies left with him. Not enough to overrun this compound. If Hansen tried, he’d be signing his own death certificate and hand delivering it to us. Still, I’d feel more comfortable if we had electrified fences or maybe a minefield. “Next time, make sure I know all the risks first. I hate surprises.”
“Fair enough.” Sarge’s look was grim. “I’ll take full responsibility.”
“Well, I won’t have you shot at dawn…this time. I’m sure you did what you thought was right in the middle of all that chaos. Dammit, I just want this done and over with, my people safe and the rest of the money sitting secure in the bank.”
Sarge shut the book and pushed it aside. “Something else’s bothering you.”
I almost didn’t answer, but Sarge and I had shared many a commiserating drink in the days before he’d found Shawn. It seemed so long ago now. Where the hell did the time go? Made me sad to think of our lives dripping away like blood from a wound that wouldn’t heal. I stared down at the tile floor, wanting to talk, not wanting to talk.
Finally, I gave up. “Bothering me? Nothing. Everything. This job. Jake. I don’t know.”
“Hmm.”
“How pithy. Like a Magic 8-ball, but more succinct.”
He smiled. “Even in the face of a brewing zombie apocalypse, lovers shall have their travails. One of the things I love about humanity.”
“Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not.” He looked away and touched the book’s gold clasp. “All right, maybe I am, a little. Forget it, I’m a bastard.” He reached for another piece of chicken.
I frowned. Sarge almost always kept his words to a minimum. When he spoke, I listened. That bit of waxing poetic had caught me off-guard. “So who pissed in your herbal tea? Tell me and I’ll singe their pantyhose for you.”
That earned me a slow smile. “Shawn and I were supposed to hit the Blazers game tonight, but it got ditched because of this. Then he wanted to come over tonight anyway.” Sarge shrugged. “I told him no. Told him I didn’t want him here with the zombie head in the house.”
The goddamn zombie head again. “One more time. Just how dangerous is that fucking thing?”
“Everything’s dangerous. One way or another.”
“Save the metaphysical bullshit, please,” I said. “Just give me down-to-earth bullshit.”
“It’s dangerous to humans if it manages to bite one, but only Stefan, Rafe and I have been handling it. Still, I have this…feeling—that storm-coming, bad-moon-rising feeling—that makes the hairs on the back of my arms lift. I don’t want Shawn here until this is done.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly.”
He opened the book again and turned through its heavy parchment pages filled with evil-looking drawings, numbers and various spell designs.
I hesitated on the verge of leaving and decided to ask one last, innocent question because God hates a coward. “So. What do you think of Jake? I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“He’d be good for you.”
“That’s not what I meant. Why the hell does everyone presume to give me a free evaluation of my love life?”
Sarge grinned. A grinning demon was truly unnerving, like clown porn. “What? You’re breaking from the stereotype about the girl who asks the gay friend for insight into the male mind? Gonna try and figure men out on your own?”
“Figure it out? I did that when I was fifteen. It involves tits, beer and either sports or video games. Sometimes all of them together.”
Sarge laughed—a sound like a mild avalanche. “Maybe you should look again.”
“Fine. So tell me, Mr. Romeo Casanova Cyrano de Bergerac the Third, what is it about Shawn that so pulls in your hellish interest?” I paused. “And if you dare call me a fag hag, I’ll send you straight back to Hades.”
He paused, idly tracing a glowing design on the marble that began to vanish almost at once. After a long moment he answered. “Why does anybody love anyone? I feel he’s another part of me. That he fits against me, and makes me more, makes me
better
. When he laughs, it’s as if a weight is lifted from me. When I touch him, it makes me believe there’s more out there than death and war and hatred and sorrow. As if there’s something greater, more powerful than any of those.” He shrugged again and looked me in the eyes. “He gives me hope.”
My words came out slightly choked. “You love him.”
“I love him more than anything else under this sun. And more every day.”
“I want that.”
He smiled softly. “Then go get it.”
He stood, picked up his book, kissed me on the top of my head as if I were his daughter, and walked out of the kitchen.
Chapter Nineteen: Saving Captain Walker
Mercenary Wing Rv6-4 “Zero Dogs”
The Zero Dog Compound
NW Hilltop Drive
, Portland, Oregon
0602 Hours PST April 17th
I woke early the next morning, before the sun had done anything more than paint the low clouds a dull red and yellow at the horizon. I checked in with Hellfrost and our answering service for any updates on the necromancer manhunt, but there was nothing. Nothing at all.
I kept my morning run to three miles around our track instead of five. The run gave me time to think, but it started to rain as I finished up. Instead of cooling me off, it only made me moist and clammy and frizzed my hair. After a hot shower and some breakfast I made more calls but got the runaround with the police-department gatekeepers and hung up in frustration.
I snagged some more coffee and watched the news, which normally failed to cheer me up, and today was no different. Giant robots fought huge mutated squid creatures in Philadelphia. Any more of this and they’d have to change the name to the City of Tentacle Love. In local news, a low-grade zombie scare had swirled through Portland following our attack on the Bokor Gelzonbi plant. Some guy riding the MAX home from work who had taken too much cold medicine ended up dog piled by concerned citizens mistaking him for a zombie. He suffered three broken ribs, but doctors expected him to recover. Likewise, an old woman had attacked a DMV employee with pepper spray while trying to register her car title—once again, the employee had been mistaken for one of the living dead. Hard to blame her, though.
“People are crazy,” Rafe said from the couch. “That’s why I don’t watch the news.”
I grunted. Finished my coffee. Eyed the phone handset as if I wanted to incinerate it (and part of me did indeed), but instead stomped off with it to try once more to find someone in the police department in charge of the manhunt for Jeremiah Hansen.
After twenty minutes of runaround, giving my information and a long explanation to every new place they transferred my call, I finally connected to a detective heading up the necromancer search. He told me there’d been no sighting so far. The man and his magical mystery bus full of zombies had vanished into rainy Oregon air. No charges to his credit cards. The Audi in the Gelzonbi parking lot had turned out to have a bogus registration and zero fingerprints. No eyewitness sightings, despite a sketch artist’s rendition on the front page of this morning’s paper. The guy had become smoke.
Throughout the conversation I kept getting the
you’re-wasting-valuable-police-time
vibe from the detective. “Please keep me apprised.”
“Sure thing,” he replied, but I could hear the lie in his voice.
Cops.
I stomped back to Rafe, who’d buried himself under couch pillows while he played some video game with a big-chested woman running around shooting guns and blowing stuff up. Nothing ever changed. “Rafe, you seen Jake around?”
His gaze didn’t move from the screen. I wished he stayed that focused during mission briefings. “He was looking for you a while ago. Said he was trying to contact government people about finding the zombie king. Said something else but I can’t remember it.”
“You didn’t write it down?”
He glanced at me. “I was fighting a
boss
.”
Sigh.
I moved in front of the television and used my most imposing scowl until he made eye contact. “Now that I have your complete attention. I’ve got an entire legion of Merry Maids coming over in a little while to clean this filth pit, and I don’t want you bothering any of them. We clear?”
“Captain, you’re killing me. I’m a perfect gentleman.”
“Yeah. And no strolling around naked, either. Those people are here to work. Not to be hit on by their clients or emotionally damaged by the sight of your personal equipment swinging in the breeze. Hear me? You behave or there’ll be problems.”
“Fine.
Fine
. Way to steal all the fun away from Mr. Bo Dangles.”
I made a disgusted noise and turned to go.
Sarge appeared in the doorway across the room, filling it from jamb to jamb. “Captain. You have a minute?”
“Of course.”
We walked to the bottom of the main staircase where he stopped and faced me. “My research’s done. I have nearly all the components for the trace spell. It’ll take some time to draw all the spell lines and set up the safeguards.”
“How long?”
“Maybe tomorrow night. But I’ll need both you and Captain Sanders if we’re going to make a go of this.”
“I’ll let Jake know we need him,” I said. “Should we bring weapons?”
“Not necessary if I do it right.”
“All right. Give me an update if the status changes.”
“Will do.”
Nice to have someone sincere about a promise. Sarge headed back up the stairs and I went in search of Jake, musing how I needed to have everyone tagged with some kind of GPS collar. The damn house was just too big to find anyone without a half hour of looking.
I found Jake in the dojo, standing in the gray light filtering in through the windows. He had his cell phone to his ear and his baritone drifted to me across the wide training space. I crossed the wood floor with silent steps, approaching him from behind. Try sneaking up on somebody in a room full of large mirrors. Not as easy as it sounds.
He shut his phone before I crossed half the training floor. When he turned, he caught sight of me in the mirror and snapped his head around to look at me. A smile—no, more of a smirk—crossed his lips. “Preparing to pounce?”
“You seem to enjoy sneaking up on me.” I walked the rest of the way over to him, striving to appear nonchalant. “Thought I’d try it out.”
“Maybe Hanzo can teach you a thing or two.”
“Rub in the salt, will you? So…any word on our guy?”
Jake frowned and shook his head. “Nothing. I’ve been talking to the DOD and Homeland Security all morning. The NSA’s come up blank. No cell-phone traffic. Our guy’s gone dark.”
“Beautiful. What now? You have a plan? Because I sure as hell don’t have anything.”
“Not yet. One of my contacts at Homeland mentioned there’d been some internal chatter about what direction to take going forward.” He shrugged. “But he didn’t have any solid information.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly.”
We stood together and stared out the window at the overcast day. What I wouldn’t have paid for some blue skies.
“Close call yesterday with Rafe,” Jake said. “A tight situation.”
I didn’t answer. Didn’t look at him.
“You handled yourself well,” he continued. “All of you did.”
“We didn’t get him. End of the day, nothing else matters.”
He glanced at me but didn’t protest. Didn’t try to convince me I was wrong. I always hated when people lied to make me feel better.
After a long moment he spoke again as he stared out at the rain. “I failed a mission once. Few years back.”
I tried for flippant. “John Wayne doesn’t cry, Mr. Quiet Professional. And neither do I.”
A mistake. I regretted the words as soon as they spilled out of my mouth.
He turned to me, his eyes narrowed. “You never shut up and
listen
to me. Life with you is one never-ending stream of words that struck you as far too clever to keep bottled up.” He shook his head. “Hate to tell you this, but you’re nowhere near as funny as you think you are.”
I looked away, shame burning on my cheeks and my throat clenching so tight it felt as if I’d wrapped a hose clamp around my neck. The rain drizzled down, tapping on the brick path across the backyard grass. The silence grew sharper, deepening the cut between us.
I finally turned to face him. “I was out of line. Not even worthy of me. I’d self-immolate on the lawn, but it’s raining.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. I watched the intensity of his gaze dial up a few degrees with annoyed anger, but then he burst out with a laugh, more of an involuntary bark, and I relaxed a little.
“You’re something else, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told,” I said. “But please, finish telling me your story. I’ll keep a tight leash on my tongue. Promise.”
He grunted. I’d always admired how men could sum everything up—the entire range of their emotions—with a grunt. Very efficient if you thought about it.
“We were supposed to take down some group of Winter Elven Separatist Militia Rangers—”
“I hate elves. I ever tell you that?”
“I got the hint when you blew up a bunch of them the first time I saw you.”
“That’s not fair. How many times do I have to say it? They blew
themselves
up and took the rest of the plant with them. Not my fault.”
“Anyway. Those elves were cunning. Used the terrain to their advantage. I was the US advisor to a group of JTF2 assaulters, since the separatists wanted to carve out a kingdom in North Dakota but had fled over the border into Canada. We stalked them through the Yukon for three months straight. Always finding their base camps weeks cold. Always one step behind. We had to call it off when winter made pursuit impossible. JSOC reassigned me to a mission in South America. During the first thaw, the elves attacked a commune of Pointy Hat Gnomes…”
“You were reassigned before you could finish,” I said. “Tell me you wouldn’t have been right out there in the snow again if your superiors hadn’t pulled you off.”
“Yeah. I would’ve been right out there in the snow again.”
“We’re the same breed, you know. Our team will see this through. This mission isn’t over for us, either. Not at all.”
He stayed silent, but a shadow seemed to cross his face. I lifted my hand to touch him, but he spoke before I could.
“Your team, not mine,” he corrected. “Ten minutes and it’s crystal clear your people love you.”
I only nodded.
He shook his head. “Do you understand what an honor that is? I get shipped around. Different units. Different people in different countries. I help people with problems, complete a mission, hoping to make life better for them, the world safer, whatever, and then I pack up and head to the next place. A shadow soldier. Little more.”
“Don’t you…don’t you keep in contact with any of them? The people you serve with?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“My people like you, Jake.” It felt a bit lame to throw it out there now, as if I were just trying to soothe him, but it was the truth. “They don’t take to just anybody. But after yesterday…I’d say things definitely changed in your favor.”
He smiled a little, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “You were right when you told me this thing would end and I’d be gone—”
“Far as I know we’re still on the case, hunting this guy. Unless you’ve heard something different.”
He shook his head, but I saw something uncertain flicker in his eyes and then vanish. Disquieting to see him without all the confidence he’d been shining around since he’d strolled into my conference room.
“Then, hell, we’ll see this through,” I pressed on, ignoring his uncertainty. “And you can be a reference for us with DHS. There’s always some crackpot madman wizard or evil dark lord who needs killing. Come back and work with us. It could get to be a…regular thing.”
He looked at me. The quiet deepened, and I fought back a shiver. When had it grown so cold? Cold, but I could feel my heart burning in my chest, though the heat failed to spread through my body.
Jake opened his mouth to reply, but Gavin’s voice blared over the PA system and cut him off. The second time we’d been interrupted by that goddamn thing, making me seriously consider having it torn out with the jaws of life and scrapped.
“Paging Captain Walker. Paging Captain Andrea Walker. We’re under attack by people with vacuum cleaners, dust mops and household chemicals. Please bring your divine leadership and toasty charisma to the front door and advise. Over and out.”
The ceiling-mounted speakers squealed with feedback and a burst of static. Then the elevator-music version of 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” started in. God, our PA system sucked hard.
Jake jerked his head in the direction of the door. “Better go direct the troops. Otherwise there’s no telling what might happen.”
I wanted to say more, but the mood, the
connection
between us, had splintered into fragments I knew I couldn’t piece back together. At least not today.
I walked across the dojo. My feet made no sound on the wood flooring. I didn’t look back, though I could feel him watching me go.
Nothing else happened that day.