Broken (44 page)

“The abandoned building where we found the fingers is about three kilo—two miles over,” I said. “We’ll slip down the block behind the hotel and get a taxi.”

“Elena. I…”

I turned. “You don’t want to do this? Twenty minutes ago, you were begging Jeremy to let you have a go at it. So it’s one thing to fly to the rescue and win Jeremy’s gratitude, but going behind his back and doing it is out of the question? Sure, it might save my life, my babies’ lives, Clay’s life…but if that’s not what matters, then it’s hardly worth the bother, is it?”

Her eyes flashed. “This isn’t about impressing Jeremy.”

“No? Then—”

“Prove it?” A small laugh. “Nice trap, Elena, but I’m not falling for it. Yes, I offered to do this same thing with Jeremy. Or with Antonio. Or with Nick. But not with an eight-months pregnant—”

“Five months.”

Her eyes met mine. “According to Jeremy, you’re the equivalent of at least eight months along, so don’t split hairs. You are in no condition to fight a sorcerer and his zombies, and when it comes to fighting, I’m useless. If I let you do this, then I’m just what you accused me of being—a desperately infatuated, self-centered twit who’ll put your life at risk for the faint hope of impressing a man.”

“No, Jaime,
I’m
the one who’s desperate here. Yes, I’m running on instinct and adrenaline, but it’ll take me where I want to go. You have a cell phone, right?”

“Sure, but—”

“If, at any point, you decide I’m in over my head, all you have to do is use it. Hell, once you’ve delivered that zombie, you can use it to call a cab. No one even has to know you were involved.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“But you have the option. You have other options too. You can go back upstairs and pretend you never spoke to me. Or you can tell Jeremy what I’m doing, which might earn you some brownie points…until Clay loses his arm and my babies are put up for sale on the black market and Jeremy realizes he’s made a horrible mistake. Or, you can slip back up there, grab your bag and come with me.”

“I don’t need to.”

“No, you’re right, you don’t need to come with me—”

“No.” She hoisted her purse. “I mean I don’t need to go back upstairs. I didn’t think you were asking me to take a moonlight walk.”

“Good. Let’s go then.”

Yesterday Tee had chastised Jaime for not knowing how to call a zombie. At first, Jaime had chalked that up to Tee’s madness—that she was confused and had forgotten it wasn’t Jaime who’d raised the zombies. But the comment had gnawed at Jaime.

Zombies were ghosts inside dead bodies. If necromancers would summon ghosts, did it matter which plane—or form—they were in? While we’d been meeting with Tolliver and Shanahan, Jaime had been making calls, trying to track down instances of necromancers calling zombies they hadn’t raised.

It had taken a lot of digging to come up with anything. Not surprising. If you can raise your own zombies, why steal someone else’s? What she did find were a couple stories of incompetent necromancers who didn’t have the skills to raise their own, trying to “buy” zombies—pay a better necro to raise them, then take them over. And it
had
worked…in a fashion.

In one story, the necromancer had been trying to recruit cheap farm labor. He’d hired someone else to raise a half-dozen zombies, successfully summoned them to his home and handed them their picks and shovels. And, industrious zombies that they were, they immediately set to work using those tools…to beat him to death. Then they went on a rampage of neighboring farms, leaving a swath of dead bodies as they tried to find the necro who’d raised them and could set them to rest. The second story was a variation on the first: yes, the summoning worked, but then you were left with the problem of
controlling
the zombies, which you apparently couldn’t do if they weren’t yours.

According to these stories, then, it
was
possible to summon another necro’s zombies. And I wanted to believe it. We both did. But, like so many other stories passed down through the generations—like the one about the sorcerer’s portal accidentally unleashing a demon or most of the stories in the Pack Legacy or even Jaime’s
Pet Sematary
encounter—it smacked of didacticism. Humans tell fairy tales to warn children not to talk to strangers or wander into the dark woods. We impart our own story-lessons to our youth—the lesson being simple and universal: don’t mess with forces you don’t understand.

“Jaime?”

A muffled oath behind me. I backtracked to find Jaime kicking the wall.

“I—have—rat—shit—on—my—foot,” she said, punctuating each word with a kick.

“Then wipe it off.”

A scowl, as if I was being funny.

“Here,” I said, trying not to growl. “Let me—”

“It’s off.”

“You’re only going to step in more. This isn’t a sandal-friendly excursion.”

“It was these or heels. At least I can jog in these.”

I strode down the hall, weaving around the patches of feces.

“Rat shit wipes off,” I said. “Worry about the rats themselves. I don’t smell any—they’re probably out hunting—but be careful. Now, we were right over here…There. Clay put it up—”

I stared down at the empty ledge.

“It’s gone. Goddamn it!” I felt along the ledge, though I could see well enough to know it wasn’t there. “Who’d take a rotting finger?”

“Maybe it’s the wrong ledge.”

I bent to sniff the ledge. Yes, I could smell blood and rotting flesh. Even found a fleck of it on the wood. I scooped it up on the end of my finger. Too small for Jaime to use.

“Maybe a rat managed to knock it down and carry it off,” Jaime said. “You said she was staying here, right? There has to be something else. Maybe a blanket she used, or a piece of her clothing.”

“A piece of her would be better. If a rat got it, maybe I can track—”

As I dropped to an awkward crouch, I saw a spot of white in a small pile of debris below the ledge. I picked up two white bones, still connected by rotting cartilage.

“That was easy. Rat must have had to eat and run.” I held it up. “Will this do?”

The woman who had been dodging piles of rat poop now reached for the bones as if I were offering her something as innocuous as a pen. She took the bones, rotting flesh and all, and turned it over in her hands.

“Perfect,” she said.

When she called me over to say she was finished, I resisted the urge to shout “Did it work?” We’d been gone an hour. By now, unless something had happened with Clay’s condition to distract Jeremy, he’d know I was gone. Then he’d find Jaime missing and figure out what had happened.

How long would it take him to realize that the best spot to find something belonging to the zombies was here? Where Rose had been living? Not long enough.

“She’ll follow you, right?” I said, pacing the small room as Jaime packed her supplies. “We don’t have to stay here.”

“It’ll be easiest for her if I’m close by, but we can move on.”

“Good,” I said, and headed for the door.

We relocated to the building across the road, where we could spot Rose or the others when they showed. Forty-five minutes passed. No sign of Jeremy or Rose.

“We can’t wait much longer,” I said. “Can we move someplace else? We’ll need to take a cab, to cover my trail, but if we can get to another location, could you try the summoning again?”

Jaime peered out the filthy window. “I could…but if I summon her twice, from different locations, she might get confused. Let’s wait a bit longer. She can’t be far.”

I resumed pacing from one window to the next, watching for any sign of movement outside.

“I wish I could get in touch with Eve,” Jaime murmured as she undid her sandal strap and rubbed her foot.

“Eve?”

“Savannah’s mother—”

“I know who you mean. You’ve had contact with her, haven’t you? From the other side. Could she help with Rose?”

Jaime shrugged. “I don’t know. At this point, I’d be willing to try anything. Eve’s been helping me out some. An exchange of services.”

“Like a spirit guide?”

She forced a tired smile. “More like a spirit guard dog. She scares off the spooks that don’t take no for an answer. I do some work for her in return.”

“Why can’t you reach her?”

“No idea. For a few months, she’ll be there whenever I need her, then she’s gone, popping by now and then to check on me, maybe get my help, but I can’t summon her—”

Jaime’s gaze shot to the corner window, overlooking the east side. “What’s that?”

I hurried over, but saw nothing.

“Someone was there,” Jaime said, standing on tiptoe, trying to see over my shoulder.

I stepped aside. “Where?”

“Someone came around the corner of that building. I saw a shape. Moving fast.”

The street was empty.

“One shape?” I said.

She nodded.

One person, darting around in the shadows, now hiding.

“Rose,” I said.

Dupe

“
OH
,
GOD
,”
JAIME WHISPERED BEHIND ME
,
VOICE MUFFLED
as her hand flew to cover her nose and mouth. “What is that smell?”

“Decomposing zombie.”

No wonder Rose had taken so long to get here. Smelling that bad, she’d have to take side streets and alleys all the way.

I peeked out the door. A dark shape emerged from behind a garbage bin, hesitated, then scuttled back behind it. A moment later, she popped out her head again, trying to find Jaime.

“You wait here,” I said, closing the door partway. “When I have her down, I’ll call you.”

Jaime shook her head. “I might not be any help against a powerful sorcerer. But this I can handle.”

“No.”

“Elena, she’s a half-dead zombie. What’s she going to do? Rot on me?”

“You’re right. She’d probably just scratch you. Like she did to Clay.”

Jaime paled, then shook her head. “I still want to help—”

“Stay,” I said. “Please. One less thing for me to worry—”

Something hit the door, whacking it against my palm. An angry squeal set my hairs rising, and I looked down to see a rat’s head through the crack, teeth flashing.

I slammed the door so hard I should have decapitated the rat. But it wouldn’t shut. A throng of rats were throwing themselves at the door, bodies thumping, claws scrabbling on the wood as they climbed on each other, trying to get in.

Another head appeared over the first, then a third, teeth gnashing, squirming and wriggling to squeeze through.

As they shrieked and squealed, the smell of blood drifted through the opening, as if they were so desperate to get inside that they were tearing each other apart.

“They must smell Rose,” I called to Jaime.

The door handle jolted in my hands. It was Jaime, throwing herself backward against the door, trying to help. Yet even her body weight wasn’t enough for me to push it shut—not with rats jammed in the opening.

When I lifted my foot to kick the bottom one out, Jaime grabbed my arm.

“No! Jeremy said—”

“If I don’t touch that one, we’re going to be touching a whole lot more when they break the door down.”

“Switch places.”

I shook my head. “You’re wearing sandals. They’ll gnaw your—”

She grabbed a plank from the floor and brandished it. “Now switch. On my count. Three, two, one.”

I went sideways, throwing my back against the door. Jaime flew into my spot and whacked the head of the top rat. It squealed but kept trying to wriggle through.

“Not taking the hint, are they?” she said through her teeth as she kept hitting.

“They won’t. You’re going to have to—”

She heaved back the plank for a home-run swing. It hit the top rodent with a skull-splitting splat.

“I’m going to feel bad about this in the morning,” she said, taking a swing at the second one.

When the opening was clear, I slammed the door shut. We ran to the back of the building, searching for another way out, but found only boarded windows. As Jaime dragged over a wooden crate, I pried the boards off a window, ignoring the splinters.

“Go,” I said.

“You first.”

I glared at her. “We can’t waste time arguing—”

“Then don’t. Get moving, and I’ll cover you.”

She helped me out the window, then crawled through just as the rats broke down the front door. They didn’t follow—they just wanted inside, away from the unnatural creature coming their way.

We found a building a half block down. Then I persuaded Jaime to stand guard inside while I flushed Rose out.

I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I said the entire city block reeked of Rose’s rot. Like Jaime, even humans would notice it if they got within fifty feet. Hell, they’d notice if they drove by with the windows rolled up and A/C on. Fortunately, it was past midnight and the streets were empty.