Cameron Haley - Skeleton Crew

“I don’t like the idea that your attention will be divided between the zombies and the Fomoire, Domino,” Oberon said. “If Mobley is capable of summoning more of the Fomoire into this world, nothing is a higher priority. Not even a zombie plague.”

“My attention won’t be divided-not for long. I need to break down the spell because I tasted the juice. Once that’s done, I’ll give you and Terrence what I’ve got and you can deal with it.”

The king smiled and bowed his head. “That is acceptable to us.”

I’m so happy for you. “Okay, this sounds like a plan,” I said. “Terrence and his outfit go stone-cold gangster on Mobley. The Seelie Court cowboys up on the zombies. Adan and I run down the summoning spell and then look for whatever’s putting Death out of business.”

There were nods all around the table and the council broke up. Adan and I sat together in silence after the others had left. He reclined in his chair, drinking wine from a crystal goblet, lost in thought. I knew what was coming-the Talk-and I really wasn’t in the mood. The way I saw it, whatever happened between us at the party had happened, and that was all there was to it. Hell, I wasn’t even sure what had happened-Oberon had slipped us all a magic roofie when we walked in the club.

But I just knew Adan felt the need to talk it over. I could see he was thinking about it, the way he sat there, staring at his goblet and turning it in circles on the table. The only question was what type he’d turn out to be. There was the annoyingly sensitive “we’ve got to share our feelings” type. Or he could be the irritatingly analytical “we’ve got to dissect this and figure out exactly what it means” type. If I was really unlucky, he could turn out to be the nice guy “I’ll pretend I’m not needy and then stalk you” type. I hated that type.

Adan sighed and shook his head, and then looked up at me. Here it came. “I just have to know,” he said, “did we have a foursome with those piskies?”

I laughed, choked and felt wine flood my nasal passages. Adan started laughing, too, and that made it worse. I hooted and howled, my eyes watering and my stomach clenching painfully. I finally managed to catch a little breath and gasped, “The guy, Jack, had to be a full nine inches.” Adan doubled over and started slapping the table, and I lost it completely. All the pain, and fear, and horror of the demon attack and the zombie plague that threatened to tear the city apart from the inside out-all of it just got flushed away. It was the oldest and most powerful magic, the kind of magic humans had always used to banish the darkness.

After long, helpless minutes we finally managed to control ourselves. Adan took deep, shuddering breaths and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Finally, he looked at me and grinned. “Are we cool?”

“Like the other side of the pillow,” I said.

As if on cue, Honey and Jack buzzed into the room. They stopped, hovering together in midair, and looked at us. “Oh, Domino, what’s wrong?” Honey said. “Have you two been crying? Has something else happened?”

Adan and I looked at the piskies and then at each other. Adan made a sound that was half choke and half sneeze, like he’d taken a deep drag on a harsh joint. The laughter bubbled up again and brightened the world for a while.

I ran down a senior citizen on the way back to my condo from the Carnival Club. Adan, Honey and Jack were all with me in the car when it happened-Adan riding shotgun, the piskies in the back doing whatever. We were cruising down Silver Lake and I was using the traffic spell to make good time when an elderly gentleman stumbled into the street between two parked cars, arms windmilling, right in front of the Lincoln.

Adan shouted and braced one arm on the dash as I hit the brakes, but the old man never had a chance. There was a loud thump and the car shuddered as the grille slammed into his left hip. He flipped over the hood, twisting like a stuffed toy tossed into the air by a pit bull, and smashed against the windshield before somersaulting into the backseat of the open convertible. The piskies bailed just in time to avoid being crushed by the limp, broken body.

The Lincoln’s tires squealed as I locked up the brakes and finally brought the car to a skidding stop. My hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly I thought my fingers might snap when I released it. I glanced in the rearview mirror. I couldn’t see the old man, but the white upholstery of the backseat looked like it had been painted red by a really sloppy tagger. I looked through the starred glass of the windshield and saw blood there, too.

Adan and I just sat there for a moment, neither of us speaking. Then the screaming started. We looked to our right. An old woman with curlers in her hair stood on the sidewalk, one clutched hand wrinkling the front of her muumuu. And she shrieked.

“Tell me that didn’t just happen,” I said quietly.

“Where the hell did he come from?” said Adan.

“Domino…” Honey said. She was hovering at the edge of the street, between the car and the old woman.

“Pearl, stop that wailing!” the old man said, appearing in the rearview mirror as he sat up in the backseat. “You’re like to wake the dead.” He made a horrible hacking, wheezing sound and his shoulders shook. He was laughing. The left side of his skull was caved in and a wet flap of skin hung down over his cheek. His teeth were broken and bloody, and a couple of the lower ones were protruding from his bottom lip. He was wearing a nightgown, an old-school Ebenezer Scrooge number.

“Henry, you bastard!” yelled Pearl. “You bit me, you miserable old snake!” The woman shambled toward the car, raising her arm above her head. She was holding a butcher knife. Blood ran from a wound on her neck onto the green-and-orange muumuu. At least he hadn’t gotten her ear. Adan and I jumped out of the car and backed away.

Henry twisted in the backseat and started crawling out onto the trunk. Most of his body didn’t seem to be responding very well, and he dragged himself along on his belly, using his elbows for leverage. Point to Pearl-he did kind of look like a snake. He was also smearing blood all over my car.

I held up my hands. “Chill the fuck out, Pearl,” I said. “Let’s see if we can talk this through.”

Pearl stopped and looked at me, still holding the knife in stabbing position. “Talk?” she shrieked. “You want me to talk? He tried to eat me!”

“I feel you,” I said, rubbing my ear. “Believe me. But I’m not going to let you stick Henry, okay?”

“He died already!” Pearl yelled.

“Twice,” said Henry. He’d rolled over on his back and lay splayed out on the trunk, chuckling wetly.

“Okay,” I said. “How do you know he died, Pearl?”

“The machine! He’s been hooked up to those damn machines for months, good for nothing except lying in bed shitting himself.” She shook with fury. “I had to clean it up!”

“And he died?”

“Yes! He flatlined. When you get to be my age, honey, you’ll know what it looks like. And he shit himself again!” Now that she mentioned it, Henry did smell a bit fragrant.

“Code Blue!” Henry said, cackling.

“Okay, okay. Then what happened, Pearl?”

Pearl calmed a bit and the knife dropped to her side. “I was feeling poorly myself, so I turned off the machines and went to lie down a bit. I must have dozed off, so then I got up and came back and unhooked him. And I was going to clean him up again, for the last time, praise Jesus, and he…he…he fucking bit me!” Pearl dropped the f-bomb like she hadn’t dropped one in a few decades. Maybe never.

I looked at Henry. It hadn’t taken him long to go cannibal. I had the idea he may have been homicidal even before he turned, at least where Pearl was concerned.