Лорел Гамильтон - Guilty Pleasures

Iris Jensen's grave marker was smooth, white marble. It was a nearly life-size angel, wings outspread, arms open, welcoming. You could still read the lettering by flashlight: “Beloved daughter. Sadly missed.” The same man who had had the angel carved, who sadly missed her, had been molesting her. She had killed herself to escape him, and he had brought her back. That was why I was out here in the dark, waiting for the Jensens, not him, but her. Even though I knew her mind was gone by now, I wanted Iris Jensen in the ground and at peace.

I couldn't explain that to Edward, so I hadn't tried. A huge oak stood sentinel over the empty grave. The wind rushed through the leaves and sent them skittering and whispering overhead. It sounded too dry, like autumn leaves instead of summer. The air felt cool and damp, rain almost upon us. It wasn't unbearably hot for once.

I had picked up a pair of chickens. They clucked softly from inside their crate where they sat near the grave. Edward leaned against my car, ankles crossed, arms loose at his sides. The gym bag was open by me on the ground. The machete I used gleamed from inside.

“Where is he?” Edward asked.

I shook my head. “I don't know.” It had been almost an hour since full dark. The cemetery grounds were mostly bare; only a few trees dotted the soft roll of hills. We should have been seeing car lights on the gravel road. Where was Jensen? Had he chickened out?

Edward stepped away from the car and walked to stand beside me. “I don't like it, Anita.”

I wasn't too thrilled either, but … “We'll give it another fifteen minutes. If he's not here by then, we'll leave.”

Edward glanced around the open ground. “Not much cover around here.”

“I don't think we have to worry about snipers.”

“You said someone shot at you, right?”

I nodded. He had a point. Goosebumps marched up my arms. The wind blew a hole in the clouds and moonlight streamed down. Off in the distance a small building gleamed silver-grey in the light.

“What's that?” Edward asked.

“The maintenance shed,” I said. “You think the grass cuts itself?”

“Never thought about it,” he said.

The clouds rolled in again and plunged the cemetery into blackness. Everything became soft shapes; the white marble seemed to glow with its own light.

There was the sound of scrabbling claws on metal. I whirled. A ghoul sat on top of my car. It was naked and looked as if a human being had been stripped and dipped into silver-grey paint, almost metallic. But the teeth and claws on its hands and feet were long and black, curved talons. The eyes glowed crimson.

Edward moved up beside me, gun in his hand.

I had my gun out, too. Practice, practice, and you don't have to think about it.

“What's it doing up there?” he asked.

“Don't know.” I waved my free hand at it and said, “Scat!”

It crouched, staring at me. Ghouls are cowards; they don't attack healthy human beings. I took two steps, waving my gun at it. “Go away, shoo!” Any show of force sends them scuttling away. This one just sat there. I backed away.

“Edward,” I said, softly.

“Yes.”

“I didn't sense any ghouls in this cemetery.”

“So? You missed one.”

“There's no such thing as just one ghoul. They travel in packs. And you don't miss them. They leave a sort of psychic stench behind. Evil.”

“Anita.” His voice was soft, normal, but not normal. I glanced where he was looking and saw two more ghouls creeping up behind us.

We stood almost back to back, guns pointing out. “I saw a ghoul attack earlier this week. Healthy man killed, a cemetery where there were no ghouls.”

“Sounds familiar,” he said.

“Yeah. Bullets won't kill them.”

“I know. What are they waiting for?” he asked.

“Courage, I think.”

“They're waiting for me,” a voice said. Zachary stepped around the trunk of the tree. He was smiling.

I think my mouth dropped to the ground. Maybe that was what he was smiling at. I knew then. He wasn't killing human beings to feed his gris-gris. He was killing vampires. Theresa had tormented him, so she had been the next victim. There were still some questions though, big ones.

Edward glanced at me, then back at Zachary. “Who is this?” he asked.

“The vampire murderer, I presume,” I said.

Zachary gave a little bow. A ghoul leaned against his leg, and he stroked its nearly bald head. “When did you guess?”

“Just now. I'm a little slow this year.”

He frowned then. “I thought you'd figure it out eventually.”

“That's why you destroyed the zombie witness's mind. To save yourself.”

“It was fortunate that Nikolaos left me in charge of questioning the man.” He smiled when he said it.

“I'll bet,” I said. “How did you get the two-biter to shoot me at the church?”

“That was easy. I told him the orders came from Nikolaos.”

Of course. “How are you getting the ghouls out of their cemetery? How come they obey your orders?”

“You know the theory that if you bury an animator in a cemetery, you get ghouls.”

“Yeah.”

“When I came out of the grave, they came with me, and they were mine. Mine.”

I glanced at the creatures and found that there were more of them. At least twenty, a big pack. “So you're saying that's where ghouls come from.” I shook my head. “There aren't enough animators in the world to account for all the ghouls.”

“I've been thinking about that,” he said. “I think that the more zombies you raise in a cemetery, the greater your chances for ghouls.”

“You mean like a cumulative effect?”

“Exactly. I've been wanting to talk this over with another animator, but you see the problem.”

“Yes,” I said, “I do. Can't talk shop without admitting what you are and what you've done.”

Edward fired without warning. The bullet took Zachary in the chest and twisted him around. He lay face down, the ghouls frozen; then Zachary raised himself up on his elbows. He stood with a little help from an anxious ghoul. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but bullets will never hurt me.”

“Great, a comedian,” I said.

Edward fired again, but Zachary darted behind the tree trunk.

He called, hidden from sight. “Now, now, no hitting the head. I'm not sure what would happen if you put a bullet in my brain.”

“Let's find out,” Edward said.

“Good-bye, Anita. I won't stay around to watch.” He walked away with a troop of ghouls surrounding him. He was crouched in the middle of them, hiding I supposed from a bullet in the brain, but for a minute I couldn't pick him out.

Two more ghouls appeared around the car, crouched low on the gravel drive. One was female with the tatters of a dress still clinging to her.

“Let's give them something to be afraid of,” Edward said. I felt him move, and his gun fired twice. A high-pitched squealing filled the night. The ghoul on my car leaped to the ground and hid. But there were more of them moving in from all sides. At least fifteen of them had been left behind for us to play with.

I fired and hit one of them. It fell to its side and rolled in the gravel, making that same high-pitched noise, like a wounded rabbit. Piteous and animal.

“Is there anyplace we can run to?” Edward asked.

“The maintenance shed,” I said.

“Is it wood?”

“Yes.”

“It won't stop them.”

“No,” I said, “but it will get us out of the open.”

“Okay, any advice before we start to move?”

“Don't run until we are very close to the shed. If you run, they'll chase you. They'll think you're scared.”

“Anything else?” he asked.

“You don't smoke, do you?”