Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

‘Don’t most zombies need a ritual to raise them from the grave?’ Badger asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Does this necromancer need a ritual, and if he does, could we use that to find him?’

‘I don’t know for certain, but if he does, then yeah, potentially I could trace it back to him.’

‘How would that work?’

‘You know that old saying, about more than one way to skin a cat?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s more than one way to raise a zombie, and more than one way to catch a necromancer.’

‘You have an idea,’ Nicky said.

‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe is better than nothing, so let’s hear it,’ Badger said.

I told them my maybe.

‘You’re setting yourself up as bait; as your bodyguard I vote no,’ Lisandro said.

‘She’s not bait,’ Nicky said.

‘She’s going to do the metaphysical version of standing in the middle of a fight and yelling, Come and get me! That’s bait,’ Lisandro said.

‘He’s going to think she’s bait, that’s the point,’ Nicky said.

‘So she’s bait.’

‘It’s not bait, it’s a challenge. Anita is betting that she’s the biggest, baddest necromancer,’ Dev said. He was very serious as he studied my face.

‘Don’t mean to be a wet blanket,’ Yancey said, ‘but what if you’re wrong? What if he’s the biggest and baddest?’

‘He won’t be,’ Nicky said.

I wasn’t quite as confident as Nicky, but I was confident that if I raised my own mini-army of zombies, the Lover of Death wouldn’t be able to resist coming around to check out the competition. It would distract him from the fact that Hatfield and her team of SWAT were hunting his original body. It might keep him from inhabiting it once darkness fell, and killing all of them. If she could destroy his original body, and I could trap him in whatever body he was inhabiting at the moment here in town and destroy that one, we could kill him, and we had to kill him, because we had to stop him, and dead is the stoppest stop of all.

The cemetery was one of the largest and oldest in the city. You could see the years marching across in the changes in the tombstones from ornate angels and beautiful sculptures to the nearly flat stone markers that were easier to mow around. It was like visible archaeology: centur-ies in a glance, and the change from looking up to heaven to staying low to the ground, and worrying more about ease of maintenance than about God and all his angels. The sunset was a spectacular spread of pink and purple and pale crimson all done in neon-glow colors, as if some disco queen’s lipstick had been spread across the western sky and set on fire. I don’t know if I’d ever seen the sky painted so bright with the dying of the light.

I took Nicky’s hand as we watched the sunset. I wasn’t sure this plan was going to work, and I’d decided that if the other cops wanted to give me grief about being up close and personal with my guys, so be it. We were about to enter a night that could be like the hospital, except with more zombies, and no hallway to contain them. If hundreds of killer zombies rose we were going to be either one of the safest spots in town, or one of the most dangerous. We wouldn’t know which until it was too late to back out.

‘The sunsets are always like that out here,’ Yancey said.

It made me turn and look at him, Nicky’s hand still in mine, so that my turning turned the big man with me. It was a couple thing, that turning with the hands joined so that you spent most of your time looking in the same direction.

‘Really?’ I said.

‘You expect to get bored with another spectacular sunset, but you never do,’ Badger said. They’d stayed with us in case our plan worked and the big bad showed up. Willy had found a vantage point and was waiting to do what snipers do best: shoot the bad guy on my signal. Machete was with him in case a zombie tried to sneak up and eat Willy while he was trying to shoot.

‘How could you ever get bored of something that beautiful?’ Dev asked.

‘Most people stop seeing things they experience too often, even the amazing ones,’ I said.

He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand that.’

‘I like that you don’t understand it.’

He smiled a little uncertainly. ‘Do you stop appreciating the wonderful things in your life just because you see them every day?’

‘No,’ I said, and turned to Nicky, going up on tiptoe to kiss him gently. It earned me a surprised and very pleased look, which made me smile. He knew that I did not do public displays of affection when I was around the police often and especially not with my secondary lovers.

I walked over to Dev, put my hands on his arms, and looked up into that handsome face and those eyes with their ring of pale golden brown and blue around the outside. I went up on tiptoe and he leaned down so we could kiss.

I moved back from the kiss and stood flat-footed with my hands still on his arms. ‘I don’t grow tired of the wonderful things in my life, Dev. I value that you’re afraid of the zombies and you’re still going to stay here with us.’

‘I’m your bodyguard, Anita; I would suck at my job if I left now.’

I smiled. ‘I guess so.’

‘I feel totally neglected,’ Lisandro said. ‘Aren’t I wonderful, too?’

I laughed. ‘I’m told your wife and kids think you’re amazingly wonderful.’

He grinned at me. ‘Yeah, they do.’

‘I’m not married,’ Yancey said. ‘Do I get a kiss?’

‘I know I started it, because of kissing more than one man at work, but don’t let my PDA with my guys go to your head.’

‘It didn’t go to my head, I promise,’ he said.

It took me a three-count to realize he’d made a double entendre. I laughed. ‘I’d get mad, but that was clever.’

He grinned at me. ‘Thank you, I’m pretty proud of that one myself.’

‘You do throw the best parties.’ It was Edward in his most cheerful Ted voice walking across the grass toward us. He had two SWAT officers with him, too. I knew that the other two were mirroring our sniper and spotter from a different vantage point. The local PD was allocating a lot of their best people to my very ‘maybe’ plan. I hoped we all lived.

Edward introduced the first one as Lindell, who was as tall as Dev, but so thin he probably had to fight for every ounce of muscle and every pound of weight. He was just built lean and willowy. Officer Shrewsbury was barely six feet, built solid, and moved in a tight coil of energy as if he were just waiting for someone to yell, Go! He was also a natural redhead, complete with the pale skin and freckles that usually went with it. Lindell’s nickname was Paris. Shrewsbury’s was Berry, as in Strawberry. No one offered to explain the tall, almost homely Lindell being named after the city of love, and I didn’t ask. I’d learned that nicknames were personal, sometimes very personal, especially among the special teams.

Edward came up to me smiling broadly and radiating his alter ego, Ted.

‘If you didn’t bring your flamethrower, I’m going to be disappointed,’ I said, smiling.

‘It’s in the car, Anita; you know I never tease unless I’m planning to come across.’

I smiled at him and gave a small eye flick behind him. He made the smallest eye-slide to the side Paris was standing on, which meant Paris was the guy who had been giving Edward enough grief about our supposed love affair that he’d begun to play with him.

‘I know you’re always good for anything you promise, Ted.’ I put a smile to go with the teasing tone and looked up in time to see Dev puzzling down at me. I had totally forgotten about promising to help Ted tease someone, so had forgotten to mention it to my guys. Oh, well.