Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

‘I’m going to walk them in,’ Deputy Al said.

‘You do that,’ Gonzales said.

‘Why do you need bodyguards, Marshal Blake?’ Rickman asked.

Micah answered, ‘There have been threats because of my work with the Coalition for Better Understanding Between Human and Lycanthrope.’

‘So they’re your bodyguards,’ Rickman said.

‘Do you really think I’d bring guards to the hospital where my family could see them, if I didn’t need them?’

The question seemed to throw Rickman for a minute. He changed tactics and said, ‘He’s not a bodyguard.’

Micah reached back and took Nathaniel’s hand in his and drew him up beside him just like I was on the other side. He gave Rickman solid eye contact as he said, ‘Detective Rickman, this is Nathaniel. He’s our third, our significant other.’

Gonzales made an inarticulate sound that was loudish. Deputy Al whistled and said, ‘Wow, okay.’

‘What is it with you and all the gay men, Blake?’ Rickman asked.

I laughed, I couldn’t help it. It seemed to startle everyone, because most of them looked at me, except for Micah, who was staring at Rickman. ‘One, if the men in my life were gay it wouldn’t do me a lot of good, would it? Two, why the hell are you this interested in my sex life?’

Micah said, ‘Three, why do you have a problem with Anita? You just met her.’

‘It’s okay, Micah. I make him nervous.’

‘Why?’ he asked, as if Rickman weren’t still standing there.

‘My reputation intimidates him.’

‘Which reputation, Marshal Blake? The one as a cold-blooded murderer, the one as a voodoo queen, or your reputation as a … gentlemen’s woman?’

It took me a few moments to realize he’d just switched the sexes on the term ladies’ man and not called me a slut, though somehow gentlemen’s woman sounded like a cleaned-up version of mistress .

‘That’s enough.’ Gonzales stepped in front of Rickman, and he was big enough that he blocked all our views of the detective. ‘You,’ he said, pointing at Al, ‘take them inside.’

‘You don’t outrank me,’ Rickman said.

‘Rush Callahan has been my friend for over thirty years. We served together, bled together, saved each other’s lives more times than I can count. We both joined Boulder PD at the same time. He offered to take me with him when he moved to being sheriff. I don’t outrank you sergeant to detective, I outrank you because you are forgetting that a fellow officer is down, dying, and this is his son.’

‘We do not need Blake here with her hocus-pocus. We do not need the Feds on this case.’

‘Make your reputation some other day, Ricky,’ Gonzales said. ‘Tonight isn’t the night for it.’

‘I don’t know what case you’re talking about, but I’m here as Micah’s girlfriend, fiancée, whatever. We’re here for him and his dad, that’s it.’

‘You say you’re the girlfriend, but you have a federal badge and you’re fucking Preternatural Branch, which means you can do any damn thing you want.’

‘I am the girlfriend and I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.’

‘You go’ – he motioned toward the hospital – ‘go be the girlfriend, be the fiancée, meet the family, but if you try to take this case over I will fight you for it and do everything in my power to make sure you regret stepping on our toes.’

‘“Stepping on our toes,”’ I said. ‘Really, that’s the best you can threaten?’

‘Anita,’ Nathaniel said softly.

He was right, but I’d be damned if I’d apologize to Rickman.

‘No, that’s not the best I can threaten,’ Rickman said, his voice rising.

‘Get them inside, Al, now,’ Gonzales said.

It was actually Juliet who started us walking, but Al brought up the rear as if he feared an attack from that direction. Gonzales turned to Rickman, and I heard the detective’s angry voice rising as we walked away.

‘Did you have to bait him like that?’ Juliet asked.

I sighed. ‘No, and I’m sorry. It was childish.’

Micah said, ‘I’ve seen you have problems with officers who you had a history with, but you’ve never worked with Rickman, have you?’

‘No,’ I said.

Juliet’s phone rang, and she stepped away from us to take a call from her husband. She apologized and mouthed something about her kids. We all nodded, and suddenly it was just us ‘guys.’

‘Honestly, after what happened to Rush I’d take any help we could get,’ Al said.

‘Help on what?’ I asked.

‘Killer zombies,’ he said.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘We’ve had zombie attacks.’

‘You have a rogue zombie?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘Not just one zombie. That’s what’s weird: It’s not the same one. I mean, Sheriff Callahan talks about a flesh-eating zombie they had back in the seventies here, but they trapped it in a house and burned it, end of problem.’

‘A flesh eater is incredibly rare; I’ve only seen one. You don’t get herds of them, no matter what the movies and TV shows put out there.’ To myself, I amended that I’d seen only one rogue zombie at a time. I had used cemeteries full of zombies that I had raised as defensive weapons against bad guys who were trying to kill me, three times. I carefully did not look behind me at Nicky. He’d been present for one of those moments.

‘So it was just the same zombie-eating people when you had to deal with one, right?’ Al asked.

‘Yeah,’ I said.

‘This is different ones. We’ve got at least three different descriptions.’

‘Descriptions never match; you could still just have one,’ I said.

‘One man, one woman, and one child; we think they’re a family that disappeared in the mountains about a month ago.’

I shook my head. ‘No way, no one would raise a family like that as zombies; no one would do that unless you’ve got an animator who had a grudge against the family. But it would have to be a hell of a grudge to raise a whole family from the dead, and if they were murdered, then raised from the dead, they’d kill their murderer. It would be their one driving purpose and they would attack people who got in their way, but it wouldn’t turn them into flesh eaters necessarily. Were any of the family psychically gifted?’

‘Not that we know, why?’

‘The only cases I’ve heard of flesh eaters were animators or voodoo practitioners who had been raised from the dead.’

Al raised eyebrows. ‘You mean if you …’ He stopped abruptly. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘It’s okay; there’s a reason my will states I’m to be cremated, Deputy Truman.’

‘You’re afraid you’d turn into a flesh-eating zombie?’ he asked.

‘Why take the chance?’ I said.

‘Can we not talk about the woman I love dying just as we walk into the hospital to see my dying father?’ Micah asked.

‘Oh, geez,’ Al said. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just someone mentioned calling in the Preternatural Branch, and Marshal Blake was mentioned specifically, before we knew she was with you. I’m sorry, I was being a cop. I’m just … sorry, Mike, really.’

‘I’m sorry, too,’ I said.

Micah squeezed my hand. ‘I forgive you, but for the next little bit can you just be my fiancée and not be Marshal Blake?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said, and I was ashamed for forgetting that this wasn’t a case, this was Micah’s dad. But I had a thought. ‘Can I ask one more cop question? Just one more while Al is with us?’

Micah sighed. ‘One more.’

‘Micah’s mom said that Sheriff Callahan had been bitten by something preternatural. What was it?’

‘One of the flesh-eating zombies,’ Al said.

‘She said that it was contagious, that he was rotting— Are you saying that the people bitten by the zombies are turning into zombies?’