Carole Douglas - Silver Zombie

“Is that Christophe out on the balcony?” Ric asked. “Or Tallgrass?”

From this distance it was hard to tell who or what the wind-whipped figure was. I saw the figure’s arm scatter something on the wind, a golden dust that blew away in expanding circles, like a whirlwind growing shape and form and gilt scales until the winged dragon Gargouille from a Paris distant in time and space was born again as a bright gold spiraling sunrise against the dark clouds.

Of course. I’d seen Snow strew these same ashes into the air beneath the Karnak Hotel to raise the French river dragon to aid in Ric’s rescue. A mote of white reflected lightning near the dragon’s great, lashing, metal-scaled head. Guess I’d missed a hell of a bucking dragon ride.

The dragon breathed fire against ice, warmth into cold and the Wendigo’s scowling cloud-face. A vee of smaller bright-winged forces also shot through the blue-black darkness. Could it be? Gargoyles in formation from Our Lady of the Lake? And down the dark and twisting clouds came a foggy stream of running wolves with luminous eyes, Quicksilver at their forefront, snapping at the head of the Wendigo, biting it away in airy fangfuls.

And there? Did I see Almira Gulch and Lili West caught up in the twister, riding a tandem bicycle, and a longhorn steer spinning over and over with a chupacabra? My old bungalow tumbling like a die on a gambling table, and the huge glass bubble of a snow globe falling with a Wicked Queen in its icy heart?

Or was my subconscious just putting forms on phantasms of the mist?

The storm clouds dissipated into smoky tendrils as we watched and the moon shone through the fading shreds of storm, as silver and serene and blank as the face of Maria’s robot.

RIC AND I strolled out to the far edge of the empty lot, where I checked to see that Dolly was still safely parked.

“Christophe owns this thing, doesn’t he?” I asked Ric as Maria shadowed us. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to take her off our hands.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” Ric said. “I called her into 3-D being.”

“So she’s just another Zobo you have to take responsibility for?”

He put an arm around me. “Not personally. It’ll take an army to keep her out of the hands of the Immortality Mob, or your CinSim-obsessed landlord, Hector Nightwine, or El Demonio when he gets over losing Kansas and comes for Nevada.”

“You had the bastard cornered.”

“Not enough. The Silver Zombie holds some powerful potential for him we don’t know about. I didn’t kill him.”

“Why couldn’t you?” I asked.

“Is death good enough for your betrayers?”

“Maybe not, but it will come for them, with or without me.”

“Exactly,” he said.

“We’ve done enough this trip,” I said.

“This trip,” he agreed, “but the journey never ends.”

I TURNED FROM the green-mirrored penthouse suite bar, pleased to have seen only my reflection.

My gown’s emerald-satin bias-cut skirt swirled around my legs as it wafted to display my ankles and the demure ruby red slippers I wore. So I was a bit Merry Christmas-y for summer, so sue me. This was my last personal appearance at Emerald City and I wanted to make it an occasion.

I craned my neck to see who had just committed a wolf whistle when my admittedly bare back was turned.

I faced a full house of suspects, so to speak.

The penthouse suite’s long green leather sofa now seated three men, Ric, Leonard Tallgrass, and Ben Hassard.

Snow lounged in an emerald-velvet club chair and I was even less sure now that either he or Ric qualified simply as a man.

Quicksilver lounged in front of Tallgrass on the grass-green carpeting in his “Sphinx” position, belly down and forelegs extended. I knew he wasn’t simply a dog.

The row of human male eyes were still dazzled from eyeing my gownless back with the silver familiar forming a long supple diamond dividing line down my spine. Even the familiar was putting on the dog tonight. Usually it was content to morph into rhinestones or Austrian crystals, since I was no jewelry snob.

Snow, of course, was seeing everything through very dark sunglasses.

I held up a tall, stemmed glass.

Finally. A little male attention that wasn’t focused on the Silver Zombie standing at robotic attention behind a seated Ric. She sure did shine.

Normally, I’m not a show-off, but my new cocktail creation deserved a dramatic introduction. It flouted the Emerald City color scheme, being an opaque, faintly blue silver color, whereas absinthe was opaque green. A dash of vivid blue curaçao at the bottom made it something of a Tequila Sunrise in a blue mood and reflected a circle of electric blue at the cocktail’s top rim.

“Gentlemen, and lady,” I said. “Introducing the latest entry in Delilah’s Darkside Bar Book of Paranormally Phenomenal Cocktails, I give you … the Silver Zombie.”

The applause and whistles still didn’t give away the lone wolf among them.

Snow wouldn’t whistle even onstage. Ric had a mischievous streak but had been acting too possessive lately to draw other men’s attention to me.

Leonard Tallgrass cultivated a poker face, but just might be up to it. Ben Hassard, patched up and very grateful to me, might have been unable to quell his enthusiasm.

Quicksilver had a lot of wolf in him, but was a howler by nature. And Maria, the Metropolis robot, lacked the necessary moving mouth parts.

We really must get this metal maiden a jazzier name, Irma said. “ I’ve Just Met a Robot Named Maria” won’t burn out any lights on Broadway.

Irma was right. She needed an updated name. Maybe Brigitte, for the teenage German actress who’d played both human and robot roles. Darn, sounded too sexy.

“What’s in the drink?” Ben Hassard wanted to know.

“Three chilled ounces each of Fuse blueberry raspberry water champagne. An ounce of José Cuervo Silver tequila, an ounce and a half of lime vodka, an ounce of Alizé Bleu brandy, fruit and vodka mix, and a dash of blue curaçao dribbled down the inside of the glass so it sinks to the bottom.”

“That sounds like enough goodies to make a zombie out of me,” Ben said. “I’ll drink to that.”

So I gestured to the line of four Silver Zombies on the malachite bar top behind me.

Maria surprised me by being the first to approach, eerily noiseless for a silver metal woman. Actually, the film robot’s likeness had been constructed from a new material, plastic wood, painted silver and bronze. Brigitte had to act as her own body double and wear the modern suit of armor even during nonspeaking camera shots, although it cut and bruised her body. How ironic it was, but not unlikely, that a film about abused workers would abuse its lead actress.

And that’s when I realized that Maria was already a true CinSim. She had a built-in zombie body, that of the dead actress, Brigitte Helm. That is what—who—Ric had raised. How mind-bending was that? I thought I’d keep that insight to myself for a while.

Maria turned and, doing her C-3PO routine, brought a glass to … Ric.

The poor futuristic thing still thought like an Old World body servant. I was probably the only one in this room who knew that CinSims could “grow” beyond their original film personas, so I hoped this one got wise to the imprisoned superstar future Snow had in mind for her sooner rather than later.

Did the Inferno Hotel honcho somehow read or guess my rebellious wish?

Snow stood abruptly to claim two glasses from the bar and present them to Tallgrass and Hassard, now rising from their seats to accept them.

Snow stepped back to the bar, leaned against it, and took the last glass. Of course, from that strategic position he could better view his favorite part of my anatomy and simultaneously remind me of what I owed him. Three hundred and twenty-two bottles of beer on the wall … the paraphrased drinking song ran through my head. I’d never dreamed that stupid verse would have an erotic connection.