Kelley Armstrong - Blood Lite

The zombie looked around but, of course, couldn't see the ghost, who'd taken a seat on an empty berth and watched, arms crossed, waiting for me to get on with my job.

After a moment, the zombie got up. It wasn't easy. His left leg had evidently been broken in the accident and cor­oners didn't reset bones on dead people.

He propped himself against the berth and looked at us, his gaze keen and very human. A real zombie isn't the shambling brain-chomper of movie myth. It's a ghost returned to its corpse. Simple .. . and simply horrifying.

"So how did this happen?" I asked.

"What the fuck does it matter how it happened?" he shouted, voice garbled, wheezing through a hole in his throat. "Get me out of this rotting corpse!"

"You know, it shouldn't be rotting," Savannah said. "Someone went cheap with the embalming, dude."

"Stop calling me that."

"Would you prefer 'decomposing hunk of stinking meat'? Speaking of which, he is damned ripe, Jaime. Can we crack open the door before I hurl?"

I motioned for Savannah to tone it down and made a mental note to give her zombie sensitivity training later. "Again," I said, "how did you—?"

"And again, what the fuck does it matter, you dumb twat."

He did not say "twat." The word he used made Savannah grab him by the suit collar and shake him.

"Show some respect, dickwad. She's trying to help you." A sharper shake. "That right hand looks a little loose. If I smack it off, it ain't growing back."

I motioned for Savannah to release him. Zombies are notoriously unhygienic.

"The reason I'm asking," I said calmly, "isn't to satisfy my curiosity. I don't really care how you got in there. But until I know, I can't get you out." I swept off a dusty berth and perched on the edge. "Why don't I take a guess? You and Chuck—"

"It's Byron," said the ghost.

"You and your cousin. You die in a car accident. You come back as ghosts. You find a necromancer. You demand something and you won't let up, so he teaches you a lesson by shoving you back into your body. Am I close?"

The zombie tried unsuccessfully to cross his arms. "I only wanted him to bring us back to life."

"And he did," Savannah said. "I didn't mean like this"

"That's the only way it can be done," I said. "I'm sure he tried to tell you that. You didn't believe him. So he showed you. Now he'll let you stew for a few days before setting you free." I took my flashlight from the berth. "I'll go talk to him and get this sorted. Where is he?"

"Why?" Chuck said. "Not good enough to do it your­self, Red?"

"No, I'm not 'good enough' to free another necro's zombie. It can't be done."

The zombie turned on me. "What? No way."

"It doesn't matter. I'm sure I can persuade this guy—"

"He's gone," Chuck said.

"Gone where?"

"If I knew, do you think I'd bother with you?"

When I asked what had happened, the cousins each gave their own rambling account, drowning out and often contradicting each other. After wading through the bullshit that blamed everyone but themselves, I figured out two things: One, some people never learn; two, I wasn't getting Chuck's cousin un-zombified any time soon.

After their pestering led the necromancer to return the cousin's soul to his body, Chuck decided the best way to fix it was to pester the guy some more. The necro had opted for an impromptu vacation to parts unknown.

"Okay," I said. "I have a lot of contacts, so tell me every­thing you know about him and, hopefully, in a few days—"

"A few days!" the cousins said in unison, then launched into rants that could be summed up as: "You're useless and stupid, and if you don't get him out of that body, you'll regret it." After a few minutes of this I began to think that, while I never thought I'd condone zombification, I could see the other necromancer's point.

If I could have stuffed Cousin Zombie back into his casket, I would have, but getting him there meant risking a noxious scratch or bite. So I agreed to attempt a soul-freeing ritual. And I kept attempting it for an hour before I gave up. That's when Savannah mentioned she knew a spell that might work.

"Why the hell didn't you say so?" the zombie said.

"A spell for freeing souls?" I said. "I've never heard of that."

"Because it's not meant for zombies. I'm thinking out­side the box."

"Thinking?" the zombie said. "Must be a new experi­ence for you."

"Do you want back inside the box? Nailed shut?"

"So, this spell," I said. "The real application is ..."

"Knocking the soul out of a living person."

"Temporarily, I hope."

"Supposedly... but that's why I haven't tested it. Lack of volunteers."

The zombie cleared his throat, air whistling through the hole. "This is all fascinating, ladies. But in case you haven't noticed, this body isn't getting any fresher."

Savannah looked at him. "I want to be clear that this is an untested, very difficult, very dangerous dark magic spell, intended for use—"

"Oh, for God's sake. Do you want me to sign a fucking liability waiver?"

"No, but I happen to be a mixed-blood witch," Savan­nah said, switching to a tone that sounded eerily like Lucas's legalese-speak. "That means when I cast a spell, the results can be more vigorous than intended. I'm trying to become a more responsible spellcaster by considering the ramifications—"

"Rotting here ..."

She glanced at me.

I nodded. "If anything goes wrong, I'll tell Paige you read him the disclaimer."

Savannah cast the spell. The first two times, nothing happened, and the cousins started their heckling. By the third cast, her eyes were blazing as she spit the words, and I probably should have stopped her, but when I saw the zombie's skin balloon and bubble, like a pressure cooker, I thought his soul was about to pop free. Something did pop. His left eyeball shot out, bounced across the floor, then came to rest, optic nerve quivering like a sperm tail.

Cousin Zombie screamed, breaking it off in a string of profanities long enough to hang someone with, and from the looks he shot Savannah, there was no doubt who he'd hang.

"Hey, I warned you." She prodded the eyeball with her boot. "You know what they say. It's all fun and games until someone loses—"

He lunged at Savannah. She hit him with a knock-back spell, sending him smacking against the wall, the flimsy building trembling. He bounced back, fists swinging.

"Watch out," Savannah said. "That hand is really wob­bling."

He ran at her. She caught him in a binding spell.

"Damn, this isn't easy," she said through clenched teeth. "It doesn't work as well on zombies."

"Nothing does."

"We've got about ten seconds before he breaks it. And he's really pissed."

"No kidding!" yelled Chuck/Bryon, who hadn't been silent, just ignored. "You popped out his eye, you incompetent—"

I returned him to ignore mode.

"Should I try the spell again?" Savannah asked, face straining with the effort of keeping the zombie bound. "I think I was close."

I looked from Cousin Zombie, frozen in a savage snarl, to Chuck/Bryon, spitting dire vows of vengeance, and I decided that at this stage, "close" wasn't really an issue. "Go for it," I said.

It worked the first time. That is, the spell worked in the sense that it didn't fizzle. It didn't release his soul either. Just that loose hand, which sailed off and flopped like a trout at my feet.

"Did anyone not see that coming?" Savannah asked. The zombie broke the binding spell then and Savan­nah showed off her single year of ballet lessons by pirouet­ting and skating out of his way as he lumbered after her.

"Forget her!" Chuck/Bryon shouted. "Get the necro­mancer. She's old and slow."

Great advice, if only zombies could hear ghosts. His cousin kept dancing with Savannah, who, after a few rounds, zapped him with another binding spell. Caught off balance, he tottered and fell sideways.