Лорел Гамильтон - Dead Ice

“Are you telling me we waited for your plane for hours, and you’re just here to practice your psychic snooping skills, and not to help on this actual case?” I could feel the anger start bubbling up.

“It was your suggestion that you wanted to look at the videos using your necromancy that had them send me. They wanted me to observe you working, and get a feel for your talent when it’s not being used to actively raise the dead.”

“I don’t care about that. What I care about is, did you actually come here and aren’t planning to help solve this case?”

“I’m here to help, of course.”

“How?”

“What?”

“How can you help?”

“We’ve discovered that some psychics can use their talent via electronics to a surprising degree. If you can do that, then we want to have you involved in the live event from these perpetrators.”

“What do you mean, live event?”

“I can answer that one,” Brent said.

“Then answer it,” I said, and my voice was still not friendly at all.

“They started out just advertising zombie sex tapes, but then they asked their customer base what they wanted to see.”

“You’ve seen the tapes that have more storyline to them,” Manning said.

“Storyline, what storyline?”

“The ones where the younger man seemed to be afraid, and it was made to appear as if he were being raped by the zombie.”

“That was toward the end, right?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid by the time we got there I was sort of glazed over with too much horror porn, but I remember it vaguely.”

“It is hard to watch this stuff and keep a fresh eye,” Manning agreed.

“That’s why we watch it over and over,” Brent said, and he looked tired at the thought, “so we can be as sure as possible that we don’t miss something that might help.”

“They’ve grown more sophisticated in story, and more ambitious on the kink,” Manning said.

“Don’t call this kinky; it’s an insult to everyone who lives an alternative lifestyle,” I said.

“Like yourself?” Gillingham said.

“I didn’t mean to insult you, Marshal,” Manning said. She gave Gillingham a dirty look.

“What I do, or don’t do, in my private life is none of your business, Agent.”

“Yes, of course, I’m sorry.”

“I can’t tell if you’re this stupid, or if it’s all an act so no one sees you coming psychically,” I said.

“It’s both,” Larry said. “She is a disaster socially sometimes, but they dressed her so she’d look like this.”

“Like the favorite second-grade teacher that we never had,” I said.

“Or Sunday school teacher, yeah,” he said.

“Tell them it’s too much. They’d do better if she was just dressed like a normal American woman of her age and socioeconomic level,” I said.

“Duly noted, I’ll let them know.”

“Did you know that’s why she was here?” I asked.

“No, I just know she can follow psychic ability like a dog on a scent. I honestly thought she was here to help us aim our talents at the bad guy on the videos.”

“It only works if the feed is live,” Gillingham said. “I mean, I might be able to get impressions, but to follow it back to the bad guy it has to be currently happening.”

“Have you tried to follow this bastard before?”

“Yes, and it didn’t work.”

“Why not?”

“We’re not sure, but higher-ups think maybe it’s just too different from most psychic ability.”

“What does that mean, too different?” I asked.

“It’s like I don’t understand the necromancy enough to trace it.”

“Or he’s better at detecting you, like Anita,” Larry said.

“He doesn’t feel as powerful over the computer as she does sitting here,” Gillingham said.

“It’s not as strong over the computer sometimes,” Brent said.

“You pick it up, too?” I asked.

He nodded. “I’m not nearly as gifted as the three of you, but I actually seem to get more via electronics. One of our instructors says that he’s found other computer techs who actually have more talent to feel things over the computer than in real life. They don’t even have a name for it yet, but apparently it’s a talent just like the others.”

“That might explain why so many techies spend all their time online; they get addicted to feeling the buzz,” I said.

“We think so,” Brent said, smiling as if I’d said a smart thing. It just seemed logical to me.

“So what’s a live feed?” I asked.

“It’s real time,” Brent said, “and in this case the customers can call in and suggest what they want the zombie to do. Depending on what they want, they pay more money to get their idea onscreen.”

I blinked at him. “Okay, ick, but okay.”

“The more odd your request, the more they charge you, and if it damages the zombie they charge a lot more.”

“Damage the zombie, I don’t remember them doing that.”

“There’s been a new film. It was never live to the general customers, but only put online once the customer who requested it saw it live.” Brent’s face was a little gray around the edges.

“I don’t like the look on your face right now. How much worse could it be than what we’ve seen?” I asked.

“Technically even though they look alive, they’re zombies, so it’s not murder, and it’s not convictable for the customers really. Now that the word has gotten out about how lifelike the zombies are, the films are attracting people who usually haunt more serial killer sites. By that I don’t mean real serial killer videos, but people pretending to film things that you could only do once in real life. Pretend torture and snuff films, and some real torture with willing victims.”

“Real torture, or real BDSM?” I asked.

“BDSM for the most part. I’m told other divisions have traced people who were torturing people for viewers online, and shut them down, but for the most part it’s all consensual and no one gets hurt more than they’ve bargained for,” Brent said.

“Technically, the only way we got these films to be investigated this seriously was to raise the question of, if the soul is in the body, then is it a zombie, or is it a person?”

“You got to investigate this by raising a spiritual debate at the FBI?” I asked.

She made a little shrug and wobbled her head at the same time. “Yes, no, sort of, but once a voodoo priest told us that they had to be capturing the soul at the moment of death, then we treated it like any other serial killer case with magic added.”

I looked at Gillingham. “So, if I can trace this via a live feed, then what do we gain? I mean, it’s not like I’ll be able to trace it back to an address. At best I’ll get a taste for his power.”

“Would you know the feel of his talent again if you felt it?” she asked.

“If I got a good enough feel for it, yeah.”

“It might not work in court, but it could help us narrow it down once we have some suspects,” she said.

“Okay, when’s the next live event?”

“They only announce it close to the actual event.”

“So what, you keep me on speed dial, and then what?”

“We have someone undercover as a customer. You’ll be in the room while he types at them.”

“Is this a group live event, or one of the special customer things?”

“It’s group, but if this doesn’t get us the information we need, then we’re trying to find something for our undercover agent to request that is different enough that they think it would work as a film.”

“Do we want to know what this new video is?” Larry asked.

“Do you think what you’ve seen so far is awful?” Manning asked.