Лорел Гамильтон - Dead Ice

She gave me the look that other women had given me before when I opted out of doing the “all my exes suck and I have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that my love life sucks” thing. I’d found that most relationships worked because everyone worked at it; it was a group effort even if only two people were involved.

“Either you’ve never had anyone hurt you that badly, or you are a saint.”

“Anita’s had her share of bad ones,” Zerbrowski said.

“She confides in you?”

He put his arm across my shoulders and did a brotherly hug. “We share all our girly secrets,” he said.

Manny had to walk away trying to turn his laugh into a cough.

I realized that Zerbrowski was trying to help me out of another social minefield, which meant he didn’t think I could get out on my own, which might be true. Also he didn’t entirely like Susannah. That I hadn’t known. I filed it under I’ll ask them later and said, “All our girly secrets.”

Susannah laughed. “I don’t even believe you have girly secrets, Anita.”

I shrugged, smiled, and bumped the fist that Zerbrowski offered. Then he looked past me and something made his eyes widen, made him look surprised. I pushed away from the hug, bringing the shotgun around, thinking I’d let myself get distracted from the business at hand, and . . . there wasn’t anything to shoot. The ground was still untouched. They’d even turned off the backhoe so we could hear the distant sound of late-season crickets, so what had surprised my partner?

They’d managed to get the tall obelisk gravestone out of the ground where it had been placed centuries ago. I think the two grave diggers and my guys had been walking it back, but Nicky had gotten impatient. He had it in his arms like he was hugging it, except he had one hand clasped over the other wrist, which let me know it was even heavier than it looked. He’d taken off his jacket so that his weapons were visible, and so were the muscles in his arms as he walked away from the grave with the stone.

Susannah had turned and was watching, too. She didn’t turn around until Nicky placed the stone on the ground, with Domino helping him steady it so it didn’t fall over and break. She finally turned back to me and said, “Not human, I take it.”

“Not exactly,” I said.

She shook her head. “Someone who looks like your guy there, but human, please, if you’re looking for me.”

“Why does human matter?” I asked, not sure if I should be offended on Nicky’s behalf, or not yet.

“Because if he can lift that, I do not want to be on the receiving end of him being pissed at me. I had one boyfriend in high school who hit me. He played football and was on the wrestling team. He was strong, but not that strong. I never want to be at the mercy of someone stronger than the jock who first broke my heart and my jaw.”

“I’m sorry, Susannah, really sorry; that must have been awful.” And just like that I had my lesson. I shouldn’t assume that every woman a man bashes gave him a good reason to do it.

She nodded, and her face had too many emotions flying over it for me to read them. “It’s not them turning furry once a month, Anita, or even the vampires living on blood, it’s the superhuman strength that scares me. I can’t deal with a boyfriend who could hurt me that badly.”

“Men really can be bastards,” Zerbrowski said, and this time he meant it.

“You’ve got a daughter, right?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want daughters, ever. I’d worry too much.” She stopped as if she meant to say more but had thought better of it. She turned and just walked off toward the grave, her father, and the rest of the men.

“Well,” Zerbrowski said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I didn’t know you didn’t like her until tonight.”

“I may have to take it back; she freaked out on one of the other cops, but he’s a big guy and when he drinks he has a temper.”

“You think he got out of hand?” I asked.

“Not like you mean, but I bet it wouldn’t take much to spook her.”

“I bet you’re right.”

“Damn, now I have to either ask him what happened, or defend her the next time he says what a bitch she is.”

“You don’t really have to do either,” I said.

“Yeah, I do. If I help trash someone’s reputation and then find out I’m wrong, I have to fix it if I can.”

“There’s a reason we’re friends, Zerbrowski,” I said, smiling at his uncharacteristically serious face.

“Thanks, but you’d do the same thing.”

I thought about it, and nodded.

He smiled. “Yeah, there’s a reason we’re friends, I’m the only one who’s been safe from your feminine wiles.”

I shook my head and smiled back. “You’re not my type, and I like your wife and kids.”

“It’s the middle-aged thing, isn’t it?”

“Nope, it’s the railroad-themed pajamas; I just could never lust after someone once I knew they like little choo-choos all over their jammies.”

He grinned at me. “Katie likes them.”

I gave him the rolled eyes he expected and said, “ So didn’t want to know that.”

“Let’s go help dig up your zombie.”

The backhoe’s engine started again, as if on cue. “Let’s,” I said, and we walked together through the soft dark. We’d never hold hands, or go shopping, or actually share confidences about our sex lives, and we might not be partners forever; he was dangerously close to getting promoted out of the field and onto a desk full time, but we’d always be the kind of friends that you can call up at two a.m. for a favor, whether it’s an exhumation order or picking the kids up from school when emergencies happen. I’d only done that last thing once, but I’d been on the list of approved names that the school was allowed to give his kids to, in case of emergency. We were damn close to the “If I had a body and needed help getting rid of it, I’d call you” phone call, but honestly we could both probably handle that one on our own. Cops can make very good bad guys, and very good friends.

IF IT HAD been a modern grave we could have used the backhoe to remove most of the dirt, but older graves weren’t always as deep as they should be, and Warrington had been buried before wooden coffins were put inside metal vaults. If we dug too deep, then we might crush the coffin and the body inside it. If Warrington was a flesh-eating zombie and came out trying to kill us, then that wouldn’t be so bad, but if he was just a body then we’d have screwed up the exhumation. Judges tended to get cranky if you destroyed perfectly peaceable dead citizens who had once been taxpaying good guys. Before you ask, no, we couldn’t have sworn ourselves to secrecy and not told anyone we goofed, because people will talk, especially when the story is this good. I mean, I was a necromancer, nicknamed behind my back the Zombie Queen. That I and a senior member of the Regional Preternatural Investigation Squad/Team totally destroyed a grave, because we thought there was a killer zombie in it, when it was just some poor body . . . See, it’s too good not to share at the bar on a Saturday night, or the next time any of them work with other cops, so the backhoe got turned off and the shovels came out.

The men who’d come to dig the coffin out got into the open grave and started doing their job. They never questioned it, and I wondered why they didn’t at least ask if it was dangerous. Then I realized they probably didn’t exhume many bodies buried before metal vaults went around the coffin.

I went to the graveside and looked down at the two men. The tall blond was almost waist deep in the open grave; his shorter dark-haired partner was already up to his waist in it. “Can you get out of the grave for a minute?” I asked.