Authors: A.J. Aalto
“Gloves,” I said, grabbing a pile out of the box on the supply cart. They fell in a latex cascade as I chucked a bunch in Batten's direction. I snapped some on myself, doubled them, looked at the zombie again, and considered triple-gloving. Some noxious, mucilaginous substance hung in dark, plague-ridden strings from her bottom lip, dredged up from parts of the body expectorants had never dreamed of plumbing. I spent a heart-throttling minute searching the cart for masks before realizing that none of the staff had entered the room bare-faced, and they were on a cart outside the room. The zombie vomited again, making grating, dry-heave noises.
I only cast my eyes away from the butt-puckering horror that was her rancid mouth for a second, but I missed seeing what made Batten rocket back against the wall with a shout. When I looked up, Anne Bennett-Dixon was halfway up the wall, clinging there like a bad dream.
“Oh hey, they can do that?” I marveled, barely audible. “Rad.”
Batten's shock was sinking into a similar area of dark humor. “Ambitious move for a dead chick.”
“You don't have to be a go-getter to rise from the dead and crack open the living,” I replied, “but that there
is
impressive.”
Anne turned her head completely around, owl-like, and gurgled at us. A soupy black liquid dribbled off the stump of her tongue. My mouth went dry and my humor fled as I hugged the wall behind the
chair, feeling dirty and violated by the sight of her. My calves went hard and my thighs tightened, and I realized they were thinking about taking off without my permission; Hood would be so proud.
In an eruption of gore, Batten fired off three rounds that took the zombie center of mass. Her chin dipped as she watched the bullets tear through her flesh. Then she dropped to the floor on all fours and loped back to her now-still meal of doc tartar.
“Marnie?” Batten's focus was on Anne, but he had me locked in his peripheral vision. His gun hand was still steady. “Head-shot?”
My voice came out sharp. “You'll hit Dr. Murakami!”
“He's already dead,” Batten said.
“You don't know that.”
The zombie pulled her face back to stretch and snap the tendons and ligaments she was chewing out of Murakami's throat.
“Christ almighty!” I pointed, as if Batten wasn't already fixated on the same sight.
One of the meatier tendons snapped and licked up wetly at the zombie's face, leaving a juicy red smear like a spaghetti-slurping accident.
Lady and the Vamp
, my brain supplied unhelpfully . Batten let out a growl of frustration.
“Don't let her do that!” he shouted.
I grabbed the nearest thing off the bed — a pillow soiled with greenish goo — and fired it at the zombie's head. “Bad zombie. Bad girl! Don't eat the doctor!”
“Fuck's sake,” he said, and raised the gun to eye level.
“Don't shoot! It's a waste of bullets, she's part vampire.”
“Revenant,” he reminded.
“What the—? You're correcting me?
Now?
”
“Marnie, do something!”
I grabbed the plastic chair and wheeled it around to face her, holding it up like a lion tamer. “Like what?”
“Magic!”
“Oh. Right.” I looked around the room for anything with which I could perform spells and saw nothing useful. “Well, this is a wangdilly of a problem, see? I flunked out of MacGyver's Paper Clip & Duct Tape University.”
“
Think
.”
“My think-machine is on the fritz,” I cried. “You're about as useless as a fuck-stain on the carpet; do something!”
“Use that magic spell that injured the ghoul in the funeral home,” Batten ordered.
I hadn't called down the moon since, and knew I'd never get the words right. It was one of the few instances where words were as important as intention.
“I'm going to put ‘blowing up a whole hospital’ in the bad ideas column.” Batten had stoked my memory enough for me to remember who I was, what I was; I held onto the chair in a white-knuckled grip while my brain made the decision between fight or flight and started struggling past the nerve-frazzling horror of Anne Bennett-Dixon's walking corpse to see some way out of this mess.
Magic.
Magic tooth. I slammed my hand into the pocket of my jeans, figuring this would be the one time the stalking tooth hadn't followed me from home, but it was there, nestled into a linty corner. I dug it out and held it tightly in my palm.
(“…use this to call upon me in your time of need.”)
The tooth vibrated against my latex-covered skin. Is this what Malas meant? Was this an emergency? Could he come this far?
“I've got a plan, Kill-Notch.”
“How much am I going to hate it?” he asked.
“A lot. Get behind the chair.”
I heard him mutter under his breath.
(“Mark the sound of my reply. I will come for you.”)
Did I have to call Malas aloud? The request came out more a squeal than summoning, and I wasn't sure what words I should use, so I imagined what language Harry might respond to. As soon as I began, the flesh between my shoulder blades began a tingling crawl.
“Death Rejoices, Malas Nazaire, maréchal Toussaint, vicomte de Brisbois. This humble servant of the Eversea calls to you in her time of need—”
The window exploded into the room, the glass fractured into a tumbling surge of chunky, bouncing hailstones. Batten hit the deck. I flinched into a crouch behind the hospital bed. A blur of white and grey took shape as it slowed to a speed that could be registered by
the human eye; I recognized the withered arm and single enormous fang before anything else.
Once settled into a creeping pace between us and Anne, shoulders shedding foul green smoke like a doused campfire made of rotten logs and worse, Malas Nazaire turned his attention on us. The equipment on the wall behind him rattled warningly, buzzed and snapped as the power surging through the air fried circuits. An alarm began to wail, then died abruptly. Monitor lights blinked furiously before winking out for good. Something wound-down with a motorized groan. A pressurized tank started hissing. The fact that his phantasm form could cause such destruction was a wake-up call; this was nothing like a ghost. It might not have Malas’ full power, but it wasn't a harmless wisp.
“Oh, hi,” I said to Malas.
The revenant's cornflower blue eyes lit with gold streaks and his face went through a waterfall of ages: Malas as a child, Malas as an old man, Malas as the handsome knight who gleefully plucked Napoleon's last nerve. His phantasm settled into a more cohesive phase, less vaporous, more solid.
“Couldn't you have appeared inside the room, instead of outside the window?” I asked. “Save yourself the trouble of breaking in?”
“You summon me to your aid, only to question my methods?” Malas’ hand shot out, and Batten's gun whipped through the air into the corner of the room.
“No,” I promised, lifting slightly from my crouch to show him my latex-blued hands. “You just startled the nice policeman. He's not going to hurt you.”
Malas blinked at me in disbelief, and his head rocked back with the force of his raspy laughter. I guess my assuming Malas had any fear of Batten or his gun was fairly amusing from his perspective. Witnessing the meltdown of everything in the revenant's wake, I suppose it was.
Anne the zombie-thing made a move in my direction, a heart-juddering scramble, and before I'd completed my face-plant to the tiles, Malas had Anne by the ear with his sharp command.
“
Non
.” His voice was something that the deranged might consider soothing. She slinked away from me and towards Dr. Murakami's mangled body.
Malas spoke to her again, his raspy voice low and stern. “
Non. Viens ici.
”
Casting regretful, hungry glances at the body, she continued on all fours to her master's feet.
Malas levitated clear off the floor and sailed backward out the window, creating a sucking vortex of chart papers, latex gloves, paper cups, and knocked-loose electronics.
The zombie investigated the gap in the glass, and Batten scrambled to get his gun back.
“We're okay,” I said, “unless zombies can fl— oh, shit!”
Anne hurled herself out the window like a jumping spider. Despite my new balls-out enthusiasm, I wasn't about to follow. Instead, I did a quick power-slide across the floor to Dr. Murakami's side to check his vitals, latex-ghostly fingers prodding chewed-up throat, ear bent to hear if he was still breathing. He wasn't. I hadn't really held out much hope that he was alive after the attack. His fixed pupils told the ceiling the story of his horrible end.
Batten, shoulders fallen and head hanging, crouched to check the nurse, then shook his head at me. “I have to go after them.”
I
. Not
we
. In the wake of the adrenalin rush, I put off trying to over-analyze my exclusion from that statement. As the commotion died to a dull roar in my ears, I realized the alarm in the hall had not stopped screaming; we had been joined by a SWAT team and the health department in full HAZMAT gear, none of whom had entered the room. They watched us through the containment glass, guns held ready, eyes goggling through visors like a bunch of preschoolers seeing their first monkey sex at the zoo.
The voice that came through the intercom was scratchy, hollow, and metallic. “Remain where you are. You're to be held under quarantine by orders of the CDC until we can ascertain—”
The rest was obliterated by a too-early click-off. He tried to repeat it, and again his fingers fumbled on the button. New, or freaking out. Either way, we got the gist of it. There was a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Guess we'll be here a while,” I said.
The metallic voice came again. “Stand apart to prevent cross-contamination. One on either side of the room. Best we can do until we get some cultures, folks.”
Batten ignored the intercom. He put his gun on the chair, stared at it like he was seriously considering shooting me, then drew both hands over his face, as if washing without water.
Intercom guy chided, “Don't touch your face, sir.” Someone in the hall must have corrected him, because he came back with, “Agent Batten, don't touch your face.”
“Mark?” I said. He looked at me like he only just noticed I was there. “Don't touch your face, just in case.”
His expression hardened in a rush; even furious, he was death-blow handsome.
“I know what you're going to say,” I said, backing toward the fresh night air streaming through the broken window, “but this isn't entirely my fault.”
“I told you,” he started, “to wait in the fucking car.”
“Yeah, but, then, the uh—” I pointed at Dr. Murakami's ravaged corpse. “He said.”
Batten inspected his shoes; when he was done surveying the blood splattered on them, he glared up at me from beneath dark, stormy brows. “Your boss, SSA Chapel, remember him?”
I bristled. “Don't talk to me like I'm a moron.”
“Oh, you do remember him. Good.” He stepped toward me.
The intercom squawked. “Stand apart, sir.”
Batten ignored it. “Do you remember your boss telling you to wait in the fucking car?”
“
I
did not turn that girl into a monster.” I held up my empty hands. “That was not
my
doing.”
“And if Harry were here,” Batten continued, gathering steam, “he'd have told you to wait in the fucking car, too.”
“Harry wouldn't say ‘fucking’.”
Batten's jaw muscles were marbles rolling under the skin. “No?”
“He'd use some word we'd have to Google. Besides, you're all wrong.” I flung one hand at the broken window. “It's better this way.”
“Better,” he repeated, tucking his lips in and squeezing his eyes shut as though physically bottling his next words.
“Yes. Whatever she is, Malas can manage her better than we can. You saw that.”
His eyes popped open as though he'd made an amazing discovery. “Oh. The creepy monster can handle it.”
“Don't bring his looks into this. You're no prize either,” I lied, choosing not to ogle the rippling muscles of his folded arms.
“Creepy killer vamp and his pregnant zombie pet, they're gonna be great now.”
I squirmed. “Pretty sure I never said ‘great’; pretty sure I said ‘better’.”
“Creepy killer vamp and his zombie pet lurking in the Denver suburbs,” he said, like he was trying to understand a difficult math equation. “That's all fine with you. That's just peachy?”
“We can talk about it later over coffee, when you're not…” I flapped a hand at him. “Wallowing in failure and committing epic douchebaggery?”
He made a grab for me, and I yipped like a puppy with a pinched tail. I expected something other than the crushing bear hug I got, and it took me a second to realize he wasn't going to punt me like a football; by the time I relaxed into it, he was pulling away. I slid my arms around his waist and gave him one last squeeze.
His voice was tired. “You all right?”
“I could use a day without pestilent horror.” His tiredness was overwhelmingly contagious. “Is there an official FBI requisition form for that?”
The metallic voice from the box demanded, “Stand apart. Opposite sides of the room. I won't tell you again.”
Batten and I looked at each other, gave the window the finger in unison.
“Your funeral,” the metallic voice said sourly, but he was replaced with another, more insistent voice, who took up the
don't touch your face
,
don't touch her face
,
opposite sides of the room
litany, over and over, angrier each time.
Batten exhaled hard. “Tell me we're not sick, Marnie.”
“We're fine,” I said. “She didn't bite us. We didn't get anything in our mouths or eyes. Let me see your hands.”
He held them out for inspection, two big calloused palms up. I ran my fingers over them, pretending to look for rips in the latex gloves, open sores or fresh wounds, but secretly remembering the
last time these hands had been on my body, cupping a breast, easing a trembling thigh to one side. If it weren't for the possible droplets of contagion in the room and the mess of two dead bodies on the floor, I might have been tempted to take advantage of our enforced togetherness; nothing like a little near-death experience to get the blood pumping.