"Let's find some privacy, babe, and I will prove it."
I shook my head, smiling. "And what would your wife say about you taking me out for a test drive. Nice wedding band, by the way."
He laughed, a good-natured rumble.
Jakes answered for him. "His wife would feed him his dick on a stick."
Jarman nodded, still chuckling. "Yeah, my Bren has a temper, that she does."
He said it like it was a good thing, a thing he valued. He looked at me. "My Bren would have kicked Marks in the balls, not kissed him."
"I thought about it," I said.
"Why didn't you hit him?" Ramirez asked. The humor still sparkled in his eyes but his face was more serious. I think he wanted a real answer, not a joke.
"He was expecting me to hit him. Maybe even wanted me to hit him. He could have pressed assault charges, gotten me behind bars for awhile."
I expected one of the three men to say Marks wouldn't do that, but no one did. I looked from one suddenly serious face to another. "No one going to defend the lieutenant's honor? Protest that he wouldn't do such a dastardly thing?"
Jarman said, "Nope."
Jakes said, "Dastardly. You talk real pretty for a devil-worshipping assassin."
I blinked at him. "Pass that by me again, slowly."
Jakes nodded. "According to the lieutenant, you're suspected in the disappearances of several citizens, as well as dancing naked in the moonlight with the devil himself."
"Marks didn't say that last part."
Jakes grinned. "Can't blame a man for wishful thinking." He wiggled his eyebrows at me.
I laughed. They laughed. A good time being had by all. Except Bernardo who leaned against the wall apart from the general goodwill. He was watching me as if he'd never really seen me before. I'd surprised him in some way
"Marks tried to get you arrested for magical malfeasance, so the rumor mill says," Jarman said.
I stared at him. Magical malfeasance could carry a death sentence. I stared at Ramirez. "Did you know he was trying to do that?"
Ramirez touched my arm. We moved down the hallway to the distant rumble of masculine laughter. The two officers were probably still giving each other good-natured shit. From the caliber of the laughter, if it was about me it was probably something I didn't want to hear. There is always a line to the teasing that must be carefully avoided. I wanted to be a female one of the guys, not get a reputation for being a slut. A thin line to walk sometimes.
Probably best to be out of earshot, but I didn't want to be alone with Ramirez right now. It bothered me that he hadn't told me what Marks had said about me. He was a virtual stranger. He didn't owe me anything, but it made me think less of him.
An African-American nurse walked past us and went into the room. Since all I'd seen were her eyes the first time, I couldn't be sure if she was the same nurse I'd glimpsed earlier in the room. She was small, about the right size, but in full surgical scrubs, who knew?
The men had fallen silent as she walked past. As soon as the door closed safely behind her, the laughter sounded again.
Ramirez looked at me with that honest face, a line of concern between his eyebrows like a tiny wrinkle of discontent. He looked even younger when he frowned. "Doesn't that bother you?" he asked.
"What?" I asked.
He glanced back at the two officers. They were still smiling. "Jakes and Jarman."
"You mean the teasing?"
He nodded.
"When I kissed Marks in front of all of them, I sort of invited a little teasing. Besides, I sort of started it, or rather you did." I shrugged. "It blows off steam, and we all need that right now."
"Most women don't see it that way," Ramirez said.
"I'm not most women. But frankly, one reason a lot of women don't stand for any teasing is that some men don't know when teasing crosses the line to harassment. If I had to work day in and day out with them, I might be more careful. But I don't, so I can afford to push the line a little."
"What is your line, Anita?" He was standing just a little too close for comfort.
"I'll let everyone know when they've reached it. Don't worry." I stepped back from him, giving myself the distance I wanted.
"You're mad at me." He sounded surprised. I half smiled.
"Believe me, Detective, when I'm mad at you, you'll know."
"Detective. Not even Ramirez. Now I know you're upset. What did I do?"
I looked at him, studying that open, honest fact. "Why didn't you tell me what Marks said about me? What he was telling the other cops about me? It would carry a death sentence."
"No way was Marks going to push that through, Anita."
"You still should have told me."
He looked puzzled for a moment, then shrugged. "I didn't know I was supposed to."
I frowned. "I guess not." But I wasn't happy with his answer.
He touched my arm again, every so lightly. "I didn't believe that Marks could get you arrested. I was right. Isn't that enough?"
"No," I said.
He let his hand fall away from me. "What good would it have done to tell you? You'd have worried for nothing."
"I don't need my feelings protected. I need to feel that I can trust you."
"You don't trust me because I didn't tell you everything that Marks said?"
"Not as much as I trusted you before."
The first hint of anger hardened his eyes. "And you told me everything that happened in Los Duendos? You didn't hold anything back about your interview with Nicky Baco?" His eyes weren't kind now. They were cool and searching, cop eyes.
I looked down once, then fought to maintain eye contact when what I desperately wanted to do was duck my head and say, aw shucks, you caught me. Push me into a corner, and I usually get angry. But somehow looking into his deep brown eyes, I couldn't pull up much moral indignation. Maybe it was having no moral high ground to stand on. Yeah, that might be it.
"I didn't kill anybody, if that's what you're implying." It was one of my usual comments with less than my usual force.
"That's not what I'm implying and you know it, Anita."
There was something familiar, almost intimate, about the conversation. We'd known each other for two days, and yet we interacted as if we'd known each other much longer. It was unnerving. I didn't usually bond this quickly with people or monsters.
But if it had been my longtime police friend Sergeant Rudolph Storr himself standing in front of me, I'd have lied. If Nicky Baco got a whiff of cops, he'd back off, and he'd never trust me again. People like Baco don't give second chances when it comes to the police.
"Baco knew you and Rigby were outside the bar, Hernando. He has the entire area wired with magical ... " I waffled my hand back and forth, seeking the right word " ... wards, spells. He knows what happens in his streets. If I go back in with police as backup, no matter how distant, he won't help us."
"Are you so sure he can help?" Ramirez asked. "He may just be stringing you along, trying to find out what you know."
"He's scared, Hernando. Baco is scared. Call it a feeling, but I don't think much frightens him."
"You've just told me you're withholding information from an ongoing murder investigation."
"If you wire me up or insist on sending someone under cover with me we'll lose Baco. You know I'm right on this."
"We may lose Baco, but you're not right," he said, and the anger was back. A frustrated anger that I'd seen before in other men that I'd known longer and in more intimate ways. That anger that I can't just be a good girl and play by their rules, and be what they want me to be. It made me tired to hear that thread in Ramirez's voice after only two days.
"The most important thing to me right this second is stopping these murders. That is my goal. That is my only goal." I thought about what I'd said and added, "And staying alive. But other than that I don't have any other agenda. Stop the bad guys. Stay alive. It makes things simple, Hernando."
"You told me earlier that you wanted your life to change, to be more than blood and horror. If you want that to change, you are going to have to complicate your life, Anita. And you are going to have to start trusting people, really trusting them again."
I shook my head. "Thanks for using my moment of weakness against me. Now I remember why I don't confide in strangers." I was finally angry myself. It felt good. It felt familiar. If I could just stay angry, I could stop being so damned confused.
He grabbed my arm, and the grip wasn't gentle this time. It didn't hurt, but I could feel the press of his fingers in my flesh. For the first time since I'd met him, he let me see the hardness underneath. That core of harshness that you either have or acquire if you stay with the cops. Without that core to protect yourself, you may stay on the job, but you won't thrive.
I smiled. "What next, rubber hoses and bright lights?" It was meant to be a joke, but my voice wasn't light when I said it. We were both angry now. Underneath all those smiles and mild manners was a temper. We'd see whose was worse, his or mine.
He spoke low and carefully, the way I do sometimes when to do anything else will start me yelling. "I could just tell Marks about the meeting. Tell him you're holding out on us."
"Fine," I said, "do it. Marks will probably have him arrested, search his bar. He might even find enough magical paraphernalia to get him jailed on suspicion of magical malfeasance. And what will that get us, Detective? Baco in jail, and a few days from now more people dead. More bodies gutted." I leaned into his angry face and whispered, "How will your dreams be then, Hernando?"
He let me go so abruptly that I stumbled. "You really are a bitch, aren't you?"
I nodded. "If the situation warrants it, you bet."
He shook his head, rubbing his hands up and down his arms. "If I hold out on this and it goes wrong, it could be my career."
"Just say you didn't know."
He shook his head. "Too many people know I was your police escort." He managed to make the last two words heavy with irony. "You've got another meeting planned with him, haven't you?"
I tried to keep the surprise off my face, but a blank face was just as bad. It was like when you were asked if you were sleeping with someone, and you refused to answer. Not answering was as good as a yes.
He stalked from one side of the hallway to the other. "Dammit, Anita, I can't sit on this."
I realized he meant it. I stood in his path, so he had to stop pacing and look at me. "You can't tell Marks. He'll screw it up. If he thinks I'm dancing with the devil, he'll have hysterics when he meets Nicky Baco."
The anger was beginning to leak from his eyes. "When's the meeting?"
I shook my head. "Promise first that you won't tell Marks."
"He's in charge of the investigation. If I don't tell him and he finds out, I might as well hand in my badge."
"He doesn't seem very popular around here," I said.
"He's still my superior."
"He's your boss," I said. "He is in no way your superior."
That earned me a smile. "Flattery will get you nowhere with me."
"It's not flattery, Hernando. It's the truth."
He was finally quiet, standing there looking at me. His expression was almost his normal one, or what I thought was normal for him. For all I knew he dissected puppies in his spare time. All right, I didn't believe that, but I didn't really know him. We were strangers, and I was having to remind myself of that. I kept wanting to treat him like a friend or better. What was the matter with me?
"When is the meeting, Anita?"
"If I won't tell you, then what?"
A shadow of that hardness seeped into his eyes. "Then I tell Marks you're withholding evidence."
"And if I tell you?"
"Then I'll go with you."
I shook my head. "No way."
"I promise not to show up looking like a cop."
I looked at him from shined shoes to short, clean hair. "In what alternate reality would you
not
look like a cop?"
I heard the door open behind us, but neither of us turned. We were too busy making major eye contact.
Jarman yelled, "Ramirez!"
There was a tone in that one word that whirled us both around. Doctor Evans was leaning against the wall, holding his wrist upright. Blood gleamed like a scarlet bracelet around his arm.
Ramirez and I started running at the same time down that short space of hallway as if we had farther to go and less time to get there. Jarman and Jakes were disappearing through the door. Bernardo hesitated at the door, holding it open long enough for the screams to cut through the hospital silence. Low and wordless and panicked, and I knew without knowing that it was a man screaming. I was almost at the door, almost to Bernardo, Ramirez pacing me like a shadow.
Bernardo said, "This is a bad idea." But he went through the door, a heartbeat before we reached it. God, I hated being right all the time.
THE WHITE STERILE ROOM had been a quiet corner of hell. Now it was a loud, chaotic corner of hell. A skinless hand snatched at me. I slashed at it with the big blade that I'd pulled from the spine sheath. The hand bled and jerked back. They could feel pain. They bled. Good.
I had the blade raised for a neck blow as the corpse came at me again. Ramirez blocked my arms. "They're civilians!"
I looked at him, then back at that raw thing that was held to the bed only by one last wrist restraint. It launched at me again, slashing the air with its bloody hand, screaming wordlessly, butchered tongue flopping like a worm in the lipless ruin of its mouth.
"Just stay out of reach," he said and pulled me past it.
I had time to say, "They're corpses, Ramirez, just corpses."
He held up the asp. "Don't kill them." He moved into the fight, though it wasn't a fight yet. Most of the corpses were still restrained to the beds. They struggled, screaming, wailing, jerking their ruined flesh to bloodier ruin against the restraints, bodies bucking as they thrashed to free themselves.
Ben the nurse was beating at the head of one patient. It had sunk teeth into his arm so deeply that he couldn't free himself. Jarman was with him, beating the thing's head with his baton from far back like you'd hit a baseball. You could hear the soft, melon-like thunk even over the screaming.
Jakes and Bernardo were at the last bed near the windows. The African-American nurse was held in the embrace of a corpse that still had one hand and one ankle attached to the bed. Its head was buried into her chest. Blood plastered her gown to her body like someone had spilled a can of red paint down her. Where the thing was gnawing shouldn't have been a killing spot, but there was too much blood. It had reached something vital.
Jakes was beating at the thing's head so hard that he was rising on tiptoe, his body almost leaving the ground with each blow. The corpse's head was bleeding, cracking, but it wasn't letting go. Its head was buried into her chest like a monstrous child, feeding.
Bernardo was stabbing the corpse in the back over and over. The blade came free in a spray of blood, but it didn't matter. The one by the door had reacted to pain, but once they started feeding, they were just meat. You couldn't hurt meat, and you sure as hell couldn't kill it.
I walked between the beds with the corpses screaming, bodies writhing, and all the eyes looked the same. It was as if there was only one personality looking out of every pair of eyes. Their master, whatever that was, watched me walk between the beds, watching me go to the far bed, away from Ramirez, and his cautions. He still didn't understand what was about to happen when they all freed themselves. We had to be out of this room before that happened.
I moved in beside Bernardo, moving him back a step. I wiggled the blade underneath the thing's jaw. I took a deep breath, centered myself the way you do in martial arts class just before you break something big and permanent-looking, I pictured the blade coming out the top of the skull, and that's what I tried for. I tried to shove it through its head. The blade went through the soft tissue under the jaw with a sharp, wet, movement, then the tip hit the bone at the roof of the mouth, and kept going. The blade didn't come out of the top of its head, but I felt it shove into the strange emptiness of the sinus cavities.
It reared back from the woman, its jaws trying to open around the gleam of the blade. It clawed at its mouth with the one free hand, letting the nurse fall back onto the bed. We got our first glimpse of the wound. There was a hole in the middle of her chest. Broken ribs jutted outward like the broken sides of a frame. The hole was just the size for a human face to shove deep. I stared down into that dark, wet hole, and half her heart was gone, eaten away.
"Oh, God!" Jakes said.
The thing in the bed had freed its other hand. It was tugging at the hilt of the blade, trying to pull it free. Jakes, Bernardo, and I exchanged a look between us. One look, no words, and we turned towards the rest of the room with one goal in mind: get to the door any way we could. There was nothing human in this room but us.
I looked up and found Ramirez and Jarman at the far door with the male nurse sagging between them. Great. I yelled, "Run!"
We tried. I sensed movement and turned in time for the corpse to hit me full on and send us both crashing to the floor. I stabbed for the jaw, trying to pin its teeth like I had the other one, but it moved and I only got the throat. Blood splashed across my face in a hot liquid rush. It blinded me for a second. I could feel it moving over my body, legs straddling my waist. I kept my hand pushed into raw shoulder, holding it back, while it strained over me. I wiped the blood out of my eyes with the back of my hand that held the knife. It snapped at me like a dog, and I screamed. I cut its cheek so deep the blade scraped on teeth. It screamed and sank its teeth into my hand. I screamed as it shook its head like a dog with a bone. My hand opened, and the knife fell.
It came at me, mouth open, pale blue eyes so impossibly wide. It went for my throat. There was no time to try for the last knife. I went for its eyes. I plunged my thumbs into its eyes, and its own momentum pushed them deeper than I could have gotten them. I felt the eyeballs rupture, exploding in warm fluid and thicker things.
It screamed, whipping its head back and forth, hands clawing at its face. Bernardo was suddenly there, pulling it backwards, throwing it one-armed across the room to skid into the wall. Amazing what you can do when you're terrified.
I was on my knees, drawing the last knife. Bernardo dragged me to my feet, and we were almost to the door. Rigby was there with an ax, hacking at the corpses. Hands and less identifiable bits littered the ground around him. Ramirez shoved his asp into one's mouth, so hard the dull tip showed through the back of its throat.
Jakes was dragging Jarman by his wrists, leaving a thick red trail behind him. Jarman's body was wedged in the door. Rigby's ax had chopped two of the corpses into enough pieces that they were down. Two of the corpses were still held to the bed with one last restraint. Ramirez was wrestling with the one that was trying to swallow his asp. A corpse threw itself at Rigby, and the ax sliced air.
I heard the scrambling behind me before Bernardo yelled, "Behind ... "
I was on the way down to the floor with the thing riding my back, before I heard Bernardo yell, " ... you."
I tucked my head, trying to protect my neck. Teeth bit through my shirt, drawing blood, but having trouble gnawing through the strap of the shoulder holster and spine sheath. It dug its teeth into my flesh, but the leather strap acted like a sort of armor. I drove the knife back into its thigh, once, twice. It didn't care.
Suddenly, there was a wash of air, and a heavy blow, blood spilled across my hair, shoulders, and back, in a scalding wash. I scrambled out from under the corpse and found it was headless.
Rigby stood over it with the bloody ax and a wild look in his eyes. "Go, get out. I'll cover your back." His voice was high-pitched, fear dripping from it, but he stood his ground and started moving us all towards the door.
One of the corpses was on Bernardo's back, but it wasn't trying to eat him. It pounded his head twice into the floor, hard. It looked up at me. There was something in its eyes that hadn't been in any of the others. It was afraid. Afraid of us. Afraid of being stopped. Afraid, just maybe, of dying.
It scrambled through the open glass doors and brushed past Jakes, as if it had somewhere to go and something else to do. And I knew it had to be stopped, knew if it escaped that it would be very bad. But I put a hand under Bernardo's arm and started dragging him for the door. Ramirez took his other arm and it was suddenly easy to drag him through that glass door.
There was a sudden rush in the room behind us. Rigby stumbled back against the button that closed the door. It slid closed with Ramirez beating on it. I saw Rigby swing the ax, then a corpse came in from both sides. Ramirez reached for the button to open the door, but either Rigby's weight had jammed it or something else had.
Ramirez screamed, "Rigby!"
There was a gigantic whoosh of air as if a giant had drawn a breath, and the room filled with fire. Flames licked the glass like orange-gold water through the glass of an aquarium. I could feel the heat beating against the glass. Fire alarms went off with a high-pitched scream. I threw myself to the floor on top of Bernardo, covering my face, waiting for that tremendous heat to crack the glass and spill over all of us.
But it wasn't heat that spilled over me. It was coolness, water. I raised my head to the sprinklers that were filling the room. The glass was blackened, and smoke and steam curled against the glass like fog as the water killed the fire.
Ramirez reached for the button, and the doors opened in a sound of rushing water. The alarm was louder now, and I realized that it was two different alarms now, mixing together in one nerve-jangling screech. Ramirez stepped into the room, and I heard his voice over the maddening noise. "Madre de Dios."
I stood with the water pounding me, soaking my hair, clothing. I didn't follow him into the room. Rigby was beyond any help I could give him. We still had one more corpse on the run. I laid my fingertips on Bernardo's neck just under the jaw. Thescreech of the fire alarms seemed to make it hard to feel his pulse, but it was there, strong and sure. He was down for the count, but he was alive. Jakes was kneeling beside Jarman, tears streaming down his face. He was trying to stop a wound in Jarman's neck with his bare hands. The pool of blood that had spilled to either side of Jarman's head was being washed away by the sprinklers. His eyes were fixed and staring, unblinking as the water poured down on him.
Shit. I should have grabbed Jakes and said, "He's dead. Jarman is dead." But I couldn't do it. I got to my feet. "Ramirez."
He was still staring into the room at whatever was left of Rigby.
"Ramirez!" I yelled it, and he turned, but his eyes were unfocused as if he wasn't really seeing me.
"We've got one more corpse to catch. We can't let it get away."
He stared at me with dull eyes. I needed some help here. I took those few steps to stand in the doorway by him, and I slapped him hard enough that my hand stung with the blow. Harder than I'd meant to hit him.
His head whipped back, and I braced for him to hit me back, but he didn't. He stood there, hands in tight fists, shaking with the urge, eyes blazing with a rage that was just looking for someone to rain all over. It wasn't me hitting him. It was everything.
When he didn't slap me back, I said, "The bad thing went that way." I pointed at the door. "We need to go after it."
He started to talk very rapidly in Spanish. I couldn't understand the majority of it, but the anger came through just fine. I caught one word that I did know. He called me a bruja. It meant witch.
"Fuck this," I opened the door, having to edge around Jarman's body. The sprinklers were on in the hallway, too. Evans was still sitting with his back to the wall. He'd pulled his mask down, as if he couldn't get enough air.
"Where did it go?" I asked.
"Down the fire stairs, end of the hall." He had to raise his voice over the sound of fire alarms, but his voice was dull, distant. Maybe later if I was good, I could go into shock, too.
I didn't hear the door open behind me, but Ramirez yelled, "Anita!"
I half-turned as I ran for the door. "I'm taking the stairs, you take the elevators."
He yelled, "Anita!"
I turned, and he tossed one of the cell phones to me. I caught it one-handed awkwardly against my chest.
"If I get to ground and haven't found it, I'll call," he said.
I nodded, jamming the phone into my back pocket, running for the door. I found it. I had the Browning out now. There was no oxygen-filled room now. We'd see if bullets worked as well as knives. I pushed the heavy fire door with my whole body, until it was flat against the wall, and I knew the thing wasn't behind the door. Then I hesitated on the concrete landing. The sprinklers were going in here, too, like waterfalls down the concrete steps. The fire alarms filled the space with high-pitched echoes. I looked up at the rising stairs, then down. I had no idea which way it had gone. It could have gotten off on any floor above or below me.
Dammit, I needed to find this thing. I wasn't sure why it felt so urgent that it not get away, but I'd been right about the coming dark and the corpses. I'd trust my judgment. They were just animated corpses, just a kind I'd never seen before. But they were dead, and I was a necromancer. Technically, I could control any form of the walking dead. I could sometimes sense a vampire when it was near. I took a breath and centered myself in a solid line, drew my power in, flung it out, searching, my back to the door, the water pouring down on me, the scream of the fire alarms so piercing it was hard to think. I sent that "magic" outward, up the stairs, down the stairs like an invisible line of fog.
I jerked upright. I'd felt something like a pull on the end of a fishing line. Down, it had gone down. If I was wrong, there was nothing I could do about it. But I didn't think I was wrong. I started running down the wet cement steps, one hand on the banister to catch myself when I slipped, the other with the gun pointed upward. There was a woman crumpled outside the next landing, lying across the door, motionless, but breathing. I turned her face to the side so she wouldn't be drowned in the sprinklers, and kept going. Down, it was going down, and it wasn't taking time to feed. It was running, running away from us, running away from me.
I got to my feet, sliding on the wet steps, only my death grip on the slippery metal banister catching me before I fell. I lost my connection to the creature when I slipped. I just couldn't hold the concentration and do everything else. The sprinklers stopped abruptly, but the fire alarms went on and on, more piercing without the water to muffle it. I pushed to my feet and started running again. Very distant, far down below, there was a scream. I vaulted the next turn of banister, sliding down the wet metal, almost going head first over the next turn of railing. I was going as fast as I could, faster than was safe. I ran and slid and stumbled down the stairs, and all the time the growing sense that I was going to be too late. That no matter how fast I ran, I wouldn't get there in time.