2 Death Rejoices (67 page)

Viktor's retreating footsteps creaked into the pantry and back down the stairs.

Only then did I let out the breath I'd been holding.

C
HAPTER
54

“BRING THE PALADIN TO HEEL?”
Batten rubbed his goatee thoughtfully.

“That's what He said.” I drained a diet Dr. Pepper and went to the fridge for another. I held up a beer at him, and he nodded.

Declan had texted Batten repeatedly from under my desk — which was totally what I should have done — while I was chatting up the demon king in the doorway and Viktor did his doorstop impression. After thoroughly funking-up my soul with the chatty demon's company, there was something very reassuring about having the vampire hunter back under my roof. Batten had settled in and looked determined to stay. I had no intention of doing anything to upset that apple cart.

Viktor had returned to guarding Chapel. Golden and de Cabrera were waiting at the fish camp for the CDC to release evidence from the
bokor
's summoning site after Batten had secured an agreement to do so. Declan had excused himself to go upstairs and borrow my shower, and I didn't blame him; in the wake of the demon's passing, a distinctly greasy miasma of evil clung to the air that both perverted and nauseated anyone with any sensitivity. Even mundane-as-dirt Batten seemed unsettled by it; he squirmed and jittered in his chair, bobbing one knee, shifting to get comfortable. He grumbled something about me needing new chairs, but I was sure that wouldn't solve a thing. I needed to do a good cleansing on the house, if I ever found the time. Even a little sage smudge would help dispel the Overlord's funk.

I handed Batten his beer, swung one of the old vinyl chairs around to straddle it, and popped my soda can open. “He wants me to ‘usher this wayward creature…’ ”

“The abomination,” Batten supplied.

“Right, into the folds of His affection, or some such shit.”

Batten paused in the act of lifting the beer bottle to his lips, and grimaced. “Don't explain that.”

Thinking of Asmodeus’ strappy flesh-kilt, I said, “Wouldn't dream of it.” I sipped diet Dr. Pepper. “We assumed that when Spicer said he was after the half-breed, he meant Viktor. But Viktor isn't the abomination Spicer is looking for.”

Batten grunted. “Or else As—”

“Don't say His name!” I squawked.

“What?”

“You don't say a demon king's name aloud.”

“Fine. What do you suggest we call Him?”

“Three-Face?”

Batten took a pull from his beer, and followed it with three more. I don't think there's actually patience in a beer bottle, but Batten made a fair attempt to find some. “Or else Three-Face would have taken Viktor right then,” Batten finished.

“Right. Anne with the nine Talents is the abomination.” I rolled the whiteboard into the kitchen and erased Viktor's name from it. “When Three-Face was in my mirror, He said I was going to kill Spicer for Him. To protect the Eversea.”

Batten's eyebrow did its upward dance. “Taking orders from a demon king now?”

“Of course not,” I shot back. When he shrugged that he believed me, I started to pace back and forth in front of the white board. I rested the cold soda can against my forehead to cool the smattering of rash bumps that had begun to show at my temple. “I think my bias has been fucking with me.”

“Which one?” Batten said knowingly.

“My bias against Spicer, against necromancy. I've been assuming Spicer's the bad guy.”

“He's not?”

“Maybe. But think about it: why would a holy paladin make zombies, of all things?”

“He's bugfuck nuts?”

“Assuming he's the good guy.”

“He can't be the good—” Batten clipped that short and considered it, which I found amazing. Encouraged, I spun my kitchen chair around to sit in it properly, and put my heels up on the table, crossing them at the ankle. I sipped diet Dr. Pepper and thought with him.

Finally, Batten said, “Spicer's daughter said something about her father being a fool for not hunting the true abominations.”

“Right, Pink Kitty and her crew. They followed Spicer to the New World. They were hunting plain old revenants. Malas. And Harry.”

“The Prior guy in the Shield van asked for Harry but got Wes instead.”

I tried not to let the matter-of-factness of that statement get tome, reminded myself that Wes was making slow — if furry — progress. “Exactly. However, Anne as a female revenant, with the potential to develop all nine Talents, would be nearly unstoppable.”

“How do we know she's got nine Talents?”

I showed him the gold ring that Asmodeus had given me. “Malas has a ring like this, with one moon. Malas has one Talent. Harry's got a ring too, with two moons facing one another; two Talents. He doesn't wear it.”

“What happens if or when you put that ring on Anne?”

“I'm not doing that; are you crazy?” I said. “If As— if Three-Face wants me to do it, it's probably a really,
really
bad idea. Now that Anne's half-zombie…” I trailed off. “What's worse than unstoppable?”

Batten's eyelids fell closed and his lips drew tight, like he was closing his brain off from the questions; I'd seen him fist-fight Gregori Nazaire, I'd seen him almost shot by a crazy old bitch, I'd seen him go toe-to-toe with Harry, but this was the first time I'd ever seen him scared, and I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all.

“Spicer really fucked up. Did he
intend
to make her a zombie-vamp?” Batten wondered, pulling at his bottom lip in thought.

“I was thinking of calling her a revbie?” I suggested, doodling a frog in my Moleskine.

He shook his head.

“Zombinant?” I said. “Zampire?”

“Please stop.”

I put my pencil down. “Keeping in mind that Spicer's not playing with a full deck, let's go back to the timeline and focus on Anne. Two
weeks ago, Spicer-slash-Ben infiltrates the mansion, gets rid of the other Master of the Revels, puts himself close to Malas.”

“With or without Malas’ knowledge,” Batten added.

I jotted this down with a question mark and drew an arrow between them. “Spicer finds evidence that Malas has been failing at his attempts to make female revenants, but believes Malas will keep trying.”

“Malas meets Anne,” Batten said, watching me at the white board. “Starts having her to his mansion.”

“Spicer facilitates this,” I drew an arrow between Spicer and Anne.

“Why?”

I tapped the dry-erase marker on my upper lip in thought. “To make sure Malas doesn't get suspicious?”

Batten made an uncertain grumble, not entirely convinced. His eyes narrowed at the board.

I continued, “Spicer sees that Anne is clearly under Malas’ spell, and that she's probably the next candidate for turning. Malas rarely leaves Anne alone; as a Telekinetic, Malas is far too much for Spicer to overpower. And when Malas rests, Stuart the DaySitter is there, protecting him.”

“But Spicer doesn't get help from the other Priors,” Batten said. “He's not wanting to stop Malas outright.”

“A week or so goes by, and it becomes clear that Malas is planning on turning Anne,” I said. “Anne is feeding Malas continuously, and she is beginning to share some of his powers. Spicer wants to put a stop to it.”

“Presumably,” Batten added.

“Presumably,” I agreed, “but he can't get Anne away from Malas, or Malas away from Stuart.”

Batten nodded.

“Spicer is running out of time, but he has at his disposal a form of magic that can perhaps best Malas and Anne,” I said, and wrote
necro
on the board beside Spicer's name. For good measure, I added lightning bolts and a grimacing skull.

Batten gulped from his beer bottle and said, “Nice touch.”

“Thanks. Now, Spicer's got mad zombie-raising skills, but can't just wander to a graveyard and find a fresh grave.”

“Because?”

“Uh, most cemeteries are closed after dark, and they have security, or at least caretakers. They're close to churches, rectories; priests tend to notice shit going on in their cemeteries late at night. Raising the dead takes time, and the Vodou is never quiet, not even the dark side of Vodou.” When Batten arched a brow, I supplied, “Goat sacrifice and chanting and drumming. You know, the usual.”

Batten sighed. “No, I wouldn't know the usual.”

“We're assuming Spicer had already murdered the first Master of the Revels to get close to Malas, so he'd have that body handy. Maybe he took that body and followed Anne to the fish camp the first time she went, and finds a quiet spot on the trail on the other side of the lake for his ritual.”

“Didn't expect another corpse nearby…”

“Dunnachie,” I said softly. “Of course.”

“Which also responded to the zombie summoning,” Batten filled in unhappily, pressing his back into the kitchen chair, making the vinyl creak loudly in the quiet kitchen. “Dunnachie was an accident.”

I hurried to keep talking so Batten couldn't ask any questions. “He raises the Master of Revels, but Dunnachie also rises. Got lucky. Two for one deal.”

“Dunnachie would obey?”

“After using a powder strike, Spicer captures their astrals in a soul jar and claims both. He takes the two Type R zombies back to his hideaway, which I'm assuming is
not
at Malas’ mansion, where he does rough, minor surgery to implant waterproof Bluetooth headsets into their skulls, and sets up phones to auto-answer.”

“His plan being?”

“To wait for the zombies to develop secondary plague and become infectious. So, it's at least a week before he can destroy Anne before she can be turned.”

“We sure he wanted to destroy Anne?”

“What else?”

“I don't like it,” Batten said. “He could have gotten rid of Anne any number of ways, why do this complicated zombie shit? Hitting her with a car before she turns is a lot less trouble.”

I didn't have an answer to that, so I drew another question mark on the white board, and kept brainstorming. “Spicer's trying to buy time, now, so he keeps delivering random Furries to Malas to engage the old dude's needs and put the Anne-turning on the back burner.”

“Malas isn't distracted for long.” Batten continued along my train of thought. “So he begins to turn Anne.”

“Spicer catches a second break on Wednesday night.” I wrote a star on the white board. “Malas is still resting when Anne leaves the mansion to return to the fish camp for one last party.”

“Spicer could have taken that chance to stake Malas,” Batten said.

“But Stuart the DaySitter was still alive at that point, protecting Malas. This is Spicer's opportunity to end Anne, if that's where his true focus is,” I reminded him, “on the potential abomination. Spicer follows Anne out to the fish camp, bringing Zombie Dunnachie with him, thinking that there's still one day left before Anne turns completely, and that the Vodou surge of UnDeath would cancel the revenant surge out.”

Batten looked up at the ceiling. The shower noises had stopped and the sound of Declan getting out of the tub was loud. “Would that work?”

“It clearly didn't. Instead, it created a hybrid.” Something teased the back of my brain, but when I focused on it, it danced away. My eyes slinked sideways at my espresso machine and I considered a caffeine boost.

Batten made a sad, thoughtful noise. “When did he take Stuart the DaySitter out?”

“Malas noticed Stuart gone on the Thursday night when we were there, so shortly before that.”

“Think Stuart is alive?”

“Doubt it,” I said.

“I still don't like it.”

“You're not supposed to like it,” I reminded him. “It's shitty people doing shitty things.”

“No, the explanation. The Vodou still doesn't fit.”

I knew what he meant; something was hinky, but I couldn't figure out what. I stared at the board some more. “Maybe Spicer meant to make a hybrid, and was purposefully waiting for Malas to make a female revenant for him?”

“With or without Malas’ knowledge?”

I shrugged. “I don't know. And I don't know why Spicer would make a hybrid out of a female revenant and a zombie.”

Batten drummed his thick thumb on the table. “Why would anyone make a zombie, period?”

I chewed on the cap of the dry-erase marker. “Well, slave labor, in Haiti. To work on the sugar plantations for free.” In Haiti. In the heat.
All that bloat and rot
, I thought, and felt my upper lip curl. Like Roger Kelly and his puffy legs.
Blerg.

Batten took a light green slip of paper out of the back pocket of his jeans: the stake warrant for Malas Nazaire, given by a ballsy judge hours after Malas’ deadly party. He tapped the green paper on the steel rim of the Formica table. “I don't really need to know whether Malas was in on it or not.”

I didn't buy it. Batten had the warrant, but hadn't made any effort to go stake Malas yet; I think he needed to know whether or not Malas was truly guilty of a bigger crime than fighting to defend himself at the Fur Party. He needed to know for his conscience. I thought this was an improvement for Kill-Notch, a man who once had no problem staking a revenant just because he was one.

“Questions need answers,” I disagreed. “And I know just where we can go to Grope for clues.” I hopped off the table. “Ready?”

He put his empty bottle down with a
thunk
. “Where do you think you're going?”

“If breaking and entering isn't the answer, I really don't understand the question.”

Batten's eyes narrowed to slits; in the dim light, they were the color of dryer lint after a dark wash. “Under no circumstance are you going to a Telekinetic vampire's mansion, breaking in, and tossing the fucking place for clues.”

“Revenant,” I corrected. “And not
me
, dipwad.
We.
”

“No,” Batten said.

“Why not?”

He reached into his back pocket, and flipped out his FBI badge.

“Oh. That.” I shrugged. “You need a warrant. Lucky for me,
I'm
not a cop.”

“Lucky for everyone,” he agreed, “and it's against the law for you, too.”

“If I got caught,” I scoffed, “which I totally wouldn't, cuz I'm super-stealthy. Obviously, we do it during the daytime so Malas is at rest, and—”