Resurrection (4 page)

Curious, and a bit concerned for my own safety, I dropped down into the chair, sitting on the edge of it. “You summoned?” I did my best to ignore the elephant in the room. The fact they hadn’t searched me spoke volumes.

Baalth cleared his throat. He sounded sick, if that were possible. Demons didn’t catch colds or the flu. Outside of the more virulent STD’s—not that I’d know anything about them, honest—demons were immune to mortal illness. It really made me curious as to what kind of company Baalth kept lately.

Oh yeah, my ex-wife. That explained a lot.

“I need someone killed.” Baalth was anything but subtle.

While I’d ended people’s lives before, more times than I’d admit, it had been mostly in self-defense. Not that I’m entirely opposed to killing a person, you should see me on the freeway during rush hour, but I’m not the assassin type. I had to draw the line somewhere, however hazy or indistinct it may be.

“I’m not the guy for
that
. Besides, murder’s a little much considering the terms of our contract.” I’d sold myself cheap, but not quite
that
cheap.

Baalth snarled. The room shook, the bottles on the shelves clinking together. “I’m not interested in your pretense of morality. There is a thorn in my side that needs removing and I want
you
to pluck it out.” I felt the ground tremble beneath me. I’d never seen him so angry. His face looked strained, as though his skull pressed against it, trying to get out.

Though I didn’t dare say it, I wondered why Baalth didn’t do the deed himself if he wanted it done so badly. Rather than piss him off by asking, I took a shot at compromise. “How about, I deal with your problem, but you let me worry about the details?”

He leaned back in his chair, almost gingerly, and steepled his hands on the desk in front of him. He glanced up at Poe and Marcus, then turned back to glare at me. He nodded after a long while.

“Who’s the thorn?”

Baalth grunted and gestured for Poe to explain. Through clenched teeth, the mentalist did so.

“As I’m sure you’re aware, Mister Trigg, there have been several instances of zombies abducting Old Town residents.” Despite his injuries, Poe never let a crack show in his professional façade. His voice was smooth, the delivery flawless. If I weren’t able to see him, I’d never have known he was hurt. “We were able to witness one such encounter, trailing the undead to see where they went. Not surprisingly, they made their way to Rest Land Cemetery.”

I chuckled inside. It was a popular cemetery, staffed by employees of questionable morality, a couple of which just happened to be my friends. I’d hidden a number of bodies there myself over the years. What better place to dispose of a corpse than a graveyard?

Poe continued. “Before we were able to discern what they intended with the victims they carried off, we were attacked. While I can offer no concrete details as to our assailant’s appearance, or even his whereabouts, he is armed with twin swords with which he is quite adept.”

I glanced up at Marcus’s head wishing the swordsman had been a bit
more
adept. The big ape could have used a closer shave, starting at his throat.

“Had it not been for the arrival of McConnell, neither Marcus nor Alexander would be alive today,” Baalth added with the barest hint of gratitude in his voice. “That bastard needs to be dealt with.”

“We’re still talking about the assailant, right?” Given what the wizard had done, had it been him that Baalth wanted killed, I’d have taken on the job for free. Shit, I’d have paid to do it.

Baalth’s upper lip curled into a snarl. “Speaking of The Gray—” He motioned to Poe, who went and opened a back door in the storeroom.

Henry McConnell stepped inside. His cold blue eyes locked on me, his shaggy, white-bearded face neutral. I could feel my cheeks flushing. There was no love lost between us, or found for that matter.

“I kept him out of the room to avoid any awkward attempts at retaliation.” Baalth raised an eyebrow. “There won’t be any, will there?”

“I’m not promising anything.”

I glared at McConnell. A huge guy by any measure, close to three hundred pounds of solid muscle, The Gray was an imposing figure in snakeskin boots. Backed by magical talent rivaling a good number of upper echelon demons, the cowboy was a serious threat. I knew the man’s heart. He was cruel, hateful, and downright ruthless.

He was also a coward.

He came close to killing me and Rahim Alakha, DRAC’s resident wizard badass, but once on the losing end, he gave up his master faster than Paris Hilton gives up video rights. He ended up in a pretty bad spot, but Baalth saw fit to recruit him after the Asmoday fiasco. I’d have let him fry.

“How’s Mrs. Claus?”

Apparently warned ahead of time to be good, McConnell took the jibe in stride. He stayed quiet, but he never took his eyes off me.

“Let it go, Triggaltheron.” Baalth used my given name knowing it’d annoy me. “McConnell works for me now. You’ll treat him as you would any of my other employees, understanding full well the consequences of harming him.” His dark eyes bored holes in me. I felt the ground rumble again. “Are we clear?”

“As mud.”

Baalth leaned forward. “Don’t test me, Frank.” The seriousness of his etched face gave me pause. I could see fire whirling in his eyes.

I raised my hands, not wanting to set him off. “I’ll leave it be, for now.”

Baalth sank back into his seat, apparently willing to let it go at that. “Good. Now I want you to go to Rest Land and see what you can find. I want the bastard who attacked my men gone, however you take that to mean.” He gestured to The Gray. “You’ll take McConnell with you.”

“You have got to be kidding,” I complained. “Don’t worry Jesus, Judas has your back.” I glared at McConnell. “Made any silver lately?”

Baalth jumped to his feet, his fists slamming into the desk, splinters of wood exploding from its shattered top. “If I wanted you dead, I’d kill you myself. I wouldn’t send some lackey and derive myself of the pleasure of choking the life out of you with my own two hands.” I could have sworn I saw a hint of drool glistening on his lips. He looked far too pleased as he rattled on about killing me. It was time to cut my losses.

“Fine, I’ll take the redneck, but if he so much as farts in my general direction, I’m sending him back in a box.”

Baalth dropped back into his chair. “Take care of this and your debt is cleared.”

I liked the sound of that. With nothing left to say that wouldn’t get me in trouble, I nodded to Baalth, then Poe, followed up by a sexy wink at Marcus, and headed for the door.

“Let’s go, cowboy.”

Not bothering to see if McConnell was behind me, I made my way through the empty club and out to my car. While I’d been distracted by my animosity of the wizard, it hadn’t entirely slipped past that Baalth sent me to do his dirty work when he had the firepower to handle it himself. There was something going on, and as usual, I was probably the only one who didn’t know what.

Not that it ever stopped me before. At least if Baalth was setting me up, I was gonna take his pet hillbilly down with me.

Chapter Five

On the way to the cemetery I blasted the stereo, for no reason other than spite. With Slayer’s “Raining Blood” oozing from the crackling speakers, I watched in giddy pleasure as McConnell cringed every time the discordant squeal of a King/Hanneman guitar solo erupted. It was petty, but oh so satisfying.

At Rest Land, I turned the music down out of respect. Not so much for the dead, they’d proven way too often respect was a notion that didn’t carry over, but rather for the mourners who tended their graves. However callous I may be about the concept of death, you had to admire the dedication of a person who takes time out of their hectic life to remember and care for a loved one who’s passed on. While there was nothing I could do for them that would make their loss any easier, the least I could do was not add to their grief.

I parked the car near the maintenance area and looked out over the green fields to see where my buddies were working. After spotting the guys several gardens over through the misty haze of the sprinklers, I turned to McConnell.

“Sorry about the rough ride.” I patted the Impala’s dashboard. “I know it’s probably not quite as much fun as riding bareback like you’re used to, but you took it like a champ.”

Yeah, I went there.

McConnell shook his head. “Look, Trigg. I’m not interested in being here anymore than you are, but it’s just business, hear? The boss says we gotta do this, so that’s what needs to be done. T’ain’t no two ways about it.”

“That may be so, Yes Man, but that doesn’t absolve you from trying to kick my head in, or for blowing my damn house up. You can say you were just following orders all you want, but it was you who pulled the trigger; personal responsibility and all that crap. So, at some point, I’m gonna take it out of your hide.”

He shrugged. “Be careful what you wish for, mutt. I don’t see any magic-dampening manacles lying around.” He gestured to the car, a cocksure smile springing up behind his snow-white beard. “Lady Luck ain’t always gonna play your side.”

I grinned back at him, but to be honest, I wasn’t feeling as confident as I came off. He was right, as much as it sucked to admit it. I’d gotten lucky stumbling across the manacles that shut his magic down. If I hadn’t, things would have played out very differently. Round two would probably be a slaughter, my ass on a hook. It was a sobering thought.

“Just don’t add me to the naughty list, Santa.” Not in the mood to talk my way into an ass-beating, I veered off. “Let’s get this over with.”

Nodding his agreement and smiling from ear to ear, McConnell hopped out of the car. As I climbed out, I fought the urge to shoot him in the back and shoved my hands deep into my pockets just to be safe. Once the feeling passed, I took off down the road to where my buddies were digging a hole. The wizard stayed a few steps behind. Not interested in letting him see how much our talk rattled me, I let it ride, striding boldly in front. By the time I reached my friends, my jaw hurt from all the teeth clenching.

The rumbling sound of the backhoe echoed through the quiet cemetery, the screeching grackles doing their best to compete. The birds were winning, much to the regret of my ears.

I made my way across the grass, dodging the headstones and raised memorials, making sure to avoid the clusters of plastic flowers and religious figurines piled
en masse
around the graves. Near the center of the garden, I sidled up alongside a dusty little guy who stood leaning against a parked red tractor. To its right was an orange dirt-mover, its bucket noisily biting into the ground with a rumble.

“How’s it going, Javier?”

He glanced at me, giving a crooked smile before turning back to shout up at the backhoe, “Hey, Carlos. Look who’s here. I told you we’d be seeing this
vato
soon,
esse
.” Javier stuck his hand out.

Wondering what he meant by that, I shook it, trying not to think about how many dead people he’d touched with it today.

Javier was not a bather.

As I wiped my hand off on my pants, as subtly as I could, Carlos shut down the backhoe and climbed out slow and deliberate, as though it were a trial to do so.

“Hey, Frank. Who’s this
chango
?” He gestured to McConnell as he strolled over to us.

“He’s with me. It’s cool.”

Both men looked The Gray over like they were sizing him up for a casket. I couldn’t blame them, but I wasn’t gonna get any answers if they were suspicious of him.

“He’s one of Baalth’s boys. A couple of his guys got jumped here the other night and he wants me to straighten it all out.”

They looked McConnell over for another few seconds, then Carlos turned to me and nodded. “Yeah, we heard something about that.” He motioned to Javier.

“We could probably tell you something, if we weren’t so busy, you know?” He kinda shrugged, little brown poofs of dust rising up off his shoulders.

Like almost every other person I dealt with on a daily basis, they all wanted something. The dictionary people should retire the word “free” as nothing truly ever is. “So, what can we do to help alleviate your workload?” It was wheelin’ and dealin’ time.

Carlos smiled wide, his wiry mustache sticking out like cat whiskers. “Seems some of our customers are getting up and walking away. That’s cool and all, shit, we could use the extra spaces, but it’s turning out to be a lot of work filling in all the new holes.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. Not that I was surprised the zombies Marcus and Poe tracked here were actually from this cemetery, but it came across as a comforting sense of serendipity. Not to mention, it got me off the hook without having to do another favor for someone. The dirt boys and I wanted the same thing, even if they didn’t know it. It let me look magnanimous without putting out any effort.

“It’s not funny,
homie
,” Javier complained, getting animated.

“Nah, I know. I feel ya.” I raised my hands to pacify him. His funk was starting to creep as he jumped around and I didn’t want to catch too big a whiff. “I’ll help you guys. Tell me what’s going on.”