The Down Home Zombie Blues (11 page)

She was too close. She was too warm. She smelled fresh and soft and sweet, and though his arms were very aware of her laser pistols, his chest was equally aware of her breasts brushing against him.

Theo lost it. His head lowered. A short kiss, that’s all. Something brief, intense, just to get it out of his system. Damn her, she
owed
him that much, for what she’d put him through. He brushed his lips against hers, then, caution be damned, he forced his mouth down hard. He expected her to jerk away. But her mouth opened, and his opened more. Tongues touched, teased. Plunged.

The feel of her, the taste of her, exploded through his senses. Heat surged through his body. The groan he was holding back threatened to strangle him. With a gasp, he released her mouth, then clutched her tightly against him, hand on the back of her head so she wouldn’t look up at him, tilt her head again. “Sorry,” he rasped into her ear. “Regrets.”

Behind him, Zeke applauded loudly. “I’ll start with the windows in the living room. Might help cool things off. Though I doubt it.” He slapped Theo on the back as he walked past, snickering.

Theo waited until he heard the first screech of a casement window being forced open. He stepped back, putting Jorie at arm’s length.

Wide-eyed, she looked genuinely startled.

He shot a glance toward the living room. “Regrets,” he said again, quietly. “He needs to believe…Did you understand words out there?” He motioned to the backyard.

“Evidently not.” She spoke slowly.

He couldn’t tell if she was angry or in shock. Maybe she’d never been kissed before. Nah. That mouth, that tongue knew exactly what it was doing. So maybe it was that she’d never before kissed a nil. She—

Good Lord. He’d just kissed a woman from another planet. Another galaxy.

Screech, slam!
went a window.

Zeke. He had to explain about Zeke. “He knows me. Very well. I lied to the officer. The security woman. Gym. Gymnasium.” Her frown prompted another word. “Exercise.” He pumped his right arm as if he were lifting a hand weight.

“Yes?”

“I said we met in an exercise place—”

“And?”

“Detective Martinez knows I don’t go to an exercise place. I have some equipment here. At home. At structure.
In
my structure.” He stumbled over the words.

“You kissed me to apologize for lies?”

“He could see your weapons. I had to cover your body.”

She nodded. “Commendable sacrifice, Sergeant.”

Commendable sacrifice? The only thing he was going to sacrifice here was his sanity. “But now,” he continued, “if he asks, he needs to believe we…that is, that you and I are…” He pointed to her, to himself, then to her again.

“Lovers?” she said. “You understand this word?”

He did. So did his body. He swallowed hard. “Lovers. Yes.” Oh, sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. What was he getting himself into?

Nothing. A charade for the next ten, twenty minutes. Zeke would leave and they’d go back to being Nil and Commander on a covert operation to exterminate zombies. He’d catch some razzing from Zeke later, but he could handle that.

He was about to ask Jorie to give him the T-MOD when Zeke stuck his head through the open kitchen doorway. “You two cooling off yet?”

Theo stepped away from Jorie. “Very funny.”

With a snort, Zeke disappeared.

Theo’s kitchen had two windows, one over the sink and one to the left of the door to the backyard. He leaned over the sink, pulled on the cord to raise the slatted blinds, and opened that one. Jorie was staring at the other. He walked over and, making sure she was watching, duplicated his movements. Then he flipped the small latch on the frame of the bottom window, braced his palms under the frame, and shoved.

Screech!

Life in air-conditioned Florida. People rarely opened windows. “Got it now?” he asked her.

“I have acquired knowledge, yes.” Jorie snagged the duffel as he headed for the living room.

“Always admired your decorating,” Zeke said. “Glad to see everything finally matches.”

Camille had taken a lot of the living-room furniture when she left, except for his television, leather recliner, and two end tables. Theo had finally bought a leather two-cushion love seat last month at a Rooms-to-Go clearance sale and dragged the floral-print sofa bed Aunt Tootie had given him—Zeke called it his “daisies on drugs” couch—into his spare room. Zeke had been to his house enough times that he knew that. The comment had to be for Jorie’s sake.

“Don’t have a lot to clean that way,” Theo quipped back. Thank you, God, his brain had finally kicked back into gear. All he had to do was act normal, talk normal, let the banter flow like it always did. This was no big deal. So Zeke thought he had a girlfriend. There was no way he’d know she was a space alien.

Jorie dropped the duffel onto his recliner, took the few steps into his dining room—also empty, thanks to Camille—and opened her first casement window like a pro. A breeze clattered through the blinds as she lowered them.
Good girl.

“You here to help or stare?” he asked Zeke.

“Didn’t do the bedroom yet. Thought you two might want to, uh, tackle that.”

“I’ll take the spare room.” Theo headed down the short hall. The room had two large windows. He had to angle around his weight rack and padded flat weight bench piled with gun and car magazines to get to one window and kneel on his small sofa bed to open the other. When he finished, Zeke was leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed loosely over his embroidered tan guayabera.

“You sneaky son of a bitch! Going home to restring your guitar, eh? How long has this been going on?”

“You know I don’t discuss my private life.”

“Theophilus, this is Zeke you’re talking to.”

Theo hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans and stared at the floor for a moment, his mind working a million miles a minute. Should he—could he tell Zeke the truth about outer-space aliens here on a mission against those things called zombies? Would Zeke even believe what Theo said? He had that Paroo cube in his pocket. Proof. Except that someone like Zeke wouldn’t know it was an alien object just by looking at it.

And Jorie and her magic
Kill the Nil
button were in the next room. Theo didn’t know what she’d do if she saw Zeke inspecting the cube.

It would be better to wait, play the game the way Jorie said he should, for now. “I didn’t want to say anything about her until I was sure,” he said, looking up. That sounded good and fit what Zeke knew of him.

“And are you sure?”

“I’ve never met anyone like her in my life,” he admitted honestly.

Zeke stepped to the weight rack, picked up a twenty-five-pound weight, hefted it. “She even old enough to drink?”

Theo pursed his lips, frowning. “Of course.” He had no idea how old Jorie was. He had no idea if space aliens even drank liquor. All he knew for sure was they drank water and had apples that tasted like watermelons.

“Where does she work?”

“What is this, an interrogation?”

Zeke grinned, then put the weight back on the rack.

Theo used the few seconds to hammer his brain for an occupation for his one-woman war machine, with her gizmos and gadgets and…“She’s a computer programmer for TECO.” He named the large electric utility company on the other side of the bay. No way Zeke should know anyone there.

Jorie appeared in the doorway at that moment. Theo realized that if he’d given Zeke the alien cube, they would have been caught red-handed. “Task completed,” she said. “Anything else required?”

He watched as Zeke turned toward her and knew Zeke heard it—that odd lilt of an accent. The oddly formal choice of words. This was not the time to raise questions. Not until he was sure he’d be believed and people—his people—were in a position to act.

“You’re not a local gal, are you?” Zeke was asking.

“Locale? Good one, very pretty.”

Shut up, Jorie!
Theo crossed the room in two seconds, cupped his hand on her head, and ruffled her funky, streaked hair in an affectionate gesture. In reality he was trying to shake some sense into her brain. “She’s, uh, only been here a few months. Her English,” he stressed the word, “isn’t that good. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

She glanced up at him, eyes narrowing for a moment. “English isn’t optimal.”

“¿Habla español?”
Zeke tried.

“She’s Canadian,” Theo blurted out, his mind grabbing the images of the Canadian license plates he saw every winter. “From Quebec.” There, that would explain how she knew English but not well.

“Ah,
français!
” The minute Zeke said it Theo’s stomach dropped to his feet. Shit, shit, shit! How could he forget? Suzanne Martinez spoke French.

“My wife’s parents are from Montreal,” Zeke said. “Bring Jorie to the house. She and Suzanne will have a great time together.”

Like hell he would. “Sure. After the holidays.” He dropped his arm to Jorie’s shoulder, hugged her hard against him, trying to signal to her to let him do all the talking. “We’re kind of busy until then.”

“L’amour toujours!”
Zeke winked.

His back door slammed. “Sarge, you in here?”

Eddington. “Yeah,” he called in reply. Keeping Jorie tightly to his side, he pushed past Zeke and headed for the kitchen. God help him if he left her alone with his partner. There was no telling what their miscommunications might reveal. “What’s up?”

The dark-haired woman stood in the open doorway. “We’re leaving. Wrecker can’t get here until after eleven. The guys from Progress are still out front, working on the downed power lines. Seems they got a substation problem too.”

“Thanks for your help. Sorry to worry you.” He meant that. He knew the heartbreak that ran through a department when one of their own was lost. It had been one of the reasons he’d had to come back.

“Thank you,” Jorie chimed in.

“One more thing,” Eddington said as Zeke sat down at the kitchen table, making himself far too much at home. “We recovered a stolen car down the street. A-One Rentals downtown reported it missing. Looks like your tornado scared off the joyriders.” She shrugged. “Well, take it easy.”

Theo waited until the screen door closed behind Eddington’s retreating figure. One down, one to go. “Oh, jeez. Look at the time.” He glanced at his watch. Quarter to ten. He needed to put the Paroo cube in a secure place and then get that laptop where it belonged. “Let me straighten up a few things here, then I’ll meet you back at the station, okay?”

“You walking there?” Zeke jerked his thumb in the direction of the backyard.

Theo didn’t have a car. His Jeep Wrangler—his personal car—was in the shop with a burned-out clutch, and his department sedan was a twisted wreck. Jorie, she…Christ. The stolen rental. He’d never asked her how she got from Wayne’s apartment to here. Now he could guess. He was harboring not only an outer-space alien one-woman war machine but a car thief. What next?

As if in answer, a pinging noise sounded from underneath Jorie’s sweater. He felt her flinch. Her hand slapped her side, brought up the palm-size scanner gizmo with its yellow-green lights flashing. Her zombie detector.

Adrenaline slammed through Theo’s body.
Oh, God. Not now.

Jorie jerked out of his grasp and bolted into the living room.

Theo was on her heels, heart in his throat, praying he could get to a weapon in time.
Not now, not now!

7

“Where? When?” Theo shouted at Jorie. She was bent over his recliner, pawing frantically through the duffel bag. The memory of the slash of bright light and that glowing hole in the sky filled his mind. Adrenaline spiked. He shouldered next to her, intent on grabbing one of her laser pistols.

She slapped his hands away from the top of the duffel, then yanked a metal circlet through the opening, snapped it over her hair, and twirled the mouth mike into place. A torrent of unintelligible words flowed from her lips.

She pushed him away again, more forcibly this time.

He took the hint and stepped back. Zeke tapped his shoulder.

“What’s the matter?”

Theo had no idea. But she wasn’t digging into the duffle for anything further. No laser pistols filled her hands. No green glow emerged through his cream-colored living-room wall. The whole problem seemed to be whatever the conversation was. She was no doubt talking to her ship, to the captain—

Fuck.
His hand rose involuntarily to the sore spot on his shoulder.

“Theo?”

He turned and wondered just how much he’d be able to tell Zeke before someone pushed that magic button and he dropped dead at his detective’s feet.

“Umm,” he said. Behind him, Jorie’s clipped staccato softened. No zombies, then. And no instant death. He was still breathing.

“Cell phone,” he offered lamely, with a shrug. “Must be some kind of emergency at her office. Maybe they had a storm there too. Probably a server down. Or something.”

Zeke was frowning, looking past him. “Doesn’t sound like French.”

His mind whirled, grabbed another lie. They’d be the death of him yet, if Jorie’s magic button didn’t kill him first. “Eskimo.” He
had
said she was Canadian.

“Inuktitut?”

“Huh?”

“She speaks Inuktitut?”

Oh, hell. Was that what the language was called? Trust Zeke to know.

“Yeah, sure,” Theo answered, praying the man wasn’t fluent in it as well.

“Didn’t know TECO was hiring Eskimos.” Another frown.

“Cultural-exchange program or something.” Time to end this conversation. He grabbed Zeke’s arm, nudging him back to the kitchen. Away from Jorie. He had to keep Zeke as far away from Jorie as he could. The last few minutes showed him just how easily his lies could unravel.

“I will need a ride,” he said as Zeke leaned one hip against the kitchen counter. “Pick me up at eleven-thirty, after the wrecker gets here?”

“You might need some help with the mess in the yard. And the lock on the casement window in your master bath is stripped out.”

“That’s okay. I’ve got a week’s vacation to fix things. Plus, Jorie’s here.” And there was no way he could sneak the laptop into the car while Zeke was around.

A slow, knowing smile played across Zeke’s mouth. “She sure is.” He cuffed Theo on the arm. “Eleven-thirty. And the full story on the drive in. You sly bastard, you.”

“Who, me?” Theo splayed his hands and pasted a look of mock innocence on his face, keeping it there until his back door closed behind Zeke and he heard the man’s footsteps fade. Then he sagged against the kitchen wall and ran one hand wearily over his face.

Sweet Mother of God. Things were happening faster than he could counter them. This might be Jorie’s mission, but, damn it all, it was
his
house.
His
planet. Time to make some rules.

He shoved himself away from the wall and headed back to the living room.

Jorie heard the back door slam. She yanked one arm out of her sweater and tapped furiously at the resynchronization keys on her technosleeve. Damned nil! She should never have utilized his suggestion to strip out of her gear. Two of her team were set to transport to Petrakos’s structure. Fortunately, Herryck had sent the advisory of the impending PMaT action to her scanner as well, or else their covert operation—as Petrakos liked to call it—would have become distinctly
not
covert.

Nils. Nils everywhere. Inside the structure. Outside the structure. Coming and going without the requisite petition for permission. A nil kissing her…

She stopped that thought, not wanting to follow it, not wanting to remember the hot jolt of desire that flooded her when Petrakos’s lips parted her own.

It was all a ruse. He, surely, felt nothing. His only concern was to keep his nil associate, Zeekmarteenez, from seeing her weapons. So now, when Zeekmarteenez was around, they had to play at being lovers.

Thanks to Lorik, she knew that game well.

“What in hell made that thing go off?” Petrakos, striding in from the structure’s galley, pointed to her scanner.

She looked up from her calibrations, aware of the sweater bunched awkwardly around her neck, and met him glare for glare. “My team preparing to arrive. Which I knew nothing of because my tech”—she jerked her chin in the direction of the open duffle—“was in that. Fortunately, Lieutenant Herryck sent a duplicate alert to my scanner. Or you would be kissing three trackers so that Zeekmarteenez wouldn’t ask what we all are doing here.”

An odd expression crossed his face, his eyes widening ever so slightly, one corner of his mouth quirking, as if something she said surprised then embarrassed him. Maybe he didn’t like being reminded that he’d kissed her. Or maybe he just didn’t understand what she’d said. She’d spoken rapidly, not caring to choose words she was sure he’d understand. She was angry at him and with herself. Her team arriving at an unsecured structure could have created serious problems. And the blame would have rightly fallen on her. She dropped her gaze back down to her technosleeve, resumed her calibrations. Her captaincy was at stake. And Danjay’s death would go unavenged.

“Zeke. Martinez,” he said, pausing between the two words. “Zeke’s his first name.”

She caught that she’d erred in her pronunciation. A small matter. If his planet had been civilized enough to speak Alarsh or even decent Vekran, none of this would even be a problem.

“I must have a secure structure for this mission.” She shoved her arm back through the sweater’s sleeve, pulled the sweater down over her hips, then adjusted her headset. “Zeke Martinez and the ones out there working from the large land vehicles. If they have unquestioned access, it will be counterproductive.”

“Zeke would be the only one. But if he thinks we’re living together…” He paused, lips pursing, brows slanting down slightly.

She didn’t understand his hesitation. Language again? “I comprehend living together. Like spoused but without contractual agreement for children.”

“Right,” he said, but his frown stayed in place. Then he shook his head. “We need a cover story. A reason why you’re in my house. If Zeke believes we’re living together, that would accomplish that.”

She didn’t see a problem. “Let him believe I live here, then. We forget conglom as my structure.”

The frown lessened, but he still regarded her oddly. “Sure. Great.”

There was a flaw in the plan and he wasn’t sharing it with her. She saw that in his face, heard it in his voice. And it wasn’t just her military experience that taught her to read those signs. Lorik had lied to her too. She sighed. “Petrakos. You dislike this…cover story.” She used his term. “If we are to work together, complete communication is essential. Why is this option not satisfactory?”

“It’s fine.” He pointed to the duffel bag. “I have to get the lap—the T-MOD into my car before the wrecker comes.”

She grabbed the stripped unit and handed it to him, wordlessly. She’d had to pull in more than a few large favors to get that for him—every time he reminded her of the implant in his shoulder, her heart constricted. That’s why she’d gone against the captain’s orders. Guardian tech was never to be left in the hands of a nil.
This is only a shell,
she’d convinced herself.
And some broken data-mech.
It didn’t really violate general-procedure regulations.

She followed him to the galley but not out into the yard. It took several minutes before he pried open the twisted rear hatch of his land vehicle and shoved the T-MOD inside. She waited by the open window, the breeze warmer now and more humid. Sounds reached her ears—land vehicles, she guessed. But there were other sounds—mechanical ones—she couldn’t place. A droning buzz nearby. A low rumble.

She watched Petrakos turn the T-MOD at various angles. His gray shirt had wet streaks down the back, and when he bent over to adjust the unit again, she decided he had an extremely attractive posterior. For a nil.

He strode toward the house but stopped at a small shed attached to an exterior wall and withdrew a flat shovel. When he slammed the edge into the T-MOD, she realized two things: he was making the damage to the unit correspond to the vehicle, and there was no chance—given that same damage—that the unit would ever be recognized as Guardian tech.

A weight lifted slightly from her shoulders, and by the time he trudged up the back steps, she’d figured out how to work the water dispenser, located his drinking glasses, and had a chilled glass of water waiting when he opened the door.

He took it with a nod. “Usually not this hot this time of year,” he said before he downed the contents.

“Zombies,” she told him, and, at the slanting of his brows, sought a simple explanation without revealing that the Guardians were still in the process of trying to understand what was happening on his planet. “The herd is uncharacteristically large. To generate their portals, they utilize fluctuations in electrical-magnetic currents in the atmosphere. It affects weather patterns.”

He put the empty glass in the basin, then glanced over his shoulder at her. “I think it’s time you gave me a complete education on these—”

“Yoo-hoo! Theophilus?” A high-pitched voice echoed through the structure, followed by an insistent rapping noise. “Yoo-hoo!”

“Shit.” Petrakos’s voice was low, harsh. “My neighbor Sophie Goldstein,” he said, before Jorie could ask. “Stay here.”

Another unauthorized intruder, and one—if
neighbor
had the same meaning in Petrakos’s language as it did in Vekran—more than familiar with the immediate locale. Her perfect plan, Jorie realized as Petrakos strode swiftly from the galley, was gaining considerable imperfections. It must be that the zombie attack generated an unusual state of confusion surrounding his structure. She could tell from Petrakos’s reactions that these visitations were not the norm.

Stop looking for problems where there are none,
Galin often chided her.

The thought of her brother momentarily distracted her from the voices in the next room. She’d crafted her transmit to him on Danjay’s death as gently as she could. She didn’t know if he’d watched it yet. But she already knew what his pain would feel like.

With no little impatience, she waited for Petrakos to dispense with this latest—and she hoped last—intruder.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Goldstein. Everything’s fine,” Theo called as he crossed the living room toward the squat image of his gray-haired neighbor. Mrs. Goldstein jiggled the handle on his screen door. It took a certain—deliberate—combination of pressure and twisting to open it. One of many little idiosyncrasies he’d added to his house as a means to protect his privacy, in addition to the usual burglar alarm.

And of course, the Glock in his nightstand.

“Of course I was worried.” Sophie Goldstein had the screen door open and was three steps into his living room when he came up to her. She was in a bright lime-green tracksuit that matched the polka-dot scarf wrapped like a headband around her frizzy hair. “That’s what women do. Worry.”

So much for his privacy protection. And his privacy. What Mrs. Goldstein knew, his aunt Tootie would know. Which meant he had to keep Jorie away from—

“I was frantic, what with the police car and fire truck and everything. Something serious happened, I told Tootie.”

Theo winced. He should have assumed Mrs. Goldstein would be on the cell phone to his aunt, first thing. She disseminated information faster than a police APB.

“Then I saw you and that young gal walking down the street,” she continued, craning her neck, trying to peer around Theo’s broad form. “She’s still here, yes? Just wanted to make sure you’re both okay. Terrible storm.”