The Shambling Guide to New York City (21 page)

Zoë couldn’t see road signs or traffic lights and she secured her seat belt. “Are there many accidents?”

“Naw, we always know where we are. It’s a coterie thing; you wouldn’t understand.”

Zoë stifled the snicker and kept making notes. “So why call it the Rat’s Nest?”

“As I understand it, the rats had mapped out their own system well below the city. They have their own city about fifty feet below this. When the humans were building their subways, some coterie connected with some rats and had them design this for us.”

“Rats,” Zoë muttered. Were they coterie or did coterie just communicate with them? Another thing to investigate.

“And is it mapped?” she continued.

“Naw, which is why nonnatives have to hail cabs. You come down here without knowing where you’re going, you’ll get lost forever. There are some…” He paused. “Well, best I can describe it is pockets. Some demons set them up, they go places. One of them goes nowhere. If you don’t know where you’re going, you shouldn’t go exploring.”

Zoë was so busy scribbling that when daylight returned she barely looked up. “What keeps the humans from finding out about the Rat’s Nest?”

“Illusions cover the entrance holes. Usually large trees. We
had a master wizard from Chicago visit us back in, oh, 1930 or so and helped us set up the whole system, including the camo.” The cab screeched to a stop on Fifty-First Street. “We’re here. That’ll be one finger.”

Her breath caught in her throat, but she kept her voice calm. “I was under the impression you took either hell notes or human currency.”

“I’m just fuckin’ with you. You’re pretty cool for a human.” He grinned at her, displaying a number of teeth that shouldn’t have fit into his mouth. “I’ll take ten human bucks and we’ll be golden.”

She handed over fifteen and he tipped his hat to her.

“Thanks, uh,” she said, pausing.

“Max. You wave that talisman and think my name any time you need a ride. Most humans are either too much in thrall or batshit insane. I like you.”

“Thanks, Max.” She grinned back at him and exited the cab.

He raced off and in an instant his cab had disappeared. Zoë shook her head. How had humans not noticed these beings around them? Now that she knew they existed, she saw the city in a completely different light. Although she’d seen proof that humans did seem to be able to fool themselves quite well.

She hurried inside, preparing her excuses for being late to Montel, trying to figure out a way to leave the embarrassing incident with John out of the picture. Phil and Montel stood inside the writing room, talking in low voices.

Then she realized that everyone was quiet, and it wasn’t a busy quiet, it was a tense quiet. A somber cloud hung over the office, which was a feat since most of her coworkers were already dead. Gwen, a teacup in her hand, caught sight of Zoë and hurried up to her. “Your office. Now,” she whispered, and took Zoë by the elbow.

Zoë allowed herself to be dragged through the office by the death goddess, confusion making any question difficult to voice.

Morgen met them there, a frown on her usually mischievous face. “We’ve got a situation, Zoë.”

“What’s going on?”

Gwen closed the door behind them. “You heard Paul was returned to second death last night?”

Zoë nodded.

“Montel lost him after the attack. Paul said he had a job to do. Montel told him he needed to eat first, and apparently Paul attacked a jogger in Central Park. Public Works caught him soon after.”

Zoë flopped into her chair. She’d liked Paul. “Did he… turn someone?”

Morgen rolled her eyes. “If Public Works got there, it doesn’t matter; they’d both be dead.”

Zoë rubbed her face. “But Montel is OK? Did he eat?”

Gwen glared at Morgen. “She needs to know more about our world.”

“She’s already gotten a crash course, you emo witch,” Morgen snapped. “I told her what I could last night about the morgues, but John pretty much erased anything she learned.” She focused on Zoë. “Montel is fine. All zombies keep food at home, which makes it doubly strange that the zombies would go mad with hunger at work.”

Zoë had a bad feeling about Paul. “Who witnessed the attack?”

“Who knows?” Gwen said. “Public Works have agents everywhere.”

“How do you feel about Public Works?” Zoë asked.

Gwen thought, apparently not having anticipated the question. “Some coterie, like Phil, try to work with them, others say they’re fascists who just try to hold us back from our honest right
to food. But Phil is right, if we could eat freely, then we’d run short of humans, and too many coterie means the balance shifts, and eventually we run out of food. Not to mention, if a city the size of New York falls, the rest of the world will discover the truth about coterie, which will encourage hunting of coterie in other cities.”

Morgen piped up. “Some people believe that would be a good thing, that if an outright war started, we could finally take over.”

“What about food?” Zoë asked, uncomfortable with the line of discussion.

Morgen shrugged. “There are some vampire sects who talk about ‘humane farming’ of humans for a sustainable food supply, but most coterie write them off as insane.”

“Which makes them more dangerous,” Zoë guessed. “Do you guys know anyone like that?”

They both shook their heads.

Zoë nodded. “OK, I think I get it. So last night the zombies went crazy and hunted. And we don’t know why. Is that what Phil and Montel are trying to figure out?”

Gwen shrugged, her black hair rippling. “Sort of. A brain shortage is a dire situation in a city with a large zombie population. Most zombies keep a supplier in town; it makes things safe. The supplier is protected by laws that the coterie and Public Works came up with. Which means the morgue workers are untouchable, so that man’s murder was doubly bad, like a diplomatic incident. Then Paul’s extra meal, the jogger, was just insult to injury. So the problem is twofold: find out why the brains are missing and find Rodrigo before Public Works does.”

Although she liked her coworkers as much as she could, considering the new and frightening world she lived in, Zoë wanted to ask
why
they needed to find him before the law did, but she
didn’t figure these women would look at it from a human’s point of view.

Zoë got the rest of the story from her coworkers: apparently the jogger that Paul had eaten had had a brain tumor, and Paul had eaten it. This gave him an upset stomach, and he wasn’t able to lurch as fast as the other zombies, and Public Works caught him.

Zoë tapped a pen on her desk. “What if whoever took the brains is aiming for a zombie uprising?”

Morgen whistled. “Wow. Conspiracy theory, meet Zoë; Zoë, meet conspiracy theory.”

Zoë shrugged. “You tell me another reason to steal a zombie’s brains. Tell me why you think all of this is happening.”

Morgen snapped her fingers, interrupting Zoë. “Didn’t you tell me that Paul was supposed to tail Wesley last night? And he didn’t do it because he got hungry. You think it could be connected?”

Gwen gnawed at her bottom lip in a very non-goddess-like gesture. “I don’t know. It’s terribly far-fetched.”

“I can’t think of any other reason for what is going on,” Zoë said. “You come up with an explanation, let me know. For now I will work with my door closed and I’d appreciate not seeing Wesley without someone to back me up. Or John. And, uh, you did say Montel ate last night, right?” she added as an afterthought.

Gwen nodded. “He went home to his personal stash.”

Zoë sighed with relief. “All right. I’ll see him, then, if he wants.”

Gwen and Morgen left Zoë alone to work, but her head was too much of a whirlwind with what was going on. She wondered
if there was a way to leave the world of the coterie once introduced to it. She fingered the talisman around her neck.

A knock came at her door and she looked up. Phil opened the door, a hard look on his pleasant, round face.

“Hi, boss,” she said.

“Zoë. We need to talk.”

“Is this about the zombie thing last night?” she asked.

He waved his hand at her. “There are other things to discuss, which is why I want privacy.” He closed the door behind him. “How are you holding up?”

Her first instinct was to say, “I’m great!” but she stopped herself. After a pause, she said, “Honestly, boss, I’m not holding up. I’m a little overwhelmed right now. Last night was pretty intense—I am guessing you heard?” She blushed and didn’t look at him.

“Morgen told me about your evening, yes.” His voice was even.

“Anyway, I’ve still got a bit of a hangover, or whatever you call the day after being with an incubus.” Phil nodded. “And now there’s the thing with the zombies, and Morgen and Gwen are talking about war, and I don’t know whether I should look at Public Works as good guys for protecting me or bad guys for killing Paul, who I liked. I’m supposed to be planning a book here, but suddenly that seems very low-priority.”

“I have had time in the past weeks to regret giving you a chance at this job. But still think you’re in the right place. I have Morgen’s and Montel’s accounts of what happened last night. I wanted to get your story.”

Zoë nodded. She told Phil about her day, with the zombies, the devouring of Jorge, the dinner at the fae restaurant, and then the fetish club. She glossed over the details after they arrived at the club, her face hot, refusing to meet his eyes.

“And then I went home and passed out. Felt like crap this morning.”

Phil glared at her. “I don’t know why you and Morgen went to the fetish club. One of many stupid things done by my employees last night.”

“Morgen’s a risk-taker,” Zoë said. “And I thought you wanted me to do field research. So what have you figured out about last night?”

Phil sighed and took a flask from his pocket, took a long pull, and replaced it with a shudder. When he caught Zoë’s raised eyebrow, he dabbed his mouth with a handkerchief. “Hobo blood. It’s soaked in alcohol. The closest my kind can come to drinking.”

“Gotcha,” she said.

“It’s a mess. And considering Paul and Rodrigo worked for me, it casts our publishing company in a bad light before we can even begin to do the coterie community any good. We’re going to attract the ire of Public Works, which is going to accuse us of protecting Montel and Rodrigo.”

“Are we protecting Rodrigo?”

“They will think we are,” he said grimly.

“OK, this is perhaps an extremely selfish question, but what does all of this have to do with me?” Zoë asked. “I agree that having monster hunters watching the offices is bad, but I really don’t know what I can do for you. I’ve got a book to write, an incubus to avoid, and a construct made of an ex-boyfriend that seems to hate me.”

Phil was silent for a moment, as if he was considering something. “That last one is still an issue, especially with Paul gone now. I don’t know if he found out anything about Wesley.” He tapped his fingers on the desk, then brightened. “We want to know how much Public Works know about Rodrigo. You want
to know about the movements of zoëtists in the city. Zoëtists are supposed to register with Public Works. As a human, you would be our best liaison with them. I want you to approach Public Works, find out if they know anything about either issue. This will help the book as well, as they will accept us more if they know a human is managing editor of our biggest titles.”

“How am I going to have time for that? That book you just mentioned isn’t going to design itself.”

“More money? I’ll throw in hell notes with your first paycheck to cover the extra hours.”

“How can you afford that when we haven’t even put out a book?” she asked, frowning.

Phil grinned, his teeth elongating and reminding her what he was. “I’m immortal, Zoë. Compound interest was created by vampires, you know.”

She paused. For the second time in the past year, she discovered she had a price. It wasn’t a good feeling.

“Fine. I’m in.”

John came to see her after lunch.

The Jade Crane’s twice-cooked pork was, indeed, quite restorative and Zoë felt better than she had in days. Granny Good Mae had given her some hints about dealing with incubi, most of which included the simple act of not looking them in the eye or touching them.

“That’s fucking obvious,” Zoë muttered, mad she hadn’t thought of it.

She tried to ask Granny Good Mae how she should approach Public Works, but the old woman didn’t seem interested in that problem. She just kept shoveling food into her face. She also refused to explain how she had located Zoë the night before.

When John appeared in Zoë’s doorway, drab, portly, and lugubrious as before, she began to understand.

“John.” It was less of a greeting and more of a realization. She looked at his protruding belly, and not his eyes.

He smiled, cocksure as always. “Zoë. You’re looking quite well.”

“So this,” she waved her hand, indicating his appearance, “is what an incubus looks like after feeding?”

He looked surprised. “How did you know I’d fed?”

Zoë smiled, lips tight. “First, Morgen told me, second, I figure your sex appeal wanes when you’re not actively hungry. So who was the lucky girl?”

“She was a consenting club patron.”

“I doubt that.”

“I had tasted her before. She came back,” John said, his voice low and tight.

“Good. Then you’re full, and you don’t need to come here.” Zoë looked down, ignoring him.

“Zoë,” he said. She finally looked up, her eyes stopping at his throat. “It is not in my kind’s nature to apologize to—”

“Your food?” she interrupted.

He sighed. “You consented to it.”

“Yeah. I read up on you guys this morning. Your pheromones are intoxicating, and it’s nearly impossible to resist you. You’re basically a big bottle of gin that walks and talks. That argument won’t stand.”

He smiled. “We’ll see what you say when I’m hungry again.”

“Yeah, I’m not holding my breath.” She switched her focus to her computer.

He left, and she let out a big, shaky breath.

She honestly didn’t know which she dreaded more: finding out Wesley’s origins, or John’s returning hunger.