Undead to the World (23 page)

He shakes his head. “Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s just me and an old cowboy flick.
I do buy new clothes and occasionally comb my hair, you know.”

I give a discreet sniff. No cologne or lingering traces of a woman’s perfume. Doesn’t
mean anything, though; lots of people don’t use either one. “Well, okay,” I say. “Guess
my radar’s not as sharp as it usually is. Must be the loss of blood.”

“I think you’re just mixing me up with my brother. He’s the ladykiller, not me.” He
pauses in his work, then says, “I understand you were down at the station. How’s Terrance
doing?”

“Couldn’t tell you. Stoker won’t let anyone see him.”

He nods, as if that’s exactly what he was expecting. “Well, he’s been arrested before.”

“And that justifies being held incommunicado? Stoker hasn’t even let him talk to a
lawyer.”

“I’m sure there’s a good reason for that. If it’s true.”

“What, you think I’m lying?”

“Not at all. I just think you might not have all the facts.” He finishes his stitching,
ties a neat knot, and trims off the extra thread. “Done,” he says. “Don’t put any
stress on it for at least a week. No stretching, no heavy lifting, no getting into
bar fights—with extra emphasis on that last one. Understand?”

“Sure. Can I get out of here now?”

He stands up and checks the IV drip. “Not yet. I want another bag of plasma in your
tank before you leave. Otherwise, you could find yourself getting lightheaded again.”

An idea strikes me. Probably a bad one, considering what happened last time, but it’s
worth a shot. “So I’m going to be here awhile?”

“At least an hour.”

“Boring. Can’t I watch some TV?”

“I’ve got a tablet with Wi-Fi. Will that do?”

I shrug. “Don’t know. Depends on what I can find on the Internet.” I grin. “And how
good your connection is.”

My plan is simple: download a copy of the same
Bloodhound Files
episode I played at the police station, use it to contact Azura, then get her to
pull the same stunt she did on Charlie and Cassiar. I don’t know if it’ll work—maybe
I need the actual DVD to contact her—but it’s worth a try.

Too bad I don’t get the chance.

The first part works just like I planned. I call Charlie in and chat with him inanely
while I find and download the episode. Doctor Pete offers to make us some coffee,
which I gratefully accept. While he putters around in another room, I fill Charlie
in on what I want to do. He agrees we should give it a shot.

And then we hear the noise from the other room.

A surprised cry, quickly choked off, followed by the crash of a struggle. Charlie
sprints out the door. I rip the IV out of my arm and run after him as quickly as I
can.

Vampires. Werewolves. Demonic road workers. After the near-constant barrage of attacks,
I’ve forgotten all about the Big Bad this town was built for in the first place.

The cord of the coffeemaker is wrapped around Doctor Pete’s neck. It’s tying itself
into a hangman’s knot, the plug whipping around at insane speeds as it darts and loops.

But that’s not the only thing happening. Other cords are wriggling toward Doctor Pete
from all over the office like a bunch of revenge-minded snakes converging on Saint
Patrick: power cords, computer cables, lengths of transparent IV tubing. When they
come into contact with each other they twine together, a self-braiding, plastic-skinned
python getting longer and thicker by the second.

I look around wildly for a weapon—one that chops, preferably. Charlie’s already got
a knife in his hand, something long and vaguely military. I spot a pair of scissors
on a desk and grab them—by that point the python has reached the coffee pot cord and
interlaced itself. Doctor Pete’s face is turning red and his tongue is sticking out.

We jump in and start hacking. I can’t get the scissors between the cord and Doctor
Pete’s throat; it’s sunk too deep into his skin. Charlie’s sawing away at the base
of the hangman’s knot, but it’s too thick to get through easily.

I hear the crash and tinkle of breaking glass. The other end of the boa construct
has been busy too, knotting itself into a lump and punching a hole through the window.
It slithers through until it can’t go any farther, its length snapping taut between
the window and Doctor Pete’s neck.

Slowly, it starts hauling Doctor Pete backward.

We switch tactics, both Charlie and I grabbing the cable-snake and pulling it away
from the window. It doesn’t work. Two of us, putting all our weight into it, straining
every muscle, and it still manages to drag Doctor Pete across the floor inch by inch.
If only Charlie were in his regular body—golems are strong enough to lift cars. But
he isn’t, and it looks like we’re going to lose this insane tug-of-war.

We get right up to the sill. Doctor Pete’s gone limp, his face purple, but he’s still
alive. I think.

I look out through the window to where the snake-thing is taking Doctor Pete and see
that the cable simply disappears into the ground.

A tremendous yank pulls him right through the window, showering Charlie and me with
glass. Doctor Pete’s limp body slides across the dew-wet grass, then disappears head
first into the ground like a swimmer diving for the bottom. The ground swallows him
in a second, legs grotesquely pointing straight up just before they sink into the
earth.

Charlie and I stare through the broken window.

“Should we get a shovel?” Charlie asks.

“Waste of time. He’s in the tunnels by now…”

*   *   *

“You’re not going to turn into a werewolf,” Charlie tells me.

We’re driving back to his place, trying to regroup. Cassiar’s AWOL, Silver’s dead,
and Doctor Pete’s gone, all in the space of a less than an hour. I’m feeling a little
shell shocked; at this point, any good news is welcome. “What do you mean?”

“You got clawed, not bitten, right? You’ve got an immunity to that.”

I think about it for a second. “I
do,
don’t I? I remember. I got slashed once before and survived it. Cassius did some
kind of pire voodoo and managed to save me. Said I’d be safe from that particular
danger in the future—but only from thrope claws, not fangs.”

“Yeah. So you got lucky, there.”

Did I? I’m not so sure it was luck. The werewolf that clawed me did so very deliberately,
like it knew what it was doing. Or maybe like it had done it before …

“The thrope that clawed me the first time,” I say. “It was Tair, wasn’t it?”

“That it was. During a jailbreak.”

“Huh. Maybe the thrope that attacked the police station didn’t bust in from outside.
Maybe it was already there.”

Charlie glances at me. “Could be. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to go back and
ask if Terrance is still locked up.”

“No. Probably better if we avoid Stoker for now.”

My phone rings. Unknown caller: I answer it anyway. At this point, talking to anyone,
even a telemarketer, who isn’t trying to maim or mutilate me would be a relief. “Hello?”

“Jace.”

It’s Cassiar—or is it Cassius? Did the memory treatment work? “What happened to you?
Where are you?”

“I’m not sure what happened. There was a flash of light and I lost consciousness.
When I regained my senses I was outside and several blocks away. Are you still in
custody?”

Damnit, it doesn’t sound like he’s remembered a thing. “No. Charlie and I are on our
way back to his place. Listen, I need to bring you up to speed on a few—”

“No time. Come to the parking lot beside the grocery store.” He hangs up.

“Change of plans,” I tell Charlie. I give him directions, and we’re there in moments.

Charlie’s headlights fall on two figures next to the brick wall of Zhang’s store.
One’s sprawled unmoving on the ground; the other’s crouched beside it. Cassiar straightens
up as we park. The look on his face is grim.

Charlie and I get out of the car, but he leaves it running and the lights on. We look
down at the figure on the ground.

It’s Vince, our friendly neighborhood alcoholic, and he’s taken his last drink.

I kneel by the body. Cause of death isn’t hard to pinpoint; he’s got something slim
and metallic sticking out of his chest. “Looks like someone raided the good silverware
drawer,” I murmur. “It’s sunk in pretty deep, but I think the murder weapon’s a fork.”

“Silver,” Charlie says. “Think he was a thrope?”

“Or someone wants us to think he was. I need to take a closer look at the body.”

“Forensically, you mean?” Cassiar asks. “I didn’t know you had the skills—”

“Well, I do,” I snap. He should know that, and the fact that he doesn’t is pissing
me off. “Charlie, think you can get us inside the store? Zhang’s truck isn’t here,
so I know it’s deserted.”

“I’ll check my trunk,” Charlie says.

I’m not too surprised when Charlie produces a pair of bolt cutters—both the human
and lem versions of him like to be prepared. He snips through the lock on the loading
bay door and Cassiar helps me carry the body inside. Charlie grabs the shotgun and
does a quick recon, making sure Zhang hasn’t returned to his nest. He’s back in a
moment and gives me the all-clear.

We put Vince’s body on a big wooden table in the back room and turn on an overhead
light. I remember the last time I was here, and Zhang’s sibilant voice hissing from
the shadows. Yeah, perfect place to conduct an impromptu autopsy.

“What are you hoping to learn?” Cassiar asks.

“Whatever I can,” I mutter.

I rummage through Zhang’s tiny, cluttered office and find a pair of scissors and a
box cutter. I use them to cut Vince’s clothes off his body, then examine every square
inch of skin.

Once again, the death of one of Thropirelem’s citizens triggers a memory cascade;
I remember who Vince represents. He was a rich and powerful man when I first met him,
a shaman who specialized in a very particular kind of magic: Kamic books, which looked
just like the comic books from my reality but were actually powerful, reality-altering
magic items. Ahaseurus must have harbored some severe professional jealousy to have
stuck him in the body of the town drunk, close to the lowest rung on the social ladder—which,
of course, was me.

Charlie’s on guard over by the back door, but Cassiar is hovering at my shoulder,
clearly intrigued. “Well?” he asks.

“He wasn’t killed in the parking lot.”

“How do you know?”

“There was very little blood on the ground—but there’s very little left in his body,
either. He was exsanguinated, postmortem and in another location.” I point to wounds
on both wrists. “From the flushed color of his face, I’d say he was hung from his
heels and bled.”

“Somebody drained the body of blood?”

“Yes. I can’t be one hundred percent sure of why, because the rules are different
here—but the pires I’m familiar with prefer blood from a living victim, and wouldn’t
drink the blood of a thrope, anyway; that suggests the killer’s motivation wasn’t
hunger.”

“Then what was?”

“Same as whoever killed Therese Isamu and left her body in your bed. To send a message.”

“But to whom?”

“Each other. Two different killers with two different modus operandi, but each saying
the same thing.”

“Which is?”

I look up from the corpse, having found the confirmation I was looking for. “This
is
our
town. Get out or die.”

He thinks about it, then nods slowly. “We’re not the ones being targeted. The werewolves
are threatening the vampires, and the vampires are responding in kind.”

“Yes. Therese Isamu was killed because she was married to a pire. Vince here was killed
because he’s been infected by a thrope. The killer’s species was made obvious in each
case.”

“Good lord,” Cassiar says softly. “This town is on the verge of a war.”

“One between pires and thropes. And guess who’s stuck right in the middle.…”

FIFTEEN

We leave the body where it is and go back to Charlie’s place. We’re pretty subdued
on the way, all of us lost in thought. It’s late, and I’m exhausted and more than
a little overloaded. I’m trying to think of this as just another case, but I’m not
having much luck. This isn’t something I can solve so much as something I have to
survive.

Charlie recons the outside of the house before letting us in. Cassiar and I sink into
chairs in the living room while Charlie roams from room to room, exploring his territory
like a cat in a new home. Galahad follows him, trying to figure out what the rules
of this new game are.

I explain to Cassiar what Azura and I were trying to do to awaken his memories. “Sorry
I couldn’t give you a heads-up, but I didn’t know how Stoker fit into all this or
how he would take it.”

Cassiar nods. “So you had no luck accessing my mind?”

“Oh, no—I was in there, all right. You’re exactly who I said you were. But some kind
of dimensional interference was causing problems. Azura said it might be all the illusion
spells embedded in this place, or maybe it’s just that your mind is so powerful Ahaseurus
had to go to extra lengths to brainwash you.”

Cassiar nods, steepling his fingers in front of his face. “I see. You understand that
I’m still having trouble with the idea that I’m not really me, don’t you?”

“Sure. So did I, at first.”

He stares at the tips of his fingers. “And yet … I’m starting to think you’re right.
No, I’m starting to
feel
that you’re right. Every time I look at you, that feeling gets stronger.” He glances
at me with those blue eyes I know so well, bracketed now by crow’s-feet that look
all wrong.

I want to go to him, kiss him, do my best to drag his soul out from under the layers
of lies Ahaseurus draped over it. But I can’t; the look he’s giving me is still wary
and unsure. Shocking him didn’t work last time, and I’m afraid trying it again will
just push him further away.

“It’s all right,” I say. “It’ll come back to you. Don’t rush it.”