WereWoman (16 page)

All of which left me pretty much where the other murders had: with no viable suspects. I had verified that Suzy/Innis hadn't done it, and really no one else could have, without that client list.

I thanked Suzy for her help, and she thanked me for mine; I had enabled her to make it through on schedule.

Next day I described it all to Syd. “So it's a mystery how the killer knew where to do it,” I concluded.

“I wonder.” She did some spot research. “Hospital admissions are an open record. If someone knew that a particular patient was patronizing a Succuba…”

And that of course was it. Our killer had been alert for such an opportunity, and struck when it presented itself. “But that means that these killings are truly crimes of opportunity, not passion. No way to run them down by motive.”

“I wonder,” she said. “I am thinking that one could be passion, and the others opportunity, done to conceal the real one. What they have in common is their randomness. If we can run down one with genuine motive…”

“Queue!” I said. “Demon Damne dumped her.”

She nodded. “But there are problems.”

“She has an alibi,” I agreed. “And I know she's innocent.”

“About that innocence: I have a notion you may not like.”

“Let's have it regardless.”

“Your secondary power is to read inner minds when folk are doing their magic. That's invaluable. She's similar to you as a Were. Suppose she has a similar mental ability?”

“Similar?”

“Only different. The ability to be completely, telepathically persuasive. At least when a person's mind is open because of Changing. Projecting rather than reading.”

“Oh my,” I breathed, seeing it. “While we were both Changing, and I was reading her, she was giving me the certainty of her innocence.”

“Can you accept that intellectually?”

“Intellectually, yes. Emotionally, no. But maybe I had better trust my intellect, this time. It does make sense. But there's the matter of her alibi for the Demon murder.”

“I'm still working on that. It is suspiciously convenient, doubling your satisfaction that she is innocent. Almost as if planned.”

“Almost as if planned,” I echoed. “We need to study that situation and that alibi again, in case there's a hole in it.”

“That's what I'm working on. So far I'm balked. That timing is not just your belief; it's real.”

“Still, it may give us a viable suspect, for a change.”

“That could be. But proving it is another matter.”

That, indeed, was the problem. We finally had a suspect, but without proof, we were still helpless. However, it was progress.

Chapter 10:

Zombie

We struggled with the details of the several murders for another day, figuring out how Queue could have done them all, but that Demon murder alibi balked us. That was the one that provided Motive; without it we had no real case. And that was the one with a physical obstruction: Queue could not have been in two places at the same time. So maybe she cunningly had set it up that way, knowing that we would eventually catch on to the persuasion projection; we still could not get around it. How had she worked it? We had to suspect her, because the alternative was to have nothing. I found my certainty of her innocence slipping; either it was wearing off, or my intellect was winning over my belief. Either made sense; an imposed belief was bound to yield eventually to reality. Maybe it would have been different if I had been deeply religious, accustomed to never questioning faith.

Nonce called, back from her excursion and eager for news and diversion. I joined her for a date, and her thighs were as friendly as ever, but it was also evident that her passion was receding. As she said, Witches tended not to be romantically permanent. There would not be a breakup, merely a compatible fading. “But you won't be hurting,” she said brightly. “You've got Molly on tap. She's your kind, another Were. She's pretty, nice, innocent, and she thoroughly loves you. She even rooms with a suspect, facilitating your tracking. What more could you want?”

So I called her bluff. I phoned Molly in her presence and gave her my cell number. “Call me when our schedules align,” I suggested.

“Maybe after you catch the killer?”

“Sure.” As if that were incipient. I wished it were!

“But not quite yet,” Nonce said, and went back into seduction mode. If she was nettled, that was a positive way of showing it.

But now I wondered: if Queue were truly our serial killer, was it safe for Molly to be living with her?

Meanwhile Sensei Oto called Syd, and they set up a wilderness romp, jaguar and python. Syd was far from ready to replace Bear romantically, but was flattered by Oto's evident interest, and this looked like her future. He was a good man, a bit like Bear in some ways.

And Delle Witch, she of the Penny Curse, called to let me know that her date with Burket Goblin had worked out nicely, thanks to my advice. They had had a most satisfactory culmination, and she wasn't a virgin any more. She expected to do it again, soon. I suspect she gave me more credit than was due, considering that Nonce had set it up, but I was glad for her. Mena expected to remain her friend.

Everything seemed to be going well, except for the case I was on: the serial murderer. We needed one good break, but it eluded us.

Then another call came in: “A Zombie has been murdered,” Syd said. “They're asking for you. Here's the address.”

“On my way.” I just about left skid marks on the office floor as I got out to my car.

The site was an apple orchard. The Zombies were on ladders harvesting the apples. I knew why: they represented cheap migrant labor. It would have been illegal to use them, except that mundanes did not believe Zombies existed, so passed no law. There would have been a massive public protest if the eaters of those apples knew what had handled them, but again, only foolish children actually believed in Zombies or anything supernatural. So the big farmers got away with it, in the tacit conspiracy of silence. It was like allowing so many rat droppings per pound of grain, or the bloody horrors of the slaughterhouse: the eaters of breads, pasta, sausage, and such tuned it out in the choreographed denial that enabled business to function efficiently.

So where was the boss Zombie? I paused beneath the nearest tree. “Hey, I need to see Zoro.”

The Zombie on the ladder looked to be fresh out of the grave. He still had some hair and an eyeball, and no bones were poking out of his torso. He peered down at me with that eyeball. “Zzzooo!” he wheezed.

“Right: Zoro,” I agreed. “I need to see him.”

“Zzzooo!” the Zombie repeated, louder. The adjacent Zombies turned toward him. Then they dropped off their ladders, not caring how they landed or what damage was done; they heaved themselves up and converged on me, dripping gobbets of rotting flesh. Zombies had no feeling, so injuries didn't matter.

I did not much like the look of this. I backed off, but they pursued. I realized that they must not have gotten the message that I was expected, and there was no point trying to reason with them; their brains were rotten. I did not want to fight them; I could surely rip them apart, but not only would that be disgustingly messy, I didn't want to hurt the Zombies I had come to help.

I ran for my car, but there were already Zombies between me and it. I picked up two fallen apples and hurled them at the nearest Zombie, but it didn't even dodge. It just kept coming at me. Zombies were not smart enough to scare.

I turned to go the other way, but now two more Zombies were there. These were female, with matted mops of hair, wearing only tattered smocks that showed more flesh than I cared to see, because it was gruesome. A young woman in flower is a gorgeous sight; a rotten woman is not.

I dodged a third direction, finding a large two-story storage shed. I charged up the steps to the second floor, then hauled myself to a rafter that I trusted they couldn't reach. I would have to wait there until the Zombie management realized what was up, and called them off.

But the Zombies didn't give up. Something had really worked them up, and I realized what it was: one of their number had been killed and they were on a dull edge. They clustered below me, trying to figure out how to reach me. Then they got halfway smart and started lying down. A second layer lay on the first, and a third on the second. They were building a pyramid of spoiled meat and bone that would, in its clumsy time, reach the rafter. I had to do something. But what? I had nowhere to go from here.

Then I got what was either a genius or a folly of a notion. I invoked my Name and started Changing. The Zombies didn't notice; they were focused on their one task, which was all they could do once they got started.

By the time they built up to the rafter, I was Mena. My clothing didn't fit well, so I took it off and clothed my body with an illusion bikini. Then I confronted the top Zombie as it stood knee-deep in guts and reached for me. “Hello, Zombie, you handsome creature! You are looking for a man. I am a woman. I will get out of your way.” And I swung from the rafter and dropped down to the floor. Actually I hit the edge of the Zombie pyramid with a sickly squish and rolled off; at least it had cushioned my fall.

Then I walked away. The Zombies had been chasing a man; a woman was irrelevant. So they continued searching for the man while I walked back to my car and got in.

A well-preserved Zombie woman stood before the car, blocking my way. I could have run over her, but three things stopped me: I didn't want to hurt her; she was remarkably shapely, maybe only a couple days dead, with lovely hair; and she was speaking my name. “Phill! Phill Were!”

She had the wrong gender, but evidently knew the car. No point in arguing the case. I rolled down the window slightly. “I represent Phil, yes.”

“I will sshow you.”

I did not inquire exactly what she meant to show me. Her condition was such that if she doffed her clothing I would look, for all that as Mena I was not as turned on in quite the way Phil would have been. I wondered fleetingly whether any Zombies ever substituted for Succubi. Probably not, because a Zombie, however fresh, was bound to be cold. That would require a rather special type of client. “Okay.”

She walked to the side and opened the passenger door. She got in. “Go fforward.”

Here I was with a Zombie maiden in my car. I had not anticipated this event. At least she was coherent, which indicated that she had some mind and was worth heeding. I started moving the car forward.

“There,” she said, pointing right at the next intersection.

I turned right.

In due course we came to a low featureless building. I parked, we got out, and entered. The Zombie ushered me to a chamber where a heavyset middle-aged live woman sat in an easy chair, her eyes closed. She opened them as we entered. “Thank you, Zena. That will be all for the moment.”

Zena stepped back, leaned against the wall, and sagged, losing her animation.

The live woman looked at me. “Ah, you are Mena, Phil's assistant. I am Zoona, Zoro's assistant. There was a confusion among the Zombies and he had to go untangle it personally.”

“I may have been the source of the confusion,” I said. “I asked for Zoro, and the Zombies swarmed me.”

“So that was it! We expected you to come directly here to the command center, not mix in at the orchard.”

“The only address I had was for the orchard.”

Zoona sighed. “Sometimes we Zombie managers get a bit rotten brained ourselves. Of course you didn't realize that the orchard had a building. I apologize.”

“Let's get down to business. There was a murder?”

“Yes.” She paused, biting her lower lip. “Phil, how much do you know of Zombies? I don't mean to imply that you are ignorant, but there are folk who are willfully unlearned about Zombies. Some even think they eat the brains of live folk, despite having no functional digestive systems. That the bite of a Zombie converts a living person to a Zombie, like rabies. That—”

“I am ignorant,” I said, not caring to confess that I had harbored similar misinformation. “I never associated with Zombies. They aren't much for socializing. I don't even understand how a Zombie can be killed, since I understand they are dead to begin with.”

“Then I will clarify that. An analogy may help: you are a Were, but you are fundamentally human, not a wolf or whatever. We Zombie energizers are human too. Our magic is to animate dead bodies telepathically. They have little or no volition of their own. Zena, here, still has a functioning brain; she could pass for a moronic live person. But that's the top of the line; most have deteriorated to the point where all we can do is direct their bodies for a few hours or days. It is our living will that animates them, and our guidance that makes them useful.”

“Some don't have eyes left,” I said. “How can they see?”

“They can't. We have to direct them in detail, using our own eyes.”

“I don't quite follow that.”

“Look at the wall,” she said, gesturing.

I looked. There was a large video screen there, showing a section of the orchard where the Zombies were returning to work. “You're watching them electronically!”

“Closed circuit TV,” she agreed. “We don't go on larger broadcast, obviously; that would alert the mundanes. It enables us to watch them closely enough to guide them in simple tasks. They wear out soon, and we animate others.”

“And because there's no expense for food, clothing, shelter, or entertainment, you can work cheaply,” I said.

“Yes. It's a living, and it enables us to indulge our inherent craving to animate. We could animate the living too, if they were brain dead.”

“You get the bodies from recent graves? Don't the grieving families object?”

“We stick to unwatched graves. We also try to use bodies in areas away from where they lived, so that they are not recognized. The fact is that millions of people die, but only hundreds are ever Zombied; it's not a common occurrence. Mainly, we try to avoid observers. I fear that is what you encountered; the Zombies took you for an observer and tried to discourage you. They're not very smart, obviously. Each is normally controlled by a living animator, but the work is dull and surveillance is not always close. Also, the bodies do have some faint motivations of their own. This time it got out of hand. Again, I apologize.”