“You’ve got connections now.” Daniel smiled, but grimness touched his expression. “I’ll make sure the clearance list specifies you’re allowed to bring Hellforged through. Tonight proved we need it.”
“Good.” I didn’t need an argument each time I went through the checkpoint. Especially with my demon mark springing to life at the slightest provocation. “How much paperwork will that take?”
“It shouldn’t be too bad. At sunrise they’re going to lower the restriction level from Code Red to Code Yellow. But I want to make sure you and Hellforged have clearance at all levels.”
Code Red meant that all paranormals were confined to Deadtown, no exceptions. Or so I’d thought until Daniel actually got me through. Code Yellow lifted restrictions on all non–previously deceased, so any paranormal who wasn’t a zombie could come and go. In between was Code Orange, which gave clearance to certain Deadtown residents on a preapproved list. Kane was on the Code Orange list. Normally I wasn’t, but my new Code Red clearance would trickle down through the other colors. Cool.
“Hampson’s calling it yellow?” I was surprised. “Even after another Morfran possession tonight?”
“It’s not entirely up to Hampson. As commissioner, he makes the initial call, but the guy hates paranormals so much he’d keep it at red all the time. There’s pressure on him not to overdo it. The mayor’s office, for example.” Mayor Milliken’s daughter had been caught in the zombie plague and now lived on my block. “And businesses that employ werewolves don’t like their staff to miss too much work. Some of those companies have a lot of pull.”
Nice to see we monsters occasionally had somebody on our side.
“Of course,” Daniel continued, “Foster’s probably singing a song to Hampson right now about what happened tonight. So you’re right—Hampson might try to keep the code level where it is, or go down half a step to orange. But so far no word of that has come through. I think it’ll drop to yellow.”
With another promise to get official approval for me to carry Hellforged into Boston, Daniel said good night. Between the checkpoints, the New Combat Zone was strangely quiet. Nobody lingered on the street. Buildings were dark. Boards covered the windows smashed in this morning’s riot. The only place open was Creature Comforts. I paused, wondering if I should stop in. I wanted to see how Axel was doing. Plus Juliet was probably there, along with half the vampires of Deadtown, hunting among the humans who visit the bar to mingle with the monsters. Even if word of the riot scared casual thrill-seekers away, there’d be a good supply of vampire junkies offering themselves up for dinner.
I wasn’t in the mood to watch vampires flirt with their prey. I needed to figure out what was going on with the Morfran. And to do that, I had to go home and spend some time with The Book of Utter Darkness. A shudder went through me, and I almost ran to Axel’s front door to yank it open, greet some friends, have a drink, engage in mindless conversation. Anything to avoid that damn book.
But the Morfran’s reemergence meant fate was pushing onward. And only the book could show me the signs to watch for and suggest where they were pointing.
Shoulders hunched, I trudged toward the checkpoint into Deadtown.
On the other side, zombies thronged the streets. Tomorrow’s Code Yellow would mean nothing to them. There were no zombies on the Code Yellow list. It wasn’t until things calmed down to the level of Code Green—normal restrictions—that zombies could leave Deadtown. And that was only with a permit and a norm sponsor.
So it was no wonder, I thought as I pushed through the turnstile and stepped into Deadtown, that the zombies gathered here were giving me dirty looks.
If you’ve ever gotten a dirty look from a zombie, chances are it took . . . oh, about a week before the possibility of a good night’s sleep returned. And here were six or seven of them all trying to outdo each other with nightmare-inducing scowls.
I can scowl, too. I did, and I kept walking.
One zombie, a beefy guy in camouflage pants and a black T-shirt, stepped off the curb. I stopped and looked him straight in the eye. He was even more scary-looking than most zombies. The right side of his face looked like it had been attacked with a cheese grater, and there was a golf ball–size hole in his neck. I didn’t blink as we locked stares.
“I saw you leave before, after they called the Code Red.” His voice came out in a growl. “What are you, some kind of spy?”
My right forearm began tingling. “You think spies waltz in and out where everyone can see them? I had business to attend to.”
“Business?” His fingers clamped into a fist. “What kind of business?”
“None of yours, that’s for damn sure.” Who the hell did this guy think he was? The tingling intensified, rapidly heating as it spread up my arm. Sunburn. Flames. Molten lava. Before the feeling reached “nuclear meltdown,” I slowed my breathing and started counting. One . . . two . . . three . . . I pushed down the burning, fast-rising anger. Anger that wasn’t mine. Wasn’t me. The anger of the Destroyer.
The zombie got in my face. “I said, ‘What kind of business?’”
Four . . . five . . . My demon mark blazed with pain. I could almost smell charred flesh. Six . . . I bit the inside of my cheek.
Two of his friends were behind him now. He reached out and gave me a shove—almost gentle, but hard enough to let me feel his strength.
Shit, what number was I on? My arm burned. Six. I remembered counting to six. Seven . . . If I gave into this rage, it would possess me. I’d become a puppet of the Destroyer. Eight . . . But damn it, so what? This zombie was a bully. I hate bullies. I quit counting and clenched my fists. I’d like nothing better than to pound his head into the pavement, over and over until the left side matched the shredded right. Until I heard the crack of his skull fracturing. I’d stomp his brains into mush and then—
“What’s going on?” a woman’s voice asked in a tough, don’t-mess-with-me tone, as someone stepped between me and Mr. Ugly.
I blinked away the image of the zombie’s broken body turning to pulp under my boots. The pain still surged; the rage still wanted out. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard—once, twice, three times—trying to regain control. Breathe, Vicky. Better. A little.
When I opened my eyes, I got an extreme close-up of the face of Pam McFarren, the Goon Squad sergeant. Her expression was a strange mixture of annoyance and concern. “You all right?” she asked.
I nodded. I was still focused on swallowing and didn’t trust my voice.
McFarren turned to Mr. Ugly and his friends. “Go home. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’re only making things worse.” Four other Goons, all zombies, flanked her in a line, their backs to me. Nobody moved.
“Go on!” she shouted. “Get out of here. Now!”
Feet shuffled; zombies fell back. Mr. Ugly made an overelaborate bow, like something a ham actor would do in a Shakespeare play, and backed away.
The male Goons advanced, making sure the zombies dispersed.
McFarren spun around to face me. This time, her face was pure anger. “Again?” she sputtered. “What the hell did you think you were doing? Picking a fight with a guy like that, when all his buddies are itching to back him up. Are you nuts?”
I rubbed my demon mark. “Something like that. Look, thank you for stepping in again. I’ve been lucky you were around.”
“Lucky? What the hell do you think luck has to do with it? I’ve got orders to protect you. As if I need anything extra on my to-do list right now. For some reason, you get special treatment, while I’m trying to keep the peace with a fraction of my usual staff.”
I stared at her. “I didn’t know.”
She continued her tirade like she hadn’t heard me. “All PDH patrols are working overtime. The brass is keeping our human partners off the streets for now. Too dangerous. And that’s for trained officers who pack exploding bullets. I know you’re not a norm, but you look too much like one to be playing chicken with a gang of pissed-off zombies.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You know what? I was wrong—you were lucky. I got word you’d passed through the checkpoint, and I could scrounge up enough cops to make those guys back off. But we can’t be everywhere. This is the worst I’ve seen it in Deadtown. Everyone’s at each other’s throats. Tonight, two werewolves were critically injured when their pack tried to take on a group like the one you were just staring down.”
Werewolves. Kane. But no, it wouldn’t be Kane. He was a lone wolf who didn’t belong to a pack. Relief opened some breathing room in my chest.
Maybe Kane’s unity rally would do some good. Unity was exactly what Deadtown needed right now.
“Okay,” I assured McFarren, “I promise I won’t pick any fights with roving zombie mobs.”
She gave me a long, hard look. “Don’t joke,” she said. “Something’s brewing. I haven’t felt this level of tension in Deadtown since I woke up after the plague.”
MCFARREN WAS RIGHT. THE TENSION SHE DESCRIBED WAS everywhere. It was physical, like thick, oily smog hanging over the streets. Normally, an after-dark walk through Deadtown wasn’t all that different from walking along other city streets. As long as you belonged in the neighborhood, people left you alone. Like anyone else, zombies had their own concerns: job, family, making ends meet, getting a little downtime, stuffing as much food as they could fit into their faces.
Wait.
That was part of the strange atmosphere. The zombies weren’t eating.
A chill shivered up my spine. Deadtown without zombies munching away on junk food is like a spring day without birds singing. Eerie.
Yet it was true. The hot dog carts, ice cream trucks, and falafel stands that line Deadtown’s streets were out in force, same as always. But there were no lines in front of them. The vendors stood listlessly, heads hanging, as zombies walked by, ignoring their offerings. The hot dog seller who usually ate his wares with one hand while serving customers with the other leaned against his cart, both arms dangling as he stared into space.
