Death Incarnate Read online

  Sophie rushes to the slider and begins heaving her guts at the edge of the small concrete patio, just missing young Mitch's body.

  Mom stifles a hoarse sob with her hands, as silent tears slide down Dee's face.

  I'm suddenly mad at my sister.

  What'd she think would happen when she raised a murderer? We were—what? Gonna sing Kumbaya at the campfire?

  Pfft. Nope.

  Killers gonna kill.

  Not that I mind this jackass getting his, but it might be just too much for an early twenty-first-century girl living a pre-paranormal, pre-tech existence.

  Tara staggers unsteadily to her feet. “Oh. My. God.” Her small hand covers her mouth, and I know she's got a hard set of the quick swallows. She appears to rein in the vomit, though, and purposely stops looking at the dead attacker on the floor, aiming her poisonous stare at her brother.

  “If what you've all told me is true, your being here is accidental. And in the alternate future—a future where I was raped and Timmy still died—Mitchell also died later and was raised by this weirdo.” She jerks a thumb toward Dee, and my sister's face reddens.

  Tara swipes at her face, flinging an angry tear to join all the blood.

  I take a deep, steadying breath. “She's not a weirdo, and I'll give you a break because your family was just murdered before your eyes. But in the alternate path, you were raped and killed too—it was a twofer. And your brother”—I flick my jaw toward Mitch—“was burned to death in Afghanistan not too long after because he was so loaded with guilt, he said yes to every fucked-up mission they threw at him. So I'd say you being alive is a bonus.” I stretch my arms wide, not holding back a bit of my facial expression that I'm sure conveys: Be grateful, sweetheart.

  “Shut. The. Fuck. Up,” Mitch says in a soft voice. “I won't have you abusing Tara because you have zero filter.”

  My eyebrows drop, and I shoot a glare his way. “She needs a slice of reasonable pie, Mitch.”

  Mitch walks toward me, and I'm mesmerized by the squish beneath his right foot. Brains and skull fragment have got to be tough to get off a tread.

  I hunker down, bending my knees and loosening my arms. Come at me. I seethe.

  Loud noises come from the street—car doors slamming and feet pounding pavement.

  “Calm down,” Dad's sigh is harsh. “The cops are ready to break down the door.”

  “What door?” Gramps asks casually, brow arched as he leans against the wall.

  “I got a solution,” Tiff says, breaking our staring match.

  “Yeah?” I ask, not looking away from Mitch for a second. The bastard looks ready to take my head off. Literally.

  And he could.

  Our stare locks. A sheet of paper wouldn't fit between us.

  “We blink Tara to our time.” Tiff's tone sounds like this solution was super-obvious.

  Mitch and I whip our faces around to her, eyebrows hiked.

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” I half yell.

  Tiff smirks. “Do I ever?”

  “I'm not going anywhere with you freaks.” Tara backs up a step, her violent head shaking making platinum hair that's dried into ugly strings slap her face.

  But her eyes shift uneasily to Mitch.

  In my experience, dead family is better than no family. Undead notwithstanding, to use a Grampsʼs word.

  “Gotta make a decision, dudes. Time's a... wasting,” Jonesy says, giving a hasty glance up the stairs to the doorway. “We have explaining we can't do.”

  “What about Mom and Dad?” Tara's bottom lip begins to quiver, and she captures it with her teeth.

  Mitch takes a step away from me, dragging a rough palm over his face, then plugs his huge hands on his hips.

  Jonesy's eyes are full of tough emotion. “You'd have to lie... about everything. In this time, they'd put your ass in the slammer forever. There'd be no proof to back up your claims. And there's nothinʼ to make up what'll jive with what happened. You don't have martial arts training, do ya?” Jonesy's dark face is tight.

  “How old are you?” I ask Tara suddenly.

  “Eighteen,” she spits through her teeth as her hard dark-blue gaze glitters between me and Jonesy.

  She looks younger than Dee somehow. Maybe life is simpler in this time. No pulse, no paranormal, just regular living.

  I frown. Sometimes regular life is enough.

  A fleeting sensation, more a thread of thought of what could have been, pulls through my chest, tickling my mind and tightening my gut before it's gone. Not fast enough to be unrecognizable. Just slow enough that I mourn its loss.

  Envy.

  Want for a place where I don't commune with the dead. Where I don't blink and put everyone in danger—or am responsible for saving them all.

  What would it have been to just be?

  And not be what I am.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Gramps

  I mutter about the lack of smokes in this joint as I move toward the little lady who remains.

  The one bit of Mitchell's family who is unscathed. The one person that the destiny of 2010 had claimed. She’s now alive from a sequence of events I couldn't make up if I shot up every hallucinogen I could get my grubby hands on. Yes, sirree.

  Sometimes, you got to just implement some tough when everything calls for soft. Sometimes easy isn't right.

  This piece of fact I'm compelled to deliver is not going to be popular.

  Doesn't matter, though.

  We'll be lousy with cops in a nanosecond. The slamming of cruiser doors reaches us even in the bowels of this cheap, cookie-cutter 1970s split-level with the walk-out basement we now find ourselves in.

  If I listen close enough, I can make out the weapons clearing the leather of their well-oiled holsters.

  I step in front of Tara.

  She looks up at me with a soft O of surprise forming on her pouty lips. Somewhat taller than Jade and Dee, she’s young. Soft in a way the females of our time aren't.

  Keep it simple, Mac.

  “Ya want to live?” I say as both statement and question.

  Her face settles into sullen lines. Now that attitude is familiar ground.

  “That's a dumb question.” Tara folds her arms.

  I shake my head, a smile tilting the edges of my lips up. “Nope—it's only one that matters at the moment.”

  The boys in blue crash through the door upstairs. I'm gauging a half minute before we're swimming with them. Maybe more. Maybe less.

  “Yeah,” she reluctantly grinds out.

  “Then you got to want to get the pony to the show, miss. We have to leave this house. Right. Now. And we need to employ some extraordinary means to make it happen without a death toll.”

  In the background, Clyde gives an indelicate snort, which I ignore, though I tend to agree with his non-verbal sentiment.

  “We've already screwed the fate”—I quickly wave a palm around—“or whatever poetic crap we could call these events by showing up. But you're alive. And if you don't want to spend the rest of your life in a nuthouse, ya better come with us.”

  Tara’s brows pull together, then she gnaws her lip.

  I'm about to decide for her when she asks in a small voice, “Do I need to stay with all of you when I get to wherever we're going?”

  Christ on a crutch. I open my mouth, but Jade rapidly interjects, “No, honey, we'll just give you enough information to keep you safe, then you're free to make your own way.”

  “But you'll be free,” Pax states, but his eyes are on the staircase.

  Fine point.

  “Mac, time grows short,” Clyde's eyes rove to the glass sliding door, which is still ajar.

  The remaining sunlight pours through, casting jagged geometric patterns of dying sunlight across the group. One covers Clyde's hazel orb like a bright pirate's patch, and I shiver as a goose walks over my grave.

  “Pax,” I call, but my grandson is already getting over to me. I give Kim a significant look. I’m
not leaving her behind on a bet.

  She'll have to get tagalong Ron to keep up.

  The first cop barrels down the stairway, and a pang of nostalgia creeps over me. The wife and I had a split-level house. Ugly architecture.

  “Hold it!” he bellows, raising his weapon.

  Guns. Laughable in some ways, except for the exemplary collection I maintain at my place.

  I give a grim lip lift and wonder for the millionth time where the cigs are.

  The cop's eyes widen, taking in the scene: a bunch of adults wearing strange clothes, three dead bodies, and a couple of zombies like two partridges in a pear tree.

  Mighty fine situation.

  Everyone puts their hands up in the air—even Clyde, which prompts an internal chuckle.

  I don't lift my arms because I've latched on to Mitchell's reluctant sister, and Pax has grabbed her hand.

  She tries to jerk it away, but Pax is a five-point Body in this world, and there's no getting away unless Tara's keen on breaking her own wrist in the process.

  She isn't.

  She glaring at him as more cops file in behind the first.

  Splendid.

  Deedie shoots a nervous glance at the sun, which is pooling at everyone’s feet like spilled fruit juice. Rainbow hues of grape, tangerine, and gold ease across a shag carpet that's a puke-worthy harvest gold.

  Shadows stretch, covering Pax's surfboard feet and moving to enclose my own.

  Blessed twilight breathes its reluctant sigh of day's end inside the space.

  The cops move forward, weapons high, trained on our bodies. “Stay where you are! Nobody move.”

  Alrighty. “Careful, Pax,” I say and mean it.

  Bullets might reach us before the blink of an eye. Pax would be hard-pressed to heal himself and blink us to hell and back.

  “Got it, Gramps.”

  The cop stretches his hand for my wrist, and I yank out of his reach, causing Tara to swing forward unsteadily.

  He grabs her instead.

  Her dark blue eyes go wide, and she gives a sharp inhale.

  Pax blinks just as twilight eases way to murky early night.

  That horrible feeling of losing the solidness of the earth begins, and I feel as though someone is oh-so-slowly pulling a rug out from underneath me.

  The sensation of falling sweeps over my body, and I resist the urge to fling my arms out to catch myself. Instead, I grip the sister more tightly.

  The entire group wavers before my eyes. The cops appear to dim then bend and blur as though I’m seeing them through a waterfall.

  Except the one that’s holding on to Tara.

  He goes with the rest of us.

  Dammit all.

  Now see, this is what happens when a person takes too much time to jaw about things instead of just seeing shit through with action.

  Kim's muffled scream follows me through the blink.

  *

  The disorientating plummet through simultaneous ice and fire burns my nuts. I grit my teeth and bear it.

  Hang on, Mac. Just a little more.

  Then whatever Pax does when he blinks spits me out on the other side of wherever, and I'm rolling onto a carpet of lawn.

  Cool grass feels sublime as my fingers claw at earth, trying to find purchase to stop my sickening momentum.

  Vision tripling, I move to stand and can't. Don't have my wind yet. Kid probably dumped me from two meters above ground.

  With enough breath to cough, I gag on my own spit and try to hike up again. Nothing.

  Well, shit.

  Rolling my eyes to the side, I do a search for the others. But I can't fool myself completely.

  I'm really searching for Kim, like a selfish old coot. I caught sight of her frightened face before the blink as she and that numb nuts Null grabbed hands with the group and formed the chain that would get us back to our time.

  Find Kim.

  My eyes finally stagger over her form, and I grimace. The cop has her.

  Now how is it that guy is all fresh as a daisy?

  I huff, finally getting enough air to sit upright, which is a good sight better than lying on my back, waiting for doom to come along and have its way with me.

  “What!” Kim yells. “Are these?” Disbelief chokes her expression.

  Handcuffs.

  I laugh. Lot of visual there.

  All right, enough lollygagging around. I slap my palms to the grass and stand. Time to stop horsing around and get this newest disaster righted.

  Straightening, I begin to shuffle over to the cop from 2010.

  I guess Pax blinking this twerp didn't have much effect on subduing him—or causing him to understand the significance of the event that just transpired.

  No, sirree. Might need a tad bit more convincing.

  Taking stock of my surroundings, I realize I'm at my place. My gaze sweeps the wide back deck that faces the green lawn between my back door and Lake Tapps.

  The sliding door is standing wide open, and I take the time to scowl as my shuffle turns to a stride. Anger always makes a man pound through whatever murk has occurred. A fine motivator.

  The new “big brother” ass hats tore through my place and made a mess of things.

  Ali. The thought of my newly cured daughter almost stops me in my tracks. We left her and Kyle here before we took off on the latest catastrophe. And Archer, Mia, and Bry.

  My head swivels to the cop who's cuffed Kim. My hands fist.

  Why that... I trip over something and land face first on my illegal lawn. Graceless putz.

  I get up on my hands and knees and look eye to eye with Jones, my bell kind of rung.

  “Mac,” Jonesy mutters, clutching at the ribs I just kicked. “Thanks, man.”

  I take a deep breath then let it out slowly. “Don't mention it.”

  Crawling over his body, I stand again. Eyes zeroing in on the gun at the cop's hip, I see it's now a warped, misshapen hunk of metal.

  Finally, a damn break.

  Blinked metals don't travel well. Superb news. And, man, can we use it.

  The zombies are already by the cop.

  He perceives the threat too late, as Mitchell's fist plows into him.

  “Don't kill him!” Deedie screams.

  Soft heart. I hide a smile.

  Well, that's that. I dust the loose grass and other crap (I'll probably get some incurable cancer because I fertilize the bejeezus out of this baby) off my hands and give a good scan of the vicinity now that the cop's been subdued.

  Jade and Caleb are standing, breathing hard. Sophie is picking grass out of her considerable head of hair, and Tiff is striding toward Kim and Ron.

  “What in the actual fuck is going on, Pax?” She parks her hands on her skinny hips, her eyes flashing like spitting hazel fire.

  In that moment, I have a lot of sympathy for Terran.

  Pax has dark circles under his eyes and appears to almost sway beneath her words.

  “Settle down, filly,” I say under my breath.

  “You dump us at Mac's? So we can be—what? Target practice?” She flings her arms wide and gives an angry hop like a leprechaun on drugs.

  “Tiger, it's better than at Jonesy's or Caleb's.” John states the obvious, giving a minute shake of his head with a patience I don't possess. “The Sanction doesn't appear to be here.”

  Terran the Reasonable.

  That puts a lid on it. And this is Tiff without the booze. A shudder rolls through me like low thunder.

  Tiff covers her face and begins to cry. John walks over there, wraps his lanky arms around her, and strokes the back of her hair over and over.

  “I don't know where Bry is. I can't—I can't stay here when I know I could have a baby going back there.”

  Holy cow. I cover my face with a weary palm then let it drop. No hiding from this domestic disaster.

  John stiffens at the exact moment the cold-cocked cop moans from the ground.

  “I'm sorry that there seems to be some
emotional stuff going on, but I want out of these cuffs.” Kim raises her cuffed wrists for the group’s perusal.

  I like the way they look on her and sigh.

  There's a time and a place for all my perversions, but now is not the time. Come to think of it, this is my house.

  I stomp toward the wide-open slider and step inside.

  The new graysheet wannabes have thoroughly tossed my humble abode. Shit's scattered far and wide.

  A scowl seats itself on my face like a boil of contempt.

  They ruined my perfectly arranged pad. Chumps.

  I brighten at the sight of my unmolested cookie jar. Old thing from the early 1950s. Pale yellow, it appears to have “ears” at either side and a small lid with a chubby stump of smooth, circular ceramic in the center of the lid to use as a handle.

  That's where I keep the good stuff.

  Walking over to it, I kick a pile of discarded pillows and papers. Good luck with that, fellas. I remove the top of the cookie jar.

  Inside is my vintage Glock 42, a contraband pack of smokes, and a rubberbanded three-by-five stack of paper recipe cards that are my guide to consuming the most cholesterol and saturated fats humanly possible.

  With a pleased grunt, I dip my chin and widen my lips just enough to accept the butt of my cig. A practiced sweep of my arm later, the butt is clenched between my lips, and I touch the lighter to the end. A bright-blue flame with an orange tip comes to life, and I automatically cup my hand, protecting the flame as I take a deep inhale.

  Tipping my head back, I shoot a stream of smoke at the ceiling. A second puff later, everything is as right as rain in Mac O'Brien's world.

  Cruising out of my wrecked kitchen, I sidle between the open sliding glass door and curl my fingers around the solid aluminum frame, surveying the soon-to-be bullshit from my broad deck.

  Exhaling smoke puffs, my gaze is drawn toward a darkening sky. Beautiful, I think, randomly noticing the water is still in Lake Tapps, yet to be drained for the winter.

  Of course, my thoughts don't last long over the din of arguing. Noting Kim is cuffless and that the cuffs are now firmly secured on the cop (marvelous), I check out the rest of the kids.

  My new love interest is flitting from one person to the next like a butterfly with a plan, laying hands on each one before going to the next. Finally, she straightens, palm to lower back, and stretches. I admire the view.