Death 07 - For the Love of Death Read online

  She sighs and absently strokes Onyx’s head.

  The pack is nervous. The dog scents the cave. Nothing is different. Yet the boy’s worry is bitter in the dog’s nose.

  Onyx ducks from underneath Jade’s affection and comes to stand in front of me.

  He stares.

  It’s all right, Onyx, you’re a good dog.

  Thunk, wag, thunk.

  The boy makes the good sounds in his head. He wags his tail, yet—the sound does not match the anxiety scent. The dog will watch the pack. Stay alert for danger.

  “It’s just, gah!” Jade storms around our small kitchen. Denim and a dark green tee peek out from beneath an apron my mom made for her a decade ago.

  Mom.

  I shove the sadness deep. I don’t have time for those moments of grief that sneak up when I’m unaware.

  She whirls, eyes flashing, and black hair spins around her body. “I’ll go crazy not knowing.”

  She studies my face, seems to get an idea of my struggle somehow, and mauls on her lip.

  I pull her against me, careful to touch clothes, not skin. “Let me go, Jade. I’ll get the kids handled and pulse communicate what’s happening.”

  “Use Deegan.”

  Deegan is a psychic conduit. She can relay images like a movie to anyone in the world by touch.

  It's faster than pulse, more intimate.

  It's also off the government radar. As far as they know, she is catalogued as a four-point AFTD. Among other things. Dee is the latest Random to manifest in the nation. With a genius IQ.

  Must've skipped me.

  I smirk.

  Jade's hands fly to her hips. “What's so funny, buster?”

  I tow her behind me, careful to ring her forearm over clothes, and head to the door. We don't have time to waste on talking.

  “I'm thinking the kids are all right. Especially Deegan.”

  Jade winds her arms around my waist, and I press my lips to the top of her head.

  “I'm still pissed you won't take me,” she says against my chest.

  “I know. I gotcha,” I say against her hair.

  “I love you, you jerk.”

  I smile, though she can't see it.

  “I love you more.”

  I move through the entry door and onto the broad steps that view the grandfathered strip of lawn on the boulevard.

  Onyx gives a single sharp bark. It sounds a lot like goodbye.

  He and Jade watch through the sidelight windows flanking the solid nine-foot oak door.

  She waves once then turns away.

  Onyx stays where he is, watching. His tail is still.

  *

  Gramps stands like the Lone Ranger in a sea of guys in suits, and an eerie calm descends over me.

  It reminds me of before.

  Before they administered the sterilization. Before we were Randoms. When there were so many paranormals it was just a variant of normal.

  I know a Graysheet when I see one. It feels like a twenty year hiatus has come to an end.

  Hover cars zip above their heads, the thirty-foot invisible safety ceiling disallowing casualties.

  But that can’t be an absolute. As I make my way in my own vehicle, the beeping of the parking security begins as my car descends.

  Gramps, plus whoever these clowns are, back away.

  The automated voice recites by rote.

 

  The car locks into invisible pulse-activated brackets. It rocks as it engages and stills.

 

  My ears pop as the doors unlock and sweep up like wings. Kind of reminds me of the antique Deloreans of the twentieth.

  I climb out, and my car bounces with the loss of my weight.

  Gramps’ gaze meets mine. I remind myself again how it sucks to have AFTD and just enough precog to frustrate. What I wouldn’t do to have some telepathy. When I want it.

  It’d definitely suck ass to have all the time.

  “Gramps.” I flick my gaze to his. A holographic card hangs around his neck via a lanyard. It’s his “get out of jail free” card he calls it.

  The guys in black look pretty nervous. Not too many of them have met a free bird twentieth before.

  With a twelve gauge shotgun.

  Gramps maintains all his amendment rights.

  I sling my power out like a net and get a hit from one of the chumps in black.

  Nice little round-out there.

  They have an AFTD. That means there's a Null. But I'm blind to that. I can only recognize my own brand. Like a fart.

  I chuckle.

  Gramps clamps his lips around a cig and lights it one-handed, his shotgun tucked underneath his arm. The white noise of the highway above our heads drones like a low-level vacuum machine.

  “Hey, son.”

  My eyes take in my kids’ vehicle. The roof looks like a shark bit the center of it, didn’t like the taste, and spit it out.

  I walk closer, keeping one eye on the suits.

  There’s a bump in the center where the driver would be. Knuckle-shaped imprints push out the roof.

  Paxton.

  Chicken skin rises on my bare skin. Our son tried to stop him and Dee from being pancaked.

  I’m so glad I didn’t bring Jade.

  I continue to circle the car, trying to squelch my rising panic.

  The government lurkers are here.

  My kids conveniently total an untotal-able car.

  Things are adding up. Paranoia Central comes online.

  Breeze from the traffic overhead lifts my hair as I cruise around the perimeter of the once-pristine car. I finally look up from the wreckage.

  The first guy (not the AFTD) says, “Net’s been deployed.” His face is cool, aloof. Hard.

  I glance inside the driver’s window. Remnants of high-density tensile netting coat the interior like antique Silly String.

  I zero in on Arrogant, keeping my temper in check for the moment. “Two questions.”

  The man’s eyebrows rise.

  Don’t like him already.

  Give me a break. Panic is a close friend to Rage, and right now, they’re tag teaming me.

  My power swells in response.

  The voices of the undead grow louder. Of course, they’re louder now because so many more people have died since the undead fun began.

  I breathe deeply. In. Then out. “Why did my kids’ car crash? With a billion avoidance measures, in theory, that’s a no, guys.”

  He opens his mouth, and I glare.

  He smirks, holding his hands together and rocking back on his heels. Amused. Confident.

  Silent.

  Neither amused nor confident I smile, more a baring of teeth.

  I’m just pissed.

  I take in the five Randoms of mixed abilities and know they’re involved. They’re close to Pax’s age. It’s surreal how little things have changed since I ran into this type before.

  “Two: what in the hell are you doing here and why?”

  I put my hands on my hips.

  “That’s three questions,” Arrogant replies.

  I can hear only the sounds of vehicles whizzing over our heads at one hundred fifty-five miles per hour. It’s just loud enough to drown out the small noises of mandatory greenbelts and the wildlife that lives there.

  I give Gramps a full look, one he can interpret without any paranormal talent whatsoever.

  Gramps doesn’t hesitate. He flicks the cigarette toward the asswipe, and Arrogant reacts instantly, batting the flaming cancer stick away.

  Gramps hammers him in the shoulder with the butt of the shotgun.

  Arrogant staggers back.

  Their telekinetic comes out of hiding and slams Gramps on the road with a palm swipe in the air.

  Gramps cracks his head, and I engage.

  It’s actually more a matter of my power breathing a sigh of relief to be out of its cage. First, I give old AFTD suit
a love tap that parks him on his ass, hard.

  Raw satisfaction washes through me.

  The undead summons falls over the five miles over which I have complete control. The dead cut a path to me like a beam from a lighthouse.

  It’s always been a flaw of mine, the lack of preparedness. If I’d been thinking (and who the hell is when your kids are in parts unknown, with government skulkers milling around), I’d have realized that geographically, I’m closer to Gramps than to my house.

  The Skopamish rise in a tide of feathers, leather, and war paint.

  Oops.

  They disrupt the road’s built-in pulse magnetization instantly, and cars spin above us. The other rails instantly reform intersects to stabilize the little disaster I conjure.

  Sorry guys, just having a little zombie soiree here in the middle of the highway.

  My kids are missing, we have a situation, Gramps is on the ground, and I’ve called the dead. Yet the urge for inappropriate laughter boils inside. Some things never change.

  I give in to a chuckle as the chief emerges just a meter or two in front of me. He never ages, plumping out before my eyes the same way every time, as he did when I was a teen. The dead don’t grow older. Whatever age they are at death is what they’ll be forever.

  I work for a company that relocates the dead. Land’s at a premium in 2049. Can’t have those pesky gravesites in the way of progress.

  Did I mention I hate my job?

  The chief’s gaze fills with my energy, plumping to grapes from the shriveled raisins of seconds before.

  “Master.” His headdress moves as he talks.

  “Chief,” I reply. I tear my gaze away. Arrogant looks less so now, trying to rouse his AFTD cohort I put into a fugue a minute ago.

  Good luck with that.

  “How may I serve you?”

  “Injuns again, Caleb?” Gramps chirps from his back. I spare him a glance, smiling despite the grim circumstance.

  “You okay?” I yell.

  He gives a little smile. “I'll live, got my bell rung.”

  I nod at Gramps even as I swing my head to look at the government guys. Maybe time for a little clean up.

  The Skopamish track my gaze.

  Arrogant’s eyes widen, his hand falling away from the shoulder Gramps whacked.

  No words are uttered, but tomahawks are loosened from their bindings. Metal makes a distinct sound as it escapes its moorings.

  The Skopamish shuffle forward, dropping the undead awkwardness with each step.

  Becoming more alive.

  Just more.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Pax

  I’m playing hop-along and it ain’t no picnic as Gramps would say. Nausea churns, and cold sweat collects on my feverish flesh.

  My arm’s a numb horror, and I can’t think for it.

  I stay in the greenbelts where the bots don’t roam.

  Like buffalo.

  I cackle. And that’s when it hits me: I’m touched in the head.

  I haven’t eaten in hours, my arm’s a pretzel, and Paxton is just a little giddy from shock and exhaustion, so excuse his delirium.

  And I can’t leave this fucked up world until I find my sister.

  I stumble and fall to my knees. I left my undead fam to deal with the bot bruisers a few kilometers back as I make my way to the clinic where Mom takes me when shit gets saucy.

  Like the time I thought I had telekinesis when what I had was a good case of gravity.

  That’d been awesome, one broken arm later.

  Same one as now. And the hits just keep on coming.

  I send out an undead search beam. I’m barely here, the clinic should be just a half mile away, but I can’t make it.

  I lower my chin to my chest.

  I wait.

  They come.

  A man, woman and daughter.

  I feel guilt.

  “Master?” the father says.

  I have to ask, “How’d you go?”

  “Automobile wreck,” he answers swiftly.

  A tooth tumbles out like a decaying pearl and rolls, hitting my kneecap. I take a deep breath.

  The little girl sucks her thumb and clutches a teddy bear in her other hand.

  She lowers her hand, and the thumb’s gone. Her brows come together, the flesh hanging there like a stripe.

  “Your thumb…” I sway, falling on my ass, and the motion sends pain so awful it bugs my eyes.

  She notices it’s still in her mouth. “Thank you,” she says as it falls out, and stoops over to pick it up. She looks it over then slides it into her dress pocket.

  Disgusting.

  I look behind me, panting. The zombies watch my stare.

  “I need medical attention.”

  The man moves forward.

  I did a shit job of raising him. Half his face is gone and one eyeball hangs by a thread.

  Can't have that.

  I shoot him between the eyes. The bolt of death energy slides out of me like a punch. He stumbles backward, falling to the ground, and his wife and daughter gasp as residual hits them.

  Dad’s voice talks to me in memory.

  Bind them. Focus, Paxton. It’s like fishing, son. You have the pole; reel them in. Snag then reel.

  I do that now. Breathing slow, getting my undead Zen on.

  The man comes off the ground like a stiff plank.

  He is perfect.

  Human and alive. Vital. His clothes are mid-twentieth. Damn, that’ll stick out.

  I shift my attention to the wife and daughter. They’re pretty rough around the edges, but they’ll do at a distance.

  I don’t tell him what to do. He picks me up as though I weigh nothing. I’m two hundred ten pounds, but a feather in his arms.

  He carries me to the clinic. It’s a half-kilometer. I feel his family trail us.

  He kicks open the clinic door and takes me to the receptionist desk.

  It’s a fucking bot.

  It stands while I despair. My feelings choke me.

  it croaks loudly.

  With one arm, my zombie decapitates it. The head slams into the wall behind its headless body and sticks in the drywall like a hunk of beached driftwood.

  My zombie lowers his arm. Broken.

  I close my eyes.

  When I open them, I’m emptier but the arm is whole again. There’s nothing as powerful as my AFTD and Organic powers working together.

  “Organic,” I toss out in an incoherent command.

  He moves from room to room. All Organics.

  “There.” I point to one door in particular.

  Jezebel, reads the door placard.

  Thank whatever is holy there’s a Jezebel in this world, too.

  He swings through and there she is. My Organic from home.

  Shock and bewilderment wash over her features.

  “Paxton Hart.”

  Sweat runs into my eyes.

  “Set me down,” I say.

  My zombie lays me on the bed, and I yell when the thinnest of cotton sheets grazes my arm.

  “You’re dead,” she whispers, clutching at her heart.

  I bark out a laugh, catching the irony.

  I shake my head, and my vision swims. I take deep breaths. “No.” I jerk my thumb at my zombie. “He is.”

  Jezebel moves her gaze to the zombie.

  He tips his hat. “George,” he introduces.

  She pales in front of my eyes.

  Panic surges. “Jezebel, don’t you dare pass out on me!”

  She falls on her ass to the chair and throws her head between her knees.

  Precious seconds float by.

  Finally, she looks at me. “How much time do we have?”

  “Not much. My zom—George disabled the bot at the front desk.”

  “The ALB?”

  I nod without really knowing what the acronym stands for. The metal thing that does the Body Snatcher bellow.

  Yeah, that.

  “We
’re going to have to set that arm.”

  “I know. I’m Organic.”

  Her brows collide. “You are?”

  God.

  “Yes. I mean, on my world.”

  Her frown deepens.

  I wave my hand around. “Just set the thing, and I can heal it.”

  She flattens her lips. “I don’t know if you’re in any shape to do anything, young man.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Fine.” She reaches her hand out, hovering above my core.

  George looks on with interest.

  Jezebel scoots her chair further away from him.

  Her hand holds position for about three seconds. “No, your energy is depleted.”

  I grit my teeth, and our eyes lock.

  She makes a disgusted noise.

  I scream when she straightens my arm.

  Then blackness swallows my vision.

  My consciousness disappears along with it.

  *

  I wake in jagged pieces of awareness.

  Of course, the yelling doesn't help.

  “I have jurisdiction here. This patient falls under HIPAA privacy.”

  “This human scans paranormal.”

  “So we turn away another human being who needs medical attention because they’re different? If this isn’t segregation, I don’t know what is!”

  I crack an eye open at the S word. Haven’t heard that in forever.

  George stands guard. His readiness tells me the poo-poo is about to hit the oscillating device.

  Two bots crowd the hole in the open door. An actual human being scans the interior of the small clinic room I’m in.

  “His ALB-scan comes up deceased,” the man says from the door.

  The human dude.

  He folds his arms across his chest, glaring at Jezebel. “Explain that.”

  “I can’t. But I can say his broken arm needs time. It was a compound humerus fracture and had begun to heal wrong.”

  He ignores her. “We will take him for questioning.”

  I shut my eye on instinct, and his stare burns over me.

  “My ALBs also detect reanimated humanoid.”

  I blink my eye open again, and he’s already moving his gaze to her.

  Jezebel sweeps her hand around the room. “Do you see a corpse, Dale?”