A trench opened up a few feet away from her. But it wasn’t a deep one. It was low and wide and looked more like what you’d get from a bulldozer. Dirt flew from the edges as it sped toward the levee. A mass of earth was forming at the front of the trench. Enough dirt and they could do a decent patch on the weakened portion.
Cameo began to whirl. Even though the ground was still pretty wet, she managed a decent—if kinda slow and muddy—dirt devil. She spun toward the front of the trench and dropped a load of dirt on top.
Gardener pulled a pouch from her belt and ran to the edge of the water. Earth Witch and Cameo’s efforts had paid off. There was a substantial mass of earth bolstering the weakened side of the levee. Gardener opened her hand and threw some of the seeds out. They began to grow as they flew through the air. By the time they hit the mud, they were ready to root.
Cypress, live oak, and magnolia trees soared into the air. Their roots grabbed at the earth like gnarled hands, intertwining and sinking into the mud. Gardener threw a few more handfuls of seeds, and reeds and water plants began to fill in where it was still bare. In minutes, what had been stripped away by Harriet was lush vegetation.
Earth Witch flopped down to the ground. Cameo dropped next to her. “God, how many more of these are we going to have to do?” Earth Witch asked. Sweat was pouring off her. I was supposed to be her friend, but right now I couldn’t afford friends. Nothing I liked more than being head asshole.
My cell phone rang. I checked the caller ID and saw it was Bugsy. I slipped away because I didn’t want Cameo (or Simoon or whoever of the smorgasbord that could potentially come through her) to know it was him. It rarely ended well when team members slept with each other—and Cameo/Simoon/Bugsy had added new twists to an old story. What a cluster fuck—as it were. Oh, and color me less than thrilled at having to deal with the not-quite-as-dearly-departed-as-I-thought via Cameo. I think the dead should stay dead. I’m wacky that way.
I walked to where it was a little quieter, and answered. “What’s up?” I asked.
“We’ve been able to get help from Mayor Connick’s office,” he said. “We’re coordinating our efforts with his. They even gave Holy Roller a block of time to broadcast evacuation instructions. They’ll replay that speech every hour.”
I let a bubble float up from my hand and hover above my palm. “Did you get the evacuation website up and running?”
I could almost hear him sigh. “Yes, of course I did,” he said. “Honestly, you’d think I was a massive screw-off the way you treat me.”
I let the bubble go and watched as it slowly rose into the air, drifting higher and higher.
“I don’t think you’re a screw-off, Bugsy,” I said. I was leaning backward, to keep an eye on the bubble. “I think you’re a massive smartass. Big difference. How’s the preacher doing?”
“If you like long-winded speeches with loads of references to Jay-sus, then he’s doing great.”
Suddenly Bugsy started giggling.
“What’s happening?” I asked. This was hardly the time for laughing.
“Sorry,” he said. “I just found a YouTube video of Holy Roller with fart noises inserted into his praise Jesus stuff.”
I rolled my eyes. We were trying to evacuate the city for a second time, and Bugsy was looking at fart videos.
“Send me a link,” I said.
I was checking my e-mail on my phone when the TV crew finally arrived. I’d asked Ink if she could find anything out about Niobe and Drake. There was a message from her:
To:
[email protected] From:
[email protected] Honeypie,
SCARE did not get Niobe and Drake. Like you, Billy Ray is going nuts trying to find them. He’s got agents looking for them all over Texas. It’s like they’ve vanished into thin air.
But he wants your ass. (He can’t have it because it’s mine, mine, MINE! LOL!)
You are in a world of shit right now. SCARE and BICC are hugely pissed about what went down in Cross Plains.
There are warrants out for your arrest. Aiding and abetting, resisting arrest, assault and battery, and a bunch of stuff I’m pretty sure they made up.
Hugs and Kisses,
Ink
* * *
I scrolled through my messages but there was nothing from Niobe or Drake. Their silence was beginning to frighten me. I knew they were angry about what had happened in Cross Plains. God knows, I wanted to throttle everyone at SCARE. I’d screwed up things there royally. There’s an ace talent to have: Fuck Up Girl. When she’s there, something’s bound to go wrong.
“Miss Pond!”
I turned off my phone and slipped it into my back pocket. One of the local TV anchors was mincing her way toward me. It was still pretty muddy. The sun had come out and the stench of sewage and dead fish rolled over us in waves. She looked out of place in her tidy pastel suit.
“Well, Miss Pond, you’re looking amazing, I must say,” she said.
Of course I did. I’d bubbled off almost all my weight for the media appearances I knew I’d have to do as team leader. Good thing Holy Roller was around. A few run-ins with him and I’d be back to bubble-icious.
I pulled myself up to my full height, which meant I towered over the anchor. “Are we ready to start shooting?” I asked.
“I, uh, thought we’d take a moment to set the shot,” the anchor stammered.
I gave her my sternest Team Leader look. “You’re joking, right? I’m trying to coordinate levee repairs, the evacuation of the city, and making sure people aren’t coming back into town, and you’re worrying about shot setups?”
She looked chastened. I was being a jerk, but I needed the TV people to get the message out and it couldn’t be fluff bullshit. Harriet had been bad. She’d been a category four storm, but Isaiah was turning into a category five. And coming on top of Harriet, I didn’t know what kind of disaster we’d be dealing with.
The people of New Orleans needed to know the Committee was here to help them—that we weren’t trying to destroy their homes or drive them from the city.
“Uh, let’s start rolling and we’ll do pickups later,” the cameraman said.
“Susan Wright here with the Amazing Bubbles, Michelle Pond,” the anchor began. “She and other members of the Committee have been here in New Orleans since before hurricane Harriet hit. What is the Committee doing as hurricane Isaiah is bearing down on our already sodden city?”
Sodden city? Ye gods, I thought.
I started walking toward Earth Witch, Gardener, and Simoon. They scrambled to their feet and tried to dust themselves off. But I was glad they looked dirty. It showed they’d been working.
Zombies. God, I hate zombies.
I walked up the sagging wooden steps to Hoodoo Mama’s dilapidated house. The smell alone could have dropped a horse. It was drizzling, though, and that dampened some of the odor. There were a couple of moldy pigeons eyeballing me. Zombie pigeons. Ew.
I was still checking e-mail as I went up the steps. But there were no messages from Niobe or Drake. And I couldn’t stop thinking about the Nigeria job, either. I was worried about John, Brave Hawk, Toady, and Snowblind. I worried about Lama even though I wasn’t that close to him.
The usual “doormen” were in place, but they didn’t flinch as I approached. I guess Hoodoo Mama remembered me from our last meeting. There was no one else on the team available to try and get Hoodoo Mama and her people to evacuate for this storm. And I didn’t know why Holy Roller thought zombie girl liked me. She called me “fucker” just like she did everyone else.
The door opened. A shambling corpse looked at me with dead eyes. “Come in, Miss Thang,” it said. That was Hoodoo Mama talking.
“Thanks,” I muttered. I didn’t want to be rude, but I was pretty sure a chunk of this zombie’s arm was about to drop off in the hallway.
I was led into the living room, where Hoodoo Mama was ensconced on her makeshift throne. The room was populated by a variety of zomb
ified creatures. Most couldn’t have been dead more than a few days. But they were all definitely less than fresh. The smell was awesome.
And they were all watching TV.
“What the fuck do you want?” Hoodoo Mama asked. She was a tiny thing, swimming in her oversized clothes. Her hair was dark brown with a bright red shock running through it. I knew models that would have killed for her creamy coffee-colored skin. But most of all, there was this feral quality to her that made her a little scary.
“I’m here to convince you to move your people out of New Orleans before Isaiah hits.”
She gave a short, bitter laugh. “You fuckers want me to bail again? I’ll tell you what I told you the last time—‘Fuck no.’”
I sighed. This was going pretty much how I had expected. “Look,” I said. “Harriet is going to seem like a cakewalk compared to what’s going to happen with Isaiah.”
“Yeah, you fuckers said something like that last time. We’re still here.”
I knew that besides the zombies, she had a bunch of nats living with her. I didn’t think she had any wild carders, but there were con artists, grifters, prostitutes, and French Quarter street performers hanging here with her. How many we had no way of knowing.
I put my hands on my hips and gave her my very best Team Leader look.
“The reason you’re all still here is because Earth Witch saved your hash and kept the levees from bursting. And the soil wasn’t completely saturated the way it is now.”
She shifted on her throne, looking a little less confident. “You been watching this American Hero shit?” she asked.
I stared at her for a moment, nonplussed.
“You know, that show you were on.”
“I know what you’re talking about,” I said testily. “What the hell does that have to do . . .”
One of the zombies got up and moved the TV so I could see it, too. The all-too-familiar theme was playing, and I saw they’d gone a little more upscale on the sets. Kandy Kane was tossing her “treats” out, and the other contestants were fighting one another to get them.
“She’s a bitch,” Hoodoo Mama said. “Why do they always have a bitch?”
The screen went to black, and then Holy Roller appeared. He started into his evacuation pitch, and I was pleased at how persuasive and caring he sounded.
“Damn, I don’t wanna hear any more of that,” Hoodoo Mama said. One of the zombies got up and turned the set off.
“Look,” I said. “I understand that you think everyone like me is full of shit.”
There was a wicked grin on her face at that. Her sharp white teeth shone. “Are you trying to convince me that you’re ‘street’ by saying ‘shit’? That’s fucking hysterical.” One of the zombie dogs growled at me.
I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. I’d had virtually no sleep since Harriet hit, and here I was having to cajole this . . . this brat. “Look, I don’t care what you think about me,” I said. “You’ve got people here who are in danger. You know, live people. Why don’t you ask them if they’ll evacuate?”
She leaned forward. “I don’t fucking tell my people what to do,” she snarled. “I already fucking asked them if they wanted to leave, and the ones who did were gone yesterday.”
I threw my hands up in exasperation. “Well, why didn’t anyone tell us?”
She leaned back and smiled. “Guess they didn’t feel like they could fucking trust you. And it’s really not you fuckers’ business, now. Is it?”
I wanted to smack her. She was so smug. So sure she knew everything and was in complete control. She was going to get someone killed. “Okay,” I said. “I see that you’re way ahead of us. But can’t you imagine a situation where things could get dire here?”
She shrugged. “I s’ppose.”
The wind picked up outside. We didn’t have a lot of time to chitchat about it. “Do you have provisions and water for your people if they’re stuck here for a week, maybe two?”
She glared at me and leaned forward in her chair. “I’m not fucking stupid. We have a larder. And anything we need, one of my children can fetch it for us.”
“While I admit that your zombies are handy,” I said, dropping my voice, “even they have limitations.”
“Bitch, you have no idea what their limitations are.” She snorted. “You fuckers have it easy. Show up at a place and take all the fucking glory.”
Oh, crap, not this tired song again.
“I know it appears that way,” I said. “But things often aren’t what they seem.”
I had to remind myself that her life had been really hard. She’d been on the street for years. Her mother was dead and there was no father. Shitty as my parents had been, at least they’d been there. Until they, you know, stole all my money and skipped the country.
My cell phone rang. It was Bugsy. “I gotta take this,” I said.
Hoodoo Mama waved her hand in an imperious manner.
“This is Michelle,” I said.
“Any luck?” he asked.
“Not so much.”
“You should try to charm her.”
I glanced at Hoodoo Mama and I noticed a piece of the wallpaper behind her was peeling off the wall.
“Uhm, that’s really not going to happen,” I said in my dubious voice. “Then I hate to say this, but if you can’t get her people out of there, you need to get out yourself. The outer edge of Isaiah has made landfall.”
I looked at Hoodoo Mama and her zombies. And I thought about the people she still had here. And that she was too young to know what she was getting herself into.
“I’m going to stay here,” I sighed. “Help out if I can.”
“What the fuck?” Hoodoo Mama said, jumping from her chair. “I didn’t invite you, bitch.”
I wagged a finger at her. “Where’s that famous Southern hospitality?”
“Are you insane?” Bugsy said. There was static on the line.
I turned and walked out of the living room.
“Look,” I said. “She’s practically a kid. There are people here who she’s supposed to be taking care of. I can’t just leave her here alone. This might be a way to show her we’re more than just a PR stunt. Maybe make her trust us.”
“Well, we’re all practically kids, Michelle,” Bugsy said.
I had a flash of fire and smelled the burning flesh again. I slumped against the wall. “I know,” I replied.
There was a long silence. I thought maybe we’d lost our signal. “Be careful, Michelle,” Bugsy said.
“You bet.”
The line went dead. I hoped it was just Bugsy hanging up and not the cell tower going down.
I went back into the living room. Hoodoo Mama glared at me. “And what the fuck do you think you’re doing? You fat dumb fucker.”
I guess I could have been offended. But I was fat at the moment. Holy Roller had taken care of that. And there was no doubt that what I had just done was really dumb.
I went and flopped down on the ratty couch, dropping my emergency goodie bag on the floor. “I think I’m fucking staying here and fucking helping you, whether you fucking want me to or not.”
The zombies leaned in toward me in a threatening manner. I stretched out as best I could and closed my eyes for a nap. I couldn’t help but smile.
Zombies. I hated them, but they couldn’t do a damn thing to me.
“Wake up.”
I was on a cool beach. The lake spread out before me. But the water would be cold when I jumped in.
“Wake up, you fat bitch.”
I opened one eye. Hoodoo Mama was crouched next to me. My back ached from sleeping on her ratty couch.
“Well, a happy good morning to you, too,” I said.
“It ain’t morning yet,” she replied. She pushed her shock of bright red hair out of her eyes. “We’ve got a problem.”
“We?” I sat up. We were alone in the living room. No zombies—yay.
“There are some people trapped in a building in
the Ware house District.”
“I thought we got everyone out of there,” I said. I stood up and stretched. Something popped in my back, but it felt good.
“Not everyone,” she said. Her voice shook, and that got my attention. “Some of my people are still there.”
“I thought all your people were here,” I said. I couldn’t help the exasperated tone. “Damn it, you should have told me that there were more out there.”
She looked chagrined. About time, I thought.
“They didn’t want to stay here,” she said. “They don’t like the zombies.”
“Well, big points to them for showing good taste in companions, but the Russian judge is going to give them a major deduction for staying in New Orleans when there’s—you know—a hurricane coming!” I ended up shouting that last bit. “How do you know they’re in trouble?”
She shrugged. “Anything dead I can zombify. And there’s lots of mice around.”
I thought I might hurl. “Okay, no need to say more,” I said.
“Fuck you, you don’t know what it’s like!” she yelled. She took a step toward me, raising her fist as if she were going to hit me. Oooo, scared of that. “You fucking rich bitch. They might only have the house they’re in. Or the clothes on their back. And then someone tells them they have to pack up and get out because a hurricane might hit. Who can afford a fucking motel? And who’s to say the landlord or the bank won’t take your house away while you’re gone?”
Her zombies had come into the room while she was ranting. They looked pissed. But I knew they weren’t. It was her. She was possessing them, after all.
“Look, we don’t have time for the niceties here,” I said. “Let’s just get your people out.”
She glowered at me. God, I was sick of people who had a hate on for me while I was trying to help them.