Nicky just flexed the leg that the zombie was holding on to, while his hands and one knee dug into the ground so hard that he started to make divots in the dry earth. Domino and Manny held on to him so he didn't topple back into the grave, which would have been really bad.
The zombie's hand stayed tight around Nicky's ankle, and then his head came up above the earth like a drowning swimmer pulled from the sea. He came up screaming, high and piteous, his words lost in the horror of it all, and then he started coughing.
"Warrington," I said, still aiming at the face.
He coughed harder.
"Bring him up a little higher, Nicky, not too much more yet."
Nicky crawled farther out of the grave with the other men holding on to him and brought the zombie up so that his upper chest was free, but the other arm was still trapped in the soft dirt. The zombie coughed harder, then started puking up dirt the way he'd thrown up food earlier.
"God help us, he was buried alive," one of the grave diggers said.
"Not exactly," I said.
"He was buried undead," Manny said, his face pale even by moonlight.
When enough dirt had come out, the zombie leaned against the side of the grave but still had Nicky's ankle in its grasp. I wasn't sure if Warrington even knew that he was still holding on to anything, or if he was like a drowning victim--once they have hold of anything they don't let go. It's how lifeguards get drowned every year trying to save people.
I wanted to help Warrington, but I wasn't letting him hurt Nicky, or anyone else, trying to save himself. I would help him if I could, but if I couldn't I'd let Susannah and her dad do their job. Once I had that decision dragged into the front of my head, I was calmer.
"Warrington, can you hear me?" I asked, still pointing the shotgun at his face.
He blinked up at me, but those fine hazel eyes were corpse's eyes now, half lost in their wasted sockets, color stolen by the moon. His face was waxy and skeletal; all the miraculous humanity had been lost, so that he was just another zombie except for his words.
"Ms. Blake, that is you, yes?"
"It is, Mr. Warrington."
"I can't seem to see as well as I usually do."
"Your eyes aren't working as well as they did."
"Is it from being buried?"
"Something like that," I said.
"Are you pointing a gun at me?"
"I am."
"Are you going to shoot me?"
"Are you going to keep holding on to my friend's ankle?"
"Is that what I'm holding on to? I can't seem to think clearly."
"Yes, it's Nicky's ankle that you're holding on to."
"The big gentleman with the odd haircut."
"Yes, that's Nicky."
"I can't seem to make my fingers work to let go."
"Give it a minute, and then try to let go; for now just rest a minute, Mr. Warrington."
"I thought you meant to leave me down there in hell. I know I deserve it, but I'm so glad you came to rescue me."
Rescue him. We hadn't come to rescue him; we'd come to try to find a way to kill him for good. He'd never be raised from the dead again; I'd make sure of that. "Manny and I were worried that you hadn't gone back to sleep and were trapped, so we came to get you out."
"Thank you, oh God, thank you." His fingers slowly unfolded and Nicky was able to pull himself completely out of the grave. He stood there tall and firm and looked at me. Of everyone at the graveside he felt most what I was feeling; nothing I could do would keep him out of my emotions. Domino and the rest I could shield against, but not Nicky; he knew.
I lowered the shotgun just a little and looked down at the talking corpse that was still trapped in the earth of his own grave. His body was decayed, so he looked like a regular zombie, but his mind was still awake and human. God help me.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Anita, what is going on?" Zerbrowski asked. He stared down at the zombie with the horror plain on his face, which you don't see from veteran cops much, not in public anyway. They save the horror for private moments, or getting drunk with friends.
"Please, help me out of this grave."
"Are you still craving human flesh, Mr. Warrington?"
He shook his corpse head. "No, no, I just want out of this place."
Manny came to stand beside me. "What are we going to do?"
"Damned if I know."
"Do we dig him out?" the short dark-haired grave digger asked.
"No, no one else goes in the grave," I said.
"Help me, Ms. Blake, help me."
"We're going to, Mr. Warrington, just as soon as we figure out how to do that without endangering anyone else."
"I'm not craving flesh anymore, Ms. Blake."
"You're too scared right now. No one craves food when they're this scared."
He raised his free hand and looked at it. The flesh had molded to it, so that it was just a skeleton hand with pale, waxy skin formed over it. "What's wrong with my hand? Why does it look like that?"
"Oh, God," I whispered.
"He doesn't know what he is," Zerbrowski said.
"He knows," I said.
"What's wrong with me, Ms. Blake? What's happening?"
"Do you remember why you wanted me to put you back in your grave?"
"No, I mean . . . I was craving human flesh. I was dangerous to others."
"Yes, potentially, and I told you that all zombies did one thing, do you remember what that was?"
He shook his head, then looked up at me, blinking those rotting eyes. "You said all zombies rot; no matter how lifelike I looked, I would rot."
"Yes."
"Is that what's happening to me?"
"I'm afraid so."
He started screaming then, over and over, just ragged screams, and struggling to free himself from the dirt of his grave. Manny touched my arm and motioned me to walk with him. I told Nicky and Domino that the zombie could free himself a little more, but if he tried to get out of the grave to shoot him.
Manny took me far enough away so we could hear over the zombie's screams. Zerbrowski came with us. "What the fuck, Anita? I mean, what the fuck is that thing?"
"It's a zombie," I said.
He shook his head. "I've seen zombies, and this isn't it. I mean, it looks like one, but they don't think, and they don't feel. One of the things that makes them so dangerous is that they don't feel when you're chopping them up, so the bits just keep crawling after you. This one, this one feels things."
"I know, Zerbrowski, I know. Don't you think I know?"
He nodded. "Of course, you do; I'm sorry, partner. This is why you wanted to exhume him."
"I couldn't leave him down there like this."
"No, God, no."
"Anita," Manny said.
I looked at him.
"How are we going to give him back to death?"
I thought it was an odd phrasing, but I didn't have a better one. "I don't know, Manny, there's no ceremony for this, not really."
"We could try a second animal sacrifice and blood circle and put him back with salt and steel."
"You're talking about the old-school way where we sew his mouth up with salt, aren't you?"
"We try modern first and if that doesn't work, we go old-school."
"You really want to try to hold him down while we sew his mouth shut, while he screams for help? Fuck no."
"I second that," Zerbrowski said. "No, we are not doing that."
"Do you have a suggestion, Sergeant, because if you do I am eager to hear it," Manny said.
Zerbrowski looked at him, then to me, and back to Manny. "I don't have suggestions, I'm just agreeing with Anita that we are not holding this . . . thing down and sewing its mouth shut in the hope that it will be dead for real then, because you aren't sure that will work either, are you?"
Manny sighed. "No, Sergeant, I'm not."
"What is wrong with this zombie, Anita? Why is it this alive?"
"It's not alive."
"Why is it this aware, then?"
"I told you, he was a cannibal in life."
"And that explains why he didn't die again when you put him in the grave tonight?"
"Maybe; it's all I got to explain it, so yeah, we'll go with that."
"Anita, you don't know, do you?"
"If you were your boss I'd deny it, but no, Zerbrowski, I don't know."
"Shit," he said.
"Yeah."
"Then we have no choice but to treat him like you would treat any rogue zombie, Anita," Manny said.
"What do you mean, Manny?"
"Shoot his head off and hopefully blow his brains out so he's not aware, and then let the fire team turn him to ashes."
"There's got to be another way, Manny."
"Legally, we can put the dirt back and just leave him as he is."
"No," I said.
"No," Zerbrowski said, "we can't do that."
"If we can't put him back with voodoo, then what choice do we have but to treat him as we would any rogue zombie?"
"Manny, there's got to be another way."
"I would be glad to hear it, Anita. I liked Warrington, he seemed a decent man, but what's in that grave is not him. It was never him."
"Then what was it, Manny? What the fuck did I raise from the grave tonight?"
"I don't know, but it's rotting like any zombie; you know that sometimes the mind is the last thing to go. It is the cruelest way for them to rot, but it happens, we've both seen it before. This is no different."
"They don't have this much mind to begin with, Manny, and you know it. Don't stand there and tell me it's not different this time."
He just looked at me.
"Manny, damn it."
"I'm sorry, Anita, truly, but we must do something before dawn. If that happens first then he could fall back into death, but it might last only until nightfall and then he would be trapped again, drowning in the dirt of his own grave. Can you not feel how close dawn is, Anita?"
I had been feeling it, but finally acknowledged it. It was still as dark as it had been all night, but there was a softness in the air, a breath of dawn. All the animators I knew who had survived for any length of time as vampire executioners had been able to feel the rise and setting of the sun, even underground in the dark. We just knew, as if the sun traveled not just across the sky but through our bodies.
Zerbrowski checked his iPhone in the dark. "We've got an hour until dawn, though I never understand how both of you always know that."
"It's a gift," I said, but I was already turning toward the grave. The zombie had stopped screaming.
"When did he stop screaming?" Zerbrowski asked.
None of us could answer him. Into the strangely eerie silence came not a sound, but a feeling, as if the air had changed. "What is that, Manny?"
"I'm not sure."
We looked at each other and without a word started walking back toward the grave. I pointed the shotgun skyward, but my hands were now in position so the gun could be brought to bear immediately. I was no longer holding it safely, but idly.
"What are you guys sensing that I'm not?" Zerbrowski asked.
"It's not vampires," I said softly.
"I would not know that for certain," Manny whispered.
"Trust me," I said.
"On this, I do."
"Is it more zombies?" Zerbrowski asked.
"It's too . . . active for that," Manny said, voice still soft, but there was no reason to whisper when we could hear everyone else ahead of us talking normally.
Nicky was motioning to the extermination team. He was wanting them closer in with everyone else. "I didn't think Mr. Muscles was sensitive to this stuff."
"He's not, but he felt me sense it."
Zerbrowski frowned at me. I had a moment of wondering just how much I'd told Zerbrowski about Nicky. Did he know absolutely that he was my Bride? No, I hadn't burdened my fellow cop with that knowledge. If the police understood just how connected I was to the "monsters" they'd be sure my loyalty was compromised. They already mistrusted me because I was with Jean-Claude and Micah. Zerbrowski didn't care, or I didn't think he would, but his bosses would, and I didn't want to put him in a position that could hurt his career.
"We're very in tune with each other," I said, and knew it sounded lame.
He gave me the look the weak comment deserved, but his gun was in his hand in a more serious way, just like my shotgun. He didn't know what was going on, but he was following my lead just like Nicky. I glanced at Manny.
"Are you armed at all?"
"You know I don't carry guns."
"Knife?"
"Pocket knife."
"Stay safe, stay behind us, or out of the way, or something."
"You'd send me to the car if you could."
"Yes, you're unarmed."
"This feels like a matter for magic, not mayhem, Anita, but because you carry a gun you think about shooting before you think about using your necromancy."
That made me hesitate and look at him. Was he right? Well, yeah, but most bad things weren't bulletproof, and a lot of them were necromancy-proof. I went with the sure winner in an emergency, but he was right about one thing: This was something that hit my power, and his.
Susannah and her father were beside the grave but still on the opposite side of it from the others. The grave diggers were already close to Domino and Nicky. Domino was staring out at the night, shotgun held pointed at the ground, but ready. Nicky was still trying to get the last two people with us around the grave so we'd all be on the same side of it.
I heard Eddie say, "Fire scares everything; bullets don't." Translation: He trusted their flamethrowers more than the guns.
Susannah said, "Dad, just do what they say."
I saw movement, but it was more an impression, and then something was leaping out of the darkness onto Eddie. I had a moment to see silver-gray skin, a humanoid face, and then I'd brought the shotgun up and knew that Nicky and Domino were doing the same.
Manny yelled, "Don't shoot!"
Domino yelled, "Anita!" I knew he was asking for orders. I had a heartbeat to decide whether we were shooting the ghoul, or I was using magic. It was one of those moments when being the cop, the psychic, and the person in charge crashed headlong into each other. I hesitated and knew that was the biggest mistake of all.
35
"MAGIC, ANITA," MANNY said.
Susannah was yelling, "Shoot it!"
Eddie was on the ground covering the back of his neck and head; he'd made his decision that he'd give the ghoul an arm to chew first. It was the right decision; I wasn't sure about mine.
"Give the word," Nicky said. I didn't have to look to know he was aiming at the ghoul's head just like I was from my angle.
The ghoul had flattened itself to Eddie's back, the darker gray of its skin looking less silver than usual against the shininess of his fire suit. It was mostly nude with only remnants of pants clinging to it like some comic book hero that had to get by the censors. Muscles corded in the back of its body as it pressed itself against Eddie and the tank of fuel on his back.
"Domino, stand down, no shotguns." I lowered mine to show I meant it.
The ghoul hissed at us, flashing red eyes that seemed to glow in the dark. It made a high chittering sound and was answered from farther back in the trees.
"There's more of them," Zerbrowski said.
"Ghouls always run in packs," I said.
"Nicky, do you see the problem?"
"Fuel," he said, voice tight and controlled.
"Do you have it?"
"No."
"What does he mean?" Zerbrowski asked.
"He doesn't have a shot without risking hitting the fuel on Eddie's back." If we'd had a clean shot, would I have tried Manny's suggestion? Probably not, but we didn't have a shot and this ghoul wasn't acting normal.
"They're cowards, they don't attack like this," I said, more to myself than anyone else.
"It hasn't attacked," Manny said.
"What do you call it then?" Zerbrowski asked. He still had his gun out, just pointed two-handed at the ground.
The ghoul hissed again, kneading long curved talons against Eddie's back. I knew there'd be matching talons on the bare feet. They might look like gray-colored people, but they had teeth and claws like your worst predator nightmare. It chittered again, and the others answered it from the woods. I caught pale glimpses of other figures, but they were staying back out of range. The only other time I'd seen ghouls this active and thinking, a murderous necromancer had been controlling them. It was the only time I'd ever known anyone to be able to control ghouls. They were the wild cards of the undead; no one knew why they rose from their graves, but they were scavengers, cowards, skulkers in the dark eating buried corpses and bones of the long dead if they couldn't get fresh.
"Eddie was right, they are afraid of fire," Manny said.
"Ghouls don't strategize, Manny."
"If we can't shoot it, try magic," he said.
"Do something fast," Domino said. "They're trying to surround us."
"If you see anyone in the woods that isn't ghoul, or us, shoot them."
"Why?" Domino asked.
"Because the last time I saw ghouls act like this, another necromancer was controlling them."
"Shoot the wizard first," Nicky said.
"Usually," I said.
I'd never tried to use my necromancy on ghouls. One, they were rare; two, they usually minded their own business and hid from people. You were only called in when they tunneled from an older cemetery into a new one where people got upset about their loved ones' bodies being eaten by them, or when a drunk passed out and got eaten by them, just like we'd told Zerbrowski earlier.
I didn't so much lower my shields as just let my necromancy go. It was like opening a fist that you've kept tightly closed; suddenly you can spread your fingers and let the tension go. My necromancy flowed out from me like a seeking wind. Once it hadn't been a real wind; that was just the closest analogy I'd had for it when I searched a cemetery for hot spots, ghosts, ghouls, and such, but it wasn't a metaphorical wind anymore, and hadn't been for years.
Manny shivered next to me. He said something in Spanish too fast for me to catch it all, but he called on God in there somewhere. I wasn't sure if he was asking for help, or afraid of what he was feeling; maybe I didn't want to know.
That seeking wind touched the grave and the zombie first. It curled around him, knew him, so that Warrington said, "God"; again I wasn't sure if it was a cry for help or I'd become his god. Again, I didn't want to know. My magic swirled out just a little farther and found the ghoul sitting on top of Eddie. It stopped snarling and looked at me. Ghouls' eyes were usually like looking into the eyes of wolves or other wild animals--no one home that we could understand or talk to--but there was more there in this look; not a lot more, but it wasn't just animal looking back at me. I knew then that it hadn't been accidental, him jumping on Eddie and compromising the fuel tank. That was a fuckton of reasoning for a ghoul.