Aftermath (2 page)

“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” Buford muttered, his words—the most he’d ever spoken consecutively—slipping past the hollow ringing in my ears, and the spell of reason was broken.

The lieutenant spun and hurtled back toward the bar with a screech, plowing through his drinking mates and sending them all into a tizzy. Where silence had reigned just moments before, shouts and prayers and curses and denials now sang out in a panicked cacophony. It was like watching a Chinese fire drill at a retirement home for wayward alcoholics. Drunken men scrambled for cover, slipping and stumbling across the parking lot toward the only cover they could think of: the Swamp. Only Buford and I remained where we were.

The heat came next, and it was only then that I remembered I wasn’t just some passive observer to the end of the world. I was the Devil pro tem, and I’d be damned if I went out with my thumb up my ass.

“Get down, Buford,” I cried out, grabbing the mechanic in a bear hug from behind and riding him to the asphalt. He grunted out of surprise but didn’t put up a fight. As soon as we were down I layered wall after wall of magical energy around us, weaving a shield using every ounce of power I had.

At least that was the plan. Turns out a steady diet of heroin and booze is bad for you. Who knew?

My magic sputtered inside me, an ember struggling to ignite in a hurricane. The air sizzled around us, and the smell of burnt hair filled my nose. Every breath was like sucking on the tailpipe of a hearse as the end approached, and there I was suffering from a serious case of mystical whiskey dick.

“This so not happening right now!” Adrenaline waged a war of contrition against the narcotics and alcohol in my system and time was running out.

I watched as the force of the blast ripped through the city, shrieking toward us. It was right then that I recalled, quite inconveniently I might add, watching Karra be struck down by Trinity. Watching as her severed head rolled across the carpet toward me while I clung to our daughter in shock and despair. The look in Karra’s dying eyes spoke volumes as her final scream faded away. She knew I would throw my life away recklessly to avenge her but she expected more of me. She needed me to live and take care of Abby. That was my role now that Karra was gone; a role I’d accepted when I fled the house and left Karra’s body to Trinity.

Shame rose up in me and it brought my magic with it. The imagined shield surged into place just before the blast overtook us, and I clasped hard to Buford as the shock wave hit. “Hold on!” I shouted but my words were lost to the tempest.

Then there was nothing but the bone-jarring snap of whiplash followed by chaos, the whitewashed world whipping past my blurry vision. Shortly after came blessed nothingness.

Chapter Two

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Of course I am.” Scarlett shook her head in frustration, giving me a look that fluctuated between pity and scorn. “Abigail will be better off with us right now. You need some time to…sort things out.” For an angel, Scarlett wasn’t much good at conveying sympathy.

Chatterbox bumped up against my foot as if he was gonna roll over and bite Scarlett for talking trash. I just laughed inside—cold and bitter—wondering just how much sorting made up for seeing your wife butchered right in front of you while you watched helplessly. “Yeah…sorting… That’s the plan.” I couldn’t imagine filing Karra’s death away anytime soon.

Scarlett stood there with her hands on her leathered hips, staring with her usual obliviousness her words had on my feelings. Not that she wasn’t a good person or was trying to hurt me. Far from it. She was one of the best of people. She just always came off like the militant Barbie doll that inspired her appearance, tact not included.

“Abigail will be safe with us, Frank,” Katon told me, setting a comforting hand on my shoulder to offset my cousin’s lack of diplomacy. His dark eyes met mine without wavering. “She will be taken care of and will not want for anything. I swear to that.”

Someone looking in on our conversation from the outside would be hard pressed to imagine Katon as anything resembling a good caretaker for a baby and would likely call Child Protective Services on me for even imagining handing her over. His resting vampire face put off more than its fair share of hostile vibes. Picture a PrideFC era Wanderlei Silva with fangs. When Katon stared into the darkness, the darkness pooped little shadows. But for all the hardness he displayed he was every bit the good person Scarlett was. And besides, it wasn’t as if I was the best guardian for her. Shit, I’d left her in the care of Chatterbox and the dread fiends while hunting Karra’s killers.

I knew both Scarlett and Katon were far better choices and would give their lives to protect Abby. They would defend her as though she were their own child but guilt has a way of making a guy see nagging reason no matter how much he wants to avoid it. It was
my
job to care for Abigail, not theirs.
My
responsibility. Yet there I was, pawning my daughter off—again—just three days after I’d planted Judas in the ground for masterminding the death of Karra. Three sleepless, horrible days and Scarlett was making it too damn easy to give in and run away no matter how laudable her intentions.

“Abigail needs stability and security.”

“
Aaand meetaallll
,” Chatterbox added.

“Scarlett ignored him and went on. “I can’t lie to you, Frank. She won’t find that with you right now. If ever.”

I kind of wished she
would
lie. At least a little.

Katon sighed at her bluntness but didn’t contradict her. Despite my current overdose of butt hurt, I knew she was right, and it was just a matter of which one of us caved first and how long it took to happen. No bookie in town would take a bet as sure as that one.

“Okay,” I told her after a not quite long enough pause, my chin drooping to my chest in defeat. “You’re right.” It sickened me to realize what I was doing, that I was running away from my child and all that entailed, but everyone knew it was for the best. Abigail needed someone more capable than me to look after her.

I hear Chatterbox groan.

“It’ll only be for a little while, Frank.” Rahim broke his silence and came over from where he’d been judiciously trying to stay out of it. Apparently my capitulation had been the signal he’d been waiting for to throw his support behind the victor to keep from looking as if he’d chosen sides. “Take some time to grieve. Lord knows you need it.” He smiled at Abby as she slept in my arms, cheek nestled against my chest. A small circle of wetness spread across my shirt from the bubbles she was blowing. “Abigail will be well cared for, and I suspect more than a little spoiled.”

“That she will be.” Scarlett’s face lit up with a grin, her emerald eyes shining. It was baby Christmas in her mind. “It’s still early enough for me to have an influence on her so I can make sure she doesn’t grow up to be you.”

Rahim and Katon moaned in unison but the funny thing was that was exactly what I’d been thinking. It was
that
thought that convinced me as a matter of fact. Abby could have worse role models than Scarlett and Katon. She could have me.

I lifted Abigail so her cherubic face was right in front of mine. Her eyes fluttered but didn’t open, caught up as she was in her dreams. I could feel the warm exhalations of her breath against my beard. “I need to go away for a little while, baby girl, but don’t you worry. Auntie Scarlett and Uncle Katon will take good care of you and Chatterbox will be there for you to play with.” I kissed her on the forehead and reluctantly slipped her into my cousin’s waiting arms while Scarlett made a face at that last bit about CB. She hadn’t factored the head into the equation but I’d be damned if I let my baby girl go without her favorite zombie. I reached down and snatched Chatterbox up, dumping him in Katon’s hands. “Be good, Abby. Daddy loves you.”

I turned away before anyone could see the tears welling in my eyes and waved a backhanded goodbye, hustling for the door.

“Where will you go?” Rahim asked.

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter so long as it’s someplace quiet and uneventful.”

Chapter Three

The world returned to focus through a series of slow, staggered blinks, a movie projector spooling up to speed. A murky gloom met my eyes when they finally managed to peel themselves open and remain that way. I lay there without moving for several moments, unsure of where I was or what had happened. My brain throbbed inside my skull and one by one my nerves came back online and signaled their displeasure.

Every muscle ached all the way into the bone, and it felt as if I’d just come home from a romantic evening with a wood chipper. Cuts and scrapes and all manner of abuse had been heaped upon my flesh. There wasn’t a part of me that wasn’t registering some small bit of agony. It wasn’t the worst I’d ever been, but it was damn unpleasant. I went to get up but the ground wouldn’t cooperate, swaying beneath my hands. That was when I realized there was something warm and wet underneath me.

Someone.

I rolled over with a grunt and stared at the big man curled fetal on the charred and cracked asphalt. It took me a moment to recognize him as my head righted itself, but then it all came rushing back: the bar, the parking lot, the explosion—

“Buford!”

I reached out and rolled the mechanic over. He flopped to his back without resistance. I didn’t need to see his wide, empty eyes to know he hadn’t made it. He was a mass of red welts and purple-black bruises, skin swollen and battered like he’d been stuffed in an industrial clothes dryer with an army of sledgehammers. Pressure cuts made his body a sieve of gooey redness that stained the rubble beneath him and added a bitter tang to the acrid air.

I groaned an apology as I closed his eyelids so he could slip off to wherever dead mechanics went. It probably would have been better had I let the blast get him. Quicker. At least he wouldn’t have felt it that way. I hadn’t done him any favors with my attempt at heroics.

Back on my feet, I pushed my guilt into the bubbling pool of resentment that resided in the back of my skull, adding Buford to the collection of my failures. It was getting damn crowded back there. I’d have to renovate one day, but that’d have to wait. Buford wasn’t the only casualty of today’s misadventure. And while I might think too highly of myself, it seemed unlikely someone had dropped a bomb on the same city I’d been hiding in by coincidence. Couldn’t imagine Pitkin being on the high priority list when it came to nuclear assaults. No, it made more sense that I’d been found out and someone wanted to put down the architect of the Uprising, as the media had dubbed it. If that were the case, the blood of the entire town was on my hands.

I groaned at that thought, wishing it would fuck right off but it wasn’t going anywhere. The things I’d set into motion in order to get revenge for Karra’s death wouldn’t be going away anytime soon. Despite my promise to Rebecca Shaw, the head of the Department of Supernatural Investigation, the genie I’d let out of the bottle wasn’t going back in without a fight. I’d stirred the weres and vampires up and sicced them on the DSI and U.S. government to sway the odds my way, but it seemed the critters enjoyed their tea party a bit too much. The attacks continued even after I’d buried Judas under ten tons of concrete and left for parts unknown. The bombing had to be an escalation of all that.

My gut tightened in disgust as my eyes scanned the remnants of Pitkin. The blast had knocked me a good half mile from where I’d made my stand, but it was clear I’d gotten off lucky compared to the rest of the place. The Yellow Swamp Saloon had been situated near the western edge of Pitkin. Half a dozen small businesses and maybe twenty or so homes sat between it and the creeping Louisiana wilderness that surrounded the town. None of those buildings were standing now. Smoldering wreckage lay in their place, bits and pieces strewn as far as I could see.

Flash fires dotted the landscape. They danced in the gray swirls and cast eerie shadows over the ruin. The only sounds were the crackling of flames and the settling of debris as Pitkin exhaled its last, a city deflating in the wake of horror.

A toppled car lay beside me, its interior burning and spitting up black smoke that smelled of coolant and scorched rubber. The driver was melted to the seat and stared agape at nothing, eyes boiled inside its blackened sockets as if they were twin pots left on the stove too long. The body—no way to tell if it was a woman or man—looked like the victim of a B-rate horror flick, rivulets of waxen flesh running in goopy streams down its face. Its skeleton peeked out between the lines of oozing skin. I looked away to keep my churning stomach in check for as long as I could. No doubt there’d be plenty more to make me hurl before I made my way across town.

Given the extent of the damage it was clear the bomb had been dropped right on top of the city. And seeing how I was likely responsible for it happening in the first place, I needed to know why. If it was the weres and vamps who’d nuked the place, it was a hell of an escalation from the guerilla tactics they’d been using, not to mention a shift from government assets to soft targets. Still, while there was no love lost between us it didn’t seem likely they’d resort to doing something so drastic just to take me out. The consequences for that would far outweigh the bragging rights of putting me down.

The DSI then?

Wreckage crunched underfoot as I started off, mind whirling. It made even less sense for Shaw to go to such extremes to take me out than it did the mutts and fangers. She’d every motivation, mind you, but I couldn’t see her superiors signing off on attacking a U.S. city—even one in Louisiana—just to kill little old me. That was excessive no matter how you looked at it. And since no one had jumped up and tried to sweep up the mess after the explosion, I was at a loss as to who had done it or why. That said I suspected I’d have some time to figure it out. With no nuclear attacks having been perpetrated on U.S. soil ever I imagined things would be a bit hectic and the response teams wouldn’t want to rush into the town without some preliminary tests of the air quality at least.