Skeleton Crew (5 page)

“How does the cannibalism tie into your CNE theory?”

“CMI,” said Lowell. “Based on the experiments, feeding on human flesh seems to be the only way to slow the zombies' physical decomposition.”

“So they eat people, they don't degenerate?”

Granato shook his head. “They don't rot as fast. Depending on how they died, some of these freaks don't even know they're dead. Either way, it drives them mad when they start in on the other white meat.”

I nodded and rubbed my ear absently. “Okay, guys, I'll try to hurry. I have other things on my to-do list, you know.”

“Like what?”

“Well, right now, I've got to clear some fucking zombies out of another hospital. Maybe you can help with that, it'll go a lot faster. Then, I've got a gang war that just went hot. I've got to make sure that doesn't blow up and put a lot more zombies on the street.”

“Is that all?” Granato said, smirking.

“No, Granato, it's not—thanks for asking. I've also got a party to go to tonight, and I haven't even decided what to wear.”

 

Attending the Bacchanal Ball with everything that was going on felt a little like fiddling while Rome burned, but I
wasn't just in it for the free food and booze. I knew I probably wouldn't be able to roll back the zombie outbreak. CMIs aren't exactly my specialty. If it got out of control I'd need Oberon's help to defend my territory and my people, and I didn't want to irritate him by blowing off his little soiree.

I also knew most of the supernatural A-list would be at the ball and I hoped I might find someone who could tell me what was going on. I'd struck out with Mr. Clean. He said it was probably a zombie plague and noted that
Night of the Living Dead
was on his channel that night.

So I had good reasons not to cancel. Plus, there'd be free food and booze.

The problem was the costume. I thought it'd be cool if Honey and I picked a theme together. I suggested shapeshifting into a gorilla and she could go as a banana. Honey didn't care for that idea and told me to do something to myself with the banana.

“I know,” said Honey, “you could go as a dominatrix and I could be your whip.”

“Seems like it'd be a little boring to go as an inanimate object, even a whip.”

“You wanted me to be a banana.”

“Yeah, but you could be like the Fruit of the Loom guy, with arms, and legs, a face and stuff.”

“Forget it, Domino. Anyway, I don't think the Fruit of the Loom guys have a banana.”

“Okay, I could go as a pirate captain and you could be my parrot. You perch on my shoulder all the time anyway.”

“Too unoriginal. There will probably be a lot of pirates there.”

“Peter Pan and Tinkerbelle.”

“Only if you're Tinkerbelle.”

“Witch and black cat.”

“We're going to a ball, not trick-or-treating.”

“Jesus, Honey, we're never going to come up with anything.”

“Oh, I know! You can be an angel and I'll be a little devil on your shoulder. Like the parrot, but sexier.”

“Ironic. I like it. But I thought fairies didn't like Christian stuff.”

“Christians didn't come up with angels and devils.”

“Whatever, let's not get into it.” I got enough blasphemy from Mr. Clean—I didn't need it from Honey, too.

What followed was a game of one-upmanship as we tried to outdo each other for the sexiest costume. Since I was shapeshifting and Honey was using her piskie glamour, it escalated quickly. We finally decided to call it a draw, but by that time we looked like we'd walked off the set of a porn video with a paranormal theme.

I was wearing a sheer white shift that might have reached midthigh if I pulled on the hem real hard. A halo of golden light encircled my head and elegant feathery wings fluttered at my back. I chose a pair of white stilettos that hurt like hell but did amazing things to my calves. I added some curves to fill out the shift, and most of them were plainly visible through the thin fabric. I thought I heard Mr. Clean's chuckling at one point, but the TV wasn't on.

I finished off the ensemble with a white garter, panties and stockings to maintain some sense of modesty, at least from the waist down.

Honey went with classic red leather. It started out as a bustier but was quickly reduced to a thong, thigh-high boots and something that might have been a bra or pasties, depending on where you draw the line. She completed the look with cute little horns, a tail and the requisite pitchfork.

When we were finished, we stood in the middle of my
bedroom and admired our handiwork in the full-length mirror hanging on the closet door.

“We're going to do some damage,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think I'm cheating with the shapeshifting?”

“No way, it's a masquerade. Besides, your boobs are spectacular.”

“Yeah. I always hoped they'd look like this when I grew up.”

“You should keep them.”

“Nah, just for the party. One night is enough.”

“Not for me it's not.”

“You'll live. Buy a magazine or something.”

“You're beautiful, Domino.”

I smiled. “I have to be to keep up with you.”

 

If the End Times were upon us, the Bacchanal Ball was the right kind of party to close things out. Oberon had glamoured the whole club. I could see the magic plainly enough, but even without the witch sight I'd have known it the instant Honey and I walked in the door. All my worries and inhibitions literally dropped away from me at the threshold. I'd had a little headache when we left the condo but it vanished when I entered the club. I didn't want to think. I only wanted to see, and hear, and smell and taste. I just wanted to
feel.

Luckily, Oberon had provided plenty of amusements to indulge the partygoers' senses. Witch-light cast a soft, surreal glow across the club, and the space was filled with hundreds—maybe thousands—of exotic flowers. The main bar was gone and it had been replaced by a huge oak banquet table piled high with food and drink of every description. A chamber orchestra performed on the stage—all of
the musicians sidhe—and the music they played made me ache with longing for something beautiful I'd lost and then forgotten.

The costumes were incredible—no surprise, given all the glamour and sorcery in the room. Oberon appeared as Pan, standing at least seven feet tall on a goat's legs, with curling ram's horns, golden hair and a roguish thatch of whiskers on his chin. Titania was a forest nymph, which meant she was more than half naked and had leaves in her long red curls. These images suited them somehow, and I found myself wondering if these were their true forms, or had been once.

“Welcome to Arcadia, m'ladies,” the king said, bowing dramatically. “Welcome to the Dream.”

And that's just what it was, that first true night in the fairy king's Arcadia. Later, the memories would dance away from my conscious thoughts like embers on the wind. I remember we ate and drank, and everything I tasted was the very
best
thing, each morsel and sip a unique delight.

Terrence was there, an ebon-skinned Egyptian god with the head of a jackal. I remember Adan, and he tasted like cinnamon and apples again. I remember Honey lying beside me and a handsome young piskie named Jack, and I remember the joy I felt when I saw them together.

I remember Anton was there but I don't remember what he was doing. I can only hope he wasn't doing much.

At some point during the endless revel, I heard a song I recognized. A single violin played a sad, sweet melody that was at once haunting and seductive. The instrumental went on for a long time, and then Titania stepped onto the stage and began to sing.

The song was “Hotel California.” I remember looking around at the crowd. Some danced, slowly swaying as if in a
trance, and others stood quietly watching the stage. All were weeping, and I realized I was, too. I can't describe what I heard, and anyway, the sound was only part of it. The queen poured an immortal lifetime of passion and sorrow into the song. I remember thinking if there were real angels, this was the song they would sing.

I don't remember the song ending, but Titania had left the stage when the dream turned into a nightmare.

I was reclining on a velvet couch with my dress bunched around my waist. Adan was draped over me and he was kissing my neck. Honey was curled around my forearm, naked and sleeping, and Jack was spooning her. He was also naked.

I heard screams and shouts, and I smelled sulfur and decay. Bodies were hurled away from the center of the room or crumpled where they stood. I heard the sound of tearing flesh and cracking bone. I saw blood splash like buckets of paint on the walls and the floor.

“Fomoiri!”
Oberon yelled, and I saw him charge the dance floor with a silver greatsword in his hands.

I didn't recognize the king's name for it, but finally, I saw the demon.

It was massive, towering above the crowd, but darkness clung to it and its form was constantly shifting, twisting, so that my eyes didn't want to focus on it. It was vaguely humanoid and it was burning from the inside out, flame spilling from its eyes and mouth.

There were no batwings or horns. As I forced myself to look at it, I realized it was very like a human, except for the size, the special effects and the hideous deformities. Its back was hunched, its skull was misshapen and bone spurs pierced the mottled hide stretched over rippling bands of muscle.

The demon turned to Oberon as he charged, and it
roared. Fire exploded from its mouth and engulfed the king, but it didn't slow him down. He slammed into the thing and buried the sword in its side. The demon howled and swung one impossibly long arm. Its fist smashed into Oberon's head with a sickening crunch, and the king went down.

The fairy king went down.

This was enough, at last, to shock me from my stupor. I got up and advanced on the monster. I started spinning spontaneous combat spells as fast as I could pull the juice, and they flowed around the demon like water around a stone. I hit the thing with malevolent glamours and it didn't even notice.

By this time, the other survivors had recovered, too, and the air around the demon had become a storm of arcane energy. It just kept killing, and it finally dawned on me that there might have been a reason Oberon had attacked it with a sword.

“Physical attacks!” I shouted, and my words were followed shortly by the deafening sound of gunfire as all the gangsters who were still alive unloaded on the demon. I'd left my forty-five at home on account of my minimalist costume. I could have hidden it with glamour, but it would have ruined the experience. I snatched a semiautomatic from the waistband of a fallen soldier and emptied the magazine at the demon.

Bullets didn't seem to have much effect, either.

I turned and ran back the way I'd come, diving behind the couch I'd been lying on. “I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness,” I said, and I crossed into the Between.

In the spirit world, the demon was all special effects and no nasty body. It was a massive black shadow of shifting darkness marked only by the fire in its eyes and mouth. I
got up and ran for the door. When I got outside, I kept running and plunged into the mist. I retrieved Ned from the front closet of my condo and made it back to the club in no more time than it would take the demon to kill a couple dozen revelers.

I eased inside and pressed my back against the wall, the Peacemaker gripped in both hands in front of me.

“I know you're cursed, Ned,” I whispered. “I know this would be a really great time for the curse to show up, for you to earn your nickname. But the guy who sold you to me said you were an artifact, and I really, really need you right now.”

I brought the gun to my lips and kissed the barrel.

“So please, Ned, I'm begging you, just this once. Get hostile with this ugly motherfucker.” Then I extended my arms, aimed as steadily as I could, thumbed back the hammer and squeezed the trigger.

I squeezed it a lot, as fast as I could work the action. Ned danced gaily in my hands and burning sapphire holes opened in the demonic shadow. It threw back its head and screamed as the holes widened, the blue fire feeding eagerly on the darkness.

Then it turned and came for me. I closed my eyes and kept firing.

I'm not sure how long I kept at it after the demon was dead. When I finally opened my eyes, the thing was a smoking puddle of black tar on the floor, the ephemeral fire still flickering on the surface. Adan stood on the other side of the evil pool, the king's greatsword in his hands. Black tar oozed along the blade and spattered against the floor.

I sank to the floor and struggled for air with huge gasping breaths. “Domino, you silly bitch, you don't even really breathe here,” I whispered, and then I started giggling.

“It's okay, Domino,” Adan said. “You killed it.”

“I did or you did?” Adan grinned. “We did.”

“How did you get here?”

“The same way I got to Arcadia—through that first gate you built for Oberon.”

“You're really here. You're not spirit-walking, like me—you're physical.”

“I don't know why I'm able to do it. Maybe it's a gift I was born with.”

“Or maybe it's something Oberon did to you when he took you.”

“Maybe,” he said. “And still, you got here first.”

I looked at the spreading, toxic sludge. I reached out and dabbed my fingers in the tar, and tasted them. The taste was foul, putrescence and fresh blood, with enough acidity to burn my tongue. There were a couple familiar notes, too. One of them I couldn't quite put my finger on; the other one pissed me off.

I stood up and holstered Ned. “See you on the other side,” I said. I didn't want to leave the weapon in the club, so I had to make another round-trip to my condo. When I returned, I stepped back into the mortal world and into the slaughterhouse.