The Down Home Zombie Blues (37 page)

He’d done this before, placing a murder weapon or a bloodied scrap of clothing between himself and a suspect. Just put it there, watched and waited.

Rordan looked at him expectantly.

Theo sat, hands loosely on his thighs, as if Rordan’s reaction mattered not at all.

Finally Rordan picked up the cup. When he turned it to the inscription, Theo saw him start slightly. Saw the minute widening of his eyes.

“Tresh,” Rordan said. “You get this where?”

“You tell me.”

“I…have no information.”

“You know it’s Tresh.”

“These.” Rordan ran his index fingers over the inscription. “Tresh words. Not my language.” He put the cup back on the table.

“But you know they’re Tresh words.”

“Of course. Guardians know many things.” Rordan’s frown deepened and he looked away for a moment, muttering a long list of something nasty in Alarsh. His cursing, Theo noted, was more monotonous than Jorie’s. Hers was melodious, even melodramatic. Rordan was obviously a rank amateur when it came to ass-faced vomit-brained demon’s whores.

“You’ve known about the Tresh for a long time,” Theo commented.

“Not like you want me to say, no. I learn of Tresh through study. We all learn through study. On my ship, on
Sakanah,
only few like Jorie learn Tresh through war.”

Theo remembered her saying she was the only one on this team with direct combat experience.

“The war was over years ago. Yet the Tresh are here. So are you.”

“I do not work with Tresh!”

Theo pushed the cup closer to Rordan. “Someone left this on my steps,” he motioned toward the porch door. “Then you showed up.”

Rordan shook his head. “No, no.” He met Theo’s hard stare without wavering.

“The Tresh are powerful,” Theo continued, trying now to keep it simple enough that Rordan would understand. “They have this shielding. Better than the Guardians. I could understand someone wanting to be part of that. Part of their power. They even control zombies. Very powerful, the Tresh.”

“Yes. Powerful. Dangerous—that is word? Dangerous.”

Theo poked the cup again. “Why is this here?”

“Why? I don’t have answer.”

“You have power, Commander Rordan. You can be dangerous.”

Rordan slammed one fist on the table. “I do not work with Tresh!”

Theo watched him, desperately wanting to see signs that the man was lying. But all words aside, Rordan’s body language and continued denials only proclaimed his innocence.

If he was reading Rordan correctly. There was no guarantee he was.

Rordan flexed his fingers, then clenched them again, his gaze hard and angry. He spat out a few Alarsh words, glanced past Theo toward the living room, then back to Theo again.

“Hear my words, nil.” He pointed one finger at Theo, his voice lower now. “I tell you once so you understand and stop this stupid game. I do not work with Tresh. Not because I am Guardian. Forget Guardian. I do not ever hurt Jorie. You hear me? I do not
ever
hurt Jorie.”

Rordan sat back, color rising on his face, and Theo saw clearly that the animosity he’d sensed from Rordan had nothing to do with Theo being a nil but with Theo being a male. And a male Jorie was interested in.

“I would never hurt her either,” Theo told him.

Rordan crossed his arms over his chest. “You understand nothing of her. I understand. I live same life as Jorie. Same dreams. She is not for you.”

Theo forced his anger down before answering. “I think that’s Jorie’s decision, not yours.”

“Jorie has dream to be captain. You can give her this?”

“Your ship’s gone.”

“If—
when
—ship comes again, Jorie will be captain. And you say, no, Jorie? Stay and be nil with me? You love her, Petrakos?”

“I—”

“You love her and take away her dream?” Rordan shoved his chair back and stood. “
I
do not ever hurt Jorie.”

And he strode from the kitchen, leaving Theo alone with the Tresh feeder cup and an overwhelming urge to smash that cup against the wall.

He forced himself to go to the refrigerator instead. It was past lunchtime. A can of soda would suffice. He’d lost his appetite.

Rordan’s words hit home. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, it was something he had to face. Everything Jorie was, everything she’d lived, was something he’d never experienced. They’d found themselves thrust together because of emergency circumstances. But when normalcy returned—any kind of normalcy—they might find their lives didn’t fit well together at all.

He knew that. He just didn’t want to face that, because she’d made him feel alive again. She’d made him love again. She’d made him trust again.

That Rordan understood Jorie better than he did, he had no doubt. They had years of shared experiences.

Familiarity also breeds contempt.

He could only hope.

His cell phone trilled a familiar tune. He dug it out of his pocket and checked caller ID: Martinez.

“Yassou, amigo.”

“Theo, listen. Don’t be mad at me. We got trouble. I’m doing all I can to help.”

Theo’s gut clenched. He did not like the sound of Zeke’s voice. “What kind of trouble?”

“You and Jorie home?”

“Yeah.” He was walking through his living room and could see her sitting up in bed, talking to Rordan. He didn’t like that either. Though she did appear to have some animation back in her face. “What—”

“We’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”

“We?”

“Trust me on this.”

“Who’s
we
?”

Zeke hesitated. “Chief Brantley.”

“Brantley?”
Theo stopped in his tracks.

“Just don’t go anywhere, okay? I’m only trying to help. See you in thirty.”

Theo flipped the cell phone closed.
Panagia mou!
The chief of the Bahia Vista Police Department was coming here to find out just what Detective Sergeant Theo Petrakos was doing harboring two illegal outer-space aliens in his city.

He could see the news-media trucks rolling in right behind him.

And then
The Jerry Springer Show.

And then the feds’ dark sedans with blackened windows.

Fuck.

26

Gerard Brantley was proof that brains were as important as brawn to a cop. That the slender, spectacled, pale-haired man was a scholar—with master’s degrees in public administration and criminology—was well known. Even more well known was his impressive record as a detective in Special Investigations. Officers he worked with considered him persistent and thorough. Suspects he caught considered him relentless.

He was also often fair. At the moment, Theo was praying for fair.

“Sir,” he said, stepping back to let the chief enter the front hallway. “Sir,” he said a second time, to the taller, burly man behind Brantley whose tightly curled dark hair was sprinkled with silver. Jamont Sanders, head of BVPD’s Forensic Services Unit. Like Brantley, he was in khaki pants and a short-sleeved white knit shirt with a green embroidered BVPD emblem. The department’s casual uniform.

Behind Sanders, in jeans but the same knit shirt, was an uneasy-looking Zeke Martinez.

“Ezequiel,” Theo said, with a nod.

Zeke had the good graces not to say anything. Theo wasn’t sure what Zeke could say that he’d want to hear.

The only positive note was that Internal Affairs wasn’t also part of the entourage. So he wasn’t being stripped of rank—yet.

The four of them ended up in Theo’s kitchen, because Sanders needed a table. When the broad-shouldered man pulled Jorie’s battered T-MOD from his large briefcase, Theo knew he was in trouble.

“The lab tells me this is made of an unknown alloy,” Sanders said without preamble, his deep voice laced with a Southern drawl. “Martinez tells me you can explain how we came into possession of it.”

For a moment, Theo was shocked into silence. It never occurred to him that the laptoplike T-MOD would be analyzed for anything other than its data. He’d almost forgotten about the unit, what with zombies climbing out of green glowing portals and Tresh Devastators popping in and out surrounded by magic shields. Had Jorie’s cover been blown by the firefight with the juvenile zombies in the park or after the encounter with the Tresh safe house in Gulfview, that would have made sense.

But the T-MOD…

“I can explain, sir,” he told Sanders. “But I can’t guarantee you’ll believe everything I tell you.”

“We might,” Brantley said, pulling off his wire-rimmed glasses and buffing one lens with a cloth he pulled from his pants pocket. “We just came from Suzanne Martinez’s veterinary clinic.”

“Suzanne was busy with an emergency,” Zeke said. “I had to get Baby out of cold storage myself.”

No wonder Zeke looked a little green around the gills. Theo almost felt sorry for the man, but he still was disturbed by what he saw as a defection. Why did Zeke bring Sanders and Brantley into this? He knew how much Theo was opposed to any outside resources being brought in at this point—until he was sure Jorie was safe.

He no longer had a chance to do that, he realized grimly. While Brantley’s involvement could result in a more effective attack on the C-Prime, it almost certainly guaranteed that Jorie—and Tam and Rordan—would become property of the media and the feds shortly thereafter.

“How much did Detective Martinez tell you about the zombie?” Theo asked Brantley.

It was Sanders who answered. “We limited his recounting to what he had experienced himself. He told us about Baby’s appearance here.” Sanders motioned to the wall behind him that separated the living room and kitchen. “But I understand you’ve had other encounters, not only with these creatures but with people who claim they’re hunting them.”

So Zeke had told them everything. His last small hope that he could keep Jorie out of this shivered and died.

“The biggest part of their proof—their ship—is gone,” Theo told him. “It’s a lot of hearsay at this point, a lot that will have to be taken on faith.”

Chief Brantley leaned his hands on the back of the kitchen chair, his shoulders hunching as if he was tired or annoyed. “Sergeant Petrakos, understand very clearly that the only reason we don’t have FDLE here right now—not to mention Homeland Security—is because Detective Martinez insisted we have faith in
you.
I personally think what we have here is something far beyond our department’s abilities. Far beyond even FDLE’s. But Martinez refused to tell us anything more unless we first promised to give you a fair hearing.” Brantley straightened and glanced at his watch. “You have forty-five minutes, Sergeant. Start talking. Or I’m getting on the phone to the governor’s office and the Homeland Security task force.”

Jamont Sanders had big hands for a cop who was also a forensic scientist, with fingers like brown sausages. But he was well known for his deft, sure handling of even the smallest bioswab or entomology needle probe. Sanders poked the air in front of him with that same controlled delicacy. “Force field, eh? Shit!” He jumped back as the invisible shield sizzled and a corresponding alarm erupted from Jorie’s MOD-tech on the bedroom floor. “Feels like a damned Taser!”

“It could feel worse,” Theo told him. “That’s the low setting.”

Brantley was silent, watching.

Next came the G-1 and the Hazer, both demonstrated in the backyard by an obviously condescending Rordan, who clearly didn’t care that Brantley was chief of police in Bahia Vista. Theo could almost see
NIL
tattooed on all their foreheads.

Then the scanner, which of the three alien items was the least convincing. Any twelve-year-old whiz kid could probably rig something like that, at least visually.

Sanders picked up the Hazer again, examining the touch pads on the stock closely. Rordan sauntered over and—with exaggerated motions, as if showing a child—went through the weapon’s settings.

Theo knew language was a problem with Rordan, but not that big of one. He’d certainly made his intentions about Jorie clear enough.

He glanced at her standing on the bottom step of his back porch, hands locked loosely behind her back. They’d had little time to speak since Zeke’s phone call and no time at all for anything private, other than a squeeze of her hand along with her reassurance that she’d recovered from her brief nightmare. He didn’t tell her he was still worried—he wondered if the Guardians had something like posttraumatic stress syndrome.

Her gaze darted to him as if she felt his eyes on her. A corner of her mouth quirked briefly in a small smile, then faded. She was nervous, but whether it was because she was still drained from her nightmare or was picking up on his unease, Theo couldn’t tell.

And couldn’t ask. Not with Brantley next to him. Not with Rordan within earshot.

Minutes later they filed back into his kitchen. Sanders grabbed a chair and motioned Rordan, Jorie, and Theo to sit. The chief declined the offered chair and leaned against the counter, watching again. Zeke Martinez stood by the refrigerator, arms folded, looking decidedly anxious.

Theo was no longer immensely pissed at Zeke. He had somewhat figured out the scenario in his mind—the lab bringing their odd findings to Sanders, who then cornered Zeke as primary on the Wayne case. And Zeke had no answers other than the truth, as bizarre as it was.

All he had was Baby, back in Suzanne’s clinic. Any twelve-year-old might be able to fabricate an “alien scanner” and maybe even come up with some kind of Taser-like force field. But no twelve-year-old whiz kid could concoct Baby.

“So these zombies,” Sanders was asking Jorie, “progressed beyond their original programming? And spread?”

She nodded. “They were designed to be defensive but obedient. When the Mastermind Code was lost, we could no longer control them or prevent the adaptations from occurring. All we can do now is terminate them as we find them.”

“Killer bees,” Sanders said softly.

Theo saw Jorie frown, not understanding the analogy: a hybrid honeybee that was accidentally released in the late 1950s and became known for its vicious and defensive behavior. It was never bred for that—the bees were bred for better honey production. But once in the wild, they became a force—and a legend—all their own.

“Why do they mummify the people or animals they kill?” Sanders asked.

“Again, a perversion of their original function. They were constructed to take bodily fluid samples from sentients they detained for analysis as protection against the spread of disease. They’d then secrete a chemical to seal the area where the sample was taken—putting the probed area in isolation. Stasis.” She looked at Sanders for confirmation that he understood her explanation.

He nodded. “Now they suck the entire body dry and then seal it.”

Gave a whole new meaning to
overkill,
Theo noted silently.

“It wasn’t always so,” Jorie said. “The first attacks, a sentient might lose an arm, a leg. But now,” and she shook her head, “it becomes worse as time passes. Worse with each new generation. The original program that initiated their testing function now goes out of control when stimulated by certain frequencies and the presence of a sentient. It’s no longer sample and seal. It’s drain, absorb, and kill—and crave more in a frenzied function to eradicate anything the zombie sees as capable of carrying an infection. Which is any warm-blooded living creature. That’s why we call that their craving.”

“Up until now you’ve stopped them.” Brantley finally spoke.

“The zombies respond to frequencies emitted by tech,” Jorie said. “That means they seek out—up until now—a ship, world, or station sufficiently advanced that we, that the Guardians, have no problems integrating with them. Or a low-tech world where the Guardians have established a small research colony or defensive outpost so that there are already resources in place we can use.

“Your world is different.” Jorie waved one hand toward the porch door. “You don’t house a Guardian outpost. And your tech is not yet at the level where the zombies would be drawn here—which is why we ignored you, for the most part. But the Tresh didn’t. I think the Tresh brought them here because they believed they could use your world and be undetected. It was happenstance that we found you. But because you are what you are—a low-tech world not capable of star travel, with no experience with other star systems—we’re handicapped in solving the problem.

“Now, with my ship no longer here, we are handicapped even more. But, yes, up until now we have stopped the zombies. And, yes,” Jorie said, raising her chin and meeting Brantley’s skeptical gaze clearly, “even now I will try.”

And that, Theo knew with a sinking heart, was why he cared so very deeply about her. It was something he’d seen in her from the very beginning: a sense of honor. Not blind duty. But a sense of honor because the lives she saved meant something to her.

It was a sense of honor—considering the odds—that could also get her killed.

Chief Brantley pushed himself away from the counter. “Sanders?”

“Sir?”

“I need to speak privately with you.”

“Sir.” Sanders stood, glancing around. “Sergeant, may we use your back porch?”

Theo doubted they were interested in his landscaping by zombie. “Please.” He motioned toward the porch door. “We’ll stay here.” And sweat in the air-conditioning.

Sanders followed Brantley out. Zeke hesitated for a moment, then came and took Sanders’s seat at the head of the table, opposite Theo, with Jorie and Rordan flanking him. Rordan was poking at his scanner, ignoring the conversation.

“You still want to kick my ass,
amigo
?” Zeke asked quietly.

“Not as much as before. I can see where they had you—”

“By the
cojones
?” Zeke blew out an exasperated breath. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I’m wondering if Brantley believes.”

“You should have seen his face when I showed him Baby.”

“I take it he’s been tight-lipped about what he wants to do.”

Zeke nodded. “You know Brantley.”

“I do not,” Jorie put in, fisting one hand on the tabletop. “Will he be a hindrance or a help?”

That brought a comment in Alarsh from Rordan, which received a quick, narrow-eyed look from Jorie. He decided Rordan wanted an argument. And Theo had no intention of giving Rordan anything he wanted.

“Chief Brantley could isolate the beach area, give us additional shooters, and pretty much insure innocents don’t get hurt. That would be a help,” Theo admitted. “But that help might come at a price.” One that Theo didn’t want to pay but one he couldn’t refuse—unless he was willing to walk away from the job. An inconceivable thought two weeks ago. At the moment, this hour, with Jorie across from him and the memory of holding her while she shivered and cried in his arms still very real, it was no longer quite as inconceivable.