The Voodoo Killings (16 page)

“Deal.”

That was good enough for me. Aaron would keep his end of the bargain. “Fine, I’ve got to go. I’ve got Nate up at the university tonight.”

“Roger’s on patrol up there, I think. I’ll give him a heads-up so he can run interference with any of the new hires.”

That made me pause. “Since when have seances become illegal?”

“They’re not, but to Marks seances and zombies are one and the same….” There was a pause as Aaron decided whether to say more. “He considers seances grounds for a search.”

I laughed, but Aaron didn’t join in. “You’re serious?”

“You think you’re having a bad time? It hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park over here. If he makes us search another magic shop looking for zombies…” He trailed off. “He’s not going to give up on finding the city.”

“The underground city doesn’t exist,” I said, more coldly than I meant. “Not the one he thinks.”

“Kincaid, I’m not asking, just so you’re aware.” Aaron sounded fed up, and for once it wasn’t with me. I knew he cared about me, but his break from our relationship had an uncanny correlation with the new captain being hired. “Let me know as soon as you can, about whether you can help with Marjorie. And Kincaid? We’re not done with the other issue yet.”

I hung up.

CHAPTER 10

SMOKE AND MIRRORS

I jiggled the key in my apartment door’s warped lock for the third time. Why the hell wouldn’t it give? Maybe I should have let Aaron replace the lock, though having a door that was impossible to open didn’t seem like the security problem he made it out to be.

At last it popped open.

“Cameron?” I called.

No answer.

I dropped the bag of sea urchins on the kitchen counter and listened. Nothing.

Moving as quietly as I could in boots, I slid a knife out of the block. I palmed it along the sleeve of my jacket and tried one last time. “Cameron?”

No answer. Stable my ass, I thought. And where the hell was Nate?

I thought about pulling a globe, but if the nausea knocked me out before I found Cameron’s hiding spot, he might get the jump on me. The knife was a better bet for now. I turned my cellphone off so the chime wouldn’t alert him.

My bedroom was closest, so I headed there first. I checked under the bed and in the closet. In order to immobilize Cameron, I’d have to be fast; eyes were best, but severing the tendons on his hands would be easier—he’d come at me with his hands first.

The bathroom was next. I made sure not to open the door any wider than I had to since it had a tendency to creak. I slid through. No one. I threw back the shower curtain to be sure.

All right, last place left was the spare bedroom. The door was closed, and I eased it open, sliding through, knife first.

Cameron was there all right…sitting at the desk. With my headphones on and a pack of pencil crayons and sketch paper I kept for tracing symbols, engrossed in whatever he was drawing.

“Cameron,” I yelled, and tapped him on the shoulder, hard.

He dropped his pencil and sat up straight, pulling the headphones off.

“Kincaid,” he said. “When did you get back?”

“Just now.” I glanced around the room. “Where’s Nate? He’s supposed to be watching you.”

Cameron glanced down at his sheet, which he’d hidden from my view, and shook his head. “I saw him ten, twenty minutes ago maybe?”

“Well, which is it—ten or twenty?”

“I’m not sure. I was busy.” He nodded at the sheet. “He said he’d be back soon.”

Figured. I crossed my arms and leaned against the door frame.

“How did it go?” Cameron asked. I didn’t miss the hopeful look on his face.

“Well, that depends.”

“On?”

“On whether you ‘forgot’ you were manic depressive with a serious substance abuse problem or just decided to omit that small detail during our conversation this morning.”

The great thing about being able to read people is I usually know they’re lying before they even open their mouth. “It’s not what it looks like—” Cameron said.

“Oh, for god’s sake. How is that not important? That’s how you know Max.”

His eyes narrowed. “I am bipolar—or manic depressive, if you like. The doctors keep changing what they call it. The substance abuse is nowhere near what it used to be. I regulate it with my work.”

I snorted. No one regulates their own substance abuse.

Cameron frowned at me. “I’ve felt more together in the last three hours than I can remember in years. I’m not about to go on a bender—I don’t do those anymore.” There was no self-loathing in his voice, just acceptance.

But it did raise a question: what happened when you animated someone with a mental illness? The mind is a delicate thing, and the way a zombie is bound to its body—well, not everyone handles animation well. And that was without the added complication of bipolar highs and lows. For all I knew, his disorder was affecting his memory. What if the blank spots were related to episodes he’d had when he was still alive? I could have screamed at Cameron.

“You want to know why I didn’t say anything?” Cameron said. “Look at your reaction. One detail changes the way you see me entirely.”

“That’s not true—”

“Now who’s lying?” He turned his attention back to his drawing. “Besides, the only crazy thoughts I’ve had is thinking I’m a zombie and seeing ghosts, and apparently that’s true.”

“Okay, I get it. I probably wouldn’t wear it on my sleeve either,” I said. “So I have good news and bad news: yes, Max is responsible for raising you, but you’re going to be stuck with me for three more days.” Then I gave him an edited version of my conversation with Max.

“So basically, I’m to sit around for the next three days and hope at the end of it he can fix me?”

I nodded. “That about sums it up. Max needs time to figure out what went wrong.”

“I’m a zombie, not an idiot. I don’t even remember Max. At all. How do I know you both aren’t lying?”

I shrugged. “You don’t. But if it counts, I don’t think Max would lie about something like this.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“Cameron, it’s the best I can do. As much as I sympathize, you’re Max’s client. I have to let him call the shots.”

Cameron glanced down at his hand. His fingernails were waxy and white now without the blood flow. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

I shrugged. “Technically, you could call the police, but I don’t think you’d like where that ends.”

He ran his hands through his hair and closed his eyes. The policy on what to do with stray and feral zombies was automatic cremation.

“Fine, I’ll give it three days,” he said.

“I’ll take you to your apartment later so you can pick up anything you need.” I fumbled for something else to say. Zombie counselling was not in my repertoire. “Is there someone you want me to call? Friends? Family? We can come up with something to tell them.”

He shook his head again. “For now, no one will notice I’m gone.”

It made me wonder how many people would notice if I disappeared. “At least soon you can start getting your life back together.” Or what was left of it. I hadn’t had the heart to mention the temporary clause in his agreement with Max. It’d be like kicking someone after hitting them with a baseball bat.

“So you trust this Max?” Cameron asked.

“You trusted him,” I said, sidestepping that issue.

Cameron gave a wry smile. “My judgment is suspect at the best of times.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

As I turned to head back to the kitchen, I caught a glimpse of what Cameron had been working on. It was a sketch of Nate, an uncanny reproduction of the ghost grey I saw when I tapped the Otherside, with an added layer of shading overtop. Only one part of the overlaid image was complete: a pair of sunken, shaded eyes.

Cameron covered the picture with his hand. “It’s not finished yet,” he said. “I try not to let people see my work until it’s finished.”

“I’ve never seen Nate like that.”

He shrugged. “Drawing helps me deal with things.”

I’d always assumed that to zombies ghosts looked like horror movie extras. Apparently they didn’t—or at least Nate didn’t. He looked more like a sad victim, the angles and hollows of his face reminding me of people who’d lived on the streets too long. I don’t know what it was—maybe just the glimpse into Cameron’s new world—but it struck me that I didn’t have a good reason not to take a closer look at Cameron’s bindings, even research some of the symbols. Max would never know.

“Come on, Cameron,” I said, and headed for the kitchen.

“Kincaid?” he said, but then I heard him fall in step behind me.

“There’s something we can do while we wait for Max.” I pulled out a kitchen chair for him. “Sit.”

He did as I asked. “Why do I get the distinct impression I’m not going to enjoy this?”

“I’m going to take a quick look at your bindings—just a look this time. It should only tingle a bit and I’ll be as fast as I can. You okay with that?”

He frowned. “I don’t remember much from last night, but I distinctly remember not liking that. But if you think it might help.”

I was more worried about the effect on me than on Cameron. I wouldn’t risk a full globe, but even so my Otherside hangover hadn’t quite tailed off yet. If I went easy, just peeked, didn’t tweak the lines, I should be fine.

I was not ready for the huge wave of nausea that flooded me. I forced it back, opened my eyes and looked at Cameron.

His bindings reverberated under my scrutiny like strings on a piano, and he winced.

I frowned. He shouldn’t be feeling a thing.

“This isn’t what I had in mind when I said I didn’t want to sit around and wait for three days,” he said through clenched teeth. He grabbed the table.

“Just sit still, will you?” I said. “It’ll go faster.”

He froze in place. I ignored the four main anchor symbols in his body—I already recognized those—and focused instead on the six unfamiliar gear-like symbols in his head. Without looking
away, I grabbed a piece of paper and pen from my kitchen desk and began making a map of the gear symbols, capturing as much detail as I could.

I pushed back a second wave of nausea. As soon as I’d copied the symbols, I gave the lines a cursory look. Last night I’d been worried they were fragile, but today they looked stable enough. Maybe Max was right….Hey, wait just a minute. Was it me or had the bindings shifted? I could have sworn one of the gears had turned clockwise a few degrees.

“Kincaid, are you done yet?” Cameron said. He was gripping the chair arms now.

I stared, and then there it was again. The highest gear was turning, slowly and clockwise. Then the gear beside it turned, slower and not as far.

Were they supposed to turn? “Cameron, what are you thinking? Right now?”

“Besides the fact that this blows? Nothing,” he said, his face taut. The two gears turned again and Cameron’s arm twitched.

“You can’t be thinking of nothing. Come on, try harder. This is important.”

“I—I was just thinking about a painting I’m working on. It’s hard to concentrate on anything, though, with that humming.”

“What humming? Explain it to me,” I said, none too gently, as I pushed another wave of nausea back. The gears kept turning in slow rotation and one of the thin anchor lines leading to Cameron’s heart began to tighten along its length. That couldn’t be good.

“The last piece I was working on was a water scene.” A third gear began to turn.

“Like what? Boats in the harbour?” I blinked as a bead of sweat ran into my eye. What the—? I shouldn’t be sweating. I never sweat when I tap the barrier….

The gears stopped turning and Cameron’s eyelids drooped shut.

“Cameron!” I yelled.

His eyes snapped back open. He stood and shook his head before they could drift shut again. “No, not boats—more what it
would be like diving into murky water without a mask and opening your eyes.”

A fourth gear began to rotate, this one counter-clockwise. I watched as the fifth anchor line, the one to Cameron’s head, began to tighten.

His eyes rolled back into his head and his legs gave out underneath him. He dropped to his knees.

“Cameron!” I yelled. Damn it, none of the Otherside should even be reaching him.

More sweat dripped into my eyes. Whatever was going on with Cameron’s bindings, I needed to stop it before the whole thing unravelled. I dropped my barrier tap. Cameron didn’t move and his eyes didn’t open.

Shit. If taking away Otherside didn’t work, maybe overloading the lines would.

Before the sane, self-preserving part of my mind had a chance to talk me out of it, I tapped the Otherside again. The four gears were still turning and the anchor lines now wavered the way they had last night. I pulled a globe and gathered as much Otherside as I could, hanging on to the edge of the table to stop myself from collapsing. I’d broken out in a full sweat. Not sure that was a good sign. I threw the entire globe at Cameron.

The gears stopped turning. I dropped my globe and breathed a sigh of relief.

Cameron collapsed like a rag doll.

Thank god he was already on his knees, otherwise he might have done some serious damage.

I managed to haul him back into the chair. His eyes fluttered open.

“Cameron, I’m so sorry. It shouldn’t have had that effect.”

He groaned. “Whatever you just did? Next time, don’t.” He hunched over the kitchen table. “Did you get what you needed?”

“I think I know where we can start.” I opened my laptop and logged back into the Seattle PD’s missing persons reports. Still no mention of Cameron. Good.

Next, I entered his name into the Google search window. A slew of images of paintings and snapshots of Cameron at various clubs and art openings came up. A regular Warhol Silver Factory–style prodigy, if the photo catalogue of his night at the Gallery 6 open house was any indication.

But that wasn’t what I was looking for. I already knew Cameron had been a spectacular wreck. What I wanted popped up two search results down, thumbnailed with a smiling headshot of Cameron.

His Facebook page.

Cameron hadn’t bothered to put any filters in place, so everything was public. The sheer volume of paintings posted told me he wasn’t shy about self-promotion. Friends, clients, buyers, fans—a gaggle of models, one or two of whom I thought might be ex-girlfriends. Come to think of it, they might be Nate’s ex-girlfriends….