Bloodstone

Pam McFarren, the female zombie Goon, stood outside, a clipboard in hand. “Curfew compliance check,” she said.



Lucky me. Right at the top of the list.



“Mind if I come in?” she asked.



“Do you have to? You can see that I’m home.”



She held her clipboard at arm’s length and squinted at it like she needed reading glasses. “Says here this apartment has three residents. I don’t need to go inside if they all come to the door.”



Three. Carlos had done a good job of putting Mab in the database. But I wasn’t going to drag her out of bed just to parade her in front of the Goon Squad. They’d insist on checking the apartment, anyway, since Juliet wasn’t here.



I opened the door wider. McFarren walked past me. Behind her came a human cop I’d never seen before. He was tall and thin, with a shaved head and an oversized Adam’s apple. He nodded as he passed.



“Where’s Norden?”



“Elmer quit the task force,” McFarren said, shrugging. “He said he wanted to go back to working in the human parts of town.”



Yeah, right. What he’d actually said was probably more along the lines of “just get me away from those goddamn freaks.”



“I felt kind of bad for him,” McFarren said. “I really think his old partner’s death got to him. It was like he couldn’t stand being around PDHs anymore. Last time we patrolled together, he wouldn’t even walk on the same side of the street as me.” She shook her head sadly. “The department’s got good psychological resources. I hope he’ll make use of them.” She tapped her clipboard with her pencil. “Now, I’m looking for three residents. You’re Vaughn, Victory.” She made a checkmark on the page. “Where’s Vaughn, Mabel?”



“That’s my aunt. She’s in the bedroom. Do you have to disturb her? She’s sick.”



“Just a peek.” McFarren cracked open the bedroom door and looked inside. “Sorry to bother you, Mabel, dear,” she said, pulling the door shut. I hoped Mab was asleep. It wouldn’t be good for her condition to have steam shooting out of her ears at being called Mabel.



“And what about Capulet, Juliet?” McFarren asked.



“Is that supposed to be a trick question? You know as well as I do that she’s missing.”



“So that’s an X then.” She marked the clipboard. “Where’s her room?”



I showed her. She and her partner took a quick look inside. They also checked the bathroom and the kitchen. I didn’t know where Kane was, but I was glad he was keeping out of sight.



At the front door, McFarren tucked her clipboard under her arm. “You still don’t know Ms. Capulet’s whereabouts?”



“I wish I did.” I’d give a lot to know where Juliet was right now.



“All right. Let me leave you with a reminder that all residents of Designated Area 1 are to remain in their residences between now and four a.m. Failure to do so could result in a fine, a lengthy prison term, or both.”



“Have a nice night,” her partner said as they left. Watching them move down the hall to the next apartment, I almost missed Norden. At least he didn’t pretend to be polite while stomping all over your nonexistent rights.



30



THE NEXT DAY, LYNNE HONG WAS ON CHANNEL 10 ON-THE-Scene News, reporting rumors that the Reaper was expected to strike on Boston Common. “If you must be out after ten,” she said, “use extreme caution, and avoid Boston Common and the surrounding area.”



Go, Daniel, I thought. He may not be able to assign extra patrols to the Boylston Street side of the Common, but he was doing his best to keep potential victims out of the area. Giving Lynne the rumor to report probably kept the peace in their relationship, too.



Around five in the evening, Tina called. “Brendan says to meet at Munchies at nine. Can you be there?”



Munchies, a popular zombie snack shop with a seemingly endless supply of junk food, was on the north side of Deadtown.



“He does know they fixed that dead spot, right?”



“Yeah, yeah. He’s got a different plan.”



“What is it?”



“He’ll tell us at Munchies.”



An hour before curfew, Kane and I stood in the doorway of Munchies, watching a roomful of zombies chow down before they had to go home for the night. Waitresses carried trays overflowing with nachos, cheese fries, sliders, onion rings, popcorn—anything that fits into the category of “munchies.” You’d think the zombies believed they’d never have a chance to eat again. But it was probably a pretty typical night.



Tina waved to me from a table of teenage zombies. The plague had happened on a school day, so not many kids had been zombified. But there were a few. Some, like Tina and her friend Jenna, had cut school to go shopping or hang out in Boston. Others had been in town for college or job interviews. Now, they all lived in a group home in Deadtown.



Tina wore a tight, strapless pink dress with rhinestone accents. She looked like she was going clubbing. Maybe that was the plan after they slipped outside. Maybe college kids were dressing up like zombies these days when they went out to dance, and this group would fit right in.



More likely, I’d be flying out of Deadtown tonight.



Kane sat on the sidewalk outside while Tina introduced me to her friends. I knew a couple of them already, but Brendan, the group’s leader, was new to me. He was about five ten, with curly red hair and a complexion that had probably been freckled before he got the plague. “Sit down,” he invited.



“Thanks, but I’ll stand.” Sitting down was a little iffy with the Sword of Saint Michael strapped to my back.



“Don’t ask her to take off her hood,” Tina said. Everyone stared at her for a moment, then went back to eating. Tina says Tina-type things. Sometimes it wasn’t worth the effort to try to understand.



“Okay,” said Brendan to the group. “Name something Boston’s famous for.”



“Baked beans.”



“The Red Sox.”



“Clam chowder.”



“Lobsters.”



“Boston cream pie.”



I noticed a disproportionate number of the answers were food-related. But then, we were in a place called Munchies at a table full of zombies.



“Try this,” Brendan said. “Potholes.”



Everyone nodded, including me. Neither I nor the Jag would argue with that one.



“So I was thinking about our little problem with the fences,” Brendan went on. “Can’t go over it, can’t go around it . . .”



“Gotta go under it,” someone finished.



“Exactly. And the best way to get under the fence is with the help of our friend the pothole.” He surveyed the group, making sure everyone was with him. “I went online and checked the street-repair schedule for the Department of Public Works, with a special focus on their pothole remediation crew. And I found the mother of all potholes, right here in Deadtown. It’s low on the priority list, because it isn’t on an active roadway.” He leaned forward. “It’s under the fence.”



“So we’re going to crawl under the fence through a pothole,” I said. My voice sounded skeptical; I’d seen some big potholes in Boston, but this sounded a little nuts.



He nodded. “After we help the pothole along a little bit. I checked out the site. We need to make the pothole deeper and longer. After we do, it’ll be a snap to get through.”



“What about the cops?” asked my skeptical voice. A couple of the kids glanced at me like I was a spoilsport. So be it.



“I timed the patrols. They go by every eight minutes. That gives us six good minutes of digging time between passes. With zombie super-strength and two people digging, it’ll take two, maybe three patrols to make the hole big enough.”



“You don’t think they’ll notice the pothole getting bigger?”



“No, I don’t, actually. They’ll be looking at eye level, not checking the ground.”



“What makes you think that?”



“That’s my job,” Tina said. “Distract the cops.”



Ah. So that explained the tight dress. Tina had a sexy figure. If she were still human, she’d have legions of boys eating out of her hand. But did she really think human cops would ogle a zombie?



I’d promised Mab I’d give the kids’ plan a chance. But now that I’d heard it, I wanted to tell them to give it up and go home. The norms weren’t fooling around. There were cops with guns, soldiers with guns. They carried the exploding ammunition that could kill a zombie. There’d be serious consequences for any paranormal caught outside of Deadtown tonight. Consequences, hell. Some of these kids could die.



I’d check out the site, and then I’d try to talk the zombies out of it. Whether or not I managed to dissuade them, I’d go home and lock up my weapons. I’d go up to my building’s roof, shift into a bird, and fly out of Deadtown.



But when I arrived at the site and saw Brendan’s pothole, damned if I didn’t think it might work. It really was the mother of all potholes. And the site itself was isolated, without a lot of activity on either side of the fence. We moved a little way down the block and waited for the patrol to pass. After it did, Brendan checked his watch. Two zombies grabbed shovels and started digging, being careful to stay clear of the fence itself.



After six minutes, Brendan signaled, and they faded back into the shadows. The patrol went by. The changes to the pothole were on the Deadtown side, and neither cop noticed. They didn’t care what was on our side of the fence.



A minute after the patrol passed, Brendan gave the signal. Two other zombies rushed forward and started digging. They made good progress. I saw gravel fly up on the other side of the fence.



This time, when the patrol was due, Tina sidled up to the fence. She struck a sexy pose, jutting out her hip and showing a lot of leg, and asked if either cop had a light for her cigarette.



Cigarette? I was planning a future lecture against smoking when I remembered zombies couldn’t get lung cancer. Okay, whatever.