do. As such, the second I disappeared from sight, I no longer existed to them. Once out of sight, I was out of mind.
Unable to see me, the threat to their mission ended in their minds, they returned to their duty only to have a couple more of their buddies drop. Each time they went back to work, I repeated the process, ad nauseam. I couldn’t help but think it was a waste of good bullets.
Crafted by a minor angel and demon pair who worked for DRAC, the ammunition I carried-D/A slayers-was made to slay both supernatural species. Though they were effective on the zombies, regular bullets would have been too. But since I didn’t have any on me, I made do, griping every time I pulled the trigger.
After a few minutes, the rest of the undead still on site rested peacefully once more, each properly tucked in with a lead blanket. Unfortunately, so was everyone else who had ventured out to the club, it seemed. Bodies lay strewn across the parking lot in jumbled heaps. Blue faces stared up at me with accusing eyes, their necks twisted at awkward angles, throats and ribs crushed and deformed. The naked flesh of the strippers mingled with the clothed patrons in an orgy of death; a game of Twister gone horribly wrong.
Suddenly remembering Candy, I raced back to my car to find the back door open. A torn scrap of material, the same design as her tiny little skirt, was caught on the jagged edge of the door frame. Little drops of blood stained the backseat and led out onto the asphalt. From there, a barely visible wet trail headed off toward the desert.
That was just my luck. Even after paying to get laid, a zombie stole my girl. There is no justice.
Frustrated in more ways than one, I followed the trail to the edge of the parking lot where I found the rest of Candy’s skirt, along with her cell phone. Not remembering her having one, I couldn’t even begin to imagine where she’d had it stashed.
Actually, I could, but I didn’t think that’d help my mood any. It was obvious she’d been taken while I was busy wrestling around. I realized then I must have missed some of the zombies in the confusion. My eyes on the desert, I could see nothing moving in the darkness. Whatever zombies had made it past me had gotten away clean.
Tonight was a total bust.
I snatched up Candy’s phone and popped it open to find it still had service. Easier than hunting down a pay phone, a dying breed in this day of cheap, portable technology, I put her minutes to good use. I dialed the number to one of DRAC’s dummy corporations and rattled off the secret codes that told them I needed help, then hung up, slipping the phone into my pocket. As I waited for the telepaths to open a connection, I flipped over the wreckage of the skirt and smiled when I saw the wad of cash I’d given Candy still stuck in the waistband.
Even though I was facing a long, drawn-out night trying to figure where the zombies came from and what they were doing there, things were already looking up.
I’d gotten my refund.
Chapter Two
“So Frank, tell me again where you were when the zombies attacked?” Katon asked, one eyebrow raised in a dark imitation of Spock.
I growled as I met the amused gaze of DRAC’s enforcer, Katon De Pena. Dressed in his usual spiked black leather jacket and black jeans, Katon looked like he’d just stepped off the stage with Judas Priest. Despite my urge to sing “Breaking the Law” to him, I kept my mouth shut. It’s a feat that requires a hell of a lot of restraint on my part, let me tell you. Though it was a little easier dealing with Katon now that we’d survived the end of the world together, it was never a good thing to rattle his cage. He didn’t get the job with DRAC because he looked good. The man was deadly.
Or should I say vampire?
After a near fatal run-in with a bloodsucker, Katon’s spirit had been transplanted into the vamp’s body, granting him immortality and all the groovy accoutrements that come with being a top-of-the-food-chain living dead. He even managed to avoid inheriting the ‘sunlight kills’ part of the package, though he’d always been vague on the details of how that happened. I’d never pressed him about it, but I sure was curious.
All that and his being armed with a blade forged from a holy relic-the Spear of Longinus-made him someone you didn’t want to mess with.
I did it anyway.
“Do you want to hear the part where I had my pants down again? Maybe you’d like a visual.” I started to undo my belt.
Katon laughed, his eyeteeth glistening under the strip club’s strobe lights, their musical accompaniment long since turned off. “I can do without seeing little Trigg, thank you. I’m more interested in why you didn’t see the zombies coming.”
“What do you want to hear? That I was in the back seat of my car paying a woman for sex? Is that what you’re looking for?”
Katon’s mocking smile got wider. “Pretty much, yeah.”
I shrugged. Whatever pride I had has long since been buried and eulogized. It was little more than a transient memory against the backdrop of embarrassment that is my life. “It eliminates the after sex disappointment. I’m happy, she’s happy, the economy gets a boost. It all works out for the best.”
Chuckling, Katon turned and scanned the sprawling desert. Done teasing me, he got down to business. “They came from over there?”
I nodded, my eyes following his pointing finger. “There’s a trail of footprints that appear out a ways, but they don’t lead anywhere. Either the zombies just popped out of thin air or someone’s wiped their tracks away behind them. I’m not sure which. After that, it’s nothing but open desert with no clue as to what direction they went.” I gestured out past the parking lot, the early morning darkness still too deep to see through. “Whoever sent them had their escape route figured out.”
Katon stared at the lifeless bodies of the club-goers and shook his head. “You said they were trying to carry them off?”
“Yeah, it was weird. I’d never seen zombies act like that, going out of their way not to spill blood. They were almost gentle.” As if the act of murder could ever be described with such a delicate word. “They were definitely trying not to make a mess.”
Katon let out a quiet sigh and turned to face me. “I’ve heard from my sources, there have been quite a number of people going missing around here lately.”
“It’s Old Town. People disappear all the time.” My gut knew where he was headed, and I wasn’t happy about it.
“True, but not like this. Several late night businesses like this one catering to the less than coherent, all on the outskirts of town, have turned up empty. The day crews arrive to find the doors wide open, the lights on, furniture overturned like there’d been a tussle, but no people and no evidence of what happened.” He gestured to the twice-dead zombies on the ground. “I think you’ve figured out what’s been going on.”
A tingle of dread crept up my spine. It’d only been two months since Asmoday’s plot to bring about Armageddon fell apart and I wasn’t up for act II quite yet. “You think something big is in the works?”
“At this point, I’m not sure. However, no one goes through the effort to raise zombies and send them out to kidnap people without a reason. There has to be something going on. We just don’t know what.” I could tell he wasn’t excited about the prospect of supernatural drama anymore than I was.
“So, what’s the plan?”
“Wait for Michael and his clean up crew to finish, then see if they find anything that’ll point us in the right direction. After that, I’ll report to Abraham and get his take on it; standard operating procedure.” He shrugged. “We’ll go from there. Not much else to do.”
Abraham Solano was the top dog of DRAC-Demonic Resistance and Containment. As a psychic of amazing-if temperamental-ability, whose vision foretold of God’s disappearance, it was his mission we were on: to save the world from supernatural threats no longer bound by God’s rule.
Ever since the Big Guy and the Devil, my uncle, packed up and left for parts unknown, DRAC has stood against angels and demons, the undead, and even the living, to keep humanity safe, and for the most part,
