Hellforged

wouldn’t stay put. It was an unusual situation.”

We went over other info about Glitches—their habits, their habitat, the effects of Glitch venom on humans and other species.

“Would that stuff hurt zombies?”

“That’s a good question, Tina. I don’t know. Probably not.” Boston’s zombies, like their horror-movie counterparts, were hard to kill. Direct exposure to sunlight made their skin deteriorate—a “zombie sunburn” caused orange, pitted, permanently damaged skin—but it didn’t kill them. A zombie could fall off a building, walk through a raging fire, be riddled with bullets, chug a gallon of drain cleaner, and then go out for pizza. Zombies didn’t feel pain, but neither did they heal. A burned or bullet-riddled zombie would survive, but the flesh would remain charred, the holes always open. A couple of things were known to kill zombies, like cutting off the head or using special exploding bullets available only to cops. Maybe setting off a nuclear bomb under the bed of a sleeping zombie would do it, but as far as I knew no one had tried that yet.

“Okay,” I said. “Write a report on Glitches for your portfolio. We’re meeting tomorrow night at seven thirty before school, right?” She nodded. “Finish Russom’s chapter on water demons.” Russom’s Demoniacal Taxonomy was the textbook my aunt Mab had started me on. I’d trained with Mab every summer for seven years at her remote estate in north Wales. The book was every bit as dry as its title promised, but there was no better resource on demons.

I was pulling on my jacket when the door to the lounge flew open, banging against the wall. Through it flew Jenna, Tina’s zombie BFF. With long, straight, straw-colored hair, Jenna was a little shorter and a little chubbier than her friend. She wore jeans and an oversized black T-shirt that read HUG A ZOMBIE in white letters.

“Omigod! Turn on the TV—now. Now!” Jenna didn’t wait for Tina to move; she snatched the remote from the coffee table and pressed the Power button. She flipped through the channels until she found PNN—the Paranormal News Network—then fell onto the sofa. The station showed a press conference with the Council of Three: the vampire, werewolf, and zombie who (in name, anyway) were Deadtown’s elected leaders. The Council was just a trio of figureheads, as anyone could tell by the topic of their press conference. Hadrian, the vampire councilor, was announcing a resolution declaring February 2 Paranormal Appreciation Day.

Groundhog Day. How appropriate. Maybe we were supposed to step into the norm world, get scared by our own shadows, and run back to our burrows here in Deadtown.

Tina snorted. “What, are you trying to bore me to death?”

Jenna hit the Mute button and popped her gum. “It’ll be on again in a minute.”

“What?”

“Nuh-uh. I’m not telling. You’ll see.”

“Jenna, aren’t you supposed to be in school?” I asked. It was three in the morning, half an hour before school let out.

She shrugged, snapping her gum again. “I only cut last period.”

Not my problem. I wasn’t about to start playing truant officer for Deadtown’s teenage zombies. I began to say good-bye, but before I got two words out Jenna shouted, “Here it is!” A blast of guitar chords assaulted my ears, and both girls leapt to their feet and screamed. I looked at the TV to see what had them so excited.

The image switched from a stadium concert to the PNN newsroom. Rhoda Harris, a zombie newscaster, sat behind a desk, her stiff hairstyle and bright yellow suit contrasting with her zombified features. Behind her was a publicity photo of a man with wavy hair, big brown eyes, and a million-dollar smile. “He used to be known as Paul Montoya, singer of soulful love ballads such as ‘I’ll Give You My World’ and ‘Tomorrow Is for Us.’ Then, nearly three years ago, he was caught in Boston’s plague. As a previously deceased human, Montoya believed his career was over.”

The screen showed Montoya in a recording studio, holding a guitar. He still had the wavy brown hair, but now his eyes were red and his death’s-head smile was more like a grimace. “After the plague,” he said, “I looked in a mirror and thought, ‘Well, Paul, that’s it. Nobody wants to hear a zombie sing love songs. Plus my fingers got too stiff to play the way I used to. But music was my life. I didn’t know how to do anything else.”

The reporter’s voice came back, as the screen showed Montoya wearing headphones and screaming silently into a microphone. “So Montoya reinvented himself. In the process, he invented a new musical genre: monster rock.”

Cut to a stadium packed with screaming fans. Searchlights zigzagged across the stage, lighting the smoke that billowed from hidden machines, as a voice announced, “Are you ready to meet your worst nightmare? Are you ready to dance with the dead? Are you ready … for Monster Paul!” The audience roared as fireworks sparked to the sound of more ear-splitting guitar chords. Monster Paul staggered to the front of the stage and began growling like a sleep-deprived bear with a bad case of indigestion.

Tina and Jenna both swooned.

Before the TV speakers reached meltdown, the screen switched back to the studio. Rhoda Harris continued: “As Monster Paul, Montoya has reached a new level of fame. With two double-platinum CDs and the most- downloaded song of all time—‘Grave Robber (Stay Outta My Grave)’—Monster Paul has made being previously deceased”—a smile crept into her voice—“almost cool.”

“Here comes the good part,” Jenna said, leaning forward.

“Now,” said Harris, “Montoya is ready for another reinvention. And he’s reaching out to Boston’s paranormal community for help.”

In his recording studio, Monster Paul looked into the camera. “There’s so much raw talent in Deadtown, and it’s time to give that talent its due. I want the world to know that zombies are previously deceased, not dead—you know? So I’m putting together a new band. It’ll be made up of paranormals, 100 percent. I’ll be auditioning musicians and backup singers on January 22. If you think you’ve got what it takes to join my Zombie Freak Show, come on over to the old Orpheum Theater from eight ’til whenever we’re done.”

The screen displayed the time and date, as Harris wrapped up her story: “You heard him, Deadtown. Paranormal musicians and singers are encouraged to try out tomorrow night—that’s January 22—at the former Orpheum Theater on Hamilton Place, starting at eight P.M.”

“Omigod!” Tina shouted, pulling open a drawer. “I need a pencil!”

“You are not writing that in Russom’s.” I snatched the book from her.

“It’s okay, I already wrote it down,” Jenna said.

“We are so going to be there.”

“Can either of you play an instrument?”

“What for? Weren’t you listening? He’s looking for singers, too.” Tina launched into “Grave Robber,” and Jenna joined her. I think one of them was off-key, although it’s hard to tell with monster rock. They sounded like a couple of furious parrots challenging each other to a death match. Then I considered the concert clip PNN had played. The two of them were naturals.

I LEFT TINA AND HER FRIEND SCHEMING ABOUT WHAT TO wear to the audition and drove to my rented garage. Once the Jag was safely locked up, I hoisted my weapons bag and walked to the building where I shared an apartment with Juliet, my vampire roommate. Deadtown was only a couple of blocks wide by five blocks long, from Winter Street to School Street. Because all Boston’s paranormals had to live here, housing was at a premium. That made for some strange … if not bed-fellows, then roomies, anyway.

Zombies thronged the streets, shopping, eating, talking, eating, laughing, eating, heading home from work, eating. Oh, and eating. If I ever give up demon extermination, I’ll open a hot dog stand in Deadtown. I’d make a fortune.

Dusk-to-dawn was the busy time in this part of town, and the nighttime streets belonged to the zombies. For one thing, at more than two thousand strong, they just plain outnumbered the rest of us. Vampires spent their after-dark hours in the human parts of town, trawling for blood donors, while more and more werewolves worked norm hours, taking eight-to-five jobs in human-owned companies. State law required them to spend the three days and nights of each full moon at a secure werewolf retreat, but they managed to work around that restriction. Human and paranormal Bostonians lived side by side in a truce—often uneasy, but a truce nonetheless. Much of that was thanks to Alexander Kane, Boston’s high-profile werewolf lawyer.

At the thought of Kane, a confusion of feelings tumbled through me. Mostly, I missed him. He’d been in Washington for three months, preparing to argue a case before the Supreme Court that could establish paranormal