rights at the federal level. Right now, each state had its own rules. Some, like “Monsterchusetts,” gave paranormals limited rights. That’s because the zombie plague happened here, and the state had to accommodate its citizens who’d died and been reanimated. But other states—most of them—gave us no rights at all, not even the right to be alive (or undead, as the case may be). Kane was trying to change that.
Kane was doing important work; I knew that. And I supported him in it. But his work consumed him, and sometimes it felt like there wasn’t much left over for me. We’d dated off and on for two years—more off than on— and sometimes we went weeks without seeing each other. He worked days, I worked nights, and neither of us was willing to stick our career in the backseat.
Before Kane left for Washington, we’d agreed to see other people—his idea. I’d gone out a few times with Daniel Costello, the human detective I met in the fall when one of my clients was murdered. I liked Daniel. We were still getting to know each other, but we had fun together. But Kane made it clear he had no time for anything but work.
I’d expected to be one of those things he didn’t have time for. But since he went to Washington, he called me a couple of times a week—more than we talked, sometimes, when we were in the same city. Somehow it figured that being five hundred miles apart brought us closer.
Sighing, I pulled open the door to my building. In the lobby, a massive bouquet of red roses towered over the doorman’s desk. An explosive sneeze trembled the flowers, and a zombie face appeared, rising like a gray-green moon over a forest—if the man-in-the-moon was having a really bad night.
“Nice flowers, Clyde,” I greeted the doorman. “You got a secret admirer?”
“Actually, no. These arrived for you an hour ago.”
For me? Who’d be sending me flowers? My first thought, with a flutter of pleasure, was Kane, but that was silly—he came to mind because I’d just been thinking about him. Who, then? Sometimes grateful clients sent gifts, but most of my recent demon exterminations had been run-of-the-mill. Except tonight’s. Somehow, though, I didn’t think Professor Milsap had speed-dialed his favorite all-night florist to show me his undying gratitude for getting rid of that Glitch.
Clyde sneezed again. It was a funny, dry sound, like somebody pretending, not very convincingly, to have a cold. “Please take them away. I was terribly allergic to flowers before the plague. You’d think being previously deceased would put an end to that, but—” Another dry sneeze. “But perhaps what’s left of my body remembers.”
“Allergies, huh? That must have made life difficult when you were a minister.” I lifted my duffel bag’s strap over my head so it crossed my torso. “Didn’t the church ladies load up the altar with flowers each Sunday?”
“Then I could get allergy shots. Those wouldn’t help now. At least I’m not bedeviled by watery eyes or a stuffy nose. Just this infernal …
I lifted the vase. It was surprisingly heavy.
“Be careful.” Clyde held out a steadying hand. “I think it’s Waterford.”
“Was there a card?”
“Presumably there’s one inside the envelope attached to the bouquet.” He scowled as though I’d accused him of steaming open my love notes.
I couldn’t see where I was going through the dense foliage—rose leaves and ferns and baby’s breath—waving in front of my face. I stuck my head out on the left and crossed to the elevators, my weapons bag banging against my hip with each step.
All those roses made the elevator smell like a florist’s shop. I almost started sneezing, myself. I was glad when the doors opened to my floor.
Outside my apartment, I raised a knee to balance the vase against the wall as I fished in my pocket for my keys. Even through the closed door, I could hear Juliet’s massive TV blaring, but I didn’t bother to ring the bell. She wouldn’t be home at this hour, not with so many necks out there waiting to be bitten. And she had a bad habit of turning on the TV—loud—then losing interest and wandering away.
I pulled out my key ring and sorted through it one-handed. Inside, the phone rang. I found the key, turned it in the lock, got the door open, and flew into the living room. I dropped the flowers on the coffee table, ducked out of the duffel bag strap, scooped up the remote, and powered off the TV, all while diving for the phone on the far side of the sofa.
“H-hello?” A trained professional who panted like she’d run a marathon after making it all the way from the front door to the sofa.
“Vicky.” Kane’s voice flowed warmly over the phone. “Did you get the flowers I sent?”
“Those are from you?”
In the long pause that followed, I reflected that maybe I’d sounded a little too surprised.
“You thought they were from someone else?” A new note strained his voice.
“No, no. I just got home. I didn’t have a chance to read the card.” I searched my memory for an anniversary or other occasion I’d forgotten, but came up blank. “Sorry. I guess I didn’t have you pegged as a champagne-and- roses kind of werewolf.” Champagne, maybe. Kane liked expensive wines.
His chuckle brought the warmth back into his voice. “Okay, I get the hint. Next time, I’ll include champagne.”
“Make it a box of chocolates instead and you’ve got a deal.”
“Done.” I could almost see his smile over the phone. Kane had a smile that could break hearts across three states. He’d be sitting back, grinning, his gray eyes alight with amusement, his silver hair gleaming. Because it was outside norm working hours, he’d have draped his suit jacket over the back of his chair, maybe even loosened his Italian silk tie. “How’d the job go tonight?” he asked.
I rolled over onto my back and shimmied up against an armrest, getting comfortable. “I got the Glitch, but I may have damaged one or two processors in that fancy supercomputer.” I told him about the night’s events. He growled when I got to the part where the security guard stuck a gun in my face, but Kane knew better than to lecture me that my job was too dangerous. We’d argued about it too many times for even Mr. Successful Trial Lawyer to have a prayer of winning.
“You’re up late,” I observed, to change the subject.
“Late, early—I’m not sure I can tell the difference anymore. I’ve been reading more of Justice Frederickson’s opinions. She has me worried, Vicky. She’s consistently interpreted citizenship and civil rights in the narrowest way possible.”
Chief Justice Carol Frederickson, who’d been on the Court for a couple of decades, was its most influential member. That didn’t mean she always swayed the other justices’ opinions, but nobody knew how she might affect a close vote.
“And yesterday,” he continued, “someone told me about an informal conversation where she insisted that civil rights are
“So those of us with the wrong genome have to obey their laws, pay taxes to them, and live as second-class citizens.”
“Not citizens at all. Not even second-class.”
“Where does that leave zombies? They’re genetically human, right? They just died and came back to life.”
“Yes, and that’s precisely why you shouldn’t call them ‘zombies.’ ” To Kane, zombies were previously deceased humans—PDHs for short—and there were no monsters in Deadtown; we were all Paranormal Americans, or PAs. Sometimes dating Kane felt like living in a bowl of alphabet soup. But his scolding tone didn’t last. “The virus changed their DNA, and that’s an important factor in this case. The other side is arguing that the altered DNA makes them inhuman—and Justice Frederickson seems sympathetic to that view.”
“But you can’t be fully human one day and not even a little human the next. It’s not like they committed a crime. All they did was get sick.”
“Exactly. That argument is one prong of our strategy.” He went on to talk about the case he and the other lawyers on his team were building. I didn’t understand all his legal mumbojumbo, but I loved hearing the passion in his voice. It was easy to see why Kane was a successful lawyer. When he stood up to make an argument, half the jury would swoon and the other half would be moved to tears or to action, whichever he was going for. I hoped the
