Damn Him to Hell

es Tina, the Zone’s very own Alice in Wonderland. Or the devil’s daughter, depending on how you want to look at it.”

The woman in the bed didn’t blink an eyelash. If I were the fainting type, I might have considered a brief bout of vapors.

Andre had a mother. And a name. And the Montoya rang bells as well.

Julius Montoya had written some of the law books I’d just finished studying.

10

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Montoya,” I said, patting Sleeping Beauty’s limp hand and glaring at Andre. I’d had a few too many surprises over the last few months. I didn’t appreciate this one.

His mother was a beautiful zombie. His father had been a distinguished judge and respected legal scholar. And Andre was . . . what?

Running a neighborhood for bizarro trolls. Neat little piles of evidence sorted themselves in the filing drawer of my mind, but this was real life and I had to deal with it in real time.

“How long have you and your father been taking care of her?” I asked after Andre adjusted her blanket and we returned to the main hall.

“Don’t give me any credit. I was overseas at the time. Dad’s been bearing the burden. When I saw her last, she was lashing me for joining the service, telling me to come home safely or she’d kill me, and weeping over losing her only son. Never a dull moment around the Montoya household.”

He spoke with his usual sarcasm, but now I knew it hid grief. Andre wasn’t all sharp edges, as I preferred to believe. He might actually be human. Ugly thought. I didn’t want to go all tender and mushy around a deceptive criminal like Andre.

I bet guilt ate at him almost as badly as it ate at me for sending Max to his demise. Guilt, I was learning, is a powerful motivator.

“What do the doctors say is wrong with her?” I hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. Andre seemed as cool and relaxed as if he’d just risen from a long night’s sleep, although I knew he’d been up as long as I had.

“They don’t, not anymore. She had cancer. She was dying, with only months to live. I was in a battle zone. When I finally got my discharge, I came home to this.” He started for the stairs. “I’m not sure if her death wouldn’t have been better for all of us.”

I could hear enough anger and pain in his voice to accept his story. “You came home to a zombie Sleeping Beauty and no explanation?”

“Experimental drugs, I was told. Old news, Clancy. Go call your friends. See if we can get the patients out of here before Acme comes snooping.”

“You really think Acme will come after them?”

“Acme knows we’re here. The cops aren’t about to protect us under these circumstances. They’ll blame us for experimenting on sick people or something equally ugly. We always get the blame— not a good, upstanding, taxpaying corporation owned by a senator’s wealthy, respectable family.” Yup, definite snark in his tone.

“The zombies are mostly homeless bums,” I protested. “Who would want them? Acme has Bill and bums of their own. They can play with their pink ash and try to figure out how not to blow things up. That’s more than enough to keep them occupied.” I trotted up the stairs behind him, fretting about Bill.

I really, truly did not want to go back into that death trap again if there was any other way of getting him out.

“Ask Paddy,” was all he replied.

“I have to find Paddy before I can ask him,” I grumbled, carrying on as if I wasn’t shell-shocked. Maybe lack of sleep prevented a good panic. “Where did he go?”

Andre stopped and I almost ran into him in the dark. He grabbed my arms to steady me, held me a moment too long, and there was a heart-pounding moment when I thought he meant to kiss me again. After being good all day today, I really needed a kiss as a reward. Guns and mothers and pink ash flew straight out of my head. I tensed, preparing myself for . . . whatever.

“Good question, Clancy. Last I heard, he was at Acme with you and Schwartz. You might have to run another rescue mission.” Instead of teasing me with full body contact, he released me and continued up the stairs.

He didn’t like that Schwartz had saved the day. I didn’t like the idea of running another rescue mission. And my hormones were in full-scale screaming mode.

“I’m a law clerk, remember? I can’t do anything illegal.” Two could play the snark game. “I’ll camp on Paddy’s doorstep. If he doesn’t come home, I’ll get Pearl to let me in and we’ll see what he keeps under his bed.”

“Go home, Clancy. Get some sleep. Tomorrow is another day.” He pointed at the front door.

“Maybe I should go down and see if anything interesting is happening at Chesty’s,” I called over my shoulder as I departed. “Maybe Schwartz will walk me home!”

I really shouldn’t have taunted a tiger.

•   •   •

Ticked at being abandoned for so long, Milo still wasn’t speaking to me Sunday morning. I fried him a little bacon to top off his kitty food. My orange tabby Manx couldn’t vent his anger by swishing his nonexistent tail, but he had attitude to spare anyway. He ate the bacon, turned his nose up at the healthy food, and leaped to his sentinel position in my front bay window overlooking the street. Everyone’s a critic.

Checking in with the real world for a change, I signed into Facebook and almost fell over when I discovered a direct message from my mother. She was apparently now in some remote village in Peru where the Internet wasn’t exactly common.

Mom’s icon today was the Roman version of the goddess of justice, the blindfolded one holding a sword and scales. I’d already done my research and knew the Greek version of the justice goddess was Themis, and Greek Themis was a legendary psychic who didn’t carry weapons or scales. So my grandmother thought she was psychic and my mother thought she was a sword-wielding Justitia. Swell. Where did that leave me? Any goddesses with law books in their hands?

Congratulations on your graduation, daughter. Perhaps you’ve taken a safer road than your grandmother in your search for justice. I cannot give you wealth, but knowledge is power. Wield it wisely.

She added a Web address, presumably as my graduation gift of knowledge. I wanted to check on our patients, but my mother communicated so infrequently, I couldn’t resist wasting a little more time. I called up the website.

A discreet symbol of the Roman god Saturn holding his sickle was the only header on the site. The rest of the page appeared to be more message board than website. I couldn’t find any place where I could leave comments should I want to. I didn’t belong to their sekrit klub.

Another page gave me links to a couple of dozen websites—some in Arabic and Cyrillic and most of them with foreign domains. This was a pretty worldwide group. I recognized the address for the Themis Astrology and Tarot website and knew it held no surprises. Were these all Saturn’s daughters? I was too excited and scared to hope.

Fat Chick in Canada’s link was in English and caught my eye. I clicked on the address and called up a blog that seemed to be a dumping ground for rants about injustice. She had a blogroll down the side I didn’t have time to follow.

The one item that struck me right between the eyes was the photo of Fat Chick. She was indeed large. Not obese, but Viking-warrior large. She looked to be about my age but she’d have made three of me. She held a sword in one hand.

The other hand was on the wheel of her chair. She was crippled.