Strother, no matter how freaked they might be by the zombies in my wake. I dodged a little to the right, to make room for whatever was coming.
A flash of black and white and then a confusion of shapes and colors burst from the intersecting road. For a moment I thought I saw a swirl of black hair, but I didn’t look too hard. Something barreled into me, almost shoving me into the lake, and then snatching me back at the last moment and pushing me toward the bridge again. The thing closest to me howled and I knew that sound.
I turned my head a fraction, glancing at the big white monster next to me.
Jin, a double exposure of white demon and black-suited man, grinned back. “Hello!”
“Hi,” I panted, feeling a stitch knitting tight in my side.
“Cross the river. They’ll stay back after that.”
“Goody,” I gasped, stretching for the last few yards to the bridge.
I almost lost it and fell down when my feet touched the wood and steel of the short span across the Lyre. Jin grabbed me under the arms and flung me the last ten feet, jumping to join me on the far side.
Then he turned back and looked across the bridge. I picked myself up from my undignified sprawl and rushed to my feet, ready to keep running, but seeing Jin standing still and grinning back at the other shore of the river, I turned back, too.
With gruesome black liquid oozing from them here and there, the undead things on the other side milled back and forth in their lurching, teetering manner. They shambled forward one by one and fell back, turning their dead eyes on us to stare for a moment. They twitched and re-formed their strange, pressing cluster as if they were too weak separately to speak until they had compiled themselves into one mass. “Not safe.” Their common voice sighed. “Don’t return for us.”
Then they separated, turning individually and shambling back the way they’d come.
I shuddered. They knew I’d try to come back and let them go and they didn’t want me to. Being told not to release them from whatever dread enchantment held them in their rotting flesh was worse than making the decision myself. I wanted to throw up at the feeling of helplessness and the pain in my side.
Jin laughed at them as they left. “Senseless, useless things.”
“They’re pretty good guard dogs,” I panted. “That’s hardly useless around here.”
“Hah! That depends on what one wants.” He glanced around; then he turned and faced me, composing his human features into a pleasant expression while his white demon face leered in hunger. “Now you owe me two stories,” he whispered.
NINETEEN
I was pretty sure I could have fought out if the zombies—or whatever the appropriate word was—had caught me, but I was just as glad not to have had to. On the other hand, now I was in debt to a demon; not the brightest or pickiest demon, but still . . .
I watched Jin while I caught my breath, thinking about how I was going to slip out of this problem. Jin had helped me out twice, but it wasn’t from altruism. He would always want a quid pro quo; that seemed to be how he worked, though I wasn’t completely sure. He could think for himself, so it was possible he might play a longer game if he had a reason to. There was no doubt in my mind that he was working with or for Willow Leung—I’d seen them together on the highway and he definitely took orders from her—but the purpose was what made no sense to me yet. How could I get him on my side?
First I needed to know why he’d come along just now, though I thought I knew. “Thanks,” I said, turning and starting up the narrow road in the general direction of East Beach.
Jin caught up to me in a single easy bound that almost looked like teleportation. He waved a clawed hand in front of my face and spoke in an urgent, low voice. “No, no. You owe me some information and I shan’t let you walk off without giving it this time.”
My feet felt unusually heavy as he said it and I glanced down, seeing green tendrils of magic wiggling out of the earth to hold me in place. I glared back at Jin. “Do you really think this is the best location for an exchange?”
He shushed me and scowled, making a gesture like a conductor cutting off the end of a song. All noise seemed to drop away.
“What are you doing?” I snapped. “We’re apparently only a quarter mile or so from the zombie keeper,” I said. Pointing upward, I added, “And it’s probably going to start raining again as soon as the sun’s all the way down. I’d like to be inside and dry before that happens.”
“He won’t come for us. And rain doesn’t bother me, but we need some quiet or others may overhear. I’ve just made it much harder.”
“Harder? Marvelous. Then we can stand out here and chat in the storm, since you no longer care how pretty you look in that nice silk suit.”
He frowned. One gambit shot down, he tried another. “You have a truck.”
“Not right here and it’s a long walk to get back to it, so unless you want to turn yourself into a unicorn and let me ride you all the way to Sol Duc—”
Jin looked startled. “Sol Duc? What were you doing down there?”
“Looking for Ridenour and that’s where I found him.”
Jin looked thoughtful. “Interesting . . . I didn’t know he had business—down there.”
I wondered what he’d meant to say, but I was pretty sure I’d get it out of him later. For now, I wanted to get moving before the clouds opened up and poured water on us. I tried moving my feet, but they seemed to be well-stuck to the ground.
“Why did you leave your truck there?” he asked.
“Because it was easier to take one truck than two, though right now I wish I’d stuck with my own ride.”
“This is inconvenient.”
“Damned right it is. Next time Willow wants to do me a favor, tell her to send a cab.”
Jin started to object, but I waved him down and bent over to snap off the viney tendrils that held me in place. They stung a bit, but they were not as painful as holding on to Willow’s energy globe had been, and I figured it was about time these two got the idea I wasn’t just a flunky trotting at Jewel’s heel. “Let’s not play this game, Jin. I know you work for Willow—I saw you with her. Not saying you couldn’t work for yourself as well, since you don’t seem to want her to hear this conversation, but it seems an unlikely coincidence that she’s around this area and so are you, just when I need some help. So you’re in a bit of a tight spot here if you want to negotiate.”
Jin sniffed to hide his surprise at what I was doing. “You think too much of yourself.”
I laughed at the irony of such a claim coming out of Jin’s mouth. “I think that your . . . friend is a more honorable woman than the local authorities have given her credit for. She probably is a thief, a trespasser, and a troublemaker. She might even be a murderer, but like you, she knows about paying debts. Ridenour and Strother would have trapped her in that greenhouse if I hadn’t said anything, and at least one of them wants her dead, even if they say they don’t. Because they weren’t shooting at me.”
Jin looked annoyed, pursing his human lips and furrowing both brows. “They might have been.”
“Why? What sort of threat do
“Ridiculous. Neither of them could have moved the car.”
“So . . . whoever killed Leung is the same person who moved the car.”
“Of course.”
“And you’re sure of this . . . how?”
Jin looked smug. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
I nodded and started walking again. Jin strolled along beside me. “Yes, I’d like to know, and it would be easier if you told me, but I can find out on my own.”
He stopped and narrowed his eyes at me. They gleamed amber like hot coals. “It won’t be as easy as you
