I didn’t bother hiding my sneer. Dr. Kristi Charish was the neurobiologist who’d kidnapped me then used me for her psycho zombie experiments. She’d been under Pietro’s house arrest ever since he’d captured her after the secret lab fiasco and, like Dr. Nikas, lived at the lab 24/7. However, unlike the good doctor, she wore a tracking anklet and had round the clock supervision by one of her three assigned guards. Kristi had shown herself to be an unstable, reckless, and treacherous bitch, and had broken more laws than I could count, but we couldn’t exactly turn her over to the cops. Yes, officer, this respected scientist kidnapped me and made me chew on a couple of almost dead guys. Why? Oh, y’see, I’m a zombie and eat human brains, and she . . . Wait, what are you doing with that Taser? Hey, stop! Ow!
It would only go downhill from there.
She was currently working with Dr. Nikas to develop a nutritional substitute—a.k.a. fake brains—that zombies could survive off of instead of human brains. I had little doubt that if Kristi wasn’t such a sharp researcher Pietro would have made her disappear rather than keeping her, and I suspected that was the only reason Dr. Nikas tolerated the outright slavery under his roof. Setting her free simply wasn’t an option.
Dr. Nikas gave me a nod. “You can close it now, Angel.”
Pietro backed away from the vat as I replaced the lid, but his gaze lingered on fetus-Kang for another few seconds before shifting to Ari. “I want to be kept apprised of any changes,” he stated, then pivoted and briskly exited the room.
Dr. Nikas and I followed him out, leaving Jacques to finish his adjustments.
“Angel, I’ll meet you at the central lab in about five minutes,” Dr. Nikas said tightly as we reached a cross-corridor. “I need to have a brief chat with Pietro.”
“Gotcha.” I didn’t mind being left out of that particular chat. I continued straight while Dr. Nikas turned left, but when I passed the door to the lounge off the central lab, I spied Pietro’s head of security, Brian Archer, sitting on the couch and flipping through a decade-old magazine.
“Hey, you missed the freak show,” I said, ducking into the lounge. “Kang’s head is way gross.”
Brian set the magazine aside. “I think I get enough freak show without an extra dose,” he said with a casual smile. Brian didn’t have the kind of looks that turned heads, but he made up for it in presence. He looked like he was in his forties, but he once told me he’d been a zombie for a little over fifteen years, and I’d never worked up the nerve to ask him his age. I’d never seen him looking sloppy or dressed casually, and today was no different. Dark navy suit, cream-colored shirt with a tie that coordinated without calling attention to itself. Short brown hair and deep brown eyes. Nails neatly trimmed. No jewelry of any sort. Not a man to be fucked with.
“Yeah, I guess you do,” I said with a laugh as I flopped into a chair. “What are you doing out here? Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I have a security meeting not far from here in a little while,” he explained, then tapped his upper chest. “I figured now was a good time for Dr. Nikas to check out my port and test a new mod.”
I’d only found out about ports and mods a few months ago, but I was seriously considering putting them on my Christmas list. Mods—modifiers—were specialized drugs that revved up or toned down parasite activity as needed. The port itself was implanted beneath the skin and provided an easy way to get a mod into the body. With a port, mods could either be delivered quickly, dumping into the system all at once, or the drug could be stored and set to release slowly. Mods could have some pretty awesome effects, such as more efficient brain usage, or better senses, or resistance to the kind of tranquilizers that worked on zombies. All sorts of useful stuff.
The drawback was that only one or two mods could be used at the same time, and some couldn’t be mixed at all without big side effects. They were a lot like regular human drugs in that respect.
“Everything go okay with that?” I asked.
“Some kinks with the mod still, but it’s looking promising,” he said. “It’s designed to be a short term turbo charge of zombie abilities. Speed, strength, reflexes, senses, that sort of thing. Would be nice to have for emergencies.” He stretched and stifled a yawn. “But right now I’m simply waiting to see if Mr. Ivanov has anything for me before I take off.”
“Don’t let the excitement of it all overwhelm you,” I said with a grin. “How’s everything else going?”
“Business as usual in the zombie security world,” he said, which I figured was his way of saying he couldn’t talk about anything. “Never a dull moment with the Tribe.”
The Tribe. Pietro Ivanov’s organization was actually a number of corporations—a chain of funeral homes, real estate, construction, and even health care clinics that disguised the zombie research. And probably a ton I didn’t have a clue about as well. Up until a couple of months ago I’d privately referred to the whole deal as “The Zombie Mafia,” yet after some time working steadily in the lab, I discovered that the people in the organization—humans and zombies alike—referred to it as “the Tribe.” After some thought—and with the greater knowledge I had of Pietro, his people, and his goals—the reality of the whole common-ties-common-support thing settled in, and I grudgingly agreed that Tribe was a better nickname.
Most of the time, at least. There were reasons the whole Mafia tag had come up in the first place, and that undercurrent was still alive and kicking.
I peered at Brian. “Don’t you ever get to go off and play on your own?”
Brian’s eyes widened in exaggerated wonder. “You mean . . . not be on call?” Then he laughed. “I have down time, sure, but I’m never truly off duty.”
“Well, that sucks,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “When do you get to be your own person?”
“I’m doing what I want to do,” he said, giving me a reassuring smile. “I have a couple of hobbies to fill in the gaps. I can’t imagine a different lifestyle.”
I wondered about the gaps. As far as I knew, he didn’t have a girlfriend. At one time he’d seemed seriously interested in my best friend, Naomi—formerly known as Heather—but that fell flat when she hooked up with Kyle Griffin, one of Brian’s top security guys.
Brian seemed content enough, though, and I knew it really wasn’t any of my business. Not that I’d ever let that whole “none of my business” thing stop me from being a nosy buttinsky before.
“Well,” I said, “if you’re okay with your schedule, I guess I won’t need to have strong words with Pietro after all.”
Brian grimaced, obviously not entirely sure I was teasing. “Not on my account.”
“I’ll behave,” I said. “Don’t worry.”
He wiped his brow in mock-relief, though maybe not totally mock. “Don’t go getting me into trouble,” he said, then stood as a tall, black woman with braids that hung to mid back entered the room. Radiating ultra-confidence with a dash of scary calm, Rachel Delancey was Brian’s second in command, and one of the few female zombies Pietro had working for him.
Her gaze slid over me as if I was a steaming pile of dog shit on the carpet before it came to rest on Brian. Yeah. We weren’t going to be best buds anytime soon. Her idea of security probably didn’t include a new zombie like me hanging around at the super secret lab. But I had a niggling feeling there was more to it than that. She’d seemed okay with me at first, then gradually went colder than a polar bear’s ass. I’d tried a few times to be friendly but got nowhere. The only thing I could figure was that she’d found out about my loser past and thought I was a security risk. Or maybe she thought I was going to take advantage of Marcus or Pietro or Dr. Nikas. Whatever the deal was, I couldn’t see any way to change her opinion of me. Oh, well. Her loss.