She glared at me for a moment, then shook her head. “You’re the one that wanted this to be all business, so don’t go there.”
I nodded, the weight of my regret pressing down. It didn’t matter how much time passed or how deep Veronica wounded me, I was always gonna come back for more. We both knew it. No matter how hard I fought against it, she had wrapped me up in her web a long time ago, and there was no untangling myself. We were connected in a way that defied the sense or sanity of it all. I hadn’t been that wrapped up in a woman since I was a kid, and it sucked to admit it. My emotional freedom was a farce.
Sobered by that thought, I took my own advice and put my mind back on task. I’d worry about my heart later.
“Why don’t you just track Reven to wherever he’s hiding? He had to have left some kind of trail.”
She took a deep breath and let it out slow before answering, “Because necromancers aren’t like you or me. Their life force isn’t a positive energy I can lock on to. Empowered by death, corrupted even, their souls are like spiritual black holes. They’re a swirling mass of negativity. It’s as if they don’t exist with regards to magical detection.”
That wasn’t a comforting thought. I’d always relied on my senses, blunt as they are, to give me a heads up in tight spots. If Reven were invisible to them, I had lost an advantage. Not that that was anything new. I was always in over my head, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed it.
“What about his henchman?” I already knew the answer. Veronica’s presence here meant she couldn’t track him either.
She shook her head. “Same deal applies. He’s tainted by Reven’s association, the sharing of his art. If we’re going to find them, we’re going to have to do this the old fashioned way.”
“Stumbling blindly and getting lucky?”
Veronica suppressed a grin. “I didn’t say your way.” She turned away and went to the ledge of the building, leaning over to survey the street.
I hung back a few seconds and watched her. Of all the fantastic wonders in the world there are none as awe inspiring as a fit woman in a tight pair of jeans. The sight chased the chill from the air. After a moment of quiet reflection, I adjusted my appreciation and waddled over to join her.
The bright moonlight, enhanced by the dull flicker of the streetlights below, made it easy to see. Down on the street, people scrambled about, filing in and out of the various establishments, wandering from one gilded debauchery to another. If Veronica hadn’t been there, I’d have been jealous. I could use a little debauchery right about now.
Who couldn’t?
We sat there on the ledge for about an hour, settling in to a resigned silence. Afraid to stir things up, I kept my mouth shut. She must have felt the same way-that I’d say something stupid-so all I got out of her was the occasional weak smile before her eyes went back to watching the street.
Up above the chaotic meanderings, separated from the cloying scent of sweaty flesh and the drunken rumble of carnal appetite, I was bored. The beers I’d drunk earlier had run their course through my system, and down the wall of the stairwell hut, and I was starting to get tired.
There is nothing more brain-sapping than a stakeout. Sitting around, picking your nose while you wait for something, anything, to break the monotony. I could never have made it as a cop. I’m down with doughnuts and all, but patience and I haven’t spoken in ages.
Just as my eyelids started to flutter, I felt more than heard, Veronica hop to her feet. My eyes sprung open and followed the direction of her stare. It took me a few seconds to focus, but I finally spotted was she was looking at.
There in a shrouded alley just off the main thoroughfare, was a huddled mass of figures. Though I couldn’t see them clearly, I had a pretty good idea what they were. As my adrenaline battled away my tiredness, I heard the fluttering of their inane mutterings that drifted in the night air, discernible even over the white noise of the street. That clinched it. It was a zombie’s night out.
I leaned in toward Veronica, trying to ignore how good she smelled, and nodded toward the alley. “Our tour guides have arrived,” I whispered.
She put her finger to her lips and leaned back a little as the mass of undead started to move. I stayed where I was and watched as they poured out onto the street. It’s not like they were gonna look up. Everything they needed was right in front of them; a staggering buffet of plastered human flesh.
As if to prove my point, the drunken Fiesta Street patrons in the road and on the sidewalks made it easy. A few pointed at the corpses shambling toward them, their whiskey-soaked brains too addled to feel threatened. Most didn’t even notice.
That is until the first scream rang out. There’s nothing like the shrill screech of abject terror to clear those synapses. Frightened into action, the street exploded into chaos. Patrons ran every which way, but in the end, it did them no good.
From other alleys, those we couldn’t see from where we stood, more zombies emerged to head off the fleeing patrons. There must have been hundreds of them. A mottled mass of dead flesh wedged into the street, blocking it off in every direction. Zombies flooded into the buildings where more panicked screams burst out. The patrons caught out in the open were drowned in a sea of corpses. Broken necks and crushed larynx’s abounded.
Though far from resembling anything heroic, it was hard to sit there and do nothing. Before I even realized it, my gun was in my shaking grip, the safety thumbed off. Veronica set her warm hand on mine, pushing the weapon down while whispering saccharine words of patience. I put it away with reluctance, my eyes glued on the carnage below us.
No stranger to death, it’s not like I hadn’t seen it all before. I’ve survived wars, plagues, and even a nuclear explosion one time when I was vacationing in Japan, but it was never easy to watch people die when I had the means to do something about it. While I doubted I could save everyone, I only had so many bullets, I could have at least gotten some of them out. These people might not amount to much in the “real” world, but they were still living souls.
My fists clenched so tight they hurt, I moved away from the ledge so I didn’t have to see the massacre below. Veronica didn’t seem too bothered by it, but she didn’t have the connection to the human race like I did. She’d been born a succubus. To her, humans were a source of energy, a necessary means to an enjoyable end.
It wasn’t like that for me. I’d always been too human, too much like my mother. Compassionate and caring, she instilled in me a love of life that extended beyond my own, believe it or not. Four hundred-eighty plus years after her death, my moral compass well astray of those teachings, I still felt the gentle tug of her convictions now and again.
It would have killed her to see the man I’d become. Deep inside, I heard a heartstring twang and I paced around the stairwell hut until the screams below faded. Though it was only in memory, I couldn’t face my mother’s disapproving look.
“They’re on the move,” Veronica whispered.
My conscience girded by thoughts of revenge, a poor man’s substitute for responsibility, I made my way to the fire escape. Not waiting for Veronica, I slid down it and crept to the corner where I could watch the zombies’ retreat. She came up from behind, sneaking a quick peek around me.
Once the corpses left the street, their human luggage in hand, we followed, keeping a safe distance. To no surprise, they headed out into the dark desert. After about a half mile, the night clear and warm, a sudden windstorm sprung up out of nowhere. It took all of two seconds to realize it was magically created. The low lying gusts buffeted the dirt behind the zombies, kicking up a cloud of dust around us and scouring away all traces of the zombies’ passage.