7.
"You're late." Logan said when I arrived at the cemetery.
"I know. I was delayed a bit after my meeting with Robert." I said. No need to go into the why part. My ego already hurt enough that I'd given in to Vega. No need to bruise it any more.
"You're late!" I heard Bayman bark behind me. Damn, you show up ten minutes late and everyone is on your back. I turned to face Bayman. When he said he would have a team waiting for me, I didn't think that meant he would be here, too. No pressure. Even if Bayman did come off as a perfectionist, I could handle this.
"I know. I know. I'm sorry. Some last minute business kept me." I said sheepishly. I felt like a child who was trying to explain to her father why she was late for curfew.
Bishop was standing nearby with two exterminators – a man and a woman. They both wore there large backpacks on their backs. It was sort of reminiscent of the Ghostbusters. I almost started humming the theme song. The man—correction, the boy—couldn't be more than nineteen, and he looked jumpy as hell. That one was definitely trigger-happy. I just hope he didn't turn the flamethrower on us in his paranoia. The woman was around my age, but smaller than I was. Her eyes scanned the cemetery. An observer, a marksman on her guard, I liked her already.
I started walking and they followed obediently. No one said a word, but I could feel the worry in the air. I could literally taste the boy's fear on the back of my tongue, and I didn't like it. There was something chilling about feeling the fears of others. It was natural for the fear of other to fuel one's own fear. I tried to shake off the feeling.
We came to a collective stop when we saw a tall man in a trench coat standing in the midst of a plot. The family name was Lugar. He turned slowly and looked at us. The moon shone brightly, illuminating the tombstones and the faces of the other around me, but the shadows still concealed the man's identity. My flesh crawled as goosebumps made my skin tingle.
"The hell is he doin'?" Logan asked. There was an underlying note of tension and for good reason. The man was a sin eater. This was often the reaction they elicited from others.
"Consuming sin." I said quietly to the group. I briefly explained his purpose in life. They continued to gawk at him as if he were a sideshow attraction. They wouldn't like it so much if he really turned his attention to them.
A sin eater was an ordinary human. The practice of sin eating has been around for some time. Families paid sin eaters to eat the sins of the deceased. They believed this gave the dead some sort of absolution. I used to be very skeptical about sin eaters until I met one face to face. You couldn't pick a sin eater out of a crowd unless he was doing what he did best – eating sins. Even then, you might not be able to pinpoint the exact person who was doing it. Sin eaters never used their powers in public, though, not to my knowledge anyway.
I met my first sin eater through my friend, Raphael D'Aubigne. He introduced me to a man who claimed to eat sins. I questioned this man with general disbelieving questions. I'd heard about sin eaters, but I always regarded them as con artists preying on susceptible minds. To this day, I'm not even sure why I didn't believe in sin eaters. I mean, I live in a world where vampire existed, the dead could be raised, and your best friend could be a lycan. It wasn't too long ago that people didn't believe in any of those things either.
Anyhow, I challenged him to eat my sins, which I believed he couldn't do. Sin eaters were believed to only eat the sins of the dead. Of course, Rafe didn't think it was good idea for me to let this man eat my sins, but I wanted to prove a point. As I mentioned, I didn't believe that he could eat sins, of course, much less the sins of the living. It was a very unpleasant experience to say the least. Let me be the first to tell you, you don't have to be dead for a sin eater to eat your sins. You don't have to be ailing or weak-willed, either. Forget what you heard about them needing to actually consume food that "contains" your sin, too. They don't have to do that. It was just a way to fill their bellies back in the old days.
The man seemingly looked into my soul while speaking in another tongue, making every vile, dark thing I'd ever done, ever felt, come bubbling to the surface. There was minimal physical pain. My skin felt as if it were burning slightly with all the darkness that was threatening to come ripping from my body. The mental pain, however, was unforgettable. The things I saw, the things I felt, he made me wish I were dead.
When it was over, I felt lighter, as if a great weight was taken from me. I walked around for weeks feeling like Mother Theresa. I think I might have even told people "bless you, child" during that period. However good you may feel once it's all over, having your sins consumed isn't something you want to do while you're alive. It's actually a frightening experience. You remember every dirty, evil, vile thing you've ever done or thought – from the time you stole that crayon in the first grade to the present.
The sin eater standing in front of the Lugar plot wasn't trying to eat our sins, but we could still feel the effects of what he was doing. I knew the others felt it as well as I did. Repentance weighed heavily on our minds. Our skin tingled slightly as forgotten sins battled to be released. "He won't bother us, but we shouldn't disturb him. We'll return to this portion of the cemetery when he's finished." I said and led them away from the sin eater. I didn't look back at him, but I could still feel his eyes on us.
I heard four sets of footsteps close behind me. They seemed closer now that they knew someone else was in the cemetery. Logan's were inaudible, but I knew his were there too. He was just in prowl mode. I felt like a line leader. They were too close. I couldn't concentrate with them following me like lost puppies. If I stopped, everyone would run into each other and topple over. "Uh… guys, could you move back a little?" I asked in my best non-confrontational voice.
"But if we move too far back we won't be able to fry any zombies that might attack you," the boy said. Definitely trigger-happy.
"Don't worry about me. You just stand back." I said, walking on. Could the zombie be here waiting for us? As a general rule, zombies weren't that smart. However, this one had been eluding the police for weeks. This one was different. This one was smart. That was a scary thought to have, and one I shouldn't be having. At the same time, I couldn't let the obvious fact that it was intelligent cause me to make careless mistakes. I couldn't underestimate this zombie. I concentrated on the task before me.
Restless souls. I could feel them. Souls usually moved on, but sometimes, they didn't. Some causes of this included excessive violence, confusion, pure evil… You know, the usual stuff. Ghosts were harmless – for the most part. They couldn't harm the living. They could scare the hell out of you, but they couldn't really harm you… under normal circumstances. There was the belief that the ghost of a sorcerer who practiced black magic could possibly harm you, among other things. I didn't know, and I wasn't aching to test out that theory, either.
I walked over a bit of sunken ground – an unmarked grave. I felt invisible fingers wrap around my leg and heard a ghostly whisper in my ear. I jerked away from the grave quickly, falling flat on my stomach. Logan, Bayman, and Bishop were at my side before I could get a grip on what happened. "Are you okay?" they were asking as they helped me to my feet. I was more embarrassed than anything.
"There's a ghost in that grave," I said, pointing at the grave. "Or rather there was a ghost in that grave. I felt it and sort of panicked. She or he is starting to fade, though." Ghosts tend to fade over time. The hot spot would probably fade before I died. Then again, this one was very angry. She or he might stick around for a while.
I collected myself and surveyed the graveyard. I had to do more than walk over random graves. If I wanted to find this thing, I would have to do more than play around on some graves. I licked my lips. Sometimes, I hated being a necromancer. I closed my eyes for a moment and concentrated, letting myself become one with my surroundings, allowing myself to feel everything around me. It was the same thing I did when I synchronized myself with nature. Except the power that came from this was different from the power I used to control the weather.
Right now, it was more like I was synchronizing myself with the dead. This power emanated from me stretching beyond me—around me—like a sort of shield. Except, it didn't protect me from anything really. It was more like invisible set of hands that allowed me to probe more than one grave at a time. The Professor once gave me a complicated explanation for it. He said telepaths could do the same thing with the minds of the living. No one else could feel what I was doing, not the living anyway.
As I moved, this shield moved with me. My phantom fingers clawed into the dirt showing me was under there. The coffin directly beside me was water ruined. The woman who rested in it was at peace. Everyone should be so lucky. I passed over the resting, walking along the path. A couple of coffins were protected by their ghosts. The hot spots flared against me, and it slightly burned against the mental fingers I was sending out. I could get in if I really needed to, but there was no point. They didn't want their secrets to get out, and there was no need for them to. They weren't what I was looking for, anyway.
Another ghostly hand grabbed my ankle, but this time I saw it. It was a man, and he was furious. I looked away from him quickly. Ghosts couldn't hurt you, true enough, but the human brain had a way of giving them substance. That's why people who truly didn't believe in ghosts never encountered them. There was nothing there to give them substance. I wished the ignoring act worked with other preternaturals like vampires for instance. It would be nice to ignore a vampire and have him disappear like a ghost.
As I continued walking, I felt more and more fingers reaching out to me. This was why I didn't do this often. It was more than a little bit creepy feeling all these ghosts reaching out to me. It seemed like nearly everything in this graveyard was restless. I tried not to look at any of the ghosts. I tried to keep my fear in check. There was so much anger and pain in their touches. It was almost too much. Some ghosts just wanted to reach out, but others were envious of what you had – life.
I found an empty grave. There were no bones, no body, no anything. I concentrated all my efforts on it. Remnants of magic still surrounded the grave. There had been a body in that grave once. I dropped to my knees and put my hands against the ground, inspecting the area around the grave. The ground around it was broken as if something clawed its way out. Definitely a zombie. I didn't know if this was the zombie we were looking for, but it was the only zombie raising I could sense in this graveyard. Chances are, this was our boy.
When I stood to start back at it, I looked around and realized I had walked the whole graveyard. In fact, I wasn't standing too far from the Lugar plot. The sin eater was long gone. I looked around at the graves. I saw spirits everywhere. To my eyes, they mostly looked like angry flickers of light. I backed away a little. I had done this. I disturbed them and many of them weren't happy. They would settle down eventually. I tried my best to ignore them.
I motioned Bayman toward me. He loomed over me, blocking out the moonlight. "A zombie came from this grave." I said, showing him all the evidence.
"Is that our guy?" he asked.
"I don't know, but it's the only zombie that was raised in this cemetery." I answered.
"Is there any way to find out?"
"Yeah, I'll have to get samples of the dirt, and I'll take it to someone."
"Someone like who?" Bayman's voice held a little suspicion. I stood up and wiped my hands on my jeans.
"I'm going to take it to have a psychometric reading."
"English, Munroe."
"A clairvoyant, I'm going to take it to a clairvoyant."
"Sort of like Burke."
"I'm not going to Burke if that's what you think." I said.
This was beyond Burke's line of psychic sight. He could see future happenings through touch with another person, but I had a feeling that didn't extend beyond the living – necromancer or not. Clairvoyants can see things, supernatural things, that we can't see. Besides, Burke is a suspect. Why would I take this to him?
Psychometry was fascinating. At least to me it was. When you took an object to a highly skilled clairvoyant, they basically read the psychic imprint—some of them referred to it as psychic residue—left on the object. What that means is the clairvoyant could tell you the past, present, and the future of that object.
Let's say you inherited an old gun from your great grandfather who inherited from his great grandfather and so forth. If you were to get a psychometric reading on that gun, the person doing the reading could tell you where the gun's been, who's touched it, the feelings of the people who touched it, where the gun's going, etc. It was a pretty interesting thing, if you asked me.
"Destiny." Bayman said with a sigh. "I thought she stopped doing this sort of thing. Last time I heard anything about her, she was a recluse who was going on and on about some kind of apocalypse that must be stopped."
"She's good, though."
"I don't know if I trust her, though. That's why the department stopped using her. We didn't know whose side she was on." Bayman said. That none-too-pleased sound was starting to creep into his voice again. I heard some of the same things about Destiny, but I needed her expertise at the moment. What I really heard was that she had some dealings with Magneto, but I couldn't validate those rumors. Until I could, I would continue to treat them as rumors.
"Do you have any of those plastic baggies in your squad car?" I asked. I could understand Bayman's concerns. I didn't deny that she may be involved in some shady business, but she'd always been honest with me. She'd always helped me when I needed it.
"Always."
"I need a few." Bayman sent Bishop to the car for the baggie. The headstone was gone, chipped away as if someone had done it on purpose. "The headstone's gone, and I think whoever raised the zombie meant to take it."
Bayman stooped down. "We could've used the information to find out who this person was and possibly why they were raised. Can't they ever make anything easy on us?"
"You know those aren't the rules. Murphy's Law, Bayman." Bishop returned with the baggies, and I filled Logan and him on what was going on. The exterminators were still a safe distance behind us. "What I don't understand is why someone would raise a zombie to kill so many people. Revenge killings I could almost understand, but you haven't been able to find a link in the earlier murders, right?"
"Right. There's nothing that links any of the victims together." Bishop answered.
"Sonuvabitch's probably crazy." Logan said.
"And if a crazy person is raising zombies, there could be more than one." I said. Some evil lunatic was probably running around raising zombies and letting them loose on the general populace. I didn't like that thought.
"Which would mean no pattern." Logan finished for me.
"Please don't say that." I said.
"Why not?" he asked.
"If we believe that, we may never catch the zombie or the person responsible for this." I was trying to be hopeful. I felt better thinking it was just an evil person who raised one zombie for whatever revenge purposes.
"But that's a possibility, right?" Bishop asked. "The person could be a lunatic that just gets his kick from killing others." I only sighed in response as I took a bit of the headstone, too. I would see Destiny first thing in the morning, if I lived long enough to see the morning.
"What are our odds of catching this thing before it kills again?" Bayman asked.
"Honestly, I don't know." I answered softly. I didn't want to tell him what I was really thinking. It wasn't too encouraging.
"You didn't say that with much conviction, Munroe." Bayman said. That was his way of telling me to spit out whatever I had on my mind about the killer.
I stood slowly, folding the samples tightly, putting them in my pocket. Oh hell, why was I protecting them, anyway? They were big boys. "Bayman, this zombie could be killing right now." I said with a grimace. I hope we wouldn't have to deal with another massacre like the last, but I knew this thing would probably kill again before we could catch it.
xXx
Logan insisted on following me to my apartment after we left the graveyard, even though I told him that was quite all right. He knew something was up. I wouldn't tell him much, and he knew when to back off. After Logan left, I took a nice, long shower and lay in the bed with the Torque files. Robert's sister reporter had highlighted important facts in the file. I started writing down the highlighted passages on my notepad. I yawned slightly. I wasn't really sleepy. I was just a little tired after a long day. I wouldn't sleep. I wouldn't sleep. I wouldn't…
I woke up to the sound of feet shuffling and the dank smell of death. Something was moving around in the kitchen, and that something was definitely dead. I cursed myself for falling asleep. Without thought, my hand went to the gun in the holster hanging from my bedpost. I didn't move, as I heard whatever it was making its way to the bedroom.
The zombie shuffled into view. His skin was gray. He'd been dead a while. I thought about turning him, but this was Joanna's zombie. I was powerful, but I knew there was no way I would be able to turn one of her zombies. She was too powerful. This zombie wouldn't stop until it had fulfilled her orders, and there was no way I could take control of its mind.
Zombies aren't what you would call inhumanly strong like vampires or werewolves, but zombies didn't have the same fears that humans had about their strength. In other words, zombies used every ounce of strength they have in their body, which still made them much stronger than most humans.
That may not seem like much strength if you try to gauge it because most humans can't begin to comprehend what they're capable of. I'll put it the best way I know how. You've heard the stories about parents who've picked up cars that have fallen on their children or the captives that have chewed through their own wrists to free themselves from their bonds. That's what raw human strength is capable of.
This is the same stuff that allowed zombies to rip you limb from limb without blinking. Physical exhaustion would eventually stop a human, but not a zombie. Nothing would stop them. They would keep coming at you until it killed you or you found some way to kill it, which commonly involved fire. I could certainly disable it with my gun. Aim right, shoot off a leg limb, and he's an amputee.
I was using Glazer safety slugs in this gun. It would do massive damage to him, but the penetration of a Glazer is non-existent. What does that mean exactly? Glazers are good for shooting off the limbs of the zombie or even people, but I wouldn't have to worry about a bullet penetrating the wall and surprising one of my neighbors. On a side note: police officers do not use Glazers. Remember that the next time the police start shooting inside (or outside) your house.
Anyhow, no matter what I hit him with, he'd find a way to keep coming as long as I was still alive. I could shoot him to pieces and his pieces would still try to move toward me. He wouldn't stop until I was dead. This zombie was old, very old, though. If Joanna wanted me dead, why had she sent such an old zombie? I could probably easily get around him by just attacking him. I wasn't taking my chances, though.
I fired at his arm. It sent a sickening smell through the room, as it just seemed to fall away from the body. I aimed for the other arm and did the same. I controlled my gag reflex as the smell of rotting flesh and death grew stronger. Next, I took out his legs. He fell to the ground, sending black liquid in a spatter over my carpet. Old blood. Great. He was still trying to come toward me, though. I jumped from the bad and ran past the limbs that were still struggling to catch me.
I looked over my shoulder at the zombie struggling helplessly on the floor. I should have never turned to look over my shoulder. I knew the zombie in my bedroom was somewhat incapacitated, but there was just something in human nature that always made you look over you shoulder. If I hadn't looked over my shoulder I probably would've have seen the other zombie.
I bumped into something solid, and I found myself looking at a chest. This zombie was huge. He looked as if he came straight off the farm. He had to be in his early twenties when he died – freshly dead, too. He was fresh-faced even for a dead guy, light hair curled on top of his head. Muscles bulged beneath his tattered suit. This one had been strong before he died, and I didn't even want to think about how strong he was now.
Farm boy grabbed me and raised me by my shoulders. A massive head came toward my shoulder. I screamed as he bit my shoulder, and there was nothing I could do. He was too strong to fight. If I hit him with lightning, I would have to hope that he caught on fire or else it was hopeless. I still had the gun in my hand. I couldn't aim for his arms, but I could shoot him in the chest.
It wouldn't hurt him, but he might turn me loose from the impact. The barrel of the gun was touching his chest. I tried to concentrate as I felt his teeth digging into my skin. My eyes started to blur with tears. For just a moment, I wished he were a vampire or a lycan. Their sharp teeth would have already ripped through my arm. Instead, I had to deal with human teeth, which were painfully dull, which meant he had to chew at my shoulder like a turkey leg. I squeezed the trigger, hoping for the best. The impact from the gun did force him back, but at the same time, I was thrown back.
I slammed against the counter, the end of the counter poking me hard in back. I fought the urge to just sink to the ground as I clutched my back. Farm boy was already recovering from his wounds. There was a hole in his chest and dark liquid was oozing from the wound. Fresh blood. Great. I had to keep him back until I could devise a better plan. I took another shot at him. This shot went a little awry. It hit his arm, but it didn't do the damage I was hoping for. He went back, though, knocking over a shelf.
I felt fingers touching my ankle. I lost my concentration on Farm boy, as I looked down and moved away from the hand trying to attack my ankle. I shot the hand. It blew to bits. The arm still tried to move without the hand, rolling around helplessly on the floor. It might've been sad if said hand and arm hadn't tried to kill me. I looked up and Farm boy was already on me. I aimed the gun for his head, closed my eyes, and pulled the trigger. I felt bone shards and something wet hit my face. Fresh blood on face. Wonderful.
He fell, but he managed to take me with him, falling on top of me. His head was mostly gone, except for his jawbone. I heard something sliding across the floor. I craned my neck to see the first zombie's upper body wiggling his way toward me. Mouth posed to do some serious damage. The zombie on top of me was too heavy to move because of the awkward position we were in. Where were the police? I know one of my neighbors had called by now.
Farm boy's hands wrapped around my throat, crushing. Tears slipped from the side of my eyes, as I struggled to take a breath. I heard my door being forced open. "Ororo!" Jean's voice called.
"Help…" I tried to scream it, but the hand around my throat was making it too hard to do much of anything besides die. And I could still hear my death sliding toward me on its stomach. And just like that the Farm boy's body was floating over me. Then, he was flung to the side like a rag doll.
I rolled on my stomach quickly, thrusting my gun between the teeth of the other zombie, just as it was about to take the plunge. His whole head went when I pulled the trigger, but his torso still tried to move toward me. I don't see how the damn thing even made it out of the bedroom. Determination. I stood up. Jean held the zombie back mentally. For the ten-thousandth time in my life, I wish I had just an ounce of telekinetic abilities.
Scott and Logan were standing there looking a little bewildered at the zombie. "We need to set it on fire." I rasped. My throat burned. I started rummaging through drawers looking for matches, a lighter, anything. I slammed the drawers, frustrated. I couldn't find any. First thing tomorrow, I was buying matches and lighters—tons of them.
"Police!" a man said, barging into the room with his gun pulled. Everyone paused. Jean was still holding the zombie at bay, but I don't think the officer realized it. Four officers came through the door after him. They paused for a moment before going after the nearly headless zombie who was coming toward us now. "What's going on here?"
I wanted to tell him that now was a fine time for them to show up, but I played nice. "Zombie attack," was all I could manage to say before he was pushing me toward the door. Two of the officers were holding on the Farm boy for dear life, but he was still trying to come toward me. The other two grabbed the zombie.
"Get them out of here! And somebody call the goddamn exterminators," the officer barked, as more officers entered. We were ushered out of my apartment by a few younger cops. Paramedics were outside. One was insistent on checking me over for wounds, even though I tried to tell her most of the blood came from the zombie. I just wanted to get as far away from there as possible.
Bayman took my statement personally. Maybe I would have felt special if I wasn't scared and seething… and someone was going to pay. He took me back inside to take the statement. The inside of my apartment smelled like overcooked meat, decay, and blood. Bayman and I sat at my kitchen table.
"I'm going to need your shirt as evidence," he said. I nodded at him. He allowed me to change clothes before I gave him my statement. The exterminators had put white sheets everywhere so blood and ashes wouldn't be tracked all over my apartment. That was mighty nice of them after not showing up in time.
"Tell me what happened," he said when I came back into the kitchen. I told him everything I could remember. I even told him about my friends kicking the door in the save me. I didn't tell him about the floating zombie act, though. "Was the door locked?" he asked.
"Yes, I always lock the door." I was a single woman in New York. I stayed in my apartment alone. Of course, I locked my door. Did anyone in America still leave their doors unlocked? I thought the days of nice, American towns was long gone.
"Can zombies pick locks?" Bayman asked. I thought that was a rather silly question, but Bayman never asked anything without a reason. He would clue me in shortly.
"No, they would have tried to rip the door off the hinges…" I trailed off. The door was barely on its hinges now, but Logan told me that he had kicked the door in because it was locked. I told Bayman that, as well. The zombies should have been the one who tore the door of its hinges, not Logan. Zombies don't have the metal capacity to pick a lock much less open a door, close it behind them, and relock it. They operated on the basest of intelligence levels. "You think someone picked the lock for them and then locked the door back."
"You think so, too." Bayman said.
"There was no other way they could've gotten in without physically breaking through the door." I said. "That bitch. She probably didn't do it herself, but she sent someone with the zombies."
"You mean Joanna," he said. I nodded. "You think she did this?"
"Bayman, I managed to make her mad. I know without any doubt that she did this." I said. I might have had my doubts about her being involved in the murders, but I know she did this.
"Is there any way you can prove that?"
"Right now, no, but if I could get inside her home, I could get some kind of proof."
"You still don't think she's responsible for the killer zombie?"
"I don't know, anymore." She sent two zombies after me. That was serious business. She wanted to be sure that I died tonight, even though she knows I have no concrete evidence on her. No, she wasn't worried about me going to the cops. This was strictly a revenge hit.
"I'll have a warrant in forty-eight hours."
"Two days. She could get rid of everything in two days. You might as well just spank her hand and tell her to be a good girl." I said a little colder than I intended.
"It's the best I can do considering the circumstances. We don't have any hard evidence other than your word," he said. I leaned back in my chair. He was right, and there was no sense in arguing with him about it. "Will you be okay here by yourself?"
"I'm not staying here. I'm going with my friends. Even if I did stay here, though, I don't think she'd be stupid enough to send another zombie after me." I said.
If she sent another zombie, chances are she would be caught since the police were on alert. If caught, she would be killed on spot. Witches, sorcerers, voodoo priestess, etc. gone bad were dealt instant death like vampires because sometimes they were able to slip through the bars, too.
"We've got to nail her, Munroe." Bayman said before he left.
"I know. Believe me, I know." I said before turning over my bloodied shirt as evidence.
I gathered up the papers on Torque and went home with my friends. The medics had been reluctant to let me go at first, but when Jean told them she was a doctor and showed off her extensive doctor knowledge, they let me go home. Jean and Hank examined my shoulder at the mansion. Hank was our newest team member. He was an expert on mutant physiology.
Hank tried to help mutant-human relations before a lab accident that left him blue and furry. Dr. Henry McCoy had been a mutant before his accident, but it wasn't something people knew. Before his accident, he just seemed like a mutant sympathizer who happened to be a smart scientist-type. He came to us after his accident. He was still coming to terms with his new look.
After they patched me up, I went straight to the bathroom. I was a mess. Despite having on clean clothes, there was blood everywhere on me. I took another hot bath, taking care not to get my bandages too wet. Jean was sitting on my bed, looking through the Torque files when I came in the bedroom. "How did you know to come for me?" I asked her.
"Well, Logan was worried about you. He had to be really worried to confide in us about it instead of playing the hero, or else he's starting to realize he can't take on everything by himself." Jean said pointedly. I smiled. She was trying to prove a point. She thought she was so clever. "And you're my best friend, Ororo. We share a bond, always have, always will. I felt you were in danger, and after everything Logan had said, I knew—we knew—you needed our help whether you wanted it or not."
"Thanks for not listening to me when I tell you not to worry about me." I sincerely meant that. As much as I wanted to keep my friends out of my other affairs, I knew that sometimes I couldn't. I was truly grateful that they helped me. If they hadn't, well, I wouldn't be alive now.
"You're welcome. Besides, if you die, who will be my maid of honor?" she teased with a wink.
"Logan might look nice in my dress." I said. Jean snickered.
"Heard that." Logan said from the doorway.
"Heard what?" I tried to feign innocence, but Jean was snorting through her laughter. The mental image of Logan in my dress was very amusing to say the least. I tried to bite back a smile. It wasn't working.
"Just for the record, I think pink is more Logan's color." Jean said. She squinted her eyes in a pseudo-serious look, as if she were trying to see Logan in a specific dress. "I think the pink would bring out his eyes. If you die, I'll talk to my wedding planner about it."
"Very funny, you two." He didn't sound as amused as I felt, and it didn't help matters that I could hear Jean singing in my head. She has a singing voice only a mother could love.
As natural as rain, he dances again. My God! Logan in a pink dress. Oh yeah. Jean sang to me mentally. I tried to keep a straight face, but that's hard when your best friend is playing devil's advocate.
If Logan knew you were changing the words of Vicar in a Tutu to fit him, he'd probably kill you and me both. I said, trying to sound stern. Apparently, Jean doesn't listen to my stern voice often.
In the fabric of a pink dress, any man could get used to. Jean continued. Did I mention how bad her singing voice is? I couldn't help wincing a bit as her voice cracked inside my head.
Jean, stop it. He's looking at us funny. He knows we're speaking to each other mentally. I said. Logan was raising his eyebrow at both of us.
"You two are doing that weird mind-talkin' thing, ain't ya?" he asked.
"Yes." Jean said cheerfully.
"No." I said at the same time. Then, I elbowed her hard in the ribs.
"I can take a hint. You two want to be alone so you can talk." Jean said, standing up. She shot me a sly smile as she started walking toward the door. "Be careful with that arm." I knew what she was trying to imply, and I didn't like it. Okay, I did like it, but she had the wrong idea. She started humming Vicar in a Tutu aloud as she walked out of my room.
I rolled my eyes after her. Sometimes, I wondered what really separated teenagers from adults besides age. Some days, I would swear that we're still teenagers instead of adults.
"How's that arm?"
I pulled up the sleeve of my shirt, took off the bandage, and showed him the wound. It was still red and swollen. Teeth marks marked my skin. "It's not too bad." I was playing brave. The wound hurt like hell. A constant throb pulsed through my shoulder. If a hamburger had feelings, it would probably know exactly how I felt. Another reason for me not to eat meat.
"I hear you're goin' to see him tomorrow night." I knew which 'him' he was referring to. Vega. So, that was what this visit was all about. I thought he might yell at me for not telling him about the zombie attack, which I did know was coming. Apparently not. It was funny how Vega took precedence over everything.
"Who told you that?" I asked stunned. Where does he get his information? Was he in on some kind of supernatural rumor mill that just happened to tell more truths than rumors?
"Just somebody." He shrugged. "Is it true?"
"Yes." I answered. I start fiddling with the edge of my shirt. "But it's not personal. Not really. We just need to talk about this human servant thing and what we're going to do about it because there is no way in hell I'm spending eternity…" I trailed off. Why did I feel like I needed to explain myself to Logan? It's because I didn't want him to think anything was really going on between Vega and me. Because really there wasn't.
- - -
Author's Notes: Sorry it took so long to update, and sorry for the slapdash ending to this chapter. The next chapter is almost ready (if it's not already ready by the time I post this). Personal life and an unhealthy obsession with The Sims 2 (I can't seem to leave it alone for more than a couple of hours at a time before I'm running for my laptop) got in the way of updating. I did read the updated stories on my favorites list, but doesn't let me do a lot of reviewing these days. I did enjoy what I read, though. :)
You'll probably see Rafe in later stories in this AU and other stories. He's a character I'm working on in my writing classes. I like to give him minor roles in my stories because it gives me a new facet to add to his character every time I use him in something. Everything I said about "sin eaters" is true to belief with a minor twist. A sin eater would actually "eat the sins" of a person before he or she was buried. Bread was placed on the body of the deceased or a feast was prepared over the body and the sin eater would eat the offered food.
Darlin, "Devil's Kiss" is still alive and kicking. My friend and I are still working on it – slowly, yet surely. I just posted the next chapter on the website for it, but I'm redoing the site. It'll be a while before it's accessible for anyone else besides my friend. I discussed the possibility of posting the story on ffnet with my friend. We're still discussing it. She's mainly concerned with the possibility that it might break ffnet's rules regarding content. I'm mainly concerned with the long preamble I know I'll have to write if I do post it here. We'll see.