CHAPTER 4
Zombies
"Quinn? What are you doing here?" Charlie smiled when she saw Quinn walk through the door.
"I heard this was a great place to hang out." He tugged his suit jacket to straighten it.
"Oh yes." Charlie's smile grew. "You clearly look like you're ready to work out."
"Hey, I've done some of my best work in this suit." He strolled toward the desk.
"Really?"
He snagged a stool from behind the desk and set it against the wall where he could keep an eye on the room and the front door. "Yes, really."
"So you're just going to sit there all night?"
"Not all night. Just until you close up."
Charlie snorted.
. ͽϿ Ѻ Ͼͼ .
Dinner had wound down and Hardison and Parker had retreated to their room. Eliot brought Julio and Chrissa another beer as they all settled in on the couch.
"How's Quinn been doing?" Chrissa asked.
"Really great. He's fit in so much better than I anticipated." Eliot sipped his beer.
"And how are things with Gemma?" Julio smiled.
"Good. Going slow." Eliot shrugged a shoulder.
"And how are you doing with that?" Chrissa teased.
"Why does everyone think I'm in some kinda hurry?" Eliot grumped. "I have patience. A lot of patience."
Chrissa chuckled.
"How's she doing with going slow?" Julio asked.
"I think the long-distance thing is really helping actually. We get to talk and text, so she's getting to know me and I'm getting to know her." He sipped at his beer.
"Have you guys talked about future plans? About this not being a long-distance thing?" Chrissa curled into Julio's side.
"Of course. I want it so bad I can practically taste it, but right now, this is for the best. She's got trust issues and frankly so do I. It's been a long time since I had to trust that a woman would want to stick around. And maybe when Gemma finds out about the things I've done, she won't want to stick around." He shrugged.
"I'm sure she'll want to stay." Chrissa reached across gripped Eliot's shoulder for a second.
"I've been praying God's will to work through this relationship, and I'll keep praying." Julio nudged Eliot's shoulder with his own. "Patience and persistence."
"Gracias amigo." Eliot let a small smile flit across his face.
. ͽϿ Ѻ Ͼͼ .
"Looks like everyone's gone home." Quinn stood from his stool with a stretch.
"Still got another hour before closing." Charlie muttered and tapped her pen on the sign-in sheet.
"Seriously? We have to wait around when there's no one here?" Quinn made a show of looking around the empty gym.
Charlie laughed. "I don't know what you do, but it's not a regular job is it?"
"What makes you say that?" He gave a dramatic tug to his lapels. "How do you know I don't work at a bank or a law firm?"
She chortled. "Sure you do." She said with false charm. "I'm sure the bank wouldn't care what time you clocked out as long as you felt like you were done for the day."
"Exactly." He winked at her.
He trailed along as she took out her cleaning rag and disinfectant spray. "What do you do Quinn? Really?"
"Protection, mostly."
Charlie quirked an eyebrow at him. "Between the suit and the attitude, when you said that, someone might think you were in the mob."
"What would you know about the mob?"
"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." She said it with just a little accent.
"Good movie."
"Great movie." She countered.
"How are you on westerns?" He smiled.
"Depends. There…."
A loud rattle sounded down the hallway cutting off whatever Charlie had been about to say.
Quinn hurried for the front door. "Lock the door behind me!"
~~o0o~~
As soon as he stepped outside the door, he could smell the man from the night before. It was, more or less, the same smell the witches had carried. When he was out of sight of the front windows he ran to the back of the building.
With a glance up and down the alley, to be sure no one was watching he leapt to the top of the building. His boot skidded on the edge and for a second he thought he might fall. With a tug and a grunt, he rolled onto the roof.
Before he could rise, hands grabbed the lapels of his jacket and slammed his head onto the grimy roof. The stink of his assailant was so overwhelming that he was unable to fight back for a second and his head was slammed hard against the roof again. As he was yanked up by his jacket again, he hooked a leg over his attacker's leg and used it to trap that limb and provide the leverage he needed to flip them both over.
As soon as he'd rolled to the top, he landed a hard right cross to the man's face and felt the cheekbone crunch under his fist. The man dropped unconscious, and Quinn rolled up to his feet. With a sigh of dismay, he looked at the tear in one jacket sleeve and the muck that was smeared everywhere else.
He walked a little ways down the roof and fished his phone out of his pocket. With a quick tap he had Eliot. "I'm pretty sure I found the boy the witches are looking for."
"Where is he?"
"Unconscious on the roof of Treyson's gym."
"Keep an eye on him. I'll be on my way."
"Okay. You…" Quinn didn't get to finish his thought before his legs were yanked out from under him.
The phone skittered across the roof, but Quinn didn't track it as he rolled to his back and kicked the man in the face. Pushing with his hands next to his head Quinn sprang to his feet.
The man moved oddly on all fours and something about his locomotion reminded Quinn of a spider. His matted hair and muck covered skin made it hard to make out features, but Quinn had the impression that the man was late middle age at best. This was no boy, no child, this was a man. One that was twisted and monstrous and not an innocent in need of protection.
The man bared his teeth and hissed.
"Go on. Show me those teeth!" Quinn kicked grit from the roof at the man. "I'll yank them out one by one!"
The man lunged suddenly and even though Quin was able to get a solid hit in, the man drove him off the edge of the roof to the ground. The landing drove the air from Quinn's lungs, and he felt several ribs crack under the man's weight. In his attempt to control the fight he'd wrapped an arm around the man's neck when he'd lunged. Unfortunately, it put him in the unique position to hear and feel the man's head cave-in when it struck the ground.
He crawled out from under the corpse but continued to lay in the damp grime of the back alley while he tried to get his breath back.
~~o0o~~
He didn't think he'd had his eyes closed for long, but he heard footsteps coming around the corner of the building. He sat up expecting to see Eliot and was surprised to see Charlie.
"What are you doing out here?"
She frowned at him. "You'd been gone a long time. I was worried."
He stood quickly trying to block her view of the dead man. "Why don't you go back inside. I'll be in, in a minute."
She looked at him and her nose wrinkled in disgust. "What's in your hair?"
He reached up to where she was looking and felt something viscous squish under his fingers as he touched his hair. He was uncomfortably sure that it was brain matter from the dead guy. "Trust me, you don't want to know."
She looked over his disheveled and filthy appearance and glanced around him before he could stop her. "I take it that you found the ghost?"
He was surprised that she was taking the sight of the dead man so well. He glanced over his shoulder to see if he could convince her that the man was only unconscious. He went still and he felt a chill slide down his spine. The dead man was gone.
"Stay right here." He gripped her arms for a second as though that would anchor her in place.
There was blood and brain matter smeared on the asphalt and a bloody footprint that pointed down the alley, but the body was gone. All evidence said that it had gotten up and walked away. But he hadn't heard any movement in the alley before Charlie came around the corner. The thought that he'd been laying there with his eyes closed while the corpse had gotten up and stood over him caused the chill down his spine to freeze solid.
He turned to Charlie and started to hurry her to the front of the building. "Come on. Let's get inside."
~~o0o~~
Eliot had felt the thrill of a fight, the pain of injuries, and a little while later, fear. That last emotion prompted him to drive a little more aggressively than was probably advisable.
He parked his Challenger next to Quinn's Hellcat and hurried to the front door of the gym. He smiled a little when he found the door locked. He tapped a knuckle against the frame. "Quinn, open up."
Charlie was the one that came to the door, and with a cautious glance past him, she turned the lock. As soon as he'd stepped inside, she locked the door behind him.
He saw Quinn sitting on a stool near the desk. His suit jacket and button-up shirt were missing leaving Quinn in his undershirt and slacks. A trickle of blood had run from his eyebrow down his cheek, and he was holding an ice pack to his ribs on the right side.
"You've looked better, what happened?"
"Oh, you know, ran into an old friend." Quinn gave Eliot a half smile.
"I take it you got caught up." As he got closer, he could see the small pile of ruined clothes laying near the stool. "I don't know how to tell you this, but I think your suit is a gonner." He pressed a thumb near the wound on Quinn's forehead and took a close look at his eyes to see if his pupils were matching or if he had a concussion.
"You think Hardison will cover it as a business expense?" Quinn glanced at his ruined clothes.
"Don't worry we'll pick up another suit from the bargain bin in the thrift shop down the street." He pressed carefully along Quinn's ribs checking for damage.
"Just 'cause you dress like a bum doesn't mean that the rest of us have to lower our standards to fit in with the homeless." Quinn snorted.
"There is nothing wrong with dressing in clothes that are functional instead of prissy." Eliot smiled as he pulled Quinn to his feet.
"Prissy?! Prissy?! I think the word you are looking for is classy. That suit had style."
Eliot snorted and urged Quinn toward the hall to the men's locker room. As Quinn moved in that direction, Eliot held an arm out toward Charlie. "Come on. While he gets his prissy-self cleaned up, I need you to stay close. Have you called Trey yet?"
Charlie shook her head and followed Quinn.
"Just 'cause you have the fashion sense of a troll is no reason to call me prissy." Quinn called back.
Eliot smiled.
Charlie hesitated in the doorway to the men's locker room.
"Hey." Eliot got her attention before he set a hand on her shoulder. "Just stay right here in the entryway." He looked her over. "Are you okay?"
She nodded and gave him a small smile. "Yah, I'm fine." She leaned back against the tile wall.
Eliot gave her a pat on the shoulder before he rounded the corner. He pulled a spare set of sweats from his locker and kept an eye on Quinn who'd already stripped off and gotten into the shower. He moved close enough that the sound of the water would cover their conversation.
"What happened?"
Quinn scrubbed viciously at his hair. "We heard the noise of someone messing with the vent on the roof. I ran around to the back and got up there to take a look and the guy attacked me. I'd knocked him out right before I'd called you. It was a solid knock out. He shouldn't have woken up anytime soon."
"But he did." Eliot remembered the worry that had flashed through him when Quinn's call had suddenly ended mid word.
Quinn nodded. "We went back at it, and I had him in a headlock when we fell off the roof." Quinn closed his eyes for a second and let the warm water spray over his face. When he looked back at Eliot his eyes were the blue of his wolf. "The guy's head smashed. He was dead. I swear, there was no way he survived that."
"But?" Eliot knew that killing someone wouldn't have upset Quinn like this. For better or worse, killing someone was pretty much his job until just recently, and wouldn't have shaken him the way it would the average person. Something else about it had spooked Quinn.
"He's gone. I closed my eyes for just a minute and when I looked at where the body should have been… it… was… gone." Quinn hissed as his own rough scrubbing over his shoulders opened a partially healed wound and the soap stung.
"Did Charlie see the body?" Eliot glanced toward the door and could see Charlie's elbow sticking out past the corner.
"No. It was gone by the time she got there."
"Okay. We'll get her out of here and we'll head back to the pub to regroup." Eliot handed Quinn a towel and stepped away so that Quinn could dry off and get dressed.
He went to check on Charlie who hadn't moved from where he'd left her. "Did you get ahold of Trey?"
"Yah, I sent him a text. He said he's on his way."
"Alright. If you want to go home, we can wait for Trey."
She frowned at him. "No. I don't want to go home. I want to know what's happening! Quinn got into a fight with someone but wouldn't tell me anything and he hustled me into the building. And then you show up and insist I come in here and I just feel like I'm getting bossed around a lot. I'm not a child. I can take care of myself."
Eliot patted her arm. "You're right. You can take care of yourself. We're not trying to say that you can't. And I know we aren't being fair, but there are somethings we just can't explain right now."
"Won't explain." She gave him a pointed look.
He nodded. "I'm sorry, but that's how it's gotta be."
"Fine." She said it with a growl that clearly communicated that it was not fine.
They both looked toward the hall when they heard the jingle of keys as the front door opened and closed.
"It's just me." Trey called.
"Down the hall." Eliot called back.
He gave Charlie a half smile. "Can you bring the first aid bag here?"
She nodded and went to look for it.
"Why have her get out the first aid kit? You know I'm gonna be fine." Quinn asked from his place on the bench in front of the lockers.
"You don't need to hurt in the meantime. And I would think you wouldn't want to get blood all over the interior of your shiny new car."
Trey and Charlie walked into the men's locker room at the same time. Charlie handed the first aid kit to Eliot without comment. Eliot set the bag on the bench as he unzipped it.
"Charlie said there was a fight but there's no cops outside and I haven't seen anyone else. So what's going on?" Trey looked face to face.
"Quinn was attacked. The other guy was injured but got away." Eliot didn't look at Trey as he started placing butterfly bandages over the split above Quinn's eyebrow.
"Why haven't the cops been called?" Trey pulled a cold pack out of the kit, and cracked and shook it before handing it to Quinn.
"Thanks." Quinn held the cold pack over the bruise on his ribs. He couldn't help the moan as the cold seemed to soak in.
"We don't need to talk to the cops. If you want to call them, we'll stay and make a statement but otherwise I think we should all just call it a night." Eliot placed gauze and tape over the wound on the back of Quinn's shoulder.
"Did you know this guy?" Trey frowned as he looked at Quinn.
"Not exactly. I think he's the guy that's trying to set up housekeeping in your vents. He's the same guy that tried to attack Charlie last night." Quinn set the cold pack down so he could pull the sweatshirt on. About halfway into it, it became clear that he was not going to fit. He gave Eliot a reproachful look.
He could see the amused looks on Eliot and Trey's faces. He caught the flutter of movement as Charlie left the room. He wasn't sure what he'd done to upset her, but he decided that he would blame it on Eliot for giving him a shirt that was too small.
A moment later Charlie was back with a large black sweatshirt that had 'West Point USMA' printed in white letters across the chest. "I'll loan it to you, but you have to bring it back."
Quinn hesitated but Eliot thumped a knee against Quinn's hip. Quinn reached out to take the shirt but stopped. "I appreciate the offer, but I don't want to ruin it and I'm very likely to bleed on it before I get home."
"Jerry wouldn't mind. He used to say that if you weren't bleeding you weren't working hard enough." She shrugged and held the sweatshirt out to him again.
"Jerry?" Quinn asked as he took the shirt from her.
"My brother." Her smile wobbled a little.
Quinn saw the look on Charlie's face and the odd look that crossed Trey's face and he was willing to bet that Jerry was dead and that this was a very unusual move from the tough-girl gym manager.
"I'll take good care of it." Quinn promised as he carefully pulled it on.
. ͽϿ Ѻ Ͼͼ .
Quinn could smell the faint smell of an unfamiliar man and the more familiar scent of Charlie coming from the sweatshirt as he stepped out into the chilly night air. Eliot gave him a pat on the arm as he passed by on the way to his car.
Another newly familiar, and far less pleasant scent, drifted past on the breeze and he fought to keep his wolf in check. With a good look around the lot, he hurried to his car.
He and Eliot both waited until Trey and Charlie drove away before they started their cars and pulled onto the street. Quinn pulled out his cell phone and called Eliot.
"Did you catch that scent on the breeze when we walked out of the gym?"
"What scent?"
"Death. Something rotted."
"I smelled the blood from the alley."
"Yah, that too, but there was the scent of something that's been dead for a while."
"Okay. Is that important?"
"The guy I fought. The boy. Didn't you say that in some of the stories he died?"
"Yah?"
"Well, he might look like he's alive, and move like he's alive, but dead things always smell dead. And he smelled dead." Quinn bit at his lip for a moment. "I couldn't smell it when I picked up the scent in the vents or in the parking lot but when the guy was right up in my face the stink was unmistakable."