Zombies Sold Separately

SEVENTEEN



Monday, December 27


Cold sunlight and crisp air felt good on my face as I arrived via the transference to Central Park. The chill helped keep my mind off the queasiness that I always felt when I traveled that way.

My head swam a little and my eyes unfocused and focused again. Even when my father handled the transference, I wasn’t crazy about it. As I traveled, my head had felt like the pressure would make it pop and my stomach curdled and cramped. But when he did it, I didn’t throw up or pass out.

I rubbed my face with my chilled palm. Once my head stopped whirling, the first thing I planned to do was call Rodán and ask if there were any new developments in the Zombie case and to find out if Lawan had returned or been tracked down—and I prayed that she would be safe and well.

Christmas Eve night and Christmas Day in Otherworld with my parents was enjoyable. We had exchanged presents Christmas night. My father had always tried to keep some Earth Otherworld traditions for my mother and for me.

I gave my mother a digital camera and my father a digital frame with a few pictures of New York City and of me. I knew Mother would have fun with the camera and the laptop I’d given her for her birthday. The frame was a wonder to my father, king of a medieval world.

My father gave me a heavy ring with a very large diamond that he’d had specially crafted for me. I’d get mugged for wearing it in the streets of the city, but I could take care of myself. It was a little on the big side, but it was from my father so I loved it.

From my mother I received a leather-bound journal with blank parchment pages. The pages were made by hand and real flowers were infused in the parchment. It was almost too beautiful to use. The ring and the journal were both in my bag until I got home.

I waited until Monday, two days after Christmas, to leave, and the day here was beautiful. It was nice to be aboveground again, nice to be in the place I now considered home.

A combination of reasons sent me back this morning rather than waiting until the evening. I was too worried about Lawan and there was also my concern over what was happening here in the Earth Otherworld. I missed Adam too, and hoped that he would make it back to the city today.

Then there was the fact that the longer I stayed in Otherworld, the more my father thought he could control me, the more he demanded I should stay. Especially now that he knew what was happening with the Zombies.

I hitched my pack up on my shoulder and glanced at the Alice in Wonderland unbirthday party a few feet away from me. Snow topped Alice and her friends like helmets of icing.

Father hadn’t believed it was possible for me to do the transference accurately since I was “only twenty-seven” and I should have been at least a century old before I could even start learning it, much less perform it.

Before I left, I told him, to his dismay, that I’d done the transference twice on my own—recently. He shouted that I could have killed myself, but I’d insisted that I’d done just fine.

Puking and then blacking out afterward didn’t count—of course I didn’t mention that part of my experience.

I had never done it on my own from Otherworld to Otherworld. I also didn’t want to end up in the middle of a snowdrift or in a dumpster somewhere in the city. So I let my father do the transference for me with no complaints.

While I drew out my cell phone, I absently kicked the snow so that it fanned out in a white spray. I leaned up against Alice’s backside and the mushroom she was sitting on.

As usual, Father had sent me from the transference chamber in Otherworld to Alice’s party. It was built over the Paranorm Center and the magically hidden entrance to the PC was beneath the largest mushroom, close to my feet.

My cell phone felt cool in my palm as I pressed the speed dial number for Rodán.

He answered on the first ring. “Welcome back.”

“Hi, Rodán.” I clenched the phone in my hand. “Did anyone find Lawan? Is she okay?”

“Lawan appears to be fine.” Rodán’s voice was neutral, which seemed odd. “She showed up to track Thursday night.”

Thank you, I prayed and tension in my muscles relaxed. “Where was she?”

“Lawan’s twin sister, Malee, was ill,” Rodán said. “Apparently Malee recently arrived from Thailand and was sick upon arrival.”

I hadn’t known Lawan had a twin sister. I suddenly felt like I hadn’t spent nearly enough time with my friend if I didn’t know an important detail like that. A twin, no less.

It was strange for Lawan to just take a couple of days off without telling anyone. “Why didn’t she let you know?”

“Lawan said she left a voice mail for me,” Rodán said. “I suppose it could be a case of technology not cooperating with the paranorm world.”

I nodded. Many times that was the case. Paranorms and technology don’t always mix.

“It’s an understatement to say I’m glad she’s back and that she’s okay.” But tension came back into my muscles and my voice when I asked the next question. “What about Zombies? Anything new?”

“A couple of attacks,” Rodán said. “No clues. We have much to do to solve this case.”

“Are you available?” I thought about what was in my pocket. “I have something I need to show you.”

“Yes,” Rodán said. “I’ll be here.”

“Great, I’ll be by in a bit,” I said before I pushed the OFF button.

Next I pressed the speed dial number for Adam and smiled, looking forward to hearing his voice. It was easy to imagine being in his arms, feeling his hugs all the way to the core of my being.

Memories from his sister’s wedding reception came to me in a rush as his number began to ring. I had the urge to hang up, although I wasn’t sure why.

Maybe because I felt embarrassed over how things had gone. What if Laura had talked to Jennifer who had attended the Château and she had said she’d never heard of me? What if his family hadn’t liked me?

The fact that I’d had to run outside and hide in the SUV in my Drow form made my stomach clench. I don’t know if I’d ever felt so out of place in my life as I had that night.

Stop it, Nyx.

“Hi.” Adam’s voice came over smooth and warm and it gave me a thrill low in my belly, relaxing the tension I’d just been feeling. “I don’t suppose you’re still in Otherworld since you’re calling.”

“Father was driving me crazy so I decided not to wait until tonight.” I hugged myself with my free arm and looked out at the snowy park and the kids playing. A pretty intense snowball fight was in the works. “I love being with my parents but three days are more than enough when it comes to my father.”

“I’ll be back late night.” Adam sounded a little distracted and I heard voices in the background. “I have to be in a meeting with Wysocki first thing and a couple of cases to work on, so I probably won’t be around tomorrow until later in the day.”

“I was hoping you’d stop by after you got home tonight,” I said. I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

“It’ll be late when I get in,” he said. “Some cousins are dropping in this afternoon so I won’t be able to leave until I get a chance to spend a little time with them.”

“Have fun.” I wanted to say I love you, but something held me back. “Can’t wait.”

“Same here,” Adam said. “See you.”

“Bye,” I said and brought the phone away from my ear. The conversation left me a little empty rather than with the bubbly excited feeling I usually got when I talked with him.

When I started to walk away from the sculpture, something hit the back of my head. I caught my breath in surprise as snow covered my hair and slid inside my sweater and down my spine. I whirled to face my attacker.

The devious face of a well-bundled kid, who couldn’t have been more than twelve, peered out from the other side of Alice and her friends. I wondered if he’d seen me arrive then decided it wasn’t important.

What was important was a little playful revenge.

For fun I used my water elemental to form a snowball at my feet. Without touching the snowball with my hands, I used my air elemental and shot a snowball straight at the boy. It smacked his hooded face.

Heh.

The kid wiped off the caked snow with his gloves and his eyes were wide as he looked at me. I smiled. He turned and ran. For a moment I wondered if I’d shifted and my hair was blue. But no, it was daylight, my skin wasn’t amethyst, and I was perfectly human.

Smiling, I tromped in the direction of the Pit, my bag over my shoulder. The snow was up to my calves and I was glad I was wearing my jeans tucked into my Elvin boots.

When I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets, I felt cold stone against the fingers of my right hand. My heart started to beat a little faster as the chill from the stone traveled through my arm straight to my chest. I swallowed and wrapped my hand around the stone and felt an even greater chill.

After checking to make sure no one was close enough to see, I stopped beneath a leafless maple and drew the stone out of my pocket. The flat side rested on my palm and tingled where it touched my skin. Holding it in both hands, I eased it over so that I could look at it again.

The stone’s flat side looked different. It was still like looking into another world as my father said … but there was a glimmer of lavender inside it. I looked at the sky above me which was gray dusted with darker gray clouds.

It wasn’t a reflection. What was it? The pounding of my heart increased as the lavender grew brighter, like a pinpoint of light at the center of the stone. A terrible feeling of wrongness overcame me.

For a moment I was five again, hidden in the bushes as a Zombie followed my brother, feeling that same sense of horrible wrongness.

My breath came in short gasps. My body jerked and trembled. I wanted to throw the stone to the ground. To run away.

What was happening to me?

I swung my pack off my shoulder. Still holding the stone, I unzipped a pocket of the pack and flung the stone into the opening.

Relief made me weak and I dropped to my knees in the snow. My breath came hard and fast and my sight blurred again, as if I had just gone through the transference.

Rodán. I got to my feet I had to see him now.

I ran.

My breathing would never have been so fast if I wasn’t so spooked. The way the stone had made me feel had been so creepy.

The Pit was dead. It was the middle of the day and the only beings in the open area of the nightclub were part of a Shifter cleaning crew.

I ran past them, through the mist curtain in one wall, down a long hallway, straight for Rodán’s chambers. The huge dungeon-like door opened the moment the identity monitor recognized me.

“What’s wrong, Nyx?” Rodán came toward me, concern on his features.

I held out my arm, barely holding the strap of my bag with my fingers. “It’s inside.”

“What’s inside?” He took the bag from me, then frowned.

“Do you feel it?” I asked

Rodán paused, then nodded. He set the bag on the floor. “Tell me what it is.”

“You’re not going to look at it?” I asked.

“No.” He glanced at the bag and back at me. “Something is very wrong with whatever is in there. Very wrong.”

If Rodán wouldn’t even touch it—that thought alone was enough to magnify the chills that had been causing me to shiver ever since I touched the thing.

“It’s some kind of stone.” I explained to him everything my father had told me. “They got them from the bodies of Zombies during the same kind of attacks in Otherworld, when I was a small girl. I thought it might help us fight whatever it is we’re facing here. A clue.”

Rodán studied me, obviously taking in how affected I was by everything that had just happened.

“This stone,” Rodán finally said as he looked at my bag, “needs to be examined by those who can tell us more about it. I sense the strength of its magic, magic that should not be explored by either you or me.”

“Really?” I could feel the lines on my forehead furrow when I frowned. “You’re not even going to look at it?”

He switched to the formal language of the Elves. “I cannot. This stone would harm me as it would harm you should you touch it again. It is not of our worlds. It is not meant for our hands.”

The way Rodán spoke the words and the language, with such formality, chilled me.

“Whose hands then?” I responded in the same language. While I spoke, I felt the magic of the language and I understood why he had used Elvin. A barrier seemed grow around me like a cushion between me and the bag with the stone. “Where should I take it?”

“To the Magi.”

The word “stunned” did not define how I felt the moment he said “the Magi.” Not even close.

“No one sees them.” Perhaps incredulous described my emotion. “Only the Magi-Keepers and they report solely to the Paranorm Council,” I said. “And no one asks the Magi anything. They come forward if they have something to say.”

“Rare circumstances arise where they will take audience, Nyx.” Rodán’s voice was calm. “This is one of those circumstances.”

If they didn’t help with Demons or Vampires, I sure didn’t know why he expected them to help with Zombies. But I hoped he was right.

Rodán went to a wall with a huge framed oil painting of a Faerie, titled “Take the Fair Face of Woman,” painted by French artist Sophie Anderson in the 1800s. Rodán mentioned knowing the artist personally and had introduced her to the Fae, thus encouraging her amazing pieces of art relating to our Otherworld.

The painting’s entire name was “Take the Fair Face of Woman, and Gently Suspending, With Butterflies, Flowers, and Jewels Attending, Thus Your Fairy is Made of Most Beautiful Things.”

Right then I wasn’t thinking of beautiful things or paintings and I wondered why Rodán was taking a moment to look at it. Then without his touching it, the painting swung away from the wall, as if hinged on the left side. Behind the door was a rectangle shape with a seamless surface. He said a word I couldn’t hear and then a portion of that rectangle swung open like the painting had. A safe.

He reached inside, rummaged through whatever was inside the safe and drew out a plastic card. It was about the size of a credit card and I wondered what he would need with a credit card.

The safe door and the painting each swung back into place and Rodán returned to me and handed me the plastic card. I saw that it was actually a hotel room key. “I’ll let the Magi-Keepers know you’re on your way,” Rodán said, switching back from the Elvin tongue. “Use the card rather than knocking. Loud sounds are difficult for the Magi.”

I gripped the card before sliding it into the front pocket of my jeans. I started to lean over to grab the strap of the bag, strangely feeling let down by Rodán. I’m not sure why … maybe because he had never pushed away something so important as he had the stone. He had refused to look at it.

“Nyx.” Rodán’s voice was soft as he called to me.

When I faced him, his features seemed different than I’d ever seen before. He looked almost … vulnerable.

The thought shocked me more than his refusal to look at the stone.

“The stone is dangerous.” He came within inches of me and cupped my face with his palm. “Very, very dangerous. I wouldn’t have you carry it at all if you hadn’t already been in contact with it.”

“I understand.” Prickles erupted up and down my spine at the thought of picking up my bag again. “And because you are a male, you can’t go to the Magi yourself. I’m the only one who can carry it.”

“The only drawback to being male that I’ve come across,” he said with a slight smile. His smile faded. “I’m certain you’ll be safe with it in your bag. Keep it in there and don’t allow it even to brush against your skin, understand?”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I have no intention of ever touching that thing again.”

Rodán clasped my head in his hands and kissed my forehead. “Go now,” he said when he stepped back. “Don’t stop for any reason. You must get that stone to the Magi.”

I tried to smile. It didn’t work.

What felt like an electrical charge ran up my arm, causing me to jerk my hand away.

“Are you all right?” Rodán rested his hand on my shoulder. “Perhaps we can find another way to transport it.”

“No. I’ve got it.” I grabbed the bag’s strap, and gritted my teeth against the buzzing feeling running up and down my arm.

“I’ll have Angel meet you there.” He caught my hand before I could leave. “Be very, very careful,” he said as his gaze held mine.

I turned and left his chambers, and headed out of the Pit toward the Mandarin Hotel.