The Laughing Corpse (6 page)

She smiled. “You really don't know, do you?”

I shook my head.

The smile widened, all surprised pleasure. “Place your right hand palm up on the table,
por favor
.”

“If you know something about the boy, just tell me. Please.”

“Endure my little tests, and I will help you.”

“What sort of tests?” I hoped I sounded as suspicious as I felt.

Dominga laughed, an abrupt and cheery sound. It went with all the smile lines in her face. Her eyes were practically sparkling with mirth. Why did I feel like she was laughing at me?

“Come,
chica
, I will not hurt you,” she said.

“Manny?”

“If she does anything that may harm you, I will say so.”

Dominga gazed up at me, a sort of puzzled wonder on her face. “I have heard that you can raise three zombies in a night, night after night. Yet, you truly are a novice.”

“Ignorance is bliss,” I said.

“Sit,
chica
. This will not hurt, I promise.”

This will not hurt. It promised more painful things later. I sat. “Any delay could cost the boy his life.” Try to appeal to her good side.

She leaned towards me. “Do you really think the child is still alive?” Guess she didn't have a good side.

I leaned back from her. I couldn't help it, and I couldn't lie to her. “No.”

“Then we have time, don't we?”

“Time for what?”

“Your hand,
chica, por favor
, then I will answer your questions.”

I took a deep breath and placed my right hand on the table, palm up. She was being mysterious. I hated people who were mysterious.

She brought a small black bag from under the table, as if it had been sitting in her lap the whole time. Like she'd planned this.

Manny was staring at the bag like something noisome was about to crawl out. Close. Dominga Salvador pulled something noisome out of it.

It was a charm, a gris-gris made of black feathers, bits of bone, a mummified bird's foot. I thought at first it was a chicken until I saw the
thick black talons. There was a hawk or eagle out there somewhere with a peg leg.

I had visions of her digging the talons into my flesh, and was all tensed to pull away. But she simply placed the gris-gris on my open palm. Feathers, bits of bone, the dried hawk foot. It wasn't slimy. It didn't hurt. In fact, I felt a little silly.

Then I felt it, warmth. The thing was warm, sitting there in my hand. It hadn't been warm a second ago. “What are you doing to it?”

Dominga didn't answer. I glanced up at her, but her eyes were staring at my hand, intent. Like a cat about to pounce.

I glanced back down. The talons flexed, then spread, then flexed. It was moving in my hand. “Shiiit!” I wanted to stand up. To fling the vile thing to the floor. But I didn't. I sat there with every hair on my body tingling, my pulse thudding in my throat, and let the thing move in my hand. “All right,” my voice sounded breathy, “I've passed your little test. Now get this thing the hell out of my hand.”

Dominga lifted the claw gently from my hand. She was careful not to touch my skin. I didn't know why, but it was a noticeable effort.

“Dammit, dammit!” I whispered under my breath. I rubbed my hand against my stomach, touching the gun hidden there. It was comforting to know that if worse came to worst, I could just shoot her. Before she scared me to death. “Can we get down to business now?” My voice sounded almost steady. Bully for me.

Dominga was cradling the claw in her hands. “You made the claw move. You were frightened, but not surprised. Why?”

What could I say? Nothing I wanted her to know. “I have an affinity with the dead. It responds to me like some people can read thoughts.”

She smiled. “Do you really believe that your ability to raise the dead is like mind reading? Parlor tricks?”

Dominga had obviously never met a really good telepath. If she had, she wouldn't have been scornful. In their own way, they were just as scary as she was.

“I raise the dead, Señora. It is just a job.”

“You do not believe that any more than I do.”

“I try real hard,” I said.

“You've been tested before by someone.” She made it a statement.

“My grandmother on my mother's side tested me, but not with that.” I pointed to the still flexing foot. It looked like one of those fake hands that you can buy at Spencer's. Now that I wasn't holding it, I could pretend it just had tiny little batteries in it somewhere. Right.

“She was vaudun?”

I nodded.

“Why did you not study with her?”

“I have an inborn gift for raising the dead. That doesn't dictate my religious preferences.”

“You are Christian.” She made the word sound like something bad.

“That's it.” I stood. “I wish I could say it's been a pleasure, but it hasn't.”

“Ask your questions,
chica
.”

“What?” The change of subject was too fast for me.

“Ask whatever you came here to ask,” she said.

I glanced at Manny. “If she says she will answer, she will answer.” He didn't look completely happy about it.

I sat down, again. The next insult and I'm outta here. But if she could really help . . . oh, hell, she was dangling that thin little thread of hope. And after what I'd seen at the Reynolds house, I was grabbing for it.

I had planned to be as polite as possible on the wording of the question, now I didn't give a shit. “Have you raised a zombie in the last few weeks?”

“Some,” she said.

Okay. I hesitated over the next question. The feel of that thing moving in my hand flashed back on me. I rubbed my hand against my pants leg as if I could rub the sensation away. What was the worst she could do to me if I offended her? Don't ask. “Have you sent any zombies out on errands . . . of revenge?” There; that was polite, amazing.

“None.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

She smiled. “I'd remember if I loosed murderers from the grave.”

“Killer zombies don't have to be murderers,” I said.

“Oh?” Her pale eyebrows raised. “Are you so very familiar with raising ‘killer' zombies?”

I fought the urge to squirm like a schoolchild caught at a lie. “Only one.”

“Tell me.”

“No.” My voice was very firm. “No, that is a private matter.” A private nightmare that I was not going to share with the voodoo lady.

I decided to change the subject just a little. “I've raised murderers before. They weren't more violent than regular undead.”

“How many dead have you called from the grave?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I don't know.”

“Give me an”—she seemed to be groping for a word—“estimation.”

“I can't. It must have been hundreds.”

“A thousand?” she asked.

“Maybe, I haven't kept count,” I said.

“Has your boss at Animators, Incorporated, kept count?”

“I would assume that all my clients are on file, yes,” I said.

She smiled. “I would be interested in knowing the exact number.”

What could it hurt? “I'll find out if I can.”

“Such an obedient girl.” She stood. “I did not raise this ‘killer' zombie of yours. If that is what is eating citizens.” She smiled, almost laughed, as if it were funny. “But I know people that would never speak to you. People that could do this horrible deed. I will question them, and they will answer me. I will have truth from them, and I will pass this truth on to you, Anita.”

She said my name like it was meant to be said, Ahneetah. Made it sound exotic.

“Thank you very much, Señora Salvador.”

“But there is one favor I will ask in return for this information,” she said.

Something unpleasant was about to be said, I'd have bet on it. “What would that favor be, Señora?”

“I want you to pass one more test for me.”

I stared at her, waiting for her to go on, but she didn't. “What sort of test?” I asked.

“Come downstairs, and I will show you.” Her voice was mild as honey.

“No, Dominga,” Manny said. He was standing now. “Anita, nothing the Señora could tell you would be worth what she wants.”

“I can talk to people and things that will not talk to you, either of you. Good Christians that you are.”

“Come on, Anita, we don't need her help.” He had started for the door. I didn't follow him. Manny hadn't seen the slaughtered family. He hadn't dreamed about blood-coated teddy bears last night. I had. I couldn't leave if she could help me. Whether Benjamin Reynolds was dead or not wasn't the point. The thing, whatever it was, would kill again. And I was betting it had something to do with voodoo. It wasn't my area. I needed help, and I needed it fast.

“Anita, come on.” He touched my arm, pulling me a little towards the door.

“Tell me about the test.”

Dominga smiled triumphantly. She knew she had me. She knew I wasn't leaving until I had her promised help. Damn.

“Let us retire to the basement. I will explain the test there.”

Manny's grip on my arm tightened. “Anita, you don't know what you're doing.”

He was right, but . . . “Just stay with me, Manny, back me up. Don't let me do anything that will really hurt. Okay?”

“Anita, anything she wants you to do down there will hurt. Maybe not physically, but it will hurt.”

“I have to do this, Manny.” I patted his hand and smiled. “It'll be all right.”

“No,” he said, “it won't be.”

I didn't know what to say to that, except that he was probably right. But it didn't matter. I was going to do it. Whatever she asked, within reason, if it would stop the killings. If it would fix it so that I never had to see another half-eaten body.

Dominga smiled. “Let us go downstairs.”

“May I speak with Anita alone, Señora,
por favor
,” Manny said. His hand was still on my arm. I could feel the tension in his hand.

“You will have the rest of this beautiful day to talk to her, Manuel. But I have only this short time. If she does this test for me now, I promise to aid her in any way I can to catch this killer.”

It was a powerful offer. A lot of people would talk to her just out of pure terror. The police can't inspire that. All they can do is arrest you. It wasn't enough of a deterrent. Having the undead crawl through your window . . . that was a deterrent.

Four, maybe five people were already dead. It was a bad way to die. “I've already said I'd do it. Let's go.”

She walked around the table and took Manny's arm. He jumped like she'd struck him. She pulled him away from me. “No harm will come to her, Manuel. I swear.”

“I do not trust you, Dominga.”

She laughed. “But it is her choice, Manuel. I have not forced her.”

“You have blackmailed her, Dominga. Blackmailed her with the safety of others.”

She looked back over her shoulder. “Have I blackmailed you,
chica
?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Oh, she is your student,
corazón
. She has your honesty. And your bravery.”

“She is brave, but she has not seen what lies below.”

I wanted to ask what exactly was in the basement, but I didn't. I really didn't want to know. I've had people warn me about supernatural shit before. Don't go in that room; the monster will get you. There usually is a monster, and it usually tries to get me. But up till now I've been faster or luckier than the monsters. Here's to my luck holding.

I wished that I could heed Manny's warning. Going home sounded very good about now, but duty reared its ugly head. Duty and a whisper of nightmares. I didn't want to see another butchered family.

Dominga led Manny from the room. I followed with Enzo bringing up the rear. What a day for a parade.

T
HE BASEMENT STAIRS
were steep, wooden slats. You could feel the vibrations in the stairs as we tromped down them. It was not comforting. The bright sunlight from the door spilled into absolute darkness. The sunlight faltered, seemed to fade as if it had no power in this cavelike place. I stopped on the grey edge of daylight, staring down into the night-dark of the room. I couldn't even make out Dominga and Manny. They had to be just in front of me, didn't they?

Enzo the bodyguard waited at my back like some patient mountain. He made no move to hurry me. Was it my decision then? Could I just pack up my toys and go home?

“Manny,” I called.

A voice came distantly. Too far away. Maybe it was an acoustic trick of the room. Maybe not. “I'm here, Anita.”

I strained to see where the voice was coming from, but there was nothing to see. I took two steps farther down into the inky dark and stopped like I'd hit a wall. There was the damp rock smell of most basements, but under that something stale, sour, sweet. That almost indescribable smell of corpses. It was faint here at the head of the stairs. I was betting it would get worse the farther down I went.

My grandmother had been a priestess of vaudun. Her Humfo had not smelled like corpses. The line between good and evil wasn't as clear
cut in voodoo as in Wicca or Christianity and satanism, but it was there. Dominga Salvador was on the wrong side of the line. I had known that when I came. It still bothered me.

Grandmother Flores had told me that I was a necromancer. It was more than being a voodoo priestess, and less. I had a sympathy with the dead, all dead. It was hard to be vaudun and a necromancer and not be evil. Too tempting, Grandma said. She had encouraged my being Christian. Encouraged my father to cut me off from her side of the family. Encouraged it for love of me and fear for my soul.

And here I was going down the steps into the jaws of temptation. What would Grandma Flores say to that? Probably, go home. Which was good advice. The tight feeling in my stomach was saying the same thing.

The lights came on. I blinked on the stairs. The one dim bulb at the foot of the staircase seemed as bright as a star. Dominga and Manny stood just under the bulb, looking up at me.

Light. Why did I feel instantly better? Silly, but true. Enzo let the door swing shut behind us. The shadows were thick, but down a narrow bricked hallway more bare light bulbs dangled.

I was almost at the bottom of the stairs. That sweet, sour smell was stronger. I tried breathing through my mouth, but that only made it clog the back of my throat. The smell of rotting flesh clings to the tongue.

Dominga led the way between the narrow walls. There were regular patches in the walls. Places where it looked like cement had been put over—doors. Paint had been smoothed over the cement, but there had been doors, rooms, at regular intervals. Why wall them up? Why cover the doors in cement? What was behind them?

I rubbed fingertips across the rough cement. The surface was bumpy and cool. The paint wasn't very old. It would have flaked in this dampness. It hadn't. What was behind this blocked up door?

The skin just between my shoulder blades started to itch. I fought an urge to glance back at Enzo. I was betting he was behaving himself. I was betting that being shot was the least of my worries.

The air was cool and damp. A very basement of a basement. There were three doors, two to the right, one to the left that were just doors.
One door had a shiny new padlock on it. As we walked past it, I heard the door sigh as if something large had leaned against it.

I stopped. “What's in there?”

Enzo had stopped when I stopped. Dominga and Manny had rounded a corner, and we were alone. I touched the door. The wood creaked, rattling against its hinges. Like some giant cat had rubbed against the door. A smell rolled out from under the door. I gagged and backed away. The stench clung to my mouth and throat. I swallowed convulsively and tasted it all the way down.

The thing behind the door made a mewling sound. I couldn't tell if it was human or animal. It was bigger than a person, whatever it was. And it was dead. Very, very dead.

I covered my nose and mouth with my left hand. The right was free just in case. In case that thing should come crashing out. Bullets against the walking dead. I knew better, but the gun was still a comfort. In a pinch I could shoot Enzo. But somehow I knew that if the thing rattling the door got out, Enzo would be in as much danger as I was.

“We must go on, now,” he said.

I couldn't tell anything from his face. We might have been walking down the street to the corner store. He seemed impervious, and I hated him for it. If I'm terrified, by God, everyone else should be, too.

I eyed the supposedly unlocked door to my left. I had to know. I yanked it open. The room was maybe eight by four, like a cell. The cement floor and whitewashed walls were clean, empty. It looked like a cell waiting for its next occupant. Enzo slammed the door shut. I didn't fight him. It wasn't worth it. If I was going to go one on one with someone who outweighed me by over a hundred pounds, I was going to be picky about where I drew the line. An empty room wasn't worth it.

Enzo leaned against the door. Sweat glimmered across his face in the harsh light. “Do not try any other doors, señorita. It could be very bad.”

I nodded. “Sure, no problem.” An empty room and he was sweating. Nice to know something frightened him. But why this room and not the one with the mewling stench behind it? I didn't have a clue.

“We must catch up with the Señora.” He made a gracious motion
like a maître d' showing me to a chair. I went where he pointed. Where else was I going to go?

The hallway fed into a large rectangular chamber. It was painted the same startling white as the cell had been. The whitewashed floor was covered in brilliant red and black designs. Verve it was called. Symbols drawn in the voodoo sanctuary to summon the lao, the gods of vaudun.

The symbols acted as walls bordering a path. They led to the altar. If you stepped off the path you messed up all those carefully formed symbols. I didn't know if that would be good or bad. Rule number three hundred sixty-nine when dealing with unfamiliar magic: when in doubt, leave it alone.

I left it alone.

The end of the room gleamed with candles. The warm, rich light flickered and filled the white walls with heat and light. Dominga stood in the midst of that light, that whiteness, and gleamed with evil. There was no other word for it. She wasn't just bad, she was evil. It gleamed around her like darkness made liquid and touchable. The smiling old woman was gone. She was a creature of power.

Manny stood off to one side. He was staring at her. He glanced at me. His eyes were showing a lot of white. The altar was directly behind Dominga's straight back. Dead animals spilled off the top of it to form a pool on the floor. Chickens, dogs, a small pig, two goats. Lumps of fur and dried blood that I couldn't identify. The altar looked like a fountain where dead things flowed out of the center, sluggish and thick.

The sacrifices were fresh. No smell of decay. The glazed eyes of a goat stared at me. I hated killing goats. They always seemed so much more intelligent than chickens. Or maybe I just thought they were cuter.

A tall woman stood to the right of the altar. Her skin gleamed nearly black in the candlelight as if she had been carved of some heavy, gleaming wood. Her hair was short and neat, falling to her shoulders. Wide cheekbones, full lips, expert makeup. She wore a long silky dress, the bright scarlet of fresh blood. It matched her lipstick.

To the right of the altar stood a zombie. It had once been a woman. Long, pale brown hair fell nearly to her waist. Someone had brushed it until it gleamed. It was the only thing about the corpse that looked
alive. The skin had turned a greyish color. The flesh had narrowed down around the bones like shrink wrap. Muscles moved under the thin, rotting skin, stringy and shrunken. The nose was almost gone, giving it a half-finished look. A crimson gown hung loose and flapping on the skeletal remains.

There was even an attempt at makeup. Lipstick had been abandoned when the lips shriveled up but a dusting of mauve eye shadow outlined the bulging eyes. I swallowed very hard and turned to stare at the first woman.

She was a zombie. One of the best preserved and most lifelike I had ever seen, but no matter how luscious she looked, she was dead. The woman, the zombie, stared back at me. There was something in her perfect brown eyes that no zombie has for long. The memory of who and what they were fades within a few days, sometimes hours. But this zombie was afraid. The fear was like a shiny, bright pain in her eyes. Zombies didn't have eyes like that.

I turned back to the more decayed zombie and found her staring at me, too. The bulging eyes were staring at me. With most of the flesh holding the eyes in the socket gone, her facial expressions weren't as good, but she managed. It managed to be afraid. Shit.

Dominga nodded, and Enzo motioned me farther into the circle. I didn't want to go.

“What the hell is going on here, Dominga?”

She smiled, almost a laugh. “I am not accustomed to such rudeness.”

“Get used to it,” I said. Enzo sort of breathed down my back. I did my best to ignore him. My right hand was sort of casually near my gun, without looking like I was reaching for my gun. It wasn't easy. Reaching for a gun usually looks like reaching for a gun. No one seemed to notice though. Goody for our side.

“What have you done to the two zombies?”

“Inspect them yourself,
chica
. If you are as powerful as the stories say, you will answer your own question.”

“And if I can't figure it out?” I asked.

She smiled, but her eyes were as flat and black as a shark's. “Then you are not as powerful as the stories.”

“Is this the test?”

“Perhaps.”

I sighed. The voodoo lady wanted to see how tough I really was. Why? Maybe there wasn't a reason. Maybe she was just a sadistic power-hungry bitch. Yeah, I could believe that. Then again, maybe there was a purpose to the theatrics. If so, I still didn't know what it was.

I glanced at Manny. He gave a barely perceivable shrug. He didn't know what was going on either. Great.

I didn't like playing Dominga's games, especially when I didn't know the rules. The zombies were still staring at me. There was something in their eyes. It was fear, and something worse—hope. Shit. Zombies didn't have hope. They didn't have anything. They were dead. These weren't dead. I had to know. Here's hoping that curiosity didn't kill the animator.

I stepped around Dominga carefully, watching her out of the corner of my eye. Enzo stayed behind blocking the path between the verve. He looked big and solid standing there, but I could get past him, if I wanted it bad enough. Bad enough to kill him. I hoped I wouldn't want it that bad.

The decayed zombie stared down at me. She was tall, almost six feet. Skeletal feet peeked out from underneath the red gown. A tall, slender woman, probably beautiful, once. Bulging eyes rolled in the nearly bare sockets. A wet, sucking sound accompanied the movements.

I'd thrown up the first time I heard that sound. The sound of eyeballs rolling in rotting sockets. But that was four years ago, when I was new at this. Decaying flesh didn't make me flinch anymore or throw up. As a general rule.

The eyes were pale brown with a lot of green in them. The smell of some expensive perfume floated around her. Powdery and fine, like talcum powder in your nose, sweet, flowery. Underneath was the stink of rotting flesh. It wrinkled my nose, caught at the back of my throat. The next time I smelled this delicate, expensive perfume, I would think of rotting flesh. Oh, well, it smelled too expensive to buy, anyway.

She was staring at me. She, not it, she. There was the force of personality in her eyes. I call most zombies “it” because it fits. They may come from the grave very alive-looking, but it doesn't last. They rot. Personality and intelligence goes first, then the body. It's always that
order. God is not cruel enough to force anyone to be aware while their body decays around them. Something had gone very wrong with this one.

I stepped around Dominga Salvador. For no reason that I could name, I stayed out of reach. She had no weapon, I was almost sure of that. The danger she represented had nothing to do with knives or guns. I simply didn't want her to touch me, not even by accident.

The zombie on the left was perfect. Not a sign of decay. The look in her eyes was alert, alive. God help us. She could have gone anywhere and passed for human. How had I known she wasn't alive? I wasn't even sure. None of the usual signs were there, but I knew dead when I felt it. Yet . . . I stared up at the second woman. Her lovely, dark face stared back. Fear screamed out of her eyes.

Whatever power let me raise the dead told me this was a zombie, but my eyes couldn't tell. It was amazing. If Dominga could raise zombies like this, she had me beat hands down.

I have to wait three days before I raise a corpse. It gives the soul time to leave the area. Souls usually hover around for a while. Three days is average. I can't call shit from the grave if the soul's still present. It has been theorized that if an animator could keep the soul intact while raising the body, we'd get resurrection. You know, resurrection, the real thing, like in Jesus and Lazarus. I didn't believe that. Or maybe I just know my limitations.

I stared up at this zombie and knew what was different. The soul was still there. The soul was still inside both bodies. How? How in Jesus' name did she do it?

“The souls. The souls are still in the bodies.” My voice held the distaste I felt. Why bother to hide it?

“Very good,
chica
.”

I went to stand to her left, keeping Enzo in sight. “How did you do it?”

“The soul was captured at the moment it took flight from the body.”