The Voodoo Killings Read online

  “Please, Kincaid,” Lee said. “I do not ask many favours.”

  I checked to see if there was a hint of ulterior motive in her green eyes, but no. Just grief—or as much grief as someone like Lee ever shows.

  I sighed. Why do people always have to be so sincere when they ask me for favours? If someone broke Marjorie’s bindings, there might be a trace left at the coffee shop. Or a flood of jumbled emotions, maybe an image or two.

  “All right, Lee. I’ll take your fifteen hundred. But just to look. If I don’t find anything, I don’t find anything, got it?”

  Lee nodded. “That is all I need you to do.”

  “I’ve got to deal with Cameron first. I’ll let you know what I find.”

  “What do you plan to do with him?” Lee asked.

  I wanted to find out what the hell Max had done and give him shit for it. At least, that was at the top of my list. That and keep him out of Aaron’s sight. “I’ll figure it out,” I said.

  “A piece of advice, Kincaid? Find who made him and return him to that person as soon as you can.”

  “What do you know about his bindings that you’re not telling me?”

  “It’s just advice. Take it or leave it.”

  I nodded and closed the office door behind me.

  Cameron was still leaning against the wall. Cooler in hand, I led him out the side entrance into a narrow alley. “Remember anything else about your life yet?” I asked.

  “Bits and pieces, images at most. Nothing coherent.”

  Yeah, but he was using words like coherent now. With luck, the fresh brains would do the trick.

  We started back through the crowds towards the stairs. The whole way back to the City Gate, I wondered what it was Lee wasn’t telling me about my zombie.

  CHAPTER 6

  DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES

  When we were back above ground, I headed down the alley towards First. If I was lucky, the police tape would be gone and I could take a look at Marjorie’s tonight, before any Otherside traces at the scene dissipated. What was one more globe after the night I’d had?

  But Cameron didn’t follow. “We came that way,” he said, nodding down the alley in the direction of the docks.

  So he picks now to get his bearings back. I fished the penlight out of my pocket. “Cameron, look at me, will you?”

  “Wha—? Jesus!” Cameron threw a hand up to try to shield his eyes as I shone the penlight in his face. “Will you get the damn light out of my eyes?”

  “Humour me,” I said. Both his pupils constricted. All systems relatively normal. I moved my finger back and forth, checking to see if both his eyes could follow it.

  “Will you stop it?” Cameron said. “You said something about police, I remember that much—Jesus, why does that have to be so bright?”

  So his eyes were good as new, or as close as they needed to be for Cameron to pass for normal on the street.

  “You’re thinking critically again and your short-term memory is back. This,” I said, flicking the light off, “was for checking how your eyes reacted. Peripheral cranial neurons—the ones in your face—regenerate faster than the ones in the rest of your body. They’re closer to the brain.”

  Still wincing, he said, “Couldn’t you have just asked me to smile, or blink, or, I don’t know, wiggle my nose?”

  “Too easy. Eyes are more complicated.” I headed towards First. Again Cameron didn’t follow.

  “Are you sure we should go out there? There are…”

  “People?” I said, filling in the obvious blank.

  “I can smell them,” he said, as if admitting a dark secret.

  “I just need to take a look at something. It won’t take long.”

  After a moment, he nodded and fell in step beside me. “Will I get all of it back? My memory, I mean?”

  “Honestly?”

  He thought that over, then nodded.

  “At this point, your guess is as good as mine.”

  Pioneer Square still hummed with nightlife—people, cars, even the closed storefronts blaring with neon lights. The dinner crowd had gone home, leaving the area to a younger, louder bunch of club-goers and hipsters. I wasn’t worried about anyone spotting Cameron. With his hood up, he looked like everyone else still out on a Friday night.

  I looped my arm in his. “Just avoid staring at anyone,” I told him. “If you get nervous, stare at the logo on my jacket.” On my shoulder I’d fixed a red hawk badge in honour of my bike.

  We dodged around a group of kids stumbling along the sidewalk and then ducked under the awnings that lined First. Marjorie’s was on the opposite side of the square, so we waited at the crosswalk along with the motley crew looking to catch the night bus at the stop on the other side. I could see that the yellow tape marking the crime scene had been removed. But if everyone was gone, what the hell were the lights still doing on inside the shop?

  The signal to cross flared and we all piled into the street. I led Cameron across the intersection, avoiding the Pergola, an intricate wrought iron leftover from the 1909 Expo. Though it was built decades before the barrier had thinned between here and the Otherside, no one in their right mind should ever have stuck an iron walkway in one of the rainiest port cities in the world—iron is too good a conductor of Otherside—unless they actually wanted ghosts strolling through the barrier on their own. Thankfully, the drizzle tonight wasn’t enough to trigger the iron. Still, I didn’t want to push our luck and run the risk of Cameron having yet another ghost encounter, even though he’d kept it together the first two times.

  Once we were directly across from the shop, I stopped to scope it out. Cameron came to a jarring halt beside me. Why were the lights on? For all I knew, an employee could have been called in to clean up. Still…I stepped off the curb and crossed the street a few doors down.

  “Shit.”

  I grabbed Cameron and pulled him into a deep doorway.

  Tucked in the adjacent alley was a black sedan, in all its unmarked glory. Discreet if you didn’t know what to look for, but I couldn’t forget that licence plate number if I tried.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Cameron was studying me, so I pointed out the sedan. “Homicide detectives,” I said. “They shouldn’t be here.” Were Aaron and Sarah trying to piss off the new captain? No, they weren’t that stupid. It had to be something else.

  “So?” Cameron asked. When I shot him an incredulous look, he said, “There are people all over the sidewalk. Why don’t we just walk past?”

  I weighed how much to tell him. “These homicide cops know me,” I said. “I used to work with them.” I didn’t mention that I’d been avoiding Aaron like the plague the last few weeks and had ignored his last three voice messages.

  I considered my options. There were a whopping two: I could go home, come back in the morning and risk that any trace of Otherside bindings would have dissipated, or I could take my chances and stroll by now. If it was only Sarah in the car, I could bluff my way past her—if she spotted me. Aaron, not so much. Aaron had an unfortunate knack for picking me out in a crowd. I still hadn’t figured out how. Still, that didn’t mean he was in the car.

  “Wouldn’t they be more inclined to help since you’ve worked with them?”

  “We’re not that friendly anymore,” I said.

  Ah, screw it. Like I said, patience isn’t one of my virtues. I grabbed Cameron and headed for the coffee shop window, keeping my eyes on the car, watching for any movement. Nothing.

  As we drew close, there was still no indication of anything amiss. No noise, no moving shadows, just a warm, inviting yellow glow.

  “Shit.” I tightened my grip on Cameron’s arm as Aaron got out of the driver’s side. I swear, if I didn’t know for a fact he couldn’t see Otherside…I forced myself to keep going at the same pace, my eyes on the ground. We were almost at the window.

  “Who’s the blond?” Cameron whispered.

  “No one. Why?”

  “Because he�
�s looking straight at us.”

  “Well, stop looking back,” I said.

  “It’s impossible not to—Oomph. What the hell was that for?”

  “Keep your eyes down, Cameron. Stare at the hawk patch.”

  Cameron snorted but fell silent. I stopped in front of the window, pulled out my cell and pretended to check messages as I pulled a globe faster than I should have. A streak of nausea seared through me. As the edges of my globe stopped wavering and settled into place, I pushed thoughts of Aaron away. I focused on the window and opened my eyes.

  Nothing. I let out a pulse towards the shop glass, and it crashed against the window like a wave and came back at me. I chewed my lower lip. I’d stuck to working with mirrors so much over the past year, I must be out of practice working with windows. I loosened my globe and gave the wave of Otherside a push, adding another mental kick when it hit the glass.

  This time I caught sight of the barrier before the Otherside ricocheted back at me, even harder. I grabbed the sill to steady myself and swore as the nausea hit me. Why the hell hadn’t I thought to check for a ward? Marjorie was an old-school zombie living on the surface of Seattle; of course she’d had someone ward the hell out of her place to stop prying eyes like mine from doing exactly what I was trying to do. “Damn it, this is so not my night.”

  I shook my head, trying to clear the nausea while not dropping my globe; I wouldn’t be able to manage another one. I waited a few seconds then made a second, gentler and much more explorative probe of the window blocking me. Now I knew what to look for, it didn’t take much for me to pick out the symbols holding the barrier in place. They had been carved into the wooden windowsill with anchors placed at the four corners of the frame. Subtle but effective. Good work, too—an old collection of Celtic symbols. And they’d been there for at least five or six decades, considering there were no signs of the modern shortcuts.

  Question was, could I break it?

  I focused on the nearest corner and waited until the entire anchor floated out of the tangled mess of Otherside threads holding the ward over the window. It was a Celtic knot I knew how to break. Anything more intricate would have been out of my realm.

  A girl’s shriek of laughter tore my attention away from the window. I let my globe go as a group of twenty-somethings darted past us and across the road, chasing after a bus as it pulled away from the curb.

  “He’s still watching us—the blond,” Cameron whispered.

  I checked the reflection in the window. Sure enough, Aaron stood on the corner with his hands in his pockets, facing our way. I could have sworn he looked straight at my reflection, but then he took a call.

  Regardless of whether I could break the ward around Marjorie’s shop, it wasn’t happening tonight—not without supplies and not with Aaron hanging around.

  Another group of students were heading our way, probably to join the crowd huddling at the bus stop.

  I looped my arm in Cameron’s again and made a beeline for the bus stop, trying not to look as if I was dragging him. If Aaron suspected it was me, seeing me with someone would throw him off. That and he knew I hated buses.

  When we reached the stop, I pulled the hood farther over my face, feigning cold, then waited, watching the traffic light. It turned green as a bus pulled up and cars angled around and into the intersection. The front door opened and the throng of people pushed to get on. Cameron tensed beside me.

  “Kincaid, I don’t think I can get on there. The smell—” Cameron said, shuddering. The overpowering scent of fresh brains. Dinner.

  “Steady, man. Just wait.”

  The bus door closed just as the stoplight turned red.

  One, two, three, four…

  I dragged Cameron behind me, keeping count in my head. Thirty seconds to cross the park and duck back into the alley before the light turned green. It was doable.

  “Walk fast, Cameron, and don’t look back.”

  Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three…

  Halfway across the park. “Almost there,” I whispered.

  We reached the other side of the park and bolted across the crosswalk.

  Twenty-eight, twenty-nine…

  I heard the bus gasp as it switched into gear. Time’s up.

  Only a small group of people stood between us and the alley.

  “Excuse me,” I said, and shoved past a slender girl a few inches taller than me even with my chunky-heeled boots on. She glanced down at me, first in anger, then with recognition.

  She was one of the artists who lived in my building—twenty-two, maybe twenty-three, short pixie cut with dyed neon-pink tips. I wasn’t used to seeing people from my building on the street, though I shouldn’t have been surprised. Our place was stumbling distance, all downhill. She looked about to say something to me then stopped and stared at Cameron. Of course she’d recognize him—all the art students knew who he was.

  “Sorry, in a rush,” I offered, and darted past with Cameron before she could recover.

  Before ducking into the alley, I allowed myself one glance back at Marjorie’s. The car was still there, but Aaron was no longer watching me. Safe.

  Still, I didn’t let up the pace until we’d turned the corner.

  “Why so scared of the cops?” Cameron asked.

  “I’m not scared of them. Just keeping things uncomplicated.”

  Cameron stared at me.

  “Look, just forget it.”

  I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t shake the feeling someone was still watching us. Probably left over from that last globe. I doubled around back of the warehouse and opened the glass door for Cameron. While I held it open, I caught sight of our reflection in the window. What the—

  I spun around and scanned the sidewalk behind us. I could have sworn I’d seen someone behind me, a man….

  I went numb. I’d seen the ghost from the mirror.

  No, that wasn’t possible. First off, this window wasn’t set, and second, the barrier here wasn’t so thin that ghosts could cross over by themselves. I’d checked before signing the lease.

  My mind had to be playing tricks on me.

  Inside the lobby, I checked the gilded mirror. No sign of any ghosts.

  Fantastic. It wasn’t enough I worked with ghosts, now I was imagining them.

  The freight elevator was sitting on the ground floor and I dragged Cameron in. We rode up, and after minimal cursing and negotiating with the lock on my front door, I was home. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed.

  “Kincaid?”

  I slid the cooler onto the kitchen island and flicked the kettle on before attending to Cameron. “Come on. You’re sleeping in the spare bedroom. I’ll show you where.”

  They don’t really need to, but it’s a good idea for zombies to sleep; without it, the neurons in their brains tend to get overtaxed. I grabbed three extra blankets and a pillow from the cupboard so he could keep his feet warm. With minimal circulation, zombies are prone to opportunistic infections of the extremities. I shoved them into his arms and swung open the door. Cameron stared at my spare bedroom/storage room with trepidation.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll fall asleep, and you’ll wake up again too. And you’ll remember more in the morning.”

  “You sure about that?”

  I shrugged. “No, but it beats thinking you’ll wake up worse off. Besides, this is the only door I can lock from outside. Otherwise, if you do go downhill, you could get out and…” No need to be graphic.

  Cameron nodded and stepped inside. I locked the door behind him and bolted the three padlocks, checking twice to make sure they were secure. When I’d got into raising zombies, I’d had the foresight to make one room zombie-proof.

  I needed this night to be over. The kettle boiled. I made myself a tea and opened my laptop. One last thing I needed to do before bed.

  I warmed my hands on the mug as I scanned the police missing persons listings. I wasn’t supposed to have access anymore, but the department was overworked and ha
d a non-existent tech department.

  No sign of Cameron Wight anywhere on the list. Which meant that no one was looking for him. What had he done to deserve that?

  I finished my tea, closed the laptop and headed into the bathroom. I draped the large hand towel over the mirror. Ghost roommate–speak for “stay out.” Not that I had anything to worry about. I was so not his type, it wouldn’t occur to Nate to take a peek.

  I was brushing my teeth when something brushed against my shoulder. I yelped and spun around, half expecting to see Cameron.

  There was no one there, but the towel I’d hung over the mirror was now on the floor.

  “Nate.”

  Nate’s reflection hazed into focus. He wore a giant grin.

  “Don’t ever do that again. You scared me—”

  “To death?”

  I threw the towel back over the mirror.

  It didn’t help. In a rare show of self-sufficiency, Nate slid out of the mirror without my help. Must be all the damn fog off the water this last week. But it was a stupid waste of energy. He was going to burn himself out before half a century was up.

  I grabbed my sweats off the rack and motioned for him to turn around.

  “How’s the zombie?”

  “Locked in the spare bedroom. How the hell else do you think?”

  Nate didn’t usually hang around in the bathroom to chat but headed straight for his PlayStation.

  “Okay, what do you want?”

  “I need someone to play co-op.”

  “I need sleep. One of us is still alive.”

  “What about the zombie? Can I have him? I promise I’ll put him back—”

  “Good night, Nate.”

  He gave a dramatic sigh. “Fine.” His extremities dissolved into streams of thin fog before coalescing into a thick cloud that made its way back up the sink to the mirror. On his way, he said, “You really need to stop going to bed angry, Kincaid. Ever since this whole Aaron thing, you’re, like, ten times worse to deal—”

  “Nate.”

  “Like seriously. A nightmare—”

  I launched another towel at where Nate had been floating, but it only struck the cabinet.