Cameron Haley – Skeleton Crew (страница 8)

“No shit, Lowell.”

“I mean, a CMI…this is End Times stuff, Ms. Riley.”

“Well, I haven’t seen Jesus or heard any trumpets sounding so I guess it’s not all that bad. We just have to figure out what’s causing it and put it right.”

“How do you propose to do that?”

“Fuck if I know. Is it just L.A.? Have you gotten any reports from anywhere else?”

“Just L.A.,” Granato said, “for now.”

“That’s good. Okay, I’ll look into it. I’m not sure how, but I’ll figure something out. I can ask Mr. Clean if he knows anything about it, though I consider it a last resort.”

“Mr. Clean?”

“My familiar. We don’t get along real well but he knows his shit.” Problem was, every time I went to him he was playing another angle, trying to get me killed. It was a hate-hate relationship.

“How quickly can you move?” Granato asked. “We have to submit a report on this. We can try to buy you some time and we can…suppress…the media coverage of the story. But the government won’t stand back and watch L.A. turn into a necropolis.”

“A necropolis?”

“Yes,” Lowell said. “Even in the best of times, more than two hundred people die in L.A. every day. We’ve done some, uh, testing in the last twenty-four hours. Everyone who dies seems to go mad and degenerate into cannibalism, eventually, and that just creates more zombies. It won’t take long for this to become a city of the dead.”

“How does the cannibalism tie into your CNE theory?”

“CMI,” said Lowell. “Based on the experiments, feeding on human flesh seems to be the only way to slow the zombies’ physical decomposition.”

“So they eat people, they don’t degenerate?”

Granato shook his head. “They don’t rot as fast. Depending on how they died, some of these freaks don’t even know they’re dead. Either way, it drives them mad when they start in on the other white meat.”

I nodded and rubbed my ear absently. “Okay, guys, I’ll try to hurry. I have other things on my to-do list, you know.”

“Like what?”

“Well, right now, I’ve got to clear some fucking zombies out of another hospital. Maybe you can help with that, it’ll go a lot faster. Then, I’ve got a gang war that just went hot. I’ve got to make sure that doesn’t blow up and put a lot more zombies on the street.”

“Is that all?” Granato said, smirking.

“No, Granato, it’s not—thanks for asking. I’ve also got a party to go to tonight, and I haven’t even decided what to wear.”

Attending the Bacchanal Ball with everything that was going on felt a little like fiddling while Rome burned, but I wasn’t just in it for the free food and booze. I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to roll back the zombie outbreak. CMIs aren’t exactly my specialty. If it got out of control I’d need Oberon’s help to defend my territory and my people, and I didn’t want to irritate him by blowing off his little soiree.

I also knew most of the supernatural A-list would be at the ball and I hoped I might find someone who could tell me what was going on. I’d struck out with Mr. Clean. He said it was probably a zombie plague and noted that Night of the Living Dead was on his channel that night.

So I had good reasons not to cancel. Plus, there’d be free food and booze.

The problem was the costume. I thought it’d be cool if Honey and I picked a theme together. I suggested shapeshifting into a gorilla and she could go as a banana. Honey didn’t care for that idea and told me to do something to myself with the banana.

“I know,” said Honey, “you could go as a dominatrix and I could be your whip.”

“Seems like it’d be a little boring to go as an inanimate object, even a whip.”

“You wanted me to be a banana.”

“Yeah, but you could be like the Fruit of the Loom guy, with arms, and legs, a face and stuff.”

“Forget it, Domino. Anyway, I don’t think the Fruit of the Loom guys have a banana.”

“Okay, I could go as a pirate captain and you could be my parrot. You perch on my shoulder all the time anyway.”

“Too unoriginal. There will probably be a lot of pirates there.”

“Peter Pan and Tinkerbelle.”

“Only if you’re Tinkerbelle.”

“Witch and black cat.”

“We’re going to a ball, not trick-or-treating.”

“Jesus, Honey, we’re never going to come up with anything.”

“Oh, I know! You can be an angel and I’ll be a little devil on your shoulder. Like the parrot, but sexier.”

“Ironic. I like it. But I thought fairies didn’t like Christian stuff.”

“Christians didn’t come up with angels and devils.”

“Whatever, let’s not get into it.” I got enough blasphemy from Mr. Clean—I didn’t need it from Honey, too.

What followed was a game of one-upmanship as we tried to outdo each other for the sexiest costume. Since I was shapeshifting and Honey was using her piskie glamour, it escalated quickly. We finally decided to call it a draw, but by that time we looked like we’d walked off the set of a porn video with a paranormal theme.

I was wearing a sheer white shift that might have reached midthigh if I pulled on the hem real hard. A halo of golden light encircled my head and elegant feathery wings fluttered at my back. I chose a pair of white stilettos that hurt like hell but did amazing things to my calves. I added some curves to fill out the shift, and most of them were plainly visible through the thin fabric. I thought I heard Mr. Clean’s chuckling at one point, but the TV wasn’t on.

I finished off the ensemble with a white garter, panties and stockings to maintain some sense of modesty, at least from the waist down.

Honey went with classic red leather. It started out as a bustier but was quickly reduced to a thong, thigh-high boots and something that might have been a bra or pasties, depending on where you draw the line. She completed the look with cute little horns, a tail and the requisite pitchfork.

When we were finished, we stood in the middle of my bedroom and admired our handiwork in the full-length mirror hanging on the closet door.

“We’re going to do some damage,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think I’m cheating with the shapeshifting?”

“No way, it’s a masquerade. Besides, your boobs are spectacular.”

“Yeah. I always hoped they’d look like this when I grew up.”

“You should keep them.”

“Nah, just for the party. One night is enough.”

“Not for me it’s not.”

“You’ll live. Buy a magazine or something.”

“You’re beautiful, Domino.”

I smiled. “I have to be to keep up with you.”

If the End Times were upon us, the Bacchanal Ball was the right kind of party to close things out. Oberon had glamoured the whole club. I could see the magic plainly enough, but even without the witch sight I’d have known it the instant Honey and I walked in the door. All my worries and inhibitions literally dropped away from me at the threshold. I’d had a little headache when we left the condo but it vanished when I entered the club. I didn’t want to think. I only wanted to see, and hear, and smell and taste. I just wanted to feel.

Luckily, Oberon had provided plenty of amusements to indulge the partygoers’ senses. Witch-light cast a soft, surreal glow across the club, and the space was filled with hundreds—maybe thousands—of exotic flowers. The main bar was gone and it had been replaced by a huge oak banquet table piled high with food and drink of every description. A chamber orchestra performed on the stage—all of the musicians sidhe—and the music they played made me ache with longing for something beautiful I’d lost and then forgotten.

The costumes were incredible—no surprise, given all the glamour and sorcery in the room. Oberon appeared as Pan, standing at least seven feet tall on a goat’s legs, with curling ram’s horns, golden hair and a roguish thatch of whiskers on his chin. Titania was a forest nymph, which meant she was more than half naked and had leaves in her long red curls. These images suited them somehow, and I found myself wondering if these were their true forms, or had been once.

“Welcome to Arcadia, m’ladies,” the king said, bowing dramatically. “Welcome to the Dream.”

And that’s just what it was, that first true night in the fairy king’s Arcadia. Later, the memories would dance away from my conscious thoughts like embers on the wind. I remember we ate and drank, and everything I tasted was the very best thing, each morsel and sip a unique delight.

Terrence was there, an ebon-skinned Egyptian god with the head of a jackal. I remember Adan, and he tasted like cinnamon and apples again. I remember Honey lying beside me and a handsome young piskie named Jack, and I remember the joy I felt when I saw them together.