Skeleton Crew

“Very well,” Oberon said. “You’re right, of course—I’ve been called many things, but never shortsighted. But as one who has a great deal of experience with long-term plans, let me offer a word of caution. The most dangerous thing about thinking ahead is that you wait too long when the time comes to act. The line between the short run and the long run is indistinct, Domino. Sometimes you can cross it without even realizing it.”

“I understand, King. Terrence is on a deadline but we give him a chance to stand up. That’s the way it’s going to be.”

“I concede, my dear, and once again you’ve proven that I’m no match for you in negotiations.”

I smiled even though it was bullshit. Oberon’s only reason for bringing this up was to put Terrence and me on the clock. We’d established the Seelie Court couldn’t move on Terrence immediately. But if the clock ran down, I’d be all out of excuses and Terrence would have more than the Jamaicans and Koreans to worry about.

I promised Oberon I’d see him at the party and left the club. I wasn’t real happy about how it had gone, but I wasn’t exactly surprised, either. I’d learned Oberon was someone I could deal with, but the deals always left me feeling like I’d gotten the short end.

But again, what do you want from fairies?

three

I woke up to a phone call from Adan just after dawn the next morning.

“Simeon Wale hit the Jamaicans last night,” he said when I picked up the phone.

“Yeah, good morning to you, too. What fucking time is it?”

“It’s about five-thirty. Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, Wale hit Mobley. What did you think was going to happen?”

“He burned a couple apartment blocks in Imperial Courts, Domino. A lot of people are dead.” Imperial Courts was the largest housing project in L.A., and it was the heart of Francis Mobley’s territory between Watts and Compton.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “What the fuck did he do that for? How many people?”

“According to the news, no confirmed deaths but a lot of serious injuries.”

“I thought you said people were dead.”

“They are, but the news teams haven’t figured it out yet. They’re calling it ‘The Miracle in the Projects.’”

“Oh, fuck me. Zombies?”

“Yeah. Maybe a hundred.”

“Jesus Christ. What’s happening there now?” I heard Adan take a deep breath. “We’re losing it, Domino. I think we maybe lost it already. They’re taking them to the hospitals. There’s not much we can do about it.”

“What’s Mobley doing?”

“Community service. He’s got his posses out there helping with the relief effort. But you can forget about getting him to sit down with Terrence. There won’t be any sit-down, not after this.”

“Stupid fucking Wale,” I said, and slammed the receiver against my skull a few times.

“What are we going to do, Domino?”

I really had no idea but I had to think of one, fast. “It sounds like containment isn’t an option. We’ve got to start thinking about a cleanup. I’m not as worried about the projects, but we’re going to have to put soldiers in the hospitals.”

Adan laughed and there was an ugly edge to it. “That’s it? You want to send death squads to the hospitals? Domino, it’s on the news!”

“Okay, not our soldiers. We’ll handle the projects—we won’t attract much attention there. We can send the fey to the hospitals. They can deal with the zombies and glamour the civilians. They can keep a lid on it, if anyone can.”

“That might work, if Oberon agrees to help. You’ll be indebted to him, though.”

I didn’t answer. If I played my cards right I wouldn’t need Oberon for this. “Why don’t you go ahead and say it, Adan.”

“What?”

“I told you so. You’re thinking it, might as well be man enough to say it.”

The line was silent for a few moments. “I wasn’t thinking it, Domino. You didn’t know Simeon Wale was going to do this. And the zombie problem definitely isn’t your fault.”

“It was my plan to send Wale over, and it went about as wrong as a plan can go.”

“Look, I’m not going to pretend I agreed with your decision. I didn’t, but not because I anticipated anything like this.”

“No, you were just worried it would involve us in the conflict, that it would escalate and pull us in. You were right.”

“Maybe,” Adan said. “And maybe next time I’ll be the one who fucks up. The truth is, I’ve been at this, what, ten weeks? Most of the time I’m just bluffing my way through and hoping no one notices. Neither one of us is my father, Domino. We need each other to do this thing.”

“I’ll try.”

“As will I, starting now. I’ll take care of Imperial Courts. You handle the hospitals.”

“Done,” I said. “Call me.”

“I will. Good luck.”

“You, too. And Adan?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks,” I said and hung up the phone.

“Honey,” I called. I’d thrown on some clothes and I was in the kitchen nuking a frozen snack. Honey flew in from the second bedroom she and her family had converted into the Enchanted Forest.

“Morning, Domino. What’s for breakfast?”

“Hot Pocket,” I said, and looked at the box. “Ham and Cheddar.”

“Ugh. I don’t see how you can eat that stuff.”

“I’m not in the mood for a burrito. Say, Honey, how do feel about killing zombies?”

Honey’s face brightened and her wings scattered orange pixie dust. “Did you get an Xbox?”

“No, I mean real ones.”

“Oh. I’ve never killed one. I bet it’s not as fun as it is in the games.”

“Probably not, but do you think you could handle some zombies?”

“Are they really slow, like in the movies?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only seen two of them. I think it depends on how long they’ve been dead and the condition of the body.”

“I think I can handle it. How many are there?”

“Maybe a hundred. Maybe more if we don’t move fast. They’re in the hospital.”

“Oh. I’ll probably need some help. I can bring my sisters.”

“Yeah, bring your whole family. I’m going, too, but it could get nasty and we need to clean it up fast.”

“Okay, sounds good. I don’t think we’ve been spending enough time together.”

“Thing is, it’s not just the zombie killing. There will be a lot of civilians at the hospital. We need to dust them so they don’t remember what happened.”

“Sure, that’s easy. We could do something even better. We don’t have to just make them forget—we could make them think something else happened.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe a weather balloon exploded and killed everyone.”

“We could just make them forget.”

“Gas pocket?”

“Nah.”

“Whatever you say. Are you ready to go now?”

“Yeah, we need to hurry. You round everyone up and I’ll finish my breakfast.”

“Cool,” Honey said, and she flew back into the bedroom.

Twenty-eight piskies, including Honey, piled into my Lincoln with room to spare. They huddled on the seats and dash, jostling for a favorable position. Honey perched on the steering wheel and pretended to help me drive. They were all invisible to human eyes so this was far less of a spectacle than it sounds.

All of the piskies were female. Along with Honey, there was a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, a few aunts, a handful of sisters and several nieces and cousins. I’d asked Honey about it and she’d said piskie families were always female. The males, apparently, left the nest when they reached puberty and only returned to the females to mate. When the female was pregnant, they left again. Actually, it worked a lot like the barrio where I grew up.

Most of the “survivors” from the fire at Imperial Courts had been taken to Centinela Medical Center in Inglewood, so that was our first stop. I used my changeling mojo to assume the appearance of a blonde doctor with enough curves to make surgical blues look good. I spun my parking spell and we took a spot reserved for ambulances. I dropped a ward on the building so no one would be able to leave, and then we all went in through the emergency room doors.

The situation at Centinela had already gone to hell. When the automatic doors closed behind us, we saw a young nurse run screaming from a treatment room to our right. A black male who looked to be in his sixties was chasing her, dragging a metal stand behind him from the IV line still planted in his arm. He had third-degree burns over most of his body and the remains of his clothes were deep-fried into his skin.

“I got this,” I said. “Spread out and clear the place, room by room. Make sure you only hit the dead ones. Some of the victims should still be alive.”

My weapon of choice was my ghost-binding spell. “At first cock-crow,” I chanted, “the ghosts must go, back to their quiet graves below.” My working theory was that the zombie was just a ghost trapped in its mortal remains. Sure enough, the spell pulled the man’s shade from its ravaged vessel and the barbecued corpse dropped limply to the tile.

The piskies used their glamour. I didn’t really want to know what they did to kill the zombies. They just flew up to the victims and dusted them, and the walking corpses fell over and stopped moving.

We moved methodically through the first floor of the hospital and the heaviest work was in the emergency department and triage wards. By the time my kills reached double digits, I’d turned my brain off and stopped registering what I was doing. I saw enough before that happened to realize some of the zombies weren’t victims of the fire. They were nurses, and doctors and candy stripers, and they’d died when their patients fed on them. Some of them were so badly ravaged they were barely recognizable as human. They were still moving, though, and they were still hungry. They dragged themselves along the white tile, leaving smeared blood trails behind them, and they reached for me eagerly before I tore their spirits free.

It took a little over three hours to reach the top floor of the hospital. When we were finished with the zombies, we started back down, floor by floor, glamouring the surviving employees and patients. None of them would remember what had happened and I felt like we were doing them a kindness.

It was a pretty thin cover-up and I knew there’d be an investigation. A lot of questions would be asked but none of them would have any real answers. There were going to be a lot of bodies but in the end it wouldn’t lead anywhere. No witnesses, no leads, no case.

When we arrived at Broadway Hospital for the second phase of the cleanup, Agents Lowell and Granato were standing outside by their black sedan.

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “As if I don’t have enough to worry about without these fucking guys showing up. Honey, y’all hang back and let me handle this.”

Agent Lowell spoke as I walked up to them. “Ms. Riley, please tell me you didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“I’m not in the business of raising zombies,” I said. The fact they were here meant they already knew what was going on. No point in lying about it.

“And the project fire?” asked Granato. He always wanted to be the hard ass.

“Not guilty, but I know who did it. We’ll take care of it.”

“And do you know who’s responsible for the zombies?” Lowell asked.

“I was hoping you might know what’s going on. Before this, it was just a couple of gangsters.” Tony and Keshawn hadn’t really been gangsters, but it would have been too fine a distinction for Lowell and Granato.

“It’s not just gangsters and it’s not just the victims of the fire. We’ve gotten reports from all over L.A.—everyone who dies is getting back up.”

“I figured it would go that way. And Stag doesn’t have any intelligence on this thing?” Homeland Security’s Special Threat Assessment Group had compiled a lot of research on the supernatural, even if Lowell and Granato were the only agents with any juice.

“We assume it’s a PNC,” Lowell said.

I’d gotten enough of asking him to explain his fucking acronyms the first time we met, when the sidhe came across in what Stag called an MIE—a Major Incursion Event. I glared at him and waited for the translation.

“Paranormal Contagion,” he said finally. “You know, a zombie plague.”

“Jesus Christ, not you guys, too.”

“I can tell you this,” said Granato, “if there’s anything that concerns the government more than an MIE it’s a PNC.”

“This is extremely serious, Ms. Riley,” Lowell said. “We can’t isolate the pathogen or identify the vector, so we have no way of containing the outbreak. We could lose the city, just for starters. That pushes most of the contingency plans off the table and the decision-makers go right to the unconventional protocols.”

It seemed like every time there was a little supernatural hiccup, someone in the government wanted to reach for the red button. “It’s not a zombie plague, Lowell. I got bit by one of the damn things, and I feel fine—as fine as I can, considering I just had to clear a hundred-plus zombies out of Centinela Hospital.”

“How do you explain what’s happening, then?”

I exhaled slowly and shook my head. “Beats the hell out of me. From what you said, everyone that dies is turning into a zombie—everyone, no matter how they died, no matter where in the city they died. That sounds like a much bigger event than your horror-movie outbreak.”

“A CMI,” Lowell said, nodding thoughtfully. He looked up and noticed my irritation. “Critical Metaphysical Instability. A breakdown in the structure or natural processes of our reality.”

“Yeah, that sounds more like it,” I said.

“If you’re right, this situation represents an extreme threat to the United States.”

“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.

I remember Anton was there but I don’t remember what he was doing. I can only hope he wasn’t doing much.

At some point during the endless revel, I heard a song I recognized. A single violin played a sad, sweet melody that was at once haunting and seductive. The instrumental went on for a long time, and then Titania stepped onto the stage and began to sing.

The song was “Hotel California.” I remember looking around at the crowd. Some danced, slowly swaying as if in a trance, and others stood quietly watching the stage. All were weeping, and I realized I was, too. I can’t describe what I heard, and anyway, the sound was only part of it. The queen poured an immortal lifetime of passion and sorrow into the song. I remember thinking if there were real angels, this was the song they would sing.

I don’t remember the song ending, but Titania had left the stage when the dream turned into a nightmare.

I was reclining on a velvet couch with my dress bunched around my waist. Adan was draped over me and he was kissing my neck. Honey was curled around my forearm, naked and sleeping, and Jack was spooning her. He was also naked.

I heard screams and shouts, and I smelled sulfur and decay. Bodies were hurled away from the center of the room or crumpled where they stood. I heard the sound of tearing flesh and cracking bone. I saw blood splash like buckets of paint on the walls and the floor.

“Fomoiri!” Oberon yelled, and I saw him charge the dance floor with a silver greatsword in his hands.

I didn’t recognize the king’s name for it, but finally, I saw the demon.

It was massive, towering above the crowd, but darkness clung to it and its form was constantly shifting, twisting, so that my eyes didn’t want to focus on it. It was vaguely humanoid and it was burning from the inside out, flame spilling from its eyes and mouth.