The Shambling Guide to New York City (22 page)

While the humans will be checking out the Apple Store for expensive computers and gadgets, we encourage any visiting coterie to stop and admire its all-glass structure. It is actually crystal, and was built by a race of apini demons native to the southern US. Their knowledge of building sturdy, blocky constructions moved Steve Jobs to hire them to work with crystal and design a unique store.

Some of the apini demons decided to stay in the city, and reside mostly in Brooklyn or the many parks, anywhere they have access to flowers. Some coterie architecture schools invite the demons to speak, and, embracing the hive mentality, they always insist the lectures be free and open to the public.

T
he next week and a half were, amazingly enough, uneventful.

John kept out of her way, even when he became hungrier and therefore sexier. She found that when she didn’t make eye contact, she really wasn’t as attracted to him.

She made headway on the book, and got some good training in with Granny Good Mae. The training became more sporadic, however, as sometimes the old woman wouldn’t show up, and then refused to tell Zoë where she had been.

Without giving too much identifying information, Zoë contacted Public Works, but wasn’t able to make an appointment with its media relations until the next week. She said only that she was working on a book about the city.

Phil sequestered Montel in the office, waiting for the furor to die down. Rodrigo remained missing, which meant Phil had to put up “Help Wanted” signs for his position as well as Paul’s. Zoë wondered if they could get the health goddess to come back in. Suddenly having a magical healing lady on their side, even one who was quick to offend, sounded pretty good.

Wesley quit. Phil had e-mailed a picture of the construct to the zoëtist Benjamin, but hadn’t heard back. Phil had also put Kevin the vampire on the job of tailing him, but Kevin said Wesley didn’t leave his apartment. Soon after, the construct e-mailed his resignation.

Phil thought that was the end of things, and asked Montel to start looking for a new CR representative. Zoë wasn’t so sure.

And Zoë ran into Arthur again.

Before “The Night with the Incubus,” as she had begun thinking about it (as that was better than “The Night I Was Fucking Insane”), she had been of the opinion that the difference between their schedules was a shame, since she never saw him. Now she was glad to avoid him, not wanting to admit that she had hit on him blatantly while under the influence of—well, it didn’t matter whether it was alcohol or drugs or an otherworldly creature, it certainly didn’t make her look good.

She headed home early, since Phil had said he wanted her to accompany him that evening to visit Rodrigo’s apartment and look for signs of the zombie. When she had balked, he mentioned he thought it would be good for Zoë to see where zombies lived. She couldn’t argue that, but insisted on going home early to prepare. She got home around three in the afternoon, and ran into Arthur leaving his apartment.

She briefly thought she should run pell-mell into her apartment, since acting like a six-year-old seemed to be a good course of action, but decided to be a grown-up. She firmly put a smile on her face and met his eyes.

She nearly swore out loud when she saw his uniform. Brown coveralls with a blue badge on the sleeve, a hard hat, and a heavy cotton bag that clanked as if tools were inside. She froze as everything fell into place.

He smiled when he saw her. “Hi, Zoë, home early?”

She just stared at him.

His smile faltered and he shrugged a little. “You all right?”

She snapped out of her shock. “Oh! Yes, I’m fine. I didn’t realize you, ah, worked second shift. That’s why I never see you around, I guess.”

He hefted his bag on his shoulder. “Someone’s got to keep the sewers and water lines working even after everyone else goes home.”

“So you’re like a doctor for the city, always on call?” she asked, realizing she sounded ridiculous.

Arthur frowned, and she realized he thought she was mocking him. “Something like that. Listen, I gotta go. Have a good night.”

She watched his lovely back as he left and she smacked herself in the head. She was supposed to research Public Works, which she had been doing, and then meet someone to gain his trust, which she hadn’t. She didn’t know how to just approach a street crew who were secret monster hunters and begin interviewing them, and had made it only as far as scheduling an interview for the next week. Now, with someone dropped in her lap, she was completely flummoxed.

She reached for the feminine wiles, skills she had never fine-tuned. “I, uh, was just startled at the fact that you make Public Work coveralls look good,” she said, but the door closed between them.

“That was not my best encounter,” she mumbled to herself, and unlocked her door.

When she got into her apartment, she leaned against the door and put her head in her hands. She tried to blame her inability to flirt on John, trying to believe that he had broken something inside her, but knew the failed conversation was all her responsibility.

She relaxed on the couch and ate some self-loathing ice cream while watching mindless television, hoping she wouldn’t panic about whatever Phil had planned for that night. Soon after sundown, her cell phone rang.

It was Phil, who made little preamble. “Rodrigo’s apartment.
Zombies always have a supply of brains on hand, and I want to know what drove him to hunt again.”

“Do you not think he’ll be there?”

“If he is then we can talk to him. I have tried everywhere else, and my sources say Public Works hasn’t caught him yet.”

She shrugged. “What the hell. Tell me where to meet you.”

“I’m outside your apartment now.”

Zoë parted her curtains and, indeed, the vampire was standing under her window with his cell phone pressed to his ear. “You’re creepy sometimes, Phil. Did you know that?”

“I’m a vampire, Zoë.”

“You’re not making a good case for me to go gallivanting with you tonight.”

“You’re safest when you’re with me.” His voice had a no-nonsense quality that both comforted and irritated Zoë.

She sighed loudly into the phone. “I’ll be right down.”

Zoë had had her first payday recently; she had purchased some restorative herbs and teas from the Jade Crane, instructed on which to purchase by Granny Good Mae. She had also bought a silver blade that was frighteningly sharp, good for fighting werewolves or cutting the heads of zombies. She strapped it to her forearm, slipped her coat on over it, and felt monumentally ridiculous. She had worked only with sticks and other fake weaponry; she’d never really used a weapon. But this seemed like the night to carry one.

Phil was waiting by an idling cab. “So tell me why I’m needed instead of someone like Montel,” she said without greeting him.

“You’re the one who is keeping track of all this. You’re in the middle of it. I don’t want to split my efforts. And anyway, an outsider’s viewpoint might give me what I need to figure this out.”

“Or else you’re just trying to get me eaten,” Zoë said.

Phil looked startled. “Zoë, if I wanted you eaten, I would have done the job myself. Setting up an elaborate plan to get you eaten is way more work than I would prefer to expend.”

“Someday you’ll get a sense of humor. Let’s go,” she said.

Rodrigo lived in a shoddy apartment building in Brooklyn. It leaned slightly to the right, its third and top stories looking decidedly dangerous.

Zoë squinted up at it as they exited the cab. “This looks condemned.”

Phil started up the stairs, kicking aside trash and empty beer cans. “It is condemned. You think it’s easy for zombies to find an apartment in the city?”

Zoë choked back a laugh. “Phil, only a couple of months ago I didn’t think zombies existed. Now that I know they do, why shouldn’t I think they’d be able to get a penthouse? They can hold down jobs and think for themselves and make deals with local morticians—or eat the morticians—why not get a good apartment?”

Phil pulled on the front door hard, forcing it open. The frame had warped, making this difficult, and Zoë tried not to think about what she would do if she had to leave the building in a hurry. She followed Phil inside.

“Good point,” he said, “but now that you know they exist, the commonsense rules apply. I can’t go to the noon opening of the new Apple Store, and zombies can’t apply for Manhattan penthouses. They usually live in condemned buildings or, in a pinch, outdoors, but no zombie really likes that. Too many fae in the woods. Also, rain is best avoided.”

Zoë made a face at the thought of waterlogged, rotting zombies.
“So is this a zombie-only building?” she asked, stepping over what she would have previously assumed was a sleeping bum, but now clearly identified as a zombie dozing in the hallway.

“I think so,” Phil said. “I’ve never been here.”

Rodrigo’s door, 3A, was unlocked. Phil opened it and Zoë looked in after him with interest.

Whatever she had imagined—ropy entrails hanging from the walls, beds made from squishy viscera, or embalmed brains sitting in well-lit jars on shelves—it hadn’t included pictures of Kate Hudson on the wall.

Some were cutouts from gossip magazines, some were teen posters ready for hanging on the wall, depicting her in that action movie she had been in. One was a very blurry picture from a tabloid, of her exiting a car.

Other than Hudson, the small apartment sported a threadbare chair in the corner, a surprisingly high-tech DVD-and-television setup (with a complete catalog of Hudson movies, including several Zoë had never heard of, like
Walking in My Pants
and
Twelve Librarians, One Bottle of Rum
).

“How do they get electricity to run this stuff?” she asked.

“Generators,” Phil said from the bedroom. He came out, fangs extended, frowning. “He’s not here.”

“Uhhh,” she said, looking closely at one gossip magazine clipping that appeared to have had Hudson’s date for the evening chewed away. “What’s with the Hudson obsession?”

“Most zombies attach themselves to one celebrity or another,” Phil said. “It’s one of the downsides of returning to sentient living. They seem to always have the hearts of love-struck teenagers. You should see the security detail that Public Works has to put on Justin Bieber. The thing is, unlike teens, zombies never mature, so their obsessions grow and grow. Very few zombies are
allowed into LA because of it—it would just be too dangerous. Rodrigo liked Kate Hudson.”

“No kidding,” Zoë said, fingering another clipping. “Do they try to eat their obsessions?”

“Some do. Some don’t.” Phil stepped over a discarded copy of
Us Weekly
and walked to the kitchen. “Good for the humans to be on their toes, though.”

“But most of the humans don’t know about zombies, do they?” asked Zoë, following him.

Phil opened the fridge. “Well, no. But Public Works of the cities do, and they watch over the celebrities.”

He swore softly in a language Zoë was pretty sure wasn’t English. “I was right. There aren’t any brains in here.”

Zoë breathed a quiet sigh of relief that she wouldn’t have to look at body parts and ventured a look over his shoulder. A neat line of condiments sat in the door, including horseradish, chutney, and ketchup, but the fridge was otherwise empty.

Phil got out an unlabeled bottle of something that looked like hot sauce. He uncapped it and sniffed, then held it out for Zoë. “Tell me what you smell.”

Her nose hairs nearly curled as the odor assaulted her. She winced but inhaled deeply. “Tabasco. Mustard. Thai spices. And something else… I can’t place it.”

Phil put the cap back on the bottle and slipped it into his pocket. He looked grimmer than usual. “That extra something is formaldehyde. It’s very bad for zombies. If they eat an embalmed brain, it freezes their higher thinking functions. Any zombie who eats this will revert back to mindless hunger even if he’s just eaten.”

“Like our zombies did last week.”

“Exactly.”

“So this means…”

“Someone is polluting zombies’ condiments, which encourages them to hunt even if they have food. I bet if we checked other apartments we’d find formaldehyde lurking in some condiment or other.” Phil closed the fridge as someone groaned outside in the hallway.

“Or maybe we could just wait until someone proves it for us,” Zoë said, peeking into the living room as the apartment door opened. The zombie from the hallway shambled in, eyes fixed on Zoë. She was suddenly very aware of the heavy, edible organ she carried around in her cranium, and also very aware of how much it meant to her. She took a step back as Phil stepped in front of her.

“Back. This one is mine,” he hissed.

“Are you talking to him, or me?” Zoë asked, her voice shaking.

“Hungry…” the zombie moaned. “Been so long…”

The zombie did not stop its forward motion, still fixated on the meal in front of him. Phil snarled and leaped forward, knocking the zombie back. They struggled on the floor, Phil’s vampire strength tearing the zombie’s limbs from his body, and as Zoë stumbled backward out of their way, into the kitchen, another zombie appeared at the door. More moans echoed from down the hall.