The Shambling Guide to New York City (25 page)

“For not following protocol. I should have had a partner. I should have let someone know where I was going. For all they know, I’m dead.”

“Er, then yeah, call in.”

“I’m going to have to tell them about the bite, and the zoëtist. I can’t believe we didn’t know they could do that.”

“Well, Ben said not many could do it.”

Ben and Phil entered the room then. Ben nodded at Arthur as he left, while Phil made no acknowledgment of him.

Arthur paused and touched Phil’s shoulder with his good hand. Phil’s eyes grew wide, but he made no threatening move.

“Thanks,” Arthur said, and left without waiting for a response.

Sponsored by Public Works and the city’s coterie, the memorial to all who gave their lives on 12/8/15 is a large rock on the bank of the reservoir in Central Park. It looks like a graffiti magnet, but each tag references a name of someone who died during the events of New York City’s darkest day since 9/11/01. The largest tag is the drawing of a long white braid, as the freelance assassin Granny Good Mae joined the coterie that day and saved the city. Smaller memorial shrines on the banks, where people leave boxes of Chinese food, still crop up in the winter.

W
hen she closed the door, Phil and Ben were in her kitchen, sitting at her table. Not her usual Saturday-morning guests. She approached them, but her cell phone rang.

Exhausted, she answered it without thinking, then winced when she belatedly saw that caller ID read
GODFREY
.

“I’m going to take this call and make some tea. I’ll be right back,” she told her guests, and then took the electric kettle to the sink to fill it.

“Hello, Godfrey.”

“Hey, baby,” he said, his voice muffled.

“Don’t call me that, Godfrey,” she said.

“What’s the matter? Never mind, I don’t have a lot of time here. Listen, Lucy has been called to the city on business, and I’m coming with her. We’ll get there on Tuesday. I was wondering if I could see you.”

She plugged in the kettle and put it on the counter, feeling pleased at her composure. “Doesn’t she know I moved here? She’d be suspicious.”

“Well, I didn’t tell her,” he said.

“Godfrey, she’s a cop, do you think she’s stupid? It was you underestimating her that got us caught in the first place! Oh, and lying to me about her existence.”

“What’s gotten into you? I thought you’d want to see me!” His voice took on a whiny quality.

Zoë felt exhaustion and rage that she’d kept under wraps for months begin to boil over. She went into the living room and whispered into the phone. “What’s
wrong
with me? You’re married. You seduced me. Your wife found out and threatened me. Sent thugs to my house to scare me. I was forced out of my job and had to
leave town
. And now you want to see me again, pretending I moved here for a completely different reason? You’re a fucking coward. Don’t call me again.”

“Why are you whispering? Is someone there? Have you found someone else?”

Zoë nearly sputtered at his audacity. “ ‘
Else
’? What do you mean ‘else’? That implies I had someone to begin with. You were never mine. You were always hers.”

“I… thought you loved me.”

She refused to bite. “Honestly, so did I. Enjoy your trip to the city, Godfrey. Take your wife to a show or something. Nine million or so people between us isn’t quite enough for me, but it’ll have to do.”

She turned off her cell phone with shaking hands. Tossing the phone onto the soiled couch, she returned to the kitchen. Her kettle was whistling, and she carefully made herself some green tea, refusing to look at the men who stared at her.

“Problems?” Ben asked.

“Not anymore,” she said, taking a deep breath. She composed herself. “So did you see Wesley when you left the apartment building last night?”

Phil’s gaze sharpened. “No. Why? Did you?”

Phil took his flask from his pocket and began sipping from it as he listened to Zoë tell her story. Again she downplayed Granny Good Mae’s role, but she couldn’t deny that the woman had been there. Or she was too tired to think of a quick lie.

She sipped her tea and felt the knot of anxiety between her shoulder blades slowly release.

“The Wesley problem is dealt with. That’s good,” Phil said.

Ben frowned. “Not necessarily. I took what you told me about this construct and narrowed it down to a handful of my colleagues.”

Zoë blinked. “Really? You can do that?”

He smiled thinly. “There aren’t that many of us practicing.”

“And?”

“I wasn’t sure who he was attached to, though, until what you just said about his holy word being under his left arm. That told me everything I need to know. I’m pretty sure I know who this construct’s zoëtist is. And it’s not good news.”

He removed his glasses and rubbed his nose. “There was a student alongside me years ago when we studied in Cajun country. I didn’t enjoy hoodoo, but she took to it quickly. We had a disagreement during an ethics lecture, and later that night she set a vampire on me. Orson rescued me.” He smiled down at his wedding ring. “But I learned her calling cards. She’s a dangerous one, likes to imagine a world with the cities out of balance. She, a human, wants coterie dominance more than any supernatural coterie I know.”

“Why? Is she insane?” Zoë asked.

Ben shrugged. “More parts for her to play with. Dead, drained humans means more things she can build into soldiers. More power. More chaos. I didn’t say she was logical.”

“So she’s messing with New York coterie. And me. Why?” Zoë asked.

Ben looked at her. “New York is a powerful city, with millions of people, thousands of coterie. It’s a great place for the power-hungry. And I know she was into some questionable research. Making a construct to mess with the zombies to simply sow chaos and distract Public Works is a logical step for someone as messed up as her.

“But why she created the construct out of someone you know, to attack you, I don’t know. Do you have any enemies?”

Zoë felt very cold. “What was this woman’s name?”

“Lucille Haarden.”

Phil wanted to talk more about Arthur, and Public Works, and what they owed the coterie, and future plans for dealing with the zoëtist now known to be Lucy Haarden.

Who had been stirring up the zombies in preparation for coming to town shortly.

The fear was in her throat, she could smell it in her own sweat, the same tangy, metallic scent that she had smelled when Lucy stalked her the first time. Phil’s nostrils flared again.

“You’re terrified,” he said, his face softening with wonder. “Much more so than last night. How is this possible?”

“Lucy. Fucking Lucy Haarden is the zoëtist who’s probably killed my ex, made a construct to annoy the shit out of me, and then set a bunch of zombies on me? Lucy is the one who killed that morgue worker, and that jogger, and all those zombies. And we’re supposed to stop her? I’d sooner leave town!”

Phil waved his hand. “Now that we know, it’s no problem. We’ll get her. Besides, now it’s clear she wanted to sow chaos in town, and when she found out that you were working with coterie, she just found it convenient to create a construct to bother you while it set the stage for her chaos. It’s a mental game, Zoë, and she’s clearly beating you.”

Ben nodded. “We could just tell Public Works about her.”

Phil grimaced slightly, but nodded. “She’s coterie. They can stop her.”

Zoë put her head in her hands. “I can’t take this. I have to
sleep. Just let me sleep, all weekend if possible. I’ll function better when I wake up.”

Phil stood. “Good work, Zoë. Have a good weekend, and I’ll expect to see the outline for the book on my desk at the end of the day on Monday.”

She stared at him through her tired eyes. “You unbelievable bastard.”

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. As he waited, he said, “You’ve shown me you can work miracles. I believe you can get me a rough outline by then.”

“Provided Crazy McKillerBitch doesn’t come up with something else to threaten our lives.”

Ben smiled. “Lucille is formidable, but now at least we know who she is and what she wants. I wouldn’t worry.” He handed her his card. “And if you ever need patching up, give me a call. I work for hell notes and I’m very discreet.”

Zoë took the card. “I thought you stayed out of the coterie work for Orson’s sake.”

Ben drew himself up importantly. “I don’t do a lot of zoëtist work these days, but I’m always a doctor, and I know how to treat many coterie-inflicted wounds.”

He picked up his bag and, smiling, left Zoë’s apartment.

Phil followed him as his call was picked up. “Yes, I need a UV-protected cab and escort to—” he was saying as he shut the door behind him and Ben.

Lucy’s a fucking zoëtist. Oddly, that means a lot of shit makes sense
, she said to herself.

Zoë paused, and then closed her eyes. Taking what she knew about coterie, she thought back to her time in North Carolina, how easily she had fallen for Godfrey, how quickly she’d believed his lies.

She wondered if Godfrey had been a construct, but she
remembered with a blush that she’d seen his entire body, and there had been no scars or Hebrew tattoos. She’d love to have blamed the affair on anything but her own idiocy, but it was time to move on.

She trudged to her bedroom, slipped into a pair of sweatpants, took a ratty old blanket from the closet, and put it over the couch. She sat down and turned the TV on. She stared at a
Twilight Zone
marathon until she fell asleep.

After twenty-four hours of sleep interrupted by meals and hot baths, Zoë woke up on Sunday sore, but alert and in decent spirits. She contemplated going back to bed again, but realized this was her first real day off after an incredibly stressful week and decided she was going to have some fun, dammit. Lucy and Godfrey wouldn’t be in town for a couple of days. She didn’t need to interact with any coterie until Monday. And the day was simply gorgeous.

It would be a grand day for shopping, watching television, and napping. She decided to have breakfast at a café down the street to start with.

The November sunlight cheered Zoë, her sore muscles loosening up during the walk. Inside the bakery, she ordered two croissants and two coffees to go.

Refusing to think too much about it, in case she lost her nerve, she carried them back to her apartment and knocked on Arthur’s door.

He came out shirtless, with his arm in a sling. Zoë tried not to stare. When he’d been lying on her couch, dying, he hadn’t seemed that attractive, but now, even injured, he was—

She mentally shook her head. “I bring breakfast!” she said, smiling. He didn’t smile at her, but just stood at the door.

She frowned. “Should I just leave it here on the floor for you to get after I leave? I have coffee too. I took a chance on you liking sugar in your coffee. Come to mention, I took a chance on you liking coffee…” She trailed off. Arthur still stood motionless.

He finally stepped aside and silently allowed her in the apartment. She smiled through her discomfort and entered. It was the same size as hers, but seemed more spacious, as an apparently Spartan mind-set had decorated it. The white walls held little except for a small weapons rack near the door. The morning sun lit up the spacious living room, though, and it looked comfortable, if liable to cause echoes.

“So, Arthur, how are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been bitten by a zombie.”

“Ah.” Zoë put the food on his coffee table. “So. How long have you lived in the city?”

“I was born in the Bronx.”

“Cool.” She tried not to be so stupidly monosyllabic. “So!” She failed.

She gestured to the bag and drink caddy on the coffee table. “I brought coffee and croissants. I hope you like caffeine and carbs.”

Arthur watched her, saying nothing. She deflated. “All right. I’m trying here. Should I just leave?”

“Why are you here? Really?” he asked.

“Well, yesterday you were at death’s door. Or undeath’s. I was pretty sure you lived alone, so I thought I’d check on you. And since I was getting breakfast for myself, I figured I’d bring you some food.”

“You’re not spying for your boss?”

She folded her arms and glared at him. “No. My work with the coterie is still being established, but I haven’t yet been asked
to betray my own race. And if you will remember, I made sure Phil got that zoëtist for you.”

“I don’t know any humans who work with them who aren’t zoëtists or thralls. Whose side are you on, Zoë? Do you help him get blood? Does he feed off you? I can’t trust you if I don’t know that.”

She sighed and sat down on his couch. “I just wanted a job. That’s it. I seemed to fit in with Underground Publishing, believe it or not. Then it became a matter of pride as some of them didn’t think I could do it. Then it was fighting back as someone clearly is fucking with me. Then it was just fighting as Rodrigo went insane and then the zombies attacked.