The Laughing Corpse - Laurell K. Hamilton [62]
The first zombie was like a legless insect. It couldn’t move, but it was trying. The bloody stump of a body was still trying to carry out its orders. To kill me.
Dominga Salvador had meant to kill me. Two zombies, one almost new. She had meant to kill me. That one thought chased round my head like a piece of song. We had threatened each other, but why this level of violence? Why kill me? I couldn’t stop her legally. She knew that. So why make such a damned serious attempt to kill me?
Maybe because she had something to hide? Dominga had given her word that she hadn’t raised the killer zombie, but maybe her word didn’t mean anything. It was the only answer. She had something to do with the killer zombie. Had she raised it? Or did she know who had? No. She’d raised the beast or why kill me the night after I talked to her? It was too big a coincidence. Dominga Salvador had raised a zombie, and it had gotten away from her. That was it. Evil as she was, she wasn’t psychotic. She wouldn’t just raise a killer zombie and let it loose. The great voodoo queen had screwed up royally. That, more than anything else, more than the deaths, or the possible murder charge, would piss her off. She couldn’t afford her reputation to be trashed like that.
I stared past the bloody, stinking remnants in the bedroom. My stuffed penguins were covered in blood and worse. Could my long suffering dry cleaner get them clean? He did pretty good with my suits.
Glazer Safety Rounds didn’t go through walls. It was another reason I liked them. My neighbors didn’t get shot up. The police bullets had pierced the bedroom walls. Neat round holes were everywhere.
No one had ever attacked me at home before, not like this. It should have been against the rules. You should be safe in your own bed. I know, I know. Bad guys don’t have rules. It’s one of the reasons they’re bad guys.
I knew who had raised the zombie. All I had to do was prove it. There was blood everywhere. Blood and worse things. I was actually getting used to the smell. God. But it stank. The whole apartment stank. Almost everything in my apartment is white; walls, carpet, couch, chair. It made the stains show up nicely, like fresh wounds. The bullet holes and cracked plaster board set off the blood nicely.
The apartment was trashed. I would prove Dominga had done this, then, if I was lucky, I’d get to return the favor.
“Sweets to the sweet,” I whispered to no one in particular. Tears started to burn at the back of my throat. I didn’t want to cry, but a scream was sort of tickling around in my throat, too. Crying or screaming. Crying seemed better.
The paramedics came. One was a short black woman about my own age. “Come on, honey, we got to take a look at you.” Her voice was gentle, her hands sort of leading me away from the carnage. I didn’t even mind her calling me honey.
I wanted very much to crawl up into someone’s lap about now and be comforted. I needed that badly. I wasn’t going to get it.
“Honey, we need to see how bad you’re bleeding before we take you down to the ambulance.”
I shook my head. My voice sounded far away, detached. “It’s not my blood.”
“What?”
I looked at her, fighting to focus and not drift. Shock was setting in. I’m usually better than this, but hey, we all have our nights.
“It’s not my blood. I’ve got a bite on the shoulder, that’s it.”
She looked like she didn’t believe me. I didn’t blame her. Most people see you covered in blood, they just assume part of it has to be yours. They do not take into account that they are dealing with a tough-as-nails vampire slayer and corpse raiser.
The tears were back, stinging just behind my eyes. There was blood all over my penguins. I didn’t give a damn about the walls and carpet. They could be replaced,