CHAPTER 3
Lunatic Fringe
“I sort of missed the introductions,” I said. “Chad Gardenier.”
“Special Agent Robert Higgins,” Bob said, holding out his hand. He had lights and sirens on and was blazing through traffic, weaving in and out and into oncoming lanes. Naturally, nobody was getting out of the way.
“What’s the deal with the drug gangs?” I asked.
“Not my area,” Bob said. “But what deal?”
“The ones across the corner from the house apparently handle security? I was sort of afraid to just leave my car there but Ben slapped a team sticker on it and said it would be all good.”
“Oh,” he said, “that. Everybody in this town thinks the supernatural exists. Some are into it, the rest are scared of all the weird shit that’s in this town. Even the practitioners are afraid. Just because you’re a necromancer doesn’t mean you can stop a demon. Having Hoodoo Squad right there is sort of like their own personal luck charm. And generally people think the Hoodoo Squad cars are hexed.”
“Hexed?” I said. Keep in mind, I was talking to an MCB agent about people using black magic, and he wasn’t shooting anyone for it.
“Minor stuff,” Higgins said. “Temporary impotence, that sort of thing. But I don’t think they’d mess with your cars anyway. Every criminal in town is terrified of anything supernatural. They’re the prime targets of all the stuff we deal with. Loup-garou running wild? Good people are in their homes at night, drug dealers and burglars are out on the streets. Vampires? Same deal. So they’re terrified of what goes bump in the night because they have to be out in the night. That includes Hunters, SIU and us. Just the fact that we deal with it puts us in the practitioners field. They think we’re the lunatic fringe. When you get a place, put up some shrunken heads and chicken feet in the windows. You want people to know you’re Hoodoo Squad. If they break in and find out later, they’re liable to freak out. And if you do get a break-in, put the word out and your shit will probably be returned pretty quick. And a body will end up in the river face down.”
We pulled up next to my car in a cloud of blue tire smoke.
“That is you, right?” Higgins said.
“Yes,” I said, climbing out.
“Think you can keep up?” It wasn’t a challenge, it was a question.
“Probably,” I said. “Some of the turns might get me.”
“Just try to keep up,” he said.
“I have to check one thing,” I said.
I checked the trunk. Everything was there.
“We keepin’ a good eye on it, Mr. Hoodoo!” one of the thugs yelled.
New Orleans.
* * *
Keeping up had been difficult. Other people thought following a car running lights and sirens was a good way to slip through traffic. I had to practically sideswipe one guy. He flipped me the bird. I pointed at my trunk. In the rearview I saw him go white and pull over.
We needed our own color lights. Like purple or something. I was starting to get the feeling that the locals might not get out of the way for the FBI, but they would for us. Agent Boss said he was unorthodox, so it wouldn’t hurt to ask.
We pulled up in front of a brick school. Two NOPD cars were parked outside, lights on. The officers were in them, buttoned up. Ben Carter’s car was already there. The other members of MHI were either occupied or too far away to wait for.
“You get anything on the radio about numbers?” I asked as I got out.
“Report is initially three,” Higgins said. “They announced it and had the classrooms lock down. Active zombies on premises. They don’t know if all the classrooms locked down in time or how many victims there might be.”
“Shamblers?” I asked, opening my trunk.
“Yeah, a couple. Sounds like they’re contained though. Carter already went in the back.”
“I’ve got this side,” I said, pulling out the Uzi and the designated vest. I had a load-bearing vest for whatever weapon was my primary. The Uzi was my preferred weapon for shamblers, slow zombies in other words. They shambled. Could get into a nice fast run on a flat, which school hallways would be, but they weren’t really dangerous if you could dodge at all and had enough firepower.
“No armor?”
“If it’s a horde, then, yeah, armor. But a few shamblers?” I hefted the Uzi. “Ask me sometime how I got into this.” I slammed the trunk lid. “And time is the enemy with shamblers. More people that get bit or killed, more that rise.”
“Right answer,” Higgins said. “Go. MCB has the perimeter.”
There were big glass double doors on the front of the three-story school. I entered and assessed. The AC felt good was my first assessment. There was a wide entryway, tiled. On the right was an office marked “Nurse.” On the right was another marked “Office.”
I went to that one.
“Hoodoo Squad,” I said, banging on the door. “MHI, Team Hoodoo,” I added. I added shave and a haircut to the hammering so they’d know I was human. Sentient. Whatever.
There were three locks on the door. They slowly clicked one by one. The door cracked a bit to reveal an elderly black woman.
“MHI, ma’am,” I said politely. “Any more word on numbers or location?”
“They was up on the second floor,” she said, glancing nervously through the door to make sure there weren’t any zombies around. “Couple of ’em.”
“Wouldn’t happen to have a map, would you?”
She shoved a mimeographed map that read New Students Orientation into my hands.
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said, tipping my nonexistent hat. “Go ahead and lock back up.”
They hadn’t just been on the second floor. There was a body sprawled in the corridor that, according to the map, led to the stairs. Older black gentleman. He’d been pretty badly torn apart but in short order he’d be up and tearing others.
As I passed I put a .45 round in his medulla. I kept walking.
“Hoodoo Squad in the building,” a voice announced over the loudspeaker. “Stay in you classrooms till we tells you.”
There was a faint cheer from pretty much every direction. That sort of made me straighten up. It’s always nice to be liked.
The difference was bizarre. MCB had not only given me a ride, they’d shown me the way to the site. Lights and sirens, no less. Nobody asked what the hell I was doing creeping through the halls of a school with a gun. I was Hoodoo Squad, there to get rid of the hoodoo. Like you’d call a pest control company to come take care of a raccoon in your basement.
Difference being raccoons don’t, by and large, eat people then cause them to rise from the dead. Except, you know, zombie raccoons. And let me tell you, brother, those things are a bitch and a half.
At the top of the stairs there was a corridor running directly away from the stairs, then a corridor heading left. The one to the left had windows on the stair sides, the other had no doors, and a plain wall littered with posters and photographs. There appeared to be a small shrine with pictures and cards around it. Someone had died who recently attended or worked at the school.
At the end of that corridor there was another, turning right. The shamblers had to be down that hall. I could hear them battering at something, probably a door. They sure as hell weren’t down the one I was looking at.
I kept to the left, by the windows, and heel-toed forward until I was looking down the corridor. There were two shamblers, battering at a door to one of the classrooms. The doors were sturdy. They weren’t making much headway at the moment but they’d eventually batter through.
There was another body on the floor between myself and them. Female student. Very torn up.
I silently heel-toed up till the not-yet-risen corpse was on my right, lowered the Uzi and put a bullet in her head.
A suppressed .45 isn’t that loud. Unless it’s fired in a tile-lined corridor where most of the building was being as quiet as church mice to avoid attracting the hoodoo.
The shot attracted their attention away from the door. Which was the point.
I took an offhand stance, left foot slightly forward, leaned in and began targeting. I fired. One round hit a zombie in the eye and it dropped like a rock. Another shot. Another penetration. It went right through the forehead. You can’t just do minor damage to a zombie brain and kill it. Isn’t how it works. You’ve got to pulp a lot of brain. So after everybody got one, I went back and served up seconds. Just to be sure.
I automatically did a 360 as soon as the threat was eliminated and double-checked the girl at my feet. Still dead dead. Nothing on my six.
Ben was clearing the other side of the school. I wasn’t used to working solo. I was used to a brother at my back. “Cold is back without brother to warm it.” I tried to remember which culture had that as a quote. Spartans? Solo hunting was a good way to get killed. No matter how tough you are, you can only look in one direction at a time.
I continued heel-toe down the corridor, around to the cross corridor and back. Another body. Adult female. Bullet in the head. Pop. Heel-toe.
I cleared the second-floor corridors then up to third, quick walk around second in case of infiltration, down to first. All clear.
I walked back to the office and did shave and a haircut again.
“Are there any other areas than on this map?” I asked the black lady. “A basement, maybe?”
“There ain’t no basements in New Orleans, son,” she said. “It all done?”
“Yes, but the police would probably prefer you stay locked down till they clear the corridors,” I said. “There’s bodies. Especially on the second floor.”
“You get ’em all?” the lady asked, querulously. “You gotta put bullets in the haid all them as is bit.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I put bullets in all their heads.”
“That bitty gun gonna do it?” she asked. Now that the threat was gone she was back to school-office-manager mode and I had always been a bit baby-faced. She probably thought I was right out of Monster Training School or something.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Not my first rodeo. I’ve got to go get the police, now. If you’ll excuse me.”
“Thank you, young man,” she said as I walked away.
* * *
I’d marked the map and pointed out the location of bodies.
“Two shamblers, one victim. I cleared the victim. One victim here. And here. Both cleared.”
“Cleared?” The guy asking the question was slightly chubby with a flabby face and hands, wire-rimmed spectacles held on with a piece of string to keep them from slipping and wearing a blue coverall marked “Coroner.”
“I shot them in the head to keep them from rising,” I said. “They were all bitten.”
“Chad Gardenier,” Agent Higgins said. “Dave Boswick, Coroner’s Special Incident shift lead. Dave, Chad. Chad is MHI’s new guy.”
“Pleased,” Dave said. He didn’t seem to be. “You’re sure you shot them all?”
“Sure,” I said. “I don’t make mistakes about putting down undead, sir.”
“Your contract specifies staying on scene until we’re clear,” Boswick said.
“Okay,” I said. Ben was talking to some of the cops, but that sounded legit. “Quick question. We usually take samples on site. What’s the procedure here? For the PUFF.”
“Dave gives you a receipt for each of them,” Bob said. “That’s mostly how it goes. Keep the receipts, turn them in to MHI. You’ll need an incident number, you can get that from the on-scene cop or Dave or other shift leads. MHI submits the receipt number and incident. We verify. You get paid.”
“That’s…almost efficient,” I said.
“We’ve suggested it nationwide,” Bob said. “Hunters don’t trust it because it depends on us and coroners verifying. And most places the coroners aren’t as experienced so that causes problems. Here, it works.”
“You ready?” Dave asked.
“Sure,” I said.
In Seattle I’d dealt with coroner teams a few times. They generally turned up with a stretcher. The New Orleans coroners had a lift on the back of their truck and a large, wheeled cargo flat piled with body bags.
I followed them in. Dave stood by making notes and filling out paperwork as his two assistants, both burly black men probably in their forties, loaded the bodies into body bags and stacked them on the flat.
They had to just carry the body bags upstairs and get the corpses that way. Finally, all the bodies were cleared and Dave handed me a slip of paper stamped with the parish stamp and his squiggle.
“That’s it?” I asked. The paper was full of codes. I recognized the one for Undead, Zombie, Human, Slow.
“That’s it,” Dave said. “Five shamblers.”
“There were only two vertical.”
“Five shamblers,” Dave said. “Just take the receipt.”
I took the receipt and carefully put it in my wallet so I wouldn’t lose it.
* * *
“I guess we’re done,” I said, walking out to the MCB car.
“You got another call,” Bob said, grinning maliciously. He’d reparked his car under a live oak and was looking cool as a cucumber. “Some sort of little fire imp or something over in Lafayette Cemetery.”
“You’re joking,” I said. I’d been checked in for about four hours, gotten a bit buzzed for early lunch, was still burping bourbon chicken, cleared a high school of zombies, and I had another call?
“Nope,” Bob said. “Call came in on the radio.”
“Somebody has to stay with the coroner.” Carter said. “I’m not even supposed to be out of the hospital yet. You want this one? I can catch up.”
“So, is MHI gonna take the call or not?” the MCB agent asked.
“We don’t do imps,” Dave the coroner said as his helpers maneuvered the loaded flat down the steps of the school. “All they leave is ectoplasm.”
“Those you take samples,” Bob said. “Want me to lead you over, new guy?”
“Sure. Lemme put this stuff away. Then we’ll play car tag.”
* * *
There was exactly zero shade in Lafayette Cemetery Number Two. The aboveground burial plots and tombs caught what breeze there was and trapped the heat. It was a furnace.
A furnace in a maze. Most of the burial plots were single and just raised. The water table was so high that you couldn’t bury someone six feet under. The raised single plots were about knee height and looked somewhat like Egyptian sarcophagi.
But there were dozens of mausoleums as well. The mausoleums were mostly about a story in height and elaborately made. They were all in bad repair but they’d been pretty when new, you could tell. In addition, many of the plots had statues on them, the Virgin Mary and weeping angels featured prominently.
Between the plots and mausoleums were broad walkways and narrow gaps. Both were choked with weeds ranging up to waist height. Each walkway, in turn, was filled with more kinds of bugs than you could find in the entire Pacific Northwest.
Somewhere in this maze there was, supposedly, a small fire demon. Things which were on fire were often best dealt with by cold. I’d stopped at an industrial supply store and picked up an industrial carbon dioxide fire extinguisher. About then I wanted to just play it over myself.
There was a squealing and chattering from around a small mausoleum with…six people in it according to the inscription. I had the fire extinguisher in one hand and my other on the pistol grip of the Uzi.
A few small demons were ripping at another corpse. This was an old woman, dressed for church, in a nice dress—well, formerly nice—good flat shoes and a hat. By her right hand was a vase with flowers and water spilling out of it. She was pretty well torn to bits at this point and thoroughly cooked. There was a smell of burnt pork in the air.
One of the demons squealed as I appeared and sent a blast of fire my way. The fire breath barely warmed my already warm shins.
“HOODOO SQUAD!” it squealed. “HOOF IT!”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I said, hitting the lever on the extinguisher.
One of the demons managed to get out of the area of effect. The others wailed and screamed as the cold hit them, then one by one turned to statues.
I hit them with a burst from the Uzi, hip fire, and they shattered like glass, and immediately began to deliquesce.
That left the one that got away. It had darted across the walkway and between two mausoleums, headed for the street.
My only choice was to follow it directly. After reloading, I squeezed between the mausoleums. Beyond them to one side was a mausoleum, on the other side one of the regular burial plots. I ran across that, apologizing under my breath, until I got to the next walkway and looked both ways.
About that time there was the honk of a horn. I went that way.
There was an NOPD car parked on the next street over. The officer pointed across the road to another cemetery on the other side of the road.
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” I muttered, crossing the road. I was still carrying a thirty-pound fire extinguisher in my left hand.
I heard screams in the cemetery and headed that way as best I could. Another freaking maze.
It was a group cleaning up one of the plots, four young women and a boy, probably ten, pulling weeds off one of the sarcophagi.
“Did you see…” I said, panting. Fucking heat. “Demon…”
“It went that way, Mr. Hoodoo,” the boy said, pointing between another couple of mausoleums.
By this time I was starting to notice the occasional scorch mark. Jesse had taught me the rudiments of outdoor tracking and I realized the little demon was leaving sign. The scorching was from whenever it touched some of the burial plots and mausoleums.
It turned eventually—it had been going straight as an arrow as far as I could tell—and then turned back. At that point I lost it for a bit but picked up the trail again near the road.
I found a scorch mark that still had a faint trace of sulfur to it. I was getting close.
The trail all of a sudden went crazy, going in and out between mausoleums. Like it was chasing something. Finally I found it.
The demon was huddled between a mausoleum and a sarcophagus, worrying on the body of a rat.
“OH, NO!” it squealed, dropping the half-eaten rodent. “I DON’T WANNA GO BACK!”
I sprayed the remains of the fire extinguisher over the imp. One kick and it shattered.
* * *
“Six flame imps,” I said, holding up the plastic sandwich bags containing traces of the ectoplasm of each. “Four people who saw one of them. One victim. Need coroner. I give these to Ben?”
“I’ll take them,” Bob said, pulling out a ticket book. “I’ll take your word for it. They might get tested, they might not. We’re sort of backed up.”
He gave me a receipt with the incident number and receipt numbers for each baggie.
“’Nother call came in while you were chasing that last imp,” Bob said. He had, again, somehow managed to find shade. “Might want to rig up for this one. Remodeling crew in Metairie found what sounds like a nest of vampires in a building.”
I looked up at the sun. It was still well high.
“And they didn’t just stake them?” I asked hopefully.
“Not after one of the workers got his throat ripped out. Like I said, might want to rig up.”