Though Robin couldn’t fault our results when we gave her the full report, she was less than enthusiastic to learn about the commotion we had caused.
“You couldn’t have been more subtle?” she asked. “Sabotaging his home alarm system, opening a second-story window, tampering with the lock on the desk drawer, stealing private property!” She sounded very discouraged. “Jekyll is going to guess we were involved.”
“I didn’t leave any fingerprints,” Sheyenne objected.
“More importantly, it’ll never go to court,” I said. “If he thinks we’ve got his Grand Wizard ring, I very much doubt he’ll risk us making it public.”
“Maybe he can’t prove we were the ones who broke in,” Robin said, “but we can’t prove the ring belongs to him either. We have a Straight Edge ring—so what? He’ll deny it.”
“We have the running video of me taking the ring from the study,” Sheyenne said.
Robin did not look happy. “And that video proves you broke in. We need to delete it. Besides, just because you found the ring in a drawer doesn’t mean it’s Jekyll’s or what he was doing with it. He might say Miranda planted it there.”
“Even so, we’d better set up a meeting with Mrs. Jekyll—preferably tonight—to discuss how best to leverage this.” I suspected that for once, Miranda might make time for a scheduled appointment. “In the meantime we’d better keep the ring in the safe, locked tight.”
* * *
An hour before midnight, I joined McGoo in the Goblin Tavern for a quick beer. It felt good to get back to anything that passed for normal. Sheyenne had managed to set up a meeting with Miranda Jekyll at Basilisk—a public place, for safety, and late enough to accommodate her busy social schedule.
In the meantime, I informed McGoo that Sheldon Fennerman was now under a protection spell, but more importantly I let him know what we’d (unofficially) discovered in Harvey Jekyll’s mansion. The Grand Wizard’s ring was safely locked away, but I wanted McGoo aware of the situation, just in case. No telling what Jekyll or his goons might try to pull, and I had no intention of being gunned down a third time.
To prevent Robin from having legal heartburn, I chose my words carefully. “This is hypothetical, McGoo. I’m not actually saying that Sheyenne did slip into somebody’s private study, or that she did obtain a very interesting and incriminating object.”
“I get it, Shamble. We’re just talking in general terms.” He slurped his beer. “But—also in general terms—you need to be damned careful. You’re playing with fire here.” He looked up. “Say, are zombies afraid of fire, like in Night of the Living Dead?”
“I’m no more afraid of fire than a lot of other things,” I said. “Clowns, though, they give me the creeps.”
“You know what kind of streets zombies like best, Shamble?”
“What?” He had suckered me into another stupid joke.
“Dead ends.”
“That’s not even remotely funny.”
Before we could finish our first beers, the radio crackled at McGoo’s shoulder, and he acknowledged, listening to the squelch of code words. He looked at me. “Another disturbance at the Hope and Salvation Mission. Mrs. Saldana says it’s an emergency.”
I swung off the bar stool and moved as quickly as I could. “The monster’s back?”
“No, this is something else.” He headed off at a jog, and I kept up with him, glad for the hours I put in on the treadmill at All-Day/All-Nite Fitness.
In front of Mrs. Saldana’s mission, by the light of the street lamps, I saw glass shattered on the sidewalk, lots of it, enough for two large windowpanes. The old woman huddled against the brick wall in her ubiquitous flower-print dress, her face filled with revulsion. She pressed her hands together as if praying while she stared at a puddle of red and tan goo that looked like rejected by-products from a cat-food factory. Off to the side, a black silk top hat lay where it had fallen to the ground, next to a frock coat and checkered waistcoat.
From behind her, in the yawning gaps where the windows hadn’t yet been replaced, I saw the equally frightened Jerry, her gaunt right-hand zombie. He shuddered in the shadows, afraid to come outside.
We hurried up to Mrs. Saldana, making sure she was in no danger.
“It’s horrible, horrible! Right before my eyes, he just … melted!” The old woman’s teeth chattered together. Through the open window, Jerry handed her one of the worn Bibles, and she clutched it to her chest, rocking back and forth.
“Who melted? What happened?” McGoo pulled out his notebook. “Shamble, can you ID the vic?”
I glanced down at the shapeless goo. Broken window glass. Black top hat. Among the reek of soupy flesh and bone, I smelled the distinctive scent of Zom-Be-Fresh. “My guess is that it’s Franklin Galworthy. He was here replacing glass for Mrs. Saldana.” I nudged the hat with the toe of my shoe. “And he liked to wear a lot of cologne.”
The old woman finally found her voice. “Yes, Mr. Galworthy was here working late installing the new window. He’s been so busy lately with all those smashed windows around town, and he was working late. I had just stepped out to bring him some lemonade.” She glanced down, and I saw a paper cup in a little puddle. “I dropped it. I’m sorry for the mess, Officer.”
“Don’t you worry about it, Mrs. Saldana.”
Her voice hitched as she relived the nightmare. “Poor Mr. Galworthy! He groaned in pain, then squirmed, and dropped the glass pane he was carrying. Shattered all over the sidewalk. I thought he was hurt, and then … this happened. The poor man!”
“Nobody came by and doused him with acid?” I asked. “You didn’t see a warlock cast some kind of dissolving spell?”
“No, Mr. Chambeaux. Why would anyone want to hurt a hardworking businessman? He spent all day fixing windows.”
Jerry finally shuffled outside, reassured now that I hadn’t melted in front of Mrs. Saldana. He carried a shovel and a bucket. “I’ll clean this up.”
“Not until the detectives get here. This is evidence.” McGoo wrinkled his nose. “But it is disgusting.” He nudged the collapsed frock coat that lay in the ooze and bent over to inspect it with great reluctance. In the pocket, he found two sample sachets of Zom-Be-Fresh, which he plucked out. “Samples from JLPN’s new line. Looks like Brondon Morris gets around.”
Remembering how Sheyenne had suffered a severe rash from using the necroceuticals, I wondered if this horrible meltdown might be the result of another JLPN glitch, just like the garlic shampoo. “Can I take one of those packets and a sample of the goo? Run a comparative analysis?”
“Help yourself.” McGoo handed me one of the packets. “You’ll probably get to it faster than the department crime lab. All you zombies are buddies, right?”
“You might say I’ve got some skin in the game.”
The police radio squawked again. “Officer McGoohan, what’s your 20?”
“I’m still 10-8 at the mission—what’s up?”
The dispatcher rattled off an address. “Domestic disturbance, possible 10-10 fight in progress. You’re the nearest officer available.”
He grumbled something about the precinct being understaffed. “On my way. That’s just a few blocks from here.”
I turned to McGoo, my interest piqued. “I recognize that address—it’s Straight Edge headquarters.” I recalled the angry crowd around Sheldon Fennerman’s apartment. “Things got ugly on the streets earlier today. The Straight Edgers insulted a lot of unnaturals. Maybe somebody decided to take the law into their own hands.”
McGoo looked as if a hairball had caught in his throat. “Maybe I should let them deal with the problem themselves.” He let out a weary sigh. “My job would be a lot easier if I didn’t have to protect idiots from being idiots.”
After making apologies to Mrs. Saldana, we hurried off to the next emergency. Before we’d gone a block, we could hear the screams—truly bloodcurdling screams—and loud smashing sounds, as if someone were playing Find the Breakable Object with a baseball bat inside a curio shop.
The lights were on but flickering inside Straight Edge head-quarters. The front door had been torn off its hinges and hurled across the street, like someone tossing a playing card. I could hear nostril-burbling roars.
As we ran closer, McGoo yelled, “Stop! Police!”
In response, the broken body of one of the three Straight Edge boys—Scott, I think—sailed through the smashed window and tumbled into the gutter. His red T-shirt was now saturated with other shades of red.
McGoo yelped, drew his weapon, and charged toward the open door.
“Call for backup!” I shouted.
“What do you think you are, Shamble? You’ve got a gun, come on!” I drew my .38, and we both approached.
The head of another Straight Edger—beanpole Todd, with red marks from the duct tape still prominent around his mouth—rolled out like a bowling ball and stopped in the middle of the street, eyes wide open, as if disappointed that he hadn’t scored any points in the game.
Inside the headquarters, we came upon a scene of further carnage. Priscilla lay dead in two pieces on the floor. Patrick had been dismembered, as if some malicious child had plucked off his arms and legs, like a doll.
A battering sound as loud as a bomb blast came from the back, and McGoo and I charged in pursuit, armed and ready. A huge shape had hammered its own opening through the brick wall, and as soon as we entered, the suspended ceiling collapsed. An explosion of mortar and cement dust flew up in the air, obscuring our view, but I could see the thing was enormous.
McGoo, due to his training, shouted another quick warning; I didn’t bother—I just opened fire. My silver-jacketed bullets did no good; McGoo also fired his weapon. One of the ceiling panels tumbled down and doused him with gypsum dust.
The hulking creature lumbered out into the alley and the darkness, completely ignoring us. I scrambled over the rubble and emerged just in time to see the huge shape scuttle with freakish speed up a drainpipe. It swung over a roof ledge and bounded away.
McGoo stood beside me, eyes wide. His cap had fallen off at some point during the chase, and his hair was mussed and covered with gray gypsum dust.
In the back room, we found the headless body that obviously belonged to Todd’s head, the bowling-ball wannabe. One of the Straight Edge signs—Unnatural, Unclean, Unwanted—mounted on a wooden stick had been thrust entirely through his skinny chest, pinning him to the linoleum floor.
McGoo looked down at the impaled headless body. “What a clusterfart. We’re gonna be out here all night. Why did I ask to be assigned to this precinct again, Shamble?”
“You didn’t,” I said.
“Oh, right.” He got on his radio and called in the crime.