Chapter 11

Trinity didn’t say anything until Sara and I were both back in the car. She glanced at us in the rearview, the reflection of red in her eyes hinting at her agitation with something—maybe us? Or was it the proximity of the White Hat hideout?

“Good to see you’re still alive. Were the White Hats not home, or did you get what you came for? ”

“We got what we needed,” Sara said, her tone carefully neutral.

Trinity turned her attention ahead, the glitter of crimson no longer visible from my angle in the backseat. “That’s good. I’m sure Clyde will be thrilled to hear all about it.” The not-so-veiled threat in what she didn’t say made me glad we’d cut things short with Devon and Tiny. If Sara and I had hung around much longer, Trinity or Clyde might have grown suspicious that we were plotting against him. “What’s next on your agenda, hmm?”

“Can you take us to any of the places where these attacks took place?” I asked.

“You sure that’s what you want? They’ve all been cleaned up, so you won’t see much.”

“Yeah. You never know. You guys might have missed something.”

Trinity made a derisive sound in her throat and started the car. “I sincerely doubt that, but if that’s what you want, then that’s where we’ll go. Did you have a particular destination in mind?”

Sara and I looked at each other, then simultaneously shrugged, never mind that Trinity couldn’t see it. “How about the one in Sun Valley? That’s close to here, isn’t it?”

She made another sound, this time more like a choked laugh. “Interesting choice. Buckle your seat belts. It won’t take long to get there.”

Though she was right, the area seemed to go from bad to still bad to oh-God-where’s-my-pepper-spray territory. Graffiti was sprayed on a number of the walls, shards of broken beer bottles scattered on the blacktop of empty parking lots shone with the glitter of fallen stars, and most of the windows on the houses and apartments were protected by iron bars—in some cases, even on the second and third floors.

When Trinity stopped at the side of the road in front of a 24-hour Laundromat, for a long moment, I wasn’t sure why. Then she tilted her head to look at us, her braid sliding across the slick leather of the seat.

“Well? What are you waiting for? I don’t want to be here all night. Go take a look. It happened over there.”

I took a look where she was pointing. There was a sign for a . . . carnicería? Whatever that was. Judging by the signs in the window, it must have been the Spanish term for a deli or butcher shop.

It felt like Trinity’s eyes were boring holes in my back as I slid out of the car and started walking toward the shop. I was sure she must have known how uncomfortable she was making me, but she was staying in the car and out of our way. That would have to be enough.

Sara came around until she was beside me, the two of us moving in tandem as we approached the shop. The hours posted in the window said it should have been open now, but the lights were off and a “Closed” sign was visible behind the streaks on the glass front door. Though I hadn’t made any special effort to breathe through my nose, the scent of dead things—worse than old, congealed blood, much worse—instantly coated my throat and tongue.

Sara stopped as I did, her brow wrinkling with concern. “You okay?”

I coughed and spat, trying to get the taste out. “Cripes, you don’t smell that?”

She sniffed, then lifted her shoulders. “Smells like you’d expect this close to a butcher shop. Maybe something went bad?”

“Really bad.”

We tried the door on the off chance someone might have left it open, but of course the thing was locked. Both of us cupped the glass and peered inside, trying to see past the coat of dust and glare from a nearby streetlight.

There was a dim glow coming from the display case next to the register and from some fridges in the back with sodas and beer. The track lighting on the ceiling and above the board behind the counter with prices painted on it was turned off. The racks of snacks and junk food didn’t seem to be out of order, and aside from some chips in the paint, what I could see of the flooring, counters, and two tables inside was clean. If the attack had occurred inside, there was no sign of it from where we were standing.

Still, that smell led me to believe that there was more to see here, something we hadn’t found yet. Stepping back from the window, I took a few short, sniffling breaths through my nose, just enough to get a whiff of that decaying stuff again. It wasn’t coming from the front.

Sara followed me as I alternately sniffed and gagged. The looks she was giving me made me wonder just how weird my expression must have been. I couldn’t help the way my nose scrunched up, my eyes watered, or how my mouth was twisting, like I had bitten into a not-quite-ripe lemon. Whatever was giving off that odor was rank. Like bad meat in a plastic bag under the summer sun, left to bake until it burst.

There was a light illuminating the side of the building between the Laundromat and the carnicería. Roaches scuttled out of our path and disappeared into crevices as we moved closer to the source of that smell. It appeared to be coming from close to the Dumpster flush against the wall, next to an exit from the butcher shop.

I couldn’t get any closer. My nose had started running, and my eyes were watering so badly that I could barely see. Taking her cue from the wave of my hand in the general direction of the trash, Sara kept going while I turned away to retch by the sidewalk.

When I managed to lift my head and blink the worst of the sting from my eyes, I saw some of the people in the Laundromat giving me dirty looks as they sorted their colors and folded their undies. Awesome.

Scrubbing the back of my hand against my mouth, I turned, watching as Sara crouched and poked at something on the ground. With her bare hands? Yuck.

Suddenly, she rose, almost tipping over her high-heeled boots. Once she regained her balance, she strode back to my side in a hurry.

Once she reached me, she didn’t look at me, placing her hands just under her ribs and taking a deep breath. She stared at, but I had the suspicion did not see, the used car lot across the street.

“Your nose didn’t lie. There’s a piece of zombie back there. I think it’s a finger.”

Oh, God.

“It moved when I touched it.”

Oh, God.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Though I felt like making like Sir Robin in that Holy Grail movie, now wasn’t the time to run away. “We can’t leave without knowing what else happened here. Maybe someone in that Laundromat saw something. Which way did they go when they left? How did they get here? There’s got to be something more that we haven’t found yet.”

She nodded, but did not look particularly enthusiastic. We headed to the Laundromat, the people inside who hadn’t thought much of my behavior suddenly quite studious in their folding activities. One guy grabbed the remainder of his laundry in his arms and fled out the door opposite the one we were entering. He probably knew something, but I wasn’t in the mood to chase unwilling witnesses.

We went toward a lady leaning over the lower half of a Dutch door, watching one of the TVs playing from a wall mount across the room. She barely looked in our direction when Sara and I stopped in front of her.

“Excuse me,” I said, giving her a little wave. “Hi, there. Can we ask you a few questions?”

She tore her attention off the TV and looked me up and down. “No hablo Inglés.” Back to the TV.

Sara wasn’t deterred. She shot off some Spanish in rapid fire, and the older woman looked at her with surprise. They jabbered back and forth a bit, the lady becoming agitated before long. There were a lot of hand gestures and grabbing at the little gold cross around her neck.

After tonight, I was going to invest in a Spanish-English dictionary.

I gave Sara a pat on the back to indicate she should keep on with it while I moved to interview some of the other people hanging around.

There wasn’t much more to be learned from the others. Everyone I asked either didn’t speak English, hadn’t been around that night, or had only heard, not seen, what had happened. The noises they described were pretty par for the course considering it had been a zombie attack. Moans, groans, and screams had sent most of them diving for cover or calling the cops. They didn’t know what had made the noises, but they assumed it was shady business involving Others.

Sara startled me a few minutes later with a hand on my shoulder. The guy I was talking to eyeballed her cleavage like he hadn’t just been involved in what I considered to be a serious discussion about whether zombies that shamble versus the ones that run are more dangerous. He’d seen some of the ones that had attacked the vampires in the alley, though he had no recollection about where they’d come from or how they had left. Must have been some of that mage “fade” mojo, no doubt.

“I’ve got something. Let’s go,” Sara whispered.

I waved a good-bye to the guy, who failed to return the gesture. He was too busy gawking over Sara, who didn’t appear to notice his attention.

She kept her mouth shut until we were outside, slowing down a bit to mutter her findings to me under her breath before we returned to the car. “Looks like that mage knows how to cover his tracks. Rosalie said she saw the guy, looked right at him in fact, and that he tried to cast a black enchant on her to make her forget. Her family is a line of magic users, though, so she just pretended it worked and hid before he could figure out his spell didn’t work.

“He’s young, early twenties maybe, and wears stylish clothes. Pale skin, dark brown hair, tall and skinny. She didn’t get close enough to see his eye color, but she did spot a tattoo of a pentagram on his palm when he was casting at her. The zombies were brought here and taken away in a U-Haul, driven by a second man she didn’t see very well and couldn’t describe.”

“Not bad,” I said. “Don’t suppose she happened to catch the license plate, too?”

Sara smirked, moving around to the other side of the car. “Sadly, no. She did say the truck had a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge on the side, so that narrows it down—slightly.”

For a moment, I thought we might have the case in the bag—but then I groaned and slapped my palm on the roof. “Shit, no. We can’t call their home office to ask about rentals without using our PI license. Or call the cops and ask them to do the legwork for us. Damn.”

“Maybe not,” Sara replied, getting in and leaning across the seat to continue, “but I’m sure Clyde has connections, and we know enough to narrow down the search. With the guy’s description, and knowing about the truck, we should have enough info that Clyde could figure out who it was more rapidly than we could.”

Trinity tapped her nails on the steering wheel, not bothering to look back at us as I slid in beside Sara and buckled up. She took off almost as soon as the “click” of the seat belt locking sounded. “I take it you two found something?”

“Yeah,” Sara said. “We’ll tell Clyde when we get back. I don’t like repeating myself.”

Trinity didn’t say anything, the plastic covering the steering wheel squeaking under her fingers. Touchy.

I sincerely hoped Clyde would appreciate the work we had done and what we had found out for him. Hopefully he’d consider it enough and wouldn’t expect us to continue digging.

But knowing my luck, and considering the vampire’s behavior thus far, whatever we did for him would never be enough.