Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,44
then needed to put himself back together. “Just stick close to him.”
The crab did what his partner wanted. At least it gave me a little relief from the stink. I stood up.
“Can you handle him?” asked A’marie, still holding the panpipes and handkerchief near her mouth.
The crab guy smiled up at her. Some of his teeth had fallen out, and the ones that were left were black and brown. “No problem,” he said. “Get back to the hotel before they miss you.”
She looked at me and said, “I’m sorry. I… I wouldn’t really have made you shoot yourself. I just wanted to scare you into letting go of the gun. Lorenzo and Georgie won’t hurt you, either, unless you make them.”
“Just shut up and go,” I said.
She looked hurt. That was stupid, considering what she’d done to me, and what was even stupider was that it gave me a twinge of guilt.
“I could have just let you walk into the lord’s trap and hoped you wouldn’t make it out again,” she said. “Doing it this way, there’s a good chance we’re actually saving your life.”
“What about Victoria’s life?”
“I told you before: We have our own problems to solve. We can’t worry about humans we don’t even know.” She turned back to Lorenzo and Georgie. “Thank you for this.”
“There’s no need to thank us,” Lorenzo—the Italian zombie—said. “We need change even more than you do. Who sleeps and dreams more than the dead?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
A’marie gave me a last troubled look, then headed back to the Miata. Lorenzo waved his off hand, motioning for me to walk farther south. Both he and Georgie followed along behind me.
And all of this was happening in an open field in the middle of a city on a sunny afternoon. I was sure the boom had rattled some windows, and that Georgie looked strange even at a distance. But nobody was rushing to my rescue.
“So, Lorenzo,” I said, in the faint hope that chitchat would distract the zombies, make them like me, or something, “you were a human cannonball.”
“One of the first,” Lorenzo answered with surprise and pride in his voice, “and nobody ever flew farther.”
“And now you don’t even need a cannon.”
“No. I admit, it’s a funny sort of gift. I never heard of another Lingerer with anything like it. But it’s what Fate chose for me.”
“And you, Georgie,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I’ve actually heard of you.”
“I guess you watch that Death Row show,” he growled. “Well, guess what? It was all true. I was a drunk. I beat up my family. I shot and killed my daughter’s boy friend. Finally my wife hired a guy to shoot me so I couldn’t hurt her and the kids anymore. Happy?”
“Right now?” I replied. “Not really.”
“I’m not that person anymore,” Georgie said. “At least I’m trying not to be. But it’s not easy when Timon thinks it’s funny to make me go through all the worst moments over and over again in my sleep.”
“Look,” I said. “I realize something needs to be done about him—”
“No,” said Lorenzo, “you don’t. You’re just saying anything that you think might help you. But it’s too late for that. We’re here.”
“Here” didn’t look any different than the rest of the graveyard. Still, it seemed like the zombies wanted me to stop walking, so I did.
Then the strip of ground in front of a headstone grumbled and split. In seconds, it was an open grave with the stained, decaying remains of a cheap pine coffin at the bottom. Loose dirt pattered down on the lid, and the symbols scrawled there in blue and purple chalk.
“Home sweet home,” Georgie said.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Lorenzo asked. “There’s a lot of daylight left.”
“He’s got magic,” said the crab. “Somebody has to stay awake and stand guard. And it’s easier to hide when you’re built low to the ground.”
That was probably why I hadn’t spotted him after he whistled, not that it mattered anymore. I whirled and threw myself at the zombies.
It probably would have gotten me shot, too, except that before Lorenzo could pull the trigger, Georgie threw himself against my legs and tackled me. I fell down, and Lorenzo cracked me over the head with the Smith and Wesson. It hurt a lot. Enough to make me stop resisting.
“Georgie’s going to let you go,” Lorenzo said, “and then you’re going to climb down. If you don’t, I swear I really will shoot you.”