with her hot-ember eyes, one of those scary and seductive glamour gazes that can turn human victims into putty. Even I found it hard to resist, and parts of me began to stir. After all, I wasn’t entirely dead.
After her first set, the vamp singer bowed to resounding applause and told the audience she would be back after her break. Customers shuffled toward the stage, wanting to talk to her but too shy to speak. Ivory glided through the crowds of admirers and stepped directly up to me; she ignored her fans, much to their disappointment. Some glowered at me, and I could sense their jealousy. Most of them couldn’t understand why I wasn’t grinning like a schoolboy from the attention.
Under other circumstances, Ivory would never have noticed me, but when she noticed my brewing relationship with Sheyenne, she decided to get me for herself. But it hadn’t worked. With Sheyenne around, how could I look at anyone else?
“Hey, sugar. I haven’t seen you around in a while.” Ivory leaned closer, and her cleavage reminded me of a Venus flytrap about to swallow my head. She inhaled deeply. “You’re less warm-blooded now than before.”
I tapped my forehead where the mortician’s putty still covered the scar. “Got shot in the head.”
“Sorry to hear that, but I’m glad you came back to hear me sing.”
“I came back for a lot of reasons.”
She frowned. “Yeah, I heard about your poor little girlfriend. Never knew what you saw in that scrawny thing, when you could have had so much more.” She traced her hands from her rib cage to her waist, then her hips.
“Sheyenne and I were happy enough while it lasted,” I said.
Again, that mock sorrowful pout. “I heard she died, poor thing. I hope she’s doing better now?”
“Sheyenne’s just fine. And we’re still seeing each other.”
“Whenever you’re ready to move on, sugar, I can meet you back in my dressing room.”
“I wouldn’t want you to disappoint all these adoring fans.” I glanced at the crowd of men hovering around.
“Who says I don’t have enough to share?” she said. “Stay for the next set—we’ll talk afterward.”
Without saying a word to the other fans, Ivory returned to the stage, and the lounge lizard played her intro. I got up and left quietly. No need to make a long night seem longer.
CHAPTER 12
Despite setback after setback, a determined person won’t stay down for long—and Hope Saldana was a determined lady.
Early next morning, I stopped by the Hope & Salvation Mission just to see how the old woman was dealing with the destruction of her place. Even though McGoo had already told me she wasn’t injured in the attack, I wanted to make sure she was all right.
Over the years, some unnaturals had grumbled about Mrs. Saldana’s goody-two-shoes efforts to help down-and-out unnaturals, but she stuck to her guns and continued her missionary work. Her heart was in the right place, and she considered it her duty to help those who no longer had hearts, beating or otherwise.
When I arrived at the smashed mission, I saw Mrs. Saldana standing on the sidewalk out front, arms crossed over her pink flower-print dress. She guided the efforts of her assistant Jerry, a tall and lanky zombie, who was hanging a rectangle of plywood over one of the destroyed storefront windows.
Jerry was one of the first wayward souls that Mrs. Saldana had helped when she opened her mission. As the story went—and the old woman told the story whenever she delivered her sermons, since it made such a great example—Jerry had shambled up to her during a particularly bad jag, intent on eating her brain. But Mrs. Saldana accepted him, read him verses from her well-worn Bible, offered him hope and comfort, and talked him down from his slobbering hunger.
“God loves all His creatures,” she said.
“Even a wretch like me?” Jerry had answered.
She gave him a sincere nod. “Just like the hymn says.”
Jerry broke down and cried, and he’d been her inseparable helper ever since. His hunger hadn’t abated, but he was working his way through a twelve-step program, and there were plenty of rats in the basement for him to snack on.
Now Mrs. Saldana took a step back to inspect the patch-up job. “That’ll do, Jerry.” She gave a brisk nod. “Bless you. Now we can continue our work.”
The old woman had curly permed hair, gray but not yet old-lady blue. At first glance, she looked like everyone’s favorite schoolteacher. No one I knew had ever heard Mrs.