“I wasn’t expecting it to be.”
Still, his hand stayed in place and we stood where we were. “Thomas Malone was the PDH involved,” he said. “Did you know him?”
I shook my head.
“Huh.” Daniel seemed puzzled, even disappointed.
“Daniel, there are over two thousand zombies in Deadtown. I’m not going to know every single one.”
“Sure, of course. But—Well, you’ll see why I thought maybe you did. Anyway, Malone was part of the night crew at a warehouse in Dorchester. He and four coworkers have a Class B permit to go there for the overnight shift six nights a week.”
A Class B permit was open-ended permission for a group of zombies to leave Deadtown for work purposes. Zombies are in demand as manual laborers for the third shift. They’re strong—just one can do the work of five humans—and night is their natural “awake” time. The big plus: Labor laws don’t insist on pesky expenses like health insurance or minimum wage for zombies.
Daniel showed me a list of names, the other zombies on Malone’s crew. I didn’t recognize any of them, either.
“So,” he said, “Malone’s work routine was this: Each night, an hour after sunset, a van would arrive to pick up the crew. The van came from Hub Transit—they’ve got a standing order to send a driver twice a night: first to pick up the crew and then to bring them home again before sunrise. Besides the driver, the crew’s human sponsor made the trip each night.”
“The sponsor is employed by the warehouse company?” Even with a Class B work permit, zombies couldn’t leave Deadtown unless they were accompanied by a human.
“Was. He was shift supervisor.”
Was. Okay. So the supervisor was one of the victims.
“And that’s the van over there?” I pointed to a white vehicle that sat half on the sidewalk, its front crumpled against a lamppost.
“Yes. Last night, Malone and the others left Deadtown as usual. Records show they went through the Summer Street checkpoint at seven forty-six P.M. Hub Transit dispatched the van for the return trip at three fifty-seven A.M. Just past the intersection of Lincoln and Beach, Malone attacked the driver.”
“And you don’t think it was bloodlust.” Maybe he was mistaken. It doesn’t take much blood to set a zombie off. The driver might have chewed down a hangnail too far or gotten overzealous popping a zit.
“I’m sure it wasn’t. There were four other PDHs in the van. We’ve taken a statement from each of them. No one smelled any blood before the attack. Malone was closest to the driver, sitting in the seat directly behind him, so I suppose there’s a chance he smelled blood the others didn’t catch. But Malone didn’t act like a PDH in a blood frenzy.”
“By which you mean, I assume, that he didn’t try to eat the driver?”
“Right. Without any warning, he reached forward, gave the guy’s head a twist, and snapped his neck.”
And that would be how the van ended up accordioned against a streetlight.
Daniel continued. “The supervisor, who was in the front passenger seat, tried to take control of the van. Malone got his hands around the guy’s neck and choked the life out of him. Another PDH tried to pull Malone off, but he couldn’t budge him.”
“Malone’s a big guy?”
“That’s what we understand.”
Wait—the police didn’t know for sure? “He’s still on the loose? I thought you guys had him in custody.” Okay, if a murderous zombie was running around the city, maybe I couldn’t blame Commissioner Hampson for sealing off Deadtown. In his place, I probably would have made the same call. First time for everything.
Daniel gave me a funny look and said, “Not exactly. Let me finish telling the story.”
“All right.” But I was wondering why he’d called me in. “So far, I haven’t heard anything to indicate demon activity. Demons don’t possess zombies, if that’s what you’re thinking about Malone.”
“Just give me your opinion after you’ve heard all the facts and taken a look at the scene.”
I nodded.
“After the van crashed, the PDHs all clambered out. Malone’s coworkers followed procedure and put on their masks.” All zombies who worked outside of Deadtown were required to carry surgical masks, saturated with eucalyptus, to overpower the smell of blood if they found themselves in the vicinity of an injured human. The masks are sealed inside an easy-open plastic pouch, and zombies who carry them have to pass a speed test for putting them on.
“But not Malone, I take it?”
“Right. While the others were putting on their masks, Malone got his third victim, a human who’d run across the street to see if he could help. Tore the guy’s head off.”
It was a good thing the other four zombies got their masks on. Five bloodlust-crazed zombies rampaging through Boston was not what you’d call good public relations.
“One of Malone’s coworkers tackled him. Two more piled on while the fourth, who was injured with a broken ankle from the crash, called 911. But even together, those three PDHs couldn’t hold Malone down. He shook them all off and was back on his feet when all of a sudden he fell to his knees, clutching his temples.” Daniel ducked his head, watching my face intently as he spoke his next words. “Vicky, two of the three zombies who were nearby heard crows cawing.”
Crows. For a moment, everything stopped. My heart quit beating. My lungs forgot to take in air. And the harsh cries of a hundred crows echoed inside my own mind. “You think this was a Morfran attack?”
What Daniel was suggesting, if true, would be the worst kind of bad news. The Morfran, an evil, destructive spirit of insatiable hunger, is the power that animates demons and gives them their strength. You could say that, for demons, the Morfran is a corrupt version of the human soul. Morfran means “great crow.” My race of shapeshifters, the Cerddorion, has battled the Morfran, keeping demons weak, from the very beginnings of time.
But the demons had other plans. For centuries, they’d bided their time, watching for signs and omens that their prophesied chance to rule the three realms—the worlds of the living, the dead, and the demonic—was coming to pass. Pryce Maddox, a demi-demon who calls himself my cousin, believed the time was now. And Pryce would stop at nothing to be the conquering emperor.
When the Morfran possesses a person, it drives its host to kill. The spirit also has a free-floating form, which takes the shape of massive crows. Free-floating Morfran can be imprisoned in slate, and that’s where much of the Morfran had remained, locked away by my ancestors and guarded by generations of shapeshifters. But last winter, Pryce had discovered how to release the Morfran. He freed huge amounts of the spirit and sent it to Boston to feed. Crows are carrion eaters, and the Morfran’s favorite snack turned out to be zombie flesh.
The Morfran was one of the few things that could kill a zombie. And many zombies, some of them my friends, had died before I managed to subdue the Morfran, dividing it and binding it inside the slate headstones of one of Boston’s oldest cemeteries.
New Morfran activity suggested Pryce was making a move.
Daniel watched as I processed these thoughts. Finally he spoke. “Something attacked him, but I don’t know what. That’s why I asked you to come and have a look.”
“Malone’s dead, I take it.”
He nodded. “Are you okay to view the body—or what’s left of it?”
I’d seen zombie Morfran victims before. Daniel’s comment when I arrived—“it’s not pretty”—was a finalist for understatement of the century.
“Sure,” I said, steeling myself.
Daniel offered me a eucalyptus-treated surgical mask, the kind the zombies wore. I waved it away. Morfran attacks leave behind a stomach-clenching stench, but that would help me tell whether the Morfran really had killed Malone.
I could already smell it from where we stood. Around the edges of the expected smells—exhaust, garbage, the blood of Malone’s victims—lurked a foul odor redolent of sourness and decay.
Daniel opened the pack and removed the mask. He put it on his own face, covering his mouth and nose. His eyes watered from the eucalyptus fumes, and he blinked to clear them. Together we went to inspect the scene.
Ambulance workers were removing the driver from the van. A gurney waited nearby, ready to receive the body. Another gurney, draped with a white sheet and now being wheeled toward the ambulance, probably carried the shift supervisor. Not far from the van, in the street, another sheet covered a lump the size and shape of an adult man. Six feet away, a smaller sheet hid an object the size of a soccer ball.
“That’s the third victim’s head?” I asked, pointing.
Daniel nodded.
There was no sign of Malone’s body. Not at first glance, anyway. You couldn’t put a white sheet over what I was looking for.
Beyond the headless human body, a large puddle of black goo covered the street. It looked like a truckload of tar had spilled there. I walked toward it, noticing two things as I went: Flecks of the black stuff speckled the van and nearby buildings, and the dead, sour smell I’d noted back at the police line grew stronger. It made the air a viscous, putrid fog.
Although it was full daylight now, I opened my senses to the demon plane—and staggered back a step. If the smell was bad in my reality, here it was unbearable. I covered my nose with both hands and scanned the area. In this perspective, the morning light dimmed to an ashy gray twilight, smudging the scene with filth. Demons can’t materialize in daylight, so I didn’t expect to see any hanging around. I didn’t; the streets and sky were empty.
If the Morfran had been involved in what happened here, the spirit was gone now.
From the looks of what was left of Tom Malone, the Morfran was involved, I thought as I pulled back from the demon plane. Back in human reality, the smell was less overwhelming, and I let my hands fall to my sides. I inspected the black slime that covered the street. Crime scene technicians, swathed in protective gear, combed through it, picking things up with tweezers and dropping them into evidence bags. Daniel showed me what they’d collected so far: bone fragments. Scraps of cloth. A clump of hair. A tooth.