Dead Ice

“I know. I’ll be careful, but a little in the stream here, and a little bit more dumped into the river on the way home.”

“Different bodies of running water,” he said, studying my face.

“Yep.”

“You want to make sure that no one else can raise this one as a zombie again.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“It’s not a vampire, Anita. It’s just a zombie. We’ve never taken these kind of precautions for one of them.”

“Have you ever seen a zombie act like Warrington did?” I asked.

“No.”

“Anything close to this kind of behavior?”

“I’ve never even read about a zombie like him in back issues of The Animator.” That was the professional publication for us zombie raisers.

“And I’ve never seen anything like it in any of the preternatural biology write-ups either.”

“That’s probably not a good thing,” he said.

“Agreed.”

Susannah came back over. They had to get a second tank from their truck, and the body was still big enough to look like a body, but they were able to scrape some ash and bone fragments into the two small screwtop containers I gave them. The containers were in my vampire-executing kit in case I needed to spread vamp ashes; like Manny said, we’d never done it with zombie ashes before, but hey, there’s always a first time.

Zerbrowski joined Manny and me and said, “I’ve never known you to treat a zombie like a vamp, Anita.”

“Cautious in my old age, I guess.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “If you’re old, then I must be ancient.”

“And I should be dead,” Manny said.

Nicky and Domino joined us; they had been having a little heart-to-heart of their own. I didn’t know what it was about, but Domino wasn’t happy. I’d ask later, or they could tell me later; right that minute I didn’t have anything left to play emotional caretaker for anyone else. I was having my own issues about Warrington, and the ghouls, and what the fuck was going on with my necromancy. And I was tired of the weretigers in my life pouting about shit; what was it with all of them and all the fucking angst? The voice in my head that tried to be more reasonable than my temper, or my personal intimacy issues, said I had more weretigers in my life than any other kind of shapeshifter and maybe it wasn’t the tiger part that made them pouty; maybe it was just the sheer number of them. On one hand that was a positive thought, it wasn’t just because they were tigers, but on the other hand it put me right back into thinking there were too many people in my life who looked to me for most of their emotional support. Always nice when the reasonable part of me manages to be both helpful and unhelpful in one fell swoop.

I explained what I was going to do with the jar in my hand, because bodyguards tend to get cranky if you just walk off without them.

“I’ll go with,” Domino said.

Nicky just came at our back without asking. I didn’t mind; if I hadn’t wanted to keep one hand free for my gun and had a container of zombie ashes in the other, I’d have taken his hand in mine. A little comfort would have been a good thing. At least I had the shotgun back behind my shoulder on the tactical sling, so it didn’t take up another hand. Nicky and Domino had done the same thing with their long guns.

“Be careful going under trees with the tac slings, they can get caught,” I said. Honestly, I was saying it more for Domino than Nicky. I knew my Bride could handle himself in actual woods. He’d proven that in Colorado, not that long ago.

“If that was for my benefit, just say so,” Domino said.

“Fine, city boy, be careful under the trees near the stream.”

“I’ve been camping before, Anita.”

“Where at?”

“Near Vegas,” he said.

“So desert?”

“Yeah, why does that matter?”

“I don’t see many trees in the desert, so my caution stands.”

“You won’t give an inch, will you?”

I frowned at him. “I don’t know what’s got your panties in a twist, Domino, but I don’t have the energy to deal with it right now.”

“You never do,” he said.

I sighed, and turned to Manny and Zerbrowski. “Can you give me and the guys a few minutes?”

“Of course,” Manny said, and walked away.

Zerbrowski looked at me and then at both of the men. “I was going to make a smart-ass comment, but I can barely have a serious relationship with one person; I don’t know how the hell you’re doing it with this many.” He tipped an imaginary hat and started to walk away.

“She’s not,” Domino said.

Zerbrowski stopped, looked at him, and then looked at me.

“It’s not serious with all of us, Sergeant, or not equally serious; trust me.”

“Go, just go,” I said.

For maybe the first time ever, Zerbrowski just walked away from a barrel full of snarky comments instead of shooting the fish. I really appreciated it. When the three of us were alone I turned to Domino and said, “What the hell was that about? This is work for me, and I don’t bring personal stuff to work.”

“Nicky may be able to separate out work from personal like that, and maybe you can, too, but I’m not that good at compartmentalizing.”

“Fine, I’m getting that, so what the fuck has got you so upset that you’re sharing personal details with Zerbrowski?”