Dead Ice

It took us holding the phones next to each other and Manny giving some account information, but it was done. Hudson listened to his end of the phone for a few seconds. “They’ll call us back in ten minutes tops with the phone’s location.”

“Perfect,” I said, “now just one more warrant in hand and we’re good to go.”

“Anita, what’s happening?” Manny asked on my phone. I told him.

“While we wait for the GPS I need to ask your voodoo expertise.”

“I can’t think, Anita.”

“How complicated would the spell be to capture a soul? I mean, how long would it take?”

“I only know the theory of the spell; I had left her long before she came up with that piece of evil.”

“I know, but you know way more voodoo than I do, Manny. I need to know a time frame, and I need to know it now.”

“What aren’t you telling me, Anita?”

“Dominga’s nephew Max is the bad guy. He’s taken over where Dominga left off on the zombie slaves.”

“Why did he take Connie and Tomas?”

“I think Tomas was incidental, wrong place, wrong time.”

“Oh God, oh God, you think he’s going to do that to Connie.”

“He’s threatening it.”

“Why? Why after all this time?”

“How much time do we have to find her? I need you to think, Manny.”

“My kids are missing.”

“And the more information we have, the better the odds for bringing them back safe and sound.”

“All right, all right, if he has to make a container to house the soul, it will take weeks.”

“Assume he has a container.”

“He’ll have to draw symbols, verve, and if he’s a true believer he’ll have to persuade the loa to ride him, or to ride the victim.”

“I don’t think he’s a true believer,” I said.

“An hour, maybe. You say he had verve all over his altar area like

Dominga did.”

“Yes,” I said.

“He’ll be careful to draw the verve then, because Dominga believed very much that the symbols helped call power and protect her. If he draws all the symbology, then at least an hour, maybe a little more. Does that help?”

“Yes, it does.”

“I’m on my way to the bridal shop now.”

“Go to Rosita, stay with her.”

“No.”

“All right, but I may roll out before you get here if we have a target.”

“Save my kids, Anita.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will.”

What else was there to say? We hung up.

63

THE GPS ON Connie’s phone and Tomas’s phone led us to the same cemetery. I expected that, but what I didn’t expect was that GPS knew which crypt the phones were in. That didn’t guarantee that they were still with their phones, but it was our best bet. If they weren’t with their phones we had to search two acres of graveyard, including about twenty crypts, one at a time, like making entry on a block of apartments. So we assumed they were in the crypt with their phones; it gave us a place to start, and a plan. The “we” wasn’t Zerbrowski and RPIT; it was our local SWAT. A lot of preternatural branch marshals had been forced on SWAT across the country for no-announce warrants, which all warrants of execution were, but a few of us had proven ourselves enough to be invited to train with them, and were allowed to go out with the team. Most of the marshals who had been invited to play with SWAT hadn’t been able to keep the training up. It wasn’t the weapons practice—that was the easy part—it was the physical prerequisites, and gym time, that most of them failed. Honestly, if I hadn’t been more than human I might not have made all of them either.

“This will be my first assault on a crypt,” Killian said, smiling and tense in the dark as we stood behind the Lenco Bear Cat. They could call it an armored rescue vehicle if they wanted to, but it always looked big, black, slightly sinister, and very military. It could take heavy rifle fire and protect the men inside it, or even hiding behind it.

“If this is your first crypt, you haven’t been hanging around with me enough,” I said.

“Yeah, Blake takes you to the best places,” Hill said.

In the movies you can always see everyone’s face on SWAT, but in reality the helmets and gear hide nearly everything. I knew Killian was blond and pale Irish, and that Hill was dark and middle-of-America-not-from-anywhere ethnic, but all I could tell suited up in the spring dark was that Killian was a few inches taller than me, and Hill was much taller. Most of the men standing in the dark with us were taller than average, and then you had Saville, who even towered over these guys. He was darkly African American, but again I only knew that because I knew him. We were all generic in our SWAT gear, except for height and size.

“Will the ram work on a crypt door?” Saville asked. If we’d been doing a normal entry he’d have been using the ram to bust in the door.

“I’m not sure,” I said.

Hermes said, “We brought stuff that will help us knock louder if we need to.” He was tall, dark, and I guess handsome under all the gear. His wife thought so. I knew that from the time she made a point of meeting me, after I helped save his life but broke his leg in the process.

“We have about five minutes to figure out which dynamic entry we’re making,” Montague—Monty—said.