Battle of the Network Zombies (21 page)

Scott chuckled and stood up, steadied himself on bent knees, grabbed his cock and slipped his full length into me, filling me. “Yeah. I’m a fucker.”

I held him tight and crossed my ankles behind his ass, as he held me up with one strong hand, his other cradling the back of my head.

His face wet with saliva and a faint scent of my own juices (I’m never quite as human as on release day from the reaper clinic—and for that Hillary gets one free pass in that dark alley beatdown I owe her). I kissed him deep, sucking at his tongue as he thrust up into me. I gasped as Scott pulled all the way out before driving his cock in deep, pounding hard into me before shifting his weight and thrusting shallow, caressing the grooved nub of my g-spot with the head of his cock.

“Oh, slow,” I moaned, the words stretching out like a sob.

Scott leaned his head in close. “I love you,” he said.

And before I could process it, disconnect it from the pleasure he was giving me and figure out what to say, it came out, “I love you, too.” And then again, with more conviction. “I love you.”

He grinned and laughed and thrust with greater rhythm, his breath hot on my face.

The orgasm hit like a seismic slip.

I screamed as wave after wave of pleasure rolled through me, threatening to spill out the top of my head. I shook from my core.

Scott came next, grunting in that sexy way of his, teeth clenched and lip quivering. He shook his head and I ran my palm across his face, wiping the sweat from his brow, the back of his neck.

It’s a testament to our passion that I didn’t notice the adolescent kid masturbating in the neighboring apartment until after Scott and I had sunk to the ground, him breathless and going flaccid inside my still-swollen cunt and me sated and more than a little worn from cumming as hard as I did—swear to God I thought I’d have an aneurysm, if that’s even possible. He was about fifteen and tan as a handbag, floppy brown hair and a sunken chest, the head of his waning erection plastered in wet toilet paper. I flipped the kid off as he picked at the tissue, smirking the entire time.
⁸⁶
Thankfully he, finally, shut his blinds and I was able to hold Scott a bit and make out some more.

“You, sir,” I told him, “are going to have to do me up like that several more times before the night is through.”

“Is that right?” He grinned, though there was a thought playing in his eyes, a tinge I thought I recognized.

“Yes,” I said. “I love you. You’re mine and I’ve been the biggest asshole in the world. I’ll do anything to keep you, just ask. And don’t ever stop asking.”

He kissed me and I him and vice versa, until a familiar swelling flared up again.

“We better get out of here.”

I wrapped myself in the chenille throw I’d bought Scott on his birthday, sage green with chocolate stripes, though honestly it was for me—there’s nothing cute about a girl saronged in a pilled-up Target blanket. Just doesn’t work. Plus, what’s softer than chenille? Baby ass maybe, but you can’t get away with a baby ass blanket. Not these days.

Scott kept a bottle of Jameson’s on top of his fridge. I dragged a chair from the Formica dinette and snatched it and a dusty lowball from the cabinet. Rinsed and two-fingered, I slouched at the cluttered table, books and notepads stacked next to bags of bulk cereal and two liters of regular Coke.

The first book I dragged off the pile, a leather-bound number heavy as an anvil with an equally hefty title,
The Greenwood Obscura
. I drained the whiskey and poured a second. Heaving my bag off the back of the chair—a big hobo monstrosity the reapers dug up for what little of my effects could be salvaged—I dug through it for my smokes and instead pulled out Wendy’s big pink bunny. I sat it on the table and propped its ears up. My cigarettes were, of course, at the very bottom.

The Greenwood Obscura
was an encyclopedia. Full-page color photos of all sorts of woodland fae accompanied a written history of each. I flipped through the pages, admiring the coloring on the creatures wings—much like the Versace Spring Collezione—until I landed on one in particular. I almost didn’t see it set against the blackened bark of a burnt-out fir tree, but as I shifted the page to turn it, the angle brought all the bug’s wretched attributes into focus. It was the very same type of creepy crawly the killer sent Birch as a threat.

I read the entry, fully expecting to find that the creature was a harbinger, a warning, but finding something else entirely.

Scott shuffled into the room, yawning, hair sticking straight out on one side and a hand down the front of his boxers massaging his sore balls. “Wow, that was quite a workout. I might need to ice these up before we give it another go.”

“Pig.” I gave him a quick smile and he leaned down and pressed his lips into mine, humming his pleasure. I kissed him back and reached for an ass pinch. “Well, then rehab those puppies,’ cause I’m gonna need some celebration lovin’ after tonight.”

“Ow!” Scott jumped and backed away. “You’re dangerous.”

“True enough. Oh. I was gonna ask, what are all these books for?”

He filled the coffee pot with water and grounds and set it to brewing. “Just some research for your yeti problem, though it seems that’s hit a bit of a snag.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“What’s tonight?” he asked, filling the sugar bowl from a Rubbermaid container.

I turned the book in his direction, pointing out the picture. “I’ve got a show to finish.”

I glanced at the stuffed rabbit and grinned.
⁸⁷

Tuesday
10:00
P.M.
–12:00
A.M.
The Mrs. Deadly Mysteries

If you ask me, the best part of any Agatha Christie novel (or movie adaptation, for that matter) is the big-ass parlor reveal. No question. You know, that moment, right after the detective—in most cases the rotund and hilariously egotistical Hercule Poirot—figures out all the clues and puts together the blueprint of the crime for the gathered suspects, who in turn are either moon-eyed with admiration, mortified at the wrongdoing or exposed as the bad-ass killers themselves. Either way, the conclusion is always the same and I bet you think you know the answer.

But, no, it’s not the conclusion of the mystery that happens in that moment, because anyone paying attention to the clues can figure out what’s happened. No, it’s something far more valuable.

It gives the detective the floor.

The star of the show gets the spotlight.

That’d be me.

I greeted each of the players into Harcourt Manor like the happy hostess, Wendy filming from one side, Scott the other. I wasn’t about to fuck this up, not considering the work I’d done to put it all together.

The first to arrive was Tanesha, weave surrounding her face like a lion’s mane and the Lycra catsuit to match. The wide 80s belt was a stroke of genius. She planted a peck on my cheek as she passed. “Shorty, you a Hot Tamale on Ice Cream tonight. Dayum.”

“Thanks. I try.” I did a little turn. I haven’t brought out the big guns in a while, and the Azzedine Alaia gown cinched me bullet-casing tight. If there’d been a stray patch of flab the designer’s flair for working in tight stretch fabrics would have taken care of it quicker than a plastic surgeon’s vacuum. Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about that, being hot and all. And still bearing a hint of blush from the reaper rejuvenation—they do have their merits.
⁸⁸
My hair fell in soft silent-screen-actress waves and I wore a single pendant monocle, in case I was inspired to judge at exceptionally close range—though with the pores on these people, there was fat chance of that.

“Make me wanna bump donuts.” She thrust her hips forward with a high-pitched, “Bump.”

“Oh my God, Tanesha, you’re gonna kill me.”

“Wouldn’t want to do that, girl.” She sashayed off for the bar. “Gots to get me a tasty beverage.”

“I know that’s right.”

What is it about sassy black girls that makes you want to talk like them? Even ones that are technically men, and wolves? I don’t know, but I love it.

Maiko and Angie came together, neither particularly pleased to be attending, but still thankful for the opportunity for some more screentime, or at least that’s what they said. Maiko continued with her trend of dressing in stereotypical Hollywood fashion. I’d tried to tempt her with some exceptionally avante-garde Issey Miyake, but she hissed a stream of smoke at me, and if it were anything like what I could expel from my lungs…Let’s just say I knew to take it as a warning.

“Your nails are gorgeous.”

“Angie is so good at it.”

The little Filipino shrugged her shoulders and beamed. “Thanks!”

Absinthe arrived shortly before Hairy Sue, wearing a dusty leather biker vest over a pair of Big Mac overalls.
⁸⁹
Absinthe winked at Wendy as she passed and shook my hand brutally before passing into the manor. I glanced at Wendy. Her face fouled by the green grimace of a curdled stomach. “Are you gonna be okay?”

She waved off my concern.
⁹⁰

Hairy Sue required a ramp and though it seemed she was really struggling to propel her wheelchair, neither Wendy nor I offered any assistance. She was, after all, the principal suspect and I needed to keep her on her toes, even if they were covered in casts. She gave us the finger as she passed, sweat congealing on her brow like lemon curd.

“Nice look,” I shot. “Very meth addict.”

Mama was the most difficult attendee to manage. Apparently, because she was human, her treatment was a little more traditional. The bitchy blond reaper—I’m calling her
Hell
ary now—accompanied her with a big ogre of an orderly she called Spew—the only thing more noticeable on the creature than his curled antelope horns was the blue-black toupee teetering atop his head like a coarse black bear pelt.

Spew rolled the voodoo priestess’s plastic infection bubble into the bar on a gurney. It jarred violently crossing the ridge of the threshold. Mama screamed bloody murder and shook her bone bracelets at the orderly, cursing his “bastard birth.” I really had to question the sterility of the infection bubble, ’cause…bone bracelets? How hygienic could they be?

I told Gil he could bring Vance to watch the spectacle, like a real date, because this one had witnesses. “Sit in the shadows, though,” I told them. “You don’t belong in the shots, okay.” The way their hands scrutinized each other’s bodies, there’d be a bigger risk of horny grunting showing up in the final edit. I added, “And keep it down, I don’t want your dirtiness caught on tape.”

They chuckled and slipped into the booth farthest from the group.

Seated, the women eyed each other suspiciously. Maiko, Angie and Tanesha scowled at Absinthe like she’d taken a dump in their pedi-baths, while Absinthe trimmed her nails to the quick into the crystal ashtray on her table and grinned at Angie, who in turn cringed dramatically and flicked her tongue in the webbed vee of her fingers. Mama glowered at Hairy Sue through plastic, Hellary reclined in the booth behind her reading—
In Touch
magazine—finding out exactly how pathetic and lonely Jennifer Aniston was this week, as opposed to last—while Spew picked his teeth with a splinter he’d pulled off the underside of the table. Hairy Sue shot Mama the finger and crammed an uncoiled wire hanger inside her cast to get to a particularly evasive itch.

“So you’re probably all wondering why I called you back here.”

They were quiet a moment. Hellary yawned. Why I expected them to cooperate was the real mystery. Maiko broke the silence…unfortunately.

“Isn’t it obvious?” She pulled out an excruciatingly long cigarette holder and started puffing away, no cigarette necessary. “You think you’ve solved mystery and want to torture us with long-winded reveal, no doubt implicating each one of us in order to celebrate your own brilliance as you unveil actual killer with theatrical flourish.”

Bitch.

“It isn’t the Maiko show. So why don’t you just sit there and drink your Tanuki piss or fold paper birds or whatever the hell you do and shut the fuck up.”

“Mee-yow.” Tanesha could always be counted on for smart commentary.

Maiko scowled and puffed fat rings of smoke into my path as I paced the room. I waved at them to break them up a bit, but some of the smoke clung to the back of my hands like Styrofoam packing peanuts. I rubbed it off on a table edge.

“Now,” I continued. “I’d like to call your attention to the premise of
American Minions
: the fact that Mr. Birch was in need of a bodyguard. Oddly enough, it wasn’t just for the show, as you’d imagine it would be. We met only two days prior to shooting to discuss several death threats he’d been receiving over the phone and through the mail. Including some quite disturbing dead things, which were really more gross than frightening and kinda stunk, but that’s beside the point. Johnny was certain that someone was plotting to kill him and, clearly, as he
is
apparently deceased, that must have been the case.”

Angie leaned forward, head threatening to teeter from her neck. “Why do you say ‘apparently’?”

“I’ll get to that.” I slipped behind the bar and poured myself a gin. “From the first night at the mansion, I was aware of tensions between Johnny and his agent, the show’s producer, Mama Montserrat.”

Mama gasped for air in her tent. “Oh child, you don’t mean to suggest…”

“I mean to suggest just that. The two of you were seen arguing in this very bar. Do you care to tell us what that argument was about?”

Mama’s mouth clamped shut for a moment, then, “There were problems with the crew, nothing more. No doubt you saw how quickly they abandoned the project, well, they’d been threatening that before the production began. We’ve had some financial difficulties as a result of a rapid decline in the ratings of the last season of
Tapping Birch’s Syrup
. It’s as simple as that. A financial argument.”

“Fine. Believable, I suppose. You didn’t quarrel about your sexual relationship with Johnny at all? Not a word?”

Mama’s mouth hung open, and she whispered something to Hellary, who waved her off summarily, in favor of the
In Touch
crossword on celebrity drunks.
⁹¹
Mama huffed and crossed her arms.

“Now, on the night of the murder, if that’s what it was.”

“Why do you keep saying zat?” Absinthe asked. “Do you mean Johnny wasn’t killed. Zat he committed ze suicide?”

“I’m getting to that. Just relax.” I took a swallow of the gin and slammed the glass down on the bar for effect. Wendy gave me the thumbs-up and I continued. “Well, first off, we can only speculate what happened behind Johnny’s closed and very locked door. What we do know is that he was visited in his room just prior to our discovery by Hairy Sue, who brought him an envelope delivered by a courier, who just so happens to deliver at one o’clock in the morning, like anyone’s ever heard of a delivery that late.”

“So, the envelope busts this shit right open, right?” Tanesha fanned herself. “Is it gettin’ hot up in here? Anyone?”

“In a sense. But let me finish. When we got the door open, we found several things. Johnny’s extensive porn collection, a bottle of expensive scotch, two envelopes, both containing gross dead things, a herd of stuffed animals and a pile of ashes in the shape of one Johnny Birch. We each got stuffed animals in our room, so that doesn’t seem terribly dubious, or does it?”

“Does it?” Angie asked.

I shrugged. “The pile of ashes was definitely that, ashes, and after a little checking through the porn it didn’t appear that anyone here was sidelining as a scat queen or a fist-fucking enthusiast so that just left the scotch, the envelopes and the two dead carcasses.

“This is where things got interesting. We started interviewing you all and found that you each either had a motive to kill Birch or would have if you knew he planned to film your romantic escapades with his nanny cams.” I lifted up a stuffed animal, set it on a nearby table and patted it on the head.

Angie and Maiko gasped.

“I’m not saying we’ve collected any hardcore footage, I’m just sayin’ we might.”

Maiko scowled.

“It’s unlikely either of you knew you were on NannyCam, so you’re not high on my list of suspects. After all, neither of you were jilted as was the case with one…” I spun around and fingered the beautiful drag artist. “Tanesha Jones.”

“Drag Wulf,” she added, nonplussed.

The other women gasped, right on cue. The night was going exactly as planned, at least in my mind. I glanced at Scott, who nodded proudly—or maybe I’m projecting.

“It’s true,” Tanesha said. “I’d had a brief and tumultuous affair with Johnny that ended rather badly.”

“Wait a minute,” Mama Montserrat growled. “Are you trying to say that Johnny was gay? I don’t buy it for a second.”

“Like I done told Amanda, Johnny was certainly not gay and he never treated me like anythin’ but a lady.”

“But it was sexual?” Maiko’s eyes narrowed.

“Definitely.”

“Then how did he not know?” Mama hissed.

“Some secrets I’ll take to my fuckin’ grave, if you don’t mind, bitch.” Tanesha stood up, her claws snapping, crackling and popping into the long daggers of a werewolf, while the rest of her remained all lady…ish.

Scott’s eyebrows raised in admiration. That kind of control over specific body part transformations was the work of a highly controlled shifter. I’d only known one other and she was quite dead, or wished she was, living out an afterlife sentence in the bowels of the underworld courtesy of one Elizabeth Karkaroff, my boss, if you’ll recall.
⁹²

“Calm down, girl.” I stepped between her and Mama.

“I’ll pop her. Don’t think I won’t.” She reached an exceptionally long index claw at the voodoo priestess’s oxygen tent.

I stretched to put my hand on Tanesha’s arm. “I know you could, but I also know you’d feel bad about it, later.”

She lowered her claws and sighed. “It’s true. I’m sorry, Mama.”

“Well, I’m not!” she shouted from her bubble. “I know your kind, tried to change him didn’t you?”

I needed to rein it in before the tensions exploded. “If that’s the case then it didn’t work, did it, Mama? After all, Johnny started up a sexual relationship with you shortly after and you’re not hiding any tackle under that girth of yours, are you?

She scowled and Tanesha chuckled, relaxing back into her chair.

“But never mind that, I’m certain that you’re not Johnny’s killer. But you are
a
killer.”

Hellary glanced up from her rag for that one. “What?”

“That was an accident,” Mama spat. “And you know it, we’ve been over this.”

“You see, ladies, that expensive bottle of scotch wasn’t meant for Johnny. He doesn’t drink, never touches the stuff. But his lover did. Like a fish, though I’d have pegged her for a Mad Dog 20/20 grape wine kind of girl. I’m talking about, of course, Hairy Sue!”

The stripper broke her beer bottle on the edge of her table and started wheeling furiously at Mama Montserrat. “You tried to kill me twice, bitch? I’ll cut open that voodoo snow globe of yours and show you who’s gonna kill who.”

I stepped forward and planted a Louboutin on the front of Hairy Sue’s chair, kicking her back in the opposite direction. “True enough,” I said. “But she didn’t. She did, however, inadvertently dispatch Janice and Eunice.” Figuring we’d fit in some sort of photomontage of the crispy-haired sirens, I looked directly into the camera. “God bless their souls.”

“Okay,” Tanesha said. “That takes care of the booze, but you said the envelopes were the real clue.”

“And they were. Not so much because they were there. I’d already seen the first envelope at the Hooch and Cooch where I met Johnny.”