The sudden wash of sensory acuity turned me into a mass of raw nerve endings. I exhaled, made sure of clear play on the whip by shaking it a little, listening to the flechettes jangle. Christ. Wish I had my sword. Or that Saul was here.

But wishes didn’t get the job done. I had a whole house to check, and who knew how many zombies to deal with.

I eyed it. One-story, no cellar unless it was hiding around the back, and I’d already cleared out two rooms with two zombies each. Where had the last one come from?

Lord God above, I thought, I hate attics. Almost as much as I hate basements.

I got to work.

Piper wasn’t happy about bodies spread out in fast-decaying bits, but she took my word that they wouldn’t rise again. I’d cleared the whole house and found three more wet ones—not up in the attic or in a surprise cellar, but in the small crawl space underneath. It made sense—they like dark spaces. It was hard to believe so many people had lived here, but the kitchen held dry goods and the bedrooms had mattresses as well as two altars. It was clear the altars were where all the money had gone. They were elaborate three-story affairs, candles burned down, dishes of flyblown sticky candy and bottles of Barbancourt, cigars that cost as much as the television. Whoever lived here was serious, though the wide bloodstain in the weedy backyard under a canopy was probably chicken or goat instead of human. They even had a firepit to grill things, and I wondered how many “barbecues” they’d thrown a month.

Still, the rest of the house was too empty. “It looks like a front,” was Piper’s only comment, and I didn’t have to tell her how right she was.

It was the empty fridge that convinced me, actually.

Piper loaned me her cell phone, too, and I called Avery’s desk number. It was a relief when he picked up.

“You okay?” I tried not to sound sarcastic, or too relieved.

He let out a gusty sigh. “Kind of. Jill—”

“The next time I tell you to get in the car, Ave, you do it.”

“Christ, Jill, I know. Don’t rub it in. Listen, I—”

“You shouldn’t have been outside. If that thing had caught you, Eva would be very unhappy.”

“Will you quit? Ricardo’s gone. Tore a hole right through the door—the cell is a mess. The circle in there is broken. Something ground the concrete up and broke it, made a gap.”

My knees didn’t falter, but it was damn close. Bright lights were on inside the house, starring the night. The neighbors didn’t come out to check, and I wondered how many of them had an idea about the backyard at this place, and the drumming that would go on all night sometimes. I could have had a homicide pair out here at this scene too, but really, what was the point? I knew where I had to go next.

“He’s gone?”

“Completely AWOL.”

Goddammit. What do you want to bet he won’t end up a zombie too? “All right. See what you can do about getting the room repaired.”

“I hate contractors,” he muttered. “Jill, I’m sorry. I was trying to get around into the driver’s side to get us away if we had to. I was just about to go.”

That’s what I thought. I took a deep breath, watching the shadows of forensic techs in the living room, played against the bright golden windows. “Everything’s copacetic. First encounter with a zombie?”

“Yeah. You know, no matter how many times you see weird shit, it always knocks the wind out of you.”

Don’t I know it. But I didn’t really agree. It’s amazing what the human mind will accommodate, given a strong enough framework. And the training helps.

Training made me think of Gilberto on my front step again. What would Saul do if the kid was still there? Ignore him, hopefully. And more hopefully, maybe the little gangbanger would have gone on his merry way.

Still, he had the look. Which meant he was a problem I would have to solve soon.

After, of course, I figured out who was attacking Cirque performers and strewing zombies all over. And after I figured out what Saul was—

“Jill?” Avery sounded uncertain.

“It certainly does,” I agreed. “See what you can do about that room, and if anything looks hinky during any exorcism, buzz me. Don’t even go on a call if it feels weird. Make sure Eva and the rest know that, too.”

“Okay. Any idea what’s going on?”

“Do you really want to know?” I took his silence for a negative answer and smothered a laugh. “I’ll be in touch.”

I flipped Piper’s phone closed. It was time for God’s honest truth.

I might not have looked very hard for the perpetrator if it had just been a couple Cirque performers dead, or just Lorelei. If black sorcerers and hellbreed were looking to off each other, it made my life a little easier. It was the chance they took when they signed up for their kinds of fun and games.

But the hostage? If he ended up biting it, the Cirque would be stunned for a little while—and then the guarantee of their good behavior would be gone. And that was bad news for everyone. Even Perry, but while I could probably bank on his territorial jealousy, I couldn’t bank on him not deciding a certain level of chaos was a good thing for his plans.

Whatever those plans were.

And zombies, for Christ’s sake. Nobody needed to be unleashing carnivorous corpses on my city. I just hate that.

Especially when it looked like the corpses were people being fed to loa in return for something big.

I returned Piper’s phone, assured her again the bodies wouldn’t reassemble or otherwise even twitch, and realized I was there without a car. Oh, dammit.

Fortunately, one of the black-and-whites could give me a ride to the barrio. I ignored the paling of the rookie’s face. It was the unfortunately-named Judy Garland, a smug trim blonde with a wide smile and a summa cum laude from the police academy. She would probably shape up to be a good administrator one of these days.

After I finish their orientation, very few of them actually want to interact with me in any way. The slide show takes care of most of it, and the demonstrations—I used to do other things before Saul was around to change and show them something their brains couldn’t wrap around—did the rest. Most people’s interest in the paranormal only stretches far enough to cover a thrill or two, or some white-light bullshit.

“Chesko, right off the freeway,” I told her. “Turn your lights on and get me there yesterday.”

“Yes ma’am.” She sat bolt upright in the driver’s seat. It was her bad luck, partnerless for the night and showing up to help secure this scene. I tapped my fingers on my leather-clad knee, suddenly remembering how bad I must reek.

Nothing like a zombie to clear the sinuses.

“You can open a window if you need to.” I tried to sound a little gentler. “I must smell bad.”

“It’s okay,” she lied, but cranked down her window halfway anyway. The night rushed in, full of city, concrete, and river. Red and blue strobes dappled the silent streets as we raced through over them, the shocks groaning. She was a good driver, but too slow. “Does this… this sort of thing happen a lot to you?”

What, you mean zombies, or smelling like death and goop? “Often enough.”

“You were bleeding.”

I’ll bet I was. But it had stopped by now, or I would have used some healing sorcery on it. Another benefit to a hellbreed mark on my wrist. “Yeah, that happens too.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Fire away.” Only, how much do you want me to tell you?

“We—I mean, some of us at the station, whenever your name comes up—” She was still pale, took a deep breath, and rushed on. “Why do you do this?”

Well now, isn’t that an unanswerable question. “There’s nobody else to do it,” I said, and left it at that. I didn’t tell her what Mikhail said, and I didn’t tell her what I really thought.