Resurrection Read Free Page A

I couldn’t even begin to imagine where she’d had it stashed.
    Actually, I could, but I didn’t think that’d help my mood any. It was obvious she’d been taken while I was busy wrestling around. I realized then I must have missed some of the zombies in the confusion. My eyes on the desert, I could see nothing moving in the darkness. Whatever zombies had made it past me had gotten away clean.
    Tonight was a total bust.
    I snatched up Candy’s phone and popped it open to find it still had service. Easier than hunting down a pay phone, a dying breed in this day of cheap, portable technology, I put her minutes to good use. I dialed the number to one of DRAC’s dummy corporations and rattled off the secret codes that told them I needed help, then hung up, slipping the phone into my pocket. As I waited for the telepaths to open a connection, I flipped over the wreckage of the skirt and smiled when I saw the wad of cash I’d given Candy still stuck in the waistband.
    Even though I was facing a long, drawn-out night trying to figure where the zombies came from and what they were doing there, things were already looking up.
    I’d gotten my refund.
    Chapter Two
    “So Frank, tell me again where you were when the zombies attacked?” Katon asked, one eyebrow raised in a dark imitation of Spock.
    I growled as I met the amused gaze of DRAC’s enforcer, Katon De Peña. Dressed in his usual spiked black leather jacket and black jeans, Katon looked like he’d just stepped off the stage with Judas Priest. Despite my urge to sing “Breaking the Law” to him, I kept my mouth shut. It’s a feat that requires a hell of a lot of restraint on my part, let me tell you. Though it was a little easier dealing with Katon now that we’d survived the end of the world together, it was never a good thing to rattle his cage. He didn’t get the job with DRAC because he looked good. The man was deadly.
    Or should I say vampire?
    After a near fatal run-in with a bloodsucker, Katon’s spirit had been transplanted into the vamp’s body, granting him immortality and all the groovy accoutrements that come with being a top-of-the-food-chain living dead. He even managed to avoid inheriting the ‘sunlight kills’ part of the package, though he’d always been vague on the details of how that happened. I’d never pressed him about it, but I sure was curious.
    All that and his being armed with a blade forged from a holy relic—the Spear of Longinus—made him someone you didn’t want to mess with.
    I did it anyway.
    “Do you want to hear the part where I had my pants down again? Maybe you’d like a visual.” I started to undo my belt.
    Katon laughed, his eyeteeth glistening under the strip club’s strobe lights, their musical accompaniment long since turned off. “I can do without seeing little Trigg, thank you. I’m more interested in why you didn’t see the zombies coming.”
    “What do you want to hear? That I was in the back seat of my car paying a woman for sex? Is that what you’re looking for?”
    Katon’s mocking smile got wider. “Pretty much, yeah.”
    I shrugged. Whatever pride I had has long since been buried and eulogized. It was little more than a transient memory against the backdrop of embarrassment that is my life. “It eliminates the after sex disappointment. I’m happy, she’s happy, the economy gets a boost. It all works out for the best.”
    Chuckling, Katon turned and scanned the sprawling desert. Done teasing me, he got down to business. “They came from over there?”
    I nodded, my eyes following his pointing finger. “There’s a trail of footprints that appear out a ways, but they don’t lead anywhere. Either the zombies just popped out of thin air or someone’s wiped their tracks away behind them. I’m not sure which. After that, it’s nothing but open desert with no clue as to what direction they went.” I gestured out past the parking lot, the early morning darkness still too deep to see through.