How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back

Chapter 21

Jane was staying at the Langston Arms Hotel which, I was told, was as nice as The Fairbourne but smaller and more low key, and apparently better for security purposes.

The lobby was fully carpeted in patterned royal blue, and along with cream colored walls and off-white cushy chairs, had a light, cool feel. The desk clerk didn’t bat an eye when I told him I was there to see the congresswoman, and obligingly called up to the room. I had little doubt my reception would’ve been far different—probably involving burly security guards—if I hadn’t phoned Jane to let her know I was on the way over for a midnight rendezvous.

“Someone will be down momentarily to escort you to her room,” he informed me, then gestured toward a bank of elevators.

Philip and I moved that way, and a few minutes later Jane’s bodyguard, Victor, stepped out of the elevator. He held the door while he looked beyond us and around, then beckoned us in with two fingers.

I hurried to get in but Philip simply glanced at Victor and stayed where he was. “I’ll keep watch down here, ZeeEm.”

I hesitated, then nodded. Better to keep it as simple and nonthreatening as possible. Once the doors closed Victor slid a key card into a slot, then put in a code on a keypad. He remained silent, gaze steady upon me as the elevator rose, and when the doors opened he led the way down the hall to a set of double doors. Once again he used a key card and a code for entry, then proceeded into a suite about the same size as the one at The Fairbourne, but with tons of dark wood, antique-looking furniture rather than the modern style of ours.

Jane stood beside the sofa wearing rich blue velour pants and a top that looked comfortable and elegant at the same time. She turned as we entered. “Angel! I tried several times to call the number you gave me but it kept going to voicemail.” She looked worried and stressed and off-center—not at all her usual self. “What on earth is going on?”

“A lot of shit,” I said with a grimace. “I’m sorry. I lost my phone.”

She sat down but didn’t relax. “Where is Pietro?” she asked, tone firm. She wasn’t going to put up with evasions any longer. “He doesn’t answer his phone, and his assistant will only tell me that he’s away on business. But why is Brian here if Pietro is in trouble?”

I glanced at Victor and then back to Jane. “Um, any chance we could talk in private?”

Jane looked to the grim-faced bodyguard. “It’s all right, Victor. Could you step into the bedroom please?” He opened his mouth to speak, and she lifted a hand. “Yes, you may leave the door open.”

Victor gave me a dark look, then stalked into the bedroom, positioning himself on the far end of it, but still with a line of sight that allowed him to glare at me. I couldn’t really blame him, but it bugged me that he might still be able hear our conversation.

I sat on the sofa beside Jane and lowered my voice. “Can you trust him not to repeat stuff he hears? Even if it’s kind of weird?”

“I trust him completely,” Jane said, matching my low volume. “But what do you mean by weird?”

“Well, for starters, Pietro’s been kidnapped, and Saberton’s behind it.”

Shock swept over her features. “Kidnapped? When? Why? What are the authorities doing about it?”

“Wednesday. Three days ago,” I said, “and we can’t call the authorities.”

“Why on earth not? Does this have something to do with the defense contract?” Her eyes narrowed. “Is that what the Sabers wanted?”

“Huh? No.” I shook my head, though now that she’d said it I wondered if maybe there was more going on here. “It has to do with a . . .” What the hell, I’d try the same approach I used with Randy. “A medical condition he has. And I have. Brian and a bunch of others too.”

That caught her off guard. “Medical condition?” Her eyes narrowed. “Is it related to the blotch that appeared on your face?” She peered at my jawline, clever eyes noting that it was still there beneath the makeup.

I automatically lifted my hand to my jaw, grimacing. “It’s related. Kind of. Saberton wants to, er, find out more about how the condition works, and I think they wanted to kidnap you earlier today in order to put pressure on Pietro.” My thoughts returned to her comment about the contract. “But I might have been wrong,” I confessed. “I think maybe they might also want to pressure Pietro and, in turn, you, to get them that defense contract they want so damn badly.” I considered it for another couple of seconds then blew out my breath. “Yeah, that actually makes a lot more sense, though I’m still glad I got you away from them.”

“So am I, to be honest,” Jane said. “But what could they possibly want to pressure Pietro about?” Her gaze remained steady upon me, and I had to fight not to squirm beneath it.

“Um, about the medical condition. And his organization, I guess.”

She leaned closer. “And why aren’t the authorities involved?”

Damn it, I was utterly out of my depth. I felt my shoulders hunching. “The medical condition is . . . it’s pretty weird.”

She straightened and pressed her lips together in obvious annoyance. “Angel Crawford,” she said, snapping the name out with more authority than my third grade teacher ever had, “that is the second time you’ve used the word ‘weird.’ This is Pietro,” and the unspoken My came through with that. “I need to understand, because right now I want to pick up the phone and call the FBI.”

I groaned. “Okay. Shit. Shit.” Damn it, Brian would kill me but at this point what the hell choice did I have? I stood and moved to the little kitchen area of the suite, and a couple of seconds of digging in the drawers produced a small knife. I tested the edge with my thumb. It would be sharp enough for what I needed to do. Good thing I had a little packet of emergency brains in the side pocket of my cargo pants.

Knife in hand, I began to move back toward Jane. She stood up in alarm, even as I registered a blur of motion to my left.

In the next instant my face met carpet, with Victor on top of me and my breath somewhere in the Hudson River. In less than a second he had the knife out of my hand and secured somewhere on his person. My face was squished against the floor, but I managed to squawk out, “I wsnt ging to hrt her!”

“Angel!” I saw Jane—or rather, from my angle, Jane’s shoes and lower legs—take a few hesitant steps toward me. “What were you going to do with that knife? Victor, let her up, please.”

Victor shifted off me and gave me some not-very-gentle help getting to my feet. I narrowed my eyes at him, but not because he’d pissed me off. Hell, he’d done exactly what he was supposed to do, and I’d been a fucktard for coming at Jane with a knife, or at least looking as if I was about to.

Yes, Victor had done his job very well. Very well, and the speed with which he’d made it from the bedroom to me had been pretty darn impressive. He met my gaze with an expressionless one of his own. I took a slow step toward him, pleased when he didn’t retreat—not that I expected him to flinch. But even better, he didn’t pull back when I leaned close, inches from the side of his face, and sniiifffffffed.

“What the hell is going on?” Jane demanded, baffled frustration heavy in her voice. Okay, I totally understood how the part where I sniffed her bodyguard was the final straw.

A muscle in Victor’s jaw twitched as I straightened, but when he met my eyes he gave me a very tiny confirming-though-grudging nod.

“I’m about to show you,” I said to Jane, then shifted my attention to Victor. “If I stand ten feet away from her, will you let me have the stupid knife?”

He clearly knew what I wanted to do, and he gave Jane a measuring look first, no doubt considering whether he should protect her from the knowledge I was about to give her. Apparently he came down on the side of Jane can handle it. He produced the knife from a pocket within his jacket, handed it to me, then stepped back.

It wasn’t until I gripped the knife and stuck out my left arm that I remembered this sort of thing really hurt. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I almost asked Victor if he’d do it for me, but one glance at him and the look in his eyes told me it might not be such a great idea to ask him to cut me.

“Okay, Jane,” I said. “I’m about to give you a crash course on my weird medical condition.” I lifted the knife, looked down at the carpet, then backed up a few feet until I was on the tile of the kitchenette, all while Jane watched me as if I was insane. She probably wasn’t far from wrong.

Before I could chicken out, I stuck the point into my forearm, then pulled it down and across to slice a deep gash. “Fucking shitballs,” I gasped as the pain shot up my arm in a burning wave.

Jane sucked in a sharp breath. “My god! Angel!”

Thankfully the pain dulled after only a couple of seconds. I dropped the knife and grabbed a towel off the counter to catch the worst of the blood, then pulled it aside to make sure Jane could see the gash was real and not some sort of sleight of hand special effects bullshit. Yet I also didn’t want her to freak too hard at the sight of me standing here bleeding in the kitchen. Besides, that wasn’t the point of this. With my other hand I yanked the little baggie out of my pocket, opened it with my teeth, then gulped down the contents. Within seconds the gash began to close at the edges. I wiped the blood away with the towel again so that she could see it continue to close. Within half a minute the gash was only a red line, and after a dozen more seconds even that was gone.

I looked up at Jane with more than a little trepidation, silently praying I wouldn’t see disgust on her face. Wasn’t sure I could handle that from her. But she simply stared, utterly dumbfounded. As I watched, a realization spread across her face.

“That’s how . . .” She trailed off and sat heavily.

I turned to the sink and washed the blood off, then cleaned up the floor. Figured she needed a minute or two to process everything anyway. Once everything was spotless I moved to the sofa and sat a few feet from her. “That’s how what?”

She took a shaky breath, still staring at my arm. “That’s how Pietro and Brian walked away from the car wreck that should have killed both of them, isn’t it?”

Only a few months ago she’d had a broken leg, and Pietro had been sporting a wrist brace I knew damn well he hadn’t needed. “Yeah, it’s kind of hard to kill us,” I admitted.

She took another breath, deeper this time and much less shaky, visibly pulling herself together and regaining composure. “I don’t understand. What kind of medical condition is this? And why is it secret? It’s miraculous.” She shook her head. “Pietro could have told me.”

“It’s secret because . . .” I fidgeted. “Well, because the way we stay alive is kind of gross. The stuff in that baggie was—” I shot a desperate look at Victor and got a You’re on your own one in response. Sighing, I turned back to Jane. “It’s brains.”

The poor woman once again looked dazed. “What kind of brains?”

My shoulders hunched. “Human brains,” I said, voice small. “It’s why I work in a morgue—so I can get them and survive.”

She paled and pressed a hand to her stomach. “You eat human brains? Pietro eats human brains?”

“Only after they’re dead,” I insisted and tried not to think about the two times I’d helped someone along to being dead enough to be my dinner. “We call ourselves zombies, ’cause it kind of fits, y’know? But we’re not bad people. I swear.” Mostly. Shit. “Please, just try to think about what you know about me and Pietro and Victor.”

I realized my mistake the instant the name was out of my mouth, but by then it was too late. Jane’s gaze snapped to her bodyguard. “Victor?”

Oooh, if Victor’s look could have killed I’d have been a smoking pile of ash on the carpet. Jaw so tight I thought his teeth would break, he pulled his attention to his employer. “Yes, ma’am,” he said after only a small hesitation—no doubt while he was trying to decide if he could quickly wring my neck and then claim he had to do so because I was obviously stark raving insane and no, of course he didn’t eat brains because that was ludicrous, right?

At this rate I was going to get a gold medal at Fucking Up. “Sorry,” I mumbled to Victor.

Jane folded her hands into her lap and crossed her legs at her ankles, visibly donning her armor of Cultured Southern Woman. She had a spine of steel, this one.

“And the Sabers know about all of this,” she said slowly. “And they have Pietro. But,” her brow furrowed, “Brian was with them.”

“Brian managed to get to one of our other guys before Saberton did,” I explained. “He told me he was at the party trying to get info about Pietro. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I’m pretty sure we can trust him.”

Her hands tightened in her lap. “I knew I had a good reason to hate Nicole Saber.”

“Yeah, well, she’s pretty cold-blooded,” I said.

“And of course you can’t go to the authorities, since there’s too much chance that the detail about, ah, human brains might come to light.” Her lips pursed as she put the pieces together.

I grimaced. “Pretty much.”

Jane lifted her chin. “I assume you’re in the city to find Pietro?” At my nod she continued, “How can I help?”

That took me aback. I hadn’t really thought past this point. “I don’t really know, though I’m sure you can.” Have a congresswoman on our team? It didn’t suck. “I should probably call Brian and let him know what the deal is.”

With her eyes still a tad glassy, she looked relieved to have a few more minutes to process all the weird shit I’d just dumped on her. As I moved over to the window, I gave Victor yet another apologetic look. His expression told me I probably wasn’t going to be on his Christmas list this year.

Brian answered on the first ring. “Archer.”

“Hey, it’s me. I just talked to Jane.”

“Angel.” He exhaled. “I’m sorry about being an ass on the phone earlier. It’s been, well . . . I’m just sorry.”

“Yeah, it’s cool,” I replied with a shrug.

“What happened with Jane?” he asked before I could feel too awkward.

“She’s on board,” I said. Crap. He might go right back to being mad at me after this.

“Okay, good,” he said, sounding relieved. “How did you leave it with her? She’s staying away from the Sabers, right?”

“Erm, no, I’m still with her, at her hotel,” I said. “And, she’s on board. Like, totally.” I fought to keep my shoulders down and totally unhunched.

Brian remained silent, and I had the weirdest sense that if he’d known my middle name he’d be using my full and proper legal name like a mama calling a misbehaving kid downstairs to face the music.

“It’s about damn time,” he finally said.

My knees actually wobbled briefly. “Oh, shit, really?” I plopped down into a nearby chair. “I thought you’d want to kill me.” Kind of like Victor probably wanted to do. Did Brian even know he was a zombie? Probably, I realized, since Pietro had arranged the security for Jane.

“She’s needed to know for a while now, in my opinion,” he said. “Mr. Ivanov made me swear I wouldn’t tell her.”

“Yeah, well, luckily I have no damn judgment,” I said. “Anyway, she wants to know how she can help.”

“Since she knows, she needs to cover her ass,” he replied. “I don’t know what the Sabers have planned, but anything she can do to create a political counteroffensive to Saberton’s interests would be called for. Something she can hold ready if needed.”

“Right. Hang on.” I covered the phone and repeated it to Jane. Her eyes went hard, and she nodded.

“I’ll take care of it,” she replied with an edge to her words that made me extremely glad she still liked me. Jaw set, she stood, moved to the office, then began making calls.

After that, Brian wanted to talk to Victor. I handed the phone over, and Victor moved far enough away that I couldn’t hear him. Judging by the dark looks he shot my way I had no doubt he was tattling about my accidental outing of him. Damn. That was a bad fuckup on my part, and it could’ve been really ugly. A few minutes later Victor returned and handed my phone back.

“He wants to talk to you again,” he said. I wasn’t sure, but I thought that maybe he wasn’t glaring quite as hard at me.

“Hey, Brian.” I grimaced. “I guess he told you about my latest fuckup?”

“Yes, he did,” Brian replied. “It’s serious, but I don’t need to tell you that. You’re a smart woman. He says you need training, and I told him you weren’t security or an operative. But here you are, in the thick of a huge crisis.”

I turned toward the window. “I’m trying my best,” I said, voice cracking.

“I know you are,” he said gently. “Shit happens sometimes to all of us. Say the wrong thing. Do the wrong thing. Make the wrong choice. All you can do is learn from it and move on.”

I fought back a sniffle, warmed. “Okay. Thanks.”

“Thank you, Angel, for what you’re doing. You didn’t have to put yourself out there like this.”

The warmth continued to spread like a tingly hug. “Yeah, I did.”

“Exactly,” he said, a smile in his voice. “That’s what makes you you. Once we get out of this shit, we’ll make sure you have the basics. More if you want it.”

A vision of my sensei’s pained face swam through my head. “Sure,” I said. “If you think you’re up for it.”

“Bring it on,” he said with a low snort.

“Thanks, Brian. I’m really glad you’re not a bad guy anymore.”

He laughed. “Me too.” And with that he hung up.

Feeling about a thousand times better about everything, I turned back to see Jane still on her phone in the office and Victor standing by the sofa, with arms folded over his chest, silently regarding me.

“I’m sorry I outed you,” I said, grimacing. “I swear I didn’t mean to.”

Some of the tension in his jaw eased, and he gave a slight nod. “Understood.”

Jane returned from the office, set her cell phone on the coffee table, then flopped onto the sofa with a sigh. I held back a grin. She’s a flopper too!

“There’s more to do, but the groundwork is laid,” she said. Barely a second later her phone buzzed on the coffee table. She sat up and glanced at it, then narrowed her eyes at the caller ID. “Damn it. It’s that horrible woman. At this hour.”

There was only one horrible woman she could mean. “Answer it,” I said quickly, before she could send it to voicemail.

Jane hesitated, then hit the answer button and lifted the phone to her ear. “Jane Pennington,” she said with total calm.

Silence for a second, then, “Jane! It’s Nicole Saber,” I heard clearly, and there was no mistaking the surprise in her voice. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect you to answer. The event ended a short while ago, and I thought I’d call and leave you a message. I was worried after you left so suddenly and wanted to wish you well. I do hope you’re feeling better?”

Jane’s smile was frosty, but none of it showed in her voice. “Why yes. I think it was simply a touch of jet lag. I’ll be right as rain after a good night’s sleep.”

“I’m so glad to hear it. I’d love to take you to an early lunch tomorrow so that we can continue our conversation. Racchelli’s Cucina Italiana at eleven?”

“Lunch would be lovely, but I think my calendar is booked. I’ll check.” She lowered the phone and covered the mouthpiece, looked out the window with zero move to check her calendar.

I made frantic motions. Do it, I mouthed. Yes! Take the lunch!

Jane gave me an Are you inSANE? look, at which time we proceeded to go through a silent yes no yes no back and forth, with me growing increasingly more frantic in my motions.

Finally Jane threw up her hands in defeat and returned the phone to her ear. “It seems my ten o’clock appointment cancelled,” she said. “How fortuitous.”

I grinned in triumph, but Jane simply rolled her eyes, which only made me grin more.

“Excellent,” Nicole all but crowed. “I’ll see you then.”

As soon as Jane hung up I made a couple of fist pumps in the air. “This is perfect,” I said. “She’s going to lay down a threat about hurting Pietro, and we—I mean you—can simply tell her to cut to the chase.”

Comprehension dawned on her face. “Take the wind out of her sails.”

“And then we have the advantage.”