Resurrection

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 Pena. 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. “Whoever sent them had their escape route figured out.”

Katon stared at the lifeless bodies of the club-goers and shook his head. “You said they were trying to carry them off?”

“Yeah, it was weird. I’d never seen zombies act like that, going out of their way not to spill blood. They were almost gentle.” As if the act of murder could ever be described with such a delicate word. “They were definitely trying not to make a mess.”

Katon let out a quiet sigh and turned to face me. “I’ve heard from my sources, there have been quite a number of people going missing around here lately.”

“It’s Old Town. People disappear all the time.” My gut knew where he was headed, and I wasn’t happy about it.

“True, but not like this. Several late night businesses like this one catering to the less than coherent, all on the outskirts of town, have turned up empty. The day crews arrive to find the doors wide open, the lights on, furniture overturned like there’d been a tussle, but no people and no evidence of what happened.” He gestured to the twice-dead zombies on the ground. “I think you’ve figured out what’s been going on.”

A tingle of dread crept up my spine. It’d only been two months since Asmoday’s plot to bring about Armageddon fell apart and I wasn’t up for act II quite yet. “You think something big is in the works?”

“At this point, I’m not sure. However, no one goes through the effort to raise zombies and send them out to kidnap people without a reason. There has to be something going on. We just don’t know what.” I could tell he wasn’t excited about the prospect of supernatural drama anymore than I was.

“So, what’s the plan?”

“Wait for Michael and his clean up crew to finish, then see if they find anything that’ll point us in the right direction. After that, I’ll report to Abraham and get his take on it; standard operating procedure.” He shrugged. “We’ll go from there. Not much else to do.”

Abraham Solano was the top dog of DRAC-Demonic Resistance and Containment. As a psychic of amazing-if temperamental-ability, whose vision foretold of God’s disappearance, it was his mission we were on: to save the world from supernatural threats no longer bound by God’s rule.

Ever since the Big Guy and the Devil, my uncle, packed up and left for parts unknown, DRAC has stood against angels and demons, the undead, and even the living, to keep humanity safe, and for the most part, unaware. It was more than a full time job with lousy benefits. At least I had job security. If I didn’t die, that is.

“Abe will just send us someplace dark and nasty to get our heads ripped off.” I sighed. I might have been exaggerating a little bit, but not by much. Abraham had a knack for putting us in the thick of things. It was on us to find a way out. He was a good guy, but the mission came first. “Well, since there’s nothing left for me here, I’m gonna go home and get some sleep. I have a feeling I’m gonna need it.”

Katon nodded slowly, a glimmer of empathy in his eyes. “I’ll call you when we’ve got something.”

I waved and scampered off to the Impala, the lingering scent of my blue balls still evident. A few seconds later, I was rolling out of the parking lot, the strip club illuminating the rear view mirror. I stared back at the flickering lights and suggestive signage and let loose another sigh.

I was gonna miss the place.