The Resurrectionist

Chapter 3

Filberto swayed back and forth. Sam and I had to hold him upright. He might be more hurt than I first thought. Although I had not been gifted with X-ray vision, I was a nurse, so I could keep his ass alive long enough to get some information out of him. He wasn’t really hurt. Not hurt like Roberto. I shook him. “Where’s Roberto?”

“Gone.”

In that word, I knew everything. Just once I’d like to be disappointed and have a happy ending, but that’s apparently not my karma this time around. “Dammit.” Focusing, I heaved out a sigh, then took a deep breath and steeled myself against the pain that was going to saturate me the second I touched his skin. I placed the heel of my hand on Filberto’s forehead and let my fingers fall over the top of his head. This was the only way I knew to access another person’s memories. It hurt me to do this. Physically, emotionally and spiritually I would suffer for days, trying to get the stench of someone else’s mind out of mine, but I had to do it. For this family to recover their loved one, I had to do it.

After a glance at Sam to link myself in the present, I closed my eyes and let it wash over me.

Flashes of light hit me first. Then I sort of saw a slow-motion movie playing, and I was the only one watching it. Filberto had picked up Roberto at the school. They got into a car and drove away. Filberto sweating and cursing himself all the way as memories of his own molestations filled him. So many years, so many hidden secrets and lies had finally bubbled up out of him. He couldn’t help it, or that’s what he told himself, as he choked the life out of Roberto’s little body and tucked it away at the edge of a rock outcropping. Then he raced away and returned to Albuquerque before he was missed.

Pulling myself out of the memory, I gritted my teeth against the impulse to pick up where Julio had left off. My stomach cramped, and I wanted to vomit.

“I know where he is.” I removed my hand from Filberto’s forehead, then wiped my palm on my jeans. They were going in the washer as soon as I got home.

“He’s alive?” Julio asked, the fragile hope in his voice staggering.

“I’m sorry, Julio.” I hated this part, but it had to be done swiftly if there was to be a chance of recovery. “No. His body is out in the lava fields between Laguna and Grants.” There was little hope of us finding his remains, but we could try. Many people had been lost out there and never recovered despite massive search operations. How was little ol’ me going to find him? Help?

“Where’s my baby?” Juanita screeched and raced at Filberto with a knife in her hand. Before I could think of moving, she reached out and struck Filberto across the face, blood spattering from the wound. “Where’s my son?”

Sam and two others tackled Juanita and divested her of the weapon. I grabbed a fistful of Filberto’s hair and held his face up as anger, hot and bright, coursed through me. “You look at these people, at that boy’s mother, and tell us what you did.”

“I killed him.” He squinted through eyes already narrowed to slits by the beating he’d taken. I wanted to reach into his head and pull his brain out through his nostrils. “I didn’t mean to, but I had to.”

“What do you mean, you had to kill him?” I asked, really not wanting to know the answer to that, but pretty certain I was going to be sick once I heard it. A quick image of The Dark flashed in my mind. Could this be the influence Burton had talked of? Could The Dark have made Filberto act when he wouldn’t have otherwise?

“He would have told. He would have told!” Filberto breathed through his mouth, as his nose was most certainly broken, if the swelling was any indication.

“Did you hurt him?” I knew he had, but I wanted him to tell the family.

Sobs made Filberto’s head wobble, and he cried, feeling sorry for himself. Not what I wanted to see, but confession was supposedly good for the soul. I’d just rather hear the story than have all the blubbering along with it. “I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Did you touch Roberto in a way you weren’t supposed to?”

“Y-e-s.”

Anguish as you’ve never heard ripped the night to shreds. Sam and I looked at each other as we were shoved out of the way. There was no reasoning with an angry mob, and certainly no reasoning with a family who was rightfully justified in tearing apart one of their own.

“We have to stop this.” I held on to Sam’s shirt. He tried to put me behind him, to protect me. He’s such a guy. But I hardly needed protecting. After dying once, I learned what to really fear, and these people weren’t it.

We shoved into the group. We needed to get to the middle of this, where the action was, and prevent them from killing him.

Dropping onto my knees, I was able to crawl through and around the others. Not as dignified as I would have liked, but I got through and pulled my weapon. “Stop it.” Sam joined me, on his feet, and drew his gun, too.

“We need him alive,” Sam said.

“He doesn’t deserve to live! He killed my baby.” Juanita dissolved into a puddle on the ground. The women surrounded her and held on to her. The atmosphere in the yard was changing, becoming darker and malignant. A dark cloud or mist appeared overhead, but failed to manifest into anything I recognized.

Julio’s fists were a mess of blood and raw flesh. He breathed heavily as the murderous light finally left his eyes.

“Julio, see to your wife,” Sam said and motioned him back with the gun.

“I will see this done now. I don’t care if I have to die for it. He’ll pay for what he’s done to my son!”

“We need him alive if there’s any chance to bring Roberto back.” I didn’t tell them I wasn’t sure I had the skills to do it, whether it could even be done, depending on the amount of decomposition that had begun, let alone animal involvement. Ew. “If you kill him now, there’s no chance, and you’ll die, too.” I reached out to Julio and touched his shoulder. I tried to resist the vibrations coming off him. I was contaminated already by Filberto, so what was a little more? “Do you want that? Your family needs you now.”

He collapsed beside his wife, and they wept together and clung to each other. I was unable to offer any solace.

Reaching out to Sam with my hand, I nearly fell face-first into him. He would have liked that too much, so I settled for dropping to my knees from fatigue.

After things settled down and a small plan for recovery took shape, Sam led me to his truck parked down the street. I got in and let him drive to the nearest diner we could find. “That was damned stupid.” Anger crackled off him, nearly lighting the night around him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, but I didn’t need to be reminded. I survived, and no one died in the process. Bonus. “I got the information I needed.” Filberto had taken a beating, but he deserved it. Almost instant karma.

“At what cost?” he asked. “I’ve never seen you so wasted, Dani, not even after a tough life-swap.” Sam was never outright angry; he’s too controlled for that. What he does is simmer. It’s not brooding, because that’s too much like a pout for a man. But he simmers, and stews, and makes me wonder what’s going on in that mind of his. I might have to do a mind-meld someday, but not now.

Right now, I didn’t care. I needed flesh and lots of it. For whatever reason, it’s what I need to keep going. I don’t need just blood, though I do like my steaks rare. It’s not just protein, either. I tried plenty of whey protein shakes and granola bars at the beginning, and they didn’t do squat. I now despise granola. But something in a good, bloody steak does it for me. Who am I to question it? Maybe it’s in the chewing and grinding of the food in my mouth that makes it work, or part of the digestive process. Do you know what’s going on in your stomach when you’re not looking? I don’t know and don’t care, as long as it fills up whatever is depleted.

We inhaled the meal and headed out the door. This was a fuel stop for me. I was so depleted of energy, I’d have chewed my own leg off soon. We had to get to the lava fields near Grants. About an hour away, depending on who was driving. I could make it in forty-five. We had to try to recover the body tonight. Preventing further decay was essential to a successful resurrection, but as always to fully restore the body would require some sort of blood sacrifice, and there was no way to know how much blood the ritual would require.

I didn’t know if I had enough. I was exhausted enough already. However, Sam had volunteered for this duty. I didn’t want it to be his sacrifice either. Perhaps our combined forces would be enough to get the job done. There was something special about Sam that helped make the resurrections successful.

The unmistakable sound of a skateboard approaching made me step back into the doorway, into Sam, and his hands were on my hips to steady me. What I wouldn’t give to be able to really reach out to him, but I couldn’t. Touch, skin to skin, made me feel things I wasn’t prepared for, so I hung on to the wooden doorway and gasped for air.

“Hey, you okay, chica?” Burton asked and flipped his board to a stop beside us. My little mentor. At first I was always surprised to see him, but then I figured he knew things I didn’t and let it slide.

“Yeah. I’m good.”

“Don’t you listen to anything I tell you?”

“Huh?”

“I just told you not to take any extra chances. Maybe your brain is going bad or something.”

“Hardly. But I couldn’t not take this case, you know that.” Or at least he should. “Go away. I’m fine.”

“Cool. But heed the warning.” He tossed the skateboard onto the sidewalk and leaped onto it, disappearing into the shadows as only he could.

“That kid drives me crazy. How did he know you were here? We didn’t even know we were coming here.” Sam stepped up beside me to watch Burton zip away.

“I don’t know. I think he has some sort of radar.” Yeah, four-thousand-year-old radar.

“Has he been following you?”

“What, like you did?” Bingo.

Sam didn’t answer, but just stared down at me with a perturbed glint in his eyes. As a rule, I do not enjoy being looked down upon, but with Sam, I make the exception. When he looks down at me, I almost feel petite and feminine. I need to avoid that feeling. I’m not petite or particularly feminine. I’m strong and in charge of myself. Softer feelings aren’t in my job description and could get me killed again if I allow them.

“I tell you that kid is trouble.”

“How can a kid with his pants halfway down his ass be trouble?” I mean, really. Who takes a person like that seriously?

“You do have a point,” Sam said and watched as Burton skateboarded back to us.

“Later, dudes,” he yelled.

“See ya, Burton. Pull your damned pants up!” I called over the rush of the night. He raised his arm and flipped me off. Typical teenager. “He’s harmless.”

Sam shook his head, not convinced with my judgment of character. If he only knew how far I’d come, he wouldn’t question me now. “If you say so, but that’s the future of this country riding away on a piece of wood.”

If he only knew. Burton was a piece of the past trying to hold on to a future for the entire universe, and I was helping him. No wonder I was tired all the time.

“Let’s go.”

* * *

Two nights later we were back in Albuquerque. We had searched for two days before finding Roberto’s remains. It was a shame, too. All I could do was put what was left of this young boy on ice and see if we could figure out how to bring him back. The reverence that surged through me as I touched the small bones, placing them into the little cooler that would become his temporary coffin, surprised me. I pulled back and closed the lid as a wave of unwanted emotion washed over me. There was no time now for emotion.

The balance in this case was only partially restored. The crime had been committed, the criminal caught and the body recovered. Filberto was in a coma on life support with a significant brain injury and not expected to survive. I suppose that made my job easier. This was one case where a life-swap was certainly warranted, but the method by which to create the swap wasn’t in my hands yet. Paperwork and red tape. It all came down to who could argue better, your lawyer or theirs. I was betting on Liz, my little Chihuahua with the heart of a Rottweiler. All I had to do was wait.

I hate waiting.

* * *

Sometimes, I simply don’t understand the universe. Today is one of those days. Before I left the house, I spilled water three different times and in three different ways. That either meant something significant or my kitchen was more cluttered than I thought. But I made it in, coffee in hand, ready for all of the really important stuff I do around here.

I sat behind my desk trying not to laugh at the plight of the poor woman sitting across the desk from me. She could have been anyone’s auntie or grandmother, sitting there all prim and proper with her Sunday best on, and her glasses shoved pertly on her nose. There she sat, with pictures of Fluffy, her four-legged canine companion. Recently deceased. This wasn’t boding well for an improvement in my day.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Chapman, but I simply can’t help you.” Not entirely certain I would, even if I could. I wasn’t trying to be mean; it simply comes out of me that way sometimes.

“But you can do it. I know you can.” She held out a flier I had mistakenly made when I first started out. It was somewhat unclear, and I now regretted ever putting those pages together. One came back to haunt me now and then, and this was one of those times. Maybe this was where the spilled water came in. An omen. “It says so right here.” She shoved the thing across the desk to me.

“I know what it says, but this is old and the wording was poor. It doesn’t say that we life-swap animals.”

“It doesn’t say you don’t, either. I want my Fluffy back.” She was on the verge of tears, and I pushed a box of tissues toward her. Here we go again with the tears. “I’ll give you every last penny I have. My entire savings, if you’ll bring back my dog!”

“Please calm down, Mrs. Chapman, and take a few breaths.” I didn’t want to have her stroke out right in front of me, ’cause then I’d have to go back to nurse mode and do something heroic. I wasn’t in the mood. “Even though we know who killed your dog, in this case, Cesar, the Doberman next door, and you’ve kept Fluffy in your freezer, that doesn’t change anything. I simply don’t perform canine resurrections.” That was to the point and not quite as tactful as I could have made it, but the woman was wearing me down. I should have done it just to get her out of my office.

“It was my neighbor’s damned dog.” Her lips pressed tightly together. No love lost there. She’d run him down if she got the chance.

“Yes. Weren’t there numerous noise complaints made by that particular neighbor about Fluffy’s incessant barking?” I had the file in front of me and pushed that toward her, too. Not that she picked it up. She knew what was in it.

“It doesn’t justify murder. Fluffy was a terrier, and it’s part of the breed. Anyone who owns terriers accepts that.” She said it as if everyone in the world ought to know that terriers are barking maniacs. As everyone knows that fast food makes you fat. (Everyone knows that, right?)

“Yes, I know, but it doesn’t mean your neighbors do. And it still doesn’t give me the power to bring him back.” I stood. Fortunately, Mrs. Chapman took the hint. She gathered her tote bag against her middle as if it were a priceless object. The bag was about the right size for... Oh, gag. The smile on my face melted as another thought occurred to me. If she had Fluffy in there, I was gonna puke. After the last night I had, it wouldn’t take much. I was still trying to clean Filberto out of my brain. “If our conditions change, then I’ll be in touch.” I patted the file, indicating I had her contact information. I was going to shred it the second she left.

She nodded, didn’t say thank you, because she had nothing to thank me for. I wish she’d just go to the pound and get a replacement dog.

Kind of like boyfriends were for some women. When you lost one, you just went to the pound (the bar) and brought another one home. He could make you happy for a while, but may have a straying problem and some were better trained than others. There was just that pesky neutering issue...

I sat and dropped my head into my hands, closed my eyes and groaned.

“Tough day?” Sam asked from the doorway.

I didn’t even have to look up, but I did. “Understatement of the century.”

“Wanna go shoot something?” There was a grin hiding behind that well-controlled expression of his. There was a little secret behind his eyes, too, and I definitely wanted to know what it was. The temptation of having him around for so long was beginning to wear on my defenses.

“You got a new toy?” He’d mentioned something about it.

A twitch of the brows was all I got. Intriguing.

“Get me outta here before I shoot something I’m not supposed to.” I stood and grabbed my bag that was equally as large as Mrs. Chapman’s, but there was no frozen dog in it.

* * *

The firing range was a great place to let off some steam. It was a safe environment where no one was going to shoot back, and you could pound the hell out of a flimsy paper target. I love that.

Sam got out his new toy, and it was a doozy. A forty-five millimeter with a nice weight in the hand. I love a man with a smokin’-hot piece of...steel in his hands. Makes me shiver all over. Not that I’ll let Sam know that. Too many times in my past I let a man have control over me, and it is never, ever going to happen again. Control is something that is mine and mine alone. I don’t care how illusive it is. Denial has gotten me through many years of my life, so I don’t see a reason to stop using it now.

Now, I’ve gone through a number of weapons training courses, so I’ve shot many different kinds of weapons. Never stopped me from salivating over a new one, though. Kind of like some women are over shoes. It’s all about the accessories, right? Mine just happen to be loaded.

Sam looked at me through that sexy, protective eyewear in a bold, jaundiced color and raised his brows. He really didn’t even have to ask, but I so appreciated it.

“Hell, yeah, I want to shoot that thing.” He grinned and handed me the weapon.

“Give it a whirl.”

“Where’d you get this thing, some online shooting shop?”

“Yeah, right.”

He knows I want his contacts and insulting him is one of the ways I’m trying to pry the information out of him. Not subtle, but then, I’m really not known for it. I tried the direct route for a while by just asking politely, or as polite as I get, but he just dissed me, so I was reduced to insults.

He went over a few specifics before I loaded the thing, then leaned against the wall beside me. I think he likes watching me shoot. Probably gives him a hard-on. He didn’t stand behind me or try to put his hands around me or treat me like a girl, which I totally appreciated. I am so not a girl.

Without a word, I squinted through my equally sexy eyewear and popped off one shot, just to get a feel of it before I unloaded the clip. “Recoil’s a bitch.”

“Did I forget to mention that?” The man had wrists of steel, so recoil meant little to him.

“Uh, yeah.” Squinting my left eye, I focused on the target again and squeezed off five shots.

“Nice, Dani. Very nice,” he said, admiring the way I so sweetly took out the target.

I returned the gun to Sam and shook out my hands. “Gonna have to work up to that bad boy.” Not that I was weak, but my wrists were tiny compared with Sam’s. I had supernatural powers, but not supernatural strength. Maybe I could put an order in with Burton, but I doubted it. He’d just laugh.

We picked up our spent shell casings and cleared the way for someone else to shoot. There was never any shortage of cops, P.I.s or gun fanatics practicing at the range. After we left the shooting area, we removed our ear protection. He used an over-the-head earmuff type, and I used the squishy things in my ears. They were cheap and didn’t mess up my hair. A woman’s gotta watch out for these little issues in life.

“That’s a nice piece,” I said and meant it.

“Feel better now that you’ve shot something?”

Oh, the man knows me too well. “Yeah. Sometimes the grind of the job just gets to me, and I want to kill something. Better a target than a person, ya know?” Since I came back from the other side, controlling my anger has been an issue. Kickboxing and margaritas help keep it under control, depending on the situation. They are not interchangeable coping mechanisms.

“So, you want to tell me what’s really bugging you?”

We headed outside into the parking lot on the south side of the big square, cinder-block building out in the middle of nowhere. Guess the desert has its perks. There are a lot of open spaces that no one wants to build on, so this was perfect.

I told Sam about Mrs. Chapman and the stupid dog she wanted resurrected.

“My grandmother would have loved that one.” Normally, Sam is your typical, well-controlled, serious cop-type guy, but now, he wiped his eyes beneath his reflective sunglasses. He was laughing so hard, it brought tears to his eyes. I’d never have bet money on that happening.

I tried not to smile, but couldn’t help it. Laughter is nearly as good as sex as a tension reliever. There has been little of either in my life of late, but then sex was what got me killed in the first place. Not mine, my ex-husband’s. He’s the one who couldn’t keep it zipped. “Did she have a dog like Fluffy?” I asked. I knew his grandmother had passed into the beyond, but other than that, I knew little about her.

“No.” He shook his head and put his hands on his hips. The laughter was still with him, and it was good to see. I love police officers, and our men in blue have little to laugh about on the job, so a snicker here and there does them good. “Oh, no. She’d have never had a dog like Fluffy.”

“She liked big dogs then, like the killer Dobie?”

“No.”

“Then what?” I couldn’t see what was so funny now.

“The irony of the underappreciated. Like you. Like her. I never told you, but she was like you,” Sam said, and all humor between us came to a screeching halt.

My smile faded. “What do you mean, just like me?”

“A resurrectionist.” Sam removed his sunglasses. I saw his eyes, so I knew he spoke the truth. “That’s why I volunteered for the liaison post with you. I have some experience with it.”

“Are you kidding? Why didn’t you tell me?” I yelled and slugged him in the chest. Touching people gives me too much information about them, but now and then I put up with it if I get to punch someone. Like now.

“What was the point? She was gone already, and I don’t know how to do that stuff.”

“The point was that...well, hell, I don’t know, but I would have liked to have known.”

“She was gone, Dani, years ago.”

I sighed, not satisfied with that explanation. It was as if he had insider information and had kept it from me. “I would have liked to have known, that’s all. Maybe you could have helped me in the beginning. Maybe you could help me now get some things figured out.” I know there are others out there like me, but finding them is not easy. It’s not as though we have an online newsletter or a blog like other, more populous states do. I’m going to have to work on one for New Mexico, because no one else is doing it.

“I don’t know anything about what goes on during the rituals, other than what I’ve seen you do.”