Strange Brew

That earned me another fey smile from Andrew. He had a nice face—a little sharp, with a pointed chin. In certain lights, in certain moods, he would look sinister, except for the humor in his eyes. "I know we're well acquainted, but a bit of privacy?…"

I turned my back. I heard the faint sound of his bare feet slapping the cold floor as he stood, and the rustle of fabric moving over skin.

He was way, way too fast. Too well adjusted, for any newly revived corpse. He had continuity, and that meant he remembered all the trauma of the first resurrection.

"How long?" he asked. "How long have I been away this time?"

I cast a look over my shoulder, and found he was adjusting the fit of the pants on his hips. Except for the slight, indefinable distance in his eyes, he could have been any hospital attendant. He looked completely… alive.

"About a year," I said. "Andrew—"

"Feels like yesterday," he said, and looked down at his hands. He flexed them carefully. "Awful strange, not knowing that,"

"We have work for you," I said. I was sticking to my script, even though Andrew had lost his. "I'll help you understand what you need to do. How do you feel?"

"Holly, my sweet, I'm a

"You're no ordinary person," I said. My heart was pounding, my palms were sweating, but I sounded as cool and soothing as any clinical practitioner. "Are you in any pain?"

"No."

"None at all?"

"Miss Holly, I've been in your shoes." His gaze moved to focus on them for a second, smiling. "Never ones so dainty, maybe. But there's no need to treat me like an invalid. I'll let you know when I start feeling it."

I stared at him. He stared back, challenge in those bright blue eyes. He was an average-looking guy in a lot of ways—pleasant features, except for that sharp, aggressive chin; sandy brown hair that had grown into a style that seemed both modern and antique—shaggy, certainly. He had a sharp ridge and twist to his nose, as if he'd broken it early in life.

I tried to get my mind back to business. "If you start feeling anxious or drifting, tell me. I don't know what the police need you for, or how long it will take, but you need to have a dose—"

"Each hour, yes, Miss Holly. I'm the one who wrote up the damn rules. Police, you say?" That seemed to give him pause for thought. "Why us, again?" Us, not just him. Andrew assumed instantly that we were a team.

I didn't want to be a team. It had hurt so much the last time around, I couldn't imagine how bad it would be this time, when I knew him. When I cared.

I opted for neutral topics. "Detective Prieto is waiting to brief us."

Detective Prieto entered the room, and both of us turned to look at him. "Mr. Toland," he said, and nodded stiffly. "I won't say thanks, since I know you didn't really have a choice in coming… here." Nice way to avoid the whole death/life conundrum. "But I'm giving you a choice for the job. If you don't want to do it, we'll end this right now."

Andrew had lost his smile. His eyes were narrowed, hard-focused. That was how he looked when he fought, I thought. And yes, he could be intimidating.

"It's no small matter if you picked me," he said. "I slept a hundred and thirty-some-odd years before Miss Holly here brought me back the first time, and I'll allow as how that job was worth the trouble. I expect this one's just as raw."

"Yes," Prieto said. Now that he was face-to-face with the soul he was about to send into torment, possibly horrible death, he seemed deeply uncomfortable. "I need you to help us save lives."

"Didn't expect you brought me back for a pony ride, mister. Fine. I'll do it."

"Andrew," I said quietly. "Hear him out before you agree to anything."

"Don't need to. Like I said, I wouldn't be back here if it wasn't bad."

"All right," Prieto said. "We have a credible terrorist threat against a protected group of individuals here in Austin. Four are already missing, and we've got intel about the next one to be abducted. We think these people are being killed, but we haven't found remains yet."

Andrew studied him for a moment in silence, then said, "I understood little of that, 'cept you have four missing and some dead. I ain't equipped to solve your crimes, so I don't think that's what you need me for, is it?"

"We need you to protect one of the people on the list of potential victims."

"Wait a minute!" I blurted, horrified. The resurrected—even disposables—weren't bodyguards; they were weapons. Point them at a clearly defined objective, and let them go achieve it, no matter what the damage. Disposables didn't have a self-preservation instinct, so they were perfect for sending in on suicide runs.

Bodyguarding was completely different. For one thing, it was likely to be long-term, much longer than a disposable ever lasted. Days. Weeks. Months, even. "Wait a minute," I repeated. My voice was loud enough to ring off the morgue steel. "What the hell? Since when did the resurrected join the force? This is something any cop in Kevlar could do, right?"

Prieto gave me another look. This one was blank and cool. "We've tried that," he said. "Didn't go so well, which is why we decided to go with somebody with nothing to lose, like your friend here. Our intel says the attack's going to come in the next few days. Fact is, when we booked the job in the first place, we were pla

"But you can't—"

Andy interrupted me. "Who'd I be protecting?" Prieto had been waiting for the question, and he seemed to take a special kind of pleasure in saying, "It's her. Holly A

We left the viewing room to go down the hall to a small airless conference room, where Prieto had set up shop for the night. He had folders.

He had a lot of folders.

I knew every one of the victims. Shayle Gallagher had been the first—he'd been taken right out of his flower shop (like me, he only moonlighted at the resurrection business), and there had been signs of a vicious struggle. Could have been robbery or a hate crime, so that hadn't raised too many unusual flags at first, especially with no body found.

Two weeks ago, though, Harrison Wright had failed to show up to work at his medical practice, and his multimillion-dollar estate showed signs of the same brutal attack as at Gallagher's store.

Lottie Flores had been the next victim, and she'd disappeared the day after I'd taken the case from Sam.

"We kept it out of the news," Prieto said. "Wasn't easy. Oh, and Sam agreed we shouldn't interrupt you while you were working."

Sam agreed? I was going to have a talk with Sam. One involving a punch in the mouth.

"You said there were dead officers," Andy said.

Prieto nodded. "My guys had missed a scheduled check-in. When backup arrived, their car was empty. They were found in the Flores house."

"Why not bring one of them back, find out just what went on?"

Prieto looked grim. "We thought about it, but the families wouldn't sign off, and by then, we were knee-deep in missing resurrection witches. Didn't think we should waste the time trying to convince anybody."

I looked at the photos of the two dead police officers, and felt my stomach twist. They'd been beaten to death. That wasn't easy to do with any cop, but you could at least see how the five-foot-five, petite woman could have been overpowered. Not her partner, six-foot-four and big enough to intimidate pretty much anyone. He looked like he chewed nails as vitamins.