Dead Matter

Anton Strout

Dead Matter

The third book in the Simon Canderous series, 2010

For my father,

who wears his pride in me like a badge of honor.

I work every day to be worthy of it.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Once more we leap into the breach, dear friends. I’ve missed you. So has Simon. Ignore the bat in his hand. However this book ended up in your greedy little mitts, I wanted to say welcome. Thanks for reading me. Stay and enjoy.

There are many players on this stage who make this endeavor of crafting a book possible: everyone in the haunted halls of Penguin Group, especially my friends and colleagues from paperback sales; my editor, Jessica Wade, known around the halls of Ace as the Swift Red Pencil of Justice; copy editor Valle Hansen; A

What then is to become of man?

Will he be the equal of God or the beasts?

– Blaise Pascal

Om nom nom…

– Count Dracula

1

When it came to working for New York City’s favorite underfunded supersecret paranormal investigation agency-known as the Department of Extraordinary Affairs-high-stakes decision making was par for the course. People lived or died when it came down to fighting ghosts, cultists… even the occasional chupacabra. My personal stress from handling the caseload of Other Division meant I barely kept my sanity as it was, but right now I was facing the hardest decision of my life. “Choose, Simon,” my ex-cultist-turned-girlfriend Jane said in a stern tone.

“I… I can’t.”

“For God’s sake,” she said, giving me a gentle swat to my arm. “It’s cheese. How hard can it be to pick a cheese?”

I turned away from the assortment of cheeses in the display cooler in front of me to look at her. Jane wore jeans and a tight black T-shirt with a cartoon-ghost corpse on it that read CASPER WASN’T SO FRIENDLY. Her normally big blue Bambi eyes were narrowed at me in mock disgust, the rounded contour of her face looking a little sharper since her long blond hair was pulled back from her face into a ponytail. In the background behind her the rest of my local supermarket went about its own business, but the look Jane was giving me made it feel like she was shining a spotlight on me.

I turned back to the display. “Clearly you don’t understand Taco Night, then,” I said. “We could go for the Mexican blend, which seems like an obvious choice. But! We also have pepper jack, which in my opinion gives the tacos a hot, zesty flavor.”

Jane reached past me, grabbed a packet of the Mexican blend, and threw it in her basket. “I ca

I glared at her. “It doesn’t work that way,” I said. I held up my gloved hands. “Yes, I can touch objects and read their histories, but that doesn’t help me figure out which cheese to choose.”

“Wearing your gloves again, I see,” Jane said.

I nodded. “Yeah,” I said.

“I thought you were in control of your power these days.”

I let out a tired sigh. “The way I’ve been using my psychometry on casework for the Department lately, it’s just easier to wear them to keep from triggering on stuff outside of work. I’d like to go a whole evening without using my psychometry, if only to keep from taking a power-induced hit to my blood sugar.”

Jane’s look was stern, concerned. “You should really take better care of your health like that,” she said. “You’re working too hard. This is your first night off from the Department in weeks…”

“Someone’s got to pick up the slack with Co

“I know, I know.” Jane looked as if she was about to go into full-blown agitation, but stopped herself. She closed her eyes, let out a long breath, then opened them. “I know,” she said, softer this time. “I’m being selfish. Co

“Can we not talk about Co

“Fine,” Jane said, smiling. She held her hands palms up to the heavens. “Let us not spoil the sanctity of the sacred Taco Night.”

We wandered off together arm in arm, each with our own basket, in search of the other ingredients. The rest of our shopping trip took only a few more minutes-sour cream, ground beef, lettuce, tomato-but when I hit the ca

“Refried beans,” I said, looking around. “I mean, is there any other option? Do they offer just fried beans? And what beans are they frying in the first place?”

“Just grab a can, Seinfeld,” Jane said. She checked her watch. “I’d like Taco Night to happen, you know, while it’s still Taco Night.”

“But I wanted to make everything from scratch,” I said. Jane glared at me. “Hey, I used to be quite the cook, you know, in my bachelor days.”

Jane reached into the basket I was carrying. She held up a bright yellow box with a cartoon sombrero on it. “I see,” she said, rattling it around. “I suppose these pre-made taco shells meet your ‘from scratch’ criteria?”

I opened my mouth to explain, but instead shut it and grabbed a can of refried beans off the shelf. I could see that the novelty of spending all night in the grocery store striving for authenticity was starting to wear on both of us. We headed off to the registers, but I stopped just short of getting in line.

“What did you forget?” Jane asked, laughing and shaking her head.

“Salsa,” I said. I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Be right back.”

Jane nodded. “I’ll hold our place.”

I ran off in search of the elusive condiment, but halfway down one of the aisles I heard the clatter of several items falling over, followed by the sound of screaming coming from one of the other aisles. I ran up the one I was in, rounded the corner, and turned into the next, stopping dead in my tracks.

A lumbering figure filled the entire width of the aisle, menacing a few people farther along it. It was humanoid, but only if I pictured a human made out of melted wax. It looked naked, pale, with its shoulders nearly reaching from shelf to shelf. Its hands and feet looked like claws and were made of something hard that clicked against the smooth surface of the store floor. When it heard me, it whipped its head around and a wave of terror ran over me as I saw its face for the first time. Its mouth was a gnarled mass of giant pointed teeth that stuck out in every direction. A mix of slobber and decay hung from its maw, dripping onto the laminated tiles of the store floor.