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She shook her head. “I’m sorry. No. We called Yugi, and he’s got a recovery team on the way here. Zombies. We killed them.”
Not that it made anything better, really. It would be one thing if we’d caught whoever it was doing the reanimating, but the zombies were simply weapons. They weren’t the masterminds.
Chase let out a long sigh. “I just took both of them onto the force. Promised them plenty of adventure and action. I guess they got more than they could handle. I should never have sent them out here. Not knowing what we’re facing.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Chase. They were both experienced, weren’t they? They had several years on the job, right?”
I didn’t want him to feel guilty. We’d suffered collateral damage before, and the bodies were stacking up. But regardless of how careful we were, there were going to be casualties. We just had to do our best to mitigate how high the body count went.
He gave me a long look. “Tom was a twelve-year veteran on the force. And Markus, he served five years in Queen Asteria’s guard. I guess…they went in prepared. We just weren’t expecting to find zombies.”
“What did you expect?”
“Someone called in, said they thought they saw grave robbers. Thought teenagers were pulling some prank, or maybe it was a fraternity stunt. With things as quiet as they’ve been the past few weeks, I guess we got careless.” He rubbed his forehead. “I hate this. Tom was single. His family’s back in Maine. But Markus, he has three kids and a wife back in Elqaneve. And now, I have to tell them he’s dead.”
“That’s always the hardest part.” I hung my head. “Chase, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. We just have to do what we can to keep our losses to a minimum. Did you know there were also goblins out here when you went in?”
He frowned. “No. I had no idea there were any until that scene back there in the graveyard.” After a pause, he added, “Dare I ask if you know who’s behind this? Or should I just assume we’re facing Gulakah’s cronies?”
I shrugged. “We aren’t positive, but ten to one, yeah, Gulakah and Telazhar are working together. The goblins came from OW, there’s little doubt of that. With Telazhar over there, ratcheting it up, I think we should assume he’s in close communication with Gulakah.”
“Like we are, with Darynal’s team.” Delilah draped her arm around Chase and hugged him. They’d been an item for a while, until they realized they were better off as friends than lovers. Now they seldom argued.
Darynal was Trillian’s blood-oath brother, a mercenary. Together with Taath, a sorcerer, and Quall, an assassin, he and his team were scouting out info for Queen Asteria, spying on Telazhar’s growing threat in Otherworld.
“Yeah, only Darynal only has two other members on his team. Telazhar has a freaking army under—” I stopped as my phone rang. As I pulled it out of the pouch and punched the Talk button, a couple of cruisers and a van pulled into the cemetery. Yugi’s recovery team was here.
I answered my phone. “Hello?”
“Camille? It’s me, Iris. I’m just checking up on you.” She sounded a little frantic. Pregnancy hormones were running rampant in her system, and we’d quickly learned that a Finnish house sprite carrying twins was a force of nature. Only a fool would try to cross her.
She was showing now, and so were her moods. We were beginning to see why the Finns revered motherhood so much—the Finnish mothers were the bears of the maternal world, including their extended family. They’d take on an army if that was what it took to protect their loved ones. Iris was having a boy and a girl, and they’d have the fiercest, most loyal mother in the world.
“We’re okay. We’re about to head home for the evening. Chase has a sprained ankle, but we’re fine.” We could tell her about everything when we arrived home. No sense worrying her now. “Did you need us to pick anything up on our way back?”
She paused, then laughed. “Yes, please. I’m really craving ice cream right now.”
“With pickles?” I was joking, but she made a tsking sound.
“Don’t stereotype me, missy. I’ve never been a fan of pickles before, and I’m not a fan of them now. But…some bacon would be good. I think we’re out. So, bacon and chocolate cherry ice cream, and smoked salmon. We have crackers and plenty of cheese.” And with that, she hung up.
I grinned at the phone. “Iris,” I said, in answer to Delilah’s questioning look.
She laughed. “Ice cream?”
“Oh yeah.” I snorted. “And a harangue over stereotyping her cravings. She’s a firecracker, all right.”
“That’s putting it mildly. And I’ll bet she asked for chocolate cherry,” Morio broke in.
“Right again. Along with bacon and smoked salmon.”
As Mallen, the elfin medic who worked most of the middle-of-the-night calls, knelt to examine Chase’s ankle, a group of six others—two medics with four armed Fae guards—headed in the direction of the officers’ corpses. Shade went with them to stand guard.
Mallen motioned for his assistant to hand him a splint. “I think it’s broken. You’re going to have to have this x-rayed once we get back to headquarters.”
“Fuck.” Chase slammed his hand against the bench. “I don’t need this right now.”
“Better a break than a nasty sprain. Breaks will heal faster, especially since you have the Nectar of Life in you.” Mallen strapped the ankle up. “Any cuts or abrasions from the zombies, or the goblins? On any of you? With the zombies, you run the risk of infection. The goblins—poison.”
