Deadly Desire (Riley Jenson Guardian 7)

Just to make sure she couldn't get up to any more mischief while I was investigating, I grabbed a shirt from the nearby washing basket and tore it into thick strips-lots and lots of strips that would be hard to tear as a whole-using those to tie both her hands and feet. Then I stepped over her trussed body and ducked through the trapdoor, walking cautiously down the short flight of stairs.

It was a small cellar area. Shelving lined one wall, stacked with dusty wine bottles, many of which looked older than me. In the middle of the room sat a small table and several chairs, and on this, wineglasses and a tub of old corks. In the far corner was a bed, and on this lay the zombie.

I walked across. He was dressed, his clothes freshly ironed and smelling a whole lot cleaner than he did. His skin had a waxy, marblelike appearance, and his veins were so close to the surface I could trace them with my fingertips. Not that I actually wanted to.

I stepped closer and studied his hands. There were more obvious signs of his death here. His fingertips were black, and the rot was spreading down his remaining fingers, threads of darkness that suggested to anyone paying attention that things were not what they seemed when it came to this wolf.

That and his eyes. There was no life in the filmy blue of his eyes. No understanding, no intelligence. Just a blank emptiness as he stared up at the ceiling.

I hesitated, then carefully reached out telepathically. Nothing but emptiness and the shadows of death.

I shuddered and dug my phone out of my pocket to call the Directorate. "Sal?" I said when her face came online. "I found our zombie. You want to get some of the magi out here? They might be able to trace back the magic used to raise him or something." And give him a proper ending, rather than the beheading I'd have to do if I took care of him. And I didn't think his parents would appreciate that. "Roughly how long will it be before someone gets here?"

"Give us half an hour."

"Thanks, Sal."

She hung up. I shoved my phone away and looked around as noise vibrated above me.

"Fucking hell," Habbsheen shouted. "What have you done to my wife?"

"Nothing, Mr. Habbsheen," I said, not bothering to raise my voice. He'd hear me no matter where he was in the house. "She's merely knocked out. Although technically, I should arrest her ass for trying to kill a guardian."

And if I wanted to get really technical, I could have just killed her. She was interfering in Directorate business-had actually tried to bash me over the head with an axe-and given she wasn't human, the law didn't give her the same sort of protection and rights that humans got. Sad, but true. But Jack preferred an arrest over a kill in these sorts of situations, and I sure as hell wasn't about to argue.

Although there were some in the Directorate who did.

Habbsheen's face appeared in the hatchway, and a second later he was hustled down the stairs by Kye. Who, although a bit rumpled, looked more like a man who'd gone for a quiet stroll rather than having gone several rounds with a wolf determined to protect his own at whatever cost.

"So you found him," Kye said, voice flat and showing no sign of the effort it must have been taking to keep Habbsheen under control. His gaze went from me to the zombie and back again, and something deep inside trembled at the intensity so obvious in those amber depths. "You can't get anything from him?"

"He has no brain, Kye. No thoughts or memories or impulses that are his own. He's just rotting flesh surviving on magic and other people's blood."

"That's not true-" Habbensheen began, then stopped as Kye shook him hard enough to rattle his teeth.

"I thought maybe the witch might have left some sort of telepathic link with which you could trace her," Kye said. "She has to have some sort of link, after all, to control his actions."

"True, but if she's not currently connected to him I can't trace her." She wasn't connected at the moment, and I had no intentions of trying to delve deeper into the mush that was the remainder of this body's mind. I glanced at Habbsheen. "When did you realize your son had been pulled from the grave?"

"Only last night, when he walked in the door." He hesitated, looking at the body on the bed. "He was naked, and confused, and he didn't really say anything."

Meaning the witch had made him dump his undoubtedly blood-splattered clothes before he'd gotten here. "I would have thought a son two weeks buried would have caused a serious amount of panic."

Or did the witch know these people well enough to be sure that the mother would never turn away the son, supposedly dead or not?

He hesitated. "My wife was too happy to see him to even remember that we buried him not long ago. He's our only child you see." His gaze met mine. "She was determined that no one was going to take him away from her again."

Meaning that, deep down, she probably knew the truth. "Mr. Habbsheen, you surely must be able to smell the rot. You can certainly see it if you look at his fingertips and toes."

He didn't say anything. Ultimately, he knew the truth, too.

"Let him go, Kye."

Kye raised an eyebrow, but did as I asked. Habbsheen slumped down on a nearby chair and rubbed his hands across his eyes. "It's going to kill her to lose him again."

It was on the tip of my tongue to say there was no "again" about it, because the thing laying on the bed wasn't their son, but what was the point? "Did your son make any new contacts in the days before his death? Were there any problems or incidents that you can remember him mentioning?"

Habbsheen shook his head. "Nothing. Rob was an easy going kid, well liked by everyone."