Stakeout at the Vampire Circus
Author: Kevin J. Anderson
Date: 2012-10-02 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Urban Fantasy; Mystery; Humor; Horror; Fiction; Zombies; Paranormal; Short Stories; Speculative Fiction
Description: "LADIES AND ZOMBIES, IN THE CENTER RING..." Zombie P.I. Dan Shamble and his ghost girlfriend are called to the Vampire Circus when a fortune teller's cards go missing. Not exactly the glamorous life, but the stakes escalate when a vampire trapeze act goes dead wrong, and Shamble discovers even more skeletons in the closet than the ones that live there. As he shuffles for clues through an unnatural cast of carnies, he faces a slate of suspects that could freak out even the most daring detective-a werewolf lion tamer, a fat lady with an enormous secret, an undead ringmaster...and what could be s
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation

UNNATURAL PRAISE FOR DAN SHAMBLE, ZOMBIE P.I. . . .

“The Dan Shamble books are great fun.”
—Simon R. Green

“Sharp and funny; this zombie detective rocks!”
—Patricia Briggs

“A dead detective, a wimpy vampire, and other interesting characters from the supernatural side of the street make Death Warmed Over an unpredictable walk on the weird side. Prepare to be entertained.”

—Charlaine Harris

“A darkly funny, wonderfully original detective tale.”
—Kelley Armstrong

“Master storyteller Kevin J. Anderson’s Death Warmed Over is wickedly funny, deviously twisted and enormously satisfying. This is a big juicy bite of zombie goodness. Two decaying thumbs up!”

—Jonathan Maberry

“Kevin J. Anderson shambles into Urban Fantasy with his usual relentless imagination, and a unique hard-boiled detective who’s refreshing, if not exactly fresh. Death Warmed Over is the literary equivalent of Pop Rocks, firing up an original world with supernatural zing, bold flavor, and endlessly clever surprise.”

—Vicki Pettersson

“Death Warmed Over is just plain good fun. I enjoyed every minute it took me to read it.”

—Glen Cook

“Down these mean streets a man must lurch.... With his Big Sleep interrupted, Chambeaux the zombie private eye goes back to sleuthing, in Death Warmed Over, Kevin J. Anderson’s wry and inventive take on the Noir paradigm. The bad guys are werewolves, the clients are already deceased, and the readers are in for a funny, action-packed adventure, following that dead man walking. . . .”

—Sharyn McCrumb

“A zombie sleuth prowls the mean streets as he works a half-dozen seriously weird cases . . . Like Alexander McCall Smith’s Mma Precious Ramotswe, the sleuths really do settle most of their cases, and they provide a lot of laughs along the way.”

—Kirkus Reviews on Death Warmed Over

“Anderson’s world-building skills shine through in his latest series, Dan Shamble, P.I. Readers looking for a mix of humor, romance and good old-fashioned detective work will be delighted by this offering.”

—RT Book Reviews (4 stars—compelling page-turner)

“Less-than-scary vampires, hit-man werewolves, witches who sue the publishing company who didn’t do a “spell check,” and various levels of decaying zombies, monsters, ghosts, trolls, goblins and other creatures (some even human) combine into one twisted, tasty treat!”

—Stratton Magazine

“Fast-paced and full of fun characters, adventure, suspense, mystery, and humor—Death Warmed Over is the first in a promising new series. Urban fantasy fans should check out this unpredictable and complex story.”

—Sci Fi Chick

“Funny and entertaining . . . If you are looking for a light, entertaining read, this book is undead from front to back, and a lot of fun!”

—You’d Only Slow Me Down

“Part Chinatown, part horror comedy, Death Warmed Over is entirely fun.”

—Roqoo Depot

. . . AND FOR KEVIN J. ANDERSON

“Kevin J. Anderson has become the literary equivalent of Quentin Tarantino in the fantasy adventure genre.”

—The Daily Rotation

“Kevin J. Anderson is the hottest writer on (or off) the planet.”

—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Kevin J. Anderson is arguably the most prolific, most successful author working in the field today.”

—Algis Budrys

“I always expect more from a Kevin J. Anderson tale, and I’m yet to be disappointed.”

—2 A.M. Magazine

Also by Kevin J. Anderson

Blood Lite anthology series (editor)
Clockwork Angels: The Novel (with Neil Peart)
The new DUNE novels (with Brian Herbert)
Hellhole (with Brian Herbert)
The Terra Incognita trilogy
The Saga of Seven Suns
Captain Nemo
The Martian War
Enemies and Allies
The Last Days of Krypton
Resurrection, Inc.
The Gamearth trilogy
Blindfold
Climbing Olympus
Hopscotch
Ill Wind (with Doug Beason)
Assemblers of Infinity (with Doug Beason)
The Trinity Paradox (with Doug Beason)
The Craig Kreident Mysteries (with Doug Beason)
Numerous Star Wars, X-Files, Star Trek, StarCraft novels,
movie novelizations, and collaborations

Starring Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I.

Death Warmed Over
Unnatural Acts
Hair Raising

STAKEOUT AT THE VAMPIRE CIRCUS

Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I.

Kevin J. Anderson

KENSINGTON BOOKS
www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

UNNATURAL PRAISE FOR DAN SHAMBLE, ZOMBIE P.I. . . .
Also by Kevin J. Anderson
Title Page
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
Hair Raising
About the Author
Copyright Page

CHAPTER 1

The circus is supposed to be fun, even a monster circus, but the experience turned sour when somebody tried to murder the vampire trapeze artist.

As a private detective, albeit a zombie, I investigate cases of all sorts in the Unnatural Quarter, applying my deductive skills and persistent determination (yes, the undead can be very persistent indeed). Some of my cases are admittedly strange; most are even stranger than that.

I’d been hired by a transvestite fortune-teller to find a stolen deck of magic cards, and he had sent me two free tickets to the circus. Gotta love the perks of the job. Not one to let an opportunity go to waste, I invited my girlfriend to accompany me; in many ways her detective skills are as good as my own.

Sheyenne is beautiful, blond, and intangible. I had started to fall in love with her when both of us were alive, and I still like having her around, despite the difficulties of an unnatural relationship—as a ghost, she can’t physically touch me, and as a zombie I have my own limitations.

We showed our passes at the circus entrance gate and entered a whirlwind of colors, sounds, smells. Big tents, wild rides, popcorn and cotton candy for the humans, more exotic treats for the unnaturals. One booth sold deep-fried artichoke hearts, while another sold deep-fried human hearts. Seeing me shamble by, a persistent vendor offered me a free sample of brains on a stick, but I politely declined.

I’m a well-preserved zombie and have never acquired a taste for brains. I’ve got my standards of behavior, not to mention personal hygiene. Given a little bit of care and effort, a zombie doesn’t have to rot and fall apart, and I take pride in looking mostly human. Some people have even called me handsome—Sheyenne certainly does, but she’s biased.

As Sheyenne flitted past the line of food stalls, her eyes were bright, her smile dazzling; I could imagine what she must have looked like as a little girl. I hadn’t seen her this happy since she’d been poisoned to death.

Nearby, a muscular clay golem lifted a wooden mallet at the Test Your Strength game and slammed it down with such force that he not only rang the bell at the top of the pole, he split the mallet in half. A troll barker at the game muttered and handed the golem a pink plush bunny as a prize. The golem set the stuffed animal next to a pile of fuzzy prizes, paid another few coins, and took a fresh mallet to play the game again.

Many of the attendees were humans, attracted by the low prices of the human matinee; the nocturnal monsters would come out for the evening show. More than a decade had passed since the Big Uneasy, when all the legendary monsters came back to the world, and human society was finally realizing that unnaturals were people just like everyone else. Yes, some were ferocious and bloodthirsty—but so were some humans. Most monsters just wanted to live and let live (even though the definition of “living” had blurred).

Sheyenne saw crowds streaming toward the Big Top. “The lion tamer should be finishing, but the vampire trapeze artist is due to start. Do you think we could . . .”

I gave her my best smile. With stiff facial muscles, my “best smile” was only average, but even so, I saved it for Sheyenne. “Sure, Spooky. We’ve got an hour before we’re supposed to meet Zelda. Let’s call it ‘gathering background information.’”

“Or we could just call it part of the date,” Sheyenne teased.

“That, too.”

We followed other humans through the tent flaps. A pudgy twelve-year-old boy was harassing his sister, poking her arm incessantly, until he glanced at me and Sheyenne. I had pulled the fedora low, but it didn’t entirely conceal the bullet hole in my forehead. When the pudgy kid gawked at the sight, his sister took advantage of the distraction and began poking him until their mother hurried them into the Big Top.

Inside, Sheyenne pointed to empty bleachers not far from the entrance. The thick canvas kept out direct sunlight, protecting the vampire performers and shrouding the interior in a pleasant nighttime gloom. My eyes adjusted quickly, because gloom is a natural state for me. Always on the case, I remained alert. If I’d been more alert while I was still alive, I would be . . . well, still alive.

When I was a human private detective in the Quarter, Sheyenne’s ghost had asked me to investigate her murder, which got me in trouble; I didn’t even see the creep come up behind me in a dark alley, put a gun to the back of my head, and pull the trigger.

Under most circumstances, that would have put an end to my career, but you can’t keep a good detective down. Thanks to the changed world, I came back from the dead, back on the case. Soon enough, I fell into my old routine, investigating mysteries wherever they might take me . . . even to the circus.

Sheyenne drifted to the nearest bleacher, and I climbed stiffly beside her. The spotlight shone down on a side ring, where a brown-furred werewolf in a scarlet vest—Calvin—cracked his bullwhip, snarling right back at a pair of snarling lions who failed to follow his commands. The thick-maned male cat growled, while the big female opened her mouth wide to show a yawn full of fangs. The lion tamer roared a response, cracked the whip again, and urged the big cats to do tricks, but they absolutely refused.

The lions flexed their claws, and the werewolf flexed his own in a show of dominance, but the lions weren’t buying it. Just when it looked as if the fur was about to fly, a loud drumroll came from the center ring.

The spotlight swiveled away from the lion tamer to fall upon the ringmaster, a tall vampire with steel-gray hair. “Ladies and gentlemen, naturals and unnaturals of all ages—in the center ring, our main event!” He pointed upward, and the spotlight swung to the cavernous tent’s rigging strung with high wires and a trapeze platform. A Baryshnikov look-alike stood on the platform, a gymnastic vampire in a silver lamé full-body leotard. He wore a medallion around his neck, a bright red ribbon with some kind of amulet, and a professional sneer.

“Bela, our vampire trapeze artist, master of the ropes—graceful, talented . . . a real swinger!” The ringmaster paused until the audience realized they were supposed to respond with polite laughter. Up on the platform, Bela lifted his chin, as if their applause was beneath him (and, technically speaking, it was, since the bleachers were far below).

“For his death-defying feat, Bela will perform without a safety net above one hundred sharpened wooden stakes!” The spotlight swung down to the floor of the ring, which was covered with a forest of pointy sticks, just waiting to perform impalement duties.

The suitably impressed audience gasped.

On the trapeze platform, Bela’s haughty sneer was wide enough to show his fangs; I could see them even from my seat in the bleachers. The gold medallion at his neck glinted in the spotlight. Rolling his shoulders to loosen up, the vampire grasped the trapeze handle and lunged out into the open air. He seemed not to care a whit about the sharp wooden stakes as he swung across to the other side. At the apex of his arc, he swung back again, gaining speed. On the backswing, Bela spun around the trapeze bar, doing a loop. As he reached the apex once again, he released, did a quick somersault high in the air, and caught the bar as he dropped down.

The audience applauded. Werewolves in the bleachers howled their appreciation; some ghouls and less-well-preserved zombies let out long, low moans that sounded upbeat, considering. I shot a glance at Sheyenne, and judging by her delighted expression, she seemed to be enjoying herself.

Bela swung back, hanging on with one hand as he gave a dismissive wave to the audience. Vampires usually have fluid movements. I remembered that one vamp had tried out for the Olympic gymnastics team four years ago—and was promptly disqualified, though the Olympic judges could not articulate a valid reason. The vampire sued, and the matter was tied up in the courts until long past the conclusion of the Olympics. The vampire gymnast took the long view, however, as she would be just as spry and healthy in the next four-year cycle, and the next, and the next.

A big drumroll signaled Bela’s finale. He swung back and forth one more time, pumping with his legs, increasing speed, and the bar soared up to the highest point yet. The vampire released his hold, flung himself into the air for another somersault, then a second, then a third as the empty trapeze swung in its clockwork arc, gliding back toward him, all perfectly choreographed.

As he dropped, Bela reached out. His fingertips brushed the bar—and missed. He flailed his hands in the air, trying to grab the trapeze, but the bar swung past out of reach, and gravity did its work. Bela tumbled toward the hundred sharp wooden stakes below.

Someone screamed. Even with my rigor-mortis-stiff knees, I lurched to my feet.

But at the last possible moment, the vampire’s plummeting form transformed in the air. Mere inches above the deadly points, Bela turned into a bat, stretching and flapping his leathery wings. He flew away, the medallion still dangling from his little furry rodent neck. He alighted on the opposite trapeze platform, then transformed back into a vampire just in time to catch the returning trapeze. He held on, showing his pointed fangs in a superior grin, and took a deep bow. On cue, the band played a loud “Ta-da!”

After a stunned moment, the audience erupted in wild applause. Sheyenne was beaming enough to make her ectoplasm glow. Even I was smiling. “That was worth the price of admission,” I said.

Sheyenne looked at me. “We didn’t pay anything—we got free tickets.”

“Then it’s worth twice as much.”

With the show over, the audience rose from the bleachers and filed toward the exit. “The cases don’t solve themselves,” I said to Sheyenne. “Let’s go find that fortune-teller.”

CHAPTER 2

As Sheyenne and I walked along the midway in search of the fortune-teller’s booth, we suddenly heard screams—not the joyful yelling of riders on a rickety roller coaster, but loud, terrified cries. Bona fide bloodcurdling shrieks. The screams of children.

I was moving before I even knew it, and Sheyenne flitted along beside me. Five children came running toward us, eyes wide enough to qualify the kids as anime cartoon characters. They yelled wordlessly, pelting past us.

They were running from a circus clown.

I had seen him on the circus posters: Fazio the Clown, grinning with a painted smile so wide he could have swallowed a bloody feast and not even left stains on his chin. His very appearance was supposed to be joyful and comforting, but I thought it looked diabolical—as did the kids, apparently.

Fazio implored, “Wait! I just want to make people laugh!”

Pursuing panicked children was not how I would have tried to make them laugh.

Panting, the clown stumbled up to us in his big floppy shoes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with kids today.” His face was covered with white greasepaint, and he wore a bright red nose the size of a tennis ball. His bald cap was wrinkled over the top of his head, and shocks of pink hair stuck out in all directions. His teeth could have used whitening (a lot of it) and orthodontia (a lot of it). He held out a bicycle horn and honked it in my face. “Does that make you laugh?” Then he giggled, an edgy Renfield-catching-a-whole-handful-of-flies laugh.

“Sorry, not today,” I said.

Glum, Fazio hung his head and shuffled off with his floppy shoes.

We found the booth of Zelda the fortune-teller, a rickety affair made of plywood and two-by-fours painted bright blue, festooned with crepe paper and a stenciled sign that said, FORTUNES TOLD: $5. But the price had been crossed out and reduced three successive times to the bargain rate of $1.

At the booth, a customer forked over a dollar bill, so we kept our distance, watching the fortune-teller in action. Zelda had told me to be discreet.

The customer was a potbellied man in plaid shorts and black socks. (And they say unnaturals look odd?) Zelda wore a curly wig of platinum-blond hair, eye shadow and blush that must have been purchased in bulk and applied with a trowel; the five o’clock shadow had come in a few hours early on the fortune-teller’s cheeks. Gold hoop earrings, gold necklaces, and gold bangles accessorized a dress with a high neckline, but still showed planetary-sized bo-somic curves, which were obviously just stuffing.

Zelda shuffled a well-worn deck of regular playing cards, then laid five cards face-up on the wooden tabletop in front of the customer. “The eight of clubs is a good sign—it shows you have worthy goals and are determined to achieve them.” The supposedly female voice was falsetto and unconvincing.

He laid down another card. “The king of hearts indicates that you will be happy in romance, lucky in love.”

“But when?” the man asked, plaintive.

“Unfortunately, the cards have no time stamp,” Zelda said. “Now, the third one . . . ah, the three of spades! A very significant card. You are destined to have great financial success, but it may take a while, so be patient.”

The man took hope from that. He looked at the last card. “And the jack of diamonds?”

Zelda shook her head. “That, unfortunately, is a minor card. It merely signifies that your breakfast won’t satisfy you for long and you should seek refreshment from one of our fine food booths.” The fortune-teller gathered the cards and restacked them in the deck as the customer bent down to pull up his black socks, which had slid lower on his ankles, then he walked off.

Taking our cue, Sheyenne and I stepped up to the fortune-teller. Zelda shuffled the deck, gave me a skeptical look. “I charge extra to determine the fate of the undead.”

“We’re not here for a reading, uh, ma’am. You hired us—I’m Dan Chambeaux, private investigator, and this is my associate Sheyenne.”

Her voice dropped at least two octaves, and she lit a cigarette. “Of course, Mr. Chambeaux—thanks for stopping by.” Zelda eyed my gaunt form, looked at my complexion, frowned at the bullet hole in my forehead. “Your business card didn’t say you weren’t alive.”

“Those are old cards. I need to get them reprinted.”

Sheyenne joined in. “We have references available upon request.”

I got down to business. “I understand your magic fortune-telling deck has been misplaced? You need us to find it?”

“Not misplaced—stolen. I’m sure of it this time.”

Some questions beg to be asked. “This time?”

“It’s my second deck gone in six months! I thought I must have misplaced the first one—it happens in the circus, packing up, tearing down, day after day. But real magic fortune-telling decks are hard to come by, so I kept careful watch on the replacement cards. It was the last deck the supplier had in stock, and I couldn’t afford another. But it’s gone, too. Somebody stole it . . . somebody who’s out to get me.” He lowered his voice. “I predicted that, even without the cards!”

The customer is always right, as the saying goes; and also, the customer is sometimes paranoid. “We’ll look into it, Mr., uh, Ms. Zelda.”

“Aldo. My real name is Aldo Firkin. Zelda’s just a stage name.” He dabbed at the layers of peacock-colored eye shadow. “It’s all an act.”

“You don’t say,” I said. Sheyenne pretended to jab me with her spectral elbow, though I couldn’t feel her touch. She sometimes has to remind me to show a proper professional attitude in front of the clients.

The fortune-teller frowned, plucking at the absurd dress. “You think I want to dress up like this? I’m not a natural-born transvestite, but I can’t make a living otherwise. It’s a stereotype we can’t shake—nobody wants male fortunetellers. What a sham! All these decades of fighting for equal rights, and I have to do this.” He adjusted the ridiculous wig. “Now, about my stolen cards? I really need them back. I’ve been doing my best.” With a burring rattle of laminated paper, Aldo/Zelda shuffled the regular playing cards. “But there’s nothing magical about these. I’m just making it up. My other deck—now, those cards were real, the magic just barely starting to wear off.”

His brow furrowed as he looked down at the old playing cards. “Oddly enough, my fortunes seem to be just as accurate with this ordinary deck. I must be really good at this.” He tapped the deck, drew a card, looked at it, and smiled. “Ah, correctly predicted that one. Maybe there’s real magic here!”

“Or maybe you’re just telling people what they want to hear,” I suggested.

Aldo grinned. “Ah, and that’s the real magic, isn’t it? Give cryptic fortunes and let the customer figure out the true meaning. ‘You will lose something very valuable to you, but you will gain something unexpected.’ That’s one I told the fat lady a few months ago.”

“Sounds like a bad horoscope,” I said.

“Actually, it sounds like a good horoscope,” Sheyenne said.

The gaunt vampire ringmaster walked by, still wearing his equestrian jacket; he kept to the awnings, shading his head with his black top hat to avoid the direct sunlight. Aldo waved. “Oscar! Come here—this is the private detective I was telling you about. Dan Chambeaux, meet Oscar Kowalski, ringmaster and circus owner.”

The ringmaster gave a formal nod, and we exchanged a cold grip. “Dan Shamble?”

“Chambeaux,” I corrected. “People always mispronounce my name. And I wouldn’t expect a vampire to be named Oscar Kowalski. I’d think something more like . . . Bela.”

Kowalski let out an annoyed snort. “Bela is a drama queen and a pain in the ass, but he does draw a crowd, and that’s what it’s all about.” He lowered his voice. “I’m glad Aldo called you to look into the thefts. We’ve had a rash of them over the past two weeks.” He shot a narrow-eyed glare at the transvestite fortune-teller. “But we need to be discreet.”

Aldo sounded indignant. “He’s a private detective, not a public one. And I couldn’t wait any longer—I need my magic cards back.”

“What other thefts?” Sheyenne pressed.

“Mostly minor items, low value,” Kowalski said.

“My fortune-telling cards are extremely valuable!” Aldo insisted.

The ringmaster continued, “But it causes a lot of nuisance and unease. We like to think we’re family here at the circus.”

“I miss the Bearded Lady,” Aldo muttered. “Harriet was like a mother to us all, really kept the circus tight-knit, like a family. Things were so much nicer before she went off to lead a semi-normal life of her own.”

Kowalski shook his head. “We all miss Harriet, but there’s not much call for everyday freaks after the Big Uneasy. People can see weirder creatures on any walk through the Quarter.”

I got back to business. “We need to know what the other items are. All the clues should lead to the same suspect.”

“I can get you a list—a long one,” Aldo said, then considered. “But if you’re investigating all of the thefts in the circus, then Oscar should pay your bill.”

The ringmaster’s shoulders drooped. “I’ll pay half . . . provided Mr. Shamble—uh, Chambeaux—can help us all out. Most of the other items aren’t worth much.”

“If there’s a thief running loose, maybe we should report it to Officer McGoohan?” Sheyenne suggested.

I explained, “I have a good friend on the police force. He’ll take your problems seriously.”

Kowalski cleared his throat. “That won’t be necessary. We must count on your discretion, Mr. Chambeaux. People don’t trust circus folk as it is, even here in the Unnatural Quarter, and I don’t want to do anything to reinforce that stereotype. You probably don’t like it when people consider all zombies to be brain-eating clods with speech impediments.”

“Not at all,” I said. “I work hard to stay well preserved.”

Kowalski tipped his hat. “I hope you can resolve this quickly and quietly. The circus is your client.”

“But find my magic cards first,” Aldo insisted as he jotted down the list on a scrap of paper.

“If we find the thief, we should find all of the stolen items,” I said.

Sheyenne and I read the list as we walked away. In addition to the magic fortune-telling cards (two sets, but I doubted we’d find the one he’d lost six months earlier), Aldo had listed a hammer (standard hardware store issue), glass milk bottle from one of the game booths, dagger from the knife thrower’s act, three costume-jewelry necklaces from Annie the fat lady (hence a rope-length of jewelry), and a cold Reuben sandwich from a refrigerator in the Flag. I figured we could discount that last item.

We had no trouble finding the fat lady, mainly because she wasn’t very mobile, but also because she was so large. In her open tent, Annie reclined on—and covered most of—a queen-sized bed. Plates mounded with chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and Danishes sat within reach of one hand; by the other side of the bed sat a tray of chicken wings and ribs. She had apparently been through several plates already, but despite the aftermath of her obviously enormous appetite, her face looked saggy. I didn’t think the fat lady looked healthy at all, but since I’m undead, I’m not one to point fingers.

Annie’s wide throat was round and somewhat tubular, like a pelican with a particular lucky catch of fish. She had permed gray hair and wire-rim glasses that made her look like the world’s kindest, and largest, grandmother. An enormous floral muumuu extended all the way down to her ankles; sleeves covered the wrists where they met the gloves. Under her gigantic tent of a dress, her mounded belly stirred and squirmed in a disturbing way, as if her intestines were rearranging themselves before our eyes.

Annie gave us a twinkling smile. “Hello, dears! Come in and stare—that’s what I’m here for. Would you like a cookie? I’ve got plenty.” She extended the tray to us.

“No thanks, ma’am,” Sheyenne said. “I’m ectoplasmic.”

“And I’m on a low-carb diet,” I added, even though it was just an excuse. My undead taste buds were no longer very discriminating, and Annie needed a constant stream of calories just to maintain her bulk. She consumed the rest of the cookies with methodical swiftness, as if it were her mission.

“We’re from Chambeaux and Deyer Investigations, and we’re here on a case.” I set one of our business cards on the bedside table next to the chicken wings. “We’ve been hired to investigate certain items that have gone missing. If there’s a circus thief, we’ll catch him.”

“A thief? Oh, my!” Annie held her hands to her face, licked a few crumbs from her fingers. “I refuse to believe members of my dear circus family are thieves.” Her mounded stomach shifted and churned, and Annie let out an embarrassed giggle, placing her hands flat on her belly. “Just a bit of indigestion—it tends to get extreme in my case.”

I held up Aldo’s handwritten list. “According to this, you’ve lost several items of jewelry?”

“Oh, dear me, I may have misplaced a few cheap necklaces—I’m always doing that. When I manage to walk around, I can’t see the ground, and if something falls . . . well, I just give it up for lost. I wouldn’t call them stolen. The circus people are my family. I’m like a mother to them since Harriet’s gone. Someone has to watch out for everyone.”

I tipped my fedora. “If you think of anything, please let us know, ma’am. Any clue would help.”

Leaving the fat lady’s tent, we strolled along the midway, and soon Fazio the Clown buttonholed us again. “I saw you two talking with that fraud fortune-teller! He’s a fake—a complete fake. I doubt he could predict yesterday if he had a newspaper in front of him.”

If you had asked me before the Big Uneasy, I would have said that all fortune-telling was fake. Now, though, I’d seen plenty of evidence of functional spells. “He’s at a disadvantage if he lost his magic cards.”

“Not the cards—the sham costume. Him in his stupid wig and his clumsy makeup! It’s an embarrassment. Makeup is no joke. I work hard on my appearance, greasepaint over every inch of exposed skin.” He tugged at his shocks of pink hair, straightened the bald cap, then tweaked the bright red nose. “It’s a beautiful design, the perfect clown face—I’ve even got it trademarked. But Zelda, or Aldo, or whoever or whatever the name is, does it just to make a buck. It cheapens the art of face painting.”

“And why do you paint your face?” Sheyenne asked.

“For a greater purpose, of course—to get a laugh.”

Or a scream, I thought, remembering the terrified children.

“We’re investigating a rash of burglaries, not makeup techniques,” I said. “Any comments about his missing deck of fortune-telling cards?”

“I don’t know anything about the first one he lost, and not the second one either.” He snorted, then stormed off. “You should be investigating Aldo. His eye shadow is a crime!”

CHAPTER 3

After gathering as much information as we could, Sheyenne and I returned to the Chambeaux & Deyer offices in the seedy, run-down section of the Unnatural Quarter (I realize that’s not very specific).

Sheyenne began compiling a list of circus suspects and digging up dirt on them. She’s good at uncovering details, whether they be sordid details, suspicious details, or just plain bookkeeping details.

A large part of my job is time management. Real life as an undead private investigator isn’t like a TV detective show, where the PI works on one mystery at a time and solves it without other clients getting in the way. In addition to investigating stolen items at the vampire circus, I had several active cases.

My partner, Robin Deyer, came out to brief me on the legal battles she had fought during the day. As a lawyer, Robin makes sure that downtrodden and underrepresented monsters get a fair shot in the legal system. She’s a young African American, as pretty as she is determined—and she is extremely determined. Her eyes had a faraway, preoccupied look because case subtleties ran through her head at all times.

I had taken her under my wing back when I was a human private detective. We shared office space, offered assistance on each other’s cases, and enjoyed working together. After my murder, I think Robin was hit even harder by my death than I was. When I came back from the grave, she welcomed me with open arms (after she got over the shock and uneasiness). She made a special point to treat me just as she’d always done, and we quickly got back to our usual routine.

“Any word on the gargoyle case?” I asked.

For several weeks Robin had represented a gargoyle who was suing the Notre Dame cathedral for unauthorized use of his likeness. Comparing the gargoyle himself with photographs of several specific stone figures on the ancient cathedral, the resemblance was undeniable.

Her expression tightened. “I think we’re going to lose that one. There seems to be an unbreakable statute of limitations clause in church law. Today, I’m neck-deep in that unnatural voting rights case.”

Robin was tilting at a different windmill, challenging voter restrictions recently put in place for the sole purpose of denying unnaturals the right to vote. (No one seemed to remember that in some corrupt cities, dead people had done more than their share of voting over the years. . . .) Both political parties insisted that the proposed voter suppression rules against unnaturals were disenfranchising their constituents, although neither side had been able to prove that unnaturals leaned toward any particular affiliation, as a rule.

After Robin described a brief she had filed and her court appearance schedule for the week, I told her about the vampire circus and headed to my office to take care of my own work. “I think I can wrap up the Amontillado case this afternoon.”

“Good,” Sheyenne called from the receptionist’s desk. “We need to send them a bill.”

Robin cautioned, “The outcome wasn’t what the client expected. Maybe we should offer a discount—”

Sheyenne cut right in. “The client is a client, and a fee is a fee.” If Robin had her way, she would do all cases pro bono, and Sheyenne often had to remind her about the facts of business. Even though I was undead and Sheyenne was a ghost, Robin still needed to eat, and we all had to pay the rent on the office space.

I suggested a compromise. “Give the client a coupon for his next case with us. We did solve the mystery, which is what he hired us to do.”

A wealthy man had asked me to track down a very rare cask of Amontillado, more than a century and a half old, and I found the cask behind a brick wall, along with an animated skeleton that had been manacled there. In the years since the Big Uneasy, the skeleton had managed to break loose from one manacle by detaching his entire bony hand. With his wrist released, he was able to reach the cask, work the bung loose, and pour the extremely expensive sherry down his throat. Of course, since he had no throat, the rare Amontillado spilled all over the vault floor and dried up. When I found the very expensive and very empty cask I’d been hired to track down, the skeleton laughed and laughed at the joke, saying in a rattling voice, “I drank it all, I drank it all!”

Now I sat at my desk and wrote up the report, reducing the total number of hours billed on the case just to make Robin happy, and to make me feel better as well; Sheyenne didn’t need to know.

It was full-dark outside by the time Sheyenne flitted through my closed office door. She carried a stack of papers, which could not spectrally pass through the barrier, so they fluttered to the floor outside. With an impatient frown, she flitted back out, picked up the papers, and opened the door to enter via the normal way.

“I ran down the usual suspects at the circus. Some very interesting background material.”

I took the papers. “Anything suspicious?”

She arched her eyebrows. “Naturals and unnaturals all working for a traveling circus run by a vampire—isn’t that suspicious enough?”

“I was hoping for something more specific.”

“So many aliases, stage names, plenty of skeletons in the closet—and not like the one you found with your cask of Amontillado.” She grinned at me.

“Speaking of that. . .” I handed her the bill and final report, which pleased her very much.

She continued with her summary, “First off, Oscar Kowalski is not a very talented businessman. He’s filed for bankruptcy twice since the Big Uneasy, barely scraped through, and seems to be in rocky circumstances right now.”

I said, “I don’t see how stealing a deck of fortune-teller cards, costume jewelry, and a cold Reuben sandwich would help his financial situation.”

“Probably not.” Sheyenne glanced down at her papers again. “Checking back along the circus route over the years, I found that two goblin roustabouts were arrested for petty theft, but they escaped and disappeared. Young twins. Their juvenile records should have been sealed, but Robin pried them loose because the law is still murky.”

“Robin used a murky law to her own advantage?” I asked. “Good for her.”

Sheyenne blew an imaginary breath through her lips. “The goblins were over eighteen years old—adults according to the letter of the law—but goblins live a long time, and those twins are still adolescents as far as goblins go. Still, nobody’s bothered to change the law, so we got the arrest records. Not that it does us much good, if the twins are no longer with the circus.”

Robin would probably decide to challenge that law, now that she’d noticed the injustice.

“What else?” I asked.

“Aldo—or should we call him Zelda?—is late on his child support, and his ex-wife is trying to track him down.” She checked off items on her list. “Fazio got arrested for drunk driving in his clown car, but that was never prosecuted. Oh, and his clown license has expired.”

I frowned. “I didn’t know there was such a thing as a clown license. I find that very suspicious.”

Sheyenne blinked her blue eyes at me. “More suspicious than all the other things?”

“He’s a clown. I’m always suspicious of clowns.”

CHAPTER 4

With the information Sheyenne had uncovered about the circus personnel, I went back to the midway early enough to catch the nighttime monster matinee. While unnatural crowds started to gather inside the Big Top for Bela’s performance, I stopped by Oscar Kowalski’s office trailer just outside the main tent. I wanted to ask him about bankruptcy filings, late child-support payments, Fazio’s expired clown license, and anything else that came to mind. Instead, I stumbled into another crisis.

“I refuse, Oscar!” Bela cried with an exaggerated and obviously fake Transylvanian accent. He raised his chin with an imperious air and flared the nostrils on his beak-like nose. “You must cancel the show. I can’t perform under these circumstances—it is impossible!”

“Nothing’s impossible, Bela.” Kowalski sounded long-suffering and annoyed. He sat at his desk with an open, and messily scribbled ledger. “Nobody’s canceling the show. You can go on, and you will go on.”

“But it’s been stolen!” Bela clutched at his throat, where I noticed the gold medallion was missing. (The far-too-clingy silver lamé bodysuit had previously demanded most of my attention.) “It’s my Air Commander medal, given to me for being a Flying Ace in World War Two—or World War One, I forget which. If I don’t wear the medal, then I won’t have the confidence to transform into a bat at the climax of my show.”

I interrupted, startling them. “You need a magic talisman to change into a bat?”

“Have you ever tried it?” Bela snapped, then whirled on Kowalski. “Have you? Most vampires are incapable. It requires the utmost concentration. My Air Commander medal is the perfect focusing aid.”

“So it’s like Dumbo’s magic feather?” I said. “Without it, you wouldn’t have the self-confidence to fly?”

Bela raised himself up, looked down his nose at me, and said with withering sarcasm, “Yes, exactly like that.” He sniffed.

“It’s all in his head,” Kowalski explained to me. “Nothing magical whatsoever. The medallion’s just a piece of junk.”

“It is part of my act! I feel naked without it.”

Again, I had trouble tearing my attention from the excessively form-fitting lamé bodysuit.

The ringmaster looked at his watch, closed his ledger with finality. “Sorry, Bela, but the show must go on. So follow that advice—go on!”

In a huff, the vampire trapeze artist strutted out of the admin trailer.

With a flicker of relief on his face, Kowalski turned to me. “Every week he’s got some other excuse, imagines he’s been cursed whenever he passes gas, threatens to quit the circus, but I doubt any rival show would have him.”

“Are there other monster circuses?” I hadn’t heard of any.

“No. Hence, my point. And I admit it takes a lot of concentration to turn into a bat, especially on the fly, but he doesn’t have to be such an ass about it.” He brushed down his jacket, looked at the watch again. “Now, I didn’t expect to see you back so soon, Mr. Chambeaux. Come up with answers yet?”

“Even better—I’ve got a lot more questions.”

“How is that better?”

“That means I’m making progress.”

Kowalski stood from his desk. He looked tired as he reached for his top hat. “I can’t talk with you at the moment. The show must go on for me, too, and if there’s any unreasonable delay in the performance the lions start complaining.”

“Don’t you mean the lion tamer?” I asked.

“No, Calvin’s easy to deal with, but the lions want their treats, and they can get quite demanding.” He showed me out of the trailer and locked the door behind us.

With the audience crowded in the Big Top for the monster matinee, the midway was quiet and dark. I decided to lurk and snoop, two things for which a zombie detective is eminently qualified.

Since the Air Commander medal was the latest stolen item, I made my way to Bela’s darkened tent. Though he considered himself the star of the circus, the vampire’s mobile domicile wasn’t much more than a place to shelter his coffin when he needed some quiet time—wide open and not secure. If Bela had gone to ground to take a nap, someone could easily have snatched his medal from the nightstand and run off with it.

I walked around outside Bela’s tent, senses alert and scanning the ground for any unusual clues . . . such as that playing card lying faceup on the ground not far from the tent.

It was the jack of diamonds, the same card that predicted a person would be hungry soon after breakfast. I guessed it came from Zelda’s deck.

I kept plodding along, scanning from side to side. The circus seemed eerily empty, filled with shadows. I heard the audience cheer in the Big Top; Calvin must be in the middle of his act.

Spotting something ahead, I bent over to pick up another playing card, the six of hearts. With two dropped playing cards making a dotted line that led from Bela’s recently burgled tent toward the general direction of Zelda/Aldo’s trailer, I knew how to connect the dots.

As I approached the trailer, I heard raised voices, an argument in full swing. Aldo was shouting, so upset that he still sounded high-pitched and falsetto, and not in an attempt to maintain his transvestite identity. “What did you want with my magic cards anyway? It wasn’t enough for you to steal my fortune-telling deck, so you had to steal my playing cards, too? And my makeup kit? You’re trying to ruin me!” He had his wig in his hand, and a smear of cold cream had removed only the first few layers of eye shadow.

Fazio was still in full clown makeup, his bright red nose planted in the middle of his white-painted face, his pink hair sticking out in all directions. “You have nothing I’d even want to steal—certainly not your amateur makeup kit! You are a fake and a disgrace!”

Before they could come to blows, I interrupted, holding up the two playing cards. “Are these from the deck? I found them on the ground near Bela’s tent—there’s been another robbery.”

Aldo grabbed the playing cards, as if he could make a good start with only two of the fifty-two. “Yes, there has—my cards and my makeup kit.”

Fazio asked, “What other robbery?”

“Someone took Bela’s Air Commander medal right before his trapeze act.”

“Bela never goes anywhere without that gaudy thing.” Aldo crossed his arms over his too-obviously padded chest, then turned to the clown. “Why would you steal the poor vamp’s Air Commander medal?”

“I didn’t steal it! And I didn’t steal your damn cards, either! Or your makeup kit. I am a completely honest, law-abiding citizen.”

“Then what about my Reuben sandwich?” Aldo demanded. Fazio hesitated just long enough for the fortune-teller to pounce. “I knew it—you took my sandwich!”

“Those may be two unrelated cases,” I said. “And, Fazio, you’re not off my list of suspects—I know you’ve been keeping secrets.”

The circus clown seemed to turn even whiter than his greasepaint. “You . . . know my secret?”

“Your clown license is expired, and that’s enough to make me suspicious,” I said, deciding not to bring up the clown-car drunk driving incident. “I can bring in the real police at any time, but for now I’ll keep looking.”

I stalked off among the dark trailers and tents. I hoped I could find the Air Commander medal in time to take it to the vampire trapeze artist before his act, just to give him a psychological boost. The crowd in the Big Top continued to cheer the lion tamer’s show.

I paused at Annie’s tent. Since the tent flaps were open, I looked in. The fat lady was inside, lying on her bed, and appeared to be asleep, covered by a mounded blanket. She looked like a mountain range under the comforters. More plates piled with cookies, brownies, ribs, and wings remained within easy reach; someone must replenish them all day long. I left her to rest.

I circled around, trying to keep an open mind, but ready to find Fazio responsible (okay, I admit, I was guilty of clown profiling). There, outside the front of his tent, I found the red ribbon and gold disk—Bela’s Air Commander medal, just lying on the ground. Not only was the circus thief persistent and random, he was also clumsy. Why steal things, then drop them all over the place like a cat losing interest in a mouse?

In the Big Top, the crowd cheered and applauded as Calvin finished his show. I grabbed the medal, deciding to confront the clown later. At the moment I had to get the Air Commander medal back to the vampire trapeze artist before he started his act.

I expected to feel a tingle of magic; if the Air Commander medal were really a spell-impregnated amulet, I should have been able to sense the power even with my numb fingers. Then the “gold” disk rotated as I dangled the ribbon, revealing Made in China stamped on the back; I suspected the disk itself was nothing more than coated tin.

But Bela somehow had it in his head that he needed this thing for his bat transformation, so I might as well be of service.

I raced to the Big Top at the best speed I could manage—joints and muscles tend to stiffen up postmortem, so it’s a good thing I keep myself in shape. So many spectators were milling at the main tent opening—mummies, werewolves, ghouls, vampires, a very tall ogre—that I couldn’t get inside, so I ran around to the side by Oscar Kowalski’s office trailer. I pushed my way through a smaller stage entrance, holding up the medal. “Wait—I have to get this to Bela before he starts!”

But the ringmaster had already announced the performance, and the crowd drowned out my voice. Spotlights shone on Bela, high up on his trapeze platform, and the audience gave suitable gasps as the light swung down to illuminate the hundred sharpened stakes.

For all his prima donna behavior, Bela was a true showman. Even without the not-so-magic medal around his neck, he showed no sign of nervousness as he grabbed the trapeze and swung out over the yawning gap. As Bela began his act, Kowalski withdrew to the side of the tent, where he saw me holding the red-ribboned amulet. “I found it,” I said, “but too late.”

The ringmaster gave a snort. “He doesn’t need the thing. It’s all in his head, and I can’t let him make excuses. The show must go on.”

Above, Bela did a beautiful somersault loop, then caught the trapeze bar again.

“His ego needs to be taken down a notch anyway. He demanded a big pay raise. Does he think the circus is actually making any money? We’re holding on by a spiderweb here.”

I lowered my voice. “I know about the bankruptcies, Mr. Kowalski.”

The ringmaster frowned. “So then you know I can’t pay Bela any more, but I can’t have him leave, either. If he refused to do the show tonight, and I had to refund all these tickets . . .” He gestured to the audience. “I might as well bury myself six feet under without a book to read.”

Bela swung back and forth on the trapeze, increasing his momentum and height as he set up for the climax of the show.

Kowalski looked up. “The fumble is all part of the act, you know. He better not chicken out tonight.”

At the apex of the swing, Bela flipped himself into the air, spun three somersaults, then reached out to catch the returning bar, fumbled and missed—just as I had seen him do that afternoon. Bela wore a panicked look, his arms outstretched as he plummeted toward the pointy wooden stakes.

The audience gasped. A necromancer screamed in a high womanish voice. Kowalski and I waited for Bela to transform into a bat.

And waited.

He flailed and thrashed in real panic. In the last instant, Bela squeezed his eyes shut, either in a last-ditch attempt to concentrate or to avoid seeing so many sharp wooden tips. And then he slammed into them. Since he’d been falling spread-eagled, Bela managed to impale himself on a goodly number of the one hundred stakes.

Kowalski gaped. The monsters in the audience screamed; some chuckled, thinking it was part of the show. But when Bela sizzled and fumed, his body boiling and flesh sloughing away to leave only a skeleton that crumbled to dust, people began running out of the Big Top. A few stayed and applauded.

“I have to manage this crowd!” Kowalski said as he bolted away from me. “The show’s over—you saw it finish. Nobody’s getting refunds.”

Disgusted, I held up the Air Commander medal and called after him. “I found this by Fazio’s tent—and I bet he also stole Aldo’s deck of fortune-telling cards.”

Then I had another thought, realizing that the uproar would let Fazio know that Bela was dead—and the clown knew he was responsible. If the amulet truly had no magic, I didn’t know whether this counted technically as murder, but at the very least he had caused a deadly accident, messing with the vampire trapeze artist’s head before a dangerous act. Fazio had some explaining to do, and I had to stop him before he fled the circus.

I pulled out my cell phone and called Officer Toby McGoohan, commonly called McGoo (by me, at least), and told him to roll the squad cars, that we had a death at the circus and a possible murderer to arrest. McGoo likes to hear things like that. He’s my BHF—my best human friend—and we’ve helped each other on many cases. I knew I could count on him now.

First, though, I had to prevent the escape of a deadly circus clown.

CHAPTER 5

I expected to find Fazio at his tent, stuffing valuables into a hobo sack so he could run far from the Quarter. That’s what I would do, if I were a killer clown cat-burglar responsible for the death of a vampire trapeze artist.

I did find Fazio in his tent, but he wasn’t packing up to leave. Instead he was wailing, outraged. “They stole my nose! The little bastards stole my nose!”

The clown whirled to face me, and I saw that the big red nose was indeed gone from the middle of his face. More shocking, though: The fake nose wasn’t the only thing missing. Fazio’s real nose was gone, leaving a cavernous empty sinus socket draped with a few shreds of rotted flesh. The makeup had been smudged around his eyes, and I could see the sunken hollow look, the grayish tone to his unpainted skin.

“You’re a zombie!” I cried, demonstrating my detective abilities.

“Not just a zombie,” Fazio insisted. “A clown, too. That’s my true calling in life—and afterlife.”

A zombie clown, I thought. Now that’s scary.

Fazio moaned, covering the nose hole in the middle of his face. “All I ever wanted was to make people laugh.” Then he looked up at me. “Why are you so surprised? You’re undead, and you came back to keep solving cases. Why can’t I still be a clown just because I’m a zombie? Maybe that’s why I rose up in the first place—to make people laugh.”

Actually, he wasn’t making anyone laugh that I could tell, but I decided not to argue with him.

He touched his cheeks. “Put on enough greasepaint and a wig, no one can tell the difference. I still do my job.” A wave of anger passed through him again. “And those little goblin bastards stole my nose! I thought we were done with them for good! Last time they were here, the twins stole everything that wasn’t superglued down.” He let out a huff. “In fact, we tried supergluing everything down . . . which did prevent the thefts, but kept us from using the items at all. Bad idea. And then they stole the tube of superglue.”

“Which way did they go?” I heard sirens wailing in the distance. McGoo responded quickly, especially when he knew he’d have a nice arrest on his record without having to do the footwork.

The clown sniffled again—which came out as a loud hooting sound without his nose—and pointed out the tent. “They grabbed the nose off my face and ran that way. Somebody must be hiding them.”

“What would they do with a clown nose?” I asked. “Can you sell it on an auction site somewhere?”

“They don’t do anything with what they steal—they just steal it. It’s an illness. That’s why you find so many things just lying around on the ground.”

I bolted out of Fazio’s tent, hoping to intercept the kleptomaniac goblins. The circus midway was full of attendees streaming toward the exits, chattering about Bela’s spectacular (and, most agreed, entertaining) death. Some unnaturals still insisted it was part of the show and were trying to figure out how the trick was done.

Then I spotted another playing card lying on the ground and a necklace a few steps beyond that, then a baseball cap, and an eye patch. This was like a scavenger hunt. All of the bread crumbs were heading toward the fat lady’s tent.

I heard a scuffle and a squeal, and I put on a burst of speed; zombies can move quickly in emergencies, or when they’re especially hungry. “Over here!” I yelled, hoping someone else would come running. I already knew Fazio was sounding the alarm among his circus friends, who were already alarmed after the death of the vampire trapeze artist (or maybe just because of the approaching police sirens).

The flaps of the fat lady’s tent were down, but I yanked them open. I saw Annie struggling with her enormous dress, pulling down the fabric folds to cover her body—and the dress itself, or something inside it, was fighting back.

“Quickly, my dears, quickly!” When she saw me, a look of horror crossed her face (I often get that reaction). She did not look like a sweet granny now; her whole face was much skinnier, as if someone had deflated her. Annie still had many chins, but they hung like wattles around her neck.

As she struggled and thrashed with her recalcitrant dress, the fabric tore, and a goblin’s smooth, ugly head poked out. The second young goblin also squirmed and broke free, ripping the dress to shreds as they both escaped from their unorthodox hiding place. Inside the tentlike flower-print fabric, they left behind a rather scrawny-looking Annie in a one-piece bathing suit. The goblins hissed and snapped, annoyed to be exposed.

Goblins are like small, gray-skinned elves . . . if those elves happened to be born from a mother saturated with toxic waste and poisonous thoughts. Their huge mouths were filled with needle-like teeth, and their glowing eyes could have been used as a plumber’s utility light. As the goblin twins tried to scramble away, Annie wrapped her arms around them and pulled the creatures close to her in a motherly embrace.

There was hardly anything to Annie now. With all her loose skin, she looked as if she was wasting away, despite the numerous plates of ribs, cookies, etc., she consumed every day. Then I realized that if she had been hiding the kleptomaniac creatures, they might have eaten much of the food.

The fat lady’s eyes were wide, her expression desperate. “You can’t take my boys!” She yanked the goblins closer, practically smothering them. “I was trying to protect them, and they helped me when I needed it most! They’re so sweet.” She held out her hand, and one of the goblins tried to bite it. Annie giggled.

More shouts came from outside the tent. Fazio, the now-noseless clown, staggered in, accompanied by Aldo, who’d thrown on his wig while he ran, as well as the werewolf lion tamer, who still held his bullwhip, ready to use it.

The vampire ringmaster barged in right behind them, distraught. “The police are coming. What the—” He stopped when he saw the goblins. “What the hell are those two doing here? With all the arrest warrants—”

As the kleptomaniac goblin twins tried to bolt, Calvin cracked his bullwhip, and they skittered back into Annie’s protective embrace.

“I won’t turn them out into the cold,” she said with a sniffle. “They’re just misunderstood. They stole things, but they didn’t mean anything bad by it.”

“Nothing bad?” Kowalski cried. “They stole Bela’s Air Commander medal. Without it, he didn’t think he could turn into a bat—and now he’s dead!”

Annie was disturbed by this. “But he started out dead.”

“I mean he’s really dead now!”

“Well, I’m sure they’re very sorry,” Annie insisted.

“The medallion was fake.” I held it up so everyone could see the words Made in China stamped on the back. “No intrinsic magic.”

Annie sounded defensive. “There—no harm done.”

The clown and the fortune-teller looked at the strangely emaciated form of the fat lady. Aldo said, “What happened to you? You used to be so . . . so . . .”

“Fat,” she answered.

“I was about to say substantial.” Then Aldo remembered his priorities. “And what happened to my fortune-telling cards?”

“I lost weight, thanks to your magic cards.” She sniffed, sounding glum. “When Harriet left the circus, I wanted to be in better shape to mother you all. It’s quite a job! I wanted to be healthy, go on a diet, so I signed up for a guaranteed Gypsy weight-loss routine. Mean Cuisine. I lost four hundred pounds—and now I can’t stop!”

Aldo scratched his wig, which was already askew. “What did my fortune-telling deck have to do with it?”

“I needed your cards, ones with real magic, and that’s why I took your deck six months ago.” She sniffed and made an excuse. “Well, you did leave them lying around a lot.” When the fortune-teller glared at her, she turned away. “I just had to have two specific cards, the fat lady and the skeleton. I superglued the cards together, read the spell from the Gypsy diet book, and this fat lady started to look more like a skeleton. Worked like a charm!”

“Uh, it was a charm,” I pointed out.

“But because of the superglue, I couldn’t separate the cards again. Impossible to break the spell. And I realized I was going to lose my livelihood! Being a fat lady is all I am . . . and believe me, there was a lot of me.” She pulled at the excessive folds of her torn dress. “Everybody loved me when I was a fat lady. Everyone wanted to hug me, lose themselves in my expansive . . . everything. I needed another fortune-telling deck, a fresh skeleton card and a fat lady card, so I could break the magic.”

“So you stole my other deck, too!” Aldo said.

“The goblin boys did.” Annie sounded ashamed. “You were much more careful after losing the first one, and I wasn’t exactly nimble enough to slip into your trailer unnoticed. The boys came back to the circus, looking for shelter and hoping to hide from the police, and I just asked them to do me that one favor. Unfortunately, once they got started . . .”

Officer McGoohan and four uniformed cops charged into the tent, all trying to fit through the open flap at once, as if they were performing their own circus clown act. Fortunately, because it was designed for a fat lady, the tent opening was double-wide.

McGoo’s a rough, tough cop who gets himself in trouble more often than the criminals do, but he and I have gotten each other out of trouble enough times, too. “Shamble, tell me what’s going on here.”

I rattled off a quick summary. “Fat lady hiding kleptomaniac goblins in her dress, a vampire trapeze artist accidentally murdered because he couldn’t change into a bat, deck of magic fortune-telling cards stolen—among other things.”

McGoo nodded. “Oh, another one of those cases.”

The goblins tried to bolt as the policemen rounded them up, and Calvin used his whip with great enthusiasm as well as precision. Even after the goblin thieves were handcuffed, they snapped with their needle-like teeth, trying to bite the hands that arrested them. Fortunately, among his other useful defensive items, McGoo kept a roll of duct tape on his belt, with which he secured the criminal goblins’ mouths.

“Oh, my poor dears,” Annie wailed. “They just need some love and understanding.”

“They need a little time behind bars,” I said. “Or at least doing community service.” All in all, I doubted the stolen items added up to more than a misdemeanor.

“There are other arrest warrants for those two.” McGoo was shaking his head. “And the fat lady was aiding and abetting.”

“For petty theft,” Kowalski said, troubled. “Bela might disagree, but he never liked to accept blame for anything. He did sign a waiver acknowledging the inherent risk in performing death-defying feats.”

Kowalski stood next to Annie. “The circus is like family, and Annie is part of it. We’re not pressing charges against her, and we’ll return all the stolen items to their rightful owners.”

“Except for my magic deck,” Aldo grumbled.

“I can track down another one,” I said. “Part of my services.”

“And my Reuben sandwich.”

“Can’t help you there. . . .”

Without asking permission, the clown and the fortune-teller worked together—a victory in itself—to open the trunks in the back of Annie’s tent, moving aside the plates piled with cookies and gnawed rib bones. Fazio lifted out a bright red ball. “Here’s my nose!”

Digging deeper, they also found what was left of the deck of magic fortune-telling cards. Aldo was dismayed as he counted through them to find the skeleton and fat lady cards torn in half, by which Annie had apparently broken the weight-loss spell; other cards were missing as well, probably strewn on the ground somewhere along the midway.

The former fat lady wept, still clutching at straws. “Maybe if everything’s returned, there won’t be any charges filed?”

“Suit yourselves.” McGoo shook his head as the cops wrestled the still-squirming goblins out of the tent. “Those boys have already gotten themselves into enough trouble, more than just robbing circus folk. They’ll probably serve a year in juvie, maybe get out early for good behavior. Or maybe not.”

“Yes, they are quite a handful,” the fat lady said. “Even I have to admit that.” Looking longingly after the wayward goblins, Annie drew a deep shuddering breath, then turned to Oscar Kowalski. “I don’t suppose the circus has any use for a skinny lady? At least until I fill out a little bit? The spell is broken, and I’m gaining weight again . . . and it’ll be even faster when the twins don’t eat most of my food.”

The ringmaster thought long and hard. “I could use someone who understands the circus—and business. I’m no good at handling the day-to-day paperwork, the administration, managing the employees. I’m a showman, not an accountant.” He propped himself up, snatched off his top hat. “I never was much good at the business side of things. You’d think a vampire circus would want to be in the red.”

Annie finally brightened. “I can help. I can be like a mother to everyone. And if I manage the money, it’ll be like giving everybody an allowance!”

Fazio had reapplied his nose, although his makeup remained smeared. He looked at the remaining platters of food. “Annie, you wouldn’t happen to have a banana-cream pie I could smash into someone’s face? Just for the gag?”

“Sorry, dear, I only have cookies.”

The zombie clown threw cookies at Calvin, but nobody laughed. Rather, the werewolf lion tamer caught them and munched politely.

Aldo came up to me, smiling. “Thank you for everything, Mr. Chambeaux. You did track down the cards, and the thieves. And if you can find a replacement deck . . .” He held out his abbreviated deck of magic cards, shuffled them, and extended the pile to me. “Pick a card, any card.”

I did, looked at it myself, then slid it back into the deck. “No, thanks.”

Aldo frowned. “Don’t you want to know your future?”

“I’m a detective,” I said. “I’d rather figure it out for myself.”

Keep reading to enjoy a preview of
the next rib-tickling adventure of
Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I.

Hair Raising
Coming from Kensington in 2013
CHAPTER 1

I’ve always been baffled by the things people do to amuse themselves, but this illegal cockatrice fighting ring was more bizarre than most.

Rusty, the full-furred werewolf who raised the hideous creatures and pitted them against each other in the ring, had hired me to watch out for “suspicious behavior.” So, there I was in a crowd of unnaturals who gathered in an empty warehouse, laying down bets to watch chicken-dragon-viper monstrosities tear each other apart. What could possibly be suspicious?

No case was too strange for Chambeaux & Deyer Investigations, so I agreed to keep my eyes open. “You’ll have a great time, Mr. Shamble,” Rusty growled. “Tonight is family night.”

“It’s Chambeaux,” I corrected him, though the mispronunciation may have been the result of him talking through all those teeth in his mouth rather than not actually knowing my name.

Rusty was a gruff, barrel-chested werewolf with a full head—and I mean a full head—of bristling reddish fur that stuck out in all directions. He raised cockatrices in backyard coops in a run-down neighborhood at the edge of town. He wore bib overalls and sported large tattoos on the meat of his upper arms (although his fur was so thick they were barely visible).

Cockatrice fighting was technically illegal and had been denounced by many animal activist groups. (Most of the activists, however, were unfamiliar with the mythological bestiary and had no idea what a cockatrice was, but they were sure “cockatrice fighting” had to be a bad thing from the sound of it.) I wasn’t one to pass judgment; when ranked among unsavory activities in the Unnatural Quarter, this one didn’t even make the junior varsity team.

Rusty insisted it was big business, and he had even offered me an extra ticket so that Sheyenne, my ghost girlfriend, could join me. I declined on her behalf. She’s not much of a sports fan.

Inside a decrepit old warehouse, the spectators cheered, growled, howled, or made whatever sound was appropriate to their particular unnatural species. Even some humans had slunk in to place bets and watch the violence, hoping that violence didn’t get done to them here in the dark underbelly of the Quarter.

In the echoing warehouse, the unsettling ambient noises reflected back, making the crowd sound twice as large as it really was. Previously, the warehouse had hosted illegal raves, and I could imagine the thunderously monotonous booming beat accompanied by migraine-inducing strobe lights. After the rave craze had ended, the warehouse manager was happy to let the unused empty space become the new home for the next best thing.

I tried to blend in with the rest of the spectators; nobody noticed an undead guy standing there in a bullet-riddled sport jacket. Thanks to an excellent embalming job and good hygiene habits, I was a well-preserved zombie, and I worked hard to maintain my physical condition so that I could pass for mostly human. Mostly.

The crowd hadn’t come here to see and be seen. The center of attention was a high-walled enclosure that might have originally been designed as a skateboard park for lawn gnomes. The barricades were high enough that—in theory at least—snarling, venomous cockatrices could not leap over them and attack the audience (although, as Rusty explained it, a few bloodthirsty attendees took out long-shot wagers that it would happen; those bettors generally kept to the back rows).

While Rusty was in back wrangling with the cockatrice cages, preparing the creatures for the match, his bumbling nephew Furguson went among the crowds with his notepad and tickets, taking bets. Lycanthropy doesn’t run in families, but the story I’d heard was that Rusty had gone on a bender and collapsed half on and half off his bed; while trying to make his uncle more comfortable, Furguson was so clumsy he had scratched and infected himself on the claws. Watching the gangly young werewolf now, I was inclined to accept that as an operating theory.

The fight attendees had tickets, scraps of paper, printed programs listing the colorful names of the cockatrice combatants—Sour Lemonade, Hissy Fit, Snarling Shirley, and so on. The enthusiasts were a motley assortment of vampires, zombies, mummies, trolls, and a big ogre with a squeaky voice who took up three times as much space as any other audience member. And there were werewolves of both types—fulltime fully-furred wolfmen (affectionately, or deprecatingly, called “Hairballs” by the other type), and the once-a-month werewolves who looked human most of the time and transformed only under a full moon (called “Monthlies” by the other side). They were all werewolves to me, but there had always been friction between the two types, and it was only growing worse.

It’s human, or inhuman, nature: People will find a way to make a big deal out of their differences—the smaller, the better. It made me think of the Montagues and the Capulets, if I wanted to be highbrow, or the Hatfields and the McCoys, if I wanted to be lowbrow. (Or the Jets and the Sharks, if I wanted to be musical.)

Rusty asked me to pay particularly close attention to two burly Monthlies, heavily tattooed “bad biker” types named Scratch and Sniff. Even in their non-lycanthrope form, and even among the crowd of monsters, these two were intimidating. They wore thick, dirty fur overcoats that they claimed were made of werewolf pelts—nothing provocative there!—coated with road dust and stained with clotted blotches that looked like blood. Known troublemakers, Scratch and Sniff liked to bash their victims’ heads just to see what might come out. They frequently attended the cockatrice fights, and often caused problems, but Rusty allowed them to stay because they placed such large bets.

In recent fights, however, a large fraction of the money was disappearing from the betting pool, as much as 20 percent. Rusty was sure that Scratch and Sniff had somehow been robbing the pot, and I was supposed to keep my eyes open. But these two didn’t strike me as the type who would subtly skim 20 percent of anything; my guess, they would take the whole pot of money and storm away with as much ruckus as possible.

Furguson wandered among the crowd, recording bets with a pencil in his notepad, accepting wads of bills and stuffing them into his pockets. As he collected money he was very diligent in writing down each wager and recording the ticket number. For weeks, Rusty had pored over the notations, trying to figure out why so much money went missing. He counted and recounted the bills, added and re-added the list of bets placed, and he simply could not find what was happening to so much of the take.

Suddenly, the Rocky Balboa theme blared over the old rave speakers that had been left behind (confiscated by the warehouse owner for nonpayment). Eager fans surrounded Furguson in a frantic flurry, placing their last wagers, shoving money at the gangly werewolf as if they were over-caffeinated bidders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Now, I’ve been a private detective in the Unnatural Quarter for years, working with my legal crusader/partner Robin Deyer. We had a decent business until I’d been shot in the back of the head—which might have been the end of the story, but I woke up as a zombie, clawed my way out of the grave, and got right back to work. Being undead is not a disadvantage in the Quarter, and the number of cases I’ve solved, both before and after my murder, is fairly impressive. I’m very observant and persistent, and I have a good analytical mind.

Sometimes, though, I solve cases through dumb luck, which is what happened now.

While Rusty worked in the back, rattling the cages and giving pep talks to his violent amalgamated monsters, the Rocky theme played louder, and the last-minute bettors waved money at Furguson. They yelled out the names of their chosen cockatrice, snatched their tickets, and the gangly werewolf stuffed wads of cash into his pockets, made change, grew flustered, took more money, stuffed it into other pockets. He was so bumbling and so overwhelmed that bills dropped out of his pockets onto the floor, unnoticed—by Furguson, but not by the other audience members. As they pressed closer to him like a murder of carrion crows, they snatched up whatever random bills they could find. In fact, it was so well choreographed, the whole mess seemed like part of the evening’s entertainment.

Scratch and Sniff had shouldered their way to the edge of the cockatrice ring, where they’d have the best view. Despite Rusty’s accusations, the big biker werewolves had nothing to do with the money that went missing. As the saying goes, never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence—and I saw the gold standard of incompetence here.

I let out a long sigh. Rusty wasn’t going to like what I’d found, but at least this was something easy enough to fix. His bumbling nephew would either have to be more careful or find another line of work.

The loud fanfare fell silent, and Rusty emerged from the back in his bib overalls; his reddish fur looked mussed, as if he had gotten into a wrestling match himself with the vile creatures. The restless crowd pressed closer to the fighting ring.

Rusty shouted at the top of his lungs. “For our first match, Sour Lemonade versus . . . Hissy Fit!”

He yanked a lever that opened a pair of trapdoors, and the two creatures squawked, hissed, and flapped into the pit. Each was the size of a wild turkey, covered with scales, with a head like a rooster on a bad drug trip with a serrated beak and slitted reptilian eyes. The jagged feathers looked like machetes, and their sharp, angular wings gave them the appearance of a very small dragon or a very large bat. Each cockatrice had a serpentine tail with a spearpoint tip. Their hooked claws were augmented by wicked-looking razor gaffs (I couldn’t imagine how Rusty had attached the equipment). Forked tongues flicked out of their sawtooth beaks as they faced off.

I’d never seen anything so ugly—and these were the domesticated variety. Purebred cockatrices are even more hideous, ugly enough to turn people to stone. (It’s hard to say objectively whether or not the purebreds are in fact uglier, since anyone who had ever looked upon one became a statue. Scientific studies had been done to measure the widened eyes of petrified victims, and a standard rating scale had been applied to the expression of abject horror etched into the stone faces, but I wasn’t convinced those were entirely reliable results.) Regardless, wild turn-you-to-stone cockatrices were outlawed; it was highly illegal to own one. These were the kinder, gentler breed—and they still looked butt-ugly.

One of the creatures had shockingly bright lemon-yellow scales—Sour Lemonade, I presumed. The other cockatrice had more traditional snot-green scales and black dragon wings. It hissed constantly, like a punctured tire.

The two creatures flapped their angular wings, bobbed their heads, and flicked their forked tongues like wrestlers bowing to the audience. The crowd egged them on, and the cockatrices flung themselves upon each other like Tasmanian devils on a hot plate. The fury of lashing claws, pecking beaks, and spitting venom was dizzying—not exactly enjoyable, but certainly energetic. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

The barbed tail of Sour Lemonade lashed out and poked a hole through Hissy Fit’s left wing. The other cockatrice clamped down with its serrated beak, locking jaws on the yellow creature’s scaly neck. Claws lashed and kicked, and black smoking blood spurted out from the injuries. When it hit the side of the pit ring, the acid blood burned and bubbled.

One large droplet splattered the face of a vampire, who yelped and backed away, swatting at his smoking skin. Scratch and Sniff both howled with inappropriate laughter at the vampire’s pain. The spectators cheered, shouted, and cursed. The cockatrices snarled and hissed. The sound was deafening.

Then the warehouse door burst open, and I saw Officer Toby McGoohan in his full cop uniform standing there. “This is the police!” he shouted through a bullhorn. “May I have your attention—”

The ensuing pandemonium made the cockatrice fight seem like a Sunday card game by comparison.

CHAPTER 2

Shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater is a well-known recipe for disaster. Shouting “Cops!” in the middle of an illegal cockatrice fight is ten times worse.

Officer McGoohan—McGoo to his friends (well, to me at least)—was taken aback by the explosion of chaos caused by his appearance. His mouth dropped open as he saw dozens of unnaturals—already keyed up with adrenaline and bloodlust from the cockatrice fight—suddenly thrown into a panic.

“Cops! Everybody, run!” yelled a vampire with a dramatic flourish of his cape. He turned and ran at full speed into a hulking ogre, which stunned him. The ogre reacted by flinging the vampire against the pit ring with enough force to crack the barricade.

Inside, the creatures were still hissing and thrashing at each other. Several zombies shambled at top speed toward the back exit. The human spectators bolted, ducking their heads to hide their identities. A bandage-wrapped mummy tripped and fell while other fleeing monsters stepped on him, trampling his fragile antique bones and sending up puffs of old dust. The clawed foot of a lizard man caught one of the bandages, and the linen strips unraveled as he ran.

At the door, McGoo waved his hands and shouted, “Wait, wait! It’s not a raid!” Nobody heard him, or if they did, they refused to believe.

The skittish ogre smashed open an emergency exit door, knocking it entirely off its hinges. The door crashed to the ground outside, and fleeing monsters charged into the dim alleys, yelling and howling.

“We can work this out,” I said, heading toward McGoo, who stood waving his hands and urging calm. He might as well have been asking for patrons in a strip club to cover their eyes. I saw that he hadn’t even brought backup.

Gangly Furguson ran about in a panic, not sure what he was doing. He bumped into unnaturals and caromed off them like a pinball. Scratch and Sniff looked at each other and grinned. As Furguson came close, they grabbed the skinny werewolf and used his own momentum to fling him into the already-cracked pit wall, which knocked down the barricade. All the haphazard currency stuffed into Furguson’s pockets flew up like a blizzard of money.

The cockatrices broke free and bounded out of the pit, still slashing at each other with razor gaffs but now taking a jab at anything that came near. They were like hyperactive whirlwinds, flailing, attacking. Sour Lemonade latched its jaws onto the shoulder of a zombie who did not shamble away quickly enough. Hissy Fit swooped down and attacked the vampire that had already been burned by acid blood; the vamp flailed his hands to get the beast away from his head and his neatly slicked-back hair.

Taking matters into his own hands, Rusty grabbed Hissy Fit by the scaly neck and yanked it away from the vampire, stuffed the cockatrice into a burlap sack, and cinched a cord around the opening. “Furguson, get the other one! We’ve got to get out of here!”

After being bashed into the wall, however, Furguson flew at Scratch and Sniff in a rage. He extended his claws, bared his fangs, and howled, “Shithead Monthlies!” Hurling himself upon Scratch, the nearer of the two, he raked his long claws down the werewolf-pelt overcoat, ripping big gashes. With his other hand, he tore four bloody furrows along the biker werewolf ’s cheek.

Sniff plucked Furguson away from his friend and began punching him with a pile-driver fist. Scratch touched the blood on his cheek, and his eyes flared. The tattoos on his neck and face began pulsing, writhing, like a psychedelic cartoon—and then the deep wounds on his face sealed together. The blood coagulated into a hard scab that flaked off within seconds; the flesh knitted itself into scar tissue. The tattoos fell quiescent again, and I realized that it must be some kind of body-imprinted healing spell.

Very cool.

Amidst the pandemonium, I reached McGoo. He looked at me in surprise. “Shamble! What are you doing here?”

“I’m working. What about you?”

“I’m working, too. Just answering a disturbance call. Scout’s honor, your friends sure have hair triggers! Did I catch them doing something naughty?”

Rusty tore a large two-by-four from the cockatrice barricade and waded in to Scratch and Sniff. He whacked each one of them on the back of the head, which sent them reeling, then pulled Furguson from the fray. He shoved the burlap sack into his nephew’s claws. “Take this and get out of here! I’ll grab the other one.”

With the struggling, squirming sack in hand, Furguson bolted for the nearest door and disappeared into the night. As he ran, the poor klutz was still dropping bills out of his pockets.

The two biker werewolves shook their heads after being battered by the two-by-four. They both puffed themselves up, peeled back their lips, and prepared to lunge at Rusty, but the big werewolf swung the board again, cracking each man full in the face. “Want a third one? Believe me, it’ll only improve your looks.”

“We may need to intervene in this, McGoo,” I said.

“I was just thinking that.” He sauntered forward, displaying the arsenal of unnatural-specific weapons that he carried for defense in the Quarter.

The two biker werewolves snarled at Rusty. “Damned Hairball!” Thanks to the hypnotically twitching tattoos, the bloody bruises on their faces had already healed up and vanished faster than they could wipe the stains away.

McGoo stepped up and said to them, “Know any good werewolf jokes?”

Scratch and Sniff looked at his uniform, snarled low in the throat for a long moment, then they retreated into the night as well. Outside, I heard a roar of motorcycle engines starting.

The less panicky, or more enterprising, spectators scurried around to grab fallen money on the floor; then, they, too, darted out of the building. Rusty managed to seize Sour Lemonade from the zombie it was still attacking and stuffed it into another cloth bag, which he slung over his shoulder, then loped away from the warehouse through the large doorway the ogre had shattered.

McGoo and I stood together, catching our breath, exhausted just from watching the whirlwind. He shook his head as the last of the monsters evacuated into the night. “This place looks like the aftermath of a bombing raid. Mission accomplished, I suppose.”

“What mission was that?” I asked.

“One of the nearby residents called in a noise complaint. Some kind of writer. She asked me to stop by and request that they keep the noise down, said the racket was bothering her.”

“That was all?”

“That was all.” McGoo shrugged. “Should be quiet enough now.”

McGoo is my best human friend, my BHF. We’ve known each other since college; both married women named Rhonda when we were young and stupid; later, as we got smarter, we divorced the women named Rhonda and spent a lot of guy time commiserating. I established my private-eye practice in the Unnatural Quarter; McGoo, with his salty and non-politically-correct sense of humor, managed to offend the wrong people, thus derailing his mediocre career on the outside in exchange for a less-than-mediocre career here in the Quarter. But he was a good friend, a reliable cop, and he made the best of his situation.

It had taken McGoo quite a while to learn how to deal with me after I was undead. He wrestled with his own prejudices against various types of monsters, and, thanks to me, he could honestly say, “Some of my best friends are zombies.” (I didn’t let him use that to get any moral high ground, though.)

As we surveyed the empty warehouse, he said, “I’d better go talk to the lady, let her know everything’s under control.”

“Want me to come along? I could use something a little calmer after this.” I had, after all, solved the case of the missing money, but I decided to wait for the dust to settle before I tracked Rusty down.

I found a twenty-dollar bill on the floor and dutifully picked it up.

McGoo looked at me. “That’s evidence, you know.”

“Evidence against what? You were called here on a disturbing-the-peace charge.” As we walked out of the warehouse, I tucked the bill into the pocket of my sport jacket. “That’s our next couple of beers at the Goblin Tavern.”

“Well, if it’s being used to buy beer, then I’ll consider that you were doing your civic duty by picking up litter.”

“Works for me.”

Behind the warehouse, we found a set of ramshackle apartments; I saw lights on in only two of the units, though it was full dark. A weathered sign promised UNITS FOR RENT: LOW RATES! Low Rates was apparently the best that could be said about the place.

McGoo led me up the exterior stairs to an upper-level apartment. When he rapped on the door, a woman yanked it open, blinking furiously as she tried to see out into the night. “Stop pounding! What’s with all this noise? I’ve already filed a complaint—I’m calling the police again!”

“Ma’am, I am the police,” McGoo said.

The woman was a frumpy vampire, short and plump, with brown hair—and she looked familiar. “Well, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. The noise only got worse after I called! It was a mob scene out there.”

She plucked a pair of cat’s-eye glasses dangling from a chain around her neck and affixed them to her face. “How can I get any writing done with such distractions? I have to finish two more chapters before sunrise.”

I knew who she was, and I also knew exactly what she was writing. “Sorry for the interruption, Miss Bullwer.”

McGoo looked at me. “You know this woman?”

“Who’s that looming out there on my porch?” The vampire lady leaned out until she could see me, then her expression lit up as if a sunrise had just occurred on her face (which is not necessarily a good thing when speaking of vampires). “Oh, Mr. Chambeaux! How wonderful. Would you like to come in and have a cup of . . . whatever it is zombies drink? I have a few more questions, details for the veracity of the literature. And you can pet my cats. They’d love to have a second lap; they can’t all fit on mine, you know.”

“How many cats do you have?”

“Seven,” she answered quickly. “At least, I think it’s seven. It’s difficult to tell them apart.”

I had first met Linda Bullwer when she volunteered for the Welcome Back Wagon, catering to the newly undead. More importantly, she had been commissioned as a ghostwriter by Howard Phillips Publishing to create a series of zombie detective adventures loosely based on my own exploits.

She gave a sweet smile to McGoo, and her demeanor was entirely changed now. “And thank you for your assistance, Officer—I’m sure you did your best, especially with Mr. Chambeaux’s help.” She cocked her head, lowered her voice. “Was it another case? Something I should write about in a future volume?”

“I doubt anyone would find it interesting,” I said.

“That’s what you said about the tainted Jekyll necroceuti-cals, and about the mummy emancipation case, and the Straight Edge hate group, and the attempted massacre of hundreds of ghosts with ectoplasmic defibrillators, and the burning of the Globe Theatre stage in the cemetery, and the golem sweatshop, and . . .”

I knew she could rattle off cases for hours because I had spent hours telling her about them. She had listened carefully, taking dutiful notes.

“It’s nothing,” I reassured her. “And we don’t even know if your first book is going to sell well enough that the publisher will want to do a second one.”

“They’ve already contracted with me for five, Mr. Chambeaux. The first one is just being released—have you gotten your advance copy yet?”

“I’ll check the mail when I get back to the office.” I have to admit, I was uncomfortable about the whole thing. Vampires shun sunlight, and I tended to avoid limelight.

McGoo regarded me with amusement. “I believe we’re done here, ma’am. Enjoy the rest of your quiet night.”

“Thank you, Officer. And thank you, Mr. Chambeaux, for your help.” She drew a deep breath. “Ah, blessed silence. At last I can write!”

A loud and anguished howl split the air, bestial shouts barely recognizable as words. “Help! Help me! Help!”

McGoo was already bounding down the stairs, and I did my best to keep up with him. We tracked the cries to a dark alley adjacent to the warehouse. A gangly werewolf leaned over a sprawled figure on the ground, letting out a keening howl. Beside him, two squirming cloth sacks contained the captured cockatrices; fortunately, the ties were secure.

As we ran up, Furguson turned to us, his eyes opened wide, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. “It’s Uncle Rusty!”

I recognized the bib overalls and reddish fur. The big werewolf lay motionless, sprawled muzzle-down in the alley.

“Is he dead?” McGoo asked.

Bending over, I could see that Rusty’s chest still rose and fell, but he had been stunned. The top of his head was all bloody, and it looked wrong.

Furguson let out another wail.

Then I realized that someone, using a very sharp knife, had scalped him.

About the Author

Kevin J. Anderson is the author of more than one hundred novels, fifty of which have appeared on national or international bestseller lists. He has over 23 million books in print in thirty languages. He has won or been nominated for numerous prestigious awards, including the Nebula Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the SFX Reader’s Choice Award, the American Physics Society’s Forum Award, and New York Times Notable Book. By any measure, he is one of the most popular writers currently working in the science fiction and fantasy genre.

Anderson has coauthored twelve books in Frank Herbert’s classic Dune universe with Herbert’s son Brian, as well as their original SF epic Hellhole. The first novel, Dune: House Atreides, became a #1 international best seller and was voted Book of the Year by the members of the Science Fiction Book Club by the largest margin in the history of the award. All of the subsequent Dune novels have also been bestsellers.

Anderson’s highly popular seven-volume science fiction epic, the Saga of Seven Suns, is his most ambitious work, and he has won a wide following for his sailing-ships-and-sea-monsters fantasy trilogy, Terra Incognita. As an innovative crossover project for Terra Incognita, Anderson also wrote and coproduced two progressive rock CDs by the supergroup Roswell Six, featuring performances by rock legends from the bands Kansas, Dream Theater, Asia, Saga, and others. He has also written the companion novel to the new Rush CD, Clockwork Angels, with Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart.

Anderson’s Star Wars Jedi Academy books were the three top-selling SF novels of 1994. His three original Star Wars anthologies—Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, Tales from Jabba’s Palace, and Tales of the Bounty Hunters—are the best-selling science fiction anthologies of all time. He has also completed numerous other projects for Lucasfilm, including the fourteen volumes in the bestselling and award-winning Young Jedi Knights series (cowritten with his wife, Rebecca Moesta). Anderson is the author of three novels based on The X-Files; the first reached #1 on the London Sunday Times list, and all became international bestsellers.

He has also coauthored a major best seller with Dean Koontz, Prodigal Son, which sold more than a million copies in a single year. He has written original novels Slan Hunter (a completion of SF grand master A. E. van Vogt’s last novel), Hopscotch, Captain Nemo, Blindfold, Resurrection, Inc., and the thrillers Ill Wind and Ignition (both with Doug Beason). In 1997, during a promotional tour for his comedy/adventure novel Ai! Pedrito!, Anderson set the Guinness World Record for Largest Single-Author Book Signing. For the Horror Writers Association, he edited the bestselling Blood Lite anthology series of humorous horror stories (Pocket Books).

Anderson worked with DC Comics to publish The Last Days of Krypton, an epic science fiction novel that reveals the never-before-told story of the end of Superman’s planet, and Enemies & Allies, which tells about the first encounter of Superman and Batman in the 1950s during the Cold War.

Anderson has scripted numerous bestselling comics and graphic novels, including Justice Society of America for DC, Star-Jammers for Marvel, Star Wars and Predator for Dark Horse, X-Files for Topps, and Star Trek for Wildstorm. He and his wife, Rebecca Moesta, also wrote the original comic series and graphic novel, Grumpy Old Monsters, for IDW.

Anderson’s research has taken him to the top of Mount Whitney and the bottom of the Grand Canyon, inside the Cheyenne Mountain NORAD complex, into the Andes Mountains and to the Amazon River, the souks of Morocco, the deserts of Qatar, and the spectacular modern cities in the United Arab Emirates . . . inside a Minuteman III missile silo and its underground control bunker, onto the deck of the aircraft carrier Nimitz, to Maya and Inca temple ruins in South and Central America, inside NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral, onto the floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange, inside a plutonium plant at Los Alamos, and behind the scenes at FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC. He has climbed all fifty-four mountain peaks in the Colorado Rockies higher than 14,000 feet in elevation, and he has completed more than three hundred miles of the Colorado Trail. He also, occasionally, stays home and writes. Visit him at www.wordfire.com.

KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

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Copyright © 2012 by WordFire, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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ISBN: 978-0-7582-9010-6

First Electronic Edition: November 2012