Anton Strout
Dead Matter
The third book in the Simon Canderous series, 2010
For my father,
who wears his pride in me like a badge of honor.
I work every day to be worthy of it.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Once more we leap into the breach, dear friends. I’ve missed you. So has Simon. Ignore the bat in his hand. However this book ended up in your greedy little mitts, I wanted to say welcome. Thanks for reading me. Stay and enjoy.
There are many players on this stage who make this endeavor of crafting a book possible: everyone in the haunted halls of Penguin Group, especially my friends and colleagues from paperback sales; my editor, Jessica Wade, known around the halls of Ace as the Swift Red Pencil of Justice; copy editor Valle Hansen; Annette Fiore DeFex, Judith Murello, and Don Sipley, for a stunning cover; Erica Colon and her crack team of ad/promo people; Jodi Rosoff and my publicist, Rosanne Romanello, who send me places and keep me from signing babies; Michelle Kasper; my agent, Kristine Dahl, and her assistant, Laura Neely, at ICM, who answer all my foolish author queries without strangling me; the Dorks of the Round Table-authors Jeanine Cummins and Carolyn Turgeon, who needs to finally admit she is a fantasy author; the League of Reluctant Adults, for keeping the lounge bar stocked; Lady Group, for keeping Orly sane while I write; glamazon Lisa Trevethan, for her keen beta eye; Jennifer Snyder, who maintains UndeadApproved.com, the unofficial fan site, which I usually check first to see what I’m up to; my family-both the biological and chosen ones; and finally my wife, Orly, who keeps me smiling and always on track both in my life and writing. And if you’ve read this far, I just want to say thanks again to you. You’re the best.
What then is to become of man?
Will he be the equal of God or the beasts?
– Blaise Pascal
Om nom nom…
– Count Dracula
1
When it came to working for New York City’s favorite underfunded supersecret paranormal investigation agency-known as the Department of Extraordinary Affairs-high-stakes decision making was par for the course. People lived or died when it came down to fighting ghosts, cultists… even the occasional chupacabra. My personal stress from handling the caseload of Other Division meant I barely kept my sanity as it was, but right now I was facing the hardest decision of my life. “Choose, Simon,” my ex-cultist-turned-girlfriend Jane said in a stern tone.
“I… I can’t.”
“For God’s sake,” she said, giving me a gentle swat to my arm. “It’s cheese. How hard can it be to pick a cheese?”
I turned away from the assortment of cheeses in the display cooler in front of me to look at her. Jane wore jeans and a tight black T-shirt with a cartoon-ghost corpse on it that read CASPER WASN’T SO FRIENDLY. Her normally big blue Bambi eyes were narrowed at me in mock disgust, the rounded contour of her face looking a little sharper since her long blond hair was pulled back from her face into a ponytail. In the background behind her the rest of my local supermarket went about its own business, but the look Jane was giving me made it feel like she was shining a spotlight on me.
I turned back to the display. “Clearly you don’t understand Taco Night, then,” I said. “We could go for the Mexican blend, which seems like an obvious choice. But! We also have pepper jack, which in my opinion gives the tacos a hot, zesty flavor.”
Jane reached past me, grabbed a packet of the Mexican blend, and threw it in her basket. “I cannot believe we’re discussing this,” she said. “Can’t you use your psychometry to divine which cheese to pick?”
I glared at her. “It doesn’t work that way,” I said. I held up my gloved hands. “Yes, I can touch objects and read their histories, but that doesn’t help me figure out which cheese to choose.”
“Wearing your gloves again, I see,” Jane said.
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said.
“I thought you were in control of your power these days.”
I let out a tired sigh. “The way I’ve been using my psychometry on casework for the Department lately, it’s just easier to wear them to keep from triggering on stuff outside of work. I’d like to go a whole evening without using my psychometry, if only to keep from taking a power-induced hit to my blood sugar.”
Jane’s look was stern, concerned. “You should really take better care of your health like that,” she said. “You’re working too hard. This is your first night off from the Department in weeks…”
“Someone’s got to pick up the slack with Connor out,” I said, feeling a little on the spot.
“I know, I know.” Jane looked as if she was about to go into full-blown agitation, but stopped herself. She closed her eyes, let out a long breath, then opened them. “I know,” she said, softer this time. “I’m being selfish. Connor’s your partner and I know he’s entitled to all his vacation time, but taking it all at once?”
“Can we not talk about Connor Christos or work right now?” I asked. “Can we just concentrate on us and tonight…?”
“Fine,” Jane said, smiling. She held her hands palms up to the heavens. “Let us not spoil the sanctity of the sacred Taco Night.”
We wandered off together arm in arm, each with our own basket, in search of the other ingredients. The rest of our shopping trip took only a few more minutes-sour cream, ground beef, lettuce, tomato-but when I hit the canned-goods section, I had to stop. Once again, I was at a crossroads.
“Refried beans,” I said, looking around. “I mean, is there any other option? Do they offer just fried beans? And what beans are they frying in the first place?”
“Just grab a can, Seinfeld,” Jane said. She checked her watch. “I’d like Taco Night to happen, you know, while it’s still Taco Night.”
“But I wanted to make everything from scratch,” I said. Jane glared at me. “Hey, I used to be quite the cook, you know, in my bachelor days.”
Jane reached into the basket I was carrying. She held up a bright yellow box with a cartoon sombrero on it. “I see,” she said, rattling it around. “I suppose these pre-made taco shells meet your ‘from scratch’ criteria?”
I opened my mouth to explain, but instead shut it and grabbed a can of refried beans off the shelf. I could see that the novelty of spending all night in the grocery store striving for authenticity was starting to wear on both of us. We headed off to the registers, but I stopped just short of getting in line.
“What did you forget?” Jane asked, laughing and shaking her head.
“Salsa,” I said. I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Be right back.”
Jane nodded. “I’ll hold our place.”
I ran off in search of the elusive condiment, but halfway down one of the aisles I heard the clatter of several items falling over, followed by the sound of screaming coming from one of the other aisles. I ran up the one I was in, rounded the corner, and turned into the next, stopping dead in my tracks.
A lumbering figure filled the entire width of the aisle, menacing a few people farther along it. It was humanoid, but only if I pictured a human made out of melted wax. It looked naked, pale, with its shoulders nearly reaching from shelf to shelf. Its hands and feet looked like claws and were made of something hard that clicked against the smooth surface of the store floor. When it heard me, it whipped its head around and a wave of terror ran over me as I saw its face for the first time. Its mouth was a gnarled mass of giant pointed teeth that stuck out in every direction. A mix of slobber and decay hung from its maw, dripping onto the laminated tiles of the store floor.
The few people who had been in the aisle ran off as Jane rounded the corner at the front end of it. The monster spun its head around to face her, letting out a low growl through its maw of tangled teeth. Wary, it turned its body so it could easily keep an eye on both of us, but it took its time because its talons kept sliding against the smooth surface of the store’s floor.