But the smell in the parlour, I have to say, was one of sour-sweet decay, deeply ingrained. Like I said, this wasn’t my first visit, so I knew what to expect, but it still hit me like a wall and almost knocked me down. I went on inside, and six or seven of the walking dead glanced up to appraise the newcomer: the sitting dead, actually, since the room was laid out like a doctor’s waiting room with chairs all around three of the walls, and most of the chairs were taken. There were even magazines: a chalk-faced woman in the corner with a small hole in the flesh of her cheek was flicking through a vintage copy of Cosmo.
Zombies don’t breathe, so sharp intakes of breath were out of the question; and there wasn’t a stand-up piano to tinkle and plunk its way into shocked silence as I walked in. All the same, though, I could feel the tension. The zombies who’d already looked up to clock me carried on staring: the others, catching the mood, glanced up to see what was happening.
I sat down, just inside the door, and picked up a Reader’s Digest. Flicking through it, I found an article about a possible enhanced role for walnuts in the treatment of colonic cancer, and started to read. The great thing about the Reader’s Digest is that it exists outside of space and time as we know them: mystics and ecstatics read it to achieve a trance state deeper than normal meditative techniques allow.
Sadly, though, I wasn’t going to be allowed to attain a lower consciousness tonight. Over the top of the magazine, I saw a man’s broad torso heave into view.
‘You’re alive,’ said a harsh voice, through a bellows-like soughing of breath.
‘Yeah,’ I agreed, without looking up. ‘I’m working on it, though. You know how it is.’
‘The fuck you doing here, you blood-warm piece of shit?’ This was said more vehemently, and the waft of fetid breath made me wince.
‘I’m waiting for a friend,’ I said mildly.
There was a heavy pause, and then: ‘Wait outside.’
I looked up. The guy must have been a real holy terror back when he was still counted among the living, and if anything he was even scarier now that he was dead. He stood about six-two, and it was mostly muscle: the kind of sculpted, highly defined muscle you get from working out. And his arms were bare and his T-shirt was tight, so you got to see the muscles sliding against one another like tectonic plates when he moved. His bald head glistened – not with sweat, obviously, so I guessed it must have been with oil of some kind. He was a thanato-narcissist, in love with his own defunct flesh and keeping it polished up like a museum piece.
But I’d been pushed around enough for one night: enough, and heading inexorably towards more than enough.
‘I’m fine right here,’ I said, and returned to the good news about walnuts.
He smacked the magazine out of my hands. ‘No,’ he growled. ‘You’re not. ’Cause if you stay here, I’m gonna rip your tongue out.’
I glanced around the room and took in the reactions from the rest of Imelda’s dead clientele. They seemed a little uneasy about what was happening – but then, Imelda’s services aren’t cheap; most of them looked to be a lot more well-heeled than this sad piece of worm-food, and they probably had that whole middle-class anxiety about making a scene. That was good news for me: it meant they were less likely to mob me and tear my arms and legs off if this went badly.
‘Okay, sport,’ I murmured. I stood up and he squared off against me, waiting for me to throw the first punch. He was sure enough of his own strength to know that nothing I could swing would put him down, and having allowed me an ineffectual tap at his chin he could dismantle me at his leisure.
I had the myrtle twig wrapped twice around my hand. I just slapped it to his forehead and spat out the words ‘Hoc fugere.’ He shot backwards as fast if I’d stuck a shotgun into his mouth and pulled the trigger.
It wasn’t an exorcism – nothing like. It’s just the most basic kind of nature magic, an elemental ward that has efficacy for about three weeks of the year, so long as it’s been properly cut and blessed. To the dead, whether they’re in the body or out of it, getting too close to a ward is like touching a mains cable: it hurts a fuck of a lot.
The zombie hit the floor hard, and lay there jerking spastically with his eyes wide open. One of his arms, flailing out, hit the leg of the woman who’d been reading Cosmo: she jumped aside to avoid the contact.
‘I really don’t want any trouble,’ I told the room in general.
‘Yeah,’ said Nicky from the doorway. ‘That’s fucking plain to see.’
Behind him, Imelda gave a yelp of dismay and stormed past him into the room, knocking him aside. She’s a big woman, with fists like hams: it would take a lot more than a myrtle switch to take her down. ‘Castor!’ she bellowed. ‘You have no right! You have no right! You get out of my house now, or I swear I’ll call the police on you.’
‘Hey, he was the one wanted to fight,’ I said. ‘I was happy with the Reader’s Digest.’
Kneeling down beside the still-shuddering zombie, she laid her hand on his forehead and shot me a glare of pure contempt. He quietened under her hand.
‘Then you deal with him like a man,’ she said. ‘Not like a cockroach.’
‘I just used a—’ I began.
‘I know what you used,’ Imelda snapped. ‘You swatted him with a stand-not like you’d swat a bug, because you couldn’t win the fight any other way. You’re just a goddamn coward. Now you get out of my house before I throw you out.’
That was a much more serious threat than the one about phoning the police. Imelda would never ask the man to fight her battles for her: but she really could pick me up and throw me, and the way I felt right then I might not survive. I put up my hands in surrender and left the room, hearing Nicky behind me apologising on my behalf and assuring her I’d never come round here again.
Little Lisa was out in the hallway, leaning against the wall. She grinned at me, wickedly amused.
‘What’s the joke?’ I asked.
‘You beat that big lych-man,’ she said scornfully, ‘but you couldn’t beat my mum.’
‘Can you?’ I asked.
She shook her head vigorously. ‘Fuck, no.’
‘Well, there you go.’
I waited for Nicky in the yard, but when he came out he walked right on past me. ‘The car’s out in the street,’ I said, falling into step with him.
‘Fuck you, Castor,’ he snapped, speeding up. ‘I’ll take a frigging cab.’
‘Look, the guy was going to fold me into a paper plane, Nicky. I’m sorry. But I did what I had to do.’
‘You know what it would mean for me if Imelda decides I’m bad news? The only other guy I know who can do what she does lives in Glasgow. I am fucking screwed if she gets mad at me. I wish to Christ I’d told you to wait until tomorrow.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I already said I was sorry. What did you have to tell me, anyway? What is it that couldn’t wait?’
We were out in the street by this time. Nicky slammed the yard door shut with a bang that resounded across the street – in this neighbourhood, not a wonderful idea.
‘What couldn’t wait?’ he echoed sarcastically. ‘You’ve been fed a line, is what. I wanted to tell you you’re running on pure bullshit. This kid Abbie Torrington – you said her parents hired you to find her?’
‘Right,’ I agreed, a little unnerved by his savagery. ‘Get to the point, Nicky.’
He rounded on me and thrust his face into mine.
‘The point is you had me chasing my own fucking tail, looking through morgue records and autopsy reports and fuck knows what else. And it’s all a waste of time because the kid’s not dead.’