Unnatural Acts Read online

  PRAISE FOR DAN SHAMBLE, ZOMBIE PI . . .

  “The Dan Shamble books are great fun.”

  —Simon R. Green

  “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

  “Sharp and funny; this zombie detective rocks! Loved it!”

  —Patricia Briggs

  “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 good plain fun. I enjoyed every minute it took me to read it.”

  —Glenn Cook, author of the Garrett, P.I., paranormal detective novels

  “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

  “Kevin J. Anderson is the heir apparent to Arthur C. Clarke.”

  —Daniel Keys Moran

  “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

  Stakeout at the Vampire Circus

  Death Warmed Over

  Clockwork Angels: The Novel (with Neil Peart)

  Blood Lite anthology series (editor)

  The new Dune novels (with Brian Herbert)

  Hellhole series (with Brian Herbert)

  The Terra Incognita trilogy

  The Saga of Seven Suns series

  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

  Unnatural Acts

  Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I.

  KEVIN J. ANDERSON

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  PRAISE FOR DAN SHAMBLE, ZOMBIE PI . . .

  Also by Kevin J. Anderson

  Title Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  DEADICATION:

  To MICHAELA HAMILTON, at Kensington Books, who has just the right deadpan sense of humor and all the enthusiasm and energy of a horde of very, very hungry zombies.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As an author, I have to treat the undead, as well as various types of monsters, with all due respect. I would very much like to thank Deb Ray, Louis Moesta, and Rebecca Moesta, as well as fans and legal experts Nancy Greene and Melinda Brown, for their insights and added humor. My editor, Michaela Hamilton, at Kensington, showed enthusiasm above and beyond the call, as did my agent, John Silbersack, of Trident Media Group.

  Nothing unnatural here at all. Move along....

  CHAPTER 1

  I never thought a golem could make me cry, but hearing the big clay guy’s sad story brought a tear to my normally bloodshot eyes. My business partner Robin, a lawyer (but don’t hold it against her), was weeping openly.

  “It’s so trag
ic!” she sniffled.

  “Well, I certainly thought so,” the golem said, lowering his sculpted head, “but I’m biased.”

  He had lurched into the offices of Chambeaux & Deyer Investigations with the ponderous and inexorable gait that all golems have. “Please,” he said, “you’ve got to help me!”

  In my business, most clients introduce themselves like that. It’s not that they don’t have any manners, but a person doesn’t engage the services of a private investigator, or a lawyer, as an ordinary social activity. Our visitors generally come pre-loaded with problems. Robin and I were used to it.

  Then, swaying on his thick feet, the golem added, “And you’ve got to help my people.”

  Now, that was something new.

  Golems are man-sized creatures fashioned out of clay and brought to life by an animation spell. Tailor-made for menial labor, they serve their masters and don’t complain about minimum wage (or less, no tips). Traditionally, the creatures are statuesque and bulky, their appearance ranging from store-mannequin smooth to early Claymation, depending on the skill of the sculptor-magician who created them. I’ve seen do-it-yourself kits on the market, complete with facial molds and step-by-step instructions.

  This golem was in bad shape: dried and flaking, his gray skin fissured with cracks. His features were rounded, generic, and less distinctive than a bargain-store dummy’s. His brow was furrowed, his chapped gray lips pressed down in a frown. He tottered, and I feared he would crumble right there in the lobby area.

  Robin hurried out of her office. “Please, come in, sir. We can see you right away.”

  Robin Deyer is a young African American woman with anime-worthy brown eyes, a big heart, and a feisty disposition. She and I had formed a loose partnership in the Unnatural Quarter, sharing office space and cooperating on cases. We have plenty of clients, plenty of job security, plenty of headaches. Unnaturals have problems just like anyone else, but zombies, vampires, werewolves, witches, ghouls, and the gamut of monsters are underrepresented in the legal system. That’s more than enough cases, if you can handle the odd clientele and the unusual problems.

  Since I’m a zombie myself, I fit right in.

  I stepped toward the golem and shook his hand. His grip was firm but powdery. “My partner and I would be happy to listen to your case, Mr. . . . ?”

  “I don’t actually know my name. Sorry.” His frown deepened like a character in a cartoon special. “Could you read it for me?” He slowly turned around. In standard magical manufacturing, a golem’s name is etched in the soft clay on the back of his neck, where he can never see it for himself. “None of my fellow golems could read. We’re budget models.”

  There it was, in block letters. “It says your name is Bill.”

  “Oh. I like that name.” His frown softened, although the clay face was too stiff to be overly expressive. He stepped forward, disoriented. “Could I have some water, please?”

  Sheyenne, the beautiful blond ghost who served as our receptionist, office manager, paralegal, business advisor, and whatever other titles she wanted to come up with, flitted to the kitchenette and returned with some sparkling water that Robin kept in the office refrigerator. The golem took the bottle from Sheyenne’s translucent hands and unceremoniously poured it over his skin. “Oh, bubbly! That tingles.”

  It wasn’t what I’d expected him to do, but we were used to unusual clients.

  When I’d first hung out my shingle as a PI, I’d still been human, albeit jaded—not quite down-and-out, but willing to consider a nontraditional client base. Robin and I worked together for years in the Quarter, garnering a decent reputation with our work . . . and then I got shot in the back of the head during a case gone wrong. Fortunately, being killed didn’t end my career. Ever since the Big Uneasy, staying dead isn’t as common as it used to be. I returned from the grave, cleaned myself up, changed clothes, and got back to work. The cases don’t solve themselves.

  Thanks to high-quality embalming and meticulous personal care, I’m well preserved, not one of those rotting shamblers that give the undead such a bad name. Even with my pallid skin, the shadows under my eyes aren’t too bad, and mortician’s putty covers up the bullet’s entry and exit holes in my skull, for the most part.

  Bill massaged the moistened clay, smoothed the cracks and fissures of his skin, and let out a contented sigh. He splashed more water on his face, and his expression brightened. “That’s better! Little things can improve life in large ways.” After wiping his cheeks and eyes with the last drops of sparkling water, he became more animated. “Is that so much to ask? Civil treatment? Human decency? It wouldn’t even cost much. But my people have to endure the most appalling conditions! It’s a crime, plain and simple.”

  He swiveled around to include Robin, Sheyenne, and me. “That’s why I came to you. Although I escaped, my people remain enslaved, working under miserable conditions. Please help us!” He deepened his voice, growing more serious. “I know I can count on Chambeaux and Deyer.”

  Now that the bottle of sparkling water was empty, Sheyenne returned with a glass of tap water, which the golem accepted. She wasn’t going to give him the expensive stuff anymore if he was just going to pour it all over his body. “Was there anyone in particular who referred you to us?” she asked.

  “I saw your name on a tourist map. Everyone in town knows Chambeaux and Deyer gives unnaturals a fair shake when there’s trouble.” He held out a rumpled, folded giveaway map carried by many businesses in the Quarter, more remarkable for its cartoon pictures and cheerful drawings than its cartographic detail.

  Sheyenne flashed me a dazzling smile. “See, Beaux? I told you our ad on the chamber-of-commerce map would be worth the investment.” Beaux is Sheyenne’s pet name for me; no one else gets to call me that. (Come to think of it, no one had ever tried.)

  “I thought you couldn’t read, Bill,” I said.

  “I can look at the pictures, and the shop had an old vampire proofreader who mumbled aloud as he read the words,” Bill said. “As a golem, you hear things.”

  “The important thing is that Mr., uh, Bill found us,” Robin said. She had been sold on the case as soon as the golem told us his plight. If it weren’t for Sheyenne looking out for us, Robin would be inclined to embrace any client in trouble, whether or not he, she, or it could pay.

  Since joining us, postmortem, Sheyenne had worked tirelessly—not that ghosts got tired—to manage our business and keep Chambeaux & Deyer in the black. I didn’t know what I’d do without her, professionally or personally.

  Before her death, Sheyenne had been a med student, working her way through school as a cocktail waitress and occasional nightclub singer at one of the Unnatural Quarter high-end establishments. She and I had a thing in life, a relationship with real potential, but that had been snuffed out when Sheyenne was murdered, and then me, too.

  Thus, our romance was an uphill struggle.

  While it’s corny to talk about “undying love,” Fate gave us a second chance . . . then blew us a big loud raspberry. Sheyenne and I each came back from the dead in our respective way—me as a zombie, and Sheyenne as a ghost—but ghosts can never touch any living, or formerly living, person. So much for the physical side of our relationship . . . but I still like having her around.

  Now that he was moisturized, Bill the golem seemed a new person, and he no longer flaked off mud as he followed Robin into our conference room. She carried a yellow legal pad, ready to take notes. Since it wasn’t yet clear whether the golem needed a detective, an attorney, or both, I joined them. Sheyenne brought more water, a whole pitcher this time. We let Bill have it all.

  Golems aren’t the smartest action figures in the toy box—they don’t need to be—but even though Bill was uneducated, he wasn’t unintelligent, and he had a very strong sense of right and wrong. When he started talking, his passion for Justice was apparent. I realized he would make a powerful witness. Robin fell for him right away; he was just her type of client.

>   “There are a hundred other disenfranchised golems just like me,” Bill said. “Living in miserable conditions, slaves in a sweatshop, brought to life and put to work.”

  “Who created you?” I asked. “Where is this sweatshop located? And what work did you do?”

  Bill’s clay brain could not hold three questions at a time, so he answered only two of them. “We manufacture Unnatural Quarter souvenirs—vampire ashtrays made with real vampire ash, T-shirts, place mats, paperweights, holders for toothpicks marketed as ‘stakes for itsy-bitsy vampires.’ ”

  Several new gift shops had recently opened up in the Quarter, a chain called Kreepsakes. All those inane souvenirs had to come from somewhere.

  More than a decade after the Big Uneasy brought back all the legendary monsters, normal humans had recovered from their shock and horror enough that a few tourists ventured into the Quarter. This had never been the best part of town, even without the monsters, but businesses welcomed the increased tourism as an unexpected form of urban renewal.

  “Our master is a necromancer who calls himself Maximus Max,” Bill continued. “The golems are mass produced, slapped together from uneven clay, then awakened with a bootleg animation spell that he runs off on an old smelly mimeograph. Shoddy work, but he doesn’t care. He’s a slave driver!”

  Robin grew more incensed. “This is outrageous! How can he get away with this right out in the open?”

  “Not exactly out in the open. We labor in an underground chamber, badly lit, no ventilation . . . not even an employee break room. Through lack of routine maintenance, we dry out and crumble.” He bent his big blunt fingers, straightened them, then dipped his hand into the pitcher of water, where he left a murky residue. “We suffer constant aches and pains. As the mimeographed animation spell fades, we can’t move very well. Eventually, we fall apart. I’ve seen many coworkers and friends just crumble on the job. Then other golems have to sweep up the mess and dump it into a bin, while Maximus Max whips up a new batch of clay so he can create more golems. No one lasts very long.”