He squeezed his eyes shut until stars flickered behind his eyelids. This was not the time! He had to work so hard to tamp those feelings right down again that he almost missed it when the zombies took an abrupt turn.
He caught up quickly, knowing that he had to face the truth: he’d always thought the tough part would be finding her, and that once he did, everything would be easy. Over the years he’d even imagined conversations with her. They’d always ended in her forgiving him, after which they’d immediately gone horizontal and made up for lost time.
He had certainly not expected what he got. And he should have. He knew that now. At least he’d had the sense to meet up with Joey Hu first, though he’d wanted to go straight to her front door. Hell’s afire! He wouldn’t put it past her to have a cannon mounted in her front yard, with his name on it.
The zombie-wannabes took another abrupt turn. Sure enough, as the tall woman, Jen, had suggested, they had a destination.
And that reminded him of something . . . something . . .
Damn. Lost it again. He forced his mind to the present as the zombies trudged through the sand to what looked like a landslide. Not fresh. Rain had smoothed it out, and here and there tufts of weed stuck up. The two marched straight to a gouge in the landslide, an indentation about the size of a car, and began digging. With their hands.
Rigo approached them. “Hey, do you need help?”
Neither reacted. Rigo tried twice more. When the man caught a finger on a rock, scraping the flesh, he just kept digging in spite of a thin trickle of blood. Rigo grabbed one of the man’s arms and pulled him away. “Wake up! You need to bandage that.”
The man’s blank gaze turned toward the hole in the landslide, his free hand making little motions as if it wanted to dig on its own. That creepy sight triggered the memory.
Still holding onto the man, Rigo grabbed his phone with his free hand. “Alejo?”
“Dad! Did you find Mom?”
Rigo winced. “Well, I know where she is. Look, I told you about the Midwest Guardian asking me to offer my aid while I was out here.”
“I remember. Oracle Stone, renegade dragon.”
“Got it. Right now there’s an emergency in slow motion going on, which may be related. Remember some years ago, you told me about some shifters getting hypnotized into making an underground tunnel in a sewer for some kingpin shifter, back in Chi-town?”
Alejo laughed. “Dad, nobody says Chi-town anymore.”
“Okay, okay. Chicago. The thing is, right here beside me I’ve got me a couple of people acting like something took over their brains. Digging.”
“In a sewer?”
“No, it’s a landslide. One of them just cut himself, but he doesn’t seem to notice. That’s what reminded me of that situation. Do you remember what they did to break this compulsion?”
“Yep. What you need is a dog whistle.”
“Dog whistle?”
“That’s how the Chicago shifters got caught in the first place. Most shifters can hear above 40hKz. There’s some frequency that can short our brains, if our hearing is sensitive enough. Catches us midway between our animal and our human selves, freezing us for maybe a heartbeat. Then the bad guys use a specific charm to override will, which makes people do whatever they want. But once the victims fall asleep they break out of it and it has to be done all over again. Or, a really high dog whistle can also break it.”
“Charm,” Rigo repeated. “Got no dog whistle, so I’ll just have to muscle these two out of here before they hurt themselves.”
“Yeah, do that. Some of the shifters down in those sewers got badly banged up, and one almost drowned before people caught on that these weren’t drunks partying too hard, and went after the sleazebag behind it all.”
Rigo definitely wanted to hear more about that—later. “Thanks, son.”
Alejo’s voice flattened. “Gotta run. Call me soon’s you find her!”
“Sure, fejo. We’ll get it straightened out,” Rigo said—then remembered that flying pastry tray, and hoped he wasn’t making a false promise.
Rigo pocketed his phone, and stepped in to grip each of the zombies by the arm. He gently pulled them away from the landslide. Both turned their heads toward the dig site, but they didn’t fight him. He began walking them away, ignoring their feeble attempts to return to digging.
He cast a look around. If Long Cang did have spies watching, there wasn’t a hope of staying anonymous anymore, but that couldn’t be helped. Rigo was not willing to let these people hurt themselves just so he could stay out of sight a little longer. He was here to take down a renegade Guardian, so a takedown was going to happen one way or another.
As he shepherded his shamblers up the walkway to the top of the palisade, he recollected passing by a pet store on one of the side streets. Which street? He slowed to a snail’s pace while keeping a hold on the twitching zombies. Then he caught sight of a dog on a leash being taken inside a store at the other end of a curving street. That had to be the pet store.
A few minutes later (after some puzzled stares from passers-by at his blank-eyed companions), he finally guided them inside the store. Three aisles down, he found what he was looking for. Helping