EYE OF NEWT

EYE OF NEWT

A Dan Shamble, Zombie P. I., Adventure

Kevin J. Anderson

The afternoon got a lot more interesting when the one-eyed lizard guy stumbled into our offices, begging for protection.

At Chambeaux & Deyer Investigations, even on quiet days, there’s always paperwork to do, files to close out, dead cases to resurrect or just bury for good. I’m a detective—a zombie detective. I can throw a mean punch and stand up to the ugliest, foulest-smelling demon, but paperwork has never been my forte. That’s why I have an office assistant, Sheyenne. She’s a ghost, and she’s also my girlfriend. It doesn’t matter that we intermingle our work lives and our personal lives, since neither of us is alive anyway.

Sheyenne had been realphabetizing files while I looked over cases I had recently wrapped up, some in more dramatic fashion than others, a few even verging on “end of the world” dramatic, so it’s a good thing I’m skilled at my job. In studying the files, I wasn’t looking for mistakes; just reviewing my greatest hits and wishing we had another case to work on at the moment.

My lawyer partner, Robin Deyer, was in court, prosecuting a case of cemeterial fraud and incompetence—an underclass-action suit against a tombstone engraver who had committed far too many misspellings. Now that zombies were rising frequently from the grave, the formerly silent customers noticed the typos on their headstones, and a group had hired Robin to sue for damages on their behalf.

That left just Sheyenne and me in the offices. We had a dinner date planned for that evening, but we hadn’t settled on a restaurant yet. It was mainly an excuse for us to be together, all form and no sustenance, since I rarely ate anyway and a ghost didn’t eat at all.

In the meantime, as she flitted from one file cabinet to another, Sheyenne watched a small TV tuned to a local cable channel that covered the Stone-Cold Monster Cook-off, which was taking place downtown in the Unnatural Quarter. A variety of skilled chefs competed in the daylong event; the crowds were getting larger now that the cook-off was down to three finalists. Sheyenne watched the unnatural chefs go about their extravagant preparations with enough pots, pans, and utensils to equip an inhuman army. She jotted down a recipe suggested by the loud, green-skinned Ragin’ Cajun Mage, just in case she ever got around to cooking.

Then the office door crashed open, which was all the more remarkable because the creature that barged in was barely three feet tall. A scrawny lizard man with speckled brown skin, one yellow eye, and gauze and surgical tape covering where the other eye should have been.

“I need your help! ” he said, in a phlegmy, hissy voice. “Are you Dan Shamble? You’ve got to help me! ”

“It’s Chambeaux, ” I corrected him as I came out of my office to greet him. I moved stiffly on joints that were still recovering from rigor mortis.

Sheyenne is usually very professional, but she cried out in delight when she saw him. “Oh, aren’t you cute! Look, Beaux—he’s from the car-insurance commercials. ”

After stumbling inside, the lizard man slammed the door behind him with surprising strength. “That’s a gecko, ” he snapped. His long tongue flicked in and out. “I’m a newt. There’s a difference. ”

“Sorry if I offended you. ” She drifted forward to meet him. “Come in, sir. You’re safe here. ”

I made sure my. 38 was in its hip holster, just in case the lizard man was being imminently pursued, but when no slavering, eye-stealing monsters charged after him, I figured we had enough time for a normal client-intake meeting. “Tell me what’s going on, Mr., uh, Newt. ”

“My name is Geck. ” That must have been embarrassing for a guy who was too often confused for a humorous gecko insurance spokesman. “There’s a hit out on me, and I was attacked last night. ”

“Who, exactly, is out to get you? ”

He shook his head. “I don’t know! I didn’t think I had any enemies. I mean, I’m a warm and fuzzy guy. . . as far as an amphibian can be. ”

In the conference room, I had to bring him a booster chair so he could see over the edge of the table. If Robin were here, she would have been taking copious notes on a yellow legal pad, but I just sat and listened. The one-eyed newt didn’t seem at all bothered by the bullet hole in the center of my forehead or my gray pallor. “Tell us your story, Geck. ”

He licked his lips. “I’m walking home, minding my own business, whistling to myself, and then. . . ” He shuddered. “Suddenly, I get accosted by two big thugs: a rock monster and a clay golem. ‘Get him! He’s the one we’ve got a contract out on, ’ says the rock monster. And the golem says, ‘Don’t end a sentence with a preposition. ’

“And they grab me. Because it’s a cool night, I’m a little lethargic. If I’d been sunning myself on a hot rock, I could’ve scurried out of their grasp, but I was too slow. They grab me, slam me up against the brick wall of an alley, then. . . they take out a long spoon. ” He shuddered again, sobbed. “They scoop out my eye, quick as you please, and pop it in a glass bottle. The golem holds me while the rock monster just laughs! ‘We’d get twice as much if we took your other eye, too, ’ he says. ‘You better watch yourself. ’ Then the golem says, ‘He won’t be watching much of anything now. Come on, we got what we need. ’”

The newt self-consciously touched the wadded bandages on his face. “Then they went away and left me there. The golem seemed guilty, even sorry, but the rock monster was just mean. ”

“I’m not surprised, ” I said. “Rock monsters tend to be hard and grumbly, while golems are made of clay, so they are softer in general. ”

“What am I going to do? ” Geck wailed. “If there’s still a hit out on me, someone might try to take my other eye. I’m not safe. ”

I knew I could take him down to the precinct and ask for protective custody from my BHF, my best human friend, Officer Toby McGoohan, but that would be only a temporary solution, and this needed more direct intervention.

“We have to find out who took out a contract on you, ” I said. “Learn what you did and try to make amends. Do you have any idea who it was? Who’s got a grudge against you? Do you owe money? ”

“Any idea at all? ” Sheyenne pressed, hovering close to him.

Geck hung his head. He looked ill, although I knew the greenish brown tinge to his hide was probably natural. “Only the library comes to mind. I think I’ve seen the rock monster and the golem there—they sometimes work as security guards. And I do have an overdue book and a fine. ” He blinked his remaining eye. “You don’t think. . . ? ”

Even Sheyenne paled, and I steeled myself. “You don’t mess with the Spider Lady of the Unnatural Quarter Public Library. Everyone knows that. ” This was going to be a more dangerous case than I had expected. “We’d better go face her—in person, you and me—and see if we can resolve this. You won’t be safe until you’re off her hit list. ”

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