Abracadaver (Esther Diamond Novel) by Laura Resnick

Author:Laura Resnick
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

10

Nelli had been very reluctant to wake up and leave the dry warmth of the bookstore for the cold, cruel, wet elements of this miserable Manhattan night.

After standing outside for twenty minutes in the pouring snow (the best description of the frigid, wet, semisolid stuff falling steadily down on us), I wished I had sided with her instead of with Max.

Fine, let the demon have a dead body. What do I care?

In our eagerness to get to Chen’s Funeral Home, we had not considered the difficulty of getting a cab on a night like this, let alone the challenge of finding a taxi that would agree to carry Nelli. After a few minutes of exposure to the elements had drenched the dog and her winter vest and coated her big paws with slushy filth, we accepted the impossibility of our foolish quest, and I phoned Max’s pet transport service. Although Max was a regular customer and known for tipping well, they were having a busy night, so we wound up waiting much longer than expected—which was why we hadn’t returned to the store to wait inside. As a result, we were shivering and very damp by the time a sleek black SUV collected us from a curb in Greenwich Village.

After giving the driver the address of the funeral home, I closed the plastic partition so the driver wouldn’t overhear our conversation. Sitting in a cold, dripping huddle, I asked Max, “Why does the entity want a dead body?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to ask it.”

I tried to picture chatting about this with a demonic being that reanimated corpses. It didn’t seem like something I wanted to do.

“How did it know Lopez would interfere?” I asked.

“By virtue of being attached to Quinn, it has been in his company for weeks. Detective Lopez is not aware of the entity, but it is aware of him and has learned things about him.”

That made me shiver again. Then I thought of something else.

“Max, when Susan was running around Doyers Street with a gun in her hand, at one point she turned that thing on me. I think she really intended to pull the trigger. Lopez was there, and he saw. I could hear him shouting to me. And then projectile flames suddenly burst out of the mouth of John’s lion costume and shot across the street. It scared Susan and startled her into the dropping the gun.” Then Lucky had tackled her, followed by some cops. “Those flames probably saved my life, Max.”

He nodded, having listened with intent interest. “And there was, of course, no evident explanation for what had happened.”

“Everyone who examined the lion costume afterward was perplexed. Including Lopez.”

“He had reacted instinctively, unconsciously calling on power he doesn’t realize he possesses,” Max mused, “at a moment of supreme stress when he saw a madwoman pointing a loaded gun at you.”

“Quinn was there,” I said.

“Ah.” Max realized where I was going with this. “That means the entity was present and witnessed the incident, too.

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