"No... it couldn't be," she said.

"It is," Parker replied. Then said, "I'm to get a sample," he looked at me again, "willing or unwilling, so that his strands can be combined with the Key. It will give them the essential foundation needed to reverse the manifestation of the paranormal abilities."

Gramps threw his head back, guffawing.

I found zero comedy in the Graysheets continued interference: League of Asshats Unite.

"So," Gramps said, slapping his knee and wiping his eyes, "they got in over their heads... Zondorae right?" Parker nodded and Gramps took the confirmation as biblical fact. "They're all panicked with their panties in a twist and now they think the DNA answer is here," he pointed at me, "and....?"

"Queen Clara from the sphere-world," Parker supplied.

Holy shit.

"It's like those creepy mind-fucks they pulled on us," Jonesy said out loud, then added, "Ya know, when they juiced us with the 'go crazy' shit."

Gramps frowned at him, "Language Jones."

"Hey! I'm eighteen now."

Gramps was striding to him in two point five seconds. He whipped Jonesy around and jacked up an arm between his shoulder blades.

"Mac!" Sophie cried, "that's the arm he broke."

"Ladies present, Jones," Gramps said casually, ignoring everything but The Lesson.

I smiled and the other guys grinned. Jonesy was so him.

"Alright man! You're gonna break it again...."

Gramps and Jonesy stayed in an awkward suspension of butting heads and ideology.

"Sorry," Jonesy said.

"Mean it," Gramps said and jerked the arm up a little higher and Jonesy howled.

"Sorry!" Jonesy yelled.

Gramps released him. "That hurt!"

"Ya got the lesson though, yes?"

Parker said, "I want you on my team."

"I'm on my own team," Gramps said and Parker laughed.

"Yeah, I see that, Mac."

Mac looked at Parker. "Can you get one of those pudwhackers here?"

"A Zondorae?" Parker asked.

Gramps nodded.

"I can but what's your plan?"

"I'm a spontaneous fella... it'll come to me. And my grandson here has some undead handy. Let's get those bastards off-balance and talking."

"Like canaries," Clyde said, strolling up.

Though I had never called.

Gramps gave a grim smile which Clyde returned. There was an eerie understanding that flowed between Gramps and Clyde.

It was sorta psychic but technically wasn't.

Parker looked at the two and nodded. "I can get him here. But I'm capable, Mac."

"Yes, I know. I'd like to make it a family affair if you will."

Gramps looked at me and I nodded. I was on board but Jade shivered. "Are we talking torture here?"

No one said anything.

But Parker turned to her. "What do you think they're doing to the girl?"

Jade stared back at him. "Nobody deserves that. Two wrongs don't make a right."

"Oh... I don't know about that," Clyde said, his eyes held what I liked to think of as Zombie Edge.

*

Nevaeh

She awoke and it wasn't in the back of the other C-Ms trunk. Nevaeh had woken up in the trunk but the fucking government dickholes had jerked her out of there before she could let the other AFTDs know that she was running scared.

That she wouldn't have killed them.

But... too late now. She'd been running for months; she'd even dug out her pulse disc so they couldn't track her. But it was that goddamned older AFTD that had honed in on her when she'd been trying to find that young guy.

Caleb Hart.

She needed his help. Hell, she'd have taken Jeffrey Parker's help if she could've had a five minute audience. She'd blown her chances with her smart ass mouth, per usual.

That bitch of a low level AFTD had been... interesting too. Nevaeh had never encountered another female that was on her level of No Fear. It was über-cool.

Not that anything was right now.

Nevaeh was tied to an examining table. No hope.

Story of her miserable life.

When the first of the two scientists entered the medical lab room, Nevaeh eyed the ten gauge needle and struggled to remain neutral. It was a horse syringe, they certainly weren't concerned with her comfort.

Typical Graysheet modus operandi.

"Give it to her," Gary said in a flat voice.

"We don't want this bitch breeding," Joe reasserted like it'd been said a hundred times before.

"What? Not going to kill me boys?" she asked with a voice that was unusual by most standards: a throaty contralto that belied her looks, her fragile size emphasized by a tall build.

"Not yet," Gary said, plunging the needle home, causing a flinch that was almost a jump. He smiled at his abusive use of the sterilizing toxin.

"What is this shit?" Nevaeh asked as the liquid depressed into her vein in a rape of her bloodstream, the stuff felt like iced fire as it surged through her body, aided by a healthy heart that pumped it through its first cycle.

"Insurance," Gary said cryptically, holding the needle up.

"I guess you don't have a Null on board then?"

Gary and Joe frowned, for all their intellectual prowess, not sizing up the potential in her words.

Parker walked in and, without even a hello, plunged a syringe into Gary's shoulder.

"Nighty-night," Nevaeh said, grinning even as her arm oozed blood from the needle's assault.

"What the fuck, Parker?" Joe shrieked as his brother slumped and cracked his head on the floor.

Parker turned to Joe and yanked him forward by the labcoat. "Answers, Joe."

"He doesn't know anything you crazy fuck," Joe Zondorae said.

Parker slugged him in the temple, dumping him into a heap on the floor.

His gaze swung to Nevaeh, vulnerable and tied to the lab table, her arm bleeding where they'd given her something.

"They shot me up with some bullshit anti-breeding thing..."

"I wouldn't worry about that," Parker said cryptically.

"Okay stud, ya gonna do me with the juice or are we gonna talk about our similar interests?"

Parker couldn't help it, he laughed. "Kinda full of yourself, aren't you?"

"Yeah," Nevaeh answered with a smile, full of bravado.

Full of fear.

Parker looked at her for a second, taking in the circular scar beneath her ear, the blacker-than-night hair and light blue eyes. Her malnourished body was almost skeletal in its thinness.

Fierce intelligence burned out of her eyes, scorching him, nailing him.

Before Parker could analyze what his thought direction meant she looked down at the unconscious brothers. "What about these ass monkeys?"

Parker barked out a laugh, grinning. Nevaeh may have been crazy like the brothers claimed but she was growing on him.

He was glad he'd decided against murdering her.

For the moment.

"I guess it's safe to say my free pass with the agency is null and void."

"Get me out of here, Parker," she commanded and he cocked his head.

She grunted, her pretty eyes like a pale glacier. "Pretty please with sugar on top?"

He gave a hard swallow.

"You better not pull more undead crap or I'm going to be forced to subdue you."

"Will I like it?" she asked with that voice of hers, her liquid eyes flashing like a silver streak.

He gave her a sharp look.

For the first time he considered if her five-point AFTD status was the most dangerous thing about her.

Maybe not.

He unlocked the manacles that bound her and she sat up. The room spun and she would have fallen if he hadn't caught her.

When had she eaten last? he wondered.

Nevaeh was pressed against the hard planes of his body and something terrible happened.

Their power clicked like a fist in a glove.

It washed over Jeffrey and Nevaeh, binding them.

"What is that?" Nevaeh asked, the dizziness hitting her between the eyes.

"I don't know," Parker said, struggling to banish the wash of linked death that bound them.

When the first zombie showed up Parker and Nevaeh weren't surprised.

It felt like the two of them could have emptied the graveyards of the world.

Maybe they had.

But maybe... just maybe, if they hadn't- they could.

*

Caleb

Parker showed up with the female AFTD who looked worse than when I saw her last and dragged a bedraggled Zondorae behind him.

"Well hell, Parker, that was fast!" Jonesy said, clearly loving it.

Gramps said, "Slow learner, Jones?"

Jonesy backed away a little and Alex smirked.

"No more teen beatings, Mac," Jonesy said.

"If I beat you, you'll know it, Jonesy," Gramps said.

"Now," Gramps said, rubbing his hands together and giving a sidelong look at the girls. "You young women may wish to be somewhere else while I have a little chat here with Zondorae."

The girls looked at each other uneasily then Tiff commented, "It's alright, whatever happens, this dispshit deserves what's coming to him after that whole creepy auction thing in the dome world."

Gramps looked at Tiff. "Let's keep our civility, Tiffany."

"Sorry, Mac," she said in a contrite voice.

"She gets off the hook," Jonesy mumbled and Gramps narrowed his eyes on Jonesy.

"Excuse me?" Gary Zondorae said. "My people will be showing up, en masse in about..." his eyes rolled up into his head, doing an internal calculation that only he was privy to, "fifteen minutes."

Clyde cuffed him on the ear and he howled. "Cease and desist, swine."

Gale, who had shown up in her vehicle a few minutes before, giggled. "Oh, the language from the bygone era, it's so fun," she trilled in delight.

I couldn't believe we were discussing these light topics when the Graysheet cavalry was gonna show.

Gramps must have been thinking the same thing. He had reappeared with the socket wrench we used to torque nuts when we were laying underneath cars.

A versatile tool.

But I knew that glint in his eye, he meant business.

"No, Caleb," Jade said, a standing horror in her eyes. I let my hand drop off her skin.

The female necromancer looked at Jade. "Oh yes." Her eyes glittered with an anger sharp enough to cut, her hand fingering a flesh-colored square bandage at the bend of her arm.

Gramps jammed a cigarette between his lips, eyes squinting against the wall of smoke.

I guess torture needed a few things in place: socket wrench- check. Smokes- check. Motivation- check.

The girls went into the house. Tiff remained. Jade cast a glance my way before disappearing inside. It was a guilt trip for sure, that look.

Kinda worked.

Gramps shook his head slightly, the smoke from his cigarette making a loose spiral around his head, wrench in hand. He used it to punctuate his point. "You Zondoraes..." he looked Gary over with disdain, pointing the wrench at his chest, who was currently getting the love squeeze from Parker, "are really slow learners. Now," he took a drag, holding the butt end like a joint, his face fuzzy through the haze, "I got a cure for that."

Clyde stepped forward, his shirt sleeves neatly folded almost to his elbows and looked at Gramps questioningly, who gave a slight chin dip. Clyde grabbed Zondorae and held him tight. Parker stepped away like they'd always done this dance. Gramps leaned in real close. His quiet voice sounded more menacing than a loud one ever could. "Tell me what your plan is for my grandson or I'll start with your toenails."

I watched Gary's Adam's apple bob and he shifted his eyes to mine in sheer panic, playing the Time Game: would the Graysheets arrive before we could mutilate him?

"Come on, Hart! You can't let this... thug of a grandpa have my body parts because we have... a plan that you're not aware of..." he pleaded.

But my cup of care was full.

He'd pretty much filled that thing to the brim in Clara's world.

Twice.

And actually, I so could. I put my nose an inch from his. "There's no 'letting' on this one Zondorae. It's more like me not interfering with his excellence."

Gramps and I looked at each other and he stepped forward, crushing the cig under his foot casually in a graceful stomp. He stepped over it as Clyde tightened his hold on Gary Zondorae who was mewling like the coward he was.

Gramps swung the wrench high, the faded ambient light of twilight glinted off the thing as it arced downward.

Clyde didn't flinch when it hit.