Walking Dead. C.E. Murphy
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A party was not the time to be dwelling on my unnatural skill set. I did blink, even if it wasn’t necessary, to clear away the glimmering colors, and moved to lose myself in the crowd. Edward would be able to find me; I was taller than almost everyone in the room, and he was taller than I was. I squirmed by a pair of clowns whose eyes were on the level with my breasts. The one with his nose in my cleavage looked entirely too pleased. I threatened him with the yin-yang thing and his companion had the good sense to turn his face away. I moved in the other direction, hiding a laugh. Being amused by people ogling my chest seemed out of character for my leather-clad persona, never mind me.
A big chunk of a man in a blue satin evening gown with a matching bolero jacket edged through the crush, trying not to step on anyone. I escaped the clowns and waved my mask in greeting. “Hey, Billy. You look great.”
Billy Holliday, paranormal detective extraordinaire—he saw dead people—my work partner, and overall one of the solid, reliable linchpins of my life, looked me up and down and said, “You look surprisingly naked.”
I covered my bare stomach with the mask and wondered if a blush could start as low as the xyphoid process. It felt like it. “I don’t think that was the response I was looking for.”
Billy, without a hint of genuine repentance, said, “Sorry,” as his wife appeared at his elbow. “I’ve just never seen you quite so, um.”
Quite so um. There were probably worse compliments a girl could get, but overall I think I’d have preferred better. Then again, married men probably weren’t supposed to open with a salvo of you’re surprisingly naked to begin with, so maybe I should take what I could get.
“Bill, you’re not supposed to let the pregnant wife get lost in the madhouse.” Melinda Holliday stood a full foot shorter than her husband, and wore a velvet tuxedo that properly squired his evening gown. Wonderfully long tails nearly dragged on the floor, and she adjusted a cummerbund stretched over a very round belly as she examined me. “Joanie. You look…”
I sighed. “Surprisingly naked?”
“Well,” she said cheerfully, “yes. Fantastic, actually, but surprisingly naked. Who convinced you to wear that?”
I said, “Phoebe,” in a voice that I hoped spelled her doom.
Melinda laughed, which boded poorly for my doom voice. “Half the force will thank her for it. Have you seen Michael?”
“Michael? Morrison?” I didn’t know a lot of other Michaels, but I never thought of my boss by his first name, and found it bewildering that Melinda did. “Morrison’s at my party?” I had a fair amount of experience with the world ending. None of it had looked anything like a costume party, or else I’d have put Morrison’s attendance down as a sure sign of the apocalypse.
Melinda’s eyebrows shot up. “You invited him, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t think he’d come!” Curiosity got the better of me as I craned my neck to look around. “What’s he dressed as?”
“A cop, of course.” Melinda sounded delighted.
I squinted. “He is a cop. That’s not a costume. Unless he’s in uniform, but that’s cheating.”
Billy, sounding every bit as pleased as Melinda, said, “Oh, he’s in costume.” I turned my squint on him, then peered around again. Morrison typically wore suits, except for when protocol demanded he pull out the full captain’s dress uniform. I hadn’t seen him in that since a funeral in June, and while he’d looked as handsome and solemn and reliable as a police captain should, I didn’t think he should get away with it as a Halloween costume. Especially when I’d let Phoebe put me into some strategic bits of leather and a sword. I’d have died of hypothermia if the party wasn’t a success.
Thor reappeared, bearing drinks and a look of amusement. “Have you seen the captain?”
“I don’t even believe he’s here.” I took one of the plastic cups he offered and sniffed its contents—pink and foamy—suspiciously. “What is this?”
“I didn’t ask. There were two choices. One involved dunking my head and apples. I took this one.” He took a sip of his own drink cautiously, then made a moue. “Typical fruit-drink-and-soda party stuff.”
Reassured, I took a sip, then coughed, eyes tearing. “You forgot to mention heavily spiked.” I blinked tears away, then took another sip more carefully. Woo. Worse than the Johnnie Walker I’d gotten wasted on a few months ago. At least I expected that to knock me senseless.
Melinda heaved a melodramatic sigh. “Do they have anything nonalcoholic?”
“They better. I told Phoebe we had minors attending the party.” I nodded at Melinda’s belly. “You look ready to pop.”
“I was ready to pop three weeks ago. I’ve forgotten what my feet look like. My children have taken to calling me El Blobbo.”
“They have not,” Billy said equitably. Melinda beamed at him and he said, “They call her La Blobbacita,” which earned him a sudden reversal of the beam into a credibly injured pout.
“When’s the big day?” Thor took a swig of the pink drink and made a face.
Melinda let go of her pout to sigh gustily. “November sixth.”
“Well, that’s not too bad, right? Only another week.”
Spoken, I thought, like somebody who’s never been pregnant. I didn’t say it out loud because it opened up a whole bunch of questions I had no desire to answer, but the look Mel gave him pretty much said what I didn’t.
Billy grinned. “She’s doing jumping jacks every morning to try to hurry things along.” He bent to give her a kiss, promised, “I’ll find you a drink,” and cleared a path through the crowd. Evening gown or no, he was by far a big enough guy to do that easily, though it closed up behind him again.
Melinda, beaming, called, “My hero,” after him, then folded her arms across the top of her tummy and looked around. “Good party, Joanne.”
“Thank you. From shut-in recluse mechanic to partying shamanic police detective within a year. You too can get on this ride if you’re over this tall.” I waved a hand near the top of my head, then took another hasty swallow of my drink. Apparently it was more potent than I’d realized, if it was taking me from wanting a drink so I didn’t have to think about my mystical power set to babbling about it.
Melinda, bless her, snorted and stood on her toes in an attempt to reach the required height, while Edward leaned forward to knock his forehead against the side of my still-lifted hand. He had a good three inches in height over me, and his voice dropped somewhere around his, um, knees, as he murmured, “I wouldn’t mind getting on that ride.”
This time I was sure a blush could start around the xyphoid process. His smile turned into a grin and he watched that blush go all the way down, which only served to enhance it. I whispered, “Stop that,” but not with any particular conviction.
He brought his gaze back up to my face and leered, then laughed and stepped in against me. I elbowed him with even less conviction than I’d scolded. He slid an arm around my waist, looking pleased with himself. “You brought it up, so now I get to ask something I’ve been dying to.”
I said, “No dying,” semi-automatically. Too many people around me had died, or had had alarmingly close calls, this past year. I didn’t like even joking about it.
Apology flashed through his blue eyes and he nodded, but he went ahead and asked, “Halloween’s a spooky time of year. Does it kick things into overtime?”
I frowned, first at my drink, then at my date. “Why? Have I been acting weird lately?”
He and Melinda said, “No more than usual,” in tandem, and he laughed as Melinda presented a high five for him to match. “Nah. I was just curious, and you don’t usually