Bloodstone Read Online Free PDF Page A

guard was human, but his scowl made him look scarier than the zombie we’d just encountered. Again, we presented our IDs. I also passed over a sheaf of papers for the guard to inspect. Lately, restrictions had been tight on Deadtown residents who wanted to venture out of Boston’s paranormal-only section into the wider world. I’d spent half the morning filling out forms so we’d have the required permits to drive out to Needham for dinner.
    The guard shuffled our papers, taking way longer than seemed necessary to rubber-stamp our permits. Everything was in order; I’d double-checked to make sure. But sometimes you got a jerk at the checkpoint. A lot of the norm border guards were card-carrying members of Humans First, a political action committee whose goal was to expel all paranormals from Massachusetts. If this bozo was one of that crowd, I’d bet he recognized Kane and was slowing us down on purpose. Kane’s white knuckles on the steering wheel showed that was his opinion, too.
    I wanted to tell the jerk to hurry up, that we had places to go. But this guy could refuse to let us pass, for any reason or for no reason at all. So I waited and didn’t say anything.
    Finally the guard returned our documents and raised the gate. Once we’d gone through, Kane blew out a long breath.
    “Asshole,” he muttered.
    I knew what he was thinking. Kane was trying to get a paranormal-rights case in front of the Supreme Court, to establish federal-level rights for PAs (short for “Paranormal Americans,” Kane’s preferred term for what everyone else called “monsters”). His case had been postponed when the court’s chief justice, Carol Frederickson, was murdered. But if the case went forward and Kane won—a big if , in my opinion—PAs could live anywhere. We could vote, travel, do anything the norms could do. Checkpoints like the ones in and out of Deadtown would be a thing of the past. And so would asshole border guards.
    “It’s worse at night,” I said. “That’s when they put all the Humans First hardliners on duty.” I’d had no trouble crossing the border on my way to and from today’s job.
    “It’s more than that,” Kane said. “Haven’t you listened to the news today?” He clicked on the radio.
    A man’s voice was in the middle of relating the gory details of Boston’s latest murder. Of course I’d heard about that—everybody had. In the past three days, two bodies had been discovered in the South End. The first, sprawled in a park near Rutland Square among the just-blooming crocuses, had been bad—sliced up beyond recognition, with strange symbols carved into the victim’s flesh—but nobody freaked out too much. Boston’s a big city; murders happen. Then, less than forty-eight hours later, in the wee hours between last night and this morning, another victim was found a few blocks away. The second victim had been dumped in the middle of Harrison Avenue, not far from Boston Medical Center. The cops refused to say whether the killings were related, but no one had any doubts. A serial killer stalked Boston. Some reporter for the Herald had even come up with a nickname, based on leaked information that the killer used a curved blade, like a sickle: the South End Reaper.
    The newscaster continued: “Boston Police commissioner Fred Hampson has put code-red restrictions in place on Designated Area 1, popularly called Deadtown.” Code red—no wonder that guard had taken so long with our papers. Code red meant zombies couldn’t leave Deadtown at all; no permits would be issued for them under any circumstances. And it tightened restrictions on the movements of other paranormals between dusk and dawn. I’d thought I was going for overkill on the forms I’d filled out this morning. Apparently, I’d done just the right amount.
    The possibility of a serial killer worried me. Not because I expected the South End Reaper to jump out of the shadows, slashing at me with a curved blade. I could take care