Deadtown Read Online Free PDF Page B

Deadtown and human-controlled Boston, a stretch everyone called the New Combat Zone. The buildings here had stood vacant for a couple of years; when bars began to open in the dusty storefronts, the owners made no attempt to spruce things up. The more derelict and dangerous a place looked, the bigger the thrill for the norms who ventured here to mingle with the monsters.
    Tina nudged my arm. “Isn’t that your roommate?”
    I followed her gaze to a short, curvy woman with long hair so black it had blue highlights. She stood in the doorway of our usual hangout, a bar called Creature Comforts, nuzzling a man I’d never seen before. “Yeah, that’s Juliet.”
    “Call her over. She can get us through the express lane.”
    Juliet wrapped one leg behind the guy’s knees as he threw back his head. “Does she look like she wants to be interrupted? Anyway, the Jag only has two seats.”
    “She can share with me. We’ll fit.”
    “I don’t think so. Watch. And don’t blink.”
    Juliet released the human from her embrace. He staggered backward, leaning against the wall, one hand pressed to his throat. Juliet herself simply disappeared. One second she was there, surveying her conquest with heavy-lidded eyes. The next second, she was gone.
    “Hey,” said Tina. “Where’d she go?”
    “Home. She’s there by now.”
    “Really? How?”
    “Vampire trick. Juliet doesn’t like waiting in line, not even the express lane.” You’d think a six-hundred-fifty-year-old vampire would’ve developed patience, but not Juliet.
    “Can’t she get in trouble for skipping the line?”
    “Trouble?” I laughed. “Juliet’s been poisoned, burned at the stake, thrown off cliffs, and dumped in the ocean to drown. Trouble doesn’t faze her.”
    “God, I wish I were a vampire. They’re, like, so much cooler than zombies—I mean, if you’ve gotta be undead. Check out that hot guy she was with.”
    On the sidewalk, Juliet’s bedtime snack opened his eyes and blinked. He looked up the street, then down, then toward the Deadtown checkpoint. His shoulders slumped as he realized Juliet was gone. He pulled a scarf from his coat pocket, wrapped it twice around his neck, and walked toward the human checkpoint back into Boston. I couldn’t tell for sure because the Jag’s windows were rolled up, but he looked like he was whistling. Nothing like a vampire hickey to put a guy in a good mood.
    “They should let zombies use the express lane,” Tina complained as we moved up one car length. “The sun’s not good for us, either.”
    “Yeah, but zombies don’t go up in a puff of smoke.”
    “We don’t heal, though. If I get sunburn, my skin will be all cratered and orange-splotched for life.”
    She sighed, and I knew we were thinking the same thing: whatever “for life” means to a zombie.
     
     
    THREE YEARS AGO, THE ONLY PEOPLE IN BOSTON WHO believed in zombies were teenagers who’d watched Night of the Living Dead a few too many times. That was before the plague hit.
    At the time, some of the city’s monsters had begun venturing out of the closet, out of the coffin, out from under the bed. This was a change from when I was growing up, when someone like me had to keep my true nature hidden. I knew about my own kind, of course, but back then I had no clue that vampires and werewolves were more than scary bedtime stories. Then, about five years ago, in Boston and a few other cities around the country—Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Miami—paranormals began organizing for legal recognition and social acceptance. They were led by Alexander Kane, werewolf and lawyer. Oh, and my sometime companion for dinner, movies, and the occasional overnight romp. Kane’s legal practice gave him a toehold of respectability among the humans, and his goal was full legal equity at the federal level for humans and monsters. (Except, if you’re talking to Kane, don’t say monster . Say Paranormal American , or PA for short.) He’d recruited a