Zombie Mafia of Tavros
Tara Loughead
Copyright 2010 Tara Loughead
A Bulays and Ghaavn Adventure
For Brian Daley and Val Kilmer
"Vampires, a werewolf, and now you're telling me we have a zombie?" Bulays asked with some disbelief. "What's on tomorrow? We 'ave an appointment with Doctor Frankenstein?"
"Well, now that you mention it..." Ghaavn grinned.
"You've got to be kidding, love..."
Ghaavn shook his head. "Oh, no, definitely not. Tomorrow, at midnight. In the Ministry morgue. Gerald confirmed it earlier today."
"I'll say one thing about a career as a low-rent legbreaker. The strangest thing you'd likely come across would be a drag queen drug dealer with a mutant Chihuahua. Think I'll go 'ave a little lie down then. Need some beauty sleep if I'm going to look my best for Doc Frankenstein."
"Sure..." Bulays' motives were quite transparent to Ghaavn after so long. He smiled and waved her away, turning back to some reports.
*****
"Beauty sleep? I don't think I've ever heard it called that before, beautiful, and I've been alive for a very, very, long time," the Death Queen of Neptune said. She looked amusedly at her paramour, who was reclining on her bed in bra and panties. Emar herself was attending to being less dressed. Now wearing only a very low cut white latex halter, having just peeled off her skin-tight hip hugging pants. There was only room in those for the tiniest of thongs, of which she was now running her finger around.
"Emar, babe...sometimes you talk too much, did you know that?"
Emar blinked, green eyes flashing, and stopped talking. She crossed her arms over her breasts, thumbs caressing her nipples, waiting for an explanation.
"You could put that gorgeous mouth and luscious lips to much better use," Bulays suggested huskily.
Emar pounced lustily and attached herself as suggested to the smooth, soft skin just under Bulays' jawline, her fingers deftly freeing the blonde amazon's breasts. She kissed her way down Bulays' neck, who moaned as Emar's fingers played an ancient arpeggio of desire.
*****
The now-naked Queen of Neptune sat up, and looked at the sleeping human woman fondly. She remembered a time when she would have ripped the heart out of a human that spoke to her in such a manner. She sighed. Ages passed, and Bulays was most definitely one of a kind. She dressed again in tight white pants, halter, and slung a cape on her shoulders. Then she faded out in a soft green glow.
She faded in to the office of Lady Gerald, Head of the Ministry. Gerald looked up, sniffed. A spy, after all, it didn't take dedicated trained powers of observation to realise where Emar had been.
Emar smirked. "We have a little time, if you'd like...I'm sure she wouldn't mind."
A brief, wistful look passed across Gerald's face, and the fingers of one hand clutched a knee under her desk, where Emar could not see. "No, some other time. Let's talk business."
"You are really sure you want to do this? There are enough monsters already, without making another."
Gerald looked unhappy. "That's the game. Making assets out of enemies. Although not usually dead ones. It is also why I asked you to observe. If we do end up with Frankenstein's monster, then you can end him."
"He's not completely dead, I hope?"
"No, we cryofroze him when the surgeons said his chance of survival was tiny."
"Good. You don't want a garden variety zombie, after all." Emar sat down on a couch and leaned back. If nothing else, Gerald thought, that outfit, those hips and that cleavage could wake the dead. And possibly lead them to get up, walk, and do the rumba. She bit her tongue to still the wave of lust between her legs, clearing her thoughts of sex and latex to focus on the dead matter at hand.
"You have the time then?"
The Death Queen inclined her head. "Very well," Emar said. "I will be there." Fading out in a viridian sparkle, she left parting words hanging in the air as she vanished, "Gerald, I begin to understand what you are feeling...."
*****
Bulays woke, yawning. Making love with Emar was amazing but certainly not restful. She realised she had thought 'love' again. Encounters with old friends were fine, but it was the bewitching emerald eyes of the Htapele woman her thoughts kept returning to. Well, she thought, I'd imagine a date with Doctor Frankenstein and a zombie can cool my groin. A shower will also help, and she rose to remove the smell of sweat and sex from her skin.
*****
Bulays met Ghaavn before heading for the morgue, as honestly, she didn't fancy doing the Monster Mash without her partner one bit. Ghaavn took her arm and they descended into the bowels of the Ministry.
Entering the morgue they saw a man laid out on an operating table, frozen, blue and being rapidly dethawed. A woman, obviously of some medical profession, stood beside the corpsicle's head. Next to him on another table, lay an identical operating table. A robed woman stood at its head. "I much prefer Gebriahl dead, Lady G," Bulays said, rather put out. "I don't care what Misfit Munster Mojo you have done to him, if he comes after Ghaavn he's toast."
Gerald moved to look Bulays in the eye. "Yes, I realise that. I believe you will like the steps we have taken to prevent that, plus..." she stepped back, hand indicating the shadows in the corner of the room. The figure that emerged wore a plunging white halter, tight hip hugging pants to match, and a white cape. "Hello darling," she said. "We have this well in hand." Bulays actually sighed in relief. If anyone understood weird magic mojo, it was likely to be the Death Queen of Neptune.
"Lady Gerald, his temperature is almost high enough, now."
"Very well, then. Begin when ready."
'Doctor Frankenstein' took out her bone saw, and removed Gebriahl's skull. Bulays began to feel a little green herself. Ghaavn caught Emar's eye, and she came over to take her lover's other arm. "Sorry," Bulays muttered. "Not big on this 'ospital stuff. Prefer cop shows, sans pathology."
"It's only a brain transplant," said the Doctor. "It's not like I'm building him from scratch, today."
Ghaavn chuckled at the deadpan macabre medico.
"What's with the Spooky Spell Squad sheila then?" Bulays indicated the robed woman. "Well," the Doctor replied. "He actually has to be able to function, and he was rather dead. Or to put it another way...the monster has to walk, and he has to handle a gun."
"A gun? What the hell, Lady G?"
"Bulays, you know how you wanted to protect Ghaavn earlier?" She stated in reply. "This is exactly what I am doing."
"By bringing a crimelord back to life?"
"By creating an asset. A hired gun."
"You have many of those. Why go to all this trouble?"
"Because none of them are better than Ghaavn. And Ghaavn's not good enough."
"Explain," Bulays growled, pulling away from Ghaavn to stare at him.
"Gebriahl's better." Her partner said.
"No he's not." Bulays shot back.
"Yes he is. Not in the field. But if we stood in the middle of a street on Barnes and someone said draw, I'd be a dead man."
"But he's now a zombie monster!"
"That's right. He's not much good to us frozen with a large bullet hole in his stomach, is he?" Ghaavn replied.
"So, Lady G. Why do you need the fastest gun on Titan?" Bulays turned to their chief.
"Gallyndra's on Tavros."
"Oh hell."
"Exactly," said Lady Gerald.
"The only woman to make the League of Assassins cancel a contract? She's here?"
"Yes, she certainly did that, after 'cancelling' most of their Ruling Elite. She's also cancelled crime families and pirate outfits. By herself. Ghaavn made her stand down
once. You can imagine how she feels about that. I've had word that she is looking for him."
"Yes," said Ghaavn. "So it is time for manoeuvre T-OK-5."
"Ah, right then," said Bulays, beginning to understand.
*****
The work in the morgue went on. Coffee was consumed in large quantities. Bulays even managed to forget where she was and dozed off, resting on Emar's shoulder.
Eventually, Gebriahl set up. One of his first sights was the now clothed form of the man who killed him and stood naked over him as he bled out on the floor, gutshot. Lady Gerald stepped forward. "I brought you back. Everyone was happy to let you rot, but I am here to offer you a deal."
She outlined the situation. "You do this, and we let you live. New identity, even new body if you want to retire quietly somewhere. Or if you still crave the life, we can a invent cover story to get you back in your old role, but you now work for our Network. You could even work for us directly, as an agent. First, you have a few hurdles to overcome. The rather appalling green body you are in won't last very long with any level of ability. Presumably you don't want to end as a shambling rotting zombie. So you have a time limit. Any new deal comes with conditions. You so much as twitch in Ghaavn's direction afterwards, well, let us say the supernatural experts have made it so you'd never look at a woman the say way again, if you catch my drift? With your kink, you might rather be dead."
Gebriahl-zombie nodded its green head.
"You do wrong in the field, we leave you in a steel box, to liquefy. Possibly you might never completely die."
The zombie did not look pleased, but agreed to terms.
Then the makeup artist arrived.
*****
Ghaavn took Gallyndra's call. "I can't say it is a pleasure to hear from you, Gallyndra. What brings you to the Saturn system?"
"I think you know very well, Ghaavn. Do I have to come and find you, and your partner, or will you meet me?"
"You guarantee to leave Bulays alone, whatever happens to me, and you can choose the location."
"You have my word, Ghaavn."
"We have a deal."
He cut the communication, and made one more call before leaving.
*****
Gallyndra chose Tavros. The small moon was a good spot for an outlaw who needed a base for a brief time. She was set up there. An old shed was to be the site, and Ghaavn's shuttle landed nearby. The man who got out wore a hat, and long, old-fashioned trenchcoat. He had a blaster by his side as he strode to open the door.
"Well, hello there," the lean gunwoman called, golden beads braided in her hair. "I didn't think you'd show, Ghaavn."
The man whose face was shadowed by his hat looked up, raising the brim. Gallyndra looked shocked at his identity. "My fight's not with you, whoever you are."
"I beg to differ. You burned my brother down. I'm definitely your Saturnberry. Let's play for blood."
"Ah, now I remember. Fine by me. But I think I'll shoot Bulays next."
The shooters drew down, and Gebriahl still thought he could win. He knew he wasn't perfect, that his speeddraw had a twitch of the shoulder, a slight roll of the hip. Gallyndra was a poetry of economy, an explosion of muscle fibre twitch that moved only what she needed to fire. Gebriahl got close, but as he cleared his blaster Gallyndra's bolt took his arm off at the shoulder.
"Very good, Gebriahl," mocked Gallyndra. "About as close as anyone has come." She walked forward to gloat, sealing her doom.
*****
"The 5 actually stands for 500," Bulays explained back at the shuttle. "500 kilograms of high incendiary explosive. The rest to old Earth history and legend."
"They'll be hard put to collect what is left of her, even with a forensics lab," Ghaavn said with relief.
"Pity about the arm, Gebriahl," Bulays continued. "Good thing you're a zombie and it doesn't hurt. Or bleed. Still stinks, though. Lucky that experimental forcefield belt held for the few seconds it was good for, too."
"This deal doesn't mean I have listen to the blonde rug-muncher, Ghaavn." The one-armed zombie was again going green, his makeup having melted off in the heat.
"Actually, it does. Because you don't get a new body until I sign off on this report. I would suggest that treating Bulays with disrespect means me forgetting rather a lot of paperwork."
"Plus," Bulays told the chastened zombie gangster cheerfully. "I've had men who'd snap you like the scrawny twig you are. Keep it up, though, if you want. I'd be happy to give what is left of you at the end in a jar, for the Rent Boys of Jove to keep as a decoration in their trophy room."
Gebriahl sat down and suffered in his one-armed green roasted zombie stink.
*****
"Certainly one of the oddest debriefings we've had, Lady Gerald," Ghaavn said. Gerald had to agree.
"Can we keep it that way, Lady G? If you turn up any more cases and any of them have ancient Egyptians and rotting bandages for instance, can you please call the Omega Twins?" Bulays pleaded.
"Not me, Mummy?" Ghaavn asked his partner, eyes twinkling mirthfully.
Gerald burst out laughing and Ghaavn joined her.
THE END
Artwork by Vickie Shan
https://www.flickr.com/photos/vickieshan/1573166013/in/faves-jekkarapress/
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You can find all of the Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn as well as The Gender Switch Adventures at :
Coming Soon
The Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn
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The Gender Switch Adventures
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