Dearly, Beloved Part 16

Together they unhooked the belts used to keep the sack closed and pulled it off, revealing a middle-aged man. Over his nondescript, working-cla.s.s clothing he wore a leather back brace. "No! No! Please!"

The graduating Brother slammed back the last of his drink, holding his mask above his lips to do so, before shoving it back down. He then turned toward the table full of weapons, rocking slightly on his feet.

"Gun! Gun!" someone chanted.

"Fire!" Someone else called. "I've a lighter, and we've got plenty of rotgut to use as fuel. Tie him down and watch him roast!"

The young man in the brocade jacket seemed ready to lend an ear to his compatriots, laughing at each of their suggestions, his body bending. But when he finally made his selection, he chose the sword. Sense of tradition, this one. I wondered who he was. I wondered if he'd pulled the ridiculous-looking thing out of some wall display in his own family manor.

The Brother turned to the zombie, hefting the weapon with two inexperienced hands. The zombie's voice became shrill. "My name is Emanuel! Emanuel Delgado! I have-"

"For my family!" Brother Graduate screamed as he brought the weapon down. There was no hesitation, no consideration.

No strength.

Well. I'd never seen a man attempt to speak with a blade buried in the middle of his face before. Brother Graduate's blow had been true, but lacking force. The zombie's eyes bulged, almost pulsing, his jaw shaking as he tried to sc.r.a.pe the severed bone down the sword's edge. He was trying to open his mouth to talk, to continue his pleading. I recalled losing a hammer in the head of a zombie during the failed attempt to save Roe's little slug of a brother. At least that zombie had gone down.

"Get him again! You didn't get the brain fully!" someone yelled.

"No! Toy with him!"

Bored, I headed for the stairs. The screams of the dying dead man followed me, nipping at my heels. Once outside, I removed my mask and breathed out, trying to chase away the stink of alcohol. The air felt cold against my cheeks.

In a week I'd have to do the same thing.

My phone went off, its chime bright in the darkness. I pulled it out and flicked it open, only to find a message from Vespertine.

I just got a text about an explosion in bakery on George St. Isn't that where R lives?

Suddenly sober as a church mouse, I set my phone down on the flagstones and leaned back against the building, trying not to throw up. She'd remembered. Or had she?

My drunken confessions had freaked me out, upon first remembering them. I thought I might've done myself in. Vespertine had been right-I'd found the finger in my pocket the next day, the ring on my hand, and immediately thrown both into the fire. Vespertine hadn't said a word until now, though. I'd thought myself safe.

How could I play this?

Threats sprung first to mind. I grabbed for my phone.

Your house has security cameras. I have money to hire hackers. If it's digital, it can't be erased. The world will see you and me together, alone.

There. Maybe I was slapping my ace down far too early, but it was the only thing I could think of. Hopefully it'd be the only thing I needed. Hopefully, even if she had no idea what I was talking about, it'd be a big enough threat to force her to shut her mouth and never contact me again. Stupid, stupid women ...

But then, the girl surprised me with an ace of her own.

I don't want to out you. I want in. I want to see R and D hurt. How can I help?

This ... I could work with.

14.

NORA.

The drive back was noisy, but Bram and I didn't contribute to the conversation. Around me, the others jabbered and swore; beneath me, Bram was withdrawn.

"Are you sure you've never heard of these people before, Mr. I Apparently Break Laws Like Other People Skip Out on Tipping?" Renfield demanded.

"No." Beryl shook her head in silent confirmation. "Consider it an unfortunate side effect of keeping our noses clean and our feet down south. And my head, before anyone tries to be clever."

"You could ask the Raaatcatcher about them."

"I could. But to what end?" Samedi looked back at Chas. "We didn't find the Model V, did we? h.e.l.l, the cops are probably grateful they've left New London."

He was right. Aside from a few pickpockets, what had we seen them do that was illegal? The Changed had every right to a.s.semble. The conversation soon turned to Hagens, the others dissecting the weirdness of her words, but I didn't even want to think about them. I couldn't believe she'd been so cruel to Bram. So irrational, uncaring.

It reminded me of Pamela and our fight.

Now contrite, I fished into my purse and pulled out my phone, turning it on. The animated background twinkled as the phone found a signal.

Once it did, it exploded. All messages from Pam.

My heart sinking, without pausing to read anything, I whispered to Bram, "Tell them to drive to George Street."

Somehow, I knew something was up.

The five cop carriages, the ambulance, and the fire engine we found gathered on George didn't scare me. Such sights were all too common now. It wasn't until Samedi found a place to pull over and I was able to crawl out of the back of the Rolls, only to spot the shaken Roe family standing beside a nearby streetlight, that panic started to blur my vision and numb my skin.

I ran to them. Isambard pointed me out, and Pamela turned, her eyes full of tears. I wrapped my arms around her, and she didn't fight me. "I was standing there less than an hour before ..."

"It's all right. You're safe. Okay?" Truth be told, I was ready to weep at seeing her so. She'd called my switched-off phone frantically, never reaching me, leaving increasingly shrill voice messages. I'd listened to them all in the car, convinced, by the time I got to the end, that she'd stopped calling for a reason I dared not contemplate. "I'm so sorry."

Pam stepped back from me. "I know." She was in an old dress, soaked through from the rain, a rough blanket thrown about her shoulders. Her voice hitched as she added, "We're very lucky."

Jenny approached from Isambard's side, and Pamela wrapped her up in the blanket as if to hide her. "Loooud," the little girl whined, rubbing at her ear with the palm of her mottled hand.

The others joined us. Bram stopped at my side, while Dr. Chase approached the sh.e.l.l-shocked Mrs. Roe. Mr. Roe was nowhere to be seen. "Where's your father?"

"Talking to the police, with Lord Lopez." Pamela nodded in the direction of the bas.e.m.e.nt-level bakery kitchen door, which was accessible from the sidewalk by a flight of stone steps. It looked like a ma.s.sive shotgun had been taken to it from the inside, and the small window beside it was smashed. "They said they threw it in through there."

"I'm sorry," Bram said. Pamela looked up at him and nodded almost lifelessly.

"Who could have done something like this?" I said, my voice rising. The flashing lights on the police carriages, the reporters and gawking civilians I could now see gathered at the far end of the street-I wanted them gone. I wanted everything calm, undisturbed, back to normal. For Pam, not me.

Pamela shook her head. "I saw ..."

She gave up as her father approached, a man in a black suit at his side. Mr. Roe looked almost as if he'd been completely drained of blood, and all the vitality it contained. The gentleman, obviously Lord Lopez, was deferring to him, walking slowly, keeping his voice low.

Dr. Chase stepped out of the way, and Mrs. Roe ran to her husband, hugging him tightly as she started to cry. He patted her back. "It's all right, Malati."

"Geoffrey, what are we going to do?"

"Right now, the police want you to get out of here. I'll go with them."

"No! I won't leave my home!"

"What if another bomb goes off? In the house?" At this idea, Mrs. Roe shrank back from her husband and stared at him in horror. "The police won't even let us inside."

"With us," I said. "Please come with us." Dr. Chase nodded.

"I'll drive you," Lopez said, gesturing to his carriage, which was parked on the street. Noticing us, he nodded in greeting. "Wherever you wish to go."

"They said we can come back in the morning to get a few things." Mr. Roe stroked his wife's head. "For now, just go."

Sliding my arm around Pam's shoulders, I tried to lead her in the direction of the Rolls. She came along obediently, numbly; Jenny was forced to follow in order to remain inside her blanket.

And I tried to think of what I could possibly say.

Once we were back at my house, everyone went into battle mode. Chas and her mother, Silvia, a quiet and industrious wheelchair-bound zombie lady, insisted the female Roes take Aunt Gene's room. When met with polite resistance, Chas looked Mrs. Roe in the eye and argued, "We've got blankets. We gotta get used to the ground somedaaay, anyway."

A cot was moved to the guest room for Isambard. Bram and the older lads disappeared with Lopez to some distant part of the house to talk shop. Dr. Chase called Papa and miraculously managed to get through. He asked to speak to me, and although our conversation consisted mainly of plat.i.tudes-Are you all right? Do you need anything?-I could hear a note of anxiety in his voice that, oddly enough, offered me some comfort. He told me he'd be home as soon as he could.

When I finally got Pamela alone, it was inside the hinged, open dollhouse in my room. There, scrunched inside with all the fine little bits of furniture, having traded her own home for a miniature version, she gave in to her grief. I held her as she cried, unwilling to let go until she gently shrugged my arms away. She told me what happened, her voice never rising above an emotionless murmur. By the time she got to the part where the police showed up, she appeared even more exhausted than when I'd first found her.

"They haven't really done anything so far. They took pictures and evidence and talked to us. You should see the bakery kitchen."

"Do you have any idea who might've done it?"

For the first time, she met my eyes. She looked beat up, emptied out. "That's just it. Dad opened the door, and I saw a carriage racing away. There was someone leaning out of it, looking back."

"Who?"

"They were wearing a bird mask. Like the ones you described after the hijacking."

Stunned, it took me a second to find my voice. "Did you see them do it, or did you just see them leaving?"

"Leaving. But come on, Nora. They had to have done it. It was like the devil was driving that carriage."

"Was it Aunt Gene's carriage?"

"No. It was black, though."

"Did you tell the police?"

"Of course."

Basics taken care of, I tried to think. "Do you think anyone had it out for your family?"

"No. I mean, we're far from rich, but Dad did an okay trade. I can't imagine him having enemies. The police seemed to think it was someone angry at the fact that he sold food for zombies, or had a zombie son, but Isambard was never even in the bakery." Tears started to bead in the corners of her eyes again. "Why would someone do something like this? We've never hurt anybody!"

"So they think it was some random anti-zombie bigot?"

Pam tried to shrug and gave up halfway. "I can't imagine anything like this being random, but it must have been. Like that bomb that went off before. And the hijacking. They couldn't have known you and Mr. Griswold would be where you were."

I wasn't sure if I ought to feel guilty or not. The idea that the same masked guys would target both my best friend and me was too out there to be a coincidence. Smoothing her hair off her forehead, I said, "We'll find them. If the police can't do anything, we'll track them down ourselves."

Closing her bloodshot eyes, she said, "Nora, I can't do this."

"Do what?" My stomach dropped. Maybe she was finally going to tell me to get lost. Maybe she was finally going to tell me that as a friend, I sucked pretty d.a.m.n bad. I was half ready to believe her.

"This." Her voice cracked. "Live like this. Every day I feel like I'm going to die-like I got through the worst of it, but it's still going to kill me, one way or another. Like it's a monster that will hunt me forever. My chest hurts, I'm so anxious I can't sit still. I feel like I'm on drugs or something ..."

"Pamma." I didn't know what else to say.

"I just can't." She leaned forward. "But the problem is, I don't know what to do."

At least she was finally talking. "I understand. I swear." I took both of her hands. "But you can't think you're helpless. You've done amazing things."

"I wish I hadn't had to. I think of the things I did every day, and I'm still not sure how I did them. I killed people." She started crying in earnest. "Did you really ever think of me when you were kidnapped? Because I look at all the things you went through, and my first instinct is to shield you from my problems-but sometimes, you act like nothing happened to you at all. I know that's not true, not fair, but it seems that way. You didn't want to stay with me, when those people came here-you wanted to be with Mr. Griswold. You ran off today, and I couldn't reach you."

"We were ..." I decided not to tell her. That was another story entirely.

"And it's not really the running away. I'm sorry for yelling in church. I probably didn't make any sense. It's just that-you have all these new people in your life. And I lost you once, and I'll never forget that. Sometimes I feel like I'm still losing you. Like I'm losing everybody."

Hoping I could at least make some amends, I told her, "I thought about you every day when I was on base, Pamma. I knew you'd be freaking out. I begged to be allowed to contact you, to tell you I was okay. I still think about you. And I came for you, and I always will."

"And if I had to, I'd come for you. You know that," she said. "But in a way, that's the problem. My parents think I can handle everything now. You think I can handle everything." Sliding her hands out of mine, she gathered part of her skirt into her arms. "Do you think I'm a coward, Nora?"

"No. Never."

"Well, I do." She stood up. "And I think if I just accept that I am, I'll be a lot happier. I think I just need to give up. I've been trying to be what I can't, and I just need to give up."

Pulling myself up by the dollhouse roof, I began, "Pam, you can't-"

The door opened and we both instinctively hushed. It was Mrs. Roe. Pamela dabbed at her eyes with her skirt, then released her hold on it. "Pamela? I want you to come to bed."

Pamela nodded, and turned to look at me before following. "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry. I don't even know what you think you're apologizing for."

"I don't either." Pam shrugged, and moved to trail her mother.

I sat down again, my heart hammering. Whoever'd done this, I had to find them.