Dearly, Beloved Part 21

"Hagens," Coalhouse said, his eye never leaving my face. The tall girl hushed.

There were too many people. Too many strangers. I didn't want to deal with this-I'd just wanted to whisper my warning and run. "I hate her for all she's done and wants to do," I said, keeping my phrasing vague, like Martira had taught me to do when being interrogated by the cops. My books and her stories had always helped with that skill. It felt weirdly theatrical; I was filled with the sudden desire to laugh derisively at myself.

Coalhouse nodded slowly. "Okay, then. Good."

"But you can't do anything tonight." I rubbed at my cheek. "Trust me. You should just leave. I greatly fear for your friend ..."

"She's not here," Coalhouse a.s.sured me. "Neither is Griswold. It's just Tom, and Chas, and me."

"What about the road attack?" Tom looked at me, his gaze sharper than Coalhouse's. "We were attacked on the road near Drike's earlier. Your people have anything to do with that?"

They knew. They'd been there. "They're not my people," I said, putting no heat into the words. He seemed to understand, uttering a curse.

"Do you know why they were sent?" Coalhouse asked.

"To get Smoke. Hagens wants him back for some reason."

"Smoke?" Chas wondered.

"The prisoner with the new illness." I decided I had to tell. "Today she was talking about getting the black-haired girl, too, trading her for him. Or her father. I'm not sure."

"Getting Nora?" Tom asked, his black eyes widening. "Jesus."

Chas looked to the camp, her eyes narrowing. "We can't take them alone." She returned her attention to me. "Come with us. We'll geeet you out of here."

For an instant, I thought of going with them-then I recalled Dog and Abuelo, and all the people Hagens had lied to, and I knew I couldn't leave them. Not without knowing for certain I could come back. And I couldn't tell the entire camp, not without throwing it into chaos, possibly turning it against the three offering me their help. "I can't. Go. Come back with more people. I could help you then."

"Okay." A pause, and Coalhouse added, "Thank you."

"C'mon, man. We can cut through those trees. We gotta get back."

I watched the other zombies as they walked away, their feet heavy on the gra.s.s and fallen leaves. After a few seconds I found myself standing alone, feeling hollow.

What had I just done?

Fueled by a sudden fear, I hurried across the field, doing my best to skirt the crowd. I wasn't a strong runner in death; my legs were slow to listen to my brain. Once in the tent, I threw myself onto my pallet and buried my face in my pillow, my heart and mind a mess of turbulent, unconnected feelings and thoughts. Above all, I thought perhaps I'd made a monumental mistake. I didn't know for certain whether those people were potential allies or something else. Not without Martira to put it in words I could understand, to guide me through it.

She was gone. She was really gone, and I felt like I couldn't move, couldn't think. I just wanted to close my eyes and join her. Even Claudia. I would have given my own pathetic second life to have Claudia back.

Later that night, they fed the bodies to the flames. Martira's body popped and sputtered-undignified sounds, sounds she never should have made. Even when she drank my diseased blood she was neat and dainty about it. Bruno and several buskers stood at the open tent door to view the pyre, terror or dark anger muting their lips. I could feel Bruno's eyes on me.

I stared beyond them, my rotting eyes calling magical shapes out of the raging fires, wondering if I would ever see Coalhouse and the others again-and unsure if it even mattered.

I wished desperately that the flames were eating me instead.

18.

BRAM.

The next day, Patient One still wasn't talking. Not so much as a gurgle. So, crossing over to the Christine, I sought out zombies to interview. There were plenty receiving care that day, but none had anything to tell me concerning people in bird masks.

When I got the call around 10:00 P.M. telling me the crew was already back at the house, I was prepared for yet another brush with too little information. It seemed like they'd just left. I borrowed Salvez's carriage for the ride, already disappointed.

Due to the forever rerouted traffic patterns in the city, I had to detour by the Morgue again. It looked even more desolate by night, with lights and oil drum fires few and far between. As I idled at a red light, my attention was caught by a pair of zombie children sitting by the park's wrought-iron fence, which was shingled with ragged protest signs. They were playing with some sort of toy, taking turns aiming it at one another, but I couldn't make out what it was. It didn't look like a toy gun.

"We have to rethink almost every law on the books," the talk show host on the carriage wireless said. "Take marriage, for example. Does living death officially sever a couple, as in, 'till death do us part'? Are the children of dead parents legally orphaned, and does that mean the state should send them to orphanages? What about homicide-can you technically 'kill' someone who's already dead?"

A delivery van pa.s.sed by, bathing the dead children with light for an instant.

A soldier. They were playing with a toy soldier.

In my current frame of mind, I found this fact more pathetic than enraging. The kids didn't know any better. I couldn't help but be reminded of everything I'd done, though. The fact that just yesterday I'd had to cap a zombie in the head.

When I'd first been ushered into Company Z and taught how and what to shoot, I quickly learned to process the guilt caused by killing people so like myself-for in a way, they weren't like me. We'd always targeted the insane zombies, the evil ones, the hosts, the ones who either embraced or were engulfed by their cannibalistic desires. While I'd argue for their humanity until the day I truly died, they were helpless in the face of their disease. That's what I'd always told myself, so I could sleep at night. That we had no choice. That in a way, to dispose of them was a mercy.

That justification was hard to extend to my fellow high-functioning zombies, however-especially now that the vaccine was out. Honestly, I could sympathize with Hagens, with the fury she directed at the living. The extermination order had been the last resort of a living populace staring infection and death in the face, and the army wasn't a monolithic evil-I knew that. Dearly proved that, Lopez proved that, Norton's men proved that. Yet, while I didn't condone Hagens's views, I could understand them.

The light turned green and I shook myself free of my ruminations. I took my foot off the brake, and the carriage started to inch forward.

That's when a black shape flew in front of the carriage, a brown one shadowing it. I nearly collided with the brown thing, and it stopped with its hands on the carriage hood, glaring at me through the windshield. It was a young dead man in a leather duster, his shoulder-length dishwater hair pinched into a ponytail, his skin yellow and his lips black. A second later he raced away, and I turned to gape after him.

He was chasing a mask.

I was fifth in line at the light, so contributing to the pursuit in the carriage didn't even occur to me. Instead I abandoned the vehicle and ran out on foot. I wasn't sure where I was going, what had gotten into me-I only knew that I had to follow. Maybe seeing the other boy running had triggered some instinct in me to join the hunt, the chase.

All three of us dodged traffic across two streets, shot down an alley. The other zombie was slowing. He said nothing to me until I caught up with and surpa.s.sed him, at which point he yelled, "Get him!"

I was trying. The mask was fast, his long black coat billowing out behind him. Pushing myself on, I felt my body weakening, my muscles loosening, my joints grinding. I was doing horrible damage to my body.

That didn't matter, though. Not when a mask was actually within my grasp.

The mask darted through a narrow archway, and I turned just in time to see him leap down into a recessed area of the street. It wasn't the sewer, but it was close. "See you later, deadmeat!" the mask panted, voice like a robot's.

Launching myself at him, I found myself shut out by the slamming of an iron door. It was locked. I couldn't beat my way in.

d.a.m.n it all.

As I stood there, trying to recover, the other boy caught up to me. "Did he get away?"

"Yeah." He took his turn to indulge in a curse, casting his arms down angrily. "Did you see him hurt a living person?"

"Living?" the boy demanded, turning to me. "Those guys've been kidnapping zombies from the Morgue for weeks! The cops won't believe me-he was my proof!"

The guy's name was David Braca. Former laborer, current hobo, and fountain of information.

I did the only thing I could do. I took him home.

Upon entering the house, we found the younger half of the household, minus Renfield, seated on the wide front staircase. Nora and Pamela were in their dressing gowns and lacy caps, and when they noticed the strange male zombie, they both ducked behind the closest clothed person they could find.

"h.e.l.looo," Chas said, her eyes widening at the sight of David. Tom's expression morphed from curiosity to dislike almost instantly.

"What's going on?" Nora asked. "Who's he?"

"Ladies," David said, voice stilted and expression awkward. Turning to me, he removed his hat and said through gritted teeth, "You didn't mention ladies."

"Sorry?" I kept it simple, introducing the new guy and adding, "The masks aren't only attacking living people. We just chased one."

The group hushed. David glanced at the stairs, then at me. "I did see them target a breather," he said. "Cobbler by the name of Bihari. Been doing shoes for free for the dead-some of 'em walked so far. Last week a bunch of guys in these weird long masks set fire to some trash outside his shop. Had it pushed up against a wooden wall. Never did catch the blighters. That's what started my asking around."

I'd heard this already. "Tell them everything."

David remained standing, looking everyone over uneasily-especially the girls. "I'm still mostly in the dark myself. For a few weeks now there've been rumors about zombies 'taken by the birds.' Zombies come and go from the Morgue every day, so I didn't think much of it till that night at the cobbler's. Then I started asking around in earnest, and I got stories about zombies going out on errands and not coming back, things like that."

"Did you go to the coppers?" Issy asked.

"Yeah." David scowled, rolling up the brim of his hat as he talked. "They told me there was no such thing. That zombie mothers were probably makin' up tales to scare their kids, keep 'em in the park. So I started walking at night, and tonight I finally saw 'em. There were two originally. Hanging out in an alley near the Morgue. I heard 'em saying something about trying to get a woman, because she wouldn't be as strong. For what, I don't know. But for now, I'm a.s.suming every story's true. That these ruffians've been taking people."

I sat on the stairs near Nora, and she sent her tiny fingers into my hair-an act that made me long to plunk my head into her warm lap and fall asleep, and caused David to peer at her as if she were some sort of alien. "And the Changed?"

"Know of 'em," he said. "They've been giving things away, taking in homeless. Haven't heard of 'em doing anything else."

"That doesn't fit with what we learned," Coalhouse said.

I gestured at him. "Share."

Coalhouse looked skeptically at David, as if unsure whether he should get to hear.

Chas rolled her eyes and picked up the ball. "Tom and I spent the evening scouting the crowd. It was a lot aaangrier this time around." She tugged at the ribbons holding her neck closed. "Geez, these things tickle after a whiiile."

"Yeah, but it is so good to have your voice back, baby doll. That board used to make about as much sense as a b.l.o.o.d.y Sumerian tablet."

Chas made a face at her boyfriend before continuing. "Any-way, every time a living person showed up? Intimidated. Told to scraaam. Not like the first night we went."

"And we know why." Coalhouse leaned forward, his knees spreading apart. "I talked to this girl, see."

"First time that has ever happened, for the record," Tom said.

"Shut up!"

"Easy, Tom," I told him. "Girl?"

"The garden girl. Laura. Tried to get her to come with us, but she wouldn't."

"What is up with that whole flower thing?" Nora asked.

"It does take funeraaal pre-planning a little far, doesn't it?"

"Guys," Coalhouse said. "Anyway, she came up to me and told me we should beat it. That it wasn't safe for us." He pointed down with two fingers. "She said Hagens is now in charge of the camp."

I sat up. Nora gave me a worried glance. "In charge? How?"

"She wouldn't say. Said 'bad things' happened. So I figure if this girl's going out of her way to warn us, clearly she does not share Hagens's hatred of us, so I start asking questions."

"Um, not just you?" Tom said pointedly.

Coalhouse rolled his eye. "Look, it doesn't matter. What matters is the hijackers at the prison were her people, and what's more ..." He looked at Nora. "Apparently she wants you or your dad, to use for something. She wants Patient One. Laura said his name was Smoke."

In silence, all eyes turned to Nora. Pam moved a little closer to her. "Why us?" Nora asked, voice hushed.

"Trade, probably," I said, my voice throaty. "Did you guys see Martira at all? She seemed shocked that her people started biting back on the docks, but maybe it was just her blind optimism talking. Maybe Laura gets that from her. Something's not right."

"No."

"And thank goodness they didn't." I looked up to find Renfield quickly trotting down the staircase, an encyclopedia's worth of paper clutched in his hands. He gave David the briefest of glances. "Ran those background checks you asked for."

"And?"

"Can't find much on Hagens, since she's Punk-born. Lopez is a saint, but I can't get to his army records." He handed what must have been Lopez's report to Pamela before sitting down next to Nora and letting the remaining pages fall from his hands. They landed on the step below with an impressive thunk. "But that is Martira Cicatriz's rap sheet."

We all stared at it. "Abridged version?" I asked.

"Everything. Mostly theft. Been in and out of the clink all her life." He scooted forward. "If she's currently as you describe her, death has made her drink long and well from the Peace Punch. She has about twenty aliases, most of them variations on the word 'h.e.l.lcat.'"

I slid my hands over my face. "And the kind of people who'd follow a 'h.e.l.lcat'?"

"h.e.l.lcats in training. The h.e.l.lcat ascendant," Ren said, echoing my thoughts. "I looked into her gang, too. Looks like she started small, getting people to commit crimes she planned. In exchange they'd get work, food, shelter. Took off from there. Soon minor groups involved in things like prost.i.tution and pickpocketing were allying themselves with her for protection."

"So maybe her people are still acting out?" Nora said.

"I think so," I said, looking to David. "Because as personal as all of this clearly is, you and Miss Roe aren't the only people they've gone after."

"But why would zombies go after zombies?" David asked. "You think they're conscripting them into this group?"

"And why hasn't this been on the news?" asked Nora.

"No idea. Maybe it's gotten lost in all the other violence."

"Laura said members of the Changed were still heading into town, remember?" Tom said.

"Yeah." I leaned back against the stair railings but I didn't relax. "I hate to say it, but we should just report everything to the police before somebody tries something else. Get them to pay attention."