Dearly, Beloved Part 3

"Miss Claudia was wrong. Bram, hand me the usual c.o.c.ktail?"

Laura looked at the floor and lapsed into silence as I went to work. After a few minutes she asked, almost as if she couldn't believe it, "You're really a living doctor for the dead?"

Evola finished Dog's injections and grabbed a needle, threading it as he spoke. "Mmm. Only recently earned the t.i.tle, but yes. Around here they call the surgeons and doctors who work directly on the dead 'techs,' as opposed to all the doctors who work behind the scenes on zombie research." He started st.i.tching up the tiny hole in Dog's neck. "Few years ago I was studying to become a plastic surgeon, and putting myself through school by working for a funeral home. Sounds morbid, but my area of expertise was reconstructing corpses of people who'd had nasty deaths. Helps the family. Company Z recruited me before I was finished with my education. I was that good at mashing flesh together into something resembling a human being. A regular prodigy."

"So you weren't scared when you saw the dead moving?"

"Oh, first time I screamed like a girl." Evola grinned at Dog. "But then I saw people I could help. Also, a way out of my mortuary insurance payments. Anyway, Mr. Dog, let me wrap up the hand so you can take it. Maybe later on we can mount your own skin on the prosthesis. You'll look good as new. You'll be Cyborg Dog! Stalwart defender of the playground!"

Dog actually smiled.

When we rejoined the rest of the "Changed," it was to find the group newly somber and uncommunicative. Tom and Coalhouse must've broken the news. By noon they were anxious to get off the boat, and insisted that we allow them to gather abovedecks. We'd cleaned up and medicated as many as would let us, and an inspection of the group rea.s.sured us of the fact that no biters had gotten on board, so we let them.

The biters were still being cleaned up down on the dock, put in irons and led away. There were a few the army didn't bother with right away, and I knew they had to be dead. The sight of their p.r.o.ne bodies occasioned whispers and sobs among those remaining. I hoped they were all victims of the living, as horrible as that idea was-I didn't want to think that Tom or I had killed any.

Once the army finally fortified the barricade, the Christine lowered her gangplank. The undead disembarked as soon as it was safe for them to do so.

Martira came to thank me before departing. "Laura told us Dog should expect to hear from you. Ours is the large house on Ramee Street. You are always welcome."

"Come on. We need to go," Claudia called to her. She was waiting with Laura and Dog by the gangplank. Laura had her arms wrapped self-consciously through the vines growing around her waist. Coalhouse was standing a short distance from her, practically drinking her in with his eye.

"Same here," I told Martira. "I'll be in touch. And if you could tell us where you found that grifter ..."

"It's in the past. We'll just be wiser next time." She shook her head. "The medicine hawker scammed us, yes, but perhaps he had a family to feed. A sick mother. I'll never know. He was a traveling man, and I dealt with him weeks ago. He must be far from here by now."

"That's ... generous," was all I could think to say.

The red-haired zombie shrugged. "Ever since dying, I find it very easy to forgive. Which is why I can't believe my brothers would ..." It seemed she wanted to say something more, but in the end stuck with, "I'm so sorry."

"Wish I could say the same." Still, she struck me as idealistic to the point of foolishness. "But I don't want that guy stealing from anyone else."

"Very true. But my main concern right now is getting my brothers and sisters home. Protecting them." Martira looked into my eyes for a moment longer before curtsying. "Take care, Mr. Griswold." She joined her sisters, and all three swept away.

Havelock appeared seconds after she left. His face was puffy and starting to bruise. "I should report you to the authorities," he huffed.

"Are you going to?" I was too tired to argue with him. I just wanted to know. "The army's right down there. I'm sure a guy named Norton would love to talk to you."

The boy glanced out over the ocean, and decided, "No. Because you did save my hide. I guess." He sniffed. "I do want a new chip, though."

"You got it." I pointed to the ramp. "Now get lost."

He did so. Evola came over to stand with me near the barbette and watch him go. "I heard that guy talking. Is it true you punched him?"

"Yeah." I was calmer now-calm enough to regret my actions, to recognize how depressingly similar they were to the actions of the zombies I'd just had to take care of. "I know I shouldn't have. Ever since we came to New London, I ... it's harder. There's something about this place that makes the Laz flare. It's too crowded. Too big." Yet another reason I liked to keep the boats at my back.

"You're what, eighteen now?" he asked, and I nodded. "Christ, I'm only six years older than you. I feel about forty." Evola sighed. "So I'm telling you this as a friend, not someone in charge. You need to be careful for the very simple reason that up here, jail is not what you have to worry about. You're a Punk. You served in the New Victorian army, yes, which is why they're letting you stay here, but the two tribes are still enemies. If you get caught up in something, they'll deport you."

He wasn't telling me anything I didn't know. He was right. The royals would jump at the chance to get rid of me. And where would I go? The Punks destroyed zombies on sight-and I couldn't go home. My mother and my little sisters probably thought I was truly dead, and thank G.o.d if they did. It was healthier for them. Healthier for me. A clean break.

And I couldn't lose Nora. I loved her. I'd yet to say the words, because I didn't want to freak her out-it'd only been a few months, after all. But I knew I loved her. Needed her. I didn't need food, or water, or even oxygen, but I needed her. I'd never met a more spirited, intelligent, accepting, drop-dead-again beautiful girl in my life. She was my first, my everything, the thing that made me actually pray in church and try to tolerate the city and put up with her tribe's insane courtship rules-which all seemed to boil down to "if you like a girl, you basically can't do anything in public to show her how you feel." Lord, I was getting sick of having to tiptoe around them. Especially when the Apocalyptic ride we were all currently on was showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. My time was short. I didn't want to waste it.

"Right," I said, recalling myself. "I'll be smart. But I think we've got more important things to worry about than my small town transplant angst."

Evola ran his fingers through his hair. "I know. That little boy. What a mess." He returned his eyes to the zombies marching down the dock. "I hope they make it through this."

"Yeah." I turned my own attention to the Erika. "And speaking of that mess, I'm going to go get an update."

3.

NORA.

"Okay," I said, thunking a blank leather journal on the edge of Ren's cluttered computer desk. "The Dearly House Exit plans."

Renfield Merriweather peered at the tome. Skinny in life, he'd become a scarecrow in death, all elegant half-revealed bones and long limbs. He wasn't nearly as hardy as the other dead boys, which was why he almost always stayed behind as base support, wherever that base happened to be. He found his spectacles on the desk, somewhere amidst all his mixed-tribe gadgets and computer equipment. "Why hasn't Griswold had me digitize this? I could cross-reference maps, databases ..."

"He prefers to work it out on paper."

"Benighted fool." Ren, NV that he was, loved his tech. Although he shared the guest room with the other lads, his computers and other toys had come to dominate one side of our attic-the other side belonged to the dead priest, Jacob Isley. Surrounded by stacks of papers and books, Isley was still solidly asleep on his cot, stretched out like a body on a mortuary slab. Cats lounged everywhere. Isley had a thing for them, and took in as many strays as he could.

"No time for names. We need to double-check the carriage situation, the weapons situation. We follow this, we can all get out of here in under ten minutes if it comes to that." I'd decided that I couldn't spend my time moping. I needed to work, to contribute.

"Has everyone else been informed? From a logistics standpoint, that should be our first concern."

"Everyone except the sleeping wonder there. Chas should be up soon. She wanted to tell her mom." Looking to his computer array, I found myself staring unfeelingly at the steam-holographic projector I'd once seen him use to play Aethernet chess with Vespertine Mink. "The others went to the boats. Which is precisely where I want to be. If things go wrong-" I pressed my lips tightly together before anything else could slip out.

"I don't think that would be very wise, Miss Dearly. We don't know if our a.s.sistance is even required."

Tearing my eyes from the desk, I said, "I hate sitting around and waiting, though. I don't know about you, but it makes me go insane."

"Yes, I figure I'm already more insane than not." Ren's posh northern accent only augmented his sarcastic delivery.

"I am not in the mood for jokes! Remember the last time this happened? When I was at Z Beta Base and no one would tell me anything, no one would let me go anywhere or help ..." That was a big part of it. Logically I knew I had no reason to leave the EF, but I loathed being kept on the sidelines.

"We'd probably create more problems if we did go." Ren brushed a few curly auburn locks out of his face. "Look. Are you afraid this development will make the living want to round up the dead again?"

Ren was incredibly observant for a dead guy who needed gla.s.ses. I nodded once.

"Well, keep in mind that some of our people fought for their dead. They didn't hunt them down and kill them indiscriminately, like the Punks. No one's called for the new pro-zombie Prime Minister to step down, have they?"

"No. Not yet." I had to keep reminding myself of that. "I just don't like this. Only a few months ago the government tried to kill every dead person. Permanently."

"I know. Zombies have every reason to be distrustful of the authorities. But those of us who have a firm grasp on reality know that we need to keep our wits about us."

Opting not to say anything, I opened the book, my stomach still in knots. I could only pray that Renfield and Dr. Chase were right-that cool heads would actually prevail. They had, for a while. There was hope, just ... no certainty.

Not like we hadn't played with those odds before.

Before I could do anything else, Chast.i.ty Sweet appeared in the doorway. She was a tall dead girl with bleached-blond hair, blue-tinged skin, and a silvery metal jaw covered with hand-carved designs, a prosthesis designed for her after she lost hers during a mission for Z-Comp. Uttering a strangled sound to get our attention, she unhooked a digidiary from her leather belt and opened it, holding it up so we could read the screen. Her throat had been crushed during the battle with Averne back in December, and her spelling hadn't improved much since then: Mom wok up n turned on the news n there are fites going on in the city. Beside the note, she'd drawn a little mushroom cloud with a frowny face.

Its eyes were X's.

So much for cooler heads.

Once the news broke about the new riot taking place on the docks, everyone in the house knew they would have to work together to keep me corralled. It was the only way.

As soon as Aunt Gene's former butler, Matilda, woke up, Dr. Chase stationed her at the front door. Matilda didn't seem to mind. The poised, ebony-skinned woman was content to sit on the floor in front of the door with a lap desk and a toffee bar, going through the household bills.

"Have you seen the letters your aunt's creditors have been sending?" she asked me absently one of the times I edged into the foyer to glare at her.

"No, and I don't want to." Aunt Gene had gotten us into ma.s.sive debt before her disappearance. I supposed I should count it as unfinished business, but the fact that she was most likely dead sort of wiped the slate clean.

Alencar, the chauffeur, manned the back door. He bowed whenever I walked past. Dr. Chase and Renfield insisted on shadowing me, so I kept moving, pacing. As I did, I turned my cell phone over in my hands. Bram had bought both of us phones back in February for my birthday-a gift that was extremely practical, and thus extremely Bram. His was plain and grudgingly used; mine was a minisculpt, black, shaped like a mermaid hugging her tail against her head. Bram wasn't currently responding. My father hadn't answered any of my e-mails in days, and every time I tried to call him, I got a busy signal.

For hours I remained in a state of infuriating helplessness, practically a prisoner in my own home. I knew the others weren't trying to be cruel, that they only meant to protect me. But in moments like this, I understood what Bram and I were up against. The riot two weeks ago had been the turning point for me, when I finally got that the real enemies we were going to have to face weren't Wolfe and Averne, but Time and Fear. How little time I would have with him, and how fear could cut that even shorter. More than just being with him-I wanted to stand beside him on the front lines. I'd gotten a taste of freedom last winter, and it almost physically hurt to have to return to my old life of manners and rules.

I wanted my new life back.

Eventually Dr. Chase and Dr. Samedi sought me out, and found me walking in circles in one of the long back hallways, underneath one of my father's favorite mythological murals. "There you are, Miss Dearly. Baldwin and I are going to install Miss Chast.i.ty's voice box."

This was enough to get me to look up from my phone. "I thought it wasn't finished yet?" Sam had been toiling over her artificial voice box for months now.

"Funny thing. I mentioned how much better it'd make me feel if Miss Chast.i.ty could talk, given all that's going on." Dr. Chase glared at Dr. Samedi. "That's when he chose to inform me it's actually been completed for almost a month. He was enjoying the quiet. I've already boxed his remaining ear."

Samedi slipped a hand into his chestnut hair and adjusted his st.i.tched-up head slightly, tweaking it to the side. The zombie's skull was full of hardware that allowed his brain to communicate with a thick metal collar installed around his neck, permitting his body to move even when his head was severed from it. A tremor zipped down his spine, and he narrowed his gray-lidded, feminine eyes. "Thank you. You just admitted that if I do go deaf, it's only because external forces are constantly a.s.saulting me."

Dr. Chase shook her head and looked at me. "Would you like to help?"

In spite of everything, I found myself asking excitedly, "Really?"

Just then my phone rang. I looked down to find that it was Pamela Roe, my best friend. "Is it Dr. Dearly?" Samedi asked.

"No. Pam." I didn't have to say anything else; the two adults nodded and saw themselves out. "You okay?" I asked upon opening the phone.

"Yes." Still, Pamela sounded nervous. "You've heard about the new strain? I'm just calling to let you know I probably can't get down there today."

"Yeah. Sorry I didn't call sooner, myself."

"Dr. Evola hasn't been home."

"He's probably working overtime." He'd been rooming with the Roes ever since the Siege, preferring to stay closer to the hospital ships. "Look, why don't I come over there?"

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but no way in h.e.l.l, Nora. The city needs time to calm down. Dad won't let us leave the house."

"That's why I'll come to you."

"Not a good idea. And your father wouldn't like it."

"Who said I'd tell him?" She made a disapproving noise in response. "Besides, Pamma, not even the ravenous dead can stand between you and me."

"Don't remind me. And don't you dare. Please give me one less thing to worry about."

Rolling my eyes heavenward, I said, "Fine. Anything I can do for you from here? Otherwise, I'm going to help the docs with something."

"No, there's nothing you can do. I'll call you if there is. I'll text you later anyway."

Frustrated anew, I hung up and considered just leaping out a nearby window and running for the surface. My imagination extended this little adventure to include clobbering an army man, donning his uniform, and marching toward the nearest disaster.

In the end, for Pam and Papa, I went in search of Dr. Chase.

It turned out that "helping" didn't add up to much more than handing the engineers tools. It was hard to be contented with that, but I tried.

Chas was set up on the desk in my father's dark, masculine study. Every lamp in the place was positioned about her, since the windows were still boarded up. The initial phases of the "operation" involved cutting into her throat and sc.r.a.ping and snipping all the ruined flesh away. Samedi let her keep her digidiary, and she occasionally wrote things like, Dont u think I need that? or Tckls! in response to his actions. After perhaps forty minutes, the device itself-a curious golf-ball-sized construct of metal and wire-was popped into her neck.

Admittedly, watching Baldwin and Beryl at work was absorbing. The first time I met them I'd been told they were an amazing inventive team, and they truly did seem to function like two bodies sharing a single mind. He could make a suggestion and she'd already be halfway done with it, reaching for a spot welder or twisting a plastic cap into place. Occasionally they would murmur together like two soothsayers puzzling over a goat's entrails, completing one another's sentences.

"St.i.tch or staple the remains of her trachea ..."

"... bottom should replicate a ring of cartilage, I thought. Stability. No more smoking for you, young lady." Sam leaned back, tucking his scalpel between his lips. Sterility wasn't a concern when operating on the undead, obviously. "All right. Speak."

"I'm no-ot a do-og, you kno-ow," Chas responded, her first words since the battle in Bolivia. Aside from sounding somewhat computery, it was definitely her own voice, only healthier than I remembered it. She seemed to speak somewhat laboriously, though, her neck and chest rolling noticeably as she fought to get the words out. She moved to sit up, and Beryl aided her.

"Chas!" I hopped up and wrapped my arms about her shoulders from behind. "It's so good to hear your voice."

"Tell ... me ab-out ... it." I could see the muscles of her throat flexing as she remembered how to use them.

Samedi shooed me out of the way so he could study his handiwork. "There. Let's get the wires in, and then I think the best way to close this up would be to install some small D-rings along either side of the incision and have her lace it up until the skin stretches to accommodate the new hardware. Then we can put in a permanent suture."

"I think you're right," Dr. Chase said. "Miss Dearly, can you hand me the pliers?"

Chas turned excited eyes on Sam. "Like a ... neck corset? No, I'm keep-ing the ... lacing! I can use different ... colooored ... rib-bons!"

As Samedi reached past me for an additional bit of wire, I heard the sound of the front door opening, followed by the unmistakable voices of the undead boys. Without waiting to see if anyone else had heard, I raced for the door and down the hall. It seemed like it took an hour to reach the foyer, when in fact it took only seconds. "Guys!"

Bram was at my side before I could say another word. I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed as hard as I could. He curled his huge hand around my head, guiding it to his chest, and I took advantage of the opportunity to rest my eyes and lean against him, if only for a brief moment-had we been alone, I would have happily remained there. "Everyone good here?" he asked.

"Yes. What's going on?"

"The usual." He urged me back, his hands on my shoulders. "City's in an uproar again, troops and cops are spread thin. Never enough of them."

"Great." I stepped away a few beats later, a proper young lady once more, and turned my attention to Coalhouse and Tom. "Are you guys okay?"