Queen of the Dead (24 page)

Fifteen minutes later, I walked out of the Brain Factory with Aunt Sally over one shoulder and a sack of equipment over the other. The crossbow came with ten Ritterbolts—ugh!—and ten steel bolts. Inside the sack were three small Super Soakers and six standard Ritters. As Steve had put it, I was armed for bear.

I only wished that bear was all I was after.

Before I'd gone a dozen steps, Ramirez called my name and came jogging out of the Brain Factory after me.

I rolled my eyes.

“Please,” I said. “There's no way you're talking me out of this.”

But he surprised me. “I get that. I don't like it, but I get it. Being here with you kids…well, I guess it's opened my eyes in more ways than one. I still can't quite wrap my head around everything you've suffered through, but I can't deny that you're capable. I've been touring Haven, just looking around since Sharyn's surgery. Everything I see impresses me.”

I guess I was happy to hear that, but I couldn't help wondering at the level of trust Tom was now showing our adult “guest.” Was the Chief really all that confident that Ramirez wouldn't make for the nearest exit, regardless of his newfound respect for the Undertakers? Or had Sharyn's condition messed Tom up so badly that he wasn't thinking straight?

Not a happy thought.

The FBI guy said, “But before you head out on this insane mission, I want to ask you one thing.”

I shrugged. “So ask.”

“Have you ever killed someone?”

For a moment, I lost my tongue. It was there in my mouth somewhere. I felt sure of it, but Ramirez's question had turned it bashful. Finally—and with some effort—I replied, “You know I have.”

“Booth,” he said.

I nodded.

“But that wasn't face-to-face. You poisoned him.”

“So?”

“So…this is different. For you and your friends to have any chance of pulling this off, you must be figuring on shooting someone with that crossbow or stabbing them with those syringes.”

At
least
he
didn't call them “Ritters.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“And as I understand it, that won't just incapacitate these…creatures. It'll kill them.”

I nodded.

“Ever done anything like that?”

I almost answered no, but then, for some reason, I changed it to “Not yet.”

“Ever
seen
it done?” Ramirez asked.

“A bunch of times,” I replied. “Over the last couple of days.”

“And how did it make you feel?”

I remembered the Corpse that Sharyn had pinned with Aunt Sally and then interrogated. Afterward, she'd killed it with her Ritter.

No, she had Helene do it.

I knew
exactly
how it had made me feel. These were monsters, killers of children. They'd invaded our world with conquest on their minds. They were cruel, ruthless, and completely without pity.

But to kill anything that way, intentionally and without any remorse, it hadn't seemed—

“I didn't like it,” I said.

“Why not?” Ramirez asked.

I shrugged.

“Think you can do it yourself?”

Sharyn did it. So did Helene—twice. So did Chuck—to save
me.

“Yeah. I can do it.”

“How can you be sure?”

I met his eyes. “Because it's my family.”

“Okay,” he said. “Good luck, Will.”

He started to turn away, but I called him back. “That's it?” I asked. “No lecture? No speech about deciding whether I'm a killer?”

Ramirez smiled thinly. “If you'd told me you were looking forward to harpooning those…people…then I'd have been worried. But killing to protect for your loved ones…that's another matter.”

“Oh,” I said, irritated and not sure why.

“Go,” he said. “Do what you have to do. Save the day. I wish I could go with you.” He held up his one arm, which still hung in its sling. “But since I can't, I'll stay here and do my part.”

“And what
is
your part?” I asked.

When he answered, it was without any trace of irony. “I'll be praying.”

Grown-ups
, I thought.

Then, with a sigh, I headed down the corridor toward my room in search of the Burgermeister.

I found him on his bunk. Better still, Helene was with him. When I came through the curtain, they both looked up at me. Helene's expression was pained. But Dave looked worse. His cheeks were wet, though the instant he saw me, he turned away and wiped his face on the edge of his blanket.

“Hey, dude!” he said in a bright tone that wouldn't have fooled a three-year-old. “Anymore news from the infirmary? Sharyn?”

“She's hanging in there,” I said. “Tom's with her.”

The Burgermeister nodded, screwing his face up in a way that could have been determination or something else.

In that moment, I felt something close to shame. For days now, I'd been wondering why Dave had been so distracted and so short-tempered. All this time, he'd been worried about Sharyn. Not like we weren't
all
worried—but his feelings went deeper than the rest of us.

Like Tom's. Then again,
not
like Tom's.

“She's gonna be okay, dude,” I said. “If anybody can survive this, it's her.”

“That's what I've been telling him,” Helene added.

Helene. Since Sharyn had been hurt and she'd almost died during the raid on Eastern State, I'd made it my mission to protect her. I wasn't sure if this had been completely conscious or just something the back part of my mind had cooked up without telling the front part. My brain did that sometimes.

Either way, my shame deepened. I'd spent all that energy trying to keep her out of danger. But here I was, fully prepared to ask her to follow me into the fire, all because my family was in trouble. What kind of message did that send? Were Emily and my mom more important than Helene?

For a few seconds, I considered not telling them what I had in mind. Maybe I could get one of the other Angels to go with me instead. Or maybe I'd go alone after all.

But, no. These were my two best friends, the two best friends I'd ever had. They'd never forgive me if I left them out of this, no matter what they were going through themselves.

“Listen, guys,” I said. “I need to ask you both something.”

“Sure,” Dave said.

“What's up?” Helene asked.

I told them all of it. Cavanaugh's phone call and text. My talk with Tom. Steve's library book about Slick Willie Sutton's escape tunnel. I even told them about Ramirez stopping me in the corridor and posing his “can you kill?” challenge.

They listened without comment as I explained my plan. At the end of it, I finished up with, “You guys don't have to come. I know it's a lot to ask. And I totally get it if you don't—”

“Oh, shut up, you idiot!” Helene snapped. “Burgermeister, let's do this!”

They both jumped to their feet.

My best friends.

We stopped by the Monkey Barrel, where Alex loaned us three shovels with less gripping than I would have expected. “Just make sure to bring them back,” he muttered. “They don't grow on trees.”

We left on our Stingrays at 2:30 in the morning, Undertakers' prime time. Helene had tied the gun sack to the rear of her banana seat, and I'd done the same with Aunt Sally. The shovels we wore on our backs, fastened diagonally across our shoulder blades by using bungee cords. It wasn't comfortable, but it worked.

We must have looked weird to those few cars that passed us on the narrow streets, but no one challenged us. This wasn't all that surprising because in the city, people carry all sorts of things on bikes. I once saw I guy sporting a battery-powered TV that he'd duct-taped between his handlebars.

Three kids with shovels in the middle of the night barely earned a second glance.

We de-biked on Fairmount Avenue, about a block west of the prison, and went the rest of the way on foot, mindful of the lights around us. Steve had used his computer to pull up a Google Maps view of the prison grounds and, printing it out, had marked where the tunnel entrance and exit had been.

Well,
exit
and
entrance
, I suppose, given our perspective.

The penitentiary looked like a huge stone cliff face, lifeless and forbidding. No guards and no lights were visible. But inside, I knew, were Corpses—maybe a lot of Corpses—all of them at least half-expecting us.

My mom and sister were in there too.

I hoped.

“See that landscaping wall just past the sidewalk?” I asked, pointing from across the street at the prison frontage. The wall stood about five feet high, tapering down to maybe a foot as it neared the gates.

“Yeah,” Helene replied.

“Where?” Dave pressed.

“There! That's where we have to go.” The garden area filling the space between the top of the landscaping wall and the much higher and thicker prison wall was maybe twelve feet wide and offered only sparse winter shrubbery to hide us. Fortunately, at this time of night, it was a well of shadows.

True, Slick Willie and his buds had been easily spotted during their escape attempt. But that had been at dawn. This was the darkest part of the night. It gave us an advantage.

At least that was my theory.

We waited until Fairmount Avenue looked as deserted as it was likely to get and then we crossed the street, moving fast but not running. I looked everywhere at once, watching for movement. Nobody and nothing appeared.

On the sidewalk, Dave boosted us both up to the top of the landscaping wall and then he followed clumsily after us, with Helene and me pulling on his beefy arms. Not a particular graceful technique but one we'd used before.

Within seconds, we stood huddled around an innocent-looking patch of grass.

“How wide is this tunnel entrance?” Helene asked.

“About two feet,” I said. To my right, Dave groaned. I tried to ease his mind. “Don't worry. We'll get you through it.”

“Except how do you know it's
this
two feet?” asked Helene. “And not the two feet over
there
…or over
there
?” She pointed at the flat grass around us.

“Satellite imaging,” I said.

Helene's eyes lit up. “Oh!”

Dave's remained dark. “Huh?”

I replied, “Steve showed me this infrared satellite photo of the prison the Corpses took. Apparently, one of the Hackers found it.”

“Infrared,” Dave echoed. “That shows heat, right?”

I nodded.

“Why'd the Deaders want a picture of this place that shows off heat? Corpses don't even
have
body heat!”

“Steve wasn't sure. But shut up, that's not the point. When he showed me the picture on the computer, he zoomed into this exact spot. I recognize that old bush right there. On the photo, this area showed up as a little darker because the air below the ground is colder than the ground itself. He's says this is where the tunnel entrance…or exit…is.”

“You sure that's the right bush?” Helene asked.

“Pretty sure.”

“Good enough for me,” Dave announced. Then he pulled the shovel off his back. “Let's do this.”

Steve hadn't been certain how far down the tunnel had been filled. We might have to dig through as much as ten feet of frozen ground. I'd mentioned this to Helene and Dave on the way over here, reminding them they could still back out.

Helene had looked thoughtful.

The Burgermeister had just grunted. And now I saw why.

He attacked the ground with his shovel, elbowing us aside. The kid was a machine, his eyes locked on his job and his big arms moving like pistons. For a minute, Helene and I just stared at him.

Finally, I asked, “Um…need any help?”

“Naw,” he replied, his breath puffing out in thick clouds of mist. “Spent two summers working for my uncle's company, diggin' pools. You dudes keep watch. I got this.”

So we did. And so did he.

It took about twenty minutes, though it seemed like a lot longer. Partway through, he managed to snap his shovel in half on the hard earth. Grunting again, he took mine and continued without complaint.

Helene and I pressed ourselves against the prison wall, bathed in shadows. She watched the street. Cars went by, but not many, and none of them took notice of us.

At the same time, I studied the prison itself, peering up at the watchtowers along the top of the wall. I could see neither light nor movement.

I began to seriously worry that I'd been wrong.

What if my family wasn't in there after all? What would I do then?

But that kind of thinking was pointless. This was the only idea I had, so I might as well follow through.

“I'm through!” Dave whispered. Then he straightened and stretched.

The hole he'd dug was about four feet wide and so deep that he stood in it almost up to his neck. Helene pulled out her little flashlight and, mindful of passing cars, shone it down.

And there it was—a jagged hole about two feet across. “Looks like it goes maybe four more feet,” the Burgermeister said, following Helene's light. “Then it cuts off at an angle.”

“Scary,” Helene remarked casually, as if announcing the weather.

“And tight,” Dave added, looking worried. “I sure don't want to get stuck down there.”

I didn't blame him. Steeling myself, I said, “I'll go first. Then you. Then Helene. That way, if you get stuck, the two of us can work you loose from both sides.” I met Helene's gaze. “That okay with you?”

She shrugged. “It's your mission.”

Pulling out my own flashlight and clutching Aunt Sally close to my chest, I hopped down into the newly dug pit beside Dave.

“Careful, dude,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.

My mouth felt dry. I was about to go headfirst into a tunnel that a bunch of criminals had dug almost sixty years ago.

What
could
go
wrong?

Then I crouched low and let the cold ground swallow me up headfirst.