Queen of the Dead (26 page)

Darkness. Cursing, I reached my free hand in and encountered a hard but smooth surface.

What
now?

Then, when I pulled my hand back, I felt the grit on my fingertips.

“What is it?” Helene asked, sounding almost as breathless as I felt.

“Something behind the brick,” I replied. “Plaster…I think.”

Unless
it's concrete.

No, don't think like that.

I don't know how long it took me to clear the rest of the bricks. Ten minutes? Forever? I worked in a haze of claustrophobic misery. Every so often, Helene would ask me how I was and I'd reply fine. Except I wasn't fine. Not even a little bit. Right at that moment—scared, dirty, exhausted, half frozen, and wedged in that tight shaft—I couldn't even remember what “fine” felt like.

But finally, I'd reclaimed just enough elbow room to use the shovel. Helene handed it up to me. I couldn't see her face, but I could sense her anxiety. She and Dave had kept quiet down there, but they were suffering too.

Worse, all the bricks, dirt, and ash we'd moved was now behind us, filling the tunnel at our backs and blocking any retreat.

If I couldn't penetrate this last barrier—assuming it
was
the last barrier—we'd likely die down here.

I twisted my body to give the shovel as much space as possible. Then I steeled myself and rammed its blade through the hole and into the plaster.

It went right through!

I almost cried with relief. But instead, I hit it again. And again. It cracked and crumbled outward, exposing the first light—except for a flashlight beam—that I'd seen in longer than I could remember. A half dozen more hits and a last huge chunk of plaster tumbled away.

I don't think there's any way to describe the feeling of finally squeezing through that jagged, newly made hole and crawling, filthy and sore, into the dark tiny room beyond. Let's just say that cramped old prison cell felt like a four-star hotel and leave it at that.

Helene came next, emerging like a zombie from her grave—pun intended that time. Dave followed, his broad shoulders hammering back the edges, his ash-layered face red with effort.

But he was smiling. We all were. True, this mess of a mission had only just started. And true, our only accomplishment so far had been to break into a crumbling prison populated by monsters who would happily kill us on sight. But we'd made it this far, and now that we had, I could admit—if only to myself—that I'd been pretty sure that miserable tunnel was going to be our tomb.

What I
didn't
know was that in just a few hours, one of us would be the “guest of honor” at our own funeral.

Remember when I said that Eastern State Penitentiary was laid out like a wheel with spokes sticking out from a central hub? Well, the cramped cell in which we'd just emerged sat at the far end of one of those spokes: Cell Block Seven, to be exact.

A tiny bit of light spilled through a small window set high into the back wall. A little more trickled down from the mouth of the corridor beyond the cell entrance. Bottom line, it was almost but not quite completely dark. But compared to the stifling blackness of the dirt tube, it felt positively bright in here.

An ancient toilet stood in one corner. I doubted very much if it had worked in years. Dust and rubble layered the uneven floor. The cell door was completely missing, leaving behind a rectangular opening maybe five feet high and half that wide.

The place stank of damp plaster and wood rot and…something else. I looked at the others and saw that they'd smelled it too.

Death.

There were Corpses nearby.

“Okay,” Dave whispered. “We're in. Now what?”

“What time is it?” Helene asked.

I glanced at my watch. “Eight twenty-two in the morning.”

“Jeez…” Dave moaned softly. “How long were we
down
there?”

“Too long,” Helene said.

“I'm going to scout around,” I told them. But as I headed for the door, Helene grabbed my arm.

“Let me do it,” she said.

The Burgermeister groaned, but at least he did it softly. “Not again. What
is
it with you two?”

I glared at her, but this time, there wasn't any challenge in her eyes.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because if you see your mom or Emily, you'll just charge right in there,” she told me. “You know you will. You've done it before.”

I opened my mouth to protest. Then I closed it. I didn't like it, not one bit, but she was right.

“Okay,” I said.

Helene nodded and slipped past me, moving like a ghost out through the ruined door and melting into the shadowy corridor.

I blew out a sigh, trying to loosen the knots that our long crawl had left in my arms, legs, and back. Dave and I shared a nervous look.

“Let's arm up,” I told him. “Just in case.”

I readied Aunt Sally, snapping on one of Alex's crank assemblies and fitting it with the first of Steve's Ritterbolts. When I looked up, I caught Dave frowning at his Super Soaker, which had sprung a leak—probably during our crawl through the tunnel.

With a grunt, he dropped it and instead hefted his shovel. It was the spaded kind, its blade still caked with dirt, with a three-foot wooden shaft that ended in a molded handle.

“This is better anyhow,” he muttered.

Despite everything, I felt myself smile. “An Undertaker with a shovel. It doesn't get better than that.”

We waited.

Time stretches when you wait. And the more scared you feel, the longer the stretch. During that zillion-year period while Helene was scouting, the apprehension was like torture! At any moment, I expected to hear a distant cry of pain or alarm. Even poised as we were to rush to her aid, this was a big place, and Helene might be dead long before could get to her.

But then, that moment of near panic would pass without anything happening, only to be followed by another. And another.

It was one of longest and most anxious times of my life.

And that's from a guy who just chiseled his way out of a vertical grave.

Finally, a lifetime later, Helene returned, seeming to melt out of the darkness. Her eyes shone, but her face was grim. At least there wasn't a mark on her—except for the purple bruises that still colored her throat from our first visit to this god-awful place.

She said, “I counted eight Deaders, though there might be more patrolling around the prison. They're all wearing those yellow slickers.”

“That's gonna make it harder,” I said.

“Not for me,” Dave added, swinging his shovel.

Helene looked curiously at him. “Don't ask,” I said. “Did you see…my mom?”

She shook her head. Then she frowned, as if debating whether to say more.

“What?” I demanded.

“Emily's there,” Helene replied. “They've got her in a chair right in the middle of the hub. She's not tied up, but they're guarding her close. She looks like she's been crying, but I don't think they've hurt her”—she paused and swallowed—“too much.”

Emily.

My little sister was just a few dozen yards way, alone with those monsters and probably scared out of her mind. The urge to run in there and massacre the Corpses who'd taken her was so strong it almost drove me nuts.

Again, Helene touched my arm. “We got surprise on our side,” she whispered. “We go in fast and hard, firing in every which way. They got their raincoats, but the Deaders I saw all had their hoods down. We'll just have to go for headshots. Take down as many as we can. Don't give them time to react.”

I nodded. It wasn't a particularly complicated or elegant plan, not the kind of thing that Sharyn would have numbered. But then, the last time we'd hit this prison, we'd tried doing it the smart way and had taken a beating.

“Sounds solid to me,” the Burgermeister decided.

I slung Aunt Sally over my shoulder and pulled my out my Super Soaker. Helene reached into her backpack and produced a fistful of colored water balloons. Beside her, Dave lifted his shovel and gave it a little flip—fast and oddly graceful. He reminded me of Sharyn working with Vader.

I wondered again about the “private lessons” she'd been giving him.

I took a deep breath. “Let's do it.”

We left the cell and walked three abreast, with me on the right, Helene on the left, and the Burgermeister in the middle. We took it easy at first, not wanting our footfalls to give us away. But as we neared the half-open double doors at the end of the corridor, we slowly and steadily increased our pace, moving in rhythm with one another, keeping our breathing steady, while putting all our senses on high alert.

Undertakers training.

Twenty feet.

Fifteen.

Ten.

Five.

Now!

Dave's foot came up and hit the doors with such force that one of them tore right off its rusted old hinges. An instant later, we spilled into the hub. Helene went left, and I went right. The first thing I saw was a Corpse in a yellow slicker turning toward me, looking as surprised as his bloated purple face was capable of looking.

I shot him with my Super Soaker, catching him right between the eyes. His mouth fell open, and his limbs turned to jelly. He dropped like a sack of hammers.

Behind me, I heard the splash of a water balloon, following by a frantic moan. Then a crash as some helpless, blinded Deader walked straight into a wall. I turned, still firing, and caught another Corpse in the back of the head as he was lunging for Dave; Helene had been right: their hoods were down.

The dude smacked the tile floor—hard.

For his part, the Burgermeister made straight for the chair in the middle of the room. By the time he reached the first of the two Corpses who flanked it, his shovel was already singing through the air. The blow was tremendous, as good as any medieval axeman's, and the Deader's head toppled off her shoulders.

Sharyn
thought
this
guy
was
too
slow
to
be
an
Angel?

The second Corpse, probably acting on orders, turned his attention to the tiny figure seated in the chair, reaching for her with killing hands.

“No!” I yelled. Charging forward, I fired my Super Soaker but caught him on his raincoated shoulder—useless. He gave me a wicked grin as his purple fingers grasped my little sister's slender neck. I heard her cry out in fear.

Then the Burgermeister swung his shovel in a savage arc that buried it in the Deader's chest.

The Corpse went down, flailing like an upended turtle.

Emily's tear-filled face looked up and found mine.

“Will?” she squeaked.

I dropped my Super Soaker and ran to her. Nearby, Helene felled two more Corpses with water balloons. At the same time, Dave planted a huge sneakered foot on the second Deader's abs and yanked his shovel. Then he flipped it over, raised it high, and bought it down with terrific force.

Another head went rolling off.

I barely noticed. Emily's arms were around my neck, and she was crying.

So was I.

There's been a time when my little sister had been more pest than pleasure, when she'd shadowed me annoyingly around the neighborhood, or when I'd been forced to cancel plans with my friends to babysit her. I'd resented her, teased her, ignored her. But I'd always loved her. And right now, the love was all that mattered.

“Will,” she whispered into my ear. “I've missed you.”

“I've missed you too, Emmie,” I choked.

“Is that all of 'em?” Dave demanded.

Helene looked around the room. I forced myself to do the same, lifting my sister up in my arms. Eight Corpses lay around us in various states of injury. The ones Helene and I had salted were down but wouldn't stay there. In fact, the first guy I'd hit looked like he might be trying to get to his feet.

“Burgermeister,” I said. “Would you mind?”

“My pleasure,” Dave replied. He descended on the recovering Deader like a charging bear. The shovel hissed. And another head rolled.

“Dude,” I said. “You're getting good at that.”

“Feels great,” he grinned. “Like I was born to do it.”

“While you're at it,” Helene remarked, “how about using your newfound talent on the rest of these guys? They're all salted, but I don't want—”

But before she could finish that sentence, a door burst open behind her and another Corpse emerged.

He was a Type Three, reasonably fresh and very strong. Also, his fancy pinstriped suit and red power tie—barely visible beneath his yellow slicker—were somehow familiar. Instinctively, I stole a quick glimpse at his Mask. Yeah, this guy had been with Cavanaugh in Chang's Funeral Parlor. He was one of the dudes I'd zapped with my bucket trick only to have him transfer into another body and come popping out of a morgue drawer.

Gerald Pierce.

Pierce moved with lightning speed. As I watched in horror, he wrapped one dead forearm under Helene's chin. His other arm snaked around her waist. She uttered a startled gasp as she was yanked right off her feet.

“Hello, Mr. Ritter,” the Deader said in English.

I suddenly flashed back to the last time I'd been in this room.

Pierce stood almost exactly where that other Corpse had been, trying to kill Helene now as the other had then. The horror of it hit me like a hammer, but I forced it back down.

I'm not her knight in shining armor, and she's no damsel in distress.

She's an Undertaker.

And
so
am
I.

“Pierce, right?” I said, fighting to keep calm.

“Correct,” he replied. “Now drop your weapons, or I'll break this little girl's neck.”

The Burgermeister and I exchanged looks.

“Will…” he began.

I gave a very slight shake of my head, and he fell silent.

“Last chance!” Pierce pressed. Then, just to make his point, his arm tightened viciously. Helene kicked, her hands clawing uselessly at his yellow slicker. She tried to say something but couldn't make a sound.

With a curse that would have made a truck driver blush, the Burgermeister put down his shovel.

“Good boys,” the Corpse said, grinning. His gums were black and his teeth clearly loose. His skin was bloating up badly, making his milky eyes sink into their swollen purple-gray sockets.

“Now what?” I asked.

His grin widened. “Now we wait for my associates to recover fully.”

In my arms, Emily trembled. “Will?”

“Shhh,” I said, rubbing her back. Then I turned to the Corpse and said, “Where's my mother?”

For a few seconds, he just looked at me. Then, as if a lightbulb lit up above his decaying brain, he replied, “Oh, I see! You came here expecting to rescue both of them! How courageous. Unfortunately, Mrs. Ritter isn't here. Ms. Cavanaugh has…other plans…for her.”

In Pierce's grasp, Helene's face had gone red. Her struggles became frantic.

Again, panic gnawed at me. I had my knife in my pocket and Aunt Sally on my back. But with Emily on one arm, I couldn't make an effective grab for either of them.

“Ease up!” Dave demanded. “You're choking her!”

Pierce chuckled. “I fail to see your point!” But then he looked around at the other Deaders, three of whom were trying to get up, and his grip on the girl's neck slacked slightly. He wasn't ready to kill her, knowing we'd attack the moment he did.

But within a minute, his buds would be up and about.

We're running out of time.

“Where is she?” I demanded again.

Pierce offered an oddly human-looking shrug. “I fail to see any advantage in telling you that. Not that it matters. My mistress has already won the day.”

“Won the day?” Who says that?

But then I caught Helene giving me a look—a look with meaning in it. One of her hands dropped from Pierce's forearm, as if she were weakening. But then, as I watched, it slid into her coat pocket.

I got the message: “Keep him talking.”

“We already know most of it,” I said. “Cavanaugh wants the statehouse, so she's got this Dashiell guy to help her out. Right?”

Pierce's sunken eyes narrowed. “And how did you come by that knowledge, Mr. Ritter?”

Dave answered, “You wormbags ain't as smart as you think!”