Queen of the Dead (8 page)

I
was
thinking
the
same
thing
about
you
a
minute
ago.

“You first this time,” she told me.

It's pretty hard to climb a cable, even if you do have good gloves and a wall to brace your feet against. The skinny twelve-year-old I'd been even two months ago could never have managed it. But the slightly less skinny thirteen-year-old I was now could and
did
—with some effort. At last, winded and my arms aching, I let Sharyn help me through the broken window.

Then, as she signaled Helene to follow, I looked around the watchtower.

There wasn't much to the place. No furniture. Just bare walls, windows on all sides, and a stairway that led down into the prison proper.

Between two of the windows, with her back to us, stood a Corpse. She was a solid Type Four. Pretty well decomposed, she'd had lost most of her bodily fluids. Any bloating was done, leaving her sunken and dried up. Her skin, gray and flaky, hung off long, thin bones, and her hair had little more than dark wisps peeking out from beneath an oversized police-issue cap.

Beetles crawled all over her. The Corpse's body was literally being eaten away from the inside out.

I never got used to that.

Dead Lady Cop's arms and legs twitched spastically—and with good reason: Sharyn's crossbow bolt has caught her at the base of the skull, gone all the way through, and pinned her head to the wooden window frame.

Chuck had been right: a wicked shot.

But then that was Sharyn.

“Hey, Deader!” Sharyn chirped as Helene climbed through the window. “Having a bad day or what?”

The cadaver's lips moved. Unfortunately, with the steel bolt sticking through its open mouth and into the wood, there wasn't much it could say in English. So it switched to Deadspeak.

“Others. Coming. For. Me.”

“Yeah, I'll bet they are,” Sharyn agreed. “But I think we got us a minute or two. So I'm gonna make you a one-time offer. You tell me how many Deaders you got on-site…and I just might let you live.”

The Corpse looked sideways at her.
“You. No. Can. Kill. Me.”

Sharyn laughed. Then she held up her syringe. “Know what this is? Any of your buddies happen to get iced last night…maybe in ways you can't figure?” Her smile vanished, and she leaned close. “So, one last time—you spill and maybe I leave you here to transfer when your Holmes find you. Otherwise, I stick you with this and cap your sorry dead ass.”

I suddenly saw something flash through the Corpse's milky eyes—a look I'd I never expected: terror. She squirmed frantically against the bolt that pinned her to the wall, but it was no good. She wasn't going anywhere, and we all knew it.

“Well?” Sharyn pressed. “I need an answer, bag o' bones.”

“Six.”

“Six more Corpses downstairs?”

Dead Lady Cop nodded as much as the bolt through her face would allow. “
Six
,” she repeated. But as she said that, there was something in her expression—at least insofar as a dead body pinned through the mouth to the wall can
have
an expression—that I didn't like.

She looked cagey. Not like she was lying, but—

“Six,” Helene echoed.

I knew what she was thinking: There was one of us for each of them. Not great odds but better than we'd had last night!

“Cool!” Sharyn said. “Thanks, Deader!”

Then she tossed her Ritter—
oh
God, that name!
—to Helene, who smoothly snatched it out of the air.

The Boss Angel said flatly, “Waste her.”

Helene looked from Sharyn to me and back again. “But you said…”

“I said ‘might.' Fact is, one less Deader is one less Deader. If we switched places, you can bet she wouldn't be cuttin' us no slack. Do it.”

Helene wavered.

Sharyn said, “We got no time. She's stuck in a useless body, and that means the others have been called. Do it now.”

Helene stepped to the Corpse, who struggled desperately, making low growling sounds in her rotting throat.

I considered saying something—protesting—maybe making some comment about how keeping our word was one of the things that made us better than them. The moral high ground, I guess you'd call it.

But I didn't.

Helene found my eyes. I shrugged.

Then she slammed the Ritter into the small of Dead Lady Cop's back, emptying it with one push of her thumb.

“Everybody down!” Sharyn commanded. We dropped to the dusty floor.

At first, nothing happened.

Then it did.

The Corpse exploded but not like the one in the alley had, spilling guts everywhere. This one's guts had dried up weeks ago. Instead, it erupted in a cloud of gray dust that filled the watchtower and covered everything, including us.

Helene and I struggled to our knees, coughing and trying not to puke. But Sharyn seemed more or less unfazed, standing up and looking over at where the Corpse had been. The figure of dark energy was there but only for a second.
Pop!

“Okay,” the Boss Angel said. “Let's get into position. I'm callin' a Number Eleven.”

The Angels have moves, and some of these moves have numbers.

A Number Eleven involved covering multiple exits to a building—and then hitting the Corpses inside from different directions at once. Being shaped like a big pinwheel with cell blocks sticking out from a central hub, Eastern State Penitentiary was a solid candidate for this approach.

Better still, because it was a museum these days and not a prison, its layout was easily available on the Internet. So back at the briefing, we'd all studied it. The cell blocks, some one-story and some two-story, had been built at different times during the penitentiary's long history. Each had a number; the one Helene, Sharyn, and I had zipped to and then run along had been Cell Block One. Katie, Chuck, and Bert had spotted the watchtower Corpse from the roof of Cell Block Three.

Because there were something like fourteen cell blocks off the hub and only six of us, Sharyn modified the Number Eleven. She and I would attack from above while Helene and the rest would go down into the prison yard and pick cell blocks at each compass point. Then, on a signal, we'd hit the hub all at once.

Hopefully, the Corpses would be so busy responding to Dead Lady Cop's call for help that they'd focus on Sharyn and me, giving the others the element of surprise.

A workable plan.

What
could
go
wrong?

Helene left the watchtower the same way she'd come in—via the cable. Sharyn and I took the stairs. These led down into a big, round, empty room that once upon a time had been the prison library. From here, a lone door opened onto a railed walkway overlooking Cell Block Seven.

We could already hear noises from downstairs.

They were coming or getting ready to come.

The dead.

“See them steps?” Sharyn whispered, pointing to a couple of metal staircases that led down from the walkway to the floor of the cellblock. “That's how they'll hit us. You take the top of one. I'll take the other. Wait until they're halfway up before you start shootin'.”

I nodded and went to the indicated spot. Sharyn did the same, raising her radio to her lips. “Sound off, Angels.”

“Angel Two in position,” Chuck radioed.

“Angel Three in position,” Burt radioed.

“Angel Four in position,” Katie radioed.

“Angel Five in position,” Helene radioed.

In case you're wondering, I was Angel Six. Low rung on the seniority ladder.

Sharyn's manner turned thoughtful. When she next spoke, her voice had softened, with much of its trademark mischief gone. “Listen up, Undertakers. We're about to go into combat. I ain't gonna ask you if you're scared. I know y'all are scared.
I'm
scared. We got even numbers in this fight…one-on-one. But we also got surprise, and that can make all the difference. We're gonna
do
this, Undertakers. We're gonna remember
what
we're fightin' and
why
we're fightin' them. Then we're gonna turn our fear into anger and use it to hit these wormbags harder'n we ever hit 'em before.”

I listened. We all listened.

The Boss Angel said, “This time…for the first time…some of these Deaders won't be goin' home. Use your anger, Undertakers. Let it make you sharp. Let it make you ready. Let it make you
mean
.”

“Mean,” I echoed.

Then, one by one, the rest of the Angels repeated this one-word mantra.

We'd all heard this speech before or some version of it. Sharyn used it a lot—and with good reason: it worked.

Still, my heart had begun to hammer, and my throat felt desert dry.

“We do this right,” Sharyn concluded, “and chances are the Corpses won't know what hit 'em. Y'all dig?”

“Angel Two digs,” Chuck radioed.

“Angel Three digs,” Burt radioed.

“Angel Four digs,” Katie radioed.

“Angel Five digs,” Helene radioed.

The Boss Angel gave me a pointed look.

“Angel Six digs,” I replied, though I
could
have told her nobody said “dig” anymore. At least not since disco had died.

But this was Sharyn.

“Cool,” Sharyn said. “Stand by…”

Ever seen zombie movies where the monsters come shambling along, moaning and with their arms extended, like they want a hug? Well, that's what I was expecting, moment by moment, as I stood atop that staircase with my Super Soaker poised and ready. It was one of the small Super Soakers, as the big ones were hard to conceal and wouldn't have worked well with our ladder trick.

A calculated risk—trading firepower for the all-important element of surprise.

Except the surprise-ees weren't showing up for the party.

A full minute passed.

“Somethin' ain't right,” Sharyn muttered.

“We heard them,” I whispered to her. “Didn't we?”

“Yeah,” she said. She frowned down at the archway leading from Cell Block Seven into the hub. Both of us listened hard. Nothing.

Sharyn's wrist radio cracked. Chuck's voice sounded edgy and impatient. “Hey, Boss. We doin' this or what?”

“Hold up,” Sharyn told him, told us all. Then she gestured for me to stay put and headed down the staircase. She moved slowly, with catlike grace, her sword poised and rock steady in her hands. I covered her with the Super Soaker, ready to fire the moment one of the dead appeared.

None did.

Six
of
them
, Dead Lady Cop had said.

I still didn't think she'd been lying, but she'd definitely held
something
back.

Sharyn passed through what had once been the security gate at the mouth of the cell block. Then she pressed herself against the cold concrete archway that marked the hub's threshold. Her eyes flicked to mine.

I swallowed dryly and gave her a nod. “I've got you covered.”

She nodded back. “I know, little bro.”

Then she peered around the corner and into the hub.

“Oh fudge!” I heard her yelp.

Then something grabbed her, yanking her out of view.

Something
big
.

It happened so suddenly that for a second or two, my mind barely registered it. But then, panic—cold and electric—laced down my back. Barking Sharyn's name, I took the stairs three at a time, bounding down and out through the gate in the span of a few heartbeats.

Beyond it, the hub was brightly lit—a circular room about thirty feet across, with pipes and electrical cabling running across the ceiling and a polished tile floor. Its walls were lined with numbered doors, each one leading to a different cell block.

And the dead were here.

And they
weren't
surprised.

There were six of them, just as promised, all in various states of decay. Some were moist, like the cop in the alley. Others were flaky, like the one in the watchtower. Every one of them had milky eyes set into rotting skulls—eyes that focused on me as I entered. Empty eyes, except for the hatred that radiated from them.

And all of them wore yellow raincoats.

These were of the heavy vinyl variety, like the kind firefighters wear, with hoods that covered most of the wearer's face. The moment I saw the Deaders, I instinctively fired, blasting a hard stream at the nearest of them, a tall Type Two who stood right at the door to Cell Block One.

The saltwater bounced harmlessly off the thick vinyl.

The Corpse grinned at me, maggots dribbling out from between his teeth.

I froze where I stood, rooted in place by shock and horror. I knew I couldn't afford it. Angel training: In combat, keep moving. No matter what happens, never stop moving. But seeing a Corpse in what amounted to anti-saltwater armor had shaken me down to my shoes.

Then a voice called, “Watch it, little bro!”

Instinctively, I ducked as an arm, draped in yellow vinyl, whipped through the air where my head had been just a moment before. I pivoted and fired at the second attacker. He was shorter than the first one and flakier, his sunken eyes and desiccated gray skin barely visible beneath his hood. My stream of water bounced off his chest as he came at me again, batting away my Super Soaker. It flew from my grasp and hit the stone wall, cracking and spilling its contents.

We're gonna die here.

I pushed the thought away and retreated, putting some breathing room between me and my two attackers. At the same time, I looked for Sharyn.

She was on the other side of the hub, surrounded by four Corpses. They all had guns, being dressed as cops and all, but of course they'd never draw them. Deaders don't use weapons ever. Tom thinks its a culture thing. Like the others, these wore raincoats too, and they circled the dreadlocked girl like a pack of wolves. The Angel Boss brandished Vader, its blade glinting in the artificial light, her dark eyes darting everywhere at once. Most of the Deaders were Type Threes—smelly, with tissues halfway melted into putrid ooze that drained off them like sweat.

They were pretty nasty.

But the
fourth
guy
.

Now I knew what had grabbed Sharyn back at the archway to Cell Block Seven. And I finally understood why Dead Lady Cop had seemed so coy.

She'd known what was waiting for us down here.

He was a Type Two—and he was a
giant
; there's just no other word for it. Seeing him, I couldn't image where the Queen had found such a body. He had to be six-eight at least—maybe more. Three hundred and fifty pounds of purple, bloated dead man, squeezed into a raincoat meant for someone half his size. His legs were tree trunks, his arms as thick as my whole body. He towered over the rest of us, his massive, yellow-hooded head nearly touching the ceiling.

And, from Sharyn's expression, she was way more worried about this dude than the others.

I didn't blame her.

Where
in
God's name are Helene and the others?

Then I remembered: they hadn't been called! Sharyn's last order to them had been to “hold up,” and given her current circumstances, I guessed she hadn't found an opportunity to radio anything different.

So, with my own two Deaders closing in, I raised my wrist and called into the open channel: “Angels! Get in here! Now!”

Someone replied, “On our way!” I thought it might be Helene, but I wasn't sure. And I suppose it didn't matter.

At the same time, one of the Threes surrounding Sharyn spotted an opening and surged forward, his sloppy hands reaching for what he assumed to be the girl's unguarded back. What he didn't know was that Sharyn had twice as many eyes as anyone else. She spun on her heel and slashed with Vader. The Corpse's body took two more steps, but his head went the other way.

Then, before he'd even hit the ground, the Boss Angel ducked a swing of the giant's arm and drove the point of her sword through the throat of another of the Type Threes. A quick twist later, and his spinal cord was severed.

He went down like the lifeless lump of meat he was.

Neither of them was dead, of course; only a Ritter could do
that
. But both Corpses were down for the count and would stay that way—completely immobile—until their Deader buddies came to their rescue.

Good news for Sharyn.

But I still had my own problems.

Two Corpses—sticky and flaky—came at me, taking their sweet time about it. And why not? I was unarmed as far as they could see. I retreated until my back met stone. Then I scrambled through my coat and came out with my pocketknife and my Ritter. With my pocketknife in my left hand, I pressed its
2
button, activating the Taser.

The syringe was in my right.

An image of Dead Lady Cop in the watchtower flashed through my mind. Helene had killed her—forever and always. That's what Ritters did.

Could
I
do that? I mean, it was one thing to
cripple
them the way Sharyn had done with her sword just now. But it was another to kill—really, permanently
kill
—the being inside them. Wasn't it?

Shouldn't
it be?

But I'd killed Booth.

I swallowed.

The flaky guy came in first, reaching for me with hands like bones wrapped in parchment. As they got close, I could see the flesh on them ripple weirdly.

Picking my moment, I dodged under his arm and pressed my Taser into his pit. For a second, I worried that the raincoat might protect him. It didn't. His entire body jolted from the shock.

Then the skin on his hands split, and beetles tumbled out. Dozens of them. Hundreds. A fountain of small black bugs. They poured over me, tumbling over my neck and shoulders and getting into my hair. As the Deader toppled forward, I leapt clear, yelling my head off and slapping at the insects with both hands.

In my revulsion, however, I stupidly dropped my Ritter and my pocketknife.

And the other Corpse fell on me.