by Ty Drago
“No, you never did,” Lindsay replied, matching the dude’s laugh almost exactly. “But you absolutely must! Right now, though, I really do need to make some quick phone calls. I’ve already had to cancel two meetings because of this coffee fiasco. Fortunately, while these two pages”—she motioned to Sharyn and me, both jacket-less, both filthy—“ended up almost as badly scalded as I was, they nevertheless agreed to escort me back to Hart.”
“Thanks, kids,” Mike said. “It’s really great, the page program.”
“Thank you, sir,” Sharyn replied in her best Webster Hall voice.
“So, Lindsay,” Mike said coyly. “This afternoon’s big announcement in the chamber … you’ve got everyone on the Hill buzzing about it. Any chance of a sneak peek?”
“Sorry, Mike,” she replied, patting his arm. “You’ll find out with the rest. When have you ever known me to play favorites?”
Isn’t that what politicians do? I wondered.
He sighed theatrically. “Can’t blame an elected official for trying.”
A moment later the train rumbled in. It was smaller than anything running under Philly, or DC for that matter, just a few cars strung together. More tram than subway.
“There’s our ride!” Mike called over the din. “I’ll leave you to your calls … and your big secret. But let’s catch up over lunch, maybe next week. We can swap war stories.”
“Love to, Mike! Call my office and set it up!”
The train squealed to a halt. Doors opened and a few more suits got off. Mike climbed into one car, while Lindsay, Sharyn, and I found our way into another. The seats were padded, definitely a cut above the usual.
As the train started rolling, I watched the men and women on the platform. They walked by the Corpse pieces without noticing them and stepped right through the puddles of Corpse juice without incident.
Grown-ups. Blind as always.
This is my life, I thought, shaking my head.
“Hart Building, here we come!” Lindsay Micha said cheerfully.
Helene
Helene perched precariously just outside one of City Hall’s sixth-floor office windows, her knees bent and her feet wedged against the building’s rough masonry, her left hand clutching the window frame in a Cat Grab.
While she still gripped Aunt Sally in her right hand, the trusted crossbow was useless at the moment, its Ritterbolt having just turned D’Angelo into two hundred pounds of Corpse gunk.
One window over, Jillian threw in the first of her saltwater balloons. It struck one of the remaining three cops on the side of his face, exploding on impact. The deader’s expression slackened and he started spinning in lopsided circles as though drunk or dizzy.
Two down. Two to go.
Plus the Queen of the Dead.
Right on cue, Tom pushed Susan Ritter clear and pivoted, bringing Vader around in a silver blur. Another Corpse, who’d only just managed to grasp what was happening, lost his head a second later. Then, as the fourth one made a grab for the chief, Helene smoothly traded Aunt Sally for a water pistol and gave the dude a face full. Before he even had a chance to fall, Tom slammed the sword into his slack mouth and out the back of his neck.
Finally, pulling a second Ritter from his pocket, Tom skewered the one Jillian had splashed, catching the deader in his back as he started to rise.
Like D’Angelo, he popped like a balloon.
Done.
Sword ready, Tom whirled on Cavanaugh.
But the Queen hadn’t moved.
Helene and Jillian climbed in their respective windows and flanked Mrs. Ritter, who stared at them as if they were leprechauns.
“We’re on the sixth floor!” Cavanaugh exclaimed in fury and disbelief. “This is impossible!”
“It’s parkour,” Jillian corrected her. “And Helene’s my best student.”
“Thanks,” Helene said.
Tom added, “You’re not the only one who can spot an opportunity.”
Then, without warning, he lunged at the Queen, Vader slicing the air. The chief was fast—incredibly fast.
But Cavanaugh was faster.
She dodged Tom’s slash before literally leaping around him, bouncing off the side wall and shouldering Jillian hard enough to knock the girl completely off her feet. Then, as Tom pursued her, the Queen leaped again.
Helene fired her water pistol—and missed. An instant later, the Queen disappeared through one of the open windows, dropping out of the sight.
Helene cursed and started after her, but Tom caught her arm. “Don’t.”
“She’ll get away!”
“You stick your head out that window and she’s liable to rip it off. We don’t know where she is, but you can bet she didn’t just swan dive into no courtyard. So stand down.”
“But … Tom!” Jillian exclaimed, regaining her feet. “We were so close!”
“It was a good try. I’m the one who blew it. I should have been faster with the sword.”
Standing over by the desk, Mrs. Ritter struggled to take it all in. “You … planned … this?”
Tom said, “I figured Cavanaugh was settin’ a trap. The Corpses aren’t the ‘flag of truce’ type. So we decided to flip things on her.”
“But … the two of you …” she stammered, gaping at the girls. “You climbed the outside wall?”
“Came down from the roof,” Helene said. “A bunch of us have been taking free-running lessons from Jill for a couple of weeks now.”
“Besides, it’s a pretty easy building to work,” added Jillian. “Lots of gables, ledges, and windowsills.”
Talking like that, she made it sound so simple. The thing is: parkour moves weren’t really designed for going down a wall. So Jillian and Helene had been forced to make it up as they went. It had been tricky, and more than a little dangerous. But they’d been on a mission—an important one—and one of Sharyn’s biggest rules was: “Be where you’re ’posed to be when you’re ’posed to be there. If you ain’t, then people die.”
So they’d pulled it off.
“Didn’t anybody see you?” Mrs. Ritter asked.
“Some, I guess,” Helene replied. “So what? Probably figured it was a show or something. Grown-ups see pretty much what they want to see.” Then she added quickly, “No offense.”
Will’s mom laughed. “None taken.” Then, with fresh alarm: “But Tom … there are others coming! Cavanaugh said—”
The chief yelled, “Dave? We cool?”
A voice called back from beyond the open doorway. “Yeah, we’re cool.”
Then the Burgermeister strolled in wearing an ill-fitting police uniform.
“How many’d you get?” Tom asked him.
“Me personally? Just two. Katie and the rest of the Angels are mopping up the others. The floor’s secure. These guys weren’t expecting us, so it was pretty easy. The ones I nailed took me for a rookie cop … right up until I did my funeral home thing.”
“Solid,” the chief told him.
The boy positively beamed.
“And how is it that nobody told me about this plan of yours?” Mrs. Ritter demanded.
Helene expected Tom to look embarrassed. He didn’t. “You know why.”
The woman glared at him for a moment. Then her shoulders slumped and she said, “Because I asked to be made an official Undertaker.”
Tom nodded. “You didn’t know what that meant when you said it. Now you do.”
“A risky lesson,” she said a little shakily.
“Risky’s always a part of it,” he replied. “But you weren’t in any real danger. We had this gig covered from the get-go … and that’s the real lesson here.”
“What happened to Cavanaugh?” Dave asked. “Did we finally waste her?”
Helene shook her head. “She was … too fast.”
The enormous boy groaned; it sounded like whale song.
Tom moved to Cavanaugh’s desk and started checking drawers. “The deaders’ll be back in force pretty soon. But, s
ince we’re here, maybe we can find somethin’ that’ll tell us —”
The Queen of the Dead appeared as if by Black Magic, leaping through the nearest window and pouncing on the chief with all the lethal speed of a jungle cat. Her legs, now shoeless, locked around the boy’s thick torso, while her manicured hands clamped down on either side of his head—like the jaws of a vice.
“Drop your weapons!” she shrieked.
Helene raised her water pistol. Dave, his face bright red, shook like a bull about to charge while, beside him, Jillian readied another water balloon.
“Drop your weapons!” Cavanaugh hissed. “Or I’ll crush his head like a nut!”
Tom locked his strong hands on the Queen’s forearms, but it was obvious that he couldn’t break her grip. With a muffled cry he threw himself backward, slamming the dead woman against the wall. Plaster cracked, but Cavanaugh didn’t budge. She only bared her teeth and tightened her hold.
The chief roared in pain.
“Last chance!” she snarled. “Do it now!”
Slowly, the girls lowered their arms, looking defeated.
The Queen grinned, her eyes glittering with triumph.
Now she’ll kill him anyway! Helene realized. And then escape back through the window again before we can react!
She had to do something!
But then someone else did something instead.
Will’s mom snatched up the Ritter that still lay on the desk. Then, coming around the far side, she hit Cavanaugh’s flank, jabbing the needle deep into the rotting flesh of the Queen’s upper arm.
Cavanaugh, of course, felt nothing. The dead don’t suffer pain. But she registered the impact and her head whipped toward Susan Ritter, her triumph turning to horror.
An instant later, her arm exploded.
Tom, lathered in cadaver fluid, seized the moment. He slipped under Cavanaugh’s remaining arm, spun on his heel, and delivered a brutal kick to the Queen’s midsection.
Cavanaugh seemed to fold in half, her crazed eyes wide with shock and outrage. Then the impact drove her stolen body back out the window. The last Helene saw of her was one fluttering jacket sleeve—the sleeve that used to have an arm in it.
And, just like that, she was gone.
Helene and Jillian ran to the window, looking down at City Hall’s expansive cement courtyard. After a moment, the others joined them.
The Queen of the Dead lay in a motionless heap amidst a dozen or more terrified pedestrians. At least she hadn’t hit anybody.
“Is she dead?” Mrs. Ritter asked.
Helene shook her head. “Just stuck. And the deaders are already coming to her rescue. See?”
Corpses, some in cop uniforms and others in suits, closed around their broken royalty. They formed a protective circle, keeping the rest of the onlookers at bay, while at the same time pointing up at the windows.
At them.
“Um … better go,” the Burgermeister noted.
The chief wiped at his face with his coat sleeve. “Yeah. Let’s split. Dave, call Katie and tell her to meet us with her team back in Haven.”
They all hurried through the ruined office door.
But Tom paused at the threshold and, with Helene at his shoulder, turned to Mrs. Ritter. “Susan?” Tom said. “Thanks. You saved my life back there.”
Now it’s ‘Susan,’ Helene thought.
“No need to thank me,” the woman replied. “I’m an Undertaker.”
The chief grinned. “Yeah. You are.”
“Any idea what this big announcement might be?” Sharyn asked Lindsay as we climbed the steps into the Hart Senate Building.
“None at all,” the woman replied, frowning.
“What’s ‘the chamber’ he was talking about?” I asked.
“The Senate chamber. As pages, I’m sure you’ve seen it.”
And, of course, we had—the fancy room with the half-circle of desks where we’d gotten our first look at Corpse Micha.
Lindsay said, “I can’t imagine making an ‘announcement’ in the chamber. A speech, certainly. Speeches are what the Senate floor is for. But announcements tend to focus on one’s political career rather than the welfare of the country. I would never use the chamber for such a thing.”
“You ain’t her,” Sharyn remarked.
“And ‘ain’t’ is not a word, young lady.”
The girl grinned. “Depends on your dictionary.”
Unlike its neighbor, Dirksen, Hart was mega-modern—one of those buildings where all the rooms and offices were set up along the wall, leaving the middle area wide open all the way up to the roof. The huge lobby seemed to be all steel and glass, with lots of light. Not the kind of place you’d expect to find the walking dead.
But they were here.
Two Type Threes and a Four, all in suits, stood huddled together next to a nearby pillar. They hadn’t noticed us yet. Even more important, Lindsay hadn’t noticed them, and Sharyn and I decided to keep it that way.
“Elevator’s over there,” Sharyn said, steering us toward a bank of shiny doors on the opposite end of the lobby and out of the deaders’ line of sight. I followed, patting my pants pocket. My faithful knife was there.
Something told me I’d be needing it before long.
We rode up to the fifth floor. Here a narrow, railed corridor traced the outside shape of the building, with doors to senators’ offices on our left and nothing but a railing that overlooked the lobby on our right. Each office door was decorated with a basketball-sized seal identifying the particular senator’s home state.
Lindsay guided us confidently, turning left and then right and then left again.
“So far, so good,” Sharyn whispered to me.
“Yeah,” I muttered. But I couldn’t help worrying about what would happen if Lindsay turned a corner and walked right into a Corpse.
It wouldn’t be pretty.
At last, Lindsay stopped outside her office entrance, which sported the New Jersey state seal. For a half minute, she stared through the glass at a young woman—human—working behind a paneled desk.
“You okay?” I asked Lindsay.
“Oh, yes,” she said, sounding wistful. “It’s just … I suppose, on some level, I never thought I’d see this place again.” Then she looked at me, her eyes shining. “Thank you, Will.”
“Thank me when you get you your life back,” I said, pushing the door open.
“Senator?” the receptionist asked. She was young, brunette and, from the look on her face, bewildered. “Is everything all right? What happened?”
She was referring, of course, to Lindsay’s janitor overalls. At least, by her reaction, it seemed clear that Corpse Micha wasn’t here at the moment. A stroke of luck.
“I’m fine, Moira,” Lindsay replied with an embarrassed smile. “Just some spilled coffee. Tell me … do I still keep spare clothing in my office closet?”
It was a weird question and Moira knew it. “Uh … yes. Of course. I mean—”
“Thank you,” Lindsay chirped. Then she headed for the only other door, which I assumed opened into her private office.
As I followed, Sharyn caught my arm and pulled me close. “Gimme your pocketknife.”
“What for?”
“I’m stayin’ out here with Pretty Miss Receptionist. I don’t like the look on her face, and I wanna chat her up … keep her distracted while you and our new peep do your thing in there.”
“What’s the pocketknife for?”
“In case somebody else shows up. The dead sorta somebody. I’m unarmed.”
I don’t generally loan out my pocketknife. After all, there’s only one other like it—probably on the whole planet—and Tom’s got that. But this was Sharyn and, as usual, she was right. So I forked it over.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Be careful out here.”
“Be careful in there,” she replied.
I followed Lindsay into the inner office.
“Is he going in the
re with her?” I heard Moira ask, sounding scandalized. “Isn’t the senator … changing?”
Sharyn replied in her best page voice, “Don’t worry. Will’s a first-class gentlemen, and the senator … well, she hasn’t been herself lately.”
I shut the door.
“She’s rearranged everything,” Lindsay grumbled. Outside her window was a fairly decent view of the Capitol, its huge, white dome almost glowing in the mid-morning sunlight. “My desk. The couch. Everything. Why do you suppose she’d bother?”
“Most Corpses take their Masks seriously,” I told her. “By now, she’s probably convinced herself that she’s more you than you are.”
She considered. “In a way, she might be right.”
“No,” I said. “She isn’t you. And the Corpse Eater isn’t you, either. It isn’t even the First. Not really. Lindsay Micha … the person standing in front me … she’s the First.”
I could see that she didn’t quite believe it. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I believed it myself. Her monster half came out too easily and too often for her human half to truly be in control.
After all this, was it even possible to get back her stolen life?
I swallowed down that unhappy thought and asked, “Where should we start looking?” Then, without waiting for a reply, I went around the big, polished desk and tried the drawers. Every single one was locked. I cursed, wishing I still had my pocketknife and its lock pick.
“Language, Will,” Lindsay said patiently.
“Sorry. Don’t suppose you hid a spare key around here anywhere?”
“I don’t know, but Moira might. But that’s not the proper place to look anyway.”
I blinked. “What not?”
“I’m … that is, she’s … making a big announcement, yes? Big announcements are scripted. Always. And scripting takes time, a good many revisions, and a number of last-minute changes.” She bent down, and came up holding a shiny-brass trash can. “Good! Nothing’s been shredded yet.”
Despite myself, I laughed. Even after everything the Corpses had done to her, there were still no flies on Lindsay Micha.