The Umbral Wake

by Martin Kee

  But he felt fine, to be perfectly honest. He did not feel like the bloated dead man through the glass. In fact, he felt perfectly healthy, certainly not the victim of an aneurism.

  He gave his body one last, distant look as they ran to fetch a doctor (or coroner, he thought). He turned away from the glass wall, taking stock in his situation, deciding it was time to move on and see what this new phase of his life had to offer. The late mayor of Bollingbrook had never considered himself a religious man. “Show me the proof,” he’d bellow at the priests, “Until then I’ll worship the gods I know.”

  His gods were money and power, the gods of vice and politics, and he had prayed to them every day. They in return had listened to him, it had been a good run, and Perlandine regretted nothing.

  Vocal agnosticism was his platform when he ran for mayor. Not that there was no God, but simply that a man with a practical and level head would be a good balance for the ever-increasing zealotry of the archbishop—a man Perlandine found himself disliking more and more during his tenure as mayor.

  And looking around now, it was easy to see that he had been right all along—or at least not necessarily wrong. He stood in a gray desert with wilted trees and distant organic houses. Things like sticks moved in pairs through the distant fog with strange alien strides. Above him swooped what might have been giant fish or huge ravens. They looked different each time he blinked.

  His hands went to his chest, his waist, his legs. It was all real, all solid and familiar, yet so incredibly dreamlike at the same time. Laughing aloud, Perlandine yelled at the giant birds, “I’m dead, you vultures. Why should I be scared of you?”

  But dead or not, that didn’t mean he couldn’t be surprised.

  “Hello, General,” said a voice.

  He turned, and Perlandine smiled at a man he hadn’t seen for years, an old friend, a co-conspirator.

  “Hello, Reverend,” he said, his mustache spreading wide.

  The Reverend Summers stood about ten feet away, encased in a smoke-filled glass box, his white suit exactly as Perlandine had always remembered it, that same grin on the man’s face. A white fedora shaded the Reverend’s eyes from some light source overhead.

  Lyle took another drag on his cigarette. “I thought you deserved a fitting welcoming party. It’s been quite some time.”

  “Indeed it has,” said Perlandine, tucking his thumbs into his vest. “I never even had a chance to tell you about my encounter with that brute bartender from the tavern. Did you know he got away? Nearly killed me.”

  “I wasn’t aware,” said the Reverend, white smoke drifting up and around the brim of his hat. The man’s eyes seemed lost in the haze somehow, not entirely clear or real. “Judging from what I see here, I assume he didn’t get the better of you.”

  Perlandine laughed. “Oh, goodness no. I even managed to give him a little stick in the ribs if you know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t,” the Reverend replied.

  He paused. “Poison. I used my stiletto,” he continued. He had forgotten what a humorless and severe man the Reverend could be.

  “So he’s dead… the bartender is dead.” Lyle took a drag and listened intently.

  “Oh, I’m quite sure he is. That poison could kill an ox.” Perlandine winked.

  “He say anything?” Lyle asked, his cold eyes unblinking. “Anything specific?”

  “The bartender?”

  Lyle nodded. “Who else?”

  “Oh, he wanted information… seems that girl was looking for her aunt.” He chuckled. “Joke was on her I suppose, from what you told me.”

  “And you told him?”

  “Told him what?” Something tickled the back of Perlandine’s throat and he coughed.

  “You told him that Rhia was dead?”

  “Of course I did. I wanted to see the look on his face. Not like it mattered; the man was dead anyway.” An awkward pause stretched between them as Lyle became lost in thought for a moment. Perlandine never liked silences. “It certainly felt good to be back in the boots and vesture again, though. One hell of a campaign, that Lassimir raid.”

  Lyle said nothing, only breathed in more of that blue smoke. Perlandine thought the smoked seemed viscous somehow, like the man was breathing water. Eventually, Lyle looked up and met the late mayor’s eyes.

  “For all the good it did,” said Lyle. “The place is still lousy with sinners. They’ll crawl right back as always. It won’t be more than a decade before that place is choked with whores and pirates again.”

  “Still,” Perlandine said, his smile fading somewhat. “It was a good run.”

  “What was?”

  “You and I,” said the late mayor and former general. He pointed at Lyle, then at himself. “Us… We had a good run before we met our end.”

  Lyle grinned, his teeth wolfish and straight. “Oh… right.”

  Perlandine looked back over his shoulder. The glass was gone, replaced by an infinite expanse of gray dirt and dead trees. He turned back to the Reverend. The man still stood there holding him in his gaze. “I… am dead, right?” he asked at last.

  “Oh, quite,” said Lyle, taking one more long drag, giving the man time to respond.

  “Well, that’s what I figured.” Perlandine looked around. “I can’t say this is what I expected.”

  “It never is,” said the Reverend.

  “Was… was it what you expected?” Perlandine asked.

  “What’s that?” Lyle asked, a hint of playfulness in his voice.

  “Don’t toy with me, Reverend. I’m talking of being dead… of course.”

  A crooked grin spread further along the Reverend’s face. “Speak for yourself, Manny. I’m just here to make you a deal.”

  The late mayor cleared his throat. A fog lifted from behind the Reverend’s glass coffin, revealing a million silhouettes, bodies of different shapes and sizes, all with their own weapons, their own grim scars and wounds. They waited patiently, their bodies sprouting from the earth like exotic fungus, staring at him with empty eyes.

  “What sort of deal did you have in mind?” Perlandine asked.

  “Well,” said Lyle. “Normally I’m not one to ask, but since you didn’t come to me willingly, I suppose I’ve no choice. I’d like you to lead my army.”

  Perlandine stared at the standing husks before him, at the puppets in human skin. There was nothing in those sockets, only black dust. A few heads cocked this was and that, like infant heads rolling around on limp shoulders.

  “Why can’t you lead them?” he asked. He didn’t like what he saw. Not that it could be an army… but an army of what? What Perlandine saw before him were monstrosities, much less people. It made him sick to think they might have been human at one time.

  Or perhaps the malaise was coming from somewhere else, deep inside his own stomach. Something flipped in his gut and he found himself swallowing gorge. He was about to be sick.

  “I lack your military expertise,” said Lyle, as though unaware of Perlandine’s discomfort. “And I’m afraid I require someone who is of the same… state as them. I can control them, don’t get me wrong, but they are a chaotic group. I’m sure you can see that. I don’t have the patience for such a motley crew.”

  Perlandine stared into the empty sockets, his hands going cold with sweat. Could dead people even get sweaty palms?

  “And if I refuse?”

  Lyle dropped the cigarette in the dirt and stepped on it. “I think you’ll find the alternative to be unpleasant,” said the Reverend.

  Something tickled the back of Perlandine’s shoulders, skittering through his flesh and anchoring him to the ground. He tried to move, but found his feet sinking—dissolving into the gray dirt. He looked up at the Reverend, meeting those cold eyes.

  He dared not look down, not because his feet were missing, but because whatever was moving inside him was now making its way out. It wasn’t exactly pain, just an intense discomfort, like a shameful memory one might wish to forget.
>
  The glass box was closer now, its occupant staring down at him. He saw two Reverends in that box: one was the man he knew, the elderly, humorless man with the short white hair, the other pockmarked, scarred beyond recognition, the hair flowing in a halo around the man’s head, flowing as if drifting in water.

  He contained his fear long enough to ask one last question: “How is it that you are fine?”

  “Fine?”

  “We’re both dead!” Perlandine spat the words with viscous phlegm.

  “Speak for yourself,” said Lyle as he turned away, letting his army claim their general.

  “Wait!” Perlandine yelled. Hands snaked around his legs.

  The Reverend paused, turned in his glass coffin. “Yes?”

  “I’ll do it… make it stop and I’ll do it.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say so, Mayor.” Lyle smiled. “Now, let’s talk more about that bartender you say you killed.”

  Chapter 28

  Rhinewall

  THERE WAS LAUGHTER, the stench of sweat and urine, a dozen hands grabbing at her, dragging her through alleys and gutters. They were a blur of laughing, mocking faces above her as they pulled her limply across the floor. Her head throbbed with pain as it bounced along the uneven surface, causing her to drift in and out of consciousness.

  “Look at her eyes!” one shouted. “She got old lady eyes!”

  “You ever seen anything like that?”

  “Creepy as all Hell if you ask me.”

  Skyla heard the creak of a rusted gate and turned over, finding herself on a metal floor, surrounded by rusted bars. Hetch stared at her from the other side of the cage door, a grin spread across his face.

  He crossed his arms as another boy held up the goggles to the light, admiring them.

  “Who sent you?” he asked. “You knew about our salvage op, how?”

  She didn’t answer. Her head throbbed in rhythm, and she could feel sweat running into her eyes. Her cheek felt scraped and bleeding, her ribs sore from where one of the boys had kicked her. She only propped herself up against the opposite wall, staring at him defiantly.

  Hetch grinned wider. Without her goggles, his shadow danced a wild jester’s dance behind him, making it difficult to concentrate.

  “We’ll see how well you talk after a bit,” he said.

  “Prissy sisters ain’t got nothing like this,” said the boy with the goggles. He was a dirty ginger haired boy with a cleft palate. “These are nice. We could get a good coin for em.”

  Hetch turned and ripped the goggles from the boy’s hands, holding them out in front of her. He admired them for a moment, turning them upside down, holding them up to the light.

  “Where you get these?” he asked. “These ain’t like no lab salvage I’ve seen. Not all in one piece anyway.”

  He plucked a lock of hair from the inside and held it out to her before smelling it. Hetch inhaled deeply, then looked back at her and grinned wider.

  “Still not talking?”

  Skyla glanced around, ignoring him. A patchwork of steel beams and metal panels stretched far overhead, making her think of the inside of a ship hull. Boys looked down at her from the rafters grinning. She turned back to Hetch and shook her head.

  “Maybe this will make you talk,” he said to her. With no warning at all, he dropped the goggles to the dirt floor and brought his boot down with a sickening crunch. Skyla felt her breath catch in her throat as the boot lifted up, revealing a cobweb crack across the left lens. His shadow flickered with glee.

  “Aw man!” said the ginger. “Those were nice!”

  “Maybe now you talk, or I break the other one,” Hetch said, holding her in a cold gaze. He cocked his head to one side and lifted his boot again when she finally spoke.

  “Okay!” she cried, her hand reaching involuntarily to the goggles.

  Hetch smiled scooping the goggles off the floor. “That’s more like it. Which bitch gang sent you to spy? Was it the prissy sisters? The Daughters of Mona? Who?”

  “I’m not in a gang,” she said. She could feel her hands shaking and tucked them under her armpits, trying to look tougher than she felt.

  His grin faded. “You got a family?”

  She shook her head. “Not really.”

  “I never seen a kid with no family who wasn’t in a gang,” said Hetch, his greasy hands fondling the goggles. “You got some nice stuff here for an orphan.”

  “It was nicer before you broke it,” she heard herself say.

  “Yeah, well it made you talk. What’s your name?”

  She thought for a split second. “Jenny.”

  “Jenny what?”

  “Just Jenny.”

  Hetch pulled a crate over to sit in front of the cage, the goggles dangling between his knees, legs spread in macho posturing. He leaned in.

  “Well Just Jenny, what should we do with you?”

  “I got some ideas,” said one of the boys.

  Hetch turned on him. “I’m askin’ the questions!” He looked at her again. “Why you follow the Chimp into the lab? You stealing?”

  She shook her head. “I… I was lost.”

  “Lost…” he rolled the word in his mouth. “And you just happened to find your way to the lab?” He made a tsk-tsk-tsk sound with his tongue.

  He stood, stretching out his chest. “I’m the king of this gang. They call ‘em Hetch’s Fetches and I’m Hetch. I can get you whatever you want: food, jewelry, pretties, rings, candy. You name it.”

  “Can I have those back?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

  He looked down at the goggles again. “What you need these for when they broken? I can get you way better. I can get you a crown. Anything you want.”

  Skyla watched his shadow grow along the ground as he boasted, watched it twist up along the wall in huge vines. He was certainly proud of himself, certainly saw himself as the keeper of all these boys, a glorified babysitter. And at the same time, Hetch was lonely… even worse, Hetch was scared. She could feel herself getting lost in the shadow, lost in the complexity. A thrill of fear ran up her spine.

  What if I can’t look away?

  “Hey!” he said and she blinked. “What you staring at?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “I asked you a question.”

  “I didn’t hear.”

  “I asked if you wanted anything. I can get you whatever you want. I’m a king here.”

  “And what do you want from me?” she asked.

  “You?” he said with a grin. “You could be my queen.”

  Several of the boys stopped what they were doing to look at him. A few huddled together in clusters, whispering secrets. She read hints of betrayal in their shadows.

  “Wouldn’t that be against the rules?” she asked. “No girls allowed?”

  “I make the rules,” Hetch said.

  “You’re the king.”

  He nodded once. “That’s right. And after tonight, I’m gonna be the king of a whole lot more.”

  “Why’s that?’ she asked.

  “Because after tonight, this city’s gonna change. There’s gonna be a whole lot of changes and I’m gonna be runnin’ a lot of ‘em.”

  “What kinds of changes?” she asked, finding herself genuinely interested.

  A couple more of the boys cast uneasy glances. Hetch was the oldest, the adult—or as close as any of these boys were to adulthood. Those scratches on his face… from a razor.

  “For starters they are gonna deputize us,” he said. “There’s talk of con… con-srip-shun. Con-shrimp-shun. And when that happens we are all getting guns and armor. Just like the church soldiers, but better.”

  There was a degree of relief in his shadow now. This was Hetch’s way out, his big exit. His shadow was too big for this place now, trapped like a giant rat in a small cage. A tendril from his shadow reached towards her along the ground and she sidestepped it.

  “And who told you this?” she asked.

  “Oh
, I got my sources,” said Hetch. “Powerful people telling me things. Things about a revolt, a revolution. They gonna turn this city around, but this time we’re gonna run it.”

  “The kids?”

  He nodded. “That’s right.”

  “And an adult told you this?”

  He nodded again, but his smile faded. Skyla was chuckling, laughing even.

  Hetch’s smile melted into a snarling scowl. “What’s so funny?” he demanded, gripping the bars. “Why are you laughing you little bitch?”

  She laughed for another minute or so, then wiped her cheeks and took a breath.

  “You aren’t a king,” she said. “You’re just the biggest moron this side of the Bowl.”

  The other boys stared, their hands frozen holding cards, throwing dice, lifting boxes, their mouths hanging open, gaping at her. She couldn’t have gotten a better reaction had she read a brothel menu during a church service.

  Hetch’s face had gone dark red. Behind him, the shadow pulsed with anger, frustration. He held the goggles out, threatening to stomp them again.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “I have fifty pair back at my house. Go smash those then explain to all your little minions why they shouldn’t all kill you tonight in your sleep.”

  The goggles in hand, Hetch continued to glare… only now the other boys were listening. It was clear from their faces that nobody had ever talked to Hetch like this.

  She continued. “How old are you, Hetch? Seventeen? Eighteen? You’re practically a man.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You’re an adult and they know it. The only reason they don’t kill you is because you can keep giving them things, you can keep bribing them with little toys. The few who get out of line are small enough that you can beat them. But what happens if they all decide you’re too old? That’s what you’re really afraid of, isn’t it? What happens when toys aren’t enough? What happens when they all start calling you poppa?”

  “They respect me,” he hissed.

  “Ha!” she spat the laughter. “Ha! Ha! Ha! That is the biggest joke you tell to yourself. That’s why you made an adult-deal with adult-ideas. You sold out this entire gang to another system, traded them for your freedom. Maybe it’s an orphanage, or a home. Maybe the city is going to make changes, but I don’t think your boys are going to like them. I think this is just your way of graduating.”