Undead to the World

by DD Barant

  The backhand comes out of nowhere. It connects with the side of my head and sends me sprawling with fireworks of pain behind my eyes, but I can tell he’s holding back.

  “Strike one!” Zev calls out. “Fouled it down the third-base line—next time, for sure!”

  He’s trying to draw Charlie out. But it’s not Charlie’s style to lay low and wait for the right moment; he’s more a “charge straight ahead damn the torpedos” kinda guy. Which means—

  No. No, I don’t believe it. Not Charlie.

  I get to my feet. “You get one for free,” I say. “Next time you pay.”

  “Can I run a tab?” He tries something a little more flashy, a side-kick from a hairy leg and clawed foot.

  Mistake.

  He’s fast, but I’m ready for him. I pivot, let the leg snap past me, then grab his ankle with both hands. I shove the leg down, bring my knee up sharply, and snap the joint like a piece of kindling.

  Zev howls in pain, but I’m not done. I keep his leg up in the air and kick him in the crotch. Twice.

  He finally manages to wrench his limb free, but he’s off-balance. I step in and nail him with an elbow strike to the face as hard as I can manage. That turns out to be a mistake, because it sends him staggering backward out of range for a second.

  That’s apparently all Zev needs to recover, because he immediately goes on the offensive, lunging forward on his one good leg and slashing wildly with his claws. I dodge or block most of them, but he gets under my guard and rakes my belly.

  My turn to stagger backward. He laughs. “Strike two!” he shouts. “Looks like a triple to me!”

  I can’t spare the attention to check how bad the wound is, but my intestines still seem to be on the right side of my skin. “Charlie?” I say. “Charlie, now would be good.…”

  No response. And Zev’s reaction to his broken leg is to make sure it’s straight before shifting its morphology from thrope to pire, the fur replaced by pale white flesh. White, undamaged flesh; you can’t break a pire’s leg. Not unless you use silver or wood.

  “Well, it’s been fun,” Zev says. “But pitch number three is about to go over the plate. Hey, I don’t make the rules.” He pauses, then giggles. “Okay, I guess I do. Same difference either way—”

  And that’s when the shotgun goes off.

  The blast catches Zev in the neck. It’s good strategy; most supernaturals are susceptible to decapitation. But the shotgun load is a mix of oak splinters carved from a table leg and silver shavings painstakingly scraped from the back of an old mirror. It’s enough to hurt something with a pulse, and probably cripple a pire or a thrope.

  But Zev’s something else entirely.

  The shot tears away most of his flesh, leaving his spinal cord intact. He stares at me, his mouth moving soundlessly. That’ll happen when your larynx is abruptly removed.

  And then the bloody knobbed column between his skull and his shoulders starts to sprout ribbons of meat. Nerves, muscles, tendons. A thrope can’t regenerate that fast without some kind of mystic boost, but Zev isn’t a thrope. He’s a trap, just like everything else in this town, designed to prey not only on my pain but on my assumptions. Of course he isn’t going to be easy to kill; he’s a wild card, a joker in both attitude and application.

  In a moment he’s got his pipes back. He turns around and smiles at Charlie, who’s stepped out from behind the bookshelf he was hiding behind. He meets Zev’s eyes and shrugs. “Hey. Had to give it a shot, right?”

  Charlie hops forward, dragging his broken leg behind him. He’s still got the shotgun aimed at Zev. “Maybe I should give it a few more. See how many times you can do that little trick.”

  Zev chuckles. “Go right ahead, tarbender. But now that I know it’s coming, don’t expect me to just sit here and take it.”

  He leaps onto a bookshelf, then crosses to another, moving as swiftly and surely as a wild animal. I can’t beat Zev toe-to-toe, and Charlie won’t be able to do more than graze him if he’s on the move.

  And now he’s got a golf ball in his hand. Great. Somebody’s lifelong daydream of being the next Tiger Woods is going to get one of us killed.

  “I’ll give you a choice, Charlemagne,” Zev says. “Put down the Elmer Fudd Penis Substitute and I’ll kill you quick. Touch that trigger and I’ll make you suffer.”

  I’m still trying to figure out our next move when the unthinkable happens.

  Charlie drops the gun.

  “Charlie, what are you doing?” I blurt.

  “Only thing I can,” Charlie says. “No-win situation, Jace. What’s the point in beating our heads against a brick wall? Take a look around.” He gestures with one hand. “All this junk is stuff people gave up so they could be happier. Worked, too. Sometimes … sometimes you just gotta know when to let go.”

  I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it. “Charlie. You said it yourself—look around. It’s this place, all these pathetic little mementos … it’s doing something to you. Don’t let it—”

  But it’s too late.

  TWENTY

  Zev springs from his perch, landing in front of Charlie. He casually kicks the shotgun out of reach. “Okay,” he says. “A deal’s a deal—and hey, you did sell me an awful lot of beer back in the day. But before I kill you, can I ask you something?”

  “You can ask.”

  “What the hell am I?” There’s a note of genuine frustration under the manic glee in his voice. “I’m not a werewolf, I’m not a vampire. I don’t think my real name is even Zev. Everything keeps sliding around in my head, and it’s getting worse. About the only thing I am sure of is that it’s all her fault, and you two seem to be real close. So what am I?”

  Charlie regards Zev calmly for a second. “What are you? That’s easy.” He leans forward an inch or two, locks eyes with Zev, and says, “You’re done.”

  The noose drops over Zev’s head as silently as a snake, and tightens its grip just as fast. It yanks him straight up through the hole in the ceiling and into the darkness beyond.

  Charlie and I stare up at the black mouth of the opening for a second. Then we move.

  I dive for the spot Charlie gestured to when he gave his little “I give up” speech. Charlie scrambles after the shotgun, breaks it open, and reloads it with standard shells.

  I find the case peeking out from under a stack of old fashion magazines, almost invisible unless you’ve got your face pressed to the floor; that’s how Charlie must have seen it. I yank it out, undo the clasps, and rip it open.

  Hello, my lovelies.

  Twin escrima sticks nestled in black foam. Eighteen inches of polished ironwood tipped with silver spikes, each with a folding silver blade a foot long that snaps out and locks at a forty-five degree angle.

  My scythes.

  I yank them out, pop ’em open, and stand up. I wouldn’t say I feel invulnerable, exactly, but an enraged grizzly could walk through the door right now and I’d tell him to run. One look in my eyes and he’d do it, too.

  Charlie snaps the twelve-gauge shut. “How’s the Doc?”

  “Twitching and groaning,” I say, glancing over at him. “Probably has a concussion—we’ll ask him when he wakes up.”

  “If that isn’t soon, he’ll miss the good part.”

  Above us, absolute silence.

  No growling, no thrashing, no curses or howls. The shapeshifting thing that seemed unkillable a minute ago isn’t looking so invincible anymore. And any second now we’re going to come face-to-face with the being that just ate it whole.

  “How’d you know it would attack Zev?” I ask, my eyes fixed on the ceiling.

  “That thing’s attracted to despair. Nobody makes as many jokes as laughing boy did unless they’re hurting inside. Bad.”

  I blink. “And what if it had come after you, instead? You know, to make me despair?”

  “Then I’d feel pretty stupid. For a few seconds, anyway.”

  “You know that hole is also our exit, right?”
>
  “I wasn’t planning on stumbing around in these tunnels until it found us, no.”

  “Ideas?”

  “Lot of this stuff looks like it might burn.”

  A natural chimney and plenty of fuel. Problem is, the top of the chimney is no doubt covered, and that means we could find ourself not only trapped underground but blind and asphyxiated. “I don’t think so. You have these things in your chest now, called lungs; they wouldn’t appreciate suffering from smoke inhalation.”

  “Then I guess we go up there and introduce ourselves.”

  I have this sudden strong mental image of what we’ll find halfway up: the Gallowsman, perched in a crazy-ass web of cables, ropes, and wires like a four-legged spider, with Zev wrapped in a cocoon of the same stuff. The Gallowsman’s head will be tilted all the way to one side, lying flat on his shoulder like it was glued there. His eyes will bulge from their sockets, as big as hard-boiled eggs, his black, distended tongue lolling from his mouth like a dead eel.…

  “Sounds like fun,” I say. “How about we take a look, first?”

  “You’re the one with the sharp things. Cover me.” I walk over and give him the flashlight. He hops closer to the hole, holding the shotgun with one hand, and shines the beam upward.

  “Huh,” he says.

  I’m ready to chop to pieces anything that might drop out of there. “What do you see?”

  “Not much. Empty. Ends in a trapdoor, looks like. And there are rungs carved in the side of the shaft.”

  So that’s why we didn’t hear Zev struggling—it dragged him up and out. “Think you can climb with that leg?”

  Charlie grunts. “I’ll manage. You and the Doc might have to give me a hand.”

  Speaking of which, Doctor Pete is now sitting up and clutching his head. “Goddamn it,” he says. “This is—ow! This is not acceptable. Concussion damage in human beings is cumulative.”

  I walk over and help him to his feet. “If you can utter that sentence without slurring your words, you’re probably okay. But Charlie isn’t—his leg’s broken. Take a look.”

  Doctor Pete automatically shifts into professional mode—I knew he would—and examines Charlie’s leg. We rig a makeshift splint, and then Doctor Pete and I start piling up enough furniture to get us closer to the ceiling.

  I go up first myself, with one scythe closed and stuck in my belt, and the other open and clenched between my teeth. Charlie’s below me, shining the flashlight beam up. When I get to the top of the shaft I have a moment of panic when I think the trapdoor is locked—then I realize it’s on springs, and I have to pull down to open it, not push.

  Of course. Very like a real gallows, only this one closes automatically after use. More like a doggy door, really.

  That makes me think about Galahad, but I don’t have time to worry about him right now. I cautiously stick my head through the opening, holding my scythe in one hand, but nothing drops around my neck or tries to throttle me. The trapdoor’s set into a round, raised stone platform in the middle of a dark room, the beam of the flashlight from below showing me only vague shapes. I climb out and tell Charlie to come up; he manages pretty well, even with one leg in a splint.

  In a few minutes we’re all above ground again. The flashlight reveals a room very similar to the one in Longinus’s basement: black draperies on the walls, lots of candles. The door isn’t obvious, but with a little searching we find it; it opens into the apse of the church, behind the altar.

  I can smell burnt flesh as soon as we step out. What’s left of the cross Jimmy Zhang was lashed to hangs from the back of the door, and his ashy remains now lie scattered at my feet. Something’s been dragged through them and up the aisle.

  “Gone,” Charlie says.

  “Yeah,” I say, frowning. “The Gallowsman must have taken him somewhere else to string him up. Makes a certain amount of sense; Father Stone was probably killed right here in the church, but the body was left outside for everyone to see.”

  “Why?” Doctor Pete asks.

  It’s a good question, and I think I finally have an answer. “The same reason Athena Shaker killed Therese Isamu and left the body in Cassiar’s room. Same reason the master vampire killed Vince Shelly with a silver fork and bled him like a slaughtered pig. Same message, too: This is my town now. I’ve been thinking of this as a war between pires and thropes, but it’s not; there’s a third element, with its own agenda.”

  “The cult?” Charlie says.

  “No. The first two victims, Father Stone and Maureen Selkic, were both members of the cult. No, I think the third element is the Gallowsman himself. Now that Ahaseurus is dead, he’s not under anyone’s control. He started off killing cult members—his former masters—but he’s escalated since then. He took down Doctor Pete—the townie version, I mean—and now Zev. He’s staking his own claim on this place.”

  “Three-way war,” Charlie says, nodding. “Two ways to play that.”

  “If you’re smart, yeah. You can either join forces with one side to gang up against the other, or wait on the sidelines until one side beats the other and then attack the survivor while he’s still weakened from the fight.”

  Doctor Pete sighs and sinks into a pew. “So which side is going to do what?”

  “Well, assuming the African Queen is still stashed in the trunk of her car,” I say, sitting down beside him, “we’ve already taken one side out of play. If we get the master vampire, we’re handing the town over to the Gallowsman; if we take out the Gallowsman, by tomorrow night the whole town will be vampirized. So I’m going to suggest we go back to Charlie’s, regroup, maybe drink a gallon or so of high-octane coffee, and then do something daring and stupid.”

  “As usual,” Charlie says. “Wait. Did you say ‘do something stupid’ or ‘work with someone stupid’?”

  * * *

  The walk across town is a long one. The streets are still deserted, and the storm that surrounds the place like a fence has gotten bigger, darker, and angrier; lightning the color of blood arcs and flashes constantly, but there’s no thunder. The silence makes it feel like the storm is a million miles away and bigger than the world.

  We get back to the Longinus house without incident, me and Doctor Pete helping Charlie hobble along, and retrieve Athena’s car. The thumping from the trunk tells me she’s still in there, and Galahad’s frantic barking when we pull up to Charlie’s place tells me he probably needs to be walked. He doesn’t rush to the door to greet me, though, which is odd—

  Sheriff Stoker is sitting on Charlie’s couch, a riot shotgun across his knees. Galahad’s wearing his leash, and the other end is tied to the leg of my kitchen table. He’s managed to drag the table up to the kitchen doorway, but it’s gotten jammed there.

  “Come in and sit down,” Stoker says. “We need to talk.”

  I’m too exhausted to say anything clever. I go over to Galahad and assure him I’m all right, then lean against the wall. Charlie lowers himself carefully onto a chair, and after a second so does Doctor Pete.

  Stoker’s face is impassive. “So. To save time, I’m going to assume you pretty much know what’s going on. If that’s not true, ask me whatever you need to and I’ll do my best to fill you in. Let’s keep this discussion short, though—things are going south fast.”

  “Did you kill Ahaseurus?” I ask him.

  “So he is dead. No. I’ve been running things since he disappeared, as best I could.”

  Doctor Pete glares at him. “That include locking people up for murders they didn’t commit?”

  “I needed leverage to keep a lid on the war. One from your side, one from theirs. Hostages to fortune, I believe it’s called.”

  That brings a tired, humorless smile to my face. “But what you got was misfortune. Funny, I thought being the Gallowsman’s pal was supposed to prevent that.”

  Stoker stares at me coldly. “He’s supposed to do all sorts of things. What he’s not supposed to do is kill the people he was brought here to serve.”r />
  “You can’t control him anymore, because Longinus was the man with the plan. So what’s next, Stoker? Every human being in this town is going to be pale, hairy, or swaying at the end of a rope inside of twenty-four hours—and we can’t leave, either.”

  “I know.” He pauses, then looks away. “I’m here to offer an alliance. Way I figure it, we’re about all that’s left to mount any kind of resistance.”

  “What, you can’t convince any of your cult buddies—”

  “There’s nobody left, Jace. I’ve been to house after house. Empty. I don’t know which side got them, either. Maybe they were eaten or drained, maybe the Gallowsman dragged them into the tunnels, maybe they’re all hanging upside down in somebody’s backyard shed waiting for nightfall. But I do know this: It all started with you. And that’s how it’s going to end, too.”

  I stare back, then nod slowly. “Yeah. You’re right. Now here’s a few things you don’t know: First, we’ve got the alpha werewolf locked in the trunk of the car outside. Second, I know who the master vampire is.”

  “You do?” says Doctor Pete. He sounds surprised.

  “Not only that, I know where he is.” I pull out my phone, put it on the coffee table, and slide it over to Stoker. “Take a look.”

  He picks it up, studies the screen. “What am I looking at?”

  “Figure it out for yourself.”

  He thinks for a second, then hits a few buttons. He’s found the video file—

  There’s a flash of white light.

  Sucker.

  * * *

  Every induced-recall experience so far has had me playing the role of a woman from someone’s memory, Doctor Pete’s or Charlie’s or Cassius’s. Stoker’s no different—except that this time, I seem to be almost completely passive. I’m lying down, I’m naked, and it’s very hard to focus my thoughts. I realize I must be drugged, or maybe brain-damaged. My arms and legs are restrained—to keep me from hurting myself? There’s an IV in each of my arms. I must be in a hospital.