by Ty Drago
Time to go to work.
Chapter 17
Table Turning
I only had four Maankhs left, and I really didn’t want to use them up. But I had three Corpses to deal with. None of them had noticed me yet, buried as I was in deep shadow. However, the minute I attacked, they would.
I had my pocketknife, Sharyn’s sword, and a saltwater pistol. Given that, I might be able to take down all three.
Might.
But then what? Trapped inside their stolen bodies, they’d simply start screaming out that telepathic S.O.S. of theirs, and I’d have twenty or thirty more of them on top of me in under a minute. No way around it.
Unless I used Maankhs to kill them all.
So I pulled out the first Maankh, pointed it at the nearest deader, and fired.
As he exploded in a whoosh of dust, the other two whirled toward me.
Taking a Maankh in each hand, I raised them and pointed.
“Say cheese.”
Yep, definitely not bringing my “A” game, snark-wise.
I fired and they both went the same way as the first.
Dropping the useless cylinders, I ran to the cot and fell to my knees beside it. For a few seconds, I just studied the woman, watching the way her chest rose and fell. She looked asleep, but I could tell it wasn’t a restful sleep. Her body kept twitching, her eyes rolling behind her lids. And she kept uttering these helpless gasps and moans.
She was, I knew, on the wrong end of an awful connection. Corpse Helene, who occupied the opposite end, was literally stealing Helene’s image, voice, and memories, using them to torture and torment Maxi Me.
The problem was I had no idea how to break the link, not without killing the real Helene Ritter.
So I gave her shoulder a gentle push. “Helene?”
Nothing.
I tried again, a harder push this time. “Helene!”
Still nothing.
Would turning off the machines help? Maybe disconnecting the IV? But, given how long she’d been like this, she probably needed the fluids they were pumping into her. And the machines were just monitors. At best, unplugging them would set off an alarm somewhere upstairs and bring the Corpses running.
Maybe William had been right. Maybe there was nothing anyone could do.
But I’d never liked that word: Nothing.
So I leaned close, bringing my lips right beside the restless woman’s ear.
“Helene,” I said. “Listen up. It’s Will. Not your Will. Not the Will you married and had babies with. Not that Will. I’m …” I floundered, grasping for words. “I’m the first Will, the one you saved that day at Towers Middle School. I’m the Will you brought into the Undertakers, kicking and screaming. I’m the Will you beat the snot out of because I was too thick to understand the reality of my situation. I’m the Will who let you get captured by Kenny Booth … but who came to your rescue, doing what you’d taught me to do.”
I paused, waiting for some kind of response.
Zilch.
So I took a deep breath and continued.
“I’m the Will who fought beside you, tried to protect you even though you didn’t need protecting … until you wanted to beat the snot out of me again for doing it. I’m the Will who got us off that South Street rooftop in what had to have been the stupidest way possible. I’m the Will whose life you saved—again—in the Capitol Crypt down in D.C. I’m the Will you confided in about your little sister, and who went away from you for a whole month to look out for her. I’m the Will who got her back to you safely. And I’m the Will you said you loved. I’m that Will. Thirteen-year-old … maybe fourteen-year-old Will.”
Again I waited.
Nada. Not even a flicker.
I heard footsteps.
I jumped to my feet and ran to the first of the room’s three doors and listened. Yep, someone was definitely coming, and from the shuffle in their gait, it wasn’t a living someone. I checked the knob. Locked. I checked the knob on the second door. That was locked too. Then I remembered the third door, the one I’d come in, and hurried over to shut and lock that one as well.
Except, even if whoever was coming didn’t simply have keys, all three locked doors were flimsy. Very flimsy.
I didn’t have much time.
No sooner had I returned to Helene’s bedside than the knocking began. It was casual at first, just some deader checking on his buds in the cellar. But when no one answered, that would change.
“Helene,” I said, unable to keep the edge of fear out of my voice. “I’m outta time. They’re coming. The Corpses. Now I know you’re trapped. I know you’re stuck in some terrible place where that monster who’s wearing your face is slurping up your thoughts and memories like some kind of vampire. I get that. But, I want you to listen to me.
“Fight it. We both know it can be done. Lindsay Micha did it. She was a strong lady, and you’re at least as strong as she was. Push back. Take as much from that wormbag as she’s taking from you. Become what she is. Can you do that for me?”
Nothing. No sound at all, except for the beep of the monitors and the hammering on the door.
“I know you can,” I told her, and I believed it. If anyone could overcome whatever this was, it was Helene Boettcher Ritter. “And, when you do, I need you to do something else for me. The Corpses are gonna be on me any second. They might just kill me outright, or they might take me to where Emily and Steve and your Will are being kept. Save me, Helene. One more time, I need you to save me.”
Then, on a whim, I took the last Maankh from my belt and slipped it into her hand, closing her pale fist around it. “I don’t know if you’ll know what this is,” I said. “I dunno if you’ll be able to use it, but I’m pretty sure I won’t get the chance. So it’s better off with you.”
Just as the door burst open behind me, followed by a rush of footsteps, I leaned close and gave the woman a kiss on her forehead. Not on her lips. That would have been way too weird. This wasn’t my Helene, after all, not by about three decades. But on the forehead felt okay. In fact, it felt right.
“See ya,” I whispered.
Four of them grabbed me, all big male Type Threes. They yanked me to my feet and turned me around just in time to see a fifth figure step through the open doorway and into the circle of arc lamp light.
Corpse Helene.
“Well, now, Mr. Ritter,” she said. “It seems your little invasion has ended in the only way it really could have. But, honestly, I’m honored. The boogeyman himself. And a genuine time traveler! Imagine!”
I couldn’t help it; I looked at her Mask.
This was the first time I’d seen her up close, and the sight shook me pretty bad. She looked so much like Helene. The same hazel eyes, the same smooth skin and light brown hair. Helene as a grown-up. Except, of course, this wasn’t her. It only looked like her.
This was a monster playing dress up.
My water pistol was in my waistband and my knife was in my pocket. But, even if I could somehow reach them, neither would do much good against this particular deader. Her host was a Type Two, which made her plenty fast and strong. On top of that, she was a Royal, and I knew from personal experience—the kind that you relive in your nightmares—that she could move in a blur and hit me hard enough to knock my head right off my neck.
“Nothing to say?” she remarked, stepping closer. “A pity.”
She took the pistol from my belt, looking amused. Then, moving with shocking speed, she pointed it at one of her minions and fired a stream of water into his face. The Corpse fell back, twitching and writhing. For an instant my left arm was free, but then another deader stepped up to take his place, holding me even tighter.
As the one she’d tagged dropped to the dusty floor, convulsing, Corpse Helene laughed.
“It really is an amusing effect, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Gimme,” I suggested. “And I’ll show you first-hand.”
&nb
sp; “I don’t think so.” She threw the gun hard enough against a nearby brick wall to shatter its plastic. Then she stepped close again, so close that the stench of her filled my nostrils and almost made me gag. Was that perfume I smelled mixed with the stink of rotting flesh? Why on Earth would she bother?
Her hand slid into my pants pocket, dead fingers grasping for and finding my pocketknife.
Crap.
She pulled it out and examined it, turning it over in her purplish, bloating hands. “Now this is a treat,” she purred. “William Ritter’s infamous pocketknife! Manufactured by Steven Moscova out of nagganum, and a time traveler in its own right, is it not? How wonderful! What an excellent trophy it will make … alongside this.”
She touched her throat, where a heavy chain hung around her neck. Tugging on it, she pulled a six-inch clear crystal out of the front of the sundress she wore.
An Anchor Shard.
“This is the crystal I used when I first came to this city,” she said. “I sheered it off the Eternity Stone myself, at the cost of a good many Malum lives. And I used it to part the Ether and cross the Void to Earth, holding it before me like a torchbearer. After all that, it seemed fitting that I keep it, even though the Rift it opened is now closed. Don’t you agree?”
“Don’t care much either way,” I said. “Where are the Undertakers?”
She regarded me with a cold smile. “Do you want to join them?”
“Depends. Are they dead?”
She laughed. “A sensible question. No. Not yet, anyway.”
“Then, yeah,” I replied. “I want to join them.”
“I’m happy to oblige.” To her minions, she said, “Bring him.”
“Yes, Mistress,” three of them replied at once. The fourth deader, the one she’d squirted, still hadn’t completely recovered.
As they started to drag me out the door through which they’d come, I looked over at Helene, who still lay on her cot. She hadn’t moved an inch, as far as I could tell.
I’m totally screwed.
Chapter 18
The Throne Room
The first floor of Independence Hall only had four rooms. They brought me up a flight of stairs that actually led outside, back into the square that I’d just left. Then, with about two-dozen angry Corpses glaring at me with their milky, seemingly sightless eyes, I was dragged up the stairs and into the building through its back door.
Inside was what was called the tower stairwell. In my time, this square chamber had stairs that circled the walls leading up to the second floor and, eventually, all the way up to the steeple’s bell tower. Now those stairs were falling apart, their railings gone, and the tile floor looked as cracked and damaged as CHOP’s had been.
Ahead was the archway into the Central Hall. That room looked almost as bad as this one, which was a real shame, because I remembered it being pretty amazing. At the far end of it stood the front door, which led out to Chestnut Street.
I looked longingly at it. But the truth was I wouldn’t have escaped even if I’d been able. I still had to find the Undertakers.
And I needed that Anchor Shard.
“Into my throne room,” Corpse Helene instructed.
Wordlessly, my decomposing escorts dragged me into what, once upon a time, had been called Assembly Hall.
It was a big room with a high ceiling, a rotting wooden floor, and six windows, three on each side wall. Against the back of it stood a two-step-high raised dais flanked by big matching fireplaces, along with twin sets of double doors, one at each corner. Possible escape routes?
Atop the dais sat a ridiculously fancy chair.
I’d visited this room half a dozen times in my life, mostly on school field trips, and I knew for a fact that nothing like this chair belonged here. It was at least as tall as me, its seat set so high that the occupant needed either to use a footstool or just let their feet dangle a few inches above the floor. I didn’t know where the Corpses had found such a thing—the Philly Art Museum seemed a good guess—but there could be no mistaking what it was.
In this chamber, the Declaration of Independence had been debated and signed. In this chamber, George Washington himself had presided over the delegates who drafted the U.S. Constitution.
But now it had been reduced to, just as she’d said, Corpse Helene’s “throne room.”
Without a word, the Royal crossed the chamber, holding Vader like a scepter. She climbed up onto the big chair and settled down in it, tucking her purplish legs under her and looking like a vain and contented cat—okay, a vain and contented dead cat.
From that perch, she eyed the occupants of the room.
There were a lot of occupants.
Most, of course, were deaders. Type Threes, Fours and Fives. A hasty count put their numbers at around sixty. And all of them, from the moment that Corpse Helene had marched into their presence, had gone respectfully and attentively quiet.
Malum were all about authority.
I spotted Emily.
She, Steve and William were on their knees near the dais, heavily guarded by the surrounding dead. None of them, I saw, had been tied up. That didn’t surprise me. The Corpses rarely took prisoners and, when they did, they almost never bound them. I sometimes wondered if they knew even how to tie knots.
At my arrival, both Maxi Me and Emily visibly blanched. “What are you doing here?” the chief demanded, sounding both horrified and furious. His face—my face—was a mess of bruises. He’d probably been mouthing off to the deaders and had taken a few licks for his trouble.
“It’s a rescue!” I said with a brave smile.
“That’s insane!” he snapped back. “You know what’s at stake!”
Emily added miserably, “They knew we were coming.”
“Yeah, they did,” I said. “Amy tipped them off.”
She and William swapped a shocked glance.
“She was a mole,” I told them. “That one—” I nodded toward Corpse Helene, who seemed to be listening to our exchange with growing amusement. “—got a pelligog into her at CHOP last night!”
“Oh God …” Emily breathed.
“What happened to her?” Maxi Me asked.
For several moments, I didn’t answer him. Then, in a small voice that seemed to rise up from deep down inside of me, I said, “I’m sorry.”
He nodded while, beside him, our sister began to cry.
“Silence!” called Corpse Helene in as loud a voice as her withering vocal chords would permit.
Seriously, who talks like that?
Immediately, the two deaders holding me twisted my arms, making me wince from pain. When Emily and William tried to rise to my defense, both were struck by their guards until they lay panting on the floor.
Behind them, Steve didn’t move a muscle. I wasn’t even sure if he was conscious.
He looked especially bad.
Corpse Helene uncurled from her throne and rose to her feet with surprising grace, given her host body’s state of decay. With a smile that could almost be called gentle, she gazed down at us. “Two William Ritters,” she mused aloud. “That must be … confusing.”
The words seemed directed at me.
I didn’t reply.
She said, “It’s been thirty Earth years since our invasion was thwarted, since Lilith Cavanaugh met her end. Thirty years. That’s a long time in a human lifespan, is it not?”
Again I didn’t reply.
She stormed off the dais and grabbed my chin, forcing my face up to hers. “Answer me!”
“It’s a long time,” I said in a flat voice, meeting her inhuman gaze. I did my best not to flinch.
“No,” she snarled. “It’s not.” Releasing me and stepping back, she seemed to compose herself before continuing. “It’s nothing. A mere drop in an ocean of days. For us, you see … for the Malum … more than two centuries passed before we were able to return here. And that wasn’t because of technological limita
tions. No, we could have come back the very next day, and there were those who insisted we should.”
Her entourage rumbled their general agreement, the deader version of “Heck, yeah!”
Corpse Helene went on—monologuing, as her kind sometimes do. And I don’t mean Corpses, but villains in general. Check out Hitler’s speeches sometime. “No, the problem wasn’t technical, it was psychological. We’d been defeated, you see. And that had never happened before. Despite all our best efforts, we’d been cast from a world that we’d set out to destroy. Unthinkable. Disgraceful. It stymied us, stifled us, trapped us as a people in a cage of our own dishonor for centuries. Our royal caste enjoy long lives, enduring sometimes for thousands of your years. That makes our memories equally long, and our shame.” She smiled a horrible, yellow-toothed grin that sent a fresh chill down my spine. “But, at last, I took power.”
The deaders filling the room made another collective sound. Was that supposed to be some kind of cheer?
“It wasn’t easy. My mother had dozens of children and many were older and more influential than I. It took years to undermine or assassinate them all. But finally, the Malum crown was mine, and the first thing … the very first thing … I decreed was that Earth, that most hated of worlds, should again suffer invasion. But this time, we would abandon all subtlety. This invasion would not be about the ‘art’ that my mother believed so important. No, this time it would be about vengeance!” This last word was punctuated with a single bony fist shoved skyward, earning another cheer from her minions.
She reminded me of Kenny Booth, the first Corpse leader I’d ever faced. He’d enjoyed giving speeches too, always in love with the sound of his own voice.
“Who is your mother?” I asked.
She faced me, grinning savagely. Then she told me what I’d already guessed. “Was, Mr. Ritter. Not is. For I am the daughter of Lilith Cavanaugh! I am the new and improved Queen of the Dead!”
Chapter 19
Parlay