by Ty Drago
Then I looked up at Dillin, who met my eyes with a look of—well, “desperate sincerity” is the only way I can describe it. No Corpse had ever looked at me that way before. Until now, I wouldn’t have imagined it was even possible!
I did it because my instincts told me to trust him.
They’re still telling me to trust him.
This is crazy!
“Helene,” I said into the phone.
“What, Will?” she demanded. “Go on! Tell me! What do you want to say?”
“I’ll die.”
There was silence on the line. If my girlfriend—still weird to think of her that way—was breathing, I couldn’t hear it. Then: “What?”
“I’ll die,” I said, “before I let anything happen to Julie.”
More silence. Finally, reluctantly, she replied, “I know.”
“Helene, I’m not compromised. But I am in trouble. All of us are.” Then, deliberately, I added, “All three of us.”
“Where are you?”
“On the Schuylkill, coming up on City Avenue. But the cops have set up a roadblock. They’re checking cars.”
“Are they deaders?”
“Can’t tell. We’re still too far back. But, if they are … and it’s a good bet … then we’ve got maybe twenty minutes before we’re made.”
“You need to talk to Tom.”
“I know. That’s who I wanted to talk to. But Dan put me through to you, instead.”
“I … asked him to.” She actually sounded a little sheepish. “I was worried about you both.”
“I get that,” I told her.
As I said this, I looked through the windshield at the roadblock. We were maybe ten cars back in the right lane—close enough to see that at least half the PPD on hand were, in fact, Corpses. Twos and Threes, mostly.
Except one.
He was in a fresh host body, tall and lean and hardcore scary-looking. Like the others, he wore a police uniform. Except, while the others were moving from car to car—both the Corpse cops and their Unseeing human partners—the tall guy stood back and watched.
No, not watched—supervised.
I saw Dillin stiffen. He muttered something that I didn’t catch.
“Will?” Helene asked. “You’re quiet all of a sudden. What’s happening?”
I told her, “We just got close enough to see that some of the cops at the roadblock are deaders. But we’re still a ways back, just sitting in line.” Except that wasn’t entirely true, was it? Something else had happened, too. I didn’t know what exactly, but I could read it on Dillin’s slack-featured, lifeless face.
Helene’s voice, tinny but clear, rose up through the phone, which I’d lowered a little from my ear. “Listen … I’m on my way to Tom’s office. You can tell him what’s going on.”
“No time,” the Zombie Prince muttered. Then he looked at me—hard at me. “We need to get out of this car. Now!”
I looked through the windows at the mass of traffic. To our right stood the expressway shoulder and then a wall of solid Pennsylvania granite rising at least fifty feet straight up. To our left was another lane of stopped traffic, followed by that sloping median I mentioned earlier. Then came two lanes of roaring westbound cars, a steep drop to a series of commuter railroad tracks, and finally, the river.
“Go where?” I asked him.
“Anywhere!” Dillin said, shouting now. Behind us, Julie kind of squeaked with fear. “Away from here. Away from him!” He pointed one gray, trembling finger at the tall Corpse who was evidently running the roadblock.
“Who is he?” I started to say.
Instead of answering, the Zombie Prince shifted the van into park and, to my horror, opened the driver’s side door.
“Will … we have to go. Please trust me!” Then he climbed out.
“Bro?” said the voice on the phone. This time, it wasn’t Helene. It was Tom.
“Call you back, Chief,” I said quickly. “Gotta situation here.”
Then I ended the call and looked at Julie.
“Do you trust him?” I asked her.
“Do you?” she replied. Her face was as pale as the moon.
I allowed myself two seconds to think about it. Then I said, “Yeah, I do.”
The two of us climbed out of the idling van and followed the Zombie Prince.
Chapter 9
A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT
“You there!” one of the cops yelled. I think he was human. “Stop!”
If we’d still been twenty car lengths back, ditching the van might not have been noticed, at least not until the drivers behind us started honking. But nine or ten car lengths was too close, and three people weaving through idling traffic on a highway that doesn’t see too many pedestrians—well, that tends to get noticed.
“Keep going!” I called to Julie.
“No kidding!” she yelled back. Definitely Helene’s sister. No doubt about it.
Dillin reached the far shoulder of the Sure-Kill. He hesitated there, looking back at us.
This is it. The Corpse’ll ditch us to save his own neck.
But he didn’t, and I was surprised by how not surprised I was by that.
As we caught up with him, I spared a moment to look over my shoulder. A half-dozen police were coming our way, the Corpses moving faster than their human counterparts.
“Where are we going?” I demanded.
“Follow me!” Dillin yelled. Then he led us at a run down the hill and across the grassy median.
Traffic ripped along the westbound lanes, great deadly blurs of colored metal.
Crossing that’ll kill us all!
Well, except for the dead guy.
Then Julie screamed.
I turned in horror to see that the Zombie Prince had grabbed her around the waist, scooping her off her feet with one sweep of his arm. Then, before I could even begin to react, he reached for me and did the same thing.
“What are you—” I exclaimed, struggling. But the guy wasn’t just a Corpse, he was a royal Corpse, which meant he was way too strong for me.
“Hold on,” he said.
He jumped.
Suddenly, the ground receded. Wind filled my ears and tossed my hair around. Below us, I saw the two westbound lanes of the Sure-Kill pass in a rush of gray asphalt, some of its travelers slamming on their brakes and staring up at us in astonishment. The other travelers, of course, immediately rear-ended them amidst shrieks of metal.
“You kids are heavy,” Dillin complained as we descended. He didn’t quite clear the expressway, landing instead on the roof of a BMW, denting it badly, before launching himself again. This time we passed right over the far shoulder and dropped down the steep slope toward the railroad tracks, leaving in our wake a junkyard of damaged cars, honking horns, and screaming people.
I could only pray no one had been killed.
I half expected the Zombie Prince to stumble and fall, landing as we did halfway down the bush and thistle-laden slope. But instead he touched down perfectly, and with the agility of a mountain goat.
Ahead lay a half-dozen railroad tracks. To my right, I spotted the shimmering shape of an approaching train. Big. Fast. Unstoppable.
Oh Jeez!
“Listen,” I gasped, still hanging uncomfortably under one of Dillin’s impossibly strong arms. “You might want to wait until this thing goes—”
“No,” he said.
Then he jumped again, this time right over the train.
I don’t know what its operator saw, much less, its passengers, but whatever it was made him blow the whistle—a high, shrill sound, way louder than the car horns.
We landed on the far side of the tracks, where Dillin immediately dropped us both onto our feet. As he did, the train roared past behind us.
“Sorry,” he said. “But you move too slow.”
I groaned, trying to catch my breath. “At … least … we lost the cops.”
<
br /> “Probably,” he agreed. “But we haven’t lost him.”
“Him … who?” I demanded.
“His name’s Parker. He’s a shavvik.”
Julie asked, “What’s a—”
“Later.” Dillin cut her off. “For now, we run.”
I groaned. “Run where?”
“Honestly, Mr. Ritter. At this point, I was rather hoping you’d tell me.”
We stood in a broad alley behind a big, nameless building. Around the corner, I could see the gray water of the Schuylkill River running beyond a line of trees that fenced the riverbank. No handy speedboats around. Not even a kayak. The Zombie Prince had “jumped” us across two lanes of traffic, down a hill, and over a train just to trap us against the water.
“Great,” I muttered.
The nearest bridge was City Avenue, maybe a quarter mile away and at least a hundred feet over our heads. Even with Dead Hoppity Guy doing his thing, I doubted we’d make it that far. Besides, doing so would only drop us back in the traffic jam, and right in the middle of all those cops.
No, Dillin’s instincts—if that was what they were—might have been right: we needed to be down here, away from traffic, away from people.
Julie said, “Will, I’m scared.” It was the first time during this long, terrifying day that she’d admitted it to me out loud. When I looked at her, I saw her small round face screw up. “You told my sister you’d die before you let anything happen to me.”
“I know I did,” I replied. “And I meant it.”
Tears filled her eyes. “But … I don’t want you to die before you let anything happen to me.”
I started to go to her, but the Zombie Prince beat me to it. He knelt down in front of the girl and asked, “Ms. Boettcher, can I tell you something?”
She looked warily at him, but nodded.
Get away from her! I wanted to say. But, for some reason, I didn’t—though, for the umpteenth time since I’d gotten up that morning, my hand went reflexively to my pocketknife.
“Will Ritter’s pretty famous among my people. Do you know what for?”
Julie nodded again. “You told us. He’s your ‘boogeyman.’”
The principal laughed, a weird gurgling sound. Voice box starting to rot, I supposed. “Indeed he is, but there’s a reason why. It’s because he wins, Julie. He beats us, over and over again. Every time we go up against the Undertakers, we lose. In all our history, that’s never happened before. And it’s largely because of Will. He frightens us. He frightens us like nothing we’ve ever encountered before.”
“Then why are you helping us?” she asked him. It was a frank question. A fair question.
“Because not all of us are monsters,” he repeated. He glanced at me, and then up at the embankment. So far, there was no one in sight. The shavvik, whatever that was, hadn’t shown up yet.
He turned back to Julie. “Do I scare you?” he asked her.
“A little,” the girl admitted. Yet I noticed that she looked right at Dillin’s dead face, not flinching at the sight of his gray skin or bloodless lips.
“That’s because of what I look like,” he said. “Not the way I act, right?”
She nodded. “I guess so.”
“Well, Julie, I can’t help what I look like. But I can promise you this: I will never hurt you or Will, or anyone else if I can help it. I’d like to be your friend, if you’ll let me. But either way, I’m not your enemy. Do you believe that?”
Her eyes searched his face, again without flinching. “I think so …” she said.
Dillin smiled. “That’ll do for now.”
“The Falls Bridge,” I said suddenly.
Julie looked at me. “Where’s that?”
I pointed southeast along the riverbank. “That way, about a mile. These railroad tracks run right by it. There’s no highway access, so the cops’ll have to go around the long way to cover it. If we hurry, maybe we can make it across to Kelly Avenue, which will lead us into Center City.”
“Are you sure?” Dillin asked.
“It’s near Manayunk, where I live … or used to.” For the first time in a long while, I thought about the house I’d grown up in. It stood empty now, abandoned. These days, my mom and sister lived in Haven—war refugees.
The principal looked at Julie. “Does that sound like a good idea to you?” he asked.
She shrugged. Then, after a moment’s thought, she nodded.
“Then it certainly works for me!” he announced brightly.
He straightened and turned around. As he did, his smile died—no pun intended.
Suddenly wary, I followed his gaze across the railroad tracks behind us, where the shavvik—the tall dead cop—stood at the base of the steep embankment, eyeing us. The moment he spotted us spotting him, he dropped the two red toolboxes he carried. Both of them popped open the minute they hit the uneven ground.
The Zombie Prince uttered an inhuman cry of pure, animal terror. Then, without warning, he scooped us both up under his arms again and exploded into motion, moving around the building, into the trees and southeast along the Schuylkill.
Chapter 10
TROUBLED CROWN
Tom
Tom closed the satellite phone and handed it back to Helene, who immediately demanded, “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” he told her.
Then he pulled out his own sat phone, pressed a speed dial button and waited until Sharyn answered. “Where you at?” he asked.
“Just picked up Hot Dog and two Seers. No sign o’ little bro, though …”
“Just heard from him. He’s got Helene’s sister, but things are hot.” He looked up at Helene, who stood there looking pale and frightened. “Where did he say he was?”
“A Corpse roadblock on the Schuylkill. Up near City Avenue. Tom … he’s with a deader!”
“What’s that mean? With a deader?”
“I mean with him! Teamed up with him. He said he’s … nice.”
Tom didn’t let the alarm show on his face. It was a knack he’d mastered so long ago that it had become second nature—as thoughtless as breathing. “Nice,” he echoed with deliberate calm. “Well, now … that’d be a first.”
“A first!” Helene exclaimed, gaping at him incredulously. “He’s either crazy or brainwashed!”
He studied her from across his desk, Karl’s old desk. They’d found it in a Goodwill store. Karl had paid twenty bucks for it. It was small and scratched and so far from level that you couldn’t place a pencil on it without it rolling off the edge. Only two of the four drawers still worked. More than once, Sharyn had suggested that he replace it, insisting that they had the money.
And they did. The Undertakers had been smart with Karl’s life insurance policy and could certainly afford a second-hand desk for their chief.
Except he didn’t need one.
Or, more to the point, he didn’t want one.
“Bro?” Sharyn asked over the phone. The same word he’d said to Will right before Karl Ritter’s only son had hung up.
“I’m here,” Tom said. “Seems Will and Julie Boettcher are hangin’ with a … friendly … Corpse.”
“Say what now?”
“A good guy deader,” Tom replied. “Yeah, I can’t figure it, either. But it’s Will, sis.”
“’Course it is. Who else would it be?”
That gave Tom his first genuine smile of the day. “Right now, they’re either stuck in a Corpse roadblock around City Avenue … or on foot. I thought I heard a car door open just before he hung up. If they’re on foot, they’ll be heading into the city … and there are only so many ways to do that. Call him. Here’s the number he’s using.” Tom rattled off the digits. “If he don’t answer, keep calling. In the meantime, send Chuck and Katie back here with those two Seers. Have ‘em use public transit. Then you and Dave get your butts to the Schuylkill River. Sooner or later, Will’s gotta cross it.”
“On our way. Tell Helene we’ll find ‘em and bring ‘em both home.”
“Straight up. What about the deader?”
There was a long pause on the line. Then his sister said in a glacial tone, “I’ll give him five seconds to be ‘friendly’ to me. Then I’ll waste him.”
She hung up.
Tom lowered the phone and looked at Helene. “He ain’t brainwashed.”
“What makes you so sure?” the girl demanded.
“’Cause, if he had been, he wouldn’t have told you about his ‘nice’ Corpse friend. He would’ve said it was all cool and then led this deader, whoever he is, right to us.”
Helene considered this. “So … we’re going with crazy?”
Tom grinned. He liked Helene. He liked Will and Helene being together. Haven wasn’t a happy place, and a little happiness was always welcome. “He knows what he’s doing. And Sharyn’ll find him.”
The girl scowled. “I should be out there.”
Tom shook his head. “You know why that ain’t true.”
“If it was me, Will would be out there!”
Fair point.
He said, “There is something you can do for me … while we wait to hear, I mean.”
Helene’s scowl deepened. “Busy work.”
“Might seem like that at first, but it ain’t.”
“Okay. Fine. What?”
“Take a camera, go up to Penn Centre Plaza, and take some pictures.”
She blinked. “Pictures? Of what?”
“People.”
“Live people or dead people?”
“Both. Random as you can.”
She looked at him. He looked back at her, giving her nothing. Not yet. Soon, but not yet.
“What for?” she asked.
Tom said, “Take about twenty pictures. Then run ‘em over to the Hackers and get Sammy to print ‘em out for me.”
Helene put her hands on her hips. “Why, Tom?”
“When you come back with the pics, I want you to bring Jillian … and Susan.”
“Will’s mom?” Helene blinked again. Tom watched her sort through it. “This is a test, isn’t it? You think Susan Ritter might have the Sight?”