by Ty Drago
Along the way, I’d figured out how to open the boat doors. Unlike the others around the boathouse, these river-facing doors had been padlocked from the inside. I’d spotted the lock—heavy with rust—dangling just below the surface. Then I’d simply sliced it open with my pocketknife.
“That’s nagganum,” Dillian said.
“Huh?”
“Your knife blade. The whole knife in fact. It’s made of nagganum.”
I looked at my faithful gadget. It had been my constant companion for so long that I couldn’t imagine not having it. But I’d never really known—no one had known—what it was made of.
“What’s … nagganum?” Julie asked.
“It’s hard to explain,” the principal replied. “And we don’t have the time. Suffice it to say that we have plenty of it where I come from. More of it, in fact, than any other single substance. Metal, yet not metal. Stone, yet not stone. It’s stronger than any known material though, of course, the Malum don’t use it in the creation of weapons.”
“You don’t use weapons,” I remarked.
“No, we don’t. Doing so is considered the height of cowardice. But let me ask you, Will … where did you get that?”
I felt myself waffling. This dude—no, this Corpse—had been dropping secrets on me like presents at my birthday party for the last ten minutes. Now, he wanted one of mine, and my every nerve ending was screaming to lie to him. “Um …” I said.
“Military secret?” he asked, smiling.
“No. Well, yeah.” I looked at him, struggling to decide what to say.
Then I noticed Julie standing nearby, soaked to the skin and studying me.
There was no judgment in her gaze. No anger. Just the kind of simple, uncomplicated expression that you sometimes get from a younger kid who looks up to you. She wasn’t any more clued into my pocketknife’s origins than Dillin was. This meant that I could whip up some story about finding it in a park or something and neither of them would be the wiser.
Except I didn’t want to whip up some story.
So I said, “A woman gave it to me.”
“A woman?” Julie asked.
“A woman in a white room. I see her every so often, usually when I’ve been hurt or something. She heals me … sort of. Maybe. Anyway, she gave it to me.”
“Did she?” the Zombie Prince remarked thoughtfully. “And you don’t know who she is?”
“Nope.”
Dillin studied the knife in my hand. Then, as if reaching some internal decision, he said, “Well, perhaps you’ll find out one day. For now, I think you two had better get going. I can hear Parker and his underlings out there. It sounds like they’re ready to come in.”
“Let’s do it,” I said.
Getting onto a scull isn’t easy, especially when you’re soaked and standing in waist-deep water. Finally, the Zombie Prince had to help us, lifting first Julie into the back seat and then me into the front seat. Once there, drenched and cold, I struggled to figure out how the oars fit into their—well—fittings.
“I’ll open the doors,” Dillin told us, turning the front—bow—of our long skinny boat toward the boathouse’s water exit. “Then I’ll give you a push. But don’t start rowing right away. Give me half-a-minute to get their attention.”
“You sure about this?” I asked the walking, talking dead man.
He grinned. “I’ve just broken my own rule and told you everything I came here to say. Not the way I’d intended to do it, but the circumstances seemed to demand some flexibility on my part. Just promise me you’ll make something of the information.”
“I promise,” I said.
He nodded. Then, after a pause: “Will, when I came across the Void, I knew it was going to be a one-way trip. Either the Queen would use me and then kill me, or I’d meet up with an Undertaker and eventually die for treason. I’m pleased it was the latter. Sometimes, dying well can be its own reward.”
Then, after a pause, he added, “I’m very glad you’re the Undertaker I met.”
“Me, too!” Julie added. “I’m an Undertaker, too.”
I almost told her she wasn’t. That she would need training and commitment before she could call herself that.
But it would have been a crock.
Julie had faced down deaders. She’d fought. She’d survived.
If that wasn’t being an Undertaker, I didn’t know what was.
So I glanced over my shoulder and said, “Yeah. You are.” And then, to the Zombie Prince: “See you at the Water Works.”
“Of course,” he replied.
I wondered if either one of us believed it.
He went to the big boathouse door and heaved it open. Beyond, the waters of the Schuylkill River looked gray, cold and scary. Behind me, I heard Julie gasp.
“Ready?” Dillin asked.
“Ready,” I said.
“Ready,” Julie said.
“Straight out,” he said. “Head to the middle of the river. It’ll be safer. Then turn toward the Water Works.”
“Since when are you an expert on crew?” I asked him.
He looked momentarily startled. “I’m not. In fact, I don’t really know anything about it. It’s just, you’re children … that is … and I’m …”
I hadn’t thought it was possible for a Corpse to look embarrassed. After all, it’s not like they can blush or anything. But the Zombie Prince managed it.
So I threw him a bone. “Thanks, Principal Dillin,” I said with a grin.
With a final smile, he pushed us out onto the water.
Chapter 17
ON THE RIVER
Thirty seconds goes by fast.
Especially when you’re on a boat that’s like an inch wider than your butt—which, by the way, is perched on a seat that’s sliding forward and back on a rusted track. I wrestled with the moving seat until I thought I might topple over the side.
Then Julie said from behind me, “I think it’s supposed to move.”
She was right. Once I found the correct angles for my arms and legs, I started to understand how the sliding seat came into play when rowing. It still felt weird, though.
A crash from somewhere inside the darkened boathouse stole my attention, telling me that Dillin had made his move. Our thirty seconds were up.
So I planted my soaked sneakers against the scull’s angled braces, centered my butt on its shifting seat, squared my shoulders between the long oars, and gave the river a clumsy stroke.
We moved.
Behind me, Julie uttered a nervous squeak. Remember, I was rowing a boat, which means I was faced backwards and couldn’t see where I was going.
“You okay back there?” I asked her.
“It’s just … faster than I thought it would be.”
Again, she was right. The old scull sliced through the river like a hot knife through butter. Two strokes later and we’d completely cleared the boathouse. Two strokes after that and we were in the middle of the wide Schuylkill.
Time to turn.
So I did what seemed to make sense: I lifted one oar clear of the water and rowed with the other. That did turn us, though on such a wide arc that, if I didn’t do something, we’d slam into the west bank before our bow was facing downriver.
“Will …?” Julie said warily.
“I know! I’m working on it!”
“Not that,” she said, and something in her tone told me that not crashing into the opposite bank had suddenly gotten demoted on our ever-changing list of priorities. From out of the corner of my eye, I saw her point across the water, in the direction of the now distant boathouse.
The riverbank on either side of the condemned building was alive with activity. Police had cordoned off Kelly Drive, the lights of maybe a dozen cruisers splashing the granite cliff face on the road’s far side. Men and women in uniform—too far away to tell if they were human—seemed to be everywhere, some in the boathouse parking lot, working
the crime scene, others stationed up and down the park, shooing bystanders away.
In the city, tragedy always draws a crowd. I’d seen it before. Folks run from trouble—they do. But, depending on the nature of the trouble, they only run so far before turning and gawking. Tom calls it the There-but-for-the-Grace-of-God Syndrome, a way to come to grips with your own troubles by witnessing other people’s worse troubles.
But I think he’s being too generous.
I think some people just like to see carnage, so long as it’s from a safe distance.
A couple of ambulances were arriving, lights and sirens off. Ambulances only use sirens when they’re transporting injured but living people. The two in the parking lot didn’t need rushing to the hospital. Just the morgue.
Where’s Parker?
Then I saw him. Dead Police Chief watched us from just inside the boathouse’s river door, standing in the very spot we’d launched from. His fists were on his hips, as if impatient to get something done—that “something,” I supposed, being our deaths.
But he wasn’t the problem.
The problem was the flying Doberman.
One of the Malites—I didn’t know if it was the rat from the bridge or the rabbit from the parking lot—had found a new host. The thing coming at us looked as sleek and graceful as a miniature dragon. I wondered vaguely if it could breathe fire. Seemed unlikely—but, let’s face it, it had been that kind of day.
Then I spotted the Zombie Prince. He’d split the boathouse by the eastern door and was bounding across the grassy riverbank in the general direction of the Water Works, dodging both cops and bystanders. As he moved, people started screaming and running in a wave of panic that widened like the ripples in the pond. For a second, I wondered at their reaction. I mean, a guy running through Fairmount Park, even rudely, wasn’t exactly front-page news.
But then I spotted the thing that was chasing Dillin, and I understood.
The second Malite, of course.
This one had “possessed” what looked like a squirrel, and it was darting through the air after the fleeing deader like a heat-seeking missile.
And it was doing it within full sight of everyone.
The rules have changed.
The Zombie Prince was in big trouble.
But, right then, so were we.
“Stay as low as you can!” I called to Julie, and I heard her shifting in the seat behind me.
I rowed with all I had.
The scull exploded forward, this time deliberately heading toward the opposite bank. A few strokes later we were moving quickly enough for the breeze to tousle my hair.
But I could tell we wouldn’t make it.
Dober-Dragon closed on us. It was close enough now for me to see the vicious talons that had once been its paws and the crazy number of teeth filling its pointed snout. With an arsenal like that, this freak-show reject could tear us to pieces, or sink the boat and then tear us to pieces.
“Can you swim?” I asked Julie.
“Huh?” she stammered. Then: “Yeah.”
“Get in the water, dive down and make for the riverbank!” I told her. “I’ll hold it off!” I had some crazy idea of using an oar like a baseball bat, the way I had with Dillin’s arm.
“What about you?”
Twenty-five yards. Teeth and claws.
“Go!” I exclaimed. “Please!”
But, as the girl struggled to throw one leg off the scull without dunking us both, I knew we were out of time. The Dober-Dragon bore down, its wings hammering the air, its toothy mouth wide for the kill. I pulled out my pocketknife. I was way too wet for the Taser, so I popped its blade.
That’s right: a five-inch blade against a dragon-shaped alien buzz saw.
Maybe if I can slice its wing…?
Who am I kidding?
Something long and slender cut the air, coming from the Schuylkill’s western bank. It nailed the Malite when it was only yards away, knocking the creature sideways. Uttering an unnatural shriek, Dober-Dragon struggled to remain airborne while its claws tugged at the thing that now protruded from its small, but weirdly muscular, chest.
A Ritterbolt.
“Hey, little bro!” Sharyn called from the riverbank. “Keepin’ your usual low profile, I see!”
But before I could reply, the Malite exploded, the saltwater inside the shaft of the custom-made crossbow bolt having done its work.
Monster guts splashed over me. Not the first time.
I heard Julie scream, first in disgust and then in alarm.
I twisted around in time to see that she’d risen into an unsteady crouch, ready to abandon ship, when a baseball-sized lump of Dober-Dragon caught her in the temple. Before I could so much as reach for her, the girl’s body toppled sideways. Her head struck the edge of the scull with a loud, scary thunk.
And then she fell into the water—and disappeared.
Oh God!
Without thinking, I threw myself in after her.
Somewhere behind me, Sharyn yelled my name.
The water was cold. I mean really cold. So cold that it almost shut me down right away. It took all I had to push through the shock and start diving, my eyes scanning the murky water.
I got a glimpse—just a glimpse—of dark hair sinking into the depths, and I went for it, kicking my feet and fighting the icy current.
I reached for the girl, but a sudden sideways eddy yanked me away before I could get a hold of her arm. With a curse that exploded out of me in a rush of bubbles, I went after her again, ignoring the fiery ache that had already started to burn in my lungs.
Drawing on a well of desperate strength, I kicked my legs hard and managed to swim toward Julie, who hung in the depths like a puppet with her strings cut, a thin wispy trail of blood rising from her forehead where she’d struck the boat.
Please … let me get to her!
I gave another kick, more feeble this time. My lungs felt like they were about to explode, and my vision had begun to turn gray at the edges. I wanted to breathe—needed to breathe, despite the terrible knowledge that the moment I did, I’d drown.
My hand touched something soft. It was the girl’s upper arm, and my fingers, already half-numb from cold, closed reflexively around it. But as I turned upward, making for the surface, dragging the unconscious girl behind me, I felt awareness sliding away. I fought with all I had, but that well of strength was dry. My limbs stopped working and my vision went from gray to graveyard black.
Helene, I’m sorry.
My lungs reflexively heaved, and the water poured in.
Chapter 18
CONFESSION
Tom
It struck Tom that Jillian Birmelin was beautiful.
Nothing new there; he’d always thought so. But right now, with her straight back and raised chin making a sharp contrast to the guilty cast of her eyes, she looked especially beautiful—heartbreakingly so.
“What’s up, Jill?” He kept his tone level. Of course, he knew what was up. Until now, it had only been suspicion. But suspicion had turned to certainty the second she’d cleared her throat.
The girl said, “Tom, I’ve …” Her words trailed off as the blood drained from her face.
“Just say it.” He put the right mixture of command and comfort behind his words.
She swallowed, regrouped, and tried again. “Tom, I’ve been talking to some people … about the Undertakers.”
“Some people,” Tom echoed. He made it a statement, not a question.
“Agent Ramirez,” she said.
“That right? I didn’t know you even knew Hugo Ramirez.”
Jillian said, “We met because of Senator Mitchum.”
“Jim Mitchum,” Tom remarked. “Top senator from Pennsylvania. The dude who got Will and Sharyn into the page program a few months back.”
She nodded slowly. “Maybe we should … I dunno … sit down for this?”
“If you
want.”
Jillian dropped gratefully into a chair at the conference table. Tom took a seat beside her, studying her silently. She flinched a little under his gaze.
“Senator Mitchum,” he prompted.
“After my friend Keith died,” she said. “I mean … after the Corpses killed him, I told you, I started poking around, trying to find out what happened. But what I didn’t tell you was, during that time, I was approached by Senator Mitchum. He pulled me right out of the Capitol hallway and told me that he knew about Keith’s death … and that he knew what it was that had killed him, too.”
Tom kept his face carefully neutral when he said, “So … Mitchum knows about the Corpses?”
“Agent Ramirez had told him,” Jillian explained. “The two of them have known each other for a long time.”
“Even so … I can’t figure why the senator believed him.”
“I don’t know. But he did, though he told me he knew there wasn’t much he could do about it without the Sight. Instead, he asked me if I would do some digging for him.”
“But you didn’t have your Eyes either,” Tom reminded her. “The first time you saw a deader was when you hid out in the fake Lindsay Micha’s office.”
The girl fidgeted. Her gaze fell. “That’s … not quite true. The senator showed me some photos of a few of Micha’s staffers. Most were normal … I mean alive. But one of them wasn’t. At first, I almost thought it was a joke. But this was James Mitchum … and he wasn’t smiling.” Her gaze rose to meet Tom’s again. “But, when I pointed out what I saw, the senator seemed pleased.”
“Straight up. It meant you had Eyes.”
So, Mitchum’s known for months. That means when Will and Sharyn went to his D.C. office undercover, trying to get gigs as Senate pages, he knew full well who he was talkin’ to. The dude’s played this cool. Gotta give him that much.
Jillian said, “He started … helping me. He got me Micha’s schedule, which was why I went up to her office when I did. Only, she broke her routine that night and almost caught me. You know the rest.”
“I know you split D.C. and came to Philly, lookin’ for us,” Tom said. “Something tells me maybe that wasn’t necessarily your idea.”