by Ty Drago
Besides, Dave had insisted on doing it this way. “The longer I wear this thing,” he’d said sourly, “the better the chance I’ll get used to it, and not hate it so much.”
Sucks, Dave. I’m sorry.
Anyway, it worked. Nobody paid us any mind. In return, we pretty much ignored everyone we passed.
Until we spotted the Corpse.
He was coming up on our side of the street, heading north on foot. A Type Two, maybe two weeks dead. He wore a nice suit and carried a duffel bag. At first sight of him, half a block away, Sharyn immediately herded us off the sidewalk and into the shadow of the Ritz-Carlton hotel, which sits on the corner of Chestnut and Broad. The front of the hotel has these Greek-style columns, which the four of us hid behind.
“How do you want to play it?” I whispered. “Let him pass?”
“Nope,” she replied. “I know we’re on the clock, but my gut’s screamin’ at me to see what’s in that duffel. Somethin’ tells me he ain’t headin’ for no gym. Number Eight.”
“Got it,” Helene said.
The Angel Boss stepped out into the middle of Chestnut Street just as the guy was passing along Broad.
“Yo, wormbag!” she called, drawing stares from passersby.
Dead Guy in Nice Suit glared at her. Normally, a public confrontation was something nobody wanted. But, as I’d learned today, the rules had changed, and I could tell this deader wanted to attack. He wanted it bad.
Still, he hesitated.
“I have no time for you, Undertaker,” he snarled.
“Crap,” I muttered.
I ducked quietly around my column and circled behind the dude. Then I rushed his flank, yanked the duffel out of his grasp, and kept going. As I passed Sharyn, she threw a mocking laugh at the Corpse and followed me.
“No!” the deader hissed.
Then he pursued.
We darted down an alley that ran behind the hotel. About halfway along, Sharyn and I stopped and turned to face him.
The Corpse stopped too, wary, maybe twenty feet away. His milky, seemingly sightless eyes scanned the darkness, looking for further threats. Then they settled back on us, and he snarled, baring loose, yellowed teeth.
“Return that.”
“You didn’t ask nice,” Sharyn pouted.
“I didn’t ask anything!” he snapped. “Return it, or die here in the filth.”
“Know what?” I said. “I think maybe there’s a third option.”
His gray dead face twisted into a suspicious frown. “What’s that?”
The Burgermeister’s pickaxe came down on him from behind, burying itself so deep in Dead Guy in Nice Suit’s stolen skull that it almost tore his stolen head off.
The body twitched and went still.
“Okay,” Dave admitted begrudgingly. “Maybe I could get used to this.”
Grabbing the deader’s limp shoulder, he yanked the axe’s curved, pointed blade out. Then, as the Corpse’s useless body hit the pavement, Dave made a sour face and started shaking the blood and brains off of what now served as his right hand. Helene came up beside him, saw what he was doing, and turned a little green.
“Not sure I’m gonna get used to it,” she groaned, covering her mouth.
Unaffected by the Yuck Factor, Sharyn stepped up and searched the Corpse. “Richard Kimble.” she said, reading from the dude’s wallet.
“Sounds kinda familiar,” I said.
The Burgermeister replied, “It’s the name of Harrison Ford’s character in The Fugitive.”
I looked at him.
“We watched it last week,” he added. “In our tent in the woods.”
“Okay …”
“What’s in the duffel?” Helene asked.
I put it down and opened it. Then with a gasp, I closed it again.
“What is it, dude?” Dave asked, suddenly alarmed.
Helene hurried over to me, her nausea forgotten. I showed her.
“Oh God …” she breathed.
“It’s Pelligog,” I said to the others.
According to the Corpses, the Pelligog were the only physical creatures capable of crossing the Void. They came from the Malum homeworld, were vaguely spider-like, and maybe eight inches long. They lived in a sort of hive made out of their own bodies, dozens of them, all climbing over each other in a weird living sphere.
The Corpses had a very specific use for these little monstrosities. By letting a single Pelligog burrow painfully into a person’s lower back, the deaders were then able to control that person. Brainwash them. Turn them against their friends. Heck, against humanity.
One downside: the entire sphere was needed to control a single mind. So if a person was unlucky enough to be implanted, then they either had to be killed or released—most likely killed—before the Pelligog could be used to control a second person.
“Where do you think Kimball was taking them?” Helene asked.
“Toward City Hall,” Sharyn replied.
“Why?” Dave asked.
“These things only have one use,” I said. Then I looked up at Sharyn and added, “I think maybe we just did somebody a big favor.”
“What should we do with them?” Helene wondered.
“Burn it?” Sharyn suggested.
“Maybe.” But then I looked over at Richard Kimball. The Corpse lay in a bloody mess in the middle of the dark alley. He wasn’t dead, of course, just trapped in a stolen body he could no longer control. By now, he was sending telepathic distress calls out to his deader buddies—though something told me most of them were too busy to respond, at least right away.
“Whatcha thinkin’, Will?” the Burgermeister asked.
“I’m wondering if these things work on Corpses like they work on humans,” I said.
Beside me, Helene shuddered. Bad memories.
“We don’t got time for this, little bro,” Sharyn said. “We gotta get to Mifflin.”
“I know,” I said. Then I met her eyes. “But he was taking these things somewhere. And not for any good reason. Don’t you think we ought to know where and why?”
The Angel Boss frowned. She glanced at Dead Guy in Nice Suit and then looked back at me. “Okay. Three minutes. Do it.”
Easier said than done. Fighting the bile rising in the back of my throat (me and my great ideas!), I went over the fallen Corpse, knelt beside him, and opened the duffle. Inside, the nest of Pelligog squirmed and wriggled.
“Um,” I said, “could somebody roll him over?”
“I got it,” Dave replied. Then he used one end of his pickaxe to tumble the limp body onto its stomach.
I pulled up the deader’s jacket and yanked his fancy shirt out of his fancy trousers, exposing the gray dead flesh of his lower back.
Now came the hard part.
Holding my breath, I reached carefully into the duffle, hesitating as the creatures became agitated, as if sensing me. Their bodies were thin and weirdly segmented, and their ten legs seemed to be everywhere at once.
“Be careful, Will,” Helene said. Then she put a supportive hand on my shoulder.
I counted to three. Then I grabbed one, managing to catch its tail between my thumb and forefinger.
It didn’t like it.
As I pulled, it clung fiercely to its fellow bugs and, for a second, it seemed as if the entire nest was going to jump out of the duffle and—I don’t know—eat my face off or something.
But it didn’t. So I kept pulling.
Finally, the creature came loose, thrashing and struggling and making me wish to high Heaven that I’d thought to bring gloves.
Carefully, I moved my arm until the Pelligog hung over the Corpse’s exposed back. Then, after counting to three again, I dropped it.
The creature landed on Kimball’s flesh. For a horrible second, I thought it would try to skitter off. But then it stopped, as if sensing an opportunity, and raised its weird, pinch-faced head—
�
��and plunged it deep under the dead dude’s skin.
Helene turned away in disgust.
“Gross,” the Burgermeister remarked.
Sharyn said nothing. She just watched.
The Pelligog kept going, its legs wriggling as it dug in deeper, until its entire body disappeared into the Corpse’s back, leaving behind only an angry checkmark-shaped scar.
I swallowed dryly.
Then I asked the lifeless body, “Can you hear me?”
The response was immediate. “I. Hear. You.”
Deadspeak, the only language a Corpse in this condition could use.
I said. “Where were you taking the Pelligog?”
At first, I didn’t think he’d answer, that maybe these nightmare creatures didn’t work on the dead after all.
But then: “To. Queen.”
“And where’s she at?”
“Office. Of. Mayor. City. Hall.”
We all swapped looks. “Cavanaugh wants to implant the mayor?” I asked.
“No. Governor. Mayor. Already. Cooperating.”
Dave asked. “Why would the mayor cooperate with Cavanaugh about anything? Doesn’t he think she’s dead?”
“Queen. Revealed. Herself. To. Him. Using. Him. To. Lure. Governor. To. City.”
“When?” I asked.
“Tonight.”
“Figures,” Helene muttered.
“She’s makin’ a power play,” Sharyn said. “Now that the gloves are off, she’s gonna kill us and grab state-level power, both on the same night.”
“Thanks for your help,” I told the Corpse.
“It. My. Honor. To. Serve.” Then, as if the word was difficult for him to manage in Deadspeak, he added, “Undertakers.”
“I straightened up, wiping my hand on my pants. Later on, I figured I’d wash it for about an hour, just to get the feel of the Pelligog off my skin.
“What should we do?” Helene asked.
“Mifflin’s gotta come first,” the Angel Boss replied.
She was right. We couldn’t spare the time to worry about the governor. But at least, without the Pelligog, that piece of Cavanaugh’s plan was out the window.
“We should let Tom know,” I said.
“Good idea,” Dave remarked.
But, before any of us could do that, Dead Guy in Nice Suit’s smartphone started playing a Barry Manilow tune.
Chapter 37
THE PEP TALK
Lilith
The Queen of the Dead regarded the Mayor of Philadelphia.
His Honor sat in his leather chair, his face pale and his clothes stained with his own vomit. He repeatedly wiped at his mouth with a trembling hand, trying to both look—and not look—at Lilith.
The governor had agreed to come to Philly, having responded angrily to the mayor’s pleas for “state-level help during this period of sudden municipal crisis.” The mayor had played his part well; Lilith had to give him that. He’d stayed vague on the particulars, but had sounded desperate enough to win the governor’s agreement without specifics.
Of course, most of the mayor’s desperation hadn’t been faked.
Unfortunately, the governor wouldn’t be able to arrive in Philadelphia until at least eleven p.m. A longer wait than the Queen wanted, but better than nothing.
“Just relax, Frank,” she told the quivering fool. “You’ve done well enough. Now, I have a phone call of my own to make. It won’t take long.”
Lilith took her smart phone from her purse and opened the special app that Richard had given her. This app—the Queen neither knew nor cared what its name was—worked similarly to Skype, except that it opened a one-way link between Lilith’s phone and fifteen hundred others.
Her army.
Time to address the troops.
She waited while the app did its work. After several seconds, the screen lit up as her face, Lilith Cavanaugh’s unmistakable cover, was fed through the phone’s camera and projected out to her minions.
“Malum,” she said.
She hadn’t rehearsed. She hadn’t needed to. The words flowed from her like water.
“Tonight, we launch our final campaign to eradicate the human blight from the universe. We begin by striking down their only viable defenders, thus clearing the path for the sweet destruction that will sweep across this world over the next weeks and months.
“Regrettably, our plan to corrupt and destroy this world and its inhabitants by stealth has failed, thanks to the enemy you face tonight. Their constant interference has ruined the beauty with which we might have orchestrated their destruction. Instead, we must set aside our art and turn to more direct methods.
“In moments, you will lay siege to the place called Haven. You will tear down every barricade, push through every defense. You will slaughter every human you encounter. You will leave none alive.
“I command you to enjoy the coming battle, to revel in the blood and the carnage. I command you to take lives, as many as you can, to kill and kill and kill until your warrior Selves thrill from the glorious savagery of it. I command you to give all of yourselves to the task, driven by the knowledge that you honor me with each life you destroy.
“So, the word is given.
“Go forth now, and kill the Undertakers.
“Kill them all.”
Lilith broke the connection, pleased.
“What do you think, Frank? Inspirational enough?”
She looked over at the mayor, who seemed to rouse himself from a stupor. Shock, no doubt. “W—what?”
“My speech just now,” she cooed. “Weren’t you listening? How rude of you.”
“I’m … sorry,” he stammered.
“‘I’m sorry’ what, Frank?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
She nodded. “Very good, Frank. Just as I taught you. Really, you should try to embrace your new reality. Right now, as we speak, one-and-a-half thousand of my minions are storming the Undertakers’ lair.”
“The Undertakers …” he echoed. “You mean that teenage street gang?”
“Oh, they’re much more than that. In fact, they’re quite capable resistance fighters. You see, while you and your ilk have been blindly going about your business of mismanaging this city and lining your pockets with taxpayer money, these children have been fighting for the security and safety of your entire world.
“However, their fight ends tonight, with their deaths.”
“Deaths!” the mayor exclaimed. “My God, no!”
“Almost three hundred children, Frank. All of them torn apart by beings who look … more or less … just like me.”
Then she grinned with Sarah’s dead mouth.
“And all on your watch, Mr. Mayor.”
His Honor buried his face in his hands.
Delicious.
Lilith’s phone rang.
It was still in her hand—Sarah’s hand—and she looked at it, momentarily taken aback.
The Caller ID said “Richard.”
Annoyed, she put the phone to her ear and demanded, “What is it?”
A voice said cheerfully, “Your Royal Wormbagginess? Please hold for Mr. William Ritter.”
There was a pause. Lilith heard voices—children’s voices. A brief exchange that seemed to consist of: “I don’t want to talk to her. You talk to her. No, you talk to her. No, you talk to her.”
Finally, as the Queen seethed, a familiar voice came on the line.
“Cavanaugh, we caught your speech just now, right on this phone. Nice pep talk.”
“Ritter!” Lilith exclaimed. “Where did you get this phone? Where’s Richard?”
“Kimball? He’s kinda … indisposed.”
The Queen exploded. “I will feed you your own entrails, boy! Your meddling—”
“Look. I don’t gotta lot of time, so let’s skip the part where you threaten to disembowel me. We wasted your errand boy and, as you can see, we got his phone. We
also got his Pelligog. In fact, we used one on him just now and he told us all about the governor. So we just phoned the state police and gave them an anonymous tip that the governor’s life would be in danger if he went to Philly. I’m guessing that fouls things up for you pretty good.”
For a moment, Lilith thought she might crush the phone in her rage. But she held herself in check. “I’m going to find you, Undertaker,” she hissed, putting as much hatred and menace as she could behind those words. “And when I do, I’m going to kill you with my bare hands … slowly!”
“Good for you. Gotta go. Busy night. Things to do. Have a good one.”
And, just like that, the connection broke.
He hung up on me! The little brat defeated my assistant, stole my Pelligog, and now he’s hung up on me!
She glanced over at the mayor, who regarded her with a look of such terror that the Queen wondered how the man’s heart didn’t stop cold. For a moment, she considered killing the worthless human, ripping him apart or crushing his head between her hands—Sarah’s hands—like a rotted melon. After all, what good was he now? The governor had been warned off and, even if he hadn’t been, her means of controlling him was lost.
Lilith went as far as to take a single step toward the mayor, who squeaked in fear and tried to bury himself in his office chair.
But then what the Ritter boy had said hit home.
“Gotta go. Busy night.”
Obviously, Ritter wasn’t in Haven. Yet the Queen’s minions had reported seeing the boy, along with Jefferson, enter the Love Park garage in a white van, just minutes before her people had closed off that entrance.
There’s no way out of that subterranean rat hole. Not anymore.
But, evidently there was, as Ritter and at least one other, the one pretending to be his ‘secretary,’ had been outside when they’d encountered Richard. Had they abandoned the Undertakers?
No. Ritter was many things, but a coward was not among them.