“I didn’t- I‘m sorry.” Tears streaked her face as she stared at something in the middle-distance. She somehow looked even more gaunt and haunted than the night before.
Dread crawled through my guts as I sat on my couch. “What happened?”
“I went home. Christ, I haven’t been home in months. Not since I-” She frowned and shook her head. “I went home.”
“And?”
“Mom was so happy to see me. It was like we never fought. I-I…” She put her head in her hands.
“You got hungry.”
Her head snapped up. “I ran. I didn’t know where I was going until I realized I was coming back this way. It didn’t hurt so much, the closer I got to your place. I don’t feel it now.”
“The gravesoil will suppress the hunger,” I said. “But it won’t diminish. If you get too hungry, you won’t be able to walk more than a few steps from it.”
Madelyn shuddered and gave me a pleading look. For the first time, I saw a young woman buried under the confusion, shock, and painful addiction. She was struggling to come up out of that miasma.
I nodded. “Give me a minute. Then we’ll go visit the Gallows.”
She watched me put my groceries away from the living room. “What is all that?”
“I’m preparing a ritual to talk to one of the Loa. It’s Vodou.”
“Vodou?” She asked. “Serious? That stuff is real?”
“Among other faiths. I’m not a priest, but I can use symbols the Loa are familiar with to create a beacon for them. Compel one of them to come forward for a discussion. Come on. Bring your pot.”
Madelyn didn’t look like she could lift two bags of groceries, but she hefted the pot with ease. “What’s the Gallows?”
When we arrived at the pump station, Bill Weber answered the door for us.
“Oh, hey, Alex,” he wheezed.
“Bill,” I said. “Heard you had trouble last night.”
He backed away as we entered. “It wasn’t like that. Everything was fine for us. We got what we needed and came home. Then Donnie and his friends took the car and went to a concert. When they came home and Max wasn’t with them... “ He sighed. “Jeb told us what happened. Look, was it necess-”
“Yes.” I let the word linger in the air, then turned aside. “This is Madelyn.”
Bill blinked at her as she entered. “Oh, uh, hello.”
“Hey,” she said.
“She’s Max’s- she’s why he didn’t come home.”
“Oh,” Bill saw the pot in her hands. “Oh, damn. Listen, Madelyn. I’m sorry about all of this. But Alex, are you sure it’s a good idea to bring her here now? We’re all still a little shaken over what’s happened.”
“I need to grab some things for her.”
“Oh, well, alright,” Bill said.
We descended through the station and took the lift to the Gallows. Deb opened the door for us. She glanced between Madelyn and I, then shuffled out of the way.
“This is the Gallows,” I said.
“People live here?” Madelyn asked.
“They do. Gloomy as it is, it used to be worse. Like a medieval monastery, all candles and bleak silence.”
“At least it feels like a crypt,” she said. “Better than a sewer?”
“Silver linings.”
I guided her to the kitchen portion of the cistern and flicked a few switches. Neon beer logos and an ‘Open’ sign flickered to life.
“Homey,” Madelyn said. Her tone was flat, hesitant. She knew what was coming.
I opened a freezer and picked a piece of plastic-wrapped flesh from inside. “Pull up a chair.”
She sat at the bar, her eyes locked on the package in my hands. “Is this- who was that?”
“Drug dealer.”
She grimaced. “Anyone I knew?”
“Maybe. This guy sold Stig. The Lincoln Street Mambas killed him for selling on their turf. Or just being on their turf. I don’t ask a lot of questions.” I unwrapped the meat and set it in front of her.
She grimaced. “This doesn’t feel right.”
“Madelyn, look at me.” She took her time doing it. “Nothing about this is ‘right’. It shouldn’t feel normal. It should be something that makes you feel a little sick, even hate yourself. Because otherwise, if you get a taste for it? That’s not the wight saying it, or the magic making you do it. It’s you. This condition is monstrous, but only you decide to be a monster.”
“But if I don’t, I go nuts? Or rot away to nothing?”
“Slowly but surely,” I said. “Either from hunger, or because you sit on your grave day after day, unable to move.”
“What kind of life is that?”
“A terribly unfair one.” I leaned against the counter. “Selfish, rich kings created wights to guard their treasures forever. They said it was an honor, but they never thought about what eternity meant for the guardian. It’s why people don’t find wights in tombs anymore. They went mad and died, or ended themselves.”
Black tears welled in Madelyn’s eyes. “That doesn’t sound like a life at all.”
“Not back then. It’s a little easier these days.”
“How?”
“The only tomb you have to protect is your own. Cell phone reception is shit, but the Wifi is pretty good down here.”
She snorted. “Are you going to cook it?”
“I can, but that kind of normalizes this, doesn’t it?”
“And it can’t be normal, huh?”
I took a breath. “Max thought it was normal. To bite. Even the people he cared about.”
Madelyn glared at me. “You’re an asshole.”
“Yeah, I am,” I said. “I’m the only necromancer, the only mage in this city who gives a damn. Anyone else would burn this crypt to the ground, because they don’t think you’re worth the effort. They think it makes you evil, they don’t care that someone stole your life from you, that you didn’t want this, that you aren’t a psychopath, or that you haven’t lost your mind to hunger. They’ll destroy you because they decided you’re a threat.”
“So, what, you’re allowed to kill us?” Madelyn snapped.
“In terms mages use, you’re ‘created’. Something built from magic. It doesn’t matter what your component parts were. As far as they’re concerned, you’re not human, and they’ll destroy you if you threaten those human beings.”
She stared at the flesh in front of her like she wanted to throw up. “You’re some kind of zookeeper. A prison guard!”
I pursed my lips. “You’re not wrong.”
“It’s not fair. I’m not even twenty yet. Will… I mean, will I age? Can I have k-kids?”
“No,” I told her. “I can’t fix that. Nothing can.”
Madelyn hugged her arms. “I want to die. I don’t want to live like this!”
I sighed. “You can’t think like that.”
She screamed. “Just kill me!”
The sound battered my eardrums, but worse than the sound, I felt a sudden sense of grief and pity for Madelyn. She hung her head in her hands and sobbed.
I heard doors open in the access tunnels. The other wights emerged, drawn to the noise, but they kept a respectable distance. It was the Gallows, after all. Crowds gather when the hangman has a neck for his noose. Even Donnie, haggard and heartbroken, had arrived, with Jeb and Frankie standing between him and me.
While Madelyn cried, I drew my revolver and cocked the hammer. The metallic click made everyone freeze.
“If that’s what you want. I can do that, too.” I met each wight’s gaze, and they looked away. “Max was turning over. It wasn’t hunger. It was his attitude. His anger. He didn’t like living here, feeling caged.”
I looked at Madelyn. “He wanted out. He wanted freedom. It made him meaner and meaner until he lost sight of where his anger and hunger were separate.”
Donnie looked like he wanted to say something, to protest, but I continued on.
“And Max killed Madelyn fo
r it. She wouldn’t give him the time of day, and his solution was to tear out her throat. And Donnie’s solution? Bring her to me. Not a doctor, or a hospital. To a necromancer. What was your logic, Donnie? That I’d make her a wight? That she could live with Max like a pet?”
Donnie’s face twisted into a mix of rage, hate, and grief. Madelyn looked disgusted.
I shook my head. “Did you think that if he had her around, Max wouldn’t be so preoccupied, and watching everyone like a shark? You lied to me. You were out without permission, treating this condition like it’s a leash. Not a disease you have to manage. A curse you keep in check or else some poor bastard dies!” I punched the counter. “How many times did you go out? How long did Max go hungry? Or were there more people? Like Madelyn? Did Max indulge himself, and you kept quiet?”
“No!” Jeb said. “No, we never let him go alone and we never- this never happened before!”
I glared at him. “So when he got hungry, did you tell me? Or did you tell him to sit on it? You dragged him out for more fun times, knowing he was starving. All the while he was getting more desperate, getting meaner?”
Jeb stammered but couldn’t articulate a sentence. He folded his arms and shut his teeth.
“This is how it is,” I said. “If you want to act like prisoners, I’ll be the warden. I don’t want to. I shouldn’t have to. You’re adults, for fuck’s sake. You don’t think it’s fair, well it isn’t! It’s cold, it’s cruel, and it will never be fair!”
The Gallows averted their gaze, but Madelyn’s eyes had a sharper focus.
I met her gaze. “So you’ve got two choices. Same one I gave you last night. You decide to live, and you treat this terrible, rotten existence as serious as it deserves. Or I put a bullet in you. Because I would rather kill each of you than let you run free, and risk innocent people having their lives torn from them, too!”
“Because you’re protecting them?” Madelyn asked. “Or yourself?”
“Myself,” I snapped. “The Society will kill me if I let this shit get out of hand, because I made myself responsible for you. That’s all the excuse they need now. I’m a lonely, miserable bastard, but I want my life, no matter how much it fucking sucks. You should, too.”
She took a breath. “If someone gave you the choice, would you pick to be like me? Like them? Us?”
I leaned closer. “Only if I knew someone would end me if I went rotten. What about you?”
She had steel in her eyes. It told me everything before she spoke. “Deal.”
My lip twitched in a grim smile. I eased the hammer on the revolver. “Good.”
NINETEEN
Madelyn stared at the flesh for a moment. It was frozen, but she was a wight. Humans already have greater jaw strength than we realize, but we have a mental limiter that protects us from injuring ourselves using it. Undeath had damped that failsafe. She could chew through a two-by-four to get what she needed.
The first bite was hesitant, but she put on the pressure until it broke off in her mouth. She winced as she chewed, eyes shut tight. It sounded like she was munching on wet gravel. She finished the entire thing in minutes, wiped her lips, and looked like she wanted to puke it all over the counter.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“Gross. Worse than-” She dry heaved.
I opened the fridge. There was a fresh pack of beer there. I cracked open a can, and she guzzled it.
“Okay?”
She wiped her lips and nodded.
“Okay. Everyone, come meet Madelyn.”
The wights approached. Donnie retreated to his room, and Ximena also withdrew. Miguel watched her go before he fixed me with an angry stare. I gave him an apologetic shrug, but he turned to follow his sister.
“Hey, Maddie. I’m so sorry,” Jeb said.
“We both are,” Frankie added. “We never… we didn’t want this to happen to you. Or anyone.”
Madelyn frowned at them. “You should have told me. Or stayed away from me.”
“Yeah,” Jeb said.
“Did Alex make you, too?” Madelyn asked.
Jeb met my gaze. “No, no. Donnie met this girl, said she was big into the occult, a real pagan. Had this book full of rituals involving getting wasted on absinthe and group sex during a full moon…” He scratched his head, embarrassed.
Frankie piped in. “We woke up in the morgue. The park ranger figured we’d OD’ed on something. When we returned to the campsite, she was long gone. We spent weeks trying to figure out what happened to us. Jeb finally figured it out.”
“I was in medical school,” Jeb said. “There were cadavers…”
Frankie nodded. “Norton is the one who found and brought us here.”
Norton puffed out his chest a bit. “We have police and EMT scanners thanks to Ichiro, and I keep an ear out for crimes that relate to our condition. Stolen bodies, grave-robbing, bite attacks-” He grimaced, and gave Jeb and Frankie a dark look. “When they tried to steal a cadaver from the school, I heard about it, and went to find them. Alex found this place a few months later.”
Frankie sighed. “Worst hangover ever.”
Madelyn was quiet so long I thought she had stopped talking to them. “It’s like having a boot so far up your ass it’s kicking your brain.”
Frankie smiled. “Yeah, a little. But it doesn’t ache all the time, you know?”
“Get something solid for your dirt,” Jeb told her. “Something you can seal tight. Alex got us urns. Keep it under your bed. You’ll never have a bad night’s sleep in your own grave.”
“What about the rest of you?” Madelyn asked. “Were you all cursed by something or someone?”
“My husband brought a trinket back from the Korean War,” Deb said. “It made us both sick but… I was the only one who came back.”
“Refused to pay the toll at the River of Three Crossings,” Ichiro said. He dangled the string of Japanese coins that hung from his wrist. He glared at the open air beside him. “Yeah, I’m telling her. She’s dead, too.”
“An associate sent me a strange doll from South America,” Henry said. “I put it off as a cheap souvenir until I woke up the next morning without a heartbeat.”
“Don’t know what brought me back,” Bill wheezed. “Lung cancer did me in, though.”
“As you can guess from his heavenly singing voice,” Frankie piped in. Jeb gave him a smack on the arm.
“I had an unfortunate run in with a gang in Jersey,” Norton said. “I believe one of their number may have been a necromancer, like Alex.”
“Cheated some Libyans out of their plutonium,” Roger said with a smirk.
I retreated to the far end of the bar and left the wights to talk awhile. It was cheesy, like an alcoholic’s support meeting, but seeing them as people meant Madelyn wouldn’t see herself as a monster.
While she talked, Jeb approached me, dropped his voice to a murmur. “She can’t stay here.”
“First Bill, now you? Why not?”
“Donnie has been out of it since what happened.”
I leaned against the freezer. “And-?”
“And he—we—need time to process,” Jeb said. “Whether or not it was necessary, you can’t expect us to let go, just like that. Especially Donnie. He and Max were close.”
“You think he’s gonna blame Madelyn?”
“He could think that if he hadn’t brought her to you, if he’d let her die, or if he’d taken her to the hospital… Max would still be here.”
I closed my eyes. “Jeb, if he’s going to think that way, if he’s only seeing this in terms of what he can get away with-”
“He’s not. But he lost his best friend, Alex. They knew each other from diapers. Max was there when Donnie lost his dad. I know you don’t expect him to just shut those feelings off. He needs time to grieve. Please.”
I mulled it over a bit. I had lost what little patience I had for Donnie. It was hard enough to deal with him when I was in a good mood. He was a brash alpha-bro douch
ebag that, in high school, was a bane to socially awkward loners like me. He wanted to be out partying, drinking hard, getting laid and showing off how invulnerable he was. The petty glories of the typical college frat boy.
It wasn’t Madelyn that deserved to have a gun in her face. It was Donnie. He needed to understand that he wasn’t some boy-prince anymore. He was just another dreg, like the rest of us, and he could either get with the program or start chewing lead.
But I saw the concern in Jeb’s eyes. Undeath had torn apart their lives, forced them into an existence that no one should have to experience. All they had was each other. They’d tried to protect one of their own and failed.
To me, Max was a petulant kid who went rotten. But to Donnie, Jeb and Frankie? He was a brother, someone who had gotten sick and wasn’t himself. Like someone with dementia, or Alzheimer’s, or a drug addiction. You watch their personality change, and you want to help them, you try to, but they can’t or won’t help themselves. And then they’re gone.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Fine. For a few weeks. In the meantime, I expect you to keep everyone here. Donnie can piss and whine all he wants, but I’m zero tolerance on the dickish behavior.”
“Thank you.” Jeb thumped Frankie on the shoulder, and two departed.
I didn’t give Jeb enough credit. The kid had a solid head on his shoulders, and he had to tolerate bullshit from both me and Donnie.
The rest of the wights departed after that, returning to their routines. Only Deb remained, speaking in hushed tones to Madelyn in a way I hoped was reassuring. The oldest wight passing some advice onto the newborn. I felt a stab of guilt, but I kept my distance.
When Deb departed, she flashed a glare my way, a reminder that she and I would be having a talk about my actions later. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but at least she was smart enough not to swing her own authority around, like I had.
When only Madelyn and I remained, she approached, looking pensive. “So. Home sweet home, huh? It’s not the worst place I’ve slept.”
I shook my head. “In a few weeks. But this place doesn’t have spare beds. We’ll need to grab a few things so you can at least be comfortable.”
Death Dealers Page 15