Dark Metropolis (11 page)

N
an tugged on Sigi’s pajamas, urging her to get down in the corner of the power station with her. They were beyond the dim glow of the electric light, hiding behind some squat construct made of cold metal.

The footsteps took a long time to reach them. Or maybe it just felt that way. Sigi’s breathing was very loud beside her. The anticipation heated Nan’s skin.

A figure moved past the doorway. Nan smelled death.

And she could see it, the sunken eyes and the emaciated limbs, moving awkwardly, wearing workers’ pajamas with a rip in the knee and dried blood staining the shirt brown.

Keep moving,
she inwardly begged the thing.
Just keep moving.

But it had stopped in the doorway, and now it sniffed.

It could smell them, just as they could smell it.

It spoke. “What is that? Who is there?” The voice was scratchy and strained.

Nan and Sigi remained utterly still, not even breathing.

The thing reached into a pocket and brought out an object. Sudden light blazed in their faces. A flashlight! There was no hiding anymore.

Sigi was on the outside of Nan, closer to the awful thing, and she let out a wild scream, as if she could repel it with her voice, while she sprang to her feet and struck it like a barroom brawler. The flashlight clattered to the floor, its light whipping around wildly, and Nan dove for it. She switched it off and stuffed it in her own pocket. She didn’t want to look at this half-alive thing wandering free in the dark tunnels.

It reeled from Sigi’s punch, stumbling back out the door. Sigi lunged after it, Nan just behind her.

The creature made its own sound, a strained shriek, and pushed back at Sigi, who howled in pain. She clutched her hand. Blood trickled down her palm. “It’s got a knife!”

Nan could see the blade now, a small one, flashing in its hand. The being couldn’t move very fast or well. She swiped at it with the mop, and it reeled, trying to dodge her. She could see now that it was a man—or had been a man. It was hard to think of him ever having been a person. Somehow he’d gotten free to wander, without serum.

“Stop,” he rasped. “Don’t hurt me. You’re one of us….I’m one of you.”

“You cut my hand!” Sigi said.

“You attacked me….I didn’t know. I thought I smelled fresh blood, but you’re—”

Nan had the flashlight out, thinking maybe she could deflect the knife with it, but the man was cowering now. “Fresh blood?” she said, seeing now just how bloody he was. His clothes were crusty with it, his hands and face smeared with it, all dried and flaking.

“It’s—it’s not as tidy as serum…but it works. I’ve been down here for years. They won’t get me.”

“You’re killing people?”

“I have to.”

“What people?”

“People in the tunnels. Poor people. They don’t have homes anyway. They’d have to be crazy…to come down here.”

“What about the rats?” Sigi said, her voice small. “You could eat them.”

“Oh, no, no, no. No rats. Not good enough. When I must. But they’re not good enough. No, no.” He leaned closer to Nan, nose-first, whispering, “I do. I smell it. Fresh…and sweet.”

Nan edged back.

“Have you found a way out?” Sigi asked.

“Oh, there’s a way out. There’s a way in, so there’s a way out. But I don’t want to go out there in the world. I’m trying not to eat children.” His breathing was growing louder, more ragged, while his voice grew softer, a mere mutter. “I need help. I don’t want to eat them. But I have to.”

Nan wasn’t exactly comforted by his words. He was still looking at her hungrily. And he was killing people in the tunnels.

He wasn’t supposed to be alive like this. His desperation, like his decay, almost had an aroma, like slimy mushrooms.

“Where is the exit?” Nan asked.

“Down…way down.” He pointed farther into the depths of the tunnel. “All the way in the old Vogelsburg station….”

“Thank you,” Nan said, taking a step back.

She wished she knew how to send him to a peaceful end. She felt she glimpsed his captive soul behind the wild eyes straining in their sockets.

His rotting arm lashed out at her, his voice snarling with sudden anger. “Give me back my flashlight.”

Nan threw the flashlight to Sigi, who caught it with a bit of flailing.

“Give me your
blood
.” He lunged at Nan, teeth bared.

Nan whacked him with the handle of the mop so hard the handle cracked. Sigi rushed to grab a handful of his clothes before he could get a grip on Nan.

“Stop!” Sigi said. “Stop! We’re dead! We don’t have any blood for you.”

“
She’s
not dead.” His eyes bugged out at Nan. “I can smell her life. Please.” He clasped his hands. “I just need”—he struggled and twisted in Sigi’s arms—“a taste. A taste!”

“We don’t want to fight you,” Nan said. “And I don’t think you really want to fight us. Just…let us go.” She spread her hands.

He went still, but his eyes remained on her—wide and gleaming, a wounded animal in the dark. Sigi let go of his clothes and began creeping back toward Nan’s side. Nan suddenly grabbed Sigi’s arm and broke past him. Enough of this! They could run faster than he could. She could run all the way to Vogelsburg and see the sun or the moon or whatever was shining now!

Sigi shrieked, losing her footing. Nan turned and saw that the man had grabbed her arm, scratched her with his fingernails. Sigi shoved him hard, and he fell backward, almost onto the tracks. Nan kicked him down with her boot, and he crumpled, unmoving.

Nan’s hands were shaking.

“Oh my god,” Sigi said.

“I didn’t know what else to do! I—” Nan crouched. “I’m sorry!”

“No.” Sigi touched Nan’s cheek, drawing her into her gaze. She shook her head. “No, Nan, this is not your fault. It’s awful what they did to him, but—he would’ve hurt you.”

Nan stared at his fallen form and exhaled sharply, then dropped back down on the tracks. He still wasn’t moving. She got the knife from his limp fingers. Quickly, she searched his pockets. Nothing but a few coins and a book of prayers. She could envision him reading prayers by the weak light, trying to hold on to his humanity even while he hungered for blood. Her hands were covered in the flecked blood that had come from his skin and clothes. She brushed her hands together again and again, but she just kept feeling it.

“Let’s get out of here,” Sigi said.

Nan’s eyes were still lured by the way ahead. She wanted, more than anything just now, to feel sunlight on her face. “He said there’s a way out.”

Sigi’s jaw clenched. “Nan, I think I should go back.”

Nan looked at Sigi a moment, and she felt a sinking in her stomach that never seemed to stop. Eventually Sigi would turn into a hungry thing, smelling Nan’s blood.

But she had promised Sigi that she would see the sunshine again, and she hesitated to break the promise and go on without her. Sigi couldn’t die down here alone.

“We can…we can try again later,” Nan finally said.

“Thank you,” Sigi whispered, and Nan thought she knew the truth, deep down. Next time, Nan would have to go alone.

T
he Telephone Club had premiered a new stage show on Friday night, packing in larger-than-usual crowds. The theme was now mythology, the costumes designed by a twenty-seven-year-old fashion designer who went by a single name. Girls fluttered around the stage in white tunics and bare legs, and the thin plot involved archery and snakes. Thea kept half an eye on it, happy for the distraction of different costumes and music and dances; she was trying so hard to forget the argument with Freddy.

But nothing cheered her—not serving a famous actress, nor being showered with compliments by charming young men. Everything she said felt forced, every smile pained.

She came home that night to an apartment so quiet that dropping her keys into her coat pocket seemed a disturbance. The gas lamp in her bedroom hissed, and she stared at the shadows, feeling her mother’s absence more keenly than ever.

She needed someone. She had to act on what Freddy had told her, but Arabella von Kaspar had spoken only of violence. And Father Gruneman wanted her to stay away from the revolutionaries altogether. She needed a friend—like Nan. But no use thinking of that.

A knock roused her from bed late in the morning. When she opened the door, Freddy stood on the other side with a serious expression.

She wasn’t ready to see him.

But he is the key to everything. He is the key to my father.

His magic had torn his family from him, too. Difficult as it was to confront the truth, they should be working together. She slowly opened the door wider, stepping back, a wordless acknowledgment that he could enter.

“I thought about what you said the other night,” he said, taking his hat off but holding it to his chest instead of hanging it on the rack, keeping his distance from her. “I don’t know if you want to see me, but there’s too much at stake, and I don’t have anyone else to trust.”

“No, I—I think I’m glad to see you.”

A touch of relief lightened his features. “Good. I knew it was a shock, everything I told you last time. And you were right. I feel like…there must be something we can do together. I don’t know if it’s possible that I might escape and get a message to my parents to hide, too.”

She let her shoulders loosen, realizing she had stood almost frozen since letting him in. “Surely it’s possible. If we only had somewhere for you to hide….” Yet another moment to wish Nan were still around. “We should talk to Father Gruneman,” she decided. “He didn’t want me to get involved in this, but obviously it’s too late now. He wants to limit bloodshed, and surely he’ll know many places you could hide.”

Freddy looked grave—she understood how hard it was to commit to something like this. “That sounds like a good plan,” he finally said. He clamped the hat back on his head.

Thea grabbed her coat. “His house isn’t far.”

The sky was gray and wintry, but in a way that almost made her look forward to snow and pots of stew, and not dread the frigid walks home at night and endlessly cold hands. It was hard to even imagine winter, though; the longest night of the year was still more than two months away, and anything could happen between now and then. So much had already changed so quickly, and she feared the worst was yet to come.

I mustn’t think that way or I’ll lose my nerve altogether.

They walked and talked, catching each other up on everything that had happened since they last spoke—more on his end than hers—and soon they had reached Father Gruneman’s house.

She knocked, then returned her hands to her pockets, rocking back and forth on her toes. When he didn’t answer, she knocked again.

“Hmm,” she said. “What day is it? Saturday? Maybe he’s at church. There’s an evening service…but it’s barely past noon.”

Freddy was looking at the handle of the door, though, as if he were thinking of just barging in.

Thea tried it. It swung open easily.

Freddy gently but firmly moved ahead of her.

“Is something wrong?” she asked him.

“I hope not,” he said, doing nothing to reassure her.

“Father Gruneman?” she called.

Freddy moved to the stairs. “Stay here a minute,” he said. His words sounded almost like an order. As he hurried up the stairs, she heard his steps creak on the boards above her head, and she started to follow him.

This moment,
she thought.
This moment when you’re almost certain something awful has happened and you still have a shred of hope…I can’t bear it.

Who would hurt Father Gruneman?

But she knew now that he was not just a kindly old priest but also Viktor the resistance leader. She stopped on the landing at the top of the stairs and looked past the open door of the office to see Father Gruneman slumped at his desk and Freddy taking his hand.

“He’s been shot,” Freddy said. “Probably just this morning.”

She rushed into the room. “Oh, no, no!”

His monolithic old chair kept his body propped up, but his head was slack. He wasn’t dressed to go out, still wearing a robe, now covered in blood. His eyes and mouth were open; he looked as if he had been in the middle of saying something.

Death was ugly. She had never met it like this before. Maybe it was better, in the end, to see it, to know, and not to be left wondering, as she did about her father. But just the other day she had seen Father Gruneman full of life and fight, and now the twinkle in his eyes had been snuffed out.

Beside her, Freddy seemed unnaturally calm.

He had no reason to be afraid of death, she realized. He could undo this with a mere touch.

“Someone murdered him,” Freddy said. “We have to find out what happened.”

“Wait—but—he’ll need serum! And you don’t have any, do you? We’d have to turn him over to Gerik! We have to think about this first.”

“But we can’t just let him go, without knowing who killed him.”

“I…suppose,” she agreed, but it didn’t feel like her choice to make.

Freddy glanced at her. “I don’t usually revive people with anyone else in the room.”

“Do—do you want me to go?”

He paused. “No. I think you should be here.”

She hadn’t thought of it as a personal thing—using magic. But clearly it was. What would it look like? No matter how Freddy explained it to her, she still couldn’t believe this was something he could actually do. What was it like going through life knowing you had such power flowing through you?

Freddy took Father Gruneman’s hand and stood over him for a moment.

Life returned suddenly to Father Gruneman’s eyes, and he drew a sharp, surprised breath, as though he’d been saved from drowning, and despite all her concerns, Thea felt relief when she heard it.

Father Gruneman clapped a hand to his bloody chest, and then he noticed Freddy, who had let go of his hand. “What happened? Who—”

“Father Gruneman…it’s me, it’s Thea,” Thea said, hurrying to his side.

“Thea?”

“Henry’s daughter,” she prompted, shooting a look at Freddy. Was this normal?

“People are usually confused when they come to,” Freddy said.

“Thea—yes—Thea—what are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here. Something just happened….It might be dangerous.”

“You…you
died
,” she said. She meant to say more, but her throat closed up.

“Someone shot you,” Freddy agreed. “I brought you back.”

Father Gruneman looked down at his torn, bloody clothes, and then around the room, his features setting into resolve. He seemed to be remembering. He furrowed his brow at Freddy. “You’re the one,” he said. “The reviver. It’s true. But are you the only one?”

“I am the only one.”

“And, Thea, you know him?”

She nodded. “How do you feel?”

“I’m not in pain,” he said. “But how did you know to come here?”

“We didn’t,” Thea said. “We were coming to talk to you, to tell you about Freddy and ask you what to do.”

“Well. Why don’t you tell me now, if…I suppose it’s safe. She’s long gone, I hope, now that she’s gotten rid of me.”

“We didn’t see any sign of someone here,” Thea said. “Who killed you?”

“Arabella von Kaspar. You remember her, Thea. We were eating together at the club that night….”

“But why would she do something like this?”

“She felt I was in the way of what must be done.” He seemed to be wrestling with how much he wanted to reveal to her. “The workers—you know about the workers? I want them to reunite with their families. I don’t want our group to focus on instigating a civil war. It might happen as a result, yes, but I think we should let the people carry the revolution, and we should focus on protection. But Arabella feels that we should actively pursue violence.” He looked at Freddy. “And I fear for your safety if she were to find out you are here. She would probably kill you in a heartbeat, were it not that all the workers would die with you.”

“Are you sure they would die?” Freddy said. “I mean, I’ve already revived them.”

“They need your magic to live. You know, when I was a boy, a reviver lived in the neighboring village.”

Freddy’s expression lit with interest. “My grandfather was a reviver, my mother said. But he died before I was born. My mother told me he didn’t use his magic much…but she doesn’t seem to like to talk about him, or any of my family, really. I always wondered how revivers could have normal lives back in the old days. Why weren’t they overwhelmed with people wanting their loved ones brought back?”

“God help us,” Father Gruneman said, rubbing his head. “I can’t believe they would abuse you like this and let you believe such a lie! You can’t defy death, my boy. You don’t bring back the dead. No one can. What you can do is revive them for a brief time, no more than a day. It’s a gift that allows people to say good-bye to a loved one, or ask one last question. I don’t know how they’re able to keep these people alive longer. Our intelligence has been unable to get to the heart of the operation.”

“It’s a serum,” Freddy said. “It keeps the dead alive, but I don’t know where it comes from.”

“Serum.” Father Gruneman looked over his desk restlessly, as though he wanted to start taking notes. “Some kind of healing magic? I see now how these Valkenraths have become so dear to the chancellor, if they have figured out a way to keep your magic going.” He looked thoughtful. “But at the core, the power is still in your hands. You can choose to let all these people go.”

“To kill them? But what about reuniting them with their families?”

“Oh, yes. I want them to be able to escape first. But it can only be temporary.”

“But, Father Gruneman—my father and Nan!” Thea couldn’t believe he was suggesting something so terrible, but then she also understood, and that was what made it so awful. It wasn’t right for people to come back from the dead. She just couldn’t bear the thought that—Nan! Nan, of all people, could not be dead. She was only sixteen, and she was the kind of person who ought to live to be ninety and have lots of adventures. Thea and Nan were supposed to have some of those adventures together, or at least keep talking about having them.

“I know, Thea, I know.” He rubbed his chest where he’d been shot. “It’s so important I make you both understand, and I don’t have much time. But I think that even when things seem to be at their worst, someone is looking out for you. The people you love are never far away.”

“But they
are
far away,” Thea said, unable to accept such lofty comfort. “I’ll never see them again. And I—I miss them so much.” She stopped, afraid she would start to cry if she went on.

“But I believe if your father was released from the magic tethering him to this world, your mother would be back to her old self again.”

“Yes, but Father’s life must have been so awful all these years, I just…” She didn’t know what to say. “He deserves better than that.”

“He deserves peace now,” Father Gruneman said gently.

“So what do I do?” Freddy said. “How would I ‘let them go’?”

“It should come naturally, if you let it,” Father Gruneman said. “Now that you’ve brought me back, if you think about it, you should feel the magic that connects my life to you.”

“I know that feeling,” Freddy said. “I remember all the people I’ve revived.”

“Exactly. You just have to break the connection and release them. Perhaps you can think of it like snipping a thread. And you’ll have to practice with me.”

Thea bit her lip hard. She knew she couldn’t fight this. Freddy was quiet.

“Thea, may I speak to you alone for a moment?” Father Gruneman said.

“Of course.”

“I can wait outside,” Freddy said, moving to the door.

She touched Freddy’s arm as he moved past her. His eyes were distant.

When the door shut, before Father Gruneman said anything, he put his arms around her and pulled her close as her father would have. No one had embraced her like this in a long time. Mother had been too addled to notice when Thea needed comfort. She choked on her tears. Regret pierced her. She should have been more open with Father Gruneman. She should have visited more often. He could have been like a grandfather to her after her father died, but she had been too shy and proud. It was too late now. And he loved her anyway….She felt that he did.