Dearly, Beloved (12 page)

Taking Dog by the hand, I wove my way over the warped wooden floor, past tables crammed with card sharps and beggars and pickpockets and frightened ordinary folks, most of them gambling to pass the time. In the corner, one of the street performers was sawing away on his fiddle, the tune horribly cheery in the face of all that had happened. A few people laughed; a few people cried. Everyone appeared ill at ease. A group of streetwalkers, now forever out of work, were gathered about the filthy front windows smoking cheroots, ashes raining on their colorful skirts.

Near the fireplace where Smoke had often sat, burning small objects on the hearth for his own quiet amusement, I found my eldest sister. When confronted with her, my first instinct was to stare, as always. Mártira’s skin was smooth, the color of new parchment. Not a single wound marred her flesh, and her only blemishes were the many black veins that seemed to crawl through her skin like cracks in a piece of fine pottery. Her hair hung to her waist; her black eyes were clear, like chips of obsidian, her lashes so long and dense that the whites were often shaded. She moved with a spectacularly disturbing grace, like a mermaid dancing in the oily River Styx.

To think, I’d created such a thing.

“Mártira?”

She looked at me and smiled. “Laura. Dog.” She spread her arms. She didn’t have to say anything more; I flew to them. Wrapping me up, she kissed me and told me, “It’ll be all right, dove.”

“Are you all right, though?”

“Yes. We’ll recover from this. It’s just been a day of disappointment and pain …” She let go of me, and Dog moved to my side. Looking at him, Mártira said, “I’m so sorry about your hand.”

Dog shrugged. It might’ve been from fatigue, but I decided to say, “He’s taking it like a man.”

“Good.” Mártira sighed. “I confess, I’m at a loss for what to do. But we’ll figure out a way. We always have.”

“If you need money … I don’t think Claudia’s found the last coin you gave me to hide for the gnomes.” Leaving a penny for the gnomes that lived in Grave House was a bit of mummery from my childhood, one I still enjoyed. I’d grown up on Mártira’s stories. The Rat King in the sewer who ate bad children, the gnomes that could be bribed to protect a thieves’ den.

“No, dove. Leave it.”

“She’ll find it anyway. She always does.”

Mártira smiled softly at me. “But perhaps she won’t. Nothing is guaranteed. Anything, anyone, can change.”

For the first time since that morning, I smiled. Mártira was my only protector, and the only one I needed. She’d opted to join me in my condition back in December; she wouldn’t even abandon me to the jaws of death. She was going to turn her life around, my life around. I had to believe in her.

I heard the door opening, a new wave of voices. “Hagens!” Claudia shouted.

My belly tightened and I quickly ushered Dog behind Mártira. We moved just in time. Soon the crowd was parting to let Maria Hagens and a few other zombies through. They looked like they’d been through hell, and they moved toward the fireplace without hesitation.

Hagens terrified me. Everything about her was sharp—her eyes, her voice, her short hair. She’d served in a zombie-only army company before joining up with us, and looking at her, you could believe she might have a pile of human skulls saved up somewhere, horrible war trophies. Her features were angular, her eyes hard. Her exposed cheekbones glowed in the firelight like ossified war paint.

“You made it!” Mártira cried. “Thank God!”

“God, maybe. You, no.” Hagens cut her eyes at me momentarily. Claudia soon appeared at her side, gazing up at her almost adoringly. “But maybe I shouldn’t snap at you right off the bat. Maybe today was the object lesson it should have been.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just glad you’re safe.”

“I
told
her,” Claudia said. “I told her we should have gone out to find you.”

Hagens moved closer to Mártira, her expression growing even more furious. “Let me put it this way, in words that’ll be real easy to understand. You’re out of chances. We have to show the humans that we are not to be trifled with, or they will
keep doing this
. You—”

“Cicatriz! Your gang better reach for the sky!”

At the sound of the voice calling from outside, the newcomers started to panic and the old-timers did their best to hush them up. Several men lifted sections of the floor and tossed their bottles and weapons within, while others moved closer to the half-boarded front windows, on alert. One looked at my eldest sister and nodded.

Mártira took a moment to compose herself, then brushed past Hagens. “We’ll discuss this later.” She made her way to the door and stepped out onto the front porch. I followed, Dog at my heels.

Outside in the darkness stood twenty living constables, guns at
the ready. Heading up the group was a dark-haired man with the intense blue eyes of a husky dog. I’d hoped I’d never see him again.

“Inspector Ramirez,” Mártira said, moving forward. “It’s been a while. I expected you before now.”

“Yeah, well. End of the world and all that.” He looked Mártira up and down. “Death’s been good to you, Márta.”

“You’re too kind.” For once, my sister didn’t sound hopeful or wistful. She was all business. “I’ll save you some words. If you’re looking for your protection money, we don’t have it.”

“Because you spent it on swill,” Claudia muttered, moving to join us.

“And we likely won’t again,” Mártira said, eyeing Claudia. “We’re turning over a new leaf.”

Ramirez glanced past us into the house, sizing up the situation. His fingers tightened uneasily around his gun, while the men behind him remained labile and anxious, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. “Honestly, I heard your entire gang was killed. I’m surprised to see so many of you.”

“You probably heard that the Grave House Gang is no more, which is true. Maybe a quarter of the old group reanimated, and a quarter of that number well. We’re about fifty original members, forty newcomers. Some from other gangs, some not.”

“Well, that’s a shame.” Ramirez looked at me as I lowered my arms to hold Dog, and then back to my sister. “Especially after today, when it’d be right easy to tell my boss you’re harboring more crazies. Saw some of your people in the cage. Realized a visit was long overdue.” As he spoke, several members of his crew backed up, as if expecting us to attack.

“Even if I wanted to give you your money, I couldn’t,” Mártira said. “The beggars are making less because the living don’t think they need money for food. The whores are out of work, naturally. The street performers have had to start wearing masks
and gloves when they can, even the ones that don’t normally dress up. And they’ve been going out without the pickpockets, because I will no longer accept money from illegal act—”

“So your people are still going out?” Ramirez tipped his hat back a bit, his smile slow. “You know they can’t work on the streets for free. That’s not the deal.”

“The deal changed the minute you died,” I heard Hagens hiss. I didn’t dare turn around to look at her. “We can take them.”

Mártira ignored her. “Fine,” she said to Ramirez. “Give us a few weeks.”

“They want to question you guys about today. That’s why I rushed over here.”

“Give us a few weeks, keep the coppers off our backs—I’ll pay you double.”

“No!” Hagens protested—all for naught. After a moment’s contemplation, Ramirez nodded his agreement. He and his men retreated into their LED-festooned police carriages, and we retreated into our den. It was over in seconds. Like usual.

“Double?” whined Joe. “We’re gonna have to get back to hittin’ businesses.”

“This is what I’m talking about,” Hagens shouted once the door was shut. “You have no reason to submit to that slimeball, none! He’s a human, he’s weak. We have sharper senses than the humans, we have the ability to infect them if they’re not vaccinated or the vaccine doesn’t work … He should be groveling on the ground, begging you to spare his life.”

“Miss Hagens, hush.”

Mártira moved through the crowd, back to the fireplace. As she passed a few of the older gang members, they mumbled things to her. I caught one saying, “For a moment, you sounded like the old you.”

“Like hell will I
hush
!” Hagens pushed her way after us. “Twice now
—twice
—humans have hunted me through the streets like an
animal! I’m not standing for it anymore. I’ve been telling you for
weeks
that we have to leave! Regroup somewhere safe, make some plans!”

“Suit yourself, Miss Hagens. I am not having my people attack a group of living coppers. All that would do is get every single one of us killed.” Mártira frowned. “Remember, for all your blustering, you’re clean. We’re not. Even now, we need to avoid undue attention. Same reason I knew we couldn’t tell the people we met today everything we know, even though we should’ve.”

Hagens didn’t even pretend to listen to her. “Oh, I’m leaving. And I’ll take anyone who wants to go with me. I know not everyone here is content to pay to play humanitarian. Some of us want to do
more
. And if that involves violence, so be it.”

Mártira spun around and snapped, “Do
none
of you hate your past lives the way I do? Has death filled
none
of you with regret? A desire to change?”

Her questions hung unanswered in the air. In time, a few of the older gang members shook their heads to indicate that no, death had had no such effect on them. Then a few more. Mártira’s expression stiffened. Claudia glared at me, as if I’d somehow infected my eldest sister with my ideas of right and wrong.

Perhaps I had.

“They have the right of it,” Hagens said. “There’s no shame in doing what you have to do to survive.
Thrive
. From everything I hear, you knew that once—and you were damn good at it.”

She was right. I knew there were people out there who still feared my sister because of the things she’d done before she died. That was half the reason she was still our leader now. I was grateful to be ignorant of the details.

And yet, I wasn’t so ignorant that I didn’t feel the cold crush of fear. If Mártira was cast down as leader, what would happen to us?

After a time, Mártira asked, “Who would go with Hagens? Leave the city?”

Claudia said, “If we’re calling a vote, the leaders have to—”

“Enough! Who would leave?” Mártira shouted. “Tell me now!”

About half the gang raised their hands. One of the streetwalkers came forth and said, “They chased us, ma’am. They meant to kill us. You ask me, it’s crazy you want to stay! What if they pin Smoke on us, like Joe said?” A hum of approval punctuated the end of her sentence.

“Smoke?” Hagens said. For a split second I couldn’t tell if it was fear or fury I saw in her eyes. “What about Smoke? Has something happened to him? Where is he?”

Mártira looked to the crackling fire, her movements slow. She ignored Hagens’s questions. “Very well. Then
I
will take you. We’ll leave tonight.” She lifted her head, turning her black eyes on Hagens. “But we will not act out of anger. Not anymore.”

Hagens stared hard at Mártira before rolling her shoulders and catching Claudia by the arm. “You will soon, if you’re smart.” Hagens turned her back on us, dragging Claudia along. “Soon enough, you will.”

“Lord Allishter?” my father’s mistress asked as she stumbled into the pool of pale morning sunlight designed to fall—through the magic of custom architecture—directly on my faux ivory desk. I took my breakfast on a silver tray there every morning. “Oops, wrong Allishter!” She giggled. “Wrong bedchamber!”

“Miss Perdido,” I said, squinting up at her. Catherine “Coco” Perdido was highly beautiful—and at the moment, apparently highly intoxicated. The young woman’s fat honey-brown curls, which had no doubt been arranged becomingly around her heart-shaped face the night before, were drooping, and her kohl-smudged eyes were narrowed against the light. “Do come in. Wouldn’t do to have the servants see you.”

“Oh! Kind opf you. Very dutiful son, you are. Sh’know, while I’m here, I wanted to ashk you …” The woman shut the door, turned the lock, and instantly sobered up. “You left a note behind the loose wainscoting again?”

“I did.” I paused, because I was honestly too exhausted to elaborate yet. I’d gotten my mask off and hidden mere moments before her arrival. I was dirty and my muscles ached and my thoughts were consumed by just how much time had been wasted
last night, just how much money pissed away—and all for nothing.

I was taking too many risks. More than I’d planned on. This
couldn’t
be all for nothing.

Coco didn’t prod me. She tossed her valise upon the Turkish carpet and collapsed into one of the overstuffed green velvet armchairs flanking the whitewashed fireplace, fussing with her hair. She’d thrown a tan duster over her sparkling black evening gown, but the garment still clashed against the forest-and-cream décor of my suite.

“Question.” I leaned forward. “When you deliver my notes, do you make
sure
they go precisely where I tell you? The Silver Bridle pub in La Rosa, yes?”