Empire (28 page)

    "Daddy Addison's house."

    "In the swamp??" Voorhees choked. Mark Duncan nodded grimly at Lily. "Who else is there? Addison?"

    "No. Baron killed him. Baron killed my mom and dad. He's all alone in that ugly house."

    "Who's Baron?" Kneeling, Duncan said softly, "He never has to know that you told us."

    "He's my brother. He killed all the rest of them. He made them into rotters and now they do whatever he says."

    She'd been around the same undead that had attacked the shelter...? Voorhees tugged at the sleeves of her dress. "Have you been bitten?"

    "Sometimes." She jerked her arms away. "Wait, what?" Voorhees exclaimed. "You mean you've been bitten before - and you're not sick?"

    "They aren't like the other rotters. They didn't get bit either. The swamp made them come back."

    "All of them?" Duncan felt a twinge of hope - maybe he wasn't infected after all - but the girl's impression of how things worked was probably skewed. Half of what she was saying might not be true at all. "Even the one who wore the skull on his head?"

    Lily nodded. "The swamp makes everything come back. Bugs and frogs and birds. Just magic I guess." She held up her fist, showing them each the scar of a bite below her thumb. "It's not like the city." Baron had been truthful about that, at least.

    "Okay, I need to think about this." Voorhees slouched down on the floor and rubbed his temples.

    "What's there to think about?" Duncan shrugged. "Everything we've been arguing about makes sense now."

    "Lily," Jenna said, "I'm so sorry about what happened to your friend out there. But you'll be safe with us. We're going far away from here."

    "He can't be dead!" Lily cried. "He's an angel!"

    Jenna looked questioningly at Voorhees. The cop wouldn't even lift his head.

    Out on the street, Death's body was a crumbled ruin. Gene dragged his shovel through the chalky remains. Neither horse nor rider had been able to fight him off, as if he'd crippled both when he ambushed them.

    But the girl was gone. The girl was meat and this wasn't. Gene took a mound of the pale quasi-flesh in his hand and studied it. Then he packed it into his mouth.

    It tasted like nothing. It fell apart between his gnashing teeth, and he tilted his head back to force the dry mass down his throat.

    Then every muscle in Gene's body seized, and black blood spurted from his eyes and nose and he fell stiffly on his back. A paralyzing rigor had taken hold of him. He stared blankly skyward, unable to move even his eyes.

    Beside him, a disembodied finger curled and rolled onto its back.

    "This," Tetch said as he descended the steps into the cellar, "my afterdead found when they were laying the explosives in the garbage dump." He was carrying a small bundle in his arms. Palmer craned her neck to follow his progress across the room.

    "I want to see what you think." Tetch brushed specks of dirt from the blanket and uncovered whatever was inside. There was movement within; Palmer steeled herself. It had to be some sort of animal. "I brought it back in the swamp. Now, you take a look at it, and you tell me whether or not I am a god, a god without fear of death."

    He thrust the premature infant at her. Its toothless mouth opened and let out a gurgling sound; thick red bile spattered the reverend's face.

    Palmer wailed and turned her head away, but the vile smell of the baby surrounded her and she retched. Tetch danced around her, pushing the bundle into her face every time she turned. Palmer cried to her lord, but there was only the stench of the dead thing in the blanket and Tetch's earsplitting laughter.

    Then, with a howl, he turned and hurled the baby into the brick wall. A wet smack, then silence.

    The razor swept across Palmer's throat in a flash. Her screams drowned in a torrent of blood that spilled into her lap and pooled at her feet.

    Tetch straddled her, letting the blood soak his abdomen and groin. Taking her limp head in his hands, he pressed his face to hers. He threw open the conduits in his body and called her dying breath into his lungs.

    Tell me, he thought, tell me everything.

    He saw others in the city and saw that their number was four. They had slaughtered as many of their own as his afterdead had. They were hiding in the police house - no, the city hall. He strained to catch a glimpse of Lily among them, but there was nothing there in the reverend's memory.

    Yet they must have her, he thought.

    Shaking the scraps of Palmer's subconscious from his mind, he refocused and tried to locate the dark man. Nowhere to be found. Only the feral undead wandering the streets. Hundreds of them.

    This was his empire - though the city had originally been much larger, before the security walls were erected, it was enough to serve his needs at the moment. And these brainless rotters could be educated. Yes, they could be trained, but he would go farther - and before long they wouldn't just be going through the motions of people in a proper society. The dead would come to comprehend their role in the empire, they would fill his court and worship at his feet and would be far more sophisticated than the living that struggled to subsist in this new world.

    He'd considered moving his home to the old bank, but ultimately decided he would stay here in the swamp, the source of the energy that permeated the virus, the so-called "plague". Dealing with these infected rotters instead of his murdered siblings would be a new challenge, but he welcomed any opportunity to prove himself.

    Now he just needed Lily. LILY!

    WHERE ARE YOU?!

    (I gave you pretty dresses and I watched you dance. I gave you warm food and watched you eat. I gave you a safe bed and I watched you sleep)

    He concentrated hard, gathering the energy that ebbed from the reverend's body, and sought Lily's spirit. He knew intimately her heart and mind

    (and you will know her flesh)

    and might be able to sense her innocence out there, burning bright amongst the primal fear and hunger of the city. So he rocked atop the corpse in the chair, overturning every grain of sand in Jefferson Harbor.

    There!

    Yes, she WAS with the living!

    He tasted of her hatred for him and nearly fell to the floor.

    "The dark man...how has he poisoned you against me? Lily...I love you..."

    The reverend's blank face seemed to mock him. He backhanded her, spilling more blood from her throat.

    He called for his siblings. They came down the stairs and fixed their eyes on the corpse.

    "Eat." He told them. "Then clean up and meet me in the yard. We're going to get her."

    The bundle lying against the wall squirmed. Creeping closer, Tetch pried the blood-caked fabric back and saw there, in that corrupted flesh, a tiny hand. Its webbed fingers clenched and unclenched without purpose.

    He covered it back up and stepped away. "I'm not your god."

    The others had descended on Palmer. Tearing thick ribbons of skin away in their teeth, they paused only to yank bits of clothing and hair from their mouths, pushing at each others' hands to get to the best parts first. Her breasts were ripped off and gnawed for a few seconds before being discarded. Simeon pushed his hands down her throat and tugged at her innards while the others groaned in anticipation.

    Tetch stared in disgust. When Palmer's ribs began to crack he went upstairs.

    So it came to be that, as Voorhees dragged the headless bodies of Lauren and Thom to the roof of City Hall, he found a man waiting on the roof of the police department and was greeted with a wave and a smile.

    "So you're the city's policeman?" The man called.

    Voorhees dropped the bound feet he held in either hand and hissed "Quiet!"

    The man shrugged. "They're all busy." He gestured downward, and Voorhees peered over the edge. On the plaza, a pickup truck was making lazy circles. The rotters still left in the vicinity had gathered around and were lurching feebly at it with each pass.

    There was a goddamn rotter behind the wheel.

    "I'm Baron Tetch." The man said.

    "Senior P.O. Voorhees." Came the reply. The cop gritted his teeth. He'd left the shotgun inside.

    "The last of a dying breed." Tetch remarked. He studied the sky, still stained with smoke. "I'm not dead yet." Voorhees called back.

    "You found my little girl, didn't you?" Asked Tetch. "Saved her life. I can't thank you enough. I'd offer you a ride out of town with us, but there isn't any more room in the truck."

    "There would be if you dumped that corpse out of it."

    Two gunshots rang out. Voorhees stumbled toward the edge again.

    A well-dressed rotter, standing outside the entrance to the PD, had kneecapped another one that tried to get inside. Voorhees watched in horrified fascination as the undead reloaded its revolver.

    "Those corpses mean a great deal to me." Tetch said as he followed Voorhees' gaze.

    "Of course. They're your brothers and sisters."

    "So Lily's been talking." That cold smile never left Tetch's face. "You want to bargain, then?"

    "There's no bargain to be made." Voorhees let his voice rise in volume. If it attracted any attention, Tetch's little helpers could deal with it. "You're responsible for more deaths than I can remember. You think I'm going to hand over that girl to you?"

    "Going to arrest me?"

    "Doesn't seem like there'd be much point."