Queen of the Dead (18 page)

As Ramirez pressed himself up against the glass, I went and stood beside him. Helene, Steve, and the Burgermeister headed reluctantly for the curtain.

At the last minute, I called, “Dave, can you stick around?”

He and Helene looked back at me.

“Sure!” he replied.

Helene began, “Tom said—”

“I know what he said,” I told her. “But I'm asking Dave to stay.”

“Why?”

“In case of trouble,” I replied with a shrug.

“No problem,” the Burgermeister said.

Helene treated me to a hard, searching look. “What's going on?”

I didn't know how to answer that. I felt my mouth open and then close. Finally, I said, “Sorry, but I don't have time for this.”

Then I turned away.

After a few long seconds, I heard Helene's rapid footfalls in the corridor, moving off. Dave came and stood at my shoulder.

“You're in deep trouble, dude,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” I whispered back.

Ramirez remarked miserably, “All you kids are in deep trouble.”

“You got no idea,” I told him.

Through the small window, we watched as Tom approached the bed,
his
bed, on which a figure lay firmly tied to the posts. There was a bag over her head, but even so, I knew it was, as Tom had explained, a Type Three. Her stench still filled the office from when the door had stood open.

Only Threes stink
that
bad.

The Chief reached down, and in one quick motion, he yanked the bag off her head. The face beneath it was almost charcoal black, dried up and starting to flake. The eyes were sunken and so milky that they looked almost pupil-less. She wore a long coat over a blue patterned dressed. Her hands were small with sharp-nailed claws.

She snarled at Tom, baring a mouthful of loose yellow teeth.

“Dear God, Will…” Ramirez breathed. “You have to let me stop this.”

I crossed my eyes and saw what he saw.

The woman on the bed was maybe in her seventies, frail and silver-haired. She looked like she might snap in two in a stiff wind. A helpless, frightened old lady. No wonder Ramirez was so horrified. If I couldn't See the truth, I'd have been pretty horrified too.

Except the eyes that were fixed on Tom weren't fearful. They were angry. And calculating.

Be
careful, Chief.

“Listen up,” Tom said to the Corpse. “See that window in the door? See them faces? They're here for a show…so you and me are gonna give 'em one. The rules are simple: you waste me, and you get out of here, easy as you please.”

The old woman—my eyes started to ache, so I uncrossed them—the rotting cadaver glared at Tom. Then she looked over at us, staring right at Ramirez and me, her expression suddenly thoughtful. Fortunately, with the lights at our back, she shouldn't be able to discern more than vague silhouettes. The window was a necessity—to let Ramirez watch the goings-on. But it was just as important that this Deader not know specifically
who
was watching her.

Thing is, Corpses are cruel and vicious and, yeah, butt ugly, but they're not stupid. If this one spotted the adult standing beside me, she might just figure out what we were up to—at least enough to convince her to play it “human.” And if the “little old lady” on the bed started crying and begging, looking all small and terrified, that would be
real
bad for Tom's demo.

I waited, holding my breath.

“Undertaker,”
she said in Deadspeak.
“Why. I. Trust. You?”

Tom pretended that he'd heard. This was also part of the plan. Ramirez couldn't hear Deadspeak. For this to work, the Corpse had to speak English.

When the Chief didn't respond, Dead Old Lady frowned, her expression wary.

“Got nothin' to say?” Tom asked innocently. “Then maybe I should just leave you here until you rot away to nothing.”

Half a minute passed.

She's figured it out.

Except, she hadn't. “Undertaker,” she repeated in English this time. “Why should I trust your word?”

Tom grinned. “You got another choice?”

The Corpse pulled at her bonds. “Release me then,” she snarled. “So I can kill you and leave this place.”

The Chief shook his head. “Nope. That body stays tied up right where it is. But 'cause I'm a good host, I've arranged another way for you to get loose.” He pointed to the dead girl who lay on the blanket where Dave had left her. “It's a lot fresher than the one you got now anyway.”

The Type Three's milky eyes flicked over to the body on the blanket. Mine flicked over to Ramirez. He'd stopped squirming and struggling against his cuffs and was now staring through the glass, a strange expression on his face.

“Here,” Tom said. “Let me give you a little incentive.”

Then he fired a some saltwater into Dead Old Lady's face.

“No!” Ramirez exclaimed, though I had no idea why. He knew what was in the gun.

The Corpse responded the way they always do. Her body went rigid and then started bucking and thrashing in helpless spasms. The ropes around her wrists held—but only just.

After a few moments, I heard a cracking sound, and one of her arms snapped free from its shoulder socket. One second, it was thrashing away with the rest of her. And the next, it just hung limp inside the sleeve of her coat.

FBI Guy's eyes blinked repeatedly, as if he were trying to focus on something.

Tom fired another squirt of water. Then another. He kept firing until the pistol was empty. I understood that was the plan, but seeing him do it still scared the crap out of me.

See, I also knew what was coming
next
.

The Corpse bucked furiously. Another loud crunch, and the second arm ripped free. The monster rolled off the bed, the coat coming with her, leaving behind both arms—now bare and still tied to the bedposts. The detached limbs were black and flaky, and bugs skittered in and around them, spilling out onto the mattress.

“Tell me you didn't see that!” I demanded.

Ramirez didn't answer. He didn't even look at me. His forehead was pressed right up against the window, his eyes glassy with horror—though what kind of horror, I couldn't be sure. Corpses were able to extend their Masks so passersby didn't see things like severed limbs. But how far did the power of that illusion really go?

We were about to find out.

Tom stepped back and dropped the now useless gun. His face remained completely calm as he watched the Corpse on the floor thrash and writhe and then finally go still.

Now
, I thought.

“He killed her…” Ramirez said, but he sounded more confused than accusatory.

“Did he?” I answered.

The dead girl on the blanket sat up.

Beside me, Agent Ramirez let out a sound halfway between a gasp and a moan. I crossed my eyes and had a look at the room the way he was seeing it.

The old lady had
moved
. She no longer lay in a heap beside the bed. Instead, she was rising to her feet atop the blanket in the opposite corner of the room, her eyes fixed on Tom.

Where she
had
been, there was now a decaying lump of flesh, still wearing the old woman's wool coat and blue print dress—except that the cadaver's severed arms hung from ropes fastened to the bedposts.

The Mask had been dropped from the old body and moved to the new.

Which meant that the old woman Ramirez and I saw was now totally naked—Masks don't extend to clothing. The view wasn't pretty, so I quickly uncrossed my eyes. At least looking at dead bodies didn't embarrass me.

“No…” the FBI guy whispered.

“What's the matter?” I asked. “See something you can't explain?”

He started to answer. But then we both jumped as the newly risen Corpse launched herself at Tom.

He should have dodged. He
could
have. I'd seen him do it. One-on-one, I didn't think there was a Deader alive—so to speak—who could have tagged him. No, he
let
this one hit him. It was part of the show.

But she hit him hard.
Very
hard. One moment, he was standing in the middle of the room, looking at her, and the next, he went airborne, slamming into the opposite brick wall in a shower of dried mortar. He landed on the bed, dazed but struggling to recover.

Dead Old Lady/Girl pounced on him, clawing at his face with grasping purple fingers. Her teeth snapped forward, going for his jugular. But at the last second, Tom managed to block her with his forearm. Hissing, she bit deep into the muscle just below his elbow.

Tom cried out in agony.

He slammed his left fist into her abdomen. Her body shuddered with the blow, but her jaws remained fastened to Tom's arm like a pit bull's.

Long enough, I decided. Either Ramirez was convinced or he was an idiot. No way was I going to watch the Chief of the Undertakers die to make a point.

“I'm going in there!” I announced.

“No!” the agent snapped. “Uncuff me. I'll go in!”

I looked at him. He looked back at me. “You'll run,” I said.

“No, I won't. God help me, I swear I won't. I don't know what that…that
thing
…is in there. But it isn't”—he swallowed—“natural.”

I wanted to believe him. Despite everything I'd been through over the past few months, however much I'd learned to rely on my own skills and my own courage, such as it was—the idea of surrendering this problem to the nearest adult was shockingly strong.

Unfortunately, I didn't dare.

“Sorry,” I said, pulling out my pocketknife. Through the window, Tom had managed to get his feet up between himself and the Corpse and force her back, breaking her hold on his arm. A big chuck of his flesh went with her. Blood, Tom's blood, flew in every direction.

Dead Old Lady/Girl slammed into the far wall but recovered instantly. She leapt at Tom again, snarling, her receding lips sticky red and her mouth a gaping maul.

To Ramirez, I said, “Move over. I need to open the door!”

“I can't let you do this, Will!” he said, pleaded. “For your father's sake!”

Bringing my dad into this was a low blow, though Ramirez probably didn't get that. “Dave,” I said. “Grab him.”

The Burgermeister wrapped his arms around the FBI guy, lifting him completely off his feet. The cuffs rattled as they reached their limit, making Ramirez wince. But it gave me the room I needed to work the deadbolts and pull the door open. While it moved, Dave also moved, dragging the agent out of the way as I bolted into the room.

The Deader was on top of Tom again, her knees on his chest, one hand on his throat and the other trying to rake his face with her long gray nails. The Chief was bleeding badly from his mangled arm and a deep gash across his nose.

I couldn't risk the Taser. With the two of them in physical contact like this, zapping her would zap him too. Instead, I popped the blade and lunged at the girl, aiming for the sweet spot at the base of her skull.

However, at the last second, she spotted me. Her head twisted grotesquely and seized my wrist in an iron grip. As she squeezed, I cried out, and the knife fell from my hand, bouncing under the bed.

With lightning quickness, her hand released my arm and clamped around my throat.

It was like getting caught in a steel vise.

Almost at once, I saw stars. A terrible pressure filled my head, as if my brains were being squeezed out of my ears like toothpaste from a tube.

Then, through my blurring vision, it seemed as if the girl grew a second pair of arms—these wearing the sleeves of a man's white shirt. The new arms wrapped around her upper torso and, with a great heave, pulled her off of us. The grip on my neck fell away, leaving behind deep fingernail gashes but letting wonderful air back into my lungs.

My vision cleared.

Ramirez was holding the Corpse up much the way the Burgermeister had been holding
him
up a minute ago.

“What do I do with her?” he cried as Dead Old Lady/Girl thrashed like an enraged cat in his arms. He staggered to and fro, finally stumbled into a corner. “Come on!” he exclaimed desperately. “What am I supposed to do?”

I couldn't speak; my throat was too sore. My knife lay somewhere under the bed, but right now, I lacked the strength to find it.

However, Tom pulled himself to his feet. He'd looked beaten half to death—probably because he
was
—but he moved nevertheless, crossing the small room on legs that quivered under him like an old man's.

From the inside pocket of his jacket, he produced a Ritter.

He
had
that
all
the
time?

“Hold her steady,” he said in a hoarse voice.

Ramirez did the best he could. But the Corpse grabbed his left arm in both hands and wrenched it savagely. The FBI guy cried out in pain and lost his grip. Dead Old Lady/Girl whirled on him, her teeth snapping and her fingers lunging for his eyes.

“Your turn!” she snarled.

Then Dave smacked her.

The big guy had stepped into the room just in time. His backhand blow bounced the Deader off the far wall. Then, as she was trying to regain her balance, the Burgermeister caught her in her arms, much the way Ramirez had. Except Dave's arms were a
lot
bigger. They closed like vices.

Tom shook his head a few times, as if trying to clear it. Then he drew back his hand and drove the syringe deep into the Deader's bare abdomen, using his thumb to slam the plunger home.

“Let her go, Dave,” he said.

“You sure?”

The Chief nodded. Beside me, Ramirez was cradling his left arm, his face sweaty, his eyes wide.