Almost Alive (The Beautiful Dead Book 3) (16 page)

There may be other Deathless among us.

This notion that Brock has now planted in my mind haunts me while John and I spend the evening sitting in a metal gazebo-thing. He’s talking to me about a couple that came into the bar the other day and how they were so nice and made all these jokes that had him laughing so hard he was afraid he’d literally bust in half. He starts telling me the jokes one by one, struggling to remember them and messing up all the punch lines, and I can’t shake my head away from the event at the courtyard of the Cyclops tower and what Brock hinted at.
The Deathless are among us,
he said.
The hunger is alive.
And the look that spread through the crowd on those Humans’ faces … The hurt of a sort of betrayal in the eyes of the Dead. I still hear the man’s screams as he was dragged off …

John’s laughing at his own last punch line, which he apparently nailed, but I wasn’t paying attention at all.

Later, when I’m looking through the clothing that a lady in the textiles area sells, I feel the stares of Humans pressing in all around me. I meet some of their gazes, curious, and find suspicion burning in their eyes. I wonder if they look at all us Undead that way now—the nineteen or so of us that remain. Their watery, totally-capable-of-crying eyeballs are full of questions, full of fears, full of apprehension … as if they wonder if any of us were an accomplice to the man who was dragged off that day, the man who’d tasted blood, the Deathless man.

Even some of the Humans who are staring at me now aren’t old enough to have known the first Deathless onslaught. Their stares are the worst. Their looks of fright are only fueled by the stories they’ve been told as a child, their resulting nightmares being the only source of truth they’ll ever know.

I’m a walking nightmare. I peer over my shoulder, catching a group of girls staring worriedly at me as I innocently browse the dresses. The girls don’t disperse. Power in numbers, I guess. Even the Living lady selling the dresses, who used to regard me with warm smiles and bright eyes, only watches with a blank stare today, as though I were a giant dog that might cross the street to take a mouthful out of her ankle. With a frustrated sigh, I let the dresses out of my fingers and dismiss myself from the store. I’m all too familiar with the wary way Humans look at me. It’s the same way they
used
to look at me.

And I hope it’s my imagination, but I feel a collective sigh of relief as I leave. The Humans are no longer in danger … Winter has left the vicinity.

We don’t have to look any different than they. We can wear their same clothes, appear with as much or as little makeup as they do, speak the way they do, laugh the way they do … They still tell us apart. They look into our eyes and they see the death. They smell it. “Yes, John,” I mutter to myself, feeling bitter. “They can sniff us out, apparently.” We don’t fit in any more than a blackbird among blue jays.

I pass a can on the street. I kick it so hard, it bends against the brick wall of a building and lands in a puddle by the curb. I keep walking, my boots stamping in every pool I see, disturbing each bit of peace they can find.

A day and hundreds of stares later, I’ve had enough. I walk myself to the Mayor’s tower, sure to keep my face as calm and sweet and unthreatening as possible. I know Megan and the others are certainly interrogating the man with blood and Human flesh and whatever else in his system, questioning the whys and the hows, the whats and the whens. Just as hungrily as she’s getting her answers, I want them too. I want to know what’s driven him to commit such an act and permanently stain the already impermanent peace of our kind.

And I want to know who told him the secret of blood.

Wasn’t the reality that we’re all falling apart enough of a burden to bear? Now, our peaceful place here in the Necropolis has been slain overnight by the selfish mistake of one stupid, horrible person …

Instantly an image of that ten-year-old in the crowd that day comes to mind. The girl with the sweet and familiar face, and now I realize quite suddenly how I know her: it’s Laura’s daughter. Laura, the pregnant woman whose husband shared the name of my prom date from my First Life: Gill. She died giving birth to a sweet little girl that day twelve years ago, and that sweet little girl, who was later named Laura after her dead mother, is now twelve years old … and she’s orphaned and …

And my hands were covered in her father’s blood after he’d been wounded by a fall and …

And when I was in the bathroom to wash my hands off, I opted, instead, for a different means: I licked them clean.

Is that what truly upsets me about this? Am I just as criminal as the man? Did Benjamin deserve a quiver of steel arrows in his face? Do I?

The Humans watch me warily as I cross the courtyard of the Mayor’s tower … the same courtyard where only a few days ago, a notion was birthed in all their Living, wetted eyes that we Undead can, in fact, do horrible things. The nightmare of the Deathless is one that is possible, one that is probable, one that is just as alive now as it was twelve years ago. We Undead are, just as the Living are, corruptible and perfectly able to do wrong. We are not the stuff of perfection and idols. We are not, all of us, sweet and giving and safe.

Some of us do, in fact,
bite
.

C H A P T E R – N I N E

M I N D   O F   M A L O R Y

“I want to know.”

Megan shrugs. “None of it is good. None of it will be good.” She peers out the Cyclops window, studies the view, whatever it is she sees. “I think we’ve learned all we can from the man. He’s in our prison. He’ll likely remain there until he, himself, turns to dust.”

“The Living don’t trust us anymore,” I complain, feeling like a child who’s been kicked off the playground by bullies and here I am complaining to the principal.

“He was stealing blood from the hospital … at first,” Megan explains. “When Doctor Collin became aware of the missing supply, he moved the blood elsewhere and locked it up more securely.”

“Oh.” I can piece it together now. “So naturally when he couldn’t get to the supply of blood, he had to find … other means.” Other means, like, an innocent boy on the streets. “But how’d he even
know
about what blood does to us?”

“Two-part answer, he gave me. First part will anger you, second part will hurt you. The first is, he was a prisoner here long ago under the Deathless King’s rule. He saw them feed on the Living but never learned why.” Megan sighed, rubbing her temple. “The second part is, he knew two others who’d fed on Human flesh before—both forced to by the Deathless—and learned through them its effects. One’s a man you don’t know, turned to dust years ago. The other is a man you … used to know.”

“Benjamin,” I blurt right away, putting it together. Megan’s stony stare confirms it. “Wow. That
does
hurt.”

“It’s not a nice story, no matter how you tell it.” Megan drums her fingers along the window, sighing long and hard. “Deathless forever be, right?”

“That explains why Benjamin had the vulnerability to steel, just like the Deathless,” I say, pained to hear myself say it aloud. I can see Gunner shooting the silver bolts into Benjamin’s face, ending his Second Life in an instant. No one could revive him thereafter; not even the super-expert, Marigold. “They made him taste blood and … and he didn’t know what it’d done to him.”

“You’d tasted it too,” Megan points out, her Human eye flicking to me. “The Deathless King—your
mother
—fed you a piece of flesh, didn’t she? Obviously it doesn’t take just one bite to … change you. It takes a substantial amount more. We can’t be sure how much the Deathless fed Benjamin … or how much he fed himself.”

“And now we’ll never know,” I say, ending the topic with more of a bite in my tone than I intend. “He’s
gone
and can never for all the rest of eternity defend himself.”

“He can’t,” Megan agrees, drumming on the window some more, leaning against the glass despondently. “If the people ever learn who Julianne the Jubilant really is … If they learn that their ‘hero’ is none other than the former Deathless King herself …” Megan sighs, shakes her head. “I’m doomed. I always was, ever since the day I was born. I’m sorry, Winter. I’m not proud of all the decisions I made over the years, but I can’t imagine how I’d do any of it differently. I regret that Gunner took his life. I regret that you weren’t around. I regret many things.” She blinks. “Hasn’t rained in a week. The sirens are quiet …”

“Don’t jinx us, now,” I mutter. “Last thing we need is one final storm to wash away all us Dead.”

“This won’t end well, Winter. I’m not going to mince my words here.” Megan comes around the desk quite suddenly, parks herself right in front of me, her eyes level with mine. “I wanted peace for us all. I’ve worked—
for years
—to build this place into a home for all of us, Living
and
Unliving. We all deserve the eternal peace. But it isn’t this bloodthirsty, misguided young man who’s undone the peace here, Winter.”

I narrow my eyes. “What do you mean?”

“It was Shee.” Megan’s blue eye shimmers faintly. “Ever since Shee found that giant Warlock stone and lost her mind, the peace of the city has been broken. All year I’ve worked to mend fences, but as you can tell, the Humans now far outnumber the Dead, and until Shee is found, until that stone is recovered, there is no hope for your kind.” Megan smirks and clasps her bony fingers together, I guess to prevent herself from wringing them. “The Living will win, Winter, no matter what. And … I’m not certain I want them to. Not like this.”

“But Shee is lost,” I say, ignoring her meaning in that last sentence she dared utter. “My mother is lost. They could be on opposite ends of the planet by now, Megan, a whole
year
has passed.”

“Things might change here. Things might not. But I think … and I may be wrong, I’ve been wrong before … but I think it best that you take up a band of Undead and seek out Shee and your mother. I’ve no other probable solutions, Winter, unless it’s your dream to live out the rest of your Undead days here in a false peace until one day you and John and everyone you love just suddenly turn into—into—” She clenches shut her eyes, unable to finish that thought.

I turn away, gripped at the throat by her words. I want to yell at her and cry. I want to scream at all the suspicious Humans who, even after learning their culprit, now inexplicably blame
all
us Dead for the one’s crippling mistake. But the screams and the yells and the cries stay in my clenched throat and all I’m left with is a ringing emptiness in my ears.

“Which Undead should I take with me?” I ask quietly.

I hear Megan sigh, then say, “All of them.”

I turn to her, surprised. I’m about to protest, but then I realize too quickly the logic in her decision. We Undead will have strength in numbers, too. If we leave together to find Shee and my mother—however impossible that goal may be—we will be peaceful, and the Humans, left alone here at the Necropolis, will also be at peace. A win/win.

“Nineteen of us,” I say quietly, picking at my nails. One of them pops off, and I issue a small laugh. “We will go, all nineteen of us, as we slowly fall apart. And if we’re lucky, one or two of us might remain when we at long last find Shee or … or my mom.” I laugh, finding it all hilarious suddenly.

“Winter.”

I look up, pressing my lips together to stop myself from the inappropriate, nervous laughter. Megan comes up to me and brings her arms around my rigid body, squeezing. I put my lips to her hair and shut my eyes, calming the hysterics of laughter that threaten to spill from my face. For a moment, it’s the little girl Megan squeezing me again, clutching me in the dark of some night, begging me to protect her, begging to follow me to After’s Hold, insisting to join me on my journey to reclaim Trenton from the Deathless.

“I love you, Winter,” she whispers. “You’re my sister and my mother and my friend.”

“Shush,” I tell her, kissing the top of her forehead. “Shush you, sentimental little bleeder, you.”

“I love you so much. I don’t want you to go. I don’t.”

“Shut up.” I’m smiling so big my face could break in half.

She pulls away from me and both her eyes are wet with tears, even the blue one. She sniffs. “Okay. Alright.”

“I’ll … I’ll gather up all those I know and …” I stop to take a quick mental inventory of who in this city still exists. I’m at a loss, thinking on the Undead I
don’t
know.

“Don’t worry. I’ll summon them all again for you,” she says. “And … there’s one other whose … help … may greatly assist you. Someone who may prove to be a bit of an expert in handling the Lock-stone, should you come across it. But he may also prove to be a bit of … trouble.”

I lift a brow worriedly. “Who?”

“He was Raised about seven years ago,” Megan tells me, “but he could not be trusted, not by anyone. He was put away into our prison where, regrettably, he still lives. In a matter of only four months, he had his Waking Dream and, in that sorry instant, understood
why
no one could trust him. Least of all me.” Megan’s worried eyes turn dark, meeting mine. “I haven’t looked on his face since. One of my men checks on him daily but, being Dead, he hasn’t really any needs … I suppose.”