Almost Alive (The Beautiful Dead Book 3) (22 page)

“Yes. She’s my … Winter is my Reaper,” John says, his voice faltering. “Though I’m gathering that you might, um, already know me?”

“Quite well.” Jasmine winks at him. “When you were a fleshy, breathy Human hiding out in her house, I was the one who got you foodstuffs. I’m a good secret-keeper. Always was, wasn’t I?” She winks at me, now, her papery skin wrinkling at her smile.

I figure, of all my friends, she ought to have been the first to know, had she been around for the last couple weeks. “I wonder, Jazz, if you can keep one more.”

She lifts her eyes, flashing them. “Yes, dear?”

“We’re actually here with—
fifteen
other Dead,” I say, “and we’re on a journey to find Empress Shee.”

“That isn’t much of a secret, I’m afraid.”

“Shee was chased by Julianne the Jubilant.”

“That, as well, is widely known.”

“Julianne the Jubilant is my First Life mother, the former Deathless King, restored from her decrepit form at the bottom of the cliff.”

Jasmine’s eyes flash again, her lips parted. “Well,” she utters, mildly aghast. “That’s quite a secret. My, my … I knew the Deathless Queen was your mother, of course, everyone does. But I did not realize that the woman named Julianne … Oh, my. Well, my rabbit, now that you say it, it makes a certain sense. She’s done the world wrong. Now she wants to do the world right.”

“She was like that when she was alive,” I point out, suddenly thinking about it.
Make right by all your wrongs,
my mom liked to say. Here’s to her practicing what she once preached. “Jasmine, why haven’t you been around?”

She gives a doleful glance at the sky. “I’m not useful anymore. I
was
the gardener. The woman in green. Now everyone’s the gardener and there’s a hundred men and women in green and my skills are no longer … special.”

“Your skills are very special,” I assure her right away. “We need them. Come with us. We’re stronger together, and unless we find Shee, all of our kind’s doomed to dust. Please, don’t even consider staying. Just say yes.”

Jasmine sighs, drops a handful of flowers I didn’t notice she was carrying, and says, “Yes, then. Since you give me such a choice.” She smiles, her face wrinkling pleasantly with that familiar grandmotherly/aunt-like warmth I’ve come to love.

The three of us return to the Square where the Town Hall and the Refinery sit across from one another in permanent stare-off. Collin, Brains, and the old man are still gathered at the stage, though now seeming to be in conversation. Passing the door of the Refinery, I wonder if I ought to peek in to check Marigold’s progress with Ann, but decide against it, feeling I don’t have the stomach for it, whether if she’s successful or not.

When Jasmine catches sight of the leashed dwarf, she gasps loudly, her whole body petrified with horror. It isn’t until now that I stupidly realize the one major and potentially deal-breaking detail I failed to mention.

“Jasmine,” I say, standing in front of her and blocking the view of the little Warlock. “I’m sorry, I’m really, really sorry. I forgot to tell you that—”

“What is he doing here?” she asks quite simply, her tone unsettlingly even, her eyes wide and staring.

“He was Raised and put into the depths of a dungeon in the Ne—”

“I know that,” she interrupts, still speaking in perfect, level monotone. “What is he doing
out
of the depths of that dungeon, Winter of the Second?”

“Third, now,” I correct her. “Sorry. Anyway. He’s the closest thing we have to an expert in Warlock stones. If we find Shee, he might be able to find out how to stop the Undead from turning into—”

“And you think you can trust him?” She asks this without looking at me, her eyes like needles aimed for Lynx who still stands, leashed, halfway across the Square where he can’t hear any of this. “I wouldn’t trust him if
no one
’s life depended on it, let alone
all
our lives.”

“I know, Jazz. I wish it were someone else. Anyone else. I wish a lot of things.” I realize my hand’s come up to Jasmine’s shoulder, as if holding her back from charging at him with imaginary bullhorns. “Please …”

“Please what? Forgive him for turning my daughter to dust? I killed him,” she says suddenly, as if recalling it all over. I’ve never seen Jasmine so bitterly fueled, a berserk expression crossing her face. “I killed that little Warlock and there he stands. I put a sword through his face.”

“Yes, you did.
This
sword,” I say, tapping the one still strapped to my back in a leather sheath.

Jasmine pulls away from her glaring to take notice of it, her eyes bright. “Yes,” she confirms, admiring its hilt, then yanking it out of my sheath in an instant. “This one.”

And then she’s charging.

“JASMINE, NO!” I cry out, running after her.

The act does not go unnoticed. Collin and the dwarf, spotting us, are instantly on their feet, trying to make sense of the crazed green woman charging at them with a sword and howling Trenton’s greatest war cry. When recognition slowly dawns on the little Lock’s face, he makes a dive for underneath the stage just as Jasmine’s sword comes crashing down on the edge. The old man grunts with surprise, moving out of the way while Jasmine plunges for Lynx, crawling on her knees after him. I shout at her to stop, but my pleas go unheard.

Lynx emerges from under the side of the stage and hobbles across the Square hurriedly, the leash dragging behind him. Jasmine soon emerges too, clambering to her feet and tearing after him as fast as she can manage. Lynx makes a grab for the nearest door, finds it locked, grabs at the window, can’t open it, then ducks just as Jasmine swings the sword once more. It slices the window apart, raining shards of glass over the dwarf’s bowed head. He shrieks and parries to the left just as her sword recovers, swings once more, and comes down where he just stood. Sparks fly as sword kisses pavement and, with a guttural yelp of determination, Jasmine charges at him again.

“Relent! Relent! Relent!” screams Lynx as he races past me and toward the stage again, Jasmine hurrying after, lifting the sword.

Brains, still clueless as ever and sitting on the edge of the stage, sings: “I … am … not … death—” Jasmine’s sword comes down at the dwarf, but catches Brains right in the skull, chopping down to between her eyes. Jasmine lets go at once, horrified, the blade planted firmly in Brains’ soft head. Like an enormously long nose, my Raise looks to the left now—the entire sword swinging to the left with her, the hilt wiggling unsteadily—and she sings: “I … am … headache.”

Lynx thrusts himself behind me quite suddenly, and I feel his fingers dig into my waist under the armor. Jasmine turns from the horror of the head-sliced Brains and stares at me, her hands like two monster’s claws, and I wonder whether she means to wring a neck, break a bone, or knead dough. She could likely do all three.

“Jasmine, please, wait, listen, hold,” I say, apparently unable to settle on a single word.

“I WILL TURN HIM TO DUST!” she screams, her whole body shivering with such conviction, I fear she could literally explode. “I WILL PULL HIM APART AND TURN HIM INTO DUST!”

“Consider this,” the dwarf cries out from behind me. “If we keep wasting our time dancing in this town long enough, we will, all of us, turn to dust eventually.”

“Please, Jasmine, calm down. Please,” I beg her, not knowing how I can possibly appeal to her logic. If I were face-to-face with Grim, I might possibly explode in just the same way, and John, clueless as ever, would simply watch me and wonder the reason for my going bananas.

“Calm,” she says, her eyes like murder, her fingers still in the creepy, unsettling shape of claws. “Calm, yes. Won’t everyone be, in the end.”

“Jasmine?” I try again. It’s like she’s hallucinating, seeing the death of her daughter all over again. I saw it too—a glimpse of that girl with the black hair twisted in one long braid just before the gates of Trenton closed. John and I had just made it out alive. “J-Jasmine …?”

“Yes.” Her hands relax, the fingers loosened. Just as she relaxes, I feel Lynx’s clutch on my waist do the same. “Yes,” she agrees, then turns to observe Brains who, as peaceful as a lily pad, just watches on with the sword still stick halfway down her head. “I’m sorry, Helen.”

“We still call her Brains,” I explain unhelpfully. “I don’t think she understands names.”

“I’m sorry, Brains,” Jasmine says. She turns to me, her eyes full of twisted memories and anguish. “I’m sorry, Winter. I understand why he’s needed. I just want him to hurt. And I want him to hurt for centuries. And I want my daughter back and I will never have my daughter back.” She closes her eyes, unable to meet anyone’s suddenly. “I’ll go with you, Winter. I’ll go.”

“I … am … the headache,” says Brains sweetly.

“Good,” Jasmine agrees, patting Brains’ armored thigh. “Good, very good.” Tiredly, Jasmine moves toward the Refinery, her feet dragging, and then the door shuts softly behind her.

A moment and a half later, the sword is gently removed from Helen’s head by Collin’s and John’s steady hands. I watch as my Raise smiles lamely, unsure what is happening to her as Collin attempts to right her half-split-open head. Lynx sits on the other end of the stage some distance away staring pensively at the ground, his face wrinkled in concentration. I stare at him a while, curious what dark thoughts are clouding his mind.

When Marigold at last emerges from the Refinery, Jimmy is carrying in his arms the head of Ann, still devoid of a body. Jasmine follows behind, silent and slumping.

I’m about to ask what’s happened when, as Jimmy draws closer, I notice Ann’s eyes are open, her mouth curved into one of her signature smirks. A few metal pipes jut out from her severed neck, giving the impression that she were some robot head that’s been torn off. “Well, well,” she mumbles. “That was a botched experiment, if I ever saw one.”

“Couldn’t get a body to work?” I ask, looking up imploringly at Marigold’s face.

“Indeed not,” answers Marigold, shrugging her big shoulders. “I did try, oh yes, but everything’s been taken to New Trenton! Silly of us. Very little is left here that could serve as a body. We tried many things.”

Jimmy quietly says something to Ann, and she only scoffs loudly, saying, “We are
not
going back home. Not for a body, not for anything. Time’s ticking for us all and Empress Shee is out there.” Ann’s eyes grow dark. “I know there’s some joke about irony and calling me Headless Ann when, now, all I
am
is a head, but forgive me if the humor’s lost.”

“Forgiven,” says Marigold, even though Ann was directing that jape at me.

Jimmy cradles Ann, his mottled face scrunching up into a dopey smile. “I still love you, Ann. I’m gonna take really good care of you.”

“Sure, sure,” says Ann, rolling her eyes. “I’m sure you’re gonna take—”

Jimmy interrupts her with a deep kiss. She tries talking through it, but Jimmy won’t let her, pressing his lips into her head. And really, being that she
is
only a head, she has no means by which to pull away from him. Not a fair kiss, if you ask me. And no one’s asking me.

When the kiss is over, Ann blurts out, “For the love of the Dead,
warn
me next time you’re gonna do that!”

“I still love you,” he repeats dumbly.

“I think we should have last names,” I say suddenly.

Jasmine and Ann and Jimmy and Marigold stare at me, confused by my seemingly random interjection.

“Helena had a last name,” I point out. “It always struck me as peculiar. I thought, well, maybe she’s just unique. Maybe ‘Trim’ is some strange family name from her First Life.” I smile, thinking on Helena.

“My full name is Jimmy Norde,” he volunteers with a shaky smile.

“Ann Norde,” groans Ann, trying it out. “That sounds horrible. We can never marry.”

“Jasmine Ellis,” Jasmine throws in with a dry giggle. “That’d be, if I took my First Life last name. Oh, my. What a strange feeling …” She puts a hand to her cheek and shakes her head, amused by her memories.

I’m caught in my own memories quite suddenly, thinking on Claire and whether or not I’d ever dare embrace her last name. Winter Westbrook. Has a little bit of a musicality to it, but the thought of attaching my real last name to Winter makes my stomach turn. I imagine myself in a room with Claire … bratty, snobby, selfish girl that she is, sitting on the floor in her giant room in her giant palace, brushing the hair of one of her two-hundred-dollar dolls. I imagine Claire’s eyes meeting mine, and I wonder how she’d greet me. With contempt? With curiosity? With disgust?

“Winter?”

My eyes meet Marigold’s, even though it was Jasmine who’d uttered my name. Marigold’s face is much changed from earlier. Ever since I brought up last names, her face seems worried, withdrawn, her eyes clouded over. It’s a look I’ve never before seen on the likes of the ever-cheery, enthusiastic Marigold.

Jasmine puts a hand on my shoulder and I jump, turning my eyes to her. “Winter,” she tries again. “You alright? Your mind went somewhere. I just asked what your last name would be.”