Queen of the Dead (20 page)

Ramirez absorbed this. “And I don't have it?”

She shook her head, offering him a small, surprisingly pretty smile.

Tom and Dave stepped back. The Chief said, “But it still don't explain why the Corpses took you but didn't ask you no questions.”

“Maybe they were gonna
Pelligog
him,” I suggested. “But we got there before they actually did it.”

“Then you're lucky,” Helene said to Ramirez. “I've had one of those things on my back. So has Amy. We both know what it does to you.”

I went over and stood beside her. I wasn't sure why; it just seemed like something I should do.

Ramirez said, “I need to get out of here. I need to tell somebody…something. I don't know what yet. Obviously, the truth won't work.”

“And who can you tell?” Tom asked him. “You don't have the Sight, and without it, you may as well be a blind man. How can you even know who to trust?”

“I can't just do nothing!”

“Sure you can…for now. Go back to DC. I doubt the Corpses'll risk nabbing you again—at least not there. Keep your head down and wait. We'll make sure you stay in the loop.”

But the FBI guy shook his head. “You don't understand. There's a time limit here. That's what brought me to Philly.”

“A time limit?” I asked.

He nodded. “The governor of Pennsylvania is visiting Philadelphia this weekend…and I'm pretty sure Cavanaugh plans to assassinate him.”

For several long seconds, nobody said anything.

Finally, Chuck muttered, “How—”

But that was as far as he got before Sharyn started dying.

Pierce flew across the office, striking the far wall hard enough to shake it and topple a case full of books the Queen hadn't and would likely never bother to read. He fell in a heap, his new host body broken in several places.

Lilith staggered across the room and loomed over her personal assistant. He raised his head and looked feebly up at her; evidently, that last blow apparently hadn't broken his host's spine.

Unlike what had happened to
her
a few hours ago.

“There were three of you,” she said, keeping her tone level. “Three. That should have been enough to protect me. But instead, you were bested by three children wielding toys. Worse, they took my new host, leaving me trapped in a worthless shell, helplessly awaiting rescue!”

She seized Pierce's collar, lifting him effortlessly off the floor.

“And when my minions finally arrived and carried me to my home, did a new host await me? No, they hadn't found one! So I lay on my human bed, stranded inside a rotting husk, for hours. Hours!”

She cast his body like a rag doll the width of her office. He slammed into the door with such force that the wood cracked and plaster rained down from the ceiling.

This time, when he hit the floor, he didn't move at all.

Lilith Cavanaugh crossed to him, shuffling on legs that popped and creaked with each step. The body her minions had finally found was at least two months old—the bones brittle and the muscles thin and weak. It required all her considerable Self to imbibe it with the strength necessary to punish her underling in this manner.

In fact, it took all her will to tolerate being inside of it at all.

The Queen glowered down at Pierce, toying with the idea of driving her foot through his skull, smashing it to powder. But doing so would likely shatter her own leg, and given the circumstances, she simply couldn't risk that.

But oh how she wanted to!

Then Pierce's eyes met hers. “I'm…sorry…Ms. Cavanaugh,” he wheezed.

Despite his situation, her assistant continued to address her by her human name.

Until that moment, she'd been on the fence. But that simple gesture of respect had convinced her to let him live.

Lilith sighed. “It was
our
funeral parlor, Pierce. Why would there be salt there?”

He struggled to reply but couldn't manage it. She knew the answer anyway: because Chang's was a recent acquisition and her minions had been too afraid of the salt to risk touching it, even to throw it away.

Idiots. I'm surrounded by them.

“You need a new host,” she told Pierce.

And
this
one's simply less foolish than most.

Lilith shuffled over to her desk and picked up the phone. With Pierce incapacitated, she was forced to look up the number in the Philadelphia City Hall directory and dial herself. One more indignity.

After the third ring, the chief of police answered, “Pierce?”

“No.”

“My Queen?”

Idiot
.

“Is that how you want to address me, Chief D'Angelo?”

“No. I'm sorry. What can I do for you, Ms. Cavanaugh?”

“I need a host brought up to my office immediately.” The Queen frowned at her withered black claw of a hand and added, “A male.”

Then she hung up and sat down in her desk chair.

“Pierce,” she said thoughtfully. Then, when he didn't respond, she added, “Look at me when I'm talking to you.”

To his credit, he tried, his broken body twitching uselessly around him. He looked feeble—ridiculous.

“Pierce,” she said again. “Last night's fiasco has convinced me that these Undertakers have grown entirely too bold. Tomorrow is an important day, and I refuse to risk it being ruined by a ragtag collection of human hatchlings!”

“Yes…Ms. Cavanaugh,” Pierce wheezed.

The Queen brooded.

Finally, D'Angelo showed up. The police chief wore his uniform, as did the minion who followed him, carrying a sack over one shoulder. Lilith motioned wordlessly at Pierce's broken body. Wordlessly, the chief nodded to the minion, who just as wordlessly delivered the sack.

“How fresh is it?” the Queen asked.

“Sixteen days, mistress…er…Ms. Cavanaugh. Unmarked. A drug overdose.”

“Acceptable. Well, Pierce, what are you waiting for? Applause?”

Pierce's body went still. At the same instant, the sack began to move. For half a minute, they watched him struggle to open the canvas from within. D'Angelo moved to help, but Lilith waved him off.

Lessons needed learning.

Pierce's fingers, swollen and deep purple, wiggled out through the top of the tied sack and tore downward. At last, it fell away, allowing the body to rise stiffly to its feet. It wasn't a particularly good specimen—the skin showed signs of faster than normal decay. Probably died in the sun.

Disgusting, these human forms.

“Go and dress yourself properly, Pierce,” the Queen commanded. “Then return here. We have work to do.”

“Yes, Ms. Cavanaugh,” her assistant said. Then he walked past D'Angelo and the minion, disappearing through the door.

“Thank you, chief,” Lilith said. “Are we fully prepared for tomorrow?”

“Of course, ma'am.”

“Any word from the morgue?” she asked.

The chief of police squirmed inside his uniform. “No, Ms. Cavanaugh. I'm sorry.”

“That will be all.”

“Yes, mistress.”

Lilith glowered as her minions departed.

This host of necessity she wore annoyed her on every level. It was much older, in fact, than the one she'd hoped to replace last night at Chang's.

Humans might have called that “ironic.”

Unfortunately, no other suitable candidate was available. If only she could order her minions out among the rabble to find her something suitable. But, no. However bad her need, caution was paramount. Nothing could be allowed to upset tomorrow's timetable. After that, a great many things would be changing—
if
she could keep the Undertakers out of her way.

The
Undertakers.

The Ritter boy had stolen her cell phone as she lay helpless. Its loss didn't overly concern her; aside from contact numbers, there was little of value on it. But the theft
was
galling—especially given what else had been taken!

But what did Karl Ritter's band of whelps need with a human cadaver?

Lilith stopped brooding and started analyzing.

Half a minute later, she sat up in her chair, found her notepad, and ran one sticky purple finger down its length until she found the phone number she was looking for.

Then she dialed, doing her best to ignore the bits of skin left behind each time she tapped a number.

“Hello.”

“Susan,” the Queen said. “It's Lilith. I'm sorry to call you so early on a Saturday.”

“I was up.”

“I may have some news for you.”

“Really? Tell me!”

“Well, it's rather complicated, and with everything that's going on this weekend, my schedule's full this morning. Can we possibly meet in person? Maybe this afternoon?”

“You tell me where and when, and I'll be there!”

“My office,” Lilith said. “Two o'clock. And feel free to bring your daughter.”

“That's all right. I can ask my sister to watch her for a couple of hours.”

“This might take longer than that, Susan.”

“Emily gets fussy on the train. It'll be easier if I can let her stay home.”

Lilith almost argued but stopped herself. While inconvenient, the obstacle was manageable. “All right. If you're sure. I'll see you at two o'clock.”

“Lilith?”

“Yes, Susan?”

“Should I be…hopeful?”

The Queen of the Dead grinned into the phone. “Oh yes. I think you should definitely be hopeful.”

Then she hung up…and smiled.

Laying atop her cot, Sharyn's body jerked. Then it jerked again. Within seconds, she was flopping about wildly, her eyes wide open and sightless.

Tom made a sound that was very nearly a whimper. Then he, Amy, and Ian rushed to his sister's bedside.

“Hold her down!” the medic commanded. “Amy, get me the stick!” As the little girl hurried off to obey, Tom wordlessly threw his weight onto Sharyn's struggling form.

As he did, Ian barked, “Come on, guys! Help!”

We all rushed over. Helene took one leg and I took the other while the Burgermeister—his face pale—grabbed the girl's upper arms. “'S'okay, Chief,” he said to Tom. “We got her!”

Chuck and Ramirez were the last to arrive at the gurney, and seeing no obvious way to help, they apparently decided to ask dumb questions instead.

“What's going on with her?” Chuck asked.

“Is it a seizure?” the FBI guy wanted to know.

“Not a seizure,” Ian replied. “She's convulsing. We'd better strap her down.”

“With what?” I asked.

“There's a bag of rags in the corner. Can one of you get it?”

It struck me as odd that of all of us, Ramirez was the one to obey. He came around the gurney and held the bag open for Ian, who pulled out a fistful of worn but clean rags, passing them around. “Wrists and ankles,” he told us.

“Do we have to?” Tom asked him, looking miserable.

“If we don't, she could throw herself off the gurney…maybe even break a bone.”

The Chief nodded. We went to work tying the girl down. It wasn't easy. She was strong and struggling like a panicked animal. But we managed it. With a sigh, Ian stepped back.

Ramirez looked worried at Sharyn's restless body, bucking against her restraints. “What if she swallows her tongue?”

“That's a myth,” Ian told him offhandedly. “You can't actually swallow your tongue.”

FBI guy frowned. “Are you sure?”

It was Tom who answered—a little impatiently, I thought. “He's sure.”

“What exactly happened to her anyway?” Ramirez asked.

“Head trauma,” Ian replied, “I think maybe it's a vasogenic edema.”

“A what?” Dave demanded.

“I know what it is,” the FBI guy answered. “Her skull cavity is filling up with fluid, cutting off the oxygen to her brain.” He faced Tom, who wore an expression I'd never seen on him before.

The Chief looked terrified.

“Jefferson,” Ramirez said. “She
needs
to go to a hospital.”

Tom shook his head.

The agent came around the gurney and squared off with him, toe-to-toe. When he spoke this time, he wasn't gentle. “She's your sister, and if she doesn't get treatment, she's going to die! Don't you get that?”

Tom tore his eyes away from Sharyn's sweaty face. “No hospital,” he croaked.

“For God's sake, kid,” Ramirez snapped. “This isn't a game—”

I knew that the Chief of the Undertakers was fast. I'd seen him in combat. But until that moment, I hadn't known
how
fast. He seized the agent's collar with the speed of a striking cobra. Ramirez was cut off mid-sentence as Tom spun him around and slammed him against the brick wall next to Sharyn's gurney. The man winced.

Beside me, Helene yelled, “Tom! Hold up!”

But Chief ignored her, his eyes locked on Ramirez. When he spoke, his voice carried more menace than I'd ever heard there. “You figure I think this is a game? That's my twin sister there. It's been her and me,
just
her and me, for almost the whole of our lives. She's my family, the only family I
got
!”

“Look,” the agent said, struggling to sound like a responsible grown-up; we
were
just kids, after all. “I'm sorry if I upset you. But you have to look at this maturely—”

It was the
way
wrong approach.

Again, Tom shook him, this time so hard I thought his head might hit the bricks and we'd end up having two of them tied down on gurneys. “The Deaders
watch
the hospitals!” he exclaimed—screamed almost. “All the time! And especially now 'cause they know they hurt her! They'll watch for her to show, and if she does, they'll
kill
her. Quick and quiet so nobody suspects a thing!”

Ramirez stared at him. “That's…not possible—”

“They've done it before! More times than I can stand to think about!”

“But they can't just murder children in a—”

Tom groaned and released Ramirez's collar, eyeing the guy like he was the biggest idiot on the planet.

“They're an army of animated cadavers,” he said flatly. “I know you can't See that, but
we
do. An army of rotting, sticking, maggot-riddle wormbags. But you know what they ain't? They ain't zombies, and this ain't the latest chapter of
The
Walking
Dead
. The Corpses are smart. Smart as us. Smart as you. And they know what they're doing. They got a hundred ways to take us out, the kids who can See 'em. They make it look natural…illness or accidents. And they don't get caught. They don't
ever
get caught!”

Ramirez gaped, speechless. Tom uttered an unmistakable “I'm done with you” grunt and returned to Sharyn's side, taking his sister's hand. “Do we got any options, Ian?” he asked.

Haven's medic looked pale, but he nodded. “One. Maybe. I've been icing her skull—at least as much as I think I can get away with without risking hypothermia.”

“What's hypothermia?” the Burgermeister asked worriedly.

“It's when your body gets too cold and stops functioning,” I replied.

“Oh,” he said.

Ian cleared his throat. “There's something called a ventriculostomy,” he said. “But, Tom, it's risky. Seriously risky. Even if we had the right equipment and a sterile place to do it, it'd be long odds.”

“And what if we leave her like this?” the Chief pressed.

Ian shrugged miserably. “She'll die. Probably by the end of the day.”

“So…what choice we got? What…exactly…is a ventriculostomy?”

I was quietly astonished that Tom had been able to repeat the word so smoothly. I couldn't seem to wrap my tongue around it or my mind around what was happening. True, I'd seen death since becoming an Undertaker. More than once.

But this was Sharyn.

Ian said, “Well…it's pretty common in hospitals. Basically, you drill a hole through the skull at just the right spot. Then you stick a catheter…a plastic tube…into the brain to drain off the excess fluid.”

“Jeez…” Chuck muttered. “And that's supposed to
help
?”

The medic nodded, though he didn't look convinced.

Tom said, “I don't gotta ask if you ever done this before. Of course you ain't.”

From behind him, Ramirez whispered, “This is crazy.” He faced Ian. “What do you even know about surgery?”

“My dad's a surgeon at Jefferson Hospital here in Philly,” the boy replied. “I was kind of raised with a scalpel in my hand.”

“What does that even mean?” Ramirez snapped. “The fact that your father's a surgeon doesn't make
you
one!”

“No, it don't,” Tom said. “But
this
does.” He lifted his shirt, displaying a jagged scar that ran across the lower right side of his midsection, maybe six inches long. I'd seen it before but had assumed it was a battle wound.

“Ian took out my appendix,” the Chief said. “Almost a year ago now.”

Ramirez stared incredulously at the scar. “Even so, there's a big difference between an appendectomy and brain surgery.”

“Yeah…but we don't got no choice. Bottom line, agent, this is happening, and Ian's gonna do the job. The only remaining issue is: are you gonna try to stop me?” There was no threat in the Chief's words this time. Just a question from a desperate brother.

The FBI guy looked at each of in turn. I could almost read his mind.

You're kids.

But he said nothing.

“What do you need?” Tom asked Ian.

“I think I've got something I can use for the shunt…the tube that actually gets stuck into her brain. And I've got some flexible hose to drain off the stuff that comes out. But—”

“But what, Ian?”

Haven's medic lowered his eyes. “Tom, listen. I'm gonna need a power drill, something small but with enough kick to get through her skull. Then…I'm gonna need somebody to use it.”

We all looked at him.

Ian swallowed. “I…I don't think my hands are steady enough. Not for this. I'm sorry.”

“It's cool, Ian,” the Chief said. “I'm glad you told me now instead of later. You walk me through it, and I'll handle the drill.”

Without even knowing I was going to do it, I stepped forward. “No.”

Tom faced me. “Will?”

“Not you. Not me. Not anybody else in this room,” I said. “We need somebody who's good at this. Somebody with experience.”

The Chief frowned. “Who do we got with experience at something like
this
?”

“Ian,” I said. “Is there stuff you gotta to do to get ready?”

The medic nodded. “First, I'll find the right medical book and review the procedure in detail. After that, I'll have to shave her head and sanitize it. Then I'll mark the right spot on her skull and lay out some clean towels. I'll also need to boil some water to sterilize the equipment.”

“I can do some of that,” Amy said quietly.

“Thanks, Amy,” Tom told her.

“Okay,” I said. Then to Tom, “You sure you want to do this? I mean,
really
sure?”

“It's a chance, bro. Leave her like this…and she's dead.”

“Then stay with her. Keep holding her hand. Let her know you're there. I got this.”

Tom hesitated, and then his broad shoulders slumped. He gazed down at his sister, stroking her sweaty, convulsing face. When he looked back me, it was with a truckload of gratitude.

Right now, he didn't have to be Chief. He didn't have to be a leader.

Just a brother.

“Thanks, Will,” he whispered.