The Whispers (11 page)

His stomach growls, filling the room with its agony. Mine shares the same. “What do you propose we do?”

I climb to my feet, determined. “East and Dana can rest. I don’t trust harm will find them here. I need to find Corpsey and—”

“Corpsey? Oh, right. Your name for …
him
. Jennifer, please don’t.” John’s on his feet too, and he comes around to meet my eyes. I hate how persuasive his deep brown irises can be, set in that rough, sexy face of his. “We can head out of After’s Hold tomorrow, first thing. We’ll head back over the river if we have to. We’ll find her, but please don’t go to that creature. I don’t trust him.”

“Thing is,” I say quietly, “I think
he
trusts
me
.”

“What do you mean?”

Before I can explain it, I’m heading out the door. John follows, hissing his protests at me, but I don’t listen. I push through the eerie darkness of the streets, trying my best to ignore how unnerving it is to walk the streets of an enormous city that has a population of less than twenty. I feel every reservation bubbling inside me like some toxic potion in my belly, threatening to toss up the tiny bite I just had for “dinner”, but I’ve set my mind and I force myself to keep throwing one foot in front of the other.

Truce is precisely where I expect her to be. She turns at the sight of me and her creepy eyes flash with joy—or maybe it’s just because John is with me too. “My pretty! My handsome! Ah, is it morning already? How time flies.” She chortles. “Want to visit Reilly’s Furniture on 9
th
?”

“Actually, I’d like to visit something else. Some
one,
” I amend. “I know you strictly forbade it, but—”

“Nothing is ‘strictly forbade’ in After’s Hold!” she exclaims happily. “Except for drinking blood. That vile act is most certainly forbade. Forbid? Forbidden? What a strange word.” She smacks her lips, confused.

“I want to see the savage boy.”

Truce’s face loses all merriment in the space of one second. She turns her gaze on me, her expression growing troubled. “Oh, sweet Living Jennifer, how you
test
me.”

“I don’t mean to test anything,” I assure her. “I just need to see him. I know he’s doomed to be destroyed or ended or whatever, but I—”

“Not ended, no.”

I share a glance with John, my eyebrows lifting, then turn back to her in surprise. “So he’s still alive?”

“
Un
alive, yes,” she agrees with a tinge of regret in her voice. “The Mayor decided to let him
blood
a bit before … handling him,” she explains delicately. “I cannot fathom why, but the Mayor now and then decides to take heart with the wild ones and study what happens when they are deprived of their
snack
for some time. She’s convinced they can turn back to normal. I fear she’s clinging to a silly hope; the boy is too far-gone.”

“Mayor, you said?”

“Yes. I’m afraid you must request an audience with the boy through the Mayor. The savage boy’s being kept in a room in her office for safety.” Truce draws close to me—too close—and puts a puffy hand on my shoulder. “My dear Jenny-thing, it is always an Undead’s duty to let go of their past. I have gained and lost so many friends along the course of time, and—”

“No!” I pull away from her at once, nearly backing into John. “I’m not giving up on my friend. I refuse to. Don’t even suggest it. She’s out there!” I insist. “I just need to find out where, and then I need to get her back.”

Truce sighs gently, then nods, giving in. “Very well. Come. I will take you to Mayor Damnation.”

It isn’t a joke. The Mayor’s name for this Second Life of hers is actually Damnation. Most prefer to simply call her Mayor, or just plain Damn. No, I don’t understand it either. I don’t have the guts to ask if the name is meant in humor—or if she meant
Dame
and got confused, perhaps? Nonetheless, I’m escorted down the throat of a long building and brought into the office of Mayor Damnation herself. She sits on a throne made of overturned filing cabinets, thick books, and shredded paper. She’s reading when we enter the room, her legs dangling off the pile of knowledge. She’s dressed in a totally unremarkable blue robe—the kind that might be provided to you by a cheap hotel. Her hair is fuzzy and white, giving her head the appearance of the end of a cotton swab. Judging from her wrinkled skin, I’d put her at about an approximate Human age of seventy or more, despite her being Dead. As soon as we enter, she looks up from her book and blinks twice. Her startlingly crimson eyelashes are ghastly long, two inches at least. I’m sure she uses them to catch flies and fan her own cheeks on a hot summer day.

“Are these our new Livings?” asks the Mayor. Her voice is surprisingly high and melodic, far sweeter and more inviting than I anticipated. She reminds me of my grandmother on my mom’s side of the family. I can already smell the holiday cookies baking in the oven. My stomach growls; that was a cruel thing for my mind to do.

“This one’s named Jenny-thing. Oh, sorry.” Truce clears her throat. “Jenni
fer
is her name. The strapping, beefy, dashing, handsome young male next to her is
John
.” Truce wiggles her eyebrows at him.

Mayor Damnation sets her book aside. It slides down the pile of crap she sits on, completely forgotten, as she looks on the Living likes of us. “My, my. You’re a good-looking pair of Humans,” she says, her eyes brightening. “Healthy, the two of you. I heard there’s two others as well? Another young fellow and a lady?”

“Connor and Dana,” I confirm, “though Connor goes by East.”

“I’ve always loved the east,” she remarks. “It’s a nice direction. The direction of impending morning.”

I smile at her. “Thank you for letting us stay here in your city,” I make sure to tell her, figuring starting things off on a
polite
foot would do us best.

“No thanks needed.” The Mayor crosses her legs, the tired blue robe flapping in protest. “This city isn’t really mine. I claim no ownership. Even half my own body isn’t mine,” she remarks with a throaty snicker. “Should’ve seen me when they pulled my sad ass out of the dirt. Ha! I was missing both my legs from the knee, down. My jaw, gone, and I had a serious bite taken out of my arm. Don’t want to imagine what the hell the last few minutes of my First Life were like! I can’t imagine I died laughing.”

I tilt my head, curious. “You don’t remember how you died? It was that long ago?”

“It’s called a Waking Dream, honey-poo,” she tells me as she rises from her seat, then stumbles down the pile of overturned furniture and paper. Wow, she’s easily seven feet tall. I have to keep my mouth from gaping. “Think of it like a shot of memories,” she says, “instantly recalling everything about your long, boring First Life in one fiery, horrific second. I have
not
had one of those.”

“How does one go about having a Waking Dream?” I ask, wondering if it would be rude to pull out my device and take notes.

“They just happen. They have a mind of their own,” she says, coming to a stop in front of us. I have to crane my neck upward to meet her gaze. “Or, in the case of my Waking Dream that’s yet to come, it doesn’t have a mind at all. How can I help you?”

To the point, at last. “I need to see your prisoner.”

“Prisoner? Oh, right, the wildcat. Why?”

“He was the last to see my missing friend,” I explain to her. “I’m hoping he knows more than he admitted last time we spoke.”

“Oh? You actually got him to speak? Curious.” The Mayor picks at her nails. “He wouldn’t do a thing but growl at me. I was tempted to throw a stick and see if he’d retrieve it.”

“Probably suck the blood out of it first,” I remark. “Can I see him? Time is of the essence. My friend—”

“This way.” The Mayor beckons, sauntering past us and out of the room. After shooting a glance at John, we follow the tall Damn woman down a hall, around a corner, up a set of stairs, and then through a door where she has to duck to make it inside.

The room is what I presume to be a generously-sized janitorial closet, or a room to keep police evidence, or a tiny pharmacy—I have no idea, as most of its contents have been emptied. Dividing the room in half is a line of metal bars like a cage, stretching from one wall to the other with a metal door interrupting it.
Makeshift-prison-cell
is a term that comes to mind.

On the other side of the bars sits Corpsey, our friendly pale boy. He’s cross-legged on the bare, concrete floor, his hands resting in his lap. He looks up when we enter, his colorless eyes finding us. The only light in the room comes from a candle in the corner, and its flame casts a dancing shadow of the boy across the stark room.

“The only thing I ask,” says the Mayor, “is that you keep on this side of the room and don’t come too close to the bars where he can harm you—you both are delicious and he will
not
hesitate to help himself.”

But he
did
hesitate, back in the woods. Twice now, he’s held back from making a meal of me.
“Yes,” I say instead. “Thank you for this opportunity.”

“And finally, don’t let him out,” the Mayor finishes. “Come see me when you’re finished speaking with him. I have a book I must return to. I did leave it at quite an exciting part.” The Mayor gives us each a nod, then faces our Corpsey friend. “Behave, you wildcat, you.”

Damnation ducks on her way out of the room, Truce reluctantly following. With only John, myself, and the twisting shadow of the boy along the floor, the room grows eerily silent, as if John and I are its only occupants and the pale boy is nothing but an illusion.

Except he isn’t. “Hello,” I say, breaking the quiet. He still stares at me. I’m relieved to note that I don’t see any dark and toothy viciousness in his eyes. “I’m sorry you’re in here.” I take one small step toward the cage. “I didn’t know this would happen. Are you okay?”

John leans into me. “Jennifer, seriously? This
thing
tried to kill us.”

I face John. “This
thing
also spared my life.” I come right up to the cage, breaking Mayor Damnation’s first rule already, and kneel down. “Let’s be friends. Do you have a name, or should I keep calling you Corpsey? I heard they were not going to destroy you. They just want to see if you’ll turn back to normal. Maybe your thirst for blood will … go away,” I add with hope. “Wouldn’t that be nice? They’re giving you a chance to change.”

“I’ll never change.”

His voice surprises me again, just like the first time I ever heard it. Maybe it’s due to the clarity of his words in this little room, echoing hollowly off the brick walls.

“You don’t want to change?”

“No,” he murmurs gently.

I study him, eye-to-eye, grasping at that connection we shared in the forest. It’s almost like I know him. I feel oddly drawn to him. Maybe I’m completely projecting my own feelings onto the boy, but something tells me he feels the same strange pull between us.

I clear my throat. “Want to see your sister again?”

That changes his face. He lifts his head, the whites of his eyes flashing, and his chapped lips part.

Yep, that got his attention.
“I want to see my friend again,” I go on. “Perhaps we can strike some sort of deal.”

“No, Jennifer.”

It’s John interjecting again, coming up to my side and standing over me, his head shaking back and forth and his jaw setting tightly. His body eclipses half the candlelight, throwing the boy into darkness.

Respectfully, I ignore him, keeping my eyes on the now-dimmed face of our Dead, bloodthirsty friend. “You have to know where my friend Marianne is. You saw her. You even said she was still alive. You must know. Tell me, Corpsey,
tell me
, and I will do everything in my power to get you out of here.”

“Jennifer!”

“Please, sweet pale boy,” I plead, gripping the bars of the cage now. “You have to know my word is good.”

The boy rises. So do I. Slowly, he comes forth to the edge of the cage, and it takes every ounce of strength (and perhaps stupidity) in me to not back away. When he stops, we’re nearly nose to nose. John has turned into a stone statue of tenseness next to me.

“Hair as white as winter …” the boy murmurs so quietly I almost don’t hear him.

“Please,” I repeat. “Tell me where she is.”

Then the boy says, “The Whispers.”

I frown. “The what?”

“She will be at the Whispers. In the south. The place where it all began.”

“Where
what
all began?”

The boy scuffs a foot against the ground, his fingers wiggling impatiently. John flinches, noticing, ready at any second to launch himself between us. I feel the heat of his tense breath against the side of my cheek.

“Let me out,” says the boy, “and I’ll take you there.”

“I don’t have the key.”

“There is no key. The door is made of steel. I cannot touch it.”

“Why can’t you touch it?”

“Because I’ve tasted of blood,” he says, which totally just opened up a whole other bucket of questions I doubt I’ll get answers for. “Open the door and I will take you. If we go now, perhaps we won’t be too late.”