“A long time ago,” Sam snapped.
“Seriously?” I knew Samedi’s work with Company Z had been rewarded with a pardon from the New Victorian government, but I wasn’t told for what. I didn’t know he’d done any actual time. “Okay, that’s it. Papa hangs out with ex-cons. He is never going to lecture me about anything else, ever. If he tries, I will laugh in his face.”
Ratcatcher couldn’t stop laughing, himself. “Oh, yeah, he got locked up for smuggling New Victorian tech into the Punk territories. Huge black market for it down there. This was long before he met the ginger,” he noted, pointing at Beryl. “But he escaped. It was brilliant. You see, he spent months collecting bits and pieces—a pen there, a paper clip here. A spare pipe when he was on laundry duty, a spatula when he was on KP. Slowly, he used his mechanical genius to convert his cell into the cab of a walking tank.” Chas squished up one eye and dropped her jaw in disbelief, and Ratcatcher nodded. “It’s true. And one day he threw the switch and stomped away with part of the bloody jail.”
Silence greeted the end of this story, as everyone turned to stare at Sam—Dr. Chase included. He sighed and said, “Is that how it got spun? Christ. I was on laundry duty at Drike’s—fixing the industrial washers. Didn’t take long to figure out how to break them, too. Messed one up so bad they had to order a replacement and ship it out. I got out inside it. Scurried back behind Punk lines fast as my two legs could carry me. Ask Fi—”
Ratcatcher lifted his arms, as if invoking the gods. “No. Don’t ruin it for me. I’ll believe what I want to believe.”
He was the only one on that page. The rest of us continued to gawp at Sam, Beryl excluded—she just rolled her eyes. “You escaped from Drike’s Island?” Pamela asked, voice practically a whisper.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m a free man now.” Sam turned slightly from us, mouth grim. “Anyway, if you thought I was dead, please don’t tell me you fenced my equipment.”
“Oh, hell no, man. I got your back.” Ratcatcher clicked his tongue and pointed to the truck. “There she is. Meanwhile, sounds like you owe your new crew a few bedtime stories. You’re depriving them of an education.”
“Later,” Sam muttered as he hurried over to the truck and the mysterious object that had been unloaded from it. We weren’t kept in suspense much longer. He drew the tarp off with a flourish.
The thing under the tarp wasn’t a carriage.
It was an honest-to-God pre–ice age car.
The long, low, sensuously curved vehicle was painted a chilly shade of silvery blue and trimmed with bug-eyed headlights and a delicious amount of chrome. The only flaws I could see were two odd attachment points mounted over the front wheel wells. Then again, I didn’t know anything about historical cars—maybe they were meant to be there.
“I know I was just babysitting her, but it still hurts to let her go. Ain’t she a stunner?” Ronnie said, moving to join Sam. Renfield wordlessly trailed after him, expression filling with blatant physical longing.
Sam slid a hand over her hood. “Oh, she is; 1956 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. Tell me I was wrong to con all those innocent souls. Their money was turned into this through the magic of the black market.”
“Nineteen fifty-six?” Renfield gasped. “She’s older than the angels. Almost two hundred and fifty years. And she still works?”
“Oh, yeah. Had Belinda convert her to run on electricity,” said Rats. The woman who’d spoken before nodded. She had a handsome, square-shaped face beneath a cloud of kinky hair. “Keys are in the ignition. Everything else is in the trunk.”
“Perfect.”
“Welp.” Ratcatcher wound up the tarp and tucked it under his arm. “I’d love to stay and shoot the breeze, but this is a bit out in the open for us.” He moved to hug Sam, and Sam returned the gesture, patting his back. “But it is great to see you.”
“Likewise,” Sam said. His voice sounded almost wistful. “Sorry to get you out here.”
Ratcatcher held up a hand, indicating that Samedi should give up. “No, man. You saved Ronnie’s life. I’d do much more than drop off a ride for you, and no one will know about it. I’m just …” The big man pondered for a moment, before laughing again. Taking a step back, he addressed the young people hanging on the vehicles. “Y’all tagged along with us ’cause you didn’t believe you’d actually see Baldwin Samedi, the Undertaker, the legend. And here he is. Not even the grave can hold him back. That’s what I like to see!”
The crowd cheered. Within a few whirling, busy seconds they were all on board and on their way, the vehicles circling back toward the Elysian Fields entrance. “You rock, Undertaker!” someone shouted from the back of the truck. We watched them go, silence reigning.
Bram started it. “The Undertaker?”
“Nickname,” Samedi said, tone disdainful. “Cue the looks of disapproval.”
“The legend?” Pamela asked, crossing her arms over her chest and bestowing upon him one of those very looks.
Beryl fielded that one. “He was very good at smuggling. Taking things under to the Punk side? Ha-ha?”
“And cons?” Renfield ventured. “Anything else? I feel like we ought to know everything you’ve done, so we know what not to tell the cops.”
“I’ve been pardoned. Beryl has amnesty.” Samedi reached through the car’s open window, and next thing I knew I was doing my best to catch the set of keys he’d lobbed at me. “If any cops show up, they are not our problem.”
“Wait,” I said, looking at Dr. Chase. “Amnesty? For what?”
She colored slightly. Before she could say anything, Samedi took over, in a tone that would brook no backtalk. “We needed to replace one of our rides, I replaced one of our rides. I’ve done my good deed for the day. This conversation ends now.”
“We could have bought a new one,” Bram said. “This thing’s going to attract tons of attention. And why didn’t you go pick it up—”
“Because I’m trying to avoid being killed in my sleep, all right?” Samedi shot back. Bram went quiet, astounded. “I’m a bad man. There, I said it. And there are probably at least fifteen equally bad people in this town who’d make me dead for real if they knew I was back. Understand?” He backed up. “That part of my life is over. I just want to do my job, help my friends, and go to my grave with something approximating dignity.”
Samedi turned and started off in the direction of the front door. Beryl met my eyes, an unspoken apology in hers, and walked after him.
“That was awe-some,” Chas said, looking back down the street. “Did you see that one guy with the stubble? He was cute. Too bad he’s not deeeead.”
“Did you know all this, Bram?” I asked, looking at the keys.
“No,” he said after a moment. “Well, I knew some of it, but … clearly, not everything. Let’s just get this thing up to the house.”
As I watched the boys back the Rolls into the driveway, its paint gleaming despite the lack of light, I decided my own potential secrets and sins were pretty innocent after all.
Samedi had us all beat.
Twenty pairs of unseeing eyes stared up at me, awaiting my verdict.
As I tapped my chin, trying to come to a decision, I said to the air, “Screen, on. Current game.”
The large screen on the wall to my left instantly obliged, its glow suffusing the attic. I was engaged in a computer match on Aethernet Chess Live under my new username, NotHere1. “Bishop to E3,” I decided. I knew it was a hopeless move, but I’d yet to work out another direction to take. “And volume up.”
While my adoptive father’s family was known for crafting exquisite string instruments, my adoptive mother’s native family, the Turcios, was involved in the business of industrial diamonds and crystals. Grandfather Turcio was currently making use of our extensive summer property to host his company’s biggest clients, and the string orchestra he’d hired was positioned not thirty feet from where I currently stood. Electric lamps conquered the darkness outside, highlighting the wel
l-pedigreed “wild” trees in our fairy-tale garden from beneath, throwing branch-shaped shadows my way. Even though my bedroom was in the attic, low tinted windows were set along the walls, allowing me to watch everything from my own private crow’s nest. Being but seventeen, I was unwelcome at the party. I’d yet to debut. If I were of age, of course, I’d have been parading down there like a cow at a cattleman’s auction.
Carefully, I looked the twenty ball-jointed dolls over again. They’d just arrived that day, sent up from New London in well-padded wooden crates. Each doll was a work of art painted in soft, dreamy hues, their glass eyes clear, their lips luminous. Each wore a fanciful gown that, at my word, could be re-created in my size. Most upper-class girls preferred to use holographic design programs to create their custom gowns, swapping out virtual ribbons and cuffs while drinking tea and chatting with their friends. I didn’t. It was too overwhelming, too easy to give up and pick out something, anything, rather than go through all fifteen thousand button options. I vastly preferred for my favorite seamstress to prepare a china doll fashion show for me, by the old custom. Call it conceit.
The door opened. I didn’t look up. It had to be a servant putting clothes away—caring for my clothing was pretty much the only chore they were permitted to perform for me. Privileged though I appeared to be, I made my own bed, dusted my own furniture, served myself from the kitchen, and scrubbed my own toilet, because I knew that no one else would. I seldom paid attention to the servants for that reason, and they were strictly sworn not to pay more than the usual attention to me, not even to speak to me.
Thus my surprise upon hearing a quiet, “Ahem.”
Tearing my eyes from the rose-colored walking dress I’d been contemplating, I found one of my mother’s maids, a downright fat young woman named Suzanna, staring at me intently from a distance. Her hands were knotted up in her apron, her cheeks pale.
For a moment I actually felt a mild rush of … not fear. Excitement. It was she who was testing her luck; I was just along for the ride. It was like watching someone else put a leaning tower of chips down on a roulette table.
“Screen, off,” I said. Once it was dark, I lifted my chin. “You realize what you’re doing. If my mother comes to learn of this, you will be punished.”
The maid didn’t speak. She didn’t dare take it that far. She took a few steps away from me, but didn’t leave my room.
I stood up, abandoning my project. “This better be good. For both our sakes.”
Suzanna’s eyes betrayed her terror. She wasn’t trying to be cheeky; she wasn’t confident of her ability to flout the rules and get away with it. Something incredible had to be going on for her to come up to fetch me like this.
Once she knew I would follow, the maid led the way downstairs. Luckily I was still wearing my aquamarine gown and faceted jade jewelry from earlier in the day, and had yet to take down my blond hair from the beribboned style I’d worked it into, so I didn’t look completely a fright. I moved after her, unsure where our little adventure was headed.
When we got to the first floor, Suzanna slid open a hidden door in the wall and entered one of the many back service hallways that connected the rooms in Éclatverre like a circulatory system. She shut the door on me, and for a second I grudgingly admired her cunning—she was splitting us up. Nice. I knew where the tunnel let out, though, and took the long way around to the butler’s closet, which was directly across from the music room. The orchestra was right outside, their music mingling with laughter and conversation.
Suzanna didn’t emerge. I waited for a minute or so, anger beginning to replace my excitement. If this was some sort of trick, oh, my mother was going to hear about it, and Suzanna was going to have read the whole of Thackeray’s surviving canon to me …
Then, through the music room doorway, I glimpsed something odd.
There was a young man lying facedown on the carpet within.
My irritation only grew. This? That stupid woman had come up to my room, dared to communicate with me, to put her job in jeopardy, for this? Drunken partygoers were my mother’s responsibility, not mine. Besides, I couldn’t be alone in a room with a strange man. Was Suzanna insane?
Wait. Perhaps he was dead. That would be easier to deal with. Even if he reanimated, that would be easier to deal with.
“Sir?” I called from the hall. “You need to make your way outside again. This is most unseemly.”
The man sent his arms out, responding to the sound of my voice. He was alive. He tilted his head to the side, and my stomach flip-flopped.
It was Michael Allister.
Michael Allister was facedown drunk on the floor of our music room.
I knew then he must have asked for me by name. Suzanna wasn’t stupid, after all. I hurried into the music room and shut the door, hoping she’d hear the sound and leave. “Mr. Allister, you’d better be on your feet before I turn around.”
“Miss Mink?” His speech was slurred. “Oh, good. You made it.”
I turned. He was pushing himself up, but not as quickly as I’d have liked. In fact, after a moment of exertion Michael fell back onto his rear and stared incredulously about the room, as if he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. His suit was rumpled and covered in mysterious stains, his sandy hair a mess.
“Nice room. Is that a holographic training piano?” He waved his hands in the air like a barmy wizard. “Piano, on!”
Sure enough, a handsome tuxedoed instructor flickered into being at the keyboard of the black baby grand. “Accessing program. Please wait …”
“No, piano! Off!” I yelled, striding across the floor. The hologram obeyed, and soon the piano stood alone, just like the harpsichord, the wall-mounted rows of violins and violas and cellos, and my polished harp in the corner. “Allister, get up.”
Michael pointed at my feet. “You cannot tell me what to do, Miss Mink. Not tonight. Not ever. I’m in control, see?”
“Oh, yes. In control of your liquor, too.”
“That!” He struggled upward and once more fell. “Is an unfortunate side effect. I think I’m going to need lessons from Coco.” He started to giggle like a schoolgirl. “Coco. How on earth could you ever keep a straight face while making love to someone named Coco?”
I moved right up to his side. I had no idea who Coco was—a whore? Was Michael already following in his father’s footsteps? Everyone knew about Lord Allister’s revolving door of trollops. “A side effect of what? What are you doing here? Do you not realize that half of society is just beyond that wall? That if they see us, we are done for?”
“No, no. We’re not.” Michael managed to grab my hand after several attempts. Who knows how many hands he currently thought I had? “I would never hurt you. You’re the only girl I can trust.”
I took my hand back, distaste burning my throat. “Trust, yes. But nothing more. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Bah, you think I want you? What is it with girls thinking I want them?”
I struggled to maintain my cool. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“It is, too.” Michael started digging about in his coat pockets for something. I hoped it wasn’t a flask. “You’re all put out because I still want Miss Dearly. It’s understandable. I don’t judge you for it.”
“What?” We’d met along the border between our country properties several times since the Siege, and our short conversations had always kept to the topic of that night—the things we had seen, the horrors we’d been through, and our mutual hatred of almost everyone else who was on that filthy airship, regardless of the fact that we owed them our lives. “You said she’s a worthless, pro-zombie loser! Those were your exact words. I know, because I remember agreeing with you, and I’d never agree with anything else!”
“Well, she is, as long as she’s got that deadmeat on her arm. But I think we can … I think I can … fix that. Fix her.”
“Why did you even come here? You don’t have permission to be here.”
?
??If I don’t need anything, it is permission. Er … you think of a prettier way to put that.” Michael’s eyes were far too bright. He continued to search through his pockets.
I tried one last time. “Allister, get up. Or I will kill you where you sit, and tell my mother that I came upon a body, rather than a boy, in our music room. Lord knows it’d be less scandalous.”
Michael’s response was to find what he was looking for and fling it at my feet.
It was a severed finger.
I screamed and danced back before the hem of my dress could touch it. He started laughing again. “Oh, the look on your face! Hot potato! Hot potato!”
“Wh-What …” I kept walking backward, unsure what else to do. “Where did you get that? Oh God, Allister, what did you do?”
“Calm down. Women!” Michael finally managed to climb to his feet. “I didn’t cut it off. It was another Brother’s turn to kill one, and he made me take it as a souvenir. You have to kill one in front of the others. Give your number and kill one. So they know you’re serious.” He held up a finger, and I noticed he was missing his glove. “I? I will not do that. It’s vulgar. I need privacy for mine.”
“They? Who’s ‘they’?”
“The Murder. Stupid name, right? I didn’t pick it.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d never heard of such a thing before. “Is it … it’s some sort of anti-zombie club?”
“Not a club!” He reached out and caught the edge of the piano to keep from stumbling around. “You make it sound like we get together and build models or something!” He pointed at his trophy. “We get together and kill them. Make their supporters run like mice.”
I looked at the finger, and fought the urge to vomit. Every lushly curved instrument in the room, every bit of filigree on the ceiling, every painted flower on the walls, seemed calculated to make that half-rotten finger look all the more horrific.
“Got an invitation about a month back. Don’t know who sent it. They use an old-fashioned letter system. Masks. No one knows anyone else. The only thing I know is we’re all upper-class.” He knelt down to retrieve the finger, studying it. On it, something glinted. Gold.