My heart was hammering. But now for a different reason entirely.
I could do this. I could get my family out of here.
Again.
My boots echoed on the floor as I approached Patient One’s cage around seven the next evening. I’d waited and waited for his guard to let up, but it never did. Papa had just stepped out, and I was running out of time.
“Do you mind if I read to him?” I asked one of the guards, once my toes were at the red line. I held up a book, one Renfield had grabbed from my bedside table in his haste to pack for me. I’d found it in the bottom of my valise, one of the first things he threw in. Underwear and books—the fellow clearly had his priorities straight.
The guard on the left nodded. “Do what you like, miss. Can’t hurt. I was here when he spoke before. The old dead gent was quoting the good book at him.”
“I don’t have the Bible memorized,” I said as I let my eyes fall on Patient One. He looked up. Encouraged, I went on, holding forth the little red First Victorian volume. “But this book is about a soldier—Brigadier Etienne Gerard. It’s written by the same man who created Sherlock Holmes. My father read it over and over to me when I was a little girl. Have you ever heard of it?”
I waited. Nothing.
Opening the book with a sigh, the pages waxy beneath my fingertips, I started reading. I was praying that something I read, something I said, might start Patient One talking again. Even if we were being watched, I’d take what I could get.
But when I got to the part where Gerard consigns himself to death at the hands of the enemy for the sake of his beloved Emperor Napoleon, I started to tear up. “ ‘It was a beautiful world to be leaving. Very beautiful it was, and very sad to leave; but there are things more beautiful than that. The death that is died for the sake of others, honor, and duty, and loyalty, and love—these are the beauties far brighter than any which the eye can see.’ ”
I looked up, only to find that Patient One was leaning close to me with his head resting against the metal of the cage. He curled his hand around one of the bars, his eyes full of longing.
“You know that, don’t you?” I said gently. The decrepit man nodded.
“Hey, finish the story,” one of the guards piped up.
“Hush, Stone.” The other guard looked at his pocket watch and sighed. “Relief is ten minutes late.”
I hadn’t noticed, but my heart picked up. Maybe this was it.
“Let’s go see. Maybe they’re out in the lab. That one lady scientist is …” Stone looked at me and cleared his throat. “Right, then.”
And just like that, they left me. I waited until I heard their footsteps land outside the door before beginning my interrogation. “Is your name Smoke? What do you remember?”
Patient One kept quiet. He continued to watch me, though, and with renewed interest.
“Tell me about the tigers.” Not a word.
Finally I tried, “Tell me about Allister.”
It was as if someone had attached a live wire to the zombie in the metal box. He rocketed to his feet and started bowing his head back and forth, his eyes closing, his hands curling into bony fists. “No, no! Don’t put me out! I’m not dead!”
“What do you know?” I asked, surprised by the intensity of his reaction, but unwilling to give up. “Was it Allister’s tigers you saw?”
He started to strike his head repeatedly against the sides of the cage, hanging on to a corner joint, and I stepped forward and put my hands on the metal, afraid for him. I didn’t want him to bash his brains out, not before I could pick them clean of information. “Sir, please calm down! I need you to talk to me. I’m going to see Michael Allister, I need to know—”
Before I could complete my sentence, he went catatonic again. His pitted face was but inches from my own, and I stepped back, suddenly conscious of the fact that I’d almost touched him.
“Even tigers are afraid of the dead,” he ticked. “I didn’t know that before they put me out. I walked forever, and the tigers didn’t bother me. They were bright in the undergrowth, as bright as I ever made anything burn.”
By the devil, he’d really been in the preserve.
Patient One then tipped his head to the side and looked over my shoulder. “You have a visitor.”
I whirled around just in time to watch Coalhouse step through the doorway. He looked at me as he slammed the office door shut—and locked it. He was several yards away, but for some reason it felt like he was towering over me. Something in his face, his body, didn’t seem right. “Coalhouse? What are you doing here?”
“I’m not here to hurt you, Nora.” He removed a pistol from his waistband. “Move away from the prisoner. I just want him.”
Something didn’t seem right thus turned into the understatement of the century. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. Nothing made sense. After a second I felt myself backing up to the red line, but I couldn’t have said I made myself do it.
“Why?” It seemed like it took me ten years to find the word.
“Because it’s the only way.” Coalhouse stepped closer, aiming his gun up at the ceiling after a few yards. “He’s a danger.”
“Danger?” I felt stupid. Like repetition was all I was remotely capable of. “Of course he’s a danger.”
Coalhouse came ever nearer. “Move, Nora.”
I did—backward. My skirt hit the edge of the cage and I stopped. I was far too close to the prisoner, and Coalhouse was closing the distance, his eye narrowing as he apparently realized he could take advantage of my fear. He stepped right up to me, almost touching me, and I instinctively backed up even farther, my hands brushing the metal. Patient One didn’t move.
Doing my best to channel my childhood hero, I told him, “You can’t be thinking of taking him out of here.”
“I’m not.” He lowered the gun again, aiming a little beyond me. “I have to kill him.”
What? My body acted before my mind could—I curled my hands around the bars. I froze as I heard Patient One shifting closer to me, ducking down. He was close enough to bite me, if he grabbed my hand or my hair. He had his muzzle on, but he could rip it off if he wanted. I was sure of that now. He was obviously intelligent. I’d been wrong.
That was why I had to save him.
“Tell me why,” I said to Coalhouse. “Because this is insane. Where have you been?”
“No, it’s not.” Coalhouse stopped, withdrawing his aim again. He didn’t seem to want to endanger me, which I naturally took to be a good sign. “Insanity is keeping him alive. I see that now. They have all the samples they could ever want from him. They can keep his body. I don’t care.”
“But I was just talking to him. He can tell us where he came from! He knows something about—”
“That doesn’t matter. I got Hagens to talk.” I went still, prepared to listen. “I just never expected to hear what she told me.”
“What?”
“He’s a danger to everyone. The living and the dead. The Changed are going to come after him, under her orders. They know where he is now. I had to tell them.”
I felt myself go cold at the idea. Papa. The others. “We can stop that. We can evacuate the boat. Take him somewhere else.”
“Where?” Coalhouse shouted. “Because someone else wants him, too! Not the cops, not the army! And he can’t stay with the feds—someone’s been giving out information on Z-Comp! It was used to blackmail Hagens!”
That was new. New and terrifying. “You think a hacker got in somewhere? How do you even know she’s telling the—”
“No, listen. Hagens said they knew more than names and numbers. I think someone who worked with us has been talking.” He cocked his gun. “So Hagens can’t have him. Whoever’s been talking to her can’t have him. He’s not secure with the army, he’s not secure with the living, he’s not secure anywhere. Tom was right. He has to die. That will end this.”
Just then Patient One’s arm shot out. He shoved my shoulder. “Go!”
r /> My hands were still tight around the cage, and I ended up only bending forward. As I did, Coalhouse took a panicked, frightened shot. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Patient One arch backward and crash into the rear of the cage. My body seemed to burn with empathetic pain, pain so monumental that it caused me to sway and tasted like iron in my mouth.
Coalhouse shouted my name.
The pain didn’t stop.
My ears ringing, my vision blurry, I looked to the side, to see that the right shoulder of my dress was swiftly turning into a morass of blood. Slowly, I let go of the cage and reached over, grabbing whatever material my numb fingers could grip and pulling it downward. The soaked fabric of my dress and corset cover smeared red down my upper arm, trickled red onto my corset, the strap of my chemise.
It was just a flesh wound. The bullet had grazed me, leaving a surprisingly short furrow in my skin. It was raw and red and bleeding, the edges of it singed. But more than that …
It’d obliterated Bram’s bite marks.
It was that realization that caused me to fly at Coalhouse in a sudden seething rage and push him back with a soul-deep scream. Petite as I was, I caught him off guard as he was staring at me in horror. The gun went tumbling from his hand.
As I struck him again and again, ignoring the agony in my shoulder, I could hear someone pounding on the other side of the door, my father’s voice. Behind me, I could hear Patient One yelling. He wasn’t dead. Logic told me to run for the door, open it, let the showdown begin.
My heart, confused as it was, aggrieved as it was, told me otherwise.
Coalhouse was my friend and they might kill him for this. They wouldn’t ask questions if he tried to leave with Patient One, or if he tried to leave both of us behind bloody—they might just kill him.
Bram had to talk to him. To both of them. Something was dreadfully, deeply wrong. This wasn’t the Coalhouse I knew. Maybe he’d gotten into trouble, maybe somebody was forcing him to do this.
“Please stop!” I finally heard him begging. “I didn’t mean to! I’m so sorry!”
I did stop, my fingers gripping into his clothing. I fought back my tears. “What have you done?”
“What … Nora, please, the blood … I’m so sorry … I never miss … I thought he was attacking you …”
The smell. I staggered back, looking up at the dead boy. Coalhouse had obviously lost his mind, but he was still apologizing to me. We needed to make the boat safe, sort this out. I couldn’t just run away.
“I have to help you surrender,” I said shakily, “Or we have to call Bram.”
“No. I won’t, Nora. Not unless I kill P One first.”
He looked to his gun again, and I raced for it, picking it up before he could do anything. I opened it and dumped the bullets into my hand, making sure to get the chambered one. Realizing what I was doing, he shouted and tried to grab me, but I tossed the handful of bullets down the length of the room before he could. I could hear them pinging off the metal shingles, bouncing for what seemed an eternity. I took a quick inventory of the equipment in the room—computers, digital disks—and realized with relief that if there were any pens or long instruments, I didn’t know of them.
“Damn it, Nora!” Coalhouse yelled. “If he dies, people will be safe!”
I forced myself to take another step closer, the open gun held in front of me. “Could you really look a sane zombie in the eyes and shoot him?”
“Yes.” He sounded despondent. “I knew I couldn’t get him off the boat. I was just going to kill him. And I’m sorry for that.”
This was better. He was talking. Showing more empathy. I swallowed hard to overcome a wave of pain. “Let me call Bram, a—”
“No!” His expression crumpled. “Not him. I was trying so hard to be him …”
That at least made sense. A twisted sort of sense. As I looked back at Patient One to make sure he was okay, I realized that I needed to get Coalhouse off the boat entirely, away from everyone. Maybe then he would open up, tell me more. The only way to get him and Patient One out of the fire, at this point, was to shove them aside and sit in it myself. I’d promised Bram I wouldn’t do anything stupid, but Coalhouse, P One—they both needed me.
The idea that came to me for doing this was large and horrible and almost laughable. “I’m your only way out, then.”
Coalhouse blinked. “What?”
“Did you think you’d shoot him and they’d arrest you?”
Coalhouse nodded. “Yes. I was prepared to face that. Surrender. Figured I’d get someone to tell the Changed he was dead.”
Clapping one hand over my throbbing shoulder to stanch the blood, I pointed with the gun at the door. “Well, I don’t think you thought your cunning plan all the way through,” I said, using a fatherism. “There’s only one way off this ship, and that’s the way you came. You locked the guards out, but they’ll be closing in behind you. You sealed yourself in your own tomb. You did a crazy thing—the sort of thing a zombie losing his mind does. And now there’s blood.” I gestured. “My blood is on you.”
Coalhouse stared at me. I’d just hit a whole hell of a lot of nails on the head.
“They’re trying to arrest zombies, true. But what did Bram say? That last time the army was ready to kill? The scene you’re making right now, they might kill you. You hurt me, even just knock me out—I can’t help you talk your way out of this. And if you go for those bullets, I will fight you, and you will have no choice but to knock me out.”
For a moment he looked almost offended. “I would never hurt you …” He gripped his head. “Oh God, what have I done?”
I took a breath and tried it. “But if you take me as a hostage, they won’t.”
“I can’t do that!” he protested.
“You’ll have to,” I said. “Put the gun to my head and march me out. If you want to live, that is. They won’t risk shooting me.”
“What?” he barked, voice desperate. “Why?”
“Because you’re my friend. I want you to live. And you’re not thinking straight.”
“Stop saying that!”
“You’re not!” I screamed, thrusting the gun at him. “You want me to lie to you? You either stay here and let me talk you to safety, or you take me with you to get off the boat. Either way, you’re not killing P One.” Coalhouse swore. “Make your decision!”
He took the gun, his fingers trembling. “Fine.” He looked at me. “But I’m not going without him.”
“You can’t.”
“I have to, Nora.”
He was huge. I’d disarmed myself. I had nothing to threaten him with. And I’d gotten him this far. Before he could come up with another mad idea for eliminating Patient One, before he could go bullet-hunting, I capitulated and said, “We go together, then.”
He nodded, and moved toward Patient One’s cage. The zombie within appeared to be fine—he was so physically ruined that I couldn’t even tell where he’d been hit. Coalhouse used the gun to smash the lock. Pulling the zombie free, he produced a large handkerchief from his pocket and twisted it into a makeshift rope, using it to bind P One’s wrists behind him.
As he did, I steadied myself. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been in danger before. “Let me take my phone.”
“Hell no.” He turned around and aimed the empty gun at me. “Go.”
Blast. Nodding, I moved to the door and unlocked it. Showtime.
Outside was chaos. Guards were flanking the door, their weapons trained on us; several of them aimed upward when they saw me. The scientists were hugging the far wall, and cried out when it became clear to them what was going on.
“There’s a hostage! Hold your fire!”
Dad and Salvez rushed forward, and Ben held them back. “NoNo! Oh my God, what happened?”
“I’m okay, Papa,” I told him, my voice shaking just when I didn’t want it to. “It’s okay. We’re doing this for a reason.”
“What are you doing?” Salvez asked Coalhouse, barely able
to utter the words, his voice strangely airy. “What are you … you’re not …”
“I’m okay, Dr. Salvez,” I said. “Just let him go.” I put my hands up and walked forward, Coalhouse close behind me. He dragged Patient One along by his wrists. “Don’t try to stop him. You’ll hurt someone.”
“No one come any closer!” Coalhouse bellowed, his voice huge in the belly of the ship. “You hear me? I’ll let P One go if I have to!”
Looking at my father, I said, “I love you. I’ll be all right.” I knew they’d come after us the minute we left. I wasn’t throwing myself off a cliff, not entirely.
I hoped.
But my little plan worked. Gerard had taught me well. Hell, Wolfe had taught me well. With a lot of yelling, a lot of angry motions, Coalhouse managed to force me ahead of him and off the ship. Once we were on the dock he turned me around, making sure no one would try to take him out from behind. Then it was through the busy barricade, which parted like the Red Sea to let us pass, its members crying out at the sight of us. A lightning storm of flashes went off. Apparently I was going to be on the news again. I should just embrace it. Start an Aethernet site.
A broken-down carriage awaited us at the end of the barricade. Coalhouse pushed both me and the patient into the backseat, launched himself into the front, and took off down the dock at a terrifying pace. The minute we hit the surface streets I heard sirens, saw flashing lights out of every window, like holographic insects descending on a fallen carcass.
“You make one move, Nora …” He trailed off, concentrating on driving. He hadn’t secured me. I supposed that’s what he was thinking of.
“I won’t. I want to help you.” I reached out and squeezed Patient One’s sticky hand. It was disgusting, but I barely felt it. The man looked at me, and I saw fear in his eyes. I didn’t want him to lash out.
But neither could I let him go off, go free.
“The death that is died for others,” I reminded him as I slid my fingers away from his and put both hands over my shoulder to show Coalhouse I wasn’t going to try anything.