“You’re not worth the air it would take to form the words,” he coughed out. “Miss Dearly was coming here to talk. I was going to give her a choice.”
I jabbed him in the nose again, more carefully, with two knuckles—like an acupuncturist piercing just the right area. This time I got him to sob. “About what? The whole thing!”
Michael remained defiant. He didn’t open his mouth—only glared at me as if he wished he could burn me to ash where I sat. His silence infuriated me more than any insult could. Everything started to weigh on me—Nora being taken, not having an immediate plan, how fast we were racing through the city. Tom swerved sharply to the left, and Michael rocked in his seat. I didn’t. I was rigid with rage.
So calmly that it almost disturbed me, I grabbed him by the chin, like a parent might a mouthy child, and rolled his head back, forcing him to look up at me. My voice curled up on itself, condensing and becoming more powerful. In my bones, I knew I had no right to terrorize the living. Faced with Michael’s stubborn face, that ideal went out the window.
“Talk. Or I’ll get it elsewhere. There are people in the city who have it out for you. Enough to contact us, tell us to be on our guard.” Following a gut feeling, I added, “Enough to give us extremely detailed information about you, in addition to those letters. C minus in Logic? You like to waste your father’s money?”
Hearing this, Michael stopped struggling. He looked at the letters, and actually reached out and opened one, reading it. For a few long seconds he was absolutely still. Then something seemed to break behind his eyes. He lunged at me, his hands rising to strike me, suddenly incandescent with anger. “I don’t know how he found out who I am, but you think I won’t destroy the Ratcatcher for this? You think I won’t kill you? You won’t live after tonight, maggot! I’ll set off more bombs, I’ll burn the entire world down if I have to!”
I had my hands around his throat a nanosecond later. I forced his head back against the wall of the carriage, and he cried out. “Bombs?”
“I bombed the Roe bakery,” he choked out when he saw I had absolutely no intention of letting go. “She had to be punished. But no one was hurt. I did it after dark on a weekend for a reason!”
Good God. “Why was Nora coming here?”
“A choice!” he gagged. “At first I was going to make her watch me carve you up like a prize stag. But I changed that! I was going to give her the option to rescue you tonight, be mine in exchange for your life. I was still going to kill you, though. I still will!”
For the last twenty minutes my body had felt almost supernaturally hot. Now it felt like I was standing inside an arctic Hell. “What else did you masked bastards do?” A deeper level of fear flickered across his face when I mentioned the masks. I cut off just a fraction more air, and that fear compounded. “Remember, you need to breathe. I don’t. I can do this all night!”
Michael’s fingers clawed at the upholstery. “What masks? The letters prove nothing! And you think you can convince the police to arrest me? I’m speaking to ghosts right now, deadmeat! Nothing will stick!”
The rational, moral part of my brain screamed at me to stop, to let up, but the reptile in me, the caveman—the zombie—wanted to hit him again, wanted to see his blood foam. He’d meant to kill me. Torture Nora. He had tortured her best friend.
Just then a sort of chime went off all through the cab. Tom looked at the dash in confusion. “What’s that?”
“A call!” Michael said. “My parents. The restaurant probably called them!”
Fantastic. No longer trusting myself, I loosened my grip. “Chas, climb back here and keep little Lord Allister company.”
Chastity immediately obeyed, wiggling her way into the back headfirst. Michael screamed when she launched herself toward him, straddling his lap. “Hey, big boy! Like your shirt. Too baaad you ruined it by having, you know, blood.”
“You say anything about this,” I told him, “my fist meets your face again.” I pointed to the dash. “Take the call. Tell whoever it is that you’re out joyriding with some friends.”
“Connect,” he said, after clearing his throat. His troubled, pained voice became a little more controlled. “Who is it?”
“Michael? Sweetie?”
“Mother?” he asked, looking at me to make sure I got it. “Ma’am?”
“Where are you?”
“In town. Hanging out. Why?”
“I want you to come home, all right? Your father’s Code 12, and I want you to come home straightaway!”
“What’s wrong?”
“There are zombies outside!” Lady Allister sounded hysterical. “Hundreds of them! They’re marching toward the Talgua! They’re nearly in Lady Madroso’s backyard!”
Hang up, I mouthed at Allister.
“Okay. I’m coming, ma’am. Disconnect.” Before I could say anything, he asked, his voice still preternaturally calm, “What’s going on?”
“That’s got to be them.” I wasn’t wholly relieved, but at least we had something to go on. “The Changed.”
“You don’t think Coalhouse has bought in, do yooou?” Chas asked, worried. I’d filled them in via phone. “You don’t actually think he’s taking her there?”
“What else could he be doing?” said Tom. “If they were in danger he would have said, ‘Hey, people in danger, let’s help them out.’ Not march them out with a gun.” He pointed his finger back at Chas. “I told you this would happen someday.”
“The Changed?” Michael asked. “What’s that? Who’s ‘her’?”
Chas slumped against the door, and I said, “Group of angry, violent zombies—but not in the usual sense. And Nora’s been taken, along with the biter from the riot. Once she learns what you had in store for her, though, I’m sure she’ll look at it as a merry Sunday drive.”
“What?” Michael spat, eyes widening. “Why didn’t you say something? Why aren’t you off rescuing her?”
“Did you call everyone like I asked?”
“Yeah,” Tom said. “They’re meeting at The Failing Liver.”
“Looks like it’s time to send my five soldiers against their hundred after all. Get as many under control as we can before the troops descend.” And the idea almost made me sick. I didn’t have the whole of Company Z behind me anymore. And we didn’t know how many Changed there were now—maybe Lady Allister was exaggerating with her “hundreds,” maybe she was telling the truth.
“Five against …” Michael sounded like he wanted to rage again, but he quite literally swallowed it. “Is Miss Dearly there?”
“There’s a possibility.” When I said it, Tom and Chas’s faces fell. It was a heavy thing to say—it felt like I was declaring Coalhouse public enemy number one. Some sort of Outlander. “She has people on her trail.”
“But why aren’t you going after her, too? What’s so important about these people?”
“You’re not a zombie. You wouldn’t understand.” I wasn’t about to justify myself to him, but his questions weren’t healthy for either of us. Because I hated feeling helpless, hated feeling like I’d made the mistake of waiting too long yet again, and the Laz told me those problems could be partially solved if I ate him.
“Are you …” Michael seemed to be acting in fits and spurts, like a malfunctioning automaton. Catching his breath, he said, “Look. I can get us an army. For Miss Dearly’s sake.”
“What, your bird men?” Anger started welling within me again. “Like I’d let them anywhere near a zombie?”
“No.” He sniffed back some blood. “But my father has a private security force. A major one. If he thinks I’m with these ‘Changed,’ and in danger, he’ll send them. I’m his only heir. We’ll take care of them, then go after her.”
My first thought was a big old NO. Like I wanted to owe that worm anything? Like I wanted to give him the satisfaction? More than that—like I wanted to give a group of living people an invitation to open fire into a crowd of zombies? I was trying to avoid that. “I’m not
about to let your father kill my kind.”
“Trust me,” Michael said. “If I’m involved, and they don’t know where I am, they’ll only use nonlethal weapons. They wouldn’t risk harming me.”
There was probably some truth to that. And Patient One—what if Coalhouse was taking him up there? What if he got away? I needed more than a handful of men. More than averting another living–zombie showdown, if P One was there, I needed to make sure he ended up in our control.
And of course Nora trumped all other concerns.
I had to figure out a way to play this. The private security force of a lord was far from ideal, but at least they weren’t government. He could have a point.
“Only male heir is a huge deal up here,” Chas said. “I buy what he’s saying.”
“Okay.” I tried to steady myself, find my center. “We’ve got a few hours, tops. Drive to the meeting point.”
The street in front of The Failing Liver was a regular vintage carriage and gun show by the time we showed up. In addition to Samedi and Dr. Chase, I saw most of the Company Z crew—the few who’d regularly been on patrol. Tom and Chas had done their job well.
The sight was moving, honestly.
Holding Michael by the collar of his shirt like a mother dog might her pup, I stepped out of his carriage and found Samedi and Beryl at the Rolls, the hood up. Beryl was holding Sam’s head and a flashlight over part of the engine, while his hands worked elsewhere. He appeared to be connecting wires to a secondary battery.
Coming face-to-chest with Sam’s headless but ambulatory body, Michael cried out and twisted in my grasp. “What are you doing?” I asked Samedi, ignoring the boy like one might a fussy toddler.
“Putting her together,” he muttered. Mysterious-looking equipment was assembled at his feet, some of it bundled in twine-tied tarps. “I don’t even know if this is going to work.”
I looked to the side, and realized what the strange mountings over the front wheels of the car were for. They were newly occupied by steel. “Guns? Is that what was in the trunk?”
“Railguns,” he said, withdrawing his body. Beryl tossed him his head, and he put it on as she applied an electric drill to something on her side. “Crash course. Railguns are electromagnetic guns that fire projectiles. You’ve got five shots each. They’re basically missiles, but they’re not very large, seeing as this is a car and not a battle cruiser. The controls are under the dash. You can’t aim these things, but they’re going to rip a nasty hole in anyone they hit and scare the filth out of anyone they don’t.” He looked at the drill in his own hand. “Word of advice. Never drink anything green. Gives you weird ideas.”
“You’re a wizard, Sam.” A bloody insane wizard, but that was part of his gift. Digging into my pocket, I handed him the letter from the Ratcatcher, which he peered at curiously. As he did, I saw Ren approaching. “You’re not coming with, are you?”
“No, but do you need anything else?”
“Get in touch with a guy named Havelock Moncure.” I looked at Michael. “And watch over the Roes.”
“What’s the mission, Cap?” Franco called out.
“First leg, we’re catching up to the Changed. Tell them your home address.” Michael recited it, reluctantly. Keeping hold of him, I then addressed my troops, because I figured they deserved that much. “I appreciate all of you being here. We don’t know if Nora is up there, but at the very least, there should be zombies there tonight.”
“Aye. We’ll fight for our own,” Aberforth said. “We’re with you.”
“Sam, Beryl, you go with Tom and Chas in Michael’s carriage. Let me take the car.”
“Why don’t we go with you?” Samedi asked as he shut the trunk.
“Because Michael’s my red flag,” I told him. “Go.”
As everyone traded weapons, boarded their rides, and set out, I released Michael and brought out his phone. I started looking for his address book.
“No. We can’t call anybody.” Michael removed a hankie from his jacket and started cleaning himself up. “We have to go to Dad. In a manner of speaking.”
“We do not have time for this!” Finding his contacts, and a number labeled Father, I hit the call button and held the phone to my ear. It rang three times and went to voice.
“Code 12. You will not have the option of leaving a message. I will be home shortly.”
The phone hung up on me. I stared at it in confusion. “What’s Code 12?”
“Mom already told us that. That means he’s … he won’t answer her calls, he won’t answer mine!” Michael turned around. “You have to take me to Allister Genetics.”
“Fine! Just as long as you know you’re not staying there.” His mouth opened, and I leaned in close. “I’m not letting you out of my sight, and I’m not leaving you here. Because I’d have to park you with the Roes, and I’d have to tell them why they shouldn’t let you go.”
Michael’s eyes widened. He shut up.
“Fast learner. Let’s drive.”
“Coalhouse, please listen to me!” I shouted above the wail of the sirens.
“Shut up!”
As he tore down a side street, I tried to think. New London was still new to him. He couldn’t know it well. He’d get himself caught up in a cul-de-sac or something eventually, unless I helped him. I knew the cops or the army might try to seal off the city, or at least the main roads.
Of course, the Siege proved … okay. I couldn’t expect anything from them.
Coalhouse swerved sharply to the left, tumbling me against Patient One in the dark. I screamed out of true animal fear and fought my way off him. My wrist had brushed the grill on his muzzle. “Be careful!”
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that!” Coalhouse grunted, sending me flying in the opposite direction as he took a curb on the corner. Patient One thrust out his arms and caught himself before he could hit me, his face only inches from my own, the strange geometry of his muzzle brought out by a passing streetlight.
“Thank you.” I had to keep him sane. I had to keep acknowledging his heroic efforts, in hopes that he’d keep making them. Raising my voice, I entreated, “You’re going to get someone killed!”
“Then tell me where to go!”
Patient One pulled himself back, retreating like a trapdoor spider into its hole, compressing himself into the narrow space of carriage floor at the foot of the rear seat. Once he was safely away from me, I went for the button that’d lower my window, knowing I needed to minimize the smell of my blood. “You’re off the boat now. You can stop this. Even if you just pull over and let us out. I’ll tell you how to get away! Buy you time!”
“No way!” Coalhouse glanced into the rearview mirror. I could see red and blue lights flashing in it. “I’ll let you out, but not him!”
“Then I won’t go!” It was becoming harder and harder to say, even though I felt more and more strongly about it with each passing moment.
“Then tell me where to bloody turn!” On the street in front of us a couple dove out of the way of his oncoming carriage.
I looked out the windows but couldn’t even begin to fashion a mental map of where we were. The buildings outside were seedy, the streets narrow and dirty. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I think we’re heading north.”
Something brushed my ankle, and I let out a cry. When P One looked up at me and softly said, “Go,” guilt like a small sun burned off the remaining fog of my fear.
“I won’t leave you,” I promised. And with that I found a seat belt and strapped myself in.
Just in time, too. When Coalhouse glanced back at me and understood I would neither help nor hinder him, he set his body resolutely forward and punched down the accelerator. I found myself viewing the ensuing chase like a scene from one of my action-filled holographic movies, not something I was actually part of. For a dead guy with no depth perception, Coalhouse was an amazing driver. Some combination of sheer dumb luck and astonishing skill led to him making correct directional choices a
gain and again. Soon the streets were growing emptier, broader, signs that we were headed toward the highway. By the time we started passing small cottages and suburbs full of brick houses with pokey lawns, I knew we were on our way out of the city.
The moment we spun off the final exit ramp and our tires hit the unlighted highway, Coalhouse killed his lights and floored it. My skin prickled as we plunged ahead into the darkness, soon leaving behind the lights of the coppers and their exterior speakers, which had been chanting at us, like a prayer, “Surrender, pull over! Surrender, pull over!”
Wrenching my restrained body around, I turned to look fully out of the back window as we lost them. I even placed a hand on the glass, as stupid and invisible as it might’ve been. I wished fervently for a lighter to signal with, a flare, the screen of my phone, anything, but I had nothing.
Soon I could no longer see them, and it didn’t matter.
It seemed we drove for days after the lights of the pursuing officers went dead behind us, when likely it was only hours. For the first half hour we were all silent. I think it hit us then—exactly what had happened. What we’d done.
Coalhouse lowered his window. I tore off a section of my petticoat and tried to tie it around my shoulder, pain zinging down my arm. I had to use my teeth to hold one end of the improvised bandage.
Coalhouse must have watched me, because he finally spoke. “I can’t believe I did that. I’m so sorry.”
I was relieved to hear those words. He was a good guy, a hero, and I didn’t want to think that I might have made a mistake trusting him, after all.
“We have to stop,” I said. “Find a way to get in touch with someone. Tom, Chas—”
“I can’t.” He hit the steering wheel, hard. “I can’t go back after this!”
He was right. And it was pointless to try to convince him to take us back to the city, at least not now. I knew that. “Get off at any small town. Go to the sheriff. Turn yourself in. Small town, fewer people …”
And just like that he was off. He was nearly crying, shaking. “I was just trying to complete the mission. But I don’t know what to do now. I don’t want to kill him, Nora. I don’t. And I’m so sorry about your arm …”