"Well, yes, darling. That's life. In Haven, anyway. Though it has to be said that Marcus and David don't have a single social grace between them. I mean, honestly, they've been ordering me about like a bloody servant. I'd widdle in their wine, but with the vintages they prefer, they'd probably never notice."
"Maybe you can tell us why the DeWitts have such a hold over the Council just now," said Fisher. "They don't normally have this much influence."
"Ah, yes. It seems there's a great deal of perishable goods currently waiting to be unloaded from the boats in the harbor. Tons and tons of it. And an awful lot of it could go off, really soon, if it isn't unloaded in a hurry. The DeWitts are currently paying for widespread preservation spells, but if they have to keep that up much longer, the cost will eat up all their profits. So dear David and Marcus are caught between a rock and a descending boot. If they let up on the spells, they'll be left with nothing but tons of rotting food. And if they don't supply that food, in good condition, they stand to lose not only oodles and oodles of money, but also a whole bunch of very important contracts throughout the city. So they really can't afford to allow anything to interfere with unloading the ships."
"And of course the dockers know all about this," said Hawk.
"Oh, of course, darling. Anyway, since the Council doesn't want to face a whole city full of hungry people, with the prospect of civil unrest and even riots, for now what the DeWitts want, the DeWitts get. Bend over and smile, darlings. It'll all be over before you know it."
"How are the DeWitts controlling so many zombies at once?" asked Fisher, on the grounds that changing the subject had to be a good idea.
"They've come into possession of some remarkable magical artifact," said Mistique, tossing her long hair thoughtfully. "Paid a hell of a lot for it, too. Apparently it makes controlling any number of zombies a piece of cake. I don't know what it is. They won't let me see it. They're also being very cagey about who they got it from. Don't blame them. Nothing good ever came from dealing with necromancers."
"Could they really get away with replacing the workforce with zombies?" asked Hawk.
"I don't see why not," said Fisher. "Zombies wear out the longer and harder you work them, but there's never any shortage of corpses in Haven to replace them. In fact, the Council would probably approve. All the main cemeteries have been full for years, and the incinerators are working twenty-four-hour shifts."
"But what about the dockworkers and their families?" asked Hawk. "Does no one care what happens to them?"
"This is Haven, darling," said Mistique, not unkindly.
"And the DeWitts are running a business, not a charity," said a cold voice bearing down on them. The three of them looked around to see the commander of the DeWitts' private guards. He crashed to a halt before them, and took it in turns to favor each of them with his glare. Big, broad, and muscular, he would have looked really impressive and menacing if he hadn't been wearing the DeWitt official private guard uniform. Banana yellow with bloodred piping, topped with a rich purple cloak. He looked very much like a bruise on legs. Hawk and Fisher had to bite their lips.
"Hello, Commander Foy," said Mistique. "Love the outfit."
"Trust me," said Fisher. "You are entirely alone in that."
"I think my retinas are burning out," said Hawk.
"Hush," said Fisher. "What do you want with us, Foy?"
"Commander Foy! I run things here, and don't you forget it!" He glared at Hawk and Fisher, who still couldn't meet his eyes. The commander sniffed loudly. "The DeWitts understand that this is not the kind of work the city Guard are used to undertaking. So, to… sweeten the medicine, the DeWitts have most kindly authorized me to assure all of you that there will be a substantial bonus, to be paid at the end of the day. A very substantial bonus."
"Bribe money," said Fisher. "Why am I not surprised?"
"We're not taking it," said Hawk.
"Hold everything," said Fisher immediately. "We haven't heard how much it is yet."
"We don't need their blood money," said Hawk.
"Hey, we're going to be doing the work anyway, and you can bet no one else will turn it down."
"We're not taking it!" Hawk yelled.
Fisher looked at Foy. "We're not taking it. But I'll bet we're the only ones."
"No bet," said yet another voice, close at hand. This turned out to be Constable Murdoch. He and his younger brother patrolled the docks. Hawk and Fisher knew them vaguely, from cooperating on a few cases together. The older brother was currently standing face-to-face with Commander Foy, glaring right into the man's eyes, while his younger brother stood impassively at his side, as always. "I'm not taking any part in this, and neither is my brother," said Murdoch. "We're local. Grew up in the Devil's Hook. Our dad worked the docks till the strain of it killed him. Some of those strikers are our friends and neighbors and family. We'll not raise a hand against them." He glared at Commander Foy. "We're not the only ones, either. Your bosses don't have enough money to make us fight our own kind. Not over something like this."
"It may not come to fighting," said Hawk. "If we're a strong enough presence…"
"They'll fight," said Murdoch. "You know they'll fight. They've nothing else left."
"We're the law," Hawk said slowly. "We're not supposed to choose which laws we'll uphold, and which we won't."
Murdoch snorted. "That's rich, coming from you, Captain. Everyone knows your reputation. You bend and break the law every day."
"In pursuit of justice."
"Where's the justice here?" said Murdoch. He turned to his brother. "Come on. We're leaving."
"And if they fire you?" said Fisher.
Murdoch shrugged calmly. "Then we'll join the striking dockers. And the next time there's trouble here, and you can bet there'll be a next time, the faces you see over raised weapons might just be ours. What will you do then, Captains?"
He didn't wait for an answer. The Murdoch brothers made their way out of the courtyard, and no one tried to stop them. But no one else followed them. Commander Foy started to say something cutting, and then the words died in his mouth as Hawk gave him a hard look. Foy decided he had urgent business elsewhere, and went off to look for it, trying not to hurry too obviously. Fisher sniffed, and took her hand away from her sword. She looked at Hawk.
"Murdoch had a point. Where is the justice in what we're doing here?"
"I don't know," said Hawk, and suddenly he sounded very tired. "Part of me wants to walk right out of here with the Murdochs, but… the law here's very clear. Mob violence has no place in business disputes. If we stay… maybe we can help keep the violence from getting out of hand. Sometimes you have to settle for the lesser of two evils. But there's nothing says we have to like it."
The general growl of conversation among the Guards died away as the DeWitts came back out onto their balcony, and looked down like generals surveying their troops. As Foy had intimated, the DeWitts began by committing themselves to a massive bonus, to be paid once the Guards' work was done. Most of the Guards nodded acceptance happily enough. A few even cheered.
"The strikers have refused our lawful orders to leave the docks," said Marcus DeWitt. "You will make them leave, by whatever means necessary."
"Be careful once you get onto the harborside," said David. "Some of the structures aren't very safe."
There was a brief murmur of dark amusement among the Guards. The DeWitts seemed entirely unaware of the irony in what had just been said.
"Do your duty, Guardsmen," said Marcus flatly. "Your city has need of you."
There were a few more cheers, but the majority of the Guards just turned and left the cobbled yard, heading to the docks to do their job.
The first light of true morning spread slowly across the docks as the Guards marched down the harborside to face the striking dockers. Most of the red was gone from the skies, and a thin mist had sprung up, a pearl gray cloud that swallowed up the ships in the harbor, and wrapped itself around the two fact
ions as though cutting them off from the rest of the world. As though nothing mattered but what the dockers and the Guard would do next. They were in their own little world now, with no escape from the violent clash that was growing more real and more inevitable with every moment.
The harborside shook under the massed thunder of booted feet as the Guards bore down on the gathered strikers. The dockers fell silent, but made no move to fall back or disperse. They stood close together, bodies tense with anticipation, their faces full of silent hate and determination. The Guards crashed to a halt facing the strikers, and for a long, long moment both sides just stood and looked at each other. Both sides had weapons in their hands.
In the midst of his fellow Guards, Hawk hefted his axe uneasily. Even now a few calm words from either side might have stopped this. A little give and take from both sides, a few gestures of goodwill, and they could all have turned aside from the terrible thing waiting to happen. But no one was interested in compromise. Hawk looked away, his gaze moving almost desperately across the ships' masts rising above the mists like naked trees, and a sudden surge of wanderlust hit him, almost like pain. He felt an almost physical need to board one of those ships and just sail away. Not just from this particularly unpleasant duty, but from Haven, and all its corrupting evils. To start a new life somewhere else, to be someone else, someone cleaner… Or perhaps just keep traveling. Hawk shook his head angrily. He'd never run away from a hard decision before, and he wasn't about to start now.
He looked at the striking dockers, and they looked back, grim and cold, knowing they were damned, whatever happened. The tension on the docks was so real and focused now, it almost had a cutting edge of its own. The violence was very close, a scent of sweat and adrenaline, a taste of blood in the mouth. Of men preparing to fight, to bleed and maybe die, because they had turned away from every other option. Because it was time.
Hawk looked away again, as though by his refusal to take part, he could prevent the gathering anticipation. Like a child who thinks that if he can't see it, it isn't happening. He studied the zombies, still moving slowly but purposefully back and forth, lifting and carrying and even operating the simple cranes with silent, unwavering precision. Once set in motion, they would work day and night, with no need to stop for rest or food or sleep. They felt no pain or weariness, and nothing short of major damage or actual falling apart would stop or even slow them down. Whoever they might have been in life no longer mattered. They were just machines now, unfeeling limbs and muscles moving to another's will.
They still had their drawbacks. They would perform a task unceasingly, but if conditions changed, the dead were incapable of adapting to that change. They couldn't cope with even the simplest forms of the unexpected. They had physical problems, too. They were dead, after all, and while zombification slowed the processes of corruption, it couldn't stop them completely. As a result, all the zombies were in varying stages of decay. Some had no eyes and could not see, and were limited to only the simplest tasks. Sometimes an unexpected weight or strain would tear a rotted arm or hand completely away. The zombie would mindlessly continue in its work, incapable of realizing it no longer had enough limbs to carry the job out. Some bodies were so far gone, they were literally strapped together with cords and leather thongs to keep them from falling apart.
A few still bore recent autopsy scars, or even the wounds that had killed them. And a few had obviously been stitched together from ill-assorted spare parts. The zombie spell could get a lot of work out of a dead body. Hawk looked hard, but didn't recognize any of the dead faces. He wasn't sure what he would or could have done if he had.
Later, no one was sure how it had started. Maybe somebody said or did something, or someone else thought they did. It didn't matter. Suddenly both sides surged forward and slammed together in the middle of the harborside, and everyone was screaming and fighting in one great milling mass, desperate to hurt and punish the enemy that made this fight necessary. Steel hooks and crowbars faced off against swords and axes, blood splashed on the ground among the stamping feet, and no one had any interest in quarter or mercy. Because if one side or the other did back down, everyone knew that side would never be taken seriously again. So they fought with savage fury, spitting their hatred into one another's faces, and within moments, the first dead went crashing to the bloody ground.
Hawk and Fisher fought with axe and sword and practiced skill. They had to. The dockers would have killed them if they'd hesitated. Hawk parried desperate blows and struck back with vicious precision, and howling men and women fell before him. There was no time to tell whether he'd killed them. The Guards and strikers surged back and forth, the two sides being forced apart into small clashes of fighting men and women as the situation grew increasingly confused. There was no room or time for tactics or planning, just the vicious thrust and parry from every side, and the howling voices of the victorious and the wounded. The strikers outnumbered the Guard, but the Guards were better trained and armed. Blood flew in the air, spattering those around. The wounded on the ground tried to drag themselves away between the stamping feet. And still both sides pressed forward, struggling in the milling chaos to reach their hated enemy.
All too soon, slowly but inevitably the. strikers began to give ground, the rage and desperation in their hearts no match for an army of well-trained, well-armed fighters. The Guards' swords and axes rose and fell with methodical brutality as they moved slowly forward, foot by foot, hacking and thrusting, shoulder to shoulder now as they imposed shape and meaning on the battle. They beat and drove the strikers back, and Hawk and Fisher were right there with them. Individual strikers fell wounded, or were separated from their fellows, and some Guards took the opportunity to take out their anger on those defenseless unfortunates. Hawk saw a constable cut down a man armed only with the splintered remains of a wooden club, and then all the Guards nearby moved in to kick the man to death.
The strikers broke, and turned and ran, and the Guards ran after them, bloodlust thrumming in their heads. They cut down men and women from behind, and laughed as they did it. The battle was over, but the violence had its own impetus now, and would not be denied. Hawk saw one Guard corner a lone woman striker against a wall. She was visibly pregnant, driven to fight by desperation and need, her swelling belly in contrast to her undernourished frame. She had two knitting needles in her hands, the wood roughly sharpened into points. She quickly realized there was nowhere for her to run, and she dropped the needles and showed the Guard her empty hands, but he didn't care. He was breathing hard, and grinning, and his eyes were very bright. He put away his sword and drew his nightstick from his belt, and struck her across the swollen belly. She cried out, thrown back against the wall behind her, and he hit her across the belly again. His soft laughter was drowned out by her screams as he drew back his arm to hit her again.
Hawk threw himself on the Guard. He grabbed the man, swung him around, and hit him in the face with all his strength. The Guard's mouth and nose exploded in a cloud of blood. He would have fallen, but Hawk grabbed him by the tunic front and held him up. He put away his axe, and coldly and methodically he set about beating the Guard to death with his bare hands. The Guard struggled at first, and then he screamed, but Hawk didn't care. In the end, Fisher had to drag Hawk off the man by brute force. He was breathing hard, and didn't seem to recognize her for a moment. The Guard lay unmoving on the ground, a bloody mess but still alive. The pregnant woman had disappeared. Fisher looked quickly around to see if anyone had noticed, but the other Guards were still pursuing the retreating strikers. Which was just as well. Fisher was sure none of the other Guards would have understood. Hawk looked at the blood on his hands, as though unsure as to how it got there.
"It's over, Hawk," said Fisher. "The others can deal with the mopping up. Let's get out of here."
"This is Haven," said Hawk, too tired even to be bitter. "Everywhere is just like this."
And that was when everything really went to hell.
>
The zombies suddenly went insane, abandoning their tasks to attack every living thing in sight. They swarmed off the ships and along the harborside, unliving arms wielding steel hooks and crowbars, and threw themselves on Guards and strikers alike. Those without weapons tore at the living with savage teeth and clawed hands. There were hundreds of them, more than a match for the Guards and the strikers put together, and the living were already exhausted from the earlier fighting. The zombies tore a bloody path through them, hitting the living from all sides, and the remaining Guards and strikers quickly forgot their differences in the name of survival. People who'd been trying to kill each other only moments before now stood shoulder to shoulder and back to back in the face of a far more terrible enemy. .
The zombies fell on the living with silent fury, tearing warm flesh with cold hands, wielding their improvised weapons with unnatural strength. Men and women fell howling as the dead bludgeoned them to the bloody ground, and tore them to pieces. The Guards and the strikers fought back as best they could, but what would normally have been deadly blows had no effect on zombies. Cutting off or destroying the head effectively blinded them, but the bodies still fought on, clawed hands reaching out for the warmth of living flesh. Complete dismemberment was the only way to really stop a zombie, and in the press of stamping, shrieking bodies, that was hard and dangerous work. Everywhere men and women screamed in horror as the dead dragged them down, cold hands tearing horrid furrows in yielding flesh. But neither the Guards nor the strikers made any attempt to turn and run. They stood their ground and fought back with grim determination. They all knew that only they stood between the suddenly murderous zombies and the defenseless family homes beyond the docks. If the zombies broke through, and on into the Devil's Hook and beyond, the dead would turn the crowded tenements into one great slaughterhouse.
Hawk and Fisher fought side by side, cutting down any zombie that came near them. Hawk's axe was proof against some magics, and he quickly discovered that a blow from his axe could at least briefly interrupt the magic animating the dead. He sent the zombies crashing to the ground again and again, and Fisher would then move in and dismember the zombie with her sword before it could rise again. It was hard, butcher's work, and there seemed no end to it. Hawk and Fisher fought on, fatigue building in their aching arms and backs as they swung their weapons over and over. Undead faces glared at them from every side, teeth snapping like traps in rotting faces. The recently killed rose up again, all along the harborside, and the line between the raging dead and the helpless families of the Hook grew steadily thinner.