Dearly, Beloved Part 31

Looking around at the party, the dead dancing amidst the flames that might've cremated them and the trees that might've fed the blaze, I lowered my voice and said, "Look, is that what you're really worried about right now?"

"You don't get it." The boy reached up to finger his thinning hair and then violently cast his arm down. "No one ever notices when I do something good. They only notice when I do something they think is wrong. My parents used to do the same thing; that's why I lied about my age and went into the army. Even when I fight with Tom about the fact that he made me this way, that he killed me, everyone just rolls their eyes and says, 'Get over it. You're stupid.' I helped Miss Roe, and she doesn't care. They don't respect me, they don't care about me. No one does."

I could sympathize with him, and yet I remained unmoved. "You have to talk to Hagens tonight," I tried to tell him. "For all our sakes."

"Oh, am I on a schedule?" He turned around and advanced on me. This time I didn't step back. "You just want to use me, too? Like the others? Like the army?"

"You came here to help!"

Coalhouse lifted his hand again, and just as swiftly dropped it. He looked at it, his expression slack, before muttering, "I don't know why I came here." And with that, he marched back toward the fire. Having no other option, I trotted after him like a beaten but loyal dog.

Only to encounter the very woman I wished not to see.

Hagens was waiting for us-or rather, Coalhouse. At the sound of her voice, nearly vibrating with anger, I shrank back, hoping not to attract her attention. "Last chance for you to come clean. You tell the truth, I let you run before I start shooting."

"Truth about what?" Coalhouse groused.

"The army. Today. Did you bring them? Is this all part of some plot?"

"No. They didn't do anything, did they?" Coalhouse walked closer to her and sat down on the tree again, as casually as anything-though I could hear the tightness in his voice. "Except make fools of us."

Hagens stepped forward and took him by the sleeve, pulling him once more to his feet. "'Didn't do anything'? They took some of our people. They're going to interrogate them, charge them!"

"So? Don't you trust your own people not to talk? They didn't give you up."

"I don't trust the humans that'll try to make them." She looked at the dying embers ringing the edge of the fire pit, her face demonic by their light. "We have to act. Now. Before it all comes undone."

"What do you mean?" Coalhouse's tone grew steadier. I remained standing and still.

Hagens released Coalhouse and sat herself. She reached into the pocket of her waistcoat and pulled out a cigarette, leaning into the circle of coals to light it. As she did, I was surprised to see that her hands were shaking. "We have to get Smoke. Within the next few nights. I'd hoped for more time, but there is none. Martira's death might be investigated. The others might spill."

"Why do you want him?"

Hagens took a draw of her cigarette. "That stuff on Smoke-the royals don't like printed materials. Where'd you get it?"

"They can still print stuff off. Had to hang around the s.h.i.+p for hours. Finally Salvez left his station open. Could only get a few things." Coalhouse made a rolling, tickling sound in his throat. "As usual, no one noticed me. But do you even know where he is? Where they moved him?"

This question gave Hagens pause. She shook her head, the motion sharp. "No."

"He's on the Erika." Upon hearing this, she turned her face fully to his. "You know how many guards are on him? When they rotate out? How many docs and techs are around? I do. And I'll tell you whatever you want to know, as long as you do the same."

Hagens stared at Coalhouse, and I thought I must be looking at him the same way-not just wonderingly, but with a terrible, sick sort of fear. He'd just told her where the prisoner was. Surely that was too much to give away, even to get information in return. My inner cagey police dealer greatly disapproved.

But at least he was acting. Maybe this was it.

"We were in the army together, Hagens." He gestured at his chest. "Anyone else here been beside you in battle? Can anyone else here help you like I can?"

"No." Releasing a puff of smoke, Hagens shut her eyes. "Fine. I'll tell you everything."

"Good. Start with why you want him so bad."

Hagens looked at her cigarette and threw it into the fire pit. She answered in a soft tone, one almost submissive-truly scared. I'd never imagined such a sound could exist. "To protect him. And Company Z. And all zombies."

Coalhouse blinked on the one side. "What?"

"I never meant to join up with another group, least of all one like this." She looked at the boy. "Until about a month ago I was going my own way. Didn't even have a room anywhere-spent twelve hours a day in a pub by what would become the Morgue. The Failing Liver. Looking back on it now, I want to kick myself for being so idle, but ... I didn't want to lift a finger to help the living. Not after what they did. I was just sitting around with my anger."

"What changed?"

"One night I was approached by some very odd toffs. Living." I crept closer, listening in. "They said there was a zombie they wanted to get their hands on. Said they'd pay me good money to bring him to another location. Acted like, I don't know ... they had a debt they wanted to collect, maybe? And they just didn't want to face a zombie on their own? This was before he bit anyone, mind. No one knew he was carrying a different strain. No one knew who the h.e.l.l he was."

"What? Someone offered you a bounty for him?"

"Exactly. Anyway, I told them the only kindness a human could expect from me was to be left alone. So their tactics changed, and the offer went from money to blood." She scowled. "They brought out one of those digital readers and started showing me pictures of my Company Z brothers and sisters-all survivors of the December troubles. They couldn't have been picked at random from a public list of us. Said they'd start killing them one by one unless I did what they wanted. And then I knew they had to be army. Only someone who worked with Company Z would know all the details those guys knew-Griswold's story about his d.a.m.n teddy bear, Amed being a little touched in the head, Sweet's closet full of clothes. The stuff we used to share around campfires and in the canteen."

"Why didn't you tell anybody?"

She shrugged. "At that point I thought maybe I could just give in and take care of it. Because Smoke was nothing to me, but those pictures were. Griswold's was there. Even him I feared for, was ready to sacrifice a stranger for. And what's the word of one zombie who's been burned by the army before? Who'd believe me?"

Coalhouse frowned. "Go on."

"They had a lot of info on Smoke, too. Whole dossier. He'd joined up with a group of zombies called the Changed. The toffs couldn't go in themselves, and didn't want to risk a firefight in the middle of New London. So I joined up. They were taking in anyone, it wasn't hard. Couple weeks went by before I got an opportunity-the execution. Martira wanted to protest there because of the exposure. I volunteered, said we should take Smoke, put a sign in his hand. Told the toffs they could pick him up." She laughed roughly, almost crazily. "Do you know what it was like, marching around, protesting at the death of the person who caused all this?"

"The exchange went bad?"

"Yeah. Managed to locate them, get him relatively alone. But when he saw them, he freaked. I'd never seen him move that much." She gestured angrily. "He bit people trying to get away. Riot happened. Police carted him off. I figured that was the end of it, that the army would get him from the cops. I tried to concentrate on getting the Changed out of New London-I was afraid the army might try to destroy evidence of what they did. Namely, us. Martira finally went along with it after that scene on the docks. But ... it wasn't over."

"How do you mean?"

"Claudia told me about the new strain, and I realized what the army had in its possession. A new form of the Laz, raring to go. I started to think about getting him back, but then ... the toffs came here. To the camp. They knew where I was. They told me there might be another chance to get Smoke-that they had word he was being moved from police custody into army custody. That I wasn't done working for them yet. And that's when I knew." She sighed, the sound shaky. "They aren't army. It's somebody else, outside, that wants him. Someone who's got access to army info. Someone who can follow me miles outside the city. Someone who wants to remain behind the scenes."

Coalhouse was silent, shocked. For lack of anything else to comfort me, I sent my fingers through my leaves and gathered them close to my body.

"And so I knew what I had to do." Hagens looked at Coalhouse. "Free Smoke immediately, no matter what. I gave Martira one last chance. The Dearly brat was up here. I told Martira if we kidnapped her, we could use her to get Smoke back. She didn't agree, so she had to go-because I needed her people. And honestly? All of those people will probably die in getting Smoke back. The living guarding him will die. Members of Z-Comp. But they're no longer important. What's important is protecting Smoke, and having him protect us. He's the ultimate weapon. I can't leave him in human hands. I won't. I won't let the living use zombies as p.a.w.ns anymore."

Hagens stood. I stared at her, almost unthinking. Martira, Claudia-they'd both been killed for this.

"The antihuman attacks going on in the city-is that you? The people in bird masks?"

Hagens edged her head backward, taken by surprise. "What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

Coalhouse cleared his throat. "Nothing. Piece that doesn't fit." The boy was silent for a second. "What's your idea, then? You still want Nora?"

"No. No time. If he's on the boat, like you say he is?" She turned back. "We go get him. All of us. Then we use him as a s.h.i.+eld to get as far north as we can. Make a safe place for the undead."

Coalhouse considered. "If I help-you let me decide what gets told when. Our comrades need to know what's going on. And if somebody in the army's giving out information, somebody who used to be Z-Comp ... they need to be found."

Hagens capitulated, her head bobbing. "You do this for me, I'll make you second in command." For a second her tone softened again. "You have no idea how long I've had to keep silent."

"I'll need to go back and ready some things."

"Fine. At this point, even if you tell-that doesn't change what we're going to do. Tomorrow we start for New London."

After an eternal minute Coalhouse nodded, the motion grave. Hagens returned the sign and stalked away into the night without another word. The deal was wordlessly arranged, signed with bare physical motions.

As she left, my fists tightened, the sharp, green scent of crushed leaves entering my nose. He'd done it. His ways had been weird, but he'd done it.

"You need to come with me," Coalhouse said before I could think of speaking. "I swear, someone will come back for the others. But you need to come right now."

I nodded slowly, my mouth still unmoving. Words no longer mattered. I only wanted, in that moment, for him to bring down upon her head a force like a tidal wave, like a crus.h.i.+ng wall of water. She'd killed my sisters. She was willing to lie, to kill others.

For the first time, I wanted to see somebody die.

"Who are we going to tell first?" I asked, waiting for him to stand.

"No one."

At first I thought I hadn't heard right. "We have to tell someone. You got everything out of her."

"No. We don't. Not yet." His expression was darkly meditative. As I watched, he rose, brus.h.i.+ng his hands off on his trousers, adjusting his s.h.i.+rt-like he was preparing to drive to a girl's house to court her. The motions were strange to behold. It was like he wasn't sure what to do and was buying time.

No. No more of this.

"Sit down," I said firmly.

Coalhouse snorted softly. "We don't have time for this-"

I shoved him violently in the chest, sending him sprawling over the tree. He landed so heavily that he couldn't immediately recover, which gave me enough time to get to him, falling to my knees beside his jagged face.

"You will listen to me," I told him, my voice not my own. "You will listen to me, and you will hear what I say-or so help me G.o.d, I will scream."

Coalhouse stared at me. "What are you doing?"

"I don't understand you," I said, putting a hand on his chest. "One moment you act like a double agent, the next moment you act like a fool. Like you're on their side. I don't know what you're lying about anymore!"

"Laur-"

"Do you even have a plan? What are you doing here?"

Coalhouse wriggled a bit. "Laura, you're acting like a fool."

"Don't tell me you don't know!" My cry, though hushed, seemed to contain ten thousand souls' worth of anger. I knew one of those souls was Martira's.

Coalhouse looked into my eyes. "I got what I needed. I'll go back to New London, figure out what to do. And you need to come with me, so you'll be safe!"

I laughed. I actually laughed. "Like I believe you."

"What are you talking about?" Coalhouse gestured in the direction Hagens had gone. "What, you think I'm really siding with her?"

"Then who are you going to tell? What are you going to do?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I'm going to take care of it myself!"

For the first time, I felt my plants. They were negative s.p.a.ces, places where my body couldn't respond to the rage now trying to burn its way through my dead nervous system. "Take care of it?" I asked hoa.r.s.ely, rising. "She murdered my sisters! She's lied to everybody!" I looked back to the camp. "And she's going to get them killed!"

"And I'll take care of that, too! Trust me!"

"How? You just told her where Smoke is! There are innocent people on those boats!" I argued. "And you're still trying to sneak around?"

Coalhouse grabbed me by the shoulders. "Shut up!" he said, almost helplessly. "I'm on your side. All I want is for everyone to be safe. But I am also going to prove a point."

I looked into his single eye, trying to find compa.s.sion there, a shred of humanity, something. "Are you trying to use us for glory? Use my dead sisters to prove a 'point'?"

After two seconds of staring, Coalhouse yanked me closer and kissed me, his lips cold and somehow sloppy-untrained, untalented, too eager.

Disgust flooded me, made the roots burrowing under my skin feel like they were trying to curl. Pulling away from him, I spat, though I had nothing to spit with. Upon my withdrawal, Coalhouse had looked almost hopeful; now his eye narrowed.

"You're worthless." I touched my mouth and shuddered. "I bet Hagens lied to you, too. I was stupid to trust you!"

The boy roared down at me, "You're not the first!" And with that he was gone, stomping toward his carriage.

I let him go. I'd never had him to begin with.

27.

NORA.

When I told Salvez I was being forced to move in, he stared at me wearily for a moment before stepping out from behind his workstation. "I'll go get another gurney from upstairs."

"You see what you have me doing?" I asked Bram as Salvez tottered away. "Sleeping on a gurney. Do I get a toe tag, too?"

"You're here so you don't get one," he said. He'd driven me from the house in sullen silence, his silvery eyes troubled.

"Look," I said, keeping my voice low. "I don't want to act foolishly, but this is distracting us from the bigger picture. I don't know what Mink's gotten into her head, but-"

"We'll ask her. Or Allister." Bram finally looked at me. "Ren's smart, Nora. And I think he's right to be worried."

"I'm not saying he isn't." Curling my fingers into fists, I gave in. "Look. Mink just likes to torment people. When Papa forced me to go to St. Cyprian's, she tried to make me her lackey and got nowhere fast. Pamela offends her by existing, because her family's not rich. She's had it out for us for years. That's why this whole thing seems so outlandish to me."

"I don't disbelieve you." This statement actually caused me to decompress a touch. "I was there when she and Allister went after Isambard. She's obviously not an angel."