Dearly, Beloved Part 7

6.

LAURA.

"Once upon a time, there was a pretty little girl named Calendula," I whispered as I drilled my fingernails into my own flesh.

It didn't hurt.

I'd been picking for hours at the tips of my shoulders and finally managed to sc.r.a.pe out enough skin to create little divots. Slowly, carefully, I began to worm my index fingers inside-deeper, deeper. I looked to my right and watched my nail cutting the flesh, my cuticle disappearing, the wormlike wiggling of my fingertip beneath my skin. Beside me in the living room loft, Dog laid his head on my pile of water-stained fairy-tale books and princess novels, sadly stroking his new wrist stump.

Below us, people were shouting.

"Fourteen!" Claudia yelled. "Fourteen zombies killed or arrested today! Arrested ... pah. We all know the living will execute them in the end. The only reason they're still alive is because of those zombies on the docks!"

"Who were working with the living to aid us." Martira's voice was full of pain. "There was no reason for what happened today. None."

"None? They attacked because they were in danger. They used the weapons they had. They did what zombies do!"

"You say that as if it's a good thing, Claudia. The dead can make the choice not to attack the living, if they're still capable of making choices. We can help them make that choice."

"Hagens is still out there," someone else said; a safecracker named Joe. "Other people are still out there. And all of this was caused by Smoke? That slimy pyromaniac? What if they do trace him back to us, come lookin' for more info about him? Or think the rest of us have that new strain, too? Wipe us out?"

"Exactly!" Claudia said.

"All because you'll take in any stray zombie what comes." Joe sounded exasperated. "Like they're hungry kittens."

In the loft, Dog moved closer to me. I wasn't sure if it was in response to the mention of Hagens or Smoke-we both feared the former, but only Dog disliked the latter. About a month ago Smoke, mostly silent and horribly rotted, had followed Martira back to the den after one of her first free clinic attempts in the Morgue, along with a handful of other homeless zombies. Hagens found us soon after. I'd thought him frightening only in appearance until hearing about how he lashed out during the riot, and still found it difficult to conceive of the poor man as evil. True, now we knew that a different sort of sickness had made him, but he never seemed different. He'd been quiet. Maybe a little secretive. And there was nothing wrong with that.

We all had our secrets.

Sliding my fingers back out-my flesh suckled at them-and patting Dog's side, I reached for the packet of seeds sitting on my bedroll. A whole packet-a gift from Abuelo, who found it in the trash. Amazing what people threw away.

"Forget Smoke," Claudia said. "Martira, because of you, the core of our gang has survived. You talked about us being an all-zombie gang before, a force to be reckoned with." Her voice cut through the air. "We can't continue to take in orphans and raise money to throw away on water. If we're going to make a difference, we have to step it up. They're attacking our people! We should strike back, like we used to!"

"They don't mean you," I a.s.sured Dog as I tore open the packet with my teeth, then shook out a few of the precious little seeds. Carefully, I placed four seeds each in the shallow furrows I'd created in my shoulders.

"We're not talking about this now," Martira said. "Not until everyone has been found and settled. And to think, discussing things like this where Laura and the other children can hear ..."

"Those 'children' used to steal for you. Laura is fifteen," Claudia argued. "I was robbing houses at fifteen. You always s.h.i.+eld her from everything!"

With that, I heard steps on the ladder that led to the loft. Claudia was coming, and that meant I had to work quickly. Willing myself into the shadows, I shoved the seed packet beneath my pillow and caressed my shoulders, urging my skin to resume clinging to my flesh. I'd water the holes later.

"Laura? Are you up here?" She sounded cross. And closer.

Drawing the shoulders of my gown up and pus.h.i.+ng my hair forward, I answered, "Yes?"

My sister climbed into the loft and wrenched aside the black netting I'd draped between her side and mine. Death had made Claudia hideous, her face strangely softened and filled with decaying blood. She looked like an old woman rather than the eighteen-year-old she was. "What are you doing?" she asked, her voice hoa.r.s.e. Dog edged away from her.

"Dressing," I told her as my hands went instinctively, protectively across my chest. Claudia always destroyed whatever I grew, and so now I kept my plants close to me, let them root themselves in my very body. Myrtle at my wrists, ivy at my hips, roses at my waist, and soon, calendula on my shoulders.

I was no longer alive, but I might help something else to live.

Claudia's eyes moved over my body, her upper lip curling. They then darted up to the little wooden shelf above my bedroll where I kept my few belongings. Inwardly I cringed, knowing what was to come.

I'd forgotten to hide them.

She reached over me, grabbing two chipped terra-cotta pots from my shelf. Each held a handful of sandy earth swept from the street and a struggling seedling. Before I could plead for their lives, down they went. One smashed apart on the floor below, the other hit someone. "Hey!"

"I've told you ten thousand times-if you're going to sell flowers, you steal them from toffs' gardens. You don't grow them! You're a flower girl, not a farmer!"

Dog hid behind me, and I sent back a hand to comfort him. "But stealing is wrong, Claudia."

"Not for people like us. It's how we survive. It's only because Martira coddles you that you get away with such pathetic work." She smacked the wall. "If our parents'd thought about how 'wrong' it was to steal, you'd've been a corpse years ago. You'd've starved in infancy!"

I'd heard this argument before. My father had been a road agent, preying on travelers outside New London. He and my mother were in prison-had been since I was ten. He was the reason Martira set up shop in the city. He'd told her to be smarter than him. Get other people to steal for her.

I took a different tack. "If they'd done right, they wouldn't be away from us now."

"Oh, shut up! I'd yank out the things growing in you if I didn't think your intestines would come with them." Claudia rolled back onto her blankets, glaring at the ceiling. "Get out of here!"

I obeyed, s.h.i.+mmying my way onto the ladder and helping Dog mount it above me, doing my best to support him as he learned how to climb down with one hand. The Grave House on Ramee Street was large, a dilapidated and abandoned old place, its dirty rooms smoky and mostly devoid of furniture, but nonetheless overly crowded with people. It was located in the run-down northwest section of New London, the part most New Victorians liked to forget about-the slums where children begged and charity workers cringed and aristocrats never ventured. Once, it had only been our center of operations, our main den. Now it was all we had, even if it couldn't fit everybody.

Taking Dog by the hand, I wove my way over the warped wooden floor, past tables crammed with card sharps and beggars and pickpockets and frightened ordinary folks, most of them gambling to pa.s.s the time. In the corner, one of the street performers was sawing away on his fiddle, the tune horribly cheery in the face of all that had happened. A few people laughed; a few people cried. Everyone appeared ill at ease. A group of streetwalkers, now forever out of work, were gathered about the filthy front windows smoking cheroots, ashes raining on their colorful skirts.

Near the fireplace where Smoke had often sat, burning small objects on the hearth for his own quiet amus.e.m.e.nt, I found my eldest sister. When confronted with her, my first instinct was to stare, as always. Martira's skin was smooth, the color of new parchment. Not a single wound marred her flesh, and her only blemishes were the many black veins that seemed to crawl through her skin like cracks in a piece of fine pottery. Her hair hung to her waist; her black eyes were clear, like chips of obsidian, her lashes so long and dense that the whites were often shaded. She moved with a spectacularly disturbing grace, like a mermaid dancing in the oily River Styx.

To think, I'd created such a thing.

"Martira?"

She looked at me and smiled. "Laura. Dog." She spread her arms. She didn't have to say anything more; I flew to them. Wrapping me up, she kissed me and told me, "It'll be all right, dove."

"Are you all right, though?"

"Yes. We'll recover from this. It's just been a day of disappointment and pain ..." She let go of me, and Dog moved to my side. Looking at him, Martira said, "I'm so sorry about your hand."

Dog shrugged. It might've been from fatigue, but I decided to say, "He's taking it like a man."

"Good." Martira sighed. "I confess, I'm at a loss for what to do. But we'll figure out a way. We always have."

"If you need money ... I don't think Claudia's found the last coin you gave me to hide for the gnomes." Leaving a penny for the gnomes that lived in Grave House was a bit of mummery from my childhood, one I still enjoyed. I'd grown up on Martira's stories. The Rat King in the sewer who ate bad children, the gnomes that could be bribed to protect a thieves' den.

"No, dove. Leave it."

"She'll find it anyway. She always does."

Martira smiled softly at me. "But perhaps she won't. Nothing is guaranteed. Anything, anyone, can change."

For the first time since that morning, I smiled. Martira was my only protector, and the only one I needed. She'd opted to join me in my condition back in December; she wouldn't even abandon me to the jaws of death. She was going to turn her life around, my life around. I had to believe in her.

I heard the door opening, a new wave of voices. "Hagens!" Claudia shouted.

My belly tightened and I quickly ushered Dog behind Martira. We moved just in time. Soon the crowd was parting to let Maria Hagens and a few other zombies through. They looked like they'd been through h.e.l.l, and they moved toward the fireplace without hesitation.

Hagens terrified me. Everything about her was sharp-her eyes, her voice, her short hair. She'd served in a zombie-only army company before joining up with us, and looking at her, you could believe she might have a pile of human skulls saved up somewhere, horrible war trophies. Her features were angular, her eyes hard. Her exposed cheekbones glowed in the firelight like ossified war paint.

"You made it!" Martira cried. "Thank G.o.d!"

"G.o.d, maybe. You, no." Hagens cut her eyes at me momentarily. Claudia soon appeared at her side, gazing up at her almost adoringly. "But maybe I shouldn't snap at you right off the bat. Maybe today was the object lesson it should have been."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just glad you're safe."

"I told her," Claudia said. "I told her we should have gone out to find you."

Hagens moved closer to Martira, her expression growing even more furious. "Let me put it this way, in words that'll be real easy to understand. You're out of chances. We have to show the humans that we are not to be trifled with, or they will keep doing this. You-"

"Cicatriz! Your gang better reach for the sky!"

At the sound of the voice calling from outside, the newcomers started to panic and the old-timers did their best to hush them up. Several men lifted sections of the floor and tossed their bottles and weapons within, while others moved closer to the half-boarded front windows, on alert. One looked at my eldest sister and nodded.

Martira took a moment to compose herself, then brushed past Hagens. "We'll discuss this later." She made her way to the door and stepped out onto the front porch. I followed, Dog at my heels.

Outside in the darkness stood twenty living constables, guns at the ready. Heading up the group was a dark-haired man with the intense blue eyes of a husky dog. I'd hoped I'd never see him again.

"Inspector Ramirez," Martira said, moving forward. "It's been a while. I expected you before now."

"Yeah, well. End of the world and all that." He looked Martira up and down. "Death's been good to you, Marta."

"You're too kind." For once, my sister didn't sound hopeful or wistful. She was all business. "I'll save you some words. If you're looking for your protection money, we don't have it."

"Because you spent it on swill," Claudia muttered, moving to join us.

"And we likely won't again," Martira said, eyeing Claudia. "We're turning over a new leaf."

Ramirez glanced past us into the house, sizing up the situation. His fingers tightened uneasily around his gun, while the men behind him remained labile and anxious, ready to bolt at a moment's notice. "Honestly, I heard your entire gang was killed. I'm surprised to see so many of you."

"You probably heard that the Grave House Gang is no more, which is true. Maybe a quarter of the old group reanimated, and a quarter of that number well. We're about fifty original members, forty newcomers. Some from other gangs, some not."

"Well, that's a shame." Ramirez looked at me as I lowered my arms to hold Dog, and then back to my sister. "Especially after today, when it'd be right easy to tell my boss you're harboring more crazies. Saw some of your people in the cage. Realized a visit was long overdue." As he spoke, several members of his crew backed up, as if expecting us to attack.

"Even if I wanted to give you your money, I couldn't," Martira said. "The beggars are making less because the living don't think they need money for food. The wh.o.r.es are out of work, naturally. The street performers have had to start wearing masks and gloves when they can, even the ones that don't normally dress up. And they've been going out without the pickpockets, because I will no longer accept money from illegal act-"

"So your people are still going out?" Ramirez tipped his hat back a bit, his smile slow. "You know they can't work on the streets for free. That's not the deal."

"The deal changed the minute you died," I heard Hagens hiss. I didn't dare turn around to look at her. "We can take them."

Martira ignored her. "Fine," she said to Ramirez. "Give us a few weeks."

"They want to question you guys about today. That's why I rushed over here."

"Give us a few weeks, keep the coppers off our backs-I'll pay you double."

"No!" Hagens protested-all for naught. After a moment's contemplation, Ramirez nodded his agreement. He and his men retreated into their LED-festooned police carriages, and we retreated into our den. It was over in seconds. Like usual.

"Double?" whined Joe. "We're gonna have to get back to hittin' businesses."

"This is what I'm talking about," Hagens shouted once the door was shut. "You have no reason to submit to that slimeball, none! He's a human, he's weak. We have sharper senses than the humans, we have the ability to infect them if they're not vaccinated or the vaccine doesn't work ... He should be groveling on the ground, begging you to spare his life."

"Miss Hagens, hush."

Martira moved through the crowd, back to the fireplace. As she pa.s.sed a few of the older gang members, they mumbled things to her. I caught one saying, "For a moment, you sounded like the old you."

"Like h.e.l.l will I hus.h.!.+" Hagens pushed her way after us. "Twice now-twice-humans have hunted me through the streets like an animal! I'm not standing for it anymore. I've been telling you for weeks that we have to leave! Regroup somewhere safe, make some plans!"

"Suit yourself, Miss Hagens. I am not having my people attack a group of living coppers. All that would do is get every single one of us killed." Martira frowned. "Remember, for all your bl.u.s.tering, you're clean. We're not. Even now, we need to avoid undue attention. Same reason I knew we couldn't tell the people we met today everything we know, even though we should've."

Hagens didn't even pretend to listen to her. "Oh, I'm leaving. And I'll take anyone who wants to go with me. I know not everyone here is content to pay to play humanitarian. Some of us want to do more. And if that involves violence, so be it."

Martira spun around and snapped, "Do none of you hate your past lives the way I do? Has death filled none of you with regret? A desire to change?"

Her questions hung unanswered in the air. In time, a few of the older gang members shook their heads to indicate that no, death had had no such effect on them. Then a few more. Martira's expression stiffened. Claudia glared at me, as if I'd somehow infected my eldest sister with my ideas of right and wrong.

Perhaps I had.

"They have the right of it," Hagens said. "There's no shame in doing what you have to do to survive. Thrive. From everything I hear, you knew that once-and you were d.a.m.n good at it."

She was right. I knew there were people out there who still feared my sister because of the things she'd done before she died. That was half the reason she was still our leader now. I was grateful to be ignorant of the details.

And yet, I wasn't so ignorant that I didn't feel the cold crush of fear. If Martira was cast down as leader, what would happen to us?

After a time, Martira asked, "Who would go with Hagens? Leave the city?"

Claudia said, "If we're calling a vote, the leaders have to-"

"Enough! Who would leave?" Martira shouted. "Tell me, now!'

About half the gang raised their hands. One of the streetwalkers came forth and said, "They chased us, ma'am. They meant to kill us. You ask me, it's crazy you want to stay! What if they pin Smoke on us, like Joe said?" A hum of approval punctuated the end of her sentence.

"Smoke?" Hagens said. For a split second I couldn't tell if it was fear or fury I saw in her eyes. "What about Smoke? Has something happened to him? Where is he?"

Martira looked to the crackling fire, her movements slow. She ignored Hagens's questions. "Very well. Then I will take you. We'll leave tonight." She lifted her head, turning her black eyes on Hagens. "But we will not act out of anger. Not anymore."

Hagens stared hard at Martira before rolling her shoulders and catching Claudia by the arm. "You will soon, if you're smart." Hagens turned her back on us, dragging Claudia along. "Soon enough, you will."