American Craftsmen (17 page)

M’s dead eyes searched the rain-brushed courtyard with what would have been confusion in the living. Its left arm hung at its side, limp and deflated. Its right hand gripped a strange-looking rifle.

Endicott pointed his gun at M. “Drop the weapon. Now.”

With dead slowness, M raised the rifle. The weapon was a device out of Bosch—a gore-covered mixture of metal components held in a stock of human skeleton. The barrel had been hidden in M’s flesh; the rest
was
M’s flesh, self-cannibalized. Its bullets were bits of metal-capped bone. That M could fight while alive was itself a miracle of craft.

The rain poured, and nothing came clean. This looked like Left-Hand Morton work.

“Find cover!” I yelled.

Endicott stood straight and fired. He hit M’s right arm, both legs, and finally the chest. M spun around like a tangled marionette, but didn’t fall. As M slowed, it fired at one of Endicott’s men, and maybe nicked a bit of suit. Even confused, this was deep craft. Some of the puppet strings may have been broken by Sphinx’s sacrifice, but that made M dangerous to everyone instead of just me.

M’s rifle swerved like a compass needle, stopping on another of Endicott’s men.

“Take cover!” ordered Endicott.

But, like a hypnotized deer, Endicott’s man was too slow, and M’s shot found his leg. “I’m hit, I’m hit,” he called.

“Shit!” said Chuck, scurrying for the gate. Sensing the motion, M’s rifle swerved Chuck’s direction.

“Over here,” I yelled. The thing fired anyway. Chuck screamed, but kept moving. Then M turned slowly toward me.

“Not the plan,” said shell-shocked Eddy. “‘Zombies are a funny myth,’ she said.”

Clutching my remote, I felt for the Left-Hand spirits in the House, searching for rebels. None had slipped my reins; this monster couldn’t be their doing. “Get me in the House,” I said, “before it shoots us all. But slowly. Don’t attract its attention.”

“On three,” said Eddy. “One, two…”

As if we were slowly boarding a helicopter en masse, we moved in a crouch toward the door. Slowly, but too fast. In a blink, M’s rifle wheeled and found the blinded Peepshow being tugged along by Eddy. Another
crack
like dried bone, and the Peepshow was down with a fatal head shot.

“Goddamned monster!” said Eddy. But he joined the rest of us in the House. Meantime, Endicott’s men had taken positions behind the bars and the buffet tables. M stared blankly at the House, like a child considering a difficult problem in subtraction.

“What the fuck do we do now?” asked Eddy.

“Who the hell is your friend, Morton?” yelled Endicott. For a magus, Endicott was a shitty liar—he recognized this corpse. But he seemed a little scared to see it moving.

“He used to be an assassin,” I said. “I killed him.”

“Not very well,” said Endicott. “You’d better unplug him, or you’ll have a nightcap in Hell.”

“Get it through your Puritan skull: he’s not my zombie. The way he’s shooting, he’s probably yours.” But given the shock and horror that Endicott was buttoning down, this was unlikely.

Endicott must have lost interest in the debate. “Hey Peepshow. Hand Morton over, and maybe we’ll let you retire.”

A standoff. This government gang fight was getting in the way of the main event: drawing my still-hidden enemy into the House. With the enemy’s magic scattered, did he have enough mojo to follow me inside?

With the sudden flash and thunder of a light bulb filled with gasoline, the spirit keystone in the door arch exploded. The House groaned along its crack. A Peepshow howled, hands over bleeding ears, his smoking headset on the ground. Question answered.

Eddy’s hand gripped my shoulder a bit harder than necessary. “I said, what the fuck do we do now?”

Sins of evil intent flashed their letters across Eddy’s chest; my enemy’s malice was taking deeper root in Eddy’s hindbrain. “
We
don’t do anything,” I said. “You get out through the back and report to Langley what’s happening here.”

“Can’t do that,” said Eddy. “Orders.”

“You were ordered to protect me,” I said. “If you stay here, that’s not going to happen, is it? Somehow, you’re going to get me killed.”

“What I can see,” said Eddy, “that’s going to happen anyway.”

Outside, Endicott’s unit was taking carnival shots at the spinning, staggering M. Large chunks of flesh had been blown off it, but more force than I had ever seen held the zombie together, patching the necessary bits and letting the cosmetics go to gory hell. The zombie returned fire, keeping Endicott & Co. from rushing it.

More and more, this zombie looked like the dangerous craft of the Left-Hand Mortons, but with far more power. To push this many natural laws, my enemy had to be very close. Good.

“Anyone who comes in this house after me … isn’t going to be a problem,” I said. “But I won’t be able to protect your people. You’ll need to get back here, in force, to clean up this mess. Now go.”

Eddy made hand signs to his deafened subordinate, and the three remaining Peepshows scuttled for the back of the House.

For the next few minutes of my plan, I could use a gun. I reached into the never-used umbrella stand, popped the false bottom, and pulled out the surprisingly massive Colt and a shoulder holster that I had placed there. Outstanding.

M seemed to be regaining its focus on the House, but it was taking too long. I called to it: “Yoo-hoo, zombie. In here.”

M’s dead eyes riveted on my voice. It fired blindly toward Endicott again, just for perversity’s sake. Then, it took off in a crippled galvanic sprint toward me.

I crouched, ready to grapple with this corpse. But five strides away, M veered left and plunged through the large curved window into the parlor. Shit, didn’t this meat puppet ever use the door? M rolled out of my view, leaving a trail of broken glass and bloody rainwater. Whatever force still impelled M must be trying to flank me.

“It’s obeying Morton’s instructions,” said Endicott. “Let’s get them both.”

“Goddamnit, I told you…” But Endicott’s men advanced like weaving snakes on the door. I backed off, looking over my shoulders for M. “Keep your distance,” I said. “The House isn’t safe.”

“Ha. You’ve already played that trick,” said Endicott. “Keep going.”

I fired a shot from my cannon over their heads, just to slow them. It was hard to resist a blood-drenched stopper when the susurrant pulse of the House whispered for
more, more, more
.

My shot was answered by the sound of distant sirens. Endicott wouldn’t be able to keep this scenario contained forever.

I retreated into the long central hallway, peering into each small New England room for M. The House was a maze of stairwells, dumbwaiters, and crawl spaces. The corpse could be crawling anywhere.

“
Hijo de puta!
” Metal and ceramics crashed in the kitchen. Despite the warning, some workers must have straggled in the kitchen—perhaps more agents trying to watch the show. They fled now, and I knew where M was.

Meanwhile, Endicott’s team had entered, alternating between the right and left rooms and securing the foyer. I ducked into the hidden priest hole midway down the central hall. I didn’t need to see the intruders; the House vibrated with each living trespass. But M was only another shadow to the House.

One of Endicott’s flunkies called out: “Mr. Morton, will you please just come with us?”

“Stow that, Corporal,” said Endicott, hostile to this attempt to return the situation to normal. “Get Morton out of here, off his ground.”

I tucked my gun into its holster and pulled out my remote. The cult of presence in craft was for those of little faith. My craft would obey my commands, like the soldier obeyed the centurion. I said “
Disable
,” and pressed “02” on my remote.

“
Disable
” echoed through the stereo system. Every gun in the House glowed red, and Endicott’s men dropped the suddenly burning metal from their hands. “
Disable.
” And their headsets let out a terminal screech of feedback, though nothing so harsh as what my enemy had done to the Peepshow.

“Sir,” Flunky Two called out, “we have to abort.”

“Negative,” said Endicott. “He’s disarmed too. Aren’t you, Morton?”

The prick was right: the House-wide spell left me disarmed as well. I could live with that; I only wanted to incapacitate Endicott’s team, but Endicott might want to shoot me dead.

“I’ll be here when you flush him out,” said Endicott. “Until then, keep the chatter to a minimum.”

Good, Endicott would hang back. I couldn’t take on three at once, if one of them was Endicott. I could handle two. These grunts had weight and height on me, and were prepared for possible craft action. But none of them had trained as much as I had, even in the crib, for days like today.

One at a time would be better still. The House would help with that. I reached out with my senses. Flunky One, working his way round my left through the parlor, would be the quickest to take down.

On the library and study side, doors slammed closed, confining the larger grunt and compartmentalizing the combat for a few crucial moments. In the hallway, the clock slid forward and its pendulum, like a toy version of Poe’s, smashed out, threatening to slice Endicott unless he kept back. I dashed out from the priest hole into the parlor. There, the thing behind the yellow wallpaper pulsed ominously to distract Flunky One. Even as my opponent pivoted round, I charged into him. My Native American martial arts used the grunt’s strength against him, even the strength of his bones.
Break. Crackle
.
Snap!
The best nonfatal injury for encouraging retreat was a broken arm. Or two.

“I’m not done with you,” said Flunky One, defying pain to keep me engaged.

“I’m done with you.” As I left the room, the House took over. The busts, pottery, and silver flew off their pedestals and tables in attack, the small bookcases teetered and fell, herding the broken-armed grunt back to the window. The sheer malice of the Left-Hand spirits warned him to exit now, or be consumed.

Racing across the hallway, I saw that Endicott remained occupied. From seeming thin air, Endicott had pulled out his sword by its overly decorated hilt and charged the clock. Just like an Endicott to be killing time during battle.

I fell on Flunky Two in the library. We traded body blows. I took two hard jabs to my gut and a pop to my head before I was able to find the ideal point of fracture. I kicked at Flunky Two’s left leg, an innocuous enough blow if an antique table had not slid up behind the target.
Crunch.
Flunky Two’s leg and the table’s both broke. I tossed the broken flunky toward the front of the House, there to be encouraged to leave by other antiques and bookcases spewing the volumes of Poe and Hawthorne.

So finished a French farce of promiscuous beatings. Frightened, the injured flunkies offered only token resistance to being herded outside. Pressed back to the wall, they rolled through the windows to join their fellow wounded in the courtyard.
That’s the spirit, quit while you’re ahead.

I got my breath back and stepped into the hallway. Endicott stood in the now bolted doorway, the clock’s pendulum decapitated at his feet, its slashes marking his shirtfront. He flourished his sword in the air in challenge. “None of your kind have ever beaten this.”

The distant dead thud on the cellar stairwell distracted me from Endicott’s ridiculous display.
Oh no you don’t.
Nothing was getting between me and the subbasement—Scherie’s escape route and my last defense. I turned and ran for the stairway.

“Damn you, coward!” yelled Endicott.

I dove onto M’s back. The monster’s wrongness shot through my arms, but I held on as we tumbled together down the remaining stairs and onto the floor.

The thing fired its ossuarial rifle at the cellar ceiling. I stripped the weapon from M’s grasp and tossed it away. M grabbed my throat awkwardly, but with enough sheer force to make breathing an issue. I drove bone-crunching, meat-grinding punches into M’s face, but the thing tossed me off like a puppy.

M stood up and limped on toward the wide-open door to the subbasement.
Scherie left it open for me, not you.
I dashed in front of M. The thing brought its fist around in a parody of a punch that knocked me aside. I retreated and blocked M’s way again.

Endicott slowly appeared in the stairway, sword in front of him. “You two have a falling out?”

“Hypothetically,” I asked, bobbing and weaving, “how would you kill a zombie?”

“Hypothetically,” said Endicott, “we’d do an exorcism.”

The thing swung another roundhouse at me; I ducked. “Right. What if you needed something more immediate?”

Endicott nodded as he descended. “All that evil must be centered somewhere.”

“Heart or head?” I asked.

“Both.”

“My thoughts exactly,” I said. “One, two…”

“Three!”

With pagan sureness, I drove my hand through M’s tattered chest and pulled out its empty heart. With Christian righteousness, Endicott swung his sword and beheaded M’s mangled skull in one stroke.

M fell to the ground. “Arms and legs too, just to be safe,” I said.

“Right,” said Endicott. “This (hack) is what happens (hack) when you summon (hack, hack) the powers (hack, hack,… hack) of darkness.”

The pieces of M twitched, as if they were still reaching for me. Some of the killer angel had gone out of the air. Endicott pointed his gory sword at me. “Ready to quit?”

“I can’t,” I said.

“Why the hell not?” said Endicott. “Despite my inclination, I’d prefer not to have to explain the death of another craftsman—at least until after the trial.”

“You still don’t get it,” I said. “I’m expecting another guest.”

“Your boogeyman witch killer? The dark man of the woods?” Endicott kicked at one of M’s grasping hands. “Your alibi seems to have fallen apart.”

Dark man of the woods.
Sphinx had made the same quip. Not funny then or now. “You should go,” I said. “No one who stays here is going to survive.”

Endicott gave me a long reading look, digesting the implication that “no one” included me. “Ha! Nice try. This zombie had ‘Left-Hand Morton’ practically tattooed on it. And it was slouching to your subterranean temple—yeah, we know about that.” He brandished his sword at me. “Now come with me, or I’ll cut you down.”