The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (41 page)

"Carvery and
Amiira," he replies, flatly. He shrugs to flex his shoulders,
and clicks his neck. "Stay there, I'm going after Luke."

And he jumps clear across
the square to the other rooftop, landing with both feet on the tiles
before running after the taxi-driver, in pursuit.

"They must be
stopped!" Sandy gasps as they depart, sheathing his sword. "It
is forbidden. There will be uproar! The hounds will be unleashed!"

"Let me guess,"
I say, once my heart has recovered from Ace's energetic display. I
wave my hand in the direction he has just taken. "Treason?"

"Yes! You have a
keen mind, Sarah Bellum!" Sandy claps me on the shoulder, almost
knocking me over. "But not by Mr. Bumgang…"

"I meant Luke –
for stealing the clockwork hand!" I interrupt, trying to
explain.

"No, no, Miss
Bellum!" Sandy is almost frothing at the beard. "Our sister
Amiira has been left alone with the camels – and Mr. Slaughter!
No chaperone! It is forbidden!"

"Really?" I
exclaim, but he is already ahead of me. I hurry after him, back into
the bar.

Ooohh
–
I
wonder which bits of Carvery they'll cut off first?? I hope we're not
too late to see that…

CHAPTER
FIFTY-THREE
:

CARUNCULA ROYALE

We dash past the
customers of Casabladder, who deign to turn their icy stares of
apathy at us, as we hurtle through without caution.

"My brother!"
Cottoneye Joe bellows, and Sandy skids abruptly to a stop, while I
cannon into his back, like a Newton's twat. "Your medicine. For
our cousin."

He holds out a green
glass bottle with a cork stopper, held in place with an
intricately-twisted gold filigree wire.

Sandy accepts it, with a
deep bow. I find myself sagging in the same manner automatically in
self-preservation, still determined not to offend anyone if I can
help it.

"Thank you, B'Dah
B'Dim!" Sandy shouts at his own sandals, before tucking the
bottle inside his belt and snapping upright again, in a way that
would have put most men's hamstrings on the
At-Risk
register.
"Come, Miss Bellum!"

Remarkably, nothing is
disturbed in our wake, as we rush back outside into the streets of
the citadel comprising the Eight a.m. Lounge.

"What will happen to
Carvery and Amiira?" I gasp, struggling to keep pace.

"That is up to the
Surgeons of Justice!" Sandy calls over his shoulder. "Let
us hope the officials are having a good day!"

We pound along the narrow
alleyways, getting busier now with traders and hagglers. Somehow,
Sandy keeps his robes clear of the stalls and passers-by in the
headlong rush.

Two shadows fly overhead
again, and I recognise Ace still in pursuit of Luke, across the
rooftops.

"Stop, you stringy
chav!" Ace's voice is heard yelling. It is followed by the sound
of gunshots, which almost stops my exhausted heart in its tracks.

"Why are they
shooting?" I cry.

"They are easily
excited, Miss Bellum!" Sandy tells me. "They all want to be
part of the chase and the capture! A running thief is vermin here –
open season is declared!"

"Sounds more like
'
Open Fire!
'" I retort, and am rewarded with a volley of
further shots.

I try to keep my eyes on
Ace as he runs along the ridge-poles and gutters, after our errant
taxi-driver. They clatter over the clay tiles, and slither over
laundry laid out on the baking terracotta to dry, in the morning sun.
More than once they cross the alleyway, leaping from aerial
flight-path to flight-path, as Luke attempts to shake off his
pursuer.

"If you didn't nick
it…" Ace hollers. "Why are you running?"

"Only dead men stand
still!" Luke cries over his shoulder, and is almost proven right
on the spot, as a brick chimney beside him is shot to pieces.

He clutches his hands to
his head, cursing, and dashes wildly away again.

Ace runs straight through
the wreckage of the chimney, kicking the rubble aside, and disappears
after him, out of sight from the ground below.

"Hurry, Miss
Bellum!" Sandy urges me.

I realise that I've been
staring into space at the spot where Ace was a second before, and
pull myself together once more. Oh, yes. What will happen to Carvery?
I hope they have some special torture policy here prior to cutting
bits off him… or just a little room somewhere with a broken
deckchair and some manacles… maybe do a few choice things to
him with a knotty rope and some hot water…

What's it called, the
torture thing they do, with the board? Wakeboarding? Surfboarding?
Maybe I made it up…

We reach the alleyway
outside the surgery, and at first I only see the huddle of camels.

"Amiira!" Sandy
roars. "Where are you? Make it known that you are chaperoned, my
white desert lily!"

Carvery steps out from
behind the largest camel, frowning.

"What's with all the
yelling?" he grumbles.

"Ace said you were
here alone with Amiira," I pant, catching up.

"Should have known
he'd go and drop me in it," Carvery scoffs. "He won the
toss over who got to chase Luke when we recognised him, and left me
here on my own. For all I know, Amiira's still inside, with Crispin
and Homer and A'Bandaiid."

Sandy hurries inside. But
as for me, I've never felt so disappointed. The tears are pricking at
my eyelashes before I can stop them.

"What?" Carvery
asks, suddenly grinning. "You look like you've lost a dollar and
found a dead donkey."

"But… but…"
I blab, the exhaustion and adrenaline too much for me all at once. "I
only wanted to see them do the cheese-board thing before they cut
anything off…"

"Why are you
obsessing over what you're missing out on in the world of cheese?"
he wants to know. "If you're that hungry, I'm sure there are
some spare parts from the Seven a.m. Lounge that Crispin might let
you nibble on. He could probably spare you a kidney."

One of the camels groans,
in almost a human fashion. Carvery slaps it on the many layers of
blankets sharply, and it stops.

"No, I'm not
hungry," I sigh, and slump against the wall dejectedly. Damn. No
entertaining torture for Carvery Slaughter yet. I'd have loved to see
him get cheese-boarded, I acknowledge shamefully.

Yes. Tie him to a large
Blue Stilton and force a well-matured Stinking Bishop up his nose
until his brains explode out of his ears…

"Sarah,"
Carvery says, in that warning voice that suggests he knows exactly
what I'm thinking. "You're drooling again."

"Sorry." I wipe
my chin absently.

"Are you sure you
haven't had a stroke?"

Sandy emerges again,
looking concerned.

"She has gone off
alone, it appears," he announces, and scratches his brow in
agitation. "She must have sneaked out when you noticed the
thief, Mr. Slaughter! My brother B'Dah B'Dim will cut off her
allowance if she keeps gallivanting about like this!"

"That sounds
painful," I empathise, quickly. "How is Homer? Will we know
if the medicine works soon?"

"He is not himself
at all, Miss Bellum!" Sandy shakes his head sadly. "I fear
that knock on the head may have affected him permanently!"

He whirls and goes back
into the surgery, and I gulp. Poor Homer… and poor Crispin!
How is he coping? But I daren't go inside to find out. I have a
feeling I'm still not going to be in his good books.

A crash overhead and a
plummeting flowerpot indicates the passing of Luke once more, and his
silhouette sails across the passage outside the surgery, disturbing
the camels. It is followed by a skidding noise, and suddenly a stream
of tiles flies after him, spinning one by one through the air, as if
fired from a clay-pigeon trap.

"Wanker!"
shouts Ace, skimming a sixth or seventh terracotta tile.

A distant yelp from Luke
answers him, as one of the missiles evidently strikes its target. The
yelp is succeeded by a loud crash, and looking up, I see Ace crouch,
just before he clears the alleyway with another single leap, heading
in the direction of the commotion.

Shouting erupts, and
someone calls for a net.

"Sounds like they
got him," Carvery remarks, and gives the camel a sharp dig with
his elbow, as it groans again in a pained manner. "I really hope
we're not missing all the grisly stuff."

"Quite," I
agree, still thinking about Carvery getting cheese-boarded.

So unfair… even a
little cottage cheese in the armpits, or some cold
Dairylea
,
right in the ear-canal… I'd pay to see that…

CHAPTER
FIFTY-FOUR
:

SORE

My thoughts are scattered
though, as Crispin Dry suddenly stalks out of the surgery doorway,
his gray zombie countenance as dark as any thunderstorm. My
inexperienced libido immediately starts cooking me from the
inside-out, making my already too-hot, sticky Naval uniform feel like
an
Uncle Ben's Rice
Boil-in-the-Bag in the desert heat.

Damn these hormones!

I bet he's still in a
stupid mood with me as well, over that mention of Mr. Wheelie-Bin…

"They have the
errant Mr. Lukan, Mr. Slaughter?" he asks Carvery coldly,
sparing me not a glance.

"Looks that way,"
Carvery replies. "Are they going to torture him? Do we get to
watch?"

"Better,"
Crispin concurs, with a nod.

Sandy emerges beside him,
and claps his hands loudly, in a rhythmic sequence. He announces
something to the city at large in a foreign tongue I don't
understand, although I'm sure the name
Amiira
is mentioned,
and possibly the word
'infidels' –
although I wouldn't
want to offend anyone even by thinking such a thing around here…

My heart leaps sideways,
as I most definitely hear the words
'Ace Bumgang'
and
'The
Stig'
uttered in the same sentence – and I'm sure it isn't
my imagination furnishing my ears with the roar of response by nearby
gossips and traders.

"What was that
about?" I ask, timidly.

Crispin finally rewards
me, with the stony flicker of one jet-black eye.

"The morning
News
summary," he replies, shortly. "It is the
responsibility of whomever the grapevine determines shall broadcast
it."

I'm suddenly aware of a
great horde of people, all in a strange shade of pale blue or green
approaching us. There is great excitement, and shouting of orders and
instructions, and we are quickly relieved of the camel reins and
hustled forward at the crest of the crowd, as it rolls along the
dusty street. Sandy disappears briefly back inside the surgery with a
number of others, and Homer N. Dry is borne out on a stretcher,
carried above the heads of many.

Poor Homer – his
withered gray skin is almost white! Like the ash, coating a
slow-burning cinder…

"Where are we going
now?" I cry, hurrying ahead to avoid being trampled.

"To the trial,"
Crispin says, his tone still as flat and as brusque as before. He so
doesn't want to talk to me right now! "At the Tank."

The Tank?
What
new horror is this?

The new horror is soon
illustrated, as the crowd herds us to a square, filled with people,
all jeering and braying and barking further orders to one another. At
the centre is a deep square pit, under glass strong enough for a man
to stand on.

The pit is lined with
ceramic tiles, and contains nothing but a sink and lavatory, and an
old metal bunk, each item against a separate wall. Iron rings are
screwed into the fourth wall, and from these rings is suspended the
miserable figure of our taxi-driver, Luke, fully chained.