Undead to the World (32 page)

I can smell burnt flesh as soon as we step out. What’s left of the cross Jimmy Zhang
was lashed to hangs from the back of the door, and his ashy remains now lie scattered
at my feet. Something’s been dragged through them and up the aisle.

“Gone,” Charlie says.

“Yeah,” I say, frowning. “The Gallowsman must have taken him somewhere else to string
him up. Makes a certain amount of sense; Father Stone was probably killed right here
in the church, but the body was left outside for everyone to see.”

“Why?” Doctor Pete asks.

It’s a good question, and I think I finally have an answer. “The same reason Athena
Shaker killed Therese Isamu and left the body in Cassiar’s room. Same reason the master
vampire killed Vince Shelly with a silver fork and bled him like a slaughtered pig.
Same message, too:
This is my town now.
I’ve been thinking of this as a war between pires and thropes, but it’s not; there’s
a third element, with its own agenda.”

“The cult?” Charlie says.

“No. The first two victims, Father Stone and Maureen Selkic, were both members of
the cult. No, I think the third element is the Gallowsman himself. Now that Ahaseurus
is dead, he’s not under anyone’s control. He started off killing cult members—his
former masters—but he’s escalated since then. He took down Doctor Pete—the townie
version, I mean—and now Zev. He’s staking his own claim on this place.”

“Three-way war,” Charlie says, nodding. “Two ways to play that.”

“If you’re smart, yeah. You can either join forces with one side to gang up against
the other, or wait on the sidelines until one side beats the other and then attack
the survivor while he’s still weakened from the fight.”

Doctor Pete sighs and sinks into a pew. “So which side is going to do what?”

“Well, assuming the African Queen is still stashed in the trunk of her car,” I say,
sitting down beside him, “we’ve already taken one side out of play. If we get the
master vampire, we’re handing the town over to the Gallowsman; if we take out the
Gallowsman, by tomorrow night the whole town will be vampirized. So I’m going to suggest
we go back to Charlie’s, regroup, maybe drink a gallon or so of high-octane coffee,
and then do something daring and stupid.”

“As usual,” Charlie says. “Wait. Did you say ‘do something stupid’ or ‘work with someone
stupid’?”

*   *   *

The walk across town is a long one. The streets are still deserted, and the storm
that surrounds the place like a fence has gotten bigger, darker, and angrier; lightning
the color of blood arcs and flashes constantly, but there’s no thunder. The silence
makes it feel like the storm is a million miles away and bigger than the world.

We get back to the Longinus house without incident, me and Doctor Pete helping Charlie
hobble along, and retrieve Athena’s car. The thumping from the trunk tells me she’s
still in there, and Galahad’s frantic barking when we pull up to Charlie’s place tells
me he probably needs to be walked. He doesn’t rush to the door to greet me, though,
which is odd—

Sheriff Stoker is sitting on Charlie’s couch, a riot shotgun across his knees. Galahad’s
wearing his leash, and the other end is tied to the leg of my kitchen table. He’s
managed to drag the table up to the kitchen doorway, but it’s gotten jammed there.

“Come in and sit down,” Stoker says. “We need to talk.”

I’m too exhausted to say anything clever. I go over to Galahad and assure him I’m
all right, then lean against the wall. Charlie lowers himself carefully onto a chair,
and after a second so does Doctor Pete.

Stoker’s face is impassive. “So. To save time, I’m going to assume you pretty much
know what’s going on. If that’s not true, ask me whatever you need to and I’ll do
my best to fill you in. Let’s keep this discussion short, though—things are going
south fast.”

“Did you kill Ahaseurus?” I ask him.

“So he
is
dead. No. I’ve been running things since he disappeared, as best I could.”

Doctor Pete glares at him. “That include locking people up for murders they didn’t
commit?”

“I needed leverage to keep a lid on the war. One from your side, one from theirs.
Hostages to fortune, I believe it’s called.”

That brings a tired, humorless smile to my face. “But what you got was misfortune.
Funny, I thought being the Gallowsman’s pal was supposed to prevent that.”

Stoker stares at me coldly. “He’s supposed to do all sorts of things. What he’s not
supposed to do is kill the people he was brought here to serve.”

“You can’t control him anymore, because Longinus was the man with the plan. So what’s
next, Stoker? Every human being in this town is going to be pale, hairy, or swaying
at the end of a rope inside of twenty-four hours—and we can’t
leave
, either.”

“I know.” He pauses, then looks away. “I’m here to offer an alliance. Way I figure
it, we’re about all that’s left to mount any kind of resistance.”

“What, you can’t convince any of your cult buddies—”

“
There’s nobody left, Jace.
I’ve been to house after house. Empty. I don’t know which side got them, either.
Maybe they were eaten or drained, maybe the Gallowsman dragged them into the tunnels,
maybe they’re all hanging upside down in somebody’s backyard shed waiting for nightfall.
But I
do
know this: It all started with you. And that’s how it’s going to end, too.”

I stare back, then nod slowly. “Yeah. You’re right. Now here’s a few things you don’t
know: First, we’ve got the alpha werewolf locked in the trunk of the car outside.
Second, I know who the master vampire is.”

“You do?” says Doctor Pete. He sounds surprised.

“Not only that, I know
where
he is.” I pull out my phone, put it on the coffee table, and slide it over to Stoker.
“Take a look.”

He picks it up, studies the screen. “What am I looking at?”

“Figure it out for yourself.”

He thinks for a second, then hits a few buttons. He’s found the video file—

There’s a flash of white light.

Sucker.

*   *   *

Every induced-recall experience so far has had me playing the role of a woman from
someone’s memory, Doctor Pete’s or Charlie’s or Cassius’s. Stoker’s no different—except
that this time, I seem to be almost completely passive. I’m lying down, I’m naked,
and it’s very hard to focus my thoughts. I realize I must be drugged, or maybe brain-damaged.
My arms and legs are restrained—to keep me from hurting myself? There’s an IV in each
of my arms. I must be in a hospital.

But why am I in a box?

It’s made out of glass, or maybe thick plastic. I can hear sounds, but they’re so
muffled that I’m not sure what’s causing them. Machinery? People talking? I finally
make out a few words, but I can’t understand them; they’re not in English. Something
Asian?

There’s a smudge on the glass ceiling of my box. I stare at the smudge for a few years,
struggling to focus beyond it. When I finally manage to, all I see is a plain white
surface a few feet above me. It’s not nearly as interesting as the smudge, and to
alleviate my disappointment I decide to embark on an ambitious, multistage project:
turning my head.

Whew. It’s a long road, filled with toil, heartbreak, unexpected surprises—I never
saw that second smudge coming, for instance—and eventual success. I can’t take all
the credit, though; gravity did give me some assistance in the final phases, and it’ll
definitely receive a big thank-you in the acknowledgments.

There’s another glass box beside me, with a man in it.

Stoker.

His head is shaved, and he looks younger. Just as massive, though: his muscular arms
are pressed up against the sides of his container, as is the top of his skull. He’s
got twice as many tubes stuck in his arms as I do, and three of them are bright red.
I guess he’s getting a transfusion.

It takes a while for the facts to coalesce into a realization.

I’m not in a hospital. Those tubes aren’t giving Stoker blood; they’re taking it away.

I’m in a yakuza blood farm.

I should be horrified, but I don’t seem to remember how. It’s more than drugs, it’s
magic; the part of me that’s still Jace remembers the blood farm Stoker and I took
down in Stanley Park, where the victims had all had their brains wiped by sorcery.

That’s not the case here, though. I can still think, still feel, however distantly.
So can Stoker; he manages to turn his head to look back at me, and his dark eyes hold
more than numb acceptance. They hold rage—rage suppressed, rage that’s been smothered
and chained but still glows with stubborn heat. It warms me, too, quickens my sluggish
pulse, melts a few of the cobwebs wrapped around my brain. I struggle to say something,
to tell him this, but the best I can do is to soundlessly move my lips.

He nods, ever so slightly. His own lips move while his fingers twitch, but he isn’t
speaking to me. He’s reciting a spell.

His eyes clear. He glances to the side, studies the tubes draining his blood away,
and leans forward as far as he can. He gets his teeth on one of the tubes and yanks
it out with a twist of his head. Blood starts to leak from the end and pool on his
stomach. He puts his head back down, stares blankly at the ceiling, and waits.

It doesn’t take long. Somewhere, a little sensor tells a technician that valuable
product is being wasted. Before very long, an Asian man in a white smock is peering
into Stoker’s cubicle. Stoker’s face is as empty as a discarded wallet. The technician
unlocks the lid and lifts it up, then leans in to reattach the tube.

Stoker clamps onto the technician’s windpipe with his teeth, and rips it out with
a yank of his head.

He must have silver or wood implanted in his teeth; it’s the only way he could inflict
a wound like that on a pire. Blood gushes everywhere, but only for a moment—it’s a
fatal wound, and as soon as the pire’s body figures that out his immortality vanishes
and he pays off his time debt to the universe all at once. Flesh and blood turn instantly
to dust, and the technician’s bones clatter down the stepladder he’d been standing
on and onto the floor.

Stoker grits his teeth and starts yanking on the restraints. They’re designed less
to physically imprison than to keep arms and legs from thrashing about, and he manages
to rip both his arms free in about thirty seconds. He unbuckles his legs, tears the
other tubes from his arms, and leaps out of his cubicle.

That’s the last I see of him for some time. I hear what might be shouting, somewhere.

I sort of drift away in the interim. I should feel relief, I suppose, but I don’t.
If I feel anything at all, it’s a kind of regret.

Eventually Stoker comes back. He opens the lid to my own glass coffin and stares down
at me. He’s covered in gray and white dust, like he’s been rooting through the remains
of cold campfires. Even with the lid up, it’s very quiet.

He stares down at me for a long time.

“I should just leave you here,” he says finally. I feel no surprise at this, just
a twinge of shame.

“I understand why you did it,” he says. “I make a better martyr than a leader, and
me dying in one of these places would make great propaganda for the Resistance.”

He shakes his head. “But you fucked up. Even now, after all this time, you don’t understand
these bloodsuckers. You think they can be reasoned with, negotiated with. Maybe they
can—but not by us. You don’t negotiate with livestock. That’s all we are to them,
and that’s why they stabbed you in the back and took you, too. Your little power play
is over, and you lost. Me, I was prepared—an antihypnotic spell and silver crowns
over my teeth, painted white.”

I know I should say something in my defense, but I don’t. Maybe I’m unable to speak,
or maybe I just have nothing to offer.

“You did get one thing right. Us dying in service to our cause will be good for recruitment.
So that’s what’s going to happen: from this moment on, both you and Aristotle Stoker
are dead. I’m going underground, so deep no one will find me—but I’m not giving up.
Oh, no.”

He leans in, only inches from my face. “I had a revelation recently. In order to fight
these monsters, you have to
become
a monster. Something as big and scary and inhuman as they are. That’s what I’m going
to do—reinvent myself as a creature even they’ll be frightened of. I’ve even thought
of a name: the Impaler. What do you think?”

I do my best to nod. He seems to understand.

“No one will know who I am, or where I came from. Not even the FHR. I will be invisible
and lethal, a murdering ghost. And it will be their turn to be afraid.”

Something touches the inside of my thigh, very quickly and lightly, and then warmth
gushes down my leg. Femoral artery.

“Good-bye, Linda,” he says softly. “You’ll be remembered, and revered, and missed.”

He stays with me until the end.

I’m grateful for that.

*   *   *

Azura and I had set up the trap beforehand. I knew that sooner or later I’d have to
use the memory trick on the sheriff, and since Azura had already broken into prison
to get access to Tair, it made sense to use the opportunity to swap this fake Stoker
for the real thing. If, you know, your definition of sense is trading an officer of
the law for a convicted serial killer and terrorist.

But then, by the time he wound up behind bars, Stoker wasn’t quite the killer he used
to be. In fact, I hadn’t captured him; he’d turned himself in, claiming the mystic
artifacts he’d been using had affected his sanity. He swore he was through with murder,
and had a grandiose plan to save the remaining human population that didn’t involve
eliminating all the supernaturals on the planet.

I wasn’t entirely convinced. But Stoker hadn’t given us any trouble since surrendering,
though he refused to volunteer information on his former associates in the FHR. His
days of ruthless slaughter might actually be at an end.…