Secret of the Corpse Eater

by Ty Drago

  By the time I awoke, it had gotten colder. Shivering, I sat up and immediately noticed a change in the surrounding darkness. The angled shadows, sharp as razors before, seemed a little blurrier now, as if the light leaking between these two domes was more diffused.

  Was the sun coming up? If so, then I’d been asleep for hours.

  I was still alone. No Lindsay Micha, not in either of her forms. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. She wasn’t exactly easy to be around, but having her gone for so long made me wonder if she was as unbeatable against Corpses as I’d thought.

  So … you’re worried about that thing now?

  Except she wasn’t a “thing” anymore. And that surprised me.

  I learned long ago how useless worry is. So instead of brooding, I got up, stretched, and had my first real look around. The weird space was totally quiet—no sound at all—and the angles and shadows made it seem a little freaky.

  I needed a change of scenery.

  My eyes strayed to the only door. Approaching it, I found it locked. Fortunately, while my sat phone was toast, my faithful pocketknife lived on and I used it now, clicking the 1 button and working the door until it opened.

  Within: a short hallway, some steps, another door, and then —

  Wow.

  Cool autumn air chilled me to the bone. But, for the moment at least, I didn’t care.

  I found myself emerging outside, onto a small, circular walkway at the very top of the Capitol building, right under the Justice statue. Below me, the white dome swept out and down, disappearing beyond a metal, man-made horizon. And before me, Washington, DC spread out in a tapestry of crisscrossing lights, a funky grid with sharp diagonals heading off along four opposing compass points.

  It was as if the entire city flowed from exactly this spot.

  For a while I just stood there, watching the sunrise. I hadn’t seen too many sunrises in my life and, despite the cold, it was pretty amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I almost didn’t notice Lindsay’s return. Once again in human form, she appeared at my shoulder and said wistfully, “Quite a view.”

  I glanced her way and then shielded my eyes, my cheeks burning. Talk about “quite a view!”

  “Um … you’re kinda naked again,” I stammered.

  She sighed and produced a Capitol police jacket, which she slipped into. It had to be four sizes too big for her, but at least it covered up what needed covering up.

  Then, to my further surprise, she offered a second jacket to me. “I thought you might be cold. I don’t feel it, but I imagine that you might.”

  “Thanks,” I said, meaning it. But, as I put it on, my hand came away a little sticky. I caught the whiff of formaldehyde. “Lindsay?”

  “Yes, Will?”

  “Where’d you get these?”

  “Their previous owners aren’t going to be needing them,” she replied tonelessly.

  A chill rolled down my back, despite my “borrowed” outerwear.

  “Did you …” I swallowed and tried again. “Did you eat?”

  “Oh yes. I’m sorry about my abrupt departure. Our conversation was making me … nervous, and I’m embarrassed to admit that when I feel nervous, I eat. I’ve always been that way.

  Not exactly like bingeing on potato chips. But then I thought: The enemy of my enemy, screwed up my courage and said, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course,” Lindsay Micha replied cordially, not at all like a wild-haired, half-crazed, half-naked weresomething.

  “How long are you going to keep me here?”

  She considered the question. “Just until the Third is gone.”

  “The imposter?”

  She nodded.

  “Why do you call her the Third?”

  More consideration. “I don’t know. That’s just what she is: the Third.”

  “Who’s the First?” I asked.

  She sighed. “I suppose I am. I should apologize for my earlier outburst. So much has happened … so quickly … and I’m afraid I’m still playing catch-up. I hate the notion of being that … that … thing. But denying it is pointless.”

  “Okay,” I said. “And who’s the Second?”

  The question surprised her. “Why … I am,” she said again. “Isn’t that what you were trying to explain to me before?”

  And of course it was; I’d just needed to be sure she knew it. Two beings sharing a single body. The First and the Second.

  And the Corpse calling herself, Lindsay Micha, was the Third.

  Of course, what all that meant remained a complete mystery—but it had to have something to do with Cavanaugh’s scheme to replace the senator.

  I needed to contact Haven.

  Then I saw something.

  Something that convinced me what I really needed to do was keep talking.

  I saw Sharyn.

  The girl, dressed in her page uniform, appeared on the catwalk behind Lindsay, watching us through the open doors that led from there to here. Her expression was wary, but when her eyes met mine, I read only relief and curiosity. Not what should have been there: fear.

  She wasn’t afraid, which meant she didn’t understand what she was dealing with.

  I swallowed.

  Lindsay asked, “Everything all right?”

  Behind her—so close—Sharyn opened her mouth to speak, maybe to announce herself with some cute comment. She had this sense of drama that I’d only recently started to appreciate.

  But today, it might get her killed.

  So, in desperation, I said, “When you changed into that Corpse-eating monster earlier … I thought you were gonna make me your snack!”

  I said it loud, louder than I’d had to, loud enough for Sharyn to hear and, hopefully, get. She did; her mouth closed, at least for now.

  Lindsay looked hurt. “Will—”

  “But you didn’t!” I added quickly. “All you did was push me down and tell me to stay. I took that as a good sign!”

  “Will,” the woman said, frowning. “There’s no need to shout.”

  “Got it,” I said, still pretty loud. “Nix the shouting.” Then, as if to underline my words, I ran my hand across my throat.

  The Angels’ “abort” signal.

  Sharyn nodded her understanding. But she still didn’t move, and I wished there was a gesture that said: “Get your butt gone before the old lady eats you!”

  Time for, as Tom liked to put it, a “tactical re-think.”

  “Lindsay …” I began. She looked at me, her grubby face so poised, so…senatorial. But I couldn’t shake the memory of how quickly she could change, or of what she changed into. “I need to get to a phone.”

  “No!” she exclaimed, much more loudly than she’d accused me of talking. For an instant her eyes danced with color, and I felt my heart skip a beat. “It’s too dangerous! I have to protect you!”

  The classic grown-up response. Well, I’d played this scene before, and I knew my lines. “Why?” I asked.

  “Why? Because you’re a child!”

  “And?”

  “And?” she echoed. “Because they’re hunting you … the same monsters who are hunting me. These … Corpses. I’m an adult. You’re a minor. So I have to keep you safe.”

  “You sound like my mother,” I remarked.

  “Do I?”

  “She didn’t want me to come down here… … to DC. We had this big fight about it right before I left. She was afraid I’d get hurt.”

  Lindsay went very still. Her face paled.

  But she didn’t reply, so I kept going. “What she doesn’t get is that I’m not just her son anymore. I’m an Undertaker. People are counting on me. I couldn’t stay in Haven. I couldn’t stay safe. Do you get what I’m saying?”

  “Jacob,” she replied, a faraway look in her eyes.

  Not exactly the answer I’d expected. Heck, not even on the list of possibilities. “Huh?”

  “My half-brother,” Lindsay explained. “There were twelve years between us and
, after our father and my stepmother died, I practically raised him myself. I’ve never been a parent. Never married. Just never found the time. But … in a way … I guess I was Jacob’s mother.”

  “Where is he now?” I asked, though from her tone I could have guessed.

  Tears filled her eyes. “He died in Vietnam in 1971. He was …” She seemed to choke a little on the words. “He was nineteen. So long ago. I’d almost forgotten.”

  “Lindsay. I’m—”

  But her eyes bore into mine, shutting me up. They were flashing again—a bizarre kaleidoscope of colors. “He was a Marine. And, like you, he believed in risking himself to do what was right. They said he threw himself on a grenade … saved perhaps a dozen men. Two officers came and told me.

  “His remains were flown home”—a sob—“in a bag. I buried them in Arlington Cemetery, just across the river from DC. But it wasn’t Jacob. It was just … parts. And when the service was over, those same two officers handed me a folded flag. I’d traded the only person I’d ever loved for a folded flag.”

  She started crying openly. And I just stood there, feeling stupid and useless. What was I supposed to do? Hug her? Maybe put one arm around her shoulder the way Tom sometimes did to me?

  Then, to my horror, Sharyn said, “That sucks, Senator.”

  The Angel Boss had snuck up on us while Lindsay had been talking. Now she stood in the nearest doorway, wearing a look of gentle sympathy. Her eyes touched mine, just for a second, and if she read my warning, she sure didn’t pay any attention to it.

  Her free hand reached out toward the trembling woman—

  —who whirled around on the girl, and instantly changed.

  Oh crap …

  Suddenly face-to-“face” with 130 pounds of legs and teeth, Sharyn Jefferson didn’t scream. Even when that mouth widened, wider than the Grand Canyon, the Angel Boss uttered nothing louder than a gasp.

  What she did do was turn and throw herself down the stairs and onto the catwalk.

  An instant later, as the Corpse Eater tensed up to pursue, I did the only wildly stupid thing I could think of—one that would forever cement my reputation as a crazy risk taker.

  I jumped on its back.

  I’m not what anybody would call a heavyweight. But then neither was Lindsay, even while in this form. So I figured my bulk might slow her down, or maybe even pin her to the floor—at least until that impossible head rolled back around and ate me. Makes sense, right?

  Wrong.

  The Corpse Eater hit the catwalk half a step behind Sharyn, with me sprawled atop her. As she did, two of her ten legs twisted backward and locked around my body, holding me firmly.

  Keeping me safe while she killed the “intruder.”

  The girl covered the length of the catwalk at a full run, reaching the first staircase and literally jumping down its steps, hitting the lower platform, rolling, and then finding her feet again.

  Lindsay and I were right behind her. I could feel the changed woman’s leathery muscles flexing, as her eight legs—ten, minus the two holding me—churned across the metal surface in hot pursuit. Sharyn, quick as she was, would never be able to stay ahead. She had seconds to live, unless I did something about it.

  “Lindsay!” I gasped. “Look … at … me!”

  I was totally ignored.

  Sharyn bolted along yet another catwalk, vaulting over its railing a split second before the Corpse Eater’s huge jaws clamped around the air in her wake. She fell four feet, grabbed one of the vertical struts, and kind of swung herself down another level. Not exactly a parkour move, and certainly not Jillian quality, but pretty impressive.

  Still, it was nowhere near enough.

  Lindsay vaulted the railing, too, but instead of dropping straight down as Sharyn had, she leaped fifteen feet and landed on the lower platform, cutting off the girl’s escape.

  Seeing this, Sharyn froze where she stood, breathing hard, her dark eyes wide with uncharacteristic terror.

  The Corpse Eater—powered by blind rage and bizarre, otherworldly hunger—took a predatory step toward her.

  I reached up and seized Lindsay’s enormous head in both my hands. The blue eye was facing me and I shouted right into it: “Lindsay!”

  Again, she ignored me.

  I gave the head a hard shake. Nothing

  The Corpse Eater advanced on the trapped girl. There was now only fifteen feet between them.

  “Lindsay!” I screamed. “Don’t!”

  Ten feet.

  Time to go Stooge, I thought.

  I poked it in the eye.

  The Corpse Eater paused in mid-leap, uttering a sound like escaping steam. The head inside my hands whirled around, its red eye fixing on me like a laser beam.

  And a word—just one word—burned into my mind.

  Rude!

  I winced, but refused to look away. “You know what’s rude? Killing my friend! That’s rude!”

  The red eye kept glaring.

  The creature’s two-legged “seatbelt” withdrew, and I was dumped unceremoniously onto the walkway. My bruises got bruised, but I scrambled to my feet anyway.

  The Corpse Eater loomed over Sharyn, its hideous mouth opening wide enough to engulf the girl completely. To consume her. Legions of teeth glistened in the uneven light.

  I fumbled out my pocketknife and opened its Taser. I had no idea if it would work.

  Then Sharyn spoke. “Whatcha waitin’ for?”

  The Corpse Eater paused. So did I. No one moved.

  “I ain’t figured this all out,” the girl said. “But I got enough of it. You’re Lindsay Micha … and something ’bout the way the Corpses used you like a Xerox machine did … this. But you flipped it on ’em, didn’t you? You got away from wherever they had you and you came here, to this building—your hood—and you been givin’ them the business ever since.”

  Then the Angel Boss did something that knocked me right off my “crazy risk” throne: she patted the creature’s “cheek.”

  “Well, I got no beef with that,” she continued, smiling. “Thing is though, you took my friend. I figure you did it out of kindness—for the right reasons and all, but you took him and now it’s time to give him back.”

  Lindsay could have been a statue for all the reaction she showed.

  Sharyn said, “We ain’t your enemies, Senator. We’re probably your best and only friends. Will ’n me and the rest of the Undertakers been fightin’ this war for years, alone, and we ain’t been doing too bad for ourselves. That makes us allies.”

  I caught Sharyn’s eye, and held up my Taser questioningly. She gave me a look that seemed to say “What for? I got this locked!” Then she faced the creature again, whose red eye had been traded for blue.

  Good sign? No idea.

  “So?” the girl asked. “You gonna eat me and be alone again? Or you gonna fight beside us … and really make those wormbags pay?”

  Then, in the blink, the Corpse Eater was gone—and Lindsay Micha stood in its place.

  Sharyn tried to be cool about it, but I read the shock in her dark eyes. Still, she didn’t retreat—not a step. That’s Sharyn.

  “You’re children,” Lindsay said.

  “No, we ain’t,” Sharyn told her. Then she stepped dismissively around the woman and pulled me into a hard hug. “Remind me to kick your ass later,” she said. Then, whispering in my ear she added, “You got a knack for makin’ interesting friends, little bro.”

  “You should know,” I whispered back.

  That earned me a chuckle.

  “You look like children,” Lindsay said, sounding befuddled.

  Sharyn replied, “And you look like a lady in her sixties. But we both know that ain’t the whole story, don’t we?”

  Lindsay’s eyes filled with tears. “I … don’t know what to do.”

  Sharyn sighed. “Well, for starters, how’s about puttin’ on my jacket?” she suggested. “Then … well, if I know my little bro here, he’s already got a plan.”<
br />
  I looked from one to the other: the tearful old woman and the grinning girl.

  I sighed.

  “Yeah. I kinda do.”

  Lilith Cavanaugh

  “Ms. Cavanaugh,” her minion in the outer office announced through the intercom. “Tom Jefferson has arrived.”

  The Queen smiled in sweet anticipation. Her eyes fixed on Philly Chief of Police D’Angelo, one of her most senior Malum advisors. The next few minutes were important, even vital. “Is everything ready?”

  “Yes, Ms. Cavanaugh,” he said, standing at respectful, if annoyingly ridiculous, attention.

  Her gaze raked the other Malum in the room. There were five, including D’Angelo and herself. Just the right number. Strategy, as with everything else, was a question of balance. Too many of her minions might spark an unwise confrontation. Too few would suggest weakness.

  Pressing a dead, lacquered fingernail down on the intercom button, she said, “Send him in.”

  The body she wore was new, though far from fresh. With her last one all but falling apart, and with today’s “summit” to consider, she’d insisted on something—anything—that would allow her to move about without her bones snapping and popping like bubble wrap. This three-week-old cadaver, that of a human crone near sixty, was the best her people had been able to provide.

  The Queen looked up sharply as her office door crashed open and her assistant’s headless body tumbled across the threshold.

  As it landed on the carpet with a heavy thud, Tom Jefferson stepped inside. In his fist was a short sword. And trailing behind him was none other than Susan Ritter.

  What a pleasant surprise! Lilith thought greedily.

  Out loud, however, she frowned and said, “Well … that’s inconvenient. Tell me, was it necessary for you to behead my underling?”

  “Behead?” Susan Ritter asked, looking confused and frightened.

  And the Queen thought: Of course. You can’t see it, you silly creature. You’re as blind as the rest of them. To your poor eyes, she looks as if she’s sleeping there on my rug, doesn’t she?

  “Yeah,” Jefferson said, answering the human woman. “Her head’s back in the other room.” Then, fixing his dark eyes on Lilith, he added, “She told me Ms. Ritter here wasn’t invited. Even tried to block my way.” He raised the sword. “Didn’t like her tone much.”