Jillybean was becoming only a distant memory and Eve knew that when she marched triumphantly through the scorched streets of Highton the next day and saw the pools of red, the cast off hollowed-out skulls, and the litter of torn limbs scattered about in wonderful bloody glory, Jillybean would be crushed by the guilt. Even if this had never been her plan, she had set it all in motion and the horror of it would destroy her. To make sure, Eve would not just soak in the scene; she would wallow in it; she would literally bathe in it and, if she had to, she would drink it in.
A belly full of rancid, coppery blood was a small price to pay to finally cage Jillybean for good.
In the meantime, Eve’s paranoia was growing along with her hate. There were spies all around her. Spies for the Guardians and spies for the Black Captain and, worse than all of them, spies for Jillybean. She didn’t trust anyone and resorted to spying herself. Secretly, she had Gerry the Greek spy on Mark Leney, and she had Shaina Hale spy on Gerry the Greek, and had Deaf Mick spy on Shaina because maybe, just maybe the lumpy-headed girl was faking her intense stupidity.
Eventually, she had Mark Leney limping around spying on Shaina and Deaf Mick.
It wasn’t enough just to stem her inner fears and the Queen clamped down on anyone leaving the camp. Guards were posted, facing inwards instead of out.
All of this was too much for Donna Polston, who chickened out and tried to dissuade Colleen from her mission, but the young woman wouldn’t change her mind. Colleen held steady even when she heard the rumors that the Queen was going to kick off the attack as soon as it got dark.
She had planned to slip out of camp under the cover of darkness; now she would have to take a terrible risk and leave with the cool light of day on her.
With her rehearsed excuses in the forefront of her mind, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, stuck a smile on her perfectly made-up face and started heading north as if she had every right to stroll right out of camp. Within a minute, she was challenged by a swaggering Santa with the made-up name of Mordecai Monroe. It was no accident that it was he who stopped her.
For days on end, he had followed her around spouting inane sexual innuendos, letting fall gross hints about his prowess in bed and generally behaving like a pervert who was on the verge of becoming a rapist. Trusting her gut, she hadn’t shot him down and now she was hoping to profit from her perseverance.
“Hold on,” Mordecai demanded, moving to cut her off. He wore his hair greased back like he was part of a fifties doo-wop band; his sharply pointed widow’s peak made him appear older than his thirty years. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Hunting,” she answered, holding her pistol hidden in her coat pocket. The gun felt heavier than usual. Its grip growing slick as her sweaty palm oiled it. “You know, the usual.”
“No one’s supposed to leave the camp,” he told her. “There are spies, you know. Spies slinking about ain’t a good thing. You heard about those three guys today that got shot? They were the Black Captain’s spies. I heard they were going to set the horde on us. Can you believe it?”
She could, very easily. She knew a great deal more about spies than even Donna knew.
“Yeah,” she answered, shaking her head as if the idea was crazy. “I heard. I was there with Donna Polston and that Leney guy. You know I’m pretty tight with the Queen’s inner circle, right? Me and the Queen go way back. If I had time, I’d tell you about how I saved her life. Trust me, the Queen is cool with me leaving. And I’m not gonna do any spying, it’s just that my luck with hunting has been pretty bad and she’s looking forward to some venison. You understand.” She started to go on.
“I was told that no one can leave.” He pushed in front of her. “Sorry. I’d let you take off if I could. But, you know what? This can work out for both of us. The big fight’s about to go down and I can get you a front row seat. I got a primo spot picked out. I could get a blanket for us. Hmm? I got a good bottle of wine. Not hootch, baby, but a fine 2009 cab. Not a lot of people know this, but old wine is the best. What do you say?”
Colleen didn’t want to say anything; she wanted to be left alone by this slobbering nitwit. A part of her envied Jillybean’s insanity. She would never have put up with this guy. No, Jillybean would have pulled the pistol, sniffed the barrel with that hungry-to-kill look of hers and old Mordecai would’ve been out of there or on his knees begging. Jillybean did like to see them beg.
Yes, Colleen was very envious. There was power in insanity. It freed one from caring about the little things and the little people, and in the great scheme of things Mordecai was a little person with a little part to play. And yet he had a part. He was the perfect dupe, thinking with his penis instead of with his head. Only someone looking to get laid would ignore the fact that no sane person hunted at night. You were a thousand times more likely to run into a zombie than a deer.
She turned up the charm. “Well, I don’t have plans for tonight,” she told him, glancing up as if mulling over her options. “I’ll think about it. Are you going to be here for a while?”
“Until ten, but you don’t want to wait. Everyone’s saying the fight’s gonna happen as soon as it gets real dark. The Queen likes things dark when she gets her blood up.”
“Don’t we all,” she said with an impish smile, even though every word out of his mouth set her teeth on edge. She let the smile fade into simulated despair. “Hey, can I tell you the real reason I have to leave camp?” After a glance back, she leaned in close. “This is embarrassing. I was sorta skinny dipping in the ocean this afternoon. I know, I was ‘supposed’ to be hunting, but I can never catch anything anyways. So, I decided to cool off and took a dip.”
“Really? I bet that was cold.”
She only just realized how silly her lie was—who in their right mind would try swimming in the ocean in deep November? Luckily for her, Mordecai seemed to be caught up on the skinny dipping portion of the story.
“Well, I get so hot from hunting and who wants to see a sweaty Colleen?”
“I do,” he said, raising a hand and laughing.
Colleen was well-practiced at fake laughing along with men. “Ha-ha! You boys!” She put an intimate hand on his arm and gave him a gentle squeeze. “I bet you do, but if I don’t get that gun back, I won’t be going anywhere. The Queen will have me digging latrines or something all night long.”
Mordecai looked alarmed. “All night?”
“Maybe even tomorrow night, too.” His alarm increased. She touched his arm again. “But if I can get that gun, it’ll be okay. Look, I’ll be back in a bit. Make sure you stay right here. I wouldn’t want to run into someone else with a better offer; I don’t want you to lose out.”
He took a quick look around and then gave her a sly grin, showing her the gap in his teeth where a poor gambler from out of the hills had popped him one. “If you come right back…”
“I will, I promise. Bye, Mordecai.” Her smile fell away the moment her back was to him. Her fear began to pile up. If she were caught now, Eve would string her up by the neck.
With her heart trembling, she walked slowly away. A guilty person would have hurried. She forced herself not to look back until she crested the first hill—the wind-blown land of rolling hills and dead grasses was wide open and she saw no one. Now she picked up the pace and half-jogged, half-walked another five minutes before she dropped down and hid behind the crest of another hill.
Slowly, she inched up, her pistol in her hand. Nothing moved. When she was sure she was alone, she slunk into a crouch and headed west where the sun was canted just above the ocean, turning the grey water to shining silver. It was a glorious golden sunset that was lost on her. Sunsets were for romantic ninnies and that wasn’t Colleen White. She might have looked the part and she had certainly acted it at times, but she was no starry-eyed, dippy girl.
An angry part of her wished she could be around when Mordecai realized he had been used by a girl he had dismissed as just another conquest.
>
They had all dismissed her, even the Queen with her massive intellect. Yes, Jillybean had been so busy looking down her nose at her that she was as blind as the rest of them—and that knowledge, that true fact made Colleen blissfully warm inside even as the ocean breeze kicked up and blew back her long black hair.
Jillybean had dismissed her as just a backwards Hill-girl from the very start. They all had, and it was going to come back and bite them in the ass.
A white grin crept across her face. It was only part self-congratulatory. A large part was a stress response.
The night was going to be make or break for her. It could even be life or death, and as she came closer to the town, and the sun began to dip into the farthest part of the ocean, Colleen’s heart began to beat faster and her breathing picked up.
“It’ll be okay,” she told herself as she laid her crossbow and pack in the tall grass and covered them over with shoots pulled up by the roots. “Think about it. What do you possibly have to fear from a bunch of Jesus-freaks? Nothing.”
In the last few months, Colleen had known real fear. She’d come face-to-face with death a dozen times and she had certainly faced scarier people than the plump bishop she had seen walking around in a stylized bathrobe. The Queen, for instance, had gotten scarier every single day. She had started out a little nutty when Jenn Lockhart had brought her back from Bainbridge, but since then she had grown into something of a monster.
And there had been others who frightened her far more than the Bishop. Insidious men in black who made no bones about what they were after. One in particular still gave her a cold shiver whenever she thought about him—which was why she did her best to put her mental blinders on and do her job.
“You got this,” she whispered before putting her hands up and marching straight towards the first barrier that the Guardians had erected in place of their wall. It was a frightfully disgusting mound of bloated zombie corpses that stretched in an arc from one section of the broken wall to the other. There was a narrow opening where the new river ran into the town. The river was no longer the swollen monster it had been. The reservoir was depleted and now the river was only a little larger than the average mountain stream.
As she approached the mound of bodies, crossbows and spears were leveled at her by bleary-eyed boys in men’s costumes. They were part of the reserve force, keeping watch while the real Knights rested for the coming battle.
“Stop! Keep your hands where I can see them,” one cried, in a high nervous voice.
They had rushed forward as she had tried to edge between the cold water and the corpses. “Give me a moment, will you?” Colleen’s hands dipped as she nearly fell. “I’m not going to hurt anyone. I’m here on a diplomatic mission.”
“What sort of mission?” another of them asked.
He stepped close and put his hand out to help her across the river. He was very gallant, despite appearing only to be in his early teens. The others around him were just as young. Their armor teetered precariously on them as if a strong wind would send it all crashing down around their feet.
The young Knight didn’t even think about frisking her. Yes, she had little to fear from “men” such as these. “Thank you, sir. I’m trying to stop the Queen from attacking. I need the help of one of your men: Knights Sergeant Troy Holt.”
“From what everyone says, he already talked to your queen,” the young Knight replied, coldly. “He and the others were basically kidnapped. Is this going to be more of the same? Answer honestly now.” He shot her what she supposed was his version of a hard, penetrating look; she had to fight to keep the smile from her face.
“Honestly? He might be shot on sight. That’s the problem with the Queen. She’s not herself and we need someone brave to bring her back. Either way, this isn’t something I should be talking to you guys about. Who’s in charge? How do I find Holt? I need to see him this instant if all of you want to live to see morning.”
The teens conferred with silent looks of uncertainty until the gallant youth half bowed to her and led her into the little town. It was a busy place with people hurrying every which way, preparing for the fight. Some were loaded down with weapons, others had shovels and sandbags, still more carried food and water. In spite of the rush and the failing light, there wasn’t the tang of panic in the air that Colleen had expected. The people went grimly about their business.
Although she patently didn’t belong, the swarm of humanity was like bees, so focused that no one even noticed Colleen. It was a spy’s dream and yet she was oddly put out. She was too pretty to be ignored, and besides, she was saving them, or at least trying to. Her mood only grew more foul when they came to a grey block of a building. In the lowering evening light, it was a gloomy, ugly place that she thought was a warehouse until the door was thrown back and light streamed out.
It was their church and it had been in constant use since the Queen’s fleet had sailed into view days before. The pair surprised an ancient-looking priest who had been stringing a blackout curtain across the inner doorway. He was small and soft, his wispy, thinning hair was as white as snow. His wrinkles were many and deep. He was so very old that his eyes were rheumy and glazed with a light film.
“Eh?” he asked when the young Knight explained why he was there. “What’s that?” The Knight repeated himself and the priest shrugged. “This queen business again. I’m getting too old to even think about kings and queens.” He started shuffling away without asking either of them to follow. Colleen thought they had been rudely dismissed, however the priest kept talking as if they were right next to him. “Back in the old days we just had that one English queen and she had been hanging around for decades. You think this is the same one?”
“No, Father. This one’s different. This one’s younger. Is the Bishop in his office? I can show the young woman myself. There’s no need to…”
“A new queen?” the priest asked, talking over the Knight. “Well, I guess it’s about time. Not that we ever really cared one way or another over here across the pond. The Brits did their thing with their crumpets and what not, and we did ours. Nice enough people, the Brits. Not at all like these beastly Corsairs.” He had been shuffling on again, but now he stopped and looked back at Colleen, squinting along his nose to catch a glimpse of her through the bottom half of his bifocals. “You don’t look like much of a Corsair.”
“That’s because tonight I’m a Guardian,” Colleen replied, loudly so as to be heard. She knew men and could flirt with the old and young alike.
The priest grinned and took her soft hand in his gnarled one. His knuckles were so swollen and pointed they looked and felt as though they were going to poke right out of his paper-thin flesh. “Quite right. We’re all guardians of the faith in these times. Ah, here we are.” He didn’t bother knocking at the door. He bent and squinted down at the knob, looking at it as if it were a puzzle in need of deciphering. “Lefty loosey,” he whispered, like he was reciting an incantation, before turning the knob.
Bishop Wojdan looked up from a map spread out on his desk. On his right was Commander Walker and on his left was an ashen-faced Virginia Keim, the new commander of the reserves. Three other men stood in front of the desk, their bodies contorted so as to see the map right side up. One of the three was Knights Sergeant Troy Holt.
Colleen was introduced and then forced to stand beneath the withering gaze of everyone present. You can do this, she told herself. “First off, the Queen did not send me. If I am caught I will likely be killed. That’s how serious this is.”
“We’re surrounded by a vast zombie horde,” Walker growled. “You don’t have to tell us how serious anything is.”
The Bishop put out a soft plump hand. “Now, now. The young lady has a right to be heard. Bravery, in all its forms, should be applauded in this dark hour. Go on.” She explained what she needed in seconds and when she was done, even she thought the idea sounded not very well thought out and unlikely to succeed.
Troy looked c
onfused. “I’m not sure what you want from me. You want me to talk to her. That’s it? You think that just talking will coax this other Jillybean person out of her?”
Colleen opened her mouth but the old priest spoke first. “I knew a girl, way back, named Jillybean. Oh, that was ages ago and wasn’t she the darlingest thing, with her…”
The young Knight put his hand on the old priest’s arm and shook his head to shush him. Wojdan wore an embarrassed smile for the priest. “We can hear all about that when we’re done, Father Amacker. Unless you wish to tell young David about it outside?”
“No, no. Go on, miss. This isn’t the Jillybean I knew. She was a tiny girl, sweet but full of mischief.”
Colleen cleared her throat, wishing the old coot would leave already. When he didn’t leave, and no one showed him out, she sighed briefly and explained to Troy, “Yes, I know it sounds weird and it is a long shot, but all it takes to bring her back is to engage with her in the right way. Eve is nasty. You’re going to have to put up with a lot of insults and even more threats. Just let them roll off you.”
Troy’s frown deepened. “We already had a taste of that and I don’t see how being abused more will help anything. Chances are we’ll make her even madder.”
“On the bright side, she can’t kill you more than once,” Colleen said, trying to crack the hard exterior of the glaring men. It didn’t work. “Your best bet is to steer the conversation towards things that Jillybean knows a lot about. Uh, like being a doctor. Or, like building things. She can weld and make things that Eve can’t. You might even try talking about explosives, but it can be dangerous because Eve can’t build them, but likes to use them.”
“This sounds like a waste of time,” Walker said. “And a waste of a good man. Troy is too noble of heart for trickery such as this. Lying and deceit take practice. She might be crazy, but your Queen is smart. She’ll see right through anything that even smacks of dishonesty.”
Generation Z (Book 4): The Queen Unthroned Page 39
