The short man looks up, his first eye contact with me, his emerald penetrating my sham shield of valor.
“May your every confidence be great,” he drones, “and your every misconfidence greater.”
Then from around the broken wall of the church comes forth someone else.
Grimsky.
“Grim!” I shout, something in me releasing with joy at the sight of his pale, inviting face. “You’re alive!”
“Well, not exactly,” he jests, but his tone is far from humorous. “Winter … You’re carrying a person.”
“My Raise. I found her, Grim! Despite all odds, Grimsky! And I’m going to bring her back to Trenton and, and—” Suddenly, recovering for a moment by the reunion with Grim, I find myself struck with questions. “Wait. Why are you not imprisoned as I was? Have you—Have you negotiated some sort of deal? Can we—?”
“Winter,” he interrupts, quieting me, and I can feel his effort at keeping his voice level, calm, unshaking. “Please. Just do me one small favor.”
At a time like this? “What favor?”
“Set the girl down. She cannot leave this place.”
“Of course she can, and will. She was the whole reason we came here, Grim. What’s wrong with you?”
He looks away, a frustrated expression crossing him. I’m about to ask if he’s okay when he says, “Winter … I’ve—I’ve not been honest with you.”
I close my mouth, my insides sinking. I stare into his eyes, watching him carefully.
“I …” Grimsky shuts his mouth, apparently overcome with emotion, struggling with how to say what he’s about to say. “I had been … I’d been appointed … a task.”
“A task?” He’s said so very little, but already I feel like I’m trying to catch up to something. “This—This creep assigned you a task?”
“No,” he says calmly, unable to look me in the eye. “It was a task assigned to me long ago, before I met you, before I learned how beautiful and lovely you were.”
Deathless-Shorty rises, putting his weight on the cane, and watches Grim through the side of his face, bored.
“What,” I repeat, my voice turning hard, “task?”
“The task of collecting you and bringing you here.”
“Bringing me here?” I repeat, confused. “How can that be? We encountered the Deathless in the … in the Mists. Or … Or was that … was that planned?”
“Yes.”
I stare at him, uncomprehending. “But … Why me?” It’s like the girl on my shoulder is heavy suddenly where she’d weighed nothing a moment ago. “What do they want with me? Who am I to these freaks?”
“I wasn’t sure at first if you were the one I was supposed to bring back,” he goes on, his voice quivering. “But then I saw something in you and—and I realized—”
“Who am I, Grimsky?”
“I’m so sorry.” He closes his mouth and stares at the ground, unable to finish his thought.
I press him. “Why am I so important? Answer that, at least.” But even I can tell I’m losing control of myself, my emotions getting the better. “Grim! Answer me!”
“I accomplished my mission,” he murmurs. “I got you here and—and now you can’t leave. You belong to us.”
Us.
I shake my head, as though to release it of everything I just heard. I’m pretty sure—No, I’m certain Grimsky is being controlled or manipulated in some way I cannot see. I absolutely have to trust that Grim is still the man I knew in Trenton … That something has not, all this time, been kept so easily from me.
That our relationship has not been a lie.
“Grim,” I say finally, keeping myself as composed as I can manage. “All we have to do is move beyond this church and we’re free. We can go back to Trenton.”
“I am not free,” he tells me. “I am not Grimsky either. That was a name I invented. The sky of this world, always grey, always … grim. I am Deathless.”
“Don’t say that.” Nearly losing the girl on my back, I reach for his hand which he lets me grasp. My hand … The one without the ring.
I shut my eyes, overcome.
“You’re not them,” I say, even now recalling how my ring hurt him when I tried to hold his hand before we left Trenton, that small moment burned into me, that small moment that makes sense now. “You’re a person,” I say anyway. “Home is just a stone’s throw over that wall.”
“I helped build that wall two hundred years ago,” he tells me. “Perhaps you haven’t taken a close enough look at it. Then you’ll see what kind of person I really am.”
My eyes detach, if only for a moment, to survey the multicolored city wall … which I now recognize not to be made of bricks or stone of any kind, but rather of heads, arms, skulls, leg bones and otherwise. After my little meet-and-greet with the King, I have the unsettled feeling that not all the people in that wall are entirely dead.
I turn quickly back to Grim. “I know what kind of person you are. We have a life back in Trenton. Don’t let these fools brainwash you … You know who you are.”
“I’ve always known who I am,” he agrees softly, but not in the way I need him to. “The moment in the grassy knoll we shared, Winter, I knew who I was then. I’ve been Deathless since the moment I pulled you away from that cliff …”
“Don’t say that.”
“The tavern,” he goes on, choking on his own voice. He can barely get the words out. “When the tavern was invaded. I sent them there, Winter. I sent them after you.”
The. Only. One. Left. To. Blame. Is. You.
My hand slips from his. I cover my mouth, shake my head once. I don’t want to hear anymore.
“I had found you,” he mutters, “and I sent them to that tavern. Something stopped them. Something stopped them from finding you. So I had to get … smarter.” His voice quivers. “I manipulated the Trenton system. I … made them give you your Raise assignment five months early. I needed to get you out of the city. I needed you out in the open … available for the Deathless to take you. But Winter, please, listen to me. I am not a bad man.”
I feel myself collapsing within, suddenly unsure if I can hold my own weight up much longer.
“This is not a bad life. Don’t let the horrors deceive you,” he urges me. “You can have power, Winter. You can have so much power if you join us. Please, Winter …”
“Alright, alright,” grunts the green-eye. He swings his metal leg forth, coming toward us a few paces. “It’s time we make her choose, since she clearly did not cooperate with the King. Death or undeath, girl.”
“Winter,” Grimsky breathes. “Please. You have to join us. You have to be one of us, because if you don’t—”
“You’ll kill me?” I snap. “I’m already dead, what’s the use in that? My other choice is submitting to this wrong way of life—death—where we enslave innocent children and—No! I’d rather be six hundred feet in the ground than stay another day in this place!”
“That can be arranged,” green-eye murmurs tiredly.
In my Undead eyes, I swear I feel the hint of a tear forming—an impossible tear that only a Human is capable of, a Human much like the twelve that wait behind me somewhere, silently begging for their lives.
The stumpy man sighs. “The King is only so patient. Deathless, your sword.” He offers Grim what looks to be the same blade that belonged to the Judge. The hilt is wrapped in a thick, wooly sleeve.
Of course. The steel sword … Grimsky was afraid of it in the field, refusing to fetch it for the Judge when she needed it against the army of Deathless descending on us. He couldn’t touch it because—
“Please, Winter.” Grim holds the blade with less-than-confident hands. “You just need—You just need to pledge allegiance to us. It’s that easy. Please don’t make me do this.”
“Do what?” I ask angrily, challenging him, daring him.
“If you don’t pledge, then I have to shatter you.” The sword trembles in his hand at those last words. “I real
ly, really don’t want to do this.”
“You don’t have to, Grim. Wake up!”
“I must.” He’s clenching his teeth, trembling. I have never seen Grimsky like this, so flustered and scared. “Please, Winter. I still … I still love you.”
My tone changes. “Is this Deathless man controlling you? Is that why you ‘must’ do it?”
“It will all make sense,” he assures me in a shaky voice that is, in no way, assuring. “You belong here, Winter.”
The world looked a lot prettier just a few days ago. So many possibilities. So many smiles to have … and now this is my fate. How this world can so change.
YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF.
Megan makes a sound several yards behind me, like a wordless plea, a whimper. The other Humans, they’re clinging to one another like a frightened family stranded in the middle of a storm. With no positive outcome in this undeathly stalemate, I realize I’ve let them down. All of them. Offered them hope, only to steal it away. Maybe they were better off in cages. Me and my hero complex.
“Do what you must,” I whisper, defeated.
I shut my eyes.
At the sound of the sword lifting into the air, I hear the stirring of the Humans behind me, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nowhere to look but at the sight of their only salvation, me, now moments away from my end.
“We could’ve had the world,” Grim says softly to me, the final words I will ever hear.
Then he swings the blade.
C H A P T E R – T H I R T E E N
R U N
My eyes snap open.
The short man lurches forward, steel sword impaling him like a shish kebab. His cane drops to the pavement and his hands grip the rogue weapon in a panic, his tiny mouth gasping for air that isn’t there, a sickening shriek trying to leave his lips.
And there’s blood. The short man is bleeding from the wound. I look up at Grimsky, baffled by this.
Still gripping the sword, he turns his head and says, “Run.”
Don’t have to tell me twice. I signal the Humans with a wave of my good arm and, hopping and shuffling as I am with a girl over my shoulder, hurry in the direction the old man earlier indicated: through the vacant wall of the church. Just before rounding the corner, I look urgently back at Grimsky, a hundred questions still racing through my mind. His eyes find mine just long enough for him to mouth the word: “Go.”
So I do.
My imaginary heart racing mad, there is a trapdoor on the floor of the church through which we descend by the old man’s lead. I hop down a short flight of steps—a task far more difficult done than said—and we move through a passageway I assume leads under the city wall. Grateful to reach a set of stairs, we find ourselves emerging from a hole in the forest ground. Joy floods the face of each person. I’ve no idea how long they were imprisoned in the city, but to at last be breathing the air of the woods, I imagine it is a gracious and welcome luxury.
“You okay?” Megan asks, sweet as she is.
“Of course,” I answer pleasantly, ignoring the waging war of emotion and confusion in my chest that has everything to do with whether or not Grimsky is one of them, or one of us. “You?” She nods eagerly.
Judging from my small moment of humanity in the Black Tower, I’m guessing it’s either midmorning or midday, since all the Humans seem to be able to see well enough. “We’re not in the clear yet,” I tell the lot of them, adjusting the weightless weight of the girl on my back. “We need to get all of you home, through the woods. They could still be gathering their forces to pursue us.”
“We can take it from here,” one of the men in the group shouts out. “Yeah,” calls out another man by his side, eyeing me. “We’ll find our own way home.”
I frown, surveying the group with confusion. “What do you mean? Don’t you want my help?”
The two men look at each other, uncertain.
Then it dawns on me. “You don’t trust me?” I ask, not daring to admit how that sort of hurts my feelings. Oh listen to me, pretending I have feelings. “Why not?”
“How do we know you’re not tricking us into leading you to our home?” a lady in the back points out. Another man grunts in agreement. “Yeah. How are we supposed to trust that whole scene you put on back there?”
“Scene?” I wrinkle my face, confused. “You think that was all an act?—Are you serious?”
“How do we know you’re not one of them?” a younger man in the front calls out, squinting his eyes. “How do we know you won’t make dinner out of us?”
“You don’t,” I admit, annoyed at having to defend my own integrity, “but I put my own existence at risk for you. I could’ve left you in those cages to satisfy whatever profane desires those Deathless keep. I defied the King and made her scream … What more proof do you need?”
I look to Megan for support, but even she seems a bit sheepish to stand up for me, I suppose, in the presence of all these older Humans.
Then the obvious thing occurs to me. I lift my fist to them, demonstratively. “This ring, it’s made of steel. No Deathless can wear it. There’s your proof.”
None of them seem to follow. They just look to one another, as if wondering whether anyone understands the point I’ve just made. Maybe they weren’t aware of the steel-sensitivity of the Deathless. Maybe they still aren’t.
Then there is activity at the hole in the ground and, with a worried hush, everyone backs away to make room for another figure emerging from the passageway.
“Marigold??” I call out, surprised.
Her large shape cuts through the startled Humans, comes up to me with excitement in her eyes and says, “They’re coming, they’re coming!” She takes a breath, imaginary or not, then cheerily adds, “And they’re angry!”
Without a second to stop them, the Humans scatter in all directions. “Wait!” I cry out, spreading my arms in vain. “Wait!—It isn’t safe!” But already, several have vanished from sight, running to save their lives. The only ones that remain are the old wordless man, two short women who look to be twins, a teenage boy, and Megan. Why they didn’t run, I can’t say. Maybe they have a tad more faith than the rest.
Or they’re idiots. “We need to run and hide,” I tell them, “at least until those good-for-nothing Deathless get out of range or give up.”
“They don’t give up, dear,” Marigold chimes in, peering over her shoulder at the hole in the ground. “They’ll hunt to the end of time, those enduring things!”
I survey the now-panicked faces of these five Humans. I don’t suspect Marigold’s words touched them kindly.
“Then we run,” I say with confidence. “Stay with me, all five of you.” I nod to Marigold. “Six of you.”
Marigold grins chirpily. “Yes! May I help somehow?”
I hop once, my Raise shifts on my back. “Would you be—Would you be willing to carry this dead girl for me?”
Oh, the things you hear yourself say in this world.
“Ooh, gladly!” Like I’m giving her a candied apple.
It is an awkward endeavor, but the dead girl is transferred from my back to hers. Undead as we are, the weight neither challenges nor affects her ability to run.
I’m about to thank her when I hear the first hint of activity at the hole. “Go,” I breathe, turning on my own heel and gracelessly hopping in the direction of wherever.
And so we run alongside our small band of Humans.
My tireless Undead body really helps in the constant act of having to hop, because every propelling spring of my right leg is just as potent as the first, even after miles of hopping. Do Undead kangaroos exist in this world?
“I’ve never been on the run before!” Marigold cries, ecstatic. “I’m to presume this is your Raise I’m carrying?”
“Yes.”
“And you broke your leg a few, it seems?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll mend it when we get back to Trenton!”
“If we get back,” I correc
t her. Megan shoots me a look. Okay, perhaps I should be a tad more optimistic in the Humans’ presence. “Megan,” I try, “will you lead the way home? I want to ensure you guys make it there.”
“We … will be … safe,” Megan says between breaths, panting as she is. “Just … let us go … and you go home!”
In my unlimited-stamina way of running, I forget their energy expires. “You’re tiring out,” I warn her. “I don’t want any of you to fall behind and—”
“Winter,” Marigold interrupts, “They’re not after the Humans.”
I look to my side to see the teenage boy and twin girls cutting off in another direction. The Deathless on our heels, stumbling and staggering and clambering over each other, are coming straight for me—and only me.
“Of course,” I say, annoyed.
“So exhilarating!” Marigold cries out. “I haven’t had this much fun since I built an ankle from scratch!”
Ignoring her, I call out, “Megan, you need to go with the others—You can’t risk running with me!”
“I don’t want to leave you!”
“You have to! There’s a worried mother and father who want you to come home …”
“You saved my life! I want you to be okay!”
“I’ll be fine!” I assure her, my voice stern. “Just take care of yourself!—Run home!”
“But Winter—!”
“Now, Megan!!”
And then she breaks from me, taking off in the other direction. In only two short seconds, the little Human girl is gone. I feel a pang of worry, like I just watched my own daughter take off into the woods unprotected. Here I was, claiming responsibility for her, only to let her go. At least she’s in safe company now with the other Humans.
Except the old man. “Hey, oldie,” I call out between hops. “You should go with the rest of them! You aren’t safe with me!” He doesn’t seem to regard what I’m saying, running by our side with notable agility, keeping up despite his old age. “Very well, have it your way.”
“Winter!” Marigold shouts.
Peering over my shoulder again, I realize the Deathless are quicker than previously noted. Already two of them are on our heels.
The Beautiful Dead Page 17
