Queen of the Dead

by Ty Drago

  Her apprehension deepened.

  “What’s going on?” Susan asked.

  Lilith smiled. “Where’s Emily?”

  Susan licked her lips. “What?”

  “Your daughter. Where is she right now?”

  “With my sister,” Susan replied. “Why?”

  “Your sister Angela?” Lilith said. Then she glanced down at the piece of paper on the desk and recited Angela’s address. “Is that correct?”

  Susan blinked. “Yes. Ms. Cavanaugh…I don’t…”

  “Lilith,” the other woman corrected. “I asked you to call me Lilith.”

  “Lilith,” Susan whispered. Her mouth felt suddenly dry.

  “A pity you didn’t bring her with you.” Cavanaugh wore her smile, but the warmth had bled out of it. What was left reminded her of D’Angelo.

  Predatory.

  Lilith continued, “I’ve shared your husband’s DVD with these gentlemen. They found it as interesting as I did…though most of what poor dead Karl had to say was already familiar to us.”

  “Poor dead…” Susan began, feeling her anger rise. What kind of way was that to talk?

  “You see, Susan, three years ago, about a year before his death, Detective Ritter founded an organization called the Undertakers. You’ve heard of it, of course…though you made the mistake of calling it a street gang. Actually, it’s more of a children’s army, a small legion of runaways who have banded together to fight a common foe.”

  “Common foe?” Susan echoed. She felt sick to her stomach.

  “An invasion from another world,” Lilith said. “Another universe actually. These invaders can’t travel physically but instead arrive here as pure energy. As such, they must possess human hosts in order to interact in this society. Unfortunately, these hosts can’t already be…occupied. Rather, the host body must be quite dead.”

  Susan’s mind reeled. This was insanity! A madman’s fantasy! And her confusion was made all the worse by the calm, matter-of-fact way in which Lilith spoke, as if she were teaching arithmetic to a first-grader.

  “Now strolling around wrapped in rotting flesh isn’t much use to an invading force. So these beings have developed the ability to project an illusion, an image of normalcy for the world to see. That way, no matter how many of their hosts rot out…and they rot so terribly quickly…the world at large still sees them the same way. Clever, wouldn’t you say?”

  Susan opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

  Lilith’s smile widened. “It’s not a perfect system. But it works.” She examined her perfectly manicured hands resting atop lightly on her desktop. For a moment, her smile faltered. But then, it was back, her eyes once locking on Susan’s. “Except for the Undertakers.”

  “The Undertakers…” Susan breathed.

  “You see, that little army didn’t fall apart when your husband died, as one would expect. Instead, they grew larger, stronger…and smarter. They went deeper underground, learned how to hide, how to fight back, how to become first an annoyance to these invaders and then a genuine threat.”

  Susan’s apprehension was morphing into alarm. She felt as if she were walking through a shifting dream.

  Nothing about this makes sense!

  Lilith said, “The Undertakers, for reasons no one understands, are able to penetrate these beings’ illusion, to see them for the ‘borrowed’ cadavers they truly are. Karl had the same peculiar talent. So does your son. I’m afraid Will has fallen in with these wayward children. He appears to have dedicated himself to their cause.”

  “What…cause?” Susan asked.

  “Why, defeating the invasion, of course!” Lilith replied with a totally inappropriate laugh. “By thwarting the plans of the beings they call ‘Corpses’ and…I suppose…sending them back where they came from.”

  Then all the men started laughing too, except there was no humor in their collective laughter. It sounded more like anger.

  Susan felt her blood go cold. “My God…”

  “And these beings are quite determined not to be thwarted,” Lilith continued after a moment. “Which brings me back to my original point. It’s a pity you didn’t bring Emily with you to this meeting today. You see, Susan…we need her. And I’m afraid now we’re going to have to go and get her, even if that means killing your poor sister Angela to do it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Susan exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “Are you crazy?”

  Lilith rose too, slowly, as if she had all the time in the world. “No, Mrs. Ritter. I’m not crazy. In fact, let me show exactly what it is I am.”

  Susan watched in mute horror as Lilith’s perfectly made-up face and elegantly styled hair shimmered and melted away. An instant after that, the same thing happened to the men behind her.

  And when she saw what was left behind, Susan began screaming.

  And didn’t stop.

  Chapter 30

  Bitter Truths

  Sharyn’s body, which had been hammering against her bonds throughout the operation, finally quieted. Her eyes closed. Now instead of her familiar dreadlocks, she was shaved bald and had a plastic tube sticking out of her head. A reddish mixture of blood and “shock absorbing” brain fluid was oozing through the tube and into a bucket.

  Ian took Sharyn’s blood pressure with one of those upper-arm cuffs.

  “I think it worked,” he said.

  Tom, Amy, Helene, and the Burgermeister came and stood around the gurney. Only Chuck and Ramirez stayed in their chairs.

  The Chief took his sister’s hand. “She’s sleeping?”

  “Still in a coma,” Ian said. “Though I think we relieved the pressure on her brain. But, Tom…there’s no guarantee here.”

  “I know. Ian…you’re a genius.”

  The medic shook his head. “All I did was read a medical book and follow the instructions. Alex did the work.”

  Tom turned to the Monkey Boss. “I owe you big.”

  “No, you don’t,” Alex replied. “I’m an Undertaker.”

  Then, without another word, he collected his drill and bits and left the infirmary. We all watched him go.

  “Thanks, Alex!” I called after him. If he even heard me, he gave no sign of it.

  Strange kid, I thought.

  “Strange kid,” Dave remarked.

  Then, from his chair, Agent Ramirez said, “That…was amazing.”

  Tom looked over at him. Then, as we all watched, the Chief of the Undertakers gently released his sister’s limp hand and crossed the room to stand over Ramirez.

  “Do you get it now, agent?” he asked flatly.

  The FBI guy nodded.

  “We’re not kids,” Tom said.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “We don’t need carin’ for, lookin’ after, guiding, or parenting,” Tom said.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “We’re soldiers,” Tom said.

  “Yes, you are.”

  “And because we got the Sight and you don’t…we’re the only soldiers there are in this war.”

  Ramirez said, “I understand that, Jefferson.”

  Now it was Tom’s turn to nod. He waved the rest of us over, except for Ian and Amy, who stayed with their patient. We all settled into a loose circle of chairs. Then the Chief said, “Okay, you were telling us about Cavanaugh…and her plans to kill the governor.”

  “You want to do this now?” the FBI guy asked.

  “If not now,” the Chief replied, “when?”

  Then, as if reaching some internal decision, Ramirez started talking. “The governor and his wife are arriving in Philadelphia this evening for a dinner with the mayor and city council. Then tomorrow…Sunday…they both have some public appearances to make before they go back
to the state capital in Harrisburg. The governor’s wife is speaking to some school kids at JFK Plaza while the governor and the major will be at the opening ceremonies of the new public pier on Penn’s Landing.”

  I pictured both spots in my mind.

  John K. Kennedy Plaza was a cement square with a big fountain in the middle of it that sat across the street from City Hall, maybe a hundred yards—and sixty feet up—from where we now sat. Except nobody called it “JFK Plaza.” Instead, it got its nickname from a big piece of modern sculpture that stood near its southeast corner. Four giant letters: an “L” and an “O” perched atop an equally big “V” and “E.”

  Love Park.

  Penn’s Landing was called that because, according to tradition, that was where William Penn, the guy who founded Philly, first landed with his ship back in the seventeenth century. These days, it was a fancy waterfront area with lots of expensive shops and restaurants, many located on big piers that stretched out into the Delaware River.

  “What makes you think Cavanaugh’s gonna try to ice the governor?” Tom asked.

  “Nothing concrete,” Ramirez admitted. “Remember that network of cops I mentioned? Well, they started whispering to me about Cavanaugh having her eye on the governor’s mansion. From what I could tell, they seemed to think it was funny…the beautiful and popular community affairs director having such big ambitions.”

  “But she ain’t even an elected official,” the Chief said. “Just a mayoral appointee. How can she just jump from that to governor?”

  “She can’t,” Ramirez admitted. “And if all I had was the rumor, I’d probably dismiss it. But then, from inside the bureau, I got the word that Dashiell had gone to Philly.”

  “Dashiell?” Helene asked.

  “He’s an international assassin…a contract sniper. More rumor himself than actual person. Nobody knows who he really is. But over the past ten years, he’s been linked to dozens of assassinations. Corporate big wigs and industry leaders mostly. A few political figures. They say he’s an American, maybe ex-Army Special Forces. But again, nobody knows for sure. No known photos of him exist.”

  “And you think this dude’s come here?” Chuck exclaimed.

  “A report crossed my desk suggesting that Dashiell may have turned down a job in Budapest because he has a contract in Philadelphia. He tends to work fast, so it’s likely that whoever he plans to kill, it’ll happen soon. Add that to the fact that the governor’s in town…”

  “A big coincidence,” said Tom.

  “I don’t believe in coincidences,” the agent remarked.

  “Neither do I. Okay, let’s go with the assumption that, for whatever reason, the Corpses have decided to kill the governor.”

  “But why hire this Dashiell guy?” I asked.

  Helene added, “Yeah! The Queen’s got thousands of Deaders. Couldn’t they just arrange one of their famous accidents?”

  Chuck suggested, “Maybe knocking off a Seer and making it look accidental is one thing. But killing the governor, who’s got to be surrounded by guards, is something else.”

  “The Queen’s got her reasons,” Tom added. “If she hired a sniper, then it probably isn’t an ‘accident’ that she’s after. Maybe a political assassin fits better with her long-range plans…the governor’s mansion and all.”

  “That’s why one of the Corpses can’t do the job,” Helene said. “Corpses won’t use guns!”

  The Chief nodded.

  “Crap,” the Burgermeister remarked.

  “So what do we do?” I asked. “How do we stop it?”

  Tom turned to Ramirez. “Any idea when and where this is gonna go down? The dinner tonight? Penn’s Landing tomorrow? Somewhere in between?”

  The FBI guy shook his head. “None. I wasn’t even completely sure the threat was real. I certainly had my suspicions about Cavanaugh…that she was corrupt, that some of the cops in this city were on her personal payroll. But that’s a long way from killing the governor. Besides, as you say, what’s her motive? But then something happened that convinced me.”

  I said, “The Corpses took you.”

  Ramirez nodded. “Probably to find out what I knew…and who I might have told.”

  “But they had you so long,” Helene remarked. “And didn’t even question you?”

  “Maybe they wanted you out of the way,” Tom suggested. “They couldn’t risk an ‘accident,’ not with a federal agent, not this weekend. So they planned to keep you on ice until Monday…then waste you.”

  “It’s possible,” Ramirez admitted.

  The Chief said, “So we gotta assume that either today or tomorrow, this Dashiell dude’s gonna make his play. Because he’s a sniper, the play’ll likely be outdoors.”

  “I have to call the state police,” Ramirez said. “Warn them.”

  “Then what?” Tom asked. “Cavanaugh’s smart, agent…and she’s had time to prep for this. You already know that the Corpses have infiltrated City Hall. What makes you so sure they ain’t already in Harrisburg? Maybe a lot of ’em.”

  “Crap,” Dave said again.

  “What are you telling me?” Ramirez asked.

  “I’m asking you: How do you know you can trust whoever it is you call?” the Chief replied. “Or whoever it is they call? One thing we’ve learned: the system ain’t our friend. And you got it double bad, Agent Ramirez. At least we can See who we’re dealing with.”

  We all watched the FBI guy absorb this. “I’m useless,” he said, sounded resigned. “My country…my whole world’s…being invaded, and there’s absolutely no way I can help.”

  “Ain’t true,” Tom told him.

  “I can’t fight an enemy I can’t even recognize.”

  “No, you can’t,” the Chief agreed. But you can help us fight ’em. We’re an army, and an army needs supplies and intelligence. Sitting in your DC office, you can help with both. We’ll work it out. You’re one of us now…kind of an Undertakers ‘irregular’…the only adult to know what’s really going on. That can’t be nothing but an asset!”

  Ramirez studied the floor for half a minute. “That could work.” Then he shook his head sadly. “I’m so sorry, kids. It’s not fair you’ve all had to suffer through this alone.”

  At first, none of us spoke. Sitting beside Helene, I felt my chest tighten up. The FBI guy was right. It wasn’t fair. I was thirteen years old. So was Helene. Dave was fourteen—or maybe fifteen. I wasn’t really sure. And Tom, the oldest of us, wouldn’t turn eighteen for another six months.

  Not fair at all.

  “Life ain’t always fair, agent,” Tom replied flatly. “But we play the hand we’re dealt…and we play it pretty good. I think you’ve seen enough to know that.”

  Ramirez nodded. “You people know what you’re doing. I’m done denying that. But that doesn’t make it just.”

  Tom shrugged. “A great man I knew once said, ‘Sometimes crying for justice is only another way of complaining.’”

  “Who was that?” I asked. But I already knew the answer.

  “Your dad.”

  Tom and I shared a brief smile.

  “So,” I said. “I guess my question still stands. If the Queen really is out to kill the governor, what do we do about it?”

  Tom asked, “The governor’s got guards right? State cops?”

  Ramirez nodded.

  “Well, we can’t trust ’em,” the Chief said matter-of-factly. “So we’ll just have to do their job for them.”

  Chapter 31

  The Phone Call

  In Haven, when the Chief says it’s time to do something, stuff happens quickly.

  Katie, the current active Boss of the Angels, hadn’t been at the impromptu meeting in the infirmary. But as soon as she was notified, she called the Angels together in the rec
room.

  At that gathering, she laid out the plan.

  Three teams would take up positions close enough to the governor to be on hand if something happened while far enough away that—hopefully—they wouldn’t get spotted, either by the governor’s security team or, worse, by the Corpses.

  “And the Deaders’ll be there,” she said. “No doubt about that! Dead cops. Dead politicians. Dead whatever. But Agent Ramirez says that Cavanaugh’s assassin is a sniper. That probably means a rifle and a rooftop. Teams One and Two will take the tall buildings around Penn’s Landing. Use binoculars and look for people…any people. Remember, this guy isn’t a Corpse. Any single person on a rooftop is a candidate. Team Three will be on the ground—as close to the governor as possible.”

  “Then what?” Burt asked.

  Katie replied, “If either Team One or Two reports anything suspicious, Three’s job will be to make some trouble. Break a store window. Trigger a car alarm. Anything to alert the governor’s security that something bad’s happening.”

  “They’ll come after us,” Chuck pointed out.

  “Yeah,” Katie agreed. “But first, they’ll secure the governor, get him out of the open air and into the nearest car or building. That’s all we’re after. Three’s job at that point will be to scatter. Disappear.”

  “Risky,” said Zack Perkins, another of the Angels.

  “Yeah,” added Tina Woo. “But no worse than the Eastern State gig the other day, and I didn’t even get to go on that one. So I’m totally up for this!”

  Chuck declared, “Me too!”

  “And me!” said Burt.

  “Zack’s right,” Katie said. “This is a risky one—and not just for Team Three. Teams One and Two could maybe get themselves shot at by a human assassin, someone who’s real good with a rifle and who won’t be fazed by saltwater. So Tom’s told me to say that if anybody wants to beg out of this one, it’s cool.”

  “No way!” Tina exclaimed.

  Everyone looked at Zack. “Hey, I just said it was risky! No chance am I walking away from this!”