Queen of the Dead

by Ty Drago

  But if you want the truth, it was the body heat.

  When he finally let go and looked at me, his smile flipped over. “You look like crap!”

  I smiled thinly. “Nice to see you too.”

  “I told them you weren’t dead! No way is Will Ritter dead, I said. I don’t care what thousands of people saw on television! There was just no way! Helene kept calling it denial.”

  “Burgermeister—”

  “I think she’s mad at me,” he rambled on. “I think she’s ticked off at me for not accepting. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t! That’s why I’m here instead of going to their stupid memorial.”

  “Dave!” I snapped.

  He jumped a little, as if my outburst had startled him. “What?”

  “Emily and my mom…where are they?”

  “Here, of course! Helene and I brought your sister in, and Tom and Ramirez showed up with your mom a few minutes later. Hey, dude, I’ve been meaning to ask you: where’d you get that red hair? I mean, your mom’s blond, and your sister—”

  “Do you know where they are now?”

  “Who?”

  I sighed. “My mom and my sister.”

  “They’re at the memorial! Where else would they be?”

  “And where’s that?”

  “In the rec room.” Then his grin returned, wider than ever. “Come on! I’ll take you!”

  As we ran, I was surprised at how empty the corridors seemed. Dave explained to me that every Undertaker—all of them—had come to my memorial, even the Schoolers who were out on assignment. Nobody had been saying much since it all went down, and between Sharyn, who still hovered on the edge of death, and me taking that bullet—well, Haven just hadn’t felt much like a haven lately.

  “Who told you all I was dead?”

  For a moment, the Burgermeister looked taken aback. “Who told us? It’s all over the news, dude! They don’t know your name, of course. You’re just this mysterious kid who took a bullet for the governor’s wife. They’re calling you a hero!”

  “Great,” I muttered.

  Dave didn’t seem to have heard me. “Then Tom and Ramirez came back. Tom saw you get shot. The look on his face. The look on your mom’s face. Nobody had any doubt that you were gone…except me, that is!” Then he stopped in his tracks and looked me over, really looked me over, for the first time. “Um…didn’t you get shot?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s…complicated.”

  He sighed heavily. “With you, it always is.”

  We went back to running, my head flooding with images of my mom. I hadn’t seen her in more than four months, unless you counted that whole top of City Hall Tower thing, which had already begun taking on the fuzzy, unreal quality of a dream.

  On the other hand, hugging Emily back at Eastern State had been like taking that first drink after crossing a desert. Not that I’ve ever crossed a desert, but you get the idea. What would it feel like to have my mother’s arms around me after all this time, especially because both of us had just come so close to dying?

  It sounds sappy, but I couldn’t wait to find out.

  But then I remembered Sharyn and realized that I had to wait—if only for a little while.

  I mean, what if she died while my mom was hugging me.

  “Hold up,” I said, screeching to a halt in one of the empty corridors.

  Dave overshot me by about ten feet, his size thirteen shoes kicking up dust as they hammered to a stop. “What?” he demanded.

  “How’s Sharyn doing?”

  At the mention of her name, Dave’s enthusiasm melted like fried ice. “The same,” he replied unhappily. Then he seemed to rouse himself. He gestured down the hallway in the direction of the rec room. “Dude…your mom! She thinks you’re dead!”

  “I know. Believe me, I know. But we gotta stop at the infirmary first.”

  “What for?” His smile faded a little. “You hurt?”

  Well, yeah, I was. In fact, I was hurting all over. But right now, that wasn’t even a blip on my radar screen. “I’m fine. There’s just something I have to do.”

  The infirmary was empty accept for Ian, who had apparently skipped my memorial to watch over Sharyn. At the sight of me, he visibly paled, and I saw him grab at the brick wall to steady himself.

  I went over to the gurney and looked down at Sharyn’s comatose form.

  Slowly, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the quartz—and felt instantly better.

  All pain seemed to melt away, taking all exhaustion with it. My face and ears no longer felt numb.

  What is this thing?

  “Will?” Ian asked. The medic looked at me as if I were a ghost. “How?”

  “Wish I knew,” I said. “But…for what it’s worth…I’m back from the dead bearing gifts!”

  Then, as he and Dave watched, I touched the quartz gently to Sharyn’s forehead.

  “What’s that?” both boys asked at once.

  “No idea,” I replied.

  “Where’d you get it?” Dave asked.

  “An angel gave it to me.”

  They both gawked.

  Finally, Ian replied, “Cool.”

  I kept the quartz in full contact with Sharyn’s skin. She didn’t move. “Come on,” I heard myself say. “Come on, Sharyn. We need you!”

  Dave said, “Maybe it needs batteries. I could—”

  “Hey!” a voice demanded. “What the heck happened to my hair?”

  Sharyn sat up, pushing me and the strange quartz aside. She rubbed one hand over her bald head. Her fingers found the tube that Alex had inserted in her skull, and before any of us could protest, she pulled it out and tossed it casually across the room.

  “Ow,” she muttered.

  Then, as she touched the small round hole in her head, I watched it close. Completely close. No scar.

  “That’s…impossible,” Ian whispered.

  “Hey, little bro!” the Boss Angel said to me, smiling. “You been keeping out of trouble?”

  I tried to reply, but no words came. That had been happening to me a lot lately.

  Dave cleared his throat.

  Sharyn looked at him. He looked back at her.

  “Hot Dog?” she whispered, and I was surprised to hear her voice crack a little.

  Without a word, Dave came forward and hugged her fiercely.

  Ian and I stood rooted to the floor, side by side, watching in astonishment.

  A minute later, the four of us hurried down the rec room corridor. Sharyn was moving on her own power, though she still seemed a little bit weak. On the way, I’d given her the SparkNotes version of the events during her “absence.” She’d seemed disoriented at first, then incredulous, and finally really annoyed.

  “You mean I missed all that?” the Boss Angel had exclaimed.

  As we neared the rec room entrance, I started hearing a voice. I knew it at once, though it had an unfamiliar quality. Gone was the quiet confidence, the calm leadership that I’d come to rely on. The owner of this voice sounded grief-stricken, world-weary—defeated.

  “He didn’t always do the smart thing,” Tom intoned. “But he always did the right thing. Sometimes, it didn’t seem that way at first, but every time, that was how it worked out…every single time. Amy here is with us today because of Will’s recklessness and courage, and yesterday, that same recklessness and courage saved the life of another person, the first lady of our state.

  “In both situations, Will never hesitated. He never stopped to worry over his own skin. He just acted. That’s a virtue that I’ve ever only seen in two other people. One is my sister, Sharyn.” His voice choked a little. “And the other was Karl Ritter, the founder of the Undertakers…and Will’s dad.”

  We reached th
e doorway. Inside, the rec room was packed. Rows of chairs had been set up facing the room’s far wall, where an old school picture of me had been blown up, framed, and somehow mounted to the crumbling bricks. The chairs were full, and there were kids lining the walls and crowding every aisle.

  Most were sitting in stoic silence. A few were crying. And all had their collective attention fixed entirely on Tom.

  The Chief said, “Sitting right here in the front row, we got Susan and Emily Ritter, Will’s mom and sister. Both of them are trying…like we all are trying…to deal with the grief and pain. And as much as my heart goes out to his family…and believe me, Undertakers, it does…at the same time, I gotta keep reminding myself that he’s really and truly gone.”

  Sharyn and I stopped in the threshold, side by side, with Ian and the Burgermeister behind us. We looked at each other. I opened my mouth to say something. I’m not sure what—announce our presence maybe. But Sharyn put a finger to her lips. Then she winked at me.

  Yep. She’s back.

  “I went through the same thing with Karl. One minute, he was there, and the next, he wasn’t, and it just didn’t seem possible that such a man could be so completely gone. Like his son, he seemed too…alive…to ever die. I once told Will that, even weeks after he’d been killed, I kept expecting Karl to come strollin’ back into Haven, wearing a big smile and quotin’ Mark Twain…”

  I looked at Sharyn.

  She nodded sagely.

  My cue.

  Then I stepped through the doorway and into the back of the room and said at the top of my voice, “News of my death has been greatly exaggerated.”

  Silence didn’t fall; it hammered down—so suddenly and so completely that I thought I’d gone deaf. Every head—and I mean every head—turned my way as if pulled by a common string. At the front of the room, Tom actually staggered back a step, his eyes wide. His tear-streaked face was a mask of utter and absolute shock.

  Suddenly, I sort of got Sharyn’s sense of drama.

  Then, into this thundering silence, Dave “the Burgermeister” Burger declared, “Told ya so!”

  A figure stepped in front of me. Helene’s face was pale, and her eyes were red from crying. She seemed a little shorter than she had been twelve hours go, which was weird but unimportant. The girl stared at me as if I’d just slapped her, and for a horrible moment, I thought she meant to slap me.

  But instead, she threw her arms around my neck.

  And for the first time, I let her. If fact, for the whole of that hug, I gave as good as I got.

  At the same time, I saw Tom come forward. His face crumpled as he looked first to Sharyn, then to me, then back to Sharyn. His strong arms opened—one hand, I noticed, was bandaged and probably stitched—and closed around his sister, pulling her into a tight, wordless, desperate embrace.

  “Whoa, bro!” Sharyn gasped. “Get a grip!”

  “How?” I heard him whisper.

  “Ask Will,” Ian said. “He did it.”

  Helene pulled back and looked me over. I took the crystal out of my pocket and held it up for everyone to see. “A present from Lilith Cavanaugh,” I said. “Something I bet Steve would love to sink his teeth into.”

  Tom, Helene, and the others absorbed this. By now, the rest of the Undertakers had abandoned their chairs. They crowded around us, pushing close. FBI special agent Hugo Ramirez stood among them. He was regarding me with an odd expression, shaking his head and smiling thinly.

  “His father’s son,” I heard him mutter. It was maybe the nicest thing anyone had ever said about me.

  I grinned at him, at all of them, though at the same time, I was scanning their ranks, looking for—

  “Will?”

  A slim figure came forward, pushing kids aside as if they weren’t there. As she emerged into the open and stopped in front of me, I noticed that, like Helene, she looked somehow shorter than I remembered. Older too. Her blond hair had a few strands of gray mixed in.

  Emily hung onto her pant leg as she had to mine. Her face had been washed, and somebody had found her fresh clothes. They looked about four sizes too big.

  But at least she was smiling.

  “Will?” my mother said again. She was staring at me, as if absorbing the sight of me like a sponge.

  “It’s me, Mom,” I said, choking a little on the words.

  “You…” Her voice broke. After a moment, she swallowed and tried again. “You’ve gotten taller.”

  Then she threw her arms around me and began to sob.

  I’d wondered what those arms would feel like. Now I knew.

  They felt like home.

  Chapter 42

  The Eyes of the Enemy

  The Queen of the Dead bathed in the camera flashes. She stood smiling atop the dais, the very same dais whereupon her carefully laid plans had been ruined by a single teenage boy. Now she had to start all over again, come up with a new way to advance the Malum cause. Months of work destroyed in a single moment by a display of ridiculous heroics.

  She’d lost Pierce, and far worse, the anchor shard had been taken from her. Getting another would be costly and difficult in the extreme. Her only consolation was that, try as they might, no possible way existed for those—whelps—to determine the nature and potential of the treasure they’d stolen.

  They lacked the wisdom.

  The Queen said into the microphone, “Two days ago, a young boy…who has yet to be identified…made a daring and dramatic appearance on this very spot, throwing his body in the path of an assassin’s bullet. His heroism and sacrifice is an inspiration to young people everywhere and a shining example of the integrity and strength of spirit of the good people of Philadelphia.”

  But the most galling part of the latest Undertakers debacle was having to be here, with the governor and the governor’s wife beside her, saying these words:

  “What exactly happened in the hours after this brave boy was rushed to the hospital may never be fully explained. By all accounts, he was declared dead en route only to disappear when the ambulance reached the medical examiner’s office. The circumstances of this disappearance remain a mystery and seem, in many ways, as miraculous as his appearance had been.

  “Personally, I would like nothing more than to see this young hero come before me just for a few moments so I could shake his hand and thank him for his selflessness and courage.

  “However, as that isn’t possible, the governor, first lady, and I have invited back some of the children who were present two days ago. As witnesses to the mystery boy’s amazing feat of bravery, they are here to act as surrogates of sorts…and to shake our hands in his stead.”

  With that, Lilith stepped to the edge of the dais and reached down to take the first of the waiting palms. One by one, she and her two distinguished guests moved along the line of middle school children, smiling for the cameras and shaking hand after hand.

  Oh, how she loathed them! How she longed to rip their little arms from their little bodies, tear into their slender throats with her teeth, to taste their blood and flesh. But instead, she smiled and posed and went from boy to girl to boy to girl to—

  At one of the boys, she stopped. He was slender, his head covered by a heavy hoodie. But there was something familiar about him. Something about the look in his eyes.

  It can’t be!

  Will Ritter, his face expressionless, offered his hand up to the Queen of the Dead, who paused in her tracks, glaring at him. For several long seconds, she had to fight to control herself, to prevent her fingers from locking around the wretched boy’s throat. Too many cameras. Too many witnesses. And he knew that. That was why he’d come. He knew she couldn’t touch him!

  But she could speak to him.

  Lilith accepted the offered hand and squeezed hard. Will winced but not much—not nearly
enough. But she didn’t dare apply more pressure, didn’t dare break his hand.

  Using the Ancient Tongue, she spoke directly into his mind. He was an Undertaker, so he alone would hear her words. It wasn’t much, but it was the only weapon she had.

  “You. Won. The. Day. Boy,” she said, locking her eyes on his. “But. I. Am. Not. Booth. I. Am. Still. Here. Do .You. Understand. Me. Boy? I. Am. Still. Here!”

  She knew he could See her as she truly was, See the rotting Corpse who clutched his hand. She waited for the terror to shine in his face, waited for him to pull away in panic. And she would let him go; after all, what choice did she have? But at least she could savor that reaction, revel in the horror that must be burning into him, consuming every corner of his child’s brain.

  But it wasn’t there.

  No terror. No revulsion. Instead, Will Ritter met her hard gaze with one of his own, filled with a confidence beyond his tender years. There was strength there. And determination.

  And wisdom.

  “So am I,” he said.

  Then, with a slight smile, he withdrew his hand from hers and melted into the crowd.

  The Queen of the Dead looked after him, the expression he’d worn burning into her, consuming every corner of her stolen body.

  And for the first time in her long existence, she was afraid.

  Acknowledgments

  I do a lot of research. I’d like to thank the city of Philadelphia for its cooperation and for helping me stand where Will Ritter stood and see things through his eyes. A particular thank-you goes out to the good folks at Eastern State Penitentiary, Philly landmark and prison-turned-museum, for answering my many questions. Their kind patience allowed me the freedom to poke around, soak in the mystery, and let my imagination soar.

  On April 3, 1945, twelve prisoners actually did escape from that formidable place by digging a hundred-foot tunnel under the prison walls. The tunnel has since been sealed at both ends, though at one point it was reopened and a robotic camera sent in to have a look. Bottom line, I may have taken some liberties with the details, but the tunnel, my friends, is still there.