Dead Set: A Novel

by Richard Kadrey

  Zoe heard a faint metallic jingling of keys. Turning, she saw the two guards she’d seen upstairs. They were going into a stairwell at the end of the corridor. Zoe held the clothes in front of her and followed them. The moment she was out of sight of the door, she dropped the clothes. She almost left the broom behind, but at the last second decided to keep it.

  At the bottom of the stairs, rows of prison cells spread out as far as she could see in all directions. Most were empty, but the blood on the floor and red trails of slithering snake bodies made her wonder if the prisoners down here had suffered the same fate as the hypnotized souls at the café. This isn’t a palace, thought Zoe. It’s a feeding trough.

  Voices echoed faintly from the far reaches of the dungeon. Sweeping again, she moved through what seemed like miles of empty, bloody pens.

  She weaved her way between rows of filthy timeworn cells with bars so corroded that the rust was pitted and black. It almost looked as if with a little help, you might be able to snap one of the bars in two. But the guards would hear you, she thought, and you’d have to get past them. And the wolf-men enforcers. And snakes.

  And Hecate.

  At a crossroads where a cellful of dying dead hissed and grabbed for her as she passed, Zoe stopped. The low voices were much closer. When she started sweeping down a new row of cells, the sound stopped. But it didn’t matter. She’d already seen them.

  A hundred people were locked in a hundred separate cells. Men and women, old and young. None said anything as she went past. They seemed too afraid, not sure if she was one of them or one of Hecate’s spies. “Valentine?” she asked quietly. An old woman in a cell to Zoe’s right pointed her bony finger farther down the line. Zoe nodded thanks and ran from cell to cell whispering, “Valentine?”

  “Here!”

  She rushed to the corner cell, and there he was. Valentine looked even dirtier and more ragged than before. The wolf men’s claws had shredded his clothes and he had a bloody gash across his forehead. When he stood, one of his metal legs was bent badly to the side. He dipped and rose with each step. Still, he smiled when he saw her and they hugged each other as well as they could through the bars.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I’m not really sure. I was on my way out of the city,” said Zoe. She added hopefully, “Rescuing you, maybe?”

  “That so?” asked Valentine. “Did you bring an army? Do you have keys? Do you have a plan?”

  Zoe knew his voice well enough to hear the undertone of sarcasm, and it hurt, mostly because she knew he was right.

  “No. Nothing,” she said finally. “I just couldn’t leave with you thinking that I’d run off and forgotten you.”

  Valentine wrapped his metal hand around Zoe’s where she clung to one of the bars. “I’d never think that,” he told her. “Not in a million years. Which is about how long Hecate will lock you up if she catches you here.”

  Zoe looked around. “Is Mr. Prosper here? Maybe he knows a way out—”

  “Prosper’s gone,” said Valentine. “They gave him to those things. The ones that live on the unlit streets.”

  “Oh.” Much as Zoe hated Mr. Prosper, she didn’t figure that even he deserved that kind of end. “Can’t you get out on your own? Your arms are metal. Can’t you break these old bars?” She grabbed the one she’d been holding with both hands and pulled. It didn’t budge.

  Valentine shook his head. “We’ve all thought that and we’ve all tried. The bars might be rotten, on the outside, but they’re still solid. Forget it.”

  Zoe stepped back from the cell, looking it over, hoping she could find a weak spot. One of the little snakes swooped down and chittered around her head. She swatted at it with her hand and it flew away.

  “They’ve seen you. You have to leave here,” said Valentine urgently. “Please, you’ve made it this far. Go back to the tunnel and keep going.”

  A couple more of the snakes flew down at Zoe. They dive-bombed her head and yanked strands of hair painfully from her head before flying off.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to save you,” Zoe said.

  “Yeah, but you tried. No one’s ever done that for me before. Thanks,” said Valentine. “Now go, before someone else spots you.”

  From far away came the sound of a rough, angry voice. “What?” it yelled. “Where?” This was followed by the squeaking of the snakes and the sound of thundering footsteps.

  Valentine squeezed Zoe’s arm.

  “Show us where she is!” Angry wolf growls joined in with the human voices.

  “Run!” shouted Valentine. He released her arm and pointed to the rear of the prison. “That way. Go to the end of the row and bear right. There’s a door. I saw stairs on the other side.”

  Zoe wanted to say said something, but the stricken look on Valentine’s face stopped her. She dropped the broom and began to run as fast as she could.

  “Where is she?” Zoe heard the guards screaming at the prisoners. “Which of you was talking to her?” She heard something snap and break. She slowed and almost turned back, but ran again when she realized that the sound was the broom.

  Ahead was a rusted metal door of decayed diamond plate. She pushed through and ran into the gloom. The stairwell looked normal, like you’d see in any office-building basement. Zoe noticed a slide lock on the door and threw it, sealing the dungeon level closed. She craned her neck trying to get a a sense of whether there was anything dangerous up the stairs, but she couldn’t see anything. The sound of crashing in the other room got louder. She started up the stairs. Her footfalls on the metal steps echoed off the walls. She tried running in a lighter way, putting her weight on the balls of her feet and not her heels. Even with the new bandage, this hurt her ankle, but she kept going.

  From below came the high, eerie low of wolf calls. A second later, answering calls came from over her head. They were trying to trap her, catch her between two wolf packs. She stopped for a second and tried a door. It was locked. She tried another at the next landing. It was locked, too. Below her, someone pounded on the dungeon door, trying to get through.

  Zoe ran up to the next floor. The stairwell was cluttered with boxes and old desks and chairs. She fell against the door and opened it a few inches. A wolf man’s arm shot through the opening and grabbed for her. She tried to slam the door shut, but caught the wolf enforcer’s arm. There was nothing she could do but brace one leg against the stairs and lean her shoulder against the door to hold it closed. Sharp claws ripped at her coat as the wolf man’s arm flailed in the small opening, trying to pull free. She was trapped. She couldn’t let go of the door and she couldn’t get it closed. Snarls and howls resounded through the opening and filled the stairwell with animal fury. As hard as she pushed, the wolf man was too strong. Inch by inch the door crept open.

  She took a chance and reached into her pocket. Her hand landed on the straight razor. She pulled it out and snapped it open, slashing at the wolf man’s arm with all her strength. The enforcer howled in pain. Warm red blood ran down the wall and splashed into her eyes, but she kept slashing. The wolf grabbed the blade, but Zoe pulled it free, slashing its hand. With one more howl of pain, the wolf arm pulled back through the opening and Zoe slammed the door shut.

  She fell back against the old furniture. Footsteps grew louder below, but before she could run, a snake darted down from overhead and bit her cheek. Then another. There were six of them overhead. They dive-bombed her, hitting her face and forehead. They’re trying to get my eyes. Zoe threw her hands up and kept her head down. That’s when saw what was happening. She might have closed the door and locked the wolves out, but the little snakes wriggled underneath, slithering into the stairwell.

  Zoe slipped off her coat and threw it at the bottom of the door, kicking it into place with her heels. Still, the snakes that had made it in were coming at her. Running upstairs wouldn’t help because they could just follow her. Their high-pitched chittering was like ice picks in her ears
. She slashed at the snakes with the razor, cutting a wing off one, so it crashed into the floor. She stamped on it until it stopped moving. Keeping her hand in front of her face, she slashed overhead, hitting two more snakes. They slammed into the wall and tumbled onto the stairs. The snakes’ chittering went up an octave and the whole flock rose into the air, too high for Zoe to reach. They circled the ceiling a couple of times and flew up the stairs.

  Howls came down to her from above. The enforcers below were closing on her and the door she’d locked shook more and more as the wolf men in the hall rammed it over and over again. Zoe looked around frantically. There was another door by the stairs. She ran to it and opened it a crack. Beyond was an empty office. There were marks on the floor where souls had once worked. A few windows showed the moon high in the Iphigene sky. Zoe went back into the hall and got Caroline’s perfume bottle from her coat. Back in the office, she unscrewed the top and threw the bottle as hard as she could at the far wall. It shattered. The glass shards looked like jewels in the moonlight. Behind her, the door on the stairs started to splinter. Zoe ran back to the stairwell and crouched down behind an old desk just as the door burst open.

  A crowd of wolf men charged into the stairwell, their snouts in the air, sniffing. A second later, they tore open the door to the office and ran inside. Zoe stood up in the stairwell and slowly came out from behind the desk. At that very moment the wolves from the dungeon level broke through and ran up the stairs. She threw herself back down onto the floor as the wolf men pounded past her, following the others into the office. Zoe got up and ran through the splintered door.

  She was in a hall that looked like something she’d expect to see in an old office building. Tiled floors, wood-paneled walls and glass-fronted office doors, piles of unwanted chairs, boxes, and tables pushed against the walls.

  “Excuse me,” came a voice from over her shoulder. “Are you supposed to be here?”

  Zoe spun around, sweating and bleeding, gulping in big lungfuls of air. A young man stood there with a pile of large ledgers in his arms. He wore a tight gray suit, a bow tie, a starched collar, and small round metal glasses. Zoe thought he looked like a character in a Dickens novel.

  “Who are you?” asked the young man more insistently.

  Zoe’s mouth moved, but nothing came out. Then, “There’s trouble downstairs!” she said. “Prisoners have escaped. Get help!” The young man’s eyes widened. He turned to go, but came back and grabbed Zoe’s arm. “Come with me so you can explain what’s happening to the head clerk.”

  Zoe grabbed the ledgers and threw them up into the air. They popped open and papers flew everywhere. The young man stood in shock, watching the pages float down like a slow-motion snowstorm. Zoe shoved him from behind so that he fell over a small table leaning against the wall. She never saw him hit the floor. She was already running the other way. At the end of the hall was an imposing set of double doors. She pulled them open and ran through.

  The room she entered looked like a large auditorium. At the far end was a dais on a low stage. The middle of the room was empty, but folding chairs were stacked neatly by the door. Overhead, an enormous wrought-iron-and-glass dome let in spectral moonlight.

  Zoe thought that the auditorium must have been converted into a storeroom when Hecate took over. The walls rose thirty or more feet above her head, but they were piled all the way to the ceiling with books, old desks, chairs, statues, plaques, crumbing, yellowed records, lamps, bookshelves, rolled carpets, and hundreds of unmarked boxes. The contents of the old city hall spilled up the walls like a tidal wave of junk. Towering over it all was a mammoth ornamental mirror, as tall as the room. Its old silver face was peeling and speckled with grime, but its ornate gold-leaf frame glowed like candlelight.

  Zoe looked around, but didn’t see any exits. She realized that the piles of discarded office equipment probably blocked any doors. For a moment she panicked, but she couldn’t go back into the hall. The young man would have gone for help by now. Looking around, she saw windows dotted around the room above the piles of detritus. One window stood just above the enormous mirror. If she could get up to it, she could use the ornamental frame like a ladder and climb to the window. She climbed onto a desk, then up onto a bookcase, and onto a pile of filing cabinets. Nothing fell. Nothing wobbled. The pile felt firm under her feet and her ankle felt strong enough to keep going. She started up.

  Below her, Zoe heard the auditorium doors slam open and the sound of running feet. Human voices and wolf howls filled the air. Zoe didn’t look back until she heard someone climbing up behind her.

  Balancing on a couple of boxes of books, Zoe looked down. Wolf men and human souls in uniforms were clambering up the mountain of junk, eyes flashing, thrilled by the hunt. Zoe tried climbing faster, but the higher she got, the more careful she had to be. Every movement felt like it could start an avalanche. But she was going too slowly and looked around for a way out. On each side of her were boxes of books. Bracing her back against a big desk, Zoe dug in her heels and pushed a stack of boxes over. They rained down on her pursuers, catching a couple square in the face and knocking them to the ground. She pushed over more boxes, kicked over lamps and rolled office chairs over the edge at them. A few of the humans fell back off the pile. The remaining wolves retreated, but more came up behind them. Zoe kept climbing, stopping only to push over a drafting table or an unstable desk on the mob below.

  “Leave her!” came a woman’s voice, cool and commanding. It echoed around the room, repeating the order until it finally faded, leaving a charged silence behind.

  “What are you doing, child?” came the commanding voice. Zoe didn’t want to stop and look, but she couldn’t help herself. She had to see the woman. Carefully, moving only a few inches at a time so she wouldn’t fall, she turned and looked down at Hecate. The queen was dressed in a long flowing gown of black and red. She wore a beautiful metal crown that looked to be made of silver wolf teeth.

  “What a brave girl you are,” said the queen. “And resourceful, too.” Her smile was like the night sky—cold, beautiful, infinitely deep. “No one has ever made it this far into my palace before. Do you know why?”

  Zoe didn’t want to answer, but couldn’t look away from the queen. “No,” she said.

  Hecate gave her a dazzling smile. “Because no one has ever dared to. But you did.” The queen approached the pile of junk. The wolves and human souls fell back, creating a lane for her to pass. “That’s why I like you. That’s why you and I can be friends. Because we dare. We do what these blackguards and minions wouldn’t dare dream of.”

  Zoe didn’t want to listen, didn’t want to talk to the queen. There was something in her voice, something seductive and compelling. Something hypnotic. “I could use someone brave and resourceful for a friend. But to be my friend, you will have to come down here and stand beside me.”

  “I . . .” Zoe said weakly, “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can, dear,” said the queen lightly. “Don’t worry about falling. My men will catch you.”

  “Catch me,” said Zoe. The words bounced around in her mind until she saw their true meaning. “Yes, you want to catch me. You want to use me to get back to the world.” She backed away, knelt on a filing cabinet, and started climbing again.

  “Nonsense. Did that fool Prosper tell you that? He was mad as a hatter,” said Queen Hecate. “That’s why I dismissed him.”

  Zoe’s was dizzy. It was hard to move forward. Each step she took, each handhold, was an effort. Even though the queen didn’t tell her to stop, the sound of her voice weighed Zoe down and made moving almost impossible. She said weakly, “I don’t believe you.”

  “One day, it will be my time to leave Iphigene, you know,” the queen said. Her tone was conversational. “When I do, a new queen will have to take my place. Until now, I haven’t seen anyone worthy of the title. But you could be that queen.”

  “No” was all Zoe could muster.

  “I have your
brother and soon I’ll have your father,” said Hecate in a deadly tone. “My men are already on their way to arrest them.”

  Zoe ignored her. This angry Hecate was less hypnotic than the cajoling one, and easier to fight. Zoe’s head began to clear, so she climbed faster. She could see the edge of the giant mirror just a few yards above her.

  “I will not let you leave!” Hecate cried.

  Zoe paused, picked up a box of glass paperweights, and hurled it down to the floor. The box split open and sharp shards flew in all directions, forcing Hecate’s troops back.

  The queen turned and spoke to one of the wolf men. “Very well,” she said. “But only wound her.”

  An arrow sliced the air by Zoe’s head and embedded itself deep in the side of a heavy oak desk. She threw herself down behind the desk and looked for a way out.

  The edge of a nearby bookcase that was tall enough to hide behind. She put her shoulder into the side of the desk and pushed, feeling it slide slowly forward. Finally, it toppled down the mound, scattering Hecate’s men. Zoe ran the few steps to the bookcase and jumped on top as more arrows shot past her.

  From there she was up high enough, she thought, that if she kept low and crawled, the archers on the ground wouldn’t be able to get a good shot at her. She started forward on her belly. Arrows still flew at her, but they all landed too low or whizzed by overhead.

  “Enough,” said Hecate impatiently. The arrows stopped flying. “Come, my children. Feed. Fill your bellies.”

  Zoe heard an awful sound in the air above her. She looked up just in time to see a swarm of Hecate’s winged baby snakes swarming into the room and filling the space under the glass dome. Their high-pitched squeaks and chirps sounded even madder than before. The bats circled the dome once, twice, and then dove for her.

  Zoe stood and scrabbled up the pile of junk as quickly as she could. The giant mirror was just ahead. If she could reach it, she’d be close enough to the window that the bats and archers wouldn’t matter.