Almost Alive (The Beautiful Dead Book 3) (15 page)

“Sorry.” Rake sighs, rubs his face. “I should have said it differently. I haven’t slept in days, sorry.”

It takes me a long moment to calm myself. I know I’m yelling at the wrong person. This isn’t Rake’s fault. Trouble is, I don’t know whose fault it is.

It’s the Deathless epidemic all over again. The hunger for Human blood. Is our long-guarded secret out?

I feel sick.

“This isn’t good,” says Rake simply. “We have to report this to the Mayor. A child’s been murdered. Our safety is … is compromised.” Rake shakes his head.

I bring myself back to the curb, sitting next to him. “Is your sister alright?”

“Yeah. No. Yeah.” He wrings his hands, frustrated. “I’m sorry, Winter. I can’t.” He gets up abruptly, quite finished with our moment, I guess, and retreats into the hospital. I’m not sure what it is that he
can’t
, but I’m left alone regardless with only my worries for company.

I should probably tell Megan myself. If one of “my kind” have turned to feeding on Humans, I want to know who it is. You know, so I can
personally
turn them to ash.

“I’m here to see the Mayor,” I tell the two men at the front desk. “It’s urgent.”

A radio is picked up and a word or two is shared. Then the man nods and directs me up the stairs. Twelve long flights of steps later, I’m let into the Mayor’s office.

“Winter,” says Megan for a greeting, seated at her long, cluttered desk. “Come in. Have a seat. You said your business is urgent?”

“Quite. And I’ll stand.”

The door shuts behind me. I come to Megan’s desk and keep my eyes on her. I want her to keep her head about her. Somehow, after the years of hardening that this position has clearly given her, I doubt I should be concerned at all. Regardless, I still see this woman before me as the little ten-year-old I once sheltered and cared deeply for … like a daughter or a little sister.

“Well, go ahead,” urges Megan, her voice low and steady. “Say whatever it is you’ve got.”

“We’ve just had a death at the hospital,” I begin. “It was a boy. He was … allegedly bitten by an Undead. He was bitten many times. ‘People bites’ they called them. I assume he bled to death, I’m not sure.”

Megan’s face remains blank as paper. A long moment passes. She simply inhales, then exhales.

I frown. I guess I could go on with my own thoughts and give her time to form her own. “So … you and I can safely presume
why
an Undead might bite a Living, but we’re left to wonder who. And also … how the Undead
learned
what effect blood has on us …”

Megan still listens with the coolness of an undisturbed pool of water. Not a single emotion, positive or negative, seems to cross her face; she’s simply listening with pure neutrality in her eyes—the Living and the dull blue one.

“Do you … Do you think we have Deathless among us?” I ask, not caring for the question at all. “We need to find out who did it. We need to find them and stop them. I’ll put a sword through their belly myself.”

“Very well,” she says simply.

I lift my eyebrows, confused.

“Very well,” she repeats, rising from her chair. “That was the way of Old Trenton, if I was told it right. The Judge would perform a simple test to determine if a citizen was Deathless; that is, if he or she drank of Human blood or ate a person’s Living flesh. It was a steel sword, I believe?” Megan smiles gently. “We’ll gather the Undead of New Trenton and we will put a steel sword through each. The guilty shall be outed.”

The idea makes me nervous. I want to know who it is that bit and killed the child, of course, but what if I don’t like the answer? Benjamin had quite suddenly developed a sensitivity to steel, but insisted he was no Deathless. I wonder if he even knew what a Deathless was. Surely he knew … Surely …

“Let us do it now and let us do it publically,” she decides, her blue eye flashing with conviction. “We need an answer, and the people deserve it directly.”

I don’t like this at all. I don’t like the sound of it. I don’t like what it means. I don’t like the statement it makes, but all I do is answer: “Yes, they do.”

A public “meeting” we will have.

In the course of one painstaking hour, all the Undead are summoned to the main courtyard of the Necropolis, just outside the Mayor’s Cyclops tower—which I’ve aptly named so. Three Undead had to be called away from their jobs, others from the comfort of their homes in the Neighborhood. Word spread quickly, and many Humans were drawn to the scandal, whether by curiosity or by mere dark suspicion. The air is thick with mistrust and unanswered questions riddle the faces of all.

“We are here today to make a display of trust between Livingkind and Undeadkind. As you well know, I do not hold secrets with my people and I will continue to uphold that reputation. That is why we will conduct this display of trust publically.” She nods at an armored man, who produces a steel blade from his sheath. “We will perform the Judge’s Test on each of our Undead to prove, simply, that we are—none of us—a member of the Deathless faction. I see this as a way,
publically
, for our Humans to rebuild trust with our Undead companions, as you pay witness to each and every one of them as their innocence in Deathless activity is, right before your eyes, proven.”

I stand in the line next to John, who seems as casual as a cucumber in the garden. I resist rolling my eyes. Doesn’t he know the seriousness of this situation? I wish I had had time to better brief him. Further down the line, Ann and Marigold stand side by side. I notice there’s only twenty of us standing before the crowd. Who’s missing?

“Should any of you protest this display of trust,” says Megan, “please, do speak your piece now and you will be dismissed back to your post. You are not required to take part and there will be no questions asked.”

A ‘display of trust’ she calls this, to make it seem less like the witch hunt it is. I suspect, among the line of Undead, they would like just as well to know who among them is “Deathless” … whether they know or not what that means. Perhaps Megan is a bit smarter … and more manipulative … than I ever gave her credit for.

John smiles at me, shrugging. I sigh and face the crowd, anxious as ever for what may or may not soon be revealed.

“No objections then? Please, first in line, to the chair.”

One by one, each Undead citizen is sat in a chair before the crowd and, gently, the steel sword is plunged through their belly. When the crowd observes that no smoke or steam is made, the sword is then removed and the Undead excused. I’m surprised and equally disturbed by the creepy formality of this procession. As each patient Undead is ceremoniously skewered, then unskewered, they take their place back in line and the next makes their way to the chair.

I experience a sudden pang of doubt. Is John’s ring some strange exception, or do I still carry any sensitivity to steel at all? If I’m outed before the crowd, there’s no telling what might happen. I certainly wasn’t the one who mistook a child for a snack, but would the crowd judge me any differently even if my innocence in that specific crime was somehow proven?

The next one goes. The next one’s stabbed. The next one’s returned to the world. “Next, please,” Megan calls. And the crowd watches, watches, watches. Everyone is waiting for the Deathless smoke, whomever among them is old enough to know what to look for.

Why are we doing this at all?—That’s what they all must be wondering, Living and Dead both. Is it possible that word of the boy’s death has reached others’ ears by now, or is Dan still grieving over his brother in the room of that hospital, his tragic news not yet shared?

I clench shut my eyes. I play with John’s ring on my finger. Time seems to crawl as though to mock me.

The one to my left mutters under his breath. I don’t know him; must be an Undead from Trenton I never personally met, or perhaps someone who happened on the Necropolis within the twelve years I was at John’s buried side. Either way, I’m unable to hear what the hell he’s griping about for a while until finally I pick out the word: “Ridiculous.” Then: “Dumb. So useless. Pointless.” He’s not happy about the proceeding, clearly.

“Don’t worry,” I whisper to him. “It’ll be over soon.”

It’s Marigold’s turn. She sits in the chair as if she were about to be served a nine-layer birthday cake. When the sword enters her, she giggles. When the sword’s pulled out, she says, “Ooh! Can we do that again?” Marigold is gently excused into the crowd.

The man to my left is next. I’m wringing my hands, staring at the crowd of onlookers and worrying the worst: What if I’m still affected? What if I’m Deathless? The thoughts torment me as my eyes scan the Humans that watch us with sick, dark fascination.

Just then, I find a girl in the crowd. She’s about ten years old, same age Megan was when I first met her, long ago. The girl’s face reminds me so much of someone, yet I can’t put my finger on it. The girl seems sweet, curiously watching as if she were at the zoo, curious what the baboon will do, or whether or not the giraffe will bend its neck for a sip of water. I know that girl. Who is she?

When the screaming happens, I’m still so distracted with figuring out who the girl is that I hardly notice it. I spin my head just in time to see the man—sword still impaled in him—tearing through the crowd of Humans, a trail of smoke following him. He’s
screaming
. He is quick, but the Humans are quicker, and within seconds he is captured and dragged back to the front of the stage where, less ceremoniously than the others, the sword is yanked out of him … and the steam rises from his wound like wiggly fingers of smoke reaching up, up, up.

The cries of dissent and shouting from the crowd are met by Megan’s guardsmen, who try desperately to regain balance. The man, still steaming, is curled up by the chair now, groaning and crying like a baby. The line of Undead standing before the crowd has broken considerably, all of us moving to get a better look at this man who, quite clearly, just proved himself Deathless.

“DESTROY HIM!” someone shouts from the crowd. Others cut in, men and women and frightened children: “BURN HIM! PULL HIM APART AND BURN HIM!”

Silly Humans. Don’t they know the Dead can’t burn?

Over the Dead man’s wails of agony, Megan addresses the crowd in as loud a voice as she can manage: “Silence! Order! We have the culprit and your minds can be at ease now! The culprit’s been found! The culprit’s been
found!”

I notice the Undead sharing uneasy glances at one another, as I assume they’re just now discovering this wasn’t, in fact, simply a ‘display of trust’, but rather a setup to out the wrongdoer among them. John’s casualness has been traded for a look of bewilderment as he stares at the Dead man writhing on the ground, still wailing and wailing and wailing. I imagine one’s sensitivity to steel may, in fact, be quite proportionate to the amount of Human one’s consumed. From this man’s display of pain, he’s consumed quite a lot.

“He will be questioned and the matter of his crimes will be investigated thoroughly,” Megan declares to the crowd, promising the sweetest justice them. “Take him to the tower,” she tells her guardsmen. The Dead one, who still moans pitifully with smoke whirring out of his belly like little ghosts, is dragged off by the armored men. The smoke at his abdomen never stops hissing.

John turns to me, a smirk on his lips. “I guess we’ve been spared the fun of having a sword through us.”

“Actually, I’ve had it before,” I remark, feeling smart. “My red dress did not appreciate it one bit.”

The Undead are dismissed back to their posts and the Human crowd begins to dissipate. As I survey the looks on their faces, I can’t help but feel that trust is
not
the thing that was gained today, regardless of Megan’s ploy. Even the Undead seem slighted, turning to one another and wondering whether this display of trust was, rather, a display of mistrust. About the only happy one among us is Marigold who, I’m quite sure, would happily accept a blade through her bowels at any given point of the day.

Ann rushes up to me almost immediately afterwards, her eyes burning with thoughts. “Did you know about this? Did you—Did you know what Megan was doing?”

“Ann, I can’t discuss it just yet. We’ll talk about it on our next shift together, alright?”

“We’ll talk about it
now
, actually.”

Our tiny exchange is interrupted when the Chief approaches us. He folds his arms, a smirk creasing his leathery face in half, and says: “The Deathless are among us. The hunger is alive.”

“Not anymore.” I glance at the chair by which a man only a moment ago was screaming and writhing on the ground.

“
Winter
,” Ann whines at my side, her eyes flashing.

“Soon, Ann. I promise you. But not here, not now.” I dismiss myself from the pair of them, insisting to get as far away from that haunting chair as possible. The more distance I put between myself and the horror of today, the better I feel.

It isn’t until I’m well away from the scene that I realize what the Chief—Brock—was getting at: we ended the ‘display of trust’ right after finding the man—but didn’t bother to try the rest of the line, myself included. The man may not have acted alone.