Din Eidyn Corpus (Book 2): dEaDINBURGH (Alliances) (12 page)

Chapter 12

Joey

Jennifer had been reinvigorated by Joey’s disclosures and moved again with her old vim.

“Well done, Alys. Well done, b... Joseph. We have so much to do and we’re short-handed as it is, with Emily and Jessica out looking for Steph…”

Alys’s eyes blazed wide, cutting Jennifer off.

Joey’s head whipped around.

“What about Steph? Where is she?” Joey’s voice was shrill, panicked.

He looked to Jennifer and Alys pleading for an answer.

Jennifer rubbed at the back of her head, embarrassed.

“Sorry, I thought Alys had told you.”

“Told me what, Alys?” Joey rounded on her as Jennifer gave them their privacy, slipping out into the garden.

Alys’s facial expression went neutral.

“She ran away a few nights ago, that’s why I didn’t meet you at Suzy’s. We couldn’t find her.”

Joey picked up his rucksack and slid an arm through a strap.

“Well, let’s go then.”

“We’ve searched for her, and she actually did a very good job of evading tracking. She didn’t want found, Joe. Chances are, she’s dead. You know that.”

Dropping his bag, Joey approached Alys and placed a hand in hers. The tears flowed shamelessly down his cheeks.

“I’m so sorry, Alys. You must be devastated.”

Alys whirled away from him and began busying herself, adding to Joey’s map notes.

“I’m fine. There’s nothing we can do now anyway.”

Joey’s eyes narrowed as he watched Alys amend the map, adding her own notes and borders. He hadn’t really noticed how tired she looked. To be fair, he’d been too busy being stunned by the situation that had played out between mother and daughter, and finally too caught up in planning for Somna. She had his full attention now.

Moving his eyes over her face and body, Joey’s heart sank at how exhausted, how spent Alys looked. Now he bothered to look, it was clear that she hadn’t slept in some time. To him, her best friend, it was equally obvious that she had closed off any emotions she might be feeling about her cousin’s likely death.

Joey ached to pull Alys into his arms and give her a place and an excuse to cry, to vent or to rail and rage, but that wasn’t who she was. He joined her on the floor, adding to notes and commenting on hers, idly chatting about what he’d been doing in the days since they’d parted.

In the previous weeks the curtains in front of their entire world had been pulled back, exposing a worse place beyond. All illusions were gone, all abandonment issues and feelings of isolation intensified and magnified. But in the scant few days since they’d seen each other, Suzy Wheels and Michelle MacLeod had rebuilt Joey’s resolve and given him a clear purpose. Michelle had also given him the means to hurt Fraser and half of the solution to stopping The Exalted. The Castle keys provided the rest.

With Steph’s disappearance Alys had lost more than ever and she needed the coming invasion to keep her moving forward, to keep her fighting. That was fine: it was a good cause, trying to remove thousands of people from the path of insanity and defend them. It was a worthy cause, but there was more to Alys Shephard than being a fighter. She needed to heal her aching soul. She had to make time to grieve.

In this world of theirs
–
where death was everywhere, where moss and decay covered and walked the surfaces and streets, where they’d grown up literally fighting living death
–
keeping the fires of survival, of hope, alive inside themselves was perhaps more important to their souls than living, surviving at any cost. Suzy had been right about that.

“Want to tell me about your mum’s flash-drive?” Alys asked, without looking up from her task.

“I do,” Joey replied. “But it’d be easier to just show you. Let’s go.”

Alys did look up at him now.

“Go where?”

“Somewhere wonderful,” he said. “C’mon. It’s not far.”

“Can I watch it again, Joey?” Alys had now watched Michelle MacLeod speak to her son for the fourth time and had cried from the moment she’d seen the woman who wore her best friend’s face.

“Of course,” Joey replied.

He clicked at the mouse and the video began once again. Joey saw a change happen as Alys wiped at her eyes and breathed a long, tired sigh. With this viewing, she was filtering out the raw emotion and clinically picking out the other details
–
the ones that told them the kind of man Fraser Donnelly was.

Alys had spent several hours, since coming to The Hub, scrutinising the many computers, monitors, data feeds and food stores. Joey watched her as she passed through an entire array of reactions from shock to wonder, anger to joy. Seeing Michelle and listening to an unfamiliar voice issue from such a very familiar face
–
and hearing the love she poured over the electronic device and the decades for her son
–
had smashed Alys face-first through the walls she’d built around her grief and given her permission to just cry. Alys had cried like a child. She’d had a lifetime of tears and grief to shed.

Neither of them mentioned Stephanie even once. It didn’t matter; all that mattered was that the pressure valve had been loosened and Alys could breathe once more. Tricia, sensitive immediately to their need to be alone together, had retired to her bunk for the night.

Alys’s eyes narrowed menacingly as she listened to Michelle describe Fraser’s betrayal and her shock at finding herself in the dead city.

“It’s a miracle that she survived long enough to reach this place, Joe. Truly courageous, but a miracle nonetheless.”

Joey stayed silent for fear of blubbing once again, but gave Alys’s shoulder a gentle squeeze to acknowledge her words.

Alys, who’d been sitting straight-backed, finally sagged into the soft leather chair, suddenly empty of emotion and energy. She was clearly succumbing to prolonged lack of sleep.

“We should talk about how best we can use these monitors to track The Exalted and how we can use this place to hurt Fraser… but,” Alys looked round at him through half-closed, droopy eyes, “let’s do it in the morning.”

“Sure,” Joey said softly. “Besides, I reckon Tricia in there has plenty of ideas on that score already.”

Alys didn’t reply. Her eyes had closed, her hand holding Joey’s in a slack grip.

Joey crouched and gently moved some hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. In another place, another life, or if they were different people, he’d scoop her up into her arms and lay her in the bunk above Tricia’s. In this world, he’d pay for it in bruises. Deciding to leave her to sleep, he pulled at his hand, attempting to free it from hers.

Alys’s grip tightened a fraction, holding him there. Joey smiled.

Pulling her wheeled chair alongside the couch, Joey scooped her legs up by the ankles and rested them on the couch lengthways. He hopped over her, still holding her hand, and lay with his back to the rear of the large leather sofa. Taking a chance, he smoothly slid her upper body onto the couch beside them, pulled a throw over them both, and slept.

Chapter 13

Alys

Alys filled her lungs deeply with the crisp, good Edinburgh air and stretched her arms up and behind her, popping joints loudly as she walked up The Mound’s long swooping slope onto Mound Place.

“Must you, Alys?” Jennifer complained. But she was smiling. She was doing that a lot more since Alys had put her on her back in the fighting pit.

Perhaps I should make a habit of it.

Scooping a handful of snow off the waist-high wall to her side, Alys compressed it between her hands and smacked the snowball against her mother’s right shoulder. Jennifer ignored her, but even from behind, she could see that her mum had stifled a laugh.

Joey was further ahead and turning into Ramsay Lane. Anxious to avoid The Brotherhood as much as possible, he’d chosen this particular route as it emerged much further up the hill of The Royal Mile and Lawnmarket, almost directly onto the Castle Esplanade. Choosing the less direct path meant that they would have to cut through a section of wire, but all three agreed that it was preferable to having the inevitable encounter and subsequent conversation with Joey’s former family.

After returning to The Gardens early that morning and finding Jennifer had already dispatched two groups of Rangers to the communities they most often communicated with, Joey, Alys and her mother had discussed the best method of approach for various individuals, zones and communities.

Agreeing who would be best suited to which particular tasks, they made a simple charter.

Explain the coming danger.

Offer sanctuary at Edinburgh Castle.

If the offer is refused, try to convince.

If we fail, leave an open invitation to join us at the Castle and leave them to their fate.

They hoped that the warning of Somna’s approach would be enough to motivate the people they would visit, but it was a strange tale to sell, even in this city. A man with no eyelids and an army of killers, intent on snuffing out every spark of life still flickering in the dead city. And all on the command of a Zombie King. They accepted that some would simply disbelieve their story and many might question their motives in wanting them to clear their communities. These people had either been born in those fences they occupied or had fought tooth and nail to erect and defend their borders.

All they could do was be honest and hope. Jennifer figured that the revelation of the Castle as a rally point would have a massive effect in swaying many, but only if they believed it was indeed able to be occupied.

Joey had an idea on how to help convince them that the Castle was theirs and that was why there were going there now, to put that into play. They also needed to open the gates and verify that the impenetrable fortress was theirs to enter.

Slipping through the gash in the wire fence Jennifer had cut and was now holding open for her, Alys approached Joey who stood, straight-backed, looking down the hill towards his former home along the Royal Mile. The last time the two of them had been here, a group of fresh Ringed had attacked them, costing Joey his missing finger. Jock had also taken Joey away from the city-centre that night.