The Beautiful Dead (18 page)

She makes a
tiny moaning sound, like some strange alien who can’t speak. For a moment, I
wonder if she can.

I reach for
her hands, but she slips away as though she were made of mist. Her expression
is foggy, even her eyes having trouble focusing on mine. Like she’s miles away.

“You should
come with us,” I tell her, not knowing what else to say. “You will be free,
Helen. Don’t you want to be free? You don’t want to stay here, trust me.”

She stops all
motion, suddenly petrified as a statue. I’m startled, unsure of her peculiar
behavior. I’m so afraid something awful has been done to her, like they swapped
her brain out with a shoe.

Then, in a
clear and tinny voice, she recites, “My name is Deathless.”

The entire
group of humans behind me, they take one collective step away, aghast at what
my Raise just uttered.

I peer back at
them, disturbed by their reaction. “I—I’m sure she is just confused,” I assure
them. “She just needs some comfort. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Then without
warning, Helen launches herself at me, teeth-bared, and chomps down on my arm.
I can’t even bring myself to cry out, completely caught by surprise as I am
with her sudden and strange decision to sink her jowls into my arm.

“Stop that!” I
finally manage to say, attempting to keep my balance with her teeth in my arm.
“Stop that right now!” I feel like I’m scolding a rabid dog. “Helen! Stop!” And
I press against her face with my good hand.

The effect is
instant. Helen—Deathless—whatever she is, her eyes rock to the back of her head
with only whites showing. She shudders twice, then releases her teeth from my
arm—taking half the flesh with it—and drops to the ground as though I’d somehow
cast the unlife right out of her at the touch of a fingertip, and then I see it
…

The steam,
issuing from her pale little face.

I hadn’t meant
to do that, but it certainly stopped her violent tantrum. I survey the worried,
uncertain faces of the Humans at my back—Megan’s especially. She seems to be
keeping her cool along with the rest of them. Really, our priority of getting
out of this place is so strong, I’m sure they’re just about prepared to endure
any sight, no matter how strange or disturbing or—

Hey, a chunk
of my arm is gone.

“Did you know
her?” Megan asks, eyeing the corpse.

I kneel down,
feeling quite responsible for my accidental incapacitation of the person I’d
hoped to save. I curse, placing my bare hand to her cheek, as if in attempt to
quiet the hiss of smoke that dances from them.

“I don’t think
you killed her,” Megan goes on, as if to comfort me. “She’ll wake up. I … don’t
think you can kill something that’s already dead.”

“So it seems.”
I regret ever answering the Whispers and bringing this poor soul into the
world.

“Winter, we
have to go. They might find us.”

“I can’t leave
her.” I shake my Raise to no avail. She doesn’t even flinch. “I left home to
find her. She’s the only reason I’m here. Helen, wake up!—Helen, please …”

“She’s Deathless,”
the girl tells me as soothingly as she can manage. “That means—”

“I know what
it means.”

“That means
she’s never turning back. She’s gone. She’s one of them, forever.”

I stare down
at the face of this innocent person I’d brought into this world … only to do
her the worst wrong imaginable, letting her run away, letting her fall into the
most cruel of fates … And now, I’m told there is nothing I can do. I’m told I
am helpless.

“They’re
coming,” says Megan.

“I’m not
leaving her!” I declare boldly. Me and my hero complex.

“You
must!—She’s not moving on her own!”

Without a
thought, I grab hold of “Helen” and, impressed once more with my unbecoming
strength, sling her over a shoulder. Limping as I am, dead arm dangling, I am
determined not to just leave her here in the streets.

“Onward,” I
urge the others. “We have no time.”

“Oh, Winter,”
Megan says in a pitiful tone, gazing sadly at the lifeless woman I now carry.

Again, I’m
laden with yet another awful thing I’ve done. What’s next? Do I end the world? Biting
my lip and fighting a most terrible urge to break something, I beckon forth the
old voiceless man to lead us to freedom. As we make our way down the alley,
three times I buckle, nearly dropping my Raise. Once I’ve gained good
balance—three times—we continue on. After a long journey of unwanted
sightseeing, cement streets, and negotiating with doors and alleyways, a very
large multicolored wall looms forth, extending beyond our view. A jolt of
optimism works its way up my spine … Is this the outer wall of the city?

“Are we
close?” I ask the old man, who just grunts.

Set before the
wall is half a church. An entire side of it missing, the old man seems to
suggest with a point of two fingers that this is where we need to go. So
relieved I could sigh a hundred pounds off my body—which may or may not be
Helen’s hundred—I trudge with the man to my left, Megan at my other side and a
trail of anxious, starved Humans behind.

But as we draw
closer to the wall, I realize we are not alone. At the foot of the church there
is a figure shrouded in an oversized hooded cloak. It’s a person who, upon our
approaching, does not stir.

“Wait, hold
back,” I tell everyone, spreading my arms in front of them. Thankfully, the
Humans obey, old man included. Helen teetering on my shoulder, I realize at
this inconvenient time how very limited in mobility I am.

Megan clings
to my arm, shaking. “Who is that?”

“No idea,” I
admit, “but he is clearly waiting for us. Stay back while I … while I handle
him.”

Bravely, I
step forward, like I have any idea what I’m about to do. Maybe my courage has
something to do with a shimmery steely thing on my thumb. Certainly has nothing
to do with balancing a dead person on my back. As I draw close to him, however,
all my resolve crumbles to the cracked and dusty pavement. The figure seated on
the steps of the church is a short man with a gnarled mess of metal for one
leg, and a flashing emerald-green eye.

“Dearest
Winter,” he mutters dryly, neither budging nor looking up to acknowledge me,
“of a kind and so brief time here in this befouled land. How did you enjoy your
temporary lodging with us?”

“Your lodging
could use a facelift,” I spit back.

“I never
properly greeted you, raining as it was in that mist-ridden field, and past
company considered. My name is Deathless.” His mouth is the only thing that
moves, his entire body a statue. “But perhaps I should clarify that all our
names is Deathless, even the King’s, even the girl on your shoulder. We all
bear the same name. Taking her somewhere, are we?”

When we first
met in the Grounds, he caused my friends—and myself—to drop dead without so
much as a twitch of his eye. Where his seeming power comes from or how he does
it, I cannot question. All I know is, I must be very careful, because more than
just my life will be forfeit should I inspire him to drop-dead me again. I
could wake up buried alive twenty feet in the ground, and my every body part
buried twenty more feet away. I could wake up in the center of a crowded Well
of the disassembled, all of us voiceless, helpless, abandoned …

“She belongs
to me,” I declare. “I’m—I’m taking her home to Trenton.”

“And the
humans?” he asks tiredly, like this bores him.

I have to be
the hero, even if it’s completely faked. Pretender I am. Pretender, forever be.
“What’s it going to take to free my companions from this place?”

“What’s it
going to take to keep you here?”

“I wouldn’t in
my worst dreams desire to stay here in this depraved place. And I can assure
you, neither would any of my friends.”

The short man
looks up, his first eye contact with me, his emerald penetrating my sham shield
of valor.

“May your
every confidence be great,” he drones, “and your every misconfidence greater.”

Then from
around the broken wall of the church comes forth someone else.

Grimsky.

“Grim!” I
shout, something in me releasing with joy at the sight of his pale, inviting
face. “You’re alive!”

“Well, not
exactly,” he jests, but his tone is far from humorous. “Winter … You’re
carrying a person.”

“My Raise. I
found her, Grim! Despite all odds, Grimsky! And I’m going to bring her back to
Trenton and, and—” Suddenly, recovering for a moment by the reunion with Grim,
I find myself struck with questions. “Wait. Why are you not imprisoned as I
was? Have you—Have you negotiated some sort of deal? Can we—?”

“Winter,” he
interrupts, quieting me, and I can feel his effort at keeping his voice level,
calm, unshaking. “Please. Just do me one small favor.”

At a time like
this? “What favor?”

“Set the girl
down. She cannot leave this place.”

“Of course she
can, and will. She was the whole reason we came here, Grim. What’s wrong with
you?”

He looks away,
a frustrated expression crossing him. I’m about to ask if he’s okay when he
says, “Winter … I’ve—I’ve not been honest with you.”

I close my mouth,
my insides sinking. I stare into his eyes, watching him carefully.

“I …” Grimsky
shuts his mouth, apparently overcome with emotion, struggling with how to say
what he’s about to say. “I had been … I’d been appointed … a task.”

“A task?” He’s
said so very little, but already I feel like I’m trying to catch up to
something. “This—This creep assigned you a task?”

“No,” he says
calmly, unable to look me in the eye. “It was a task assigned to me long ago,
before I met you, before I learned how beautiful and lovely you were.”

Deathless-Shorty
rises, putting his weight on the cane, and watches Grim through the side of his
face, bored.

“What,” I
repeat, my voice turning hard, “task?”

“The task of
collecting you and bringing you here.”

“Bringing me
here?” I repeat, confused. “How can that be? We encountered the Deathless in
the … in the Mists. Or … Or was that … was that planned?”

“Yes.”

I stare at
him, uncomprehending. “But … Why me?” It’s like the girl on my shoulder is
heavy suddenly where she’d weighed nothing a moment ago. “What do they want
with me? Who am I to these freaks?”

“I wasn’t sure
at first if you were the one I was supposed to bring back,” he goes on, his
voice quivering. “But then I saw something in you and—and I realized—”

“Who am I,
Grimsky?”

“I’m so
sorry.” He closes his mouth and stares at the ground, unable to finish his
thought.

I press him.
“Why am I so important? Answer that, at least.” But even I can tell I’m losing
control of myself, my emotions getting the better. “Grim! Answer me!”

“I
accomplished my mission,” he murmurs. “I got you here and—and now you can’t
leave. You belong to us.”

Us.

I shake my
head, as though to release it of everything I just heard. I’m pretty sure—No,
I’m
certain
Grimsky is being controlled or manipulated in some way I
cannot see. I absolutely have to trust that Grim is still the man I knew in
Trenton … That something has not, all this time, been kept so easily from me.

That our
relationship has not been a lie.

“Grim,” I say
finally, keeping myself as composed as I can manage. “All we have to do is move
beyond this church and we’re free. We can go back to Trenton.”

“I am not
free,” he tells me. “I am not Grimsky either. That was a name I invented. The
sky of this world, always grey, always … grim. I am Deathless.”

“Don’t say
that.” Nearly losing the girl on my back, I reach for his hand which he lets me
grasp. My hand … The one without the ring.

I shut my
eyes, overcome.

“You’re not
them,” I say, even now recalling how my ring hurt him when I tried to hold his
hand before we left Trenton, that small moment burned into me, that small
moment that makes sense now. “You’re a person,” I say anyway. “Home is just a
stone’s throw over that wall.”

“I helped
build that wall two hundred years ago,” he tells me. “Perhaps you haven’t taken
a close enough look at it. Then you’ll see what kind of person I really am.”

My eyes
detach, if only for a moment, to survey the multicolored city wall … which I
now recognize not to be made of bricks or stone of any kind, but rather of heads,
arms, skulls, leg bones and otherwise. After my little meet-and-greet with the
King, I have the unsettled feeling that not all the people in that wall are
entirely dead.

I turn quickly
back to Grim. “I know what kind of person you are. We have a life back in
Trenton. Don’t let these fools brainwash you … You know who you are.”

“I’ve always
known who I am,” he agrees softly, but not in the way I need him to. “The
moment in the grassy knoll we shared, Winter, I knew who I was then. I’ve been
Deathless since the moment I pulled you away from that cliff …”