Table Turning
I only had four Maankhs left, and I really didn’t want to use them up. But I had three Corpses to deal with. None of them had noticed me yet, buried as I was in deep shadow. However, the minute I attacked, they would.
I had my pocketknife, Sharyn’s sword, and a saltwater pistol. Given that, I might be able to take down all three.
Might.
But then what? Trapped inside their stolen bodies, they’d simply start screaming out that telepathic S.O.S. of theirs, and I’d have twenty or thirty more of them on top of me in under a minute. No way around it.
Unless I used Maankhs to kill them all.
So I pulled out the first Maankh, pointed it at the nearest deader, and fired.
As he exploded in a whoosh of dust, the other two whirled toward me.
Taking a Maankh in each hand, I raised them and pointed.
“Say cheese.”
Yep, definitely not bringing my “A” game, snark-wise.
I fired and they both went the same way as the first.
Dropping the useless cylinders, I ran to the cot and fell to my knees beside it. For a few seconds, I just studied the woman, watching the way her chest rose and fell. She looked asleep, but I could tell it wasn’t a restful sleep. Her body kept twitching, her eyes rolling behind her lids. And she kept uttering these helpless gasps and moans.
She was, I knew, on the wrong end of an awful connection. Corpse Helene, who occupied the opposite end, was literally stealing Helene’s image, voice, and memories, using them to torture and torment Maxi Me.
The problem was I had no idea how to break the link, not without killing the real Helene Ritter.
So I gave her shoulder a gentle push. “Helene?”
Nothing.
I tried again, a harder push this time. “Helene!”
Still nothing.
Would turning off the machines help? Maybe disconnecting the IV? But, given how long she’d been like this, she probably needed the fluids they were pumping into her. And the machines were just monitors. At best, unplugging them would set off an alarm somewhere upstairs and bring the Corpses running.
Maybe William had been right. Maybe there was nothing anyone could do.
But I’d never liked that word: Nothing.
So I leaned close, bringing my lips right beside the restless woman’s ear.
“Helene,” I said. “Listen up. It’s Will. Not your Will. Not the Will you married and had babies with. Not that Will. I’m …” I floundered, grasping for words. “I’m the first Will, the one you saved that day at Towers Middle School. I’m the Will you brought into the Undertakers, kicking and screaming. I’m the Will you beat the snot out of because I was too thick to understand the reality of my situation. I’m the Will who let you get captured by Kenny Booth … but who came to your rescue, doing what you’d taught me to do.”
I paused, waiting for some kind of response.
Zilch.
So I took a deep breath and continued.
“I’m the Will who fought beside you, tried to protect you even though you didn’t need protecting … until you wanted to beat the snot out of me again for doing it. I’m the Will who got us off that South Street rooftop in what had to have been the stupidest way possible. I’m the Will whose life you saved—again—in the Capitol Crypt down in D.C. I’m the Will you confided in about your little sister, and who went away from you for a whole month to look out for her. I’m the Will who got her back to you safely. And I’m the Will you said you loved. I’m that Will. Thirteen-year-old … maybe fourteen-year-old Will.”
Again I waited.
Nada. Not even a flicker.
I heard footsteps.
I jumped to my feet and ran to the first of the room’s three doors and listened. Yep, someone was definitely coming, and from the shuffle in their gait, it wasn’t a living someone. I checked the knob. Locked. I checked the knob on the second door. That was locked too. Then I remembered the third door, the one I’d come in, and hurried over to shut and lock that one as well.
Except, even if whoever was coming didn’t simply have keys, all three locked doors were flimsy. Very flimsy.
I didn’t have much time.
No sooner had I returned to Helene’s bedside than the knocking began. It was casual at first, just some deader checking on his buds in the cellar. But when no one answered, that would change.
“Helene,” I said, unable to keep the edge of fear out of my voice. “I’m outta time. They’re coming. The Corpses. Now I know you’re trapped. I know you’re stuck in some terrible place where that monster who’s wearing your face is slurping up your thoughts and memories like some kind of vampire. I get that. But, I want you to listen to me.
“Fight it. We both know it can be done. Lindsay Micha did it. She was a strong lady, and you’re at least as strong as she was. Push back. Take as much from that wormbag as she’s taking from you. Become what she is. Can you do that for me?”
Nothing. No sound at all, except for the beep of the monitors and the hammering on the door.
“I know you can,” I told her, and I believed it. If anyone could overcome whatever this was, it was Helene Boettcher Ritter. “And, when you do, I need you to do something else for me. The Corpses are gonna be on me any second. They might just kill me outright, or they might take me to where Emily and Steve and your Will are being kept. Save me, Helene. One more time, I need you to save me.”
Then, on a whim, I took the last Maankh from my belt and slipped it into her hand, closing her pale fist around it. “I don’t know if you’ll know what this is,” I said. “I dunno if you’ll be able to use it, but I’m pretty sure I won’t get the chance. So it’s better off with you.”
Just as the door burst open behind me, followed by a rush of footsteps, I leaned close and gave the woman a kiss on her forehead. Not on her lips. That would have been way too weird. This wasn’t my Helene, after all, not by about three decades. But on the forehead felt okay. In fact, it felt right.
“See ya,” I whispered.
Four of them grabbed me, all big male Type Threes. They yanked me to my feet and turned me around just in time to see a fifth figure step through the open doorway and into the circle of arc lamp light.
Corpse Helene.
“Well, now, Mr. Ritter,” she said. “It seems your little invasion has ended in the only way it really could have. But, honestly, I’m honored. The boogeyman himself. And a genuine time traveler! Imagine!”
I couldn’t help it; I looked at her Mask.
This was the first time I’d seen her up close, and the sight shook me pretty bad. She looked so much like Helene. The same hazel eyes, the same smooth skin and light brown hair. Helene as a grown-up. Except, of course, this wasn’t her. It only looked like her.
This was a monster playing dress up.
My water pistol was in my waistband and my knife was in my pocket. But, even if I could somehow reach them, neither would do much good against this particular deader. Her host was a Type Two, which made her plenty fast and strong. On top of that, she was a Royal, and I knew from personal experience—the kind that you relive in your nightmares—that she could move in a blur and hit me hard enough to knock my head right off my neck.
“Nothing to say?” she remarked, stepping closer. “A pity.”
She took the pistol from my belt, looking amused. Then, moving with shocking speed, she pointed it at one of her minions and fired a stream of water into his face. The Corpse fell back, twitching and writhing. For an instant my left arm was free, but then another deader stepped up to take his place, holding me even tighter.
As the one she’d tagged dropped to the dusty floor, convulsing, Corpse Helene laughed.
“It really is an amusing effect, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Gimme,” I suggested. “And I’ll show you first-hand.”
“I don’t think so.” She threw the gun hard enough against a nearby brick wall to shatter its plastic. Then she stepped close again, so close that the stench of her filled my nostrils and almost made me gag. Was that perfume I smelled mixed with the stink of rotting flesh? Why on Earth would she bother?
Her hand slid into my pants pocket, dead fingers grasping for and finding my pocketknife.
Crap.
She pulled it out and examined it, turning it over in her purplish, bloating hands. “Now this is a treat,” she purred. “William Ritter’s infamous pocketknife! Manufactured by Steven Moscova out of nagganum, and a time traveler in its own right, is it not? How wonderful! What an excellent trophy it will make … alongside this.”
She touched her throat, where a heavy chain hung around her neck. Tugging on it, she pulled a six-inch clear crystal out of the front of the sundress she wore.
An Anchor Shard.
“This is the crystal I used when I first came to this city,” she said. “I sheered it off the Eternity Stone myself, at the cost of a good many Malum lives. And I used it to part the Ether and cross the Void to Earth, holding it before me like a torchbearer. After all that, it seemed fitting that I keep it, even though the Rift it opened is now closed. Don’t you agree?”
“Don’t care much either way,” I said. “Where are the Undertakers?”
She regarded me with a cold smile. “Do you want to join them?”
“Depends. Are they dead?”
She laughed. “A sensible question. No. Not yet, anyway.”
“Then, yeah,” I replied. “I want to join them.”
“I’m happy to oblige.” To her minions, she said, “Bring him.”
“Yes, Mistress,” three of them replied at once. The fourth deader, the one she’d squirted, still hadn’t completely recovered.
As they started to drag me out the door through which they’d come, I looked over at Helene, who still lay on her cot. She hadn’t moved an inch, as far as I could tell.
I’m totally screwed.