Dearly, Beloved (21 page)

Dr. Chase was right. This was the sort of event that would get Nora chained to her closet door for the rest of her life, if Dr. Dearly ever caught wind of it. And it was way too easy to be caught off guard—clearly the Changed weren’t the only ones here. Who knew what else these people were into? “Where’s Doc Sam?” I yelled.

“He went that way!” Chase pointed toward the area we’d just come from.

“Okay!” I gestured to the others. “C’mon, we’re regrouping!”

“Regrouping?” Coalhouse shouted. A female zombie with the
right half of her head of long brown hair shaved clean was standing next to him, and annoyance creased her features as he spoke. She had a tray strapped around her neck that held paper fans and cigarettes for sale; Coalhouse had a few bills in his hands. “We just got here!”

“No!” Chas leaned forward, looking at me across Tom’s head. “No way! I’m not going. This is no worse than any party we e-ver threeeew!”

“Yeah, but we know one another. You want to walk home?”

Nora moved ahead of me, but Chas refused to budge. Coalhouse took two seconds to think, his brow furrowing, before tossing his money at the half-bald zombie and shoving Chas and Tom forward. “Listen to the cap. C’mon.”

With far more effort than it should have taken, we got everyone out of the heart of the crowd and off to the sidelines, where other concertgoers had gathered to converse via shouts and sign language. I located Samedi a few yards away and managed to convey, through the storm of Chastity’s angry shrieks, that we should head for the parking lot.

Samedi unbuttoned his frock coat as he walked over to join us. He wore twin revolvers beneath, in a shoulder holster. “Pickpockets,” he told me. “In the crowd. Came back here to keep an eye on the Rolls and keep my head down, saw them hit a few marks. Everybody check.”

“Great,” I said, patting my pockets. Luckily, it looked like they hadn’t hit us yet. “You think the concert’s a ruse, then?”

“I’ve partied from one end of this continent to the other,” he said. “I’ve drunk many questionable things and danced in many questionable ways. But I never thought I’d walk in on something like that this far north.”

“I have so much to learn from you,” Nora decided.

“And I’ve got nothing against them, if a party’s all it is,” I broke in. “But I’ve got a bad feeling. The masks.” Understanding
rippled through my crew, their expressions shifting. “I think we should case the parking lot, see if the Model V is here. Even if we don’t find it, look through the crowd.”

“It’s a bit of a leap from pickpocketing to grand theft auto,” Ren noted. “You can get masks like that anywhere up here. And most of the carriages must belong to the guests.”

“Yeah, but the Changed would have needed transport to get this far outside the city. Maybe it’s coincidence, maybe it’s not. Won’t hurt to look.”

“What about the boy?” Nora asked.

“I’ll find him,” Coalhouse volunteered. I nodded. He was stepping it up tonight, and I appreciated it.

“You came!”

I turned, the others following suit. It was Laura, with Dog close by her side. She wasn’t wearing her kerchief, and the electric lights brought out the pale orange shade of her hair and added gloss to the leaves unfurling from her body.

“Hey,” I said. Nora’s jaw dropped open.

Dog rushed over to me, holding out his arm stump. He screwed up his face and stomped his foot.

“Missing it?” I had to conclude. He nodded. “Well, I’ve brought the man you need to see.” I used a hand to guide him between his shoulders, pointing out Samedi, who recovered himself and beckoned the boy over. I tried to send Sam a look that read
Work fast
.

“I knew you wouldn’t forget!” Laura curtsied to Nora and the others, smiling widely. “I sent you a note. I copied it from the broadsides everyone else made.”

“This is Laura,” I said, before addressing her directly. “That’s all well and good, but … what is this place?”

“Our new home.” She joined her hands together. “I like living in the open. New London kills everything.”

“But I thought you guys were a pro-zombie group?”

“We are! Pro-zombie and pro-living!”

“Is that the reason for the party, then?”

“Oh, this is how we’re going to make money to help the dead. Though some of our brothers and sisters are still going to the city every day. The trinket hawkers and beggars. They bring people back with them.” Laura spun around. “Because now we can hold
big
parties! It’s just starting, and look how many people are already here, giving money to the performers. Word’s spreading fast. No one has to do anything wrong anymore! No more stealing, no more fighting!”

I tried to pick apart her words, but Beryl beat me to it. “You’re a gang? A guild?” Samedi looked up from his inspection of Dog’s unbound arm, his eyes filling with alarm.

Laura nodded innocently and moved closer to Dog. “They used to call us the Grave House Gang. But I like the Changed much better.”

“I take it back,” Renfield said. “Grand theft auto is apparently completely plausible. You’d think I’d learn.”

I cursed inwardly. Before anything else, I had to get Nora out of there.

“You.”

The drums built up again as I turned around to find the zombie known as Maria Hagens, formerly of Company Z, standing behind us. “Hagens!” I said, smiling slightly in spite of everything. “Haven’t seen you in months.”

“Hey! Good to see you made it out,” Tom offered.

Laura’s eyes went wide, and at once her ebullient mood disappeared. “Come on, Dog.” Samedi looked at her in confusion as she stepped in to take him, and she added, “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Don’t talk to him, Laura,” Hagens snapped. “He’s not one of us!” Laura cowered away from Hagens, working furiously with Dog’s bandages.

Shock momentarily managed to convince me I hadn’t heard
right. “What do you mean, not one of you? We were all in Z-Comp together!” I indicated my friends with an open hand.

The bony woman’s cracked lips curled back in a sneer. “You’ll know soon enough. On that note, how’re you and that little piece of meat getting along? What was her name? Nora?”

Anger started to sting my lips and cheeks—my skin trying to flush. Another clap of thunder rang out, as if the atmosphere itself sympathized.
“Meat?”

“I’m right here.” Nora stepped forward, her eyes narrowing. I reached out and pulled her back against me by her shawl. “Want a taste? I could put my fist in your mouth.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Hagens said. “I owe Dr. Dearly a debt for finding me and keeping me going, and this is my payment. You better run to ground
now
, you hear me? Actually, that goes for
all
of you. You better watch your backs!”

“You …” Nora didn’t even have to use a foul insult—her tone said it all. She tossed down her basket and advanced on Hagens again, but I caught her by her elbows, my body going rigid with anger.

“You don’t talk to her like that,” I said, careful to speak slowly and loudly. “Ever. What the hell’s wrong with you, Hagens?”

Hagens turned to me, eyes burning with rage. “What’s wrong with
me
? What’s wrong with
you
? How dare you show your face here?”

“What are you talking about?”

Hagens’s body tightened, her voice rising in a scream. “Don’t act as if you don’t know! As far as I’m concerned, Griswold, you abandoned us on the docks the night of the Siege. You left half of us to die, and marched the other half off to hell to save that piece of meat’s father!”

“Left you to die?” My voice was twisted by a growl. “What are you talking about? Colonel Lopez gave you all an out!”

“An
out
?” Hagens took a step toward me. “Is that what you
call it? Is that what you call nearly having to crawl on your hands and knees through the city after the people you’ve been trying to protect turn on you, praying someone doesn’t blow your brains out?”

“I took as many men as I could, and Lopez didn’t have to encourage the rest of you to go anywhere. He saved lives that night. He gave Company Z a chance, even if he had to relay the extermination order in the end!”

“His men hunted us down like dogs!” Hagens’s voice was always strident and tough, but when she yelled, she sounded like an angry man rather than a woman. “No. I owe you nothing.
I’m
the one protecting my people. It’s out of the kindness of my rotting heart that I’m telling you you’re not welcome here!”

“Chas and I woke up in a desert strewn with the remains of our
friends
because of Wolfe and the extermination order, and you think I somehow got out of dealing with it?” The words were out before I could stop them, and to no avail. Hagens continued to glare at me; my friends stared at me with pity. Pity I didn’t want.

“You tell me,” Hagens said. “We were both betrayed. Which one of us is still working alongside them?”

As the first few drops of rain fell, Laura rallied. “Mártira said all Changed are welcome—”

“Not this one!” Hagens shouted, rounding on her. “Never! I have no real scrap with the others, but Bram Griswold is
not
Changed. He’s a living man in a corpse. And he plays by living men’s rules!”

The first sparks of a deep, blistering anger started popping in my stomach upon hearing those words. My entire unlife was an exercise in control, but Hagens was pushing buttons that ought not be pushed. I felt myself take a step toward her, even as my higher brain processes told me to back down. That it wasn’t worth the risk.

“Bram.” Samedi moved in front of her, his eyes boring into mine. “Let’s go. Come on. We have a lot of things to figure out, but not here.”

“Look at him. He won’t even fight me,” Hagens said scornfully.

“Miss Hagens,” Dr. Chase said as she moved to usher Renfield and Chas forward. “Do shut up. And everyone check your pockets again.”

“Did a human say something?” Hagens challenged. “Because I thought I heard a
human
say something. Oh well, couldn’t have been important.”

Dr. Chase’s look of hurt caught me before I could do something I’d regret—because I knew precisely how she felt. Forcing myself to confront my impulses, to take the right path, I spread my arms out, capturing Nora’s arm and Tom’s elbow. Marching them forward, I trained my eyes on the parking lot, my ears on the rustling grass. This was a mistake. The whole damn day’d been a mistake. We just had to get somewhere safe, and get on task. In control. Figure out a new plan for helping Dog.

Resolute as always, Hagens called after us, “Keep away from here! If fortune favors you, I’ll never see you again! Because if I do … well. We’re not on the same side! Not any longer!”

On the walk home from church, Isambard told jokes. Mom laughed louder and louder at each one, as if Issy were scaling new heights of hilarity the longer he went on. Dad cracked a smile. It was a rare, hoped-for moment.

And I couldn’t enjoy it.

Strolling along with my family, I turned my face up to the sun and let my jacket slip slightly off of my shoulders. I didn’t care if it looked shameful or stupid. I was tired of being ignored, sidelined. Did I just somehow
look
unimportant? Did something in my eyes, my face say,
She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Don’t listen to her
.

It wasn’t Nora wandering off that truly upset me, although that was part of it. I’d run off myself, many times—to help her, Mr. Coughlin, Vespertine, Jenny—so I had no room to judge her there. I could even admire her for it. And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to help people, I just …

God, when was it going to get easier? I knew I wasn’t thinking straight, but it was getting harder to do so. When was someone going to pick
me
as their foremost concern for a change? When was I going to be able to
stop
thinking in terms of saving or
guarding the people around me? Not that I’d ever choose to, but when would I again have the
option
to stop?

And how long was she going to keep picking Mr. Griswold over me?

“Pamela.” I looked at my mother. “Wear your jacket properly, sweetheart.”

Taking a breath, I shrugged it up. “Of course.”

Mom wouldn’t allow me to help with Sunday dinner. Upon being chased out of the kitchen, I lingered in the hallway, thinking that perhaps I ought to find Dad and tell him about it—but then sounds started to echo from the kitchen that offered me a deep, ineffable sense of comfort. A knife being sharpened, the pop of a jar lid. From the parlor came the sound of Isambard and Jenny playing. Jenny said something, and Dad laughed.

In the interests of preserving the moment, I did nothing.

Instead I chose to distract myself by working on the laundry. There was no guarantee that Lopez would come, after all, and I didn’t feel like sitting on my hands. The laundry room was in the cellar, right next door to the bakery kitchen; both had white-tiled walls and floors. The smells of yeast and flaked white soap brought back ten thousand childhood memories—good ones. After a while I found myself humming as I starched and ironed a small glacier of handkerchiefs. We went through so many of them now.