Queen of the Dead (7 page)

Sharyn rammed the syringe into Dave's lower right side, making him wince. Then, shifting her weight, she hammered in the plunger with the heel of her other hand. A second later, she was six feet away again.

“You want to make the hit just above the kidney. Too high and you scrape a rib. Too low and you hit the hip bone. You can go for the butt, but Steve-O says the juice needs a lot longer to work in fat than it does in muscle or tissue.” She grinned. “Questions?”

Chuck asked. “How many Deaders have you nailed this way?”

“Four,” Sharyn replied. “That's what I spent last night doin', riding around the city and wasting Corpses. The last one was with Will in an alley near the prison. For all the others, I was alone.”

“Why alone?” Helene asked, “How come we didn't know about it until now?”

“Top secret,” the Boss Angel replied. “We're turning up the heat here, brothers and sisters. For the first time, we got us a practical yet lethal weapon to use against the Deaders. Until we were sure it worked, Tom and I figured we'd keep it quiet…just in case somebody…” Her words trailed off.

But we all knew what she meant.

In case somebody got grabbed by the Corpses, who had this God-awful way of getting someone to talk.

“Any other questions?”

“How big a group is going?” Burt asked.

Sharyn considered this. “I'm going. So are Will and Helene because they've had a look at the place…at least from the outside. I'll take three others.”

Every hand went up, including Dave's—though, of course, his was ignored.

Shouts of “Sharyn!” and “Ooo! Ooo!” flooded the room. There were between ten and twelve Angels at any given time. While a lot of kids like Dave itched to join, others tended to transfer out after a particularly close call. Well, either that or—

Enough said.

Sharyn scanned the room, looking a lot like a teacher panning for student volunteers. “Chuck,” she said at last. “Burt. And Katie.”

Groans of disappointment followed the announcement.

The Boss grinned. “What? Y'all that eager to get yourselves killed? Chill. If this was a night job, I might take the whole crew. But because it's daytime, I want to keep this small and quick. Next go 'round, dudes. I promise. For now, I need the team to meet me in Tom's office. We got some stuff to look at 'fore we hit the streets.”

The meeting broke up. Helene and I stood and looked at each other. She grinned. “‘Ritter,' huh? Face it, Will—you're famous! You just can't get away from it!”

I didn't reply.

Want to know why I was so uncomfortable at that birthday party earlier? It wasn't the surprise party itself. It was the sad fact that in the four months I'd been living at Haven, that was the
only
such party I'd ever attended. And this despite the fact I knew a half-dozen kids who'd had birthdays come and go unnoticed during that time. Why me and nobody else?

Because I was Karl Ritter's only son.

And that wasn't the end of it. Now I had a weapon—a brand new Undertakers weapon—named after me! They could say it was because I'd killed Booth, and I felt sure that was part of it. But it wasn't
all
of it.

Again—Karl Ritter's only son.

A lot to live up to.

And it was a rare day when I felt equal to the challenge.

Helene read my face. “Jeez. Cheer up! At least we didn't get into too much trouble over last night's mess.”

“We can't recon together anymore,” I complained.

She shrugged. “I was half-expecting Tom to put me back into the Schoolers and you back into the Moms! He's not big on kids ignoring the rules and regs.”

The Schoolers was Helene's old crew, the Undertakers who infiltrated area middle schools, looking for and rescuing new Seers. That was how Helene and I had met. She'd found me, alone and terrified and Seeing the walking dead everywhere I looked, and had gotten to me before the Corpses had. After that mission, she'd graduated from Schooler to Angel trainee.

The Moms were Nick Rooney's crew. Usually filled with the greenest recruits, the Moms did the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and basically every other duty that nobody wanted. I'd never spent a day on that crew, having moved right from First Stop, the Undertakers' boot camp, to Angel training.

But that's another story.

Besides, I knew Tom would never have demoted me like that. After all, I'd done far stupider things as an Undertaker than going after that wallet, and I'd always managed to stay in his good graces.

Bulletproof
, I thought.

Because I was Karl Ritter's only son.

“Come on,” Helene said. “Let's get to the briefing.”

As I followed her out of the rec room, I glanced around and spotted Dave. He still stood near the front, motionless as a statue—a big statue. He wore a strange expression on his face—sad and kind of wistful. Maybe he wished he was going with us to the prison. Maybe he wished he could just get himself into Angel training.

I half-expected him to meet my eyes, maybe toss me a silent plea for help.
Talk
to
the
Chief
for
me
, that look might say.

Except the Burgermeister wasn't looking at me at all.

His eyes were on Sharyn.

Undertakers prefer to move about in the city at night.

As far as we've been able to tell, Corpses don't see in the dark any better than we do. To be honest, we're not really sure how they “see” at all, given that their eyes are rotting out of their heads. Like with a lot of other Deader abilities, they just do it. Still, we've learned that it's easier to run, easier to hide, easier to keep from getting beaten to death or eaten in the dark.

Occasionally, though, the shadows just aren't an option. Occasionally, we need to confront Deaders with the sun in the sky.

At night, it's about stealth, about hitting them hard and fast and then disappearing.

During the day, it's about being smart.

The signs read:

The School District of Philadelphia Sponsors
“Breaking In”
Where Physical Fitness Meets History!

The Hackers had photoshopped two of them in less than an hour, printing them out on poster paper and glueing them onto a couple of those plastic folding “Wet Floor” signs you can get at any office supply store.

Our Angel strike team was dressed in sweats and sneakers, including Sharyn. The five of us stood at loose attention on the sidewalk as she strutted back and forth, wearing a hard gym-teacher expression that made her look older than she was and carrying a big silver whistle that she blew—well—a lot.

“We don't got all day, boys and girls!” she announced. “Let's get this party started! Fetch the ladder!”

A small crowd had gathered—all nicely human. They were clearly amused by what they were seeing: a handful of kids struggling to pull a heavy aluminum extension ladder from the rear of an unmarked white van. We moved in formation, making little “hup hup” sounds with each step, per Sharyn's instructions. Frankly, the whole thing felt ridiculous, but it
did
seem to have the desired effect.

As we hauled the ladder across a narrow strip of landscaping and stood it up against Eastern State Penitentiary's thirty-foot outer wall, the crowd's only reaction was to watch and laugh. Dressed in sweats and “hupping” like soldiers, the operation felt more like street theater than what it was: breaking and entering.

But at least between our performance and our printed signs, no one was challenging us.

The great city of Philadelphia was always doing dumb stuff like this.

“Ladder in place, ma'am!” Chuck Binelli barked, saluting Sharyn. She saluted back, the action stiff and military precise, as if she saluted people all the time.

“Head on up!” the Boss Angel barked.

Chuck went first. Then Helene. Then Katie. Then Me. Then Burt.

Sharyn saluted the crowd, blowing the whistle one last time. The small audience actually applauded.

Then she followed us up.

Sharyn had parked the white van on Corinthian Avenue, a narrow side street that ran along the penitentiary's eastern wall. The prison entrance was on Fairmount, the southern side, which meant our “ladder bit” had gone down around the corner and out of view from the gate. Hopefully, the Corpses—none of whom were in sight—wouldn't know we were here despite all the “hup hups” and the whistle-blowing.

Making so much noise in the name of surprise was a risky tactic but a necessary one. We needed to get into that prison, and nobody figured the Deaders would just open up if we knocked.

Sharyn joined us atop the wall. This time, she didn't blow her whistle. From here, the crowd couldn't see us; Corinthian Avenue was too narrow.

Which meant the show was over.

Eastern State Penitentiary lay sprawled out below us like a huge, many-legged spider. The design had been pretty unique in its day: a central hub topped with a guard tower, with cell blocks radiating out from it in all directions. The wheelhouse design had been copied by a lot of other prisons around the country.

“Red,” Sharyn commanded. “Check the towers.”

I pulled out my pocketknife and tapped the
7
button, springing the telescope. Peering through it, I scanned the prison's tall central structure. Then I turned my head and studied the smaller guard towers mounted on the outer wall at each of the four corners.

“Clear,” I reported.

“Not real big on security, are they?” Helene remarked.

“Yeah,” Sharyn admitted. “I'm surprised. After you two hit the gate last night, Tom and I kind of figured they'd have posted at least a few lookouts. Maybe they're tryin' to keep a low profile. But don't trust it. If any of y'all sees a Deader pop up, signal the rest.”

“Then what?” Chuck asked.

“Then I'll take him out before he can give the alarm.”

“How?” Burt asked.

But Sharyn only grinned and changed the subject. “Listen up. Burt, Chuck, and Katie to hit the north side of the prison. Helene, Will, and me'll go south. With the guard towers empty, I don't figure they got too many Deaders in here. But that might change fast if we get spotted. Keep to the rooftops of each cell block and see what you can see through the skylights. Careful, though…some of the blocks were under repair when they closed this place down. Don't want nobody falling through a weak spot. Everybody dig?”

We all dug.

“Burt, your team gets the ladder. You can use it to bridge over to the nearest cell block. And keep your radios on. If you spot a Corpse, radio the rest of us. And if you spot Ramirez, even better. Let's do this, Angels.”

With that, we split up. Sharyn went first, balancing her way along the crumbling, three-foot-wide battlement, with Helene and me following close behind. Below, on Corinthian, most of the spectators had moved on. The few that remained looked more bored than suspicious.

Good.

It struck me that I wasn't scared to be doing what I was doing—well, not
really
. Here, I was trotting atop a wall with a three-story drop on either side of me, and the only thing running through my mind was tactics. In the four months since I'd stepped outside my family's house in Manayunk and been hit with the Sight, most of things that used to scare me had lost their power.

When
did
I
get
so
brave?
I wondered.

We neared the southeast corner of the prison. The original stone watchtower had been updated with a more modern brick guardhouse that jutted outward along the wall just enough to keep us from getting around it.

We stopped, crouching low and studying the prison grounds. The courtyard remained empty.

That was the good news.

The bad news was that the gap between us and the roof of the nearest cell block looked at least fifty feet wide!

“So…how do we get over there without killing ourselves?” I asked.

“Like I told you back in Haven,” Sharyn replied, “it's a surprise!”

Then our dreadlocked leader reached into her backpack and withdrew what looked like a small steel crossbow.

“What's that?” Helene asked, her eyes lighting up.

Sharyn grinned. “Say hello to Aunt Sally!”

Helene looked blankly at her. I didn't. I'd seen it before—or something like it. Steve had shown it to me during my early days with the Undertakers—a crossbow that shot grappling hooks. Back then, however, it hadn't been called “Aunt Sally” or anything else. In fact, it hadn't worked at all.

“She's the first of her kind…what you call a ‘prototype,'” Sharyn explained. “Check this out.”

She pointed the crossbow toward the cell block roof—

—and fired.

With a soft
twang
, a steel bolt shot across the intervening space, digging deep into the hard tar that layered the roof. In its wake ran a thin black cable, barely as big around as my pinky, that Sharyn immediately pulled taut, leaning back on it with all her weight. Perched as she was atop a thirty-foot wall, if the cable snapped or the bolt came loose, she'd have likely gone tumbling down onto Corinthian Avenue.

But it didn't, and neither did she.

“Sweet,” she muttered. “Dead-on accurate and with the power of a bow twice its size. Steve's the man! You gotta love that little nerd. But this…” Sharyn twisted a lever on the side of the crossbow, detaching the entire crank assembly, the black cable included. Then she knelt and fastened this rig firmly into the mortar at our feet, turning the crank until the cable was as tight as a guitar string.

Finally, she stood up and pulled another crank assembly out of her backpack, fitting it onto the crossbow, bolt and all. And just that quick, she was ready to fire again.

“This bit was Alex Bobson's idea,” she continued, referring to the Boss of the Monkeys, Haven's construction and maintenance crew. “He improved on Steve's design. That dude may be a jerk, but he delivers. Zip line, anyone?”

Helene chuckled. I felt my stomach knot up. Nobody'd mentioned this part of the plan to me.

“You don't gotta get all green, little bro,” Sharyn said. “I know it's your first zip, which is why I kept this part of the plan to myself until now. But trust me. It's easy!”

She slid her legs over the side of the wall, heedless of the drop. Then she pulled out three more lengths of cable, these about nine inches long and capped on both ends with thick leather loops. She handed one to each of us. “I'll go first. Do what I do. Just slip your wrists through one end, toss it over the wire, and then do the same with the other end. After that, you just push off…”

And she did.

As we watched, Sharyn dropped away from the wall, and hanging from her leather loops, she rode the tight cable all the way down to the cell block's roof. There, she landed lightly, freed herself, and waved for us to follow.

“Me next…or you?” Helene asked.

“You ever done this before?”

She shook her head.

“Me neither.” I swallowed.

Helene eyed me. “You gonna be okay?”

“Sure,” I replied, wondering if I meant it.

“I'm willing to go next,” she said. “But not if you're gonna freeze.”

I felt my face flush. “When did I ever freeze?”

She shrugged. “Okay.” Then, with hardly any hesitation at all, she dropped down as Sharyn had, looped herself over the cable, and pushed off. She hit the roof seconds later, sticking the landing perfectly.

Helene always made everything look so easy.

I swallowed a second time. My turn.

I sat down, inching forward until my legs dangled over the courtyard. It was a
seriously
long way down. Taking a deep breath, I put one wrist through one strap and hung my cable over the zip line. Then I put my hand through the other strap.

My eyes found Helene's. She looked expectantly at me from the rooftop. Beside her, Sharyn flashed her trademark grin.

I felt my stomach tighten further. I ignored it.

Just
be
brave
, I told myself. That had been the motto of an Undertaker named Tara Monroe. A friend.

A dead friend.

Undertakers tended to have a lot of dead friends.

I pushed off.

It wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, if it hadn't been so cold, I might have enjoyed it. Wind bit at my face as all my weight suddenly hung from my arms. The wire between my fists skittered down the cable—sounding a bit like a big zipper sliding open.

Guess
that's where the name comes from.

I hit the roof more clumsily than the girls, forcing Sharyn to scoop me up before I could stumble and break my nose on the edge of a skylight.

“Not so bad…was it, little bro?” she asked.

As she said this, our radio watches suddenly chirped.

Helene answered. “What's up, Burt?”

“There's a Corpse in the central guard tower!” the boy's voice hissed. “He's looking our way, but we ducked behind some barrels! I don't know if he saw us!”

When she heard this, Sharyn turned all business, yanking me to my feet and then spinning around and snatching up her crossbow. “Tell 'em to stay hid,” she told Helene, who conveyed the message.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Been practicing,” Sharyn replied. “Check
this
out.”

She raised Aunt Sally to eye level, pressed the stock into her shoulder, and sighted the watchtower. Maybe a hundred feet away and twenty feet up, a dark figure stood motionless behind the glass windows, facing away toward the northeast corner of the prison—where Chuck, Burt, and Katie were huddled.

Sharyn's finger found the trigger.

Twang!

She
had
been practicing.

Her bolt cut the air in a sweet, true arc. It broke the watchtower window with an audible crash of glass, followed an instant later by a wooden thump.

Through my wrist radio, I heard Katie exclaim, “Got him!”

Then Chuck added, “Man, what a wicked shot!”

Sharyn raised her wrist. “Meet up at the base of the watchtower!” she exclaimed. “I'm going to take 'em out!” Then she said, “Come on!” to us and took off running along the cell block, careful to avoid the skylights that dotted the roof like potholes.

Helene and I followed, struggling to keep up.

At the base of the watchtower, Sharyn seized the cable that dangled from her fired bolt, tested it for a second, and then climbed, walking up the side of the building. “Stay here,” she whispered back. “Don't know how much weight this thing'll handle at once.”

So, feeling frustrated, we watched as the Boss Angel scaled the watchtower, scrambled over the catwalk railing, kicked in the rest of the already broken window, and climbed inside. Then, after a long bunch of seconds, she waved for us to come up.

“She makes it look so easy,” Helene sighed.

“Yeah,” I agreed.