The Undertakers: End of the World (17 page)

“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.

The Throne Room

The first floor of Independence Hall only had four rooms. They brought me up a flight of stairs that actually led outside, back into the square that I’d just left. Then, with about two-dozen angry Corpses glaring at me with their milky, seemingly sightless eyes, I was dragged up the stairs and into the building through its back door.

Inside was what was called the tower stairwell. In my time, this square chamber had stairs that circled the walls leading up to the second floor and, eventually, all the way up to the steeple’s bell tower. Now those stairs were falling apart, their railings gone, and the tile floor looked as cracked and damaged as CHOP’s had been.

Ahead was the archway into the Central Hall. That room looked almost as bad as this one, which was a real shame, because I remembered it being pretty amazing. At the far end of it stood the front door, which led out to Chestnut Street.

I looked longingly at it. But the truth was I wouldn’t have escaped even if I’d been able. I still had to find the Undertakers.

And I needed that Anchor Shard.

“Into my throne room,” Corpse Helene instructed.

Wordlessly, my decomposing escorts dragged me into what, once upon a time, had been called Assembly Hall.

It was a big room with a high ceiling, a rotting wooden floor, and six windows, three on each side wall. Against the back of it stood a two-step-high raised dais flanked by big matching fireplaces, along with twin sets of double doors, one at each corner. Possible escape routes?

Atop the dais sat a ridiculously fancy chair.

I’d visited this room half a dozen times in my life, mostly on school field trips, and I knew for a fact that nothing like this chair belonged here. It was at least as tall as me, its seat set so high that the occupant needed either to use a footstool or just let their feet dangle a few inches above the floor. I didn’t know where the Corpses had found such a thing—the Philly Art Museum seemed a good guess—but there could be no mistaking what it was.

In this chamber, the Declaration of Independence had been debated and signed. In this chamber, George Washington himself had presided over the delegates who drafted the U.S. Constitution.

But now it had been reduced to, just as she’d said, Corpse Helene’s “throne room.”

Without a word, the Royal crossed the chamber, holding Vader like a scepter. She climbed up onto the big chair and settled down in it, tucking her purplish legs under her and looking like a vain and contented cat—okay, a vain and contented
dead
cat.

From that perch, she eyed the occupants of the room.

There were a
lot
of occupants.

Most, of course, were deaders. Type Threes, Fours and Fives. A hasty count put their numbers at around sixty. And all of them, from the moment that Corpse Helene had marched into their presence, had gone respectfully and attentively quiet.

Malum
were all about authority.

I spotted Emily.

She, Steve and William were on their knees near the dais, heavily guarded by the surrounding dead. None of them, I saw, had been tied up. That didn’t surprise me. The Corpses rarely took prisoners and, when they did, they almost never bound them. I sometimes wondered if they knew even
how
to tie knots.

At my arrival, both Maxi Me and Emily visibly blanched. “What are you doing here?” the chief demanded, sounding both horrified and furious. His face—my face—was a mess of bruises. He’d probably been mouthing off to the deaders and had taken a few licks for his trouble.

“It’s a rescue!” I said with a brave smile.

“That’s insane!” he snapped back. “You know what’s at stake!”

Emily added miserably, “They knew we were coming.”

“Yeah, they did,” I said. “Amy tipped them off.”

She and William swapped a shocked glance.

“She was a mole,” I told them. “That one—” I nodded toward Corpse Helene, who seemed to be listening to our exchange with growing amusement. “—got a
pelligog
into her at CHOP last night!”

“Oh God …” Emily breathed.

“What happened to her?” Maxi Me asked.

For several moments, I didn’t answer him. Then, in a small voice that seemed to rise up from deep down inside of me, I said, “I’m sorry.”

He nodded while, beside him, our sister began to cry.

“Silence!” called Corpse Helene in as loud a voice as her withering vocal chords would permit.

Seriously, who talks like that?

Immediately, the two deaders holding me twisted my arms, making me wince from pain. When Emily and William tried to rise to my defense, both were struck by their guards until they lay panting on the floor.

Behind them, Steve didn’t move a muscle. I wasn’t even sure if he was conscious.

He looked especially bad.

Corpse Helene uncurled from her throne and rose to her feet with surprising grace, given her host body’s state of decay. With a smile that could almost be called gentle, she gazed down at us. “Two William Ritters,” she mused aloud. “That must be … confusing.”

The words seemed directed at me.

I didn’t reply.

She said, “It’s been thirty Earth years since our invasion was thwarted, since Lilith Cavanaugh met her end. Thirty years. That’s a long time in a human lifespan, is it not?”

Again I didn’t reply.

She stormed off the dais and grabbed my chin, forcing my face up to hers. “Answer me!”

“It’s a long time,” I said in a flat voice, meeting her inhuman gaze. I did my best not to flinch.

“No,” she snarled. “It’s not.” Releasing me and stepping back, she seemed to compose herself before continuing. “It’s nothing. A mere drop in an ocean of days. For us, you see … for the
Malum
… more than two centuries passed before we were able to return here. And that wasn’t because of technological limitations. No, we could have come back the very next day, and there were those who insisted we should.”

Her entourage rumbled their general agreement, the deader version of “Heck, yeah!”

Corpse Helene went on—monologuing, as her kind sometimes do. And I don’t mean Corpses, but villains in general. Check out Hitler’s speeches sometime. “No, the problem wasn’t technical, it was psychological. We’d been
defeated
, you see. And that had never happened before. Despite all our best efforts, we’d been cast from a world that we’d set out to destroy. Unthinkable. Disgraceful. It stymied us, stifled us, trapped us as a people in a cage of our own dishonor for centuries. Our royal caste enjoy long lives, enduring sometimes for thousands of your years. That makes our memories equally long, and our shame.” She smiled a horrible, yellow-toothed grin that sent a fresh chill down my spine. “But, at last,
I
took power.”

The deaders filling the room made another collective sound. Was that supposed to be some kind of cheer?

“It wasn’t easy. My mother had dozens of children and many were older and more influential than I. It took years to undermine or assassinate them all. But finally, the
Malum
crown was mine, and the first thing … the very first thing … I decreed was that Earth, that most hated of worlds, should again suffer invasion. But this time, we would abandon all subtlety. This invasion would not be about the ‘art’ that my mother believed so important. No, this time it would be about vengeance!” This last word was punctuated with a single bony fist shoved skyward, earning another cheer from her minions.

She reminded me of Kenny Booth, the first Corpse leader I’d ever faced. He’d enjoyed giving speeches too, always in love with the sound of his own voice.

“Who
is
your mother?” I asked.

She faced me, grinning savagely. Then she told me what I’d already guessed. “
Was
, Mr. Ritter. Not
is.
For I am the daughter of Lilith Cavanaugh! I am the new and improved Queen of the Dead!”

Parlay

They dragged me over to the dais and shoved me down next to Emily. As my knees slammed painfully against the wooden floor, I risked a glance at Steve, and saw in horror that he was in even worse shape than I’d thought. His pale face was way more bruised than William’s and Emily’s. Whatever had happened, he’d taken the brunt of it.

“They beat him,” my sister whispered. “He wouldn’t tell them how he’d created the Rift Projector to bring you here, so they beat him half to death.”

“You shouldn’t have come,” William added. “I told you, you’re too important!”

“What difference does it make?” I shot back. “Without the shard I’m dead along with the rest of Haven. Besides, if you were me … and we both know you are … what would
you
have done?”

My future self scowled but didn’t reply, and I suddenly wondered if I looked that stupid when I was proven wrong about something. If I somehow
did
survive all this and make it back home, I’d have to ask Helene.

My
Helene.

“Shut up!” the deader behind the chief snapped, slapping him hard enough to nearly knock him over again.

Across the room, Corpse Helene was talking with some of her deader underlings. She glanced over at us—at William and me specifically—before nodding curtly to her minions and sauntering over.

“We have a rather unique family reunion here, don’t we?” she remarked. “Not including poor Professor Moscova, of course.”

Again I glanced at Steve, who still hadn’t moved, much less spoken. His eyes were open, but glazed.

Can you be unconscious with your eyes open?

Corpse Helene leaned closer, peering at both the chief and me. “Though, I must admit, I find this miracle he’s wrought quite fascinating. Two Will Ritters! Imagine! Now I can avenge my mother’s death twice over. But tell me: What do you suppose would happen if I killed the younger one? Right now. Just … I don’t know … put my thumbs through his eyes.” She faced William. “Would you … cease to exist?”

None of us responded. I tried not to show the terror that seemed to leach the warmth from every inch of my body. The thought of this monstrosity’s bloated, purple fingers digging into my eye sockets—

“No,” a voice replied.

I started. At first I wasn’t sure who’d spoken. But then I looked back at Steve.

“What did you say, Professor?” the new Queen of the Dead asked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch it. Decomposing cochlear nerves and all that.”

“No,” Steve repeated. His voice was reedy and it clearly hurt him to talk. “Will’s been … taken out of his timeline. His death … wouldn’t impact the chief’s … existence.”

“Is that so?” Corpse Helene replied. “Well then, I shall let young Mr. Ritter keep his eyes and his life, for a while anyway. Besides, I’ve a more interesting experiment in mind.” She straightened, turned away from us, and mounted the dais to her throne, settling down on it once again. “
Malum!
” she called, and the room immediately went silent. Grinning, she spread her arms and announced, “Today, let us do something new, something unprecedented in our long and glorious history! Today, let us offer these four pitiful humans
bavarak!
”

From the grunt-like cheers that filled the Assembly Room, I got the distinct impression that
“bavarak”
wasn’t the
Malum
word for a hot bath and a hearty meal.

The new Queen’s head swiveled in our direction. Another smile—even worse than the last one—spread across her bloated, receding lips. “On Earth, your kind wastes … or used to, anyway … much of its time and energy on sporting events: football, baseball, hockey, soccer, and the like. On my world we have few such distractions. But there is one contest that has always captivated us. We call it
bavarak.