“That’s what I said. He said no. We are to continue on to Bel Loit, no change in course or speed. No discussion.”
I took a good hard look around. “So we turn around anyway.”
“Half the crew is ready to do just that,” said Evis. He crushed the glass in his hand. “We can’t, Markhat. His people could run the Queen without any of us. They’d not hesitate to butcher us all if it came to that. You know we can’t take them.”
I cussed. Darla pretended not to notice.
“We’re being used.”
“From the start. Damn it all. Look. Take this.” He pressed a long fat key into my hand. “Behind the stage. Right center. Waist level. There’s a knothole in the wainscoting shaped like a face. Stick this in the nose. The dunway behind it leads to a fake boiler down in the engine room. It’s lined with lead, silver, everything we could think of to keep the occupants safe from magical attack and physical blows. Not even Stitches knows. Use it if you have to.”
“Maybe it won’t come to that.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced. “One more thing. The Regent knows about the huldra somehow. Said he wants you to let his companion hold it for a second. Claims she can jazz it up.”
I didn’t like that. His knowing or his help, either one.
Darla put her hand on Evis’s shoulder. “What about you? Where will you go, if…”
“I started this mess. Put my people in harm’s way. I’ll see it through. Make sure Gertriss gets there with you. Markhat, I never told you this, but you married above your station. Angels help us all.”
And he turned and was gone, vampire-quick.
Stitches appeared at the edge of our cleared space, a pair of duffle bags thrown over her shoulder. They looked heavy but she bore them as if they were filled with feathers and moonlight.
Darla said nothing as I gave her the key.
“Mind my sacred-ass circle,” gruffed Mama as Stitches neared.
I have the items we require, said Stitches, dropping her duffels close to Mama. A work table would speed the process.
“Too good to sit on the floor,” said Mama with a sniff.
“One work table on the way,” I said before Mama could further expand her oratory on the spoiled nature of modern sorcerers. Darla was already at the nearest table, though, brushing aside the protests of its current occupants first with her winning smile and then with a casual wave of her unladylike gun.
I fetched the chair.
Once seated, Stitches worked quickly to erect her apparatus, which she positioned right next to the steaming steel stew-pot. Within moments she had constructed a sturdy metal scaffold, through which a complex system of glass tubes and copper hoses began to take shape. Glass globes fitted to accept tubes and lines were hung, wires were strung, and within minutes, sparks and glows came to life amid the turnings and workings, raising a chorus of ohs and ahs from the crowd that gathered at a respectful distance.
Mama glared at the circles of faces fixed on Stitches and her apparatus. “Well, it’s awful purty, if ye are wantin’ to decorate a young-uns play-room,” she grumbled. She snapped her fingers and barked out a word, causing a column of burning, coiling smoke to shoot from her pile of items. People screamed and leaped back. Mama hid a grin and went back to her muttering.
Your Mama Hog is quite the performer, said Stitches in what I recognized as her version of a whisper in my head.
“I’ll ask her to tone it down,” I whispered back at her.
No. The showier the better. I plan similar theatrics of my own.
“Can’t wait to see them.” I found a long copper ladle and stirred the bubbling pot. “Think we’re going to live through this?”
She just shrugged and busied herself with her sputtering, burbling machine.
Darla joined me at the pot, holding a napkin at arm’s length and wrinkling her nose. She shook the cloth out in the pot, eyed the stain left behind by something malodorous, and dumped the napkin in as well.
I stirred, turning my face away from the sudden rotting-meat stench.
“Tell me that did not come from the kitchen,” I said.
She was about to reply when the dead man came walking down the grand stairs.
I’d wrapped him in a blanket. I’d checked him for a pulse. I’d never forget that bloody eyeless face. I knew it was him, up and moving, though no spark of life remained.
People saw and screamed. A few rushed to help. Even in the dim light, you could easily see that his eyes had been gouged out. The way he walked, wobbly-legged, arms held out before him, made him appear gravely injured.
Before I could do more than draw my gun, the first of his would-be rescuers reached him. The dead man fell toward them, arms stretched wide, and caught two in a tight embrace. They all three went down, rolling and flapping, finally landing in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.
By then I’d managed to shove my way nearly there. I was close enough to hear the two men the corpse had grabbed start screaming, close enough to see them stumble to their feet, clawing at their own eyes, charging headlong into the crowd.
The dead man rose, laid his hands on the chest of the man nearest him.
That man too began screaming.
Then the screaming man took up a fork and put out his own eyes.
I threw someone aside and took careful aim and put all six rounds square in the dead man’s chest.
I might as well have tossed roses. He opened his mouth and made a wet burbling noise and came stomping toward me.
My gunfire had at least scattered the crowd. I backed away at a quick walk, waving my arms and keeping the blind corpse moving toward me. I figured I had a good twenty feet of floor before my back found the wall.
I hadn’t figured on an overturned chair. I tripped over the damned thing, dropped my fresh slugs, nearly let the corpse lay a cold white hand on me before I managed to scramble up and scamper away.
Darla appeared, guns blazing. Her shots had no more effect than mine.
I drew Toadsticker. Before I could swing him, a dozen halfdead sailed down the stairs, and twice that poured out of the shadows behind us.
They fell on the dead man like furious crows, silver blades flashing. I saw him grab, saw him take hold a few times, but the halfdead just shrugged him off and kept hacking.
Their blows had far less effect than they should have. Swords broke. Crossbow bolts barely penetrated the dead man’s loose skin-until the Regent’s creature entered the fray.
She didn’t charge in. She didn’t even rush. She strolled up to the dead man, plucked a pair of halfdead out of his grasp and cast them away. When the walking corpse laid his hands upon her, she simply took hold of his wrists and held them still.
The ring of halfdead closed in, blades flashing. Where a moment ago their swords had been useless, now they bit deep. Thick black blood flew.
It didn’t take long. Darla turned away. I loaded my gun and put it in my pocket and joined the ring of halfdead at the corpse.
The pieces still twitched and struggled. The mouth worked, teeth clacking, white tongue testing the air like some blind damp worm. The hands still tried to crawl and clench into fists, though each was pinned to the deck with a fine silver blade.
Small groups of halfdead managed to push the gamblers who’d been touched against the floor. All but one writhed and bellowed. Blood pooled under the still man, black in the dim light.
“Boy,” said Mama Hog, who came stamping up behind me, her infamous meat cleaver in one hand and a red-tipped fire poker in the other. “Boy, that wand-waver needs you, right now.”
I didn’t have to ask. A dozen halfdead nodded and broke ranks, flanking me and Mama without a word or a sound.
Stitches was standing near the stage, her metal-vaned staff glowing in her hands. Darla was beside her, guns drawn.
Do not come near. Sorcery is at work here.