I moved haltingly forward, limping around the first aid case and my gun. I sat at Coalhouse's side and put an arm around him. "We'll get you some help."

He shook his head and lowered it to his knees. "I keep messing things up. I'm not even worth the powder to blow me to h.e.l.l. I'd probably even mess up at shooting myself in the head. I just want it to be over."

"You can't think like that." I looked into the sockets of a nearby skull, as if it might have any ideas. "We all have to keep going. All we have is each other."

"I keep failing, though. So if I know I'm going to mess up, why not just ... accept it? Why can't I give up, if that's what I want?"

All I could think to do was tell him the truth. The same truth that had gotten me to the doorstep of Company Z two years before, tired and devastated and lonely and ready to tear my own dead flesh off my bones, reject it, cast it away like garbage.

"You're right again." He looked up at me. "You always have that option. It's the worst option in the world, but it's the only one that's always there. So there's no reason to do it right this instant." The flashlight started to fade, and I shook it. "What might not be there are the chances you have right now. If you can hold on another hour, another day-if you can live one more good, honorable minute-those are victories. And they open up the whole world."

"Where'd you hear that?"

"That's what Dr. Dearly told me when he found me." The flashlight recovered. "I've never told anyone this, but ... after leaving the farm, I was ready to kill myself. So I couldn't hurt anyone. I was going to throw myself off a cliff and pray it was enough to break whatever I'd become. I was right on the edge, leaning forward, when Dearly and his men came out of the trees."

He didn't respond. I wasn't sure if I should count that as promising or disappointing.

"Coalhouse, you have the chance to come home today. No one hates you. No one's afraid of you. Nora understands. Everyone else will understand, too."

"They could still kill me, though. Or arrest me and lock me up. Deport me."

"And you just said you wanted to die." The words were hard to say. "So what difference does it make?"

Coalhouse wiped his face off with his sleeve. "All the difference," he concluded. "I'm stupid and helpless in every other way. I at least want to control how I die. I want to go down on my own terms."

"Understandable." I could completely sympathize with that. "But you're not stupid or helpless. You did a couple stupid things. And that's on top of all the amazing things I've seen you do."

We both lapsed into silence. The faint rustling I'd heard earlier continued, and I sourced it upward, deciding it must be bats. Water dripped down the walls of the cavern, the drops joining together in a rivulet that ran toward the entrance.

And I considered what it would be like to put one of my friends down. Faced it down, stared at it hard in my mind, prepared myself for it as much as I could prepare myself for a thing like that. Because, if that's what he really wanted-I'd do it. He was my friend, but more than that-I'd want him to do the same thing for me if I went mad, or if I reached a point of despair so profound I knew I could never, ever, with my failing mind and body, manage to fight it. Because the fight was everything.

What disturbed me most about this entire exchange was not the ideas being bandied about, but the fact that I fully understood them. Accepted them.

"I can't go with you," Coalhouse said, in time. "I need to go off on my own. Get my head right."

All at once the idea of harming Coalhouse in any way flew so far out of mind as to be inconceivable. "Okay," I said, doing my best to keep my voice calm. I scouted my fingers along the metal and came up with the first aid kit. "Here. I don't know what's in it, but it's yours. It's from your carriage. Left it a couple of miles from here. Did you walk here?"

"Yeah. Don't even know how." He accepted the case. After a beat, he raised his voice and said, "Leave me the gun, too."

My first thought was to break the thing, toss it down into the water, run away with it, anything. But I knew in my gut I had to trust him. Whatever he decided, I had to trust him-even if it meant letting him go.

Slowly, I handed the rifle over. I reached into my pockets and pulled out the bullets I'd brought with me, piling them into his palm before standing up.

Coalhouse remained seated, though he lifted his eye to me. I couldn't tell if he was asking for something else or willing me away. "You can always come to me," I said. "I'm here for you."

"I know, Cap." I thought he smiled a little, but it might've been a trick of the light. "Punch Tom for me, will you? I'll be back as soon as I can."

Laughing mirthlessly, I said, "You got it. Good luck."

And with that I turned and made my way out of the cave, leaving the flashlight for him about ten steps from where I'd started. I hiked across the shallow river, my pants slicking to my legs and my boots filling with water.

Upon reaching the other side I found a rock, sat down and waited.

The sun rose. The day pa.s.sed. I didn't see Coalhouse, and the wind washed away his scent.

But neither did I hear a gunshot.

When the sun dropped behind the trees, I stood up and marked my way back, finding the hiking trail I'd come in by. I backtracked and found his carriage gone.

Relief compounded my exhaustion. I kept walking, listening both for threats and for the chug and wail of a pa.s.sing train.

Time to go home.

37.

VESPERTINE.

"Miss Mink, my apologies for intruding."

Glancing up from my father's bear-headed desk, I found the head manager of the Mink String Emporium awaiting my word. I shut the leather cover of the digital shop ledger I'd been perusing. "Yes, Mr. Sasaki?"

"Everything is secured, per the usual procedures. I know it is early yet, but if I might beg your indulgence, it's my daughter's birthday today. I was hoping to head home in time to wish her well before she is abed."

The heavy silver clock on the desk told me it was nearly nine at night. "Early?"

"It is my custom to leave about eleven, miss."

"Of course." I'd honestly forgotten. It was Monday, and tonight marked my first real visit to the Mink String Emporium since the Siege. I'd been "permitted" to travel into New London accompanied only by a chauffeur in order to attend a card party held by a younger member of Miss Perez's far-flung family, grudgingly bearing her well-wishes and forced to mingle with scads of inferior people. "How old is your daughter, may I ask?"

"She turns eight today, miss."

"The little blue harp downstairs-take it for her, if you think such a gift would please her."

Mr. Sasaki dropped into a deep genuflection. "You are incredibly generous, Miss Mink!"

"Go," I said. The man bowed a second time and backed out of the office.

I opened the ledger again and, with a quill-topped stylus, recorded the loss of the instrument I'd mentioned. When the save screen popped up, I instructed it to send a copy of the report to my father's e-mail address. To the electronic missive, I appended a note.

See you tonight, Daddy.

Once the ledger had run through its backup, I rose and conveyed it to the enormous steel safe in the corner, locking it away.

Then I was alone.

Exiting and locking my father's elaborate, tin-paneled office, I slid the key back onto the shop chatelaine I wore on a chain around my waist and completed my journey to the first floor. The sconces hung on the faux pillars mounted between the shop's long murals were dim, the crystal chandeliers above dark, the rotating display plinths turned off.

It was cold. My frothy ivory party dress was designed to make other girls uncomfortable about their own fashion choices, not to keep me in comfort. Crossing my arms before my chest, I hurried toward the door, where my white angora stole hung from a hook. Curling it about my shoulders and unhooking the chatelaine, I opened the door, preparing to call it a night.

Outside stood Renfield Merriweather, hat in hand.

I screamed, the chatelaine slithering out of my hand and landing on the floor. Backing up, I nearly tripped over it, my fingers clutching into my furry wrapping. Mr. Merriweather himself appeared spooked, and backed up a few feet into the night-into the rain. It'd begun to sprinkle.

For a few seconds I stared at him in dismay. I hadn't thought he'd ever actually approach me. Yet the words "How dare you?" seemed not in my vocabulary; I couldn't even think them. That wasn't my immediate reaction.

Instead, recovering myself, I beckoned him in with a hand. He entered the shop tentatively; I moved to shut the door behind him and bolt it. "Did anyone see you?"

"No," he answered. His gla.s.ses were fogging, and he removed them. "Forgive me. I told the others we must never meet with you, that to do so might endanger you, but ... I couldn't stay away. I've been sitting in the cafe down the street for the last six hours. It was mostly empty."

"Does anyone know you're here?"

"No."

I could only hope he was right. Turning to look at him, my back to the door, I found myself again at a loss for words. Renfield was the first and last zombie I'd ever stood so close to. I'd thought of him almost every day since the airship ride, his voice and his mannerisms and his looks clouding my brain, following me into my nightmares, and now, here he was. He was anxiously regal in his bearing, his wavy hair half matted about his bruised face with its hawkish nose, deep-set eyes, and thin lips.

It was entirely chilling to behold all of his handsome features, functioning together, and know that their owner was dead.

"I had to speak with you," he said, intruding upon my silence. "I beg your pardon. I know we haven't been formally introduced."

"And we probably never will be," I realized. "Least of all because you've been stalking me."

He accepted this with a nod. "Perhaps ... I should just go. Perhaps this was foolishness."

"You're here now." Letting my stole slip from my shoulders, I moved toward him. He went quite still. Slowly, I reached out my hands, silently offering to take his hat. He let me have it. "Sit anywhere you like. The upstairs is already locked."

The dead boy moved toward a white piano, and I turned my back to hang up his hat and gather my things from the floor. When I returned to him, he had the piano open and was trailing his fine, bony fingers over the keys.

"Do you play?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"No." He looked up at me and shut the piano again, taking a seat on the bench. "Who knows? I've a few years to fill, I may take it up. I take it, from your old user name, that you play the harp?"

"Harp, violin, harpsichord, clavichord, pianoforte ..." When his eyes widened a tad, I added, "I'm told I play very well, but I don't think I do. I'm not pa.s.sionate about it. Music is simply math, after all. I play by numbers."

Renfield laughed and reached into his jacket, drawing out a handkerchief with which to clear his gla.s.ses. "That might be the most beautiful thing I've ever heard a young lady say."

I pulled up another piano bench, sitting kitty-corner to him. The zombie continued to fiddle with his gla.s.ses, at times attempting to moisten the lenses by breathing on them-an impossible task, I realized. While he might be able to command his breath still, his body must be dry and cold.

Reaching over, I took his gla.s.ses from him. "I'll do it."

He surrendered his hankie. "Thank you," he said, a bit sheepishly. "I hate these stupid things. I keep having to get thicker and thicker lenses. By the time I truly drop, I'll be wearing binoculars."

"I sympathize," I said, polishing away. "I was blind as a child."

"Truly? Gene therapy to correct it, I take it?"

"No." When he gazed at me curiously, I looked up and lifted a finger, tapping my right eyeball with my nail. Plink, plink.

"Bionic," he said under his breath, scooting a little closer. "Both of them?"

"Hmm." I handed him his spectacles, and he hurriedly put them on so he could resume staring at my gla.s.s eyes. "They tried gene therapy, but it didn't work. So, in they went. I'm rather happy about it, really. Far better to be part machine than to owe anything to Allister Genetics."

Once the name was spoken, our true conversation could begin. "Why did you do it?" he asked. "Why contact us about Allister that way?"

"I couldn't exactly pa.s.s you a note in biology cla.s.s, could I? Before I explain, tell me how everything worked out. I've seen the news. I know he's been exposed."

"Catastrophe was averted. Some things are still up in the air, but everything's holding for now."

"Good." Then, to fulfill my end of the bargain, I told him, "My reasons for doing it are ... complicated."

Renfield tilted his head. "Mr. Griswold was the main target. Why didn't you mention him? Why only tell Miss Dearly to be on her guard?"

My fingers curling, I told him, "Mr. Griswold is a zombie, and someone I don't care about. I don't like zombies, Mr. Merriweather. Your kind frightens me, disgusts me. You shouldn't be here. The day the last one of you has 'truly dropped,' as you put it, is the day I will finally breathe easy, along with the rest of the living."

"I see." His utterance was soft. For a moment I thought I had hurt him. It took me a few seconds to remember that I shouldn't care if he was hurt.

"That said-I do have a sense of justice, I suppose. In my world, sure, you grind your inferiors beneath your heel. You laugh at them." Twisting one of my rings about my finger, I added, "But you don't kill them. You don't torture them. And the stories I've heard, now-you don't kill people just trying to get their medicine from a clinic. You don't harm blameless living people walking in the streets!"

"Miss Mink-" Renfield began. I ignored him and stood up.

"When Michael came to me, he showed me this finger ..." I studied the floor, my blond curls hanging around my face, heavy with hair spray and rhinestone charms. "He was mad. Ranting about Roe and Dearly. And I thought it was the drink, but then I learned it was the truth-I heard about the Roe bombing. But I couldn't just call on Miss Dearly and warn her. Not that I detest her to the point of wishing her dead, but it would have come back to hurt me in ways you cannot even imagine. So, I did what I could. And now that we're talking to one another, we could find some way to make it permanent, some less risky way. I'm a site administrator on Aethernet Chess Live, we could perhaps program some covert means of communicating ..."

Renfield blinked. "Site administrator?"

I admitted, "I own ACL. Well, along with my father. He taught me to play chess when I was a little girl. After he began spending so much time away from home, he looked for an Aethernet version to play with me, but found none to his liking. So he founded it, in my name. We still play every night. That's part of what kept me in this store during the Siege." I looked around. "I was waiting for him to get online. If I was going to die, I was going to die talking to the only person who loves me."

"My word." Renfield stood up as well, and approached me. I stopped moving. "You do wish to continue this exercise, then?" He sounded hopeful.

Did I? Slowly, I forced myself to look up at the young dead man. "Yes. I can go where none of your clan can go now. No one in proper, anti-zombie society will acknowledge any of you. I could even talk to Allister. I don't think he suspects me."

"Good. Because we have many more birds to snare." Mr. Merriweather stared into my eyes so intently I felt my skin p.r.i.c.kling. "Miss Dearly speaks very poorly of you."

"As well she should. But ours is a petty squabble. I say that even though I would never give it up, even though I would happily take it to the grave."

"Why?"

"Because it amuses me. That's all the reason I need."

Renfield considered this. "Then I must ask. How can we trust you to tell us the truth? I should be asking you to go to the police, to back up our claims."

"Didn't I just?" I rubbed my upper lip over my lower one in annoyance. "Isn't that your whole thing now? Don't you trust people until they try to bite you?"