Anton Strout - Deader Still

“That seemed like the likeliest of scenarios,” he said, handing my bat back to me. “This is the other, I guess. The dead have been raised, but now they’re just not in anyone’s control anymore. Let’s have at ’em, kid.”

Connor dashed off into the sea of undead. Already many of them were just wandering around aimlessly, while others suddenly became focused on the two of us as we joined the fray.

Jane had already broken free of her captors and backed to the other side of the book aisle. Her hands flew like lightning as she reached onto the shelves, pulling book after book free and tossing them right between the eyes of every zombie she targeted. She was cool, calculated, and unremorseful—all things that for once made me thankful for her bouts with the dark side of herself. It meant she could do something like this in survival mode without really scarring all that was good in her at the same time.

Connor and I made short work of the rest. Slow and unfocused zombies were much easier to contend with than when Cyrus had been controlling them. Godfrey had already pulled out a pocket-sized notebook that was covered in his own blood and was taking notes, although he had to hold the notebook an inch from his face to do so without his glasses.

“Jesus, Jane,” Connor said with a whistle. “That was some impressive book throwing.”

Jane curtsied in her evening gown, which had remained relatively intact despite our fight.

“I’ve got mad shelving skillz,” she said. “All that time in the Black Stacks at Tome, Sweet Tome. A book doesn’t have to be all dark and arcane to do some damage, you know.”

“How did you know to come here?” I said to Connor.

“Ah,” Godfrey said, looking up from his notebook. “That would be my doing.”

“Godfrey?” I said, turning to him.

He nodded, then gave his nonexistent glasses a phantom push up onto his nose. “After you dragged me out of the tent, I didn’t know what to do with myself, but I had to do something . So I sought out Mr. Christos here because I thought you might need backup.”

“And you did, kid,” Connor added. “And this is why we don’t leave our partners out of our lives, understand?”

I nodded.

“Good,” he said, reaching into his own coat pocket. He pulled out a short length of rope and knelt down. He flipped Cyrus over and the rope sprung to life, tying itself tight around Cyrus’s wrists.

“Godfrey here finds me and drags me in after you, convinced you were on to something. So I get him to play decoy while I secured your bat.” Connor slapped Godfrey on the back. “Sorry I didn’t get my swing in sooner. You feel okay after that punch of his?”

Godfrey nodded with a big smile on his face, the blood forming an evil clown smile on his lips. “I believe that might be my first Departmental injury, unless you count paper cuts down in the Gauntlet. Or the time I twisted my ankle on the stone steps down there.”

I waggled a finger at Connor. “Whatever happened to what you said about keeping Godfrey out of all this?” I asked.

Connor shrugged. “Jesus, kid, did you see the way things were going down there? We needed every man we could get our hands on. Don’t take everything I say to heart, okay?”

I paused for a minute, kicking myself for being so literal-minded at times. I was so focused on my own issues that I had not really paid attention to the rest of the things around me.

“If you hadn’t shown up to save the day . . .” I started, then stopped with a shiver. Jane put her arm around me.

“That’s the great thing about being me, kid,” Connor said. “Even if you haven’t been looking out for me, I’m still always looking out for you. I’m a good partner like that.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be sorry,” Connor said. “Just be a better partner.”

This softer side of Connor confused me. What was going on in his life that suddenly gave him this deeper appreciation of me? Just the other day he was ready to cut me loose if I didn’t get my act together. Now he was all Walton’s Mountain.

Now was not the time to think about it. Zombieriffic things were still happening out in the tent, and then there was the matter of keeping this whole incident contained. Since a good portion of this evening’s events was taped for television, we’d have to secure all the equipment and pray that none of the footage had been broadcast live. First, we had to clear the library of Cyrus Mandalay, then the zombies.

It took all four of us to carry Cyrus out of there, but by the time we regrouped with the rest of the Department, it was like we were one big, happy family in an ocean of undead body parts.

And now we had another prison barge friend for Faisal Bane to play with.

No one escaped cleanup duty later that night. Some Other Division and Greater & Lesser Arcana employees headed back uptown to take on the bulk of the workload under the Guggenheim while several other divisions stayed to work on cleaning up Bryant Park. I was thankful that we hadn’t been stuck with that task—sure, the zombie menace had been quelled, but there were bodies all over the inside of the tent. The Guggenheim was just fine with me. Even Godfrey Candella had come along, still in his fashion show outfit, furiously taking notes on the remains of the Paralyzed exhibit.

Worn down as I was, the powers that be took mercy on me and I was spared the task of zombie body removal. Instead, I concentrated my efforts on going through boxes and boxes of invites Cyrus has stashed into one of the crates for his freak show when David Davidson arrived. Everyone looked up from what they were doing.

Davidson looked a little rough around the edges after all the spin he must have had to work tonight, and he loosened his tie.

“Well?” the Inspectre said. “How stands the situation?”

Davidson said, “Well, the good news is that most of what happened was contained to the big tent behind the library. The bad part is that there were a lot of celebrities who witnessed it, and part of it was being broadcast live.”

I crossed over to him.

“So the cat’s out of the bag,” I said, pissed off that we had done so poorly at containment. “We’re public.”

Connor came over to me and patted me on the shoulder. “Easy, kid. Let’s hear what the man has to say.”

Davidson gave me a stern look, then turned to Connor and smiled. “Thank you, Connor. The last thing Cyrus said before the people from the Thaniel Graydon took him away was a resounding “Even if you arrest me, you’re still going to have to deal with all the media.” A pretty weak parting threat, if you ask me.”

“But what about all the media?”

David Davidson actually let out a chuckle. “If there’s one thing that’s easy to do, it’s spin something in the fashion industry,” he said. “With all the witnesses and footage leaking out, to deny what was going on would be foolish. So why not play into it?”

Despite his confidence in Davidson, the Inspectre looked worried. “Meaning what, exactly, my boy?” he said.

Jane came up to me and put her hand in mine, squeezing it. The pain in my wrists from earlier still rang out, but I continued holding her hand.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Davidson said with a flourish. “I give you the fashion industry’s newest marketing stunt—a high-fashion zombie walk!”

“Zombie walk?” Jane asked.

Davidson nodded. “Yeah, I hadn’t really heard of it either, but there’s an underground movement on the Inter-net of these flash mobs that show up costumed as zombies. Mostly they’re fans of zombie movies and the like, but they get together, usually in urban areas, and wander around in character for several hours. Anyway, we had a few down by NYU a while back, and I thought it might be a good idea to start funding some of their events . . . you know, so they’d gain more popularity and just in case I ever needed a plausible cover story for a real zombie outbreak. Like, say, at Bryant Park.”