Christopher Buehlman - The Lesser Dead

A bath year!

How many people were they planning to peel, Brooklyn?

“It’s why we need the Tube,” Alfie said.

“Subway,” Peter corrected.

“Right, subway.”

America’s “Ventura Highway” came on, with its high, pretty strings and beautiful images describing a sunlit California that was as far away from this place as heaven.

In case I had any doubts I was actually in hell, bored, shitty Sammy went to the dead-pile and kicked a young woman the color of a cod belly, causing a pile of beetles to tumble out of the gash in her throat and a hole under one of her deflated breasts.

“Stop messing about with the poppets,” Peter said.

“Now make him drink,” Camilla said.

“I’ll make him!” said Sammy, bounding over.

“No,” Camilla said. “Peter will.”

“Peter will,” Duncan said, looking up at me hopefully. “And Joey will take Millie’s place.”

“Millie died the death in Wessex,” Alfie said.

“Hampshire,” Camilla corrected. “Joey won’t know Wessex.”

“I liked Millie,” Duncan said, suddenly very sad.

My eyes were sharp again now; I got a better look past Duncan at the head Sammy had thrown. It hadn’t decayed like some of the others, though it didn’t look fresh either. That’s because it was a vampire’s head, and we don’t rot, we burn or dry up. I saw the mustache riding over the huge fangs, the face frozen in a sneer of pain or defiance, the empty sockets where its eyes should be.

SHALL WE MAKE A RABBIT OF HIM?

Yes a blind rabbit.

It was Mapache. My heart turned over and beat twice, three times, then stopped again. With or without Wilhelm Messer, the kids had killed the Latins, right under our noses, too. How truly fucked I was hit me then, and you know what? It was almost a relief.

“Come on,” Manu said, pulling me over to the barrel where Peter waited patiently, his hands cupped and full of blood.

“What about Varney?” I said. “The Hessian? You said he turned the bunch of you. You said he did other things to you, not nice things.”

Alfie and Sammy giggled now.

“You mean that he diddled us,” Camilla said. “ Fucked us in our mouths and holes.”

The others giggled at her swearing. She laughed a little, too, then turned serious.

“It makes me sad,” she said.

“What does?”

“How easy it is to lie to you.”

The little monsters. All that filth they said was just one big lie. I knew Messer wasn’t into that shit. I was really starting to hate them.

“First say after me,” Peter said. Then he pronounced some words in their language, English-before-it-changed. I said the words after him. They broke it up real small; I clearly wasn’t the first to say them. I saw Manu and Duncan mouth the words with me. I almost recognized the words, they were kind of like English. I think I promised to be with them forever and to share what was mine with them, including my blood. I drank the blood from Peter’s hands, then Alfie’s, then Camilla’s. Then, in what could only have been a fuck-you to baptism, Sammy ducked my head in the blood barrel three times.

I know what you’re thinking, that I sold my soul, only I didn’t have one to sell anymore. You’re thinking I sold out my friends. But I didn’t. I said the words, whatever they meant, but who cares? They were just words. And as far as I saw, these little monsters didn’t have any monopoly on lying. If I could keep Margaret and Cvetko and Luna out of the dead-pile, I would do anything I had to.

Or so I thought.

Have you ever been argued about while you were sitting right there? That happened next.

“We should take him on the hunt,” Sammy said.

“He won’t want to hunt for his friends, he can go on the next hunt.”

“He’s our friend now, not theirs, he said the words.”

(quietly) “Did he mean them?”

“If not, worse for him.”

“Stay with him, Sammy.”

“I will not miss the hunt.”

“You never miss one, I’ve missed three.”

“Wogs miss hunts sometimes.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Stop being one.”

“I did stop, I’m one of you, and for a long time now.”

“Not as long as me.”

“And you not as long as them, but they’re not garlic-in-ass-boys to me like you.”

(quietly) “Stop it.”

“Stop it, both of you.”

(quietly) “Stay with him, Sammy.”

“Yes, Sammy, you watch him.”

The two blond boys and the dark-haired girl were all out of the bath now and as clean as they were going to get. Still, cold-drowsy flies that didn’t want to fight for space on the ripe ones in the pile lit on them to taste their ears and hair, simply after the blood, not even aware of the unnatural things that blood was on; we were just furniture to bugs. And they didn’t seem to notice the bugs, either.

“But Sammy wants to uncrown him,” Duncan said.

“Not unless he shows false.”

“He won’t ,” Duncan whined. “But you’ll say he did because you want to uncrown him. Because you’re nasty.”

“I am nasty, booger, and you’re a load of cold bogie. I’m not missing this hunt.”

(quietly) “You’ll miss what we say you’ll miss.”

Sammy went to talk back but didn’t. I looked at Camilla again. Sammy was scared of her. Just how strong were they?

“Go and get the pomegranates while we think about it,” Camilla all but whispered.

Sammy left.

“We might need Sammy,” Manu said, as though he hated saying it. “He’s quite strong. There are a lot of them.”

“Lots of bugs, too!” Duncan said, rolling Mapache’s head over a parade of roaches.

“We could crucify Joey,” Manu said, “so no one has to watch him.”

Oh shit!

Duncan said, “Someone else must fetch the spikes this time. It hurts my hands to pull the spikes from the tracks.”

“That’s only good for poppets. He’ll pull himself free.”

“Wait!” I said. “Why all this ‘hunt’ business? The underground is huge, goes all the way up to Harlem, all the way out to Queens. Why not share? Pick a spot for yourselves and stay there? I could show you places.”

Camilla looked at me as though I’d just suggested she should eat lightbulbs and drink gasoline.

“We don’t share.”

“Then let them run away. Tell them to go, they’ll go.”

“Not the queen.”

“Who?”

“Your queen. The Celt.”

Margaret.

She had that right. Margaret doesn’t run. I felt exasperated, afraid, yes, but just overwhelmed by the unfairness of it, how they had tricked us, everything. What I said next was really childish, I know; you won’t sympathize much. And neither did Camilla.

“But the subway… it’s ours . We were here first .”

She walked very close to me and put her little finger in my face; this was the first time I had seen her mad. But still she was quiet, which was worse. Honestly, I wish she had yelled it.

“No,” she said. “You were not .”

Right.

DON’T TRUST THE CHILDREN.

These children.

The mood in the throne room changed quickly when Sammy came back from the shaft they were using as storage.

“The pomegranates are gone ! Someone took them! You know, don’t you?” he said, pushing me down like I was nothing and looming over me, his white face an angry moon, his coppery hair a fire. I guessed he was talking about grenades.

“I’ve been here the whole time, I don’t know a thing,” I said. Scary eyes on that kid.