Deep inside the UN Secretariat building, past the offices full of Spetsnaz soldiers sleeping on cots, Malik led the Zombie and their entourage to the end of the hall, to a plain door coated in matte white paint. He cracked it open, revealing a tremendous Russian man—bearded and balding—who was openly displaying firearms inside an office of the United Nations.
This veritable giant was taller than the Zombie by a full head or more. The Kalashnikov hanging from his neck looked almost too small to handle, but his fingers were just able to fit in the trigger guard, just like the rest of the man was barely able to fit in the door. He gave them all a look then nodded after they passed his visual inspection. Then he stepped out of the way, revealing the room and the Zombie’s goal—a very tired man.
Denisov was seated in a lacquered wooden chair, writing freehand in a blank book. A desk lamp with a green glass shade spread a sallow hue across the work surface. The Lazy Woman hung over his tie, darkened with tarnish. A little golden apple rested in a fine metal mesh bag, chained and cuffed to his wrist. That smidge of security prevented quick deployment of the Apple of Perun, but it wasn’t useless in this state. Even through the mesh, it could be thrown with killing intent, and then nothing would be able to contain it.
Denisov raised his tired eyes from his scrawlings. His pompadour was a mess, the hair grease finally coming apart. “Ah, Zombie.” He set down his pen but didn’t rise. “How are you?”
“Curious, mostly.”
Denisov smiled. “Did you come alone with the Cat?”
“I was ambushed, but the Baron still has it in his custody.”
The old Russian cultist sighed. “Too bad. I thought you might come with it.”
“I wouldn’t choose to leave the Baron alone under threat.”
“Right, right.” Denisov tapped a pack of cigarettes at the base of his desk lamp. “Would you like another one?” He pulled a fresh cigarette from the pack and offered it.
The Zombie accepted it silently and stuck it in his mouth, then chewed on it. Malik stood behind him, waiting to see what would happen.
“Do you believe you can bring the Cat to me tomorrow?” Denisov asked.
“Will you be here?” The Zombie talked with his mouth full of pungent tobacco.
“Through the morning. I couldn’t leave without throwing the Apple though.”
By that, he meant he couldn’t leave whatsoever. The Zombie swallowed his cigarette. “Do you have anything more disgusting?” he asked.
“What?” Malik asked.
“By the window,” Denisov offered. “There’s a little cleaner and a cloth.” On top of a filing cabinet, someone had left a plastic bottle full of diluted ammonia and an unused cloth.
The Zombie opened the bottle’s screw top and took a deep, deep breath. It was spicy, delicious. It wouldn’t have the pleasant texture of popping open a battery cell, but the alkaline flavor would be purer, sweeter. He took a swig, then turned back to Denisov. “Fantastic.”
“Tell him,” Malik said.
The giant guard laughed at the Zombie’s antics.
Denisov tapped his fingers on an empty page in his book. “I’m being recalled to Moscow. It’s a direct order from Stalin himself.”
“And the Orthodox leadership,” Malik added.
Denisov couldn’t quite hide his frustration. A slight frown drew down the corners of his thin lips. “Their signatures are on the orders.”
The Zombie took a longer draught of the cleaner. “Do you have any vodka for mixing?”
“I’m not drinking tonight,” Denisov said.
“Too bad. When do you leave?” The Zombie guzzled down the rest of the ammonia in one continuous draught, filling the air with the acrid smell.
“My plane leaves tomorrow afternoon. Five PM, LaGuardia.”
“Under the guard and protection of the Spetsnaz,” Malik said triumphantly. “American Communist radicals have been fighting in the streets, claiming they’re under blackmail by the KGB. Viktor Denisov fears for his life, and by request to Stalin himself, he is being recalled to the safety of Russia before he is harmed by your misguided dissidents.”
The Zombie laughed. He had to admit, Malik was good at finding the angles and exploiting his advantages. The late departure suggested that the federal government was trying to sniff out the facts before they let a Soviet official leave the country on short notice, but it was unlikely they’d find a flaw with Malik’s story. CPUSA members picked up after today’s fighting could be pressed to confess, if only to bargain for protection against the KGB proper, but it was unlikely that any living mercenaries would be found. The men the Zombie had met in the streets had already shown they were willing to die for their families. They’d probably kill themselves if capture ever looked like an inevitability.
“I’m writing my testament,” Denisov said. “It’s a plea to the party.”
“For mercy?”
Denisov shook his head. “For good judgement. They’ll at least have an Apple. I’m asking them not to fight with the CIA, especially if the Americans end up with the Cat.”
“They won’t,” the Zombie said.
“You can’t win,” Malik insisted. “You’ve already lost before you even started. Even Denisov is giving up, now that he’s seen what we can do. You tell the Baron, he should surrender.”
The Zombie screwed the cap back on the empty plastic bottle and spun it around between his fingers. “I don’t speak for the Baron, but I’ve known him for some years.”
“Tell him. At least try.”
The Zombie ignored Malik and carefully balanced the bottle on top of his hat. He leaned forward very slightly and caught it while it fell. “Denisov, do you still want us to complete the job?”
“No,” Denisov said promptly.
The Zombie idly tapped the bottle against the knuckles of his other hand. It made a soft, drumlike sound. “You think the Bolsheviks should win? There’s a lot at stake.”
“I know too well,” Denisov said, “but look who is packed into this office.” He gestured to the giant guard, to Malik’s thickly-bearded minder, and to Malik himself. “Enemies all around. I’ve been fighting for control with a pen and a phone, and I’ve lost. I’m a prisoner here, and this is one of the strongest prisons on Earth. As Malik said, we’ve already lost.”
Malik was wiping his face with a handkerchief. “Tell the Baron, please.”
“Denisov, if the Baron put the Cat in your hands tomorrow, would you say we’ve won?”
“That’s not possible,” Denisov said.
“Why not? I’m here. The Baron is a smart man. He could get here somehow.”
Denisov sighed. “I can’t risk his life for this. Not to prevent some future conflict.”
The grin slowly returned to the Zombie’s face. “You mean, you can’t risk unleashing me on the world. I’m flattered.”
“You’re a menace,” Denisov said, “no offense.”
The Zombie bowed very slightly.
“The Baron is a good influence on you,” Denisov added.
“Yes, he is,” the Zombie agreed. “Preserving his life is very ethical, isn’t it? Greatest good for the most people? You want to lose because you think the chances of winning are slim.”
“They’re none,” Denisov muttered.
“Imagine it for me though. Just try to picture it. We hand you the Cat in the middle of this mess. Would you take it? Could you take it?”
Denisov sighed. “If I had the Cat—a terrible if, Zombie—then attempting to steal it from me would start an occult civil war.”
“It’s all imaginary,” Malik said in a quick, shaky voice. “You’ve lost. Both of you. For the Baron’s safety, please, promise me you’ll tell him to surrender. Hand over the Cat. We’ll cover this up, pay you. Whatever it takes—just stop struggling!”
The Zombie finally looked at Malik. He pointed at him with the bottle, lining it up like rifle sights. “I think I know the Baron’s answer.”
“What?”
“Think fast!” The Zombie whipped the bottle at Malik’s face. Malik flinched, hands up too late. The bottle bopped him. The Zombie came in nearly as fast and walloped him in the solar plexus. Malik spasmed and stumbled back.
The giant guard was shouting in Russian, but Denisov was already shouting at him.
Over them, the Zombie yelled, “That’s for the river!”
“You could have killed him!” Denisov roared.
The Zombie shrugged, rolling back over his heels. “I rolled the dice. The punch didn’t mash him.”
Malik was gasping, clawing at his chest, but clearly alive. The thickly-bearded minder was trying to help him to his feet, repeatedly brushed aside.
“What if he’d died?” Denisov yelled. “Think of the Baron!”
“We’d play it by ear!” the Zombie yelled.
“Do you know how long our cult can hold a grudge?” Denisov asked, not in anger but in desperate worry. The Zombie did know. The Soviet cult had been born out of the Orthodox cult, which was notorious for keeping extensive but cryptic records. They had never forgotten a slight, nor were they known to forgive.
Malik breathed in with a loud croak. “My chest hurts.”
The Zombie kicked the front of Denisov’s desk, drumming the wood. Everyone flinched. “Do you have enough prestige to heal someone remotely?” he asked. A second passed, and he quickly added: “Don’t think, just answer the question.”
“Gods no,” Denisov uttered. “I might ensure a safe surgery in person, but I’ve had to spend a great deal of prestige in the last twenty-four hours. You can imagine.”
“I wish I wasn’t bruising.” Malik straightened and relaxed. “Fuck.”
The bearded minder scowled at the expenditure of prestige but relented in his attempts to engage with Malik. For a moment, everyone was reckoning with the Zombie’s aggression.
“This isn’t over, and we haven’t lost,” the Zombie declared. “There’s your answer. Now, drive me back to the Wall Street Station, or I’ll break a few arms.” He glanced around the room—at the bearded minder, at Malik, at Denisov, and at the giant guard. “Any takers? I can squeeze a forearm until the ulna snaps like an overcooked wishbone.”
“I drive,” the bearded minder said in thick but serviceable English. “You don’t run.”
“Fine, lead the way.” The Zombie hesitated. “Actually, wait.” He turned and punched the top of Denisov’s hardwood desk, denting the surface with a satisfying crack of wood.
Denisov jerked back from the strike.
“Before I go, listen here!” the Zombie barked at the man who’d hired them. “You be damn ready to fight, even if you have to throw that fucking Apple. If the Baron brings you the Cat in his bloody hands, you will make damn sure you pull your weight and take it, or you’ll be the first to die. Do I make myself clear?”
Dismay passed briefly over Denisov’s face, lips bunched, eyes down, but he regained control and flattened his expression. “I would fight, yes.”
The Zombie waggled his hands in mock celebration. “Hooray, someone in this room still cares enough to try. It’s a real fucking miracle.” He turned to Malik, “Next thing you know, you might avoid fighting with Langley. Or do you want to spark a secular war?”
“Nobody wants that,” Malik said fiercely.
“Good. Get me the hell out of here,” the Zombie said to the minder.
On the elevator down to the bottom floor of the Secretariat, the Zombie asked a question of his temporary companion. “You’re from Moscow?”
“Da,” said the thickly-bearded minder.
In the long basement tunnel, leading to the underground parking, they were alone. The Zombie asked him next: “Would you kill Malik if he tried to kill the Baron?”
“Da,” the minder answered instantly.
They were circling down the ramps to the third level basement when the Zombie said, “You don’t think he’s going to kill the Baron. You’re just insurance, or he’d be dead already.”
“Da. He is good at job. Senior also.” He mimicked a lazy salute. “The word?”
“Officer?”
“Da. Of Soviet cult.”
They reached the level with the motor pool and checked out with a lazy night guard who only wrote down their names. There was a patch of dark sedans with green glass windows and diplomatic plates. Soviet vehicles. The minder had a full keyring, and numbers were stamped on the sides of the keys. He found the right number and unlocked the vehicle.
The Zombie said nothing, but quietly, he noted that the Baron’s theory about CPUSA vehicle rentals was partially disproven. CPUSA were swiping at least some of their vehicles from here, and chances were good that the stolen vehicles were hitting a chop shop after each use. Presumably, the Soviets were conveniently forgetting to report the cars as missing.
The ride back to Wall Street was calm. The minder played with the radio, skipping from station to station and grunting irritably at English radio dramas. He paused only to listen to music and variety shows. He was especially pleased when he found a woman singer—Kay Starr with her song Wheel of Fortune. The Zombie hadn’t taken to radio with the same enthusiasm as the Baron, but he’d heard enough popular music to recognize and loathe it. The minder on the other hand murmured along to the unknown words, comforted by a song he’d never heard before.
The Zombie was surprised that the minder wasn’t questioning him, as more experienced cultists often did when they thought they’d met the Zombie in a safe place. This man had been sent by Moscow, likely by Stalin himself, to ensure the Baron’s safety and thus their own.
“Nothing to say?” the Zombie asked.
The man spent a moment translating into English in his head. “What would I say?”
“What’s it like having no soul? What’s it like with no inner life?”
“Like nothing. I know this.” The words were assembled slowly, falling off his tongue in lumps like products off a line. “You are force of nature. Storms do not think. You do not think. But storms, we call angry. You, we call alive. We say it, but is not right. Understand?”
The Zombie folded his hands in his lap. “Very good.”
“Impressed? I know legend well. I fear you.”
“If I said I was impressed, would I be correct?” The Zombie appraised the minder with a serious glare.
The minder shrugged.
“My body is impressed,” the Zombie offered. “It imagines what you’re thinking. It considers these words before its mouth opens, but it’s still empty. No light inside. Nobody home.”
“Empty,” the minder echoed.
“The darkness rarely upsets the body, but if it closes its eyes and plugs its ears, it realizes that it’s forgotten the truth.”
“Da? Forget what?”
“There’s nothing there. The Baron once said, ‘You’re a shadow play put on for a blind audience.’ What do you think of that?”
The minder scoffed. “Complicated.”
“Mm. I’m not sure if he’s right. Sometimes, I think I’m not even an audience to myself.” He turned away from the stalwart minder. “So yes, I’m impressed. You compared me with a natural disaster, yet you aren’t cowering like I’m about to murder you.”
“Haha!” The minder grinned. “You, I treat like man.”
The Zombie grinned too. “I like that. It’s too bad, I might kill you tomorrow.”
The minder guffawed. “Zombie, such a legend! How often can you talk with the hurricane before it destroys you?”
“Once in a lifetime, I’d wager.”
The minder grunted with satisfaction, then said, “I fear you, hurricane.” He tapped his chest with a large hand. “Stout heart, I smile at storm, but I fear you.”
“It’s okay to be afraid,” the Zombie offered. “I’m a good reason to worry.”
The minder nodded once in agreement, but turned his attention away from the Zombie and back to the radio. The music was over, and a late night show was coming on. The minder turned the volume up, listening for the next five minutes or so.
Risque comedy routines were interspersed with cosmopolitan chats and interviews with celebrities. Incapable of following their rapid English chatter, the minder soon shut the radio off, and they drove in silence for the final mile. Then they pulled up outside of Wall Street Station and parked at the curb. There was little other traffic here. The engine idled.
The minder stared at the Zombie, waiting for him to get out.
The Zombie stared back, wondering if he could disturb the minder one last time.
He patted the shoulder of the Zombie’s chair. “Many thanks, Zombie.”
The Zombie smirked. “Really? Why?”
“You murder no person tonight. It was idiot plan to bury you.”
“Don’t thank me. I couldn’t find anyone by the Hudson. Not before I stopped seeing red.”
The minder shrugged. “Good luck then. Hope to never see you again?”
“Hope indeed.” The Zombie relented on this pointless social game, opened the car door, and hopped out, smiling one last time at the Russian minder.
The minder smiled back. “Good night, Zombie.”
The invincible man shut the door. A second later, the car pulled away, leaving him alone on a New York night. The station entrance was at 48 Wall Street, right in front of the towering Bank of New York building. It wasn’t exactly the busiest intersection at 10 PM, but the streets were open, and there should’ve been active train platforms underground. The subway train that CPUSA stopped should’ve been easily repaired, and the tracks weren’t covered in debris.
So where the hell were the cabs? Where were the passengers? There were a few cars parked along Wall Street, but someone always had a good reason to be skulking around these buildings late at night, usually for security. Shouldn’t the police be here, at least? The Zombie had killed people, guns were fired on a city train, and a tunnel had collapsed.
Why weren’t investigators pulling this place apart for clues?
A worried young man in a leather jacket came jogging up the subway steps, emerging onto street level. He had his face down and his hands buried in his pockets, even though it wasn’t that cold out.
“Hey, buddy,” the Zombie called to him.
The man paused at the top of the steps, raising his head to speak. “Sir?”
“What’s happening down there?”
“You ain’t heard the news?”
“No, man, no.”
“It’s nuts, I’m telling you. Half the platforms are cordoned off. Some psycho set off a bomb. The blast stopped a train and broke up an old tunnel. World has gone completely nuts.”
“What’s it coming to, huh?” The Zombie peered past him into the darkness. “Anyone working down there? I don’t see any fuzz out here.”
“They got a couple black and blue telling people to ride up to Fulton Street before getting off. I ain’t going north though, and I ain’t going to Brooklyn.” The man started up the stairs again. “I’m getting my car and going home. Have a good night, you hear?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” The Zombie stepped around the man and descended into the station. Finding the Baron would be a little like searching for a lost wallet. The first place to look would be the last place he saw him, down where the tunnel collapsed.
With luck, he’d recognize a sign or message from the Baron somewhere in the area—something snuck into the station over the last few hours. There weren’t any other prearranged meetup points except maybe the Biltmore, and that was much farther north than the Zombie expected them to run before going to ground. Might as well start here, then sweep outwards. After all, the Baron, Marco, and Phyllis had all dodged to a temple together. If they weren’t caught immediately, they’d have escaped and reached a safe house, probably the place Phyllis had mentioned earlier. If there was a trail to follow, it was more likely to start here than anywhere else, even if it was a little risky for the Baron to come back and leave a sign.
Risk—that was a funny thought. What did risk mean to an invincible man? The Zombie cheered up a little, considering conflicts with authorities and imagining how things could go wrong. If someone arrested him for interfering with a crime scene, New York would have to spring him from county lockup. Their frustration would be delightful.
He dragged his fingernails along the granite wall of the stairwell, irregularly chipping off miniscule specks of quartz like sand. He imagined officers shouting at him, trying to intimidate and outlast him late into the night. It’d be a chance to exercise his fifth amendment rights to exhaustion. Laughter boiled up out of his belly.
He reached the mezzanine, where shuttered shops and folded up newsstands were nestled in concrete cubbyholes. From here, multiple stairwells diverged down to many platforms deeper into the Earth. Brushed aluminum letters were bolted into the granite trimming above the stairs, and beneath any sign marked “Line 3,” bee-striped saw horses were strung together with yellow rope.
Nobody manned these cordons. Everyone would be turned away down at the platforms themselves. He stepped over the nearest cordon and started down the stairs.
“Who’s coming down?” called a husky voice.
“Just taking a gander!” the Zombie yelled down.
He turned at a middle landing towards the subway platform and saw a rotund man in an overcoat at the bottom of the stairs.
The coat was tied around the large man’s large waist with a sewn-in band, creating the illusion that it wasn’t holding the jacket onto him but instead strapping his body together. He carried a flashlight in one stubby hand, which he shone into the Zombie’s steady eyes. “Go on up!” the plainclothes cop said. “This is a crime scene.”
The Zombie didn’t even pause. He smiled and came down the stairs faster.
The rotund man flipped out his badge. “You don’t speak English?”
“What’s happening?” shouted another voice.
“Rich Chinaman won’t get back.”
The Zombie was nearly jogging, and the cop stepped aside, unsure how to handle someone who simply didn’t respect his authority but otherwise wasn’t presenting any threat.
There was a slouched old man with a milk-white mustache. He turned his own flashlight towards the Zombie. “Are you with the city like the other two?”
“Other two?” the Zombie asked innocently. He guessed that some other people were here, likely investigators from the New York cult.
“I’d say that’s a no,” the rotund cop muttered.
“I heard there was a bomb. Place is clean though.” The Zombie glanced around. There weren’t any signs of obvious messages written on the walls or floor. No symbols either.
“It was just up the tunnel,” said the old man. “Son, you’re going to have to show paperwork, or you’ll have to leave.”
“It’s fine. I’ll only be a minute,” the Zombie said, continuing to act as if he belonged here. He ambled along the station wall, looking over the benches and chairs for folded letters, fresh scratches, anything. It wouldn’t be subtle, but it would be cryptic. A message wouldn’t be worth much if he could miss it in the clutter.
The cops huddled together and talked in low whispers.
The Zombie was nearing one end of the platform and preparing to circle back when someone on a maintenance path shouted up to him: “Zed! Zed! Down here.”
“I heard him,” insisted a tremulous voice. “He’s always so loud.”
The Zombie stopped at the platform’s edge and looked down. The man at the fore was chubby-cheeked and bore a salt-and-pepper beard. He wore the same coat and gloves as yesterday, the tools of the criminal enforcer, but his right arm was wrapped to his fingertips in a surgical cast and held by a sling while the plaster cured. It was Enzu Guerra, the New York man from the clam bar on the East River Docks. He’d attacked the Baron to save the lives of his friends, and the Zombie had nearly killed him. At the Baron’s insistence, Enzu’s life had been spared; now that connection was coming back, to help or harm the Zombie in turn.
Behind Enzu followed an old, spry figure in a fresh cassock. Fine copper bifocals sat askew on his nose. Someone had shaved his face and brushed his hair, but it was already becoming mussed, and he kept bobbing his head to an inaudible rhythm, just out of sync with his footsteps, giving him an awkward, almost puppet-like stagger. Meister Schuler, the Diviner, was here, completely unharmed after all that tremendous violence at Red Hook.
The police officers came up behind the Zombie and crowded into his personal space. He didn’t react. There was a chance he could learn something from this.
“Mr. Guerra, you know this man?” asked the rotund officer.
“Name is Zed,” said Enzu. “He’s the son of a former IRT director, if I remember. What’re you here for, Zeddie? Did your father ask you to come here?”
The Zombie grinned, guessing that the “father” in question was a veiled reference to the Baron. “I wanted to see if there was anything to report back.”
Enzu smirked. “There was a bomb. I’m sure you’ve heard. Your poppa got out of this business just in time though. I don’t know what his interest would’ve been here.”
“Nothing,” the Zombie said. “I looked around and found nothing.”
“You vouch for him, Mr. Guerra?” asked the old cop.
“Sure do,” Enzu said. “Ain’t gonna hurt to let him look around.”
“The devil himself stands before you.” Schuler cocked an ear to the open air. “They should know! But they won’t know much, no, no. What they know only helps.”
Enzu twirled his free hand in a circle and grinned at the officer. Crazy.
The cops laughed. “Why do they got you on Schuler duty?” the old man asked.
Enzu laughed with them. “It’s Tammany. You know DeSapio’s friends, right?”
Carmine DeSapio was the current secular boss of Tammany Hall. Despite his position, he wasn’t a cultist, and he spent little time working in the Hall itself. He approved the budget to room and board people like Schuler because his connections to Cosa Nostra businesses and Irish-American criminal rings came with a lot of strings attached, and nobody asked questions if the money flowed. That income was the blood pumping through the heart of the New York cult.
The rotund officer was sardonic. “They say the political machine is dead.”
Enzu laughed. “Right, Tammany is dead, and I’m the Pope. Help me up.”
The cops shuffled around the Zombie and helped Enzu and Schuler climb a short ladder up onto the platform. “You find any Pinkos?” the old man asked Enzu.
“Don’t get me started. It’s a wild goose chase.”
“They got that confession. Old guy with the broken arm, right?”
Enzu shrugged. “It’s all guff so they won’t send him up the river. No Communists attacked the subway. I mean, come the fuck on.”
“I heard he had a rap sheet from the thirties.”
“Union enforcement,” Enzu said. “I think he busted the place because he’s an anarchist.”
“Fuckin’ anarchy!” the old man complained.
“I’m not important,” Schuler interrupted, “but important men died today. So many gunfights, so many souls unblessed.” He started to quake very slightly and he made an unhappy humming sound, strained and dissonant.
Enzu scratched his nose with his free hand. “It’s getting late. Schuler will be up early.” He gestured at the far stairwell. “I’ll show Zeddie out. Just keep him out of the paperwork, alright?”
“Sure thing, Enzu.” The old man shook his hand.
“You coming?” Enzu asked the Zombie. “We should talk.”
The Zombie grinned. This lead was as good as any. “I got some time.”
They left. Enzu first, the Zombie second, and Meister Schuler third in line.
The Diviner didn’t seem aware of the dangers of invincibility. He patted the Zombie’s shoulder repeatedly, with some force, muttering things at him. “Devil,” he said. “Dangerous creature. You walk alone? You should be with your man. Devils-at-arms.”
Once they reached the mezzanine, Enzu stopped and Schuler started circling around the room, looking at the closed shops and stalls. He stopped at one, pulled a pen knife out of a pocket, and started scratching at the paint. “Michael Stuttgart was here,” he muttered.
“Who is Michael Stuttgart?” the Zombie asked.
“Guilty tomorrow!” Schuler shouted. He’d etched “Mic” and was still going.
“Does he believe in prophecy?” the Zombie asked.
Enzu shrugged. “Maybe, but the man is crazy. He does weird things and calls them micro-tasks, but we’ve tried detecting them with other oracles. Most of ‘em can’t be heard.”
“Windows of opportunity,” Schuler said, “are always brief.”
“Most of them can’t be real. That’s all I’m saying.”
“You earn a lot of prestige doing that?” the Zombie asked Schuler.
“We are well-rewarded,” Meister Schuler said, “for listening to holy music.”
“You think his work isn’t real?” the Zombie asked Enzu.
“Eh. Micro-tasks have to be real. He’s loaded with prestige. He’s just crazy too.” Enzu was watching the carving. “They make me take him out on real field work, but he draws attention. Makes it hard sometimes, you know?”
“Field work?” the Zombie prompted.
“Yeah. Like I’m trying to wax someone, but he’s got all eyes on ‘em, right? Then I get gutshot, and without a word, he puts ol’ Humpty Dumpty back together again.” He patted his stomach. “I can’t even feel the bullet.”
“Lucky,” the Zombie said.
“Yeah. I used to hate keeping care of him, but the man keeps me whole. I learned to like him, and I know he likes me. Good ol’ Schuler.”
“Has he been helping with that hand?”
“This?” Enzu waggled the injured arm. “I’d be laid out on morphine if it wasn’t for him. As it is, I’ll only have to wear the cast for a week or so. He was clear-headed in the hospital. Told me it’d take a week. I thanked him for it.” Enzu smiled, turning to face the Zombie. “Speaking of this hand, I should thank you for sparing my life. It took a lot of guts to let me live in front of those men. It was me or the Pact, and I respect that.”
The Zombie shrugged. “I didn’t spare your life. The Baron did.”
“Thank the Baron then. I’d thrown my life away, and he gave it back. I owe him for that.” Enzu snapped the fingers on his left hand. “So I’m going to give you a hint. It’s pretty clear you’ve lost him after the dodge. We lost him too.”
“Good.”
“All that fighting today worked Tweed into a lather. He’s got at least a hundred men looking for the Baron. By morning, that’ll be thousands—whole vassal cults.”
The Zombie grinned like he’d heard a joke. “Ooh, that’s a lot of people.”
“Tsch. Don’t blow this off, man. We’ll find him tomorrow, and then we’ll drag him down to Tammany to stand before the nobles. I guarantee it. It’s just a matter of time, so from me to you—if you know where to find him, tell him to finish his business and get out of town.”
The Zombie snorted, unimpressed. “It’s New York City. If the Baron goes to ground and doesn’t move around, there’s no way you’ll find him in six months, let alone one day.”
“Eh, come on, Zed. We’ll know where to look.”
“There’s too many spaces in a city this big.” The Zombie’s tentative plan was to find the Baron and stay in hiding until the Soviets started to move Denisov. While that’d leave them with a narrow margin of error and a moving target, it’d also be the most vulnerable time in Denisov’s schedule. At any other time, they’d have to assault the UN or LaGuardia, both incredibly dangerous targets swarming with secular authorities. Enzu’s warning didn’t carry enough weight to derail this sneak and strike strategy.
Enzu tilted his head over at Meister Schuler, who was almost finished carving “Michael Stuttgart’s message” across the face of the newsstand. “What about him?”
“What about him?” the Zombie echoed derisively.
“I’m taking him home for a nap, but he’ll be up before dawn, and I’ll be driving him around town. If he’s concentrating, he’ll sniff the Baron out. He knew you were coming from almost a mile away. It shouldn’t take long for him to check most of Lower Manhattan.”
The Zombie gritted his jaw. “Do you really think he can sniff people out?”
“The things he notices… Yeah. I believe it.”
“Should I kill him then?”
Meister Schuler laughed but didn’t turn around. “Could you kill me?” he asked loudly. “Can the devil defeat the priest?”
The Zombie thought back to the last few Diviners he’d met—focusing in on Kaiser Abbas, Napoleon’s pet, whom he’d tried to kill twice. “No, I suppose not,” the Zombie concluded. “It would be fun to try though.” He’d been temporarily blinded both times and caught under a collapsed stone wall the second time. Diviners were incredibly difficult to kill; they were full of magic, and he was merely an object to them. He might be indestructible, but he could be manipulated and moved in a way that no other living human could.
“I’ll look for the responsible parties later,” Schuler said to himself, “but it’s beautiful where the sun rises. They’ll throw the child over the chalky cliffs. Gorgeous all the way to the rocks.”
“That’s a great task in London,” Enzu said. “Nasty stuff, killing a kid.” He reached out to the Zombie. When the Zombie didn’t flinch, Enzu very carefully tapped him on the side of the arm. “Cheer up, man. Just find the Baron and get moving. It’s like Salem again, alright? You’ll leave and everyone will forget and forgive after thirty years or so.”
Why did everyone think the Zombie spoke for the Baron? He was the follower, not the leader. He was a machine of untouchable meat and bone, forever rolling downhill through the complex social landscape of real human beings. The Baron made choices and shaped the world. The Zombie reflected them, processed them, and protected them, but he never made them. That was the burden of having a soul, the burden of being limited and vulnerable, and it wasn’t his. Thank the gods, his responsibilities were simple and clear. Mechanical.
“I’ll speak with the Baron,” the Zombie said, “but I promise nothing.”
“Of course, of course. Thank you just the same.”
After exchanging a few more pleasantries, the Zombie left the station ahead of Enzu. The Diviner was still vandalizing newstands, and Enzu was gently trying to coax him into quitting for the night.
The Zombie emerged onto the street, no better off in his search, but slightly better informed about New York’s attitude. The violence and death must’ve unnerved them severely.
“Sir, are you the Zombie?” called a young man.
The Zombie whipped around, spying a bare-faced kid, no older than twenty, wearing a leather jacket. He was leaning against the corner of the Bank of New York, pale and hunched over. “Who’s asking?” the Zombie called.
“A man with a pistol paid me ten bucks to wait here for an hour and tell you where he was.” He pointed west down the road. “Out front of the Trinity Church, at the end of Wall Street.”
The Zombie felt a variety of violent reactions but subsumed them all to say one word: “Okay.”
The young man was anxious. “Sir, can I go?”
The Zombie waved him off. “Yeah, man, you can go.”
The young man took off at full sprint, heading east. The Zombie watched him, fuming silently. These mysterious messengers weren’t canvassing Lower Manhattan, deputizing citizens into guarding subway stations. They were clearly targeting their efforts, which meant someone had followed the Zombie here and knew he wasn’t planning on going anywhere else.
In short, the Zombie was being watched, and the people watching him understood the situation. Whether or not that boded well wasn’t relevant. The only right move was to learn.
The Zombie sprinted west down the street. Security guards smoking on the stoops of banks and financial firms shouted at him as he passed. He wondered how many urban legends would find their origins today. It’d be impossible to tell; the details would always mutate far beyond recognition. Still, the notion pleased him. Sometimes, secular culture needed a little wonder and fear. He would become their monster at the margins of the “real world.”
Trinity Church stood at the head of Wall Street, where it dead-ended into Broadway. It was the third building of the church, older than the Fall of Truth and still standing. Its Neo-Gothic style was defined by spiny, almost serrated decorations. Every arch was capped with a rising, barbed needle, which the architect labeled spires though they better resembled pikes. The hand of God, if brought down onto the church’s greatest steeple, would’ve been harpooned and caught, unable to rise without ripping flesh and notching bone.
The entrance was edged like teeth on a saw, broad and dull only because of scale. The wall surrounding the churchyard was the only thick and friendly stretch of the structure, opened in several places for brick paths. It curled around to touch the building on either side of the shallow steps leading to great bronze doors.
Last century, the church must’ve risen far above the surrounding city, calling all the faithful to come pray. Today, it was the shortest building on Wall Street, a diminishing presence which the Zombie found delightful. It so clearly symbolized the exchange of power that defined modernity. He slowed as he approached the church, crossed the street at a mere jog, and came to a stop at the foot of the Church steps.
In the shadow of the main doorway stood a tall figure, impeccably dressed and utterly relaxed, indifferent to the danger he’d called to himself.
“Heckhaus,” the Zombie said. “You called for your enemy… why?”
“Are we enemies?” Heckhaus asked, taking one step out of the shadows and into the diffuse orange glow of distant streetlights.
“You threatened the Baron,” the Zombie noted.
“That doesn’t make us enemies.” Heckhaus looked at his fingernails while he talked. “It just means that I’m opposing you. This is business, isn’t it? You’re here on a job?”
The Zombie laughed. “What’s your business then?”
“The Baron.” Heckhaus looked down, scrutinizing the Zombie carefully.
He refused to let Heckhaus have the satisfaction of eliciting a reaction. He would stare at the man as the Baron did, unflinching. Hell, he didn’t have to blink.
“Seems you aren’t interested in information about the Baron,” Heckhaus said.
Despite everything, that stupid little barb landed. “Fuck you!” the Zombie shouted. “Do you want to die?”
“Oh, so you want to know?”
“Tell me before I pull your spine out of your mouth.” So he couldn’t keep the same cool that the Baron did. Screw it. Intimidation always worked, even with someone as confident and fearless as Heckhaus. Threats also meant respect. Only worthy adversaries deserved hatred.
Heckhaus allowed a small smile of real satisfaction to adorn his perfectly shaven face. “The Baron is alive and well at Broadway and Canal Street. He’s in an old Artemisian safehouse. Step off the main westbound platform towards the signal light, then pass through a maintenance door and head left for a few dozen yards. It’ll be the first storage room on the left again.”
The Zombie felt relief settle over his shoulders, but he wasn’t entirely assured. “Why are you telling me this? What do you want?”
The SOG operative clapped his hands together. “What we all want, I suppose. Peace. The best of all possible worlds. I don’t know the details of what he’s doing. Do you?”
The Zombie lied without hesitation. “No.”
“Exactly, it seems that despite my best efforts, I have no clue what’s happening. When all is said and done, if you finish on schedule, it’ll be too late for me to decide if I should interfere, help, or hinder you. Don’t you agree? My report will tell the exact truth about my folded hands.”
Heckhaus’s bizarre dedication to plausible deniability was almost ritualistic in its awkward, roundabout traditions and repetitive phrases. The Zombie was impressed by its entrenched insanity—the painfully bureaucratic belief that the truth was fundamentally less important than what could be written on paperwork without logical contradiction. After all, the unspoken truth was powerless to hurt anyone, but people would kill each other over a written lie.
“I agree,” the Zombie said, because he knew the Baron must’ve already made the same deal with the devil. They must finish the work, return the Cat, and restore the balance of power—or face Langley’s wrath.
“Then head to your man,” Heckhaus said. “And good luck, Zombie.”
The Zombie flicked both birds at Heckhaus, then turned and sprinted away as fleet as the wind, north towards Canal Street. He didn’t need luck. He was fucking invincible.
Author’s Note:
I love Zombie chapters, ya’ll. 😀
As always, thank you to the beta readers for helping with this chapter!
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