Feng drew back with a hiss. “Plague zombies.”
But Alice was already moving. She strode forward, stripping off her left glove. One of the zombies had enough brain function left to look a little surprised. Most people shunned or fled plague zombies—anyone who touched one was at risk for coming down with the clockwork plague and joining their ranks, steadily losing brain and body function until they dropped dead. Only one in a hundred thousand victims became clockworkers, and no one wanted that, either. Plague zombies lived as pariahs, turned out and spurned even by family. They usually survived by scavenging garbage in the streets. Most of them starved to death before the plague finished them, and their corpses rotted in alleys and sewers because police and other city workers refused to touch them.
Alice approached the first zombie. Mucus ran from its half-rotted nose, and it babbled something incoherent at her. Alice’s gorge rose, and a lifetime of fear slapped her hard. Her mother and brother had died of this very plague, and it had made her father into a cripple. Still, she forced herself to raise her metal-clad hand. She couldn’t save her family, but she could save the person standing in front of her, and she would.
The iron spider’s eyes glowed red, and its clear tubules, which remained painlessly drilled into Alice’s arm, flowed constantly with Alice’s blood. She swiped at the zombie with the gauntlet and the claws made four light cuts across the zombie’s shoulder. Blood from the hollow claws sprayed over the wound as the zombie recoiled. The other zombie started and slowly moved a hand to his cheek. A firefly zipped away, leaving a green phosphorescent streak in the air. Alice, who had been ready to slash at and bleed on him as well, checked herself and stepped back instead.
“Are you well?” Feng asked.
“They can’t infect me,” Alice said. “Or you, for that matter. I gave you the same treatment. You needn’t be afraid of them.”
“It is hard to remember,” Feng admitted.
“It’s working,” Alice breathed. “Look!”
The zombies shuddered. One looked at his hands, turning them over and over, as if seeing them for the first time. The other licked his half-rotted lips and darted glances up and down the side street. Slowly, he took a step out of the darkened alley into the half-lit byway. The light didn’t seem to bother him, even though extreme photosensitivity was one of the early symptoms of the clockwork plague. As Alice watched, some of his sores stopped weeping. He gave a little moan that Alice could only describe as happy and he lurched toward the entrance of the street, where the market lay. The second zombie had vanished back into the shadows. Before Alice quite realized what was happening, the first zombie entered the square. Full sunlight fell across his face, probably for the first time in months, and he lifted his eyes to the sky in exultation.
A woman screamed, and then another. Shouts and cries erupted all over the market as people scrambled all over themselves to get away. Box stalls tipped under the stampede and wood smashed. Alice only heard—the buildings at the entrance of the side street restricted her view. All she saw was the zombie standing in the sunlight like a misshapen angel, oblivious to the chaos around him.
“Oh dear,” Alice muttered.
“Perhaps we move along now,” Feng said.
Another sound made Alice turn. At the mouth of the alley stood the second zombie. With him was a crowd of others—males, females, children. All of them wore torn, filthy rags that dripped blood and pus. Their skin was as tattered as their clothing. Some were missing fingers or even entire limbs. All of them huddled in the alley, not daring to go into the half-light of the side street. The second zombie, the one Alice had scratched, lifted an arm toward Alice in supplication.
Alice felt abruptly overwhelmed. She couldn’t move or speak. “Oh,” was all she could manage.
“What do we do?” Feng asked.
A small child limped forward, dragging a useless foot. Alice couldn’t even tell if it was a boy or a girl. It held up its arms to Alice like a toddler asking to be picked up. Alice wondered who its parents were, how long it had been on the streets, scrounging for food, spreading disease, hiding from painful daylight in cellars and under dustbins, in pain, wondering what was happening and why no one was helping. She jolted forward.
“I will help you,” she said, addressing the child, but speaking to them all. As gently as she could, she scored the child’s arm and wet the wound with her own blood. The child gasped and lurched backward, then straightened. The cure wouldn’t regrow the bad foot, but at least the disease would stop devouring flesh and bone. Alice didn’t pause. She flicked her claws at the next zombie, and the next, and the next, working her way through the fetid alley in a red haze. The spider grew heavier and heavier, and her arm ached from swinging. The smell of blood hung on the air, mingling with the soft groans and yelps from wounded zombie flesh. Alice’s entire world narrowed to bricks and blood, and she lost all sense of time. She could save them all. Swing, slash, bleed, and move on. Swing, slash, bleed, and move on.
“That was the last one,” Feng was saying. “Alice! You can stop!”
Alice came to herself. The last zombie was shuffling into the light, and the screaming had died down from the marketplace, and whether it was because the people had become tired of running away from zombies or because they had all fled, Alice didn’t know. The strength drained out of her, and Feng caught her before she collapsed.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t know it would be like this.”
“You helped so many,” Feng said. “That was a fine thing you did.”
“But there are still more. I need to save them.”
“They will be well. The cure will spread to them quickly enough.”
“I’m thirsty.” Alice’s mouth was dry, and her head felt light. “So thirsty.”
She was only vaguely aware of Feng half leading, half carrying her somewhere. Eventually, she found herself sitting at a table with a plate of fruit, bread, and cheese before her and a mug of cider at her elbow. A muscular arm encircled her like a warm wing and drew her close.
“Are you all right?” Gavin demanded.
She leaned in and soaked in his scent, his strength. “Yes. I just needed to eat.”
“I found him at another market,” Feng reported from across the table. “He was unaware that the zombie was
