Crush

Wicked Dead

Crush By Stefan Petrucha and Thomas Pendleton

THOMAS PENDLETON DEDICATES THIS

BOOK TO DALLAS MAYR: THE WICKED

JACK K.

STEFAN PETRUCHA DEDICATES THIS

BOOK TO HIS FELLOW ASTHMA

SUFFERERS THE WORLD OVER.

PROLOGUE

Standing alone in the vast kitchen of Lockwood Orphanage, Daphne looked through the tall windows and watched the last light abandon the tree-scarred sky. A lazy wind whistled through the cracked glass, caressing her cheeks. The tall girl sighed with it, wondering why her skin could feel cold, or it seemed that she could breathe. Wasn’t all that for the living? Just what on earth, she wondered, were the rules?

Absently she glanced down and saw her reflection in the top of the long steel counter that stood in front of the windows. A sharp but pleasant face greeted her: smooth skin, bright blue eyes, curled auburn hair, her pleasantly sexy bare neck and collarbone peeking out from the unbuttoned collar of her striped men’s pajamas. Just for fun, she made her form fade in and out, testing to see if she could find the precise moment between being there and not.

What were the rules? Where were the lines? How much had death changed her, outside and in? She needed so badly to know, if only to shake a growing sense of guilt and dread. The guilt was for the way they’d been treating Anne lately, playing the bone game without her, abandoning her to the Headmistress. The dread was over the possibility that the three of them, Shirley, Mary and Daphne, had driven the dark-haired girl so far away they’d never be able to trust her again.

She tsked. Should a ghost feel guilt? It didn’t seem fair. Hadn’t she already paid for all her poor choices, whatever they were, with her life, whatever it was? If only she could remember who she’d been—but until the luck of the bones revealed her story, she couldn’t begin to guess.

The room was huge. Remove the counters and the vast tables, and a city bus would fit here easily. There were lots of windows, too, above the tiled walls, set in a foot so the extended sill could hold many a pie or piping- hot dish. Far off, next to the thick oak door that led in, a rubber conveyor belt wove along the wall, once used to carry dirty dishes in from the dining room. A few cracked plates even remained for the rats to poke about.

Daphne tried to concentrate, to think of what the kitchen might be like had it still been full of life. If she were still alive. She wanted to believe she’d had integrity then, that she’d been smart and fearless, but also kind and loyal. She hadn’t been lately, not really, as a ghost. She’d broken her own agreements without blinking, even enjoyed it.

“Oh well,” she muttered. “Obey all the rules and you miss all the fun.”

“You sound like Anne,” Mary said, stepping through the tiled wall near the larder door. She cupped her right hand to her blond curls, idly fingering them as she walked along the floor to stand next to Daphne. “I saw you leave the dorms. Why so early? It’s dangerous to wander before the Headmistress is in her room for the night.”

“Some things are worth the risk. I needed some time to think,” Daphne said.

“And did you?” Mary asked pleasantly.

Daphne hesitated and looked around. “Where are the others?”

Mary shrugged. “Anne’s retrieving the Clutch and Shirley’s off in the walls somewhere. It’s just us, the old guard.”

“Well, what I’ve been thinking is that we really need to make it up to Anne.”

Mary’s pleasant expression vanished. “We gave her three extra turns. Three.”

Daphne shook her head. “No, I mean really make it up to her. Make her more part of the group.”

Mary winced. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

Daphne chuckled. “Think about it. It’s self-preservation, really. Our secret’s only as strong as we are.”

Mary shook her head. “The bones are Anne’s only chance to escape this purgatory, just as much as they are ours. She would never do anything to jeopardize that.”

“Keep pushing her, and she might,” Daphne said. She nodded toward a huge cast-iron stove sitting against a faraway wall like the carcass of an ebony bear. Among all the black a large lump of warm and furry brown waddled about, sniffing and clawing at the bits of ancient grease that clung to the filthy burners. Mary raised her nose at the sight.

Daphne smiled. “See that fellow? Give him some food, maybe you can train him to do tricks for you. But make him feel like he’s backed into a corner, and he won’t think about it; he’ll just fight for his life.”

As she spoke, the rat stopped scavenging to look at them. The girls stared back, curious.

“Do you suppose it heard us?” Mary wondered.

Daphne shrugged. “Probably worried we’re competition for its meal, as if we still eat. That’s my point. It doesn’t think, it just acts.”

When the rodent went back to its work, Mary turned to Daphne. “I agree that Anne and the rat have a great deal in common, but I don’t think being falsely kind would change her nature any more than you can give that rat wings and make it fly. She is what she is, we are what we are.”

Daphne made a face. “I, for one, like to think I can always be better.”

Mary was about to respond when a metal cabinet door near their feet burst open. Both the rat and the two girls froze as they watched a series of colanders, pots, and pans tumble out and then scatter on the floor. Amidst the mess sat wide-eyed Shirley, chuckling as she looked at her companions through giddy, half-crazed eyes. “I love this place! Who said being stuck in a kitchen your whole life couldn’t be fun?”

Daphne leaned toward Mary, so close her lips almost touched her ear. “It’s not like the rest of us are such prizes,” she whispered. “Shirley’s always putting us in danger, but we give her our affection.”

“That poor girl can’t help herself,” Mary whispered back.

“And you think Anne can?” Daphne asked, raising an eyebrow.

Mary put her button nose up. “Yes, I suppose deep down that I do. I think Anne chooses to be the way she is. Which is precisely why I find her so intolerable.”

Shirley’s face twisted briefly into a pout. “What are you two talking about? I’m sorry about the noise, but the whole house seemed so quiet. Dead quiet,” she said. At the word “dead” a girlish giggle erupted from her throat.

“It’s all right,” Daphne said. “But try to be more careful.”

“Guess again,” a harsh voice said from the doorway. “It’s not all right. It’s not all right at all. You can still hear the freaking echo going down the hallway. Keep that up and you’ll bring the Headmistress screaming if she’s not on her way already.”