Babel started tapping her wineglass with a butter knife. It chimed through the dining room.
Lohengrin stood. He waited for a hush to fall over the room before speaking. The kitchen clamor ebbed and flowed as servers passed through double doors to the dining room.
“ Ja, ja. Welcome. My friends, we are the United Nations Committee for Extraordinary Interventions.” Polite applause. “Today we gather to celebrate our achievements and be thankful for the opportunities we’ve been given. And the world has much to be thankful for since our inception, no?” His laughter actually sounded like ho-ho-ho. Like Santa Claus, if Santa wore magical armor. Before meeting Lohengrin, Wally had never known anybody who laughed like that for real.
If Lucien and his family had much to be thankful for, it had nothing to do with the Committee. In fact, it seemed to be the only thing Rusty had done in the past couple of years that actually improved somebody’s life. But it didn’t even begin to make up for what he and DB had done in Iraq.
The German ace droned on and on, peppering his remarks with references to “my predecessor,” as though there had been some kind of special ceremony to transfer the reins of power when he took over the Committee. Everybody knew that John Fortune had bowed out quietly but quickly after becoming a nat for the second time. Rumor had it he was traveling the world, though to what end, nobody could say.
But thinking about John Fortune and his travels gave Wally an idea.
Jackson Square
New Orleans, Louisiana
The mood was ugly in Jackson Square. The triple spires of St. Louis Cathedral glistened in their spotlights; nearby, Andrew Jackson waved his hat atop his rearing horse. That was normal enough, but as Jerusha approached, she realized that the crowd ahead of her was… wrong. The stench of death hung around them, and their faces were stiff and unresponsive.
Zombies.
There were at least a couple dozen, more than she’d seen Hoodoo Mama raise up for a long time. At least with Thanksgiving the usual crowds in Jackson Square were sparse, though there were still enough onlookers watching from a wary distance to make Jerusha nervous.
Joey and Juliet were standing at the makeshift wooden “shrine” that enclosed Bubbles, its planks adorned with ribbons and handwritten testimonials. The thick pipes of Michelle’s feeding tubes stabbed into the white cloth that covered her body, which had sunk so deeply into the soft ground that pumps had to remove the water that would otherwise have flooded the depression. Jerusha could hear Joey shouting into the night. “Fuck them. Goddamn leeches. They stole her fucking money. Now they want to kill her, too? Well, fuck that.”
Ink was standing next to Joey, an arm around her, her voice so quiet that Jerusha couldn’t hear it. Whatever she was saying, Joey didn’t like it. Her zombies muttered and groaned. “I ain’t gonna let that that cocksucker of a father and her cunt mother screw Michelle again. I ain’t.” Her lips were pressed into a tight line. A hardness came over her thin face. She ran a hand through the tangled shock of brown hair, ruffling the bright red streak. “I’ll fucking rip them both into a hundred fucking pieces. I swear.”
“Ink, Joey,” Jerusha said loudly, skirting the edge of the zombie crowd. “Listen, you can’t…”
She stopped at the sound of sirens, cutting through the low whine of the pumps driving Michelle’s feeding tubes. Along Decatur Street, a small motorcade pulled into the square, pulling up on the far side of Bubbles’s shrine, near a large grey electrical box. Jerusha plunged a hand into the open zipper of the pouch at her waist, fingering the seeds inside.
NOLA SWAT police officers piled out of the first three black vans, their faces masked by riot helmets, armed with what looked to be shotguns. Ira and Sharon LaFleur emerged from a limousine, accompanied by another phalanx of policemen.
Jerusha had always pictured them as villains, monsters who would steal money from their child. She’d expected their sins to be written on their faces, but they weren’t. Ira was balding and overweight, looking pudgy and ineffectual; Sharon’s face was drawn and haggard and thin, but the lines were those of a model: like her daughter’s face, what Bubbles might look like in another quarter century. They looked ordinary.
“Motherfuckers!” Hoodoo Mama shrieked, and her zombies howled with her. Ink had both arms around Joey, clinging to her desperately. Joey pointed at the LaFleurs. “You miserable cocksuckers! You stay the fuck away from her, you hear me!”
Sharon LaFleur looked at them, hand over mouth. The zombies started to shamble toward them. The cops shuffled nervously, weapons up and ready. “Joey, you can’t!” Jerusha shouted.
Joey shook her head. “You kill her,” she screamed at the LaFleurs, “and I’ll just raise her up again. She’ll be the biggest fucking zombie in the whole goddamn world. You hear me, you cocksuckers?”
Ira LaFleur nodded to the officers nearest the grey box, which now had a panel open. The low whine of the pumps driving Bubbles’s feeding tubes suddenly vanished. The silence was more terrible than any sound could have been.
The zombies screamed as one, wordless. They advanced.
“Damn it.” Jerusha pulled her hand from the pouch, fisted around the contents there. She flung them wide. As soon as the seeds hit the ground, they were rising, a wriggling carpet of vines that tore through the pavement of Jackson Square. Kudzu. Jerusha guided the growth in her mind, snarling the vines around the zombies’ legs, bodies, and arms, encasing them in living green chains. She coiled them around Joey and Ink for good measure. Hoodoo Mama glared at her, cursing wildly.
The SWAT officers were piling back into the vans, hustling the LaFleurs back to their limo. With a scream of sirens, the cars backed away and sped off again.
“Stop them!” Joey screeched. Spittle was flying from her mouth. “God damn it, Gardener, you’re a fucker just like them. Just like them. You’re letting them kill her.”
Jerusha had no answer. “I’m sorry,” she told them.
“Fuck you’re sorry,” said Hoodoo Mama. “And fuck you, too, cunt. You better hope that Bubbles doesn’t die. ’Cause if she does, you’re next.”
Stellar
Manhattan, New York
After the meal-after the clink of silverware and the random chorus of burps and satisfied mmmmm ’s died down, after the last slice of pumpkin pie had been tucked away (Wally had two pieces), when most of the conversation in the room was a hushed murmur as people slipped collectively into a digestive stupor-Wally excused himself and went over to Lohengrin’s table.
Klaus was deep in conversation with Babel when Wally clanked up to their table. They must have been discussing something pretty intense because it took them a few seconds to notice Wally. He caught something about New Orleans, Sudan, and the Caliphate before they tapered off to look up at him. Babel grinned. “Happy Thanksgiving, Rustbelt.”
Wally said, “Thanks. Um, you, too.” He didn’t know her very well, but she made him uncomfortable. He remembered how she’d sabotaged DB when he split with the Committee, and wondered if she’d do the same thing to him, since he and DB were friends.
Lohengrin yawned. Two empty wine bottles rattled on the table when he stretched his legs. He motioned for Wally to sit and join them. “A good feast, ja?”
“Oh, you bet,” said Wally, taking a chair. “I like them sweet potatoes with the marshmallows on top. Real tasty.” He nodded, and patted his stomach. His cummerbund muted, ever so slightly, the clang of iron against iron. “Hey, I have a question.”
Lohengrin sat a little straighter. “What troubles you, my mighty friend?”
“Well, see, I was wondering if we’d be doing anything in Africa sometime soon. I mean, you know, the Committee.”
Babel assumed the tone that people did so frequently around Wally. The tone that spoke volumes about what they thought of him and his faculties. “Well, Rustbelt, it’s a very complicated situation. The Committee’s involvement with Noel Matthews in New Orleans put us on precarious footing with Tom Weathers, and by extension the Nshombos.”
“Oh, sure. Sure. But I didn’t mean about any of that. It’s just, see, I have this pen pal. My friend Lucien. He
