She owed her that much.
CHAPTER SIX
Backtracking through the streets, Piotr let the wind guide him away from the city. Lost in his thoughts, it took him a while to realize that he wasn’t going to get very far on foot; it was daytime and the trolleys were packed with living heat.
There were two ways an object could pass over into the Never: sheer luck and intense emotion. Dearly-loved possessions frequently worked their way into the Never. Though Piotr often found scavenging in San Francisco moderately easy, he still counted himself lucky to find a rusty bicycle with two good wheels abandoned beneath a tree in the park.
Listening to the creak and groan of the gears beneath him, Piotr pumped his legs and made for the 101. Grey daylight never seemed to last long lately, the afternoons were growing shorter; soon darkness would fall, and with it the Walkers would roam in greater numbers.
At times like this, doing something so intensely physical but essentially mindless, Piotr wondered if the sensations he felt were the same as he had felt when he was alive. Listening to the newly dead, still attuned to their physical shells, made him think that maybe what the dead did was close enough, but he wasn’t sure. Even the simple act of running, of sprinting, legs pumping and feet pounding, seemed alien some days—like, if he wanted, Piotr could force his spirit to move fast enough that his legs wouldn’t be necessary. Like if he just sped up enough, he could fly away. Like the only thing keeping him grounded was the living belief that gravity worked.
Concentrating on these musings passed the time; the miles melted away beneath his wheels. Piotr had passed into San Bruno when he smelled the smoke. Frowning, he slowed the bike and, on discovering the kickstand had rusted away, abandoned it at the edge of the highway. Sniffing the air, he followed his nose all the way down the embankment until he reached the edge of a twisted and warped tarmac. Piotr hesitated at the large, rusted sign declaring the buckled concrete to be the Mills Field Municipal Airport. There was a lot of activity on the living side— the heat here was sporadic but immense—but this place was clearly the source of the strange, sweetly smoky smell.
Still deciding whether he wanted to proceed, Piotr spotted a flash of white.
It was crazy to sneak up on a Walker like this, especially since the previous few fights had been so close and the Walkers had evidently decided to start pairing up for their hunts, but Piotr was unwilling to pass up a chance to spy on a Walker when it didn’t know he was near. With any luck, he might even learn something about Dunn.
Crouching down, Piotr dashed under the sagging hulk of a downed Bell P-39, hiding in the shadow of one wing. He briefly considered ducking into the aircraft itself and watching from the canopy but the plane was belly- down in the dirt, the landing gear long gone. A Walker would be able to spot him at eye-level for sure.
The flash of white came again and Piotr froze in the shadows, stunned into stillness. There were Walkers, yes, over a half dozen of them, but it was the woman clad all in white who caught his attention.
The White Lady.
It had to be her; Piotr couldn’t think of another soul in the Never stupid or crazy enough to rub elbows with Walkers voluntarily. They certainly weren’t attacking her. In fact, as Piotr watched, the White Lady paused at the edge of the tarmac and gestured. Pushing aside the others, one particularly decayed Walker knelt down at her feet, knees on the tarmac and toes in the dirt, tilting its face up, allowing the White Lady to push back the edge of its hood, exposing the last tattered remnants of its cheeks and forehead to the light. Then, as Piotr watched, dumbfounded, she leaned down, hood sagging, and kissed the Walker full upon the ruins of its mouth.
A billowing cloud of white burst from the Walker’s chest, accompanied by the sharp increase of the smoky sweet scent that had first caught Piotr’s attention as far away as the highway. As he watched, the Walker stiffened, its limbs jerking spasmodically under the White Lady’s onslaught, feet drumming up puffs of grit from the dirt. Piotr gagged, turning away, but not before he spotted the point of the painful kiss.
The rumors were right; the Walkers, at least these particular Walkers, were working for the White Lady now. She paid well. The longer the two of them remained lip-locked, the more of the kneeling Walker’s ruined flesh grew back. By the time the White Lady released the Walker, most of the side of his face had returned. The flesh was pale white and fragile-looking, lined with thin blue veins, but certainly more substantial than the rotted horror it’d been before.
Stepping away from the Walker, the White Lady sagged. One of the Walkers at her side stretched out a hand, which she slapped away.
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, the wind carrying her voice to Piotr a beat behind her movements. She gestured north. “Go.” The other Walkers dispersed, leaving her with the newly healed one. She helped him to his feet.
“You’re now mine.” She smoothed the front of the Walker’s robes. “Say it.”
It bowed. “My lady. Always yours.”
“You’ve been chosen, Daniel. I’ve got a special task for you.” The White Lady took the Walker by the bony wrist. “This way.”
They were too close and moving in his direction at a fast clip. Piotr closed his eyes, waited for the cry of discovery, but none came. When he opened them again the White Lady was all the way at the far edge of the field and topping the rise, the Walker in tow. Intent on her goal, she’d passed him right by; they hadn’t seen him crouched in the shadows.
Should he go back, tell Elle and the others about what he’d learned? Piotr knew they needed this new information, but he still had to investigate Dunn’s disappearance. Lily would never forgive him if he failed her.
Lily could wait.
Piotr began to move after them when a large cadre of Walkers melted through the shadows and went the way the White Lady had disappeared. There was no way Piotr would be able to follow them for such a distance across the open space without being discovered.
Torn, but knowing that he had to follow through on his original mission, Piotr regretfully backed out of the shadows and hurried toward the highway, glancing once over his shoulder to make sure the Walkers hadn’t spotted him. He would push himself to the limit getting to Mountain View and then speed back up to the city. The others had to know about what he’d seen, and Lily needed to know about Dunn.
He wouldn’t fail them.
Though Eddie had claimed everything was fine, he wasn’t at lunch, nor was he at his locker afterward. Brooding about what that might mean, Wendy worried her way through the rest of the day until gym, last period.
They had a sub. Instead of waiting to get picked last for basketball, Wendy found herself led to the back track. Most of the class knew that this meant an opportunity to lackadaisically lap the track and gossip, and Wendy originally intended to take it easy along with the rest, but as they lined up to begin she spotted a tell-tale flicker at the edge of the field. Wendy groaned. What
The sub stood at the start/finish line with a clipboard and a stopwatch. When the whistle blew, Wendy was the only one who took off running. Ignoring the giggles behind her, she sped around the track the required three times, barely noticing the surprised, “Great time!” the sub yelled as she crossed the finish line.
Assignment met, Wendy staggered over to the sub and, panting, asked, “Since I’m done, do you mind if I take the rest of class off?”
The sub’s elated grin faded. “The rest of the hour? I can’t let you do that. Are you nuts?”
“I’m not leaving campus,” Wendy lied, keeping the spot where she’d seen the flickering light at the edge of her peripheral vision. “I just thought I saw a couple samples I can use for my biology project over there.” She pointed toward the edge of the field with a promising thatch of thorny bushes splashed with red and purple flowers. “It’s just a little flower-picking. I’ll be fast, I swear. You can hear that whistle anywhere near here.”
The bulk of the class was coming, nearing the end of the first lap. The sub glanced at them, eyed the bushes, and sighed. “Fine. But stay dressed out. I’ve got my eye on you. Don’t you think I’ll forget, either. No funny stuff.”
