Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)(38)
The servants return to clear the plates and set down the next course, a fruit compote with cheese melted on top. Then there’s a fish course that smells like something died, yet all those fine gentlemen and ladies gobble it up. All the while, there’s a fierce hollowness gnawing at my insides and I try to imagine a life of this, watching fine people eat while I nigh on starve to death. It’s the first time I’ve considered what the life of an Attendant might truly be like. It ain’t a comforting thought.
Up to now I’ve been focused on whatever mischief Jackson is getting mixed up with, Mr. Redfern’s inscrutable glare, and the food everyone has been eating. I’ve been so preoccupied that I’ve just now noticed Miss Anderson’s companion, a sickly pale man who is draining his third glass of wine. The man sweats, dabbing his brow with his pocket square, his hands shaking as he puts it away. Next to him Miss Anderson is talking, but the man is too far gone to pay her proper attention. Saliva makes a discreet trail down the side of his mouth, and he reaches with clumsy hands for his napkin.
He’s turning. Right there, at the table. Any moment now his eyes will start to yellow, and when he does Miss Anderson will be his first course.
I don’t have a moment to wonder how on earth this rich man could have become infected. I look around to see if anyone else notices what I do, but Katherine stares into the distance, the disciplined gaze that functions to make our charges feel watched and not watched at the same time; and Mr. Redfern is speaking in low voices with one of the servants, directing the girl to stop serving wine to this guest or that one. Even Miss Anderson is too busy with her own wine glass to see that her neighbor is panting, laboring under the change his body is going through.
I tap my companion’s shoulder. “Mr. Redfern.”
He gives me an irritated glare before turning back to the conversation with the serving girl on his other side.
I grab his arm, shaking him. “Mr. Redfern!”
His head whips around. “What?” he snarls, all pretense of manners gone.
“Might I borrow your blade for a moment?” I ask sweetly, pointing across the table to the man stumbling to his feet, knocking over glasses as he does so. A low growl comes from his throat and a chorus of answering screams ring through the dining room as everyone realizes that there’s a shambler in their midst.
Mr. Redfern seems to be as much in shock as everyone else, so I grab his blade without waiting for permission. I heft the knife in my hand, taking just long enough to get a feel for the weight. Then, as the man lunges for Miss Anderson, I hurl the knife through the air.
It’s a good throw, and the blade goes end over end between the heads of the dinner guests before lodging squarely in the temple of the shambler. For a moment the creature continues its grab for Miss Anderson before crashing to the floor in a tangle of limbs.
My instructor backs away in terror, her face gone pale as she stares at me across the table. Everyone’s eyes are upon me now, their faces twisted in disgust, as if killing a dinner guest, shambler or no, is a terrible faux pas.
“My word,” the mayor’s wife says from the far end of the table. The look she gives me makes me feel less human and more like a bear that’s managed to stumble into the middle of dinner.
“Yes, it was an amazing throw, wasn’t it?” Katherine says, her voice a tad too bright. “Jane was first in our class for knife handling. You should see what she can do at thirty feet!”
No one answers, but the Misses Duncan and Anderson both give me looks that make it clear that I have very much made a mistake.
Feh. I should’ve let the shambler eat Miss Anderson’s face.
I daresay my education here has been more than a little enlightening. You cannot fathom the benefits I have reaped here in Maryland. Sometimes riches are bestowed upon me whether I want them or not.
Chapter 14
In Which I Go Snooping
“Yet again, we owe our gratitude to the fine young ladies of Miss Preston’s,” says Mayor Carr, once everyone at the table has calmed down. “While I do wish they were perhaps a bit more discreet in their work . . . I can’t deny that this is twice this month that they’ve saved us from a rather rare and unfortunate accident.” He pulls the napkin from where it’s tucked into his collar, folds it, and places it next to his plate. “Well, I think we can officially consider the dinner portion of our evening concluded, no?” At this, he smiles, and his guests give a tentative laugh. “Let’s allow my house staff to tidy up in here. Gentlemen, I invite you to join me for cigars and brandy—prewar, of course.”
Despite this fine invitation, not everyone remains; a fair few people quietly make their excuses and leave. Maybe it’s due to my thrilling knife-throwing skills, but I get the feeling it has more to do with seeing one of their friends turn shambler before their very eyes. He couldn’t have been that popular, though. Most of the mayor’s cronies and their wives remain, and Katherine and I are informed by Miss Anderson that we are to join the women in the salon while they partake of sherry, fruit, and cheese.
“Are you serious?” I whisper, for the sake of decorum. “A man just turned shambler in the middle of Baltimore County and nobody cares how it happened?”
“What are you suggesting, Miss McKeene?” Miss Anderson smiles tightly to a passing party guest before turning her attention back to me. “That there’s a pack of shamblers here in the city? The man was probably bitten on the road coming here and failed to disclose it. A terrible breach of decorum, but nothing more. A rogue shambler slipping through the county line patrols and bothering a pony near the city walls is not unheard of.”