Monster Island(58)

The work on Mael’sbroch was coming along well. Two triangular support vanes rose a dozen yards in the air while one curtain wall was already higher than Gary’s head. The undead workers on the scaffolding looked unsteady at best but they lifted and carried their building materials as if they were precious relics and they placed the bricks so closely together Gary would have had a hard time getting a piece of paper between them. Groups of dead men sat in pits around the construction site, scraping the old mortar free of the bricks with their fingernails. Some used their teeth.

Other work parties erected the scaffolding, lattices of metal pipes torn off the facades of New York’s buildings. There had never been a shortage of the stuff. The ladders and platforms thrown up by the dead were rickety and precarious and accidents were common-in the short time Gary had spent on the building site he had more than once heard the sudden crump of an undead body falling thirty feet to the mud. Their bones often shattered and their limbs useless these victims would be put to work wherever it was possible-if they could still walk they could drag sledges full of bricks, while if they could still use their arms they would be put in the cleaning pits to scrape mortar.

Those few sorry wretches who were effectively paralyzed in accidents were still useful to Mael astaibhsear, or seers-in the most literal sense. Hoisted up and tied to the rising walls of thebroch their eyes scanned the Park for their master. Eyeless himself he depended on these assistants, without whom he would be blind. Dead men climbed up on ladders to feed bits of meat to these lookouts, keeping them fresh.

The Druid sat on a mound of piled rocks at the very center of the compound. His honor guard of mummies stood arrayed behind him, slumped against one another, clutching at their amulets and heart scarabs like a court of mentally deficient wizards. In front of Mael spread out on the ground lay a folding gas station map of the city with tokens marking the location of all known survivors. One of the mummies knelt over the map as Gary approached, removing tokens for the three locations he’d raided during the night.

Leaning forward on his sword the color of verdigris Mael shooed the mummy away and raised his head to greet his champion.

Mygowlach curaidh returns! You’re looking hale, lad. The Great Work must agree with you.

“I have a right to exist,” Gary demurred. “Which means I have to feed.”

Aye, and you’ve done well.The Druid’s head slumped against his chest.Maybe too well. Did you have to be so vicious with the wee bairns?

Gary could only shrug. “You said yourself that we’re evil, and that we need to act like it. I was just following my orders.” Gary squatted down and studied the map. There were plenty of survivors left-hundreds. He could keep this up for months and not run out of food. Any compassion or sympathy he might have once had for the living was draining out of him, perhaps as a result of being shot at every time he met them or maybe he really was becoming the creature of absolutes Mael had asked him to be. “This is what I am, right? A monster. Don’t criticize me for being good at it.”

Mael studied him for a long moment before agreeing.Aye. Forgive an old wizard for his sentimental maundering. I’ve another task for you, lad, one I imagine you’ll take to. It’s a big job and it’ll take a thoughtful man to pull it off.

Gary nodded. He was ready, whatever it might be. Mael had promised him that he would feel at peace once he had accepted the role fate had cast him for and as usual the Druid was right. He felt strong, so much stronger than when he had crawled out of the basement of the Virgin megastore with a hole in his head. Even stronger than when he’d first awoken in a bathtub full of ice.

A dead woman in a stained pair of jeans and a low-cut halter top that showed off her withered blue breasts stumbled forward, nearly stepping on the map. She would have been pretty, once, a Latina with a massive mane of curling hair. Now her face showed blossoming sores and clouded eyes. She looked at Gary and then at Mael and finally let her gaze drift out of focus. Not particularly strange behavior for a walking corpse but to Gary she seemed more dazed than she should be. As if she’d been drugged or put into a trance.

You’ll need more than your usual retinue for this job. You need to learn to read theeididh, and how to lead troops into battle. This one has knowledge I want to impart in her head, if you can get to it.

Gary licked his lips, more than a little excited. Mael had powers beyond his own, far beyond, but so far the Druid had been stingy with teaching his attack dog any new tricks. “How do I…” he asked, but he knew what the answer would be.