“Really, human, were you not listening?” Grimalkin sighed, exasperated again, but I didn’t care. “It was not even much of a riddle, really. What about you two?” he asked, looking to the boys. “Did our mighty protectors glean any bits of knowledge, or was I the only one paying attention?”
Ash didn’t reply, too busy staring down the street, eyes narrowed. Puck shrugged. “Seek out the Keepers of the trees,” he muttered. “That’s easy enough. I assume we should go back to the park.”
“Very good, Goodfellow.”
“I try.”
“I’m so lost,” I groaned, sitting down on the curb. “Why are we going back to the park? We just came from there. There are other trees in New Orleans.”
“Because, princess—”
“Explain later.” Ash appeared beside me. His voice was low and harsh. “We need to go. Now.”
“Why?” I asked, just as the streetlamps—and every artificial light on the block—sputtered and went out.
Faery lights glowed overhead as both Ash and Puck called them into existence. Footsteps echoed in the shadows, getting closer, coming from all directions. Grimalkin muttered something and disappeared. Puck and Ash stepped back to flank me, their eyes scanning the darkness.
Beyond the ring of light, dark shapes shuffled toward us. As they came into the light, the faery fire washed over the faces of humans—normal men and women—their features blank as they lurched forward. Most of them carried weapons: iron pipes and metal baseball bats and knives. Every zombie movie I’d ever seen sprang to mind, and I pressed close to Ash, feeling the muscles coil under his skin.
“Humans,” Ash muttered, his hand dropping to his sword. “What are they doing? They shouldn’t be able to see us.”
A dark chuckle rose from the ranks shambling toward us, and the mob abruptly stopped. They moved aside as a woman floated between them, hands on her slender hips. She wore a business suit of poison green, three-inch heels, and green lipstick that glowed with radioactive brightness. Her hair appeared to be made of wires, thin network cables of various color: greens, blacks, and reds.
“Here you are at last.” Her voice buzzed, like millions of bees given speech. “I’m shocked that Ironhorse had such a problem with you, but then again, he’s so old. Past his usefulness, I’d say. You will not have such an easy time with me.”
“Who are you?” growled Ash. Puck moved beside him, and together they formed a living shield in front of me. The lady giggled, like a mosquito humming in your ear, and held out a green-nailed hand.
“I am Virus, second of King Machina’s lieutenants.” She blew me a kiss that made my skin crawl. “Pleased to meet you, Meghan Chase.”
“What have you done to these people?” I demanded.
“Oh, don’t worry about them.” Virus twirled in place, smiling. “They’ve just caught a little bug. These little bugs, to be exact.” She held up her hand, and a tiny insect swarm flew out of her sleeve to hover over her palm, like sparkling silver dust. “Cute little things, aren’t they? Quite harmless, but they allow me to get inside a brain and rewrite its programming. Allow me to demonstrate.” She gestured to the nearest human, and the man dropped to all fours and started to bark. Virus tittered, clapping her hands. “See? Now he thinks he’s a dog.”
“Brilliant,” Puck said. “Can you make him crow like a rooster, too?”
Ash and I glared at him. He blinked. “What?”
I started, a memory dropping into place, and spun back on Virus. “You…you’re the one who set the chimera loose on Elysium!”
“Why, yes, that was my work.” Virus looked pleased, though her face fell a moment later. “Although, as an experiment, it didn’t quite work out as I’d hoped. The normal fey don’t react well to my bugs. That whole aversion-to-iron thing, you know. It drove the stupid beast mad, and probably would have killed it, if it hadn’t been sliced to pieces. Mortals, though!” She pirouetted in the air, flinging out her arms, as if to embrace the crowd. “They make wonderful drones. So devoted to their computers and technology, they were slaves to it long before I came along.”
“Let them go,” I told her.
Virus regarded me with glittering green eyes. “I don’t think so, dearie.” She snapped her fingers, and the mob shambled forward again, arms reaching. “Bring me the girl,” she ordered as the circle tightened around us. “Kill the rest.”
Ash drew his sword.
“No!” I cried, grabbing his arm. “Don’t hurt them. They’re just ordinary humans. They don’t know what they’re doing.”
Ash shot me a wild glare over his shoulder. “Then what do you want me to do?”
“I suggest we run,” Puck offered, taking something from his pocket. He tossed it at the crowd, and it exploded into a log, pinning two startled zombie men to the ground, creating a hole in the ring surrounding us.
“Let’s go!” Puck yelled, and we didn’t need encouraging. We leaped over the thrashing bodies, dodging the pipes they swung at us, and tore down the street.
CHAPTER NINETEEN