So the ghosts what live in the machines won’t take over the bodies of those who have died here—Pubes and Grays alike—and send them up through the holes in the streets to eat us. Any fool knows that.”
“There are no such things as ghosts,” Susannah said, and her voice sounded like so much meaningless quacking to her own ears. Of course there were. In this world, there were ghosts everywhere. Nevertheless, she pushed ahead. “What you call the god-drums is only a tape stuck in a machine. That’s really all it is.” Sudden inspiration struck her and she added: “Or maybe the Grays are doing it on purpose—did you ever think of that? They live in the other part of the city, don’t they? And under it, as well? They’ve always wanted you out. Maybe they’ve just hit on a really efficient way of getting you guys to do their work for them.”
The bloody woman was standing next to an elderly gent wearing what looked like the world’s oldest bowler hat and a pair of frayed khaki shorts. Now he stepped forward and spoke to her with a patina of good manners that turned his underlying contempt into a dagger with razor-sharp edges. “You are quite wrong, Madam Gunslinger. There are a great many machines under Lud, and there are ghosts in all of them— demonous spirits which bear only ill will to mortal men and women. These demon-ghosts are very capable of raising the dead . . . and in Lud, there are a great many dead to raise.”
“Listen,” Eddie said. “Have you ever seen one of these zombies with your own eyes, Jeeves? Have any of you?”
Jeeves curled his lip and said nothing—but that lip-curl really said it all. What else could one expect, it asked, from outlanders who used guns as a substitute for understanding?
Eddie decided it would be best to close off the whole line of discussion. He had never been cut out for missionary work, anyway. He waggled the Ruger at the bloodstained woman. “You and your friend there— the one who looks like an English butler on his day off—are going to take us to the railroad station. After that, we can all say goodbye, and I’ll tell you the truth: that’s going to make my fuckin day.”
“Railroad station?” the guy who looked like Jeeves the Butler asked. “What is a railroad station?”
“Take us to the cradle,” Susannah said. “Take us to Blaine.”
This finally rattled Jeeves; an expression of shocked horror replaced the world-weary contempt with which he had thus far treated them. “You can’t go there!” he cried. “The cradle is forbidden ground, and Blaine is the most dangerous of all Lud’s ghosts!”
Forbidden ground? Eddie thought. Great. If it’s the truth, at least we’ll be able to stop worrying about you assholes. It was also nice to hear that there still was a Blaine . . . or that these people thought there was, anyway.
The others were staring at Eddie and Susannah with expressions of uncomprehending amazement; it was as if the interlopers had suggested to a bunch of born-again Christians that they hunt up the Ark of the Covenant and turn it into a pay toilet.
Eddie raised the Ruger until the center of Jeeves’s forehead lay in the sight. “We’re going,” he said, “and if you don’t want to join your ancestors right here and now, I suggest you stop pissing and moaning and take us there.”
Jeeves and the bloodstained woman exchanged an uncertain glance, but when the man in the bowler hat looked back at Eddie and Susannah, his face was firm and set. “Shoot us if you like,” he said. “We’d sooner die here than there.”
“You folks are a bunch of sick motherfuckers with dying on the brain!” Susannah cried at them. “Nobody has to die! Just take us where we want to go, for the love of God!”
The woman said somberly, “But it is death to enter Blaine’s cradle, mum, so it is. For Blaine sleeps, and he who disturbs his rest must pay a high price.”
“Come on, beautiful,” Eddie snapped. “You can’t smell the coffee with your head up your ass.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she said with an odd and perplexing dignity.
“It means you can take us to the cradle and risk the Wrath of Blaine, or you can stand your ground here and experience the Wrath of Eddie. It doesn’t have to be a nice clean head-shot, you know. I can take you a piece