in on the conversation, and Mox was happy to engage. “Do you know how to do that to an ordinary siphon?” a woman propped up on her elbows to watch the stitching of her leg asked. “Because if you can’t do it to a regular one, you probably won’t be able to do it to that massive one.”
“Good point,” Ziva said. “We can’t just barge in there and expect to figure it out on the fly.”
“What do you suggest?” Mox said, talking around the needle between his teeth. He was holding it there while he checked his stitches. Sloane had moved on to yet another pungent gash. Her gloves smeared fluid on the undead man’s shirtsleeve.
“Hey,” the man grunted. “Just got this thing clean.”
“Well,” Sloane said, scowling, “it’s my first time sewing rotten flesh back together, so you’ll have to forgive me being a little clumsy about it.”
“ ’S not rotten,” the man said. “ ’S rotting.”
Ziva’s teeth whistled as she laughed. “Don’t take offense, Pete. She’s a little wound up right now.”
Sloane gritted her teeth and tied off the last stitch. She didn’t bother to keep it neat. Pete—what a ridiculous name for a zombie.
“Gotta stay loose,” Pete said, and he wrenched his arm out of its socket so he could waggle it around a little.
Sloane bit back a laugh. “That doesn’t hurt?” she said.
“Eh, not really,” Pete said. “ ’S more like the memory of pain, if you know what I mean. That’s how everything is for us—echoes.”
Sloane glanced at Mox. He was acting like he hadn’t heard.
“Ziva,” Mox said. “What do you suggest we do?”
Sloane pulled a length of tough thread through the eye of the needle. How had she not known who Nero was from the first second she had laid eyes on him? His unassuming flop of hair, his passive smile, his submissive attitude toward Aelia—all constructed so that he could move unsuspected right under her nose. But what was the purpose of that? She cut the thread. Her hands were shaking again.
“What I suggest,” Ziva said, “is that me and your nemesis-slash-lover over there—”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m dead; I’m not stupid. You two are . . .” Ziva flapped her hand at Sloane and Mox. “So I propose that she and I go on a little reconnaissance mission in order to document the innards of the siphon fortis.”
“You and Sloane,” Mox said. “Without me?”
“Well,” Ziva said, her voice gentling—as much as it was possible for that raspy, bone-rattling voice to gentle. “Your spine—”
“Right.” Mox scowled at his hands as he jerked the needle too hard, making the soldier in front of him jump. “Sorry, Fred.”
Fred. Honestly, Sloane thought. “Do you know Nero’s range?” she asked. She needed to focus. If Esther were here, she would snap her manicured fingers in front of Sloane’s face. Feel later, think now, she would say, and Sloane did. “How close do you have to be before he can control your magic?”
“I haven’t tested it much,” Mox said, sighing. “A couple blocks is the closest I’ve come.”
“Well, then, you can still help us get there,” Sloane said. “I’m sure they’re on high alert. We might need you. I’m still unpredictable with the siphon, and what if the blond cadaver’s head falls off?”
“Unpredictable? I think the word you’re looking for is useless. You are useless with the siphon,” Ziva said. “But this raises another question: How are we even going to get in the Camel? It’s not as if she and I can just walk in unnoticed.”
“We could put some tape over that hole in your face,” Sloane said.
“Careful, flesh-bag, or I’ll give you one to match,” Ziva retorted.
Mox coughed as if to disguise a laugh. He shook his head. “It would be better if we could go in from underneath, but—”
“Wait,” Sloane said. When the Dark One had narrowed his range of attacks to the Midwest, Sloane had gobbled up as much information as she could about every major Midwestern city, especially Chicago. It meant she knew all the oddities of it, the secret passages and the back doors and . . . “Do you guys have the pedway here?”
“The what?”
“There are underground tunnels for pedestrians in the Loop, and one of them opens up under the Thompson Center—sorry, in this universe, it’s the Camel,” Sloane said. “They started building the pedway before our universes split, I’m pretty sure. We could pop up right in the middle of the building.”