Free Empire by David Dunwoody Page B

still gushing blood, and Gene opened his mouth to catch it.
        
        He sat on the deck for hours, watching the sun crawl across the sky as he chewed. The weakness in his arm, where he'd earlier been shot, went away.
        
        Then he remembered something. Eating until his stomach could hold no more, he climbed off the boat and headed back to the landfill. He would return once he had his shovel.
        
        
    15.
    Tea in Hell
        
        Harry, at twenty-four, had been the eldest of Addison's adopted children. Two years his junior, Baron Tetch never wasted an opportunity to remind Harry and his other siblings who the man of the house was. He arranged for tea in the early afternoon, and they all gathered in the sitting room, which looked into a lovely wooded atrium, sun streaming down through its skylight. Harry served tea.
        
        Tetch looked around the room to see that they were all holding their cups properly, dressed and groomed neatly for the occasion. Bailey had a spot of dried blood on his cheek. Tetch grimaced. Lily, of course, looked and behaved perfectly. So much easier to train a person than an animal.
        
        Aidan looked questioningly at Tetch. The latter nodded his permission, and Aidan spoke in a garbled, broken voice, as if he did not truly understand the words he was saying.
        
        "Lurvley day."
        
        "Love-ly, Aidan."
        
        "Lo...lurvely."
        
        Tetch took a slow sip of chamomile. "Harry, another sugar." The afterdead in his butler's uniform hastened across the room.
        
        "I saw a bird on the fence today." Lily said brightly. "You didn't touch it, did you?" Tetch replied. Lily's smile faded slightly but she pressed on. "Of course not. I just looked at it. It was three colors - brown, red and white."
        
        Tetch raised a hand to silence her and leaned forward in his chair. "Ruth, your dress." A brackish stain was spreading across the material covering her legs. The undead looked down and lifted the dress. Tetch gasped, not at the fact she was naked beneath, but at the gaping flayed wounds extended from toe to thigh. "What did you do?" Ruth gave him a vacant stare. Must have been some rudimentary attempt at shaving. But shaving what?? She didn't eat near enough to be growing new hair. Sakes alive, she was wearing a wig! "Get out," he growled. "Disgraceful."
        
        As Ruth shuffled past the others, Lily patted her hand. Tetch's glare burned into the little girl's head, but she would not meet his eyes.
        
        "Man." Aidan said, tea dribbling down his chin.
        
        "What, Aidan?"
        
        "Man, at outside. Yurst-day."
        
        "Yes-ter-day, Aidan. It's not worth teaching you to speak if you're going to sound like a mongrel."
        
        "Yes."
        
        "Anyway, what man?" Was it the man Lily had told her about last night? "Outside the fence?"
        
        "Yes."
        
        "He was meat?"
        
        "No." Came the answer. But Lily had said the stranger was alive...no matter, the child was probably mistaken. "So he was like you, then."
        
        "No."
        
        Tetch sighed. Aidan, the most able of his servants, had seemed worthy of speaking privileges. But he didn't know what he was saying. Just making nonsense sounds to placate the hand that fed him.
        
        "So the man wasn't alive, and he wasn't dead either. Very good."
        
        Lily realized what Aidan was talking about and picked up his end of the conversation. "His eyes were all black. They were pretty."
        
        "I don't want to hear any more talk about this man." Tetch said. "Aidan, you and Uriel walk the grounds tonight, until sunrise. Lily, forget about it. Understood?"
        
        "Yes, I guess."
        
        "Don't give me any crap young lady."
        
        There