Deader Still Read Online Free PDF Page A

I trust you at all is because you helped turn Jane away from them. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve given up their ways. Maybe you had a hand in rigging the Oubliette to fail.”
    Wesker looked indifferent and shrugged. “Sometimes things break,” Wesker said, his voice flat and unapologetic.
    “I’m awfully sorry, gentlemen,” Julius said. He clasped his hands together. “The Brothers Heron are world renowned for their commitment to quality, and we stand by our equipment. It wasn’t our fault. There was outside interference.”
    “Stand by it?” I said. “Sure, just as long as you don’t have to be in it. I could have been killed.”
    “Again, my apologies,” Julius said, but his voice was much less apologetic this time. I backed down a bit. “I’ll wheel it back to my booth and my brothers and I will try to figure out what exactly happened here.”
    “I say,” the Inspectre said, “I trust there will be some kind of discount, what with your machine almost killing our young charge here.”
    “ That ,” Julius said, “is a matter I will have to discuss with my brothers. If you will excuse me …”
    Julius took up a thick piece of rope attached to the cart beneath the Oubliette and started to pull it off through the curtains. It would have taken Connor, Wesker, the Inspectre, and me to move the cart an inch, but it was no trouble for the giant of a man. Once I had watched him go, I turned back to our group.
    “So where were we?” I asked. I stepped toward the director of Greater & Lesser Arcana. “Oh, yes. Wesker was just about to tell us just exactly how he was involved in this …”
    “Simon!” the Inspectre said with such force I swung around to him. His face was expressionless. “That will be enough. May I remind you that you are still a member of F.O.G. and although you are still a fledgling, you will conduct yourself in accordance with the Order.”
    The Inspectre was right. I knew better than to engage Wesker. Besides, I knew he was always wallowing in a sty of his own anger over the fact that he had been refused entry into our elite order. I shut up.
    “That’s better,” the Inspectre continued.
    Connor came over and slipped off his shoulder bag, handing it to me at arm’s length.
    “What’s this?”
    “Fresh clothes,” he said. He pointed down. A little puddle of rat goo had started to form on the ground where I was standing. I shivered from where it was still against my skin.
    “Now go get yourself changed,” Connor continued. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
    “Thanks,” I said, picking up the bag, careful to hold it away from my body. “Really? What kind of surprise?”
    Connor smiled and shook his head. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, now, would it? Just go change, kid.”
    “Hold on,” Wesker called out. “Aren’t you going to clean up your … drippings?”
    I gave him a look and headed off in search of the rest-rooms.
    “I expect you to clean up this mess, Thaddeus,” the Inspectre said as I walked away.
    “Me?” Wesker shouted, half laughing. “Make Connor do it. Or better yet, Simon. Call him back here.”
    I stopped for a moment, waiting to see if I was going to get called back. I’d rather have had a rat slither into my mouth than give Wesker control over me. “Connor and Simon are part of Other Division,” the Inspectre said, twirling the end of his gray handlebar mustache with one hand and dabbing his other into a small pool of the goo. “This ichor that used to be rats is technically the result of a magical transformation, which is a matter for someone in your division. And as there is only one representative of Greater and Lesser Arcana here—namely you —I’ll leave that matter in your capable hands.”
    I turned away and hurried off. It was hard not to laugh. I just prayed I could control it, though. The thought of accidentally snorting any of the rat goo up my nose wasn’t appealing at all.
     
     
    I gave myself