I clutched the gun in both hands. It shook. "Get back!"
But instead of stopping or retreating, I heard a noise behind me. I swiveled in time to see one of the women leaping at me. I fired.
The bullet hit her square in the chest and she fell to the ground. She did not get up.
Oh God.
I lowered the weapon and stared at the body. Blood seeped out from under it and pooled on the road. A white mist rose and hovered in the air. It formed the shape of the dead woman, in human form, and wailed.
"You killed her," the other woman said, her eyes huge. "You killed Maggie."
"You attacked me," I said. "You attacked my friends."
She continued to stare, but her face hardened, her nostrils flared. "You bloody killed her!" She ran at me.
"Get into your body!" I managed to shout at the spirit. "Lie on your body now and-"
The woman tackled me and we hit the ground together. My head smacked the road and the air left my lungs. Everything went black. I couldn't see if the spirit had done as I ordered. I couldn't even move. The woman sat on me, pinning me. I braced myself, expecting her fist to smash into my face.
But it did not. My vision returned. I blinked up at her, but she wasn't looking at me. She stared at the corpse, now lurching to its feet. The other pack members didn't move. All gaped at the dead woman standing on unsteady feet, inspecting herself with eyes that couldn't really see. It was her spirit eyes that saw, not her human ones, and what she saw amazed her.
"I … I am alive." Her voice came out thin, brittle, struggling as it did through muscle, flesh and sinew that had to learn how to work again in dead form.
The two men approached her, touched her, checked her wound. The one who looked into her eyes suddenly recoiled with a yelp.
"Not alive," I told her and the others. "You're dead. I've brought you back to occupy your body."
They all stared at me. The woman who'd attacked me scampered back, falling over in her haste to get away from me. "What are you?" she whispered.
I got to my feet slowly, careful to keep them all in my line of sight. Behind them, Seth, Gus and Lincoln moved, groaning. They were alive, thank God, but in a bad way. "I am the person who will kill you all and bring you back from the dead to do my bidding unless you do as I say. Stand over there together where I can see you." I pointed the gun at the middle of the street.
One man moved, but the other caught his sleeve. "She won't do it," he said. "She's lying. Ain't no one can bring back the dead."
I aimed the gun at him. "Until recently I didn't know that people can become wolves and bears. Yet here you are." I nodded at the corpse. "And here she is. Dead yet walking. Force them to stand together," I ordered the corpse.
She moved toward the men, her arms herding them like cattle. "I can't stop," she muttered. "Why? What're you doing to me?"
The men edged away from her. The other woman raised her hands in surrender. I aimed my pistol at them. Seth got to his knees and aimed his, too. He cocked it with his forearm, not his injured hand. Despite the blood streaming from a cut above his eye, he looked furious and very much prepared to pull the trigger.
Behind him, Lincoln and Gus stumbled to their feet. I did not go to them but immense relief flooded me. I concentrated on our attackers. The danger was not yet over, not for Harriet.
"Go inside and insure King doesn't harm Lady Gillingham," I ordered the dead woman. "Do whatever it takes to free her."
"No! I won't do it." But her feet moved even as she protested. The others watched her go, a mixture of wonder and fear on their faces. The dead woman clomped toward King's house, her gait awkward, as if her feet were rooted to the ground and she had to rip them up with each step. By the time she reached his door, however, she'd become used to her dead body and moved more freely.
Curtains fluttered up and down the street. Neighbors peered out but remained indoors, too afraid. How long did we have before constables arrived? The gunshot would have been heard from one end of Bloomsbury to the other.
"We all go," Lincoln said. Somehow his face only bore a single cut to his cheek. The rest of him, however, must be black and blue.
I did not help him as he limped after the deceased, his body bent slightly, his arms folded over his stomach. He didn't utter a sound, however, but I knew every piece of him must burn with pain. I ached to inspect his wounds and apply salves, but it would have to wait.
Seth and I forced the others to follow at gunpoint. They went meekly and headed up the stairs to King's place without uttering a sound. There was no sign of the landlady. I didn't blame her for hiding.
The dead woman already had King pinned to a wall by his shoulders in the parlor. He could use his hands to push at her, but get no strength behind it. She was too strong even for him.
Harriet huddled in a corner on the floor, whimpering, her feet tucked under her skirts, her face buried in her hands. No one took any notice of her.
"Let me go!" King ordered.
"Can't," the dead woman said. "Sorry, King, she controls me."
His gaze slid to me. "How?"
"Harriet is walking out of here," I told him. "You will not come near her or anyone associated with her. Is that understood?"
"I didn't plan on harming her."
"We heard you say you would have your way with her."
"She wanted me to. Didn't you, Harriet?"
"No!" she cried.
"But I'm your pack leader. You belong to me now."
"I belong to my husband. I wanted to run with you. Nothing more," she added in a mumble, all the fight gone out of her.
She picked herself up and came to stand beside me. I hooked my arm through hers and she seemed to take comfort in the close connection.
"If you come near Harriet again, I will send London's dead to you door," I told King.
He swallowed. "All of them?"
"As many as I can muster." Sometimes, a little white lie felt good. Wickedly good. "Now, answer our questions and we'll let you go."
Lincoln had remained by the door. He'd straightened but his face was racked with pain. I let Harriet go and went to him. I touched the tips of his fingers, an offer of encouragement. He gave me a flat smile and walked steadily toward King.
"You changed into the Prince Consort's form," Lincoln said quietly yet firmly.
"Did I?"
"How did you do it?"
King's lips pressed together. He looked away.
"Punch him in the stomach," I told the dead woman.
She protested, but did as I ordered. "Sorry," she said to King as he coughed over her.
"I will have her kill you," I told King. "After what your friends did to mine tonight, I have no qualms about that. We know you went to the palace and used the prince consort's form to speak to the queen. How can you change into his form, and others?"
"I don't know," he said. "It's just something I can do, like you can do … " He indicated the dead woman. "This. I learned years ago that I could shift into other shapes, but not easily. Anything other than my natural shapes took practice, and if I wanted to copy someone specific, it took years of practice."
"Your natural shapes?"
"This one and the one I run in."
"You've been trying to look like the prince consort for some time," Lincoln said. "You wanted to be him, didn't you? Hence the name you adopted."
"I've been told I resemble him a little." King tried to shrug, but with his shoulders pinned to the wall, it looked more like a twitch. "It was just a game. No harm done."
"No harm!" I marched up to him and poked him in the chest. "The queen thinks she's been speaking to her beloved dead husband!"
"And how is that a bad thing? She adores him still. Why not give her some happiness and allow her to think he pines for her as much as she pines for him?"
"You sicken me," I said.
"I know what I'm doing."
"And what is that?" Lincoln asked. "What do you want from her?"
King sniffed. "Nothing."
Lincoln smashed his fist into King's face. It was so sudden that even I was caught by surprise. King's head smacked against the wall and for a moment, he looked dazed. Blood trickled from his mouth, and he spluttered then spat out a tooth. "Bloody hell, aren't you in a fine mood."
"Is it any wonder?" I snapped. "You ordered your people to kill them!" I had a mind to punch him myself.
"I can wipe out every last one of your pack," Lincoln said with a growl that was more animal than human. "I can see that your kind become extinct after tonight. Don't presume I will show mercy, because I will not. Not after you showed us none."
Harriet gasped. King's pack exchanged worried glances. "Tell him," one of the men urged King. "The secret don't matter no more. You tried and got caught, and that's the end of it. Tell him what he needs to know!"
"It's not as simple as that." King sounded as if he were weighing up his options. "There will be repercussions."
"Seth," Lincoln barked.
Seth limped forward. "Yes?"