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  There sat her dear mother who, with meth addled teeth, did her best to smile at her only child.

  The bride, with no words, plunged the long knife into her mother's chest. Anton thought that the knife must have been struck with tremendous force, given the dull nature of most cake knives. The smile remained plastered on the woman's face as the knife was struck again and again. The pristine Vera Wang creation worn by the bride took on a crimson hue. Anton – with the deepest respect to the famous designer – thought the red actually improved the frock.

  As the obviously vengeful bride continued to murder what – after a dozen blows – certainly was a corpse, the real fun began. There were screams from disparate parts of the ballroom as other human guests were attacked. There was a mass rush for the ballroom doors, which had been barricaded from the outside by Wiley's people. Guests ran around fruitlessly trying to escape.

  Soon there was blood everywhere and Anton's crew captured it all. Anton was ordered by Wiley himself to stick with the bride. He didn't want to miss any of his new wife's fury. Anton hustled after the woman – having killed the mother, she went after someone who appeared to be an older aunt or perhaps the grandmother. The old woman comically tried to run away from the far younger woman. The newly minted Mrs. Wiley played with the woman, letting her sprint ahead for a moment, and then nearly catching her, then falling behind again. She let the woman exit into the kitchen, which, of course, had no exit to the street.

  Mrs. Wiley backed the exhausted woman near some boiling pots. The woman looked around, she could go no further.

  "Why…why are you doing this?" the woman stammered. She was out of breath. If Mrs. Wiley doesn't kill her the woman likely would have a heart attack, thought Anton.

  "Why am I going to kill you?" asked Jan.

  The woman nodded, her eyes on her daughter's blood dripping from the cake knife.

  "Because I told you what was happening to me and you know what you told me?"

  The woman shook her head, tears and sweat flying.

  "You know," said Jan. "You said to shut my mouth, open my legs, and take it like a woman. You said that to a twelve year old child."

  "I…I was wrong. Please don't kill me."

  Jan Wiley smiled. "Shut your mouth, open your legs and take it like a woman." She swung the knife in a murderous arc upward, past the dainty dress and already soiled panty into the woman's sex. After the second blow, the woman was dead. She continued butchering the woman until there were only pieces left.

  "You want some?" she asked Anton.

  He usually didn't eat at the receptions he worked but the feast before him was too attractive. He wolfed down an arm and the woman's head. With a full belly he followed Jan out of the kitchen as she sought her next target.

  Mira and Elias sat apart on the subway as the train made its way to the last stop in Brighton Beach. As the car gradually emptied during the long trip eastward, they could make eye contact. They searched one another for some indication that they could trust the other. None was found – their conversation would be a leap of faith – possibly fatal – for both.

  The mid winter night was unseasonably warm but there still was not much activity on the boardwalk. A mist rolled in off the ocean and the pair stared out at it as they sat on a bench. Waves crashing in the approaching surf covered their conversation but each person was suspicious that the other was recording or transmitting their words.

  One was prepared in the event the conversation turned sour. The inside pocket of Mira's three quarter length coat contained a .38 snub nosed revolver. Could she kill Elias? She didn't know if she could. She wanted to deny that she had feelings for the man. Most of the time – especially when there was physical distance – it worked.

  Seated next to him – next to his smell, his warmth, his humanity – she was vulnerable.

  In his space she could not deny her heart – she loved him.

  Could she kill him? She asked herself the question again as they sat in silence watching the black ocean.

  Yes, she could. She had to stop Wiley and anyone who was helping him.

  "Hamid is in a coma," she said. She raised her voice to be heard above the ocean noise.

  Elias looked at her, assessed the truthfulness of her words. He could feel her emotions, the rawness of her suffering. She was speaking the truth.

  "What happened?" he asked and she told him. "They now have him in a secure location. They won't tell me where."

  Elias cursed Lee's hesitancy in killing Hamid. Now it was too late.

  "I thought that you and Hamid had been helping Wiley. You gave him the bombs."

  "Yes, we did."

  "So, why the betrayal?"

  "My grandfather thought having a powerful congressman as an ally would help protect our people. But Wiley clearly is not content with that role. As he turned to world domination my grandfather knew he had made a horrible mistake and wanted to stop Wiley."

  "Pardon me, Mira, but he had the means to stop Wiley immediately."

  Mira looked Elias in the eyes. "You mean suicide."

  Elias nodded.

  "Our faith doesn't abide taking one's own life. If he had no other way, I believe he would."

  "What was he doing?"

  "I don't know all of his activities but I do know that somehow he has been feeding the federal government with information, including a video of the zombie bomb demo."

  "And that came back to Wiley?"

  "Yes," Mira said. "He must have infiltrated the FBI or whatever organization my grandfather was working with."

  "That doesn't make any sense, why hasn't the FBI or whomever made a move against Wiley?"

  "Like I said, he's probably infiltrated the FBI. His people inside likely stopped the investigation."

  The pair sat and thought for a minute, the thundering waves and the cry of birds the only sounds.

  "What do you want from me?" Elias asked.

  "I want to know where you stand in this. Do you still support Wiley?"

  Elias looked her in the eyes and saw love. He also noticed her hand reaching into her jacket. He sat on the precipice, his life in the balance at this moment. This could be a setup, his response going to a van filled with zombies, ready to riddle him with bullets and dump his body at sea. Or, Mira could kill him and leave his body on the bench, another congressman dying under mysterious circumstances.

  They would make a Dateline special out of his death, get boffo ratings, and then no one would remember Elias Turnbull at all.

  He looked upon the ocean, that ancient presence. If he must die, he would die with the truth on his lips.

  "Wiley lost my support when he began to practice genocide. My morals are questionable but I draw the line when someone begins to exterminate the human race."

  He noticed her hand coming out of her coat. It was empty. He listened and there were no jack boots approaching or sirens in the distance. He must have said the right thing.

  "I've been funneling information back to a resistance movement led by the magical community in New Orleans. My contact is a man named Manchester Lee. I'll introduce you."

  "What is their plan?" she asked.

  "Destroy Wiley. We believe by doing so the rest of the zombies lose their alpha and can easily be identified, captured and destroyed."

  Mira nodded. "How are you going to get to Wiley?"

  "We don't know yet. We need the right opportunity but his security is tight."

  "He's going to make a move on the VP, you need to act soon. Also, he has me developing an atomic zombie bomb, capable of converting whole cities."

  "You're doing this?"

  "I am but only to cover my other activity."

  "Which is?"

  "To develop a bomb to reverse the effect of the zombie bomb. We need to save as many people as we can. If I can reverse the effect we can eliminate Wiley's army of the undead. Even if we can't destroy him we eliminate the foundation of his power."

  "Why not use it on Wiley?"
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br />   "I doubt it would work. Wiley is different, an almost perfect reanimated being."

  Elias nodded. "How close are you? How soon will you have it worked out?"

  "I don't know. I'm struggling to develop the spell, the right mix of ingredients." She looked out to the sea. "I wish Hamid was here to help me."

  "We don't have a lot of time."

  "I know that, Elias. I need the help of the Penn scientists and its slow going trying to fold the development of the reversal bomb into that of the atomic bomb. They're using tiny robots called nanobots – I think I can use them for the reverse bombs."

  Elias thought for a moment. "He's going to bomb our cities."

  There was silence between them for several moments until Mira spoke. "How?"

  "Who knows – drones, high altitude bombers? He might even resurrect the Space Shuttle." Elias smiled but Mira's face retained a serious and determined look.

  "The specs account for heat levels consistent with the extreme heat of atmospheric reentry."

  Elias stood, tried to digest that tidbit. "We have to stop him." He took her hand, helped her to her feet.

  "I'm happy that we're working together on this, Elias," she said. She leaned in and they kissed.

  As they walked away, hand in hand, Elias' thoughts went to another Hidar, Hamid.

  Of course the man still must die. He and Manchester would have to figure out how. First, they would need to know where he was being held and Mira Hidar was still best positioned to lead them right to him.

  He felt guilty as he put her in a cab and gave the cabbie money for the outrageously high fare to Penn Station.

  The guilt slowly faded, however. He and she had unleashed this on the human race. If Hamid had to die to stop it, so be it.

  What if she had to die too?

  Unbidden to his mind's eye appeared the face of the child in Harlem who had been converted.

  "So be it," he said out loud in the empty subway train. He looked around although he knew he was alone. "So be it," he echoed, slipping lower in the hard plastic seat and closing his eyes to the darkness outside his window.

  He could not so easily shut out the darkness in his heart. That, along with overpowering guilt, would not be easily tamed.

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE CAPITAL BUILDING - WASHINGTON DC – MAY 2012

  The public hearing between the HUD Secretary and the Senate committee that provided oversight for his department could best be described as a love fest. Republicans, Democrats, even the one Independent, made love to the man in a public verbal orgy. Buffeted by positive feedback from towns large and small in their home states, each politician outdid the last heaping praise in the man's lap.

  Benjamin Wiley – noted undead sexual animal – sustained an erection during most of the hearing.

  The Republicans made a point of asking how Wiley could convince his boss to implement Wiley's methods across the entire Federal government, as "the deficits are getting out of hand."

  To this suggestion, every time the GOP Senators repeated it, Wiley responded the same. "With the ongoing Afghan war, the Administration is challenged to stop the momentum of growing deficits. We simply must give our troops all that they need to succeed. On the domestic side, we need to spend to jumpstart the economy. However, President Obama has implanted dozens of HUD's operational methods into the Federal government's DNA. As we continue to meet the challenges in our path, you will see the fruit of his efforts."

  The hearing had spanned the morning and Ben Wiley soon grew bored with the adulation. His answers became shorter, his smile less brilliant, his ten thousand dollar suit getting a bit rumpled in the coat sleeves. Finally he came to the last of the Senators, Barbara Boxer from California.

  "Secretary Wiley, I also am very impressed with what you have done with HUD in little more than a year. I am also grateful to you for effectively making a personal plea to the Iranian leadership, ending the threat of a nuclear Middle East."

  Wiley managed to smile, nod his head.

  "I'd like to focus on a facet of the HUD miracle that has caught my attention. In our California public housing units, the population has decreased significantly, in some by fifty percent." She shuffled a set of papers dramatically, placing reading glasses on her patrician nose to great effect.

  "I have before me a summary of hundreds of complaints from relatives of those who used to live in public housing. The complaints say that their friends or family members were living in one of your units one day, then gone the next. Completely disappeared with no forwarding address and not available by phone or on the Internet. Mr. Secretary, are you aware of this?"

  Wiley sat straighter in his seat, the bored, casual look gone, replaced by one of utter, bereft concern.

  "Senator, I am aware of the issue. I have a possible explanation."

  "I'll be delighted to hear it," Boxer interjected.

  "We have made great strides in giving our residents the authority to police their own house, if you will. One by-product of that is some residents are unhappy that they cannot continue their bad habits under our roof. They move on to other housing, where perhaps they have greater freedom to do ill. And perhaps this takes them to other towns, with few or no regard for the friends and relatives they leave behind."

  "Mr. Secretary, that suggests that 'the missing' really aren't missing and, moreover, that they are criminals." She shuffled the papers again, dramatically.

  And they say all the best actresses are in Hollywood or on Broadway.

  "I have children who are missing, Mr. Secretary. There are mothers, even grandmothers. What about them? Are they criminals too, moving on to greener pastures?"

  Ben Wiley smiled the cold smile he has used hundreds of times – before he removed a human's head.

  "Of course not, Senator. My suggestion only covers a percentage of those who are missing. May I also say that two thousand three hundred Americans go missing daily, close to a million a year. I'll be glad to look at your data but the residents of public housing certainly fit the profile of those who go missing – poor, female, minority and desperate. We in HUD have never studied the issue – possibly more appropriate for a university or non profit – but there is likely a high overlap between residents of public housing and the missing. And, as you know, many missing are missing voluntarily."

  "Understood, Mr. Secretary. My point in bringing this to the attention of this committee and the American people is to perhaps shine a light on the other side of your sterling achievements: the depopulation of America's public housing. And I have a hard time viewing these statistics…." There was another flourish of shuffling and stacking papers. "….as a coincidence with your programs at HUD."

  "But shouldn't there be fewer Americans in public housing, senator?"

  "Public housing is a safety net for millions."

  "As it should be but it was not designed to be a lifetime safety net. People should get the help they need, then move on to housing they have fully paid for with the sweat of their efforts."

  "You sound like a Republican," Boxer spat.

  "I will refer the problem of the missing housing residents to the FBI, Senator Boxer. The issue will be a priority for me and the department. However, by the end of this decade, I wouldn't be happier to preside over a HUD which has no residents, public housing gone the way of the phone booth, into the ashcan of history."

  Lieberman, the committee chair, cut off Boxer's reply. "I think, Senator Boxer, your time is at an end." He smiled in Wiley's direction. "I believe the secretary has more than answered your questions and responded to your concerns. May I add that I too share his vision that one day all housing everywhere in this wonderful country of ours will be privately owned or rented, with no public contribution. I believe that the Founding Fathers would agree with that goal." He banged the gavel. "The witness is dismissed and the hearing is ended." He banged the gavel again.

  One hour later Benjamin Wiley met with Senator Boxer privately in a room off the Senate
's cloakroom. It was a meeting requested – begged perhaps – by Wiley. Once seated, there was no conversation. A silver globe was produced, deployed and a half hour later a transformed Boxer walked out of the room. She understood now where the public housing residents had 'disappeared' to. She left Wiley behind the locked door to clean up the detritus of her re-creation, her rebirth as a new, undead, but glorious thing.

  Her stomach was already growling as she hit the floor of the Senate. She was looking forward to her first meal; one where she would make yet another human disappear.

  Jan sat in her office at the DC townhouse she shared with her husband. She was ready to begin her 'work day' as CEO of Wiley's super PAC called Come Together America. It was the role Wiley had assigned her after one of her complaints that she felt useless just sitting around their home all day.

  She had impressive business cards and her face on the PAC's website but she soon found it a hollow victory.

  She had studied super PAC rules and made sure the PAC's legion of lawyers and accountants kept up on the voluminous Federal paperwork. She spoke to Wiley supporters, thanking them for their donations, and touched base with the web designers and publicists who maintained the PAC's and her public face. There had been several newspaper interviews, a spread in Essence magazine even, but that attention had mostly died down. Now she spent most of her time acknowledging cash transfers from Wiley's adoring legions, zombie and human, and overseeing the deposit of those funds in the PAC's bank accounts. As CEO it was her fiduciary responsibility to do so.

  The rest of her day was spent opening the snail mail correspondence that came to the house. Some of that contained money – checks and some cash – sent by the more technologically challenged of Wiley's Warriors. She legally acknowledged and deposited that money, too, via secure courier. This work depressed her – she felt as if she was back being someone's glorified secretary and it added to what she acknowledged to be her mild depression.

  The mail contained something more – notes from adoring women, some very explicitly describing their sexual encounters with Jan's man. She opened a manila envelope and out tumbled a lock of hair. It took Jan a moment to discern, based upon the coarseness of the hair, that she held someone's carefully harvested pubic hair in her hand. She dropped the hair and its accompanying erotic picture in the trash.