The Underground Righteous

“Satan may have granted you diabolical powers, but they are no match for the power of faith!” the preacher crowed.

Zack didn’t move or acknowledge the fanatic. He was chained to the frighteningly well-equipped holding cell in the Atlantan passenger freighter Hair Shirt. There was a belt wrapped around his neck that made breathing difficult and speech impossible, and a burlap sack tied over his head that reeked of rotten potatoes.

The potato sack tightened and ground against his unshaven face as the preacher took hold of it and shoved Zack’s head against the bulkhead wall. ”We are leaving now, Child of Evil.” Zack was beginning to hate the man’s Georgian accent even more than his propensity for torture in the name of Jesus. “In just a few short hours we’ll be back to the holy city, and His Grace will burn your filth from the sight of the righteous!”

They were leaving now? Zack fought back a surge of relief. If they were leaving now it meant the preacher was worried about patrols from New Newyork. Had Racine made it to the rendezvous? He was alone in his cell—that is, he was the only prisoner.

The preacher lowered his voice. “There is yet a chance to save your eternal soul,” he wheedled.

Under the sack, he rolled his eyes. Here it comes, he thought.

“Take us along the path of righteousness,” he whispered. “Lead us to the Fallen! Help us bring the Fallen back into the light and the Lord will surely grant forgiveness to thy stunted soul.”

In other words, Zack thought, give up your contacts in the Underground Railroad. We’ll still nail you on a big wooden cross and burn you alive, but you’ll feel better about it if you have company.

The preacher paused, as if waiting for a reply. Did he forget that he ordered a strangulation belt on me? He made a muffled choking sound—the only noise he could make. No talky, Father Jackass.

“Of course you can’t answer like a civilized person,” the preacher cooed. Zack gritted his teeth. The way he said it intimated that Zack was unable to speak due to some fault of his own, rather than the condition he was in. “But even low creatures such as yourself can be brought to the light!”

With that, the preacher ripped the sack off his head. He blinked furiously as his eyes watered. The light was much brighter than when he had been brought in, and he couldn’t focus. The preacher droned on. “A clergyman of my rank can see your stunted soul through your eyes. You can still be saved if you repent! I will know the answer from your eyes!” He took hold of Zack’s jaw and forced their gazes together.

Eyes still watering, vision still fuzzy, Zack’s first impression was the man’s smell. He smelled of excited sweat under an expensive aftershave. Then his vision cleared enough to fully take in the preacher’s eyes.

Zack knew madness. Any Undergrounder did. How many years had he walked among the Jesus Zombies, mimicking their platitudes and hyms and benedictions? But he also knew the truth: most Jesus Zombies hadn’t picked their faith willingly. That fanatical belief was forced on them by preachers. Insidious mind-control magic was cast in every sermon, every Sunday, from the time the people were babies. There was no defense—unless you were like Zack. Like Zack, or like the preacher that held his jaw in an uncomfortably tight grip.

As his eyes dried and he beheld the preacher’s clearly, he saw true madness. Both knew in an instant what the other was. They were both born with magical talent. It was why Zack wore a strangulation belt around his windpipe: so he couldn’t work is Air magic. It was how the preacher kept the “faithful” in line: by perverting the scriptures of an ancient religion into a twisted mind-control spell. But what doomed Zack to a fiery fate was another trait they held in common: belief.

The preacher believed that what he did was right and holy, that he did God’s work.

Zack believed that what he did was right and holy. It was God’s work.

The preacher backed away in disgust. Zack held his gaze until the preacher broke it off by closing his eyes and saying a prayer under his breath.

In that moment, Zack was able to regard his cell. It was lit by torches (yes, torches… Medieval Housekeeping, anyone?) normally but four focused gaslamps had been installed on the opposite wall to shine directly on him. Two Zombies flanked the doorway, and he could make out two more on the outside. One was an older woman, and the other a short, stocky young man. Both wore identical fanatic’s smiles.

He looked back to the preacher, and saw the Bible.

It was an artifact. It was a Bible printed before the Atomic Apocalypse. Zack knew as surely as he knew himself. If he concentrated, he could see the radiating lines of power that connected the book to the preacher and the Jesus Zombies. If he could somehow take that Bible, he could use it to break the spell—

And who was he kidding? He had sacrificed himself so Racine could get her refugees to the NuNu. There was no avoiding the burning cross in Atlanta for him. It would take an act of God.

“You will burn brightly,” the preacher growled, finishing his prayer. Zack tore his eyes away from the Bible and did his best to wheeze contemptuously in his general direction. The preacher clutched the Bible to his chest and turned to the Zombie on the right. “Be sure he eats.” He looked back at Zack. “Force feed him if you have to.”

Everpresent Zombie smile on his face, the man nodded. “Praise Jesus,” he murmured, looking at Zack.

“Praise Jesus,” the preacher replied.

And a golden bolt of light punched through the ceiling and vaporized the Zombie on the right.

Everyone—Zack included—looked stupidly from the hole in the ceiling to the now-vacated spot where the Zombie guard was. There was a smoking hole in the floor where the light had passed. Harsh sunlight poured through the hole in the ceiling, causing everyone but Zack to squint and panic. Zack was immune to Sky Madness.

“Get your goggles on!” the preacher bellowed. “We’re under attack!”

As if to illustrate his point, the sunlight was blocked by a man in paramilitary gear that dropped through the hole and stabbed the lefhand Zombie through the heart with a shortsword. “And the Lord shall reap…” she murmured, sagging to the floor.

The preacher backed away, stumbled and fell to the floor. “Help! Help in the holding cell! We’re under att—“

The intruder drew a large revolver and shot the preacher in the chest. The shot seemed unnaturally loud in the small cell. Through the ringing in his ears, he could clearly hear the preacher’s death throes. He watched in horrified fascination as the man choked, twitched, and lay still, clutching his Bible all the while.

The intruder’s gun boomed again, pulling Zack’s focus away. He looked back in time to see one of the Zombies that had been posted outside the cell crumple to the ground with a hole in his chest. He looked up at the intruder just in time to see him pull his sword out of the remaining Zombie’s belly and shove it up under the man’s chin. He pulled it out and cleaned it on the dead woman’s shirt as he checked outside the hall in both directions.

Very efficient, Zack thought. Good soldier. He was an inch or two over six feet, and although he carried himself as a soldier Zack couldn’t spot any insignia on his gear. His goggles were one-way tinted, so he couldn’t see his eyes, but he assumed they were Standard brown like the rest of him. He wore a pilot’s leather cap and kept his hair short enough to hide under it. He put away his sword and revolver—a bubble of fear Zack wasn’t aware of popped—and stepped over to examine the chains.

“Wrong cell, Doctor,” he muttered. Zack noticed he was wearing a collar-mounted radio set. His accent marked him from Detroit, not the NuNu. What were Detroiters doing this far south?

He heard a tinny reply from the man’s radio. “I dunno, but they got him half-strangled for some reason.

The man reached out and undid the belt that constricted his throat.

Zack gasped. For a moment, he didn’t think he would stop inhaling. Tears swelled to his eyes and he thought he might black out from the sudden influx of sweet, sweet air.

He realized his rescuer was talking. “…like he needed that. Hey, buddy,” he addressed Zack for the first time. “Don’t try and talk yet. Can you tell me who’s got the keys to these chains?”

He nodded to the now-dead preacher, and his eyes fell on the Bible again. The man quickly rifled through the preacher’s pockets and produced a set of iron keys.

“I’m Captain Reece,” he said as he undid the shackles on Zack’s ankles. “My partner is Doctor Wilson.” He unlocked the shackles on his wrists, which allowed Zack to rub his ankles.

“I’m Zacharaiah—“was all he managed, as a coughing fit seized up his throat.

“Easy, Zack,” Reece said, thumping him on the back. “We’re looking for another prisoner; a woman. Tall, thin, Standard, with a scar on her neck?”

Cough subsiding but still unable to talk, Zack shook his head and gestured to the walls. “Only cell,” he wheezed. “Only prisoner.”

“Shee-yeh,” Reece cursed. “She’s prolly been Taken.”

Zack felt a chill. “Taken” was a term used for forcibly converting an adult into a Jesus Zombie. Most Zombies became what they were after years of magical assault. His eyes fell on the preacher’s Bible and he was nearly bowled over by the presence of it. He stood—standing took effort, he had been chained down for at least two days—and made his shaky way to the holy book.

Reece continued to talk into his headset. “It means she won’t want to be rescued, Doctor. She’s a Zombie now. She’ll fight us just like any other Zombie.”

Zack grabbed up the Bible and nearly dropped it from shock. It was ancient. He could almost hear the ancient sermons it had witnessed. It was thick and worn and heavy, and it felt good in his hand.

“Buddha Christ, kid, I dunno,” Reece continued. “We didn’t bring any tranqs. I could prolly knock her out and tie her up, but we gotta whole boat full of Zombies to fight through to do it.”

The Light seemed to come on in Zack’s head. He had needed an act of God to be set free, and God had sent him this Northerner and his partner. There was more of God’s work to be done this day.

He straightened his spine and turned to face Reece. “I can fix her,” he said clearly.

His face darkened in disbelief. “Really.”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. Furthermore, I know how to lead you through a ‘boat full of Zombies’ to find her.”

Reece paused. Zack could hear his partner—it sounded like a woman—chatter at him through the headset. “Well, our options are slim, Zacharaiah. What’s your plan?”

Zack smothered his relief. Getting a pair of skeptical Northerners on board was only the first part. “How are you at play-acting, Captain?”

Reece frowned. Just then the hall filled with sword-bearing Jesus Zombies. Zack stepped in front of Reece, brandishing the Bible. “Brothers and sisters!” he called out, showing a well-practiced Zombie smile. “Praise Jesus!”

*****

“And He shall make a path, and so the righteous do walk it!” Zack crowed.

“Praise Jesus!” the Zombies answered. Zack suppressed a shudder of revulsion. It was almost like a hive mind when they did that.

He looked over the deck of the Hair Shirt and off to low starboard, where the Toreador lurked out of sight to those on deck. He could see the sun shine off of something metallic far up and port. Reece had told him it was a sun cannon and that his partner had invented it. That sounded a bit too fantastical to him, but as an Air Wizard he had been on the receiving end of enough disbelief to give someone else the benefit of the doubt. There was also the matter of the four foot wide hole it had made in the Hair Shirt with pinpoint accuracy.

Zack’s plan was simple: he would call up all the Zombies to the main deck and sooner or later the woman Reece was looking for would surface. Zombification seem to suck about half the intelligence out of the typical victim; as long as you waved a Bible at them and sounded like a preacher they would say or do just about anything. Even cheerfully die. Zack had seen it happen his whole life.

The Hair Shirt had a built-in pulpit that had a commanding and sound-carrying position overlooking the main deck. About time someone put it to good use, he thought. As he preached, he caught Reece out of the corner of his eye, helping another Zombie onto the deck to join the rapturous crowd. Reece looked up at him and shook his head slightly. Zack hid his frown and continued to sermonize.

The problem with his plan was that not everyone on board was a Zombie. The intelligence drain affected their ability to perform complex tasks like navigation or mechanics. He was certain that the preacher had performed the role of captain on the Hair Shirt but there had to be a second in command and probably a dozen regular crewmembers on a ship this size. They had to find their target and be away on the Toreador before a regular crewman broke the spell.

“With mine own eyes I have seen!” he continued, looking rapturously upward. Everyone else on deck wore protective goggles. Since the Atomic Apocalypse, the daytime sky was filled with a type of radiation that caused insanity and eventual blindness. Zack hadn’t been bothered by the open sky since he was twelve. Claiming his goggle-free state was a divine gift to wow his captive audience was almost too easy.

He suppressed a chuckle as the ensemble crowd of Zombies went “aaaahhhh!” at the sight of him grinning and naked-faced. He saw Reece standing next to one of the deck hatches with a tall woman that had long black hair. Reece gave him a thumbs-up.

“But what the Lord hath shown me, must now be shown unto his flock! Let one amongst you come to be—there!” he shouted, pointing at the woman standing next to Reece. “Brothers and sisters, bring her to me, so that she may see.”

Gleeful and zealous, the crowd of Zombies quickly ushered the grinning woman and the frowning Reece to the base of the pulpit. They shouted encouragement as the woman quickly scaled the ladder and leapt into the pulpit next to Zack. Zack gave thanks that Reece had enough sense to stay in the crowd and not try and follow the woman up.

“Well done, child!” He took up her hand and held it victorious to the crowd. The Zombies cheered enthusiastically. He turned back to the dark-haired woman. “What is your name, child?”

“Veronica, Father!” she squealed. With his magical awareness, Zack could see desperation and horror behind her joy and zeal. Somewhere under the preacher’s spell was the real Veronica, sobbing in terror.

“Everyone, give Veronica a hand!”

The crowd gave a deafening roar. It occurred to him that he might be overdoing it.

“Now, Veronica,” he said, clutching the Bible. “Gaze upon the good Lord’s book! Focus on it, for His word lives within!”

Veronica obediently studied the worn book, waiting for the word of God to be spoken.

Zack sought out the line of power that ran from the book to the woman, and snapped it. Her knees buckled and she slumped to the deck, sobbing. “Behold! The power of Jesus!”

Thunderous applause. Somewhere in the dim recesses of his mind, he was a little frightened of how easy this was. He knelt and stage-whispered to Veronica, out of range of the megaphones. “Veronica, honey, we’re getting you out of here. There are people sent here to take you home, but you have to work with me.”

He took her hand and stood to face the crowd. “My friends! Let us bow our heads and pray for our sister Veronica! Bow our heads and pray for her to see!” He scanned the crowd and immediately found Reece—the only one not praying. Reece pointed to starboard. The Toreador had drifted up to the Hair Shirt, nearly level with the deck.

“Dear God, as you have shown me,” he began, pulling Veronica to starboard. “Show our sister Veronica the way to holy sight.” He unhooked the safety catches on the rope ladder and heard the ends slap against the deck of the Toreador. He put a finger to his lips and gestured for her to climb down. She paused to empty the tears out of her goggles, then disappeared over the edge. “Show her the light, so that she may become a beacon to show others—houff!”

Something large and heavy slammed into his back and he tumbled over the edge of the pulpit, into the empty air above the Toreador. He caught a brief glimpse of a rough-looking man with gray hair standing in the pulpit, then the world started spinning as he tumbled. He was granted several viewpoints in just a few seconds of fall: Veronica being helped onto the deck of the Toreador by Reece’s partner; empty sky with the metallic sparkle of the sun cannon; Reece leaning over the railing of the Hair Shirt, shouting; the crewman of the Hair Shirt again, looking smug—

Then a shrieking pain in his ankle as it impacted with the nose of the Toreador. He saw Reece’s partner—she was tiny, no more than a girl—with her face in an “O” of horror as he plunged out of her sight towards the earth.

He gritted his teeth. “Praise Jesus, that fecking hurts,” he cursed to no one in particular. It wasn’t the worst pain he had felt, but it was enough to delay the concentration on his flying magic. He took a deep breath, found his center, and called the wind.

”Unnf,” he cried as the wind snapped him upright. It was how he normally righted himself when falling, but he didn’t normally have a broken ankle. He straightened his legs and spread his hands, and let the wind bring him above the deck of the Hair Shirt.

The man who had knocked him out of the pulpit was shouting commands. A half a dozen men feverishly turned hand-cranks to bring up a Gatling cannon from belowdecks. The Zombies were confusedly milling about, getting in the crewmen’s way. Reece was struggling with two crewmen to get over the edge of the railing to the Toreador.

“Well, first things first,” he said to himself. A blast of wind knocked the commander from the pulpit, end over end onto the deck. He landed flat on his back, and Zack knew immediately that he had been winded.

The crewmen manning the deck cannon pointed in his direction and drew pistols. Zack gestured and a gust of wind knocked them all to the deck, clutching each other and the cannon.

He turned to Reece. He couldn’t blast his attackers without hitting him, and he didn’t have any weapons… except the Bible still clutched in his hand.

“Oh, I think not,” he said. The day he used the holy Bible to mind-control someone that disagreed with him was the day he became no better than a preacher. Hell, that would pretty much make him a preacher, now wouldn’t it?

He flew down and kicked the man to the right of Reece square in the back with his good foot. He went numb from toes to knee—and kept going right over their heads. He couldn’t bring up enough wind to compensate for his momentum and so landed in a painful heap in a passenger bay on the Toreador.

But it was enough. By the time he was able to look up from the deck, the man he had kicked was not in sight. Reece elbowed the other man in the face and leapt to the cockpit. The ship lurched as the turbines began spinning up. The Toreador began to pull away from the Hair Shirt.

”HALT!” The commander of the Hair Shirt had regained his wind and found a megaphone. “RETURN THE PRISONER AND SURRENDER YOUR VESSEL OR YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON!” He gestured to the deck gun that was slowly being cranked to starboard.

Reece didn’t even look up. “What are you, an idiot?” He flipped switches and pulled levers, and the Toreador swung to face the Hair Shirt full on. As it did, six Gatling cannons dropped into view from the wing mounts, whirling with menace.

Reece flipped another switch and began speaking through his own megaphone. “This is Captain Reece of the Toreador. Shut your stupid face and toddle that fat pig garbage scow back to Atlanta, or I will broadside you.”

Zack couldn’t read the commander’s face at this distance, especially with goggles on. Nobody moved on the Hair Shirt but the Jesus Zombies and they didn’t do much more than fidget. The crewmen on the deck gun were frozen in mid-crank, waiting on the commander. Zack concentrated for a moment, stilling the sound of the wind around both ships. The whirling of the Toreador’s guns seemed to get louder, which was the effect he was going for.

“Work it out, shee-yeh for brains,” Reece muttered. Now that he was in the cockpit of his own ship, he seemed bored. He turned to his partner. “Get them strapped in,” he told her, jerking his head at Zack and Veronica. “That talking monkey will leave eventually but that’s no reason not to put a lotta sky between him and us.”

The tiny girl knelt next to Zack and began fussing with the straps in his seat. “Hi Zack,” she said. “I’m Doctor Wilson. You can call me ‘Emily.’” She was very young—seventeen, maybe—with pale skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. An Undergrounder to the end, Zack’s first thought was that she would be hard to smuggle out of Atlanta. Especially with her Detroit accent.

“Hello, Emily,” he said, raising his arms so she could reach a buckle behind his back. “I’m Zachariah Savoy. You can keep on calling me ‘Zack.’”

She giggled. Over her head he could see the Hair Shirt begin to lumber away. He sighed with relief—then choked back a scream as Emily bumped his injured ankle.

“It’s alright, Emily, but I think my ankle’s broken.”

“Oh no!” She cried. “I’m so sorry!”

He patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, honey. It’s a country mile from being burned on a cross.”