Lola tilted her head to the side. “She was jealous of a flame? She wanted to be eternal, too? So she made a deal with the devil?”
VaVa put her hand on Lola’s shoulder. “I don’t think that’s it.”
“Then what?” I asked.
She pointed to the graves behind us. “Your friends, they meant a lot to you?”
I nodded. “In retrospect, the world.” Even Blondella meant that to me, at least the way she once had been.
VaVa nodded. “Same for all of us, Ginger included. And her sole job on the island is to tend to the flame, to commemorate your friends there, just as it was for her mother and her mother before that.”
“So what you’re saying is . . .”
She nodded. “It’s only a guess, but that job of hers means everything to her. It’s special. Meant for one person and one person only.”
Lola also nodded her head. “And if she was eternal, she’d have that job forever.”
“Or close to it,” I said. “And only one person can promise immortality around these parts.”
“Blondella,” groaned Lola. “Of course.” She turned to VaVa. “Does Ginger ever go into the city?”
VaVa nodded once again. “To get the fuel, yes. Perhaps every six months or so. We think it’s safer if it’s kept in the stadium rather than here.” She pointed all around us. “Because if we ever had a fire, a bad one . . .”
“Got it,” I said. “And a bad one is coming, brought by the worst bitch imaginable.”
“And one who clearly divided and conquered at some point in the recent past,” added Lola with a frown. “And how can a person say no to someone they worship?”
“Poor Ginger,” I said.
“Poor everyone,” said VaVa, “if Blondella succeeds.”
Topaz being the priestess, I assumed, also meant that she was like the priests of my day. Meaning, people came to her, confessed their sins, asked for guidance. Perhaps that’s why she suspected Ginger. It made sense, as much as anything did in this place. In any case, it wasn’t Ginger or Topaz I was thinking of at that very moment.
“Can we go rescue our husbands now?” I asked.
“Is that who’s down there?” asked VaVa. “Dara? And this zombie’s husband?”
“My friend’s, yes.”
Funny, as much as I hated being around humans, it always surprised me when it became clear that the humans felt the same way about us. The way VaVa said zombie brought that to light yet again. Still, I couldn’t be upset with her; she was looking through the same smudged window as I was, simply from the other side of things.
“Topaz assumes they’re down there,” she said, “because of the smell coming from the flame. That makes sense. However—”
Lola lifted her hand up. “It’s locked, right?”
VaVa nodded. “And only Ginger has the key.”
“Wanna make a bet?” said Lola, eyeing the ground all around us. “Here!” she soon shouted. “There’s a door in the cement!” She looked at me, eyes wide, filled with hope all of a sudden.
“Care to do the honors?” I asked with a flourish of my withered hand.
“Please,” she replied.
And so I bubbled up as she bubbled up, giving her the boost she needed. Seconds later, the metal door was glowing red around the keyhole, the smell of burning metal filling my sinus cavity.
“What’s going on?” asked VaVa, jaw hanging low as she watched.
Slowly I bent down and pulled on the handle. Luckily, it gave. “Again, long story. Now please help us down these stairs.”
***
It took a while for two zombies and a drag queen in seven-inch stiletto heels to climb through a narrow door in the ground, down an equally narrow stairwell and into a hallway with a ceiling that was barely five feet high, but, considering what was possibly at the end of the line, we made it in record time. That is to say, it took us five minutes to move about ten feet.
“Lester,” moaned Lola.
I wasn’t sure if the moan was because of the way he looked, which wasn’t nearly as preserved as she was, not by a long shot, or because it was obvious by his blank stare that we were too late. In any case, her moan got joined by one of my own. “Dara,” I said, the word falling on mostly deaf ears, or at least clearly uninterested ones.
And still she moved to him, drawn by a love that quite literally spanned the ages. I watched, letting her have her moment. As for the two zombies, they simply groaned and stared into the oblivion.
She lifted her hand up, slowly, unsteadily, and rubbed the back of her fingers against his weather-beaten cheek. “Lester,” she repeated. “I’m here for you, baby.” And still he groaned. She turned and whimpered. “Help him, please.”
“We need salt,” I told her, then turned to VaVa. “Is there any nearby? It has to be iodized. Like radiation sickness pills, it tamps down the energy inside of them, allows their inner human to come out at play.”
VaVa frowned. “We’d have to go get it, and you can’t come with me, and they certainly can’t. The islanders will kill . . . um, do some heavy damage to you if they spot you, especially now.”