Chapter 11 -- The Cause

"Where the hell are we, anyway?" I said.

"Hm. Where the HELL. Indeed." Lady M smiled and laughed, but it sounded more like she was choking on something. And liking it. She always was weird. "We're in the Vast Wasteland, Lucy."

"Huh. No shit. So who, like, didn't kill all these zombies too good?"

For a minute Lady M didn't answer. She just stared into the fire we'd made out of a pile of twitching corpses. Bombies burned easier, hotter, and brighter than regular zombies. It was the gunpowder solution Selig marinated them in for a week. Lady M just moved her eyes and stared at me, and it was like I just knew who'd done it. I just knew.

Robe Guy.

"Virgil," Lady M said, like she was correcting me for calling him Robe Guy in my mind. "It was Virgil."

"Virgil. Huh. And to think I actually thought he was cute!" I stomped around the fire, naked because my clothes had been burnt to like nothing, kicking my bare feet into charred bombies. Bits and pieces of them kept getting stuck to me, especially between my toes, but after what I'd had stuck in me, I could really give a flying fuck hole about hot bombie crust on my feet.

I could do anything and not really mind how gross it was now. Maybe that was the point of all this. Huh. Sure. Like I didn't know better than that. Looking for meaning in any of this, huh, really, what was wrong with me?

"You're too close to the fire," Lady M said. "For your burns to heal quickly you need to keep back."

"Like I give a fuck about that, really. They don't hurt as much as my SHOULDER, anyway. Bitch."

Lady M smiled and stared into the bombie bonfire again. "Anger is good. Anger will heal you. Anger will give you the drive to proceed."

"Yeah, um, thanks for the motivational speech. So I guess we gotta, like, finish off all these undead before we get out of here, huh? Before they get up and go all animated on us again. Who the FUCK fucked this up so bad?"

"It was--"

"Can it, I know what happened." And I did. She hadn't told me, but I knew. Damn that Robe G -- Virgil. I would get him one way or another.

"Leave that to me," Lady M said.

"Like hell I will. This is personal."

"Nothing you do or go through is personal!" Lady M snapped. She stood up and started walking toward me, in this slow intimidating way like she was stepping real carefully, but she wasn't even looking at the ground. She probably coulda walked through the hot bombie fire and not even flinched, if she even felt it at all. Sometimes I wondered what she was made of. "You do not have the luxury of personal interaction! What was the oath you took? Remember?"

"I remember." Like I could forget. If only I had the power to forget.

"What was it?"

"I REMEMBER!"

"WHAT WAS IT?" I wasn't backing away, so she ended up right in my face. "Repeat the oath to me. Now."

"Fine." I said. As I said the words it was like I was back in her tower, in the center of the sacred pentagram, with the symbols painted all over my naked body in my own blood. "I, Lucy Tisdale-" the name sounded wrong, but I went on. "Sign my body, mind, heart, and soul over to the cause. Each thought I have, each move I make, now serves the cause." I stopped. I ground my teeth. Where the fuck was my gum? Smelling like peppermint wasn't enough. Seriously, I'd just been dead! My mouth tasted worse than the most vastest of wastelands of zombies.

"End it," Lady M said.

"I obliterate myself in the fire. My. Essence. Is. Thine."

Lady M's eyes glowed like a cat's in the light from the bombie fire. Creepy much?

"It's just as valid as the day you swore to it. More so, now you have this-" she grabbed my newly tattooed shoulder and squeezed. Really hard. I cried out. "You answer to powers greater than me now. Powers greater than the cause."

She was really right. Forgetfulness was not a luxury I could claim. I would just have to do my best with remembering. She put her hand on my bleeding shoulder again and forced me to sit on the ground at her feet, while she sat on some part of a bombie charred into a brick. Like she even noticed.

And so I told her everything I'd learned. I told her about the bombie gunpowder marinade. I told her about this like underground zombie pod network thingy Selig was building across the entire continental US that would allow the zombies to pop up anywhere, even in areas you thought you'd de-infested. Really, that was going to be, like, a serious pain in the ass. She was sorry to hear I'd lost his dick. The source of his power. And I'd carried it so safely for so long . . .

"Where is it?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said. "I guess it got burned in the bombie explosion. It's not in me anymore, anyway." I knew we had to have it for the cause, but I was still secretly kinda glad I'd lost it. It was pretty sick.

"It is also pretty essential," Lady Mindreader snapped. "And it did not burn in the explosion. It's flame retardant. We have to find it. Selig will be looking for it, and if he finds it and reattaches it . . . he'll be impossible to stop."

She turned away from me, peering into the bombie bonfire again. "Damn you, Virgil," she whispered. "Why?" After a minute she glared at me. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

"Huh?"

"Take care of this!" she flung her arm behind us, like she was talking about the whole fucking Vast Wasteland. "Destroy the undead who are not wholly dead!"

"All of them?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

Don't be ridiculous. OF COURSE I would have to deal with all of them. I didn't know how, though, really, it seemed like a pretty big job, and -

"You can do it," she said.

"Um, HELLO? Lady Malfunction? I don't even know-"

"You may never understand the powers you now serve, Lucy. If you ever do, it will be their doing, not yours. All you can do is trust in them, and serve them."

"Gee, you know, most motivational speakers aren't so cryptic. How do I-"

"Don't think about it. Just do it."

She looked back in the fire, like she was thinking about something and planning. Huh. I'd get no more help from Lady Mental, that was clear. I'd have to do my best. She could really suck sometimes. She smirked, but didn't comment on that thought. I gave her the mental finger.

Then I turned and walked away, feeling the incinerating heat from the bombie bonfire fading on my back. I had to take care of Robe Guy's mess. I pictured those cute hazel eyes. Dig THIS, Virgil! I don't want you anymore!

I didn't think. I just did it. My fresh tattoo burned, and this like swirling white light came down from the sky into me, like an alien abduction beam only it didn't beam me up. Instead, I felt this energy gathering in me, getting tenser and hotter, and then - I just pushed it out! The light shot out of me in all directions in a great white pulse like a strobe light, and it took out every last half-undead bastard in that Vast Wasteland, and a couple bunnies, too.

Poor bunnies.

Ha.

When I got back to the fire, Lady M was still all "voyeur" about the fire, but Billy Ray was holding out a stick of peppermint gum for me.