No Magic, No Problem

by Blair Daniels

  "No. Kira." He shifted closer to me on the bed. His peculiar scent filled my nose—of gunpowder and fresh laundry—and my heart fluttered. "Being special isn't all about whether you can shoot magic lasers out of your hands or read minds. You are special.” He broke into a smile. "No other Hunter I know is brave enough to try and take on a zombie with only a knitting needle.”

  I let out a small laugh.

  “And that's why you should stay at NIMP,” he continued, his hand moving down to mine. “That's why you belong here. Please... stay. We need you. I need you.”

  My heart soared. “Okay. I will.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  He shifted closer to me. Smiling at me, green eyes searching mine.

  Finally, he whispered: "Can I kiss you?"

  I nodded.

  He leaned in.

  Our lips met. He was so warm. Warmer than I'd expect a vampire, or a dhampir, to be. He kissed me slowly, softly, his tongue flitting gently against mine. He wrapped his strong arms around my waist; I pulled my arms around his neck.

  For a moment, we were separate from everyone and everything. The muffled sirens streaking downtown, the hurried footsteps through the building—it was from a different universe. A different life. We were here, in this moment, lips locked together. Frozen, as if in amber, living in our own little bubble of hope.

  For eternity.

  Then my hands were caressing his chest, feeling the warmth pulsing underneath his t-shirt. My fingers found their way under the hem, and brushed against his muscular stomach. The bandages over his wound.

  He laughed. "I hope you have a thing for scars," he mumbled against my lips. "Because I'm going to have a pretty nasty one."

  "I think I do," I whispered back.

  He pulled me tighter against him, and his kisses grew harder, faster. His hand found mine, and he interlaced our fingers—

  "Ow!"

  "I'm so sorry." He stared down at my burned hand. "I totally forgot—"

  "It's okay," I said, still wincing.

  "I'll get the salve—"

  "No!"

  "Okay, okay," he said, with a light laugh. "I'll leave you alone."

  "I don't want to be left alone," I said, a sly smile forming on my lips. "Just don't touch my hand."

  "That's not really the part of you I wanted to touch, anyway."

  "Hey!" I slapped his shoulder.

  He grinned, mischievously. "Sorry, sorry.”

  But, sadly, we were interrupted. Brzt. Brzt. He groaned and pulled the radio out of his pocket. "It’s Thomas," he said. "This might be a while. Try to get some rest, okay?"

  "Okay," I said, smiling at him.

  He kissed me quickly on the lips. Then the door shut, and I was alone.

  I tried to sleep. But all I could think about was the army of the undead, crawling through the town. And not only people—but sphinxes, gremlins, dragons. Stalking people in alleyways. Killing mercilessly.

  And then adding those dead to their ranks. Growing the army.

  It was like the worst pyramid scheme ever. Kill two, turn them into zombies... then those two each kill two, for a total of four... then each of those four kill two, totaling eight...

  It was worse than LuLaRoe. Or Amway.

  I pulled out my phone and Googled necromancy. After a few minutes, I landed on a fringe forum for dedicated 'zombie apocalypse' extremists. Since the public service announcement Thomas had been forced to issue, thousands of people had posted. The top four threads were:

  VIDEO: How to instantly disable one of the undead [Graphic footage]

  Are silver bullets and salt effective?

  Someone sent me a zombie clip on Snapchat

  Can necromancers raise themselves from the dead?

  I considered clicking on them, but then decided against it. I’d seen enough of the undead for a lifetime. I set my phone on the nightstand, pulled the covers around me, and closed my eyes.

  Finally, I fell asleep.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I barely slept three hours before I woke with a start.

  Tap-tap-tap. The sharp sound came from the other side of the window. Tap-tap-tap. I rolled over, tried to fall back asleep.

  The sound only grew louder.

  As the sleep faded from my mind, fear set in. Slowly, I pulled off the covers and stepped out of bed. Every muscle in my body ached, and stinging pain pulsed through my right hand.

  Tap-tap-tap. I walked up to the window and pulled the curtains back.

  A skeletal, undead face stared back in the predawn light.

  I shrieked and jumped back. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away—because there were thousands of them.

  They pooled in the streets. Every single one faced the apartment building, extending out in a radial pattern. At the base they climbed up on each other, forming a mountain, a buttress, a tower to reach me.

  They know I'm here.

  But how?

  And then the truth came crashing down on me.

  Last night I'd been terrified. Exhausted. In pain. I was so thankful to be alive, I didn't see the obvious. I didn't notice that something was terribly wrong.

  But there is something strange—something supernatural, even—about the mind, when you're on the cusp of sleep. Thoughts that have been mulling around in your subconscious suddenly coalesce into clear thoughts. And it was then—as I stared down at the monsters, teetering on the brink of sleep, wondering if this was really just a terrible nightmare—that the question popped into my head.

  How did Gavin take down fifty zombies in the span of seconds?

  It just didn't make sense. Even with some sort of fight-or-flight power that gave him super speed—he'd still have to shoot fifty zombies in the head.

  I didn't hear fifty shots.

  And he'd have to reload his gun to shoot them all, wouldn't he? I didn't remember him bringing any extra bullets when he got out of the car. Or stopping to reload.

  "Kira?"

  Gavin's voice called through the door. I jumped. Dammit. He must've heard me scream. "Y-yes?" I called.

  "You're awake?"

  "Yeah."

  "Come on out. I'm making breakfast!"

  Heart throbbing in my chest, I opened the door.

  The curtains out here were tightly shut, blocking out the hordes of zombies right outside. Gavin hunched over the kitchen counter. He had a kettle on the stove, and was scrambling eggs in a bowl. The tines of his fork hit the ceramic, and the sound grated on my ears.

  I took a seat at the table.

  "I thought I'd make some breakfast and tea for us."

  I didn't reply.

  "What, no mockery of how that's so stereotypically British?"

  I was silent. My eyes fell on a set of rosary beads in the corner, glinting in the light. I counted them, slowing my pounding heart. Considering my options. If I try to leave... the thousands of undead outside the window will get me. If I stay here... I'm not sure I'm safe.

  Maybe it was time to find out.

  "Gavin, how did you shoot all those zombies last night?"

  He turned around, a bemused look on his face. "With my gun."

  "No. I mean... there were at least fifty of them. You didn't reload your gun the entire time. How did you have enough bullets?"

  When he paused, the lump in my throat grew. I turned around and stared at him. He averted his eyes, pretending to be busy with the eggs.

  "Gavin?"

  Finally, he laughed. As if to pass it off as a joke. "I had enough. I killed them, didn't I?"

  "No. Gavin." My voice shook. "On the very first hunt I did with you—when we took down the dolls—you ran out of bullets. After only taking down about ten of them." I walked in front of him, cutting him off. "How did you shoot down fifty zombies without reloading once?"

  He turned away from the stove. His green eyes met mine, but he didn't speak.

  "Even if you had super speed, there's no way you could shoot fifty zombies in the
span of seconds." I stood up, my entire body shaking like a leaf. "You shot the first few, sure. But the rest just crumpled at your feet." I forced myself to take a step towards him. "At your command."

  He said nothing.

  That was all the confirmation I needed.

  Tears burned at my eyes. My voice shook, as if on the surface of a roiling tide. "You're a dhampir. You told me yourself—you're technically dead. Which means a necromancer can control you."

  I forced myself to take one more step towards him. My heart hammered in my chest, and I felt faint. But I would not be weak now, dammit. I would be strong.

  "I'm not talking to Gavin Barker right now, am I? I'm talking through him. To Ryan Banks—the Gravedigger."

  He stared at me for several seconds.

  Then he burst into forced laughter. "That's preposterous."

  "Then how did Ryan get into NIMP in the first place? How did you level fifty zombies in seconds?" I charged over to the windows and flung the curtains open. "How do they know that I'm here?"

  He pretended to be shocked, and terrified, at the sight of undead piling up at the window.

  "We need to call Thomas. And tell him that—"

  "Stop lying to me!" I screamed, so loudly that he dropped his fork. It clattered to the ground, the metallic sound piercing my ears. "This was the plan all along. Pretend to save me. Lure me into your apartment. Trap me here and let your army of zombies kill me." My voice cracked on the last words.

  "Kira, how could you say that? I almost died, protecting you at the Great Swamp metro."

  "Maybe you did die," I said, the words cutting through me like glass. "I wouldn't know the difference, would I?"

  He stared at me in silence.

  "All the words Gavin has spoken, all the things he's done... everything that happened last night... it's been you. Not him."

  The tea kettle whistled in my ears. My body felt like it was on fire. Every muscle, every fiber of my being, vibrated with a terrible energy. I felt like I could explode, collapse, shatter at any instant.

  "Well," he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. "You're certainly smarter than I gave you credit for."

  No.

  I was still holding onto that shred of hope that I was wrong. But now, as I stared into those green eyes—as I watched the undead pound at the windows with their gray fists—it all crumbled away.

  I charged up to him.

  "Then, I have a message for you, Ryan."

  I raised my fist and socked him right in the face.

  Then I ran.

  I ran out of the apartment, down the hallway. Into the elevator. "Kira!" I heard Gavin—no, Ryan—call out behind me.

  I didn't stop.

  The doors pulled shut just as Gavin reached them.

  With shaking hands, I pulled out my radio. "Abby? Jim?" I shouted, my voice cracked with sobs. "Please, is anyone there?"

  Jim's voice came through first.

  "Kira? Are you okay?"

  "Gavin's one of them!" I screamed, so hard that it hurt. The elevator rocketed up underneath me. "The Gravedigger has been controlling him the whole time. I'm at Gavin's apartment—the high rise on 6th street—and there are undead in the streets. Everywhere. Surrounding me—"

  "Get to the roof."

  "The roof?!"

  "I'll get you there. Five minutes. Okay? Hold on for five minutes."

  "Okay. Jim, I... I don't—"

  "Five minutes. You can do it."

  The doors clicked open to the 40th floor. I stepped out, and after a minute of searching, found the stairs for the roof.

  I began to climb.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The air was ice cold.

  The wind swept around me, fluttering through my hair. Up here on the roof—forty stories above the ground—I could barely hear the zombies. Only the occasional groan, or the low pulse of footsteps.

  They didn't know I was up here, yet.

  "Come on, Jim," I whispered. I whipped around, looking at the cold, gray sky. Soon the sun would rise, and the undead would be weakened.

  But by then, I could be dead.

  I stood out there for what felt like hours, the icy wind freezing my face. Then, finally, I heard a voice behind me.

  "Kira."

  I turned to see Gavin. He stood on the other side of the roof, green eyes piercing mine. They no longer had that kind, humorous look I'd grown to love.

  They were focused. Intense.

  Venomous.

  "Gavin—Ryan—please," I stuttered.

  "Oh, how cute," he said. The British accent I'd grown to love was gone, replaced with pure mockery. “Any other Steele woman would be hitting me with fireballs or something right now. But you? You just beg for your life.”

  I glanced across the sky. Where is Jim? He said five minutes! And how did Jim even plan to get to me, anyway? I was on a roof, forty stories above the ground, surrounded by thousands of the undead.

  There was no way.

  "I got lucky. When you let me out, I thought I’d have to fight you. Honestly, I was a little scared. But then I overheard your and Gavin’s conversations… and found out you didn’t even have powers." He turned to the edge of the rooftop. A decayed hand gripped the top, followed by an arm, then a head. The zombie pulled itself onto the rooftop, grinning just like Gavin.

  Then another followed it. And another. And another.

  I'm going to die here.

  It was all my fault. I'd put my selfishness, my need to be a Hunter, before everything else. I'd let Ryan out. He was possessing Gavin—who was possibly dead. An army of the undead was storming the city. Everyone here—magical and normal alike—would die.

  All because of me.

  "I'm so sorry, Gavin," I cried. I knew it wasn't him, anymore; but it still looked like him, and that was enough. "I'm so sorry that I joined NIMP. That I caused this. That... you died for me."

  "Oh, he's not dead," Gavin said, as the undead swarmed behind him. "But he will be as soon as I'm done with him."

  "No, please—"

  "Bring her to me," he growled.

  The thirty undead on the roof charged forward, jeering. "No—please—" I glanced around, looking for anything I could possibly fight back with.

  My eyes fell on a cluster of loose bricks, twenty feet to my right.

  I sprinted over to them. I raised the first one up, and chucked it with all my might at the closest undead. A woman with greasy black hair and a tattered white dress.

  It hit her square in the stomach. She froze for a second—coughed—and then ambled forward.

  I grabbed the next one. This time, I threw my weight into the throw. It hit an old, decrepit man in the abdomen.

  He also froze for a second—coughed—and then took a step forward.

  The same exact reaction. Weird.

  I grabbed the last two bricks. With a primal scream, I flung them as hard as I could at the growing crowd.

  This time, neither one made a hit. They both clattered to the floor, scraped across the cement, and came to a stop at Gavin's feet.

  They lurched forward. Wild eyes, gaping mouths, excited chatter. I stepped back, my entire body trembling. "No, please—"

  Sharp claws yanked me from behind.

  Then the roof fell away, and I was suspended in mid-air.

  I screamed. At the top of my lungs, I shrieked and screeched, as some unseen force tugged me higher and higher above the undead. They shrunk to the size of ants, shifting to and fro as they climbed up the building.

  "Calm down!" a voice boomed above me.

  I tilted my head up. A flash of brown feathers, a golden beak, yellow eyes.

  It was a griffin. Holding me up by its talons. Jim rode on its back, strapped into a saddle.

  "That wasn't five minutes!" I screamed over the roaring wind.

  "No, it wasn't. I'm sorry."

  The skyscrapers were so small, they looked like they were made of matchsticks. Wisps of cloud blew by underneath me, shrouding the tw
inkling city lights, obscuring the horrors that lay below.

  "Where did you get a griffin?!" I shouted.

  "There's a stable nearby. I ride often."

  On the horizon, the sun began to rise. Golden rays glinted off the clouds, and the sky glowed scarlet.

  "Down, Ginny!"

  The griffin squawked above me, and we plummeted. The nausea bubbled through me. The roof of the NIMP building grew at astounding speed.

  "We're going to crash!" I screamed.

  "No, we're not!"

  I shut my eyes tight. The wind whistled in my ears, and my legs flailed in the open air.

  Snap.

  We gently hit the roof. Jim dismounted gracefully and the griffin purred. I stumbled forward—and vomited right on the glass skylights.

  ***

  "As you may know, Gavin is no longer with us."

  Thomas stood at the front of the room. The entirety of NIMP was packed into the auditorium-style room, dead silent.

  Gavin. Last night flashed through my mind. The kiss we shared. The words he told me: you are special. That's why you belong here. Please... stay.

  We need you. I need you.

  None of it was real. It was just another game, another way for Ryan Banks to torture me. To exact revenge on my late relative.

  "Gavin is a dhampir—and technically dead. That allowed the necromancer to control him."

  My heart ached as I sat between Jim and Abby. Abby held my uninjured hand, and Jim lay an immense hand on my shoulder.

  They were so supportive. And yet... they didn't even know. That all of this was my fault. Letting out the Gravedigger, him controlling Gavin, the army of the undead... none of it would have happened if I didn't join NIMP.

  I was so selfish. So focused on my own insecurity, so focused on finally proving myself, I put everything at risk.

  "We've disabled Gavin's ID card from accessing the building," Thomas said, pacing in front of us. He looked more nervous that ever—his forehead gleamed with sweat, and he wrung his hands, desperately. "However, that doesn't necessarily mean that we haven't been infiltrated. We will be conducting a search of all employees—"

  Shouts erupted in response.

  "—and we will be searching the building thoroughly for any magical artifacts, relics, or bodies he could have left behind.” He paused, paced to the other side of the room, and took in a deep breath. “Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about hiding this from the public."