by Eros, Marata
Baby?
I could feel Tiff's eye roll, no paranormal assistance needed. Sophie snickered and Christi narrowed her eyes.
Bry swallowed, here was the time when you spoke plainly. “Yeah, Christi, Tiff is here but these guys are still my dudes.” He shrugged.
I could have hugged him. But I didn't.
I stood, legs planted wide, my arms folded over my chest.
Jade broke the uneasy silence, “I told you, Brett, that Caleb and I are going to see each other. We're the same, we're both paranormals, it makes sense. Ya know, us being together.”
Brett's intense brown eyes looked her over possessively and it fired up every guy instinct I had and ones I didn't. He acted like he was the one dating Jade, not me. He needed an attitude adjustment for sure.
I was so volunteering.
Little known fact: guys always do a mental scan on another guy. The question is always the same: could I take him if I needed? Am I the fiercest dog in the fight?
I didn't know.
I was checkinʼ out Brody and if Barbie was tall, he was much taller, over six feet, even a little taller than Bry. The other guy just screamed bad news; he was shorter but built like Jonesy. He had the physical potential. Strong and fast. I didn't like it.
The Js didn't either and Alex looked positively green.
Alex! He was like, kickass strong! But, I guess he wasn't wanting to give it all away yet. Geez.
“It's never gonna make sense, Jade. He's bad for you...with all his frickinʼ undead creepers. You need to be around someone that's a mundane. That's where the balance is at,” Brett said in a way that told me he was repeating himself.
Huh. I didn't like Brett making any kind of remote sense, and Jade listening to any of it either.
Tiff huffed at the comment about the undead. I was insulted too. Like he was “all that” because he was a mundane. But he was eying my girl. and she was Empath so he used that excuse when it worked for his arguments. Great.
“Let Jade think for herself. You don't need to be doing any convincing,” I said.
“Yeah, man, that's über-uncool. Ya know she's dating Caleb. Stop lurking around in dark corners trying to make moves,” Jonesy said.
John and Alex nodded.
Carson said, “It's a free country, assholes, he can be and talk to whoever he wants, you chumps can't do shit about it.”
Bry turned to Brody. “You guys are older, let Brett, Caleb and Jade figure it out. And,” a handful of seconds pounded by, “you're hanging around them why ? They're freshman.”
Good point, as Brody had been the one to call us “kiddies.”
Brody and his pal shuffled around, finally the other dude said, “There aren't a lot of Fire-starters. We're a tight group—you feel me?”
Bry obviously didn't, saying, “What does that matter? You can see what kind of guy he is, Diego? He started every piece of crap circumstance with Hart last year, said he'd be neutral this year. Yet, here he is, stirring up the shit again. He just loves the smell, like a fly to sewage.”
Yeah, that.
Carson's hands balled into fists and Ceci backed away from him, looking at me, fear standing in her eyes. My face asked her the question: why? But that was the age-old thing, nice girls dug bad dudes. It defied wisdom but happened anyway.
Carson gave her a look and she cowed away from him. It made me sick. His face swung back to mine.
Bry was staring at Christi but she was standing by her brother.
Nice loyalty too.
“Listen...” Jade began, her hands twirling about her nervously, “Brett, I wanted to try and help you a little because, I know that stuff is bad at your place.”
Brett gave her an ugly look and I could feel my blood percolate. “You don't need to explain why you're nice Jade, he doesn't appreciate it,” I said.
“Yeah he does, a little too much ,” Jonesy said and Sophie nodded.
See, I was on to something.
“Yeah, I do, Caleb,” Jade said, moving away from me a little.
This was a disturbing development.
Brett stepped forward to meet her and that's when my resolve broke, I simply couldn't let her be that close to him. He was entirely too familiar with violence as the answer and I didn't want Jade in the path of it.
Brett's eyes flicked to mine then landed on her. “But, we can't be friends the way you want. I love him,” she said with quiet intensity.
“You think you do,” Brett clarified, saying it to her and looking at me.
She shook her head. “No, I do. He makes me feel more like... more like... what I'm supposed to be . That's a good thing right? When someone else can make you feel complete?”
“Listen, I hate to break up this love-fest, and I know you girls are all romantic fools,” Diego began, “but I'm pullinʼ the boredom card. Carson, you said he was gonna come over here, get this girl,” he looked at Jade. “Jane? Julie...?”
“Jade, dipshit,” I said.
“Watch your mouth, kiddo,” he said, that look in his eyes. You know the one: shut up or suffer.
“Make me.”
Bry looked at me. “Caleb...”
“Nah, Caleb's right. These dudes come over here, peeing in corners, and we're just supposed to swallow their urine. I don't think so,” Jonesy said.
The girls looked at each other nervously, even Barbie looked at Bry. Even in her very small, Pooh-sized brain she was seeing the potential for things to go sideways.
I could feel it in the air; the potential had a swollen silence that buzzed with life.
Maybe things would have shut down then because Diego was deliberating on how he could save face and put me in my place without a brawl.
But violence is its own beast and finds its way through a willing host.
Brett reached out and grabbed Jade, hauling her up against him. He was so fast about it she couldn't even respond and he latched his mouth onto hers, cranking her head back while he did it, his hand fisted in her hair while she struggled against him.
A red haze like a shroud fell over my vision and I walked around the back of Brett while he was man-handling Jade and took the flat part of the sole of my foot and slammed it into the back of his knee, effectively making his knees buckle underneath him.
He took Jade to the ground with him, my efforts to free her and hurt him failing. He threw her on the ground and rolled over on top of her.
I roared, flew from my position and tackled him. When I landed, a foot connected with my ribcage forcing the wind from my body and that's when I heard the girls start screaming. I could see Jade trying to crawl away and Brett still after her.
Diego's face swam in front of mine right before his fist connected with my jaw, and then Bry was hauling him off. Meanwhile John was getting pounded by Brody while his dumbass sister was screaming over and over again. God, she was like Griswold.
My ears rang as I sought Jade out. She was still fighting Brett, who had both her wrists above her head and was hauling her off somewhere in the yard like a sack of potatoes.
I rose up on all fours, spitting out blood, rising to my feet, I started an unsteady trot to Jade and Carson got in front of me.
He had a lighter and ignited it at the same time that a fireball appeared in his hand. “Brody!” he screamed.
That gave Brett pause, while Jade screamed for me beneath him.
Brody was busy, Jonesy hammering his sides with both fists, rocketing punches like heavy metal music, while John lolled on the ground, nose bleeding.
But Brody was a junior, and Jonesy was giving it his all when Brody landed a punch that laid him out.
Bry and Brody looked at each other for a brief moment before Bry and Diego began exchanging blows.
Tiff wasn't going to take that lying down, and launched herself on Diego, doing what girls do: she bit his shoulder, worrying on him like a dog with a bone.
He threw her off, turning on her. He backhanded her so hard she flew about three feet. Bry roared like a
wounded animal. His sister lay on the ground dazed with Diego looming over her.
I let the power out. I had been trying to contain the situation, manage it but there was no managing this. When guys started abusing the girls, that's when we brought out the guns.
The undead guns .
Like fingers reaching... they sought, feeling with the greatest of finesse and speed for anything close that could help.
The power knew what it needed, what would neutralize this threat and there was always the dead.
They were always here .
That searching energy found what it needed, and the power squeezed around them like a mighty fist, pulsating once, ripping them out of the ground—they came to my summons.
I could feel them moving toward me; coming home.
Heat built around me and I smelled something. My hair was starting to burn.
Alex came at me in a full sprint, throwing his hoodie over my head and I was momentarily blinded, but my face wasn't burning which was an improvement. Still all I could think about was Jade.
As Alex fell on me, cloaking my head in his hoodie, trying to put out Carson's fireball, I heard John scream, “Caleb!”
I tore the hoodie off, some of my hair clinging to it like ashen fingers. Brett had hauled Jade up to her feet, one arm around her waist and she stared at me with eyes that were wide and frantic.
I looked at where her gaze was and my breath stilled:
The gophers were back and behind them, Indians .
All the kids stood in various stages of beat-up, looking at the undead spectacle before us. I looked at Ceci and Tiff, (who was still on the ground).
“I'm sorry,” Ceci whispered. “I couldn't help it when you sent out the call.”
Carson looked at her with such withering contempt she took a shuddering inhale, and striding to her, he shoved her so hard she landed on her ass. I hated him for doing that.
The Indian that was closest to her swung its gaze to Carson, I could feel its sluggish life, connected to me by a thread, and to a lesser extent both Tiff and Ceci. Somehow, I had siphoned off them and gotten more than I bargained for.
The Indians were perfect. Perfectly lifelike .
I bet that's what the losers were thinking about now; more than they bargained for too.
The Indian looked like he had stepped out of my History pulse. He wore a band of colorful beads that had a huge, single feather standing at attention at the back of his head.
Though I had to say, it was the arrow trained at Brett's head that got my full attention.
“Unhand her, white skin,” said the Indian zombie, the cadence of his speech stolen from an era long past.
I looked at the gophers, numbering ten at least, that waited patiently at his feet, the two warriors at his side with their arrows trained on Carson and Diego, respectively.
Well, didn't this take care of shit ?
I left my zombies on point, and strode over to where Brett held Jade and as I was walking.
I balled up my fist and using my forward momentum popped him right in the face, nothing too hard, but a deliberate, fast jab.
The strike had the desired effect, and he released Jade. She fell into my arms, sobbing.
“I'm so sorry, I thought-I thought I could be nice...”
I stroked her hair while I watched Brett gauge what his options were; his eyes flitted from me holding Jade, to the three zombie Indians with arrows trained on his posse, and stood shakily to his feet.
“Put those arrows away, guys,” I said.
“He was abusing a female of the tribe,” the same Indian said.
I looked at him. What was this? I looked down at Jade, tears streaks drying on her face, her green eyes shimmering seawater. She shook her head, she didn't get it either.
“Explain,” I said.
They put their arrows in the quivers that rode low on the right flank of their bodies.
Ceci and Tiff came to stand next to us. Diego, Brody and the other assclowns gravitated toward each other.
Water seeks its own level.
“This young female is tribe. She is not Skopamish, nevertheless, she is tribe.” I took in the choker about his neck, the fierce face, the war paint still on it, the bare chest with little more than a tanned loincloth and leather shoes that traveled from his feet to his calves.
The trouble was the eyes, I'd missed those somehow in the raising and they were like rotten fruit in his sockets; everything perfect but those.
Carson was inching away and then one of the other warriors grabbed him roughly and hauled him against his body. “You do not go until our master says you may go.”
The zombie opened his mouth and a dank tongue, stained black by rot, gave a long, wet lick on Carson's face, jaw to temple.
Carson screamed like it hurt, but I knew it didn't. It was just that gross. The zombie smiled, his mouth a gaping hole, many teeth missing at the entrance.
Wow.
“Okay, Jade, do you, ah...?” I began.
“Caleb, listen, we're going to start drawing a crowd,” John said reasonably. Like every day we raised Indians that were over one hundred and fifty years old. Yeah, right.
The third warrior had put away the arrows but a tomahawk lay naked in his hand. I saw a delighted look come over Jonesy's face and knew I had to wrap this up.
“Get your zombie off me!” Carson wailed.
The zombie grinned, giving a squeeze and another lick; Carson cringed, screaming again.
“As much as I love this, and I do ,” Jonesy said, winking, “we need to get the, ah, war party back in the ground and the,” Jonesy looked at the gophers who were definitely worse-for-wear, many without eyes at all, “menagerie, back,” he pointed to the ground.
“They're Muckleshoot,” Jade said.
Rang a dim memory bell.
The lead Indian turned its dead gaze on Jade and it was like a physical weight. “We are Skopamish.”
“That is not what they call your tribe, now,” she said.
The zombie looked at me and I stared back. I really did not want to explain the whole “What happened to the Indians thing.”
“I am Cherokee,” Jade answered by way of explanation.
“You are tribe,” he said as a statement.
No splitting hairs, my Indian zombies.
She sighed. “Yes.”
He nodded, then turned his attention to me. “Why do you let the white skin abuse your woman?”
Brett spit out a loogie of blood on the ground. The other two zombies watched it land with casual interest.
“This one,” I jerked a thumb in Brett's direction, “means to move in on Jade, and I was trying to convince her of that and she is sympathetic.”
The zombie's brows furrowed. He was trying to wrap his mind around the nuances of it all.
His warrior friend had less trouble. “He needs to make acquaintance with the tomahawk.”
“Yes!” Jonesy yelled, slapping his fist into his other hand. “Now that's what we're talkinʼ about! See how simple things were back then? He moves in on Jade, and whack.” He smacked his fist into his open palm and all the girls jumped. “He gets somethinʼ that's gonna Leave A Mark.” Jonesy put his hands on his hips, a look of supreme approval on his face.
The gophers started squirming in position, some making furtive attempts at circling the other group of kids.
Barbie shrieked, “Those things are getting closer! I hate all the AFTD shit! All of you shouldn't even exist! ”
Bry frowned. “Ya know, my sister's AFTD. It's like having blue eyes, Christi, you can't help it.”
She looked at him, expression sullen. “Can't she just,” she waved her hand around at all the dead, “rein it in or something?”
I wanted to know what the “or something” was.
I was dying to know.
So was John. “There is no ʻor somethingʼ, it is what it is, brightness.”
She gave him the scorching female look but John wasn't having an
y of it, he just looked back at her levelly.
“Listen, undead-lover, get these frickinʼ creepers back in the ground, before we torch them right now,” Brody said.
“John,” I tossed casually over my shoulder. The zombies closed in behind me, the gophers swarming around my feet like brown water, mewling contentedly.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Why don't you ʻtune-upʼ in case I misunderstood the intellectual potential here,” I said, looking at each one of the losers.
Jade pulled away, looking at Brett. “I'll never go to you. Just leave me alone!” she yelled.
That's when all hell broke loose, Carson and his buddy Brody (two stupids sometimes equal a disaster), combined their powers and I felt the heat engulfing my body just as a gopher leaped from its perch at my feet, landing on Brody, who now had a gopher hat. It began to burrow in earnest and Brody began screaming in a most satisfying way.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my balls were starting to cook.
“John!” I shrieked.
“I'm full-throttle. They're too strong!” he said in a strangled voice.
Alex!
I turned my attention away from the Fire-starters for a critical moment to scream for Alex and that's all that Brett needed, jerking Jade off her feet, she screamed, “Caleb!”
Jonesy followed my reasoning. “Time to earn your pay, A-man! Get your scrawny ass over there and do your thing!”
Bry went right to the source of the fire as I sprinted over to Brett where I could see Jade's eyes as she faced me bouncing on Brett's shoulder as he took off with her. God knows where.
The only time I'd ever seen Alex look sure was now , as I reached out to grab Jade from Brett he latched on to Carson's wrist, fire leaping from that boy to the other. As Alex ground his teeth together Brett,ʼcuz he was such a slow learner, got another jab to the back of the knee.
I hauled Jade to me as he fell forward and whipped her around, carrying her at a jog to where Alex was using his small hands to throw Carson ten feet. My zombies, merrily burning, had Diego pinned. Their faces grimaced against the heat, the directive to protect the corpses instinctive for me.
The smell of the burning zombies was permeating the air, the foulness beyond description.
John lay on the ground and Sophie was leaning against the car with Ceci and Tiff on either side, dazed looks of shock riding their faces. I flew over there and deposited Jade, who looked like throwing up could be a plan, gave John the look as I rolled past. He was alive anyway.
