by Stacey Jay
Of course, getting past these three was going to be easier said than done. They were freaking determined to get a mouthful of Megan, which made me pretty certain I was the one they’d come for. Black-magically raised zombies were raised to hunt a specific target. I was going to have to check for totems—dolls resembling me, items of clothing, etc.—on their graves once we got them safe and snug in the ground again.
Assuming we managed to get them back in the ground at all.
“Megan! Do something.” Monica’s legs churned wildly in the air, and her face was turning an unhealthy red. The linebacker was going to strangle her if I didn’t do something. Fast.
Praying that the pom squad had plenty of clients to keep their attention trained on washing cars, not burning zombies, I turned to Baldy and invoked the flame command. “Exuro!”
The good news was that Baldy’s pajamas went up in flames like they’d been soaked in vodka, drawing the attention of Shorty and friend long enough for me to cut to the left and skirt around them. The bad news was that Baldy started screaming bloody murder, very likely drawing the attention of the living people only fifty or sixty feet away.
“Opprimo.” I tossed the smothering command over my shoulder, trying not to freak out that the zombie I’d set on fire was acting so very un-zombie-ish. I’d heard zombies shriek before, but nothing that sounded so human.
And not only should he not have sounded so lifelike, the other two guys shouldn’t have noticed the fire or Baldy’s screams, let alone been so distracted by them that they let their prey escape. There was something horribly wrong, and I wasn’t sure even linking mine and Monica’s power would do any good.
“It’s going to work; it has to work,” I muttered beneath my breath as I grabbed a hefty fallen limb from the ground and raced toward the big zombie at top speed. If Baldy could be distressed by fire, maybe Butch here could be bothered by a log upside the head.
Wood collided with melon with a sickening thud, making the big guy release his hold on Monica’s scrawny neck. She sucked in a gasp of air and kneed the dude between the legs as hard as she could, triggering another non-zombie-ish reaction.
“What is wrong with these guys?” We both stared in shock as Butch’s knees hit the ground and he collapsed sideways in the snow, clutching his wounded cojones.
“I don’t know, but I suggest we get rid of them first and ask questions later,” I said, grabbing Monica’s hand in mine. “Let down your shields, give me everything you’ve got.”
It was a testimony to how freaked the Monicster was that she didn’t argue or make a single smart comment. Her shields simply collapsed and her energy came rushing into me, faster and faster, until my entire body burned with the force of the combined power. But still I waited, knowing I’d only have one chance to cast before the boys were on us.
Closer. Closer. I forced myself to hold back until Shorty was close enough to touch and the newcomers were no more than six feet away before throwing up my free hand and giving the RCs everything I had. “Reverto!”
The air in front of me buckled, wavering like water in a pond. Time seemed to hold its breath, the entire world gone silent as the zombies reached for me and the bubble of power reached for them.
Luckily for me, the power got to them first.
The spell hit the RCs with an audible pop and my body hit a tree behind me a second later. I’d been bounced by my own spell, something I’d heard of but never experienced. But I sure was experiencing it now. My body hit with enough force to knock the wind from my lungs, and my head smashed into the wood, making little black spots explode in front of my eyes.
By the time I slid to my side in the snow, everything was spinning. Still, through the cartoon birds tweeting around my head, I thought I saw someone hiding in the trees, watching the weird RCs stumble back through the darkened woods. Someone with dark eyes who didn’t like what they were seeing. Didn’t like it at all.
CHAPTER 4
“Come on, you can’t stay there. Someone’s coming.” Hands tugged at my coat, and when that didn’t produce the desired reaction, moved to my hair and tugged even harder.
“Ouch. God, leave me alone . . . my head.”
“You won’t care about your head if Penny and Terra see those zombies.”
“Why? What?” What was she talking about? Nothing seemed to make sense. All I could think about were the eyes . . . and the sweater. Where had I seen that sweater before?
Monica’s face swam into focus only inches away from mine. “Why? Because I’m going to smash it in with a rock if we’re discovered. So. Get. Up. Now.”
My brain felt like it was slam-dancing inside my skull, but I grabbed the hand Monica put in mine and held on as she hauled me to my feet. Then I let her throw my arm around her shoulders and drag me back toward the parking lot while I did my best not to throw up.
“You could help a little,” she grumbled.
“I’m trying not to throw up.”
“You’re heavy.”
“So you want me to throw up?” I asked, turning to face her, relishing the idea of baptizing the Monicster in my partially digested lasagna. I mean, hadn’t a part of me wanted to barf on her since third grade?
“No, no,” she hurried to assure me. “Just keep moving and keep quiet.”
“Why do I have to keep quiet?”
Monica cursed, then added in an urgent whisper. “Just agree with whatever I say, okay?”
“What? I don’t—”
“Oh my God, thank God you guys are here! Megan has finally lost it.” Monica’s voice was as loud and supremely irritated as it usually was when discussing yours truly, which didn’t do my poor head any good.
“What happened?” Terra, another sophomore I should have known better than I did, asked. Penny wedged her shoulder under my other arm and helped me limp the last few feet to the edge of the parking lot where I collapsed onto the asphalt with a grunt.
Oh, earth, sweet unspinning earth. I wanted to lay my cheek down on the ground and go straight to sleep, but settled for bracing my elbows on my knees and propping my head in my hands. Monica was right. I had to pull myself together and play this off so that no one else went into the woods.
“These dogs chased this baby raccoon up into a tree. We ran them off, but then Megan decides she has to climb up and save the thing, and I was all like, ‘Hello, it’s a wild animal, just leave it there,’ but she wouldn’t listen.” She sighed, a sound so genuinely put-upon I nearly believed her story myself. “Two seconds later, the branch she’s on breaks and Jane Goodall here falls out of the tree.”
“Who’s Jane Goodall?” I asked, tentatively lifting my eyes to look at the three girls, grateful to see only one of each of them. I wasn’t seeing double. That was a good sign.
“I think she might have a concussion. Or brain damage,” Monica added.
“I don’t have brain damage. I’ve never heard of the woman.”
“Isn’t she the one who lived with apes?” Penny asked.
“It wasn’t apes, it was chimps,” Terra said. “I watched the special on PBS.”
“You watch PBS?” Monica asked, wrinkling her nose.
“Don’t judge,” Terra said in a surprising show of chutzpah for a sophomore talking to the queen bi-atch of CHS. “Chimps are interesting. Their DNA is only one percent different from a human’s.”
Wow. Terra was way smarter than I’d realized. And cooler. Maybe she and Penny would consent to be friends with me once I felt ready to do the whole friends thing again.
“Whatever.” Monica waved a hand breezily in the air. “The point is, Wonder Girl here is lucky she didn’t break her freaking neck. She probably needs to go to the hospital.”
“We could take you to the emergency room,” Penny said. “Terra has a hardship permit, so she can drive even though she’s only—”
“No, I should take her. I saw what happened and her mom will definitely want to know about it.” Monica whipped out her cell phone with a meanin
gful look.
She was right. My mom would want to know about what had gone down in the woods. Mom didn’t actively Settle the dead anymore—she was relieved of that duty when her offspring, me, started summoning—but she was doing her best to keep up with my training so she could help if I needed it. I hadn’t so far, but now help was sounding pretty darn good.
I sure as heck didn’t want to run into any more of those weird zombies without getting some help first. They were dangerous and could have even been deadly. If Monica and I hadn’t been together and able to share power, I didn’t know how well either of us would have fared.
“You two get back to washing cars. We’ve only got two hours before the supermarket shuts down and we need to raise at least two hundred dollars to be on our way to reaching our goal. We’re not going to kick cheer butt by standing around staring at the brain-damaged girl.” Monica shooed Penny and Terra away as she punched a number into her phone.
I watched them go with a grim smile. The other girls probably assumed it was my parents she was calling, but I knew better. Monica was a strict follower of protocol. She’d call Settlers’ Affairs before she called anyone else, and in a matter of minutes, we’d have undercover Protocol officers swarming all over the parking lot. Not such a big deal, you might think, since my own boyfriend is a member of the team and was probably still on duty.
But for some reason, Protocol and I didn’t mix. When they showed up, I tended to get into trouble. Usually I got out of it just fine, but right now I didn’t feel up to the inevitable two hundred and twenty questions. So I pulled out my own cell and called Mom and Dad, interrupting their fancy dinner and thrilling them even further by announcing I needed to go to the SA hospital due to zombie-related injuries.
I hated to worry my parents, but I really did need to go the hospital—a fact made even clearer when I tried to stand up on my own and the world spun, my stomach lurched, and I ended up back on my butt losing my lasagna in the Kroger parking lot.
“Do you want me to run you a bath, sweetie?” Mom asked as we staggered into the house nearly three hours later.
It had taken over two and a half hours for the doctor to order a CAT scan and then to tell me that I had a mild concussion and I should go home and get some rest. (You’d think they’d do more for a head injury, right? Apparently not.)
But the SA infirmary had been unusually swamped. A six-year-old girl had summoned her first zombie, and her dad, the Settler in the family, hadn’t been home to help her learn the ropes. The Unsettled had gone Rogue and injured the mom and three kids before the girl’s mom could figure out what to do.
Rogues don’t crave flesh like black-magically raised zombies, but they can cause a lot of damage when they start to lose their cool. That’s why it’s so important for Settlers to attend to the needs of the Unsettled in a swift and efficient manner. Heck, that’s why it was so important to have Settlers period. If there’s no one around to listen, the dead vent their issues in a much more violent manner.
So there had been that family’s drama to deal with; then one whole section of the clinic had been closed off because they’d had to bring in a prisoner from the containment center downtown—a girl suffering from seizures caused by working too much black magic. It had taken me all of ten seconds to figure out who that was. Jess was the only black-magic artist presently being held at the SA facility in Little Rock. So I got to listen to my former BFF try to swallow her own tongue while I was sitting in the waiting room. Really fun. Really.
That she was still dealing with the fallout of her big bad plan last fall was more disturbing than I thought it would be. No matter that she’d planned to kill me and was a complete, psycho nutcase, I still didn’t want her to be brain damaged for life . . . or worse.
“Megan?” Mom’s hand on my shoulder was just the whisper of a touch, but it still made me jump. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” I couldn’t worry about Jess right now. I had plenty of my own crap to deal with. “I think I’ll take a shower. My hair is . . . ” I froze in the hall outside the kitchen and threw my arms up to keep my parents from going any further.
“Megan, are you—”
“There’s someone here,” I said, cutting my mom off with a harsh whisper. “Or at least someone has been here. Look at my backpack. I didn’t leave it like that.”
On the floor a few feet away, my L.L. Bean backpack lay open, every compartment unzipped and all my books, practice clothes, and makeup strewn across the floor. Ugh, and Mom’s romance novel! But hopefully she wouldn’t notice I’d liberated Savage Kisses from under her bed in all the excitement of our house being broken into.
“Give me your phone,” Mom said. “I’m calling SA.”
“No need. We’re already here.” Elder Thomas stepped into the hall and actually had the nerve to smile when Mom and I screamed. Like it was funny that she’d nearly scared us half to death. The white-haired, grannyish-looking woman had once been my favorite Elder, but now I wondered how I’d failed to see the evil in those rheumy blue eyes.
Okay, not evil, but she certainly didn’t care about me or my family. She cared about the prestige that having one of the most powerful young Settlers in years had brought to her town, and she was determined not to lose what my freakiness had gained. The woman watched me like a hawk, always ready to praise my accomplishments, but even more ready to jump all over me when I made a mistake. Like she was in a position to criticize. It was her stubbornness and SA’s unwillingness to believe teenagers could be deep into black magic that had almost gotten me killed last fall. In my opinion, anyone with their head that far up their you-know-what should mind their own business. But that was an opinion Elder Thomas obviously didn’t share.
Hence the breaking into my house and nosing through my things.
“You went through my backpack?”
“And your room. The officers are finishing up now. We should be able to leave you to your shower in a few minutes.”
“You’re searching my room?” I asked, not bothering to hide my outrage. I’d managed to take down at least six weird zombies while keeping myself and Monica alive. What had I done to deserve a bunch of people pawing through my things?
What if they’d found my stash of Babysitter’s Club books and thought I was an idiot who couldn’t read age-appropriate material? Or what if, even now, the Protocol officers were reading my diary? What if Ethan was reading my diary, and getting an eyeful about my groping torment? Grrr . . . this was so not fair!
“Yes, we are.” The friendly façade vanished, and Elder Thomas nailed me with that cold “I’m assessing a mutated specimen” look she did so well. “And we’d like to ask you some questions. I assumed you’d be too exhausted and the matter could wait, but your mouth seems to be in perfect working order. So if you’d like—”
“No, I wouldn’t like.” Damn straight my mouth was in perfect working order. “I didn’t do anything wrong, and I—”
“No one is saying you did.” Mom jumped in before I could say something even stupider. I shouldn’t talk back to Elder Thomas. She might be inept at times, but she was an inept person who could get me in a heck of a lot of trouble But I was just so sick of being treated like a freak who had to be investigated every time something strange happened in Carol. “I’m sure the Protocol officers just need your statement.”
“Actually, I’m allowing the Enforcement team to handle this.”
“Enforcement? But we—”
Elder Thomas cut Mom off. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the matter. I’m sorry, Jennifer.”
“Hey you guys, glad you made it home,” Kitty said as she materialized next to Elder Thomas. “Megan, I thought I heard you come in. Long night.” She smiled and blinked tiredly behind her thick glasses.
Kitty was barely five feet tall and looked more like a refugee from Revenge of the Nerds than a member of the Settler secret service, but I knew better. The woman could kick major butt, had a knowledge of Settler spells
and history that was downright freaky, and was the big boss lady over the team of Enforcement officers who were hanging out in Carol until I was trained and my power was firmly under control.
“You want to get some Doritos and hang out at the kitchen table while we get this over with? I don’t know about you, but I’m dying for a snack.” She was also really nice, and I knew I’d forgive her for letting Barker and Smythe turn my backpack inside out . . . eventually.
“I think I’ll just snag a Sprite,” I said, moving into the kitchen. “My stomach isn’t up to Doritos, but I’ll get you a bowl.”
“I’ll be in our room, Jennifer.” Dad escaped into his and Mom’s room, clearly annoyed to have our lives invaded again. Poor Dad, it couldn’t be easy being a normal dude in a world full of zombie-fighting freaks.
“I’ll get the chips, Megan. You and Kitty go ahead and get started. It’s a school night and I’d like to see you in bed in the next hour.” Mom urged me toward the table and began bustling about the kitchen, fetching far more bowls than a single serving of Doritos required. She seemed . . . nervous. I guessed it was the Enforcement presence.
Usually a team of Enforcement officers searching your house would be a very, very bad thing. They didn’t get involved in local matters unless some seriously illegal stuff was going down. But Kitty, Barker, and Smythe weren’t just any Enforcement officers. They were my teachers, trainers, and kind of my friends. We’d all exchanged Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa presents, for God’s sake.
So I didn’t feel any huge need to freak. They were probably just helping our local SA chapter out. The Carol Protocol division was pretty small and no doubt unprepared to investigate something like the zombies Monica and I had encountered in the woods.
