by Avery Flynn
Five zombies stood in a clump by the partially opened front door. The walking corpses were all that stood between them and the beanstalk.
“Okay, I’ll distract them,” Jax said. “You two make a break for it.”
“You’re an idiot, Jax. There’s no way you can hold them all off.” She had that stubborn tilt to her head that never failed to turn him on. “I’m staying with you. Together we can come up with a workable plan.”
He turned and grabbed Veronica’s hip, pulling her to him. Her body’s soft curves fit perfectly against him, reminding him of the times he’d lain awake in their bed staring at the ceiling and marveling at how damn lucky he’d been to find her. Having to let her go had been life’s way of reminding him of his place on the other side of the tracks, where escargot forks didn’t exist and chickens lived in the front yard. But he’d be damned if he’d miss out on this chance to kiss her–maybe for the last time. His lips came down on hers before he had a chance to second-guess himself.
Almonds and heaven. That’s what she tasted like. He sucked on her bottom lip, gently tugging it. She moaned and it was all the invitation he needed to sweep his tongue into her sweet mouth. He put everything he could into that kiss. He told all his secrets and made all the promises he’d wished he’d given before, when his words still mattered to her. Hungry for more but knowing it wasn’t meant to be, he pulled away.
“Whatever you’re thinking about doing, don’t do it.” Her bottom lip trembled. Once. Just once. That was his girl, as strong as a mummy’s curse.
Jax pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. “Babe, I got this.” He leapt from the chair, landing in a crouched position on the stone floor. He’d kept his knees bent, but pain shot up his shins anyway. He glanced up at Veronica’s beautiful face, dominated by her shocked expression. “I’ll see you at the beanstalk.”
He sprinted away, making as much noise as possible. He had to get the attention of every last zombie in the hall. Then Veronica could make it out. “Fresh brains! I got your fresh brains right here!”
The giggles rang through the hall and down Jax’s spine. He didn’t stick around to see if the zombies were following. He didn’t plan on letting them get close enough to feel their stinking breath on his neck.
Dodging broken furniture the size of redwood trees, he blasted through the hall. “Here zombie, zombie, zombie.”
Pivoting to the left, he kicked it up a gear. A table leg towered directly in front of him. He dodged right. Ignoring the burn heating up his lungs, he continued to taunt the rotting corpses giggling in the shadows. “Come and get me, you zombie fuckers.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when a nine-foot-tall zombie stepped into his path. This one wasn’t laughing. Its glassy eyes focused on Jax with an intensity that stole his breath.
He drew his knife as he inhaled and flung it as he exhaled. It hit the target, but the zombie didn’t go down.
The black knife handle stuck straight out of the zombie’s throat like a macabre Adam’s Apple. It bobbled as the zombie strode toward him.
Now unarmed, Jax took the lesser of two evils and spun on his heel. He sprinted away from the zombie, making sure to stay clear of the path to the front door. Enough time must have passed for Veronica and Antoine to have cleared it, but he could manage to give them a few extra minutes to be sure.
The heavy clump, clump, clump of the zombie’s feet slapping against the stone floor sounded behind him. Pushing his muscles to the max, he added an extra shot of tabasco to his pace. It didn’t make a damn bit of difference. The zombie was gaining on him.
If he was going to make it out of here alive, he had to get this rotting corpse off his heels.
Sweat soaked his shirt and his lungs burned with the effort to stay ahead of the beast behind him. He spotted something shining up ahead. Instinct pulled him toward it.
A foot away, the object came into view–a gold coin the size of a hubcap. A man’s profile showed on the coin’s face–chubby cheeks, short curly hair and a laurel wreath wrapped around his head. It looked like a blown up version of an old Roman coin with dirt stuck in the mountains made by the embossing. Jax yearned for his archeology tools to brush away the debris.
A stinking hand ripping his t-shirt jerked him back to the shit storm surrounding him. Not giving himself time to think, he crouched, curled his fingers under the edges of the humongous coin and hefted it up.
His biceps strained under the pressure to lift it, but the adrenaline pumping through his veins gave him all the extra juice he needed. Letting out a shot putter’s groan, he twisted his body from the waist and swung his arms, aiming as high as possible.
The coin smashed into the zombie’s neck, snapping it.
Undeterred that his ear was now permanently resting on his shoulder, the zombie shuffled forward with his arms outstretched.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jax raised his arms straight over his head, muscles trembling from the effort, and slammed the coin down on the zombie’s skull.
Bone cracked and the zombie fell like a drunk after last call. Something gooey pooled underneath the coin, but Jax sure as shit wasn’t sticking around to find out what it was. He zipped toward the front door, dodging debris and pockets of giggling zombies.
Nothing in the world except for Veronica’s lips felt sweeter than the sunlight touching his face when he broke clear of the door and sprinted into the cloud trees beyond.
“Over here, Jax.” Veronica waved to him from a small clearing.
By the time he arrived at her side, only Antoine’s head was visible over the cloud ground as he descended the beanstalk.
“Thank God, you’re safe.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed so hard he lost the ability to take a deep breath.
Her silky hair slid against his cheek, and he wished for nothing more than to stay with her wrapped around him for the rest of his life. But as his mama said, if wishes came true then mermaids would walk and evil queens would never age. He knew full well wishes weren’t reality. Best just to make the most of this limited time with Veronica while he could enjoy it.
She released her death grip. “If you ever do something so stupid again, I swear I’ll feed you to the zombies limb by limb myself.”
“You know, if you want to touch all of my limbs, you just have to ask.” He covered his inner turmoil with a wolfish leer.
“Oh yeah?” She pressed her luscious body up against him, setting off all sorts of danger alarm bells that his hard lusting body overrode. Her leg hooked around his and before he knew it, he was flat on his ass with Veronica towering over him, hands on her hips and a smirk on her lips. “See you at the bottom.”
Quick as a pixie on speed, she took off down the beanstalk.
“Babe, you have no idea.” He stood, dusted the cloud fluff from his jeans and followed the only woman he’d ever loved.
Chapter 6
A blade of grass poked Veronica in the back of the neck, but she refused to move. Safe at last from the mindless, brain-eating zombies, all she wanted was to lie back in the prickly grass with her eyes closed and meditate until she no longer wanted to throttle Antoine.
She was going to be here for a while.
Her belly expanded with each deep breath, then sank until she swore she could feel it touching her spine. The whole time, she pictured the peacock-blue hammock in her backyard swaying in the breeze. It swung forward as she inhaled and backward when she exhaled.
“Are you still alive?” Jax asked.
Keeping her eyes closed, she fought not to let the hammock disappear. “Just taking a quiet moment.”
“Afraid you’ll string him up by his nose hairs?”
“Something like that.” She smiled despite the fast-fading hammock.
The air shifted around her as something–or, to be more precise, someone–settled next to her. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know it was Jax. A tingle broke out across her skin, perking up her nipples and a ripple of excitemen
t washed across her nether regions.
Poof! The hammock vanished.
Shifting a few inches away from him, she prayed the distance would minimize his impact on her. The man had already hurt her once; she’d be damned if she let him do it again even after his heroics–and that kiss–this afternoon. She was plenty grateful, she just wasn’t a glutton for punishment. Forcing her jaw to unclench, she sank, trying to conjure the hammock from the deep, dark corners of her imagination.
Forward, inhale. Backward, exhale. The coiled muscles in her shoulders unwound. Her scowl melted. The hammock reappeared. But this time Jax relaxed in it. He smirked at her as it swung back and forth. Her thighs clenched and her body turned to liquid gold–hot, melty and exactly the last thing she needed to be feeling around Jax Taylor.
“Get out of my hammock.” She yanked out the blade of grass scratching her neck and rolled up off the ground.
“Excuse me?”
She glowered down at him. God, he just looked so edible. He’d changed into a pair of basketball shorts, which he wore slung low on his hips. His smooth, brown skin looked downright lickable. She could start at his hipbone, slither across to his abs and nibble her way up to his neck. He had always shivered when she kissed that spot at the base of his throat. Usually, he’d tossed her onto her back then and there, but if she anchored her body low enough and straddled him, she could keep him right where... Stop that right now, Veronica Catherine Kwon!
Jax held up his hands, palms forward. “Simmer down–” He swallowed whatever else he was about to say as Antoine strode out of his tent and headed straight for them.
Reminding herself of all the good things that had happened in her life because of Antoine, she unfurled her fists. The man had taken her in when her father disowned her because she’d refused to give up treasure hunting. He’d been her mentor and friend for more than ten years, and this one-last-adventure was the only thing he’d ever asked in return. The least she could do in return was listen to him before she told him there was no way in hell she’d go back up the beanstalk and face down a horde of flesh-eating animated corpses.
A red flush extended from Antoine’s second chin all the way up to the line of his snow white hair. He looked like a very apologetic Santa. That is, if the jolly old fat man had ever led his elves into a zombie ambush.
“I can only imagine how upset you two are with me at the moment.” He focused his gaze on the sun setting in the distance. “But I didn’t know one hundred percent that they were up there. When I found Sir Cravish’s diary, even he wasn’t sure what had happened to the giants who had survived his cure. His favored hypothesis was that the shrinking his elixir started never stopped. The giants continued to shrink until they were too small to be seen.”
Antoine clasped his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels. The gold, orange and pink sky reflected off the glasses perched on his head. He sighed and locked his gaze on Veronica. There was something new in it she’d never seen before, an almost maniacal determination touching on the delusional. He shifted his attention back to the long blades of green.
“But Sir Cravish had a second theory, one he scarcely could write about. He scribbled his thoughts in the margins, a word here and phrase there. It took me years to put the puzzle pieces together. But still, if I hadn’t seen it for myself today I never would have believed it. His elixir did indeed shrink the giants into a size that made it easier for them to navigate the world. However, it also killed. Those who survived had a mutation in their chromosomes. At first Sir Cravish thought they’d make it through unscathed. Then one of his subjects cracked Sir Cravish’s cat’s skull like a walnut and sucked out the brains.”
His normally pink-tinged skin had a distinctive green sheen to it and his hands shook as he drew a small blue book from his shirt pocket. He thumbed through the pages until coming to the information he sought.
“In an entry dated June twenty-fourth, Sir Cravish writes, I can no longer deny the truth. My magic won’t protect me any longer and science has long since turned its back on me. I must lead them to a place where they cannot hurt another living soul. The solution came to me today in the form of a boy who had just sold his family cow. I’m taking the giants home. I do not expect to return to mine.” Antoine softly closed the book and held it to his lips a moment. “There aren’t any more entries.”
It took a moment for Veronica to break through the fog of shock. “You thought there was a chance there were zombies up there? A chance?”
“I should have told you both everything from the beginning. Let me make up for that error now by sharing all my dirty little secrets. The bank is taking my shop and everything inside. I got caught up in an investment that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. I’ve lost everything. The only blessing to this is, my beloved Chloe isn’t alive to see how far I’ve fallen.” His fingers curled into fists at his side. “I refuse to spend my last days on earth begging for my bread. The beanstalk is my salvation.”
Damn. On one hand, she was still pissed as shit at him. But on the other, who was she to hold a grudge against a dying man who’d lost his entire world?
“You can come stay with me in North Carolina for as long as you want,” Jax said.
“Or my place in New York. There’s no reason to go back up there.” She squeezed the older man’s frail shoulders. “What are the chances you’d ever find anything in that zombie hive anyway?”
A little bit of the old Antoine flashed in his blue eyes and a huge smile spread across his face. “The chances are excellent, my dear.”
He rummaged around in his knapsack and withdrew the flat metal container that had held the tents from the night before and pushed the single green button at its top. It popped open, and four small objects floated out of its mouth. They spun around at dizzying speeds high into the newly minted stars above, enlarging with each rotation, then drifted down.
Four gold coins the diameter of a large, floppy beach hat dropped to the grass in front of Veronica’s feet, flattening the grass beneath them. A man’s profile was embossed on the side along with the words Magnitudine gigantes. A two-foot-long white feather landed across the man’s Roman nose.
Antoine cackled. “The goose that lays the golden eggs is up there, ours for the taking. With this coin you could hire an in-house nurse for your ailing mother, Jax. I know you thought a nursing home was your only option, but you’re wrong. And, Veronica, this money could make all the difference for your business. Even with your recent successes, your creditors have been calling more frequently. Imagine what you could accomplish if you had access to a large amount of funds that didn’t come from daddy?”
She couldn’t rip her gaze from the golden bounty. Hope, freedom and possibilities–they were all hers for the taking if she went back up. Excitement bubbled through her. The golden eggs really could be the answer to everything. Her father had warned her she’d never be able to make a living from treasure hunting. How good would it be to make him eat that predication?
“There are still the zombies.”
“Yes, Jax, there is that.” The older man paced, his step more jaunty than when he’d left his tent earlier. “But if we go at dawn, we can take advantage of their sun affliction. The zombies seem to be confined to the house. The goose must be in the yard somewhere. There was a trail of freshly molted feathers between the castle and the tree line. That’s where I picked this up.”
He held the feather aloft like a guiding light. The years faded from his face, replaced by youthful exuberance. If she didn’t know any better, she’d figure he was in perfect health. The longer he stood there looking like the Antoine she’d first met when she was an eighteen-year-old archeology student, the more her resistance dissolved.
Searching to bolster her sanity, she glanced over at Jax.
He shrugged his bare shoulders at her. “Okay, I’ll go but this is it. We’ll get the bird and then we’re out of there.”
“As long as we can get the harp too, I’m more than willing
to agree.” The words flew out of Antoine’s mouth in a rush.
“The harp is golden?” Jax asked.
“Oh yes. It’s fabulous. When it plays, the notes can calm any beast, lulling them into a state of Zen-like peace.”
Veronica rolled her eyes. This was getting ridiculous, if she didn’t love the man so much she’d never say what she was about to. “Fine, we’ll look for the harp too.”
“Wonderful. Just wonderful.” He clapped his hands. “I’m off to do some more research before it’s time for shut eye. I’ll be seeing you two at the crack of dawn.”
Antoine ambled off to his tent and Veronica tried to ignore the apprehension tugging at her.
“Are you really all the way onboard with this?” Jax’s voice was much closer than he’d been only seconds ago.
“No, but I’m going to spend the night getting my gear together for the return trip. I don’t like being caught unaware.”
He nodded. “That makes two of us.”
* * * *
An hour later she had her armaments laid out in an orderly line across her cot. Two knives with serrated blades. What looked like a leopard-print lipstick case but was actually mace strong enough to knock out a troll. A travel-sized flying carpet. A fistful of throwing stars. Finally, a charmed hand scythe that melded with her hand, giving her a magical claw to shred her enemies. She’d already packed her tool kit with a packet of fairy dust, throwing stars and a pack of spearmint gum. Her lucky scarab beetle was tucked safely into a pocket above her heart. Jax had found the golden amulet in an Egyptian tomb and given it to her early on in their relationship, telling her it symbolized the renewal of life and would bring her luck. It was a silly superstition, but it had been her constant companion for seven years and she wouldn’t leave it behind now.
While contemplating whether to bring her Japanese Chisa Katana sword, a tapping sounded on her tent flap. She’d wrapped her hands about the handle of the two-foot-long blade before she’d even finished exhaling.
