“What the fuck?” Grim asked. “Katy, do you have any idea what this is?”
“It’s a bonding ritual. They wanted real power, and now they are real power. Their souls are the anchors holding Janine, and every other ghost in place.” Katy laughed, a cold menacing laugh.
We all spun around. Katy sounded so different. She didn’t sound playful, or friendly. She sounded hateful, and cruel. We set eyes on her and were shocked as Legion stepped out of the shadows to stand beside her. He gave her a tender kiss and then said, “It took you long enough.”
Grim bellowed, “What’s going on?”
Katy chuckled, “Oh Grim, you still haven’t figured it out yet, have you? The Darkness has been a lot closer than any of you ever knew.”
Penny sobbed, “Katy, no!”
“What? Is the little cumslut of a vampire upset because things aren’t going according to your fucked up schedule? Don’t worry; you won’t have to worry about anything soon.” Katy sneered.
“Why? When?” I sputtered.
“Why? For power, you stupid bitch. When I was a teenager I was just powerful enough that I couldn’t really hide it. My parents thought my power was evil and tried to have me exorcized. Of course, the pervert that they had performing the exorcism just used it as an excuse to get some free groping. When I ran away, I was all alone. I was living on the streets turning tricks for a bite to eat. Nobody gave a shit about me, and that’s when I made a deal with a low level demon. They’d give me enough power to change my life, and in return, I’d help them out. My first job was to join the Midnight Squad. I was supposed to do everything in my power to keep Elizabeth’s project from succeeding. I had that project on its last legs before Grim showed up. Then you all rallied together and ruined everything, but The Darkness is nothing if not flexible. They appreciated how I changed and adapted to the situation. Elizabeth was killed, and Alhambra destroyed. It’s a fitting punishment for two pathetic Lightbringers, don’t you think?” Katy said with an icy smile.
“Lightbringers, but weren’t they the bad guys?” Niki questioned.
“You people are morons! You think Lightbringer and The Darkness are terms for good and evil. It just means that if you are a Lightbringer, that you want the world to know the truth, and if you are part of The Darkness, you want to keep things a secret. There is good and evil on both sides.” Katy snapped.
“So you’re trying to tell us that you’re the good guy here? Sorry sugar nipples, but I’m not buying it.” Olli snorted.
“Good, evil…it’s all relative. It was my job to keep the Midnight Squad off balance, and do my best to see that the project never succeeded. Afterward, my job changed. I was given orders to keep you people distracted until our master could decide on how to make a proper example of you. So I starved Penny, planted little seeds in your heads to try to keep you from really paying attention, while we slowly tightened the noose. Now, here we are.” Katy laughed. “Do you feel it? Do you feel how absolutely fucked you all are?”
Penny rushed at her, but with a flick of her power, Penny was sent flying back into the wall behind us. Penny dusted herself off and rejoined us. She was still a little wobbly from the impact, but otherwise unharmed.
Katy sneered, “Please. I could have killed you all a thousand times over before now, but instead you are going to be another example to other Lightbringers about why you never ever want to incur the wrath of The Darkness.”
“Katy, we were your friends! Why would you do this?” I asked.
“You are my friend? Please!” Katy spat, “Where was this friendship you were talking about when you were riding Grim’s cock like some two dollar whore?”
“But you weren’t a couple anymore?” I sputtered.
“We were never a couple! They were just my assignment. By controlling those two idiots I could control the rest of you, but she just kept sniffing around you like a bitch in heat. Thankfully, I don’t have to put up with this foolishness anymore. Legion and I are leaving, and in an hour the military will drop a bomb on this place, leveling it to the ground. That’s when the real fun will begin.” Katy snickered.
“What’s going to happen?” My voice sounded more like I was begging than asking.
Katy shrugged, “Oh nothing, really. It’s just that I’ve tied the ghosts to the fabric of this hotel using those girls behind you. Feel free to kill them anytime now. You’ll be doing them a favor, but the magic is already working. Janine is trapped here with the EMF pump cranking power into her as fast as it can. The other ghosts are tied to the building, and they are absorbing every ounce of ambient energy they can. When the building blows up, the ghosts will be ripped apart, and all that energy contained in each ghostly body will…well you know what will happen. Atoms rip, energy is released and…boom!”
“Oh God, you’ve turned them into the ghost equivalent of an atom bomb!” I felt my legs get weak. “With all this pent up energy, they could level…” I started trying to make a rough estimate.
Katy smirked, “I figure it’ll take out most of the city. It will cover up any evidence, and then I’ll emerge as the sad and lonely survivor. I’ll tell how you fought bravely and sacrificed yourselves to save me, and the rest of the country. The Darkness has finally realized that we can’t keep things a secret forever, so instead we’re going to manipulate the truth. We’ll reshape it, and use half-truths for our own benefit. I’ll be that sad touchstone the world will look to when they look for guidance. I’ll be rich, famous, and the best part is that you’ll have been so much more helpful to me in death than you ever were in life. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe that it is time for Legion and I to go. We need to be far, far away before this place blows up. Don’t worry because once I leave, the zombies will make a beeline down here. Even the ones you thought you destroyed will rise up and head towards here. They’re my last gift to you all. Oh, and as for you two.” Katy pointed at Penny and me, “as a special show of my appreciation to you both, I gave my little creations a very specific order. Since you both put sex over loyalty, I decided that my little minions make sure you go out with a bang. So they’ll be trying to kill all of you, but they won’t kill DD or Penny until after they’ve raped every orifice. They’ll fuck every hole, even attempting your nose and ears. Then they’ll kill you, but not until then. Think of it as my last little goodbye present.”
Power flared around Katy, and then she just disappeared. Legion was left standing in the room with us, “The girl has real potential. She reminds us of ourselves a few thousand years ago. We look forward to molding her, and bending her to our will. It’s been a real pleasure. Now, we’re afraid we have to go.” Legion’s head twisted at a sharp angle. There was a loud crack, and then his body fell to the floor.
We stood there in shock. Katy was behind all of this? I didn’t want to believe it. I mean, we’ve eaten together, snuggled up and watched movies together. We’re family. Family doesn’t do this kind of stuff to one another. I don’t think that anyone wanted to move, or even speak. To speak about it would have made it real, and moving meant we had to react to what she’d done to us. I think we all wanted to pretend it had never happened.
Meanwhile, Janine’s memories were flickering around us. It was a hodgepodge of insanity. Every memory flashed like a strobe light around us. Being burnt at the stake as a witch, making love to Grim, memories of people that I assumed must have been close friends or family from when she was alive, our pillow fight, speaking to a woman at a séance with a man that looked disturbingly similar to Abraham Lincoln, and thousands of other memories kept flooding the room. It was disorienting. Green fires erupted everywhere, and the stench of burning flesh filled the air. Janine always had a faint smoke scent, but when she started really losing her temper, then the smoke scent grew stronger. It kept flickering, and we just stood there. Olli, Samuel, and Cassie tried to snap us back to reality, but we all just froze up.
Out of all of us, Penny was the absolute last person I expected to lose it. She just
started crying. Her cries turned to sobs, and it wasn’t long until she was actually screaming hysterically. We all surrounded her and tried to calm her, but she was almost completely inconsolable. Of course, it didn’t help that her crying finally got the attention of Janine’s body. Memories of Janine’s time with Penny started flashing more and more regularly. Many of Janine’s memories about Penny naturally had Katy in them. The movie nights, all our training exercises, the nights of group sex with Penny, Katy and Grim, playful moments, and even memories of stuff like Christmases and all our Thanksgivings. Of course, it was almost impossible to make out exactly what was going on in each memory. They just flickered by so fast.
Penny watched them all sadly. She was taking this harder than all of us. We were all shocked and upset, but Katy’s betrayal just seemed to break Penny’s heart. Grim pulled her in and held her to his chest. She just kept crying. I couldn’t stand to see her like that, so I wrapped around her and sandwiched her between us. We both kept trying to soothe her, and it was working…at least a little bit.
Unfortunately, Olli had to open his big, stupid mouth, “Man, what a drama queen! There are things called tears, sweetheart. The girl can’t even give a decent fake cry. Paris Hilton’s acting is more believable than this.”
Nobody talks about my Penny that way. I spun around and got up right in his face, “For your information, asshole, Penny has to actually think about creating tears before they come! She’s a vampire and that means…you know what? You don’t even deserve an explanation!” I kept getting up in his face and shoving him backwards.
Olli raised his hands up to try and get me to back away, “Chill the fuck out lady. If you want to believe her bullshit acting then, fine, but I’m just saying that I’ve seen Kardashians with more emotional range. Of course, I’d be pretty sympathetic to her as well if a hot piece of ass like that was letting me finger bang her. So I get why you are so overprotecti-“
He was sprawled across the floor out cold before I even realized what I’d done. My hand was throbbing in pain, and my foot was already halfway pulled back to start kicking him. Part of me recoiled in horror that I’d just punched somebody. I’ve never been much of a fighter. First General Garrett and now Olli; this is not a trend I want to keep up. Of course, that didn’t stop me from kicking him repeatedly.
I don’t know what I was saying, but I was screaming it loudly. The world was just a sort of red haze. I kept kicking him and I may have spat on him a few times. All I know is Grim and Penny both finally pulled me off of him. I kept trying to push my way back to him. It was like I was standing outside my body and watching as I completely lost it on the guy. Penny finally wrapped her arms around me and gave me a big hug. “DD calm down. It’s okay, he’s not worth it!”
It took me a few moments to get myself to come down from the blind, seething rage to just a barely controlled anger, but Penny was patient with me. She kept stroking my hair and telling me how much she loved me. Well, at least something good came out of Olli’s idiocy. My Penny was back.
Grim gave me a kiss on the head, “How’s your hand?”
It throbbed, but it was worth it, “It’s sore, but it’ll be fine.”
“How about you stick to the mental stuff, and let me deal with the knuckle dragging caveman style violence from now on?” Grim laughed.
I nodded, and the big man gave me a kiss that sent tingles of pleasure all through me. He lingered, and it wasn’t long before Niki groaned, “Come on you two, before I have to turn a water hose on you.”
I answered her with a very dainty, very feminine middle finger, and then deepened the kiss until Niki and Danika were both making gagging sounds.
Penny whispered in my ear, “Hey, save some for me.”
I stopped kissing Grim, and smiled at her, “Always.” Then I planted one on her. Well, it’s the zombie apocalypse. I can go out angry and upset, or kissing the two people I love. It wasn’t nearly as hard a choice as it sounded.
After our public display of affection reached the point that it made everyone else moderately uncomfortable, we tried to figure out if there was any way to stop what was happening. Janine was trapped in place. I realized early on that she was basically the bomb. She couldn’t move. Janine’s body wasn’t able to do anything more than send out illusions. The imprisonment had sent her into a rage that had very quickly driven her insane. Her face was just a twisted mania, and images kept flickering faster.
Grim moved over to the coven bound in barbed wire. He flicked open a pocket knife and cut away the stitches on one of their mouths. Once she could talk Grim tried to get some answers, but she really didn’t have any. The girl was in so much pain that he finally just gave up and pulled out his scythe.
“Oh Lord, what is that!” Samuel asked in horror as the black smoke formed into the blade.
Niki took great pleasure in explaining that Grim was God’s chosen horseman. He was the horseman Death. There may have been some gloating on her part as Samuel just stared in shock. He looked at us all and then looked at his daughter, “I’m so sorry. I’ve been so wrong about…everything.”
Cassie gave the old homophobe a big hug. I’ll give him credit. At least he was man enough to admit he was wrong. I looked around and realized that we were all just a little broken by everything that happened. Cassie and Samuel had lost their wife and mother; we’d lost Katy, and Olli…well fuck Olli. If there was any justice in the world, he may have lost a few teeth.
I felt the grin spreading across my face. It shouldn’t be there, and there was a little bit of madness to it, but I just couldn’t get it off my face. I finally felt a little more like myself again. I’d tried to make up for past mistakes, and tried to be a role model for my sisters, but all I’d really done is try to make myself into something I’m not. I had tried to be perfect and never curse, and dropping an F-bomb just felt so good, even if it was just in my head. It was like a tension had been removed from me. To think…all it took was a zombie horde.
Grim swung his scythe and put the woman out of her misery. Then he did the same for the others in the coven. I couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t used it on those people upstairs, and Grim took one look at me and somehow figured out what I was thinking. Grim’s shoulders sagged, “I just couldn’t. I know it would have been quicker and a lot less painful, but using my scythe on them. Especially the kids…” Tears started welling up in his eyes.
“It’s okay. Whatever reason you had, I’m sure it was a good one.” I said. We all tried to comfort him, but Grim was inconsolable.
“This thing, it’s like a tool for God’s judgment. I swing it and they immediately go to heaven or hell. I just couldn’t bear the thought that these poor people were going to be immediately judged because of me. I know I kind of wussed out, but I just couldn’t get over the idea that I might be sending some poor kid to hell just because he went on a vacation. It just seemed wrong.” Grim wiped his eyes, and turned his attention to the stairway.
There were noises drifting down. The zombies were coming. We could see their shadows on the wall as they began descending the staircase. Danika sputtered in fear, “Anyone got any ideas? Now would be a good time to share.”
Janine’s voice echoed into the room from my phone, “I found everyone I could via their phones. I directed them all up to our floor. Now, is there anything else I can do?”
“I don’t suppose you know how to get back into your own body.” I asked.
“No, there are just too many variables. Without knowing what spell Katy used, there is no way of knowing what spell is needed to undo it. To be honest, I’m not sure we could undo any of it, anyway. Everything I’ve found says that much of the spells effectiveness is derived from the witch’s power itself. Since she’s so powerful, it would be almost impossible to find a witch that had enough power to reverse it.” Janine sighed.
The zombies were moving into view now. They were like ants spilling down the stairs and crawling over one another to get to us. Olli finally
stirred and started to stand up. He had the makings of a pretty decent black eye.
“What happened?” He said groggily.
Jes laughed, “You got knocked the fuck out!”
Olli glared at me, and I was worried for a moment that he was going to hit me, but then he just shrugged, “Damn fine right cross you have there. “ Then he looked to the zombies, “So, what’s the plan?”
“Don’t get eaten.” Grim said.
“Don’t get raped by the undead.” I squeaked out.
“Run away.” Niki and Danika said in unison.
“Use the purple headed douchebag as bait while the rest of us run to safety.” Penny said teasingly…I think.
“Hey, do you think if we told the soldiers outside that this place was going to blow up they’d call off the bombing? Maybe they’d let us get out of here?” Cassie questioned.
Jes shook her head, “Oh they’d let us out, but it would be just long enough to get their sights on us and then they’d open fire and that would be the end of it.”
“Well, it was an idea.” Cassie grumbled.
“What about going into The Black?” I asked.
“You mean the land of millions, possibly billions, of red eyes that looked ready to eat us? It doesn’t seem like much of an improvement.” Grim said nervously. I think he was still pretty freaked out by the last time he was inside The Black.
“Well, if it is stay here and definitely get eaten, or step inside The Black and possibly get eaten, my vote is to go inside The Black and take my chances.” I sounded much more certain than I really felt.
“Does everyone feel that way?” Grim asked.
Everyone except Olli nodded. Olli took one look at the zombies and screamed, “Beware my Manicorny wrath, you undead fucks!” He picked up a club and started swinging. He had decided that if he was going out, he was going out fighting. I couldn’t help but respect that.
The rest of us waited for Grim to use The Black. The smoke swirled out onto the floor, and as it opened the way, we saw red eyes everywhere. “Well it’s now or never. Let’s go, I’ll be right behind you. I have to open the doorway for us to get through.”
Midnight Squad: The Ties That Bind Page 55
