Naomi finally comes to a stop next to the body of one zombie she didn’t burn, and drives the tip of her sword into the ground, breathing hard behind her mask. Her face is sweaty, but stoic and composed, like she just finished an intensive cardio exercise instead of a death match with a gang of supernatural monsters.
Jesus. Is she superhuman?
How can she take down five zombies…wait.
Five. Weren’t there six when I got here?
I scour the air for the sixth zombie, but it’s not hovering where it was when I first rushed onto the scene. It was floating much higher than the rest of the creatures, almost like it was observing the scene instead of actively engaging Naomi. But even so, I expected it to descend when its comrades started falling like dominoes. These things haven’t shown any inclination to retreat.
And yet, the last zombie is nowhere to be found.
Maybe it left to…what? Report to a superior?
Whatever the reason, it’s gone now, Naomi stands victorious over the corpse of her defeated enemy, and I loiter fifteen feet away, shifting back and forth on my feet, looking like a goddamn moron because one, I arrived too late to help Naomi, and two, the Master of Blades didn’t need my help anyway.
My contributions to this battle haven’t been quite as impressive as I hoped.
Scratching the back of my head, I approach Naomi sheepishly, working my tongue up to an apology for literally dropping out of a tag-team battle and leaving her to fight the bulk of our opponents on her own. I mean, sure, it was a god-level smack-down on Naomi’s part, but it was still a bit rude of me to claim I’d take three zombies but only take two.
The captain catches sight of me when I’m a few steps away, and her face lights up.
“Kinsey!” she says. “Are you okay? I saw you fall into that hole, and I thought…” Her gaze drops to my neck, which still stings from where that scythe caught me. “That’s not deep, is it?”
I touch my neck to double-check, but the wound isn’t gushing blood, so I assume I’m not bleeding to death. “Don’t think it’s any deeper than yours.”
She prods the laceration on her own neck. “Oh, I forgot about that.” A tired smile tugs at her lips. “The adrenaline must’ve stifled the pain.”
“Won’t last forever.” I grimace. “We’ll both be feeling like shit in the morning.”
She chuckles wryly. “I don’t doubt it.”
“You see any more of those damn monsters nearby?”
Her hand clenches around the hilt of her sword. “Honestly, when so many of them ganged up on me back there, I thought for sure I’d be overwhelmed by their numbers. But even after I cut several of them down, no more appeared to fill the gaps. Maybe we’ve killed the bulk of them at this point. One can hope.”
“Wait, so how many did you kill while I was gone?”
She blinks owlishly, not sure why I’d ask that question. “Unless I miscounted somewhere, I killed twelve, including the five I just dispatched.”
“So you’ve killed, like, twenty-two of these monsters tonight?”
“I believe so.” She cocks her head to the side. “Is that a problem?”
“No, no. Of course not. It’s just…” I skim my boot against the ground, kicking up dust. “I only killed two.”
Naomi stares at me for a second, then bursts out laughing. “Oh, Kinsey, are you upset because I showed you up?”
“Maybe. A little bit. See, my teammates, they do this all the time, and I thought, after getting a solo…”
My teammates.
“Oh, shit. I need to check on them.” I tap my mic. “Hey, Ella, are you guys all right?”
Naomi drops all hints of humor. “How many of the creatures went after them?”
“I don’t know.” My fingers nervously rap on the rim of my mask. “Since more of them keep popping up out of nowhere, there’s no telling—”
“Cal,” comes Ella’s voice over the com, broken up with static. “We’re off…field…Naomi’s team…injured but…order to retreat…”
I tug the com piece out of my ear and examine it closely. There’s a crack running through the middle. It must’ve been damaged sometime during my fight, probably when I fell into that pit.
I stick it back in my ear and tap the mic button on my mask again. “Ella, my receiver is damaged, so I can’t make out some of your words, but it sounds like you guys are okay, and we’ve got a retreat order?”
Static crackles across the line for a few moments, and Ella’s voice repeats, “Yes, that’s correct” three times in a row, to compensate for the spottiness of my earpiece.
“Okay, Naomi and I will head off the field now.” I look to the captain. “Seems like we’re the only two left out in this mess. I think it’s time to go.”
Naomi sighs deeply. “I could not agree with you more, Kinsey.” She scans the area around us, but the visibility is so low with the dust in the air that she wouldn’t be able to tell if there was an army of zombies surrounding us right now. “Which way should we go? It’s a long trek back to the northern perimeter, and we could easily encounter more hostiles along the way. Maybe it’d be best if we—”
The sixth zombie bursts out of the ground. Grips me tight underneath my armpits. And hoists me into the air so fast my stomach drops all the way to my balls.
“Kinsey!” Naomi shouts.
“Fuck!” I shout back.
Then Naomi vanishes into the haze, and I’m alone in the sky with a levitating zombie and no way to save myself if I fall.
Chapter Nine
The zombie doesn’t drop me.
Which is good, because I don’t want to die.
It hauls me through the air, up, up, up, and zips off sharply to the west, toward the perimeter where the field of rubble meets the once beautiful green space around the convention center. My stomach flip-flops like I’m on a rollercoaster, even though the zombie’s movements are smooth and effortless, and my eyes are pinned on the ground beneath me, reminding me that one slip-up here could easily result in Cal Kinsey’s broken corpse being bagged up for morgue transport.
I think hard and fast. Can’t grab my gun because of the way the zombie’s holding my arms. Can’t use my beggar rings because I broke them again. Can’t pull a knife for the same reason I can’t pull my gun. Kicking and punching probably aren’t going to affect the zombie enough to matter—I’m more likely to hurt myself that way. And…that’s it. Those are all my offensive options.
My only choice is to wait for the zombie to make another move. Hopefully one that involves being closer to the ground.
I crane my neck to observe my kidnapper. The zombie’s eerie green gaze is focused straight on the ground, looking past me, as if it doesn’t care that its hostage might try to fight back. I can’t read its full expression due to the black rags wrapped around its mouth, but while its grip under my arms is tight, its overall posture isn’t tense. Not only am I apparently light as a feather to this creature, but it doesn’t even see me as a threat, despite the fact that my comrades and I have spent the last half hour wiping the floor with its monstrous colleagues. In fact, it doesn’t seem to feel or think much of anything at all.
Almost like it has no free will.
Or any personality whatsoever.
Could it be that these things are some kind of mass-produced servants? If they really are reanimated corpses, then maybe all their actions are somehow programmed into them with magic, similar to how people can code not-quite-true AIs these days. Maybe they can make some decisions, like learning combat strategy on the go, but not others, because their minds are limited in a way that true sentient creatures’ are not.
That would go a long way in explaining their behavior on the battlefield.
But what programming, I wonder, made this monster decide to snatch me?
My stomach lurches as the creature suddenly dives toward the earth, right as we near the western edge of the disaster zone. Its path curves into a steep decline, similar to a zip-line, a
nd we soar past the outer rim of ground zero and over the green space now dirtied by loose debris from the explosion.
Then the zombie throws me. It spins me around in the air so fast I nearly vomit, and lets me loose like I’m a fucking shot put.
Luckily, we’re only ten feet off the ground.
Unluckily, I tumble through the air in an uncontrolled descent, and there’s a one in two chance I’m going to land on my head and break my neck.
I scream. Loudly.
I land on my ass with bruising force, bounce three times, and roll eight more times until I finally come to a stop on the singed, rubble-strewn grass, limp and battered like a crash-test dummy who got thrown through a windshield because some dipshit forgot to clip its seatbelt.
Everything hurts.
Literally. Everything.
My mask got ripped off by a chunk of debris sticking out of the ground, and not only does it feel like somebody snapped a massive rubber-band against the back of my skull, but my face is bleeding in at least four places, and my nose is no longer sitting on my face at the correct angle.
The reinforced DSI coat protected the rest of my body from being impaled by sharp, pointy things, but it didn’t stop the impact from rattling my bones and bruising the delicate skin and muscle I already bruised when I fell into that hole earlier. Coughs rack my chest, and the ribs that got busted a few months back groan like creaky floorboards with each breath I take.
Miraculously, I don’t think anything is broken—except my nose. All my fingers and toes respond, and my legs and arms move the way I command them to. And…oh. My ass. My poor ass.
The second I try to roll over onto my tender tush, an intense pain resonates up my spine.
A bruised coccyx.
That’s just what I needed today.
Biting my lip, I roll over onto my back instead, stifling my breathing until the coughing dies down so I can focus on the air above me. I find the zombie, still hovering in the spot it threw me from, its head tilted down, as if observing the results of its…attack?
“What are you looking at, ugly?” I mutter. “If you wanted me dead, you should have dropped me from higher up.”
The zombie abruptly descends, coming to float less than a foot off the ground, right beside me. I scramble for a weapon, but my body is sluggish, and my fingers struggle to wrap around the grip of my gun. The zombie bends toward me, one hand outstretched, and I notice that it either discarded or lost its scythe somewhere. It’s unarmed.
So what’s it planning to do? Strangle me?
I finally manage to grab my gun, as the zombie’s hand closes in on my…not neck.
My chest.
Instead of trying to asphyxiate me, the zombie is trying to grab the front of my coat? Why would it—?
No. Not my coat. The pen. It’s trying to retrieve the fountain pen from my interior coat pocket. It dropped me from ten feet instead of fifty because it wanted to incapacitate me without breaking the pen in the process.
The pen is what the zombies are after.
And I can’t let them have it.
My free hand shoots up and wraps around the zombie’s wrist, but the zombie doesn’t appear to notice or care that I’m trying to stop it. Its hand keeps inching closer to my coat, even as I put my full strength into forcing it back. The damn thing has the physical strength of a hydraulic press!
I whip up my gun, pointing it at the zombie’s face.
The zombie isn’t deterred.
I start to pull the trigger, hoping the shots will force the creature away long enough for me to make a break for it, hoping it doesn’t decide to change tactics and kill me first, hoping—
A four-hundred-pound werewolf leaps out of the darkness, locks its powerful jaws around the zombie’s neck, and hauls the creature away.
I blink at the empty space beside me, uncomprehending.
I sit up.
And get a great front-row seat for the goriest show I’ve seen all month: a massive brown werewolf eviscerating a rotten-skinned monster, complete with neon green eyes popping out of their sockets and bouncing across the grass, a skull imploding with a loud crack, followed by a nauseating squish, an arm and a leg being ripped off, one after the other, flying several feet, and landing with two fleshy thumps, and a ribcage breaking open like an egg, followed by a dozen half-decayed organs spilling out onto the ground.
Wow, I think, I did not see that coming.
Then I turn to the right and vomit uncontrollably.
Once I finish dry heaving, I wipe my mouth, close my eyes, and take a deep, painful breath to prepare myself to witness the sight in front of me. Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out.
I look straight ahead.
And freak the ever-loving fuck out.
The Wolf stands only five feet before me, snout covered in gore, teeth bared, eyes alight with that predatory yellow sheen that’s been haunting my nightmares for months. I blink half a dozen times, my vision wavering, and for a second, I’m not at the convention center but at the construction site outside Aurora, and McKinney is prowling toward me, preparing to pounce, preparing to rip me to pieces, fury undulating in his growls, bloodlust rippling up his throat, and I’m hurt, and I’m tired, and I’m in so much goddamn pain, and I can’t escape, and—
The Wolf in front of me transforms into a man.
The memory fades as fast as it overtook me.
I’m left shaking like a leaf, breathing hard, too hard, sucking in tainted air that could poison me for years to come, my busted mask now lost to the darkness. Eyes screwed shut, fists clenched, I try desperately to regain control of myself. It’s not McKinney. McKinney is dead. He can’t hurt you anymore. Get a grip!
“Detective Kinsey?” says a soft, solemn voice.
I hesitantly crack an eye open.
Vincent Wallace, Representative of the United Lycanthrope Congress, Eighth District of Michigan, stands above me, looking as beleaguered as the day we met in the DSI building in the wake of my escape from McKinney’s torture shack. The only differences between our first meeting and this meeting are that: One, Wallace is covered in bits of zombie gore that slough off him in squelching, slimy strings. (Um, ew.) And two, he’s buck naked.
You know, I’m really starting to get tired of interacting with nude werewolves.
As I steadfastly attempt to avoid staring at his penis—I mean, it’s just hanging out there, swinging in the breeze—I clear my throat of dust and say in a nasally voice, “Hey, Wallace. Fancy seeing you here.”
A pinched, conflicted expression comes across his face, like he can’t decide whether he wants to talk to me or not. Ten seconds of heavy silence pass, and he relents. “Our meeting isn’t a coincidence, I’m afraid.”
“What do you mean?” I press the back of my glove against my nostrils to stave off the blood flow and try to ignore the persistent ache in the bridge of my off-center nose. “You came here intending to talk to me?”
“Didn’t specifically have to be you. I’d planned to speak with whichever DSI agent I happened to bump into first.” He runs a hand through his shaggy brown hair and sighs. “Of course it’d be you, of all people.”
“I don’t get it.” I prop myself up on one knee, hissing as pain resonates throughout my entire body, and slowly rise to my feet. “If you wanted a meeting with DSI, why not go to the office? I’m sure Riker, or even Bollinger, would speak with you. Unless...”
“I want an honest, unfiltered meeting, not one carefully planned around PR guidelines.”
“Well, in the spirit of being honest, why don’t you get to the point?” Tucking my gun in its holster, I nod at the remains of the zombie behind Wallace. “Oh, and thanks for the save, I guess.”
Wallace glances at the mess over his shoulder and shrugs. “Not a problem, Detective. It was the least I could do after I let McKinney and his cronies slip under my radar last year. Your kidnapping and all the consequences that resulted from it reflected very poorly on my leadership
in the Aurora Wolf community. As a result, it’s in my best interest to be diligent regarding the safety of the city and all of its citizens, Crows included.” He crosses his arms. “And most of all, it’s vital for me to be diligent regarding the well-being of my fellow Wolves. Which is why I’m here tonight.”
I don’t like the sound of this.
“What are you saying, Wallace? Some werewolves were injured in the convention center collapse?”
Wallace frowns. “Four Wolves died in the collapse. I confirmed with the ME this afternoon. They were there”—he nods to the ruins of the west wing—“when the explosion took the building down. All four were killed instantly, their bodies badly burned and mangled, far beyond what the werewolf healing factor could compensate for. Two of them had to be identified by dental records, because their faces were unrecognizable.”
A cold pit forms at the base of my gut.
The werewolves are involved in this convention center fiasco. They must be. Somehow. Otherwise Wallace never would have broken protocol to directly confront DSI agents in the field, for the admitted purpose of gaining intel without the oversight of high-level DSI authority. Not after McKinney’s actions cost him so much rapport with the mayor’s office and the commissioner. He wouldn’t dare.
In fact, given Wallace’s generally nervous, depressed disposition, I question whether this confrontation was his idea at all.
“Oh, jeez. I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, regarding the dead Wolves. “You know, I spent half the day digging people out of the rubble, and I didn’t give a second thought to what community they might belong to, human or otherwise.”
Wallace gives me a weak, respectful smile. “I appreciate your efforts, Kinsey. And those of the other DSI agents who’ve been working search and rescue. It’s valuable, courageous work, and no one can deny that.”
“But you don’t appreciate it enough to schedule a meeting with the brass through official channels? You still want to play this underhandedly and try to squeeze info out of the guy who just got his ass tenderized by a zombie monster?”
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