by Annie Bellet
Shifters had managed to get themselves hunted down and killed by humans a great deal before the Nine, Alek knew. Entire witch hunts and werewolf legends had spawned because of it. But the sound of another car cut off Alek’s need to respond. He rotated back and peered out the edge of the window.
The car was a black SUV and it pulled into the driveway of the house across the street like it belonged there. A man wearing a painter’s cap and coveralls jumped out of the passenger side and punched a code into the panel next to the garage. The car drove in after the door had lifted, and the driver got out.
“Bingo,” Rachel murmured. “Fit Levi’s description, don’t they just.”
The man who had opened the garage turned and looked around at the street, giving Alek a perfect view of his face.
He didn’t realize he was growling until the vibration in his chest made his neck hurt.
“These guys your chickens?” Rachel asked as she popped the snap on her holster. Alek heard the scrape of her gun as she slowly drew it.
“Worse,” Alek said. “They’re Nazis.”
The door came free with a hard tug and hit the wall as I quickly let go and stepped back. A rotting corpse launched itself at my face. Instinct and magic saved me as I threw up a shield and the creature was deflected. It bounced off and slammed into its companion.
The creatures were definitely zombies, for lack of a better word. They looked like something straight out of a horror movie. Flesh hung in festering strips off their bones. Their clothes, which might have been teeshirts and jeans once, were shredded and caked with dried blood and probably other bodily fluids I didn’t want to envision. Both corpses appeared to be male. Their fingernails were overgrown into hideous claws and their jaws gnashed open and closed again as though they were stuck with a memory of chewing gum.
I turned shield to flame as Harper exclaimed behind me, “Holy shit” and swept the fire forward in an arc.
Turns out, real life zombies don’t like fire any more than video game zombies do. The magical flames caught on their flesh and they started to howl as the fire lit them up like corpse torches.
Backing away from the heat, almost falling into Harper, I realized I’d caught the door on fire. The flames ate the dry wood up as we backed farther down the hallway.
“Maybe left?” I gasped when I could finally feel air on my face instead of heat. The hallway seemed clear though the eerie howling screams had not abated. I put up my shield in front of me again, just in case a burning zombie decided to rush down the hall.
“Uh, Jade,” Ezee said in a slow, controlled murmur. “I don’t want to alarm anyone, but there’s a zombie staring at me from behind us.”
Fucktoast on a stick. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“What’s it doing?” I asked, craning my head around to try to see.
Harper pressed herself back against the wall, facing the direction of the flaming zombies. She had a white-knuckle grip on her crowbar while holding the jar tight to her side with her other hand. I couldn’t see around Levi’s broad shoulders or over his Mohawk.
“Hissing?” Ezee said.
“Ok, slowly, we move back toward the fire.” I started doing exactly that, edging my way back down the hall, shield up.
Right behind me, my friends did the same. The door was still burning and the zombies in the room beyond were now twitching, smoking corpses. I dashed into the room, pushing them to the sides with a wave of force from my right hand. Fatigue edged my vision in red for a moment. I wasn’t exactly being magically economical.
Harper, Ezee, and Levi dashed in behind me and we circled up. The room was about ten by twelve with a dark hallway opening directly across the room. To the left of us was another door. The smoke from the fires I’d started clung to the walls and ceiling and swirled over in the direction of that door.
“I think that door leads somewhere vented,” I said. “Look at the smoke.”
“Zombie,” Ezee said. He had the katana drawn and its blade shone in the flickering light.
The zombie, another rotting male, lurched into view by the burning door. It hesitated there, as though the fire unnerved it. One of its eyes was missing and its jaw hung grotesquely to one side as though something had smashed it.
“How is that thing making noise?” Harper asked. “It can’t breathe, right? I mean, I see its lungs.”
“It’s a zombie,” Levi said as though that explained everything.
“Magic,” I said. Magic like I’d never seen before. Who the hell would make zombies?
“Brother,” Ezee said.
“Brother?”
“You know what this means?”
Levi nodded. “We have trained our whole lives for this.” He raised his machete. “Let’s kill a zombie.”
Movement caught my eye in the hallway ahead. “Um, guys.”
“I hear more,” Harper said.
“Both directions,” Ezee said.
The zombie just beyond the smoldering door moaned and charged forward. I watched long enough to see Ezee side-step it and swing his blade before I had to turn and pay attention to the hallway. The smoke had gathered there, too, and while I saw swirls of movement in it, the electric lights didn’t go down that way. I was reluctant to throw more fire without a clear target. I’d been wasteful with my power enough already.
“Harper, get that door open,” I told her. At a glance it looked like another locked door similar to the one in the ritual chamber.
“I’ll have to put down the jar,” she said, moving toward the door.
“Do it, we’ve got you covered,” I said, hoping I wasn’t lying. No way was I about to let my friends die to a zombie horde. I’d be the worst gamer friend ever.
A glance told me Ezee had beheaded the zombie. Just like in the movies, that had stopped the corpse from moving.
“We’ll take this doorway,” Levi told me over his shoulder as he and Ezee fanned out.
“I’ve got the far hall,” I said. I backed up so I could stand near Harper while keeping my eyes on the hallway.
Three more zombies flooded into the room. These were in better shape than the last ones had been. They had features still and more flesh with recognizable clothing. These undead men looked like former military of some kind, wearing khaki fatigues like the bit of cloth we’d found in the kitchen. Deep slash wounds in their chests and bellies told how they might have died. One nearly tripped on its own entrails as it rushed me.
I drew the Alpha and Omega, not wanting to face multiple burning zombies or endanger my friends. The dagger lengthened in my hand, going from knife to sword in a heartbeat. Supposedly the blade could kill anything, living or not.
Time to put it to the test. I lunged to meet the zombie charge. The sword stabbed into the zombie’s chest and it had no time to even scream as it turned to dust in a blink. I almost fell forward into the next zombie as the weight on the end of my blade disappeared and I had nothing to stop my momentum anymore.
I twisted and hopped to catch myself, throwing my left arm up to block the zombie’s swiping hands. Its nails bit into my unprotected skin, raking me. I smelled the fetid rush of air around it as the zombie crashed past me. I spun, gritting my teeth against the pain, and slashed the zombie across the back. Zombie number two went up in dust.
Zombie three ran right into the backswing of my sword and it, too, was reduced to nothing.
More howls and moans echoed from the hallway as I gasped for breath and looked at the damage to my arm. Deep cuts laced my forearm, but my body’s natural healing was already slowing the blood loss. Nothing I could do about it now anyway.
“You okay?” Ezee said, pulling my gaze to him.
He stood over a dead zombie with two more headless corpses around him. Levi had another at his feet whose head he’d more smashed than severed with his machete.
“Flesh wound,” I said.
“You’re not going to turn into a zombie, are you?” Levi asked with a wild grin. “Because if you nee
d me to kill you, I can’t be that friend. Alek would murder us and I’m too pretty to go that way.”
“I don’t think these are those kind of zombies,” I said. Great. Another thing to worry about. I shoved even the thought of that aside. This was magic, not George Romero.
“Thought you were training with a sword?”
“Shut up, Levi,” I muttered, turning back toward the hallway. “How’s that door coming, furball?”
“Working on it,” Harper said around the bobby pin tucked in her mouth.
“I hear more coming,” Ezee said.
I summoned my magic, power singing in my blood and pushing the pain back with its siren song. I’d be exhausted later, but fuck it. What was the point of being a sorceress if I didn’t do magic? I faced the hallway and thought about how to block it off to buy us more time. If this had been a game, I’d have used a web spell. I could do that. Maybe.
Focusing, I spooled power out of myself, picturing a thick, sticky thread. I drew my hand around in a vaguely crisscrossed pattern over the doorway, anchoring the magic to the stone as best I could. Purple light flickered along the edges of the invisible web, showing me I’d done a decent job. Then I pushed more power into the webbing, visualizing heat and fire. The purple glow intensified, tiny flames limning the web.
Zombies spilled out of the doorway we’d come in as I turned to help Ezee and Levi, hoping my web would hold for a bit if more came from that direction.
“Get back,” I said to them. I didn’t want to swing the Alpha and Omega and clip a friend. Even a scratch from this blade seemed deadly.
The twins fanned out slightly behind me, taking on the zombies that got past my sword. I didn’t have to worry about the heads, I just swung the blade back and forth with both hands in a hacking pattern, trying to hit zombies and not hit myself when the zombies turned to dust.
The sword wasn’t heavy, but my arms hurt after about a dozen chops that managed to kill four more zombies. They were coming on faster now, a whole horde of them in various states of decay, as though they’d been made at different times. I was too busy trying not to kill myself to pay much attention to the twins or Harper, but not very many zombies were getting past me since I had moved almost up to the doorway now that the burning door was only a smoldering mess.
“Got it,” Harper yelled behind us. Then, “It’s clear, just a hall.”
“Come on, Jade,” Ezee called out.
“They are getting through your webbing,” Levi said, just behind me. “Let’s go.”
I heard a sickening crunching noise as Levi smashed a zombie skull. I dusted another and started backing up. Switching the sword to my right hand, I summoned power, bringing my shield up again and using it to force the zombies back as they spilled through the door. Some stumbled over the corpses of their companions, slowing the others behind them.
We’d killed over a dozen and more were still coming. This wasn’t good.
Levi had a hold on the back of my shirt and was pulling me with him. I let him guide me backward, keeping sword and magical shield up. The webbing had failed after lighting a couple zombies on fire as they shoved through it. Two zombies crawled over their dead companions, wreathed in purple flames. They lit the dead on fire as they went and the smoke was getting thicker, more oily by the minute.
Then I was through the door. I tried to pull it closed with magic behind us, but the zombies were too quick. One slammed into me and only the sword kept me from getting bit as I swung it, dusting my attacker.
“The jar?” I gasped out as I swung the Alpha and Omega across the narrow passage to keep the zombies at bay.
“Harper has it,” Levi said over my shoulder. His hand was still in my teeshirt. “Keep backing up, I’ve got you.”
The stone passage ended in another small room, this one circular. The zombies were pressing down the corridor but the one in front was only recently dead. It must have had some vestige of intelligence left, for it hung back, out of range of my waving sword.
“There’s a ladder,” Harper said.
I put my shield up, ignoring the dizzy feeling that swept in with my magic this time, and risked a glance. There was an old iron ladder above us that disappeared into darkness overhead. The bottom of the ladder was about ten feet up. The smoke was being sucked up whatever passage the ladder ascended, giving me hope there was something other than more stone up there.
“Go,” I said. “I’ll hold them off.” The lead zombie slammed into my shield and the force shoved me back a foot, my boots scraping on the stone. I couldn’t hold this all day. For my friends, I’d certainly try.
“I’ll climb,” Ezee said. He sheathed the sword and jumped the ten feet, catching the ladder with one hand and pulling himself up like it was nothing.
Shifters. I braced my feet as the zombie slammed my shield again. I pushed more power into it, visualizing purple fire on the outside. Slam into that, shit-for-brains, I thought.
It did. Howling resumed.
“There’s a trap door,” Ezee yelled down. His voice echoed a long way. “I see sky,” he yelled a few seconds later.
The ladder lit up as though faint light was hitting it, likely sunlight. I hoped.
“Okay, everyone who can’t fly should climb,” I said though gritted teeth.
“I’ve got the jar,” Harper said. “Sorry about the crowbar.” I heard it clatter to the ground.
“I have more,” Levi said.
The zombies were shoving against my shield in force now, two of them managing to squish into the passage side by side and push. I put another burst of purple fire into the shield, but their weight still pushed me back another foot. Soon I wouldn’t be able to hold the doorway. I was too tired to extend the shield too far from my body. I’m better with offensive magic than defensive.
That gave me an idea. I looked back to make sure everyone was up the ladder. Levi was at the bottom. He’d dropped his machete to cling to the ladder with one hand and was holding the other out for me.
“Come on,” he said.
I shook my head as the zombies shoved me back another foot.
“Climb,” I said. “I can handle myself.”
“What are you going to do?” Levi hesitated, though he pulled his hand back and gripped the next rung.
“Go Khaleesi on these bastards.”
Levi climbed.
I waited, pushing hard against the zombies with my magic. I willed the Alpha and Omega down into a dagger again and shoved it into its sheath. It went without a fight. Apparently my bloodthirsty sword preferred the living to the undead.
As soon as I couldn’t hear the ring of Levi’s shoes on the ladder, I released the shield and threw myself backward toward the ladder. My magic still sang in my blood and I let a little of my dragon out. I couldn’t shift, but fire was my best friend thanks to my dragon blood. Fire was easy. It didn’t matter that I was hurt or exhausted. Fire and I were like peanut butter and chocolate. We belonged together.
I unleashed the fire as the zombies poured into the room. I let the fire fill me and surround me, flames eating my clothing and spiraling out from my skin. My hair came loose and fanned out around me as the flames grew into a whirlwind. I pushed against the floor, riding the wave of flame and heat up into the tunnel above. Below me, the zombies burned and died a true death. A clawed hand almost snagged my leg as I rose. I kicked it, willing even more power into my maelstrom of flame. On the wave of my own personal rocket blast, I shot free of the tunnel in a gout of flames and chunks of burning flesh as bits of zombie were pulled up with me.
The elation died as I slammed back toward the earth, barely catching myself as I curled and rolled on the rocky ground to the side of the passage.
I lay there, breathing fresh air and enjoying the sunlight for a long moment. Then I sat up, taking stock.
My leather belt had survived, protecting parts of my jeans. The Alpha and Omega were fine, as was its magically enhanced sheath. My hiking books had made it, though the tops
of my socks and my laces weren’t in good shape. My teeshirt and bra were toast. Not even a scrap remained. My braid ties were toast as well, but my hair was fine, if tangled in a way only a year of patient work with comb-in conditioner would fix.
I looked up as Ezee slammed the trap door on the tunnel.
“That was impressive,” Levi said.
“Give her your shirt,” Harper said to him and before I could form a word of protest, Levi unbuttoned his shirt and handed it to me.
“Thanks,” I said.
I tugged it on, my arms feeling like my bones had been replaced by lead. The shirt was long enough on me to cover most parts, since my underwear was only intact where the thicker part of my jeans had been. Ezee helped me to my feet.
“At least we got the jar?” Harper said.
I looked at the smoking bits of zombie parts littering the area around the trap door.
“Don’t think they can climb the ladder,” Ezee said.
“What now?” Levi looked at me as I looked about us.
Turning full around, I saw the house. We were about a thousand feet from it. The roof was sagging in the back but otherwise it was hard to tell anything had happened.
“Now we go back to the car and get back to Wylde,” I said, testing my feet by taking a couple steps toward the house. I felt weak as a drunk mouse, but I’d make it.
“What about the jar?” Harper held it up.
“I don’t know yet,” I said, starting toward the house, and the car. “But I have a few choice questions for that damn vampire.”
I’d never heard of a minor warlock that could make a zombie horde. The Archivist had some ‘splaining to do.
“Like, World War Two Nazis?” Rachel murmured as they watched the man in the driveway.
“Yes,” Alek said. “Three brothers, and their father, part of Hitler’s Schutzstaffel. SS-Sonderkommandos, from what they claimed. I had thought it might be them, but Levi said they had no rings. They always wear special rings their father made for them before he died. Cast from gold taken from their victims.”
