by Ty Drago
Parker wouldn’t be coming after us anymore. Not without a new body.
“You okay?” I asked Dave a second time.
“Think so,” he muttered. Then, sounding miserable: “Blew it again.”
“No, you didn’t,” I told him, meaning it. “You just saved my butt.”
But he shook his head, a move that seemed to hurt him, because he groaned. “Tried to … blew it.”
I used my shoulder to push open the dining room door.
It was important to keep the Burgermeister conscious and talking. Head injuries could be scary, and he’d gotten clobbered pretty good. “I liked the Brooklyn accent,” I said.
“Boston!” He blinked. “I told you! It’s a Boston accent!”
“Sure. That’s what I meant. Where are Sharyn and Julie?”
Then, as we staggered into the dining room, I got my answer.
Sharyn and Julie were both there. The Angel Boss had her sword out. Julie huddled behind her, looking small and scared, but holding Sharyn’s crossbow, Aunt Sally, in her tiny hands.
Unfortunately, the second Malite was also there.
I mean right there—buzzing in mid-air about six inches from the end of my nose.
“Crap,” Dave muttered. “That wasn’t in here a second ago …”
Chapter 25
FINE DINING
The girl in the bar had been right; it looked like a pigeon.
Except it was something like twice the size, had four wings that beat so fast they buzzed like a hummingbird’s, and instead of a beak it had a maw filled with tiny spinning drills where its teeth should have been.
As I stood there, dumbfounded by the sight of it, its dark eyes—like doll’s eyes—turned toward me.
Okay, I’m dead.
I knew how fast these things moved. In a second, this twisted monstrosity would come at me like a bullet and burrow its way straight through my forehead.
“Look out!” the Burgermeister cried.
Then he shouldered me aside, throwing one beefy hand up, just as the Malite darted forward.
It cut my friend’s hand off at the wrist.
As I watched in horror, Dave’s hand spun in the air. Then, opening its huge maw, the Pigeon-Thing snapped it up and swallowed it whole.
“No!” I screamed.
“Hot Dog!” Sharon screamed.
“Will!” Julie screamed.
In fact, the only one who didn’t scream was the Burgermeister, who stared at the empty space where his right hand had been with a kind of foggy astonishment. Blood gushed from the stump, almost hitting the ceiling.
For its part, the Malite buzzed in a tight circle around the boy. After all, it wasn’t really after him.
“Red!” Sharyn cried. “Run!”
But standing there, gaping at my maimed friend as the horror of what had happened to him sunk in, I realized something.
I was done running.
So, as the Pigeon from Hell came for me, I made a move that will probably seem a little—well—stupid.
I grabbed it.
You need to understand that I had two things going for me. First, the Malite hadn’t had time to really come up to full velocity. If it had, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. But, as it was, I clocked its speed as about as fast as a tossed baseball.
Second, I was seriously pissed.
I can be really quick when I’m seriously pissed.
So, as it made a literal beeline for my face, I sidestepped and snatched it out of the air, wrapping one hand around its hard, quad-winged body.
It was strong. Stronger than I would have thought, given its size. Making a sound like a boiling teapot, it struggled wildly in my grasp, at one point nearly pulling me off my feet.
“Help Dave!” I exclaimed to the others. “Now!”
Then the Pigeon from Hell did pull me off my feet.
Its wings, only one of which I’d managed to trap inside my fist, beat furiously at the air, managing to yank me off balance. I slammed against one of the nearby dining tables, knocking over two chairs, before sprawling painfully across the tablecloth and place settings.
Still, I held onto that disgusting creature like grim death—because grim death was exactly what waited for me if I let go.
It twisted and writhed, trying to reach me with those insane drill teeth. But the young Malum had picked a form that was big on offense but bad on defense. It couldn’t reach me.
As I fought with it, trying to right myself, I saw Sharyn out of the corner of my eye. She was at the Burgermeister’s side, and spoke soothingly as she wrapped the stump of his right wrist with a cloth napkin, twisting its corners tight around a spoon, both of which she’d filched from another tabletop.
A tourniquet.
Feeling the Malite’s struggles increase, I gave up trying to stand and instead rolled purposefully across the table and crashed to the floor, making sure to land on top of the creature. I tried to get my other hand on it, but its drill-like teeth dug savagely into the skin of my palm. I yelled and pulled back.
Then, looking around frantically for something that would answer the nagging question of “Okay, now what do I do?” I spotted Julie.
Helene’s little sister huddled nearby, gaping in mute terror at all the blood and chaos, Aunt Sally still balanced in her small hands.
“Julie!” I called.
At the sound of her name, a little bit of awareness seemed to return to her eyes.
“Julie!” I repeated. “Come here! Quick!”
And the girl came—slowly, fearfully—but she came.
I was on my knees now, holding down the creature in my fist with every ounce of my fading strength. “Listen to me,” I told the girl. “I want you to point Aunt Sally at the monster.”
“I … can’t …” She sounded frightened almost beyond reason. And how could I blame her? This morning she’d woken up in her own bed, in her own home, with her own mom there to make her breakfast. Now, just half-a-day later, the world she thought she’d always known had become a realm of walking dead people and flying monsters. Up until now, she’d held things together beautifully. But even this girl’s courage had its limits.
“You can,” I told her, gritting my teeth as the Malite managed to slice off a piece of skin between my thumb and forefinger. “Just point the tip down. It’s easy.”
She nodded. But she didn’t move.
“Julie. I know you’re scared. But I need you to do this!”
She nodded again. Then, at last, the business end of the crossbow focused down at the creature in my grasp.
“I … can’t hit it,” the girl wailed. “Your hand—”
“Julie,” I said, slowly and deliberately, “I want you to shoot through my hand.”
“What? No!”
“It’ll be okay!” I told her, yelping as the drill teeth slashed me a second time. Blood was starting to fill my palm, making it harder to keep a firm grip. In a second, this thing would be free again—and seconds after that, we’d both be dead. “I’ll be fine. We have something at Haven that can fix it.”
I tried not to think about Dave. Could the Anchor Shard, for all its miraculous healing ability, replace a missing hand?
“No,” she said again.
“Julie,” I pleaded. “If you don’t do it now, this thing is going to kill us both!” Then, after a moment’s pause, I added, “Then you’ll never see Helene!”
Something in her heart-shaped face changed. Hardened.
She took aim with the crossbow.
And fired.
The Ritterbolt slammed into the back of my hand. Pain, like lightning, lanced up my arm and into my shoulder, almost blinding me. But, as I’d hoped, the power behind the short-range shot was enough to drive the syringe all the way through and into the body of the Malite.
I felt more than saw the plunger plunge.
I heard myself say, through gritted teeth, “Pop goes the weasel.”<
br />
Then the thing in my fist exploded.
More pain, like a hundred simultaneous needle pricks.
With a final cry, I fell back onto my butt, clutching at my wrist and staring at the ruin that used to be my right palm. Bone fragments, leftovers from the Malite’s destruction, had turned the skin to bloody shreds.
But at least my hand was still there.
“It’s okay,” Sharyn said. “It’s gonna be okay.”
It took me a couple of seconds to realize she wasn’t talking to me.
Dave lay on his side in a puddle of his own blood. He was vampire pale, and his breath came in deep, painful heaves.
Kneeling over him, Sharyn’s panicked eyes found mine. “We gotta get him to Haven!” If she’d noticed my own situation—which wasn’t good—she gave no sign.
I understood.
Dave was her Hot Dog, after all.
I tried to get up and flopped back down. I tried to get up again and flopped back down again. Finally, Julie got herself under my good arm and, together, we managed to find my feet.
The room swayed.
It’s mostly shock. You’re hurt, but you haven’t lost all that much blood. You gotta keep it together for Dave’s sake.
“Sat phone?” I asked Sharyn.
She nodded and tossed it to Julie, who handed it to me. It was my fourth phone of the day and I could only hope it would last longer than the others had. With a sigh, I opened it and, using my left hand, clumsily pressed the number for Haven.
That’s when the dead chef with the white mushroom hat came crashing through the kitchen door.
Sure, I remember thinking. Why not?
Chapter 26
CLASH OF THE TITANS
Some days kick your ass.
One thing after another. Bang. Bang. Bang. And no matter how many times you tell yourself the worst is over—it’s not.
I’d trashed Parker’s old body, the one with the useless arm and the bum leg. So he’d done what Corpses always do: he’d jumped into the nearest available cadaver. And, in my worry over Dave and my eagerness to find Sharyn and Julie, I’d missed the danger.
I stared down the new Parker, gripped by this weird sense of calm. I mean, the day had been a long series of near-death experiences, culminating with me here, in this spot, and him there, in that spot.
Enough.
Win or lose, this was ending now.
I only wished my hand didn’t feel like I’d stuck it into a garbage disposal.
Not that Parker looked any better. The chef’s lower jaw was completely missing. That left just the top half of his face along with an awful black tongue, which flipped and flopped this way and that, hanging down almost to the dead dude’s neck.
Yet he glared at me with eyes still fresh enough to almost look alive.
Then he raised both his arms, his hands like claws.
Sharyn, who’d still been crouching at Dave’s side, jumped to her feet, drawing Vader from its sheath on her back with a single, smooth, lightning-quick movement.
Yet, quick as she was, the Special proved quicker.
Ducking her sword slash, he savagely backhanded her with the speed and force of a Major League batter. Vader flew from Sharyn’s grasp, burying itself halfway in the drywall near a big silver coffee urn. The Angel Boss crashed down hard, landing beside the unconscious Burgermeister.
Julie grabbed my good hand and pulled frantically. “We gotta run!”
“You run,” I told her. “I’m done with that.”
Parker’s grotesque head turned my way. His face did something that might have been a smile—but try smiling when your chin and lower teeth are gone.
“Will—”
“Go!” I told her.
She went, but only as far as the foyer archway. There she stopped, looking back at me in helpless horror.
The deader didn’t come at me fast. He seemed to sense that I wasn’t going anywhere.
Have. Orders. To. Kill. You. Boy.
This was said in Deadspeak, not English, since Deadspeak is more about telepathy and doesn’t require—well—a mouth.
I pulled out my pocketknife and popped its Taser.
Was I being brave? Even now, I’m not sure. I’d been running all day and I was tired of it. Malum and their offspring, they’re evil. Homicidal, pitiless, and thoroughly savage. And you know what? Sooner or later, you have to stand up to evil. Then, you have to take what comes next, comforted maybe in the knowledge that, live or die, at least you stood up.
Or maybe I’m just stupid.
Your call.
He came within five feet. Four feet.
I didn’t wait for the attack, I lunged with the Taser. Problem One: the Taser was in my left hand, since my right one was in no position to be holding anything. Problem Two: he saw it coming; he saw it coming from like a mile away.
Seizing my wrist, he pulled me close to the ruin of what he probably still considered a face. He tried to speak. Corpse smack talk, probably. But all he did was wheeze, his long black tongue twisting like a dying eel in the space where his jaw used to be.
Then he squeezed my hand—hard.
I yelled and dropped the pocketknife.
He threw me into a table. I actually heard my head connect with the edge of it. For a few seconds, flashes of light danced in front of my eyes. Then it was like a shroud had been draped over me.
Everything went black.
I’m not sure if I actually passed out or if I just kind of fell into a fog of disorienting pain. Either way, the next thing I knew I lay sprawled on the carpet, while the deader turned his attention on Julie.
“Your. Turn. Girl.”
I tried to move. I really did. But my body wasn’t going for it. Blearily, I could see my pocketknife about five feet away. Close, though right now it might as well have been on the moon.
Me down. Sharyn down. Dave hardcore down. I supposed that I’d been in deeper trouble than this since becoming an Undertaker; I was just having a hard time remembering when.
I focused on Julie. She remained in the foyer archway, her attention seemingly fixed on something off to one side, something that I could see. She looked so small and helpless. Aunt Sally was still in her hands. But she’d fired its bolt already, and it would require a reload before it would be of any use.
“Run!” I groaned.
But she didn’t. Instead, trembling, she turned toward the dining room. Toward me. Toward Parker. Maybe the sight of his hideous form had frozen her, like an animal in traffic. Or maybe she was simply too brave for her own good and wouldn’t abandon us. Either way, she was going to die now, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
As he had with me, Parker took his time, savoring the kill. He approached until he came within two feet of her, until his twisted, grotesque body loomed over the girl. Then he paused and did that thing with his upper lip again—the thing that kind of looked like smiling.
That’s when Julie did a funny thing, too.
She smiled back.
Then she said, “Now.”
The floor at Parker’s feet exploded upward. Two pale hands emerged, seized the Corpse’s ankles, and pulled him straight down.
For a moment, the dining room filled with the sounds of splintered wood as the Special disappeared through the floor. Then everything went quiet.
Julie hadn’t moved. Her eyes met mine. There was still fear there, and concern—mostly for me. But there was something else there, too. Something new.
Triumph.
The girl is an Undertaker.
That’s when the Zombie Prince came flying out through the jagged hole in the floor between us, the imprint of one of Parker’s boots on his cyclist’s forehead.
Dillin landed hard enough to flatten one of the tables, but immediately jumped to his feet with all the speed and poise of a jungle cat. And good thing too, because an instant later Parker followed him, emerging through the ga
p in the floor like a demon from the Pit.
The two Corpses faced off with maybe a dozen feet between them.
Oreth Oreg! Parker said in Deadspeak, his tongue twitching and bobbing, as if he were trying to repeat the word in English.
“Whatever,” Dillin replied.
Parker lunged, his big hands like claws.
Then it was the Zombie Prince’s turn to do a strange thing.
He tossed me something.
It landed on the floor about three feet from where I lay.
An instant later, the Special grabbed the Royal and hurled him the length of the room. Dillin hit the wall beside the kitchen door so hard that the floor shook. That kind of blow would have killed a living man.
But he wasn’t a living man.
Parker closed on him again, muttering in Deadspeak.
Destroy. You.
This time, the Zombie Prince replied, “Calabash!”
As smack talk went, it sucked. Yet the word was vaguely familiar and, my instincts told me, really really important.
This time, as Parker neared, Dillin dodged to his right, sidestepping the Special before pivoting and body-slamming him. Parker toppled over, crashing against one of the tables. He landed hard, splintering the wood, before rolling and regaining his feet.
Dillin said, “Glutinous.”
Another vaguely familiar word, though between my pounding head and throbbing right hand, I couldn’t manage the brain power to remember why.
Meanwhile, Parker shoved the Royal hard against another table, before scooping up a chair and smashing it over the principal’s head, reducing the hard wood to splinters.
Dillin dropped to his knees.
But then he came back up—fast.
The principal’s fist would have nailed Parker in the chin, if he still had one. Instead, it slammed into the roof of his mouth, smashing that bizarre, floppy tongue of his to pulp and driving the Special off his feet. He flipped head over heels before hitting the carpet, almost right on top of me.
For scant seconds, his half-face was inches from mine.
