Death 07 - For the Love of Death

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

I cock my eyebrow. “Really?” I fiddle with the lid of my lighter, clicking it back and forth. Nervous energy. I can tell myself a lot of bullshit reasoning, but the truth is I’m spoiling for a fight. I’m just wired that way.

  She nods.

  “Did ya like it?” I ask.

  Caleb says yes and Jade says no.

  “Maybe a little work on fire finessing, son,” Kyle comments thoughtfully. “Our gooses were just about cooked.”

  “He was trying, honey,” Ali says.

  I chuckle then sigh. “We’re getting off topic from securing the fortress.”

  “Don’t you have measures in play already, Mac?” Archer asks.

  Our eyes meet. Dapper dresser, gayer than a fruitcake burglar gives me the stare I hope never to see on someone—uncertainty. Archer’s a good sort.

  “Actually, I have more offensive security. I like to know when someone is gaining entry. Rather than bombing everything.”

  “That’s such a lie, Mac,” Tiff says.

  Maybe I like her better drunk.

  I look down at my newest burning cig.

  Ah—damn. “I only have a few land mines left,” I admit reluctantly.

  “Holy shit? Really?” Jonesy shrieks.

  “Yeah,” I say, palming my flat top.

  “That's a little more than offensive, Mac,” Archer comments in a dry voice. I shoot him a disgusted look. ʼCuz he's right.

  He grins back.

  Punk.

  His smile widens.

  I touch on an idea so inappropriate and brilliant I mention it out of hand, stabbing my cig out and standing as I do. “What if Deedie raises all the nut bunnies from the psych ward?”

  “Nut bunnies, Pop?” Ali caws.

  My old ass tenses with the exciting potential of it all. I love living. Not just existing but taking the bull by the horns.

  Caleb says, “Hasn’t she been through enough, Gramps?”

  I shake my head, waving the sentiment away as I spare a loving glance for my great-granddaughter. Or a glance that passes for one.

  Deedie’s made of sterner stuff.

  She lays a watery smile full of trust on me.

  I’ve earned it. I’d go to the ground for my blood.

  Caleb vigorously denies with a swivel of the head, and I see the ghost of the teen he was. “Nah. This is the deal: they’ll take our girl because she can manipulate space, maybe time. Hell, who knows what a talent like that can do?”

  “It's not talent,” Deedie whispers.

  “Oh baby, don’t feel bad.” Sophie wraps her arms around her. She tosses me a glare, and I give her steady eyes back.

  “Yeah,” Jonesy pipes in, “it’s hot to be the only one to do something.”

  Mitch hisses at Jones, and I laugh.

  “Damn, what’s with this guy?”

  Pax smirks. “He’ll be going back to bot land soon, won’t ya?”

  Mitch gently disengages Deedie from Sophie, sweeping her hair behind her ear. “Will I?” He cups her chin, tilting her face to his.

  No way will this guy bow out on Deedie. His presence is trouble, and I’m not borrowing the worry for right now. He’s a meat shield for Deedie. That works.

  I tell him so.

  “No, Gramps,” Deedie says, aghast at my straight speak. She sets her jaw stubbornly, reminding me so much of Ali when she was young it’s painful.

  I sigh, scrubbing my scalp. “He’s a zombie, Deedie. He’s yours. He protects you—period.”

  “Ask him, Dee. Ask Mitch. He knows what he is to you. They all know.” Pax turns to Clyde. “Clyde excepted.”

  Clyde adds, “I still fill that role. I would wrench the limbs asunder of any who touched my master or his kin. I cannot take what I am out of what I’ve become.”

  I stretch hard, reaching for the ceiling.

  Deedie turns to the zombie she raised, grasping his meat hook arms, one hand covering his tats. Her eyes frantically search his face. “Is it true? Are you just protecting me because I called you?”

  Mitch stares, those dark blue peepers full of knowledge. He looks as alive as anyone in the room does. His eyes find mine then Pax’s.

  Deedie is too naïve to determine when someone is lying.

  Mitch gathers himself as he lies to protect her. “Yes,” he says, and her hands drop. She backs away.

  Clyde nods at me. A necessary evil.

  Lover boy Mitch needs to go away, make a clean break once this little debacle plays out.

  Deedie turns away from him, covering her face with her hands, and she sobs as if her heart is breaking. Jade folds her arms around her.

  Our gazes collide over Deedie's head. He was a helluva young man when he was alive, I’d bet. He’s not too bad dead, either.

  He lies to save her from knowing.

  That zombies love.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Pax

  I’ve practiced before, but never with this many. Or this powerful.

  Tiff is at my left and Dad my right.

  My hands are on Dee’s shoulders as she stands in front of me, and I gaze toward Gramps’ gate. Tiff and Dad each have a hold of my belt loops.

  “I don’t like this, Caleb. Nobody can control Deegan’s zombies but her,” Mom says.

  Solid.

  “Jade,” Gramps says, “we agreed to let Deedie release the psychos from the institution. That’ll keep all the Randoms busy playing grab-ass.”

  I smirk, thinking about everyone without hands, their appendages floating God knows where Dee shot them to.

  It sounds so reasonable, using the dead from the insane asylum. Until you factor in the part about the wackos being criminally insane.

  Mom rolls her lip into her teeth, obviously having a fret attack. “She’s just seventeen.”

  “Tomorrow,” I correct.

  Birthdays are the shit in our house, national holiday time. I could no sooner forget Dee is turning seventeen tomorrow than the fact I’m a guy.

  Mitch turns to Dee, and she blushes. What’s that about?

  It's the first look she's given him since his revelation about obligation versus emotion.

  Dude came through on making Dee believe he’s just following orders.

  I know guys and he’s gone on her, but Dee doesn’t see. Thank everything that’s holy. I guess I have to give Mitch the nod there. He must really care about Dee to lie. And leave her. Unheard of for a zombie. They’re an effing devoted group.

  Mitch is a murderer, too. Even if the killings were justifiable, having someone as violent and musclebound hanging with my sister makes me nervous as hell.

  I look back to the gate, my every nerve ending open and raw. The air’s heavy around me. The hands linking to me are full of death.

  It’s time.

  The energy swirls through the four of us, and I use it to call whatever is dead. My sister’s unique signature moves in the direction we gave her.

  The psych institution’s been closed down forever. Cruelty to patients or some shit. Worked out for the corrupt staff that there’s a cemetery on the property.

  I can only imagine all the stuff they hid.

  It’ll work for us now.

  I feel Dee seeking, coaxing them out of their graves.

  I sigh when they rise, moving in our direction.

  “Hurry,” Gramps says.

  “Security breach,” Archer adds, hooking his mind-to-pulse frequency to the code Gramps gave him.

  I center myself like Dad taught me, giving him a sideways look.

  He nods, and his power seamlessly clicks with mine.

  We focus together as we did when I was young and he spent hours training me. Teaching me control, finesse, stealth.

  Like a living thing, death seeks.

  Finds.

  Hundreds of answering pings tap the net of our death energy as it descends like a huge spider web on the radius we control, several kilometers out, with the combination of Dad and Tiff it's even further.

  “There goes the
driveway!” Jonesy chortles, and Bry skips off fissures as they appear, running in all directions like shattered glass.

  Gramps groans at the destruction of his perfect cement, and I chuckle.

  Tiff moans in relief as we use our talent. Letting it out always feels good, like a release.

  The Skopamish rise like the totem poles of legend. Erect, regal.

  Ready.

  A huge battering ram sends the solid wood gate flying into splinters, scattering the length of the cracking driveway.

  “That’ll be such a GD hassle to get repaired,” Gramps laments.

  His voice comes to me distantly, as if through water. When I burst the bubble of my power further, it hits a wall.

  Nulls.

  Dad flexes harder, a rubber band strung taut with a target, and I suck from Tiff’s energy in an epic scoop-out.

  “Hurts, Pax,” she says.

  I even out the siphon.

  “Paxton,” Uncle John warns.

  “Sick ’em, John,” I say.

  John steps away from his wife, moving into the charge of Randoms who come through the gate.

  My power ripples. I punch through the hole John makes in the other Nullsʼ negation of our combined power.

  I can feel Dee’s heat. I know when the insane draw nearer.

  I feel their minds and cringe.

  Dee doesn’t. What they raise never bothers the raiser.

  The first landmine explodes. Chunks of cement like little missiles come straight at us then disappear.

  A leg lands with a bloody thunk at a Skopamish’s feet. He kicks it out of the way as his tomahawk clears its holder.

  “Dee,” I whisper.

  “It’s okay, Pax,” she says. “It’s just concrete.”

  “Don’t kill them. You might not survive.”

  Emotionally, sis.

  “They don't die.”

  I waste a look at her. Deep liquid blue eyes meet mine over her shoulder.

  Don't.

  “Can't stop,” she replies aloud.

  My eyes widen.

  “They have someone…”

  I look into the growing crowd.

  SPs show pulse-activated flamethrowers at the ready. Contraband flamethrowers, of course.

  Fuck.

  Mitch growls beside us.

  That guy.

  “They’re coming.” Dee’s tone gets my full attention.

  Scared.

  Mitch glances at her. Worry etches his face.

  The insane roll through the gate, flanking the Randoms and SPs.

  “Did you tell them?” I ask.

  Dad gives me a sharp look. Just following through, I look back at him.

  Mitch moves in front of Dee, blocking my view. The dick.

  It’s okay, Dee—I got this.

  I’m scared.

  I turn her around. “You’re scared of who?” I ask, my fingertips biting into her shoulders.

  “Them,” she says.

  The insane zombies.

  I shake my head, puzzling her words out. “They’re yours.”

  She shakes her head in return. “No—I don’t think so.”

  What?

  Whose are they then?

  Our gazes lock, minds tethering hard.

  Their own.

  “Tell me that isn’t true!” I shake her a little. We can’t contain these guys? My eyes search hers.

  “What’s going on?” Dad asks, sweat staining his shirt’s armpits, waistband and rolling down his temples.

  Tiff flicks a glance my way. “We coming apart, bud?”

  I can't answer. I do anyway. “Maybe.”

  “Gawd, terrific.” Tiff pops a bubble.

  The Skopamish move in. The power of the Nulls wash over us, three—no four Nulls.

  It's too much, even with John countering.

  Uncle John turns, shaking his head.

  Great.

  He backs up, his large body standing guard in front of his wife.

  “I can't see, goofball,” she squeaks behind him.

  “Sorry, I'm staying put, tiger.”

  The criminally insane are armed. They come at the Randoms with a variety of illegal weapons.

  Shanks and broom handles sharpened to spear points. Chains and barbed wire stand naked in every hand.

  The eyes are all the same. Crazy as loons, evil as the devil.

  “God—Dee,” I say.

  “I know,” she agrees, voice shaky.

  Every eye is on her.

  “Protect,” she whispers.

  They move in, and the slaughter of the Randoms and SPs begin.

  *

  It's not the fire that's dangerous, but the smoke; the horrible smell of dead flesh melting away.

  Scalps litter the torn wounds of the driveway, some stuck between the gaps like raw meat caught in teeth of cement.

  It's gruesome even by AFTD standards.

  A flame flickers from an empty thrower. The SP tosses the useless weapon and two nutjobs land on him. One twirls a strand of barb wire around the guy's neck, jerking him straight up while his buddy shanks him in the gut.

  They drop him to let him bleed out, smoothly moving on.

  Their stares find my sister as the dead criminals mow through the Randoms.

  Some splatter against the concrete as clever telekinetics get after them. A few explode heads like pumpkins.

  They all advance toward us.

  “Mitch,” I say.

  He’s already in front of Dee.

  Good boy. Stay, roll over, play dead.

  Ten meters.

  Too many Randoms and SPs.

  Adrenaline surges in a breath-stealing tide.

  Five.

  I tense. Plenty of the crazy dead.

  Two.

  Mitch and I sandwich Dee, and I check out the parents. Clyde covers them.

  I turn back to the front line and swing my mouth open in relief and shock.

  Jeff Parker breezes through the wreckage with a wave. He appears like a mirage through the smoke and wreckage, stepping over the bodies and gore as if skipping through tulips.

  Thank God, the cavalry’s arrived.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Caleb

  I don’t try to hide my relief when I see Parker. He’s the thing we need to tip the balance and get out of this tight jam.

  The dead turn to him with an expression of awe.

  Deegan’s dead ignore him.

  The Skopamish back away as the remaining Randoms move in for the kill.

  Two telekinetics uproot twenty-year-old cherry trees in the height of their growing season and chase him with the root balls. Parker hiccups in my mind, and the banshee wail of six tribesmen lands on the Randoms. The Indians unceremoniously ride rare paranormals to the ground, forearms bracing against throats in a maneuver to pin.

  Eyes bulge as scalps tear off their heads. I cringe a little with the Skopamish’s enthusiasm but don’t have time for introspective bullshit.

  I wonder where Nevaeh is. Parker's wife is usually where he is.

  “What the hell is going on?” Jeffrey ducks his head as a body part flies overhead. “You sent out a wave of energy felt round the world!”

  Probably. “Dee’s been outed for her ability, and now the world is coming.”

  Jeff looks at me oddly, and I briefly wonder why, as he’s known for some time about the black hole nightmare. Hell, how many times had I phoned him during the witching hour to run shit by him?

  He’d had a barrel of monkeys with his own twin girls. He definitely felt my pain.

  “Right, right.” He snaps his fingers as though suddenly remembering.

  We stare out over the bodies and the fighting.

  I shift my gaze to Deegan. “Can you—would you get her somewhere safe? This is only the beginning. They’ll get to her through us. But you have places, safe houses…”

  Jeff, still looking fit for almost fifty, holds his hands up. Of course, he might be rejuvenating already if he
is receptive.

  Another mine explodes, and we instantly sink to a crouch.

  It puts Parker and me uncomfortably close. He grabs my shoulder. “Whatever you need, you know I’d do anything for the kids.”

  I nod. I know it.

  “Deegan,” I say quietly.

  My stomach lurches as more SPs flow through Grampsʼ gate.

  “Damn, damn, double-damn,” Gramps mutters behind me.

  “Not now, Daddy,” she says all in the zone.

  Brother.

  “Honey, you need to go with Jeff—he'll take you somewhere safe.”

  Jeff smiles at her.

  “I don't want to go.”

  Mitch gives Parker a hard look. Parker stares back.

  “Wow, not good. Zero control,” Parker says, eyeing Mitch head to toe.

  “Yeah, weird, isn’t it?”

  Jeff gives a slow nod.

  Zombie rebels, bad news.

  A shotgun blast booms over our heads, and an SP that’s tearing at Sophie goes bye-bye.

  “Still an American, chaps!” Gramps bellows from the background. “You're on my property and have been warned! Due diligence, suckers!”

  I look at the convulsing SP on the ground.

  The warning’s pretty fair.

  I turn back to Parker, and his lips twitch.

  “Okay, I’ll get Deegan out of here, and you clean up the rest of the mess.”

  “No! Dad!”

  “Deegan, go with Jeff. He or Nevaeh will get a hold of us when you land somewhere safe.”

  Parker cocks a brow. I dismiss his hesitation when Deegan melts down.

  “No—what about Mitch? He'll die without me.”

  I look at Mitch and he stares back.

  “He is dead, sweetheart.”

  Another bomb goes off. I grab her shoulders and give a solid shake. “Let me protect you Deegan!”

  Deegan glances at Pax and Jade, her lip quivering.

  “Now go.”

  Deegan sighs, the insane following her movements like birds of prey.

  “What about them?” Parker asks, his hand on her elbow.

  Yeah, the undead ward.

  “I don't know.”

  “Good call, Hart,” Parker quips.

  I scowl at him, rolling my eyes. “It's what I could do.”

  Mitch steps forward, eyes only for Deegan. Then they shift to Parker. “You trust him?”

  “Dad trusts him. He’s been around forever.”