by J. C. Diem
“That’s a clever idea,” Kala said with genuine admiration for his tech skills.
“I thought so,” he replied with something close to a smirk.
We’d stopped for lunch a few hours ago, but I was already hungry again. It was a little early for dinner when we returned to the compound, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I cooked one of my favorite dishes, spaghetti bolognaise, and made sure there was enough for everyone.
“This is good,” Flynn said in approval. It wasn’t the first time I’d made the dish, but he always seemed surprised that my cooking was edible.
“It’s much better than Kala’s attempt at a cake,” Reece joked.
I bit my bottom lip to contain my laugh at her splutter of outrage and made the mistake of glancing across the table at him. He wore a rare grin that made him seem young and carefree.
Kala elbowed me in the side and I realized I’d been staring. “I’d like to see you try to bake a cake,” she grumbled. “I bet it turns out worse than mine.”
“You’re on,” he said, accepting her challenge.
Flynn immediately grinned. “Mark’s birthday is coming up soon, so you’ll get your chance to dazzle us with your culinary skills.”
All eyes shifted to Mark, who’d gone very still. “Sounds like a plan,” he said with a weak smile. His expression hinted that he thought Reece would have as little success at cake making as Kala had.
“I’m sure Lexi will be happy to help you out,” the blonde said sweetly then scowled when I stomped on her foot.
“I wouldn’t want to put her out,” he said curtly, concentrating on his meal rather than on me.
₪₪₪
Chapter Ten
After dinner, Mark retreated to the coms room to hack into the cameras that surrounded the cemeteries. I tagged along to watch while he stood at the computer table. He only used two fingers to type, but he still managed to enter the commands quickly.
Monitors lined the walls on two sides of the table. They came to life and images appeared one by one as he took control of the CCTV camera feeds. Each of the graveyards came into view. Most of the entrances were covered, but there was always a chance that the Zombie King could sneak in through a side gate where we couldn’t see him.
Mark entered a final command into the computer then stood back to watch his handiwork. “I’ve just set up a command that will alert us if movement is detected on any of the cameras,” he explained.
“I guess we just have to wait for him to show up now,” I said.
Keeping his attention on the screens, he nodded. “It can be quite tedious waiting for the bad guys to strike.” He flicked a glance at me to see that I was far from excited by the prospect of watching the screens for what might turn out to be several hours before anything happened. “I had a laptop delivered to the compound while we were busy searching the cemeteries. You can use it to search through the PIA archives, if you like.” That news immediately perked me up. “Some files are restricted and you won’t be able to open them, but you’ll find plenty of interesting information that might come in handy.”
He nodded towards the coffee table behind me and I turned to see a shiny silver laptop sitting there in plain sight. I was chagrined that I hadn’t even noticed it. So much for my observation skills.
Striding over, I picked it up and grinned. “Thanks, boss,” I said. It felt strange calling him that, but I was sure I’d get used to it soon enough.
“Make sure you don’t spend all night trawling through the files,” he called after me as I headed for my room. “I want you to get a decent night’s sleep.”
“Whatever you say, Mom,” I called back and was pretty sure he chuckled.
Pushing open my bedroom door, I closed then locked it before heading for my bed. I piled pillows behind my back then switched the computer on. I spent a few minutes familiarizing myself with the programs then clicked on a folder that had been named ‘Archives’. Thousands of files appeared. It would take me months, if not years, to read through them all and I didn’t know where to start. I decided that starting at the beginning would make the most sense. It helped that the files were listed both chronologically and also by topic.
The first file contained scanned copies of handwritten pages that had been taken from an ancient notebook. The book must have been several hundred years old, judging by the archaic style of writing. I was pretty sure it was written in Latin. A handy modern translation had been added beneath each page.
Reading through the documents, I became lost in a tale of demon possession in England from over four hundred years ago. A priest had been called on to try to save a teenage girl after her personality had undergone a wild transformation. She’d gone from being a demure, well behaved young lady to a depraved, evil horror.
The priest’s description of the spirit that had taken over the girl’s young body was chilling. He’d been quite the artist and several drawings were included in the file. One was of a pretty girl that looked just a few years younger than me. She was sleeping peacefully with her hand curled beside her face and her long, dark hair spread out around her.
In the next picture, her eyes were wild and her face was a rictus of evil. The third drawing was enough to give me nightmares. The child was gone and a hideous demon had taken her place. Larger than a man, he towered over a group of cowering people. Large, leathery wings sprouted from his back and horns rose from his forehead. His tongue was forked and his pupils were vertically slit, like a goat. He was naked, fully aroused and had an appendage large enough to cause a woman permanent damage. Cloven feet finished off his hideous visage.
I read through the account of how the priest had banished the demon through a combination of prayer, holy water and religious artifacts. His faith in God had been his strongest weapon and he’d finally driven the spirit back to the fiery realm where he belonged.
The priest had been the first member of an organization that had eventually blossomed into the current Paranormal Investigation Agency. He’d recruited other men and women who’d come into contact with supernatural beings and had lived to tell the tale. They’d carried on his work after he’d died. Once America had become more populated, the organization had quickly spread here as well. Monsters existed everywhere and the PIA had branches all over the world.
It was past my usual bedtime by the time I finished reading the account of demon possession. Sleep was going to be hard to come by after reading that account of horror. The demon had been summoned by the girl’s mother for reasons unknown to the priest. She’d used her daughter as both a sacrifice and a conduit for the demon to become corporeal. The poor kid had been torn apart during the process.
The mother had underestimated the power of the creature that she’d summoned and she’d quickly lost control of him. His first act of free will had been to kill her. The demon hadn’t stopped at just destroying her. He’d ended up raping and killing several other people in her small village before the priest had finally cornered and then banished him.
Readying myself for bed, I couldn’t get the image of the demon out of my mind. Switching off the light didn’t plunge the room into darkness for me anymore. My night sight was now good enough to light up the room in a soft glow. I wasn’t sure I’d want to be in a completely dark room with the images that were implanted in my head.
I climbed between the sheets, closed my eyes and they immediately sprang open again when I saw the snarling face of the demon behind my eyelids. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to read through the old files just before I went to bed.
Gradually, the image faded and so did my fright. Just before I slipped off to sleep I realized that Reece was sending me calming thoughts. My agitation had been keeping him awake as well.
I slept through the night, which meant the bokor hadn’t attempted to raise a fresh batch of zombies. If he had, we’d have been roused out of our beds and driven back to New Orleans.
Mark beckoned me over to the table when I headed downstairs for
breakfast. He was kind enough to wait for me to grab a bowl of cereal before speaking.
“Now that you’re a permanent member of the team, I want to make sure you receive enough training to keep you safe from the things that we hunt.”
I’d been expecting this talk and I was tentatively excited by the prospect of learning more skills. “What sort of training do you have in mind?”
“Obviously, you won’t require any tutelage when it comes to guns.” We shared a smile at that. “I’d like you to learn how to use a variety of other weapons and hand to hand combat techniques. You might be strong and fast, but there are creatures out there that are even more dangerous than shifters.” His expression turned grave as he presumably remembered something that he and his team had encountered before I’d come along. “Agents Walker, Bailey and Garrett all have their own unique skills. I’d like you to spend at least eight hours every day training with them until you’re up to speed.”
Nodding in agreement, I squelched my unhappiness at being teamed up with Reece. He’d probably feel just as uncomfortable to be in close proximity with me during our training sessions.
He saw through my false calm to the root of my problem. “You’re much stronger than a normal teenager now,” he said. “Garrett will be the best person to assist you to learn control so you don’t accidentally hurt any humans.”
Kala had ambled into the kitchen during our conversation and she joined us carrying a mug of coffee. “It’s about time we had another female on the team. It’ll be fun to teach you how to fight with knives, stakes and other types of weapons as well as hand to hand combat.”
Her enthusiasm was infectious and I grinned. I’d always been interested in martial arts, but I’d never stayed in one place long enough to bother taking any classes.
“Yeah,” Flynn agreed dourly. “It’s fun right up until you get a knife in the face.” He sent a wry look at Kala as he took the seat across from her with a brimming bowl of cereal.
“Sheesh,” she complained. “That happened two years ago! You have to let it go and move on.”
“You almost took my eye out!”
She waved her hand carelessly. “I motivated you to move faster, didn’t I?”
“Are they always like this?” I asked Mark as the pair continued to squabble.
“Yes,” Reece said as he descended to the bottom of the stairs. “They’re worse than children.” He had dark circles beneath his eyes and I knew I was the cause of his unrest.
“I’m older than you, Rex,” Kala reminded him and his nose wrinkled at the hated nickname.
“Only physically,” he countered smoothly. “Mentally, I’d say you’re about fifteen.”
“I’m fifteen?” she said and bounded to her feet in outrage. “At least I’m not pining away for…”
She trailed off when I pushed my chair back and stood. I wasn’t sure why I’d been drawn into their argument, but she’d just crossed the line pointing out my hopeless crush. “I’m going to my room to read for a while,” I said to Mark dully. He sent me a sympathetic glance then glared at Kala.
“Lexi, I didn’t mean…” she reached for me but I dodged away from her and walked over to the stairs. Climbing the stairs fast enough to make myself dizzy, I strode down the hall and into my room. I locked the door to keep out any unwanted intruders then leaned back against it and forced my tears away. She was right, which was why her jibe had hurt so much. I was acting like a lovesick little girl and it was time for me to grow up.
The bond told me that Reece was furious with Kala. His rage beat in my temples, bringing me to the verge of a headache. Little by little, I pushed his emotions away until I was alone in my head again. Feeling calmer now, I settled onto the bed and opened the laptop to begin reading the next file in the PIA archives.
Flynn was the only one downstairs when I stopped to take a break for lunch. He was making coffee and lifted an empty mug in silent enquiry.
“I’d love one,” I said in answer to his unspoken question.
“How are you feeling?” he asked when he filled my mug and pushed it across the counter to me.
I shrugged and spooned one sugar into the mixture. “I’m okay. A little embarrassed, but otherwise fine.”
“You do know that Kala wasn’t talking about you, right?”
He searched my face, which no doubt reflected my surprise at his statement. “Of course she was talking about me.”
“Actually, she wasn’t,” he corrected me. “She was talking about Garrett.”
I shook my head in denial, almost spilling cream all over the counter. This time, I managed to direct the flow into my mug, but only because of my freaky new reflexes. “Whatever he feels for me isn’t real. It’s just a byproduct of Lust’s compulsion and the bond that was forced on us both.”
“Hmm,” he mused and took a sip of coffee. “Then how do you explain his attraction for you before Lust took over his mind?”
I was too startled to respond and he walked away before I could come up with an answer.
After another hour or so reading, my embarrassment had faded and I decided it was time to face the others. I couldn’t learn how to fight by staying in my room. Kala was sitting on the couch flicking through a magazine when I descended the stairs again. Reece and Flynn were sparring in the boxing ring. They were hitting each other hard enough to leave marks that would fade within minutes. If they hit a normal human that hard, they’d have broken their bones or ruptured their internal organs.
Kala sent me a cautious glance when I came to a stop in front of her. “About what I said earlier,” she began.
I waved her apology away before she could finish. “Don’t worry about it. I’d rather not talk about the subject at all, if that’s okay with you.”
Her smile was relieved and she acceded to my request. “What type of training do you want to tackle first?” she asked. She knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t mad at her anymore.
“I feel like stabbing something,” I replied and she grinned.
“Maybe we should find somewhere else to train,” Flynn whispered to his sparring partner loudly enough for us to hear him.
Kala flipped him the bird and stood. “Come on, we’ll train outside so the boys don’t get too turned on by seeing us hot chicks in action.”
I felt Reece’s amusement like a caress in my mind and strengthened the barrier that I’d constructed between us. It was hard to keep him out, but it wasn’t impossible. In time, maybe we’d learn to mask each other’s thoughts and feelings well enough that we could forget that the bond even existed.
₪₪₪
Chapter Eleven
It took three more nights before the bokor was caught on camera entering one of the cemeteries. It was late and I was deeply asleep when a noise woke me. Realizing someone was pounding on the door, I stumbled out of bed and opened it.
Mark stood on the other side. He didn’t look as if he’d been to bed at all. “The bokor has just appeared in one of the cemeteries,” he said. “Get dressed and meet us in the garage. We’re leaving in five minutes.”
Suddenly wide awake, I quickly pulled on the clothes I’d laid out just in case I had to move fast. My sniper rifle wouldn’t be needed this time, so I left it behind. The pockets of my cargo pants were already loaded with a handgun and spare ammo. Our SUV was loaded up with flamethrowers and fuel. I took a few moments to run a brush through my hair and to pull it up into a ponytail before leaving my room and sprinting for the garage.
Mark was the last to arrive. As always, he wore a dark suit. He’d teamed it up with a crisp white business shirt and a tie. He was a federal agent from his short, dark brown hair to his shiny black shoes. The rest of us were wearing casual clothes of cargo pants and t-shirts.
We zoomed to the highway and we reached New Orleans in record time. Speeding through the dark, mostly empty streets, we pulled up short of the cemetery where the Zombie King had been spotted. Mark zapped the cameras so we wouldn’t be caught o
n tape and we hurried closer.
Well before we entered the gate, I knew we’d arrived too late. “I think they’re gone,” I said to Mark.
He stopped and gathered us into a circle. “You can’t sense them in the cemetery anymore?”
I shook my head and peered into the gloom. Green fog permeated the area again, but it was already dissipating. “I can sense that they were here, but I think they left a few minutes ago.” If the compound had been just a few miles closer, we’d have arrived in time to catch the Zombie King before he’d escaped.
“This whole place reeks of zombie,” Kala pointed out. “They should be easy enough to follow.”
Mark motioned for Reece to take point and the rest of us fell in behind him. Clutching my flamethrower tightly, I searched the shadows for the undead. I was ready to fire at anything that jumped out and tried to eat me.
We moved through the rows and came to the epicenter of where the minions had been raised. Reece pointed at a bloody circle on the ground. “The bokor didn’t bother to hide his ritual circle this time,” he said.
Mark used his cell phone to take a photo of the grisly symbols. They’d been drawn in blood, human blood most likely. Like his predecessors, he documented each case that his team was involved in and he’d later add it to the archives. He took photos of the gaping crypts as well.
“They went this way,” Reece said and pointed towards the gate at the rear of the grounds.
I knew the zombies and their master were long gone, but we did our best to follow them anyway. The bokor had called another thirty minions forth before vacating the cemetery. Maybe thirty was his limit.
We lost their trail in a side street one block away from the cemetery.
“He must have loaded them into a truck,” Flynn said.
“I wonder what he’s planning to use them for?” Kala said. Her tone was frustrated.
