by J. C. Diem
A few of the dead were much younger and must have been the live-in staff. We placed them into their beds on the second floor as well then Mark used his flamethrower to start a fire at the back of the building. The Cleanup Crew tossed an accelerant on the flames and the fire took off. They splashed more of the liquid in each room and Mark used his weapon to ignite more beds with their already dead occupants.
We worked our way down to the ground floor where the Crew splashed more of the fluid around. Moving quickly, Mark shot a final burst of flame then we vacated the house. Both the van and our SUV took off as sirens wailed and rapidly drew closer. The dark blue sedan with the two cops that had investigated the bank robbery and jewelry store heist sped past us. They were moving too fast to take note of our vehicle or else they may have turned around to follow us.
“I can’t believe the bokor got away again,” Kala grumbled. “He must have the luck of the devil.”
“That was my fault,” I admitted. “I should have moved faster.”
Mark turned and frowned at my dejected tone. “I don’t think it’s humanly possible for you to have moved any faster than you did.”
I’d been quick to draw my weapon, but not quick enough. “But I’m not human,” I reminded him glumly.
“We’ll get him eventually,” Reece said. “He’ll make a mistake and we’ll be there to stop him.” I wished I had his confidence that we’d be able to put a stop to this monster before he ruined any more lives.
₪₪₪
Chapter Twenty
I watched the local news on the TV in my bedroom when I woke the next morning. The fire at the retirement home was the top story. It had been ruled as a tragic accident due to faulty wiring and inadequate smoke alarms. No mention was made of knife wounds, missing organs or teeth marks on any of the remains. Mark’s superiors had pulled enough strings to ensure that the Zombie King and his undead warriors remained beneath the radar. Sooner or later, the cops would stumble across our target first. When that happened, there would be no way to keep the supernatural elements secret.
Musing about this over breakfast, I turned to ask Mark a question to find him watching me. “Is something on your mind?” he asked.
“What happens if the police catch the bokor in the act of raising or using his zombies?”
“They’ll most likely die.”
I already knew that, but that wasn’t what I was asking. “What if they don’t die? What if we swoop in and save them after they’ve already seen the undead walking around?”
Reece knew where I was going with this line of enquiry. “Lexi wants to know if we’ll kill the cops to keep them silent.”
“Oh.” Mark looked down at his toast and frowned. It wasn’t a good sign that he was having trouble meeting my eyes.
“We wouldn’t, would we?” I was appalled at the idea. “We’re supposed to track and kill the bad guys, not innocent cops who are just doing their jobs.”
“Killing them would be a last resort,” Agent Steel said, now toying with his cup of coffee.
I caught a fleeting thought from Reece and turned to him. “You use mind control?” I asked. “Are you saying that we can wipe their memories?”
“Not us,” Kala replied to my incredulous query. “We’d have to call in the Sweepers for that.”
I groaned and put my hands over my face. “Sweepers?” It came out muffled.
“Mind Sweepers,” Flynn clarified. “They’re experts at using a blend of chemicals and a form of brain washing to tweak the memories of anyone who learns about the supernatural world.”
Dropping my hands, I pushed away my mostly empty bowl. “Is there anything else about the PIA that I don’t know about?”
Mark’s smile was strained. “Of course. There are branches of the PIA that even I’m not aware of. We all have different clearance levels and we’re trusted with only a certain amount of information.”
“What’s my clearance level?” I asked.
Kala smirked and answered me before Mark could. “You’re still basically a trainee. You have the lowest clearance. You’re lucky we tell you anything.”
Mark shot her a dark look and answered me more seriously. “There are ten levels. You’re at level one. I’m at level eight.”
“What about you guys?” I pointed at the other shifters.
“We’re at level five,” Flynn said. “We know enough to do our jobs and to know what kind of creatures are out there, but we don’t know enough to be a liability if we’re ever compromised.”
His answer confused me more than it helped me. “Do I even want to know what you mean by that?”
Slumped back in his chair and stretched his legs out, Reece’s bare foot bumped into mine, which sent a small spark through us both. Even the smallest contact of skin to skin affected us. “We’re not the only organization that is aware of the supernatural world,” he said.
A sneaking suspicion hit me and I sent Mark an accusing glare. “You lied to me about who captured your team when they were toddlers. They weren’t rogue scientists at all, were they? They belonged to the same kind of institute as the PIA.”
He shook his head and lifted his shoulders. “I told you as much of the truth as I was able, Alexis.”
His tone was disapproving and I realized that I’d crossed the line. “I shouldn’t have questioned you,” I apologized immediately. My father had taught me to treat my elders with more respect than that. “It’s just hard to realize how little I know about all this.” I waved my hand to encompass the wide range of information that I wasn’t yet privy to.
He inclined his head in acceptance of my apology. “I don’t blame you for being annoyed at being kept in the dark. In time, you’ll have the same level of knowledge as the rest of the team.”
“If you read through the PIA files, you’ll learn more than Walker and Bailey know now,” Reece pointed out. “You won’t have access to all the files, but enough of it to learn what you need.”
Kala and Flynn scowled in unison. “Reading through the files is boring,” Kala whined.
“We have better things to do with our time,” Flynn agreed.
“I like reading through cases that are three or four hundred years old,” I said to their mutual disgust. “It’s interesting,” I insisted.
“Sure it is,” the blonde agent said with an exaggerated eye roll. “It’s about as interesting as baking a cake.” After her one and only failed attempt at baking, that had to mean she hated reading through the files.
“Getting back to your original question,” Mark said before we could become distracted from the topic at hand. “If any civilians or police officers learn the truth, I’ll call in the Mind Sweepers and they’ll work their magic to wipe away any memories of zombies.”
Mollified by his answer, I nodded gratefully. The thought of murdering humans just because they’d seen what we deal with in our line of work every day didn’t sit well with me. It occurred to me that my father was lucky that his memory hadn’t been wiped. I wasn’t entirely certain how much he knew about the paranormal world, but he knew what I’d become.
If he and Mark hadn’t been friends, would he have been told that I’d died rather than the truth? I felt a stab of grief that he’d have lived out the rest of his life thinking that he was alone. Reece picked up my emotion and looked at me uncertainly. I was working on masking the bond and clamped down harder. Frowning at being shut out, he stood to take care of his dishes.
“Who were the people that changed you all into shifters?” I asked. Mark had basically admitted to me that he’d killed the people responsible.
“I’m afraid we can’t tell you that,” he said. “Just the fact that you’re aware that another organization exists is above your clearance level.”
Something in his expression told me that he wanted to tell me, but couldn’t. Maybe reading through the archives would tell me what I wanted to know. “Never mind. I’ll just wait until I have the proper clearance then.”
Our cl
ose encounter with our target had frightened the bokor enough that he laid low for the next few days. I could feel the power of the moon growing with each night that passed. If the voodoo priestess knew who and what we were, then it was possible that the bokor was also aware. He could be biding his time, planning on unleashing his servants when we were locked away in our enclosures. If so, then there was nothing we could do to stop him.
Mark held a meeting on the morning of the full moon. We gathered around the dining table and the room crackled with suppressed energy. I could barely sit still and felt the urge to kick off my shoes and to sprint through the marshy woods at the back of the compound. It was difficult to concentrate on the speech that he was making, but I forced myself to listen.
“I’ll keep watch over the cemeteries and do my best to track the bokor while you four are occupied for the next three nights,” he said.
“What if he robs another bank or targets another retirement home while we’re in were-form?” Kala asked.
Mark shrugged, but his expression was worried. “There’s nothing we can do about that. We’ll just have to wait for the full moon to wane then resume our mission again.”
It was a short speech and he released us to our own devices. It was impossible to try reading through the archives when I couldn’t even sit still for five minutes at a time. I spent the day learning how to wrestle with Kala and Flynn rather than training with knives or sticks. They had very different styles and it was interesting to learn from them both. I quickly learned that I was much weaker than them. I’d have to build up my strength to have a chance at holding my own in the ring.
Training all day should have worn me out, but I was still full of energy when the sun began to sink from the sky.
We called a halt to wrestling just before dark and went our separate ways. Kala’s room was next to mine and she stopped before opening her door. “I wouldn’t bother eating dinner tonight,” she warned me. “You’ll be chasing down and devouring anything that moves as soon as the moon comes up.” Pushing her door open, she stepped inside then stuck her head back out as another thought occurred to her. “You should pack a bag with a change of clothes so you’ll have something fresh to wear when you’re human again. You might want to wrap a plastic bag around it to keep the rain out.”
“Thanks for the tip,” I said and she grinned then disappeared from view.
I found an old backpack that someone had left in the closet and put a change of clothes inside. There would be no need to take any weapons with me. I’d be the deadliest thing in the prison that had been created just for me.
Mark met me in the hallway when I left my bedroom. “The others have gone on ahead,” he told me. “I thought I’d escort you to your enclosure.”
“Thanks.” His offer touched me more than I could express. He wasn’t going to let me face my second change alone, even if he could only take me to the gate.
We traipsed downstairs then down the long hallway to the exit that led to the grounds behind the compound. The boundaries of the existing enclosures had been shifted to create my prison, which meant the hunting grounds had been reduced for everyone. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but there hadn’t been enough time to create an entirely new enclosure for me.
We walked to the far edge of the gun range and followed a narrow path through the trees. The silver fence came into view and we walked over to a newly made gate. My prison was between Reece’s and Flynn’s enclosures. Mark had turned the electricity off so the fence was safe, but instinct warned me to stay away from it. So did the dead dove that was rotting on the ground a few yards away.
Mark checked his watch, looked up at the dark sky then gestured at the scanner that had been erected next to the fence. “You’d better go in. The moon will rise soon.”
I didn’t need his warning to know that the change was about to happen. The beast inside me wanted out and I could almost feel it panting in the back of my head. “I’ll see you in three days,” I said flippantly and swallowed down my nervousness. I sensed Reece nearby, but he was too far back in the trees for me to see him. He guarded his thoughts, but I sensed his excitement about being able to unleash his wolf.
“Stay safe,” Agent Steel said softly as I placed my hand on the scanner and the gate clicked open.
“Always,” I replied and loped away from the fence as he pulled the gate shut.
I didn’t have to go far before I was swallowed up by trees. Listening hard, I couldn’t hear Reece or Flynn. Even with our keen eyesight, I was too deeply within the enclosure for either of them to be able to see me. This was as private as I was going to get.
Nocturnal animals and birds mostly ignored me as I stripped down to my skin. A breeze lifted my hair, but it did nothing to cool me down. Even though I knew what was happening to me this time, I was still frightened by the transformation that I was about to undergo once again. My breath came faster and faster as the moon brightened and rose higher in the sky.
Moments before pain exploded through my body, Reece reached out and touched my mind. I latched onto him in desperation as the beast took control. Screams issued from my throat as my bones were broken down and were remade into my new form. Fur sprouted all over my body and I fell forward onto my hands and knees. Claws replaced my fingernails and dug into the dirt as agony spread through me.
It happened much quicker this time, but it was no less painful. I gnashed the air with my fangs as my jaw lengthened then threw my head back and howled as the transformation came to an end.
An answering howl drew me through the trees. Moving on all fours, I came to the barrier that I sensed meant death to touch. Eyes watched me on the other side. Standing up, I stared into the golden depths of my mate as our minds melded. We shared a sense of wonder at the bond that linked us. Unlike my pitch black fur, his was almost silver. It matched the light that shone down upon us.
Gone were the complicated emotions that ruled our daily lives and deeper, simpler thoughts held sway. The loneliness that he’d felt for his entire life was gone now that we’d become bonded. We will never be alone again, he thought as he delved into my mind and saw the same loneliness inside.
Our bond will last until death, I replied. I didn’t know how I knew this, but instinct told me that it was true.
We wanted to run beneath the moon together as we were meant to, but the barrier kept us apart. The transformation had left us both starving and we needed to hunt. Staring longingly at my mate, I turned away as I heard something in the distance. A sense of evil touched my mind and he felt it as well.
It’s the soulless, he hissed. I instantly knew the creatures he was speaking of. They were dead humans that had been resurrected by foul magic. Abhorrent to us, our first impulse was to hunt them down and to rend them to pieces.
There are many, I noted as I picked up more and more of them. Our bond allowed us to share everything and he sensed them through me. We both knew that I was different from him, but we weren’t sure why. I shouldn’t have been able to feel the soulless in my head. My mate was worried that something was wrong with me, but we had to deal with the threat that was right here in front of us.
We must kill them all, he said with grim purpose. Wordlessly, I agreed and jogged off into the trees. I’d worry about whatever was wrong with me after we’d dealt with the undead.
₪₪₪
Chapter Twenty-One
Now that I’d become a beast again, my senses were much stronger. I could see why my bonded called the dead humans ‘soulless’. They were empty shells that had been filled with unspeakable evil. Their master was somewhere close by, directing their attack. He was human, which meant he was beyond my ability to sense. Only my ears, nose and eyes would be able to detect him and he was staying at a safe distance.
Seeing one of the soulless ahead, I began to run on all fours. I quickly picked up speed and it sensed me moments before I closed in for the kill. Milky eyes turned to face me and it snarled, but my claws took its head off before it cou
ld react. Another one rose from the soil right in front of me. Curious as to what would happen, I grabbed it by the arm and tossed it at the fence. Bright sparks flew and the smell of cooking meat filled the air. The creature let out a buzzing scream of pain that hurt my head. Its agony only lasted for a moment before the fence killed it.
Joy in the hunt snared me as I went in search of more walking corpses to kill. Far in the distance, I heard another shifter let out an enraged yowl. It was a cat, a different species to me and hence my enemy. Another creature hissed and I heard bones being crushed by a powerful body. I was confused as to why there were other shifters in werewolf territory, but the soulless were my main concern right now.
I killed over a dozen of the corpses before their rudimentary intelligence allowed them to realize that I was too dangerous to approach. My mate had also hunted down his share of the vile things. The few remaining creatures melted into the ground before I could rend them apart. They burst out of the soil on the far side of the deadly barrier, safely out of my reach. As one, they turned and began to shamble away.
Faint with distance, my mate’s panicked thought came to me. They are going to attack the human! We have to save him!
Still new to being a shifter, I could remember little of being human myself. My bonded sent me a picture of a man. Average height and size, he was vaguely familiar. Although I immediately wanted to eat him, he was important to my mate somehow. For him, I’d try to rescue the human.
The barrier was too high to jump over, but I saw a way that I could scale it without coming to harm. A tree was standing only a few yards away from the fence. It looked large enough to hold my weight. My claws dug into the trunk and I climbed up to the top. I threw myself towards the barrier and let out a pained yelp when my foot brushed the top. My mate whined in sympathy. He’d felt my pain as if it were his own.
