by Jayne Hawke
“Why now?” I ground out.
“Things are changing. Keep practising, I’ll be back to have a chat when we’re both ready.”
He spoke as if we were discussing the weather, not sharing cryptic bullshit. I wanted to beat him senseless, to demand answers. I stood there entirely frozen.
My father, the man that had disappeared from my life years ago without a single word, turned and walked away. There had been no affection, no answers, just a line that could have been a threat or a promise.
FOURTEEN
“What is wrong with him that he just rocks up to Mom’s sanctuary to give me some ominous crap and congratulations on Sin’s bond. Why was he trying to get the bond of an assassin!? Why didn’t he come and see me sooner? Why was he screwing with my magic!?” I shouted as I threw my hands up and paced between two workbenches.
Cade sat on a nearby workbench and said nothing. What was there to say? Sorry your dad’s a complete ass?
I had so many questions and absolutely no answers. Maybe I should have gone after him and tried to get them out of him. He was a full-blooded god, though. Fallen or no, he’d kick my ass. I wasn’t arrogant enough to think I could take him alone. He was still my dad, too. I didn’t want to hurt him. Much. Maybe a little ass kicking...
“Ok, so, he’s been around long enough to challenge for Sin’s bond. Why would a war god want an assassin bound to him?”
I remembered the coldness in his eyes. He was capable of killing just about anything if he put his mind to it. There was no compassion there. I had no doubt that he wasn’t trying to do it to give Sin a good home. No, he was up to something. The very thought made my stomach twist. He had been a model dad when he’d been around. Had the hounds gotten to him?
“A war god has a very different skillset to an assassin,” Cade said evenly.
He wasn’t wrong. So, there was a chance he wanted to kill someone.
I chewed on my bottom lip, trying to smooth my thoughts out. There was too much in my head. I needed to hit something.
“Let’s head home. Maybe the pack will have some answers.”
Cade hopped down off the workbench, and I reluctantly followed him. Ethan’s strong and soothing presence would do me some good. Maybe I could spar with Dean and remind him that I’m just as good as he is.
I waited for assassins to jump out of the shadows at us on the walk home, but it was entirely peaceful. We didn’t say a word as I tried to work through the maelstrom of emotions that rioted within me. My chest ached. He was still my dad.
“Kit?” Ethan greeted us as we approached the safe house.
He reached out to me, a deep frown on his face. I let him pull me into his arms and rested my cheek on his chest.
“Her father showed up at the library. He just said they’d meet again when they were both ready,” Cade said.
Ethan held me tighter, his blood singing with anger.
“Do you want to hunt him down and get answers?” Ethan asked me.
I was sorely tempted. Something told me it was better to leave that particular nest of vipers alone.
“No, we need to focus on the necromancer. Screw him, I need to prove I’m more than his daughter. I need to save some lives,” I said.
Ethan gently stroked my cheek.
“You are a positive force in this world. You’ve already saved countless lives,” he said softly.
My anger and betrayal subsided a little.
“Are we celebrating the latest member of the pack?” I asked with false cheer.
My father wasn’t going to steal away my happiness. He had abandoned us. I wasn’t going to give him any more emotional energy. Or so I told myself. As we walked inside, the cool sadness tinged my smiles and stole away the happiness at seeing a broad genuine grin on Sin’s face.
The elf was practically glowing as he unpacked an insane amount of Chinese takeaway. He looked at Ethan and me with a brilliant spark in his eyes. No thanks was needed. We’d given him a home.
“I still think he should sleep on the roof,” Dean grumbled.
And just like that, everything was right again.
FIFTEEN
There was a definite zombie sighting while we were all relaxing with a movie.
“Dude... there was someone dressed like a reaper with them. Who does that?” Matt said as he handed his tablet to me.
Sure enough, there was a photo with someone dressed like a grim reaper staring at the zombies. Wore the classic black robes and even carried a scythe. To say they looked ridiculous was an understatement.
“That means they’re getting more powerful and causing more trouble,” Ethan said gravely.
He was right. I’d been a bit too preoccupied laughing at the witch’s outfit to really think about that part. Zombies were a nuisance at the best of times. They didn’t need to eat human flesh and brains, but sometimes the witch or necromancer controlling them would push them to do that. That was when you knew you were in trouble. When the necromancer took that step, it meant they were connected strongly enough to the zombies that the zombies’ harming and ingesting people effectively fed the necromancer. The magic and life force taken by the zombies flowed along the connection increasing the necromancer’s overall power.
“Did they bite anyone?” I asked.
“No, they just ambled around a bit. No one seemed particularly concerned. It was in the university district. People there are pretty used to young witches being dicks,” Cade said.
Well, that was something. Maybe it wasn’t all one person. It could be some weird hazing thing. That didn’t explain the anonymous client, though. No, this was one person and they had plans big enough for us to be hired.
“I was really comfy,” I said with a huff.
“There’s nothing left to investigate. We’ll look through what footage we can get later,” Ethan said.
I leaned into him. It had been a rough couple of days I needed the comfort and relaxation of a movie in Ethan’s arms with our pack around us.
“I’ve already started gathering the videos and such on social media,” Kerry said.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she did whatever it was tech people did in situations like this.
“Any ideas who this mysterious client is? I mean, why would someone care if we beat the knights? This looks like a witch deal,” I said.
“I have no idea. It is strange that they want us to handle it, though,” Ethan said.
“They could be an ex knight,” Matt said.
“No such thing.” Dean said.
“Why?” I asked.
“They’re born into one of the covens that produce knights and become knights. The only way to become an ex knight is to die,” Dean said.
“Well, that’s cheerful,” I muttered.
“I heard they’re pretty badass,” Matt said.
Dean shrugged.
“Just witches with combat training,” Dean said.
“Personally, I think they’re a good thing. It’s all well and good having bounty hunters and the like to help keep things in order, but so much stuff is overlooked whether intentionally or not. Someone has to pay a bounty hunter, and we all know the courts only handle things that affect their status or bottom line. That leaves a lot of crimes untouched,” Cade said.
“I thought they only handled witch stuff?” I said.
“No. They’ll hunt down anyone who harms innocents and isn’t brought to justice,” Sin said.
We all turned to him. I hadn’t expected the elf to know anything about the knights.
“I’ve lived a long life; I’ve seen many things. Are we going to watch this movie or discuss people in stupid costumes and witches?” Sin said.
Ethan hit play on the movie, and we all settled down again.
“Do the knights ever take outsiders?” I asked after a big explosion boomed around the room.
“No,” Dean and Sin said simultaneously.
Dean glared at Sin. The elf ignored him.
“Yo
u have to be born into one of the covens. That’s the only way in. They only pair off with other knights,” Dean said.
“He tried to screw a knight once,” Cade said.
That explained how he seemed to know more than anyone else.
We continued on with the movie without another word. I couldn’t help but wonder about the anonymous client, though. It helped keep my mind off the other shit going on in my life.
My dreams were full of images of my father being really imposing and scary. I’d never viewed him that way before, but there was something within him that I hadn’t seen before. Was that inside me too?
“We’re going shopping!” Kerry said in a singsong voice as I shambled into the kitchen.
“It’s so early,” I groaned.
“Zombies have shown up in the mall,” Dean said.
“Couldn’t they have waited until a reasonable hour?”
“We need to take care of them before the humans start getting there for their daily shopping trips,” Dean said.
I frowned at him.
“Have you ever met a human...? Or been to a mall?”
He glared at me.
“That explains the plaid shirts,” I said.
His glare deepened.
“Fine, fine, I’ll get ready.”
Zombies were still better than a run in the silvery light of dawn.
SIXTEEN
“I feel like I should be prepping some sort of foam finger steak knife combination here,” Kerry said in a whisper.
We were on the top floor of a shopping mall on the outskirts with two floors’ worth of zombies milling around below us, harmless as kittens until someone kicked the putrescent hornet’s nest of their horde. Kerry and I had planned to take it on alone, but Dean insisted on tagging along. Zombies were a big scare for humans, which meant that certain witches had a hard-on for them, but for a pack like ours they were more a creativity challenge than anything.
“I saw a lawn supply place down on the first floor, I’m betting we can rig you up something fun. Maybe grab some Solstice lights, really give the whole thing some pizazz,” Dean replied.
“I dunno, I have to get home for some sex out of wedlock and killing of unborn children, might have to keep this fast moving.”
“Time to get killing for the Lord, then,” I cut in, hopping the railing in front of us and dropping onto a zombie like a baby grand in flight before gracefully pirouetting on his corpse with sword outstretched to slice a circular opening in the mass of rotting dead.
In perfect unison, every head in the mall turned towards me, and I had to admit it actually was a little creepy. Then they started to make their moaning, shambling way towards me, and the effect was broken.
Dean and Kerry dropped down on either side of me. Dean had his usual claymore and Kerry had brought along a bigass two-handed mace, citing an unwillingness to get zombie on her claws. We held our ground for a couple minutes, capering and showing off weird strikes and kills, but of course there were hundreds of bargain-hunting zombies climbing over their piled compatriots.
“I think we need a change of scenery. Sporting goods should be on the far end of this floor, right? Why don’t we stop by there and see what’s on offer, then we can check out that hardware place,” Dean said.
“But my premarital sex,” Kerry pouted. “I don’t have time to stomp around the mall with you.”
“Plus, what about housewares?!” I said, taking the first step towards the other end of the hall. “If I don’t slam a zombie’s skull in a dishwasher by the end of today, I’m installing a chasm so deep feelings can’t cross it, and see if I don’t.”
“Alright, fair, across to sporting goods, get a load of cricket bats and croquet mallets, then we drop down a floor, stop in housewares, over to hardware, and then mop-up and home for some really wholesome films about alive things.”
With that in mind, we began a cross-mall battle to rival any Black Friday sale in the storied history of combat. The squelch of decayed flesh and the crunch of weakened bone drowned out the endless moaning, but it was like trying to cut down a bamboo forest with teeth. By the time we finally made it, we were all glad to have some variety in our lives. We raced from display to display, glee painted on our faces, gathering up armloads of bats and golf clubs and anything else with enough heft to get a good swing in.
The zombies hadn’t made it into the store yet when we arrived, but our entry drew them after us. We made a game of tripping them up with random objects while we shopped, footballs to the shins being my personal favourite. I found Dean laughing uproariously over a pile of whiffle balls with zombies trying and failing to stand up on them, each step finding its way onto a new ball that rolled away leaving the zombie to tumble backwards onto its back with a moan I could swear carried a ring of frustration. Kerry was a couple aisles over, perched on top of a shelf pushing boxes of shoes off onto a little pack that kept trying to climb shelves that couldn’t support their weight.
One of them managed to get within a couple shelves of her, and she made a kitten noise of mock terror and leapt to the next shelf over, conveniently full of bowling balls. Things went downhill from there, and I left them to it to make a stop in the hiking section, which conveniently had backpacks in every shape and size. Shopping spree accomplished, we finished off the ones inside and, with one pack each full of tools and toys of every description, we turned back to the entryway and began to push our way back out.
The crack of croquet mallets and the tonk of golf clubs rang gaily through the air as we pushed bravely on to the escalators, which were still running, innocently carrying passengers up to us like a conveyor belt. Quickly, the delivery system became mundane, and Dean held up one finger to us before pulling one of Kerry’s long-forgotten bowling balls out and making a running roll of it down the escalator, bones cracking and torsos thudding as an entire storey worth of zombies tumbled helplessly down the moving stairs. Even as I was clutching my stomach with laugher, Kerry, never to be outdone, crossed to the other escalator that the zombies had been largely ignoring but, as time went on, had been slowly populating.
Leaping into the air, she landed on the railing, golf club in hand, and with a gleeful shout began to slide down, making a picture-perfect drive into every head along the way. Still laughing, I looked around for my own set piece and found nothing left on this level. Grumbling, I comforted myself by sneaking up behind Dean and shoving him, trying to push him into the pile of dead zombies that his bowling trick had left behind.
Too quick for me, he caught my arm and tossed me ahead of himself, leaving me skiing down the wave of the dearly departed to meet an oncoming wall of zombies on the bottom floor with Kerry serenely whack-a-mole-ing them one by one with a big wooden mallet as they came into range, an array of flattened corpses at her feet. The mallet was cracking before our eyes, and before long she tossed it at the incoming horde and replaced it with a hockey stick that seemed far sturdier. I drew out a pool cue and joined her, singing Queen at the top of my lungs and bashing skulls like my boyfriend just left me for a cranium.
Feeling the magic, Dean put Don’t Stop Me Now on his phone and joined in, raining hockey pucks down on the moaning hordes to little effect but great hilarity. It wasn’t long before our sing-along made it to housewares, my own personal paradise. Slammable objects in all shapes and sizes and things to slam in them trundling their moaning, adorably decayed way in. My packmates acted as bait while I smashed heads in dishwashers, cabinets, fridge-freezer combos, and even some sort of fold-down cooktop that seemed impractical for cooking but excellent for murder.
Once I was completely sure I’d slammed something in every single slammable object, I drew out my very last and longest-awaited toys, a pair of climbing axes no one but me had noticed in the hands of an impossibly ripped display mannequin at the entrance to the sporting goods store. Kerry and Dean had both grabbed boxing gloves, each unbeknownst to the other, and when Dean couldn’t convince Kerry that she was being a copycat he
tossed his aside and pulled out a lifting bar with 20 lbs of weights on one end. Weapons fully prepared, we shared a look and charged the oncoming horde.
Boxing gloves turned out to be less effective than hoped, taking a good few hits to bring down a zombie, in which time they frequently managed to latch onto them. Kerry swapped back to her mace before long, her supply of sporting goods exhausted. I, on the other hand, was in love with the climbing axes, killing what felt like hundreds of zombies with one perfect strike to the forehead apiece, racing for the chance as I dodged joyously haphazard and indiscriminate swings of the bar from Dean, by far the most dangerous thing I’d faced all day.
And then we were there, the holy grail of zombie apocalypse accessory stores: hardware. This was going to be the pièce de résistance, and we weren’t going to be interrupted in our preparations. A riding lawn mower across the entryway was more than enough to buy an hour or two (or, with these zombies, a day or two), time we spent helping Kerry disassemble and MacGyver back together a lawnmower to make a spinning death blade from a serial killer’s wet dream. That accomplished, Dean and I set out to find our own toys. Dean swore he was going to find a way to make a jackhammer work, thrusting it out from the hip like a spear to demonstrate, but in the end he was forced to concede the point. We settled on a pair of breaker bars, the elegant produce of a magical evening shared by a crowbar, the Jaws of Life, and a 3-foot-long chunk of stainless steel.
It was time for the main event. With Kerry in the lead, a walking horror show at 3000 rpm, we smashed a window a couple feet to the side of our own barricade, one through which zombies had been helplessly staring for the time it would have taken them to invent power tools of their own. Even I winced when she first connected with our powerless foe. Blood and bone sprayed in every direction, the torsion jerking her arms every time a new customer reached the front of the line. On her flanks, we smashed everything in reach, keeping her nice and clear to live the dream. It took hours to finish the entire mall, far longer than her gas tanks remained, and by the end we were all covered in sweat (ours), blood (theirs), and worse (definitely theirs).
