The Deathless Quadrilogy

by Chris Fox

  Trevor reflexively reached for his cell phone to check Facebook. Then he remembered Facebook no longer existed. Neither did his iPhone, or any other electronic device. They’d all been destroyed in the wake of the sun’s coronal mass ejection, or CME as it they’d come to call it. Had that only been eight weeks ago? How ironic that he should find that more strange than the fact that he was, for all intents and purposes, a walking corpse. His heart no longer beat. He didn’t need to breathe. His skin felt cool to the touch.

  Then there was the mouthful of razor-sharp fangs. Not quite as obvious as the black claws where his fingernails had been, but much more unnerving whenever he smiled. It was impossible to miss the almost palpable aura of fear he left in his wake as he passed through the encampment. It was a different flavor than that caused by his companion, despite the fact that both were mythological predators. People trusted werewolves—more so than walking corpses, anyway.

  He and Commander Jordan made their way past the last knot of refugees, finally reaching the top of Angel Island. The heavily forested little spur of land was just a few miles across, connected to Sausalito via a ferry that had stopped running when the CME had wiped out most of the electronics required to run it.

  Now the only way to reach the island was using one of the more conventional sailboats that ringed it, a vast fleet of them gathered from all over the bay. They bobbed up and down on soft blue waves, sails blindingly white in the afternoon sun. Trevor glanced up at the fiery orb, untroubled by its brilliance as he would have been while still alive.

  “We’re running out of room,” Jordan said, stepping up to join Trevor. The beefy man wore a black t-shirt and grey cargo pants, which somehow managed to look like a uniform despite the fact that he no longer worked for Mohn Corp. “Food isn’t an issue yet, but space is.”

  He was right. The entire island was dotted with small clusters of multicolored tents, most liberated from the REI store in Corte Madera. They were up to almost three thousand people, which was more than the island was able to support. Sanitation was fast becoming a problem, as was supplying the place with fresh water.

  “Maybe it’s time to start clearing the rest of Marin,” Trevor suggested. He turned to gesture at the blackened remains of the Golden Gate Bridge. A full quarter had been destroyed in the nuclear blast that Irakesh, the ancient Egyptian god, had unleashed a few weeks ago. “Thanks to baldy, the southern border is clear. If we can block the Richmond Bridge, all we have to worry about is any zombies that wander down from the north.”

  “How many can you control, do you think?” Jordan asked, peering at Trevor through unreadable sunglasses.

  “I don’t know yet,” Trevor replied with a shrug. He faced north, staring up the harbor towards Larkspur. Bad memories there. That was where he’d helped Irakesh kill Bridget. He wasn’t sure if Blair had forgiven him for that. He certainly hadn’t forgiven himself. “I’d guess a few hundred. At the very least I can set up a beacon to draw them to me. You and the others should be able to kill them.”

  “That’s going to take a long time,” Jordan said, shaking his head. The wind played through his hair. The military buzz cut had given way to blond curls, and it humanized him somehow. “There are hundreds of thousands of zombies that way, and more will come south every day. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try, but we could be at this for years before we get rid of them all.”

  “How’s the training going? It looks to me that you’ve got a couple dozen promising soldiers down there,” Trevor asked, nodding at a cluster of tents near the visitor center. It was patrolled by about a dozen men and women, each wearing black. They were all armed, most with rifles.

  “They’re not ready to deal with combat on this scale. Besides, that’s not why I’m training them,” Jordan said, scratching at stubble threatening to become a beard. Trevor no longer had that problem. His hair had stopped growing when he died, leaving him with a permanent goatee. “We’re going to need them to defend the refugees. A militia of sorts. If we want to clear the zombies we need to do it ourselves, at least until we find a safe place for the survivors to hole up.”

  “I thought that’s what this place is,” Trevor said, a bit confused. They’d worked hard to set up the island as a sanctuary.

  “It’s temporary at best. People can’t live here, not long term. The bay has been overfished for too long, and there’s no farmland. We need to reclaim Marin and Sonoma, set up military compounds where people can start rebuilding their lives,” Jordan replied, folding his arms as he stared north. The wind ruffled his hair, cool enough that it would have made Trevor’s teeth chatter had he still been alive.

  “You’re right,” Trevor said, returning his attention to the refugees gathered near the docks. “We’re going to have to do that sooner, rather than—”

  He trailed off, eyes narrowing as he focused on the soft waves lapping against the shore. The sun was sinking below the hills to the west, but there was still more than enough light. Especially to his enhanced senses.

  “What is it?” Jordan growled, taking a step closer to Trevor.

  “There,” Trevor replied, stabbing a finger in the direction of the water. Right off the shore. “Something moving under the water. Something big.”

  Big didn’t begin to describe it. A pair of hairy shoulders broke the water not far from the dock. The creature’s face was inhuman, with long incisors and too-large eyes. Those eyes flared green, twin to Trevor’s own. This thing, whatever else it was, was clearly deathless. Smaller shapes broke the water all around it, these ones far more recognizable as once having been human. They moved too quickly and with too much purpose to be simple walkers, though. Their eyes glittered with intelligence as they sought targets.

  “Get down there and see what you can do,” Jordan said, giving Trevor a shove.

  Trevor fought down the urge to clock the commander, but he did turn to face him. “And just what the hell will you be doing?”

  “Contacting Blair,” Jordan shot back, tone full of contempt. “We’re going to need help on this one, or people will die. Now get the fuck down there and stall. I’ll see if I can get Blair and Liz here to help.”

  He was right. Trevor gave a tight nod, then turned back to the dock. He summoned the reserve of power deep within him. It had been growing for days, fueled by the sun. That seemed to be one of the advantages deathless possessed over werewolves. He could gain strength daily, while they had to rely on the moon to fuel their abilities. It looked like he was about to need every bit of that strength.

  Trevor blurred, leaping down the trail toward the dock. He flew over rocks, bounded off pines. Faces peered up at him from in between tents. They were scared, but also curious. He ignored them as he rapidly approached the dock. The screams had already begun there, mostly from fear, but more than one shriek of pain. Trevor slid down a twenty-foot cliff, rolling back to his feet when he hit the bottom. He was near the water, close enough to get a good view.

  Careful, my host. You are dealing with true deathless now, not the nascent deathless you so often encounter. They may be every bit as powerful as you.

  “Great,” Trevor muttered, peering over a boulder as he sized up the attack. He’d known they’d eventually have to deal with greater threats than zombies, but he’d hoped they would take longer to show up.

  His Risen was right. The attackers were leaping through refugees much more quickly than a zombie could manage. They also attacked more intelligently, incapacitating without killing. He watched as a pale-skinned deathless in a black tank top and jeans shattered an Indian man’s leg. The man collapsed, clutching his knee with agonized grunts. The deathless kept going, downing another target as he moved on.

  They are gathering food. Once they have enough they’ll return and feed at their leisure, his Risen said, tone emotionless.

  Trevor was revolted, but also painfully aware of the rumble in his stomach. He badly wanted to feed, something he’d resisted as often as possible. He’d confined his meals to zo
mbies, and even then he’d made sure no one saw him feed. If they found him disturbing now, that would only make it worse.

  A roar drew his attention, and Trevor’s mouth fell open now that he was close enough to see the larger figure emerge from the water. It was easily fifteen feet tall, and now that he was close he could clearly see it had once been a gorilla. A silverback, unless he missed his guess. He hadn’t realized other primates could contract the virus, but apparently they could. What’s more, this one had been feeding often and well to have already grown so large.

  Its meaty black fist closed around a middle-aged woman one of the other deathless had incapacitated. She gave a single shriek, which was cut off as the thing stuffed her entire torso into its maw. Trevor gagged at the horrible crunching sound, cringing as the woman’s entire body disappeared into the gorilla’s mouth.

  It would be wise to wait for aid, my host. That one is beyond your ability.

  “Maybe,” Trevor said, leaping over the boulder and blurring toward the gorilla. “But we don’t have time to wait.”

  He leapt into the air, landing on the back of the gorilla’s neck. Its thick fur gave him a solid grip as he swung one arm around to slash at its neck. A gout of cold black blood spilled to the ground, and the creature gave another bellow as its arms came up to seize Trevor. It was fast, but not blurring. Maybe it hadn’t learned that ability yet, if he was lucky. Trevor instinctively transformed to green mist as the boulder-sized hands passed through the space he’d occupied.

  He concentrated, summoning a wave of green light. It washed over the gorilla, cooking the thing’s skin and filling the air with the stench of burnt meat and hair. The creature slashed wildly through the air where Trevor’s cloud of energy hovered, its hands passing harmlessly through. It looked like he could hurt it, though the wounds closed as fast as he made them. At least it was no longer attacking refugees.

  “Why do you fight us?” came a low feminine voice from below and behind him. Trevor shifted to see an Asian woman in her mid-twenties. Well, she’d been in her mid-twenties before dying, anyway. Now she had the same black claws and hideous green eyes Trevor did. She licked her lips, exposing a mouthful of razored fangs. “You are one of us. You should be feeding, not defending these cattle. You have fantastic abilities. You could teach us much. Join us.”

  The other deathless had stopped their attack, and were returning to encircle him. Trevor drifted a bit higher, now out of reach of the still-enraged gorilla. What the hell could he do now? He couldn’t fight them all, and his experience with Irakesh had taught him that controlling the will of a sentient deathless was extremely difficult. So that was out. He needed backup, and he needed it now.

  Maybe he could keep them talking until the others arrived.

  2

  Light Pulses

  Blair floated several inches above the ground, legs locked underneath him in a full lotus he’d never have been flexible enough to manage before his transformation. He drank deeply of the Ark’s power, allowing his consciousness to flow through the entire structure. It was fascinating. Heady. In many ways he was the Ark, and could use it to extend his senses. More than that, he could capitalize on its senses, and the Ark had thousands of them. He could feel the ocean, feel the Ark’s connection to something deep in the earth.

  It was this latter that he focused on, trying once more to tease out the nature of the connection. Something powerful ran hundreds of miles into the earth, a sort of conduit. It was dormant, but he sensed it was capable of carrying enormous amounts of energy. That energy could flow both ways, which had piqued his curiosity. Where did it send the energy it gathered? If it could also draw energy, how and what did it draw that energy from? Blair understood conceptually that there was a network of Arks across the world, but how or why they’d been created remained a mystery.

  Blair. Jordan’s voice thundered in his brain. He winced, losing his concentration. That severed his connection to the Ark, and he fell heavily to the stone. We need you out here. There’s an attack. Not just zombies this time. Deathless. At least a dozen.

  We’re on our way. Just give me a minute to grab Liz, Blair replied.

  He concentrated for a moment, using the Ark to locate Liz. She was down in the training ring, where she spent almost all of her time. The ring displayed locales just like a holodeck, though so far as he knew the things it created were real. In this case, it had created a maze of black stone. Liz was prowling through it, golden sword extended. She wasn’t shadow-walking, which was probably some new form of training.

  Liz. He thought at her. She rolled backwards, disappearing into darkness before he’d even completed the thought. That didn’t sever the connection though. She could still hear him. I’m going to light walk to Angel Island. There’s an attack and Jordan needs us.

  “Acknowledged,” she replied aloud, emerging from the shadows once more. The ring wavered around her, stone walls disappearing.

  Blair willed the energy in the Ark to coalesce around each of them. It was more difficult than when he’d used it to transport them into the Ark after the battle with Irakesh, because he and Liz were in different locations. That was a good thing though. He’d been pushing his shaping, in the same way Liz pushed her combat abilities. They both had demons to battle, and each was atoning in their own way.

  The world vibrated around him, then beautiful, clear light flooded the room. There was a moment of weightlessness, and then he was simply elsewhere. He stood near the summit of Angel Island, Liz next to him in human form. She wore skin-tight black yoga pants and a matching tank top. Her hair was done up in the customary pony tail, a look he very much liked.

  They’d appeared in a ring of rocks that had been erected for just this purpose. Blair still wasn’t sure what would happen if they materialized in the same space someone else was occupying, so it seemed safest to designate an area they’d light walk to.

  “Sit rep,” Liz barked, stepping from the ring of stones. The golden blade of her sword rested casually against one shoulder as she approached Jordan. He towered over her, but if she was intimidated she didn’t show it.

  “Nine hostiles. One heavy,” Jordan said, turning to point to the dock. “Eight smaller ones that seem like full deathless. Like your brother, basically. The larger one might be like the giant we fought in the hangar back in Panama. I don’t know yet. They’ve stopped the attack for now. Looks like they’re talking with Trevor.”

  Blair didn’t like Jordan’s tone, but he understood it. Jordan and Trevor didn’t trust each other, and that was made worse when a force of hostile deathless stopped their attack to have a little chat with Trevor. What the hell were they talking about? He peered down at the dock, noting the cluster of deathless around the larger, hairy figure. Trevor hovered above them, using the green cloud of energy he’d learned from Irakesh.

  At least two dozen figures writhed on the ground, injured refugees no one was going to help. The militia was massing on the far side of a hill, under Yuri’s direction. Blair turned to face Jordan. “If Yuri assaults those deathless, the whole militia will probably be slaughtered. We need to get down there.”

  “We’ll blur,” Liz said, tone hard. “Blair, I’ll ride your shadow. When we get there, take down the smaller ones first. That will minimize the number of hostiles that can attack our people. Blair, see if you can use the Ark to deal with the larger one.”

  She didn’t wait for a response, instead shifting to wolf form even as she slid into his shadow. He had a brief impression of a massive auburn creature, then she’d vanished entirely.

  “Get your game face on,” Jordan rumbled, already shifting into a tall, blond-furred male. Blair followed suit, ignoring the brief pain as bones snapped and rearranged to make room for his larger wolf form.

  Jordan blurred toward the docks, hopping down hillsides and over trees. Blair matched his pace, kicking up a cloud of dust that spun lazily in the air around him as the world slowed. They bounded toward the dock, crossing the quarter m
ile in a dozen hops. It was difficult to measure time while blurring, but Blair guessed no more than five or six seconds passed.

  The commander barreled into the first deathless, an Indian woman in the tattered remains of a Fitbit t-shirt. She started to spin, but Jordan was far faster. He clamped his hands around her head, twisting with a sudden jerk. An awful crack echoed over the water, but the commander wasn’t done. He twisted further, the muscles in his arms bunching as he gave another jerk. The woman’s head came off with a pop, spraying desiccated gore into the air as her body collapsed to the sandy shore.

  The other deathless spun to face the commander, none noticing Blair where he crouched a few dozen paces away. Blair waited, turning his attention toward the larger figure. It was a fucking gorilla, probably liberated from the San Francisco zoo. He focused on the putrid green eyes, summoning his energy as he prepared to shape. He doubted it had anything like the mental defenses Irakesh had used, which meant he could probably bend its will fairly easily.

  He was dimly aware of Liz appearing behind another one of the deathless. Her blade pierced its chest, lifting the man into the air. He twitched and flailed as pulses of sickly green light flowed down the blade. Blair didn’t know how much strength Liz gained when she drank someone’s essence, but even having done it just a few times she was clearly stronger than she’d been when she first changed.

  Focus, Ka-Dun. His beast rumbled. Deal with the bestial deathless before it endangers your pack.

  So Blair did. He envisioned a dagger of pure mental energy, thrusting it into the gorilla’s neck at the base of the skull. It slid past the creature’s defenses with little effort, and just like that the world vanished. He appeared in the thing’s mind, immediately noting the differences between it and a human. Instead of the vast complex of neural connections he was used to, there was a more primitive network of thoughts. They were more primal, more focused on feeding to the exclusion of all else. This thing was a peerless predator, well equipped to feed and grow stronger in this insane new world.