by Ken Lange
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Turning, I scanned the area and found nothing.
“I know you’re there. You might as well come out…or don’t. But decide quickly so I can get on with my day.”
Jessica rounded the corner of the shop across the street and slowly made her way over to me. Shaking her head, she sighed. “You made a mess.”
Snickering, I said, “You didn’t see it earlier. I’ve cleaned up.”
She rolled her eyes. “If you say so.” With a wave of her hand, she cleared the rubble out of the street. “We can’t have the tourists wrecking their vehicles when the detour ends.”
I blinked. “Come again?”
Jessica extended a finger toward the far end of town. “Lewis has the sheriff diverting traffic this evening, presumably to avoid any prying eyes when Steve killed you and disposed of your corpse.” She cut her eyes at me. “Speaking of which, where are they?”
I gestured at the broken structure. “In there. Fifteen of them in total.”
Her gaze tracked over the shattered remains. “Did they do that?”
Shaking my head, I sighed. “Nope, that was…an accident.”
She grinned. “I’m really glad you’re okay. It took longer than expected to get away.”
I smiled. “Why are you helping me anyway?”
Placing her hand on her hip, she sighed. “Weren’t you listening earlier? You’re my golden ticket out of this hellhole. But you’ve got to survive, and the Grants and all their minions need to be dealt with. I don’t care if they live or die, as long as they can’t stop me from leaving.”
“Why not just run away?”
Her laugh was bitter. “Because Lewis, John, Angus, and what’s left of the Onyx Mind are tied to me via blood magic, thanks to Ruth. As long as they’re alive, or free, it will take them a matter of minutes to find me and bring me back.” Anger rolled through her eyes. “The only edge I have is that they don’t know that I hate them. This is my one and only shot at freedom.”
“You are getting out of there.” Revulsion coursed through me at the thought of what they’d done to her, and I had to shake it off. “Speaking of Ruth, where is she? I’d like to have a word about her boys being necromancers.”
Jessica shrugged. “No idea. After you questioned her, she stopped by the house and said she had to go out of town for a few days.”
Well, shit.
“Thanks. As for John, you don’t need to worry about him anymore.”
Her expression went blank. “Why?”
“He’s dead.”
She blinked. “Seriously? He didn’t come home…but we were working under the assumption he’d found a meal elsewhere since you were still around.”
Confused, I leaned against the corner of the building. “Did he have a habit of disappearing?”
She nodded. “Yeah, whenever he transformed into that…thing, he’d go on a bender, eat a few people, then hibernate for a week or two before coming home.”
I grinned. “Well, that’s fantastic luck for me.”
She furrowed her brow. “How’s that?”
Rolling my shoulders, I pushed off the wall. “It keeps them off my ass for a while.”
Her eyes went wide. “You do realize they just sent one of their top guys, along with a dozen men, to kill you and your friends, right?”
“Yeah.”
Rubbing her forehead, she asked, “How do you figure that’s them staying off your ass?”
I patted her shoulder. “He’s sending pawns. If he were really pissed off, Lewis, Angus, and the other members of the Onyx Mind would be crawling all over me.”
She shook her head. “No, they wouldn’t.”
“Huh?”
Jessica let out an exasperated breath. “Diana, Erik, and Artur are doing their best to save the rest of their undead horde.”
I held out my hands to slow her down. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Annoyance flashed across her face. “It means you destroyed their major staging area. So, now there are thousands of the things out near Ambrosia Lake.”
I blinked. “Wait…there’s a lake in the middle of the desert.”
She gave me a you must be stupid look. “It’s not an actual lake. It’s a uranium mine.”
“Oh…” Scratching my head, I asked, “Why do they keep using the old mines to store their zombies?”
She spluttered, “Zombies. That’s what you call them?”
I nodded. “Yeah…is there a better name?”
Jessica thought about it for a second then sighed. “Not sure if it’s any better, but we call them revenants. And there are two reasons they’re hidden in such places. First, most people are frightened of radiation poisoning, so they stay away.”
“And second?” I asked.
Her gaze hit the ground. “That’s a bit more complicated, and you’re probably going to think I’ve lost my mind.”
I chuckled. “Seriously? After all the shit I’ve discovered in the last nine months, you’re going to have to try real hard for me to think you’re nuts.”
She lifted her gaze to me. “Okay…you asked for it.” Taking a deep breath, she blew it out slowly. “There’s a separate world apart from our own called Niflheimr. The people who live there, better known as the wraiths, are little more than a shadow, and when they come into this world, they need a vessel. People are difficult since they have a soul, but once their spirit leaves the body…”
Realization hit me. “They could pop in and take over their corpse.”
Nodding, she shivered. “Basically, yeah. But, when you expose that corpse to low doses of radiation, that’s no longer possible.”
“Am I to take it that the necromancers and the wraiths aren’t friends?”
Shaking her head, she said, “Normally, no, though they’ve been known to cooperate once in a while. But I think that’s because necromancers outnumber them.”
A shiver ran up my spine at the thought of wraiths pouring into this world. “But if they were to get their hands on a few thousand zombies, that would change the odds.”
She nodded. “Pretty much.”
I rubbed my temple. “God, the more I learn, the bigger my headache becomes.”
Her voice was hollow when she spoke. “Think how I feel. I’m stuck in the middle of these crazy fuckers, with a host of revenants not far away. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”
My stomach clenched at the thought. “Where did you say they were again?”
She gestured out toward the north. “Ambrosia Lake, and I’d suggest taking care of them before trying to deal with Lewis.”
I laughed. “And how am I supposed to wipe out an army of undead?”
She shrugged. “No idea, but I doubt you want to be overrun with them at the compound.”
“Good point.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “I’ve got to get back before they realize I’m gone.”
“Okay. Stay safe.”
She grinned. “You too.”
She quickly made her way behind the building, and was lost to the night. I looked around and shrugged. The rubble and bodies were out of the street. Jessica had made it clear that the authorities weren’t coming anytime soon, which meant I had a little more time to try to fix things before the mortals got involved.
In short, my night was far from done.
Chapter 30
March 3rd
It took us a couple of hours to decide on a plan, and even then, it wasn’t much of one. Basically, it boiled down to us hoping Diana, Erik, and Artur were out there on their own, so we could work our way in and dispose of them before they knew what hit them. As for the buttload of undead…well, we’d have to cross that bridge when we got there.
The lone holdout on the plan was Atsidi. He was less than thrilled with the odds, and that went double for our lack of backup. Thing was, we weren’t exactly spoiled for choice. The longer we waited,
the more likely it became that we’d lose any advantage we had, and we’d all die without making a damn bit of difference. With that in mind, we packed up and headed out.
It took us nearly two hours to make our way around the detour in Grants, and another thirty minutes to get to our destination. Ambrosia Lake District looked much the same as the other mines we’d been to over the last week.
We parked about a half mile out, deciding it was probably best not to show up as a single target. As we got closer, the sound of several generators running filled the air, and harsh florescent lights lit up the night sky. It took us several minutes to climb the last hill overlooking a large rectangular pit with layers and layers of earth peeled away. If the work lights were any indication, during the day, the scene would turn a few hundred shades of tan, gray, and black. But this evening, it was just varying tones of darkness between highlighted sections of desert.
Near the center, there were maybe a couple dozen rail cars full of what I had to guess were zombies. To make matters worse, Erik, Artur, and Diana weren’t alone. Over the course of the next five minutes, I counted twenty-four armed guards patrolling the area, which made things that much more difficult…especially since we didn’t know if they were necromancers or just the hired help.
Sam and Dean headed out toward the east. Alexander and I went west, leaving Cole and Atsidi to hold their position until we were ready to make our move.
We really needed to have this wrapped up by dawn, because that was when the detour would be taken down. Which meant that the police would find a bunch of dead bodies stuffed into the smoldering remains of the local arts & crafts store.
At that point, other agencies would get involved, and I’d likely lose my chance to stop Lewis’s plan…whatever the fuck that was. Plus, I wanted to have his head on a pike by sunrise as a warning to all other necromancers. Not that I thought it would stop them, but it might give them pause…especially when they lose control of Jessica.
Alexander and I were about halfway around when he slipped, catching the attention of a couple of nearby guards.
Guess we were about to find out what these guys were made of.
He lifted his weapon, but before he could pull the trigger, Alexander crossed the distance and hit the man hard enough to snap his neck. While he hadn’t been able to shoot us, his broken body rolling down the hill into his buddy wasn’t at all helpful.
The startled guard sent up a hail of panic fire in our direction, which missed us by a mile. That was where the good news ended. Everyone looked at him, and then at us… The game was up, and we were about to go a full ten rounds with these assholes.
I raised my arm to create a thick barrier of ice between us and the idiot gunman. Nevertheless, we’d hit the hornet’s nest with a stick. On the upside, everyone down below was focused on us, and no one was paying attention to the others.
Seconds later, the sound of giant soda cans being crushed rang out as three container cars caved in on themselves. In the broken mess of metal, blood and other bodily fluids leaked from the wreckage. The godawful stench of the dead filled the air, nearly making me gag. Just as my mind caught up with the carnage, a massive fireball shot out of the darkness crashing into a clump of six guards. They didn’t even have time to scream before their bodies were torn apart and their flesh burned to ash.
There were a few random shots across the way, which, if I had to hazard a guess, was the work of Sam and Dean. I charged the barrier, shattering it with a thought, and the shards tore through four more. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a sharp impact in my ribs as Diana drove her shoulder into me.
She rabbit-punched me in the gut several times before jumping to her feet and smashing her boot into my midsection. Not to be outclassed, I kicked out, and my foot landed against her chest, knocking her onto her back. I pulled a knife off my hip, blade down, and slashed out, carving a thin red line across her thigh. She grunted in pain and flicked a fistful of flame my way.
It fizzled on my chest, and I stood. “Thanks for the pick-me-up.”
Diana scrambled to her feet and backpedaled away in an effort to put some distance between us. Before I could skewer the wench, someone hit me from behind, and I was eating dirt again. A forearm caught me hard in the back of the skull, and my face bounced off the rocky ground. I swung the knife back, and lodged it in their thigh. They screamed and rolled off me. I was able to push myself upright, while Artur was occupied with trying to remove the blade from his leg.
I spun and punched Diana in the face. Last thing I needed was for her to have a free shot at my back, but with that in mind…where the hell was Erik? Artur grunted, and the earth underneath me shook. A moment later, I was airborne as the ground exploded. The one good thing about being this high up was that I spotted Erik—he was unlocking one of the box cars. That couldn’t be good.
As the old saying goes, it wasn’t the fall that killed you, it was the sudden stop, and while I wasn’t dead, a part of me wished I were. When I caught my breath, all I wanted to do was rip Artur’s head off his shoulders, but he and Diana were nowhere to be seen. What was visible, however, was a veritable sea of undead bastards heading my way.
Fucking fantastic.
Cole, Atsidi, Dean, and Sam came up beside me to stand against the horde of revenants. Even with them at my side, I didn’t like our odds. My stomach churned, and I clenched my jaw. If this was the way I was going out, they would have to pay for the privilege. I summoned the ice armor, and my vision turned crimson. Trying one of the things Hayden had taught me, I stepped forward, clenched my fist, and a massive column of blue flames came down from the sky to burn a hole through the ranks of the undead, but it did nothing to slow them down.
The horde was maybe fifty yards away when the night sky above us lit up and turned gold. Massive shafts of yellow light burned through the flesh of the nearest group of zombies, and they fell, unmoving, to the ground. A huge, dark figure flew out of the brilliance on silver wings, and a moment later, Gabriel landed beside me.
He grinned. “Sorry I’m late.”
Dumbfounded, I shook my head. “I didn’t know you were on the way.”
He swept his arm out in front of him, and a wide arc of golden light spilled out of his hand, felling a dozen corpses. “Lazarus said you needed me…so, I’m here. We can discuss the details later.”
Patting him on the shoulder, I nodded. “Sounds good.”
While he was handling the flood of undead, the rest of us went in search of the three remaining rats…and with luck, Alexander. I hadn’t seen him since my encounter with Diana and Artur.
Taking point, I guided us through the maze of dirt, rail cars, and empty cargo containers. When I rounded the last corner, Erik stood there, holding a knife to an unconscious Alexander’s throat. Diana was dabbing her nose with a handkerchief, and Artur had tied a tourniquet around his leg.
Erik’s voice shook with anger. “Stop, or I’ll slit his throat.”
Gesturing at him, I frowned. “That threat is only good as long as he isn’t hurt. The moment you do anything moronic, I’m going to tear you three to pieces.”
Diana placed her boot in the small of Alexander’s back. “You’ve got a big mouth.”
Atsidi glared at her. “And you are going to die here today.”
She laughed. “I very much doubt that, old man.”
He waved his hand, and the blade against Alexander’s throat transformed. Several spikes protruded from the metal and through Erik’s hand. Screaming, he stumbled back and yanked the offending steel from his hand before dropping it. Dean was on the wounded man in an instant. With one swipe of his claws, he removed his throat and most of his neck.
Artur brought up a wall of shadows to protect him and Diana, but I sprinted through the barrier. There was a tingle as the magic touched my flesh, and then it was gone…both the barrier and the sensation. Even though they’d only been out of sight for a few seconds, Diana was nowhere to be found. Artur reminded me of his presenc
e with a fist to the temple. My vision blurred, and I staggered to the side.
Before I could get myself together and mount a suitable defense, Sam was on the man. Her claws raked across his already wounded chest, ripping through flesh and bone. Another swipe of her paw opened up his abdomen, and the next tore out his heart. That only left Diana, but that bitch was playing hide and seek.
To make matters worse, there were more undead than before, and they were quickly closing in on Gabriel. I had to make a choice: save my friend or keep hunting the woman… Guess which one I picked? With a wave of my hand, another column of cobalt fire fell from the sky, obliterating a large number of the zombies in front of Gabriel.
When the rest of the team saw the horde behind us, they charged into the fray. Atsidi placed his hand on the nearest container, and large chunks of steel tore free and launched into the mass of shambling corpses. While it seemed like they’d lost their direction, that hadn’t slowed them down, or stopped them from wanting to tear us limb from limb.
We fought with fire, ice, steel, light, and claws. But we were outmatched, surrounded, and it was only a matter of time before we were overwhelmed by their numbers.
Using so much of my power was leaving me winded and weak. In a moment of desperation, I decided to try something new…if I failed, we’d be in the same position we were already in, which was neck deep in undead.
“Everyone on me.” They fell back to me, and I placed my hands on them. “Grab onto one another.”
I focused on being back at the trailer, blue flames encased us, stuttered, and quickly vanished, leaving us right where we were. The exertion took me to my knees.
Panting, I coughed out, “Shit.”
The earth at our feet buckled, and everything rumbled as the ground shook. Rocks shattered, huge plumes of dust erupted as giant pits opened to swallow groups of the undead. To my right, something massive, gray, and inhumanly fast shot out of the embankment to tear through the ranks of the zombies. Before I could get a good look at the thing, it burrowed into the dirt and vanished from sight. What was left behind was a wide swath of destruction that left half eaten or crushed bodies in its wake.