by Jeff Gunhus
Assuming I could get my hands on the one held by the Lord of the Zombies.
Best of all, the Black Death hunter was able to draw a map of the area and show us where the nearest three towns were. That was helpful. We had a plan as we walked out of the forest, leaving our friend Gustav behind.
He was tied to a tree and unconscious from a rap on the head from Daniel, but otherwise unharmed. His bindings were loose enough that it would only take him a half hour or less to get out of them when he woke up. If the threat of being eaten by Eva and Daniel didn’t stop him from trying to follow us, then the hour head start would make it nearly impossible anyway.
We headed south. While we’d probably fallen nearly ten thousand feet by the time we made it out into the valley, the horizontal distance we’d covered helped us more. A look over my shoulder down the length of the long canyon gave me some perspective. The castle wasn’t even visible. We’d traveled several miles away from the Colonel and his Black Death Hunters. But we’d left behind Master Aquinas, Bocho, and the other young hunters from the Academy.
As much as I didn’t like leaving any of them with the Colonel, I didn’t think they were in any real danger. The young hunters would do as they were told by the Black Death, but they wouldn’t be trusted with much responsibility. The older hunters would certainly underestimate what the youngsters trained by Master Aquinas could do. They, along with Bocho, would likely all be turning into Ratlings, cooking meals, cleaning camp, that sort of thing.
Master Aquinas was the one who worried me. The members of the Council had struck me as conniving and ruthless. With, maybe, the exception of Ariel. I remembered the odd look she’d given me at the end of the audience with the group. Part of me thought she’d noticed my sleight of hand when I’d exchanged the real Jerusalem Stones with the fake ones I’d given the Colonel. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I was sure she had.
But if she’d seen me, why hadn’t she said anything?
I hoped it meant she might be an ally, someone who could look out for Master Aquinas until I could help her myself. She’d seemed so old and frail when she’d left the room, not to mention totally disappointed in me. I still wasn’t sure if she’d guessed my trick and had played along or if I’d fooled her too, and she’d actually thought I’d line up to join forces with someone like the Colonel.
Either way, I couldn’t worry about that.
Even with me gone, it was clear the Colonel had plans to launch an all-out war against the Creach and Ren Lucre. His war involved guns and weapons that would expose the Creach and hunters to the entire world. And probably cause Ren Lucre to launch the war he’d been planning for years.
Based on the Colonel’s erratic behavior, I’d put my money on Ren Lucre’s army. It was widely thought that there were Creach in every branch of government, every military, every police force. Ren Lucre had waited a thousand years for his moment. He would be prepared.
So, regardless of the mad Colonel’s plans, it still fell to me and my friends to stop Ren Lucre before it was too late.
And that meant finding the last two Jerusalem Stones and confronting the old vampire once and for all.
Fortunately, the map back at the Colonel’s castle had told me where to find the Lord of the Zombies. Word was that he’d amassed an army the numbered in the thousands.
And my plan was to march right into the middle of it.
17
We hitched a ride in the back of a farmer’s truck into the nearest town large enough to have a train stop. The truck bed was only half-filled with produce so we had plenty of room. There was thick canvas stretched over a metal frame so we were protected from both the elements and from prying eyes looking for some recently-escaped troublemakers.
As we sat huddled together for the bumpy ride, I was reminded of the time we’d ridden through the rough roads of Morocco in the back of a truck. In that case, we’d just avoided attack by the desert djinn, aided by the old hunter, Gregor, who had stayed behind and fought the Creach to the death to give us time to escape.
I thought of Master Aquinas and Bocho back up at the Black Death stronghold and hoped they weren’t on the growing list of people sacrificed so that my quest could be completed. We’d made so much progress since Morocco, with three of the five Jerusalem Stones in our possession. Over half the way there. But the journey ahead of us seemed impossibly hard.
I looked around the back of the truck at my friends, each of them lost in their own thoughts as we bounced down the road in silence. They had risked so much to help me. The fact that they’d all just jumped off the top of a mountain in wingsuits pretty much summed up the lengths they were willing to go to help me.
As always, a slow-burning sense of dread clawed at my chest. Months earlier, the Oracle at Delphi had predicted one of us would die. It was only one of many visions she’d seen. Many, she’d told me, had all of us dying at the hands of the Creach. Seeing the future was like seeing a movie with hundreds of different endings. The problem was, none of the endings she’d seen in my future showed all of us alive. In every ending, at least one of us paid the ultimate price. Who that might be had haunted me ever since.
Not only that, but there was always the very real possibility that all of our efforts and sacrifices would be for nothing. That I’d make a bad decision along the way and in a blink of an eye the Creach could end our adventure. I couldn’t shake the sense that, as we got closer to the end game, the chances of an abrupt ending increased. Failure and death hovered over our shoulders, waiting to pounce.
And as much as I believed in what we were doing, and as much as I tried to project confidence to the others, I was really scared.
I felt a nudge on my shoulder and looked at Eva sitting next to me. Her eyes were closed and I thought for a second that maybe she was asleep.
“Get some sleep,” she said, her eyes still closed. “Your worrying is exhausting me.”
I grinned. “How do you know I wasn’t thinking about what I wanted to eat for lunch?”
“Because you’re a worrier. And you’ve never figured out that worrying doesn’t solve anything.”
My smile disappeared. A quick look around and I saw no-one else seemed to be awake or listening. “I don’t know if this is going to work.”
Eva shrugged. “It will or it won’t. Can you think of a better idea?”
I shook my head but realized she still hadn’t opened her eyes and couldn’t see me. “Not really. Can you?”
“If I had a better idea, trust me, I would have told you.”
A long pause developed, punctuated by the sound of the road beneath the tires and the faint squeaking of the truck’s tired suspension.
“Do you think we have a chance?” I asked. “Do you really think it’s possible?”
Finally, Eva opened her eyes and stared at me. “After everything you’ve seen and everything you’ve done, you’re still asking what’s possible?” She closed her eyes again and made a show of getting comfortable. “It doesn’t seem probable, but that’s an entirely different standard, right? Now, take my advice. Stop talking. Stop worrying. You just survived a knife fight while falling thousands of feet through the sky today. I’d say you earned a little rest.”
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. She was right, of course, but telling my brain to stop worrying didn’t solve the problem. It was cranking full-speed, trying to think of some less dangerous way to get the fourth Jerusalem Stone.
In my mind, I kept seeing my yard back home filled with zombies that first night the Creach came for me. I could hear their low, snarling voices. I saw myself hacking my way through them with a sword. But mostly what I saw over and over again was Hester about to fall from the roof, me holding her hand, trying as hard as I could to save her. But the weight was too much. I slid down the roof, refusing to let go. Then there was the moment when I saw in Hester’s eyes that she’d made a decision. She said the words that had haunted me ever since. Make my sacrifice worthwhile. Then she�
��d let go of my hand and fallen from the roof, down into the snarling mass of zombies below. They grabbed her and pulled her to the ground, feasting on her while she screamed.
“NO!” I yelled, jerking up with a start.
The others woke up, grabbing for their weapons.
“What is it?” Will said.
I looked around, half expecting the zombies to be in the back of the truck with us. But, of course they weren’t. I’d just fallen asleep and Hester’s death had gone from a memory to a dream so real that I was out of breath and felt like my heart was about to explode.
“Nothing. Sorry,” I said. “Bad dream.”
“Scared me to death,” T-Rex said. “Thought some of those nasty Black Death hunters had found us.”
“No, but we better be on the look-out,” Daniel said, peering outside through the canvas. “We’re here.”
We all collected our few belongings and, in the next town square we entered, I knocked on the side of the truck. The farmer pulled over and we climbed out, waving our thanks to the old man for the lift.
I half-expected him to ask a question or two about who we were and where we were going, but he didn’t bother. His tired eyes and slumped shoulders suggested he’d seen enough odd things in his lifetime; a handful of teenagers making their way across Europe didn’t matter much to him. Even our knives and swords hadn’t given him pause. I just hoped his lack of interest was genuine.
The thought had crossed my mind that most people in the valley might be under the sway of the Black Death. The farmer could have been driving us straight into a trap. But a quick look around didn’t show any black uniformed thugs ready to grab us. With a short honk of the truck’s horn, the farmer pulled away, leaving us standing in the square.
“Let’s get under cover,” Eva said. “I don’t like how exposed we are here.”
“Anyone else want to eat?” T-Rex said. “Near-death experiences, followed by actively seeking out the next way to nearly die, always leaves me a bit hungry.”
“T-Rex is right,” Xavier said. “We should pick up some food supplies while we have the chance. We don’t know how long we have until we’re on the run again.”
“We’re already on the run,” Daniel said. “I say we eat on the train. Get as much distance between us and the Black Death as fast as possible.”
“What do you say, Jack?” Will asked.
They all turned to me. We were all equals in my mind, but it was clear that the group still wanted me to make the final decisions. A fact that made the feeling of dread in my chest grow hot and twist around my throat like it was choking me.
“Jack?” Eva prompted me.
“Right, chances are the Black Death has people looking for us, so we’re not going to be able to ride in a passenger train,” I said. “At least not until we get further out. So, we need to sneak onto a freight train. That means we need to grab food now for the trip and take it with us. Make sense to everyone?”
They all nodded in agreement.
“We should break up,” Daniel said. “We’re easier to spot when we move around together.”
“Good idea,” I agreed. “T-Rex and I will get the food. Eva and Xavier, figure out which train we should jump on and see what security at the station looks like. Daniel and Will, one of you guys track parallel to each group and see if anyone’s taking more notice of us than they should. Meet at the train station in twenty minutes.”
Without any further discussion, we split up, instinctively heading to the sides of the town square where we could walk in the shadows. I noticed Daniel had dropped back to watch us and Will was looping around to keep an eye on Eva and Xavier. Knowing Will, I was sure he hadn’t agreed to the split in responsibilities easily. I’m sure he would have preferred to be watching over me and T-Rex.
“What kind of food are we talking here?” T-Rex was asking. “Bratwurst? Strudel? Pies?”
“I’m thinking protein bars, dried fruits and some dark chocolate.”
“I can get behind the dark chocolate, but it’s obviously a good thing that I’m doing this job with you. I’ll pick the food.”
We ducked into a market and emerged ten minutes later with two bags each of food. Meats, cheeses, fruit and plenty of dark chocolate. One bag was full of protein and granola bars. I’d remembered times when we’d all been so hungry that a single bar seemed like a feast. I was looking forward to eating the food T-Rex had picked out, but the bars were something we could stash in our pockets for an emergency.
“C’mon, we need to head over to the train station to meet the others.”
“I don’t see Daniel, do you?” T-Rex said.
I glanced around the edges of the square. I didn’t see him. But then again, Daniel was a master of not being seen when he didn’t want to be. Still, not seeing him unsettled me.
“There he is,” T-Rex said, nodding ahead of us.
I caught sight of him leaning against a wall, the hood of his jacket pulled up over his head. I released a breath of relief. “Let’s go.”
I led the way through the square, keeping my head down while sneaking glances from side-to-side to look for danger.
I knew Daniel had us covered on the right side so I didn’t give it too much attention. It was actually T-Rex who caught the danger.
“Uh, Jack,” he said. “I think something’s wrong with Daniel.”
“What do––” but I didn’t need to finish my question. The second I looked over and saw Daniel walking in a line parallel, I knew T-Rex was right. The way he was moving was all wrong.
Whoever was following us was wearing Daniel’s clothes, but it definitely wasn’t Daniel.
“When I count to three,” I whispered, “I want you to drop the bags and run.”
“All the bags?”
“T-Rex!”
“Okay, all the bags. I got it.”
I scanned the rest of the square and picked out two other men in the crowd staring at us. Things were about to get interesting in a hurry.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Uh huh.”
“One… two… three… run!”
18
The hunters in front of us immediately pulled full broadswords from their sides and moved to keep us blocked in the square. Now that I got a better look at them, I saw they were actually both young women, hair cut short so they passed as either male or female at first glance. They obviously weren’t worried about drawing attention to themselves, making no effort to hide their weapons from the dozens of people milling around.
“Jack,” T-Rex said.
I glanced behind and saw that the hunter following, the one that had obviously done something to Daniel, was also a woman. She had a devilish look on her face as she pulled a battle ax from under her jacket. All three of them were younger than the other Black Death hunters I’d seen up at the castle, maybe nineteen or twenty. I wasn’t about to underestimate any of them. If they’d gotten the best of Daniel in the short time we were in the store, I knew they were fighters.
The tourists and locals stepped to the side, opening the space between us and the hunters. I noticed several of them take pictures with their phones, probably shooting video to post on YouTube later. Still, it was a weird reaction to the appearance of armed men in a busy area in the middle of town.
“No need to run. I was sent to bring you to my mistress, Ariel,” the hunter said in a voice that carried over the crowd. “She is waiting for us.”
Ariel was the woman from Colonel Lockhart’s roundtable. It seemed impossible that she could have gotten here so quickly. We had, after all, taken a pretty massive shortcut. Again, I noticed people in the crowd snapping pictures and pointing excitedly from the men with the swords and then to us.
“I think we’ll pass on that offer,” I said. “Where’s my friend, Daniel?”
“He’s safe,” the hunter said. “And passing on the offer isn’t an option. If you won’t come on your own, I’m going to have to make you.”
The crowd t
hat had gathered around gave a loud Ooooohhh, like a group of school kids watching a fight about to break out.
It was the strangest thing. But then in a flash of understanding, I figured out what was going on.
The crowd thought this was some kind of show. That we were actors using the square as an impromptu stage. And the hunters about to attack us were playing right into that idea.
One of the hunters smiled a big toothy grin as she produced a large, folded hat from her pocket. She tossed it to the ground to the side of our makeshift arena and then sprinkled it with a handful of coins.
“I am Sahila. These coins are from our previous performance,” the hunter said loudly. “Hopefully you lot aren’t as stingy as the last group.”
There was laughter and a small riffle of applause.
“I am Tone. We pride ourselves on realism,” the other hunter warned. “While it might seem that actual injuries are being inflicted, do not worry. It’s all part of the experience.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” T-Rex mumbled behind me.
I pulled my sword from my side and handed T-Rex my short knife. He held it up, looking from it to the enormous swords in the hands of the women now walking toward us.
“Gee, thanks,” T-Rex said. “I can use this to pick their teeth if they come close enough.”
The hunter dressed as Daniel held her arms out wide and addressed the crowd in a billowing voice. “And my name is Mara. Yes, it’s all part of the theater. So, let’s begin.”
Mara swung her ax. I shoved T-Rex out of the way as it whooshed over his head. The crowd gasped as it came just inches from taking off his scalp. A smattering of applause followed.
“See?” Mara said to me in a low voice. “You’ll get no help from these people. I doubt you would even if they thought this fight was real. People love watching a good show. A little blood at the end just makes it better.”