by Zoë Archer
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Cassandra hoped it did not involve making sacrifices or offerings of blood.
Voisin chuckled. “Ah, this is for the bokor, petite fille. You do nothing but watch.” Then he sobered. “But, mes enfants, I must tell you about part of the spell.”
Now Cassandra’s heart threatened to rip from her chest, it beat so hard. “What?”
“I know.” Sam’s deep voice startled her.
She looked back and forth between the nodding sorcerer and Sam. “What?” she demanded. “What the hell is it that you know?”
“The balance, it must be restored,” said Voisin. He directed a pointed gaze at Sam, who just nodded darkly.
Understanding pierced her like a knife to the heart. She felt dizzy, sick, despairing. And furious.
“You have to die.” Her eyes burned. “Truly die.”
He turned to her, his jaw tight. “Thought that might happen, when we returned the Source.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“Wasn’t certain.”
“But you knew.”
He made a clipped nod. She’d never seen him look so bleak, yet his expression matched the sudden desolation that carved her hollow. She realized that when they had made love in the forest, he knew it was to be the last time. He’d given her everything he could.
Her hand tried to clench into a fist, but he held it firm within his own.
“No,” she choked. “No, I won’t let you.”
“It has to happen, Cass.” His voice rasped. “The Source needs to be secured, and if it means I have to finally die, then…” He tightened his jaw again.
“Then you’re happy to do it,” she filled in, bitterness lacing her words.
His gaze burned down at her. “Like hell,” he snarled. He forced down his anger, so that, when he next spoke, awe and tenderness abraded his voice. “Even dead, I never felt more alive than when I’m with you.”
Hot tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared up at him, his starkly handsome face. She had no idea how to go on living without him. He was essential. Existence without him couldn’t be comprehended.
“I don’t want to give that up,” he rumbled. His hand came up to trace along her cheek. She leaned into his touch. “But there’s more at stake here than what either of us wants. We both know that.”
There was no denying the truth of what he said, even as she railed against it. Yet, as he said, neither of them truly had a choice. It was simply a matter of how they faced the inevitable.
“I love you, Sam.” She stretched onto the tips of her toes to press her lips against his. “All my life, it’s only been you. And I’ll go on loving only you until the end of my days.”
He claimed her mouth, branding her with his heat, his essence, and she clung to him desperately as he enfolded her. “I love you, Cass. I wish…I wish…”
But that was too much. “I know,” she whispered. They held each other, trying to prolong these moments into lifetimes.
“Pardon, mes enfants,” Voisin interrupted quietly. “We must do this now, when the moon is high.”
They broke apart, and the sensation of him stepping back felt as though her own limbs were being torn off. She refused to surrender her grip on his hand, however. She would touch him for as long as she was able, so that, at the very last, he could feel her with him.
Sam straightened to his full height, drawing back his shoulders. A proud soldier. He nodded at the sorcerer. “Begin.”
Voisin doused all the candles in the cottage, save for the black ones in front of Baron Samedi’s shrine. The Source was also set before the shrine. Voisin began chanting in a language Cassandra could not recognize—a mixture of English, French, and some older, distant tongue that recalled a far away shore, primal forests. As Voisin chanted, his voice changed, turning sharp and nasal. He waved his hands above the shrine. The candles sputtered, then flared higher.
A green light uncoiled from the picture of the death loa. It swirled around the shrine, touching on the offerings, lingering over the pouch. Then it grew, reaching out in widening circles. For a moment, it hovered around the sorcerer before moving on. The light snaked through the cottage, heading toward Cassandra and Sam.
When it reached her, she stiffened to feel its cold burn. Sam immediately hauled her behind him, shielding her. The green light spiraled around him, beginning at his feet, then winding its way up his body, lingering for several moments over the wound in his chest. He tensed but did not try to pull away.
Voisin chanted louder and louder, until Cassandra’s ears rang. She felt a powerful force drawing on the cottage, a vacuum, stealing the air from her lungs and chilling her skin. But she would not let go of Sam’s hand.
Suddenly, Voisin shouted. The candles gutted, went out. At the same time, the green light flared, blinding her, then it, too, extinguished.
The next moment, Sam collapsed.
Chapter Ten
Cassandra fell to her knees beside Sam. She’d known it was coming, yet, even so, to kneel next to him and touch his lifeless body—she heard a strange sound, like a wounded animal, and realized it came from her.
Light flared. Voisin came forward with a lamp, staring down at Sam’s body with a puzzled frown.
She barely looked at the sorcerer when he said, “The Dark Gift has been returned. It is safe. The balance restores itself.”
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Her hands moved over Sam’s face, tracing the shape of his features, the handsome face she’d grown to love in all its expressions. Only stillness now. His skin already began to cool, losing the warmth she had brought out in him. When Sam had beheaded Broadwell, the Heir’s corpse almost immediately began to decompose, as if years of death finally caught up.
She couldn’t bear to watch Sam decay, though she knew it had to happen. No matter how hard she tried, however, she couldn’t make herself rise up from the floor and leave him, even to prepare a grave. He’d have to be buried quickly.
“Petite fille,” Voisin murmured, placing a hand on her shoulder. “There is more to be done.”
She shook Voisin’s hand away, fierce as a flame. “Not yet.”
Cupping Sam’s still face, she bent over him. One last kiss. She would have to content herself with that—as her heart broke and the emptiness within her howled like a cave of ice.
Shaking, she pressed her mouth to Sam’s. He didn’t kiss her back. Beneath her lips, his own were cold and motionless. But she stayed there, trying to imbue this final kiss with all the love she would never feel again.
A rattling. The sound of a storm, a wind. Something drew at her breath, pulling it from her.
Sam’s motionless body suddenly arced up in a spasm, nearly throwing her back.
She clung to him. With wild eyes, she looked at the sorcerer. “What is this?” she demanded. Nothing like this had happened to Broadwell.
The sorcerer gazed back at her, unreadable.
Cassandra tried to force Sam’s body back down to the ground, but whatever power gripped him now, she couldn’t fight it. He shook and convulsed.
He suddenly gasped. Dragged in air in long, shuddering breaths. His eyes flew open. At his sides, his hands knotted into fists.
“Sam?”
He didn’t hear her. Some force clutched him. He took in another breath, and then another, the sound harsh and loud in the quiet cottage.
Cassandra held onto him. Under her hands, she felt movement, a growing energy. She parted the torn fabric of his shirt, then gasped.
The death wound…it was closing. Healing. And then—she could scarcely believe it—she lay her hand over his chest. Beneath her palm, his heart beat. Once. Then again. And then its rhythm steadied, became regular.
His body stopped shaking. He breathed.
“Sam?” She brushed damp hair back from his forehead, then realized with a start that he was sweating. He’d never done that before.
A hesitant joy began to expand within her. She dared
not believe, yet wanted to so badly that she held herself in suspension midway between despair and elation.
Slowly, he turned to look at her. He blinked his azure eyes, confused, disoriented. The first time he tried to speak, his voice croaked. After swallowing—swallowing!—he tried again. “Dead?” he rasped. “Heaven or…hell?”
“Yorkshire,” she answered, smiling though tears soaked her cheeks. “You’re alive.”
His eyes widened. He struggled to sit up, and she helped him, wrapping her arms around him and cradling him to her. He fumbled at his chest, then sucked in a shocked breath when his hand found no wound, only a circular scar marking where a bullet once pierced and killed him. Then he started again when he realized he actually breathed.
He held up his wrist. Sure enough, his pulse beat just beneath the surface of his skin.
“My heart.” He tilted his head as if to catch a sound. “It’s beating.” A small, wondering smile tilted in the corner of his mouth. “Loud.” Then he gazed at her, and euphoria lit his face, transforming him from merely handsome to extraordinarily beautiful, until uncertainty crept in. “Cass—is this real?”
“It is real,” answered Voisin. When Sam and Cassandra looked at the sorcerer, he continued, “When the Dark Gift was stolen, too many zombi were made. One life had to be returned to restore the balance.”
“So I’m…mortal again?”
“Yes.” Voisin glanced at Sam’s tattered clothes. “You must be more careful from now on.”
“Gladly.”
Sam’s strength must have returned, because Cassandra found herself suddenly pulled tight against him in an embrace. She threw her own arms around him, and for some moments all they could do was hold one another, feeling their hearts beat against each other and the soft warmth of their mingled breaths.
When they kissed, she tasted the living essence of him, and wasn’t entirely certain whether the tears on her face were his or hers. But it didn’t matter. Sam was alive.
She faintly heard Voisin slip from the cottage.
“Cass,” Sam rasped. “Beautiful Cass. I thought…I thought you were an angel.”
“I am no angel.”
He chuckled. “I know that now.”
“How do you feel?”
He frowned, assessing himself. “Hungry.” He laughed.
“Anything you want,” she vowed. “Dozens of roast chickens. Towers of meat pies. Strawberries. Turnips.”
“You.” His expression heated.
Warmth surged through her body. “Always.”
He turned fierce as he cupped the back of her head. “Not letting you go again. I learned something from death—to seize hold of life and love. And that means you, Cass. I love you.”
“I love you, Sam.” She stroked his face, his throat, reveling in the warmth of him. “And I’m sure as hell not letting go of you.”
He pulled her closer, so that their foreheads touched. “I’m alive.”
“Thanks to the magic of Baron Samedi.”
But he shook his head and pulled back just enough to hold her gaze with his own. Her breath caught at the depth of emotion there.
“No, Cass,” he whispered. “It was you. You brought me back to life.” He took her hand and pressed it against his solid chest. “And this beating heart will always be yours.”
Simon Says
BIANCA D’ARC
Prologue
“Bravo one. Echo delta niner.” Simon repeated the prearranged code for extraction. His small team was mostly gone, decimated by an enemy for which they’d had no way to prepare adequately. They’d been briefed, but nothing could match encountering the walking dead for real for the first time.
“Sitrep,” someone barked over the radio. He knew that voice. It was Matt Sykes, an old friend, comrade in arms, and the officer in charge of this little fiasco.
“Jenkins and Bradley are dead. Hsu has gone over to the dark side. Wally and me are the only ones left.” That was more than enough reason to get the hell out of Dodge.
Simon wasn’t about to mention his own injury. The eggheads on base said one bite from the creatures they were hunting brought instant death. Simon had been lucky so far. He’d been scratched up by their claws, but not bitten. The claws were probably harmless as far as spreading the contagion went. Maybe they had to get a good hard bite of you in order to spread their infection.
That was something the doctors could puzzle out later. Right now, Simon needed to get himself and Wally out of the hot zone so they could regroup and come back stronger with reinforcements. Lots of reinforcements.
“A helo is coming to get you. ETA ten minutes. Hang tight, Si.” Matt’s voice was reassuring but Simon caught sight of movement in the trees.
They had to get to the rendezvous but they were being pursued. They could move faster than their pursuers, but the creatures had the advantage of numbers. If they managed to box him and Wally in, they’d be toast. Or rather, a tasty snack for these ghouls who liked to eat human flesh.
“We’re on the move,” Simon reported. “Being pursued. Tell the helo to come in hot and be ready to fly. We’ll most likely have company on our six. We won’t have time to stop and chat.”
“Simon…” Matt sounded ready to read him the riot act, but Simon didn’t have time to listen. The enemy had found them. He could see the creatures maneuvering through the trees to flank them.
“Gotta go, commander. We’ll be at the LZ in ten. Blackwell out.”
Wally, otherwise known as Ensign Rob Wallace, the newest member of the team, came crashing through the underbrush. So much for stealth.
“They’re flanking us. Bradley and Jenkins are with them.”
“Shit.” Their former teammates had risen from the dead and were now playing for the other team. Could this day get any worse?
They’d been sent into a horror movie with inadequate intel, inappropriate weaponry and not a chance in hell of winning. Bullets didn’t stop these things. They were already dead. Nothing short of a block of well-placed C4 that could blow the bastards to smithereens would stop them. Simon had lost three friends already to this menace, not to mention the Marines that had been sent in before they’d called in Special Forces.
“Stay with me, Wally.” Simon could see fear in the young man’s eyes. “Helo’s coming. We just need to keep it together until they get here. I don’t want to enter the LZ until the last minute. Otherwise, we’ll be forced to make a stand in the clearing or fall back. Neither one of those things is an option.” Simon talked fast as he moved with Wally to a better position. “We don’t stand a chance if we try to take them on head to head. The ammo we have doesn’t work against them. The only thing that seems to do any good are grenades, but they have to be close enough to blow them apart. Just hitting them with shrapnel won’t stop them, so use your remaining grenades sparingly. How many you got left?”
Wally did a quick check of his utility belt. “Just one, sir.”
“Better than me. I used all mine. I’m out.” They’d each been issued five grenades back at base before this mission. When they’d set out on this journey, it had seemed like more than enough to take down a few tangos in the woods. Now Simon knew differently. A whole crate of grenades might not be sufficient to take out these nightmare creatures.
Simon held up one hand for silence. He listened hard to the surrounding forest. All the wildlife had long since vanished. Critters knew better than to stick around when there was a predator in the area. The leaves rustled as the undead moved through the forest, brushing against the foliage.
“They’re on the move. We need to go.” Simon stood. Wally followed behind. “We have five minutes to kill before the helo gets to the clearing.”
Near as Simon could tell, the walking dead no longer comprehended language. They could still hear though, and small sounds would give away Simon and Wally’s location. Simon whispered, keeping his voice as low as possible.
The creatures seemed to retain some of the training they’d
had in life. They were good at stealth for one thing. The Marines were good at moving silently when they chose. The members of Simon’s team who had been lost to the enemy, only to rise from the dead, were even better.
Maybe that’s why Simon fell into their trap. One minute he was making plans with Wally under cover of a big maple tree, the next, claws ripped into his shoulder and teeth sank into his flesh.
The fucker had bitten him!
Wally kicked the creature away from Simon, but not in time. Blood welled and Simon knew he’d fall fast if the deaths of his teammates were anything to go by.
Still, the instinct for self-preservation pushed him onward. He ran alongside Wally to the circle of trees that marked the clearing. The helicopter would land in a few minutes but Simon would probably be dead by then.
He’d seen Hsu drop about twenty seconds after he’d been bitten, and beefy Beau Bradley had taken only ten seconds more than that. The poison would course through his body, felling him like one of the mighty trees in this idyllic forest turned horror show. Any second now.
Creatures surrounded them. They were coming across the clearing and up from behind. Not much chance of escape from this mess now and Simon was already dead.
“Get out of here, Wally. I’m done. Save yourself.”
At that precise moment, they both heard the sound of helicopter blades in the distance, growing closer.
“Get into the clearing,” Simon ordered the younger man. “Use the grenade if you have to. Your ride’s almost here.”
“I’m not going without you, sir.” Wally dragged Simon toward the line of undead Marines standing between them and the Landing Zone.
“I’ll take ’em down if I can. You run for the chopper.”
Wally reluctantly agreed to the plan. Both of them knew Simon was living on borrowed time. The least he could do was get young Wally to safety before his time ran out.
“Tell Matt Sykes I’ll see him in hell.” Simon grinned, thinking of his old comrade and the good friends he’d lost along the way.