Death Series 08 - Death Blinks

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  “Ah, there you are. Wakey-wakey.”

  I'm woozy and disoriented. But being pissed really helps clear my head.

  The man that caused me to pass out pushes off with a foot from the gray stone wall that faces opposite my position. I am in the cell; he is outside.

  That's the upside.

  He told me to go to sleep. Manipulator, I think with a bite of terror. Manipulators no longer exist in my world.

  My situation has become even worse than it was. I dump Brad Thompson—and certain future zombie manipulation and torture—so I can be dropped into the lap of this jerk.

  Figures. Murphy's Law is just everywhere.

  The current A-hole moves toward me like a big prowling cat. Fear climbs my throat. I whip my head around, hoping for an easy escape. There's nothing simple in this place.

  I face my captor again.

  Mitchell is nowhere. Tears cling to my already-wet eyeballs, threatening to fall.

  The uniform that had appeared almost black in the dimness of the woods is actually a very dark blue. Navy. The insignia of an iridescent butterfly is like a lie above his heart. Nothing that pretty could be reserved for a dude who puts a girl to sleep and breaks my zombie's neck. He can dress as beautifully as he wants; the shell doesn't hide his evilness.

  His eyes are soulless.

  The man before me could be considered handsome by most. His smile is bright, but false. He's tall, as big as Pax, and built like a Body. I glance at his hands, remembering how large the one he wrapped the back of my neck was. How murderous.

  His name is etched above the glittering insect. Ryan.

  I try to move my arms and realize I'm tied. I wiggle my fingers and still have sensation.

  A relieved exhale shudders out of me. Not very much time has passed.

  Happy birthday, Deegan. Again.

  Ryan finishes his stroll across the room and comes to stand in front of my cell. If it can be called a cell. The bars are some kind of slightly opaque porcelain. They don't look like they would hold up against much.

  I start plotting. I'm a Hart, after all.

  “They cannot be broken,” he says as if he's psychic.

  But I don't think he is. Just a good guesser. He doesn't give off that in-your-brain-slime feel I get from telepaths.

  I gulp.

  He's a little older than I am, but he’s so hard that he wears his skin like flint-covered steel, instantly aging himself with his demeanor.

  I flex my fingers again. “Why am I being held prisoner? Is it against the law to be in the woods?”

  His unnervingly light eyes are oblique seawater, weighing me—and clearly find me lacking. His expression shifts to amusement, and Ryan clasps his hands behind his back. He moves like a soldier, or what police might be in this place, but he's off. What he did to me and Mitchell is wrong.

  That would be easy to figure no matter what world Pax blinked me to.

  “No,” he says, the word clipped. “You have violated no laws. However, you are a Three, and as such, have lost your way.” His lips curl with some kind of private amusement he doesn't share.

  My breaths become shorter. Somehow, I don't like where this is headed. Call it a feeling. “What's a ʻThreeʼ?”

  “Earth. Your earth. Sector Three,” he says like he's speaking to a child. His attitude incites my ire.

  I am a numbered IQ. Only genius-level people have a number. I can navigate most circumstances pretty well. Even other-world circumstances. “I'm not confused, just ignorant. I was doing nothing wrong.”

  He spreads his palms away from his body. “Except existing.”

  I frown and say in a quiet voice, “I have a right to live.”

  Ryan chuckles. “Maybe your earth allows an Atomic—though I do not know how they would contain such a skill. They do not possess immunity as Reflectives do.”

  Atomic.

  I remember he called me that. Before. Before he gave me the whammy.

  “You can cause things to be removed from all planes of existence.”

  Black hole. He means my black hole ability. Atomic. Science springs a leak inside my head. Atoms. Atomic level. Black hole. Ah.

  “Yeah. So?” I glare.

  “So. She says ʻso.ʼ” His chuckle is dark, his hands fists. Veins bulge like a ribbon on his muscular forearms where he's rolled up his dark-blue uniform sleeves. “It is not so. We police against your kind.”

  There's no reasoning with this guy. He's had a slice of the crazy pie. “Just let me and Mitchell go.” I try for nice, adding a plea to my tone. “We can go back to…” I scurry for his words where they hide in the crevices of my still-fuzzy brain. “Three.”

  Ryan shakes his head. “No.”

  My heartbeats stack like Jenga blocks.

  “Besides which, your undead pet has been subdued.”

  No, no, no… no! “What did you do to Mitchell?” I yell. Spittle dots my lips, pain roaring at the base of my neck.

  His eyes darken to glacial-caressed rage. “Yelling is unbecoming of a lady.”

  I suck in my next breath like a lifeline. “Fuck you,” I grind out.

  Ryan's condescending smile slips. “I do not have to take you before council, or even our Commander Rachett. After all, I was by myself when I stumbled upon you and your undead. There is no partner to coerce silence from.” He makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat, sounds like he's choking on a loogie.

  “Death Bringer and Atomic.” Ryan snorts, shaking his head in clear disdain.

  The AftD is obvious to anyone who has eyes. Mitchell. Duh. Somehow Ryan knows I can do black holes. Atomic, I correct myself. I'm developing a clear and shining hatred for Ryan, but I like his word better.

  Why would he know? My eyes become slits on him. “What are you?”

  His smile is immediate and arrogant. Ryan glances to the left of me, and I turn my head to follow the direction of his stare. A small mirror stands in the corner of my all-stone cell.

  I frown, not understanding the importance of the mirror. Then a clear image of that strange arrow-type weapon landing in front of me comes to the surface of my addled brain.

  He used a mirror then. Before he captured us.

  The glass inside the small square winks at me. The mossy-green of my eyeball fills the slightly convex surface.

  My brain reconciles the facts, putting together the dots like a constellation of stars. A moment too late.

  Then Ryan is inside the cell.

  I startle with a yip, throwing myself backward, and Ryan grabs me by the scruff of my neck a second time, hauling me up roughly. Tension and pain sing down my spine.

  He gives me serious perusal, his cold eyes missing nothing. “I am a Reflective, you strange creature.”

  My palms dampen.

  I don't know what a Reflective is, but his jumping around using mirrors makes me want to puke on him. Screw motion sickness. I'm going Atomic on his ass. My long-standing guilt tries to insert itself and can't quite manage it.

  Survival of the fittest, Gramps would say.

  My eyes shift to his crotch. I'll start with his teeny weeny penis. The energy swells inside me, right beneath my breastbone, warming my insides like slow-burning embers.

  Ryan's eyes widen.

  Then an invisible wall is erected, and the fingers of my little-used power try to peel the unseen force back.

  Nothing.

  Sweat builds on my upper lip.

  Ryan grins and shakes me so hard, my teeth rattle.

  My power bursts between us like an out-of-control whip, carving a swath of keening blackness.

  The surge of ebony sweeps through Ryan and takes out a wedge of ceramic bars. They wink out of existence and disappear wherever the crap I zap away goes.

  Ryan still stands before me, smiling. “You can't manipulate my energy. I'm born naturally.”

  The ceramic barsʼ amputated ends smolder at the tips where they once stood as straight and perfect rods.

  He shakes me.r />
  My head jerks back and forth. This weirdo is immune?

  Fine. Immune this.

  I send out a death command so pure, it causes slippage in my brain.

  I hope I raised a prison of ax murderers.

  Ryan grimaces as the summons washes over him. His open hand connects with my chin, spinning me into the jagged stone wall.

  My shoulder pounds against the rough rock, and I slide down the wall, hands useless because they’re tied against me.

  My mind shrieks for the undead. But Ryan comes for me. Not like he's worried—like he's sure.

  My heart rate goes nuclear. My breaths are merciless wounds of deprived oxygen as I flatten myself against the textured stone surface.

  Mitchell moves into my line of sight behind Ryan. His neck is canted to his shoulder.

  His eyes blink at me. Deep, like a bruised sky at midnight.

  Zombies don't feel pain. But I do.

  Tears roll down my face like heated pathways of fear and anguish.

  I'm so sorry, Mitchell.

  Then he removes something from his pocket.

  Ryan pivots faster than a cat, and Mitchell chucks a folded leather thing at the mirror in a leaning sweep. Pretty hard to hit a target when your head's wedged against your shoulder.

  I shut my eyes, miserable to the core.

  Glass tinkles to the ground beside my body like shards of musical notes.

  My eyes tear open, and I meet Mitchell's gaze the moment before Ryan launches at him.

  Heal, my mind implores, and every bit of death energy I have left pours into Mitchell.

  His lips part in a sigh, his hands going to his skull. Mitchell jerks his head upright. Pops and cracks of vertebrae light like firecrackers in the close space. The bones realign as Ryan crashes into him.

  Mitchell grabs the arm that shoves him, using Ryan's limb to spin my captor high and wide.

  Fierce satisfaction grips me as my zombie employs that superior strength against this smooth freak.

  Ryan smashes into the wall opposite the one I lean against, cracking his skull and smacking palms against the unforgiving stone.

  “You only broke one mirror,” Ryan gasps out of a chest without air.

  Mitchell smirks. “Buzz around like a fly—see how many fucks I give.” He smiles, and I see the murderer he was in his face.

  The murderer he is now.

  Ryan zaps in his own way. Not my power, but something similar. Using the mirrors that remain in the other cells, he tap dances around my fearless zombie.

  He takes chunks out of Mitchell as I watch. He's winning, I weep inside my battered skull.

  I need Pax! I need more dead.

  My brain splits. Healing every wound Ryan inflicts on my zombie while I call others is something I don't have the finesse for. I'm getting sloppy. I don't have the control.

  I don't know what I'll raise here.

  Criminals? Or good people.

  At least I still have AftD.

  The death rush fills me like a cup spilling over. Too late, because they're coming now. I attempt to twist my position, but my butt bones protest. My shoulders burn. The horrible ties abrade my wrists.

  When the crows hop down the stairs, they fill the bottom like an dark army.

  Ryan jerks the knife out of Mitchell's flank and turns to face the flock. The obsidian blade he carries is dull. Deadly.

  I narrow my vision on the newest wound against Mitchell that doesn't bleed. The split sides knit, coming together like a neat line, healing to perfection.

  Mitchell steps away from Ryan, his gaze meeting the crowsʼ. Communion. The dead with the dead.

  Ryan is clearly unnerved. His large body is poised and ready. His eyes slide from the dead I called to the dead man who murdered those who harmed his family before either of us were born.

  Mitchell was more than just a pincushion for Ryan's blows and stabs. He'd destroyed the mirrors as he spun around the jail, expertly avoiding Ryan.

  Now there are none.

  Ryan's teeth clench as those hard icy bluish-green eyes tear around the space, searching for a shard—anything—to work his evil hopping.

  Mitchell backs up.

  The crows sweep their wings together, just enough to flit a few meters closer to Ryan.

  A crow in the front cocks its head then caws. An achingly vile sound erupts from his throat. The noise is so clear and warlike, it can't be mistaken for anything else.

  I entreat my will.

  The pecking begins.

  Even though I know Ryan meant my certain death, I let Mitchell untie my arms and carry me from the bowels of a prison in an unknown earth, without a single glance in Ryan's screaming direction.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Gramps

  I lie flat on my back. Clouds like white bullets scoot overhead, piercing an impossibly blue sky.

  I'm too old for this shit. And I don't have any smokes. That means I have to deal with everything with no buffer.

  Love a good cigarette.

  I palm the soft grass on either side of me and sit up, taking in my surroundings.

  We're in another world. Well, we're wherever my barely twenty-year-old great-grandson flung us to this time.

  I grunt. Kid's gotta organize his skill set.

  And where the blue hell is Deedie? That pisses me off. Keep track of your sister, I say.

  I stand, taking a deep breath, hold it, and let it out nice and slow. New lung's standing up well, despite my daily abuse of nicotine and proven carcinogens.

  I catch sight of Caleb dusting off his pants and giving Jade a hand up. Then I scan the rest of the semi-comatose bodies lying around in various states of wakefulness.

  Rough damn landing. Again.

  I chuckle, thinking of Jonesy being AftD. Then I shudder. Jonesy—AftD. God bless it all.

  I'm stiffer than a plank. Placing the flat of my hand to my lower back, I twist slowly to get the kinks out. Rejuvenation is great, but it doesn't cure all my ills.

  “Gramps,” Pax says, standing directly to my left.

  “Yeah.” I drop my hand and turn.

  Pax looms over me. Kid's so goddamned big. I shake my head. Maybe he's still a Body here? That would be a good stroke of luck.

  “We're missing people.”

  I cast my eyes to the ground, putting my hands on my hips. A little discipline would be nice. Or, screw that—how about a little finesse? I rein in my impatience and jerk my chin up, doing a head count. We got the Wellers (Good damned thing, too. Tiff is a mouthy drunk, but I think we're going to need her brand more than ever). My eyes light on Clyde, the kids, Sophie, Jonesy, and—no Archer or Bry.

  Hmm… Ranks have slimmed, but the carload of assholes hasn't made an appearance yet. Silver lining and all that happy crap. “Maybe they slipped through the earth cracks.” I cackle.

  Pax frowns.

  I explain, “Yʼknow, you let the dead weight go back to Kent.” I lift my eyebrows in what I assume is a hopeful expression.

  “Gramps”—his tone is irritated, which gets my dander up—“I don't know where they are, and I need to find Dee to know where Parker is. That's what's critical. I can't look for the spares.”

  Spares? Like tires? “What do you mean by that, son?”

  Caleb and Jade arrive. Jade has blades of grass stabbing out of her black hair.

  “I mean my control of blinking isn't that great.”

  Clearly. I spread my palms, urging him to go on. I'm thinking we need to abandon ship before that dim bulb Thompson and his corrupt Parker sprout like weeds and pull another handy little snafu out of their collective asses.

  I glance around, weighing our options. The place with the ruined city is closer now, after this latest whip around. Looks like Pax blinked us not far from the original position but on the same world. A pure panic move.

  The air around me, sweet with a smell that reminds me of spring, appears to grow, then a shimmering ripple cracks through the space that just felt full to bursti
ng, momentarily blinding me with an iridescent rope of moving light.

  The man and woman from before form instantly.

  Pax reacts immediately, punching the man in the throat.

  I sigh in resignation. Game on.

  He catches Pax's arm before it lands and twists it between his shoulder blades.

  “Pax!” Caleb roars then sets the guy's feet on fire in the middle of pasture land in Weird World.

  Swell.

  “What the righteous fuck?” Jonesy bellows like a well-timed alarm. His zombies turn their heads toward the new offenders.

  Oh? We somehow blinked the horde? I snort an abrupt chuckle. “Gotta do everything myself,” I mutter, lurching my way into the melee.

  The woman gets in close to her partner's cooking feet and tries to smother the flames.

  “Sorry, missy,” I say with real regret, then thunk her on the back of the head.

  She doesn't respond as I hoped—by cooperatively blacking out. Instead, she clocks me in the jaw for my trouble.

  Legs splayed, I fall directly on my ass with a teeth rattling clap. God bless it.

  “I am sorry, elder,” she replies apologetically. But her eyes glint with humor.

  No problem. Let me get handed my ass by a girl in a navy-blue uniform with a butterfly insignia. I love when that happens, I think with morose glee, tipping backward onto the pasture grass.

  I lie on my back for the second time, the smell of smoke and burning rubber singing my nostrils, and wonder for the umpteenth time why I volunteer to go on these little excursions.

  Oh yeah, Mac O'Brien doesn't turn down a challenge.

  That thought pops my wily ass back into the fray, and I scramble to a stand, head spinning. I get enough wind in the gullet to breathe and take in the scene before me.

  The little lady is a whirling cyclone of limbs. She's laid out John and Jonesy, and she's working on Caleb.

  Not to be undone, Clyde wades in, bellowing about “master” and that.

  Truth is, the girl is just that deadly.

  Pax and the man, his feet smoking to beat the band, are toe to smoldering toe.

  The guy pounds Pax in the chest with a shove that sends him flying through the air before he lands in a crumpled pile of limbs and wounded ego.

  “Well this is a class-A clusterfuck.” This from Tiff, eloquent as always.