Which he'd done before they'd traveled.
The guns were made of all-organic materials to survive the Pathway. He emptied the rounds into the huge males of the Band and chambered another clip.
He raised it to shoot more and paused, watching the scene unfold, a grin replacing his blank expression.
This was almost too good to hope for.
*
Clara's shoulders slumped in defeat, the Traveler's guns trained on them again, three of their darts buried in the boy with skin the color of night, his slumped form on the ground of the tunnel as the mob approached them.
There were hundreds.
The Band readied for war, it seemed as though the entirety of the Kingdom of Kentucky poured from the heart of Clara's kingdom toward them, their dirty and starving faces telling Clara what her end would come as surely as she took breath.
Most were men, the criminal element loosed upon her sphere, having looted, pillaged and Guardian knew what else, Clara thought on a sad note, regret taking residence in her heart as she met Matthew's eyes.
How would they ever survive this? There were not enough Band to defend, the situation far worse than even her wildest speculations.
Clara noted that Daniel and Edwin wore the darts as well, their manner not fully alert. The poisonous sleep working on them even as she watched.
They would be cut down unprotected, the twilight drug working its black magic against them. Their bodies succumbing when their minds did not.
*
“Caleb,” Jade whispered and he looked into her eyes, her love and trust shining out of them like a spear of hope.
Piercing his heart.
His soul.
He clenched his eyes closed as the mob came, a flutter in his jaw pulsing with his reconciliation of what he'd do.
Caleb looked at the filthy criminals that came their way, forty meters out, closing in fast. He swept his gaze over the huge guys, Band, he thought errantly. Then finally, his friends. Jonesy was unconscious from who knew what. The Zondorae brothers had satisfied smirks across their faces.
They wanted these people to suffer, to be unassisted.
Well, tough shit.
Jade had been touching his arm, getting an emotional radio signal to the feelings that were screaming through his psyche, vibrating like a tuning fork before finding its equilibrium.
In this case, the dead.
Jade looked up at him. “Do it,” she finished her thought.
John's eyes widened when he saw where Caleb looked.
The graveyard lay like a sleeping army outside the sphere.
Waiting.
*
Sarah's face swung to Clara's, Clarence and Charles flanking her as Matthew did Clara. James came to stand behind her.
“Clara,” Sarah nearly wailed, tears running down her face. Her voice, her manner, told Clara the same thing she had been ruminating on but a moment before.
What could they be about before this insurmountable violence?
“We will prevail,” Clara promised even as she mourned her survival and that of the people that were near her. She had utterly forgotten the Travelers behind her.
The Band had not, standing in the center of the sphere tunnel, grouped in pairs with half facing the screaming group of degenerates who had overtaken Clara's peaceful sphere. The other half faced the two from another world.
It was Matthew that caught the look between the two young Travelers, the dark one who controlled the dead and the one with hair more fiery than Clara's, near in height to some of the Band.
It took him but a moment to ascertain the direction of their thoughts.
It was even more rapid for Clara, who screamed in ringing terror, “No!”
Even as the young Traveler's face straightened into a mask of concentration, the air instantly heavy with his will, his intent.
Death singing around all that were present.
The dead would weep no more but rise again.
No matter who they were, what they had been, they would rise and do the bidding of the young Traveler.
Clara knew it and was afraid.
For Caleb Hart did not know who would answer his call.
Clara did.
Fear gripped her with icy talons, sinking into the meat of what made Clara brave, her fortitude shaking like a home without a foundation.
Matthew saw her reaction and knew what she feared.
He was too late to stop it, too late to temper Caleb the Traveler.
Do not raise all, he thought too late.
Not all.
*
“Holy shit! Nail the kid, Gary!” Joe screamed, watching Caleb, feeling the shift in the atmosphere.
In that moment he wanted to kill Parker so much he could taste it.
Murder was taking on a taste all its own, and he didn't think it was an acquired thing. He was warming right the hell up to it.
Philip saw the older Traveler raise his weapon of sleep and used his fist like the hammer of flesh it was, bringing it from behind his shoulder and punching it out in a line so straight that it never curved. It was suddenly there, shattering thought and action away like water sheeting off a tin roof.
Gary felt blinding pain as he slipped to his knees, his ears ringing.
Philip kicked him in the ribs with his instep, causing him to fly about a half a horse length in a rolling arc.
That may keep him from using the sleeping weapon for a time, Philip thought, swinging his face to what was happening Outside. As he did, he was one of the first to see the graves burst like open sores upon the partially frozen ground, dying grass toppling over like small trees, displaced by the erupting earth.
The boy was working his magic upon the fallen.
Death magic.
Philip watched as two of the dead entered the sphere tunnel. Their appearance stopped the vile group of interlopers' advance almost instantly. Their expressions were both comedic and horrific.
It was not every day that their former prince, long dead, strode about with the queen of the sphere they had illegally captured trailing behind him in a vapor of death.
*
Caleb didn't know who he'd raised, he just hoped it was enough. The first two of the dead who came forward looked like they may have been people of importance before they died.
He gave a mental shrug, seeing the crowns that crested their heads, their eyes not quite alive in faces with skin gone gray, the flesh pulled taut.
Huh, he raised them kinda fast, they were lookin' a little corpsey. Caleb gave a little smile as Tiff walked up beside him.
“Kinda a rush job, Caleb,” she said, not unkindly.
“Yeah,” he looked down at her. “I was sorta in a hurry so lay off.”
“Right,” Tiff said, looking at the pair. The man was tall, the vestiges of what had been blond hair clung to a scalp that showed through in patches, dirt from the grave sticking in brownish clumps. But it was the woman, her black eyes soulless, her hands in tight fists of anger that got Tiff's full attention.
“I don't have a good feeling about these two,” Tiff said, a thread of uncertainty weaving through the tone of her voice.
“You're not losin' your nerve, are ya?” Caleb asked.
She shook her head but her eyes were trained on the woman.
“Don't worry about it. The dead are dead, right?” Caleb said, winking.
Right.
*
Clara ran to Caleb. He looked down at her with a question in his eyes. She opened her mouth to warn him.
That Queen Ada was not normal in life. She was evil. She was....
Then Clara's false mother opened her mouth, removing all the doubt for everyone.
Queen Ada looked around the sphere tunnel with profound pleasure. It was so reasonable to her that she would be back to her rightful position in her kingdom. She felt a perverse joy at the thought, until she saw her miserable excuse for a daughter, dressed in breeches, her hair in disarray, no crown, an embarrassme
nt as usual.
That was easily remedied, Ada mused. Clara had always been hard-headed. Ada would be pleased to institute her special brand of discipline once again.
She moved toward Clara then paused, a feeling of being tethered swirled around her uncomfortably, like a line from one of the pungies which dredged the oysters from the muck of the lake. She could not escape. She looked at a boy of mayhap ten and six or seven years who stood beside Clara.
Realization of what he was and what she had become dawned on Ada.
She wished to break this untenable hold he had on her.
Queen Ada opened her mouth and hissed at the boy.
The boy that commanded death.
And in so doing, commanded her.
Ada would not abide such a thing. She shambled forward rather gracefully, considering she was quite dead.
*
Rowenna came forward and beheld the gruesome former queen, her skin the color of day old ash. It was a horrific sight, between her and Prince Frederic, she did not know who to look upon first.
Queen Ada had eyes only for Clara, but at the appearance of Rowenna a cruel smile pulled the barely-there flesh into a grin that looked like a clown's, the teeth glowing soft and yellow, not all present in the rotting blackness therein.
Rowenna unsheathed her dagger, leaving the dirk where it lay, the cold metal a comforting presence at her lower back. She would need a larger blade for the likes of the sorcerer's manifestation who shambled toward them, the smell of her arriving before her body.
“Ah... Raymond's whore,” Ada ground out through lips that were a thin slash, the rot of her mouth garbling the words.
“Caleb... you got this, right?” Tiff asked, decidedly nervous. Bry came up to stand beside her.
“Who is this?” Bry asked, stabbing a finger in the direction of the grossest corpse he'd ever seen Caleb raise.
“Queen Ada,” Clara whispered.
Gary's voice rose behind them, “So, Hart?”
Caleb swung his face away from the beauty queen, all in black, including her mouth.
He never could get the mouths right.
He met the scientist's gaze. “Did Parker tell you the finer points of control?”
Caleb just stared at him.
“Not all zombies are alike my friend. If they were bonkers in real life, they're not malleable in death.” He shrugged, then, “Thought you'd like to know since this one's looking pretty independent.”
Shit. Caleb looked at the dead woman, she was only a couple of meters away now. He was silently glad he'd done a rush-job raising or queenie here would have already been on them.
John shouted at Clara, that medieval speech thing kinda working out, “Was the queen mad while alive?”
Clara looked at Queen Ada who grinned back, her tongue gray, patches of black like evil polka dots covering the surface. She nodded quickly as Matthew pulled her behind him.
“Yes, quite,” Clara responded.
Caleb looked at the man just in front of the dead queen, his eyes glittering black holes without mercy, without reason. They bored into Caleb's without connection but with plenty of resistance.
Effing spectacular, independent corpse number two. Just his luck.
Jonesy roused himself, sitting up on his knees, jerking out the darts. He looked around, his eyes taking in the crowd of filthy people with weapons, the Band, his friends, the pair of scientists and finally his eyes settled on Prince Frederic and Queen Ada.
“Hey Caleb... is that your handiwork there?”
Caleb nodded, stalling.
“They don't look right, man,” Jonesy said, leveling a stare on the pair of royals.
No shit.
Rowenna looked at Queen Ada. “What can be done, Traveler?”
Caleb turned and stared into the only pair of violet eyes he'd ever seen and said, “Going to control her. If that doesn't work, we're gonna have to burn her.”
Daniel translated, “Because of her madness while alive, she may be impossible to manipulate in her current state.”
Rowenna frowned, “How do we... stop her?”
Bracus spoke for the first time, weapons laid bare in his hands, one eye on the crowd that inched closer, their stunned stupor breaking, “She is dead.”
Caleb nodded. “Fire maybe. If she can't be controlled, it'll take fire.” Or maybe she needed to lose her head. He didn't know. It's not like he'd raised a bunch of insane zombies before.
He looked behind the pair and saw the rest of the dead, waiting behind them, their eyes pegging him where he stood.
Waiting.
Caleb turned to the Queen, the dead one. “Restrain the men Gary and Joe Zondorae,” Caleb commanded.
She flinched, trying to shake off his command and moved toward Clara again.
Caleb put intent and juice behind it, taking Tiff's hand in his, smoothly siphoning off her AFTD. “Do as I command!” he yelled, his force of will thrown in her direction like a sucker punch.
She bowed over at the waist, hissing as if in pain.
Straightening, she began to move toward Clara and Rowenna.
Jonesy said, “She's gonna need the torch, dude.”
Yeah... or something.
Then there was the Prince.
“What about him?” Caleb said to the general crowd.
“He makes Ada look tame,” Daniel said.
Damn.
Rowenna stepped forward and hefted her dagger with grace and speed, smoothly moving beside the corpse of Queen Ada, taking off her arm in a sliding pull. The limb jerked away and out of the shoulder with a sickening pop that echoed in the stillness of the tunnel. The bystanders were silent, watching the dead fill the tight confines of the tunnel, the air burdened with the fragrance of their decomposition.
Several people started coughing with what Caleb liked to think of as the pre-barf gag. Pretty soon it wouldn't be pre anymore. It'd be happening.
Rowenna raised her blade to take off the next piece of the zombie while Caleb turned his attention to the sane zombies and saw the Prince casually backhand Rowenna.
She flew backwards, knocking her head against the wall of the interior of the sphere and slid down, dazed.
Bracus growled deep in his throat and rushed Prince Frederic, his powerful muscles bunching and contracting as he plowed toward his intended target.
Alex piped in from a couple of meters away, “They're strong!” he screamed in warning.
Bracus grunted, lowering his head like a mighty bull and charged Frederic, lifting him bodily as he made contact. Frederic grabbed the huge man and swung him around, releasing him as he used the momentum of Bracus' charge against him. Bracus was hurtled in the same direction where Rowenna lay, equally stunned. His eyes met those of the Band.
Prince Frederic's gaze shifted to Clara. Madness flowed in their depths. He came, much faster than Queen Ada, who was working her way toward Clara as well, minus a limb.
Clara whimpered, despite her absolute resolution to never be afraid, she gave a soft sound of terror. Matthew heard it and treated the zombie like three of the fragment instead of the one dead man he was, having thrown his Bandmate like a toy. He would approach this risen creature of the damned with caution.
Matthew moved in, his directive to protect Clara in the face of anything never changing. Never faltering.
Against things which lived.
Or those that had died.
Caleb had all he could do to control the remaining dead. He had to guess about who was bad... and who was good. He'd start with the science sib squad. Those two needed to be subdued.
Not a lot of reflection needed for them.
He flung that directive to a group of five corpses that had followed behind the royal wackos and they moved toward the Zondorae brothers like a wave of controlled menace, the smell preceding them.
Caleb was used to it.
They weren't. They began gagging even as they were pegging the zombies with their useless pulse guns, covering their m
ouths with one hand, tranquilizer guns in the other.
Jonesy chortled. “Hey guys, those aren't gonna work... I'm just sayin'.”
Caleb was too busy coordinating his directives to notice Jonesy's excellent command of sarcasm.
Although it was much appreciated.
Caleb watched as the big guy, Matthew, started hacking Prince Frederic. He was taking chunks out of the guy.
Three of the Band came behind him to help but the remaining dead were clumsy. They stumbled through the Band and the assembled crowd of losers from the other sphere and pushed people aside like bowling pins. After all, they were just following orders.
Subdue the crowd was about as simple as any command Caleb could have given. But they were not a thinking bunch, stumbling around on the way to their goal.
Single-minded dudes.
It allowed a hole to open between where the corpses struggled into the three of the Band trying to aid Clara and opened just wide enough a gap for Prince Frederic to latch onto Queen Clara.
Clara screamed as the dead hand of Frederic, utterly cold and without life, clamped onto her shoulder, the grip instantly fierce and immobile. It felt like he was trying to meet his fingers through her flesh. The pain was crushing, she saw stars, fought dizziness.
Then Caleb was there, as was Matthew.
Caleb grabbed his zombie reflexively. “Release her!” he bellowed into its rotting face, the zombie inches taller.
It paused, meeting his eyes, an obsidian stare without light. “No, Master.”
Then the longsword that was free of its binding took Frederic's head off at the base of the neck in a practiced swipe, so quickly executed, Caleb felt the breeze at its passing.
Queen Clara was released from Prince Frederic forever.
She did not know it, her consciousness slipped away even as Matthew bent to catch her against him, his long sword tip stabbed into the earth of the tunnel.
Ready for whatever may occur.
Always.
savage 04 - the savage vengeance Page 23