Holly lets me keep my arm, too, using her magic to make sure that it stays under control. We don't even have to belt it down at night anymore. With Patricia dead, Holly is the only necromancer who has any hold on me and I know there isn't an evil bone in her body. She even trusts me to feed our babies with it, cuddle them, wipe their tears away. That's how confident Holly is of me and I am of her.
We still have cars and telephones and computers, just on a smaller scale. Nations didn't collapse and satellites didn't fall. A lot of people died, but a lot of people lived, too, and were stronger for it. Some people say that things were better before the apocalypse, that life was more luxurious, that it was easier, but we disagree.
We have a house with white shutters and a roof I built myself, a garden with herbs and vegetables that taste like summer, and a herd of horses that Holly tends to like they're her children. But most of all, we have the love that saved our world and that's all that matters.
THE END
Glossary
Galen's DeadBorn Dictionary
Bone Bags – skeleton zombies with no flesh. Often reeking of the earth, they're easy to hear coming as they clack when they walk. Their teeth are always chattering, too, like toys. Bone bags are the most prevalent type of DeadBorn next to Lopers, but I think they're really just the same thing, only they've been picked clean.
Fire Faces – with skin that crackles like magma, these zombies are souls pulled up from the highest levels of Hell. They're not dead in the sense that they were once alive, but they're certainly not living either. Drawn by the hordes of DeadBorn, the fire faces are out of Patricia's control. Even Holly isn't safe from them. They can be killed with a single shot or blow to their stolen heart.
Flickers – these could be body parts from any type of DeadBorn, including unborns, that can still move, especially large pieces such as arms, legs or torsos. Zombies may or may not reattach their own parts or the parts of others, but I've never seen this myself. Holly tells me that it's true though.
Ooze Spitters – not yet seen but according to … according to Martin, they're tall, maybe eight or nine feet, with skin like green leather and bulbous lumps on their backs. They spew acid and can melt cars, metal, even people. They seem smarter than the other DeadBorn, but maybe I'm just imagining it. We have no idea how to kill them other than just smashing them to bits.
Lopers – any corpse that's been raised by Patricia's magic. They smell like shit and look like it, too. I wouldn't be surprised to see one that's covered with maggots or swarming with flies. They're much quieter than the bone bags, but fairly easy to hear coming. That is, if the stench of rotten flesh doesn't warn you first.
Mummies – I don't know much of anything about these creatures, but Holly tells me later that they're made up of the ashes from cremated bodies. My father was cremated, so I'm hoping he didn't end up as one of these things, but I guess I'll never know. They look pretty much like you'd expect: white linen wraps, usually dirty, with bloody splotches for their eyes and mouths. They move half as fast as any of the other DeadBorn.
Rotten Angels – they can take down helicopters. Enough said.
Water Hags – known as 'hags' for short, these are DeadBorn who faced death by drowning. Bound by the element that took their lives, water hags aren't able to travel more than a few yards from the water's edge. If it weren't for this single flaw, they'd be unstoppable: scentless, fierce and quick as hell. Water hags are highly aggressive and will even kill other zombies that get in their way.
Unborns – stillborns, babies, and young children are raised by Patricia's magic into unborns. Without the aggressive tendencies of their fellows, unborns are used solely by Patricia to track Holly and to get into places where others might not. I know they're not dangerous, but honestly, these things scare me more than I'm willing to admit.
If you enjoyed this book, look for The Seven Wicked series!
“That's just the First," Caleb said, pausing to worry at his lower lip. “And it's only one of seven, Seven Wicked; we can't destroy any of the others until we destroy the First.”
Books by C.M. Stunich
The Seven Wicked Series
First
Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth
Sixth
Seventh
Houses Novels
The House of Gray and Graves
The House of Hands and Hearts and Hair
The House of Sticks and Bones
The Huntswomen Trilogy
The Feed
The Hunt
The Throne
Indigo Lewis Novels
Indigo & Iris
Indigo & The Colonel
Indigo & Lynx
Stand Alone Novels
She Lies Twisted
Hell Inc.
DeadBorn
Broken Pasts
About the Author
C.M. Stunich was raised under a cover of fog in the area known simply as Eureka, CA. A mysterious place, this strange, arboreal land nursed Caitlin's (yes, that's her name!) desire to write strange fiction novels about wicked monsters, magical trains, and Nemean Lions (Google it!). She currently enjoys drag queens, having too many cats, and tribal bellydance.
She can be reached at [email protected], and loves to hear from her readers. Ms. Stunich also wrote this biography and has no idea why she decided to refer to herself in the third person.
Happy reading and carpe diem!
www.cmstunich.com
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