Web Master (#8 Shifter Squad)

by J. C. Diem

  Still in their vengeful forms my servants gathered around. “Thank you,” I said to them. “You have done well.”

  Now that their task was done, their frightening visages disappeared and they returned to their normal forms. “It was our pleasure,” the mother said. “Our existence is dreary and meaningless. This is the first excitement we’ve had in a century.”

  “Why didn’t you move on when you died?” I asked.

  The father looked at his family wistfully. “For love,” he replied. “We couldn’t bear to be parted from each other.”

  “Now that you know what it’s like to be a ghost, do you still want to stay here?”

  They hesitated then shook their heads. “If given a choice, we would choose to move on,” the mother said.

  Right on cue, they all turned as they saw something that was invisible to me. Wonder spread across their faces. The youngest girl gave me a smile of heartbreaking beauty and waved once. Then all six of them disappeared. I had a fleeting sense that this was their reward for helping me.

  “Did you see that?” Kala said in a hoarse tone, oblivious to our conversation. “Something ate its head like it was an apple!” Putting a hand on her stomach, she made a face. “I think I’m going to barf.” She thought about it then shook her head. “Nope, I guess not.”

  “Has anything like this ever happened before?” Flynn asked Mark. “I thought demons had to be banished. I didn’t realize they could be dismantled like that.”

  “I think that was just a lesser demon,” Mark replied in a dazed voice. “I guess they aren’t immortal after all. It seems they can be sent back to hell if their bodies sustain enough damage.”

  Beneath my necromancer’s urging, my body walked over to my fallen companion with my soul in tow. I stared down at Zeus in sorrow, feeling hollow and bereft. He was dead and gone forever. Right now, I didn’t care about our mission to save the world. Humanity could burn for all I cared.

  I went still as a familiar voice whispered in my mind. What if there was a way to bring him back? Would you be willing to do so, even if it meant he would never be the same again?

  Yes, I said without hesitation. I didn’t care what the cost would be. I’d already been through far too much in my young life. I couldn’t lose Zeus. If there was a way to save him, I was going to use it.

  ₪₪₪

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Looking through my soul’s eyes, I saw Zeus’ spirit hovering over his body. The voice told me that they lingered anywhere from hours to days before they usually moved on. The ones that didn’t became chained to this world and became ghosts.

  My necromancer was the only one who could pull off this desperate plan. More out of curiosity than anything, she obeyed the instructions that we were given. My body knelt beside Zeus and tore my wrist open with my teeth. My heart wasn’t beating to push the blood through my veins and the droplets fell sluggishly. They landed on his tongue and pooled inside his mouth.

  Reaching out with mental hands, I caught his soul and drew it back to his body. It fought me, but I wrapped both it and his body in death magic. By the sheer force of my necromancer’s will, I bound them back together.

  As I watched, my death magic forced his soul to spread through his body until it took root. Zeus’ terrible wound became smaller as his flesh knitted back together. I felt more than heard a click as his soul became bound to his flesh again.

  Whole again, he shuddered then opened his eyes. Lumbering to his feet, he blinked in confusion then his eyes focused on me. Taking a shaky step, he pressed his head against my unmoving chest. Our minds were linked again, but in a different way than when he’d been alive.

  Filled with satisfaction that she’d managed to do the impossible, my necromancer reconnected my soul to my body as well. My heart lurched into motion and I took a great, gasping breath. Color flooded back into my vision as I became alive again.

  Still in his werewolf form, Reece looked at me in confusion. He knew that I’d just done something extraordinary, but he wasn’t quite sure what it had been. While my soul had been disconnected from my body, he’d been able to see through my eyes, but he hadn’t been able to read my mind. Returning to his human form, he realized he was naked and used his blinding speed to return to the SUV. He dressed in some spare clothes and returned almost before the others realized he was gone.

  Kala and Flynn knelt beside me and reached out to pat Zeus. Kala was the first to realize that something was different about him. She drew back and frowned. “Why isn’t he breathing?”

  “I can’t hear his heart beating,” Flynn said.

  “Zeus isn’t alive anymore,” Reece explained as he hunkered next to us. He’d quickly picked up everything that he’d missed after my soul had become detached from my body.

  Mark and my dad joined us. “What do you mean?” Mark asked. He still seemed out of sorts even now that the demon had been vanquished.

  “He’s undead,” I said and rubbed Zeus’ ears the way he liked best.

  Kala recoiled sharply and snatched her hands away from him as if he was unclean. “You mean you’ve turned him into a zombie?”

  “He’s not like a normal zombie,” I replied. “I managed to bind his soul back into his body.”

  “If he’s not a zombie, then what is he?” Flynn asked.

  “He’s my friend,” I said softly. “He’s bound to me until I die. My death magic is keeping him animated.” I loved him so much that I couldn’t bear to let him go, even if it meant that he was different now.

  “It’s wrong,” Kala said in distaste. She stood and took a couple of steps away to distance herself from him. “You should have let him die. Now he’s just a mindless corpse, walking around and waiting for instructions.”

  If I hadn’t heard the suppressed tears of distress in her voice, I would have been hurt and angry. She was horrified that I’d changed him from the animal she’d come to love into what she believed was an unthinking minion.

  Zeus’ ears cocked at her words and he read the gist of what she was saying from me. His body was still trembling, but he could stand without assistance now. With tottering steps, he walked over to her. She almost took another step back, but forced herself to stay where she was. He looked up at her with sorrowful brown eyes. Then he lunged forward and gently engulfed her hand in his mouth. She let out a yelp and yanked it away. All her fingers were still intact, but she was coated in saliva. Zeus’ tongue lolled out in a grin as he sat down and waited for her reaction.

  Staring down at him, her gaze became wondering. A few tears spilled over as she hunkered down in front of him. She stared into his eyes then grabbed him gently by the ears. “It’s still really you in there, isn’t it, fleabag?” she said. “I’m glad you’re okay.” She ruffled his ears then made a face at the goo on her hand. “Even when he’s undead, he can still slobber all over me. That just doesn’t seem fair.”

  Flynn was doing a better job of controlling his emotions, but only just. He gave her a half-smile. “You know what this means?” She raised a brow in query. “No more poop in a bag.” Her lips trembled, then she shrieked in laughter.

  I laughed as well, but it quickly turned into tears. My father helped me to my feet then wrapped his arms around me. Reece put his hand on my back and I took strength from them both.

  When I finally had myself under control again, Mark had come out of his daze. He was still shaken, but he was ready to act. “Now that word has spread that you four are shifters, we’ll be hunted by the PIA. We need to find somewhere to hide where they won’t think to look for us. That means we won’t be able to use any of our compounds.”

  “I’ve got that covered,” my dad said and allowed me to step back. Reece pulled me to his side. He knew what it had cost me to bring Zeus back and how exhausted I was as a consequence.

  “We should search the base for captives before we leave,” Flynn suggested. He didn’t remember it, but we hadn’t stopped the O Squad from killing the shifters and other p
risoners during our mission to rescue him. Kala and I still felt guilty about it and exchanged a look. This time, we weren’t just going to walk away without at least trying to help the captives.

  Seeing that we were united in our decision, Mark nodded. “Alright. But we’ll have to be quick.”

  Reece and my dad flanked me with Zeus walking just ahead of us. Reece noticed something about him and spoke into my mind. Listen to Zeus.

  I concentrated on my guardian, but I didn’t hear anything. His heart still wasn’t beating and he wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t making any noise at all.

  Exactly. I can’t even hear him walking.

  That surprised me and I almost stumbled. Only my reflexes kept me from sprawling. Zeus looked over his shoulder at me with a concerned look. He knew he wasn’t the same anymore and he was worried that I wouldn’t love him now. I’ll always love you, Zeus, I thought to him. I wasn’t the same person I’d once been either, but that didn’t make my friends and family love me any less. So what if he now walked soundlessly? I could think of far worse side effects from being brought back from the dead. An overwhelming need to eat human flesh was at the top of the list.

  Skirting the last of the fallen agents, I asked a question that had been on my mind from the start of the battle. “Who were the guys with the silver nets?”

  “They were the Containment Squad,” Mark replied. “They’re sent in when the PIA want to question supernatural creatures rather than kill them.”

  “Don’t you guys normally team up with them? Why didn’t you recognize them?”

  He grimaced and shrugged. “They were wearing helmets and I couldn’t see their faces.”

  “They weren’t the usual team,” Flynn said in their defense. “I didn’t recognize any of them by their scent.”

  “So, the PIA has more than one Containment Squad and none of you knew about them?” I said. They all nodded and my father and I exchanged a look.

  “Your superiors planned for this contingency,” my dad told Mark.

  “I’m not sure I can really blame them,” he admitted, to Kala’s annoyance.

  “They were going to kill you and Major Levine and dissect us!” she said heatedly.

  “Look at it from their point of view,” Mark said. “The Paranormal Investigation Agency was created to wipe out beings like you. It’s only natural that the Board would have a plan to deal with us if anything went wrong.”

  “I guess,” she said sullenly. “Except we didn’t do anything wrong. All we did was warn them that the end of the world was coming.”

  “Perhaps it was easier for them to believe that we’d gone rogue rather than to accept the truth.”

  “The old head-in-the-sand routine,” Flynn said. “Pretend the problem doesn’t exist and hope it goes away. Works every time.” He reached the building and opened the door warily, holding his assault rifle ready. The stench of rotting flesh spilled out and washed over us. “I could be wrong, but I’m guessing the O Squad has already wiped out the EERI employees,” he said dryly.

  A long white hallway stretched out ahead with doors on both sides. We glanced inside each room on our way past. We found four suitcases in the third room. They were mere props that had been used to trick us into believing that the leader of EERI was here. The man pretending to be him had just been one of our own agents. He was either dead or had run off with the other survivors when the demon appeared.

  In almost every room that we passed, scientists and guards lay in pools of blood and other bodily fluids. They’d been dead for at least a couple of days. The bruises on my dad were fresher than that. “When did Kendricks grab you?” I asked him.

  Glancing down at me from his six foot four height, a flash of anger at being captured crossed his face. Then he was back in control again. “I returned from my mission last night to find him and his men waiting for me at home. He told me that you were in his custody and that you’d be tortured if I didn’t come quietly.”

  “I take it you didn’t fall for his ruse,” I said dryly.

  “I might not have supernatural abilities, but I can tell when someone is lying to me. I resisted, but not too hard. If he was gunning for you then I wanted to be there to do whatever I could to help.”

  He’d managed to eradicate nearly two thirds of the O Squad and the Containment Squad alone. “Mission accomplished,” I said with a small grin. If not for him, we’d all be dead or still in Kendricks’ custody.

  He turned to Mark. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay with your team until this is all over.” His duty to his country usually came first. In a way, it still was. The world was in danger and I was supposedly the only one who could save it. By protecting me, he was doing his part to help mankind.

  Mark didn’t hesitate to accept the offer. “I have no objections at all. Frankly, I think we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  “Aw,” Kala said. “All it took to finally bring us all together in the same team was an impending apocalypse.”

  Mark sent her a withering stare. He didn’t appreciate her wacky sense of humor just now. Flynn sent her a wink and she sniggered quietly. Nothing could keep her serious for long. It was just one of the things we all loved about her, except when it was driving us crazy, of course.

  ₪₪₪

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Working our way deeper into the facility, we saw that it was a carbon copy of the one the O Squad had blown up in Texas. EERI had something in common with us after all. They also used the same design for all of their buildings.

  Finding the elevators without encountering any trouble, we crammed inside. Reece pushed the button for the lowest level. That was where we would find the captives, if any were still alive. There was no point checking the labs on the first basement level. The O Squad would have wiped the employees out.

  I wasn’t sure why we were bothering to check for captives, but Flynn was insistent. He’d been a prisoner of EERI twice, not that he remembered either of the occurrences. He’d been a child the first time and had been beneath the control of the hydra the second. Even though he had no recollection of either event, he felt empathy for anyone else who was trapped in here.

  We kept our weapons ready when we reached the lowest level. The doors slid open to reveal an empty corridor. It quickly became obvious that we wouldn’t need our weapons. There were no guards down here, alive or dead.

  The long gray corridor stretched out ahead with barred cells on each side. Thick glass walls also shielded us from the occupants. The added precaution was no longer necessary. None of the prisoners were going to be a danger to us. In cell after cell, we saw only lifeless corpses.

  “What killed them?” Kala asked. We couldn’t see any signs of blood or physical injuries.

  Mark stopped at one of the cells and examined the body of a werewolf through the glass. He lay on his side facing us. A puddle of vomit lay next to him. “Toxic gas, most likely,” Mark said.

  Most of the captives had been shifters, but there were other species that I couldn’t identify.

  Flynn had moved ahead of us. His pace quickened as he reached the end of the hall and turned the corner. Exchanging glances, we hurried to catch up to him. I touched his mind lightly to find him focused on something that only he could feel. A sense of anticipation was building inside him.

  “What’s going on?” my dad asked.

  “Something is alive down here,” I replied. “Flynn can feel them.”

  Worried, Mark broke into a jog. We turned the corner in time to see Flynn come to a stop near the far end of the hall. He stood in front of a cell and stared intently through the bars.

  Crowding around behind him, we saw a woman sitting with her back to the wall. Her head was resting on her knees. Her long brown hair fell like a curtain around her. “She’s alive,” Kala said when she noticed that the woman was breathing. Reaching over Flynn’s shoulder, she knocked loudly on the glass. “Hey! Are you awake?”

  The woman jerked and he
r head came up. My dad muttered something beneath his breath when he saw that her pupils were vertical slits. Her mouth opened and a forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air. She scanned our faces and stopped on Flynn. Rising to her feet, she was small, curvy and walked with unnatural grace to the glass wall. Her strange irises were a dark, vibrant green. Her skin was creamy and perfect. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was definitely attractive.

  Putting her hand on the glass, she smiled at Flynn. “I thought I was just dreaming when I sensed you enter this place of death.” What she said next stunned us all. “I have been waiting for you for a thousand years, my King.”

  I elbowed Kala before she could snort out an incredulous laugh. I knew what she was thinking. Flynn turned into a gigantic cobra when he turned. King Cobra seemed to fit him somehow.

  “What are you?” Flynn asked and hesitantly put his hand on the glass as well. Her hand was tiny compared to his.

  “She’s a lamia,” Mark said softly. “I’ve heard that they’re immortal.” That would explain how she could be a thousand years old.

  “Sadly, we can be killed,” she corrected him. “We’ve been hunted almost to extinction by people such as the ones who have held me captive for the past two decades.”

  Understanding dawned on me then. “They must have used her DNA to create you,” I said to Flynn.

  He’d already come to the same conclusion and nodded slowly. “Can you open the door?” he said to Mark.

  Mark reached for his tablet and hesitated. “Will you be a danger to us?” he asked the lamia.

  “I am only a danger to my enemies,” she replied. “So far, you have not caused me any harm. If you free me, I will be indebted to you all and I will consider you to be my friends.”

  That was good enough for Mark and he used his tablet to open her door.