“You can speak?” I said as my eyes fought against bursting from my head. Then I frowned at the realization of what he’d just said. “I’m not a vampire.”
He paused and looked me over. In fact, the entire corpse crowd was looking me over, even those who only had eye sockets.
Then he lowered the gun slightly and tilted his head. “You’re not?”
“No, and I honestly don’t understand why everyone thinks I am.” I put my hands on my hips. “I’ve got nothing against vampires, but I’m not one of them, and your assumption that I am is not cool. How would you like it if I called you a living, breathing person because I wasn’t one hundred percent sure you were dead?”
That was clearly the wrong thing to say because all of their faces creased sinisterly. As if they didn’t look scary enough already. How the hell was I to know that zombies weren’t all that fond of being reminded they were dead?
The huge dead guy raised the gun up again and said, “Now, you die.”
It was time to let gravity do its job. I fell straight down a split-second before he unleashed Boomy. I could survive a lot of things, but a 50-caliber hole in my chest wasn’t one of them.
A wave of light smashed into his side before he could adjust his aim and try again. It knocked him over, causing Boomy to fly from his hands. Maybe not having a tether was a good thing, after all.
The rest of the dead spun to see where the source of the magic originated. It was Rachel and Jasmine, and they were on a tear.
Fireballs, lightning, ice, and all other sorts of mayhem flew from their fingers as Chuck and Felicia started plugging hearts with lead. Warren was nowhere to be seen, which either meant he’d stayed in the car or he was finding a safe place to cast a lengthy spell. I could definitely do with one of his void walls about now. Whether it would work on zombies or not, I couldn’t say, but there’d be some catharsis in trying.
“Are you hit, Chief?” asked Felicia.
“I’m good,” I replied while snapping up Boomy.
There was zombie juice all over it.
“What the…” I held it up. It dripped. “Son of a bitch.”
Now I was pissed.
It was one thing to try and break me in half, or bite a hole in my neck, or throw me off a building, or run me over with a car, or even mistake me for a vampire. But shooting at me with my own gun while getting zombie juice all over it was just fucking wrong.
I went ballistic, firing Boomy off like it was our first date.
As an amalgamite, I was already fast, but when you pumped adrenaline into the mix, I was insanely speedy. No, I couldn’t keep up with the likes of Turbo, but I wasn’t far off.
My vision was tight and my arm steady. Magazines slipped in and out like they were on a high-tech production line. Every bullet hit its intended target without fail. Bodies dropped so quickly that it looked like a group of robots who had just had their collective power cut.
For every zombie my crew dropped, I took out three.
“Damn, Chief,” Chuck said when it was all over, “maybe let us have a little fun too next time?”
“Huh?” was all I could reply before I dropped to a knee, feeling quite out of it. This tended to happen whenever I got a little overzealous.
Rachel rushed to my side and put her hand on my shoulder.
I instantly calmed, my heart slowing back to normal. It wasn’t magic when she did that, it was familiarity. A sense of safety. The knowledge that my partner had my back.
“Thanks,” I said before getting back up, my legs wobbly. “Are there more coming?”
“Griff shut down the necro’s line,” said Chuck, which meant his partner had informed him of such through the connector. “He’s counting graves now.”
I nodded. My strength and sense of self was steadying, but I’d still need a few minutes.
“So now we have to shoot them in the heart,” I said finally.
“Or hit them there with magic, yeah,” replied Jasmine. “It seems that fireballs were more effective than energy bursts. At least for killing them.” She paused. “It sounds so weird that we’re having to ‘kill’ dead people.”
Rachel looked at her. “I noticed the fireball thing, too, but over at King David’s I recall energy blasts working better.”
In response to that point, I subconsciously rubbed my neck where Rachel had taken a chunk out of me. Fortunately, she didn’t look my way.
“I don’t suppose anyone caught sight of Shitfaced Fred?”
Everyone looked at me, except Rachel.
“That’s the nickname he’s given to the necro,” she explained. Then she held up a hand. “Before you ask, it’s because the old guy was pretending to be drunk and Ian likes the name Fred.”
They all shook their heads at me.
“I saw him,” Warren said weakly through the connector. “Well, kind of.”
“Where?” I asked, my senses returning.
His voice was shaky. “Near the cars.”
We rushed back to find our resident wizard lying on the ground studying the stars. Was the necro up in the air? There weren’t any trees about, so he couldn’t have been on a branch or anything.
I followed Warren’s line of vision to see if there was something specific he was looking at. “What are you doing?”
“Recovering from the knock to the head I received about twenty seconds after Chuck left the area,” Warren whispered in response.
“Oh, damn.” Chuck said, dropping down to help him. “Are you bleeding?”
“Probably.”
Griff and Serena arrived a few seconds later and Serena moved to put her hands on Warren. With a smokin’ hot vampire around to touch you when you needed healing, having a head injury wasn’t so horrible.
“Unbelievable,” Rachel said, obviously reading what was going through my brain.
“What?” I replied innocently.
“You’re such a perv.”
I blinked at her. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Chapter 13
Griff’s grave count matched up with the zombies we’d taken out, but we scoured the area for additional clues since it was obvious that our necromancer wasn’t planning to go away anytime soon.
Portman and his crew already looked haggard from their work earlier that night, so they weren’t exactly chipper about another round of burials.
“Any idea who the hell’s doing this, Dex?” the big man asked as he wiped the dirt from his hands. He wasn’t the type of boss who just stood around and watched. I respected that. “I’m not sure my team can handle another round of these without a sizable break.”
“I hear you.” I was still a bit achy myself. “You know the deal, though. Until we catch the guy, we’re pretty much at his mercy.”
“Yeah. Any leads?”
“Everyone’s hunting for clues now. We know it’s an old guy. Small. Looks kind of like a hobo.”
Portman sighed. “Right. Well, I’ll let you get back to it. We’ve still got a couple hours at best.”
I nodded and walked off to where Griff and Serena were studying the grounds. They’d apparently found the spot where Fred was working from. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but I guessed there was magical residue Griff was picking up. He was busily casting spells over the area and Serena was analyzing the results.
Warren was sitting with his back against the car. He seemed to be working up some type of mojo, too.
“I see what they’re doing,” I said to Warren while pointing at Griff and Serena, “but what are you cooking up?”
“Tracking.”
“That’s a little too detailed for me, Warren,” I said with a healthy dose of sarcasm. “How about you dumb it down a little?”
He looked up, confused. “Huh?”
“How is your spell going to track him?”
“Oh, sorry.” He blinked a couple of times. “You know how dogs sniff a piece of a convict’s clothes and then chase the scent?”
�
�Yes.”
“Well, this is the same idea, but without the clothes.” He then pointed at his shirt. “Before Fred knocked me out, he grabbed my shoulder. I guess for leverage. I don’t know, honestly. But that left a signature.”
I was slowly nodding. This could be quite useful for finding perps, assuming it was effective anyway. Actually, it was moments like this where I wanted to ask why we hadn’t been using these little tricks to our advantage since day one. Warren’s answer would have been “Nobody’s ever knocked me on the head before” or something like that, though, so I let it go.
As my resident wizard continued on with his pygmy-like chanting, I listened in on Griff and Serena.
“He’s definitely old power,” Griff said. “If you look…” He suddenly stopped speaking and then keeled over.
Serena and I rushed to sit him back up.
His eyes were rolled up into his head and he was lightly convulsing.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked. “Is he having a stroke?”
“Give me a minute, Ian,” Serena said calmly as her hands pulsed a very dim light.
Of all my agents, Serena was the most controlled. Her records showed that she was nearly as old as Griff, but just like him you’d never know it by looking at her. Anyone who didn’t know her actual age would have placed her to be in her early thirties. Vampires tended to age well, after all. Serena had been taken down a different path than others on my crew. Instead of merely enhancing her speed and agility, things that were already prevalent in vampires, she got a bonus of the ability to heal. According to her personnel file she’d spent many years working in the field of medicine. It was clear that she had a knack for helping people, but she was also deadly when needed. This dichotomy made for the perfect succubus roleplaying partner, too. She could hurt you and then heal you.
Ah, the memories.
“The necro left a virus,” she said as Griff’s eyes rolled back to normal. She then glanced up at me. “We’re dealing with something very new here, Ian.”
I glanced around at the work that Portman and his crew were doing.
“Ya think?”
“Not just the zombies,” she replied without inflection. “I’m talking about someone who is capable of weaving spells within spells.”
“What happened?” Griff said a moment later while rubbing his temples.
Serena pushed his hands down and continued her therapy.
“Shitfaced Fred gave you a virus,” I answered.
“Ah,” Griff replied, closing his eyes again. “That explains the underlying elements I sensed before blacking out. This isn’t good.”
Seriously, sometimes I had to wonder about my team. Nonchalantly saying things like, “this isn’t good” after being knocked to hell by an “underlying element” that was apparently code for “horrendously dangerous virus” was just irritating. Of course it wasn’t good. If it was good, we wouldn’t be out here trying to stop it.
I stood up as the rest of the crew came back.
Chuck moved to Griff’s side immediately as Serena explained the virus situation, which put all the mages on edge. Even Warren seemed shaky about the proposition. I guess that made sense, seeing that his skill lay in the realm of magic, too.
“Do these viruses affect everyone or just magic users?” Felicia asked.
It was a great question.
“Only magic users,” answered Griff.
“Phew,” I said, wiping my brow.
“Don’t forget that you can do magic, too, Ian,” Rachel noted. “Not very well, but you still have the ability.”
It was true that I could do magic. It was part of my amalgamiteness. But I tended to avoid it because I didn’t have quite the control needed to do anything useful. Now and then I’d open a bottle of beer with a little spell or I’d maybe inflate a low tire, but I preferred destroying bad guys the old fashioned way. By using metallic projectiles flying from my gun. Plus, I wasn’t anywhere near as adept with magic as my mages. My fireballs were about the size of pebbles. Imagine getting attacked by a single ember thrown at you every ten seconds and you’ll see why I elected to use Boomy over magic.
“I don’t suppose there’s any correlation between how much power you wield and how effective that virus is?”
“Probably not,” answered Griff as Chuck helped him back to his feet.
“Serena,” Rachel said, “is it affecting you?”
“No. My healing stems from a different kind of magic than you’re using. I feel the effects of the virus differently. It’s passing through a filter with me.”
That was good anyway. It was also good that Warren had been over by the car when Griff got zapped, or two of my magic users would have been laid out.
“I know this sounds dumb,” I started, “but I don’t suppose there’s any type of virus protection we can do?”
“I have a few ideas,” Griff replied, “but I’ll need to work with Jasmine, Rachel, and Serena to get something put in place. We may have to reach out to other members of the Crimson Focus as well.”
I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy at that. Everyone had someone to call when they needed help with something relating to their profession or personal supernatural situation. Everyone except me, that is. Sure, I could yammer to Dr. Vernon, but she just nodded a lot, said “uh huh” in her judgmental way, and wrote things down in her book that couldn’t have reflected all that well on me.
It’d be fantastic to find one other amalgamite in this world.
Preferably female.
“Guys,” Warren called out, “I think I have something here.”
Chapter 14
“I couldn’t track him,” Warren announced, “but I did learn something. Shitfaced Fred is a wizard.”
I assumed that on the grand scheme of things, this was pertinent information. The nodding heads of my three mages claimed I was correct. Unfortunately, I needed context.
“I thought he was a necromancer,” said Chuck before I could ask any questions.
“He’s practicing necromancy,” Griff replied as he tapped his chin, “but he’s doing so more methodically than a mage would.”
Wizards were notoriously slow. That was good, except that this guy seemed to be able to spin out a decent thread of magic at a rate that would make Warren’s head spin. Obviously he had some way of speeding up the process.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“You’ve seen the differences, Chief,” answered Warren. “I can’t just cast spells whenever I feel like it. My magic requires study, planning, and detailed crafting. There are a few that I can do pretty quickly, sure, but anything of the level that Fred is doing would require a hell of a lot of prep time.”
So I was right, but, again, Fred was zipping magic out like he was on crack.
“How much time are we talking here?”
Warren shrugged. “Days, if not weeks, Chief.”
“But don’t you see a problem with that?” I raised an eyebrow to convey that he really should be seeing a problem with his suggested timeline. He didn’t. I clarified. “These zombies came up within hours of each other, not days or weeks.”
“Oh, that’s true.” He licked his lips. “Not good.”
“Definitely not good,” agreed Rachel.
“Yes, I get that it’s not good,” I hissed. “We’ve got some drunk-looking, nutty wizard running around raising dead people; he’s learning from how we defeat them and is tweaking them accordingly; and he’s implemented a virus in his magic so that we get the shit knocked out of us if infected.” They were all staring at me. “And now you’re telling me that it should be taking him days or weeks to work out one of these attacks, but he’s accomplished a couple of them within hours of each other. It’s obviously not good, gang.”
There was no response. They were clearly just as concerned about Shitfaced Fred as I was, but I tended to wear my emotions on my sleeve.
I took a deep breath.
“Sorry,” I sa
id finally. “I’m being a dick. We’re just processing things differently is all.” I looked down at my suit. “I’ve got zombie juice all over me again, Boomy is in need of a thorough cleaning, and that big-ass dead guy who tried to shoot me called me a vampire.” I groaned. “You know how much that irritates me.”
“It’s okay, Chief,” Warren replied.
“Wait,” said Rachel after a second. “Are you saying that the dead guy spoke to you?”
I looked up. “Yeah, why?”
“It’s weird, that’s why. I didn’t know zombies could speak.”
The other mages were shaking their heads in agreement.
“Why wouldn’t they be able to speak?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer, but feeling like I had to know.
“Because…” Rachel started, but then stopped. “I don’t know. It just seems odd.”
I was okay with odd.
That’s when I noticed that Griff was looking off into the distance. I was starting to dislike that about him. Every time he did it, something was wrong.
“From what I recall over past events,” he said evenly, “reanimated corpses demonstrated no proclivity for an ability to speak.”
Serena flicked a piece of grass from her sleeve. “Never in my dealings with them.”
Okay, so it was a problem that zombies could talk. Besides it just being creepy, I mean. What I didn’t know was why it was a problem.
“Let’s cut to the chase here, guys,” I said, looking from face to face. “Does it really matter if they can speak?”
“It might.”
“Why do you say that, Warren?”
“Because it would mean that Fred can install power words in them.”
I held up my hands and said, “The first one of you who says ‘not good’ is getting double-shifted for a week.” They wisely remained quiet. “Now, what the hell is a power word, Warren?”
He looked suddenly put upon. “Whatever Fred wants it to be, Chief. These things could heal themselves or others. They could cast fireballs of their own.” His eyes were very wide. “He could essentially be raising a zombie army that has the capability to do magic.”
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