by Al K. Line
Preoccupied, he was oblivious, even to my shouted warning, so I lunged for him and tackled him to the side.
We ended up in the verge, a tangle of limbs, but I was up fast and hauled him to his feet. "Stay focused," I warned, but I could see he was almost beat, hardly anything left for him to draw on to finish this fight.
To the side of the shifters now, we finally got the chance to see how many were behind us.
It wasn't what I expected at all.
"Kate?" I called. "Mithnite? Persimmon? What the hell are you all doing here?"
"We came to help," said Persimmon as she backhanded a German Shepherd without even looking, sending it flying across the road. Damn, but she's strong.
Speaking of strong. Kate did the vampire shimmer shuffle and was at the neck of a man as surprised as me to see her. But she didn't bite, had a thing about doing it in company, and slammed his head down into asphalt instead. This was no ordinary whack, though, this had all the power of the vampire behind it, and he was dead—what with the fact his head was sunk deep into the road and all.
Mithnite was surrounded by a haze of orange, wisps of magic crackling as he called forth for more power and the Empty obliged. He tried first one way then the other, his arm shooting out at men one by one in accusation, deadly shards of magic sometimes missing their mark, but hitting eventually.
Then his power faded and he collapsed, puking up his guts, moaning and screaming as he crumpled and the price was paid for taking what wasn't his. Been there, done that, don't fancy going back one bit.
A bear roared, rising onto hind legs. It was at least seven feet tall and definitely not after marmalade sandwiches. The massive creature cut across the road in a second, surprisingly fast for such a huge beast.
Dancer, unbelievably, stepped in front of me and swung in what seemed like a lazy arc with his good hand, the mace shining like gleaming armor as the headlights of Kate's vehicle caught the chrome.
Somehow, maybe through expert timing, or utter luck, the mace connected with the head of the bear at exactly the right moment.
It slammed sideways and time sped up again. As it stirred, and clawed at the road, finding purchase and was up and ready for more, I felt a welcome circling motion on my chest as magic swirled faster and faster, gathering power and forming what I had in mind before it shot down my arm and spat out my palm as a bulbous lump of death.
It tore through the thick neck of the bear and as it fell for the last time it returned to the form of a man. A hairy lump of a guy who clearly enjoyed eating pies and wasn't averse to seconds.
On high alert, emotions fighting between happiness at seeing everyone, and annoyance that they'd put themselves in harm's way and were an added responsibility, I scanned for more wyrmlings.
One left.
Just Us
We rushed over to everyone and I hugged Kate tight. Boy did it feel good. The warmth, the smell of her hair, the familiarity of her body. The stuff of dreams. "What are you doing here?" I whispered into her ear.
"Persimmon came and said she thought something was up with you guys. That we should come look for you. That maybe you needed help. Looks like you did." Kate pulled back a little and studied me. I guess I didn't look too pleasant judging by the look of concern on her face.
"Faz, what's going on?"
"Later," I said, turning as the large dog, some kind of mongrel, padded carefully toward us all.
"Persimmon, you didn't have to come, we're fine."
"Yeah, right, looks like it," she said, shrugging her shoulders.
"I think it's a very nice thought," said Dancer, trying to smile at Persimmon but she just looked at him in concern.
"Don't worry, he always looks like he's about to pass a brick when he tries to smile," I told her. "You'll get used to it."
"Spark! I do not."
"Um, you kinda do, Dancer," said Kate, her breezy confidence more welcome by the minute.
"Shut up," he mumbled, but at least he stopped with the grimacing. Hell, if I'd thought he looked bad before, he looked positively half-dead now, which I guess he was. Guess we both were.
The dog stopped and sniffed a corpse then moved forward cautiously. He stopped at what I guess he assumed was a safe distance—it wasn't—then morphed back into human form. He stood, naked and confident in front of us all. He had long, dry hair as wild as the look in his eyes. This dude really wanted to see us dead. Dancer, anyway.
"You stole. You must die," said the shifter, squaring his shoulders, accent so strong it was almost unintelligible.
"What did you steal?" I asked Dancer, but before I got an answer the man shifted again.
Persimmon leapt at him.
It was over before it even began. She ripped out his throat mid-air and landed on top of his body, ready for more. He was already dead.
She stood tall as she stepped off him. Her body gleamed like an idealized statue carved by the hand of God, illuminated by the car's headlights. Mute, we all just stared at her.
"Um, I think you have some explaining to do, Dancer," I said, turning to him before Kate caught me looking and decided she'd very much like to rip my throat out in a similar fashion to Persimmon's victim.
Dancer was lost to his dreams, eyes glued to Persimmon like strings were connected from his visual cortex to her bouncy bits.
Mithnite coughed and managed to get to his feet. I don't think it was only because of the naked, stupendous body in front of him, but I'm sure it helped him recover faster than he would have otherwise.
"Dancer! Hello?" I got up in his face and he snapped out of it. Reluctantly.
"Huh?"
"I said, you've got some explaining to do."
Persimmon walked past and said, "Dick," to Dancer, but I caught a quiver of a lip, maybe the hint of a smile. There was no longer any doubt in my mind. I was sure she had a soft spot for him. Was she showing off? If so, then wow, this was one brazen, tough woman.
She moved back to where she'd sensibly taken off her clothes before springing into action, and Kate held them up for her, not without managing a good deal of frowning at Mithnite and Dancer. I was getting off lightly for being a good boy.
"You should wear dresses," suggested Kate. "It's quicker to get undressed and if you have to shift quickly it won't hurt as the material splits."
"Tried it," grunted Persimmon as she slipped into jeans so tight you'd think she'd need a special machine to get into them. "Don't like 'em."
Kate handed her her vest and Persimmon took it, thanking her. "Oh." Kate studied Persimmon as she dressed. They hadn't spoken much, this trip probably being the first time, but they seemed relaxed with each other, which was good. I'd got into a little trouble in the past because of Persimmon, and the last thing I wanted was them at each other's throats. You've seen how that goes down. It ain't a metaphor I'm using here.
There's something very sexy about a woman stretching up and slipping a tight vest over an ample bosom. Um, yeah, not that I was looking or anything. The other guys were, but not me. Kate glanced my way and I was brushing at my suit—come on, give me a break, I'd had a hard day and women kept getting naked lately. It was becoming distracting and Mithnite was in for a serious letdown as at this rate he'd expect to see gorgeous flesh every time he walked out the door.
When I was his age what I wouldn't have given for all these bodies to be on show, plus he had a fortune in gold and he'd only been with me a few days. It took me a hundred years to get this far and he had it within hours.
I put an arm around Mithnite and then used a finger to close his jaw and turn his head away from Persimmon. "Nice to see you, buddy. Thanks for helping."
"My pleasure. You look like crap, Spark. What's this about?"
"Tell you later, okay?" He nodded. "But let me give you some advice. Don't go ogling the ladies. They don't like it. And in our world it's liable to get you very dead, very quick. Persimmon's a nice woman, and I know she's hot, but don't stare."
Mithnite flushed but
said, "Okay, sorry. It's just, well, everyone keeps losing their clothes lately, me too. Is it always like this?"
"No. You just caught us all at a weird time in our lives, I guess. Normally, you stay dressed and get covered in goop. You'll find that you spend a lot of cash on clothes, as they always get ripped."
Without thinking, I looked down at my suit and poked the large flap of material by my thigh. Mithnite followed my gaze and then asked, way too loud, "Is that a bite mark? It looks like a human bite mark. Have you been bitten by a person?"
You know those moments when it seems like the world has somehow become devoid of sound? When all you hear is the blood pounding in your ears and you know you'll have to talk about things you really don't want to?
Yup, definitely one of those moments.
"Idiot," I said to Mithnite, before turning to face the music.
Some Explaining to Do
"Faz, what's happening? Let me see." Kate's jaw clenched and her hands bunched in fists so tight her knuckles were bone-white as she walked over slowly. She seemed to take forever.
I glowered at Mithnite and he shrugged an apology. A plethora of emotions crossed his face. From confusion, to worry he was in trouble with me, to concern when he saw Kate's rigid body. Understanding dawned as he studied the bite mark, visible for all to see now I was no longer trying to hide it.
There was no point. It was time to explain to my friends and family what was going on.
Kate came close and I lifted my gaze from my leg to meet her eyes. They were wet, but she refused to let the tears run freely. Brave woman. My woman. My anchor in the storm of this often sad life. I didn't want this. I wanted to be happy, to live forever with this beautiful, strong, proud, caring, also-infected woman. Damn! What curses we had laid at our door. Her a vampire, and now this. She was coping, with a few hiccups, sure, but this was different and everyone in our world knew it.
You don't get to live your life how you want when one of the walking dead. You get locked away from the world and grow cold and obsessed with the sparks of life signaling sentience that are constantly firing within the human brain.
Yum. Brains.
I've often pondered the true reason why the undead crave human flesh, specifically brains, and I'm sure I have the answer now. It's the seat of all human emotion, all reasoning, all life. Synapses fire and send a barrage of electrical impulses all over this three pound lump we each have in our skull. It's like magic only more esoteric, more unknowable.
Such a wondrous and fascinating thing the brain is. Millions of little pulses of electricity that are translated into feeling, thought, raw emotion. Pleasure, pain, happiness, and unbearable grief, all from little bursts of energy that come as if from nowhere and then are gone in a moment. Giving rise to all we know, understand, crave, desire, and abhor. The very basis for our lives.
Now that's real magic, the true mystery of the cosmos.
Zombies crave this energy, this wondrous magic. The only one they have a hope of gaining access to. They want to consume the essence of a person, devour a lifetime's worth of memories, emotions, thoughts and pain in a few blissful moments. They need magic of the most potent kind. And maybe, just maybe, there's an answer to the workings of the human mind buried deep down inside the infection that drives them to such mindless greed, such obsessive cravings for what makes a human being tick.
That's all well and good, and something to ponder when time permits, but right here in the middle of the road surrounded by dead men, dead dreams, and dead desires, all I could think was that it wasn't fair.
"I'm sorry," was all I could manage as Kate checked me over, eyes coming to rest on my leg.
"Oh, Faz." Kate hugged me tight and I felt the tears rather than heard her crying.
She stayed like that for a while, just gripping the back of my jacket in tight bunches, and it broke my heart. We'd come so close. Things were finally good, no, great for us. We had welcomed Mithnite into our home and we had a few friends—okay, maybe one or two—and now it was all going to shit.
Something snapped in my head and I eased her off and held her at arm's length.
"I'll beat it. Dancer and I will beat this thing. No way are we gonna be—"
"Dancer, too?" asked Kate in shock. Persimmon and Mithnite gasped as attention turned to the Head of the UK Hidden Council. Our friend, my boss, Mr. Strange himself.
"Damn, sorry, dude. It's getting rather emotional."
"Don't sweat it," he said with a resigned shrug. He rolled up sleeves he'd hastily pulled down when they arrived and they inspected the bite on his left forearm.
It was hard to make it out with the shadows we all cast, but it looked a hell of a lot worse. The dark spider's web of infection was thicker and blacker than ever and the skin looked ready to split. It was grossly swollen and discolored and had spread up his arm.
"What happened?" asked Kate, still in the dark about a lot of what had gone on. Maybe Persimmon had filled her in on events at Council HQ but there would be a lot she was unaware of.
"We got bit by zombies. We saved most of our people when Dragon attacked, and that's all done with now, but, well, we got bitten. Um, I said that, right?" I was losing it a little. Trying to remain calm and unaffected but knew I was failing, badly.
"You should have come home," said Kate, squeezing my hand tight. I hadn't even realized she'd taken it.
"We were kind of busy running away from the wyrmlings. Dancer here is pretty unpopular with the Romanian faction, and still has some explaining to do about that," I said, giving him the daggers but my heart wasn't in it.
"Sorry, okay? I'll tell you guys all about it. Look, let's get out of here. It's a bloody mess here and a quiet road, but we need to deal with these bodies and get safe. Kate, you got a phone I can borrow?"
"Sure." Kate fished out a phone from her jacket pocket, a green three-quarter length leather number that was damn stylish.
"Hey, is that new?" I asked.
"No, I got it ages ago. You already said you liked it."
"Oh, oops. Well, I do, and it suits you. Brings out the color of your hair." Her brown-blond hair was shades lighter against the green, and it made her blue eyes all the more deep and soulful. Her full lips, always a strong feature, seemed redder and more luscious. Maybe I was just taking her in while I still could, or maybe I'd finally stopped to take the time to admire her after the years I was lost to myself, battling inner demons and neglecting her while I wallowed and refused my destiny.
"Can you beat this? Is there a cure?" she asked, forgiving me for the oversight regards her clothes.
"Dancer says there is. That's where we're headed. To see someone he says can help."
"Oh. Let's go, then."
"How long you got left?" asked Persimmon.
"I don't know. A day. Less."
Kate gasped, Mithnite stared at the road and shuffled his feet, and Persimmon held my gaze and said, "Shit, sorry. That really sucks."
"Yeah, tell me about it."
Dancer came back into the glare of the headlights from the darkness where he'd made a call. "Okay, someone will be here soon. We'll put the bodies in the van and the rest will be taken care of. Let's move it, people. If anyone comes by, we're in a world of trouble and we don't have time for it now."
It was a relief to be hauling dead wizards and shifters down the road and manhandling them into the van, which says how much I wanted to avoid talking about our current zombification.
A few minutes later we were done, and with the vehicles parked up at the roadside we held our collective breath as a few cars came down the road and pulled up. The lead driver got out and went straight to Dancer, ignoring the rest of us. After a quick conversation, he signaled to the other vehicles and four men got out of the cars.
A minute later we were standing beside a clear road as if nothing had happened.
"Okay, let's go somewhere quiet and have a quick rest, then we'll go sort ourselves out and we'll be good as new," I said, trying to
convince myself and everyone else I was telling the truth.
I knew I wasn't. I suspected Dancer had been lying all along. That this was his way of getting us as far away as possible from those we loved and cared about. That he knew the infection would take us soon but at least we'd be unable to hurt those we wanted to protect the most.
He may be a muppet, but he's got a heart of gold. And soon it would stop beating.
A Rubbish Dinner
The sight of ourselves in the stark light of the mirrors came as a shock. We looked truly awful. The infection had spread. Creeping from the wounds, black tendrils crawled across our skin and out in every direction. As we gawped at each other in shock and not a little disgust, full of despair verging on desperation with our shirts unbuttoned and trousers around our ankles in a restroom in a dodgy service station, we looked like we were into some serious fetish stuff. Anyone that had come in would have run a mile when they saw the state of us.
The spreading infection was stark against Dancer's skin. Mine mingled with my ink until it was hard to tell what was what. I was now almost black all over. Our flesh was mottled, discolored and all kinds of nasty. It had begun to crack as though we'd dried up after being out in the sun, like old leather hides in serious need of oil.
But oil wouldn't solve our problem, only strong magic of a very specific kind could save us now. It all came down to Dancer and the contact he was still being coy about.
"This is so messed up," I said staring at our reflection. Our faces were the worst—like we'd gone ten rounds with someone twice our size and had lost every one. Black and blue and nasty, dark veins crawling up our necks and mottling our cheeks like every blood vessel was corrupted with poison, which is exactly what they were. We finished cleaning up and did our best to look respectable but failed miserably. We left the restroom without saying another word.
We went to join the others in the empty, odd smelling service station eatery.