Heroines and Hellions: a Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection

by Margo Bond Collins

  Del squealed to a stop. "There's a tear in the fence somewhere near the old petrol station."

  "No-one's reported a tear." Glynn sounded every inch the policeman.

  "I only heard about it yesterday." Del winked. "It will be fixed today I'm sure."

  A dull ache settled at the center of my forehead. I felt like a cross between a gooseberry on a date, and a civilian caught up in military matters.

  My skin tingled despite the heat. A strange state of unrest settled deep inside me. I rode past them to look. Up ahead, the road buckled like a piece of bent licorice. No one patched and repaired here. At a crossroads bounded by abandoned buildings, I cruised to a group of burnt out buildings covered in fading graffiti. At the back of the remains, a tear in the wire stood about three feet high. Del rode past me, leaned her bike against the fence and rummaged in her vest.

  She flourished a Swiss Army knife. "I came prepared."

  With a tiny tin clipper, she snipped away at the fence. Glynn glanced from left to right as if he expected a patrol to jump out at us. Del kept snipping and bending the wire back until she'd opened a gap big enough for us to fit through. Once we were all through, she pulled short strips of wire from her bag and re-fastened the fence as best she could. She really had come prepared.

  She settled herself back on her bike, wiped her brow with the back of her hand. "Whatever is in here, we don't want it where families are living."

  On this side of the fence, the setting sun silhouetted abandoned houses against a rich orange sky. No street lights dotted the pavement. A few sturdy trees survived, weeds as tall as me dotted huge cracks in the pavement. Grasses several feet high hid many of the buildings from view. Here the irritating smell of dry dust competed with no other scents. A dirt track wove its way along the edge of the road. Too narrow and rough to be used often, perhaps a trail used by feral dogs. The last thing I wanted to see was innocent dogs shot because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Inside me, the unrest coalesced into something more solid. An unwelcome chill swirled in my abdomen. Perhaps it was us, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Glynn took the lead along the dirt track. "Let's take it slow, no time for broken bones because someone stacks it on a rock or tree root."

  The twilight shadows were too long, too deep and dark to see the ground clearly. I thanked my lucky stars the bike was small enough. My feet reached the ground, so I could steady myself. Abandoned offices and factories now lined the streets, taller buildings filled the skyline ahead. I cruised to a stop to gulp a mouthful of water.

  Something rustled in the tussock of long grass to my left.

  Staring in the direction the sound came from, I tried to focus on what was there. It wasn’t just the wind. It wasn't anything dead, or undead, didn't smell like a dog. But I couldn't tell what it was.

  "Meagan," Glynn yelled. "Don't fall back. Shout if you need to stop. We'll wait."

  The ground was too rough ahead. Instead of remounting, I pushed the bicycle along and walked to where Glynn and Del waited near a derelict shed.

  "Which way?" Glynn asked.

  "Just follow the path." Del pointed ahead. "It leads to the old underground train loop."

  They exchanged glances.

  "What?" I stuck my hands on my hips. "What's going on?"

  Del rubbed her hands down her thighs, "The office you saw in your vision. It's the other side of town. The old train lines run straight there under the city."

  "No." Glynn jammed his fists against his hips. "We're not going under the city. Asher is sending a squad in there, to find undead enemies massing."

  "I'm not your sergeant anymore." Del snapped out the words.

  "But you know I'm right. We can't help Aidan if we are caught or killed underground."

  Del scowled, but nodded. "If we take the long way. You'd both better pedal like demons to keep up."

  "Let's keep moving." Glynn pushed his bicycle away from the shed and climbed back onto the seat.

  Del followed him. I scrambled to catch up to her. Another rustling sound came from the tussock. This time Del heard it too and turned her bike to face the sound. A breath of breeze pushed the densely-packed stalks around. Something glittered.

  A sphere shot out of the grass and carved into Del's arm. With a growl of pain, she clutched at the wound and staggered to the ground.

  I leapt away from my bike and darted to her. With my arm wrapped around Del's shoulders, I lifted my head, my eyes straining, ears alert. A strange mix of odors triggered spikes of earth power across my body. The smell of death swirled with the energy of the living in a pulsing eddy of clogging scent. Before, I’d seen nothing but derelict buildings and long grass. Now patches of faded cloth showed in the long yellow weeds, small shapes glinted in the orange light.

  A piece of metal, fashioned into a four-spiked star and razor sharp, lay a few feet away from us. Several people stood in a group over my left shoulder, several more to my right, and a large group straight ahead. All alive. I could tell that now. Alive, but something was different about these people.

  A man shouted from some distance away. People rushed at us from all sides and separated us. Hands grabbed for my satchel, I scrunched myself around it, prepared to protect my athame and healing wand. The people suddenly lost interest and mobbed around Del. I lost sight of her within the legs and feet surrounding her.

  I couldn't see Glynn anywhere.

  My heart hammered in my chest as my hands quivered around my satchel. I'd chosen this route, if anything happened to him I'd never forgive myself. The crowd around Del thinned and I crawled toward her. They'd taken her vest. Blood dripped from the deep wound in her arm. I found a handkerchief, moistened it with my drinking water, and dabbed at the gaping slice ripped across Del's arm.

  "How many are there?" She snatched the cloth from me and pressed it hard against the wound.

  "Too many. Including kids. What are they?"

  "Twitchers." She wriggled onto her knees. "If they've got Aidan, I'll kill the lot of them."

  The drug addicts I'd read about. The addicts killed by the army. Killed or maybe disappeared.

  "They've taken your weapons."

  "Lucky you've still got yours, then," Del muttered through clenched teeth.

  "Mine aren't much good against the living." I scanned from left to right, eager for a glimpse of Glynn.

  "These things are as close to dead as you can get. Besides—"

  We both turned as Glynn stumbled into the clearing. Someone shoved him hard, he tripped and fell to his knees next to Del. They'd taken his vest too, and blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.

  The grass to our left parted. A young boy, very much alive and probably nine or ten stepped out.

  "You must follow me." The child addressed us, a cocky arrogance in his voice and stance. "You are well outnumbered, and we have many more cutting wheels."

  Impossible to tell the size of the group. The strange odors wafting from these people still triggered spikes of earth power across my body. A cloying scent of death, and almost-death brought tears to my eyes.

  A gaunt man stepped toward us. His ripped shirt flapped open, his bony ribs poked through skin marked with weeping sores. A woman, equally emaciated, with oozing sores down her face and neck, and long hair that hung like a pack of rat’s tails down her back, slouched next to him. They both twirled metal discs like the one they'd used to cut Del.

  Glynn drew a small gun he'd somehow concealed and raised his arm to shoot. Something whizzed past my face and smashed into Glynn's forearm.

  Glynn grunted in pain. The skinny man moved fast and grappled the gun away from him. Warm blood rolled down the side of my face. The metal thing had sliced through my forehead.

  The man’s female companion grabbed the gun, aimed at the sun and fired a single shot. She pointed toward a narrow track between the weeds. "Through there, make it snappy."

  Glynn's face tightened. He pulled Del to her feet and wra
pped his arm around her waist. I brushed the blood from my face and stood next to Glynn. The woman again pointed Glynn's gun at us. Glynn settled Del against his hip and stumbled toward the track. I glanced at the bicycles. We'd been racing against time from the start, the longer it took to find Aidan, the greater the risk the squaddies would find him first.

  The skinny man sniggered and shoved me hard in my back. "You won't be needing those anymore."

  10

  The track twisted through tall weeds and small sturdy trees. At least a dozen ragged people thronged behind me, grunting to one another like a pack of wolves about to devour its prey. I stumbled forward, regained my balance and paced behind Glynn and Del.

  The scent of death, undead, and the almost-dead still eddied in my nose and brain, but it disturbed me less and less. I swirled power in my abdomen, let it climb into my chest like a snake climbing a tree. I wasn't prepared to hurt anyone, not yet. I'd never been a curse first, ask questions later kind of witch. Hair at my nape stiffened as I walked. No matter what, we had to escape, and quickly.

  We staggered into a clearing, a patch of sand leading to an immense dilapidated warehouse. One of our captors strode to a sliding door and shouldered it open. He indicated for us to move through.

  Inside, circles of light from too many burning lanterns overlapped one another in a crazy pebbled pattern. These twitchers didn't fear fire. A stink of rotting flesh settled against my skin. Rough hands pushed against my back and I stumbled onto a soiled sofa. A filthy child rummaged in Del's pockets and pulled out the ammunition with a squeal. With a shudder, I turned my gaze away.

  On a tattered rug a few feet away, three older kids heated dirty brown colored crystals in a glass pipe. The smoke wafted toward me and an acrid taste coated my tongue. A metallic odor almost drowned out the stink of rotting flesh. Almost, but not quite. People drifted into the warehouse, many ignoring open sores oozing liquid across their skin.

  In the corner of the room, someone, male or female I couldn't tell, played a battered guitar, out of tune, and badly. But no one seemed to care. I wriggled the satchel behind me, I would not give it up without a fight.

  Del dropped onto the sofa next to me and scanned the room with a slow deliberate stare. I followed her stare with my own. No sign of Aidan.

  "How likely is it that he got from the city center to here?" I whispered.

  "Unlikely." Del wiped her hand across her lips. "Unless he found something in the tunnels that led him here. Even then, the distance is too great."

  "Then let's focus on getting away and continuing our search for him."

  She nodded and swung her mouth close to my ear. "If you aren't prepared to use yours, give it to me."

  My what?

  I recoiled from her. I’d almost forgotten the gun in my bag. Now the shape of it pushed into my back, alien, unwanted. Our captors had stashed the vests and the weaponry on a small table by the door, Del’s guns among them, not much use to her now.

  Del nudged me. She pretended to cough and covered her mouth with a hand. "Don't feel for them. These people are walking dead, they just don't know it."

  Except something felt off. No one appeared dead, and yet the death energy in the warehouse lapped at the edges of my own power, inviting me in.

  Glynn stood in front of us, hands on his hips, facing the group who'd brought us here. "Who's in charge?"

  A man dressed in nothing but ripped jeans sauntered to Glynn. "We don't do that saluting yes-sir-no-sir shit you cops love so much."

  How could he know Glynn was a cop, not just an army officer?

  Glynn held his ground. "What do you want?"

  The scrawny woman with long hair danced to the man in ripped jeans, circled her arm around his waist and slobbered a wet kiss against his mouth. He pushed her away. "Empty their pockets Sal, and get the bag off the skinny chick."

  "Who is supplying your drugs?" Glynn spoke in his cold, harsh policeman's voice.

  The man thrust his skinny chest at Glynn, his fists clenched at his sides. "As if you care about the twitch. About our lives. About us."

  The woman, Sal, whirled back to him. "As long as you catch us alive—"

  "Kill us, more like."

  "Then catch us rising again." Sal's words ended in a squeal.

  Glynn held his palms at waist height. "I don't know what you're talking about. We need to get into the city."

  "Just a harmless ride into the city, officer?" The twitcher mocked Glynn's tone. "Stocked like a platoon?"

  "We don't know what we'll find in the tunnels."

  "It's your lucky day. You found us."

  Sal danced around the bare-chested man. "And we don't like the army or their brats."

  "Sal, get the skinny chick’s bag." He poked her in the chest.

  Skinny chick with a bag had to be me. No way was she getting her hands on my athame or wand. "I don't have anything of value."

  Sal wrenched herself away from the man in ripped jeans and lurched to the sofa. I shoved my satchel further behind me.

  "Everyone has something we can sell honey, hand it over." She grabbed my arms and tugged.

  Instinctively I drew in more energy from the earth and bumped it against her body. She stumbled back and fell onto her bum with a screech.

  "Did you see that?" Sal wobbled to her feet. "She pushed me over without touching me. She's a witch."

  A few people stumbled away from us. Sal teetered back against the man in ripped jeans. He circled his hands around her waist.

  An older man, silvery beard flowing down his chest, pushed them out of the way. He gripped Glynn's gun and made a show of flicking the trigger lock off while a slow smile spread across his face.

  Glynn edged back to the sofa, his body a shield protecting Del and me.

  Del sprung back against the sofa and lunged toward the table. The older man fired at her. She fell to her knees, wobbled, smacked her head on the corner of the table, and crumpled onto her side.

  It happened so fast. Then Del lay still.

  My senses heightened, and death reeked into my nostrils. A body lay not far away from me. No, not dead yet, but so close it didn't matter. Their death energy swirled toward me.

  I twined a string of pulsing energy into a thick cord, and wrapped it around the bearded man's ankles. His eyes flashed then tightened. He stumbled forward as he tried to free his legs. He fired Glynn's weapon again. The bullet ricocheted off the wall and smacked into the body of an unconscious woman lying spread-eagled across a low divan. She didn't make a sound, didn't wake, even though blood pooled at her waist. Someone screamed.

  Glynn crouched and charged at the bearded man.

  Time seemed to slow down, seconds dragged like hours. The old man's withered hand and the gun it held filled my vision. The bearded man steadied himself on his knees, gritted his teeth and took aim at Glynn's chest.

  A younger man lurched across the room, a heavy chain swinging from his hands. He lifted the chain as if he meant to crash it into Glynn's skull. Still full of power, I shoved him across the rug and over Glynn's body.

  Bearded man fired twice. The younger man's body jerked then stilled.

  My body quivered from exertion. The death energy here was ugly and hard to control, but the old man still held a loaded gun. I massed more death energy in my chest, thrust it at the bearded man and sent him reeling into the wall. He screeched. The gun careened across the floor. Lanterns toppled over, flames licked across the floor and reached the kids with the pipes. The glass pipes shattered and burst into flames. The kids leapt up, stamping their feet and screaming.

  Glynn thrust the dead body away. He grabbed a young girl who'd picked up the gun, and yanked it from her hands. Her wails joined the cacophony of noise.

  Glynn yelled at me to get the vests and guns.

  I scrambled to the table, took everything and slumped to my knees next to Del. Thank Haebeth, she was alive, but she lay unconscious and bleeding from a wound in her shoulder.

  Glynn y
elled instructions to throw rugs over the rapidly spreading flames. People rushed to follow his orders, coughing into their hands and elbows as foul-smelling smoke filled the air.

  I dropped the weapons next to Del, clutched the end of the rug underneath her and dragged it to the still open sliding door. No one tried to stop me. No one tried to help. In the sand, I toppled over and thudded onto my bum.

  Glynn jumped through the open door, helped me to my feet and lifted the rug. "Take the other end. It'll be easier for you to step forward."

  Gasping for breath, I grappled to take the rug back from him. "I'm fine. Your arm is bleeding."

  "Get to the other end. Don’t breathe deeply."

  He stubbornly held on until I took the front of the rug and dragged it across the sandy patch, to the track through the long grass.

  Thistles as tall as me smacked into the side of my head and pulled out strands of hair. I fell onto my knees and scrambled to grab the rug again.

  "You're doing great. Not far now," Glynn called out.

  Between us, we maneuvered Del back to the shed. Our bicycles still waited for us on the cracked pavement in front of the old shed. Nothing remained to hint at what happened here. Kids on a casual scavenger hunt could have dropped the bikes. I collapsed against the wall, my breathing rapid and noisy. A spot of blood landed on my shirt; one of the weeds must have smacked into the wound on my forehead.

  Del moaned.

  "Let me look at her." Glynn fell to his knees on the rug next to her.

  A bullet had grazed across her collarbone. Bits of broken bone stuck out of her skin. Blood puddled on the rug under her.

  Glynn muttered curses. He drew a Swiss Army knife from his vest, hacked off a piece of his shirt, pressed it against the wound and pulled me closer. "Hold that tight."

  I pressed both hands against the mound of fabric, all the time darting quick glances back towards the track.

  "I doubt they'll follow us." Glynn rummaged in his pockets and pulled out several large square sticking plasters.

  "The old guy?"

  "On fire as I left."

  "That place. Those people." I shuddered. "What did the skinny guy mean—about catching them alive or arisen?"