by R. L. Naquin
I grunted and pulled one knot free. “I saw Marcus with my own eyes when a portal opened last night.” I twisted and wiggled his arm until another of length of twine came free. “How is he doing this?”
Gris flung his left arm in the air now that it was free. “I don’t know, Zoey. I haven’t seen him do anything. He caught me hiding last night. Mumbled something about not letting his plans get ruined, then did this to me. I’m sorry.”
“Well, what was he doing before that?” I got stuck on a large snag and cast my gaze around the tent for something sharp. “And where did he go?”
“Mostly he was mumbling to himself and polishing his watch. Whatever he’s up to, he didn’t do it in here. He left about two hours ago. I don’t know where he went.” Gris pointed at a small leather bag in the corner. “I think he’s got fingernail clippers in there.”
I dug the clippers out and snipped away the last of the twine. “I’m going after him. I need you to tell Riley. I might need help.” Plus, going after the bad guy on my own probably wasn’t a solid plan. If I didn’t tell someone, they’d all want to kick my ass—provided my ass was still alive to kick.
Gris zipped away without a word.
On my way to the unprotected edge of the woods, I cast around for a weapon. I’m not a badass. I cannot wield a sword or fire a gun straight. However, I’m not stupid. Marcus was bigger than me and, if he was opening those portals, he had a djinn with him. Even if the djinn wanted to be on my side, she would be his slave and wouldn’t have any choice in the matter.
A length of rusty pipe lay in the grass next to the house, and I grabbed it. It had good heft and was longer than my arm. It would do.
I found Marcus coming up the path from the beach, humming a cheerful tune and smiling. He had a towel thrown casually over one shoulder and he wore a bathing suit and flip-flops.
“That’s as far as you need to go.” I shifted my grip on the pipe so he knew I meant business. “Whatever you’ve got in your hands, drop it. Where’s the djinn?”
The smile faded from his lips and a crease formed between his brows. “What djinn?”
He looked genuinely confused. And to be fair, he’d been coming from the beach—the opposite direction of all the action. I lowered my walls and reached toward him with my empathic power. There was no deception in him that I could feel. He still felt slimy, and pride encased him like a knight’s armor, but he wasn’t lying.
“Here.” He took a step forward, holding out his cupped hand. “I found these and thought you might like them.”
Curious, I peered into the offered palm. Dozens of tiny seashells in a variety of shapes and colors shone in the sun. Each one was perfect, unbroken.
“What the hell?” Not my most coherent reaction. But seriously, I’d expected to do righteous battle with my enemy while the zombie apocalypse played out in my front yard, and instead, the guy was offering me a handful of shells.
He cleared his throat. “Let me try again.” He held the fingers of his empty hand to his lips while he regrouped. “I may have come on a little strong.”
I snorted. “You think?” I shifted my weight from foot to foot and glanced over my shoulder. “Look, if you’re not the bad guy, you need to make this short. We’re under attack.”
He looked startled. “What?”
I flapped my hand at him impatiently. “Zombies are here. Move it along.”
His eyes widened. “Here.” He climbed the rest of the path and dropped his gifts into my hand. “I’ll explain while we walk.”
Unable to think what else to do with them, I shoved the seashells into my pocket.
He took my elbow and spun me around, talking while we walked toward the house. “I’m a pressurvator. It’s my skill. I put pressure on people until they either snap or become their best.”
My fists clenched. “You broke Bernice.” My voice was cold.
His face became solemn. “That was unfortunate. I wasn’t there long before it became apparent she was no longer right for the job. I wasn’t the cause of her lack of self-confidence. That bitch Katy did it well enough.” He brightened. “But Art really came out of his shell. I think he’ll make an excellent replacement for Bernice.”
He had to be kidding. I wasn’t usually a violent person, but I turned and shoved him backward with both hands against his chest. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I flapped my arm in the general direction of my front yard. “It’s the freaking zombie apocalypse and you took out the only help I had from the government, then came out here and got under foot while we were fighting aswangs and mysterious portals.” I shoved him again, grunting in aggravation. “My best friend is missing and you haven’t lifted a damn finger to help.” All my fear, anger, helplessness and worry came to a head and focused on this one stupid guy staring at me with his stupid eyes in his stupid face. I poked him hard. “And you tied up Gris for no good reason.”
He held his hands up in surrender. “I was here to help.” He dropped his arms to his side. “I’m not good at anything else. All I can do is bring out the best in people. Only...” He paused and glanced toward the sound of distant fighting. “Only you don’t need a pressurvator here. You already bring out the best in people. Not because they have no choice, like with me, but because they want to—for you.”
I gave him a sideways look of disgust. “Why didn’t you just tell me why you were here, then?”
“I’m sorry. It’s the pressurvator thing. If you know about it, it doesn’t work. That’s why I tied up your little golem. I was afraid he’d figured it out and would tell you.” He gave me a sheepish look. “Then, I sort of forgot all about him.”
I gave him a cynical look. “Then, what? You just decided to go for a swim in the ocean?”
He stared at his left toe, wiggling it to shake some sand loose. “I went down to the beach in search of a peace offering. Something pretty to give you as an apology.”
I rubbed my palm against the lump of shells in my pocket. “A peace offering?”
He nodded. “I screwed this up from the beginning. I hoped we could maybe start over.” He looked up at me with a hopeful expression. “Maybe there could be something more between us.”
I didn’t mean to laugh. I really didn’t. But I was a woman on the edge, distracted by the moans of zombies piling against the fairy barriers not far away and Marcus took me by surprise. The laughter burst out of me before I could stop it from happening.
The crushed look on his face squelched the nervous humor leaking out of me.
“Yeah.” His shoulders sagged. “That’s what I was afraid of. You have that reaper guy. You wouldn’t want me, no matter what I could offer you.”
Disappointment dripped from his shoulders and puddled in the grass.
“Wait, you’re serious?” I was baffled. He’d been a total asshole, even threatening to take Maurice with him to Kansas, and now he thought he could apologize and—what? Woo me?
I groaned. “Look. It’s the end of the world right now, in case you haven’t noticed.” The moaning across the yard had increased with the number of zombies.
He looked past me to the action in the front yard and his face paled.
I tried to sound gentle. I’d already laughed at him. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings any more than I already had. “Let’s save the world. Then we’ll talk, okay?”
He nodded, but refused to make eye contact. “Sure. We’ll talk.”
I marched toward the house while Marcus moped behind me. The noise from the front increased every minute, and I wasn’t sure the bubble could take the strain much longer.
Every zombie movie I’d ever seen ran through my head.
I needed to get Mom out of the house.
Our only chance might be to make a run for it down to the beach, then find a place to hide.
Movement in the woods caught my attention and I scanned the tree line. I didn’t know if the Hidden were in danger of becoming zombies or not. I frowned. Tashi was pregnant. What if her b
abies were vulnerable to it? A shadow flitted between two pines. The figure was dark and small, not tall and white-furred.
I glanced toward the front yard and remembered that Tashi and everyone else who lived in those woods was lined up inside the bubble, waiting for the zombies to break through. Whoever was in the woods didn’t belong there.
“I think we’ve found our bad guy, Marcus.” I gripped my pipe tighter and took off toward the woods, my jaw tight. Marcus ran behind without a word.
The djinn saw me before her master did. Her blue eyes grew wide and she stepped backward into the shadows as if to give me room. Apparently, she wasn’t going to help him unless he gave her a direct order. Good to know.
The man was turned away from us. Both hands rested against the trunk of a tree while he peered around it to watch. The fairy ring had a definite bend to it, now, buckling under the weight of so many zombies. They’d break through in a matter of minutes.
I gripped my rusty pipe in both hands, stepped into the woods and swung as hard as I could.
To my surprise, the pipe connected and hit him flat across the back. The impact ran up my arms, and I nearly dropped the pipe.
The man grunted in pain and swung around to face me. “What the hell are you doing?” He made a grab for my pipe, but missed.
To my absolute, utter shock, my mailman, Rick, stood before me, his normally pleasant face in an ugly grimace.
I stepped to the side and swung at him again, connecting this time with his right arm. “Get back, asshole, or I swear I’ll aim for your head next.”
He stepped back and held his hands up in the age-old symbol of surrender. It took him a moment to pull himself together, but he replaced the ghastly snarl with his regular, mild-mannered mailman face. His charm, however, had faded.
“Hello, Miss Donovan. You folks are having a heck of a day, aren’t you!” His gaze flicked back and forth, casting around for something—I assumed for his enslaved djinn.
“Heck of a day, yeah.” I tightened my grip on the pipe in case he decided to take a run at me. “How about you call this off now, Rick? Send the zombies back home and close the portal? Nobody gets hurt. Everything back to normal. What do you say?”
His smile slipped a little. “I can offer you a place in the new world, you know. He likes me. I am his favorite. If I put in a good word, he might let you live after all.”
I knew his offer was bullshit to distract me. They couldn’t have their bright new world unless Mom and I were dead first. My heart thumped hard. “You’re his favorite? What, does that make you a high priest in all this craziness?”
Pride leaked from his pores and formed a hazy, smelly halo around his head. “Join me. He has no love of Aegises, but you could become his high priestess and stand by my side. All would be forgiven, I’m sure. If you switched sides, that’s a kind of death, isn’t it? I’m sure it would count.” He licked his lips and eyed me like a piece of cheesecake dripping with extra strawberry sauce.
No wonder I’d stopped getting my Victoria’s Secret catalogs. This whackjob was probably stealing them. Maybe he wasn’t trying to distract me. Maybe he just wanted to sleep with me. Ew.
“Are you insane?” Judging by the glazed look in his eyes, yes, he was very much insane. “Who is this guy? What’s your boss’s end game?”
Rick gave me a puzzled look. “He has no name. Not yet. Soon he will step out of the ether and choose one. And he will lead us to a new land where all will begin again, fresh and new.” He held out his hand. “You can be a part of that. Don’t you want to live forever in perfection?”
Everything happened at once. Gris must have finally gotten word through because Riley and Kam appeared on either side of me. At the same time the fairy ring let out an earsplitting crack from the weight of all those zombies. Several more portals appeared as the zombies stumbled over each other and dragged themselves onto my property.
Each of the new portals spit out people.
One group was covered head to toe in overcoats, gloves and wide-brimmed hats. As they spun and kicked at the zombies in their paths, steam rose from any delicate flesh that became exposed.
Papa Dino had brought his people to save us, even though the sun had risen hours ago.
Regular-looking people tumbled out of the second portal. They had no animal features that I could see, but their beads and flowers gave them away. Breezy and Mac had also come to our aid, though the lack of full moon made them human and likely more vulnerable.
And then, there was Sara.
Talia stood behind her, a sword drawn and at the ready, but my Sara shone like golden fire in the sunlight, and she led the demons into the fray herself.
We were not a small group waiting for the end of the world. We were a freaking army.
Rick’s open hands turned to fists. “No! Stop this!” He glared at the four of us, then swung around. “Dahlia! Dahlia come here, quickly!”
The blonde djinn stepped out of the shadows, her eyes sad. “Yes, master?”
“You have enough magic left for a wish, yes?”
She hesitated, and she and Kam shared a look. “No, master.”
He grabbed her arm and jerked it toward him. “You most certainly do. I gave you the magic myself. You have the last of it...” He examined her outstretched arm—the jewels embedded there were all dark. “How can they be empty? I hold your name. You can’t use the magic.”
“No,” Kam said. She strode forward dressed entirely in black leather. “But she can transfer it to me across a short distance.” Kam grabbed him by the back of the head and shoved him face first against a tree with his hands behind his back. With a flick of her wrist, a length of rope appeared in her hand. She handed it to Riley. “Tie him tight. I need to keep him away from Dahlia.” She tipped her head toward the djinn. “Sorry. We’ll get you freed later. Until then, we’ll get you out of here so he can’t control you.”
Even empty of magic, Dahlia would be compelled to do as she was commanded if we didn’t keep them apart.
“Marcus.” My tone must’ve been sharp, because he jerked, as if I’d startled him. “Take Dahlia in the house and keep an eye on her and Mom. If we can’t get this stopped, be prepared to get them both out the back door and running for the beach.”
He nodded, his face sober. “I’ll take care of it. It’s the least I can do.” He took Dahlia by the elbow and led her toward the house.
Rick smiled his pleasant smile. “Now, Dahlia.” His tone was mild. He didn’t shout. He didn’t have to.
They made it maybe five steps before Marcus froze and turned toward me. His mouth opened and closed as if he were trying to speak, and he held his arm out.
Blood seeped from a fresh hole above his heart. So much blood it obscured the knife handle embedded there—it took me a few seconds to spot the cause.
Marcus took a step forward, then fell to the grass, dead.
Dahlia covered her face with her hands, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. He made me do it.” She choked on a sob, and her words became whispers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She sank to the ground and curled into a ball, rocking and whispering her apologies.
Riley and Kam looked to me for orders, as if I were the general and had some sort of plan.
I had no plan. My boss’s boss lay murdered at my feet at the hand of a djinn who clearly needed more help than I could give at the moment.
A full-on battle had commenced in my front yard with everyone I knew risking their lives.
And my mailman had been responsible for the zombie apocalypse.
I had no idea what to do. I took a deep breath.
Think, Zoey. Do something.
I poked Rick in the chest. “We’ll deal with you later. Kam’s going to tie you to a tree, aren’t you, Kam?”
She nodded. “Yes, ma’am. That’s right.” She tugged his rope and made him walk backward to the nearest tree.
Rick grinned at me. “He’s coming, Miss Donovan. You
can’t stop him!”
I tried to ignore him. “Riley, can you check Marcus?”
Riley had been watching me closely, as if he were worried that I might drop to the grass and start rocking and whispering too.
I’m just freakin’ dandy, folks. I’m the Aegis. I get shit done.
But I was going to need a good stiff drink when it was over.
Riley did a quick check of Marcus. He was neither alive, nor a soul stuck in his own body. Apparently, Marcus hadn’t been quite as surprised by his own death as he might have been. He’d moved on without the help of a reaper.
Kam came back after securing Rick to a tree. It might put him in danger to be there, but we didn’t have a lot of choices. We couldn’t let him walk free, and he sure as hell couldn’t go in the house. And we were now separated from the garage by every kind of monster imaginable doing battle against an astonishing number of zombies.
Rick was no longer my immediate concern. Kam took Dahlia in the house so she could keep an eye on her and be there to grab Mom if we all had to run for the beach.
I turned my full attention to the battle on the other side of my house. I followed around the side of the house and climbed the steps to watch from the porch. With demons, vampires and were-humans fighting, I and my rusty pipe were puny in comparison. They were fighting to keep me alive. The least I could do to help them was stay the hell out of their way. Riley grabbed my hand and I held it like a lifeline.
Chaos. Swords and fangs and shovels and rakes flew everywhere. The zombies were slow, but with single-minded purpose—eat whatever they came in contact with.
Daniel and Andrew stood back-to-back with push brooms, shoving away any zombies that came close to them. Even in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, they didn’t want to hurt anyone. I hated that they were out there, vulnerable and very human. They should be next to me, safe. My chest hurt at the idea of losing them.
Maurice had transmonstrified, though the zombies didn’t appear to care that he wore the illusion of a snarling, ten-foot beast with acid for spit. They came at him anyway, and he hacked at them with his kitchen knife. Not far from where he stood, a gigantic Stacy twirled and spun, punching zombies with her bare hands, kicking them backward when they gained too much ground.