Caravan Witch (Questing Witch Book 2)

by Shannon Mayer

  He moved to the zombie’s side, bent over and clamped that massive jaw of his over the zombie’s head. His eyes rolled to look at me as he bit down, crushing the skull with a single bite. I pushed to my feet and stared in both admiration and irritation as he gave a yank and literally bit the head right off its shoulders. He flicked it to the side where it rolled away, tongue hanging out, teeth still snapping at air.

  A grunt and a moan, and more cracking twigs spun me toward the trees. Bodies shuffled and wobbled their way toward us, the stench preceding them.

  Just fucking awesome, exactly how I wanted to end the day.

  Mac looked back at me and nodded forward, toward Pam. And I knew we’d better haul ass. Because there was a damned horde of the zombies now, and they’d caught wind of us.

  Shitty, shitty, shit, shits.

  This was not going to improve anyone’s night.

  16

  Pamela

  I heard the two guys coming from a mile away, the way they crashed through the woods. But somehow it still surprised me when Mac, my big white polar bear, bent down and slid under me without breaking stride, scooping me onto his back. Oka jumped up beside me on a reflex as I yelped and grabbed at Mac’s long fur.

  “You’re getting fat, cat,” he teased. She swatted him on the head, and he kept on running. Alex was hot on his tail, and I was still scrambling to figure out what was going on. I twisted to the side to see Roe as he ran alongside us, just going with the flow, I guess. Until he asked, “Why are we running again? Were we not closing shop for the night?”

  I opened my mouth to ask a similar question when the smell of rotting death hit my tongue and made me gag hard. My empty belly did not like the death scent that coated the inside of my mouth.

  Death, rotting flesh, and a huge pile of “oh shit” to go with it. I checked the ground as we ran, looking for signs. Even in the dark there would have been a feel, if not full-on markings, of a zombie nest. But there was nothing.

  “We aren’t on dead land,” I said, dodging a low branch as Mac ran full speed through the woods. “Someone set them on us.”

  The boys ran as fast as they could and Roe kept up easily. That eventually put some distance between us and the zombies, so we slowed.

  “What do you think?” Mac asked as he jogged along, his sides heaving. I could feel his ribs underneath all that fur.

  “I think we shouldn’t get too far ahead of them. They’ll backtrack and pick off the entire caravan.” Once again, the image of a tiny zombified Frost flashed in my mind and I struggled to push it away. “We need to keep them on our scent.”

  Mac nodded and slowed even more to let the dead catch up to us.

  “I have an idea,” Roe said. “Come this way; we’ll lead them into a canyon they can’t get out of. It’ll be perfect.”

  “How far?” Mac asked.

  “A mile, maybe less. We can lead them in, climb out the sides and block the entrance. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” He clapped his big hands together.

  Something didn’t feel right, though. The zombies were driving us north. That’s where we needed to go anyway. I felt like we should just keep going. But I could feel Mac below me fatiguing. Alex’s tongue hung to the side.

  “Oka? What do you think?” I asked.

  “We could use a respite. We can’t run the whole way, and we don’t know what waits for us at the end of this trail,” she said.

  But I could feel her unease. It matched my own.

  “Take us there,” I said. We followed him to the left, and less than half a mile later we came to a screeching halt at the edge of a cliff face. Rocks pattered down into open nothingness.

  “This way,” Roe said as he ran alongside the edge.

  Tiny rocks tumbled down into the canyon below as we ran behind. The snarling of the dead drew closer. “Roe, pick up the pace, or we’ll be joining that pack behind us,” I urged.

  “All in good time, little witch.” Somehow, his words did very little to comfort me, and I suddenly regretted following him.

  “You sure about this?” Mac asked, picking up on my unease.

  “Not in the least. Stay alert.” I looked to Alex, and he nodded his answer.

  Roe turned once more and led us through a tiny crevice in the side of a rock face. “In here. It opens up on the other side. They won’t find you, I swear.”

  “I don’t like this,” Alex said, sizing up the small crack just barely big enough for the men in my life to crawl through. Oka and I would have no trouble at all.

  “No, I don’t either.” Caged, we’d be caged in there, stuck. Trapped. Panic clawed its way up my throat. “There has to be somewhere else, Roe. I’m not going in there.”

  As we stood, the zombie horde appeared at our backs. Deep and wide, there would be no getting past them, and they weren’t taking prisoners.

  “You sure about that?” Roe asked, his eyebrows high.

  Fucking hell. I scrambled through the crack, hoping the zombies wouldn’t follow us, or maybe that was the point. Have them follow us, trap them inside, then scramble out. It could work, if we didn’t all die in the process.

  “Come on, boys. Don’t get yourselves killed now,” I called behind me as Oka ran ahead through the dimly lit cave. There was light on the other side, so it wasn’t very deep. Roe hadn’t been lying about that, at least.

  Maybe it would be okay.

  The cave opened to a big open box-shaped canyon. Sheer walls on all sides left us with no way out. Roe had said there was a way out, but I didn’t see it. A hidden path maybe?

  Alex had that look on his face when he took in our surroundings.

  “There’s no way out,” he said.

  I knew exactly what he was really thinking because I thought it too.

  Shitty, shitty, shit, shits.

  Roe’s laughter echoed into the canyon.

  “You witches are all the same,” he called out, his smug-ass voice echoing down into our little cage. “You think your spells are eternal. But everything has a time limit. I just had to out wait you both.”

  “Both?” I asked, catching onto a tiny thread that I hoped would lead me to something more.

  “You and that other arrogant bitch. You both thought you could control me. But I’m a necromancer, you see,” he said.

  While he talked, the zombies poured into the trap. All kinds of zombies, not just humans. Big cats with their jaws hanging by a thread, bears with one eye hanging out of the socket, humans missing limbs, even trolls with their skin hanging off in places, and wolves all rotted in front of us, snarling and hungry for our flesh.

  It was a bizarre sight. Almost too bizarre to react to the danger we were in. Almost.

  “So you did this? These creatures are yours?” I wanted to buy us some time if I could. But the more time I spent talking to him, the more zombies poured into our trap, and pushed us against the back wall. Four against the world.

  “Of course they’re mine. And when they’re done with you, they’ll finish off that little caravan of yours. Children don’t have a place in this world. You should know better than that, little witch. It’s our time now. The humans are done.”

  He slid out of the crack so he could see us, then lifted a hand and waved to his creatures. “Enjoy your meal, my pets.” It was then I saw it. On the underside of his arm, the mark emblazoned on him, dark against his gray skin. The brand that Madeline and her creatures had.

  Roe had it.

  He knew who the one at the center of this was, he had to. If we got out of here alive, I was going to find him and string him up.

  “Well, giddy-up, boys. We’re in for a fight,” I said.

  Oka didn’t need any more encouragement than that. She shifted in front of me, nearly taking me down with her tail as she snapped it back and forth, anger in every line of her body.

  Everywhere were snarling, snapping teeth, all after a chunk of my flesh. Or Mac’s. Or Alex’s. Or Oka’s. And not a single ounce of my existence was going to let th
at happen.

  Set me free, Pamela. See what you are capable of. Embrace the magic, and you will survive. Before anyone has to die, the magic purred. This was its dance. Death. But at what cost? The memory of my dream stayed my hand and I gripped my zombie slayers tightly. We could fight our way out of this. No matter that we were outnumbered twenty to one. We’d faced worse odds. Just because I couldn’t think of when at that moment didn’t mean anything.

  They closed in on us slowly, sizing us up, apparently. We backed literally into a corner, and the four of us stood ready. “We’re not dying today, guys,” I promised them. “Not today.”

  The first attack came at Alex. A dead wolf zeroed in on him, and leapt through the air, clumps of fur streaming out behind the beast, attached only by strands of half-rotted skin. I tried not to watch too closely. There were threats close enough to me, thank you very much. But I couldn’t peel my eyes away fully. I needed to see that he was okay.

  But I didn’t get that chance. Oka slapped a zombie away from me as it launched right for my face. “Quit worrying about them,” Oka said before she tore the throat out of the zombie she’d taken down.

  She was right. Now was the time to fight and trust those at my back. The three people I loved more than any others in this whole messed-up world. I flashed my curved blades and went to work.

  Another day.

  Another dead thing.

  Three zombies came at me all at once, but they weren’t coordinated in their attack. I stepped back at the last second, and they knocked heads, landing flat on their faces at my feet.

  “All right, Stooges. Nice try.” I bent and swiped across the back of the neck of the one closest to me, relieving him of his head. Two to go. Well, there were more like a million to go, but I preferred to take it in smaller bites. No pun intended. Well, sorta.

  They stumbled to their feet, clearly struggling with their limbs. I wondered if that was because they weren’t their own masters. They were a long way from dead ground that would give them power. Roe had created them, and it seemed they were . . . clumsy at best in this unnatural arena.

  But there were so many. Roe seemed to think that was all he needed to win, since he’d left, laughing, believing us done. The thought sent a shot of anger through me and I sliced the heads off the two zombies in rapid succession.

  Let your rage feed the magic. Let the darkness claim these creatures. They belong to it anyway, the magic persuaded. But I ignored it, focusing instead on the task at hand. Why could I ignore it here, when with Jasmine, I couldn’t so much as tamp it down?

  I glanced at the others. Everyone held their own for the moment, but the horde pressed in on.

  Hard.

  The dead things came at us ten to twelve at a time in each wave, so we each had more than one to fight at any given moment.

  I took off a head with a forward cut, and another on the back swing. Gore splattered my shirt, speckled my face.

  Two zombies on two legs, and one on four that might have been a wild boar at one point replaced those I’d taken down. I didn’t dare open my mouth for fear of what might fly into it.

  I went for the wild boar first, bent and drove the tip of one blade down through his skull, dropping him. But when I stood and turned to face the others, I took a step back and tripped over the thick, squat body.

  I went down, bit back a yelp and hit the ground hard enough on my tailbone to see stars. I kicked out, caught one in the knee and dropped him . . . right the fuck on top of me.

  “Damn it!” I snarled as I fought to hold the putrid fleshbag back with one arm and brain him with my other blade. But that left the opening for his buddy, and his buddies behind him.

  A huge paw swooped out in front of me, just missing my nose and blasting the two zombies back with a single blow. I scrambled to my feet. There was no time for words. There was no time for anything but blades, brains, and keeping the horde back.

  I was bit on the arm. I felt Oka get a slash from fangs down her one side, and both Mac and Alex were bleeding from small wounds. Injuries that wouldn’t kill us . . . but they’d slow us, make us easier to take down.

  I lost track of how long we’d been fighting. No matter how hard we pushed, their numbers didn’t get any smaller. They kept coming, kept pouring in through that gap in the wall.

  The roar of the dead filled my ears until I was deaf to it. It was just background noise and I worked through it, sweat dripping into my eyes. The minutes ticked by and I couldn’t think how long it had been. My body ached, my wounds ached, my energy was so low I could barely see straight.

  A pain-filled howl split the night and cut straight through to my heart.

  Alex.

  I whipped around to see Alex under four zombies of varying sizes. Before I could take a step, Mac was there in a second, faster than I could be, clearing them off with two swipes of his paws.

  My eyes went to Oka in between taking down two more dead things. She was against four as well, taking them out at the knees. The zombies that came at us were easily twenty deep.

  We were slowly, wound by wound, losing.

  I had to do something. The sob that rose to my lips was one born of fear more than anything else. I bit it back. I couldn’t sit by any longer.

  I gripped my blades.

  “On my terms,” I said.

  We shall see.

  The dark magic roared up through me as I took down my hold on it. Death. Blood. Violence. Power. Strength.

  They were everything. I had one chance.

  I reached for the tiny connection to spirit I had through the crack in the bracelet. My gut twisted with the effort of pulling it through that crack. I took a few steps back and the zombies followed, shuffling toward me.

  I wove the thin thread of spirit through the darkness, creating a net of sorts. It took the last of my reserves to do it and the pain of using that element rocketed through me, dropping me to one knee and stealing my breath.

  “Pam!” Oka yelled.

  “Keep fighting!” I said. “Just keep fighting!”

  I blinked and my vision wavered, an image overlaying the scene in front of me. The elemental who’d put the spirit bracelet on me scowled back at me as I worked. I ignored him and pain that shook every muscle in me. The best I could compare it to was like pushing my body through a barrier of tiny, pinprick-sharp needles that dragged through my skin with each breath I took. I knew that I wouldn’t die, but it was hard to think through the constant buzz against my skin.

  I held my hands up and the blended magic poured out, black ropes woven with pink threads that glittered and lit up the darkness. “Beautiful,” I whispered.

  Bigger and bigger, I filled the entire canyon with it, spreading it over the zombies’ heads. Mac, Alex and Oka pulled back.

  I gagged on the intense pain, fought to breathe through it. All I could think was this won’t kill you, Pam, so suck it up. But even knowing that, I only had so much strength to hold my body against those thousands of tiny needles. Because the longer I held onto them, the deeper they dug, turning from needles into daggers that felt as though they cut through tendons, muscle, flesh only to burrow into the very marrow of my bones.

  “I can’t hold it any longer.” I shook from the exertion, eyes watering, heart hammering with adrenaline.

  Let me go then, daughter.

  I dropped the net.

  The zombies fell to the ground, trapped beneath it, pinned, the magic that had animated them breaking into a thousand glittering pieces as though I’d dropped a giant crystal bowl.

  “Pamela!” Oka called my name, but she was so far away. Miles away.

  I fell forward, the pain of using the combined magics too much.

  I was done.

  17

  The pain rode me, driving me down until I knew I was passed out, even though the scent of deeply rotting bodies was there all around me, even though I could feel the stone of the canyon under my face, I wasn’t really there.

  The elemental who
slapped the spirit bracelet on me stood in front of me, hands on his hips. His eyes of blue flashed with pure anger, and a flicker of confusion.

  “How is she doing this? The bracelet should stop her!” he snapped. But no answer came to him, at least not where he was. The rest of my world around me melted away until it was nothing but him and me. I pushed to my feet and my black magic roared through me, making the air around my body feel thick and heavy with darkness. The elemental stood looking at me with disgust from across the space, and I’d had enough. I leapt at him like some kind of animal, knives drawn, and sliced his arm. He disappeared, and I thought it was over. I thought he’d gotten away, which did nothing to cool my rage. But then his voice echoed in the space behind me.

  “I can see why Fresca wanted to bind you, worthless little half-breed. You’re covered in that filthy magic.” He threw the words at me.

  Anger coursed along my skin, making the hairs on my arms and back of my neck rise. The tips of my hair floated outward and his eyes widened.

  “My black magic isn’t just dirty, you limp dick. It’s the purest evil I’ve ever seen,” I said, and his eyes grew even wider. “And I’m going to fucking well use it since you asswipes have bound my magic from me.”

  I screamed, a rage-filled war cry, and the darkness shattered around me, like dark panes of glass falling from their frames. A new image stood before me as though I were floating high above the earth’s surface. I stared down at another canyon.

  My caravan helplessly fought a horde of zombies, surrounded. There were too many of the undead, and one by one, they took the caravan down. They were like locusts consuming a field of wheat. I knew there would be nothing left by the time I got there.

  I blinked and was on my feet, running toward the canyon that was now a death trap for Richard and the others. I had to try, even though I knew it would be too late. I knew I would lose them. Tears streaked my face as I ran. Crimson, Marley, Richard, Lynx, Cale, Ruby, Lily, even Chris.