The two werewolves immediately took to their heels, furring up and howling like the wind as they exploded from the house and tore into the demons.
Half-submerged in the throes of change, both werewolves hit the demon swarm with a bang. Two of the hideous creatures immediately flew back into the air, somersaulting over each other and screaming in frustrated anger at the strength of the frenzied attack. But victory for the pair was short lived: two demons cast aside became four swooping back, three ripped apart became six fresh and ready to bite.
“They can’t enter the house,” Jemini whispered excitedly, as several of the gangly creatures dived for the gap in the wall only to recoil as if they’d flown into a hot griddle. “It’s Mrs. Looker—she’s done something to the boundaries.”
“They’re two of my pack,” Max growled, his teeth and fingernails beginning to lengthen. “And they’re not at their strongest without moonlight. I can’t just stand here with you guys and watch them shredded in front of me.”
“Maximus Moon,” Jemini said, turning to glare at him. “Don’t you DARE go out there.”
But she was talking to dead air: the wolf leapt through the hole and tore to the defense of his friends, just as another batch of demons lunged out of the sky.
“Max!” Jemini screamed, leaning out of the opening in the brickwork and making frantic gestures with her arms. “Max!”
Blue coils of electricity covered the holes in the house like fishing nets, repelling the demons at every point. Mrs. Looker was muttering under her breath, snakes of energy crackling from her hands and feet as her eyes rolled back inside her head. As a further raft of electric tendrils danced from her shoulders and sizzled all over the house, she snatched hold of Forgoth, preventing the little phantom from leaving the house. More and more demons were flocking to attack Max Moon, and I watched with mounting horror as he reared and struck out in full werewolf form, sending several of the fiends somersaulting backward amid spiraling sprays of their own glistening green blood.
Well done, Ed. The voice cackled inside my head, and it had an edge to it. I couldn’t tell if it was my own voice or the voice of Kambo that had dwelled in my hand…or even some strange mixture of the two, but it was definitely talking to me. That’s the spirit. Watch your friends suffer and die while you’re safe on the inside, protected, coddled, safeguarded by the old witch woman. There’s a word for what you are, Ed—a word that sums up exactly what you’re all about.
COWARD.
Max was losing the fight. Max Moon, my first real friend in the world of the dead, was being forced to his knees by the demon horde, while their cackling and demented ghoul of a leader hovered in the sky and clapped her hands with unconcealed glee.
COWARD.
Mrs. Looker threw me a warning glance, but she’d have needed an army to stop me from hitting the hillside.
I might be a pathetic, putrid, stinking zombie, and I might be losing more and more flesh by the day…but I was still possessed of a limb that had single-handedly eviscerated packs of ghouls and an entire clan of revenants. It was time to fight.
Undead Ed Page 7