Like Rylee’s katanas . . . and then the rest of what he’d said sank in.
Zombie slayers. I did not like the sound of that.
The new—well, let’s call them problems—that had appeared since the world had been pushed into reset mode were astronomical. It seemed like there was one new fatal problem for every human who died in the whole damn world.
Zombies were just one of them. And with each human they killed on their grounds, their numbers grew exponentially.
Oka sniffed at the blade in my hand. “So, what do you want then, troublemaker?” She lifted her head and narrowed her eyes at my father.
Raven laughed and reached for her; she swatted at his hand with a low hiss. “I see nothing’s changed where you’re concerned,” he said. “But that is good, fierce one. Protect her, because I cannot.”
“I don’t need you to tell me to do that.” She eyed him suspiciously, knowing him as I did. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“You are both smart to keep your guards up. This world is . . . unforgiving, to say the least.” He looked at me.
“I’m surviving,” I said.
He reached out and touched a finger to my cheek. “This world is making you hard, Pamela. That is a wound no one can heal. And it will lead you down a dangerous path if the darkness comes for you.”
I tipped my head away from him, not wanting him to see the fear in my eyes. “Thanks. For the blades.”
He glanced over his shoulder, as if he heard something meant only for his ears. Then he nodded, gave me a rare smile, and vanished, riding the power of the element spirit away.
*_*_*
I hadn’t seen him since then. Flashes here and there out of the corners of my eyes, that I thought could be him checking up on me, making sure I was still alive, but I wasn’t sure.
With fewer than a hundred thousand humans remaining worldwide—if the news from the last communication we received on the CB radio was right, and the supernaturals getting more aggressive, not to mention the zombies—his concern wasn’t too out of place.
But then, why not take me with him?
I sighed as soon as the thought crossed my mind. No, I knew that answer. The elementals.
Oka strode up beside me and leapt into my arms, climbing swiftly onto my shoulder, completely derailing my train of thought. She curled into the hood of my cloak, purring contentedly, the white marking on her chest and paws tinged green with the archie’s blood.
“I see you’re fat and happy after a bit of a snack,” I said.
“That was a particularly juicy archie. I think he’d been eating berries heavily and it sweetened the blood.”
I grimaced. “You know, the archies probably have a nickname for you? You murdering orange cat. Like Jack the Ripper back in London,” I said.
She snickered. “The Stalker.”
“Killing Machine,” I offered.
She let out a burp right in my ear. “Oka, the Terrible, Bringer of Death.”
I smiled to myself as the group of people in front of me came to an abrupt stop, their body language as they leaned to the side and back telling me something was wrong before anything else.
Like a herd of prey, they shifted backward, pushing toward me and Oka.
“Well, this can’t be good,” I said softly. She perked up on my shoulder, then stood on her back legs, propping her front legs on the top of my head to get a better view.
“I can’t see around the big trucks.” She tightened her claws in my hair and I grimaced.
“Scalping me isn’t going to help,” I pointed out.
She dropped back to my shoulder, sitting like a parrot, swaying with the movements of my stride. The humans pushed back, and I pushed forward. What else was new? The reality was, if whatever up front was attacking, there would have been a hell of a lot more running and freaking out.
As it was, a single scream pierced the air.
Good enough for me. I swept my cloak back and ran for the front of the caravan.
I might not have the magic I once did, but I could still fight, and I could still help.
Even if I already knew it was a bad idea.
Chapter Seven
The scream echoed long and loudly from the front of the caravan with barely a break in it for any breath. It went on and on and a part of me wanted to smack whoever was making the fuss. Humans were no longer at the top of the food chain and drawing attention to a whole caravan of the useless gits was like ringing a dinner bell for a buffet.
Generally speaking, long drawn-out noises were just a damn bad idea.
Oka tightened her hold on my shoulder. “Should I shift?”
“No. Not yet. Not unless there is no other choice,” I said. She just liked striding around as a tiger. The shape was still a novelty to her in some respects because of the energy it took. She’d not been able to use it often. Honestly, I didn’t blame her. If I could shift into a huge tiger, I’d want to do it too.
I reached for one of my zombie-slayer knives tucked safely inside my cloak as I jogged to the front of the caravan. My adrenaline ran hot, high, and I couldn’t help it. I’d been trained by one of the best fighters the world had seen, and the thrill of the fight stained my soul.
I grinned to myself and Oka snickered, picking up on my thoughts. “You are terrible.”
I shrugged.
The truth was any number of supernaturals could be on our trail, wanting to add to their own numbers. Or just wanting an easy meal. Regardless, all this noise was bad, so whoever was making the racket had better hope there was something chewing on their freaking leg.
I pushed my way through the crowd, bracing for the worst. If nothing else, this new wild world had taught me that. Brace for the worst, and you’d be ready to fight what was ahead.
The screamer was on her knees, her eyes covered with her hands. Hair a mix of blond and gray; I thought her name was BJ, but I wasn’t sure. Either way, no one was trying to stop the noise. I dropped beside her and grabbed her arms, shaking her hard enough to snap her head back and forth.
“Shut the fuck up!” I said.
Her mouth hung open and she just stared at me as she drew a breath for another scream.
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. I grabbed the edge of her shirt, sliced it off and stuffed it into her mouth, then pushed her jaw closed over it. “Shut up, or you’ll bring the monsters to us.”
Her eyes bugged out and her hands went to her mouth. I looked over my shoulder. No one even noticed us, they were too focused on whatever had set her off. I turned back to her and smiled. “I mean it, shut up.”
Oka shook her head. “Seriously, how did any of them survive this long?”
I didn’t know the answer to that. What I did know was that even those who’d survived thus far were beginning to break under the strain.
I sighed and turned away from the screamer, her hands still over her mouth. At least she was being quiet.
The stench hit me first. Although whatever it was hadn’t been dead long enough to start decaying, it would seem it had shit quite a lot as it died. A pile bigger than Oka was already gathering flies near the creature’s back end, splattered with blood and its last meal. I brought my palm to my face as I tried to shield myself from the odor, and Oka buried her face in my neck.
“Fuck, that is bad,” someone muttered.
I’d have agreed, but that would have meant drawing a bigger breath to speak.
As I drew closer, Sage, the humans’ witch and paid protector, stood over the body of the creature. She was a classic hippy witch with her long robes, multiple beaded necklaces, long dreadlocks and rings bedecking all eight of her remaining fingers.
I looked past her to the thing on the ground. Three different animal heads greeted me with their tongues hanging out past dead lips and beaks, each attached to a long neck, which slid down to a thickly muscled body.
The hawk and snake heads still had their eyes open, watching us from the afterlife while the lion looked like
he was sleeping peacefully, if you discounted the blue tongue. The body was built similar to an ostrich with terribly undersized wings, clearly too small to give the creature any kind of lift. Six legs, webbed feet, and oversized claws I wouldn’t want to get too close to, capped off the most bizarre-looking creature I’d ever seen. And I’d seen quite a lot in my eighteen years. More so in the last three than all the others combined, but still . . .
“What the hell is that?” Oka strained to look closer without getting off my shoulder, her nose twitching madly.
“I don’t know what it is . . .” I trailed off, looking closer, trying to find some reason for why it was so different. Some characteristic that would clue me in to what it was and set all our minds at ease. I’d read some of the best encyclopedic books available on the supernatural and I couldn’t recall ever seeing something like this. Not even close.
The group around us shifted nervously and whispered among themselves, equally unsure what to make of this new species and what it could mean for the caravan. Sage stood closest to the beast and held up her hands, her long red cloak hanging from the backs of her arms. The group quieted when they saw her, as if she were an authority on the subject of supernatural taxidermy.
Boy, did she have them fooled.
“This is nothing more than a griffin. Let’s keep moving, the stench will fade as we get farther from the carcass,” she said, her voice heavy on the breathiness, her bracelets tinkling as she twisted her wrists this way and that.
It took all I had not to roll my eyes and throw my head backward. What a show she was putting on.
BJ ran up to her and pointed at her still-gagged mouth. Sage turned to the woman and dislodged the cloth I’d stuffed in there as if she were incapable of getting it out herself. BJ fell to sobbing, but at least she was no longer screaming.
That was one human trained. Oka snorted. “I doubt she’s trained.” I reached to her and pretended to pinch her mouth shut. I wanted to hear what Richard and the others were going to say next.
“Are you sure?” Richard squinted at the body on the ground, nudging it with one foot. “That is just a griffin?”
At least he had some sense to be suspicious.
Sage smiled at him, but it was tight, strained at the edges. “Of course. I am the witch here, not you, Richard. It would be best you trust me as always. I will not lead you astray. Unlike your last witch, Wilma.”
Richard paled and turned away from her, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
The last witch had been stronger than Sage. I’d joined the caravan the day before she’d died. The smell of belladonna was thick in the previous witch’s nighttime tea and I was pretty sure Sage had killed her. Stupid. It was fucking stupid, seeing as Sage had about as much magical prowess as some of the humans in the caravan.
But there was nothing I could say without alienating myself further from the group. And I knew where that would land me. Out of the caravan. And while I wasn’t fully on board with how everything was being done, the last month had given me the lift I’d needed.
I couldn’t stand Sage, though, and it would almost be worth it to put her in her place to be booted out. She was their paid protector, and here she was bald-faced lying to them over something that . . . well, it probably wasn’t important, but I didn’t like that she was pulling the wool over their eyes. Again.
Sage didn’t have the slightest idea what that thing at our feet was any more than I did, but she needed to maintain her sense of power. And her paycheck, as it were.
I couldn’t call her out on killing Wilma, but I could put the seeds out there for Richard on the creature in front of us. “It isn’t a griffin,” I said. “This looks nothing like a griffin. Yes, those creatures have bird parts, and lion parts, but they also only have one head and—”
She whipped a hand through the air and hit me with a sharp magical slap across the right side of my face that cut me short. The crack of the magic against my skin made the group fall silent. Oka hissed, and my blood boiled in an instant.
Embrace me. She is a liar, and a thief. Your magic would crush hers.
I fought the urge to grab hold of the dark magic in me. Really, I should have seen that coming, both the slap and the urge it induced in me.
It took every ounce of restraint I had not to lash out at that dumb-ass pretender. Slapping people from a distance was probably the best trick she had in that raggedy bag of hers besides her herbal poisons. She knew nothing about supernatural creatures or how to protect the humans from them. The fuckwit was going to get the caravan killed. My jaw ticked as she stared down at me.
“It’s a griffin, and I will not have a child try to make me look a fool only because she wants attention,” she said firmly, staring at me with her hard, angry brown eyes. The crowd around us shifted, almost as if they knew what was coming. A fight . . . but they were wrong. I would not fight this idiot.
Though I’d admit, there was a moment where I had to fight the urge to stick my tongue out at her as if I were the child she claimed, as she turned away from me. She waved her hand again, tinkling bracelets once more jingling.
“Everyone, just go around the creature. And try not to disturb it. The last thing we need is a dead creature’s scent on us. It could be infected with the plague.”
Well, at least she wasn’t wrong about that. The zombies were becoming a bit of a problem on this section of the caravan’s route. Since I’d joined them, we’d stumbled into more than one nest of the undead. Almost as if Sage wasn’t even watching for them or didn’t know how to identify dead swamp ground. Needless to say, my zombie slayers had been busier than ever before and that was likely one of the reasons the men left me alone, besides Oka.
I stood next to the body of the weirdly put together creature as the caravan parted around me, refusing to touch my hand to my cheek and rub at the slap she’d given me.
“I really kinda hate her,” Oka said, and all I could do was nod. I agreed.
A child’s soft giggle turned me around.
Frost, the oldest of the children, waved and smiled widely as he went by, strapped to the back of one of the women. Not quite three, and he was one of the few bright spots in the caravan and the whole reason I’d been drawn to it.
Saving kids was what I’d been taught by one of the best. I couldn’t turn away from them, even if I was barely better than another human in terms of abilities.
The other kids waved too, mostly at Oka.
Oka waved—waved—a paw at him from my shoulder, and I nudged her with the knuckles of one hand. “Focus, cat. That is not normal behavior for a feline.” She really liked the kids, especially that boy, and the feeling was mutual. Sometimes I wondered if she’d abandon me for him.
She dropped off my shoulder as I squatted next to the creature, and swatted at my ankle, picking up on my thoughts.
“Please, I’d never leave you. But you must admit. He’s pretty cute with those blond curls of his,” Oka said.
I shrugged and smiled. “I suppose. He’s stinky and sticky like the rest of the kids, you know.”
I let the caravan get ahead of us a bit. Macey hesitated as she stood beside me, looking at the creature for herself, her nose wrinkling.
“I’ve never seen a griffin that looked like that,” she said. “I’ve read about them, you know. I liked to read before the Rending.”
I debated what to say to her. She was human. She probably hadn’t seen that many griffins to begin with. I’d seen one in the flesh. That one had been dead too, but it had been a real griffin. If I challenged what Sage had said to the caravan again, it might crack the already fragile trust Macey had in this group.
As bad as it was, this was a decent group when it came to protecting the women, allowing them some choice in who they went to bed with. Which meant it was the best that Macey was going to get.
So, I stayed silent. She snorted. “That’s what I thought. You’re just like the others, thinking Sage knows everything. Well, she doesn’t
. I know things too,” she said before she walked away, her back stiff with anger.
I just sighed and shook my head. I couldn’t worry too much about her mood swings. Not now. Not when faced with such a bizarre-looking creature. Because I’d learned that you didn’t take weird shit lightly, not in this world. Doing so could get you killed.
Oka waited for Macey to get out of hearing range—no doubt for my benefit so I didn’t look like a mad woman again—before she spoke up. She didn’t like the humans to see us talking, even though they couldn’t hear her. Get me caught looking like a fool? Sure, she was game for that. But not a full-on conversation.
“Pam, what is it? In all my years, I’ve not crossed paths with anything remotely like this.”
I almost laughed at her. She was younger than me and had been confined to an elemental world before I’d found her. But I didn’t point that out. I wasn’t into being mean for the sake of being mean.
I took one of my knives and lifted one of the legs before letting it drop back to the ground. The bones were light, like a bird. Nothing about the creature made sense.
“I’m not sure. Another anomaly, like the others.” I’d never seen the creature in all the books I’d read during my years with Rylee. Worse, it was quickly becoming a pattern: a strange dead creature left in the middle of the road with no discernable species attached to it.
Maybe pattern was a bit generous. But I’d seen two other weird creatures in the last month I’d been unable to identify.
Both dead.
Sage of course had given them names, but she’d been wrong then too, and we both knew it.
“What does it mean? Because this is not even close to normal,” Oka said, her tail twitching only at the very tip as she examined the creature carefully, sniffing at it here and there.
“Don’t know that either. But I agree, it’s not normal. Not even for this world.” I thought for a moment, wondering if it was something out of the Veil. Like the archies and the big fish with wild shark teeth.
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