Death Be Rising (The Terra Vane Series Book 7)

by Katie Epstein

  He glared at me through narrowed eyes, but never lost his focus. He kept his weapon poised and stepped slow, heel to toe. I must have sounded like an elephant in comparison.

  “I’ve got to admit,” Libby piped up, “I’ve seen some bad things in my time. And I mean seriously screwed up. But waiting for things to jump out at me is seriously annoying.”

  “I wish we were back home,” Mayra said tightly.

  “Me too,” I whispered, and together we found our brave and continued to walk into the dark pit of hell.

  “There!” was all I heard before gunshots rang out around us.

  A breathless screeching, high pitch and loud, reached my ears. Some skanky zombie bitch flew out of the dark. She was fast, but Kaleb was quicker. He snatched her back by her hair before her gnashers could reach me. Acting fast, I used my blade to chop off her head, and it rolled to the floor, hitting the ground with a thud and crumbling to dust. Zax hacked off her arms, Libby aimed for the legs. But more zombies came, creeping out of the shadows from in between empty clothes racks with faded labels of twenty percent off.

  “This is bull!” Zax said, breathless. I noticed his wide eyes, his quick breathing. Seems I’m not the only one with zombie issues. But I also sensed his frustration. He was a dragon shifter, a beast who refused to run or fly from anything, yet here he was at his weakest. We all were, because we had to play nice with the humans—even if they had weapons.

  Another screeching came, but it wasn’t with our group. It sounded off in the distance. Gun fire echoed around the department store, putting me on alert. Another zombie flew at us, catching Jackson around her neck.

  Kaleb grabbed onto the zombie’s head and twisted it before teeth sank into the soldier’s flesh. We chopped and hacked. The Bodyguard Six—or five—covering our backs while we helped one of their own.

  Jackson bravely pushed her terror aside, and thanked Kaleb when she got to her feet. She righted her helmet and nodded, grabbing her weapon once more. Her widened eyes focused, and she fell back into the movement of others.

  Some of the men around her looked at Kaleb, impressed at his fast reaction, but Lopez order them to fall into step. Perspiration beaded my brow as we continued to travel deeper with them into the store. My heart banged against my chest. I shoved my shift sleeves above my elbows, needing the cool air to caress my skin and calm me down. Keeping my blade in my one hand, I held my finger on the trigger of the gun with the other.

  We all stayed silent, listening for any form of movement. I picked up on the others breathing, the sound of our feet with each step. A scraping noise had me aiming the flashlight. But nothing aside from the darkness stared back at us. Unless you counted old shelving half hanging off the walls.

  A buzzing noise had me looking up to see a flurry of pink coming from the department store floor above. A screaming followed—one I’d learned fast to associate with the zombies—and I raised my weapon.

  The Bodyguard Six aimed and fired. I held my blade high as a zombie used torn out wires to function as a zip-line.

  “Ugh,” I yelled, jumping on her before she could let go. My weight pulled the zombie dressed in a pink, netted prom gown down to the ground. We hacked, chopped before she could get to her feet, but Libby continued to bring her blade down repeatedly on the remaining torso.

  “Erm, Libby?” Zax tried to stop her without getting hacked. “I think she’s done.”

  “I. Hate. Pink!” she yelled, enunciating each word when her blade landed.

  Mayra reached out, put a hand on her arm. “Libby. She’s done.”

  Stilling at Mayra’s touch, Libby frowned, panting, and looking at Mayra in confusion. “They buried her in her prom dress,” she breathed. “I know about some Earthside customs. She died young.” She wiped the sweat from her brow.

  “It’s not her, remember?” Mayra placed an arm around her waist. “It’s only the shell.”

  The surrounding soldiers remained alert, watching our backs. None of them had flinched at Libby’s mention of the word ‘Earthside.’ Their brains were focused solely on our environment, ready for the next assailment of undead.

  The radio crackled. “Our first stage is clear,” Grady’s voice broke the silence. “Casualties zero. Exits are secure. Report.”

  I juggled my weapons, trying to reach for the radio. Kaleb helped me out and gave our status to Grady.

  “Time to go kick more zombie ass,” Zax said tentatively, trying to break the tension. “Next store here we come.”

  I swallowed hard, growing cold at the thought of doing this for another twenty-two stores. And that was just to get to the first meet point. I’d give anything to fight on the zombie’s side right now. But no brains.

  No way in hell am I eating brains.

  22

  “Oh, my life!” Libby shrieked.

  The suddenness of it made me scream, “Libby! What the hell?”

  “Sorry,” she sang, “but look at those heels!” She shined a flashlight at the peeling poster. “Red, pointy, designer!”

  I looked up at a worn advertisement board. “It’s a picture! A damn photograph!” I shook my weapon at her in warning as my breathing grew heavy.

  Her lips curled, but she held the laughter back for once. “Calm your shit before you pop a vessel.”

  Private Clarke bellowed, “Will you two pipe down!”

  I pointed at Libby. “She started it!”

  Clarke focused his anger at me, taking a step closer. But Kaleb didn’t like that. He stepped in between us. “How about you back off now?” he said to him.

  “They’ll get us killed!”

  “You underestimate the people at your back. We’re here to protect you. Not the other way around.”

  “Could have fooled us,” Private Rye snorted. I glared at him this time.

  “Clear,” Grady’s voice came through the radio once more. We backed off to check the next store.

  A darkened abandoned mall wasn’t the greatest place for giving peace of mind. The escalators we’d passed had long crumpled over time, the rolling sides leaning toward the ground. Plants left to rot sat in the dried soil of marbled planters. And floors, filthy with goodness knows what, creaked with stickiness when our boots hit. Life once pulsed here. And now the dead had made it their home.

  Before I entered the next store, staying up front with Lopez, Kaleb put a hand on my arm.

  “Wait,” he whispered.

  “What is it?”

  “I can hear something.”

  Leaning against the wall, I positioned my weapon, and slid along, peering around the part leading me into the store. Kaleb and the IET, positioned in a line behind me, and Lopez silent ordered the soldiers to do the same. I aimed my flashlight inside, focusing on the orb of light across the old countertops and shoe rails. My ears pricked up. A slobbering noise. Someone’s jaws slapping together. I lowered the flashlight toward the floor, and it illuminated the awful sight I’d expected. “Oh hell no,” I whispered, pulling back and slamming myself against the wall behind me.

  “What is it?” Kaleb asked.

  “They have food,” I whispered. “Human food!”

  ‘Calm down, baby’ he sent to me, concern on his face.

  I grabbed his vest and yanked him toward me. ‘Calm down? I told you we’d get this kind! I knew it. I hate zombies, Kaleb. I freaking hate them. And one reason is because they eat people!’

  ‘You’re a badass with the weapons, remember?’

  ‘I’m gonna kick Dreven’s butt for his. I’m gonna kick it so bad.’

  “What’s the holdup?” Zax asked.

  “Zombies are dining,” Kaleb replied.

  Zax looked at me with worry. He nodded, letting me know I’d got this. But then he moved down the line, informing others of what awaited them to avoid any nasty surprises. Mayra whimpered. Libby patted her back. But with our group aware, I found my ire. “Move in,” I signaled, before aiming my weapon, and running into the store. I fired at the dining zombie
.

  A screech of surprise had the gruesome bastard falling back from his meal. It made me wonder why they were eating people. It’s not as if they needed the sustenance like normal zombies.

  Normal zombies. Yep. I’ve lost it.

  I roared when I fired. Other zombies popped their heads up from behind fallen shelving as we directed our bullets. A dead human lay on the floor, their eyes empty with their throat torn out, and anger replaced my fear.

  Removing my blade from its harness, I happily carved at the zombies coming at us.

  A man wearing a wife-beater and a baseball cap. Decapitated and dust.

  A teenage frat boy, sun-kissed hair, and gormless eyes. No arms. No legs. His head soon gone by my blade.

  A woman not far off her seventies, her decaying fangs gnashing at me from dirty gray hair fallen around her face. I slit her from pelvis to head and turned her to dust.

  The radio crackled. I snatched it from my waist. “Not clear, Grady! And we have dead people being eaten over here!”

  “Same!” he shouted back, breathless. “But we keep moving, Vane. Check the doors, move on. We’re on the opposite side. Go to the first position.”

  I rammed the radio back into my belt, and more gun fire rang around me.

  “Let’s move!” I yelled when Zax returned from checking the doors to the place.

  Kaleb put a hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re so sexy when you shout.’

  I glared at him, and he laughed, falling into following my orders. But my ego rose from his compliment, pushing aside any hesitation. And it helped, driving me forward so fear wouldn’t clutch its hands around my throat.

  Crashing through the last few zombies, we did a recon on the area, then left. Finally, we got to the first point with no casualties. But we had a few injured.

  Relief assailed me when I saw Bernard and Grady unharmed. We barricaded the store we’d piled into, and Lopez assigned soldiers to stand guard.

  Grady approached me after ordering those with the medical kits to patch up those hurt.

  “This all seem too easy to you?” he asked when he reached me.

  I finished my drink of water we’d carried in a shared backpack. “Easy?” I scoffed, wiping my mouth. “Yeah, sure.”

  “Come on, Vane. After going through Dreven’s profile are you going to tell me he’s holed up here waiting for us to make dust of his army? They’re a threat. But not a hostile one.”

  “I just killed zombies in the middle of making a human their dinner,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Easy to kill, I meant. But I can’t shake the feeling we’re walking into a trap.”

  “Yeah,” I relented. “I’m getting that vibe, too. But we knew that already.” I lowered my voice. “We’re calling them zombies. The walking dead and all. But they’re not zombies in the sense they need to feed, brains or whatever else they want on the evening menu.” I took a breath. Those poor people. “But Dreven is going to great lengths to make appear so.”

  “Psychological warfare,” he said in thought.

  “What?”

  “How better way to unsettle us? Especially the humans. Screw with our psyche. ‘Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.’” I raised an eyebrow. He looked at me like I’d grown a head. “Sun Tzu,” he continued. “The Art of War. Military strategist? Philosopher?”

  Kaleb and Bernard came over to us. “What’s up?”

  “Grady’s talking psychological warfare regarding the biters,” I told them. “He thinks we’re walking into a trap. And that I’m a freak because I don’t know who Sun Tzu is.”

  “Wow,” Kaleb frowned, “even I know who Sun Tzu is.”

  Bernard shook his head. “And you call yourself a fighter.”

  “Whatever.” I rolled my eyes. “But Grady thinks this is too easy, and Dreven is leading us into a trap. We need to focus.”

  “Of course it’s a trap,” Bernard said to me. “You’re involved.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Thanks Bernard. That helps.”

  He chuckled. “Only telling it like it is. But we can’t backtrack now.”

  “We can’t,” Kaleb emphasized. “We keep going as planned and assess the situation. You’re aware of the alternative.”

  “Big guys sending in the big guns and playing into Dreven’s hands.” I sighed. “Yeah. I get it.”

  “Let’s clear this level,” Grady said to us. “We’ve taken a chunk out of his army, so we keep doing that.”

  “The soldiers need a few minutes. Yes. They’re used to poor conditions,” I said before he lectured me to death. “But this continuous barrage of creepy super strength zombies leaping out of the dark is taking its toll. They need a minute.” I rubbed at my chest. “I know I do.”

  A scream echoed in the distance, reminding us to stay on guard.

  His jaw clenched, but he didn’t argue any further. “A few minutes. We tend to the injured, then we keep moving.”

  I nodded, digging down deep in me to find the motivation to keep going. Not one hair was out of place on Kaleb’s head. Or Bernard’s. It pissed me off. I couldn’t even blame my ruffled state on being human because of Grady. He had perspiration on his brow. A bruise beneath his eye. But again. No hair out of place.

  “What’s the next location?” asked Kaleb.

  “There’s a food court and multiplex theater on the next floor,” Grady replied. “Let’s clear this area and make that our main destination.”

  “Then what?”

  “We clear that too. If we find nothing, we work our way back checking the basement floor they use for storage, the meeting rooms and offices on the third level. There’s not many. And they’re close to the multiplex. After that, we clear out and regroup. I’ll check on the others. Five minutes, Vane. That’s all we can allow ourselves.”

  And off he went.

  “I’m not sure if I prefer surly FBI agent or Sergeant major over there,” I said to Grady’s retreating form.

  “I’m glad of both,” Kaleb replied.

  “Me too,” Bernard agreed. “Dan knew what he was doing when he tricked you into tricking Grady into the IET.”

  “He didn’t trick me,” I snapped. “And I didn’t trick Grady.”

  “What about Karl?” Kaleb asked. “Can he help in any way?”

  “Only as an extra pair of eyes and ears. He can’t go too far. And he needs to keep the dead away from his friend. I hate to say it, but we need Grady more than we need Karl at the moment.”

  The five minutes passed by way too fast. Growls, loud enough to rumble the ground at our feet, echoed from the north point we still had to assess.

  I sighed heavy, my heart thudding hard once more. “And here we go again.”

  23

  If you looked inside our bodies, I’m sure you’d see a chorus of fast beating hearts and hardworking lungs—aside from Bernard. He has a heart, even though he’s a vampire. But he remained as cool as a cucumber, slicing and dicing the zombies coming at us.

  With the first floor cleared, we made it to the upper level with only a few injuries: cuts, bruises, a few more bites where soldiers hadn’t evaded the rotting dentures in time. No sign of Dreven. Although Mayra sensed shimmers of magic.

  “We do not split up on this level,” Grady ordered. “We remain in our sub-teams, but we stay together. Let’s go.”

  Grady had assigned small groups to watch out for one another in case we got separated from the group. The Bodyguard Six stuck with the IET, and I was thankful when Grady and Bernard joined our sub-team.

  We moved into the dark, weapons poised once more. I dripped with perspiration, the feel of it cold against my skin. If anyone had squatted here they did so no longer. Nothing remained aside from the lingering promise of death that filled the air.

  Seconds felt like hours. And every step became more like a mile.

  I looked back at Mayra to see her eyes squeezed tight.

  “Hey,” I fell back into step be
side her. “You okay?”

  Her gaze flickered and widened. “I’m fine,” she whispered. She wasn’t, but she was dealing. That’s all we could ask for at this point. Zax had gone feral to deal, grunting rather than speaking. And I had to hide a smile at that. The big bad dragon had to slum it with the rest of us.

  “I know what might help,” Libby said, joining me and Mayra.

  “I doubt that,” I muttered.

  She chuckled. “Distraction is key. So, let me tell you all about the night me and Kaleb almost hooked up.”

  “Shut up,” I snapped.

  “He fondled my breasts.”

  “I said shut up.”

  “He put his hands beneath my panties.”

  Rage burned like fire inside me at her conjuring such an image. We hadn’t dated then. It happened after he saw me kissing his brother. But come on? Who wants to imagine their ex doing anyone? Let alone someone who looked like Libby.

  “Will you shut your damn mouth,” Kaleb hissed from behind us, his astute hearing picking up on our conversation.

  She sniggered. “What? It’s helping her. She doesn’t look so pale now. Do you, Vane?”

  My cheeks burned with anger, so I couldn’t disagree with her there. “If that’s your idea of helping, then I’d hate to see how you’ll like when you’re destructive!”

  She laughed. “Now that I enjoyed.”

  “Gag her,” I muttered, “someone please gag her.”

  “I’ll gag her in a minute,” Kaleb said, moving up beside me. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure. I’m fine. Just what every girl wants to hear. Listening to the details of how her boyfriend felt up another woman who’s every man’s dream on legs. Please. Fill in the gaps!”

  My anger was off base. I knew it. But it eased the ache in my stomach and focused me.

  “Can we talk about this later?” he pleaded.

  “There’s nothing to talk about. Unless you’d like me to describe how Bernard is in the sack,” I bit out.

  “Don’t you bring me into this,” Bernard said from behind us. Kaleb growled.

  “Do tell!” Libby begged.