Magic and Decay

by Rachel Higginson

  “They do for me,” Eden argued.

  “Not this time, Witch. You’re on our turf. You have to do things the hard way.”

  “I don’t like the hard way,” she grumbled.

  “Me either,” Ivy agreed.

  I nearly laughed.

  “It won’t work because the Feeders will follow us from below. They’re fast. Faster than they should be. If we jump, we’ll have to land on top of them and we’ll end up leading them right to our only escape option. We’re going to have to find another way.”

  “She’s right, Love. It’s easy to move around them up here. Not so on the ground.”

  Eden pressed her lips together and glared at the mayhem below.

  A scraggy hand smacked the smooth cement ledge and Eden jumped back and let out a surprised squeak. When the Feeder’s head finally popped up over the side of the building, Eden stopped being scared. She took an aggressive step forward and thrust out her hand. A shot of something sizzling and deadly sparked through the air and suddenly the Zombie’s head toppled to the side and then his body fell back to the ground below.

  My mouth dropped open and I stared at the place where the hand grasped the cool cement. What the hell?

  “What the hell?” Hendrix echoed my thoughts.

  Eden flashed us a sheepish smile. “That’s, um, I mean, I’m not… human.”

  Kiran chuckled. We stared at him until he explained, “That’s the first time she’s ever willingly admitted that.”

  My eyebrows jumped into my hairline. After watching her “Magic” manifest itself, how could there be any other possible option.

  “What else could you be?” I almost whispered.

  “Don’t ask,” she mumbled.

  I spun around at the clawing, scraping sound behind me. Sure enough, another Feeder had reached the top. Its long, jagged fingernails dug into the cement and clutched on for dear life. Or, er, afterlife. While I pulled my gun from the back of my pants, one of his claw-like nails popped off and he nearly dropped. Blackish blood oozed from his tenderized finger, but his other nails held strong.

  My stomach rolled. I’d had enough of this loser. I aimed carefully and pulled the trigger.

  Bang.

  And he was gone.

  His hands let go of the ledge with the impact and momentum of the bullet. I heard the upsurge of Zombie spirits when his body hit the ground and the snarling, spitting sounds of their teeth chewing the dead Feeder to bits and pieces.

  By now the entire edge of the building had Feeders scrambling over the top of it. Eden and Kiran were hard at work taking one Zombie at a time with their freaky Magic. Ryder had stepped in front of Ivy, but that wouldn’t save her for long.

  All of the Feeders seemed intent on getting to her.

  I heard Hendrix’s feet move next to mine and saw the glint of metal from his gun out of the corner of my eye.

  Okay. This was happening.

  Time to embrace the fight.

  “They’re slower this way,” I said to Hendrix. “We can pick them off like this and clear a path to the car.”

  “They keep coming, Reagan. I see them in the distance. It’s like an unlimited supply of them.”

  I groaned and got to work.

  Their hands reached up first and then their heads would show. It usually made a nice, easy target. But sometimes I would be in the middle of shooting one Zombie and another would manage to crawl over the edge.

  There were a few close calls. We kept our backs to Ivy and Ryder so we could shoot everything coming at them.

  The Zombies were just too freaking fast. They didn’t try to dodge bullets, but most of the time it was hard to keep up with them.

  I sucked in a breath just as one of them threw his body over the ledge onto his stomach and slithered like a snake on speed toward Ivy’s feet.

  I jumped when his hand swiped out at my shins and pulled the trigger at the same time. After two more shots, I got the fast sucker in the back of the head. It collapsed on the spot and left a speed bump in the path of other hungry Feeders.

  Hendrix’s hand landed on top of my head with a forceful thump and he shoved me to a squat. I went willingly but protested with something crass under my breath.

  He shot over my head a few times and then pulled his hand back. When I stood up again, he was chuckling.

  “You could have just told me to duck,” I growled venomously.

  I could hear the arrogant smile in his tone when he said, “Sure, but what fun would that have been?”

  “Oh, are we having fun? I was confused about that.”

  “Don’t be. This is always fun.”

  “Killing Zombies?

  “Fighting side by side.”

  Oh.

  His words felt like a punch in the gut and I momentarily lost my words. I watched him battle these crazed Zombies out of the corner of my eye and felt mesmerized.

  He was so precise with his shots and capable with each kill. I wanted to be like that. I wanted to be cool and collected and accurate as often as I could be.

  He had this gift for killing things that under any other circumstances would have gotten him locked away for the entirety of his life.

  But in this day and age, he was not an anomaly nor a hot psychopath.

  He was a hero.

  And I wanted to be just as good.

  “You’re making me self-conscious,” he grumbled. “Focus on the Feeders at hand and stop staring at me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re so vain. I am focused.”

  “I probably think this song is about me.”

  “Don’t you. Don’t you.”

  Of course, all our conversation had to be shouted. The screaming, shrieking, moaning Feeders nearly drowned every other sound. They didn’t stop making noise. They just went on and on and on without one break.

  They could climb this building because the brick façade gave them a foothold they couldn’t find with the uninterrupted style of stucco. They obviously didn’t fight the fear of heights that bothered me up here. Or have issues with tossing those that got in their way over the side.

  Ivy’s scream pierced through my killing spree and I jerked a look over my shoulder to find her on her knees as a Feeder went flying at Ryder.

  He stood bravely in front of her, with not one weapon in his hands. My stomach clenched and my heart dropped to my stomach. No, I shouted even though no actual sound came out of my mouth. No!

  In my head, I watched the Zombie attack and get to Ryder and then to Ivy. He tore at their flesh with his grotesque teeth and left unrecognizable corpses in his wake. I saw the horrible fate play out in front of my eyes. I felt panic surge in my blood and hysteria bubble in my throat.

  But just before I could scream, Hendrix’s quick thinking saved the day. He took a step forward and got a shot off through the Feeder’s temple.

  I let out a shaky breath and went back to fighting the other Feeders. I tried not to pay attention to Eden or Kiran at all. Their perfection really got to me.

  Or maybe it wasn’t the ease with which they could kill. Maybe it was the seemingly perfect relationship they shared.

  They had their happily ever after. That much was obvious. Maybe they went through some crap before. Love triangles… whatever. But they were happy now.

  They had it figured out.

  I wanted to figure it out!

  Or I didn’t.

  My heart still broke every time I thought of Kane. And then it would break all over again when I thought about Hendrix.

  Love sucked.

  Maybe I didn’t want the relationship Eden and Kiran had… I wasn’t ready for anything like that. But I wanted that kind of peace.

  I wanted to be completely comfortable in my own skin and know that I was in the exact place I was supposed to be in.

  So maybe it was the boys in my life. Or maybe it was the freaking Zombies. Because no matter how hard I tried to accept my new circumstances, killing Zombies for a living felt like the exact op
posite of how I was supposed to spend my twenties.

  “Reagan, behind you!” Ivy shouted.

  I spun around and ducked. I allowed myself the half second I needed to make sure that I wasn’t shooting someone I knew before I pulled the trigger and hit the middle-aged, balding Zombie straight in the chest.

  Missed. Damn.

  He stumbled back with flailing arms and let out a guttural screech that echoed through the night. His head tipped back as he lifted his voice to the sky, but that was his mistake. As soon as his chin dropped back down and his crimson eyes found mine, I was ready.

  Bam. Bam. Bam. Three shots to the center of his forehead before the momentum of death could finally pull him down.

  His body hit the flat roof just in time to trip another. I shot at that one, dancing on my tiptoes to avoid swinging arms and sharp fingernails.

  “We have to get off this roof!” I shouted at my new friends.

  “There! There’s a door.” Even Eden sounded out of breath. I took encouragement in that and continued to take out Feeders. “We’ll slip into the stairwell and fortify the door with Magic. We’ll figure out what to do once we get inside.”

  “They’re just going to follow us into the building,” I hollered back.

  “I’ll take any other suggestions,” Eden shouted back.

  Okay, was that sarcasm? I wasn’t exactly sure how to take that.

  I glanced at Hendrix. He smiled at me and then made a feminine cat hand. When he swiped the air and meowed, I decided it was time to shoot him in the foot.

  But then I got distracted by a Zombie. Maybe Eden was right.

  “Fine. Inside the building, we go.” Hendrix seemed to find my cooperation extra funny. “Ivy, stay next to me!”

  “Hey!” Hendrix protested. “That’s my line!”

  “With Ivy?”

  He shrugged. “She is a Siren. She lures men in with her natural charm.”

  “I’ll show you natural charm,” I grumbled.

  “What was that?”

  I glared at him and thought about shooting him again. Just maybe a slight graze to his ass or something. I heard somewhere that the butt is mostly fat. I doubt he’d be in any real pain. He’d probably recover in no time.

  Not that there was much of any fat to Hendrix. But… I did really want to shoot him.

  “Don’t be jealous, Reagan. I think you’re cute too.”

  I gasped loudly and turned to attack him. His eyes twinkled with cocky delight while my head flashed with a hundred ways to hurt him.

  “Do you want me to add you to my body count? Because I will. Nothing would make me happier.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “Definitely sounds like a little jealousy to me. And you know what? I don’t feel bad at all. In fact, I kind of like it. It’s nice to be on the other side of this for once.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to that. I felt the immediate guilt mixed with some righteous indignation. But this was neither the time nor the place to open such an ugly can of worms.

  We fought a bloody battle to get to the door. Hendrix and I used our guns in a steady stream of flying bullets. Eden and Kiran used their Magic as meticulous swords, cutting through Zombie flesh with ease. Ryder kept Ivy firmly tucked to his side and protected from everything that tried to get to her.

  Zombies fell at our feet. Gunky, sticky blood splashed on our clothes and hair and exposed skin. The god-awful smell that permeated the air made my stomach roil and my eyes water.

  I hated Zombies. I hated them so much the feeling had become a lump in my stomach that stayed with me day and night. I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t ignore it. The lump had gotten so heavy that my body felt weighed down by it, my soul felt tainted and my heart turned black.

  I hated them. I hated them more than anything.

  Well, maybe there was one thing I hated more than Zombies.

  Matthias.

  But I was pretty sure that feeling was mutual.

  At the door, Kiran turned the handle and opened it for us. I paused to examine his casual, nonchalant approach and tried not to shake him. That door was heavy. And I bet it was locked before. Every one of my instincts told me that door had been locked.

  “It must be so nice to have unlimited Magic at your disposal.” I hadn’t meant to sound so bitchy… but… well… I couldn’t help but be jealous! My life revolved around ammo-counts and making sure my mouth was always closed when I pulled the trigger, lest I get Zombie-goo in my mouth.

  Kiran and Eden walked around with twenty-feet of personal space and clean clothing. They could open doors. They could jump over large buildings. They could start cars and fly jets without fuel or running engines or anything else that normal people needed.

  “It is,” Kiran agreed.

  I glared at him. “I bet people just hate you.”

  He chuckled at my anger. “They do. Well, they do at first, but I grow on them over time.”

  “And Eden?”

  “Everybody loves Eden. She’s their favorite.” He smirked at me. Smirked! “In you go.”

  I felt his Magic push me inside the dark stairwell and I nearly toppled down it. Ryder was there to catch me with two steady hands.

  “Whoa,” he rasped out in his rumbly voice. “You okay?”

  “Peachy.”

  I felt his smile through the darkness. “Thanks for keeping us alive.”

  “So you’re not, er, Immortal?”

  “I’m not even Greek. I’m just a regular human that got caught in the middle of a war between gods.”

  “That sucks.”

  “No kidding.”

  “But you got the girl, right? That has to be worth it.”

  He made some kind of sound with his lips pressed together. “Ivy and I are not together.”

  “Oh.” I took a step back and bumped into Hendrix. I ignored him. And I ignored the heat of his body pressed into my back. And the hardness of his abs and the way his hand automatically went to my waist to steady me. And the butterflies in my stomach. And him. I ignored him completely. I cleared my throat. “You just seem to, um, really care for each other.”

  “We’re not together,” he repeated.

  Okay.

  Before I could make this conversation any more awkward, we got caught in the flow of foot traffic to the basement.

  Eden and Kiran did something Magical to the door because I could hear the barrage of hungry fists against the steel door, but they weren’t able to break through.

  I took a deep breath. Compared to outside, the quite of the dark stairwell and the musty, metallic scent of concrete steps and rusted railings was an absolute relief.

  Eden built a blue ball of something that let out enough light for us to see where we were going and what could be meeting us here.

  We moved silently and slowly down, carefully quiet and always on alert.

  I could hear the distant sounds of glass breaking and the shrieking, moaning Zombies that wanted to get to us, but couldn’t.

  “It’s so weird how they can smell you,” I whispered to Ivy. “I can’t smell anything different about you.”

  She shot a glare over her shoulder at me. “You don’t smell anything because I don’t smell!”

  “What about the whole Siren thing?”

  Her eyes narrowed further. “It’s not a scent. It’s an innate attraction. They feel a pull. They don’t smell anything.”

  “Oh. Sure.”

  “I don’t smell! You smell!”

  “Red,” Ryder warned her.

  “It’s all right. I do smell.” And not just because of Zombie gore and blood splatter. I smelled because it had been three days since I’d had any kind of cleansing ritual. We had been extra low on supplies these days and forced into a deeper hiding than usual. No water for bathing. No shampoo for washing. And no clean clothes. There probably wasn’t much of a difference between Zombie-rot and me. But since everyone I traveled with smelled just as badly, I had started to become immune to it.
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  What an awful realization.

  “I shouldn’t have said that.” Ivy sounded remorseful.

  I watched her pick her way through the dark stairwell. Her pale skin glowed under Eden’s blue-tinted light and her red hair had dried into bouncy curls. Her big green eyes shimmered with apology. It was hard not to like her.

  “It’s fine,” I told her. “And also true. We’ve been pretty isolated recently. And our supplies are really low. At least I’ve been able to brush my teeth.”

  “It’s all perspective, isn’t it? I think I have it bad. But you guys… I mean, I can’t imagine not being able to take hot showers or walk outside my house without a weapon. You live in a seriously crazy world.”

  “It’s not all roses and butterflies for you either, Ivy,” Ryder said quickly. “You have your own version of hell.”

  “Yeah?” I paused on the stair so I could see her reaction.

  “Yeah,” she whispered.

  “Someone upstairs must hate us,” I tried to joke.

  “It’s like they just love to torture us!”

  “Exactly! And what did we ever do to them? I’ve been nothing but nice.”

  “A little homicidal,” Hendrix murmured. “But nice, too. “

  We started walking down the stairs again, quicker this time so we could catch up with Eden and Kiran.

  “We sealed all the doors to the stairwell,” Eden explained once we’d reached the ground floor. “But once we open this door, there’s no telling how many Zombies will be waiting for us.”

  I checked my weapons and adjusted my backpack. This wasn’t anything new to me. “Let’s fight our way out and get to that car. We can drive in circles with your Magical gas for all I care. I just want to get away from these Feeders. Unless you can come up with some Magical bullets as well, I’m going to run out eventually.”

  Eden and Kiran did that look-sharing thing again. Okay, I guess Magical bullets were off the table. It was nice to know they had some limitations.

  Kiran put his hand on the door handle again. “Ready?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Sure,” Hendrix answered casually. His hand landed on my shoulder before Kiran could follow through. He gave me a long squeeze, his fingers pressing into my collarbone.