A stone table sat in the middle of the cavern, its top stained a dark reddish-black and its side streaked with the same heavy color. I had no doubt that its source was blood-blood that must have been spilled over years and years rather than merely the few months they'd been here in Melbourne.
Black candles sat around the base of the table, each one marking the point of a pentagram that had been etched into the stone flooring.
Which meant this wasn't the hideaway of the sorcerers.
It was their place of deep magic.
Nice setup, Kye said. His gaze paused on the bloody table, then he looked at me. This where they raise the zombies?
It feels like the same sort of magic. I stopped at the end of the wide ramp, right on one of the pentagram points. There didn't seem to be any magic coming off it, so maybe it wasn't active, but the room itself still burned with energy. With death.
My gaze moved across the stone table to the rough-hewn wall on the far side. Hollows had been carved into the stone, and in each one sat several items. A little pile of hair and a football in one. A brush and a football sweater in another. A pair of Nikes and a hubcap in yet another. All things men would generally have owned, not women.
Had these things belonged to the men raised from the dead? Did part of the ritual require something that was precious to them?
My gaze went back to the table. All I knew about zombies came from fiction and Hollywood, and I had firsthand experience at just how wrong they could get it. But there was one thing that remained absolute, regardless of the truths and half-truths that might abound-and that was the fact that life required blood. Hell, even unlife required blood.
The question here was, whose blood was she using to reanimate her dead?
Kye walked past me, his clean musky scent like heaven against the foul stench of the room. Though he was careful to avoid the pentagram and candles, his attention seemed to be on the ground itself.
Which piqued my interest. What's wrong?
These, He squatted and pointed a finger toward the dust-covered stone.
I walked over and stopped beside him. What he was actually pointing at looked like two wheel marks.
It's probably tracks from Jessica's wheelchair, I said, dismissing it.
He glanced up at me. One of our sorcerers is paralyzed?
The zombie raiser is. That's why she was resting on her belly when she was in crow form at the warehouse.
At least it explains the ramp getting into this place. He rose and followed the tracks around the room. There's a lot of tracks going from the pentagram to these hollows in the wall.
Meaning this is her workplace, not Hanna's. I walked around the opposite way.
Maybe. His voice held an edge of doubt. Trouble is, the pentagram doesn't feel active.
And maybe we should be grateful for that. The stink of rotting flesh got stronger once I'd passed the ramp again, and I studied the shadows intently. I couldn't see anything resembling a body but, given the smell, it had to be here somewhere. Besides, given how careful these women tended to be, it wouldn't surprise me if they hid their victims in walled-up hollows and with magic.
I stepped closer to the cavern's wall, and felt the firefly press of magic against my skin. It was a magic that was slightly different from the other magic fouling the room, yet it was one I'd felt before.
I raised a hand and watched my fingers disappear into blackness. It was another wall like the one I'd encountered in that first warehouse-the one where Kye had rescued me from the hellhounds.
I followed my hand into that blackness, and once again the air had the consistency of glue. The blackness pulled at me, resisted me, making every step difficult and progress minuscule. As before, I pushed forward as hard as I could. This time it didn't take as long to get free of it. Maybe it simply wasn't as deep.
Beyond it were the bodies. Not just one, but several, all in various states of decay. Like the trophy items, most of these bodies each had their own little hollow, but none of them were stretched out comfortably. Some lay curled into a fetal position, while others simply looked as if they'd been stuffed into their holes any old way, leaving bones jutting out and body fluids staining the stone. And unlike the trophy holes, some of these spaces remained empty. Although nine cavities had been carved into the stone, only six had occupants. And there was one body still sprawled out on the floor.
I squatted down beside him and tried not to gag at the wretched smell of decay that, for some odd reason, seemed stronger near the floor line.
This body was young-maybe no more than eighteen or nineteen-and I swear there was a look of terror frozen onto his slack features and wide-open eyes. Blood had matted his dark brown hair and splattered down his white shirt. His dark blue pants were similarly stained, but smelled slightly of urine. It had to be Billy. From the look of it, the poor kid had taken quite a beating before he'd died.
But why was he here, on the floor, rather than in one of the holes like the others? Was it simply a matter of not having the time to stuff him in, or did they have something else planned for him?
Given it was a question I was never likely to get an answer to, I searched through his pockets, finding his wallet and car keys. Neither looked to have been touched in any way, though I guess I wouldn't know for sure until we got them to the lab for fingerprinting.
I reached forward and gently closed his eyelids. As I touched his skin, magic caressed my fingertips. It was the magic of the room, magic that burned my skin and made it crawl in revulsion.
Maybe Billy wasn't quite dead, after all.
Maybe none of them were. Maybe this was Jessica's emergency supply of bodies should resources start drying up elsewhere. Hell, for all I knew, these bodies could be the remnants of interstate kills and graveyard robbings. Some of them certainly looked as if they'd been kept in this half-animated state for a while.
I glanced back down at Billy. There wasn't a whole lot I could do to prevent the reactivation of his flesh, if indeed that was what that magic was about. That was a job for the Directorate magi.
What I could do was stop him from becoming a problem if he did rise while we were still here. It wasn't something I really wanted to do, but at least the kid was dead and his spirit had moved on. He'd never know-and probably wouldn't care-about what I was about to do to his cold, unresponsive flesh.
I blew out a breath, then grabbed Billy's right leg, one hand on the ankle, one hand just above his knee. Then, as sharply as I could, I pushed-one hand down, one hand up. The knee cap shattered, the sound making me wince. I did the same to the left leg, then grabbed his wallet and keys and retreated back through the black wall.
Kye was standing within the pentagram, examining the bloody table.
Find anything? he said without looking up.
The source of the decaying flesh scent, I put Billy's items down beside the ramp, then dug the bottles of holy water out from underneath my bodice. I don't think you should have done that.
Done what?
Step into that pentagram, I uncorked one of the bottles and began sprinkling the water onto the pentagram etched into the floor. Steam began to rise and the stone itself began to bubble.
The magic wasn't active.
But there is magic here, and we have no idea how any of it might be activated, I emptied one bottle over three quarters of the pentagram, then stepped into the ruined circle and uncorked the second bottle. I raised it above the stone tabletop, then let the water pour down along its entire length.
As the stone began to bubble and steam, something shrieked. A high, inhuman noise grated at my nerves and made me want to cover my ears. I spun around, looking for the source of the ungodly sound. Nothing appeared to have changed. We were alone in the room, and the shadows remained empty of life or movement.
And yet... something had changed, but I couldn't define what. Maybe it was just the air. It felt heavier. Angrier, if that made any sense.
The uneasiness that had been riding my insides since we'd stepped into this room suddenly increased, and I had a bad feeling we'd just overstayed our welcome.
I think we need to get out of here. I tossed the bottles under the table, then stepped away from it.
In that moment, the magic spiked and the walls exploded, sending a rain of deadly rock shards ricocheting through the room.
I yelped and ducked under the table, using it as a shield against some of the stone as I covered my head with my hands and curled up as small as I could to present less of a target. The sharp little-and not so little-missiles hit me regardless, pounding my arms and body, drawing blood wherever they hit.
It was over within minutes, leaving a silence that made my skin crawl. Because there was something within that silence, something that felt old and filled with magic. The same magic that had infused the room before the explosion.
I think the shit just hit the fan, Kye said.
I had an odd feeling that he wasn't talking about the explosion. I moved my arms and opened my eyes.
We were no longer alone in the room. At least a dozen bodies had stepped free from the shattered remains of the walls and were moving toward us, their movements reminding me of sleepwalkers.
Only I suspected these walkers were a whole lot more dangerous to us than to each other.
I guess our sorceress wasn't too impressed with me destroying her pentagram and table.
I guess not, Kye said, mind voice calm. A shiver went through me. I had a feeling the switch had been pulled, and he'd just become the perfect killer. I only have six bullets.
Then don't waste them. Bullets wont stop zombies-you can only do that by deprogramming them from the magic.
Then what are our options?
We stop them, which means breaking their limbs. All their limbs. If Kye had been a real telepath rather than just a siphon, it might have been worthwhile trying to break the connection Jessica had with them. Granted, such an attempt would have been hard, considering how many of them there were, but it just might have been possible. But with Kye having no real expertise with telepathy, it wasn't worth the effort.
He didn't reply, simply launched himself at the nearest pack of walking dead men, hitting them feet first and scattered them like so much rotting meat.
Fingers grabbed at my bodice and I spun, grabbing the hand and shoving the zombie back as hard as I could. Then I ran and jumped, kicking one zombie in the head before dropping to the ground and, sweeping with a leg, knocking a second off his feet.
More of them came at me. I broke the fingers off one, then jumped back, pulling him with me and throwing him sideways, into others.
An arm wrapped itself around my neck and the fetid breath of flesh long dead washed over me, making me gag. I tried to pry his fingers away, but his entire hand seemed to be covered with something that was thick and slimy, and it was impossible to get a grip. So I dropped to my knees and tried to flip him over my head. The body went over but the arm remained, and it was still squeezing, still making it harder and harder to breathe. I reached back, grabbed the limb, and forced it away from my neck. His flesh was rotting, covered with a putrid mix of goo that was flesh and body fluids and God knows what else.
I flung it away with a shiver, and wished I had something to wipe my neck with. I could still feel him, still feel his slime on my skin, and it was horrible.
Two more grabbed at me. I punched one, smashing in the side of his face and sending him flying away from me. Then I pushed backward, as hard as I could, crushing the second zombie against the wall. There was a sharp crack of bone, but I didn't bother turning around to see what had broken. I simply finished the job, breaking his arms, then his legs. He dropped to the ground, but still tried to get to me, flopping around like a fish out of water.
Revulsion rolled through me, but I swiftly pushed it to one side as more of the stinkers came at me. I kicked and punched for all I was worth, breaking the limbs of some and shattering the backs of others. Bits of flesh and bone flew, covering me and the floor in their stinky goo, until the stench made me want to throw up.
And the worst part was, all my fighting didn't seem to make a goddamn bit of difference. The bastards just kept coming at me.
I blew the sweaty strands of hair away from my forehead and cast a brief glance Kye's way. He didn't seem to be doing any better. There were three zombies flopping at his feet, but that still left another three, and those creatures seemed just as fast and just as strong as he was. Maybe they were simply fresher.
I jumped over the leap of a creature, then hit the ground and spun, knocking another on his rotten ass. I jumped on his leg, smashing his kneecap, then spun as another lashed out. Despite the speed with which I could move, I simply wasn't fast enough. The blow landed on the side of my head and sent me flying toward the wall.
Several of them hit me in the chest and drove me back against the wall. Fingers grabbed at my body, my throat, my hair, until all I could smell and all I could feel was the dead. A scream rolled up my throat but I clamped down on it, hard. The last thing I needed to do was alert anyone still inside the club that someone had gotten into one of their protected passages.
Although I'd probably done that the moment I'd destroyed the pentagram and table.
I raised my arms and smashed theirs away, then dropped to the ground and crawled, as fast as I could, between their legs and away.
Kye, I think we need to get the hell away from this cavern and regroup.
He didn't answer immediately, punching several zombies away from him before saying, I'm thinking that's a fucking good idea.
I flipped upright and spun, lashing out with a leg and knocking one charging zombie into another. At least in the hallway they cant come at us from all angles.
And that would give us an advantage. Right now, there were just too many avenues for the things to keep jumping us. And though we'd reduced their numbers, the ones that remained were the least rotten, and the strongest. And they just wouldn't stop.
I grabbed another arm and twisted it backward, hearing bone crack as I kicked out at the creature's kneecap. These things might be dead, but somewhere deep in their brainless skulls, a sense of self-preservation still survived, because it jumped backward, out of the way.
