Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
ORION
Get inside! the blood magi screamed.
I dashed into the old newsagents through a broken door, crouching with Basil in the darkness as Pete barked further orders at us.
There were zombies around the corner—a horde of them.
Keep low. Stay quiet, the creepy assbug demanded. You will protect me if I need you to.
When it came to zombies, I wasn’t sure how blood magic worked. I mean, on humans and fae it worked a treat, but the undead? Hmmm. I’d like to watch Pete perform a blood spell, fail, then get devoured.
I prayed to the stars that my wish would come true.
Hissing speedies rushing past the shop.
Followed by the shuffle and moaning of the slowies.
Both varieties accounted for.
The zombies sang dead melodies in the night, hunters of living flesh. I’d encountered my fair share of hordes, the best course of action to hide, or run then hide. Close your ears and eyes. Hope for the best.
That door is going to be a problem, I thought at our captor.
It hung inward off one hinge, its glass panel still intact yet heavily cracked.
Not helpful, Pete replied.
A slowie stopped in the doorway, swaying in its undead way in a fragment of moonlight. It moaned, angling its head toward the shadows. Bright pink eyes blazed in the man’s rotten head. Searching, unblinking.
Oh. Stars.
Don’t make a sound, Pete said.
Yes, because we were completely free to throw nuts in the cogs. My papa hated it when squirrels did that at his place of work. Naughty creatures, those Faery squirrels.
The slowie wasn’t moving, its gaze roaming the dark. It groaned, taking a slight shuffle over the threshold.
It smelled the blood dripping from Pete’s nostrils.
Another shuffle, another two slowies coming to investigate.
Pixie balls!
The magic in my system faltered, Pete releasing a terrified gasp. He lost his balance, falling onto his backside with a loud pop, sounding like he’d sat on a packet of crisps, kicked off the chaos.
Crap. Crap. Crap.
“Run!” he bellowed, taking off deeper into the shop.
Basil leaped to his feet, grabbing me by the right arm. “Move!”
Stars, it was so dark!
Zombies began to spill into the store, speedies hissing dangerously close by.
I let Basil hold onto me for the time being, jumping over debris as I followed his lead, my eyesight just about picking up the outline of the mess spread across the space.
Not the pile of skeletons, though.
My boot crunched through bone, throwing me off balance, breaking Basil’s grip. I tumbled forward, crashing into the bones and causing a complete ruckus.
“Dammit!” Basil spat. “Get up!”
A cluster of pink eyes moved closer, a terrifying gust of hissing filling the shop.
“Oh, stars…” I muttered, getting to my feet.
Slowies were shoved out of the way by the silhouette of a speedie barreling to the front as if stuck on forward drive, focused on one thing.
Us.
It staggered over the debris, never tripping, chewing up the distance between us. I ran after Basil through another broken door, through the back exit where Pete waited in a small, litter-filled courtyard.
“Up there!” He pointed at a ladder, going up it first.
Interesting, he hadn’t left us to save himself. He must really want our blood.
Basil made me go up the rickety metal ladder next. I went up quickly, heart pounding in my ears, drenched in sweaty terror.
“That was close,” Pete said when I reached the top.
He stood on the edge of the roof, his mouth hanging open as he watched Basil come up the ladder.
Now to deal with the blood magi.
My stomach ached at even thinking of my next move.
This assbug had to die.
As if anticipating my action, Basil punched the magi in the face then shoved him off the roof. He screamed as he fell, his magic touching my body before he slammed into the ground.
I didn’t look down to see the feast, but heard the wet chomping, seemingly so much louder than the dead song of the horde.
“I…” I stepped away from the edge. “I would’ve done it.”
“I spared you. Come. Let’s get out of here.”
“Spared me?”
“You’re not a killer, Orion. The gene isn’t inside you.”
“I kill zombies almost every day.”
“But you could never take an actual life.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I?”
“Don’t act like you know me.”
“Just move, will you?”
Fine. “We didn’t go too far from the station. Shall we navigate back from up here?”
Hmmm. Where to begin? My sense of direction was slightly skewered. But there were a series of buildings with low roofs around us to leap onto. We could find a spot to climb down from, safely away from the horde.
I’d soon be back with Miko and the pack. We would get out of this situation, find better shelter, reset.
Poor Joseph.
“No need for that,” Basil responded.
“Do you know the way back?”
“We’re not going back there. This is our chance to go home. Follow me.”
I fixed my feet to the ground. “Sorry?”
“Home, Orion. Come on.”
“No. I—”
“Forget the wolf. Please. I can’t bear trying to understand you anymore.”
A clang sounded from below, the ladder rattling.
Zombies couldn’t climb ladders.
I double checked with a quick glance. No. They slammed into it, pawed at the rungs, their eyes flaring with hunger. But they didn’t climb.
“You don’t have to understand me,” I countered, hurrying to the other side of the roof to examine the area. “You go home. I’m staying here.”
Which way to the station?
“Orion. Please…”
“I’m done going around in circles with you.” I touched my elemental watch. Should I float down from here using my air affinity? Cross the rooftops a bit first? I could even float upward now if I wanted to.
Hmmm. What to do…
“You must—”
The ladder rattled harder than before, cutting Basil off.
I spun. It wasn’t the clanging of the metal that sent a string of shivers up and down my spine, though.
It was the voice.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Eat.” There it was again. A raspy, hoarse sound.
I didn’t move, staring in the direction of the ladder.
“Eat.” Hissing followed. “Eat. Eat. Eat.”
Dumbfounded, we both watched, side by side.
“What—”
The zombie’s pink eyes crested the edge of the roof. The dead man pulled himself up, stumbling forward, balancing himself.
“Eat. Eat. Eat.”
“It climbed…” I whispered. “It spoke.”
“We have to go.”
Terror kept me glued to the spot. “It spoke.”
“Orion…”
The speedie hissed and charged. I broke out of my stupor, taking a leap onto the next roof with Basil.
“Keep going!” I cried, full of fear-spiked fervor.
The zombie spoke and climbed and now it was clearing the gap with a leap of its own. I watched it over my shoulder, its movements less shambolic than they should be.
“Oh, stars.”
We jumped over the next gap, then the next, quickly running out of rooftops.
“Eat!”
“You float down, I’ll climb,” Basil said when we came to the edge of the final roof. The next building was too far away, but the street below was clear from what I could make out.
Unfortunately, the air wouldn’t bear our combined weights and carry us to the next roof. We’d drop like stones. Because Basil’s elemental watch was broken, we had to descend.
Basil got to climbing the thick drainpipe down to the street.
Turning the face of my yellow watch clockwise, the inner mechanism opened to the night air.
“Eat!”
Right. Get off this roof.
I activated my ability to float downward by pressing the float button on the side of the watch’s face.
The air rushed into the mechanism, releasing that reassuring sound like tiny twinkling bells.
Chilly tendrils curled around me, assuring me it was now safe to step off the roof and save myself from becoming this apparently evolved speedie’s late-night snack.
My stomach flipped after the first step, the air wrapping its arms around me, taking me down to land softly beside a waiting Basil.
The speedie launched itself off the roof, hissing, spitting that one word until its final breath.
Splat!
It landed headfirst, skull bursting open like a watermelon. Brain and gore splattered across the wet asphalt, drawing the attention of three zombies nearby.
Slowies.
“Stars…” I wheezed, swallowing back acidic bile.
Were the zombies really evolving? The idea burned my chest, dragging my anxiety over hot coals.
No. It couldn’t be.
Yet, two years had passed, the essence and origin of Dawn still a mystery. Us survivors knew it probably fueled the zombies, but nothing more than that—including why it targeted humans and not supernaturals. The pink smoke might be changing them, creating a new strain of undead.
Pixie balls.
Cursed, sweaty, pixie balls.
“I have to get back to my pack,” I said.
Basil grabbed my arm. Hard. “You’re not a pack member. You’re a fae and we don’t belong here.” He yanked me in one direction.
I wrenched myself in the other, freeing myself from his grip. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
The slowies were inching closer.
“See reason!”
I broke into a run, looking for hints of the direction back to Canada Water.
“Orion!”
“Eat!” came a voice from above.
A second speedie plummeted to the ground, meeting the same fate as the first one.
My legs pumped harder.
“Stop right there.”
Blood magic slammed into me, forcing me to a stop. I gasped, losing control once again, red dots bursting across my vision.
Three figures in red robes stepped out from behind an overturned van strangled by weeds. Their hoods were up, faces hidden.
I didn’t hear Basil move or shout.
“Two of our brethren are dead because of you,” a woman spoke.
“Because of them,” a man added.
“Pain will come,” a different woman said. “Now walk. Follow us. Quickly.”
The blood magic forced me to follow, Basil coming up to flank my right side under the same spell.
Slowies shuffled after us, the new favorite word of the speedies continuously hissing through the night.