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“They asked why we’re here,” Dylan announces.
Tell them, Valerian commands via LEGO letters.
Dylan shouts in Necronian for a few seconds.
Almost anticlimactically, the corpses respond with just two words.
“You lie,” Dylan translates.
“Ungrateful bastards,” Fabian growls.
Persuade, Valerian orders. Tell them about Icelus and the virus. Tell them what the symptoms are.
Dylan tries—or at least, she speaks in Necronian for a while.
The reply from the corpses is a little longer this time, but given how Dylan whitens, I doubt we’ll like the translation.
The corpses step aside, creating a tunnel, this time leading back the way we came.
“They said this is our last chance to go back and never return,” Dylan says, her voice shaking. “If not, and I quote, ‘I’ll turn you into helpers.’”
“Helpers?” Felix asks.
Ariel examines the masked corpses with a shudder. “I bet it’s a euphemism for zombies.”
“I say we do leave.” Itzel glances the way we came. “We told the necros about the threat, so our consciences are clear.”
Valerian glares at Dylan. “Tell them we’d like to talk to someone in charge.”
Felix chuckles humorlessly. “Good old ‘may I speak to the manager?’”
“More like ‘take me to your leader,’” Ariel says.
“Shut up,” Stanislav says. “They might speak English.”
Ignoring everyone’s back-and-forth, Dylan yells out a short phrase.
The response through the zombie mouths is curt.
“Time’s up,” Dylan says with a stutter.
Her translation wasn’t necessary. With a shuffling of naked feet, the tunnel leading back to the hub closes, and the so-called helpers assume aggressive postures—ready to leap and claw at our faces.
In a coordinated move, the zombies attack.
Chapter Thirteen
“Weapons out!” Ariel shouts, pulling out a big gun with one hand and her plasma sword hilt with the other. Without a second of hesitation, she shoots the zombie closest to her in the middle of his mask.
Boom.
Mask in tatters and face a mangled mess, the zombie stumbles back before recovering and lunging at her.
Ariel activates her sword and slashes at her attacker. The gate-like substance of the blade effortlessly cleaves the zombie from head to groin. Not surprisingly, the already-dead creature doesn’t die, but since each half can’t balance on one leg, they fall and get trampled by the next set of zombies who attack Ariel.
She shoots one and slices another in half with all the speed and grace of an uber while I unsheathe my katana. My heart drums furiously in my chest as I swivel my head from side to side, taking in the battlefield.
To my left, Dylan fires her Gomorran gun. The zombies are unaffected, as I knew they would be, having once tried this move on their kind myself.
“Valerian, do your illusion thing!” Dylan shouts.
He’s already got his sai out and is stabbing both of them into the throat of the zombie nearest to him. “Necros can see through the eyes of all the zombies,” he yells back as he yanks the weapons out before plunging them back into zombie flesh. “My powers won’t work here!”
Back to back with Valerian is Felix. With his upper right robotic arm, he catches a zombie by the throat and keeps her there. His upper left hand grabs the zombie’s head, while the lower arms hug the zombie’s torso.
Metal creaks, and the zombie’s head separates from her body.
Another zombie lunges at my throat, but a ball of lightning hits him in the chest, sending him flying.
“Thanks!” I shout to Itzel, who blasts another zombie with a second lightning ball.
One more zombie leaps at me—a female one, if the bra is anything to go by. I swing my katana and slice her hand off before it reaches me, then behead her with a strike I’ve practiced in my dream.
To my surprise, it works from the first try. Whatever this katana is made of is amazing. It goes through flesh and bone as if through sponge cake. Whoever provided these weapons knew what they were doing.
To my right, a male zombie with talon-like nails takes a swipe at Stanislav’s arm. All the nails get is empty air—the chort uses his power to make his flesh insubstantial just in time.
The zombie swipes again, aiming at Stanislav’s head. His nails scrape the mask as the chort makes his head insubstantial and sidesteps the next strike.
The zombie is left holding Stanislav’s mask. With a twist of his wrist, he tosses it like a frisbee back at the chort’s head. Stanislav’s face phases in and out of substantiality, and the mask whooshes through him to the other side of the canyon. A moment later, Stanislav retaliates, beheading his opponent with his saber.
Two more zombies attack Stanislav.
He phases over and over, slicing with his saber all the while.
In the meantime, Fabian is already naked, the backpack at his feet. With a flash, he morphs into his wolf form and starts hopping from paw to paw as though dancing, while at the same time swinging his limbs around. Each time one of his massive paws connects with a zombie, the zombie loses an important part of his or her anatomy. It must be the wolfu martial art he mentioned. It’s deadly, and probably would be more so if it weren’t for his muzzle-like mask.
