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Fabian crosses his arms over his chest. “Do you have a better plan? Maybe there’s someone else’s life you’d like to ruin?”
Rowan heaves a sigh and has the zombies gather in one group near our destination gate. Then she makes some of the smaller ones climb onto the shoulders of the bigger ones, thus forming zombie pyramids.
She then clasps the hands of the bottom zombies of two of the pyramids and leads them to the gate. When she gets there, she sticks her head and arms inside, which lets the zombies clear the gate completely.
Rowan herself stays without crossing, with only half her body in the world of the giants.
My hope is that she’ll make a much smaller target for any attackers this way.
“Dude.” Ariel tugs on the back of Felix’s shirt. “Are you checking out Rowan’s butt?”
Reddening, Felix shifts his gaze from Rowan’s leather-clad posterior to his shoes. “It’s not what you think. I was just—”
“Don’t.” Ariel grins. “I’m just looking out for you. You know how jealous Maya gets. You’re so close to finally losing your virginity, I’d hate for you to blow it now.”
Impossibly, Felix reddens more.
I suppress a grin. Maya is his young girlfriend, and I’m not sure it would be Earth legal for them to do what Ariel suggests. I also make a mental note to keep my lack of real-world sex experience to myself—I don’t need Ariel to label me a virgin.
Especially since I probably won’t stay one for long with Valerian around.
Suddenly, Rowan’s body tenses.
I hurry toward her. “Rowan? Are you hurt?”
Valerian catches up to me. “I think she’s fine.”
Sure enough, Rowan pulls her arms out of the gate, grabs another set of zombie hands, and shepherds through yet another pyramid—all the while keeping her head in the giants’ world.
Through all this, Felix keeps his gaze anywhere but on Rowan’s tush.
When all the zombies have crossed over, I expect Rowan to return to us, but she maintains her stance, her muscles coiled tight, as if for battle.
Finally, she steps fully into the gate, which is our cue to follow.
When we come out on the other side, it’s to a scene of a massacre.
Ninety percent of Rowan’s zombies are in pieces on the ground. However, a dozen or so giants are unconscious too, and three appear to have been killed, because they’re now zombies at Rowan’s command.
“Once my helpers had smothered that one, I took him over as you suggested.” Rowan gestures at the largest zombie giant. “Then I had him knock out his brethren, and when a few punches proved fatal by accident, I didn’t let the bodies go to waste.”
I dart a worried glance at Dylan.
There’s a lot of brain matter scattered about.
To my relief, she’s just looking around blankly. If she’s got any cravings, she’s not giving into them—a good sign.
Fabian sniffs the air and grabs Dylan in a fireman’s carry. “We’d better leave before more giants arrive.”
Sure enough, in the distance, near huts the size of four-story buildings, are new figures—and they’re headed our way.
Without further delay, we sprint for our destination gate.
With a roar, the giants launch into a sprint as well, gaining on us quickly.
Ariel and Fabian, with Dylan draped over his shoulder, dive into the gate first, followed by Rowan and her remaining zombies.
“Hurry!” Valerian yells and all but throws me into the gate as the giants’ pounding footsteps shake the ground around us.
Flying out the other side, I stumble, nearly faceplanting, but before I can panic about Valerian’s fate, I feel his hands on my waist, steadying me.
“Everyone good?” Ariel asks, panting as we run for the next gate, and we all reply in the affirmative, not daring to slow down in case the giants have followed us in.
Around us is a green savannah with waist-high grass—not super conducive to a run, but we do our best. And it’s a good thing, because thunderous sounds reach our ears and the grass around us vibrates as the ground shakes.
Did the giants follow us?
How many are there?
“Crap,” Felix breathes. “It’s those mammoths again.”
Oh, right. On the way to Necronia, we nearly got trampled here.
“There!” Fabian points to our left.
Puck. The fierce mega creatures are stampeding our way once again.
Can Phobetor take over animals, or is this bad luck? Or did he Overtake a person who’s scared these animals into running toward us?
No time to stick around and find out.
We further pick up our pace, but our target gate is too far.
“Rowan,” I shout. “Slow them down!”
The necromancer is already on it. The biggest zombie giant lumbers forward and firmly plants his feet between us and the mammoths.
The herd smashes into him, sending him flying—but moments are all we need to leap into our destination gate.
The next world looks safe, but we rush through it anyway, in case the Overtaken jump out of the gates. Nothing attacks us, though. We clear the world after that without incident also, and same goes for the one with a toxic-looking green sky.
