“Is that…” Calix mumbles without finishing.
“Looks like we found the place,” I conclude, watching the forms in front of me wither as if they’re decaying at a rapid rate, but it somehow doesn’t stop them from slowly milling about like some sick imitation of a guard dog.
“They’re soulless,” Grim comments, though he looks almost as baffled as I feel.
“What the fuck is he playing at?” Gunnar hisses.
The thing moving on the ground just a few feet away snags my attention. Its back half is mostly a greenish glob of goo, and every time its hands pull it forward, a little more gets left behind in its wake. “Was that a fucking mermaid?”
I lift my gaze when my brain refuses to make sense of what I’m seeing. Reaching out with my senses, I taste the beings, but just as Grim said, they’re empty vessels. There’s nothing I can do to stop them from coming forward. I’m guessing Grim’s ability to kill them would be useless as well.
“Anybody have any ideas on how to deal with a bunch of zombie monsters?” I ask. Gunnar wraps his hand over mine and opens my fingers, placing a knife in my palm. I look down at the blade, it’s nearly a foot long. Where the hell did he have this thing stowed?
“If they get past us, take off the head or rip out the spinal cord,” he says simply. When I look to the left, Calix has already transformed into the Nemean, his golden fur casting an eerie glow over the grotesque scene before me.
“This is a distraction,” Grim snarls.
“Well, it’s effective,” I mutter.
Gunnar pushes to the front of the group, a knife in each hand. I watch his profile as he opens his mouth and lets out a battle cry that sends a shiver down my spine. Berserker or not, he’s still a warrior. The beings surge forward as if triggered by his outburst, pushing past an invisible barrier that seemed to keep them at bay.
Their movements are sluggish, but there are so many I can’t imagine how we’ll be able to cut through them before Antonio—the sick fucker—has a chance to get away.
Calix bounds forward and grabs the mer-thing’s head, ripping it clean off its body. The gore dripping off his jaws is enough to make me want to retch, so I look away.
Grim moves with the same elegance he always does, his sickle appearing in his hand as if it was always there, only unseen. With efficient movements, he tilts his arm sideways and cuts a swath through the endless mass of mindless monsters, leveling them with a single blow. A few who still have shoulders attached wiggle on the ground, as if they’re still trying to serve their purpose.
The fight is strangely silent. The only noises are from Calix’s wide maw as he tears through the bodies and Gunnar’s low grunts of fury. “Watch for snares,” I caution the men, walking behind them as they clear a path.
My black heart sings with the carnage being left in their wake. The destruction they can create could end worlds, and all because I asked it of them. A sick smile forms on my lips. Woe to the witch who thought to take what is mine.
Grim takes out several more bodies with well-placed attacks high enough to remove numerous heads at once. Calix continues to bound through the pack, mauling as he goes, while Gunnar’s speed and efficiency with which he ends the things is awe-inspiring.
There’s no place for pity here. These creatures are long since dead, and only animated by a witch that deserves the same hell he’s brought to so many.
The rage inside me builds. It’s different from the potent feeling I’ve taken from so many others. It’s mine, it’s raw, and yet it still fuels me. A veil of darkness falls over my vision as I scan the horde. I see a fine mist of purple trailing off each body as if they’re being controlled by a puppet string. Without a doubt that it would be possible, I flick my hand and sever each thread connected to the soulless bodies.
The power snaps back deeper into the woods, leveling the area with a sonic-like boom that tosses the guys all backwards several feet. I alone am left standing amid a sea of decaying corpses. Just as the purple thread of power appeared, so does a transparent wall made from the same sickly purple mist where the ghouls were before they advanced toward us.
I can see the arc of a circle as it cuts right through trees and rocks, but there isn’t just one. Several smaller circles are within the much larger one, forming rows of protection. Gunnar would have been very close to crossing over the first line had he cut through the group much farther.
I don’t have to look to know the guys have recovered from the backlash of me breaking the spell and are all gathered around me. Calix has already shifted back into his human form and is pulling his dirt stained shirt over his head—please let that be dirt.
“What the hell was that?” Gunnar growls and looks around, as if he’s waiting for the things to spring back to life.
“This motherfucker just flipped my bitch switch. Grim, give me the chalk.” I throw out my palm, knowing I need it to disrupt the largest circle, assuming I’m the only one who can see it.
My fingers tingle when he touches my hand to place the stick in my grasp. The fact that he just hands it over, no questions asked, fills me with another emotion—pride They trust me. They may want to keep me safe and protected, but when it boils down to it, they’re confident I can handle myself.
“Time to hunt a witch!” I damn near purr with excitement.
Chapter 27
The spell grows stronger the closer I get. “We should hurry.” Gunnar steps up his pace, but I reach out and stop him when he would have gone past me. The urgency filling him isn’t his own. It’s the spell, fooling him to come closer, quicker, to pass the barrier without thought.
“There’s no hurry, Kitten. He’s waiting for us.” As I speak the words, the truth of them rings clear. The zombies weren’t meant to stop us, only to alert him that we had arrived. He thinks he’s the spider calling the fly. He should have realized he’s invited a scorpion into his web instead.
“Stay back,” I warn, when we reach the purple mist. I search the ground until I see a thin, barely exposed copper wire as it disappears right into the trunk of a tree, he used magic to set this circle. I examine the chalk in my hand, wondering if we shouldn’t have brought bolt cutters instead.
