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The size of a small city block, the graveyard was surrounded by an iron picket fence that was falling over in some places. The budget for maintenance apparently didn’t extend far enough to cover nonessentials. But the grass was neatly mowed, and a few rose bushes were scattered here and there among the maples and cedars and firs. Three statues of angels rose from the center of the park to watch over the dead.
I scanned the lot. The thickets of trees shaded lurkers, but even though it was midmorning, there weren’t many mourners in sight. In fact, I doubted that the Freeburg Cemetery ever saw anybody come through to leave flowers or say a prayer for the dead, at least after the initial burial.
“There—over there behind that stand of cedars.” Camille pointed to the right. I squinted and followed her direction. Figures were milling around what appeared to be a cluster of graves.
“Has to be them. Unless some family has suddenly discovered that one of their missing members was planted here. Come on, let’s go. Stick to the trees.” We slipped between the trees, crouching down. With luck, they hadn’t spotted us.
“I’ll be damned,” Camille whispered. She was kneeling behind a large fern that filled the space between two large Douglas firs. The fern must have been growing there for years because it was at least four feet high and stretched between the trunks with ease. Camille parted the fronds and peered through them.
“What do you see?”
“It’s Jaycee. Van and Jaycee are here. And there’s somebody with them.” She turned back to me, her face pale. “I think it might be Telazhar.”
“Telazhar? How do we handle him?” I thought for a moment. “Do you see any sign of Newkirk?” The last thing we were prepared for at the moment was a Koyanni with a spirit seal. Especially one who knew how to use it.
She shook her head. “No, and I only see two other Tregarts standing lookout. But there are other figures out there, lurching around.”
“Lurching? That doesn’t sound promising.” Lurching meant a lack in the motor skills department. And that much of a lack of coordination implied undead. Either that, or Van and Jaycee were hanging out with a bunch of drunken frat boys, and that didn’t seem likely.
“Wait—Telazhar just…vanished.” She shook her head. “He’s able to teleport.”
“Either that or he used a gate spell. Remember, we think he’s the one who gated Stacia over here. At least with him out of the picture, we can probably take on Van and Jaycee. Are you ready to rumble?” I unsheathed the dagger Shamas had given me. While it wasn’t silver, it had a wicked serrated blade. “Well, now, this will do some damage.”
Camille smiled, then inhaled slowly, the crackle of magic rising around her. Holding out her hands, she began to summon energy—by now I could spot it a mile away when she was gearing up for a spell. “Yeah. I owe Van a nasty fucking roll in some glass.”
I looked at the men. “You guys ready to go in?”
They nodded.
“Then…let’s go. And this time, let’s try to avoid letting them escape.” I moved to the front, motioning for Shade and Smoky to follow me. Camille and Trillian moved to the side. Without another word, we went racing from behind the trees.
Van and Jaycee looked just about like we remembered them: dangerous, lying, scum. They were wearing jeans and polo shirts—and combat boots with nasty looking steel toes on them. They whirled as we came running out and barked an order.
Two more Tregarts—they looked like lackeys—stepped in front of the pair. But standing between the four demons and us were a half dozen ghouls. Or zombies. I wasn’t sure which. Zombies were easier to kill than ghouls, so we’d find out the hard way.
Camille moved to one side and immediately let loose a bolt of energy directly at Van. She had a score to settle with him, and it looked like she wasn’t wasting any time. I moved in to help her, but one of the zombies moved toward me, cutting off my view of what Van was up to. I tried to dart around the fiend, but even though it was slow, it was quick enough to cut off my access. There was no evading it. I’d have to fight.
Zombies would fight till they were torn apart. They were merely reanimated bodies. They had no souls, they felt no pain. Ghouls had some semblance of intelligence, warped as it was, but zombies were mere cannon fodder. Ghouls fed on flesh and energy, while zombies merely ate flesh and destroyed anything alive that they came across.
As the creature shuffled toward me, I sized up my options. Shamas had given us good, solid blades, and it wouldn’t take much to carve up the creature if I planned my attack. I was faster and quicker than the zombie. They were dangerous in the sense that they were strong and hard to stop, but they normally weren’t speedy.
A spin kick knocked the creature back. As it reeled away, I took the opportunity to slice through the zombie’s gut and watched as the embalmed organs dropped out. Damn, Shamas had given me a sharp blade!
The corpse grunted but ignored the rain of organs pouring out of its stomach. It swiped at me, but I managed to keep it at arm’s length with the dagger. As I glanced over to my left, I saw Smoky ripping one of the zombies to shreds. Shade had taken care of one of them, too. That left four.
A shout echoed from behind the zombies and a flash lit up the air. The next moment, my opponent began to move faster, a gleam in its eye. Hell! What spell had Van cast now?
I didn’t have time to think about what was going on because the shambling lump of rotting flesh had become a freight train, bearing down on me. The zombie managed to evade my knife as a fist slammed into my side. I stumbled back from the blow—I felt like a concrete ball had hit me. As I struggled to catch my breath another flash lit up the sky as a woman shrieked.
“Camille!” I tried to dart past the zombie, but it blocked my way.
“Wasn’t me! Keep fighting.”
She sounded fine, so I turned my attention back to the corpse—it was coming in fast with another blow, but this time I managed to sidestep the attack and stabbed again, this time hitting its shoulder. Instead of pulling the blade out, I dragged it over the top, pressing to break the joint and slice the arm off. The zombie grunted again.
Before he could turn, I managed to slip around behind the creature and bring my dagger across the base of its neck, cutting through the vertebrae. As its head flopped forward, severed except for a thin line of flesh, gravity took over and the skin ripped, the head falling to the ground. Still grunting, the mouth snapped open and shut, unable to do anything. The body lurched blindly, and it was an easy matter to begin parceling out the rest.
A slice here, a slice there, and the other arm fell off. I severed the fingers and thumbs from both arms, and they flopped uselessly like fat grubs, unable to pull themselves along the grass. Within minutes, the zombie was an assortment of body parts. So much dead meat. The flesh quivered and jiggled, attempting to move, but the spell would wear off and this time, the corpse would stay dead in the ground once we reburied it.
