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“Please ask Camille to call.” I motioned to Smoky and he retreated up the stairs. As he left, I took the light and flashed it up and down Wilbur’s body, looking for signs of blood or broken bones. He had peed his pants and, by the smell, probably defecated, but if he’d been down here for some time, he wouldn’t have been able to help it. As I shone the light down his legs, I noticed that one of them was twisted in a direction that no leg should be twisted.
“Holy crap, look at that.” I motioned for Menolly to take a look.
“Broken, possibly crushed.” She took the light and examined his head. He murmured something, but we couldn’t understand what he was saying. “I think there’s dried blood on his head—skull fracture, maybe?” Another look-see at his arms and we found that one sleeve of his denim jacket was covered in dried blood, the material stuck to his skin.
As I stood up, preparing to go get some water so we could moisten his lips, a noise—like the crackling of lightning—sounded from the other side of the basement. Taking the light, I made my way over to the buzzing. As I peeked down the aisle next to the shelves, a shimmer caught my eye from the very end.
I slowly approached, wondering what the hell it was, when a loud flash sent me reeling against the wall. The next thing I knew, I was on my back, and the flashlight had rolled away from me. As I started to sit up, I found myself facing what appeared to be a Tregart. In front of him stood two zombies. And they were heading toward me.
Chapter 12
“Crap!” As the zombies came at me, two things became abundantly clear. One—these zombies moved faster than normal zombies. Not a good thing. And two—maybe, just maybe, Wilbur wasn’t the one betraying us. The jury was still out on the latter, but there was no time to dwell on it. As I rolled to the side and ducked away from a fist that came raging down to hit the floor, I was becoming more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. That blow could have split my skull. Just like somebody had split Wilbur’s.
I came up, swinging with my dagger. As Lysanthra made contact with the zombie’s arm, it let out a muted roar and pulled back. A lot of undead didn’t like silver. And she sang with the metal.
“Menolly, get over here now!” As I shouted, the zombies surged forward again. I leaped to the side, trying to dodge both of them. Zombies were brainless, no better than automatons. They would fight until destroyed.
The Tregart stood in back of them, arms crossed, watching with a bemused smile on his face. Apparently, he didn’t think much of my chances. And that assessment didn’t set well with me.
Realizing they were caging me into a corner, I decided it was time to get out of there and into some open space. The basement ceiling was fairly high—an advantage for me—and I’d been working out a lot over the past few weeks. I slid my dagger back into her sheath as I gauged how far I’d have to jump to get out of their way, then coiled and sprang. Using the wall as a springboard, I catapulted myself over the heads of the zombies. Only I miscalculated and ended up directly in front of the demon.
Crap. I pulled out my dagger again as he held up a heavy chain. Just then, Menolly appeared. She took in the situation and immediately attacked the demon, taking him down as she landed on his back. I wasted no time turning my attention back to the zombies and struck the nearest from behind, bringing the dagger up under its left arm.
The only way to kill a zombie was to take it apart and then destroy the pieces. If you cut it into enough pieces, you’d be good to go—they couldn’t reassemble, but the hands could run around on their own and grapple things. So: fingers cut from hands, toes from feet…hands cut off arms…basic slice-and-dice theory.
The zombie turned and, with its too-fast-to-be-normal speed, slammed me with its right arm, knocking me back.
“Damned undead are all too strong for their own good,” I muttered, picking myself up off the floor before it could land on me. I shook my head and circled, trying to gauge an opening. If only I fought with a sword, it might do more damage. But I was determined to take one of these suckers down.
I grit my teeth and made a headlong beeline for my opponent. Zombies are too stupid to dart out of the way, so we collided and my weight took him down. I promptly clamped his arms to his sides with my knees and began trying to slice through the neck to cut off his head.
It wasn’t pretty. If he’d been a mummy, wrapped in rags, not so hard. But staring into the face of someone who had once been alive and deliberately sawing his head off with a dagger—rather gruesome.
I steeled my thoughts. The life is gone from his body. There is no soul here, merely reanimated flesh. Don’t be squeamish. You can do this. You have to do this.
The other zombie was turning my way, but there wasn’t much I could do about it now. I wanted at least one of them out of the way. Menolly was thoroughly tangled up with the Tregart and I couldn’t tell who was doing what, but I saw blood and it wasn’t hers.
As I struggled to keep the zombie down, a noise sounded beside me as the other zombie slammed his fist into my back.
I lurched forward as he fisted my hair and yanked me back. As my scalp screamed, I let out a shout. He lifted me up and the next thing I knew, I was flying across the room like a spinning top. I turned head over heels in the air, barely able to comprehend what was happening before I landed with a thud against one of the shelves. Moaning, I shook my head and looked up in time to see Menolly backing away from the bloody Tregart. He was holding a piece of sharply pointed wood—not a stake, but a sliver he’d broken off a piece of splintered crate.
“Menolly, get away from him!” I jumped up, a little dizzy, and then stopped as the Tregart pulled out what looked like a large cherry. I recognized that—or at least the basic shape. “Firebomb! We have to get Wilbur out of here!” I turned to run, trying to evade the zombies that were now headed my way.
Menolly turned on her heels and headed opposite the demon. At that moment, Smoky appeared. He stared at the scene as I frantically motioned to Wilbur.
“Get him out of here. Now! Firebomb! Firebomb!”
Smoky sprang into action, letting out a roar that brought Shade and Camille halfway down the stairs.
“No! Go back. Run!” I evaded the grasp of the zombies, dodging to the right and the left as they closed in on my tail. There was a thud and I glanced over my shoulder. Menolly had grabbed one of them and tossed him against the wall in back of her.
Camille saw the demon and what he was holding and squeaked. She turned tail and headed up the stairs. Shade was at my side the next second and he grabbed my wrist and dragged me forward, away from the remaining zombie.
Menolly caught up with us and, seeing that Smoky was headed up the stairs with Wilbur in his arms, we raced across the basement.
At that moment, the Tregart let out a bark of laughter and there was a flash, so bright that it brought a cry of pain from Menolly even though she wasn’t facing it. The timbers shook and groaned, creaking, as flames burst against one wall, engulfing the wood.
This was no simple torch or match—magical firebombs were made to catch hold and burn. Water wouldn’t always put out the flames. And when they licked against the skin, they stuck, eating away at the flesh.
