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Around us, the creatures closed in, and I held my knives at the ready, circling. Those huge carrion birds squawked and flapped, hellish vultures with razor-curved beaks and talons the size of my forearm. One dived for a screaming pack of starved bodies, and came up with one writhing in its grip. More birds descended, fighting to peck the victim’s eyes out, and the screaming went on long after any living person woul
d have fallen silent.
I stared, and Ethan nudged me. “Stay frosty, marine.”
“Oh, I’m shivering. Just how good did you say I’ve gotta be to avoid this place when I’m dead?”
“Makes you think, doesn’t it?”
Zombies shouldered us as they stumbled by blindly. A woman with her face peeled off leapt at me, clawing for my eyes, and I broke her rotting neck with a thrust of my elbow. Ethan slashed at a gaggle of half-man, half-worm things that writhed along the ground to snap at his ankles. Worm juice and body parts splattered the pavement, but they kept coming, their blind eyes cloudy and wet.
I took another step backwards, and Ethan’s back pressed against mine, warm and reassuring. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this, Obi-Wan,” I muttered.
“What do you want me to say? Use the force?” He took a deep breath, and with a zing, his magical shield shone around us, iridescent like a bubble. The worm people slapped against it, leaving wet smears. “Tower’s a hundred yards away. Stay close. Don’t let them drag you from the bubble. Okay?”
“That much I figured out for mys—” I gulped. “Uh-oh.”
From across the street, a mutant spied us, his bloodshot eyes gleaming with delight. He had a huge, naked skull and droopy ears, and his sagging belly oozed blood from open wounds that hadn’t healed.
He hollered, waving his rusty chain saw—I shit you not—and his subhuman buddies all screeched and jabbered and flailed their misshapen arms. And ran. Straight for us.
My hex pendant buzzed like a nest of angry wasps. My mouth dried, and I gripped my knives harder. “This isn’t good.”
Captain Mutant fired up his chain saw—rnn-nn-nnn!—and capered about like a drunken mummy. And his mutant army kept coming.
Ethan gave a feral grin. The lines on his skin glowed green, and he levitated a foot off the ground and crouched there like a bad-ass flying ninja, his blade glinting hungrily. “Bring ’em on.”
“You’re a real smart-ass, you know that?” But I couldn’t hide a smile. Sometimes, even I had to admit that Ethan was dead cool. Still, bitterness stung my mouth that I couldn’t do stuff like that. That’d I’d never had the patience to learn. “Last one there buys the whisky, okay?”
He somersaulted, carving the air a new one with his sword at least six times on the way around. “You know I don’t drink.”
I muttered a charm, and my twin blades dripped green poison. I spun them, loosening my wrists in readiness. “All the more for me.”
And with a duet of blood-rotting yells, we plunged into the fight.
* * *
It seemed like a hundred hours later when we finally staggered over the tower’s dark threshold and dragged the spiked-iron door shut.
The bar thunked into place. Angry mutants hammered and hurled curses, their slack flesh slapping on the metal. The hinges juddered, but it held.
I collapsed against it, breathing hard. Blood stuck my fingers together, and I unwrapped them from my knife handles with a wince. Beside me, Ethan coughed and spat red phlegm, his face splashed with hellish gore. His bubble had helped us, and we’d fought well together, but we’d taken serious damage. My head ached from blows, and my skin was ripped raw in a dozen places. I was covered in claw marks and cuts, and dripping with stinking black blood and bits of flesh. I’d nearly lost a finger. My legs hurt. My lungs hurt. Hell, my hair hurt.
Ethan wiped his nose with his sword hand, smearing blood. He was fitter than I was, but still his breath hitched. It had taken a lot out of him to keep those spells engaged, and once he’d let them slip, weariness lined his face. “Well, here we are, I guess. You okay?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Never been better.”
I surveyed the room. Black and empty, caked with dust. A fire pit in the center threw leaping shadows on the walls. It stank of salt and blood. A broken iron staircase spiraled upwards, and hisses and moans crept from upstairs. No other way out. I craned my neck. Nothing up there but darkness. “You think Kane’s here?”
“If he were, we’d be dead already.”
“Good point. How long you think we’ve got before the helljuice wears off?”
“Not long.” He breathed, in and out, centering his energy or opening his aura or whatever, and when he opened his eyes, they shone bright, refreshed. “Let’s get on with it.”
His equivalent of a stiff drink. I sure could have used one. Or even just a rest. But no time. I sighed and wiped sticky mutant blood from my knives onto my pants. “Old guys go first?”
