“Did you kill the girl?”
“Yes, but not before I enjoyed her a bit.”
Zero sighed. He had planned on using the girl as an offering for the Shambling Ones upon their arrival. Now he would have to look elsewhere for such. “As soon as the child awakens, we will begin the ceremony. Go and gather the rest of the Inner Circle. All of us should be together when the new lords of humanity arrive to claim their collective thrones.”
Keane nodded briskly, hurrying to do as he was told. Within a few hours, the entire world would be plunged into a new era of darkness. And he would be among the special few who would retain his freedom.
He just had to make sure that Zero didn’t turn on him first.
CHAPTER VIII
A Bloody Christmas
“Evelyn wanted to come with us.”
Max didn’t answer at first, viewing Flynn’s comment as being one that didn’t require a response. The Peregrine’s wife had been beside herself when he’d told her the details about his vision and it had taken all his persuasive abilities to convince her that she should stay with little William. Besides, he had reasoned, with both Kaslov and Flynn at his side, the Peregrine should be able to handle the situation easily enough.
Or so he hoped.
Truth be told, he wasn’t at all sure what would be awaiting them. The vision he’d seen had been a dire one but it had left out many details: How many people would be guarding the place? What abilities would they possess? And what would happen if the Peregrine failed and the gates were fully and completely thrown open?
The three men stood in the growing shadows outside the Douglass Theatre, ignoring the stares they attracted from the establishment’s mostly black clientele. Max didn’t wear his mask but was otherwise garbed in his usual adventuring attire: a dark suit and tie with a long overcoat covering them both. There was a definite chill to the air and Max could see little clouds of smoke coming from his mouth as he spoke, raising his voice so it could be heard over the Gospel music coming from within. The Christmas Eve special events were just getting underway and the crowd was a large one. “Leo… did you manage to find any references to those things I saw in my vision?”
The broad-shouldered Russian nodded, standing nearby with arms crossed over his massive chest. He was dressed in lighter clothing than his friends, due to the fact that what passed for winter in the deep south was nothing to him. “I found several possibilities, Max… but the one that’s most likely is known as the Oblivion Gates prophecy. It’s said that if a child of both life and death is sacrificed by a true believer, the Gates will open and a race of beings known as the Shambling Ones will enter. Of course, I may be wrong in my estimation and this could be something completely different.”
“That’s a rare occurrence,” Flynn muttered good-naturedly. Max was struck once more by how similar the man was to his own friend McKenzie—both seemed incapable of being fazed by the darkness of their existence. They remained unflappable no matter what they were confronted with.
Max envied them.
“We should get going,” Max said, striding across the street. His friends moved to keep pace, barely noticing that Max had retrieved his mask and was affixing it to his face. “Mr. Flynn, if you don’t mind, please use the front door. Make as much noise as possible. Leo, will you handle the rooftop entrance?”
“Of course. And what about you?”
Max smiled coldly, eyes fixed on one of the main windows, from which a flickering candlelight could be seen. “I’m going to make a more dramatic arrival, Leo. One that should throw them for a bit of a loop.”
On cue, the sound of a low-flying airplane sliced through the air and Leonid looked up to see a small remote control craft bank over the nearby rooftops and begin a skimming run over the city streets. As men and women scrambled about in a panic, a ladder dropped from the bottom of the plane and Max jumped upwards to grab hold. The place began to ascend again, bringing Max to the same level as the window. The Peregrine drew his pistol and took aim.
“Let’s not leave him hanging,” Leo remarked, rushing towards a fire escape so that he could take to the roof.
It took Flynn a second to realize his friend’s humor. Grinning, he moved towards the front door. The sounds of gunfire echoed far and wide.
* * *
The baby had awakened with a powerful hunger. It had twisted and fought in the grip of the zombies who bound it to the altar, their own powerful desire to chew upon the infant’s flesh blocked out by Dr. Zero’s control over their minds. Little Kenneth screamed in a mournful manner, wondering where its mother or its caregivers were. How could they let him be treated like this?
Keane tried to ignore the screaming but it grated on his nerves tremendously. The room was in full preparation now, with a large pentagram dominating the center of the floor. In the middle of this rested young Kenneth, writhing and turning upon the altar. The Inner Circle licked their lips expectantly, dancing from foot to foot as Dr. Zero approached the pentagram, knife in hand. The only illumination in the room came from a series of candelabras that ringed the walls, with a half dozen or so of the undead milling about the flames, like curious moths.
Zero turned to address the assembled group, wearing a newly acquired face. It had belonged to a young man who sold his body on the streets of Atlanta in exchange for opium… Keane felt no sorrow for this youth whose life had gone so far off the rails, however. He merely wanted to get these proceedings underway so that he might greet his new masters at last.
“My friends,” Zero began, “We stand on the threshold of a new beginning. While dictators and fascists may believe the world will be theirs within a few years, it is we and the Shambling Ones who shall truly usher in a thousand years of pain and suffering. All of you will be rewarded for your true faith.”
Zero turned back to the infant, raising the knife high in the air. The candlelight flickered off its blade.
“Arcannum nahtu oblivius! Sekhu nemorrium blahndeye! Oblivus entrancum! Oblivus!”
As Zero’s voice rose, filling the chamber until it echoed from the ceiling, Keane felt a change come over the room. The air seemed to crackle with static electricity and tiny sparks of light began to appear over the altar, brought forth by the fraying of the walls between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Just as the blade flashed downwards, the window behind Keane exploded inwards. Keane fell to the floor in a panic, several of the Inner Circle near him dancing madly as bullets tore into their bodies. The necromancer looked up to see a familiar figure—the Peregrine—suspended from beneath a low-flying plane of some kind. In seconds, the Peregrine had launched himself through the air, landing in crouch inside the room. Glass crunched beneath the vigilante’s boots as he swept the place from one corner to the next. Men and women died while the zombies were felled by well-placed shots to their brains.
Dimly, Keane was aware of other gunshots, from elsewhere in the building. The sudden appearance of a zombie hurtling past the shattered window, on a downward spiral from the rooftop, confirmed his suspicions: they were under attack from a multiple of fronts.
Keane slipped towards the shadows, looking towards Zero. The man’s aim had gone askew when the shooting hand begun, saving the unnatural life of young Kenneth. The knife had cut through part of the vampire child’s right shoulder, eliciting further wails of agony but not ending his existence.
The drops of blood that had been spilled seemed to be enough, however, to open a small rift to the other side. Something large was pushing its way through, but not even Keane could keep his eyes upon it. It was awful, beyond imagining… its skin was flayed in places, revealing dripping red meat and its face was mostly bone, with sunken orbs for eyes.
The Peregrine took one look at this creature and knew that no more of its ilk could be allowed through. He fired his pistols again, blasting the knife from Zero’s hands and sending the killer staggering back in alarm.
Zero fell directly into the grasp of the Shambling One. He twisted to face his disgusting master, who wrapped his arms around him in a mockery of a loving embrace.
“I freed you!” Zero exclaimed. “Now you’ll protect me… now you’ll make sure that I never die!”
Something like laughter came from the awful thing’s throat and it leaned forward, tearing into Zero’s neck like a wild dog attacking road kill. Blood splattered the front of Zero’s clothing and he sagged to his knees, horribly realizing his mistake. He’d been lied to… abused… and now he would face the darkness beyond this world.
Max saw the murder taking place before him but did nothing to stop it. It was a fitting end for a man who had courted death for far too long, from the looks of it. Instead he moved forward cautiously, picking up Kenneth from the altar and offering the child a small vial of reddish fluid that he’d carried for this precise purpose. The baby hungrily lapped at the blood, clinging tightly to his protector.
“Why am I not surprised to see you?” Keane said, stepping out onto the edge of the pentagram. Without the rest of the ceremony taking place, the doorway to the world beyond was closing, leaving behind a sole Shambling One. The creature turned this way and that, sniffing the air.
Max tried to keep his gaze equally on the Shambling One and Keane. “Where’s Gloria?” he demanded, knowing that he was at a disadvantage until Leonid or Flynn arrived. There would be no way he could protect Kenneth while simultaneously dueling the monster and Keane both.
“She’s dead. Just like you’re about to be.” Keane moved in a slow circle around the Peregrine, trying to pin the hero between him and the Shambling One. “I should thank you, by the way. I was wondering how I’d take care of Dr. Zero… and you did it for me. Now I can bask in the glory that’s to come.”
“You think that
thing
is going to bring anything close to glory with it?” Max demanded, gesturing towards the Shambling One.
“I will bring this world to its knees,” the Shambling One murmured, shocking both Keane and Max.
“Not if we stop you first.”
The Shambling One glanced towards the doorway, where Leonid Kaslov stood proudly. The Russian’s shirt was torn in a dozen places, leaving it draped in tatters over his blood-splattered chest.
The Shambling One roared its defiance and lumbered towards Kaslov, while the Peregrine reluctantly set Kenneth on the floor, leaving his hands free to deal with Keane.
“Let’s end this,” the Peregrine whispered, eliciting a smile from his opponent.
“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Keane raised his right hand, a spring-loaded mechanism inside the sleeve of his jacket launching a thin short sword into his hand.
CHAPTER IX
In Final Battle!
The Shambling One came for Leonid Kaslov, the scent of rotting flesh exuding from its every pore. Kaslov expected the creature to be much slower than it actually was and he was taken by surprised when the Shambling One backhanded him across the face. Blood oozed from a nasty wound on the Russian’s face and he nearly blacked out. Whatever this thing truly was… it was powerful.
Leonid had fought his way through the building, dispatching humans and zombies alike… only to arrive a moment too late to help stop the gate from opening. Now he was buying his friend time to deal with Keane—but he privately wondered if he had chosen the right means to do so. This Shambling One could prove strong enough for both he and the Peregrine, plus more.
Kaslov caught the Shambling One’s fist in the air, just seconds before it crashed down into his nose. The undead monster leaned in close, its fetid breath making the Russian recoil.
“We are older than your kind by far,” the demon wheezed, showing teeth that were stained brown and red. “And we will out-survive you still… surrender to the inevitable and I shall end it quickly for you!”
“I’ll never give up, not so long as breath still flows in my lungs,” Kaslov retorted, straining to hold the much stronger being in place. He managed to shift his balance enough to pick up his knee and drive it hard into the Shambling One’s midsection, knocking the creature back.
Kaslov then lunged for the thing’s head, gripping it in his powerful fists. He twisted the monster’s neck, resulting in a loud popping sound.
The Shambling One fell to its knees, its head turned at an awful angle. Kaslov hoped for a moment that it might be over… but then the thing began to stir once more. It rose to its feet again, turning its head with a bone-grinding noise.
“I cannot be killed by conventional means,” it said mockingly. “We do not share the frailties of your flesh.”
“You also don’t share our capacity for greatness,” Kaslov muttered, catching the Shambling One with a blow to the side of its head.
“What do you mean?” the creature asked, slashing out with his claws and just missing opening up a cut on Kaslov’s chest.
“Part of what makes us so special is our own mortality,” the Russian explained, shoving the Shambling One away with a well-placed kick. “We know we only have so long on this earth and so we have to make every second count. The ticking of our internal clock propels us to make amazing leaps in logic and science. We become a people of passion and invention!”
The Shambling One sneered at the words. “You become nothing more than dust upon dying! You rot in the ground as worms feast on your flesh! And you still think yourselves our superiors?! We, who are endless and ever-present?”
Kaslov studied the monster, their movements cast in flickering shadow by the candlelight. The entire time they were talking and fighting, his keen intellect was studying the problem before him: namely, how could he defeat a seemingly tireless and immortal foe? From what he could tell, a Shambling One was basically a highly evolved version of the traditional zombie: a living dead creature that hungered for the human flesh but who also possessed intelligence and superior strength. Leonid wondered if, perhaps, their weaknesses were still the same…
The Russian cast his gaze around quickly, spotting a blood-stained knife on the floor next to the corpse of Dr. Zero. Throwing himself past the Shambling One, Kaslov slid along the carpet and plucked up the weapon. He turned back to face the undead slayer and took careful aim.