A few stars shone through the gaps in the clouds, bright enough to be seen through the Portland light pollution. Crickets chirped and the sound of distant traffic murmured far off, joined by a fire-truck siren and dogs howling in sympathy. The air smelled of pine, and the scent of stir-fry lingered in my clothes.
Motion caught my eye. Two people moved through the shadows down near a stand of black cottonwoods, close to the low wall separating the backyard from the training grounds. There was no mistaking Sarge’s massive shape, despite the darkness. He had his arm around someone else, and when they moved out of deeper shadow and into the slanting light from one of the security lamps, I recognized Shawn. They walked a few more steps and stopped. Sarge leaned up against the wall, and Shawn pressed against him. The sound of their voices drifted to me—Sarge’s deep rumble and Shawn’s mellower baritone.
I watched for a few more seconds, my chin resting on my arms as I leaned against the rail, but when they kissed, guilt nipped at me for spying. I threw back the rest of my drink and went inside, closing the door behind me. The soft strains of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” drifted through my apartment. I set my glass on the table, lay down on the couch and laced my hands behind my head.
My apartment seemed too large, too empty, and I felt as if I were nothing more than a shadow flitting across the ruins of a coliseum. I concentrated and lit all the candlewicks at once with a flex of power. Real shadows did a slow, undulating dance on the ceiling.
Thoughts chased themselves through my mind, sliding against one another, moving too fast to focus on any single one for long. The mission. The money. The risk. All of them interwoven with Jake, his smile, his eyes. From Jake back to my annoyance at his distraction, at
allowing
myself to be distracted when my people were headed into a dangerous situation, and then circling back to the mission again. Sarge and Shawn. The heat between them, flames which sometimes burned slow and steady, and sometimes spread like a brush fire, but never sputtered out and died like all my other loves had. Guttering. Flickering. Consuming what little fuel remained, until nothing was left but cold ashes, and no choice but for each of us to go our separate ways.
Was Jake worth the risk? Because it was risk, greater than just a quick hot fling where I could enjoy myself and not worry about consequences. It was a risk not merely to my heart, but also to my command and to my people. The other issue—
time
. The mission could be over soon, hell, tomorrow if we got the green light. Then he’d go back to Fort Bragg or wherever and that would be the end.
I had a responsibility to my team that outweighed my personal life. Could I give my people my best if I were constantly distracted by my growing feelings for Jake? What if he ended up injured? Captured? Would I put the mission at risk to save him? Safer never to find out. Duty first. Always.
I turned on my side and stared at a delicate tongue of candle flame. The music seemed to pour over me, each note starker, more harrowing than the last. Sleep would probably be a long time coming tonight.
And about that, I was finally right.
Chapter Ten: Battle on Green Fields
Undead Army of the Unrighteous Order of the Falling Dark
Riverside Golf and Country Club, Hole #10
Northeast 33rd Drive
, Portland, Oregon
9:34 a.m. PST April 14th
Golfing sucked.
Necromancer Jeremiah Hansen turned to Blake with a three iron clutched in both hands like a broadsword.
“Golfing sucks,” he said. His zombie caddy moaned in agreement.
“It’s a gentleman’s game.” Blake fixed him with one of those disapproving Catholic-nun looks that made him feel as if he’d failed miserably at the whole Evil Corporate Villain thing. “It is a
businessman’s
game. More deals are sealed here than in the boardroom or conference room. Fail to become halfway competent at it and you’ll find your career suffering a slow descent into irrelevance.”
Irrelevance? Hitting a tiny ball into a distant hole seemed pretty fucking irrelevant to him. Jeremiah gritted his teeth, clenched his jaw and peered down at his golf ball. He’d bought a bunch of Titleist Pro V1 golf balls, since according to the package they sailed the farthest, but he’d already lost four of the damn things in the pond on hole eight. No doubt the Pro Shop dredged the lake daily and resold the balls to suckers like him. What a fucking racket.
The ball sat in the rough, looking smug, mocking him with its pristine white dimples. Jeremiah stepped up to it and settled his feet on either side, determined to smack the living hell out of it. He concentrated, visualizing his swing, visualizing the clubface hitting at the perfect angle—
Something rasped behind him, over and over again, like sandpaper on a rubber hose. He slowly raised his head and stared at his caddy.
His caddy was a zombie, some young guy wearing a rather worn polo shirt and wrinkled yellow slacks. Polo zombie stared at another group of golfers and licked his lips again. The rasping turned out to be the sound of his gray, mottled tongue scraping over his gray, mottled lips.
Jeremiah yanked on the silver necromancy cord to get the zombie’s attention. Polo zombie turned back to him, smiled and pulled the putter half out of the golf bag and offered it up. Jeremiah might be new to this sadistic game, but he was pretty goddamn sure you didn’t use a fucking putter in the rough a hundred and twenty yards from the hole.
Zombie caddies sucked too.
At least Blake had to endure an equally inept zombie caddy. His caddy wore a button-down shirt with a picture of a dancing anthropomorphic hotdog, bright red Hawaiian-style shorts and an orange plastic visor askew on his head. Did nobody die and reanimate in
normal
clothes anymore?
At least the zombies he’d chosen didn’t show any visible wounds or bloodstains or teeth marks, though the sunlight made their grayish skin and sunken, bruised eyes rather noticeable. Maybe he’d suggest makeup next time, although who in their right mind would want to apply that shit to a zombie? Still, zombie caddies were better than paying a living caddy, who’d expect a tip and would no doubt secretly mock all Jeremiah’s whiffs and divots and mulligans. He just had to keep a tight hold on the control cords to ensure his zombies didn’t wander off and eat somebody in the sand traps.
Jeremiah settled down again and set his clubface near the ball half-hiding in the grass. He concentrated. Eye on the ball. He was still water in a mountain valley. Serene. He could do this.
No, he couldn’t. He’d shank it or slice it or top the damn thing and drive the ball farther into the wet ground. He glanced at Blake. “Game doesn’t do much to foster serenity and mental well-being does it?”
Blake shrugged. “It’s golf.”
“It’s sadomasochism.” Jeremiah swung the club back, careful not to bend his arm, trying to contort himself into proper form. The club cut down, hissing through the air. He pivoted, swinging his hips over. The club bit deep. He powered through. A chunk of grass and dirt went sailing through the air.
“Fore!” he yelled. The divot thumped on the fairway ten feet away. The ball still sat untouched on the rough. A huge gouge marred the earth—a dark scar, practically a Grand Canyon for ants. Shit.
Blake cleared his throat. “I don’t believe you’re required to yell fore unless someone is in danger of being hit.”
“Somebody
is
in danger of being hit. With my golf club. Over and over again.”
On his second try, Jeremiah managed to connect with the ball. It caught air, slicing to the right, and landed on the very edge of the fairway about forty yards from the pin. Just like he’d planned.
Sort of.
Next, they walked forward to Blake’s ball, which sat in the center of the fairway as a result of his flawless drive.
“We’re supposed to be talking about business out here?” Jeremiah asked as Blake bypassed his zombie caddy’s offer of a three wood and selected a seven iron. “So let’s talk business.”
“Very well. Will we make deadline for shipping to our distributor? I seem to recall mention of various issues with the supply chain.”
“I resolved those issues on Monday. A truck should be here tomorrow to pick up the first shipment. All the paperwork’s perfect.”
“Excellent.” Blake settled himself beside his golf ball, drew the club back in a perfect arc and swung forward again, sending the ball sailing through the air. It landed on the green a dozen feet from the hole. Jeremiah struggled not to appear either vexed or impressed. He yanked his Blazers hat lower to better hide any lingering trace…such as his eyelid twitch.
Blake handed his club back to his caddy. “The good news is we’ve seen no hint of law-enforcement interest in our operation.”
“How do you know that?”
“My contacts claim the US Special Forces teams tasked with handling supernatural infestations and paranormal threats to public safety are all busy with various other hotspots. If we can shift from obtaining funds through high-risk heists and settle on steady income through legitimate business ventures, then we can continue to operate below the radar until our long-term goals are achieved—”
A ball bounced along the fairway a dozen feet from them. Jeremiah looked back. Some morons had teed up behind them and hit without even a courtesy shout of
fore
.
“If I get nailed with a golf ball,” Jeremiah warned, “somebody’s going to end up lunch.”
Blake turned to peer at the other golfing party, cold annoyance on his face. The fat guy in a cap that should’ve been banned for plaid violations waved a hand at them, mouthed sorry and laughed.
“Some people have no etiquette,” Blake said. “Such people can be purged at a later date.”
It took three more strokes for Jeremiah to get on the green after he put the ball into a sand trap. He took a drop, rules be damned, and in only four putts managed to get the ball into the hole. Hallelujah. He missed the fake castles and windmills and tunnels of miniature golf, which even had arcade games and racecars. Real golf only had those carts. And sand traps, but you couldn’t even drive the carts into the sand traps. No comparison.
Jeremiah had just shoved in the tee on hole eleven when the party behind them caught up.
“Sorry about the close call,” the fat guy in the bad hat said. He looked askance at Jeremiah’s caddy and then glanced at his Rolex. “We’re kinda in a hurry. Can we play through?”
“No,” Jeremiah answered, reminding himself not to feed the other golfers to his zombies. Bad form, old boy.
Still, he took his damn time setting up. So much so that the woman with the blue-tinged hair started to heave dramatic sighs and shuffle and shift her feet. He could feel the pull from the zombies, their temptation to sink their teeth into all the warm flesh nearby. Polo zombie started to drool, staining the front of his shirt.
“Hey, buddy, you all right?” some other old guy in plaid pants and ugly shoes asked polo zombie. “You look like shit.”
“Don’t talk to him,” Jeremiah said. “He’ll chew on your spleen.”
They stared at Jeremiah as if he were rabid coyote running amok on the putting green.
Jeremiah pointed at them with his club. “Yeah, I’m crazy. So what? I was sane when I drove in here. So don’t fuck with me or I swear to everything unholy I’ll feed you to my employee of the month.”
The group started to edge away from him, fear shining in their eyes.
“Perhaps we should leave?” Blake suggested. “We can hire a golf pro to improve your skills in a more private setting. Tax deductible business expense, after all.”
“Hold on, watch this.” Jeremiah faced off on the ball with his driver and swung back. The driver head cut the air like the tip of an arrow. He brought all his power and dexterity to bear, aiming for that one little sweet spot on the little white ball. The clubface hit with a satisfying
WHACK
!
The ball rolled along the fairway for sixteen feet and came to a stop. He’d clipped the top of it with the bottom of the clubface. He’d also shattered his little red tee. Oh sweet fucking Zombie God of America did he ever hate this goddamn game.
Somebody in the waiting group of golfers, who now stood a safe distance away, gave a loud snicker. Somebody else cursed and muttered how at this rate they’d be here all day. Jeremiah’s fists clenched on the driver’s grip, visions of total zombie apocalypse floating in his head.
He took a deep, steadying breath.
“Let’s call it a day and grab some beers,” he said to Blake. “And get me a real pro. I want to fucking
own
this game by next week. No sport makes a fool out of a Necromancer of the Unrighteous Order of the Falling Dark.”
“I shall attend to it.” Blake’s face remained impassive.
They climbed into their golf carts, the zombies still a little stiff and uncoordinated trying to settle in the passenger seats, and zipped away down the path. What a colossal waste of time. At least driving the carts was fun. The fresh air felt great too. Next time he’d do better, and that was a promise.
Until then, he had some gelatin to inflict upon the world.
Chapter Eleven: The Zombie Hunter
Mercenary Wing Rv6-4 “Zero Dogs”
The Zero Dog Compound
Shooting
Range
1110 Hours PST April 15th
Training exercises dominated the morning, starting with a quick round of physical training, then a detailed walkthrough with the teams on effective small-unit tactics versus Reanimated Corpse Threats. I’d finished up kenpo and judo training an hour ago, and then headed out alone for a mile run along our track before stopping to chug Gatorade and wolf down a couple of bananas. I wasn’t due for another round of simulated urban assault training with the crew and Jake until this afternoon, so I checked out a pistol from the armory and headed downstairs to the range, hoping to clear my head with a little precision shooting.
I’d been off focus the entire morning, just enough to frustrate me. Thinking too much, that had always been my problem. Nothing had changed, yet I still found myself thinking about the mission, thinking about my people and thinking about Jake with a relentless persistence. All these thoughts careened off one another like billiard balls clacking around on some mental pool table until I thought I might just go mad.
The shooting range was empty, as I’d hoped. I grabbed ear protection, safety glasses and flipped the switch that turned on the red light outside the door, letting people know the range was occupied and live rounds in use.
I might be something of a walking flamethrower—and the Beretta I’d brought couldn’t compare to loosing streams of flame and hurling fireballs—but the very act of shooting never failed to calm me. The focus required for grouping shots on the human-silhouette targets always drowned out the cacophony in my head, no matter what had caused it. I could use that right now.
My favorite firing station sat at the far end of the range. Once there, I pushed the button and brought forward several hanging targets, arranging them at different distances. The cool moving air from the exhaust fans raised gooseflesh on my arms. Without thinking, I heated the air around my skin until I felt warm again. I set out the ten clips I’d loaded, arranging them in a line in front of me. Next, I slipped the magazine into the M9 Beretta 9mm and chambered a round. I flipped off the safety, drew down on the nearest target and started to fire.
Four empty clips later I cleared the pistol, set it down and pushed the button to bring in the targets. I took them down from the clips and checked the groupings.
“Not bad,” Jake said behind me.
I jumped, despite my ear protection dampening sounds, and jerked my head around to glare at him. How long had he been watching?
He flashed me that mischievous grin and walked closer, staring over my shoulder at the targets. “Groupings all within three, three and a half inches of each other.” He pointed at a shot I’d pulled, putting a hole in the silhouette’s outer shoulder. “Except this guy. The statistical outlier?”
I yanked off my ear protection. “Cut me some slack. I just shoot to tap into the Zen of it. I need something dead, I charbroil it.”
“One thing I love about you,” he said. “Extremely direct. Like a bullet.”
“I don’t have time to waste sugarcoating things or talking in circles. People count on me being clear.”
His eyebrows rose. “And so prickly sometimes.”
“Why not? That was one of those comments that can go either way—compliment or insult.”
“And you chose to see it as an insult. Ad
mit it. I just burn your tater tots and chafe like beach sand, don’t I?” He smirked and held out a hand for the pistol. “May I have a go?”
I picked it up, double-checked the safety and thrust it out to him pistol butt first. “Going to show off a bit? Trying to impress me, or just trying to show how much better you are?”
My words poured out with far more acid than I’d intended. Why did I feel such a pull toward him when we seemed to grind against each other like two saw blades?
He looked at me and something flickered in his eyes. He waved off the pistol. “You know, you’re right. I
was
just trying to impress you.” He cocked his head. “Sometimes it’s unnerving talking to somebody so direct.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I ignored it. “Why’d you come down here, anyway?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“So now you’re trying for direct?” The challenge ran rampant in my voice. “How far do you want to go? Why,
exactly
, did you want to see me?”
His grin faltered, but his gaze grew more intense. “Maybe I enjoy being around you.”
I snorted. “That’s the most tofu statement I’ve ever heard.”
“Tofu statement?”
“Bland. White. Tasteless. Floats in miso soup.” I shook my head. “You look at me that way, and then you say something so…passionless.”
“Look at you like what?”
“Like you want to come over here and tear these clothes off me.”
He looked away. “You’re
too
damn direct.”
“Yeah? Fuck you. That’s who I am. Get used to it. But you know what, forget that. I can be tactful. I do it with my people all the time—especially all their deluded foibles—but with you, I don’t bother. I assumed you were a big boy and could handle it.”
“That right?” He leaned forward, settled a fist gently around the front of my jumpsuit, just above my breasts, and pulled me slowly but irresistibly toward him. Did I say irresistibly? Not quite. I knew six different ways to break that hold, one of which would leave him with broken fingers, one with a broken wrist. But I didn’t protest as he lowered his face to mine. His lips pressed against mine. Warm. I opened my mouth and kissed him back. He took my ferocity and gave it back. He pulled me closer so that my body pressed against him.
I broke the kiss first, pushing back on his chest with gentle force.
He touched my face. “Your skin is so warm.”
I stepped away from him, now uncertain, and turned back to the table with the Beretta and the clips. I put my hand on the cool surface, feeling my muscles tremble, my heart beating hard.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“This is stupid.” I glanced back at him and saw something in his face. Hurt? Anger? Maybe frustration. That’s what I felt now. “This isn’t going to go anywhere.”
“Why? There’s something between us. We both know it.”
“There’s no happy ending here. We finish this and you’re gone. Back to gung-ho army land. We can pretend all we want, but you’re not part of this team. Our worlds only overlap at the edges. Their centers don’t touch.”
“People make happy endings all the time, goddamn it.” His face was fierce as his words lashed against me.
“Yeah,
other
people. I’m not a cock tease. Neither am I a quick tumble and tickle-fuck or whatever stupid slang you guys have for it. You want some honesty? All right. Sure, I’m attracted to you. Have been since I first saw you on the street before we even met. But you know what? It doesn’t
matter
.”
“Explain that.”
“It doesn’t matter because I’m more than the sum of my parts. I’m not a slave to hormones. You make all the right noises. You give me all the right looks. And next week, when all the zombies are dead, you’ll get new marching orders and it’ll be ‘nice to know ya, text me sometime.’”
“I don’t operate that way.”
“I have three brothers. I know the game.”
He kept silent, so I charged on. Nothing could stop me once I got all four tires on the road and the engine revved.
“And I’ve been around the block a couple times. If we keep hands off, I get the chance to demand your respect, whether or not you want to give it. We get down and dirty and all of a sudden you think you’re in charge. You own me. A guy shoves his dick in something and all of a sudden he thinks he gets the right to determine its future. I worked damn hard to claw my way up to where I am now. These people depend on me.
Me
. Captain Andrea Walker. Not you. You’re not part of this team, and soon you’ll be gone, and if something breaks, then I have to pick up the pieces.”
“It seems you know everything about me already.” His tone was bitter. “Including how I’ll act. Your file didn’t say you were psychic.”
“Who needs psychic powers? I overheard you on the phone that first night. Yeah, I did, so don’t look surprised. I watched how you handled that first briefing. You’ve always considered us a bunch of scrubs, a step up from civilians maybe, but not much. Undisciplined pirates motivated by greed. Admit it.”
“All right. First night here maybe I acted like a bit of an ass.”
“You acted like a full-on raving, balls-to-the-wall ass clown.”
He scowled and said nothing.
“In fact,” I continued, “now that I think about it, you acted like an overbearing, vise-clamp-sphinctered, know-it-all ass king of America.” I paused dramatically. “I was quite taken aback.”
“You done?”
“That’s a stupid thing to ask a woman.”
“Look, maybe I was wrong,” he said. “And the more I see of you in action, the more I think I might’ve been.” He shrugged. “I won’t lie to you. I can’t be sure until I’ve seen you guys go hot and fought alongside you. Respect is earned in this business.”
“No shit. But you threatened to kill our role in this mission once already. I had to force you to back off. You think that makes me trust you?”
For a long time he didn’t answer.
He finally said, “Maybe I came in here with too much Green Beret can-do. Too many rigid expectations. If that’s the case, then the fault is mine. But make no mistake, I want us to win.”
“Then we should focus on winning,” I said. “Nothing else. Because if we fall into each other, we’ll be compromising everything. I won’t do that to my people.”
“I didn’t expect anything less.”
We stared at each other. My skin felt too tight, shrink-wrapped over my bones. My heart thudded along, and a sharp ache zigzagged up my jawline where I clenched my teeth. The exhaust fans hummed in the walls, but aside from that, the silence held steady. I could either burn this bridge or help repair it. Choice was mine.
Slowly, I held out the pistol again as a rather ironic peace offering. “All right. I feel like I went over the edge into flamethrower mode a little. So why don’t you show me how it’s done, cowboy?”
He grinned. Repair it was. It seemed one of the best ways to a man’s heart was to ask him to show off and pretend to be wowed. Still, I remained more amused than annoyed.
We put on our ear protection again. He inserted a fresh magazine, worked the slide, thumbed the safety off and took up position in the classic Weaver stance. He popped off shot after shot, firing in a controlled yet rapid fusillade until the slide came back. He hit the button and the target moved forward. He pulled it down and handed it to me. Two holes. Both large. One of them dead center of forehead and I could see where the following rounds had enlarged the edges. Same with the second, heart shots, all in such a tight cluster it appeared as if one huge caliber bullet had ripped through the paper.
Okay, forget that part about pretending to be wowed. “I think that’s even better than Sarge.”
“I grew up target shooting. Puts me in another world. Just me, the gun and the target.”
Pretty much how I felt about it, except that he was a helluva lot better at it. “You picked the right job then. Would’ve sucked to have gone into human resources or accounting.”
He laughed, engaged the safety and set the pistol down. “What about you? Tell me something about the captain of the Zero Dogs not in your dossier.”
“I’m boring. I hate to talk about myself, because, if you watch closely, you can see the exact moment the other person’s eyes glaze over.”
“C’mon. Give me a break here. You can be very determined when you want to be elusive.”
I frowned and shifted. “All right, fine. There’s nothing exciting. I’m the only daughter in a big family. Three older brothers. From Illinois, and the rest of the family still lives there. See? Yawn festival.”
“Why’d you become a mercenary? Were you a soldier before?”
“No. All my brothers are military. So in a wild fit of rebellion, I headed straight from West Point to a job with the Hellfrost Merc group.” I left out the part about being expelled from West Point, since it’d been one huge misunderstanding. If he’d seen my file, he knew it already. “Been clawing my way up ever since.” I shrugged. “There’s a lot of prejudice against pyromancers.”
He cocked his head. “How so?”
“People think we’re little better than deranged firebugs.”
“Is that bad?”
“Stop with the flattery. What about you?”
“College at UNLV. Into the Army to pay for it. Ended up liking it. Did some time with the Rangers. Ended up transferring into Special Forces. Did bodyguard detail for US government VIPs in Iraq. Among other things.”
“I bet the shields come in handy,” I said.
“Saved my ass when we first met, didn’t they?”
“Tell you what. Let’s make a deal. You fill me in on the secrets to impeccable shooting. I’ll show you a bit of my dark martial arts knowledge.”