“Yeah.”
“So what the hell are you doing here, Jake? You AWOL?”
“Not at all. I’m following up a significant lead on the target.” He smiled, but the smile had little humor. In fact, the smile bore a passing resemblance to a barracuda-wolf hybrid. “I pulled some strings, managed to get my reassignment paperwork delayed. The commander of the Delta team’s a buddy of mine from way back. Besides, we’re allowed some latitude on decision-making in the field.”
“Somehow I doubt it’s as easy as that. And I notice you didn’t say you had clearance.”
“I don’t.” He leaned toward me. “But this is important. You guys earned the right to see it through.”
I nodded while my stomach did a slow somersault. Part of me hadn’t wanted to believe Jake was back, even when I opened the door on him. He was something I’d wanted, yearned for and barely had the guts to articulate, even to myself. A dark part of me remained certain he’d be snatched away from me again. The same dark part in my mind always whispering that if I chose to take hold of what I wanted, it would slip away again in a haze of regretful words about duty and sacrifice and I’d be alone. Not now. I could see it in his eyes that he meant to see this through, no matter the cost. Stupid or brave, I didn’t know and didn’t care. Even if he were here only for the end of this mission, I’d take that, and I’d leave another day for another day and live the moment.
His hand slipped over mine. He lifted it up to his lips and kissed it softly, a gesture I found strangely touching. “I didn’t want to leave you. I had nothing to do with their decisions.”
“I know.” And I did. When Harker had tried to give him command of my people, Jake could’ve descended from heaven with a twenty-four carat halo and mother-of-pearl wings and I’d still have lit into him.
“I know how much your people mean to you,” he continued. “I’d never come between that.”
“Jake, I shouldn’t have—”
He shook his head and held up his hand. “Doesn’t matter. You were straight from the first. I saw the position you were in, so how could I blame you? But riding in that car, leaving here, I realized I’d made a huge mistake. I knew I couldn’t leave you.”
I swallowed. My mouth had gone dry and a painful knot lodged in my throat.
He slowly leaned in toward me. “And what I said about not being a threat to you?”
“Yes?”
“I lied.” He kissed me hard. I melted against him. Part of my mind suspected things were about to get X-rated.
Sarge cleared his throat. We drew apart like teenagers caught necking on the porch. Jake and I looked at each other. We both burst out laughing at the same time, and together we walked the rest of the way over to Sarge, who regarded us with strained amusement. “Too cute. And it’s about fucking time.”
“Sarge,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “Have I told you how much your recent behavior reminds me of Gavin? Just thought you’d like to know.”
Sarge grunted. He looked at Jake, and I sensed something flash between them. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jake give a slight nod, and Sarge returned to his work. I took a deep breath and concentrated on ignoring male posturing. I didn’t want my good mood to sour.
Jake and I gave him plenty of space to work. He sketched complex designs along the interior of the circle, angular shapes surrounded by flowing patterns that reminded me of water. He drew along the floor with his finger, and everywhere he traced, a blue glow lingered like a propane flame.
After a short while, he sat back and inspected his work. “All right. Each of us will sit at one point of the triangle. I’ll direct the flow of power from the northern tip. Don’t touch the lines.”
We split up, me to the western point, and Jake to the east. I sat down, careful not to mess up the lines. I didn’t want my face seared off or my hair bleached white or anything.
“We’re not going to do something really evil, are we?” I asked. “Because I draw the line at sacrificing small animals and ritual defilement.”
Sarge cocked an eyebrow at me, and then glanced at Jake. “You see what a demon has to put up with?”
Jake grinned. “I thought these kinds of things always ended with an orgy.”
Both of Sarge’s eyebrows shot up, and I giggled. Yes. Giggled exactly like Tiffany. I slapped a hand over my mouth to kill the sound, praying Sarge hadn’t noticed.
“I’m going to ignore that quip,” Sarge said. “And I’d appreciate some silence while I work. Hold on. Let me get that severed head.”
“There’s something you don’t hear every day,” Jake said.
“He’s a demon. I bet he says that more often than I care to think about.”
Sarge returned with the severed zombie head still in my laundry basket. I didn’t believe either irradiation or autoclaving could save my basket now. He set it down and lifted the zombie out by the hair. The zombie appeared less than pleased, biting at the air and staring at me with flat dead eyes that held the classic
I want to eat your face
expression, and not in a good way.
“I’m going to play polo with you when we’re done,” I told the zombie. The zombie didn’t seem impressed. That was the problem with zombies. They sported a whole
fuck you, I’m dead
attitude I hated.
“So what do we have to do?” Jake asked.
“Simple. I’ll do the hard part directing the energy through the lines. You both are here to amp up the power I can draw and to serve as grounds.”
“Do we have to
plug
ourselves in?” I asked, and Jake snorted.
Sarge gave me a look. “The sexual innuendos must stop. Now.”
Geez. Nobody had a sense of humor anymore. Though it
did
feel good to be dishing out the obnoxious behavior for once instead of being its victim. Having Jake back made me feel almost giddy. Stupid, but I couldn’t help it.
Sarge placed the head in the center of the circle, careful not to disturb his lines. Multicolored glowy lights flickered to life in rows on the floor, radiating out from the head like a Pink Floyd laser-light show, and me without my illegal substances. Sarge sat back down at the northern tip of the triangle and arranged his mass into the lotus position. Jake and I copied his pose.
“This will feel like you’re about to work magic,” Sarge continued, “but you won’t be able to complete any spell.”
“Spellus-interruptus, right?” Jake said.
Laughter barked out of my mouth, sounding like an angry otter. Not dignified, but what the hell.
Sarge frowned at Jake. “I’m beginning to think having you return was a mistake. Clearly, the captain is a corrupting influence.”
“We’ll behave,” I assured him. Time to be serious. Make lists. Kick asses. Talk shit about it on the internet. “Let’s just get this done.”
Sarge began to chant in a soft monotone. Strange shimmering vapor rose from the spell lines. A high-pitched whine began in my ear, like a mosquito. I scowled in annoyance, wondering if the whine was supposed to happen. Sarge closed his red and black eyes and let his massive head fall back. I glanced at Jake, who shrugged. I closed my own eyes and let my head tilt back. So far I’d sensed nothing.
It hit all at once. Zero to sixty in half a second. Power flooded through me as if some invisible gate had been thrown wide open. My spine arched. All the fine hairs on my arms and the back of my neck lifted. My eyelids snapped wide open and I gritted my teeth against a scream of surprise.
The power moved through me and down into the lines on the ground. Their glow brightened, kaleidoscoping along the ceiling. Jake still had his eyes closed, but he’d tensed, and all his muscles stood out against his shirt, while the veins bulged in his forearms. A black nimbus had encircled Sarge. His chanting grew louder. I couldn’t sense any evil, unless it came from the zombie head, but that was only stupid evil, the way a garden slug will eat your best strawberries just because it can. Instead, a sensation of barely controlled power crushed down on me. The zombie’s eyes were open wide, its mouth slack, and that black nimbus, like a shadow defying the direction of the light, reached out and encircled it.
Images flashed through my brain, so vibrant and real they eclipsed the view of Sarge’s room. The images blurred at first, but then they focused and I saw through the eyes of someone else—a vertigo-inducing sensation which had both my mind and stomach reeling. I immediately knew I looked through someone else’s eyes because I could see the blurry outline of the nose dead center of my view.
It only took me a moment to realize what it was I looked at—or what the eyes I ghosted behind looked at. Fear ripped through me like a jigsaw through rotted pine, leaving me weak and disconnected from my body.
Night. A windshield, but a strange one, with wide, flat glass. The top arc of a huge steering wheel. A bus? A man’s hands gripped the wheel. The view turned, glancing through a side window. Outside the bus, hundreds and hundreds of dark shapes shambled up an incline toward a fence. Beyond the fence sat a huge house with lights in many of its windows and security lamps creating wide pools of brightness. I recognized it at once. The Zero Dog Compound.
Our
house. The zombies surged toward it in a dark tide.
The view swiveled back to center. The bus moved forward, gaining speed. No sound, but I could imagine the roar of the engine…or did I hear it, faintly, from beyond the window? Things began to overlap and nausea turned my stomach again.
The bus passed the zombie front line, pulling ahead, and raced up our driveway toward the iron gate. The driver roared past the intercom and keypad without a glance and rammed the bus into the gate. The front grill smashed it aside with a loud clang and a dismayed screech of metal. The bus veered toward our garages where we stored the Bradley and a good chunk of our parts and ammo.
My heart felt as if it steadily dissolved as the bus shuddered to a stop outside the closed bay doors. The view swiveled and changed—a man’s hand reached out and pulled the handle, opening the doors. Zombies began to stumble and fall down the steps onto the asphalt.
The man’s hand came up into view. He turned his hand over and focused on it. Then it clenched into a fist and the view vanished as if we’d lost a satellite feed. Power dispersed and I felt it buffet me like a shock wave before my mind’s eye slammed back into my body in Sarge’s apartment again, and I was seeing with my own eyes once more.
“Holy shit.” My heart hammered like the double bass drums in a heavy metal band. I staggered to my feet. “He’s
here
.”
I fought against the fear and the adrenaline shock spiking through my body. They made my thoughts scattered and disconnected—too bright and too fast to concentrate on. My fists tightened, crushing my fingers into my palms. We’d been outmaneuvered.
Jake looked at me, and I could read the same thoughts in his eyes. Without a word, he pulled his Beretta from the holster in one smooth motion, drew back the slide and thumbed off the safety. The gunshot sounded flat and loud. The zombie head toppled over with a bullet dead center in its forehead.
Sarge pushed himself to a squat and kicked the lines of dust apart with his boot. I stood up, already calling my magic. Heat shimmered around my hands like an Arizona highway at high noon. Jake had his M9 Beretta out and pointed at the floor. Sarge hurried from the room and came back with a rifle in his hands, one of the SCAR-16S carbines I’d shot with him a few times on the range. A belt strung with ammo pouches hung over one huge shoulder. He pulled back the bolt. I felt rather left out without dramatic round chambering for Hollywood effect. Who would’ve guessed throwing fire could have any drawbacks?
“At least he won’t be hard to find,” Jake said, just as the alarms began to wail.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Hell in a Very Clean Place
Mercenary Wing Rv6-4 “Zero Dogs”
The Zero Dog Compound
Main Stairs
1911 Hours PST April 19th
I didn’t remember much about the time between hearing the perimeter alarms and sprinting down the hall. It was only a blur of motion and stark anger interlaced with fear as Jake, Sarge and I pounded down the stairs. Jake took the lead, me in the middle, and Sarge brought up the rear with his SCAR-16—and I was so upset my usual gutter-inclined mind didn’t even make a quip about being in the middle of a Green Beret and demon sandwich.
The alarms continued to bray their mindless warning cry. Gavin almost crashed into us on the second-floor landing. “Captain, it’s the fucking zombie apocalypse!”
I grabbed him and dragged him with me. “I know, come on. We’ve got to get everybody together.”
“So why don’t you use the intercom?”
Shit, why hadn’t I thought of that? I had to hurry up and pull my head out of my ass if I planned to lead us out of this alive. I veered off at a full sprint toward my office.
Jake ran after me. “Andrea—what the hell?”
I slid to a stop at my office door and ran inside, nearly knocking over my cactus in my dash for the intercom. First I killed the alarm so I could hear myself think. Then I slapped my hand down on the broadcast button, fighting off the panic trying to break my voice as my words echoed through the house. “Attention all Zero Dogs, we’re under attack. Defense condition one. Grab weapons and get to the living room immediately.”
Gathering everybody in one place had its disadvantages, limiting fields of fire and ability to respond to scattered threats, but without a planned defense we were toast. If we regrouped fast enough, there remained a good chance we wouldn’t end up trapped inside the house.
Jake pulled me away from the intercom. “Come on. There’s no time.”
I must have hit the wrong switch as he yanked my arm because the melodic strains of Santana and the song “No One to Depend On” started coming through the ceiling speakers. No time to fix it now. We were already off and running again.
“Great soundtrack, Captain,” Gavin wheezed from behind me, winded from running. If we survived this uneaten, I vowed he’d get mandatory physical training, whether his job was to sit on his ass and drive stuff or not.
Moments later, we thundered down the short hall leading to the great room. Rafe crouched on the back of the sofa in werewolf form. He gripped a golf club, his titanium driver by the look of it, in one massive pawish hand. I blinked at the sight of a horror-movie-esque werewolf appearing ready to spend some quality time on the green. Squeegee the mutant housecat paced near the big window, hackles raised and a low rumbling growl coming from her throat. Stefan lounged against the wall inspecting his manicure as if this were just another night at the office. But there was no sign of Mai, Hanzo or Tiffany anywhere.
Shit
. “Where’s everybody else?”
Stefan shook his head. “We have yet to see them.”
Jake and Sarge hurried to the plate-glass window and stared out into the darkness.
“Zombies inside the gate,” Sarge said. “A helluva lot of ’em. Coming up the hill toward the house.”
My thoughts spun in frantic circles, tumbling all over each other so rapidly I couldn’t grab one to hold it and focus. Things kept happening so damn fast. Sure we had a fire-escape plan, but we’d never prepared a zombie-assault-escape plan. We’d always been the aggressors, doing jobs in other people’s backyards. This house was no fortress. And how had the necromancer created all those zombies in so short a time? Sarge and I had briefly discussed the possibility of the necromancer tracking us back here through the zombie head we’d stolen, and I’d just put in an order for claymore mines and barbed wire, but we’d both agreed the probability of attack had been low, and nothing to fear in the short term.
We’d been very wrong.
The panic twisted tighter. My lungs felt like a hundred-foot python crushed my chest, and the muscles in my legs burned.
Get it together.
I clamped down without mercy, gritting my teeth and clenching my fists until I had myself under control.
“All right, people, listen up.” My voice whip-cracked with command, and that made me pretty damn proud of myself. “Somebody’s fucking with us, and the Zero Dogs don’t take that shit.”
“That’s right,” Rafe growled. “I do the fucking around here.”
“And I do the fucking around, around here,” Gavin added.
Holy goddamned Glorious Reformed Church of Cthulhu, somebody kill me now. The localized zombie apocalypse upon us and I had to deal with
this
. I should’ve gone to law school like Mother wanted.
Too late for that now, so I started barking orders. “Sarge, Rafe, Stefan, get Gavin to the Bradley so he can bring it around front. Keep a path clear so we can get everybody the hell outta here.”
Sarge nodded, pulled a 9mm from somewhere and tossed it to Gavin, who fumbled and dropped it on the carpet. I tried not to weep.
“There’s a crapload of zombies out there,” I continued. “Keep tight. Don’t get surrounded. If you can’t get to the garage, get your asses back inside.” I
didn’t
say that if we couldn’t get to the Bradley we were up shit river without Mickey Mouse and a steamboat because that meant we’d been trapped. Trapped meant we had to hunker down, barricade up and hope we didn’t run out of ammo. Bloody business, any way I cut it. “Me and Jake will find Tiffany, Hanzo and Mai and meet you at the front door. Now move, move,
move
!”
Sarge had the assault rifle up and at his shoulder, already moving in a slight crouch toward the kitchen and the patio doors, followed by Rafe and his golf club, Stefan with his claws and fangs, and Gavin, who seemed uncomfortable with the 9mm, even though we’d all had plenty of pistol training. I watched them go, part of me wanting to call them back. Fighting zombies in the dark would be even more dangerous than tangling with them in daylight.
They disappeared through the doorway while my heart pounded hard as a rain of cluster bombs. Something crashed outside with enough force to make me flinch. Jake moved beside me, setting his hand on my shoulder. I was grateful for the contact, though my guts still felt like they twisted inside me like snakes.
“They’re professionals,” Jake said. “They’ll be all right.”
He told me what I wanted to hear, but a cold voice inside me whispered I only deluded myself. None of us were safe. None of us would escape. Gunfire ripped through the night. I took a step toward the sound and then caught myself and clenched my fists.
“Come on,” I said to Jake. “Let’s go find the rest of my people and get the hell out of here.”