CHAPTER 23
“They move pretty well for zombies,” I muttered.
The revenants had accepted our knives with little more than a shrug, then bound our hands behind us with golden chains, which made me think they’d been waiting for us. I didn’t like that thought one bit.
They looked like real, live people. No rotting parts. No zombie smell. They hadn’t said much—though they could talk: “Come here.” “Hands behind your back.” “Move.”
“You sure about them?” I asked Jimmy as we marched down the asphalt that led out of town, revenants before us, revenants behind us, but no one really close enough to hear us, especially since we’d put our heads together like thirteen-year-old girls at a slumber party and begun to whisper.
“Yeah.” He twitched one shoulder, then hissed when the golden chains slid along his wrists and smoke rose from his flesh. “I’m pretty good at sensing the undead. They might not be vampires, but they’re definitely the dead come to life.”
“So maybe they’re just zombies.” Had I actually used the phrase “just zombies”? “Not some apocalyptic portent.”
“Believe me, they’re an apocalyptic portent.” Jimmy took a slow, deep breath, careful not to rattle his chains, then glanced at the revenants. But none of the walking dead appeared to care if the two of us had a nice long chat. “You’ve heard about the four horsemen?” I nodded. “They arrive when the first of seven seals is broken.”
“Seals on what?”
“In Revelation, they’re on a scroll.” He scowled at the revenants. “But that scroll represents something else. The first rider comes on a white horse. Some say it’s Jesus; most say the opposite.”
“The Antichrist.”
“Yep. And if the rider appears when a seal is broken and that rider is the Antichrist, what do you think the seal was on?”
“Hell,” I answered.
“Give the girl a gold star.”
“How did the seal get broken?”
“Hard to say, and it doesn’t really matter. What’s done is done, and we have to deal with the results.”
He was right. No sense crying over spilled demons.
“So the seal broke,” I said. “Hell opened; the demons flew free.” Now my gaze went to the revenants. “Where do they come in?”
“The first horseman is bent on conquest. Some say peaceful, but who knows?”
“And the second?”
“Red horse, guy with a sword. Makes men kill one another and removes peace from the earth.”
“Same guy?”
“I think so.”
“To conquer with peace,” I said, “you’d need a huge army.”
“Walk tall and carry a big stick.”
“Exactly. Then to spread war throughout the earth, that army would come in very handy.”
“He moves from threatening war,” Jimmy said, “to unleashing it.”
“Where do you get a huge army when you’ve been doing crosswords in Tartarus since the beginning of time?” My gaze slid to the revenants, whose footsteps sounded more like goosesteps with every block we walked.
“You raise them from the dead,” Jimmy said.
“So many bodies, so little time,” I agreed, “with the added plus of their eternal gratitude.”
That I’d seen the dead rising as the Phoenix ran over their graves, in her possession a book that contained information that would allow her to control all the demons, was looking less and less like a coincidence. In the “Who Will Be the Antichrist?” sweepstakes, I think we had a winner. Except—
“If she can control the demons, why doesn’t she?”
Jimmy didn’t answer. When I glanced at him, he was peering into the gloom. I followed his gaze.
The house rose out of a swaying field of moon-tinged grass. Huge, like the revenant had said, the red brick dull with age, the once creamy mortar jaundiced from the elements, the paint around the boarded windows peeling. The front porch listed to the right; the steps creaked threateningly as the revenants followed us inside.
There, what had once been gorgeous hardwood floors were now buckled and uneven, the walls marred by leaks and cracks. A chandelier still hung in the entryway, swaying as the breeze blew in behind us; the crystals rubbed together, the sound so light and lonely it made me nostalgic. For what, I didn’t know.
The place smelled moldy—as if it had been flooded, dried out, then flooded again times fifty—and overlying the cool, soft scent of ancient water I caught the sharp, metallic odor of fresh blood.
“I’d like to see my mother,” I said. “The Phoenix.”
No one seemed surprised by that statement. I guess a simple glance in a mirror explained why. However, the mere mention of her name struck everyone dumb, which didn’t bode well for our meeting.
I’d harbored the hope—foolish as it might be—that the Phoenix wasn’t as bad as say . . . the woman of smoke. But I had the distinct feeling she was worse. How was I going to convince her that both Jimmy and I were ready to take a walk on the dark side?
“Upstairs.” A doughy young man—in both skin tone and body shape—with squinty eyes that screamed of too many hours in front of a computer screen, and messy, mousy hair, shoved me. If I hadn’t been super-coordinated I might have taken a nosedive into the banister.
I stumbled and righted myself, considered rearranging his face and decided I didn’t care enough. Jimmy stared at him with narrowed eyes, and the kid actually backed off. Strange considering there were so many of them and only two of us, not to mention the golden chains.
Sure, if we let our vamps free they’d be toast, but considering we were trying to join their club, we weren’t going to do that.
Yet.
“You can take off the chains,” I said. “We come in peace.”
Geek Boy snorted. “Even if you are the daughter of the Phoenix, you aren’t getting any special treatment.”
“So everyone gets bound with golden chains?”
“Chains, yes. Gold, no.”
“You think the Phoenix isn’t aware of what Sanducci is, that she doesn’t know what you’ve become? She’s all-powerful. Or soon will be.”
How did she know about us? Did my mother have the same talent as I did? Could she touch people and see their inner thoughts and more? If so, it was going to be damn near impossible to convince her Jimmy and I had changed sides. Not that I’d ever thought it was going to be easy.
The kid had taken a dislike to Sanducci that, from Jimmy’s narrowed eyes and tense stance, he appeared to share. In a minute they’d start fighting, bumping chests and snarling, or perhaps they’d pull out their dicks and compare. Sanducci would win. He had the best jewels.
“We were told to keep you chained until you can be tested.”
Uh-oh, I thought.
“Tested?” I asked.
Geek Boy smirked, and Sanducci bared his teeth. “You may have passed the first test, but that doesn’t mean you’re free of the next.”
“There was a test?”
“You think we let anyone stroll into town and get close to the Prince who will come?” At last he turned away from Jimmy and came toward me.
“How, exactly, do you keep people out?”
“There’s a spell.” The kid waved his hand. “Magic shit. Not my department.”
Hmm. Was the Phoenix a witch too? Why not? Everyone else was.
“What kind of spell?”
“Only those with an inner darkness get past the borders of this place.”
“Explains the buzz at the edge of town,” Jimmy murmured.
“And what happens to those without an inner darkness?” I asked.
“Bzzzt!” Geek Boy made a zapping noise and a swift motion with both hands, then rolled his eyes up and stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth.
“Dead?” I clarified
He lifted his head and smiled. I guess we knew now why Ruthie had been so insistent that both Jimmy and I released our demons before coming here.
“You’ve killed everyone in town?” I asked.
“They didn’t stay dead for long.” A solid older woman, who, judging from her thick wrists and the muscles in her legs and arms, had been a farmwife, with white hair down to her ass and a weathered face that spoke of decades in the sun, indicated the crowd of revenants. “They’re here with us now. Except for those who possessed an inner darkness.”
“Nephilim,” Jimmy muttered. “They’re everywhere.”
“Where are they now?”
I didn’t like not knowing the location of any cursed half demons. Even if we were supposed to be one of them now, Nephilim had no allegiance to their kind. The instant they saw us they’d want to fight just to get the upper hand. Animals behaved like animals even when they were demons.
“They were the first sacrifices,” Farmwife answered.
I blinked. “Say what?”
“You’ll find out,” Geek Boy said.
“I’d rather you told me.”
“We can’t.” Farmwife wrung her big, hard hands. “The Phoenix ordered us not to.”
“You always do what she says?”
“We have no choice. She raised us; we’re slaves. We’ll be the army once the sacrifice is made, and the Prince has come.”
As if that explained everything—and it kinda did—Farmwife turned and rejoined the others.
“Where do you think she is?” I murmured, gaze fixed on the army of the living dead.
Jimmy remained silent for so long I didn’t think he was going to answer. When I finally managed to drag my eyes from the revenants, I saw a reflection of all my fears cross his face.
“I think she’s raising every graveyard between here and Canada.”
“Me too,” I said. “And the sacrifice?”
He lifted a brow.
Yeah, it was us.
“Go up now.” Geek Boy pointed to the staircase, then motioned to Farmwife, who sent several of the revenants toward the rear of the house while a few took up guard duty at the front door. “If she comes back and you aren’t where she told us you should be—”
“She’ll kill you?” Jimmy asked, then glanced at me.
Without even touching him, I knew what he was thinking. If we went upstairs we were toast. We were going to have to break away from them and find another plan.
“I’ll stay right here,” Jimmy continued, “and save myself the trouble of dusting you.”
“No.” Geek Boy pulled a long, thin golden stiletto from his pocket. “You’ll do what I say or I’ll dust you.”
Farmwife gasped. “You mustn’t!”
Geek Boy ignored her, placing the tip of the stiletto against Jimmy’s chest.
I took a step forward; Farmwife grabbed my chain and yanked me back. The golden links scraped my wrists and agony shot everywhere.
“Twice to the heart,” Geek Boy whispered. Then he tilted his head and slashed the stiletto through the air like d’Artagnan before pointing it at one of Jimmy’s narrowed eyes. “Maybe here, or . . .”
He ran the blade along Jimmy’s cheek, over his chin and down his neck. Wherever the knife touched, it left a long black line that turned quickly to red. The sound of meat sizzling on a grill filled the room, along with the scent of roasting flesh.
“Stop,” I ordered.
The revenant spun toward me. “Shut up. You’re next.”
“Come on,” I urged. “Show me what you got.”
I didn’t care that my hands were bound, that with my collar on and no Sawyer in sight I was basically a slightly stronger and faster human. What mattered was that I wouldn’t die as easily as Jimmy and that the revenant didn’t kill him.
“No,” Jimmy ordered. “Deal with me. Unless you’re chicken.”
The revenant rolled his eyes. “Do I look like I’m twelve? That I’d actually care if you thought I was a coward?” He tightened his grip on the stiletto. I tensed, prepared to drag Farmwife along with me as I plowed into the guy like a middle linebacker.
I needn’t have worried. The instant Geek Boy came close enough, Sanducci head-butted him in the nose.
The resulting smack echoed throughout the house. The pudgy kid landed at my feet, blood spraying from his nostrils like a fountain. I kicked him in the head, then bent my knee and pile-drived onto his chest.
Farmwife got her arm around my neck and started to strangle me. She might not want Geek Boy to kill us, but she wasn’t going to let us kill him either. She was strong—stronger than she should be even after lifting hay bales for forty years—but she wasn’t me.
I flipped her forward, letting her own weight carry her over my head. She landed on her back with a crack, and then she had enough worries trying to breathe. Luckily, she’d let go of my leash when she fell, or I’d have been dragged off Geek Boy completely—probably dislocating my shoulder in the process—and I wasn’t finished with him yet.
My knee did good work, so I stood halfway up, changed my position just a bit, then drove downward again. This time I felt his testicles go crunch. Now who couldn’t breathe?
The revenants that had been guarding the door came forward in a rush. The blood flowing from his forehead and down his face impaired Jimmy’s vision, but he didn’t let that stop him.
He was a dhampir. He could “feel” vampires. But from the way he reacted to the revenants, he could feel them, too. He didn’t need to see them. All he had to do was wait until they were close enough, and then he kicked one unerringly in the knee. The guy fell backward into a second while Jimmy twirled and got the third in the throat with his foot. Snap, thud, pop.
The commotion brought others. Revenants appeared at the top of the stairs; they ran in from the rear of the house. Shouts rose from outside.
Blood from Jimmy’s forehead had spattered across the front of his brightly tie-dyed Sesame Street shirt, but the wound was already partly healed.
Our eyes met. As one we moved closer together; shoulder-to-shoulder we faced the staircase.
“I could try and tear your collar off with my teeth,” he muttered, chains rattling as he attempted to break them again.
My gaze on the revenants pouring down the stairs, I returned, “I bet it would be more fun if I took yours off with my teeth.”
He choked. “You’re so damn—”
I never found out if I was so damn dumb, so damn funny, so damn wonderful, because the front door banged open, slamming against the wall; bits of plaster skittered everywhere. All the revenants froze, wide-eyed, and then they cowered.
Jimmy cursed. I winced. I didn’t want to turn and see who could make zombies cringe.
A few of them began to beg. “No, please.”
“Wait!”
Then there was a cry, a thunk, then a thunk, thunk, thunk and dust drifted past my nose like confetti. Jimmy looked at me; I looked at him and we turned.
Sawyer was too busy staking revenants to notice either one of us.