This time, the jock zombie screamed and stumbled back.
Nick whacked him with the pan, then turned to help Rosa battle the other one. He barely reached them before the one he’d bashed grabbed him from behind. Zombie number one locked a hold on him that was like steel.
Nick let out a snarl as his injured shoulder was jostled. “No you din’t!” Head-butting the zombie, he broke free.
Two seconds later, something so bright it blinded him ripped through the kitchen.
Nick shielded his eyes as he heard the zombies screaming in agony. When he lowered his hand and could final y see again, he staggered back in shock.
The zombies were gone and in their place was what had to be the tal est man he’d ever seen.
His mouth fel open in stone-cold shock.
“Are you al right, Rosa?” the man asked in flawless Spanish.
“Sí, Acheron. Gracias.”
The door behind Acheron slammed shut without anyone or anything touching it. Acheron moved toward him with the deadly gait of a ferocious predator. With long black hair streaked with green, he wore a pair of opaque sunglasses that kept Nick from seeing his eyes. Dressed al in black with a glow-in-the-dark vampire skul on his T-shirt, he had a black backpack slung over one shoulder. A backpack that had an anarchy symbol painted on it.
“Nice meeting you, Nick.”
He tensed at Acheron’s strange lilting accent. He’d never heard anything like it in his life. “How do you know my name?”
“I know lots of things.”
Yeah … and that thought seriously creeped him out. Was the dude a stalker?
Nick looked around the room. There was no trace left of their attackers. “What happened to the jocks?”
“My demon ate them.” Acheron said that with such a deadpan tone that Nick could almost believe him.
“Riiiight.” Nick nodded his head in an act of brazen sarcasm. “And I suppose the Big Bad Wolf wil be coming in right behind you to finish up? Or is it the Gingerbread Man I need to fear?”
Acheron gave him a lopsided grin. “Kyrian was right, you are a smart—” He glanced to Rosa before he amended what he’d started to say. “Aleck.” He pul ed his cel phone out, which looked freakishly tiny in his huge hand, and cal ed someone.
Nick frowned at Rosa, who’d gone over to the sink to wash the blood from her cleaver and knife like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Why was he suddenly hearing the Addams Family song playing in his head?
What kind of bizarre crack-house lunacy was this?
“Am I the only one weirded out by what just went down? You two are acting too … too … normal about it al . I mean this …
is definitely not your typical day.” Acheron snorted. “Depends on the neighborhood. … ” He paused to talk into the phone. “Hey, Kyrian, you might want to finish that shower and get down here. Your home was just invaded by zombies while Rosa and your boy fought them off.
Just FYI.”
Wel , that explained why Kyrian hadn’t heard the commotion and come down to investigate it.
Hanging up the phone, Acheron walked over to Rosa and whispered in Spanish. Nick wasn’t sure how he understood, since he personal y didn’t speak Spanish, but he did. “Forget everything that happened. The food spil ed on the floor by accident and nothing out of the ordinary took place. No attack.
Just another day. … ”
He looked at Nick, who took a step back in severe trepidation of what this stranger was going to do to him. When Acheron lifted his hand, Nick bolted for the front of the house.
Get out of here. Now! That was a crazy demonic-sounding voice in his head, but he didn’t question it. He just ran like mad.
Rounding the staircase, he skidded to a halt as Acheron appeared directly in front of him out of thin air. Only this time, Nick didn’t see Acheron in the body of a young man.
He saw …
Someone with fangs, mottled blue skin, black lips, and horns. The image was there in a flash and then gone. Like a freaked-out hal ucination.
What had been in that gumbo?
It’s supernatural.
I don’t believe in that. Yet how could he deny what he was seeing? This wasn’t normal. This wasn’t chemical-induced, bioweaponed zombies. … There was no logical way for Acheron to have gotten in front of him and just appeared like that. Just like the door slamming shut when he entered the kitchen, or the flash of light.
It was impossible.
Utterly impossible.
No longer sure what he could believe, Nick swal owed.
“What are you?”
Acheron scowled. “Completely perplexed. You remember everything that happened.” It was a statement of fact and not a question … as if Acheron was inside his head.
“Yeah. Duh. Not like you’re going to forget the kil er zombie stalkers and psyched-out kitchen staff. What kind of freak show is this?”
Acheron gave an evil laugh. “You have no idea, Nick. But my question is: Why are the zombies after you?”
“Oh heck no, bud. The question is: Why you got horns on your head and black lips?”