Zombies Sold Separately

TEN



Zombies.

My entire body started to shake as the six Zombies walked, stumbled, and shuffled toward me. What I’d smelled earlier was stronger now. Much stronger.

At that moment I realized the flashes of the little girl, the young man, and the creature weren’t random images.

They were memories … memories I had repressed as a child.

That little girl had been me.

That young man had been my brother.

That creature had been a Zombie.

My body shook so hard I almost dropped my dagger. Nothing had ever affected me the way these Zombies were now.

I couldn’t move. As if the Zombies had me enthralled. Gripped me with some kind of horrible magic.

The shaking grew so bad my teeth chattered. The Zombies were feet away from me now.

Blood rushed in my ears, the sound so loud that I barely heard the Zombies’ whimpering moans or the screams of the captured women. My vision blurred so that the Zombies’ decaying faces were not more than blobs, like opaque skulls.

A whooshing sound overhead. A roar that caused the ground to tremble. A strange, shrieking battle cry.

The smell of burned flesh.

“Nyx!” My name came to me from somewhere nearby. A powerful roar jarred me. Threw me out of my stupor.

I sucked in my breath and realized I had stopped breathing. My head swam and I struggled to regain myself.

The Zombies were so close I couldn’t see beyond them.

A Zombie reached for me.

My reaction was automatic. I brought my dagger down. Bone snapped as my blade severed the Zombie’s forearm.

Its moan was a wounded cry.

I didn’t pause and I ran the dagger through the chest of the Zombie. It stumbled away as I jerked the blade out.

Other Zombies grabbed for me. They were so close my buckler was useless to me. I dropped it and drew my second Dragon-claw dagger.

I went after my attackers. I felt the heat of the dangerous flash in my eyes. Danger for them.

With one dagger I severed a Zombie’s head from its body. Using the other dagger I stabbed another Zombie in the heart.

I planted my boot in the midsection of a third Zombie and thrust it away from me with a side kick.

I twisted the dagger, then jerked it out by the hilt.

The Zombie kept coming.

More hands reached for me.

I dropped to the ground and rolled out of reach.

A blast of heat. Close.

Cries. Shrieks. Tortured moans.

Stronger smell of burned flesh.

I pushed myself to my feet. Came to a stop.

My heart leapt to my throat and I took a step back.

Before me were the smoking remains of the Zombies that had been attacking me.

Towering behind the charred pile of bones was a scaled creature. A burst of fear tore through my gut.

Turn. Run. Get away.

A Dragon.

Huge. Towering above me.

Gold and orange-yellow scales glittered in the light coming from the park’s lampposts. The Dragon was the size of a garbage truck. Each of its claws was as long as my arm, the point of each claw appearing as sharp as the blade of a sword.

A long, spiked tail swung back and forth, brushing the snow away in a slow even rhythm. A ridge ran from the back of its head to the end of its tail.

Behind the Dragon and to either side of it, trees had been uprooted and gouged by the creature’s tail. And many had probably been knocked down by the scaled wings it held close to its body.

Smoke curled out of its nostrils, and the curved horns on its head and the short horn on the end of its snout were soft gold. Its large burnished gold eyes didn’t reflect our surroundings. Instead, flames danced within them.

It spread out its enormous golden wings, tipped its massive head back, and roared. I flinched at the power behind its terrible cry. Gripping my daggers tight, I took another step back.

I knew it was Colin. On some level I knew the Dragon wouldn’t hurt me. Rational warred with irrational. What if Colin wasn’t conscious of his human side when in Dragon form?

Yet at the same time I knew Rodán and the Great Guardian would never have allowed Colin to be a Tracker if he didn’t have control over his inner Dragon. Maybe he had to struggle with it, but he would win that battle within.

I stopped backing away from the Dragon and stared at it before sheathing my daggers. The creature focused on me with its large golden eyes.

The moment the Dragon moved, my breath hitched in my chest. I automatically reached for my daggers again.

But it settled down on its haunches, its tail curled around its side, enormous claws sinking into the ground that was now bare of snow.

Something moved in the corner of my eye. I scooped up my buckler, ready to fling it.

An unconscious woman was draped over Penrod’s arms. The Sprite laid her on a park bench that was a little charred but still strong enough to hold her weight.

The Sprite appeared to accept the Dragon’s presence as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. Penrod walked past the creature and came to stand beside me.

Penrod looked toward the woman and then at me. “We were only able to save one female.”

The sick feeling in my gut made me want to throw up. My inability to perform my job had cost the other woman her life. If I hadn’t been frozen with irrational fear, I could have saved both women.

Penrod shook his big head. “It was not your fault.”

If mind reading was one of the Sprite’s talents I was going to have to go to my father and demand that he teach me how to shield my thoughts. My father taught me talents when he felt it was time to. Well, it might be sooner than he had planned.

Gold sparkled around the Dragon. Light grew bright around the creature until it was a white-hot brilliance that I shaded my eyes from.

When the light faded away and darkness shrouded the park again, I looked back toward the Dragon.

It wasn’t there anymore.

In its place was Colin.

The relief I felt at seeing him instead of the Dragon was surprising.

He still wore jeans, T-shirt, and workout shoes, but his face and arms were covered with sweat and his chest rose and fell with his each heavy breath. He pushed his damp hair away from his face and behind his shoulders.

“Better call one of your Soothsayers.” Colin walked toward me. “We don’t have much time.”

I blinked, feeling like I was coming out of a trance. “How long have we been out here?” It seemed like hours.

Colin looked up at the cloud-bleary sky then back at me. “Ten minutes at most.”

“That’s it?” I unholstered my phone. “From the time I got here until this moment?” Just the time I’d been frozen at the sight of the Zombies seemed longer than that. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so off-balance.

“Yep.” Colin looked at the uprooted trees, a downed park fence, a smashed garbage can, and the shattered glass that glittered on snow from a smashed light post. “That’s the drawback of being so big without much fighting space.” He wiped sweat from his face with his hand. “I hope you have plant Healers.”

“Seemed so much longer,” I said, repeating my thought as I dialed the phone.

I explained the situation to Rodán.

One Soothsayer and one plant Healer on the way.

In the time it took Lulu and Sara to arrive, Colin, Penrod, and I only had time to take a quick inventory of the place. Assorted body parts, a dead man and a dead woman whose bodies were still intact, and an unconscious woman on a park bench. All of the Zombies had been toasted, leaving only piles of black soot on patches of grass where the snow had been melted away.

A few onlookers gathered and cell phones were in hand the moment they’d spotted the devastation.

“Why me?” Lulu’s agitated grumble carried through the park at the same time every onlooker froze in place. “And why you?” she said when she came into view and spotted me.

The Manx cat Doppler, Lulu, and I never had gotten along, not since my very first PI case when she’d had to freeze an entire city block because I hadn’t called Rodán fast enough. She’d really been put out over that one.

Every other time I’d seen her on a scene over the past two-plus years, she’d looked perfect. Tonight she looked like a train wreck.

Lulu’s tangled hair strung out behind her as she marched toward me, rather than her locks lying over her shoulders in long, glossy blond ringlets. Her lips thinned with anger and looked almost white without her normal bright pink lipstick.

Her face was scrunched into a scowl, her skin Vampire-pale from lack of blusher or foundation. With no eye makeup and no mascara her eyes looked smaller than they usually did when she glared at me.

Instead of wearing one of her lacy frou-frou dresses she was in a pair of gray sweatpants and a stained T-shirt.

“What are you looking at, Sprite?” Lulu scowled at Penrod before she turned her glare back on me. “Another one of your stupid messes that I have to clean up.” She was nearly shouting at me as she marched through the snow in rubber boots that did not complement her sweatpants. “No one else creates the kinds of disasters that you do. I don’t have time for—”

Then Lulu saw Colin. She came to a stop, her mouth still open. Her cheeks reddened giving her face some color.

She only paused for a moment, staring at Colin, before she turned and fled.

Lulu wasn’t Elvin or Fae, so her boots made loud slapping sounds over the ground where the snow had melted. Her steps changed to a muffled crunching sound when she reached a snow drift.

“Did I do something wrong?” Colin looked at me as Lulu ran across the park. “Is that female afraid of Dragons?”

I almost couldn’t help it. I wanted to laugh so badly. “Knowing Lulu, she’s mortified because she isn’t, er, prepared to be seen by a hot guy.” I glanced at him and grinned. “No pun intended.”

Colin smiled. “Who is she?”

“The Soothsayer who froze this scene and who erases the memories of anyone who witnessed what happened here.” I gestured around us. “Lulu’s good at what she does…”

Colin raised his eyebrows in a questioning look as I trailed off from what would obviously a have been a “but” statement.

It wasn’t for me to say anything bad about Lulu. It was one thing to talk about the Soothsayer with Olivia who shared in experiencing Lulu’s better-than-thou attitude. The three of us had been in enough personal conflicts that it wasn’t gossip if Olivia and I shared a few “insights” on Lulu from time to time.

Colin, on the other hand, didn’t know Lulu, and he should be allowed to form his own opinion of the Soothsayer without me coloring his judgment. Even if she was a dolt.

Penrod ambled up to us. “I have never seen such strange beings.”

“I have,” Colin and I said at the same time.

I looked at him in surprise. “You’ve seen Zombies before?”

“In Otherworld.” The Dragon studied me. “Almost a quarter of a century ago.” Leave it to a Dragon to talk in centuries.

Memories started bombarding me again. Memories I’d forced away for so many years hit me, one after another.

Me as a little girl.

My only brother.

A Zombie.

“Twenty-two years ago,” I said as I tried to maintain my composure. “When I was five.”

“Are you all right?” Genuine concern was in Colin’s eyes and in the tone of his voice. “What happened?”

No, I wasn’t okay. Something inside me was sick, shaken. The black sludge I’d been feeling after my nightmares filled my belly. I still hadn’t pieced everything together and I definitely wasn’t ready to talk about it.

I gestured to Paranormal Task Force agents who were coming into the park. “We’d better take a look around before the PTF cleans up.”


* * *



Rodán folded his hands on his Dryad-wood desk and looked at them. He had long tapered fingers. His skin was smooth, soft, golden.

When he looked at me his crystal green eyes appeared darker than normal. Almost emerald in color.

“I am taking you off the case, Nyx.” Rodán’s features were set, his tone firm, unyielding.

My jaw dropped and I just stared at him. For a moment there was complete silence in his den as I sat across the desk from him.

I clenched the armrests of my chair. “You did not just say that you’re taking me off of the Zombie case.” I managed not to flinch at the word “Zombie.”

“Yes.” Rodán leaned back in his chair. “I’ll appoint Angel as team leader in your place.”

My skin began to burn and my face grew hot. If the chair hadn’t been made of Dryad wood, the armrests would have broken off as hard as I was gripping them.

“You are too close to this one,” Rodán said. “I’d like you to—”

“What do you mean I’m too close?” My voice rose in pitch as I started to rise in my chair.

“You lost a family member.” Rodán’s features remained calm, neutral. For the first time ever, I wanted to slap him.

“Don’t tell me I’m too close to this case to do my job.” I stood and clenched my hands into fists at my sides. “I’m damned good at what I do and I’ll solve this.”

“No.” Rodán tilted his head back and studied me. “You compromised yourself tonight when you froze up. You compromised your team.”

“Are you saying that I’m unprofessional? That I can’t do my job?” So much anger built up inside me that I started to shake with the white heat of it. “If you take me off the team then you might as well consider this my resignation.”

Surprise flickered across his features. “Nyx—”

“If you don’t respect me, if you think I’m not good enough to lead this team,” I said as I jerked my phone out of its holster on my weapons belt, “then I don’t belong here anymore.” I slammed my phone on his desk. “I won’t be needing this to reach you, will I.”

My eyesight blurred from the strength of my anger. How dare he?

I whirled and headed away from his desk toward the stairs and nearly ran into Rodán. With Elvin speed he’d gotten up from his chair and was now standing in front of me, grasping my upper arms.

“Nyx.” His voice was low now, a soft plea that startled me. “It’s not about you being unprofessional. You’re the best I have. But there is no perfect Tracker who can do it all. You’re simply too emotionally involved with this one, Nyx. I—we almost lost you on the last operation. I don’t want to take the chance of losing you again.”

All my life I’d had someone make the decisions for me before I left Otherworld. My father wouldn’t allow me to participate in actual operations because not only am I a princess and his daughter, but Drow males will never work side by side with Drow females.

Here in the Earth Otherworld I’d never been held back like Rodán was trying to do to me now.

And I wasn’t about to let it start.

“What about Angel?” I put my palms on his chest and pushed away from him. He let his hands fall to his sides. “Aren’t you concerned about her?”

“Of course—”

“And the next op—are you going to decide it’s too dangerous, too?” I had to hold back to keep from shouting at him. “Are you going to decide that I’m compromised in some way that will affect my ability to be a Night Tracker?”

“This is different.” Rodán took a step toward me, decreasing the distance I’d just put between us. “You saw Zombies devastate your people.” His tone was almost fierce with concern. “You lost your brother to them.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t do my job.” My voice was nearly hoarse with anger.

“I told you that you’re the best I have,” he said. “I just don’t think you belong on this op.”

“I don’t need this.” I raised my hands. “You say I’m the best you have, yet you don’t respect me enough to keep me as team leader.”

“Of course I respect—”

I cut across his words. “When have I ever let you down? When have I ever not come through for you? We lost one of my best friends, Caprice, during the Demon op. Did it compromise my performance? No. If anything it crystallized my resolve to defeat the Demons.”

“Listen to me,” Rodán said in a way meant to calm me down.

“You listen to me.” I don’t think I’d ever been so angry as I was at that moment. “As I see it, Rodán, you have two choices.”

“Nyx—”

I put my palm up, facing him, telling him to shut up with the movement. “First choice is that things stay the way they are and I lead this operation as a Night Tracker.”

My hands shook and I clenched them again. “Second choice is I walk away and I’ll never track again.” My words sounded cold, hard, and that was exactly how I’d meant them. “I’ll work on the Zombie case on my own as a PI. Either way I will work on it.”

“Wait—”

“I’ve loved working for you,” I said. “I’ve loved being a Tracker. But I don’t need this. I’ve never been more shocked by one of your decisions. I don’t need to work for someone who doesn’t have confidence in me.” I put my hands on my hips above my weapons belt. “Whatever decision you make right this instant will determine exactly what it is I’m going to do.”

I clamped my mouth shut to keep myself from saying anything else while I waited for him to speak. My heart thundered and my skin prickled.

“That is no choice.” He looked resigned. “I can’t lose you. I won’t lose you.”

I raised my chin but some of my anger started to slide away, and my tone calmed a bit. “Rodán, you know I’m the best Tracker to lead this case. You know that. But you’re removing me for your personal reasons. A fear for my well being.”

Before he could say anything, I continued. “This isn’t right. None of this. You’re replacing me with Angel, who is a good Tracker but doesn’t have the record I do. I’m not the one who’s compromised by emotions and personal feelings.

“I understand you care and at some level I appreciate that,” I continued, “but it’s you who must make decisions for the good of all. You can’t make a choice to put someone in charge who’s not the very best.”

“Perhaps my decision is driven in part by my concern for you,” Rodán said. “But Nyx, you did lose a family member to the Zombies and it resulted in your freezing up tonight.” Rodán paused. “But I also know that you’re right. You have never let me down. You have always come through in the end, have always gotten the job done.”

I took a deep breath. “Then what is your answer? Am I a Tracker or not?”

Rodán’s eyes met and held mine for a long moment. “Everything will remain as it was,” he said, his tone quiet. “You will continue to lead this operation.”

I didn’t look away or show how his statement affected me. The relief that poured through me.

“As it should be,” Rodán said, “it’s up to you and your team to solve this case.”