“You practically checked my tonsils for infection, Gavin.”
He barked out a laugh. “Ha! If you were lucky enough to be kissed by me, you’d still be screaming with pleasure.”
“You say pleasure, I say—” I spotted the telltale red eyes in the distance. Inhaling sharply, I smelled the putrid stink of rot. My ears twitched, and I heard the grunts and groans of a hunger never to be satisfied. “They’re here.”
He got serious in a snap, and we picked up the pace.
Seconds before I reached the creatures, I summoned the fire, and just like that, my entire body erupted with flames. Then contact, contact, contact. Ash, ash, ash. The fight wasn’t even fair anymore, I thought with a surge of satisfaction.
The zombies had no defense.
But then, they weren’t the ones we were after tonight.
The remaining monsters branched off, half surrounding me, half surrounding Gavin. The air was so fetid it clogged my nose and tickled my throat. I gagged, felt the flames begin to sputter and practically danced through the ranks to fell as many monsters as possible before it was too late.
I focused on Gavin and realized he hadn’t had the same level of success. Around twenty of the mutated zombies still encompassed him as he sliced and hacked with his blades. I moved toward him, but not fast enough. One managed to crawl up behind him and bite into his calf. Howling with pain, Gavin dropped to the knees.
I dived for the creature, and at the moment of contact my flames licked over him. Buh-bye now.
“Others,” Gavin rasped, the toxin already working through his bloodstream.
I destroyed the remaining zombies and crouched at Gavin’s side, whipping the antidote from my pocket and sticking him in the neck. The white-gold flames hadn’t dissipated, I realized too late. They licked over his throat and face, and he howled, his entire body bowing.
“I’m sorry!” I hadn’t meant... Might have... Crap! What if I’d just signed his death warrant?
He screamed as the flames disappeared under his skin. I fell backward, panting, praying, trying not to panic, and then, babbling, “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” as he quieted and sagged against the brittle grass, still breathing.
He would live.
As the flames at last left me, I looked around and realized piles of ash surrounded us.
Piles I’d seen in our vision.
Excited, and trying not to give way to a rise of dread, I reached out and slapped Gavin across the cheek. “Wake up!”
“I am. Jeez, woman! That hurt.”
There was enough derision in his voice to scare the bravest of men, but I could only laugh.
“What just happened?” he demanded.
“I think the flames burned through the toxin.” Chased away the darkness, like the journal had promised. “Is the toxin still active?”
He thought for a moment, blinked. A sense of amazement radiated from him. “No. It’s gone.”
Would his flames have the same affect on me? Or, because I was part zombie, would his flames destroy me? Either way, I now knew without a doubt this was the solution I’d been hoping for; there just wasn’t time to explore it.
I climbed to my feet and helped him do the same. “Stay aware.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” he said, mocking me as I’d mocked Cole.
Footsteps suddenly beat into my awareness. I spun, my heart drumming swiftly. Hazmats. Coming at us from every angle, soon surrounding us. Guns aimed at our heads.
Because they weren’t slayers, but could see us, I knew they were in spirit form. They must have used the mechanical device Dr. Bendari mentioned.
Gavin and I pressed back to back.
“Where is he?” Kelly demanded as he removed his mask. “What have you done with him?”
The vision.
“Who? Your precious son?” I grinned. Payback sucks, doesn’t it? “I think I’ll keep that information to myself.”
A cock of a gun. “Actually, why don’t I show you where he is?” Cole said from behind him.
Kelly paled.