Apocalyptic Mojo (4 page)

A putrid breeze blew Ardith’s silky hair across his shoulder and he barely stayed himself from shoving her to the ground.

Ardith
. The disembodied voice flowed past them, physically insubstantial but emotionally devastating.

The witch trembled against his back. Though they’d begun a yard apart, circling to face whatever came for them, they’d somehow gotten so close together that they were in each other’s way when they tried to move.

His own hands were damp. He found himself continually wiping them across his shirt so his knives didn’t slip from his grasp.

The breeze strengthened, swirled, sending sound and scent whirling past at such a rate he could no longer tell what came from which direction.

Welcome
. The phantom voice strengthened, no longer a whisper. But Draigh doubted it was meant as a summons.

Wel-come
. The voice repeated in an amused tone. The disembodied voice was growing more insistent as they continued on down the passageway, stepping carefully sideways so they could stay back-to-back for protection. They stumbled repeatedly as the darkness and the swirling air turned their sense of direction on its head.

“I don’t like this greeting ritual,” Ardith croaked.

“Nor do I, witch. Just stay close.”

“Buddy, if I was any closer you’d be wearing me for a suit.”

Despite his discomfort, Draigh couldn’t help smiling at the thought. “Remind me to take you up on that later.”

Her snort told him she was holding on to her nerve. If only barely.

“I wish we could see where the hell we were going.”

Draigh swore. He’d been so wrapped up in the situation that he hadn’t been thinking. He opened his hand, calling forth the guide. The guide was comprised of the magic inherent in the air around them. It was a hunter’s magic to call. From the highest reaches of the passageway, even from the rock surrounding them, tiny blue sparks disengaged and danced in his direction, spinning into a solid cylinder of light that rested on his hand.

Once engaged, the guide cast a soft glow around Draigh and Ardith, a slight thickening in its depths telling Draigh the rogue witch wasn’t all that far ahead of them in the passageway.

He sucked in a relieved breath and stopped, his heart quickening.

“That’s bett—” Ardith’s words died on her lips as the light flickered, spread and illuminated the most terrifying sight Draigh had ever seen.

A sea of dead eyes, sloughing flesh and ooze surrounded them.

Silent, waiting, deadly.

Zombies.

As far as the eye could see.

CHAPTER FOUR

Somewhere high above their heads a raven cawed, drawing their gazes upward. The enormous black bird circled and landed on the shoulder of the woman standing on a ledge of rock at the far end of the cavern. The woman smiled and Ardith’s skin did a slow crawl.

“Welcome.”

Without its magical mojo, Edwige’s voice was soft and almost friendly. It bounced weirdly around the cavern, sliding like oil over Ardith’s skin.

The plump witch had shiny black hair cut in a chin-length bob and eyes that sparked bright blue even in the low light. Ardith knew from the background she’d studied on Edwige that the raven on her shoulder was her familiar. “Sister.”

Edwige’s smile widened at the term. “You still consider me so?”

“Of course. We’re sisters in the arts, aren’t we? You just dabble darker than I do.”

Edwige’s laughter made the zombies’ heads swivel in her direction. It was clear they didn’t hear the sound often. “You cannot blame me for perfecting my special skills.” She cocked her dark head. “Can you?”

“When your practice ends in the deaths of others, we will do more than blame you, hag.” Draigh’s handsome face was dark with anger.

Edwige turned her round face in his direction. “Ah, the mountain of muscle speaks. I’m amazed you have the brain capacity to form words.” She smiled when Draigh growled softly. “I have killed no one, Hunter.”

“Technically that is correct. You’ve had your slimy minions do it.”

Edwige didn’t bother to deny his accusation.

The zombies began to twitch and move. Ardith leaned toward Draigh, speaking in a whisper that she hoped wouldn’t fly around the cavern as their voices had. “Maybe we should try to play nice for the moment, given the fact that we’re outnumbered about a hundred-to-one by dead people.”

She felt him stiffen against her back. Frickin’ awesome. His legendary stubbornness would get them killed. But his next words made Ardith reconsider her ill opinion of him.

“We come only to speak with you, Edwige witch. We request passage through your…flock…so we may do so.”

Edwige cocked her head again. The mannerism seemed drawn from her raven familiar. A long moment passed, thick with tension. Then she inclined her head ever so slightly and her bright gaze slipped around the room. The zombies started to move. Draigh’s knives came up and Ardith lifted her hands, ready to attack.

But the zombies shuffled backward, away from them, and a path started to open between Ardith and Draigh and the zombie queen.

“Well done,” Ardith whispered to Draigh. “I didn’t think you had it in ya.”

He glowered down at her as they started to work their way through the ragged opening of slimy dead people, toward the zombie queen. “You have no idea what I’m capable of, witch.”

He said the words with such heat that Ardith’s eyebrows lifted. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“See that you do.”

Edwige’s familiar fluttered its wings as they stopped before her, one step down so they were looking up into her deceptively rosy face. “What brings you to my part of the world, sister? And why do you soil my home with the likes of this creature?”

Ardith pressed her arm against Draigh’s as he stiffened. “Let’s not play word games, Edwige. You’ve been creating an army and killing people. The council can’t allow that to continue. Surely you understand the problems this causes us.”

Edwige held Ardith’s gaze for a long moment and then said, “Joris, come.”

The shadows split behind Edwige and Draigh’s knife was up before Ardith could blink. Behind them, the zombies gave a roar and surged forward.

Ardith grabbed Draigh’s thick wrist, her fingers straining to hold it.

The young man who stepped from the shadows looked like an angel. His fine-featured face was perfection. Thick golden hair fell in waves to broad shoulders. The man’s face was smooth, his mouth lush and his jaw was strong. The wide, long-lashed eyes were a crystal blue, so clear they could only have been created from magic.

He was slim, long limbed and moved with a lithe grace. As he stopped beside Edwige, she turned with a smile that told Ardith everything she needed to know. The witch was completely bespelled by young Joris.

She glanced toward Draigh, her gaze darkening. “My apprentice. What I do, I do for him. For his protection. I would do anything for Joris, make no mistake, hunter.”

Ardith frowned. “Has he been threatened?”

“There are those who don’t understand his perfection. Some who call him witch. I create my army for his protection. I do not engage war, sister. I only defend against those who would promote it.”

“Surely you understand how close the situation is to exploding, Edwige. The council fears another flare up of witch trials. That can’t be allowed to happen. Can you move Joris to another place? Maybe another time?”

Edwige’s face darkened. “I cannot move through time, sister. I am not epoch.”

“I understand, but the council could help you relocate. Wherever or whenever you wish.”

“What of the innocents she’s killed?”

“I’ve killed no innocents, hunter. They plotted against me…against us.” Edwige reached out and clasped Joris’s hand. He gave her a beatific smile. There was something about Edwige’s apprentice that bothered Ardith.

He was too perfect, almost plastic in his perfection. And there was no genuine emotion feeding his gaze.

She could see why the human population distrusted him.

“I can inform the council that you and Joris have agreed to be relocated then?”

Edwige fixed a hostile gaze on Draigh. “No. I think not. This one plans to exterminate us wherever we go. I see it in his eyes.

Draigh didn’t deny her accusation.

Ardith didn’t look at him, afraid she’d see the truth of the witch’s words in his face.

Edwige continued, “This is my home. I have plans here. I will not let the girlish fears of a few who have no real power over me destroy what I’ve created in this place.”

Ardith frowned. “If you stay it’s as good as declaring war on the council.”

Edwige’s slow, deliberate perusal held an obvious message.
Bring it, sister
. Her words were slightly more diplomatic. “I do not wish war with my brothers and sisters. But if my living here as I wish is the cause of that battle, I will fight it. And make no mistake, sister, I will win.”

Ardith clenched her fists, already drawing her power forward. “So be it.”

Edwige lifted her hands and the cavern erupted in a roar as the zombies stirred and started forward, razor-sharp teeth snapping. Hundreds of pairs of dead, glassy eyes fixed unswervingly on Draigh and Ardith as they moved inexorably forward, claw-like hands reaching.

Ardith turned back to Edwige and discovered her gone. Along with her apprentice. There would be no help from that quarter.

Draigh had his knives out, the impressive muscles of his arms bulging as he anticipated the first wave of nastiness.

Ardith pulled her power forward and waited with it tingling in her fingertips. But even as she prepared to do her worst, she knew it wouldn’t be enough. She and the hunter would be overcome fairly quickly by the sheer number of the monsters closing in on them.

It would be a slow, painful and slimy death. Ardith’s mind spun as she tried to come up with a way to escape certain death. There was only one way she could think of, and she was reluctant to pull her precious familiar into such a dangerous place.

Finally deciding it wasn’t worth the risk to Sirius, whose skills and guidance would be passed to the next witch in a long line of witches in her family when she was dead, Ardith did the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. She placed a block on her mind to keep Sirius from feeling her death and prepared to take out as many zombies as she could before she went down.

Claws scraped down her arm and Ardith spun, sending witch fire between the zombie’s eyes. Its spongy head exploded like a melon, dousing the dead ones around it. They came on, hands outstretched, jaws snapping, as Draigh swung both arms, lopping off heads almost faster than Ardith’s eyes could register the movements. She sent power around her in an arc, slicing off limbs and severing heads as each new group of nightmarish creatures appeared.

Blood sprayed, gore splashed and the cavern smelled like a broken meat locker filled with spoiling meat.

Still Draigh slashed. Ardith spit deadly fire from her fingertips. And zombies continued to come. Layer after layer after layer of them, snapping, clawing and swinging heavy, rocklike arms.

Draigh was rammed by a particularly large male zombie who had only half of his face and fell sideways. The hunter caught himself before he fell and cut off the zombie’s head before surging back into the battle.

Ardith wasn’t quite so lucky. She fell over a severed limb on the ground and slipped in a slimy puddle of blood. Icy hot pain blossomed in her shoulder as a disease-ridden mouth wrenched her flesh, ripping into her as she fell. Spittle flew as the zombie whipped its head back and forth, trying to rip her arm out of its socket.

Claws ripped down her side, and she was tugged sideways as another powerful jaw closed over her other wrist. Strung between two rabid zombies, Ardith was dragged in opposite directions, her bones felt as if they were being ripped slowly apart. She screamed and fell to her knees as her vision went gray from the exquisite agony.

Teeth gnawed on her fingers. Claws dug furrows in her flesh.

The pile of zombies surrounding her thickened as more and more grasping claws reached for her. She prayed for a quick end, knowing she had no more magic in her.

Cool, thick blood spurted and the pressing pile of monsters started to ripple and fall away. A knife flashed past her head and one of the arms that was wrapped around her shoulders slipped away and fell to the ground. The zombie’s head followed, nearly hitting her on its way down. Draigh’s massive, blood-coated fist reached through the zombies and grabbed her arm, pulling her free of the pile.

The hunter threw her over his shoulder and started to run, heading toward the front of the cavern. Draigh hit the steps Edwige had occupied earlier, slashing backward at the pursuing zombies as he climbed the gore-strewn stairs in two strides.

He rammed the wooden door until it gave way, then slammed it shut in the faces of the pressing hordes, slicing off a few moldy fingers in the process. Breathing heavily, he lowered Ardith to the floor and grabbed a massive table next to the door, shoving it beneath the knob as the zombie hordes pounded and slammed against it.

He leaned against the table, panting.

Ardith gritted her teeth against the incredible pain in her shoulder and pushed herself upright. “Thank you. I thought it was over back there.”

He swiped a hand over his gore-coated face. “It nearly was. We could have used your familiar.”

Ardith shook her head. She didn’t have it in her at the moment to explain how important Sirius was.

“Let’s go. There must be a back way out of this place.” He helped Ardith to stand and they stumbled through the surprisingly plush apartments, built into the side of a mountain. They found an exit and Draigh threw it open, one of his knives clutched in a blood-stained fist.

Nothing.

They were alone, standing on a ledge high on the side of a mountain. Ardith laid her head back against the cool rock and inhaled deeply. The night tasted fresh against her tongue, like ambrosia. Especially in comparison to the nightmare they’d left behind.

Draigh stepped close to the edge of the outcropping and looked over. Something about the stiff way he held himself, and how he only went as close to the edge as he absolutely had to, told her he wasn’t keen on heights.

She laughed and he turned, his glare made even more terrifying under its coat of gore. “What’s so funny, witch?”

Ardith pushed herself off the rock and started forward. “You and I, we’re quite a pair. I’m terrified of being underground and you’re terrified of being above ground.”

To his credit, his lips twitched at her observation. “I’m far from terrified. You don’t see me swooning do you? It’s just that there doesn’t appear to be a way down from here.”

Ardith glanced over the edge and smiled. They were fifty feet above the ground if they were an inch. She grabbed his hand and held it over the ledge. “Call your pretty lights.”

He gave her a wry look. “You mean my guide?”

She shrugged.

He did as she asked and when she saw what she was looking for below, she grabbed him, pulling him into a tight embrace.

“Witch, I’m as randy a man as the next, but I’d really prefer to pursue this line of thought once you’ve scraped the body parts off your skin.”

She snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. You think you’re a Sunday-morning stroll right now? You have at least an inch of zombie ooze all over your body.”

Still, she couldn’t resist clamping her hands over his buttocks. His shocked look was enough to make cuddling up to his butcher-shop stench worth it. “I’m glad to hear you’re not afraid, hunter. Hopefully that means you won’t scream like a girl when I do this.”