Honeyed Words (41 page)

I turned to Katie as several smaller spirit forms scrambled across the grounds to begin consuming the fallen banshee, absorbing the shadow and smoke, feeding on the fallen.

“What the hell is going on?” Katie asked, her voice shaking. “Are they eating that thing?”

I grabbed her by the arm and began walking us toward the house. “Looks that way. Let’s keep moving while they’re distracted.”

The front door was thick with moving shapes, tentacles, web, something unpleasant. “Carport, then,” I said, steering around.

As we stepped on the driveway, the warrior who’d been holding the balloons only this morning stood in the center of the carport. There was a body crumpled at its feet.

“What the hell?” I said, and it turned to me, holding up one arm.

It held a sword; I didn’t remember it being armed. I also didn’t remember it moving on its own. Katie took a step back, and I stepped forward. It swiveled its head toward me, and the grin was a cruel reminder of a sweet moment.

It lunged, swinging the sword downward. I brought Gram up. The blades clashed, sending sparks into the dark. It took another step, seemed confused as to which target to approach, and turned to Katie, avoiding me.

I stepped in front of it, holding Gram at the ready. “Back off,” I growled at it.

It wavered, trying to go around me to get to Katie. It swung out its left arm, catching me in the side, and flung me across the carport into a stack of boxes. Old clothing, shoes, and other crap rained down on me. I’d been concentrating on the sword arm. That damn thing was strong. It lumbered at Katie, swinging the sword up in an overhead arc, and she scrambled backward.

The sword smashed into a stack of bins, scattering scrap metal across the carport.

By the time I’d climbed out of the debris, Katie was dodging and scrambling around the carport. She was getting winded but had avoided damage so far.

I ran forward and leapt into the air for a flying side kick. My foot connected with the statue’s back, and it rocked forward, arms pinwheeling for balance.

I landed on my hands and feet, spun around, and kicked out, clipping it in the left knee. It buckled, dropping its sword, and fell to the side. I jumped up, brought Gram around, and sunk the blade in the neck, severing the metallic head.

The head flew through the air, bounced off a shelving unit, and rolled to land in front of Katie.

“Thanks,” she said, climbing to her feet.

Black fluid leaked from the statue, steaming into the air. I reached over, dipped my finger in it, and brought it to my nose, sniffing.

Blood, coppery and rank. What the hell were these things?

It kicked once and tried to push itself upward. I brought Gram around and stabbed downward for all I was worth, throwing my entire body weight behind the blade, piercing the thick metal chest. It was like killing the Tin Man.

A shriek rose from the statue, and a great shadow emerged from it, shredding as it escaped around Gram. The wind whipped my hair, and the energy whistled for a few moments before it was gone. The statue stopped moving.

Katie walked over, holding out a hand to help me up. I took it, touched the side of her face, and gave her a quick kiss.

I pulled Gram from the statue and walked to the smithy. It was quiet, but there were several dead bodies there. Killed, no doubt, by mister happy over there.

We did a quick search, and besides blood and severed limbs, it was empty of anything new.

“What’s out here?” Katie asked, opening the back door.

“Don’t!” I called, but too late. Out in the yard, the other statues hunted, stalking about. Even the great dragon prowled. He was pitiable with his missing scales and wings, but there was no doubt he could kill us in a second.

The warriors turned toward us. Partially built and missing their weapons, they were still a threat.

“Time to go inside,” I said, rushing over and shutting the door just as one of the warriors tried to cross the threshold.

The door from the yard to the shop wouldn’t hold them, but it bought us a couple of seconds.

We made it to the kitchen door without another incident.

“You ready?” I asked as I reached for the door.

She only nodded, grasping my right arm above the elbow.

I grabbed the knob and twisted. The door swung inward without a noise, and we could see the inside was in shambles.

The kitchen was turned out, cabinets empty, the fridge fallen forward against the overturned table, the few contents strewn across the floor.

“I’d guess she’s in the back by the bedroom,” I said.

Katie just nodded and followed me, her eyes big but determined.

The living room had been destroyed. Something did not like furniture, as every stick and board was smashed. The fireplace mantel was broken, but a fire struggled in the grate. It was the only light in the house.

“See anything we can use for light?”

We both looked around, but there was nothing apparent. Maybe I should’ve had a flashlight in my saddlebags. Of course, they were out on the bike.

I looked back through the curtain on the door to the carport, and the statues were marching around. One had made its way around to the front and was fighting with the smaller shadows. Was going to be damn difficult fighting back through that mess.

“Do you hear something?” Katie asked as we looked around.

I stopped moving and listened. Something was dripping from the back of the house. “Water?” I asked.

“Blood, most likely,” she said, making a face. “Where is everyone else?”

“I think I’ve seen this movie,” I said, gripping Gram tighter. The flaming runes gave off some light, but barely enough to make out the overall shape of the room and the larger objects.

We crept down the hall. First room on the left was the bathroom. Laundry room was on the right.

There were four bodies in the bathroom. Tangled and broken, shoved into the tub. I pulled the door closed. Didn’t need to worry about them at the moment.

There was only one person in the laundry room, and they’d been stuffed into the washer. Theirs had been a painful death. I could tell by the face that was pressed against the glass, desperate to get out.

Anezka’s bedroom was at the far left, and the unknown room was on the right. If I had to guess, I’d say spare bedroom, but I’d never opened the door.

The door to Anezka’s room was closed, but I heard something from the left.

“Fair before foul,” Katie said, so we opened Anezka’s bedroom. There was only one body in there. He’d been in his early fifties, I’d guess, but his face was purple and bloated. He swung from the light fixture, his feet several inches above the floor, an electrical cord around his neck.

At his feet were two cages. One held a very dead cat. It looked like she’d exploded inside her cage.

The crow, however, was unhurt. It squawked when we came in, fluttering its great wings.

“One survivor so far,” Katie said.

I looked at her. Her face was panic-stricken, but there was a determination there that made me proud. I pushed the crow’s cage to the side and grabbed the hanging man by his legs, swung him out, and cut the cord with Gram.

I let him crash down onto the floor. He was already dead, so I didn’t try to ease him down. I just couldn’t take him swinging like that.

“One more room,” I said, turning away from the dead guy. “You ready?”

“Lovely,” Katie said. “Wait. Let me try something.”

She unslung her guitar, pulled a pick out of her pocket, and plucked a few notes. The crow settled right down. The tune she picked out was quick and lively, not a reel by any means but uplifting. The blackness pushed back, and the overwhelming sense of death faded a notch.

“Better,” I said, winking at her.

Time to face the rest. I stepped across the hallway and opened the final door.

There was a room there, all right. But it was nearly empty. There was no furniture, only two high-set windows and Qindra.

She stood in the far side of the room, nose into the corner, mumbling quiet words.

“Qindra,” I called to her. She didn’t move. I glanced around, saw nothing to either side of the door, and crossed the room. Still she hadn’t moved.

I placed my hand on her shoulder, and the world went black.

Fifty-six

“Sarah?” Katie asked. Something was definitely wrong. She swung her guitar around to her back and quick-stepped across the empty room. Sarah had frozen, her hand on Qindra’s shoulder.

Qindra, on the other hand, was fading in and out of visibility, her flesh becoming translucent one moment, with shadows swirling in the ether, and then solid the next. She did not appear to breathe, but she mumbled a continuous string of words, unintelligible and nearly silent.

Whatever had happened to her seemed to have caught Sarah as well. It was a trap of some sort.

Katie spun around, listening. There were noises in the walls. She glanced up at the windows; the black swirling mass of spirits continued to spiral down toward the house from the sky.

Whatever was happening here was drawing in the spirits from all around. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw spiders crawling from the walls. Eaters had breached the house. Masses of them were pouring through the windows then, flowing around Sarah and Qindra but coming right for Katie.

She ran.

Out in the hall, she bounced against the bedroom door. The dead man sat up, opened his eyes, and hissed at her. She fell back against the wall, ping-ponging down the hall, past the laundry, where the face spoke to her through the washer door.

Something scrambled across the tile of the bathroom, but it had not reached the door, and she ran on. In the living room, the glow of the fire seemed to keep the shadows at bay.

She paused there, grabbed a piece of the broken end table, and thrust it into the fire, followed by a large book on architecture that had once sat on top of the table.

The paper flared up, the slick pages curling and producing more smoke than flame. The finished wood of the table sputtered and did not seem to want to catch fire.

A shadow reached her, a tiny thing about the size of her thumb, and it bit her. The pain was sharp and quick, but there was no blood. She slapped the thing, and it vaporized into a wisp of smoke. There was a black smudge on her arm where it had dropped on her. More of the tiny biters were dropping from the ceiling, falling on her, biting her.

Katie swatted them from her, bumped back against the wall, her guitar making a god-awful twanging echo. The noise cut through the rising panic, gave her the moment of clarity she needed. She was a bard, after all. She had some budding powers.

She stumbled into the kitchen, which seemed to not have any smoke biters falling from the ceiling, and swung her guitar around to the front. As soon as her fingers found the strings, she opened her mouth and blasted a chord of both sound and light out into the room. Her panic settled as a wave of music pushed outward, dissolving the biters that leapt at her.

She sang the first chords of “White Rabbit,” and the sphere around her swelled, glowing. They fell away, wisps of nothing. The bites on her skin faded, and her spirit soared.

Now she was getting somewhere.

She stepped into the living room, pushing aside the fear. Sarah needed her.

Three strides into the living room, however, the game turned.

A huge swell of smoke coalesced in the corner near the ceiling, taking shape. She sang louder, expanding the sphere. One of the dead shambled into the living room. It smashed into her shield and crumpled to the ground, a lifeless husk once more—the shadow that had animated it dissolving into smoke.

And still the mass of shadows grew in the corner between her and the hallway. All the shadows in the room were being sucked upward; even the smoke from the burning furniture rose to feed the mass.

This is not good,
she thought, just as it took a shape.

“Hello, slut.” The voice echoed across the room.
His voice.
She faltered, and the head of a dragon formed from the shadow, a head she recognized from her nightmares.

“Ready to play again?” His voice called to her. The dragon’s head slammed forward, against the protective sphere. Katie flew into the kitchen, her guitar landed near the refrigerator, too far from her reach. She struggled to breathe as the shadow dragon loomed over her.

“This will be more fun than last time,” he said, laughing. “I can hurt you oh so much more thoroughly.”

It was Jean-Paul. Terror swept over her. He was dead. Sarah killed him.

Panic paralyzed her, and for a moment she was willing to do anything, including kill herself, rather than let him touch her again.

Fifty-seven

I stumbled forward into a room like a cathedral. Energy pulsed from all directions—like stepping inside a nuclear reactor.

Qindra sat in the middle of the room, a wash of energy flooding around her in great white sparkles. The energy sang with goodness and life. But a blackness swirled around her. Wraiths, ghosts, specters … I had no true name for the spirits that flew around her, diving headlong into the energy barrier, only to bounce away again. There were so many of them that I could barely tell where one began and the other ended, and they were flooding in with every breath.