The Zero Dog War (27 page)

I escaped through the anteroom off the stairwell and shoved open the door. The zombies chased me. I didn’t even have a chance to catch a last glimpse of Jake before I rushed through the archway, through a short hall and into the weight-training room, with the undead on my tail, dead and hungry and me their meal on heels.

Chapter Twenty-Five: The End is Nigh…Thank God

Mercenary Wing Rv6-4 “Zero Dogs”

The Zero Dog Compound

Weight Training Room

1951 Hours PST April 19th

I leapt over the bench-press machine and dodged a rack of dumbbells, sprinting toward the far door that led to our dojo. The door stood less than twenty feet away. A chorus of piteous moans filled the air behind me. I didn’t dare look back.

I moved so fast I almost bounced off the door when I reached it. The dojo training floor appeared empty through the blinds. My hand slid on the doorknob, too slick with sweat to find purchase.
Shit
. A loud clanging and crashing rang out behind me—free weights tumbling to the floor—and a surprised moan filled the air. I glanced back. The zombies had crossed half the room already, lurching their way around and through the weight-lifting machines and barbells. They sniffed the air and groaned like starving men sitting down to a feast.

My heart pounded so hard my hands trembled. The strength faded from my legs, as if my muscles ghosted into transparency. I gritted my teeth and grabbed the doorknob with both hands. It wouldn’t turn. Locked from the other side. Shit. Shit.
Shit!

A hand slapped hard against the glass on the other side of the door, rattling it in the frame. A rotting, scarred head appeared right in front of me, with dead eyes and flayed cheeks. The zombie’s teeth clacked off the glass as it tried to bite off my face and left a dark smear of clotted blood and saliva behind instead. More zombies staggered into view in the dojo, teenagers with sagging jeans, a gray-skinned old man in a pith helmet, some Asian guy wearing one bunny slipper. They began to pile up against the door, beating on it.

I wheeled back to face the undead already in the room with me, sucking in a deep, steadying breath and sparking my magic to life. If I had to die, I’d go down in flames and take as many with me as I could. Flames began to burn in an arc around my hands as my power gathered. I lifted them…

…and the zombies stopped moving. These zombies were different from the others. They wore firefighter gear haphazardly thrown on their bodies, heavy jackets and helmets, but nothing over their faces or blocking their gnashing teeth. The theft at the fire station finally made a twisted sense. The necromancer wanted fireproof undead.

The zombies stood absolutely still, watching me with flat, hungry stares. The zombies on the other side of the door fell into an ominous quiet. I glanced back and saw them clustered at the window, staring through the blinds at me like dogs watching food about to fall from the table.

“Hi. I’m Jeremiah.”

I whipped my head around to see a man climb up on an inverted weight bench and sit on the top. All hail the necromancer Jeremiah Hansen, who pointed an automatic pistol at me and smiled almost shyly. I froze, but kept the fires burning and my magic hot, not sure if I could get off a spell in time before a bullet buried itself in some section of my body of which I felt particularly fond.

We stared at each other for a long moment. Nothing moved.

“Your buddies are tracking mud on my carpet,” I said at last.

He laughed. “They’re tracking all kinds of bodily fluids everywhere. They’re zombies.”

Well, that scored an ick factor in the high nineties. If I survived this, I vowed to live in a bubble for the rest of my life. “So…Jeremiah. What do you want exactly?”

“Exactly? You ruined my little foray into the free market, you realize that? You pretty much killed a local small business, and that’s goddamn un-American.”

“Dead people who wander around eating live people sounds goddamn un-American to me.”

He ignored my riposte. “I saw you in my office. When you mercenaries attacked me.”

“Why are you wasting my time with this?” I demanded. “Either sic your zombies on me or get the hell out of my house.”

“I want something from you. What’s your name?”

“Kiss my ass.”

He gestured with the pistol. “I could just shoot you.”

“Captain Andrea Walker.” I would’ve sounded off with my serial number too, but I could never remember it, especially not with a gun barrel pointed at my head.

“There’s no way out of this, Andrea. Let me float a little scenario past you.” He paused, and then smiled and shrugged. “Actually, Blake, my second-in-command, frowned upon this meeting, but
I’m
the leader here, so that’s that. Anyway, I’m really looking for two things, and they’re kind of on opposite sides of the pole. One, I’m looking for a significant other.”

I stared at him. He stared back.

“Place an ad in the personals,” I suggested, trying not to notice my arms had gooseflesh at his creepy insinuation.

“Hmm. Done that already. No dice. Now, the second thing I’m looking for is a zombie who can shoot fire. That would be a very handy zombie to have around. So, I’m wondering. Are you interested in a little joint venture? A little rebuilding of the budding business empire you ruined? Or should I just turn you into my zombie Zippo lighter and have done with it?”

“You don’t know me,” I said, incredulous. “What’s to stop me from lying, becoming your girlfriend and killing you later?”

“Zombies. Lots of them. Who will suddenly be devoid of a master and very hungry. But I’m hoping you, as a soldier of fortune, have a mercenary side—or let’s just say a
pro-business
side. Honestly, it’s fun being evil. I saw how you blew up my factory.” He shrugged. “I think you’ll enjoy being bad if you give it a chance.”

“Are you fucking
insane
?”

“I don’t know.” He paused, considering. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

“I can’t believe this shit.”

He didn’t answer—content to watch me from his perch on the bench while his zombies stood dead still, and I almost laughed crazily at my stupid pun, worth its weight in post-bailout US dollars. The very last thing I’d expected was a recruitment offer, much less some kind of half-assed attempt to ask me out. “I…have a thing for somebody else.”

“Ah.” He rubbed his cheek. “Hmm. Too bad. So how long have you known him?”

“I don’t know…a week.”

“Not to be a dick, but that’s not very long. Seems to me you could transition over to my team. True love is for bedtime stories and anniversary cards.”

“That’s really cynical.”

He cocked his head and regarded me with something like pity—surreal, since he’d just asked
me
out and been shot down. “This is a world where creatures eat each other to survive. It’s an incubator for the cynical. Besides, I already said I was evil. Evil is a big tent.”

“Yeah? Well, my answer’s no.”

“Is that your final answer?”

“Why the hell would I change my mind
two seconds
later?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you suddenly decided true love, or true lust, or true infatuation isn’t worth being eaten alive. I’m just sayin’.”

I lifted my chin and gave him my coldest glare. “Some love is worth dying for.”

He shrugged. “Well, that could be a problem, but not a huge hurdle. I think it’s best to be optimistic.” He laughed. “Cynically optimistic, that is. What’s love, anyway? I think the best love involves people who might even be indifferent to one another at first, but then grow closer as they build common ground between them. Like arranged marriages, but with zombies for chaperones. Let’s face it. Evil people need love too.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”

“I hoped you’d say yes, maybe help with the day-to-day running of the empire. Most people don’t believe this, but I’m kind of shy asking women out.” He waved his free hand at the zombies. “It helps to have a lot of wingmen to back me up. But I’d prefer it if you agreed, because, if I turn you into a zombie, there are some downsides. You won’t be warm anymore. You’ll lose that winter-fresh breath, and your vocabulary will suffer.”

“You
are
insane.”

“You said something like that already.” He shook his head. “Evil and insane are two completely different things. I have evil tendencies. It’s a disorder.”

Gunshots sounded somewhere in the house—too far off to give me hope.

“You want my final answer?” I said. “I’ll give it to you. I wouldn’t trade Jake for you if you came with a layer of chocolate mousse, a ten-inch ever-ready vibrating dick, a personal Italian chef and half a billion dollars.”

Jeremiah sighed and closed his eyes. “So be it. I guess I’ll let you have your true love for dinner.” He flicked his hand at me, and the zombies surged forward, their chorus of moaning filling the air like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir after binging on habañeros caviar and stale crackers. “Let her eat Jake!”

I loosed the spell I’d been holding back and sent daggers of fire spitting toward the necromancer. He was too quick, half-rolling, half-falling off the bench out of sight behind his advancing wall of zombies. The fire scorched black marks all along the wall and ceiling but didn’t catch.

I stumbled backward until I pressed up against the wall. The closest zombie was less than two meters away, clacking his teeth together with a sound that made me think of billiards and pool halls. I pulled in all the energy I could for my last spell. I planned to do the phoenix thing, sans rebirth. Sorry about the house everybody, but the armory was far enough away that my people would have time to get away before the place exploded.

Gunshots cracked behind me in the dojo. I spun around, my heart suddenly lifting. The door to the dojo slammed open so hard it left a dent on the wall, and I was glad I hadn’t been standing in front of it. Jake ran into the room with his pistol in hand, up and ready for business.

“Andrea!” he yelled, and drew up short when he saw the wall of advancing zombies.

“Here!”

He turned toward my voice. I saw the intensity of the relief in his eyes and it made me flash hotter than any fire coming from my hands.

I ran toward him. A zombie hand clamped down on my arm and jerked me backward. Jake swung the gun with one fast, smooth motion and shot again. The zombie hand clenched tighter, making me cry out before it fell away. Another zombie groped for me, but I grabbed its arm and twisted it back at a sharp angle, a move that would force any normal opponent to flip himself to avoid having his arm broken. No luck here. The zombie’s half-rotted arm came off in my hand. I stumbled off balance. The zombie gnashed its teeth at me. I reared back and smashed it in the head with its own arm, sending it falling into its comrades.

A shimmering barrier slammed down between the zombies and me. They pressed up against it, groaning and beating their fists while trying to chew through to get at me. I turned on my heel and darted back to Jake. He pushed me through the door into the dojo. I risked one last glance over my shoulder and saw Jeremiah through a break in the zombie horde, watching me go, his face haggard and tired. Then I lost sight of him.

More gunshots rang out behind me, but I couldn’t glance back because zombies staggered in from the main dojo entrance, four at least, right in my way. One of them fell toward me with its arms outstretched. I dodged aside and drove my flaming fist into its head, which had the added bonus of lighting its hair on fire. I swept a hand toward a woman zombie and tossed daggers of flame. The woman zombie careened into the wall, burning the way a marshmallow soaked in ethanol and coated with pitch will burn, but then she bounced back and came for me again, frantic moans spilling from her twisted mouth. I shot my foot out in a vicious sidekick and the zombie slammed into the wall.

Something clutched at my ankles. Zombie hands. I looked down at the zombie I’d punched. A nimbus of flames burned around his head. His mouth gaped open as he tried to sink his teeth into my calf. I lifted my combat boot and brought it down with all the force I could muster, screaming “
Keeyah
!” so loud something tore in my throat. My boot heel crushed through the zombie’s temple, breaking skull, sending brains out its ears as if I’d squashed a Twinkie with an anvil. I didn’t think I’d ever look at homemade oatmeal the same way again.

More 9mm shots popped in rapid succession, followed by the sound of a magazine ejecting. I turned back in time to see Jake slam the weight-room door shut and lock it. He glanced at me, and then down at the mess near my feet. “Remind me not to piss you off when you’re wearing boots.”

I gave a hoarse, coughing laugh. Then I grabbed him and pulled him into a kiss so fast his teeth cut my lip a little, though I couldn’t have cared less. We broke apart when we heard the rapid stutter of a belt-fed weapon followed by an explosion that shook the wood flooring.

“I know that shooting,” I said. “Sarge!”

Jake took my arm. “We got cut off and driven back, so Tiffany, Mai and Hanzo retreated to make a stand at the armory while I came after you.”

“You won’t hear me complaining. Let’s get bigger guns and finish this. I can’t keep risking fire magic or I’ll end up burning the house down no matter how careful I am.”

A resounding
boom
made me flinch. The door to the weight room shuddered as if somebody rammed barbells into the panel. The glass cracked, and then broke completely. A zombie arm shoved through the jagged pieces, waving about in the air.