Death Weeps Part 20

Then the longsword that was free of its binding took his head off at the base of the neck in a practiced swipe, so quickly executed, I felt the breeze at its pa.s.sing.

Queen Clara was released from the vise grip of the dead Prince forever.

She did not know it, her consciousness slipping away even as Matthew bent to catch her against him, his long sword tip stabbed into the earth of the tunnel.

He looked ready for anything.

No matter what.

No matter how many.

CHAPTER 12.

I watched the Band turn their attention to the angry mob that had filtered through the tunnel where they stood, all but Matthew.

He had eyes only for the dead Queen, minus an arm, ready to s.n.a.t.c.h the unconscious Clara out of his arms.

Jade rushed to his side. "I'll hold her while you..." she couldn't finish it. I knew Jade saw what his intent was. Death Intent. He wore it like a coat of armor, he'd killed before. I could see it as he walked toward the dead Queen. She knew it too, hissing at him as he made his way to her.

He never broke stride.

I looked at Jade and she met my stare. I could feel what she felt.

Jade could feel the Evil. The Queen had been evil.

Evil in life.

Evil in death.

Evil.

I let him go about his business and turned my attention to the other big a.s.s problem on the list. There were so many I was getting distracted.

I found the Zondorae brothers easily.

Mewling within the circle of the dead.

My dead.

I smiled and strode to where they were.

The Zondorae brothers were covered in their own puke. It probably almost masked the scent of the newly dead that surrounded them.

Mostly.

It was raw corpse or vomit... but the puke was closer to their noses.

"Hi guys!" I said almost cheerfully. My sympathy, zero.

They scowled. I watched their expressions ask if it could be any worse.

Probably not. Although, they could be dead.

My dead.

I smiled and their expressions went from fear to anger.

"Oh yeah, it's gonna get exciting for you chumps," I said in a conversational tone.

The corpses tightened their hold, reacting to my state of mind like a ripple in the water going out, out... and endlessly on.

One gave a long lick of Gary's ear, the smell of the decaying tongue causing the scream he had held in check to escape his mouth in a wail that pierced the silence.

It was the catalyst for the panic which began to sweep the tunnel.

I jumped when I saw the crowd swell and surge everywhere as my eyes sought Jade.

"You're safe," I saw Jade say and relaxed only to tense again as the mob flowed toward us.

I watched Jade and Queen Clara notice Matthew doing the hack-a-thon on the dead Queen, her rotting flesh flinging itself like gruesome and bloodless rain around us.

The dead did not bleed.

My heart clenched in my chest when the small Queen slid a dirk out of the strange boy's clothing she wore and headed toward the dead Queen.

I didn't have to be a brain surgeon to figure out her goal.

She'd never meet it. The dead were stronger than the living.

Wanting to end them wasn't enough.

I jogged to meet her, grabbing Jade as I did.

The dead Queen laughed out of a mouth with loosened teeth as Clara's protector took pieces of her flesh with his small knife.

I knew she didn't feel pain, she staggered toward Clara, ignoring his a.s.sault. Instead, she focused on Clara, hatred a mask on her face. Even in death, it was a window to who she'd been.

Queen Ada smiled with purpose, she knew Clara, reaching for her just as Matthew looked behind him and saw the woman he protected approach the dead Queen who would not stop until she harmed Clara.

Note for future: insane zombies were intent on one thing.

Murder.

Why the dead Queen wanted to kill Queen Clara was a mystery but I wasn't going to let the zombie I'd raised kill the ones that we'd come to save.

Clara and her people.

Matthew moved to swing and was caught in the mob as they pushed forward, the bellowing scream from the Zondorae r.e.t.a.r.d igniting the flame of their panic instantly. Matthew was shoved to the side with three of his Bandmates and swept aside as a river of people flowed between him and Clara.

The dead Queen wrapped her hand in the deep red of Clara's hair and torqued her head back, close enough to kiss.

"No!" Matthew yelled, his terror at the zombie's nearness and the strength for harm she possessed caused even the crowd to pause at the tone in his bellowed alert.

"Hold them," I told the zombies that had the Zondorae brothers prisoner. Their rotting arms were surer than the tightest bindings, as I made them babysit the a.s.shats that started all this.

Queen Ada hissed in Clara's face, "I will be Queen. Not your wh.o.r.e of a mother or her simpleton sp.a.w.n," she ground out, a tooth dropping out of her mouth, rolling down the front of Clara's tunic to fall at their feet.

My eyes followed that decaying tooth and I snapped my head up at attention. Wow, family drama big time.

Two guys that were dressed like the mob but didn't look like the derelict sp.a.w.n roaming around, approached the zombie Queen from behind. I opened my mouth to warn them but Clara took care of it by bringing up her arm in a twisting lunge and severed the one arm the dead queen had, the dead flesh giving way to the sharpness of the metal, the hand which gripped Clara's hair, shaken off and falling to the ground to join the tooth that lay there.

It would've been funny in different circ.u.mstances.

Dead parts scattered all around. It made no difference. The zombie Queen... kept coming anyway.

Ada lunged her head forward into Clara's, using her head as weapon. Clara stumbled back into the people behind her as the corpse that'd apparently been her mother rode her to the ground, her remaining teeth in full reveal.

Her mouth open to chew and maim.

Clara her target.

But the little Queen used the crowd behind her like a trampoline and sprang forward, leaping onto the zombie, who toppled under her momentum. Ada lost her balance, without one arm and only the stump of the other, she was unable to right herself.

The dead Queen lurched her neck forward like a bird looking for a worm from its parent, trying to sink her teeth into Clara's hand that was near her face. Clara slapped the Queen's face and I watched as the flesh flew away with a wet splatter on the dirt of the tunnel floor. My zombie sat up underneath Clara's straddle and went toward her neck to tear out the fragile artery that beat there.

I met Matthew as he pushed the crowd away and we reached for Clara at the same moment.

The huge male of the Band pulled out the biggest sword I'd ever seen in my life and I restrained my zombie while its teeth snapped above Clara's vulnerable neck. He swung it smoothly and split the top of the zombie Queen's skull open like an egg balanced atop a pestle.

The brains slid out and littered the floor around us.

That kinda worked out.

I watched every zombie follow the distraction of the brains laying on the floor and rolled my eyes.

A little brains and they lose their attention span.

Need. More. Training.

"Oh s.h.i.+t!" Jonesy yelled, clearly seeing things getting way-the-h.e.l.l-out of hand.

John jogged over to me. "Okay, I'm thinking right now is a great time to close the Pathway!" he said, looking around frantically at the tense zombies, the people from another sphere swarming around and the dumba.s.s scientists whose fault it was we were here in the first place.

I watched Matthew scoop Clara up in his arms, a welt growing on her forehead like a purplish-red plum as I looked.

Matthew had saved Queen Clara. Now it was time for me and my friends to save the day. Our job wasn't done. Not by a long shot.

No problemo.

Jade looked up at me from the crook of my arm, her expression dubious. Thanks for the faith, I thought, a little insulted. I guess it had gotten sorta sloppy around the edges.

Maybe more than a little.

I turned to Jonesy and said, "Time to cork the Pathway, pal."

"Now we're talkin'!" Jonesy said, giving a fist-pump, staggering a little under the influence of residual sedative.

"Hey!" Gary Zondorae yelled.

I turned toward him, the people of the other sphere were running down the tunnel in the opposite direction. Many cast worried glances at the dead that tracked their movements with unnerving intensity.

"You disrupt that Pathway and we can't return. You can't return," he said in his all-knowing voice.

"Nah, we got a one way ticket back to our world, dips.h.i.+t," Tiff said in her subtle way, smacking gum.

I shook my head. Tiff so nailed c.r.a.p.

Randi walked up and the Zondorae brothers blanched. "You're the Dimensional, Merranda Chen."

She nodded, raising her hand. "Yeah. Bad for you dudes, great for us."

"You wouldn't leave us... we can't... be here. It would upset the order of things."

I scowled, my anger instantly coming online. "You don't give two s.h.i.+ts and a f.u.c.k about order. You were just fine playing G.o.d with this world until you were caught."

The brothers stared at me. So did the zombies.

But for different reasons, oh yeah.

John came to stand beside me, Matthew and Clara and the rest of the Band behind us. "You loosed the fragment on these people, many of which were from our world. I think they can absorb you two just fine. As a matter of fact, on the Outside, you'll fit right in," John said, the Medieval speech slipping underneath the weight of his righteous anger at the scientists.

"What says he?" Clara asked Daniel.

Daniel frowned. "They will leave the two Travelers here... to their own devices in the Outside. Without their modern accouterments they will be as the fragment."

Clara smiled. "It is a just end for such as them."

"Aye," the female that had been thrown by the dead Prince agreed, the leader of the Band's arm encircling her shoulders.

I met the eyes of the zombies that held the pair. "Take them outside... to where you lay at rest."