Redemption of the Dead (33 page)

“Everyone, this is Billie.” Gesturing
to the others: “Tracy, Dean, Jessica.”

Billie gave a small wave.
“Hi.”

Tracy said, “What is that
thing?”

Billie looked back at the robot. “It’s the
DK-14-something-or-other. It’s a mech exoskeleton. Super long
story. I’ve been
everywhere
, and I’m
not exaggerating.” She didn’t take her eyes off Joe.

“Okay, let’s keep it simple. How’d you
get here?” he said.

“There’re planes over there” —she pointed— “and we
had a couple thousand men battling
the dead. I’m not alone. Lots of the men are dying. One of mine—two
of mine—are gone. One for sure. I need to find the other. His name
is Sven. He’s huge, German, blond hair, driving what looks like an
enclosed motorcycle.”

Joe arched an eyebrow.

“Trust me, Joe.”

“If you say so.”

Billie
thumbed back in the direction she came: “As you probably know, most
of the horde is downtown—down-downtown—and the giants are being
taken out, but Joe—you know there’s more to this than what we see,
right?”

He nodded. “Don’t worry. I told them
everything.”

“Everything?”

“Everything-everything.”

“Their formation had been a pentagram.
I saw it from the sky when I first flew over.”

“That thing flies?” he asked, pointing
to the mech.

“No, the
plane. Now listen. When we got separated, and after August—in the
end, I met an angel—”

“The same
one from before?” He was too overwhelmed to get excited, but was
glad that at least there was a shining light to all
this.

“Yeah, I should’ve said
our
angel. In the
end—Joe, this is big: those zombies, those demons, they’re not
alone here anymore.”

“What do you
mean? What else happened?”

“I don’t know how to say this so I’ll
just say it. Just brace yourself: I saw the devil, and he’s here on
Earth. He’s behind it all.”

A shockwave
went through his body head-to-toe. His legs grew weak. The others
stared at Billie in stunned silence.

“I saw him
come through this portal,” she said, “and I felt his evil even from
where I stood, which was far away. I don’t know where he is now.
Frankly, I don’t want to know, and I wasn’t sure I was going to
tell you if I saw you, but after seeing that pentagram from the sky
. . . . We’re in some serious trouble.”

Heart
beating rapidly, Joe was at a loss for words. It was to be
expected, her news, but that she actually saw it—he flashed back to
his time in Hell and shuddered at the memory. Now Hell had come to
Earth, even worse than the zombie invasion which, it seemed, was
actually a possession.

All he could say was, “Where’s the
plane?”

* * * *

Billie led
the procession in the direction of the large aircraft, shooting
anything undead that came in front of them. A few gunshots echoed
behind them as the others took up the rear.

It felt so,
so good to see Joe again. His hair had grown since she last saw
him, but she recognized that hard-edged face of his, one forged
from hunting the undead, one carved from pain. Yet he now had this
twinkle in his eye. Something had changed, but she wasn’t sure
what.

The trek to
the aircraft was long and it got worse as they had to enter into
the dust cloud. They kept to the peripheral as long as possible so
they could see clearly and breathe better, then had to press in by
the Canada Revenue office on Broadway. She told them before they
left that it’s not like they’ll get to the plane, show their
tickets and settle in for an in-flight movie. If anything, they’d
be going there to hide out. The plane had been emptied when they
landed, everyone taking up arms. Billie decided to try the plane’s
radio once on board.

Gunshots went off behind her then the
sound of someone yelling. She turned the mech around to see Joe
crouched over the Asian girl, four dead zombies lying around her.
Joe glanced up at her and slowly shook his head.

Even though she never knew her,
Billie’s heart ached for the loss.

Emerging out
of the dust, a Jetlier cut in front of her.

“Sven?”

The hatch opened and it was
him.

Suddenly
filled with excitement, Billie opened her cockpit, but stayed
inside in case her guns were needed.

“Guten tag,
fräulein,” Sven said.

She smiled, too happy to say anything.
She noticed the Jetlier was covered in blood and goopy, gray
flesh.

He walked up
to her and held out his hand. She took it. “Are you
okay?”

She could kiss him. “I’m okay. Are
you?”

With a wink he said, “Fine on outside,
not fine on inside.”

“I know, sweetie. I’m so so sorry for
your brother.”

Tears glazed over his eyes.
“Danke.”

Joe came up. “Who’s this?”

Roles now
reversed, she said, “Joe, this is Sven. I met him in
Austria.”

“You met him in . . .” Joe’s words
came out slowly.

“Just say hi,” Billie said.

Joe stuck out his hand and Sven
swallowed it with his own.

“Guten
tag.”

“Guten—” He
looked at Billie. “You were in Austria?”

“Later, remember?” she
said.

The sound of
bullets fired told her she’d been wrong about everyone being dead.
A relief. A couple cannons went off. The ground shook as the
remaining giants stomped around.

All of it was silenced when blasting
shrieks cut through the air, the terrible sound sending her into a
panic.

“No, please no,” she said, her heart
at a gallop. She knew those shrieks. She’d heard them
before.

Demons.

Judging by
the way Joe’s eyes went impossibly wide, she knew he recognized
that awful sound, too.

“Okay, time to go,” Billie
said.

Sven kissed
her hand, then without a word went to the Jetlier.

“Meet at the plane,” she called after
him.

He raised his hand in a wave without
turning around.

Billie
closed up the mech and used the exoskeleton’s huge arm to signal to
the others to follow her. Gatlings raised again, she started firing
when she saw shadows behind a veil of dust.

* * * *

32

Retreat

T
he DK-14
opened
fire, sending round
after round into the shadows in the dust. The bullets seemed to go
right through them. Thinking she might have missed, Billie double
checked the mech’s Gatling alignments and opened fire again.
Proceeding forward and seeing the same result, her breath caught in
her throat when she saw it wasn’t the undead coming toward her, but
demons, already freed from their shells. That meant their
metamorphosis was across the entire legion of the dead and the game
had changed.

The others wouldn’t stand a
chance.

Sven sped
ahead of her on the Jetlier, heading straight for the
demons.

“No, don’t!”
she screamed into the comm., forgetting his comm. was probably down
and that was why he hadn’t responded to her the other times she
tried to raise him.

The demons
jumped on the Jetlier—one on top, one on the side, and another
underneath—and catapulted it into the air, sending it flying to the
side where it smashed into the roof of an abandoned car, tumbled
across a handful of others and landed somewhere on the other
side.

In a rage,
Billie mashed down on the trigger and fired off a string of shots
before changing course and taking the mech full throttle in the
direction Sven had been thrown. The mech ran and leaped on top of
the cars’ roofs, jumping from one to the other before landing on
the other side. Sven’s Jetlier lay in a crumpled heap, its side and
roofed smashed in.

Panicking,
she came over to it and used the mech’s powerful hands to grab hold
of the bent door and pry it off. She threw it to the side and
opened the cockpit. She jumped out and ran to Sven’s broken
body.

She fell to her knees at his side.
“No, no, no. Not now. Not you.”

Sven lay
there, his legs twisted at the hips past their natural torque, one
of his arms bent behind his back so far that the hand was visible
beneath the opposite shoulder. His face was covered in blood from a
severe bleeding nose and already the flesh around his eyes was
swelling shut. “Fräulein . . .” The word was weak.

“Hang on, okay?
” she
said. “I’m going to get you out of this.” She assessed the damage
again and his body was so tangled up in the smashed Jetlier that
she didn’t know where to start to even attempt to free him never
mind gathering the courage to run the risk of accidentally moving
something the wrong way and making it worse.

“Danke,” he said.

She sniffled back the tears. “For
what?”

“For letting me be friend to pretty
girl like you.”

She smiled and sniffled again. “Thank you for letting
me
care
about a handsome man like you.”

He smiled,
too, his incredible green eyes looking into hers.

A loud thump shook the Jetlier; Sven’s
limp form rocked with the motion. Standing over him on the
Jetlier’s frame was a demon, its wings spread, mouth open,
hissing.

Fear turning
her limbs to jelly, Billie tried to back up, stumbled over her own
feet and fell down. The demon eyed her. Billie looked at
Sven.

“Go,
fräulein,” he said. “Ich liebe dich.”

The demon pounced on Sven and got to
work ripping him apart.

Screaming
and cursing at the demon to stop, Billie stumbled backward and
scrambled toward the mech, the tears so thick in her eyes
everything was a blur. Once back inside, she closed the hatch, and
fired at the creature. The bullets passed through it. It didn’t
even look over its bony shoulder.

“Joe . . .”
she said, and turned the DK-14 around.

* * * *

Joe fired
round after round into the demon that had swooped low, grabbed
Jessica, and taken her high into the air. His bullets didn’t stop
it.

Tracy and Dean were right behind him,
tucked up against him so tight that if they pushed against him any
harder they’d knock him forward.

Foul shrieks
and haunting hisses emanated from all around. Joe instructed the
others to stay with him and keep heading toward the
plane.

Tracy and
Dean fired their weapons behind him. Billie’s mech emerged not far
ahead and was firing a barrage of bullets in what seemed like all
directions. The loud thunderous crash of a giant smashing a
building made the ground rumble. Joe was able to see the creature’s
enormous form even from a few streets over as it drove its rotten
fists into a building’s roof before raising its giant arms to the
sky. Bright red light shone from the top of its head and then made
a fiery red lightning bolt down its body. From the top of its head,
huge scaly hands with long claws dug their way out and pushed down
on its skull from either side, disrobing, revealing a massive demon
with a wing span that covered three city blocks. The demon howled,
and leaned back its dragon-like head, spewing forth flame, casting
a fiery glow on everything.

“Head for
cover!” Joe shouted. The three of them ran to the nearest building
and burst through the doors. He didn’t know where they were as the
place was unrecognizable because of the damage. It did appear like
a lounge of some kind, but most of the place was overturned,
windows smashed, broken bottles and shattered picture frames
everywhere.

A whirlwind
kicked up outside as more howling shrieks filled the air, deafening
booms and crashes making all three of them cover their ears in
protest.

All the surviving giants must have transformed,
Joe thought. How were they going to
counter this? They wouldn’t stand a chance.

Tracy took his hand in hers. “They
can’t find us. We need to hide.”

“I know, but
where? The only thing I think we can do is try to get to the plane
and meet up with Billie. Maybe Dean here, being the airplane guy,
maybe he can fly—”

A
loud, deep
pop
sent a jolt through Joe. He and Tracy
turned around and Dean was face first on the floor, a portion of
his head missing, part of his brain on the ground. Blood poured
from the wound, pooling around his head and upper body.

It took Joe a second to process what
happened. He turned away. Tracy didn’t.

“Couldn’t take it,” she
said.

“I
guess,” he replied quietly. A well of anger bubbled within. He was
mad at Dean for offing himself; was mad at the undead for not just
today’s losses, but
all
of them; was
pissed April had been transformed and he accidentally killed her;
was furious August was gone; despite not always getting along with
him, he was even mad Des had been changed after they returned
through the Storm of Skulls and was now dead as well. He was
downright furious that this battle might claim Tracy,
too.