Night of the Living Demon Slayer (20 page)

I heard movement behind me and nearly tripped when I saw a patch of grassy soil between the sidewalk and the street shaking as if there were something alive underneath.

Oh, no, no, no.
I slowed. Stopped. Let out a gasp as a hand shot out of the soil.

I caught movement to my right and saw another corpse pulling itself out of the ground just inside the park.

Impossible.

But I knew better than that.

Still, what was that one doing in the park?

Then I remembered my history, how the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 had claimed a large part of the populace, and how they'd buried the corpses…everywhere.

Two more stumbled down the street from the right. Moaning.

Heaven almighty. I didn't understand how she could raise the dead, just passing by in her carriage. And worse, she drew to a stop in front of the gates of St. Louis Cemetery Number One.

This time, I didn't need to climb the tall white walls that surrounded the city of the dead. The gate opened on its own for Mamma Pade's carriage.

I took one more look back and saw Aimee in the street, clutching the arm of a man, most likely her husband. But they were too far back, and I didn't know what they could do at this point anyway. She'd be more help to Carpenter.

I pushed past the dead and followed Mamma inside. She stood on the main path, surrounded by mausoleums, gleaming white under the light of the moon. "Where?"

Osse Pade led her to a crumbling tomb toward the back of the first row. "Andre is in here," he said, defeated.

Mamma coo'ed as she stroked the bokor's chin. He appeared almost happy then, until she reached out and laid a hand over her favorite son's final resting place.

"Rise up, my sweet Andre." She opened her arms. "That goes for all the departed who hear my call." She lifted her head and stretched her arms out. "If you wish to serve me, than you shall live again." She chuckled. "Do not worry. Never fear. All is well." She lowered her gaze and it landed square on me. "Mamma is here."

Rumbling filled the air, and I heard a sick scratching noise come from the tomb to my left. Someone was trying to get out.

A foot emerged from the soil in front of it, as if one of the dead had gotten turned around. Gray skin rubbed and tore against the white footpath as it tried to get a toehold.

I searched the sky for any sign of Dimitri. The scratching inside the tombs had grown more frantic. Louder.

Entire families were buried in these mausoleums, and if they were all coming back to life…I watched as the stone slab fell from the front of a tomb up ahead. A man stumbled out. Two more men and a woman toppled over him, followed by a child and another woman and oh my word, in a minute we were going to have an unstoppable horde.

I couldn't kill this many. Even if I could, Mamma would raise more.

Osse Pade stood just beyond the melee. I stalked up to him, grabbed him by his cold, dead arm. "What the hell is your end game?"

He broke into a smile. "Mamma knows best," he said, latching onto me with inhuman strength.

Farther down, Mamma embraced a slack-jawed, blond haired corpse with no nose or ears. "Andre baby," she said, ruffling his hair. She smiled at me, not even worried that I'd stop her.

I couldn't.

Not now, at least.

She let the blonde corpse shuffle away. She stood at the center of the moaning undead and lowered her eyes.

Mamma began uttering incantations. Her human followers gathered around her, praying, lending their energy to her as she worked, asking for her blessings as more and more of the dead rose from their graves.

Her eyes snapped open and she smiled. "Now, my good people," she reached down to them, "you will be transformed!"

They swayed and chanted, mesmerized as the dead surrounded them. I shouted a warning as a corpse drove its jaws into the neck of a woman in white. She arched forward, silently screaming. Blood sprayed as the zombie tore her throat out.

"Give yourselves! Surrender to death!" Mamma commanded the panicked crowd.

I broke away from Osse Pade and took down one corpse with a switch star. Two. I sliced their heads clean off. At least they couldn't bite. But the rest of the undead surged into the crowd, their fingers tearing, their jaws working.

It took no time for her to massacre them all. The bodies of the church members lay dead and bloody on the ground.

Mamma's eyes locked onto mine across the blood and the gore. "Don't worry. Mamma's here." She raised her arms, flung them wide, and I saw the bodies on the ground twitch. "You'll better than you were before," she crooned to the grisly remains of her followers. "You'll be so much stronger." She grinned. "And you'll be mine."

Osse Pade gripped my arm. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" He pressed his lips against my neck with barely contained joy. "Once she has enough servants raised, she can draw the strength to bring you back from the dead."

Oh, hell no. "I'm not dead," I said, twisting in his grasp.

He kept hold of me and levered a knife at my heart. "You will be."

I broke free, wincing as his blade glanced off my bronze armor and sliced into the soft skin above. Hot pain seized me as I spun him around and grabbed his blade, holding him against me as I held it to his jugular.

Mamma jumped down from the tomb. "Kill him again," she laughed. She closed the distance between us. "Here. I'll do it for you." She took him by the neck and sliced him open with a sharp, bony finger. Blood sprayed as he fell to his knees.

I clutched a hand to my injured side. My vision swam. Frick, it hurt. I gathered my strength and focused on levitating. I needed to escape.

"No, no," Mamma gripped my shoulder and slammed me back to the ground. I'd only risen a few inches.

Osse Pade lay at our feet. I wasn't sure if he was alive or dead. "He's a good boy," she mused. "He tries. I don't know anyone else who has a demon slayer minion."

"Not you," I ground out, even as I found myself surrounded by the dead.

Her jaws creaked as she smiled. "Yes, me." She brought a skeletal hand to my bleeding side and I could feel the pierce of her fingers as she worked her way inside my body. "Die, demon slayer."

Chapter Twenty

Her cold fingers slithered inside me.

I slammed a switch star into her neck, taking her head clean off her shoulders. Blood splattered my face and I bent over in pain as I wrenched free of her grip.

Bodies pressed in on me from all sides, their dead hands holding me in place while Mamma snarled. Her head lay on the pavement several feet back, laughing at me.

It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think. I had to come up with something quick or I wasn't going to make it.

Spine twitching, Mamma held out her hand as a blood-soaked woman in white stumbled to retrieve her head with one good arm, the other gnarled and chewed away. Together, they placed the head back on Mamma's shoulders. She grimaced as she adjusted it back into place. Tendons slithered up the bone, muscles knit together, and I was left with a very alive, very pissed voodoo queen.

"I should kill you for that," she hissed. She adjusted a crick in her neck. "I will. But don't worry. I'll bring you back. You deserve to be my undead slave."

The ghouls held my arms out to my sides and shoved me toward Mamma.

"Disarm her!" Mamma commanded, more than a little put out.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if they ripped my arms off.

When the clawing dead bodies tore my switch star belt from my body, I was almost relieved. It disappeared into the churning mass of the departed.

"They should have done that back at the funeral parlor." She took one slow step toward me, then another. "My second son underestimated you. I won't."

She reached again for the hole in my chest, her fingers white and grasping.

I braced myself, knowing this time I might not make it.

"Lizzie!" My dog's voice echoed from above. I looked to the sky and saw Pirate swooping down on the back of his dragon. It was the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen. "Duck!" he hollered.

Flappy's talons hit Mamma, taking off her head, sending it screaming backward. The dead reached for the low-flying dragon.

I was loose.

Explosions lit up the night as spell jars broke all around us. The hoarse battle cry of the witches echoed over the city of the dead.

Red smoke rippled up, making my head swim. I stumbled sideways. I touched the wound at my side, horrified to see the blood running freely.

"Lizzie, catch!" Pirate yelled, as Flappy came in for another dive. "It's from Dimitri." A loosely bound leather bag landed at my feet.

What the…? "Where's Dimitri?" I untied it to find a steel long sword.

"Attack!" Mamma ordered and I saw she had her head attached once more. "Kill. Rip her apart!"

The zombie horde surged. I hefted the sword and took off the heads of two of the creatures who came at me. The weapon slammed to the ground, heavier than I'd imagined.

Screams echoed in the night. I quickly climbed the nearest mausoleum, out of their reach. For now. I sliced at the hands grabbing for me. The Red Skulls had invaded from the front gate. They'd made it about twenty feet inside the cemetery and set up a preliminary circle.

A wall of green magic surrounded them, and they hunkered behind it, firing red death spells. Trunks lay open along the edges and in the center of the circle, filled with glistening magic.

I'd seen death spells before. Hell, I was the only person alive who had walked through one and not succumbed. But that brand of magic didn't work now. Not on these creatures.

"Bob!" I hollered, trying to get the nearest Red Skull's attention.
 

Moans filled the night as the witches were quickly surrounded.

Ant Eater and Grandma barked orders to the coven members passing spells up to the front.

A corpse's jagged teeth lashed at my ankle. I sliced its head off.

"They're already dead!" I hollered as the bloodthirsty corpses slammed into their lines and reached for me on top of the mausoleum. The zombies pressed against the Red Skull's wall, pushing and straining.

An arm reached through, then another, trying to grasp at the witches beyond. The spell powering the wall weakened and sputtered. It wouldn't hold for long.

On the right flank, Dimitri defended his position with a short sword. He'd found a pair of black pants, but that's all he wore. The muscles in his back flexed as he drove back the dead again and again. Creely lay next to him, white-faced, her side bleeding. Edwina frantically applied bandages.
 

The dead were starting to pile up, to push over the wall. A hand shot through and grabbed Dimitri's shoulder. He sliced it right off the arm. But there would be others. Countless many more.

A snarling corpse seized my leg and I lopped off its head moments before it bit.

With gut wrenching terror, I saw the first of the dead break through the witches' wall and go straight for Dimitri. He stabbed it in the head, then dropped his blade. He had to be nuts.

I watched as he wove his blue protective magic, patching the hole. At least temporarily. Dimitri's arms shook. He focused his entire body, his entire being on that breach in the wall. He was working too hard to keep it closed. It was only a matter of time.

Ant Eater rushed for more weapons, splitting them with Aimee and her man as they went back to the walls. I hoped to God they had more in their arsenal. We had to end this or all of us would die tonight.

I shoved off the tomb, levitating over the bloodthirsty corpses, landing hard inside the witches' barricade. I ran for Grandma as she dragged a teetering zombie over the wall and stabbed it in the brain with a dagger.

Its dull eyes closed forever and she gave a satisfied snort.

Yeah, well there were too many to kill one-on-one. "We have to come up with something bigger," I hollered over the snarls coming from outside the wall. "You can't use death spells on the already dead."

"Right," she said, her eyes widening. She hurried to the stash at the center and began rifling through it. "We've got stuff to stop a heart."

"No."

"Turn blood to dust."

"No." I insisted. "What do you have that can short-circuit a brain?" Maybe the zombie movies had gotten something right.

"I got Mind Wipers," she said, a little desperate.

"No." Not when their ultimate wish was to tear us apart.

The shambling corpses pressed into the wall and I heard it crackle under the pressure.

"What have you got to kill them?" I demanded.

"Everything we've got is designed to kill them!" She hollered back.

It's just that none of it would work on corpses.
Think.

I jumped sideways when Frieda pressed a crystal over the bloody gash on my side. "Ow!" I slapped her away.

She pressed it in harder. "Stop being a baby. You won't be any good to us if you bleed to death."

"I'm fine," I grimaced as I felt warm magic seep into my wound. Damn. It stung.

"Hold still," she ordered.

Flappy circled overhead and shot down straight toward me, with a wobbling Pirate on his back. The damned dog was going to fall off one of these days. I didn't know how many times I told him
not
to ride the dragon.

"Get away!" I yelled, waving him off. He was flying straight over death spells.

He didn't listen. The fricking dog never listened. He skimmed the wall, taking down a mess of zombies as they bit and clawed at Flappy's legs.

The dragon shot out a burst of fire, setting several of the dead ablaze. Fire crackled over their skin and clothes. It streamed from their hair. The stench of burning, rotting flesh invaded my senses and still they came at us, arms outstretched.

Frieda rushed to help Ant Eater, whose boot had caught fire.

Next to her, Aimee staggered back from the wall. For a second I thought she'd been bitten. "We can't fight this," she said, blood flowing from a cut on her forehead. "You have to kill Mamma."

"I tried to kill Mamma," I countered. "I ripped out her soul. I stabbed her in the head. She's immortal."