Owl and the City of Angels (51 page)

“I’d be more concerned about you; you’re the one chasing after the powerful artifacts with the Naga.”

“Oh I plan on being careful,” he said. He kissed me fast—without worrying about who the elf was looking at this time—and ran to join Lady Siyu and Carpe.

Captain with me, I joined Nadya in our jeep. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get this clusterfuck over with,” I said.

“What is the plan when we reach the zombies?” she said, gunning the engine.

“Your guess is as good as mine, but I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

Nadya and I peeled out of the cemetery. We didn’t have far to go before we ran into the first batch of zombies. All we had to do was follow the screams.

“Now that we’ve found them, what the hell do we do with them?” Nadya said as she halted the car in front of a troop of ten or more zombies wearing nothing more than morgue tags.

“That depends—how stupid are these guys?”

In response, Nadya honked the horn three times and hit the floodlights.

The pack of hospital zombies turned away from their slower, screaming, and panicking prey in favor of us.

“Pretty stupid,” she said.

I searched around the area. Paramount Pictures wasn’t too far away—they had to have gates and buildings that could hold back a few zombies. “We’ll lead them out of the way.”

Nadya honked the horn again to make sure we kept their attention, and we started leading them towards the movie lot. Best-case scenario, we could get the bulk of them locked up. Once we got to breaking Cooper’s damn spell, it’d be easier to spin it as a promotional prank—the IAA loved that stuff.

If we didn’t figure out a way to break the spell? Well, worst-case scenario, the assholes at the IAA would eventually find the zombies . . . and they wouldn’t be able to attack anyone in the meantime.

Apparently lights and horns were too delectable a temptation for the zombies to resist . . . not only did they take the bait, they picked up their pace too.

“Back up, back up,” I yelled at Nadya, banging the top of the jeep as the first few zombies staggered within grabbing range.

“No backseat driving.” Nadya threw it in reverse—not too fast, in case the zombies lost interest—and maneuvered into the Paramount lot.

There was a warehouse not too far away. When we got within running distance, I could jump out and open the doors—it looked like we might even be able to drive right through. Lead them in, then close the barn doors behind them, so to speak . . .

It was a good, clean plan. The kind of solution I’d brag about to Rynn the next time he accused me of being reckless.

If it hadn’t been for the Humvee cruising by the lot, I think it would have worked.

It was the same guys from the video; a man, who looked like he’d be more at home on the beach, leaning out the front passenger window with a chain saw, and a woman in a camouflage baseball cap leaning out the back window, brandishing a sawed-off shotgun.

The Humvee stopped outside the main gates, and a few moments of silence passed as we sized each other up. Me and Nadya with our pack of zombies, and the zombie hunters with their guns and chain saws.

Yeah, there was only one way this was going to go . . .

“Zombies!” Chainsaw yelled as a battle cry.

A Molotov cocktail followed. Nadya and I ducked as the bottle exploded—spectacularly, to say the least—just short of our jeep, in the midst of the zombies.

Now, you might think this was a fantastic idea. Why not kill all the zombies using fire, then add a few bullets? That solves the problem, doesn’t it?

The problem isn’t killing the zombies; the problem is firearms and explosives in the average video gamers’ hands are dangerous for everyone else around them.

The guy’s aim was good. The Molotov cocktail burst over one zombie’s head, and from there the fiery contents splashed out onto the rest of the pack, as well as some nearby plants. Those went up fast, the dry leaves acting as an accelerant, and in a matter of minutes the fire had engulfed the guardhouse and the front of Paramount in flames . . . On top of that, zombies now burning towards a second death strayed from the herd, running in every imaginable direction.

We’d only been a few feet away from the open storage trailer too.

Damn it.

A security guard burst out of another building after two flaming zombies crashed into his door. Yelling, the guard ran for the front gate, only slowing down as he caught sight of more flaming zombies setting anything and everything they collided with on fire.

“To your left!” Chainsaw yelled.

Camo hat in the back swung her ponytail and aimed her sawed-off shotgun at the guard, pulling the trigger.

The security guard never knew what hit him. One minute he was watching something out of a bizarre movie, the next . . . well, that was it.

It happened too fast for me to do anything except watch the disaster unfold.

“Son of a bitch, they just shot him,” I said.

We both ducked as bullets ricocheted off the jeep. It was only a matter of time before they confused us for the walking dead as well.

Shotgun yelled, “You two been bitten? Come out so we can see you.”

Oh for Christ’s sake . . . I stuck my head up. “Fuck off, you stupid gamers. This is not a fucking zombie video game.”

I ducked back down as they answered me with a shot. Who knew this many people were waiting for a zombie apocalypse in L.A.? Texas, Montana, sure, but L.A.?

Guess an unhealthy fear of home invasion will do that to you . . .

“Well, at least if they’re shooting at the jeep, they aren’t shooting other people at random,” I said to Nadya.

“We need to work on your definition of bright side.”

My phone rang. I checked the ID. What the hell did he want?

“Artemis? Bad timing,” I yelled as another bullet struck the jeep.

“You’re welcome. Been watching things on the news. Quite the Rome burning you have going on out there.”

“Can’t take all the credit,” I said, peeking around the jeep.

“Hey, question . . . are you looking for two men, one brunette all-American, the other African with a number of very scary-looking guns strapped in various locations, possibly towing around a bunch of zombies? Because they’re out front.”

Fuck.

“I’ll take that silence as a yes,” he said.

“Thanks, Artemis, I’ll get back to you,” I said, and hung up. I dialed Rynn next. I swore as his voice mail picked up, then I stole another glance at the trigger-happy zombie hunters.

“Remind me not to play Zombie Walker when it comes out,” I said to Nadya.

“Just remember you said that when the time comes.”

Now what to do? “We need to split up,” I said.

Nadya scowled at me. “Are you sure Lady Siyu lifted that curse? That’s the worst idea you’ve had yet.”

“Well, I’m open to suggestions. Otherwise Cooper might get away.”

“He doesn’t have the other artifacts.”

“He only needs those to control the zombies. The lamp is enough to raise them and control the ones walking around here already.”

“We both go then,” Nadya said, and went for the jeep keys. I stopped her. I did not relish the idea of leaving these nut jobs unchecked.

“We’ll flip a coin,” I said. “Heads, we both go to Artemis’s and look for Cooper, tails I go, you try to handle the Humvee zombie-hunting terrors.”

“Deal,” Nadya said.

I tossed a coin up in the air, catching it on the back of my hand. Damn, it felt good to have coordination back . . . “Tails,” I said.

Nadya swore but didn’t try to stop me when I held out my hands for the keys. She hopped out of the jeep . . .

One of these days in the very near future she was going to figure out I had a double-tailed coin . . . I didn’t relish that talk, but hey, use the advantage you have.

Before gunning the jeep, I waited for Nadya to run for cover and made sure Captain was safely in his carrier in the backseat.

I didn’t have to wait very long. No sooner was Nadya in the clear than she yelled, “Zombies, over here!” at the top of her lungs and booted it behind one of the studio buildings.

It had the desired effect, I’ll give her that.

The zombie hunters forgot all about me and took off through the gate after her. I waited until I was sure Nadya was out of range before flooring it onto Santa Monica Boulevard.

I pulled out my phone. “Phone, get me to Artemis Bast’s house,” I told it. Hopefully I’d be able to reach Cooper and Odawaa before they managed to raise any more zombies and mayhem.

I turned down Artemis’s street and parked in his driveway. No sign of Cooper and Odawaa’s SUV, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t had the brains to hide it somewhere first.

I grabbed my gas mask out of my backpack before stepping out of the car. Somehow I figured that just because there was a zombie apocalypse didn’t mean Artemis was going to cancel a party, and I’d had enough incense to last me a lifetime.

When I reached the front though there was a marked absence of . . . well . . . anyone. The door was cracked open, and when I peeked inside—
carefully—
the foyer lights were off and the genie bodyguards absent.

“What do you think, Captain?” I said.

He sniffed around the door before sliding past me on his leash. I followed, losing my gas mask. There was no party, and I don’t know if it was lack of incense or the emptiness, but the front ballroom had lost its sheen.

No one was here.

“Got bored rounding up the dead coming to life out there, did you?” Artemis said, though it took me a second to find him.

I did a double take when I spotted him. Artemis Bast was sitting by himself, pouring what had to be a second, third, or fourth drink from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

He had a spare tumbler beside him and offered it to me. When I hesitated, he added, “No need to worry, I don’t bite—much.”

As much as I would have loved a drink right about now, something about the situation made me shake my head again.

Artemis shrugged and poured himself another. “Suit yourself,” he said, and downed the glass.

He picked up a remote and turned on the television mounted over his bar. Most people were running away from the city center, but there were the select few who were crashing towards it.

Artemis arched a blond eyebrow at me, in almost perfect mimicry of the expression Rynn made. “Apparently the police are asking people to stay indoors. No reason given yet except for civil disturbance.”

“Funny that.”

He inclined his head and finished off the tumbler of whisky. “IAA will have a hell of a time cleaning this mess up,” he said.

Well, on the bright side, I hadn’t actually been the one to start the first zombie war of L.A. Still, the way Artemis was watching me . . .

“You said Cooper was here.”

He looked down at the glass before looking back up at me. “I lied,” he said. “It’s been known to happen.”

Funny, he didn’t seem real remorseful about that . . .

Captain’s Spidey sense must have been up too, because he wound his tail around my legs and made a low, questioning growl as he sniffed the air.

“I’m guessing my cousin didn’t elaborate on the more sordid details of my bad behavior.” He swirled the bottle, his eyes not leaving mine now, but still the pale green.

Captain’s hackles rose as he narrowed in on a closed door, stalking towards it as far as his leash would let him. It was the same door I’d stumbled down in a haze, the one that led towards the kitchen.

I frowned at Artemis. “What did you do?”

“
What did I do?
” he repeated, stressing each word carefully as he glanced up at the ceiling. “Let’s say someone outside my usual circle of friends made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

I pulled out my phone and speed-dialed Rynn.

“Oh he won’t be able to take your call—my new friend was quite adamant about keeping my cousin and Lady Siyu busy for a while.”

I left a message anyway. “Rynn, cleanup on aisle six, otherwise known as your delinquent cousin.” To Artemis, I said, “Who’s your new friend?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he countered. “I’d be more concerned about the offer, to be perfectly honest.”

I tracked Captain to where he was pushing at the door. Whatever was behind it wasn’t a vampire, otherwise he’d be throwing himself at it.