Shadow Rising (45 page)

“I know. My friends and I are here to help put the bone-walkers and the wayward dead back in their graves. But I must find my friend, before the zombies and demons harm him. Can you take me to him?”

I waited, forcing myself to be patient. And patience wasn’t one of my virtues. But when dealing with Elementals, patience was key. Especially Earth Elementals, who tended to move cautiously until they were certain of their course, at which point they could surge forth like an earthquake or landslide.

After a moment, during which they exchanged chattering noises that sounded like sticks rattling, he turned toward me again. “Your friend is in the clearing directly beyond this thicket. He is hurt. If you will clear the wayward ones, we will not forget your help. We guard the bones of this space, and they should not be abroad. Bones are for memories. Bones are to feed the earth and the worms. Bones are not meant to be walking above the ground without flesh and soul attached.”

“You’re right about that,” I whispered, as I started past them.

As I passed by, the Earth Elemental caught my wrist in his hand. A heavy, laden sense of gravity sank me to my knees. “You are young in the world, still. There are ancient powers
waking from their slumber. Some are beneficial. Others hunger from the depths. Be wary, Priestess: Not everything that answers to the moon will understand the changes wrought in this world. The Mother is ancient, and some of her children nearly as old.”

And with that, he let go and I stumbled forward. I tried to get his warning out of my head, but the words rang in my ears as I pushed my way through the cedars to yet another clearing—the graveyard itself.

And there was Chase, propped up on a tombstone, looking petrified as a zombie slowly made its way toward him. That was one saving grace of the zombie brigade—they couldn’t move very fast. They shuffled. They scuffed along. Granted, once they reached you, if you couldn’t get out of their way, you were toast unless you could totally destroy them. But given you were in an open space and not obligated to destroy them, you could usually run away.

Now ghouls were different from zombies. They were faster, even though they were also animated corpses. And far worse, they absorbed life energy as well as eating flesh, and so were doubly dangerous.

But Chase didn’t look like he was going anywhere soon. He was leaning on the tombstone, one foot raised. In one hand, he held his Glock 40, even though he knew bullets were no real use against the undead. Chase was good with a gun—deadly accurate—but the bullets wouldn’t stop what was coming our way.

He glanced at me as I headed his way. Six two, with dark hair cut in a slight shag, he was swarthy with olive skin, dark eyes, and a suave look to him. He was muscled, but lean. Right now, he mostly looked like he was in pain.

I hurried over to him, eyeing the zombies as I crossed the open swath of grass, past dilapidated headstones that were breaking apart, they were so old and weathered. The zombies were near enough to worry about, but we still had a few minutes before they’d reach us.

I cut right to the point. We didn’t have time for small talk. “Can you walk?”

“I stepped in a pothole and twisted my ankle. I managed to hobble over here, but I think I’ll seriously fuck it up if I try to set my weight on it.” He winced but pushed the pain aside and nodded to the oncoming undead. “What about them? You can’t carry me, woman.”

“You’d be surprised what I can do. I’m half-Fae, remember?” But the truth was, I
didn’t
think I could manage to carry him. I could outrun him, outwalk him, and probably fight him down to the ground, but I wasn’t Delilah with her athletic frame, and I wasn’t Menolly with her vampiric strength. “Put away the gun; that’s not going to do any good and one of us will end up getting shot.”

He tucked it back in the holster. “I didn’t think it would help, but I was feeling vulnerable, you know? From now on, I’m carrying an armory, like Roz.”

“It wouldn’t fit in your suit jacket, babe.” I began to edge away from the gravestone. The nearest zombie was getting too close for comfort, and still no sign of Morio or the others. I had to do something. “Hide behind the tombstone. I don’t want you getting hit by any backfire from this if it goes wrong.”

Chase knew well enough by now that when I said
duck
, he’d better move. Fast. And duck he did—crouching down behind the marker as I called down the energy of the Moon Mother. There were enough clouds that I was able to find the key for lightning, and I summoned it through me, praying that I’d have the energy to direct it without causing massive damage to either Chase or myself.

As the familiar tingle ran down through my crown chakra, into my arms and down through my fingers, it felt like my muscles and aura were being infused by a huge jolt of caffeine. I began to shake—yeah, I was too tired for this, but there was no choice. I could run, but Chase couldn’t, and I wasn’t going to leave him alone to get attacked by the zombies.

As I took aim, focusing the best I could, I let loose with the energy bolt. The blast ricocheted out of my body, flaring out in the darkening sky. It wasn’t a fork of lightning. Instead,
the spell spread out, blanketing a wide swath of grass and gravestones instead of just pinpointing the walking dead. It reminded me of a floodlight, suddenly lighting up the night.

But the energy caught the zombie and knocked it on its ass. The creature went flying back, landing hard, giving us precious time while it was trying to reorient itself and struggled to its feet again.

Meanwhile, I heard something coming at us from the left. I swung around in time to see a goblin, wearing full leather armor, leading a band of at least twenty other goblins at full tilt.

“What the fuck?
Goblins?
Chase, get your gun back out. It may do some good against them.” Meanwhile, exhausted from the energy bolt on top of everything that Morio and I had already done earlier, I fumbled for my cell phone. I needed reinforcements and fast, or Chase and I were going to be mincemeat.

But before I could extract it from the zippered pocket that also held my keys, the goblins were on us. I yanked out my dagger and engaged the leader. As I swiped, desperately trying to focus, Chase let off a volley of bullets and two of the goblins went down, though they weren’t dead.

Panicking, I lunged for the goblin’s head and my blade connected with the flesh, plunging through to bounce off the bone. I didn’t have the strength to drive the blade through his skull. As he lurched back, taking my blade with me, I scrambled to summon up as much energy as I could. I might be able to manage one more energy bolt. But as I dodged, trying to evade my attacker, a blur roared past me, and the goblin went flying. I blinked, trying to see what the hell had just happened.

And there, standing between me and the goblin horde, was Smoky. And he was
pissed
.