Steal the Moon (13 page)

“She’s undead,” I confirmed.

“I believe she’s hurt as well. I smell something like blood,” Lee added.

Declan’s shoulders squared and he nodded briefly. “Yes. I shot the creature last night. I would have pursued it had I not been distracted by Zoey’s breasts. Her shirt was wet and her nipples puckered so sweetly, I forgot about the beast.”

“Donovan’s going to love him,” Lee said sarcastically. “Seriously, he’s not going to be happy there are two of him.”

I let that go for the moment. Daniel knew Dev had a twin, but I don’t think it really registered that he would be so like Dev when it came to his libido. “I need information from the creature, Lee. I have questions for her and I may have to get nasty to get my answers. If this disturbs you, I’ll understand if you choose to remain behind.”

“Yes,” Lee said, sarcasm dripping. “I can’t stand violence. Just point me to the kill, sister. My only regret is there won’t be flesh or blood. I’m hungry, damn it, but I like my meat living when I begin to eat it. The bird thing smells pretty tasty, to tell you the truth.”

“Okay, ewww,” I said with a grimace. “Good to know. How about you, Your Highness? Are you up for a bit of ultra-violence?”

Declan bowed, a courtly gesture. “I am at your service. I will assist you in extracting the information you need from the creature and then, if the violence places you in a state of sexual need, I will aid with that as well. I will fight the wolf for the privilege if that would please you.”

Lee rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m not interested in hitting that, so feel free.”

“Some bodyguard you are,” I groused.

“Well, you shot me,” he returned lightly, but I could see his body tense with anticipation. He pulled a semi from its hiding place in the small of his back. I reached in my bag and pulled out my Ruger. Lee waited for my nod and then kicked in the door.

We rushed in and our assault had begun.

Chapter Eight

The aswang’s nest reeked of death. The building was utterly silent as we moved through the door, but there was nothing peaceful about the quiet. This was the silence that came with absence—absence of life, of hope, of love. This place was devoid of joy. I’d read that the aswang was considered by certain scholars of the arcane to be the Pacific Rim’s version of the vampire. Walking into its lair, it was clear those scholars had never actually met a vampire.

Even the oldest of vampires surround themselves with life. They’re obsessed with the vitality of humans, and while they might break their toys on occasion, they would never be able to live like this. The aswang was truly undead. Unlike the vampire, whose body merely survived the process of death, the aswang had no spark of life in it. Vampires lived. They had ambitions and made plans. They sought out entertainments and diversions. They had a multitude of desires and for the most part, sought pleasure.

The aswang was different. It existed only to feed, to turn life into death.

Lee entered first because his senses were far better than any Declan or I possessed. He moved with the odd grace of a wolf stalking its prey. His head was down and it swept the area, moving from side to side. He silently pointed up and I nodded. She was on the second floor.

It was dark though the sun was bright outside. The windows were coated with filth, allowing little of the day’s glow inside the gloom of the building. Lee stalked down the hall and into the storefront. Declan was at my back, moving as silently as a warrior of the
sidhe
could move.

I had the Ruger in a double-fisted hold. Being a somewhat small female, I had to worry about kick back, and I’d discovered I was better able to handle the recoil with two hands. I was sure Lee could do
The Matrix
, shoot-with-two-guns-blazing thing that Daniel and Dev could do, but I didn’t have preternatural strength. I also didn’t have the strongest of stomachs I learned as Lee led us into the part of the building where the aswang should have been doing her work. My stomach rolled at the stench of death in the kitchen.

I must have gagged a little because Lee gave me a look. It silently asked what the hell I was doing hunting undead crap if I couldn’t stand a little decomp. I sucked it up and forced the bile down. It was nice to know Lee wasn’t the type who was going to coddle me and try to hide me from the nasty parts of the world. He silently asked if I could proceed, and even without the use of his voice, I could hear the sarcastic “princess” he added at the end. I gave him my unfriendly middle finger and he was satisfied.

I found myself in the middle of the butchery. It was a good thing most of the people around here avoided this place like the plague. If this bitch did get customers, I wasn’t sure what she was going to sell them. Though it looked like there was a side of rotting beef hanging in the corner, the rest of the place was filled with nothing that vaguely resembled a cut of meat from a grocery store.

The scent of formaldehyde assaulted my nose, and I saw the pale flesh of a corpse on one of the tables. I shuddered, but forced myself to study it. The corpse was that of an elderly man still wearing the top half of his suit while the pants had been removed. I wasn’t terribly surprised to find that his legs had been chewed on. This was the aswang’s way. She was an eater of the dead. As the corpse was still mostly together, I had to assume she hadn’t liked her meal. Modern funeral home practices had to be hell on the aswang. It might have been the reason she’d been taking so many babies.

I almost tripped over something, my feet skidding across the floor. When I glanced down, I saw a pile of what appeared to be small dolls. Even in the gloom I could see they were effigies. I leaned down and touched one. It was made from plants and without magic looked like a primitive doll, the kind that didn’t have a face. The aswang had made them. This was what she left behind when she took the babies. A doll like this was what the poor woman had been left with when she lost her child. She’d known what it was, her intuition telling her what her eyes could not. Once the aswang had the child, the doll she left behind would be a perfect copy. Only her mother had known it was an empty reflection of her lost baby.

“Hit the deck!” Lee growled.

Behind me I heard Declan move, but I did as I was ordered and hit the floor just before I felt a mighty
whoosh
fly past my body. There was a loud squawking as the bird was frustrated in its attempt to take off my head. I flipped over and tried to get a sight line on the sucker. I laid on my back as close to the floor as I could and held the Ruger, ready to take my shot.

Lee prowled over to me, keeping low.

“Are you all right?” he asked quietly, but the words were garbled. I was startled to see that his face looked like it was caught mid-change. I had seen many strong wolves who could change parts of their bodies. It was one of the ways to determine an alpha but by no means a sure thing. Zack and Neil had both mastered the power but only had it because of Daniel’s blood, and they could change an arm or a hand when they needed it. Lee’s snout was out and his teeth were long. His hands were indeed ugly claws, but the rest of his body maintained its shape.

He shoved my head down, taking care with his claws as the bird made a second pass. After it swooped past, Declan was on his feet, an arrow notched and tracking the bird as it flew. He cursed as it disappeared from view.

Lee shoved me under one of the tables, and I had to stop myself from shrinking back. There was another corpse under this table, but the aswang had gotten to this one before the undertaker had done his damage. This corpse was chewed on thoroughly but had enough flesh left hanging to make me really not want to be up against it.

“Protect her,” Lee ordered.

Declan kneeled in front of me, weapon in his hands. He smiled down, and I noticed he’d dropped the glamour. He wasn’t concentrating on anything so silly as maintaining his Dev illusion now that we were fighting for our lives. His hair hit the floor as he crouched. He seemed calm and unruffled by the experience. “I will protect her. You kill the bird, and I will save the girl.”

Lee rolled his wolf eyes and then moved to the center of the room where he knelt down, that long snout scenting the air. He quickly found the bird’s perch but made no move to get it. He was waiting and it was a strangely active thing. Lee was patient and still, but I knew there was nothing complacent in him. The bird watched him with black, dead eyes. I held my breath for the longest moment, waiting to see who would break the stalemate first.

The bird gave a great cry, and a rush of wings filled the room. As the bird soared Lee leapt, his great mouth open, and caught the bird midair in his teeth. A loud crunch and the sickening sound of bones breaking cracked through the space. The wolf and the bird hit the ground again, and I knew the fight was over when Lee growled and got that meal he’d been hoping for.

He was back to normal and spitting feathers out when he looked down at me and Declan. The faery got up, helping me to my feet.

I gave my bodyguard a questioning look because I wasn’t sure he should have handled things the way he had. “Do you have any idea where that thing’s been? It’s dirty and what do you do? You eat it. Don’t you come to me later when you get a tummy ache.”

Lee grinned, and it made him look younger than his thirty-five years. “Tastes like chicken.”

I laughed, but my relief didn’t last long as I tripped and hit the floor face first. My gun shot out of my hands and tumbled away as I groaned with pain. I was about to look back and see what I had tripped on when something closed around my ankle and started pulling me under the table. My stomach was rolling again as I realized the freaking Internet hadn’t mentioned a damn thing about the aswang having control over corpses. Sure enough, a bony hand was pulling me inexorably toward fleshless teeth.

The people who had seen this particular power were probably all freaking dead.

Scrambling to get away, I tried to kick at my assailant. I glanced back and saw the corpse trying to get on its bony knees. Though its eyes were long dead, they seemed to look my way more out of habit than anything…unless the freaking thing could see through the corpse’s eyes.

This is why I don’t hunt. I steal. In all my years as a thief, I’ve seen some freaky things, but not once was I assaulted by rotting corpses, and it was a credit to my profession, if you ask me.

Declan hauled me up, and I heard the satisfying pop of those undead joints coming off. “I believe the creature has awakened the dead.”

“Ya think?” I was only slightly hysterical as I realized there was still a hand attached to my ankle. I reached down and forcibly removed the offensive, still twitching, limb. I tossed it across the room and wasn’t thrilled to see it start to move my way again.

Lee walked up to the hand and crushed it under his boots. “Zoey, behind you.”

I swiveled around quickly just as the corpse began to crawl out from under the table. It was missing an arm but it managed to slither along. I kicked out, catching it on the jaw which cracked under the force of my supercute J. Reneé jeweled ladybug sandals. I was really going to have to think about proper footwear the next time I went hunting. Living with Dev had made me soft.

Declan stepped on the corpse’s spine and the weight of his big body stopped all forward motion. The bones still twitched and pulsed with the need to follow orders, but it no longer was capable.

Shuddering, I reached down to pick up my lost gun. I had it in my hand when I heard that horribly now-familiar zombie groan and brought my eyes up just as three more corpses entered the room. They moved slowly, as though every motion was deliberate and required great thought, but these corpses were more flesh than bone. They also had stopped to get weapons. Two held long butcher knives and the third held an axe.

Lee sprang away from the zombies and across the room to join Declan and me. Even Lee shuddered a little when he stared at the creatures facing us. Declan notched an arrow and shot the one closest to him in the eye. It didn’t actually stop the zombie. It just gave the zombie a nice place for birds to perch.

“See, Dec,” I said with a frown at his cute little bow and arrow, “this is why we bring guns.”

Lee smiled and we both took aim. “Take off the head.”

The world was suddenly filled with the sounds of bullets cracking through the air. It took more than a couple of tries because we weren’t carrying the right kind of weapons, but then we hadn’t known we were going to be dealing with freaking zombies in the middle of Dallas. When killing zombies, the movies really do have it right. A shotgun is the only way to go. You have to take off the head, not just leave a neat little hole in it.

Usually.

I say usually because this time was the exception. I suspect it was because these weren’t true zombies. These were reanimated dead being controlled directly by another creature. For whatever reason, even after I had successfully blown my opponent’s head to smithereens, it just kept coming. Lee was having the same trouble and finally cursed and tossed his semi aside. His hands became long claws and despite the knife about to come down on his head, he leapt into the fray and began tearing the body apart.