Grave Creatures Read online

  Nobody replied. Their looks of grim determination were the only responses I needed anyway.

  Felicia and Chuck went into gun-checking mode. They had numerous magazines strapped on. These were the kind that were full of paintballs. They weren’t the same size as your standard pellet, either. I picked one up and twirled it in my hand. They were about the size of small marbles.

  Serena had a table full of bandages, ointments, and elixirs laid out. Beyond her normal laying of hands, she was also quite versed in alchemic remedies.

  Rachel took a moment to align with Griff and Jasmine. Whatever it was they were doing during these little sessions, it got them focused. When they were focused, they were deadly.

  Deadly was good right about now.

  “Lydia,” I said through the connector, “everyone is ready to go.”

  “Promise me you’ll be careful, pumpkin?”

  “We all will be, babe,” I answered while heading off to my car.

  “Dex,” Portman called out as he jogged up to me, “I heard about your plan to go directly after the necromancer. I want to join you.”

  I shook my head at him, which was not something you ever learned to feel comfortable doing to a werebear. Of all the bad ass people I knew, Portman was the only one who could beat me in a hand-to-hand fight.

  “I need you to help protect the normals.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.” We stood there for a second. “Besides, if we fail, you’ll get to meet him face-to-face anyway.”

  “True.” He slapped me on the shoulder. It hurt. “Well, you can’t be driving off in the desert in that fancy car. It won’t make it over the first bump.” He pointed over near the vans where there sat a big jeep. “Take that.”

  I eyed the vehicle. It wasn’t exactly me, but he was right that it would be more appropriate for where we were going. Another glance at the jeep and then at my suit made me admit that my choice of garb was getting worse by the minute.

  “Why are there no doors on it?” I asked as we walked toward the vehicle. He just looked at me as if I were stupid. When it came to things like this, I apparently was. “Is it at least an automatic transmission?”

  It wasn’t.

  Fifteen minutes later I sat in the passenger side while Rachel took the wheel. She had an uppity grin that even Griff could have appreciated.

  So I couldn’t drive a stick? So what? I’d never had the need to drive one. My vehicles were meant for comfortable cruising, not four-wheeling. Rachel had explained that driving a manual transmission gave you more control. I had no need or desire to become “one with the vehicle.” To me, a car was a machine that you used for getting from point A to point B. That’s it. Now, there was no need to have a cheap, crappy car to do that, but that was another matter entirely.

  Cletus and Merle were in the backseat looking over their Desert Eagles. I’d made sure they each had two of them just like us. One with paintballs and one with 50 caliber breaker bullets.

  “So the real bullets is for any werewolves and such, right?” asked Merle.

  “That’s correct.”

  I heard Cletus release a heavy breath. “I’m sorry, mister, but I gotta say somethin’ here. Ya do realize that I ain’t gonna be investin’ in nothing?”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, turning back to look at him.

  “Just breaking down the logic of this is all,” he replied. “Ya broke us off the rest of them folks and gave us a talkin’ to, then ya went and found out how I done won a load of cash, and then ya started givin’ me and Merle a special mission tellin’ us about werewovles and whatnot. I know that junk is all hooey and so does Merle, but we played along.” He eyed the real Desert Eagle. “So here we are gettin’ special treatment. Can only mean one thing: Ya want money.”

  To be fair, I could see his point. If I were on the other side of all this, I’d likely be thinking the same thing. It must have seemed rather fantastical to them, after all. Hell, I remember being a kid and thinking that vampires, werewolves, and magic was all a bunch of bullshit. Then I got introduced to it firsthand.

  “Rachel,” I said flippantly, “would you mind providing a demonstration for our new friends?”

  She pulled the truck behind a mound and hopped out. Obviously we didn’t want to risk Shitfaced Fred seeing anything.

  Merle and Cletus were looking on attentively when she started twisting her hands together. They began to glow.

  “What do you think of that?” I said.

  “Buddy, you gotta remember what we do for a livin’,” said Merle. “This ain’t nothin’ but basic electronics.”

  “You might want to hold on,” she announced before the truck started lifting off the ground.

  “Impressive,” Cletus admitted. “Putting hydraulic lifts in is a purdy good effect.”

  The truck was up about ten feet in the air now. Rachel began spinning it slowly to give us a panoramic view. The lights were off and there was no glowing around the vehicle, so Fred couldn’t have spotted us. Plus, we were still too far from him anyway.

  “Ain’t never seen hydraulics lift this high and do spins,” Merle admitted, holding on so tight that his knuckles had turned completely white. “This might be worth investing in.”

  “No investments needed,” I replied. “This isn’t a game, gentlemen. Your final piece of proof is about to happen. Cletus, I would sincerely suggest you follow Merle’s lead and hold on.”

  Rachel flicked her wrist and the truck began doing summersaults. Fortunately, she limited it to three or I would have hurled.

  Once the jeep was back on the ground, she cast three small fireballs and blew up rocks around us. Then she cast a small rain shower to cool off our pals.

  “How much ya need?” Cletus said with a look of awe. “I’ll give ya damn near everything I got. This is gonna make billions.”

  Rachel sighed, jumped in, and looked back.

  “Listen up, boys,” she said sternly. “I’m only going to say this once. This is not some joke. This is real. I’m a mage, he’s an amalgamite, and…”

  “A what?”

  “He’s a mix of a bunch of things,” she clarified. It didn’t help, but she pressed on. “Anyway, werewolves are real, so are vampires, fae, werebears, pixies, mages, wizards, necromancers, zombies, djinn, shape shifters, dragons, and pretty much everything else you’ve ever heard of, though most of the other types don’t come to the desert except on vacation.”

  “You ain’t shittin’, are ya?” Merle said in a shaky voice. His look was deadly serious. “These things really exist?”

  “You’re about to find out first hand, gentlemen,” I answered while Rachel got the truck in gear. “I will warn you that if you don’t take this seriously, you’ll both end up injured or dead.”

  We bounced through the dirt, following the route that Turbo had laid out for us.

  It wouldn’t be long before we were within walking distance, so I reached into my attache and pulled out a pair of black tennis shoes. They’d look ridiculous with my suit, but I hadn’t thought to bring anything along for hunting.

  “I don’t suppose we can back out?”

  “Sorry, Merle,” I replied with a quick shake of my head. “We need you guys. If this necromancer makes it through, Vegas is going to be overrun with zombies before the night is over.”

  “And after that,” added Rachel, “it’s only a matter of time before they branch out to other cities.”

  “Well, shit,” Cletus said and then spit a wad of tobacco out the back, making me suddenly glad that the jeep had no doors or top. “Shoulda just stayed home with Vera.”

  “Yep,” agreed Merle.

  Chapter 36

  We arrived at the stopping point and jumped out. Everyone had their amulets on and weapons at the ready.

  I had no idea what to expect from Shitfaced Fred. My guess was that he wouldn’t be stupid enough to bypass covering his back. There were bound to be sentries, bodyguards, and not
ification runes. Hopefully those runes weren’t tied to explosives, but Turbo’s adjustment to our glasses would allow us to spot those pretty easily.

  “It’s go time,” I said as I started up the small hill that separated us from Fred and his army. “Keep your wits about you. There’s bound to be trouble soon.”

  “Chief,” Chuck called through the connector, “we’ve made contact. The zombies are flowing in and the normals are lighting them up.”

  “Great. Keep us posted.”

  I heard yelling in the distance. It sounded like someone was pretty pissed off. That had to be Fred or one of his lackeys.

  “We just tripped a notification rune,” Rachel said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Felt it.”

  “I thought you needed some type of spell for spotting those.”

  “You do,” she replied. “I didn’t spot it. I tripped it. I don’t need a spell to know if I set off one of them.”

  In support of Rachel’s statement, a couple of creatures appeared at the top of the hill in front of us. I zoomed in and saw two werewolves eying us. There was drool dripping from their mouths. Great. Hungry werewolves.

  “What’s them things?” Merle asked.

  “I think you know,” I answered while taking out Boomy. I kept Boomy Jr.—which is what I named the Desert Eagle that was built to use paintballs—tucked away. It wouldn’t do any good against naughty doggies. “Take out your real guns and get ready to shoot.” I stopped and glanced back. “Only fire if they get past me.”

  “But they ain’t even movin’ after us,” Cletus said. The werewolves began slinking our way. “Okay, maybe they is.”

  “Just keep cool and aim carefully,” I said in a calm voice. “We do this all the time. You’ll be fine.”

  Rachel’s hands lit up and she got ready to launch fireballs at the beasties, but I pushed her hands down. She groaned. Our agreement was that she wouldn’t use up her magic until we were facing other magic users. We didn’t have backup on the mage front, after all.

  “Watch them,” I commanded as I moved forward to intercept the wolves.

  Once we got within one hundred yards of each other, they broke into a run.

  I set myself and slowed my breathing, taking aim at the one on my left. He dropped an instant later. The one on the right followed shortly thereafter.

  “Damn, son,” said Cletus, stepping up next to me. “That was some mighty fine shootin’ there. I’d hate to see what you could do to a beer can!”

  “Thanks.”

  We kept moving forward into the darkness. There was a hint of a glow not too far ahead, which had to be where Fred and his crew were strolling along behind the action.

  We stopped and looked at the wolves I’d just wasted. They’d gone back to their normal bodies, except for chunks that were missing due to our 50-caliber rounds. I checked them over to see if they had any way to communicate. A crackling sound came through from near the larger of the two. Rachel reached down and picked it up, handing it to me.

  It looked like a small speaker with a button on the side.

  The thing crackled again and I heard someone say, “Status?”

  I looked at the others and shrugged.

  “All clear,” I replied in a growl after pressing the little button.

  We waited.

  “Good,” the response came finally. “Keep your eyes open.”

  This time, I didn’t answer. I had no protocol and didn’t know their rules, so I wasn’t about to take a chance and screw up. It had already been a risk to reply at all, but I figured that if it worked, we wouldn’t have another ten of the things coming to check us out.

  “Why’d ya growl?” asked Merle.

  “So they’d think I was a werewolf.”

  “Ah yeah, s’pose that makes sense.”

  We cleared the next hill and looked down over a large expanse. I’d been right about the glow. It was definitely coming from Fred’s advancing group.

  Another zoom showed me a mass of zombies leading the way. A small group of slouched people were behind them. These had to be the necromancer apprentices. At least if you based them on the description that O had given me. Further back there were a number of zombies mixed in with wolves, vampires, and a succubus.

  “Priscilla?” said Rachel as she cracked her neck from side-to-side.

  “Hard to say from here,” I replied, though it did look like her. “She was a nice girl, though, Rachel. No reason to get all medieval on her.”

  Rachel turned slowly toward me. “She’s a succubus, idiot. There’s no such thing as a nice succubus.”

  “Stereotyping is wrong.”

  “Ya got that right,” Cletus said. “And Mr. Dex here oughta know since he done did it to us just a couple hours back.”

  You just couldn’t win with some folks.

  We kept up our pace, until we were within range of doing some damage. I was glad we’d brought along the two normals because we were going to need some firepower against all of these bodyguards. Turning to look at Cletus and Merle, I could only hope they were up for it.

  Just in case, I stopped and motioned everyone to hunker down.

  “Are you two going to be okay here?” I asked Cletus and Merle, recalling how they were only into shooting beer cans and bottles. “What we’re going up against are living creatures. Now, they’re bent on killing you, me, and everyone they can get their hands on…but they’re still alive.”

  “From what you said before, we ain’t got much of a choice,” Merle replied, looking less than okay. “Besides, it’s not like I’m shooting some defenseless deer who just stopped off at the pond for a quick sip.”

  “You’re really not,” I agreed. “These things will rip you to pieces. And if they get past us, they’ll head to Vegas and tear apart everyone else, too.”

  “Then I guess we gotta do what we gotta do,” Merle said, clearly trying to harden his resolve, though he still looked very uneasy.

  It was more than unfair to throw these two into this situation, but we needed them. Vegas needed them.

  “Cletus,” I said, “are you ready for this?”

  “I’ll be fine.” Cletus seemed to be handling this a little better than his pal. He must have sensed that I’d noticed that, because he added, “Fact is that we gotta get to work. How many times is we gonna be able to put up a fight against stuff like this? They get past us and this town is done for. Where I’m from, we don’t back down in the face of wrongdoing. Merle and me’ll stand up and fight, mister. Ain’t that right, Merle?”

  “Damn straight, Cletus,” Merle replied, his face creasing back into that squint he’d had when we first met. Obviously Cletus had played the right chord. He grabbed a fresh wad of chew and stuck it into his mouth. “Sittin’ around jawing about it ain’t gettin’ us nowhere. Let’s open us a can of whoopass on these suckers.”

  Chapter 37

  Rachel hung back so she could keep a wide view on things. The hope was that she’d be able to knock out anything that got too close to Cletus and Merle. The second hope was that these amulets would afford us enough protection against anything Fred and his pals might throw our way.

  “Remember,” I whispered as we continued moving, “left hand is the paintball gun. That’s for zombies. Right hand contains the breaker bullets that are for the rest of them. We can all be shot with the paintballs and it won’t do anything but sting a little because of the enhancements made by Turbo, but the breakers will kill us. Clear?”

  They replied by giving a sinister nod.

  It was good to see they were ready for action.

  Then Merle said, “How can you tell the difference between a zombie and the others?”

  I pointed at a zombie. Its gait was staggered, like a drunkard who needed to sleep it off. Not unlike the image of Fred when he’d fooled us back by King David’s. I grunted at the thought.

  “Got it,” Merle stated.

  “Let’s stick together,” I added as I lifted u
p Boomy and took aim at the nearest vampire’s back. “Nobody runs off.”

  In response, Merle had his paint gun aimed at the zombie I’d pointed at while aiming his standard Eagle at a werewolf. Cletus had taken on a similar stance.

  Not to be outdone, I withdrew Boomy Jr. and had both at the ready.

  “Hold steady until I give the word,” I commanded and then called back to Chuck through the connector. “What’s the status, Chuck?”

  “We’re getting swarmed here,” he replied through ragged breaths. “There are paint pellets zipping all over the place, and they’re working like a charm, but there’s just too many of them. We’re struggling, Chief.”

  “Understood. We’re about to engage from the rear, so I have a feeling you’re about to get a slight reprieve.”

  “Could use it.”

  “Roger that,” I agreed. “Hang tight.”

  I gave Merle and Cletus one last glance. They clearly had gotten over their nerves because those guns were barely shaking, and they’d been holding them a while. I guess Cletus’s speech had really struck a nerve with Merle.

  “On three, gentlemen,” I announced. “One…two…three!”

  We all pulled our triggers and the battle was on.

  Bodies dropped, howls rang out, and zombies turned to dust. Those paint pellets were incredible, and they had to be because we had awakened the bodyguards while letting Fred know that we had arrived.

  The beasts spun around and started their counterassault.

  They were flying in at speeds that were bound to be too much for the likes of Cletus and Merle. Fortunately, Rachel was there to send fireballs into the mix. I sure as hell was glad that these amulets were shielding off any heat that got too close. We’d have been toast otherwise.

  “Just keep firing,” I called out as the screams increased from the oncoming rush of beasts. “Don’t let up even for a second.”

  “Gotta change ammo at some point,” Cletus yelled back.

  “Well, yeah, obviously, but just be quick about it.”

  A lightning bolt zigzagged its way through the oncoming bodies, striking my shield and dissipating. That solidified the fact that Fred knew we were here. Another bolt came from the sky in a huge arc that slammed into the ground nearby, throwing us from our feet. Obviously he had ways of impeding our progress without directly hitting us. It slowed up his own followers too, though.