Death Weeps Part 33

Clyde asked as he rolled up his sleeves, his suit jacket folded neatly on a nearby boulder, "What do these marauders want?"

"The women. They're rare here. They'll kill every male and take the girls."

"Not this male," he stated like he was talking about the weather.

We looked at each other.

We agreed on that.

I glanced Brett's way, his chest was heaving, the weight off the leg that I'd abused. h.e.l.l... I needed him and I'd incapacitated him.

I was gettin' an F for sure in Reactive Management.

"Where's Howie?" I yelled at Brett over the noise.

"Don't know!"

Great.

Jade came to me like we'd never been apart, her large green eyes filled with apprehension, she opened her mouth to speak but I had to shove her behind me as the first of the fragment came within range, his eyes pinned on her with greed.

With l.u.s.t.

Screw that blowhard.

Gale began beating the h.e.l.l out of the one that came closest to her, Clyde slammed two heads together and they split apart, brain matter splattering everything within a meter from the force of the blow. He heaved their bodies to the side like so much trash and snarled as one of the men of the fragment grabbed hold of Gale's hair and she screamed like it was being torn out of her scalp.

She brought her elbow up and swung it with precision at the one who advanced on her, breaking his nose at the same time she rammed her head into hair-puller who was behind. Clyde took both hands and latched onto the male who had his hands laced in Gale's hair. He jerked down with every ounce of the undead strength that he possessed and I felt the pull of it through our connection and grunted.

Clyde separated the dude's arm from the socket. Blood burst out of the open hole where his arm had been attached and sprayed another of the fragment as he moved in to maim. Clyde turned smoothly and plugged him in the jaw with the severed arm, using the ball joints like a sledgehammer, causing the fragment to pinwheel backwards into two more that bore down right behind him.

"Righteous, Clyde!" I heard Jonesy shriek as he got clocked by a fragment who looked like he was going to bring down a weapon that looked suspiciously like a crowbar on his head.

Not to worry, Tiff spit out a wad of gum, biting the guy who had the crowbar in the forearm. He shrieked and dropped the weapon. Jonesy was stunned for a moment but the guy backhanded Tiff and that woke Jonesy up. She hung on, tears and snot leaking out of her from the blow, her arms hanging on for dear life.

Jonesy drove his fist like a hammer in the guy's beak and he folded. It'd been a direct hit.

Tiff fell away from him like a perfect leaf off a tree.

John caught her and gently lowered her to the ground. Jade screamed, "Caleb!"

I turned and in an intuitive move I didn't know I possessed, I ducked and a small sword sailed over my head, the breeze of it pa.s.sing through my hair. I punched out without thinking at whatever was in front of me and connected with a lean gut, toughened by the life of Outside. A great whoosh of breath came out and then the males were all over us like ants.

They dragged the girls into a circle, kicking and screaming. Alex roared when one of them cuffed Randi and her small body fell to the ground. He ran toward them but one put a knife to her neck, the point of it drawing a crimson drop, the essence running down her neck to pool at the hollow in her throat. She gave him wide eyes, her hair knotted in the fist of the one who held the blade at her throat.

"Don't come to her aid, Band," he said, eyeing Alex.

Alex looked at me in confusion and I responded, "Remember?"

They mistook him for Band. Rightfully so, as he was somehow related to them. Minus the gills.

His shoulders slumped in defeat. They were using the girls against us.

Gramps, Clyde and the zombies came to stand behind me. The fragment grabbed the rest of the girls, knives or other sharpened weapons of brutality jammed at the tender spot under their chins. Identical expressions gazed back at us.

Fear.

Ours were worse. If I'd had a mirror, I would have seen my expression and recognized it immediately for it what it was.

Mine had moved smoothly over into terror.

Then as the group of fragment parted, I saw who came to stand amongst them.

The Zondorae brothers.

Wasn't this special?

Should've killed them when I had the chance, I thought without a drop of mercy.

Joe stepped forward, his grim face beginning a slow smile that overtook his face instantly.

He was so pleased with himself.

The self-satisfied p.r.i.c.k.

He had eyes only for Parker. "Parker," he said.

"Joe," Parker responded neutrally.

He looked over the group, his eyes resting briefly on the captured girls: Mia, Randi, Jade, Tiff and Sophie. Their eyes were wide and frightened.

Check that, Tiff's eyes were narrowed and p.i.s.sed. I gave a small smile.

His gaze pa.s.sed over the zombies; both Parker's and mine. He missed Clyde and then his eyes briefly traveled over Gale and Clyde hissed, giving himself away neatly.

Humans didn't usually do that.

Zombies did. It was second nature. Like eating brains.

Yum-yum.

Joe Zondorae's eyes narrowed when he caught sight of Gramps and the guys from the group. Brett limped over to stand beside the rest of my friends.

Howie was still a no-show. That kinda nagged at me, I wasn't gonna self-delude on that. I wanted that a.s.swipe in my sights.

Gary Zondorae looked at Randi and her eyes got even bigger in her small face. He palmed his chin and said to Joe, "She needs to sleep."

"Yes, she does." His eyes flicked to Alex and he said something to five males of the fragment and they sprinted to where Alex stood.

They'd underestimated him.

It took ten.

Ten men of the fragment to hold a berserk Alex down while they shot Randi up with something. Some kind of sedative.

Her eyes rolled back in her head, her coal black hair falling away from her face like a fragile curtain.

Alex roared into the sky while the fragment struggled to contain him.

"We took your supplies," I said to them.

"Do you seriously believe that we had everything we would ever need on our person?" Joe asked, jabbing a thumb in his chest for emphasis.

Gary c.o.c.ked an arrogant brow above hard eyes. "Who do you think Tucker received his ideas from? His whispered principles? The raw material necessary to eradicate the genetic problem of the spheres?"

"Who are these jack-wagons?" Gramps asked, his legs spread far apart, his arms folded across his chest as he studied the pair.

I loved that Gramps didn't question where in the blue h.e.l.l we were.

Immaterial to him. We were here and it was time to deal.

"Graysheet scientists," I replied.

Gramps grunted in displeasure. "Have you been holding out on your grandpa, boy?" he asked, his brows in an angry line above his eyes.

Wow, great timing, Gramps.

Gary laughed. "You don't know the half of it, old man."

Gramps scowled. "If you're feelin' froggy, go ahead and jump on my lily pad." His hands curled into fists at his side.

Gary backed up a step then realized how it made him look and took it back.

"You don't intimidate me. This is our world now. The fragment," he swept his palm out and away from his body. "We rule here now. And your grandson and his imbecilic friends facilitated that."

Gramps frowned. "The how and why don't matter. You're here and we've come for something."

"No Gramps!" I said.

The brothers looked at us. When they saw what they were looking for they smiled.

"Got out of hand, did you?" Gary asked me.

Parker sighed and Gary looked at him. "You know all is fair in love and war, right Parker? What did you think was going to happen when you sent your pet into another world after us. Did you think you could stall us in our endeavors? That we wouldn't have made the provision for a contingency plan of some sort?" He shrugged, shaking his head indulgently.

"They've been given the enhancers, I see," Joe said, noting the welts on everyone's arms.

"You'll be fine for a little while here, then the process will speed. Time moves differently in this world. Always forward, but at a different rate. What would have been weeks of stability will now degrade to days. Those of you that had days, it'll be hours. And," he held up a finger and smiled, "there is no cure!"

Gary slapped his hands together. "Now then, we've delivered the news of your fate and you're stuck here because your Dimensional is," he looked at Randi, who was mumbling and incoherent, "indisposed at the moment." His gaze locked with Parker's. "You didn't help anything, you just signed their death warrants."

He looked at me. "Especially him." He drilled me with his eyes. "We don't need any C-Ms here in this world. And two," he looked at Parker and me, "is two too many." He winked and inclined his chin, the signal for the fragment to move in.

There had to be a hundred. They swarmed around our party.

When they moved to take Jade I felt that warm slide of rage in my head and she cried out at the rough treatment. And when the male of the fragment punched her in the stomach the rage moved to something that knew no bounds, its searching tendrils of smoke reaching out, out... out, until it found what it needed.

They came, jerking in response to the hook of death, the net catching them all like a school of fish.

All.

I felt the dead awaken, all the dead from everywhere and I lifted my hands above my head, the pulse of their movement was an unseen thread that coiled inside me, its spool of function perfectly synchronized to my call.

"Caleb watch out!" I turned and something hit me perfectly in the head. I swayed as I heard Gramps yelling at someone.

And then there was silence and peace.

A black so absolute no light survived it.

It swallowed me into inky oblivion as I lost the last link of my consciousness to the sucking obsidian vortex.

CHAPTER 19.

I awoke puking.

It was a total theme. When there was nothing left in my stomach, and the roaring stopped in my ears, I could hear John talking to someone. A someone that held my head in her hands. The gentle touch was the only thing that kept my head from spinning off into the distance.

"He's got a concussion," I heard Terran say.

Yeah, I had something. My d.a.m.n head felt like a hippo had used it as a trampoline.

"What do ya mean? They knocked his brain loose?" Jonesy asked logically.

John sighed and I opened my eyes, a cool washcloth pressed on my mouth and I grabbed the wrist that used it, staring up into a scared young woman with dark eyes and hair.

"Caleb, cool it!" Jonesy yelled and I winced.

"Inside voice, dips.h.i.t," Tiff said.