Unchosen. Part 7

The path zigzagged for a while, partially because it went downhill. I focused on my breathing again, the crisp scent of pine, and the cool mountain air. The sky was already purpling, and I knew the sun would set in less than an hour. I decided that when I got to the bottom of the hill, I would return to the school.

At the spot I'd designated, I turned around and jogged back up the incline. The silver ring on my right hand tingled with warmth. The ring was my reaper token-a gift from Anubis that magically held my raven familiar and my awesome scythe.

Surprised, I looked down at the band and watched the raven fly off it. The tiny bird glided over my hand and launched into the sky; it grew bigger and bigger and bigger. The huge raven was more shadow than substance, but still very formidable.

In its claws, it held my scythe.

Caw. Caw.

Its cries made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. The air grew heavy, and the friendly sounds of the forest disappeared as though someone had hit a mute b.u.t.ton.

I stopped running, my heart pounding and my breath heaving as I watched the raven circle above me. The last time I had seen the bird was when I had escorted a ghost to the other side. The same ghost who had traded a stash of diamonds (I covered this earlier ... stolen jewels ... Anput's diamond gift ... blah, blah, blah.) for her freedom from the dreaded Spirit Extraction, Encapsulation, and Restraining (SEER) machine.

Like I said, it was a long story.

The bird dove down, cawing urgently. My arms seem to lift of their own accord, and the beautiful silver scythe dropped into my hands. It was warm-alive, really-and it felt like part of me.

A faint shadow rose from the earth, wavering weakly. I held my scythe, ready to fight, when I saw my Aunt Lelia's face in the grayness. Her haunted eyes held more pain than I'd ever seen.

"Sh-she's here. You're not ready." Her voice was a mere whisper.

"Who's here? Ready for what?"

"Get ... to ... school. Safe. Run!" She opened her mouth in a soundless scream, and my aunt's sheut was sucked into the ground, almost as though as she'd been yanked through the earth by an unseen hand.

I didn't waste any time. I gripped my scythe and ran. My raven flew above me, its caws seeming to urge me to go faster and faster. My calves throbbed and my lungs burned as I dashed into the forest.

My heart pounded so hard I could felt the beat of it in my throat.

I was afraid to look around me, afraid I might see the mysterious "she." The forest that had seemed so peaceful before now felt dark and foreboding.

The silence unnerved me.

Despite the protests of my legs and lungs and heart, I kept running. Within minutes, I saw the spires of Nekyia Academy jutting above the treetops, and I focused on the gray stone as I tried to keep momentum.

The air grew colder and the sky darker. I started to feel like something awful was right behind me-and if I stopped for even a second, it would grab me.

I kept my gaze forward. In only minutes I would break through the trees, out of the shadowed embrace of the woods.

Then a tall figure stepped out from behind the thick trunk of an oak tree. I yelped-and veered, my sneakers losing traction as I hit a pile of dew-slick leaves.

An arm snaked out and I felt the cold clamp of fingers on my shoulder. I was yanked back so hard, my legs gave out beneath me and I fell.

I immediately rolled away and popped to my feet, holding my scythe up.

I looked at the man.

Then I blinked.

"Jon Lemons?"

Jon Lemons was Barbie's zombie. He was funny in the sense that he understood his name, and got upset if anyone tried to call him anything other than "Jon Lemons."

What was he doing out here alone?

The zombie's gaze met mine, and I shuddered at the intensity of his unblinking stare. He lifted a gray finger to his lips and whispered, "Shhh."

I worked on deepening my exhalations as I slowed my breathing. My senses were on high alert, and I gripped the scythe. Above me, my shadow raven kept circling.

Jon Lemons stretched out his arm. The finger he'd put to his lips now pointed to the pathway that led to the school.

He shook his head slowly.

Okay. So he didn't want me to go that way.

Up ahead, zombies shuffled out from the cl.u.s.ters of trees. There had to be a dozen of them, maybe more. Their clothes hung off their emanc.i.p.ated bodies in stained sc.r.a.ps. Dirt smeared their hair, their faces. They were in varying states of decay. Most had greenish purple skin and filmy, vacant gazes.

I'd seen enough zombies to know these were fresh from their graves.

Someone had raised them.

My stomach pitched. Holy Anubis! It took powerful necro magic to animate corpses still six feet under-especially so many. These walking dead would not have their kas intact. Only their master's necromancy would keep them upright and moving.

They formed a two-by-two column, blocking the path. The zombies began to move forward as one unit; unearthly moans mingled with the shuffle of bare feet against packed dirt.

Okay. Okay. Take out the puppeteer, and the puppets would fall.

Except I didn't see a puppeteer.

I backed up a couple of steps, and Jon did the same, staying even with me. The zombies picked up their pace, and they were coming ... coming right for me.

They sniffed, and low, creepy moans rippled through the undead crowd. I heard jaws cracking, mouths opening impossibly wide.

s.h.i.t. Oh, s.h.i.t.

The Hunger. They all had the Hunger.

Fear chilled me to the bone. I gripped my scythe, holding it at the ready. I didn't have my cell phone to call anyone. I was reluctant to summon Henry and ask him to risk his unlife for me again. Yelling at the top of my lungs might bring innocent students and teachers into the maws of starving zombies.

d.a.m.n it. I couldn't leave a pack of wild brain-munching zombies running around outside the school.

"Hey, uh, Anubis? Anput? Got a minute to help me?" I prayed out loud. "h.e.l.lo! Kebechet in danger of becoming zombie chow!"

The zombies marched closer, and desperation soared through me.

"Go find help," I told Jon. "I'll hold them off."

Jon didn't move. Instead, he stood by my side, seemingly willing to face the zombie horde with me.

"Jon," I said, this time adding a little ka heka command to my words. "Go to Nekyia. Get help."

"Noooooo. Pro-tect. Ke-be-chet."

For a moment, I was stunned by his refusal, especially since I'd never heard a zombie speak-much less show a force of will.

The two zombies leapt into the air, issuing howls that drove fear like a spike into my stomach.

Then they were on us.

Jon grabbed the woman who tried to claw out my eyes and twisted off her neck with a sickly crack. He threw her head into the forest, and then proceeded to rip off the limbs of her still fighting body.

The other zombie, this one a man, grabbed the sides of my head. His mouth, filled with decayed teeth and blackened tongue, aimed for my face. His breath smelled like a sewer, and made me gag and cough.

I head-b.u.t.ted him. The impact to my skull hurt and made my ears ring, but the move popped his hands free of my face.

He snarled, his gla.s.sy gray eyes narrowing as he tried to grab me again.

I brought my scythe up. The metal glowed silver as it sliced the zombie from hip to shoulder.

He flopped to the ground in two pieces and lay still.

Jon Lemons had wadded into the zombies who'd now lost their military precision. They attacked Jon, but he fought with animal ferocity, punching, kicking, and yanking.

Zombies fell upon the decimated corpses, gnawing and mewling as they chomped on the dead, ripping off skin, chewing through organs, feasting on faces.

Not all were distracted by the carca.s.ses.

Three zombies managed to escape the carnage wrought by Jon, and surrounded me in a circle of hungry, terrifying death.

All three were women, and they seemed to understand the power of my scythe. If they did not fear it, at least they knew to avoid it.

The tallest of the three, once a blonde if the scraggly hair left on her scalp were any indication, came at me first.

I hit her in the face with the blunt end of the scythe, she reared back and screamed. I twirled the scythe around and the blade cut through her neck.

Her head sailed off into the woods.

Her body fell sideways, knocking down one of the smaller zombie women. I wasted no time piercing that one's neck, too.

The third zombie shuffled back. Her face had half rotted away, revealing a monstrous smile of teeth and ligaments.

She slashed at me with her arms, made grisly by worms and time. Her once pink blouse was filthy and torn. Her skeletal fingers clawed at my shoulders, her teeth clacking as she tried bite off a chunk of my cheek.

"Brown eyes!"

Rath's voice heralded my rescue. Before I could take another breath, he'd pulled the ravenous corpse away from me and used his own scythe to behead her. He kicked her twitching body off the path, and the body slid into a bank of leaves.

"How did you know to find me?"

"Your raven." He cupped my face, studied me carefully. "You okay?"

I nodded.

"Good." He leaned forward and gave me a hard kiss. "Let's finish this."

I've never been in battle. I've never killed unless you count removing a ka from a legally made zombie (and I didn't). Zombies weren't alive, not really, but desecrating their corpses was another form of killing, of death.

By the time Rath and I joined Jon, there were few enemies left. We dispatched them until only the three of us were left standing-amid scattered limbs and headless corpses.

"Who the h.e.l.l did this?" asked Rath. "These poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds didn't even have kas attached."

I was exhausted. Every muscle ached, and sweat soaked my shirt and running shorts. Gore spattered my arms and legs. I looked down at my sneakers and realized they had been ruined with zombie ick.

"My aunt warned me right before this happened," I said. "And this is Barbie's Zombie, Jon Lemons. He warned me, too."

"I've never seen a zombie like him before," said Rath.

"He talks." I explained everything that happened.

Rath grimaced. "We need to go. Whoever controlled the zombies is probably still around."

"What do we do about all this?" I waved my hands at the dead zombies.

"Nothing," said Rath.

"How about an anonymous report through the peer-to-peer program?" I asked.

"Yeah. That's good."

Rath took me by the shoulders. "Get to the school, to your room. I'm going to check around here, see if I can find anything."

"I should go with you."

"No, Mol. You're the target. You're safe at Nekyia. I'll touch base with you later, okay?" He tapped the end of my nose. He kept his scythe close as he turned and walked off the path, into the darkening woods. My heart jumped in my throat.

"Be careful!" I called out.

But Rath had already disappeared.

"Jon," I said.

"Uuuuuh."

"Oh, sorry. Jon Lemons. We need to go."

The zombie followed me, and soon, I saw the outer gray stone wall that surrounded the school. On the back side of the ornate castle was a landscaped outdoor area that students used to study and hang out. The last meal of the day was served at 6 p.m., so I knew the courtyard would be full of kids waiting for the dinner bell to ring.

The gate to the courtyard entrance was left open until our 10 p.m. curfew. All I had to do was make it through, and I would be safe.