Black Heart: Wild On (15 page)

            "God Almighty!" I cried. "Does nothing stop these fiends?"

            A zombie grabbed my left wrist and jerked me to the side. I struggled to regain my balance as she kept jerking me to the side. She was pulling me sideways. Then another grabbed my ponytail and jerked my head back.

            "Ack! You are dead meat when — " I said, and it was ended with a savage right cross to the left cheek. "Ugh."

            Knees buckling, I struggled to stay conscious and on my feet. I never knew zombies had such strength. That punch was vampire hard.

            "I'm coming!" Dane cried. "Die bastards!"

            "They're already dead," I grumbled, shaking the cobwebs from my head.

            Another grabbed my right wrist, and they started pulling me in both directions. Were they trying to rip me in half? Or were they so stupid two different zombies were trying to drag me away. And take me where? For a second I thought it might not be a bad idea to let them take me away, and see if they took me back to the witch that called them back from the grave. Then other zombies started grabbing me all over, and started to
bite
me.

            "Hey! Stop that!"

            "Hang on, Sable, I'm coming," Dane called again.

            Looking over my shoulder, I saw Dane with my sword. He was hacking his way to me. It was nothing but butcher's work, since the zombies didn't have enough wits to even try and avoid his bloody blade.

            Using my supernatural strength, I pulled my arms in and unbalanced the zombies trying to rip me apart. I was able to twist free of their grasps. Then I started kicking and punching. After a few seconds a small circle opened up around me.

            "I'm free! Get out, Dane," I cried.

            I jumped straight up. My wings ripped through the back of my t-shirt and I started flapping. Zombie faces turned up to regard me, then as one they dropped their gazes back to the others. And then all turned toward Dane.

            I banked hard left and tried to get to Dane, but he was already deep in their midst. They converged on him, and no one was good enough to stop them. Within seconds he was caught and struggling within their unholy grasps.

            "Hang on, Dane," I said. Didn't he say the same thing to me? I noticed Sabrina and Gabe were getting back into the car. Then Sabrina turned the motor over, and a deep base roar filled the night air. "At least someone here has some intelligence."

            I swooped down just above the crowd around Dane, and snatched the sword out of his grasp. He called something really rude at me. It was garbled, but I distinctly heard the word, "bitch." Well, no one likes their only effective weapon taken away, even if they weren't able to use it anymore.

            I banked hard and swooped down again, trying to take off heads as I flew by. It didn't work. The best I could do was split skulls or take off the top of heads. It was a bad angle, and without my feet on the ground I lost some of my strength. It's all about leverage and grounding.

            So I power dived straight into that mass of dead humanity. With feet, fist, and sword, I cleared an area around me, then started towards Dane. He was only two feet beyond the cleared area around me.

            "Aaaaaaaiiiieeee!" a zombie cried as she charged me.

            That startled me. They'd fought perfectly quiet up until that time. So I dropped the point of the katana and let her run herself up on it. Right through the heart. And that was about as useful as kicking a wall.

            "Dammit," I said, feeling stupid. "That was smart."

            I lost my sword, and she wrapped her arms around me. A second later I was once again held by half a dozen supernaturally strong sets of hands.

            "Sable! I needs some help here!" Dane cried. "The bastards are trying to pull my arms out of the sockets."

            "Same here," I said.

            They were moving us further apart. I didn't know if that was just happening, or they were doing it on purpose. Either way, I didn't like it. Then they started biting and hitting me. Those punches were brutal.

            I morphed into a bat.

            I idly wondered what the zombies thought when I seemingly vanished, leaving only my clothes behind. Looking down, I saw them holding my clothes, looking around.

            Flying up about forty feet, I morphed back to human form and spread my greater batwings. Looking down, I watched in morbid fascination as Sabrina drove my beautiful new Mustang into that crowd of zombies. Bodies were flying all over the place as she did donuts, burning rubber smoking up everything. I heard Gabe's cry of "Wahoo!" from inside.

            Seeing my chance, I swooped down and grabbed Dane's left arm. I jerked him free of all but one zombie, and ended up carrying both up and away a short distance. I can carry one person fairly easily, but two was just about too much. I got them about fifty feet from the crowd before gravity won out and I dropped to the ground.

            Sabrina burst from the mob of zombies and headed towards us. She left a good twenty zombies on the ground. They weren't dead, but broken legs immobilized them pretty good.

            "What the Hell do you people want?" I cried as I ripped the zombie off Dane's other arm.

            "Are you the leader?" he said

            Dane and I just gawked a second.

            "Yes," I said.

            All of the zombies froze and looked at me. Yeah, it was creepy. Then as one they spoke.

            "Forget about Timothy Saxon. He is happy where he's at," they said in unison. "This is your only warning."

            And they all fell dead. Just plopped to the ground.

            "Holy shit they stink," Sabrina said, getting out of the car and pulling her shirt over her nose and mouth. I noticed all of the damage to my new car. Oh, that ticked me off. But, she probably saved us by doing it. "How did you do that?"

            "I don't know," I said. I spotted people tentatively leaving the church's main door.

            "All she did was ask them what they wanted," Dane said. "And they told her, and dropped dead."

            My father and Reverend Saxon were leading a group of people towards us. I turned and headed for them, picking up my discarded clothes along the way. With my Daddy heading my way, I dressed in record time. Didn't bother with the shoulder holster.

            "Who sent them?" Sabrina said.

            "I don't know. But both Henri Trudeau and Antoinette LaRue use zombies to guard their homes," I said. I'd been to the Trudeau mansion, and Boney mentioned Antoinette's guards once. He was creeped out by zombies. I completely understood that now. "I'm not sure about anyone else."

            Vanessa Mancera just didn't seem the type to use zombies. She was so vivacious and full of life, so vibrant. Jeff might, but somehow he didn't seem the type, but he did have a witch working for him. In fact, according to Boney all of the council members had at least one witch.

            "Sable? Are you all right?" Daddy said. He was obviously concerned, but he was giving me a wary look.

            "I'm fine," I said. Sabrina was frowning at him, too. So she noticed his standoffishness as well. "How about you?"

            "Ha! Funny t-shirt," my brother Brad said. He was behind Daddy and grinning fiercely at me.

            "Hush, Brad," Daddy said. I winked at my brother, giving him a wicked grin. Then Daddy's eyes bore into me. "You can fly? You have wings?"

            "You didn't know?" I said. I thought everyone knew. It wasn't a big secret anymore. "Well, yeah."

            The others all looked spooked. There had to be thirty men and women in that group, mostly men. They started whispering between themselves. I thought it odd that after I confirmed I could sprout wings they got all worried, when they already saw me flying around with their own eyes. People are weird.

            "That was cool," Brad said, and stepped back when Daddy cut him a sharp look.

            "Did you hear what the zombies said?" I wanted to change the subject. Daddy didn't like displays of my Change. I think he was trying to see me as his little girl, the
before-the-change
daughter.

            "Yes, we heard them," Reverend Saxon said, grim as can be. "What does that mean?"

            "It means if you keep trying to find him the zombies will be back," Sabrina said. "Or something bigger and nastier will be coming for you."

            The stench of fear from that group doubled. I frowned at Sabrina. She wasn't making it better, but then I didn't see how anyone could improve the situation. But all that fear was making me hungry.

            "They were a warning to you," I said.

            "So the vampires that took Timmy sent them," Reverend Saxon said.

            "Technically, a witch sent them," I said. "But I'm pretty sure he was working for the vampires. And as warnings go in the vampire world that was pretty tame."

            "You call that tame?" a young woman said.

            "Next time I doubt they'll just drop dead after delivering their message," I said. "And as you all saw, zombies are damned hard to kill."

            That set a lot of them to talking amongst themselves. As if sensing he was losing his flock, Reverend Saxon took a step closer to me. He had a very determined, very frightening look on his face. I've never seen his eyes so fierce.

            "The Lord is our shield, and our faith is our sword," he said. "We all saw how the holy cross stopped them in their tracks. Fear of God's Holy Wrath will keep them at bay! We are not afraid of the minions of Hell!"

            "That's well and good," Dane said. "But help the Lord out and don’t mess with vampires."

            "I thought you were a fearless vampire hunter?" Reverend Saxon said with supreme contempt.

            "I am, and I know better than piss off the most powerful vampires in the city," Dane said, stepping up to face Reverend Saxon. "God helps those who help themselves. Give us a chance to find Timmy. Don't make it worse by striking out at the vampires out of blind faith."

            "Exactly," I said. "All you will accomplish is getting a lot of good people killed."

            "Or a lot of evil vampires killed," someone called out. "Whose side are you on,
Black Heart
?"

            "Yeah," a woman called. "I've noticed that you are keeping your eyes averted from the church."

            "You can't hide in that church forever," I said. "Vampires and zombies have patience. We have all the time in the world."

            "We can go about our normal business during the day," she said, rather smugly. "And there's not a thing you can do to stop us."

            "That's true of vampires," Sabrina said. "But they are the only undead with that restriction. Zombies are just as viable at high noon as midnight. Then there are witches and werewolves. As you can see some witches and werewolves work for vampires? I know of one vampire family with a whole pack of werewolves at their command."

            "If you are not careful, you will not live to see Timmy's rescue," I said.

            I glared at the lot of them. The idiots looked me straight in the eye without protection. I was tempted to mesmerize them, and then make them do stupid tricks. That might emphasize the power of vampires to them, but since they were borderline zealots I figured it would just galvanize their resolve.

            "You don't seem to be too quick on the rescuing," Reverend Saxon said. "Are you even trying to find him?"

            "No, Tim, that's not fair," Daddy said. "You know how much Sable cares about Timmy."

            "I know
mortal
Sable cared, but I'm not so sure about
undead
Sable," he said. "And I'm beginning to think I've tainted my soul in dealing with her."

            "For a supposedly learned man of God, you are awful stupid in the ways of the supernatural world," Sabrina snarled.

            "Let's not resort to name calling," I said. I looked Reverend Saxon dead in the eyes. He didn't flinch or avert his eyes. Fool. "You have to decide if you want your son back in one piece, or if you just want an excuse for a crusade. You can't have both."

            "Want to bet?" he said.

            "No, because it'll be Timmy that pays the price," I said. I motioned the others back towards the car. "Let's go. We have things to do while there's still dark."

            "Good luck, Sable," Brad called.

            "Thanks," I said. I paused. "Did you get that scholarship to SMU?"

            He grimaced and cringed.

            "No, but I have an offer to a smaller college up in Kansas. Full scholarship," he said.

            "Take it," I said. "I want you as far from this shit as possible." I looked around at all the angry faces, mostly watching me suspiciously. "I'm very afraid. Afraid for all of you."

Chapter 11

            The drive back to Kale's house was spent trying to figure out what our little band of "Holy Warriors" might do. And what we could do to prevent it. We were a little short on answers.

            I had to argue with Sabrina about going to the Wild On with us. She so wanted to go, orgy or not. But then Sabrina always was more open-minded in that area than I was before I was Changed. In the end I won and Sabrina went home. She had classes at SMU the next morning, after all.

            So we headed off for the Wild On in Dane's Jeep. The Trinity River bottom south of Dallas was no place for a Mustang. At least Dane convinced me of that. Truth was, I thought of it as a dark, swampy morass of mud, snakes, and mosquitoes. I doubt snakes and mosquitoes would be a problem on the first night of January.

            After some debate, we headed out sans weapons. Neither Dane nor I cared to deal with werewolves without some silver bullets to punctuate our points with. Sometimes they were more bullheaded than vampires. But Gabe had more experience dealing with them, and actually kinda liked them despite not wanting to join a pack.