Jax and the Beanstalk Zombies (6 page)

Her belly expanded with each deep breath, then sank until she swore she could feel it touching her spine. The whole time, she pictured the peacock-blue hammock in her backyard swaying in the breeze. It swung forward as she inhaled and backward when she exhaled.

“Are you still alive?” Jax asked.

Keeping her eyes closed, she fought not to let the hammock disappear. “Just taking a quiet moment.”

“Afraid you’ll string him up by his nose hairs?”

“Something like that.” She smiled despite the fast-fading hammock.

The air shifted around her as something–or, to be more precise, someone–settled next to her. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know it was Jax. A tingle broke out across her skin, perking up her nipples and a ripple of excitement washed across her nether regions.

Poof!
The hammock vanished.

Shifting a few inches away from him, she prayed the distance would minimize his impact on her. The man had already hurt her once; she’d be damned if she let him do it again even after his heroics–and that kiss–this afternoon. She was plenty grateful, she just wasn’t a glutton for punishment. Forcing her jaw to unclench, she sank, trying to conjure the hammock from the deep, dark corners of her imagination.

Forward, inhale. Backward, exhale. The coiled muscles in her shoulders unwound. Her scowl melted. The hammock reappeared. But this time Jax relaxed in it. He smirked at her as it swung back and forth. Her thighs clenched and her body turned to liquid gold–hot, melty and exactly the last thing she needed to be feeling around Jax Taylor.

“Get out of my hammock.” She yanked out the blade of grass scratching her neck and rolled up off the ground.

“Excuse me?”

She glowered down at him. God, he just looked so edible. He’d changed into a pair of basketball shorts, which he wore slung low on his hips. His smooth, brown skin looked downright lickable. She could start at his hipbone, slither across to his abs and nibble her way up to his neck. He had always shivered when she kissed that spot at the base of his throat. Usually, he’d tossed her onto her back then and there, but if she anchored her body low enough and straddled him, she could keep him right where...
Stop that right now, Veronica Catherine Kwon!

Jax held up his hands, palms forward. “Simmer down–” He swallowed whatever else he was about to say as Antoine strode out of his tent and headed straight for them.

Reminding herself of all the good things that had happened in her life because of Antoine, she unfurled her fists. The man had taken her in when her father disowned her because she’d refused to give up treasure hunting. He’d been her mentor and friend for more than ten years, and this one-last-adventure was the only thing he’d ever asked in return. The least she could do in return was listen to him before she told him there was no way in hell she’d go back up the beanstalk and face down a horde of flesh-eating animated corpses.

A red flush extended from Antoine’s second chin all the way up to the line of his snow white hair. He looked like a very apologetic Santa. That is, if the jolly old fat man had ever led his elves into a zombie ambush.

“I can only imagine how upset you two are with me at the moment.” He focused his gaze on the sun setting in the distance. “But I didn’t know one hundred percent that they were up there. When I found Sir Cravish’s diary, even he wasn’t sure what had happened to the giants who had survived his cure. His favored hypothesis was that the shrinking his elixir started never stopped. The giants continued to shrink until they were too small to be seen.”

Antoine clasped his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels. The gold, orange and pink sky reflected off the glasses perched on his head. He sighed and locked his gaze on Veronica. There was something new in it she’d never seen before, an almost maniacal determination touching on the delusional. He shifted his attention back to the long blades of green.

“But Sir Cravish had a second theory, one he scarcely could write about. He scribbled his thoughts in the margins, a word here and phrase there. It took me years to put the puzzle pieces together. But still, if I hadn’t seen it for myself today I never would have believed it. His elixir did indeed shrink the giants into a size that made it easier for them to navigate the world. However, it also killed. Those who survived had a mutation in their chromosomes. At first Sir Cravish thought they’d make it through unscathed. Then one of his subjects cracked Sir Cravish’s cat’s skull like a walnut and sucked out the brains.”

His normally pink-tinged skin had a distinctive green sheen to it and his hands shook as he drew a small blue book from his shirt pocket. He thumbed through the pages until coming to the information he sought.

“In an entry dated June twenty-fourth, Sir Cravish writes,
I can no longer deny the truth. My magic won’t protect me any longer and science has long since turned its back on me. I must lead them to a place where they cannot hurt another living soul. The solution came to me today in the form of a boy who had just sold his family cow. I’m taking the giants home. I do not expect to return to mine
.” Antoine softly closed the book and held it to his lips a moment. “There aren’t any more entries.”

It took a moment for Veronica to break through the fog of shock. “You thought there was a chance there were zombies up there? A chance?”

“I should have told you both everything from the beginning. Let me make up for that error now by sharing all my dirty little secrets. The bank is taking my shop and everything inside. I got caught up in an investment that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. I’ve lost everything. The only blessing to this is, my beloved Chloe isn’t alive to see how far I’ve fallen.” His fingers curled into fists at his side. “I refuse to spend my last days on earth begging for my bread. The beanstalk is my salvation.”

Damn. On one hand, she was still pissed as shit at him. But on the other, who was she to hold a grudge against a dying man who’d lost his entire world?

“You can come stay with me in North Carolina for as long as you want,” Jax said.

“Or my place in New York. There’s no reason to go back up there.” She squeezed the older man’s frail shoulders. “What are the chances you’d ever find anything in that zombie hive anyway?”

A little bit of the old Antoine flashed in his blue eyes and a huge smile spread across his face. “The chances are excellent, my dear.”

He rummaged around in his knapsack and withdrew the flat metal container that had held the tents from the night before and pushed the single green button at its top. It popped open, and four small objects floated out of its mouth. They spun around at dizzying speeds high into the newly minted stars above, enlarging with each rotation, then drifted down.

Four gold coins the diameter of a large, floppy beach hat dropped to the grass in front of Veronica’s feet, flattening the grass beneath them. A man’s profile was embossed on the side along with the words
Magnitudine gigantes
. A two-foot-long white feather landed across the man’s Roman nose.

Antoine cackled. “The goose that lays the golden eggs is up there, ours for the taking. With this coin you could hire an in-house nurse for your ailing mother, Jax. I know you thought a nursing home was your only option, but you’re wrong. And, Veronica, this money could make all the difference for your business. Even with your recent successes, your creditors have been calling more frequently. Imagine what you could accomplish if you had access to a large amount of funds that didn’t come from daddy?”

She couldn’t rip her gaze from the golden bounty. Hope, freedom and possibilities–they were all hers for the taking if she went back up. Excitement bubbled through her. The golden eggs really could be the answer to everything. Her father had warned her she’d never be able to make a living from treasure hunting. How good would it be to make him eat that predication?

“There are still the zombies.”

“Yes, Jax, there is that.” The older man paced, his step more jaunty than when he’d left his tent earlier. “But if we go at dawn, we can take advantage of their sun affliction. The zombies seem to be confined to the house. The goose must be in the yard somewhere. There was a trail of freshly molted feathers between the castle and the tree line. That’s where I picked this up.”

He held the feather aloft like a guiding light. The years faded from his face, replaced by youthful exuberance. If she didn’t know any better, she’d figure he was in perfect health. The longer he stood there looking like the Antoine she’d first met when she was an eighteen-year-old archeology student, the more her resistance dissolved.

Searching to bolster her sanity, she glanced over at Jax.

He shrugged his bare shoulders at her. “Okay, I’ll go but this is it. We’ll get the bird and then we’re out of there.”

“As long as we can get the harp too, I’m more than willing to agree.” The words flew out of Antoine’s mouth in a rush.

“The harp is golden?” Jax asked.

“Oh yes. It’s fabulous. When it plays, the notes can calm any beast, lulling them into a state of Zen-like peace.”

Veronica rolled her eyes. This was getting ridiculous, if she didn’t love the man so much she’d never say what she was about to. “Fine, we’ll look for the harp too.”

“Wonderful. Just wonderful.” He clapped his hands. “I’m off to do some more research before it’s time for shut eye. I’ll be seeing you two at the crack of dawn.”

Antoine ambled off to his tent and Veronica tried to ignore the apprehension tugging at her.

“Are you really all the way onboard with this?” Jax’s voice was much closer than he’d been only seconds ago.

“No, but I’m going to spend the night getting my gear together for the return trip. I don’t like being caught unaware.”

He nodded. “That makes two of us.”

* * * *

An hour later she had her armaments laid out in an orderly line across her cot. Two knives with serrated blades. What looked like a leopard-print lipstick case but was actually mace strong enough to knock out a troll. A travel-sized flying carpet. A fistful of throwing stars. Finally, a charmed hand scythe that melded with her hand, giving her a magical claw to shred her enemies. She’d already packed her tool kit with a packet of fairy dust, throwing stars and a pack of spearmint gum. Her lucky scarab beetle was tucked safely into a pocket above her heart. Jax had found the golden amulet in an Egyptian tomb and given it to her early on in their relationship, telling her it symbolized the renewal of life and would bring her luck. It was a silly superstition, but it had been her constant companion for seven years and she wouldn’t leave it behind now.

While contemplating whether to bring her Japanese Chisa Katana sword, a tapping sounded on her tent flap. She’d wrapped her hands about the handle of the two-foot-long blade before she’d even finished exhaling.

“Veronica, it’s Jax. Can I come in?”

Letting the blade fall to her side, she unzipped the flap. The blood rushing in her ears dropped to locations south when she saw Jax still wore only his basketball shorts. “Don’t you get cold?”

“What’s wrong, darling, am I making you hot?”

At that moment she wished more than anything she had a door instead of a flap. Zipping up wouldn’t carry the same umph as slamming a door in his face. But dammit, he was right. The pleasant May evening had gotten balmy. The heating and cooling system hardwired into the fabric of her leather pants must be on the fritz.

Yeah. She’d keep telling herself that one.

“I’m kind of busy, Jax, what do you want?”

He held out a small green duffle bag. “A peace offering for messing up your meditation time this evening.”

She took it from him and a frisson danced up her arm as strong as if she’d stuck a fork in an electrical socket. God, she ached to touch him, feel those hard biceps under her fingers and wrap her legs around his hips. Unbidden, she took a step toward him. His Southern Sex God cologne wafted around her, teasing her senses. Another few minutes of this and she’d have him naked and flat on his back.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but I like it. A lot.”

Jax’s quip snapped her out of the spell. After taking three steps back, she unzipped the bag to reveal a pair of golden sandals accented with silver feathers. “They couldn’t be.”

“Yeah, Hermes’ shoes. Promise me you’ll wear them tomorrow. If we get in a jam, you can fly out of there and back to the beanstalk.”

“This is too much. I can’t. You should wear them.”

“Are you nuts?” He backpedaled out of the tent. “There is no self-respecting North Carolinian man who’d be caught dead in those ugly-ass things. I’d wear a toga and dance a jig first.”