Magic and Decay (12 page)

She blinked at me. “I’m not supposed to know how to do
that yet.”

“Then why did you?”

She laughed lightly. “This had to end somehow.”

Truer words had never been spoken. Eden powered the
boat with her Magic and
Kiran
steered us toward the
blinking golden light that resembled a lighthouse in the middle of the water.

Once we drew near, I half expected to be swallowed up
inside of it like a wonky black hole. Instead, the light faded completely and a
man appeared in the center of our boat.

Well, man wasn’t exactly the right word.

More like god. A god appeared in the middle of us
looking bored and annoyed.

“Took you long enough,” Ryder growled at him.

“I don’t remember the musician having this many
opinions the first time,” the god spoke to Ivy alone. “Ready, Siren?”

“So ready,” she sighed.

She turned to me and pulled me into a hug before I
could stop her. It was uncomfortable at first; I wasn’t exactly the hugging
type. I was more the shooting, killing, massacring type. But for Ivy, I decided
to make an exception.

“Thanks for not letting us die,” she told me.

“Thanks for not leaving me with a gigantic mess of
Zombies.”

She pulled back and smiled at me. “I’m probably never
going to see you again, huh?”

“No offense, but until you get that whole
power thing under control, I kind of hope to never run into you again.
At least when there are Zombies around.”

“Fair enough.” We both laughed. “Good luck with your
mysterious love triangle.”

“Good luck with the horrors that are awaiting you.”

She paused and seemed to think hard about that before
saying, “We’re going to be okay, you know that right?”

“You really believe that?”

She shook her head and sent her red curls bouncing.
“No, but I want to.”

“Me too.”

She gave me one
more soft
smile before turning to Hendrix and shaking his hand. Then she moved over to
say goodbye to Eden and
Kiran
.

“Nice to meet you, Ryder,” I told him.

“Nice to meet you, Reagan.”

“Take care of her. She needs you.”

He looked over my shoulder at Ivy and seemed to think
about that. “We have a long way to go I think.”

“Just don’t give up on her. We’re all kind of
difficult and obnoxious, but we mean well.”

His silvery eyes returned to look at me before he
said, “Then do more than mean well. Do well.”

“Geez, Yoda. Cool it with the words of wisdom. I’m
exhausted; you can’t possibly expect me to absorb that like I’m supposed to
right now.”

He threw his head back and let out a bark of laughter.
“Fine, forget I said anything. Go through it the hard way.”

“That’s exactly what I plan to do.”

I winked at him and then moved out of the way so he
could stand next to Ivy and disappear,
er
, leave.

The god stood behind them and gave me a slow nod. “I
do not envy you this world.”

I tipped my chin in proud defiance. “And I don’t envy
those two for having to put up with you and all your twisted brothers and
sisters.”

Then they were gone. Just like that. I didn’t even get
a sneer. They just disappeared.

Hendrix’s elbow found my ribs and made me squirm. “You
just mouthed off to a god.”

I dropped my head on his shoulder. “Are you really
surprised?”

He chuckled and I closed my eyes and relished the
feeling of his chest vibrating against my body.
“Not at all.”

“Take me home, Hendrix.”

“And where’s home, Reagan?”

“Anywhere with you.”
I popped
into sitting again and tried to fix my idiocy. “And your family and Haley and
Tyler and Miller and anywhere that’s just not here.”

His blue eyes glittered in the early morning light.
“Okay. Let’s go home then.”

My heart squeezed in my chest. God, we had such a long
way to go before we could be comfortable around each other again.

And maybe that day would never come.

I just wanted things to be easy between us though. I
wanted to have something of a relationship with him without tripping over my
stupid words and all the ghosts of the feelings I used to have for him.

I just wanted us to find a normal that wouldn’t make
us both feel so awkward and apologetic.

“Can we take you back to the shore?”
Kiran’s
crisp accent cut through my hectic thoughts, and
for the first time all night, I was very grateful that he had no patience for
me.

“Please.”

The ride back to the beach was silent. The night had
been too much,
too intense
, for us to
find common ground now. Nobody wanted to relive what we’d been through or the
death toll we’d racked up.

I ignored the few floating bodies that broke the
surface and focused on the morning sun that promised a new day, a new beginning
and new Feeders to kill.

Kiran
drove the boat right up
the beach so that we could jump out of it onto the sandy shore and not deal
with the waves.

We walked silently to the wreckage of the sedan. It
seemed this would be our crossroads.

“Which way are you guys going?” Eden asked.

Hendrix pointed to the left. “We came to town in a
truck. We parked it about three miles that way.”

Kiran
nodded. “We’re that
way.”
The opposite way.

“Thank you-”

“You’re welcome to come with us!” Eden blurted
suddenly.
“And the rest of your group.
We’re safe
where we stay. We have plenty of food and water. Our people would treat you
well. There are other humans that live with us. Gypsies even!”

I felt irrational excitement at the prospect of living
with gypsies. That could be fun. Plus, there was the whole safety thing.
And the food and clean water.

I really liked Eden. And Haley and Tyler would too. We
could have a lot of fun hanging out. The offer was too good to pass up.

Until I looked at Hendrix and saw
something in him that I had never noticed before.
I saw this world. I saw
that we were a part of something that we belonged in.

I saw me.

I saw that without this world, without these Zombies
and our incredibly hard way of life, I never would have found Hendrix and his
family. The end of the world brought us together, but for us it was just the
beginning.

We could go with Eden and
Kiran
,
but that would be a different story. That wouldn’t be the story we were meant
to have.

“Thanks for the offer,” I told her. I shared a look
with Hendrix and knew he felt the same way. “But we should really finish what
we started.”

Eden nodded in understanding. “Yeah, I figured you
would say that.”

“It does sound awesome though.”

“It is awesome.” Eden grinned at me. “I’m sure your
thing is awesome too. I mean… killing Zombies… hooray!”

“I’m glad I met you, Witch.”

“I’m glad I met you, Reagan the Zombie slayer.”

We stepped into a hug and squeezed tightly.

“Think we’ll do this again?”

“No way,” Eden laughed. “This time was way too hard.
We’d have to be crazy to try this again.”

“Have a safe trip.”

She stepped back and looked at me seriously. “Have a
safe life.”

“Bye,
Kiran
.”

He smirked at me again, because what else would he do,
and shook Hendrix’s hand.
“Careful with this one, Mate.
It’s not looking like you’ll escape her.”

Hendrix avoided looking at me. “You might be right
about that. Take care,
Kiran
.”

We turned away from each other and both started our
long, but separate, journeys home. They had a Kingdom to look after and we had
a family. Both tasks seemed impossible in our distinct circumstances, but
neither of us would give up or stop trying.

We had that much in common at least.

“What a night,” Hendrix sighed.

“But it’s over.” I sounded as exhausted as I felt.

Hendrix looked at me, causing me to look back at him.
“It’s not all over.”

I smiled at him and kept walking. He was right. It
wasn’t all over.

Not for any of us.

Chapter Seven

Ellie

“This isn’t right.”

Fin jerked awake and made a grumbly noise that made me
want to kiss him. He looked around at the town in front of us and his eyes
nearly bugged out of his head.

“Did you take a wrong turn?”

Possibly.
“I don’t think so!
I followed the map!”

“You followed the map to a war zone?”

“I’m not sure.”

I threw the car into park, uncertain about what to do.
My gut reaction was to reverse the car, burn rubber and get the hell out of
here. But morbid curiosity insisted that I stay and check this out.

“Are those dead bodies?” Fin asked with a low voice.

I peered through the windshield that had been smudged
with dust and dead bugs. “No,” I told him quickly. “There wouldn’t just be dead
bodies all over the streets. Maybe we’re on a movie set.”

Fin raised one eyebrow and dared me to continue
pushing that theory.

I pressed my lips together. He was probably right. This
was definitely not a movie set.

His hand had played with the door handle for a minute
before he decided firmly on his course of action. “Stay in the car,” he ordered
me.

Well, I probably wasn’t going to do that.

His head swung in my direction. “Ellie, I’m serious.
Stay in the car.”

I nodded slowly. “Fine, be bossy.”

He leaned over and kissed my cheek.
“Just
trying to keep you safe.”

I rolled my eyes, but he didn’t care. He just wanted
to get his way. His hand played with the handle for thirty more seconds before
he made his decision. He pushed the door open and had one foot on the ground
before the noxious smell hit me.

“What is that?” I gasped.

“Oh, that’s bad.” He pulled his t-shirt up and covered
half his face with it. “That’s really bad.”

“They have to be dead people, Fin! That is the smell
of death!”

His nose and mouth were covered by his gray shirt, but
his dark eyes glittered at me with a depth of understanding I didn’t want him
to feel.

He took a step out of the car and shut the door behind
him. I gasped for better oxygen than what had infiltrated the car but didn’t
succeed. Whatever that
smell
was seemed to coat every
single thing I touched. I had a feeling I would never stop smelling it.

Never.

It would stay with me for the rest of my life.

Fin moved around on the quiet street in front of us.
There were no cars or foot traffic in this town. But to be fair, it looked like
someone had dropped a bomb in the center of it.

There were no people, no open businesses and then
there were all those bodies lying around everywhere.

Something had happened here.

And I was pretty sure I didn’t want to find out what
it was.

Suddenly, a light brighter than I had ever seen before
lit up the entire sky. Dawn was just breaking. The sun hovered low in the still
sky and burned with that hazy orange that represented most mornings. White
clouds dotted the gray sky and a bird could be heard in the distance, squawking
its morning roll call.

But then that light came and invaded every single
piece of darkness.

I stumbled from my car so I could get a better look. I
tried to peer through it. I
squinted
my eyes and tried
desperately to keep them open.

It was no use.

This light was pure and bright and brilliant.

Only one explanation for something this incredible
confirmed my theory when the light moved from the sky up above to the street
right in front of me.

I didn’t feel the least bit surprised when the light
suddenly disappeared. It was all consuming, hot and powerful one second and
then it collapsed in on itself and the next second it was gone.

I blinked against the spots dancing in my vision and
tried to make out the human forms walking toward me.

Again I wasn’t surprised.

I told you, I knew what this was about.

Aliens.

Obviously.

“We come in peace,” I told the boy and girl that
emerged from that brilliant light.

They shared a look and a half smile. “I think that’s
our line,” the guy said.

Fin had rushed back to my side when he saw the light
move toward us. He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into him.

“We’re not aliens,” the girl told us patiently.

“
Mmm
, pretty sure you are.”

“We’re not!”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m a Star.” Her words were soft and gentle. It was
like a tactic she used to get people to not freak out. “My name is
Stella.”
 

It wasn’t working on me.

“And what’s he?”

She glanced over her shoulder and took in the most
beautiful species of male I had ever seen. Sure, there was Fin. But then… there
was this guy.

Not that I had a thing for aliens. And also, I thought
Fin was by far the most gorgeous creature God ever created.

But this guy… I mean… it wasn’t natural how perfectly
hot he was.

Stella cleared her throat. “He’s, a, uh, um, Angel.
This is Seth.”

“Of course, he is.” Fin’s grip on my arm tightened.
“Did you drive us to the afterlife,
Els
? This is
getting seriously weird.

I eyed Seth carefully. “I read somewhere that Angels
don’t have souls. Is that true?”

He pouted. “That’s only temporary.”

I looked at Fin and gave him my best get-me-the-hell-out-of-here
look.

“Oh, no.”

The slightly panicked voice came from behind us. I
whirled around to find two very bloody, very tired looking people walking
toward us. It was hard to say what they looked like exactly because they were
covered head to toe in blood, guts and dirt.

“Who are you?” Fin asked angrily.

“Who are you?” the girl shot back. “What are you?” She
squinted
her eyes at us and seemed to reconsider her
questions. “Wait! Never mind. Don’t tell me. I can’t get invested in you guys
today. I’m spent. You’ll have to go back to where you came from all on your
own.”

“We’d love to!” I said at the exact time Seth said,
“We can’t.”

“Why can’t you?” The new guy’s eyes narrowed and he
looked down the corpse-covered street with an exhaustion I didn’t understand.
      

“We’re here to help you,” Stella told us gravely.

“Wait, don’t tell me. You’re an Oracle? You had a
premonition.”

The two aliens looked at each other and shared a
confused look. “We’re not Oracles,” Stella said. “And we didn’t have a premonition.”

“Then what are you doing here?” This newcomer seemed
very cranky. I wondered if she had killed all the poor people in the street.

I scooted closer to
Fin
.

“We’re Stars,” she told the new people. “We’ve been
sent by divine intervention.”

“This day is just not going to go back to normal is
it?”

“Apparently not,” the new guy sympathized.

“I hope you brought lots of weapons then,” the new
girl told the alien girl.

“Why?” I was the one that asked the question. I needed
to know. Why did we need weapons?
Why
why
why
?

Every eye turned to look at me, but it was the new
girl’s voice that answered. “To kill all the Zombies I’m sure are planning to
show up at any second.”

“Zombies?” my voice was a harsh whisper.

The new girl smiled widely at me. “Zombies,” she
confirmed. “Welcome to the Apocalypse.”