came to this new development. A small flame flickered to life in the palm of his hand. “I guess that answers the why,” he muttered to himself.
The smoldering creatures watching Gideon with a frightening intensity were an impressive facsimile of the zombies I’d watched in so many late-night horror marathons. Unfortunately, where the zombies in the movies were shambling, mindless eating machines, these vampire zombies were fucking fast.
The second the flame sprang to life in Gideon’s hand, they darted across the yard and through the street to get to us. Shifting from sloths to cheetahs in a flash, the zombies suddenly resembled the vampires they had once been. My pulse doubled at the sight of the merciless creatures charging toward us. Summoning up the same fire spell as my companion, I instantly became a target as well, but at least I was armed.
The first wave burst into bright orange and yellow flames as if they had been doused in gasoline, but the fire failed to slow them down. In fact, we had only succeeded in making the situation worse. Instead of being attacked by mindless zombies, we were now about to be attacked by mindless zombies on fire.
“Any more great ideas?” I shouted as dodged the first one to reach me. The heat from the flames scorched my face and threatened to scald my lungs as I sucked in a breath. Ducking under his arms, I sent a blast of pure energy into his chest. The blow knocked him over and sent him skidding toward the house on his back.
“Catch!”
I dragged my eyes from the zombies for a second to see Gideon throw me a large, black-bladed machete. Gripping the handle, I smiled a little to myself, feeling as if I was regaining control. Gideon had to teach me that little trick before our next outing. There was no way the warlock had a pair of machetes strapped to his body.
Dodging the arms of one zombie as she made a grab for me, I rolled a short distance away. Coming back up on my feet, I swept back with my blade, slicing through her legs with sickening ease. The fiery creature crashed to the ground, seeming momentarily disoriented by the fact that she was no longer standing. Swinging back in one fluid motion, I removed her head as well as the head of another as it charged me.
But both of them kept coming — breaking all the rules of movie zombies. Being headless was supposed to stop a zombie.
Of course, what I wasn’t considering was that these zombies had been reanimated with a magic that I didn’t yet understand and were given a specific purpose. I was willing to bet that they had been charged with the task of attacking any magic user who drew close. They were going to keep coming so long as their limbs still worked. Sadly, it was going to take a while for the fire to eat through their limbs so that muscles and tendons no longer responded to magical manipulation.
As the former vampires kept coming, I dipped and dodged, keeping out of arms’ reach while hacking off bits. Gideon went for a more magic-based approach, setting them on fire as soon as they stepped outside their home and then using a binding spell to pin them to the pavement or the iron fence where they sizzled, burned, and flaked to ash in the sun and fire.
When there was nothing in danger of actually killing me, I stopped and drew in a shaky breath of relief. Looking around, there were pieces of vampire scattered everywhere in the street and sidewalk. The air was thick with black smoke and the horrid stench of cooking flesh. Nearly two dozen vampires had attacked us — likely what had been the entire nest. What a fucking waste!
But it wasn’t just the tragic loss of life that twisted my gut. It was the idea that someone had gotten into their protected home and methodically killed each one. While vampires were weaker during the day, they could still move around, they could fight back against an attacker. I couldn’t think of anyone, short of a warlock or a witch, being able to do such a thing. If this attack came from someone within the Towers, then we had a bigger problem on our hands. Someone had gone rogue.
The winter wind chilled the sweat that coated my face. Each heavy breath was like swallowing shards of glass. I wiped the back of