being violently ill.
When I’d purged most of the blood and the memories along with it, I wiped my eyes with my arm—thank God, I was still wearing my dragonskins—and blinked, trying to see.
I was sickened but not even remotely surprised to see the mangled corpse of a meat puppet at my feet. But I wasn’t in the garden. I looked around; I’d run up into the trees, I supposed to find more puppets to kill. The garden below me was the scene of a massacre; it looked as though David had sent a half-dozen puppets after me at the sludge pond, but then I’d run around killing anything I could lay my hands on. No one was moving.
My heart dropped. Charlie. Where was Charlie? And then I saw her kneeling beside David. She looked like she was okay, or at least not badly injured. David’s jaundiced eyes were staring wide, and I could see a dark pool of blood under his head.
The exhaustion hit me all at once, and I had to lean against the trunk of a nearby pecan tree to keep from keeling over. I got my second wind after a moment or two, and I made my way down the path toward Charlie, my arms and legs shaking and muscles twitching and fever at full burn.
“Charlie,” I croaked. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, not replying. Tears were running down her cheeks as she stared at David’s body.
“Did I do that?” I asked.
She shook her head, then gently turned David’s face toward me so I could see the bullet wound in his temple. “I did, when he sicced the zombies on you.”
“I—I’m sorry you didn’t get to say something to him, before, you know …” I trailed off, then thought, Pal, where the heck are you?
“I’m over here, on this lily pad. I wasn’t sure how I could do any good; Charlie reached safety on her own and attempting to stop the Goad rampaging in your body seemed rather perilous even at my full size.”
Well, embiggen yourself, already … looks like we’ve got more corpse hauling to do.
She wiped her face on the back of her hand. “It’s okay. What was I gonna say, anyhow? ‘Sorry I brought this evil into your life’? ‘Sorry you liked the evil a whole lot better’n you ever liked me’? ‘Sorry you turned out to be a real freak, and yet part of me still loves you’? Shee-it. The bullet probably said everything that needed saying.”
“Do you want to bury him?” I asked.
“No.” She stood up slowly, still gazing down at his body. “He used to be the best friend I’ve ever had … but all these other guys? They were someone’s best friends, too. Someone’s sons and maybe a few of them were someone’s daddies. Whatever we do for David, we do for all of them. And I ain’t got the strength to dig all those graves, do you?”
“Tell her we can give all of them a proper burial,” Pal said. “I know a spell we can use …”
chapter
twenty-nine
Showdown
I was completely wrung out by the time we got back to campus. After a couple of cadets hosed the blood off me in the courtyard, it took my last bit of energy to go upstairs, take a hot shower, change into one of the stupid pizza shirts to sleep in, and collapse into the restraint chair. I was out before Pal finished strapping me in.
A pounding at the door woke me as the morning’s first light was streaming through the blinds. The sound hurt my aching head.
Pal, get that, would you?
I forced open my blurry, sticky eyes and watched him open the door. Charlie was standing there in tiger-stripe fatigues, her AK-47 locked and loaded. She looked pale and scared and excited.
“Miko’s super pissed that we cut off her supply,” Charlie said. “We just got word from the scouts that there are thousands of meat puppets coming to attack campus; they’ll be here in less than an hour. She had way more zombies in reserve than anyone knew. We’ve got the guns, but we’re pretty severely outnumbered. I heard some people talking like maybe we don’t have enough ammunition. Captain Flynn—he’s in command now—is mobilizing everyone and having them report for battle.”
While she spoke, Pal came over to me and undid my head restraints and pulled out the mouthpiece so I could reply.
“Am I supposed to report for battle, too?” I asked, trying to work the stiffness out of my jaw.
She shook her