Deadly Desire (Riley Jenson Guardian 7)

Then don't waste them. Bullets wont stop zombies-you can only do that by deprogramming them from the magic.

Then what are our options?

We stop them, which means breaking their limbs. All their limbs. If Kye had been a real telepath rather than just a siphon, it might have been worthwhile trying to break the connection Jessica had with them. Granted, such an attempt would have been hard, considering how many of them there were, but it just might have been possible. But with Kye having no real expertise with telepathy, it wasn't worth the effort.

He didn't reply, simply launched himself at the nearest pack of walking dead men, hitting them feet first and scattered them like so much rotting meat.

Fingers grabbed at my bodice and I spun, grabbing the hand and shoving the zombie back as hard as I could. Then I ran and jumped, kicking one zombie in the head before dropping to the ground and, sweeping with a leg, knocking a second off his feet.

More of them came at me. I broke the fingers off one, then jumped back, pulling him with me and throwing him sideways, into others.

An arm wrapped itself around my neck and the fetid breath of flesh long dead washed over me, making me gag. I tried to pry his fingers away, but his entire hand seemed to be covered with something that was thick and slimy, and it was impossible to get a grip. So I dropped to my knees and tried to flip him over my head. The body went over but the arm remained, and it was still squeezing, still making it harder and harder to breathe. I reached back, grabbed the limb, and forced it away from my neck. His flesh was rotting, covered with a putrid mix of goo that was flesh and body fluids and God knows what else.

I flung it away with a shiver, and wished I had something to wipe my neck with. I could still feel him, still feel his slime on my skin, and it was horrible.

Two more grabbed at me. I punched one, smashing in the side of his face and sending him flying away from me. Then I pushed backward, as hard as I could, crushing the second zombie against the wall. There was a sharp crack of bone, but I didn't bother turning around to see what had broken. I simply finished the job, breaking his arms, then his legs. He dropped to the ground, but still tried to get to me, flopping around like a fish out of water.

Revulsion rolled through me, but I swiftly pushed it to one side as more of the stinkers came at me. I kicked and punched for all I was worth, breaking the limbs of some and shattering the backs of others. Bits of flesh and bone flew, covering me and the floor in their stinky goo, until the stench made me want to throw up.

And the worst part was, all my fighting didn't seem to make a goddamn bit of difference. The bastards just kept coming at me.

I blew the sweaty strands of hair away from my forehead and cast a brief glance Kye's way. He didn't seem to be doing any better. There were three zombies flopping at his feet, but that still left another three, and those creatures seemed just as fast and just as strong as he was. Maybe they were simply fresher.

I jumped over the leap of a creature, then hit the ground and spun, knocking another on his rotten ass. I jumped on his leg, smashing his kneecap, then spun as another lashed out. Despite the speed with which I could move, I simply wasn't fast enough. The blow landed on the side of my head and sent me flying toward the wall.

Several of them hit me in the chest and drove me back against the wall. Fingers grabbed at my body, my throat, my hair, until all I could smell and all I could feel was the dead. A scream rolled up my throat but I clamped down on it, hard. The last thing I needed to do was alert anyone still inside the club that someone had gotten into one of their protected passages.

Although I'd probably done that the moment I'd destroyed the pentagram and table.

I raised my arms and smashed theirs away, then dropped to the ground and crawled, as fast as I could, between their legs and away.

Kye, I think we need to get the hell away from this cavern and regroup.

He didn't answer immediately, punching several zombies away from him before saying, I'm thinking that's a fucking good idea.

I flipped upright and spun, lashing out with a leg and knocking one charging zombie into another. At least in the hallway they cant come at us from all angles.

And that would give us an advantage. Right now, there were just too many avenues for the things to keep jumping us. And though we'd reduced their numbers, the ones that remained were the least rotten, and the strongest. And they just wouldn't stop.

I grabbed another arm and twisted it backward, hearing bone crack as I kicked out at the creature's kneecap. These things might be dead, but somewhere deep in their brainless skulls, a sense of self-preservation still survived, because it jumped backward, out of the way.>A stone table sat in the middle of the cavern, its top stained a dark reddish-black and its side streaked with the same heavy color. I had no doubt that its source was blood-blood that must have been spilled over years and years rather than merely the few months they'd been here in Melbourne.

Black candles sat around the base of the table, each one marking the point of a pentagram that had been etched into the stone flooring.

Which meant this wasn't the hideaway of the sorcerers.

It was their place of deep magic.

Nice setup, Kye said. His gaze paused on the bloody table, then he looked at me. This where they raise the zombies?

It feels like the same sort of magic. I stopped at the end of the wide ramp, right on one of the pentagram points. There didn't seem to be any magic coming off it, so maybe it wasn't active, but the room itself still burned with energy. With death.

My gaze moved across the stone table to the rough-hewn wall on the far side. Hollows had been carved into the stone, and in each one sat several items. A little pile of hair and a football in one. A brush and a football sweater in another. A pair of Nikes and a hubcap in yet another. All things men would generally have owned, not women.

Had these things belonged to the men raised from the dead? Did part of the ritual require something that was precious to them?

My gaze went back to the table. All I knew about zombies came from fiction and Hollywood, and I had firsthand experience at just how wrong they could get it. But there was one thing that remained absolute, regardless of the truths and half-truths that might abound-and that was the fact that life required blood. Hell, even unlife required blood.

The question here was, whose blood was she using to reanimate her dead?