Well, shit, I thought. This is bad.
Chapter 23
As the body fell, Philip dropped into a crouch, tore the man’s skull apart, and began to stuff chunks of brain into his mouth. His entire body jerked every few seconds as though jolted by electricity, and his dead-grey face was plenty horrifying without any movie makeup. He screamed in anguish through a gory mouthful, spattering the pavement with blood and brain bits.
Really, really bad. “Philip!” I yelled. “Philip, it’s me, Angel!”
His hands curled like claws as his eyes snapped to mine, and to my dismay I saw nothing of Philip in them. Hell, he barely looked human. I felt my own lips pull back in an answering snarl. How the hell was I supposed to help him…or stop him?
“Angel, I have your back,” said a calm male voice from behind me. “I’m Kyle Griffin, and Mr. Ivanov sent me.”
Kyle—Heather’s trainer. “Gotcha,” I said without pulling my attention from Philip to glance back. I moved forward, then paused as Philip stood, breathing heavily, gore dripping from his hands and mouth. He tilted his head back and let out an eerie wail that slid through me like a blade of ice. The hair on my arms stood on end as the zombie extras echoed the cry in poor, though equally disturbing, imitation.
If I’d had any doubt that the temp zombies were reacting to Philip, it was gone in that moment. Hopefully that meant if I could calm Philip, the rest of the commotion would settle down before anyone else got seriously hurt or worse. Yeah, no problem. I drew a deep breath and let it out, fixing my gaze on Philip as I shifted closer to him. “Easy there, big guy,” I murmured.
Philip let out a animal cry of torment, arching his back and clenching his fists, and sending the extras into an unnerving wailing frenzy. A tremor wracked him, and he swung his head toward the source of the cries, a new fever lighting his eyes. Ah, hell, this is Not Good.
Movement caught my eye. I flicked my gaze away from Philip barely long enough to see the asshole Saberton dude who’d tranqed Roland come around the corner of the building a few yards beyond Philip. His face set in determination, he gripped the tranq gun in his right hand.
Crap. I snapped my focus back to Philip and closed half the distance between us, while somewhere on the sidelines the sensible part of me wondered what the hell I was doing. “Hey! Philip!” I called out, trusting that Kyle would take care of Saberton Dude while I distracted Philip from the masses.
As though on cue, a tall and lanky black man strode from behind me toward Saberton Dude, everything in his attitude and posture announcing that he was going to take this company man out of action and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do to stop him. Kyle Dangerous As Fuck.
“Stay back, asshole,” Saberton Dude ordered Kyle, raising the tranq gun. Kyle kept moving, apparently not giving a shit about the tranq gun. The man fired, and scored a hit in the shoulder, but Kyle didn’t even slow.
Well, not for two steps anyway. Then he stopped and stared down at the dart in his shoulder with an expression of shock and disbelief. It sure looked like he’d expected to have some resistance to the tranq. Realization hit me. The new tranq. The same stuff that knocked me out the other night rather than simply paralyzing me. I couldn’t help wondering how the hell Kyle could have a resistance to normal tranqs, but now wasn’t the time to explore that little mystery.
Kyle crumpled to the ground, still looking surprised and more than a little annoyed. A smirk of satisfaction crossed Saberton Dude’s face, but it quickly shifted to a wide-eyed, holy-crap face as Philip screamed and turned toward him, blood from the dead Saberton man still wet on his face. He swung the gun around to point at Philip, fired, and struck him low on his left side.
Oh, hell no! My zombie-mama-bitch protective instinct flared hot and bright. With a snarl I ran and dove at the asshole. Saberton Dude’s eyes widened as he caught sight of me, and he tried to back pedal into a position to fend off Philip and level the tranq gun in my direction, but I slammed into him while he was still off balance, all ninety-eight or so pounds of me driving him back and over an equipment rack to land heavily on top of him.
Philip gave another tortured scream that slashed through my senses like a tumble of razor blades. Again, the extras picked it up and echoed it.
With a harsh growl I ripped the gun out of Saberton Dude’s hand. “You don’t touch him!” I yelled.
He seemed surprised by my strength. Maybe he hadn’t dealt with female zombies before? But he recovered quickly. “Get off me, you crazy bitch!”
“I’m not crazy!” I snarled. Baring my teeth, I drew my hand back and punched him hard—backing it with plenty of zombie-strength.
His jaw broke with an extremely satisfying crunch followed by his gurgle of pain. Grinning with far too much satisfaction, I pushed up off him, then stomped hard on his hand.
“Okay, maybe a little crazy,” I muttered. “And payback is definitely a bitch.”
I turned away as Heather ran up, baton in her right hand dripping with what sure as hell looked like blood. For a second I almost felt sorry for Tim.
Nah, not even a second.
Her eyes flicked around, taking it all in: the dead guy with his head smashed open, Saberton Dude down and moaning, Kyle down and very still, and Philip with a dart protruding from his side—most certainly not down—looking even more pissed off and crazy, and now moving toward the extras.
“Here,” I said, and tossed her the tranq gun. “But don’t shoot Philip with it. It’ll make him worse.” I didn’t wait for a reply. I yanked a bag from my pocket and gulped down some more brains, then ran after Philip and literally shoved the half-full bag into his face. He gave a weird hissing howl, grabbed the bag in hands still crooked like claws. He sucked the contents down and let the empty bag fall, but to my dismay the animal-crazed look still filled his eyes. He lurched toward the extras again and let out another scream-cry.
New fervor erupted in the crowd, and screams of non-zombies made my blood run cold. This was turning into total mayhem, and I knew I needed to do something to stop it, but what? My instinct shrieked at me to move, to act. Now.
Great! Sure! I snarled at it. Tell me what to do and I will!
Philip made a lunge toward the cheerleader zombie, but I grabbed at his arm and used as much zombie-strength as I could to swing him toward me. Eyes wild, he raised a hand to strike me, tension in every fiber of his body. Yet to my surprise—and deep relief—he held the strike, face contorted and body quivering as though fighting with himself.
With an animal snarl of my own, I seized his shoulders, leaped up to wrap my arms and legs around him, and then sank my teeth into the big muscle at the juncture of his neck and shoulder.