water in the lawn-sprinkler systems in all the graveyards in town? Before sunset? And get them all turned on,” I added, in case it wasn’t obvious.
Billy sounded like his tongue was having a throw-down with his brain over what ought to be said first. “You want the city’s irrigation system filled with holy water?” won.
I said, “Yes,” then, worried, continued, “I mean, it works that way, right? You don’t have to, like, cart in holy water from Jerusalem to mix with the rest of the water or anything, do you? It can just be blessed and be good to go, can’t it?”
Billy’s tongue was still trying to strangle him. I wished my phone had video capability so I could see what that looked like. It sure sounded awful. “Look, I’ve got this other thing to deal with, and I’m seriously not the person to coordinate a citywide holy-water brigade. You saw that black muck in the air. Even if I’m totally wrong about the cauldron disturbing the dead, getting rid of it has to be good. If I’m right, washing it away before sunset is critical. I really need you to do this.”
I also really didn’t want a man whose wife was about to give birth out chasing a death cauldron with me, but I didn’t think that was an argument that would go over well with my partner, so I left it alone. Billy spent about five more seconds choking on his tongue before saying, “What other thing?”
“The cauldron,” I said evasively. Mentioning premonitions of my death seemed like a bad idea. “If you cover the sprinkler thing, I can deal with the cauldron.” I sounded very confident. I hoped I was right.
“As soon as I’ve got this sprinkler thing under way I’m calling back and you’re telling me where to meet up. I mean it, Joanne. You’re not facing this alone.”
“You’re a big damn hero, Billy Holliday. I’ll talk to you soon.” I hung up, all too aware I hadn’t asked him how his interview with Sandburg had gone, but unwilling to draw the conversation out and maybe let slip that I was on a deadly timetable. For a couple of seconds I looked around, feeling a bit wild-eyed and hoping I’d find a priest or a holy hand grenade lying around waiting to be used.
Instead, I found Daniel Doherty standing at the cemetery gates, a hand to his forehead like he was staving off an ache, and a frown between his eyebrows that said he couldn’t have seen what he’d just seen, but he hadn’t yet figured out how to explain it away. I squared my shoulders, looking for a story that would suit him, and headed over to feed it to him.
Right then, the sun’s shadow slipped away from the cemetery, and the zombies rose up.
CHAPTER 20
I suppose I knew on an intellectual level that graves weren’t especially made for getting out of. I mean, you start with a hermetically sealed casket and then you dump six feet of dirt on top of it. Over time the earth gets compacted, which can’t make it any easier to dig through. So even if you’re a very angry and determined zombie, you’ve kind of got your work cut out for you just escaping from the grave.
Which was, I suppose, why we got hit with an initial wave of zombie bugs, birds and rodents. I bet some people would say if you’ve never picked undead mosquitoes out of your teeth, you’ve never lived. Under that definition, I’d be just as happy to have not lived, thanks.
I drew my rapier, feeling its connection to my armor zot to life with a sound like a lightsaber. I was sure that had to be internal editing, that nobody else heard a funky
Well, human zombies, anyway. A half-rotted squirrel ran at my foot, chittering like mad. I let out a perfectly girlie scream and swatted it away with the tip of my sword. Some fencer I was. I skewered a rat, which was much better in fencing terms, and a lot more awful in real-world terms. It kept trying to get me, teeth clattering and scaly little feet scrabbling in the air. I let out another yell and flung it away, hoping a nice hard smash against a tree or gravestone might end its nasty little unlife.
Something bigger than my head dove at me. I shrieked yet again and ducked, not even trying to strike back. Whatever it was pulled up, rained molty feathers on me, then dived again, this time with an unearthly scree that sounded, well, like the dead crying aloud. I thought maybe it was a goshawk, but I was too busy cowering on the ground, hands over my head, to really get a good look.
Not that the ground was all that good a place to hide from the undead. Half-rotted squirmy things boiled up through the dirt, maybe drawn to my body heat, or maybe drawn to all the noise I was making. For a big tough girl like me, I sure sounded like a fifties housewife encountering a mouse. Worse, I felt like one. My heart was in palpitations and my hands were wet with sweat. I wanted to throw up, but I was afraid the doughnuts I’d been surviving on for the past two days would turn out to have an unlife of their own, too, and would turn on me in bilious disgustingness.
Mice and shrews and robins and worms and myriad other small creatures that lived in city greens all squeaked and charged toward me, dropping tiny body parts and dragging tiny guts along with them. Tears leaked down my cheeks, and my chest filled up, like all the dead cells in my body were coming back to life and trying to suffocate me. Angry gods I could handle. Murderous banshees were fine. The living dead, it seemed, even in comparatively cute and harmless forms, were not my thing. I was going to be eaten alive by rodents of usual size, and the best I could do was sob and gibber about it.
Right beside me, I heard the distinctive double-click of a shotgun cocking. I didn’t think that was fair. Zombies, particularly rat zombies, shouldn’t be able to use shotguns. A blast of rock salt, even at short range, probably wouldn’t kill me, but it would hurt like hell, and make lots of little holes for the zombies to start nibbling at. I wailed and wrapped my arms around my head more tightly. I’d dropped my sword and didn’t even know when.
A huge blast of rock salt peppered the ground in front of me, tinging off my sword and breaking some of the tinier rodent zombies into bits. Suzanne Quinley said, “Get up,” and cocked the shotgun again. “Get up, or next time I shoot you so I have time to run.”
I peeked up through my arms to see her standing above me like a pale god, shotgun riding on one hip and her hair flying in the wind. Her gaze was implacably calm, not at all like a fourteen-year-old girl’s. She was playing the role of grown-up because the actual adult in this scenario was blubbering like a baby. I had never in my whole life been so grateful for somebody else to have her shit together.
Suzy said, “Get up,” one more time.
Stomach in knots, hands trembling, I reached for my sword and got up.
Suzy gave me a severe nod, then lifted the shotgun to indicate Daniel Doherty. “What do we do about him?”
“Let him get eaten.” I didn’t mean it, and being snarky didn’t make my hands any steadier. “We rescue him.”
“You’re the boss.” Suzy let fly another blast of rock salt, and the air cleared of small flying undead things. I watched them fall to the ground, and wondered why my feet weren’t moving. Suzy crashed her hip into mine. “Move. Move!”
“I’m trying. I really am.” A tiny panicked sliver of silver-blue magic shot down my legs, looking for roots growing up from dead trees and binding me to the earth. There weren’t any. It was good old-fashioned panic holding me in place. “Maybe you better go ahead.”
“All I do is see the future!” Suzanne Quinley, who had to weigh at least thirty-five pounds less than I did, grabbed my sweater in one fist and hauled me a step forward. “
I couldn’t even save myself. I had no idea how I was supposed to save her. All I had was a sword that wouldn’t kill zombies and magic that fed the undead until they took corporeal form.
All of a sudden I wondered what happened if you infused a killing weapon with life magic.
Smacking Cernunnos with a bolt of blue magic had made it very clear that my power was not meant to be a straight-out weapon. I’d nearly passed out, and that was from just one hit. I had no doubt that sustained blasts would drain my magic and leave me for the worms. Warrior’s path or not, there seemed to be things a shaman
