though I were choking, and turned my back on Black and White. Almost frantic, I popped the stopper on the vial as I heard them coming toward me. With a little lean to raise my head some, I emptied the contents of the vial into my mouth and swallowed fast just as I felt their cold hands latch onto me. With a gentle push, I left the vial slip from my hand and slid it across the grass, toward my feet.
“Come on now, surely you aren’t that hurt.”
They pulled me up and held my arms, not even bothering to restrain me. I squirmed a little and stumbled forward and they tightened their grip to keep me from falling over. My feet barely touching the ground, they led me across the yard and through the gate to the front, the vial still on the grass behind us; unnoticed.
As we neared what I presumed was their black van, I felt the warm rush of Lucifer’s blood as it merged with mine. The gentle tingling ran through my veins, easing away all my aches and pains. A pleasant tickle played at my groin and I fought the urge to give in to it, knowing it was just foreplay for the mind-fuck to come. The feelings growing more intense, I clenched my teeth and waited.
Suddenly my body went rigid, my muscles screaming in agony as they surged with mystical energy. A rabid, foam-mouthed scream slipped loose from my mouth as molten lava ripped through my innards. My vision went white and I could feel myself twitching like an epileptic.
Though I couldn’t see them, Black and White held on. Snippets of their words pierced the haze of my whirling mind, but I couldn’t follow what they were saying. It was all gibberish to me, like watching Oprah.
Then just as suddenly as it hit me, the pain passed and I dropped limp in their grasp. They set me down on my knees but kept ahold of my arms. White leaned over to look me in the face.
He huffed, irritation finally tainting his smooth delivery. “No games, Trigg. Go with us peacefully or we’ll do this the hard way.”
I focused my eyes on his and broke into a wide grin. “Let’s go with the latter.”
Confusion stampeded across his face and I didn’t let it go to waste. A quick jerk of my arms pulled them around in front of me, the men crashing into each other with a kettledrum boom. They fell to the ground in a tangled mess of thrashing limbs.
Their hold on me broken, I stepped away and summoned my energies as they fought to get to their feet. Unlike before, my horse and buggy magic needing a steep hill to get going, the power roared to life like a Ferrari. The feeling was orgasmic.
Black and White, now back on their feet, eased away, clearly realizing something had changed.
“Leaving so soon? I thought you wanted to chat.”
White spun without a word and ran for the house. Black went the opposite direction, racing across the yard. Not wanting to damage my house any further, I went after Black.
Envisioning a sword, my magic complied. Made of pure mystical energy, a shimmering blade appeared in my hand, illuminating the night.
Though Black had a head start, it wasn’t much of one. A quick leap put me at his back as he scrambled to get into the van. While he dug in his pockets for the keys, I grabbed his shoulder from behind. There was a clank as my hand latched on, my fingers sinking in a little with a muffled metallic squeal.
Without hesitation, he threw an elbow at me, but with Lucifer’s blood flowing in my veins, I saw it coming. The shimmering blade of my sword met his triceps midway and cleaved clean through. His severed arm boomeranged passed to land in the yard behind me.
Black didn’t scream, but I nearly did.
I’d expected to see spraying blood and hacked up meat, but there wasn’t any of that. Instead, the stump of his arm was a solid mass, one big hunk of reflective steel. Inside the fleshy cocoon, it flowed like water, swirling in the wound. No clue what Black was, my eyes were transfixed.
He took advantage of my hesitation and yanked his shoulder free. He took another swing at me, my mind waking up, and I moved to defend, but it had been a feint. He spun and bolted down the street as I regained my balance. I watched him go. He wasn’t so fast I couldn’t catch him, but I didn’t want to waste the energy. Having used some of the blood to heal Scarlett and me a couple of times, I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be Super Frank on the lower dosage. If White was still in the house, I was gonna need the boost.
Spurred on by the thought of powering down, I raced inside. Chatterbox whistled and hopped up and down to get my attention.
“ Dooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrr,” he said as I charged into the living room.
I looked to my shattered back door and let my senses go. While they hadn’t exactly been on the money earlier, I’d been able to feel Black and White. That feeling wasn’t there now. They were gone.
The timing was perfect. I could feel the magic of the blood slipping away, a subtle tiredness trickling over me. My mystical blade flickered and died, no longer needed.
Certain I didn’t want to be in the house when I came all the way down, exhaustion too mild a word to describe the feeling that awaited me, I ran to my bedroom. There, I retrieved the last of Lucifer’s blood and wrapped the vials in one of my pillowcases for safekeeping. Eve came next, then I remembered the power- dampening manacles hidden under my bed. I grabbed them and flung them over my shoulder before heading back down the hall to the living room.
My energy wavering, I picked up Chatterbox and set him on the table facing me. “Send a message to Karra. Have her meet me near the mausoleum at Rest Land as soon as she can.” Still connected to Karra through the psychic link that kept him animated, it was the quickest way to reach her. It also kept me from having to touch the zombified phone.
While he was doing that, I went outside and grabbed Black’s severed arm. It twitched as I picked it up, a subtle spasm that weirded me out, before going completely rigid. Not sure what to do with it, I really didn’t want to leave it laying around for someone to find should the world make it through the crisis. Besides that, it would make a groovy trophy. I decided to keep it, at least until I could dig up some information on the bastard it belonged to and what him and his partner wanted. It didn’t hurt to think Black would be a little easier to deal with, minus a limb.
So thinking, I added Black’s stiffened arm to my baggage and went back inside.
“You done?” I asked Chatterbox.
After a few seconds, he nodded-well, he actually rocked back and forth, but we’re talking semantics here. A black-lipped smile plastered across his face, he hopped into the pillowcase I held open and sniggered like Muttley as he got comfortable.
Through blurry eyes, I took one last look at my house. I’d lived there for over eighty years, and though the rebuild had taken some of the old charm away, it was still my home. Thinking I might never see it again, I sighed and made my way to the gate room in back. The portal powering up, me powering down, I clutched my loot tight to make sure I didn’t lose any of it in transit.
Whisked away to Chatterbox’s off-key warble of Jump in the Fire, I couldn’t help but think he was psychic.
Chapter Eighteen
Wanting nothing more than to close my eyes and pull a Rip Van Winkle, I paced along a line of graves with Chatterbox in my arms, silently reading the names of each to keep my mind somewhat active. The steady rhythm of the sprinklers filled the night air, the gardens just to the north being watered.
The mausoleum closed and locked down, I waited for Karra behind it, sticking to the shadows to avoid being seen by the night guy, Marvin.
He was a jumpy fella with bad cholesterol and an inflated beach ball for a belly. The last thing his overworked heart needed was to stumble across me in the middle of the night, holding an animated zombie head. There was enough blood on my conscience already.
On about my fiftieth loop, I felt the zombie head go rigid and I turned to see Karra walking toward us, her shape defined even in the darkness. Not wanting Chatterbox to feel alone, I started to go rigid too.
Karra closed the distance and wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me in toward her. Her lips met mine and I forgot all about the end of the world, swept away in her kiss. A squirming lump between us, I felt her tongue
