He tried to breathe and failed. His drone and bots became unresponsive, trapped in the middle of the war zone. Desperate, he tried to bring them to him. They came, but they’d never make it in time. Something that reached out of the darkness crushed one of the bots.
Baker felt the bot go off-line as his own life faded. He tried again to breathe and failed once more; now he felt his lungs filling up with blood.
Where’s my cover?
Someone was supposed to be watching over him. His knees folded under him, and his vision tightened to one small dot. The last thing he saw, though, was the Blade Minion’s head going to pieces as one of the snipers found the demon too late.
TWO
Zombies, Warren Schimmer thought irritably, are difficult to control outside of the city. He glanced back at the pack of forty strong that he controlled. At least back in the city they tended to march more or less together because the narrow streets kept them together.
Warren hated where they were now. He’d not been out of London much, and never to Kent. They were deep in it now, following the River Rother toward Romney Marsh. The stench of the salt marshes thickened the air and made them almost unbearable.
Few trees grew in the area, though there were stubborn clumps of oak and alder. All of it was snow-covered at the moment. The pristine whiteness made the land appear innocent and hid the treacherous bogs and pits that filled the countryside.
Warren kept his little group of undead well away from the main road, though he kept the road and the River Rother in sight. People still lived out this way in rather rough means. The demons hadn’t quite spread this far yet.
If the survivors from the city or the farm people that lived out here saw him with the zombies, Warren knew he’d find no friends among them. Most likely, they would kill him on sight.
He pulled his cloak more tightly around him. Despite the fact that London was demon-infested, he appreciated the warmth that he found in the city. He’d trade it for the cold any day.
Except that the Burn killed the land and drained the River Thames.
Resolutely, Warren marched on. What he looked for, whatever it was, wasn’t much farther away now. He kept moving his feet, and listening to the frozen grass and brush rustle and snap under his boots.
“Maybe we should stop somewhere for tonight,” Naomi said.
She was a constant companion of his these days. When he’d first met her four years ago, she’d known more than him about arcane forces. But after he’d bonded with Merihim—taken hostage would have been a more apt description—Warren had become the master and she became the student.
She was a couple of years older than he was. Petite, full-figured, and beautiful, Naomi turned men’s heads. She was the kind of woman that Warren would never have had a chance at back when the world was normal. There had been a few perks with the arrival of evil.
Tattoos and piercings covered her body. Two short, curved horns stood out on her forehead. As a Cabalist, she embraced the demon’s ways and tried to emulate their look.
Warren didn’t want that. When he’d first encountered Merihim, the demon had blasted Warren and burned him significantly. His normally ebony skin had become mottled and grotesque. He’d lost hair and gained lots of scar tissue. Now all of that was gone. Courtesy of the demanding voice that usually dwelt within his mind.
But he had a hand back. The Templar Simon Cross had taken his flesh and blood hand from him. Merihim had given him one of his own, and the demon flesh had changed his body, remade it to be a proper vessel to the hand. Even now that Merihim’s hand was gone, taken back by the demon, Warren remained changed.
The voice had also given him another hand. This one hung at his side and was a thing of alien beauty rather than one of horror. Made of silver, the prosthesis looked like something a clockmaker might design. Tiny gears and braided cables filled it. Magic existed in the hand, though. It moved as easily and flexibly as Warren’s old hand. Most amazing of all, he could touch and feel things.
“Did you hear me?” Naomi asked. “I wanted to know if we could stop for the night.”
“No,” Warren replied. He knew that was impossible. The voice in his head had told him he couldn’t stop until he’d found what she’d sent him for. “We press on.”
“I’m cold.”
Although he understood her discomfort, Warren couldn’t help his bad attitude. He wasn’t any happier about what he was having to do, either. He wanted the warmth of a fire and a good book.
Instead, he marched a group of zombies he’d raised as personal guards deep into the briny quagmire under a quarter-moon and a sky full of bright stars. Stealth was possible at night in the city, but not out here.
Not only that, but he nursed a deep anger toward Naomi. When he’d had his hand taken from him, she’d stayed at his side long enough to make sure he was as well cared for as she could manage, then she’d fled. She’d only returned to him a few weeks ago when she’d discovered him searching the city. She’d asked him where he’d gotten his new hand. He hadn’t seen fit to tell her.
“The zombies are losing us again.” Naomi sounded as petulant as a child.
“I know.” Warren stopped at the top of a promontory and glanced back. He had started with sixty zombies, all pulled from graves inside London at the beginning of his long trek. Now he had less than forty.
He’d robbed one of the older graves. The most recent interment there had been over eighty years ago. It
