“Then we shall look further into these coordinates,” the king said, and returned his attention to me.“What happened next?”
His question caught me unprepared.I had assumed that with the coordinates divulged, my reporting time was over.Everything else was details that concerned me, and not his war.
The hint of a smile appeared on Xaniban’s lips.“You refused to obey him, did you not?”
“Yeah.”I shrugged.“I still believed him to be a hallucination caused by the zombie infection.My scientific explanation was that it was pushing me subconsciously to go somewhere it could thrive.You know, like those freaky hairworm larvae that mind-control their insect hosts with chemicals to force them to jump into a body of water?”
Wide eyes stared back at me.
“Um, anyway… The king knew how to fly the helicopter and threatened to turn me into a mindless zombie, unless I cooperated or sat peacefully next to him as he flew us to our destination.”
“And you chose…?”
“I chose to stop myself from getting any more people killed while I still had control over my actions.I told him–or what I believed to be the infection messing with my brain–that I’d rather die free.He moved to grab me, and I jumped off.”
Xaniban’s smile grew.“How did you survive?”
Well, since he was so interested, for some reason… “By some crazy luck, I fell into a river deep enough to break my fall.I hadn’t been flying high, anyway.When I re-surfaced, I saw the helicopter staying on its course.I figured the machine had automatically switched to autopilot… I’ve been pushing that whole episode to the back of my mind ever since.There’s no such thing as talking zombies, and also–What?”
Xaniban was giving me a triumphant smile.He took the distance between us in two strides and pulled me into the circle of his arms.Then kissed me.
– 10 –
Little Blessing
The kiss was short and sweet, not heated like our previous one, but it left me breathless and dazed just the same.
Xaniban cupped my face amid cheers and the excited flutter of wings.“You are a blessing from the Gods, truly.Never have I encountered such a remarkable female.”
“Oh…” His words, his kiss, the public display of affection–I was at a loss for what to say.
“A female who can fight,” he went on, gaze holding mine, “fly in the sky without wings of her own, put her own safety at risk for others who would never know of her sacrifice, resist a temptation few have not given into… I would not believe such a female existed, had I not seen her in action.Had I not smelled the sincerity in her every word.”
I blushed.He made me sound remarkable, but I was not.My actions at the day of the outbreak hadn’t helped anyone, and for months I had believed my project was to blame for the zombie apocalypse.I still wasn’t completely sure the anti-wrinkles cream was innocent, since I hadn’t been involved in every phase of its production.
“Why did the zombie king choose my workplace to start the apocalypse?”I asked, gently removing Xaniban’s hands from my face.“You mentioned earlier that it was there he began making his new army?”
“Yes, he personally marked the beginning there.”Xaniban replaced the touch of his hands with tailed caresses along my back as he spoke, and I found those too soothing to move away.“But around the same time, his generals started creating mindless flesh eaters in big human cities across the continent.It was a well-planned operation that made it hard for us to pinpoint ground zero, and hence find him and nip this war in the bud.”
“But would killing the king have made much difference?Wouldn’t one of his generals have taken the crown and continued the operation?”
There was amusement in Xaniban’s eyes at my many questions.He took my hand and led me back to the head chair, where I returned to his lap without making a fuss.I didn’t want to interrupt him when he was so willingly sharing crucial information.
“Flesh eaters can be given purpose only by the king.His generals are intelligent on their own, as such is his royal gift, but they cannot control other flesh eaters, just pass on the curse.Only the king can control them, for the curse in his blue blood links him to all his creations.Kill him, and the flesh curse dies with him.His generals, along with the mindless minions, would rot away within a couple of months.”
I couldn’t believe it was that simple.All the effort the authorities had put into containing the zombie outbreak beforehumanity went to hell, and the solution had beenKill Bond, Kill the Apocalypse.
“Our ancestors fought him more than once,” Xaniban told me, “but he always got away.Went into hiding until the right time would come to try and build an army again.The last time he vanished, he was gone for so long we assumed he had been killed without our knowledge.But he was hiding in plain sight and planning a large-scale attack the likes of which has not been seen before.”
“I still don’t understand why he chose a cosmetics company’s party to start all this,” I reasoned out loud.“Does he have a bone to pick with the industry?For all the makeup he had to wear on screen?”I joked.Mostly.
“We will probably never know.”Xaniban patted my thigh.“The reason is of no importance at this late stage of his plan.His generals–humans who have accepted the king’s curse onto themselves willingly–have already taken control of entire cities on your continent.And now that the remains of Dracula’s army have joined him, the situation on the ground will aggravate.”
Splendid.Zombies and vampires were close to achieving dominion over Europe.The aliens were next in line.What chance did we humans have?
Xaniban turned to fully face his soldiers.“We should seek the flesh eaters’ king at the coordinates provided, my brethren.If he is no longer there or his forces far exceed those who volunteer to join me for yet another risky attack on the enemy’s stronghold, I would suggest finding an ally of our own as Plan B.”
After a flap of wings from everyone in the room, he specified, “I strongly believe the Elves should be our first point of call on the ground.With them guarding the green territories between human settlements, they are already preventing flesh eaters and blood suckers from moving freely.It will be risky to negotiate with the Elves and hard to convince them to hunt beyond their territories, but we must try.”
