"That’s a silver lining in this mess," Cyran called out as he conjured a wall of fire to block the stairs to the porch. "Though I'd prefer fewer zombies and more family barbecue at this point."
"We need to get outside, now!" Dre commanded with the authority of someone who'd been making decisions for the rest of us since she was old enough to drive. "We take the fight tothem before they get inside. Sarah, Margaret, Claude, Thomas—you four stay in the house. Lock the doors and don't come out until we give the all-clear."
"But—" Margaret started.
"No buts," Dre cut her off as we all rushed toward the front door. "This is what we do. Let us do it."
My sisters and I burst through the front door with Cyran, Kaveh, Kaitlyn, Cami, Lucas, and Noah right behind us. The scene that greeted us looked like something from a horror movie. One that had been directed by someone with serious issues. Zombified wildlife was pouring across our lawn like a supernatural plague. Their rotting bodies left the worst trail of breadcrumbs ever.
Fred, our mundie gardener, was going to think we’d completely gone off the rails. Like most native New Orleans residents, he believed in the supernatural, but we’d kept this world from him. It was going to be hard to explain why there were thousands of pieces of rotting flesh littering the lawn.
A massive zombified alligator was halfway up the front porch steps. It had crazy glowing eyes and oozed malevolent energy. Before anyone could react, Kota stepped forward and lobbed an energy blast that hit the creature dead center. The explosion of rotting reptile left the porch covered in swamp mud and gore. It painted the white columns in shades of decay that wouldn’t come clean without a supercharged cleansing spell.
"Well," Kota said, wiping zombie gator off her face with surprising calm, "that was gross but effective."
"There's more coming," Kaveh warned as his flames wreathed his body. He leaped over the railing, landing in a crouch while he surveyed the writhing mass of undead creatures spreading across our property. "A lot fucking more."
My sisters and I rushed down the porch steps in what could generously be called controlled chaos. That was typical for uswhen shit hit the fan. We would be more effective with more time to think and fewer rotting alligators coming at us. However, we would still kick ass. It just wouldn’t be pretty.
Lia hit the bottom of the steps first. Her amber witch fire was crackling on her hands. Tossing balls of the flames to distract the zombies, she threw up barriers all over the place. A laugh bubbled out of me when creatures slammed into her shields like moths hitting a bug zapper. She had turned the front lawn into a supernatural obstacle course. It would've been far more satisfying if there weren't fifty others behind them.
Dre veered left the moment her feet touched grass. Light pink flames erupted from her hands in waves that turned anything undead into charred fertilizer. I watched her move with the kind of deadly grace that made me proud to call her sister. Even when she was currently barbecuing what used to be someone's pet poodle.
Phi took the right flank. Her typical analytical approach was replaced by pure magical mayhem as she lobbed energy blasts with the enthusiasm of a kid at a carnival game. Kota was right behind her. Together, they were turning our side yard into a graveyard for things that were already supposed to be dead.
I spread out toward the back corner of the house, trying to keep anything from circling around to the families we'd left on the portico. It wasn’t easy to keep one eye on my sisters in case anyone needed backup. I couldn’t tackle this side alone.
"Cami, can you help me with crowd control?" I called to the witch who was currently surveying our uninvited guests with the expression of someone whose day had just gotten significantly worse.
"I'd be happy to," she replied, her usually cheerful demeanor replaced by focused determination. Her hands began crackling with silver-white electricity that danced between her fingers like miniature lightning storms. She made her way across the porticobetween the main house and the summer kitchen. Her magical energy was building around her until the air hummed with power. "Let's see how these things like a little magical lightning."
The spell she unleashed was like watching Zeus throw a temper tantrum. Arcs of silver electricity shot out from her hands in a web pattern that covered the entire yard next to the parking lot. It connected every zombie creature within fifty feet in a network of supernatural voltage. The undead things started convulsing like they'd grabbed a live wire. Their rotting bodies jerked and spasmed as magical current coursed through them.
The smell that followed was absolutely horrific. Think charred rotting flesh mixed with ozone and burnt hair. It was the kind of stench that would stick in your nostrils for weeks and make you question your life choices. The electrical assault gave us precious seconds to figure out our next move without getting eaten. Though I was pretty sure I'd never be able to smell barbecue the same way again.
"Lucas, Noah, can you join the other shifters and provide more perimeter support?" Lia barked as more creatures poured across the breached ward line. "We need to stem the flow so we can keep anything from getting past us to the house."
“The families are safe for now,”Adèle observed, “but you need to clear this wave quickly. The Collector is using this assault to study your abilities. He will find a way to throw your power back at you.”
"Kaitlyn, we could use some of your witch magic," Kota called out as she and Phi worked together to create kill zones that forced the creatures to come at us in manageable numbers instead of overwhelming waves.
"I'm doing what I can," the High Witch replied as her energy wove through the air in complex patterns. The zombie animals closest to her began moving more slowly and were lesscoordinated. "But whatever's controlling them is adapting to my interference."
"They're not just zombies," I announced grimly as I ducked under an attack from something that might have been a pelican in another life.
How was the thing even flying? Its wings were practically nothing but bones. What I found when I reached out with my empathic abilities made my stomach lurch. They weren't just reanimated corpses. The Collector had stuffed souls into the carcasses. That was how he was able to direct these creatures so effectively.
I winced as my mind was flooded with screaming. "The Collector is using harvested human souls to power these things!"
"We need to free them," Lia snarled. "No one gets to use innocent people as supernatural batteries on our watch."
"How exactly do we exorcise zombie alligators?" Kota asked as she vaporized something that had too many teeth and not enough skin.
“Target the binding points,”Adèle instructed. “The souls are anchored to the physical forms through specific magical connections. Sever those, and you free both the spirit and destroy the vessel.”
"Aim for the heart or brain," Dani suggested. "The binding anchors have to be located in one of those spots."
“Behind you, Dani!”Adèle's warning went through our connection just in time for me to watch my sister dodge a zombie raccoon that had figured out how to climb. Dani spun and caught it with a magical blast that blew a hole in the thing’s chest. I was the only one who heard the scream cut off abruptly as the trapped soul passed to the other side.
