“Eleanor Letcombe.”
28
HECTOR
Ididn’t intend to kill the Hunters. Really, I didn’t. Even though it was likely their intention for us, I felt like the first step in changing as a person was giving up a bad habit.
Killing was mine.
Apparently I had room for personal growth even in such a dangerous place as one of Bahmet’s trials. If I had the time to pat myself on the back, I would have.
Kai and I left the two Hunters bleeding and gasping out on the floor. What harm was a couple of broken noses, one completely ruined set of teeth and a shattered eye socket? They were in a heap of tangled (very broken) limbs, moans escaping blood-coated lips.
“We work pretty well together,” I said to Kai who was doubled over, panting beside me. “You good?”
“Need. Two. Minutes.”
I was willing to give him those minutes but unfortunately for Kai, therealshitstorm was on its way to us.
Kai didn’t notice at first. He was doubled over, heaving for breath, his little demonic cat lapping human blood from his paw as though he’d stepped in a bowl of cream. Emon was no different as he curled his cold scales around my arm and clungto my flesh, his fangs retiring from the multitude of puncture wounds he’d left over the Hunters’ bodies.
But I noticed the shift. The change. I watched, barely a scratch on my body from the fight, as the Hunters’ blood started to seep into the earth. It spread quickly, like a piece of tissue soaking up spilled red wine. At first I thought it was strange, but I put it down to this being Bahmet’s personal hell-zone. Then the stain of blood grew wider, spread further.
That was when the ground began to rumble.
“Please, no. No more.” Kai looked up, his ginger curls stuck to his forehead. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, widening my stance as another jolt shivered beneath me. “But whatever it is, I think we need to get moving. Can you manage it?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Nope.”
I’d been punched a total of seven times across my torso, but nothing hurt. One of the Hunters had swiped a blade across the side of my face, but there was no blood. No broken skin. Whatever was the reason, I was glad, because I had the energy to help Kai start moving.
That was when the soft earth atop one of the grave-sites broke apart. If I’d been watching as the ground drank the Hunters’ blood, maybe I would’ve seen the mottled, rotten arm extend beyond the soil. It was Kai whose exhausted, gargled scream drew my attention.
“Please for the long of everything good, tell me that’s not what I think it is.”
Impossibly long nails gouged at the grave-site until a hole was made big enough for the corpse to drag itself free. The groaning Hunters noticed and began to choke on their screams as a rotten corpse clawed free of one of the graves.
“Kai,” I choked out, stumbling back a step as another grave-site began to crumble apart. “Run.”
“Huh?” he huffed.
I lifted a finger and pointed to the literal zombie that was halfway out of the grave, scratching at the ground with desperate hands, as it worked its way towards the two Hunters.
His eyes narrowed. “Is that a?—”
“RUN!”
It took all but three minutes from the end of our fight with the Hunters, for a dozen undead beings to scuttle out of their resting places. Corpses, frozen in all states of decay, with gnashing jaws and flesh-thirsty cries.
And more were joining the fray. Especially as a wave of the undead fell atop the two Hunters and began ripping into their bodies. They didn’t have a chance to scream out for help before death claimed them.
More blood. This time it spurt, ejecting out in sprays, covering the undead in a shower. The noises the zombie-creatures gargled were close to euphoric. Orgasmic, as they bathed in the gore.
And the more blood that spilled onto the earth, spreading outwards like an unnatural stain, the more undead who began clambering out of the graves.
