In an ideal world I would’ve been able to sit him down with a cup of tea (or large mug of vodka) and explain that I’d brought him back from the dead by giving him access to a demonic power. But alas, there was nothing ideal about this reality. I would explain, in time. I supposed that conversation all rode on whether he could get us out of here.
The zombies were fifty yards away. The smell of dead flesh, rotting sweet, and the tang of copper, washed over my nose. Amongst the ranks I noticed the two Hunters we’d fought, now turned into the very thing that had killed them.
Kai had yet to move. No shadows spilled from his skin; no dark power had come to save us. His eyes were fluttering closed, his chest rising and falling so quickly it was like he was having a heart attack.
His familiar curled in a defeated ball on his chest, purring gently as if an unimaginable death wasn’t seconds away.
I was desperate, so I did the one thing I could think to do.
I used his weakness against him.
“Think of Romy. Picture her. Let the power take us right to her, otherwise she’ll be dead before the day is out.”
“I would say it has been nice knowing you, Hector Briar. But it would be a lie,”Emon hissed in my mind.“You have been nothing but a pain in my ass.”
“You’re a snake,” I cried aloud. “You don’t have a?—”
Kai bolted upright just as the undead met us. He opened his mouth and bellowed a war cry, except no sound came out. Shadows. Pure, undulating darkness flowed out of his mouth and washed out in a tidal wave across where we were slumped.
Sudden relief washed over me just as the dark power engulfed us. I felt the floor fall away from me, so I held on to Kai just that bit tighter. A kitten purred. A serpent snapped its fanged jaws. We existed in nothing but endless night, floating meaninglessly amongst stars.
A familiar voice sang out from the darkness.“Well, this truly is an exciting turn of events.”
I couldn’t even begin to reply before we were evicted from the safety of Kai’s conjured dark.
His body was torn out of my grasp. The dull light returned. Nothing bright, but also not the endless black of demonic power. And then I was rolling, spinning so quickly that I couldn’t make sense of what was happening.
I pinched my eyes closed to steady my spinning brain. It ached in my skull. Hell, all of me ached. But that discomfort was nothing to the pain of hundreds of decaying teeth and nails ripping into my body.
Once my body stopped tumbling over itself, I opened my wary eyes and looked up to find a person stood above me. They were upside down, or maybe I was? Either way, I could’ve screamed with joy at seeing them.
“Romy,” I gargled up at my friend, her worried face crowned by the star-filled sky. “Hi.”
“What—how—Hector Briar.”
I sat up, body aching, mind immediately going to Kai. I couldn’t see him at first, not as I swept the area around me. Then I spotted two motionless legs sticking out from behind agravestone. Yes, the gravestones were everywhere. We were still in the trial, still surrounded by a sea of potential threats…
Except the zombies were nowhere to be seen.
“Kai,” I exhaled, scrambling over to get to him. “Check on him.”
“Oh my god,” Romy exhaled, piecing together what was happening. “Hector, what have you done!”
Nothing, I wanted to say, but my tongue was heavy as led, and my jaw clenched together.
“You are a well-seasoned liar,”Emon added.
I ignored him, blocking his mocking voice out of my head. If snakes could laugh, Emon was certainly giggling.
Kai was breathing, but barely. Romy was fussing over him, back hunched as she cowered atop his body, laying fingers on every pulse point. Tears spilled down her face as she clutched the man in her arms, rocking back and forth like she was going to lose him all over again.
When she spun on me, her eyes were wild with fury. “What. Have. You. Done?”
I lifted my hands in defeat. “We were attacked. Zombies. Hundreds of them. Kai—Itook the risk and used Bahmet’s power to save us. It worked.”
“Does he look saved to you?” Romy gasped, eyes flickering to something behind me.
Emon let out a long hiss, but this time it wasn’t aimed at me. It was a warning.
