Percy ignores the cat purring at his feet. “I need one of you,” he shakes Achilles off of himself, “that I can trust to take the next watch. Achilles is officially forbidden from watching her until we can figure this all out.” He leans over and picks up the Achilles cat by the excess skin on his neck, who curls in on himself looking very small next to Percy. “You, you little furball, are coming with me.” Achilles changes form again; a loud thump hits the ground. Percy is left holding the mane of a giant black horse sitting on the ground. The horse shows its teeth braying loudly in laughter.
We all bust up laughing. Percy’s face turns plum purple. Oh, I love it. How I missed Achilles’ antics those three long years we were asleep.
“Achilles, that’s enough,” Alex says in between laughs. “I’ll go.”
“I’ll go too.” I step forward chewing my lip to bite back the laugh. I’m not sure how much more Percy can take before he explodes.
Achilles brays once more then transforms back into a cat. Percy falls over. Achilles purrs, rubbing up against Percy. Percy swipes at him; the cat scurries out of the way quickly and bounces happily back towards the house.
“You two go.” He stands nodding at me and Alex. “Phelix, Zaphyra, help me look for the book again before I end up making a late-night snack of cat chowder.”
“On it,” Alex assures him. Alex and I transform and take to the sky.
We stay high up, but even so the townspeople would not see us. When we take to the air we are camouflaged from human eyes. They cannot see us, flying at least, unless they know we are there or are magically imbued in some way. It’s that way with many things when it comes to us. It can make for a lonely existence, but at least we have each other. And our zoana, if we can find her. Thus far, she’s been easy to track. She stayed at home inside almost every day. Until yesterday. Now she has made friends and suddenly, she’s out doing things. We fly around the festivities and her rental house - nothing.
“Maybe we missed something back at the Fly-In?” I tell Alex.
“Wait...” He turns his head as if he heard a noise. “Do you feel that?” he asks.
I focus and notice small ripples swimming through the air coming toward us from the forest. We both look at each other.
Alex narrows his eyes. “What are the odds our zoana has found trouble this quickly after leaving the house?”
“Pretty good knowing Eugene,” I say then immediately regret it. He may have died three years ago, but for us it’s only been three months.
“Man, remember all the trouble he used to get himself into?” Alex chuckles.
“All too well. We better check it out before we are put back to sleep in mid-air.” I nod at him.
We fly towards the ripples. It’s a disturbance in the air, something no one would feel unless they were magical. Or animal, I think as a large group of elk run out of the trees. Closer, we hear shouting. Down below the rim of trees the ground is shaking in a cemetery and Violet and her new friends are all yelling. White bone thin zombies are rising up out of the ground around them.
“Hurry, go get the others,” I yell at Alex. He’s already turning back, flying fast. It won’t take long so I wait for them. We are stronger together. As more and more rise up and out, I realize we are going to need it. Facing a horde of them is not what I wanted to do tonight. I kind of had my eye on the male our new zoana is hanging out with. I wonder if she would mind if I got my talons into him? I need to find out if she fancies him. My thoughts are interrupted when I notice one of the girls holding on to a book. The book. The one Percy is currently searching for. I shake my head. This zoana really is going to give us trouble.
I hear the whoosh of wings as the others arrive. Time for the fun to really begin.
Chapter Six
Violet
The shadows turn out to be giant monsters. They have wings and tails and seem to have just walked out of a small child’s worst nightmare. Many of the corpses notice them and begin moving in their direction snarling. Before I can even hope that the book will zap them too, a corpse grabs my arm and yanks. Fiona screams as the corpse is immediately electrocuted. Its grip tightens around me, unable to let go with the electricity running through it. I let go of the book with one hand and fling my arm out shoving it off of me. It falls back into two others toppling them over, making a space large enough for us. This is our chance.
“Fiona, run!” I yell.
She doesn’t even hesitate. She runs towards Blythe and Aiden and the corpses surrounding them. I run too. One grabs my jacket, stopping me. I swing the book behind me hoping to connect with it. Before I can reach it, the corpse suddenly gurgles, letting go. Behind it one of the monsters slashed it with a whip. The monster is female - that much I can tell by her clothes. She winks at me as the corpse disintegrates before us. I run.
Fiona is outside of the ring of corpses that are surrounding Blythe and Aaiden. She’s running side to side, back and forth like she’s playing defense on a soccer goal. It takes me only a second to realize she’s distracting the monsters from our friends while also trying to find a way to get to them. I hold the book out in front of me, ready to zap them as soon as I get there. My world is knocked sideways though, as I feel a sharp pain in my shin and fall forward. My fingers let go of the book, my face falls towards the wet ground. Instinct causes me to put my hands in front of me just in time. I fall into the soft grass and skid across it. The book is just out of reach. I must have tripped over a tombstone. I immediately push myself up, onto my hands and knees. I hear the snarl before I feel the corpse grab my clothes and pull. Falling once more and rolling onto my back with a hard slab beneath me, an undead face snarls and snaps his teeth at me. My hands reach up to keep it off of me. When its teeth connect this time, front tooth shatters showering all over me. A helpless girly scream erupts from me that would rival any damsel in distress in a movie. I begin flailing at the corpse, trying to push it away, anything to keep those teeth off of me.
“Hold on a sec,” a deep voice breaks through my scream.
I don’t stop fighting. The undead face is getting closer, snapping, snapping, snapping at me.
“Stop wiggling, Violet, you’re making this too hard,” the voice tells me. The use of my name stuns me into silence. Within a second, a long sword punctures through the corpse. The undead thing stops snapping then looks down at the sword before disintegrating to dust around it.
A monster stands over me. He pulls the sword back and sheaths it. The monster holds out his clawed hand. “M’lady,” he tells me grinning.
A few thoughts hit me simultaneously. The monster just killed the corpse. By doing so, it saved me. And it’s making a joke at me. My jaw drops. Whatever these things are, they’re not here to hurt us. All around us they are fighting the corpses. Two female monsters are whipping their way to Blythe and Aaiden, freeing them from the horde. I take in the one in front of me, before raising my hand to its massive clawed paw. With skin a deep blue grey, it is completely alien to me and huge. Muscles bigger than my head. Giant claw tipped wings tucked in behind it. His face is angular, hard, but not as scary as I first would have thought. His eyes are deep and huge, but his expression is comical as if he thinks this is all just a joke. Before I touch the beastly thing, I notice three corpses closing in on him.