Into the Void (The Godhunter, Book 10) Read online

  “Right,” I gave myself a mental shake to go along with the physical one Az just gave me. “Okay, I'm fine. What should we do?”

  “Tima?” Darius was at the door with a whole lot of Intare behind him. “Is it going to be okay? Should we warn our girlfriends? Maybe bring them here?”

  I frowned in thought. Some of the Intare had asked to bring their human girlfriends to Pride Palace and after much consideration, I'd said no. If they wanted to tell them about our secret world, that was on them but I was responsible for everyone at Pride Palace and I couldn't allow random humans in without getting to know them first. However, if there was a zombie apocalypse, I'd let the Intare bring whomever they wanted to safety. It's not like we didn't have the room.

  “If it isn't contained,” I finally said, “I'll allow you to bring your loved ones here but for now, let's not panic. We need to see if we can deal with this first.”

  “So it's going to be okay?” Dare looked all of five-years-old for a second.

  “Yes,” I stood up and gave my lions a level stare. “It's going to be okay. No matter what, we have this, this sanctuary we can retreat to. But right now, I've got to go investigate a zombie apocalypse.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The Zombie Apocalypse revealed another of Azrael's talents. It turned out that he had a unique type of invisibility magic. Like a chameleon, Azrael's invisibility just went on automatically when he was working but it only worked on humans, other gods could see him and sometimes those who were magically inclined could as well. If he wanted to be completely unseen, he had to use the same spell we all did. The benefit to his type of invisibility was that he could extend it out to include anyone he wished. So we'd be able to go undercover and still see each other. A huge plus if you ask me. No more hand holding and walking in a row.

  He had made the offer to shield us all before we left and after he explained the difference between his shielding and ours, I may have snapped something along the lines of “What the hell, Az? You could have mentioned this awhile ago.” But with all the fuss of getting ready to investigate a possible undead outbreak, who could be certain of what was said?

  Anyway, we ended up on the banks of the canal that conveniently separated the Hamptons from the rest of Long Island. There were military command tents that looked very promising, set up along the side of the bridge, and I wanted to investigate them first. So we all started toward them, Azrael behind us with wings outspread. You'd think that would be a hindrance but he assured me that the wings wouldn't be a problem, no matter how cramped the space got. When he was in work mode, he could go anywhere.

  Most everyone had wanted to come along but we'd decided to limit our team to Azrael(obviously), Trevor, Kirill, Fallon, Darius, Torrent, and myself. I hadn't even spoken to the rest of the God Squad yet, let them have a little peace before they had more worries heaped on their plates.

  “Who's Daryl?” Torrent asked, out of the blue.

  “What?” I asked distractedly.

  “Your shirt, it says If Daryl dies, we riot,” Torr pointed out. “So who's Daryl?”

  “You wore a Walking Dead T-shirt to the Zombie Apocalypse?” Trevor stopped to look back at me.

  “It seemed appropriate,” I shrugged.

  “Oh, Tima,” Kirill shook his head and we all started walking again.

  “But who's Daryl?” Torrent huffed.

  “Remember the guy Vali came to the Halloween party dressed as?” Azrael took pity on him and explained.

  “Oh yeah,” Torr's face cleared. “Oh from that zombie show you love.”

  “Yes, Torrent,” I muffled my laughter.

  “Like I said,” Trevor rolled his eyes. “The Walking Dead.”

  “Heh,” Torrent started to laugh. “That's funny cause we're investigating zombies.”

  “Torrent!”

  “Sorry,” he kept laughing though. “It'd be really funny if that guy lived out here.”

  “No it wouldn't,” I made a horrified sound. “That would be awful. He's my favorite character.”

  I stopped at the entrance to the biggest tent, waiting for the bustle of scared looking men to subside. It looked like getting into the tent without bumping into someone was going to be a problem.

  “Just go straight through the wall,” Azrael indicated the side of the tent with his hand.

  “No way,” I gaped at him. “You can walk through walls? What the hell, Azrael?”

  “Carus,” he smiled and shook his head. “When I'm working, I must be able to enter anywhere and remain unnoticed. When in this state I'm almost insubstantial, like a ghost. I try not to walk through people though, just because it can make them feel uncomfortable but we could potentially stand in the middle of a solid item and not be damaged. It's a spiritual form.”

  “And you've made us all spirits?” Torrent asked in a loud voice and everyone shushed him. Everyone except Azrael.

  “No one can hear us either,” Az laughed.

  “Are there any other hidden talents I should know about, 007?” I gave him the hairy eyeball. And what a horrible saying by the way. Who wants their eyeball to be hairy?

  “Well how am I supposed to know what you should know about?” Azrael lifted a brow at me.

  “You know, he has a point,” Torrent agreed.

  “Ugh, fine but we are having a talk later,” I promised Az with a pointed finger in his face to emphasize my words.

  “This is fascinating,” Torrent commented as he trailed his hand through the tent wall. “It's like being in the Inter Realm but not. I like it, it makes me feel very comfortable.”

  “That's wonderful, Torr,” I sighed. “Can we all go in now?”

  “Just waiting on you, Minn Elska,” Trevor gave me a sassy look.

  “Really?” I said as I walked into the tent. “Et tu, Brute?”

  In the tent there were several tense men standing around a table with a map on it. Around them, consoles were set up with monitors showing several scenes of the shoreline. Pictures of gross looking people who could possibly be called zombies were spread out next to the map on the table. The men were arguing with expressive gestures.

  “We can't just bomb the Hamptons,” one of them said. “Do you know who's in there? Jerry Seinfeld, Jennifer Lopez, and Steven Spielberg are all confirmed in residence and that's just the beginning of the list. At least it's not summer, then it would have been full to overflowing with celebrities but we still have those that have confirmed that they're in residence. They've all called in and reported that they've barricaded themselves in their homes and are not infected. We can't just kill all these innocent people.”

  “Look, we go in and air-vac out those that are secured in their homes,” another man in a white doctors coat added. “We can quarantine them until we're sure they're not infected.”

  “Then what?” Another interrupted. “You think all those rich folks are gonna sit back and do nothing while we bomb their homes? Better to do it now and secure the scene.”

  “If this gets off the island, the whole world could be at risk,” an older man with gray balding hair said softly. “We have to eliminate the threat.”

  “Okay, so we air-vac out the survivors and go in with tanks,” the doctor tried again. “Clear out only the infected.”

  “Doc, you should be arguing against this. We don't know how this is transmitted. Is it air-borne, blood-borne? We don't know.”

  “We need a body to study,” the doctor again. “Once we determine what this is, we can proceed.”

  “And how long will that take?”

  “Depends, maybe forty-eight hours,” the doctor seemed to deflate.

  “By then this could have spread.”

  “Spread where? We've got this quarantined.”

  “Sir,” a man rushed into the tent. “An email has just been received from a group taking responsibility.”

  “Several groups have already claimed responsibility,” the older man rolled his eyes.

  “This one ha
s particulars,” the newcomer explained. “Of where exactly it was released and the stages of the viral infection. They also claim to have a cure.”

  “A what?” The doctor's attention focused on the messenger.

  “Sir,” he handed a piece of paper to the gray-haired man.

  “Thank you, lieutenant,” the man said as he looked over the paper. “You're dismissed.” The messenger nodded and left. “It says that they want one-hundred million dollars in exchange for the antidote. If they don't receive the deposit by two o'clock tomorrow, they'll release the virus in New York City and I quote, you'll be caught in the cross fire end quote. They give instructions for the deposit to be made into a numbered Swiss bank account.”

  “You're telling me this was bio-terrorism?” The doctor was looking pale.

  “What group is it?” One of the other men asked.

  “I've already told you with that damn quote. Those ego-maniacs put their name within the message. It's Cross Fire.”

  “Which one is that?” The doctor again.

  “You know, the one that wants to destroy all human life and start over.”

  “Isn't that all of them?”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Get the President on the phone,” the older man said and checked his watch. “Quickly”

  I wandered over and perused the copy of the email, taking down the information in a little notebook I'd brought with me. It was helpful and made me feel like a detective, okay? I also noted the marks on the map which seemed to be locations of the first occurrences of infection.

  “Alright, let's get out of here,” I motioned the men out but Azrael lingered. “Az?”

  “This is worse than the Black Plague,” he was staring at the scattered photos of the victims. Obviously taken with a telephoto lens from a helicopter, they showed bodies lying everywhere while bloody corpses attacked other victims.

  “Yes. It looks that way,” I ran a hand down his arm. “We're going to do whatever it takes to stop this.”

  “Yes,” he looked up at me, “we are.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “It's very quiet,” I looked around the beautiful street we'd traced onto.

  It looked like a country lane, with thick bushes along one side and manicured lawns on the other. Each property was well contained though, whether behind a fence, a rock wall, or a large hedge. I bet those who opted for the hedge were wishing they'd chosen something a bit more substantial now.

  No one was out, no live people or dead ones. It was eerily quiet, no bird song even. I scanned the houses near us and saw nothing out of the ordinary, no broken windows or damage of any kind. There weren't even any cars parked at odd angles. Actually, there weren't any cars at all. I started walking and the others followed me, there was really nothing else to do.

  We'd traced into one of the locations noted on the map. It was supposed to be the site of the first emergency call, there was even an address noted, not that it was much help. It was kind of hard to find marked street addresses.

  “Don't rich people have mailboxes?” I peered up and down the street. “Ah, here we go,” I said as I found the one we were looking for in the bushes. “Who the hell puts a mailbox in the bushes?” I grumbled as I strode up the long driveway.

  The front door was unlocked and barely shut. We wandered in carefully and found more nothing. No one home, no bodies, no blood, nothing. I marched back out of the house without even bothering to go upstairs.

  “They must have made a run for it,” I looked over the empty drive. “Let's go a little further down the road.”

  We wandered down to another house, this one guarded only by a few well placed trees, and saw a much different story. The front door was wide open and smeared with blood. Windows were broken and there was still a body hanging out of one of them.

  “This is more like it,” I went rushing over to the struggling man. “I see dead people. Well, a dead person.”

  “Vervain, wait. Let me see it first.” Azrael ran past me and inspected the person. “The soul is gone,” he nodded. “Shall we see if beheading works on them?”

  “If you go by modern zombie fiction,” Torrent peered at the posterior of the corpse(since the rest was inside the house). “You should stab the brain.”

  “I fail to see how that's going to work,” Fallon went through the open door and we trailed in after him. “Plus, we don't even know if these are zombies.”

  “They're moving around with no soul inside them,” Azrael said dryly. “I give you permission to call them zombies.”

  “Well, there you go, the Angel of Death has given his stamp of approval.” I frowned at the zombie in the window. “Is it just me or is he staring at us?”

  The zombie in question was definitely staring at us and when I waved at him, he growled and threw his hands out towards me in a distinctly aggressive motion. We all took a step back. All except Azrael.

  “He can't touch you, remember?” Azrael peered at the zombie with interest.

  “Yeah and he shouldn't be able to see us either,” I took a hesitant step forward, “but he doesn't seem to have gotten the memo.”

  “He's dead, Carus,” Az looked up at me like the answer was obvious. “The dead can see me.”

  “Yeah, their souls can,” I glared at the all-seeing zombie. “But you just said he doesn't have his soul so why can he see you?”

  “Dead is dead,” Azrael shrugged. “It's not like I have a zombie manual, so we're just going to have to assume that this is normal.”

  “This is anything but normal,” I waved my hand at the zombie. “Oh screw this. Az can you make us solid again?”

  He nodded and I felt myself return to normal. I sighed and stretched a little, being in Azrael's spiritual state felt weird and kind of muffled, like having water in your ears. I pulled my katana(which I was very glad to have brought with me, since I really didn't want zombie brains on my hands) and sliced its head off.

  “Vervain,” Azrael sighed. “We should have studied it a bit more.”

  “Well go ahead,” I nudged the head with my boot so Az could see that it was still active, if not alive per se. “Heh, go ahead, get it? It's a head.”

  Darius was the only one who laughed while everyone else groaned.

  “I told you,” Torrent came up to stand beside Azrael. “You gotta stab it in the brain.”

  “Why would that work?” Azrael transferred his attention to Torrent.

  “Because it's a virus that affects the brain,” Torrent shrugged.

  “But if its the brain that's reanimating the body,” I lifted a brow at Torrent, “why is the body still moving when its not attached to the brain anymore?” I pointed to the struggling, headless body in the window.

  “That's a very good point,” Torrent went over to the body and poked it with his finger.

  “Don't do that,” I snapped at him.

  “Why not?” He looked surprised.

  “We don't know how this virus is spread,” I gave him a duh face.

  “But I'm immortal,” Torrent's surprise turned to confusion.

  “So were the Froekn who were infected by the mutant rabies,” I huffed. “We don't know what this is yet and even if it doesn't affect us, what if you get some on you and transfer it to Nick?”

  “Nick?” Torrent blinked at me.

  “My cat,” I growled.

  “Vervain,” Kirill cleared his throat. “I don't zink zis virus is transmittable to animals.”

  “We don't know that for certain,” I transferred my annoyance to him.

  “Da, ve do,” Kirill lifted a hand and pointed.

  We all looked in the direction he was indicating and I'm embarrassed to admit that I let out a rather girly scream.

  “What the fuck is that?” I stared at the thing in the hallway, dread curling in my belly. “It looks like Fizgig from The Dark Crystal. Or an Intare hairball.”

  “Hey, don't joke about hairballs,” Darius complained. “They aren't funny.”
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  The creature in question was a huge ball of frizzy brown fur matted with blood and gore. There were beady black eyes glaring at us and the barest hint of feet peeping out of the bottom of the hairball. Then it made a very high pitched sound, setting my teeth on edge, and bounced forward.

  “Oh gods no,” I shook my head in denial. “Tell me it's not what I think it is.”

  “I'm afraid so,” Trevor sighed and went over to the thing. “It's a Pomeranian.”

  “No,” I moaned. “Don't touch it, it's gross.”

  “Vervain, we can't just leave it here,” Trevor looked at me like he knew I'd never abandon an animal in distress... because he knew I'd never abandon an animal in distress. Even a Pomeranian covered in grossness and disguised as a lion hairball.

  “Can't we just put it in a plastic bag or something? You know, like an evidence bag. It'll probably fit into a really big one.” I made a distressed sound as I watched it nestle into Trevor's arms and then look over at me with sad eyes. “Oh crap. Can you go wash him off at least?”

  “I think it's a her,” he considered the ball of gore.

  “How can you tell amongst all that?” I looked it over dubiously.

  “It's wearing a pink crystal collar with the name Princess on the tag,” Trevor held up the round silver disc on the dog collar.

  “Of course,” I rolled my eyes and accidentally kicked the zombie head. “Princess. What a surprise.”

  “Carus,” Az chastised me and put his foot down. Literally, he put it down on the head to stop it from rolling. “Be careful.”

  “I'll just take Princess to the bathroom,” Trevor smirked at me.

  “Oh whatever,” I folded my arms across my chest. “We're not keeping her,” I called after him.

  “Are you seriously arguing over a dog in the middle of a zombie apocalypse?” Fallon looked at me with disbelief.

  “It's not like we're busy,” I waved a hand at Azrael, who was inspecting the head.

  “There's magic here,” Azrael stood up and declared. “Someone imbued a virus with magic and that's what animating these people, not the virus itself. I suspect that destroying the brain will make no difference.”