Blood Sacrifice (Faith of the Fallen Book 2) Read online

  “Sing,” Savanna yelled. She had one foot down the ladder. She leaped up with her dagger out, “What do I do?”

  The things massive hand found its way to his neck.

  “Stab it in the head,” he wheezed out of his constricted throat. Its sheer power overwhelmed him. He heaved with all his might to keep it from closing in on him. Inch by inch it grew closer. The fetid stench from its open mouth washed over his face. It was inches from sinking its teeth into him. With his spare hand, he groped for his pistol. The way the zombie held him made it hard to even move. It’s teeth scraped his neck. Suddenly it went limp, sliding off of him and onto the ground.

  Savanna was there to help him stay on his feet. He coughed a few times to clear his throat as he leaned against her.

  “Thanks for the save,” he said between gasping inhales.

  “Anytime. Are you okay? He didn’t bite you did he?”

  Sing felt his neck, the memory of the things teeth sliding across his skin sent shivers up his spine, “No… thank god it didn’t.”

  Sing retrieved his shotgun from the ground, he had to wipe of bits of grime before he would hold it. Shotgun in hand he leaned over the sewer entrance.

  “Clear,” he said instinctively.

  “Where did they go?” Savanna asked. He looked down as Savanna took a step closer to him. She put one hand on his shoulder as she too looked down.

  “They must have gotten overwhelmed and retreated,” he said. He knelt down and dipped his head into the tunnel to look around. There were several entrances and exits he could see. Anyone of them could be hiding a zombie horde or nothing.

  “Can you still feel the one you’re controlling?”

  Savanna closed her eyes for a moment. Her face went slack. She lifted a hand and pointed, “He went that way. I can’t see through his eyes or anything, but I know where he is. He’s being dragged along by others.”

  Sing nodded. Well, that’s that then. Down we go.

  “Stay right on me, don’t hang back, and don’t wander. Got it?”

  He waited for her to nod before he took the first step on the latter. The rungs were old and worn out. Each one felt like it would give way at any moment.

  This place sucks.

  As soon as he cleared the top she followed. The rungs were covered in water, making each one perilously slippery.

  Connor, can you hear me? He said in his head.

  Oh, thank god. You two okay? Came his reply.

  Yeah, I keep forgetting we can do this. She’s something else. I see why you like her so much.

  Uhm this isn’t a private conversation, Savanna’s voice interrupted. He looked up, his cheeks burned from embarrassment. She smiled impishly down to him.

  Which way did you guys go? Sing asked.

  The horde forced us down and…

  Savanna screamed as the rung she held pulled loose from the wall. He scrambled to catch her as she fell, her boot scraped the side of his face but he managed to slip his arm around her. He tried to hold on but there was too much weight and his rung gave way. The walls rushed past him.

  He twisted to take the impact putting her above him. Their combined weight crushed him into the ground. Unconsciousness took him before he registered the pain of the fall.

  ***

  “I lost contact with him,” Connor whispered to Alexi. She nodded nearly imperceptibly. She’d listened in her head but didn’t want to risk moving or making any noise.

  Connor… there was no response. She looked at him sideways. He was trying the same thing. Whatever happened must have knocked out Savanna’s spell. Well, that’s just peachy.

  The zombies that chased ambushed them by the ladder milled around beneath. Alexi held herself up against the wall at least ten feet above. She’d found a narrow ledge and tossed the Arcanum agent up, before scrambling up herself. Now they were stuck. Too many to fight, and she couldn’t risk Connor being bitten.

  “We’ve got to go back for them,” Connor said.

  Alexi tilted her head to him and narrowed her eyes. He knew better than this, but he was thinking with his heart and not his head. Of course, they needed to go back but now wasn’t the time.

  The ledge was only a foot deep, barely big enough for both of them to stand on. The arches that supported the roof concealed them and gave them something to lean against. Alexi poked her head out a few inches. There were at least a half-dozen zombies down there. It was like they knew they were near, but couldn’t quite figure out where.

  Between the two of them, they had two shotguns, two pistol’s, and her bare hands. Not great against so many zombies in close quarters. They couldn’t go in wild. They needed a plan. If she could get them looking the wrong way, even for a second… She held up her hand to mime a gun and pointed at the zombie furthest to the left, opposite the way they came. Connor nodded. He braced himself against the wall. Alexi didn’t watch, she focused on the Zombie furthest to the right.

  Boom!

  She leaped. Leading with her boot. The heel connected with a head and she felt the neck snap. The thing dropped like a sack of potatoes. She wrapped her arm around the next one's throat and yanked him bodily over her. He flipped backward with his head twisted off like a bottle cap.

  Connor wracked the pump of his shotgun.

  Alexi pounced on the third one’s back. She drove it into the ground with all her weight on the back of its head. The cement flooring did the rest.

  Connor blasted another. The deafening roar of the shotgun echoed off the walls.

  She kicked the legs out from the last one and used his momentum, and her strength, to drive it backward into the cement with a crunch. It didn’t get up.

  “Holy hell,” Connor said from the alcove.

  “Yeah well as long as we catch them by surprise,” she heaved in breaths as she stood up, “We’ll be fine. But they're too strong for me in a stand-up fight.”

  She looked at the two Connor shot, both head shots. She smiled at him, “Good aim.”

  “I may not be able to trade blows with Spider-man, but I can shoot the wings of a mosquito.”

  EIGHT

  Savanna sat up with a gasp. She regretted it instantly as pain in her head pounded away at her. A wave of dizziness came over her and she had to steady her breath to keep from vomiting.

  “Ow,” she muttered.

  Sudden panic gripped her. She ran her hands up and down her body looking for any signs that she had been bitten. Being immune didn’t mean the infection wouldn’t kill her and she wasn’t in a hurry to test out the limits of her witches blood. She sighed when her search proved futile.

  Where was she? Near the ceiling were small panels that gave off a dim light. Grimy walls, and a door… not the hallway where she fell. And Sing was nowhere in all fifteen square feet of the room. She let her head settle for a moment before trying to stand.

  Alexi? Connor?

  The link was dead. She reached for her dagger to recast the spell… it wasn’t there. Dammit. The muck of the cell floor wasn’t hiding it. She wasn’t here by accident, someone dragged her here. Someone who knew she needed her dagger. Who could possibly do that? The zombies certainly couldn’t. In all their rush to destroy the creatures, it never occurred to her that someone controlled them.

  She needed a way out. The door was metal, with rusted iron hinges. The room’s walls were concrete and no windows. Without her dagger or something sharp to spill more than a trickle of blood, she was going nowhere. Out of rage, she slammed her fist against the door.

  “Hey!”

  She banged against the metal.

  “Let me out!”

  The door opened startling Savanna into falling backward.

  “No need to make such a racket, my pretty. I was coming for you.”

  Savanna gasped. The thing that stood in the doorway was at least seven feet tall. Unlike the other zombies, this one looked far from human. Bloated and fat, the creature towered over her.

  She scrambled backward as it enter
ed the cell.

  “Get away from me,” she threatened.

  His laugh was wet and raspy.

  “You’re in no position to harm me.” He grabbed her arm, just below the shoulder, and lifted her off the ground like she was a paper weight. She let out a scream as he wrenched her arm and carried her out of the cell.

  The room outside was vast. Pipes ran through the ceiling crisscrossed in complicated mazes and switchbacks. The room itself looked like a sunken chamber of horrors. On the far side of the room, a makeshift throne of garbage cans dominated the wall.

  As her eyes adjusted to the light she realized the room was far from empty. There were three levels, the bottom, a mid-level that was half again as large as the bottom, and the top level where the throne sat. Lined against the wall were hundreds of people, standing perfectly motionless. At least half of them were women, and all of those bore more than a passing resemblance to Alexi. blonde hair, light skin, it couldn’t be a coincidence.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked the thing.

  “My creator commanded me too. Hunt down and kill the evil in this world. She,” he waved at the women, “is the evil. You are the evil.” He tossed her onto the floor in front of his garbage can seat. His bulbous frame was too big for the throne. Bits of flesh scrapped off as he sat down.

  “But the evil will come for you, won't it?” he asked.

  Savanna looked around, trying to find anything to help her. A glint of steel caught her eye. A man, freshly turned, held her dagger. If she could just get to him…

  “Bring forth the snack,” the Zombie King commanded.

  Two bags of walking flesh, barely more than shambling corpses with bones protruding from deteriorating flesh dragged a man out from the shadows. He hung limply between them.

  “Sing,” she whispered. She couldn’t tell if he’d been bitten. There was so much blood on the ground it was impossible to know if any of it was his.

  “I give them ten minutes to get here. If the evil doesn’t turn itself over to my power, I eat this man until he’s one of us. And when I’m done with him, I go for you.”

  It’s lecherous tone filled her soul with dread. The way it smacked its lips when it talked made her want to puke.

  “Listen, Alexi isn’t evil, she’s one of the good girls. We can help you, I have a book of spells, I can turn you back into a human, all of you,” she sounded convincing, though she doubted that even with the book her mother gave her she had the power to do that.

  “You speak only to me. The rest are my puppets. They weren’t gifted by the creator, only I was. And why would I ever want to be small again? I am king here.”

  Creator? He doesn’t mean God. Someone created him. Another witch?

  “Who's your creator?”

  His dull eyes burned with a fervor. The trash cans and milk crates that made up his thrown shook as he lifted his enormous bulk to stand.

  “You're not worthy to hear her name.” He lumbered over to Sing. The agent’s head rolled around on his neck before his eyes opened.

  “Savanna,” he muttered as he saw her.

  “Hang in there, Sing, Alexi’s coming,” she said with more conviction than she felt. How would her friend ever find her in this rat hole?

  ***

  “Down,” Connor yelled from behind her. Alexi rolled forward. The heat of a shotgun blast roared above her. She came up with her pistol in hand. Three zombies crowded in on her. She fired the H&K six times. They fell in a semi circle a few feet from reaching her. The slide on her pistol locked back as the last round left the barrel.

  She lost count of how many of the damn things they killed. But it was a lot.

  “We’ve got to be going in the right direction,” she said.

  “That sucks,” Connor muttered. The clatter of his shotgun hitting the ground echoed in the narrow hallway. She knew it meant he was out of ammo. Hers ran dry a few minutes earlier and she’d tossed it aside.

  “How many mags for you sidearm?”

  “Three, you?”

  She put the gun back into her coat pocket. Unlike her shotgun it was worth holding on to.

  “Empty,” she sighed. This wasn’t really working. They spent the last half hour trying to find Savanna, and all they found was rotting corpses.

  The brute force approach wasn’t going to work. She needed to sneak in and she couldn’t do that with Connor in tow. He was good, very good, but he was only human.

  “Connor, listen…,” she started.

  “Go, I’m only holding you back. I’ll hole up on this ledge until things are clear, then I’ll try to follow.”

  Alexi couldn’t hide the look of surprise on her face.

  “I’m not an idiot, Alexi. You stand a much better chance on your own than with me in tow. Just get to Savanna, save her. Don’t worry about me.”

  He climbed up onto an arch similar to the ones they hid on before. She gave him a nod. With him safe behind her she could move at full speed. Having fed recently she had no shortage of energy.

  “They’re going to chase me, so double back to the entrance and have the car ready. Who knows how this is going to go down.

  “Roger,” he replied.

  She took a breath and ran. Her boots skimmed above the concrete floor making only a whisper as she moved. The tunnel turned sharp ahead. She leaped to the wall. Sticking to it as if gravity shifted with her without losing any speed. Zombies milled about below her as she ran over head. They didn’t look up as she passed.

  When it was clear she jumped back down to the main floor.

  Well that was new.

  Her heart pounded in her head and demanded a moment. She heaved in breaths of putrid air. The way it smelled worse than when they first came down, she figured she was getting close. Her sensitive ears picked up chanting from the distance. Slowly she crept forward. If she was a whisper before, she was as silent as a breeze now.

  The smooth concrete walls turned into a lattice work of pipes and cables. Heat poured off them. Hot water dripped to the ground and occasional gouts of steam sprayed out. What I wouldn’t give for my sword. This is the last time I’m leaving home without it.

  The chanting grew louder. The tunnel curved to the left in a long arc that kept her from peering around. If there was anyone at the end, she would be out in the open, obvious.

  She shook off her coat and held it in between her hands. With a sigh, she heaved and tore it in half. The leather wasn’t particularly thick, but it was strong. The gun went into her belt. She heaved again and tore each half in to halves. The strips that were left she wrapped around her hands. Two strips total for each hand. While she could climb the pipes without protection, it would be easier with. As it was, her fingers were going to burn.

  She winced as she clasped the first pipe, the tips of her fingers sizzled. The next pipe was just as hot. Before long she made her way up above the piping that ran along the tunnel. The maintenance area was clear and she could crawl parallel to the tunnel. The only problem was the pipes were running at around two hundred degrees.

  Her jeans protected her legs, but her once white tank top didn’t do much for her arms. Each time they brushed against a pipe, they burned. Her regeneration protected her, but she still felt the pain.

  She couldn’t move as fast up here, but she could move without worrying about zombies jumping out at her. It didn’t take long for the tunned to curve around completely. The chanting was clear as the tunned came to an end. The pipes split going left and right, leaving her a clear view of the room.

  The dim room was huge. Alexi’s sharp eyes revealed the entirety of it to her. The point of interest for her was Savanna. She knelt on the ground in the middle of a huge circle. There were steps and then…

  Oh my god. There must be hundreds of them.

  Surrounding the chamber, at least four deep, were zombies. Alexi didn’t recognize any of the faces, but the hair and complexion of enough of them resembled her. A shiver ran up her spine. Not again. This has to
be Illyana’s work.

  A gurgling voice came out of the darkness, it sounded like someone speaking while drowning.

  “Your time is up little man, I guess the evil isn’t coming for you.”

  Alexi inched forward, she couldn’t see who was talking.

  “Get away from me you piece of…,” Sing’s voice screamed in the dark. The sound of tearing flesh followed as the man bellowed in agony.

  ***

  Savanna struggled to her feet. Her head still swam from being knocked unconscious. She tracked the movement of the one with her dagger, never losing him in the crowd.

  Sing’s yell turned to whimpers of pain as the monster tore into his flesh. If she was going to act, now was the time. She took a step, then another, each one easier than the last. The zombies didn’t move, as if they were given orders to hold as still as possible. The one with her dagger stood behind two others. She pushed them aside and reached for her blade.

  “Stop,” the beast yelled with a mouth full of Sing’s flesh. The Asian man lay crumpled on the ground, his left arm hanging loose from where the King tore into him.

  The zombie who held her dagger shifted its gaze to look at her. A grate fell from the ceiling and crashed into the ground. Alexi landed in a crouch seconds later. Her upper body covered in fading burns.

  “I’ve come for my friend. And for you,” she said pointing at the king.

  The King roared, blood and spittle flying everywhere.

  “You’re the evil the Creator made me to stop. It’s my destiny to end you.” It ignored Sing as it turned to face Alexi. Savanna caught her attention for a moment and smiled. She knew that she would come.

  “Well then, come and stop me, if you can,” Alexi said with a wave of her hand.

  Savanna almost giggled. It never ceased to amaze her how Alexi could be so brave in the face of overwhelming odds. She never blinked, or hesitated, just charged into danger where angels feared to tread. Savanna wished she could be more like that. She looked over to Sing, crumpled on the ground. His skin turning white as the infection spread through. He only had minutes before je joined the King’s waking dead. .