Page 29 of Trick Me
“Tell them where to go!” Cain yells, backing away from Tobias, who’s trying to get up despite bleeding from my attack.
“They need a mission, or they’ll go on a rampage!” Erynn instructs, sounding as panicked as I feel. “They’ll come after everyone, including us!”
“Ash, do it!” Mikael blurts out the obvious.
“How do I?—”
The skeletal one lunges at Cain lightning fast. He yelps and dodges, but the corpse’s bony fingers catch his hair, yanking him back. He goes ballistic, fighting it… screaming. “Get it off me! Get it fucking off me!”
“Command them!” Erynn shouts. “Like an Alphacommand but for the dead! Focus your will, give them purpose, or they’ll just destroy everything!”
I try to focus, to find that place inside where Alpha commands come from, but it’s different without my wolf. “Stop! I command you to stop!”
Nothing. If anything, they get more aggressive. The purple-skinned one has grabbed Tobias by the leg, and the sound he makes as its rotting fingers dig in will haunt me forever.
“Ew,” Erynn states, moving to my side.
“Not ‘stop’!” she corrects, her hand on my arm grounding me. “They came to help, so give them something to help with! And you have to mean it, feel it, push your will into them!”
“What the hell have you become?” Cain snarls, breaking free from the zombie, face pale, retreating quickly. But the skeletal corpse advances on him, jaw unhinging wider.
“Good question,” Mikael chirps. “I’m going with necromancer. Or maybe death wizard? Ooh, corpse commander has a nice ring to it.”
“Not helping, Mikael,” I murmur. I close my eyes, dig deep, and find something that’s not my wolf but sits in the same space. It’s cold where the wolf was warm, patient where the wolf was aggressive. I push everything into my voice: “TAKE THEM. The two male wolves. Take them, and do not harm the woman or me. TAKE THEM NOW.”
The change is instant. The corpses’ heads snap toward the Bruck brothers in perfect synchronization, and then they travel forward, not shuffling but rushing, bones and rot moving with terrifying purpose.
Tobias scrambles and tries to run. The purple corpse catches him in three strides, bearing down on him. His screams cut off as putrid fingers find his throat.
Cain makes it farther, almost to the tree line, before the skeletal one and the flesh-sloughing one bring him down together. The sound of him being overwhelmed by the dead is wet and final.
“Oh, fuck!” Erynn breathes, clutching my side, both of us unable to look away from the carnage.
“That’s disgusting,” Mikael observes with fascination. “Is it eating his face? I think it’s eating his face. Oh, wait, no, that’s his—yep, definitely eating his face now.”
“They’ll return to their graves once the mission is complete,” Erynn explains. “Usually. Probably.”
“Have you ever raised the dead before?” I ask her.
“Technically, I raised a dead hamster once when I was seven,” she states, and I turn to stare at her. “It was an accident. I was crying over Mr. Whiskers, and suddenly he wasn’t dead anymore. Except he also bit through his cage and terrorized our village for three days before I figured out how to send him back.”
“A zombiehamster.”
“It ate the neighbor’s dog.” She shudders. “We had to relocate the following week. No one would come near our house after that.”
The corpses are finishing their grisly work, and as we watch, they begin to sink back into the earth, taking what’s left of the brothers with them. Within moments, the only signs of violence are the blood-soaked ground and the echo of screams in the air.
“So,” Mikael says cheerfully. “You can raise the dead. That’s fun. Totally not terrifying at all. Hey, think you could raise me? I mean, more than I already am? Maybe give me a body so I can drink again? I miss vodka.”
I slump against the nearest tree, adrenaline crashing. “I raised fucking zombies.”
“You saved us,” Erynn corrects, wrapping her arms around me.
“This is so much worse than seeing ghosts,” I admit.
“Or better, depending on your perspective,” she says. “Do you know how useful combat zombies could be?”
“Please don’t give me ideas.”
