Page 59 of Siren in Love
Mike launched straight into his siren song, hurling it at the swaying shapes that waited for them in the old greenhouse.He wasn’t very surprised when all it got him was Dominic’s laughter.
“Like I didn’t expect you to try that, Mikey.I’m wearing earplugs to keep you from pulling your little tricks on me.”
“Mikey?”In the moonlight, Corvin looked pissed.“That’s not your name, Pineapple Mike.”
“Never liked him calling me that,” Mike agreed.
Peter circled back to the door they had come through, his spade at the ready for decapitation.Mike wasn’t sure whether Dominic had seen Peter.It was dark in here, and even if the necromancer had the power to enhance his sight with magic, they’d made it through a door he hadn’t expected them to use.The way Peter was sneaking, he probably hoped for the same.
“Mikey, just stop.Think about this.You and me, we’re perfect for each other.And if you really want to keep the human around to play with, I’ll happily resurrect him for you.”
The swaying heads of the dead approached them.They looked like bobbing buoys in an ocean of darkness.
Meanwhile, the zombies at their back were finally at the door.Peter greeted the first one with his spade, and a severed head tumbled and rolled to a stop right in front of Corvin.
“Oh, shit, that’s fucking disgusting!”Corvin’s fingers tangled in Mike’s shirt as he tried to get away from the head.
“Mikey,” Dominic said, “that’s not nice.We should’ve just gotten straight to the makeup sex instead of this angry reunion bullshit you’re putting me through.Come on, we’ll be the best power couple, you with your siren power, me with command over death.”
Corvin looked at Mike in the darkness.“Please tell me he wasn’t that crazy when you guys were dating.”
“For someone who habitually raises the dead, I thought he was a pretty decent guy.But obviously, I broke up with him, so…” Mike shrugged.
“Necromancers,” Peter said in between swings of his spade.“Their breaking points are usually not too far beneath the surface.”Another head went rolling to the vine-dark floor.“There are too many of them, and he has a good score more here.”
Corvin pointed, even as the small zombie army Dominic had prepared to eat him came closer and closer.“Can you break glass?”
“Good thinking,” Peter said.“Won’t stop them, but it will slow them down.”
Mike nodded and looked up at where the glass panes still sat in the greenhouse’s roof.He sang until he found the resonance point, strengthened his voice rapidly, then felt the give as the glass shattered and rained down like crystal starlight.Dominic yowled.
“Fuck!”the necromancer screamed.Some of his zombies stumbled.
Peter ran past behind them.“Let’s make an exit!”
Instead of aiming his spade at a spinal column, Peter began hacking away at the thick growth of vines and knotted branches.Mike sang at the plants to part.Serenading plants wasn’t his specialty, not by a long shot, but he tried to help Peter as best he could.
More through sheer vampire strength than anything else, Peter hacked them a path to the outside, breaking the structure of the greenhouse with kicks that could have downed a werewolf prize fighter.
“This way.”He slipped through the opening.
“Come on,” Mike said, pulling Corvin with him.
Before they could get outside, Corvin screamed and stopped, his arms torn free of Mike’s grip.Mike turned to see the rotten body of an old lady taking hold of Corvin’s left hand.Her ugly mouth with yellowish, broken teeth opened.She wanted to take a bite out of Corvin.
Corvin tried to hit the zombie with his trowel, but the brittle bones had found a strength through magic that the gardening tool couldn’t beat.Her teeth came closer to Corvin’s fingers, his ring finger with Corvin’s engagement ring a dark band against the pale skin.
With anger and frustration and a futile shriek at the corpse, Mike swung his shovel.He caved the old corpse’s head in with the flat side, and the teeth, rather than tearing into Corvin, pattered against his skin, followed by gore that made Mike glad there wasn’t any more light to see by.
Corvin screamed, pulled away from the corpse, and got behind Mike.
“Get outside!”
Mike raised his shovel to aim at another zombie, and behind another set of swaying heads, he saw Dominic.The necromancer held his hand to a bleeding cut on his forehead, but the cruel smirk, the white teeth, still caught Mike’s attention.
Mike turned and followed the other two, squeezing through the broken wall.Outside, the ocean sang to him, and Morrowvale glistened brightly in the distance.
This was the far end of the resort, the oldest part of the property.Mike had read that surfers liked the beach here, but at this time of night, it was completely abandoned.
