A Mad Zombie Party

  "What an extraordinary turn of events." The deranged schoolgirl is back. "Ali Bell once tried to ruin me. Now she's strapped to a bed and at my mercy."

  My stomach drops into my feet. "Have you tainted her?"

  "Soon, soon, so very soon." There's a creepy, sing-song quality to her voice. "I had to return her abilities first. That's what is happening right now. They're coming back and when they do, I'm going to steal them. My life will finally be perfect."

  Fifty-three seconds.

  "I'm sorry to say I've decided to kill you and your new girlfriend, Mr. Martin." She raises a .44--points it at Milla's head. "You've both proven to be more trouble than you're worth."

  "Wait!" I leap off the bed, uncaring that my own advantage is gone. I put myself between Milla and the gun, my knees almost too weak to hold my weight. "Spare her, and I'll tell you anything you want to know. You'll have no more trouble from me."

  Thirty-eight seconds.

  Rebecca frowns. "She betrayed you and everyone you love, and yet still you want to protect her? Why?"

  If I can just keep her talking... "Whatever she did, she did to save me."

  "The end justifies the means? Is that what you're telling me?" She laughs again, but I hear bitterness rather than glee. "Hypocrite! The end justifies the means when it suits you, but not when it suits me."

  "What did you have her do? What were her means?"

  "She drugged your friends, let my men in your home. Those men shot each and every slayer in the head."

  I flinch. No. No! "You asked how we tracked Mackenzie Love. I'm ready to tell you."

  Milla quietly announces, "Ten," and a clank rings out, the cuffs hitting the floor. "Nine."

  I leap at Smith, intending to break her wrist and take the gun, but she pulls the trigger before I reach her. Boom! Boom! Boom!

  I expect another dose of pain, but it never comes. Milla, I realize, leaped a split second before me, putting herself in front of me. The bullets slam into her, throwing her backward.

  "No!"

  She hits the floor, and deep down I know this is it. The vision unfolding. My nightmare.

  If she's shot, she'll die.

  Rebecca has backtracked to the door; her gaze is on me as she blindly reaches for the ID scanner. Hoping to escape my wrath?

  With a roar, I grab her by the shoulders and throw her against the mirrored wall. Glass shatters. She plunges to the floor, leaving a smear of blood in her wake. But she's back on her feet as I pick up the gun.

  "Let me go, Mr. Martin." She holds up shaky hands, palms out. "I'm the only one who can help you--"

  I empty the bullets into her chest.

  She flies back, slams into the wall a second time and this time, when she slumps to the floor, she stays there. Immortal? Not even close.

  "Frosty."

  A soft voice. Milla's voice.

  I race to her side. She's lying on her back, her skin pale, her lips blue. Lips that lift in a sad smile as blood gurgles from the corners. "Had to...be this...way. Made decision...only decision...saved..."

  "Shut up. Just shut the hell up." I press my hands against two of the wounds, desperate to stop the bleeding. My efforts only create more problems, the third wound gushing.

  "Two," she says. Still counting? While horror absolutely ravages me.

  "How could you do this? How could you do this to me?"

  "One," she whispers--and stops breathing.

  No. Hell, no. I won't let her... She can't be...

  I perform CPR, check for a pulse. Nothing. No, no. This isn't the end. I won't let it be the end. I continue CPR until I feel her sternum crack underneath my palms. Tears burn my eyes, blur my vision.

  "Damn you," I croak. "Come back to me. Please. Please."

  But she doesn't. Of course she doesn't. Because, no matter how much I want to deny it, the truth is the truth. She's dead. Like Kat, she's dead.

  This time, I won't recover.

  I roar up at the ceiling, just as an alarm blasts to life.

  Kat is waiting for me under the arch of a massive gate that looks to be made from a single, flawless pearl.

  I would gawk at the beauty, the absolute majesty, but I'm once again connected to that stream of consciousness where faith saturates every thought.

  "The journal!" Emma is running toward us. There's no sun here, not one that I can see, and yet light is everywhere. The most glorious light I've ever beheld, sparkling with diamond dust around the girl. "Remember the journal!"

  "I won my case, Milla Marks. You're going back." Kat shoves me.

  I fall down...down...and scream. Or try to scream. I only gasp. The pain! My body is too weak to fight it, blood pouring out of me at an alarming rate. My mind is hazy as another gasp escapes.

  "Milla!"

  Frosty's voice rises above the screech of an alarm, thick with relief. He's here...where is here? I crack open my eyes. The cell. Right. I've been shot, but the answer is in the journal...the journal...the journal.

  Covered, covered, covered.

  If something's been covered, you uncover it.

  I know that. Have tried, have failed.

  Try again. The only sure way to fail forever is to give up.

  Darkness can always be chased by light.

  Hands press against my wounds. "Hang on, sweet pea. Just hang on."

  My eyes close. Light erupts from behind my lids.

  Light...

  "Ali!" Frosty proclaims. "Help her! You have to help her."

  Ali must have entered the cell. I don't have the strength to open my eyes a second time. A moment later, a white-hot fist punches through my chest and into my spirit. The pain intensifies exponentially, and I scream. This time, sound escapes. My back bows. Thanatos spills out of me of its own accord, trying to protect itself and drive Ali away. Ali...whose scream of pain rivals my own.

  I do my best to extinguish the red flames...have to protect...

  "Let them out," she commands. She's panting. "Don't fight the flames."

  But...but...

  "Uncover, Milla. Uncover."

  Uncover...how? I'm too dazed to figure it out, but the first order I understand. Don't fight the flames.

  So I don't. I...just...stop, allowing the floodgates to open and thanatos to pour out of me right alongside my lifeblood. Soon I'm engulfed, and because I'm in the physical realm, my clothes are burned away. But...but...my wounds only grow worse. That can't be good for me.

  I suspect Ali is experiencing the same reaction. When I scream, she screams. We scream together, again and again and again. The agony! It's too much, too much--it's my nightmare.

  I'm burning to death. Soon I'll be nothing but ash.

  Trickster. Darkness tricks. Darkness lies.

  The nightmares...a trick to ensure I hold on to thanatos?

  I want to hold on. I want to so bad. The pain will end, and I so desperately want it to end. I need it to end. But still I lie passive, accepting, the flames burning hotter and hotter, tremors wracking me. Of their own volition, my arms and legs curl inward, and even that is a new kind of agony.

  Then, the strangest thing happens. The haze clears from my mind, and pain ebbs. Both Ali and I stop screaming. And for the first time in weeks, I can feel the comforting power of dynamis healing me. Bone, muscle and skin begin to weave back together. Strength fills my spirit...my body.

  Except, it doesn't last for long. Thanatos springs forth with new life, pouring out of me, flames blistering me, melting me, but it's worse now, it's so much worse...until it's not. Until I start to heal again.

  "Three layers," Ali pants. "One more."

  Before the last word leaves her, the pain kicks up yet again, and it's worse than the first two combined, but it doesn't last nearly as long, and when it's gone, it's gone. I'm free! I'm healing!

  Thanatos might have covered my inner light, but it could not destroy it.

  Not too strong, never too strong.

  "Tell me," Frosty demands.

  "She's g
oing to survive," Ali replies.

  Callused hands I know belong to Frosty skim over my torso, checking for wounds while also imparting strength. "She's really healed."

  His shock matches my own. We did it. We did it!

  "Thank God," Ali rasps.

  Light and dark cannot coexist.

  If we'd given up after the first layer...if we'd given up after the second...nothing good would have come of it. We had to fight till the very end, till we had the results we wanted.

  Finally I have the strength to open my eyes and keep them open. "Frosty," I say on a raspy catch of breath.

  "I'm here." He's shirtless, sweat dripping from his face, tension pulling at features I love and adore. Features I'm overjoyed to see again. "I'm here."

  As I take his hand and twine our fingers, a single golden flame sparks between us. In seconds, it travels up his arm, his neck...soon, golden flames are dancing in his irises, and it's a radiant sight, absolutely mesmerizing. His wounds begin to heal.

  "Rebecca snuffed out our lights. It's why we couldn't use our abilities." Ali stumbles to the bed--she's as naked as I am--and tosses a sheet at me before draping the mattress pad around her shoulders. "If a pilot light is out, you can't start a fire. She relit mine with a special antidote, and Milla, you just relit Frosty's with dynamis."

  I sit up and kiss him, because I can't not kiss him. Once, twice...three times.

  He kisses me back, then helps me rip holes in the sheet to create a dress. I fit the material over my head saying, "If everything went according to plan, the others are here, and they need our help." I look around. The exit is closed. The only other door is a fiery hole in the wall that leads to the room I assume Ali just vacated. "Dude. Did you punch your way through?"

  "A girl does what she's got to do."

  "No worries. I've got this." Frosty stands, revealing charred patches in his jeans. He carries the dead-as-a-doornail Rebecca to the entrance and places her palm on the scan. The door opens with a soft snicker.

  "Your heart is too soft," I say. "You should have cut off her hand."

  "Next time, sweet pea."

  He unceremoniously drops Rebecca, and with Ali watching our six, we exit the room together. There's no crack of gunfire to be heard, but the smell of gunpowder is thick in the air, the hallway littered with motionless bodies. No one I know, thank God.

  Rebecca's men paid the ultimate price for aligning with Team Evil. And yeah, even Tiffany paid it. I find her slumped over in a corner, a wicked gash on her forehead, blood splattered on her face, her dull, cloudy eyes staring off in the distance.

  The macabre trail leads us to the end of the hall...where Cole removes the head of the last agent standing.

  I study my friends. Some are standing, some sitting. Justin, Bronx and Gavin have bullet wounds in their chests. Cole has a few cuts, nothing more. Chance, Love and Jaclyn are beat to hell, and River is without a single cut, bruise or wound. After years of our father's abuse, he learned to duck and dodge before anyone can land a blow.

  "Ali!" Cole rushes to his girl and sweeps her into his arms for a bear hug.

  "Milla." River does the same to me.

  After a few seconds, I pull back. "I need to light your fire."

  He releases me in a hurry. "I suddenly want to vomit."

  "You know what I meant." I step out of my body, and I'm not sure whether I'm remembering things from the seconds I spent with Kat and Emma, connected to that stream of consciousness, but my next actions are automatic.

  I reach past Frosty's skin and take his hand to free his spirit. I do the same to River. "Everyone separate and form a circle with us."

  Ali takes River's hand, and offers the other to Cole. Jaclyn moves to Frosty's other side. Gavin latches on to her and Bronx to him. Justin joins us, then Love and finally Chance, who takes hold of Love and Cole, closing the circle.

  "Summon dynamis," I say to Frosty and Ali.

  A second later, white flames burst from each of us. Those flames jump from person to person, until everyone is ablaze. There's a chorus of hisses and groans as bone, muscle and flesh weave back together, but my friends smile through it all, happy to be relit.

  You can knock us down, but you can't keep us there.

  Suddenly we're lifted off our feet by a blast of energy that comes from...us? We dangle in the air, the ends of our hair pointing toward the ceiling as if we stuck our fingers into a power outlet. And the peace! The most magnificent peace. I lose myself in a place where time no longer exists and nothing is impossible. I can do anything I can imagine. I can fight any fight and win any war. Nothing frightens me, because I know that I'm here for a reason; and I'm not alone. I have friends in high places. Friends here. Friends up there.

  Victory is mine.

  Faith, I realize. I might not be up there with Kat, but right now, I'm connected. I'm being filled with new faith. And for me, for all slayers, there's no greater power source.

  As quickly as the energy appeared, it leaves. We lose our grip on each other and topple to the floor. Breath rushes from my lungs. When I recover, I sit up, and the others do the same.

  Someone laughs. A second later we're all laughing.

  "How did that happen?" Ali asks.

  "No idea," Gavin says. "But let's do it again."

  "Better than an entire bottle of vodka," River says, and the laughter starts up again.

  Frosty moves in front of me to cup my cheeks, his features serious. "Are you okay?"

  "Hundred percent. You?"

  "Better than." He hugs me, and I cling to him. He's safe. I'm safe. The vision came true, but we both survived. The war is over. Finally. Blessedly.

  Now...now we live.

  "I'm sorry I made you think I was going to betray the group," I say. "Even for a little while."

  "I never thought you would." He stands and offers me a hand.

  I take it and he pulls me to my feet. "You trusted me."

  "I did."

  No wonder I love him. From the beginning, I'd chemistried him. The more time I spent with him, the more I got to know him, and the more I liked him. Sometime during our acquaintance, love clicked into place, a decision made by the very heart of me.

  "I did. I do. Milla, I--"

  Pop! Pop!

  Two shots slam into my back, burning and stinging, throwing me against him.

  He catches me before I fall and swings me around to shield me from any further shots.

  "What the hell?" River shouts.

  "Milla!" Ali calls.

  "Rebecca," Gavin growls.

  Rebecca is alive?

  My view is blocked as every slayer rallies around us.

  I catch my breath quickly and say, "I'm fine. I'm fine. Flames might not crackle over me, but my body is already healing."

  The horror fades from Frosty's features. He presses a fingertip into the hole in the sheet one of the bullets caused. His eyes go wide.

  "She's a zombie," Jaclyn says on a gasp.

  Rebecca? Together Frosty and I step to the front of the crowd.

  Rebecca is alive. Her hair is tangled around her blood-smeared face, her skin a hideous shade of gray...her eyes glowing neon red.

  She's in bodily form, but she is a zombie.

  Confused, she looks at me, then her gun, then me. With a screech, she shoots me three more times. When the same thing happens--Frosty catches me, I heal--she stumbles back, radiating fear.

  "How do you want to handle this?" Cole asks me.

  "I know!" Kat appears at my side, proclaiming, "We won our case. Join hands and light up. Hurry."

  "Do it," I say.

  Everyone leaps into action...and just like before, a great wave of energy bursts from us. Maybe it happens because the witnesses won their case. Maybe we've always possessed the ability and just didn't know it. Or maybe the faith still humming inside us is responsible. Whatever the reason, I sure do like the results.

  Like us, Rebecca is cast into the air, where she hovers just below the ceil
ing, flailing for an anchor but finding none.

  "Stop. Stop!" The gun falls from her grip, clinks on the ground. "Let me down! Let me--" Her back bows. She screams as her body goes up in flames--without being touched by any of us. She shakes and shakes and shakes...finally, she explodes.

  The energy leaves us and we drop, our circle broken. Frosty wraps his arms around me as ash the color of ink rains upon us.

  Dark can always be chased away by light.

  "It's over now," he says and kisses my temple. "She can't come back from that."

  "Now, all we have to do is...live."

  The drive home is a celebratory affair. The war is finally over--ding dong the witch is dead--and all of my friends are alive.

  "Let Rebecca be a cautionary tale for all of us," Milla says. "Act like a hooker, get screwed."

  I chuckle softly, but sober quickly. "River. Chance." The two sit across from me in the van. "You guys need to hack into Rebecca's accounts and drain her money. She's dead, yeah, but we can't allow anyone else to use her resources and keep the company afloat."

  "I'll do it," River replies. "Then, I recover from battle, Marks-style."

  Cole parks in our underground garage. Couples begin to dart upstairs, one after the other. I understand their urgency. I want Milla in my arms. I need her in my arms. I'm going to show her how much I love her.

  She's my world.

  The moment she put herself in front of me, taking the bullets meant for me, I knew. I could deny the truth no longer. I love her, and I'm never letting her go.

  Before we make to the first step, River moves to block our path. "Is now a bad time to mention you guys have to do my laundry for a month?"

  Milla flips him off.

  He slaps her finger aside. "Is that any way to treat your favorite person on earth?"

  "Currently you hold the exalted position of least favorite."

  "Even though I promise not to stand in your way if you decide to live here?"

  My smile is nothing more than a challenge. "Try and take her away. I dare you."

  He studies me, silent, and nods. Then he turns away, calling, "Justin. We're the only smart--I mean, single--guys left. After I pad our bank accounts with Rebecca's money, we're going to Hearts, and I'm going to teach you how to score any chick you want--except the ones I want."

  The two head for the door. Milla looks up at me and pouts. "You don't want to do long-distance with me?"

  Hell, no. But would I be willing? Yes. If necessary. Thing is, I want her with me. Now and always. I want her in my bed every night, and in my arms every morning.