“On my back,” the werewolf offered to Cheri, who, after a bit of hesitation, jumped on, putting her arms around the werewolf’s neck to steady herself. The werewolf didn’t seem to mind.
“This will be quick…”
“Better be,” the one-armed sorcerer added. “I haven’t felt my spark get this low since I was hunting furries like you.”
“Keep talking about stuff like that, Mr York, and I might make you one of us.”
In a blur, the werewolf disappeared. One second, she had been crouching down, my daughter on her back. The next, she had leapt up, scaling the building in a single bound.
Werewolves are monsters, I reminded myself. Or were they?
Right now, if she saved Cheri, she could be a monster or an archdemon. She’d still be a hero.
More zombies charged from both sides, using their sheer fleshy mass to resist the tiger man’s magical punches and the sorcerer’s flames. The werewolf hadn’t returned, and the gunfire hadn’t ceased. But, even the best sniper could only kill one zombie at a time.
I thought that, just as the hidden sniper lined up a shot between two zombies. The round passed through the first’s cranium and had enough momentum to impact with the second, dropping it instantly.
The Crusaders. They were everything I had heard. And more.
But even then, the undead pressed closer and closer. My legs grew weak.
They were heroes. But they could only do so much. But, at least Cheri had survived.
With my daughter safe, I felt my energy rapidly dissipating. I had accepted death already. I could go, not gladly, but content that I had done what I could.
In a flurry of blows, zombie heads flew up into the air. Behind the horde, a lanky woman with short black hair stood, holding a glaive.
“You sounded like you needed some back-up,” she said, spitting another zombie who lunged at her.
“Thanks, babe,” the sorcerer grinned. The tiger man rolled his eyes. Just then, the werewolf returned.
“My child?!” I cried, hastily.
“She’s okay! She’s on the roof with the medics. If she’s hurt, there’s nothing Cindy can’t fix. Time for you to ride the wolf elevator.”
She offered her back and, feeling a bit sheepish, I held on. She was smaller than I was, and I worried that she wouldn’t be able to handle my…
We shot off, rising into the sky as if flying. In one bound, the werewolf caught a lip of a window and then propelled herself up onto the roof. From here, I could see the true scale of the horror that had taken place in my home.
Smoke rose in plumes from battlegrounds, crashed cars and out of control fires. Hordes of undead battered at shuttered shops and cars. Groups of gunmen wearing the Crusader dark grey uniform kept some of them at bay. But there were too many of them.
“How…” I whispered. “How can we survive all this?”
The werewolf registered confusion, and then understanding.
“Ah. Yeah. It looks bad, right? But don’t worry. Kat’s here. And we’ve got every Crusader operator in the city out here. You’ll be okay.”
As if to trying to disprove her own point, the werewolf leapt from the building’s roof and began falling. I screamed as I saw the ravenous undead below. I felt a jolt as we landed on the next roof.
“Sorry about that. I’m new on rescue missions. I’m more of a slashy slash type of gal.”
I was too stunned to respond, as she sprinted across the rooftop and cleared it in a leap.
“Now, here’s the dangerous part…”
That wasn’t dangerous?!
The werewolf carried me to the lip of the building, overlooking a corpse-strewn street. My heart leapt as I saw gunmen mow down people I had once worked with. I was…had been friends with many. But I had to remind myself that they weren’t human anymore. They never would be again.
“Oi! Brett, where’s Kat?”
One masked gunman stopped firing and looked up at us. He pointed down the street. I looked where he had pointed and had to shut my eyes as a plume of flames erupted into the air.
The werewolf grinned and I saw the flash of fangs.
“Yeah. That’s a good distraction, Kats.”
Without warning, she jumped down from the building’s roof and sprinted behind the gunmen. Zombies charged towards us from both sides and were chewed apart by bullets and finished off by axes and swords.
Near the opposite building, the werewolf leapt. Carried by her running start, she didn’t even need to catch a window. She bounded directly onto the flat roof itself, where we were greeted by groups of wounded men and women. And, to a relief I will never be able to describe, my daughter.
She ran to me, zigzagging between a laptop display and some wounded being treated by a motley crew of medics and mages. The werewolf let go of me in time for Cheri to collide into me. She sobbed, but I could see they were tears of relief.
Still, I turned to the burning streets. There were so many of them. And the wounded here…too few had survived. But, despite some very grievous wounds, and a few amputations, they were alive.
“Please bite down, sir,” a bearded man, wearing Sufi headdress, insisted, passing the local mechanic a piece of wood. The man bit down, as the man incanted some magic and a fiery saw closed down on the man’s arm, amputating it. Immediately, from across the rooftop, a woman with arms covered in scarified runes released a barrage of golden light towards him. The bleeding stopped and the man released the bit, seemingly no longer in pain.
I stumbled forward, realising that the werewolf had gone.
A young man wearing a sweater vest was attending to another wounded man. I stumbled towards him.
“That…that young woman. Who was she?”
He looked up, his face filled with consternation, but he spared Cheri a smile.
“That was Trudie. Don’t worry. She’ll be back if you want to talk to her. She makes a habit of proving how indestructible she is.”
Indestructible. Maybe, she would survive. But how could the rest of us? My daughter and I were safe, but we were surrounded by a sea of undeath. Of chaos.
“How can we survive this?” I muttered.
The young man pointed down the street.
“Her,” he answered, simply.
The gunmen had stopped firing, as a woman walked through the street, surrounded by the undead. She held two swords, which danced in a blur, cutting down everything in its wake. And trailing her was a fiery behemoth. It was as if she was wreathed in flames, but it didn’t burn her.
I knew her. Well, of her.
We all did.
Tears sprung up in my eyes. Cheri tightened her grip on my hand.
Hordes of undead fell to the flaming swordswoman. None survived. And in that purifying inferno, I knew we’d live.
The Last Light executed the final zombie with a simple thrust to the head. And then it was over.
***
How could an outbreak this large have happened so suddenly? Zombies couldn’t infect someone unless they had a handler. A necromancer pulling the strings. Someone to keep up the necromantic connection and ensure the necroblood was virulent. Otherwise, they were just angry, hungry corpses.
“Behind you,” Treth called, but was cut off as my salamander coat let out a concentration of flames, incinerating the undead.
“He’s pretty eager today, isn’t he?” I asked.