A Secret Man of Blood

Chapter Twelve

Mazer shifts his weight and the sound of his powerful body stretches like a horizon over the unscarred silence. Looking down at Lu beneath him, he sees she isn't moving and concern floods his features. She turns and looks up at him, alive but uncertain. People around are lying facedown or in strange, warped positions.

There's no point in shielding Lu's eyes from the dead; there are too many.

"Are you alright?" he asks, standing up and helping her to her feet.

She nods hesitantly and looks around. "What happened here?"

Mazer looks around and grunts. "Massive magical attack. Seems to have killed everyone except for us." He unconsciously touches the magic-dampening amulet around his neck. "We might have been saved by this."

"Good job, jewellery."

"Indeed," Mazer answers.

The girl walks tentatively forward, looking around the huge and now derelict city. "So, what now?"

"Now...we walk."

"To where?" the girl asks, and Mazer realises he doesn't know.

A strange, cavernous growl draws Mazer's attention and he turns to see a young woman, her stumbling footfalls echoing loudly in the deserted air. Tense and ready, Mazer watches her approach. As she comes within a few feet, she throws herself at Mazer, trying to claw at him: he pushes her to the ground.

"She's hysterical!" Lu says.

"Yes, hilarious," Mazer deadpans.

Leaping back to her feet, the woman charges Mazer, much quicker now, her eyes disfigured by an animal hunger. Her long fingers are blackened and lethal: shocked, he punches her full force, exploding her skull in a rain of blood and bone.

Lu is startled. "What the—"

Looking around at the thousands of other bodies, Mazer charges at Lu and runs with her across the street. "Necri! The undead. Run!"

Horrible wails surround them on all sides as the population of Ryoko rise up, arms grasping at the runners as Mazer picks out an open building, runs inside and slams the door closed. It's an old department store with a heavy door, terrible thumps echoing across the room as Mazer holds the door, more and more bodies rising and throwing themselves after the living.

Large display windows all along the shopfront smash and necri close in on both sides. "Move to the back of the shop!" Mazer instructs Lu, who's shivering like a gong that's just been struck, as undead close in on both flanks, then he steps back and allows the doors to fly open but, just as necri force their way in, he kicks the doors back their way, draws his sword and decapitates two monsters on his left.

Spinning around, Mazer hacks at a crowd of undead charging from the right and, though limbs fly everywhere, their mass reaches him and forces Mazer back into a set of clothes rails. They swarm him like ants and he holds the mob off with his left hand, hacking and slashing with his right, but the even bigger crowd from the door are closing on his flank and he's pinned back by the weight.

An almighty push forward gains him an inch, before the swarm forces its way forward again and, in that time, Mazer leaps to the right, spins the entire clothes rail with one hand and throws it as a barrier. A couple of seconds bought, and with several hundred necri now in the store and thousands more outside, Mazer charges at Lu and points, his voice hammering in the details.

"The stairs! Up the stairs!"

Lu's brain takes hold of the message, which bypasses her shock and drives into her like fire into iron. Turning to run, she makes it to the first steps just as Mazer overtakes, picks her up and sprints up the steps five at a time. Sword in his other hands, he slices through a necri on the floor above and continues up the stairs, the pursuit howling like slaughtered cattle.