Infernal Bonds by Holly Evans Page B

things. Much to my irritation, the image of Lysander shirtless was the first thing to appear in my thoughts. It was going to be a long day.  
    We practically jogged down the road; I glanced back to make sure that Lysander was still with us. I realised he was in the same shirt and jeans as the day before; he had no belongings. The idea of him remaining in hound form was growing on me. I didn’t particularly want to buy him a whole wardrobe. But then, watching him try all those clothes on...
    I chastised myself and triple checked weapons I had on me. Two silver-coated blades, one on each hip, a set of silver-coated throwing knives on my right forearm. The dead were much like normal humans: they were vulnerable to sharp objects and heavy, blunt objects. That being said, the only way to really stop them was to set them on fire, or take their head off. I felt sorry for the families of those who had been raised and hoped they never got word of it happening.  

Twenty-Four

    The sun was just considering rising when we climbed over the gates to the cemetery and landed on the soft grass. I was glad that there were no humans around to witness the dead rising; that was more emotion and bullshit than I was able to deal with at that time of day. It was deathly silent, the breeze didn’t even dare whisper through the trees. Dimitri’s scream changed that. We ran in the direction of the noise. It was cut short by a large skeletal zombie sinking its fingers deep into Dimitri’s flesh. The other hunter was soon dragged to the ground in the middle of three zombies. He kicked and thrashed against them, but their state of decay didn’t stop them from being far too strong for him. Their skin was peeling from their flesh. Stark white bones glinted in the pale grey light of morning.  
    I pulled my blades and got straight to work. Quin would look after himself. We were a team, and the hound was a damn hellhound; if he couldn’t take down a few zombies, he deserved what he got. Viktor was on the far side of the large group of some thirty or so zombies; the necromancer must have had quite a bit of power to pull up so many dead at once. The one I’d dealt with previously had seemed frail and decrepit, not much better than those he dealt with. Dimitri yowled with rage, bursting out from the small group; blood dripped from his brow and covered his shirt, but he was fighting. Matyas emerged somewhere near Viktor, with a pair of particularly large zombies battering him, one with what appeared to be a human skull. Zombies were such classy creatures.  
    I slashed the throat of the female zombie closest to me; her once-bright floral dress was torn and stained, her jaw hung precariously, but that didn’t stop her from trying to sink the few remaining teeth she had into my arm. Lank pink and blond hair clung in thick clumps to the hollows of her cheeks and down the ragged excuse of a neck. Her head lolled forward, but it still didn’t stop her. She reached out towards me, her bony fingers aiming to dig into my flesh. The muscles on her hands had decayed and faded, the skin torn and peeled away, revealing sharp points of clean white bone. Something was wrong. Another zombie hit me square in the side of the head. The blow made me step sideways and shake my head, my vision blurred for a brief second. The damn thing hit harder than a living person. Something was definitely wrong. I kicked the female zombie I’d been dealing with moments before; my foot shattered her sternum and made her ribs collapse in on themselves. Her dress sank inwards, gathering around the new cavity, old worn fabric caught on broken ribs. She didn’t give in. The new zombie, whom I hadn’t had a chance to examine, launched himself at me, teeth snapping a few millimetres from my face. He would have been a burly, heavily muscled man in life. In death he was the stuff of nightmares. His stomach was distended and bloated, black oozed from his eyes and trickled from his cracked and