Tim Marquitz - Resurrection

Veronica glared at me a moment, then shifted her gaze to Chatterbox. Her repulsion colored her face, seeping out like mercury in her voice. “Lead us to Reven.”

“Folllllloooooowww meeeeeeeee, meeeeee, eeeeee,” he answered immediately. Though incapable of independent movement, the whole lacking a body thing, he made it clear which way we needed to go. His slippery tongue jetted from his mouth and wiggled in the direction of the portal we’d used to enter Limbo.

At the sight of it, Veronica stormed off looking nauseous while I followed along lugging Chatterbox, Poe silently bringing up the rear. We looked a ragtag bunch: an angry ex-wife, a battered mentalist, and me, the white sheep of the black family. I could think of a handful of people I’d rather have at my side, but beggars can’t be choosers. In the end, I was likely marching off to my death.

Did it really matter which side killed me?

We made it through the shimmering portal and returned to Earth without any problems, much to my surprise. It was as if the spirits knew there was some major shit going down on Terra Firma and they didn’t want anything to do with it. Can’t say I blame them. I didn’t want much to do with it myself.

It was the same uncomfortable quiet on the Earth side. Lilith hadn’t posted a guard or wasted her time watching the gateway, trusting her manipulated goons to kill me. She didn’t know me very well.

Had she been on better terms with her daughter, Veronica could have told her I was real good at screwing up the plans of mice and men, and a succubus or two, now and again. It was a specialty of mine.

Expecting me to be dead, there was probably steam coming out of her ears when I popped back onto the plane alive. Not only had I survived her latest trap, but it’d look to her like I offed the three powerful minions she stole from Baalth. She was not gonna be happy.

To that end, I spurred Veronica and Poe on, our unholy trinity following the waggling lead of Chatterbox’s blackened tongue. While I wanted Lilith to come after me, I didn’t want to face her in the alley. If she showed up too soon, she’d ruin everything. And that likely included me.

A stolen car and an aggravating, circuitous drive to the other side of town later, I could have kicked myself as I realized where Chatterbox was leading us. I should have thought about it long before this. It was the perfect hideout, invisible in plain sight.

When El Paseo was smaller-more dirt, less people-travel to the city was mainly military related, minimizing the need for expensive, public air transportation. Before the city’s population exploded, inheriting the need for an international airport, what didn’t come by railroad was flown in to a small, privately owned airfield situated just outside of town. As the city grew, the need gone, the airfield was shut down, the government canceling their contract. Stubborn and too blind to see the value of the land it sat on, the owner refused to sell and the city engulfed it, building up around the airfield, isolating it.

Nowadays, the land is deeded to the owner’s sons under the provision they hold on to it, untouched, until the military comes to its senses and renews the contract; a circumstance that will never happen.

As such, the land sits empty and ignored, an oasis of overgrown weeds and cracked tarmac, five miles square. Surrounded by a fifteen foot fence capped with redundant layers of razor wire, and rumored to be a preserve for the city’s wild Pit Bull population, the airfield is avoided by even the most ardent of trespassers. It’s a blackened abyss wedged in the center of El Paseo’s failing industrial district, cut off from the world around it. There’s no longer even a street that leads to its rusted, shackled gates, the way blocked off over fifty years earlier.

If there was a better hiding place for a necromancer and an army of zombies, I didn’t know it.

As we got closer, the sun setting in the hazy horizon, we ditched the car and headed through the jumble of weather-worn warehouses and half-abandoned factories. We circled around the perimeter to be sure, avoiding the more populated areas, but Chatterbox’s tongue was rigid with insistence that his master lay beyond the industrial plots.

Rather than take the time to search for an opening, Veronica slipped her sword through a hole in the fence and pressed down, the rune-covered blade slicing through the chain links like scissors through paper. After just a few seconds, she’d carved us a door without making a sound. I slipped through the makeshift entrance, following her. Poe was at my heels, the shining chrome of my old weapon in his hand.

My own gun was out and I carried Chatterbox cradled under my arm as we pressed on through the waist-high grass and grabbing weeds, keeping low to avoid being seen. While we knew Reven was at the airfield, the place was huge. I could guess he’d be somewhere near the center, out of sight from casual view, but I wanted a more accurate locator. Turned out, we didn’t need it.

As we approached the dilapidated control tower, its windows long since having fallen out, we spotted movement on the tarmac. I quickly set Chatterbox down and crouched beside him, Veronica and Poe doing the same, all eyes on the busy runway. The scene, illuminated by the dying rays of the sun and an early moon, made it clear we’d come to the right place. At the base of the tower, huddled together and swaying back and forth like a sea of rotten flesh, was a horde of mumbling zombies.

Out in front of them, gouged into the black asphalt were a massive number of intricate necromantic symbols, spread across what had to have been the length of a football field. Inside their carved shapes was a dark liquid that rippled in the gentle evening breeze. The air was thick with a rusty copper scent, so strong it made my nose itch. It took me a second to recognize the smell, its tang overpowering. It took a second longer to realize its source.

The liquid in the trenches was blood.

My mind boggled as I stared out across the field of symbols, imagining how many people had to die to fill their depths. Reven had been busy. My stomach tightened into a hard ball of hate, sickened by both the smell and his callous disregard of human life. Itching to put a bullet through his skull, I surveyed the runway, but couldn’t spot him anywhere.

Just as I was about to give up and ask Poe if he was capable of picking anything out of the zombies’ heads, a sudden rash of movement amongst their grouping drew my attention. The edges of the horde began to amble forward, spreading their mass thinner as they did. Centered within their smelly ranks, a tight cluster of six zombies trudged up the middle, an object wrapped in purple silk carried reverentially between them. It had to be Longinus.

At their side was Reven, his cloak hood pulled low over his face, his pale hand resting on the silk covering as he kept pace with his pets, as though afraid to let it go. Karra was nowhere to be seen. That worried me.

Unable to locate her, I watched while the pall bearers made their way toward the center of the symbols, the congregation’s undead voices dropped to a whisper, then to nothing. Silent, they took up positions around the edge of the runway, forming a number of big circles, several coming to rest less than twenty feet from where we hid. Fortunately for us, they turned inward, facing Reven, giving us some freedom of movement. Unfortunately, there were a bunch of them between me and the necromancer, so I couldn’t get a clean shot in.

I mouthed a four letter complaint and gestured to the interfering zombies when Veronica looked over her shoulder at me, presumably thinking the same thing. She nodded and drifted, like a shadow, off to our right. Poe and I went after her, hoping to get a better angle, my eyes locked on Reven the entire time. While we moved, the necromancer and his zombies reached the swirling symbol that sat dead center of the rest. The pall bearers set their package down with great care and stepped away, moving off to join the rest of their buddies.