Christopher Golden - The Nimble Man

"Coming," Clay replied, pointing to a second floor window.

It exploded outward in a shower of jagged glass and Eve dropped through the air in a neat somersault, legs tucked beneath her. She landed in a crouch beside him.

"You roared?"

"Follow me," Clay growled.

He set off at a run, retaining the lion form. The others did not ask questions. They could not see the soul trail that led him on, but the three of them were allies, now. Amongst them was a sense of purpose. They all knew what was at stake.

"Where did Squire get off to?" Eve asked.

Neither Graves nor Clay responded. The goblin would have to take care of himself, for now. Mr. Doyle had given them an assignment. It was time to fulfill it.

Claws scraping pavement, Clay followed the tendril of ectoplasm around a corner and saw their prey. There might only have been a small number that had left the museum through that shattered window after killing the watchman, Hank, but now there were dozens of them spread out across the road, shambling at different speeds. Some dragged a leg behind them, injured. Others crawled on their bellies, responding to Morrigan's command and unable to stop.

Through the crimson fog they moved, and when the wind blew, Clay could hear their moaning.

In their midst, right at the center of the road, four of the dead were clustered close together. One among them held something in its arms. From behind, Clay could not see what it was, but he could guess.

"Destroy as many as you can. I'll get the Eye."

Eve was preternaturally quick. Faster, even, than a lion. She raced ahead of them, leaped onto the back of a gleaming new BMW, and launched herself into the air. From the scabbard slung across her back she drew her sword, and even as she landed in the midst of a crowd of the dead, she swung the blade. It whistled through the air and the carnage began.

A ghost could move with unreal quickness, stepping through space instead of across it. Dr. Graves appeared instantly amongst the dead. A man in a gray suit walked between a woman in a dark green dress and a small boy, all three of them holding hands. A family.

Graves plunged his fists into their rotting flesh and tore their souls loose, set them free. It was a mercy.

The lion, the shapeshifter whose name sometimes was Clay, bounded toward the quartet of walking dead who were escort to the Eye of Eogain. He drove the first down beneath his weight, cracking its bones. One massive paw lashed out and with a single swipe of his claws he tore away part of the second shambling corpse's spine.

He began to change. But this time he slowed that metamorphosis. It was painful, letting the flesh pause in between forms, bones not set correctly, muscles half-formed. Clay grasped a dead woman by the shoulders and opened huge leonine jaws, then snapped them closed upon her head.

The lion-man spat bits of skull and desiccated brain onto the pavement.

Then he morphed again, and now he was just Clay. Just Joe. Just a piece of the connective tissue of the world, touched by the Creator and attached to the heart of every living thing.

The zombie holding the skull of Eogain continued shambling in the general direction of Beacon Hill, toward Morrigan, as though the carnage around it had not happened at all. Clay reached for its head, clutched it around the neck with one hand, shoved his right hand into its mouth and tore off the top of its head.

Eogain's skull — silver eye glittering in its socket — tumbled toward the ground. Clay caught it before it struck the road. He raised it up and stared at it, saw the symbols engraved in the silver, and wondered what Morrigan would do without it.

"Eve!" he shouted, turning toward her. "I've got it."

But the raven-haired beauty was otherwise engaged. More dead had appeared. They came along the side streets. A manhole burst open and clanged onto the road and several cadaverous figures dragged themselves up from the sewer. Clay stared at them, wondering where they were all coming from.

Morrigan, he thought. She's sensed what we're up to. And she's not giving Eogain's Eye up without a fight.

Dr. Graves and Eve were surrounded, but holding their own. Eve was tearing out their throats, and Graves their souls. But Clay shook his head. There was no way to know how many walking dead Morrigan could bring against them, and he had the Eye. There was no reason to fight.

"Forget them!" Clay called. "Let's go!"

"Good idea!" Eve shouted back at him, tearing open the torso of a dead man. "Where are we going? You've got somewhere there aren't any dead guys?"

Clay looked around, searching for the best route of escape. Even as he did, he saw that he was a target again. At least a dozen of the dead were beginning to encircle him, slowly, as though ruled by one mind. And perhaps they were.

"Hey, big boy!" a familiar voice called.

Squire crawled out from the darkness beneath the BMW fifteen feet away. The goblin looked tired.

"Where the hell have you been, munchkin?" Eve snapped at him.

Squire shot her the middle finger. "Busy. Now, listen. I just shadow-walked back to the Ferricks'. Conan Doyle wants us all to meet up with him in front of the State House, as soon as we can get there."

"Glad to hear it," Clay called, turning round and round, ready to tear into the zombies that surrounded him. "How did you plan to get us there?"

The goblin put his hands on his hips, the ugly, twisted little beast looking almost comical. "The limo's right around the corner, smartass," he said, pointing just up the street. "I've got to get back to Conan Doyle."

And then Squire dove back into the darkest of shadows beneath the BMW, barely avoiding the grasp of a dead girl who could not have been more than eighteen when she breathed her last.

Clay glanced around at the zombies that were closing in on him, clutching the skull of Eogain in one hand.

"Wonderful."

Mr. Doyle buttoned his jacket, smoothed his mustache with fingers crackling with magic, and gazed down his ample nose at Danny Ferrick.

"I think not, Daniel."

Anger flared in the demon-boy's features. His chapped, leathery skin flushed with color and tiny embers burned in eyes turned to charcoal. Then he shook his head and despite his devilish features, Conan Doyle could see the boy in that face again.

"Listen, Mr. Doyle, I know what you're worried about. I know what you think. My mother…" Danny glanced over at Julia, at the woman he had always thought of as his mother, and there was sadness and apology in his gaze. "My mother doesn't want to accept it, but I know what I am. You're not wrong about that.

"But you're wrong about me.

"Maybe my blood is a demon's blood. Maybe I'm not human. But this is my world. This is my house. I'm still Dan Ferrick. I still… I still love my mother, and my friends." He glanced at Julia again, but then he turned his tumultuous eyes upon Conan Doyle.

"I can feel the darkness in me. It's in my head sometimes. And it's in my heart. I laugh at things I shouldn't. Sometimes I want to.. hurt people. But I know it, Mr. Doyle. And I keep it reined in. The darkness. That's got to count for something. I'm not going to let it control me. And if I'm going to be able to fight it, you have to give me the chance to do it for real, not just on the inside. You don't have a clue what it's like to be me. To live now. Yeah, you're alive, but you grew up so long ago you might as well be from Mars for all you know. You know all this stuff about magic and other worlds. Whatever. You don't know much about this one. So you can't know me, or what I've got going on in here." He pounded a fist against his chest.

"I'm not gonna let the darkness win. Not inside, or out. So I need to be part of this. To remind me, all the time, what I'm fighting against."