Heather Graham - Keeper of the Dawn

It was as if she had stumbled onto the set of a horror movie. Whoever was pulling these strings had raised every person who had committed suicide since the church had been built—and whatever other dead creatures had stumbled into the graveyard. She saw Declan standing on a tombstone, wielding a gun. As she watched, he tossed the gun aside and morphed from a man into a tiger, and ripped out the throat of the nearest walking corpse, then kept ripping until the head was torn from the body.

Brodie was walking into the fray, using his Elven strength to rip them to pieces. She saw that Mick and Barrie were fighting back-to-back. Rhiannon had become a wolf and, like Declan, was tearing the undead apart with her teeth. Hugh walked past her, swinging a sword identical to the one he’d given her.

“Alessande! Oh, my God, Alessande!”

She felt trembling fingers on her arm and turned to see the costume designer, Katrina Manville, huddling behind her, her eyes wide-open with terror. “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it,” she repeated through chattering teeth. “It can’t be real.”

A corpse lunged at Katrina, who screamed in terror.

Alessande shot out a fist, knocking the thing down but not rendering it harmless. “Come on—I’ll get you to a car,” she told Katrina, then dragged her to the relative safety of the recessed side door.

“Can they get into the church? Are they zombies? Oh, God, this can’t be real.” Katrina practically sobbed.

“We can’t get into the church—the doors are locked,” Alessande said.

But Katrina ignored her and clawed at the door. To Alessande’s astonishment, it opened.

“Get inside—quickly,” Alessande commanded.

The terrified woman was still clinging to her, so she stepped in as well, trying to gently escape Katrina’s hold. But even as she freed herself, she saw a length of fabric—a crimson cowl—flying at her. She lifted her arms to ward it off just as Katrina swung around and slammed her in the ribs with all her might.

The robe fell over Alessande’s head, and she inhaled a sickly sweet scent as it draped itself over her face like something living.

Transymil.

She held her breath and fell to the floor, pretending that the drug had worked but staging her fall so that the cowl didn’t completely cover her face, giving her a few sweet breaths of clean air.

Then she waited.

* * *

They’d brought guns loaded with silver bullets. Mark had never figured that they were going to need swords.

He cursed his lack of foresight but was glad to see that Hugh Drummond had been smart and carried an entire arsenal—swords included—in his car.

Mark was forced to transform, becoming a wolf and tearing into the lumbering dead intent on killing everything living. One after another, they came after him, but he didn’t fight alone. Barney had settled in the old oak tree to rip off the zombies’ heads as they passed beneath him. He saw his fellow policemen—including Lieutenant Edwards—fighting all-out against the monsters. As he watched, Edwards became a different sort of wolf, bigger, fiercer, able to stand on his hind legs and use his huge forepaws like hands, dealing death to the dead.

As Mark ripped another throat from one of the zombies he thought, We will win this. There are enough of us, and we are stronger, smarter and better equipped to tear things to shreds.

Then it struck him: they were meant to win.

But they were meant to fight a long battle.

And suddenly he knew why.

“Brodie!” he called.

Brodie looked his way.

“The church!” Mark roared, and ran for the building.

* * *

Alessande lay on the altar, pretending to be drugged but in actuality able to open her eyes just a slit and see what was going on.

She wasn’t sure how—maybe the blood sacrifices of their human victims had given them the power?—but somehow the evil beings were now able to function inside a consecrated church.

The front door was now open and someone was standing there, just at the entry. He wore a golden mask, a cape and a cowl and cradled a dead man in his arms. Brigitte’s evil priest, she realized, but who was he carrying?

Could that be the real corpse of Sebastian Hildegard? Was that what Brigitte had meant when she’d said they couldn’t destroy Sebastian? That they’d had the wrong body all along?

Three women were circling the altar and chanting.

The first was Katrina Manville.

Human.

Next came another human: Tilda Lyons, associate producer for Death in the Bowery.

The third was the shapeshifter Brigitte Hildegard.

Suddenly Tilda stopped chanting and said, “We’ve got to do it now— now, before someone gets in!”

“Finish the chant!” the priest in the doorway roared. “It won’t work if you don’t finish the chant.”

Alessande was just able to see that Father Lars lay facedown in the long red carpeted aisle between the pews. She prayed that he was alive. She strained to get a better look at the figure at the end of the aisle.

The women stopped moving—and speaking. Alessande knew that at any moment a knife would plunge toward her, but still she tried to figure out who was wearing the mask and cloak.

“Now, Brigitte, now!” the priest commanded.

Brigitte turned. Alessande opened her eyes and stared up at her. Brigitte looked as pale as a ghost, holding a lethal-looking dagger tightly in her white-knuckled hands.

“Now!” the priest shouted again.

“I can’t!” Brigitte cried.

The priest let out a terrible scream of fury. “You will pay for your insubordination!”

“No!” Brigitte cried, crumpling to her knees.

In a fury, the priest started moving. As he left the doorway and entered the church, fire kindled in the air and licked at his robes. Entering the consecrated ground of the church, Alessande realized, could prove fatal to him. He moved quickly, as if to stay ahead of the flames, skirting the prone body of Father Lars as he rushed to the front of the church.

He laid the corpse at the foot of the altar, then wrenched the dagger from Brigitte’s lax hands.

The moment of truth was at hand.

As he raised the dagger, Alessande jerked up, knocking his arm aside and wrenching the mask away.

She gasped in shock. “Regina!”

“Damn it! Why can’t you just shut up and die?” Regina Johnson screamed at her. She still held the dagger, and Alessande was frozen in complete surprise.

The dagger started its downward thrust....

Just as the door to the church swung open.

And there he was, filling the doorway, gun in hand.

Mark.

Alessande teleported.

Regina Johnson—not a victim but a killer—slashed fruitlessly with her dagger.

But it fell from her hands as Mark’s bullet ripped straight through her heart.

For a moment there was silence.

Alessande reappeared at Mark’s side. He felt her there, turned and took her into his arms.

* * *

It really was a mess.

Thankfully, there were lots of Other cops on hand, and Barrie and Mick were the first among the media.

As soon as they had assured themselves that Father Lars had suffered only a minor head injury and had him on the way to the hospital—Hugh Drummond driving—they began the cleanup.

And the cover-up.

A sudden storm had started things. And then the guests had imagined they were seeing zombies when a freak localized earthquake had forced the dead from their graves.

Mark would have to be debriefed. After all, he had fired a fatal shot, but they all knew he wouldn’t have a problem claiming it a righteous kill, given that Regina had been about to skewer Alessande.

Katrina and Tilda had been arrested for conspiracy to commit murder, and no amount of babbling about the Cult of Tyr and zombies would change their fate.