Cocktails at Seven, Apocalypse at Eight: The Derby Cavendish Stories Read online

  Sara came gliding at us between the battling duos. She swayed as she moved, her eyes so intense they were almost glowing. Matt and Aidan stepped up to meet her, one on either side, dividing her attention. Bobby hesitated, as if he might join them, but I grabbed his arm. “Stay with me,” I said. “I need you close.”

  “I see you back there, Derby!” called Bethany. “I really hoped you would try to stop me. It makes things so much more interesting—and I’ll enjoy it so much more when you fail!”

  “I’m not finished yet, Bethany!” I shouted back. Around us, the St. Patrick’s Day crowd was starting to move as people realized something was wrong. The first ripples of panic were slow. Those few who hadn’t consumed the cursed dye tried to help their stricken friends.

  Then the zombies attacked.

  Terror tore through the crowd. The zombies were like a wave pushing up from the south end of the village where Hermione’s little procession had started and driving the fortunate unaffected before them. They poured out of Hang-Out and the Lumber Yard. I recognized many of them: Moe from Cockles and Mussels, the bartender who had asked about Tarik, my barber at Manly Man Salon and Nails. Bethany’s silvery laugh rose over the screaming. She appeared above us, casually walking up onto the roof of a car parked at the side of the road.

  “You are finished!” she yelled mockingly. “You might have stopped a few zombies this afternoon, but you know you can’t fight this. And the best part is you made it possible because you fell in looovve!” She laughed again, then leaped high into the air, passing over our heads to land lightly on the roof of the next car.

  “She can do that?” yelped Bobby.

  “I don’t regret it!” I told Bethany. “Love makes us stronger!”

  “You sound like a pop song! You don’t even know what you’re facing yet.” She clapped her hands. “Girls! Play time is over!”

  She spun around and jumped car to car up the street in the same direction Hermione had run. Sara, Rani, and Cleo broke past us an instant later, carving through the growing chaos as they followed her.

  I pulled Bobby off the street and into the cover of the deep-set doorway at Manly Man. Matt and Aidan joined us, with Mitzy and Horse, slightly battered but largely unharmed, close behind. “Derby, what did she mean we don’t know what we’re facing?” Matt asked.

  I popped my head out from the doorway, staring at the zombies rampaging along the street. They seemed more vicious than the ones we’d faced at brunch, chasing the people who fled from them, dragging them down—and chewing on them. A horrible fear grew inside me, one that was confirmed as a sobbing young lesbian stumbled into our refuge.

  “What’s happening?” she gasped. “This isn’t possible. This isn’t possible!” She was holding one arm close against her body. Her sleeve was torn and bloody. I could see the flesh beneath.

  The bite marks were already turning green around the edges. The curse of the huahua wasn’t just being spread by green beer and fairy dust anymore.

  A zombie screeched close by. The young woman screamed and scrambled back out into the street, but that only attracted the attention of her pursuer. Another woman wearing a t-shirt that read “Bend over backward and kiss the Blarney!” leaped into view and slammed her to the ground—then paused and stared at us with sunken, green eyes.

  “Bobby,” I said without looking away from her. “Do it now.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him pull the crystal paperweight from the Three Bears’ den out of his pocket. His movement drew the zombie’s gaze. She bared bloody teeth and took a step toward us.

  I held up my hand, fingers stretched wide, in a gesture of forbidding. The woman with bloody teeth hissed, then screeched. Other zombies shrieked in response. The woman crept forward.

  I could see Bobby cradling the crystal sphere in his palm. I could hear him whispering to himself, “I’m gay and I’m proud. I’m gay and I can do this. I’m gay and—”

  Horse leaned in, pulled Bobby’s face around, and stuck his tongue so deep into his mouth that Bobby’s whole body went stiff.

  The crystal burst into the same dazzling, golden radiance that had burned the Three Bears. The zombie wailed and reeled away from the light. Other zombies, caught in the spreading glow, howled and pulled back as well—exactly as I’d hoped they would. My secret weapon had worked.

  “Everybody out!” I commanded. “We need to go after Bethany and Hermione. Bobby—good work.”

  Bobby, still looking slightly dazed from Horse’s inspiring kiss, nodded numbly and started to move, then hesitated. “Uh, I need a minute,” he said, one hand cupped over his crotch like an embarrassed teenager.

  “We don’t have one,” said Matt, dragging him forward. “Own your boner, Bobby!”

  Surrounded by the brilliance of Bobby’s sunlight, we stepped out of hiding.

  ※

  The scene was a little quieter now. Most of the zombies had continued on up the street after Bethany and Hermione, following the power of the huahua. Those that still lingered nearby hissed and cringed away from the light. All around us, the still-human survivors of the attack lay moaning amid the devastation of the gay village. The few who could still walk were trying to help the others to safety—except there would be no safety. My heart nearly broke, but I knew now that was exactly what Bethany had intended all along. I pressed my lips together.

  “If we have to fight the zombies, try not to hurt them unless you absolutely have to,” I said. “They’re still our brothers and sisters. We’re going to save them.”

  The others all nodded grimly.

  Ahead of us, the street was clogged with zombies. Fortunately, the attention of the churning mass was focused entirely on the intersection that was the heart of the gay village. Something was on fire up there, belching out dark, greasy smoke that shimmered with green. I sucked air between my teeth. A crossroads was a place of power; whatever was happening had to be the cherry on top of Bethany’s shit sundae. I leaped onto a parked truck to get a better look. The flames and smoke came from two cars that had collided in the intersection. The green shimmer came from the handfuls of fairy dust that Tarik—still expressionless—tossed mechanically from the sack into the fire while Hermione danced around it, her movements tracing a magic fairy circle.

  Bethany stood inside the circle, right beside the burning wrecks, wreathed in smoke and fire like a cheerleader from Hell—except instead of a pompom, she held the huahua. We didn’t have much time.

  Smoke and fairy dust weren’t the only things in the air, though. A strange kind of energy seemed to pool in the shadows and crackle around the streetlights. “What is that?” asked Aidan.

  “That’s the glamour of the otherworldly trying to assert itself,” I said as I hopped down from the car and urged the others onward. “Bethany has stretched it too far. It’s shredding like overworked tights.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that people are going to see things they weren’t meant to see.” I pointed at Horse. “Like that.” Aidan looked—and jumped as he saw Horse’s true minotaur form for the first time.

  Horse wasn’t the only one affected by the fading of the glamour. Mitzy was twitching and grimacing as she walked, and I knew the wolf inside her was trying to come out. “Let it go, Mitz. You’ll have more control if you don’t fight it all the way.”

  Mitzy nodded and took a breath, then tensed, stretched, and groaned. Fur swept across her skin. Her bones and joints popped and reshaped themselves. Her body stretched out, and those fabulous wedge heel boots split apart at the seams. She shook them off and scraped heavy claws against the pavement. Miraculously, the green leather catsuit hung together and the red wig ended up looking surprisingly good on the head of a seven-foot-tall wolf-man—or rather, wolf-woman. Mitzy raised her head and howled.

  Bethany, Hermione, and all of the zombies turned.

&nb
sp; With Bobby shedding more light than a high-powered dance floor, they would have seen us sooner or later anyway, so I was ready. I thrust out an arm. “Get us through the zombies, Bobby!” We broke into a run.

  Bethany pointed right back at us. “Get them!” she screamed and the zombies hurled themselves at us.

  It must have looked like a tugboat heading into a massive tidal wave: our little bubble of light against hundreds of raging, tight-packed zombies. Bobby came through for us, though. He raised the shining crystal sphere high and shouted his pride and defiance. The light flared even brighter and the zombie horde parted for us like a hungry ass taking a well-greased fist.

  Sara, Rani, and Cleo were waiting for us when we broke through the zombies, though, and a terrifying sight it was. The tattered glamour showed more of their true nature than I had ever seen before. Rani’s black hair and green eyes had become the fur and eyes of an enormous panther. Sara’s amber eyes had become those of a huge snake and her red hair the creature’s coppery scales. Cleo, however, had shrivelled rather than grown, her flesh dried hard on her bones, her aged-linen skin in tatters like ancient bandages. Whenever I’d caught the hint of something long dead about her, it hadn’t been my imagination. Cleo was a mummy.

  But now we’d fought them before. Mitzy and Horse exchanged a glance, then each went after the other’s previous opponent. Horse pummelled Cleo’s leathery form, while Rani and Mitzy tore into each other with raking claws and terrible teeth. I ached to see Mitzy bleed but we had our own problems. Sara’s thick body coiled and swayed as she circled Matt, Aidan, Bobby, and I. A long, forked tongue flickered past fangs as big as daggers and dripping with venom. I could feel her hiss like a tremor in my body.

  It was difficult to tell where her snake eyes were focused but I had a good guess. She didn’t need to take out all of us, just Bobby. With his light extinguished, there’d be nothing to hold back the zombies that snarled and screeched around us.

  “What do you think of my girls now, Derby?” called Bethany. Strangely, I couldn’t see anything different about her, even with the thinning of the glamour’s veil. Hermione had the suggestion of her mysterious fey mentors about her. Tarik’s ass ears and drooping tail were on full display. Bethany, though, was simply Bethany.

  I held my head high and called back to her. “I’ve always wondered what they were. Where did you find them?”

  Bethany laughed. “I picked them up over the years. Each of them was a queen once. Now they belong to me.” She smiled. “Maybe I’ll mix things up a bit and make Mitzy one of mine, too. Once you’re gone.”

  Anger burned in me. “I’m not going anywhere.” I looked Bethany straight in the eye. “You made a mistake choosing today, Bethany. It left you vulnerable. After all—” I grabbed the plastic lid of a litter bin that some zombie had torn free and flung into the street. “—St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland.”

  I banged my hand against the lid. It was hardly St. Patrick’s drum but the sound boomed out much louder than it had any right to. Sara hissed like wind in a graveyard and thrashed as if she was in pain. I hit the lid again. “Matt! Aidan! Bang anything you can find! Wait, I mean—”

  “I know what you mean!” shouted Matt. He started drumming on a car hood and Aidan on a mailbox. With every reverberating bang and thud, Sara hissed and flailed. Bobby stayed close, holding the crystal sphere high so that its light shone everywhere.

  “Rani! Cleo!” Bethany called, but her other two minions were in no position to help. Horse had Cleo pinned, while Rani and Mitzy rolled on the ground, each trying to rip the other apart. Hermione glanced at us.

  “Bethany, I can—” she said, but Bethany cut her off.

  “Dance!” she ordered. “Finish the spell! Hurry!” She kept her eyes on me. For the first time ever, I saw Bethany sweat and I’m sure it wasn’t from the fire. She’d made no move to help her girls, I realized, and that seemed completely unlike her.

  An idea occurred to me. I threw my lid to Aidan, dodged past Sara’s heavy coils, and charged—straight at Hermione.

  She squealed and flinched. “Dance! Dance!” said Bethany frantically. Hermione jumped, dancing faster, but the problem with a magic circle is that I knew exactly where she was going next. I pulled a handful of salt from my pocket, dodged to the side to intercept Hermione, and flung the salt.

  “Be undone!” I shouted.

  Hermione ducked. I don’t think a single grain of salt landed on her. She came back to her feet with a sneer on her face and fairy dust in her hand, ready to flick at me. “You missed,” she said.

  “He wasn’t aiming at you!” Bethany shrieked.

  Behind Hermione, Tarik blinked and expression came back into his face. He looked at me. I nodded. His mouth curved in a wild grin and he dropped the sack to grab Hermione from behind, dragging her away from the circle. She screamed in surprise and the dust fell from her grasp. As Tarik wrestled with Hermione, I turned on Bethany.

  She still hadn’t moved, but if a glare could open a hole to Hell, I would have been swimming in brimstone.

  “You know,” I said, “I thought you were trying to get Hermione to finish a spell that would complete or strengthen the huahua curse. But the curse was already complete, so what was the magic circle for?”

  I looked down at the glittering lines of the circle. Up close, I could follow the patterns. They confirmed what I suspected. “Binding magic,” I said to Bethany. “Intended to hold something at bay. But it works from both sides, doesn’t it? It can keep something in—or keep something out.”

  “Shut your hole,” said Bethany, but there was fear in her eyes now. I saw her glance down at the smudged spot where Hermione had stopped dancing. The pattern of the circle was visibly dissipating, the magic unravelling.

  And it was unravelling faster and faster. “You knew that a horde of zombies would be too much for the glamour to take, so you’re trying to keep it intact inside that circle,” I said. “That’s why you look exactly the same as you always do. You don’t want anyone to see the real you.” I narrowed my eyes. “Or maybe it’s more than that. Some things are just too otherworldly to exist. I’ve heard that when the glamour breaks around them, it tries to fix itself by writing them out of existence.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Give me the huahua and I’ll let Hermione finish the circle!” I said. The lines of fairy dust were fading fast now. Bethany was fading, too, and a shadowy new form taking place around her. I held out my hand. “Give it to me, Bethany. With the curse undone, the glamour will bounce back.”

  She stared at me. For a moment, I thought we might actually have a deal. Then she put back her head and laughed her silvery laugh. “And be in your debt?” she screamed. “Fuck you, Derby Cavendish! Fuck you and everyone you love.” She lifted the huahua high. “If I’m going, I’m taking this with me!”

  Without waiting for the circle to unravel any further, she stepped out of it.

  I felt the strained glamour shiver around me.

  Bethany’s mortal form fell away. She grew tall—taller than me, taller than Mitzy—and aged rapidly from teenager to mature woman. Her face turned harsh, savage. Her hair twisted into a serpentine crown and her cute clothes faded, becoming a full, stiff skirt of patchwork leather and a tight corset that left her arms and full breasts bare. Massive dark wings the colour of storm clouds grew behind her. When she spread them, lightning crackled between the feathers.

  “Behold!” she said in a voice like thunder. “Behold your nemesis!” And she laughed that same tinkling laugh but now instead of silver, it was bronze.

  The glamour of the otherworldly snapped.

  I felt it right through my body. Hermione’s laugh turned into a wail as the sundered glamour struggled to repair itself. She started to drift apart, her fabulous wings fading into wisps of mist, her leather skirt crumbling into dust. “No! So many centuries, so many eons
!” she cried, but her thundering voice was already just a whisper. She gave me a glare of pure hatred that I will never forget—and clutched the huahua tight to her breast.

  “Fuck,” I said under my breath. I dropped to my knees and pulled the rest of the salt from my pocket. Working fast, I poured it out of my palm into the lines of another magic circle no wider than a double handspan and much simpler than Hermione’s. With my other hand, I snapped the old shamrock pendant from my neck and dropped it in the middle of the salt pattern, then closed the circle. I flung one hand into the air and pointed the other at the pendant.

  “Be bound!” I called out. “Ancient of ancients, be sealed within. Nameless and unknown, your essence hidden, your secrets protected. You and you alone, be bound! Be bound!”

  The wail of the thing that Bethany had become rose into a heartrending scream and her drifting substance streamed down to my open hand, along my arm, then out into the magic circle. It swirled twice around inside the boundary of the salt, then drained down into the glittering enamel of the shamrock. Bethany’s scream cut off as if someone had closed a door.

  The huahua smacked into my open palm. I looked up at it—and found Tarik staring at me as well. I held up my other hand to stop him from speaking, then stood and turned around. All my friends were staring at me. So were Hermione and Bethany’s girls. So were all of the zombies.

  I could still feel the broken glamour surging around me. I faced south, raised the huahua, and swung it through a wide clockwise circle. East to west. The passage of the sun from dawn to dusk, and back again through the night. The procession of life and death and rebirth. “Be undone!” I proclaimed.