The Southwind Saga (Book 3): Flood Tide by Kovacs Jase

Author:Kovacs, Jase [Kovacs, Jase]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Zombies
Published: 2020-02-01T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN: MATTY

I allow myself a moment of grace as the smoke wraps me in tendrils of night. I close my eyes and lose myself in the serene eye of the storm. Flames crackle as embers dance from eave to eave like a swarm of fireflies.

A presence at my shoulder; Rod, his rifle sporting a foot-long steel tooth under the barrel. "Wait," I say, touching him on the arm. Black smoke rolls out, spreading towards the machine gun in a screen. The chaos swirls around me like surf on a reef. I wait for the moment of action. I wait for my wave.

Once I was young and weak. The Pale King took advantage of that. He cloaked his corruption with a faerie glamour, and I saw beauty where there was nothing but decay. I walked into his arms and he held me, and I loved him. It was for only a minute, but what is time in matters of betrayal? An instant of weakness leads to a lifetime of regret.

A stray bullet cuts a shaft of stillness in the turbulent smoke. Rod flinches and I nod to him. An eddy of wind opens a hole and Solomon and Alfred join us.

Rueben's look of surprise when I shot him filled me with a deep satisfaction. Denials and refusals mean nothing to men like him. Violence is the only currency they value. I let the warm glow flow through me. When it reaches the tips of my fingers and toes, I smile.

This is my wave.

I charge.

Buildings loom and pass. Some already aflame. The machine gun opens up, over to our right. Firing blind into the smoke. Wood shatters and a bottle explodes in the storeroom. I push left, edging out and around to flank them. Keeping clear of the fire lane between the gun and the bar.

Solomon coughs and I catch a glimpse of Rod, his rifle tucked under his arm like a spear, his eyes streaming tears. Strangely I don't feel the smoke's harsh touch.

A man, swinging a machete high, charges out of the mist. Rod drives his steel into the man's fresh weeping tattoos and between his ribs. The man grabs the rifle with both hands as he falls, crawling down the blade and snapping his sharpened teeth at Rod's neck. Alfred's machete flashes and the man goes slack. Rod twists the rifle to break the wound's suction and withdrawals.

I fire at another shape and a naked man ploughs headlong in the dirt before me. I leap over him and run on. Behind me I hear wet blows, but I don't look back as trees suddenly loom overhead like the statues of ancient kings.

The machinegun opens a cone of thunder not ten feet away. A long tongue of fire spits streaks of light. I don't know why the gunners have switched to tracer rounds. It's not like they can see the fall of their shot in this smoke.

Blood drips from Solomon's blade like old oil seeping from an engine's sump.

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