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SARGE FLUNG THE CHURCH doors open, and we piled inside. The other ghosters and grims fanned out, looking out the windows. I felt as useless as white chocolate during PMS as Aedan steered me toward a pew.
“Ow!” I cried. “It hurts to walk.” Every joint ached as if I was a hundred years old. I felt like a pile of rusty nuts and bolts needing to be greased.
After he helped me sit, I exhaled shakily, then wiped my tongue with the back of a hand, wishing I could get the rancid squirrel residue taste out of my mouth.
I looked up at the sound of a garbled cry, then froze when my eyes locked with the bride’s. Her olive skin had turned almost as pale as her white veil. She raised a shaky finger, pointing in my direction. The rest of the wedding party huddled around her and the groom, shielding their eyes as if they were afraid being a hideous, ugly zombie was contagious.
“Why are they staring?” I whispered to Aedan.
“I think they can see you,” he spoke through a frozen smile. “Try not to act like a zombie before they break out the pitchforks.”
“Hey.” I did my best to flash a wide smile, even though stretching my lips felt like pulling back a rubber band that was about to snap. “I’m not really a zombie.” I waved my good arm at the wedding party. “I’m a ghost, and I just got stuck in this body.”
An older black gentleman, with greying hair and a fierce frown, stepped in front of the bride. “How dare you ruin my baby’s wedding!” He raised a folding chair above his head, then threw it in my direction.
I blasted it back with my wind before it had a chance to hit me, pleased I still had my powers, and even more pleased when the bridal party cowered behind oversized flower wreaths and each other, begging me not to hurt them. I frowned at my arm, which had become detached at the elbow, the bones dangling in rotting, loose skin like rocks in socks.
“Now look what you made me do.” I scowled at the bride’s father, whose dark skin had turned an ashen grey. He sank to his knees, making the sign of the cross. I tried my best to cradle my bad arm with my injured other arm. I slowly stood, frowning at the crowd. “Look, humans. I’m on your freaking side. I can’t protect you from a demon army if you’re throwing chairs at me. Does anyone have any duct tape?”
The groom, an attractive marine in dress blues with thick eyelashes and skin the color of rich mahogany, plus a shaved head that exposed a melt-in-your-mouth, edible scalp, reached behind the podium and rolled a roll of silver tape down the aisle. As I kicked the tape toward Aedan, I briefly wondered what the groom’s brains would taste like.
“Thanks!” I said as Aedan picked up the tape and proceeded to wrap up my elbows after digging around in my rotting skin and reattaching my bones. Even though they ached like I was a century old, my nerve endings were numb; Aedan’s prodding hadn’t hurt too much, or maybe I was getting used to the pain. After I had use of my arms again, I sank onto a pew and stuck out my legs. “My knees, too, baby.”
I smiled as he swaddled my crusty knees with all the care of dressing a newborn babe. We’d been married less than a few hours, and he was already taking “for better or for worse” to a new level. I sure knew how to pick a husband.
“Can you tell us what’s going on?”
I looked up at the marine, admiring his shiny head once more, and fighting the urge to lick my lips. Usually, muscular men in uniform made me horny, not hungry.
I shrugged, not liking the popping sound of my shoulder bone escaping its socket. “I’m not sure yet, but it appears some demons escaped Hell. We’re doing our best to fight them, but they’ve resurrected the dead, and they have a dragon.”
The groom’s eyes widened and he threw up his hands. “What are we supposed to do?”
“Stay here.” I pointed to the ceiling. “There’s an archangel guarding the church.”
The bride’s father marched up to us, wagging a finger in my face as if the apocalypse was all my fault. “How long do we have to stay here?”
“I don’t know. I’m really sorry about ruining your wedding.” I looked from the groom to his pretty bride, who’d come to stand beside him, clutching his arm like a lifeline. “Today’s my wedding day, too, only I got married in Purgatory. Your ice sculpture is so pretty.” I squinted through the window at the melting ice. It had either been carved in the shape of a heart or an upside-down penis. “We had a chocolate fountain. I didn’t even get to taste it before we were called to dust demons. You can’t see my husband.” I nodded toward Aedan as he applied the finishing touches to my knees. “But he’s here, along with the rest of my squad.”
The groom pointed at Aedan. “He isn’t your husband?”
I gaped at him.
Aedan slowly stood, clearing his throat. “You can see me?”
The groom and his bride nodded. The father sat in a nearby pew, swearing and rubbing his face.
“Are you projecting?” I asked Aedan.
“No.” He frowned, turning back to the couple. “Who else can you see?”
The bride cleared her throat. “Just you two.”
Aedan and I shared puzzled looks. “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said, and then I gasped when I noticed Aedan’s zombie bite had become infected. Really infected, as in his wrist had sprouted a mini volcano. “Aedan, your hand!”
He turned it over. “Damnation!”
Even worse, the skin around his volcano appeared to be turning gray and cracked, like parched earth.
Tank stormed up to Aedan, scowling at the wound. “The flesh around the bite is rotting.”
Aedan exhaled a shaky breath. “I’m turning into a zombie.”
Just great. Yeah, I’d wanted my husband stiff on our wedding night, but this wasn’t what I had in mind. Besides, how was he supposed to chop off demon heads when he could barely lift his arms? I seriously doubted Earth had enough aspirin and antibiotics to treat zombie cooties.
“We need to get you both back to Purgatory.” Tank pressed a button on his scythe.
I reluctantly took a step back as I waited for an elevator to appear. I didn’t like being stuck in a zombie body, but I also didn’t want to leave my ghoster friends to battle demons without me. Maybe Aedan could get us a temporary pass to the Penthouse so we could be restored and then hurry back to help our friends.
After several tense heartbeats, nothing happened. “That’s weird.” Tank frowned at his scythe. “My elevator button isn’t working.”
Aedan tried his, but the button didn’t light up when he hit it. “Neither is mine.”
Oh, crud. I looked from Tank to Aedan. “Why?”
Aedan rocked back on his heels, swearing under his breath. “Standard emergency procedure in the event of an apocalypse. All elevators from Earth to Purgatory and Heaven are disabled.”
Tank scratched the back of his gleaming head. “Damn. I forgot about that.”
“So we’re stuck here?” All moisture seemed to have disappeared from my mouth, and not just because I was a dried-up corpse.
Aedan solemnly nodded. “Until we can close the portal to Hell, yes.”
“Holy shit on a fiddle!” I threw up my hands, wincing when my middle finger fell out of its socket, flopping back like a “fuck you” in reverse. Kind of ironic, considering we were fucked every which way and then some.
* * *
IF WE WANTED TO GET back to Purgatory, we were going to have to figure out a way to close Hell’s portal, aka that giant, fleshy throat regurgitating demons. I hadn’t remembered seeing a door on the portal, and there was a hungry dragon on the loose, but it wasn’t like we had a choice. Sarge was getting static on his walkie-talkie, which meant we were the only ghosters left to do the job.
As soon as we stepped outside, Aedan whistled up to the archangel guarding the church. The archangel, who had to be at least nine feet tall, glared down at us with those creepy, glowing white eyes, and unfurled dark wings that spanned double his height.
“Archangel,” Aedan rasped, pulling back his shoulders and looking surprisingly brave.
“Do not bother me, grim.” The angel scowled, waving a menacing, curved sword at us. “I have a job to do.”
“So do we.” Aedan expanded his scythe, which looked like a toothpick in comparison to the angel’s sword. “We were hoping you knew how to close the portal.”
“Destroy the witch who opened it,” the angel said indifferently, as if that was as easy as squashing a bug.
Sarge pushed ahead of Aedan, clearing his throat. “Do you know where we can find this witch?”
“She will know.” The angel jutted a long, curved finger at me. “The demons and the undead know the way to their mistress.”
Whatever blood was left in my body turned to ice, and it took all my willpower not to cower beneath the angel’s glowing glare. “I-I don’t know the way. I’m a ghoster. I accidentally got stuck in this body.”
He tossed back his head, laughing. “You will still know.”
Uh, okay? So along with my sudden insatiable thirst for brains, I also came equipped with zombie GPS? I shared a questioning look with Aedan.
“Could you just point us in a general direction?” Sarge pleaded.
The angel ruffled his wings before nodding at the dark highway that snaked behind a copse of pines. “The monsters go south, but the dragon will find you before you find her.”
As if on cue, his words were punctuated by the distant rumble of the beast.
I rolled my eyes. “We already figured that out.”
“Thanks for all your help,” Aedan said with a sneer, turning a stiff back on the angel.
Once again we ghosters were up shit creek without a clue while the divine ones stood by and watched us get our asses waxed by demons. If and when we made it back to Purgatory, we’d better get overtime pay for this assignment.
* * *
Aedan
THE FULL MOON SHONE through a break in the clouds, giving us enough light to navigate the darkness. We kept to the trees because we didn’t want to be spotted by terrified mortals. Also, we’d rather not be the dragon’s next meal. I kept checking my wound. Surprisingly, it hurt very little. In fact, the area around the wound had turned numb, and I feared it was a result of dying flesh. The infection had already spread to my fingers, making it difficult to make a fist. How would I be able to wield my scythe? Soon, I’d be too useless to help my friends.
The thought was both terrifying and infuriating. How could I not have recognized that corpse for what it was? I should’ve known better than to assist him. My assignment had been to stop demons from leaving the cemetery, and I’d failed to contain them. My knees and back were uncomfortably stiff, and I’d had to trade Ash off to Tank. Even worse than my sore back was my growing need for meat. Raw, bloody meat. Why I needed it so badly, I had no idea, but I craved it like a drug. Soon, Ash and I would impede our party’s progress. Then what? I couldn’t allow us to risk the mission.
No sooner had the chapel’s cross disappeared from view than an odd and terrifying feeling washed over me. I felt a subtle change in our environment as if the air pressure had dropped and a treacherous storm, like the hurricane that had claimed my life over a hundred years ago, was on the horizon. I held up a staying hand, motioning for the others to stop. I became more unnerved by the fear reflecting in Tank’s eyes.
“Did you feel that?” I thought I’d seen a great shadow pass over the trees.
“Feel what?” Sarge whispered.
The dragon’s deep rumble shook the ground beneath my feet. Tank released Ash and unsheathed his scythe. The other grims formed a circle around us, blades raised, as we waited for the dragon to attack.
One moment, our friends surrounded us, the next a heavy shadow passed over us, like a thick sound wave rolling through the forest. I felt its hot breath on my ear and shook at the garbled cries of my friends as the shadow passed through us and then vanished.
I reached for my bride, the only other person remaining. What had happened to our friends, and why had Ash and I been spared? On the ground were several extended scythes and Sarge’s walkie-talkie, shorting out in the grass as if it had been caught in a lightning storm.
“Aedan?” Ash’s mouth hung agape. “What happened? Where’d everybody go?”
I clutched her stiff fingers, fighting to get the words past my constricted throat. “They were eaten.”
“Omigod!” She let go of my hand and stiffly turned a circle as if her legs were made of bricks. “Do you see the dragon?”
“He’s gone.”
She turned to me, the lines around her mouth making her appear to be made of broken concrete. “Do you think he spared us because we’re zombies?”
I grimaced. “Most likely.”
“Now what?” The cracks in her face deepened, making me worry that my new bride was decaying before my eyes. I had to find a way to destroy this witch, and not just because all humanity depended on it. I feared I was about to lose the one person who’d made my afterlife worth living.
I wiped what I thought was a stray tear from her eye, quickly smearing it down my trousers when I realized it was a maggot.
Dear God in heaven, help me save Ash.
I pulled back my shoulders, clutching my scythe like a lifeline, though my fingers ached from the weight of it. “Now we have even more reason to destroy that witch.”
She cast her gaze to her dirt-crusted, rotting bare feet. “What can two zombies do?”
My heart ached at the despair in her voice. I couldn’t let her know the depths of my fear. I had to be strong for my bride, though my sanity felt as fragile as Ash’s crumbling flesh. I cupped her chin in my hand, forcing her to meet my eyes and summoning a courage I didn’t feel. “Sweetheart, we’ve survived the thirteenth dimension of Hell. We can do anything if we put our minds to it.”
She clutched my wrist with fingers that felt dryer than sandpaper. “This bitch has a shadow dragon that just ate a squadron of grim reapers.”
I released her. “Then I guess it’s a good thing we’re zombies.”