I aimed my magic at him again. Black sparkles drifted down like lazy snowflakes and melted away.
That was bad. My heart skipped a beat, and icy fear dripped down my spine.
Mortimer’s horribly large mouth descended...and panic exploded. I struggled harder against him, but it was like trying to wrestle with a marble statue. His teeth clamped onto my shoulder. Ow!
Pain and terror clawed through me. Oh, my God. I was gonna get eaten by a zombie. Before I turned sixteen. Before I had my party. Before Rick kissed me.
Then I was yanked backward.
“Bamo!” cried a new voice, much stronger and deeper and more Jamaican than my own. Demetrius! Relief tangled with my hysteria.
The zombie stopped attacking and cocked his head as if he was a cute cocker spaniel instead of a dead dude in the grips of the Hunger. Demetrius dragged me through the door, shut it and barred it. He whirled me around.
“You okay, child?” He took the zombie arm, and for a second, I didn’t let go. Then I realized what I was doing and gave him the limb.
My shoulder throbbed and my shirt was ripped. I looked down in shock. “He bit me!”
Demetrius led me to a table and lifted me by the waist. For an old guy, he sure was muscular. He pushed the material over my shoulder and peered at the wound. He walked to the medicine cabinet on the other side of the table. I thought about Mrs. Woodbine scarfing down all that biscotti while her husband had been trying to scarf me down. Bitch.
Demetrius returned with a jar of ointment that looked like black tar and smelled like puke. I crinkled my nose.
“Where’s the other stuff? The ointment we sell to our customers? Ugh! What is that?”
“’Dis de good stuff. My own concoction. Gonna heal the bite in no time.” He rubbed the cold, greasy gel into the place where Mortimer’s disgusting teeth had gouged my skin. “Zombie bites are nasty business.”
A bite or a scratch doesn’t turn you into a zombie. I mean, I know every zombie movie ever made says different. Gah! Who thought of that ridiculousness? Soooo unbelievable. Anyway. Zombie mouths are filthy and filled with germs and all kinds of ick. An untreated bite could get infected quickly, and boom, you’re lying in a hospital bed breathing through a tube.
“You know bamo isn’t exactly a necro incantation,” I said. Not that you needed words to perform magic. Sometimes, using a word or phrase was helpful to get the focus going, but if you had any heka gift, you could access it pretty easily and without acting like you just graduated from Hogwarts.
“It’s Jamaican for ‘go away,’” said Demetrius, his lips splitting into a gap-toothed grin. “You know it’s not the words, but the power you give them.” He glanced at my torn shirt. “Go home and change. I’ll deal with Mr. Woodbine.”
“Okay.” At least my dad wasn’t here to fret over the zombie bite. If he’d been around for Mortimer’s attack, I’d be on my way to an emergency room right now. Dad panic was like, ten levels above regular people panic, so good thing my dad was up in Reno checking out locations for a second zomporium. Unfortunately, he’d promised that he would be back tomorrow. For my b-day. Sigh. He’d said he wouldn’t interfere with my party, but I wasn’t sure he’d be able to stay away. He was itching to play songs from ’80s movies soundtracks. Oh, yeah, I’m named after Molly Ringwald. In particular, because my dad totally crushed on her. Ugh. I’m telling you now that if he plays anything from Pretty in Pink, I’m throwing myself off the roof.
“Do you want me to call da Empress?”
That’s how Demetrius refers to Nonna Gina. Like everyone else, he has a healthy respect for my grandmother. It isn’t just the rolling pin, either. She just has a way about her. A scary, obey-me way.
I shook my head. “I’d rather walk home than get into a car with her.”
In Nevada, you have to be fifteen and a half to get a driver’s permit. I’d counted the days until I was officially 15.5 and went off to get my permit (under parental protest, I might add). I’d finished the required driver’s education courses over the summer and kept a clean driving record. After all, I had to drive with Dad or Nonna, which was as fun as it sounded. As in, not.
But on Monday, I would go get my driver’s license.
Woot!
It was only three weeks into the school year, and soon I’d have my own ride. Well, Nonna’s ride. She had this huge boat of a car that she didn’t drive very often, mostly because she didn’t see so well anymore and hit stuff like mailboxes and curbs. I’d saved up some money, but nowhere near enough to get a decent car. Rick Widdenstock had turned sixteen over the summer. The first day of school, he’d arrived in a new black-and-silver Mustang. That car had just upped his hotness factor. I’m aware of how shallow that makes me sound, but hey, I can live with it.
Demetrius helped me off the table. “If the wound’s not healin’, you tell me.”
I nodded. A zombie bite was nothing to blow off. I’d just have to figure out a way around the stink. I looked toward the barred door and saw the shadow of Mortimer flickering against the frosted glass. “What are you going to do to him?”
“Put him to rest, child. Like he want.”
I frowned. “He’s a zombie, Dem. How can you know what he wants?”
Demetrius shook his head, and I felt like I’d disappointed him. Hey, I paid attention during our lessons. I just didn’t remember anything about zombies having feelings or thoughts. ’Cause they don’t.
“You don’t know everything yet, child.”
Well, duh. “Mrs. Woodbine is gonna be pissed.”
Anger slashed his expression. “Don’t you worry. I deal with her.” He patted my non-injured shoulder. “Go on now.”
The sahnetjar was made up of several rooms. Zombification took time and skill and there were stages to the process. The room we stood in now with its gleaming silver table, wash area and cabinets was used for assessment. The other rooms included the materials needed for each part of the zombifying. So far, Ally and I had been allowed to train only in the first stage, which was the part where we took out organs, rubbed the body with netjer—also called natron—wrapped it loosely with linens and prepared it to receive its ka, what the ancient Egyptians had called the life spark. Soul work is tricky. The zombification process has to be completed within seven days of death. After that, there is no getting the ka back to reanimate the body.
Sheesh. You didn’t think it was easy, did you?
Like all necromancers, Ally and I had been born with heka gifts. Probably because Mom was a ka heka. Dad didn’t have any powers. He was just a regular guy.
Mom wasn’t much on actual instruction. She didn’t like us being in the back rooms, and she didn’t really talk about the magic or the process too much. But Dem was a zombification master. He taught us how to draw on the magic and use it, usually with already-made zombies. Ka hekas can control the ka (um...duh), so we can control zombies. Usually. Sometimes, I wondered if Mom would’ve showed us the cool things we were learning from Demetrius.
We had a back door that led to a loading dock, where we took in supplies and bodies. The bay was closed, so I went out the side door. Then I realized my keys were on the floor with Mortimer. Crap. I couldn’t lock it. I dug in my front pocket for my cell phone to call Ally to do it. Then I realized I’d left the phone, along with my purse, at the front desk.
I hesitated.
I did not want to see Mrs. Woodbine, especially not after she found out her husband was done for. Plus, I’d have to explain to Ally about the bite and she would call Dad and he would freak and do something parental like call an ambulance or the National Guard.