Was he really here? Had he come back to help me again? "Are you an angel?"
Torres turned back toward his henchmen. "He's hallucinating. Get the stimulant, now. We can't afford to lose him yet."
The ghost of Mordechai Byreika lifted his cane. It looked exactly like the one I'd driven through Jaeger's torso. "This look like flaming sword to you, boy? Of course is not angel. Angels? They're more formal. Kind of, how you say, stuffy. Now listen close. Time is short."
"Too late." I tried to show him the bandage on my hand, pulling repeatedly, forgetting that I was tied down. "Dead…soon."
Torres took my jerking against the bonds as a seizure. "Hurry with that potion, damn it!"
"No!" Mordechai admonished sternly. "You not die yet, boy. More work to do. For something more important than you. Not like this."
I tried to speak, but the pain was too great. Nobody has ever been bitten by a zombie and lived.
"You are not nobody, boy. You are somebody. You are one picked to finish fight. Good has said you are their champion. Bad's champion is waiting for you. Champion of Good not die because of stupid zombie! That's crazy talk."
I can't. Dying.
A cultist had removed a vial from his robes. He shoved a syringe into it and began pulling out a thick red liquid. "Give me that!" Torres ordered as he snatched the syringe away.
"You not die until I say so," Mordechai insisted. "Listen to your elders, boy. You have power to fight off zombie bite, just like you fight off werewolf when we met first time."
That was different. That was something I could fight with my hands. I was never infected by the werewolf.
"Of course not infected, because you are not monster now. You are Monster Hunter. Quit being stubborn and listen. Werewolf can't turn you. Zombie can't turn you. Vampire can't turn you, if stupid enough to get bit by vampire too you are. Regular Hunter, yes, but you? Different you are. You only turn if you give up."
So I can't die until I give up?
"No, that's just dumb. Turn, not kill. They can kill you just fine. Cut head off or blow up or set on fire, maybe shoot you in face, you die." He spread his hands as if balancing the scales. "Sploosh. Dead. Just like everyone else. But you are Chosen. Harder to kill Chosen unless he is being big baby. Certain things only you can do. Old Ones not realize who they're fighting with."
Torres jammed the huge needle into the nerve bundle between my ear and jaw and slammed the plunger down. The thick clump of liquid burned. Every muscle in my body automatically contracted with brutal force. The legs of the chair slammed back and forth on the floor. "Hold him!" Torres and one of the others grabbed me by the shoulders to keep me from flopping over.
Mordechai walked right through Torres as if he wasn't there, and I suppose in the twilight spirit world that my old mentor currently inhabited, he probably wasn't. Mordechai leaned close to my ear and whispered, "Don't give up."
The drug, or potion, or whatever the hell it was they shot me with pummeled my central nervous system like a jackhammer. The now-familiar black lightning was not just in my vision. It was colliding back and forth between the very fibers of my being. My body was a battleground, an undead virus was my enemy, and the prize was my soul.
"Never give up."
I won't.
"I know. That's why you are one who drew short straw."
Then I died. I think.
I'd done this kind of thing enough times that nothing could really surprise me at this point. I was standing in the ornate ballroom at the Shackleford family estate. I was either in the past, before we'd blown it up and set it on fire while trying to kill Susan, or in the future, when we'd finally gotten it fixed, because the room was absolute perfection. The walls were covered in mirrors, giving the illusion that it was much larger than it really was, as each view doubled and tripled onto itself. The massive chandelier reflected the sunlight from the tall windows, causing the crystals to sparkle brilliantly. The hardwood floor had been polished until I could see my bedraggled reflection in it.
There was a man waiting for me in the center of the room. I did not know him. He was a head shorter than I was. The stranger was lean, but muscular, with long brown hair, muttonchops, and a mustache that extended to the end of his square jaw. He was in his forties. His uniform was made of creaking leather, with thick protective pieces over the torso and wrists, and a guard that pulled up over the throat to shield from bites, similar to our modern suits. While his archaic armor was battered, his guns were not. He had a pair of Colt Peacemakers with ivory grips holstered on a heavy-duty gun belt. The ammo stuck in the cartridge loops of the belt shined with old-school silver bullets.
The way he carried himself seemed vaguely familiar. "Who're you?"
"Somebody who's been sent to help. Mordechai kindly asked that I not let you pass." He had a very pronounced old Southern accent. "You ain't done yet. There's a mess of folks counting on you."
"I know."
"You best not fail them." He glanced around the ballroom, as if taking in something familiar. "I never liked this room. It felt snooty. It was for bunches of rich folk, gallivanting around in their fancy clothes, telling each other how important and pretty they were." He snorted. "But you know that it was always the most special to her, ever since she was a wee little thing."
He was talking about Julie. This was her favorite room in the old Shackleford plantation house. This was where we were supposed to have gotten married. The stranger hadn't picked this backdrop. I had.
"What am I supposed to do?" I asked.
"Damned if I know. Get back there and take care of business I suppose."
"I'm dying. I got bit by a zombie."
The stranger shrugged. "Cheat death then."
"Cheat?"
"If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying hard enough. That's what I always say. So pull your head out of your rear, get righteous mad, and get to killing."
"I will."
"Then what're you doing giving up and dying?" He pointed for the door, not that I'd walked in, but I got the idea. He was sending me back. "Them monsters ain't gonna kill themselves! You a Monster Hunter, or not?"
"I'm a Monster Hunter!"
"Good!" The ghost had a mischievous grin. "My boy always had a good eye for talent."
Okay. I was back. I inhaled for what seemed like the first time in eternity.
"Hang on," Torres said. "He's still breathing."
I wasn't normal. I knew that. That point had been driven home a long time ago. I had no idea what I was. All I did know was that I didn't want to die. Especially not like this.
The pain returned like a crashing tsunami. It was like being on fire and electrocuted and drowned at the same time. The virus, an incomprehensible curse from outside the boundaries of this world, pushed one last time to finish me. I screamed at the top of my lungs, a combination of fear, agony, and fury. My thrashing increased in intensity. The joints of the chair cracked. "Get help!" Torres cried as he tried in vain to restrain me.
The black energy swept through my body like a flash flood, burning, purging, cleansing, only this time I was the one in control. The lightning clashed with the virus. Then as quickly as it started, it was done.
The war was over.
The shaking stopped. My head flopped limply onto my chest.
"Wait!" Torres commanded.
The pain was still there. But now it was different, the fever had passed. I flexed my hands on the arms of the chair. I could feel again.