Chapter 76

The clarity of decision filled him. They would die. Daniel had not fully planned it out, but he wanted to lean into his growth magic.

Moving silently, he placed a hand on the door.

A green glow developed from his hand, and his senses shot out.

You are in my playpen, he thought dismissively and briefly remembered how poor his control in that first zombie attack had been. If he had possessed a smidgen of his current skill, then that fight would have been trivial. Or raw power , the small voice in the back of his head chimed. Both raw power and skill had ballooned. And the body count of zombies supported that assertion.

This time, it was different.

The outside appeared in duplicate. Priscilla, knowing instinctively what he needed, shared her stereo vision while his Plant Sense gave him a general idea of where everyone was. The tiles on the roof directly above Beau shifted slightly, and then the length of a lasso formed, energy flooding into it to grow.

Simultaneously, both of the men standing in ambush were leaning on wood. Pressure built up in the surrounding wood.

Crack.

Bear traps went off but with flat bands as opposed to edge. The noose fell.

The moisture got sucked out of the falling vine, turning it into dead, ropey fibre instantly. As the water departed, the vine shrank. Not a lot, just by a couple of inches. It was all about timing. Beau was jerked off his feet, his head caught in the noose.

Beau clutched his vine with his dark, corrosive magic playing out against the dead fibre. The magic hit and did nothing, just like Daniel had guessed. Dark magic, while extraordinarily damaging against living flesh, had no power against dead material. The man’s eyes were bugging out. The two in ambusher position were wrapped with vines having tied up their arms.

Daniel threw the door open and looked at the chaos. Beau was hanging but had got his fingers into position to stop himself from choking. The two who had been preparing to cut him to pieces when he emerged could not move. The one on the left had blood running down his face where his own axe had pierced his skin during the forceful closing of the trap. The other, from the gushing blood, had a broken nose. Daniel did not care.

“What do you want to talk about?”

The fourth lackey looked at what had happened in disbelief; they had a candle still lit in the centre of the corridor. It made everything dance in flickering shadows. The axe fell from the last man’s hand and clumped on the carpet. Then he turned to run.

“Please,” Ambusher Two begged.

“What are you doing there?” he asked again while sending a mental command to Priscilla. The mouse zipped into action, and the stairwell door glowed green before the fourth man reached it.

Beau was thrashing, magic flaring in his hands. Daniel swung the club, clipping the offending wrist. He felt the slight tug as one point caught on skin. Beau lost control of the spell, and he cursed as the magic fired, burning into his casting hand. Daniel watched, fascinated, as the dark magic consumed Beau’s very flesh and turned the hand skeletal. Then anger flashed in Daniel. That was what Beau had wanted to do to him.

Daniel stepped forward, looking at the ex-cop who had tried to bully his way to a better life. Pain, fear, and desperation filled his eyes.

Restraint, compassion, conciliation?

No, Daniel thought to himself. None of that, only justice. No government could have survived this transition. There were no rules, and this man had wanted to kill him. Anger flared inside him. The man he had literally saved from being trapped within his room and dying there had, because he wished to laze around, attempted to murder him. If Beau had succeeded, what would have happened to Gabby, Zac, and the baby? This was not even about Daniel.

If he let him go . . . Daniel knew that he would have to kill him later. He also understood that leaving him in the community would be like feeding cancer cells. Worse, if he did nothing, then Ivey would probably act. She was at risk just as much as he had been, and she had shown a willingness to discard old-world concepts.

This little coup could only end in death. Restraint, compassion, and conciliation—he scoffed at the idea. This new world had no place for those ideals.

“What, cat got your tongue?”

“You are strangling him,” Ambusher One said with blood streaming from his nose where part of the constricting trap had hit it.

“So?” Daniel said in response, making no move to do anything. Beau was trying to grab the vine above him and lift himself up. His strength would fail soon. It was like he had totally forgotten about the knife on his belt.

“Aren’t you going to help?”

“Why would I do that?”

“He will die,” Ambusher Two said.

“And what were you planning on doing to me?”

They shut up, and Beau, with a gasp, had pulled himself high enough to suck in some breath.

Ivey was directly behind Daniel, and he wondered what she was thinking. Most women would have been appalled with what he was doing, but she was not like anyone else he knew. Maybe Tamara—she too had that gorgeous hard edge when needed.

Daniel swung the club casually in circles, not saying a thing. This was taking too long. He redirected the spinning club to flash past Beau’s hands like last time. The club in his hand shivered, and the teeth seemed to lunge. He had been intending to just knock the hand away, but the club gripped like Velcro and yanked instead.

It was Beau’s good hand. The impact tore it from the rope and ripped the ring finger and little finger clean off. Blood poured out.

Beau tried to scream, but he slipped, and the noose tightened, promptly robbing him of air. It looked like the man’s eyeballs were popping out. With a small shudder, he glanced away. Beau would find his knife or die, and, given his panic, Daniel knew which one he was betting on . . . and if Beau found the knife, then he would die anyway. There was going to be no mercy for him today.

While he had done the deed, he did not need to watch it. Instead, he focused on the other two. To save the kids, he would do what was required. That was his vow to himself, and now he had to deal with the rest of the trash.

It would be easy to grow vines, loop it around their necks and finish this. For a moment, buds sprouted on the wood behind the men.

A great shuddering breath and the buds sank back into the wood. Magically simple, click and the problem went, but Daniel needed to do better.

He could hear the fourth man trying and failing to open the stairwell door. Ivey made no request to save Beau, and if she had, Daniel would not have relented.

“You guys came to kill me,” he whispered.

“It was all Beau.”

“You came to kill me?”

“I am sorry. He promised we would be in charge. I am sorry, I wouldn’t have done. I am not a killer. I was scared, and he said the others would do the fighting and we would get the spoils.”

“Girls?” he asked quietly, dangerously.

“No,” the captured man said, instantly sounding disgusted at the idea. “I mean, if the right person wanted to, I wouldn’t. My wife is probably—”

“Shut up.”

Silence greeted him apart from the jostling door. Beau’s feet were no longer kicking.

“Idiot,” Daniel yelled out. The man at the stairwell froze, knowing that shout had been directed at him. He stared forlornly at the door that, despite everything he had tried, had not shifted. Daniel paused for a moment to let the man register the hopelessness of his situation.

“Come here. Sit there.” Daniel pointed at a spot on the floor next to the other wall. The man looked reluctant, but clearly realising the futility of resistance, slunk back and sat as instructed. He was weak.

Crack!

Everyone else jumped, especially the fourth man who was now as trapped as the other two.

“What are we going to do?” Ivey asked.

He could kill them and finish this. Ivey would support him, and if he disposed of the bodies, no one would say anything. They would, however, think it, and there were so few humans left. There was also no reason to rush it.

“We can decide in the morning. Let’s go upstairs.” He held out a hand. Ivey nodded.

“You can’t leave us here.”

He ignored them. Light appeared in Ivey’s hand, and he pushed open the stairwell.

Stay, he thought at Priscilla. I want to hear everything they say.

Together, hand in hand, Daniel and Ivey walked up in silence. The door clicked shut behind them, cutting off the sounds of the men begging for mercy and not to be left restrained in the dark. A dark that might be filled with monsters.

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