Dead Rising Read Online Free Page B

springing to my feet in what looked to be a park. Glancing around quickly to orient myself, I saw the shadows of tall trees and geometrically shaped bushes, all vague lumps of gray sheltered by the wall from the streetlights. Behind me my pursuer grunted and scrabbled as he tried to get over the brick fence. With any luck he’d give up.
    Nope. I ran and heard the thud of the man’s body against the ground the same moment my foot stubbed against something hard and solid, pitching me onto my face. Luckily the ground was soft and velvety grass cushioned the impact of my body against the sod. Stupid sandals. I was never wearing heels again. Only hiking shoes and joggers, just in case a vampire ditched me north of town and I needed to run from some dude who’d been assaulting a prostitute. I wasted a precious second to cradle my bruised toes and saw what I’d tripped over. It wasn’t a rock, it was a grave stone.
    The moon came out from behind a cloud, illuminating the “park” around me in a rolling ocean of white. Neatly placed rows of green were bisected by rectangles of marble. Ahead the markers rose several feet tall, headstones gleaming in the silvery moonlight.
    The call of the moon wasn’t the only thing I felt. Magic bit sharply through the air, tingling along my skin like an electric pulse. There were a lot of spells that required a full moon and a graveyard, but none smelled like rotted flesh and mothballs, none felt like a thousand maggots moving along the ground. Shit. The ground really was moving, and it was maggots. Grass vanished, dirt shifted like sand parting around me. I rolled, desperately trying to find some portion of the ground that wasn’t turning into a silt-like form of quicksand.
    Solid ground. I panted, my hair spilling around my face as I struggled to my feet, no longer worried about the man who’d been chasing me. Flesh and blood I could deal with, this I couldn’t—at least not without some serious preparation.
    Brushing the hair from my eyes I saw them. White smoke rolled up from five graves, swirling in columns. Limbs extended, features formed, and before me were five specters.
    I heard a gasp from behind me. “Holy shit. What…who are you?”
    Correction, five specters and one bulky man. He was smeared with dirt, his clothing torn from rolling in an alley and falling over a brick fence, but he still was intimidating. Well, he would have been intimidating if I hadn’t been pretty sure he was pissing his pants right now.
    “Magic fire. Ghosts.” The man took a few steps back, his eyes huge as they darted between me and the shadowy ghosts. “You’re a fucking witch. A fucking witch.” He barely got the last word out before running and nearly throwing himself back over the fence. I should have been glad. That was one last threat I needed to face. Instead I was feeling a spike of fear at being left alone with five newly risen spirits.
    Templar instruction on ghostly spirits was only geared to clearing a path for pilgrims and Knights to pass safely, and my extracurricular magical studies didn’t lean toward the necromantic. I didn’t know anyone who delved into that sort of thing. Evidently someone did, and that someone was nearby.
    I touched my heart, and went down on one knee. The specters were fully coalesced and beginning to gather their power. My skin prickled with the chill of their presence. My heartbeat jumped, but I didn’t have time for a panic attack or an adrenaline freak-out. I was trained for this. I may have spent my life in privilege, my only experience academic, but these rites had been drilled into me from the moment my Knight training began.
    My heart rate normalized. I made the sign of the cross. “ Jesu, luys im chanaparhy .”
    A tunnel of light appeared, reaching from my feet to the end of the cemetery. The specters shrieked, floating backward to give the glowing path a wide breadth. I rose and walked carefully forward, aware that the light closed behind me