Amelia made no attempt to remember the way she came as she drove along the glittering path her spell had picked out through the Dead Queen’s ship, because she intended to find her way back via the same style of magic.

  She passed countless tunnels and halls to either side, some with polished floors, while others were unfinished. After a short time following more twists and turns than she cared to count, she began to wonder if her spell was as lost as she was. The place was like a maze, which was no real surprise, since it was the size of a mountain.

  Most everywhere she went, there were more zombies, most of which scurried out of the way, probably to avoid spending eternity with shattered limbs. Many of them were dressed like common laborers, though it was hard to tell, since they wore rags that were falling off almost as badly as their skin and muscles.

  When soldiers spotted her, they stood in the way, but Amelia paid them no heed, rolling right over them like she’d done with the one in the dress, because she had no compunction about killing the undead.

  In the blink of the eye, Amelia lost the glittering trail and hit the brakes, coming to a stop. She switched the wagon into reverse and looked backwards, only to see the most enormous dog with glowing, red eyes leap into the air! He landed on the roof with a heavy thump, because he must have outweighed Amelia by sixty or seventy pounds!

  Amelia cursed and slammed the accelerator pedal all the way to the floor, watching as the huge dog lost his purchase and slid off the roof, only to latch his claws into the seam between the front window and the front armor plate, which was not an improvement!

  Amelia looked forward into the dog’s huge eyes and gleaming, yellow teeth, while it met her gaze, giving her the most malevolent and intelligent glare an animal had ever given her, which was absolutely full of lethal intent! Its jaws closed as it growled, producing a note so deep, it caused the frame of the wagon to vibrate!

  Hoping to shake the dog loose, Amelia hit the brake again, coming to a stop, only to immediately switch back to the first forward gear! The only result was to bring the dog’s face closer!

  Unfortunately for it, it had no idea that its lower body was resting on top of the driver’s side gonne. Amelia slammed the button on the dash, firing a round through its belly and upward through its hind end!

  Blood spattered on the window, leaving Amelia blind for a moment as awful, metallic sounds happened outside the wagon, along with more growling! Amelia tried the gonne again, but nothing happened, presumably because the dog had just torn it off, demonstrating a level of strength no mundane dog could ever possess!

  “What the heck?” Amelia cried out, fearfully.

  Just a moment later, the outer layer of the window cracked as the dog threw itself against the glass!

  “Oh no!”

  As the dog slammed into the glass a second time, Amelia went up to second gear, then third, all the while gaining velocity! She knew what she had planned was totally crazy, but she’d built the wagon to take at least a couple of crashes, since it was a prototype and she wasn’t the greatest of drivers! As the dog struck the glass again, the inner pane cracked and Amelia got the wagon into fourth gear, her mathematical mind telling her she was going about thirty miles an hour, based on the scenery whizzing past the side windows.

  Knowing the dog might strike again at any time, Amelia turned the wheel sharply to the side, intentionally crashing into a wall, just as canine fangs broke through the glass, which had been enhanced with runes to be as hard as steel! The wagon instantly came to a stop, causing Amelia’s body to strain against the safety straps! The dog, however, was only attached through claws, teeth and sheer, stubborn will! It flew free and the window went with it!

  For a brief instant, Amelia watched it tumble away, but when the brute tossed the window aside and rose without one single scratch on its body, real terror filled Amelia from head to toe! The beast bore its teeth, howled and charged forward!

  Amelia scrambled to shift the wagon back into reverse, for one half of a complete one-eighty turn, then quickly slammed the transmission back into first, accelerating away, while she glanced back at the terrifying dog, which was keeping up! She switched into second and put on more speed, but the beast was accelerating at the same pace, as if anger was making it stronger!

  “Crap!” Amelia screamed and dared to look forward, because she needed to find that turn she’d missed!

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  She spotted the glittering path and took a hard turn up a ramp to another level, without slowing down, while the dog did much the same, though in contrast, he was moving faster!

  Amelia reached the next floor up and turned onto a wide, open path, in an exceptionally large chamber full of buildings! By the look of things, she’d reached the top floor of the monolith, which really was a city, lit from above by a huge, glowing crystal mounted in the ceiling. Handcarts hauled by zombie labor thronged the streets, while the glittering path went straight ahead, right through their midst.

  Once again glancing back, Amelia noted the fact her pursuer was almost close enough to jump and she shook her head, “I’m not letting you do that again!”

  As cart-hauling zombies skittered out of her way, Amelia looked back, while she reached forward, to put one hand on the booster lever. When the dog leaped, she slammed the lever forward and the wagon accelerated to its maximum speed in just a few seconds! The dog missed, landing on its feet, though it couldn’t keep up!

  Amelia turned her head to face forward far too late to avoid slamming into a wooden cart full of large, ceramic jars! The wagon went right through the cart without stopping, while bits of wood bounced everywhere, but the heavy jars tipped over, dumping cold water all over Amelia before they rolled off the wagon! Amelia drank as much of the water as she could before it poured out of the wagon, because she was still dehydrated.

  As she continued to follow the glittering path, Amelia shut off the boosters and put a little more effort into watching the road, though she didn’t dare slow down, until the path came to a squat, rectangular building that had been carved from the same granite bedrock as the rest of the ship. Since the path led inside, Amelia slowed down, set the brake and got out of the wagon, while looking back the way she’d come. She shivered at the thought of that death dog catching up to her without Marta’s help and drew her hand-gonne, holding it in both hands, for maximum stability.

  Hypothetically, if she shot that death dog in the head, it would die, but she doubted anything less would kill it. Magic was also a bad idea, because that might just make it heal faster, since that was how zombies worked in legend, but she wasn’t sure it was one, because it could possibly have been a demon.

  Amelia ran for the door of the building and kicked it, intending to make a bold and powerful entrance. What actually happened was that she hurt her foot, because the door was solid oak, two inches thick!

  “Ow! Crap!” Amelia complained.

  She turned the doorknob, then pushed it open with her foot, for a somewhat less dramatic entrance. Nonetheless, she rushed inside the room and took note of three zombies, armored head to toe, with only their faces exposed.

  For once in her life, Amelia reacted first, by aiming at the closest of her opponents, while she did the math for a precise shot in less than a quarter of a second! She pulled the trigger and didn’t bother to wait for the results, aiming at the second for another mathematically precise shot! Both of the zombies she fired at went down with a lead ball through the brains!

  Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t destruction of the brain that killed them, but rather severe damage to the skull, because zombies had always been animated skeletons inside a body, whether the flesh was alive, dead, or somewhere halfway between, but the anchor point for the necromantic spells that kept them going had always been the skull. Incidentally, it was the combination of bones moved by a bonded spirit combined with some living flesh that made zombies supernaturally strong, doubling their effective brawn.

  The third zombie swung his sword and Amelia acted on the instinct that had been drilled into her head during basic training, ducking without thought! As she came back up, she pressed her hand-gonne into the zombie’s face and pulled the trigger!

  His filthy, rotting blood splattered all over Amelia, who looked down at herself with disgust, “Oh, gross! That’s just nasty!”

  She looked around the room, noting she was in a building that somewhat resembled a sheriff’s office, with a front counter for the paperwork and a short hall beyond that, which had three doors to either side that featured beefy locks. The front area was lit by a dim crystal mounted into the ceiling, but the hallway barely got any light.

  She took a moment to examine each corpse, confirmed her enemies were down, then threw up in the corner, because they hadn’t been pretty sights when they were still moving, but they were even worse with holes in their heads, the last of which had been driven through a festering eye.

  The howl of the supernatural dog broke through the quiet moment, hot-wiring Amelia’s sense of self-preservation, which prodded her into immediate action! She followed the glittering line right over the counter, leaping it in one go! From there, it led to a particular door, which naturally turned out to be locked!

  The front door burst off its hinges and the dog barked as it entered! It leaped over the counter, clearly following its nose!

  Amelia screamed in the witch’s tongue, using the words for ‘metal’, ‘lock’ and ‘open’ as she laid a hand on the lock! The tumblers worked themselves and Amelia pushed the door open with her whole body, barely missing a perfect opportunity to become dog food, while the dog slid down the polished, granite floor of the hall, because it overshot!

  The inside of the cell was totally dark, causing Amelia to scream the word for ‘light’ in the witch’s tongue! Light poured from a little, floating orb that bathed the room in a soft, white glow, revealing Marta sitting in a cross-legged meditative posture, so deep in a trance that she totally failed to react to the light.

  As the death dog stepped into the cell, moving with a kind of cold and calculated menace that took centuries of practice to perfect, growling in a way that sent shivers up and down the spine in rapid succession, Amelia stumbled over to her sister and knelt beside her!

  Amelia grabbed Marta and screamed right in her ear, “Wake up, Marta! I need you!”

  The dog charged!