“Everything’s profound when there’s guns and zombies.”
She taps her wrist.
“Ticktock, Wild Bill.”
“Done. How does that look?”
I hold out the na’at to her. She takes it and spins it easily, making thrusts, jabbing the air. She drops into a strong forward stance, mimes pushing it through a body and yanking it back out. Whatever else she is, she’s comfortable with weapons.
“Church will revive first. Bring him to me and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
I kick the other two aside and pick up Church. He’s already starting to twitch.
“Lean him against the wall, facing away from us.”
I do it and get behind her.
“Your weapon isn’t perfectly designed yet, but you’ll fix it when I show you a real one. It’s best to go in through the back so you aren’t forced to rip out the rib cage and organs. Thrust the weapon at heart height through the back with an upward motion so you slide between the ribs. Try not to pop it out the front of the body. The blades will expand inside the body and grip the spinal column. Spin the blades to cut away connective tissue and pull sharply using your body weight. Only when the spine is out is the revenant dead.”
Church groans. His body straightens as much as it can, but stays facing the wall. Without its brain it doesn’t occur to it to turn around.
“You can do the next one,” she says.
Brigitte collapses the na’at as small as it will go. Stands at a forty-five-degree angle to Church’s body, resting most of her weight on her back leg, and then swings the na’at over her head. On the third rotation, she snaps the na’at out like she’s throwing a blade. The weapon extends in a second, spearing Church in the back. That wakes him up. He groans and wiggles around like a fish on a line, reaching back with his one good arm to grab at the na’at. Brigitte gives the na’at a sharp snap to the right. Church stiffens. The blades are a Veg-O-Matic in his dead guts. Brigitte crouches and jumps, not an easy thing in her boots. When she comes down she shouts something in Czech and drops her weight back. Church’s back splits open and his spinal column pops out like the handle on a one-armed bandit. This time he goes down and stays down.
“Now you.”
Brigitte retracts the na’at and hands it to me.
The second Drifter is dressed in brown shorts and shirt. Some kind of delivery guy. He’s pulling himself to his feet hand over hand, using the Dumpster like a ladder. His back is to me. When he’s upright, I spin the na’at and toss it.
It goes all the way out his front and one of the barbs hooks on the edge of the Dumpster.
When I pull the na’at, the Dumpster moves, too, and the Drifter has to do a little soft shoe to stay upright.
Brigitte sighs and walks to the Dumpster. The Drifter lunges for her and she calmly spins and catches him with a roundhouse kick to the head. While it’s dazed, she climbs onto the Dumpster’s lid and kicks the na’at free.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t talk. Kill it.”
That might be the sweetest thing a woman’s ever said to me on a first date.
I snap my wrist the way she did, but the barbs are still out the front of the guy’s body. The spinning helps dig through his chest, but I get stuck on his rib cage. I’m pushing and pulling the guy all over the alley, like I’m the worst puppeteer in the universe.
“You’ve shit it all up. There’s no finesse here. Use your strength. Just rip it out.”
I take half a step forward and then snap back, using all my body weight to pull. The Drifter’s back explodes as its rib cage, lungs, heart, and spine spill out onto the alley floor. The stink is worse than a Hellion outhouse.
“Now you know why we try not to do that,” Brigitte says.
“Thanks, Nurse Ratched. Haul up the other one. I’m getting a feel for this.”
Brigitte sets the third one upright. It takes one drunken step toward her. As she steps back, her left boot heel comes down on a chunk of the delivery guy’s liver. Brigitte wobbles for just a second, but it’s just long enough for the Drifter to lunge forward and grab her wrist.
She lays into the guy hard with fists, knees, and elbows, hammering him and twisting her arm to break his grip. A living guy would have let go just from the pain. The problem is that Drifters don’t feel pain and none of her shots are quite hard enough to lay him out because she’s still ice-skating on the guts of the other Drifter.
I swing the na’at and throw. It hits the Drifter square in the back and this time it stays inside. Wrist snap and pull. His spine pops out of his back like a bony jack-in-the-box.