Free Beyond the Blue Moon (Forest Kingdom Novels) by Simon R. Green

living dead came up on her blind side, its clawed hand reaching for the back of her head. Hawk started to cry out a warning, and then the zombie’s hand closed on Mistique’s thick black hair, and ripped it away. The whole great black mane of hair came away in his hand, revealing a shiny bald head underneath it. The dead man looked at it, puzzled, as Mistique howled with outrage. Her mists streamed into the zombie’s mouth, shot down into his body, and then blew him apart from the inside. Hawk and Fisher looked at each other as they ran.
    “I didn’t know she wore a wig,” said Hawk. “Did you know she wore a wig?”
    “Shut up and keep running,” said Fisher.
    “Been a real day of surprises today,” said Hawk, and then he shut up and saved what was left of his breath for running.
    They were soon pounding into the cobbled yard before the DeWitts’ place of business. There were lights in all the windows, but no trace of anyone anywhere. Hawk yelled for the DeWitts to show themselves, but there was no response. Even the private guards in their stupid uniforms were conspicuous by their absence. Hawk and Fisher hefted their weapons and moved cautiously forward. The front door stood slightly ajar. Hawk pushed it slowly open with one hand, tense for any response, but all was still and quiet. Hawk pushed the door all the way open, and he and Fisher charged forward into the hall beyond.
    What remained of the the DeWitts’ personal guard lay scattered the length of the hall. They lay still where they had fallen, eyes staring unseeingly, their weapons mostly still undrawn. Whatever had killed them had hit them hard and suddenly, and now they just cluttered the hall. Fisher knelt and examined a few, and then shook her head.
    “No obvious wounds. No discoloration to the face, so probably not poison. Something just … sucked all the life right out of them. Our sorcerer’s been busy.”
    “Maybe he’s using their life force to maintain his control over the zombies,” said Hawk, looking quickly about him. “If so, then the odds are that everyone else here is dead, too. I suppose it’s too much to hope that he got the DeWitts.”
    “Concentrate on the business at hand,” Fisher said sharply. “If this sorcerer is as powerful as Mistique thinks, there could be all kinds of defensive spells between us and him.”
    “Right,” said Hawk. “And one’ll get you ten he already knows we’re here.”
    They moved cautiously forward down the hall, stepping carefully over the dead bodies, weapons at the ready, but nothing and no one emerged from the shadows to meet them. The silence was absolute, apart from Hawk’s and Fisher’s strained breathing. They checked each room leading off the hall, but they found no defensive magics, no creatures appearing out of midair, no elementals descending suddenly upon them from the spirit realms. Only more dead, struck down wherever they happened to be when the sorcerer cast his deadly spell.
    Hawk and Fisher ascended the great stairway at the end of the hall, the backs of their necks tingling in anticipation of the attack they’d probably never know till it hit them. They stopped at the top of the stairs and looked about them. Closed doors and unmoving shadows looked calmly back at them. Fisher hefted her sword unhappily.
    “This is wrong,” she said softly. “There should be all kinds of nasty surprises protecting a sorcerer this powerful.”
    “Unless he isn’t really all that powerful,” said Hawk, just as quietly. “And it’s taking everything he’s got just to keep his zombie spell going.”
    “In which case,” said Fisher, “I vote for charging right in and killing the bastard before he realizes what’s happening.”
    Hawk looked at her fondly. “That’s what you always suggest.”
    “Yeah—and most of the time it works.”
    “Can’t argue with that. All right, we listen at each door until we hear something magical, then we burst in and I’ll race you to see