The Spears of Laconia (Purge of Babylon, Book 7) by Sam Sisavath Page A

structure was almost entirely all black marble but shorter at just fifteen stories.
    Then he saw it and couldn’t help but grin.
    “What?” Jordan said. “What are you grinning at like an idiot?”
    “He fell short,” Keo said.
    “Who?”
    “Frank.” Keo pointed at a lone broken window on the fourteenth floor of the black marble building. “He was aiming for the rooftop but he had too far of a jump, and his trajectory dipped before he reached it. He’s fast—and shit, can he jump—but apparently even he has his limitations.”
    Jordan stared at the single broken window on the fourteenth floor of the building across the street. “Are you saying he leapt from our building to that one? Keo, that’s—”
    “Impossible?” Keo smiled. “Jordan, we’ve been walking around with a blue-eyed ghoul for the last week, trying to stay one step ahead of collaborators and undead things. ‘Impossible’ shouldn’t even be in our vocabulary anymore.”
    *
    Keo wasn’t surprised to find ghouls inside the lobby of the marble building. He could see them moving around in the shadowed parts through the windows, and he spent just as much time wondering how many were inside as he did ignoring the lingering smell of dead things in the streets around him.
    “So I guess that’s out of the question,” Jordan said, standing next to him.
    “Guess so.”
    “What now?”
    “How are you for ammo?”
    She tapped the ammo pouches around her waist, then sighed.
    “That much, huh?” he said.
    “One more for the M4, and two for the Glock. You?”
    “Same.”
    She sneaked a look over her shoulder, back at the taller building they’d just climbed down from. “Our supplies are still up there, along with the radio.”
    “The operative phrase being ‘up there.’”
    “Maybe we can climb. Those things did.”
    “And a lot of them went splat.”
    “Good point.” She returned her gaze to the lobby in front of them. “You think he’s in there somewhere?”
    “I don’t know. He had all night to fight his way out. He might not even be in the city anymore.”
    “You really believe that?”
    He didn’t answer right away.
    “Keo?”
    “I don’t know,” he finally said. “How many were at Santa Marie Island? Two hundred tops? Last night was an entire city’s worth. That’s…a lot.”
    “This thing, the one he calls Mabry,” Jordan said quietly, as if afraid the creature might hear her if she said the name too loudly. “It’s behind this. It wants him.”
    Keo nodded. He didn’t like saying the name any more than she did. Hell, he didn’t even want to think it. The fact that Frank was uncomfortable saying the name out loud said it all.
    If it can scare him…
    He looked down the street, past the stalled vehicles and year-old trash left unattended by a city that had once been crowded with people. He could almost sniff the ocean water from here.
    “They might be out there,” Jordan said. “Your friends.”
    “Only one way to find out.”
    “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a working vehicle, so we won’t have to walk the entire way.”
    Keo chuckled as they started up the street.
    “What?” Jordan said. “One of us has to stay positive.”
    “You’re doing a good job of it.”
    “Oh, shut up. It’s your fault I’m here in the first place.”
    “Hey, you didn’t have to tag along.”
    “Right, like I had much of a choice after T18 and Santa Marie Island.”
    “There was always Tobias.”
    She sighed. “You’re right. I should have left with Tobias…”
    *
    Sunport, Texas, was an oil-based industry town, which meant groupings of oil refineries dotted the landscape as Keo and Jordan left the downtown area behind and took FM 1495 toward the beach. They had been walking ever since Santa Marie Island, picking their way south along the coastline. It had been a real pain in the ass with his gimpy leg, but eventually the wound became numbed enough on day three (or was it day four?) that he could walk without