“I killed you before, you little bastard, and I’ll do it again if I have to. And this time no take-backs.” I start to pull together a spell. I know I outclass him, but that shield’s going to block most things I can throw at him. So I don’t throw anything.

“Blow it out your ass, old man.” He starts to run at me with the sword high over his head, screaming like a Florida meth addict.

“Old? Fuck you, I’ll show you old.” I let the spell loose just as he gets to Kevin’s dripping corpse. The former Officer Hearne reaches out and grabs his foot as he runs by. Shield won’t do shit if you’ve got it aimed in the wrong direction. And he’s not looking at his feet. Dan goes down hard, the sword skidding across the ground toward me. I stop it with my foot, the cheap blade snapping in two.

“You couldn’t splurge on a decent sword?” I say. “This thing couldn’t cut cold butter.” Dan answers me by screaming. At this point Kevin has rolled onto him and crawled his inside-out corpse up Dan’s legs, pinning him to the ground.

If he were thinking clearly, Dan could throw him off with a spell, but he’s panicking and trying to crawl away, not registering that that’s not going to work. He’s got a couple hundred pounds of inside-out, dead cop inching slug-like up his body. This is why people die in zombie movies.

I step over to them and crouch down. Dan’s eyes are wide with panic. He beats uselessly against the corpse with his fists, sending up little sprays of blood and gore.

“I gave you a second chance,” I say. I wipe a drop of blood spray off my cheek. “I know you don’t believe me when I say I didn’t kill your mother. Something tells me you’re never going to believe it. I’ve got a whole boatload of pissed off mages after my head right now. I don’t have time for this shit. I can’t have this happen again.”

“It won’t,” he says, tears pouring out his eyes. “I promise. Please. Just get it off me.” Kevin hauls himself up to Dan’s chest, pushing the air out of his lungs, keeps moving up his body.

His screams turn to a wheeze and then a whimper and then nothing but a gurgle as the corpse crawls up to his face. Dan’s not dead yet, but he will be soon, drowned in the cop’s blood and smothered from his weight.

He’s a pain in the ass. And apparently a serial killer. And he tried to kill me. Twice now. I should just let him choke to death.

Then I notice the ghosts, and now I have questions.