As one, the dead

  animals lunged at her. Their voices joined into a ridiculous cacophony.

  Growls and snarls erupted from every dead throat. The one parrot in the

  crowd, its white eyes glaring while it flapped towards her, called out a

  scratchy caw.

  The

  animals came at her in waves. Rats clawed over cats. Dogs raced ahead.

  They crowded on top of each other and pushed each other up the sewer

  walls in undulating rows of undead flesh.

  Sam

  wasted no time turning heel. She ran back as fast as her legs would

  move. Some of the animals outpaced her. A pair of dogs caught up to her

  easily, even as the lethargy of death dragged at them.

  The

  dogs fell on Sam, biting at her heels, lunging towards her as she ran.

  One leapt and caught her in the heel. its teeth sank into the flesh of

  her calf. Another, sensing the opportunity, jumped and caught her in the

  thigh. The two dogs fell into each other, and she wrenched her leg free

  at the cost of both a fresh hole in her pants and part of her leg.

  She

  kicked away the entangled dogs and managed to right herself before any

  of the rats or the bird caught her. She ran all the way back into the

  alchemy lab and tried to slam the door shut before the dogs scrambled

  back to their feet. They managed to shove their snouts into the open

  door. She kicked at them until they pulled back and she slammed it shut.

  Now

  trapped in the room with an entire herd of domesticated zombies outside

  snarling, snapping, grinding and biting, the worn metal of the door

  would hold them out, but no other way out existed unless she liquefied

  herself and went out a drain.

  Sam

  cast panicked eyes around the room. She wondered which of the fluids

  and chemicals in the various jars and flasks held flammable liquid. She

  thought of improvising a Molotov cocktail using the colorful bottles

  arrayed on the tables in the room. Strips of the cultist's robes would

  serve as a fuse.

  Sam

  stopped for a moment, remembering the cultist's robes. With these

  animals loose in the sewers, the cultists would want some way to protect

  and recognize each other. They would want to ensure the cultists

  themselves would not be attacked as they made their way from room to

  room. They'd want it to be dead simple. Her new friend left unmentioned this important detail in his

  scrawled notes. He must've known about the horde of undead pets.

  Sam

  had no other options available to her. She reasoned this must be how their twisted system worked. She started to strip the man she had beaten

  either unconscious or dead. She again didn't bother to check as she

  heaved his limbs around, trying to remove his robe.

  Sam trusted her instinct. Still, she hesitated after putting on the robe. She could

  sit here and wait for the cultists to come and find her after

  investigating the commotion and risk she'd be able to deal with them.

  Maybe one would come alone. Or a dozen would surround the

  blocked door and she'd be as dead as if she let the monsters outside eat

  her. She always courted risk. This time she figured the robes must be

  how they communicated to these undead creatures.

  Hedging

  her bets, she sniffed around the bottles until she found one that stunk

  of alcohol. She ripped a strip off the alchemist's pants, and stuffed

  it into the neck of the bottle, plugging it up. A striker for Bunsen

  burners lay on the table holding Mr. Snowball's body. She didn't light

  the Molotov cocktail, but she held the striker, ready to ignite it.

  She threw wide open the door against the snarls, growls, and scrabbling scratches she heard

  from the other side. The zombie horde persisted. She suspected the

  magic animating them caused them to pursue targets until their bodies

  dissolved into mush, or until their target died.

  Holding

  high her Molotov cocktail and readying the striker, she flung the door

  open wide. Using her broken hand hurt but she gritted her teeth against

  the pain.

  The animals flowed past her. They didn't look at her.

  Instead, they fell on the body of the man she stole the robe from, tearing

  him to pieces. Sam stood still as the animals stampeded past her. She

  didn't want to risk drawing their attention by moving.

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  The

  blood didn't flow onto the floor as the animals gnawed at the body. Rather, it floated up into their mouths. More

  than undeath went into the contract animating the animals. Now, having

  threatened her life twice, she needed to find out what the hell it was.

  On a whim and against her better judgment, Sam spoke up and ordered the horde, "Stop."

  The animals stopped savaging the body and stood motionless. Not understanding the mechanism by which this happened, she tried, "Sit."

  Each

  animal in its own way sat down. The cats and dogs sat. All the rats

  squatted low on all four paws. The parrot perched on the bench by the

  mauled alchemist. Strange magic, Sam thought, because in life none of

  these animals would understand those words, much less obey them.

  "Stay," she said, and she made her way out of the room and shut the door. Wondering what would have happened if she said "die" or "sleep."

  She decided to find out. She opened the door where the zombie herd still sat awaiting their next command.

  "Die," she spoke in a clear, firm voice.

  As

  one, the animals' eyes rolled up into their heads, and whatever magic

  animating them evaporated. Dozens of corpses piled on top of each other,

  rats, cats, and dogs all took on the form of natural death. The parrot

  fell from its bench.

  Sam understood less the more she learned. She thought of searching for Missy's dog

  but abandoned the idea because too many bodies piled up. She shut the

  door and worked her way further down the sewer. The thin electrical

  light guided her.

  Further

  into the tunnels, more light spilled from an opening.

  She made her way towards it, creeping up in her brand new cult robes.

  Looking inside the new room, she saw a sewer junction where three tunnels spilled into a small cistern leading into the main tunnel she occupied.

  This

  room glowed with oil lamps attached to the walls. She wondered how they

  kept these rooms dry against the rain and the sewage. Did they divert

  sewage? Did they brick up the tunnels? She filed these away as questions

  to investigate the answers for later.

  The

  room itself had high, arched ceilings, and brick walls patched with

  concrete. The floors were dirty brick, covered in filth. Around the

  circular room sat cages of various shapes and sizes. Each cage held a

  different animal, or a group of animals trapped together. Every single

  animal in the cages was dead yet moved.

  Another

  cultist labored against an animal's body in the center of the room

  facing away from her. This time the table sat arrayed with ritual

  symbols and runes inscribed into the stone of the table. She couldn't

  make out the inscription enough to interpret the working unfolding before

  her. The man performing the ritual offered hearts, brains, and lungs,

  all extracted from the animals they were trying to resurrect. At that price the

  cultists must've killed a dozen animals to get one undead.

  This

  time Sam didn't need to ask questions. She crept up behind the cultist before he completed his dark working. She slipped her arm around his

  throat, one hand behind his head, favoring the broken hand. She

  squeezed. The man struggled. He tried to swipe at her. He tried to claw her face. Luckily, this cult

  wasn't interested in working with trained fighters.

  The

  man collapsed unconscious on the floor. She gave him a good kick to

  make sure he wasn't faking. She decided

  she was safe enough to begin investigating the room when he didn't cry out.

  First,

  she examined the seal on the stone table, along with an unfortunate

  rat. The seal was a standard invocation, offering body parts in

  exchange for power. Like all magic, if the deal was accepted, the

  contract fulfilled, then the body parts would disappear into black

  smoke.

  Several

  parts of the seal were unfamiliar to her. She cast her eyes around the

  room, wishing she thought to bring a writing implement and paper with her

  so she could copy the seal.

  She did her best to memorize it. She would go and visit Emile later and

  ask him what the symbols meant and how they were worked into the ritual.

  Sam

  started to make her way around the cages crowding the room. They formed

  rows and columns, a ringed circumference of the room. Within each one,

  zombie animal eyes stared back out at her. She started looking for dogs,

  hoping to find the Doberman Pinscher Missy hired her for.

  After

  some time she came on a large cage with a large dog inside, a Doberman

  Pinscher. A tag hung from its black leather collor. Rex, it said.

  Missy told her the dog's name was Rex despite being a female. When Sam asked why Missy gave her this name, the girl said, "Because she's a king, and Rex means king. Don't you know anything?"

  Sam

  opened the cage and examined the dog, unafraid because the cultist robe

  provided her protection from the dog's aggression. She wondered

  what would happen if she took off the robe, but wasn't going to conduct

  that experiment to find out.

  An experiment she did run: she told the dog to sit. It complied without any change in expression. Sam continued to try her luck.

  "Rex, be nice," she said.

  The

  dog started wagging its docked tail, and began a relaxed panting. The

  simple command restored it to some semblance of its former personality.

  "Follow me," she ordered Rex. "We're going to go find whoever did this to you."