^^Above, some more Sellings - Left: Charlie Hunnam as Solomon Selling; Right: Ruby Stokes (pictured in Lockwood & Co.) as Marjorie Selling.^^

The Zombi-Hunting Primer

Published by the Association of British Supernatural Hunters

This Primer is the Property of: Byron Gifford

14 April, afternoon. — Father summons me to his office almost immediately after my last lecture finishes. Over the last few days I was sure he'd find out someone had been messing about in his desk. Or, alternately, he found out already and was just waiting for the right moment to bring it up.

"Perhaps you would like to explain something to me, Langdon," he says, once he motions me inside and orders that I sit in one of the hard wooden chairs in front of his desk. "My anti-theft device was not the way I left it."

"It wasn't?" I try for innocence. "Surely that's not right, Father."

"I am never careless, Langdon." He slams his palm on his blotter, making me jump. "I know exactly how it looked when I left. And it was different when I returned."

"Father—"

"It was you, wasn't it?" His eyes narrow, and the candlelight flashes off the lenses of his spectacles. "You got in here. Did you find anything useful?"

I want to say Yes, I did, and I know you want me to kill my best friend. But that doesn't come out. Instead, what does, is: "It was a dare. My mates made me. Seaton especially. You know how he is."

"A dare, hmm?" Father's eyebrows go up.

"Yes, Father." I nod. I'm glad I asked them to corroborate my story beforehand, so if Father interrogates them separately, our stories will line up. "Stupid, really. A lark. Won't happen again, I swear."

He seems almost ready to believe me. And I think he nearly does, until he asks the next question.

"Then how would your friends explain this?"

He's holding up something long, silver and pointed. It's Naomi's iron dagger, one of two I'd always seen her carrying around. I can't let on that I recognise it.

"Isham probably dropped it. He's always losing things."

"I would believe you, Langdon, except for one thing." Father's eyes narrow again, and suddenly, without warning, he stabs the dagger downward, into the wood of the desk in front of me with a sudden chunk. "What does it say on the blade, near the hilt?"

I lean forward and wriggle the dagger free, squinting down at the faint etching in the metal. At first I can't tell what it is, but then it forms a familiar name: Hudson.

"I find it interesting that your friends would have a Hudson blade and leave it carelessly lying about for someone to find," Father says, voice soft and dangerous. "How did they get it, may I ask?"

My mind races, refusing to come up with an answer.

"Langdon?" Father demands.

"I must have left it," I say quickly, the words rushing from me. "After that last time at Lord Grafton's...I met the Hudsons there. I've been meaning to return it, but I haven't seen them since then."

"I see." Father's tone is indecipherable. "I never would have thought you that irresponsible."

"Sorry, Father." That's all he ever hears from me. Sorry sorry sorry. "I'll return it. Soon as I see them again."

"Very good. Off you go, then." He waves his hand at me, and I get up and cross to the doors. Just as I touch the handle, he speaks again. "Oh, and Langdon, one more thing. I know that Hudson boy is trouble, and an even worse influence than Byron. You'd do well to part ways after you've returned that dagger."

"Of course, Father," I say, although I have no intention of doing anything of the kind.

—

Later. — Once again I find myself getting ready for an evening out, this time at Father's insistence. He'd sent a telegram ahead of him telling me I needed to be ready when he arrived, because it was time I started getting in the habit of attending Season events — something that will apparently be essential every year after I turn eighteen. Father's plans for me extend even into that realm. He knows that if I court and marry a daughter of the nobility, he could use my in-laws to advance his own social status. As if he needs to. He knows a handful of earls, a couple dukes, and various other nobility that have plenty of influence — not to mention daughters that'll be eligible to be married around the same time.

Fortunately, I'm dressed and ready long before Father gets home, and just like I did at Lord Grafton's party, I stow small hunting implements away in my evening wear — an iron dagger, a wooden stake, and a small knife with a pure silver blade. Father would tell me there's no need and that I'm being paranoid, but of course I've always been prepared, so that point is moot.

"You're quiet this evening, Langdon," Father says in the hackney cab ride en route.

"Just thinking, Father," I answer.

"About?"

"Giff. I wonder if I could have done anything to save him from what he is now." It's a lie, though — I'm thinking of Wells, again, and wishing it was him I was with, not Father. The thought of him isn't so shocking as it used to be. Actually, I'm getting fairly used to him being in my head.

"You can't keep dwelling on that boy's fate, Langdon," says Father sternly. "He is a vampire now, and that's the beginning and end of it."

I say nothing to that. I know he's lying about it. Because underneath all this discussion of blood-bonds and other creatures, there seems to be one thing that my father wants me to do — kill my best friend a second time.

"And I want you to get along with Cornelius Selling tonight," he goes on, not even noticing my scowl. "His sister is about your age...if you can earn her favour, you may have more opportunities and resources at your disposal than you know now."

"By becoming a suitor," I finish, more a mumble to myself than an answer for Father.

"Speak up, boy. You won't get anywhere if you mumble everything."

"I said...you want me to become her suitor," I say, clearer. "Court with the intention of marriage."

Father sniffs, then makes a face as if he's smelled something bad. "I know you don't think I understand you, Langdon, but I want you to know I want the best for you. I want you to be a strong, capable hunter as I was in my youth, and have a lucrative career afterward. It is all I could ever hope for, you being my only son and my sole heir."

I hear him put emphasis on the words only and sole, as if I don't already know that. Personally, I'd have rather a creature take over the Institute when Father's gone. That's how much I care about it.

"And Langdon," he goes on. "I expect only the best behaviour from you tonight, understand? I'm afraid spending all this time around those Hudsons is having a terrible influence on you."

—

Later, evening. — If there is such a thing as Purgatory, I've found it. Father paraded me around for the first hour, showing me off to the fathers of my fellow Institute students. All with the title Lord Thisandthat. I was fed up with answering the question So what will you do when you finish at the Institute, my boy? And trying to seem interested as they launched into a whole explanation of what their sons were doing when I didn't give them a clear answer.

I manage to escape Father and the rest of them when the dancing part of the evening begins, staying close to the wall and hugging the fringes of the crowd. Which is how I find the girl — who happens to be Marjorie Selling — hiding behind a potted palm near a set of French doors opening onto one of many balconies.

"This is my hiding spot, you loon," she hisses, a second before her eyes snap to mine and she takes in my face. "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were my brother, I didn't see-"

"Don't worry," I say, skirting around the palm. "I'll find another hiding place."

"Wait." She stops me, brushing my sleeve. "It's Wilkes, isn't it? Langdon?"

"Yes. And you're Marjorie."

"I'm surprised you remembered," she says, with genuine surprise. "I don't look nearly the same as I did when we first met."

"I'd know that arsenal of insults anywhere." I shrug. Marjorie had to be thick-skinned, after all, growing up in a house full of brothers. And with Cornelius Selling as one of them, which is a fate I'd never wish on anyone.

"And you're charming as always." She winks one of her bright blue eyes at me. "How is it you've gotten better-looking since then?"

"Genes?" I'd always been told I resembled my mother, inheriting her light chestnut hair, brown eyes, and freckled skin. None of Father's traits at all, which right now, I was glad for.

"We should all be so lucky," she says. Although I don't know what she has to complain about. She has a combination of her parents' striking good looks, and will probably have no problem attracting many suitors. She cocks her head at me just then. "Would you care to take some air with me? I think it's rather stuffy in this room."

"I'm sure Father won't miss me," I answer, although I have no way of knowing if that's true.

"Come on, then," she says, nodding towards the ballroom's double doors. "I hear there's a labyrinth on the property."

She leads the way out, and we keep to the walls until we reach the manor's front doors. They stand wide open, letting in the scented night air. I don't remember whose manor this is. Likely another Lord Whatsisname. But once we're out on the gravel driveway, looking up at the nearly-full moon, it almost doesn't matter.

"If we didn't have werewolves, I'd think this is almost beautiful," she says, squinting at it. "Do you ever wonder what life would be like without hunting?"

"All the time," I answer. Maybe, if there was no hunting, I would still have a mother and attend normal school. Then again, though, I never would have met Wells or Naomi, and I never would have gained them as closer friends than I could have ever imagined them to be.

"Come on," she says then, catching my hand so suddenly I jump at her touch. "We'd better find that labyrinth before someone finds us."

She tugs me across the rolling green lawn, turned silver by the moon, at a not quite a run but not quite a walk either. Had our families been close when we were children, I could imagine the two of us slipping away and getting into all kinds of mischief this way. But now, with both of us dressed in evening wear, playing at being adults for an evening, it feels like an indulgent fantasy.

"Is that it?" I gesture towards a tall hedgerow of yew, the top jagged like the ruins of a castle, as we round the corner.

"There's one way to find out," she says, without looking back at me. We come up against the prickly branches and keep going, parallel to the shrubbery now. I somewhat appreciate her pulling us away from the party, because I'd begun to think that would be my entire night. And making boring small talk with people who clearly were not interested in me as a person had been something I was not looking forward to.

We turn a corner and suddenly we're inside the labyrinth. The yews are so tall they block out the moonlight, so we stand in near-darkness. Marjorie's evening dress is just a pale smudge of grey against a black background.

"Blooming Christ on a cracker," she says, in a hushed tone. "Dark in here, isn't it?"

"Very," I answer. I'm not afraid, necessarily, but the combination of the dark and the narrow space makes me edgy. In fact the only thing that's keeping me oriented at all is Marjorie's hand still in mine.

"Wish we had some kind of light or something," she says, peering both ways.

"Are you sure you still want to go in further?" I glance back at the opening behind us, but somehow the moonlight seems to have dimmed.

"If the alternative's going back to that stuffy party, then yes." I can't see her face, but I can hear the indecision in her voice. Her hand tightens in mine.

"All right. So...forward, then?"

We make our way into the labyrinth, side-by-side so we can feel the walls. Had it not been nighttime, I would have thought we could separate and still come out on the other side. But since neither of us know a thing about how to get out, or how big it is, and it's pitch black inside, we can't afford to. A strange hush settles over us, and I can't even hear the breeze that had been stirring the top of the hedgerow.

After numerous turns — left when she tugs on my hand, right when I tug on hers — we end up in what is probably the middle. The close space opens into a slightly wider square, and at the center is a fountain: Venus, on a shell, surrounded by dolphins and cherubs spraying jets of silver water. Here we can see the moon again, which makes my edginess ebb for a moment.

Finally Marjorie lets go of my hand to settle on the edge of the fountain. Her dress flutters down around her like a bird's wings, and for a while we don't speak.

"May I assume your father dragged you here as mine did?" she asks.

"You'd be right," I say. "He asked me to play nice with your brother as well."

"Neely hardly 'plays nice,'" she says. "He thinks that for some ungodly reason, he is owed something by everyone. Even if he doesn't know them."

"Entitled," I supply, and she nods. "My father mentioned you as well...he believes that by gaining your family's favour I can advance myself."

"I've told my parents I don't want to do the Season," she says. "I want to travel...see the continent, America, Africa. Something. I've threatened to run away. But they want to see me married off, soon as possible. Apparently that's all I'm good for."

So she is more like me than I realise. I want to see the world as well, but for me it's to feed my curiosity. There are legends of other creatures in exotic places: djinn in the Mideast, wendigos in North America, all kinds of air and water spirits in Asia and Africa. If they actually exist, I want to know. I don't want to hunt them. I just want to prove the legends true, in case they're something the European hunting guilds dismiss.

"Perhaps we can do it in a way that will appease both our families," I point out. "My father wants me to embark on a Grand Tour of a sort, when I finish at the Institute. You want to see a little of the world and have to court a beastly two years before you marry. If we play it right, we may be able to accomplish all of those at once."

She smiles, and I see hope flit across her face. "That does sound grand. Except how would we ever hope to keep the pretence up? My father introduced me to a Viscount Thetford earlier...heir to his family's earldom in Peterborough or some other place. He would see me married well before he would let me go traipsing all about Europe."

"Is it not part of both our finishing educations?" I shrug. "That's pretence enough."

"Yes, true," she says with a sigh. "But we ought to think on it...the both of us are still very much at the mercy of our families and don't have much choice."

I want to reply — say something about how our families might like that we took some initiative — but a cracking of branches from one of the passages stops me.

"What was that?" I hear genuine fear creep into Marjorie's voice.

"I'm not sure. I can't see..." I squint at the dark entrances, but I can't make anything out.

A hulking shape comes blundering out of the shadows. It lumbers and shuffles, swinging its arms clumsily as it does. As it emerges into the moonlight I feel a needle of ice pierce my stomach. It's a zombi, a large one, and considering the way it's moving, it's woken up hungry.

I take two steps sideways and put my hand out to Marjorie. If we can lose it in the maze, we may have a chance of escaping it. But if we can't, then we have to kill it. And like most other hunters, I have the least experience with these creatures.

She takes it and we edge around to the opposite side of the fountain. I have no way of knowing if it can hear over the running water — although deep down, I have a feeling it can. Ever so slightly I squeeze her hand and nod to the closest break in the hedge, leading back into the maze. It's still at least a yard and a half away from us, over open ground with no hiding place. But the zombi's hidden by the fountain, and can't see us. Yet.

We back towards it. I can hear the zombi, shuffling around and making soft groaning noises. It won't even notice us unless it gets us in its sights, although I don't understand why. A zombi's eyes are blank white, no pupils or iris at all, and I don't know how it even sees.

Finally we reach the opening, and I believe we might almost get away unharmed until Marjorie's dress sleeve snags on a broken branch. She frees it with a tearing sound, and the zombi's head whips around. I'm already hidden in the darkness beyond, but it has a clear view of her, and I see her freeze when she comes to the same realisation.

"Marjorie!" I hiss. "Come on!"

When she doesn't move, I seize her elbow and pull her along with me as I break into a run. I can hear the zombi behind us, crashing through the hedges like a bear through the woods. Blindly we skid around corners, and now we're so turned around I don't know what direction the zombi's coming from. I can still hear it, and as we reach a dead end I try to frantically remember how to kill one. Decapitation, possibly, or beheading. Or both. And there's something with fire too, isn't there?

"It's coming," Marjorie says hoarsely, sounding like she can barely breathe. She probably can't, in that corset. "From t-that way."

We strike out in the opposite direction. Once again we turn corners and more corners. I pray for an opening somewhere, when we finally make it to a long narrow path with no turns.

And fortunately, my prayers are answered. We explode out onto the open lawn again, but we don't stop running. The zombi, now that it's seen Marjorie, won't stop until it has her. Or until I stop it first.

We swing around the corner of the manor and gallop towards the front drive. If I can get her back inside, where it'll be harder for the zombi to catch her, I have a better chance of fighting it off. And again, I think we're nearly there until we collide with someone halfway up the manor steps.

"Oi there!" exclaims a man's voice. "Watch where you're going!"

Both of us nearly fall as he pushes us away, and I recognise Solomon Selling, Marjorie's father. His eyes widen in surprise as he catches sight of us, which quickly turns into something like suspicion.

"Where on earth have you two been? And why are you running about the grounds, of all places?"

I point back the way we'd come. "Zombi, sir, in the labyrinth. I don't know how it got in-"

"Nonsense, boy, these grounds have been made creature-repellant." Selling scowls.

"No, really, it's-"

The zombi crashes straight into the nearest carriage. Both its horses plunge and lurch in different directions, each one dragging a shaft and their traces after them as they gallop away. The coachman, who'd been sleeping just inside the open door, wakes and falls straight out onto the gravel.

"Do you see what I mean now?" I glance from the shuddering carriage back to Selling and Marjorie, still frozen on the steps.

"I'm afraid I do," says Selling grimly. To his daughter, he says, "Go back into the ballroom, Marjorie. Don't go wandering off alone until we've dealt with this threat."

"Yes, Father," she says. Then she's gone.

"You, boy, come with me." He motions me closer, then quickly descends the steps and crosses the drive, me trotting behind him. When we reach his carriage, he thumps the side of it and wakes his own coachman. "Vaughn! The zombi weapons! Where are they, man?"

The bewildered man stumbles as he climbs down from his perch. "In 'ere, Mr Selling, sir, lemme jus' fetch 'em..."

He throws the door open and ducks inside, rummaging around under the seats. He comes out a few moments later with two long curved swords, their leather grips stained dark with zombi blood.

"Give them here," says Selling gruffly, and the man hands them over. One of these Selling tosses to me, which, to my surprise, I catch.

"Hang on, he's not...?" I glance back at the coachman when Selling starts back across the gravel.

"Come on, boy! Or do you want that monster to find my daughter?"

Again I scuttle after him. He reaches the steps before me, and it takes a moment for me to realize that the zombi's made it inside. I see the streaks of dirt, bits of gravel, and sprigs of yew from its run through the labyrinth scattered across the white marble.

"Mr Selling, it's-" I tug on his sleeve, like a child.

"I know, son," he says, words clipped. "And if you want to find it, I suggest we move quickly."

We take off at a fast jog. Selling seems to know the way, and I wonder if he's hunted a zombi before. I lose track of the rooms we pass through: silent galleries, moonlit parlors, a dusty hushed library.

Then, suddenly, at a pair of wood-panelled pocket doors at the end of a long hallway, he throws an arm across my chest, stopping me.

"It's in here," he says in a low voice, just above a whisper. "Just follow my lead, understand?"

I just nod. He turns back to the doors and slides the blade of his sword into the seam. Then, with just the slightest movement, he twists it sideways and they glide apart. Inside is a ballroom, smaller, with gold crown moulding and chandelier fixtures, a chequered floor in alternating squares of black and white marble, and a dark blue coffered ceiling painted with stars. In the center of the room is the zombi, hunched over and feeding on a prone body. Luckily it's not Marjorie Selling but a tuxedoed waiter, a pool of his blood spreading over the black and white floor.

Selling motions for me to go around the zombi's other side. I grip the sword tightly in both hands and follow his direction, watching him as he hems the zombi in opposite me. He puts out a hand, a clear stop gesture, and I do. One of my shoes squeaks on the stone, and the zombi rips its mouth away from the waiter's throat to look around. Selling motions me quickly into its blind spot and I do it, just barely missing its gaze.

Now that we're closer together, he relays the plan through gestures. He'll go in first and pin the zombi down, and then I'll finish it off. He motions to its head and makes a chopping motion with his hand, then holds up one finger. A single stroke, his lips say, with no noise. Nice and clean.

I nod. He nods back, then takes a couple steps backward. After a second he raises his sword, straight out in front of him, and sprints forward, the tails of his tuxedo flying out behind him like a cape. His sword plunges deep into the zombi's back and shoves it forward and down onto the floor.

"Now, boy!" he shouts over the zombi's howls."Do it now!"

I jump in and start hacking at the writhing creature. But it's like trying to cut through a thick slab of old toughened meat. The zombi's flesh is more resistant than I thought it would be, not to mention it keeps trying to seize my ankles. I stamp with my heel whenever I feel its fingers.

My chance comes in the next few seconds. The zombi rears up, almost escaping Selling's pin, and I get a good view of its face: rotting flesh and teeth, no lips or nose at all, blank white eyes. I raise my sword, up and back, and then swing it down in a clean arc, right towards its head. The blade makes a high-pitched whistling noise as it cuts the air, then resists as it slices through the zombi's neck, and flies out of my hand when it passes through. A gout of black blood spurts from the body, all over the front of my starched white shirt and waistcoat.

The body flops around until Selling chops its arms off at the elbows and its legs off at the knees. By then it's just a torso, but all the disembodied parts still move, like a decapitated insect's. That makes my stomach twist, but at least I understand why they have to be burned now. The head's mouth is still moving with no sound.

"I'll have my brother help me with these," says Selling, stepping over the body and booting the head nearly halfway across the room. "I thought I heard something about you seeking approval from our family?"

"My father might have mentioned that," I say, although I don't see what this could possibly have to do with what just happened.

"You saved my daughter's life, son." Selling grasps my shoulder, his smile warm. "I think that's enough to earn it, don't you?"

—

15 April, early morning. — Father doesn't decide to tear the strips off me until we arrive home. He seizes me by the scruff of my neck and shoves me through the front door, then slams it so hard the panes of glass in it rattle.

"I don't know what you're thinking, Langdon, disappearing with a young lady for more than an hour, but that is unacceptable by any standard."

"The party was stuffy, Father," I say. "It was Marjorie's idea."

"No matter whose idea it was, do you realise how this made me look?" he hisses, stabbing his finger in my face. "I won't go around having people think my son is a rake. I won't ever be able to show my face again."

And for once I'd thought he would be proud of the fact that I killed a zombi. "I'm sorry, Father. I didn't realise saving someone's life would ruin your reputation."

"What are you talking about?" he snaps.

"There was a zombi on the property," I snap back. "Marjorie and I were getting fresh air. And it found us. If it hadn't been for me and her father, she'd be dead right now."

"Seeking out danger is not a way to earn renown," Father growls. "I did not raise you to do such a foolish thing."

"I'm not trying to earn renown. Everything I do is to earn your approval, Father, and I never get it. Ever. Because you're too busy trying to vicariously live out everything you couldn't manage to do at my age through me. You're too selfish and bitter and concerned with how you might look to care what I want. I won't do it anymore, Father. I refuse."

His face twists into something ugly. I glare back at him for just a moment before turning on my heel and storming upstairs. I don't even turn around when he says my name behind me. He can stew all night, for all I care. After all, I'm the one with zombi blood on me, not him.

—

Later, afternoon. — Surprisingly, it's Wells on his own who finds me in Hyde Park later that day, sitting by the Serpentine and writing in what I now realise is Gifford's zombi hunting book. I almost don't recognise him, dressed as sharply as he is in a dove-grey suit, pale blue waistcoat, and black cravat. And wearing a hat. Almost every other time we've met, he's bareheaded.

In fact, I don't see him until his shadow falls over the pages and his voice comes from above me. "Wilkes?"

I lean back and squint up at him. "Wells?"

"You waiting for someone?" he asks, and I can clearly hear his subtext. I really hope the answer is no.

"Not anymore," I blurt. That seems to surprise both of us. I don't know where that came from.

"Do you...er...mind if I sit?" He scuffs the ground next to me with his shoe.

"Yes...I mean...no, I don't mind. Please sit."

He takes his spot, flicking out the tails of his coat like a pianist about to play as he does. There's a respectable distance between us, and to anyone passing us we may look like two best mates having a chat. He takes his hat off and sets it over his knees, thumbs running around the brim.

"So you're off school today?" he asks, in a slightly awkward manner.

"My father the headmaster suspended me," I answer. After my outburst Father had slid a note under my bedroom door sometime early this morning telling me I'd been grounded, effective immediately, until half-term next week. In addition, I wasn't to come back to the Institute until it had finished.

"Suspended?" Wells seems mildly shocked. "Why?"

I try to explain it as logically as possible, and I'm relieved to see that Wells seems to understand. And when I finish, he nods and taps his heel against the wall we're sitting on.

"You were certainly right to do what you did," he says. "Otherwise Marjorie Selling would be dead or a zombi herself right now."

"At least you see where I am with Father."

"What I'm wondering is how Solomon Selling knew you two had vanished," he says, rubbing the back of his head. His hair's beginning to grow out a little more, no longer a fuzz. "And why he decided to come find you."

"I think fathers of daughters at those parties have more to worry about than fathers of sons," I point out. "Especially before they're of age."

"At any rate, you've started plenty of gossip," says Wells, and I see a faint smile touching the corner of his mouth. Almost like he doesn't want to.

"I got what my father wanted." I shrug. "I've earned the Selling family's favour."

"More than I've done," he says. "I nearly stuck one on Cornelius Selling the other day."

"I don't blame you. He's got that sort of face."

Wells nods, but he doesn't say anything. I like how things are between us now, much different from the way they were when I first met him. I wonder if he feels it too.

"There's a theory I want to run by you, Wilkes," he says after a while. "I don't expect you to agree with me. But I was thinking about it on the way over here."

"I'm intrigued," I say. "What is it?"

"I think your father's got a few different faces out in the world," he says. "The most obvious one is the headmaster. But then there's the one Marcus Trotter knew, and the one you started to discover in his plan. And after what you've just told me, I'm starting to see another."

"Go on."

"I think he's either trying to set you up or catch you out. I'm not entirely sure which one. All I know is that...there's only one way to keep him from doing either, and that's staying a step ahead of him." He rubs the back of his head again. "Problem is, he's so bloody unpredictable, we're not sure what he'll try next."

"Besides making me kill Gifford?" I say, and he nods. "He knows I can't do it. That's probably why he's trying to make me slip up."

"I'll bet anything he let that zombi in," Wells says, which surprises me so much I don't say anything, and when I don't, he continues. "It makes sense. He saw you leave with Marjorie. That would have given him a chance to pop out on his own, snap one up, and let it loose inside the labyrinth. When you think about it, they're not hard to find out in rural areas...bodies of farmers and sheepherders and such. He was probably hoping you'd take it on yourself. If you lost, he'd guilt you with it and maybe drive you to seek revenge. If you won, you'd have the Sellings' favour. A win-win for his endgame."

"But he put Marjorie in danger," I say. I remember the look on her face when the zombi caught sight of her. She'd been paralysed, rooted to the spot.

"I don't suppose you've considered that to be intentional too?" Wells raises an eyebrow. "You save her life, she owes you something. Like preference when she chooses a suitor."

"Cripes." I brush my hair out of my eyes, but the breeze blows it back. "He's good."

"Unfortunately for us," Wells agrees. "I think we've found a worthy opponent."