“You've preserved my room in such perfect condition,” Alexander said. “I'm touched, Seth. I bet your whole family lives in fear of me, don't they, Seth? Amusing little humans.”
“Fuck you, Great-grandpa,” Seth said.
Church deacons and football players seized Heather, biting and ripping at her, while Cassie and Neesha and the rest of the zombie cheerleader squad swarmed in tight around Jenny and pulled her away from Seth. Jenny didn't even have room to raise the Slugger, and teeth bit into her fingers and wrists. Somebody pulled the bat away, leaving her empty-handed.
Jenny struggled and kicked against the dead cheerleaders, but she felt their grips tightening, as if the girls' hands were iron. She realized what was happening—the zombies were growing stronger as they touched her, feeding off the dark magic of the Jenny pox. She felt her ribs cracking under the pressure. They tore at her clothes, and teeth bit down all over her.
“Seth!” Jenny cried out. She managed to turn her head until she saw him.
None of the zombies were attacking Seth. Instead, Alexander was grappling with him, clenching Seth's arms in his black-gloved hands. Ashleigh exhaled a cloud of fluffy pink spores that clung to Seth and Alexander's flesh for a moment before dissolving. Ashleigh, like Jenny, must have figured out how to make her power airborne.
Ashleigh lay a hand on Seth's face. “Sweet boy,” she said. “Deep down, you still love me, don't you?”
“Seth, fight it!” Jenny said. She was having trouble breathing. The zombie cheerleaders were crushing her to death. Somewhere off to her side, she heard Heather screaming in pain.
Alexander released Seth, who stood where he was, staring at Ashleigh with a big, goofy smile.
“Come on, Seth,” Ashleigh said. “You know you belong to me. You know I love you more than I could ever love anyone else.” She took his hand. “Forget about Jenny. Stay with me. Forever.”
Seth gazed at her as if hypnotized.
Jenny remembered she had a solution to this—she'd developed a strain of Jenny pox specifically to attack Ashleigh's power. She'd liberated Seth from her spell before.
Jenny imagined black flies devouring golden thread. She conjured up the Ashleigh pox inside her, and then she blew out a cloud of spores.
The black spores whirled around Seth, Ashleigh and Alexander. Seth and Alexander looked disoriented, while Ashleigh suffered an intense cough fit, spitting up gobs of dirty yellow fluid, and fell to her knees.
Something clicked in Jenny's mind. Back in Chiapas, Alexander had sent the zombies after all the Hale Security men, but he'd sent living people to collect Seth from the helicopter. And now, even though he had a couple hundred zombies on hand, he didn't send one of them to attack or restrain Seth.
“Seth,” Jenny said, barely able to draw a breath as the cheerleader zombies crushed her. “Seth, I make the zombies stronger. But you're my opposite.”
Seth looked at her for a moment, and then tore into the dense crowd of zombies surrounding her. They were like matchsticks in his hands. He ripped off heads, tore limbs from sockets, flung zombies across the room. The zombies crumbled in his hands.
All the zombies crushed in around Jenny, throwing up a mob between her and Seth, pushing back across the room and away from him like an evil tide drawing her out to sea.
“Seth, it won't work,” Jenny said. “You have to... turn it up. Breathe it.” She coughed out a few dark spores.
“I'll try,” Seth said. He closed his eyes.
His skin began to glow an eerie, bioluminescent white.
“Hurry,” Jenny whispered. She was starting to black out from the pain. The zombies were still tearing at her, still biting her, and she was covered in her own blood.
Seth opened his eyes. His blue irises had an electric glow.
Then Seth exhaled, and a blinding white fire billowed out from his mouth. This broke into ten thousands tongues of white flame that rained down on the zombies like phosphorous. Jenny thought for a moment of the Pentecost, the holy flames descending on the heads of the disciples. He had created Seth pox.
The mob of zombies screeched and twisted, collapsed, writing on the floor, breaking apart. The dead cheerleaders fell away from Jenny and she dropped to the floor. Wherever the white flames landed on Jenny, her injuries were healed.
Seth coughed out a few more drips of white fire. He doubled over, leaning heavily on his knees, ready to crash to the floor himself.
Behind him, Alexander had picked up an ax. He approached Seth, raising the ax over his head, glaring at Seth's back with a look of raw hate.
“Seth,” Jenny said, but her voice was too weak. She pushed herself up to her hands and knees. “Seth, look—”
Alexander swung the ax down towards Seth's neck to decapitate him. Jenny cried out hoarsely, reaching a hand forward. Seth's eyes looked up and met Jenny's just before the ax hit him.