I felt so much better now that my brothers and the rest of our group were with us. Spending the night in that awful house had been hard on my senses. While I wasn’t as empathic as some, I could definitely feel the shadows of pain, anger, and frustration that haunted the building.

We rode up the mountain in tense silence. Kyle’s grandfather and Charlie had opted to ride with us while everyone else had piled into the other vehicles—the traitors. When we pulled up in front of the gates, Kyle’s gramps, Mr. Alvi, pointed out where we could park outside the compound. The moment I stepped out of the car, I could feel the power that radiated from the place.

Glancing around, I didn’t feel completely settled until I saw my brothers walking toward us. I knew without a doubt that we would need every bit of our combined powers today, I just didn’t know why. We waited while Mr. Alvi took his large jailor-style ring of keys and fumbled for the correct one. I almost laughed when he finally selected the largest key, an old skeleton one that didn’t even match the rest on his ring. My brothers and I shared an amused glance while he finally unlocked it and Charlie helped him pull the tall, wooden gates open.

“I’m guessing the first place you fool kids will want to see is inside the house itself,” Mr. Alvi grunted as he stepped aside for us to enter.

“No, thank you, sir,” I answered, walking past him and onto the property. He seemed somewhat nicer with me, so I’d been attempting to be the go-between and talk to him as much as I could to save Kyle the frustration and maybe take some attention off poor Charlie. I was pretty sure the only reason I was okay for the moment was the fact that I was carrying the next generation.

Although with a cantankerous old jerk like him, who the hell knew? Maybe he just liked the way I did my hair? I glanced over at my brothers and their shorter haircuts, and smiled to myself. My long hair was my one rebellion—the thing that made me stand apart.

Without discussion, we all migrated to the center of the yard where the tree stood proudly, its thick branches spreading in a wide circle to shield a surrounding ring of weathered gravestones that our parents had said marked the final resting places of the original Guardians of Divinity brotherhood—the G.o.D.

I was distracted from my thoughts when I noticed Ian walk over to the tree and reverently run his hand around the inner edge of the natural heart that was in the center of the grafted trunk. He was midway around the heart when his hand fell away as he dropped to his knees, his eyes rolling back as a vision overtook him.

The distinct green glow that still showed, even in the whites of his eyes, would’ve been unsettling had I not seen it happen before when one of his visions struck. Charlie instinctively pressed against Kyle’s side, making his father frown at the two of them. Thankfully, the old coot kept his thoughts silent as he busied himself with brushing off the different headstones with a ragged handkerchief he pulled out of his pocket.

We stood there for several long minutes, the breeze rustling the leaves and dappled sunlight playing over our skin while Ian did his thing. I noticed Kyle quietly introducing Charlie to Jude, and the two of them discreetly hugging while Mr. Alvi wasn’t looking. I was happy to see the twins embracing their mini-uncle into their lives. He didn’t know it yet, but his life was about to change for the better.

Finally, Ian blinked several times then crawled around the ground on his knees, patting the grass and waving his arms like a human dowsing rod until he stopped and patted the spot directly beneath the heart where the sun shining through the trunk cast the shape onto the ground.

“Do we have any tools in the cars? We need to dig here. Uncle Maon’s fantasy heart wasn’t imaginary—it exists and it’s buried here.” Ian shook his head with a light chuckle. “I think that guy has retained more magic than he realizes.”

“We don’t have any tools.” Connor motioned for Jonny and me to join him as he walked toward Ian. “However, we do have us, and we can do our thing if you’ll all be so kind as to move back out of harm’s way.”

As we started to stretch our fingers toward the earth, Mr. Alvi stamped a foot. “Look here, now didn’t nobody say nothing about no digging. This here is a special place and you aren’t to mess with it.”

I turned to the old man and smiled gently but firmly shook my head. “No offense, sir, but that’s really not your call. I realize that your family have been the caretakers here for generations, but Kyle and his brother Jude are both members of your family and they aren’t stopping us. They’re both part of this mission we are on for the goddess, Artio. I don’t wish to offend you, but nothing you can say will deter us from our cause.”

The old man glared but dismissively waved his hand before crossing his arms over his chest to see what we were going to do. My brothers and I focused on the ground until the grass peeled back like a sliding door and the dirt spewed upward and showered in a gentle arc into a pile off to one side. We hadn’t gotten down very far when the ground began to shake and bony hands clawed through the grass near the headstones, and bodies began rising from within the dirt below.

Somebody shrieked, maybe Charlie? I wasn’t sure who, but I kept my focus as I gripped my brothers’ hands. We formed a circle, standing back to back to cast a protective shield over our group as partially decomposed bodies pulled themselves out of the ground.

I looked at one of the creatures, and immediately wished I hadn’t. Half of his face was a skeletal freak show, while the other was right out of a horror movie with its putrid flesh hanging in strips from the bone and bits of sinew showing through the gaps in the torn flesh. The right eye socket was empty, but a large, bloodied eyeball hung from the left, its brilliant-green pupil shifting from side to side as if trying to see what was going on.

“Holy fucking shit! Are we on a quest or guest starring in a horror movie?” Kyle pushed Charlie protectively behind him while stretching an arm out toward me. “Please tell me I’m not really seeing the walking dead come to life? Are these dead monks seriously zombies now or am I having a bad dream?”

Jonny snorted. “Dude, we’re trying to focus here. Don’t make me laugh! Why don’t you do us a favor and shift? In fact, everyone but the smaller animals needs to shift!” His voice rose as zombies started rushing toward us with their arms stretched out as if to attack. “We can’t hold them back much longer!”

We pushed at them with our minds, using the air to repel them, but the creatures kept pushing forward. “Get back, you unholy freaks of nature.” Mr. Alvi ripped his shirt off and tied it around a stick, quickly lighting it on fire with a lighter he’d pulled out of his pocket. He waved his homemade torch at the zombies and to his credit, they backed up a little bit. For a moment.

Most of us shifted to animal form, while my brothers held our circle and kept trying to repel the zombies with the powers of our minds. When that wasn’t working, Connor broke free and his clothes went flying as he shifted into his jaguar form, leaping forward to attack one of the creatures just before it reached Lei, who was desperately trying to climb the tree with Ian. Her red panda was no good in a fight like this, and neither was his fox.

Kyle’s leopard gave a loud rasping yowl as he used his large spotted head to headbutt one creature away from Charlie. My mind raced, and I fought to think of any zombie lore I knew. Who knows, maybe fiction could be based in truth?

“Kyle, remember that walking dead joke you made?” I yelled out to my mate above the fray, hoping everyone else would also follow my instructions. “Try using your claws to take out the brain stem! Without a brain stem, they won’t be able to attack—you’ll basically be killing the dead.”

Toby roared, standing on his hind legs to swipe his long claws right through one of the zombies’ throats. Just as I’d hoped, the creature fell lifeless to the ground the moment the brain stem was removed.

Once everyone saw that, the battle quickly turned in our favor. My breath was in my throat as I watched the various jungle cats and bears take out the zombies one by one until only two remained. I saw one sneaking up behind Mr. Alvi while he waved his torch at the one with the hanging green eye.

Before I could even think to warn him, the zombie lurched forward and bit into his neck. There must have been venom in the bite because Mr. Alvi dropped dead on the spot, a strangely peaceful smile spreading over his face as the light dimmed in his eyes. When he was halfway down, Toby’s bear ran over in a lumbering yet strangely graceful leap, quickly taking out the zombie who had killed Kyle’s grandfather with another swipe of his mighty razor-sharp claws.

Unfortunately, Toby’s right flank hit Mr. Alvi’s lifeless arm and sent the torch flying. I went to use my powers to stop it, but the torch had already hit the perfect target as it landed in the chest of the sole remaining creature.

The zombie gave an unearthly scream and burst into flames, its body disintegrating faster than a snow cone in hell. The scent of the putrid body burning was overpowering, yet I couldn’t take my eyes off it until it fell forward over the hole where we’d been digging and suddenly exploded. The dirt sprayed up like a geyser, showering us all with earthen loam. I blinked and wiped my eyes just in time to see a large dirt-covered rock flying directly at my face. Without thinking, I slowed it with my mind and casually caught it like a softball, absently rubbing it against my shirt.

I gasped when I saw a flash of a brilliant red gemstone peeking out from beneath the dirt. Rubbing faster, I kept wiping it until the entire thing sparkled in the sunlight as I held it up to admire the unique artifact.

“Holy shit.” I glanced up to see Kyle breathing over my shoulder, his eyes wide as he stared at the heart-shaped gem. “It really is a fucking heart-shaped ruby. Look, you can actually see the veins and all four chambers of the heart. That’s fascinating. By the way? Good catch, baby.” He smiled wearily and stretched a trembling hand out to touch the gem.

Shaking my head, I looked up to find my brothers watching proudly. “Look, you guys. It was here all along. I wonder how many secrets this damn tree held? Or holds? Maybe there are more to be uncovered?” I shook my head when that statement felt wrong. “No, this was it—the final secret from the tree of life.” I looked around for Lei and held it out in her direction. “Would you mind reading the object for me? I’m seeing flashes of the stone’s history, but I don’t have as strong a gift for retrocognition as you do.”

Lei walked over and quietly took it from me, her eyes glowing amber as she read the stone. “The last monk who died by firebomb at the end? This was his; I recognize his green eye, nasty as that sounds. His mother left it to him when she died. This was the heart of the Fae warrior who his mother had loved in her youth, during the days before the portal closed. The man died protecting her during a fierce battle against a demi-god. He’d embedded ground rubies under his skin like the later Burmese warriors that Uncle Maon mentioned. When he died, his body disintegrated as Fae do in the mortal realm, but his heart remained. The blood had rushed to his heart at the time of death and turned it into this ruby. When the mother died years later, she left this heart to her only son—the child that she was carrying when her lover died. He buried it here when he joined the brotherhood of the G.o.D. and left the world and its material possessions behind.”

Kyle sniffed back tears. “So one of those monks was half-Fae and those awful zombie things were protecting the warrior’s heartstone?”

I shook my head when movement caught my attention from the corner of my eye. I turned and stared at the familiar female standing on the mountainside across from the complex, glaring at us with a malevolent sneer. I pointed her out as Kyle took the stone from Lei to keep it safe. “Look, the evil goddess is watching. This was her handiwork again.” As we watched, she blinked out of sight and disappeared as though she’d never been there.

“Well, now that we know they weren’t evil creatures, but just puppets for the whim of a goddess, I think we should put them back in their graves,” Connor said quietly as he looked around at the mutilated corpses.

“Why don’t you trips take care of that with your powers while Jude and I find something to wrap our grandfather’s body in.” Kyle spoke softly, his eyes trained on a crying Charlie.

The boy stood a couple meters from the body, hugging his father’s hat to his chest as he sobbed. His father might’ve been a complete asshole, but he’d been the only family that Charlie knew.

It made me feel like crap when I realized that I’d been so caught up in the moment that I’d completely lost sight of the fact that young Charlie had just watched his father be killed by zombie monks. Without further discussion, we all stopped what we were doing and gathered around Charlie, surrounding him with a group hug.