Sets up Dragon Teeth to defend her house

It was only by instinct that Sophia avoided death.

The prickling on her neck was what tipped her off that something was wrong, and as she dove forward and out of the way almost on reflex, something cut through the air where her neck had just been — she heard the whoop it made as it passed. She came back up with catlike grace where others might have fallen flat on their faces, and as she whipped around and lashed out at her assailant, using her crossbow like a club, all she saw at first was the color: pale white.

But after she struck — CRACK — and the figure went down, collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut, she had the chance to get a better look at the pile in front of her. The distinctly inhuman pile.

“What the?”

She leaned over and peered down at it. Pale and white, it was a collection of rods, some straight, some curved, mostly rounded. In fact, it looked distinctly like…

“Bone?”

As though she had spoken the magic word, the ground around her erupted, and all over the yard, skeletal hands reached up, pulling up entire bodies made of nothing but bone as though over a cliff or the edge of a pond. Each one had ribs shaped like claws, no head but for a pair of jaws with sharp, crocodile teeth, and carried some kind of weapon made of bone. Some had axes, some had swords, and some had clubs with jagged spikes.

There was no gore attached to them. No rotted muscle or skin, no bits of entrails, no sinew to hold them together.

“The hell?”

The skeletons all faced her, chittering with every move as their joints produced a series of clacks. It took her only a bare instant to realize their intent.

“Shit!”

She thrust herself backwards, stooping down to sweep up the sword belonging to the one she’d already destroyed, and as though that was some kind of signal, the army of skeletons surged.

She swung out at the closest one and struck it with enough force to send the bones flying. They scattered and clattered and fell with a sound like a cross between a piece of wood snapping and bowling pins being knocked over.

“The hell are these things?”

As they approached, she swung again and destroyed another one. Undeterred, the rest kept coming, and she pushed herself back and out of their reach, trying to keep all of them in her sight. In the back, more rose out of the ground to replace the ones she’d…killed wasn’t the right word, but it was the only one she had.

“More of them?!”

This was serious zombie apocalypse shit. But these things, there was no way they were humans or some kind of prank. That first one would’ve killed her, if she hadn’t ducked. These were minions, which means this had to be the work of some kind of Master.

She cast her gaze around quickly, dodging backwards whenever one of the skeletons came too close, but the lights were off all over the street, except for a handful of streetlamps. No one was standing in their room with the lights on and watching her, and there were no mysterious figures on one of the rooftops staring down at her. In fact, now that she looked around, the skeletons were only coming up out of…one…yard…

Dully, Sophia Hess came to a realization: Taylor Hebert was a cape.