The first one didn’t leap.

It landed in a four-point crouch, palms and bare feet slapping wet carpet hard enough to cause whatever moisture was in it to splatter. Then it stayed there, its arms bent, head lolling side to side in a rhythm too slow for the rest of its body. The beach-ball skull swayed left, then right, as if it rode currents none of them could feel.

Then, its mouth opened.

Rows of serrated teeth gleamed wet and wrong, a jaw unhinging too far. It shut them with a hollow click, then opened again—like a shark tasting blood through water that wasn’t there.

Elias’s hand froze on his pencil. His creature hummed in recognition, hungry. Ours.

Another one hit behind them, its claws cracking the plaster, shoulders twisted at an angle no joint should allow. It clung to the wall first, ribs flexing like a bellows. Then it too began to sway, rocking back and forth, head tipping as though waves passed straight through the building.

Sera let the creature inside her rise higher. Her contacts no longer mattered; black eyes narrowed as the rope hummed against her hip. "Zubair—"

"Hold," he ordered, voice a razor.

The two zombies rocked in opposite rhythms. Their heads tilted, swaying side to side until—without a signal—both stilled. Silence clenched the hallway like a throat.

Then they came for them.

The first rose from its crouch into a sprint, arms pumping like a sprinter’s, body too long for the ground it covered. Its nails carved furrows through the carpet, shredding the fabric into damp rolls. The second scuttled across the ceiling, joints pistoning backward, leaving streaks of frost and wet insulation where its limbs dug in.

Lachlan was already moving. He shoved Sera toward Alexei and threw himself into the first one’s path. Blue bled under his skin as the creature inside him came forward fast, claws ripping from his hands.

The zombie met him chest-to-chest. Its head snapped sideways, jaws aiming for his throat. Lachlan jammed his arm between them. Teeth sank in, shredding muscle, and blood... hot and immediate.

Lachlan roared and raked his own claws across its face.

Three long lines opened across its cheek. For a second it looked like he’d hurt it.

Then the flesh knit together in front of him. New tissue bubbled like boiling fat, closing the wound almost before his hand pulled away. The creature’s teeth ground deeper, gnawing the muscle of his forearm like it planned to pull the limb off and carry it away.

"Burn it!" he shouted through clenched teeth.

Zubair was already moving. Fire poured out of his hand, coming to life with a hiss. He thrust the jet of flames under the zombie’s chin, fire chewing up across its jaw. It screeched, the sound shark-sharp, as its head whipped back as the flame blackened its skin.

Black ooze hissed onto the carpet. The creature thrashed, swaying even as it burned, body rocking like a boat refusing to tip.

On the ceiling, the second one, launched.

Alexei caught its ankle mid-drop. His knife flashed, severing three toes in a clean slice.

It was a bad move.

The moment the flesh hit carpet, it convulsed. The severed toes stretched, splitting with a wet tear into three identical versions of the main zombie... each with its own grotesque round head and rows of serrated teeth.

They swayed on the carpet, twitching side to side like hatchlings sniffing the tide.

Alexei grinned despite himself. "Cute," he muttered, and drove his knife into one of their throat, taking its head off.

It shrieked. Flesh bubbled. But instead of dying, it split again—two more peeling away, writhing onto the floor, jaws snapping.

"Not knives!" Elias shouted, panic sharpening his voice. "Don’t cut—don’t—"

Too late.

The hallway filled with their sound. A wet chorus of hissing, jaws clacking, bodies swaying.

The ceiling-crawler lunged at Alexei’s head.

He ducked, teeth grazing the wall where his throat had been. Sera moved before thought. She drove her boot up under its ribs, launching it sideways into the boardroom glass. The pane spider-webbed. The zombie bounced off and swayed back upright, already smiling through broken teeth that healed as she watched.

Elias’s hiss surged in his skull. We are the same. Join.

He slammed it back with numbers, whispering: "Six feet, angle of approach, twenty meters between nodes—" He couldn’t keep up. Too many of them now. The clones moved in jerky arcs, their bodies rocking as though water surged beneath their feet.

Zubair lit the nearest one. Fire caught its chest. It shrieked, flailing, its head thrashing until it snapped sideways at impossible speed and lunged at the burner itself. Zubair yanked back in time, swinging the flame down into its mouth. It swallowed fire. It still tried to crawl forward, throat boiling black.

Lachlan tore his arm free from the first zombie’s teeth and drove his claws into its eyes. For a moment it worked—blindness staggered it. Then the sockets filled again, tissue bubbling, new eyes pushing forward like seeds sprouting.

"Not fucking fair," Lachlan snarled, blue skin steaming, blood running down his arm.

"Back!" Zubair barked.

They fell into practiced rhythm even while chaos chewed at the edges. Sera shoved Elias behind her with one palm and let the creature inside her take full hold. Power bled off her, cold and wrong, the air thickening around them.

The clones paused.

They swayed faster, heads bobbing like buoys caught in a current, as if recognizing something stronger and faster than themselves.

Alpha.

Elias heard it in his own skull, layered over the hiss already there. His heart stumbled. His knees wanted to bend toward her. He bit his lip until it bled, grounding himself on the copper taste.

The ceiling-crawler chose that second to dive again.

Alexei dropped to his knees, letting it overshoot. He rolled, getting out of Zubair’s way as the other man seemed to explode. Flame roared around him and he shoved it up into the zombie’s gut. Fire crawled across its torso, lighting its sway into spasms.