by C. C. Mahon
“Meaning…”
A flash of light cut off my speech, and another thunderclap tore the atmosphere apart.
“Lightning struck this building,” said Lola, pointing.
The building she referred to was the highest of the surrounding blocks. As long as its lightning conductor played its role, everything should go well. But the neighborhood was becoming dangerous, even for humans without an ounce of magic like Lola.
“Well, are you coming or what?” Lizzie cried. She left without waiting for our answer.
“She’s worried about this kid,” remarked Lola, following in my footsteps.
“She feels responsible,” corrected Britannicus.
“Why?” I said. “Because she couldn’t educate her?”
“In the world of witchcraft, the role of a mentor is almost sacred. If a young witch seeks the teaching of one of her elders, they forge a powerful bond. Chloe may have slammed the door, but Lizzie still feels responsible for her.”
“What about you?” I said. “Do you have a mentor, too?”
“I grew up in a family very attached to our magical traditions. My parents were my first mentors until I joined the Guild Academy. In that respect, I was fortunate.”
Lizzie stopped in the middle of the street, and we joined her.
In front of us, just a few dozen yards away, the magic geyser was a glowing column. The light was so bright that it made my eyes water, and the roar of magic covered even the howl of the wind.
“Can you really not see anything?” I shouted at Lola.
“I don’t know. I have something in my eyes; I can’t look…”
Lizzie grabbed my arm. “There!”
She was pointing at a small dark spot at the base of the column of light.
No…not a spot: a silhouette.
Lizzie rushed forward. “Chloe!” she shouted.
I followed Lizzie. And since Lizzie was a librarian and I was a Valkyrie, I quickly overtook her.
Chloe didn’t turn around.
The girl stood very straight in front of the energy column. The open grimoire rested on her forearms. Chloe’s fingers were tight on the top of the pages to prevent the wind from turning them. Chloe read a passage from the grimoire in a booming voice.
“Harriet Gladys Williams, come back from the dead, I command you. Harriet Gladys Williams, I bind you to your body to answer my questions and bend your will to me!”
A movement caught my attention. Between Chloe and the geyser, something was moving.
No, someone. There was a human shape, tied down and lying on the asphalt, next to a mover’s cart and a…a gaping coffin.
The lying shape stirred frantically. No time to spare for the coffin or Chloe; bent forward to offer less grip in the magical wind, I advanced towards the laying form. I recognized the gray hair and the tailored clothes of Mrs. Appelbaum, the high school principal. A gag concealed the bottom of her face, and her eyes were wide with fear.
She had been tied up with a climbing rope and a luxury of precautions and redundant knots. I severed the ties with my sword, and this time the weapon did not grumble. Once she was free, the principal made no move to get up or even to remove her gag. Her eyes watered, and she shook her head as if to chase a buzzing sound out of her ears. I grabbed her under her armpits, put her back on her feet, and dragged her away from the geyser. Chloe watched us approach but made no move to stop us. She repeated the same formula over and over again, and I had the impression that she didn’t dare to stop or even let go of her grimoire. She followed us from the corner of her eye but did not turn her head when we passed her.
Lola stretched out her arms to relieve me of the principal’s weight.
“It won’t change anything,” shouted Britannicus
“What?”
“Even if the detective takes the lady away, the ritual has begun, and she is part of it.”
“What does that mean?” I shouted back.
An end-of-the-world roar threw me to the ground. When I finally dared to look up, I noticed that the vortex of black clouds was descending along the energy column.
“What is this thing?” I shouted.
My voice was carried away by the wind.
At the forefront of the phenomenon, Chloe was not flinching. The girl had not moved an inch as the black cloud reached ground level and approached the coffin.
Lizzie joined Chloe. She put one hand on her shoulder and moved her mouth to the teenager’s ear. I had the impression that she was screaming to make herself heard, but the roar was too loud now.
I signaled to Britannicus to step back. But the wizard seemed entranced by the scene.
A lightning bolt tore through the black cloud. The lightning struck the ground a few yards from the coffin.
I grabbed Britannicus by the elbow and dragged him away.
Lola was guiding the principal across the street. I followed them, Britannicus in tow. Huddled against the glass door of a closed shopping mall, we were marginally less exposed to the unleashing of natural and supernatural energies.
“This is not normal,” I said.
“Which part?” asked Lola.
“The clouds, the wind, all that.”
“You’ve witnessed a lot of… What is the kid doing, by the way?”
“She’s trying to resurrect her ancestor,” Britannicus obligingly replied.
Lola took a few seconds to digest the information. Britannicus took the opportunity to ask, “What do you find abnormal?”
“The sound and light part,” I said. “The other night at the morgue, thirty people came back to life. No one has reported such a mess.”
Britannicus slowly nodded his head without taking his eyes off the other side of the street. There, Chloe and Lizzie were facing a storm localized in the black cloud. Lightning was bombarding the ground around the coffin.
“The morgue dead were still ‘fresh,’ if I may say so,” began Britannicus. “Their spirits had not yet left our world…”
“Really?” said Lola.
“Oh, yes. It is established that during the first year, the mind struggles to detach itself from the body and remains close to it.”
“The morgue is haunted,” concluded Lola.
Britannicus seemed to consider the question a few seconds before answering. “It all depends on the meaning one gives to the word ‘haunted.’”
“Let’s get back to the point,” I said. “The morgue dead were ‘fresh.’ What difference does it make?”
“It takes much more energy to reach a spirit in the afterlife than it does to reach a spirit that is still close to its body.”
“But is it possible?”
“Oh, yes, definitely. But I think our necromancer is facing another problem.”
“Which is?”
“I would argue that the spirit of her ancestor does not wish to return among us.”
“What makes you think that?”
On my back, the glass door sounded like a gong. I turned around, sword in hand, ready to face an army of necromancer high school students. Instead, I discovered a woman in a crumpled beige suit.
“You shouldn’t stay here!” the woman shouted, trying to be heard through the glass door and the racket of magic. “The area is off-limits!”
She made imperative gestures to support her statement.
“Oh, yeah?” I said. “So what is she doing there?”
I gestured in the direction of Chloe.
The customs officer uttered a very un-administrative swearword before asking, “Where did this one come from? How did she get here?”
Maybe it’s because you’re hiding in there instead of doing your job, I thought. I kept a diplomatic silence.
The customs officer turned inside the building and called someone. A few seconds later, a second customs officer came running to the glass door. The two women unlocked the door.
“Move along!” commanded one.
“First, move this one along!” I said, pointing to Chloe. “She�
��s the one trying to raise the dead.”
The customs officers shouted in outrage and rushed towards Chloe.
A new thunderbolt hit the ground, right in front of the coffin this time. The smell of ozone tickled my nose, and for once, my sword had nothing to do with it.
“Harriet Gladys Williams is trying to destroy her remains,” Britannicus explained.
“Why does Harriet want to destroy her corpse?” asked Lola.
As Britannicus opened his mouth to answer, a lightning bolt hit the coffin with full force. The explosion echoed throughout my body. Pieces of moldy wood and dried-up bones plummeted our shelter.
A sepulchral voice rang out, “I refuse to be forced into slavery!”
“She did it for that reason,” Britannicus said.
Where the coffin was a moment earlier, there was only a small wisp of gray smoke, immediately dispersed by the wind.
The two customs officers had thrown themselves to the ground. A few yards away, Chloe and Lizzie had huddled together. Lizzie was protecting Chloe’s head with her arms and chest.
Then a glow shone in front of the two witches, and a silhouette took shape—an old woman, skinny and twisted like an old tree, a cane in her hand. A large bun made a crown on the top of her head.
“Who are you?” thundered the old woman. “And why did you snatch me from such a deserved rest?”
“Harriet,” Britannicus whispered.
I turned towards the principal, who seemed to think we were all crazy but was still alive.
I pointed it out to Britannicus. “Why didn’t she die?” I whispered in my friend’s ear.
“Harriet destroyed her remains. There is no longer a body to attach a new life to, no prison in which to lock her mind.”
“So she didn’t come back from the dead? Then what is she doing here?”
“Her mind has returned,” Britannicus said. “And she looks mighty cross.”
30
CHLOE AND LIZZIE were still curled up in front of Harriet’s specter. She drew herself up to her height and screamed, “I said who are you?”
Chloe emerged from Lizzie’s protective embrace and drew herself up too. I couldn’t help but admire the kid’s guts. I didn’t hear what she said, but Harriet’s reaction made me guess.
“Great-great-granddaughter?” thundered the specter. “Certainly not! I didn’t have any children. I’ve always hated kids.”
Chloe lifted the grimoire and said something else. Harriet cocked her head to one side and struck the ground with her ghostly cane. “Hmm! That’s a move by my idiot sister. ‘I’ve always dreamed of starting a family, blah, blah, blah…’ She spent her life wiping dirty buttocks and noses, and as a result, a snot-nosed girl dragged me out of my grave. And to what end? To enslave me?”
Chloe shook her head, vehemently. I saw her negotiate, point to the crater, then the grimoire… Lizzie jumped to her feet, stepped away from Chloe, and looked at her. From where I was, I couldn’t distinguish the details of her expression, but her attitude said that she strongly disapproved of what she had just heard. She began to shake her head from right to left, and Harriet’s ghost imitated her.
God, I was tired of only hearing half the conversation.
I was about to cross the street again when Lola elbowed me in the ribs. I was going to protest, but the scene she pointed to made me forget the rest.
Two dozen silhouettes had just entered the Strip, coming from a perpendicular street. They didn’t walk very straight, dragged their legs, and some had even lost pieces on the way.
“What are these zombies doing here?” asked Britannicus in a curious but not especially alarmed tone.
“Not zombies,” I said.
“The escapees from the morgue,” Lola added.
“Of course, what was I thinking?” Britannicus shouted. “The power of the invocation will have attracted them to their mistress.”
As they approached, I became more and more aware of their condition. Most had dressed, but some remained naked, exposing the traces of their autopsy and the green spots of putrefaction that had spread to their abdomen. Some had to rely on their companions in misfortune to move forward. Their group reminded me of pictures of refugees in war zones. I recognized the long red hair of the woman who had sat like a mermaid in the morgue parking lot. She had found a dress to satisfy her modesty. If I believed her determined gait and clenched fists, she now had other worries on her mind and a good dose of anger to spill.
Customs officers noticed the newcomers and decided to prohibit them from passing through by windmilling their arms. This maneuver did not seem to impress the zombies much, and the undead went around the officers. Visibly outraged, one of the Customs officers took a small box out of her pocket. I instinctively pulled my head between my shoulders.
The whistling barely pierced the roar of the magic geyser. Or maybe it was because I was too far from Customs. The undead, on the other hand, shuddered and stood still, their greenish hands plastered on what remained of their ears. Customs officers began new gestures on the theme, “Move! There’s nothing to see here.”
The undead resumed their advance. Two of them tried to tear the case out of the Customs officer’s hands. Despite her skirt and pumps, she kicked them hard. One of the attackers’ knees gave in to the shock, and the undead fell to the ground like a tree. Another undead joined the melee, while the second customs officer rallied in support of her comrade.
“We must help them!” I said.
I already sat halfway up. Britannicus grabbed my arm and held me back.
“Look. They’re only after the case.”
Indeed, one of the undead had managed to pull the device out of the customs officer’s hands. As he turned it over—probably to find out how to stop the horrible whistle—the redheaded woman took it from his hands and threw the object far back into the street from where the group had come out.
Free of the irritating case, the undead lost interest in the Customs officers and resumed their wobbly advance towards their creator.
Harriet had also seen them.
“Look what you’ve done!” she said, pointing a twisted index finger at the undead. “LOOK AT THIS!”
The poor wretches surrounded the two witches, reaching out to Chloe as if to ask her to put an end to their suffering—which was probably the case.
This time, I jumped to my feet and ran across the street.
“Step aside!” I shouted.
No one seemed to hear me.
Never mind: I wielded my sword, which happily caught fire. Some undead saw us from the corners of their eyes, shook their comrades’ shoulders to get their attention, and in the end, I was able to split the crowd without having to cut any decomposing limbs.
I joined Lizzie and Chloe. Lizzie was livid—not with fear but with a silent and terrifying fury. As for Chloe, she seemed marginally upset.
“Free these poor people!” Harriet thundered.
“Certainly not,” said Chloe. “They are mine now: my army.”
An army? I thought. To do what?
“Your ‘army’ is falling apart,” said Harriet. “You have no idea how to create effective thralls, let alone use them.”
“Thralls?” I shouted.
Everyone ignored me. Chloe raised the grimoire.
“I’m sure you wrote everything down in here.”
The book slipped out of her hands. It rose into the air, floated towards Harriet, and opened. The pages scrolled until the specter found what she was looking for. Then, with a gesture of the wrist, she sent the grimoire back to Chloe. It hit her hard.
“Read!” Harriet thundered.
Chloe leaned over the grimoire. She shook her head from left to right, stronger and stronger as she read the text. “No… No, no, no, no, no!”
“It is the only way,” Harriet said.
I leaned over Chloe’s shoulder to read. But the pages of the book were covered with signs that I didn’t know. They danced before my eyes and made me sea
sick.
“What’s going on?” I cried.
Chloe turned to me, outraged. “She wants me to kill myself!”
“It is the only way,” Harriet repeated. “This fool used the power of a ley lines to bind these poor people to her soul. The only way to deliver them is to free her soul—well, what’s left of it. Otherwise, they will destroy it.”
“I refuse to die!” cried Chloe.
She seemed more angry than afraid of dying. Perhaps the practice of necromancy gave another perspective to death.
“I offer you an easy way out,” Harriet said. “But if you prefer your pack to eat you…” She raised a thin and translucent shoulder.
“There is another solution!” I said. “The protections on my club: they managed to free two of the undead. Just take them there, and…”
“Too late,” Harriet said.
I looked in the direction she was pointing.
Around the energy column, electric arcs formed. One of them touched an undead, a man in his sixties who had found only a pair of striped underwear and an old bathrobe to dress his bouncy belly. Coming in contact with the electric arc, the man seemed to swell with energy. He straightened up and shook himself. Pieces of decaying flesh flew around him. Chloe shouted a little cry of disgust. Suddenly perked up, the undead turned to her. “Enough,” he said in a hoarse voice.
He walked forward with his stiff gait, stretched out his arms, and grabbed Chloe by the throat. The kid’s eyes widened. She tried to free herself from the grip of the undead to no avail. The magic discharge must have given the deceased quite a strength.
Chloe’s face turned from red to purple. Lizzie struck the undead with all her might, with no visible effect. I waved at her to step back and raised my sword.
I brought my weapon down, cutting through the dead man’s arms, flesh and bone alike.
The arms fell to the ground. But the image of the limbs—their ghost, perhaps?—hung on to Chloe’s throat. Lost to his murderous rage, the undead didn’t seem to miss his fallen limbs.
Chloe looked like a fish out of water.
“Harriet!” I called. “Do something!”
But Harriet herself was in trouble.
