by Linsey Hall
I gagged at the stench, fear racing through me, chilling my skin. I used it as my cue, breaking away from Cade and calling on my sonic boom power.
I hurled a defined blast at the nearest zombie-thing, letting Cade take care of the other.
It slammed the guard into the wall behind, but he just pulled himself off and grinned at me.
Damn it. Couldn’t pulverize the insides of the undead, it seemed. If I wanted to really blow him apart, I’d also have to take out the historic church.
Not an option.
I drew my daggers from the ether. Given the choice, I wouldn’t get anywhere near a zombie.
I threw the blade, which sank into its neck, but the creature kept coming. Fast.
Right. Too good to be true. Dismemberment was the way to go.
I stashed my second dagger in the ether and drew my sword, swinging for the zombie’s head. My blade sailed through the decayed sinew and flesh, cutting through bone. The head tumbled to the ground with a thud, but there was no arterial blood spray.
Hey, that was convenient.
I could get down with killing zombies.
But the thing kept coming, almost upon me. The stench was gag-worthy.
My heart pounded as I danced back and slashed for the legs, taking out the left one. My blade couldn’t cut entirely through the right leg, and the creature reached for me. It gripped my non-sword arm. Pain flared.
“Ow!”
The thing had an iron grip. It squeezed until stars flashed in my eyes and I thought my bones might break.
Awkwardly, I swung my blade at the arm that gripped me, severing the limb at the elbow. Then I kicked the creature in the chest, sending him crashing backward onto the stone portico.
The beast began to crawl toward me on its last remaining leg and arm.
“Oh, hell no.” I leapt toward it, severing the arms and then the leg.
Finally, it lay still.
I stood, panting. The severed arm still clutched my bicep. It’d stopped squeezing, but its grip was so strong that my eyes watered. I tried yanking at it, but it held tight. Then I tried prying the fingers off. No dice.
Freakin’ zombie strength.
Panting, I turned toward Cade.
His zombie was in about twenty pieces, and definitely not moving anymore. In fact, it was already starting to disappear. Magic, I had to guess. Didn’t want the humans finding zombie bits. That was the trouble with living in a mixed community—hiding the magic was difficult. The Order didn’t allow that kind of negative press with humans, though, so it was necessary.
“Nicely done.” I pointed at the disgusting arm hanging off my own. “But could I get a little help here?”
Cade winced at the sight of the zombie arm gripping my bicep.
“Yeah.” I grimaced. “It stinks like a two-month old tuna salad had a baby with a diaper.”
“Descriptive.” Cade approached and quickly pried the fingers away from my arm. He tossed the limb away.
I sagged. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
He wiped his sword on one of the fallen zombie’s ragged shirt, getting rid of the gore. I retrieved the dagger I’d thrown and wiped it off, too.
Technically, I didn’t have to retrieve it—the expensive magic that kept it stored in the ether would collect it for me. But next time I used it, it’d be covered in whatever blood or gore it had collected the last time. Adding a cleaning spell had been too expensive.
Cade turned to the massive wooden doors of the church and pulled one open, slipping inside.
I followed, immediately enveloped in the cool darkness. The scent of candles and wood polish surrounded me. In the distance, lights glowed on the stained glass. The air was so still and silent.
“There’s no one here,” I whispered.
“There will be more challenges below.”
“He’s good with his spells.” Ricketts’s magic had proven that he was a badass. I wasn’t looking forward to whatever waited for us.
I crept around to the side of the church, looking for stairs that would lead down. A nondescript door caught my eye, but when I tugged on the door handle, it didn’t open.
“Locked.” I ran my fingers around the door seam, feeling a prickle of magic. “By a spell.”
Cade approached, spreading his hand out over the door. I stepped aside as he closed his eyes and his magic swelled. The scent of a storm at sea washed over me. He stepped back. “It’s protected by an incantation. We need to know the words to unlock the door.”
“Hmmm. We’re not going to figure that out.”
“It’s not a problem.” He pressed both palms to the door, and his magic flared around him.
This was different, though. Darker.
His eyes blazed black, their usual green hue drowned out by darkness. I stumbled backward as his magic brushed my skin, filling my mind with visions of battle and blood and death.
Magic burst on the air, the spell that protected the door breaking.
I leaned against the wall, letting the horrible images of death and war fade from my mind. Cade turned to me.
“Whoa.” I panted, still shocked by the way his magic had changed. The darkness of it. “You broke through that spell.”
“God of war.” His face was serious. “In a sense, that means god of death. Nothing like the true gods of death, but I can use that power to kill some spells. Not complex ones, but that one wasn’t complex.”
“Wow. That’s actually kind of scary.”
“I know.” He smiled grimly. “Useful, though.” He tried the door, but it was locked by a plain old human lock. So he stepped back, as if he were going to charge the door.
I grabbed his shoulder. “Hang on. I’ve got it.”
He stepped back, and I approached the door, digging into my pocket for my wallet. I pulled out two narrow picks, then stuck them in the lock.
It took a few seconds, but I finally found the pin.
I pressed.
It clicked.
The lock disengaged.
I twisted the door open and grinned, then stuck the picks back in my wallet.
“Well done,” he said. “How’d you learn that?”
“I’m not a cat burglar, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
He raised his hands. “Hey, I know you’re on the right side of the law.”
“Hmmm.” I scrunched up my face into a doubtful expression.
“Sort of.”
“Exactly. I just aid and abet the criminals in their escape to Hiders Haven.” I shrugged. “And anyway, I don’t always agree with the Order of the Magica.” They’d once hunted my friend Cass, and she was a decent person. “So if folks are running from them, I’ll help.”
“Fair enough. I’m not on their side. So you learned that as a hobby?”
“In my childhood.” For when we needed a place to sleep after our mother had been killed. But I wouldn’t be telling him that.
“A story for another time.”
“Sure.” Not. I started down the staircase, ready to end the conversation.
Dim wall sconces lit the way. The air became cooler and damper as we went.
At the bottom was a plain room built of rough stone. My boots splashed into water. I crinkled my nose. It smelled wet. And muddy. The air was damper, and I could imagine all the water in Venice, pushing at these walls, held back by magic.
“This is the stupidest thing ever.” Underground in Venice? Idiot. “Magic can only hold back the water for so long.”
“Agreed.”
We stood still for a moment, inspecting the room, swords drawn and ready for anything. There were no doors or windows. Just a plain room. Some boxes were piled against the wall, slowly rotting away.
I frowned. “He’s tried to make this look like storage.”
“There must be a hidden door.” Cade sloshed toward one wall, inspecting it.
I trudged over to the other wall, grimacing at the feel of the water around my calves, flowin
g into my boots. I pressed my hands to the stone wall, feeling for any kind of magic.
I didn’t find it until I reached the far wall—the slight pulse of magic that indicated a spell of some kind. “Over here, Cade.”
He splashed toward me, then ran his big hand over the wall.
As he studied the magic, I rubbed my foot against the base of the wall under the water, searching for some kind of lever that might ignite the magic to open the door. The water was too murky to see through, but my toe slipped into a crevice in the wall.
“Jackpot.” I grinned.
“What is it?”
“I think it’s a lever.” I pressed my toe into the divot, hitting a little soft spot that depressed slightly under pressure. I could feel magic around it.
“Underwater?” he asked.
“Yeah. Right where my left leg is.” I stepped back so he could test it.
He found the divot with his toe. “There’s magic around it.”
His leg flexed slightly—which was pretty easy to see since he had the muscular legs that you’d expect on a god of war or an Olympic wrestler—and magic flared around the door. It glowed a pale white, then the whole thing disappeared.
Wall sconces burst to life, flames flaring brightly on the walls of the room.
“Whoa.” I stepped back.
The room within was full of bones.
Chapter Eight
“It’s one of the decorated crypts,” Cade said. “Like in Rome.”
My gaze traced over the space, which was about the size of the entry hall back at the castle, with columns supporting the arched ceiling.
Every wall and the entire ceiling was covered by thousands of bones, all laid out in decorative patterns. There were swirls made of skulls, geometric shapes made of leg bones, and even some full skeletons dressed like monks. They were pinned to the walls with attachments I couldn’t see. Ragged brown robes hung loose around their forms, and their skulls grinned at us. In the ceiling, a headless jeweled skeleton was the centerpiece. Like the room we stood within, the water was about calf level.
“Monks,” Cade said.
“This must be why Ricketts built his headquarters here. And the magic keeping this place from flooding is older than we expected. It might not be his at all.”
“Aye. Ricketts chose well. There will be an enchantment in there. Something to keep us from passing.”
I glanced at Cade, struck again by his strong competence. We were technically underwater and about to walk into the lion’s den, facing magic meant to destroy us, and Cade didn’t look a bit worried.
Me, on the other hand?
I was shaking in my boots.
Whelp, that’s my cue.
“Let’s do this thing.” I leapt into the room, sword raised in front of me.
Magic exploded in the air. All around, the skeletons burst to life. The robed monks that were attached to the walls jumped down to the floor first, their skeletal hands reaching for us.
I lunged for one, slicing out with my blade. I severed the thing’s spine, and it tumbled into the water. Another came from behind it. I took the head, but it kept coming. So I went for the spine again. It collapsed.
“Go for the spine!” I said.
At my side, Cade fought like a tornado, his sword flying and bones clattering.
I hated to see the destruction of something as historic as the crypt, but if this was magic, it’d probably go right back to normal once we were gone.
Sweat dampened my skin as I swung my sword, every strike colliding with a skeleton. Their bones fell into the water, which wasn’t as muddy in this room. Beneath the surface, I could see the bones of the skeletons crawling across the ground to knit back together.
As they reformed, more bones broke off the walls and formed more skeletons. They charged us, dozens at a time.
I panted, trying to keep them off of me.
“Back to back!” I shouted.
Cade and I lined up with our backs to each other, fighting off the skeletons that came at us in a circle.
One skeleton wasn’t too scary. But masses of them? Some wearing the ragged robes of ancient monks?
Yeah, creepy.
As I sliced through the spine of one skeleton, another got ahold on my arm. Like the zombie, it squeezed with a grip that could crush titanium. My eyes watered as I heaved my sword at the attacking skeleton, slicing down through its arm and straight through its spine.
The thing splashed into the water, but the arm hung on.
This was a trend that I didn’t love, but at least it didn’t stink like the zombie arm. I wasn’t going to look a gift skeleton in the mouth.
Bones clattered all around us as our swords whirled, but the skeletons kept coming. When one grabbed my calf, Cade’s huge sword swung down and demolished the creature. A few moments later, I kept one from grabbing his arm.
We weren’t a bad team.
Not that it was helping us win.
“There are too many!” I panted. “They keep reforming.”
“The magic’s too strong.”
Bones splashed into the water all around, but the masses of skeletons clawed for us, trying to make it past our whirling blades. They’d overwhelm us soon, drowning us in the shallow water. My heart thundered as sweat dripped down my spine.
There had to be a way to stop these beasts. Something we’d missed. A trigger that would keep the magic in the room from igniting.
Maybe I should have thought of that before leaping in, but I was Pavlov’s dog. Instead of drooling at dinner, I leapt into the fight when I felt scared.
Usually, very handy.
Now? Not so much.
I scanned the room as I swung my sword, breaking skeletons on autopilot.
A glint of something shiny caught my eye on the ground near the door. There was a bejeweled skull under the water, the sapphires glinting in the low light of the wall sconces.
It was pressed up against the wall, where an unwitting intruder wouldn’t be able to see it before stepping in. But if you knew it was there, you could grab it.
I glanced up, to the space where the only jeweled skeleton had been. He was starting to come alive, dragging himself off the wall. But he had no head.
Unlike the other skeletons, he held a massive sword in his hand. The thing gleamed wickedly, its blade as sharp as mine.
Oh, dang.
A skeleton with a blade like that was gonna be trouble.
I glanced at the gleaming skull on the floor, then up at him. An idea flared.
“Cade! There’s a skull covered in jewels on the ground by the door. We have to get it and put it on the skeleton that’s trying to climb off the ceiling.”
Cade hesitated half a second, no doubt checking out the skeleton above and the head by the door. “You go. I’ll guard!”
“Okay!”
Cade flew into action, stowing his sword in the ether and grabbing a skeleton by the arms. “Duck!”
I did as he commanded. He swung the skeleton in a circle over my head using it to batter the other skeletons. He spun so fast that it was like a helicopter above me. It collided with our attackers, sending them flying back. They crashed into the walls and splashed into the water. It was like the whole place had exploded.
Whoa.
I shook off my shock and stowed my sword in the ether, then raced for the bejeweled skull, Cade clearing the way. Water splashed high as I sprinted and lunged for the skull.
I grabbed it up, the gems and gold cutting into my hand, and spun back to the middle of the room.
All of the skeletons were in the water. He’d gotten them all.
The skeletons were already slowly getting to their feet, but he’d bought us some time.
“Come on!” Cade stood beneath the jeweled skeleton that had almost pulled itself away from the bindings that kept it attached to the ceiling.
I ran for him, the skull clutched tight in my hand. This was like that scene from Dirty Dancing, but with more skeletons.
Cade made a platform out of his hands, and I leapt onto it. He heaved me into the air. I stretched, reaching for the skeleton.
I slammed the skull onto his neck, then fell. Cade caught me before I splashed into the water.
The bejeweled skeleton stiffened, then flattened itself against the ceiling and froze. All around us, the bones flew back to the walls, pinning themselves back in place.
I panted, holding on to Cade’s neck. I glanced at him.
He grinned at me.
I was filled with this insane desire to kiss him. Just press my lips against his fuller ones and see if was as good as I expected. It probably would be.
Bad idea.
I pushed away from him. “I’m good.”
He set me down, his breathing growing steadier. “Quick thinking.”
“Thanks. Good job on the skelecopter you had going there.”
He chuckled. “Skelecopter?”
“Sometimes I’m clever. But how’d you think of that?”
“Once I realized that they were pretty strong, I figured it was worth a try. Ready to keep going?”
“Yeah.” I sloshed toward the exit. “This makes me miss the desert.”
“Don’t like water?”
“Nope!” It was one reason this place freaked me out so much. “Not water like this! Too used to sand.” Though I actually really liked the Highlands. That place was pretty sweet.
I stopped at the entrance to the next room, peering inside. There were fewer sconces in here, just enough to illuminate the place with a gloomy glow. It was a huge vaulted space, nearly as long as a football field. Stone statues sat in nooks against the walls, presiding over sarcophagi.
I inspected the whole space, looking for some kind of lever or way to stop whatever enchanted the massive room.
“I don’t see anything from here,” Cade said.
“Me neither.” If there was a way to stop this room from lighting up, it was impossible to see from our vantage point. “Maybe it’s against the wall near this door? Like the last room.”
“Maybe.” But his voice was doubtful.
So was I. “Let’s go in and check near the door. You look left, I’ll look right. If there’s nothing there, we keep going. Take it as it comes.” I hated just waiting here, trying to figure out what would attempt to kill us.
