Necropolis

by Christopher Nuttall

  It was hard, so very hard, to form words, but she managed it. “Why am I here?”

  “The Father Tsar wishes you to be kept alive,” the Leech said. “I believe he wishes to speak with you.”

  Gwen closed her eyes, thinking fast. What did the Tsar want from her? Magic? It wasn’t something she could give him and, as far as they knew, magic didn’t survive the transition from living to undead. Olivia had told her that the Russian experiments to create undead magicians hadn’t succeeded ... but they had succeeded, to some extent. The Tsar had become a Necromancer, of sorts. Did they hope to use her to produce additional magicians?

  Her blood ran cold as she considered another possibility. No one really knew how magic was transmitted, but they did know that the children of magicians were almost always magicians themselves. The farms had been based around using common-born female magicians as mothers of new magicians, fathered by men from Cavendish Hall. If Gwen hadn’t been born to a noble family, she knew she would have ended up in the farms, drugged while her body brought forth an endless supply of children. Did the Tsar intend to use her as a brood mare?

  “The Father Tsar is mad,” Gwen said, flatly. Outside, the undead whispered angrily amongst themselves. “How long will it be until he absorbs you too?”

  The Leech smiled at her, apparently taking no offense. “We are his most loyal servants,” he said, calmly. “He will not make us undead.”

  Gwen sighed. “Are you sure of that?” She pushed forward before the Leech could say a word. “He needs life force to keep himself going,” she added. “Sooner or later, he’s going to run out of life force. And then he will turn on you.”

  She wondered, vaguely, if the Leech would even listen to her. The poor bastard had grown up in an environment where even the slightly disloyal thought could be read and used against him. Gwen suspected she would have gone mad very quickly if Master Thomas had intruded on her thoughts whenever it suited him, reading her deepest darkest secrets while searching for traces of disloyalty. If someone was brought up with the certain knowledge their thoughts could be read at any point, they’d have a very strong incentive to condition themselves against any form of disloyalty.

  “We are his servants,” the Leech said. “We will be part of his elect once he rules the world.”

  Gwen sighed and started to study the Leech, trying to conceal her interest as best as possible. Irene had taught her a few things about fighting men, warning her that while most men tended to underestimate women as combatants, they also tended to be stronger and faster when push came to shove. The Leech looked strong and healthy, too strong for her to overcome without her powers. And, as long as he was cuffed to her, it was unlikely she would be able to get out of his range.

  “You should listen to me,” she said. She wondered, vaguely, what Irene would do in such a situation. Try to seduce the Leech, she suspected, which wouldn’t be easy. The undead were watching them, after all. “He’s going mad.”

  “He’s woken up for the first time,” a new voice said. “And you are his slave.”

  Gwen turned to see the Tsar as he stepped into the room, on the other side of the bars. His face was almost unrecognisable. Pieces of flesh were slowly dropping from his exposed skin, as if his body was decomposing inhumanly quickly. The cell didn’t smell very nice – Gwen hadn’t wanted to think about what else might have been held captive in the cell – but the Tsar stank, so badly that Gwen had to fight down a wave of nausea. And to think she hadn’t been sick since Jack had shown her the dark underpinnings of London ...

  She pulled herself to her feet, feeling the Leech rising behind her. Not that he had a choice, thanks to the cuffs. She wondered, absently, what they would do when one of them needed to use the toilet, then pushed the thought aside hastily. By then, she would have to be out of the complex or dead. Up close, she saw, the Tsar was becoming more and more like one of the undead. His moustache, which had seemed so prominent, was coming out of his skin, as if it was no longer part of him. She had a sudden mad impulse to reach out and tug at the hair, expecting it to come out without a struggle. But she pushed that aside too.

  “You’re dying,” she said, wondering if dying could really be said to apply to one of the undead. And she was sure the Tsar counted as undead, even though his mind was still in control. “Why did you do this to yourself?”

  The Tsar’s hand snapped through the bars and clenched around Gwen’s throat, squeezing tightly enough to hurt. “Silence,” he snapped. He said a handful of words in Russian that didn’t sound remotely pleasant. “You will do as you are told.”

  He let go of her and shoved her back, hard. Gwen stumbled backwards, one hand touching her bruised throat. He’d almost lost control, she realised dully, almost killed her even though he wanted to keep her alive. The darkness – the whispering – was howling at the back of his mind, dragging him down into the undead gestalt. Sooner or later, she suspected, he would lose control completely and that would be the end. But a great many innocent people would die before the whole affair finally concluded.

  If it ever does, she thought. Moscow had a population numbered in the millions, if the Russians were to be believed. That was easily enough to form a gestalt that would be terrifyingly intelligent. The Tsar might be dead, but the nightmare he’d created would live on. Can we destroy a million undead formed into one mind?

  “I’m not very good at doing what I’m told,” she said, when she managed to gather herself. “I used to object to everything my mother wanted me to do.”

  “I have no doubt of it,” the Tsar said. He looked as if he wanted to smile, but he had forgotten how. “You will heal for me.”

  Gwen eyed him, sharply. If his body had been living, it might have been possible for a Healer to put him back together. Gwen had seen a young aristocrat with several broken bones and massive trauma saved by a Healer, after taking a fall off a horse while trying to combine fox hunting and heavy drinking. But the Tsar was undead, his body rotting away at a terrifying rate, far faster than any of the normal undead. She rather doubted she could do anything to salvage his undead life, even if she’d been a full Healer.

  The Leech yanked at the cuff on her wrist. “Give him what he wants,” he ordered. “The Father Tsar requires your services.”

  Gwen gritted her teeth, then had to fight to hide her smile. “Give me my powers back,” she said. “How else am I meant to heal him?”

  The Leech smiled with genuine amusement. “You will have to be prepared first,” he said, dryly. “We wouldn’t want you doing something else with your powers.”

  Gwen made a show of rolling her eyes in a manner that had once driven her mother to distraction, followed by fits of rage. “If you refuse to let me use my powers,” she said, in the sweetest tone she could muster, “I won’t be able to do anything for your Father Tsar.”

  She paused. “I suppose I could provide him with a light snack,” she added. She was fairly sure that no undead version of her would have her powers. “Would that be helpful?”

  The Tsar stared at her for a long chilling moment. He didn’t blink, she saw, nor did his body move normally. His face was utterly inhuman, as though he could no longer muster the energy or incentive to pretend to be somewhat normal. A piece of skin peeled off his body as she watched, dropping down to the floor. Did he have the intellect, she asked herself, to realise the potential danger in allowing her access to her powers? Or was he desperate enough to take the risk?

  “You will be prepared,” he said. He turned and moved away, his every step careful and deliberate. It wasn’t an act. He had genuine difficulty in remembering how to walk. “And then you will save me.”

  Gwen watched him go, realising that Olivia might well have done far more than just extract a little revenge when she’d killed Gregory. The Healer should never have been so badly exposed, not when he was clearly the only one the Tsar had on hand. Gwen was no Healer and no one with access to her files would have doubted it. If there had been any other can
didate, she knew, they would simply have killed her out of hand, then forced her body to rise again.

  She looked over at the Leech. “Do you not see it? He’s mad!”

  “But he is still the Tsar,” the Leech said. “We will begin soon.”

  Gwen sighed, inwardly. The upper classes in England had worked hard to convince everyone, including themselves, that their rule was divinely mandated, but it was clear that the Russians had taken the concept a great deal further. Lacking any tradition of organised dissent, even of loyal opposition, the Russians found it hard to rise up against the Tsar. But the unrest simmering in the streets of Moscow and St Petersburg would eventually have exploded into the light. When society broke down completely, who knew where the pieces would fall?

  She lay back on the straw, thinking hard. If there was an opportunity to escape, or to kill herself, she would have to take it. There had been at least three Charmers working for the Russians. One of them might be able to reprogram her to do as the Tsar wanted, no matter how strongly she was opposed to his desires. And then she would no longer be herself.

  But there seemed no way out of the cell.

  She struggled to draw on just one spark of magic, just enough to kill the Leech by moving cells in his brain. But nothing worked. She was trapped.

  ***

  Olivia found herself struggling to maintain mental contact with her undead as they approached the source of the Tsar’s waves of power. The sheer level of power he was tossing around so casually was terrifying, even to a born Necromancer. Olivia had the uneasy suspicion that she would have fallen under his sway if she’d been there in person, despite not being one of the undead. As it was, she had to struggle to keep her undead under her control.

  The other undead ignored them as they walked into the complex. Olivia looked around, through the eyes of her puppets, and saw no trace of anyone living. A handful of the undead wore monkish robes, like Gregory and his servants, but none of them were alive. The Tsar seemed to be surrounding himself with more and more slaves, all undead. If there was anyone living left in the complex, she couldn’t see them.

  Deeper underground, she found a set of cells. She felt her head spinning as she peered into them, one by one, only to discover that most of the cells were empty. Her undead puppet staggered under the growing waves of power, but somehow kept moving. The fifth cell was occupied, she discovered; three undead stood on guard, while Gwen sat in a cell, handcuffed to a man.

  Olivia frowned, wondering why Gwen hadn’t broken free. Cuffing her to someone would hardly deprive her of her powers. But she understood, a moment later; the Russian cuffed to her had to be another magician, a Leech. She couldn’t help wondering what would happen if a Leech was allowed to step too close to one of the undead. Would a Leech drain away the magic holding the undead together? Or would the undead simply rip off his head or bite him, starting the transformation into yet another undead?

  She thought hard, trying to decide how best to proceed. It would be easy to deal with the undead guards; as always, they seemed to have problems even seeing her undead puppet. But the Leech might be a far more dangerous prospect. She considered several options, then decided to deal with the undead first. If nothing else, Gwen would have a chance to break free. Bracing herself, she lashed out at the first undead, sending its head flying from its shoulders to crash against the far wall. The other undead appeared to be surprised – from their point of view, the attack seemed to have come out of nowhere – but the Leech let out a cry of shock.

  Olivia took out the second undead, then the third. And then she felt the Tsar’s mental influence growing stronger and stronger ... hastily, she dropped out of the undead puppet before he could overwhelm her completely. She’d done the best she could, she knew. She just hoped Gwen could take advantage of it.

  ***

  Gwen saw the fourth undead enter the prison cell, but thought little of it. The Tsar would be trying to intimidate her with the sheer scale of his power and control before his Charmers started to work. If she was halfway to being convinced that resistance was futile, she knew, it would be much easier to bring her completely over to his side. And then the undead creature’s hand lashed out and beheaded one of its fellows.

  Olivia, she thought, as the Leech started to his feet, dragging Gwen along with him. The thought made her smile, giving her renewed energy. She’s alive!

  The Leech stared in disbelief as the undead kept slaughtering its fellows. Gwen saw her chance and took it, throwing herself at his back. They crashed forward, his head cracking into one of the bars with a sickening thud. Gwen felt her magic flaring through her body once again as the Leech shuddered, clearly badly stunned rather than dead. The remaining undead advanced towards her; Gwen summoned fire, blasted both of them to ash, then sliced through the Leech’s hand and the chains around her ankles. There would be time to unpick the cuffs later.

  A terrible moaning echoed through the complex as she broke out of the cell and rushed for the door. Four undead were already running towards her; oddly, they were holding weapons in their hands. Gwen blasted all four of them, then almost collapsed as everything caught up with her at once. Whispering – terrible whispering – echoed through her mind, reminding her that the Tsar was somewhere within the complex. But she didn’t have the energy to go after him, not now. All she could do was try to make her escape.

  Another swarm of undead greeted her as she reached the stairwell and threw herself up it, their arms reaching for her with deadly intent. Gwen knocked them down, feeling her head starting to pound again, then ran past them and out of the building. Whatever happened, she told herself, she would die free.

  Behind her, the Tsar’s whispering grew louder, echoing through her mind.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  It took Olivia several moments to gather herself after escaping the Tsar’s increasingly harsh mental commands. The certain knowledge that he’d almost taken her as well as her undead had shocked her to the bone. And yet, she knew she couldn’t just lie there and wait to see what happened. She had to try to muster help for Gwen before it was too late.

  She snapped open her eyes and stared across the airstrip. One airship was already being loaded with passengers – foreign diplomats and Russian aristocrats – while the other was being prepared for flight. Hundreds of soldiers stood around the airstrip, several carrying makeshift swords, while others were assembling barricades around the complex. Olivia had few illusions as to their effectiveness. If the Tsar chose to throw thousands of his undead at the barricades, they would collapse into rubble within seconds.

  “Olivia?” Raechel asked. “Are you all right?”

  “Gwen isn’t,” Olivia said. She stumbled to her feet, looking for Sir Sidney. “Where’s Sidney?”

  “At the edge of the airstrip,” Simone said. She sounded concerned; her powers, Olivia realised, would let her hear the whispering through Olivia. “What’s happening?”

  Olivia ignored her as she walked frantically towards Sir Sidney. He was definitely coming apart at the seams, she realised, but there was nothing they could do about it. The only solution she could think of was to allow him to bite someone and that would just give him a taste for it. When she reached him, she saw that someone had tried to feed him bread, cheese and dried meat. It was clear that he hadn’t been able to eat any of it.

  Which isn’t surprising, she thought, morbidly. He doesn’t have a real digestive system any more.

  Sir Sidney looked up at her, his face slack. His voice, when he spoke, was raspy, as if he had forgotten how to speak for the second time. “What ... has ... happened?”

  “The Tsar took Gwen prisoner,” Olivia said. She had no idea why the Tsar hadn’t simply slit Gwen’s throat, but she was glad of the oversight. “I helped her, I think, but we need to get after her. The Tsar won’t want her to escape.”

  Sir Sidney looked down at the ground. “I can hear him,” he said. “And I can hear the whispering.”

  “It’s getting
louder,” Olivia agreed. “We have to help Gwen.”

  “The soldiers will be useless,” Sir Sidney said. “In the streets, they will be overwhelmed and destroyed.”

  “I know,” Olivia said. The Russian troops might have surrounded the city, but Moscow was a huge place. It would take more troops than they had to keep the undead confined indefinitely – or to destroy Moscow, burning it to the ground. She had no illusions about what would happen when the Tsar tried to break out of the city. “Just you and I.”

  Sir Sidney looked back at her. “I don’t think I’m me any longer,” he said. “My thoughts keep fading in and out of existence.”

  Olivia shuddered, remembering one of the most terrifying men she’d ever met, long before she’d known Jack or Gwen. He’d had no conscience; indeed, he’d had no emotions at all, as far as anyone knew. The streets had whispered that he killed, tortured and raped, yet felt nothing, not even sadistic pleasure in his acts. Some of the nastiest gang lords had used him as an enforcer, paying him hundreds of pounds to send a very clear message to their debtors of what would happen if they failed to pay. He had never failed to get results.

  And what would happen, she asked herself, if Sir Sidney went the same way?

  “Then we can fight now,” she said, flatly. If nothing else, going into the city would keep Sir Sidney away from the living. “And we really have to go after Gwen.”

  Sir Sidney nodded, then rose to his feet. “See if Simone can call Gwen,” he ordered, as he started to walk towards the city. “And then run after me.”