by Annie Bellet
“I’ve got a magic sword,” I said in my defense.
“You’re bleeding.”
I twisted my arm around to get a look at the bite. It was ugly, but nothing too serious. My poor left arm was taking a beating.
“I won’t be in about two minutes,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Alek snarled, his gaze moving past me, back the way we had come.
The door we had blocked slammed open. Three of the ghoulish demonic creatures like the ones we had fought in the park the night before charged into the room. They hissed when they saw us. Then two more came in behind them.
Five. Ghouls. Shit.
“Door, go, now,” I said.
“What are those?” Levi asked as we backed into the hallway beyond.
I went in last, watching the ghouls as they picked their way across toward us, seemingly in no hurry. That worried me even more.
“Demonic ghoul things?” I said. “Those are what attacked last night. They are kind of smart, so look out.”
“And fast,” Alek added.
The hallway we backed into was about ten feet wide and again reinforced with scaffolding like you’d see in a mine shaft. The ceiling was high enough here that Alek didn’t have to stoop to get under the beams.
It was too wide to make a good stand. The ghouls would be able to get to us in pairs and we’d be hampered by the enclosed space.
“So they die?” Harper asked.
The ghoul in front stopped and hissed at me from just a dozen feet off now. Its eyes glowed brighter.
“Do enough damage, yeah,” I said. Or hit them with the Alpha and Omega, which was shining with blue light again.
I let my magic pour into my blood. This room would go up in spectacular fashion if I used enough fire. The question was, would the ghouls make it to me before I could burn them. If I stayed in the doorway, the space was narrow enough they couldn’t get past me.
“If you burn room, we might not be able to get out,” Alek said softly behind me.
I felt his warmth at my back as his hand gently touched my shoulder. He had a point, alas. We stared down the ghouls as the magic sang in my blood. They seemed content to wait out of sword range for us to act. Too bad they were smart enough not to charge the armed woman standing in a narrow doorway.
“I will shift and fight them,” Alek said. “Move, Jade.”
“Nope, vetoed. I know you are a badass but nope.”
“I killed two last night,” he said. I heard the frustrated growl in his voice.
“There’s five,” I said. “They could surround you out there. Nope.” I couldn’t shake a vision of Alek being clawed to pieces by misshapen creatures with glowing red eyes.
“We can hold the door,” Harper said.
“No you can’t.” I shook my head. “They are ridiculously strong.”
“So are we,” Levi said.
“And after?”
“You go find the necromancer, we’ll hold the door.” Levi’s voice was tight with pain.
“That phrase is never going to be the same again, is it?” Harper said.
“If I back out of this doorway, they might charge before we get it shut,” I said. This door had opened into the hallway, not the room.
“Distract them?” Harper suggested.
It was worth a shot. Better than standing here until we all died of boredom or did something stupid. I wasn’t going to let them hold the door while I ran off to find the wizard, but maybe once we had it shut we could get it locked again.
“Ok, wait for my signal. Back up, get ready,” I said.
I sent my magic out from me in dual tendrils. It was tough to do it without using gestures, but my left arm was aching badly against my side and my right held the sword in what I hoped was a seriously threatening manner. I had to do this without a somatic component. I was a big girl sorceress, I could manage.
I wrapped my magic tentacles around two intact, heavy-looking coffins to either side of the wedge of ghouls.
“Now,” I yelled as I mentally yanked on the coffins, visualizing them slamming together right on the front ghoul’s stupid toothy face.
The coffins scraped along the ground, moving far more slowly than I had envisioned. They slammed together as I backed up quickly, but not on the ghoul. The ghouls sprang across the remaining dozen feet just as the door banged shut in their faces, almost catching me as I flattened myself to the wall to let it pass.
Levi and Alek threw their bodies against the door and it held as a ghoul smashed into it from the other side. The whole hallway shook with the impact and dust trickled down from the rocky ceiling.
“Not going to hold forever,” Levi gasped out.
“Relock it,” I told Harper.
“That won’t do much, it’s just a bolt in there. Might rip out of the frame if they keep that up.”
“It’ll buy us time to run,” I said.
“We’ll buy you time. Go,” Harper said. She ducked under Alek’s arm and put her weight into the shaking door.
Coyote-Ezee shoved his shoulder into the door alongside Harper. The wood was thick and banded with iron. With three shifters leaning all their weight into it, it was holding. For now.
“Come,” Alek said.
“I’m not splitting the party,” I said.
“Jade, trust us. We’re not helpless,” Harper said through gritted teeth.
I reached a compromise in my head as I turned and looked down the hall. There was a bend just ahead and the light was brighter in that direction.
“It’s dangerous, take this,” I said, managing a smile as I held out the Alpha and Omega to my best friend. “Pointy end goes in the other guy.”
“Thanks,” Harper said. Her green eyes glinted in the light of the blade as she gripped it. The sword kept glowing and stayed in sword form, so I hoped that meant it accepted her. With it, they stood a chance.
“Seriously, don’t cut anything you don’t intend to be dead,” I said.
“Go,” Levi said as another body slammed the door from the other side.
I started down the hallway. Alek followed.
“They might need you,” I said to him as he fell into step beside me.
“You might need me,” Alek answered.
I started to reach into my pocket for the dial so I could re-cast the spell as we went around the bend. Then I stopped. The hall opened into a room dead ahead. We walked forward cautiously and looked into the huge circular chamber.
We had found the necromancer. And… a sheep?
The chamber looked like something out of Beauty and the Beast. Shelves full of books lined the circular walls, with ladders at intervals providing access to the higher ones. There was a platform carved into the far wall that had a bed on it. I couldn’t see all the way back to know if there was an exit up there or more rooms. The floor of the chamber was tiled with green stone in an intricate pattern. In the center was a circle inlaid with copper with more copper lines in a wheel spoke pattern out from the center. Staked in the center was a sheep, a loop of rope around its neck tied to a ring embedded in the floor.
The necromancer stood behind a giant desk at the back of the chamber, a revolver in one shaking hand. He was an old man, as the vampire had said, with papery white skin, pale terrified eyes, and a comb-over of salt and pepper hair plastered to his sweaty head.
I held up my hands, but mentally readied a shield in case he tried to shoot at us.
“Hey,” I called out. “Let’s talk.”
The necromancer nodded vigorously, though he didn’t lower the gun.
The room was hazy with incense smoke and as I walked carefully into the chamber, I noticed enclosed incense burners hanging from chains off metal hooks at intervals around the room. It reminded me of the homes I’d been in where the human was a life-long smoker. Always trying to hide the smell with other smells.
I skirted the copper circle. The sheep started bleating or baaing or whatever you call the horrible noise sheep make.
Beside me, Alek growled. The sheep shut up instantly. I glanced at my mate to confirm he was still in human form.
“What do you want?” the necromancer said as we stopped about ten feet from him.
“Call off the ghouls,” I said.
“The what?” He looked genuinely confused for a moment and then comprehension dawned on his face. “I can’t. They are programmed by the spell that made them to kill anything that comes down here that isn’t me.”
“The sheep is alive,” I said. Why did he have a sheep? I figured we’d get to that.
The necromancer gave me a look like he was wondering how I’d made it to adulthood. “There is another way out,” he said, pointing at the ladder that led up to his loft. “If you promise to leave in peace, you can use it.”
“Can’t do that,” I said. “You attacked me, sent those things after me.”
“You stole my vampire,” he said.
“You were enslaving him,” I countered.
“It’s a vampire, who cares?” The gun dipped. His arm was getting tired. Didn’t surprise me, it takes a lot of energy and strength to hold a gun steady for a long period.
“The vampire who hired me to get the jar, clearly,” I said. Technically Noah hadn’t hired me, but I doubted technicalities were important right then.
The necromancer’s tongue flicked out over his thin lips. His teeth and tongue were greenish-black. I was guessing this guy didn’t have much of a social life. Maybe that was what the sheep was for. I shoved away that thought as soon as it surfaced. Ick.
“It is not enough you’ve ruined my house and killed my experiments?” he asked. “I am dying. The young don’t understand what it is like to have your body fail. Leave me to die in peace.”
I glanced at Alek, but he was no help. He stared at the necromancer with a look of mild disgust on his face. I’d come down here with the intention of killing this guy, but I hadn’t expected to kind of feel sorry for him.
“What about all those zombies? They were people once, too,” I said.
“They died on their own, didn’t you see the coffins? I don’t kill people, I work with the dead.” His greenish tongue flicked over his lips again and his eyes darted to the side, glancing at the sheep.
“Lies,” Alek said.
“I only kill to defend myself,” the necromancer said, his nervous pale gaze settling on Alek. “Those armed men that came before you. That’s all.”
“Lie,” Alek said.
That made me feel a little less pity for the old man. He had to die. If I left him here, there was no way to know how many people he’d kill before the Archivist sent enough men to stop him, or old age and illness finally took him down. The necromancer knew where I lived, as well. He could be the type to hold a grudge.
Killing someone like this in cold blood wasn’t my jam. I glanced at Alek again. It was his, I knew. He’d executed people for the Council many times. Could I order him to kill? I knew he would do it. Hell, he was probably just waiting for me to say “go” before he struck.
The necromancer acted while I hung on the edge of indecision. He swung the gun up and pulled the trigger.
I slammed my magical shield into place as soon as I saw his arm moving, but the necromancer hadn’t shot at us. He unloaded five shots into the sheep.
Before the sixth shot went off, Alek went around my shield, leapt over the desk and on top of him. He smashed the necromancer’s arm against the shelves and the gun went flying. Alek hauled the necromancer out from behind the desk and shook him like a rat.
“Please please please,” the little old man whined.
I looked to where the sheep lay in a spreading pool of blood.
“What did you do that for?” I asked.
The stench of necromantic power washed over us in a nauseating wave. The sheep’s blood ran into the copper channels of the circle and the ground started to shake. Behind me, Alek cried out and I saw the necromancer go flying as Alek tossed him away.
A small knife stuck in Alek’s arm where the necromancer had stabbed him. Old age and treachery, I thought. Get you every time. Alek ripped the knife out with a snarl.
The floor kept shaking and I had trouble maintaining my balance. The incense gathered like a cloud inside, swirling around and obscuring the center. Summoning my magic, I sent a wave of power at the circle but it was rebuffed by the lines of copper. The force knocked me onto my ass.
Alek shifted to tiger, leaping past me as the smoke swirled outward and abruptly dissipated. A huge creature remained. It was nearly twice the size of tiger-Alek, with the same shiny grey skin as the ghouls. It had six legs that all terminated in big clawed hands, and a long barbed tail. Its head was something from an H.R. Giger nightmare, with venomous-looking teeth and four sets of glowing red eyes embedded deep in its shiny carapace-like forehead.
And me, in a room full of paper. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to get us all killed. No fire, check.
The monster went for tiger-Alek. Alek dodged its swiping claws and raked its shoulder. Black ichor spurted but its tail came around and slammed into Alek’s body, throwing him to the side. He twisted, cat-quick, and landed with a snarl as the monster snapped on empty air where he had been.
I gathered magic into my hands, pouring every ounce of power I could muster into a giant ball of whirling death. The monster was ignoring me for the moment, to its detriment. I prepared to throw the energy ball, yelling as I did so to get the monster’s attention.
“Kamehameha!”
The necromancer hit me in the side with an incense burner just as I released the ball. The blow knocked me sideways as my ribs cracked and the air whooshed out of my lungs in a painful gasp. The ball flew high, smashing into the shelves beyond. It started to rain paper.
I rolled to the side, struggling to catch my breath. The necromancer came at me again with the burner, swinging it like a mace at my head. I kicked hard, connecting with his left knee as he closed the distance. His knee went the wrong direction and I heard a sickening snap. With a scream, he collapsed.
I crab walked back, away from the necromancer, leaving him to writhe in pain. My back hit the desk. Tiger-Alek was still fighting the monster, darting in and twisting away, blood dotting his white fur. He was moving well, so I hoped the injuries weren’t too awful.
I needed my sword but leaving Alek to battle alone while I ran back down the hall sounded like a terrible plan. I’d left it with Harper for a reason. If I went and took it, Alek could lose the fight while I ran. If I took it, Harper and the twins could lose the fight at the door with no simple and quick way to kill the ghouls.
“Damn sword is a crutch” I muttered to myself. I couldn’t rely on having a magic weapon that killed everything for me. I’d gotten by without it before.
My ribs felt like someone had used me like a soccer ball, but I struggled to my feet, breathing as shallowly as possible.
Alek had the monster spinning this way and that, using claw and tail to try to pin the giant tiger down. He had it utterly distracted for the moment, and mostly held in the same spot.
We’d fought huge things before. I couldn’t just burn it down, so I had to think outside the box. We were in a box of sorts in this room. A box with a stone floor.
Kneeling back down, I glanced at the necromancer. He was lying on his side, gasping. He watched the fight with a crazy look on his face.
I pooled my magic in my hands again, the power flowing through my blood pushing back the pain and exhaustion I felt. I’d used a lot of magic over the last few days and my body was feeling every phantom injury I’d had to heal that weekend. Red dots littered my vision. I blinked them away.
I’d only done this once, on a stone monster out in the River of No Return wilderness, but I remembered how it had felt and used that memory to enforce my will. My magic plunged into the stone floor and rippled in a wave toward the monster. The floor felt like solid bedrock beneath the stone tiles covering it. I visualized my magic spreading into a circle a
round the monster, still deep beneath the floor. I sealed the circle and spread my magic out to fill it.
With a deep breath my ribs instantly regretted I’d taken, I used my magic to turn the stone to sand and yanked downward as I did. The tiles beneath the monster collapsed as they dissolved into sand. It tried to leap away as its back legs were trapped in the quicksand but I pulled harder, pushing my magic deeper into the bedrock.
The monster sank up to its last set of clawed legs with a hideous screech. I was losing control of the spell, my magic felt like burning ropes of acid in my hands. As soon as the shoulders of the monster hit the sand and fell under, I pictured stone again, hard perfect, gleaming stone. The sand solidified around the monster, crushing it.
Tiger-Alek leapt as soon as he saw the ground change from sand to rock. With paws bigger than my head and claws longer than my fingers, he ripped into the exposed head of the monster, tearing into its dying face with fury. Ichor and chunks of grey flesh flew. Alek really hated undead, from what I could tell.
I staggered to my feet, my vision now full of dancing red dots. I was going to pay for all this magic use, and soon.
But not yet.
A yell rang down the hallway.
“Go,” I called out to Alek, pointing toward the hall.
He abandoned the dead monster and snarled at me. Red blood and black ichor decorated his white fur. There was a long shallow gash on his left side.
“Go,” I said again. “Please.” This was not the time for arguing. I could handle an old man with a busted knee, though I wouldn’t underestimate him again.
With another snarl, Alek sprang away and disappeared down the hall.
I turned to the necromancer. He was edging away from me with wide eyes.
“I almost pitied you,” I told him. I kicked the incense burner out of the way. It had fallen open and papers smoldered where the burning coal had fallen.
“Put out the fire,” he gasped, pointing to the coal.
I stomped down on it, grinding my foot in. Then I walked forward again, advancing on him as he wiggled across the tiles along the shelves.
“What are you?” he asked. “You did that?” His pale eyes flicked to the embedded monster in the now smooth, solid stone floor.
