“Are you watching this shit?” Cali asked breathlessly.
“Yeah. With my mom and Bradley. It’s totally gross. We just shut it off.”
“Oh. I guess with them there you can’t really talk about it right now, huh?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“Have you watched any of the videos on your computer yet? They’re un-freaking-believable.”
“No. I think I’ll wait on that.” Leesa looked over at her mom, who was watching her from the couch. “I don’t need to see that kind of stuff,” she added for her mom’s benefit.
“Have you called Dominic yet?” Cali asked. “With no TV, he may not even know about it yet.”
Leesa strolled into the kitchen, not wanting to appear like she needed privacy.
“I’m sure he sensed something. I’m going to call him as soon as you and I hang up. He’s going to want to meet right away, I think.”
She poured herself a glass of water—an excellent reason to have gone into the kitchen.
“When you know where, will you call me?” Cali asked.
“Yeah, sure. If Dominic says it okay. I gotta go now. Talk to you soon.”
Leesa broke the connection and stuck her phone into the back pocket of her shorts. She returned to the living room.
“I’m going out for a walk,” she announced. “I might meet up with Cali—I’m not sure. If I do, I may be gone for awhile.”
Her family knew nothing about Dominic, but going out for a walk meant that she didn’t have to lie to them. Since she took long walks pretty much every day, there was nothing unusual or suspicious about taking one now.
“Put sunscreen on,” Judy said. “The sun is hot today.”
“I will, Mom.”
Leesa headed to the bedroom and quickly slathered sunscreen onto her face, arms and legs. She grabbed a ball cap and threaded her hair through the opening in the back.
“See you both later,” she said cheerfully as she crossed back through the living room.
As soon as she was outside and heading down the walk, she took out her cell and punched in Dominic’s number.
22. QUITE A SHOW
DOMINIC AND CALI WERE WAITING outside the entrance to the Weston College library when Leesa arrived. Her three mile walk had taken about forty-five minutes, and she had worked up quite a sweat in the hot, sticky air. She didn’t mind one bit, though. After suffering from a limp her whole life, she still hadn’t gotten over the thrill of being able to walk normally. She was going to enjoy it every chance she got.
With the whole building wired for wi-fi, the library was a perfect meeting place. Even during the busy school months, the upper floor stacks provided enough privacy for Leesa to occasionally practice her magic there; now, with only summer school in session, she expected they would probably have the whole fourth floor to themselves.
She bounded up the granite steps and entered the library with Cali and Dominic. Cali had brought her laptop, relieving Leesa of the need to carry her own computer with her on her walk. Inside the building, the cool, air-conditioned air felt cold on Leesa’s sweaty skin, but she welcomed the chill.
Less than a dozen students sat scattered around the first floor. Most were on their computers, though she saw one girl lounging on a cushioned easy chair reading an actual book. She wasn’t surprised by the lack of people—on a sunny summer Saturday like today, only the nerdiest of nerds would be using the library for anything more than a place to cool down. Only nerds and wizards, she reminded herself, smiling.
They rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. As Leesa expected, they had the entire place to themselves. Even so, they headed for the secluded table in the center of the stacks that had served as their clandestine meeting place a number of times before.
They all took seats on the same side of the table, with Cali in the middle, her laptop open in front of her. It took her only a minute to boot up and log on, and another thirty seconds to load the first video, which she had bookmarked earlier.
“This is the best one,” she said as she clicked the play button. “It’s got the clearest images of all the ones I found.”
Leesa and Dominic watched the action unfold in rapt attention. The first part—zombies falling upon victims who had been unable to escape—was similar to what Leesa had seen on TV, but the pictures were much clearer, and therefore much more disturbing. After a minute or two, the first policemen arrived on the scene. They rushed in and began pulling the attackers away from their victims, but the officers soon found themselves beset by the creatures. One of the cops in the foreground stumbled backward, blood clearly visible running down his arm in dark red streams. He yanked his gun from its holster and fired several times, hitting the creature in the chest. The zombie staggered slightly with each shot, but it kept moving forward, apparently unharmed by the bullets.
“Head shots, you idiot!” Cali exclaimed. “Don’t you know anything about freaking zombies?”
As if hearing Cali’s words, the policeman backed away from his attacker and aimed higher. This time, the zombie’s head split apart like a ripe watermelon and the creature collapsed to the pavement.
“That’s better,” Cali said to the screen.
No wonder they hadn’t shown any footage like this on TV, Leesa thought. She wasn’t a horror film nut like Cali and so many other teenagers, but the images were easily as graphic as those in any of the most violent movies she had ever seen.
She continued watching. Police and National Guard troops surged into the melee, taking head shots from close range at the creatures to avoid hitting any bystanders. Whoever had taken the video obviously felt safer now that the Guard had arrived, because the images became steadier and more close up, as if he or she had moved nearer to the action.
Finally, the battle ended. Several dozen bodies littered the ground. From this viewpoint, it was impossible to tell how many were zombies and how many were victims. A policeman strode rapidly toward the camera and appeared to grab it from its owner. The video went black as if a hand had covered the lens. A moment later, it ended.
Leesa remembered the newsman on television saying that cameras and cell phones were being confiscated in an attempt to keep information on the incident close at hand. Whoever owned this one must have had an automatic feed that instantly uploaded his video to a server or to a cloud. Seizing the camera had not stopped the video from going viral. She turned to look at Dominic. As she expected, he was stroking his beard in thought.
“Play it again, please,” he said to Cali.
Cali dutifully reran the video. Leesa didn’t notice new the second time. She had no idea what Dominic might or might not have seen. Whatever it was, he wasn’t saying, at least not yet.
“Are there more?” he asked when the video ended for a second time.
“A bunch,” Cali said. “This one is the best, though.”
“Show me some of the others.”
Leesa wasn’t sure what Dominic was looking for, but he studied each of the following videos as carefully as the first. The others showed pretty much the same thing, from different angles and distances. Leesa tried focusing on people in the background, trying to see if she could spot anyone who didn’t look like they belonged, but her search came up empty. She wondered if Dominic was having any better luck.
“That’s enough,” Dominic said when the seventh or eighth video ended.
Cali closed the link and then leaned back in her chair, leaving her computer on.
“They said on TV this might be some secret government experiment gone wrong,” she said to Dominic. “That’s not what you’re thinking, though, is it?”
Dominic shook his head. “No. This is the work of the Necromancer and his followers,” he replied. “I sensed an expenditure of black waziri magic at the same time this occurred. Though my former comrades do not appear in any of the videos, to think the timing a coincidence would be the height of foolishness.”
“What does it mean?” Leesa asked. “Has the Necromance
r broken the seal? Is the beginning of the battle between the living and the dead?”
Dominic stroked his beard. “I am not sure. But if it is not the actual beginning, it may at least be the beginning of the beginning.”
Leesa did not like the sound of that. She had made great progress with her magic, but she was nowhere near ready yet.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I need more information.” Dominic leaned back in his chair. “I must know if the Necromancer has merely raised the dead, or if he has also learned to make them contagious. Nothing I have seen or heard yet speaks to that.”
“You mean like in all the movies?” Cali asked. “If you get bitten, you become one of them?”
“Yes, that is exactly what I mean. To do so has to be the Necromancer’s ultimate goal. It is the only way his armies of the living dead can grow fast enough to be certain of victory.”
“How are you going to find out if the zombies were contagious?” Leesa asked. “The army has the town all sealed up. They’re not releasing any information like that.”
“I know. That’s why we have to go up there.”
Leesa’s eyes widened. “Go there?”
“It is the only way.”
“But how will we get past all the guards? You can’t use your magic without revealing yourself to the black waziri.”
“I know. And you do not yet have the power to elude the guards. But I know someone who does.”
Dominic smiled knowingly at Leesa.
“Rave!” she exclaimed. “He’s damned near invisible when he wants to be, especially at night. And I usually can’t hear him move even when I’m listening. You’re right—it would take an awful lot to keep him from getting where he wanted to go.”
“I bet Stefan could do it, too,” Cali said, “if we needed him to.”
“I’m sure he could,” Dominic replied. “But we know exactly where to find Rave.” He grinned. “And if Leesa is going, we can be pretty sure Rave will want to come along.”
Leesa smiled, feeling almost as warm right now as if Rave were sitting beside her.
“Yeah, he will.”
“Can I come?” Cali asked.
Dominic thought for a moment, but then shook his head.
“Not this time, I don’t think,” he said.
Cali frowned, disappointed.
“But you can help us some more right now,” Dominic added.
Cali brightened. “How?”
“Can you get us a topographical map of the Lisbon Falls area on your computer? I want to see what the surrounding terrain is like.”
“You betcha.” Cali pecked away at her keyboard for a few moments. “As a matter of fact, I can do better than that. How’s this?”
A satellite image from Google Earth filled the screen, showing every hill, river and wooded area.
“I can zoom in as close as you want,” she told Dominic.
To demonstrate, she zoomed in on some woods until they could see individual trees.
“That’s perfect,” he said. “Find the cemetery north of town for me, please.”
Cali moved the image until it showed the north side of Lisbon Falls, then zoomed in until she could see the old cemetery. Since this was not a real time image, the graves were undisturbed.
With Cali’s help, Dominic spent the next twenty minutes studying the area around Lisbon Falls. Leesa watched closely, familiarizing herself with the area as well. Finally, Dominic had seen enough.
“Let’s go get Rave,” he said.
23. PREPARING TO GO
AS LEESA AND DOMINIC APPROACHED BALIN’S CABIN, they spotted the old volkaane kneeling on the ground alongside the building, tending his garden. His back was to them as he busily pulled weeds from among a row of tall tomato plants, but as soon as they turned up the walkway to his home he stood up and turned to face them. His expression showed no surprise at their unplanned visit.
“Welcome,” he said, wiping his soiled hands on the legs of his buckskin pants before reaching forward to shake Dominic’s hand.
“Hi, Balin,” Leesa said. “You look like you were expecting us.”
“Only for the last two minutes or so,” Balin replied. “Other than that, it is indeed a pleasant surprise.
“Do humans make that much noise when we walk, even on packed dirt?”
Balin grinned. “To volkaane ears, I’m afraid you do. But that is not how I knew it was you.”
“How then?” Leesa asked, puzzled.
“Rave is not the only one who can smell the tinge of grafhym in your blood.”
Leesa nodded. She hadn’t ever thought about volkaanes other than Rave being able to detect the grafhym in her. It made sense, though. After all, they all hunted vampires.
“Speaking of Rave,” she said, “is he around? We need him.”
Balin pursed his lips. “From your tone, I take it you want him for something more important than kissing practice.”
“Well, I’m not sure anything is more important than kissing practice,” Leesa joked, “but yeah, we do.” She turned toward Dominic. “I wouldn’t mind a bit of practice if we have time, though.”
Dominic chuckled. “I think we could probably spare five or ten minutes, if we find Rave soon.”
“Last I knew,” Balin said, “he was over at his home. But I do not think you’ll have to go look for him.”
“Why not?” Leesa asked. “Are you expecting him?”
“No, not in the way you mean. His young nose is much keener than mine, so I would expect him to be headed this way even as we speak.”
Leesa turned and looked up the roadway. Sure enough, Rave was striding rapidly toward them, a big smile brightening his handsome face. She knew that smile was for her. She thought about running down to meet him by jumping up into his arms like she often did, but decided to play a little harder to get today. So she waited with Dominic and Balin, watching Rave every step of the way.
“What, no jump?” Rave asked when he reached them. “Has the magic faded already?” Hi smile showed he was teasing.
Leesa took one step forward and leaped up into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and hugging him tightly. This was much more fun than playing hard to get, she thought as she snuggled against his chest.
Finally, she let go and Rave lowered her to the ground.
“The magic will never be gone,” she said emphatically, linking her arm around his.
“So, to what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?” Rave asked. “Is it time for kissing practice again already? It seems like we practiced only yesterday.”
Leesa punched him playfully on the arm. “Hush, you. You know as well as I do that it’s been three days—not that I’m counting, mind you. But that’s not why we’re here—though Dominic did say we could spare a few minutes for that.” She looked at him coyly. “If you want to, that is.”
Rave grinned. “At the moment, I can’t think of anything I want more.”
Leesa squeezed his arm. “That’s much better,” she said.
“But if kissing isn’t the reason you came today, what is?” Rave asked.
“We need your help,” Dominic said. “It is extremely important.”
Rave nodded. “Of course I’ll help. Tell me. What’s going on?”
Dominic explained everything that had happened in Maine in detail. Since there were no televisions or radios in the volkaane settlement, this was the first Rave and Balin had heard about the zombie attack. They listened with deep concern.
“I need to obtain as much information about those zombies as I can,” Dominic said when he was finished with his story. “Most importantly, I need to know whether the creatures’ bites were contagious, and if so, how long the transformation took. The government has sealed off the town, allowing no one in or out for the time being. I cannot use my magic to bypass the guards without revealing myself to the black waziri. That’s where you come in, Rave. Perhaps in a few days the army will have erected lights and barrier
s that would keep even a volkaane out, but there’s no way they could have done it this quickly.”
“Unless they surround the entire town with a tall fence and light up the barrier with floodlights, I will find a way in,” Rave assured the wizard.
“Good,” Dominic replied. “That’s what I was hoping to hear. Cali’s computer tells us Lisbon Falls is a about a four hour drive from here. How long will it take you to get there on foot?”
Rave did a quick calculation. “I can be there by midnight, I’m certain.” He paused for a moment. “I think I’ll bring Dral and Bain with me, just in case.”
“Excellent. Leesa and I will wait in the woods north of town, as close to the graveyard as we can safely get. Will you be able to find us okay in the dark?”
Rave grinned. “It would take a lot more than darkness and some woods to keep me from being able to find Leesa.”
“And that’s exactly the way I like it,” Leesa chimed in.
“All right, then,” Dominic said. “The sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll all be there.”
“Wait just a minute,” Leesa said. “You said we could spare five or ten minutes.”
Dominic laughed. “That I did,” he said. “That I did.”
“Well, then, time’s a wastin’. Let’s get the party started. Pick me up, please.”
Dominic took Leesa by the elbows and lifted her off the ground so she could safely employ her levitation spell without disturbing the powers slumbering beneath the earth. When she had floated ten feet above the ground, she invoked her heat resistance spell. Meanwhile, Rave performed the breathing exercises necessary to begin Rammugul.
When Leesa and Rave were ready, Balin put his finger on Rave’s neck and Dominic placed his palm on Leesa’s forearm. A moment later, the two young lovers lost themselves in a kiss that seemed to last for hours—but still ended much to quickly for both of them.
“Now we can go,” Leesa said, sighing.
24. SEARCHING FOR SECRETS
ONE MOMENT LEESA AND DOMINIC were standing alone in the woods outside of Lisbon Falls, surreptitiously surveying the town below them through the trees, and the next Rave, Dral and Bain had silently materialized beside them. All three were dressed in black shirts and pants. Leesa hadn’t heard a thing, but Dominic turned his head just before their arrival, his heightened wizard senses detecting their approach at the very last moment.
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