“God fucking dammit,” he muttered. He resisted the urge to punch the window’s wooden frame, but only just.
“What is it?” whispered Tess. Eliza was also looking at him, expectant and worried.
“It’s a zombie,” he said. “I hate zombies. With a passion. I really, really hate them. It’s hard for me to express just how much I hate them.”
Eliza’s face went pale. Tess immediately started looking around, as though one of the monsters might have been able to sneak into the watchtower. It was a reasonable impulse, especially given how zombies were, at least in Lee’s experience, the equivalent of cockroaches within the realm of undead.
The first one he’d encountered had been a little over a year before he’d come to Primhaven. A family of Somali immigrants had requested his services through a translator who’d been new to the language. Lee had gone in expecting a specter, only to find the reincarnated body of a fifty-something year-old man staggering around a small apartment with only a single entrance.
His kris dagger had felt like a plastic picnic knife against it. He’d fought the monster from room to room for close to an hour, blow after blow failing to do much more than stun it. He’d had to jam his dagger in through an eye socket at a very specific angle to bring the encounter to an end. The conversation about whose responsibility the clean-up had been with the translator and the family afterward had been absolute hell.
“Mattis talked about zombies in Meta-Magic,” whispered Eliza. “They’re born from a curse, right?”
“Yeah,” said Lee. “Their condition transmutes through bites, though it’s not a surefire thing like most people assume. I don’t know much more than that about them. They aren’t my specialty. They’ll never be my specialty, creepy bastards.”
He exhaled and forced himself to calm down. The zombie was drawing closer to the watchtower. The snow had begun falling in thick curtains, preventing them from seeing more than a short distance, but even so, Lee could see the shambling silhouettes of at least two more zombies in the distance.
“We can’t stay here,” he muttered. “We have to get back inside the walls.”
“What?” cried Eliza. “But that would mean…”
“If we move now and move fast, we should be fine. If we wait until they have the watchtower surrounded, we’ll be much, much worse off. They’re insanely strong. They’ll knock the door down and force their way up the stairs if we give them time.”
Eliza looked terrified, and Tess only slightly less so, despite not being directly threatened by the monsters. Lee immediately started pulling his winter gear on, and Eliza hurried to do the same.
“Should we try to cast spells at them?” she asked.
“Only if they surround us. Offensive magic probably won’t work so well, unless you’re confident enough in your fire blasts to completely incinerate one. Focus on spells to slow them down, conjuration bindings, wind to blow them back, and alteration shields if they get in close.”
“Got it.”
Lee took the lead, hurrying down the spiral staircase and stopping by the door. He gripped Eliza’s hand, not wanting to run the risk of losing her in the near-blizzard of snow awaiting them. Tess looked like she was on the verge of crying, and gave him a quick hug as he was about to pull the door open.
“Be careful,” she whispered.
“We’ll be okay,” he said.
As soon as they were outside, Lee took off at the fastest pace he could manage with Eliza in tow. The snow had accumulated to a surprisingly high level on the ground, which made each step wonky and slow. The three zombies he’d spotted had drawn nearly close enough to have an effective perimeter around the tower.
Lee charged toward the one opening he could see between the monsters. It wasn’t the most direct path back to the college, but if they were quick enough, they could loop back around and force the monsters into a position where they were giving chase from the same direction.
He hurried through the snow. The effort of each step was only increased as they moved away from the normal path, which had the benefit of already being clear. The zombies, despite their heavy, clumsy movements, seemed less affected by the powder. Supernatural undead strength was a hell of a drug.
Lee’s plan was solid, but he and Eliza simply were not fast enough. Each time he glanced over his shoulder the zombies were a few paces closer to them than he’d anticipated. The swirling snow made it hard to stay oriented once they were out of sight of the watchtower, nearing whiteout levels.
His eyes played tricks on him, mistaking movements in the wind for more enemies. A hideous, hungry gurgle came from behind them. Lee yanked on Eliza’s hand, pulling her closer to him. She stumbled, and then screamed, and Lee felt his grip slip away as something else pulled on her from the other end.
“Eliza!”
Lee spun around, fumbling his kris dagger out from under multiple layers. One of the zombies had gotten hold of Eliza’s ankle, stumbling forward to make the grab and landing splayed out on its stomach. This particular zombie had once been a uniformed construction worker, and still bore the safety vest and hardhat iconic to their one-time occupation.
Lee got in between the zombie and Eliza before it could pull itself near enough to sink its blackened and bloody teeth into her leg. He kicked the hardhat off with a sweep of his boot, and then tried to line up the angle that would let him introduce eight inches of cold silver to its accursed brain.
It was an impossible attack to make with the zombie thrashing as it was. Lee settled for stabbing his dagger into its wrist. His kris dagger struck true, sliding off target as the blade ricocheted off bone. It was still enough to mess with the monster’s tendons, allowing Eliza to pull her ankle loose.
The entrance to the college was nearly within sight. Lee pushed Eliza ahead of him, wary of the second silhouette that had drawn within striking distance behind them. She took a single step before drawing up short, and Lee collided with her, distracted by the enemies behind them.
A new figure was blocking their way. It stood with its arms crossed, confident and clearly more intelligent than the mindless undead. Lee hesitated as it took a step toward them, drawing near enough to be visible through the occluding curtains of snow.
“Oh,” said the lich. “What’s this, now?”
CHAPTER 21
No introduction was needed, and no statement of intent was provided. The lich had the appearance of an ancient, oft-repaired evil. Its face was a mass of loose, over-folded skin, like the aged face of a person with twice as much flesh and four times as many wrinkles compared to the norm.
It wore a voluminous robe that was an uneven, grey-ish brown color, as though it had once been white and slowly traversed down the color gradient through an unimaginable number of stains. It was heavily torn and restitched at every visible hemline, and it danced to the same rhythm as the windblown snow.
The lich was standing directly between Lee, his friends, and safety. He wasn’t interested in waiting for the arrival of the zombies to provide the monster with backup. Gripping his kris dagger in as tight of a grip as his gloved, cold-numbed fingers could manage, he hurled himself forward, heedless of the danger.
The lich lifted a single hand, revealing skeletal fingers with sagging skin. Blood spilled forth from the pores of its palm, shooting forward in a heavy, hammer-like mass. The blood struck Lee with the force of a solid, rather than a liquid; bludgeoning his shoulder hard enough to send him spinning backward and sending an ominous, cracking sensation echoing through his body.
He landed hard on his stomach, wincing as the top layer of crusty snow scraped against his face. He still had a tight grip on his kris dagger, and getting up was only a matter of, well, getting up. His shoulder was alive with pain, but unbroken. The lich let out a low laugh as Lee rose to one knee, and then to standing.
“Wait…” said the lich, its voice deep, with a serpent’s slither. “I recognize you. I know you.”
“What?” said Lee. He stared a
t the lich, only then noticing that its attention was directed at Tess, rather than him.
“No,” said Tess. “No! It can’t be. Please… no!”
“Theresa Holloway,” said the lich. “Oh yes, I know you well. I’ve missed you, Tess. Is he… Yes, he is, isn’t he? How about you wait there like a proper lady until I’m done with your boyfriend?”
Tess froze in place, her eyes widening with shock. She wasn’t scared stiff. Something in the lich’s command had bound her. Lee shifted his kris dagger to his left hand, holding it against his arm as he assumed the open-palmed conjuration stance. He focused his will into his force spell, hoping that Naka’s powerful essence would be as effective in battle as it was in practice.
Nothing happened. Tess’s essence had been bound along with her ethereal body. Lee felt the ache of his shoulder return in full force as he shifted back into a knife fighting stance. The lich was far stronger than he was, but what choice did he have?
He lunged, stabbing with his blade. The lich moved backward with such speed that its robe and body blurred. The monster counter-attacked with a frost spell, sending a sword-sized icicle hurtling through the air at Lee’s chest.
He jumped to the side, dodging the attack by less than an inch. His first impulse was to keep rushing forward, but the lich had already made it clear that it had a speed advantage over him, one that Lee wasn’t interested in making into a deciding factor.
A gurgling groan came from behind him. Lee risked a glance over his shoulder, only to find that two of the zombies were now within reach of him, only a few paces away from striking. He turned back to find the lich even closer.
The monster blurred again as it reached its arm out, gripping Lee by the throat and hoisting him into the air. He couldn’t breathe. He felt his eyes bulge out as the lich’s grip tightened even more. He couldn’t see, and oxygen deprivation-induced spots of darkness mottled his vision.
“Lee!” screamed Eliza.
He came back to reality for a split second as the lich hesitated, just in time to see Eliza leaping at the monster in a stupid, desperate tackle. The lich smiled. Lee couldn’t get the air past his throat to shout for her to run, but he tried anyway.
It was already too late. The lich drew its free arm back, razor-sharp talons of bone protruding from its fingers.
It swung its arm at Eliza in an almost-lazy strike. The kind of attack that had no business deciding life and death. Lee saw Eliza’s eyes flicker with fear, and then a desperate, foolish resolve. She knew what she was doing, and all he could do was watch, unable to intervene, as it happened.
The lich’s bone talons made contact without ever slowing down. They passed right through Eliza’s throat as smoothly as a shredder through soft cheese. No blood spilled forth from the wounds, because there were no wounds. Eliza’s illusory self continued on its original trajectory, fading into nothingness as it collided with the lich.
Lee realized the truth a split-second earlier than the monster, and that was all the advantage he needed. He stabbed his kris dagger into the arm holding him aloft: once, twice, three times for good luck. The blood that spilled forth from the wounds was thick and coagulated, as though it had long since stopped flowing within the body containing it. The lich’s fingers loosened, and Lee fell to the ground.
Tess let out a gasp as whatever binding the lich had used on her also slackened. Eliza was shouting something, and Lee didn’t need to hear the words to understand her meaning. She was still in the illusion casting stance, churning out copies of all three of them, each transitory doppelganger stepping out from the original and taking off in a random direction.
Lee stood up, accepting Eliza’s hand as she pulled him into a desperate sprint toward Primhaven’s main gates. She’d already created illusions to stay in their original places, which in his personal opinion were the work of an absolute genius.
The lich let out a furious snarl and began attacking the illusions with magic, blood, and bone. Lee, Tess, and Eliza ran as a single, terrified unit, not slowing down even as they reached Primhaven’s gate and desperately pulled it open.
They fell onto the grass, terrified and incoherent. Instructor Constantine had been at the gate, and he listened to their explanation of what had just happened with a fair amount of concern, if not outright belief. Lee stood watching the gate with his kris dagger in hand, expecting the lich to burst through at any moment.
It never did. Instructor Constantine alerted one of Mattis’s bonded animals to the situation, and the tiny squirrel hurried off to fetch her. She arrived a few minutes later, flanked by the large dire wolf Lee had been seeing her in the company of so often, as of late.
“Come with me,” said Mattis. “Constantine, keep an eye on the gate.”
Lee and Eliza followed her into the lobby of the Nature Tower, which was empty at the current late hour. Kei was already there, arms folded, expression unreadable.
“Start from the beginning,” said Mattis. “What happened?”
Lee and Eliza took turns explaining the events of the night. Lee omitted a few details from his description of what the two of them had been doing before they’d spotted the first zombie, noticing how flustered the mere mention of how they’d been alone in the tower made Eliza. Mattis stopped them when Lee described the appearance of the lich.
“You’re sure that it was controlling the other monsters?” she asked.
“Positive,” said Lee.
“It fits with what I know of this creature,” said Kei. “Yylex collects the dead. He has a track record for using zombies as his minions, among other entities.”
Lee noted Kei’s careful phrasing and saw a certain amount of wisdom to it. He’d listened to Mattis speak on the topic of mysticism before and knew how skeptical she was of the existence of ghosts. The last thing they needed, at that moment, was to strain the believability of a situation that was already serious enough even without accounting for the danger of specters.
Just then, two small arctic foxes slipped into the chamber through the open front door. They hurried over to Mattis, coming to a stop at her feet. One of them gave a rather dramatic shake of its head.
“Interesting,” she said. “I sent these two foxes out to search for signs of this lich or its servants. Neither of them found anything.”
“What?” Lee frowned and gestured with his hand. “Look, I know what I saw. It was there. It attacked us. I have a massive bruise on my shoulder from one of its attacks.”
“I’m not saying that I don’t believe you,” said Mattis. “Lack of physical evidence is not the same thing as nonexistence. Unfortunately, it does mean that my hands will be tied when it comes to procuring more resources to address the threat.”
“It wants to attack the school,” said Eliza. “You have to do something!”
Mattis let out a sigh and folded her arms. “You’ve obviously been through a lot tonight, so I’ll be blunt about my thoughts on this situation. The Order of Chaldea simply does not have manpower to spare at the moment, pardon my use of that unfortunately gendered term. If I emphasized that this danger was a threat to the lives of all of the students here, what do you suppose would happen?”
“You think they’d shut the school down,” said Lee.
Mattis nodded. “That’s not what I want, though I might be biased in the matter. The course of action that makes the most sense is to hold off sounding the alarm for now. The Head Wizard and I were already planning on opening the Arcane Way to allow students to travel home for November Break. Kei, would you be able to neutralize the threat over the course of the holiday, assuming the school was empty of students?”
“Perhaps,” said Kei. “I may require some assistance.”
He shot a meaningful glance at Lee, but nobody else seemed to notice.
“Do your best,” said Mattis. “I will also be remaining here for the duration of the holiday. Initiate Amaranth, Initiate Willis, I would appreciate your discretion in this matter. I’ll excuse you from the night wa
tch Instructor Daniels assigned you.”
CHAPTER 22
Lee walked Eliza back to her dorm room as soon as the meeting with Mattis and Kei had finished. He gave her a tight hug and a soft kiss, reassuring her with words that weren’t meant just for her.
It wasn’t until Lee arrived back in the common room of his own dorm that he finally had a chance to give Tess the attention and comfort he knew she needed. She had a distant look in her eyes, and she didn’t seem to react when Lee took her hand into his and pulled her down to sit on the couch next to him. Even encountering Robert’s specter hadn’t shaken her like this.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Tess merely shrugged her shoulders. Lee put an arm around her, trying to be as gentle with his phrasing as he could be as he considered his next question.
“Have you remembered anything more?” asked Lee.
She didn’t react to his question right away, only giving a small nod after a few seconds.
“Tess, it’s possible the lich’s reason for returning to Primhaven might be hidden within your memories,” he said. “Can you show me again? Like you did before?”
Tess closed her eyes and pulled her arms inward, hugging herself. When she finally looked at Lee, a single, shameful tear escaped the levees, staining a shiny streak down the length of her face.
“Lee,” she whispered. “I’m really scared.”
“Hey, I’m right here.”
“That’s not what I mean. What I remembered this time was…”
She closed her eyes again, taking a breath that shifted midway into a silent, shaking sob.
“Tess,” he said. “It’s okay. You can just tell me if you can’t show me.”
She shook her head. “No. That would be even harder.”
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