Arcane Dropout 3

by Edmund Hughes

  “Tess,” he said. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

  He probed at her with his will, much like he normally reached for her essence when casting spells. The lich’s will was already there, controlling her movements with overwhelming power. It was like engaging in a game of tug-of-war against a pickup truck.

  “I’m so sorry, Lee,” whispered Tess. Her shoulders shook as she continued to cry and shake her head with the tiny movements she could manage.

  “Don’t be,” he said. “It’s as much my fault as it is yours.”

  “That’s a lie.” Tess’s upper lip trembled, and then she flashed a sad, desperate smile. “The only thing you did wrong was treating me like I was normal. Like I was something I’m not. I fooled myself, Lee.”

  “No, Tess. You can’t think like that.”

  “I fooled myself and let myself hope. Happy endings don’t even happen for the living, let alone a ghost, or a specter… I don’t know which one I am anymore. Even if this hadn’t happened, I would have hurt you eventually, somehow. Or you would have gotten bored of me, and then I would have hurt somebody you loved, maybe. Somebody you wanted to start a family with and grow old with and… do all the things I’ll never be able to.”

  “This isn’t you, Tess!”

  “No, it is,” she whispered. “That’s the worst part. I know it is. I… love you, Lee. I love you so much that it makes me hate everything about who… and what… I am.”

  “Tess!” he said through gritted teeth. “Listen to me! Listen to my voice! I don’t care what this stupid fucking bastard has put into your head! We can still beat it if we combine our strength, our will.”

  “This conversation has drifted off topic,” announced the lich. “Tess. I order you to feed off our captured enemy.”

  The lich was still running its hands over the cover of the book, savoring its apparent victory. Lee knew he only had a few more seconds. Tess began shaking again. She reached her hands toward his neck, though the core of her body seemed to war against the motion, and her eyes went wide with horror.

  “I’m a monster, Lee,” cried Tess.

  “No,” shouted Lee. “You’re my monster. And if he makes you kill me, then fuck him! I’ll come back as a ghost and make it my eternal mission to burn everything he stands for to the fucking ground!”

  He felt the vehemence in his own voice, and he sensed the power it lent his will. The lich was reaching for the book’s cover, finally opening its prize, like a child unwrapping a present. Tess had seized his shoulders, and she was leaning her ancient, undead teeth in closer, forced into taking the first bite. He could almost make himself think that she was leaning in for a kiss. Almost.

  The timing was of the thinnest margins that he’d ever played with. The lich opened the book and let out a startled gasp as it flipped through several hundred pages of the fake tans and boob jobs that were Maxim, Playboy, and Hustler’s bread and butter. Widow had switched the pages, carefully gluing the new ones in with her sweet, sticky silk.

  That instant of surprise was enough. Lee put all of his power, anger, and love into a single usage of his dispel, channeling the turbulent tides of his emotions into pure, unadulterated will. The bone bindings crumbled. Tess gasped and fell forward against him, escaping her zombie body, which instantly turned to dust under the force of Lee’s ability. He caught her, the real her, the cute ghost he would never hurt or see hurt, and hugged her against his chest.

  CHAPTER 38

  “Lee!” shouted Tess.

  “Get behind me,” he said, quickly. “If he tries to take control of you again, run. I can handle him on my own.”

  “I won’t leave you!”

  She shook her head back and forth with comical motions that were probably born from the way she had to exaggerate her movements while under the lich’s power. Lee patted her on the head a couple of times.

  “Then be careful,” he said. “I can’t lose you again.”

  She nodded and said something that he couldn’t make out through the flood of tears and partially hysterical sobbing. She stayed close, almost directly within Lee’s shadow, as he pulled out his weapons and started forward.

  “You snake!” snarled the lich. “You make deals in bad faith!”

  “And you don’t?” asked Lee. “I’m actually surprised by how easy that was. You might even say it’s the oldest trick in the book. Speaking of which, I think I’ll be taking it back once I’m done with you. Some of those centerfolds are sublime.”

  “I will crush you!” screamed the lich. It stomped its foot, and the impact seemed to echo throughout the chill night. Not an echo, Lee realized. The sound of dozens of zombies stampeding toward him through the dark.

  The second part of his plan was a bit more nebulous than the first. He needed to kill the lich, preferably before the zombies could overwhelm him. He weighed the pros and cons of the kris dagger vs Walther P99 before raising the gun and firing a test shot at the lich. The bang was followed by an acidic hiss as the bullet struck the monster in the shoulder. The lich recoiled, but it only seemed pained, rather than defeated. Four rounds left, Lee remembered.

  The first of the zombies came charging toward him from within the Seruna Center. It lunged the last few feet toward Lee like a football player going for an ambitious tackle. He hopped out of its range, waited for it to stumble to the ground, and quickly stabbed it in the head.

  Two more appeared on either side of him. Lee spun, slashing his kris dagger, but the monsters didn’t rear back like normal, thinking opponents would have. The silver bit into undead flesh, scratching surface cuts that did little to slow them down.

  “Magic!” screamed Tess, almost directly in his ear. “Use your magic!”

  He was glad that she’d reminded him, if momentarily deaf because of it. Lee dove to the side, falling to the ground in a position that would have been suicide without a step two. Clasping his left hand around his right wrist, he thrust his palm forward, casting his force spell. Both zombies flew backward, landing hard and tumbling with a painful series of crunches.

  “I will feast on your innards!” boomed the lich. It had used the distraction of the zombies to close the distance to Lee. He didn’t have time to do much more than attempt a single, desperate slash with his kris dagger before the lich’s cold hand closed on his neck with a vice-like grip.

  Many people mistake strangulation for a slow, arduous process. In the heat of the moment, the simple constriction of blood flow through the neck and to the brain can be enough to trigger unconsciousness in the span of a few seconds. Lee was lucky enough to have time to remember all of this while the lich lifted him into the air, fingers squeezing with the strength of an iron golem. His head pounded as the world began to fade, peace and panic somehow coexisting within the confines of his oxygen-starved experience.

  Two gunshots rang out in quick succession. The lich dropped Lee, and he let out a gasp before sucking in the sweetest breath he’d ever taken. He pushed himself back from the monster while it was still recovering from whatever had just happened.

  Kei had arrived, one arm aiming his pistol, the other braced over a makeshift tree-branch crutch. His eyes were narrowed with fierce determination as he took aim again, but another figure lumbered through the darkness behind him.

  “Look out!” shouted Lee.

  The zombie attacked Kei just as he shouted his warning. Kei was knocked from his feet and into a struggle for his life against gnashing teeth and dirty fingers. Lee considered taking a shot at the zombie that’d tackled Kei before considering the limits and reality of his unpracticed aim.

  “Pathetic wretch!” The lich thrust its arm forward. Blood burst from the tips of its fingers, hurtling toward Lee in a hissing, dark flood. He briefly considered trying to go toe to toe against the attack with his dispel before opting to dodge, and he was glad that he had.

  The blood burned through the grass like a powerful acid, leaving the dirt underneath blackened and encrusted with coagulated cri
mson. Lee fired his gun at the lich again, but his shot went wide. The lich turned and pulled its hands back to cast its spell again. Lee shot it again, and this time he didn’t miss.

  The silver bullet struck the monster in the chest, and though it wasn’t a killing blow, it did wince and lose its focus. $35 well spent, Lee thought to himself, recalling the number Kei had quoted to him days earlier. He scrambled back to his feet just in time to square off against another zombie. He only had two rounds left, neither of which he felt compelled to waste on one of the lesser undead.

  With a furious series of strikes from his kris dagger, Lee put the monster out of its misery, twisting the blade as it stabbed into the zombie’s temple to ensure the kill. More were arriving by the second: two, then three, then more than Lee had time to count in the heat of the moment. It wasn’t enough. He and Kei were going to be overwhelmed.

  A howl cut through the cold night air, followed by the sounds of snapping teeth and furious barks. Lead Instructor Mattis strode through the zombies that had surrounded Lee and Kei, clubbing them with a long druid’s staff while her various bonded animals attacked the undead at her sides.

  Bonded reindeer made use of their antlers to entangle some of the zombies, keeping them busy while they fumbled to pull loose. Bonded wolves sank their jaws into the arms and legs of the undead, distracting if not outright disabling them in some cases. Mattis’s new dire wolf, in particular, had a bite that was wide enough to crunch through skulls.

  “Fools!” screamed the lich. “It won’t be enough!”

  The monster surged forward, seizing Lee by the shoulders in an attempt to get at his neck again. Tess jumped into the fray, trying to distract the lich with a ghostly punch. The lich slapped her hard across the face. Lee’s fury ignited like a gas leak exposed to a spark, and he stabbed out with his kris dagger in a savage series of strikes.

  Even with Mattis’s bonded animals contributing to the battle, there were simply too many zombies for the fight to be fair. Lee stumbled backward as the lich cast a spell that sent a spear of bone flying toward his stomach, nearly impaling him. A zombie grabbed his arm and opened its disgusting maw to sink blackened teeth into defenseless flesh.

  Widow laughed as she looped a strand of silk around the zombie’s neck, like an assassin wrapping a garrote around an unsuspecting victim. The zombie gurgled as she pulled it backward, and another one nearby was quickly dispatched by her in the same manner.

  “Even if you could win, there would be no point in striking me down,” laughed the lich. “This is just one of many bodies. I’ll return in short order, stronger than—”

  “You talk too much,” said Lee. He stabbed his kris dagger through the roof of the lich’s open mouth, catching the monster completely off guard. He lifted his gun and took aim. Even he couldn’t miss at that distance. He put a silver bullet through each of Yylex’s eyes.

  The lich crumbled to dust in much the same way that Tess’s zombie body had earlier, losing the protection of whatever undead spell or curse was keeping its form pristine. There was a loud, collective thump as several dozen zombies went limp and fell to the ground in unison, like the sound of cold cuts hitting the scale in a busy deli.

  Lee was apparently far sweatier than he’d realized, and he wiped a hand across his forehead only to have it come back crimson red. He cringed and felt an almost-overwhelming urge to take a shower. Mattis was still on her feet. Kei was underneath the body of a zombie, but still healthy enough to flip it off himself and stand with the aid of his crutch.

  “Well done,” said Kei, grinning.

  “Pretty obvious that the lich used to be an instructor, given how much it seemed to like the sound of its own voice,” said Lee.

  Mattis cleared her throat, and he offered her an apologetic shrug.

  “I will check the gate,” she said. “Don’t let your guard down just yet. It appears as though we’ve won, but we still have to ensure that the campus is secure. Initiate Amaranth, help Instructor Fujino make his way to the infirmary.”

  With that, Mattis set off, carrying herself with the tired air of a teacher who’d just managed to rein in a particularly chaotic class. Seeing her like that had a calming effect on Lee. It was over. They’d won. He could relax.

  CHAPTER 39

  Kei accepted Lee’s help gratefully, though he seemed too pained to do much other than grimace as they made their way to the infirmary. Lee took a look at the bite on his leg as soon as he was on one of the beds.

  “This is the only one?” he asked. “You didn’t suffer any other wounds?”

  “No,” said Kei. “Thank you, Lee, for lending me your aid in the orchard.”

  “I didn’t do much. You gave me the pistol to begin with, so technically, those were your bullets, anyway.”

  “You gave me more than just bullets.” Kei smiled, and Lee saw so much of Toma in the older man’s expression.

  “Let’s get this fixed up,” he said.

  He was no doctor, but he did what he could to clean and bandage the bite. He suspected it would need stitches, or surgery, or some form of attention beyond what he could offer, but he at least made sure that Kei wasn’t actively leaking blood. He also found some painkillers to offer him, which Kei accepted gratefully.

  “I’ll go check in with Mattis,” said Lee. “Will you be okay on your own?”

  Kei pulled out his gun and set it on his lap. “I still have one bullet left.”

  As soon Lee was in the hallway and finally alone, he pulled Tess into his mystic stream and into a tight hug. Her face was streaked with tears, and she continued crying as she smiled and shook her head, delirious with relief.

  “I was so scared,” she whispered.

  “He didn’t do anything weird to you, did he?”

  “No. At least, not in the way you’re thinking. Just listening to him talk is weird for me. I really hope he was bluffing about having other bodies and coming back.”

  “It doesn’t matter if he was or not,” said Lee. “I’ll protect you, Tess.”

  He squeezed her tighter, and she nestled her head against his bicep.

  “You… never said it back,” she whispered.

  “Never said what back?”

  “You know what,” she mumbled. “It wasn’t just the heat of the moment. That’s really how I feel.”

  “I feel that way too.”

  “So…?”

  “I just saved your life,” said Lee. “In, uh, a manner of speaking. What more do you want from me, woman?”

  “You’re so mean sometimes, Lee!”

  Lee chuckled and attempted to kiss her, missing each time as she turned her cheeks back and forth.

  “Tess,” he whispered, looking her in the eyes. “Theresa Holloway. I love you. I’m not scared of you hurting me, and I’m not going to get bored of you. And when I finally do die, I plan on leaving a spirit behind so we can have all sorts of kinky ghost sex together.”

  “That was so simultaneously sweet and gross,” whispered Tess, with flushed cheeks. “I love you too, Lee Amaranth. Eldon Brock.”

  “Please don’t start calling me Eldon, like Harper and my sister.”

  “I like Lee better.”

  ***

  Widow was waiting for Lee outside the Seruna Center. After a quick discussion in which Lee explained that ‘no, it wasn’t alright for her to feed off Mattis’s bonded animals,’ he convinced her to depart before her allotted summoning time was up. Part of the decision was influenced by Tess, who still found the spider-girl to be “icky and creepy.”

  Lee found Mattis at the gate, which she’d closed and reset several of the runes and wards. She sent him back to his dorm when he offered his help, making it clear that it was a command, not a suggestion. He took her up on it, though not before explaining where he’d hidden the loose pages of Hornbell’s Report in Odarin’s private study.

  He slept soundly through the morning and awoke to the surreal scene of Mattis’s bonded animals dragging desecrated corpses o
ff Primhaven’s campus. He checked on Kei, ate a quick breakfast, and went with Tess to the spot they’d been in during her last moment in what was technically her real body. The ashes were still there, in a small pile on the grass.

  “It’s up to you,” said Lee. “I know how traumatic that must have been, Tess. I’m here for you.”

  “I didn’t see the experience as returning to my ‘real’ body, or anything like that,” she whispered. “That version of me died so long ago that it just felt wrong.”

  “Still, it might be good for your peace of mind if we put your, uh, ashes to rest.”

  Tess’s face scrunched up into one of the expressions he’d grown to know so well, one finger tapping against pursed lips. “Would you be willing to bring them to the river with me? So we can throw them into the water?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Not as though there’s much going on here right now.”

  With Mattis busy tending to Kei and overseeing the disposal of the zombie bodies, it was easy for Lee to slip out of the school unnoticed. The equipment shed where the snowmobiles were kept was locked, but he still had the keys that he’d taken from Harper upon returning to Primhaven after one of their previous trips.

  He found a snowmobile that was already gassed up and ready to go. It was a beautiful day outside with minimal wind and enough direct sunlight to give a sense of playfulness to the ice and snow.

  Tess, still in his mystic stream, kept her arms tight around his waist on the snowmobile behind him. Lee, the consummate gentleman he was, made his primary objective to get her to scream with terror and excitement each time they hit a snowbank fast enough for their vehicle to go airborne.

  It wasn’t far from Primhaven to the river, perhaps an hour and a half at a swift pace. They were forced to follow along the riverbank for a time to find a patch where the surface wasn’t frozen over. Lee killed the snowmobile’s engine once they did and climbed off alongside Tess.