Not good. We had to end this as fast as we could.
I tucked in close to Orin and let him clear the remaining zombies in front of us.
“We’re here.” He slowed. “I—” He swallowed hard. “I think it was a bad idea to bring me.”
Wally let out a low groan. “No, oh no!”
“Oh no what?” I yelled. “What are you two not telling me?”
Wally slid from my back as Orin turned to face us. His eyes were still dark, but through my connection to Wally, I could see the green glow blooming in their depths. The other necromancer had him in his grasp. “Oh crap, are you kidding me? Tell me this is a really bad joke!”
Orin lunged at me and then stopped and shook his head. “I’m trying, I’m trying to fight him.”
“Wally, you’ve got to push back!” I said as I shoved Orin back. “You’ve got to!”
“I know,” she said. “But the odds of me being able to beat him—”
“The odds are bull!” I snapped. “You have to beat him, Wally. No more odds, no more statistics. Embrace what you are, or we are all going to die! You are stronger than you know. You have to believe that!”
I danced away from Orin, trying to keep the zombies shambling our way in sight at the same time. It struck me, not for the first time, that none of the zombies had been using the abilities they’d had in life.
Almost on cue, the air echoed with a boom, a rumble of rocks and stone. I whipped around to see the mausoleum going down, magic circling around it that wasn’t Ethan’s.
“Wally, now!” I put all the command I could into my voice, and she cried out as if I’d hit her.
Orin jumped on me and we went to the ground. I rolled with him until I was on top, pinning him down, my knees on his arms and my hands free.
Wally stood in front of the necromancer, her arms spread wide. “I can’t let you hurt my friends.”
The necromancer let out a long, low laugh, and I couldn’t help but stare. He was wearing a dark gray robe, and his long beard and hair were the same gray. His mouth and eyes had lines that suggested not laughter, but cruelty. There would be no begging or bargaining with this one. He arched both brows at Wally. “You are a child from a blood line that is known for being weak. For letting your heart rule your power. I see it in you, a soft color. Weak. Dilute. You cannot stop me.”
Orin tried to buck me off, and I punched him in the side of the head, knocking him out. “Sorry.”
His eyes rolled and I leapt off him, heading for Wally. But my back had been to the zombies, and several of them grabbed me from behind. Before I knew it, my limbs had been stretched out like I was on a drying rack.
Wally’s head dropped and a soft sob tore out of her that I could just barely hear. This was it, she would either beat him or I’d be torn apart. We’d all die.
“He’s wrong, Wally! He’s so wrong! I’m here for my family—I’ve only fought like I have because of love! We’re a family now, too, Wally, and you damn well know it! We need you to dig deep like you’ve never dug before.”
Her shoulders shook and she slowly turned her face to me, tears streaking her cheeks. “I’m so afraid. I don’t want to be like him.”
The zombies pulled, and the muscles and tendons in my limbs shrieked. I tipped my head back and screamed.
There was a clatter and the zombies released me as a snarl rent the air. I’d never been so happy to see a honey badger in my life. Pete ripped through the zombies’ legs, sending them flying, and I hit the ground, my joints feeling loose. Wobbly.
Pete slammed into Wally’s legs. Tell her she can do this, I believe in her!
“Pete believes in you, Wally. You can do this!”
Ethan fell next to me, shooting backward. “Wally, even I believe you can do this. Your family isn’t weak, or I wouldn’t have let you stay on this team!”
Orin groaned. “Me too.”
Wally lifted her hands, her breath coming in huge gulps, her chest heaving, and I watched as the pink glow suffused her body and jumped from Pete, to me, to Orin, and even Ethan.
“I won’t let you hurt my friends,” she said. The green energy from the other necromancer pulsed as he laughed.
“You are untrained. You can’t beat me.”
“You don’t need training to have heart,” I said. “To have the grit to see this through. You just do it.”
Nice, now we’re a Nike commercial? Pete said.
Wally smiled, as if she’d heard him too. “Yeah. I can beat you. For my friends.”
There was a moment of complete and utter silence and then light erupted from her, blasting into the zombies and knocking the other necromancer off his feet.
I wasn’t sure what the others saw, but to me, Wally looked like she was on fire, the magic flickering up around her, protecting her as she walked toward the other necromancer. Each zombie she touched sighed and slid down into the ground.
“Thaaaank youuuuuu.”
Wally stood over the necromancer. “Nobody hurts my friends. Nobody hurts my family.”
“This is impossible.” His eyes were wide. “Impossible.”
I stood and made my way to Wally’s side. “Not a word we know.” With a swift move, I bent and slammed the butt of my knife into his skull.
His eyes rolled back, and he slumped to the ground.
The remainder of the zombies sunk back into the earth, one by one.
I took a few steps back. “Well done, Wally, well done.”
Her eyes were shining, and a grin trembled on her lips. “I’m not useless.”
“Nope.” I grinned back, my own eyes stupidly full. “Not for a second did I ever believe that.”
Knew what you were made of all along, Pete said.
Wally bent and scooped him into her arms, squeezing him. “Thank you. All of you.”
Ethan grunted something and stood, holding a hand out to Orin. The vampire blew out a breath as he rose, his eyes his own. He gave a full-body shudder. “That’s not allowed, you know. Necromancers taking over vampires.”
Wally nodded. “I know. He was not a good necromancer.”
“What do we do with him?” Ethan asked. “I mean, we can’t kill him.”
I arched an eyebrow, still breathing hard, my body shaking from the beating it had taken. “What do you think he was going to do to us? Take us out shopping for new clothes and lunch at Mickey D’s?”
They all looked at me. Of course, they did—I was the killer. And I didn’t particularly feel bad about killing someone who’d been set on us. But he was knocked out.
“We’re going to see vampires at some point, right?” I let the idea tumble out of my mouth. “What if we hand him over, like an offering of sorts? They’d believe you, Orin, right? If you told them what he’d done?”
Orin’s face slowly transformed into a wide grin that flashed his fangs. “Oh, they would love that. Yes, let’s take him along.”
And just like that our five turned into six, although number six was, to be fair, bound and gagged with Ethan’s magic. He kept the necromancer in front of him, kind of a human shield as we made our way out of the graveyard. With the necromancer muzzled, we could see the exit clear as day.
“He had a spell with him,” Ethan said. “To cloak the exit.”
Wally shook her head, a frown creasing her eyebrows. “That means this was more than just a necromancer trying to kill us. Someone from the House of Wonder must have given him that spell.”
“They weren’t really out to kill us, to be fair,” Orin pointed out. “Just Wild. We were collateral damage.”
I looked back once we reached the gate. The graves were silent, quiet…and a figure stood among them. My heart picked up speed as I watched Tommy staring at us. His arm was twisted where I’d broken it, but his eyes…his eyes were his own.
He tipped his head to me, and when he lifted it, he mouthed two words. Keep fighting.
My heart beat so hard, I thought it would leap out of my chest. I glanced at Wally, to ask
her if she was holding him up, and then back to Tommy, only he was gone. Back into the grave he’d been assigned.
And what about Rory? I knew that he was gone—there was no surviving the way the zombies had taken him down—but there was no sign of a body.
I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep the sob back. I was not a crier. I usually didn’t give myself over to my emotions, but seeing Tommy and losing Rory…it wasn’t just losing him. It was losing Tommy all over again. Losing my mom.
Three of the most important people in my life were gone, their lives blown out like candles. I drew a slow breath and nodded. “Let’s go.”
This trial wasn’t done, and if the first test was any indication, I needed to keep my crap together. When we were out, when I was in the shower washing away the dirt and blood, then I could let the tears fall, then I would sob my heart out. But not before. Not while we still had dangers to face.
The moment we stepped out of the graveyard, the moon broke through the clouds, illuminating what we faced next.
I held my arm where the bite throbbed. My head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and a quick glance at the wound told me what I’d already known. Red lines raced across my skin, angry and deep. A serious infection from the zombie bite, one that was growing at a speed that was far from normal.
“We need to hurry,” I said, and even to my own ears the words were sloppy, as if I’d gotten into Dad’s moonshine.
“Oh, crap, she’s got an infection from the bite!” Ethan growled. He grabbed my face with his hands and peered into my eyes, pulling my lids up with his thumbs. “It’s moving fast. I can’t even believe I’m going to say this. We need to pick her up and carry her.”
“I’ve got her,” Orin said.
“Thought I was too big.” I mumbled as he flipped me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“You are too big to throw a hundred feet. Not too big to pack around,” he grumbled back.
The world spun as he stepped, my head bobbing, their voices fading in and out.
We walked through a fog that swirled all around us, the whispers of unfamiliar voices crawling inside my ears like bugs, like mosquitoes trapped in my skull. I swatted with my one hand, heat rushing through me even though I was no longer walking.
Distantly, I knew it was fever. Maybe the zombie’s mouths had been deliberately infected with something? Possible. No matter how I looked at it, someone had done this on purpose. No one else had been bitten, just me. Did they really want me dead? Or was it still possible they only wanted to kidnap me? The questions rolled through me, and I fought to stay awake. I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep, to rest.
“Her heart is slowing!” Orin said, and then we were bouncing along. Running. They were running. That couldn’t be good.
My crew was trying to save me. Something warm and fuzzy flowed through me. They really were family. No matter that none of us seemed to fit.
You’ve got to hang in there, Wild! Pete’s voice burst through the static, and then the other voices were back. The whispering voices.
I could almost make out words through the static. The harder I listened, the more I could pick up.
Orin lowered me to the ground, and I somehow found my legs strong enough to stand. We were in front of a castle, the drawbridge closed, and fog rolled all around us. No, not fog. Ghosts. We were surrounded by ghosts.
“You see them?” I held a hand out and one of the ghosts reached for me. A woman.
“See what? We can’t see anything in this fog. Stay close!” Ethan snapped, fear thick in his voice.
The woman in front of me smiled, her features slowly coming into focus.
“Mom?”
“We’re losing her!” Orin yelled. “Her heart rate just dropped!”
Only they weren’t losing me. I was with my mom and my mom was here and I was…
“Oh, my sweet Wild girl, it isn’t your time,” Mom said, her smile gentle and sad at the same time. “You know that, don’t you?”
“It’s so hard, Mom. This place is so hard. And the people are assholess.” I drew a breath and reached for her, and miracle of miracles, she was solid under my hands. She grabbed me and pulled me tight to her chest and the smell of lilacs and baby powder surrounded me. Safe, home, love, family. This was all I needed.
“I know it’s hard, and yes, people are always going to be assholes.” She laughed, her chest shaking lightly. “You’ll have your days too, my girl, where you’ll be the asshole. The one to get the job done. Because you are the only one who can protect them all, Wild. Do you understand? You are the best of me. The best of your father. The best of our family.” She pressed her lips against my forehead and I clung to her, already feeling her pushing away. A burst of energy flowed from her into me, pushing back the infection, pushing back the fatigue. “Go, my girl. Go and don’t forget. You must get up now. Get up.”
“Get up!” Pete screamed in my face, his breath smelling vaguely of death. Was it from biting the zombies? Gross, that’s exactly what it was from, I was sure of it. “You have to get up!”
He was back on two legs, his freckles bright from the strain of his yelling in my face. I rolled onto my belly and lifted my head. Across the drawbridge stood Ethan, Orin, and Wally. The captured necromancer sat behind them on his knees.
Pete grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me hard. Something had happened while I’d been out cold. Apparently. We’d passed through the ghosts like they were actual mist.
Or maybe they’d had to face the ghosts on their own?
“If you don’t cross the bridge under your own power, it doesn’t count,” he said. “You have to get up, Wild. You have to. I won’t finish this trial without you, not after everything we’ve been through together.”
I pushed to my hands and knees. My guts rolled, my bad arm shaking and buckling under me, but I sat back on my knees and then slowly got to my feet, Pete hovering like an old lady the whole time. He had sweat pants on, thank God. That was about all I took note of besides the planks under my feet as I took step after step toward the others. Though I did wonder where he’d gotten them from.
This was the worst time to be at my worst. The vampires came last, Ethan had said so, and I was pretty much useless. With my good arm, I went for my knife and pulled it out, fingers trembling. If I was going to have to fight, I needed to be ready.
My footsteps echoed loudly on the wooden planks, and as soon as my boots reached cobblestone, I stopped. The world around me swam, sweat dribbling off my face and onto the stone.
“Is this real?” I asked, my words still thick and slurred. The castle around us was massive, and even in my very addled state I could appreciate the scope of it. My heart skipped a beat.
“How are you even standing?” Wally asked softly. “A few minutes ago, your heart was faltering, even Orin felt it.”
“The ghosts,” Ethan said. “They can give energy. She must have known one of them. That’s why they let us through. Damn it, even when she’s out of it she’s getting us through this.” He shook his head, and I just kind of rolled with it.
“My mom,” I said. “She gave me energy.”
“Yes,” Orin said. “This part, this castle is real. This is where the council of the undead oversee their portion of the magical world.” He paused. “They allow us to use it for the purpose of the Culling Trials as they want a chance to view the contestants in person.”
Pete grumbled under his breath and hitched at his sweatpants. “Contestants or new play toys?”
Orin didn’t so much as miss a beat. “Either. You, though, they’d likely put on a spit and slow roast for their next gathering.”
I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not and didn’t have the energy to tell him not to be a dick.
Apparently, Pete wasn’t sure if it was a joke either. He dropped back next to Wally, grumbling, “What a jerk. He’s lucky I don’t mind him so much now.”
“Statistically speaking, he’s not wrong,” she said. �
��Four to six percent of the trial entrants fall under the spell of one of the vampires and chose to stay here as servants. They aren’t strong enough to live in the magical world anyway if they can be taken that easily, but the statistics don’t lie.”
“Wish they would once in a while,” Pete said.
Orin and Ethan led the way, and warning tingles danced up and down my spine with each step. I let out a low groan as my stomach rolled with nausea. The vampires had better hurry the hell up, or I was going to be flat on my back again before I could be of any help to my crew.
The two guys approached the center of the courtyard, Ethan with his wand raised and Orin with his hands clasped at his back as he float-walked along. One day he’d make a fine Dracula. I grinned at the thought, feeling the crazy that came with a high fever and infection. Then another warning blared through all that crazy, demanding my attention.
I pushed Wally and Pete ahead of me, still trying to guard the rear. “Eyes open.”
“As if I’d close them now,” Pete muttered.
“It’s a saying, Pete,” Wally said, “and as she is our resident Shade, we should listen to her. As I mentioned before, she has a highly tuned inner warning system.” Wally continued on in that thread, giving stats about how many Shades made it through the trials versus the rest of the blood lines.
That warning system was ringing a thousand bells at once, my adrenaline pulsing so fast, it pushed back the fog of the infection, clearing my mind. I struggled to keep my breathing normal, slow and even. Ethan and Orin stopped in the center of the courtyard.
“Which way?” Ethan did a slow turn, pointing at each of the four doors leading out of the castle. Four doors, none of which we needed to go through.
This was the wrong way.
“Stop!” I whisper-yelled the word.
Ethan and Orin slowed, and I motioned for them to come back to us. Ethan took a step, but Orin didn’t.
“I think I would know my own house,” he said, turning away from us.
Shadowspell Academy: The Culling Trials: Books 1-3 Omnibus Page 35