The process of entering the flesh would also serve to transform it, making the skin durable enough to withstand bullets and the bones hard enough to survive the impact of a truck. When they reached her soon-to-be fortress Lady Raven would make further improvements to her guardians.
“Rise,” she commanded.
The five once-faceless spirits forced their hosts up off the slabs. Their movements were stiff at first, though already smoother than the zombies. That was to be expected. The spirits had been bodiless for a long time. It would take weeks for them to grow fully used to having a physical form again.
She grimaced at their thoroughly ugly, nude bodies. That would need to be remedied as soon as possible. “Follow me.”
Orin sat at his desk and held his head in his hands as Adam finished his report. The night before someone had broken into the district office morgue and raised all the bodies inside. The undead had proceed to kill the four night watchmen and a handful of employees before the security forces were called in to destroy them. They’d gotten lucky in that the creatures were among the weakest sort of undead and required only a bullet to the head to put them down permanently.
“So that’s it,” Adam said. “Five bodies are still unaccounted for. We’ve searched the whole building so our working assumption is that whoever made the zombies took the bikers’ bodies away with them.”
Orin looked up. “You mean she, not they. Can there be any real doubt that Mercia is behind this?”
“I agree that she’s the most likely suspect, but since we have no proof it’s still speculation. Do you have any further orders?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Not for the moment. Though we’ll certainly want to increase our patrols and make sure no one walks their route alone.”
“I already made the adjustment to the schedules. If there’s nothing else I’m going to make a final inspection of the building so everyone can return to work.”
Orin motioned him out. When did his life get so complicated? It didn’t seem that long ago that his biggest worry was Maria getting another ear infection. Now he had the first male wizard to deal with, a deranged former employee breaking in and stealing bodies, and his little girl going off to college in five weeks.
He rested his head on the cool wood of his desk and sighed. That felt good.
The door opened and he looked up to find Terra striding toward him, looking grimmer than usual. She stopped in front of his desk and leaned forward. “I found where she opened a portal. There were footprints in the grass leading up to it.”
“When did you become a tracker?”
“The tracks killed the grass right down to bare dirt. A blind person could have followed them.”
“Fascinating, but I hardly think dead grass is our biggest concern right now.”
“Then you’re mistaken.” Terra’s scowl deepened. “Whatever Mercia transformed the bikers into has a powerful enough dark aura their presence alone was enough to kill the grass. That means they’re also strong enough to drain the life from a person and there are five of them god only knows where out there.”
Orin rubbed his face and swallowed another sigh. “What do you propose we do about it?”
Terra’s expression softened. “I’ve been thinking about that ever since I found the tracks. The truth is I have no idea.”
“That’s not what I was hoping to hear from my chief researcher. Speaking of which, have you made any progress on the box?”
“I understand the function of the box itself. It was designed to hold something, hiding its aura until a specific condition caused it to open. In this case the spell has been modified so only a specific individual would be able to open it. I assume the missing boxes retain the initial enchantment.”
“Does any of that help us?”
“Not really.”
Orin thumped his head on the table. Of course it didn’t. This summer had been a comedy of errors, why should it change now? They just needed a tiny bit of luck and it would break everything open, he knew it in his bones. Luck, unfortunately, had been in short supply.
Author Notes
I hope you’ve enjoyed the first book of my new series. It was a lot of fun to write. I’d been wanting to do an urban fantasy for a while now, but when I settled 0n The Aegis of Merlin story line I decided I was going to write a story my way, multiple points of view and third person POV. It was a risk since a lot of urban fantasy is written from the first person POV. I think the results are quite good and maybe something a little different from what’s out there. That was my goal anyway. If you’d like to learn more about me and my books I encourage you to head over to my website. WWW.JAMESEWISHER.COM You can read my blog posts, check out the other books I’ve written, and sign up for my newsletter.
Until next time, thanks for reading.
James E. Wisher
Also by James E Wisher
The Aegis of Merlin:
The Awakening
Disciples of the Horned One Trilogy:
Darkness Rising
Raging Sea and Trembling Earth
Harvest of Souls
Death and Honor Omnibus
The Squire
About the Author
James E. Wisher is a writer of science fiction and Fantasy novels. He’s been writing since high school and reading everything he could get his hands on for as long as he can remember. This is his tenth novel.
www.jamesewisher.com
[email protected]
The Impossible Wizard: The Aegis of Merlin Book 1 Page 20