Dance of the Dead (The DeathSpeaker Codex)

by Sonya Bateman

  A place like this should’ve been silent, but there was just enough sound to make it completely unnerving. Faint traffic and the occasional siren from the city on either side of the river — Manhattan to the west, the Bronx to the east, like the ghosts of civilization. The whispering whistle of the October wind through jagged cracks and broken windows.

  And when I got close, an ominous monotone chanting that had to be Balthier.

  I shut down the moonstone with a focused thought — the only magic I could perform without speaking. Ahead of me, moonlight spilled through a warped door that stood ajar, leading to the courtyard. Layers of dead leaves had gathered in drifts on either side of the doorway and spilled across the grungy, cracked tiles of the floor.

  Figuring I should make as little noise as possible, I crept toward the door and looked through the nearest window beside it.

  The first thing I saw was the zombies.

  Five of them, standing in a row about ten feet from the exit with their backs to the building. The two at either end were considerably fresher than the rest. The one in the middle, the one I’d thrown the spell at back by the van, looked … kind of broken. Where the others stood straight, swaying in unison with the chanting, he was slumped over and twitching. Barely functional.

  A single tree erupted from the paved ground about ten feet to the right of the door. And beyond the zombie chorus line, in the center of the courtyard, was Balthier.

  He’d drawn an elaborate pentagram on the flagstones with something that looked exactly like blood and probably was. The necromancer stood in the middle of the pentagram, the grimoire open and glowing a sickly yellow-green in his hands as he read loudly to the sky in a language I didn’t recognize. He didn’t seem to be paying attention to the building at all.

  Maybe I could take out the busted zombie before he noticed I was here.

  I drew a slow, deep breath and stepped carefully over the nearest pile of leaves, watching Balthier closely for any sign of distraction. The necromancer kept chanting as I entered the courtyard and moved as close as I dared to the defective zombie. It took me a minute to remember the right words for the spell I wanted. Not stop this time, but shut down. I’d only used it once, and definitely not on a zombie. But something told me it was the right spell.

  I was three feet away when the wind picked up sharply and dark clouds roiled across the sky, impossibly fast. Now or never, I thought as I gestured at the center zombie.

  “Dhuunad sios’na.”

  The rotted zombie collapsed into a lifeless heap, with a sound like someone stepping on a brush pile.

  And Balthier noticed.

  He whirled toward me, a terrible sneer on his face. The thick, yellowed pages of the book in his hands flipped by themselves as he moved. “You’re supposed to be dead,” he snarled as his furious gaze dropped briefly to the book. “Silentium ei!”

  The grimoire pulsed with a bright burst of green light.

  I had no idea what he’d done until I tried again to cast the sleep spell on him. And found I couldn’t speak.

  “I will not be stopped now,” Balthier said. “You’ve taken my virtuous executioner — but that’s what you are, isn’t it? Killing for a cause, attempting to save this diseased world. And you’ve somehow come back from the dead.” He flashed an icy grin. “You’ll do to take his place in the ritual.”

  Gideon, run!

  Zoria’s voice ripped through my head, nearly driving me to my knees as a geyser of blood erupted from my nose, accompanied by streams from my ears. I stumbled, turned away, and made for the door into the building. Blinding pain blurred my senses. Behind me, I heard Balthier speaking another spell.

  I’d gotten six steps when what felt like an actual shit-ton of zombie tackled me to the ground.

  “Bring him to the circle,” Balthier called.

  I flickered in and out of consciousness as two of the zombies dragged me across the buckled flagstones. Whatever my limit was on talking to the dead, I’d just reached it. Zoria was gone.

  And I was about to be sacrificed to a demon.

  Chapter 8

  Balthier used the chains and padlock from the grimoire to wrap me up, binding my arms to my sides and my hands behind my back. Then he had the zombies rough me up some before they deposited me on my knees at one point of the pentagram.

  If I could talk, I would’ve told him that wasn’t necessary. I wasn’t in any shape to run even before the beating.

  Now it was all I could do to stay conscious while he destroyed the world.

  The zombies gravitated to the edges of the bloody symbol. Five star points, five sacrifices. A hot, hard lump of helpless fury formed in the pit of my stomach as I watched Balthier return to the center and start reading from the grimoire again.

  While he chanted, the black clouds above the courtyard thickened. The wind whipsawed at a fever pitch, kicking up miniature tornadoes of dead leaves and detritus. Then Balthier thundered a final line, and everything went abruptly still. The air grew heavy. The clouds unraveled to a clear sky spangled with stars — hard pinpoints of white against black, only slightly dimmed by the cold light of a full moon.

  Something deep in me stirred as moonlight bathed the courtyard. My depleted magic responded like water poured on a bone-dry sponge, soaking up every ounce of light. The crippling pain ebbed a few fractions, enough for me to see and hear. And think straight.

  I wasn’t letting the world end without a fight.

  If I was going to stop him, I had to be able to speak. And despite my extremely limited experience with magic, this had sort of happened to me before, while we were fighting Milus Dei. I’d had a silencing spell cast on me — by a Fae, not a necromancer. Another Fae had undone the spell with a word I could almost recall. It was right at the edge of my mind.

  Maybe if I thought it hard enough, like I’d managed to do turning off the pendant, I could get it to work. I just had to remember the word.

  Araais.

  It came to me like a surfacing bubble. I seized on the word, forcing every thought to focus on it. And for just a few seconds, I actually felt the magic working in me.

  Balthier wasn’t looking my way. I shifted my bound hands until my fingers touched the padlock, and tried to whisper the only spell I knew that I hadn’t used yet tonight. “Oscaihl.”

  The lock clicked open.

  He didn’t hear the click, but I definitely got his attention when I struggled to my feet and pushed the chains away. The look on his face was part shock, part absolute rage. He sent a desperate glance at the sky — and a grin replaced his fury.

  I couldn’t help looking, just in time to see a bright blaze of light streak across the stars.

  Erichtho’s Comet had arrived.

  “You’re too late,” Balthier said. “Qui vocat vos, Azathoth.”

  There was a booming noise above, like a jet plane breaking the sound barrier. Concentric ripples traced the sky and drew inward, forming a translucent funnel that distorted the carpet of stars. And a voice thundered from the funnel.

  “Who calls upon me and disturbs my slumber?”

  Nails on a chalkboard would’ve been a beautiful symphony compared to that voice. The sound of it reached down my throat and actively tried to yank my guts out.

  The necromancer shuddered and went down on one knee. “Lord Azathoth. I am Balthier, heir to the guardians of the Great Comet and your humble servant,” he said. “I seek—”

  “You seek my great displeasure with your crude fumblings and your imperfect sacrifice. That one still lives! Where is your master, mortal plaything?”

  “My lord, the sacrifice has been returned from the dead, in accordance with your demands,” Balthier stammered. “All is in order. Zoria has tragically passed to the Great Beyond, and I have assumed her mantle with a heavy heart.”

  “Heavy?” I said with a sneer. “Well, it can’t be that big of a load, since you killed her.”

  “WHAT?” the demon thundered.

  Balthier
shot to his feet and whirled on me. “How dare you accuse me of—”

  “Be silent, mortal! The sacrifice will speak.”

  I really didn’t like my new nickname. Shuddering all over, I looked up at the demon funnel and tried to swallow past the cotton-dry fear lining my throat. “Uh. Lord Azathoth?” I said. “This guy killed Zoria. I know it’s true, because she told me.” I fumbled in my pocket and managed to free the thumb bone. “See, um, this probably sounds crazy, but—”

  “You are the DeathSpeaker.”

  If there was anything he could’ve said to shock me more, I couldn’t think of it.

  “Yeah,” I finally managed. “Guess you’ve heard of me. So if it’s all the same to you, can we take my name off the sacrifice list?”

  “Lord Azathoth, I don’t understand.” There was a whining undertone to Balthier’s voice now, like a child denied a candy bar. “This boy is nothing. A charlatan of a sorcerer, capable only of simple parlor tricks. I’ve served you faithfully, and I ask … I demand my reward!”

  “The agony of life and unlife is Chaos. The stillness of the grave is Order. I do not accept this sacrifice,” the demon voice snarled. “And further, you are not worthy of your self-appointed post. You, a sniveling mortal who murders my faithful and fails to observe proper rituals. Since you cannot recognize true power, you will be stripped of your own.”

  The funnel crackled with green light. Balthier’s scream of outrage was cut short as a massive bolt hurled itself from the sky and struck him to the ground.

  And the demon was gone.

  Chapter 9

  Gideon! Can you hear me?

  I was just starting to feel like I’d only been hit by a bus, instead of the A-train and the L-train at the same time, when Zoria’s voice meathooked into my brain. “Will you please stop shouting,” I groaned. “I’d like to keep the rest of my blood on the inside.”

  I felt her faint sigh of relief. Sorry, she whispered.

  At least she sounded like she meant it this time. “So I don’t know how much of that you heard, but—”

  Everything. She paused. I tried to warn you not to speak to Azathoth.

  “Yeah, well I probably wouldn’t have listened.”

  No, I suppose you wouldn’t. I could sense her gathering words, and finally she said, It seems you’re not the fool I took you for, DeathSpeaker.

  I smirked. “Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself,” I said. “You know, for a demon-worshipping necromancer.”

  Thank you.

  “Your apprentice, on the other hand. I’d ask how you managed to get involved with him, but I have a feeling it’s a long story. And I don’t think I could survive a long story from you right now.”

  He used to be … charming.

  “Yeah. Psychopaths are good at charming.” I stretched carefully and paced a few more steps away from the unnerving scene in the courtyard. Balthier was still breathing, but he hadn’t moved from where he’d fallen. And the zombies were just standing there, broadcasting creepy silence. “So if he lost his power, why didn’t they go down when he did?”

  They?

  “The zombies,” I said. “Thought you knew what was happening.”

  I can hear, but I can’t see. A faint tinge of alarm colored her words. Are you saying the sacrifices are still animated?

  “Well, maybe not animated. They’re not moving. But they don’t exactly seem dead. Or re-dead, whatever they should be.”

  I felt Zoria shiver. They’re still under his command, because he resurrected them, she whispered. They’ll continue to obey him until they’re released.

  “Great. I don’t have enough magic left to shut down all of them,” I said. “How am I supposed to release them?”

  The grimoire.

  I spotted the book next to Balthier’s outstretched arm — just as he stirred and grabbed it, then hauled himself to his feet and fixed me with a fiery glare. “Kill him.”

  With a chorus of moans, the zombies started for me.

  They were damned fast for dead people. I jogged back and darted to the left, just as the closest zombie made a swipe at me. It was one of the fresh ones, the so-called failed savior. He barely missed.

  “You shouldn’t listen to him. You know he killed you, right?” I said as I ducked another grab — and bumped into the woman who’d taken an unwilling swan dive into the East River. Who promptly wrapped both arms around me and started squeezing. I felt a few of my ribs crack.

  And I heard a tormented voice in my head that wasn’t Zoria. Please send me back to sleep. I don’t want to kill anyone else.

  I almost told her I didn’t think she had killed anyone, and I didn’t really want to be her first murder victim. Then I remembered the faux suicide woman was only material. The spirit inside her was Typhoid Mary.

  Trying to draw breath was an exercise in agony. Two more zombies had reached me and were attempting to wrench my arms off. I couldn’t see the fourth one, but seconds later a hand that felt like iron clamped around the back of my neck.

  I still didn’t have a whole lot of magic. A full recharge in the moonlight took hours. But I thought I could manage one small spell, and it just might give me time to finish this. If I could breathe enough to speak it.

  “Mary,” I wrenched out, gasping as one of my shoulders popped with the strain. “I know you … have to obey this guy. Just ease up. One second. Please.”

  I felt her surprise. Then her deadly grip loosened, and I sucked in a hard lungful of air.

  “Staad.”

  The word wasn’t as loud as I wanted, but I pushed everything I had into it.

  And the zombies stopped moving.

  Spluttering and gagging, I wriggled out of the zombie pile and started toward Balthier, who was frozen with shock. “Didn’t you hear Azathoth?” I said. “I’m the DeathSpeaker. Sending dead people after me wasn’t such a great plan, asshole.”

  He snapped out of it. “Impossible!” he shouted, walking slowly backwards as he flipped through the grimoire. “I’ll send you straight to hell, you cut-rate charlatan!”

  “I don’t think so. You don’t have any power left.” I caught up with him, yanked the book from his hands and threw it aside. “Tell you the truth, neither do I. But I’ve got something else for you.”

  Balthier sneered. “Another cheap parlor trick?”

  “Yeah, and this is my best one yet,” I said. “I’m going to put you to sleep.”

  With that, I balled a fist and drove a hard uppercut into his chin.

  He gurgled gently as he sank to the ground.

  Laughter exploded in my head — Zoria’s, not mine. Did you just punch him? she said.

  “Yeah.” I managed an exhausted grin and ignored the pain. “So much for Balthier, heir to the guardians of the Great Comet.”

  Indeed. All hail the power of your right hook.

  “Figured he was all magic, no stamina.” I winced and rubbed the shoulder that had almost been pulled from its socket. That was going to hurt for a while. “So you think I’ll be able to make this grimoire of yours work on the zombies?” I said. “I mean, I’m not a necromancer.”

  Of course you can. A whisper of sardonic amusement rippled through my head. Any fool can read a spell.

  This time I laughed. “Well, I guess I’m the best fool for the job.”

  Chapter 10

  Somehow I managed to stumble through reading a spell in Latin. I still suspected it wouldn’t work for me, right up until the zombies started toppling gently to the ground. That was when I heard a collective, ghostly sigh, and a few voices whispering thank you.

  Apparently people didn’t enjoy being enslaved to their own dead bodies. Go figure.

  I’d chained Balthier to the lone tree in the courtyard. Without his spells, he wasn’t going anywhere until I could get hold of Abe and have him arrested. I just had to figure out how to do that.

  Unfortunately, my only source of information had been dead for thirty-three years. But I still had to try.
>
  “Okay, I think I’ve had enough fun for tonight,” I said. “Any ideas how I can get back to civilization?”

  We always used a boat, Zoria said.

  “Great. I should’ve thought to bring a boat while I was being kidnapped and left for dead.”

  Balthier must have used one. Take his.

  “I might have to,” I said, frowning slightly. “I just don’t want to leave him here long enough to try escaping, you know? If I could get a signal, I could have the NYPD out here with helicopters and shit. I think.”

  A signal for what?

  Oh, right. She’d died before cell phones were invented. “It’s kind of hard to explain,” I said. “Basically it’s like a radio signal, except for phones.”

  Huh, she said. Radio signals reach the west shore, the Manhattan side. It’s not far from here.

  “All right. I’ll try that.”

  What will you do with Balthier?

  “Have him arrested,” I said. “I’ve got a good friend, a detective who’s practically a captain. He’ll make sure the charges stick, and there’s going to be plenty of them.” I let out a sigh and rubbed the back of my neck. “Gotta get these bodies back, too. I’m responsible for them — the fresh ones, at least. But I want to bring all of them.”

  Why?

  “It’s my job.”

  As the DeathSpeaker?

  “No, as a body mover. Long story,” I said. “So … what about your body? I mean, it’d be tricky, but we could probably get you out. Give you a permanent resting place.” I already felt bad that I couldn’t offer her anything more. It was strange getting to know someone who died before I’d met her.

  Zoria sighed gently. This island is too dangerous. But I’ll be fine here. Only Balthier knew where I was, before you. She paused, and said, I’d prefer to keep it that way.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not telling anybody about this.” Even if I did, they’d never believe me. Necromancers and zombies and demons, oh my. “And the grimoire?”

  Burn it. I don’t want those spells falling into the wrong hands.