Necropolis

by Christopher Nuttall

  Gwen hesitated – that wasn’t normal behaviour – then threw extra bursts of fire after the retreating undead. Several nearby buildings caught fire, flushing out the undead who’d been hiding in the shadows. A number of burning undead hurled themselves towards the defenders, then stopped as Gwen picked them off from high overhead. She dropped lower, low enough to allow the defenders to see her clearly, then felt an odd tickle at her mind.

  Lady Gwen? Is that you?

  Simone, Gwen thought. Clearly, she did have some broadcasting talent, although not as much as might have been useful. Yes, it’s me.

  Sir Sidney greeted her as she stepped through what remained of the main doors. The undead had caused havoc, tearing through wooden barricades as if they were made of paper. She sucked in a breath as she saw one of the elderly diplomats, his body lying on the ground without its head. The pang of guilt almost sent her to her knees. She’d never bothered to learn the man’s name before he died. Now, she felt as if she should at least have known.

  “We almost lost before you arrived,” he said. Outside, the flames were licking higher, despite the cold weather. It would be a miracle if they didn’t spread to the palace, creating yet another hazard for the defenders. “We can’t stay here for long.”

  “I know,” Gwen said. She ran through it in her head. There were nearly two hundred people in the palace; British, French and Russians. She knew, all too well, that she couldn’t carry them all to the airships before the Tsar intervened. It wouldn’t take more than a handful of undead to destroy the airstrip and kill the guards. “Simone – just how far can you broadcast?”

  The French girl hesitated. She looked tired, her yellow dress stained with blood, and yet she still managed to look striking. Gwen wondered, nastily, why she didn’t wear something more suitable. She had no idea what fashion was like in France these days, but wearing trousers could make the difference between escape and certain death. Simone wouldn’t look half so pretty as one of the undead.

  “Several miles, if I have someone to hear,” Simone said. If she’d heard Gwen’s unguarded thoughts, she gave no sign of it. “You heard me.”

  “I’ll fly you to the airships,” Gwen said. Simone could communicate with her at a distance, she hoped. “And then we have to start thinking about what to do next.”

  She hesitated. An idea – in its own way as insane as Sir Sidney’s idea – had just struck her. If she made her presence very obvious, she could attract the attention of the Russian magicians ... and then kill them, allowing the airship to fly over the city. But it was far too risky. The Russians might have enough magicians left to kill her and bring down the airship ...

  “We know what we have to do next,” Sir Sidney said. His voice was calm, but he spoke in deadly earnest. “One of us has to become a rival controller of the undead.”

  Gwen swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. “And who is going to volunteer for this ... madness?”

  “Me,” Sir Sidney said. He looked down at the bloodstained floor. “It was my idea.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Gwen felt almost dazed as they made their way towards Olivia’s room, as if she were asleep and having a nightmare. She felt as if she was looking at disaster – predicable disaster – and yet she could do nothing to stop it. Sir Sidney would, at the very least, become one of the undead, even if he would be under Olivia’s control rather than the Tsar’s. And even if the mad scheme succeeded entirely, he would still be an undead monster.

  The thought hurt, more than she cared to admit, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. She liked Sir Sidney; he was one of the very few people who’d treated her as an equal from the start, rather than just another weak, feeble and foolish woman. To watch him plan, coldly and calmly, to throw away his life on a mad gamble was horrifying. And yet, for all her power, she knew there was no other choice. She couldn’t burn the entire city to the ground, nor could she carry everyone from the palace to the airstrip before the Tsar caught up with them.

  And the next assault will finish us, Gwen thought. It puzzled her why the Tsar hadn’t launched the next attack already. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have a suitable supply of cannon fodder. Had her incineration of hundreds of the undead caused some kind of psychic feedback that had harmed the Tsar? It seemed unlikely. None of the other known Necromancers had shown any reaction to losing dozens or even hundreds of the undead.

  She had to smile, despite the darkness pervading her mood, when she stepped into Olivia’s room. Raechel stood there, sword in hand, her dress liberally spattered with blood and undead brain matter. She was grinning from ear to ear, despite her appearance, enjoying the exhilaration of winning the fight and coming out alive. Gwen smiled back at her, remembering her first real fight and how good it had felt to win. She didn’t have the heart to point out that the next assault would definitely finish them.

  Sir Sidney frowned as he looked at the bodies and gore on the floor. “Are those safe?”

  “They should be,” Olivia said. Her voice was weak, but firm. “The only way the infection spreads is through a bite.”

  That made no sense, Gwen knew, but so much about Necromancy made no sense. Even during the worst of the British experiments into magic, no one had touched on Necromancy, apart from gathering reports from outbreaks around the world. They’d concluded that a necromantic infection wasn’t a disease, at least in the conventional sense. Eating necromantic flesh wouldn’t turn someone into one of the undead. It took a bite from an undead to start the transformation. But no one knew why.

  She pushed the thought aside and knelt down beside Olivia. Her daughter was shivering, only partly through cold. Sweat stood out on her forehead, making her look feverish; her eyes were bright, yet cold. Gwen looked towards the broken window, wishing they could seal the gap completely. But if they pulled back into the interior of the palace, they’d only cut their line of retreat. There was nowhere to go that wouldn’t make their situation worse.

  “Sir Sidney has a proposal,” she said, carefully.

  Olivia produced a weak chuckle. “Shouldn’t he be asking you for my hand in marriage?”

  Gwen smiled; Raechel giggled, outright.

  “It isn’t that sort of proposal,” she said, as Sir Sidney blushed. “It’s something rather different.”

  “I want you to give me some of your blood and turn me into a creature like the Tsar,” Sir Sidney said, talking rapidly to overcome his embarrassment. “You can do that, can’t you?”

  Olivia hesitated, nervously. Gwen didn’t blame her. If they made it home, there would be an inquest into the whole affair – and with so many high-ranking diplomats involved, to say nothing of Talleyrand, it would be impossible to cover it up. There would be questions asked about Olivia’s continued survival, then urgent suggestions put forward to invoke the Demonic Powers Act and execute her. If Olivia used her powers again, without compulsion, it would only give her enemies ammunition once they realised the truth.

  “I don’t know,” Olivia said, finally. “We don’t have a Healer.”

  Sir Sidney looked at Gwen. “You can Heal, can’t you?”

  Gwen winced. Healing was not one of her skills. Lucy could put a badly wounded person back together easily, Gwen could barely heal herself – and that was largely instinctive, given food and drink. In theory, she should have the power; in practice, even months of effort hadn’t taught her how to use it. But there was no other Healer in the palace ...

  “I shouldn’t have killed Gregory,” Olivia said, bleakly. “I’m sorry.”

  “We couldn’t have made him cooperate in any case,” Gwen said. A fanatic would have been largely immune to Charm. She looked over at Sir Sidney. “I can try, but ... but it would be incredibly dangerous. You might wind up dead – or a soulless monster, Olivia’s puppet.”

  Sir Sidney looked at Olivia for a long moment. “Do you have a better idea?”

  “I did manage to influence the creatures slightly,” Olivia said. “If the Tsar died ...”


  “They’d form a new hive mind of their own,” Gwen said. She took a long breath. “I won’t force you to do this ...”

  She swallowed as her voice trailed away. It would be worse for Sir Sidney, she knew; the experiment might fail completely, leaving him a shambling monster. But it wouldn’t end there, not when he’d killed himself. His soul would go to Hell for suicide, even though he was sacrificing himself for the good of the entire mission. It didn’t seem fair, somehow.

  Perhaps there’s an exception for someone who kills himself for the good of others, she thought, bitterly. Religion had never been a large part of her life, not since David had driven away one tutor by demanding to know why Caesar and Cicero were in a hell they’d never heard of, as they’d both lived and died before Jesus Christ. Or perhaps he simply doesn’t believe in God.

  “I can’t think of anything else,” Olivia said. She looked up at Sir Sidney’s pale face “If we do this ...”

  She shook her head. “When do you want to do this?”

  “Lady Gwen has to fly Simone to the airstrip,” Sir Sidney said. “I can wait until she gets back.”

  “I bet you can,” Raechel muttered.

  She glared at all three of them, angrily. “This is crazy! This is ... obscene! You’re talking about killing yourself and you don’t even know it will work!”

  “There’s no alternative,” Sir Sidney said. “We don’t have any other means of fighting our way out of this. Or can you suggest something?”

  Raechel glared at him, but said nothing.

  “Take Simone to the airstrip,” Sir Sidney ordered Gwen. “We will ... we will do it when you get back.”

  Gwen nodded, then left the room. Simone was waiting for her, carrying a small bag in one hand and a pistol in the other. Gwen wondered, absently, just how well the French woman could shoot, then decided it was probably immaterial. The undead were unlikely to be deterred by the small feminine pistol, even if she shot them in the head. They’d just keep going until she managed to cripple them.

  “My father wanted me to take a handful of papers with me,” Simone said, lifting the bag. “Is that all right?”

  “As long as they include safe conducts,” Gwen said. “We’re going to need them.”

  She sighed. With war between Britain and France so close, travelling over French territory would be very dangerous without formal permission from a French representative. But she suspected the French would be very tempted to shoot down the airship if they knew she was on it, no matter what Talleyrand said. Her death would ensure a power struggle in Cavendish Hall.

  “They do,” Simone assured her. “When do we go?”

  “Now,” Gwen said, as she turned to lead the other girl up to the roof. “And you’d better work on charming the Russians at the far end.”

  Janet was waiting for them on the roof, her eyes downcast. Gwen sighed, inwardly; she hadn’t had a chance to talk privately with Janet since she’d been forced to reveal herself, but it was clear that the maid had taken the news badly. To know she’d shared a room with a noblewoman powerful enough to overrule Lady Standish on a whim ... Janet had to have been replaying her actions in her mind, looking for something – anything – that Gwen might hold against her. But she hadn’t done anything even remotely objectionable.

  “I’ll take you too,” Gwen said. She could carry two people without straining herself – and besides, Janet was an innocent. “Get ready to fly.”

  Simone gave her a sharp look, but Gwen refused to rise to the bait. Instead, she concentrated on keeping her mental shields in place and waited for Janet to finish saying goodbye to Romulus. She looked away hastily when Janet and Romulus shared a kiss, then smiled at Simone’s reaction. The French girl scowled at her, then looked nervous, clearly remembering that Gwen could simply drop her over the city and swear blind that it had been a terrible accident.

  “We’ll be there in no time,” Gwen said, remembering how badly Janet had reacted to the airship. “And don’t worry about a thing.”

  “Apart from the horde of undead below us,” Simone said. “And the difficulty in navigating all the way to Paris. And the Russians deciding they don’t want to help us. And the undead coming after us ...”

  “Shut up!” Gwen ordered. She caught hold of them both with her magic, then leapt into the air. Below, the ranks of the undead were slowly reforming, as the Tsar directed reinforcements towards the palace. “We need to hurry.”

  She forced herself to fly faster. The next attack would be far more serious and it would fall on already weakened defences. It might just be enough to crush the defenders ... and condemn them all to join the ranks of the undead.

  ***

  Olivia sucked in her breath as Sir Sidney left the room after making her promise not to hesitate when the time came to use her powers. The thought was horrifying, worse – somehow – than raising bodies from the dead and making them her slaves. She knew that the Tsar had become an abomination, an offence against nature ... and Sir Sidney wanted to become something comparable. Maybe inserting another mind into the undead gestalt would work, Olivia told herself, or maybe it would simply create a controller without anything to control. How did the Tsar control his slaves anyway?

  It wasn’t easy to direct the undead, Olivia knew. The more complex the command, the harder it was to get them to do what the Necromancer wanted. It was quite possible that the Tsar had real trouble controlling so many of the undead, no matter his intentions and expanded mentality. That, more than anything else, might explain why the undead had fallen back in the wake of Gwen’s return to the palace. The Tsar was regrouping, re-establishing his control and preparing for another attack.

  But where was he? The whispering had faded as the undead fell back, but it was still present, an uneasy feeling at the back of her mind that threatened to overwhelm her the moment she lost control. She’d wondered if the Tsar had claimed exclusive control of his undead – she hadn’t tried to control the undead in London before Master Thomas’s death – but it seemed that the Tsar’s control wasn’t exclusive, merely very powerful. And then a thought struck her and she blinked in surprise. Could the Tsar have overlooked something?

  She looked over at Raechel. “I need to try something,” she said, as she lay down on the bed, taking deep breaths. “Can you watch me for a while?”

  “Of course,” Raechel said, although she looked nervous. She had no magic. If something went badly wrong, there was nothing she could do to help. “What do you want me to do?”

  Olivia hesitated. Confessing any form of weakness still struck her as a very bad idea, even though she liked Raechel. Liking anyone on the streets was a form of weakness in and of itself, not least because a friend could turn on you with terrifying speed. But she knew she needed someone, even if it was just a comforting presence. The undead would find it harder to get into her mind if she had someone helping her.

  “Just hold my hand,” she said. “And squeeze every few minutes.”

  She allowed Raechel to take her hand, then closed her eyes and concentrated on the whispering. It grew louder within seconds, suggesting she was growing more practiced with her powers, no matter how unpleasant she found the thought. The undead were suddenly all around her, great sweeping flickers of emotion and a powerful drive to feed, all firmly fettered by the Tsar’s giant thoughts. Olivia realised, suddenly, that the Tsar was definitely having problems controlling so many undead at once. His mind hadn’t expanded far enough to control them all.

  Their minds died the moment they were infected, she thought, recalling Gregory’s desperate struggle to preserve the Tsar’s brain. His body had been allowed to transform, but his brain had been left alive. He can’t expand his mind into them easily.

  Another thought struck her and she winced. Is that why they wanted me?

  She felt a sudden sensation in her hand, which puzzled her until she remembered that Raechel was holding it. Bracing herself, she threw her mind deeper into the undead gestalt, looking for th
e undead she’d raised at Gregory’s command. She’d heard them in the underground complex, before she’d helped turn the Tsar into a monster; they hadn’t been destroyed. Gregory had wanted to continue his experiments, after all. And even though the Tsar might be able to direct them, they were hers. If there was any justice in the universe ...

  Olivia almost laughed as she found herself staring out of the undead creature’s eyes. It was in a cage, surrounded by a dozen others, all part of the same gestalt. The Tsar, it seemed, had forgotten about them, as had the other undead. But then, why not? They were hardly living creatures, nor were they openly hostile. They’d just been left in a cage to rot.

  She contemplated the cage for a long moment. It was almost childishly simple; it wouldn’t have kept a living breathing human inside for more than a few seconds. A prison cell required proper locks, all on the right side of the door. Instead, she directed the undead to approach the lock and start pushing at it with its hands. Human intelligence, combined with undead resiliency, could simply pick the lock. She allowed herself a smile as the cage opened, then directed the undead out of the cage and into the passageway. And then she muttered a curse as they came face to face with another group of undead.

  Walk past them, she directed. It was odd to realise that her undead barely saw the others – and, she assumed, vice versa. The undead were simply uninterested in other undead, even if they weren’t part of the same gestalt. And then up the stairs.

  She smiled as she felt another squeeze on her hand, then felt a sudden flash of panic as she realised just how closely she’d mingled herself with the undead. It gave her strength as she pulled herself free, then fell back into her own body, unable to escape the impression that she’d just fallen onto the bed from a great height. Her head span as she looked up – for a long moment, she thought she saw undead features pasted over Raechel’s face – then realised just how dry her mouth was. Pain flared through her head and she winced in pain.