Home Improvement: Undead Edition

by Harris, Charlaine

  “What?” Broahm rubbed his eyes as he kicked off the multiple layers of quilts and furs. “Who is downstairs?”

  “I’ve never seen him before, milord,” the house maiden said. “An intruder.”

  “Go see what he’s doing, then come back.” In cold weather like this, Broahm slept in his robe and socks, so he had only to pull on his short boots to be dressed. “Hurry.”

  “Yes, milord.” The house maiden disappeared through the floor.

  Damn it! Broahm had scoured the town and the outlying areas, every little obscure market he could find, to replace the stolen wizarding ingredients in his cupboard, and now here was another burglar already—

  In a flash, it came to him. Prying eyes and keen ears had been keeping tabs on Broahm, watching as he replenished his precious materials. Some sly villain knew he now had a full cupboard again and had been waiting to strike. And to add insult to injury, Broahm had not activated the security system.

  In a mere two weeks, the security system had become a cumbersome nuisance. Clients coming and going during business hours meant he either had to go through the tedious ritual ten times a day, or leave the system off during business hours—which was what he eventually started doing. It didn’t take long for Broahm to become complacent, and it wasn’t long after that he started to forget to activate it after closing. Often, he would already be in bed, warm under the covers, when he would remember, and more often than not he was simply too cold and lazy to get out of bed again.

  The house maiden, at least, was a part of the system that could be left in operation all the time. If not for her, Broahm would have slept right through the second burglary.

  He grabbed the twelve-inch dagger from his bedside table and slipped it into his belt. No time to consult his spell book. He’d have to go into action with the half-dozen spells already clunking around in his brain.

  The house maiden drifted up through the floor again. “He’s standing in the foyer, milord, looking at the hallway through a glass circle he’s holding up to his eye.”

  A wizard’s loupe. Broahm muttered a curse. If the burglar had as rare an item as a wizard’s loupe, then that meant he was a spellcaster himself, or, at the very least, highly familiar with the ways of wizards. He would have to engage this prowler with caution.

  Broahm felt like such a lazy fool. If only he’d taken the three minutes to perform the ritual over the small, silver wolf’s head nailed to the front doorframe downstairs. The wolf’s head was the size of a peach, with small garnets for eyes, a wide-open mouth, and sharp fangs within. In an emergency situation, Sulton had explained, Broahm could simply prick his finger on one of the wolf’s teeth to activate the magical protections. His blood would identify him as the rightful resident while all others would fall victim to the dwelling’s defenses.

  It was too bad Broahm had cheaped out. For an additional fee, he could have had an identical wolf’s head affixed to the doorpost in his bedroom. But noooooooo. He had to save four gold pieces and was now screwing up his courage to do battle with an intruder.

  He sighed. No time to cry about it now. He had to man up and deal with the problem. He mumbled the syllables to his first spell, and they flew out of his mouth as an unintelligible garble. He took an experimental step. No sound. No squeak of floorboards. Good, the silence spell was working perfectly. Too bad an invisibility spell was so complex and hard to memorize, but being able to move silently would be some advantage.

  “Keep an eye on him,” he told the house maiden. “Tell me immediately if he moves beyond the first floor.”

  “Yes, milord.” She dissolved back through the floor.

  Broahm drew his dagger and eased down the stairs. The floor below his bedchamber was his workshop. He kept going to the floor below that—a sitting room, storage, a guest chamber. He passed by another floor—sitting room, dining room, places to entertain clients and guests—and started down the final flight of stairs to the first floor.

  The first floor consisted of a generous entranceway, the kitchens, and a servant’s quarters should Broahm one day be able to afford a corporeal servant.

  The nervous wizard slowly descended the circular staircase to the first floor, then stopped abruptly when he saw the burglar in the foyer. Broahm pressed his back to the wall, clinging to the shadows. Moonlight streamed in from the small round window in the front door, barely illuminating the crouched figure. The burglar’s head was wrapped to hide his identity, only a narrow slit in the fabric for the eyes. Soft leather boots. A short, fat sword on his belt.

  The burglar had yet to move beyond the foyer. He kept looking through the loupe, scanning the floor, looking up at the ceiling. What was he looking for?

  The eldritch lines, Broahm realized. The burglar knew there was a security system, and the fact that he couldn’t see the eldritch lines was confounding him. Soon the burglar would stumble upon the truth. The stupid homeowner had simply not activated the security. And when the burglar figured this out, he would move into the rest of Broahm’s home and loot all of the rare and expensive items Broahm had just spent a small fortune replacing.

  Unless Broahm acted fast.

  He began uttering the words to a flame spell. Fry the son of a bitch.

  He bit his tongue.

  No. It was a common offensive spell. A burglar with a wizard’s loupe would know what he was up against. Likely he had some protective shielding. There was no way to know this, naturally, but Broahm would have one chance at surprise, and he needed to make the most of it. The dagger suddenly felt very heavy in his hand.

  Broahm was not accustomed to wet work. One of the distinct perks of being a wizard was that in combat situations, at least in the very few battles in which he’d participated, he could cast his spells from a distance, far from sword points and bone-crushing maces. But Broahm’s dagger, in this situation, might be the best bet. He’d had it for years, and it was spelled against armor and eldritch shields and had the best chance to penetrate.

  The burglar turned his back, examining the front door with the wizard’s loupe.

  Now! While his back is turned! Go! Now!

  Broahm flew down the stairs, the silence spell muting his footfalls. He nearly tangled himself in his robes, righted himself, and hit the first-floor landing at a full run, dagger in front of him ready to strike.

  The burglar turned and saw Broahm running flat-out toward him. His eyes went big in the fabric slit of his mask as his hand fell to his sword.

  Broahm swept the dagger forward with everything he had. The tip sliced through the burglar’s throat. A garbled yell died in the rush of blood. The blood—

  —sprayed—

  —drops landing in the open mouth of the silver wolf’s head on the door.

  Panic flashed up Broahm’s spine. No!

  Intelligence. One had to have the right sort of brain to be a wizard. Intelligence, yes, but not just any ordinary sort of intelligence would do. A wizard needed to take in a situation, appraise, analyze, decide, all in an instant. Broahm was at least above average with this sort of intelligence, and so he saw immediately what had happened and what it meant. The blood had sprayed, droplets scattering in an arc. Droplets landing in the mouth of the wolf’s head.

  Not Broahm’s blood.

  The burglar clutched his throat, blood oozing between his fingers as he went down, flopping on the ground, kicking, trying to stop the blood flow coming from his open throat, but it just kept coming, and he was on the floor of the foyer, the blood pooling and flowing out like it might never stop.

  But all Broahm could see were the few drops that had sprayed into the wolf’s mouth, the droplets that would activate the house’s security system. The blood of the person who’d be safe. Not Broahm’s blood.

  Broahm was screwed.

  He panicked, went for the front door, grabbed the knob. It burned his hand, and he jerked back. Just like that, the security system had been activated.

  His house. Against him.

  No
t thinking, he walked backward into the foyer, backing away fast from the front door, hand going up to his mouth. He sucked the burn, wincing, and even in that split second remembered the house’s defenses, the security he’d paid big gold for only a few months ago.

  He wrenched his hand from his mouth and spat the syllables for the iron skin spell a split second before the poison darts launched. The darts bounced off his face and arms with metallic tinks, his skin turning iron just in the nick of time.

  Flustered, he stumbled into the kitchen and thrust his burned hand into a bucket of cold water. Relief brought clarity. The house. What was next? It would detect that he’d survived the darts and activate the—

  “Grrrrrraaaaaaaaarrrrr . . .”

  Broahm spun to see the zombie lurching toward him.

  Broahm had thought it funny at the time. What were the odds? A zombie bear. The hulking beast came at him, claws out, eyes vacant, mouth and fangs ready to rip him to shreds.

  Broahm dove to the floor as the claws raked the counter where he’d been a moment before, splitting the bucket in two, splashing water all over the kitchen floor.

  Now Broahm did cast the flame spell, hand extended toward the zombie animal, flames shooting from his fingertips, curling around the creature, the patchy fur that remained on its body catching fire. The zombie bear roared but turned on Broahm and kept coming.

  Broahm ran from the kitchen, back through the foyer and up the stairs.

  Two things. The zombie bear behind him, and whatever the security system would do to him on the second floor.

  The zombie bear came after him slowly. As Sulton had promised, it had been purchased secondhand and was almost worn out to begin with. Broahm paused on the staircase to look back at the creature. It lumbered up after him, patches of mangy fur smoldering. It was, frankly, a pathetic sight, but if it got hold of him, it would tear his arms and legs and head off.

  What spells were left? The thing had survived the flame cast, and in other circumstances, Broahm would have been glad to get his money’s worth. As it was, the wizard sort of wished the thing had gone down a bit easier. He went through the list of the remaining spells in his head.

  Sleep? No, you couldn’t put a zombie to sleep. The undead do not slumber. He had three other spells to choose from: Voice. Light. Shatter.

  Shatter might do the trick. It was meant to destroy armor and swords, but maybe it would do the same to the bear’s patchy skin and dried bones. The more Broahm thought about it, the more he thought it would work. He turned, mouth falling open to utter the words, hands raised to weave arcane symbols in the air.

  Slam!

  The zombie bear was already upon him, barreling into him headfirst, butting the wizard backward, arms flailing into the main area of the second level. The iron skin spell kept his ribs from cracking.

  The zombie bear knocked Broahm over a plush divan. “Shit!”

  Broahm scrambled to his feet just in time to see the undead animal knock the furniture aside to get at him again. In a thousandth of a second, this minor debate unfolded in Broahm’s brain: I can cast the shatter spell now. He’s coming right at me. It’s a point-blank shot. Or I can take a deep breath. There’s no time for both.

  He took a deep breath.

  At the same moment the four brown ceramic toads placed around the room began to belch a thick, pea-green fog. It filled the room at alarming speed. Broahm turned and sprinted for the next staircase leading to the level above. He had to stay ahead of the fog. Breathing in any of it would send him instantly into a deep coma.

  A distant part of his brain registered that the iron skin spell had worn off.

  Broahm hit the stairs hard, turned his ankle, and yelled in pain. He made himself go on, every other step upward sending a shock of agony lancing up his leg past his knee. His lungs were already burning for air. Broahm was no kind of athlete, neither particularly strong nor fast, but he pushed through the jagged fire in his ankle.

  He reached the top step and turned, dagger out, ready to fend off the undead guardian.

  Nothing.

  Broahm cocked his head, listening for pursuit, but no sound came up from the level below. He stood frozen, panting, waiting.

  A zombie bear, Broahm thought. How fucking clever. And what will people say about you in the guild meetings? Stupid old Broahm was eaten by his own zombie guardian. I told you that fellow wasn’t the brightest candle on the altar.

  The dark green fog had climbed two-thirds of the way up the stairs, then floated there like some ugly pond of dirty smoke, but it came no farther. The fog was too thick and dark to see anything below, and Broahm had no idea at all how to disperse the fog. He realized he’d neglected to ask Sulton a number of important questions about his security system. Did the fog fail to rise any farther because it was so thick and heavy, or was it spelled to keep to its own level so it didn’t conflict with the house’s other defenses? And if he had breathed any of the fog and fallen into a coma, what, if anything, would bring him out of it again? Another half-dozen questions sprang to mind, but Broahm dismissed them. Right now he needed to focus on getting out of this mess.

  “House maiden!” Broahm shouted. Perhaps he could send her to scout the situation. Sooner or later he’d have to go downstairs again, and he wasn’t eager to tangle with the bear. Maybe the thing had a limited life span. It might already have tumbled over into a docile heap. “House maiden, where are—”

  The zombie bear rose through the fog and leaped for Broahm, eyes vacant and dead, claws swiping at the wizard, ripping through robes and slicing three thin, shallow cuts across Broahm’s chest. He fell back, tripping in his own robes, the cuts stinging and cold, the bear still coming.

  The shatter spell flew from Broahm’s lips.

  The zombie bear’s skin shredded like dry paper, the bones beneath splintering and flying in every direction, chips and dust raining down on Broahm and over the room, but Broahm had already stepped onto the upper floor.

  A blinding bright flash of blue light.

  Sudden silence.

  Then everything went dark.

  BROAHM GROANED AND sat up in the grass, holding his head.

  The world around him was blue. He blinked at it but wasn’t quite ready for it, so he closed his eyes again. He reached into his robes, his hand and chest sticky and warm with his own blood, but the claw marks weren’t deep. The wound would keep for now.

  Broahm had bigger problems.

  He opened his eyes again slowly, looked around, and sighed.

  He sat on a slight rise in a blue world of blue sky and blue grass, a vast open plain in one direction. A hundred yards in the opposite direction was a wall of blue quartz that stretched out of sight to the horizon in both directions and went up into the sky until it disappeared.

  In the center of Broahm’s workshop was a small pedestal on which sat a pyramid of rough blue quartz. Broahm was now inside that piece of quartz.

  How to escape from a capture gem was another question Broahm had neglected to ask Sulton. It wasn’t really a gem. Just quartz. Capture gems were little artificial worlds unto themselves, and nobles often purchased such items fashioned of emerald or sapphire, but a wizard knew any old hunk of quartz would do, so there was no point wasting money. Oh, there were subtle beneficial reasons for using a more expensive stone, but all Broahm was interested in was capturing an intruder.

  Well. He’d captured himself instead. Bravo, idiot.

  He stood and hobbled slowly to the quartz wall. He looked it up and down, then reached out and rubbed the cold quartz. He tapped it with his dagger. The wall was thick, solid. Even if Broahm hadn’t already expended his shatter spell, he doubted it would so much as scratch the quartz.

  Brute force wasn’t going to get him out of this one.

  A quick, mental inventory: a voice spell and a light spell. Not much left in his addled noggin.

  Broahm had known very old wizards who could keep thirty-five or forty spells in their heads, ready for use a
t the click of a tongue. It took years of study and discipline to accomplish such a thing. Most wizards kept secret how many spells they could hold, but Broahm suspected his old master, Hemley, could hold as many as fifteen comfortably. Comfortably was the key. Broahm could jam eight spells in his mind in a pinch, but the buzz in his brain proved too distracting to cope with. Once he’d tried nine spells, but it had almost driven him mad. He’d had to run outside to launch a lightning bolt into the sky to make room in his head.

  Anyway, someday he would study and work and be able to hold nine spells. Then if he was disciplined and worked hard, ten. But not today.

  Today he was trapped in a world of blue with two nearly useless spells.

  What Broahm really needed was to be rescued. If he’d bothered to memorize some kind of simple communication spell, maybe he could have called for help.

  Hmmmmmm. Broahm scratched his chin. Maybe there was a way he could call for help. The point of being a wizard was not simply to know spells, but also how to be clever about using them.

  So . . . be clever, moron.

  THE HOUSE MAIDEN lingered over the burglar’s body long enough to make sure it wasn’t her master’s. Relief. It wasn’t Broahm. The pool of blood spread out from the body left little doubt. He was very, very dead.

  She drifted up to the next level. “Milord?”

  Where could he be? The intruder had obviously been vanquished, so where was her master?

  She drifted though a sea of dark green fog, up the stairs past an explosion of dust and bone and old fur. Something was not right. Not right at all. She entered the master’s workshop and started suddenly at the misshapen shadow on the wall. It was huge, waving its arms like some deranged creature. She floated in a circle, looking all around at anything that could possibly cast such a shadow.

  A bright glow radiated from the quartz in the center of the workshop.

  This wasn’t right at all. She had to find her master, had to tell him something was amiss. She turned and floated back toward the stairs.

  And stopped.