The last of her giddiness over Dominic’s good news shriveled and gusted away like dried leaves. “How long?”
“The fortress is old, but the residual magic stored in the stone is draining at a rapid rate. Even with the circle of twelve witches to help fuel the wards, we don’t have long.” She dropped her arm back to her side. “Most of the other witches are students, not strong enough to help. They don’t have the power that comes with age. The wards won’t last another day.”
“And by the time the wards finally fail, you’ll be completely drained and helpless.” Raven’s heart sank. She’d been hoping for more time to allow her people to recover before the next battle. “What are our options?”
“That’s what we’ll be discussing today.”
“I would like to attend.”
“No.” A young, dark haired witch shook her head, a pretty little thing if you could get over the arrogance marring her face. “It’s a closed session. You’re not welcome.”
Raven suspected she’d interrupted that discussion when she barged into the room. “Very well. I’ll get my people ready to move out fast.”
The woman’s face twisted with hatred. “It’s too late for that. People will die today because of you. If you think you can just walk away, you’re sadly mistaken.”
The creature roused, pressing under her skin with razor-sharp claws, studying the witch who issued the threat. “I lost people today as well while trying to help you. Tell me, when did you arrive at the fortress?”
Raven stalked forward, taking a whiff of air around the woman. “From what I can smell, you vanished long before the fight broke out. You left your own people out there to be slaughtered while you cowered in your little hole. So don’t you dare judge me and mine for something I didn’t start.”
With each word she spoke, the witch’s hatred darkened, and Raven stretched her fingers out and shook her hands lightly against the urge to cold cock the woman.
“How dare you! The shifters started this whole thing by messing with something they knew nothing about. The ancient magic should never have been disturbed. Of course we left them behind. How are we to know how many more are in cahoots?”
“Your wild magic infected him, someone you had sworn to protect, and it’s his fault?” Raven was flabbergasted that they’d dare cast all the blame elsewhere. “And the children we found wandering the woods? I’d love to hear your reasons for leaving them behind.”
After a second, the witch’s combative glare dropped away, but Raven could practically feel her hatred simmering beneath the surface.
“Enough.” A wealth of exhaustion coated the word, and Heloise took a seat on the stone bench in the first row. “Mistakes have been made. We need to find a way to move forward without getting killed.”
“Of course. I’ll leave you to it.” Raven did her best not to sprint from the room. It took all her concentration to wrestle control back from her creature. As the beast calmed, the consuming rage scaled back to a manageable level. Every day the creature became more aware, scratching to get out. Raven’s power seemed to increase the animal’s strength, too.
The added danger of being trapped underground with an army waiting outside just made the situation worse.
The time available to form a bond with her creature shrank down to hours instead of months, and a spurt of panic chiseled away at her calm. A particularly nasty blast shook the ground, reverberating up her feet, and she smacked her hand against the chilly stone wall for balance.
They were well and truly trapped.
Memories of the cinder walls in the labs she’d grown up in flashed through her mind.
She couldn’t get enough air.
Shoving away from the wall, she hurried down the tunnels, struggling to control her breathing. A babble of voices echoed against stone, and the door to her past cracked open further. She nearly ran in the opposite direction, convinced the guards were coming to drag her back to her cell.
Durant was ahead.
Just knowing he would be there, waiting for her, dissolved her paranoia. She burst into the kitchen, out of breath, her legs trembling with the need to keep running.
People stopped talking and stared.
When she realized Durant wasn’t there, it took all her strength to straighten and finish her mission. She walked to the food, conscious of being observed.
Whispers started up as she passed, a few people snickered, but Raven didn’t care, the normal sounds of conversation going a long way toward soothing her unease. She wasn’t in the labs. They weren’t doing testing. No one was being tortured.
She was safe.
For now.
Without paying attention, she heaped food on the old metal military lunch tray. When she turned, no one offered her a seat, not that she was surprised. No shifters were present either.
Clear lines were being drawn.
Not good.
If they wanted to survive, they needed to work together. Hefting up the tray, she left, glad to be away from prying eyes. She paused in the hall, peered right, then left, completely lost in the underground warren. She’d been so panicked, she’d run blindly, and now she wasn’t sure how to get back to Dominic.
Taking a gamble, she veered left, hoping to pick up her own trail.
She wove through the tunnels, marveling at the distance she’d managed to travel while blinded by panic. It wasn’t a comforting thought.
Whispers bounded around the corner, and Raven slowed. Not wanting company, she debated turning around, but decided against it. She’d only become more entangled in the maze.
When she rounded the corner, it was to see a group of five kids huddled outside the auditorium door.
Eavesdropping.
She couldn’t blame them, since she was tempted to do the same.
Two boys and three girls argued heatedly, stubbornly split in two groups, just like the adults. Two of them voted for Raven’s pack to stay, while three others wanted to kick them out.
As she came closer, she recognized the snooty girl and the wizard boy…Paige and Luca. Not surprising, they were on opposite sides of the argument.
“If we had listened to her in the first place, none of this would’ve happened.”
“We can’t trust outsiders. She probably planted the virus herself. It makes more sense than one of our own doing this. If we just hand her over, they’ll leave us alone.”
The second boy shook his head as if the others were idiots. “They risked their lives coming back to save us. If she wanted us dead, she could have killed us outright or just left us to die.”
The girl snorted in disdain, dismissing his claim, and Luca raised his voice. “If we hand them over, we could lose our only advantage.”
Paige scoffed and rolled her eyes. “The witch’s Council will send help.”
Luca threw his arms wide. “Yeah, look how well that turned out. He unleased the wild magic on us, and now we have no way to fight.”
There was a scuffling noise, and Luca whirled. “Who’s there?”
Paige jerked around, all her brass melting away at the prospect of getting caught…until she saw Raven. Her face twisted in a sneer of teenaged superiority. “You. Figures we’d catch you spying on us.”
“I believe you were doing the snooping.” Raven gave her a pointed look then lifted her tray. “I’m just on my way back to my room with food.”
The sound came again, and Raven turned to stare into the black tunnels. With a nod of her head, she gestured for the kids to move. “You both need to step back.”
Luca immediately retreated, concern wrinkling his brow.
Paige put her hands on her hips, all sass and attitude. “You have no right to tell us what to do.”
Shuffling footsteps came nearer, the smell of wild magic and rot filling the tunnel.
“Give me your light.”
“You can’t just—”
“Shut up, Paige.” Luca handed over his flashlight.
Raven tossed it down the
tunnel. The beam flickered and spun, shooting a thin stream of light down the tunnel at random intervals. It was enough. Rotting faces peered out of the darkness. Their clothes were ragged, their faces spongy and expressionless, as if they were in stasis. Their skin had turned a pasty gray with decay, their eyes milky and vacant.
It was like their souls had been removed. All that remained were these husks, machines waiting to be called to battle.
Raven shivered in revulsion, her feet rooted to the floor as her brain slowed down to process the sight. There was something fundamentally wrong at seeing a corpse move.
Two of the girls screamed. Their flashlights dropped and smacked the granite floor hard enough to crack.
The lights flickered, then went out.
Raven dropped her tray with a clatter, then grabbed the nearest girl and shook her. “Run. Get help.”
She didn’t need to be told twice.
“Fools.” Paige watched three of her friends run and scoffed. “Only the weak run.”
She turned and called up her magic.
“Don’t!” Raven and Luca shouted at the same time, but Paige didn’t pay any attention.
The walking corpses picked up speed, their greedy eyes focused on Paige with a single-mindedness that indicated the rest of them didn’t exist. Their dulled expressions sharpened into a ravenous hunger as they charged out of the darkness.
Instead of retreating, the girl amped up her voltage and cast a spell at the two lumbering corpses. At the scent of magic, their movements became more frantic, their disjointed walk picking up speed, eager to reach their target. They snapped their teeth at the magic as if gobbling down the spells. A dark, putrefied liquid leaked from their mouth. Rotting blood. It stained their chins and oozed down their throats.
“They should be dead.” The girl backed up a step, her face showing the first signs of panic. “Why aren’t they stopping?”
“Because they’re already dead. They’re feeding off your magic.” Luca tugged at the girl’s arm, dragging her away when she stumbled. “They’re zombies.”
Paige turned with a wild look and shoved Luca into the path of the walking dead before fleeing into the shadowy tunnels after her friends. Luca landed hard on his hands and knees with a nasty thwack. He scrambled backwards, his eyes wide as he saw the creatures advance on him.
“Get rid of anything magical.” Raven reached for his arm and hauled him to his feet, jerking him out of the way of the first creature with only seconds to spare. As the corpses continued to advance, Raven and Luca danced out of range.
Flesh sagged off the bodies. Instead of the dry husks she’d seen in the morgue, these people were moist. A sheen of fluid seeped from the skin, as if the corpses had lost any ability to hold it inside. Their lips were torn almost completely off from the way they snapped their teeth, while their eyeballs were shrunken, covered by a foggy-white film.
“They’re blind, drawn by the magic.”
Their movements were disjointed, the bones creaking, and she realized rigor mortis had taken hold of their bodies. Their muscles slowly began to snap as they broke death’s hold, the sound like cracking ice.
They weren’t created to last long.
They had one mission…infect as many people as possible.
Luca jammed his hands in his jeans, tossing the contents on the floor until his pockets were inside out, backing up as he did so. Three small stones fell to the floor with a clink.
“And the amulet.”
The kid ripped off his necklace and stared at the large gem clutched in his hand. Before she could yank it from him, he brought it to his mouth, whispered some incantation, and then threw it at the corpses.
It hit the first man in the chest, bounced off, and landed with a clank. A bright flash of magic burst in the tunnel. Raven lifted her arm to protect her eyes and saw the zombies moaning in hunger, clawing at the walls to grab the fading magic.
Raven grabbed Luca’s arm, spun him around to face the other way, and shoved him. “Run. Tell the others.”
He looked over his shoulder at her and hesitated. “What about you?”
“They can’t be allowed to roam free.” She gave him another shove. “Go!”
Luca scowled, then jogged a few feet away. “I’ll get help, but you better stay alive until I get back.” With that threat, he turned and pelted down the tunnel at full speed, the darkness swallowing him in seconds.
As the source of the magic faded, the zombies wheeled around and focused on Raven. She backed up a step, and they mimicked the movement, advancing toward her the same distance. They were animated by something. If she could drain the power source, she could put them out of commission.
Raven reached for the energy that powered them, and immediately found herself surrounded by a surge of wild magic. It bit and snapped at her intrusion, seeking to protect its hosts. The threat of losing their power must have changed the zombie’s programming. They transformed from seekers of magic to destroyers and charged. Their slow gait morphed to freaky fast, all their awkwardness gone.
Raven snatched up the food tray and wacked the first one across the skull. Instead of knocking him out cold, she ended up ripping off half his face. White bones of his skull gleamed in the dim light. Without any flesh to cover him, the left side of his face was locked in a permanent, ghastly grin. His eye dangled from his socket, and liquid dribbled down his face. Raven shuddered when she realized part of his brain had gone all squishy and begun to leak.
The meaty part of his face oozed off the tray and hit the ground with a juicy splat.
Shouting erupted from the auditorium. She scooted closer to the door, only to have the zombie do the same.
Because he was following her magic.
She cut off her power, locked every ounce of it down until it felt like half her senses had died.
They sniffed the tunnel then walked right past her as if she didn’t exist.
They couldn’t be allowed into the main area.
She waited until they passed her before exchanging the tray for the precious stones Luca had dropped. She pulled the magic from the rocks, and it blossomed in the air. Before she could even blink, they whirled at the scent, their jaws snapping in a frenzy.
She stepped back, and they followed the trail of Luca’s magic.
Each stone only lasted seconds.
The damaged one moved faster than she’d expected, as if it had already gotten a taste of magic and wanted more. Raven was scrambling backward when her foot landed on the tray, and it skidded right out from under her. She flailed and watched in horror as her hand latched onto the zombie’s sleeve when she tried to catch her balance.
They tumbled together. Her back smacked the stone floor with a jarring thud that knocked the air out of her…which might have been a blessing. The zombie snapped his teeth at her with a sharp click, and she shoved her forearm against his throat to hold him at bay. His rotten breath hit her square in the face, the putrid air making her gag.
Without magic to lure him, the other zombie shuffled past and continued down the hall.
Then there was no more time to worry about the one that got away. With the magic gone, the one on top of her lifted his head to sniff the air for the lost scent.
Slime dripped off his damaged skull to splat against her face and neck. It slid down her collar, the liquid bitter cold and the consistency of gelatin. All sorts of goo soaked through her clothes from the full body contact, cementing her to the stone floor so she couldn’t even wiggle. She pushed harder to increase the distance between them, but his skin was like a water balloon, his muscles sloughing off his bones, until they squished in her grip.
Her fingers poked through skin, and the flesh slid off in her hands like fish slime. Without her to brace him, he fell toward her in slow motion.
Chapter Nineteen
Instead of finding herself trapped beneath a crushing weight and buried under a pile of slime, the body jerked, and Raven watched the head land with a thud and ro
ll off into the darkness. Black blood oozed from the neck to plop down on her chest and stomach.
Rylan stood over her with the metal lunch tray in both his hands.
“You can’t stay out of trouble for even twenty-four hours, can you?”
Raven let her head thump to the ground, then rolled her hips, using her legs until the now-decapitated body slid off her to land with a juicy splat. “Give me a hand.”
When she lifted her arm, everything from the elbow up remained stuck to the stone floor. Rylan grabbed her wrist and yanked. There was a loud sucking noise, a painful tug on her clothes when the slime refused to release its hold, then she was on her feet.
Her clothes felt cold and clammy, stank to high heavens, and she grimaced. She held her arms out from her side, shook her hands and sludge flew off in large chunks. “Thanks. I think.”
The barrage against the mountain was so constant it had faded to white noise. She could almost forget, until a particularly nasty hit shook the walls.
“I see you’re making friends.” He nudged the corpse with his foot. “Where’d they come from?”
Raven kept herself busy by removing a pile of gunk as it slowly slid down her back like a slug wiggling over her body. “They’re the reanimated corpses of the bodies I wanted to burn.”
“Zombies.” His voice was flat. Rylan crossed his arms, a silent guard, watching her with those eyes of his that saw everything yet kept so many secrets. He scanned her from head to foot. “You don’t look injured.”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t bitten. I guess I’m not human enough for their taste.”
He cocked his head, easily sensing her disquiet. “More like not magical enough to satisfy their appetite.”
She gave him a small smile, appreciating the lie even if he didn’t mean it. “How did you know I was in trouble?”
“I was waiting for you to return before I went to sleep. I heard a commotion and figured I’d find you in the middle of it.”
Raven rolled her eyes and headed down the tunnel, tracking the other zombie.
Rylan’s hunger might be gone, but there was an edginess to him that didn’t bode well for the survival of those around him. “You need to rest.”
Electric Heat (A Raven Investigations Novel Book 3) Page 20