The Price of Life
Page 31
“Now I find that just a little insulting. Besides, how do you plan to get everyone on your side? He’ll just fight back. As long as there’s a war he’ll have an upper hand. People will be more than willing to exchange their normality for their protection.”
“Not if we end the war. Once there’s peace, people will forget about the importance of defense. Once that’s done, we’ll start building up a fear of the cult. Slowly. In ways Lucian won’t be able to contradict.”
“How?”
“Why, Alexander, what better way to notify people of a threat than to identify it. Starting after we officially end the war every one of Lucian’s people either leave for good, show their brand, or wear a pin, small but noticeable ways that will let everyone know what side they served during our war. Once they’re singled out people will start to think of them as other, as a threat. And then we’ll get a whole new kind of war.”
An Excerpt from Book 2
A woman sat on the roof of Lucian’s house, not so much a woman in age if you were to look closely at face, but a woman and experience. She was throwing knives from the roof at the few people she could see wandering outside the mansion’s massive gates. She didn’t have a target in mind. Hitting anything was good enough. The woman was bored.
She wore a black tank top which clearly exposed a brand on her upper right bicep. It was necessary for all cult members to be clearly identified. Kristopher still clung to the argument it helped the necromancers determine whom to resurrect more quickly, but no one listened to the words anymore. Everyone knew the world was choosing sides. You were either branded or not. You were either with Lucian or Kristopher. There was no longer a third option. Choice was a luxury of the past. Most people chose to have the brand on their face, the most painful option, but most convenient.
Any member of the cult who was caught without a visible mark was fed to the creatures. Having a mark on the face was easier than sewing a patch on every article of clothing a person owned. The woman on the roof chose to wear her brand like a tattoo, and because of the law never wore shirts with sleeves no matter the occasion or the weather. Kristopher hated her for it. The woman was glad.
Lucian didn’t think she took the situation seriously enough. As a member of the cult she should bare the brand with reverence, not pride. At least that’s what he told her. The brand was an Ankh and an eye inside a pentagram. Lucian claimed it symbolized the cult’s knowledge of how to manipulate life and death. The woman thought it was more likely something Lucian invented because he needed a symbol. No one knew for sure who was right.
The woman threw a few more knives at the bodies wandering outside the gates and shifted her position on the roof. It was cold. It was always cold. The sun hadn’t broken through the clouds in years. Apparently, that was a side effect of raising the dead on such a large scale. The woman turned to throw more knives but found her supply was out. She shrugged. Must mean it was time to go back inside.
Mira grew up to look exactly like her mother, except she had Lucian’s eyes. No one was sure how she managed to get her guardian’s eyes when her father hadn’t been able to pass on some trait to his daughter. The necromancers claim she took on his features because he raised her from the dead so young. The politicians claimed scandal, but they thought everything that didn’t concern them was a scandal so no one paid much attention. The facts were that Mira looked like her mother, had Lucian’s eyes, and retained nothing of her father. Not even a fond memory.
“Mira, please, if you’re going to throw knives into the city at least try not to aim for the guards. I hate having to clean up the mess, but I hate having to resurrect even more.”
“You’re out of practice when it comes to your art and I live to make your life more difficult. Besides, I’ve only hit Lucian’s guards.”
“How can you tell?”
“They’re up again. You never have such a quick turnaround.”
“Now, Mira, that’s a very mean spirited thing to say.” Alexander still wore white, a beacon of purity, the balance to Lucian’s evil. His image had done wonders to improve Kristopher’s following. Not that anyone had much of a choice.
“Don’t act like we’re friends. We live in the same house, but were not on the same side. We’d always be sleeping with one eye open if any of us could actually die.” Mira sounded bitter. She hated immortality. She understood the necessity, but hated it all the same.
“Now, Mira.”
“Shut up, Alex. You think we don’t know about all the Congregation members who have turned up missing?”
Alexander’s tone went hard. “Just like we don’t know about all the Party members who’ve been murdered?”
“Yes, well.” Mira’s eyes started to wander across the lawn. “At least my Congregation doesn’t bother to beg for their lives.” She winked at Alexander before jumping off the roof. Mira wasn’t sure if she should feel happy or sad about knowing what the outcome of the jump would be. She tried to kill herself countless times after she was old enough to realize what the loop Lucian had forced her into really was. She’d jumped off roofs, slit her wrists, tried to feed herself to the creatures wandering outside the gates, been shot, stabbed, and every other combination she could think of. She could just stop killing, it wasn’t like Lucian could force her to kill someone, but it was too complicated to stop the loop now. Mira had been offered the gift to stop time almost immediately, a gift because of how she lost her mother was what the things told her, but she didn’t need it. She was only 25, although she kept herself looking 18. Dropping out of the loop wouldn’t instantly kill her. Someone else might kill her before she had the chance to do it herself. Mira didn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction. So she stayed in the loop, tolerated it, because it meant she would choose when she died. Well, not only that. She was also her mother’s daughter. Killing came naturally.
Alexander walked back inside through a window, chuckling as Mira hit the ground only to get back up again. He liked Mira, she was a true match for him. He’d seen her talent as he watched her grow up. She had her mother’s natural skill for murder and an emotionless personality. Paired with her stepfather’s skills with the supernatural she made an unstoppable, lethal, and immortal opponent. Kristopher should have been more worried than he was about Miriel’s little girl. It wouldn’t be long before Lucian and Mira pulled their powers together to crush Kristopher’s army. They wouldn’t crush Alexander quite so easily. He smiled the more he thought about it. They traded a civil war between two immortals for one with four. Unless he could get Mira on his side. Then maybe they’d get a war of the old vs. the new order. He could hope, but Mira was far too devoted to her stepfather to kill him. Alexander would have to be cautious. It would be fun though, no matter which way it turned out.
“You’re late.” Lucian nodded to his stepdaughter as she came inside, not even scratched from her jump off the roof.
“I am sorry, High Lord Lucian, however could I have thought we have nothing but time to ruin the world.”
“We’re not ruining the world we’re bringing our Congregation back from the dead, and I’ve asked you not to call me that.”
“Oh, have you decided on something else? Lord Bishop? Your holiness? Father Lucian?”
“We aren’t a religion, I don’t speak for a god, I just take people’s money and raise the dead, that’s it.”
“I think you’ll find it’s become a lot more than that, Father Lucian.” Mira gave a mock bow.
“It never used to be,” Lucian muttered under his breath and glared at the half of the house taken over by Kristopher’s politics. “Come on, we have corpses to reanimate.”
“Give me some pomp, please? I get so bored acting like a supernatural paramedic. Alexander and the chosen ones are taking it a little far, but don’t you think it’s about time we did a little something extra? Other than branding the Congregation like cattle. Kristopher just uses it as an excuse to treat us like we’re lower than his precious politicians. All they do is pa
perwork. Alexander can’t even train new necromancers! If he misses a day and dies,” Mira smirked, “then we’d win.”
“The war was over when your mother died.”
“You think so?”
“The body count has decreased, things are more organized. Everything has gotten better.”
“Really? People don’t go out after dark because Alexander has more zombies than he can control and they’re killing people. You can’t make an official move without getting Kristopher’s signature, people with the brand are getting murdered in places where you don’t have control, and it’s starting to seem like our people are just being tolerated. Or should I say your people? After all, I was born to kill, not resurrect. I might have your blood on my hands but it’s not my veins.”
Lucian looked at her absently. “Don’t call them zombies. This isn’t a bad horror movie, it’s our life. Or my life I guess I should say, since twenty years of training haven’t made you a part of what I do.”
“And what are they if they aren’t zombies?”
“Reanimated corpses, those would be Alexander’s creatures. Mine are more refined, the resurrected dead, exactly like they were in life.”
“Except when you don’t like them.”
“Yes, well, then I don’t care what they’re called. More tools than people. Would you care what your knives were called as long as they did what they were intended to?”
“Fair point.” Mira smiled a smile that was impossible to categorize. She could have been thinking about her stepfather just as easily as all the things she’d done with her knives.
“Well, whatever you call them, we have a duty to bring them back.”
Mira shrugged and followed Lucian outside.
While Lucian and a few of the older cult members still lived in the house most of the activities took place away from Kristopher. Whatever Lucian said to Mira, he knew the war was far from over. This was just an interlude before the storm. Things were going to get bad and the longer Alexander stayed with Kristopher the worse they would get.
In an attempt to keep a few things secret from Kristopher, Lucian had bricked up the basement and moved the cult to a new location. He said it was for the sake of space, but the separation was much more meaningful and met by fewer interns around the mansion. Kristopher moved his political ruling into an office building. The only reason they were ever in the same place was to keep an eye on each other, waiting to see when the war would start up again.
About the Author
T.M. Nienaber is a Missouri native and graduate of Southeast Missouri State University. When she isn’t writing she’s reading or wasting time watching cheesy horror movies. If you’d like to contact the author, she can be reached via her Facebook page, Twitter @TMNienaber, or through email to Nienaber@zombiecoffeepress.com. All reactions from readers are welcomed so if you’ve read this book to the end please leave a review of it somewhere or send your comments to the author. The Price of Life is her debut novel and the sequel will be coming soon…
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