"Why would you do that?"
"You wanted out?" I said, shrugging my shoulders. "The garage doors was the easy way out."
"They make far too much noise. This place will be swarming with the dead in minutes."
I gave her a confused look and waited for her response. "While you might think they are dead and can't hear, see, or smell, I assure you they can do all three much better than any living person walking this earth. Every last one of them within a mile probably heard the noise. Are you always this brash?"
"You know us Americans. Shoot first, ask questions later." I had a few smart remarks I wanted to say about the French, but kept them to myself as we exited out of the roll up doors.
The night sky was clear, without a cloud in the sky. Off in the distance I could barely make out the small sliver of the moon just above the nearby buildings. The parking lot had about a half dozen police cars, two other unmarked vehicles, a small van, and a larger black box truck without any markings on the side. I held my breath and tried to listen to the noises of the night, but I could only make out the low rumble of nearby traffic from the highway just a few blocks away. The lights were on, but I couldn't make out anyone other than the woman who was running out ahead. I took a few steps towards her when I saw movement behind the black box truck.
"Hold it," I said loud enough for her to hear, yet quiet enough it wouldn't be heard outside the enclosed lot.
"What is it?" she asked.
I pointed toward the box truck. Three figures shambled out of the darkness between the vehicles. These three were all wearing tattered suits with holes exposing the pale flesh underneath. On the woman in the middle, I almost swore I saw plastic wrapped around her abdomen, like it was holding the contents of her insides in place after the incisions from her postmortem examination.
She moved quietly on the other side of the truck as the three dead people came after me. I held my blade in a defensive stance and waited for them to get close. As the first moved in I slashed my blade in a downward stroke, slicing off its arms as they reached out to grab me. It kept moving in, even as I sidestepped its attempt to grab me and sliced through the lower legs of the other two in the process. The two bodies hit the ground with a thud, but without legs they started crawling after me, using their arms.
Figuring I was safe from the two, I turned my attention back to the armless body. It held up the nubs that were once arms, still trying to grab me as if they were still here. I brought my blade to it at an upward angle, trying to slice it in half, but the blade caught in the bumper of one a police car and ripped out of my hands, leaving me closer to its mouth than I ever wanted to be. I took a few steps back, to gain some distance, only to trip over the arms.
The force of the impact jarred my elbows and knocked the wind out of me. I held my chest as my lungs screamed for air. Every attempt to pick myself up was countered by my body's natural reaction to hold my throat and chest, like it would help refill my lungs.
I coughed hard as the air filled my screaming lungs. So hard, I didn't notice the crawlers until they had their hands on my legs, using the loose fabric of my pants to pull their heads closer to me. I tried to pull myself away, but struggled against the weight of their combined bodies. Without my sword, or access to my magic, I was a sitting duck. My worst fears started running through my head. I was going to die.
Not only that, I was going to be used as a high powered weapon in some dark wizard's arsenal. I wanted to get up, wanted to run, but they were up to my upper thighs. Why they hadn't bitten into me, I couldn't figure out. Did they only want to eat my intestines or something a bit softer than my thighs?
The one on the right opened its maw, exposing a toothless mouth. I breathed a sigh of relief until I saw the other one actually had teeth. It moved in close and moved in to bite. I closed my eyes and waited for the pain to hit. After a few moments when the pain failed to hit I forced myself to open my eyes.
On the ground next to me was the head of the dead man with teeth, rolling harmlessly towards the parked vehicles. The body plopped down forcefully on my legs. The toothless dead woman moved in to bite me and my masked companion thrust her sword into her skull. The blade pierced the hard bone, escaping out of her eye socket and stopping just inches from my face. She pulled the sword to the side, swinging the body away from my face and onto the cold pavement.
"I told you not to get bitten," she said, as she stepped on the corpse to pull the sword out of the dead woman's head.
"I didn't." I threw the headless body off of me, held my arms in the air and did a circle, proving that I didn't have any bite marks.
"If I hadn't been here, you would be one of them by now," she cleaned the blade off on the blouse of the dead woman before placing the sword back in the holder on her back. "If you insist on getting yourself killed, you can do it far away from me."
I opened my mouth to protest, but stopped when I heard the screams.
- 13 -
"It came from that way," I said, pointing to the east. I ran back to the bumper of the car and retrieved my own blade then sprinted after the masked woman to the east.
The streets were eerily clear. Besides the scream, the only signs of life was the steady hum of traffic on the nearby highway. The streetlights flickered as we ran down the empty street, heading to where we had heard the screams.
We followed the road towards a brick building with cars lining both sides of the street. In the middle of the road, just under a streetlight was a woman surrounded by nearly a dozen of the dead. She backed away, trying to escape, but ran out of room when she backed into the steel fence surrounding the nearby parking lot.
"We have to move," she said, but I had already picked up the pace, forcing my legs into a sprint, even as they cramped in protest. When I got close, I lopped off the head of two in the back before they even knew I was there. One of the others turned at me and let out a guttural growl, but I swung by blade in a high arc, removing his head as well.
The mystery woman was there with me finally, taking out three closest to her with ease. In a matter of moments, we turned our odds from six to one down to three to one. The pair in front of the pack, lunged at the woman, eliminating my desire to announce that to my companion. We pushed through the pack and grabbed the pair, pulling them away before they had a chance to bite.
The whole group was aware of us now and wandered around confused as if they couldn't decide which entree they wanted to try first. I decided to make their choice a little easier by moving off to the side, drawing three off towards me. The mystery woman did the same with the others.
With an opening, the panicked woman ran across the street into an arched doorway, screaming as she went. I heard the audible click of the door as it shut behind her. Her screams faded instantly.
I pulled my sword up to protect myself, careful to stay in the middle of the street and away from the cars. I didn't want to have a repeat of the incident in the police station parking lot. The only reason I survived that was that I had already damaged the dead. In this fight, I didn't have the same advantage.
The three dead people all lunged in unison, their teeth glistening in the soft yellow glow of the streetlight. They got five feet away before they all dropped to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs. I stood back for a moment, watching them. Waiting for one of them to move. It was a trick. A trap to draw me closer to the dead so they could bite.
"Yours down too?" I asked, not taking my eyes off the three bodies in front of me.
"She is gone."
"She?"
"The one controlling the dead. They collapse like this when the creator of the spell dies, or moves out of range."
"What kind of range does she have?"
"Two kilometers. Give or take," she said, noticing the confusion on my face she added, "I'm sorry. A bit over a mile in your measurements."
That was actually impressive. And downright terrifying. How could you even begin to fight something that could fight at that type of ra
nge. Even the most talented fire wizards can only manage to throw a ball of flame a few hundred yards. If that number was true, I was truly out of my league here.
With the dead no longer moving, and their controller apparently long gone, I tried to draw in essence again. I almost cried out in joy as it filled my body and coursed through my veins. Ever since I snapped, I had never been without the ability for more than a few minutes at a time. Even then, I had only dealt with it twice for a combined total of about five minutes. There was a chance I had been without it for longer than that, but I may not have known if I didn't have a reason to fill my reserves.
She looked over and watched the expression on my face, removed her mask, and smiled. "I take it you got your power back?"
I nodded. "I wonder what caused it to go. Was it the dead?"
"The woman I follow has an aura that taints the life force of everything around her. Your power calls upon that life force, but it was being blocked by her taint."
"Sounds complicated."
"It really isn't. Your power calls upon life, her's death. As long as she is around, you will be unable to use your powers."
"Who is she anyway?"
"I don't know her name, but I've followed her for a long time. I have been trained to hunt and kill her type."
"And that is?"
She sighed. "Necromancers. Those with the power to manipulate the dead."
Knowing she would be able to control at least dozens of the dead at a time gave me a better idea about the footprints at the cemetery. I wondered just how many of the bodies we killed again tonight were exhumed from the cemeteries over the last week.
"How long would she be able to hold the bodies together?"
"If she was able to stay close to them, they would remain animated until she was killed. Once they are given life, they only need a trickle of her power to remain that way."
"So she can maintain her spells with little effort while I have no ability to do anything to harm her. Not exactly a fair fight."
"Life is not about fair fights. Unless you are far more talented with that blade than you showed here, I'd suggest you leave her alone. I'd hate to have to put you down the second time."
I looked her over as she cleaned her blade off on one of the fallen dead. She had removed her mask, allowing the soft glow of the streetlight to illuminate her face. She had fair skin that was a stark contrast to her dark clothes, making me believe that was the reason for the mask. Her golden hair, now freed from the restraints of the mask, bunched up right below her shoulder blades, knotted and unkempt, but she left it alone, making me wonder what kind of woman she really was.
"Now that we have a little time, who are you and what kind of power do you have that can get around her taint?"
She shook her head and took a seat on the hood of a nearby car. "My name is Rachel Pernet. I'm a slayer, fifth generation."
"Slayer? Like Buffy?"
"Buffy?" she asked, clearly confused.
"Pop culture reference," I said, taking a seat on the steps into the nearby building. "What exactly do you do?"
"I've been trained to track and kill specific threats to humanity. Werewolves, vampires, witches," she eyes me, "wizards. Generally I only go after the really nasty ones. The ones that go out of their way to treat humanity like nothing more than a speed bump. Like a pest that doesn't deserve the right to live or breathe. Because we have to deal with a variety of threats, we train hard to master dozens of weapons. Our greatest asset is the arrogance of our targets. Most people underestimate what we can do. This allows us to get in close, often undetected, and kill them without much of an incident."
"Then why go after her? From what I've seen, she's only desecrated the dead."
"Back in my homeland, she was responsible for killing hundreds of people just to fuel her armies."
"Wouldn't it be easier to just raise those already dead?"
"Yes and no. Yes, because she wouldn't need to actually kill the person to animate them first. No, because it is still a lot of work to dig up graves just to animate a temporary army."
"Is that what she was doing here?"
"I'm not sure. If the reports are right, there were only a small handful of corpses in each of the tombs. Hardly worth the effort of digging them up, even if she already controlled an army of the dead."
"Then there must be something else. Besides the murders, what else brought her to your attention back home?"
"Curiosity. Her attacks had no rhyme or reason. One day she might hit a cemetery or a pawn shop, the next a restaurant. She would often go missing for weeks, or even months, before coming back. These hits were usually focused on something big. The last two months she has been extremely quiet. I assumed she was preparing for another big hit back home, but when I saw the news reports of Pine Ridge, I knew she had to be here. Her mark was all over that hit."
"Her mark?"
"The mausoleum. Whatever was inside, she didn't have to unearth the whole thing to get to it. From the report I read, the lock and chain barring the entrance were cut. That means she needed something inside. The rest was just a gross display of her abilities. There was no other reason to do that."
She had a point. The whole thing seemed rather staged unless it was an attempt to make it look like something else had done it to begin with. But from what Rachel was saying, this woman wanted to stamp her mark on these hits.
"If she is well known for these kinds of acts, why haven't I heard about her before?"
"Perhaps your people didn't see the need to get you involved."
That was likely. It's not like me and the council have exactly been on the best terms. But even then, I'd at least heard about the major troublemakers who have roamed the earth the last fifteen years or so. Sure, Max hunted a good portion of them, but I'd heard about most of the ones he didn't as well. Besides the trivial paycheck they sent you for your two weeks of service a year, that would be the only other time you would get mail from them. If someone, wizard, witch, or otherwise, was out causing trouble. Usually it would be packaged with a disclaimer telling you to avoid the being at all costs, but it would be loaded with every ounce of information they had on the target. If she was even half as prolific as Rachel made her out to be, I should've heard about her three times over by now.
Rachel got up off the car, stretched into a yawn and walked into the middle of the street. "As much as I would love to continue this conversation, I have a necromancer to track."
"Hold up," I said, digging into my wallet for one of my cards. I handed it to her after circling my cell phone number with a pen. "If you hear anything else..."
"Why would I give you information? Even if I did, what would you do with it? Get yourself killed?"
"I'm here working for Pine Ridge. Even if I'm not capable of handing the necromancer, I am capable of filling him in on who was responsible, and why."
She sighed, but looked over the phone number, pulled out a phone of her own and started punching keys. Moments later my phone rang. I didn't answer it, knowing who it was. "If I'm going to share information with you, then you must do the same."
"Deal," I reached my hand out and she finally took it, grasping my hand so hard it reminded me of the day I met Max after my parents died. Until this day, I hadn't met anyone who could grip a hand like him.
Before I could thank her, she ran off into the night, leaving the twice dead bodies lying at my feet. Not wanting to draw any more attention than I already had, not to mention get far away from the police station I had just escaped, I followed her lead and pounded the streets for about a half hour before calling a cab to take me back to the hotel.
- 14 -
Once back at the hotel, I took a nice hot shower before sitting down in front of the tube to watch some TV. I had a lot of information to digest for the night and the best way to do it is with mindless TV watching. I started by watching Independence Day during a marathon on one of the local stations to prepare for the holiday. I followed that up with a
bit of late night talk show viewing, namely watching old reruns of the Maury Show while trying to imagine living a normal life again. Three episodes, and twelve surprised fathers later, I kicked off the TV to get to work.
I grabbed a blank notebook after my bags and sat down in the uncomfortable padded chair at the sturdy hotel desk. The first thing I did was write down everything I knew. I started at the beginning, with the vandalism of Pine Ridge Cemetery. I wrote down the photo file names as they appeared in my phone and did annotations for the evidence I caught, mainly the footsteps in the loose soil, the cut lock, and the empty caskets inside the mausoleum. I continued my notes by writing what I knew about Cedar Valley though to be fair it wasn't much. I looked online with my phone and dug up a few pictures of the scene which I copied and noted on the paper just like I did for Pine Ridge.
Once that was down, I left a few blank spaces in case I had to add anything later before starting a new line with the word 'necromancer.' I wrote down the few things I knew about them. The ability to animate and control the dead and the taint that blocked my ability to draw essence. I left a half dozen blank lines then wrote the word 'weaknesses' before drawing a blank.
Besides knowing they could block my ability to use magic and could rely on minions to do their dirty work, I didn't know enough about them to come up with a reliable way to fight one outside normal, mundane means. I knew I was good enough with my blade to take on a thug or two who wasn't as adept in hand to hand combat, but against groups or even another trained foe, I knew I didn't stand a chance.
I picked up my phone and pulled up my contacts lists, stopping on the name Max. With one phone call I could get all the information I could ever want, and even plenty more I didn't, about them. I didn't recall any specific circumstances in which he had to fight a necromancer, but I knew he would be well versed in taking them out thanks to his position in the council. The only problem was that this was the same man that told me not to come here to begin with. After disregarding him, would he even be willing to help me out.
Dead of Night: The Nephalem Files (Book 3) Page 8