Dead of Night: The Nephalem Files (Book 3)

by Douglas Wayne

  I nodded, and went to work, placing my hands on the bridge. The power flowed through my fingertips and into the concrete frame of the bridge. It began to vibrate, slowly at first, but before long the vibration rattled the windows, street signs, and anything else that wasn't totally secured.

  The first of the dead that had made it through the vines stepped on the bridge, nearly twenty others right behind it. I redoubled my efforts, pushing even more power into the bridge. Cracks started forming in the pavement. They webbed across the road, and into the railing. A large chunk of the rail rattled off and fell into the canal, sending a spray of water into the air. It was followed by another, then another, until the first section of road collapsed, taking three of the undead with it.

  "Hurry up!" Ross shouted, leveling his gun to take out the lead dead who was getting close. Cummings followed suit, walking over and taking the pistol I'd placed in my pants behind my back and firing at the initial wave.

  A large chunk of the bridge fell from the other side, sending another five into the drink.

  Finally, I heard a loud crack and creak from underneath the bridge. The surface careened upward, ripping away from the ground, exposing the reinforcement bars in the pavement as it lifted , pushed outward, and crashed down into the canal, standing upwards like a wall.

  I stopped the flow of essence, walked towards the edge of the road and peered over. One of the undead that had fallen into the canal trudged to the shoreline. Cummings and Ross leveled their weapons at it but held their fire while they watched it. It made it five feet over the shore when it fell to the ground suddenly and ceased to move.

  "Out of range," I said.

  "Thank god," Ross said as he collapsed to the pavement. He wouldn't be so thankful if he knew that I didn't have to destroy the bridge. Especially as the undead in the vines fell on the other side of the canal. The necromancer had moved out of range to get away.

  "The others are going down now," Cummings said. "What's that mean?"

  "She got away."

  "Who got away?"

  "Your guess is as good as mine."

  - 19 -

  We walked a few blocks down the road to a Burger King, ordered lunch and coffees and sat down to eat. Things were quiet for a long moment which I was thankful for as it gave me some time to think about the attack. Twice now I had been in custody. Twice I had been attacked by a large group of undead when I had. Someone was targeting me, but who?

  I'd been here a few days now and didn't have any idea who was responsible. I wasn't even close to figuring it out. The only thing I knew is that she knew I was on her trail and she was more than willing to take me down. Why she was here, or even what she wanted, were the two major questions going through my mind.

  I took a bite of my double cheeseburger and chased it with a swig of my iced coffee when Cummings finally spoke. "What are you?"

  I swallowed my bite and placed the burger on the table. "A wizard."

  "Wizard?"

  "You know, Harry Potter, Gandalf..." I hesitated for a moment, "David Blane."

  "Like you do magic?"

  "Something like that."

  "How is that possible?"

  "I was born with it though I didn't know it until after my parents died."

  "Does it work?"

  Ross laughed. "Does it work? You saw it. How the hell else would the bridge fall like that. Not like there's a fault line here in the city."

  "Are you a geologist?" Cummings countered. The other man snorted and went back to his burger. "Seriously. How did you do that?"

  "Ill give you the short version. I'm able to draw some of the life force from nearby objects, mainly plants and animals though everything carries it to an extent."

  "Does it hurt the things you take it from?"

  "Nah, you never draw enough out for it to even be noticeable. And before you can ask, you can't target who, or what, you draw it from."

  "Why couldn't you do that in the car?" Ross asked, mouth still full.

  "The person controlling the dead bodies we dealt with earlier has an aura that blocks it from me."

  "If he was blocking it..."

  "She."

  "If she was blocking it, how were you able to use it?"

  "I must've got out of her range. To be honest, I've never dealt with one of her kind before, so I'm not really sure how this all works except that I'm powerless to stop her with my magic."

  "You can't use your magic and you are worthless with a gun," Ross chuckled. "How do you plan on stopping her?"

  "I don't know. Until I'm able to get close, I can't even begin to speculate."

  "So your big plan was to try to get close enough to do something else to her?"

  "Pretty much," I countered. "What's yours?" Before he could open his mouth, I continued. "Your plan was to arrest the only person even remotely willing to step in and stop her. To put the only person capable behind bars, making him a sitting duck when the undead attacked." I glanced at Ross. "The FBI headquarters this time."

  "She wouldn't have gotten close."

  "No?" I said. "How many people you have there. Fifty? A hundred? That pack we just escaped was easily twice that size, and could've been larger. Even if you had enough people to take them down, they all going to be waiting for an attack that may never come? People have to sleep and rest. She seems like the patient type, willing to strike only when she has the advantage."

  "We can handle anything she can throw at us!" Ross said, slamming his large Coke on the table. The cup split at the seam, sending a wave of ice and soda cascading off the side of the table.

  "He's right, Ross. Even if she was stupid enough to attack when we were ready for her, she could probably keep sending more and more of them against us. We would run out of bullets eventually."

  "Hmph," he said, struggling to clean up his mess with a handful of napkins. "She'd run out of them sometime."

  I pulled up a map of the city on my phone and searched for the FBI building. Within seconds Cummings spoke up. "What kind of range does she have?"

  "Mile. Mile and a half."

  Cummings gasped. "She could send a wave into the college and neighboring residential areas of the city and have more than enough of them to overwhelm us."

  "Without a second thought. And that's just the undead. I'm not even sure what else she can do."

  "Look, I don't like this any more than you, Cummings, but I'm not buying it. The trouble seems to be following him. I say we lock him up and take our chances."

  "And potentially kill our colleagues?" Cummings countered. "You willing to let Jodie die to prove your point?"

  "I'll tell her to take a few days off."

  Cummings shook his head. "She is twice as stubborn as you. She'll be in front, like you, shooting the ones you can. I'm not taking that chance. We need to let him go to deal with the person responsible. Worst case scenario is that he dies and we have to deal with her anyways. Best case, he takes her out and it's over."

  "Or she kills him and leaves."

  "There's that," I said.

  "If we let you go, we need assurances."

  "Like what?"

  "That you won't leave town. That you'll stay here and finish what you started."

  "And if I leave?"

  "I'll hunt you down personally and put a bullet in between your eyes. You ever see what a hollow point bullet does to a skull?"

  "No, but I've heard stories." I closed my eyes and tried to get the visual of my skull being blown open, sending tiny pieces of brain and skull against whatever wall or building I was standing next to. "I'm here for the long haul."

  "Good," Ross said, finishing his lunch. "Anything else we need to know?"

  "Yeah. I'm not the only wizard here."

  Cummings spit out his drink and gasped. "There's more than one of you?"

  "Thousands across the world. Maybe more."

  "He here to take down the girl too?"

  "As far as I know," I said. "To be fair, the first attack happen
ed not long after he visited me in the police station. He doesn't have the power to control the dead himself, but he does have the ability to draw in the power through her aura."

  "If he can do that, why would you be here?"

  "I came first. Before I knew the council would send another." The pair looked at me with a confused look, Ross mouthing the word council. "No time to go into detail, but yes. He is their representative."

  Looking into their eyes, I could tell I was creating more questions than answers. I knew if I didn't get out of here soon, things weren't going to be good long term. The downed bridge was just a diversion to buy us more time. Just a block away there was another bridge to cross, not to mention the bridge close to the lake. The longer we sat here, the more time she had to rebuild her army to send at me again. I came up with something that may soothe Ross' objections while still allowing me to get back on the street.

  "You guys have the technology to track a cell phone, right?"

  "As long as we have the number and you aren't in a dead spot, sure. Why?"

  I handed Cummings my phone. "Do whatever you have to do to track it, but do it fast. The longer I sit in one spot, the more dangerous it gets. I'm not sure how she knows where I'm at, but twice now she has found me shortly after being arrested. Not trying to threaten you, but if she were to send another group at us now..."

  "We'd last about twenty minutes."

  "Exactly."

  Cummings took the phone and dialed his own. He then punched something on the screen, waited, then handed the phone back moments later. "Tracking is enabled. I also programmed my number on your phone. If you get into any sort of trouble, don't hesitate to call."

  "You do realize we could lose our jobs for this?" Ross said.

  "Better than losing our lives."

  "You won't regret it," I said, standing up and walking towards the door.

  "Remember my words," Ross said.

  I nodded and walked out the door.

  - 20 -

  I opted to take a cab back to the hotel. The thought of being cooped up in a small room with very few mundane escape routes didn't thrill me, but I had to do a few things and needed my computer to do them.

  After entering my hotel room, I locked the door, set the deadbolt, placed the chain across the door, pushed the couch in front of it, and stacked the recliner on top of it for good measure. It would make it a pain in the butt to get out, but it would hopefully be just as difficult to get in.

  I took my laptop and notebooks over to the bed, booted it up, and brewed a cup of coffee. Once it was done, I refilled the machine and started another knowing I might be here a while.

  While the computer did its thing, I picked up the phone and dialed the office. Stacy answered the phone.

  "Any luck?" I asked.

  "Didn't get my emails?"

  "Haven't been at the hotel." I left out the undead attacks and the two arrests on purpose, knowing it would cause her to freak out for both my safety and my recklessness.

  "The mausoleum in Pine Ridge was owned by Oliver Leclair."

  "Already knew that. Find anything about him?"

  "He came here from France in the late 1800s. Back home, he was an archaeologist who spent most of this time in the Middle East, namely Egypt and Sudan."

  "Searching for the pyramids or ancient tombs?"

  "He was one of the people who searched feverishly for King Tut's tomb. He never found it, but he found a few others. Most of the stuff he unearthed is owned by dozens of universities across the US and Europe now though he kept some for his personal collection."

  "What kind of stuff did he keep?"

  "Those details weren't as clear, but I found records of him keeping a few urns, a spear, some jewels and jewelry," she said. "A little of everything. Some of it was buried with him."

  "The tomb was completely empty. Any idea what he had buried with him?"

  "Couldn't find anything about that other than the burial records noted he wanted to be buried with his riches, like the tombs he helped unearth."

  "How fitting."

  Stacy laughed. "I said the same thing."

  "There were two other coffins in the tomb. Any idea who was buried in those?"

  "Probably his two sons," she said. "Oliver bought the plot before he died. Paid a small fortune for it to ensure his heirs had a place to be buried. He also had a daughter. She opted to be buried next to her husband in New Jersey. Most of the grandchildren have been buried elsewhere too."

  "So she was after one of the objects," I said.

  "Or one of the corpses."

  "Why would she want those?"

  "Oliver wasn't exactly the nicest person. In fact, I'd say it was the exact opposite. Everything I've read said he was an arrogant jerk who acted like he was better than everyone else."

  "Enough of a jerk that someone would want to dig up his grave nearly a century later?"

  "Some families hold grudges," she said. "There is another possibility."

  "Go on."

  "Oliver Leclair wasn't the only archaeologist working in the Middle East in the 1800s. There was another family. The Renou family. Hugo Renou was in Egypt around the same time as Oliver. Apparently there was an argument between the two over a site both had laid claim to. The reports get sketchy, but Hugo apparently arrived at the dig site first. About a week later, Oliver showed up and took the site by force."

  "So he went in, guns blazing, and forced Hugo to pack his stuff and leave."

  "Pretty much. And get this," she said. "That was probably the most profitable dig the Leclair family ever had. After that dig, he packed up and left, eventually catching a boat across the Atlantic to start over here in the states."

  "Any information about what they found at the site?"

  "Most of it was sold or donated. There were two items he kept. The spear I mentioned earlier and a leather bound tome."

  "Didn't they write on stone back then?"

  "Yes, but they also used rolls of papyrus."

  "Then where did the tome come from?"

  "No idea. There wasn't a whole lot of information about the site other than a few of the items that were retrieved. Maybe it belonged to someone else who found the site first."

  Who would bring a tome to the site and just leave it there. She wouldn't have the answer, but I felt it was the key to everything. "Maybe that's what she is looking for."

  "The person causing the trouble is a woman? You going to be able to handle that?"

  "She tried to kill me twice now. I think I'll be forgiven if I hurt her." A lot, I told myself. "Of course, I need to be able to get close enough to do anything to her."

  "Just draw her in and hide somewhere."

  "Not that simple. For that to work, she'd have to stand darn near on top of me. The last two times she's been close, there were dozens, if not hundreds, of undead around. I'd imagine if there were that many on the edge of her range, she'd keep some close to her as well."

  "Use your magic on them. Clear a path and then take her out."

  "Won't work either. Even if I was able to take down the hordes minions with my spells, there's still the matter of the death aura that blocks me from even trying. I need a way to get in past the minions to kill her from up close."

  "Sounds impossible."

  "Pretty much. I'm considering calling up the council once I figure out who it is. They might be able to send someone down here to stop her."

  "You. Call for help?" I heard the challenge in her voice and tried to ignore it.

  "I can admit I'm in over my head."

  "Who would they call?"

  "Cedric is already here. At least, he was last night. Max told me he has an ability that allows him to ignore the death aura. Maybe he can take her down a lot easier than I can."

  "Then maybe you should let him handle it."

  "I can't let that scumbag steal all the glory. If I back down now, what's going to stop him from getting involved on all of my cases?"

  "Leave your eg
o out of it. Sometimes we aren't the best people to do something. That's why some places spend plenty of resources recruiting the best people to fill their positions. The council wouldn't waste their resources sending someone down there to waste time."

  "I know, but he is here searching for her. They probably don't even care why she is here, only that she is stopped."

  "Is it worth your life to find out what that is?"

  "No, but it doesn't have to cost me my life. If I can find what she is looking for, I can set a trap knowing she will willingly walk into it."

  "Maybe she'll just send another wave of undead to retrieve it. I'd imagine they can follow basic commands."

  "They can bite, kill, and follow. Haven't seen one pick up or even go for anything not remotely human." It didn't mean they couldn't. After all, they had been used at the cemeteries for some reason.

  "That doesn't mean they can't."

  "No, but I can only go by what I've seen." Admittedly, if a horde was responsible for unearthing the mausoleums, that meant they were capable of following some complex commands. "I'm going to give this a couple more days. If I don't have a solid lead or things continue looking grim, I'll make the call."

  "If you don't, I'll make the call for you," Stacy threatened and then hung up.

  After the rough day, I'd had enough of the undead to last a lifetime. I laid down on the bed and stared into the ceiling for an eternity waiting for sleep to take me, but it never happened. Every time I closed my eyes all I could see was Trevor's mangled corpse standing in front of me, looking for an easy meal.

  - 21 -

  The morning of the third, I took a cab to Pine Ridge Cemetery. I hoped that Nicholas Bates would be here, working in some fashion or the other, though I had to admit it was a bit of a stretch. Back home, the world seemed to stop around the holiday, with most people getting, or taking, the day off to spend it with their loved ones. Why I expected here to be any different was beyond me. Perhaps it was Nicholas' attitude, or maybe it was knowing the amount of work that had to be done to get the place back into shape.