Arcane Dropout 3

by Edmund Hughes

  He could try to force his way through the zombies. He’d come looking for Mattis or her bonded animals, and they didn’t seem to be nearby, so he had no reason to stick around. Unfortunately, ten wasn’t a reassuring number of bullets up against more than twice that amount of undead.

  He could hole up in one of the casting lanes. They were long, vertical chambers with only one way in and one way out. He could picture himself fighting off the growing horde there. He could also picture himself being eaten alive fairly quickly, probably as soon as his gun ran empty.

  The dueling chambers posed a far safer option, as they were full of defense traps and wards that might also protect him from the undead. The key word was might: he had no idea if they’d treat the zombies as belligerent duelists or fail to detect their presence whatsoever. He would also be surrendering all of his remaining agency over how the situation played out. Which he couldn’t do, not with Tess still held captive by the lich.

  The last option was the one with that tantalizing balance of risk vs reward that so often influenced his decisions. Lee began making his way up the spiral stairs that led from the ground around the dueling tower, connecting to each of the dueling chambers.

  He didn’t rush. He waited for the zombies to follow him. They formed an orderly line, for a couple of seconds, before mindlessly bumping into each other as they began following him up the stairs. He waited until the entire group was slowly shambling, often tripping, up the stairs behind him.

  Even though the dueling tower was the smallest of the various towers across Primhaven’s campus, the fourth dueling chamber was at least eighty feet above the ground below. The stairs ended at the door, but Lee jumped and managed to find purchase on the roof above. He pulled himself up, feeling a bit surprised by how much more tired his arms were than he’d realized.

  The zombies couldn’t reach him, but more importantly, he doubted they’d be able to make it safely down the stairs back to the ground, bunched up at the top of the spiral staircase as they were. They’d tumble mindlessly off the side, and the fall was just high enough to break legs and shatter ankles. Lee flipped the bird to the nearest of the undead mob and briefly wondered if he could use his feet to start kicking them loose himself, like knocking snow down from a roof during winter.

  A gunshot rang out from the opposite end of Primhaven’s campus, followed by two more in quick succession. It had to be Kei. As perfect as Lee’s perch was to keep him safe from the undead, he’d still have to leave eventually if he wanted to stand any chance at gathering the others and saving Tess.

  He pulled out the strand of silk that Widow had given him. It reminded him a little of the summoning scroll, with the way it seemed to hum slightly with an unknown form of essence. He wrapped the ends around his hands and pulled, snapping it apart.

  Nothing happened for a few minutes. Then a head poked over the side of the opposite end of the dueling tower, away from where the zombies had gathered.

  “You called?” whispered Widow.

  “Yeah,” said Lee. “I have to get out of here. One of my friends is in danger.”

  “I can help with that,” said Widow.

  She dropped back down below the lip of the tower. It was too dark for Lee to see what she was doing until he drew in closer. She’d attached a length of thick, sticky silk to the tower’s edge, pulling it downward at a diagonal angle to connect somewhere on the ground.

  “It is done,” said Widow. “Hang on tight.”

  “Hold on a second, can’t I just—”

  Widow stepped forward, wrapping her arachnid arms around Lee in a tight, warm embrace. He felt the squish of her breasts against his chest, along with the heat from where the thighs of her mostly humanoid set of legs squeezed firmly around his waist.

  Widow was surprisingly strong, and Lee wondered if he might have to let Escher know that she needed to redraw one of her stat graphs. She leaned backward, hanging upside down from the silk rope like a lemur slowly moving along a branch. Lee was still tight in her embrace, body firmly against hers, as she began to wiggle along the line.

  It was an experience. Any lingering sense of Widow being creepy, as Tess always insisted, shifted into more of a horny, teenage boy-esque curiosity about what it would be like to do, well, various things with her. He’d experienced a bit of what she had to offer during his sessions with Escher, and he felt a strong urge to find time to delve into the rest.

  “Here we are,” said Widow, as they reached the ground. “I have your book, and I did as instructed.”

  “Perfect,” said Lee.

  “Shall I accompany you further?” she purred.

  He shook his head. “Watch the zombies on the tower we just left. It must be at least half or more of them. If any start to wander away or try to follow me, tie them up with silk.”

  “Will I get a reward?”

  She was close. Lee stepped in closer, letting his hand slide down her side and settle on her surprisingly feminine hip. Her many eyes glinted with strange, prismatic colors in the dark. He leaned forward and kissed her, feeling her shudder just from that and press tightly against him, arms wrapping him as they had while they were on the line.

  “You’ll get an awesome reward,” said Lee. “I promise.”

  “Ohhhh, I can’t wait!”

  She left, disappearing back up the silk line. As much as Lee would have appreciated having another set of eyes, er, several more sets of them, what he needed most was to secure the campus. Kei and Mattis would be more valuable allies against the lich, and he couldn’t get to them if the zombies continued to hound him at every turn.

  He broke off toward where he’d heard the gunshot come from at a dead sprint, hoping that he wasn’t too late. Another gunshot snapped through the night air, helping him narrow his focus toward the orchard. He kept close to the wall, not seeing any zombies, and slowed down as he entered the trees.

  The darkness and shadows, combined with Lee’s adrenaline and fear, wrought absolute havoc on his senses. Tree branches became the reaching arms of the undead. Rattling leaves sounded like grinding teeth. Even the whistle of the wind seemed ominous.

  There was a zombie in the orchard, and Lee opted to give his stealth takedown a second try. He managed to sneak up on it from behind, steeling his nerves against the monster’s low, hideous moans. He sprang forward, stabbing his kris dagger into its temple from behind.

  The tip of the blade bit into bone, but not brain. The zombie started turning. Lee threw his shoulder into its body, knocking it against a tree and delivered several vicious stabs. The last blow struck true, penetrating through one of the monster’s eyes and briefly pinning it to the bark behind it. Lee shuddered as he pulled his dagger loose and wiped it off on some leaves.

  “Shin… igami.”

  Kei’s voice was no more than a weak whisper. He was on the ground, leaned up against another tree trunk, free hand clutching one of his legs. Lee winced and hurried to his side.

  “Kei,” he said. “Don’t tell me you twisted your ankle?”

  “If only,” muttered Kei. “It is a bite, unfortunately.”

  Lee held up a finger as though parsing the other man’s line of thought.

  “It’s not the end of the world. The curse that zombies carry takes more than just a bite to spread to those with the Potential. You should be okay as long as you don’t lose too much blood.”

  “We shall see,” muttered Kei. “You shouldn’t linger here. Get to safety.”

  “Running isn’t really an option for me. Have you seen Mattis anywhere?”

  Kei shook his head. “One of her bonded animals, a dire wolf, I think, stayed with me when the zombies first began flooding the school. They forced me into the orchard, attacked all at once. I killed them, but the melee was… rather confusing. I took injury at some point, but I defeated my attackers.”

  He nodded to the various corpses scattered through the nearby trees.

  “How many bullets do you have left?” asked Lee.

>   “None,” said Kei with a chuckle.

  “Take half of mine.”

  Kei shook his head. “With the way this situation is playing out, I shall only need one.”

  “Would you quit being so melodramatic? I summoned help. It’s unlikely that many zombies are going to be coming back this way. If you just hold on and shoot any that get too close, you’ll stand a fair chance at making it through this.”

  He pulled out his pistol and fumbled with the slide before realizing that he had no clue what he was doing with the weapon and handing it over to Kei, who quickly made the transfer of ammo. Lee accepted the gun back and glanced around as a cool breeze swept through the trees.

  “Let me have your lighter, too,” said Lee.

  “What is it you have planned?”

  “If I knew exactly, I would tell you. Keep yourself alive, Kei.”

  He accepted the lighter, spent a few seconds making sure there weren’t any zombies waiting to pounce on his friend once he’d left, and then started heading back the way he’d come.

  CHAPTER 37

  Lee expected the lich to be inside the Seruna Center, perhaps in the process of tearing the library apart. Instead, he spotted it waiting outside, alone, without any of its hench-monsters nearby. He watched it for a few minutes, highly suspecting that it was attempting to lure him into a trap.

  “I can see you, Lee,” called the lich. “The darkness poses no obstacle to my eyes. Come on out from the trees. We have much to discuss.”

  Lee tapped his finger against the barrel of his gun. He hadn’t been counting on the element of surprise to carry him through the approaching, inevitable showdown, but it would have at least given him another option to work with. He put his weapons away, knowing that they’d be useless at a distance and having no intention to move in close.

  He stepped out of the trees, holding Hornbell’s Report in one hand and Kei’s lighter in the other. The flame flickered, and he took slow steps to keep the wind from blowing it out. The threat was clear, and though the lich’s face was hidden by its voluminous black robe, Lee sensed that the monster understood the situation.

  “Where is she?” he shouted.

  The lich didn’t move. The hair on the back of Lee’s neck stood up straight as he heard the trees rustling behind him, teasing him with the idea of more zombies attacking from just outside his field of view. He forced himself to keep his gaze on the lich, showing no weakness.

  “Straight to the point,” called the lich. “It certainly fits with what Tess has told me about you. Relax, Lee Amaranth. We will get to her soon enough. We have much to discuss first, shared goals and desires that deserve contemplation.”

  “I doubt that very much.”

  “Only because you refuse to turn the idea over and take a look at the truth crawling underneath.” The lich slowly held an arm out, palm up, as though presenting an invisible object for inspection. “You are one of the sighted, not a mage as I first thought. You understand what it means to be on the receiving end of the Order of Chaldea’s scrutiny.”

  Lee snorted. “You’re barking up the wrong tree. Not interested.”

  “Persecution does not split hairs, Lee. The narrow-minded view of the mages you rub shoulders with is not one I believe you subscribe to. You understand shades of grey, the lack of delineation between various states of existence. Life vs death, animated vs reanimated. It isn’t a simple matter of good and evil.”

  “That sounds nice, but it’s just as meaningless as the logic of the Order,” said Lee. “We’re nothing alike, and you aren’t going to convince me otherwise.”

  “Oh? What of Tess, then? Do you really think the Order wouldn’t treat her as a dangerous anomaly if they knew of her existence? Do you think they’d judge her based off her character if they came across her in the wild?”

  “The key word there is if. I didn’t come out here to waste time on pointless thought experiments. Where is she?”

  “She’s nearby,” said the lich. “What of your sister, Lee Amaranth? Tess has told me much, enough to know that Zoe’s circumstances are more than a hypothetical. What if I offered you the opportunity to help shield her from danger?”

  Lee sighed and brought the lighter’s flame a few inches closer to the corner of the book. The way the lich tensed up was visible even through the dark and the flowing fabric of its robe.

  “Quit wasting my fucking time,” said Lee. “I’m not here to play games.”

  “The winds are changing, Lee Amaranth. You should learn when to bend, lest you end up broken.” The lich pulled its hand back and let its arm fall to its side. “Regardless, we still have a deal to make. I want the book, and I have Tess. Simple enough, yes?”

  “I need to see Tess before I agree to anything,” said Lee.

  “Are you afraid I’ve killed her?” The lich let out a cruel, rattling laugh. “The book first, Lee Amaranth.”

  “How about a compromise? I’ll throw the lighter away as a show of good faith. If you’ve managed to learn about me from Tess, I’m sure you already know that I can’t cast spells with her under the power of your will.”

  He watched the lich carefully, wondering if what he’d just said was actually true. He’d managed to summon Widow using the enchanted scroll, but casting a spell on his own might be outside what he was currently capable of. It made no difference. He wanted the lich to think that his magic was off the table, regardless of whether it really was or not.

  “Deal,” said the lich. “Throw the lighter away and I will let Tess go to you.”

  Lee took a breath, anticipating a trap and knowing that he had little choice but to stumble forward into it. He tossed the lighter aside, and sure enough, the ground shuddered underneath his feet. Two exaggerated skeletal arms rose up from beneath the dirt and seized his wrists, each one constructed from mismatched bones like a child’s imaginative Lego creation.

  The grip was strong, preventing him from reaching his kris dagger or gun. He couldn’t do anything with the book either, other than let it fall to the ground if he decided to open his hand. The lich watched Lee impassively, neither celebrating its victory nor moving to collect its prize.

  Lee exhaled slowly, trying to be as subtle as he could as he used his dispel ability to test the magical structure of the bone arms. Dispel could dismiss most normal magic, but from whatever dark art the lich had used to create the grisly bindings was beyond the extent of his counter.

  “Oh, don’t panic,” said the lich. “I’m just locking you into our terms, of course. Tess, would you come out here for Lee?”

  Footsteps sounded from the dark, empty Seruna Center doorway behind him. A figure in a heavy dark robe much like the one the lich was wearing made their way out with ponderous footsteps. Lee scowled and shook his head, annoyed at whatever stupid game the monster was playing. Where was… Tess?

  “She was such a sweet girl,” said the lich. “I’d broken her in quite nicely during the short time we spent together. It was mere months after my transformation that we were both forced from the school, before I’d found the book, unfortunately. She was so guarded about where it was, you see.

  “I didn’t kill Tess, strictly speaking. There was an exchange of spells between me and some of my former colleagues. She was, unfortunately, in the middle of it. We were outside, in the snow, and her body fell into a fissure, lost forever… or so it seemed.”

  Lee felt his heart rise up, catching in the back of his throat. He wished he could look away, but he had to see. He had to know.

  “Go ahead, Theresa,” said the lich. “Pull off your robe.”

  The hidden figure revealed herself. A noise escaped Lee’s mouth somewhere between a furious snarl and heart-wrenching sigh. There she was. Tess. The girl behind the ghost. Dead.

  “She’s much more effective than the soulless zombies I have amassed,” said the lich. “Her ghost is bound back to its original form. She’s an obedient, intelligent, undead incarnate.”

  Tess looked the same
age she’d been as a ghost, if such a thing even mattered in her ruined, long-dead state. Her normally pale skin was freezer-burned white blue. Her hair was bleached white by a century of sun exposure on one side, and stiff like the straw of an old broom, unyielding in the light breeze.

  One of her eyes was bruised and black around the edge, matted with ancient coagulated blood. She was missing a chunk of one of her shoulders, which left one of her arms hanging at a gruesome angle. She was missing another chunk lower down on that same arm, and bone was visible, poking through the gaps in her leathery skin.

  The worst part was that she was wearing her favorite outfit, the same billowing black-and-purple dress that she’d had on the day Lee had first met her. The worst part was how much she reminded him of the nightmares he’d once had of Zoe, finding her in a similar horrible, transformed state. The worst part, the absolute worst part, was the cruel, uncaring truth that had always been there, but was now staring him in the eyes, inescapable, unavoidable.

  Tess was dead.

  “Go ahead,” said the lich. “Tell him what you are.”

  Zombie Tess stiffened at the mere utterance of the lich’s first syllable. She opened her mouth. Lee wanted to scream. He couldn’t bear to hear her voice. She hesitated, shivering again, as she’d done when she’d first been overwhelmed outside the college.

  “Say it, Tess,” said the lich.

  “I…” she started, in a voice that sounded far too much like the Tess that Lee knew. “I…”

  “Say it!”

  She fell forward onto her knees, letting out a silent, shaking sob. “I can’t…”

  The lich scowled, but the smile was quick to return. “She’s a proper lady now, Lee. You should be proud of her for taking this step. Go to him, Tess. Reintroduce yourself.”

  Hornbell’s Report snapped loose from Lee’s grip, flying across the intervening space to land in the lich’s hand. Tess stumbled back to her feet, still sobbing openly, though the noise of it was muted. She walked closer to Lee with shambling, reluctant steps. She wouldn’t look at him. Lee couldn’t help but look at her.