I lifted the darkened lock and a whisper of magic ran up my fingers.
What the—?
I jerked back. “You tried to magic this open already?”
Gil’s gaze dropped to her plastic rain boots as she nodded.
Great. I glanced over the lock. Even if I’d had my picks, Gil’s botched spell had melted part of the locking mechanism.
Unfortunately, the spell hadn’t damaged the lock’s integrity, and my attempt to jerk the lock open accomplished nothing.
I dropped the lock. “There’s no way in. Take me back to Death’s Angel.”
“There has to be a way.” Gil tugged at her sleeves. “I’ve already set off the magical tripwires. We have to get in tonight. Can you break down the gate?”
I blinked at her. “Uh, no.”
She just frowned at me, and I sighed, glancing at the mausoleum entrance. It was old, the stone façade weathered and blackened, the iron gate red with rust. Old hinges too—real old, pin-type hinges.
Maybe I can…?
I grabbed the gate, and, bracing with my knees, lifted upward. Rust whispered like dry husks rubbing together, red flakes showering the stone steps, but the hinges lifted. I twisted, setting the heavy gate down crooked. It was still connected to the one side of the mausoleum by the chain, but the opening on the hinged side of the gate left plenty of room for Gil and me to squeeze inside.
“Excellent.” Gil clapped her hands as she slid past me. She really shouldn’t have looked so excited about breaking into a tomb. I probably should have asked her to explain, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
No, sir, Judge, sir. I have no
idea why she brought me here.
Inside, a stained glass window depicting an angel dominated the wall opposite the door. In the thin moonlight streaming in, she looked over the pairs of sarcophagi lining the side walls. Gil summoned a small purple light to her palm.
It twinkled softly, floating to her shoulder, creating quivering shadows around the tomb.
She walked to the closest sarcophagus, the little globe of light following her. “This should be it. Open it up.”
I glanced at the sarcophagus’s hundred-year-old inscription.
Bartholomew Mattholm.
Let’s get this over with.
The night before, I’d had to shove the stone lid aside. Tonight I was better fed, and when I slid my fingers under the lip and pulled, the stone lifted. I hefted it open a good foot from the base and peeked inside. I expected bones and rags, but inside the sarcophagus, a perfectly preserved corpse rested on decaying linen. A blaze of strawberry blond curls framed the strongly masculine face of a man who must have died in his early thirties. He looked like he could have been sleeping, but my hunger didn’t react to him—his heart wasn’t beating.
Dead, and unappetizing.
“Well?” Gil asked, bouncing from foot to foot behind me.
“He certainly looks good for a man dead over a hundred years.”
The corpse opened a pair of blue eyes. “Why thank you. I was considered quite handsome once.”
I backpedaled, dropping the sarcophagus lid.
What
mooncursed manner of—
The sarcophagus shook. Then the large slab of granite slid aside enough for the corpse to crawl out.
“Well, that was totally bogus,” he said, brushing grave dust from his denim jacket. “You wake me up and then drop a big piece of rock on me? Where were you raised?”
I stared at him. “But… you’re dead.”
The corpse looked at me, blue eyes twinkling in the moonlight. “I don’t think you’re in much of a position to discriminate based on mortality, babe.”
Okay, he had me there. But…
he
had no heartbeat. No warmth. He was dead.
Dead
, dead. Like, way
more
dead than me. At least vampires had a pulse.
I didn’t realize I was backing away until I fell against one of the other sarcophagi.
“Sorry about that,” Gil said, stepping up to him with a beaming smile and holding out her hand empathetically. “I’m Gil, a scholar-trainee from Sabin. That’s Kita.”
The corpse eyed her fingers but shoved his hands in the pockets of his tight black jeans. “A Sabinite, huh? Last time I was awake it was illegal to so much as
talk
to a necromancer.” His eyes moved past her and landed on me.
“So, an undead babe. Totally excellent. Been a while since I saw one.” He drew a shimmering glyph in the air, and magic, like a cold wind, tried to settle into my skin.
Magic had never felt cold before.
I glared at him. “Whatever you’re doing, stop,” I straightened to my full height. I was still a foot shorter than him, but I didn’t want him to think I was cowering. Cowardly creatures were prey. I wasn’t.
“You’re sensitive, for a vampire.” He turned back to Gil, reassessing her with his gaze. “You have a vampire-familiar?”
“Me? No, I didn’t mark her.”
Wait a minute. Did he say
familiar?
Like a witch’s
familiar?
I bore the Judge’s mark, but this was the first I’d heard anything about being a familiar.
The corpse cocked his head. “Did the High Assembly dissolve or something?”
Gil shook her head. “Nope, they’re still the ruling power in Sabin, and before you ask, yes necromancy is still illegal.”
“Then what the hell is going on here?” He made a sweeping motion that included both Gil and me. “I’ve got a scholar-trainee seeking me out in the company of someone else’s vampire-familiar?”
“Well,” Gil shuffled her feet. “We need a favor.”
Chapter Ten
“Wait!” Gil yelled, running after the dead man as his long strides took him across the cemetery grass. “You haven’t even let me explain what we want! Where are you going?”
I trudged after them. “He’s a walking corpse, where could he go?”
He stopped, the short red curls fluttering before settling around his face. “First of all, Little Miss Undead, I’m the
living
dead, not a walking corpse.” He swung a hand at the grave markers around us. “If I raise a couple of these rotting blokes around us
then
you get the walking dead. But me? I’m animated by my own power. Got it?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at me.
“Secondly, I’ve been asleep for twenty years. I want a look around. See what’s changed. And before you ask, no. The mortals won’t notice a thing. They only ever see what they
think
is in front of them. You should know.” Then he turned to face Gil. “And thirdly, it doesn’t matter what you want, babe. You can’t afford my services.”
Gil’s face flushed, but she held out her hand. A clear orb, no bigger than a cat’s toy, floated an inch above her palm, a small wisp of blue smoke caught in the center. “I have this.”
“Is that what I think it is?” He leaned closer. “How did a scholar-trainee get her hands on a Last Breath?”
“I captured it myself.” Gil managed to sound both proud and defensive simultaneously.
“Is it from someone who died of natural causes?”
“No.” She shuffled her feet. “Will it be enough?”
“Maybe.” He walked over to a free-standing sarcophagus and leaned against it. “Let’s talk business. What is it you want?”
Gil tugged on her sleeves. “Well, we need information from someone who sort-of died.”
“Uh-huh, keep talking. You want me to raise you a zombie with its memories intact? That’s pricey. An unnatural last breath will be cutting it close on the trade scale.” He pushed away from the sarcophagus. “But I’ve never been able to resist a couple of babes in need. You can call me Avin. This sort-of dead guy? Where is his body buried?”
“He isn’t exactly
buried
.” Gil pulled a skull out of the void.
How much stuff did she store in that place? And how come I never saw any of it when she tossed
me
into the void?
Avin took the skull from her, frowning. “You didn’t tell me all you had was the skull. That changes everything.”
“According to my research, the skull should be enough. Do you know another necromancer who would be able to animate a skull?”
“Hold on now, I didn’t say I couldn’t do it. I said it changed everything. Making a zombie that can remember who it was when it lived is tricky and requires a fresh body. It takes highly controlled magic to reconnect the synapses in the brain so the stupid creature will play back its life like a record.” He examined the skull. Then he balanced it on one of the headstones so the empty eye sockets watched us. “But you don’t have a body. All you have is a bit of bone. That means I have to create a ritual to find this bloke’s spirit,
if
he left enough behind to find, and then I thrust it into this skull; which, let me tell you, spirits don’t tend to like. It will be
big
magic. Complicated.”
I groaned. “In other words, expensive.” I turned to Gil.
“He’s not going to do it. Let’s go. We’ll find someone else.”
Okay, that last bit was a bluff. Gil had obviously been researching a while to find this necromancer, but he couldn’t know that.
Avin stepped between Gil and me, his hands up, palms out. “Don’t run off just yet. I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. We just need to negotiate a price. I’m thinking you give me, one, the Last Breath, and two, your true name.” He pointed at Gil, and she went pale. Then he turned to me. “And I want a favor from you, to be determined at a later date.”
A favor?
“Like an errand or something?”
He titled his head as if considering the question, and then smiled, nodding. “Yeah, like an errand. Or something.”
Not the most reassuring response. “Nothing lifethreatening,” I said, and his smile spread.
“Deal.” He glanced at Gil. “How about it? Your name?”
She was still pale, but she handed over the bauble containing the Last Breath. “Gildamina.”
Avin acknowledged her name with a nod as he took the globe. Holding it up in the moonlight, he studied it. “This is really well-captured. You said you did it yourself?”
Gil nodded.
He made the Last Breath disappear before focusing his attention back on her. “You’re not wearing a family ring. It used to be rare for a commoner from Undin to make it to a Sabin academy. I doubt things have changed much. Hmmm?”
She didn’t meet his eye, but studied her funky purple boots like she’d never seen them before. He went on, ignoring her obvious discomfort. “In fact, an Undinite would have to test off the scale in magical potential for the old Sabin families to let her in an academy—way more potential than someone destined to become a scholar. No one
chooses
to be a scholar. It is the career that rich Sabin brats get stuck in if they show no promise in any other magical disciplines.”
Gil’s face flushed from pink to crimson. “I gave you the payment you asked for. You made the bargain, now animate the skull so we can get out of here by dawn.”
Dawn?
“Gil, you said five minutes.” Which had already passed, but I’d thought we were closer to getting answers.
But
dawn
? Hell no. “Take me back to Death’s Angel. Now.”
Her head shot up. “What? But we haven’t—”
“I don’t care. We can come back later,” I said over her protest. “I need to be at Death’s Angel before Tatius—”
“Hey!” Avin shouted, and he must have magically enhanced his voice, because it boomed over us, making me flinch. Both Gil and I turned. He smiled. “Enough shouting, babes. This is the resting place of the dead. Show a little respect. Now”—he turned and pressed the tips of his fingers against the skull—“Neither one of you can leave. I need you for the ritual. But as I was saying, an Undinite doesn’t get to the academy and become a scholar unless something goes wrong.” He glanced at Gil. “I bet you excelled at all your basic courses but then couldn’t test into a discipline. There is
one
they didn’t test you for, though.
Wouldn’t
test you for.”
Gil shook her head. “I’m not having this conversation.”
“You hang with vampires, you sought out a necromancer, and you study topics that could get you a death sentence—because, I know, any book containing a spell to capture a Last Breath in it is on more than just the banned reading list. You’re a natural-born necromancer.”
“I said I wasn’t having this conversation.” Gil tugged at her coat sleeves, but the movements were more violent than her normal twitchy actions. “Can’t you just do the job we paid you for?”
“I’m getting to it.” He set the skull on the ground.
Summoning a long blade from thin air, Avin used the point to draw a circle around the skull. Outside the circle he drew several twisting symbols. I was surprised Gil wasn’t taking notes. After tugging on her sleeves a couple more times, she finally caved, pulled out a scroll, and started scribbling.
“See, you’re fascinated. You can’t help it,” Avin said, vanishing the blade again.
“She does that all the time.” I said, leaning against a statue. “Gil’s a natural-born scholar.”
She gave me a death glare, and I frowned.
What’d I say?
“I was just trying to help,” I muttered under my breath.
Louder I asked, “How long is this ritual?”
Both mages ignored me. Avin summoned four candles and placed them around the circle he’d drawn. A flick of his wrist and small flames consumed the candle wicks. I couldn’t see what he placed between the skull’s teeth, but with another flick of his wrist, spicy smelling smoke rolled out of the skull’s empty eye sockets and mouth.
“Come here,” he said without looking up from his work.
“Tonight you babes will be playing the connection between the living and the dead.”
Uh…
I didn’t like the sound of that. Still, cooperation would get me back to Death’s Angel faster.
I trudged over as Avin summoned his knife from the void, again. He pressed the tip of the blade into Gil’s index finger, and she flinched but let him coax blood from the wound onto the knife. He then anointed the skull with the blood before moving to me. He lifted the blade to my finger the same way he had for Gil, but as the metal touched my skin, a stinging chill that had nothing to do with magic shot through my flesh.