Fearless (The Blue Fire Saga) (34 page)

2
7
.
DEAD AND ALIVE

T
housands of miles away,
the Necromancer pushed his heavy body
away from his magical table and leaned back in his favorite chair. Unlike Leesa, he was having no unusual problems with his magic, but he was just as frustrated and impatient. Sensing his mood, the four novitiates watched him
closely, hoping he would not take
his discontent out on them.
Each had felt his wrath before, and it was never pleasant.

The Necromancer
had just listened to his black waziri lieutenants report that although they remained on Dominic’s trail, the wizard was still managing to elude them. Apparently, a hundred years on the run had taught Dominic a number of tricks that the black waziri had so far been unable to overcome.

The Necromancer decided it was time to make an adjustment in his plans. He turned to two of the novitiates, Makenzi and Matthew.

“You two will be joining your masters
in America,” he said. “I am bringing
Viktor back here, to help me with my work.” His empty eyes bored into the two
apprentice
wizards, making their blood run even colder than normal. “Two waziri and their disciples ought to be enough to deal with Dominic, should your masters
ever
manage to find him.”

“Yes, my lord,” Makenzi said.

“Go now,” the Necromancer ordered. “Gather your things and leave immediately.
At present, your masters are somewhere in the middle of the country. Fly into Chicago. It’s near the center of the country and has as more flights than almost any other city. You should have no trouble booking immediate passage. Once you arrive, y
o
ur bonds with your masters will allow you to find them without
tr
ouble
.”

The two novitiates nodded and rose from their seats. They glided silently from the room. Rafael and Jordan watched them go, each wishing he could be one of the ones leaving the Necromancer’s castle. Jordan was at least happy to know he would soon be reunited with Viktor. There would be no such solace for Rafael.

Having put his new plan in
to
motion, the Necromancer pushed his departing servants from his mind. He clapped his hands twice. A buxom peasant girl dressed in a black corset materialized from the shadows in the corner of the room. Her blond hair was fashioned into a long braid that hung down her back. The Necromancer watched as she shuffled across the floor toward him. Her face was pretty but plain, and her blue eyes, which had once sparkled with joy, were dull and lifeless, the result of all the things she had seen and been forced to do
in the year
since she had been taken into
the castle
. Her name was Petra, but if he had ever known it, he did not remember it now. He didn’t expect her to last much longer, but that was no matter—the countryside was filled with similar girls.
And sometime soon, he
hoped, when the seal wa
s at last broken for good, she c
ould be
just
as much use to him dead as alive.

She stopped a few feet from the Necromancer’s chair, her eyes glued to the floor.
No one met the Necromancer’s disconcerting eyes if they could help it.

“Your wish, my lord?” she asked in a flat, toneless voice.

“Open the wall,” the Necromancer commanded.

Petra crossed to the edge of large wooden bookcase and pulled a hidden lever. The bookcase slid soundlessly to the side, revea
ling a small stone cell
ten feet wide and six feet deep. Chained to the back wall
by their ankles and wrists
were three still, dark forms.

As the dim light from the main chamber illuminated the cell, the figure in the middle pulled against his chains. His efforts seemed perfunctory, without strain or much effort, as if he was trying to move forward and did not understand why he could not. The other two remained motionless, sagging against their chains.

The Necromancer rubbed his hairless head as he studied his captives. All three were men, but that was the only similarity in their appearance. The one on the left was a rotting corpse that looked like he had been imprisoned in the cell for years
, if not longer
. His clothes were torn and rotting, and in places on his skull and arms the skin had decayed enough that white bone showed through. Both eye sockets looked empty, black holes in a gruesome mask.

In contrast, the captive on the right looked as if he had come to the cell within the last day or so. His clothes were still clean and intact. He looked fresh and alive, except for
the way he hung against his chains and the gaping
hole in his chest right above his heart.

The man who pulled diffidently against his chains was somewhere between his two fellows in terms of condition. His
tattered
shirt had begun to fall from his body, revealing skin covered with what looked like festering sores, but were in fact the first stages of decay. No bone showed through
as yet
, but the skin of his face was thin and pulled tight across his skull, giving him a confused, frightened look.

The one similarity the three captives shared was that they were all dead.

The Necromancer was running an experiment. All three of the men had been recently reanimated. He was trying to determine the optimum amount of time a body should be dead for the easiest and longest lasting reanimation. The most decayed corpse had been dead and buried for well over a year; the most recent had been killed here
at the castle just two days before
. The one that was still showing signs of “life” had been buried two months ago—it seemed a certain amount of seasoning in the ground produced the best zombies, at least until the Necromancer figured out how to completely shatter the seal between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Once that happened, he wouldn’t care how long a body had been dead—he would simply call forth as many undead minions as he needed.

The thought of seasoning made him hungry. He turned to Petra.

“Bring me the newest one.”

Petra unfastened the chains around the guy’s wrists and draped his arm around her shoulders. Ten months ago, the gruesome task would have disgusted her. Now, it produced no reaction whatsoever in her empty eyes. She “walked” the body across to the Necromancer with little trouble—she was a sturdy peasant girl used to
heavy
chores. When she reached the table, she
flopped
the man’s upper body onto the table’s black surface, leaving her hand on its lower back to keep it balanced there.

Already thinking ahead to what his next test should be, the Necromancer lifted the corpse’s fleshy arm from the table. Rafael and Jordan watched expressionlessly as their master began to eat.

28
.
A NEW FRIEND

S
unday evening, Leesa was alone in her room, studying her psychology book. She wondere
d if there was anything inside
that would tell her why she was missing Rave so fiercely already, when she had just seen him the day before. She was used to going days without seeing him, but guessed
that
her feelings had something to do
with
having no idea how long it might be until she saw him again.

A soft knock sounded at her door.
She wondered who it might be—she wasn’t expecting anyone. She knew it wasn’t Cali, because
Cali’s
knock was louder and faster, as if the door was an obstacle that needed to be removed as soon as possible. Leesa closed her book and crossed to the door.
When she pulled it open, she found herself staring into an unfamiliar face.

The woman was a few inches shorter than Leesa, with long, wavy silver hair cascading down across her shoulders.
She was wearing a
knee-length,
dark red
knit
sweater jacket o
ver black pants.
Her unlined face
was pretty and
seeme
d ageless, but
she was certainly older than most college kids
. Maybe she was someone in the dorm’s mother,
Leesa thought,
looking for her daughter.
The woman extended her hand. The skin seemed almost as unlined as her face.

“I’m Jenna,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name.”

“Leesa.”
Leesa took the proffered hand and shook it. The woman’s hand was not as soft as Leesa had expected.

“May I come in, Leesa?
I have something to ask you that should be asked in private.”

Leesa
was
a
bit
leery about inviting a stranger
into her room
, even one as harmless looking as Jenna. Leesa
stuck her head out the doorway and looked down the hallway. There was no one else visible.

“Can you tell me what it’s about? There’s no one who could hear
you
.”

Jenna nodded.
“Of course.
You are right to be careful.” Jenna leaned closer and spoke in a low voice. “It’s about your magic.”

Leesa faltered backward into her room, her heart racing. Who was this woman? How did she know about her magic? Only Dominic and a few volkaanes knew, and surely Rave and his friends wouldn’t have told anyone, at least not without letting her know
. Could Dominic have told Jenna
sometime since his last phone call?
She found that hard to believe, and if he had,
why? The only other person who had seen Leesa do magic was the black wizard Josef, and Rave had
fried
him to ashes, and then Dominic had disintegrated the ashes. None of this made any sense at all.

Jenna
remained standing just outside the door.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve startled you. I should have known your magic”—she almost whispered
the word—“was a secret. I should have been more tactful. But
really
I do need to talk to you. May I come in?”

Leesa eased herself
down on
to
her bed. Her heart
beat began to slow
. If Jenna meant her h
arm, she could have followed Leesa into
the
room when she had stumbled backward.