Necropolis (Royal Sorceress Book 3) (38 page)

There was a crash from outside as something hit the wall. Olivia frowned, turning her attention back to the window, just as an undead came rocketing through the shattered window and landed on the floor. The creature was barely halfway to its feet when Raechel sliced its head off with a blow from her sword, then kicked the head back out of the window. But the next creature was already on its way.

“We need to block the window,” Olivia said. She tried to think of something they could use, but there was nothing left in the room, apart from the bed and wardrobes. “Do you think we can move the wardrobes?”

“They’re bolted to the walls,” Raechel said. “We looked at them while you were asleep.”

“Shit,” Olivia muttered. They were pushed to the limits guarding one window. It was far too likely that someone else would lose, allowing the undead a chance to get into the building and start attacking from behind. Once that happened, it was all over. “What else can we do?”

Another undead hit the side of the window and broke its skull. Olivia watched him fall, an oddly peaceful expression on his grey face, feeling sick. The undead didn’t care how many of their own were killed, as long as they got to the living inside. Raechel stared at it, then shook her head in disbelief. The excitement was wearing off, leaving terror in its wake.

“Olivia,” she said slowly, “how long is this going to go on for?”

Olivia shuddered as another undead caught hold of the window. Raechel shoved her sword into its throat, then pushed hard. The undead toppled backwards, taking her sword with it as it fell. Olivia swore, then passed Raechel her sword. It wasn’t as if there was any other choice.

“It will go on until we die,” she said, hoping and praying that Gwen would get back before the defenders collapsed. “Just keep killing them as long as you can.”

***

Gwen let out a breath as she saw the ranks of the undead surrounding the palace, some pushing at the main doors while others were either climbing the walls or trying to throw their comrades through the window. It looked as if the defenders were holding out, but there were too many holes in the defences for them to resist indefinitely. Gritting her teeth, she hovered above the horde, struggling to open the barrel. The Russians had screwed the lid on far too tight.

Finally, she used magic to open it and started to pour the contents on the undead below. They didn’t seem to notice as she washed fuel over their bodies, even though it was falling down from high overhead. But then, they had almost no sensitivity in their bodies left, according to Olivia. It made sense. If they couldn’t be distracted by knife wounds and bullet shots, they were unlikely to notice a little light rain.

As soon as the barrel was empty, Gwen dropped it on their heads, then summoned fire. The sudden wave of flame surprised even her, the wave of heat sending her upwards at speed. It was impossible to hurt herself directly using magic, but the side-effects could still be lethal – and she’d used fuel to cause the blaze, rather than more than a spark from her own magic. But the flames were magnificent, burning through the undead at terrifying speed. She used magic to push them here and there, trying to sweep up as many undead as possible, then added flames of her own to burn the undead away from the building. Flames spread through the Moscow streets as the undead seemed to waver, then pulled back from the building.

Gwen hesitated –
that
wasn’t normal behaviour – then threw extra bursts of fire after the retreating undead. Several nearby buildings caught fire, flushing out the undead who’d been hiding in the shadows. A number of burning undead hurled themselves towards the defenders, then stopped as Gwen picked them off from high overhead. She dropped lower, low enough to allow the defenders to see her clearly, then felt an odd tickle at her mind.

Lady Gwen? Is that you
?

Simone
, Gwen thought. Clearly, she did have some broadcasting talent, although not as much as might have been useful.
Yes, it’s me
.

Sir Sidney greeted her as she stepped through what remained of the main doors. The undead had caused havoc, tearing through wooden barricades as if they were made of paper. She sucked in a breath as she saw one of the elderly diplomats, his body lying on the ground without its head. The pang of guilt almost sent her to her knees. She’d never bothered to learn the man’s name before he died. Now, she felt as if she should at least have
known
.

“We almost lost before you arrived,” he said. Outside, the flames were licking higher, despite the cold weather. It would be a miracle if they didn’t spread to the palace, creating yet another hazard for the defenders. “We can’t stay here for long.”

“I know,” Gwen said. She ran through it in her head. There were nearly two hundred people in the palace; British, French and Russians. She knew, all too well, that she couldn’t carry them all to the airships before the Tsar intervened. It wouldn’t take more than a handful of undead to destroy the airstrip and kill the guards. “Simone – just how far can you broadcast?”

The French girl hesitated. She looked tired, her yellow dress stained with blood, and yet she still managed to look striking. Gwen wondered, nastily, why she didn’t wear something more suitable. She had no idea what fashion was like in France these days, but wearing trousers could make the difference between escape and certain death. Simone wouldn’t look half so pretty as one of the undead.

“Several miles, if I have someone to hear,” Simone said. If she’d heard Gwen’s unguarded thoughts, she gave no sign of it. “
You
heard me.”

“I’ll fly you to the airships,” Gwen said. Simone could communicate with her at a distance, she hoped. “And then we have to start thinking about what to do next.”

She hesitated. An idea – in its own way as insane as Sir Sidney’s idea – had just struck her. If she made her presence very obvious, she could attract the attention of the Russian magicians ... and then kill them, allowing the airship to fly over the city. But it was far too risky. The Russians might have enough magicians left to kill her and bring down the airship ...

“We
know
what we have to do next,” Sir Sidney said. His voice was calm, but he spoke in deadly earnest. “One of us has to become a rival controller of the undead.”

Gwen swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. “And who is going to volunteer for this ... madness?”

“Me,” Sir Sidney said. He looked down at the bloodstained floor. “It was my idea.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

G
wen felt almost dazed as they made their way towards Olivia’s room, as if she were asleep and having a nightmare. She felt as if she was looking at disaster – predicable disaster – and yet she could do nothing to stop it. Sir Sidney would, at the very least, become one of the undead, even if he would be under Olivia’s control rather than the Tsar’s. And even if the mad scheme succeeded entirely, he would still be an undead monster.

The thought hurt, more than she cared to admit, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. She
liked
Sir Sidney; he was one of the very few people who’d treated her as an equal from the start, rather than just another weak, feeble and foolish woman. To watch him plan, coldly and calmly, to throw away his life on a mad gamble was horrifying. And yet, for all her power, she knew there was no other choice. She couldn’t burn the entire city to the ground, nor could she carry everyone from the palace to the airstrip before the Tsar caught up with them.

And the next assault will finish us
, Gwen thought. It puzzled her why the Tsar hadn’t launched the next attack already. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have a suitable supply of cannon fodder. Had her incineration of hundreds of the undead caused some kind of psychic feedback that had harmed the Tsar? It seemed unlikely. None of the other known Necromancers had shown any reaction to losing dozens or even hundreds of the undead.

She had to smile, despite the darkness pervading her mood, when she stepped into Olivia’s room. Raechel stood there, sword in hand, her dress liberally spattered with blood and undead brain matter. She was grinning from ear to ear, despite her appearance, enjoying the exhilaration of winning the fight and coming out alive. Gwen smiled back at her, remembering her first real fight and how good it had felt to win. She didn’t have the heart to point out that the next assault would definitely finish them.

Sir Sidney frowned as he looked at the bodies and gore on the floor. “Are those safe?”

“They should be,” Olivia said. Her voice was weak, but firm. “The only way the infection spreads is through a bite.”

That
made no sense, Gwen knew, but so much about Necromancy made no sense. Even during the worst of the British experiments into magic, no one had touched on Necromancy, apart from gathering reports from outbreaks around the world. They’d concluded that a necromantic infection wasn’t a disease, at least in the conventional sense. Eating necromantic flesh wouldn’t turn someone into one of the undead. It took a bite from an undead to start the transformation. But no one knew why.

She pushed the thought aside and knelt down beside Olivia. Her daughter was shivering, only partly through cold. Sweat stood out on her forehead, making her look feverish; her eyes were bright, yet cold. Gwen looked towards the broken window, wishing they could seal the gap completely. But if they pulled back into the interior of the palace, they’d only cut their line of retreat. There was nowhere to go that wouldn’t make their situation worse.

“Sir Sidney has a proposal,” she said, carefully.

Olivia produced a weak chuckle. “Shouldn’t he be asking you for my hand in marriage?”

Gwen smiled; Raechel giggled, outright.

“It isn’t that sort of proposal,” she said, as Sir Sidney blushed. “It’s something rather different.”

“I want you to give me some of your blood and turn me into a creature like the Tsar,” Sir Sidney said, talking rapidly to overcome his embarrassment. “You can do that, can’t you?”

Olivia hesitated, nervously. Gwen didn’t blame her. If they made it home, there would be an inquest into the whole affair – and with so many high-ranking diplomats involved, to say nothing of Talleyrand, it would be impossible to cover it up. There would be questions asked about Olivia’s continued survival, then urgent suggestions put forward to invoke the Demonic Powers Act and execute her. If Olivia used her powers again, without compulsion, it would only give her enemies ammunition once they realised the truth.

“I don’t know,” Olivia said, finally. “We don’t have a Healer.”

Sir Sidney looked at Gwen. “You can Heal, can’t you?”

Gwen winced. Healing was
not
one of her skills. Lucy could put a badly wounded person back together easily, Gwen could barely heal herself – and
that
was largely instinctive, given food and drink. In theory, she should have the power; in practice, even months of effort hadn’t taught her how to use it. But there was no other Healer in the palace ...

“I shouldn’t have killed Gregory,” Olivia said, bleakly. “I’m sorry.”

“We couldn’t have made him cooperate in any case,” Gwen said. A fanatic would have been largely immune to Charm. She looked over at Sir Sidney. “I can try, but ... but it would be incredibly dangerous. You might wind up dead – or a soulless monster, Olivia’s puppet.”

Sir Sidney looked at Olivia for a long moment. “Do you have a better idea?”

“I did manage to influence the creatures slightly,” Olivia said. “If the Tsar died ...”

“They’d form a new hive mind of their own,” Gwen said. She took a long breath. “I won’t force you to do this ...”

She swallowed as her voice trailed away. It would be worse for Sir Sidney, she knew; the experiment might fail completely, leaving him a shambling monster. But it wouldn’t end there, not when he’d killed himself. His soul would go to Hell for suicide, even though he was sacrificing himself for the good of the entire mission. It didn’t seem fair, somehow.

Perhaps there’s an exception for someone who kills himself for the good of others
, she thought, bitterly. Religion had never been a large part of her life, not since David had driven away one tutor by demanding to know why Caesar and Cicero were in a hell they’d never heard of, as they’d both lived and died before Jesus Christ.
Or perhaps he simply doesn’t believe in God
.

“I can’t think of anything else,” Olivia said. She looked up at Sir Sidney’s pale face “If we do this ...”

She shook her head. “
When
do you want to do this?”

“Lady Gwen has to fly Simone to the airstrip,” Sir Sidney said. “I can wait until she gets back.”

“I bet you can,” Raechel muttered.

She glared at all three of them, angrily. “This is crazy! This is ... obscene! You’re talking about killing yourself and you don’t even know it will work!”

“There’s no alternative,” Sir Sidney said. “We don’t have any other means of fighting our way out of this. Or can you suggest something?”

Raechel glared at him, but said nothing.

“Take Simone to the airstrip,” Sir Sidney ordered Gwen. “We will ... we will do it when you get back.”

Gwen nodded, then left the room. Simone was waiting for her, carrying a small bag in one hand and a pistol in the other. Gwen wondered, absently, just how well the French woman could shoot, then decided it was probably immaterial. The undead were unlikely to be deterred by the small feminine pistol, even if she shot them in the head. They’d just keep going until she managed to cripple them.

“My father wanted me to take a handful of papers with me,” Simone said, lifting the bag. “Is that all right?”

“As long as they include safe conducts,” Gwen said. “We’re going to need them.”

She sighed. With war between Britain and France so close, travelling over French territory would be very dangerous without formal permission from a French representative. But she suspected the French would be very tempted to shoot down the airship if they knew she was on it, no matter what Talleyrand said. Her death would ensure a power struggle in Cavendish Hall.

“They do,” Simone assured her. “When do we go?”