Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3)(19)

But then thunder boomed.

His words broke off. I jolted toward the crypt’s entrance. It had been a distant sound, but there was no mistaking it—I knew that explosive sound too well.

“Dynamite,” I whispered. Then I turned back toward Oliver. “It’s a pulse bomb. Keep going.”

Oliver’s nostrils flared, but he did as he was told.

As his words picked up once more, a rhythmic song that filled the crypt, I lifted my candle and crept back toward the entrance. My senses slid along the length of my awareness spell, but I felt nothing. We were still alone . . . yet for how long?

The hairs on my neck pricked up, and each of my footsteps seemed oddly muffled. There was electricity in this crypt. It’s just Oliver’s magic, I told myself. But I wasn’t convinced. This had a different feel—a layered, coated feel that was nothing like the pure, bright surge of Oliver’s magic.

The rattle of bones suddenly filled the crypt. I stopped midstride just as Oliver roared out, “He’s awake!”

In a frantic scramble, I hurtled back to his side—and told myself the fuzzy wrongness was all in my head. Just the humidity and coldness of a crypt.

The casket formed before me . . . and Jacques’s skeleton too. He sat upright—a brittle, fleshless creature held together by ancient, fraying sinews. Even the hair on his head had long since rotted away.

Jacques Girard, Napoleon’s necromancer, was nothing more than a dusty, old museum skeleton.

Until his jaw creaked open, and a voice began to rumble out. “Pharaon, pharaon, pharaon.”

“Pharaoh?” I looked at Oliver. “Is that what he says?”

“The French word for it, yes.” Oliver’s brow creased—and still the skeleton said, “Pharaon, pharaon, pharaon.”

Oliver’s frown deepened. “Arrêtez,” he growled. Jacques’s teeth clacked shut.

And another explosion shook through the crypt. Oliver locked eyes with me. “That was closer.”

I bobbed my head. “Hurry, Oliver. Ask your questions fast.”

He launched into a quick stream of French. I caught the words le vieil homme and pyramides before another sound—a new sound—tickled my ears. It had come from the other side of the crypt.

I tensed and swiveled my head toward the noise . . . but all I could hear were Oliver and the mechanical, gravelly responses of Girard. I lifted the candle, and with wary steps, I began to cross to the other side.

The clattering, rhythmic sound came again, and a chill shivered through me.

I scooted closer. The pattering was louder now—and with an added scratch. All I could think of were rats clawing at marble.

It was then, as I stood in the middle of the crypt, my candle aloft and flickering over the flagstones, that I realized the electricity that coated things only moments before was now gone.

My blood ran cold, and I sent my magic scrambling down the lines of my awareness spell . . . before my senses exploded with static. It rolled over me in a cloying wave. I swayed back.

Then the spell seemed to regain its focus and settle into individual spots of magic.

Hundreds of them.

“Dead!” I roared, lurching around. “Dead!”

“Where?” Oliver shouted.

I sprinted toward him, the candle almost winking out. “In the tombs! Marcus must have awakened them—every corpse has come to life!”

“Then they’re trapped,” Oliver said as I skidded to his side. He slapped a hand on the nearest tomb. “They can’t get through the caskets—”

A loud crack suddenly shook through the marble. Then another—and this time bits of stone chipped outward.

“Oh hell,” Oliver hissed. Then he rounded on Girard, and French poured off his tongue.

Crack. Crack. More rubble scattered, and every tomb started to shiver and shake at a constant speed. It wouldn’t last long at this rate.

“Ollie,” I yelled, scanning the nearest tombs, “you need to hurry!”

He waved at me to stay quiet, and Girard’s jaw snapped open with a long, gravelly response. Then he stopped speaking, and Oliver snatched for a skeletal shoulder. He was going to lay the body to rest.

But then an idea flamed through my brain. If Girard was truly a skilled necromancer, then he must know other things. . . .

“Wait!” I lunged to Oliver’s side. “Ask him how to cancel a compulsion spell.”

Oliver blinked at me, briefly shuttering the glow of his eyes. Then he nodded slowly, and the question rushed out.

Crack. Crack. CRUNCH.

Metal hit the floor with a ping that bounced off the walls. One of the plaques had been punched out . . . and now the crunching of stone was louder than the banging of bone fists.

“I have an answer,” Oliver blurted, slamming his hand on Girard’s shoulder. “I’m laying him back to rest now, El. Is there anything else?”

“No,” I shrieked, twirling toward another ping! One of the magical spots in my awareness spell—no two . . . three spots—had started to move. If the bodies weren’t already out of their tombs, they would be at any moment. “Destroy him and come on!”

The words of Oliver’s spell shimmered through the air, a soft, countering magic to the grating stuff that filled my lungs and scraped at my skin. His eyes glowed that piercing blue of spiritual energy—of clean, natural magic. He shifted his gaze to me as he spoke, and then he eased his hand into his pocket.