Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3)(20)

He withdrew his flask, never pausing in his incantation, and extended it to me. I yanked it from his grasp, pushed the candle into Oliver’s now-free fingers, and then set to screwing off the top. The burn of alcohol flew up my nose. Coughing, I splashed the bones haphazardly. There were too many crunches coming from around the crypt, and I didn’t think I was imagining the sliding shamble of skeletal feet heading this way.

Oliver finished his chant just as I reached the bottom of the flask. Jacques Girard’s bones crumpled backward, and Oliver dropped our lone flame into the tomb. In a whoosh of air and heat, the bones ignited.

We skittered back two steps, squinting in the light. I grabbed Oliver’s wrist, lifting my voice to be heard over the flames and beating fists. “The Dead are everywhere.”

“Then command me to fight them.” He shoved into a jog—and pulled me with him. All around us, chunks of marble hit the ground.

“No,” I shouted. “We need to save our strength for the true enemy.”

He did not argue, and as we raced back to the entrance, I felt a single thought pulse from Oliver’s mind into mine.

Finally I know how to find the Old Man.

CHAPTER FIVE

I had never seen so many Dead in my life.

We stood at the edge of the fortress-like base of the Notre-Dame, the stairs down the cliff before us and all of Marseille beyond—and hundreds upon hundreds of walking Dead. For as far as I could see, there were rows of them advancing up the hill—silently, for the wind carried away all sounds.

And they were coming toward the Notre-Dame. To us.

Marcus had raised every corpse in the city. Even at this distance I could see fresh dirt and silt from the buried and the drowned. Gleaming bones and green flesh from the long dead and the newly deceased.

I flung a backward glance to the crypt’s entrance. The skeletons within had not reached the door. Yet.

“He raised them too,” Oliver said, following my gaze. “I do not know how he did it from such a distance—I didn’t know a human could even possess so much power.”

“He is not human.” I shook my head, my eyes never leaving the crypt door. “He was dead for years, a spirit waiting for a chance to come back. And we have been fools—all of us—dancing to Marcus’s tune like puppets.” I wet my lips. “What do we do, Ollie?”

“Try to leave here alive.” He pointed slightly north. “See that speck of gold? In that big intersection by the quai? I think that’s your Chinese friend.”

The wind was rough as I turned my gaze into it. I had to blink constantly . . . but yes, I could just make out the flamboyant gold of Jie’s gown. Which meant that black-clad speck beside her was Marcus.

A growl bubbled up my throat. He was so close. And Joseph could not stop me now.

I dragged my eyes away from Jie and over the streets. Daniel and Joseph were somewhere among all those writhing bodies, but until another pulse bomb detonated, I had no way of knowing where.

“We go to Marcus,” I said. “Back the way we came. Down the hill, left onto that main avenue, then—”

“Are you insane?” Oliver cried. The wind carried his words away. “We need to flee Marcus—not walk right up to him.”

I shook my head, a sharp movement. “This ends now, Oliver.”

“No.” He cupped my face in his hands. His eyes blazed golden. “Listen to me, Eleanor. Marcus knew we were coming. He has us outnumbered and far, far outmatched. We will die if we try to stop him today.”

“But we came all this way. I . . . I can’t just leave. And what about Jie?”

Oliver winced, his hand dropping from my face, and I knew he’d been hoping I would forget her. Yet he did not argue. He simply said, “Fine. We get her and go.” He glanced back at the crypt and pressed his lips tight. “The bodies are here, so whatever you’re planning, we need to do it soon.”

Holding my breath, I turned . . . and everything inside me hardened at the sight of the skeletons scraping into daylight. Unaffected by the wind, they moved in a single-file line—like an army—toward us.

I tugged the crystal clamp from my pocket. I would use it only if I had to, but it was better to have it ready.

An explosion thundered, trembling through the air. Oliver and I spun our heads toward the sound. Smoke billowed up from only a few streets away—but the wind instantly scattered it.

Daniel. Joseph. And only a few hundred corpses between us.

I had been planning to kill Marcus, certain that I could do it. Yet the fact of the matter was, I could not. But I would still use this power and this resolve to rescue Jie.

I had the rage and the skills inside me. So did the Spirit-Hunters. We could do this.

“Together,” I said, “we can make a path to Daniel and Joseph.”

“All right.” Oliver’s head swiveled once more to the skeletons leaving the crypt. Then he grabbed my sleeve and pinned me beneath a stare. “We must put aside our differences, El. Right now. Otherwise we’ll never survive this.”

“Yes—”

“I mean it.” He yanked me closer, looking nothing like his boyish self. This was the demon in him speaking. “Your friend’s life is of no consequence to me. But your life is. I will follow you to the end of this, whatever that may be. So I beg you, Eleanor—beg you—to do the same for me.”