Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3)(21)
“I . . . will.”
“Then for now we are partners and allies once more.” Abruptly, he pulled back, and a cold, lethal expression settled over his features. “Command me, Eleanor, so I may use my magic, and let us see how long we can survive.”
“Yes.” The word growled out, hungry. Ready. And as I turned to face the oncoming tide of putrid faces, I said, “Let’s lay these Dead to rest, Oliver. Sum veritas.”
Once we’d descended the stairs, it was a blur of bodies. Gray skin, mottled with maggots and buzzing with flies. Frayed fingertips and tattered lips. Everywhere my gaze landed, I met the Dead.
But I faced them, and I was unafraid.
Magic coursed through my veins, pure spiritual energy. Pure power. Then it exploded from me, a whip of necromancy to slay each corpse that crossed my path. I did not use the crystal clamp, but my left hand kept a firm hold while magic thrashed from my right.
“Sleep, sleep, sleep.” The words rushed from my mouth, nothing more than a whisper. And though I could barely hear Oliver over the scraping of bones, I knew he chanted the same thing. “Dormi, dormi, dormi.” Building walls glowed with the blue light of our magic.
As soon as one corpse fell, blasted by my magic into the final afterlife, Oliver would attack the next. Yet for every body that collapsed, another would take its place. Marcus had truly woken every cemetery in Marseille.
When we reached the first intersection at the bottom of the winding cliff path, I realized with a rush of dismay—a dark explosion in my chest—that I had lost all sense of where the Spirit-Hunters were. We had aimed toward that one explosion, but I had neither seen nor heard a pulse bomb since. The wind covered almost all sounds. It rattled through trees and bushes, it roared in my ears, and there was no ignoring the gray clouds that it now carried in. A storm to block out the sun. Though rain wouldn’t stop us, it wouldn’t help us either.
And the Dead—milky eyes and ripped skin were everywhere.
“Sleep,” I said, panting. “Sleep.” Blue light flew from my fingers and slashed at the power animating each corpse in my way. An old woman. Then a soldier. Then two half-eaten sailors.
When the first fat drops of rain hit my shoulder, a shiver slid through my body. We had reached a grid of smaller roads and intersections, and it was only a matter of time before the skeletons from the crypt reached us or Dead came at us from the side streets.
Lightning from the storm cracked nearby. No—not lightning. Electricity. Joseph.
Oliver’s face snapped to me, his eyes triumphant. That sound had been close. It was the push we needed to keep going. To charge at more corpses until at last—
Crack! Blazing lines of electricity burst before us, lighting up shop fronts and closed doors. The Dead crumpled to the ground—felled by Joseph’s electricity.
My chest heaving, I gaped at the Creole. The rain was picking up speed; his shirt was soaked through. Mine too, I realized with a jolt.
And through the misty rain I could just make out a hazy figure with pistols firing at the nearest lines of bodies. Daniel.
“Marcus is northwest,” I shouted. “Only a few blocks from here.” I pointed in what I hoped was the general direction. “We can’t stop his army, Joseph. I know you want to protect the city, but . . .”
“I realize.” Joseph scrubbed at his bandages and scanned the building fronts. Curtains shifted in windows, and pale faces appeared. “Thus far they are only targeting us. And it is so many—more than we have ever faced before. We will have to hope that fleeing Marseille will be enough for Marcus to call off his corpses. But first we rescue Jie. Somehow.”
“Not somehow.” I beckoned Oliver to my side. “What did you learn about compulsion spells?”
Without shifting his focus from the streets behind us, Oliver said, “There’s no way to cancel one, but you can temporarily block it. You have to pierce a part of Jie’s body, and as the blood falls, you cast a spell—Dormi!” His magic laced out, felling four bodies at once. Then he wet his lips and continued, “It will be like resting an hourglass on its side—the compulsion spell will pause, but only as long as she continues to bleed—just a little. If the bleeding staunches, then your friend will fall right back under Marcus’s power.”
Joseph and I exchanged grim glances through the rain. “That means,” I said, “that we will need to get close enough to Jie to cut her.”
Joseph nodded. “The question is, how do we do that?”
“I’ll do it,” said a new voice. Daniel. He stalked to Joseph’s side, his clothes soaked through. The rain was a storm now.
“And how will you reach her?” Oliver demanded, looking at Daniel. “You have no powers, and your pistols are too sl—” His voice snapped off, his hands shooting up.
Daniel jumped around—but Oliver had already cried “Dormi!” and blue light was already streaking through the rain. A corpse fell only feet away.
“Your pistols,” Oliver finished, his voice a snarl, “are too slow.”
Daniel glared. “I can still make a blood wound. I just need Marcus distracted. You go through the Dead together. I come up from behind.”
“Then you,” Joseph looked at me, “will cast the spell from afar.” Before I could agree, Joseph’s eyes shifted beyond me, and his fingers squeezed the crystal clamp. Electricity snaked through the rain. Crack!