Restless (23 page)

4
1. INTO THE GAP

DOMINIC LED THE PARTY
deeper into the graveyard. Most of the markers they passed were standard stone or marble rectangles with rounded tops, but scattered among them were monuments of other types—mostly obelisks, statues and pointy steeple shapes.

They walked
close together, except for Dral and Bain, who had flanked out to either side. Leesa walked on Dominic’s right, a half pace behind him. Rave marched beside her, his two metal spikes gripped in his hands. Cali followed a few steps behind Leesa, and Ulric and Halee brought up the rear.

Dominic extended his arm
to the side, palm facing backward, signaling everyone to halt. Caught unawares, Leesa bumped into the wizard’s outstretched arm. She gazed ahead, trying to see what had caused Dominic to stop.

As she peered into the darkness in front of them, t
he answer was abundantly clear—they had reached the area of the cemetery affected by the black magic.

Even here at the far edges, dozens of rope-like black strands twisted through the air three to four feet
above the ground, each so utterly black they were easily visible even in the darkness. Every strand ended in a similar place—smack in the chest of a newly unearthed corpse. Many of the zombies stood motionless atop their graves like grisly statues, but a number of them were still pulling their legs and feet clear of the soil, causing the ribbons of magic attached to them to wriggle like black snakes.

“Jordan is not far ahead,” Dominic said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Take care not to touch any of the magic.”

The party moved forward again, more slowly this time. They paralleled the strands of magic where they could; when they were forced to cross any of the threads they either stepped carefully over or ducked under them.

Suddenly, the black ribbons disappeared. Leesa blinked
in surprise. One moment the air was filled with the thin black snakes, the next they were gone as if they had never existed. Low growls replaced the silence that had previously shrouded the graveyard.

“Uh, oh,” Cali said softly. “This can’t be good.”

With the black magic no longer restraining them, the zombies began to move from atop their graves. Every one of them headed in the same direction, toward the nearest source of human flesh—Leesa, Cali and Dominic.

M
any of the zombies moved with the same lumbering gait Leesa had seen in her dreams, but bunches of them—the most recently buried, it appeared—approached at near normal speed.

Dral and Bain were already engaging the vanguard of the creatures, using their volkaane
quickness to dart among them, jamming their metal spikes down into the zombies’ skulls as they passed. The mindless creatures paid no heed to their attackers. The zombies had but one desire, one drive—to assuage their hunger with the taste of human flesh. Despite the toll Dral and Bain wreaked among them, the creatures kept coming forward. For every ten the volkaanes destroyed, twenty more took their place.

“We must
make haste,” Dominic said. “I’m afraid the element of surprise has been lost.” He pointed out into the mass of zombies in front of them. “Jordan is that way. Rave, cut us a path.”

Rave, Ulric and Halee sped forward, joining their two comrades in battling the zombies. So fierce
and quick was the volkaane attack that they opened a gash twenty feet wide in the zombie ranks. No longer fettered by the need to avoid the bands of black magic, Dominic, Leesa and Cali ran into the gap. Zombies fell in behind them. The humans were now surrounded by hungry zombies.

Leesa could not believe
so fierce a battle could be so quiet. The volkaanes made no noise, nor were there any screams or cries from the zombies when a spike pierced their skulls. They simply collapsed in a heap to the ground, marionettes with their strings cut. The only sound in the entire battlefield was the low rumble of hungry growls emanating from a thousand zombie throats.

With the creatures all around the party now, Ulric and Halee were forced to move to the rear to keep the pursuing zombies at bay. Without Ulric and Halee’s help in front, Rave, Dral and Bain were hard-pressed to keep a path open. Leesa could
tell they would not be able to maintain the advantage forever—there were simply too many zombies. Dominic could blast his way forward, she knew, but he still held his magic in check to avoid giving himself away. She was under no such constraints, however. Their enemies could not detect her magic.

She
raised her right arm as she trotted alongside Dominic.

“
Magnus irrundi
,” she chanted, opening and closing her palm the way her mentor had taught her.

Short bolts of yellow magic
burst from her hand, blasting into the zombie ranks in front of them. Running the way she was, her aim was not as good as she would have liked, but enough of her bolts struck home to help Rave and his comrades continue to lead them forward. She just hoped they found Jordan soon.

Suddenly, Dominic
halted. He grabbed Leesa’s arm to keep her from racing past. Cali stumbled into Leesa, almost knocking her over.

“What’s happening?” Leesa asked when she regained her balance
. “Why are we stopping?”

Dominic’s eyes were fixed off to the right. “Viktor is coming,” he said. “He must be wondering why all the walking dead are
heading this way and is coming to find out.”

“What are we going to do?” Leesa asked. They were surrounded by zombies, and now a black waziri was coming. She knew Dominic did not want to face Viktor and his apprentice together.

“I must confront Viktor,” Dominic said. “It has forever been our destiny. You will have to deal with Jordan.”

“What?” Leesa exclaimed. “I’m no match for him. He’s been at this way longer than me. Rave will
try to help, but what about all the zombies?”

“We have no choice,
I’m afraid. Our paths are set. There is still one thing I can do for you, however.”

Dominic
grabbed Leesa by both biceps. She could feel the power of his magic flowing through his hands. After just a few seconds, he let go.

“I have
placed some of my magic inside you,” he said. “Use it wisely. Once you call upon it, it will not last long.”

“How?” Leesa asked. “What should I do?”

“That will be for you to decide, when the moment comes. Until you have no other choice or you see an opening, use only your own magic.”

Dominic looked away from Leesa, toward the path in front of them. “Dral!” he called. “To the rear. I must take Ulric and Halee with me.”

Dral sped around behind them, working to keep the pursuing zombies back while Ulric and Halee joined Dominic.

“Open a path for me that way,” the wizard instructed them, pointing to the right. “Cali, help Dral.”

“Huh?” Cali said, surprised to hear the wizard talking to her. She had been feeling a bit like a forgotten child to this point.

“Help him how?” s
he asked. She glanced down at the metal spike in her hand. She had asked for the weapon in case of an emergency, to stop any zombie who got too close to Leesa. She didn’t think it would do her much good against the horde of zombies chasing them. Especially since the creatures would not ignore her the way they ignored the volkaanes.

“Use Leesa’
s magic,” Dominic said. “Why do you think I let you come along all those days of her practice—for the fun of it? I must be off. Good luck to all of us!” He turned and ran into the gap created by Ulric and Halee.

4
2. BATTLES GALORE

LEESA WATCHED DOMINIC GO
for just a moment. Cali took advantage of the pause to place her hand on Leesa’s hip. At the same time, she raised her other hand to the rear and concentrated hard, imagining a beam of yellow magic shooting from her palm just like she had done in the woods with Leesa and Dominic. Somewhat to her surprise, a pale beam immediately shot forward from her hand in a continuous, laser-like stream. She kept the beam aimed head high, sweeping it across the ranks of zombies. She watched the magic blast into nearly a dozen zombie skulls before it abruptly shut off. The creatures all collapsed to the ground.

“That’s what I’m talking about,
” Cali said, more to herself than to anyone else.

Dral
acknowledged her help with a quick wave of his hand, then continued darting into and around the pursuing zombies, plunging his spikes into their heads as he passed.

“Let’s go,” Leesa said.

She trotted forward into the open space created by Rave and Bain. As she ran, she fired quick bolts of magic to either side, destroying any zombies who got too close. Cali hurried after her. Whenever she got the chance, Cali touched Leesa and fired a beam of her own.

No matter how many zombies
the two girls and the volkaanes destroyed, their numbers never seemed to thin. Leesa hoped they found Jordan soon, though she had little idea what she was going to do when they did.

She didn’t have
very long to think about it.

A section in the middle of the mass of zombies parted, and Jordan came striding
forward. Dressed all in black, his white face seemed almost to float in the darkness.

Leesa wondered briefly why the zombies did not attack
the apprentice. She supposed it must have something to do with the black magic and his role in bringing the creatures back to life.

She pushed the question from her mind—
such musings were not going to help her find a way to defeat Jordan.

The young wizard’s
eyes swept across the field, pausing briefly when they fell on Leesa and Cali before moving on. Two ordinary human girls would not register as a threat to him, Leesa knew. She watched as his gaze fell upon Rave, who was still racing among the zombies, dealing death with his twin spikes. Before she could do anything, Jordan lifted his arm and sent a bolt of black magic streaking toward Rave.

Rave sensed the magic at the last instant. He threw himself into a running flip, somehow avoiding the beam as it streaked beneath him and
exploded into a couple of zombies behind him. Undaunted, Jordan unleashed a second blast of magic. As soon as Rave’s feet hit the ground, he tried to dive forward, but as fast as he moved, Jordan’s magic was faster. The beam struck Rave high up on his body. He crumbled lifelessly to the grass.

“Nooooooo!” Leesa screamed.

Several hundred yards away,
Dominic turned to face a new opening that had just appeared in the horde of zombies. He watched as Viktor marched toward him among the headstones, stopping just inside the line of suddenly motionless zombies. Clearly, the black wizard was exerting his control over the creatures, who now stood growling in a large circle around the two waziri like spectators at a boxing match. Ulric and Halee stopped as well, keeping their spikes ready while watching cautiously from a few feet inside the ring of zombies.

Standing thirty or forty feet apart,
Dominic and Viktor faced each other like two western gunslingers facing off on a dusty street at high noon. Viktor spoke first.

“
It’s been far too long, Dominic,” he said disdainfully. “I’m glad to see you finally crawled out from whatever hole you have been hiding in all these years. We figured that our latest little venture would draw you out.”

Dominic
forced a smile to his lips, knowing he could show no fear here.

“I
recall your friend Josef saying something similar, just before I destroyed him.”

Viktor scowled at the mention of his lost comrade.

“I do not know how you managed that,” he said. “Perhaps you got lucky or perhaps you had help. Rest assured, neither shall avail you now. If your two volkaane friends make a move to interfere, my zombies will keep them busy, unless I decide to kill them first.”

“I do not need
help to deal with such with you,” Dominic replied, filling his voice with much more confidence than he felt. “Just as I needed no help to defeat Tomas and Andre.” In fact, he had gotten plenty of help, but he was pretty sure Viktor would not know it. The more doubt he sowed in his foe’s head, the better. “By the way, where is Andre? His magic seems to have vanished. Was there a limit to how long your master could sustain Andre’s spirit?”

Viktor’s expression darkened at the memory of Andre disappearing into the black whirlpool.

“The time for chit chat is over,” he said. “It’s time for you to meet the doom that should have been yours a century ago.”

Viktor raised his arm and
sent a stream of black magic streaking toward Dominic. Dominic was ready, though, and called forth an air shield that stopped the beam before it could reach him. Viktor was undeterred—he had never expected his triumph to be instantaneous. He sent four more dark bolts flying at Dominic in quick succession. The shield blocked each of them, but Dominic could feel the immense power of the black magic tearing at the fabric of his protection. To remain purely on the defensive was to invite an inevitable defeat.

He raised both hands and sent
a half dozen bolts of white magic zooming toward Viktor. He watched as the black wizard picked each of them off with distressing ease. Dominic had added a special wrinkle to the final bolt, however, one that he hoped would take his foe by surprise. Just before it reached Viktor’s defenses, the bolt suddenly erupted into a searingly bright white flare. At the last second, Dominic closed his eyes. Even so, he could see the flash through his eyelids. Victor’s eyes received no such shielding. Taken totally off guard, the black wizard was temporarily blinded. To protect himself, he surrounded himself with a globe of impenetrable black magic.

Dominic raced forward, determined to press whatever advantage he had. Twin beams of white magic shot from his hands as he ran. He knew he couldn’t hope to pierce Viktor’s
protective globe, so he aimed his beams at the ground around the black wizard instead, hoping to dig a deep enough chasm that he could then fill in on top of Viktor.

Dominic’s magic cut deep into the
earth. As the ground gave way, taking a dozen heavy headstones with it, the dark sphere tumbled down out of sight. Before Dominic could bury it under tons of dirt and rock, the black globe rose up out of the chasm, carried aloft by Viktor’s levitation spell.

Floating four feet up in the air, Viktor
dissolved his globe and fired twin black bolts at Dominic, merging the two beams about halfway there. Dominic knew an air shield would not withstand the double-strength stream, so he met it with a double beam of his own.

Where the black and white bolts collided, the magical energies flattened and spread into a small starburst. A sputtering, cracklin
g sound filled the air as the dual magics pressed against each other.

Ever s
o slowly, the black beam gained ground, pushing closer and closer to Dominic. The wizard knew this was a contest he could not hope to win and tried desperately to come up with a plan to change the tide of the battle.

He could think of nothing. It took all his power to keep the black magic even temporarily at bay—if he tried to divert even a tiny bit of his power into another spell
, the black magic would burst through and consume him. His only hope was if Leesa defeated Jordan and arrived in time to help him, but he could sense her magic off in the distance and knew her struggle with Jordan still raged.

Ulric recognized that Dominic was losing and raced toward Viktor. The black waziri
moved one arm toward Ulric for just an instant. Even Ulric’s volkaane speed was not enough to avoid the black bolt which struck him in the chest, killing him instantly. Viktor immediately renewed his double attack on Dominic.

The momentary distraction allowed Dominic to gain a few feet where the energy beams met, but now that Viktor was using his full power again, he
slowly regained the advantage. His black magic inched inexorably closer to Dominic. Ulric’s brave sacrifice had bought Dominic a few seconds, but nothing more.

Suddenly, two dark forms hurtled down toward the black wizard from
the night sky. At the last moment, he raised his arm and blasted one of them from the air, but the other fell upon his head, raking his face and eyes with razor-sharp talons. Viktor screamed and reached up to pull the owl from his face.

No longer blocked by Viktor’s black beam, Dominic’s magical bolt surged forward, blasting the black wizard with the full force of Dominic’s magic. Viktor’s scream reached a horrifying crescendo and then abruptly ended as his body simply
vaporized.

Dominic kept his magic focused on the spot where his foe had disappeared
for another few seconds, making certain that Viktor’s magical essence could never be regenerated. When he was satisfied that Viktor was destroyed forever, Dominic turned his attention to the oncoming zombies, who were no longer held in check by Viktor’s magic.

“To my side, Halee,” he yelled, wanting the volkaane out of the way.

Halee bounded to Dominic’s side as the wizard unleashed a wide swath of magic, instantly incinerating more than a hundred of the nearest creatures. There were still plenty more zombies behind them, but they were far enough away to give Dominic and Halee some breathing room.

When Dominic finally let his power subside, the surviving owl had landed on the ground beside its fallen mate. A silver flash briefly lit up the night. A moment later, a man Dominic had never seen before stood in its place.
The wizard was pretty sure he knew who the man was.

“Michael?”
he asked.

The man nodded. “Yes. And you must be Dominic.” He looked down at the dead owl, his face filled with sadness. “Jenna spoke highly of you.”

“She has been a good friend and a great help,” Dominic replied sadly. “I grieve at her loss.”

“Is there
nothing you can do for her?” Michael asked.

Dominic sighed and shook his head. “I can heal
near-fatal wounds, but restoring the dead to life is beyond my powers.”

Mich
ael sighed and then fell silent, seemingly wrestling with his thoughts. Dominic was willing to give him a few moments to grieve, but knew they could spare no more.

“It
falls to me, then,” Michael said finally.

“What falls to you?”
Halee asked, puzzled.

“I must restore her.”

“You can bring back the dead?” Halee asked, stunned. “Do witches have such power?”

Michael knelt by the dead owl’s side.
“Only if I act quickly,” he replied. “And only if I exchange a similar life force for hers.” He placed his hand atop the owl’s tufted head and glanced up at Dominic.

“
Tell Jenna I love her.”

A second silver flash lit up the night, this one brighter and longer than any Dominic had
ever seen from a witch. When it ended, two human forms lay side by side upon the ground.

Jenna
’s eyes fluttered open. Her face bore a look of confusion.

“What happened?” she asked as she pushed herself up into a sitting position.
She looked down at her hands. “I was in my owl form. I remember being struck by the black wizard’s magic. I thought I was dead.” Her eyes fell upon Michael’s motionless body. “Oh, no!” she cried, covering her face with her hands in anguish. “He didn’t!”

“He said to tell you he loved you,” Dominic said softly.

“His death is all my fault,” Jenna sobbed. “If I had not asked his help, he would still be alive.”

“If you two had not arrived when you did, I fear our cause would have been lost.
His sacrifice was not in vain. Your actions may have saved countless lives.”

Jenna laid her hand on Michael’s cold forehead. “I hope he knew that,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes with her
other sleeve.

“Whether he did o
r not, he knew he had saved you.” Dominic held out his hand and helped Jenna up. “I think that was enough for him.”

A shimmering silver glow enveloped Michael’s body.

“Good-bye, Michael,” Jenna said. “I love you, too.”

The glow disappeared, taking Michael’s body with it.

Leesa raced to where Rave lay motionless on the ground and knelt down
on one knee beside him. She laid her hand on his cheek and sobbed—his skin was barely warmer than her own. Lowering her head, she rested her cheek on his chest, listening carefully for any sign of a heartbeat. Relief flooded through her. His pulse was faint and irregular, but it was there!