Restless (24 page)

“Is he okay? Cali asked, kneeling next to Leesa.

Leesa lifted her head. “He’s alive, but just barely.”

She looked down at Rave’s shoulder. Jordan’s magic had burned away
his shirt, leaving behind an ugly black wound on the smooth bronze flesh. Seven or eight crooked black tentacles snaked out beneath Rave’s skin from the edges of the wound. The streaks were growing steadily longer, spreading the deadly magical infection down his arm and across his chest. Leesa knew if she didn’t stop them quickly, they would drain what remained of his life in moments.

She placed her hand over the burn the way Dominic had taught her and called upon her healing magic, picturing Rave’s shoulder the way it had been before the wound and forcing all other thoughts from her mind. Her palm grew warm as the healing energy passed from her hand into Rave.

When the warmth faded, she pulled her hand away. The dark streaks had vanished, beaten back by her magic, but the ugly burn mark still remained. Whatever elation she felt at the improvement quickly faded as the black streaks began to creep from the wound once again. She had failed!

“Try again,” Cali urged when
she saw the infection begin to spread. “Give it everything you’ve got.”

“I already did,” Leesa said dejectedly.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “It wasn’t enough.”

She put her head on Rave’s chest. His heartbeat was even weaker than before. He was dying
, she knew without a doubt. And she was helpless to save him.

Cali put her arm around Leesa’s shoulders, knowing her gesture would bring little comfort.

“Wait a minute,” she said, struck by a sudden thought. “What about the magic Dominic just gave you? Did you use that?”

Leesa’s head jerked
up. She hadn’t thought to add Dominic’s magic to her healing spell. His magic was meant to help her defeat Jordan—if she used it now, how would they stop him? She twisted her head around. Jordan was still some thirty yards away, walking unhurriedly toward them, confident he had nothing more to worry about.

Leesa made up her mind. First she would try to he
al Rave. Once she had done that they could worry about defeating Jordan.

She placed her palm
over Rave’s wound again, this time picturing Dominic’s white hot magic mixing with her own as it flowed from her hand. Her palm grew more than twice as warm this time before the heat faded. Almost afraid to look, she eased her hand away. Rave’s shoulder was smooth and unblemished. The foul blackness had completely vanished!

A moment later, Rave open
ed his eyes. Leesa helped him up to a sitting position.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

Rave rolled his neck in a slow circle and then massaged his shoulder. “I’ve felt better,” he said.

“Uh, guys?” Cali
interjected, her voice filled with urgency. “That Jordan creep is almost here.”

Leesa and Rave looked up. Jordan had stopped about
five paces away and was watching them curiously. Leesa hoped he hadn’t seen her use magic to heal Rave. Her hidden power was their secret weapon, the only thing they had that gave them even a chance to stand before Jordan’s black magic.

“You volkaanes are a hardier folk than I knew,” the apprentice said, speaking only to Rave and ignoring the two girls
as if they were beneath his notice. “Still, I do not expect you will survive my next attack.”

Leesa breathed just a bit easier. Clearly, Jordan did not think of her as a threat. Now she just had to figure out a way to defeat
him.

An idea came to her. It was a
huge gamble, for sure, but it was the only thing she could think of. Without leaning any closer to Rave and with her back to Jordan, she softly whispered her plan, knowing Rave’s volkaane hearing would pick up her words. He replied with a single, almost imperceptible nod that told her he understood.

Jordan raised his arm, ready to finish Rave off. Just as he unleashed his deadly energy beam, Leesa shouted, “
Bonduur
!” praying that her shield would be strong enough to block the young wizard’s black bolt.

The
dark beam struck the invisible barrier and stopped. Shocked by what he had just seen and heard, Jordan stumbled back a half step. The girl had shouted a waziri spell and created an air shield—he had not known such a thing was possible, that a female could use waziri magic. Still, he did not believe she could possibly be strong enough to truly challenge him.

He fired
his black beam again, aiming at Leesa this time. Once again, the bolt was blocked by the unseen shield. Now, though, Jordan was ready for it and kept his energy stream firing at the barrier. He could sense the shield weakening and walked slowly forward, increasing the power of his magical beam by closing the distance.

Leesa could feel her shield faltering, but still she waited, praying that it would last long enough. When Jordan was
but two steps away, she made her move.

“Now!” she shouted.

Two things happened at once. Leesa dropped her shield and replaced it with a yellow energy beam, which smashed into Jordan’s beam with enough unexpected force to knock Jordan briefly off balance. At the same instant, Rave sprang toward the apprentice, using every last bit of his incredible volkaane speed. Before Jordan could react, Rave wrapped his arms around the young wizard and pressed his mouth over Jordan’s. The full fury of his volkaane fire raged into the apprentice, burning him from the inside out. In seconds, it was over. Rave dropped Jordan’s burned out corpse to the ground and spat.

Leesa rushed into Rave’s arms.

“We did it!” she exclaimed.

Rave turned his head and spat a second time. “I had hoped never to taste such filth again,” he said.
“But it was worth it to end that one’s foul existence.”

A moment later, Jordan’s body disintegrated into a pile of black ash.

4
3. REUNITED

WITH ONLY DRAL AND BAIN
holding back the oncoming zombies, some of the creatures had drawn dangerously close to Leesa and Cali. The two volkaanes raced around spiking the nearest ones, but more and more continued to attack.

“Can you encase you
and Cali completely inside an air shield?” Rave asked Leesa.

She
nodded. “Yeah, I think so. But I don’t know how long it’s going hold against so many of these things.”

“
I don’t think it will have to. They are guided by their unceasing hunger. I’m betting when they can no longer smell you, they’ll head elsewhere to satisfy their cravings.”

Leesa pictured an invisible
cocoon surrounding herself and Cali as she invoked the air shield spell once more. As Rave predicted, as soon as the shield materialized the zombies suddenly turned away and began heading in the opposite direction in search of human flesh.

Leesa breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the creatures lumber away—until she realized that the closest human flesh would be Dominic.

“Rave!” she shouted. “They’re heading for Dominic. Go help him.”

Dral and Bain looked at Rave, who nodded. The two volkaanes sped away, falling upon the creatures from behind and driving the
ir metal spikes repeatedly into the zombies’ skulls. Rave hung back, reluctant to leave Leesa alone.

“You
, too,” Leesa told him. “We’ll be fine here. I promise I won’t let the shield down until you return.”

Rave hesitated for
an instant, then joined his friends at the rear of the retreating zombies. Just to be safe, he kept glancing back toward Leesa to make sure she was okay. He had slain about a dozen of the creatures when flashes of white magic began illuminating the night a short distance in front of him.

A moment later, Dominic
appeared, flinging his magic bolts with both hands and slaying zombies by the score. Jenna and Halee followed close beside him. Rave glanced around, but saw no sign of Ulric. A sinking feeling stole over him.

“Well met,” Dominic said
when he reached Rave. “I take it your presence here means Leesa is unharmed?”

“She’
s fine,” Rave replied. “She and Cali are wrapped inside an air shield so the zombies cannot smell them.” Rave looked to Halee. “Ulric?”

Halee
shook her head. “Dead. I burned his body in the volkaane way.”

Rave nodded.
Volkaanes did not bury their dead. Instead, they incinerated them with their magical fire.

“There will
be a time to mourn our losses when all this is finished,” Dominic told them. “Right now, we must destroy as many of these creatures as we can and then stop the Necromancer.” He emphasized his words by raking the zombie ranks with another powerful blast of magic. Dozens more fell before the onslaught.

The wizard strode across the graveyard toward Leesa and Cali. Rave and Jenna walked with him, while the remaining three volkaanes continued
dispatching zombies.

Leesa watched as Dominic approached
. A great relief washed over her to see him unharmed. She was glad to see Jenna was now here as well.

As he neared the spot where Leesa and Cali stood together,
Dominic spread his arms above his head and created an invisible dome of hardened air that covered everyone save Dral, Bain and Halle. When the zombies changed direction again, most of them heading to the south and to the east, Leesa recognized what the wizard had done. She let down her own shield, glad to be able to turn her magic off and grab a bit of rest at last.

“I trust you made
good use of the magic I gave you?” Dominic asked her.

Leesa took Rave’s hand and smiled. “The
absolute best use, yes.”

Dominic
turned his head toward the pile of black ashes a few yards away. “Jordan?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Leesa replied simply.

“Rave fried his ass with volkaane fire,” Cali added.

Dominic
fired a blast of white magic into the ashes, destroying any remaining trace of Jordan’s magical essence.

“What about Viktor?”
Leesa asked when he was finished.

“
Viktor will trouble us no more,” Dominic replied. “Something seems to have befallen Andre as well,” he added, remembering the look on Viktor’s face at the mention of Andre’s name. “If he is indeed gone, then you and I are the last of the waziri.”

He twisted his neck and glanced behind him, where Dral, Bain and Halee were still using their spikes upon the retreating zombies. “I’m going to take down my shiel
d,” he warned his comrade, “to make sure as few of these abominations as possible leave the cemetery. The smell of our flesh should entice most of them back this way.”

Oh, great,
Leesa thought, just what she needed—more zombies coming her way. She saw no change in the air around them, but when the creatures turned and headed back in their direction, she knew Dominic had dropped his shield.

“All that we have accomplished so far will be as naught,” the wizard said
solemnly, “unless we destroy the Necromancer.” He pointed to the south. Lines of oncoming zombies blocked the way. “Our path lies there.”

4
4. BLACK VERSUS WHITE

WITH THE FOUR VOLKAANES
leading the way, the party surged forward into the mass of hungry zombies, cutting through the mostly slow moving creatures with relative ease. Wanting to save his strength for the confrontation with the Necromancer, Dominic used his magic sparingly now, flinging bursts of magic only at some of the faster zombies who got too near.

Leesa and Cali stayed close behind
the wizard, with Jenna bringing up the rear and using various spells to keep the pursuing zombies at bay. First, she turned the ground to mud, causing the ungainly creatures to slip, slide and fall over one another. When the mud spell wore off, she froze the ground, which had the same effect on the zombies’ footing as the mud. She would have preferred to destroy as many of the creatures as possible in revenge for Michael’s sacrifice, but she knew she could never kill enough of them to slow their advance the way the mud and ice did.

Finally, the party broke through the last of the zombies.
Jenna wove a spell that filled the air behind her with a pale pink mist that smelled of strongly cherry blossoms. No longer able to smell the humans, the zombies turned and headed for the borders of the graveyard in search of food.

A short distance ahead, a man Leesa
recognized from her dreams pushed himself up out of a sturdy chair and turned to face them.

The Necromancer
looked the same as he had in her dreams, only more gruesome, if that was possible. She had known he was a huge man, but seeing him in person brought home just how big he was. His round, hairless head, easily twice the size of an average man’s, reached a height of almost seven feet above the ground, and she guessed he must weigh five hundred pounds if he weighed an ounce. Despite his immense size, it was his eyes that frightened her the most. No eyeballs peered out from the fleshy sockets. Instead, they were filled only by a flat pink film.

He stood beside a large round table fashioned
of a black material Leesa could not recognize in the darkness. There seemed to be faintly glowing circles scattered on the tabletop, but she was too far away to see what they were. On his other side, she could see a pool of some kind of black substance that looked even darker than the table.

The Necromancer kept his empty pink eyes fastened on Dominic.

“I guess I have always known it would come to this,” he said. “Your former comrades were supposed to destroy you with the powers I gave them, yet here you stand.”

“
Yes, here I stand,” Dominic agreed, “while they are no more. I hope you are ready to join them.”

The Necromancer’s thick lips twisted into what Leesa guessed was a smile.

“Not so fast, wizard,” he replied. His eyes finally left Dominic and moved across the rest of the group. “I am impressed—volkaanes and a witch. And this one,” he pointed a fat finger directly at Leesa, “seems to have powers inside her as well, though I cannot sort them out.”

Leesa was surprised. None of the black waziri could sense her magic, but the Necromancer clearly could.

“A formidable team indeed,” the Necromancer continued, addressing Dominic again. “But it shall avail you not.”

He waved his hand over the black pool. Seven ribbons of black magic similar to the ones that had animated the zombies rose from its depths and streaked toward each
person in Dominic’s company.

The wizard
threw up a shield in front of them. The black magic struck the invisible barrier with a hiss. Unable to penetrate the shield, the dark strands faded away. Before they disappeared, Dominic recognized a familiar vibration mixed in with the magic. He knew now what had become of Andre—the Necromancer had fed his pool with the black waziri’s magical essence.

The Necromancer
immediately invoked a new spell, calling forth a ghostlike apparition from the depths of his magic pool. Formed of what looked like black mist, the thing was only vaguely human in shape, with wispy outlines that seemed to have no solid edges. The undulating, uneven shape reminded Leesa of a tattered bed sheet flapping in the wind—except that nothing more than a light breeze blew across the graveyard tonight. The shadow thing floated straight toward Leesa and her friends.

“
A wraith,” Dominic said. “My shield will not stop it—the specter is too insubstantial. In this form, it cannot harm you, but be ready. It can assume other, more deadly forms.”

A
s Dominic predicted, the wraith floated right through the place where the other black magic had been halted. It approached to about ten feet and then hovered in the air above the party. At first, they could see the moon through its diaphanous shape, but as it began to grow thicker and more solid it blotted out the sky behind it. At the same time, its undulating edges ceased moving and began assuming a definite shape, one that Leesa quickly recognized.

“Alas! A dragon!” Dominic cried. “The one creature in all the world waziri magic is useless against.”

Leesa stared up in awe as the deadly creature flew in tight circles above them. Including its pointed tail, the dragon was nearly twenty feet in length. Its lizard-like jaws boasted long rows of razor sharp teeth, and the claws curving down from its feet looked to be the size of daggers.

She wondered h
ow they could possibly stop such a fearsome beast without magic. Her dismay increased ten-fold when the dragon opened its jaws and spit out a long stream of blazing fire.

The
monster performed a loop high up in the air and then dove straight toward Dominic, fire streaming from its mouth. Its mission seemed clear: destroy the wizard first.

At the last instant, Dral threw himself in front of Dominic
and fired a bolt of blue fire directly into the dragon’s fire. The volkaane fire did not stop the dragonfire, but it split the stream in two, causing it to pass harmlessly on either side of Dral and Dominic.

Rave wasted no time. He knew Dral’s actions were merely defensive and would not stop the beast. And once the creature finished with Dominic, Rave knew Leesa would be
its next target.

With a running leap, he threw himself up onto the dragon’s back
as it swerved away from Dral and Dominic. Leesa looked on in horror as Rave wrapped his powerful legs around the beast’s neck to hold himself in place as he rode the dragon. He struck downward onto the top of the monster’s head with one of his spikes, hoping to pierce its brain, but the scales atop the creature’s head were too thick and hard, even for Rave’s volkaane strength. Changing his strategy, Rave plunged the spike down through the top of the dragon’s snout, where the scales were much thinner. This time, the weapon sank deep into the beast’s head. With his other hand, Rave stabbed upward into the fleshy bottom of the monster’s jaw, impaling it from beneath with his second spike. Using all his strength, Rave used the two spikes to pin the dragon’s mouth closed.

Unable to open its jaws, the dragon’s fire was useless. It still boasted the deadly claws and whip-like tail, however. Worse, t
he beast seemed otherwise unharmed by Rave’s attack. It flipped itself over and flew upside down, trying to dislodge Rave from his seat.

Leesa watched breathlessly,
desperately trying to think of a way to aid her lover when her magic was useless against this foe. She wasn’t sure if her eyes were playing tricks on her, but it seemed as if the dragon’s dark scales had begun taking on a reddish hue as it whipped into a series of tight loops and spins. She wondered what new deviltry was afoot as Rave clung to his perch, his legs wrapped around the monster’s neck and his hands holding tightly to the spikes.

Unable to dislodge its tormentor, t
he dragon apparently decided to forget about the thing clinging to its neck. It flew upward to gain some altitude before pivoting in the air and speeding straight down toward Dominic once more, its deadly talons spread wide in a killing position. The beast’s scales glowed bright red now, making it look like some kind of fiery comet aimed straight for Dominic. Only Rave’s volkaane resistance to fire kept him from being burned by the heat emanating from the dragon’s body.

When the creature was barely twenty feet above the ground, Rave suddenly leaped from its back. An instant later, the monster exploded in a fiery blast. Unable to release its fire through its pinned jaws, the dragonfire
had built up inside the beast’s belly until its body could no longer contain it. Chunks of burning dragon flesh rained down from the sky. The volkaanes raced around, swatting away any falling hunks that threatened their comrades.

 
If the Necromancer was bothered by the failure of his creature to destroy Dominic, he didn’t show it. He calmly summoned two more wraiths from his magic pool.

This time, Dominic was ready.
Nearing the limit of how long he could maintain his air shield, he let it dissipate. With a wave of his arm and a quick incantation, he sent a howling wind across the surface of the pool, blowing the misty substance of the wraiths into a million tiny droplets before they could coalesce.

The Necromancer countered by calling forth
scores of fist-sized black beetles that came skittering across the grass from the edge of the pool.

“Death beetles!” Jenna shouted. “Do not let them bite!
Their poison is instantaneously fatal.” She drew a quick spell in the air, turning the ground in front of the insects into gooey mud.

The beetles’
charge was slowed to a crawl as they tried to force their tiny legs through the sticky muck. Rave and his volkaane comrades knelt at the edge of the morass and fired short bursts of blue fire from their fingers into each beetle, picking them off one by one and incinerating them before they could reach dry ground.

With h
is wraiths and death beetles thwarted by his foes, the Necromancer decided on a more direct attack. Raising his arms, he sent twin beams of black magic corkscrewing toward Dominic. The wizard had never seen magic move in such a manner. He met the attack with streams of white magic, but the spiraling black beams bored into the white like powerful drills, pushing steadily closer to Dominic.

“Leesa, add your magic to mine,” the wizard commanded. “
Quickly! I cannot hold these back on my own.”

Leesa hurried to Dominic’s side and shot a pair of yellow beams into the white ones, reinforcing them
with her power. For the moment, the contest was a near stalemate, though the spiraling black beams still edged slowly nearer to Dominic and Leesa.

“Jenna, the pool!” Dominic called. “He’s drawing strength from it. You must try to destroy it.”

Jenna sensed that the magic of the black pool was far too powerful for her to destroy. She thought for a moment—maybe she could cap it somehow. Perhaps that would be enough to keep the Necromancer from drawing on the pool’s magic. She glanced around, but saw nothing large enough to do the job. It seemed she was going to have to create something.

She wove another spell, freezing a large
area of ground wider than the diameter of the pool. She made sure her spell reached more than a foot down into the soil.

“Halee, Bain, I need your help,” she
shouted.

The
two volkaanes raced to her side while Rave and Dral continued burning the remaining death beetles.

“
Dig out the edges of this ground I just froze,” Jenna instructed. “Go deep enough to reach the bottom of the frozen part.”

Without wasting time to reply, Halee and Bain dropped to their knees and began digging with their spikes. So quickly did the metal rods
pump up and down, the effect was almost like digging with jackhammers. In thirty seconds, they had dug a narrow trench around the frozen square of earth.

“I can help you lift
it with a spell,” Jenna told them, “but I’m going to need you to drop it on top of the pool.”

The two volkaanes
positioned themselves on opposite sides of the square while Jenna wove her lifting spell. The frozen hunk of ground tore itself loose from the earth and rose a few feet into the air. Halee and Bain grabbed the edges and heaved it atop the pool. Their aim was perfect. The frozen square landed without a splash, completely covering the black pool.

“Quickly, now,” Jenna said. “Pile some gravestones on top.”

Halee and Bain ripped a dozen headstones from the earth and tossed them into place.

“Can you melt them?” she asked. “And then let the stone harden
, like concrete?”

The two volkaanes set to work with their blue fire, doing exactly as J
enna instructed. When they finished, the effect was as if the pool had been capped in stone. The whole enterprise—from Jenna freezing the ground to melting the headstones—had taken less than three minutes.

Those
minutes had let the Necromancer’s spiraling black bands push dangerously close to Dominic and Leesa, however. But without the threat of allies created from his pool, he now faced the whole of his enemy force alone. How dangerous that could be was driven home when Rave threw one of his spikes like a knife toward the Necromancer’s head.

The
dark mage managed to raise a shield in time to block the missile, but the effort cost him precious inches in his struggle with Dominic. Two more spikes, these thrown by Dral and Bain, hurtled toward him. Once again, he blocked them with a shield, but he lost a few more inches. Worse than the spikes, he saw the witch beginning to weave a spell of some kind.