Chapter Thirty-Four #2
“You were going to tell us about when you learned how to read a dead guy’s mind?” Sophie reminded Jen.
And that’s how I knew it was bad-bad, when that was the redirect.
But it worked. “Anyway, while I was at the facility, some of the Corps showed up with a dead guy, to see if anybody could read his final thoughts. He was a war mage who’d stumbled into the local HQ and died almost right after, before he could tell them what had happened.
They were hoping for a description of the killer, a clue, anything, but their bokors had come up blank, so they brought him to us. ”
“That ability isn’t in your file,” I said.
“Yeah, because the Corps doesn’t know I can do it,” Jen said.
“The facility just lumped me in with their students; I guess the mages had asked for all the necros they had, and they sent me along with the rest. The Corpsmen didn’t look too happy about that, and put me last, as if they didn’t expect anything from me. ”
Or because they weren’t the unfeeling automatons people often believed, I thought, visualizing the scene.
The dead body on a slab, the clinical room, Corpsmen in long leather coats wafting about their legs slightly in their masters’ agitation, because, along with a bunch of necromancers they didn’t trust, was this tiny girl with big eyes and a blond bob who shouldn’t have been there. I was surprised they’d let her stay.
“But the brain was aging fast,” she added. “So they didn’t take the time to argue. A mind is only readable for maybe an hour after death, and this one was near that when we got it, and then they put six people before me.”
“But you got your turn,” Kimmie said.
“Not… exactly. Right before I was supposed to have a go, the healer called time, and everybody started filing out. But I grabbed the dead guy’s hand anyway.
It wasn’t as easy as touching the head, as my power had farther to go, but I could feel it surging up his arm, through his neck, and finally, finding a tiny spark, far inside his brain.
“And it was fascinating, because that spark exploded, like I was suddenly inside a theater with screens all around, flickering with images. Some were too decayed to make anything out, just flashes in between static, but others were clearer, and when I exerted power on them…”
“What?” Sophie asked, leaning in.
“They brightened and came to life, like a full color movie with surround sound. It was crystal clear, only that particular scene was pretty boring: just him playing catch with his dog. They’d said to target the last memory, and I didn’t think that was it—”
“And what was everyone else doing while you were watching ‘movies’?” I asked.
“I don’t know; all I could see was what was inside his head. But I felt somebody grab me, and I resisted, because I wasn’t done yet. I’d found another ‘screen’ that I thought might be the right one, and was trying to pull it closer, but they were stronger than me and…”
She trailed off.
“What did you do?” Sophie said, grinning.
“How do you know I did anything?” Jen demanded.
“I know you.”
Jen sighed. “It wasn’t my fault. If they’d left me alone, I would have had their answer in a minute.
I’d figured out which screen it was on, but they were pulling on me, and it wasn’t fair!
All the others had been given a couple of minutes each and allowed to touch the head.
But I couldn’t reach that high, and I’d been given no time at all, and—it wasn’t fair!
And, I mean, I don’t think I actually told him to do anything—”
“Him being the dead body?” I clarified.
“Uh huh.”
“Oh, shit,” Sophie said.
“But maybe I did, or maybe he just interpreted my thoughts of ‘get off me’ at the mages as ‘get them off me,’ and, well, he was a war mage, too…”
“Damn,” I put in.
“What?” Sophie looked between us. “He was dead. What could he do?”
“There’s sometimes enough magic left in a body for one final spell, even after death,” Jen said, confirming my fears.
“And I guess he’d had a spell all teed up, maybe for whatever fight he’d been in, because suddenly everything was on fire.
And I was being dragged away, and the mages were cursing and shooting spells at the zombie, but those don’t work so well on dead bodies—”
“Oh, my God!” Sophie laughed.
“It wasn’t funny! They transferred me to Rockwood immediately after that—”
“The high-level facility where we met,” Sophie explained to me.
“—and didn’t even let me go home first, but that’s how I learned I could do it. I don’t think anybody realized. Probably just thought I’d animated the corpse, but at nine, being able to make a functional zombie was still considered over the line.”
“You think?” Sophie said.
“But it worked again the other night.”
“What did?” I asked, having lost the thread of the conversation.
“I saw into the dead man’s mind, only… I don’t know what I saw.
” Jen pulled on a stubborn tangle hard enough to make my eyes water.
“At first, it was alright. I could see the potion seller, or rather, his hands, working on labels for a rack of bottles. He was calm, with wards set up to alert him if anyone approached.”
“Tartarus can be a dangerous place,” I agreed.
“Yeah, but nothing triggered. He got no warning at all. One minute, everything was fine, and he was labeling the latest shipment from one of the dealers he worked with. And the next, the room went dark, and it felt… cold. Not chilly but penetrating, Arctic-like cold, and he spun around and…”
“And what?” Kimmie said.
“And nothing. One second, he was alive, and the next, he was gone, as if someone had just sucked the life right out of him. It was creepy.”
“Says the necromancer,” Sophie said, prompting Jen to throw one of the chair’s pillows at her.
I frowned, running through the list of possible causes, but none fit.
Some spells could kill that fast, but how to hit him without tripping any alarms?
For his wards to be any good, they must have been pretty far down the main passage outside, to give him time to escape if something triggered.
So the spell bolts would have had to come down the hall, make a 90-degree turn into the small crack leading to the shop, traverse it without hitting any protrusions in the wall, and then explode on target.
And magical bolts didn’t curve around corners, any more than bullets did.
A potion, then? Had something in his shipment been adulterated? Because if you wanted to kill a potion maker, that would seem the easy way to do it.
Except I could still see that body on the floor, and he hadn’t been poisoned, he’d had his heart torn out!
So someone had gotten to him. Or something, but even a Were moving at speed couldn’t have managed it that fast, not down that narrow fissure. Had someone come in the back way, then, through his escape hatch, and surprised him?
No, that way had still been covered by the ward he’d set himself. I remembered my counterpart blowing it out to allow the kids to escape. Otherwise, she could have gotten through it, but they would have been prevented.
Just like anyone trying to come through from the other side.
“We told Caleb about it when he was here the other day, and he said—” Sophie began, and then abruptly shut up.
“Caleb was here?” I asked.
“Uh, yeah. He came by a few times. Cyrus was… not happy to see him.”
No, probably not. Cyrus was more than done with Hargroves and the rest. He and Caleb usually got on well enough, but this wasn’t a great time to push it.
“Caleb is helping to train you,” I said to the girls. “With me sidelined, of course, he’d want to be here. You haven’t been learning anything—”
Sophie burst out laughing before biting it off. “Sorry. I just… we’re learning all sorts of things.”
“It’s not boring,” Kimmie agreed.
“Anyway, he dropped off some coats and jackets,” Sophie added. “He said you wanted them?”
It took me a minute. “Yeah, that was supposed to be our next lesson, before…” I waved a hand at the general crap fest of the past week.
“They look like they came from a thrift store,” Jen said. She was a fashionista, or would like to be, and it didn’t sound like she’d been impressed with Caleb’s selection.
“It doesn’t matter. They’re just learner coats,” I told them.
“For what?”
“Well, if you’re going to be hanging out in places like Tartarus, you’re going to need protection. And not the stuff some people will be happy to sell you at inflated prices on the street. You need to be able to trust your defense, and that means enchanting it yourselves.”
“Are… are you talking about war mage coats?” Sophie whispered, her eyes huge.
“You have something better to do today?”
“Hell, no!”