Chapter 12
Bring Out Your Dead
Stumbling out from behind a bookcase came a rotting corpse.
Mal’s death sense jumpstarted and made his head so heavy he nearly dropped it on the table.
The group jumped up from their chairs and backed toward the door.
Des grabbed Mal and dragged him backward, causing him to tip in his chair.
She pulled him to his feet and he steadily found sure footing as he stumbled backward.
Several more appeared from different corners of the room.
Mal had been wishing the dead would leave him alone for a decade, but now he felt the full weight of that want.
The group backed up until up became a heavy wooden door.
Hala pushed. It refused. No escape this time.
Mal looked upon the faces of the dead as they inched toward them. He readied himself.
The door opened behind them, Walters appeared through it, as if a gallant knight. A chorus of chaos wafted in behind him.
“They’re convinced it’s not you,” Walters said. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“NoW yOu’Re CoNvInCeD. HOW?” Mal said.
“Because your eyes aren’t black and you’re not shitting ghosts, now MOVE.”
Mal didn’t have time to respond; he was swept up in the panic.
Walters took the lead with the group huddled close behind: Des then Mal, Mal then Hala, Hala then Yu.
A glowing aura encompassed them; Walters used it like a battering ram against the horde.
They would slash and smack, then bounce violently off the aura.
Eventually, they found their way out of the cramped corridor, emerging into a vast circular room with stone pillars, vaulted arches, and a battalion of the dead.
Wizards battled in pockets among the fray.
Glowing auras, like the one they were in, shone out through the masses of rage and rot.
Within each Mal could see wizards huddling, fighting for survival.
Great sorceries were flung from altered eyes and extended hands; fireballs cooked corpses; lightning bolts skewered and severed.
But the dead don’t care for damage. Mal spotted the statue of Hecate at the center of the room, a stone beacon, watching with indifference.
He had to do something, but what? He’d held about twelve zombies at once in the moth library and he’d nearly passed out.
What use was that against a hundred? It didn’t matter; he had to do something.
He dug deep, delving into his memories, and found that which did not belong.
If this was a movie or one of his fantasy books, now is when Mal would conjure some great and unexpected magic and save the day.
Regardless of his lack of training, or initial reluctance, he would just win with the force of his plucky attitude and untapped potential.
Why wasn’t that happening now? Maybe he needed to be pluckier.
Mal couldn’t wait any longer. Fuck it, he thought. His eyes turned black; shadows lapped and echoed his edges.
The zombies stopped dead. A sickening silence filled the air, softened only by the heavy breaths of battle-tired witches and wizards. Slowly, the bodies turned. Creaking, and churning. To stare at Mal.
“Mal, what are you doing?” Des said, terror gripping her being.
“I’m not doing anything,” Mal said. The group would have screamed if there’d been air in their lungs, or ran if there’d been strength in their legs, but neither could be found. Then, a hideous rush of bodies—a hundred or more—sprinted with fierce determination.
Straight out the front door.
The dead streamed past them, no longer concerned with the living.
Mal watched as the horde fought to squeeze through the tiny entranceway at the far side of the room.
The same one that he had come down not too long ago.
They were not a patient horde, and it took several minutes for them all to fit through.
The living watched with confusion and relief.
The only things left standing in the room were the pockets of battered witches and wizards and a stone statue.
Tentatively, they all let down their auras.
Mal regarded any bodies that remained as one might regard a crocodile just below the surface of the water.
The smell, which up until that point had been the least of their worries, was suddenly unbearable.
It was the end of a horror show, and somehow they were left with the cleanup.
Limbs and blood scattered the floor where once comfy furniture had been.
Soon, people from every recess of the headquarters began filing into the atrium, all shaken and paranoid.
Mal spotted Amrit, the leader of the Order, among the survivors and watched as they beelined straight for them.
“No matter what happens, you four don’t leave my side, understood?” Walters muttered. They all nodded in agreement.
“Was this him?” Amrit yelled, their walk filled with the rage of loss.
As Amrit got within arm’s reach, their eyes went a chromatic silver and they snatched at Mal.
Walters caught Amrit’s arm, and Mal watched as Walters’s eyes rolled back in his head.
Mal remembered just how unpleasant Amrit’s mind-fucking had been; it had felt like an eternity.
Within seconds Walters’s eyes returned to normal and he released Amrit’s arm.
“See,” Walters said, calm and in control.
“Then who did this?!” Amrit said, their body jittering. At that moment someone entered—a short man with blond hair. Mal vaguely recognized him from the files.
“You need to see this,” he said, in as grave a tone as a man can. Amrit set off with Walters in tow; the group followed. Mal’s death sense started to throb slowly. This wasn’t going to be good.
They arrived at the metal slab Walters had taken them to earlier.
It was wide open; both layers were. You could see straight through into the hideous statues inside.
As they got close, Amrit referred to it as the Bone Vault, a fitting name.
As they entered, Mal tried very hard not to be sick again.
They walked back up to Mazino’s statue where it still stood, silently screaming.
Everything seemed exactly the same, except the jar was missing.
He’s escaped? Mal thought. He looked around to see all the other jars still there, with their grotesque tokens still inside.
“It gets worse …” the same short, blond man said. They followed him out of the vault, shutting the doors behind them. They came to an empty crypt. To Mal this seemed underwhelming, but Walters seemed all the more disturbed by it.
“Where are all the bodies?” Amrit said, glaring at the blond man.
“I think we just watched them leave,” Walters said, his face collapsing with grief.
It was only then Mal realized that Kosh would have been among them; a puppet and a weapon.
Mal remembered trying to bring Kosh back, but finding nothing.
Walters had told him he’d have to be leagues stronger to do it.
How strong had the necromancer been who’d done this?
Could it have even been Mazino? They’d seen his token there earlier.
How had he escaped? Who had helped him? More unknowns. More questions for the corpses.
They left the empty crypt and made their way back to the atrium.
Most of the Order was gathered now; everyone who’d survived, at least. It seemed most had, though Mal couldn’t be sure.
They followed Walters to the back of the room, keeping close to the walls.
The others seemed shaken. Hala, Des, and Yu were clumped together as if still inside Walters’s protective aura.
Amrit barked orders from the center of the room, dwarfed by the statue.
Mal listened as they called for tactical units to be mobilized as soon as possible and that everyone not involved in that should remain here on lockdown in the headquarters.
Mal thought of the chaos that must have erupted out onto the surface, hundreds of dead spilling into the street.
That was going to be hard to cover up. Once Amrit had finished their speech, the crowds broke off, roused and determined.
Then they made straight for them and Mal tensed in anticipation.
“You need to get them out of here,” Amrit said, face-to-face with Walters. “I don’t want to know where, just take them somewhere no one here knows about. We’ve got to prepare.”
“Is there anything else I can do?” Walters said.
“We’ve got this covered. We’ve got our sources keeping things quiet, we just need to keep the situation contained.” Amrit eyed Mal with suspicion. “Once they’re safe we’ll need you back here. Everyone’s coming.”
“From the other Orders?” Walters said, a look of concern gripping his face. Now Mal was worried.
“Everyone they can spare,” Amrit said. “It will take a few days, but we’ll need you here.”
“You can count on it.” They shook hands and Amrit moved off into the crowd.
Walters turned to the group and ushered them away down a corridor.
They passed the turn to the library and swerved left and right, delving deeper into passages that were gathering dust. Walters brought them to a tiny broom cupboard and held the door open for them to enter.
Confused, they did as instructed. Walters entered and closed the door behind him.
To say the room was snug would be to exaggerate the comfort of having shoulders pushed into your face; to say it was crowded would be much more accurate.
Walters placed his hand on the inside of the door.
Locks clicked in turn: one, two, three …
four. The room shook, then silence. Walters replaced his hand on the door and again the locks clicked. One, two, three … four.
Walters pushed open the door and the group stepped out into the corner of a dimly lit pub.
The ceilings had wooden beams running through them, making the already low ceilings, headbuttingly low in places.
Beige brick lined the walls, and mismatched furniture held mismatched patrons in dark corners.
None gave any mind to a strange group appearing from within a broom cupboard.
The wooden floor boards creaked beneath Mal’s feet as he followed Walters toward the bar.
Mal kept his eyes down, as to not draw any attention or ire.
When they got to the bar Mal found the pub’s name upon a coaster: the Wrong Tree Tavern.
“I’m not here to bark,” Walters said to the bartender, a man who appeared to shower in dirt. “I just need to get through.”
The man said nothing; he simply nudged his head to indicate they could go through the doorway to his right.
Which they then did. They found themselves in a cramped gray courtyard, not much bigger than the cupboard they had arrived in.
They waited, and after a few seconds, the wall in front of them gave way.
Twisting and moving, bricks shifted one after the other to reveal a long, bustling, cobbled high street.
The vaguely literary among you may be aware of a cultural touchstone containing magic that thus far has not been referenced.
There is a wonderfully simple reason for this.
Real wizards don’t like that franchise. Many witches and wizards feel it grossly misrepresents the real wizard community, and makes them out to be weirdos, with names like Shanko Cobblepatch, Forsouthly Ringlebort and Octavium Grabble.
The real Octavium Grabble, from the long and honorable line of Grabbles, was most upset to be included in this list, and has personally sent me several letters of complaint (not by fucking owl).
However, as is inevitable, there will be some similarities between that fictional world and this very real one.
Unfortunately, this is one of those similarities: a hidden street, at the back of a pub, behind a brick wall.
Unlike in that franchise, where the street was a magical wonderland for children to explore, this street is quite the opposite.
It is known as an Understreet, for illegal markets and the like.
If you do ever have the opportunity to go, please leave your children at home.