God!
But I somehow got a grip, because I didn’t have a choice.And because she was right, we couldn’t find Jace from halfway across the room.This was better for that, at least, although not for doing anything to help these people.
“Do you havenocontrol over these bodies?”I asked, as we loaded up some more terrified prisoners.
“Why?”
“The first truck is big enough that, if we stall it out, it’ll block the entrance.”I stopped talking for a moment as a mage walked nearby.“People can slip around it,” I said more quietly.“But the other trucks can’t.”
“Until the mages blast it into oblivion,” she pointed out.“Or have their zombie horde push it out of the way.”
“Blasting won’t work.A pile of half-molten metal and a bunch of tire-piercing shards would be no better than the original blockage.And what zombie horde?”
“This one?”But her tone said she already knew what was coming.
“You’re telling me this necro is better than you?That he can beatyou?”
“I know what you’re doing,” she told me.“Don’t think I don’t.”
“Why?What am I doing?”I helped a sobbing, freaked-out, middle-aged woman into the back of the truck and tried to arch an eyebrow at Jen while I did it, but had no idea if I actually succeeded.Dead nerve endings didn’t give much information.
“You’re trying to play on my ego—”
“Is it working?”
A hideous, black, swollen tongue slipped out from between her dead lips and licked them dryly.“Kinda.”
Yeah, I bet.With her twenties-era bob and mild expression, Jen looked like a little blonde mouse next to Sophie’s fiery locks and mercurial temper.But looks were deceptive.And she had an ego as big as all outdoors—a deserved one, in her case.
“But only because you’re the best,” I said, and received a Look.
“Iamthe best.But there’s not just one necro here.Probably four or more.There are far too many zombies for one to hold.”
“You took on five last month at Wolf’s Head,” I reminded her, which was where my students had gotten a baptism by fire in the epic battle that had started off the Clan Council’s yearly meeting.
And that applied to Jen most of all, as she’d raised a zombie army to fight a bunch of dark mages, including five necromancers, who had been threatening a Were stronghold.And once the necros died, she’d raised their shades as her servants, which she’d led around on spiritual ropes like a pack of wild dogs until they ran out of power.Including siccing them on Danny, after he dosed up the council, and watching stone-faced as they ripped him apart.
Jen was the only one of my new students who genuinely scared me.
But she didn’t look enthusiastic about a repeat performance.
“Don’t even talk to me about Wolf’s Head!”she hissed.“And anyway, that was different!”
“How?”
“I had help there.Chris lent me power,” she reminded me, talking about the one student I had lost, although thankfully not to the attack.Chris, of the blond surfer good looks and the Malibu tan, had peaced out after Wolf’s Head, deciding that he’d rather take his chances at school than on the front lines.
Maybe he was the smart one.
But while he’d been with us, he’d served as an extra battery pack for Jen, as one of his abilities was to gift power to others.Without him, I wasn’t sure how strong she was, and didn’t even know if she knew.There hadn’t been a lot of scope for her power back at the Corps’ version of juvie.
But then she grabbed my rotting arm.“Look!”
I swiveled my remaining eye over to where a nearby zombie was pawing at one of the wards, even though it was getting the absolute crap shocked out of it every time it did so.The nearest guards were toward the back of the ward, where the “door” was, and the press of bodies inside the pen didn’t allow them to see what was happening on the other side.Paw, zap, paw, zap, paw, zzzzzapppp—to the point that the creature’s hair had started to smoke and the surrounding air was flooded with the stench of burning, rotting flesh.
It was something I could have done without in my mental rolodex.
But it seemed to excite Jen.“There’s another necro here,” she whispered.“At least one, working against the dark!”
