The plague was spreading. Fast.
This was why Bahmet had encouraged violence. Because the demon lord had something up his sleeve for us… a twist in this already fucked-up game that made it a hundred times worse.
“Go, go, go,” I screamed, shouldering into Kai and dragging him away. “Don’t look back. Keep running.”
Our feet hit the ground.Thump, thump, thump.A steady, demanding rhythm that synced with Kai’s rasping breaths. It wouldn’t surprise me if the man was asthmatic, because he sounded like a fish out of water.
Kai’s kitten was bounding after him like it was some game, mewing to himself as he slunk between gravestones. To our left the head of another undead corpse had thrust itself out of the grave, arms reaching for us, and the kitten bounded on its head like it was a springboard.
“This… is why… Bahmet wanted… violence,” I managed, lungs burning with each inhale of cold air.
Kai couldn’t reply with words, but the dismayed grunt that followed seemed to me like he agreed.
“Just don’t stop,” I said, half speaking to Kai, and the other half to myself. “Keep going.”
Listen, I really hated running. And when I say hated, I feel like the word isn’t strong enough. I, Hector Briar, ran for no one. My body wasn’t built for cardio, nor did I have any desire to work on the skill. But with a hoard of zombies clambering in a wall of rotten flesh behind us, I had no bloody choice.
We could’ve been running for a few minutes at max, but it felt like I’d embarked on a marathon. My legs turned to jelly, and I was sure my lungs had just completely stopped working. But whatever I felt, Kai was worse.
His face had turned a beetroot red. At one point he almost ran into a gravestone because he couldn’t focus. He’d not long been dead, and clearly his body was still struggling with being dragged back to the land of the living.
One thing was for certain. This really wasn’t going to end well.
I didn’t need to look behind me to know that the undead army was gaining, because I could hear them. Teeth practically snapping at our heels, bones grinding as their need for flesh drove their warped minds.
What were my options? I couldn’t use the old magic to hold them off, not without failing the trial. I could fight one, maybetwo, but not the sheer number of them. And Kai was in no state to fight either.
“A little help, Emon?”I shot out my plea across my mental tether to the demonic serpent.
“I’m afraid not, witchling. This is all on you.”
Hot, white anger spiked through me. Caym wouldn’t have needed to be asked. My previous familiar would’ve protected me on instinct.“You’re really fucking useless, do you know that?”
“Aye, but I would not go blaming me. You are the one who gave away the power to control me, you are the one who forfeited the only key to surviving.”
I wanted to wrap my hands around the serpent’s throat and squeeze the life out of him.“Then why are you here?”
“The other witchling conjured me. Ask him.”
Emon was right. Kai had unknowingly used the shard of Bahmet to bring my familiar here.
“Of course I am right. I amalwaysright.”
“Shut up.”
Old magic might have been banned, but Bahmet couldn’t put rules on his own powers, otherwise the entire fucking Witch Trials would crumble.
The only option of surviving the next few minutes was in the hands of Kai.
Make that the next few seconds, because Kai tripped, hit the ground with enough force to break a rib or six, and skidded to a stop in a puddle of mud.
I hurtled around, and threw myself beside him. Kai was face down, his face pressed into the earth. I rolled him over to find his face completely covered in dirt, his wide eyes bulging out of his skull. He was breathing, thank the Goddess. And yet, he was in no state to move. His body was in shock, fighting to get air into lungs that were refusing him.
A shadow passed over us as the wall of undead gained closer. They were barely one hundred yards ahead now. That number was going smaller by the millisecond.
I had no other choice but to demand.
“You need to focus on surviving, otherwise we are both dead,” I said, clawing the mud that caked his nose and mouth. “Search for an odd a feeling in your chest. Something that doesn’t belong. When you find the darkness, cling to it. You’ve done it once before, you need to do it again. Kai, can you hear me? You need to do it now!”
