“Godsdammit!”
I grabbed a knife from my boot and hacked at the wrist. The fingers tightened, cutting off blood supply to my foot. Because the hand was already rotted to the bone, it didn’t take long to cut through the desiccated ligaments connecting the wrist to the arm. The hand broke away still attached to my leg. I uncurled the bent phalanges and chucked the dead hand across the graveyard.
I scrambled back until my shoulders hit the gravemarker. Using the stone for leverage, I jumped up. Keeping my eyes on the grave, I waited for its resident to emerge from the soil.
That’s when I heard them. Low moans crawled through the mist. The dark energies permeating the air were filled with a mosaic of emotions. Malevolence, confusion, unbearable sadness. The scent of rot filled my nostrils. A cold chill scraped down my spine.
Revenants. Lots of them.
I’d summoned and controlled the reanimated dead before, but I’d never fought any that someone else had summoned. However, I knew from experience that taking their heads off would kill them. Or rather, rekill them.
I ducked low and took stock. Down there the mist was lighter and I could see several pairs of feet shambling my way. What I didn’t see was a weapon. Besides the small knife in my hand, I had a gun in my waistband, but it would only slow them down. I needed a sword or a scythe or some other large, sharp instrument.
The fog started to dissipate, revealing a slow but determined undead army. Each Revenant’s appearance was more horrific than the last. Rotted faces exposed grayed teeth in sinister smiles. Muscles hung from yellowed bone like beef jerky. Shriveled and blackened eyeballs rattled in sockets. But the worst were the skeletons. One lacked leg bones and dragged itself across the ground by its sharp, bony claws. Another wielded its own arm like a club.
And then there was the moaning—the terrible, soul-jarring moans.
The cloud had retreated until it was a black wall surrounding the graveyard. It blocked my view of Adam and the others—probably to protect them as much as to reinforce Tristan’s order not to interfere—but I could finally see Tristan standing by the entrance. He leaned with his arms crossed against the statue of the Virgin Mary.
“Tristan?” I shouted.
“Yes?” His tone too casual.
“I hate you so much right now.”
He chuckled. “Good to know. Focus, please.”
The circle tightened around me. I did a quick count. Dread was a frozen stone in my gut. One to three I could probably manage, but there was no way I could hack my way through twelve Revenants with nothing but a small blade and a gun.
“How in the hell—” I started to shout. But then a new thought occurred to me. Tristan had said that the purpose of this test was to see how I handled my Chthonic powers. That meant he expected me to use magic to win, not brute force.
So despite the tarry ball of fear in my gut, I blew out a long, calming breath.
Okay, Red, I said to myself. Think dammit!
I was in a graveyard, which meant my Chthonic powers would get a nice boost from the death energy. Graveyards were also liminal spaces, so that would help, too, since the goddess Hekate, patron goddess of magic and Chthonic energy, loved a good transitional space. And what was more transitional than the soil where mortal bodies returned to the earth?
I pulled out my gun just in case one of the Revenants lunged at me and closed my eyes. I could feel them closing in, but I focused on calling my powers. The ground beneath me trembled, but instead of signaling another animated corpse, it announced the arrival of the primal Chthonic energies that gave me my power.
Magic snaked up my legs in black tendrils. Wrapped around my torso, my arms. Rushed through my veins and filled my senses with the taste of blood and the overpowering scent of soil and iron.
My lids flew open. My vision was tinged red as if someone had dipped my pupils in blood. Power throbbed through me like a second pulse.
The Revenants stopped ten feet back. Whether they were confused or merely curious I didn’t know. But I didn’t intend to give them time to get over it and attack.
A woman in a tattered lace gown that had probably been white at one time but was now brown and yellow took a hesitant step forward. The zap of magic flew from my eyes like two black lasers.
She exploded in a fiery pyre. Her horrible screams cut through the night like shards of glass. The other Revenants shied away and hissed, like animals witnessing fire for the first time.
The scent of burning flesh filled my nostrils. I smiled. One down, eleven to go. From the corner of my eye, I saw Tristan stand straighter. But instead of looking impressed by my display, a furious frown turned down the corners of his mouth.
I froze. Shouldn’t he be in awe of my amazing Chthonic powers?
“Sabina?” Rhea called. Her voice was muted because of the veil of fog, but I heard her.
“No!” Tristan yelled. “You cannot help her. She has to do this on her own.”
I frowned at him. What was I missing? Surely he didn’t expect me to just stand there and let the undead feast on my brain.
Another Revenant began a shambling attack. This dude wore a dusty black gown with a white collar.
“Oh, come on!” I yelled. “A fucking priest? Really?”
I might not be a mortal and I might not worship the same god as the sons of Adam, but even I knew killing a man of the cloth was bad juju. I paused, looking around the circle as something Nyx said the other night flashed into my head. She’d said these grounds had once been owned by the church and served as a hospital for the aged and infirm. So basically, I was fighting a zombie horde of priests, nuns, and fucking invalids.
I gritted my teeth and shot a death glare at my father. Luckily for him, I had enough control over my powers now that my anger didn’t manifest as an actual death ray; otherwise he’d be toast. “You want me to kill a bunch of devout do-gooders?”
Tristan cocked a brow. “Who asked you to kill them?”
There it was. Everything clicked. Somehow I had to figure out how to take control of them and send them back to eternal slumbers without rekilling them… or becoming an all-you-can-eat brain buffet.
I took the gun and fired several rounds into the ground at the feet of the zombie priest and a few others who looked like they were about to make a move. The noise and the muzzle’s flash had them cowering back into formation.
Good, I needed time to think.
I knew a couple of things about Revenants. You had to cut off their heads to stop them. They were afraid of fire. And, if you were the one lucky enough to summon them, you could command them at your will.
That last part meant that Tristan was currently controlling everything these guys did. I frowned and sucked on my teeth as I considered my options. I sent out an experimental stream of Chthonic magic—not a zap, but a gentler tendril of energy. Maybe if I could interrupt Tristan’s power over the Revenants, I could wrest control from him.
The feelers spread out through the graveyard. It wove over headstones and around statues. Sunk low into the earth, combing the soil for the roots of his control. I closed my eyes to focus on the feedback. Earthworms wriggled against the energy as it crawled past them. I smelled rich, fallow soil fertilized with the remains of so many bodies. My power crawled under the feet of the Revenants, seeking the magical source. And there, finally, throbbing under Tristan’s feet was a ball of bright light buried deep in the earth.
The instant my powers touched the sphere of energy, a painful zap zinged back through the ground and hit me like a bolt of lightning. Stars danced in my vision. My teeth rattled in my head. I groaned and shook myself. Time to try again.
On the periphery of my consciousness, I felt Tristan staring at me. Could feel his hold on his powers and his surprise that I’d figured out the trick.
This time, I was braced for the counterattack. I absorbed the pain and used it to fuel my spell. The tendrils of my dark energy curled around Tristan’s spell and hung on tight. Now I could feel Tristan’s emotions as he struggled to maintain hold on his own powers.
The Revenants started moaning again, this time in confusion. I dug down deep, calling on all my reserves to destroy Tristan’s hold on the Revenants. My left shoulder throbbed. I ignored it. I already knew I was in trouble without the physical warning.
The spell wouldn’t budge. I put everything I had into it, but Tristan’s power was too strong.
Blood.
The single word echoed through my head like a whisper. I paused. Was that the key? I knew from past experience that blood amplified a spell. But could it also help overcome another Chthonic’s magic?
I shrugged. What the hell? It certainly couldn’t hurt at this point.
Without further hesitation, I bit into my wrist and held my trembling hand over the earth. The instant my blood hit the soil, the ground shifted and roiled. It forged a deep furrow under the dirt as it sought the target. The effect was like throwing water on a grease fire. My power flared up, engulfing Tristan’s spell in flames. The earth under my father buckled and he fell to the ground in a lump.
The instant the spell was broken, my eyes flew open. I watched Tristan fall. The instant he hit the dirt, the fog surrounding the graveyard disappeared. Adam, Rhea, and Nyx all stood on the other side of the wall, looking pale and worried. “Tristan!” Nyx called, moving toward the gate.
“No,” he called. “I’m… I’m okay.”
“Sabina?” Adam shouted.
“I’m fine! Stay back.” He looked unconvinced, but I didn’t have time to explain. I also didn’t have time for a victory dance. Because the zombies were suddenly on the move. Toward me. With their arms outstretched and their jaws gaping and hungry.
Despite the magical fireworks they’d just witnessed, they stared at me with dead eyes. I swallowed hard against the pressure rising in my throat. When I raised them, my hands trembled from the excess of power. “Go back to your graves. Your work here is done.”
A couple of the Revenants blinked, but none of them stopped. Frowning, I tried again, raising my voice. “I said, go back to your graves. Now!”
Again, nothing. They moved closer. The fetid stench of their coffin cologne made me gag.
