Don’t let him see you, Angelina!

  Again, there’s no answer from my sister. I can’t fathom why she’s silent. She has to be listening, so I try again.

  Angelina, can you sneak up behind him? You do have a weapon, right?

  If she’s been traveling in the Deadlands, she must be armed. The dead aren’t the only dangers out there.

  As I wait for her answer, I feel the wood slats beneath my feet shift as soft footfalls approach. I fret that it’s Angelina, but instead my dead mother steps into the moonlight and sways at my side.

  With a satisfied smirk, Elder Alvus says, “I knew you were guilty. I told the other Elders you were fooling them with your angelic face and false humility. The women in your family are devil-women, creatures of the underworld, tainted flesh upon this earth.”

  “No, we’re not! We passed your test!”

  “And yet here you are with your dead mother at your side.”

  “I’m not controlling her. She came to find me and I don’t know why.”

  “Don’t attempt to deceive me, girl! She’s not attacking us, which means a necromancer is controlling her. And you are the only necromancer standing here!”

  I’m trapped. I can’t reveal my sister. I can’t explain away my mother’s presence without revealing Angelina.

  “Be warned, if you attempt to send her after me, I will make certain she no longer retains her Blessing but is truly dead. Obey me, keep her placid, and she will be returned unharmed to the Perdition Sanctuary after we’re done.” Elder Alvus steps forward, lifts the weapon in his hand in the direction of my mother, and there’s a loud snick. I gasp but my mother remains still at my side. She merely stares at him, unaffected by the action. The bolt gun in his hand wasn’t close enough to send the brain-destroying rod into her skull. “Do we have an understanding?”

  I want my mother to be at peace. Destruction at his hands is something I cannot allow. He already killed her once. I give him the briefest nod.

  “What are you doing with your mother’s corpse, Ilyse? What foul, unholy things? What would the Three Gods say of you?”

  I clench my teeth and avoid his scathing gaze. I’m so terrified I’m not even sure what I should say or do. It’s difficult to concentrate. He wants me to get angry, fight back, and maybe even send my mother after him to confirm all his accusations against me. Worse yet, I don’t sense my sister close by, and Quade is still inside the house. Again, I send a mental shove in his direction trying to fully wake him.

  With scorn, Elder Alvus continues, “You always acted piously, but I knew it was all a lie. Your mother pretended to be a humble woman, but she was a seed of evil in this settlement. Now that seed has spouted twice over. I have not forgotten what Prudence said about her brother watching you and your younger sister return one of the Beloved Dead to the Perdition Sanctuary. Is that why you killed Bale? Because he witnessed your sin?”

  Where is Angelina? I don’t even feel her presence or hear her voice in my head.

  “I didn’t kill anyone!”

  Gesturing toward my mother, he says, “You’re plainly guilty. Did your sister help you kill Bale?”

  My fear vanishes and my rage rises. “Stay away from Carrie.”

  “You are not in a position to demand anything.”

  “You have no right to threaten me or my family. We passed your Necromancer Trial!”

  “You outwitted it! I will make certain to revise it to ensure that no other necromancers escape punishment.”

  To my relief, Quade’s voice fills my mind.

  Ilyse, where are you?

  Elder Alvus is here on the porch. Don’t come out the front door. He’s got a weapon.

  Damn!

  Angelina is somewhere nearby.

  So… she’s the necromancer?

  Yes, but he didn’t see her.

  Elder Alvus watches me suspiciously. He must have noticed I was distracted when communicating with Quade.

  “Ilyse, if you summon more of the Beloved Dead, I can handle them.” Shifting his free hand, he reveals a pistol in a holster on his hip. “Don’t think I’m not prepared to deal with any tricks you may try. I have confronted your kind before.”

  I’d once fantasized about sending the dead after Elder Alvus and temptation stirs inside me. I glance at my mother’s corpse and feel ashamed. It doesn’t feel right to use her as a weapon. Since I haven’t uncovered the cache of stolen corpses, I can’t summon them. I’m defenseless. My only hope lies with Quade and Angelina.

  “I’m not summoning the dead. I didn’t summon my mother either.” Though I’m telling the truth, it sounds like a lie.

  With a chuckle, he says, “Don’t try to deceive me, Ilyse.”

  Without thinking, I glance toward the front door, wondering when Quade will make an appearance. Since he’s also younger and stronger than Elder Alvus, I’m certain he can subdue him. Plus, he’s armed. His absence and silence are starting to make me nervous.

  Taking note of where I’m looking, Elder Alvus says, “Let him sleep. Don’t call for help. Otherwise, I’ll have to kill him.”

  I spear him with a hateful glare. “He’s done nothing wrong.”

  “I know he’s a victim of your seduction, but he is also an accomplice. Though that is the truth, I’ll let him live if you come with me quietly,” Elder Alvus says in such a casual manner it’s chilling.

  Quade, where are you? He’s threatening to kill you if you interfere. Be careful. He wants me to leave with him! Please come quick.

  The continued lack of response is distressing.

  Angelina, are you there? Are you coming to help me?

  More silence.

  “So what is your decision, Ilyse? I can see you want to call out to your husband, but you really shouldn’t. Not if you want him to live.”

  Elder Alvus doesn’t appear to understand that I can communicate with others mind to mind with my necromantic powers. That fact is to my advantage, but only if Quade and Angelina respond and coordinate to rescue me. Why aren’t they answering me? I don’t want to leave with Elder Alvus. The only reason he probably hasn’t killed me already is because of Quade. He doesn’t want a witness or to be stopped.

  “I won’t call out to him,” I respond.

  “A wise decision. Now keep quiet and come with me.”

  “Where do you want to take me? To the Council Building?” My voice sounds so timid due to my terror. I doubt he’ll adhere to the laws, but take justice into his own hands.

  “You’re evil, Ilyse. I can see it plainly. Your pretty little face and small stature that make you appear so demure are lies. You exude purity and goodness, yet you are filth. Since the Elders have failed the Lost Texts and did not witness your guilt, it’s my duty to release you to the Three Gods for their judgment.”

  I shouldn’t be shocked by how nonchalantly he speaks about killing me, but his words pin me to the spot where I stand. A growl from my mother sends a shiver through my body.

  “Keep her calm,” he orders.

  “I’m not controlling her,” I answer.

  “Then who is? Still claiming innocence?”

  Tears temporarily blind me. Nothing I say will save me. If I send my mother after Elder Alvus, he’ll kill her permanently. Of course, that might give me a chance to get away if I can convince my body to release me from my paralyzing fear. My mother growls, probably responding to my terror.

  “I warned you, Ilyse!” Lifting the bolt gun, he starts toward my mother.

  It’s anger that unlocks the shackles holding me frozen. I thrust my body between him and my mother, my arms spread wide. Even in the gloom, the bolt gun aimed at my head is a petrifying sight.

  “Please, don’t. Please.”

  Quade, Angelina, where are you?

  Even in the pallid moonlight, the anticipation in his eyes is vivid. Elder Alvus may want to kill me, but he also wants me to suffer. Destroying my mother completely will do just that.

  “Please, don’t hurt her. I’ll come with you.”

  The need for me to be compliant outweighs his need to hurt me. He lowers the bolt gun and jerks his chin in the direction of the stairs.

  I start down the steps and hear my mother follow. I wasn’t aware of sending her a command, but by concentrating on my power, the tendril of green flame connecting us becomes visible.

  I wasn’t conscious of taking control of her from Angelina.

  When did I take control of her?

  I don’t have an answer.

  When I reach the crumbling stone stairs snaking down to the gate at the bottom of the hill, I take care not to slip. The steps are covered in dew and very slick beneath my bare feet. I glance over my shoulder to see my mother close behind me with Elder Alvus at her heels with his bolt gun pressed to her skull. Her face is illuminated by moonlight, revealing washed-out eyes devoid of emotion. Is she aware of what is happening around her? Is there even a spark of my mother left in the scrawny husk of her body?

  As I’m thinking these dark thoughts, her chin shifts down and her eyes seem to fill with concern. A cloud sliding over the moon drowns us briefly in darkness, and when the light returns, my mother resembles all the other mindless dead wandering the world.

  Am I so desperate to see some remnant of the woman she was that I’m now imagining things?

  Arriving at the gate, I find it already open. If I run, Elder Alvus will kill my mother and chase me. She’s dead, but I can’t shake the feeling I saw something more in her gaze. Some sort of awareness. I want to flee, but I can’t betray her. I have to have faith that Quade and Angelina are making a plan to save me. I again glance back, but this time I search the thick shadows dwelling in the trees and bushes surrounding the grand house for a glimpse my sister and friend. I don’t see a hint of their presence.

  “Walk toward the cemetery,” Elder Alvus instructs me.

  I reluctantly obey. The grass is prickly against my feet and ankles and a few burrs stick to my nightgown. The uneven ground makes it difficult to walk without stumbling. I almost fall to my knees tripping over a hidden gravestone, but I’m caught by my mother’s claw-like hands. She pulls me upright before releasing me.

  I stare at her in disbelief.

  Mother?

  She regards me with a vacant gaze and my heart is breaking. I know there is some aspect of my mother still in her corpse.

  “Keep walking, Ilyse,” Elder Alvus orders, pressing his bolt gun against my mother’s head with such force she stumbles.

  Frowning at him, I trudge onward, but at a slower pace. I don’t want to fall and bash my head on a gravestone. Also, I want to give my cohorts time to catch up. Though they’re both silent, they must be coming to my rescue.

  Quade? Angelina? Please hurry!

  We enter the area of the cemetery where big mausoleums hunch beneath a thick tree canopy. The darkness is nearly impenetrable, so Elder Alvus flicks on a small lighter. The small orange flame casts eerie shadows across the tree trunks and moss-covered buildings. Some doorways are black holes but a few still have thick iron doors in place.

  I hesitate in front of one of the mausoleums. It’s the one Prudence told me about. It has two weeping angels guarding a wooden door.

  “It’s fortuitous that those deviants weren’t out here the night your sister decided to run away.” Elder Alvus’ voice slithers out of the dark, cold and cruel.

  I suspect he’s trying to bait me. I don’t say a word, but continue walking.

  “It was obvious to me due to her rebellious nature that she’d flee the settlement when your mother’s verdict was handed down. Such defiance. Such raw anger. You’re different from her in some ways. Quieter. More measured. Sneakier. But you have the same insolence in your gaze. All those times you cast your eyes downward, pretending to be humble, I glimpsed your defiance.”

  “You don’t know anything about me or my sister.”

  My feet sink into the soil as we near the marshy spot where a tributary runs through and connects with the river on the other side of the wall. I’ve never been this far out of the main area of the settlement. It feels wilder and unsafe. In the flickering firelight, a weedy stone path winds past listing gravestones nearly overtaken with vegetation and mausoleums sinking into the moist soil.

  “I’ve been observing you for some time now, Ilyse. I was waiting for you to make a mistake and reveal yourself. I was surprised though. I didn’t expect you to murder someone.”

  The mud squishing up between my toes is cold, clammy, and slick. I struggle to not fall.

  “I didn’t kill Bale,” I grumble.

  “Then who did? Don’t think for a moment I believed that story his family told. I still can’t fathom why they decided not to pursue his killer. What did you do to them?”

  I don’t answer.

  “You’re very wily, much like your sister, but in the end, you’ll meet the same fate as her.”

  My heartbeat competes with the sounds of the night. The wind pushes its way through the trees, sending boughs trembling and creaking. A few night birds call out questioning cries while the stream nearby burbles over rocks. If Angelina and Quade are following us, it will be difficult for Elder Alvus to hear their approach. I resist the urge to turn around and see if I can spot them in the trees.

  “Do you want to know your sister’s fate?”

  Stopping in mid-stride, I spin about to face the man I hate with all my soul. The weathered lines of his face are defined with cruelness in the wavering flame cast by his lighter. He called me a devil, but he looks more like one. Thin lips twisted into a mocking smile, he stares over my mother’s shoulder at me in dark triumph.

  “My sister went over the wall,” I say in a terse voice. “You and the men like you forced her to flee into the Deadlands after how you treated us.”

  With a chuckle, he gestures toward a structure that is in better shape than the others. Only one corner is dipping down toward the thin stream. “She intended to climb over the wall and escape. I waited outside of your home for hours for her to appear. When she finally did, she was dressed in your father’s clothes and carrying a bag.”

  My heart stutters in my chest. “You’re lying.”

  Making a point of holding the bolt gun against my mother’s head, he pushes her to one side so he can loom over me. “Oh, I’m not. I followed her here. I suspected that she would meet with someone to escort her over the wall and through the Deadlands. My plan was to take her and her cohort into custody. Instead, she entered that mausoleum and started to cry. Great shuddering sobs.”

  The world feels odd, almost as though I’m caught in a nightmare. My hands and face become numb when I focus on the mausoleum he indicated.

  “I waited for two hours for someone from the resistance to approach her. Finally, I realized no one was coming for her. She was alone. That was why she was sitting inside the mausoleum crying. Your sister was completely alone with nowhere to run but the Deadlands.”

  “She went over the wall. My father told me!”

  With a delighted smile, Elder Alvus shakes his head. “Oh, no. She was too afraid. Her only other choice was to go home. Her spirit was too strong to accept that defeat. So I made the decision for her. I shut the door and left her in the darkness. I used that headstone right there to wedge the door shut so she couldn’t open it.”

  “You’re lying!”

  Elder Alvus shoves me forward and I stumble onward. “Let’s see if I’m lying.”

  My body is frozen in disbelief, so he pushes me again while keeping my mother as his hostage. I don’t believe what he’s saying, but my mind is still reeling. If he’s telling the truth, how had Angelina escaped and gone over the wall?

  When we reach the mausoleum, the door is open and the sight fills me with satisfaction. “You’re lying! It’s empty! I knew she went over the wall!”

  With one foot, he taps a heavy marble headstone lying flat on the ground. “This is the one I used to trap her inside. I came back two weeks later and pushed it aside. When she came out moaning for my blood and flesh, I caught her with a control pole.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “You can see the marks she made on the door trying to escape if you look close enough. I escorted her personally to the Perdition Sanctuary and placed her in the inner enclosure.”

  “No! She escaped! My father told me! Everyone knows she went over the wall!”

  “I took your father to see her. I made certain he understood that if his other daughters followed in her footsteps, they would face the same fate.”

  The longer he speaks, the more detached I am from the world around me. All I can feel is cold voracious fury. If I didn’t know my sister was alive, I would’ve already had my mother attack him. I can’t bring myself to let her be destroyed to save myself unless I absolutely don’t have any other recourse.

  “The other Elders weren’t suspicious about how my sister ended up in the Perdition Sanctuary?” I scoff at him. “Your story doesn’t make sense.”

  “I told them the same tale as Bale’s family. She fell and died when attempting to liberate the Beloved Dead to wage war against us.”

  “And they believed you?”

  “Of course they did. The same way they’ll believe the same about you when they discover your walking corpse in the Perdition Sanctuary.”

  With an elated smile, Elder Alvus thrusts me through the darkened doorway.

  CHAPTER 18

  No More Secrets

  My mother whips about and growls at Elder Alvus. With both hands, he shoves her into the mausoleum just as I recover my balance. I launch myself at him, but he grabs my arm and tosses me at her feet. I land heavily on my hip, the air gushing out of my lungs. The metal door squeals in protest as he attempts to close it.

  Angelina! Quade! Please, hurry!

  I scramble onto my knees and press my hands against the door to stop it from closing. The rough stone floor digs into my shins, and I struggle to get my feet under me for leverage. My mother shuffles forward and shoves her shoulder against the door. The door swings outward a few inches and I rapidly crawl through the opening. My too-thin frame benefits me, allowing me to pass through. I dig my fingers into the damp ground and drag my legs through the gap just as Elder Alvus realizes I’ve escaped.

 

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