Ward Against Death (4 page)

FOUR

Ward took another swig of ale, held the bitter liquid in his mouth for a moment, and forced himself to swallow. Ale was fouler than he remembered. Although, “ale” might not be an accurate representation of the brew, since he’d purchased it and rented the tiny room from the one-armed barkeeper downstairs for only three of the copper buttons from his physician’s jacket. Ward suspected it was the price of the merchandise and not the quality that kept the ramshackle inn in business. Besides, who could taste anything with the acrid scent of blood from the knacker yards next door clinging in his nostrils?

With one long pull, he finished the small jug and shook his head to clear it. The room didn’t look any better. It was as long as the narrow cot pressed against the wall, and its width was only marginally better. He’d have sat on the lumpy pallet, but he couldn’t recognize half the stains on it and instead changed his mind and sat beside Celia’s body on the floor.

He checked the incision he had made in his left forearm to ensure he was still bleeding. It stung, but the ale making him bleed faster also numbed some of the pain.

The bowl collecting his blood was a quarter full. It would do. If he mixed it with water from the pitcher on the small, lopsided table, he’d have enough to paint the octagon and goddess-eyes on the floor. Necromancy was such dark work, particularly if he wanted to attempt anything more complicated than a wake. Since he couldn’t sense the magical energies in his spell components, his best bet to guarantee success was to put more energy into the spell than necessary and pray he could somehow blindly focus it. And there was nothing more powerful than human blood.

Using the strip of cloth he’d cut from the front of his shirt, he bound his wound. Somehow, he’d remembered the components for this spell, despite having only looked at it a few times. Due to lack of time and funds, he’d been forced to make substitutions, although everything was related, more or less, to what it should be.

When he started studying necromancy, Grandfather had assured him it wasn’t really the components that made the spell. They were merely a way to focus the correct energies to form the desired effect.

Ward wasn’t sure he believed that.

And what was the desired effect? To wake Celia long enough to prove her own murder? He should just run. It would be the smartest option. He could hide, change his name, try going north, and become a physician at one of the Great Northern Outposts.

No. He didn’t particularly like the cold, most people thought he was too young to be a real physician, and eventually he would run out of principalities to hide in. Besides, he’d already bled for her and he had that damned, damned Oath to consider.

He brought the ale jug to his lips. Empty. Now was as good a time as any to start, so he reached for the pitcher of water. The room lurched and darkened. He paused until his head cleared. Too much ale, too little blood.

He mixed the water with the blood and, crawling on hands and knees, drew an octagon around Celia’s body. At her head, he made a closed goddess-eye, at her feet, an open one. At every point, alternating, he placed pieces of obsidian—that were supposed to be hematite—and pine, in place of white oak. He lit the prickle-berry leaves—at least he’d managed to find
that
—and knelt within the octagon beside Celia.

He sucked in a slow breath. Grandfather would frown at using human blood, and would lecture Ward about the spell itself. Ward was meddling with the veil and that, according to some ancient necromancer code, was bad. Wakes were acceptable. They were only for a few minutes, and couldn’t upset the balance between life and death. But any spell that lasted longer, without the proper research, risked throwing everything out of balance.

Still, Ward wasn’t powerful enough to cast a spell that would cause a plague or famine. Maybe a thunderstorm. It was more likely the room would feel a little ominous for a week and then the sensation would pass. The obligation Grandfather insisted every necromancer had—to uphold the balance—didn’t apply here.

He placed his left hand on Celia’s heart and right hand on her head. It was just like the wake spell, only longer, and required more concentration. He closed his eyes and focused. Power was supposed to emanate from the blood, wood, crystal—or in this case, glass—and herb, but he could only imagine their presence.

Pounding on the door shocked his eyes open. He hadn’t begun. Nothing, if anything, would have happened in the inn yet. The wine couldhade wine n’t be spoiled, the food couldn’t have gone rotten, and the ale couldn’t get any worse. The barkeeper had no reason to call on Ward.

“De’Ath?”

His heart leapt into his throat. The barkeeper didn’t know his name. It could only be Celia’s family. How’d they find him so fast? He’d taken every precaution in the market.

More pounding. Louder and longer.

He had to wake Celia, get her to tell them he hadn’t stolen her body. Closing his eyes, he bowed his head.

Deep breath. Imagine the power.

A bang rattled him. He squeezed his eyes tighter. It sounded like they had a battering ram.

Imagine the power. He tensed and trembled as if his muscles could squeeze more of the unfelt inner magic into the spell. His heart pounded, and he gasped for breath, all proper breathing forgotten.

Another bang, this time accompanied with the crack of breaking wood.

Power. Breathe. Even with his eyes closed, he reeled. Never before had he felt so completely out of control, merely a means for the spell to cast itself.

He grabbed his whirling thoughts and, in his mind’s eye, created the image of himself flying to the veil between life and death and parting it.

Bam. Crack.

No. He ripped it open. A new and awesome strength powered by the crystal, wood, herb, and his own blood filled him. Celia’s soul would come when he called. He had the power, even if he couldn’t sense it. She would answer. And she. Would. Stay.

Wood cracked. Men yelled and hands grabbed him.

No, he neededBamo, he n to stay. He wasn’t finished. He squirmed in their grip, struggling to keep his position and make Celia’s spirit return to her body.

Fingers dug into his scalp. He shot another forceful call through the imaginary veil and was yanked away. His muscles burned and his breath caught in his throat. Goddess, a spell had never felt like this before. Nothing had ever felt like this before.

Celia gasped, and Ward opened his eyes.

Her lashes fluttered open and confusion clouded her expression for just a heartbeat, but then she rolled to her side and grabbed the first man’s legs between hers. With a twist, she toppled him over and shoved her heel into his temple.

Ward stumbled aside, still weak from the blood loss and the spell, and tripped over the fallen man. His head slammed into the small table. Stars danced before his eyes as Celia grabbed the dagger from the fallen man’s belt and threw it. It landed with a wet
thunk
in the second man’s throat.

Blood sprayed from the wound. The man grasped at the dagger but couldn’t pull it free. Celia had hit an artery, and each beat of his heart poured more of his life onto the floor. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, but no sound came out. Then his eyes rolled up, and he dropped to the floor.

“You... He’s...” The proper words wouldn’t form in Ward’s mind. She’d killed those men. Just like that.

Celia grabbed the first man’s head and rolled it to the side. “Damn.” She turned her icy gaze on Ward. “Can you wake either of them?”

“But you just killed them.”

She rose and took a step toward him, then stopped and stretched her neck. “Better question. How long was I dead this time?”

He swallowed and dropped his gaze to the pool of blood seeping toward him. She had woken and,
bam
— killed two people as if it was second nature.

“A little blood shouldn’t bother you, necromancer.”

Ward looked up at her. It wasn’t the blood that bothered him.

“How long was I dead, boy?” she asked again, this time in those enunciated words that insulted his intelligence.

He clenched his jaw. So he’d been momentarily shocked. It wasn’t every day a physician actually saw the violence that brought the patients to him. He tried to sigh, feigning boredom, but it came out as a squeak. “My name is Ward. And you’ve been behind the veil for most of a day.”

She made a half-hearted kick at the first man’s shoulder. “And you can’t wake them.”

Ward stifled a snort. He could wake them. He was Edward de’Ath the Fourth, eighth-generation necromancer of the de’Ath family. If there was one necromantic spell he could do well, it was a wake. Ignoring his racing heart and the ache in his arms and legs, he pushed back his shirtsleeves, brushing the bandage around his wrist. Pain flared around the wound, reminding him he’d just performed a difficult spell and used his own blood for it. Trying a wake so soon after the Jam de’U wasn’t such a good idea.

“I didn’t think so,” she said.

“Of course I can. But just think about it for a moment.”

She knelt beside the first man, as if Ward hadn’t spoken, and removed things from his belt.

“The one you killed with the dagger—I doubt he has vocal cords left.” He crossed his arms, then uncrossed them and leaned against the wall, trying to appear nonchalant. His heart raced from the effort of the spell and the fight. “So there’d be no point in waking him, and the other man—”

“Are you going to search him?” Celia pointed to the second man. She unclasped the cloak pin of the first man and rolled him over.

“No, I’m not going to—aren’t you listening to me?”

“No vocal cords.”

“Good.”

“You should at least get his cloak.” She tugged the cloak free from her man and wrapped it about her shoulders. “And you really should get rid of that jacket.”

“I’ll have you know this jacket—”

“Was a gift from your father, or grandfather, or mother, or great aunt, or something.”

He closed his mouth. Yes, it was a gift. From his father. But that wasn’t what he was going to say. The buttons from his favorite physician’s jacket had paid to bring her back to life. It had rented the room and bought the ale and other spell components.

He ripped off the last two buttons and shoved them into his breeches pocket. Maybe waking her wasn’t such a good idea. He could be on a ship by now bound for... well, for somewhere.

“Ward.”

He blinked.

Celia stood beside him, her rucksack over her shoulder and a cloak in her hand. “Take the cloak, Ward.”

How long had he been gazing off into nothing? She could have slit his throat before he noticed.

He glanced at the man bleeding on the floor. He supposed it didn’t matter if he’d been lost in thought or not.

“There will be others,” she said.

“How do you know?” Her knowing everything, particularly since she’d been dead for a day, was getting frustrating.

“Because we’re not where I told you to go.”

He grabbed the cloak, heat rising up his neck, unwilling to confess he’d been too busy thinking to hear her instructions from when they’d been in the sewer. “I had to improvise.”

“Improvisation will get you dead.”

He opened his mouth but couldn’t think of a witty comeback. Ungrateful little... He swung the cloak behind him and settled it on his shoulders. It was sticky with blood. Wonderful. She’d given him the soiled one. A fine match to his slime-encrusted breeches, hose, and shoes.