Juliana opened her mouth to speak to Prax, but found her mouth and throat parched from the lack of use. She had to take a moment to lick her lips. A bottle of water would be heaven at the moment.
“So that’s it then, we’re out?”
Prax kept silent as he nodded his head. “We walk out into the waters beyond the dolls.” He looked back, behind Juliana. Shaking his head, he said, “I wish I could burn this place to the ground.” After a second shake of his head, he turned to Juliana. A genuine grin spread across his face.
“Well then mortal, shall we retire to my domain?”
Chapter 011
“This is it?”
Zoe nodded along with Devon’s words. She had to double-check the address to be certain, but this was the building.
There were certain places that certain people tended to gravitate towards. A doctor might be found in a hospital or a well-to-do home. Police stations generally housed officers. If she were looking for a grave robber, Zoe would start at a cemetery at night.
A brightly lit five-star hotel in the center of a moderately sized town was the last place she would have looked for a necromancer. In fact, the lair near Brakket had been a dank cave. That was a far more reasonable place for a necromancer. A crypt would have been better, but according to Devon, Sawyer had had one of those as well.
The lights blinked out; the entire hotel went dark from bottom to top. They stood for a moment and watched. None of the windows lit up by any flashlights or emergency lights.
“Well,” Devon said with a sigh, “that’s our cue. Might as well get to it, if they’re even in there.”
Arachne stepped up to his side, looking rather like she wanted to tear down the building with her bare hands.
Zoe steeled herself with a repetition of something that had become a sort of mantra. Getting Nel back will help Eva, Juliana, and Shalise, all at once.
“Ready.”
Arachne dashed forward, tearing the doors off their hinges in one swift move. She barely made it three steps into the lobby before an arrow chinked off her chitin.
Skeletons stood upon a balcony overlooking the entryway. Most looked… fresh. Fetid meat clung to the bones. One had an eye dangling from its socket. Some had enough flesh remaining that they could have doubled as zombies.
The only reason Zoe decided they weren’t zombies was because actual zombies were rummaging around the ground floor. All of whom turned at the noise of Arachne’s entrance.
Then the smell hit her. Zoe doubled over, gagging. There were few stenches worse than that of rotting corpses. At least no worse smells among those she had experienced.
But the smell might have saved her life. Through her acute sense of air, Zoe felt an arrow’s wake right through where she had been standing.
Forcing her disgust down, Zoe moved around the edge of the doorway and started forming a solid wall of compressed air. She slipped in a few motions to try to freshen the air, but doubted it would help much once they got inside.
“Careful,” Devon said from the opposite side of door. “Get hit by an arrow and you might be wearing one of these.” His arm squiggled around in the sort of wave an octopus might do.
“Indeed.” Zoe nodded and doubled up on her air walls before peeking around the corner.
Vaulting up to the skeletons in a single bound, Arachne started tearing the skeletons apart. They weren’t even a match.
“Seems like the nuns were correct,” Zoe said, “I doubt anyone is still living in here.”
“If we aren’t careful,” Devon said, “we won’t be living much longer either.”
Glass breaking around the outside of the hotel stole both their attentions. Kicking up her hearing a few notches, Zoe heard the distinctive sound of shuffling feet and vague moaning.
“Zombies. I’ll clear the lobby, you watch our backs.”
Ignoring his grunt of a response, Zoe sent blades of wind through her air wall.
Experience during the previous year had taught Zoe that zombies were relatively resistant to electrical shock. They were, however, squishy. A strong enough blade of air to the throat would have their head rolling on the floor and the rest of the zombie redead much quicker than anything else she had tried.
A burst of heat at her back broke her concentration.
She spun around to find three shrinking zombies and three growing piles of ash. All of it was engulfed in eerie green fire.
Zoe shook her head and went back to clearing out zombies from the lobby. There weren’t all that many left. Occasionally, one would stumble out of a doorway or crawl out from behind the front desk, but their numbers were dwindling fast.
“Clear,” Zoe said as the last head rolled off its shoulders. “At least, as clear as it is going to get. More could show up any second.”
Devon shrugged. “Good enough for me.”
The wall of air expanded enough to allow passage. Both of them slipped through. With another wave of her dagger, Zoe resealed the exit. No sense getting caught in the back with a horde of zombies that might have made it out of the building.
“Arachne,” Devon shouted out. He flicked out his wrist in front of him. Green flames flowed out of his rings to form a small orb in his hand. He held his hand up as if it were a torch.
Green light stretched far further than regular fire of that size should be able to provide. It irked the researcher within Zoe, but she forced the feeling down. She could ask later.
Zoe looked over the lobby as she increased the sensitivity of her eyes. Arachne had managed to dismantle all the skeletons up on the balcony and Zoe didn’t see any movement on the ground floor. No spider-demon in sight either.
The flame shot past her face.
Zoe jumped back and brought her dagger up, ready to fend off anything.
A zombie just exiting a doorway was engulfed within the green flames. He was already crumbling to ash before Zoe could think about what spell she wanted to cast. That green fire worked fast.
She upped the priority of asking about it a few notches.
“Missed one,” Devon said.
“Probably more than one. Be on your guard.” Zoe sealed up the doorway with a wall of air. Her walls wouldn’t last long and they’d fall faster if something was hammering away at them, but the plan didn’t call for them to remain in the lobby for any length of time.
“Arachne!”
“Must you shout?”
He started swearing under his breath as Arachne failed to respond. “I knew bringing her was a bad idea.”
“You said bringing yourself was a bad idea.”
“It is,” he snapped. “I could have summoned a demon and stayed at home, or at least far away. Lady Ylva insisted that I come in person. Then she had the gall to insist that I not dominate demons.”
“Sounds rough,” Zoe said, only half paying attention–it wasn’t the first time he had complained about that little argument. She was far more focused on not being ambushed by zombies or skeletons as they walked towards the stairwell. “But I told Arachne that finding Nel would help Eva. She wouldn’t endanger the mission, would she?”
Devon went silent.
Well that isn’t foreboding at all, Zoe thought as she solidified the air in a custodial closet doorway. Arachne was their group’s heavy hitter and hit taker. If she was off running amok, Zoe and Devon were going to have to slow down and take care going around every single corner.
As they approached the stairwell door, a loud crash came from the other side.
Devon held up his tentacle in what might have been a gesture to stop. Instead it just flopped around.
Zoe got the message despite his disability. She pressed herself up against the wall while Devon wrapped his tentacle around the door’s handle.