The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [164]
“Beyond whose repair?” Carandini was on glass number three. “I could have restored it, your Chloé, to full wellness in the time it took us to walk downstairs. Hemorrhaged brain, broken bones, ruptured organs? Child’s play.”
“I … I didn’t know,” Awa murmured, wondering for the first time how well Chloé would take the news that she was now a supernatural creature that must occasionally consume human blood. Not very well, she expected. “I thought it was the only way.”
“It wasn’t.” Carandini chuckled. “She’s one of us now.”
“You said that,” snapped Awa. “Are you going to keep her hostage or will you let her go?”
“She can do whatever she wishes,” said Carandini. “We don’t bestow our boon lightly, but I gather Breanne took a shine to her. Still, Breanne can’t very well hurt you, so she was probably just setting things in place for the girl to have somewhere to go after the inevitable transpires.”
“You mean after I die? Some place for Chloé to go after my tutor finds and destroys me?”
“Yes.” Carandini nodded. “Exactly. You’re getting smarter, see?”
“I want to go.” Awa stood, no longer sure she appreciated the increased intellect that made it so difficult to draw absolute differences between herself and her ghoulish host. “I’ve had enough of this, this nastiness. Living underground, eating people you don’t have to, plotting to steal my girlfriend—what’s wrong with you things?!”
“We’re just practical is all.” Carandini shrugged. “Anyway, you can’t go yet.”
“Why not!?”
“Dunno. Compulsions. Can’t let you out until you’ve come up with something feasible, I gather. So think, Awa, think!” Carandini had stopped using the glass and drank directly from the bottle.
Awa sulked. She could not stop worrying about Chloé—was she awake? How much had they told her about Awa? She had been waiting for the right time to tell Chloé everything, but somehow it was never the right time to tell your lover that you are actually a necromancer afflicted with a terrible curse.
The longer Awa stewed, however, the easier it became to think past her immediate concerns, her emotional concerns, and slowly a smile started to spread across her face. It was so simple, so obvious, that she could not believe it had not occurred to her before. She knew how to find a way to defeat the necromancer.
XXXIV
Sharp Truths
Carandini had crawled into bed and lay moaning, clutching his scalp. Awa let herself out and closed the iron door behind her, bedding down in the empty laboratory so that her host could gather his wits. Then she fell immediately asleep, exhaustion keeping her pinned to the floor until nearly a full day and night had passed.
Her host was sitting on a bench watching her as Awa awoke and groggily made her way to the bowl she had found on a table and used as a chamber pot. She noticed he now wore a crown of iron but otherwise remained nude. She turned away from him and pissed, wishing he would stop staring at her.
“Time to go, then,” Carandini said after she finished, and he escorted her back to the surface. In the little iron room the mindless corpses of Merritt and Kahlert waited, the bloody sack that had housed Chloé draped limply over Merritt’s arm. “I gather your, ah, girlfriend is waiting outside.”
“Wait,” said Awa. “Please.”
“You are quite welcome,” said Carandini.
“No, not that,” said Awa. “I want to show this one. He deserves it. Will you wait? Please?”
“You are a strange one,” said Carandini, but he obliged her.
Awa called Kahlert’s spirit back to his body, the suddenly sentient corpse backing into a corner and crying, “Stay away!”
“Ash,” said Awa patiently. “We are a day’s march from your home, and here we find a nest of undead sorcerers with more power than even I can conceive.”
“Sorcerers?” Carandini snorted. “We’re scholars, philosophers, alchemists.”
“Can you control animals with your mind?” said Awa, annoyed with the bastard. “Can you bring the dead back to life?