Fearless (The Blue Fire Saga) (14 page)

The Necromancer edged his bulk forward on the chair. If he’d had eyebrows, they would have raised in interest.
Instead
, his milky brow merely wrinkled. He wondered if
perhaps
Dominic had a
t long last chosen a disciple
.
Maybe
the magic his servants had detected was Dominic imparting his magic to a young college boy.

“A boys’ dormitory?” he asked.

Viktor
shook his head.
“
No
, my lord
.
It appeared to be a female dormitory.
”

The Necromancer eased back into his chair
, disappointed
. A female dormitory did not support his theory. Still, he wondered if there was something there that had drawn Dominic.

“Let me think,” he said.

The Necromancer close
d
his eyes.
This new information about the first use of Dominic’s magic was perplexing—but he wondered if it could also be useful. He
sensed that perhaps it might
, but he wasn’t sure exactly how yet. There was little to go on, but he was not yet ready to discard it.

Finally, he opened his e
yes. His spectral henchmen
and the novitiates
watched
him curiously.

“Andre and Tomas, b
egin
you
r
pursuit of Dominic immediately. Travel separately, so you can best narrow down his location.
Do not confront him alone
, though
. Make sure you’
re together be
fore you
attack. If Viktor has joined you by then,
all the
better. I
f not, the two of you should be more
than enough to destroy Dominic, provided you are careful and make no foolish mistakes.
”

“W
hat do you wish of me?” Viktor asked.

The Necromancer’s thick lips curved into what passed for a smile, bu
t
on his face
looked
much more like a hideous grimace.

“You, my friend, are going to cause a bit of mischief at that college, to see
what we
might learn.”

9
.
MONSTERS
IN THE DORM

S
itting at her desk
Tuesday evening
, Leesa flipped the cover of her history book closed. For the last half hour she
ha
d been studying the causes of the Civil War, but
she
didn’t think she was going
to retain much of what she
read. Every time she came across Abraham Lincoln’s name,
her mind wandered to
the popular book and movie about Lincoln being a vampire hunter. With all she had learned since arriving at Weston, she wondered if it could possibl
y have been true. She doubted
that
Lincoln had actually been a vampire hunter
, of course, but she had once doubted her mom’s story about the o
ne-fanged vampire, and look how that turned out.

It was doubly hard to concentrate
on
her reading
with Rave sitting patiently on
her bed behind her
. She could almost feel his beautiful brown eyes warming her back and neck. What she really wanted to be doing was sitting next to
him and talking, or lying cuddled
in his arms.
T
hey
ha
d shared a long, fun walk that afternoon, after the black waziri
had departed
, but that was then and this was now. She wondered where th
e evil wizards had gone, guessing
they had probably begun their pursuit of Dominic. She whispered a quick prayer for his safety.

Warm hands
softly
clasped her shoulders and she sighed.
S
he hadn’t hear
d Rave cross the room, of course, but that was nothing new—he moved so silently.
Twisting her head around, she smiled up at him.

“Done with your studying already?”
h
e asked, his fingers gently massaging her shoulders.

Leesa sighed again. If the volkaanes ever needed
to earn some
money, they could hire themselves out as massage therapists. With the heat i
n their hands—and their amazing looks—t
hey
woul
d be a sensation at even the most exclusive spas.

“Yeah, for now, anyhow
,” she said
.
“
I wasn’t getting much out of it. If I have to be studying with you here, I’d rather be studying Dominic’s book. I think
the information in there
might be
just a bit more important than the causes of the Civil War.”

“Those were very sad
and very dangerous
times,” Rave said.

Leesa swung around on her chair so that she was facing him.

“
I forgot that you were there.”

“I was pretty young, but I still remember the suffering.”

Suddenly, Rave’s body stiffened.
Dral
and Bain were instantly on their feet beside the door.

“What is it?” Leesa asked
,
her voice filled with alarm.

“Girls are screaming,” Rave said.
“Somewhere downstairs.”

Before Leesa could say anything, Pink’s “Perfect” erupted from her cell phone. “Perfect” was Cali’s
ringtone. And Cali was downstairs!

Leesa grabbed her ph
one. Cali
’s voice was loud and urgent
.

“We need
Rave and his friends
down here
, fast
. There’s
freakin
’ zombies in the hall.”

Leesa could not believe her ears.
She had dreamed of rotting corpses rising from the grave several times in the last few months—dreams which had apparently come true in one
way or another. But that wasn’
t
the same as hearing
that
zombies h
ad invaded h
er
dorm. What the heck was going on? And why hadn’t she dreamed of this?

Rave’s keen ears heard everything Cali had said. He
grabbed Leesa
by the shoulders again
, this time a bit more firmly
.

“Stay here,” he said.

Leesa frowned at him. “How long have you known me?” she asked. “I’m not staying behind. I’m coming with you.”

Rave
looked into her eyes and
knew better
than to argue. “Keep
behind us, at least.”

Leesa smiled
sweetly
.
“Of course, sweetheart.
Now let’s get down there.”

Bain already had the door open. Leesa and Rave followed Bain and
Dral
down the stairs. Leesa could hear the frightened, panicked screams now. Suddenly, the
heavy
fire door flew open
. A
crowd
of girls rushed through and
raced
madly
down the stairs
as if all the demons of Hell pursued them
.
Some of the girls
were sobbing. Leesa
could tell that
the fleeing girls accounted for less than half the number who lived o
n the third floor. The rest had to be
trapped in their rooms, or worse. She
wondered why
Cali was not among the
girls
in the stairway
.
Cali had had
enough
time to call—surely she
should have
had time to get away.
A feeling of icy dread
began to grow in Leesa’s
stomach.

When the
fleeing
girls were out the way, the volkaanes stepped carefully through the doorway.
Leesa peered into the hallway from behind them.

Despite what she’d expected, she was still surprised by
the sight that greeted her
. There were three of the creatures, about halfway down the hall.
One was standing facing Leesa, the others knelt over what Leesa was afraid was the body of one of her dorm mates. One of the kneeling zombies looked up, and Leesa was pretty sure she saw blood dripping from its mouth.

Leesa shuddered.
Even if she had never dreamed of the walking dead, she couldn’t have failed to recognize
them for
what they were—thanks to
the
movies and television
ever
y teenager in America knew what
zombies
looked like
.

These three seemed fresher than the ones she had seen in her dreams, as if they had not been bu
ried very
long. Still, the
skin of their faces and hands was a ghastly yellowish gray, and patches of it had already decayed away,
exposing pockets of white bone
of their
skulls and hands
.
The sockets of their eyes seemed to have somehow expanded, revealing far more of their eyeballs than normal. The bulbous eyes
were far from pleasant, but nowhere near as disgusting and frightening as the creatures’ mouths. Their lips had peeled back or fallen away, revealing hideous yellow teeth all the way to the roots.