Necropolis (Royal Sorceress Book 3) (39 page)

“Now,” Gwen said, as she turned to lead the other girl up to the roof. “And you’d better work on charming the Russians at the far end.”

Janet was waiting for them on the roof, her eyes downcast. Gwen sighed, inwardly; she hadn’t had a chance to talk privately with Janet since she’d been forced to reveal herself, but it was clear that the maid had taken the news badly. To know she’d shared a room with a noblewoman powerful enough to overrule Lady Standish on a whim ... Janet had to have been replaying her actions in her mind, looking for something – anything – that Gwen might hold against her. But she hadn’t done anything even remotely objectionable.

“I’ll take you too,” Gwen said. She could carry two people without straining herself – and besides, Janet was an innocent. “Get ready to fly.”

Simone gave her a sharp look, but Gwen refused to rise to the bait. Instead, she concentrated on keeping her mental shields in place and waited for Janet to finish saying goodbye to Romulus. She looked away hastily when Janet and Romulus shared a kiss, then smiled at Simone’s reaction. The French girl scowled at her, then looked nervous, clearly remembering that Gwen could simply drop her over the city and swear blind that it had been a terrible accident.

“We’ll be there in no time,” Gwen said, remembering how badly Janet had reacted to the airship. “And don’t worry about a thing.”

“Apart from the horde of undead below us,” Simone said. “And the difficulty in navigating all the way to Paris. And the Russians deciding they don’t want to help us. And the undead coming after us ...”

“Shut up!” Gwen ordered. She caught hold of them both with her magic, then leapt into the air. Below, the ranks of the undead were slowly reforming, as the Tsar directed reinforcements towards the palace. “We need to hurry.”

She forced herself to fly faster. The next attack would be far more serious and it would fall on already weakened defences. It might just be enough to crush the defenders ... and condemn them all to join the ranks of the undead.

***

Olivia sucked in her breath as Sir Sidney left the room after making her promise not to hesitate when the time came to use her powers. The thought was horrifying, worse – somehow – than raising bodies from the dead and making them her slaves. She knew that the Tsar had become an abomination, an offence against nature ... and Sir Sidney wanted to become something comparable. Maybe inserting another mind into the undead gestalt would work, Olivia told herself, or maybe it would simply create a controller without anything to control. How
did
the Tsar control his slaves anyway?

It wasn’t easy to direct the undead, Olivia knew. The more complex the command, the harder it was to get them to do what the Necromancer wanted. It was quite possible that the Tsar had real trouble controlling so many of the undead, no matter his intentions and expanded mentality.
That
, more than anything else, might explain why the undead had fallen back in the wake of Gwen’s return to the palace. The Tsar was regrouping, re-establishing his control and preparing for another attack.

But where
was
he? The whispering had faded as the undead fell back, but it was still present, an uneasy feeling at the back of her mind that threatened to overwhelm her the moment she lost control. She’d wondered if the Tsar had claimed exclusive control of his undead – she hadn’t tried to control the undead in London before Master Thomas’s death – but it seemed that the Tsar’s control wasn’t exclusive, merely very powerful. And then a thought struck her and she blinked in surprise. Could the Tsar have overlooked something?

She looked over at Raechel. “I need to try something,” she said, as she lay down on the bed, taking deep breaths. “Can you watch me for a while?”

“Of course,” Raechel said, although she looked nervous. She had no magic. If something went badly wrong, there was nothing she could do to help. “What do you want me to do?”

Olivia hesitated. Confessing any form of weakness still struck her as a very bad idea, even though she
liked
Raechel. Liking anyone on the streets was a form of weakness in and of itself, not least because a friend could turn on you with terrifying speed. But she knew she needed someone, even if it was just a comforting presence. The undead would find it harder to get into her mind if she had someone helping her.

“Just hold my hand,” she said. “And squeeze every few minutes.”

She allowed Raechel to take her hand, then closed her eyes and concentrated on the whispering. It grew louder within seconds, suggesting she was growing more practiced with her powers, no matter how unpleasant she found the thought. The undead were suddenly all around her, great sweeping flickers of emotion and a powerful drive to feed, all firmly fettered by the Tsar’s giant thoughts. Olivia realised, suddenly, that the Tsar was definitely having problems controlling so many undead at once. His mind hadn’t expanded far enough to control them all.

Their minds died the moment they were infected,
she thought, recalling Gregory’s desperate struggle to preserve the Tsar’s brain. His body had been allowed to transform, but his brain had been left alive.
He can’t expand his mind into them easily
.

Another thought struck her and she winced.
Is that why they wanted me
?

She felt a sudden sensation in her hand, which puzzled her until she remembered that Raechel was holding it. Bracing herself, she threw her mind deeper into the undead gestalt, looking for the undead she’d raised at Gregory’s command. She’d
heard
them in the underground complex, before she’d helped turn the Tsar into a monster; they hadn’t been destroyed. Gregory had wanted to continue his experiments, after all. And even though the Tsar might be able to direct them, they were
hers
. If there was any justice in the universe ...

Olivia almost laughed as she found herself staring out of the undead creature’s eyes. It was in a cage, surrounded by a dozen others, all part of the same gestalt. The Tsar, it seemed, had forgotten about them, as had the other undead. But then, why not? They were hardly living creatures, nor were they openly hostile. They’d just been left in a cage to rot.

She contemplated the cage for a long moment. It was almost childishly simple; it wouldn’t have kept a living breathing human inside for more than a few seconds. A prison cell required proper locks, all on the right side of the door. Instead, she directed the undead to approach the lock and start pushing at it with its hands. Human intelligence, combined with undead resiliency, could simply pick the lock. She allowed herself a smile as the cage opened, then directed the undead out of the cage and into the passageway. And then she muttered a curse as they came face to face with another group of undead.

Walk past them
, she directed. It was odd to realise that her undead barely
saw
the others – and, she assumed, vice versa. The undead were simply uninterested in other undead, even if they weren’t part of the same gestalt.
And then up the stairs
.

She smiled as she felt another squeeze on her hand, then felt a sudden flash of panic as she realised just how closely she’d mingled herself with the undead. It gave her strength as she pulled herself free, then fell back into her own body, unable to escape the impression that she’d just fallen onto the bed from a great height. Her head span as she looked up – for a long moment, she thought she saw undead features pasted over Raechel’s face – then realised just how dry her mouth was. Pain flared through her head and she winced in pain.

“Water,” she croaked.

Raechel passed her a glass, her eyes deeply worried. Olivia struggled to sit upright – her strength seemed to have deserted her completely – and finally had to allow Raechel to dribble water into her mouth. It was hard to swallow, but she forced herself to drink – and then accept assistance to sit upright. Raechel kept a worried eye on her even as Olivia regained some of her strength, as if she could hear the whispering herself. Now she’d reformed her links with her own undead, the whispering seemed to be so omnipresent that Olivia couldn’t help wondering if it was more than just an echo in her head.

“I need to speak to Gwen,” she said, when she could speak properly again. “Is she back?”

“Not yet,” Raechel said. She looked down at Olivia. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Olivia shrugged. There were too many unknowns to take it lightly. If they failed to turn Sir Sidney into another controller, they’d have thrown away his life for nothing. But if it worked ... at the very least, the Tsar would have to struggle to maintain control of his undead, fighting Sir Sidney for their servitude. It would provide a distraction that might, perhaps, allow the rest of the party a chance to make it out of the city. But it could also drive Sir Sidney mad.

“I don’t think I have a choice,” she said.
Gwen
wouldn’t use Charm to compel her to obey, Olivia knew, and Sir Sidney had no magic. But he would probably try to guilt her into it if she baulked. “If this works, we would have a fighting chance to get out.”

“Sure,” Raechel snarled. “And if it failed, he’d be dead and we’d still be trapped.”

Olivia smiled at her. “Are you sweet on him?”

Raechel coloured. “No,” she said. “But I don’t want to see him die.”

“Me neither,” Olivia said. “But if there’s one lesson I’ve learnt in my life, it’s that everyone dies.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

S
ir Sidney was waiting for Gwen on the roof when she returned, carrying another barrel of fuel and a large crate of explosives with her. There hadn’t been a second attack, she noted to her relief, but it was clear that the Tsar was gathering his forces. Sir Sidney smiled at her as she put the crate down on the rooftop, then nodded towards the way down into the palace. Gwen briefly explained what she’d brought to Romulus, then followed Sir Sidney, feeling an odd mixture of emotions. He was walking to his death and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

He turned to face her as soon as they were alone, completely out of earshot. “If this doesn’t work, if I go mad, I want you to kill me,” he said. “Burn my body to ash.”

Gwen eyed him, darkly. “There’s still time to change your mind,” she said, unsure why she was feeling so conflicted. She liked Sir Sidney, but she was also pragmatic enough to understand that they had no choice, even if she didn’t
like
it. “You could think of something else.”

He scowled. “Like what?”

“I wish I knew,” Gwen said. She considered, briefly, but came up with nothing. “I wish there was a better way.”

Sir Sidney sighed. It struck her, suddenly, that she was feeling
attraction
, the feeling she hadn’t let herself feel since Sir Charles had betrayed her so deeply. She’d realised, in hindsight, that he was manipulating her, yet at the time she’d felt flattered by his attentions – and angry at her mother for her hypocrisy. He’d taken advantage of her feelings and wormed his way into her heart. Sir Sidney had done none of those things. He’d just treated her as a person in her own right.

But so did Sir Charles
, she thought, dejectedly.

“I can’t think of one,” Sir Sidney said. “We go through the sewers; the undead can see or sense in the dark, allowing them to hunt us down. We go through the streets; we get overwhelmed by weight of numbers. You can’t fly us all to safety – and besides, they’d attack the airstrip. Our only hope is to try to dislodge his control of the undead.”

“I know,” Gwen said, bitterly. “I’m sorry.”

Alexander had, at least, managed to rally the garrisons outside the city. It was clear that Gwen had
definitely
managed to upset the Tsar’s plans; his attempts to infect the garrisons had failed, once some of the refugees had alerted the soldiers to the threat. The Russian soldiers seemed torn between wanting to try to liberate the city and merely sealing the undead inside the city, although Gwen knew
that
wouldn’t last. There was no way they could hold back the undead indefinitely, once the Tsar decided he was ready to start expanding his control.

But the soldiers couldn’t help the foreigners. There truly was no other choice.

She braced herself – acting in such a forward manner went against everything her mother had taught her, at least when it came to dealing with men – and leaned forward, bringing her lips to touch his. He started in surprise, even though it was the second time she’d kissed him, then kissed her back. Gwen felt her heartbeat starting to race, suddenly understanding why Raechel had allowed herself to make love to so many men, then she forced the feeling to the back of her mind. There was no time to explore her emotions any longer.

“For luck,” she said, pulling back and breaking contact. “And I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry,” Sir Sidney said. “There are worse ways to go.”

Gwen followed him into Olivia’s bedroom, remembering some of the more morbid stories from India and China. It had seemed a mark of British superiority that English criminals were merely hanged, rather than chopped to pieces or tortured to death. What sort of state killed minor criminals by slowly bleeding them until they died? But she couldn’t imagine anything worse than becoming one of the undead.

“I need to talk to you,” Olivia said. “I managed to make contact with some of my undead.”

Gwen frowned as Olivia explained. “Where are they now?”

“Making their way onto the streets,” Olivia said, after a moment. “I don’t think they’re noticeable as long as they don’t do anything to attract the Tsar’s attention.”

“Then keep them out of sight,” Gwen ordered. She had no idea how they could use this new tool, but she wanted to hold it in reserve until she came up with a plan. “Sidney?”

Sir Sidney pulled a knife from his belt. “I am ready,” he said. His voice didn’t waver. “And you, Lady Olivia?”

Olivia looked nervous. “This could go badly wrong,” she warned. “And ...”

“I know,” Sir Sidney said. “Lady Gwen?”

“I’ll do my best,” Gwen promised. She reached for her magic, feeling it sparkling around her fingers. Why was it, she asked herself silently, that destructive magic was so much easier than constructive magic? Healing was
definitely
not an easy magic to master, but pure Healers seemed to be able to acquire far greater levels of skill than Master Magicians. “But ...”