scratches and chips at some ancient incantation. I push myself up off the ground and hurry to join Roark. Technically, I’m a few inches taller than him. The shift in perspective is good. I’m less awkward when he’s forced to look up at me than when I’m face-to-face with his shoe.
“What did you do?” he demands of me, waving a hand at the hovering spirit with the same casual irritation he directed at the griffin and the lamia and the salamander king.
The familiarity of the cycle grounds me enough to protest, “Nothing! I swear to God, I didn’t do anything.”
Above us, the wraith continues its horrific litany. Whatever it’s saying, I doubt we’re about to see a cloudburst of kittens and puppies.
“Smith, if I’m forced to defend your sorry ass one more time—”
The partially fleshed paw that sprouts from the earth by my foot, shocking a yelp from me, ruins Roark’s threat. Fluffy the formerly living cat claws her way out of the ground and rolls her rotting head toward me, yowling even though her vocal cords are long rotted out. All around us, the park pulls a night of the living pets. Dogs, cats, squirrels, and even a freaking gerbil work their way out of the dirt like nightmarish daisies.
Roark grunts and kicks the skull of a particularly energetic hound that’s attempting to bark and bite him, even though only its head and shoulders are free of their burial site.
“This isn’t good,” I say as we start a hurried retreat.
Roark doesn’t say anything, just shoots me a death glare as we run. It’s a familiar sight. No matter our personal differences, Roark and I have a bad habit of landing in sticky situations together. It’s happened enough I almost look forward to these brief moments of camaraderie. They’re a refreshing change from his normal die die die attitude toward me.
A groping cat claw latches onto my shin. I hiss when a series of scratches mark my skin. Definitely going to need to clean that later.
“Who the fuck buries their pets in a public park?” Roark snarls. He flicks his hand toward the offending zombie creature. Its paw solidifies into a corpsicle. He shatters it with a well-placed kick and we continue our attempted escape. Not much farther to the edge of campus.
The wraith is on the move again, leading its disgusting army into battle. Roark’s busy casting a series of jagged ice waves at some deer zombies and their smaller woodland compatriots that just emerged from the nearby trees, so I reach down and snag some rocks from the ground.
No time like the present to use my magick to avoid death.
“Phineas Smith winds up for the pitch,” I mutter, trying to gauge the distance between us. “He pulls back—”
My rock flies through the air and hits the wraith in the free-floating cloth where its legs should be. The ley line remains dormant beneath me.
“Poor form, Smith,” Roark mocks from my right. Another wave of ice cuts us off from the pack of decomposing dogs staggering their way toward us.
I try to ignore Roark’s amusement. “Let’s see if he can come back from this.” I wrap my fingers tighter around the next stone. “He winds up. And—”
This rock pings against the wraith’s broken ribs before bouncing inside its chest cavity. The creature makes a sound of displeasure, but doesn’t slow its approach. Again, no ley line. The lub-dub of those two hearts echoes like battle drums in my head.
“Bases are loaded. Phineas Smith is the last hope—”
Roark grumbles something that sounds an awful lot like Goddess, please, no. I draw my arm back. This time, I focus on scratching the surface of the ley line, a subtle invitation for it to come and play.
It finally answers. The warmth tickles up my leg and spine, resting in my shoulder before flowing down my arm into my fingers. I let the power seep into the stone, whisper a quick prayer, and fling the rock with all my might.
The good news: The rock hits its target. The heart it slams into makes a wheezing noise and the already discordant beat shifts again, even more jarring this time.
The bad news: The rock’s on fire, which means the wraith is now on fire, and for some godforsaken reason, all the corpses the wraith reanimated burst into flame, too.
I shriek, Roark swears, and the ley line misinterprets this as me asking for more power because it flares again. Now the dogs drip fiery spittle from their jaws and the freaking deer are crowned with flaming antlers.
“Enough,” Roark commands. “Enough helping.”
I would argue, but he’s already in motion. Roark’s one of the best fighters I’ve ever seen. He’s all fluid, catlike grace and absurd strength, capable of bending under vicious attacks or standing so firm our enemies break against him and shatter. I watch in awe as he conjures a magickal rapier from nowhere, bounds up one of his ice waves, and takes a flying leap to drive the blade straight into the wraith’s burning heart. It’s a beautiful lethality, one that secures my safety instead of threatening it, and it does things to me.
The moment he lands the blow, the wraith crumples to the ground and the zombies freeze in place. The creature’s not dead, but it’s clearly on its last legs. It struggles ineffectually to escape.
“Your business?” Roark asks it.
It answers, but Roark gives a hard shake of its head. “So he can understand,” he snaps.
Oh. I’m the he.