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“Witch,” thedraugrsaid, making the sign-of-the-cross over herself.
For some reason, seeing a fanger make a religious gesture struck me silent, but then Eli yelled, “Geneviève!”
The woman shrieked.
I looked over to where he was hurrying the human couple out of the maze of graves. The earth looked like it was bubbling from the number of bodies surging to the surface. Hands, knees, heads. Bodies were surfacing, as the dead came to my defense in various degrees of alertness.
“Protect,” one after another whispered.
I could see the animated corpses, clad in magically-restored clothes from eras past. Fifty or so reanimated dead folk stumbled, crawled, and stomped toward me. At least I didn’t hear thundering inside the mausoleums. So far, my grave magic hadn’t broken through the stone tombs.
“Call them off,” thedraugrordered, watching as the dead eyed her as the threat. If they caught her, she couldn’tflowto safety. With enough hands and force, they’d pull her apart, tearing her limb from limb. It was a horrifying possibility.
“I don’t know how to stop them,” I admitted in horror. “They see you as a threat to me. Until they remove the threat, they’re here. Run.”
“And you callusmonsters, Crowe?” Thedraugrfled,flowingout of the cemetery with a far more impressive speed than her arrival.
And I was left watching the expectant dead look at me with a mix of awe and hunger I wasn’t sure how to stop.
Chapter Three
Once thedraugrwas gone,I held my arms aloft and declared, “I am safe. You have protected me.”
The corpses watched as if other threats were at the edge of their soil-tainted vision. Mouths gaped open as thoughts both of my safety and awareness of their location crowded newly-repaired synapses.
I clambered on top of a nearby stone, angling between the vast wings of an angel. I looked like the misshapen Andrew Jackson equestrian statue that used to stand in Jackson Square.
“I am protected,” I yelled, trying to project over the crowd of walking muttering corpses.
But they kept shoving closer and closer, a mass of writhing bodies.
My bloodied hand tightened on the stone angel’s wings, and the other lifted my sword high. I wasn’t interested in slashing my way through my accidental corpse army, but I wasn’t keen on being trampled either.
“You cannot doubt your authority,”whispered a voice, a male voice that was not Eli.
I looked around.
“Geneviève, focus!They were summoned by your blood. Your magic. They are yours to command. Be commanding!”
“Listen!” I called out to the corpses all pushing to reach me.
When they paused, at once like a hive mind, I exhaled. One woman looked remarkable alert, as if she’d merely been resting. Another, a teen, crossed his arms belligerently as if resisting my command to listen. A few older men took their hats into their hands respectfully.
“I am safe.” I gestured at my body. “Unharmed.”
They still stared. A few frowned.
“Good. Thank them for their aid,”the voice urged.
“Thank you,” I echoed. “You have protected me, and I am grateful for your aid.”
The dead folk started to smile and nod, a few congratulated the others, so that the air was filled with the rasp of whispered and scratches of long unused voices mixing with more recent dead who sounded nearly human.
“You should rest now,” I urged, shoving my magic clumsily into the words. It was what I did with one corpse, so in theory, it would work here.
A few corpses, younger ones from the look of them, started to wander away.
“I’m safe,” I said.
