I stared up at that terrifyingly dangerous creature who was probably a legitimate dark sorcerer and considered my options. I could try to scream and run away, ending in humiliation when my body didn’t work, or I could hope that he needed a secretary to run his evil lair, and try to get a job.
I held out my arms towards him, and after a moment’s pause, he shrugged out of his jacket and then draped it over me. It smelled like cedar and mulled cider and felt like silk velvet and cobwebs. I clutched at the edges of the collar, my malfunctioning fingers gripping the fine fabric with all my strength. They hurt. My whole body hurt, but I clung to the warm wool, the silky lining against my skin sending comfort and strength through me. He’d given me his jacket. Now what?
We stared at each other while water dripped from the ceiling and the rats scratched and squeaked.
“Who were you?” he finally asked in a voice so deep and rich, I would have gotten goosebumps if I didn’t already have them. It took me a second to process the words past the voice. Who were you? Not who are you. Because I’m not who I was. Like I’m…
I choked on nothing while I tried to think, to be reasonable and rational, but now that I thought about it, I wasn’t really breathing. And while my heart should be beating like mad in my throat, there was nothing, just perfect stillness, like I was…
I convulsed, gasping, but not gasping, because no breath, but there was still panic, all these feelings and pains and…
He took my face in his hands, refocusing me on the present and keeping me from spiraling. I wasn’t the kind of person to panic, but being dead? How could I even begin to deal with something of that magnitude? And not only dead, still moving. Was I possessed? Was I infected with zombiism? He offered me a slight smile, but it was pure sadness. Smiles shouldn’t look like that. It made me want to cry, and I never cried in front of anyone.
His low voice was barely a murmur. “You’re in pain. Being freshly undead can drive you mad from the pain, but you still had the presence of mind to call for help. You’re lucky that my rats know morse code.” His smile changed slightly, like he’d told a joke no one else in the world could appreciate.
I wheezed a laugh, then shuddered at the sound and the effort. “Lucky me,” I whisper-croaked in the least attractive voice in the entire world. This wasn’t how it would go down on the show. The woman, Felicity Raven, who was pursued by the warlock and the dark sorcerer, never looked or sounded bad, even when she was weeping and wounded.
Was I really dead? Was any of this real? The pain was real, but maybe I was on incredibly strong pain meds that created this entire scene with the sewer setting. Maybe there had been a train wreck.
His eyes narrowed, and he brushed his fingers over my cheekbones. Ow. Also, pretty sure they were oozing from my implants breaking down. If I was dead, how long had I been dead and decomposing? I blinked and forced myself to focus on the face in front of me instead of the gulf of panic that threatened to consume me.
He said, “You are in a very difficult place to access. I don’t believe that anyone else would be able to reach you. Will you come with me?”
I stared into those dark eyes, dangerous, filled with flickers of electricity that could roast me alive. Except if I wasn’t alive…
His forearm was bare under the loosely rolled sleeve of his white shirt, showing the dark tattoos with ink that had bled into the pale skin. They must be the magic runes of a dark sorcerer. He really was a dark sorcerer who could come through the water and still keep his glossy black hair dry? Impressive. He was clearly competent and powerful enough to get me out of here. And he had a sense of humor.
I shook my head, and his eyes narrowed.
“You won’t come willingly?” There was a hint of threat in his voice, like he might take me by force to his evil lair if I resisted.
“I already held out my arms so you’d take me,” I whispered and shook my head again. “Please take me out of the sewer with the rats. Please save me.” Felicity had said ‘please save me’ to Vilus once, and they’d had a side fling for a few episodes before she realized that she couldn’t bear the evil he did and ran back to Winston, breaking Vilus’s evil heart.
I cautiously held out one hand and then saw the stubs that had been my fingers. I’d thought they’d been working weirdly, but not to that extent.
I gurgled, but before I could completely lose it and fall back into the icy water, he swung me up effortlessly in his strong arms, wrapped the jacket firmly around me, then sank into the darkness that had brought him. The smell of cloves and ginger reminded me of the kitchen at Christmastime. I used to sneak into the kitchen and watch the servants prepare all the things I wouldn’t be allowed to eat.
I pressed my face to the bare skin of his neck, vaguely aware that there was something terribly wrong with my nose, like it had been slashed off along with my fingers. What kind of psychopath chops off the nose and fingers of their victim? Iwas really dead then. No, not dead, undead, which was so much worse. All the negatives without any end to the pain.
“Easy, my lady,” he rumbled, more in my head than in my ears. “I will have you safe and comfortable soon enough.” He started humming an off-tune song that was probably a spell that dulled the pain and slowed my racing thoughts.
If I was dead, there wasn’t anything to worry about. Except if I was undead, one of those revolting infernal creatures that fed on flesh and blood…I should kill myself. How did you kill yourself when you were already dead? The dark sorcerer would know.
But I didn’t want to be laid to rest, no matter how revolting the undead were to my parents. And to my fiancé Philip Harrison, the fourth. And to everyone else I knew. Either way, I was dead to them, to my life as a business associate of one of the largest corporations in the world. I really would need to find a new job. I’d never had to write a resume before, but they probably had a book on it in the library. Did they have a library in Singsong City? Maybe the dark sorcerer could help me with job placement for the fresh undead.
I looked up at him, all etched cheekbones and ominous everything, and somehow doubted it. Maybe he was taking me to harvest my organs. What would a sorcerer want with an unbeating heart? He was dangerously handsome enough that he could probably steal my heart with very little effort. Was it too late to fall in love after you were dead?
I passed in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of flickers of dark tunnels, then narrow alleys with a stretch of sky above, until we reached a large door with monstrous faces carved in the dark wood, nightmare faces with fangs. He started up a staircase that seemed to go on forever, black and cream flocked wallpaper punctuated by fantastically colored birdpaintings behind his shoulder on the curved wall. I had officially entered a magical world.
I came fully awake in the shower, where he sprayed me down with warm water, his hands gentle as he worked through my hair, loosening strands that came out and trailed down my body. More than strands. All of my hair was falling out.
All my hair was falling out. My fingers were chopped off. And my nose was missing. Also, all my implants were oozing out of me and smelled worse than sewage. I was a work of art, exactly like a Picasso, only with a rich stench that no one could possibly resist. And a real life incredibly attractive dark sorcerer was washing me down so gently and carefully, like my dad’s dog groomer did to our four large mutts, treating them like they were rare purebreds. Now I was so rare, so incredibly pure. Purely revolting.
I’d never been naked with any men who weren’t doctors before. I suppose it was best to get all the awkwardness over at the beginning. Now that the dark sorcerer had seen me at my worst, there was nowhere to go but up, right? It had to get better, both the pain and general humiliation, or I really would go insane and have to be ended, chopped up and burned like they did to the virulent undead in the show.
I’d hidden behind plastic my whole life, but now, I was just me, without the name, the family, the wealth, the beauty, the reputation. Who was I? I knew who I had been, but did any of that matter now?
I stared at my bare arms, with my pale blonde hair sliding over the cut and battered skin, open wounds aching from the water. At least I’d be a clean undead monster. A bald, clean, oozing undead monster. And this was magic? The hurt, the humiliation…