Page 82 of Necromancers Don't Raise

My mother looked around past the cameras, the lights, hands trembling as she gripped her knives so tight. Finally, she shook her head. “No. I’ve been running for long enough, and it never really was my sport.” She gave him a snarling smile that was positively pirate, and then stepped away from Mr. Good, knives drawn while he cracked his knuckles. They were both going to die. Why weren’t they running? They were supposed to run! That was the plan! My mother was a hard-hearted hypocrite, and Mr. Good was a cowardly psychopath. They had to run.If they stayed here, faced the vampire’s death aura, they’d die. Even if they could withstand her aura, she’d kill them.

Of course, no one told my mother what to do, and she couldn’t hear me because I wasn’t actually saying anything. Nope. The dead don’t lie or scream. Unless a necromancer shows up. I wasn’t coming back, either, not while that death aura got stronger and stronger. My mother kicked off her shoes, cut the sides of her pencil skirt and pulled a scarf over her face.

“She wasn’t supposed to save me,” my double said, still sitting in my chair, clutching her bandaged hand and staring at me like her world had broken.

The clouds of smoke grew visibly red, and the next moment she was there, a shadow of flickering red and black, striking Mr. Good, sending him flying before she was on my mother. My mother was fast. So fast, sliding under her claws and ripping up with her knives before spinning out of range. Not dying. Before Salina could recover, Mr. Good was on her, shadowy bat wings unfolding out of his spine as he launched at her, his own infernal claws extended as he raked across the vampire’s back. That was creepy. I didn’t want to know what kind of deal he made with a demon to get those new appendages.

I lay there on the ground, unable to do anything but watch. I couldn’t even eat popcorn, and it was definitely a fight worthy of popcorn. My mother was, frankly, awesome. Sissy would have been so impressed. Mr. Good was a nightmare of power and kept getting up every time she threw him, bleeding more each time. He kept coming until she finally threw him at one of the beams. It and he went down in a crash and a flurry of ashes.

The vampire spun around and grabbed my mother by the throat. Salina gripped my mom’s wrists with the other hand as she stared with these incredibly creepy eyes, completely red and dripping down her cheeks. Girl didn’t smell too great, either, but like I could complain since I was dead.

The vampire sorceress’s voice was as pretty as she was creepy. “Calumny’s pretty little daughter. At last I have captured you. Such a prize. So hard-won. I’m going to kill you slowly, sipping you of every drop of life until you?—”

My shotgun boomed, sending Fiora and my weapon flying. It blew a good chunk of the vampire away. She screamed and turned to see who had shot her, and my mother took the opportunity to kick her in the side where she’d been shot.

The vampire shrieked and threw my mother, but releasing her wrists when she was holding knives wasn’t clear thinking. My mother aimed her knives at the vampire’s throat and thigh as she sailed through the air, making sure Salina would lose a lot of blood. Of course, my mom came down hard and didn’t get up.

Mr. Good roared and charged Salina with a beam and skewered her, sending a shower of blood and black goop up to mix with the ashes.

It was about then that I lurched up, my body starting to regenerate as Salina’s death aura bled out of her.

I snatched my shotgun out of Fiora’s slack grasp, dropped the shells, reloaded, and then aimed carefully.

Boom!

My shot went through her heart, taking out a huge chunk of it. I dropped the shells and reloaded as I walked slowly towards the skewered, flailing vampire.

Boom!

That time my silver shot went through her throat, sending my mother’s knife clattering. The vampire screamed and clawed at the beam holding her in place, glaring at me with eyes that conveyed a world of hatred. She opened her mouth, wide, then wider, and wider until a swarm of insects came out.

Boom! I shot that mouth, and the insects, sending them scuttling around like specks of leaves caught in a whirlwind.

“Stay back,” Mr. Good warned, looking super creepy as he went to crouch over my mother’s still form. He picked her up, cradling her head on his shoulder as he came towards me. “Grab the demon. Salina never goes anywhere without her red army. That means we retreat now.”

I started jogging towards him. “Shouldn’t we chop off her head or something?”

“She can’t be killed while she’s filled with her magic, no matter how many times you shoot her, but if her magic can be undone…”

“Then we need Mercury.”

The hotel across the street from the burned out conference center was lit by a flash of lightning, outlining the silhouette of my favorite dark sorcerer. In that moment, my skin grew cold as Mercury, without a shirt, unleashed a rain storm and a horde of his undead. The ground beneath us parted, ashes were flung, mixing with the icy rain, and the dead came crawling up to meet the army of vampires that had caught up to their mistress and were trying to rip through us to get to her. The vampires all wore red, but it looked like their clothing was dyed in blood. That’s also what it smelled like. The rain only made things more pungent.

“This isn’t what I signed up for,” Fiora said, grabbing onto my arm, my gun arm.

I shook her off and drew a pistol, shooting one of the random vamps through the eye with a silver bullet soaked in holy water.

The vampire screamed, and that was before rats swarmed him, dragging him down into the squirming mass.

“That’s a nice bullet,” Mr. Good said, conversationally, still holding my unconscious mother, who looked chic and pulled together even unconscious and soaked. I should say something. I mean, she was married to someone else, but if Mr. Good put her on the ground with all the zombie rats…No. Absolutely not.

“Silver and holy water,” I said, absently handing him one of my pistols. Somehow, it seemed like he could shoot and carry my mother at the same time. Yep. He could definitely do that.

I shot a vampire that tried to take him from behind at the same time I got one swinging at Fiora. Double shot. Then I spun and fired at two more vampires, careful shots so I didn’t waste my bullets. I only had a limited number on me, and I was already worn out. Undead? Same thing.

Mr. Good starting using my gun as a club, which he was very talented at, and then it went quiet. No vampire screams, nothing but the trembling ground underneath as Mercury walked through his rotting army without a shirt. He was also wet, rivulets of water running over those fascinating muscles and dark magic runes. Were the cameras still rolling? I hoped so.

He walked slowly through the crowd of undead that was holding down every vampire, ripping pieces off of them. One blood vamp broke away and came at Mercury. I shot it before it could touch a piece of his perfect flesh.

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