The Power and the Glory

Book 4 Chapter XIV: The Necromancers

In all the chaos Irímé had almost forgotten about Shizuki. He nearly screamed when his suitcase suddenly rattled. He covered his mouth with his hand and bit down on his lip to keep himself quiet.

The spaceship had gone deathly quiet when he calmed down enough to realise who was making the suitcase rattle. Irímé had climbed onto the shelf beside the sink because there was a window above it and he had acted on the vague and mostly unconscious idea that he might be able to escape there. Now he saw that the window was the sort that couldn't be opened.

Very slowly and carefully he climbed down from the shelf. His shoes made a slight noise on the floor. He froze and waited to see if anything had heard him. Nothing attempted to break through the door. He tiptoed to the suitcase and opened it as quietly as he could. Shizuki slithered out of it and wrapped himself around Irímé's chest. He was trembling. His head kept moving from side to side and his tongue darted out every few seconds.

"Don't change forms," Irímé whispered. "Don't make any noise."

Shizuki nodded. Irímé wrapped his arms around Shizuki in an awkward but hopefully reassuring hug. Then they waited for some sign it was safe to leave the room.

A red puddle trickled under the door. Irímé tried to sit at an angle that kept Shizuki from seeing it.

~~~~

For the rest of the journey Abi questioned Lian about his other adventures. She wasn't entirely convinced they were all true, but according to him he'd once had to impersonate a king during his coronation because the real king was too hung-over to attend. Then he had helped track down a suspected serial killer who turned out to be just a lethally incompetent doctor. In comparison her own experiences seemed positively mundane and unremarkable.

"Can you teleport?" she asked out of curiosity.

All immortals could teleport to some degree, but it was an unreliable and hard-to-control skill that few people bothered with it.

Lian shook his head. "It's not true teleportation, but I can travel through the Void. I don't recommend it," he added warningly when he saw Abi sit up and look intrigued. "Things live there that you don't want to meet. It strips all illusions away and shows you as you truly are, or maybe as your soul is, and it can be an incredibly gory spectacle. My own is horrifying. And Death also uses it to travel. So do her servants. I've have some very awkward encounters with them."

At the mention of Death Abi lost all interest in that form of travel. She would be very happy to never meet or even hear about Death again.

By now the spaceship was getting close to Muirus 9436. A voice over the intercom informed the passengers to fasten their seatbelts. Then something unexpected happened.

"Attention, all passengers. This is the captain speaking. We have received reports that there is a battle raging in the capital between the police and a gang of murderers. We have been refused landing permission and been ordered to turn back. We understand that this is a terrible inconvenience and we will make sure everyone is compensated for--"

Abi didn't listen to the rest of the message. She stared at Lian. Lian stared at her. Both of them thought the exact same thing.

"It's the monsters," Lian said gloomily. "They've already attacked the capital."

Abi tried not to think about what that meant for the capital's hapless residents. "We have to get down there."

The spaceship had already started to turn around. If they didn't do something soon they'd be taken right back to Vanerth, and then what would they do?