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“Stay here,” he commanded me as he released my arm and opened the gate.
I couldn’t argue with him. I’d stumbled through that graveyard the first time, and I’d stumble through it this time. Still, I grasped the bars and watched him move through the graves with a careful step. He drew out the shimmering silver dagger and his brilliant red eyes were like torches in the growing darkness.
Noise from his left made us both look in that direction. A creature attired in rotten robes shambled out of the shadows of a tree and lumbered toward him with its arms outstretched. Ben leaped at it and removed its head. Body and head dropped to the ground, and the head rolled down the slight incline toward me before getting caught against another headstone.
Two more robed shadows shambled out of the shadows toward Ben. He held his ground as they approached, but what he couldn’t see that I could was his ground wasn’t safe. A pile of dirt appeared behind him as though a gopher was at work, but this gopher jutted out a rotten arm with bony fingers.
“Ben!” I shouted, but it was too late.
Those fingers wrapped around Ben’s ankle. He stumbled forward out of surprise and tried to yank himself free, but the creature held tight to him. The other things lunged at him with their mouths agape and full of sharp rotten teeth. He sliced at the first one, but the second thing managed to wrap around him like a face hugger.
I threw open the gate and rushed into the fray. My foot caught on one of those treacherous roots and I fell hard to the ground a few feet away from the pile of dirt. I crawled across the earth and grabbed onto Ben’s captor where I pried the bones from where they had sunk into his clothes. His pant leg was torn to shreds, but he was free.
Ben stumbled toward one of the trees and twisted around so the creature’s back was aimed at the trunk. He slammed the thing into the tree and its body cracked beneath the force. Ben wrenched the broken remains off of him and threw them to the ground before he removed its head.
Unfortunately, I had my own problems as the bony hand turned its grip on me. It latched onto my arm as the mound grew taller. A skull pushed itself out of the earth and turned around to grin hideously at me. I twisted around onto my butt and gave the creature a swift kick with the bottom of my shoe. The thing’s head came clean off and tumbled across the graveyard. Its hand went limp and Ben was there in a moment. He slipped his arms under mine and lifted me to my feet.
“How many of these things are there?” I shouted as I whipped my head to and fro. Every hill of dirt was now suspect.
As though in answer to my question, another half dozen mounds sprang up around us. One of them popped up out of a grave not more than two feet from where I stood. Ben swept me into his arms and walked backward toward the gate. Rotting corpses crawled out of their graves and across the ground in our direction.
“Stop the swarm, men!”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
The shout camefrom behind us, and Ben half-turned toward the gate. I was now glad to see a contingent of soldiers rush through the gate and at the creatures. They swung their glistening swords and chopped off the heads of all the creatures. The things dropped lifeless to the ground and all was still except for my heavily beating heart.
That skipped a beat when the leader of the soldiers came up to us. It was Commander Edouard, the man who sought to have me imprisoned and tortured because I possessed the Prima Staff. I couldn’t stop the color from draining from my face as he stopped in front of Ben and looked over the man with a critical eye.
“What are you doing here?” he questioned us.
Ben smiled at him as he adjusted my weight in his arms. “I thought to show my guest the city sights. She’s a visitor to our fair city.”
The commander’s attention fell on me, and I tried not to squirm under his watchful gaze. “A graveyard is an odd thing to show someone, especially when you were warned by others to stay away.” At that moment those from the neighborhood made their appearance behind the gate.
Ben bowed his head. “It is indeed, but we thought perhaps the man here was telling us about a rare sight. How true that turned out to be.”
Commander Edouard studied the corpses as his men poked at them with their swords. “Yes. It was fortunate we came here in time to save you.”
“Sir!” one of the soldiers called out as he strode through the graves and over to us. He held up his sword and I noticed the blade shimmered with a gray light. “These silver blades did the trick, commander. There’s no sign of life in the creatures.”
Edouard lifted his nose and frowned. “There should not have been life in them to begin with. Have you found the source of the trouble?”
The man shook his head. “No, sir, but we’ll take them to headquarters and inspect them thoroughly there.”
Edouard’s ill humor worsened. “You fool! What if they were to be resurrected again? Our swords would be useless and if our magic should fail us we would be at their mercy!”
The soldier’s lips trembled and he stood more stiffly at attention. “Y-yes, sir. What should we do with them, sir?”
“Inspect them at the nearest station house and then burn the bodies,” Edouard ordered him.
The man bowed his head. “Yes, sir! Right away!” He quickly returned to the others and the group began to pile the bodies into a pile for quick removal.
Edouard gave his men one last disapproving look before he turned back to us. “I will need your names and addresses in case I need to speak with you again.”
“Of course,” Ben agreed with a smile. “I am Count Benjamin Castle, and this is Millie Lucas.”
Edouard lifted an eyebrow. “Count Castle? Isn’t this a little far from where someone of your class would stray?”
