Part of her… She let the magic flow through her body, letting it embed itself in every muscle, every nerve. It pumped through her like adrenalin and empowered her instead of draining her.
Alassane continued to magically slay the corpses, but he couldn’t get them down as fast as they appeared.
‘You’re ready.’ That was all the confirmation she needed. The sky illuminated with a blinding white light as she released a major blast of energy. It tore away at the corpses until there was nothing but the dust of bones left.
The entire area was emptied within seconds. Even the ground was still, no more dead people deciding to get up from their eternal sleep.
She turned to Alassane to see if he was unharmed, when a voice cut through the air.
“Very impressive.” It said. A man stepped out from the shadows. His face was hidden under his cloak, but Selissa still felt a flash of recognition. Memories of cloaked men and chanting voices shot through mind. Memories of something she had thought was just a dream.
“You have grown very powerful since the last time we met.” He came closer, slowly leading a hand to remove the cloak from his face. The black tattoo came as no surprise, but she hadn’t expected the deep scars that covered the rest of his face. A grotesque pattern of long-since healed wounds marred his skin and made him look only slightly more human than the creatures he had raised. It looked like someone had taken a knife to his face and cut through every inch of skin, until not a single piece was left unharmed.
“Though I hadn’t expected you here…” He addressed Alassane this time. “It seems like I’m not the only one with a talent for raising the dead…”
Selissa looked from the scarred Demios to Alassane. They knew each other? And what did he mean with the last time he met her?
“What’s the matter, Selissa?” The man asked scornfully. “Don’t you remember me?”
She sneered at him. “How do you know my name?” She asked. She knew she knew this man, but she didn’t know from there.
“So they sealed away your memories together with the archangel’s powers…” He said thoughtfully. “Then I guess I will have to introduce myself all over again.”
He stepped a bit closer, while watching her with cold, grey eyes. She could feel Alassane stand tensely behind her.
“I’m Ilyan. And I’m—“
“—the leader of the Demios.” Selissa finished for him.
30
The scarred man before her was the leader of the Demios. The leader of the clan that wanted to kill her in order to bring a demon that wanted to bring suffering to humanity back to earth. Him being a necromancer was oddly suiting. His bizarre ability fit perfectly with the darkness of his mind.
Fragments of chaotic memories surged through her head. She had met this man before and somehow gotten out alive. She could do it again.
Without warning she flung a blast of magic at him. He didn’t have time to move, and the white magic spread like fire over his body.
She watched intently, expecting his body to burn, only to see it disperse like smoke.
“Did you expect it to be that easy?” Selissa swirled around, trying to locate the voice. It sounded like it was coming from all around her.
“An illusion… That girl Nadesha must be with him.” Alassane explained.
Another illusion… “So we have no way to know what is real?” She asked. This was not looking good.
“And no way to know where they’re hiding…” Alassane added. He was just about to say something more, when the ground started shaking again, this time far harder. Both of them stumbled to keep their distance, when cracks started appearing everywhere.
Suddenly they were everywhere. Rotten bodies dragged themselves from the ground and staggered towards them like mindless minions.
There had to be hundreds of them. They stumbled over each other, not standing back from ripping each other apart to get past. It didn’t seem to lower their numbers though.
She started blasting away at them, but it was like shooting arrows into a crowd. A few might fall, but the rest still kept storming at you.
Alassane’s efforts didn’t have much effect either. Blue and white lights flew through the air, but the amount of corpses coming towards them didn’t seem to lessen.
Hands started clawing at them, ripping into flesh. Selissa kicked desperately at them, but nothing hindered them.
“Do you still insist on pretending, even while standing in front of death?” Her head shot up at the sound of Ilyan’s voice. The Demios leader was standing on top of one part of the roof that hadn’t already collapsed.
She ripped a dead arm away from her and used it to bash in another corpse’s head. She frowned in confusion at his comment, until she realized he wasn’t talking to her.
Alassane sneered and shot blue flames towards him, but he merely dispersed like the last time.
“What is he talking about?” She shouted frustrated. A mangled body crawled towards her, its legs ripped apart. It grabbed her leg, ripping and tearing at the flesh.
She kicked at it furiously to shake it off, but another grabbed her foot and pulled.
Involuntary, she let out a scream as she lost her balance and was pulled to the ground. She heard Alassane shouting at her, but she was too busy struggling against the hands that pulled and ripped at her from all sides.
She tried to summon up the energy to blast them away, but they pinned her arms to the ground.
The more she struggled, the more they clung onto her. They dug into her skin and ripped at her until she felt the blood flow from her wounds like rivers.
The only thing she could think was that she was going to die. She faintly noticed that she was screaming, all the while trashing against the rotten hands holding her down.
Alassane was still shouting, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. The corpse holding down her left arm suddenly burst into blue flames and released her with a strangled sound.
With one free arm, she tried to twist herself away, but the grip of the others was too strong. She screamed as she heard the bones in her right leg break. She tried to kick away the ones holding it, but found that she couldn’t move it.
Just as she started to give in, a powerful feeling started overwhelming her. The feeling of massive amounts of magic power being released.
She felt the lifeless bodies holding her down freeze, obviously reacting to the pressure of the magic.
She twisted her neck to look at the source, and her eyes widened at what she saw.
Alassane was standing in the middle of the crowd of undead, surrounded by immense magic flames. The soft blue color had changed into an acidly green, but it was not the flames that held her eyes.
She watched in horror as Alassane’s skin started melting off his bones, revealing only the stark whiteness of his skull. His eyes started rotting away and the empty sockets filled with the same green fire as the one surrounding him.
Skin and flesh melted of his body, until nothing but the skeleton was left.
She watched as the abomination that had once been Alassane lifted its long, fleshless fingers towards her. The white bones started glowing green as magic surrounded them. Selissa didn’t even see him move, before the entire area was burning in a sea of green.
Everywhere guttural snarls erupted as the living corpses got devoured by green flames. The hands restraining her released her abruptly, as the bodies staggered back, strangled screams escaping them as they burned.
Despite nothing holding her down, Selissa found that she couldn’t move. She laid petrified, staring in mute horror at the terrifying creature in front of her.
“Are you happy now?” The snarling voice was so different from Alassane’s, but the tone was exactly the same. She felt sick when she finally realized that this being really was Alassane. The Alassane that, despite all his secrets, she had always believed to be human.
“Finally showing your true colors, I s
ee.” Even at the sound of Ilyan’s voice, she couldn’t bring herself to turn around to look at him. Her mind was as numb as her body and somehow, nothing of this seemed to be important anymore.
She felt her body shaking, but she didn’t care. She wanted nothing more than to cover her eyes and ears, and pretend nothing of this was real, but she couldn’t.
The green flames had started dying out now when there was nothing more to burn. The ground had stopped shaking and no more rotten remains tried to pry themselves from the grips of their graves.
“It’s time to end this.” The strangled sound of Alassane’s voice said. She watched as green light started spreading like a wildfire and soon it was all she could see. It seemed to be everywhere, but it went around her, like she was surrounded by an invisible wall.
She heard a frustrated scream, and she immediately recognized the voice. He had found Nadesha.
31
The fire died down, and Selissa could finally see what was happening.
The illusion had broken, and she saw Ilyan and Nadesha facing Alassane at the other end of the yard. Nadesha was badly burned, and her eyes were wild with fury. Ilyan was standing a bit back, appearing to be unharmed.
Her head was spinning, and she was not quite sure what happened next, except that fighting broke out between the three of them.
She seemed to finally have gotten control of her body again, and she clumsily attempted to drag herself away. She had no intention of getting in the middle of this.
Out of the corner of her eyes she saw rapid movements and blinding green