Chapter 31 - On Death Ground, Fight!

  Alex led the way, the twenty-two people we’d rescued following close on his heels as we pushed south toward the center of the city, away from the coast and the oncoming horde of lobster-things.

  I’d decided we needed a better name for them, but I couldn’t think of a good one. Eating lobster was never a big deal for me—I know, that’s like sacrilege for someone living in Boston, but I hadn’t been born there. I just went to school and settled there after. That’s my excuse, anyway.

  Maybe a native Bostonian would have had a dozen cool nicknames for lobster monsters, but I was drawing a blank. They were filling up the area inside their little base rapidly, behind us. I glanced back for one last look before the beach was out of sight, and spotted three patrols launching out, each of them with one of the big crabs accompanying them. They weren’t moving fast, but they’d catch us if we dawdled.

  Which is why I was alarmed when I realized the group ahead had stopped moving.

  I slipped forward through the crowd of former captives, all of them talking softly to one another. Most of them were adults. There were a few older people in the mix, but the majority looked to be between the ages of twenty and fifty. If it came to a fight, maybe we could arm them, so they could at least have a shot at defending themselves. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than being cut down without even a chance.

  When I got to where Alex stood, hiding in some trees at the edge of Charter Street, I put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Why’d we stop?”

  Alex just pointed. I looked across the road and saw the problem right away. There was a cemetery. The sign called it the Copps Hill Burying Ground, and it was a good sized graveyard, with hundreds of old graves all over. I doubted any of the graves were new. Most of Boston’s graveyards were old and no longer in active use. They were leftovers from the city’s youth.

  But age apparently didn’t stop the dead from coming back, now that magic was here. Scores of animated skeletons wandered about inside the fenced-in area. A few had even wandered out of the graveyard. One stood in the street just a dozen meters away. It walked slowly away from us, toward the south.

  I remembered what Tom had said about the dead coming back. That’s why they were using pyres to burn their dead. Now I was seeing undead wandering about for real, and they were blocking our path deeper into the city.

  “Can we bypass them? Go around?” I asked.

  “Not without going back out onto Commercial Street,” Alex replied. “How bad is it back there? Have the lobsters started moving outside their walls yet?”

  I nodded. “They were sending out three patrols when I came forward. They’re moving slow, but…”

  “But they’ll be here soon, and we definitely can’t go back onto Commercial Street. Shit.” Alex shook his head. “We’re going to need to punch through these. You think you can take them?”

  “Maybe.” I peered at the skeletons. “All of them that are close enough to identify show up as tier one. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can take them.”

  They were scattered, disorganized and wandering around aimlessly in the cemetery area. If I moved fast I could probably take half of them down before they even knew what was hitting them.

  “You get anything decent from the lobsters you looted?” I asked.

  Alex shrugged. “Can’t ID them. You want to take a look?”

  I nodded, so he fished out the stones he’d just grabbed. There were fifteen blue stones and eleven clear ones. “The blue ones are exactly what you needed. There’s six Create Water, four Control Water, and five Ice Blast. Then for the clear there’s four Strength, three Agility, and four Will.”

  We split the stones up quickly; there wasn’t time to mess around, not with enemies coming up behind us. Alex took all the Create Water, Control Water, and three of the Will stones, giving me the rest.

  I popped out the tier two Agility stone I’d socketed into point two, just like Alex had shown me—but it broke. It came out shattered.

  “Shit!” I swore, showing him the stone.

  “Must be a risk, removing them,” Alex said. “Well, guess we need to be more careful about that.”

  “Ugh. I didn’t want to lose one!” That sucked, and I wasn’t thrilled about it, but it couldn’t be helped. I needed a slot if I was going to add those Ice Blast stones I just got.

  I used the Strength stones to up one of my Strength crystals to tier four. The Agility stones I set aside; I’d need to gather more to rank that up, now. Ditto for the one Will stone I had. I slotted four of the Ice Blast stones into the free spot left when I yanked the Agility stone, making it tier three. With that, I was ready to roll!

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  Magical Stones

  Point 1: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Strength

  Point 1, Second Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Stamina

  Point 1, Second Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 5) - Agility

  Point 1, Third Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 3) - Stamina

  +

  Point 2: Blue Stone (Tier 2) - Ice Blast

  +

  Point 3: Grey Stone (Tier 6) - Natural Armor

  Point 3, Outer Ring: Grey Stone (Tier 2) - Regeneration

  +

  Point 4: Grey Stone (Tier 4) - Natural Armor

  +

  Point 5: Clear Stone (Tier 4) - Strength

  Spare Stones

  Clear: Strength x3, Agility x3, Will x1

  Blue: Ice Blast x1

  I turned to Alex. “Arm them as best you can as you move. I’m going to clear a path along the south-east side of the cemetery. You’ll need to follow close behind, okay?”

  “We’ll be right behind you,” Alex replied. “I’ll make sure none of them get picked off from the rear.”

  There wasn’t time for a more complex plan. I set off across the street to face this latest threat. The lone skeleton ambling down the road spotted me and turned back around to come after me. Turned out they were surprisingly fast, for dead things. Not ‘fast zombie’ speed, but they weren’t slow.

  I decided that skeleton would be a perfect test of my new power, so I fired off an Ice Blast at it. As I used the spell, a two-foot spear of ice appeared in the air in front of me and then shot forward. It slammed into the skeleton’s chest, shattering and sending bones flying in all directions. The skeleton was finished—in one shot?

  Where had this power been all my life? This was awesome!

  Less great was how much mana it burned. While most of my powers were passive and just ran all the time, without draining me, casting that one shot took a lot out of me. A brief wave of weakness hit, kind of like I was having a sugar low. I knew from the memories the crystals gave me that was a sign of my mana being low. I could only cast that spell a couple of times before I’d run out. Best to save it for special occasions, then.

  Which meant I was back to using my fists on the remaining skeletons. I rushed across the street at top speed and jumped over the fence, landing hard in the soil on the other side. Two skeletons saw me instantly and closed to attack, but I beat them to it. With another dash I was right in front of the first, my open palms slamming hard on either side of its skull. The bone blew apart like an eggshell, and what remained of the skeleton dropped in a heap.

  I whirled toward the other and fired off a punch into its chest, shattering the sternum and sending bits of bone flying in all directions.

  A glance back toward the others showed me that Alex was hurrying them all across the road toward us. They hit the gap in the fence and stepped onto a path, moving as fast as they could while staying together.

  I moved faster. My Agility gave me the ability to sprint at incredible speed, and my Stamina meant I wasn’t going to get tired anytime soon. Another dash sent me fifteen yards across the lawn in seconds, where I took out another pair of skeletons. Every undead in the place had figured out there were people in their turf, by that time, and they were all closing in on Alex and the people he was struggling to protect. He took down one attacker with his bat and then fired off a pair of Ice Blasts at another enemy.

  Two more skeletons were coming up behind him, though. I leaped, flying through the air over Alex’s head and landed between him and the oncoming attackers, taking them both out before they could lay a finger bone on him.

  “Thanks!” Alex called out.

  “No problem. How do you like that spell?”

  “It’s good! Wish I had more of those crystals.”

  I looked back the way we’d come. The lobsters hadn’t appeared on the path we took—yet. But I knew they’d be coming. “I suspect you’re going to have plenty of chances to get more.”

  “Yes, I think you’re right,” Alex replied. “I’ll loot these ones you’re killing. Keep it up!”

  I snapped him a nod and got back to work, pushing ahead again. One, two, three, four…over and over, I’d rush in and bust another skeleton with my bare hands. Who needed a weapon? Not me, not against these things, anyway. They were just too fragile.

  A cluster of them tried closing on the people we’d rescued, but I stepped between them easy enough. The skeletons attacked me in a rush, six of them charging all at once, but they simply couldn’t hurt me. They tried to claw at me. Two of them tried to bite me. None of it did them any good at all.

  I reached down and grabbed one of the skeletons by his ankles and then swung him around in a quick, tight circle. He shattered to pieces as I swung his body through his five buddies, and bits of bone went flying everywhere.

  Another dash, and I intercepted a group of four more skeletons. I shoulder-checked two of them with my first rush, shattering them. A snap kick broke another apart, and a fist finished the last one.

  They kept coming at us, though. There was no retreat, not for these creatures. They didn’t care how many I took apart; the remaining undead continued their advance, relentlessly striding toward the crowd of people we were escorting. There was no teamwork, no discipline, no order to their attacks. As soon as a cluster of undead saw us, they started marching and didn’t stop until they were destroyed.

  Alex and I kept busting them apart as quickly as they came at us. I realized we were leaving one hell of a trail, though. I couldn’t see very far back the way we’d come, so I jumped straight up as high as I could go. I only made it about fifteen feet into the air, but it was enough to give me a glimpse of the nearest lobster patrol. They were crossing the street toward the cemetery, following the same path we’d taken.

  I landed hard in the grass, stumbling before I steadied myself. “Alex, we’ve got company coming up behind us! That lobster patrol is closing the gap.”

  He looked back, but couldn’t see the approaching enemy force, then looked back at me. “We need to keep pushing ahead. Even if you can take the patrol out, there’ll be more right behind them.”

  “Agreed. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  We marched forward together. Another eight skeletons stood between us and the exit, so we rushed them. Alex blasted one with ice, then shattered another with his bat. I jumped forward, landing on top of one and breaking it apart. My fists took care of another.

  A minute later, the fight was done. Alex and I stooped to quickly snag the crystals we’d earned and then led the people we were escorting out of the graveyard, back onto the city streets.

  Behind us, I saw a tree topple in the distance, and caught sight of one of those tremendous crabs cutting down another. The enemy was still making good time toward us, so we needed to push if we were going to get these people somewhere safe. Or safer, anyway. Because with an army invading Boston, was anywhere truly safe?