15​ A Walking Corpse

A WHITE DUSTING of snow covered the body at her feet. Tezcat didn’t know who the woman had been. She’d stood staring at the corpse long enough to feel her joints stiffening. Taver tried to get her moving, but she held her ground. Something dark and squirmy was building inside of her. She didn’t know what it meant, and didn’t like it neither.

A cluster of squat abandoned buildings surrounded them, but it was no village. Perhaps a mining colony, although she saw no sign of any pit. To be honest, she didn’t know a lot about breather stuff.

She sensed their hunters somewhere in the distance behind, but they had a couple of days on them. Wights didn’t care about time, though. They’d corner their victims, licking cold airy lips at the thought of the slaughter to come. She shivered.

‘You’re cold?’ asked Taver in disbelief.

‘Virals doesn’t feel cold like you breathers,’ she answered. ‘Leastways, I doesn’t.’

‘I don’t like this place. We should keep moving.’

‘You needs rest, ’member? Your face is gone alls droopy and your eyes too.’

‘Uh, yeah, thanks.’

They’d halted for his sake, but now he didn’t want to stay. She didn’t mind since he was her friend, but she didn’t want him falling over dead neither. Was iconic – she thought that were the word – since she didn’t like most living folk. She liked Taver, although he was annoying sometimes. Still, he was different from the others, though she didn’t know why. Not different like Bors had been, but a more important sort of different. She could tell he wasn’t some ordinary breather sort. There was a fire in his soul, slow burning, but it was there.

Thinking deep about stuff wasn’t her way though. It was the biggest problem breathers had. They thought way too much. It was what had led to all this bother. Best not think at all, far as Tezcat was minded.

‘Cat, come on,’ he pleaded, with a light touch on her arm. He always did that, as if afraid she might break. He didn’t understand. Although her body was half dead, and beginning to show signs, she was stronger than him. She didn’t bleed or bruise for one thing, although broken bones could be trouble, depending which ones.

‘Cat, I’ve rested enough, and if I sit still any longer, I’ll freeze to death ... or, well I mean, I shouldn’t have said it that way, sorry.’

He liked complaining too, like all breathers did; was what came from all that thinking. ‘You shouldn’t has said what?’ she asked, but he just shook his head and stamped his feet. He was odd, with his glowing red cheeks and the tinge of blue edging his lips. His eyes were wet and bright within those dark circles, his hair and skin full of oils.

She wondered what it would be like. To feel air flowing inside of her and back out, her thin chest lifting and falling without thinking about it. She felt air when her mouth was open. It entered sometimes with a chill touch she found nice, but her chest didn’t move. Air went in of its own accord. Sure, she could talk, but breathers didn’t understand it was a viral’s dead half what did all the gobbing. You’s an idiot, she thought, wishing you was a blood-filled sack of a pulsing breather. You’d be propers dead by now if you was. Fat load o’ good you’d does anyone then. You is what you is, and no point wishin’ otherwise.

As she returned to studying the corpse, she realised what bothered her. ‘I ...,’ she began.

‘Cat, I’m not as stupid as you think.’

‘It were my mistake,’ she blurted, and as she said it, she knew it was true. ‘I didn’t saves one o’ them. Not one.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Sharl ... well, I knows him from afore, you see. He were Bors Limber’s son, and he hated that Bors liked me best. Didn’t talks to one another we didn’t, and Sharl lived with his mother anyway. We’d hads fights afore, big ones. I should’ve saved him, though. I should’ve done something. He were stupids, lazy, and fat, but ...’

Her friend didn’t say anything for a moment, staring down at the body without seeing it. She knew that faraway look he got sometimes, like his mind travelled to another world. Tezcat oft wondered if breathers could see things undead couldn’t. ‘The butcher,’ he said. ‘I never even knew he had a son.’

‘Bors died, and Sharl, and that girl, the one like me. All dead.’

‘You listen to me, Cat. You aren’t to blame for what happened. You understand?’

‘I were right there, each time watching ’em die, and I done nothin’ to save ’em.’ There was a word for what she felt, deep inside. She thought Taver would know, but didn’t ask. She didn’t want to learn a name for what felt so horrible.

The corpse in front of her was in a ripped saffron robe, and embroidered cloak. The face on the left side exposed part of the skull. The arrow had punched right through; the thick barb was smeared with dried blood and frozen brain.

It occurred to her she could make up for her mis-doings. She wasn’t sure what though. She could do to this dead woman what she’d done with those animals and birds. But she wanted to go further, to give back this woman her life. I knows I has the magic for it, she thought. Just needs figurin’ out the how. ‘I needs to get her inside,’ she announced.

‘She isn’t feeling the cold, not like I am.’

She threw him a look, one that always worked. Wasn’t sure why as she didn’t think about it.

‘Okay, okay, whatever. I guess dragging a dead woman about will warm me up.’ After working for half an hour to free her half-frozen body from the earth, he dragged her to the nearest building.

‘What you up to?’ he asked once inside in the gloom, sounding suspicious. ‘You think we have time for whatever it is you’re going to do?’

They stood within what she thought was a warehouse. ‘Too many thoughts rattlin’ in your skull. You should quits listening to ’em, Tav. Empty yours head out. Everything’s simpler when you does that.’

‘Okay, but you do realise she’s dead, right? I mean to say, you’re leaving her dead. I mean ...’

Tezcat gave him another one of her looks. Wasn’t sure what made this one different, but it also worked. ‘We are takin’ her with us.’

Taver’s lips moved, but no more words fell out. She bet his wet mushy brain was churning over stuff, alright.

Her power was something natural but not something inside of her. It was beyond, in a place she could reach out and touch, which made her feel complete as if she was half of a whole. She understood this without the need to think it over. All viral’s could touch magic, though few were as strong as Beezer or Lyrin. Tezcat had begun to realise how strong she might become, and she felt it, a power building as though it knew something she didn’t. It was dangerous, touching her other half, which was raw viralic essence. It wanted to destroy her, though she didn’t understand why.

A chill swept through her. Shadows reached out to grab her. She was close to the open entrance with its damaged wooden doors, which let in a little light and swirls of snow. This was a looted storage house, stinking of millet, the sharp scent of barley, and the old scent of breather oils. It was many days since anyone had been there, but the stench of the living lingered. Coarse sacks littered the stone floor.

Patches of darkness clung to her like bats to rocks. She eased herself onto the cold floor hearing the scrabbling of rats, and the yowl of a cat having cornered one.

Her awareness of her surroundings dimmed as her shadow rose in the near darkness. She knew it was at her request, though she hadn’t formed the thought. Wasn’t good thinking of shadows, since they could hear and were never nice when they got inside her head. They tried forcing her to think thoughts she didn’t like. Her own shadow split into two. One half passed through the wall, and vanished.

Tezcat stroked the dead woman’s forehead, smoothing back the hair. Taver was watching, she knew, but he stayed quiet. He understood something important was going to happen. Well, Tezcat thought it was important, and she liked that he respected that.

Moments later she felt the half of her shadow that had remained, move closer. A breeze rummaged through her thin hair. In her side vision, she detected the other half returning. It led the ghost of a woman by the hand. The spirit was open mouthed, eyes wide with fear.

Her magic was helping her pull a life from well, . . . that place dead breathers go. She’d failed Bors and his son. She’d failed the girl with the lips all sewn up. Now, she would give life back to someone, make amends. Beezer had said virals existed to protect the living. In the past, she’d never liked the idea, thinking breathers too stupid, which they were. Now, the pain of her failures had grown unbearable. She needed to put things right. Yes, she would give back this woman her life.

She glanced down at her hands. The light from the doorway combined with her sharp sight meant she saw everything in detail. She concentrated, willing her power to do what she wanted. Her hands remained visible as dark shapes, but she now saw through them like they were ghost hands. She heard Taver gasp, but he otherwise kept quiet. Odd, since he never shut up most of the time. Must be thinking, she supposed.

Her fingers, wriggling with ribbons of power, reached through the dead flesh of the woman without breaking the skin. The fading effect reached up along her thin arms to her shoulders, like a breather’s ghost. She liked the idea, often wondering what it would be like to float away.

She gripped the dead organ. The miasma coursed through her, the power within rising. Her body grew hot, as her core began to freeze. Leastways, that were how it felt.

Pain shot through her arms, and she emitted a strangled whine. Taver moved closer, but she couldn’t speak to tell him she was okay. This was a level of magic she’d never attempted afore. She was afraid, not that she’d admit it to Taver, but she knew she could do it.

Loops of viralic power entwined the dead heart, piercing it. The flow intensified. The miasmic darkness coursed through the corpse, thawing it. It touched the lungs, the kidneys, liver, and the nervous system. It infused everything until it reached the brain stem.

The dead woman took a breath, which of course, turned into a wail. The living liked to shout a lot, like they was always trying to scare death away. It therefore made sense to Tezcat that this woman screamed.

Tezcat withdrew her hands and moved back a few paces. She spotted the edge of her shadow, whole once more, withdrawing into her. A chill returned to her flesh, a familiar and comfortable feeling. Glancing at her mottled hands she saw they were solid again.

The screaming ended, and the dead woman sat up. Her head twisted on her neck with a grating sound.

‘The Spectrum above bless us all,’ Taver whispered, staring at the woman. ‘Oh, Cat, what have you gone and done? Are you even allowed to do that? Won’t you get expelled or something?’

‘There’s no mores Necropolis, ’member? School is finished.’

‘Well, won’t you get into some sort of trouble?’

She wondered why he sounded unhappy. Wasn’t giving the woman back her life a good thing? ‘I doesn’t knows if it’ll last. I needs to practice more.’

Taver eyes were too wide and his face was grey. ‘What do you mean, more? We are not raising an army of angel-forsaken dead are we?’

‘She’s not dead, stupid. She’s a breather again. I mean, I thinks she is. Anyhow, she’s not like us virals or nothin’. I heard a name for it once, zorbie or zombo, or I dunno. I forgets it.’

He wiped at his face. ‘Wait, you said it won’t last? So, if we bring her with us, she could drop dead again?’

Tezcat shrugged. Too many questions, too much thinking. It was what it was. Why couldn’t he leave it alone?

The dead woman looked up at Taver and tried to speak. Her damaged face uttered grunts. Maybe she was in shock. She had been dead after all. Her rigid, torn body wasn’t as it had been when alive. Tezcat had to admit she did look more like a viral, than one of the living. There was something hidden in the thought, but she didn’t pursue it. Too much thinking.

The woman was crying, but Tezcat took no notice. She’d locked away feelings, a part of herself she didn’t understand or like. Facing the wights and her own helplessness had awoken something, but she didn’t want it.

A breeze battered at the wooden door hanging lopsided on a single hinge. It banged against its frame making Taver jump. Breathers often jumped at loud noises. It usually made her laugh.

In the near darkness, they watched the woman rise and stumble about in a circle.

‘Okay,’ said Tezcat, getting to her feet. She walked to the doorway, her friend immediately behind her as if in a rush to get outside.

The once-dead woman followed them. Tezcat felt a cold rush, as she brushed close to her, attempting to speak. There were tears in her eyes, or leastways, she thought those were tears. They were a funny colour.

‘Cat,’ said Taver, staring at the walking corpse as though at a wight, ‘you’re not serious about this. I mean, about bringing her along? This is an experiment, right?’

‘Why do you cry?’ Tezcat asked the woman, feeling confused. ‘You was dead. This is yours chance to live again. Mayhap, I can try healing you . . . I dunno. Beez might, if I asks nice, or Vent. Will you quits the blubberin’?’

The tears didn’t end, though they might not have been tears, what will all the gooey stuff. She’d given the woman her life back. Wasn’t it what she wanted? Wouldn’t anyone want that? When she made dead things move, she thought of it as fooling breathers, but whatever she reanimated was still dead. This woman wasn’t, not exactly. Shadows flocked to the edge of Tezcat’s sight, as crows to a dead thing. This time, they weren’t hers.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked, and realised how foolish it sounded. The woman’s face was too damaged. She couldn’t speak. The stone floor inside the door was grubby with a layer of dirt and snow. Using a finger, Tezcat wrote her name in it. ‘Me,’ she said then, pointing. The woman knelt awkwardly, and with a damaged hand scrawled something.

‘Koy, no, Kay-la?’ Taver read aloud. It was terrible writing, most of the letters unfinished.

Kayla mumbled and wrote something else. They squinted to make sense of the markings. It was as though she was losing strength, coordination. Not a good sign.

‘I am Kayla,’ Taver said, reading it. She’d scrawled something next to it. At first, it was indecipherable. He translated it, completing the markings with his finger. ‘I am Kayla. This is not . . . me,’ he read, and then glanced at Tezcat, who shrugged. ‘Wait, I don’t understand,’ he said to the woman. ‘What do you mean? Who are you?’

She wrote in the dirt again, Taver speaking each word. ‘Let me go.’ Some illegible text followed before she found renewed strength. ‘This body is not mine. They are coming.’

‘Who’s coming?’ asked Tezcat, worried for the first time since she’d decided to do this.

‘You shouldn’t have done it, Cat. You matched up the wrong soul and body.’

‘Just reads what she’s scribblin’.’

‘They come for us.’

She felt a cold finger trail her spine. It was a feeling she’d heard breathers describe. She’d never felt anything like it. No wonder living folk were so jumpy.

The woman collapsed. On the edge of sight, Tezcat saw shadows latch on to the body. They dragged the spirit away as it screamed in silence. Left behind was an empty shell.

Tezcat got to her feet, and kicked it. She’d retrieved a woman’s spirit, but the wrong one. ‘Why don’t it work? What’d I do wrong?’ She continued kicking the useless sack of flesh. Taver put his arms around her. She’d been shouting.

The corpse went into spasm. The eyes opened and sought her out. It tried to speak. The spirit was gone, but something else empowered it. ‘Uh oh.’

‘Spectrum above have mercy on us,’ said Taver, ‘what does, uh oh, mean?’

‘Beetles,’ she said, detaching herself from her friend. The corpse was now a gateway, like the girl-with-the-sewn-up-mouth. The beetles were coming, and what they brought with them.

Both fled out into the cold darkness.

She’d failed those breathers, and now Kayla like the others, would remain lost forever.