| |
––––––––
POPPY HAD A HEADACHE, her back ached and her feet were killing her after standing at the reception desk of the Magic Guildhall for several hours. She promised herself a long bath when she got home. A younger witch finally came to relieve her halfway through the night. “I’ll take over,” the short blonde woman said. “I was told to give you some packages to deliver on your way home,” she added and handed a pile of boxes to the older witch.
Grimacing at her colleague, Poppy took the bundle. “I’m almost seventy and someone decided to turn me into a lowly courier?” she said in exasperation. “Does this body look like it’s meant to walk long distances?”
The young witch looked her up and down, sneering slightly at how heavily overweight Poppy was. She wore a shapeless dark brown dress and chunky black shoes. Her hair was gray and her eyes were blue and watered constantly. The only reason she hadn’t been forced to retire like all the other elderly witches and wizards was because her potion making abilities were still useful. “I don’t make the rules,” the blonde witch said unsympathetically. “You’d better get going. If you’re lucky, you might be able to catch a carriage.”
“As if one of those walking bags of bones would stop for me,” Poppy muttered in self-pity as she left her post behind the white marble desk. She grabbed her waterproof cloak from a coat stand and stomped over to the door. She descended the stairs and started trudging northward towards the Fae District. She was panting for air before she even made it three blocks. The witch cursed herself for indulging in too much unhealthy food that had made her put on so much weight.
Her colleagues had questioned her about why she wasn’t as malnourished as most of the weak witches and wizards were. She’d told them that she had a metabolic disorder that prevented her from losing weight. The truth was that she could conjure up as much food as she wanted, but she wasn’t about to divulge that little secret to anyone. If she did, she would be inundated with desperate souls begging her to help them. A more likely scenario was that she would be killed to stop her from possibly saving the entire population of Nox from starvation, at least for a little while. The Immortal Triumvirate liked things the way they were, or they would have done something to assist the civilians long ago.
“Why should I help anyone?” the witch muttered sourly as she slowly trudged along the sidewalk. Rain poured down from above and lightning occasionally flashed, momentarily lighting up the gloomy street. “No one’s ever done anything to help me,” she complained.
Hearing a carriage approaching her from behind, she lifted her hand to hail it. To her surprise, the skeleton pulled over beside her. Poppy didn’t waste any time in grasping this rare opportunity. She usually had to share a carriage with a bunch of her colleagues to get to and from work, when they were lucky enough to nab one at all. She called out the first address she needed to deliver a package to and climbed inside.
Her luck held and the skeleton drove her to all three locations. It waited with the patience only the dead possessed for her to bang on the doors and hand over the parcels. When she turned to leave the final house, the carriage took off without her. “I knew my luck wouldn’t hold,” she muttered as she stomped down the path to the sidewalk.
Dawn was still three hours or so away and clouds hid the moon, making the city as dark and gloomy as usual. Poppy trudged through the deluge, wincing when lightning lit the area. Her eyes had to adjust to the darkness again each time. She was a few blocks from her house when she felt as if she was being watched. The witch looked around uneasily, but she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
Poppy picked up her pace, but she was exhausted from all the unaccustomed walking. Courier duties were best suited to people much younger and fitter than she was. She was going to complain to her superiors once she got to work tomorrow night.
Most of the houses she passed were empty and lightless. A few were occupied by frightened groups of aged witches and wizards. It was hard for her to believe she was in the same age group as most of them. Unlike them, she hadn’t fled from her home out of fear that the fledgling vampires would drain her to death. She’d set up wards around her house that would alert her if any intruders came calling.
She touched her pocket to reassure herself that her secret potion was still there. The bottle was a comforting weight in her pocket. Lightning flashed again and she saw movement from the corner of her eye. She glanced over her shoulder to see four people quietly creeping towards her. Their faces were hidden beneath the hoods of their cloaks, but she immediately knew there was something seriously wrong with them.
Poppy turned away and broke into a run. She ignored the pain of her protesting joints and the stitch that started up in her side. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw the foursome were chasing her. Their movements were clumsy and awkward, as if they didn’t have full control of their limbs. Lightning flared again, briefly illuminating their faces. Their unblinking, pale green, milky looking eyes were fixed on her. Poppy sucked in a horrified breath, then sprinted for all she was worth.
She tripped on an uneven cobblestone and fell heavily to the ground. Almost gibbering in terror, she took the bottle out of her pocket and nearly wept in relief to find it was still intact. Poppy fumbled the lid off, then gulped it down. Taking her wand out of her pocket, she pointed it at the strange group that were converging on her. The potion kicked in and she felt a welcome boost of power. She cast a spell at the witches and wizards to freeze them in place. The stasis spell wouldn’t hold them for long, but she should have enough time to reach the safety of her house before it would dissipate.
Heaving herself to her feet, Poppy limped over to the lead witch and pushed her hood back. She gasped in shock at the blackened skin and dark veins that were prominent beneath her skin. Up this close, she could smell the rot coming from what was obviously a bunch of walking corpses. “Zombies!” she shrieked, but her voice was drowned out by the worsening storm.
Poppy fled from the undead and ran to her house. She burst inside, then slammed the door shut and locked it. As she peered out through the curtains, she didn’t dare light any of her candles. They might draw the zombies to her home. She could just make out the four animated corpses in the gloom. The witch shuddered when she saw a crow land on the shoulder of the lead witch. It seemed to be staring straight at her.
Her spell wore off and the zombies lurched into motion again. To Poppy’s horror, they headed straight for her house. Her body tingled in warning when her silent wards were set off. If she’d been asleep, they would have woken her instantly. Decaying fists banged on her door and the corpses moaned horribly. The crow landed on a windowsill and started pecking at the glass. It had the same pale green eyes as the zombies.
Poppy stood a silent and horrified vigil as the undead monsters continued their futile assault on her house. The magic of Nox kept her safe. It prevented them from breaking the windows and door to gain access. Nothing could breach her home unless she invited them in and she wasn’t stupid enough to do that.
As dawn drew closer, the walking dead finally shambled away. Poppy began to shake in reaction from her close brush with death. Although she’d lost most of her magic along with every other magic user, she was still able to make potions that were either too strong, or too weak. The potion she’d just used was designed to boost her power for a short time. It was how she was able to provide enough food for herself. The ingredients weren’t easy to come by, which was why she hadn’t told anyone else about the potion she’d created. If everyone knew about it, the components would all be snapped up, leaving her with nothing to use and the spell would quickly become useless.
“I need to tell everyone about the zombies,” Poppy said shakily as she headed to her bathroom to take the long bath she’d promised herself. It seemed another undead apocalypse was on the rise and it was her duty to stop it.
