Page 83 of Tell No Tales
His magic didn't answer.
She took another step forward.
"For fuck's sake, Vadim, this isn't funny!" Klaus shook beneath his grasp. "Stop them!"
"Death doesn't control them. They're already dead!"
Nola groaned as she built another cylinder around them and pushed it outward. They couldn't see the woman who'd made it through or the other bodies anymore, but it was only a matter of time before they worked their way free of the barrier and came for them again. They wouldn't be safe for long.
"I can … see them," Klaus said. "There."
Vadim closed his eyes and followed along their link. More of the same chill came over him. "You can see the necromantic weaves."
Unlike the strange white glow Vadim had shoved back into Mewskers, this was healing magic twisted with earth weaves into a sickening putrid sludge.
Vadim couldn't stop them. He couldn't see them without Klaus. He tugged Klaus to stand in front of him.
"What, am I your human shield now?" the brat asked.
"Hold out your hand."
Vadim grabbed Klaus's upper arm and helped him raise it, sliding his hand down to Klaus's elbow to steady him. "You're doing this. You can see them. You can stop them."
"I can't!"
"You can." A line from Hesse's journal came to him, one he'd puzzled over so long he'd memorized it. "Those who seek justice can end immortal imprisonment."
"Justice?"
"This is a crime against life itself." Vadim kissed Klaus's pulse point to steady him as the undead woman shambled forward and freed herself from the final water barrier. She raised her arms toward them. One more step, and she would be on them.
Still, Klaus refused to act.
Vadim held out his other arm, and she latched onto it. He tried to push his power into her, but there was nothing for it to latch onto, nothing to drain. She was already dead.
"I can't stop her." Vadim didn't have time to think about what that meant, not while Klaus still had a chance. "You can. I believe in you."
"We all fucking believe in you, Klaus!" Nola's voice was high and strained with the effort to maintain her water barrier. "Do something, quick!"
"Get away!" Klaus threw both arms up and shoved at the woman. A wave of power hit her unlike anything Vadim had ever seen. Instead of his black death weaves, it was an intense purple light. It burned through the woman's aura, cleansing it as it drifted away from her in particles.
She dropped to the floor.
"Fuck!" Klaus's shout brought more of the creatures upon them, along with the ones already trying to claw at them through the curtain of water surrounding them. Vadim felt bony fingers scraping at his boot, and he stomped down on a skeletal hand.
"Do it again."
"I can't!"
"You can. Look at what you did!" Vadim bent forward slightly twisting Klaus's frame downward so he could study the woman he'd liberated from undeath. "You are a grand seeker. You were made for this."
In the same breath, Vadim cursed Hesse for being cryptic, but he also thanked all the gods the man knew what it would take to destroy this army of the undead.
They were all around them now, muttering, "Kill," "Die," and the occasional two-syllable, "Murder."
"Reach out with your power." Vadim squeezed Klaus's elbow where he held his arm up. "Find their twisted cores."
"There's too many." Klaus shook harder, and Vadim grabbed him around his waist to hold him up.
