Page 87 of Suffer No Fools
"We are from Stony Eel Island," one said.
"He's the only one who speaks," Klaus whispered.
"That's all he seems to be able to say." Bea shook her head.
A trickle of warmth trailed across the table from Hugo, teasing and testing along the first person's neck, and then down the row. When he didn't find anything there, it skimmed their arms, and finally legs. He found their ankle bracelets. He heated and then froze the clasps, which gave audible pings as they broke.
"Glamor enchantment," Vadim said. "Worse than we thought."
"They're fucking undead!" In a flash, Klaus was out of his seat, his power lassoed around the first one Hugo had freed from the enchantment, the man who had spoken. He slumped to the table, dead.
In the meantime, the rest had noticed the plight of their friend and tried to climb over the table toward them.
"There's got to be a better way to do this," Hugo muttered.
"You could set them all on fire," Vadim offered as he shoved the one closest to him to the floor.
"Show us what fire does to them," Bea said. "Klaus's power is formidable, but it's finite."
Hugo didn't want to burn his friends. He shoved the creatures back from the table with a blast of air and then lit that same air on fire. The creatures howled as they continued to claw at the barrier. A few still wearing working amulets made better progress against his weaves. Finally, the fire broke all the enchanted items and the creatures tried to run away from him. The ones furthest from the door ran into the wall. They scrabbled at the stone until they crumpled to the floor in piles of ash.
"Fire keeps them from walking through walls," Hugo said.
The one closest to the door managed to find the handle, but Hugo had melted his enchantment chain by then, and Klaus used his power to kill him.
"That was impressive," Bea said.
"What are these enchantments?" Klaus asked. "I can't get a read on them now that they're broken."
"We'll take them to Allora," Vadim said. "I assume it's a healing enchantment to make them look alive, though they were a poor imitation."
"They got this far, didn't they?" Bea shook her head. "We'll have to start searching everyone for enchantments before they can leave their ships."
"This isn't just a healing enchantment." Klaus pulled the broken chain from the one he'd killed by the door and examined it. "There's suppression magic here."
"Coryn wanted us to think they were suppression amulets," Vadim said.
"What are we missing?" Hugo asked. "She couldn't have expected them to kill us all."
Vadim nodded. "This was a stalling tactic."
Stan hurried from the conference room. He rushed up the stairs and outside to touch the nearest tree root. From there, he could feel the vibrations in the island. The tree was vibrating in a way he'd never felt before. It felt like an alarm.
"Something is wrong," he shared with Tovey and Hugo. "We need to get to the eastern shore."
Stan couldn't decipher the tree's alarm bell, but Renald and Trin met them on the path. "There's something wrong at the beach," was all Renald paused to say before he ran ahead of them.
When they reached the sand, Hugo launched into the air and pulled Tovey and Stan with him by their clasped hands. Stan couldn't tell if Hugo was doing it by himself or if he controlled the earth while Tovey controlled the air and Hugo bound them both together in a single weave. Either way, they were flying, something neither Stan nor Tovey had done before. From theair, they could see hundreds of dark human shapes wading beneath the water, if not more.
"Fall back," Hugo called. "Earth weaves won't work."
"Fuck," Klaus muttered behind them. "I've never seen so many at once."
"Can you stop them?" Vadim asked.
"Not all of them."
"It's all right," Hugo said. "Where are the water weavers?"
