The Necromancer Trilogy - Black Magic

Chapter Nine - Classic Escapology

Susannah’s proposed plan made Adele feel slightly sick. Any other time, she wouldn’t have hesitated. But something about the situation she was in made it repulsive.

“It’s the only way,” Susannah peered at her through the bars. “I mean, it has worked with me before.”

“And me,” Adele confessed. “Though usually in less drastic situations.”

“The important part,” Susannah reminded her, “is to remain confident. And not to hesitate.”

Adele nodded. “And not to react too soon and give him time to notice the fact that you are...or…well…”

Susannah smirked. “Yeah. Or well.”

Adele couldn’t help but return the look. Susannah was, little to her surprise, a kindred spirit. Many of their experiences bore startling parallels, and this type of escape was one of them.

“Stand ready,” Susannah drew back from the window. “The first opportunity, you strike.”

Adele nodded and prepared herself, leaning against the back wall of the cell without any idea of how long she would have to wait before the door opened. In the neighbouring cell, Susannah did the same.

 As fortune would have it, they could put the loosely-crafted plan into action with scarcely a pause. It was two minutes at most before the door to Adele’s cell opened.

Nathair Morire was a low-level Necromancer. He was twenty-one, with the physique and features of a male model. Everything about him with precisely and accurately untidy. From the swoop of his untrimmed fringe to the crookedness of his collar to the unbrushed spikes in his hair, he gave off the feeling that his appearance had been measured with a ruler.

 His clothes were ordinary jeans and clinging t-shirt, though all the same dusty, unremarkable black. He might have stood out in the street, but he would have made little to no lasting impression.

 Nathair had been a Necromancer since his late teens, agreeing to the rules and regulations on the basis that a skull ring and a bit of black magic never failed to attract a certain kind of girl. He had since been enveloped into an awe-inspiring world of simple, concentrated belief.

 When he had been summoned by his superiors and told that he must go and fetch the girl from The Cause who was sitting in the cell, he had had no doubts that she was guilty. She was wanted, he had been told, for something important.

 It didn’t matter to Nathair what her crimes were, written on paper. She was one of The Cause and that was sin enough. Admittedly she was not a major character but he still found it an honour to be the one in charge of guarding her.

 But no amount of belief in the sacred nature of Necromancy, the glorious future ahead of them, the cold and unnatural lies and bloody murders of The Cause, was prepared to face the sight of his prisoner as she waited for him.

 Since his indoctrination, Nathair had vanished from the real world. Dates were few and far between and the fewer and further they grew, the less he cared. It had been a long time since he had seen a beautiful girl and thought of her as such.

 But when he opened the door to the cell, locks clunking, bars being pulled back, he was forced to stand in the doorway for a moment and stare. Unexpectedly, alarmingly, the girl made his throat turn dry.

 She was in a state of glorious dishabille, tantalizing lines of pearl-white skin visible in the tears of her clothing. Her body was of a shape that Nathair had forgotten was possible for the human skeleton. Her chestnut curls tumbled, uncontrolled and unrestrained, around her heart-shaped face.