Christabel's guide to necromancy and world domination

I could not be so lucky, right?

Nobody ever said that infiltrating an evil overlord's tower was easy, but things so far had gone quite well. With help from the undead elf that had unilaterally decided she was my minion, and a glaring lack of security that made Star Wars storm-troopers look competent, I had gone inside, found a magical lab, rescued more or less as planned a little fairy that had already tried to kill me once (and yeah, I will keep reminding you of that, excuse me if I am bitter about being thrown off a tree!), and sneaked back to the staircase that, with a stroke of luck, would take us to a flying machine that we could use to escape.

Yep. It was that kind of day.

Of course, the stroke of dumb luck ended when we met a hooded figure coming down the stairs, right in front of us, with no way to hide.

For an instant that seemed to stretch forever, it was uncertain who was more surprised, if the figure or us. It was slimmer than the Orcs I had seen so far, and very tall. The black robe it was wearing was embroidered with dark red patterns very similar to the ones I had just seen in the magical lab, and the figure was gripping a black staff with an elaborate golden decoration on top, holding a black stone. It did not take many deductive skills to realize that was the infamous evil overlord.

Then I pushed him down the stairs.

If you are wondering how I could push him down the stairs while he was technically above me, either you can chalk it up to my incredibly powerful magic, which seems to be the trendy option, or use the more complicated version: I used the moment of surprise to grab his cloak, terrible choice both for agility and for fashion by the way, with both hands, then I pulled him with all my strength, moving to a side so he went tumbling down the spiral staircase. As I had suspected, it looked like he had invested in his physical fitness exactly as much as he had invested in good security, so basically zero.

I grabbed back the cage that I had made accidentally fall, ignored Night- on- the- River's protests, and dashed up the stairs, Delindemin following me without a word. Behind me, I could hear a raspy voice yelling for guards, but I did not stop to check. I covered the steps until two floors up, almost jumping, then slammed a door opened and threw myself in the corridor. Maybe keeping going upstairs would be a better idea, but I was starting to pant, and there was no way I was going to keep that rhythm up to the roof. At least this way we could find a place to hide, maybe.

The corridor was different than the one I had seen before, with large windows made in black glass, which made me wonder what was the point of having them, honestly, a thick red carpet, and statues on the sides.

"This way!" ordered the elf, taking my hand and dragging me in one direction. In the cage dangling from my other hand, the little fairy was surprisingly silent. I hoped I had not accidentally caused her a concussion with all that running. That would be a stupid way to die.

Delindemin shoved me through another door, and closed it behind her. I had just a second to stop and breathe, my hands on my knees, and then I lifted my eyes up and froze again. I could see now that it was a bedroom. There was a large king-sized bed in front of me, with black curtains and black silky sheets of course, what else. There was also somebody sitting on the bed.

She looked a bit older than me, she had long black hair and her tanned skin was covered in red tattoos. Also, she had horns. And she looked very confused.

"What's going on here?"

There were noises in the corridor, so going back that way was not an option. Delindemin had her knives out but she looked confused, and she was watching me, waiting for instructions. Of course her short burst of independent decision- making was already over.