dead to me

O Dead to Me o
By Cinda Williams Chima
Leesha Middleton pushed her rook across the alabaster
chessboard and settled back into the pink wicker chair.
“Your move.”
Aunt  Millisandra  cocked  her  head,  scanning  the
arrangement of pieces on the game board. “What did you
just do?”
Leesha  lifted  her  piece,  repeating  the  move.  “You
have to pay better attention, Aunt Millie. It’s no wonder
I always win.”
“You  always  win  because  you  cheat!”  Aunt  Millie
said.
“Yeah, I cheat by paying attention,” Leesha said, rolling her eyes.
“I want to know why a pretty young girl is sitting
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here on a Friday night, playing chess with her great-aunt,”
Aunt Millie said. “You used to be quite the partyer.”
Well. Aunt Millie paid attention to somethings.
“I’m  partying  with  you,”  Leesha  said.  She  lifted
the frosty decanter of mimosas from the ice bucket and
refilled Millie’s glass.
“Don’t  try  to  get  me  tipsy,  Alicia,”  Aunt  Millie
warned, putting her hand over her glass once it was full.
“You always win when I get tipsy.”
“Oh,  I  know  better  than  that,”  Leesha  said.  Aunt
Millie tended to set fire to things when she was deep in
her cups.
“And don’t try to change the subject,” Aunt Millie
said, dropping a sprig of mint into her glass. “You’ve been
down in the dumps ever since your young man broke
your heart.”
“He died, Aunt Millie,” Leesha pointed out.
“He died,” Aunt Millie conceded, nodding, “and that
broke your heart. A period of mourning is certainly in
order, but it’s been more than a year. It’s time to rally, my
dear.”
“Why?” Leesha snapped. “Is there a statute of limitations or something?”
“Don’t be cross, Alicia,” her aunt said, severely. “You
should be enjoying the golden light of August. I always
used to spend August in the south of France.”
Leesha scooped up some artichoke dip with a water
cracker. “Yeah, well, the south of France is a long way
from here.”
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“My  point,  exactly.”  Aunt  Millie  tossed  back  her
drink and extended her glass for a refill. “A European tour
can be great therapy for the blues. And a period of absence
can dull the sharp tongues of gossips.” She paused, thinking. “Have you considered the beaches of Dubrovnik? I’m
willing to wager that very few wizards in Croatia have
heard of you.”
“I’m not going to Dubrovnik,” Leesha said.
“Cabo is nice,” Millie mused, “but it’s rainy this time
of year, and I hear there’s a lot of bad flame on the street.”
That was the thing about Aunt Millie. She was confused  much  of  the  time,  but  you  couldn’t  really  count
on it.
To the northwest, the sun was bronzing the surface
of Lake Erie as it descended. The sailboats swarmed like
mayfl ies, taking advantage of late-summer fair weather
before the cold of autumn set in.
There’d been a time when Leesha would have given
anything to shake the dust of Trinity, Ohio, off her boots,
back when everybody in town hated her.
Oh, they had their reasons. She’d sold the warrior Jack
Swift  to  magical  traffickers,  and  kidnapped  his  friends
Will Childers and Harmon Fitch to force him to fight
in a deadly tournament. She’d drugged Seph McCauley
with wizard flame,  resulting  in  a  fatal  fire at an afterhours club. (Who knew he couldn’t hold his flame?) She’d
nearly delivered the powerful Dragonheart stone to the
cruel and despicable Warren Barber.
She’d betrayed the only boy she’d ever loved.
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Now  it  was  worse.  Everybody—even  those  who
despised her—was making an effort to forgive and forget. Which, in her heart of hearts, she knew she didn’t
deserve. Say what you want about hate and resentment,
it gets a person out of bed in the morning. Guilt, on the
other hand . . .
“You need to get out more,” Aunt Millie persisted.
“And stop wearing those sweatpants all the time, or you’ll
lose your lovely fi gure.”
“Yoga pants,” Leesha said, tugging at her waistband.
“They’re comfortable, and I don’t even have to change
clothes when I go to bed.”
“Alicia Ann Middleton, you are one of the wealthiest
young wizards in the empire, or you will be once I pass
on. I won’t have you spending your time pining away in
some colonial backwater.”
“Checkmate.”
Aunt Millisandra scowled at her, then squinted down
at the game board, eyebrows knitting together in suspicion. “What did you just do?”
Leesha walked her through it.
“Pfft,”  Aunt  Millie  said.  She  gestured  toward  the
chessboard, speaking a charm that was probably meant to
return the set to the cabinet. Instead, she sent it winging
toward Leesha, nearly decapitating her. Leesha ducked,
and it zoomed out over the lake, where it splashed into
the waves at the edge of the horizon.
“Well, that’s a shame,” Millie said, blowing out her
cheeks in frustration. “It’s seventh-century Persian.”
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“Would  you  like  to  play  canasta,  Aunt  Millie?”
Leesha asked. Playing cards would be less deadly when
they took to the air.
Millie judged the angle of the sun. “You don’t have
time, darling. You’d better change into something more
presentable. Your date will be here in less than an hour.”
“My—what?!”
“I  have  a  very  special  weekend  planned  for  you,
Alicia,” Aunt Millie said. “And it begins with your changing out of those pants.”
Aunt Millisandra was right about one thing—there was
something  about  dressing  up  that  always  brightened
Leesha’s spirits. And the private jet to London was certainly distracting. A day spent shopping in Knightsbridge,
Oxford  Street,  and  the  markets  was  therapeutic.  The
boutique hotel near Buckingham Palace was top-drawer.
The only flaw in Aunt Millie’s plan was Leesha’s date,
one Rutherford P. Claridge, the arrogant heir to a blueblooded wizard family whose ancestors had been on the
winning side in the War of the Roses. Rutherford was a
pale, pillowy young man with an annoying tendency to
“mansplain” everything, from the commodities markets
to the taxicab system in London.
Finding it impossible to spit out the name “Rutherford,”
Leesha stuck with “Claridge,” seeking a bit of distance.
Still, she had to blister his hand to convince the young
wizard that Leesha was not part of hisspecial weekend
package, and after that they got on reasonably well.
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The centerpiece of Millie’s plan was a “boating party”
on the Regent’s Canal in London, hosted by the scion of
some well-connected wizard family. Followed by three
days at an estate in the Cotswolds.
“If young Rutherford doesn’t suit you, there will be
plenty of other fish in the canal,” Aunt Millie had said.
The  Regent’s  Canal  was  barely  wide  enough  to
accommodate their boat in places, especially under the
bridges. Some of the bridges were low enough that even
Leesha had to duck. Like most boat rides, it was too long.
Still, the food and the music were good, and some of the
other partygoers were witty and charming in a way only
the British aristocracy can be.
Leesha had never had trouble maneuvering in social
situations where nobody had a reason to hate her. Flirting
was,  after  all,  like  breathing;  and  soon  she  was  surrounded by a circle of admirers while Claridge sulked on
the fringes.
In  an  attempt  to  elude  him,  Leesha  escaped  to  the
washroom and emerged on deck, where she could watch
the shoreline slipping by. The canal cut a slice through
the historic layers of London, exposing weathered brick
walls, the sides of historic buildings, colorful graffiti, and
green parklands prowled by feral cats.
A fl icker of motion caught Leesha’s eye, something
rippling at the canal’s surface. Were there really fish in
here? Leaning on the rail, she peered down at the water.
“Here you are!” Leesha felt the sting of wizardry as
Claridge’s hand came down on her shoulder. “Are you
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avoiding  me,  Alicia?”  He’d  been  drinking  all  the  way
from Browning’s Pool, and his veneer of gentility had
slipped a bit.
An image of a sneering Warren Barber coalesced in
Leesha’s  mind’s  eye,  and  she  slammed  Claridge  with  a
blast of frigid air, so hard that he flew back into a pillar. “We’ve already had this conversation,” she said, hands
on hips. “What don’t you understand about ‘hands off’?
I’ve already done the abusive, controlling thing. It’s so last
year.”
“But . . . you’re with me,” Claridge growled. “You’re
mydate. I didn’t bring you all the way to London to be
stiff-armed.”
Leesha snorted. “If I’m not mistaken, we traveled on
mydime. The good news is, I don’t expect anything in
return. In fact, I think we should see other people, beginning now.” Deliberately, she turned her back on Claridge,
scanning the water again.
Yes, there was definitely something swimming toward
the boat, as if to intercept it. The hairs on the back of
Leesha’s neck stood up, and her skin prickled with unease.
The scent of rotting flesh floated up to her from below.
That’s never good, she thought.
“Claridge,” she murmured. “Do you see what I—?”
Somebody gripped Leesha around the neck, turning
her and pressing her up against the rail. It was Claridge,
anointing her with a series of sloppy kisses and groping
whatever parts of Leesha he could reach.
Over Claridge’s shoulder, Leesha saw a head emerge
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over the rail on the far side of the boat—a grinning skull
only  partially  covered  with  flesh.  It  was  attached  to  a
decomposing body. The creature vaulted the rail, landing
on all fours on the deck. It came up in a low crouch, an
iron bar clutched in one hand, and crept toward them. As
Leesha watched, horrified, three more heads poked over
the rail.
What was the word for the walking dead? Revenants?
Zombies? Well, if they weren’t zombies, they were certainly zombie-esque.
“Claridge!” Leesha tried to shout, but the wizard’s
slobbery mouth was blocking hers. So she flamed him,
sending him rocketing back, squalling, directly into the
arms of the walking dead. The iron bar came down with
a wet crunch, and Claridge slumped to the deck.
Leesha  watched,  horrified,  as  one  of  the  creatures
fumbled  with  a  small  iridescent  bottle,  pressing  it  to
Claridge’s body as if to fill it with his departing soul.
No.  Not  his  soul.  His  magic.  What  Jason  called
“juice.” The bottle gleamed, brighter and brighter as it
filled.
What’s  more  disgusting  than  a  zombie?  A  vampire
zombie that feeds on magic.
Leesha set her feet and sent flame  roaring  into  the
huddle of walking dead. It set their clothes to smoldering, releasing the stench of charred flesh, but had little
effect otherwise. Since they didn’t seem to feel pain, she
guessed they’d keep on coming unless she hacked them
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apart  completely.  Since  she  was  the  only  one  alive  on
deck, they came for her.
Leesha  took  three  steps  back,  then  charred  a  large
hole in the decking between her and them. so that the
monsters  charging  toward  her  tumbled  through  to  the
deck below. A moment later, the screaming began, down
below.
Hearing the rattle of bones behind her, Leesha spun
to find cadavers climbing the rails on all sides. Was this a
horror-themed cruise. and nobody had told her? Personally, she’d never been fond of haunted houses. Real life
was scary enough.
Just then a young man appeared out of nowhere and
plowed into the zombies, swinging a wicked ax. Body
parts went flying in all directions, littering the deck like
macabre  fruit.  The  dead  went  down  but  continued  to
drag themselves across the deck toward Leesha.
When  jets  of  wizard  flame  failed  to  discourage
them,  Leesha  grabbed  the  iron  bar  that  one  of  them
had dropped and commenced to reducing some of her
attackers to bags of broken bones. Well, Leesha thought,
this is inefficient.
“They don’t go down easy,” the newcomer said. He
was  tall  and  bald,  totally  ripped  and  very  much  alive.
“What  you  need  is  a  cutting  blade.”  He  sent  a  dagger
spinning  toward  Leesha,  and  she  somehow  caught  it
without losing any fingers.  “That’s  more  of  a  stabbing
weapon, but it’s better than nothing.”
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Once  again,  Leesha  cursed  the  wizard  inability  to
identify the members of the various magical guilds. “Who
are you?” Leesha stammered. “What are they?”
The boy looked at her for a long moment, as if deciding  whether  to  respond.  Then  deciding  no.  “If  I  were
you, wizard, I’d get off the boat,” he said. Then he leaped
down the stairs, into the chaos below.
It seemed like good advice, even coming from someone who used wizard like a curse.
Looking up the canal, Leesha saw that they were just
about to pass under a bridge. That was where the canal
was at its narrowest, allowing no room for zombies to
climb  up  the  sides.  Wielding  the  bar  in  one  hand  and
the dagger in the other, Leesha swept her immediate area
clear of zombies and ran for the bow of the boat.
The banks crowded in on either side, scraping zombies  off  like—like  whatever  gets  scraped  off  a  boat.
Leesha boosted herself over the rail, clung to the outside
for a moment, then launched herself onto the bank, barely
missing the stone foundation of the bridge. She landed,
rolling, and came to her feet in time to see a boy with a
massive sword leap from the middle of the bridge, landing on the roof of the pilot’s cabin. For a long moment, he
stood silhouetted against the night sky, the wind stirring
his hair, like some kind of an avenging god.
Then he threw himself flat, and he and the boat passed
under the bridge and disappeared.