Page 37 of A Door in the Dark
Ren tried to focus on logic. The creature was undoubtedly pursuing them. Based on the grunts she’d heard the other night, it had been tracking them for a while. Which meant that it could find them again. For now, all they could do was hope to put as much distance as possible between themselves and their hunter. She hoped his physical form was a limitation. On the bridge he’d been moving at a slow pace. She guessed their deliberations on how to cross the river had given him a chance to catch up.
It was nearly an hour into their flight when everyone silently agreed to stop and rest. There were great heaving gasps from everyone. Ren hated that she couldn’t hear anything beyond their breathing. There was no way to sense what else was around them, blocked as they were by branches and brush. A glance showed that Cora looked downright wretched. Fresh tears were following newly formed paths down both cheeks. She kept scratching at the skin near her amber eyebrow piercing.
Her eyes were pinned on the trail they’d taken. As if she was hoping that Avy might still appear. For all of this to be a nightmare that she might wake up from. Ren knew how close the two of them had been. A sibling-type relationship that had existed in those brief hours they’d spent together in the waxways over the years. It was Theo who finally broke their silence.
“Are we not going to talk about what just happened? I’ve got a few questions for our medical trainee back there. Like, for example, how could you not know that Clyde was still alive when you took his pulse back in the clearing? Aren’t you supposed to be the lead surgeon in your class? What happened?”
Cora burst into tears again. It was so unexpected, so unlike the person Ren had gotten to know over the years. She’d always seen Cora as a kindred spirit. A cerebral girl who’d earned her way into Balmerick through a combination of will and talent. She’d never once seen her express emotion like this. Timmons thumped Theo’s shoulder with a backhand.
“Look…,” he said, clearly uncertain how to console another person. “I just… I’m not blaming you. I’m just trying to figure out what happened back there. I’m sorry.”
Cora wiped her tears with a sleeve. She spoke in a hollow voice.
“He was dead.”
Theo raised an eyebrow. “Looked pretty alive to me…”
“His return is unnatural,” Cora answered in that toneless voice. “I didn’t miss a pulse. Clyde is dead. Your friend? He’s dead. That thing that chased us across the river…”
Tears slid down both cheeks again. Ren watched Cora’s jaw quiver.
“That monster that killed my friend isn’t Clyde.”
Theo fell silent as they continued to try to catch their breath. Every shadow felt dark with possibility. It had been hard enough when Ren had imagined normal creatures lurking in the forest’s depths. Now a monster out of the worst fairy tales pursued them. She tried to refocus their attention.
“What was that, Cora? What do you think happened?”
She was hoping to tug at her medical knowledge. Make her feel useful, and maybe that would soften the pain of Avy’s loss. “It’s hard to say. I wasn’t allowed to inspect Clyde’s body. Even the most routine autopsy would have given us answers.”
“I wasn’t going to let you cut out his organs, all right? It’s untoward.”
Cora shot Theo a withering look. “What do you think happens when you die? It might not be performed in the middle of a forest, but we take your bodies and cut out your organs, Theo. You made such a fuss about Clyde’s family being religious, as if they might look down on having their son’s body examined. Who do you think invented most of the modern spells for autopsies?”
She let that question hang in the air long enough for Theo to figure out the answer.
“The Winters family owns every medical clinic in Kathor. Including the one I work in on campus. We do research on everyone. Even the damn heirs and scions. The second your life expires, you’re one of their test subjects. And for good reason. The more we look at bodies, the more we understand them. The more we understand them, the better job we can do of keeping people… alive.”
Her voice fell off at that last word. She looked on the verge of tears again.
Ren wanted to keep them focused. “Guesses, Cora.”
The girl nodded. “Guesses. Right. I’d guess that we’re dealing with a revenant.”
A shiver ran down Ren’s spine. Timmons muttered a curse. There were no good stories about revenants. No lighthearted tales. Revenants were haunted things, dreadful creatures. Ren’s mind was flipping through the pages of textbooks, trying to remember all she’d read on them.
“They’re drawn back to the land of the living by two things: magic and unrest.” She looked to Cora for confirmation and received a nod. “And the whole walking-corpse part fits.”
“Your initial suggestion,” Cora replied, “was that magic had been burned out of his body. I should have critiqued that theory more closely. It’s very difficult to fully destroy magic. In hindsight, I believe the burns we saw were a form of corrupted magic.”
Ren nodded. “And the unrest part is obvious. We all saw what happened in the waxway room. The argument. The fight that broke out. Even if I think Clyde was wrong to act the way he did, it’s not hard to see that his soul wasn’t restful when the portal spell activated. The textbook I read said revenants are driven back to life by designs of vengeance. They… they hunt the people who caused their death.”
That earned another curse from Timmons. Theo was listening closely to everything.
“It’s done, then,” he said. “Clyde was upset with Avy. His revenge is satisfied. Why would he keep hunting us? We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Cora answered. “Revenants are creatures of consumption. I told you: he’s not your friend anymore. He’s a predator. You are prey. End of story. Besides, don’t you think Clyde was conflicted about defending you? Or upset that none of us intervened? Magic is pettier than you’d imagine. Ren’s right. We’re all tied to his death. Clyde will hunt everyone who was in that room.” She looked around. “Which means we’re next.”
“But now we know that he’s coming,” Ren said. “No more surprises. We’ll be ready to face him next time. What else, Cora? I know the basics from Arlo’s The Principal Bestiary, but that mostly covers the broader definitions of magical creatures. Are there any case studies on them?”
