through Dagmar’s body. The warmth met a cold force, and the two clashed hard. She shuddered and fell squirming back onto the table, only vaguely aware that both Biddlemeyer and her brother were trying to hold her steady. She fought, both inside and out, but—
The warmth smashed the cold. The cold gave a little yelp and squashed down into near nothing, though Dagmar could still feel it, small and resentful, like a frog tossed off its lily pad. Dagmar slumped against the hard wood of the table. The zombie demon was still there inside her, but powerless.
“You went too far, Dagmar,” said Crystamel inside her head. “Now you’ve got about ten minutes to live.”
“Yow!” Dagmar jerked upright, spilling both Biddlemeyer and Ramdane away. “No one said you’d be talking!”
“What’s going on?” Biddlemeyer picked himself off the floor.
Ramdane did likewise. “It’s my familiar. Crystamel’s spirit will push Dagmar’s out in a few minutes if we don’t do something. But if we take Crystamel out, the zombie demon will just take over again, so we’re booted either way. You only made it worse, Dagmar.”
“No,” Dagmar said, steeling herself a second time. “Now we move to phase two.”
“Phase two?” Ramdane echoed. “When did we enter phase one?”
Dagmar flexed her leg. No pain, no cold. The wound had shrunk, too. Good. Except she was still dead in a few minutes if she didn’t get a move on. Why did these things always come with a time limit? Gods, she was tired of all this.
“Don’t worry, Lady Dagmar. We won’t let your spirit get . . . pushed out,” Biddlemeyer said stoutly. “You’re too fine a—you’re a very good—that is—” he halted, a little flushed. “I mean, my brother has hurt too many people, and we won’t let anyone else come to harm. Especially you.”
Hm . . . Dagmar hopped, clinking, off the table and gave Biddlemeyer a sideways glance. A lot of men liked women who knew their way around a sword, and he was certainly strapping. But no. She had signed on to be a warrior, and warriors fought. To the death.
Inside her, Crystamel darted about like a mixture of grease and lightning. It made her sick, but with it also came a strange sensation, like she was steadily filling with light, and she might explode at any moment.
“Come on,” she said. “We don’t have much time.”
She towed a bewildered Ramdane out of the kitchen and into the main courtyard, with Biddlemeyer coming behind. Clumps of frightened-looking village survivors scattered to get out of their way in a strange reversal of the zombie horde outside the gates.
“If Crystamel is the reverse of the zombie demon,” she explained as they went, “then I can share Crystamel’s spirit with the zombies, right? Her spirit will spread and push the demon out, and it’ll cure all the victims.” Right? she added mentally.
“Except I don’t know what’ll happen in the end. The demon has to go somewhere, you know.”
Does that matter at this stage?
“Cure everyone?” Biddlemeyer gasped. “Even my mother?”
“If I’m right, yes.”
Hope crossed Biddlemeyer’s handsome face like sunlight. “Lady, if you truly cure everyone, you can name your price. You can name two.”
“Don’t give her that kind of opening,” Ramdane warned.
Hm. They were climbing the stairs to the top of the wall again. The zombies were still below, with the zombie king in the back. All the zombies, perhaps two hundred of them, were beating at the gate, and it was creaking a little. Eventually, they would break through, and the other villagers, reluctant to kill their own family members, would fall victim to the horde.
“What does Herbert want, anyway?” Dagmar said. The slick light inside was growing stronger, and it was hard to concentrate.
“He’s a good talismonger, but a bad earl,” Biddlemeyer replied. “I offered to make him captain of the guard, but I think he’d rather rule over zombies than live under his own brother. Trouble is, he might get his way and spread all this to the entire kingdom—or the world.”
The little boy who had bitten her pounded at the gate below. His fists were bleeding. Herbert the zombie king laughed. “Give up, Jack! I promise you won’t feel a thing!”
“Button it, Herbert!” Biddlemeyer yelled back.
Crystamel stirred. The pulsing light inside grew stronger still, and Dagmar set her mouth. “Can you get me down there?”
Ramdane pulled a bit of string from his talisman belt, blew on it, and tossed it over