Field Trip Fae: Uncle Chip Saves the Fae, #3

1

Rose

Chip, duck! I threw the dagger as hard as I could at the ravenous zombie running up behind him.

Chip hunched down and crouched just in time. The dagger embedded in the creature’s eye. The zombie dropped, the now inert undead body skidding to a stop next to where Chip’s crouched.

I whirled around and took up a two-handed stance with my sword. We’d stumbled into the necromancer’s trap and there was no way out but through the remaining eight zombies coming at us.

Chip, get up and come stand beside me. We can’t let them get between us.

He stood and ran over to join me. He’d actually done pretty well in this fight. He’d held his own against the initial onslaught. I’d still had to save him from the one coming at him from behind, but that kind of situational awareness during a fight only came with lots of practice and more than a little actual combat.

Chip raised his Guardian sword and joined me in the room’s opening. In theory, the narrow passageway limited the number of the crazed undead who could reach us. I hoped that remained true.

The charging zombies ran up to us and we began hacking at the clawing hands reaching out to drag us into their snapping teeth. The stench of their rotting flesh filled the air around us. It threatened to make me retch.

I fought back against my rebellious stomach and swallowed the rising bile in the back of my throat. I hacked off a hand reaching out to clutch at my face. We just had to keep ourselves away from their snapping jaws and teeth. I didn’t relish the painful treatment necessary to ward off a zombie’s bite.

Remember, head shots are the only way to kill them.

I remember, I remember, Chip called as he hacked at the zombie in front of him. His voice had risen in pitch a little, but he seemed to be holding himself together. The attack had surprised both of us.

Chip batted aside the hands trying to pull him closer and lunged in to thrust his enchanted blade through his zombie’s mouth. The blade came out the back of the head, piercing the magically animated brain inside. The zombie dropped.

Unfortunately for Chip, it fell with his sword still wedged in the skull. He struggled to pull the blade free.

I cut through the neck of the one in front of me. The still-animated head toppled from the body even as the rest of the deanimated corpse collapsed.

Chip had a foot on the head of his previous target and yanked backward. The stuck sword came free suddenly. He lost his balance and fell over onto his ass.

I lunged to the side and pierced the ear of the zombie preparing to leap on Chip while he was down. I pulled back as soon as the creature went limp, making sure not to replicate Chip’s mistake.

Get up. I can’t hold them alone. I took a step back in the passage, getting closer to the opening into the room behind us. I didn’t want to give them a chance to get all around us like the first batch had.

Chip scrambled to his feet. He bent down to retrieve his dropped sword and then stepped back in to stand beside me.

Sorry, Rose. I didn’t know my sword would get stuck like that.

Just. Hack. Keep. Thrust. Fighting. I ducked low and kicked out with my foot, sweeping the next zombie’s feet out from under her. The undead woman toppled over and temporarily tripped up the ones behind her.

I leaped forward and stomped down with my black leather boot, crunching through the brain pan with my heel, killing the beast below me.

Chip moved up next to me, shoving back the zombie facing him with a kick to its chest.

The press of undead still threatened to overwhelm us and we were hard pressed to keep them from forcing us backward into the open room.

Chip, try your force wall on them. See if you can hold them back while I try and figure a way out of here. There has to be a way out of that room back there.

I can try. He held up his left hand while he kept the sword ready in his right. His face screwed up in concentration for a few seconds and then he grunted and leaned forward as if pushing on an invisible barrier. He had them.

I stepped back from where Chip stood keeping the zombies back with his Guardian magic. The room behind me was made of stone and cinderblock in construction. If there was a way to get out, it shouldn’t be too hard to find. The necromancer had lured us into this basement room without windows or obvious doors. Unless he’d transported himself out by teleportation, there had to be another way to escape.

Do whatever you plan on doing quickly, Rose. I can’t hold them back for long. There are too many of them pushing back at me. I can feel the mana draining from my reserves.

Just hold them, Chip. I’ll find the exit. It has to be here somewhere.

I looked back at the entrance where he stood pushing at the zombies and then looked at the back wall of the empty room. We had chased the necromancer in here. When we charged in after him, he was gone. We could see the back wall, so which way did he go when he entered? I thought back and remembered the evil wizard turned left after running into the room.

The left-hand wall was all cinderblock which meant it was probably an interior wall and didn’t lead outside. The stone foundation of the old Victorian home lined the outside basement walls.

I ran my fingertips along the wall, tracing the cement lines in between the cinderblocks. There had to be a seam somewhere in here.

There. A ridge passed under my tracing fingers, and I stopped.

I leaned forward and peered at the wall, trying to see with my naturally enhanced night vision abilities. The single old sixty-watt incandescent bulb in the middle of the ceiling did little to fill the room with much light. I leaned forward, staring at the seam. There was a narrow gap there. It followed the interlocking sections of the cinderblock.

Rose, I don’t know how much longer I can hold them.

I twisted to look over my shoulder. Chip had backed up a pace closer to the doorway. Push at them, Chip. I’ve almost figured it out.

The wall definitely had an opening. I didn’t see the mechanism that would unlock it, though. There had to be a release catch on this side somewhere. I searched all along the wall outside the area where the door was. There had to be a block to push on, or a hidden panel that opened up somewhere around it.

I kept looking, getting more and more frustrated by the second. The door had to have a method that opened it. It couldn’t just push or pull open.

I’m about done, Rose. Get up here. We’ll have to fight them.

I’ve almost got it, Chip. Just hold on.

I don’t have the power to give anymore. I’m almost dry.

My balled-up fist smacked on the hidden door, the anger at not being able to decipher the riddle overwhelming me. The section of cinderblock depressed about a half-inch then popped back towards me as my fist came away. The door now had a one-inch lip I could grasp. The whole door closed with a spring-loaded latch on the other side.

I gripped the edge with my fingertips and pulled. The door swung into the room with ease. It was just in time.

Chip gasped and dropped his trembling arm to his side. He stumbled back in my direction, barely able to lift his sword as he moved as fast as his exhausted legs would carry him.

Into the opening. Hurry.

He half-stumbled past me. I backed into the opening and pulled at the handle on the inside of the faux cinderblock panel that was the door. I stabbed at the first zombie to reach me. I dropped it with a piercing blow to its head and yanked the door closed before any of the others could get there and block the opening.

Chip had collapsed inside the long hallway that extended away from the hidden door. I had pulled the door closed and it clicked as the spring mechanism engaged again. Hopefully, the zombies didn’t press on it and pop it open while we ran away down this passage.

I helped Chip to his feet. He checked the closed door and saw there were no zombies close. He pressed the jeweled stud on his sword’s hilt. The blade glowed blue and then collapsed and folded in on itself until he just held the leather-wrapped handle of the hilt in his hand. It was like something from a superhero movie. With the blade gone, Chip slid it into the custom leather sheath on his belt, now only six inches long.

Jealousy flared up in my chest like it always did when I saw his magical blade in action. I’d kill for a sword I could hide like that. I loved my longsword. It had been with me since it was awarded to me as a teenager. But I had definite blade envy at the magic that his sword had within it. The weapons smith had called it one of his masterworks and I couldn’t disagree with him. It was amazing to see in action.

We have to hurry, I said. I waved for Chip to follow me. We might still be able to catch the necromancer. He had to go this way, too.

He’s got a head start on us.

All the more reason to hurry. Can you keep up? I looked back to see if he was there.

Chip moved at a fast walk and looked like he was about to fall over. That mana drain took a lot out of me. You go ahead. I’ll catch up.

Okay, if there’s a turn off that I take ahead, I’ll mark it somehow. Otherwise, assume I kept going straight.

He waved at me to go ahead and slowed down to catch his breath.

I squeezed at the grip on my sword, trying to push some of the anger from my thoughts. It wasn’t his fault he was so drained. It was his barrier that had allowed us to get away relatively unscathed. I shoved down my anger. We had to catch up to this sorcerer.

Warren, the werewolf investigator I used sometimes, had reported on the missing bodies from funeral homes, the county morgue, and some recently dug graves. It was a problem we didn’t want in our quiet little corner of suburbia. We’d put together a profile and tracked down this new necromancer, though we didn’t know exactly who they were. I wasn’t going to let a threat like this develop in my back yard. It was the kind of thing that could distract me over time from my primary purpose, watching over Sadie. She was growing up so fast and I had to protect her with all I had.

The underground passage went straight for some distance. There were occasional lights wired and mounted in the ceiling that lit the way. Other than that, it was a plain concrete floor with cinderblock walls. No doors or side hallways branched off from the corridor and I ran along for at least two hundred yards before it ended in a cinderblock wall. I looked around for a way out and found one when I looked up. There was an opening in the passageway’s roof. There, about ten feet above me through a narrow vertical shaft, was a trapdoor.

The problem was there was no way up there that I could see. I didn’t think the necromancer had flown up there. All indications said he was human aside from the use of evil magic. There must have been a rope or a ladder, and he’d removed it to keep from being followed.

I tried jumping up a few times, using the wall below to kick up into the shaft. It wasn’t any higher than a basketball hoop, so it wasn’t that difficult. The problem when I reached up and touched the door at the top of my leaps was there were no handles on the trap door or anything else I could grip to pull myself up.

I was still trying to leap up and push open the trap door when Chip finally caught up to me. He slowed from a jog and came to a stop right as I landed with one knee bent to the floor in what I liked to call my action pose.

What are you doing? he asked as he leaned forward to look up the shaft.

I’m trying to get up there. The guy must have pulled up the ladder.

He took a couple of deep breaths and then cupped his hands together. Here, I can give you a boost.

Okay, but just lift my foot. I sheathed my sword at my belt. Keep your hands off my butt.

Rose, I would never think of it. The twinkle in his eye showed his true feelings on the matter.

Yeah, sure. Let’s do this. He’s getting away.

Chip bent down, interlaced his fingers, and I stepped into his cupped hands. He lifted me up while I steadied myself against the shaft’s walls. I reached up with one hand and pushed against the trap door. It lifted a few inches on one side.

Lift me higher. I can open it if you do.

He grunted more than I would have liked pushing me up higher. I wasn’t that heavy. I was a Fae princess, after all. I almost said something about his lack of basic male strength but decided not to press the issue.

With my fingertips, I pushed the trap door open farther and gripped the wooden lip of the opening with one hand. I braced one foot on the wall while I pushed up with my free hand. It lifted me from Chip’s outstretched hands, and the trap door flipped open to smack on the wooden floor above me. With my free hand on the opposite side of the opening, I pulled myself up until I could get a boot up into the room above.

I rolled to the side and climbed to my feet. The room looked like a work shed of some sort. There was an old, rusty push lawn mower in there along with lots of other yard and garden tools. Most were also as rusted as the mower and were covered in dust and dirt. This had been unused for a while and I’d think it was abandoned except for the shiny, aluminum ladder lying beside the hole in the floor.

Hey, drop me a rope or something. Chip looked up from below at me when I leaned over the opening.

Hold your horses. I levered the ladder up and lowered it down until he grabbed it from below. With that taken care of, I walked to the door and opened it. A farmhouse stood nearby across a yard filled with tall grass that hadn’t been mowed in ages. I could see the outline of the neighboring Victorian home in the distance against the night sky. There were no lights on in the farmhouse and it looked abandoned. An old pickup truck sat parked by the house, but there was no sign of our quarry.

Chip oofed as he climbed out of the shaft and stood up inside the shed.

You’re out of shape, Chip. We’re going to have to work on that in our training sessions. You’ve been missing a lot of them lately and it shows.

It’s hard. Sadie and Addy have soccer practice almost every weeknight and there’s so much that has to get done during the day when they’re at school.

I don’t care. You’re the Guardian. You need to be up to the task of protecting Sadie from threats.

Hey, I saved both our butts down there in that basement.

I shut up and looked around outside. The necromancer was long gone. Come on. Let’s go back to the car and head home.

Chip took a second to flip the trap door closed before he joined me outside.

I raised an eyebrow at his delay.

Hey, we don’t want some kid stumbling onto that opening and finding those zombies the hard way, right?

He wasn’t wrong and he knew it. He winked at me just to prove he was right.

I grunted and nodded a little, then started across the field between the farmhouse and the larger home at a fast walk. The tall grass had collected dew in the early morning hours, and it left damp tracks across my jeans.

I ignored the cold dampness and focused on my next steps. I’d take Chip home so he was there in time to get the kids ready for school. Warren was there making sure they were safe while we were out. Then I’d get with the investigator and see if we could find out where the necromancer went next. The hunt was on, and I was excited.

It was all just a normal night out for a Fae warrior princess.

2

Chip

Rose dropped me off at the house at a little after five in the morning. I took care to be quiet while coming inside. I didn’t want to wake the kids. They didn’t need to see me covered in zombie gore like I was. Despite being quiet, Warren, with his super werewolf hearing, knew I’d come home. He met me in the kitchen.

Hmph, you look rough, dude. Did you catch the guy?

No, but I did manage to get way too close to a bunch of zombies.

I know. Warren waved a hand in front of his nose. I can smell it all over you. You need to get cleaned up before the kids wake up.

My thoughts exactly. Thanks for holding down the fort.

Warren picked up his jacket and keys from the table in the dining room. No problem. They never woke up, so I don’t think they even knew I was here.

Good, I don’t like them to worry when Rose takes me out late at night on these little training missions.

It’s good for you to encounter different things in the Unusual world. I guess she should have warned you about necromancers and the zombies they create.

I shook my head. No, I’m a big boy. I knew what we were walking into. Still, until you’ve faced a ravenous zombie trying to eat your brains, it’s hard to understand the specific challenges involved in fighting them.

Warren chuckled and walked to the front door. I followed him, shaking his hand before he left. I watched him walk across the lawn to his SUV and then closed the door, turning the deadbolt and resetting the chain lock.

Did you get the bad guy, Uncle Chip?

I spun