Unless it was rabid.
The bat finally launched itself again. It fluttered away, weaving and bobbing like it was still dazed. It headed for the ceiling, then turned and came straight at me.
As I stumbled back my foot slipped, and I fell with a bone-jarring crack that set my injured arm on fire. I tried to leap up, but whatever I’d stepped on was stuck to my sneaker, sending me skidding again.
The thing on my sneaker was slick and cold. I pulled it off and raised it into the moonlight. Pinched between my fingers was a rotting wing. The bat I’d seen still had both of its wings, so there must be another one in here, dead.
I threw the wing across the room and frantically wiped my hand on my jeans. The bat swooped again. I ducked, but my foot slid out and I fell. As I hit the floor, a horrible smell enveloped me, so strong I coughed. Then I saw the bat, less than a foot away, teeth bared, long fangs white against the dark.
The cloud cover shifted, the light streaming into the room, and I realized I wasn’t looking at fangs but at white patches of skull. The bat was decomposing, one eye shriveled, the other a black pit. Most of the flesh was gone; only hanging bits remaining. The bat had no ears, no nose, just a bony snout. The snout opened. Rows of tiny jagged teeth flashed, and it started to shriek, a horrible garbled squeaking.
My shrieks joined it as I scrambled back. The thing pulled itself along on one crumpled wing. It was definitely a bat—and I’d raised it from the dead.
With my gaze fixed on the bat creeping toward me, I forgot about the other one until it flew at my face. I saw it coming—then saw its sunken eyes, bloody stumps of ears, and bone showing through patchy fur. Another zombie bat.
I slammed back into the crates. My hands sailed up to ward the bat off, but too late. It hit my face. I screamed then, really screamed as the rotted wings drummed me. The cold body hit my cheek. Tiny claws caught in my hair.
I tried to smack it away. It dropped. As I clapped my hands to my mouth, I felt something tugging at my shirt. I looked down to see the bat clinging to it.
Its fur wasn’t patchy at all. What I’d mistaken for spots of bone were wriggling maggots.
I pressed one hand to my mouth, stifling my screams. With my free hand, I swatted at it, but it clung there, rows of teeth opening and closing, head bobbing like it was trying to see me.
“Chloe? Chloe!” Liz raced through the outside wall. She stopped short, eyes going huge. “Oh my God. Oh my God!”
“G-get it off. P-please. ”
I whirled, still swatting at the bat. Then I heard a sickening crunch as I stepped on the other one. When I wheeled, the one clinging to me fell off. As it hit the floor, Liz shoved the top crate off a stack and it fell on the fallen bat, the thud drowning out that horrible bone-crunching noise.
“I—I—I—”
“It’s okay,” she said, walking toward me. “It’s dead. ”
“N-n-no. It’s…”
Liz stopped. She looked down at the bat I’d stepped on. It lifted one wing feebly, then let it fall. The wing twitched, claw scratching the concrete.
Liz hurried to a crate. “I’ll put it out of its misery. ”
“No. ” I held out my hand. “That won’t work. It’s already dead. ”
“No, it’s not. It’s—” She bent for a closer look, finally seeing the decomposing body. She stumbled back. “Oh. Oh, it’s—It’s—”
“Dead. I raised it from the dead. ”
She looked at me. And her expression…She tried to hide it, but I’ll never forget that look—the shock, the horror, the disgust.
“You…,” she began. “You can…?”
“It was an accident. There was a ghost pestering me. I—I was summoning him and I must have a-accidentally raised them. ”
The bat’s wing fluttered again. I dropped beside it. I tried not to look, but of course I couldn’t help seeing the tiny body crushed on the concrete, bones sticking out. And still it moved, struggling to get up, claws scraping the concrete, smashed head rising—
I closed my eyes and concentrated on freeing its spirit. After a few minutes, the scratching stopped. I opened my eyes. The bat lay still.
“So what was it? A zombie?” Liz tried to sound calm, but her voice cracked.
“Something like that. ”
“You…You can resurrect the dead?”
I stared at the crushed bat. “I wouldn’t call it resurrection. ”
“What about people? Can you…?” She swallowed. “Do that?”
I nodded.
“So that’s what Tori’s mom meant. You raised zombies at Lyle House. ”
“Accidentally. ”
Uncontrollable powers…
Liz continued. “So it’s…like in the movies? They’re just empty, re-re—What’s the word?”
“Reanimated. ” I wasn’t about to tell her the truth, that necromancers didn’t reanimate a soulless body. We took a ghost like Liz and shoved her back into her rotting corpse.
I remembered what the demi-demon said, about me nearly returning the souls of a thousand dead to their buried shells. I hadn’t believed her. Now…
Bile filled my mouth. I turned away, gagging and spitting it out.
“It’s okay,” Liz said, coming up beside me. “It’s not your fault. ”
I looked at the box she’d shoved onto the other bat, took a deep breath, and walked to it. When I reached to move it, she said, “It’s dead. It must be—” She stopped and said in a small, shaky voice. “Isn’t it?”
“I need to be sure. ”
I lifted the box.
Sixteen
THE BAT WASN’T DEAD. It was—I don’t want to remember it. By that point, I’d been so stressed out that I couldn’t concentrate, and freeing the bat’s spirit had taken…a while. But I did it. And I was glad I’d checked. Now I could relax…or so I thought.
“You should sleep,” Liz said after I’d lain there with my eyes open for almost an hour.
I glanced at Tori, but she was still snoring—hadn’t even stirred since I’d come back.
“I’m not tired,” I said.
“You need to rest. I can help. I always helped my nana sleep when she couldn’t. ”
Liz never talked about her parents, only her grandmother, and I realized how little I knew about her.
“You lived with your nana?”