Chapter 22: Worse than Death
Simon cast his healing spell on himself immediately. Twice. In both cases it seemed to work, and closed the wound, leaving only a small dark scar on his forearm. He couldn’t see the back of his neck, but he imagined it was much the same based on what he could feel. That didn’t stop whatever dark magic was in that bite, though. He could feel it, and he didn’t have a spell to cure disease or curse or whatever this was supposed to be.
“This isn’t good at all,” he muttered to himself, looking at the beautiful dead girl on the floor. There was a coldness in his arm, and a fever just starting to cloud his thoughts. He’d seen enough movies to know how this was going to end.
“I’ll be fine,” he tried to tell himself. “I come back every time I die.”
It was true. Every time he’d died he’d come back completely unscathed, but this time there was a feeling of dread similar to the first time he’d thought the skeleton knight was going to try to take his soul. As a feeling of weakness began to overtake him, Simon started to climb the stairs. He didn’t have time to make a noose that would snap his neck, and he doubted he had the willpower to bash his brains out, but he was pretty sure he could dive well enough to shatter his spine on the cobbles in front of the inn.
It was just a precaution, he told himself, rushing up the stairs even as his body started to respond more slowly. As he began to fumble and limp on his way up the second flight of stairs, Simon started to panic. It was too soon. Why had Brenna lasted for hours or days as a human, while he could feel himself turning after mere minutes? The best answer that Simon could come up with was the location. She had a bite on her arm, and he had one right next to his fucking brain stem!
He would have kicked himself for how stupid he’d been if he had the energy. He let himself get distracted by her body and completely missed the obvious warning sign. Recriminations could wait until later though, he decided as he leaned heavily against the wall and climbed the last few steps, if there was a later.
Simon managed to make it to the window, but by that point the world was a haze, and he lacked the strength or coordination to make a proper dive. The best he could do was fling himself from the opening, and tumble down the brown tile roof painfully until he landed on the street three floors below. Sadly, half a dozen zombies broke his fall, and his last seconds of life were spent being torn to pieces while he screamed weakly.
Then suddenly it stopped.
Suddenly the zombies lost all interest in him, and started to mill around looking for their next target. Simon thought it was strange that he was still around to see that, but he supposed that blood loss from so many small, shallow wounds could take a while to add up. It wasn’t until he started to stand up, and when he realized he no longer had any control over his own body, that he truly began to panic.