"Ow," Elsa says flatly. "Ow. Please stop."
The skeleton doesn't seem to hear her. It's teeth are buried firmly in her shoulder, through two layers of fabric and well into the meat of the joint. Elsa's thick, dead blood runs down her arm like molasses.
Anna can barely breathe; her beloved little litch… Her tortured, fragile, traumatized girlfriend, bleeding… The skeleton is horrifying almost beyond comprehension, moist scraps of ruined gristle clinging to its joints like clumps of gory moss, scraps of lank grey hair hanging from its peeling scalp, horrible green flames burning hungrily in its empty eye sockets. Anna only has eyes for her litch though. She tries to reach out for the magic, anything to help, but there's a blinding hurricane of it, and she can't make much out… An intricate lattice of blazing spells forming around Elsa, a storm of barely contained eldritch wrongness elsewhere. Anna thwacks the skeleton on the back of its skull with her text book. There's a nauseating sloshing sound, but her attack seems to have no other effect.
"Shield of Aseph," Elsa grumbles. "It always gives me trouble. Sorry. Um. Curse of Years?" The magic blazes brighter about her, the titanic driving gear of all her half-formed spells rotates, a splinter of power flows out, trickles through precisely formed tributaries, and expresses itself on the world. A half-visible haze, and the skeleton seems to age. It's hair grows brittle, breaks, falls away. The remnants of its flesh dry, desiccate, crumble to dust. The bones yellow, crack, eventually nothing is left of the horror. Elsa brushes her shoulder distractedly. "Asshole," she mutters.
"Are you ok?" Anna asks timidly. Elsa nods.
"You?" Elsa asks. She keeps her hands open and low, as if to show that she isn't a threat. Anna can't imagine being scared of her beloved Elsa. The redhead lowers her text book and glances around. Most of the other students are pressed together at the far door, ineffectually tripping over each other in their rush to escape. A few lurk near Elsa as if to shelter behind her, but their expressions seem uncertain.
"You're going to have to teach me how to do that," Anna says. "Your… you're bleeding?"
"It's nothing," Elsa squints up at the roof- or the magic beyond. "Anna, your professor is an idiot. Oh, relax you lot, I don't bite." The nearby students grimace ruefully at the direct address but do not approach.
"An idiot?" Anna asks. She still can't quite make sense of the spells flirting through the air.
"Clumsy, brutish, ineffectual," Elsa replies. "I somehow doubt that uncontrollable undead army was her… look out… Curse of Years." A skeleton trying to force itself through the window stops being.
"Oh," Anna frowns, and tries to watch the machinery of the spell work… it doesn't look too hard to replicate. Anna giggles.
"What?" Elsa blinks owlishly at her and Anna can't quite hold in another snort.
"You're calling out the names of your attacks like an anime character," Anna snickers.
"It helps me visualize what I'm trying to do," Elsa shrugs uncomfortably. "You aren't scared?"
"Oh I'm fucking terrified," Anna confesses. "But I trust you, and you're making short work of those skeletons. That spell hard?"
"Not particularly," Elsa replies. "Wish I brought Pabbie's Luger though."
"So you could shoot some skeletons instead?" Anna glances around, just in case. The students clustered at the door seem to have sorted themselves out and are rapidly streaming from the building.
"No," Elsa bites her lip and Anna thinks she looks nervous, but she can't imagine what about. "It's almost got enough magic in it for the litch ritual. I could make you… I mean… if you wanted… Curse of Years. God damn it. Maximize Curse of Years." The air shrieks with strain, eldritch excess arcs off of Elsa like lightning, grounds itself in the peeling linoleum of the floor. The skeleton that drew her ire stumbles, ages visibly, but keeps coming. "Really?" Elsa frowns.
"You would make me immortal?" Anna smiles broadly, spares the skeleton a glance. "Oh that would be amazing…"
"Anna," Elsa cuts her off. "Is there any way at all that we could have this conversation another time? Gaze of Nagash." The skeleton detonates. The magical plume of the spell leaves Anna seeing stars for a moment. The huge gear driving Elsa's spells wobbles for a moment. "I know I prompted it, but… Literally, any other time. At all. Just not when I'm cleaning up your mess…" there are sirens in the distance. "That was uncalled for," Elsa bows her head. "I'm sorry."
"Nah, that was probably extremely called for," Anna agrees. "I should have thought about it before giving your book to someone to… come to think of it, how does one tell if someone is likely to go all zombie apocalypse on you? Er, skeleton apocalypse. Why can't I take this seriously?"
"That one was a wight I think," Elsa mutters. "You're probably in shock."
"Oh," Anna says. "Yeah, that makes sense I guess. We running, or holding up here?"
"Staying here, I think," Elsa says. She looks around as if begging anyone to have a better idea. When none are forthcoming, she continues. Her voice wobbles with uncertainty. "It'll be chaos outside, and I'm not sure what all your professor managed to raise? Uh, here, we have only a few windows and fires to watch, and we won't draw any more attention? Probably?"
"Good thinking," Anna sidles up closer to her girlfriend. "That hurt?" She points at Elsa's shoulder. The litch shrugs.
"Not particularly," she says, and frowns at the other students sheltering near her. A few are recognizable; Anna's friends from before, her brother, the rest are strangers. "I don't really… feel… things…. Marshmallow, you're strong, see if you can prop up one of those tables to barricade a window? I mean, unless you have a better idea?" Elsa bites her lip. Her words seem to jolt the big man out of his terrorized stupor, and he nods.
"Good idea," he says, and places his hands on the edge of the table they had eaten lunch at. Their meals are still untouched, and those best served warm are still steaming gently. "Here, someone help me with this."
"Shield of Aseph," Elsa mutters again, but there still doesn't seem to be any effect.
"Can I help?" Anna smiles as encouragingly as she knows how.
"No," Elsa says simply. "Now is not the time for you to start experimenting with magic. Shield of Aseph." A shimmering, half-real barrier springs into existence around Anna.
In spite of their preparations- or perhaps because of them- the little group isn't accosted by anything else. No skeletons climbing through the windows- fewer windows, now that Marshmallow and Sven are barricading them- and no wights coming through the doors, shrugging off Elsa's spells. The sirens get closer.
Elsa doesn't go off in search of the mad professor, and there is no great magical confrontation. Elsa is content simply to wait in the cafeteria with her human, content to protect the girl she loves. Gottle isn't stupid enough to seek out a powerful litch, doesn't see any gain in a confrontation that she knows she will lose.
There's yelling outside; gruff voices, both male and female. "On the ground! Get on the ground!" yells one. "Open door left, clear," another. "Two for triage, county. Is rescue six available?" still another. "Closed door right. Breach breach," the door crashes open. Elsa turns to look, magic ready and writhing about her thin fingers in case it's another Undead assailant. No undead, just men and women in heavy black Kevlar with heavier blacker rifles. Police, stenciled in White across their chests and helmets.
"On the ground!" One yells, and points with her rifle as another shouts for hands. A loud crack cuts them off, a flash of light, the smell of burnt cordite.
"Ow," Elsa grumbles. A splash of deep red- almost maroon- on her thin chest like a red rose that a prom date might pin to their jacket. Another crack. Another red flower. "Ow," she says again. "Please stop." A third gunshot tugs Elsa's shoulder back.
The man drops his gun and raises his hands halfway as if to ward off any recrimination that might come his way. Hiis squadmates hesitate. "Oh my god," he says, voice small. "Oh my god. I saw magic and I thought… oh my god."
Professor Gottle is not taken into custody. Her barely understood, willfully deceptive spells turn on her before the police can get to her and all that is left is a charred corpse and a few scraps of singed paper. In the days following the catastrophe, forensic experts and medical examiners work over Gottle's corpse, match it to her dental records, and that is that. Damning evidence clutters her office, now secure behind a police cordon, and multiple eyewitnesses report seeing her entering or leaving the morgue several times in the past week. The college's electronic keycard readers corroborate their story.
Memorial services are held for the dead, and candlelight vigils for the survivors as friends and families wait to hear the results of critical surgeries. Elsa is not arrested, but it feels like imprisonment to the old litch.
"...emergency meeting of congress in response to…" the perky reporter announces, fake hair bouncing with her overly enthusiastic movements.
"No," Elsa says. Anna's freckled thumb twitches on the remote and the channel changes.
"...presidential order sixty-four. Also called the 'Black Magic Order,' it is now illegal to use certain types of magic characterized by necromancy, or utilizing the so-called life force of humans. Also included is any spell which is accompanied by death, or otherworldly shrieking…"
"No," Elsa says again. Anna's thumb twitches again.
"...including Rice, Stanford, and Harvard, are denying admission to known litches in what they are calling the 'Humans First Movement.' These institutions claim that their actions do not violate anti-discrimination laws because litchdom is a choice, not a naturally occurring demographic. The American Undeath League has this to say." The screen cuts to a beautiful woman, tall and olive skinned. She sits on a titanic granite throne, the flickering light of green fire caught in her raven hair. Her eyes sparkle with untapped arcane might. "Though some litches did choose to enact the rituals for themselves, it is fallacious to say that all did. Of course, that is entirely tangential to the argument about whether litches like myself deserve protection under America's anti-discrimination laws. Religion may, broadly speaking, be a choice, but it is exactly as protected from discrimination as sexuality, race, or gender." The camera cuts back to the reporter and his charming salt-and-pepper hair. "That was Esmeralda, the spokesperson for the American Undeath League. Thank you for joining us today Esmeralda. Now, to Jane in New York…" a tall blond woman, pea coat bundled tight about her. A vast crowd stands about her, so many people that the faces blend together into a horrible hateful sea. "Death to the dead," the chant over and over again. Anna changes the channel before Elsa asks her to.
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
"Yeah," Elsa does her best to shrug through the thick casts. "Alright."
"Good choice," Anna gives a concerned smile. "You seen Star Wars before?"
"Can't say that I have," Elsa replies. The door opens. A nurse comes through, glances at the monitor, purses her lips.
"You're making quite the hole in my round reports, young lady," the nurse glowers. "The system won't accept 'zero' for your heart rate. Can you at least breathe a little for me?" Elsa glares, but takes a few deliberate breaths. She decides not to mention that she is about twice the nurse's age. "Excellent," the nurse says cheerily. "And how are we feeling today young lady?"
"I'm not," Elsa scowls.
"Uh-huh," the nurse dutifully enters the response into her tablet. "And do you want anything before I go?"
"I want to leave," Elsa says.
"Well hon, your bones still haven't set," the nurse puts her hands on her hips. "You can't go moving around until you've healed. Don't want them to set wrong, now do we?"
"Don't care," Elsa tries- and fails- to shrug.
"Honey," the nurse says. The way she says the endearment is not dissimilar to how one might say 'child'. "You don't want one mistake to ruin your pretty arms forever, do you?" Elsa glares. The nurse seems to take that as agreement, so she goes on. "There are a few lovely men from the police station here to talk to you. Are you up for visitors?" She glances at Anna. "I mean, other visitors?" The hospital staff has tried to remove Anna exactly as many times as they have failed.
"I guess," Elsa pouts.
AN: so, I was going to end this chapter right after Elsa got shot, but I figured that if I stopped a chapter on that much of a cliffhanger, and then took as long writing the next chapter as this one took, you all might grab your torches and pitchforks and "explain" your displeasure to me with them… Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it was very not easy to write. I know I keep saying that, but they just keep getting harder to write...