Ascended

Narder wasn’t home.

We walked through his very small one room apartment with Master James and looked through the sparse belongings. I stood in the doorway, not really feeling like I would add anything to the search.

Fyga was standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips. “I swear, he was here just a little while ago.”

“And you have no idea where he could have gone?” Master James looked at her. The pause was too long and it became obvious that she was trying to come up with something.

Fyga started to open her mouth and Master James just waved at her, “Don’t bother with whatever lie you just concocted. I need to know the truth.”

The young woman crossed her arms in front of her. “I don’t know where he is.”

“Let’s say I believe that.” Master James shook his head and turned to face the young assistant. “You don’t know exactly where he is, but you do have an idea of where he would go, so please, enlighten me.”

“It’s…” She sighed, “Winey needed a lab rat so he got Narder to inject himself with some Zombie blood.” She shook her head, “He was trying to see if a human that was directly infected could be cured. And for a few days it worked. Wreda monitored his vitals daily and Winey kept administering the dose. The problem was a few days after he stopped...” She shook her head, “His injection point became infected, and it started to spread. We cleaned it down with the solution and that drove it back into remission, but Narder can only go a day or so without a treatment and it’s been over a day since his last treatment.”

“And he doesn’t have any here?” Master James looked around. “There isn’t much in the apartment…”

He doesn’t have much, neither of us do.” She looked around, “Winey gave us a purpose and now that he’s gone… I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“I’m sure you’ll find something.” I smiled as warmly as I could.

“You’re still not telling me everything you know.” He eyed her, “Wait, you’re stalling.”

Fyga looked scared. “He told me to do it.” She sniffled and I was pretty sure it was fake crying.

“Who told you?” Master James started moving towards her.

“It was Lewiu!” She put her arms up defensively like she was panicking, but the way she was holding herself was like she was ready to fight.

Master James must have seen that as well, because he rushed her. As soon she realized that we weren’t buying her act, she went on the offensive, but Master James was too close. She had an ice blade in her hand, but he grabbed her wrist before she could swing and took her to the floor. I didn’t think he threw her that hard, but she wasn’t moving.

“I had a feeling…” Master James stood over the unconscious woman. He bent down and took her goggles off. When he opened her eyelid, there was a shining blue orb behind it.

“What is she?” I caught the goggles as he threw them at me.

“You said that the Master had a mindstone with her?” Master James saw the confusion on my face, “A raw blue crystal?”

I nodded, “Yes..? Wait! Does that mean that she’s a blue Touched?”

“Probably…” Master James shook his head, “We don’t have time to investigate that now.” He nodded at the goggles in my hands, “Those will be helpful later, but I wouldn’t wear them around here. People will either think you take trophies from the people you kill or that you stole them from her.” Master James finished restraining her. “That should do it.” He looked up, “I won’t be able to see what she knows until later and we have a potential Zombie on the loose, plus I wouldn’t doubt if that blurb about Lewiu is true. I’ll go check out the gate, you get her to the house and have Val watch her too, then head to the mine and try to find Narder before he does anything rash or turns. Right now he’s probably in the mine looking for one of those crystals.”

“You don’t think that he’d try to eat one of them?” I watched him pick up the Touched woman.

“He’s desperate, so probably.” Master James held her out for me to take. “We need to hurry. Once I get the thing with Lewiu settled, then I’ll bring the leaders the proof they wanted so we can start evacuating people.”

I took the Touched and threw her over my shoulder. “Good luck.”

“I don’t think luck will be enough, but I’ll take what I can get.” Master James nodded at me, then took off towards the city gate.