Liliana - Zombie Strength 2

  At her silent command, the four zombies advanced, one producing a heavy chain they had picked up elsewhere in the complex. Because the undead could not place so much as a finger between the bars without falling inert, Liliana passed the end of the chain to Jace, who ran it around two of the bars and fed it back out. The zombies lifted both ends, stepped away, and began to twist.

  Jace stepped as far back as the walls of the cell allowed, crouching in a corner and lifting his arms to protect his face from any flying debris. Liliana moved behind the zombies, muttering under her breath, exhorting them to ever greater efforts.

  A high-pitched squeal echoed throughout the chamber, and flakes of metal sifted earthward where the chain rubbed against the bars. Tireless and impossibly strong, the zombies continued to twist.

  “Are we sure there’s no alarm?” Jace asked, shouting over the rising screech.

  “Would it matter?” Liliana called back.

  I guess not, Jace thought. He could only hope, with Tezzeret and Baltrice occupied in the laboratory and the guards beyond the cell now deceased, that nobody would be in a position to hear it if there was.

  A second, equally deafening tone joined the first, as filings sifted from the sockets in which the bars were housed. The bars began, every so faintly, to quiver.

  And then the zombies fell back as one of the links in the chain snapped open. Jace and Liliana took just a moment to reposition one of the shorter lengths, and the undead efforts continued.

  It took only a few moments more. With a final, ear-piercing rend, the two bars bent inward and tore loose from their sockets. Jace was free.

***

Agents of Artifice, Chapter 31