Volume II - Episode 87 Where: Cologne, Germany When: 1 month and 13 days after E-Day, 1:53 am The Ancient, who was born Ndidi Okonkwo in the Horn of Africa 175 years earlier, made his way through the Veil. Gusts of wind and strong electrical currents tore at his clothes. A sudden blast ripped the hood from his head. He began to replace the hood, then reconsidered it and lowered his hand. By now, the young French soldier would have discovered the body of the German child in the back of his armoured personnel carrier. Okonkwo’s true nature had been revealed. There was no point hiding any longer. He tapped the vial at his waist. Its contents were still warm. He felt a momentary pang of guilt, but quickly dismissed it. The blood of an innocent child was simply too valuable to pass up. Let alone the blood of a warlock child. Shapes began to take form through the Veil ahead of him. The lobby of an apartment building. A haphazard collection of furniture and bedding. An operating table surrounded by an odd assortment of tubes, flasks and modern medical equipment. And two hooded figures huddled over the corpse of a young woman. Okonkwo’s heart raced. He had been waiting for this moment for almost all of his adult life. The exact right combination of factors and coincidences. And now here it was. Here he was, finally ready to do the work he had waited more than a century to begin. He stepped through the Veil into the lobby of the apartment building. The two necromancers stood up from their work and turned to face him. They removed their hoods and bowed their heads in the formal greeting of Gorod Drevnih. “Gorod Okonkwo,” they said, touching their right fingertips to their foreheads and then to their hearts. Okonkwo bowed his head in return. “Gorod Piaskovsky. Gorod McGill.” “Haeqo vai kado ka aett’tk it?” the male necromancer, Piaskovsky, asked. Have you come to assist us? “Dae,” Okonkwo replied. Yes. His eyes shifted to the young naked woman lying on the operating table behind the two necromancers. He had seen Krystal Beaufort’s photograph in the Academy student database, but he knew all too well how deceiving photographs could be. Over the past twenty-four hours he’d built a mental picture of what she might really look like. Her long brown hair, flowing down her slender shoulders. Her luxurious soft skin. Her pert and perfect breasts. And here she was, at last, lying just a few metres in front of him. Almost within arm’s reach. And she was even more beautiful than he had imagined. Piaskovsky led Okonkwo to the operating table while the younger, less experienced McGill stepped into the Veil to retrieve the trolley-full of supplies Okonkwo had brought with him. “We have repaired most of the damage,” Piaskovsky explained. “She had a gunshot wound to the right temple, and a large exit wound on the left. We healed and cured the damaged skull and tissue, and have been working on repairing the temporal lobe.” Okonkwo nodded, studying Krystal’s body closely. Her skin was in pristine condition, its colour a pale blue as a result of the alchemical fluids that had been pumped into her body to remove excess moisture and prevent decomposition. “You have done good work,” Okonkwo said, genuinely pleased. “You’ve made a lot more progress than I had anticipated.” “Thank you,” Piaskovsky said, grateful for the compliment. “She also had some injuries from a previous incident. There’s a wheelchair in the apartment we found her in, so we believe she might have been unable to walk when she died.” “She was in a car accident,” Okonkwo explained. “I read her student record at the Academy. She was run-down by a car at high speed.” [CONTINUED IN FIRST COMMENT BELOW]