"Remember, your lab final will be administered to you individually, not to your groups." James said to his class just as the first group was starting to pack up, "Next week, we will be hosting a make-up lab and open floor study session."

Some of the students groaned and some whispered among themselves. Most were too focused on their lab packets to be listening. James would have to send an email out to remind them once he returned to his flat. The first group dropped their packet on the table at the front of the class before migrating towards the door. The remainder of the students finished up soon after, a chorus of scuffing feet and hushed laughter down the hall. He had returned the key for the lab the day after the incident with the rat, and the secretary had gone on and on about a burst pipe that had somehow also caused the lights and display case to shatter. James listened politely, agreed that it was strange, but said nothing else.

Stepping onto the main street outside the science building, he turned his eyes to the sky. The charged energy that had plagued the atmosphere since last week had all but vanished. Everything had returned to the way it had always been for the passed eight years. His run in with the undead monsters and Uma felt like a distant memory in the monotony of his every day academic life. There was nothing particularly exciting about going to school at a university in the middle of a city. James thought he would have much preferred Cambridge, but everyone wanted to go to Cambridge and who was James, an orphan boy from Austria, to the affluent members of British academics?

"James?"

James blinked, turning to look down the street where he saw Noah standing with his phone to his ear. James realized a moment later that his own phone was ringing. Noah hung up and put his phone into the pocket of his overcoat before walking over to James, a crayon like smile plastered on his face.

"I forgot the restaurant was closed today." Noah said, "I got there and all the lights were off, but I remembered you would be getting out of lab soon, so..."

James scrambled to match Noah's smile. His was a reflection of practiced gentility after years of studying the behavior of everyone else. The truth was, between his magical youth and tendency for violence, James had never learned how to be normal for extended periods of time. He feared that obtaining his PhD and finally settling down for the long term would end up showing his hand.

I don't belong here, James thought suddenly as Noah blushed and demurred, or rather, you don't belong here with me.

As soon as he thought it, he banished it.

"Do you want to go for dinner?" James offered, "I'll pay."

Noah's smile produced dimples and he ducked his head in agreement. They ended up at a place reportedly known for its vegan and gluten free options. James munched on a wrap that practically crumbled in his hands and Noah ordered some kind of quinoa chili. James knew he would be making himself something when they got home but powered through it for Noah's sake, since he seemed to be enjoying himself quite a bit.

"I'm thinking about changing the topic of my dissertation." Noah said, taking a slow sip of his extremely healthy avocado smoothie.

James was picking at the baked crisps that came with his wrap, "Oh? You have another year and a half yet before you have to make your proposal."

"Well, it's better to start early, you know?" Noah said, "When did you know what you would do your dissertation on?"

James thought for a moment. His dissertation was on transformative works in Christianity, and how these works influenced the modern interpretations of the Bible. He had been surprised when it was accepted, surely someone had done this topic before. Apparently his advisor had thought he meant modern transformative works, such as American evangelical media, and not Dante's Inferno. James knew more American Christian rock bands than he cared to admit at this point, and all of them felt more or less the same. American evangelicalism was all about the feeling of Christianity and lacked the tooth of his Catholic upbringing. Everything was an act of God and none of it was behaving in a saintly way.

James hadn't been Catholic since Lady Goodfellow died, but he still bristled at the perversion of roots.

"James?"

James blinked, rubbing a hand down his face, "Sorry, Noah, I need to step out for a minute."

"Oh, okay." Noah said, his expression turning complicated, "I didn't mean to upset you."

"I'm not upset." James said, "I just, y'know. Don't want to think about school outside of school."

"Right, right, sorry." Noah offered him a smile that looked like it would vanish the moment he stepped away. James reflected it on his own face before getting up and slipping out the front door.

Once on the street he breathed in stark, cold air, and fumbled for the packet of cigarettes in his pocket. He hadn't told Noah that he started smoking again, but it would be hard to hide that fact now. Once he started up again, he just couldn't stop, and every time he lighted up he thought of Uma's face so close to his own. He thought about their fluttering lashes and the Chapel from their youth. Brilliant afternoon light and the feeling of bones crunching under his fists.

He lit up and turned his eyes back up to the sky. In a city like this, he wouldn't be able to see the stars.

The air turned rancid.

The cigarette slipped from James' mouth as he looked up and saw an elderly woman across the street buzzing with flies, James could see, even at this distance, that the woman's eyes had been completely hollowed out.

"Hey, James," Noah's voice coming from behind, "I picked up the tab, you don't need to worry about paying me back. Let's just head back to the flat."

Noah stood beside him for a moment, following his line of sight over to the old women. Noah's brows furrowed and he squinted a little, noticing the flies that buzzed around her matted grey hair and stuck to her bloated flesh.

"Is that woman alright?" Noah asked, "She looks like she just crawled out of a morgue."

"She might have." James said, forcing his eyes away from her and onto Noah. Noah hadn't stopped staring, his mouth working.

"Don't look at it." James said.

"What?" Noah turned his eyes onto him, "James that woman--"

"We have to go." James said, taking Noah by the arm and all but dragging him down the street.

Noah stumbled at James' heels, voice sputtering as James turned them onto a busier street and weaved through the crowd.

"James, hold on! Stop!" Noah pulled his arm free and James turned to face him. Warm bodies moved around them like fish through a stream.

The world was inside out.

"You've been acting awfully weird lately." Noah said, and it sounded like he was trying to say it carefully, "Is everything alright?"

It happened like this. The street had been over crowded only a moment before and then it was empty. The streetlights had been dim and then too bright and then burnt out. Traffic lights had gone perpetually red and it was just James and Noah in the middle of everything. And then, from around the corner came the woman. Her feet dragged in a broken way that James knew was wrong and inhuman. Her mouth had gone slack and her face had started to rapidly deteriorate. Were those maggots? Was he imagining insects crawling out from inside her corpse.

It happened like this.

The woman's body expanded two fold, blowing up like a balloon, skin turning dark and leathery with rot and she screamed or wailed, depending on who you were asking. Noah whorled around on his heels, wide eyes going wider, wispy hair seeming to stand on end and then James was moving.

Magic touched the ends of his fingers and the threads drew up tight, like a badly tuned guitar or a garment made by an inexpensive tailor. James had just barely caught it and he used that slippery grip to fling magic wildly towards the woman's corpse. An explosion of electric blue was all James needed to know that it worked before he was grabbing Noah's arm again and running. He needed a church, a place where the magic would be barred from entry, but there were no churches in this borough. Noah's breath was coming out in ragged gasps, not very prone to athleticism himself, and eventually James really was just dragging him along.

"Noah, we have to keep going."

"I can't." Noah gasped, his eyes were wet and his nose was running and James was sure he'd start drooling soon too.

The dead woman was advancing on them, an amalgamation of limbs and bulging, puss filled eyes. James looked around frantically, he didn't know what he was looking for, but he was sure once he'd saw it the path would be made clear.

About a block or two away, a gravestone stood ominously near a small rest area. James knew the grave well, it was the grave of some protestant reverend. James lunged for it, Noah's arm still in his tight grip, just as the monster woman barreled towards them. She could not touch them, however, the grave was holy and she bounced off it like a rubber ball, collapsing into the street with a wail. Noah was hyperventilating and James was trying desperately to reach for the magic that he knew was there, that flickered in and out of his periphery, but it was useless.

He wasn't a magician anymore.

"What is that thing." Noah sobbed, "What is that thing, I don't understand."

What happened to my ordinary life, James thought distantly, snapping his fingers in an attempt to catch something between them. What happened to my lectures and exams and advisor meetings? What am I doing here?

"What good is being able to see monsters if you aren't able to defend yourself against them?"

Reality was the sun breeching a storm.

Reality was the flick of a saber from its sheath, the fabric of their world becoming tight as the seams were sewn shut by clever hands.

Reality was Uma Seki.

The woman whipped around, her jaw had just about disconnected entirely from her skull and was hanging loosely by rotted flesh. She was quite bulbous now and leaking absolutely everywhere. The smell was the worst bit, anyone who's smelled a human corpse before never forgot it. Even the slightest hint of it would send them into a frenzy, vomiting the contents of their stomach and flailing in fits of hysteria.

James was certain that Uma knew what dead people smelled like, but you wouldn't know it by just looking at them. They stared the woman down with cold disinterest.

"Let's make a deal, James Sinclair Haas." Uma said, twirling their saber into a classic fencing open, "I'll pick up your slack and you'll return with me to the Convent."

To invoke his full name meant Uma meant to make a magical pact. One that James couldn't back out of once this was all over. Noah was looking at him in a daze. James wondered if he had even seen Uma beneath the perpetually red traffic light. He had half a second to consider the possibility that Uma had dragged them into a liminal space with their magic but it didn't matter.

James snapped his fingers one more time, not even a spark of magic responding to his call. He dropped his hand and hung his head. He wondered if he was even allowed to feel sorry for himself about this.

"I'll return with you, Uma Seki." He said, because he had no other choice, because magic didn't care whether or not deals made under duress.

If this answer pleased them, Uma didn't say. The woman wailed and flung herself forward before she was gone.

Obliterated in a flash of impossible light.