I'm not the only person to visit St. Sebastian's tonight. Fresh footprints disturb the layer of filth on the front steps and within the front hall. I lift my own shoe over one of the prints. Same size. A girl, then. It's too windy for the prints to keep for long, so she might still be here.

"Hello?" I call.

Nothing.

I should turn back. Just go back to my dorm and ask someone about the creepy burned orphanage in the middle of the woods.

The outer walls are completely broken down, but some of the inner walls are still intact. I can even see the wallpaper's pattern beneath years of water damage. I eye the footsteps and shift my weight onto the first step. Then the second. Before I can talk myself down, I'm standing in the threshold. Magic lies heavy here, the weight of pain and death anchoring it to this place. If I listen to the air, I can hear the crackling ghost of fire.

At the end of the hall, the church is almost completely untouched. That's where the footprints lead, so that's where I follow. Some leaves have blown in through the exposed front, but the windows and roof are all intact. Moonlight barely lights the dusty pews. I lose track of the footprints in the shadows.

I turn on my phone's flashlight and scan the ground. The prints become more frequent, like the same person walked over and around her own tracks several times. The smell of ash and blood breaks through the veil of magic and I realize that those are recent.

My heart catches in my throat as I lift my phone's beam.

The pews closest to the altar have been shoved aside, leaving clean streaks in the dirty floor. In the middle of it is a circle of melted candle stubs and scrawled runes. I don't have to get close to know that the runes are written in blood. It glistens in the glare of my flashlight. My throat closes up when I see what I thought were leaves are actually feathers. Little grey and black feathers.

Several small birds lie among the runes. Every one of them is dead and mutilated, their tiny bodies chopped and arranged for a spell. I crouch by the circle, squinting at every symbol and trying to remember if I'd seen them before. It seems eerily familiar. The floor is cracked in the middle of the circle. I touch one of the blood streaks. It's still warm.

Gasping now, I turn to leave, only to find my way blocked.

I jump and drop my phone, the light flashing and missing the intruder entirely, leaving them in shadow. Pressing my fingers together around the drop of blood I picked up, I summon a scrap of magic from it and give a sharp exhale. Get back.

The wave of violence shoots out from my hand and dissolves around the intruder. 

It isn't a person. 

It's a deer. A stag. Tall antlers rise above its head like black branches. I don't know if I should feel better or worse about that, but none of my spells really work on non-humans. It snuffles delicately at the pews like it hasn't even noticed I'm here. I can barely hear its hooves on the chapel floor, only the creak of floorboards as it walks towards me. 

I take a step back. It steps forward.

When it steps into the light shining up from my phone, my legs go dead beneath me. 

It's not a stag.

Well -- maybe. Its skin is stiff and tight against its bones, gone grey and loosening fur like dust along its flanks. Its face just barely touches the light before it's close enough for me to smell the dank reek of rotting wood on its breath. 

It's a deer. Deer don't hurt people, right? They don't eat people. 

As the animal smells my face and I'm frozen in shock, I have a hard time remembering that. It doesn't smell like a living thing. It smells like the earth and plants. I can just see the barest glint of light reflected in its eyes.

The floorboards creak again. It wasn't me and it definitely wasn't the deer. Its left ear swivels and its right one -- I realize far too slowly -- is missing. 

A flashlight beam slashes down the deer's flank and settles on me. 

"Step to the side, very slowly," a man's voice said. "And get ready to run to me."

My heart rattles around in my chest as I nod. I can't tell if he sees me or not. I lift one foot off the ground, wincing as blood sticks to the sole of my shoe. The stag doesn't stop looking at me. I feel its heavy gaze on my entire body. Those tall antlers are unnaturally still. 

Behind the stag, the person's silhouette comes into shape. 

He's slim, with dark hair, wearing baggy clothes and wielding a flashlight that could double as a club. I can't see his face. 

My ankle bumps against a hard pew and the dull impact makes my attention shoot right back to the stag. It huffs, the first sound I've heard it make, and the man in the door makes his move. There's a strange cracking noise and then a thud as a crossbow bolt lands in the stag's ass. The deer lets out an ear-shattering screech that can't possibly come from a normal deer. It swings its head at me, narrowly missing my face with those big horns. I jump back with a yell and scramble over a pew.

On second glance, his flashlight is actually a crossbow. The man reloads it with a series of methodic-sounding clicks before launching another bolt at the stag.

Oh, right. He wants me to run towards him. 

He's standing in the only exit, so I guess I don't have a choice.

I run to the other end of the pews, away from the middle path where the angry undead stag rears up on its hind legs, and sprint along the wall. The floorboards flex and shudder under my feet.

The pew in front of me slams against the wall, blocking my way, and my lungs close when I see the stag crashing into the furniture. There are cords connecting the bolts to the man who'd shot them. The man holds his own in the tug-of-war with the massive animal as it thrashes aimlessly. It screeches again and digs its hooves into the soft wood floor, slamming itself into the pews again. Dust and splinters fog the air. 

"Get out!" The man yells again.

I resist the urge to curse him out. I curse myself out instead. 

The pews are low enough that I can step over them, but not easily. Certainly not without falling a couple times. My hands shake and my legs are all gooey inside. I trip over the last one and fall right to the ground at the man's right. He drops his crossbow on the ground and kicks it at me. I stop it right before it hits my face and pick it up as I scramble to my feet. It's heavy. 

"Shoot it again," the man says. "It's already loaded, just shoot it."

He's leaning all the way back, his boots sliding across the floor as the deer tries to drag him off his feet. The cord is wound around his forearm and both hands grip it. 

Now, I've never held a crossbow before. Never held any real weapon in my life, actually. 

So it's a good thing that when I get my hand in the right position, I feel the sigils engraved on the metal. It's warm to the touch and my hands stop shaking when I take aim. 

Accuracy, in tight loops. Luck, with its simple lines. Protection, in a deeply-carved circle. I put the stag's thrashing eye in the crosshairs and pull the trigger. The bolt flies with a whisper of magic.

The man drops the cord, hastily untangling his arms before grabbing me and pulling me towards the exit. 

The deer staggers back when it was released, my shot sticking out of its eye. It does not fall. It straightens itself on unsteady legs and fixes us with its one good eye. That's all I see before letting the man all but drag me out of the chapel. 

His breaths come fast at my side and he smells of sweat and smoke. Behind us, the clatter of hooves trying to navigate the wrecked chapel floor grows in surety.

The floors bend under our weight so much that I'm sure it's going to cave in. No such luck. 

We hit the earth outside and the man stops. 

I stumble and rip my arm from his hand, my shoulders heaving. I swing around to look back where we came. The deer walks slowly, weakly, its legs barely holding it up as it crosses the threshold. It shudders, skin splitting like burning wood to reveal an orange-y glow underneath. The air around it warps and blurs. Fur and dust shed from it in little billows. 

The stag falls to its knees. One of its antlers fall, collapsing into dust on the stairs. Bit by bit, it collapses into grey powder, all the while crawling towards us like it wants its last act to be our deaths.

I scramble back as the deer's nose scrapes my knee before it, too, turns to dust.

My hands shake again as I stare at the pile in front of me. 

I turn to the man, who seems about as alarmed as I am. The crossbow still dangles from my fingers, but there aren't any more bolts left. I toss it to the dead leaves. He flinches and looks at me.

"What the fuck was that?"

He blinks slowly. He's got a narrow face with pale skin, deep blue eyes ringed with black lashes, and curling brown hair. He can't be more than twenty-five. Probably around my age. His face shines with sweat and he's still breathing hard. He might be another student. Actually -- he has to be another student. Can't think of anyone else with advanced enough magic to kill something undead.

"I was about to ask you that," he says.

Helpful. Very helpful. I resist the urge to pick up the crossbow again and throw it at him. It's big, it would probably do a lot of damage. "So the circle in there, that isn't you?"

He shakes his head. He leans over and braces his hands on his knees, coughing. I grit my teeth. Spells don't just happen. A summoning like that deer takes years of prep work, and dispatching one takes about the same amount of time.

"So what the hell were you doing in there with an enchanted crossbow? Just passing through?"

"I'm --" he winced "-- I felt it, okay? The split between life and death, it happens here a lot."

My eyebrows must be touching my hairline by now. "You felt it? And it happens a lot?"

He nods and leans back, stretching his back. His spine cracks a couple times. 

"And what? You just take it upon yourself to go ahead and send dead things back to the afterlife? Do any of the professors know you do this?"

He looks at me and arches an eyebrow. "I'm not a student."

I blank out for a brief moment. "Say that again?"

"I don't go to the Institute. Or any other magic school. Never did."

Magic isn't a secret. It's not a gift or a special religion. It's more like a dead language and nuclear physics had a megapowerful baby, so most people have a hard time grasping it. Scratch that -- most people can't even comprehend it. 

A self-taught magician is practically unheard of. 

A self-taught magician with enough practical knowledge to routinely take on the undead is impossible. I rub my face and look back at St. Sebastian's. A trail of deer-dust leads from my feet all the way back to the chapel.

"They're not usually that strong, though." He walks around me and picks up his crossbow. "You said there was a circle?"

I nod, crossing my arms to watch him. "I didn't recognize any of the sigils, though."

He twists his mouth and looks back at St. Sebastian's, too. "Yeah. Necromancy. Veil's thin here, so people try it more often. Never really works out. See anything human in there?"

"No. Blood felt fresh, though. They used birds as a sacrifice."

"Birds?" he asks, eyebrows raised. His hands pause from where he was checking over his crossbow. The flashlight clicks off but there's still enough moonlight for me to see his face.

"Yeah. Little ones. Maybe seven of them? I couldn't tell."

He frowns and shakes his head. "Necromancy usually takes something big. A dog, at least. How small?"

I scowl. "I know how sacrifices work. It's why I didn't immediately jump to necromancy of all things. Probably just some transfiguration or a summoning. They were puny."

I don't really believe that. I know the spells for those, they're considerably simpler. I rack my mind for a spell that requires small birds -- which is a strange sacrifice in itself. He doesn't believe it either, if the evaluating way he looks at me is any indication. 

Footsteps pull us from our shared glare-fest. He shoves his crossbow up the back of his bomber jacket, holstering it in some unseen harness. Even in the night, I spot the solid corners of his weapon. 

A small group of people round the bend. 

Evan Hartley and Dolly Dawson are at the front. Their attractive faces are bent in concern and Dolly all but sprints to my side. Her hands are small and cold when she yanks me away from the man and puts herself between us. I can see clear over her dark curls to the man's resigned face. He turns his attention to Hartley.

Hartley is the complete opposite of the pretty party boy he'd been only an hour before. He rushes right up to the man and towers over him.

"The fuck are you doing here, Smiler?"

Smiler steps back, calm and unreadable but definetly non-offensive. "Just lending a hand."

Dolly turns to me and looks me over with her big, frantic eyes. All traces of drunkeness are gone except for the lingering smell of booze on her breath. "Are you okay? We heard screams."

"I'm --" I glance to Smiler and he shakes his head minutely. "It's fine, I just got spooked. It's dark."

Dolly's intensity doesn't let up. She and Hartley brought about five others in their wake. They look like second-years, some of them have runes tattooed on their arms. They all glare at Smiler like he's killed someone. 

Smiler looks them over and backs up, raising his hands. Hartley still doesn't let up, fisting his jacket to keep him from leaving. 

"You're not supposed to be here," Hartley hissed.

Oh, this is about to go so bad. I make to step between them but Dolly's astoundingly tight grip stops me. I give her a surprised look but she shrugs it off by stroking my arms soothingly. "It's okay. The townies aren't supposed to get this close. Don't worry, he can't hurt you."

"Then why the fuck are you all so weird about him?"

Smiler meets my eye, only to be jerked by Hartley. 

"Don't look at her. Tell me what the hell you were doing here."

"Get out of my way," Smiler says. His voice is so low I can barely hear it. Hartley answers with a snort.

"You can't hurt me. I'm a student, I'm --" He doesn't finish the sentence.

Smiler breaks his hold with one arm and punches his square in the nose with the other. Dolly squeaks and releases me from her hold. Hartley reels back, swearing and clutching his face, but all I can look at is Smiler's. 

He doesn't flinch, but a drop of blood rolls down from his nostril. A red bruise blossoms across his nose.

He gives me one final look before wiping his face and turning around.

None of us follow.