Lucien stared at his left hand for a long moment, building up his nerve. Then he scanned the floor until he found a wooden splinter. He picked it up, feeling the point dig into his thumb.
He took a breath and jabbed the splinter into his index finger.
Blood welled up and a fat droplet formed on his fingertip.
Walkers in the show had tracked people by scent before. Glenn and Rick had covered themselves in walker guts to mask their smell and walk among the dead.
If the cloak didn't hide his scent...
He swallowed hard and extended his cloaked arm through the broken window again.
He held his bleeding finger just inside the broken glass, close enough that any walker with working olfactory senses should smell it.
The walkers outside continued their aimless wandering.
One was gnawing on what was left of yesterday's victim. Another stood swaying in place like a broken metronome. A third circled endlessly, following some pattern only its dead brain understood.
None of them reacted.
Lucien pressed harder on the wound, forcing more blood to the surface. The droplet became a small stream, running down his finger toward his palm.
Still nothing.
He pulled his arm back inside and stared at the bleeding finger. Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he made a fist and punched straight through the gap in the glass.
His knuckles connected with dead flesh.
The walker looked down at its chest where the impact had landed. Its head tilted. Then it wandered off in another direction.
Lucien yanked his arm back inside the cloak and just stood there, breathing hard.
It worked.
Of course, he still didn't know what would happen if his body were covered in a large amount of blood. But for now, this was more than enough.
He looked down at his bleeding finger. He wrapped the wound with a strip of fabric torn from his shirt and made his way back upstairs.
The manager's office felt almost safe now, if anywhere could be safe in a building surrounded by the dead. He wedged the sofa against the door from the inside, then collapsed onto it.
Sleep took him immediately.
---
A knock at the door jerked him awake.
"Lucien? It's me."
Lucien scrambled upright, shoving the sofa aside with legs that were still half-asleep. He unlocked the door and pulled it open.
Shane looked like he'd been through hell. His uniform was covered in dust and grime. His backpack bulged with supplies.
"How'd it go?" Lucien asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
Shane pushed past him into the office and dropped the pack. "Could be better." He pulled out several cans and two bottles of water. "I checked every exit I could find. They're all blocked. Walkers everywhere, and more than yesterday. We're not getting out of here anytime soon."
"So we're trapped."
"For now." Shane sat heavily on the sofa. "The ones downstairs have mostly lost interest. They're not trying to break in anymore. But there's gotta be at least thirty or forty of them between us and the street."
"How long do you think—"
"No idea." Shane looked at him, and Lucien could see the exhaustion in his eyes. "Something'll draw them off eventually. We just gotta wait it out."
Lucien processed the information, running through scenarios in his head. A week trapped here meant rationing food and water.
"We're not just gonna sit here," Shane said, reading his expression. "The building's big. There are probably more supplies tucked away in offices and break rooms. We'll search it properly, take whatever we can, and stay busy."
"And if we run into more walkers?"
Shane's hand went to the crowbar hanging from his belt. "Then we deal with them."
---
That afternoon, they put the plan into action.
The building had three floors, and Shane wanted to clear them all. They would start at the top and work their way down, making sure they knew every exit and potential hiding spot.
Lucien followed him up the stairs to the third floor, moving as quietly as possible. Shane led the way with his crowbar ready, checking each office. Lucien stayed close, a heavy stapler he'd grabbed from downstairs clutched in both hands.
They were halfway down the corridor when they heard a moan.
Shane froze, one hand coming up in a signal to stop. He pointed toward a break room at the end of the hall. The door was ajar, and through the gap, Lucien could see movement.
Shane looked back at Lucien and mouthed: Stay behind me.
They moved closer. Through the narrow crack in the door, Lucien saw two walkers, likely former office workers based on what remained of their business-casual clothing. One was a woman with most of her face gone. The other was a younger man whose arm dangled awkwardly, bone showing through ripped flesh.
The walkers were trapped in the small room, bumping against walls and furniture in an endless loop.
Shane glanced at Lucien, then opened the door slowly.
The walkers' heads snapped toward the sound.
Shane moved fast. He was on the woman before she could even lunge, swinging the crowbar that caught her in the temple. She went down, skull caved in, and didn't get back up. The male walker was already reaching for him with its working arm.
Lucien darted past Shane and swung the stapler at the walker's knee. The joint buckled with a crack, and the thing collapsed, off-balance.
Shane finished it with a downward strike that pulped what was left of its head.
"Not bad." He looked at Lucien. "You got good instincts."
Lucien stared at the bodies.
"Let's keep moving," he said quietly.
They found supplies in the break room. There was a case of bottled water, some granola bars, and a few cans of tuna. It wasn't much, but it was enough to make the detour worthwhile.
By the time they finished searching the building, the sun was setting again. They'd killed three more walkers, found enough food to last maybe another week if they were careful, and confirmed what Shane had already suspected: they weren't getting out through any of the ground-level exits.
Which meant waiting.
"Same deal as last night," Shane said as they settled back into the manager's office. "I'll take first watch this time. You need sleep."
"No." Lucien shook his head. "You need the rest more than I do."
Shane looked like he wanted to argue, but exhaustion won out. "Three hours," he said, settling onto the sofa. "Then you wake me. No arguments."
"No arguments," Lucien agreed.
Within minutes, Shane was out cold.
---
Lucien waited until the deputy's breathing evened out, then crawled back under the desk.
His study space looked the same as it had last night. A flashlight was propped at an angle, the spellbook lay open to the Levitation Charm, and a pen rested on the floor, waiting to be his test subject.
Yesterday, he'd been stressed. His mind had been unable to focus, trying to force magic through sheer desperation.
Today, he felt calm.
The cloak test had proven magic was real. The walker fights had proven he could survive.
He picked up his wand and focused on the spellbook lying a few feet away. This time, he didn't try to strangle the magic into submission. He just breathed and let his mind settle. Then he pictured the book rising and felt the intent gather in his chest.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
The words came out steady. His wand moved in the familiar swish-and-flick, and... a sensation like static electricity raced up his arm.
The spellbook trembled. Then it rose a few centimeters off the ground, wobbling slightly, but floating. His eyes went wide. His heart slammed against his ribs.
It worked!
It fucking worked!
He really could do magic.
He clamped down on the urge to celebrate out loud, and settled for a silent fist pump and a whispered, "Yes!"
The book dropped back to the floor.
He sat there grinning like an idiot, then forced himself to calm down and think. Learning the spell was step one. But barely levitating a book for a few seconds wasn't going to save his life. He needed to master this. And more importantly, he needed to know how much magic he had.
Shane was right about guns, you always counted your bullets. Same principle applied here. If he ran out of magic in the middle of a fight, he'd be just as dead as if he'd run out of ammo.
Time to find out what he was working with.
---
Lucien spent the next hour pushing the spell in every direction he could think of.
First came control. He practiced moving the spellbook through the air, guiding it up and down, left and right, spinning it in slow, careful circles. The movements were jerky at first, the book wobbling and dipping, but with time his control became steadier and smoother.
Then weight. He started with the pen, which lifted easily. The paperclip was even simpler. When he moved on to the stapler, the difference was obvious. It was heavier, and the spell demanded more focus and intent. The stapler barely rose a foot before his concentration wavered and it fell back down.
He tried the water bottle next. It was half full and weighed roughly half a kilogram. It rose about fifteen centimeters, held there for roughly five seconds, and then fell.
Everything had a cost. The heavier the object, the more magic it drained from him, and he could feel the depletion like a muscle growing tired. It left a hollow feeling in his chest, as though something inside him was slowly being emptied.
Finally, curiosity got the better of him.
What if he tried to levitate himself?
He pointed his wand at his own chest and focused.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
Magic poured out of him.
It was like someone had opened a floodgate. He felt a sudden lightness, his feet lifting off the ground by maybe a centimeter, then the world tilted sideways.
Dizziness slammed into him. His vision blurred and his stomach lurched. He cut the spell immediately and collapsed against the desk, gasping for air.
"Bloody hell," he muttered, pressing a hand to his forehead.
That single attempt had drained maybe a third of his total magic. Maybe more. And it had only lifted him for a split second.
Flying was out. At least for now. His magic reserves weren't anywhere close to what he'd need.
He spent the next hour practicing more. By the time his magic felt nearly depleted, he'd established a rough baseline.
He could levitate small objects weighing under half a kilogram about twenty to thirty times before running out of strength. Medium objects, weighing roughly half a kilogram to two and a half kilograms, worked maybe ten times. Heavy objects, around two and a half to five kilograms, only three or four times at most. As for lifting himself, he could manage it once. Maybe twice if he was lucky. Either way, it left him completely drained.
Not impressive by Hogwarts standards, probably. But in a world of walking corpses where most people had nothing but improvised weapons?
It was not bad.
Lucien leaned back against the desk leg. His magic was limited, sure. But a spell that could pull objects from a distance, create barriers, or even attack if he got creative? That could keep him alive.
And alive was all that mattered.
His eyelids were getting heavy. The adrenaline from his breakthrough had faded, leaving only exhaustion. He glanced at the darkness outside the windows, it had to be past midnight by now.
He'd pushed himself too far.
But this time, it had been worth it.
Lucien crawled out from under the desk and made his way to the sofa where Shane was still sleeping, one hand resting on his revolver even in sleep.
He reached out and gently shook the deputy's shoulder.
"Shane, wake up. Time to switch shifts."