"Who are you?" Elvira squinted, lowering her hand. The glowing crimson orb vanished as if it had never existed.
"I'm Marina," I said, slightly on edge. "But my friends call me Malinka."
"You're weird. Are you a succubus or something?"
"Outworlder," I clarified, feeling more than a little out of place.
"Holy unlife!" she breathed, eyes wide. "Seriously?! An outworlder?"
"Straight up. From another world."
I turned to Finn, who still looked like a walking trauma.
"Are you okay? You probably need a healer or something. I mean, that sparkly psycho made the mice attack you. Can you believe that?"
"Ugh, Lavinia's always like that. Total pain," Elvira rolled her eyes. "Come on, Finn. I'll get you some healing balm."
"Our lab," Finn muttered, mournfully eyeing the mice as they scattered chaotically across the classroom and scampering everywhere.
"Oh! Right! Any idea how to catch them?"
"The amulet's broken. We'll have to go old-school—by hand."
They began chasing the little monsters, who scattered, zipped under desks, climbed bookshelves, and basically turned the place into a rodent rave.
"Damn it," I sweared, jumping on another desk, as a mouse started climbing up toward me. My instincts screamed, but I tried to look cool. If I was going to survive in a place where undead mice were just part of the labwork, I had better get used to it. "Isn't there a way to lure them back?"
My hand brushed something in my pocket — a half-soggy, slightly smushed Snickers bar. How it had survived my interdimensional plunge, I had no clue. But desperate times...
I tore the wrapper and tossed the piece into the cage Finn had brought with him, like an offering.
"Here. Maybe they like chocolate?"
Elvira raised an eyebrow, smirking.
"Zombie mice don't eat chocolate. They prefer meat. Preferably human."
But to her utter shock, the mice did like chocolate.
A lot.
They pounced on the candy like starved gremlins at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Finn's jaw dropped. "This... this is incredible! Have we actually raised undead mice that can digest normal food?! This could change everything!"
Elvira looked intrigued. She crouched by the cage, mumbling arcane gibberish, pulled out a notebook, and started sketching something.
"Fascinating... we'll have to run tests," she murmured. Then turned to me. "Thanks, Malinka. First day here? Need someone to show you around?"