Chapter 18

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

I’d been feeling so good about everything until that damn head spoke up.

I knew I sounded like a tired brat when I let out a dry, “Of course,” to the council to the Death Goddess, but damn, was I ready to get the hell out of that tomb. There’s only so much cryptic dead people nonsense I could stomach in one day, and I’d already had more than enough to last me a lifetime. I was usually elbow-deep in vampire guts by this point in an exchange with a necromancer, and I hadn’t had the chance to kill anything for a few days.

It was a total rip-off.

“What do you need me to do?”

“You there. The incubus scholar,” Mors called. “Barny.”

“Barnaby,” Funus corrected tersely. “Goddess’s sake, Mors, it’s not a hard name.”

“Thank you, Funus,” Barnaby said primly. “A person’s name is meant to be respected.”

“Here, here,” the fussy skull added.

I rolled my eyes so hard I saw my brain. “Saint, you two are soulmates.”

It was a joke, a jab really since they were getting on my nerves, but they even sputtered the same. It was kinda sweet.

“Barnaby,” Mors corrected through her teeth. “See that small clay pot near Leti? Yes? Bring it before the disciple.”

For a second, I thought Barns would snap at the council skull that he wasn’t to be ordered around. He had the look of a man about to spit, his mouth twisted up in offense before he begrudgingly did what was asked. The small vessel Mors had told him to grab was no bigger than an apple, painted with similar stripes as the bigger Thrall urns all around the crypts, minus the cutout triangles.

“Within this vase is your trial,” Nex explained once Barnaby handed it to me. “You are to pour the ashes onto the ground at your feet, not letting a single piece scatter.”

With a sigh, I kneeled down to the stone floor and opened the lid gently. The ash inside was powdery and light gray, dust floating up a bit as I gently poured it into a neat little mound. It made a perfect mountain, maybe half an inch tall, and I looked to the skulls for more instruction.

“This ash is your test, child.” Nex’s pink eyes twinkled. “You are to bring it back to its form.”

“You want me to…resurrect this?” I huffed a laugh, not getting the joke. “I thought that was impossible.”

“Not impossible. Just very, very difficult,” Mors said. “If you are to obtain this ‘key’ you speak of, you must prove yourself worthy.”

“Council,” Zane spoke respectfully, not nearly as annoyed as I was. “My necromancer has only had his power for a short amount of time. He’s barely managed to bring a fresh body back so far.”

“Hey, I did okay,” I argued. “I made him talk for a good five minutes.”

Zane cut me a sideways look before focusing back on the heads. “He needs time to hone his skills before he can do this.”

“Your necromancer must show us this skill now,” Mors bit back. “Or we will not aid him further.”

“It is what the Goddess commands, child of the void,” Nex clarified. “Have faith.”

Zane sighed with the weight of their words and kneeled beside me, glaring down at the pile of ash.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I muttered to my vampire.

“Even Sandros at his best couldn’t do this, hunter,” Zane whispered. “Only the Goddess can bring back ash.”

“So, what then? They’re fucking with me?” I looked at him, and he shook his head.

“No. They seem to think you can.”

“But I can’t,” I told him. “Because I’m not a kick-ass death lady.”

“We’re going to have to try.”

“Maybe we can just start going through these tombs one by one.” I swept my eyes up and around the standing audience of skeletons. “What are the odds there’s a key in one of them? We can play corpse pi?ata.”

“We can hear you,” Pereo sang. “In case you’re meant to be whispering.”

Zane huffed a noise very close to a laugh at my pi?ata idea, a smile almost curling his lips.

“Let’s try this first. Then we’ll do the corpse pi?ata.”

“Promise?” I asked, hopeful for bone smashing.

This time he did smile, and I matched it.

“Promise.”

I flexed my hands and shook them out, readying myself for the impossible task.

“You gonna do the anchor thing?” I asked him. “I’m going to need a boost to even attempt this.”

Zane had come to sit beside me on my right side, and instead of placing his hand on my shoulder like he had done previously, he held it out with his palm up.

I glanced at it and he lifted his eyebrow.

“In case you fall again,” he said, teasing. “I’ll catch you this time.”

“If the floor opens up on this trial, I’m starting corpse pi?ata with the heads.” I took Zane’s hand. His skin was still warm, but he was starting to cool. Knowing that I would need to give him blood again soon sent a thrill through me, and my chest bone knocked and shifted. It made me cough and rub at the knobby bit of mystery stick that still hadn’t reabsorbed.

“Alright.” I put my left hand over the ash. “Here goes nothing.”

In the stillness of the ancient tomb, surrounded by the eyeless gaze of hundreds of dead necromancers, I listened to the crackle of the mirror fire. The scent of dust stuck to the insides of my nose, my legs cold against the unforgiving stone. The pile of ash before me was just that—a lifeless powder with nothing to spark magic from. I couldn’t feel anything.

I tried to focus on how the magic felt when it was pulsing through me, hoping that bringing it forward would help me somehow find a way to dip my hand into the void and go searching. The faintest, tickling hints of death magic slithered over my arm, cold little ants dancing at the tips of my fingers, but it faded just as quickly as it had started.

“I can’t keep it activated,” I grumbled. “It’s like my magic can’t sense there’s something here. Usually, I have to put my hand on the body to help…you know. Get the juices going.”

Zane hummed in thought. “Let’s try something. Hold out your hand.”

I rotated my free hand and watched Zane scoop the ash into his hand before sifting it into mine.

“Is that allowed?” Barnaby asked, having gone to stand next to his new bestie.

“I believe so,” Funus mused. “Each necromancer has their own methods.” He cut his eyes back to us as Mors hushed him.

“Focus,” Zane told me, closing my fingers around the ash. “This vessel is yours to command. Pierce through the veil and find its soul.”

“This vessel is just dirt. Even if I could find its soul, what can it come back to?” The ash settled into the creases of my palm, gritty and dry. “Seems cruel to bring something back as a clump of ash.”

“You won’t have to hold it long, then you can release it back into the void.” Zane gave my hand a squeeze. “Shut your eyes. Focus.”

I exhaled and did as he suggested, plunging myself into darkness as I held the vampire’s hand and a fistful of ash.

“The magic searches,” Zane continued, his voice a grounding rod in the storm. “The void calls. Slip into its depths, it welcomes you there.”

“I don’t like the dark,” I told him, feeling weirdly vulnerable. “I sure as shit don’t like the void.”

“You don’t fear death,” he reminded me, and my chest tightened at hearing him sound…

Proud.

Maybe in awe.

A shiver traced up my spine as Zane cupped his free hand over my fist, and my grip tightened.

The tendrils of my magic curled down my arms, icy and powerful, and I felt the ripple of the void just beyond my reach. The crackling mirror fire faded, silence falling around me like a blanket. I could feel the magic reaching out from my body, searching, and it felt marvelous that it wasn’t gripping me while I fought for control.

It felt like an extension of myself, maybe for the first time ever.

“Good.” Zane’s voice sounded like an echo, a whisper. A shadow. “Don’t fight it. You don’t fear this place. You are the master of it.”

The smell of dust and old bones was gone. The cold of the stone faded from my legs. All around me was darkness, and the mortal part of myself, the human part of myself, threatened to revolt. The icy tendrils twitched, my chest grew cold, and for a breath I thought I was going to scream.

“Dallas.”

I swallowed the panic in my throat and turned to the voice, my eyes opening into the endless darkness of the void. We sat in nothingness, floating in forever as it rippled out like midnight waters.

It was nothing.

And me.

And Zane.

Zane had become my shadow guide again, a dark figure of smoke with two red beacons for eyes. In the void, I could see his teeth, obsidian and sharp, his fingers clawed, his eyes steady.

My tendrils calmed, my chest relaxed, and I squeezed the misty claws of my vampire.

I was in the void, and I wasn’t afraid.

I had stepped through the veil without dying, without drinking vampire blood, without shedding my mortal body. My magic danced over me like moths worshiping a black flame, and in that moment, I felt powerful.

The dust in my grip was just a collection of atoms and elements, clay to be reforged. Through the ripples, I reached out, my magic unfurling like a flower. The smallest thing, a twinkle reflecting on a cresting wave, swam over with the ease of a mote of dust drifting on the breeze. It traveled on the summons I had called, traveling on the tip of my outstretched magic.

I felt it slip between my fingers, I felt the ash in my hand begin to move.

Light around me bloomed as the crypt came back into vision, the crackle of the mirror fire surrounding me. Zane’s fingers uncurled with mine, as the dust breathed in for the first time in centuries.

It barely had its form. It was barely anything, the mere outline of a creature rested in my palm. Made of ash and magic, it had been forced back together with a soul that had been long lost in the void.

It panted for air, tail thrashing, and my heart gave a little pang of guilt.

“It’s a fish,” I whispered. “I brought back a fish.”

The gravity of what it was, how I made it happen, what that truly meant, went sailing through the air along with my body as the tiny collection of reforged dust exploded into a fist of energy.

The air in my lungs was ripped out as I tumbled backwards, ass over head, and slid to a stop on my shoulders. Zane was beside me, making the same pained groans I was after being tossed around like a pair of rag dolls.

“What the fuck?” I rubbed at my shoulder as I sat up, staring at the dust still clinging to my palm. “Was that supposed to happen?”

“I don’t…think so.” Zane sat up and winced, testing the back of his head for blood. “It felt unstable the moment you opened your eyes.”

“Alright, well.” I climbed to my feet, complaining a bit more from the aches traveling up my hip, and smeared the remaining fish ash onto my jeans. “On to plan B then. Corpse pi?ata it is.”

The skulls didn’t seem impressed with my fish trick, but then again, they didn’t have skin to show any emotion to begin with. It wasn’t until I noticed Barnaby with both hands over his mouth like he just witnessed the Saint’s rebirth that I had a suspicion I may have done something worthwhile.

“Uh.” I finished getting fish dust off me then bowed. “Taa-daa?”

“Goddess be praised,” Nex breathed. “You actually did it.”

“I guess?” I winced as Zane smacked my shoulder, but smirked when I saw the grin on his face. “Yeah, I guess we did, huh?”

“Not bad, hunter.”

“Not bad? I pulled a fish soul into a pile of dirt and made it wiggle. I’m fucking amazing.”

“And just like that, his modesty is gone,” Barnaby tried to tease, but he was smiling too big for it to land. “I have to admit, that was something to see.”

“It has been centuries since we’ve seen a true display of the Goddess’s will,” Mors added, all bitchiness gone. “You have passed the trial.”

“You are truly a child of the Goddess,” Nex praised. “We will guide you on your path, show you the way to achieve what you seek.”

“You’ll show me how to get the key?”

“Yes, disciple,” Nex told me. “We’ll help you extract the key you seek.”

“You owe me three gold, Leti,” Pereo sang. “You didn’t think he could do it.”

“I love getting proved wrong! Keeps death exciting.” Leti laughed.

“I still wish I had a way to write this all down,” Funus complained.

“I could write it down for you, Funus,” Barnaby offered cheerfully. “I have the most fantastic quill back home…”

“What we will need to do is make sure—” Nex began, when a familiar burst of violence ripped through the tomb like a crack of thunder. The gunshot rang up the tall walls, deafening us for a moment as my body flew into autopilot.

I grabbed Barnaby and forced him behind me, my own gun ripped from its holster to aim at the entryway to the tomb. Zane had placed himself to my right, slightly in front, teeth bared and ready to attack.

The council went mute.

Nex was now a pile of smoldering dust, the life magic infused bullet destroying him completely.

The golden crest of the Saint’s Army pinned to their vests reflected back the mirror light as they approached, guns trained on us, eyes hard with hate. They poured into the room like oil, flanking each side, slowly surrounding us.

Each gun was loaded with life magic.

Each bullet was a very permanent death sentence for the undead creatures haunting this tomb, and the necromancer standing with them.

“Zane, get behind me,” I told him, thankful my voice wasn’t shaking. He didn’t move, his fists balled and body coiled to attack.

I carefully reached up and flicked the switch to my emotion blocker tech around my neck.

His fists relaxed as he felt my fear, my real, scorching fear, and he stepped behind me as I tossed my gun to the ground.

“The Saint protects and shields life.” I showed my palms, my heart trying to hammer through my chest. “Casting light onto the shadow.”

Faces I knew glared at me from behind barrels, people I had once seen smile. I remembered all of their laughter, all of their voices, and knew their favorite movies and songs.

We had cried together once.

Trained together. Bled together.

Standing in the tomb that night, I was a cornered rat facing down the teeth of my former family.

When one of them finally spoke, his voice felt like a dagger through my heart.

“Who figured out the trick of the light?”

I tilted my head to indicate behind me.

“My friend. I was always shit with fae history.”

Magnus still moved like an old soldier, slight limp on the left side. He had sworn up and down that the shrapnel buried in his hip wasn’t worth the effort to extract, and stubbornly learned to exist with the constant discomfort.

He was grayer than I remembered. His mustache was all salt with no pepper left. Age had creased the skin around his eyes, deepened the lines near his mouth, but had otherwise done little to the muscle mass he had cultivated over time.

To add insult to injury, or because he was the one that had led them there, Austin stood beside him with one hand resting on his holstered weapon, the other ready to engage if needed.

“Magnus.” I didn’t dare drop my hands just yet. “You’re looking old as dirt.”

“Old, but not dead.” His eyes landed on each player one by one, sizing up the threats standing before him. “See you’re keeping interesting company these days, boy. Got yourself a sex demon boyfriend and a throat ripper.”

“Landlord, actually,” Barnaby added, peeking out from behind Zane. “Somewhat friend, mostly landlord and historian. Barely friends, really. We’re not friends. I don’t even know him!”

“To what do I owe the pleasure of being stalked?” I asked, keeping my focus on Magnus as he slowly approached.

“Austin here says he ran into you a few days back.” Magnus stepped up to the altar, pinching the dust of what was once Nex to rub between his gloved fingers. “Told me you were poking around looking for information about some lost artifacts.”

“I was, yeah. Those got sold to Florence Pierce.” It took all of my will not to inch away from him as he stepped closer to Leti’s skull.

“Heard about that.” Magnus was still speaking to me, but he was watching the remaining council members. “How much did that bank you?”

“Zero. Someone stole the artifacts from me and sold them before I could get them back.”

“Shame.” He pulled his knife free from his hip, the glow of life magic bright against the enchanted metal. The death magic in my body recoiled, and I shifted my weight to put myself more in line with being a shield for Zane and Barns.

Magnus gave Leti’s skull a tap with his knuckle.

“Gonna introduce me to your friends, boy?”

“We are the necromancy council, soldier of the Saint,” Leti told him, voice scathing. “You attack on sacred ground, decimate a mind ancient and wise. You’ve stolen knowledge from this realm.”

“When it comes to some knowledge, especially that of dark magic and evil, I’m very fine with wiping it out of existence.” Magnus scooped up Leti’s skull and examined it like it was an interesting find at a garage sale. “The Saint shines light into the darkness, after all.”

“Foolish child,” Mors snapped. “The Goddess and the Saint are two sides to the same coin. We are not enemies.”

“Gonna have to disagree with you there, skull. Only one deity brings back the dead and creates monsters. I don’t believe the Saint ever steals children and tosses them into pits to be eaten by vampires, or pilots dead bodies around to murder folk.” He sat Leti back down harder than he needed to, making one old molar fall loose. “Ask Dallas about that. He knows all about being tossed into a pit with vampires, don’t you, boy?”

I ignored the cold prickling of old memories churning in my gut, and tried to shift topics.

“What do you want, Magnus?”

“What you came here for,” he said. “The missing artifact.”

“Well, you shot the skull that was telling me about it so…” I shrugged. “Gonna be a little hard-pressed to find the key now.”

“Oh, I’m sure we can think of something.” Magnus turned his head to give a command, glancing over his shoulder. “Start searching the crypts. Two per floor.”

“There is nothing in those graves but the old bones of our disciples,” Pereo insisted. “Leave them be.”

“What you seek is not in their resting places,” Leti added. “You do nothing but desecrate the dead.”

“No more than you lot do.” Magnus flipped his knife around, catching it by the blade so he could knock the hilt against Mors’s brow bone. “Why don’t you pick up where your friend left off. Make this process go a little faster.”

“You fool, buffoon,” Mors hissed. “You strike against us without merit, defile our tomb, and you expect me to tell you anything? Ha!”

The strike against Pereo was fast and brutal, Magnus’s knife cracking her skull with the blade before she fell away into a fine powder of ash.

I bit my tongue hard, the pain keeping me grounded so I wouldn’t focus his wrath on us.

“You were saying?” Magnus asked Mors, too calm for having just murdered her fellow council member.

“You fiend,” Mors snapped her jaw, green eyes flaring. “You think we fear returning to the void? Our Goddess awaits us with open arms. We return to nothingness, free of grief, pain and suffering. I do not fear you. I do not fear?—”

Magnus cracked her skull with his blade and twisted, eyes cold. Mors fell into nothing.

“Magnus. They’re the only leads we have,” I reminded him. “If you kill them off, we’re back to square one.”

“Last chance,” Magnus told Leti. “I’ll let you keep being a rotting skull in a cold crypt if you help us find the blade.”

“Sir,” Austin’s voice didn’t make Magnus turn, but he kept speaking anyway. “Maybe we should try and keep at least one talking head for information.”

Magnus placed the tip of his knife close to Leti, ignoring Austin.

Leti’s eyes danced, a laugh starting to bubble through him like a boiling cauldron. Somehow, the fleshless skull sighed with relief, and even though he couldn’t physically smile, his voice held a joy I didn’t understand.

“The blade will find you, child of the Saint,” Leti promised. “And her wrath will be magnificent.”

“Magnus! Goddamnit!” I yelled as he drove his blade into Leti’s eye, the skull joining the others in scattered ashes of lost knowledge. I saw Austin wince, a gesture he tried to cover by turning his head away.

“Relax, Dallas.” His knife was cleaned on his sleeve. “You’re being emotional.”

“I’m being pissed off that you just murdered the only sources of knowledge to the whereabouts to the fucking key, you jackass!”

“What did they tell you?” he asked coolly, not putting his knife away.

“Weird, cryptic bullshit, but I was making headway. They were just starting to make sense when you showed up.” I set my jaw as he stepped closer to me, eyes floating from the dust to give me a look once-over.

“Make sense how?”

“Well, the first skull you destroyed said he’d show me where the key is.” I jerked my head to the ashes on the altar. “But that ship fucking sailed.”

“What did they give you?”

“They didn’t give me anything.” I motioned to my pockets but didn’t move further. “Check for yourself.”

Magnus had always been a stony wall of grit, especially when he was on a mission. I had only seen the man show emotion a handful of times in my life, brief little windows of compassion or joy, but those seemed impossible when he stared me down in the silver light of the tomb. There was a decade between us now, a mountain of hard feelings we’d never be able to chip away.

Magnus’s eyes pinned themselves to Zane for a long time before slicing back my way.

“How did you get afflicted?”

“I killed Edras Roe,” I explained. “His…affliction passed to me.”

Magnus huffed a noise too bitter to be a laugh.

“You threw away your Saint’s crest, didn’t you?” He shook his head when I didn’t answer. “I always told you the Saint would protect you from the darkness if you kept him with you.”

“I didn’t know you meant literally,” I snapped. “It was never mentioned that the crest repelled necromantic transferal. It all just sounded like church.”

“You never paid attention during church, boy, that’s why you’re cursed.” Magnus gave Zane a disgusted glance. “I guess you gave up killing Thralls for good, then?”

“That’s not fair,” I hissed before I thought better of it, a bone-deep chill shaking me as he ground his back teeth.

“Not fair,” he repeated, the words bile at the back of his throat. “Not fair is having my son cut a goddamn Thrall loose on our camp because he was weak. Not fair is watching him run away like a damn coward after the monster he let loose killed two soldiers and set fire to our home.”

“It was an accident,” I tried to say over him, hating that my eyes started to sting. His words were landing with brutal accuracy, each one hitting me like a speeding truck.

It hurt. It hurt so bad to finally hear his voice again, and to have my shame thrown back into my face with full force.

“You ran away, Dallas. You broke our trust, our home, and ran away . Now you stand here in a necromancer tomb, swearing yourself to the whore Goddess of Death, palling around with another goddamn vampire?—”

“Enough!” Zane’s voice sounded like a hurricane; powerful and deadly, with the force to sweep away everything in its path. “You’ve made your damn point. Now you’re just being a cruel old man grinding salt in the wound.”

“It speaks,” Magnus mocked, lip curled. “Did he tell you how he betrayed his family? Left us there to pick up the pieces after he defected?”

“If you really are his family then you wouldn’t be standing here berating him. You called him ‘son.’ Act like a father.”

Anger flashed in Magnus’s gaze, a crack in his stoney expression. As the fault grew, a similar breakdown was happening with my composure, fear traveling up my spine. I had been trying so hard to keep my poker face, but I showed my hand when Magnus moved.

He took a step toward Zane, and I blocked him.

It was a simple sidestep to put myself in front of him, my body shifting a few inches.

But it gave me away. It showed something I should have kept hidden.

I cared about the vampire.

It was a grave mistake.

The fury in Magnus’s gaze metastasized, forming a wall I couldn’t see through, and he took a lazy step backwards.

“Magnus, we both want the same thing,” I pleaded. “You want the artifact gone, so do I. There’s no reason we can’t work together on this.”

“I think we’ll work together just fine.” Magnus flipped his knife in his hand and caught it, the momentary distraction buying the soldiers just enough time to make their move.

I heard the rattle of the rock rolling under just before the grounding charm kicked in, gravity ramping up so quickly it brought all three of us to the ground. Barnaby landed with a pained grunt, clutching his bag to his chest as he curled onto his side. Zane fell into a kneel before losing the battle, falling to all fours with his fangs bared.

I ended up in a similar pose, yelling through my teeth to fight against the overwhelming tug trying to make me kiss the ground. I glared at Magnus’s boots as he walked along the perimeter of the ward, the ring on the ground dancing with amber sparks.

“You’re…such a dick,” I ground out, managing to pull myself up to my knees. It hurt to do anything other than sit still, my joints screaming as I held myself upright. Zane’s muscles bunched as he heaved himself upright, sitting back on his heels. Barns stayed down, groaning in discomfort.

“Tell me what the necromancers were talking to you about, Dallas,” Magnus demanded. “Tell me everything you know about the artifact.”

“I told you everything already. We came here looking for the key. The council was telling us about it when you killed them off.”

Magnus flipped his knife again, catching it by the blade with an expert familiarity before handing it to Austin.

“What do you know about the key?” Magnus kept up his line of questioning as Austin strolled over to Zane, pocketing a counter charm to keep himself immune to the grounding spell.

“Just that it’s been lost for centuries and was supposed to be down here.” I forced myself to turn my head, tracking Austin’s movements. “What the hell are you doing?”

Austin didn’t answer, the life magic infused blade dangerously close to Zane.

“Where is the blade, Dallas?” Magnus continued his verbal barrage.

“What blade?” I snapped. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Austin grabbed a fistful of Zane’s hair and yanked his head back, the force combined with the grounding spell made Zane grunt in pain. A vein pulsed in his neck from the effort of keeping his head from falling back too far.

“Knock it off, Austin!”

“Answer his questions, Wilde, and we don’t have to do this,” Austin shot back. “No one else needs to die if you just stop fucking around.”

“Where is the blade?” Magnus repeated, colder this time. “The skull mentioned it before it died. It said the blade would find me. Where is it?”

“I don’t fucking know, Magnus!”

Austin brought the blade up close to Zane’s face, the glow of the life magic mottled sunlight on his pale skin. The red in Zane’s eyes flared, his breathing gaining speed at the proximity of the vampire-killing magic.

“Where is it, Dallas?” Magnus again, unbothered by the clear torment he was putting us through.

“I don’t know. I don’t know , I swear it. I swear to the fucking Saint.”

That gained me a nice swift backhand, my carefully balanced posture crumbling to the ground. I had forgotten how prickly they were about spitting the Saint’s name out without swearing allegiance first. I also forgot how badly Magnus’s backhand stung. Metallic warmth coated the lining of my mouth and I spit some aside.

“H-hey! Leave him alone!” Barnaby yelled, somehow able to gather a rock into his hand. He tried to throw it but it just rolled across the floor a few inches for his effort. “He’s telling the truth, you pickled prick!”

“I don’t have reason to hurt you, but I will, sex demon,” Magnus drawled. “Don’t speak again or I’ll break your fingers.”

“I lied before,” Barnaby added viciously. “Dallas is my friend. My best friend, actually, even if he is somewhat of a selfish jerk who’s late on his rent. And you, good sir, are a bastard. A bastard! A rude, awful, twat bastard!”

“Twat bastard?” I tried to look his way but it was too hard.

“I’m stressed!” Barnaby tried to throw another rock, but this time it didn’t leave his fingers. “I stand by what I said. Every word. Even the terrible insults.”

“Thanks, Barns. You’re my best friend too. After Kevin.”

“Don’t make me regret this moment of heroism, Dallas,” Barnaby complained. “It’s likely going to cost me my fingers, and I’m second to a fish.”

Magnus took a step, and I spoke up fast.

“One of the skulls said they were going to guide the blade,” I told Magnus before he could act on breaking Barnaby’s fingers. “That was all he said. I don’t know what it meant.”

“Guide the blade where?”

“I don’t know.” I was exhausted, my head pounding. “If I did, I’d tell you. Does it have something to do with a key, maybe? Florence sent us here for a key specifically.”

“Did you find a key?” he asked, sounding bored.

I tried to shake my head and huffed from the effort.

“No. Just…dust. Ash. Nothing else.”

My neck was starting to ache from the effort of holding myself up, my shoulders screaming from the strain. In the throbbing pain of stiff muscles and mounting fear, a surprise moment of relief came from someone I least expected.

“I don’t think he knows anything, sir,” Austin said. “He’s a scumbag, but he is a shitty liar. He’s being honest.”

Magnus cut him a look so fierce I felt it land on Austin like a slap.

“I don’t believe him, and that’s all that matters.”

“Sir—” Austin tried again but Magnus set his jaw. “Yes, sir.”

“Do I need to worry about you defecting, Austin? You enjoying your time a little too much in his crypt?”

Austin’s voice fell back into his well-practiced, robotic, military cadence.

“No, sir.”

“Good. Then follow your orders.” Magnus gave a nod. “Let’s help jog Wilde’s memory.”

I heard the sizzle before I heard Zane’s scream, and I didn’t know which one froze my blood more. Austin had the tip of his dagger pressed into Zane’s cheek, his skin frying under the pinprick of life magic that cut into his flesh. The agony and fear ripping through him crashed into me, my chest twisting like a torrent of blades, bone and anguish.

I felt something inside of me click into place, a bone handle aligning, dark magic igniting with a fury I couldn’t wrangle. The anger that burst from me was as vast and endless as the void.

Cold tendrils slid down my arms and expanded across the room like stretching veins, crawling up the walls and into the tiny cracks in the stones.

I saw the ripple of darkness.

I saw blood red and endless nothing, Zane’s screams echoing as they melted into my own.

I stood, the charm no longer binding me, the magic failing after being swallowed by the void. Austin was staring in horror, fear so pure it turned his skin the color of ash.

The skeletons standing in their crypts gave an ovation of clattering jaws, the lids of the Thrall jars warbled as their bases shook.

“Let go,” I spoke with a voice dipped in death. “Of my fucking vampire.”

Austin let go of my fucking vampire.

He also pissed his pants, which I felt a little bad for.

Magnus was gripping his gun so tight his arm shook, his fear buried deep under shock and anger.

My chest twisted again, more clicking and sliding, the magic pouring from me began to ease as Zane put his hand on my shoulder.

“Easy,” he whispered, his cheek still red from the burn of the life magic. It blistered and bled, angry and painful. “Ease back, hunter. Let it go.”

I hadn’t noticed how badly I was shaking until the ripples started to fade, the skeletons around us falling back into their deathly silence. Cold magic receded back up my arms, knocking me off balance and back into reality. Zane caught me before I fell, holding me steady until I could get my feet back under me.

“Saints be blessed,” Magnus heaved, breathing like he ran a marathon. “What the hell are you?”

“I am a goddamn fish trainer, you overwhelming asshole,” I spat. “And sometimes I’m a very vindictive necromancer who will fuck you up if you pull that shit again.”

“Here, here!” Barnaby added triumphantly, dirt smeared across his cheek. He moved to grab a rock to try his hand at hurling it properly this time, but thankfully Zane caught his arm and shook his head.

“My previous offer is off the table. Consider it an asshole tax,” I told my former father, holding on to Zane’s arm to keep from falling down. It made the moment a little less badass, because of the shaking and creeping horror that I might puke, but I managed to still sound pretty authoritative. “We’re going to find this thing on our own, and you’re going to stay out of our way.”

“You have the darkness in you now, boy. There’s no telling what temptations of power that artifact will have for you.” To my surprise Magnus lowered his gun but didn’t put it away. “If you find it, you might not be able to destroy it.”

“I’m still a necromancer killer. I still hunt and destroy evil. You know I am, because you left that cheeky little note in the vampire den outside of St. Athesall knowing I’d find it.” I swallowed down another surge of rage. “You knew where I was, and you never even tried to find me.”

Magnus didn’t acknowledge the last part, instead pivoted around it.

“Counteroffer: we stay out of each other’s way. The more eyes looking for this thing, the better. I can’t pull back the effort now.”

“Stay far out of my way,” I clarified.

“I’ll pray the Saint finds you again, boy. This path you’re on now will only lead to more darkness and suffering.” Magnus slid his gun into its place and gave a sharp, whistled command. His soldiers, my former family, retreated from the tomb in the direction they had come from.

Only Austin looked back, fear almost clouding over the sorrow in his eyes.

It almost hurt to see, but my anger was still too raw to allow me to grieve.

I tried to think of something devastatingly clever to say to Magnus about keeping his bullshit praying to himself, or that I didn’t need him anymore, or that he looked like a withered testicle with a mustache, but I was so damn tired I just flipped him off.

The tomb fell back into silence as the Saint’s Army fled, their silhouettes fading through the hallway. Whatever they had used to rappel down was pulled back up, I heard the echoed commands Magnus gave to not leave anything behind. Once they were gone, I let myself exhale.

“Are you alright?” Zane asked, his fingers cold as he rotated me around to face him. His cheek looked terrible, and his skin was pale from me pulling too much strength from him during my outburst.

In the silver light of the Goddess’s tomb, even with a big, ugly blister on his face, Zane was remarkable. He had let me borrow so much of his strength in so many ways, from forcing a dust fish back to life to telling off my asshole father when I couldn’t.

I’d never had someone in my life care about me like this vampire did.

My heart did such a terrifying shuffle as I felt the knob in my chest rattle, mesmerized by the silver reflecting in his blood-red eyes.

I heard myself whisper, “Oh, shit.”

And everything went black.