Free Dead Man (Black Magic Outlaw Book 1) by Domino Finn Page A

me.
    I cough out blood. I'm slow to rise. But I am not done.
    The man lumbers my way. I let him grab me, pull me close. He grunts again, but the eerie sound is cut short.
    Black liquid dribbles over my hand, cold to the touch. The blade in my fingers is colder still, buried in his belly.
    The ogre drops his head, startled by the wound. The hood falls lower over his face. But he is still so strong. "Silver," he muses. "I will use it to inscribe your headstone."
    I reach desperately for the orange powder, but it is out of my reach, knocked from the table.
    "I will tell you how to get the Horn," I plead quickly. "Let me go, and you will have it. I swear."
    He pushes forward into me. I can smell his breath.
    "You have told the same lies for a decade. I am sick of them." He pushes closer still. "And I am so thirsty."
    I press away but he holds firm and leans in. The hood falls away and I see a flash of metal teeth, shining in the weak light. They sink into me, tearing away my flesh. Devouring me.
    My struggles stop. My thoughts slow. He drinks my essence, and I know that I'm slipping away.

 
     
    Chapter 13

     
     

    I ripped the blood-caked blindfold from my face and rasped on the floor, too weak to stand. I had expected someone powerful, but not like that. Martine had been a decent bokor, with ten more years of skill than I'd seen before. She'd even learned a bit of glamour. All that, and that thing had just cut her down like an afterthought.

    Here's the thing about necromancers: they're not very durable. Death magic is about insight and control. A straight-up fight with a bruiser was better had at a distance. With an army in between.
    Asan, this thing—whatever it was—had magic in its bones. It moved too fast to be human. The black blood hinted at a nether creature. A fae. But it was unfamiliar to me. Incredibly stout. Incredibly ruthless.
    And it was looking for me.
    Good money he was the one who'd called at the Versace Mansion. This creature was on the hunt, and it knew about the cookhouse. It wasn't safe here.
    I used the table to help myself up, stomping the fatigue from my wobbly legs. Experiencing Martine's death was a shock to my system. It wouldn't have any lasting physical effects but I had some funk to shake off. The bigger picture had more troubling repercussions.
    According to their exchange, Martine and I had found something ten years ago. An artifact called the Horn of Subjugation. (Yeah, scary things have scary names.) The fog of my death blocked it from memory, but Martine had known about it.
    I shook my head and gave my friend one last glance. She'd been working with them. At some point, anyway. In over her head. Maybe I'd played a part, but more likely I'd been played. And when, ostensibly, the proverbial shit had hit the fan, I was a liability because I was a free agent.
    Amazingly, whatever had gotten me killed continued to elude the ogre ten years later. What did Martine say about the Horn? A crow flies true, always seeking birdfeed? A riddle? One last ploy to stay alive? Maybe she had only promised to help him to save her neck. If so, it hadn't done my family any good. And the ogre, Asan, knew: if I'd gotten to Martine now, it would all come out. He knew I was coming, so he killed her, just hours after I was resurrected.
    That's why he'd taken the eyes. He knew I'd be right here, right now. He wanted to stop me from finding out about the Horn.
    That meant this was probably a trap.
    The door was still warded shut even though Asan was gone. He wasn't in here now, I was sure of that. So why'd he take the trouble of locking the shed?
    As in Martine's vision, I heard scurrying outside. Fingers of light blazed through the cracks in the structure, and I realized now why the oil lamps were gone.
    The cookhouse was on fire.
    I looked around for anything worth saving. Any tokens I'd need in the coming days. Most of the sacraments were smashed and scattered. Besides, the shed began filling up with smoke. I