Free Infernal Ties by Holly Evans

man that could have been an American football player when he was alive.  
    He grinned at me; half of his teeth were missing along with one of his cheeks. I knew I was going to have nightmares about that for weeks to come. He lowered his shoulders and charged at me with his arms wide, hoping to tackle me to the ground. I couldn’t go down. I’d be screwed. He was easily twice my size; I couldn’t match his tackle. I crouched at the last second, putting me under his torso. I grabbed his legs and stood up, throwing him over the top of me. He landed with a crunching groan. I took the opportunity to stamp down on his ribs. His sharp bony fingers sank into my calf. I ignored the agonising pain and put all my weight down through his ribs and brought my other foot down to stamp on his throat. He clawed at me frantically, but I freed a leg and kicked his jaw as hard as I could. His hands fell limp. I ignored the pain and blood and ran to the mausoleum. I was not going to allow that necromancer to get his hands on my prize.  
    The necromancer was casually leaning against the door to the mausoleum. His joints sagged beneath him, his skin looked more ashen than it had before. A smile slowly spread across his face as his glassy eyes watched me approach. He was trying to dig his fingers into the gap that had formed around the stone door while maintaining a calm and composed appearance. His chest heaved and his ribs rattled with each breath. Yet, the gap was widening. I couldn’t allow him entrance, he was not going to steal Beatrix from me. My twin’s life was hanging in the balance.  
    The runes were wavering; the faint light that radiated from them was barely perceptible. The smile on his face widened and he pushed himself to stand a little taller.  
    “Kill me and you’ll never get answers about your parents. You want to know what happened to them, don’t you?”
    I stopped dead in my tracks; we had tried to find out what had happened to our parents for years. The idea that the filth before me had answers was tantilising. I kept the blades raised and waited for him to speak again. My heart was pounding in my chest. The pain from my injuries was growing. I was ready for the night to be over. His harsh, rasping laugh filled my ears. My patience vanished. I lunged and sank my left blade into his soft stomach. I twisted it and dragged it out.  
    He continued to laugh, before he said, “You’ll never know who they really were.”
    I hacked at his neck. Black blood oozed out of his injuries as he slumped to the ground, a lifeless sack of bones in a pitch-black suit. I wiped my blades on his awful green tie. It was better than getting his filthy blood on me. His taunting rang around my head; I pushed it aside and got down to the job at hand. Serena owed me for saving her witch from becoming a necromancer’s bride.
    The small stone that Serena had given me with her note practically hummed as I pulled it out of my pocket. The runes all faded into nothingness before I stepped into the mausoleum. Finally, something was going to plan.  

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

    Things didn’t keep going my way for very long. I’d barely stepped into the small stone room before a collection of large cat-beasts appeared from the shadows. Their deep green eyes bored into me, waiting for me to make my move. I cursed under my breath and decided to get things rolling. They had the advantage in the darkness, and their long limbs and sharp claws certainly didn’t help my cause. They looked like average house cats, if house cats had been given steroids and grown to the size of jaguars.  
    They all growled, an eerie deep rumbling noise that ended in a high-pitched yowl. That was my warning before they closed in around me, which wasn’t hard given the small space. A silver tabby leapt up onto the stone sarcophagus; its face was level with mine as its muscles coiled and it prepared to take me apart. I slashed its face, causing it to yowl in pain. A great