25. Chapter 25
Chapter twenty-five
“Not only do you want to go for a stroll through the forest, but at night ?” Shaw laughed, bringing the pint of ale to his lips.
Lux watched him swallow before turning her head, eyeing the startlingly empty room. The Brewing Bog’s regular crowd had dwindled to a few glassy-eyed patrons focused on their drink rather than their companions. The barkeep had been arrested, as rumor told. Dragged to prison for crimes no one knew. He may very well have done whatever they accused him of, but the Shield, and certainly the mayor, were deeply involved in much, much worse. Her imagination spun with the image of his laughing eyes clouding over, and, finally, descending into dust.
Shaw’s coat bulged, the faintest outline of the returned journal beneath it. Lux hadn’t meant to stay longer than a moment, but the warmth drew her in again. Why couldn’t she ignore it?
She made to pull back now. Her body leaned in further, instead. “Why is that so ridiculous to you? This phantom clearly resides in the wood, amongst the trees, with howlers as companions and who knows what else. Aren’t you curious?”
“Certainly not curious enough to die.”
“You didn’t enjoy it the first time?”
Shaw quirked his lips at her. “Take my advice. Don’t do it.”
“Hmm. No, I think I’m going to. Riselda would have me knitting in front of the fire, waiting for Ghadra’s collapse. There is something I’m missing. I feel it, and I can’t sit here and wait for the plague to take me. To take everyone.” She clutched at the black fabric covering her lap, abruptly puzzled.
Saints above. Who have I become?
But no, that wasn’t quite right. Her hands overturned on her thighs so that she stared at her palms, the lines she found there. Her gaze narrowed. Perhaps it was more like: When did I return?
“Ghadra’s own vigilante.” Shaw’s eyes creased above the rim of his mug.
She scoffed. “I thought you had already claimed that title?”
Smile fading, he rubbed his thumb over the handle of his drink. “It’s getting worse. It’s as if they’re feeding upon the fear already blanketing this town.” He touched a bandage as it peeked from beneath his sleeve.
“We have to put a stop to this.”
He nodded. “I want to go to the prison.”
“ What? And you tell me venturing into the forest is mad…”
“That is mad. If the mayor is harvesting lifeblood, if he’s behind this sickness sweeping through Ghadra, I think we’ll find the evidence of it there.”
“In the prison?”
“In the prison.”
Lux observed a drunk woman stumble through the doors, pulling her mask into place. A mask that served no purpose. “I’ll come with you.”
Shaw returned his mug to the bar top. “You don’t have to.”
“As if I don’t know that.”
His eyes darkened, and she narrowed her own. There was something there. Something that hadn’t been before. “I thought we were finished. Happily never speaking to one another?”
That bothered you?
She could hardly believe it. An airy giddiness suffused her chest: a remarkable sensation she refused to analyze.
“Perhaps we could work together a little longer.” Frowning then, she added, “Only don’t kiss me again.”
He twitched, taken aback. “I won’t.”
“Oh, and one more thing.” Tawny eyes flicked to her as she rose from the stool. “You’re coming into the forest with me.”
Lux walked along the street for a time before slinking into an alley, an alley that would bring her to the invisible crossover to the Light. She skirted wide of another large rat pilfering the trash left along leaning walls. She sneered at it, disgusted, when a shadow fell across her.
“We meet again, Necromancer.” Scorn dripped from the word, and Lux spun from the rat, cursing the Shield’s sudden appearance. One man quickly turned into three.
The sack of flour. He certainly didn’t appear as pleased to see her as the previous encounter.
“Sorry, are you sure we’ve met?”
Heavy-lidded eyes sharpened on her. “I’ve been looking for you. You really believe your title of mayor’s pet allows you to assault the Shield? You must be thick as marsh mud.”
She bristled at the familiar assumption. “I think you have much more experience petting the mayor’s ego than I do.” A lovely shade of purple entered his skin. “But semantics aside, I never assaulted you. Please move. I’ve a mountain of things to accomplish today.”
“You dumped my own sleeping potion down my throat! You’re about to be arrested!”
Spittle flew from his mouth. Lux tracked its descent, happy to be out of range. “Now doesn’t that seem far-fetched. I doubt the mayor will be pleased when Ghadra’s only necromancer dies inside his prison only because a man’s ego was bruised.”
The two uniformed men behind him shifted their feet.
“The mayor doesn’t know half of what happens down there, girl. You won’t die. But you will wish you had.” A manic gleam had entered his eyes now, and he stepped toward her. “I have a few techniques in particular that I enjoy, and maybe, upon your release, you’ll understand the price of disrespecting someone of my station.”
Her hands twitched, longing to throttle him, but she stifled their movements. “You’re not taking me anywhere .”
The heavy-eyed man grinned, tipping his head back to his comrades. “I love it when they say that to me.”
He lunged, only to reel back when Lux’s perfectly pointed nails raked along his face. With a roar, he brought his hands to the dripping mess. “You clawed out my eye!”
“As I said.” She crossed her arms to hide their shake. The men behind him had yet to offer assistance, their gazes traveling from her to the blood splattering the ground and back again.
A guttural growl spewed from his lips. “If you don’t help me in this, I’ll throw you both behind bars myself.”
His uninjured eye hadn’t left hers, but Lux knew whom he’d addressed.
She ran.
She had barely made it partway back the way she’d come before the air was knocked from her lungs. Lux collapsed to her knees and then her stomach, feeling as if her back were cracked in two. She tracked the iron ball as it rolled from her side, the chain clanging against stone, another trailing in its wake. She couldn’t breathe. It hurt too much.
With a cry escaping her lips, she was hauled into unfamiliar arms, her own trapped behind her back. The pain sent spots raining down from the skies. Hazy features moved before her then, a blood-soaked smile stretching his face.
Lux gagged as the taste of iron swept across her tongue, dirtied fingers prying her lips apart. She felt them crack. Lashing out with her boots, she connected with a shin. Whose it belonged to, she wasn’t sure, but a hiss resounded from somewhere.
“Goodnight, Necromancer.”
Bitter liquid rolled down her throat, pitching her into darkness.