Sorcerybound (World's First Wizard Book 2) by Aaron Schneider (best color ereader .TXT) 📗

was scrambling back from Ezekiel, snapping her fangs at him but clearly weakening. The scalp-hunter followed her as she lurched behind Beli’s fallen form.

Spitting curses through the agony in his leg, Milo threw himself after her. The dagger still in his flesh gouged and tore with each step, so blind with pain and rage, Milo threw himself over Beli’s body to smash his shoulder into Ezekiel.

The maniacal cowboy tumbled head over heels, his hat flying from his head and the scalp fringe tangling. It was all Milo could do to keep his feet, his limbs trembling as he gripped his cane with unsteady hands. The world swam for a second, and at that moment, Ezekiel Boucher had found his feet and advanced, waving his bloody knife in front of him teasingly. The strangled purple of the sunset glinted like a bruise across his thinning pate. His smile was transcendentally terrifying and perversely suggestive.

“Oh, boy, it’s been a while since I barked a dude.” He wet his lips with a craggy tongue. “But don’t you worry, kid, Uncle Zeke is going to take his time with you. I’m not going to take a little bit off the top, oh no, sweetie, never. I’m going to peel you clean and do it just right so you’re still breathing when I show you every inch of your own hide.”

Milo wished he could draw his focus to blast the sadistic fiend, but the knife was still buried in his leg, and the pain was making it hard to stay conscious, much less do magic. What wouldn’t he have given to have remembered to put his service pistol on his hip before he’d rushed off to be heroic!

“The only question is do you want me to start at the bottom,” Ezekiel purred, gesturing at Milo’s feet before rising to eye his scalp lasciviously, “or go with the classic top?”

The magus tightened his grip on his cane. There was no way he could beat the madman, but he would go down swinging.

“If you’ve got to start somewhere, why not the ears?” he quipped, forcing a smile despite the agony in his leg. “I’ve never been scalped, but I can’t imagine it's worse than listening to you a second longer.”

“Ohhh,” Zeke groaned with unseemly gusto. “Now I’ve got to start with your tongue and save your ears for last. It’s going to take some work, but you're worth it, kid.”

Milo drew back for a swing as Ezekiel made what would most certainly have been the fatal slash had an empty ammo hopper not smashed into the cowboy’s chest.

Milo’s head whipped around to see Ambrose pounding toward Ezekiel.

“Again?” Ezekiel shrieked wetly as he dragged himself out from under the heavy metal bin. There was something wrong with his chest, one part of it sunken and unwilling to follow the rhythm of the other side.

Milo winced at the sight, but he had little time to dwell on the man’s injuries as Ambrose leaped forward to inflict new ones.

Ezekiel tried to indulge in more of his taunting, but he hardly had formed the first words before the big man’s fist lashed out and cracked across his jaw. To the small man’s credit, though he rocked with the blow, he swung back to spit a mouthful of blood and resume his mad smile.

“Now, this is going to be one hell of a fight!” he cackled as he fluttered the blade in front of him again.

“No,” Ambrose said in a flat, icy voice, “it won’t.”

As Milo had known since the first time he’d met him, Simon Ambrose was a man who didn’t need to lie.

Ezekiel was fast, vicious, and had already proven his knife work was lethally proficient even against a giant like Beli, but none of that was enough. Ambrose didn’t seem to be moving fast so much as he knew exactly where he did and didn’t want to be. Three slashes and one thrust passed within inches of his skin, Ambrose letting them slide by as his burning green eyes remained fixed on the maniacal scalp hunter, who had begun to giggle.

The fifth strike was never finished as Ambrose, deciding he had the measure of his opponent, grabbed Ezekiel’s wrist in one hand. Milo knew what was coming but couldn’t tear his eyes away as Ambrose gave a quick twist and bones snapped like wet kindling in a fire.

Ezekiel’s tittering swelled into breathless hooting as the knife fell from his suddenly limp grip.

What followed next was the quickest and most complete ruination of a man he’d ever seen, which the Nephilim did with nothing but his bare hands. His rifle and bayonet remained fixed and the sword on the big man’s belt remained sheathed in utter contempt of Ambrose’s opponent.

A change of grip, one sharp tug, and the cowboy’s shoulder separated with a hollow pop. Then one shuffling series of steps and Ambrose launched two stomping kicks, one into the back of each knee, and there were more sickening sounds of tendons parting.

Ezekiel fell flat on the ground, only one hale limb left to clutch at the loamy ground as the other three twitched pitifully. The fit of hysterical laughter was approaching a crescendo.

“HAHAHAHA!” On and on he screamed, his voice growing more and more hoarse.

Ambrose frowned at his broken foe before stomping down with his heavy boot. This time Milo did look away as the laughter finally ended with a wet crunch.

He spied the knife still jutting from his calf, and remembered he was in agony. The world wobbled, and he didn’t have the strength to fight the quavering call of the earth. He sank down with enough presence of mind not to let his descent drive the knife deeper into his flesh.

By reflex, his fingers reached out and brushed the hilt, but that brief touch made his stomach lurch into his throat, and the world was swallowed in a static crackle of obliviating pain.

When he came to, Ambrose was crouching next to him, a bandage in one hand