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

The last utterance became a shrill scream, and a silvery seam began to form along the crown of its skull. Ectoplasm leaked freely, and Milo felt flashes of essence dissipating into the aether. The shade was coming apart from the weight of the memories; there could be no doubt now.

“I think it’s time to wrap this up,” Ambrose suggested at Milo’s shoulder, his voice brittle with horror and disgust.

“If Ezekiel is dead, why is his knife still carrying his curse?” Milo asked, partly of Imrah’s shade and partly of Ambrose. “If he’s the one who’s cursed, and the knife is cursed because of him, it follows that if he is dead, this hex should be lifted.”

The shade didn’t answer except to gasp and give a series of mewling screams, as hideous as they were pitiful.

“Either way, I don’t think we are getting anything more from her.” Ambrose pointed at the widening gap in the shade’s head. Inside the wound, past the ragged ectoplasm-leaking edge, Milo saw the trembling darkness of the shade’s essence made manifest. Staring at it, he felt the fragile energies beginning to shake apart in psychic tremors of growing intensity.

Milo bit back the furious questions demanding to pour forth and snatched up the lock.

REST

A few moments later, the shade was bound and recovering in its box, and Milo stood with both palms against the growing ache in his skull. He told himself they weren’t sympathy pains, but the voice in his head was not entirely convincing. He wondered, not for the first or last time, why he couldn’t be as good at lying to himself as he was at lying to other people.

“Well,” Ambrose said, gingerly scooping up the supplies, “we’ve got part of the puzzle.”

“Yes, we do.” Milo heaved a sigh and gave up his feeble attempts at forcing the tension back. “And I’m pretty sure I know where we are going to get the next piece.”

“Really? Where?”

Milo fought back the sick feeling in his stomach at what lay ahead.

“Doing something I’m going to hate even more than this,” he groaned. “Let’s hope I get better results from the next person I have to ask.”

Ambrose paused as he bent to pick up the box with Imrah’s remains.

“You’re not saying what I think you are.” Incredulity sharpened his words. “You can’t be.”

Milo shook his head and headed out of the dungeon. He suddenly felt more tired than he had that morning when the nightwatch was wearing off, except this was fatigue of the soul rather than the body.

“I didn’t say it was a good idea,” he muttered as he slowly began to mount the steps that would take him out of the darkness. “Just the only one I’ve got.”

The elixir was in his hand as he stood over her, but his whole body seemed locked in place by some paralytic. His heart hammered in his ears, and between the throbbing beats, he could hear his breath rasping horridly loud.

“We don’t have to do this,” Ambrose said at his shoulder, his deep voice seeming sudden and alien against the clamor of Milo’s body.

“What are our other options?” the magus asked, certain he knew the unsatisfactory answer.

“We could wait and see if Jorge has any more fey contacts,” Ambrose said, sounding less than convinced. “Maybe one of them can get here before she’s too far gone.”

Milo looked at the contessa, noting her silvery glow and the dull sheen that could be explained as a trick of the light. Her skin was gray and loose around her long form as though she was withering from within, which given that she was constantly losing blood wasn’t far from the truth.

“Does she look like she can wait?” Milo asked, the question broken but without malice or anger. “You heard Brodden say it was a miracle she was holding on, and even if we can keep up the transfusions, the efforts to keep the bleeding under control are going to start having lasting effects if they haven’t already.”

Ambrose wanted to argue, but his eyes were downcast as he looked at the fallen fey with welling sadness.

“I assume she’s too weak for an amputation?” the big man asked, eying the pink-stained bandages across her shoulder.

Milo nodded.

“She’d be dead before they could even start to close things up.”

Ambrose swore softly in French and sucked his teeth as he scratched his chin.

“And none of your magic can fix her up?” Ambrose’s expression said he knew the answer before Milo gave it.

“Besides changing my blood, everything else has magic interacting with the wound,” Milo explained. “That triggers the curse that pulls it apart, and pulling it apart like that means it could do more damage. Even if it doesn’t do more damage, it will use more of my energy and ingredients, and thus I will be less able to do anything useful if and when we do have something we can do.”

“So, this is it, then.” Ambrose’s massive shoulders drooped in a way that might have been comical had it not been for the circumstances.

“Like I said,” Milo murmured, raising one hand to the stopper on the vial, “not a good idea, but the only one I’ve got.”

Ambrose nodded. “Should I wake Brodden up?”

In true veteran fashion, the medic had collapsed into sleep the second the two of them arrived. The steady sawing of his gentle snores was the only thing that confirmed the lump on the cot opposite Rihyani’s wasn’t a bundle of old laundry.

“No,” Milo said softly. “Let him sleep. If things go wrong, he’ll know soon enough.”

Milo remembered the man’s bloodshot eyes and harrowed face and made a mental note to do something for him, however this turned out. Ambrose would probably know what to do and could see it done.

“Dear God,” Milo whispered, the word sounding like an entreaty instead of a curse, “let this work.”

He removed the stopper, gently opened Rihyani’s mouth, and slowly poured the nightwatch down her throat as he impelled the ingredients with essence