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

Klink!

His attention divided between Ambrose and being stealthy, Milo hadn’t noticed he was putting the salve tin in the wrong pocket, and it struck the glass vials kept there. Before Milo had time to register all of this properly, Ambrose spun, the Gewehr appearing in his hands.

Reflexively, Milo threw up both hands, dropping the tin in the process, raising further clamor as it clattered on the bed.

There was a single second where Milo felt what hundreds of men must have felt throughout the last century before the Nephilim ended them with a shot, but the moment passed in a single heavy heartbeat. Then Ambrose thumped the rifle butt on the ground.

“You need to be careful about sneaking up on folk, Magus,” Ambrose muttered, resting a shoulder against the barrel of the rifle. “Could lead to messy consequences.”

“Not sure which I’m more afraid of,” Milo confessed, hand still raised. “The weapon in your hand now, or the one you were holding a second ago.”

Ambrose threw back his head and trumpeted a bawling laugh that echoed up the slopes and back. He rocked back, leveraging the rifle in one hand while slapping his bulging, thickly thewed stomach with the other.

“Best hope it never comes to that.” He snorted before hoisting the rifle over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of either.”

“Don’t suppose I would,” Milo said as he slowly lowered his hands. “Now, do you plan to arrive at the church like that, or can we get on our way?”

Ambrose chuckled as he looked himself over, then strode toward his clothes.

“Suppose no one’s virtue is at risk.” The big man chuckled. “But I'd hate to be the cause of some nun’s broken vows all the same.”

Ambrose scooped up his clothes and trundled across the stream to the Rollsy. He tossed the garments halfway over the cab door for a quick inspection. This close, Milo saw the vast network of scars covering the big man’s flesh. Self-conscious in his staring but unable to look away, Milo assessed that there didn’t seem to be a place on the man that was not a finger length away from three or four other scars. They were varied as well, from the dark, cloven lines of slashes to the raised keloidal scars of burns. Some rolled and shifted with his muscular bulk, while others seemed fixed deep in his flesh, so they barely moved.

“You live long enough like I have, you collect some souvenirs,” Ambrose said without looking up from inspecting a hole in the leg of his trousers. “A few fun stories among them, but most are stories of being a fool or unlucky.”

Milo looked away, embarrassed to have been caught scrutinizing the man so blatantly. Then a thought occurred to him, and curiosity overcame his shame.

“But when you came back from Kimaris killing you, you healed everything,” Milo said, pointing at Ambrose’s face. “You didn’t just grow back the essential parts. You don’t even have scars from it.”

“What’s with all the other decorations?” Ambrose offered.

Milo nodded as his eyes charted a path between a puckered scar on the big man’s belly through to a matching scar in the back.

“As far as I can tell, which isn’t much, mind you,” Ambrose began as he pulled his undershirt on. “When I do the whole die-and-come-back bit, I get put back together just as I was before the thing that killed me happened. Everything that came before and everything that comes after, so long as it doesn’t drop me, stays.”

Milo nodded and took one last look at the ragged seam of scar tissue above the clavicle and a circular scar that must have been a gunshot wound under the arm. Those and over a hundred others were wounds that Ambrose had survived.

“Any of them still bother you,” Milo asked.

Ambrose nodded as he carried on the business of getting dressed.

“A few,” he muttered as he tugged on his trousers. “I’ve learned to live with the aches and pains. Some of them even help me know when I’m hurt because if I can’t feel them sawing on my nerves, I know I must be in bad shape.”

“To live is to know pain,” Milo mumbled. “Only the dead know peace.”

“Cute.” Ambrose sniffed. “Especially given you know that’s not always the case.”

Milo felt an odd chill and shook his head to dispel the thought of glinting eyes and teeth.

“Maybe.” He turned his eyes to the western horizon. There was nothing but the green-skinned Caucasus Mountains in spring, but Milo knew that somewhere beyond one of those rises was Tsminda Sameba, a church that Rihyani had said would help save her.

“How much longer?” he asked, turning back as Ambrose was buttoning up his collar.

“Another eight hours,” the bodyguard said as he ambled toward the back of the bed, where fuel cans had been arranged and bound by a length of rope. “Maybe less. We’ve made fairly good time, considering there is nothing like a decent paved road in this country.”

Milo gave a low whistle when he realized that meant he’d been asleep for nearly twenty-four hours. He supposed that explained why he was refreshed if a little sore. Looking down at the Nephilim, he found himself thankful that it seemed the half-angel viewed sleep as recreational interest, enjoyed when possible but hardly necessary.

Ambrose, having clambered up to grab two fuel cans, gave a strong sniff, then swung a frown toward Milo.

“Seeing as we’re having such a good time,” he said in an exaggeratedly delicate tone, “maybe you’d like to take advantage of the stream over there too.”

Milo squinted at the bodyguard, who grinned sheepishly back as the magus bent his head to take a quick smell. What greeted him was striking enough that without another word, he hopped down from the bed and began shedding clothes as he made for the stream.

The stream was clean, clear, and heart-stoppingly cold. With a gasp, he felt his skin erupt in gooseflesh. Despite the initial shock, it felt good to rinse away