Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Raya scowls, outraged, and prepares to spit curses at him.
Instead, she grabs her own breasts, squeezes them, rocks her eyes back, and moans with overdramatic ecstasy. Mance just stands there and watches her, lust gleaming in his eyes.
The next moment, Raya comes to, as if emerging from an erotic dream, out of breath, then drops her hands with a gasp, stepping back. “How the h-hell—??” she cries out.
“I’m a fuckin’ necromancer. I control the dead.” He puffs carelessly on his cigarette, blows smoke with his laugh. “Who’d you think you were comin’ down here to see? The pope?”
Tristan steps in front of her, though he’s not sure if it’s to protect her or to hold her back. Do you have more ingredients for me to procure? My memory is flawless, I shall retain all.
Mance takes the cigarette between his greyish fingertips, still eying a considerably shaken Raya, smirking. “Sure thing. I will need the wings of a greater noctule bat. Need hair the same color as your dead fella, too, gathered off the floor of a morgue, a good amount of it. How old was he when he died? I’ll need that many books that are exactly as old as he was, each of ‘em. Doesn’t matter what book as long as they all have the letter ‘B’ somewhere in the title. Y’know, for his name, I’ll be sayin’ it a lot, we’ll all get sick of it, yadda-yadda. I’ll also need black salt, a decent chunk of obsidian, and … hmm, what else? … I’ll also need the heart of a newborn baby, still beating.”
Raya lets out a sickened noise through her teeth.
Mance … Tristan sighs. I am beginning to suspect we are being trolled for your amusement, and you, in fact, need none of these items.
“Alright, skip the newborn baby’s heart. Just wanted to see how …” He licks his lips, takes a drag from his cigarette, then blows it suggestively in Raya’s direction. “… far you’d go.”
She recoils, this time with more discomfort than disgust.
Time is of the essence, Tristan reminds him patiently, for the deceased rots worse by the day, despite us keeping him in a freezer …
“Let him rot,” says Mance. “It’ll be the last time that poor soul knows any peace. Do you even know what you’re askin’ me to do?” He turns his harsh eyes back onto Tristan, shining in the fire from the candle below, over halfway melted. “Once we begin this, you will owe a debt to Death. It is the worst entity in existence to owe anything to.”
Raya turns to Tristan, fear in her eyes—a look Tristan has never seen in his friend before. It’s perhaps in this moment that Tristan first experiences a pinch of doubt. Should he have come to meet Mance at all? Was all of this a terrible mistake?
“What?” Mance barks out, voice hardening. “Y’all thought a fuckin’ resurrection would be easy? A resurrection isn’t just a cute ritual to magically invite a soul back into a corpse. It is an act of theft. When you wake the dead, you risk the ire of Death, the fuckin’ father of nightmares itself. Death is owed penance for the arrogant act of rearranging its delicate design in your damned favor. Each of us is here ‘cause we’re supposed to be. And the unlucky one you’re tryin’ to steal back from Death, this Brock fella, make no mistake, he’s meant to be dead, and what we’re doin’ here defies every damned natural law there is.” His jaw tightens. “So you better be sure you want to do this at all.”
Silence fills the dank tunnel after the last echo of his words are swallowed into the brick. Between them, the candle burns even lower yet, casting its dying light across the red, sticky path of wine still traced along the floor like a river of blood.
Raya brings her lips to Tristan’s ear. “I do not like this, I do not like him, I do not trust him, we need to leave.”
Tristan wonders if Raya is right. This is risky, even if they get Mance’s full cooperation and all goes perfectly to plan. Markadian could still learn what Tristan did and punish him greatly for such a direct and insulting violation. But with each passing second that Brock remains deceased, their entire society is threatened by what his powerful family could bring down upon them all.
Does the risk pay off, for the cataclysm it may prevent?
Even if it defies Markadian in the deepest way?
The candle burns low, flame spitting at them, going askew.
Tristan smiles across the ten or so feet that separates them from Mance and the ebbing candle. You say a debt will be owed to Death, but is it we who pay it, or you?
“Let me worry about Death,” states Mance. “You just tell me whether you’re serious ‘bout this or not.”