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)
Tristan suspected Mance would know the gift has yet to be given. I thought I might deliver the box after the deed is done.
“Because you don’t trust me? Damn. I’m wounded.”
It’s less you that I don’t trust, more the art itself. Tristan gazes at Brock. I can’t imagine him alive again. I still think I’ll never see it. To bring loved ones back … it is such an age-long wish. There are reasons no one speaks of it. I fear that reason is because it isn’t possible.
“Not without great cost. Like I said, Death will be owed.”
And you said that you would be the lucky one to worry about that debt. I doubt it’s a small debt. Yet all you ask in return is to give a box to Lord Markadian? It’s not even all that impressive a box.
Mance tilts his head. “So are you questioning the deal? Or my giftwrapping ability?”
Can’t it be both? Giftwrapping is quite important. They say we eat gifts with our eyes first …
“I didn’t kill my parents.”
Tristan frowns. An unexpected change of topic.
Mance’s eyes seem to shift, as if just now emerging from the shadow beneath his tattered hat. He glances away, appears to reconsider saying anything at all. Then he smirks. “If you’d believe it, Markadian and I, we used to be close friends. Like brothers. Even came to my wedding. He never attends mortal shit, that’s so far beneath him, you know that much.” Mance glances back at the long metal table of items, as if reminded it’s there, then takes into his hand the chunk of obsidian, inspecting it, looking for flaws. “Ferals … they were a worse problem back then. First years of my marriage, felt like I was fending them off more than mosquitos. Came after me because I was a known witch. Not my wife. Just me. And y’know how it is with witches and vampires … sworn enemies, all that ancient shit. Three or so years after my second daughter was born, all the Ferals left us alone, learned to leave us alone, were smart enough to leave us alone … all except one.” He drops the chunk of obsidian into the ice. It lands with a sickening thump on Brock’s cold, rigid chest. “I asked my buddy Markadian for help, my good ol’ pal, my special chummy-fuckin’-chum. By this point, shit got busier in his life, he had less time to hang out—y’know, less time for Sunday dinners.” Mance takes a few slabs of bark and, with unexpectedly delicate care, starts arranging the pieces around the chunk of obsidian, some resting on the ice, some on Brock’s chest. “And apparently he had less time to help out his best friend. ‘Go talk to your local witches,’ he said, ‘they deal with Ferals.’ But I wasn’t in any coven. I was just a pyromancer at that time. Had a lucrative stint at a Vegas theater that didn’t last long where I fire danced, spat more kerosene over flames than you can fill this clinic with, juggled torches in a black leather thong, you name it. After that, my poor fire-magician ass stooped to performin’ on the streets mostly, my power hidden in plain sight, like a cheap roadside clown with a deck of cards. Never made any friends. Pyromancers aren’t crazy about formin’ covens, I guess. Wasn’t part of no clique. You got any idea how fuckin’ cliquey witches are? ‘What’s your last name?’ they ask you, fuckin’ interrogating you like the CIA. ‘What’s your bloodline? Which corner are you?’ Gotta know every last fuckin’ thing down to your blood type before they decide if you’re worth their time.” He sets the last piece of bark in place, steps back, as if admiring art. “Decent quality bark, not bad.”
I shall pass your compliment on, says Tristan distractedly, still trying not to picture Mance in a black leather thong.
“This Feral that was so damned fixated on us ... was one persistent-ass motherfucker,” Mance goes on. “Wouldn’t leave us alone. Got so bad, had to quit my gigs, and my wife and I took the girls and went into hiding. Markadian still wouldn’t budge. ‘Local witches, local witches,’ he kept repeatin’ himself hoarse ‘til he stopped takin’ my calls altogether.” He snatches the jar of black salt off the table like it’s Lord Markadian’s neck, then tips it, letting the granules pour onto the floor as he slowly walks in a circle around the ice bin. “And then came the night of Valentine’s,” he calmly goes on, as if telling the story over campfire. “I recall the guilt sittin’ heavy in my chest the whole damned day ‘cause I didn’t prepare anything for my wife and I to celebrate. We were too afraid of that bloodsucker, afraid for our lives, holed up, consumed by fear every time the sun went down.” Tristan steps out of the way as Mance comes around to his side of the bin, still pouring the salt. “Told my wife I was sick of sittin’ around, I was gonna get her some cupcakes from her favorite bakery. Told her she’d eat to her heart’s content that night. She laughed me off—Goddamn, that woman had the cutest laugh—but I was determined as sin for us to live our lives. I’d pick up roses, too, but wouldn’t tell her. Let that be a cute surprise, she’d love it.” He completes the circle, sets the empty jar down, then pauses. “When I returned, cupcakes and roses in hand … somethin’ else got there first, somethin’ else ate to its heart’s content. There lay my wife on the floor … There lay my beautiful girls in their room, too … All of them, faces sheet white … drained to the bone.” He draws very still. “Wouldn’t you know it, Tristan … it was that night, I tried my hand at the dark art of necromancy for the first time in my wretched life. That was a fuckin’ big-ass mistake.” He lets out a tortured snort of laughter, then sneers at the memory, as if physically fighting it away. “My wife and sweet daughters … whatever perversion of life I had brought them back with, my bad attempt at the forbidden art … it went so fuckin’ wrong.” Even now, Mance’s voice doesn’t shake, doesn’t reveal a single scrap of sadness—only anger. “I dishonored them, to try such an act.”