Dead Red - M.R. Forbes Page 0,87

how I might have let it happen.

I didn't know anything about any of the corpses buried out here, so I picked almost randomly based on how soft the earth felt and the size of the stone they were buried under. I figured smaller was better, a servant would be more accustomed to taking orders, and theoretically easier to control. I needed easy. I was white-knuckling it, forcing myself to keep going, to keep fighting. My insides had felt like a puddle of mud since the gas station, and it was all I could do to keep from constantly hacking up more and more blood. I was sure Tarakona could get me a new injector, and I'd managed to hang onto the three doses in the metal tin.

Survive tonight, heal tomorrow.

It was going to take everything in me to survive the night, even if Tobias didn't make an appearance.

I laughed to myself. He would. I knew he would. In the real world, nothing went according to plan. Nothing happened easy. I was racing every clock I could think of, and as I started pulling up chunks of grass and earth I couldn't help but feel like I was digging my own grave.

I reached the casket an hour later. It was rotted and broken by time and the elements, the bones of the corpse inside of it partially exposed. I glanced up at the sky past the hole I was standing in, not seeing any stars and hopeful that the downpour would come soon. Then I threw the shovel out onto the grass and knelt down, using my hands to push away the earth, working to uncover the skeleton below. I didn't need a lot.

Just enough to touch.

The moist dirt got under my fingernails and began climbing up my hand, a new kind of surgeon getting messy in a different kind of entrails. I caught my finger on something rough and cursed when the nail split and the pain followed. A bare bone jutted out from the spot, a shattered radius. I reached under my coat with my left hand. I checked my watch with my right.

I put it back on the corpse and pushed. Time had never been on my side before. Why would it start now?

"Come back to me," I whispered. "Hurry."

I heard a familiar, soft click from above and behind.

"Necromancer."

Tobias' voice was crisp and satisfied. I guess because he thought that he had gotten the jump on me.

"Wizard," I replied without looking. My right hand rested on the bone, feeding it my power. I could feel the thread pulling against the soul, so close and yet so far. My left was tucked in towards my body, clutching the mask tight to my chest.

I had known Tobias would be here. I had guessed the mask would tell me the moment he arrived. Even while I was digging, I had put my hand to it every couple of minutes. I knew when he had shown up, using his magic to hide himself and his ghost team as they entered through the same gate I had taken. I knew when he had surrounded me, watching me dig and waiting. Why had he waited? My own grave. I was trapped down here, no way out. I couldn't get the dice in hand and up to him before he could have me full of holes, and I had no doubt he wasn't afraid of a pile of bones. Kill the user, kill the animation.

"I'm surprised at you, turning down Mr. Black's offer. You had to know you couldn't win."

"I've cheated death before." I forced more energy into the corpse. Its consciousness was returning, and only my suggestion would keep it quiet.

"Perhaps too often. You've become careless. Overconfident. I'm going to ask you one question, one time. Answer it, and I'll let you go once my business is done."

"Really? Even after I took your hand?"

"We're both professionals."

"I'm not going to tell you where Jin is."

The bone shivered under my fingers. I pushed the magic harder, finding the corpse wasn't even close to being whole. The bones had crumbled at the joints where they were more cartilage than calcium, leaving me with pieces of a puzzle. I had to put those pieces back together if I could. Controlling a single, whole entity? Difficult but doable. Controlling individual parts? That was next-level magic.

He laughed. "You didn't even wait for me to ask. At least turn around. I don't want to shoot you in the back."

"Are you sure