Marked by Death (Necromancer #1) - Kaje Harper Page 0,2

still made the necromancer the man to go to. Darien clenched his chattering teeth, hugged his coat tightly to himself, and trudged on.

He was so miserably cold, so narrowed down to just taking that next step, that he was almost up the hill before he registered that the ground was rising under his feet. He stopped and looked up. The old house was a crazy mess of turrets and balconies, and for all he knew, flying buttresses. Like someone took a drunk architect on Halloween and told him, “Build me a mansion.” Tonight, every window loomed sightless and dark. The moon, dancing between clouds, lit a spire here and a railing there, in a glitter of icy fantasy.

It seemed so unreal, he had to pinch himself to be sure it wasn’t another nightmare, lost in this cold quest while the place he needed to go hung out of reach.

Ouch. Okay, either real, or he’d learned to dream about pinching himself.

The front steps were slick with ice. He let go of his knife, pulling his hand out of his pocket to grip the iron railing, and hauled himself upward. The chill bit his fingers through the holes in his gloves. At the top, a tall, arched double door frowned down on him, daring him to drag his scrawny carcass through its hallowed portal. If doors could dare people—

Maybe I’m losing it. He laughed, and the sound could’ve been sold for some horror movie soundtrack. Definitely losing it. He reached for the doorbell.

He’d expected to find it hard to cross that last inch, to push the bell and summon the necromancer those rare believers spoke of in hushed whispers. But freezing to death was a good reason to skip the dramatic pauses. He stabbed at the button with a shaking finger.

Somewhere inside, a double chime rang. He laughed, a bit less weirdly this time, because he’d been expecting the necromancer’s doorbell to toll like the church of the damned, not say ding-dong. When there was no answer after a minute, he pushed it again. And again. And again. And again.

Then in a rhythm; a rapid tattoo; a long forceful shove that translated to a single ding.

Damn you, you bastard. He pounded on the door. I’m not dying on your doorstep with my head full of shit because you’re too comfortable in bed to answer the damned door.

“Let me in!” He stamped feet so numb he heard the sound, but felt nothing, and thumped the door harder. “Hey, you, necroguy! Let me the fuck in!”

The door sneered down on him, unmoving, and he thumped it with his fists, then his feet. “Open up! Let me in. Let me in.” His voice shook with cold and anger and something breaking inside him, because if this didn’t work, he could feel the bits of his mind getting ragged around the edges. Things stalked in there, more every week, months of building from a whisper to a cacophony. Something had to give— his fists, his body, his mind, the door—

The door suddenly swung open, staggering him. He fell inward, so off-balance that he couldn’t catch himself. As he passed through the portal, from the icy cold and dark to the warm, gold glow of a hallway, something hit him like a blow. His whole body rang, a gong stuck, a lid slammed shut. He landed on a wooden floor, the boards a little dusty and scuffed where his face smooshed up against them. A few inches from his nose, two large feet in felted slippers took a step backward.

He had a thousand questions, apologies, pleas, but all he could think— all he could say— was “It’s so quiet in here.” For the first time in months, nothing whispered behind his eyes. No hissing, no curses, no garble of words or grunts or threats. He closed his eyes, savoring his aloneness. “Quiet.”

A deep voice said something that echoed in his brain and passed through without leaving anything behind. I should get up. Ask for help. But a dark muffling softness smothered light, and sound, and then thought.

Chapter 2

Silas stared down at the stranger on his floor. He fell through the wards! Although apparently they’d knocked him out in the process. The recoil from that power surge throbbed in Silas’s temples, but not with the huge energy-draw the wards would have demanded to repel a demon. There was no scent of hellfire.

Not possessed by a demon. What is he, though? I should never have opened the door.

He hadn’t