Page 45 of The Unweaver

They fell inside. Teddy’s body thudded on the floor. Bane collapsed in an armchair. Cora slammed the door closed and took in the full horror of her twin’s corpse. Sticky sweet rot on bloated limbs. Empty eyes.

If her reanimation abilities were stronger than she’d thought, then maybe… She knelt beside Teddy. After a deep, shuddering breath, she planted her hands on either side of his gaping chest. Sepulchral energy coursed through her black veins. Channeling her magic, she reached out to reweave the decomposing threads of his life.

The awful energy spiked, rotting a blackened perimeter around the hole where his heart had been.

She cried out and fell back. His spirit wasn’t in the Death Realm to reanimate his body. She’d only made it worse.Too late.

“What do I do?” she shrieked. “Oh god, his body! His body is— And your wound—”

“Get Anita Tambo.” Bane winced, grabbing his bloody shoulder. “Upstairs.”

Cora sprinted from his office into the unlit, unoccupied swankiness of the Emerald Club. Bane’s palace of ill-gotten gains held a refined extravagance that made the Starlite look like a backwater hovel. Emerald and gold streaked past as she ran, shouting, “Anita! Help!”

Hunting for a staircase, she rounded the gold-plated bar, crowned by shelves of sparkling glasses and bottles, and wove around mahogany tables and leather chairs, ducking into curtained-off rooms with emerald satin walls and shining mirrors.

At last, she found a staircase. “Anita Tambo! Help!”

Above, a door opened. A pair of heels clacked down the stairs. “This better be bloody good,” grumbled a throaty voice with an East End accent. “Got me a Christmas present I ain’t unwrapped yet.”

A gorgeous woman appeared, wearing only a crimson negligee and a scowl. Her ebony skin and riotous dark curls gleamed in the light spilling down the stairwell. “I’m Anita bloody Tambo. Who’s asking?” Cocking her hip to the side, she eyed Cora up and down. Her plucked brows drew together in puzzlement. She tapped a manicured nail to her siren red lips. “You look real familiar, love. Say, have we fucked?”

“What? No. It’s Bane—he’s been shot. Come quick!”

“Blimey, what’s happened to Mal?”

They dashed to his office. Anita stopped short in the doorway, her dark eyes widening at Teddy’s corpse on the floor and Bane bleeding in a chair. Slouched back with his eyes screwed shut, his dark copper hair swept across his brow, creased with pain. One hand gripped his wounded shoulder, the other hung limp at his side, blood dripping down to the rug.

Cora had seen Malachy Bane unclothed, but she never thought she’d see him like this: Vulnerable.

“What the hell is going on, Mal?” Anita belted a silk robe over her lingerie. “And who’s the broad?”

“Bleeding here, Anita. A little help?”

“Oh, right you are, boss.”

“Something’s off. The bullet is— draining me.”

Anita hovered her hands on either side of his shoulder. When she stepped back, the gushing blood had slowed to a drooling trickle. “Something’s real off about this bullet, Mal. It’s resisting my m—” She glanced at Cora. “I can’t stop the bleeding. Not all the way.”

Realization struck Cora. Anita Tambo was a blood mage. Sanguimancers could control the flow and chemistry of blood. Such powers over the circulatory system lent themselves to certain occupations—medicine, or as was often more lucrative, prostitution.

The blooming flower tattooed on Anita’s forearm suggested the latter. The brand of the infamous Gilded Lily, a world-renowned brothel of Sanguimancers and Animancers amorously trained in blood lust and other carnal artforms. Unbeknownst to their human clientele, of course.

“You’re a blood charmer?” Cora said, and Anita tensed. “Please, you’ve got to do something for Teddy. Preserve his body. Keep him safe.Please.”

Anita stared at her like she’d sprouted a second head. “Mal, how come this human knows so much?”

“She’s Teddy Walcott’s twin.”

Understanding unknit Anita’s brow. The Covenant’s secrecy mandate wasn’t often enforced for close relatives, unless otherwise provoked. A mage’s human sibling recognizing her affinities was much less concerning. Teddy’s decomposing body, however, was another matter.

“ThatTeddy? Poor sod. Teddy is deady.How’d he croak?” Anita nudged him with her slipper. His body flopped over,revealing the gaping chest and rotting flesh. She drew back on a gasp. “Oi, that’s some bad luck, there. Certainly ain’t the cat’s meow now. Pity.”

“Fuckin’ cake eater,” Bane grunted.

“Cake eater he may have been, Mal. But Teddy was also aconnoisseurof eating pussy.”

While Teddy had arguably slept with half of London, that was the last thing Cora had expected or wanted to hear. She shook her head in an effort to unhear the words.

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