Page 57 of The Unweaver

“Don’t let them see you, Cora.” Bane’s cadence was deep and even as he reloaded. “Go to the club. Wait for me there.”

He pumped the shotgun, kicked open the door, and fired. The non-metallic bullet resisted the Ferromancer’s manipulation, but not the gun barrel. It jerked up and the shot went wide, whizzing into the window of a building across the snowy street.

Bane dove to dodge a fireball and vanished, reappearing from above and crashing down on the thug’s skull with the butt of his shotgun. The thug thudded face first onto the icy porch with a meaty thwack. Bane planted his boot between the thug’s shoulders blades, cocked the shotgun, and fired.

Blood and viscera splattered across him, the porch, the snow. A chunk of skull inched down the broken window in a long, red smear. Only a smoking crater remained of the thug’s head.

With Ferromancy, another thug wrenched the shotgun from Bane’s grip and flung it into a snowbank. Fireballs and slicing scimitars rent the air while the flames on the house climbed higher and Bane blinked in and out of existence.

He reappeared, prying the Ferromancer’s blade from his grasp and stabbing him through the chest. The thug screamed and dropped to his knees. Another Ferromancer’s magic ripped the blade from Bane’s hand, spun it midair, and slashed him in the side before the Realmwalker disappeared again.

Heart in throat and revolver in hand, Cora faltered in uncertain panic in the doorway. At this rate, Bane would either run out of energy or the house would burn down.

Cor-a, echoed a distant voice.Cor-a…

Whirling around, she tried to see who had spoken. But there was only Verek and his grunting, murderous thugs.

Bane rematerialized. Staggering back, he nearly slid off the icy porch, blood welling in a crimson stain down his side. The thugs closed in. A Ferromancer’s blade hovered at his throat.

“I’ve dreamed of this, Realmwalker,” Verek said in a reedy voice.

Cora pulled out of her stupor and shot the blade-wielding thug in the neck. Blood spouted as he crashed down. The awful energy of his death churned in her veins. She dashed outside with frightened determination and fired again. The Ferromancer deflected the bullet with a jerk of his hand, sending it arcing away. Dimly, she heard Bane shouting for her to get back.

Adrenaline honed her attention to a single, bald-headed point. She fired, but a damned Ferromancer redirected the bullet.

Verek turned to Cora as if in a trance. His glassy eyes moved from side to side under hooded lids. Lurching, he grabbed her and smacked the revolver away. Then his hands were on her, scorching hot, wrapping around her throat.Squeezing.

She clawed at his feverish hands, his face, arms, chest. Useless. He’d strangle the life out of her before she landed a blow. Darkness dotted her vision.

Suffocating, her entire life condensed into this moment. She shoved his chest with all the force she could muster. He didn’t budge. She tried to shove him again and rot away his—

There. Beneath her terror, she sensed the rattle of the Pyromancer’s death. His death took shape. That hacking cough from a lifetime of shoveling coal and inhaling acrid smoke. Cancer bubbled in his lungs like tar.

She flattened her palms on his chest. Necrotic veins spread. Her eyes rolled back. The chaos of the living dissipated as her awareness contracted to death. Her magic sank through flesh, between ribs, and into the tarry innards. She urged his cancer to grow, to spread, to suffocate him as he was suffocating her.

Death eagerly complied.

Verek slumped to his knees, his stranglehold around her throat broken. He choked on tar, drowning in his own cancer. His chest caved into a roiling black pit. Features contorted, he tried to speak. Tar gurgled out of his mouth, nose, and eyes, streaking down his face and congealing in his mustache.

The threads of his life unwove into a dark ooze, filling Cora with grisly satisfaction.

Straddling the Realms of Living and Death, she stood over Verek as his eyes emptied and his life ebbed away. She smiled.

Arms grabbed her and dragged her back. They tumbled into the entryway. Bane slammed the door shut, and she felt a tug behind her navel as he drained his magic to traverse the house away.

Scorched and bloodied, their breaths quick and uneven, they sank to the floor. The necrotic veins began to recede, leaving her trembling and hollow despite death’s awful energy.

Something squelched and she glanced down. Mortification lanced her. Tar coated her hands. She wiped off the filth to no avail. The evidence of the atrocity she’d committed wouldn’t be so easily removed.

Verek hadn’t just been a Pyromancer—he’d beenthePyromancer. And his death was all over her hands.

“Oh god,” she breathed. “I killed Verek.”

Bracing for his revulsion, her eyes darted to Bane. He slouched against the opposite wall, eyes closed and elbows resting on bent knees. Gore painted him, splashed across his charred suit and face, tightened in pain. Blood dribbled out of the stab wound at his side.

“I’m glad that arsehole is dead,” he said. “You know what his first name was? Erik.”

“Erik… Verek?”

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