Page 24 of Hexbound
"The streets are too quiet. It's never quiet here in Seven Dials. They say it never sleeps."
Fog had begun to creep in, anticipating evening. It was only four o'clock but darkness would descend quick as a flash in this late autumn. Pale yellow orbs of witch light gleamed from iron posts, replacing the gaslights in this section of the city. In the distance, he could see a woman draped in heavy shawls with a bowler hat on her head conjuring the orbs out of nothing and lighting the streets. One of the Crows, no doubt. How unusual this section of town was.
"Do you think the Crows plan retaliation?" Bishop glanced behind them, but only shadows loomed. Wisps of fog eddied as though something watched them from the shadows.
Verity's hand slipped inside her sleeve, withdrawing her small knife. "I wouldn't put it past them, though your position in the Order shall make them wary. You scared them in there."
Something about her voice drew his attention. He'd known what had happened; the feeling of those two lives quivering in his hand, just begging to be snuffed, had nearly overwhelmed him. That she had seen him like that— "And you?"
Verity met his gaze. "I am made of sterner stuff than that." A faint smile flickered over her lips. "Plus I've seen you shivering in a bath of ice, trying to burn off a Lover Boy curse rather than unleash yourself upon me." The smile died. "I know what type of man you are. A lesser man wouldn't have bothered to try."
A dark shape scuttled out of the shadows, vanishing in the fog.
"What was that?" Verity whispered, as they both spun to face it. She swallowed. "Didn't look human."
"Could be hell spawn." Bishop sniffed the air. "Doesn't smell like it though."
No, it smelled like... an open grave. The call of it whispered along his sorcerous senses, like calling to like. A sudden premonition turned his gut to ash.
"Oh, shit," he said, as he realized what they were facing. Only one thing called to the Grave Arts that he was cursed with.
"What?"
"Flesh constructs." Spitting a power word, he breathed life into the incandescent knife that formed in his hand—his etheric blade. It hummed in the darkness, gleaming gas-fire blue. "Some necromancer's poured Grave power into a dead body and raised it."
"But that's...."
"Highly illegal." Constructs could be formed of anything: earth, stone, statue, even leaves, like a Jewish rabbi breathing life into a golem. But flesh constructs.... The last time anyone had raised flesh constructs, it had taken over forty sorcerers to destroy them as they rampaged through the East End. "It also takes a lot of power, or a lot of sacrifices."
Or the Chalice. Bishop swallowed.
"How many constructs could a necromancer raise?"
He turned in small circles, his back pressed to hers. "Maybe ten if they were particularly strong." One of them lurched out of the shadows, its rib cage hollow and scraps of flesh clinging to its bones. Sinew worked in rotted flesh and hollows gaped where its cheeks had once been. A ravenous green light filled those empty eyes. "Stay behind me!"
Sorcery throbbed through him, all the hairs along the back of his neck lifting as he flung a weave toward it, flames spewing out from his fingers like the lash of a whip. "Ignitious!"
Not his forte, but flames crackled and burned in the creature's shaggy clothes, and it made a dry whimper of a scream in its throat as it went down. Clawing at the ground, it looked at him, wide mouth gasping as it dragged itself toward them.
"Bishop! Behind you!"
Verity vanished in a punch of power, and he spun, slashing his knife across the tendons of the wrist of the creature reaching for him. Where had it come from? Bishop ducked beneath its grasping hands, kicking it in the chest. It staggered back with a wet sloshing sound and Verity re-formed behind it, whipping her knife across its throat. Black ichor splashed, but it simply backhanded her toward him and kept jerking toward Bishop.
"Cut it to pieces! Or burn it!" Bishop shoved her out of the way, driving his etheric blade deep into the heart of the creature, where it crackled and spat electricity through the flesh construct's rotting body.
It shuddered, a rasp of fetid air emitting from its throat. Bishop turned the blade, using his strength to pin the creature to the wall while he boiled its heart in its chest.
He waited for the surge of power to sweep him up as death settled over it, waited hungrily....
A blow struck him in the throat and rough hands shoved him back. Bishop fell onto his ass, tripping over Verity's legs as the creature's eyes lit up with an eerie green light. And then it wrenched the dagger out of its chest, dropping it on the ground and started toward them.
"What the hell?" Verity demanded, backing away.
It didn't die. Etheric blades could sunder a soul fromanyflesh. Bishop had all of two seconds to consider this before he turned and scrambled into Verity, shoving her out of the way. "Get moving!"
If it couldn't die, then how were they going to stop it?
Icy little pinpricks lit all down his skin. "There are more coming," he yelled, and reached out with his senses toward them.
