Red Blood (Series of Blood Book 2) by Emma Hamm (best short books to read .TXT) 📕

Jars were stacked around the edge of the stone bed. He laid out a large scrap of black fabric with faint white lines made out of chalk along its edges. His fingers smoothed the wrinkles before he nodded firmly.

“Mungus, I would like to see what was entrusted to you.”

The skeleton almost seemed to be out of breath. Surely that was impossible as the creature didn’t have lungs anymore. The Graverobber watched calmly as the skeleton reached into the caverns of its head and pulled out a long thread of hair they had stolen from the cadaver of a long dead Witch.

“Thank you. I just need a bit.”

He snapped it in half and handed the rest back to Mungus for safe keeping. At least for small things the skeleton was worth half his weight in bones.

The Graverobber placed the dark strand in the center of the black cloth. From the jars he pulled out a frog heart, the beak of a bird, a small piece of ginger, and a rabbit foot. Each was placed north, east, south, and west from the hair.

His voice deepened impossibly as he leaned over the table. Dark words spilled from his lips like wine. No one knew the language in which the Graverobber spoke. No one left alive at least. He murmured and shook as his body took over the magic that only he knew.

The runes upon his thighs split open. Blood spilled from his flesh as words trickled out of his body without his understanding. The Graverobber was not a creature who understood his magic. He did not understand the things he knew or why he knew them.

Magic was in his blood. This was why the spell requested such a price. The pain focused him, and his own blood created a channel for a strong spell to escape from.

Minutes passed as he continued to mutter and shake over the table. At last, a long expulsion of breath marked the end of the spell.

A trickle of warm liquid dripped from his mouth. His lip was bleeding.

“There, Mungus. You see there?” He pointed as white smoke drifted up from the hair.

It curled lazily in the soft breeze that was created by the Graverobber lifting his arm. It swirled upwards so delicately that certainly it had a mind of its own. And then, only then, did it begin to circle.

It overlapped itself many times until the smoke created a perfect ring before the living and dead men. Once the circle it had created was perfect, the smoke stilled in the air.

An image appeared before them, one that held Lyra in perfect clarity as though she was standing before them.

“She is beautiful,” the Graverobber murmured before he was able to catch the words. No one could be beautiful, not to him. Beauty was dangerous because it meant he would begin to look upon himself once more. He could not afford to do such things.

But she was beautiful. His eyes lingered upon the soft swells of her cheeks. Her eyes were delicately slanted into near perfect cat’s eyes that were piercingly blue. Her hair was a constantly moving waterfall because she was never entirely still.

He was certain it would take a considerable amount of power to tire her. But his thoughts were becoming a distraction he could not afford. He needed to remember that he was here for a reason. He had suffered the pain for a reason.

She began to speak. “Listen, I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. He’s only a Red Blood.”

“Of course there’s something to worry about. He’s a Red Blood who works for one of the Lords. And I know I don’t need to remind you why that’s a problem.”

“That’s a low blow,” she muttered.

“Who else is with her?” the Graverobber asked. For some reason hearing a deep male voice with such a pretty little thing made him angry. Jealousy was not an emotion he wore well.

The vision zoomed out until he could see the giant who stood next to Lyra. The man seemed larger than life. He was all hard angles and angry expressions that were not softened at all by the unusually long hair that brushed past his shoulders.

“Must be compensating for something.” He nudged the skeleton next to him. “Eh, Mungus?”

The skeleton didn’t move.

“Spoilsport,” he muttered and turned to look back at the vision. Their conversation had skipped as he had lost his concentration.

“Jasper. I’m going, whether you want me to or not.”

“You would be foolish not to take me.”

“I don’t care if you think I’m foolish!” Her pretty face was flushed with anger. “I have to do this.”

“Why? Why is it always you who has to put their life on the line?”

“Because I would rather live like this than in a box. I wasn’t meant to be safe all the time. I wasn’t meant to be a housewife or, heavens forbid, the rich woman I was born to be. I need the wild and the adventure.”

The Graverobber leaned in as his brow furrowed. There was something about her tone that wasn’t quite right.

“She’s lying,” he muttered. “Mungus, she’s lying.”

The lion-like man, Jasper, shook his head. “You don’t know who this person is.”

“There’s something off about him, Jasper. He said he’s human, but there’s something not right. Almost as though I should know him, but I don’t.”

“So this human man is your new obsession? You’re going to get yourself killed living like this. I won’t stand by and watch it.”

He turned and left the sight of the Graverobber. Lyra stared after him, and he watched with awe as her face twisted into the most stunning portrait of sadness.

“Maybe that is what I want,” she whispered.

An overwhelming sense of anger made the Graverobber slash his hand through the smoke. It dissolved underneath the violent movement and cut short the vision he had planned to learn from. Somehow, it felt as though he had already learned all he needed to know.

“Mungus.”

The skeleton shuffled