Black Blood (Series of Blood Book 4) by Emma Hamm (scary books to read .TXT) 📕

“There’s no place safe from me. Look at what I did!”

Wolfgang gestured at the table, to the body lying half in the dining room and half in the hall. He wasn’t wrong. There weren’t many safe places for a Magician learning how to control his powers.

“You underestimate me,” Pitch chuckled.

“I don’t know you.”

“No one does. But I have a place to bring you and a library full of books written by Magicians just like yourself. I will not be there to take care of you, you’ll have to figure that out on your own. I’ll set you up to live well. The rest is up to you.”

Pitch held out his hand, knowing full well he was singing a siren song. There was no easy life in store for this Magician. Bloodshed, hatred, pain, anger, all the worst parts of life were the only things down this boy’s life line.

Wolfgang might have seen the truth in Pitch’s gaze, he might have known already that he had sealed his own fate, but he still shook the offered hand.

“Good.” The smile on Pitch’s face was wicked, a sure sign that a deal had just been struck. “Now I’ll give you your first gift.”

“My what?”

Shadows struck, lashing out and wrapping around the boy’s throat. A thick band of darkness tangled, sinking thousands of needles into soft flesh, wrangling out a gurgled scream. Wolfgang’s back twisted. His hands clutched at Pitch’s forearms and his nails clawed through the shadows.

It was over in seconds. His shadows remained wrapped around Wolfgang’s neck, the thick black tattoo there for all eternity.

Pitch held onto the boy, taking his weight while remaining detached. “Pain is your first lesson. You will need to suffer if you wish to continue along this path, and I will not ask you to stray from your choices. Black magic comes with a price.”

Ragged gasps tore from Wolfgang’s throat.

“The gift is one you could not live without. This is a healing rune, the most powerful one in existence. If you wish to heal yourself, you can with a mere thought. If you wish to heal others, you only have to think it. But it’s greatest power, the one with the gravest price, is that it will allow you to heal the dead.”

Wolfgang froze. Slowly, he tilted his head back to look at Pitch. Determination and anger made his eyes glow blue.

“You mean that?”

“I won’t tell you the incantation. In time, you’ll be able to call upon the dead as your servants.”

“You want me to become a Necromancer?”

“I don’t want you to become anything.” Pitch nodded at the boy’s mother. “You want to become a Necromancer so she can stay with you.”

“I don’t want my mother.”

“You’re a liar.”

Wolfgang’s lips pressed together, but he did not argue. Instead, the boy straightened his shoulders and stepped away from Pitch. “Alright then. Where are we going?”

“Where all dead things go. And you are dead, aren’t you?”

He watched as Wolfgang took one more look around himself. Sirens were blaring outside the house, growing nearer and nearer with each breath. There was nothing left here but destruction and death.

Wolfgang nodded. “Yes. I am dead.”

Pitch’s shadows swirled around them, transporting them to Wolfgang’s new home; an ancient graveyard filled the bones of powerful Magicians and Warlocks.

Where else would he have brought a dead boy to live?

Chapter 11

Every time Lydia wandered these pathways, she wondered whether she would come back. Time had a way of bending her reality. It settled upon her shoulders like an old friend — a well-worn mantlepiece snuggling her beneath its comforting weight.

Lydia was growing tired. But there was work to be done, people to save, a world to recreate, and she couldn’t rest just yet.

Her consciousness twisted and twined until she was barely alive. Time was her veins, her mind was the blood. Her heart pulsed with all the knowledge the world had to share, and still it was not enough.

She couldn’t fix the festering disease. Hatred and fear won consistently although she was helping in marginal degrees. She didn’t know how much more she could do, but she couldn’t stop until she found that one diamond in the rough which could help.

A strand of the past reached out a sticky string. They rarely touched her or even attempted to capture her attention. The past was certainly useful, but Lydia was caught up in preventing a future.

This strand differed from the others. It smelled familiar, the faintest hint of pomegranate sending a shiver down her spine. This wasn’t just any past thread.

It was Pitch’s.

She shouldn’t pry. Journals and books were one thing, but prying into his actual past? It was such an invasion of privacy that she wasn’t certain she could look him in the eye afterwards.

If she had been in her physical body, she would have bitten her lip as she stared at temptation. Would he mind? Pitch was usually forthcoming if she asked him a question about his past or where he came from. Surely, he wouldn’t begrudge her trying to find out more about him?

He had lived centuries. There wasn’t enough time in the world to tell her everything he had lived through. Perhaps there were a few tidbits of useful information. She could find out what happened in the previous dimension so she knew what to look for in the future. She could see what Sil was like through his eyes although she already had a clear picture of what that would look like.

Her mind didn’t reach for the pulsating darkness with clear purpose. She reached with curiosity because he was a book she had not yet read. Lydia had never been able to avoid satisfying her curiosity.

The darkness swept through her. It yanked her out of the cool nothing of Time and deposited her swiftly onto a cliff’s edge.

She caught herself on the harsh stone. A stinging ache in her palms suggested this was no normal trip into the Past. Time stretched thin