The Witch Hunter (The Witch Hunter #1)(3)

“What do you think?” I whisper. “Is it a ghost?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. It’s too, I dunno…”

“Juicy?”

Caleb makes a face. “Ugh. You know I’d rather you say viscous. But, yes. And a ghost wouldn’t take five men to raise, so my guess is ghoul? Maybe a revenant. It’s hard to say. He’s not fully formed enough yet for me to tell.”

I nod.

“We need to stop them before they finish,” he continues. “You take the two on the left, I’ll take the three on the right.”

“No way.” I turn to face him. “This is my arrest. I get all five. That was the deal. You can have the viscous thing in the pot.”

“No. You can’t take on five by yourself.”

“Three more sovereigns say I can.”

“Elizabeth—”

“Don’t you Elizabeth me—”

“Elizabeth!” Caleb grips my shoulders and spins me around. The necromancers have stopped chanting, and the room has gone silent. They’re staring right at us. Instead of bones, they’re clutching long, curved knives, all of them aimed in our direction.

I break free of Caleb’s grasp and step toward them, my sword held high.

“What are you doing here, girl?” one of them says to me.

“I’m here to arrest you.”

“On what charges?”

I tut in irritation. If he thinks I’m going through the litany of that arrest again, he’s got another thing coming.

“That thing.” I jerk my sword at the twitchy apparition. “That’s the charge.”

“Thing?” one of them says, looking affronted. “That’s not a thing. It’s a ghoul.”

“Told you,” Caleb whispers behind me. I ignore him.

“And it’s the last thing you’ll ever see,” the necromancer adds.

“You wish,” I say, reaching for my handcuffs. I look down, just for a second, to unhook them from my belt. But it’s enough. One of the necromancers sends his knife flying.

“Watch it!” Caleb shouts.

But it’s too late. The knife lands with a sickening thump in my chest, right above my heart.





“DAMNATION.”

I drop my sword and rip the knife from my chest, throwing it to the floor. There’s a flash of heat in my abdomen, followed by a sharp, prickling sensation. And in an instant, the wound heals. There’s almost no blood; it doesn’t even hurt—at least not much. Seeing this, all five necromancers go still. They know—the moment I came through the door they knew—but it’s different altogether to see it work: the stigma branded into the skin above my navel, a scrawl of black. XIII. The stigma that protects me and shows me for what I am. An enforcer of the Thirteenth Tablet. A witch hunter.

They back away, as if I’m the one to be afraid of.

I am the one to be afraid of.

I lunge forward and punch the nearest necromancer in the stomach. He doubles over as I slam my elbow into the back of his neck and watch him slump to the floor. I turn to one of the others. Stomp on his foot, pinning it to the floor, and slam my other foot into the side of his kneecap. He drops to his knees, howling. In a flash, I snatch his hands and bind them tightly with the brass handcuffs. Brass is impenetrable to magic; there’s no escaping for him now.

I round on the other three. They hold their hands in front of them, backing slowly away. From the corner of my eye, I see Caleb watching me. And he’s grinning.

Snatching another pair of cuffs from my belt, I start toward them. Close up, I can see how old they really are. Gray hair, wrinkled skin, watery eyes. Each of them seventy if they’re a day. I want to tell them they’d be better off going to church and saying their prayers instead of exhuming bodies and conjuring spirits, but what’s the point? They wouldn’t listen anyway.

They never do.

I grab a necromancer’s wrists and clamp the manacles around them. Before I can get to the other two, they twist away, one of them muttering an incantation under his breath.

“Mutzak tamshich kadima.”

The room goes still. The fire stops burning and the billowing pink smoke disappears, receding into the cauldron as if it never existed. The necromancer keeps muttering; he’s trying to complete the ritual. I grab a dagger from my belt and hurl it at him to try to stop him. But it’s too late. The spirit hovering over the cauldron above us, hideous yet harmless before, becomes solid. It drops in front of me with a thud.

Caleb swears under his breath.

Before either of us can move, the ghoul knocks me to the floor, fastens his cold, rotting hands around my throat, and starts to squeeze.

“Elizabeth!” Caleb leaps forward, but before he can reach me, the last two necromancers turn on him, their knives held high.

I grab the ghoul’s hands. Tug at his wrists, scratch and beat on his arms. Try to suck in air, even if it does smell like dirt and rot and death. It doesn’t stop him. I can hear Caleb shouting my name, and I try to call back, but my voice comes out a strangled whisper. I keep struggling, twisting back and forth to try to break his grip. But he’s too strong.

My vision starts fading, disappearing into patches of black. I slap my hand against the stone floor, trying to reach my sword. But it’s too far. And Caleb can’t help me. While he’s managed to get one necromancer on the floor in cuffs, he’s still fighting off the other, who sends objects flying toward him: furniture and smoking logs and bones. I’m on my own. There’s a way out of this—I know there is. But if I don’t figure it out soon, this ghoul will strangle me to death. Not even my stigma can protect me against that.