(eng) M. R. Forbes - Ghosts & Magic 03 by Dead Stare

Author:Dead Stare [Stare, Dead]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Dead man walking

I FELL ONTO MY BACK, finding myself looking up at the ceiling as the bullets kept coming, launched from who knew where. Shika and Frank managed to get to cover around a corner, leaving me bleeding out in the center of the floor.

They probably thought I was already dead.

I wasn’t, but I don’t know how I wasn’t. I couldn’t breathe. My heart was thudding in my ears. My face was getting hot. After everything I had been through, after what I had survived, I never imagined I would go down like this. A single, simple shot from an invisible opponent.

Invisible was the operative word. I only knew he was there when he knelt over me and put his hand to my chest to see if I was still breathing.

Idiot.

I got stronger when I was closer to death. I couldn’t get much closer than this. I only had to lift my finger to dispel his magic. A bullet hit him squarely between the eyes a fraction of a second later.

He fell on his side next to me. I lifted my head slowly, the world beginning to move like molasses. The thudding was gone. In fact, he wasn’t as stupid as I had thought.

I wasn’t breathing.

Dead. I should have been dead. Only nothing was happening. I was still me, still able to think and move.

My eyes swept over my hand, settling on the ring.

Could you die, if Death couldn’t come to collect you? Was that the reason I was still around? Or was it something else? The demon, perhaps?

“Baron,” Frank said, rushing over to me and kneeling at my side. “You’re. You’re.”

“Dead?” I said. “Yes. And no.”

“Whatever you are, we need to move,” Shika said. “There are more coming.”

“How do you know?” Frank said.

Her ears twitched. “I can hear them.”

I sat up. Everything was moving so slowly. Everything seemed so wrong. The spellbook. I remembered it now, stuffed in my pocket. I reached in and grabbed it.

“Baron?” Shika said.

“Cover me,” I replied, flipping through the pages. There was some crazy stuff in there, including one spell I had never believed I would ever have a chance to use, and hoped I would never need.

Shika and Frank moved ahead in the corridor. A deafening boom sounded as Frank fired his weapon down the hall before ducking back to evade the return volley. I found the page I was looking for, holding the book folded back in one hand, wincing as I bent the spine. I put my other hand on the dead user beside me, reading the lines as I reached into him with my magic.

Just because I couldn’t bring users back from the dead didn’t mean I couldn’t use them for anything. I felt the energy start flowing the other way. I felt his life force, the years he should have lived, transferring from him to me. My chest suddenly began to hurt, but I kept repeating the lines. The sound of gunfire grew crisper. My whole body started to burn.

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