Sanctified: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (Branded Book 1) by David Bussell & M.V. Stott

Author:David Bussell & M.V. Stott [Bussell, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Genre Reader
Published: 2018-01-24T22:00:00+00:00

20

The last of the revenant’s tattered rags shed from its body as we gave chase, revealing smooth, marble skin beneath, healed and tight. The ghost had been reborn to the land of the living, given form, made athletic. The revenant was completely solid now, muscles bobbing on its frame as it ran. The only thing that separated it from an ordinary, naked man was the eerie, radioactive glow it gave off, and the eyes I saw as it cast a glance over its shoulder; a pair of frantic black scribbles.

The revenant was almost at the escalator now. If it made it down there and reached a platform, it was only a hop skip and a jump into the tunnels, where we were bound to lose sight of the thing.

I knew what I had to do.

Pulling back my arm, I drew the dagger alongside my sightline, took aim, and sent it winging.

The dagger’s metal caught the station’s sickly striplighting as it span towards its target, flashing yellow as it turned over and over, then extinguishing like a snuffed flame as it sank between the revenant’s shoulder blades.

‘Yes!’ I cried, punching the air.

But my celebration had come too soon. Without breaking its stride, the revenant shrugged, causing the dagger to slip from the wound and clatter to the ground.

‘It’s too strong,’ said Gen. ‘Even the dagger won’t hurt it now!’

I called the weapon back to my hand and chased the revenant down the moving escalator. The creature carried on, shouldering commuters aside as it made its way deeper into the station. It was too fast. Too powerful. I wasn’t going to catch it, and even if I did, I had no idea where to go from there. The revenant was going to escape and I’d be forced to hand over the mantle of Nightstalker to someone more deserving. Another defeat to add to a long list of failures. A lifetime of fielding the question, What’s that big N on your hand for, Abbey?

“Nobody”. That’s what it stands for. A big fat Nobody.

Then I saw it.

A woman hung over the handrail of the escalator, barged aside by the fleeing revenant and left paralysed with fear. Around her neck was a long woolen scarf, which I snatched from her as I sped by. She tried to protest, but her objection came out as little more than a stifled squeak.

Below me, the revenant had hit a panicked swell of commuters, and was struggling to force its way between the throng.

I’d only get one shot at this.

I looped the end of the scarf in on itself, turning it into a rudimentary lasso, then, just as the revenant was about to step off the bottom of the escalator, I tossed the thing at its head.

The lasso closed around its neck and went taut. Score! I pulled sharply on the scarf, yanking the creature off its feet, then quickly threw my end of the scarf to the ground.

The discarded end disappeared beneath the metal teeth of the escalator, which gobbled the neckwear up like a mouthful of spaghetti.

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