Chills raced up her spine, and she pressed herself harder against the stone wall.
“You’re awake.” His voice was gravelly and deep and somehow not what she’d expected. With that proud posture, she would’ve imagined it to be smooth and articulate.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want with me?”
“I think you can guess.”
She shook her head. “I really can’t.”
His head tilted, those tall horns tilting with it. His face was too shadowed to see, and it made it even more disconcerting to speak to him.
“Who are you?” she asked again.
“You really don’t know? I’m almost offended.”
She said nothing. She wasn’t going to apologize for not recognizing a creepy stalker demon on sight.
Her face must have betrayed her confusion because he said, “The souls are usually a dead giveaway.” He gestured to the smoky mass swirling about his feet. His fingers were long and slender, tipped with sharp claws.
Her eyes widened. Those were …souls?
He sighed like he was disappointed in her for not figuring it out and playing his stupid game. “My name is Murmur, or the Necromancer. Either works. And yes, the rumors are true.”
She sucked in a breath.
“That’s more like it,” he said, as if pleased by her reaction.
If she’d been any less shocked, she would have rolled her eyes. Instead, she could only stare at that towering silhouette and wonder how she’d fallen into such deep shit. Oh, she’d heard of him, all right, and what she knew didn’t bode well for her.
She wasn’t as obsessed with demonology as some other witches she knew. Many were drawn to witchcraft because of a certain fascination with the dark forces in creation, and they enjoyed studying the hierarchy of Hell, called the Order of Thrones.
Suyin had spent most of her life trying to make peace with the fact that she would never know her father because of his own obsession with Sheolic magic. It was for her own good that she stayed away from it.
But she still knew who the Necromancer was.
Every witch of any significance knew who he was. He was like the witch boogeyman, a cautionary tale to warn against dabbling in black magic.Don’t mess with demons or the Necromancer will steal your soul.
The Necromancer’s army of enslaved human souls was well known, and truthfully, she should have recognized him just from that, as he’d said. She also knew he couldn’t actuallystealsouls—everyone in his army had agreed to be bound to his service to escape the torturous suffering of the Nine Rings.
It was a shitty trade, but some people would do anything to avoid the consequences of their actions.
“What do you want with me?” Suyin asked again in a hoarse whisper.
“Let’s not play dumb,” he replied in that gravelly, dark voice. “Attempting to manipulate me won’t work. Really, it’s insulting you’d even try.”
Her mouth opened and then closed again. She didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but he apparently thought she did. She wasn’t sure if it was better to play along or make him understand.
He wrapped a hand around one of the bars, leaning in. His face was still shrouded in darkness, but she could make out those slender fingers and sharp claws just fine.
“Listen closely because I will not repeat myself,” he said. “I took you because I require your blood for a spell. This spell is possibly the greatest feat of magic ever undertaken, and the very fate of the underworld rests upon its success. You are the missing ingredient to that spell, and now that I have you, I will keep you here until I complete it.”
He released the bar and moved back into the shadows, the torch behind his head creating the illusion that he glowed with an eerie orange halo.
“Luckily for you, since you’re so useful, I will not waste a single drop of your blood. So long as you cooperate, you will not be harmed. But if you try to cross me, I have ways of making you suffer that do not involve spilling your blood.”
Her mind was reeling. Why did he want her blood specifically? If he was after blood-born witches, she was definitely outclassed in raw power by Lily and Iris, even if she had more practical knowledge. Why hadn’t he gone after them instead?
“And before you attempt to use a hellgate to escape,” he added, “you should know that I put a seal on you that prevents you from accessing your magic. While it’s active, you will be unable to cast.”
