Boneyard (The Thaumaturge Series Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

curled it into a fist.
    After a bit, Dana's tears tapered off and she peeled away from Leo's chest with a few lingering sniffs. He kept his hand on the back of her neck and stared at her intently, the big hero all of a sudden, and I glared at him. When he didn't so much as look at me, I cleared my throat.
    Dana's eyes flickered to me, and then back to her dad's body. “He didn't show up at the house,” she continued. “I didn't call because I was mad, but then when I did call he didn't answer. And he doesn't go far from this house, he's barely gone anywhere in three years. Finally, I just, I just figured something was wrong, because he always calls back, or leaves a message or something. We don't get along, but he stills calls back.”
    “Okay,” I said, before she could dissolve into tears again. “So we're talking two weeks then.”
    She sniffed. “At least.”
    I looked back up at Leo then, because he knew my limitations as well as I did. He shook his head slightly.
    “I can't, Dana,” I said, as gently as I could. “I'm sorry but I can't.”
    Her breath hitched and she began shaking her head.
    “I'm sorry,” I said again, more desperately. “It's been too long. I can't.”
    “You won't even try?” she cried and stared at me defiantly, her small face tear-streaked and fierce.
    I exhaled, releasing the breath I didn't know I held. When I was a teenager, Leo and I had tried all sorts of experiments. It was horrible, really, what we did. It was sick. But I needed to know what I could do, to understand the power inside me, and Leo seemed desperate to understand my limits too. So I went along with it. Encouraged it. Never minded when Leo killed animals in all sorts of creative ways and left their bodies out for days, weeks, so I could try to put their slashed and bloody pieces back together. To see how far I could stretch, how far I could go. We both knew that a two-week old corpse was outside of my range.
    I shook my head emphatically, but Leo spoke. “He can try. Ebron, you can try.”
    Surprised, I met his eyes and he gave me an encouraging nod, a strange expression on his face.
    “I can try,” I repeated and her face lit up in relief.
    “I can try, but it won't help.”
    She wasn't hearing me though. Relief bloomed on her face like a sunrise, like a clear sky. It almost made it easier to breathe through the stank air.
    I floundered, unsure of what to do. She stared at me with sudden hope. Leo just looked mildly curious, his head slightly cocked as he stared at the corpse.
    “Um,” I said. “I need a few things from the truck.”
    “Oh, sure,” Dana said, moving backwards to make space. I had to shimmy my way around her to get to the pathway carved through the crap.
    “Leo,” I hissed, when he made no move to follow me. “Can you, uh, help me?”
    “Okay,” he said slowly, frowning at me as though the request was strange.
    “What do you need?” he asked as we twisted our way through the garbage land mines.
    “What the fuck are you doing?” I whispered shrilly. “I can't do this.”
    He frowned and shouldered me towards the door.
    “Leo!”
    We stumbled down the stairs together and for a second we both just stood there, sucking fresh air when it hit us.
    “Oh God,” I said. “I think I'm going to puke.”
    “Yeah, that's pretty bad,” he agreed, straightening up and leaning his head back, inhaling deeply of the cool night air.
    “You know I can't do this.”
    “I don't know that. Neither do you. Try.”
    “He's been dead for two weeks. At least two weeks. There's no way—”
    He turned and faced me, taking hold of my wrist where it poked out of my heavy coat. “Last time we tested this was ten years ago, babe. Things have changed since then. You know what you're doing now.”
    I flexed my hand, feeling the circle of his fingers around my wrist.
    “The fuck I do,” I replied. “I don't know anything. I'm just winging it; I'm always just winging it.”
    His eyes went suddenly