The Necromancer's Seduction Read Online Free PDF Page A

revenant.”
    The greens, blues and yellows of the stained glass merged into a quivering, unfocused
     blur. At some point during the conversation, Julian had slid off his chair and returned
     to slip a drink into my hand. I sipped on the whiskey, letting the spicy liquid numb
     my jangled nerves.
    “You want me to create a supernatural revenant to help you find out who is killing
     other supes?” I almost laughed the words.
    Cora had beat me over the head with warnings against raising a revenant, knowing the
     dangers in reanimating a corpse equally intelligent in death as in life. Unlike zombies,
     revenants awaken with their souls restored. They appear normal—no slouching gait or
     single-minded purpose. On the other hand, a zombie’s intelligence and physical condition
     varied, depending on the necromancer’s strength.
    Revenants are usually pissed at the necro who wrestles them from the grave and jump
     at the chance to kill him or her. The idea of creating a supernatural revenant was
     one that resided in some dark chamber of a Lovecraft nightmare.
    “You have to consult with the coven,” Kara said, recovered from her previous lapse
     and back into command mode.
    “I’m aware of the codes, and I spoke to Matilda. She agreed,” Malthus said.
    I’m sure not without a fair amount of protest. I looked from Kara’s tight lips to
     Malthus’s unaffected posture. Matilda was the coven Wiseacre, or leader, elected by
     the witches to serve a five-year term. She was no pushover, but Malthus served his
     authority like the whiskey he drank—smooth with a spicy aftertaste. He didn’t obtain
     his position among the demons without knowing how to manipulate others.
    “The vampires aren’t going to be happy we left them out of our little party,” Julian
     said, fingering his manicured nails.
    “I’ll deal with Dominic,” Malthus said. He didn’t sound worried about offending the
     vampires’ sensibilities. Getting the supes together was worse than throwing a bunch
     of beta fish in a bowl. I’m surprised the truce between them has lasted this long,
     needing but a tap to knock the frothing kettle over. But the supes don’t want to rile
     the masses, causing them to break out the pitchforks . . . except now they’d come
     at us with incendiary blogs, Tweets, and Facebook posts by self-proclaimed supernatural
     experts who earned their credentials watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and reading comics. I preferred the pitchforks.
    “Why not just raise him, ask him some questions, and then send him back to the endless
     sleep?” My voice rose a few notches.
    Necros can wake a corpse without turning it into a zombie or revenant. It’s a basic,
     low-level necro skill. The corpse stays reanimated for a few moments, enough time
     to extract the information you need. Simple. Clean. No decomposing bodies running
     amuck in the city.
    “We’re talking about a supernatural revenant,” I continued. “We’d be playing by an
     entirely different set of rules.” Acid scalded my tongue at the thought of mastering
     a bond with a supe revenant. “I don’t understand why we can’t just wake him.”
    “Trust us, we’ve already considered that option.”
    I looked up at the sound of Ewan’s voice. Trust and demon in the same sentence? He
     shifted to face me. I managed to avoid staring at his body, but failed at shutting
     out his husky voice that slipped under my skin and warmed the space between my thighs.
    “We don’t want a supe revenant running around any more than you want to make one.
     We’re aware of the danger, but we need Adam alive, able to think and reason until
     we figure out the identity of the killer,” he said.
    “What if he doesn’t know?” I asked.
    “We can tap other memories to help our investigation.” His eyes never left my face,
     the flashes of gold hypnotizing me.
    I rested my forehead on my fingers. “Okay, say we absolutely need Adam the revenant.”
     I shook my head.