Page 11 of The Dragon and the Dove

At the south end of the graveyard a figure was pacing.

Grabbing a loose slab from the wall, Ransom stalked to meet his old friend.

The Necromancer turned as he approached, lips peeling into a rankling smile. Lark’s body was rotting, but that shit-eating grin was evergreen. The skin on his face was stretched taut, grey enough that it looked translucent in the rising sun. The sockets around his eyes like two dark pools.

‘Oh good,’ he crowed. ‘You made it out alive.’

‘You fucking bastard.’ Ransom threw the rock.

Bone cracked as the slab met Lark’s jaw. The Saint of Corpses reeled backwards, falling onto the bench behind him. Ransom lunged, pinning Lark there. Then pummelled the shit out of him.

He laughed between blows, spitting out his own teeth like kernels.

Ransom gripped his collar and dragged him close enough to smell the stench of death on his breath. ‘I swear to Saint Calvin, I’ll put you back in your grave.’

‘Bruise your fists. Waste your breath,’ Lark sneered. ‘Don’t you know how hard it is to kill a saint?’

He jerked upwards, their foreheads meeting with a sickening crunch.

Ransom slid off him with a curse.

Lark laughed as he lumbered to his feet. ‘Especially one that’s already half dead.’

Ransom stood, landing a right hook. Lark sank an answering fist into his stomach, shoving him back towards the open grave. Ransom ducked the next blow, ramming his foot into Lark’s crotch.

The Necromancer crumpled onto the grass.

Ransom grabbed him by the neck, just as Lark reached for the stone slab. He spun, slamming the rock into the side of Ransom’s head.

Sparks exploded in his vision, pain singing all the way down his spine. He careened backwards, losing his footing.

Lark pounced, shoving him into the hole.

Ransom landed with a hard slap, sprawling among wet dirt and sodden leaves.

Lark stood over him. ‘Damned if I’m not a sentimental fool. I just can’t bring myself to mar that pretty face of yours.’

He retreated to lean against the nearby statue of Calvin, the stony Saint of Death looming over his shoulder.

Shadows streamed from Ransom as he climbed out of the grave, all his rage and vengeance coalescing into a crop of seething monsters.

Lark smirked. ‘Saint Ransom. The rumours are true.’ He eyed the hounds with unconcealed admiration. ‘Just think of what we could do together.’

Ransom plucked a rock from the ground. ‘There’s only one thing I want to do with you, Delano.’

Lark’s smile died, his expression turning serious. ‘I didn’t come here to kill you, Ransom. I came to fetch you. Last chance, old friend. Prince Andreas is returning from Urnica. War is coming. Join us. There is a place for you at our side.’ A meaningful pause. ‘A place for her.’

Sure there fucking is.

Ransom’s smile was all malice. ‘I’d rather stick rusty nails in my eyeballs than hand her over to your fucking tyrant prince.’

Lark pushed off the statue. ‘Then you’ll die on your back like a blind rat.’

‘I thought you couldn’t kill a saint,’ spat Ransom.

‘Ways and means, old friends. Ways and means.’ Those green eyes turned gold and the graves between them trembled. Ransom jerked his chin down – a fatal mistake. The rock landed with a hard crack, a crown of pain upon his skull. Blood soaked his hair as he fell to his knees, his shadows spilling like oil across the grass.

He collapsed inside them, fisting the grass to keep from passing out. But the blackness came anyway, and when he woke from it, bruised and bloody, Lark Delano was gone.