Exiles in Arms: Night of the Necrotech by C. L. Werner Read Free Book Online Page B

the garment flapping against the hem with each step she took. A bustier of bleached bones circled her chest, grisly charms and talismans entwined with the skeletal framework. A headpiece of malachite and adamantine coiled about her brow, writhing like a serpent between the grotesque horns jutting from her forehead. It was the knife in her wizened hand that arrested Lorca’s attention, however. The knife and the fresh blood coating the grey arm that held it.
    “You were told to hide until I needed you,” Lorca said, pointing at the witch’s bloody arm and the row of corpses.
    “Who will notice if the forgotten disappear?” Azaam said. “Is that not why you chose this place for us? A place that has been forgotten?” She gazed almost wistfully at the mutilated corpses. “I must keep busy while we bide our time. And these had already wasted their lives. Why should they be permitted to waste their deaths?”
    “Because too much is at stake,” Lorca said. “Or do I need to remind you about the terms of our agreement?”
    A glottal, slobbering voice oozed from the blackened depths of the warehouse. “We remember the arrangement. Both what is expected and what has been promised.” The sound of metal scraping against stone echoed through the abandoned building. The eerie glow of Cryxlight shone in the shadows and drew nearer. Lorca shuddered as the ghastly brilliance briefly illuminated a file of bonejacks. The monstrous machines stood in stony silence while the light swept past them.
    The gibbous light and gruesome sound drew closer. Lorca could see now that the glow came from a clutch of metal lanterns chained to a troll-skin belt. The belt, in turn, circled a distended belly, shapeless and bloated with corruption. Beneath the belt, the source of the harsh metallic scraping was exposed, for there was no waist, only a barrel-like plug of metal from which four steel claws protruded, flitting across the floor like the legs of some abominable spider.
    Above the lanterns’ glow, the horror’s body became an emaciated, almost skeletal shell. Coils of rubber tubing slithered from between exposed ribs; cables of copper undulated from heart to neck. At the base of the throat, a silver disc protruded, slash-like vents shivering as breath was sucked into the decayed lungs below. A bowl-like headpiece of black silk embroidered with cabalistic sigils shrouded a squat, toad-like skull. The leprous face that peered from beneath bore only a hole where its nose had rotted away. Two spheres of glass stared from its sockets, their tinted surfaces not quite concealing the macabre objects floating within.
    Azaam smiled at Lorca’s alarm. “You have heard of, but have not met my associate. This is Moritat, one of our most ingenious necrotechs.”
    Moritat’s face contorted with ghoulish amusement at the blood hag’s compliment. One of his skeletal hands reached into the satchel looped over his shoulder. From the bag, he removed a nugget of glistening black stone. He held the rock toward Lorca, his expression taking on a tinge of offense when the gangster recoiled.
    “I have examined the sample you gave our agents,” the necrotech said. “It is an unusually fine grade of necrotite. Great must have been the suffering that soaked into the vein. The potentialities for such a fuel are . . . enticing.” He waited, favoring Lorca with an expectant, indulgent smile, like a lecturer waiting for a student to understand the lesson he has just been taught. When the desired reaction wasn’t forthcoming, Moritat stuck a finger into the vent above his lungs and poked about until he pulled a bit of tissue free. He inspected it a moment, then stared back at the gangster.
    “I am happy that our deal is to your satisfaction,” Lorca said, trying to hide the quiver in his voice.
    Moritat shrugged at Lorca’s lack of appreciation, his inability to see the genius of this discovery. He stroked the necrotite nugget as though it were a favored pet.