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Rinaldo grimacedas Gideon walked toward him, cane in hand, looking entirely nonplussed as he strolled from the abandoned building. Behind him was “Harry”—the revenant who served his master.

He held his ground as Gideon approached. He knew the gun in his hand was useless, but the woman in the wheelchair at his side was not. He left the rest of his team behind on the auspices that they were either too tired or too injured to continue to fight the necromancer. He also made the valid point to Bishop Moretti that taking on the lich with a squadron for the third time was going to have the same results as the previous two.

Better to go in with a small team. To negotiate.

Honestly, he was buying time for Maggie to do her task—find the phylactery and tell him what it was so he could take it or destroy it.

“Yes, priest? Can I help you?” Gideon placed the end of his cane in front of him and folded his hands atop it. Rinaldo had always suspected that the cane was his phylactery, but he had no way of confirming it. Not until Maggie was done.

“We’re here to take the girl with us.”

Gideon looked around the grassy, overgrown pavement road that ran alongside the abandoned asylum as if searching for someone. “Oh? How so? I believe the phrase is, ‘you and what army?’” His unusually goading tone told Rinaldo all he needed to know. He hadn’t forgotten the arrangement in Istanbul and was once more willing to play along.

“Don’t need an army.” He jerked his head toward Ally. “I have her, and she can go toe-to-toe with you, lich.”

Ally smiled sweetly and waved at the two other men.

“Oh, can she, now? Fascinating theory.” Gideon picked up his cane and eyed it thoughtfully, twisting it in his hands as the moonlight glinted off the silver vulture that perched on the dark gem. “I hate to disappoint you, but I don’t need to change my shape to defeat your efforts tonight. However, I plan on saving the moment I murder you both until Marguerite has made her choice to rebuff your efforts to coerce her. I think she might be rather angry with me if I were to kill you tonight.”

“You’re so sure she’ll forgive you?” Ally shook her head. “I’m not so sure, Raithe.”

“Oh, I never said anything of the sort. But not siding with you is not the same as siding with me.” He shrugged. “I have come to believe that she will wish to continue her life unabated by the shackles you would place her under. No, I merely have a suggestion.”

“Oh?” Rinaldo snorted. “Like what?”

“We both wish Marguerite to finish her task and complete the talisman. She will discover the nature of my phylactery. I will leave it up to her to decide whether she wishes to protect or destroy it.”

“And why would you do that?” Rinaldo blinked.

Gideon’s expression grew weary. “It is a very long explanation, priest. I love her. And I have done so unrequited for a very, very long time. I am…tired of this struggle. If she deems me unworthy of life, I will accept her judgement with grace. My suggestion is this. Allow her to make this decision in peace. We will cause another row tonight for your superiors’ amusement, but once she comes to the full understanding of her situation, you allow her the same right to choose.”

“I can’t. I have my orders, necromancer.” He clenched his fist at his side. “As charming as your idea sounds, I can’t follow it. Once she knows the location of your soul, it’s my duty to capture it or destroy it in the process.”

“Yes, because I am such a dangerous threat to the world order.” Gideon rolled his eyes. “I have been on this world for fourteen hundred years, and I have yet to cause an apocalypse, big or small. That is more than can be said for many of the other creatures that roam this Earth.”

“And we’re trying to stop them too.”

“Mmhm. Well, I have made my plans known to you now, priest. I will give Marguerite the right to make up her mind on the matter, and I will not allow you to interfere. The moment she makes the final discovery needed to heal my phylactery, our amusing dance will come to an end. I had hoped you were more noble than a simple soldier, Rinaldo Lenci. But I see I was wrong.”

“Nobility and righteousness are not always the same thing.”

“Indeed. One is a positive character trait, and the other has caused more problems for humanity than my undead self has ever done. Ah, well. C’est la vie. I suppose we should start tonight’s show, then?”

He flicked the safety off on his gun. “I guess so. What’ll it be tonight?”

“My darling princess seems to struggle with the difference between reanimated corpses and revenants. I think I’d like to show her an example.” He smirked. “The graves around here are so very shallow, after all.”

The necromancer brought the end of his cane down on the asphalt with a hard crack.

The ground rumbled beneath their feet.

Rinaldo swore.

“A body in a coffin in a vault six feet below the ground is terribly inconvenient to raise, you see. But these poor dead souls weren’t worth even that. No, a shallow unmarked grave beneath the garden or as fertilizer for the lawn is all they were worth in death.” Gideon’s lips curled in a disgusted sneer. “It will be quite the sight when the guards return to find a hundred corpses strewn about the yard, surrounded by the holes they made in their exit. I fear most are little more than muddy skeletons now, but they’ll do.” Gideon turned to walk away just as Rinaldo began to see shapes coming toward him in the darkness. “Come, Harry. Let us fetch Marguerite and be on our way. Enjoy, priest. I recommend a heavy object such as a baseball bat or a crowbar. Perhaps a heavy branch. Your bullets will be useless.”

Harry glanced at Gideon as he walked away, and then with a shrug, tossed the bolt cutters he was carrying over his shoulder to the ground in front of Rinaldo before following his master.