Page 83 of Hexbound

"It’s definitely Horroway," Lady E breathed back.

Bishop had been right.

Lady E held out her hand and gestured for her to take it. Verity accepted it, and suddenly Lady E was pushing inside her head.

It was instinctive to push back: Verity had never felt like this before, but she held herself back and allowed the psychic touch.

"Horroway's dead himself,"Lady E told her."Uses some sort of elixir to keep his soul tied to the flesh, and he jumps from body to bodyevery month or two. I can never forget those eyes, that aura…. He's been banned from the Order for over ten years, and there's a warrant on his head. Sometimes the bodies he takes are not empty before he commandeers them. Nobody has ever caught him, however."

She didn't know how to link back, so she mouthed, "Dangerous?"

Lady E nodded."Unknown range of skill, which makes anyone dangerous. Linked to the Chalice? Extremely dangerous.I was hoping it wouldn't be him."

"Now what?" Verity whispered.

Lady E shot another glance over the crates."Let's see if I can distract him."

With a whisk of power, a sudden clatter sprang up toward the entrance to the dock. Horroway turned that way, body erect like a hound on the scent. Verity could see shadows rippling: three of them. They looked like they were running. The only giveaway was the fact they didn't stir the fog, but in the heat of the moment she thought that might have been missed.

With a snap of the fingers, Horroway strode toward the shadows as they ducked into an alley, taking five of the flesh constructs with him. They lumbered after him steadily, focused on the shadows in an eerie, one-track way.

"This way, child." Lady Eberhardt's grip was like a manacle, so it wasn't really as though Verity had any choice in the matter.

"What are we going to do?" she whispered to the old woman. "There are dozens of them inside that place!"

"Yes." Lady Eberhardt looked grim as they scurried behind another section of crates at the back of the building. "That mewling, piss-poor excuse for a sorc—" She blanched all of a sudden, sucking in a sharp breath and pressing her hand to her chest.

"Are you all right?" Lady Eberhardt didn't look it. "Perhaps we should return to the house? I'll come back later, and—"

Stubbornness etched its mark on the older woman's face. She flexed her left arm several times, shaking her hand. "I'm fine. It will take more than a little pain to stop me in my tracks. Now stop your dillydallying and strap on your breeches, girl. There's too much to be done, and not enough people to do it. If we deal with Horroway and the Chalice now...."

Verity bit her lip. Lady E was far too pale for her liking, but what could she do? The old battle-axe would simply ignore her advice and tow her into battle.

Peering over the crates, they watched the ring of flesh constructs guarding the Chalice before bobbing back down. It was easier to see from here, as the doors hung halfway open.

"Stealth," Lady Eberhardt said, "is preferable to direct confrontation in this circumstance."

"Agreed."

"And we have only moments before Horroway comes back. Can you get in and steal the Chalice before they notice?"

Verity glanced over the crates once more. "I can get in and out easy enough, but what concerns me is what I might not be seeing. I usually prefer a little more reconnaissance before I infiltrate a potential trap."

"I can deal with any wards that Horroway might have set," Lady E told her, and began rolling up her sleeves. "Quickly, Verity. If anything goes wrong, you make your way back to my house. Can you do that?"

Verity nodded.

"Off you go then."

The Veil dropped from around them and Verity tore through time and space, the world rushing back into being as she landed in the building directly in front of the Chalice.

The relic gleamed bronze, standing about a foot high where it rested on a crate. There was something not quite right about it.

A ring of flesh constructs stood around her, but they all had their backs to her, as though they were expecting the threat to come from without.

Verity circled the Chalice. Nothing that she could see. Not directly. Biting her lip, she reached out, grabbed the Chalice, and then translocated out of there.

Or at least, that had been her intention.