The Bone Conjurer

“I was hired to pass this along to a specific individual. It is what I do.”

Thievespassed things along to others. A

“But I have a terrible feeling about this job,” the man said. “Something isn’t right. That’s why I wanted your opinion. Maybe you can identify—”

His head shot up from their close stance. A

She didn’t see anything to cause alarm. Darkness softened the edges of buildings and parking lots. Moonlight glinted on a few windows high along the perimeter. All seemed calm. Strange, but not for this part of Brooklyn. It was a quiet, old neighborhood.

The man’s sudden exhalation startled her. He grunted, as if punched. His shoulder jerked against hers. He gripped blindly, his fingers slapping across her shoulder.

He stumbled backward. A

Instincts igniting, she knew when there was one shot, there could be another. Grabbing him by the shoulder, she directed his staggering movement to swing around her body and stand before her as a defensive wall.

Ice burned along A

Leaning backward over the railing, she slapped both arms about the man’s shoulders. Eyes closed, his head lolled. The dead weight of him toppled her. For a moment, she felt the sensation of air at her back, with no support to catch her, dizzied.

And then she pushed from the sidewalk with her feet.

2

A

Bracing air tugged off her ski cap and bruised over her scalp. It hissed through her too-thin-for-winter jacket as she fell, headfirst and backward, toward the water.

With less than twenty feet from railing to water, she worked quickly.

Twisting in midair, still maintaining a death grip on the man, she managed to kick and aim his legs downward. Now she fell over him, positioned as if she’d stepped up to put her arms around his shoulders for a hug.

Impact loosened her fingers from his body, but she scrambled to grip the slippery coat fabric. His horizontal body broke the surface of water and slowed his descent, while A

At least she was making comparisons and not pushing up daisies, she realized.

The water was only slighter warmer than frozen. Some summer heat must yet be trapped in the depths. Or a toxic boil.

Their bodies submerged and A

Breath spilling from her faster than she wished, she stopped herself before a frustrating cry would see her swallowing water. As it was, she’d snorted a healthy dose upon submersion and it wasn’t the finest vintage she’d tasted. If she did survive drowning, the toxic cocktail she sucked down her throat would surely kill her, if not at least make her glow electric green in the dark.

With thoughts of hypothermia storming her thi

Utilizing a death grip on the backpack strap, she struggled to release his other lifeless arm.

A wince let out her last ounce of breath. Thanks to some trapped air, the backpack floated and A

Surfacing under the bridge, she gasped. The icy air pierced like needles at the back of her throat. Spitting out water, she sucked in just as much. Sputtering, she bit on a nasty piece of something she didn’t care to identify.

A kick of her legs slammed her against the slimy log bulkhead hugging the bridge girder.

Shivering, she pushed the hair from her eyes. She wanted to climb out, but didn’t know if the sniper would still be watching. Of course he would. Whoever he was. Was he allied with Sneak? If so, then someone wasn’t playing nice.

She couldn’t risk the chance of emerging in plain sight. She’d have to swim downstream as far as possible.

“Should have stayed home and popped in an episode of Supernatural,” she grumbled.

A cup of hot chocolate sounded too good to be true right now.

Her words stuttered from the cold. But the sound of her voice reassured in a strange way. The sting on her neck had subsided. The bullet must have only skimmed flesh. She was alive, which is what mattered.

Submerging was a difficult choice, but she took a deep breath and let her body drop into the dark, muffling depths.

The murky water and her position under the bridge made it impossible to see. But she didn’t need to see. It wasn’t as though she’d run into a boat or shark down here. Though a whale had been trapped in the canal a few years back. It wasn’t so much taking a bite from a fish that A

A slight lightening in the waters signaled she’d cleared the bridge. Keeping close to what she felt was the shore, though her shoes didn’t touch bottom, she kicked swiftly and stroked with her free right arm, while maintaining a secure clutch on the backpack with her left.

A muffled horn honked as a car passed over the bridge. A

A branch snagged her ankle. She kicked frantically, briefly panicking. Bubbles of air escaped, and she had to surface to gasp in air. She didn’t bring up her shoulders, only the top of her face. Sucking in the cold November air, she then inhaled deeply and went under.

While she hadn’t pla

Finding a surprise smile, she soared forward, turning in the water, to tilt her face to the surface. The world could mess with her all it liked. She was up for the challenge.

Paddling her hands near her thighs to keep her body under as much as possible, she managed to break the surface with only her face. A scan above the lumber edging the shore spied rooftops where she guessed the sniper had shot from.

A gulp of air, and she again submerged. She was on the wrong side of the river. But she wasn’t about to cross it. The current would carry her the way she’d come. Which meant she’d have to go another hundred yards at least, to put her out of sight of the buildings.

What seemed like an hour in the water was probably more like fifteen minutes. It was fourteen minutes too long.

Emerging, she dragged herself up along a mooring of old timbers lashed together with slimy rope. Slipping around behind the mooring put her next to a dock. The backpack no longer floated. It snagged on a branch—no, it was a hook of iron rebar.