Page 32 of Necromancers Don't Raise

“Give me something bigger,” I said, putting down the magnum.

“Sure thing,” the clerk said with a wink and a smile that got slightly furry before he turned towards the back.

“Is he a werewolf?” I whispered to Bones.

“Yes, Miss Nova. He’s also a very good shot, like you, but I don’t believe he hires out, either. Perhaps you can be friends.”

I gave him a skeptical look, then had to rethink. Looking like this, I could be friends with random men who I had nothing in common with other than shooting. That’s how men made friendships, common interests, and, as an incredibly unattractive female, I might be able to do the same.

The werewolf brought back a bow and two quarrels of arrows. “These are tipped with small explosives,” the guy explained, handing me the first quarrel. “These are regular tips,” he said, handing over the second. I took them, but I looked at him skeptically.

“I’m using your range. You don’t mind if I blow it up?”

He chuckled with a growl at the end. “There’s a range out back you can use to try these babies out. Everyone wants to see what you do with them.”

I scratched my cheek. “It’s to entertain your customers? Then shouldn’t you be paying me something for my time?”

He laughed again. “All right. These are off the bill.”

I eyed the bow and then him. “And a ten percent discount off the rest of the rounds I use today.”

“Done.”

He got me set up in the cave behind the shop that had an exhaust outlet up top. There were targets of various rubber animals and humans set up, the nice ones that had the right amount of resistance in the skin and ribs.

I set up, took the first explosive arrow, drew back the string, then took a deep breath, long and slow. I exhaled, releasing in the middle of the breath. The arrow slammed into the figure furthest away, dead center in the heart, and then it exploded.

The guys around me cheered while the scent of brimstone wafted towards me. I ignored them, just drew another arrow, aimed, and released. The explosions and the full-body effort required to draw a bow were more therapeutic than the guns had been.

“Not bad.” A woman’s voice came from behind my shoulder.

I turned to glance at the goblin female, then did a double take. She was brawny, with well-muscled definition beneath her green skin. Her teeth were pointed, sharp, and possibly poisonous, but that clearly wasn’t enough to signal her dangerousness, because she had several spikes coming out of her face.

“It was a lucky shot,” I said before refocusing on my target.

She snorted. “False modesty does nothing for you.”

“Including silencing meaningless praise.”

She crowed. “Oh ho, look who’s in a mood. The pretty little crumpet can shoot straight, for sure, but what about a moving target?”

I lowered the bow and looked at her. “Are you offering? I’ve never shot a goblin before, but that’s not for lack of interest.”

She grinned, showing those jagged teeth easily. “There’s another cavern with moving targets set up, an obstacle course that’s to be run, one track, one winner. Are you up for it?”

I sniffed. “I don’t have my own weapons, and racing against a goblin who can climb walls with her teeth? Do I look like I want a broken ankle?”

She wiggled her dark green brows. “If it’s not a challenge, it isn’t fun.”

“I’ve never run this course, and it sounds like you’re an old-timer. The odds are strongly in your favor. What stakes could induce me into playing a losing game? You have nothing I want.”

She pulled a folded up poster out of her armored vest and flipped it at me. I barely managed to catch it and then stared when I saw the image of Mercury with his dark hair blowing in the wind, wearing low-slung leather pants, and nothing else, holding a bone-staff with a stormy greenish sky behind him. She snatched it back before I’d really soaked in the details. “If you win, I’d give you my first edition copy of Mercury at midnight, captured by photograph the last time Mercury summoned an undead army. It’s an old poster, but worth thousands.”

I itched to get that picture back into my hands and really pore over the bare chest portion of the picture. There had been rivulets running over his skin. I was almost sure of it. I scratched my neck and tried to look disinterested.

“It’s not a bad picture, really captures the movement of the storm. And what would you want from me?”

She grinned, seeing that her exploitation of my weakness for dark sorcerers had paid off. “From you, your humiliation, but I’d settle for the clothes off your back.”

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