Legions of Bone: Dragon Rider Book 3

Chapter 27: Got Cho' Panties In A Bunch

I'm posting this for legal reasons, but, please keep the fangirling to a minimum, I've been getting calls about Dagen fans storming the streets when a new chapter is posted.
#stopthedagenrevolution
Or don't. *wink wink*

Thank you and good night : )

Dagen

"Dagen!" Topher shouted. "What are you doing up there? This spirit won't wait all day."

    Dagen slid out of his chair and went downstairs, the wood whining beneath his quiet steps. "The spirit's dead."

    A ghost stared at them with pale eyes and dark hair that curled at the ends of her shoulders. A violin's bow lodged in her eyes. Bruises darkened her bare arms but Dagen suspected most were hidden beneath the formal black dress she wore. It looked like she was going to perform at a concert before her death.

    Dagen eyed the black rune she stood on, only big enough for her to take a few steps in each direction. No matter how much he read about runes, about what each intricate stroke meant and how adding them together worked, he barely knew what they meant.

    Topher gave him a long look, fiddling with the rag in his hand. The ghost glanced between them, eyes wide. Slowly, she opened her mouth―

    "I swear to the gods." Topher threw down his rag. "If you start fucking screaming, I'll kill you."

    The ghost closed her mouth.

    Word had spread faster than tavern brawls about the two necromancers luring ghosts to kill. And then they'd had to start hunting ghosts, something Dagen never thought he'd ever have to do in his life.

Topher made a grunt of smug satisfaction. He folded his arms over his dark tunic, glancing at Dagen. "This is why I'm the best."

"Because you can make a Screamer shut it's trap?" Annoyance licked Dagen's patience. "Why am I here?"

He had been studying before Topher called him. Not that he minded the excuse to escape the endless books, but Dagen had just been falling into a productive rhythm.

    "I was thinking about our young lady friend, here―" he gestured to the ghost, still wide-eyed "―when I thought about Thrawlers."

    Dagen didn't see how the two were remotely linked, but he said nothing. He'd hear about it regardless of if he knew it or not―Topher liked to explain things, which Dagen found both helpful and annoying when he did know things.

    "I've been looking into them of late. There aren't very many studies because, well, the researchers died." He shrugged nonchalantly. "And they're relatively a new phenomenon, but I learned that you don't have to die at the hands of a Thrawler to become a Thrawler. There have been reports of people murdering someone and then watching them get back up."

    Dagen's eyes flicked to the body freezers in the wall across from him. The one Topher stored the bodies he'd relocated from the nearby medical school.

    Topher waved him off. "Those encounters all happened near the front but never specified how close the fighting was. Which got me thinking." He wandered through the basement, hands flying. "If this sickness isn't transmitted through contact, then it has to be some kind of virus, right?"

    Dagen tracked the man's movement around the room.

    "And then that got me thinking," he continued. "You said you were on a beach when you first encountered a Thrawler." Dagen nodded. "You said you could control it, but, no offense, before you met me, your abilities were below par. But necromancers have to be able to control them somehow―how else would they have been able to create them?"