Vault of Shadows by Jonathan Maberry Page A

“There are things even a Daylighter can do on this side of a doorway to help someone on the other side escape.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œLike a human sacrifice.”
    â€œOh . . . man . . .” It made him sick and dizzy to think that not only could he have died in that circle, but that his death might have doomed the world.
    â€œTo do that, though,” said the wolf girl, “the Huntsman would have to cross a line that few are willing to cross. He would need to sacrifice his own soul.”
    â€œNot sure he even has one anymore. He’s a psycho killer, remember.”
    â€œThat doesn’t mean he’s soulless, Milo. Even evil people have souls, hard as that is to believe.”
    â€œHe’s half Bug.”
    â€œSo? What makes you think the Swarm don’t have souls? They’re alive, and maybe some of them are mindless, the worker drones, I mean, but the soldiers have minds. There’s every possibility they have souls, too.”
    â€œEven the drones?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    Milo thought about it; then something occurred to him. “Remember a few days ago when I first met the Huntsman? He tried to kill me and the Witch of the World did some wonky magic and for a minute I was inside the Huntsman’s head.”
    She nodded. “You said it was horrifying.”
    â€œIt was. We had that whole mind-melding thing and I’m really glad I don’t remember all of it. But there are some things I remember. One of them is that long before the Swarm ever got here, back when the Huntsman was just a human psychopath, he was trying to learn everything he could about magic. He’s always wanted to become magical. He thinks that’s part of how he’ll become a god. I saw memories of him reading thousands of old books and talking to psychics and doing everything he could to learn about it. He was obsessed with it.”
    â€œOh,” she said, looking sick. “That’s not good news.”
    â€œNo it’s not.” Milo cocked his head to one side. “There’s a word kind of stuck in my head since that happened. I’ve read it in books, too, and I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of magic. Like the bad kind.”
    â€œWhat word?”
    â€œNecromancy.”
    Evangelyne drew back in horror. “Goddess of Shadows! That is the very worst kind of sorcery. Even among the magical peoples there is no one more reviled and feared than a necromancer.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWhen a person dies, there is a great release of energy. Not only does their soul fly free, but other forms of energy are released and it is raw and powerful. In sacred rituals around the world, people gather to honor someone as they die and to share in that release. They allow the soul to move on, but sometimes they can gain great insight and knowledge from that raw energy. Much of what we Nightsiders have learned of healing has been learned as one of ours passed through the veil and into the eternal darkness, and we honor them for sharing with us.”
    She paused and swallowed hard. “But a necromancer is different. He does not wait for natural death. Instead he uses torture and murder to force the release of these energies, and then he steals those secrets for himself. A necromancer is like a vampire except that instead of feeding on blood, he devours life energy and then uses it to read the future, uncover secrets, enslave others, and even raise the dead and turn them into slaves.” She shuddered. “There is not much we Nightsiders fear, but we fear a necromancer. Please, Milo, please tell me that you’re wrong about what you read in the Huntsman’s mind.”
    Milo said nothing, and he wished he hadn’t said a word. Especially that word.
    Evangelyne shook her head, and he saw her mouth that word.
    Necromancer.
    â€œWait,” he said, “so you’re saying that they wanted