Necromancer Awakening Read Online Free

mattered. His nausea was gone, the pain was bearable, and above all, he didn’t feel that strange energy pouring into his body.
    Something shrieked above him.
    He looked up and his chest tightened.
    The sky was pale yellow, lighting the emerald-green meadow before him from all directions. The sun was missing. For a moment he thought the sun had taken on gargantuan proportions and filled the sky. But he could stare at it without pain, and the heat was bearable. In fact, it wasn’t hot at all. It was like that spring he spent in Flagstaff studying the Wupatki pueblo with Dad, and a biting breeze made them glad they brought their heavy-duty windbreakers.
    He sat against a boulder in the foothills of a vast mountain range. The distant mountains were tall enough to put Mount Humphreys to shame. Snow was absent above the timberline, revealing grey rocky peaks. There was something odd about that timberline, though, as if the foliage below the line had been…removed.
    Something shrieked again, and this time it flew over him. He had to look twice when he saw it.
    It looked like a bright turquoise bat the size of a pickup truck, with wings the length of an eighteen-wheeler from tip to tip. Its neck was just as long, covered in cascading blue feathers, and ending in teeth surrounded by a feathery mane. Fangs longer than Toby’s body formed three concentric rings in a cavernous maw and dripped with saliva. Its six scaled, muscular legs flayed out beneath a lithe body with every beat of its wings, and a distinct saltwater smell followed it.
    It shrieked once more, then dove down about a hundred yards away.
    Nicolas inched his way around the boulder.
    A herd of cows stampeded away from the mountainside. Bells dangled from their necks, filling the air with frantic dull clanks. They ran into a vast meadow, which was bordered by a dense row of tall shrubs. When they reached the shrubs, the entire herd turned left as one.
    Those ain’t no cows.
    He had no idea what else to call them, though. They had six legs, like that bat thing, but their agility was no match for the bat.
    The bat swooped toward the herd, unleashing another shriek as it flew over. This time the sound was soothing, like a lullaby, and the animals started grazing as if the creature weren’t there.
    Dumber than a box of hammers too. That thing’s gonna swallow ‘em whole.
    Nicolas blinked from drowsiness. He wasn’t sure where that came from. He was energetic a moment ago.
    Another shriek echoed off the rocky outcropping and three of the cow-like creatures staggered. They fell to the ground, but the rest of the herd ignored them.
    Nicolas covered his ears and wobbled, but he gripped the boulder in time to stop falling.
    The bat’s giant wings created a dust cloud as it landed among the cows. A few of them ran away, but the bat ignored them.
    Two worm-like tongues snaked up from the recesses of the bat’s throat. They slid across the surface of the outermost ring of fangs as if in anticipation of a meal. It lumbered forward until it reached one of the fallen cows and raised its two hind legs in the air.
    It faced its leathery hindquarters toward the cow and released a steady jet of liquid, spinning the cow as if on a lathe. The liquid congealed around the cow like a cocoon.
    The bat encased two more cows and connected strands of the liquid among all three. With two beats of its massive wings, it lifted the three helpless cows as one, looking back as if to make sure they were secure, and flew up into the mountains.
    Nicolas sat back down against the rock and leaned back.
    “This ain’t Texas,” Nicolas said. “It’s a dang Spielberg film.”
    Where the hell am I?
    He was still wearing his suit pants and shirt, but he was squeezing his wallet in the palm of his hand.
    Kaitlyn’s picture .
    He was empty, as if a piece of him was missing.
    A sting in his palm made him realize he had balled his hand into a fist. He stretched his fingers and tried to calm himself down.