Read A Different Kind of Deadly for Free Online Page B

exhaustion
caught me by surprise. "You haven't slept in almost two days,
Marvin."
    I never caught the second part of that
sentence, because my energy had finally run out.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    11: Awesome
Dumbass

    I felt a weight on my chest, and a number of sharp, prickly
objects digging into me.
    "-ly!"
    The space between my eyebrows twitched. I was
sore, and cold; not a good combination.
    "-f there."
    I groaned.
    "Tully, I said get off of there!"
    My eyes snapped open, only to zero in on a
bony beak hovering over the top of my nose.
    Tully seemed to think that the crook of my
neck seemed to be an excellent place to build a nest, as I felt a
number of layers bunched up against my skin. I heard Leo's
frustrated sigh from somewhere in the room. He walked over and
pinned the bird between his hands. This was the equivalent of
watching an animated skeleton get compacted into a pile of bones
between his meaty palms.
    "Sorry about that, Marv," Leo apologized. "I
told Tully a number of times to leave you alone, but he was just
too worried."
    I sat up, groggy and in shock, unable to
process a word he'd just said.
    We were in a room, a drab and sparsely
decorated room.
    I overlooked a number of things that would
have set me off in Nethermount, so I was able to forgive the
cobwebs in the rafters, the pervasive dust, and even the shrunken
head in the corner. All that mattered was that there were four
blessed walls separating me from the rest of the Moor of Souls, and
there were no Uglies, no powdered marrow floors, and no rancid gunk
as far as the eye could see.
    I reached to pull up the collar of my shirt,
but discovered that bits and pieces of it were missing. I stared at
the fabric for a long time, analyzing the gaping holes that
appeared overnight.
    "Leo... what happened?"
    "Uhh thought you were a bit uncomfortable, so
he tried to get you out of your shirt." He sat at a desk across the
room, talking while he put Tully back together. "He stopped when he
realized he was burning through the fabric."
    I snorted.
    "Where is he now?"
    "Diana took him on a shopping
trip."
    "With what money?"
    "How am I supposed to know? She's
your Doll."
    My Doll, huh? Funny. She might be my Doll, but
I'm her plaything. I peeled the tattered shirt off my skin, rubbing
the burnt edges between my fingers.
    The room held, besides a bed and writing desk,
a broken mirror.
    I caught sight of myself in its cracked
surface, but it took me a moment to come to terms with the haggard
man staring back at me.
    Like most necromancers, I had a fair
complexion, but it had become grimy somehow, as though I was caked
in a permanent film of dust. My gray hair fanned across my
shoulders, thin and waxy, and emphasized the harsh shadows of my
natural bone structure.
    I gripped the sides of the mirror and sank
down to my knees, laughter bubbling out of my throat like a
madman.
    It wasn't that long ago that I'd looked at the
portraits of my deceased family members, cringing at how they
seemed to be like living corpses.
    In less than a week, I'd become one of
them.
    "Marvin?"
    I stopped and hung my head back, staring at
Leo upside down. His look of trepidation prompted me to get a grip
on my nerves, but just barely.
    "What is it?"
    "Are you alright?"
    Alright?
    The question threatened to break my tenuous
grasp on reality. I snickered for a moment, climbing back into bed.
Leo had swiveled his chair from the desk and now gave me his full
attention.
    "I must look pathetic right now." I fought a
wave of depraved giggles. "But I guess this is a fitting end for
the biggest failure in Nethermount."
    It was quiet for a full minute.
    Finally, Leo asked, "What are you talking
about?"
    I balked on the inside. Surely, Leo couldn't
have been that oblivious.
    "I'm a failure, Leo." It felt ridiculous,
having to spell it out for him. "Right before dinner, my mother
told me to become a necromancer, or else she'd turn me into an
undead servant for House Thanos."
    Leo