"Plenty." He put his sunglasses back on, but the smile never reached his eyes. "Like that woman in the mask. She smells of corpse wax."
I suddenly remembered the silver ornaments glimpsed beneath my client's black robe: the Soul-Calling Bell passed down through generations of corpse-driving masters in western Hunan. The ancient secret scripture of the Shu Kingdom, tucked away at the back of the drawer, had suddenly grown scorching hot. The coordinates marked on the parchment map clearly overlapped with the fragment of the bronze sacred tree Zhang Qiling had been investigating last year.
As the rain grew heavier, Hei Xiazi suddenly leaned close to my neck. His warm lips brushed my pulse. "The poison takes effect at a quarter past midnight." His fingertip touched my chest, where a coin-sized bruise was spreading. "Unless you want to watch me bleed from every orifice..."
He broke off mid-sentence. I grabbed his bloodstained collar and bit him. The taste of iron spread between our lips and teeth. He froze for a moment, then took control and deepened the kiss. Somehow, the nine-clawed hook had caught on the hem of my shirt. Just as its cold metal touched my lower back, hurried knocking suddenly sounded from downstairs.
