Finn Fancy Necromancy

by Randy Henderson

  But the awesomeness of the Web made me oddly sad.

  I remembered when Pac-Man came out on the Commodore, and suddenly my parents wanted to use my computer. This felt much the same. Something that once had made me feel special for knowing about it and understanding it had become as popular and common as watching television. Worse, suddenly I was on the outside. I could hear in Mattie’s voice a hint of the same patient and somewhat pitying tone I would use when trying to explain technology to Grandfather.

  “Okay, I get it,” I said. “Cyberspace. The matrix, more or less.”

  “Yeah, sort of,” Mattie said. “Except, most of the boys you meet online are no Keanu, that’s for sure. And, you know, there’s no squiddies, just trolls.”

  “Squiddies? Wait, trolls are using computers now?”

  “Some, but that’s—never mind,” Mattie said.

  Sammy hit Enter again, and the black screen became pure white, this time without any logos or buttons, just a blank page. She turned to face us. “We should see results in a second, if there’s any to see,” she said.

  “Could mundies search our family’s records using that Google thing?” I asked.

  “No. I mean, they could search, but they wouldn’t find anything related to magic. The ARC has sorcerers who mess with the info on the Web, hiding things, putting up a bunch of fake stuff, so the mundies don’t figure out the truth about magic or feybloods.”

  “Okay … so then what are the results we’re waiting for?”

  “I hacked the Infomancer layer. Whenever they delete or change something on the mundy Web, it leaves an imprint in the ether. It’s a bit like necromancy, actually. I was able to put all that stuff Grandfather taught us to use after all. I created a kind of summoning program that goes in and searches the ether for resonances left when specific data was deleted, and sort of calls it back. So whatever they deleted, I should still be able to find it.”

  “Wouldn’t they have just wiped the ether or whatever too?”

  “Maybe. But I doubt it. It would be like wiping a hard drive just to—here we go.”

  A list of names began appearing line by line on the screen. Some I recognized just from hearing their names from other arcana. Some I recognized because they’d made names for themselves in the mundy world, like Orson Welles. Each name had asterisks next to them, from one to five.

  “What do the asterisks mean?”

  “How close they match what you were looking for.”

  And then I saw it. The name of a woman who’d visited our home when she lived in Port Townsend, an arcana that even then I’d felt held some great secret wisdom. A woman with five asterisks next to her name.

  Archmagus Katherine Verona, Hero of the Realm, ender of the last Fey-Arcana war, and once owner of the finest yarn shop in Port Townsend.

  Weariness crashed down on me. My brain felt unable to process what it meant that Katherine Verona and my being exiled were somehow connected. And Zeke was likely comatose at this point anyway. It would be a couple of hours at least before I could risk waking him without him reflexively snapping my neck. I glanced at my watch. Still over three hours until I was supposed to meet Dawn, and hopefully Heather, for dinner.

  Sammy nodded at the screen. “So, what does this mean?”

  I rubbed my eyes. “It means I need a nap.”

  And if whatever trouble I was in touched on the Archmagus, it also probably meant I was bantha poodoo. But I’d worry about that later. If there was one thing I felt pretty certain hadn’t changed since my exile, it was that naps made everything better—at least for as long as it took to nap.

  15

  Hungry Like the Wolf

  “Magus Verona, huh?” Zeke mumbled from his bed.

  “Yeah.” I leaned against the door to his room. I still felt a bit tired even after my two hours of sleep, but Zeke looked terrible. Pale evening sunlight leaked between his bedroom curtains, making his Mohawk and mustache look limp and pale, and turning the shadows under his eyes into deep violet bruises.

  Zeke grunted, blinking sleepy eyes at me. “What the hell does the Hero of the Realm have to do with you?”

  “I don’t know, exactly,” I said. “I know she and Mother were friends, and I remember her coming over a couple of times to talk with Grandfather.”

  “Then you’re luckier than most,” Zeke said, and propped himself up on one elbow, looking a bit more alert now. “Hell, I’d practically give my left nut to have talked to her. Did she ever say anything about, you know, the big secret?”

  “You mean what weapon she used to end the war?”

  Zeke rolled his eyes. “No. I mean whether she soaked her hands in Palmolive to get them so smooth. Yes! Of course I mean the weapon, fool!”

  “No.”

  “Of course not. Well, do you know why she went all hermitlike?”

  “No. I didn’t really talk with her. She always seemed so … sad.”

  “Yeah. Well, she saved lots of lives by ending the war when she did. I don’t know why she’d be sad.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe it had nothing to do with winning the war. She did lose her daughter in the fighting, you know.”

  Zeke scowled. “Maybe, but I don’t buy it. There were the feyblood registration drives, and the Pax negotiations, and all the rest after the war, and she didn’t want nothin’ to do with none of it. Hell, if I lost my daughter to the damned Fey, and I had the kind of power she did, I wouldn’t have stopped until I’d blasted the bastards back into formlessness, and made sure we had free access to the raw magic again. I wouldn’t have hid away from the world, from my duties.”

  “Well, she wasn’t you.”

  “Obviously. So, you think someone’s trying to keep you from talking to her now? Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they thought I could get the big secret out of her for some reason? But if she wouldn’t share it with anyone before she died I don’t see why anyone would think she’d share it with me afterward.”

  “Maybe it ain’t the secret, but just a secret. I’ll bet plenty of fool rebels and Feyist groups and the like tried to get the secret out of her so they could do something nasty to the Fey or feybloods. Maybe they didn’t want their identities or plans getting out after she died.”

  Zeke’s words stirred up the memory of an overheard conversation between my grandfather and Verona.

  * * *

  “Just tell me the way of it,” Grandfather said.

  “No,” Verona replied. “You don’t want this burden, Gavriel, no matter how much you or your friends think your cause is worth it, or how you justify the cost to yourself. Trust me.”

  “Your daughter volunteered, Katherine. She went willingly to—”

  “Don’t! Don’t talk about my Bea. And don’t ask me for help again, Gavriel.”

  * * *

  Had Grandfather been a Feyist rebel of some kind, hoping to strike at the Fey despite the Pax? I found the thought ridiculous. Grandfather had been all about following the rules, about arcana tradition. More likely he had been working on behalf of the ARC to try to get the information, assuming the weapon was even the topic of their discussion. But that didn’t mean that some other group hadn’t also tried to get her secrets from her, like Zeke said.

  “You know what, it doesn’t matter,” I replied. “If I really can Talk to a warded spirit, I can just ask her.”

  “You’re right, it don’t matter, fool,” Zeke said and laid his head back on the pillow. “’Cause no way you’re Talking to her, ward or not.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Are you kidding? She’s the Hero of the Realm. Her body’s locked up in an ARC Sanctum someplace, under layers of security. It’d be suicide to try and get at her on the sly. So, unless you can get us in all official-like, as a necromancer…?”

  Damn. “No, you’re right, not into an ARC Sanctum, not without an invitation. I’m not sure I could even find out where she’s being kept. Could you? Use some of your enforcer connections or whatever,
maybe get us in?”

  “Well, I got friends who might tell us where she is, but no way they’d help us get in. Good news, though, is I got a different lead, one that ain’t a big ole impossibility sandwich with suicide sauce. Friend in the ARC who monitors black market activity has a lead on a spike of witchcraft supplies being sold in the area. If your Króls really are here and hiding somewhere, we might be able to track them down after all.”

  I shook my head. “I think that would be suicide. Felicity, she didn’t talk much about her family, but I always got the impression they were bad news and she’d more escaped than left them. And far as they know, I’m the guy who attacked their kin, remember?”

  Zeke grinned and cracked his knuckles above his head. “Now see, everything you’re saying is just making me like my idea even more. Interrogating hostile witches is just the sorta thing to make me feel better right about now. Well, that and more sleep. Besides, they’re still prime suspect numero one in my book. If they thought this Felicity chick betrayed them, and your family helped her do it, they might’ve decided to pay you both back. Maybe your father wasn’t even possessed; maybe he was witchy hoo-dooed.”

  Everything he said made sense, but for some reason I still felt resistant to going after the Króls, and I didn’t think it was just the fear of being turned into a big pile of cursed flesh. But I didn’t have any better ideas. I’d been so focused on avoiding and protecting against the Króls, I hadn’t considered an attack.

  And remembering the tortured look in Felicity’s eyes when she spoke of her family, I decided maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible to let Zeke use his subtle “baton to the head” questioning method after all.

  “Fine. But will you still see if you can find Verona’s location? Call it a Plan B, just in case the Króls don’t work out.”

  Zeke closed his eyes. “I call it Plan B Stupid, but you’re right, I suppose. Might be good to know for sure just how impossible it is so, you know, you’ll shut up about it and let me get back to sleep.”

  “Awesome. I have to get ready for my brother’s date anyway.”

  “You do that, fool.” Zeke cracked one eye open to glare at me. “And tell your fool brother to stay away from Vee. I don’t like the way he keeps looking at her.”

  “Let me guess—like a fool?”

  Zeke opened the other eye to glare at me fully. I quickly closed his door and left him to his sleep.

  * * *

  Pete drove us down to the waterfront to meet Dawn, even though it was a lovely evening for a stroll. Harder to ambush a moving car than a couple of guys walking. As the passenger, I found myself craning my neck to take in the sights like a tourist.

  The town’s many grand Victorian buildings spoke to the dreams of its early builders, that this was going to be one of the biggest port cities in Washington. Unfortunately, the Great Depression, a lack of railroad connections, and a nasty infestation of gremlins killed that dream. But when most mundies abandoned the town, the area’s rich and important magical history made it an ideal home for arcana.

  Then a paper mill got built outside of town, bringing bad smells, coastal debris, and a lot of jobs. And a bunch of mundies rediscovered the charm of Port Townsend and started to move or retire here, “fixing up” the area around the time I was born. I hoped Water Street, at least, remained untouched by the “renewal.” All of the changes made me feel unsettled, like maybe I’d returned to the wrong world.

  I distracted myself by checking my hair in the rearview. Mattie had kindly cut off the rocker locks, and with a bit of Mort’s hair gel it was close to my old short and spiky do. A vast improvement.

  Petey readjusted the rearview. “I can’t see. It’s not safe.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You said you would give me some tips,” Pete said. “On dating and girls and stuff?”

  “Oh. Right. Well, let’s see. First of all, compliment your date. And ask her about herself and act interested in what she says even if it’s boring.”

  “I don’t want to date someone boring,” Pete said.

  “Good point. But you don’t want to be rude either, so maybe just pretend, and then not date her again if you don’t want to?”

  “Oh. Okay. What else?”

  “Um…” My knowledge on dating, I realized, was not extensive. I began to dig through lessons I’d gleaned from the movies. “Well, if you get an anonymous love letter and think it’s from the girl of your dreams, it’s really from the girl next door. Don’t let your computer fall in love with the girl you like. If you have the choice between suicide or dating a cute French girl, date the girl. Don’t give a geek your underwear. And, uh, if your girlfriend likes to take long salt baths, she’s probably a mermaid?”

  Oh gods. Thankfully, I stopped myself before warning him about the dangers of having sex with bisexual New Wave models while aliens waited on the roof to suck out his endorphins. I mean, I might have sounded like a real idiot then.

  “I’m not sure I’ll remember all that,” Pete said. “Can you tell me again when we get to the restaurant so I can write it down?”

  “Why don’t we just see how the date goes?”

  “Okay. Oh, and Finn, Dawn is mad that you didn’t call her or anything while you were gone. I told her the story like I was supposed to, but I don’t think she’s happy with you anyway.”

  Bat’s breath. I really should have thought about a better cover story before now. Funny how constantly fighting for your life can get in the way of such things.

  The best lies have some element of truth to them. The story told to mundies about me was that Felicity committed suicide, and her death coming so soon after my mother and grandfather’s deaths really messed me up so I had to get away for a while, especially away from the family’s mortuary business.

  But that story wasn’t going to be good enough for Dawn. She was right to be angry. We’d been close, and then I just went and disappeared on her without any warning or word. From her perspective, I’d avoided her for twenty-five years. Short of exile to another world, what could justify that?

  A coma maybe?

  “Okay. Pete, I’m going to tell Dawn that … I had amnesia. And I need you to say it’s true if she asks you.”

  Pete frowned. “I don’t like lying.”

  “I know. But Dawn is a mundy, Pete, and this is part of my cover story. If I could tell her the truth, you know I would.”

  Pete drove in silence for a minute, turning onto Water Street, the main tourist drag that ran along Port Townsend’s waterfront.

  “Okay,” he said at last. “But I don’t like it.”

  “Me either, bro. Me either.”

  We parked a couple blocks away and walked to the Belmont. It felt good but strange to be walking along Water Street again, past the windows displaying local arts and crafts, funky clothing, antiques, and books. Many of the shops and restaurants were familiar, my favorite being Elevated Ice Cream, where the entire family had often gone for treats. But the place where I used to buy toys and comics was now an art gallery with glass and wood sculptures. Lame.

  The Belmont Restaurant and Hotel stood unchanged as a fine representative of old Port Townsend, a building of exposed timber and mossy brick. Dawn waited for us in front wearing a striped dress. Small white ribbons like butterflies danced in her lavender afro. “You’re here!” she said. “And it’s barely six. Count me surprised.”

  “You thought we’d be late?” I asked.

  “I thought you’d ditch. Now come here and give me some love.”

  Dawn pulled me into a hug. She smelled like exotic candy. As we stepped apart, she squeezed my arm. “Damn, Phinaeus, you’ve been working out.” I felt myself blush. Dawn just smiled and opened the door to the restaurant, waving us in. “Ready to woo me, boys?”

  I couldn’t help but notice Waterfront Pizza just a couple doors down. I gave it a sad, longing look, then entered the Belmont.

  The Belmont lobby was small, with a couple of lounge chairs, a rack of tou
rist brochures, and sepia pictures of the restaurant in its early days. The smell of something cooking in oil and garlic made my mouth water so much I had to swallow before speaking.

  “So, Dawn,” I said as we stood there, waiting to be seated. “What have you been up to?”

  “About a seven, I’d say,” Dawn said.

  “She plays music,” Pete said. “She’s really good too.”

  “My biggest fan,” Dawn said, giving Pete a side hug. “I play gigs around town some weekends. I also volunteer at the animal shelter, and do tarot readings during the day at the Phoenix or wherever. But that’s all just to support my exciting hobby of being a waitress.”

  “That’s awesome,” I said. “The music I mean, not—anyway, uh, how’s your dad? What does he think about your music now?”

  “Wow, you really have been in your own little world, haven’t you?” Dawn sounded angry, maybe a little hurt. “My dad died almost fifteen years ago, Finn.”

  “Oh. Man. I’m sorry, Dawn, I didn’t—I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

  “Yeah, about that—” Dawn said, and then a redheaded woman dressed in black slacks and a vest approached. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her. Maybe someone I’d gone to school with? “Three for dinner?” she asked. I nodded, and she guided us back through a tunnel-like passage between booths and up a flight of stairs to the main restaurant area, a cozy space of tables with lit candles, original brick walls to either side, and large windows overlooking the water. We sat at a table near the windows, Dawn on one side, me and Pete on the other. An older couple sat outside on the deck, and a husband-wife-child trio sat several tables away in a corner; nobody close enough to worry about being overheard.

  “Can I bring you anything to drink?” the waitress asked.

  “Goddess, yes,” Dawn said. “Bloody Mary, and make it as spicy as Shakira shaking her hips in a jalapeño field, please.”

  The waitress blinked, then turned to me. “And you, sir?”