Grave Promise (How To Be A Necromancer Book 1)

by D. D. Miers

  Once they were both settled on their tables and not in danger of falling on the floor and having to be schlepped around once they were dead again, I began to do as Persephona had demonstrated, reaching out to twine my power around the void which continuously hummed with my energy.

  I frowned, trying to think dissolving thoughts.

  Sugar in tea.

  Rain on a garden, washing away the dust.

  But I had trouble holding onto the image. I don’t really drink tea. I’m more of a black coffee girl. And I've never been as into gardening as my aunt, who spent practically all her time digging in her flower beds and pottering around in her greenhouse. I spent most of my time here, washing and dressing corpses and dealing with the bereaved.

  I’d cleaned and prepared these two along with Mr. Gould not that long ago. Now there was something I could visualize. Something I’d done practically every day for so long that if I was ever resurrected, I’d probably just keep doing it like Mr. Delacey with his golf swing.

  I washed the energy away from Ms. Duffy like I’d washed the dirt and old makeup and embalming fluid from her skin. With thorough and delicate care, I rinsed away all traces of my energy.

  “There,” Aunt Persephona said as Ms. Duffy relaxed, a final breath sighing out of her. “I knew you could do it.”

  “One down,” I said, gently prying the metal tray out of Ms. Duffy’s now unresisting arms. “Three to go.”

  It went faster now that I knew the trick of it, but by the time I’d put all four down, the memorial upstairs was winding down.

  “There you are!” Mr. Gould appeared in the door just as I finished cleaning up the last of the mess the corpses had made stumbling around. “You missed the whole service. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said quickly. “I’m just, uh, taking it harder than I thought, I guess. Seeing him sit up like that shook me a little.”

  Gould nodded sagely.

  “Losing a family member can be difficult, even if we don’t know them well,” he said. “It’s a potent reminder of our own mortality.”

  “Nothing a good cry and some of my blackberry cobbler won’t fix,” Aunt Percy added, patting me on the shoulder.

  “If you’d like a last chance to say goodbye,” Gould said, “the chapel has been cleared and we’re ready to wheel him out to the hearse.”

  “Thank you,” I told him, straightening up. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “I’ll go ahead and get the car ready,” Gould said with his trademark sympathetic smile and left us alone. I sighed and headed to the stairs.

  “Come on,” I said, waving to Aunt Percy. “Let’s pay our last respects to Uncle Ptolemy.”

  Back in the chapel, we hesitated in front of the coffin.

  “I’m sorry you never got to meet him,” Aunt Persephona said with a sigh. “My brother was an interesting man. Difficult sometimes. After your father cut ties with the family, your uncle wouldn’t have anything to do with your parents. And when I insisted on continuing to associate with them, he wouldn’t have anything to do with me, either. To be honest, we’d been on the outs for years. It was just the final straw.”

  I struggled with a brief, strange feeling of guilt. My mother had never approved of the Tzarnavaras’s somewhat sinister reputation. You couldn’t have a family as old as ours without some weirdness following them. Add in our talent for necromancy and, despite all efforts to secrecy, someone was bound to notice we weren’t quite normal.

  Luckily for my mother, my father had been eager to disavow his family history and fully embrace white, suburban, yuppie mediocrity. His estrangement had become official when I was born and my parents decided they didn’t want my father's family “influencing” me. Most of the family had grudgingly kept their distance. Aunt Persephona hadn’t. She’d sensed the power in me young and decided it was her responsibility to make sure I knew exactly who and what I was. She’d shown up at my parent’s door relentlessly for little “surprise visits” until they’d finally caved and agreed to holidays and an exclusive babysitting arrangement.

  Some of my earliest memories were of raising dead beetles and anoles in her garden on summer afternoons. In particular, I remembered the look on her face the first time I’d brought back a songbird that had crashed into her back window, something she’d struggled to master for years. I was six at the time. She’d been gray and old before she managed anything as big as a house cat. Meanwhile, I’d realized by sophomore year that I needed a job with regular access to dead bodies, when my built-up and uncontrollable powers resurrected all the frogs we were supposed to dissect in AP biology.

  I stayed quiet for a while, letting Persephona have a moment. This was her brother. And I was a little worried about trying to put him back down. The corpses downstairs had been more powered up and active than I’d ever seen, and they’d been much farther away from me. I was a little unsure what to expect from Uncle Ptolemy.

  When Persephona gave me a small nod of permission, I stepped forward to unlock the casket again. She turned her back, shoulders shaking, and I decided not to comment, giving her privacy as I tended to Ptolemy.

  As soon as I opened the casket, he sat up again, though not as forcefully as he had the first time. His jaw dropped open with a long, pungent sigh, and I jumped a little as several cotton balls tumbled out. He’d managed to break the thread suturing his mouth closed. The undead, without specific direction, usually weren’t very strong. They didn’t have the capacity to focus on things that took effort on their own.

  “All right,” I said, shaking off my nerves and reaching for his shoulder. “Let’s just lay back down, first of all.”

  I started to push him back and a nervous chill crept up my spine when he resisted. Stiffly, the dead eighty-year-old sat stubbornly where he was, slowly exhaling noxious corpse breaths. I pushed harder, until Ptolemy put a hand over mine to stop me. I yelped in surprise and pulled away, and before I could dismiss it as a reflexive gesture, the corpse of my great uncle turned to face me, eyes darting behind his glued shut eyelids. I was cognizant of the power I'd poured into him, white-hot and boiling over. It swelled so brightly, it was blinding and deafening.

  And then, with no more ceremony than that, Ptolemy spoke. “The candle,” he said, his voice little more than a rush of dark wind. “Protect the candle. He must not have it.”

  I stared, stunned by the impossibility of what I heard.

  “Tolly?” Aunt Persephona said behind me, her voice trembling.

  In yet another impossibility, Ptolemy smiled at his sister and spoke slowly and deliberately.

  “I had always already forgiven you.”

  And just like that, the energy within him burned out like a firework. He fell back into his casket as though he'd never risen to begin with.

  For a moment my aunt and I just stood there, silently processing. Then I heard Percy sob, shoulders shaking. She buried her face in her hands, crying hard. I didn't know what Ptolemy had forgiven her for. I was preoccupied with the fact that everything I knew about my powers and how they worked had just abruptly changed. I rushed away, heart racing.

  There was one thing I understood about Ptolemy's impossible message. The candle that had caused all this was important. I didn't know who I was protecting it from, but I sure as hell wasn't going to leave it sitting around to end up in the clutches of Georgiana or Roland.

  It was exactly where I'd left it on top of its box in the storage room. It had remained lit, blue flame burning steadily. I hesitated to touch it for a moment but finally forced my fingers forward, wincing. The moment my fingers touched the silver my powers spiked, the sudden increase in sensory information like having the lights turned on after standing in the dark for an hour. But there was no rush of wild power, if only because I was prepared to clamp down on it this time. Dazed, I focused enough to figure out what to do. I needed some way to carry this crazy thing. But I couldn't put it back in the box while it was still lit, could I? I looked warily at the strange blue flam
e and had a deep, instinctive sense that I should not, under any circumstances, try to blow it out. Curious, I ran a finger through the flame. It was warm, like standing in sunlight or holding your hand over the stove, but it didn't burn, no matter how long I kept my hand there. Maybe it wouldn't burn the box either?

  Cautiously, I placed the candle in the velvet lining. The flame turned to remain vertical, but otherwise didn't react, not even to sputter. The velvet didn't smoke or catch or even grow warm. Prepared for the worst, I closed the lid, but whatever magic this candle had prevented it from becoming flammable.

  I tucked the box under my arm and hurried back to the chapel. Aunt Persephona met me at the door.

  “The pallbearers are taking Ptolemy to the hearse,” she said. “Mr. Gould came in to check on us, and I told him you were too overwhelmed. He said you could take the day off, if you needed. He could handle the remaining services himself.”

  “Good,” I said, relieved. “I'm going to need it to figure out what the hell just happened.”

  I headed for the side door of the building to avoid the funeral procession coming together at the back. My car was parked in the back lot, anyway. But as I stepped into the parking lot, I hesitated, then turned left. My senses continued to be weirdly heightened by my proximity to the candle. The presence of death surrounded me, lingering on a threshold nearby, not quite committed yet.

  “Vexa!”

  Aunt Persephona followed me, struggling to keep up as I climbed over a low hedge separating the funeral parlor's lot from the yard next door. I marched past their rusty barbeque grill and half-finished treehouse to the next yard.

  “Go on ahead to the graveyard,” I told my aunt. “I'll be fine.”

  “What are you planning to do?” she asked, hesitating as I dropped to my knees beside a raised deck.

  “First,” I said, setting the box with the candle beside me as I leaned into the dark crawl space beneath the porch, searching blindly. “I'm going to take this cat to the vet.”

  I emerged a second later, holding a limp wet bundle of dark fur. The cat was so weak, it couldn't even fight back, just yowl in pain and fear as my aunt offered me a shawl to wrap it in. It was close to death, but it stubbornly hung on. I held it close, encouraging it to stay here just a little longer. It was badly hurt. The vet might not be able to do much but put it down. But at least it would die peacefully and not in pain.

  “Then,” I said, picking up the box in my other hand and standing up, “I'm going to figure out what the hell is going on.”

  “Give the poor thing here,” Persephona said sadly. “The vet isn't far from here. I'll drop it off on my way to the graveyard. You should get home. I don't think that thing should be out in the open.”

  “Thank you,” I said, putting the cat into my aunt's arms. “You're probably right.”

  “I may know something about whatever it is,” she added, looking at the box strangely. “I'll call you about it later. Just get it home and hide it.”

  “Any idea what we're hiding it from?” I asked, but she just shook her head.

  “Nothing good, I can assure you of that much. Ptolemy always took a dim view of the gift. He wouldn't come back from the dead for nothing.”

  I nodded in understanding, said my goodbyes quickly, and headed back to my car, watching Persephona drive off to the vet. I pulled out, driving quickly back to my apartment, my mind racing with questions and fears. Talking undead, magic candles, ancient princes—my life had always been weird but this was a whole new level. Whatever was going on, I thought, looking at the ebony box sitting in the passenger’s seat, I was going to protect this candle. Ptolemy's words were enough to convince me. But it was more—some kind of connection, like a spider web, hung between me and the flame. Whatever happened to it, I suspected would happen to me also. I'd just have to be extra careful with it.

  A half a second later, the world exploded into glass and pain as a car I never even saw ran a red light at an intersection and slammed directly into the passenger side of the car.

  Chapter 4

  For what felt like a small eternity, my whole world spun, shrieking metal.

  My car spun across the intersection and was clipped by a second vehicle as it swerved to try and get out of the way, sending me spinning the other way and slamming me into the console, the seat belt cutting into me hard enough to draw blood.

  I skidded at last into a ditch, my entire body screaming in pain, particularly my head where it had slammed into my window. The world continued to spin long after I knew the car had stopped. I slipped in and out of darkness, fighting to stay conscious.

  I heard the crunch of glass as someone knocked away the shattered glass in the passenger side window. Through the insistent beat of unconsciousness which matched my heart hammering in my ears, I watched someone reach through the window to take the ebony wood box from the seat. Outrage was too much for me. I could only stare, perplexed and in pain, and let the darkness take me.

  I woke next, only for a moment and much later, to the sound of someone calling out to me. I heard the shriek of metal as my door was wrenched open, and I blinked blearily as an angel leaned over me.

  I'd never believed in angels or the Christian afterlife in general. My existence ran counter to all that. But the person leaning over me right now certainly looked like an angel. He had a broad jaw and brown hair, curly as a cherub by Raphael. His eyes were honey in the light, warm and reassuring. His dark brows were set with concern and his hands were infinitely gentle. He asked me something but I was having a lot of difficulty focusing. I wondered what happened to necromancers when they died.

  He kept talking to me, the murmur of his voice a low, soothing tone that left echoes of a cello suite by Bach playing in my dazed head. Comparing him endlessly to all the loveliest things I'd ever seen was all I was capable of doing. I filled an imaginary museum with things inspired by him. Classical sculptures, celestial arias, sweeping vistas, and the works of the great masters. I may have had a head injury, but damn if I didn't want to stay right there in the car, listening to him forever.

  He decided it was safe to move me and put his arms around me, removing my seat belt and lifting me free of the wreckage of my car. I might have been more excited about being held, considering how awed I was by his face, but being moved was agonizing and I swiftly lost my ability to think about anything except wanting the pain to stop.

  It ebbed when he lay me in the back of an ambulance and lessened further when his partner fitted me with an IV drip of painkillers. I slipped away into darkness again, then back to him holding my hand and saying my name. He had my driver's license in his hand.

  “Vex, uh, Vexatious? That can't be right, can it? Um, Miss Tzarnavaras? Can you hear me?”

  I nodded and regretted it as my neck threatened mutiny.

  “Try not to move,” he said gently. “You were in a car accident.”

  “Not an accident,” I croaked. Even through my confusion, I knew that much. The angel blinked, surprised, and I fought past my heavy tongue and dry throat to elaborate. “Hit me. On purpose. Took my thing.”

  “Thing?”

  I couldn't find the words. I tried to gesture the shape of the box and the candle but it hurt.

  “We'll find your thing,” the angel promised. “Just try not to move.”

  “Berni Dee.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Berni David?” This may be the head injury talking, but he looked like Bernini’s David. It was very important to me that he knew this. More important, even, than my missing thing.

  He laughed, smiling at me. The son of a bitch had dimples.

  “Uh, no, I usually get Michelangelo’s David actually.” The humor in his voice was infectious.

  I waved a dismissive hand. Did I say that part about Bernini out loud? I can’t remember or care.

  “Michelangelo’s David is a twink,” I said, my voice slightly slurred but the words came easier. “You’ve got the raw heroic magnetism of B
ernini. And the hair.”

  “Raw heroic magnetism,” he repeated raising an eyebrow. “Yeah, you’re definitely concussed. Can you answer a few questions for me?”

  “Are they about art history?” I asked. “Because I’m reliving everything I ever learned in my junior AP art course every time I look at your face.”

  “How about we start with what year it is?”

  I answered his string of easy questions for determining cognitive function, bewildered but getting more lucid by the moment and angrier as I realized what had happened. Someone had tried to kill me! Someone had straight up tried to murder me in order to steal the candle! Was it Georgiana? I wouldn't put it past the bitch. But no, she would definitely be at the graveyard, trying to prove she was the only one who deserved an inheritance. She didn't know I'd taken the candle or that it was even important. No one did except me and Aunt Persephona. Was it the mysterious “him” Ptolemy had warned me about? Had I failed already?

  I pulled my focus back to the angel—the EMT—who asked me who the president was, trying to figure out if I had a concussion. I gave him the correct answers with growing impatience, as well as the ones that followed regarding if I was having any pain breathing and if I had feeling in my toes.

  “I think I'm fine,” I told him, more alert now and beginning to be deeply embarrassed about what I’d said while dazed. “Sore as hell, but I'm pretty sure I'm okay.”

  “Well I'm pretty sure you got your shit kicked in there,” he replied with a charmingly crooked smile. “Judging by what was left of your car, you got T-boned by a truck. Hit and run. That can do a lot of damage you can't feel right away.”

  “Seriously,” I said, sitting up despite both he and his partner urging me not to. My neck sent bolts of pain down my back and every part of me ached, but other than that I was okay. “I'm all right, and I really don't have time or money for a hospital visit right now. Is there any chance you could just drop me off at home?”