The Necromancer's House

by Christopher Buehlman

And then I shot it.

  He doesn’t sleep so much as passes out.

  She remembers the part of herself that used to care about more than fucking and swimming and killing and eating fish cold in the lake.

  She enfolds the sleeping magus in her arms, remembers other warm arms that held her once, long ago.

  Clinically notes that this is where she would cry if she did that.

  71

  Andrew wakes to the sound of Salvador barking.

  He had been having a particularly nasty dream in which malign and malformed versions of himself were trying to get into the house.

  “The dog is barking,” he says to Sarah.

  But it’s not Sarah, warm Sarah with her scent of sandalwood.

  It’s a foul-smelling woman with cold feet.

  And Salvador isn’t a dog anymore.

  Except when someone’s trying to get into the house.

  Because that’s part of the spell.

  Glass breaks.

  “Oh fuck!”

  Andrew and the rusalka both sit upright.

  • • •

  The closest thing Andrew ever saw to this was Night of the Living Dead, when the zombies surround the house and stupidly batter their way in. He’s not sure how many there are, but they are most certainly surrounding the house, and one has broken the window in the kitchen door.

  How did it break the window?

  I charmed these windows against breaking.

  Did I drain the magic using other spells?

  The thing is now fumbling with the knob, just about to open the door.

  Salvador, a border collie again, but bigger, more the size of a German shepherd or a big wolf, prepares to lunge.

  Gets confused.

  Because what steps through the door is his master.

  Or, rather, what his master would look like mutated, or slightly melted, naked, dumb and strong. The thing coming through the door is rippling with muscles.

  And so are the ones behind it.

  This is why Salvador missed them.

  Their smell changed.

  When they smelled like me, Sal couldn’t find them in the ground anymore.

  How to fight them?

  Room of skins.

  “Sal! That’s not me! Get ’em!” Andrew says. “Don’t let them get around you!”

  Salvador knocks down the first one, shakes its arm.

  The second one hammer-fists the dog hard enough to make him yelp and let go; the huge dog beats a retreat into the living room.

  Andrew sends Nadia out the way she came, by the front door, but she doesn’t go alone.

  She grabs a not-Andrew by the hair and runs with it for the lake.

  The rest of them mob in.

  “Don’t let them get around you,” one says clumsily.

  “Get around you!” one echoes.

  Andrew runs into the hall, into the room of skins.

  Shoves his thumb under his skin, unzips himself, working as fast as he can.

  Good thing you don’t drink.

  You couldn’t move, think fast enough drunk.

  Move!

  Think!

  “Don’t let ’em get around you,” one says, pounding on the door now. Pounding hard. That’s an oak door, solid, but the frame can’t take much more of that.

  BAM! It goes, and the room shudders.

  “Don’t let them get ’round you!” one says from the kitchen, and lots of things break.

  They’re trashing the fucking house, hurry.

  His skin is off.

  He doesn’t usually have to do this fast.

  He opens the wardrobe on the right.

  Knows which one.

  It burns a lot of magic fuel, though.

  “Don’t let ’em get around you!!!”

  BAM!

  (shudder)

  “’Round you, ’round you!”

  Now out in the living room, a fight in earnest.

  Growling, snarling.

  Get ’em, Sal!

  The flayed man is about to put it on.

  It’s a heavy skin.

  He remembers to open the window.

  One looms in front of the window.

  “Don’t let them get around you!” it says, lunges for Andrew.

  He steps back, sees its fingernails flash, dirty from clawing its way out of the ground.

  It picks up its foot to come in, but a fast, white arm is around its neck. Its eyes bug, a pretty face terrible behind it framed in red dreadlocks, her teeth gritted in pleasure. She giggles while she runs with it, bigger than her, but it might as well be a doll.

  My friend the monster.

  Like me.

  Andrew picks up the skin again, is about to put it on.

  Can’t resist while he still has a mouth, but has to hurry—soon you start to feel your skinlessness and that REALLY hurts, your whole body an open blister.

  But he does say it.

  Yells it through the door.

  “Whoever made me is a giant asshole!”

  On with the skin now.

  His favorite one.

  Oh, it feels good.

  • • •

  Three of them have gathered in the room of skins.

  One stomps on the pelt of their father.

  Two have cornered Sal, are beating him and getting savaged in return. The lake-woman has drowned two and is loping up, hoping to take a third.

  One has gone upstairs.

  “Whoever made me is a giant ASSHOLE!” one says, kicking in the door to the room of skins. The other yells, “Asshole!” in agreement. They are supposed to kill their father. But this room is empty, except for a human pelt that looks strangely like their father.

  In the living room, the dog fights hard but has been injured.

  A broken foreleg.

  One of them gets an idea, sacrifices itself, lets the dog tear its belly open so its brother can grab the dog’s neck.

  Fighting hurts, but it’s better than being in the ground, which is all they have to compare it to.

  The one who got torn open is dying but still kicking at the dog.

  The other is about to kill the dog by twisting its head.

  Although it senses the dog has already died before.

  If the dog dies again, the magic in it will go out; the other thing it is will not move again.

  That would be good.

  Except that it can’t feel its arms or legs anymore because something has it by the neck, yes? Yes. Something much stronger than the dog has broken its neck.

  It sees a piece of the thing, consults its father’s murky bag of facts.

  Dog?

  No.

  Tiger.

  Bengal tiger, native to India.

  They can get up to ten feet long, tail included.

  This one is ten feet long.

  “Whoever made me . . . giant asshole,” it complains.

  And dies.

  • • •

  The tiger goes through the three in the room of skins like they’re nothing. They are nothing next to the five-hundred-pound cat, which twists heads, rakes out insides, and bites off limbs with the ruthlessness of a wild animal and the tactical savvy of a man. It takes less than a minute.

  Worrisome that one of them had the man-pelt in its hand, but Andrew-in-the-tiger will think about that later.

  Thinking like a man is harder in the tiger; tiger essence is truly dominant, and much less manlike than bear is.

  Andrew-in-the tiger licks his gory chops, yawns a big, tongue-curling yawn (it has been a very long night, after all), licks the injured dog in the living room, who licks him back, and then smells with his tiger nose.

  One more.

 
; Upstairs.

  In the library!

  Must kill it!

  Big books there!

  • • •

  Up the stairs.

  Library door is open.

  The last not-Andrew stands there, dirty and nude, looking around, not touching anything.

  Its eyes shine blue.

  It isn’t like the others.

  When it sees the tiger stalk in, it smiles.

  The tiger was about to launch itself on the little monkey-thing, but something about its smile, its luminous blue eyes makes the tiger stop.

  Andrew-in-the-tiger growls, though it feels doubt.

  Like it hasn’t felt since it met an elephant in 1913, the day it was shot.

  “Congratulations,” not-Andrew says.

  Andrew’s voice, but thicker.

  Slavic accent.

  The tiger’s growl rolls on, continuous.

  “You passed the test. Now the fight begins. You are a very pretty man. I wonder if you are too pretty to fight? Pretty or ugly, here is what you have to look forward to.”

  It reaches down now and, with some difficulty, yanks off its own testicles.

  Begins to eat them.

  Holy shit! NOOOO! Andrew-in-the-tiger thinks.

  Tiger-around-Andrew thinks I was going to do that!

  The tiger pounces.

  Finishes things.

  Drags it out of the library.

  Down the stairs.

  Outside.

  • • •

  “Oh no,” Andrew says, looking in the mirror.

  Even in the yellow brass he can see how bad it is.

  “Oh Christ.”

  72

  “What happened to you?”

  This is Bob, just outside the church before the AA meeting.

  His normally huge smile has been shelved, his twinkling eyes now radiating sincere concern. A few of the others hover near.

  “I got mugged.”

  He looks like he got mugged, all right.

  On his way back from getting run over by an ice-cream truck.

  “Where?” the bottle-red mom asks.

  “Syracuse. Clinton Street.”

  They all nod.

  When the others walk away, Bob says, “If you need anything, and I mean anything, don’t be shy about asking me. Okay?”

  “Thanks, Bob.”

  That night is an open meeting. Friends, the curious, anybody who wants to show up can. Not the best night for Andrew to come in looking like a lopsided eggplant who ran halfway out of hair dye, but he needs this tonight. Now. He had slept all day, nearly got talked into going to the emergency room by Chancho, decided against it, but then Chancho mentioned the meeting and Andrew had nodded, holding frozen peas against the side of his face and drooling.

  The bruising was wretched, covered what seemed like a third of his body. Getting his cast-off epidermis stomped against the hardwood floor by a Neanderthal version of himself had spared him broken bones and damaged connective tissue, but when he suited back up he started bleeding in six places and the swelling was horrible. His left eye swelled shut, the right one nearly so. He looked a bit like the raccoon he had seen running with the bag of eggs.

  First he had seen to Salvador, who swiftly ran out of alarm-triggered dog-magic and changed back into wicker. That had been hard to watch, but then so had a lot of things. At least a wicker arm was easier to fix than a dog’s broken foreleg.

  Then Sal helped him, got him ice, a bag of frozen peas and ibuprofen, sat with him rotating the ice and peas.

  He watched Nadia drag one lumpy, dead Andrew after another out into the lake, far into the lake.

  Tiger-killed bodies make a big mess.

  Salvador mopped first, and that took some time. Then he spread stain-removing goop on the oriental runner rugs in the hallway, only one of which would probably be salvageable. In the kitchen, he gathered the broken shards of the coffeepot, plates, and glassware, trashed the wrecked blender, as well as the coffee table and several nonmagical statues. He had just been duct-taping plastic sheeting over the kitchen door window when Chancho came over.

  Made a face when Salvador opened the door on Andrew.

  Some at the AA meeting had made the same face when he walked in. He felt like the Elephant Man.

  The looky-loos are thinking I’ve been in a car wreck, gotten in a drunken fight. Okay, I have done those things, but not last night. It’s okay. Let them look. Let them think they’re not as bad as me, therefore they’re just fine, because if you’re still playing that game you probably haven’t hit bottom yet, won’t make it stick. Some can, but not most.

  I almost died last night.

  Would have died if I had a bottle of wine in me.

  That was.

  Awful.

  I need to get out of this.

  But first I have to get ready for her.

  The niece, the relative.

  She’s so fucking strong.

  And she found me.

  How?

  His eyes widen as far as they can in their catcher’s mitt of bruises.

  The Jehovah’s fucking Witnesses.

  She saw them canvassing, maybe they even ding-donged her wherever she is and she charmed them.

  Got them to deliver her magic payload.

  It’s only starting.

  I could run, but where?

  She found me here, she’ll find me again, only next time I won’t be in my own house, on my land. Terroir isn’t just important for grapes; it’s important for users. We take strength from our own land; it’s why so many here have at least a pinch of Indian blood.

  Flee or dig in?

  I could abandon my books, give up magic, go back to Ohio. Or anywhere. She’d like that . . . to take my library without a fight, then find me cowering in Enon and pinch me between her thumbnails like a flea. Crucify me and hang me upside down at the Apple Butter Festival as a big Fuck you to Christ, Ohio, and apple pie. I could fight her on the Adena mound, but with what? Dead porcupine guy wouldn’t help me; I peed on his grave.

  • • •

  Chancho nudges Andrew, whispers in his ear.

  “Hey, brujo, you dreamin’? At least look like you care—this guy’s talkin’ about his mom who beat him up.”

  A guy with a curly red frizz of hair and one of those necks that looks like it has an extra joint in it,

  a neck like the pipe under a sink

  is talking about his mom who would huff gas and drink cheap gin and sometimes work him over with a toilet plunger, but he got away from her and went to college, where he, too, started drinking and found out he couldn’t stop.

  Andrew writes on his coffee napkin.

  Chancho grunts, then writes back.

  Andrew flips the napkin.

  Toilet plunger mom?

  wtf is wrong w/people?

  THEY SUCK!!!!

  ALL EXEPT JÉSUS

  he’s not a people

  PAY ATENCION TO DUDE

  he looks like Art Garfunkle

  YOU LOOK LIKE A TURD

  A Turd? Really?

  PORPLE TURD

  Now they’re both trying not to laugh.

  Chancho bites the inside of his cheek so hard a tear falls down his face.

  • • •

  After the meeting, the DUI guy from before, the ejecta from the Lexus, approaches Andrew at the doughnut box. Andrew isn’t hungry, but he’s standing next to Chancho, who is tucking half a cruller into his mouth.

  “Andrew? Right?”

  “Yep.”

  “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Jim. Here’s my card. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  SIMKO, MOSS and MCALLEN

  Jim Simko, PA


  When you need a voice

  Now it clicks.

  He’s seen this guy’s obnoxious commercials; his billboards are all over Rochester.

  An ambulance chaser of the first house.

  Probably sidestepped the DUI conviction, used his own dark magic to transmute it into reckless driving, but the AA meetings?

  Judge wouldn’t budge.

  I got a card because I look like a PORPLE TURD.

  He manages not to laugh.

  He manages not to say three words in Aramaic that would make Jim Simko have a minor seizure in court tomorrow, voiding bladder and bowels.

  Ten years ago he would have said those words.

  Last night, in his tiger suit, he would have cheerfully batted half the lawyer’s face off, then sat on his legs and watched him expire, because tigers are all about impulse.

  Now he just takes the card, puts it in his back pocket where he knows it will get mushed into a ball in the washing machine.

  I don’t like this guy, I don’t have to like this guy, but I have no right to judge him. He’s doing the best he knows how, just like me.

  Oh, but he is a smug bastard, isn’t he?

  Stop hanging good or bad on everything.

  He just is.

  Like that killing bitch who’s after you.

  No, you can’t suburban-Buddha your way out of this one.

  No gray area on her.

  She’s bad.

  She’s really, really bad.

  And she’s not going to walk away from this unhurt.

  He should give her the card.

  “Thanks, Jim,” he says.

  Follows still-chewing Chancho outside to smoke.

  Pats Bob gently on the back on his way out.

  I’m not running.

  I’m digging in like a goddamned badger.

  73

  Andrew hasn’t been on the Internet in a while.

  He logs in, holding frozen okra to his head.

  He’s had the okra for a while because he’s meant to make gumbo, but hasn’t gotten around to it. Okra works almost as well as peas, but he ate the peas.

  It delights him to see an e-mail from Radha in his inbox.

  Chicagohoney85: The car is bombdiggity. Radha is a happy girl. Do you know, I parked it past the ‘no parking to corner’ sign right on Clark Street and left it ALL DAY. No tickets, nothing. Just some dude who saw me going into the coffee shop left me a note on the wiper, drew a flower on it, a good flower, and his phone number and website. An actor. Has his own website but hasn’t really done anything yet except for some wretched naked musical at the Bailiwick. Which my friends call the Gailywick because everything there is Gay-oriented and sucks. Not very PC, but it’s kinda funny. Gay people call it the Gailywick, too, so it’s probably OK.