Limbo's Child (Book One of The Dead Things Series)

by Jonah Hewitt

  “But what are they?”

  “Condemned souls, forced to eat coprses. Especially useful when fighting the undead. More effective on some varieties than others.” He took an odd look at Miles.

  Lucy looked around at the strange ghouls in near total confusion. “But…how…did they…”

  “Enough,” Moríro said impatiently. “Bite your knuckle!” he ordered suddenly.

  “W-what?!” Lucy staggered back in horror at the command.

  “Bite your knuckle,” he repeated emphatically.

  “But…but why?”

  “The life essence is found in a necromancer’s blood. It has the power used to summon spirits and other things. They were summoned with blood; they need blood to be put back.”

  “But bite my own knuckle?! With my teeth?! Why can’t we find a pin or a knife or …”

  “You can easily be separated from a pin or a knife,” the Necromancer interrupted, “but it’s much harder for someone to separate you from your teeth. In the midst of a battle you do not want to be scrambling around looking for a sharp implement! Your teeth are always at the ready.”

  Lucy looked cautiously at her own knuckle as if someone were asking her to eat a live frog.

  “Why can’t you bite your own knuckle? You did it before.”

  “Lucia Clarissa Francesca Estafania Zephorah Candelaria Valda de Vasca y Hoffenstedter Holveda Miller!” the Necromancer yelled furiously. Lucy cringed. He said the whole name effortlessly without hesitation. He sounded just like her mother when he spoke like that. Miles even took a step back when he said it. “Look around you! The stone lantern, the plants your mother planted, the bell on the porch that drives away demons, the red paint on the door! Everything, EVERYTHING!” he calmed himself down and continued, “Everything about this place was designed for the protection of the order, of the family, and for your protection. Did you think you’re mother went out every night to this lantern just to light candles for the ambience?!”

  “What?” Lucy replied weakly.

  Moríro lunged forward and grabbed her by her wrist and pressed her hand firmly to the stone lantern.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” she screamed. Miles took a step forward, but Sky held him back.

  “THIS, LUCIA! THIS!” His eyes flashed rage, but his tone softened, “This is your mother’s blood. And it kept you safe and the spirits trapped inside ever at the ready.”

  Lucy looked down at her hand, which Moríro was holding to the stone lantern by her wrist. Between her white outstretched fingers she could see the brown drip stains that she had always assumed were just weathering. Moríro let go his grip on her wrist, but Lucy kept her hand on her mother’s bloodstains. How long had she been doing it? The whole year they had been there?! Longer? The whole time they had lived in Texas? She had never even noticed.

  “We were very lucky,” Moríro continued. Lucy turned her ear in his direction but couldn’t look away from where her hand laid over her mother’s blood. “I wasn’t certain they would acknowledge my blood at all, but they must have recognized the family resemblance.” Lucy looked up at him. “Now they must recognize your blood and be bonded to your command.”

  Lucy took her hand away and looked at her white knuckle. Miles and the boys leaned in to see what she would do.

  “Bite the knuckle. Hard,” Moríro said without any feeling, “The skin is thin there and the wound will bleed for a while before closing, giving you the time you need to work the spell.”

  She always hated how skinned knuckles bled for a long time. She never thought it would ever come in handy.

  She took the second knuckle of her index finger on her left hand in her own right hand like a person might take a chicken leg. She wondered if her mom ever did this. She had never noticed any scars on her fingers before. She continued to look at it as if it was a hot dog with maggots, but she couldn’t force herself to move the last six inches and take the bite. Finally, she just screwed up her face, closed her eyes and did it, biting down hard. There was a sharp sting and a spurt of warm and acrid tasting liquid in her mouth.

  “Good,” Moríro said simply. He grabbed her left hand and dragged the knuckle unceremoniously over the lantern. The granite of the lantern was rough and Moríro pressed down too hard, needlessly taking off even more skin. She didn’t dare say “ouch,” however. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

  “Now we must see if they will obey you.”

  “How will I…” she began, but he cut her off.

  “SHH!!” he hushed her. Even now some of the ghosts were snapping around the edges of Miles and Sky, so Lucy could understand his urgency.

  “Repeat after me,” he said abruptly, “Jikininki voltai.”

  “Ji-nink…”

  “JI-KI-NIN-KI!” he repeated each syllable impatiently.

  “Fine!” she yelled back, “JI-KI-NIN-KI!!”

  “You must say it correctly!” he responded testily, “Every time!”

  “Why does it matter so much?!”

  “Because those are the words the spell was sealed with originally.”

  “And that matters?”

  “Of course!” he yelled.

  “OK!” she replied, “What does it mean? What language is this anway?! Japanese?”

  “Jikininki is Japanese. It means ‘man-eating ghost.’ ‘Voltai’ is Portuguese. It means ‘return.’”

  “Portuguese?!” Lucy asked, confused, “Why Portuguese?”

  “Because our ancestor who originally retrieved the lantern from Japan and created this spell was Portuguese, of course!”

  “But then why not say ‘man-eating ghost’ in Portuguese?”

  “Because there is no word for jikininki in Portuguese!” he bellowed as if this were obvious, “When you make your own spells you may bind them in whatever vulgar tongue you prefer! But for now, you will use the language I tell you to!” he yelled this impatiently in a way that indicated he would suffer no further argument on this matter.

  Lucy sighed.

  “Now say it together. Jikininki voltai,” Moríro dictated once more.

  “Ji-ki-nin-ki vol-tai,” she said every syllable distinctly. Nothing happened. The ghosts were swirling overhead, but they were getting a little too nippy with Miles and Sky.

  “Try again,” Moríro suggested, “Concentrate. Exercise your will over them. Bind them to your blood. You carry the blood of your mother. They will listen.”

  Lucy concentrated, though she had no idea what she was supposed to concentrate on. She closed her eyes and put her hand on the stone lantern. She didn’t know if this was protocol or not, but it “felt” right.

  “Jikininki voltai,” she said again. For a moment there was nothing. Then a wooshing sound grew. She opened her eyes. It was like a small, blue tornado had appeared over the stone lantern. It was sucking the ghosts in, but they didn’t seem too happy about it. They went screaming out curses. Lucy was certain she learned some other new Japanese words that night. The wind didn’t affect anything other than the gnashing Japanese ghosts. It blew them around violently, but not so much as a blade of grass swayed. With one last, pulsating blast of the blue flame in the lantern, they were gone, the light extinguished. Lucy looked around. Moríro had a half-smile on his face. The boys seemed impressed. Even the duck-monster thing tearing up the garden had stopped wrecking it long enough to look up.

  “Good,” Moríro said, “Now they are bound to you and will come when you call in time of need. You must refresh the spell with your own blood to further bind them to you and none else.”

  She opened her mouth to ask how often, but he raised a finger to silence her. “ONLY Call on them in extreme need! And return them to the lantern once they have served their purpose.” Moríro straightened up and put his hands behind his back in an officious manner. “You already know how to return them. To summon them simply say, ‘Jikininki vinde’ in a commanding voice.”

  “Jikininki…” she began.

  “DO NOT SAY IT NOW!
” Moríro intoned ominously.

  “I wasn’t!” she said defensively, but she really wasn’t sure if she was about to or not. She felt so stupid.

  Moríro narrowed his eyes at her but said nothing more about it. He turned to look at where the boys were loitering nearby. The second he looked at them they all turned away guiltily and looked up or down at their shoes like they were embarrassed to admit they had been eavesdropping the whole time. Moríro fixed his gaze first on the two vampires and Tim, but he settled on the odd boy now with them. Lucy had never been able to get a clear look at him before, but now that she saw him he was odd. His head was shaved except for one lock of hair on the right side. He wore white robes and heavy eyeliner. He was fidgeting about nervously as if uncertain what to do. Moríro’s glance moved from him to the pig-duck with spines cavorting about at the other end of the garden. His look of disgust and shock spoke volumes.

  “No es possible!” he muttered to himself, followed by some curses in Spanish and several other languages while he stormed around in a mad circle. Lucy couldn’t understand most of it thankfully, something awful sounding in some Eastern European language she guessed. Lucy was certain her mother wouldn’t approve of the education she was getting. Moríro broke from his frenzy to stare at the horrid little monster in the garden once more.

  “Phhhhphttt-hoonk!” it gave him a bloody raspberry from its anteater-like nose and then shot phlegm from all three pipes on its back.

  “Stay here,” Moríro said to Lucy without looking at her, “I have to find some answers of my own.” He strode off directly towards the boys who had withdrawn back to the pickup and were milling around like any group of bored teenagers in a small town, leaving Lucy in the garden alone with that vile thing rooting around in what was left of her mother’s purple nightshade.

  “Harnt-harnt-harnt” it chortled at her. Her rage got the best of her.

  “GET THE HECK OUT OF MY MOM’S GARDEN!!” she impulsively screamed at it, and it instantly yelped like a kicked dog and ran off to hide under the porch. Its reaction surprised her. She hadn’t expected it would be cowed so easily.

  Sky hit Miles on the arm as Moríro marched over to them and the three of them straightened up like recruits awaiting inspection.

  “Why are you still alive?” he yelled at them before he had even finished walking. Miles, Tim and Sky exchanged nervous glances uncertain who he was talking to until he stopped dead in front of Miles. Sky and Tim stepped aside somehow glad not to be the focus of the Necromancer’s rage. Miles looked nervously from side to side not sure how to answer the question.

  “WELL?!!” Moríro demanded a quick reply.

  Miles winced and said the first thing to come to his mind, “Well, because I ain’t dead yet, I reckon.” Sky snorted to avoid bursting out into open laughter, but the Necromancer was not amused.

  “I’ve seen Amarantha decimate hordes of the undead with little effort. How is it that you survived more than five minutes?!”

  “I…I don’t know,” he stammered. Miles looked nervously from Tim to Sky. Tim just shrugged but Sky was considering Miles coolly, twisting the lollipop stick slowly in his mouth.

  “And why did you delay in bringing me the girl? And you!” he pointed to Tim who cringed, “You shouldn’t even be here! You are the sorriest lot of minions Hokharty has ever produced!!” he said, flailing his arms in agitation. “You should have been here hours ago!” He stormed off again back in the direction of Lucy, cursing in Spanish and other languages when Miles realized the Necromancer had just said something curious.

  “Oy! But Hokharty didna tell us to brin’ her here,” Miles shot out after him.

  Moríro stopped mid-step and went silent. Then he quickly turned back to face Miles nose to nose.

  “What did you say?” Moríro was so close to Miles’ face, Miles had to pull back to focus his eyes.

  “Aye. Hokharty didna tell us to brin’ her here.”

  Moríro seemed genuinely shocked. “Where then?!”

  “Um…Rivenden,” Tim offered when Miles seem too flustered by the question to speak.

  “Rivenden?” Moríro said, stunned. “RIVENDEN!” he repeated, this time enraged. “He told you to take her to Wallach, that monster?!”

  “Wallach’s dead,” Schuyler said flatly. He was finally joining the conversation, narrowing his eyes but he never stopped twirling the lollipop stick. Miles could tell he was putting puzzle pieces together, but what it all meant was still a mystery to Miles. “Hokharty killed him,” Schuyler went on. “Turned him into kindling, as a matter of fact,” he added casually. This seemed to genuinely startle the old man, but Schuyler wasn’t finished, “Hokharty just sent us to bring her back to Rivenden. We had no idea this place even existed. In fact,” Schuyler smiled and paused, “We wouldn’t have even found this place had we not run into someone else.” He twirled the lollipop some more. Sky didn’t have to add anything else for the Necromancer to get the point. Moríro’s gaze was already fixing on Nephys, who had been hiding somewhere behind the pickup ever since the Necromancer walked over to them.

  As the Necromancer approached him, Nephys didn’t know how to respond. The tall, austere man in the long, olive-drab overcoat gave nearly the same impression as the Chamberlain: mysterious, serious, deadly, and not to be underestimated. His boots came to a halt right in front of Nephys with a crunch on the gravel.

  “Come out,” he said in a stern fashion.

  Nephys nervously complied and slowly came out from his hiding place but he only stared down at his sandals.

  “Look at me!” the Necromancer commanded.

  Nephys willed his eyes to look upward. Past the hard face of the Necromancer he could see the other three boys and a little further off, Lucy standing in the garden.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Nephys,” he replied. Then decided to add, “Necromancer…sir,” In order to not seem impolite. He even bowed a little. The Necromancer raised an eyebrow at this. It seemed he wasn’t used to this sort of treatment, though he seemed to respect Nephys’ efforts. His tone was less harsh after that.

  “And where do you come from, Nephys?” The Necromancer had no trouble in pronouncing his name.

  “From Limbo…Necromancer…sir.” He had no idea if he was being sufficiently deferential or not. All the others seemed quite informal with the Necromancer, rude even, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

  “Limbo?” The Necromancer seemed doubtful.

  “No es possible!” he muttered to himself, “And this diablillo?” the Necromancer continued, gesturing to where Hiero was digging into the underside of the wooden steps with his butcher knife.

  “Oh. That’s Hiero. He’s a set of bagpipes, he’s um…he’s my imp…um…Necromancer.” Nephys bowed again just to be careful.

  “Imposible!” the Necromancer said to himself again, biting his thumb this time. “No imp has ever set foot on the world above! No es posible!” He walked a short distance away and looked closely at the imp who was hiding under the porch steps and only emerged to give an obscene raspberry.

  Tim tapped Sky on the shoulder and whispered to him in a mock Spanish accent, “You keep using that word…I do not think it means…oof.” Sky thumped him hard in the stomach before he could finish.

  The Necromancer kept biting his thumb and paced in a tight circle before his piercing gaze met Nephys’ eyes once more. He walked back over towards him and lowered himself to examine the boy. He reached forward a hand towards the boy’s neck as he narrowed his eyes. His hand stopped just a few inches away from Nephy’s neck wound, and his eyes dilated slightly. Then he slowly withdrew the hand as a look of wonder and mild astonishment came across his face.

  “Incredíble!” He quickly reached down for Nephys’ hands and examined them back and front, then he felt his arms and placed a hand on his chest and back, as if feeling for a pulse, examining him the way a doctor might. It was rather rough and made Nephys feel very uncomfortable. As he did so
he muttered things to himself, not in Spanish, but rather in Egyptian, Greek, Latin and even Summerian, “Yib, anima, numen, shi, genius, psyche, ka, pneumata, sheunt, ren, corpus…” He was running down a checklist of all the many parts of the human soul. Finally, he dropped his hands and looked up at Nephys intently.

  “Es cierto!” he whispered, “You really are from the underworld, aren’t you?”

  Nephys nodded.

  “Pero como?” he asked pensively.

  “T-through the Gates of Erebus…Necromancer,” Nephys replied respectfully. He had transcribed a first edition of Cervantes’ Don Quixote so he understood what the Necromancer meant.

  Moríro looked at Nephys curiously and held the lower half of his face in one hand as a man utterly perplexed. “Not since the days of Dante has such a tale been told, but how did you manage it?” He was speaking more to himself than to Nephys, and Nephys wasn’t certain if he should respond. Thankfully, he didn’t wait for an answer but stood up immediately and adopted the more formal and cold tone of an interrogator.

  “Why are you here?”

  Embarrassed, Nephys suddenly realized the purpose for which he was sent in the first place. He had been through so much in the last few hours, he had nearly forgotten. He reached into his robes and felt around carefully for the small pebble. Good, it was still there. He wouldn’t have known what to do if he had lost it in the battle. He held it tightly in his fist and then stretched forth his hand.

  “I was told to give you this,” Nephys said. The Necromancer looked at the clenched fist and then cupped his own hand underneath it. “I was told you were in danger,” Nephys went on. “I was told that the balance between our worlds was nearly broken and that you needed it to restore the balance. I…I was told it would help you.” Nephys willed himself to let it go, but realized a moment later that his hand was still clutched tightly around it and everyone was looking at him. Nephys thought about the light and warmth of the stone. He wished he didn’t have to give it up so soon, but he took a breath and opened his fist. The bright green light burst forth and the stone tumbled slowly a few short inches through the air until it came to a rest in the worn and lined palm of the Necromancer’s outstretched hand.