The Fourth Channel (Kari Hunter Series Book 1)

by Jen Kirchner

  The knife in my hand sensed my frustration and started yelling louder in my head.

  Stab him in the gluteus medius! Poke him in the flexor carpi ulnaris! Stick him, uh, anywhere!

  Ryan started laughing hard again. Between him and the knife, I was developing a sizable headache.

  Brad knocked on the table, demanding our attention. “Sit down, Ryan. Things are going to change now that you know.”

  Ryan rolled his eyes.

  “This is a big deal,” I said. “The only other person I’ve told is Nicolas.”

  Ryan turned to Nicolas and lifted an eyebrow. “You really believed her?”

  I wasn’t sure what look I was giving Ryan, but it made him laugh harder.

  That was it. I had had enough. Besides, we didn’t have time to argue—we had a publicity party to get to. I took a half step forward and stretched my free hand toward Ryan. I felt a faint tug in my palm. A black cloud burst around me, swirling like a torrent.

  Ryan’s smile faltered.

  Brad’s head snapped in my direction. “Wait!”

  With the slightest gesture of my fingers, I sent Ryan’s soul away from his body. A shadow slid over his physical shell like a tube. A golden cord sprouted from his chest, wound down around his body, and disappeared into the linoleum. I waited a few seconds; when the cord at his chest flared brightly, I knew it was done. Ryan’s soul was on the plane of the dead.

  You should have gone with my incredible stabbing plan.

  Brad ran a hand through his short, blond hair, causing every strand to stand on end. “I thought we said we weren’t going to do that.”

  I returned the knife to the drawer and said, “I’m sorry. He didn’t believe me.”

  Nicolas snorted and pointed at Ryan’s shrouded, frozen form. “He definitely believes you now.”

  TWO

  “So now what?” Nicolas asked.

  Stab Brad in the vastus medialis, that’s what!

  I looked down at the knife. “That’s above the knee, dummy.”

  Damn.

  I kicked the drawer shut.

  Brad pointed at Ryan’s body. “We should get down there now.”

  “I’ll join you two in a minute,” I said. “Just make sure Ryan doesn’t touch the water.”

  The guys lined up against the wall and I killed them. Well, I pseudo-killed them. Technically they were alive; their souls were just away from the physical realm. It was a trick that got me around having to sacrifice people. I waited for their golden soul cords to flash, then I knew they had arrived.

  Now it was my turn. A simple gesture would also send my soul to the deathly plane, though I would arrive at the spot I had last left—and that was nowhere near Ryan, Nicolas, and Brad. Getting to them was going to take me a few extra steps.

  I gestured at my feet, summoning a circle of black hashes and dots on the linoleum. These marks were a rudimentary numeral system that reflected the coordinates to my last location. I could have changed the location, but it involved slicing up my own finger and smearing my blood all over the floor. Normally I didn’t mind, but today I wasn’t dressed for it.

  I held out my hands, palms down. Magical energy rolled up over me, thick and oppressive, pulling on my arms, ready for my command. I twisted my fingers in an awkward gesture.

  My soul was violently ripped from my body and sucked downward into a soundless well of shadow and mist. Heat no longer registered, colors muted and darkened, and my ears were plugged by the frightening silence of a vacuum. My eyes needed a few seconds before adjusting to the dimness of the transcendental plane known as The Floor.

  I stood on dry, cracked stone, surrounded by bone-white roots that twisted and intertwined around me like snakes, arcing high overhead and plunging back into the rock. The tree trunk was near, just a short climb over a few roots. Its stark white stalk towered above and its branches were millions of skeletal fingers disappearing into the misty ceiling. Just behind me, a massive shimmering wall, reflecting a distorted version of the landscape, stretched from the stone ground to the sky.

  When I moved around the roots, I was very careful of where I stepped. The wall was one of very few landmarks on The Floor, and the most important, as it marked the point of no return. A soul that drifted past it could never be brought back to the land of the living. Not even by me. Although I stood near the tree trunk, I could feel the wall’s pull. My hair fluttered in an unfelt wind and trailed behind me in its direction. The nearer I got, the stronger the pull became.

  Luckily, all of my pseudo-sacrifices were on the opposite side of The Floor, safely away from here. Just to make sure, I climbed up onto a tree root for a better look. Spread out before me was a stark, sepia landscape dotted by a million dark shadows—the souls of the dead. They couldn’t walk; their feet were affixed together and floating above the ground. Their bodies drifted against their will toward the point of no return.

  Except for three. Beyond the shadows and across a black river, I spotted three golden cords, like beaming streams of sunlight in the distance, stretching up into the mist.

  I looked where I wanted to go and gestured with one hand. A small burst of black ether swarmed around me and suddenly I was standing next to the guys on the bank of the river Styx. This side of the river was special, designated for necromancer sacrifices only. It functioned much differently than the rest of The Floor.

  When I materialized in a cloud of smoke, Ryan jumped a foot in the air and tried yelling at me, but his voice was sucked into the void. Halfway through his sentence, his mouth stopped moving and just hung open. I followed his gaze behind me, to the Styx.

  The black water was more intimidating than the Greek myth implied. It coursed slowly and pulsed at random intervals, throbbing like a rotten artery. Standing so close made me feel sick. The Styx powered the craft of voodoo, the enemy of necromancy. One drop would incapacitate me and any more would kill me.

  The mist hovering over the river stirred. A dark form began to take shape as it neared, boxy and rigid, gliding on the surface of the water. The craft was wooden and crude. No seats. No adornment. The ride into the afterlife was not done in style. A lone figure stood in the back, pushing the craft along with a staff. From this distance, he almost looked human.

  The boat tapped against the shore and slid onto the rock. Staff in hand, the ferryman glided out. Ryan took a step back.

  I had grown used to the ferryman's otherworldly appearance. His skin stretched so tightly around his skull he could barely emote. Deep, eyeless sockets dimpled his face, his nose just a small speed bump. A thin smile seemed fixed on his face. His arms were a little too long and his fingers even more so, spiraling around the staff like mealworms. He hugged me gently then gestured with one thin hand toward the craft. The unspoken question was for the guys: Are you ready to cross over into the land of the dead?

  Apparently that was too much for Ryan, who turned around and ran off in the opposite direction. We all watched him fade away in the distance, and then, just before disappearing from sight, he came running in from the left. Confused and panicked, he turned around again and ran. I hadn’t had a chance to tell him that this side of the river was an infinite loop.

  Brad turned to me, frowning and shaking his head. He pointed upward.

  I gestured a twisted, complicated movement, returning all three guys to their bodies. They shot upward in a blur of golden light.

  The ferryman and I waved our goodbyes, then I released my soul from the plane. I felt myself jerked upward. My ears popped. A thousand tiny lights streaked before my eyes…

  My phone was ringing, but I ignored it. I was too distracted by Ryan, who was practically climbing up the wall in a panic. It took him a few seconds but he finally realized he was back in my basement. He pressed his back against the wall as if he couldn’t get far enough away from me.

  “It’s true,” he said. “You are a necromancer.”

  “Technically, it’s called the fourth channel,” I said, trying to soften h
is shock. “But you know me, Ryan. I’m not going to sacrifice anyone.” He still looked a little unsure, so I added, “Ever.”

  He nodded slowly, digesting it all. Finally, his shoulders relaxed. Everyone seemed to take a collective sigh of relief.

  Ryan raised an eyebrow. His voice reflected morbid curiosity. “Can you do anything cool?”

  “Well,” I started to say, but Brad cut me off with a derisive laugh. “Necromancers trade human sacrifices for power. Kari doesn’t kill people, so she can’t cast spells.”

  “But she had to kill someone,” Ryan reasoned. “A potential necromancer has to sacrifice before they can use any power. And that out-of-body trip we just took means she sacrificed.”

  Wait. Did Brad call me inept?

  “It was self-defense, not sacrifice,” Brad said. “But it still took.”

  “Really? What happened?”

  “Remember that car accident when she was a kid? The one that killed her biological father?”

  Ryan’s eyes widened to the size of softballs. “Oh my God, she killed her dad?”

  “Biological father,” Brad corrected. “She has a better dad.”

  Nicolas piped up. “And speaking of her superior dad, if you ever tell anyone that Kari’s fourth channel, her dad will kill you and not think twice about it. No joke.”

  “Yeah,” Brad said, “he wants to talk to you before we leave so he can scare the crap out of you personally.”

  Ryan turned to me, looking rightfully worried. “Who’s your dad?”

  Unfortunately, I was still stuck back at the beginning of the conversation when my competency had been called into question. I may not sacrifice people like the other two necromancers have, but I didn’t suck, either.

  “Hey!” I snapped. “I can do things!”

  Heads turned in my direction, startled at my outburst. Nicolas reached over and patted my shoulder soothingly.

  “I’m serious!” I knew I was overreacting, but I couldn’t help it. The last year and a half had been a fight to prove our quartet was still relevant and that I, the band’s front-woman, was still cool and capable. The topic was starting to wear on me. Hopefully tonight would prove to the world that we still had it where it counted. Until then, I didn’t want anyone questioning my moxie.

  I reached over and slapped Brad on the shoulder. “Tell him I can do cool things.”

  He sighed. “It’s true. She can almost kind of do a cool thing.”

  I gave Brad my meanest glare and marched to the back wall. In the left corner, the cabinets and counter didn’t quite meet the metal-plated wall; there was a small space left for an innocuous electrical socket. I bent down and reached for the socket. My fingernails caught the edge and I flipped the plastic cover plate up. The sockets were fake too, and flipped up with it, revealing smooth wall and a red button. I pressed the button. A soft click echoed within the wall. The center metal panels receded and slid to the left, revealing a steel-walled panic room.

  Inside, metal drawers covered the entire right wall and another set of black posts stood in the corners. A square video monitor was set into a wall with a panel of buttons beneath. In the left corner, a rolling cart carried a television and DVD player, along with an overflowing movie collection.

  As soon as the door cracked open, a flood of foreign thoughts invaded my head, all shouting for attention—insults, assurances of being the best stabber, requests for TV time, and one demand to stab Brad in the big toe.

  “Wow,” Ryan said.

  I went directly to the drawer the telepathic yelling was coming from and pulled it open. It was packed with stacks of photo albums and spiral notebooks. On top of the stacks was a wooden cutlery box. The shouting was coming from inside. Next to the box was a rolled-up piece of butcher paper and a shiny, black sphere the size of a golf ball. A soft, white light pulsed in the sphere’s center. I grabbed the topmost spiral notebook—it had “Symbols” written neatly on the front—along with the roll of butcher paper and the sphere. As I was digging around the bottom of the drawer for a pencil, my phone started ringing again.

  Brad asked, “Do you want me to get that?”

  “No.”

  Right now, proving my skill was more important. Sure, I had never sacrificed anyone and therefore had zero spells of my own, but that was by choice. I was useless, not incompetent. There’s a difference.

  The phone rang three times and the speakers in the panic room clicked on. I heard my own voice speaking plainly.

  “Hi, this is Kari Hunter. I can’t come to the phone right now—”

  The caller hung up and my answering machine abruptly cut off.

  The previous owner had the land line hooked up to the panic room. I could never figure out how to disconnect it from the speakers. Every time a phone call interrupted the knives’ TV time, they complained, but I couldn’t afford the risk of having a service worker in here. It defeated the purpose of a secret room.

  My fingers finally found a pencil. I grabbed it and carried my haul out to the table. Ryan picked up the pulsing sphere.

  “Necromancer sphere, right? You make knives and stuff from this.”

  “I have way too many knives. Now I use spheres for something else.”

  I unrolled the butcher paper, revealing a map I had made of The Floor. Grid lines were drawn in pencil. The river Styx and the white tree were drawn with a thick, black marker. Hundreds of dots littered the area beyond the tree. All of them were dated, but only half were color-coordinated by channel: red for the fire-based third channel, blue for the telekinetic second, and, since the healing runes of the first channel were white, I substituted with green.

  “This,” I said proudly, “is a map to the powers on The Floor.” I pointed at one of the penciled notations that had no color identification. “Some of them don’t even have spells drawing from them.”

  “Who makes channel spells?”

  “Necromancers do, of course. No one else can.”

  His eyebrows lifted, clearly impressed. “You can make spells?”

  “I can take them away, too. Necromancers could abolish spells completely and leave the world without magic access. We really do have all the power.”

  At that statement, Nicolas and Brad looked up from their phones, eyeing me carefully.

  “Obviously I wouldn’t do that. What I’m doing is determining what powers actually exist. My spheres make contact and I study them up here.”

  Nicolas and Brad seemed appeased, and returned their attention to their phones.

  “Why don’t you study your own powers?” Ryan asked.

  I pointed at the map, in the blank area between the Styx and the tree. “Because there aren’t any. Don't ask me why, because I haven't figured that out yet.”

  I placed the sphere on the linoleum in a wide, empty spot between the table and the counters. Then, I stepped back and swept my hands toward it, fingers splayed. A cloud of black smoke burst around me. I gestured complicated, twisted movements that controlled unseen tethers connecting the physical world to the spiritual. Necromancers didn’t use words of conjuring or chant. Our magic predated spoken language.

  As my gesturing ended, black hashes and dots appeared on the linoleum beneath the sphere. Ryan let out a low, impressive whistle.

  I wrote today’s date in the notebook and copied the hashes and dots, then also translated them into numbers. After I finished, I tossed my notebook onto a stool and leaned over the map. My left hand found the longitude and the right found the latitude. I ran my fingers along the paper until they touched. I was a little excited to see that this power was located deep on The Floor in an area I hadn’t yet explored. I penciled in a dot and wrote today’s date next to it.

  “Now,” I said, “we’re going to make a spell. And I’m going to touch you, okay?”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  I reached out and took his hand. He flinched and jerked it away, presumably from the static shock, but I had anticipated his reaction and held on. His e
yes widened and slowly scanned the room, as if seeing it for the first time. In a way, he was. He was seeing the world through a necromancer’s eyes. The black posts in the corners of the room were encircled by tangles of writhing, onyx runes. Thick sheets of shadow stretched between them, covering all four walls, the ceiling, and the floor, encasing the room in an impenetrable box. Above Nicolas’s head, a dark blue symbol vibrated in the air, periodically showering his form with blue light. Brad had a white shield hovering in the air in front of his chest and a small, black rune sitting on his right shoulder. My wristwatch sat atop the counter, and a tiny, elaborate blue spell swirled around it.

  Ryan blinked a few times and shook his head like he didn’t believe what he was seeing. His attention was then drawn to the mental mumbling coming from the drawer, another feature of necromancy that he was experiencing for the first time.

  His face paled. “Do I hear your knives talking?”

  “Just one of them. It’s okay. Here, I’ll show you.” I pulled him to the drawer and opened it. I picked up the knife. The mentally projected words became an exultant cry. Because I was touching Ryan, the shout went into his head too.

  Stabbing time!

  Ryan reared like a startled animal and tried yanking himself away. I had latched onto his hand too tightly and was dragged across the room.

  “What the hell?” he yelled. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “Of course not.”

  Nicolas looked up from his phone. “Don’t be a baby, Ryan.”

  “Just relax,” I said. “In order to make magic work, I have to provide either blood or death. It won’t hurt.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  What? No. Not him.

  I stopped pulling on Ryan and raised the knife eye-level. “I thought you’d be happy. The only fingers you’ve ever known are mine and Brad’s.”

  I’d rather stab your cat.

  “Cats don’t count because they don’t have souls. It’s Ryan or nothing.”