Foretold: Necromancer's Blight: Book 1

by D. L. Harrison

  Macy’s face looked angry, and she waved her arms around indignantly.

  “My mother was in the damned P.T.A. She was a registered nurse working in a damned hospital. She was harmless, and she only banished the occasional ghost because they were chomping down on her patients. You get it?”

  I nodded slowly, “Yes.”

  Her face cleared of anger and she giggled.

  “She was a good woman, with a slight bit of taint on her because she helped people. Those… Blood kicked in the door to our apartment, and I heard her scream for me to run, I was back in my bedroom at the time. She kept to herself, and wasn’t crazy, but she knew we would be hunted anyway if we were found. She had a plan, and I knew what to do. I opened my window, grabbed a bag my mother had packed for me, and took the fire escape down. I escaped, by going into the crowd of the city, and evading them.”

  She looked lost for a moment, “I was just fourteen that day when I jumped on a bus. I… was angry, and wanted revenge. I won’t go into all the details, I’m sure you know how hard this world is on a teenager on their own. At that point, the Blood knew about me, had my name, and pictures, and a whole bunch of my personal crap. Do you know what that means?”

  I shook my head, “What does that mean?”

  She spat, “Witches.”

  I frowned.

  She explained, “They had the witches using spells to find me. God forbid they let me disappear, and settle down. I wasn’t even tainted, and those murdering bastards were hunting me down. A fourteen-year-old girl with no taint at all, I’d never used my power, and they still chased me all over the damned country trying to cut me down. So, I had to make a decision, I had a choice. I could keep running until they cut me down, maybe last another six months, or a year, but ultimately die under their knives helplessly like my mother. Or, I could learn to wield my power, fight back.

  “Sure, I’d go crazy, but look at me, alive five years later, and they have paid their blood debt to me more than once. Call it a little early revenge for my own death. The witches have paid for their part in all this as well.”

  She giggled.

  I rethought Matt’s careless comment the other day, maybe Macy left the fae and shifters alone because they hadn’t tried to hunt her down like an animal. City girl my ass.

  She asked, “How much have they told you about their hierarchy?”

  “Just the basics, small units in each city, and there is a four-race council, which… I don’t even know where it is.”

  She snorted, “So they haven’t told you shit. They’re set up, the Blood is, like a military. The council is in England by the way, they moved to Europe when Rome fell. Under the council are generals, they are responsible for countries, and then below them they have different ranks as the countries are split up into sections. All very regimented and proper.”

  I asked, “How did you learn all this?”

  I wasn’t sure what to think yet, but so far, I couldn’t really blame her for what she’d been up to. Long war, but for her, she was the victim in the beginning. I was also hoping to learn something about the far past, but being tied to a table I’d have to settle for this.

  She giggled, “Ghosts of course. Spies. And, another person, I’m getting there, don’t want to jump around in my story.”

  She said, “The first six months I learned all I could about our power. We can’t do very much with it. Summon, banish, and command spirits. Bind spirits into bodies, or create wights. We can also use the raw magic to ablate a witch’s shields or wards. We can also attack directly, and cause a living person’s tissues to… necrotize. I don’t use that latter one much. Then I planned and started my attacks.

  “It was the second year, I was just sixteen when I met a woman named Suzanne, at first I thought she was just another necromancer, she was in her late thirties at the time. Turns out, she was just like you, and far far older than she looked.”

  I felt a sick feeling grow in my stomach, I suddenly wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the rest of this story. So far, not one word had been a lie.

  She giggled, “She was tainted though, and she had some interesting things to tell me, before we went our separate ways. Did you know there’s a prophecy? A foretelling?”

  I shook my head, “No.”

  She nodded, “I knew you didn’t, they didn’t tell you. The prophecy was given by the last living true Nephilim over a millennium before the war even started. It wasn’t found until recently though, in a dig over a hundred years ago.”

  She lost her mirth and looked up to the side, and used a cute but creepy singsong voice.

  “One with dueling natures and plagued by doubt.

  “One will rise up and search for the truth and restore the knowledge of old.

  “One will be betrayed, the truth denied, and the shadow of war will come.

  “One will defend the last chance for peace and end the necromancer's blight on this world.”

  I sighed, “That could mean anything, or be nonsense.”

  She snickered, “Do you want something to drink? I’ve been a terrible hostess.”

  “Umm, maybe later?”

  She sighed, “Where was I?”

  “Prophecy, Suzanne.”

  She giggled, “Right, so Suzanne tells me the last line of the prophecy went through the supernatural world like a brush fire in the turn of the twentieth century. They’ve been hunting down us defenseless necromancers for thousands of years, and suddenly they see something that could end the war.

  “This caused a split, because the Fae are happy with the status quo, the war doesn’t really affect them, and things are stable. Once the war is over… those oaths that make the Blood virtual slaves would be lifted.

  “The witches however, see no problem with that part, since necromancers almost always target them, since they are the ones that help the Blood find us more often than not. The first sentence is how to identify the one prophesized, and they cast spells and divinations in an attempt to understand exactly what the Nephilim meant.

  “Turned out, dueling natures was what you are. The one destined to end the war is half Necromancer, and half Blood.”

  I frowned, “So if that’s true, why haven’t you killed me, since I’m apparently destined to end it all for our common race.”

  She laughed, “You aren’t paying attention, Suzanne was what you are as well, and she was the fourth of her kind. You’re the fifth, I think, that I know of anyway.”

  I narrowed my eyes, “What exactly are you saying?”

  She smirked, “Be nice or I won’t tell you.”

  I sighed, and took a deep breath. Setting off the crazy person wasn’t a good idea, especially since I was tied to a damned table again.

  She smiled, “That’s better. You’re kind of cute. What was I saying?”

  I said as patiently as possible, “You were about to explain why I’m thick.”

  She nodded, “Right! I bet you probably pictured a mean old necromancer raping your sweet loving Blood mother, I’m sorry to say that isn’t what happened at all. You see, now that they had the key to the prophecy and the end of this war, the council, or at least, the witches and Blood, decided to help things along. I mean, what are the chances a Blood and Necromancer would ever get together, especially with those pesky oaths in the way. It could be several thousand more years, right?

  “So… they captured a female necromancer, and I’d imagine they had her tied down on one of these tables for about nine months, before they slit her throat. Horrible yes, but she was just a filthy necromancer, right?”

  Her voice was raw with hatred and disgust as she said that last, and she stared into space for a minute, but her smile eventually returned and she started talking again.

  “I imagine the four before you were labeled failures in some way. Suzanne is the only one still living that I or she knew about. The second, according to what she found out by digging, was a complete disaster.

  “He assumed he was totally immune to the t
aint, and he raised a vampire. Of course, once that happened and he was tainted by the blight, they turned on him, and he led them on a merry chase and fight for years. I see you were more cautious, you seem clean of it. There is something about only being half Blood that makes you mostly immune, but not quite completely. There’s a line you can’t cross.”

  I frowned, I didn’t want to believe that the others knew about this, at least not the one I cared about so much.

  “Is that common knowledge though, do the local Blood know all that?”

  She shrugged, “Carl at the very least is in the know, why do you think he accepted you so readily? I’m not sure if his daughters, or the others know about it. What did Carl do when he figured out what you were?”

  I tried to think back to that time, it wasn’t that hard being less than a month ago.

  “He was shocked and left the room, something about checking up on something. He was gone for an hour or so before he came back and untied me.”

  She smirked, “He called his section leader to report, and then they called the general, who called the council, and then the orders to untie you and have you join up were sent back down. That’s just a guess, but it’s probably right. Maybe that means he didn’t know, until then at least. They do believe in operational security, it took Suzanne years to ferret out all the information.

  “It’s also why they haven’t told you shit, they failed the first four times so they’re probably hiding most of their structure so if you go rogue like the rest, you won’t be as effective an enemy.”

  She was making way too much sense for a crazy person.

  I tried to reconcile that, if I was some kind of abomination or experiment, why would he partner me with one of his own daughters. Duty before family? Or did he not see me that way? I had too many questions, and no answers. It also explained the way Katherine had treated me.

  I’d been upset about keeping the bond a secret, that was nothing compared to what she just dumped in my lap. What the hell was I supposed to do now? Crazy necromancers needed to die, but hunting down the clean ones, and fourteen-year-old children because they all supposedly turn bad in the end? They’d made Macy what she was, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t be stopped now.

  Then again, I was an experiment, and my mother had been captured, tied down, raped, and then kept alive until she gave birth. Why should I even give a shit about their war anymore? The idea of discarding Christina or even Serena was painful, but the rest of it? Screw them.

  “So why take the chance, I mean capture me, what if I was the one from the prophecy?”

  She grinned, “I’m not going to last much longer. I know I’m… not right, but I’m not done killing them yet, for what they did.”

  I frowned, “What does that have to do with it?”

  She giggled, “Well, if you’re tainted then you’ll be their enemy, so you can take up where I left off. The least I could do is set up a replacement before I die. Who knows, I might last a little longer, and we can even have a little fun before I totally lose it. You’re kind of cute.”

  I… had no idea what to even say to that second part.

  “How would I be tainted?”

  She bounced on her toes again, in excitement.

  “Remember when I said you’d have a choice to make?”

  She gestured to the door and a vampire walked in with a corpse, and dropped it on the ground.

  I asked disbelieving, “You want me to make a vampire?”

  She tilted her head, “It’s up to you. If you’re tainted, you can’t be the one in the prophecy, and you’ll be on my side. Enemy of my enemy and all that. If you’re not tainted, well I wouldn’t be able to let you go. Just in case the council’s sick plan actually bore fruit. So, here’s your choices.

  “Lie there and slowly die of starvation.

  “Or… make a vampire so he can get that key over there, hanging on the wall, and unlock the restraints for you.”

  She clapped happily, and I was speechless. This woman was crazy.

  She said, “It’s the same choice I had to face at the age of fourteen. Learn to use my power, and defend myself against my enemies. Or… die under their blades without fighting back. Will you just lay there and die, or will you fight back? You owe them nothing, they raped your mother, and made you to be a tool. Hid the truth from you, lied to you, and used you. You mean nothing to them, but a possible way to end the war and release them from thousands of years of a blood oath and war. Nothing.”

  I read all that as truth, and as far as the council was concerned I believed her. They probably did see me as a tool, like the witch saw me as an experiment to dissect. But… I didn’t think that’s how Christina, Serena, or even Matt saw me. Strangely enough, those three were just as much the council’s tools as I was, maybe even more so, at least I’d had a normal upbringing minus the ghosts.

  Except, a small voice inside of me said, that’s only because they don’t know the truth. If they did know, they wouldn’t be my friends, much less consider being more in Christina’s case, they would do their duty and use me if they had to. Even if I did find another way out of here, what would I even do about all of this? What could I do?

  Macy walked over to the table and sighed, “His name is Tad Johnson, and he died three days ago, that’s all you need to know to make it work you know. A name, and the date of death. It won’t be so bad, we can… be nice to each other, if you join me.”

  I was speechless, apparently raising the dead, killing Blood, and sex with an attractive crazy woman were my options if I wanted to live. Yeah, that wasn’t happening, there had to be another way out of this. I wasn’t sure what I would do, but going on the offensive against the Blood wasn’t even on my radar.

  Even if a very small part of me thought they probably deserved it. Wasn’t the oath about removing taint from the world? That didn’t fit the start of her story at all, before she’d used her powers.

  She winked salaciously, and left me alone in the room, with a corpse.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I wasn’t sure what to think, or even believe. I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone but Carl knowing about this, if Christina and Serena knew, then they were master manipulators, and I just didn’t see that in them. Carl… I didn’t know. He could know, he probably did, and duty would force him to assign his daughter to me. Duty was all they knew.

  What I couldn’t figure out was why they’d put me in a small town with no other supernatural beings around while I grew up. If they had made me, why abandon me to the human system? Had they tried raising the previous ones, and failed? Even if I did find a way out of this mess, without tainting myself by raising a vampire, I had no idea what I would do.

  I cared about Christina, and was friends with Serena, but did that really measure up to what was done with me? On the other hand, if I did escape here, they would label me rogue and oath-breaker if I tried to leave, which meant I was screwed either way.

  I spent some time feeling sorry for myself.

  I wasn’t sure if there was anyone I could truly trust. Really, all it would take was an order from above, and they would all turn on me, regardless of what feelings they had for me of friendship or more. That meant, even if I did escape and go back, I couldn’t really trust them at all, which would be hard.

  It was a military society, and they were all trained from birth on the oath and fighting necromancers, and on duty above all. What was a month long friendship next to that? Of course they’d turn on me. I was a sucker, but I wasn’t stupid enough to believe otherwise.

  I’d been manipulated since my conception by the Blood, and even Macy was manipulative and trying to use me, though at least in her case it was fairly transparent. She wanted a replacement that would go on killing blood when she couldn’t anymore. Even the offer to share her bed was transparent. She was going crazy, was lonely, and knew she’d be dead soon when her mind was so far gone she couldn’t plan anymore.

  It was kind of sad even, but
even now I knew the necromancers that were crazy needed to be put down. It was the hunting them all down part I didn’t care for.

  I was also sure I was right about the taint, what Macy had told me matched my thoughts. It wasn’t cumulative, the Blood could… filter the taint out so it didn’t affect them. In my case, the filter was a bit smaller, and channeling too much power at once would cause things to… spill over?

  A horrible metaphor, but it sounded right.

  It also meant I’d been close to being tainted already, right on the edge of it, when I’d created a wight through no fault of my own, Sara had been trying to kill me at the time, and had pretty much done it to herself trying to drain me to my death.

  Feeling sorry for myself wasn’t helping, but it was all I had at that moment. Should I really let myself die to stop from being tainted? The rest of Macy’s plan was crazy, but that part of it wasn’t so easy to dismiss. I didn’t see how I could escape otherwise, but I wasn’t quite ready to give up either. I wondered if they thought I was dead, or if they were looking for me?

  I never should have gone into that alley that night, I had plans for my life, and had been enjoying college. Now… I worked out, sparred, and patrolled, all for a people that created me as a tool. Damn, enough feeling sorry for myself, I needed to get out of here.

  The truth was I was hardly alone, the whole Blood race were slaves to the oath, and slaves to those above him. Christina and Serena had even less choices than I did, Matt as well. Whining about it wasn’t going to help, and I was going to have to learn a whole lot more before I tried to do anything about it. Assuming I got out of this mess.

  Of course, I couldn’t even move, and my Blood strength wasn’t a match for the multiple leather cuffs that were locked with a padlock.

  Macy stuck her head through the door, and looked at me with a smile. It was so bizarre, but I couldn’t help returning it. I felt pity for her. It also made me realize her life had been screwed up far worse than mine had by the Blood, at least, so far.