“Unfortunately, yes,” I said.
“Then you’re… you don’t look like a necromancer. Those clothes are wrong.”
“That’s because I’m not a necromancer.” Why did everyone have an issue with my fashion sense? I wore ragged jeans and my favourite hoody, aka my ‘leave me alone’ outfit. Most necromancers wore black cloaks, probably for the same reason, but I didn’t need to take tips from the dead, thanks. Unlike my sister, I didn’t pay particular attention to my appearance, but in fairness, I wasn’t generally under scrutiny by the impossibly beautiful Sidhe. I had brown eyes which hadn’t turned green with the faerie magic of our family, and kept my curly dark hair loose to hide the invisible mark on my forehead designating my status as Gatekeeper. As I wore a witch charm twenty-four seven, it was only visible within the spirit world, but I liked to keep my close brushes with death to a minimum.
Being Gatekeeper hadn’t exactly been a smooth ride so far. Thanks to my distant aunt’s quest to pursue immortality by screwing up the veil between life and death, I’d been claimed by a hereditary talisman and now had a type of necromancy unlike any other: the ability to banish faerie ghosts and control the gates of Death. But there was no point in using my ability on this spirit.
As the truth dawned on him, he became more transparent, and floated away, hopefully to pass Beyond and stop drifting around being miserable. Not that I was one to talk. Since I’d moved back here, I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. I’d left my old job a few weeks ago after a rogue poltergeist had stripped naked on the counter and knocked a bunch of beer glasses over. My boss hadn’t appreciated my attempts to explain how I’d banished it using necromancy, so I’d resigned to keep my dignity intact. Since none of my other interviews had panned out and I had yet to submit my PhD application, I’d taken to wandering around the streets, switching my spirit sight on and off to fine-tune my ability to distinguish dead people from living ones. Because that was a sane, normal thing to do.
Maybe I shouldn’t have come back, but after five years, Edinburgh felt more like home than the Lynn house did. Since I literally had a sign on my head telling all the dead to come and hound me, my best bet was likely to find a job running ghost tours, but the sort of monsters who came after me were probably too hard-core for most tourist crowds.
A whisper of air stroked the back of my neck. Not again.
Behind me, a man without a soul shambled along with the uncoordinated steps of the recently dead. If seeing dead people in the streets wasn’t creepy enough on its own, my spirit sight showed me that the body was an empty vessel, propelled by necromantic energy with no will of its own.
I reached into my pocket for the salt shaker I kept on me all the time. Salt dissolved undead and deterred ghosts, without exception. The most undead could do was flail around and claw at you, but if someone had raised it from the grave, trouble would undoubtedly follow.
I followed close behind the undead, which walked so clumsily that it made me look positively coordinated in comparison. I grabbed a handful of salt, rolled it into a ball, and lobbed it at the back of its head.
The undead went down, hard. I ran after it to check there weren’t any others, and a second undead collided with me from the side.
Should have seen that one coming. The undead’s hand grasped my arm, coldness radiating from its body. Oh hell.
A current of icy magic blasted me off my feet. I hit the ground, landing hard on my shoulder. Grimacing, I scrambled to my feet, tossing salt at the zombie. It kept going even when its arm decayed and fell off, and its skeletal face sank in on itself as the magic sustaining it withered away. This time when my spirit sight switched on, it showed not a blank space, but a shadowy mass shaped vaguely like a person. A faint grey glow kicked up around its edges. Not good. The wraith directing the zombie still had magic.
The undead fell as its decaying legs gave way, but the wraith continued, bodiless, hovering above the road.
“Hey there.” I raised a hand, my heart thumping, and willed the book’s magic to rise to my fingertips. A thrill coursed through me when a familiar white glow enveloped my hand, binding words replaying in my head. For a stronger wraith, I’d need to trap it in a spell circle first, but just a whisper of my power sent the wraith flailing backwards. Reciting the banishing words, I gathered the magic in the palm of my hand and hurled it at the wraith, which exploded into shadowy pieces.
The grey haze faded, revealing streets slick with fallen rain, shop windows shuttered and closed. I’d unintentionally followed the wraith into a non-human area of the city, which had suffered damage in the invasion. After the faeries came, humans and supernaturals alike had to allocate their shattered resources towards rebuilding civilisation, with the result that huge swathes of land and whole areas of cities ravaged by the invasion had been left in ruins. Broken-down houses, overgrown roads, shadows where dark fae lurked and fed on anything that moved. Most humans avoided those areas, except thrill-seeking mercenaries looking for an easy kill. I was the opposite of thrill-seeking, but as far as wraiths were concerned, I was the only person I knew in this city who could kill them.
Up until a few weeks ago, I’d never seen one at all. Wraiths were dead faeries trapped in the magic-free Grey Vale until they became a terrifying concentration of necromantic energy held together by pure rage. At their worst, they could even use the faerie magic they’d had while they’d been alive, which wasn’t supposed to last beyond death. My distant cousin Holly had worked with rogue necromancers to summon them, but had disappeared in the Highlands three months ago. I fervently hoped she wasn’t behind the latest batch of wraith attacks, because she was the last living Winter Gatekeeper. My sister and I had until the winter solstice to find her and return her to her rightful position, but considering it was only September and there was little hope of finding a Lynn who didn’t want to be found, we had no leads on her whereabouts.
It’d been three months since I’d banished my distant aunt through the gates of Death—and three months since I’d last seen River, the half-faerie necromancer who’d promised to help me learn how to use my abilities. Since Faerie operated on a different time scheme to our realm, counting on him to help me figure out my new powers wasn’t an option. I stepped away from the zombie and extended my spirit sight to cover the general area, morbidly curious about what showed up in faerie-only areas of the city. Faeries didn’t have souls, the necromancers said. I didn’t think that was true, but I sure as hell couldn’t sense anything living—oh, crap.
Another undead lunged, icy energy blasting me in the chest. I shuddered, my immunity to faerie magic not extending to the necromantic energy wraiths used. The bigger their attacks, the more powerful they were. This one hadn’t reached high levels, but the guy it’d possessed was a brute. Recently dead, from the fresh blood staining his broad chest. Not good.
Once more, I called the book’s power. My pocket glowed as my hands lit up white, grey filming my vision. A wrathful being appeared beyond the zombie, propelling it forwards. Nothing survived of the faerie it’d been before aside from the drive to destroy everything in its path. My breath stuttered, cold fogging my vision, and I kicked the zombie in the leg. He didn’t go down. Cold air whirled around me, and my hands began to numb. I gritted my teeth, pushing against the invisible force with all the energy I could conjure from the book, but this one was stronger than the first. I’d need to use a binding spell. Problem: I didn’t have any necromantic candles on me.
I spoke the binding words anyway, letting the strange yet familiar language flow over my tongue. The wraith blasted me in the face with necromantic energy. My back hit the wall, and I gasped, winded, my shoulders aching. Ow. If I let it go, it’d escape the area and go after the living.
“Don’t you dare.” I kicked out, tangling my legs with the undead’s. It finally went down, but grabbed my ankle, pulling me after it. Deep coldness tugged at my bones as the wraith possessing it latched onto my spirit, onto my very essence. It wanted me
to join it in cold, empty death.
The vision of the gates swam before my eyes. I gripped the pavement with one hand, focused on the present, and shouted the banishing words in the zombie’s face.
The wraith burst apart, leaving the zombie. Its body went limp, collapsing onto me. Ugh. I pushed at it with shaking hands. Then its weight disappeared as someone lifted the dead man away. I sat up, shuddering—and froze. Two hooded, cloaked humans looked down at me. Necromancers.
One spoke in a female voice. “Untrained rogue,” she said. “C’mon, Lloyd. We have to bring her in.”
2
Being arrested wasn’t how I’d planned to spend my afternoon. My captors were Lloyd, a tall guy with medium brown skin and dreadlocks, and Jas, a pale-skinned twenty-something woman with jet-black hair and a lip piercing. It turned out they only wore their hoods up when it was raining, and the rain had stopped by the time we’d reached Princes Street. I was kind of surprised at the piercing, but then again, as far as I knew, the necromancer dress code consisted solely of black cloaks. For all I knew, they all wore pyjamas underneath. That’s what I’d have done if I had to go to one of their infamous gatherings in the middle of the night, anyway.
“I didn’t know the necromancers had a jail,” I commented.
“Oh, yes,” said Lloyd, nodding seriously. “There are a hundred and fifty laws and you’ve broken seven of them.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You know them all by heart?”
“Just in case we run into a dangerous rogue like you? Yes.”
I suppressed a snort. I’d never been called dangerous before. I’d also never been arrested, despite almost ending up a wanted criminal back in the village I’d once called home.
We crossed the bridge above the disused rail tracks—down for maintenance, since the faerie invasion had effectively shut down the train lines across the country—and continued into Edinburgh’s historic Old Town. I was kind of surprised the necromancers would have their headquarters within the fairly busy tourist district, but we walked past bars and restaurants, down side streets, and finally stopped at a large, old building with spired towers on its roof that surely hadn’t existed in its current form before the faerie invasion. Its faded brown brick facade fit right in, until you looked up close. The bricks were laced with grey streaks, indicating that iron had been built into the building’s very foundations, and the door was solid metal, too. On the surface, witch runes shimmered with green light, indicating other protective spells were at work. These guys didn’t mess around.
“Nice,” I said. “I thought your HQ would have been in a graveyard, or one of the haunted tourist spots.” I waved vaguely in the direction of St Giles Cathedral, besides the Mercat Cross which had been the site of various historical executions. Admittedly, the ghosts created since the faerie invasion probably made most of the local spirits look tame by comparison.
Neither of the necromancers reacted to my comment. Instead, Jas approached the heavy oak doors and pulled on the gold handle. My heart drummed against my ribcage and my hands curled into fists. I hadn’t broken any supernatural laws, technically, but the comment about rogues made me wonder what they did to necromancers who didn’t want to join the guild.
We walked into the building, through a wide lobby which branched off into various corridors. Though it had windows, the drapes were down, and an aura of gloom permeated the whole place. I shivered, burying my hands in my pockets. Should have figured the necromancers wouldn’t install heating. In fairness, the presence of the dead sucked all warmth and joy away. Okay, so the necromancers standing and chatting in groups looked fairly animated, which came as a surprise, but there seemed no real reason for them to dress like the Grim Reaper other than encouraging people to play up to stereotypes.
“Where are we going?” I asked to fill the silence.
“To the interrogation room,” said Lloyd.
Ah. I couldn’t exactly kick things off by saying, “Hi, I’m the Gatekeeper. I’m a more powerful necromancer than you are despite never having studied a book on the subject, and I can banish dark faeries most people in this world don’t even know about. Oh yeah, and the Vale outcasts want me dead.”
I also couldn’t say I carried a faerie talisman with necromantic magic even if I wanted to, because the book was under a spell to keep its contents hidden unless it specifically wanted the person to know. It might be an inanimate object, but the book definitely possessed a disturbing sense of awareness, possible due to the spell my ancestors had used to store their magic inside it.
But maybe Great-Aunt Enid had known the local necromancers. If she had—and her abilities, like mine, were close enough to necromancy that she’d have had reason to interact with them if she’d ever come to Edinburgh—I might be able to talk my way out of this. At this point, it was the last hope I had to maintain my freedom.
We halted beside a small room not unlike a university seminar room. It did not contain handcuffs or torture instruments, just an old-fashioned projector and a bunch of tables.
“Is this a classroom?” I asked.
A pause. Lloyd said, “Technically.”
“So you don’t actually have an interrogation room.”
“We don’t typically arrest people,” said Jas. “Most rogues we run into are too far gone to help.”
I read between the lines. “You mean, you kill them.”
“Generally they’ve caused enough damage to justify self-defence, yes,” she said. “So you’re a necromancer.”
“I guess I am.”
“You’re not with the guild,” said Lloyd.
“No, I’m not,” I said. “I’m independent. I’m a PhD student.” Independent necromancers were usually troublemakers who summoned undead for fun, but how else was I supposed to explain my abilities?
“That’s not how we do things here,” he said. “Particularly skill of that level. Where’d you learn to do that?”
“At home, in Foxwood. It’s a village in the Highlands.”
“You’re part of their guild?” asked Jas.
“No. I only came into my powers recently, and as I said, I’m a student—”
“You’re to speak with our leader, Lady Montgomery.”
My brows shot up. Lady? She must be a hell of a lot more important than old Greaves had been. “I will if you promise not to lock me up. I didn’t hurt anyone. If anything, I stopped that undead from attacking people.”
“There’s a procedure,” said Lloyd. “If it turns out you’ve committed no crimes, you’ll have to register.”
“Since when? I thought necromancers were allowed to be independent.” River didn’t belong to the guild—at least, I didn’t think he did. Then again, he was half-faerie, so the Sidhe had more of a claim on him than the necromancers did. But who knew how things worked around here? I didn’t want to spend the next week in a cell, but fighting back would put me at the mercy of several hundred highly trained necromancers. Goddamn you, I thought at the book. Rare and dangerous talisman or not, if the damn thing got me arrested, I’d throw it into the river.
“In a city of the dead, we find it best to take precautions,” said a severe female voice from behind me.
I turned around, my heart sinking. A woman with steel-grey hair to match her voice entered silently. She was taller than me—and I wasn’t exactly short at five foot nine—and her black coat was embossed with several badges and silver cuffs.
“I am Lady Montgomery, leader of the city’s necromancers,” she said. “Name?”
“Ilsa.”
“Full name.”
That’s what I got for not using an alias. “Ilsa Lynn.”
“Lynn. The Gatekeeper?”
“That’s my sister. We have necromancer ancestry and it apparently skipped a few generations. I only discovered the ability recently.” Best to tell as much of the truth as possible. It’d be easier that way.
“I see. Have you ever used necromancy before today?”
“Yes.” I spoke i
n the sort of tone Mum used when dealing with nosy clients. It usually meant that’s all the information you’re getting, unless you’d like to spend the next month as a tree.
She didn’t press further, to my surprise. “Have you ever raised the dead?”
I shook my head. “I’ve only banished things.”
“I see,” she said again. “If you’re really a necromancer, then you won’t object to me putting you through a few tests.”
“I guess not. Look, I don’t see why—”
“You need to learn how things work here. No common necromancer could have banished the force possessing that undead, which either means you possess high level power you can’t control, or you’re lying about the extent of your knowledge.”
Damn. She knew about the wraith, if not its name. But how could I explain anything without the book’s cooperation?
She slammed a stack of papers down on the desk. “Fill out these. Then I’ll assess you verbally. Then we’ll run some controlled tests. Watch her, both of you.”
In one sweep, she was out of the room. She’d had maybe ten minutes’ warning that I was coming and she’d managed to devise a whole testing process. I looked down at the papers. It resembled a job application, with sections on my own pertinent details as well as the basics of necromancy. Seemed straightforward enough—I could have answered most of it without the need for the book, since my sister and I had had a thorough education in all things supernatural. I looked at the door. The other two moved to cover the way out. Damn. Causing a public disturbance wasn’t my thing, so I took a seat at the table, picked up the pen she’d left with the papers, and got to work. The two necromancers raised their eyebrows when I put the pen down.
“You seriously finished that fast?” asked Jas.
“You’re welcome to check.” There was no point in hiding that I’d been educated by the Summer Gatekeeper herself—hell, it worked as an ironclad cover for the real source of my knowledge. If they hadn’t met Mum in person, the necromancers knew her by reputation. Every major supernatural in Scotland did. There was no point in playing stupid, and I had the suspicion that Lady Montgomery would see through any deception.
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