by Holly Evans
“Ms. Kincaid, you have been summoned to do a job for the enforcers. Sign this paperwork so we may continue.”
She thrust some papers at me. I frowned and skimmed them. Thankfully, they’d been put into English; my Czech wasn’t good enough to read a contract in it. In short, the papers meant that they held no responsibility for what happened to me, and I wouldn’t be paid a penny unless the job was proven to have been completed. I signed them and handed them back with a broad smile.
“We have received reports that a necromancer has raised more than the legal number of active zombies at this cemetery.”
I fought to stop my face from falling. I’d been looking forward to working alongside enforcers and kicking ass, of doing something to really benefit the city. Instead, I got zombies.
SEVEN
It was beginning to get dark when I headed back to the tram stop and asked the gods why I couldn’t earn enough to get a motorbike. Parking spots were rarer than unicorns in Prague, but I’d be able to park a motorbike anywhere. It would be much easier than fighting with little old ladies for a place on the trams. The cemetery in question was fifteen minutes away from where I was standing watching the sun begin its descent behind the castle on the other side of the river. At least I’d be paid a good sum, I reminded myself as I felt the familiar pressure of a walking cane against my ankle. I glared at the lady who was trying to trip me so she could get a better seat. She ignored me and pressed the cane tighter. I stepped around it and slipped onto the tram.
A pair of women who were, at a guess, ten years older than me glared at me for the entire journey. I studiously ignored them. I knew they wanted me to give up my seat. Between my clearly not being Czech and being younger than they, they felt they had a right to the seat. When I got off the tram in front of the large modern mall that sat next to the cemetery, it was entirely dark. People bustled around me and ducked through the red and white barrier between the tram stop and the busy road. I joined them and ran across the road towards the dark cream wall that marked the edge of the cemetery.
I hadn’t really dealt with zombies before, so I was hoping that would be an interesting challenge - something worthy of a nice pay cheque so I had a little spare money, for a change. I walked down the narrow alley between the mall and the boundary wall of the cemetery before I turned and headed into the cemetery at the first available wrought-iron gate. The cemetery was large, and it would take me hours to walk around the entire thing, so I closed my eyes for a moment and stretched my senses out, trying to feel the dead blood of zombies. It seemed easier to look for that than the necromancer; I had no idea what a necromancer’s song sounded like.
It took a good deal of effort, but I managed to pinpoint a quiet whispering song that I thought sounded like death. I followed the sound down a number of paths, taking a few turns past some of the more ornate headstones into the older, less well-kempt area of the cemetery. There, I found the zombies and, much like everything else about this job, they were disappointing.
Instead of being strong and aware like I’d heard they were supposed to be, the zombie before me kept shuffling into the wall of a crypt. It bumped into the wall, backed up a few steps, then tried again. The rattling bag of bones wasn’t a threat to anything but itself. The other five zombies weren’t any better. One of them kept trying to stand and failed as its legs gave way underneath it, another walked in a small circle, and the remaining few just stood staring vacantly in front of them. With a sigh, I began looking around for the necromancer that had raised these shambling zombies.
The necromancer was sitting leaning against one of the crypts. His hair fell down to his chin in soft waves that covered one of his large, sad, puppy-type eyes. He couldn’t have been more than twenty. I walked over to him, and he looked up at me, his pretty face full of defeat as he did.
“You’re an enforcer, aren’t you?” he said in a quiet flat tone.
“I’m with them, yea. You raised too many zombies, you’re in breach of the law.”
He sighed and pulled his knees to his chest.
“I didn’t mean to. I only meant to call up one, but when I tried to put him back down again I raised another, instead.”
“Surely, your master should be able to help you?”
I was quickly feeling bad for this poor necromancer. He looked pitiful and entirely lost in the world.
“I don’t have one. Mine up and vanished one day, and no one else will take me on. I was using his grimoire, but I must have translated something wrong.”
I was going to regret this, but I couldn’t leave the poor soul to mope like that.
“What language is it in?”
“German,” he said with a thread of hope.
“Hand it over. I speak German,” I said with a smile.
He pulled a large leather-bound book out of a small hole in the wall of the crypt; I had no idea how that worked. I peered at the hole and couldn’t figure it out. There must have been some space-altering magic involved there.
“Here, this is where something went wrong, I think,” he said as he stood next to me and pointed at a passage written in spidery handwriting.
“It says you need to call down their spirit and push it to the earth. What did you do?” I asked.
He squeezed his eyes closed and gave me a thoroughly ashamed look.
“I pushed their spirit up and called the earth around them,” he said quietly.
“So, now you can do it right,” I said with an encouraging smile.
He took a deep breath, and his pretty blue-green eyes took on a dark grey shine. He whispered the words in a thick German accent that sounded entirely unlike the soft French accent he’d been using a moment before. I looked around and saw the zombies slowly returning to the earth beneath them.
I grinned at him. “See, that wasn’t so hard.”
He grinned back at me. “Thanks, I really thought you were going to hand me over to the Council.”
“No worries. Ah, I need some proof that I did get rid of the zombies, any ideas?” I asked as I looked around.
What constituted proof in a case like this? When you killed a feral lycan or a redcap, you took a piece of them and kept it in a magically enhanced bag so it didn’t turn into the black gunk. There wasn’t anything like that with zombies, though.
“Photos of the freshly turned graves?” he said.
I chewed on my bottom lip. “Got any better ideas?”
“I can give you a finger bone?”
The fact he said it so casually made the unpleasantness of the idea of much worse.
“Sure, thanks,” I said.
“I’m James, by the way,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Wren.”
“If you ever need a necromancer, just call. I owe you one,” he said as he headed to one of the graves.
I gave him a smile and a nod. If I needed a necromancer, I’d need one that could at least do the basics.
EIGHT
James had turned out to be a lot of fun. We talked about what it was like to live on the outskirts of both the supernal and non-magical societies. He shared my love of detective shows, and I had fun hanging out with him while he got the finger bone for me. We swapped numbers, and I tried really hard to not think of the grey lump that sat in the small alchemical bag on my hip. I had a strong stomach, I had to do my job, but that finger was horrifying.
I walked up to the enforcer headquarters in a good mood. The job had been easy, and I’d made a new contact. The door refused to budge. I tried pulling it, pushing, kicking it, nothing. Finally, a small sprite opened the door. Everything about him had an ethereal quality. The paleness of his skin almost looked translucent under the street light. He was delicate and barely as tall as I was.
He glared at me before he snapped, “This office is closed to non-enforcers outside of standard office hours. Come back tomorrow at nine,” and slammed the door in my face.
Well, there went that good mood.
I’d had as littl
e contact with the bag holding the finger as possible. It was just wrong. I could hear the rasping whisper of its blood singing to me through the bag. It set my teeth on edge. I walked into the enforcer headquarters at 9:02am. The money they were going to pay me had already been mentally spent. I’d put the essential bills aside, so they could be paid on time for a change. Then, I’d get a new pair of boots and maybe a second pair of jeans, too.
“Hi, I was here yesterday. I completed the zombie job,” I said to the secretary.
She gave me a cold steely look before she pushed a sheaf of paper and a pen towards me.
“Fill those in and hand over your proof,” she said before she turned back to her computer.
There was nowhere to sit, so I leaned on the counter of the receptionist’s desk and filled the multitude of forms in. I wrote down the same information four times on four separate forms. Having finally completed all of them, I dropped the finger bone on top of them and pushed them back to the receptionist.
She looked through the forms and pointed at a line I’d missed.
“Fill that in, and what is this?” she said pointing at the finger.
“The evidence,” I said as I filled in the line.
“How is that evidence?”
“It’s from one of the zombies.”
“That is not good enough.”
I looked at her.
“Excuse me?”
“That is not good enough.”
“How?”
She gave a shrug.
“When I worked with the enforcers in Edinburgh, they had no problems taking similar evidence.”
“In Czech Republic, we need better evidence.”
I balled my hands into fists and gave her my calmest tone. “And what evidence would you accept?”
“That is not for me to decide.”
“Well, can I have my payment, then?”
“No evidence, no payment.”
My fingernails dug into my palms.
“So, I resolved the zombie problem, and you’re not paying me?”
She sighed.
“In Czech Republic we require good evidence before we pay. Goodbye.”
She turned back to her computer again, having left the grey lump of a finger for me to handle.
I turned and went to march out of the building, but I walked straight into the hard chest of a broad man in a dove-grey suit. I looked up and saw familiar ice blue eyes. The man that had ‘saved’ me stood looking down at me with that smirk as I looked down and saw my hand was back over his heart as the symphony of his blood washed over me.
“We should stop bumping into each other like this,” he said.
“Really? That’s the line you’re going with?” I said.
His eyes danced with laughter that didn’t reach his pretty mouth. I walked around him and out onto the busy street, where I restrained the urge to scream.
I’d headed home, where I could scream and rant to my heart’s content before I lost myself in an episode of my show. I’d already sworn blind that I wouldn’t work for the Czech enforcers again. ‘Not good enough evidence,’ my ass. Something was wrong when I approached my door. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something was off. The door was locked, and there was no sign of its having been broken. I cautiously opened it and stepped inside with my dagger drawn as I crept into the living room.
A familiar mop of dark blond hair emerged from the top of my beanbag.
“Kane! Wait, how did you get in?” I asked as I put my dagger away.
All frustration had vanished. He was my best friend, and I was glad to have him around. He held out a lockpick set.
“I’ve been practising,” he said with a grin before he pulled me into a tight hug.
I hugged him back and looked up into his beautiful sea-green eyes, feeling the happiness of his presence. He was my anchor, the person I trusted without a shadow of a doubt. I reached up and brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. I’d taken to using a bobby pin to keep it back when we worked together.
“How did you hide your blood song?” I asked.
He lifted his blue t-shirt to reveal a painted sigil over his heart.
“I’ve been experimenting with sigils. There’s this really cool herb-infused paint I’ve been toying with. It doesn’t last more than twenty-four hours, but if I can get the recipe just so, I can make a fortune selling it.”
His smile was contagious. It had been too long since we’d hung out. He’d settled in Inverness, whereas I’d wandered, trying to find something, I didn’t know what, but my feet kept itching and so I wandered. The need to move on had been nagging at me as of late. Prague was losing its shine, but I didn’t know where I’d move to just yet.
“You could come and join me. We always did make a fantastic team,” he said, the Scottish lilt coming through a little stronger.
“You know I’d get bored and drive you insane,” I said.
He gave me a mock pout before he pulled out a pack of my favourite shortbread.
“You look like you’ve had a hellish morning, so how about I make us a cup of tea and we share this shortbread over an episode of Death in Paradise?”
“You know me too well,” I said with a laugh.
He brushed his lips over my cheek.
“You’re my little songbird. I’d give the world to see you smile,” he said before he rummaged in his backpack and pulled out my favourite brand of English teabags.
I yanked off my boots and collapsed onto my beanbag. All wasn’t lost; not just yet, anyway.
NINE
Kane treated me to a wonderful Chinese takeaway for dinner with enough spare to have left over for breakfast. I woke up feeling his warm body and the gentle caress of his blood song. For the first time in weeks, I’d slept past sunrise, and I felt amazing for it.
My phone rang just as I put the Chinese in the microwave. It was an unknown number, which made me debate whether I really wanted to answer it. I couldn’t very well swear at the enforcers, as they all talked to each other and I still wanted to work with the branches in other countries.
“Answer it!” Kane shouted through from the bedroom.
I answered. A rich male voice spoke.
“Wren Kincaid, I am a member of the Council. You are being summoned to resolve a problem for us. You will arrive at our headquarters in one hour. Dress appropriately.”
“Define appropriately,” I said before I realised I’d spoken.
I clamped my hand over my mouth and turned a bright red while praying that comment hadn’t lost me the job.
“Something that isn’t riddled with holes. You have fifty-nine minutes.”
Because the little countdown wasn’t ominous.
“Ok, thanks, see you soon,” I said before I hung up.
“Who was it?” Kane asked as he walked into the living room in just his boxers.
The phoenix tattoo that wrapped around his left side caught the bright sunlight and appeared to flicker with real flames. His dark blond hair was in that sexy-messy state that looked fantastic on him. His playful smile suggested that he knew that my mind was heading down filthy avenues. I pushed it all aside. He was my best friend. I’d gotten over that crush forever ago.
“The Council, they have a job for me,” I said, frowning.
He gently pressed his thumb against the creases between my eyebrows. “Don’t frown, this could be the start of something amazing. The Council pays really well, and if you rock this then you could secure future jobs.”
I smiled and pressed my hand to his chest. “You always know the right thing to say.”
He grinned at me. “Of course I do. When do you have to be there?”
“Fifty-seven minutes,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow and pulled the Chinese food out of the microwave.
“That’s a bit specific.”
I put the other carton of food in the microwave.
“Yea, he did this weird countdown thing. I guess they’re real sticklers for pu
nctuality.”
“What exactly did they say?”
“I’ve been summoned for a job, and I have to dress appropriately,” I said as I took the first carton of Chinese from Kane and started eating.
“Do you have anything appropriate?” he teased.
“Well, he said it had to be something without holes in… so no,” I said with a harsh laugh.
He put his arm around my shoulders.
“They’re not going to reject you because you have a hole in your jeans.”
“This is the Council we’re talking about…”
His mouth twisted into a bright smile.
“They’re not so bad,” he said, pulling his Chinese out of the microwave.
“You hate the Council,” I said.
He’d vehemently ranted about them and their interfering ways when we’d lived together.
He shrugged and gave me a half smile. “I’ve learnt more about them.”
I laughed. “You mean you’re screwing someone who’s on or connected to the Council.”
“Past tense - it was just a fling.”
“Anyone I know?”
“No, he’s new, he came over from Canada, but he moved to Geneva after about a month.”
“You scared him off!” I said as I laughed and pointed my chopsticks at him.
He glared at me, but it soon turned into a laugh.
“No, the Scottish Highlands just didn’t have enough action and adventure for him.”
“I thought Geneva was as boring as it got?” I asked as I threw away my empty carton.
“It used to be, but there’s been a lot of fighting between the sidhe and the Norse elves up that way. The witches have been stirring things up, too.”
I rolled my eyes. “The witches shit-stirring, that’s new.”
He poked me gently. “Hey.”
I stretched up and ruffled his hair.
“You love shit-stirring,” I said with a grin.
Male witches were very rare. There were plenty of boys born to witches, but they were usually entirely without magic. Kane didn’t have as much magic as his female coven-mates, but he had enough to get himself into trouble and back out again.
