by Lisa Daniels
When Camilla rose her voice in anger, Talia cut her off with a warning glance. “That master of yours clearly knew the route the… councilman took to his work. Did you ever hear of your master’s motivations? How they—she knew?”
“Didn’t,” he said. “And she were wearing a mask when she summoned me, see. Can’t tell you much other than she got blonde hair. If I were alive...” he growled, “I’d want to find her myself. Show her what happens to whores who go about killing men. Forcing me to attack a respected authority like that—ain’t God’s work at all. I fought every second, you see. Every godforsaken second.”
“Thank you,” Talia replied quietly. “Yes. We’re trying to track down the attacker for their horrible crime. You—or, well, this body—it got all the blame. Drunk driver in an accident.”
“Good luck with that, girl. She’s got something fierce bad against you and your kind. I call it masochism, since she got the same power.”
“If I Commanded you to locate her for me, could you?”
“No,” he replied.
Makes sense, she thought. An old soul like him wouldn’t have any comprehension of modern technology, or know how to operate it. “Do you have any advice for me?” Judging by the way he spoke, she thought it possible he might want to assist her at least in grabbing someone who killed perfectly respectable men. Plus she didn’t enforce a Command, and he seemed to appreciate that further.
“My advice is that you look close to home,” he said. He hesitated a moment. “And… that you release me. To… where we go when we’re not spirits.” His blue eyes blazed. “She’s planning to Command me for more things, but she don’t have the energy right now.”
A cold chill swept over Talia. “Close to home?”
“She wanted all the necromancers gone. She wanted all the Grieves targeted. All but you. That tells me she knows you, girl. Jealous, perhaps. Women are fickle and prone to things like that.”
Oh… oh no… Talia’s heart increased in pace, anxious and stressed. Out of all the things she was hearing, this was the last thing she wanted. To think that someone who knew her personally wanted her father dead. Her sister dead. Everyone gone but her. She whispered out a scratchy thank you to the soul, and was about to dismiss him and force his spirit to move on, when Janos said suddenly, “Why don’t you do that old word thing? The one that stops him from being controlled by someone else?”
Talia, Camilla, the M.E., and Thomas Miller all regarded Janos in equal confusion.
“What?” Talia said. “Why?”
“Double agent,” replied Janos. “Tell him to pretend to obey this other necromancer’s orders. But get him to report to you as soon as he has a free moment. Since he won’t be bound if you’re his master, will he?”
“That’s...” Talia paused.
“Not a bad idea, actually,” Camilla finished for her. “Maybe even get him to kill this other person.”
“Gladly,” Thomas Miller said, the hideous grin back on his stolen face. “Oh yes, I’d gladly kill that one.”
If she’s someone I know… “I don’t think I’d want him killing her. I want to know who it is.”
“Foolish,” Thomas said. “Never let such sinners live long.”
Talia smiled and pretended to agree to his advice, before speaking the old words, the ones that bound this horrible, twisted soul to her service, and to serve no other master but her. And at her Command, Thomas Miller would pretend to respond to the summons of the masked necromancer, and pretend to obey, but double-check all his actions with her, first.
He accepted all her terms with an almost maniacal drive, mostly from the thought that he’d be allowed to kill someone who deserved it. She would much prefer not to have to cooperate with such a soul, but she felt as if she had little choice. Janos’ notion was too good an opportunity to pass up. She had no time to waste. If this enemy necromancer didn’t use him, they’d simply use another. There was a certain quality about him that she saw drawing other necromancers. His eagerness for blood. His ever-burning hatred, a flame that still kindled, even over a hundred years later. And the fact that he hadn’t yet converted into a revenant with the red eyes, with a drive that couldn’t be stopped.
She thought of her cat again, of that old, old evil, and shuddered. She’d never go into the monochrome again unless she was with someone.
With the spirit dismissed, she stared numbly at the three others in the room, her brain struggling to process the reality of what had just happened.
“I don’t understand,” the M.E. said. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“Rosen would hate to have a newbie like you attending her,” Camilla snapped at the M.E., who appeared chastened and paler than ever. “Hot damn. This is a crime and a half, isn’t it? Premeditated attempted murder. Rosen was an unintended target, seems like, but an eventual one, all the same. Could it be anyone in your family, you think?”
Talia bit her lip. “No. No, it can’t be. My mother wouldn’t want to kill her family, nor my uncles and aunts. The Grieves protect their own, no matter where they are. No, it’s ridiculous.”
“What about friends, then?” Janos asked gently, and Talia wanted to scream at him no, no way, but at the same time, she realized that there was a distinct, sharp possibility that the attacker might be at Rosewood University. At least someone who had interacted with her enough to know where she lived, where her father worked (though that could likely be retrieved from the internet), and a vested anger against necromancers. Which probably described half the student and teacher population of Rosewood.
Better than no lead at all.
“We’ll have to tell the media it’s an ongoing investigation, I suppose,” Camilla said with a sigh, before patting Talia on the back. “You did good, kid.”
“I’m not a kid. I’m twenty.”
“Sure. Sure. Well, it seems we have a lead on the person responsible for the attack against Rosewood now. Once your sister is up and running, should be a slam dunk of a case. As for your father… I hope that he’ll be able to make a recovery.”
He won’t, Talia thought. Her outward answer was “I hope so, too.”
Talia and Janos needed to come back to the police station to formally deliver their statement, and because there was an easy bus ride back to near the estate. Numb from the ordeal, about the only happiness she gained from the entire procedure was the knowledge that summoning Thomas Millar, binding him to her service, and releasing him had not tapped too deeply into her magical reserves at all. But the other person clearly had been practicing, too, keeping Thomas Miller trapped in a freshly dead body whose spirit no longer lingered.
“You did well, Tal,” Janos said, giving her another one of those big, comforting pats. She leaned slightly into his touch, all her emotions blending together until she wasn’t sure what she felt anymore. Not happiness, for sure. Grief struggled to come, because her father’s body was still around, even without its essence. Or maybe she just didn’t want to let it sink in again.
“We can go out, if you want,” Janos offered. “Just to go somewhere nice. Where you don’t have to worry about anything. Maybe a meal, or a movie?”
“I want none of those things,” she said, barely avoiding her impulse to snap at him. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I don’t feel like it.”
“I suspect you don’t really feel like doing anything, though, do you?”
She turned to face him, and he had one of those blatantly annoying expressions upon his face—the kind that was smug in the knowledge of their own rightness.
“So what if I don’t? Maybe I just want to be on my own. Thought of that?”
“Maybe you do, but I don’t think it’s right that you are,” he replied. “Might be you do something stupid.”
“I...” Talia spluttered, unable to believe the audacity of this upstart bodyguard. “You’re fired. I’m firing you.”
“Oh, I bet you’d love that.” He stepped closer, and there was something about his yellow e
yes that sucked her in, that made her hesitate for the slightest of moments. Right before she decided that was a bad idea.
“Don’t think you’re wriggling out of this. I’m done. I’m tired of people telling me what I should do. You’re not my father,” she spat, and knew at once she’d gone too far. Janos’ expression went cold and unimpressed.
She didn’t want him to go, not really, but she refused to back down on her actions now.
There was a long, uncomfortable pause where Janos did little else but stare at her. Perhaps controlling his emotions. She pretended to be more interested in her phone, and was fixated on a blank screen when she heard the werewolf say, “I can relate a little bit to how you’re feeling now. Though maybe I was a little younger than you when it happened.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, annoyed, because how dare he claim he could relate to this? Was his father braindead? No. Did someone also attempt to murder his sister? Of course not. He was talking out of his ass.
“My mother,” he said, and she instantly went still, instantly wanted to slap herself on the head.
Oh.
“My mother was killed in one of the bars she liked to visit. She and a few others by some maniac, some guy who felt he had nothing better to do than shoot innocent people. Though his cause, his motto, you could say, was that all supernaturals should die. Bombed the place with Molotovs, shot at the survivors trying to escape. My mother was one of the victims—burned from the bomb. My father was in grief, but determined to find justice for her killer. Now, there was a new person in forensics. Case was going slow, and my father asked for… he asked for a necromancer.”
Janos pursed his lips, and she didn’t dare say anything. She didn’t even dare breathe. Just in case she spooked him off telling this. Talia had been curious from the moment she heard about this mysterious and unmentioned mother, wondering what the connection between Janos and necromancy was. Wondering what could possibly make him loathe her type of magic to the point where he barely had the willpower to contain it from his expression.
Sunlight bore down upon them, searing in its heat, and they retreated into the shade of the house slowly as he continued talking. “The family were meant to go. Back when they had it compulsory for family members to be with a deceased loved one when a necromancer touched the spirit and brought it back. I was there, twelve years old, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that my mother was gone and she wasn’t coming back. There’s my father, telling me everything was going to be okay. But he knew somewhere, I’m sure, that he shouldn’t be doing this. My mother was very vocal in life about her hatred towards twisted magics like necromancy, touching things that shouldn’t be touched.”
Talia saw where this was going, and her insides clenched in sick unease. But she forced herself to keep listening. To lock her jaw shut so that she didn’t interrupt anything.
His voice dropped to a monotone, as if he was internally suppressing all of his emotions. They walked through the front entrance of the door, the sun finally ceasing to beam down upon their backs. “I watched from behind a glass screen as the necromancer brought back my mother. Her physical body was ruined, burned from the attack, and when my mother’s spirit entered the body… I didn’t want to believe that thing was her. The necromancer must have lost control, too, because the body tried to kill them. There were a lot of shouts—my father going in there to help the necromancer—and I felt so sick. I ran. I didn’t want to be anywhere near that.”
What could she say to that? How would she feel if someone resurrected the ruined corpse of her sister, and then watched her sister fight against that untimely revival?
Probably not much better than him. Even though I have a better understanding of necromancy.
“I couldn’t stand to watch that. My mother… she was so full of hate. She hated the person who brought her back. She hated being forced into that thing. My father said… he said that she talked eventually. And with her words, they were able to catch the person who did the deed. He was a supernatural himself. He could escape because he transformed into a smaller creature that could slink away from the crime site undetected. They caught him… but I couldn’t shake off that image. And I don’t think I ever will.” He worried his bottom lip. “There are some things that are just never meant to happen. Never meant to be touched. And necromancers like that guy… like you—no matter the good intent, you’re violating something sacred to do it.”
His eyes seemed to glimmer with unshed tears. Talia felt awful, and mechanically offered to make tea or coffee, whatever he wanted, and he decided instead to go for a beer. She gave him a Coors Light and decided to crack one open for herself as well.
“I’m sorry to hear all that. Thanks for telling me. I appreciate it.”
“No problem,” he said, his voice a little warmer than before. She had no such dire tale to pass on to him. Sure, she felt sad when her parents chose to live separately. Sure, she struggled to fit in at school and tried hard to hide who she was. Many of her friends went for years without ever knowing she even possessed such powers. Most people in school hadn’t. Only Jake, Nadine, and Elodie knew early on. Elodie had issues with it at first, but she got over it soon enough. Jake used to ask lots of questions, and Nadine preferred not to talk about it if she could, but still accepted Talia all the same. People weren’t perfect—her, most of all—but she was glad to have shared her secret with someone.
“I don’t think what we do is a violation,” she said to Janos then. “At least not in the way you’re thinking about it. The Other Side is there, regardless of whether we have the magic to access it or not. We always prefer to find willing souls if we can, ones that are happy to help, desperate to speak to loved ones, or even confused as to how they can move on. ‘Violation’ seems to be something you attach to modern faiths. Moral laws that change from place to place. I don’t see it as wrong to touch something that’s already there, that gets manipulated by other magic as well. It’s just unfortunate that the only way we can get them to speak in the living world is by placing them in a body. And if we want to make sure they obey, they must be bound. There’s so much good we can do with this kind of magic.”
“And so much evil, too,” Janos said softly. “Or have you forgotten the attack on the university? What happened to your father and sister?”
Her heart clenched slightly, but she battled through it. “It’s only as evil as the user. Being a necromancer doesn’t make you a bad person. Being a bad person does. That’s all. It’s that simple. My sister uses her powers to help solve cases. My father used to as well, and still got called onto cases that were unresolved. They specialized in cold cases, but sometimes needed to do recent ones. Not all cold cases can be solved, of course, if the spirit moves on… but so often they don’t. So often, they’re waiting for someone to hear them. Don’t you see? This is what we can do. We give these distressed souls justice.”
And maybe we create instruments of vengeance, too, Talia thought with a shiver, but didn’t want to venture into that realm of thinking. Not when she wanted to implore Janos to think otherwise. Not when she wanted him to look at her and not see the magic. Just her.
That planted an uncomfortable notion in her skull. That maybe she didn’t want Janos to go at all, because she actually liked him. It was easy to get annoyed at him doing his job, to get complacent with the presence of him being around. But the thought of him actually leaving her induced small stabs of anxiety. No.
She didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want to lose Janos just yet.
“Maybe that’s true,” he said grudgingly, and her insides gave a little lurch of hope. “I just can’t shake off the feeling that it’s wrong, somehow.”
“I understand that,” she said, disappointed. She tried out the drink, didn’t like it, but made a show of drinking the beer anyway. Janos was already cracking open his third. He gulped it like it was life-giving water, and a part of her wondered if he planned to drown out his own confession in a
lcohol, somehow. The Coors was starting to get to her, too.
“Tell me,” she asked suddenly, emboldened by a fresh idea. “Do you think I’d have to get with another necromancer if I wanted a relationship?”
“Huh?” He slopped some of his beer on his shirt, then frowned at the spillage, annoyed. “Say what?”
She finished off her beer, snatched another from the fridge, and sank down into a plush, squashy sofa. Her mother had favored this kind of seating—the type that you sank into so you were slowly consumed by a sofa-shaped black hole.
“If I want to date anyone—get into a relationship with anyone at all—I need to stick to my own magic type,” she said. “Because no one worth their salt would want to get with someone like me. Not that—not that I’m looking or anything. I mean, I’m perfectly fine by myself. I don’t need to feel complete,” she said, pretending to hack and spit. She also felt an oozy feeling inside her, a spinning dizziness about her brain. Okay, I might be getting a little on the tipsy or drunk side, she concluded. It sent a wonderful, molten gold heat through her, the kind that crept to her cheeks and flooded through her cells.
“You should date who you want,” Janos said, after slowly wiping the spill off, to little effect. “Why should it matter?”
“But people won’t see me,” she protested, gesturing languidly to herself. “People only see my magic and think I’m going to kill them and resurrect their corpse or something.”
“Nonsense,” Janos said and belched. He clapped a hand over his mouth. “Sorry. But you shouldn’t worry about something like that. You don’t go around revealing to everyone who you are anyway, right?”
“But they’d find out eventually. Plus, I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone in Samhain knows who I am. Now that they’re going to be posting news of my family… it’s already on social media. People are always asking for the ‘whole set’ to be killed. Can you imagine that? Knowing there’s so many people who think I’m better off dead? That going to a f-freaking university is enough to put the entire student population at risk of an attack? It sucks, that’s what. Sucks.”
