by Lisa Daniels
“Is there some special requirement to not become hostile or something?” he said. One couple walked past them, pushing a pram with a kicking and wailing baby in it.
“Individuals chaotic in life are more likely to be chaotic in death. And Beverly Heath is the literal embodiment of chaos, if we read her history. Doing whatever the hell she wants, defying social norms, and even denying her own Changeling heritage. Apparently they sent assassins after her, hence the moving around.”
Theon examined the historical article as well, and found the resumé quite impressive. “Holy hells,” he agreed. “This is quite the life.”
“I know, right? So she should be hostile, or gone. Maybe even a revenant by now. But she’s not. The thing is, her aura feels a little different, too. Uncorrupted souls are bright, ghostly blue to touch, but hers has gold ribbons in it, which you see more commonly in living people. Like she should almost be alive, but she’s obviously not, because we’ve got her bones.”
Theon gave a shrug to her musings, not really understanding the revenant and aura talk. “So she’s different. But she’s good, right?”
“I don’t know.” Morgana trailed off, the sparkle in her eyes, the eager glow in her face losing their sheen. “Even Rosen doesn’t know, or her sister, Talia, when she asked her as well. But there’s something profoundly different about that spirit.” She then hesitated, looking apologetic. “Oh, I’m sorry. Going off about something that you probably don’t care about.”
“I don’t really follow,” he agreed, “but it’s nice to see you so passionate.” He grinned at her, and she blushed in response, resolutely turning her face away as if hoping he hadn’t seen that reaction.
Oh, but he had. “No, seriously. There’s this twinkle in your eyes when you talk. For all your complaints about your magic, you really like it, don’t you?”
This seemed to strike her dumb for a moment. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish’s, before she nodded slowly, eyes narrowing. “I suppose I do. Though I’m not supposed to admit that in public, I think.”
His grin grew wider, and he thumped her on the back in jocular fashion, which emitted a squeak of air from her lungs. “I get it. But you can say it in front of me. I won’t care. You’re my job.”
Even if you do look like that girl I failed to protect. A burning kind of will licked through his insides. He might have failed that girl, but he didn’t want to fail another one. At least Morgana felt no need to run off to her friends and prove herself. But maybe when she was younger, she might have done. Just without as dire consequences in Ireland as in America. They walked past one man holding a placard, dressed in filthy rags. The placard said: Dead should stay dead. Down with necromancers!
Morgana’s unbridled excitement seemed to fizzle away when passing that sign. Although she still visited the shops and spoke, her enthusiasm was much less than before. Sticks and stones might break my bones but words will never harm me. What a load of codswallop that saying was. Words were weapons. Blunt instruments or precise tools that could carve up a person’s innermost thoughts as easily as a surgeon’s scalpel.
That was the truth. The only difference remained in whether someone could choose to let words harm them. And they always did.
“You can’t do everything,” he said to her. “Some people won’t change their minds, no matter what you do. Best to let them go and move on. You spend too much time trying to appease everyone, you’ll be a shadow of yourself.”
“So you’re the expert on appeasing people, then?” Morgana regained some of her shine.
“Oh yeah. Tried it a bunch in my teenage years. Didn’t work out then, won’t work out now.” He gave her a light, friendly cuff on the head, which she failed to duck. Some of her red hair fell over her left eye, giving her a rakish, edgy appearance. “And you should really think about trimming that fringe.”
“It’s not a fringe,” she grumped, brushing her hair back into pristine condition. There was a moment’s pause, before she said, “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
He was glad to help. Glad to assist with this slight necromancer girl, with her Irish-American heritage, and what seemed like a genuine desire to do good. He wasn’t really sure if this kind of help went with his whole contract, but it still made him feel good to do so. And the less discord between them, the better, surely?
She got her text for the next deadring fight one day later, and they headed for their second bout, one month after the first. So perhaps it was a monthly thing. Or perhaps it was whenever their criminal contacts could work out an official date to lure in all their unscrupulous customers.
Morgana bought herself a mask for the second fight, intending to make a stage persona of herself, and to hide her face from anyone who might seek to recognize her in the deadring, though he doubted it. He considered getting a mask as well, just for sheer intimidation factor, but wasn’t sure if it was entirely necessary. Her mask was a tasteful black and red velvet, with curling horns that cut through her hair and gave a demonic tint to her appearance. Her mouth was exposed, and jaw, but everything else now lay hidden behind a red and black demon.
The new arena was a lot more impressive than the first. Instead of a slightly shady venue with people who looked half-dead themselves or on some kind of illicit drug, this one seemed much more organized, with multiple security guards, tellers, and two referees. The ring itself where the combat happened was twice as big as the wrestler’s ring, allowing much more freedom for some complicated moves. There was even a stout display of weapons for people to borrow if they were to fight armed.
One person drew in Theon’s attention more than the others scattered around the warehouse venue, which on the outside, resembled an old packing plant. A tall, grim-faced man in a three-piece suit surveyed the space as if it were his kingdom, and Theon instantly suspected that this might be one of the main traffickers for the event. Approaching him on a casual basis seemed next to impossible, given the distance he kept from everyone else, and the four security guards, all shifters, assigned to him. Though they were trying to not act like security guards, it was fairly obvious that they were, to Theon’s trained, ursine eyes.
At Morgana’s request, he had shifted into his own bear form, his iron-gray fur and massive tank of a body towering above the others in the place. It certainly made people give a wide berth to “Crimson” and her protector.
His claws scratched the stone ground, finding discomfort in the unnatural, uniform arrangement of it. He preferred the bumpy, rugged terrain of the mountains and forests, not these blocks of concrete and their pungent smell, made worse with damp and the amount of people crammed into the place. His own instincts were going wild at the scent of death assaulting his olfactory sense, but he maintained his calm over his wildness. There was no help for the scent. The fighters were all corpses or bones, after all.
Again, looking at all the people, the organized betting, and the digital scoreboard showing who fought who, Theon wondered just how they’d ever be able to identify the right lost bodies. If somehow all of the bodies they saw needed to be returned to some ruined gravesite somewhere. Morgana needed to register herself as attending and fighting, and soon enough, she had a fight scheduled for this evening, against the contender: Lord of Bones.
Suitably dramatic name, like many of the others on display. The Eldritch Horror, Green Death, Reaper’s Son, Bonedancer, Coffin Child… most were morbid in some way, though a few were plain, like Morgana’s Crimson. Plain names were best.
Theon zealously guarded the bones of Morgana’s spirit, though she came back to him after ten minutes, her eyes grim. “Someone’s already tried to contact her. I forbade her from talking to them, but someone else is sweeping through the room, trying to contact the spirits. Look, you can see it bothering the others…”
He turned his attention to a small, tight group of necromancers, and noted that they were agitated. One of them saw her pointing, and the whole group made a beeline for her like a pack of
wolves.
“Someone’s been probing my spirit,” she said, before any of them could level an accusation or Theon would feel the need to step in, growling and territorial. “I figured you guys have felt it too.”
The lead man, hidden behind a gargoyle mask, seemed to freeze in place. “That’s correct,” he said stiffly. The other two shuffled uncomfortably.
“I get it,” she said. “I’m new around here. You thought it might be me.”
“Yes,” the gargoyle man said. “My apologies. Though you’re not the only new person here. We just noticed you pointing at us, and I couldn’t reach my spirit, so…”
“Wait, yours is being contacted right now?” Morgana raised both her eyebrows. “Are they in control of it?”
The gargoyle man nodded. “When I find that bastard…”
“I’ll help you look. I don’t want anyone stealing mine,” she said, and just like that, the necromancers all grouped up together. “Stay there, Theon. I’ll try and keep in sight,” she said, though he wasn’t happy with that declaration. He guessed that anything else might sabotage whatever it was she was trying to do with this sudden new group of masked necromancers. He growled uncomfortably in response, but watched her walk away. They seemed to be looking for someone—probably a necromancer in a trance. Several were, to Theon’s estimation.
Morgana’s group seemed to stop and talk longer, before they all headed toward the three-piece-suit man.
Ah ha, Theon thought. She was hoping to lodge a complaint with the head honcho. Looked like it had worked, because the security guards allowed the group through to speak to him. He wished he was over there, listening, but instead he had to keep his attention fixed upon her. To read the body language. He considered what Morgana had said—that some necromancers were unable to bind spirits properly to them, so that others could just… snatch them out of the ether. That it wasn’t really common knowledge, which meant some people fought based on trust. Maybe some of them were first-timers, not expecting their soul to be stolen.
After what seemed like a furious storm of complaints, with the grim man paying attention to them, he ushered them away, watching the current fight end—two amateurs with old bodies smashing against each other until one ran out of gas. The smashing seemed to draw a lot of cheers, howls for victory, and a kind of atmospheric violence, so Theon supposed they were a good way to draw people in, to “blood” the crowd, so to speak. Some people liked sophistication, others like brutality and brawlers.
“May I have your attention, please,” a low, cold voice cut through the raucous sounds, sending a cold chill down Theon’s spine. The grim man tapped his microphone for more noise, but people quietened almost instantly, turning to face him. “You may know me as Regal,” he began, and Theon had to suppress a snort at the name. “And the event you all are so very much enjoying is taking place thanks in part to my contributions.”
He paused, and a few claps followed the announcement. Now his dark, coal-black eyes narrowed. “I have just received some troubling reports from four of our brethren that someone is contacting their spirits, hijacking their souls.”
There were a few gasps, and some cries of confirmation from necromancers who hadn’t dared object before.
“Mark my words. When that perpetrator is found, they will be worse than dead.” An ugly leer covered his features, and there was something demonic in it. Could he be an actual demon? Theon hadn’t exactly gone about his life meeting demons, but he was aware that they might exist. Though Morgana called them revenants. “If anyone has a suspicion, please feel free to voice it, before this soul thief is allowed to claim any more of your precious spirits.”
A frenzied kind of hunt triggered at Regal’s words, and all the necromancers in the room at once seemed to slip into trances, while the ordinary non-necromancers began a hollow chant to “Catch the thief! Catch the thief!” Regal encouraged it, and Theon heard the bloodlust rise in their voices, saw it in their eyes, as they gave into this need for something to happen—preferably something violent and vengeful. He felt a little of that primal stirring himself. It was hard to resist.
Something inside the nature of man and animal called for blood.
Regal stood and watched his warehouse kingdom with a small smile. The exits were all blocked off. There was no way for anyone in the vicinity to escape.
A cry rang out. “I found him! I found him!”
More cries joined, as people snapped out of their trances and began to crowd in on an individual who now looked incredibly hunched up in fear. His golden mask wasn’t enough to hide the stench of fear, as people had cross-referenced their spirits and hunted him down like bloodhounds. Multiple hands clawed and grabbed at the necromancer, hauling him up gleefully to Regal’s position, while he howled and kicked in protest. Once his mask had been ripped off and a gag had been shoved in his mouth, his cries became silent, and wide, green eyes stared at an angry crowd.
“Who has had their spirit touched by him? Stolen?”
“He’s still got it! I can’t speak to mine! I was supposed to fight tonight!” someone howled.
“Sabotaging our fighters.” Regal’s teeth bared in a snarl. “You sought to ruin other people’s chances. Why?”
He ripped off the gag, and the man began to let out a hysterical stream of words, somewhere between paid to do it and please, mercy.
“Oh, there will be no mercy for you,” Regal said. “Not unless you give the people back their spirits. Will you do that?”
The man nodded violently and was coaxed into his trance, to release the spirits back to their owners. When the man finally opened his eyes again, his face was even more pallid than before. “You won’t hurt me? You’ll let me go? I swear, it was just a job, I was paid…”
“Who paid you?” Regal’s voice became low. A few cries of kill him started up, but were silenced by the numerous security guards crawling the premises.
“I-I… he said not to say…” The man was sweating. “Or he’ll hurt m-m-my family.”
“Who?” Regal roared in the soul-thief’s face, spittle flying from his mouth.
“…Bonedancer, he said he was Bonedancer, okay?”
“Fantastic,” Regal said. “Sebastian—take care of this one.” He addressed one of his security guards. The last thing seen of the thief was him screaming and wailing for mercy, hauled away by a murderous-looking security man. Or security troll—he was that big.
Bonedancer, one of the people slated to fight that evening, suddenly found himself borne atop a yelling, kicking, and stamping crowd. Regal merely watched as mob vengeance took a hand in the necromancer’s attack. In a moment, the guards hurried forward to carry away the remains.
Two necromancers down in a storm of violence. Morgana trembled behind her mask. Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this.
“Let that be a lesson,” Regal said as the crowd finally fell into silence. “If you should seek to fix a match in your favor, steal or extort another necromancer to help you, or offensively make contact with a spirit not yours—you will pay the price. The Code of Conduct still stands.” He smiled then, much happier than before, as if all it took to cheer him up was two people dying. “Apologies for the delay. We’ll, of course, issue a refund to anyone who bet on Bonedancer and Dead Duke’s fight, and have an extra match at the end to compensate.” He left the stage, and Morgana let out an explosive breath.
“Holy shit,” she whispered to Theon, as conversation sparked up again, the crowd not seeming like people who had just kicked someone to death. “Oh, I feel sick…”
Theon chanced shifting back into his human form. He stretched his limbs, before licking his lips and saying, “Do you want to call it quits tonight, then?”
“No. No, I can’t. But now I know what happens if I try to contact other spirits.” She leaned against Theon, who gladly helped support her. “I’ll be kicked to death like that man.”
“Don’t do it, then. And we’ll find another way to identify the spirits you’
re looking for.”
“The only way it will happen is if I face the person, or I hear someone boasting,” she said between clenched teeth. “Not exactly ideal.”
“Better than nothing.” Theon sensed she needed comforting, but also sensed that people in these parts might not take kindly to open affection. So he only managed a few consoling pats, but otherwise kept his distance from her, and let her gather herself together by herself and storm in her head for any other solutions.
Fight after fight happened. Body after body smashed against one another, spirits pitted to exhaust the opposing necromancer, all while people cheered, bought snacks and drinks, and approached the booths in a flurry of betting. Some necromancers approached Morgana over the evening, prowling for questions, trying to suss out the new blood in their midst, while others recognized her from before.
“If you win yourself a few more, you’ll be making quite the name for yourself,” he said. The matches vanished one after the other, until Morgana’s fight drew up. She made her way to the arena, with Theon carrying the bones behind her.
“And in one corner, we have Crimson, the challenger, the fresh blood who has one win to her belt already—skill or fluke, we have yet to see—and the other, the renowned Lord of Bones, winner of twenty-one matches, having lost only four—a veteran of the deadring!” As before, there was much louder cheering for the Lord of Bones, who stood there in a Halloween skeleton-patterned one-piece, wearing a ram’s skull upon his head, grinning with intent and confidence. He walked around, lifting his hands and roaring at the crowd, working them into a bigger frenzy than before.
Crimson, in the meanwhile, stood silent, aloof, and ready, her mask striking an impressive sight in Theon’s opinion. The Lord of Bones, in comparison, seemed like some hypermasculine brawler, baying to his watchers for attention. Some people, who didn’t join in the crowd frenzy, were also watching Crimson thoughtfully, curious about this newcomer with one bloodless victory.
