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bixbythemartian · 10 days ago

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50+ Ways to Annoy the Death Witch

Chapter 2- Actually do a Necromancy

<<Ch. 1

Callahan insisted we go back for his broken side mirror, which he fortunately found quickly enough that I didn't get too aggravated about the sideline, and then we headed to the gas station.

By the time we got there, the sun was high in the sky, as the day heated up. My eye throbbed, and exhaustion was quickly catching up to me, so I headed in to put five bucks in the boys’ tank, and grab an energy drink.

When I headed back out, Callahan was chatting with the boys, who'd already started fueling up.

When I got to the truck, he pulled me into the conversation, even though I was kinda hoping I could just jump into the truck and ignore them.

I'm not great with people, is the thing, they seemed like nice enough kids.

“This is Miss Tabitha Greene, by the way. Tabitha, this is Jacob and Dylan Matthews.” He pointed to each kid.

Jacob was the older one with pinky-peach hair, and Dylan was the younger one with the box dye black look.

“And you two do this kind of thing a lot,” Jacob said, apparently continuing their earlier conversation.

“About once or twice a year,” Callahan said.

I nodded. “It’s for the whole country, not just here,” I said. “It’s not that common. And it’s mostly just sad people who miss people they love, and that’s usually pretty easy to rectify.”

“Well we didn’t do it,” Jacob said. “And there wasn’t much love lost between Mom and them, before you ask.”

“You don’t have any aunts or uncles on that side?” I asked.

“Not that I know of,” Jacob said.

“But it wasn’t us,” Dylan said.

“Just because your mom and grandparents did get along very well- death can change people’s priorities,” I said.

“I’m not saying Mom didn’t do it,” Jacob said. “I’m saying, if she did, it wasn’t out of love.”

Dylan nodded.

“Now, you don’t know about-”

“I’m real sorry to hear that,” I said, running over Callahan, who was definitely about to some whole ‘don’t you love your mother’ spiel that I was happy to spare the boys. “Is there another reason you can think where she might wanna talk to her folks again, though?"

The brothers glanced at each other. “Mom thinks that they had a bunch of money that nobody found,” Dylan said, after a minute. “Like, buried in the yard, or something.”

I nodded.

“Do you still live at your grandparent’s?” Callahan asked.

“We sold it a while back, to pay for the nursing for Grandma,” Jacob said. “Grandpa died last year, and she wasn’t doing okay on her own.”

Callahan turned and looked at their pretty new, fairly nice SUV. “Was there money buried in the yard?” he asked, turning back to them.

Both boys looked at each other.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out the answer.

“I genuinely don’t give a damn. But if she has good reason to think there’s money buried in the yard, we should probably go to your grandparent’s place first, and see what there is to see.”

“Using the dead as free labor and sources of information is also really normal,” I said.

“I’ll give you the address,” Jacob said, after a minute. “We’ll show you the way.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Callahan said.

“Do you know the folks who live there now?” I asked.

“Nah,” Jacob said. “Grandma found someone who sold it, and told us where to dig before we moved everything out. I don’t know what she did with the taxes, but I think it was the last spell she had in her. Everything was all smoothed over. Then... she just kinda faded, after that. Mom can’t know about the money, though, she’ll never leave us alone. It’s supposed to take care of us for a while. Hopefully long enough for Dylan to get through school.”

“We won’t say anything,” Callahan promised. “Do you know where she is?”

Dylan shook his head. “We haven’t heard from her in a few months, most of a year. But that’s- I mean, she disappears for a while, shows back up. Sometimes she swears she’s cleaned up, but if she is, she never stays clean for long.”

“What’s her thing? Meth?” I asked. I wasn't trying to be mean, it's just really common.

He nodded. “Among other things, but mostly meth.”

“How long do you go without hearing from her?” Callahan asked. “Is this normal?”

“Months, sometimes a year or more. She kinda just shows up when she needs money or a place to crash,” Jacob said. “But we don’t let her crash with us anymore. She’s got to find somewhere else." He sighed. "I’m not even sure she knows Grandma’s dead, actually.”

“I tried to call her,” Dylan said. “But her phone was cut off again. I mean- I hope she’s okay, but- she’s not our job, you know?”

“I know,” I said. “Get us that address, we’ll meet you there, okay?”

Callahan dug his phone out so Jacob could recite the address to him, and then we headed out.

I can’t tell you how long the drive was, I fell asleep basically as soon as we were on the highway. Next thing I knew, Callahan was shaking me awake, dragging me out of sticky sleep.

I hadn’t even opened my Monster.

“C’mon, Tabby Cat.” “Are you allergic to calling me by my name?” I asked, rubbing my face. I just wanted to go back to sleep. “Fuck.”

“Is it such a crime for me to express my fondness for you through whimsical nicknames?” he asked. “Here.” He held his hand out.

I looked at him, struggling to keep my eyes open, not sure what he was offering.

“I can give you a little boost. If you want. You look half-dead yourself, and we’ve got a lot of day left.”

My first instinct was to say no, but he’d never offered this before. Although I think it’s the first time he’s been around me after I’ve used a lot of juice, so it probably just hadn’t come up before. “Do I just take your hand?”

“Nobody ever done this for you before?” He asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m basically a hermit.”

“Yeah, take my hand, and a deep breath.”

I was very uncertain but, as much as he’s annoyed me over the years, I did trust that he wouldn’t hurt me.

I took his hand, and the breath wasn’t really voluntary.

It wasn’t quite like being electrocuted, but it wasn’t not like that, either. It was like you could be electrocuted by a cold wind, maybe. It was like being electrocuted, if that felt like swallowing a mouthful of crushed ice very suddenly.

It didn’t hurt, but it was very sudden, and bracing in a way I hadn’t expected.

It made me shivery all over, for a second.

“Alright?”

I nodded. “I’m awake, now,” I said.

“Good.” He squeezed my hand before he let go, and we got out.

It took an act of force not to shake my hand or rub it or be weird about it, I just grabbed my backpack and stuck the offending hand in my pocket.

Been a long damned time since anybody’d held my hand, and I wasn’t going to have weird feelings about Callahan, for Christ’s sake.

Just a little touch starved, that’s all.

The boys were waiting, looking nervous. “Stay right here,” he told them, and we walked up to the house.

It looked like your bog standard ranch style house, built sometime in the 70s. They’re really common out here. The brick had been painted with some sort of off white, which did sort of personally offend me, but what the hell? It wasn’t my house.

Had one of those high wooden privacy fences for the immediate back yard, it looked pretty new.

There were what I would bet used to be flower beds that ran along the front of the house, but they’d been filled in with pea gravel and nothing else, not even the odd decorative stone. I probed to see if I could sense anything, but there was nothing.

The porch had an old straw Welcome mat, and the door was painted a sort of powdery gray blue. There were no other decorations, which I thought was a bit odd.

I did see one of those hide-a-key rocks up in the corner of one of the flower beds, just poking up through the gravel. I don’t think I’d have noticed it if I hadn’t been marveling at the lack of ornamentation. The flower beds were edged in stone, and this was kind of tucked under the stone.

There was also one of those doorbell cameras, and a security camera was hanging under the light on the garage. Light looked to be on a motion sensor. There was also a security sticker in the window, but on further notice, it was just a warning that there was a doorbell security camera.

Callahan walked right up to the door and knocked. He did prefer the direct approach but, in fairness to him, it usually paid off. I followed, mostly because I’m nosier than I am anti-social.

A tall woman who looked to be- well, look, I don’t know. Maybe ten, fifteen years older than me? I’m not good at guessing ages, but maybe in her mid fifties?

She had that kind of golden pearly blonde hair color that ‘ladies of a certain age’ dye their hair to disguise that it’s going gray. It looked fine on her, she carried blonde well. Kinda tan, blue eyes. Pretty, older woman who wasn't quite elderly.

She sneered as soon as she saw us.

Callahan, however, is not now nor ever was a man to be deterred by someone who is not pleased to see him, as I can personally attest. “Good afternoon, ma’am. I know this is an odd question, but has someone come around, and tried to break into your backyard?”

She blinked at us, taken aback enough that it knocked the sneer off her face for a second.

I could see, in her eyes, she knew what we were asking about.

“Yes,” she said, after a long moment of looking us over and deciding dealing with us was acceptable. “Some crazy woman, a couple of times, right after we moved in. That first month. I called the cops, but she left before they got here. That’s been it. Why? That’s an oddly specific thing to ask about.” She gave me a particularly hard look.

Hm. I wonder if their mom is short.

“Well, their mom is… we’re trying to figure out where she is,” he said, pointing to the boys. “She’s kind of hard to get hold of, but we need her to sign some paperwork. You haven’t seen her, lately? Or have anything odd going on in your yard?”

She crossed her arms, shook her head. “What’s her obsession with the yard?” she asked.

“Her folks used to live here, and they buried a time capsule in the yard with some beanie babies or something in it, she thinks it’ll be worth a damn if it’s dug up,” he said. “Have you seen anything lately? Even just… you know, someone lurkin?”

“Nobody’s been here who shouldn’t be,” she said. “This is a nice neighborhood.”

“If I leave a number with you-”

“If I see her, I’m calling the cops. You can deal with her then.” She shut the door.

“Well,” I said. “Huh.”

He sighed. “Yeah,” he said.

We headed out to the truck- we’d parked on the street. When I looked back at the house, she was on the phone, peering out a window at us.

She twitched the curtain shut when she saw me glance.

“I bet I know why the cops took a while to get here,” I said.

“Yeah, she definitely seems like she likes to chat to dispatch, don’t she?” Callahan asked, as we came close enough to talk to the boys without yelling.

“Nothing?” Jacob asked.

“No, and she’s definitely the kind of person who’d kick up a fuss about strangers digging in her yard,” I said. “Apparently your mom was out here a couple of times right after they moved in, but-”

He sighed. “That sounds like her. But not since?”

“No.”

“Sorry, boys. This is a dead end. We’ll meet you at the graveyard,” Callahan said, and we got back in the truck and headed out, though he waited to start driving until the boys pulled out.

He’s that kind of guy. He’s never dropped me off anywhere without waiting until I was in the door before he left.

“We might have to come back and check her yard in the dark,” he said. “Depends on what we find at the cemetery.”

“Oh, joy,” I said. I agreed, though. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve snuck into someone’s yard. Or the second.

A lot of people panic and bury bodies in the yard or basement or whatever.

“Yeah. We’ll probably need to do some spell making, I don’t think I’m kitted out for a break in.”

I nodded. “I have a couple of ‘don’t look at me’ spells, but nothing more complicated than that, and I saw at least two cameras out front, she could easily have more,” I said. "Probably not tonight."

“Yeah, it’s a look before you leap kind of situation.” There is some magic that interferes with cameras, but glamours of any kind don’t work on them- cameras don’t have a mind to be altered, they tended to see reality. You have to block them, or disable them. “High fence around the back yard, did you notice?”

“Yep. Looked new, I think. The flower beds were all empty, nothing decorative, just the gravel.”

“No root systems, or nothing?” he asked.

“Nothing that I could feel. Could be they had some kind of minor disaster and just ripped everything out and are waiting for the spring, or something.

He nodded. “I think once we hit the graveyard, our next priority has got to be tracking their mom down. We’ll save the yard for last resort.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that really feels like the key to this whole thing.” Also, I hated nothing more than talking to the cops, and that was basically guaranteed if we had to get into this lady’s yard.

We lapsed into silence, as he drove, following the boys.

“Does it really bother you when I call you Tabby?” The question seemed to burst out of him. “It’s hard to tell when you’re genuinely being mad at me, but we’ve known each other for years. I’m just being friendly.” He really seemed upset about it.

I was kind of taken aback by how upset he was, actually. “It’s hard to take someone being that familiar with me when that person regularly accuses me of atrocious things,” I said. “You call me a necromancer and accuse me of doing foul things to my neighbor’s chickens out of one side of your mouth, and call me by nickname out of the other? It doesn’t feel friendly, it feels patronizing.”

“I’m- I swear, I’m jokin, mostly.”

“Mostly,” I said.

“Well-”

“Like I haven’t had people say that shit to me my whole fuckin life. It’s not funny, Callahan, it pisses me off.”

“But it’s me! I don’t mean anything by it.”

I cannot stand that whiny ass thing he does when he’s wrong and he knows it. “Yes, you do. You may not mean much by it, but you do mean something by it. You do think that one day I am gonna snap and start doing heinous shit. So you always ask, you always gotta get your digs in, you always gotta make sure I know that you’re a fuckin threat to me. One call to the council and I’m bound up, yeah?”

“Oh, come on, Tabitha,” he said. “That’s not-”

“And we haven’t ‘known each other for years’. We’ve spent about 2, 3 months in each other’s presence over the course of… I don’t know, 7 or 8 years, I guess? We don’t hang out, and we’re not friends. You don’t even call me when you’re gonna come out to visit, because you think I’ll take off, or some shit. You treat me like a murderer in waiting, not a colleague, not a friend. No, I don’t like it when you call me Tabby.”

“Well,” he said. “Fine!” He sounded really upset. "Then I won't!"

I tipped my head back against the seat, fucking annoyed. Of course, this is somehow my fault.

Look, it’s not like I hate him or anything. I actually think he’s overall a decent guy, and once I’ve told him it wasn’t me, he drops it. He always believes me.

I trust him, to the extent that I trust anybody.

But the fact that we have to do the same damned song and dance every fuckin time, and then he acts like I’m being a big old grouchy bitch for fun, instead of being genuinely frustrated that I have to drop everything on no notice to help him out after being accused of raising the dead.

He has my number! He could just call me and ask me to drive out to Macomb and give him a hand. I would, I could use the money! I always do it even when he's pissed me off, if he asked me nicely, I think we might actually manage to get through a job without at least one of these little fuckin tiffs.

So, obviously, I spent the rest of our drive quietly stewing, and I think it’s a fairly reasonable guess to say the same was true of him. But we did get to the cemetery.

It was a dinky little cemetery in the middle of nowhere. It’s just a flat spot where they bury people between pastures, to be quite honest. There’s a fence, chain link, but not particularly tall. Both entrances had signs over the entrance, and there were fences they could gate shut. A particularly determined toddler could scale this fence without too much trouble.

I could see the graves in question- I was pretty sure, anyway. It wasn’t a large graveyard, and there was police tape set up on some of those metal stakes, though the police tape had already started to tatter in the wind. There was also a mound of earth right there.

It’s May in Oklahoma, what can you do? Wind’s gonna blow.

The boys turned into the cemetery, and we followed. I gently probed at the magic in the area.

It was sloshing like crazy, churning and shifting and moving enough that I almost immediately got motion sick, which never happened to me. I’d never seen this before, usually something like this felt more like an open would, bleeding and painful.

Before I got the chance to tell Callahan to stop so I could get out, he was stopping, and I scrambled for my belt, dropping out of the truck and falling to my knees, gagging in the grass besides the little bitty ‘road’ (grassy lane with twin lines of worn in tire tracks) that we were on.

“Shit a brick,” I heard him say, and it wasn’t a second or two before he was next to me, rubbing my back as I gagged and spat and gagged and spat, and finally puked up a little bit of bile.

I hadn’t even had the damned energy drink, I remembered.

I sucked magic in, trying to soothe myself, trying to settle the churning. Pushing magic back out. Like breathing, in and out.

“Do we have water?” I asked Callahan. My voice was hoarse, and I fucking hated how close to tears I sounded.

“We got some, Miss Tabby,” Dylan said, running back to their truck, and coming back with a kinda cold bottle, unopened.

“Bless you, hon,” I told him, rinsing and spitting, before gulping several big gulps, and taking some deep breaths. “So, bad news,” I told Callahan. “This is a new thing, I don’t know what this is, but this is new feeling, the magic’s- it made me motion sick, it’s heaving and churning and-” I sniffed. I was not gonna cry in front of these boys.

He nodded. “You feeling up to looking at the graves?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. I wasn't sure, but I needed to, anyway.

“Here,” he took my arm, helped me stand up. He kept his hand on my back as I walked over to the graves- he’d never done that before, but I’ll admit, I took comfort in it.

The graves were- they were null. Like a dead battery. No leaking, no remnants- gone.

They were rectangles left in the dirt- the cops had scooped out the coffins, it looked like, or the boys had had them pulled out, so their grandparents could be reburied.

But that wouldn’t do it. There’d be lingering magic, here, and in the dirt. Not just of the grandparents, but of all the other things in the dirt- bugs and such.

Not from the bodies, they were sealed up, but. You know. It’s dirt. There’s bugs, often dead ones. There should have been something.

But it was gone.

Someone had, with extreme care and precision, extracted every last drop of death magic from those two graves, and nowhere else in the cemetery.

This wasn’t some upset kid or a teenager who’d gotten into some old books. This was the real deal.

This was a Necromancer.

<<Ch. 1

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#50+ Ways to Annoy the Death Witch #fiction #immediately stuck myself with a pain in the ass transition chapter and I've been fistfighting it all week but we got there #I actually really like where I got with it #and I have a solid idea on how to complete the first little story arc here #so I'm gonna chip at that and we'll see how people are enjoying it #no promises on how often they come out but I'm gonna aim for weekly #I'm thinking it'll probably be little monsters of the month kind of deal with maybe a vague overarching plot #if I get to the end of this first novella's worth of story and people still want more #I've had this character idea for a while and the scene in the first chapter #where she turns the gas into Mesozoic sludge #but she was a character with a scene in search of a story and I really am having fun with this

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