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initiated-one · 7 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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initiated-one · 7 days ago

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50+ Ways to Annoy the Death Witch

Chapter 1: Call her a Necromancer

Ch. 2 >>

I was on the porch sketching when Callahan showed up.

Callahan works for the Council and investigates witchy doings. Mostly in the vein of ‘please lets keep the normies from trying to murder us all’, though that concern has gone down a TON in the internet era.

You’d think it would be the opposite, right? Everybody has a camera, all the time. Surely they’d catch actual magic!

Yeah. They do, all the fuckin time, and they call it something else. Or they do call it magic, and they’re called crazy. You've seen 'em. The internet is full of people who think giants or aliens built the pyramids, people who claim they see shadow people, or think their neighbor controls the cows, they just don't stand out.

Anyway, work has dried up for Callahan and people like him, is my point. It's a much slower gig than it was back in the day.

Is he a witch cop? Ehhhh... he’s the closest we come. Mostly he’s just trying to keep us out of the news, like I said. If one of us was really out of line he’d take it to the council and let them handle it (usually by binding the witch’s magic), but that hasn’t happened in a couple of decades.

He still comes and crawls up my ass every time some teenager finds an old grimoire and brings back the family pet, or whatever.

I stood up as his truck came down the drive. That was my last big project, taking the gravel out and putting pavers in for the driveway. It was expensive as hell, but it means that I can just swap a paver out if one cracks, rather than having to have to deal with gravel all the time.

I do kind of miss the noise of the gravel, though.

That payday was from his last visit, come to think- usually he comes out because he's stumped, and after he's done accusing me of atrocities and grave robbing, he hires me to help him figure out who actually did it.

Pretty often it's some kid with too much magic and not enough sense trying to bring back someone they love. It's always sad, but that's easy to handle. By the time we get involved, they're usually pretty anxious for a solution, because it has gotten out of control.

He parked next to my pickup and got out, strolling over like he had all god damned day. He’s probably in his late 30s, dark hair and eyes. He lives up in the city, these days, but his grandparents went to high school with mine, in a town that gets smaller every year, and are buried in the same damned graveyard.

I first met him in that very graveyard.

“Hey there, Miss Tabitha,” he said. “How’s my favorite necromancer?”

I sighed. He annoys me so much.

“I know, I know, you don’t like being called that.”

“I’m not a necromancer,” I said, for probably the thousandth time.

“Sure, you’re a different kind of death magic witch. Whatever.”

“A necromancer is someone who uses magic to control corpses, and can be any type of witch. I’m a death witch, my power source is the death of any and all organic matter. Some witches get their power from the earth or the stars or weather, mine happens to come from a different natural force.” I don’t know where he gets his from. For a while I suspected it was hair gel, but he switched to wearing ballcaps.

I think he’s balding.

“And you use it to keep your neighbor’s chickens from getting sick and that’s it, huh?”

“I buy eggs off her,” I said. “Do you want something, or do you just get itchy if you haven’t accused me of something unholy?”

He clicked his tongue. “Well, now, there’s a cemetery out in Macomb that’s had some bodies dug up.”

“Macomb,” I said. I knew vaguely where it was- south of highway nine, east of where I lived, but pretty easy driving distance. I’d have to look at a map to be sure, but definitely a place I could drive out and back from in a day and still have plenty of time to get up to trouble. “You actually found a local crime to accuse me of, you’re getting a bit better at your job.” He rolled his eyes.

“What’s going on in Macomb?”

“Well, like I said, some bodies went missing. The cops say it’s funny, it’s almost like they dug themselves out."

"Well, they shouldn't be doin that," I said.

"Right? Coffins are there, just the bodies are gone. I know you’re gonna say it wasn’t you, but it wasn’t you, was it? That’s close enough that you probably draw power from that cemetery. Even if it was an accident?”

“There’s closer cemeteries. Norman has at least two that I know of.”

“Well, that’s fair,” he said. “I gotta ask. Necromancy shit in our neck of the woods? I gotta ask, Tabby.”

“Don’t call me that,” I said.

“Was it you?” he insisted.

“No, it wasn’t me,” I said.

“Alright, that’s all I needed to ask.” Once he'd asked and I'd answered, that was it, he didn't pester me about it again.

“Are you trying to get my help, or do you want to wander around with your thumb up your butt for a few days first?”

“Come on, Tabitha. We’ll pay you the usual rates,” he said.

I sighed at him, just so he knew I was annoyed. “Let me put some pants on and run a brush through my hair, and then I need to see the graves.”

“We’re taking my pickup,” he said. “So, if you’ve got a step stool-”

“Ha ha,” I said. “Wait here.” I took my sketchbook inside, and dropped it on the table by the door, went to find a brush and change into jeans. Grabbed my kit- it’s just got standard odds and ends that one might need when casting on the go, some prepared spells, all stuffed in an ancient maroon Jansport.

I’m probably going to have to get a new bag soon, I’ve had this one since 8th grade, and it’s really starting to wear out.

We head out.

He’s got a 70s Ford pickup he’s been restoring, to sell. Well, he’s been ‘restoring’ it about as long as I’ve been cleaning the house out so I can sell it, maybe longer, and I've been living in the house near a decade, so. Take that as you will.

It’s in decent shape on the inside, and the a/c works, and it’s matte primer gray on the outside, has been for years now.

The road out where I live is dirt, and then it goes to gravel, before you get on something paved.

He looked up in the rearview mirror. “You know, I just figured it was someone else who lived out this way when I came out, but I do believe I’m being followed.”

I looked in the sideview mirror. There was someone behind us, but it was hard to see them through all the dust the truck was kicking up.

Magic came rushing at the mirror, and snapped it off.

“Rude,” I said.

“Did they just snap off my mirror?”

I started cranking the window down. “Turn left if you have to turn, warn me if there’s a right curve,” I said, unbuckling my belt, and wrapping it around my leg. “But try to go straight as you can, that’ll help me aim.”

“It’ll help them aim, too.”

“Don’t worry about them.” Magic whined as it pinged off the vehicle. “You really should shield the pickup.”

“I’m just gonna sell it.”

I pulled myself out of the seat to sit on the window, one hand gripping the ‘oh shit’ handle, my legs clenching the door.

Late model SUV, something dark. I could see why he recognized it right away- it was a sort of dark red and had an engine snorkel. Also some extra lights on front- someone goes out in this truck. Mudding, looks like.

They had someone standing up through the sun/moon roof firing spells at us. He was using something that looks like a gun. That’s pretty common, these days, wands resembling guns.

Wands are a type of prepared spell, they hold charges and you fire off the charges until you’re out. Most people mostly use prepared spells.

Most people just can’t hold that much magic inside their bodies- there’s an upper limit- and so the best way to store the magic they gather from the wind or the stars or the grass or whatever their thing is to make spells and put the magic there. Even the more powerful witches, witches like me with a larger capacity for magic, they tend to store a lot in prepared spells.

Most sources trickle it in. So if you blow your magical load, as it were, you have to wait for it to come back. Recharge under a starlit sky where the light pollution is low. Or lay in the tickling grass.

There’s some exceptions. Sun witches- rare- basically can refuel constantly. Oh, it’s night? Oh, it’s cloudy? The heat in the ground beneath your feet comes from the sun. The sun is a constant, even when it’s not out. Sea witches, too- they have to be in range of the coast, but within that range, powerful. There’s also rumor of one lady up in the midwest who gathers her power specifically from the Great Lakes, and she’s supposed to be one of the most powerful witches in the world.

You know what's also around all the time? Dead shit.

If it is now dead and was ever alive, even briefly, it belongs to me.

Like his wand, a bit of dead wood. I sucked the power out of his wand, and whipped it out of his hand. “Knock it the fuck off!” I shout. I could barely see him, but he looked young.

He swore, shaking his hand. “Ram them!”

The driver I could see even less of, but I could see him shaking his head.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I said.

It takes a deep spike of power- the older and longer dead something is, the more briefly it was alive, the harder it is to fuck with.

Gasoline, for example, is derived from something that died at least 66 million years ago, so it’s kind of a big one.

The driver managed not to roll the car off the road as the car engine suddenly stopped working, and Callahan came to a stop.

I figured they'd be alright, they go out mudding, they're used to shit going wrong.

“The hell did you do? It took a ton of power. My nose hairs are burning.”

“Turned their gas into mesozoic algae for long enough to shut their car off,” I said.

"What?"

"Gas is made from crude oil. Crude oil is dead shit. Specifically, algae and plankton from the mesozoic."

"Huh. Your nose is bleeding," he said.

I wiped at my nose, untangled myself from the seatbelt, and managed to dismount from the window and land on both feet, which is about as much as I could ask for.

My right eye was throbbing- I’d drained myself to the last drop for that.

Still, there was a dead skunk on the road, and dead tree limbs, and I breathed magic in. The ache receded, but probably wouldn’t go away until I'd slept.

I walked up to their SUV, the driver keeping both hands on the wheel, like I was a cop. “Hey,” I said. “What the fuck?” I put my hand on the car, and converted all the ancient ocean sludge back into gas. That was easier, but it still made my eye throb.

The wand wielder jumped out of the SUV and got up in my face, tried to shove me against the car, but Callahan grabbed him and pulled him back.

“My grandparents crawled out of their grave, and everybody knows they got a pet necromancer around here. I want them back.”

Now, I’m not actually that easy to intimidate, and he was just a snot-nosed kid who’s barely old enough to drink, if that. But he was also angry to cover up being scared.

“Well, we’re on our way to find out what’s happened. Having to stop for your bullshit isn’t helpful," Callahan said.

“Everybody knows it was you.”

“Sweetheart, if I was raising the dead, why would I start with your kin? I don’t know you, I don't know your grandparents."

He looked at the driver. He had bleached his hair and it was a sort of peachy pink that could have been intentional or it could have been to light a pink over too orange a bleach. The driver had blue-black hair that was definitely box dye. They both looked indecisive.

"It’s probably someone who know your grandparents. It’s like a murder- it’s almost always someone who knows the victim,” I said. He's just a grieving kid, they both are.

“But you’re the only necromancer in the state, maybe the country,” he said. His heart wasn't really in it, though. He was just upset.

“I’m not a necromancer,” I said. “I am a death witch. It’s not the same thing. They died recently?”

He nodded. “We spent a lot of time living with em, Mom was in and out of rehab, and Dad… I don’t know. He wasn’t around until we were older.”

“You get your magic from this side, or your Daddy’s side?”

“They had magic, but they say I got mine from Dad, and he gets his from Mom.” He jerked his head at his brother in the driver's seat.

“Okay. Why don’t you get out in front, we’ll head on out to the gas station, because I need a fuckin energy drink, and then we can go take a look. Sometimes I can see stuff nobody else can, and I have a good nose for corpses.”

“You really think you can find them?”

"I don't know for sure about finding their bodies, but I'm positive we'll get to the bottom of this," I said.

He nodded and, almost sheepish, headed back to the SUV.

“Just try and start her again,” I told the driver. “I’ll top you off at the Valero station, that trick probably pulled some out of your tank.”

The car started, and they pulled around us and sped off.

“You think they’ll be at the gas station?” Callahan asked.

“Mmm. Fifty fifty, but they’ll be at the cemetery, which is what I really care about. C’mon, I want a Monster.”

“You keep drinking that crap, your heart’ll stop.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, climbing into the truck. “Let’s go.”\

Ch. 2 >>

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