Death Made Me Do It

by Sarah WaterRaven

  His keen senses made her doubt he was a draugr. Rafal’s remains had been typical undead bits, reanimated, but Salem’s body and intelligence implied he was something else, something she’d never seen before.

  She inhaled deeply and centered herself. Time to collect intel.

  Kiara exited her car and circled the building. From what she could tell, Salem was using the patio door to break into the funeral home—or someone was leaving it open for him. It wasn’t uncommon for funeral homes to make arrangements with otherkin.

  She decided it was best to enter through the same door, in case security alarms were still active at other entrances.

  The building was quiet and her heart was pounding, but she had her gun ready.

  It was a typical funeral home, converted from a large, older house. There was a grand staircase and rooms open to either side of the main foyer, but she needed to get to the basement. A door was ajar underneath the stairs, and she tested it for sound. It did not creak with a nudge, so she opened it. Sure enough, a set of stairs led down.

  Kiara inhaled deeply once again and proceeded to the lower level.

  There was some shuffling and subtle noises, but Salem was being very careful and quiet.

  Kiara’s heart was thundering in her chest as she took each careful step down.

  When she reached the bottom, she pressed against the wall and ever-so-slowly peaked around the corner.

  Salem was hunched over a table. He had a backpack with him and from what Kiara could tell, was loading it with frozen plastic bags.

  She lowered her gun, reached for her phone, and began filming him.

  Her breathing was slow and controlled. She made sure to get several minutes of footage before pocketing her phone and heading back upstairs.

  Time slowed to a crawl as she took careful, focused steps up the stairs. She dared not look behind her, but listened intently as she made her way back to the first floor.

  Once there, she went straight for the patio door.

  At her car, Kiara let out a relieved sigh and smiled.

  She’d gotten everything she would need on Salem. Now, she just had to get evidence on Cecile and her mother. It would be harder, but there was at least one otherkin checked off her list—and where there were undead puppets, there were undead masters.

  Kiara was just getting her keys out when she heard a step behind her. Shit.

  She reached for her gun and raised it.

  A wicked creature with glowing violet eyes stepped out of the tree line.

  It sniffed with its massive nostrils and growled low. Its maw dropped and its tongue lolled before the direhound lifted its head and howled.

  A series of howls and barks in the distance answered, unheard by all save for a few: the dead, the undead, and a goddess and her daughter.

  The direhound listened for its pack’s approach and then continued forward.

  It lowered its long muzzle and sniffed the body of the deceased. No soul. Not here, anyway.

  It sat back on its haunches and then stood up on two legs. Unlike the rest of the pack, this hellhound could walk on two legs.

  It sniffed the air, looking for any trace of the soul, but it was long gone. The direhound returned to four legs and circled in frustration.

  The barking and howling of the pack drew closer until the first hounds broke through the trees and ran up to the body.

  They whined and barked, surrounding the large direhound.

  As the rest of the pack poured in, they seemed as though they would carry on till morning, until they suddenly stopped, slender forms still and long, pointed ears forward.

  Their eyes flickered like red stars in the night, minus the pulse of purple eyes from the direhound at their center.

  From the shadows, the Nameless One emerged, a black mist swirling around her.

  She reached her hands out, petting dogs and touching them as she moved through them. A few whined in excitement.

  The direhound stood up and stepped aside, revealing its prize.

  The Nameless One stroked along its leathery skin.

  “Good girl, Malicia,” the goddess said.

  Her ruby eyes passed over the body of Agent Kiara Peterson.

  She smirked and then collected Kiara’s phone and car keys.

  YOU’RE A WIZARD, CECILE

  I poked at the salad Cheetoh had made me with my fork. She had supposedly come home and created this rainbow vegetable medley and then gone to work again. All somehow without me seeing her...

  I was getting sick of her avoiding me. Was she mad at me?

  I would find out what my mummy was up to, but I thought if I ate the salad she’d made, maybe she’d see I was making an effort and our fight later wouldn’t be as bad as I was predicting. The two of us were just too matched in temper for a calm discussion.

  I didn’t understand why she and Salem cooked for me or even made me a bowl of cereal. It wasn’t something I made them do. I didn’t have the time or motivation to puppet them twenty-four hours a day, and I certainly didn’t expect them to care for me...and yet, they did it just the same.

  I was the owner of a bunch of softhearted undead. I was probably the worst necromancer out there.

  I poked the salad again and finally took a bite. It wasn’t a veggie burger or pizza bites, but it tasted pretty good. I trusted Cheetoh to know what I liked, I just never ate a salad by choice.

  While crunching away on healthy food, I picked through the mail on the kitchen table. I’d noticed a pile and figured someone undead must have brought it in before they left for work.

  As I sorted, I noticed a peculiar envelope. It appeared to be made of old-fashioned parchment paper and had a cobalt wax seal on the back.

  “Fancy,” I said to myself.

  I opened it up, preserving the seal and silently praising myself, and then examined it.

  There was an emblem with wands, some kind of bird, and huge letters: a T, M, and A.

  Dear Cecile,

  Congratulations on your acceptance to the Toronto Academy of Magick and Alchemy. Our admissions office apologizes for the delay in your acceptance and has offered to fast-track you to our advanced magicks program. Given your natural talent and skill level, we feel you will be a brilliant addition to our school and society. We believe you will find our courses both challenging and rewarding.

  For the past eleven years, the Toronto Academy of Magick and Alchemy has been the leading university in magickal studies. Our programs have not only developed student skills beyond preconceived limits, but our graduates have been the number one choice for government and leading business recruitment, thus carrying our society into a brighter future.

  We at the Toronto Academy of Magick and Alchemy strongly feel your recent accomplishments reflect what we value and expect from our students. We look forward to hearing from you and working together to shape the future.

  Please find included in this envelope an acceptance application. With your confirmation and provided information, we shall be able to arrange transportation and housing at the start of the new semester. Also, be sure to review the provided checklist of essentials required before attending your first semester at our academy.

  Looking forward to meeting you.

  Sincerely,

  Dean Charles Matthius

  A piece of lettuce fell out of my mouth. I stared at it on the tiles stupidly, before turning the letter over several times.

  Was this a joke?

  This had to be a joke.

  But who would mess with me like this? Cheetoh certainly wasn’t a prankster... Salem?

  He really didn’t seem like the type either. Both of them solidly carried tortured undead baggage.

  I pulled out the acceptance application and checklist. The application was mostly about personal details for arranging travel, and the checklist...

  “A store-bought wand from these accredited makers...uniforms from these accredited stores...black or brown shoes...” I read aloud, and down at the b
ottom, “No familiars or unregistered magickal objects are allowed on the premises and will be confiscated.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair.

  “This can’t be real, can it?” I asked the empty kitchen.

  Professor Ishita’s office was what one expected from a university professor. Books on shelves, a math joke poster, and a disorganized desk.

  I had plenty of time to memorize the office while Ishita went over the new material.

  I mean, I’d made it to the office hours and that was a step. I listened politely and even answered a problem or two, but nothing could make me care.

  No matter how Ishita tried to make the material interesting, my mind kept wandering. So much so that I missed something she said.

  “What?” I blushed. It wasn’t my intention to be disrespectful. I genuinely liked her.

  Ishita put her book down and smiled at me. “You know, you don’t have to ace the class, just pass it, and I think you can do that. It may not be my place to speak, but I thought you should sit down and really think about what you want to do. Statistics is a requirement for the current major you’ve picked—and you can call me nosy—but I think the problem here is motivation, not ability. You’re a very smart woman, Cecile. You can do anything you put your mind to. You are hardly paying attention now, and even though you are answering correctly, I can tell your heart is not in it.

  “My advice is that after you leave here, sit down and think about what you really want to do, and when you know the answer to that, you’ll find the drive you need to get through even the most boring subjects. Maybe it’s the mother in me, but I wanted to say something.”

  I nodded. I knew she was right, and I had been considering the same myself.

  “Okay,” I told her. “I’ll sit down and give it some thought.”

  Ishita collected her paperwork and placed it on her desk. “I could probably get fired for saying this, but...life doesn’t start or end with this school. There’s a lot more out there. You just need to decide how you will get to where you feel you are most needed. If you’re not happy with what you’re doing, you’ll be miserable for the rest of your life.”

  I smiled at her, touched by her words. It was nice to feel cared about. My mother didn’t show much interest in my schooling. “Thank you, professor.”

  I collected my things, and just before I stepped out, I paused at the doorway. “I mean it. Thank you.”

  She smiled up at me and said, “Maybe try to have a little fun while you think things over. You look like you could use it.”

  As I stepped out in the hallway, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d have fun—not since I’d lost Darren, anyway.

  My conversation with Ishita had brought me face-to-face with my self-imposed purgatory. I’d lost whatever had driven me to attend school and pursue my major. I loved music and making it, but I couldn’t connect to that creative part of myself anymore and didn’t know if I ever would again.

  All I wanted to do was beat up a bad guy. Ever since the pocket dimension showed up, it was all I could think about. I just wanted to crush whoever was tricking those ghosts, but...when I reflected on our visit there, so many of them were happy. Maybe whoever had created it believed they were doing them a kindness. Either way, I would find out.

  I was doing all of this mental heavy lifting while I was in line for a soy latte and almost missed my turn to order. It wasn’t the HopScotch; it was some mermaid place, but it would do.

  Once I’d placed the order, I resumed my musings. When Professor Ishita had asked me to think about what I really wanted to do, I realized that music might not be it. Was this a temporary feeling, or was I really about to go for a solid life change?

  “Cheetoh, over here!” a voice shouted above the noise of the café.

  My head immediately turned. There was only one Cheetoh in this world that wasn’t in an orange and blue bag.

  “Miss,” a young man said, sliding my latte over to me.

  I took it absently and searched the café.

  There.

  Cheetoh was walking in through the main entrance and headed straight for a woman’s table. Before I could register what was going on, they embraced.

  I jumped, spilled my latte all over myself, swore, stumbled, and then ran, shoving patrons as I went and headed straight out the door.

  Once I was safely across the street, with latte all over my jacket, I could finally register how pissed off I was.

  They kissed and fawned over each other for several more minutes before they parted and sat down. The woman slid a mug over for Cheetoh.

  She was a curvy, mid-to late thirties, Asian woman. She seemed warm and kind. She gave off this motherly vibe that I had longed for being raised by a death goddess—but all of that was irrelevant. Cheetoh had lied to me and hid the relationship.

  They were not allowed to date. As long as Salem and Cheetoh wanted to live under my roof and not have their souls torn out and shoved into the afterlife, they could not have relationships outside the house. They were barely able to have acquaintances. It was too dangerous.

  They both ate people!

  My mother had to make arrangements with a mortician for Salem, and none of us knew a damn thing about Cheetoh’s curse. Who knew when she’d have to feed again to sustain herself? I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do when that day came.

  I watched for an hour. I stood out in the snow, rage warming my cold, dead heart. If it weren’t for my anger, I would have frozen to death half an hour ago.

  They gushed and embraced and hesitantly parted. Cheetoh watched her girlfriend leave with the goofiest grin on her face. I’d never seen her like that, and there was a split second where I pitied her, but then I remembered how she’d been avoiding me and lying about work, and my fists tightened.

  A man bumped into Cheetoh and her resting bitch face returned, signaling to me it was time for an intervention.

  As she walked toward home, I crossed the street and seethed behind her.

  Once she got close enough to a side alley, I swiped my hand right and tossed her into it.

  My hand tightened into a fist as I felt her struggle against my control. She didn’t scream or draw attention because she knew better and she knew I had caught her.

  I turned into the alley like a pissed-off parent and met her defiant gaze. I held her against the wall and shouted, “You lied! All this time you’ve been lying to me about work and endangering that woman’s life! Do you think I’m an idiot? That I wouldn’t find out?!”

  Her gold-tipped claws scratched into brick and she snarled at me. “It is a fling! Is nothing. I work extra shifts to help pay for your school and bills! It was a coffee and kiss!”

  I sneered. My anger rattled through me and accidentally summoned Tanner. I felt him climb out of my jacket and perch on my shoulder, and I could hear the scuttle of little feet in the alley as our mischief gathered.

  “If you think I will tolerate any more of your lies, you are mistaken,” I said between gritted teeth. I couldn’t remember the last time I was this angry. I could feel my necro-powers raising my hair and charging the air. My power pulsed, causing Cheetoh to back down.

  Her face changed from anger to fear.

  “You know the rules. You know you are forbidden to have close relationships. Did you even think about her? That innocent woman who you could have killed?”

  Cheetoh shook her head. “I—”

  “You what?” I snapped. “You didn’t think about me, my mother, or Salem. You didn’t think about this woman who could become an unfortunate victim of your curse at any moment, because we know nothing about it! There is a fucking CSIS agent in Silverbrook, Cheetoh! You are endangering all of us!”

  She shook her head. Her face and eyes red with tears and anger. “How dare you treat me like this! Like some puppet!”

  “I wouldn’t need to leash you if I could trust you!” I screamed back.

  By this time, we were drawing onlookers. People who couldn
’t see my magick, my rat spirits, or the hold I had on Cheetoh, but just in case, I swallowed down my anger.

  I felt my hair relaxing and my power slowly seeping back into my body. I pointed directly at her chest. “You’re coming home with me and calling off work for the foreseeable future. Quit. I don’t care. You’re under house arrest and if you betray me again, I won’t hesitate to feed you to my rats and have them drag you to my mother’s hell dimension.”

  Her head was held high, but her lip trembled. We stared at one another, anger and betrayal in both our eyes, before I turned and snapped, forcing her to follow.

  MUMMY ON LOCKDOWN

  Cheetoh flung the door open so hard that the doorknob got stuck in the wall.

  “You better think about how you will pay for things, now that you’re unemployed!” I roared, pulling the front door free of the wall.

  Salem’s head peeked out of the kitchen and then immediately disappeared again. It smelled like he had been cooking.

  “You attack me in the street, in the view of everyone, and you think I am problem?” she turned and shouted at me.

  “Oh, I’m sorry! Was that inconvenient for you? Because being hunted by reapers is worse!”

  She growled at me and then stormed off to her room, slamming her door to make sure I got the point.

  I paced for several moments, flexing my fingers and pulling on the spells I’d laid on our house.

  The rats scurried, but Tanner remained on my shoulder.

  “Great. I’ve got to somehow add a ward that lets you leave the house, but keeps Cheetoh in,” I yelled to Salem, oblivious to whether or not he was listening.

  I threw my arms up in exasperation before I sat on the couch.

  I crossed my arms. I huffed. I got up. I sat back down, and then I looked over to see Salem standing in the kitchen holding a bowl of pasta, visibly questioning whether he should come in.

  I tapped my foot. “You can sit with me.”

  He came over and offered me the bowl.

  I could see the noodles weren’t cooked enough, but I took a forkful anyway. He tried, and that’s what mattered.