Finn Fancy Necromancy

by Randy Henderson

  “I’m sorry. Really.”

  “We watched that movie like a hundred times together.”

  “I’m sorry!” I frowned. “I only remember seeing it a couple times with Petey. Until Mort started making him do the Truffle Shuffle.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s butt about Goonies! I want to know why you went and lost your memories of me? Why not your memories of, I don’t know, Gilligan’s Island, or even Heather?”

  “It’s not like I just gave them away,” I said. “I think they were taken. And if it makes you feel any better, the creature that took them probably wanted whatever in me was most special, most powerful, not just any old memories.”

  Dawn frowned. “That shouldn’t make a difference. But oddly enough, it does.”

  “So, uh, what now?” I asked.

  Dawn picked at the carpet for a minute, then said, “You know, when you showed up after all those years away and I realized I still had feelings for you, I figured, what the hell, you probably needed some work, maybe a little counseling, but if the boy I grew up with was still in there somewhere you might just be worth it. Then, bam, it’s ghosts and curses and waerwolves, and you with your stupid obsession over Heather. And you know what? I think I dealt with all that shit pretty damn well. So no way I’m going to go through all that and then give up. Shoot, if you’d been in a car accident and hit your head, you might’ve forgotten a whole hell of a lot more than just me. If Adam and Drew can go on fifty first dates, we can go on two, I guess.”

  “Adam and Drew?”

  “That can be our next first date,” Dawn said.

  I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Dawn was making a pretty big assumption. Just because she wanted to keep dating, that didn’t mean that I did. I still didn’t really know her. And there was Heather. I remembered Heather wanted space for some reason, but that didn’t change how I felt about her.

  I also remembered Zeke’s warning. Don’t break up with Dawn until we figured out the whole memory thing. Probably good advice.

  Mort arrived with a bandaged leg, the Kin Finder 2000, and, to my surprise, Petey.

  “Who’s with Father?” I asked.

  “Marcus,” Mort said. One of Father’s old friends, and a good choice. I nodded and rushed them inside, carrying the bulky contraption. Pete looked horrible but not as horrible as I would have expected. His wounds were just pink puckered lines now, and the scars from the boiling curse were mostly faded. Pete himself walked a bit stiffly, using the sheathed, silver-coated sword from the library as a walking stick. He looked like he could collapse into sleep at any minute, but he was no longer on the doorstep of death. It was miraculous.

  And terrible.

  The healing potions may have saved his life and accelerated his normal healing, but this was something more. This was waer regeneration.

  I hoped Pete couldn’t read the worry on my face.

  “Hey, Petey,” I said. “It’s good to see you, dude.”

  Pete looked at Zeke snoring on the couch, then at the floor, avoiding my eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t stop the waerwolves.”

  “Oh man, Petey, you did awesome. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  He choked back a sob. “Do you think they’re going to hurt Sammy and Mattie? Or … Vee?”

  “No, definitely not. We’re going to save them, Petey, I promise.” I put as much confidence in my tone as I could and patted the Kin Finder 2000. “This is going to lead us to them. Come on, help me set it up.”

  We set up the machine and fetched a pitcher of water, then I activated the machine with some hair from the control braid. The water boiled, the machine made its noises, and the pen on the mechanical arm drew a reference line on the paper below.

  I rinsed out the pot, then carefully removed the ring at the tip of the mechanical arm and replaced it with the one Father made for me. It fit perfectly. I slid the pen into the new ring and inserted the tube from the machine into the end of the pen.

  I placed a strand of my own hair into the pot and lit the candle beneath it, then laid my hand over the small crystal ball at the back of the machine and concentrated, thinking of Heather—of our many walks to her home, of our many talks on the pier, of our time together yesterday.

  The water boiled, the steam passed through the machine with the normal series of pings and clangs and sproings. The noise woke Zeke.

  “What time is it?” he asked, stretching.

  “Maybe four hours until dawn,” Mort said. “Here.” He tossed Zeke two small bottles.

  Zeke held them up, reading the labels. “Energy drinks?”

  “Gut bombs. Mattie’s friends love them. You’ll crash like a bandicoot later, but it should give you what you need to get through the next few hours without your face hitting the floor.”

  Liquid dripped down into the pen.

  The pen didn’t move.

  I closed my eyes, focused on how I’d felt as I made the mix tape for Heather. I peeked at the pen. Nothing.

  I thought again about our lovemaking and of our kiss in the restaurant. More nothing.

  Thinking of kissing made me think of Dawn’s kiss in the car, the warmth and passion of it.

  The pen twitched, making a line that was barely more than a dot on the page. In the direction of Dawn.

  “Uh,” I cleared my throat. “Okay. I think maybe Pete should try.”

  “Why not me?” Zeke said. “I’m assuming you fixed this fool contraption so it can work with the living?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “It’s still using a kind of spiritual resonance, I think, but it, well, I think it’s supposed to locate your heart’s true love.”

  “Really,” Dawn said, her tone smug as she glanced at the small jot on the paper. “And you thought it would point to who? Heather?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said, using the excuse of carefully removing the pot from the machine to avoid looking at her. “I was just testing it out. Hopefully it will work for Petey.”

  “Me?” Pete said, his tone pleasantly surprised.

  “Him?” Zeke said, his tone unsurprisingly unpleasant.

  “Yes, him!” I said to Zeke. “My brother, who has fought twice to protect your sister. My brother, who is the most honest, loving person I know. My brother, who may be our one chance of finding your sister and saving her. Do you have a problem with that?”

  Zeke and Pete both looked at me with startled expressions, then looked at each other. Zeke’s face flushed red, but he was either too exhausted or too embarrassed to explode. Breath hissed out of him like steam, and he deflated back into the couch.

  “Whatever works,” he said.

  “Good.” I rinsed out the pot. “Pete, can I have some of your hair, please?”

  I set up the KF2K again, and this time had Pete put his hand on the crystal ball and think of Vee. The machine made its noises, the transformed water drip-drop-dripped into the pen.

  The arm lowered. It drew a long straight line out from the center of the page, and rose back up.

  Pete’s grin lit up the room brighter than any candle.

  “Good job, bro,” I said. “Now let’s figure out where the line leads.”

  Pete made quick work of it, flipping through the Thomas Guide and rapidly zeroing in on our target: the waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, not far off the shore of Fort Worden.

  “Are they in a boat?” Zeke asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied. “I think they’re in the Marine Science Center. Or beneath it.”

  It made sense. The shifting nature of the ocean would help diffuse and confuse any scrying spells and mask any magic being performed beneath it. A perfect, Legiony place to hide.

  Lucky for us, love was as deep as the ocean, wide as the sea, powerful as the tides, and all that sappy stuff.

  A rattling knock on the downstairs slider door frames made me jump. Everyone else in the room did the same.

  “That’s for me,” I whispered. “I think. Be ready to run for the car if not
.” I stood and crept down the stairs.

  Priapus stood waiting outside the shattered glass door with arms crossed, his muscles bulging.

  “It’s okay,” I called back up the stairs, then proceeded down to face the gnome over the line of salt and now-glowing line of wards we’d cobbled together on the floor.

  “Ya wanna make a bargain?” the gnome asked. “Because I gotta tell ya, buddy, after the last few days it’s gonna cost ya big-time.”

  “I got you into the EMP.”

  “Yeah. And every frickin’ artifact in the room had security spells on ’em.”

  “I didn’t think that was a problem for you guys.”

  “It ain’t. But it takes time. And magic. And ta not have half the frickin’ enforcers in the world bustin’ inta the joint while we’re doing it, see?”

  “Sorry. It’s not like I told them you were there, though. Did you at least get a dead wizard’s sock like you wanted?”

  “Don’t worry ’bout what we got. If we hadn’t gotten nothing of worth, buddy, you’d be a foot shorter about now. But like I said, you wanna make another deal with my family, it’s gonna cost, capiche?”

  “Actually,” I said. “How’d you like to get a little revenge?”

  28

  Down Under

  Zeke, Pete, and I waited in the Undertown Wine and Coffee bar, a café built in Port Townsend’s underground world of Shanghai tunnels and funky basements. At 4 A.M., the place was filled with feybloods and arcana night owls enjoying coffee, tea, pig’s blood, Danishes, and other delicacies mundane and magical before the place opened to the mundy morning crowd.

  Reggie entered the café followed by his young sidekick Jo, wearing their black and white federal agent suits. They had their game faces on—nobody who looked in their eyes would waste their time with small talk, or bragging, or talking about last night’s dream.

  I felt for the gun in my jacket pocket.

  “Zekiel,” Reggie said as he stopped in front of Zeke, ignoring Pete and me. “About time you called me.”

  Zeke shrugged. “I just didn’t want to bother you with my problems ’less I had to.”

  “And I didn’t want to have to hunt you down like a criminal. But Gramaraye’s time is up, and the ARC’s looking for you now too. Situation’s not good, man. What you said on the phone, about Vee being captured by whoever attacked your transfer, you’re sure about this?”

  “Deadly sure.”

  Reggie stared unmoving at Zeke for a second, then flipped the edge of Zeke’s white jacket. “Looking good, old man.”

  “It still gets the job done,” Zeke replied.

  “Long as you’re wearing it, I don’t doubt it,” Reggie said, and handed Zeke a small foil bag labeled PEANUT BRITTLE. “Brought this, by the way. Hope it meets your need.”

  “Thanks. Hopefully I won’t need it. Look, Rege,” Zeke said, his tone serious as he tucked the bag inside his jacket. “What we’re about to do, it ain’t official enforcer business. And it’s gonna be dangerous. I don’t want to see you guys lose your positions, or be exiled like I was.”

  Reggie put his hand on Zeke’s shoulder. “We’re not here as enforcers, Zekiel, otherwise you’d be arrested already. We’re here as friends. How they treated you before, that was wrong. You just did what the ARC wouldn’t. I’d have done the same, especially for little Vee, and now’s my chance. So, give me the details. Who’s the bad guy here?”

  Zeke glanced at me. I stood up. “A group of arcana bent on starting another Fey-Arcana war kidnapped Vee and the others, and they want Zeke dead,” I said. “And they may have sasquatch and waerwolf mercenaries with them.”

  Jo raised a single eyebrow. “Is this guy serious, Zeke?”

  “He likes to make with the jokes, but this ain’t one of them,” Zeke said.

  “Rogue feybloods are one thing. Rogue arcana—” Reggie shook his head. “I wish we could bring in the ARC on this one. Does this group of yours have a name?”

  “Arcanites,” I said.

  Reggie grunted. “Nasty group. Works from the shadows. We hear rumors, but can’t ever prove anything.”

  “So you guys in or what?” Zeke asked.

  Reggie glanced at Jo and nodded. “Yeah, we’re in, Zekiel. So what’s the plan?”

  “We go in, kill the bad guys, and save the girls,” I said.

  Reggie chuckled. “I like it. Simple. It’s been a while since things were simple.”

  “I hope you’re just joking,” Jo said. “We need to capture these people, interrogate them. If—”

  Reggie put a hand on her arm. “This isn’t an arrest, Rook. This is old-school us versus them. If someone attacks you, put them down hard, or they might get back up and hit one of us from behind, got it?”

  She gave a single sharp nod.

  “Shall we get moving, then?” I motioned toward the door.

  We left the café and moved to the far shadowy corner of the tunnel. I touched the wall and said, “Aperire Ostium!”

  Reggie grabbed my arm. “Are you certain it’s wise to use the tunnels? The feybloods have little love of our kind.”

  “We have safe passage,” I assured him. “I made a deal with the local gnome family. It’s the best way to get close to the Legion undetected.”

  “You ain’t chicken, are ya?” Zeke asked.

  “I’ve learned to be cautious,” Reggie said. “Things aren’t like in the old days, Zeke. And there’s a lot of tension right now between us and the feybloods.”

  The doorway opened, and we marched single file into the dank and musty tunnel beyond.

  We traveled through the tunnels, led by Pete, with Jo at his side “taking point.” There were marker stones, but the gnomes and other feybloods who used the tunnels were known to switch or alter the markers at times to mislead intruders. Pete wasn’t fooled for long, though. Even though we were underground, his uncanny sense of direction quickly warned him when we’d taken a wrong turn.

  He also began sniffing at the air. And once, when he glanced back at me, I swear his eyes flashed yellow briefly.

  I shivered. The worst thing that could happen was for Pete to have his first transformation in the middle of this mission. Bad enough that we had two enforcers with us, but Zeke hated waer creatures and disliked Pete regardless.

  As we marched, I gave Reggie the basics of what had happened the last few days, though I left out the EMP and any other bits of possibly incriminating information. Then I joined Pete up front with Jo, sensing that Zeke and Reggie wanted to talk. The two men lagged behind.

  After a minute, Reggie said, “I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you yet, outside of work.” He clearly meant his low voice for Zeke’s ears only, but the tunnel’s acoustics carried his words forward.

  “Don’t need to apologize,” Zeke said. “You moved on, got a new partner. I’ve been gone a long time. I get it.”

  “Zekiel, that’s not fair. I’ve been busy with work, and well, you’ve never exactly been easy to talk to, damn it. Especially about us.”

  “Well, this sure ain’t the place to talk about it,” Zeke said.

  “You know, a lot has changed since you left. There are women enforcers in the field, obviously. And, well, there isn’t the same pressure for us guy enforcers to be all, you know—”

  “Rege, drop it. I mean it.”

  “Fine. But when this is all done, I expect to finish this talk.”

  The tunnels led us up a slow but steady incline, until we reached a dead end with footholds carved into the wall. A round door of stone rested in the ceiling above. Pete pushed up on the door, and it swung up and open. “We’re here,” he said.

  We climbed one by one out of the grassy Fort Worden hillside beside Alexander’s castle.

  Alexander’s castle wasn’t so much a castle as a square brick tower with a cottage at its base. The tower had crenellated battlements like a castle, though, and I knew for a fact that brownies liked to perch atop it and fire their minuscule arrows at passersb
y, laughing as tourists slapped at nonexistent mosquitoes. It stood in a grassy field dotted with the occasional tree or bush, on a bluff overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Once we were all out of the tunnel we sprinted across the moonlit field to the tree line.

  The dock and Marine Science Center were almost directly below us, beyond a narrow band of grass and rocky beach. “Our enemy is hiding beneath that building,” I said.

  Reggie grunted. “Crossing that dock unseen won’t be easy even with our camouflage.”

  “That’s why we wait here,” I said.

  “And what exactly are we waiting for?” Reggie asked. “An invitation?”

  I took a deep breath. “The Króls. They hate us, but they have reason to hate the Legion even more. I requested a truce, and offered them the location of the ones responsible for killing their kin.”

  Jo spat into the predawn gray night. “You’d deal with blood witches? And you still expect us to believe you’re not a dark necromancer?”

  “I’m using my enemies against each other,” I said.

  Reggie rubbed at his bald head. “Assuming these Króls really are here, what exactly are they going to do?”

  “I don’t know. But whatever it is, I’m hoping it will create enough of a distraction that we can slip in and get to the girls quick and easy. And if not, the Króls should at least trip any alarms or traps before we do.” All that role-playing experience had come in handy after all.

  Movement. I squinted. Two figures slunk along the rocky shoreline to the edge of the pier. One looked back over his shoulder, scanning the park, the moon reflecting off pale skin.

  The Króls. They’d received my message from the gnomes.

  “They’re here,” I said.

  The Króls stopped, and it looked as though one of them played a bone like a flute. After a minute, the ground darkened, and rippled. I squinted. What—?

  “Rats,” Jo said.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “No, rats. The Króls have summoned a swarm of rats.”

  The image of the shiny, writhing mass was disturbing but not half as disturbing as seeing just how many rats were within range of the Króls’ call.

  The Króls sprinted across the dock, and the swarm of rats writhed around them, fanning out behind them in a train of seething darkness. The Króls entered the Marine Center building, and the rats disappeared after them like oil draining down a funnel.