The Necromancer's Knives

by Jen Kirchner

  Ha! That totally sounds like something you would do.

  Honestly, it’s amazing you didn’t die right there.

  “Okay,” I snapped, “Longy, you shouted your presence to the world in order to protect me. Stubby, I’m waiting for you to say you took control of Ryan’s body for a good reason, too.”

  No, that was just for fun.

  Longy snickered.

  I shouted, “I could have prevented all of this from happening if you’d told me about it first.”

  A buzzing rattled the back of my brain, and it translated as Longy’s frustration.

  How much help do you think you can be as a pacifist? Stubby told us about your “fight” with Luucas. If anything, telling you about this would have gotten you killed faster. The best thing we could do was keep you out of it. You could have died.

  My anger echoed off of the walls and bounced back at us from every direction. “Losing Rambo is worse!”

  I wasn’t even sure why it was worse, but it certainly felt that way. The idea of Rambo getting into the wrong hands was a nightmare.

  Stubby quieted. The knife sounded calm, and that scared me.

  You getting killed is worse. What happens to us when you’re dead? No one else will talk to us. No one else will turn on the television for us. No one else will buy us presents. No one else will sing with Rambo or watch a movie with us. No one else in the world will care for us like you do. We belong to each other. When you die, we’ll be alone forever. So we’ll do whatever it takes to protect you. Plus, it’s our job.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I was torn between wanting to hug them and tossing them into the washing machine’s vigorous and dizzying spin cycle.

  Longy puffed a black doughnut-like cloud.

  How did that chick get in here, anyway? I thought you had an access spell around the house again.

  I placed both hands on the table, sucked in a deep breath, and closed my eyes. “The necromancer was the one killing the band’s fans. She targeted people who won my personal items in a contest. She couldn’t kill Brad, so she went after Cody Springer. She left his body behind the mailbox. I’m sure you know how it works.”

  Longy sounded exasperated.

  Honestly, we didn’t think she could do it. We helped you protect Brad. The rest of your family is virtually untouchable, and she’d never survive an encounter with Mikelis. You don’t even like Cody Springer. How were we to know that killing him would work?

  In that moment, all of the stress of the past few weeks hit me, coupled with the tragedy of these deaths, the frustration of my own ignorance, and the overwhelming feeling that this was all too big for me to fix alone.

  I slammed the lab door shut and shouted at the top of my lungs, “You should have told me what you knew! People are dead! Rambo is missing!”

  What do you think you could have done about it?

  When you find out about danger, you do the opposite of what you should do!

  “I do the opposite of what you would do, because your solution for everything is to go around murdering people. Why should I tell you anything?”

  And you’re so much better? Your M.O. is to try to get yourself killed.

  The door flew open and banged against the wall. Startled, I jumped a foot in the air. The knives shut up.

  Mikelis stepped into the room carrying Miss Nadia’s crate. He set her down on the table. He glanced at me, and then at the knives. His tone was low and felt dangerous. “From now on, you’ll all tell me.”

  Good plan.

  I’m on board with that.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. How dare he walk in here and order me and my knives around!

  “Actually,” I said, “I’d like to know how you can get past my access spell.”

  He was fiddling with the latches on Nadia’s crate, opening the door so she could get out. His hand froze.

  “To get through an access spell,” I said, “a necromancer apparently needs four personal objects belonging to their target—”

  Dipped in blood.

  “Thank you, Stubby. Dipped in blood. Which is totally disgusting, by the way. Anyway, then you need a fifth component, which is the sacrifice of someone the target has an emotional attachment to.” I straightened to my full height and folded my arms across my chest. “You told me you didn’t kill anyone to get past my access spell. Apparently, it was a lie.”

  He went back to fiddling with the cat crate’s latches and popped them open. The little metal gate swung open. Nadia’s tiny black nose poked out and sniffed the air.

  “I didn’t lie. I…” He cleared his throat. “When you were in college, I broke into your car a few times. That’s where the personal items came from. You don’t want to know where the blood came from, but no one died.”

  I knew I was fixing him with the thousand-watt stare of a crazy person, but I hardly cared. “And then?”

  “And then I kind of, but not really, killed your biological father.”

  He faced me, arms loose at his sides. Expressionless.

  I did not see that coming.

  Neither did I.

  That made three of us. In my case, I was shocked because it didn’t make any sense.

  “That’s not right. I killed my—my—” I couldn’t force myself to use the f-word, so I gave up trying. “That man.”

  That man had been a religious fanatic who thought I was possessed by the devil because every time he touched me he saw weird, dark things. My Immortal adoptive parents had removed me from that house before my first birthday and paid a lot of hush money to keep it a secret.

  Now that I’m older, I make the payments.

  “It was an accident,” I added. “You know, what happened.”

  I wasn’t sure why I said that. It was obviously an accident. And self-defense. I was eight years old when he attacked me in the car, at a stoplight. I had scissors in my school backpack.

  It counted as a necromancer sacrifice regardless. My magical consciousness was birthed into the fourth channel, and it made quite a ripple, since my dad felt it in Stockholm. And that was when I learned that Mikelis is not a morning person. He’d tried to do to me what he did to my kitchen many years later.

  Mikelis’s words were slow and careful. “I think that when you stabbed him, he didn’t die right away. So, when I crushed your car, his death qualified as a sacrifice for both of us. He was the cause of a highly emotional ordeal and he was your biological father, which qualified as sacrificing someone you had a strong connection to.”

  He ran his hand through his thick, dark hair. His next words came out in a rush, like he was ripping off a bandage.

  “And then I went down to the morgue and stole his rosary, in case I needed it.”

  I didn’t understand, and I let my confused expression show it.

  Ooh. I get it. In case you grew up to be a threat and he needed to break in here and murder you.

  My eyes narrowed, and my gaze slid to Stubby. “Thanks.”

  No problem.

  “No wonder you didn’t want to tell me,” I said. “That’s a lot of work just to get into my house.”

  He frowned and turned to the knives. It seemed he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Why are you two on those ridiculous bears? What did you do this time?”

  I valiantly rescued Kari. It’s just part of being Legendary Longy, the Terror of the Basement.

  I hijacked Ryan’s body when he was going for the lollipops.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Right.” Mikelis rubbed his hand across his face. “And why did the necromancer take Rambo? She had ample opportunity to kill Kari, and instead stole a knife. Why?”

  Longy actually sounded embarrassed.

  Because we made a mistake. We really thought I had scared off the necromancer for good, but we missed one small detail.

  Mikelis’s eyebrows lifted. “And that is?”

  Her knife saw Kari.

  Mikelis and I exchanged a confused look.

 
; “So?” I asked.

  Kari’s different. It’s not obvious to you, but it is to other knives. The other necromancer’s original plan was probably to kill Kari for the power that can only come from defeating another necromancer. Kari’s small and ineffectual, so if I were that knife, that’s what I would have recommended.

  A new trail of smoke, heavy with thought, drifted up from Stubby.

  It was the correct plan, given the information we had. But when the knife got a good look at Kari and saw what she really was, the plan changed, and that’s where our defense went wrong.

  The knives sounded as if this explained everything.

  “I’m not following you,” Mikelis said. “What would the other knife say about Kari?”

  That Kari’s special.

  And she should probably wear a helmet.

  I glared at Stubby. “What does this have to do with Rambo?”

  Smoke trailed upward from Longy.

  It’s hard to explain because we only know what’s been done before. For example, we didn’t know what a necromancer’s third knife was really capable of until two thousand years ago. Only one knife has ever guided a necromancer to that level of power…

  “My dad,” I said.

  Yes. The same is true for Kari. For every necromancer like Kari, there’s a knife like Rambo. There have been very few of those knives, and we only know what those necromancers have been able to accomplish with them—which isn’t much. There are secrets only Rambo knows.

  “So, you don’t know exactly what the other necromancer can do with Rambo,” Mikelis said.

  Well, we could guess.

  Mikelis stepped toward the counter, a threatening look on his face. “So guess.”

  Smoke wafted from Stubby and gathered like a storm cloud above the counter.

  We think she’s going to try a switch.

  “Switch what?” I asked.

  Your magic. She’ll take your magic, and you’ll get hers. You’ll become the ultimate warrior, like Mikelis and your dad.

  I took a step backward, reeling like I’d just been punched in the gut.

  “Are you sure?” Mikelis asked.

  If I were her knife, I’d offer up the option. If they’ve taken Rambo, she must have agreed.

  It must have been one hell of a sales pitch. If I wanted to cast a spell, it would take an hour to search through my notebook and another hour to create the spell in a responsible and nonviolent manner.

  There were few reasons someone else would want my magic abilities, and they weren’t benevolent.

  When tiny black dots started dancing before my eyes, I realized I’d been holding my breath. Mikelis placed his hands on my shoulders and I looked up. His eyes met mine, and I felt his strength.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  No, she’s not okay. It’s why we don’t tell her anything.

  My hands clenched into fists. “What does the necromancer need to make this switch?”

  Rambo’s instructions.

  And your blood.

  My stomach soured, but Mikelis smiled like we’d just won the lottery.

  “Perfect.” He released my shoulders, turned away, and headed for the hall.

  Perfect? Was he crazy?

  “What are you doing?” I demanded. “I have to find that necromancer and get Rambo back!”

  “Don’t worry. She’ll come to us.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. I preferred to keep my blood inside my body, where it belonged.

  He passed through the fuzzy gray wall and broke into a jog. His voice floated back at me, echoing off of the concrete walls. “I need to remove the body parts and items around your property line. In the meantime, start pulling all the boxes out of the panic room and put them into Luucas’s bedroom.”

  As he jogged up the stairs out of sight, I shouted after him. “Why?”

  “Because Intelligence won’t stop until they’re allowed into this house and they’ve collected every last bit of the voodoo crap—and then they’re going to release Henri Boisseau from house arrest.”

  I listened to his footsteps as they crossed the floor upstairs. The front door slammed shut and the house was, once again, quiet. Nadia swirled around my ankles, purring.

  You know, a switch would fix you. You’d be powerful.

  You’d be less boring!

  I looked up at the adorable dancing bears cradling instruments of destruction. “Miss Nadia, how would you like to hear a song?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  When Ronel and Norayr were escorted into my house, I was hiding in a dark corner of the upstairs hall where they wouldn’t find me. Marcus and Mikelis were supervising.

  I’d expected everything to be wrapped up quickly. Marcus had worked out an agreement that Intelligence wouldn’t go through a warrant, but instead be given all the boxes and be out of the house in fifteen minutes or less. But, at the one hour mark, I heard an argument break out. Norayr wanted to scour Luucas’s bedroom and office nook for additional items. Marcus wasn’t allowing it—he and I had already gone through, and we’d done a thorough job. Norayr wasn’t convinced. Apparently, he really, really wanted to get back into Luucas’s room.

  While I waited, I sat in the darkness with my back against the wall and thought about Rambo. Was the knife okay? Was it scared? Was it being treated poorly? I knew it was an irrational fear, but I couldn’t help it—I worried about Rambo.

  What I didn’t want to think about was the possibility of getting myself switched with this other necromancer—and I certainly didn’t want to think about the method. Rambo was a scary-looking knife with jagged teeth that I assumed were for ripping. Or maybe sawing…

  The landline rang, saving me from additional horrific thoughts. All four house phones screamed from different locations, each with a different jarring ringtone. In three more rings, my answering machine would pick up and broadcast the caller’s message through the entire house—something I didn’t want with Intelligence here—so I sprinted down the hall to the nearest phone.

  I burst into my tiny square office just before the answering machine picked up. I snatched the cordless phone from its cradle and flopped down onto the leather chair, rolling backward so hard that I hit the wall.

  “Ow! Hello?”

  “Kari, don’t let them take those boxes!”

  “Luucas?” I pried myself up from the chair and kicked the door shut. “Don’t tell me you used your one phone call for this.”

  “Never mind that.”

  He paused. I heard other voices on his side, and loud banging noises, but I couldn’t really make it out. They were the general sounds of a conservator station, I decided. As if I knew.

  “Listen to me, Kari. We have to find the key to the person behind—”

  I cut him off, shouting my anger into the phone. “Forget about the key!”

  I clapped my hand over my mouth. No one needed to surveil my phone to hear that outburst.

  Luucas’s voice softened. “I know you’re worried about…”

  His words trailed off, but I knew what he was going to say: you’re worried about your mother.

  He was right. Earlier, as I was packing up the cardboard boxes, I’d thought about my mom and her Seer gifts. I thought about how Luucas had made her abuse them. By acting on her advice and searching for the “key” that she’d mentioned, Luucas could have sent us down a path to doom. If I went searching for the key at this point, wouldn’t I make things even worse?

  Then again, Immortal Intelligence knew my true identity, my ability to evade them was running out, Cody was dead, Rambo had been stolen, and Luucas was in his own jail. I didn’t know if things could get much worse, and I was afraid to find out. So, I hadn’t looked for the key earlier, and I didn’t want to now.

  “Luucas, don’t make this worse than it already is.”

  “I have to know. Something weird is going on.”

  “Yeah, it’s you, dingus!”

  “No,” he growled. “Someth
ing is really off about this situation. Norayr brought Henri Boisseau into the station and had his ankle bracelet removed. They left together.”

  I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see me. “So?”

  “So, don’t you think that’s weird? Keeping Henri with him?”

  “Forget about Henri. Mikelis told me about Henri’s… situation. He’s not someone to worry about.”

  Luucas paused, probably trying to figure out my vague wording. “Hippopotamus,” he finally said.

  He got it, as I knew he would: the spell my grandfather had placed on Henri. Because of the spell, I didn’t see the need to worry. How did Norayr think he was going to get around that spell? Despite being the head of Intelligence, I didn’t think he knew something about it that we didn’t.

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “I still think Norayr and Ronel are up to something.” He paused. “Ask Mikelis to look for a key. Maybe the key isn’t something I would recognize, but a necromancer would.”

  Was he suggesting that Mikelis go to the voodoo bunker? I didn’t dare say it over this phone.

  “Are you kidding me right now?” I hissed. “Mikelis won’t do it.”

  As if that were a summons, the office door opened. The light from the hallway enveloped Mikelis, giving him a harsh silhouette. Solid. Imposing. Defensive. I stiffened, like I was preparing to face him in battle.

  We hadn’t talked since we’d confronted the knives, and we certainly hadn’t addressed the fight we’d had days prior. As he slipped inside the room, my cat slunk through the open doorway. Mikelis shut the door and leaned back against it, arms folded across his chest. Miss Nadia leapt onto the desk and headbutted me, demanding to be petted.

  “Just ask him,” Luucas said. “Mikelis always caves. If he finds the key, then it proves my investigation is valid.”

  I sighed and held out my hand, watching Nadia mash her face into my fingers. I glanced up at Mikelis, who I knew could hear every word Luucas had just said.

  “And if he doesn’t find it?”

  “I’ll drop the whole thing.”

  I felt my upper lip curl. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. Yes.” He paused. “I’m serious. I’ll drop it.”

  I raised both eyebrows at Mikelis, who didn’t acknowledge the conversation one way or another. I found it deeply tempting. By dropping the investigation, he’d stop questioning my mom and pursuing the key. Also, he’d no longer be provoking the Council, who I really needed to back off of me.