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The Necromancer's Knives

Page 27

by Jen Kirchner


  I felt my eyes narrow. “Are you calling my dad a liar?”

  “I am calling the record inaccurate.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. Dad had been made immortal at the height of the Immortal State Civil War. The Immortal Council gave him the State’s worst war criminals as sacrifices. In return for helping to bring an end to the war, Dad was allowed to grow his power, but he agreed to be tested.

  I knew two things about my dad. First, he always kept his word. He said his reputation for honoring agreements was his most important weapon in negotiations. Second, and more importantly, Dad had never trusted the Immortal Council.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I only know what’s in the record.”

  “You never asked?” the Scholar said.

  “A necromancer’s magic is personal. It’s rude to ask.”

  Also, I was afraid Dad would supply the gory details of how he obtained those powers.

  The Scholar didn’t acknowledge that, so I added, “You’d have to be a necromancer to understand.”

  The Scholar shifted on their feet. The hood slumped a little to the side. “He is powerful.”

  Brad shifted his posture. Stiff shoulders. Eyes narrowed. Impatient. I understood how he felt; we were losing precious time.

  “What else do you want?” Brad asked. “We can’t tell you about Diaco Rendon. Name another price. There has to be something else we can give you.”

  “Yes.” The hood twitched again, and the Scholar let out a hushed, tortured laugh. “I want to see it.”

  I frowned. “See what?”

  The Scholar extended his arm and pointed a gloved finger at me.

  No. At my bag.

  Instinctively, I hugged my bag closer to me, squeezing a cloud of black smoke into the air. The tiny reflective particles flashed in the thin rays of light leaking between the trees. My legs went numb. I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to.

  Rambo’s monotone voice sounded quieter, like the knife was trying to hide.

  I don’t like this.

  I didn’t either, but I didn’t see another way. My gut said I needed to act fast or I’d never see Norayr or the girl again. And if I only had to show my super-rare sacrificial knife whose purpose wasn’t yet totally clear…

  Brad leaned close to me. “It’s just a peek.”

  Damned if I did, damned if I didn’t. I set my bag on the ground and grabbed the bundle of cloth that held Rambo.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered, trying to soothe Rambo.

  I don’t think it is.

  But I didn’t feel like I had a choice.

  I unwrapped the layers of towels and T-shirts around Rambo’s blade. The jagged teeth looked dark as tar in the sunlight, and the wicked runes embossed upon it were somehow even darker.

  Keeping the layers of cloth wrapped around the hilt, I grabbed it with both hands and held the knife up, just enough so the Scholar could see it. A breeze caught Rambo’s smoke and made it look like a weapon from the deepest hell.

  One that would gladly trap you in a room and make you sing show tunes for all eternity.

  The Scholar said nothing. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it was going to break through my ribcage. I counted down in my head. Five… four… three… two… one.

  I tossed the loose T-shirts back over Rambo. The show was over.

  Brad stepped in front of me. “We’ve held up our end of the bargain. Now it’s your turn. What did you help Norayr do?”

  There was a long pause, as if the Scholar was deciding how much to say. The enormous hood rustled.

  “I informed him of the last few power symbols used by Eliana Rendon.”

  Mikelis had done that to me once, too. He didn’t know what the power symbols meant, just that I had used them.

  Brad frowned. “That’s it?”

  “I enabled him to demonstrate one.”

  My heart leapt into my throat. “Did you transfer my magic to him?”

  “No. I enabled him to demonstrate a power you have recently activated.”

  I scrunched up my nose. What had I recently activated? Stubby’s protection spell. Brad’s not-so-secret Let’s Rock spell. The Midas Touch spell that I’d attached to the pink bandages.

  I was forgetting something. Norayr Hakobyan was going to meet with the Council and prove that he could use my magic to weaponize the Immortal State. To convince human governments to back off. What would he use to demonstrate that kind of power?

  It hit me like a brick. The Sneeze spell.

  It wasn’t exactly a “sneeze” spell. The original power on The Floor was a virulent disease. I’d worked hard to perfect it into a short, allergic reaction of sneezing. He would have the original power. A plague. One that couldn’t even affect immortals.

  The answer must have hit Brad at the same time. He turned to me suddenly.

  “I told you that spell sucks, Kari!”

  “Give me a break. It’s not like I could have seen this coming.” I noticed the Scholar backing away. “Where are you going?”

  “Our contract is complete.”

  “Seriously? We probably could have guessed what you had done. I gave you something extremely rare—something very few people in the world have ever seen.”

  Brad folded his arms across his chest. “Kari’s right. We paid more than we received.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Give us something that will help us stop Norayr,” I said.

  “Very well.” The Scholar’s hood rustled and they stepped away from the oak tree, exposing the other half of their body. They were holding a wooden staff.

  It was difficult to see the details, but it was tall, thicker at the bottom and tapering upward. The Scholar set the staff against the tree and started to move backward.

  Brad moved toward the tree, keeping pace with the Scholar’s movements. It seemed a careful and calculated advance. His hand tentatively reached for the staff, the one thing that could cancel this gruesome trade and get my magic back.

  Relief flooded me, followed by elation. This was it. We were going to get Norayr! Brad’s fingers paused in mid-air, as if having a second thought about the dangers. Then he grabbed it and jumped back.

  I could see his eyes narrow. His head dipped close to the stick.

  His head snapped up. “This is a pool cue, you jackass. What are we supposed to do, smack Norayr over the head with it?”

  “You said you wanted something that would stop Norayr. You did not specify how.” The Scholar turned to leave.

  “All you did was give us a stick,” I said.

  The Scholar stopped. “It is more than a simple stick.” They glanced back over their shoulder. The hood drooped so far over their face that I wondered if they could even see me.

  I glanced at the pool cue again. There were no spell strings around it. No energy emanating from it. If it was anything more than a pool cue, it wasn’t obvious to me.

  “It’s just a stick,” I said, adamant.

  The Scholar’s hands went to their hips. “It is not!”

  “Fine,” I said. “How does it work?”

  “You did not pay enough for that.”

  The Scholar turned and dashed behind a fallen tree. Brad and I sprinted after them, but they’d disappeared without a trace.

  Brad glanced around again. An uneasy expression marred his face. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The cabin was quiet. The only two signals were my mom and Heraclitus, and neither of them were moving. Probably asleep.

  Brad parked around the side. Exhausted, we dragged ourselves out of the car, along with empty coffee cups, two empty fast food bags, and an empty donut box.

  Heraclitus must have heard his sedan’s loud engine because he met us at the door. He looked to be in roughly the same shape we were: worn out and in need of a vacation from our lives. The cabin smelled a lot cleaner than before. Heraclitus must have left the windows open for a while, trying to exorcise the air of a week
’s worth of stale pizza.

  “How’s my mom?” I asked.

  “Her condition comes and goes. Diaco called, and she suddenly had clarity about her surroundings and a little about our situation. I think certain people are able to anchor her to this reality. Beyond that, she is utterly confused. She mostly sleeps. When she wakes, she keeps asking how the queen is doing.”

  Brad stuffed our empty bags into the kitchen trash can. “What do you make of it?”

  “She has been manipulating events for much longer than any of us realized. I am not sure she even recalls why at this point.”

  “Even if she remembers why,” I said, “she won’t be able to tell us.”

  Heraclitus nodded. “If the multitude of realities and timelines become closer because of a shared event, she will become more coherent. If no events are shared, she will be more disoriented. She should sleep.”

  Brad nodded. “The less Aunt Isadora talks, the better.”

  “Few Seers have been documented in this condition,” Heraclitus said. At this point, I am navigating by theory. She is so divorced from our present reality that her movements could be influenced by other timelines and their events. If she continues, she will die.” He paused. “And she will likely take some of us with her.”

  I dropped my bag onto the couch and rubbed my forehead. “Awesome. Where is everyone? We need information.”

  “We agreed to regroup here in…” He glanced at his watch. “…three hours.”

  “We don’t have that kind of time,” I said.

  Brad recounted everything that had happened in the last seven hours. Granted, most of it was driving Heraclitus’s beast of a car and stopping for gas every hour, but it had been an eventful afternoon nonetheless. Heraclitus was visibly shocked at our report, especially about the Scholar.

  “The Scholar is folklore.” He looked worried as he spoke. “Allegedly, the Scholar bargains for knowledge, usually about obscure, magic-related things. In many stories, the person is tricked and unable to pay, so the Scholar takes the entirety of their knowledge in a complete Mindwipe. As the story goes, the unfortunate person is reduced to a vegetative state.”

  Brad looked alarmed. “Has anyone ever been found totally Mindwiped?”

  Heraclitus shrugged. “Rumors. Conservators have looked into these reports and have never been able to confirm the Scholar’s existence.”

  “Well,” Brad said, “the legendary Scholar gave us a pool cue.”

  Heraclitus’s brows shot up.

  “We paid in full,” I said, “so neither of us are in danger of becoming vegetables. We need to find out where Norayr Hakobyan is meeting the Council.”

  Heraclitus nodded. “I agree, but everyone is still out and we have no way to reach each other. We will need to wait.”

  I couldn’t wait. It was a struggle to keep my voice even and not yell. The panic inside me was desperate to break free. “We have to get to Norayr and the girl before the Council gets here, and we don’t know where they are. We might only have a couple of hours. Once Norayr meets with the Council, the girl will be completely out of our reach.”

  And the telepath spell was still dark.

  “They probably didn’t book flights immediately after Norayr called,” Brad said. “Right? How could he reach all of the Council and their aides that quickly?”

  I stared at Brad for a second. I could tell by the tone of his voice that even he didn’t believe what he was saying.

  Of course the Council could be galvanized into action. The Immortal State was in crisis mode. Even if the State could carve out land for themselves, there would be no food. Immortals would die. All of this was because of me. I couldn’t believe Norayr’s solution was starting to sound logical.

  Brad sank back into the dilapidated cushion, looking defeated. “Is it really so bad if you stay this way? You’re alive, Kari. Isn’t that the most important thing?”

  No, I realized with startling clarity. It wasn’t. But somehow I couldn’t bring myself to say so.

  Heraclitus stood up from the couch. He kissed me on the top of my head and squeezed Brad’s shoulder. “I need to sleep. We will find a solution, Eliana.”

  Brad stood with him. “And I need a shower. I stink.”

  They disappeared into the back of the log cabin. I heard doors open and shut, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  Are we alone?

  “Yeah, Rambo. We’re alone.”

  What’s the plan?

  I sighed and shook my head. I had no idea. Tears of frustration threatened the corners of my eyes, and a lump formed in my throat. “I guess we just wait for everyone to come and solve my problems.”

  I hated that answer. And could they even help? By the time we finally regrouped, the meeting with the Council would be over and the girl would be whisked away to some secret militarized site.

  I angrily wiped away a tear. “I can’t let this happen, but I don’t know how to stop it.”

  Miss Sparkles’s high-pitched telepathic voice tickled the middle of my skull.

  Uh, you’re a necromancer with a nice array of offensive spells. And since you’re a necromancer, you can point those spells at a whole group if you like. No matter how many people are at that meeting, they can’t compete with you. If I had more information about this Council meeting, I could whip up a plan of attack.

  “No,” I said, sniffling and fighting back the tears. “I’m a pacifist. If I’m going to resolve this, I’m going to do it without harming anyone. That’s who I am. That’s what my magic is all about.”

  Miss Sparkles sounded completely baffled.

  Your magic is… what?

  “My magic—the magic that your necromancer stole—is all about peace. It only works if you’re a pacifist.”

  Who told you that?

  I could feel Rambo burbling, but the knife said nothing.

  “Well, I assumed. I don’t like to hurt anyone. My knives rewarded me for that by giving me this kind of magic.” I paused. “Also, I think my knives were super bored and wanted a little more to do.”

  You are an idiot. That is not how your form of necromancy works. There are tests you have to pass before you’re chosen.

  I stared at my bag incredulously. “What?”

  I was created recently, but all knives have some knowledge of our history. There have been very few like you. Someone of your kind is appointed when a situation is dire. And then you have to pass tests and meet specific criteria. From what I can gather about you, you probably passed those tests by accident.

  I ignored that last comment. “Rambo, do you know anything about this?”

  Not really. I wasn’t around yet.

  Miss Sparkles’s derisive tone fluttered across my mind.

  You weren’t chosen because you’re a pacifist. Your knives probably chose you because you care how people would be affected by a major shift in magic. You were chosen to ensure the balance is maintained—even if it means a fight.

  “I do care. I care a lot.”

  Well, let’s go kick some ass, then!

  “No. I mean, yes, but...” My mind whirred. I needed a plan. My gaze slid to Heraclitus’s car keys sitting on the small table by the door. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “We’re going to stop Norayr from using my magic to start a war. Hopefully we’ll get my magic back in the process. But we’re going to do it my way.”

  Lame.

  Shut it, Sparkle-Britches. Kari, you could die trying to do this.

  “Are you saying you can’t switch my magic back?”

  No, I’m saying this is dangerous.

  “I know. But I have to try. At the very least, I have to stop Norayr from using my magic to do so much harm. Even if it means I don’t make it out of there alive.” I clenched my hands together. My answer was surprising, even to me.

  The knives didn’t respond, and I wasn’t sure what else to say. I guess there was nothing else to say.

  Brad came down the hall with clean clothes draped over his sho
ulder. “You okay?”

  I nodded. “Totally.”

  He studied me for a second, then nodded. I could see relief in his eyes. “Good.”

  He disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door. A minute later, the shower turned on, and the water gurgled through the pipes in the walls.

  I slipped off my telepath bracelet and dropped it into my bag, then I jumped to my feet, tiptoed to the door, and swiped the keys. I turned the door handle as quietly as I could. Slipped outside. Closed the door slowly.

  I dashed to the car. My mom’s bedroom window was wide open, and the curtains were closed. I didn’t remember seeing it like that when we’d arrived, but I might have just missed it. The fresh air probably helped Mom sleep.

  I climbed into the car but didn’t shut the door. The door weighed a ton, and immortal hearing would pick up the slamming sound from anywhere. I checked Death Radar again. Heraclitus’s and Mom’s signals weren’t moving, so they must have been dead asleep.

  I took a deep breath and turned over the engine. The massive car roared to life. I threw it into reverse and hit the gas. The car wasn’t the easiest to maneuver, and I’d backed halfway into the bushes before bringing it to a stop.

  The cabin door opened. Brad was wet and half-naked, holding a towel around his waist. Heraclitus appeared over Brad’s shoulder, squinting from the daylight. Brad shouted something I couldn’t understand over the roar of the engine. I wasn’t going to stick around and find out what it was. I shut the door, threw the car into drive, and stepped on the gas.

  I took off down the road in a cloud of dust.

  After I’d bumped and skidded over a mile of dirt road, I pulled onto a paved street. It allowed for one and a half normal-size cars, or just Heraclitus’s car. I grabbed my phone to see if I had a GPS signal. Out of habit, I also checked Death Radar.

  I dropped my phone and glanced around. Something was wrong. I was driving away from the cabin, but my mom’s signal was right on top of me. How was that possible? She was in bed, comatose because of the Seer’s Curse. Maybe I was still getting used to my deadened senses. Maybe I was just exhausted.

  “Rambo, do you know—”

  A blur of movement grabbed my attention as a face popped up into the rearview mirror, and glittering eyes stared at me from under a nest of wild, dark hair.

 

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