The Necromancer's Knives

by Jen Kirchner

  “Hello, sweetheart!”

  I let out a blood-chilling scream of terror, stomped on the brakes, and temporarily lost control of the car. Luckily, the sedan was too heavy to fishtail on a dry road or spin into a tree, but we careened off the road and into the bushes. Mom was thrown to the floor, and I heard her small cry of alarm.

  The car bumped and banged through the bushes, mowing down Mother Nature. My bag gained some air, with the knives inside, and they were thrown around the floor. Rambo joined me in the panic and started to scream in monotone.

  AH. AH. AAAH.

  In my head, it sounded like the world’s most depressing antacid commercial. It must have startled Miss Sparkles, because that knife started to scream, too.

  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

  Black smoke clogged the air, and the smell of cooked rubber filled my nostrils. I let off the brakes, allowed the car to slow until I had it back under control, then I swerved onto the road. Luckily, hardly anyone lived out here, so there were no people for me to hit.

  “Mom, are you okay? What are you doing here?”

  Her tan hand grasped the seat and she pulled herself upright. I glanced over my shoulder at her. She looked okay, albeit confused. Her eyes squinted at the light and scanned her surroundings, as if she was trying to figure out when and where she was.

  She hoisted herself up and flopped headfirst over the bucket seats and into the passenger side. When she finished twisting herself into a seated position, she popped open the glove compartment and fished around for a pair of sunglasses.

  There were three pairs exhibiting varying degrees of gas station chic. She chose the pair with the largest and darkest lenses, which happened to be adorned with tiger stripes and gigantic paws in each upper corner. I saw her turn my way, as if looking for approval on her selection, and then she flipped down the visor so she could fix her hair.

  “What are you doing here?” I repeated. “I thought you were sleeping.”

  She flipped the visor back up. “We have not been able to spend much quality time together lately.” She paused. “I think.”

  She was staring at me. Her brows, just above the rim of the sunglasses, scrunched together in a V.

  “You think?” I waited a moment for her to respond, but she didn’t. She was still studying me, displaying that confused, crinkled brow. “Do you even know who I am?” I demanded.

  Before responding, she reached over and touched my hand. I gave it to her, and she slid her hand into mine. At our contact, Mom started to seem more present. As if her form was more set in the world than it had been before. I wasn’t sure how else to describe it. I had always known that contact helped ground her to reality.

  “You are my daughter, whom I love with all my heart. I raised you. I would do anything for you.” She paused and pointed into the back seat. “I brought your pool cue.”

  I sighed. I couldn’t bring her with me for this. She wasn’t well. On the other hand, I couldn’t risk turning back to drop her off. Brad and Heraclitus would find a way to keep me from leaving, and then I’d never be able to stop Norayr in time.

  I stepped on the gas.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Luucas managed more than a dozen conservator stations on the east coast, including three large stations that served as central hubs and jails. The largest conservator station in the northeast was located in Niagara Falls, two minutes from the border with Canada.

  Standing twelve stories high and leaning to the left, the station was nestled between an abandoned parking garage and a seedy hotel that charged by the hour. The Immortal State Justice building was across the street.

  As we neared the conservator station, Death Radar started to fill up with signals. There were so many that, even with my diluted senses, I couldn’t help but notice. I turned onto the main street and the crowd came into view. It was about three times the size that appeared on Death Radar because most of them were human. I saw protest signs, heard the distant sounds of anger and indignation, and saw news crews hovering on the fringes. The crowd swarmed the street and sidewalk in front of the conservator building. Their calamitous shouts and chants rolled over me. Protesting.

  Protesting me.

  “What is happening?” Mom asked.

  I didn’t answer. I made a nine-point turn so we could drive in the opposite direction.

  I parked two blocks away from the conservator building in a sketchy alley so narrow the sunlight couldn’t reach the dirty, cracked asphalt.

  Mom and I got out of the car. The chants from the crowd washed over us. I grabbed my bag with Rambo and Miss Sparkles inside, and Mom brought the pool cue. She must have liked it.

  I stayed as close as possible to the building walls and led Mom through the dark, wet alleys to the back of the conservator building. There were two doors, and both were locked.

  I scouted around the alley and found a narrow, crumbling staircase that led to the building’s basement. The bottom landing was small, just wide enough to allow the door to swing out, but at least it gave me somewhere to cast a spell without being seen. I parked Mom at the top stair so she could keep a lookout.

  I hoped she was coherent enough to do even that.

  I grabbed Miss Sparkles from my bag and unwrapped the layers of towels and T-shirts. It looked a lot like Longy. By the way the knife was looking at me, I could tell it didn’t trust me. That was fine with me, because I didn’t trust it either.

  “Miss Sparkles, we need to get into this building, and I want a nonviolent spell for it.”

  Nonviolent? What is this garbage? I thought we talked about this.

  “We did talk about this. I promise we’re going to kick some major booty, just like we talked about. But we’re going to do it lawfully.” I paused. “Right after this bit of breaking and entering.”

  “That does not sound very lawful,” Mom said.

  I frowned. “But no one is getting hurt or killed in the process, so I’m fine with it.”

  Mom shrugged and started tapping the pool cue against the ground in a weird rhythm. Tap-ta-tap-tap. Tap-ta-tap-tap.

  I rolled my eyes. “Miss Sparkles, the important thing here is the ‘no violence’ rule. I only want a way to get through this door. If it hurts anyone, you will be punished. Understood?”

  It’s still stupid, but… Fine. I’m ready if you are.

  I slid my hand around the grip. Miss Sparkles was not meant for me; the hilt was thinner, longer, and slightly more curved than Longy’s.

  But the connection between a sacrificial knife and a necromancer didn’t change. An image formed in my mind. I saw myself standing in the same alley, at the bottom of the crumbling stair, but the focus was on the specific movements of my arms and hands. And then I saw the result.

  I grimaced. “That’s disgusting.”

  You said nonviolent. I don’t have any other ideas, unless you plan to ring the doorbell.

  It was a two-handed operation, so I clamped Miss Sparkles between my legs. I raised my arms, fingers poised. Smoke roiled around me. Energy embraced me, warm against my skin. I expected to feel the channel respond in some way, but I still felt sandwiched between Dad’s and Mikelis’s energies. The channel just burbled at me, thick like pudding.

  Casting traditional necromancer magic is harder than it looks. We only needed a small hole in the wall to crawl through, but the spell didn’t know that. Magic has to be programmed. Had I been building the spell from scratch, like I normally did, I could specify the size of the hole I wanted to make.

  With this other method, I had to conjure the spell with both hands, and in the middle of the gesture, I was supposed to stop my left hand and use it to draw a rough estimate of the hole’s size, while the right hand was still gesturing. It felt sloppy. The brick started to sizzle, like it was a rare steak on a grill, and a thick liquid dripped from the hole. A rotting odor filled the alley.

  Mom pressed her sleeve over her mouth and nose. “What spell is that? It is rancid.”

  I tried to
remind her that breathing was optional as an immortal so she didn’t have to smell anything, but as soon as I opened my mouth, it was filled with the stench that I had just created. I gagged.

  When my stomach was under control, I cast the spell again, melting a hole large enough for us to crawl through. The sizzling sound grew louder and the brick melted, running down the wall and pooling onto the concrete like candle wax. The liquid spread out toward our feet. The odor was inescapable. I grabbed my purse so it wouldn’t get wet, but I couldn’t stop staring at the liquid. It pulsed with energy and sent a nervous thrill running through me.

  Mom grimaced. “Did you turn it into blood?”

  “Yeah.”

  But it was more than simple blood. Miss Sparkles had shown me that this spell had two parts. I only needed the first part to get through the door. I didn’t need the second part at all.

  But I couldn’t resist.

  I stared down at the red liquid and put my will into it, just like when I commandeer a dead body. A foreign buzz tickled my forehead, and I imagined a form.

  I snapped my fingers.

  The pool of blood recoiled and gathered by the wall. It grew thicker as it pooled, rising into a wide stump. It shimmered in the dim light and made an occasional squelching sound that turned my stomach.

  When all the blood had gathered to the stump, it started to stretch upward. The squelching sound intensified. The blood formed legs and a torso. Arms sprouted. A head.

  The figure had no definite features, but its outline looked eerily like… me. My height. My clothes. Long hair that fluttered and squelched in the breeze.

  Every muscle in my body clenched at the sight of it. Half of my attention was spent keeping the thing still. Its desire pulled at my mind; it wanted to rampage and make war on every living thing that crossed its path, as if the living were a scourge to be wiped out. The blood creature had no face, but I could sense it staring at me, as if pleading with me to be let loose on fragile flesh.

  Mom made a sound of disgust. “You created a blood slave?”

  “More like a…” I wracked my brain for something stupid. Something that Brad would call it. “A blood Terminator.”

  The blood form tugged on my mind again, begging to be unleashed. A sickening shudder ran down my spine.

  Mom grimaced. “Is this smell going to come out of my hair?”

  A warm breeze wafted across the blood body, churning the rotten odor. The surface of the blood rippled in the wind. Wet. Sticky. Gross.

  “Eeeeeeew,” we chorused.

  “Stop smelling it,” I told her.

  “I cannot help it. I am curious.”

  I waved my hand in front of the body, dismissing my disgusting blood minion, which seemed to dissipate into thin air. Only the odor remained.

  I beckoned Mom closer, then climbed through the hole. She handed me the pool cue and came in after me.

  Despite the building’s age and exterior dilapidation, the inside smelled fresh. I sucked in grateful breaths of air and looked around. We were in a small hallway. I could see a dozen rooms, all vacant. We looked inside one. It had a little cot in the corner and two wooden chairs directly across from each other.

  “Is this one of the cells?” I asked.

  “No,” Mom said. “I believe this is where inmates are fed.”

  Immortal bodies don’t generate energy, so they suction it from humans in order to keep their parasitic blood flowing. It’s essentially their food. This arrangement for prisoners was like an old drive-in fast food joint, but with people instead of burgers and fries. No one was hurt or killed, so the practice hadn’t been shunned by polite society. We left the room and shut the door behind us.

  I pulled the flashlight out of my bag. The light was significantly weaker than it had been yesterday. I suspected it had about fifteen minutes of life left in it. I shined the flashlight around the hall. There was an elevator in the middle of the hall and a stairwell at the far end. The stairwell door was covered in heavy locks, all closed. According to Death Radar, the stairwell was clear.

  I led Mom to the stairwell and I made a hole in the door. The resulting liquid wasn’t enough to make another blood Terminator, but I could have made a small dog. I dismissed the blood, and we climbed into the stairwell. The sign on the wall read BASEMENT FLOOR 1.

  I saw Luucas’s signal in the opposite corner. Death Radar doesn’t show depth, so we’d have to search each floor to find him.

  We crept down the wide metal stairs as quietly as we could. The rubber soles of my sneakers squeaked a little when I walked. Mom’s leather shoes made soft shuffling sounds. The knives were trying hard to be quiet, but their excitement felt loud in my head.

  The door to Basement Floor 2 was locked, so I had to make another hole. Peeking through, we saw a large, utilitarian space lined with jail cells. The cells seemed typical—square rooms with steel bars. Concrete block walls. No paint. In the center of the room there was a small, sturdy guard station, a steel octagon with thick acrylic windows. It blocked our view of the opposite corner, the source of Luucas’s signal.

  We could call out for Luucas or just go in there and look. Neither option was good.

  “How many immortals are in this building?” Mom whispered.

  I checked. “I see thirty-four, including Lumi.” I paused as a new signal appeared. Crap. “Thirty-five, including Uncle Rick.”

  I held my bag against my chest and climbed through the hole. Mom followed. I heard shuffling movement inside a couple of the jail cells, but no one said anything.

  I slipped past the first cell. A man was lying on the cot inside. I didn’t make eye contact, but I noticed him starting to sit up. When Mom followed me, I heard some whispers between cells.

  We hustled past the cells. I peeked around the empty guard station, at the corner cell where Luucas’s signal was coming from.

  Empty.

  We hustled back out to the stairwell. The next two floors had similar layouts, although the cells and security seemed further enhanced the deeper we went. And we didn’t find Luucas on either level.

  We made it to the bottom of the stairwell, Basement Level 5. The door was unlocked.

  The floor was dull, charcoal-colored metal. The only light was a dim, immortal-friendly shade of gray coming from some emergency lights. Red protective spells shimmered and slithered around every cell, but they didn’t illuminate the space, since technically they were hidden on the supernatural plane.

  These cells were built like isolation chambers—solid walls with small windows. Maximum security, I guessed. The air didn’t flow well in here, but then, breathing was voluntary for immortals. Even though Luucas’s signal was coming from the back corner, we stopped to peek inside each of the other cells. All of them were empty.

  We followed the row of cells to the end, turned a corner, and stood before the final cell door. Even squinting, I couldn’t see into the dark cell.

  “Psst! Luucas! Are you in there?”

  I heard shuffling on the other side of the door. Footsteps neared. A dim outline of Luucas’s eyes and nose filled the little window. When he saw us, his eyes narrowed and his brows pinched into an angry V. His muffled voice was hard to hear through the glass.

  “What are you doing here? How did you get down here?” His gaze shifted to somewhere behind me. “Isadora?”

  “There’s no time to explain,” I said. “We’re here to bust you out. Get away from the door.”

  “What!? No.”

  “You suck, Luucas. We’re rescuing you. Get away from the door!”

  “Kari, I am a Principal Conservator, and you will respect the laws that I enforce. If I can’t get my friends and associates to follow the rules, how can I expect anyone else to?”

  Behind me, Mom tapped the pool cue against the ground. “Are we friends or associates?”

  It was hard to see Luucas’s face in the tiny, square window, but I could definitely see hesitation in his eyes. Defeat.

  “Aw,” I said
. “That’s sweet. You’re our friend, too. Now back your ass up, because I’m going to melt this door.”

  “Kari, that’s—wait a minute. Is that how you got down here?” Luucas’s volume rose until he was shouting. His tone was panicked. “Did you melt a hole in my building?”

  I could hear the knives snickering in my bag. It vibrated in my skull.

  Mom piped up behind me. “Three of them. If it helps, the holes are small.” She paused. “Ish.”

  “Ish?” Luucas yelled. “I can’t afford that. Most conservator buildings are held together by duct tape and hope. One of my buildings doesn’t even have working plumbing. Everyone has to use the bathroom at the pizza place across the street.” His eyes narrowed. “Does Lumi know you’re here?”

  “No. We came in from the back because there are protestors out front. Now, get away from the door.”

  His face disappeared from the little window. I heard soft thuds against the metal door as Luucas banged his head, probably trying to erase me from his memory.

  His face reappeared in the window. “Why are you doing this?”

  Mom held up her palm, which still had “I WILL NOT SHARE” written clearly across.

  “Good job, Mom,” I said. I turned back to Luucas. “We don’t have a lot of time, so you’ll have to live with a summary. There’s another necromancer. She killed my fans and Cody Springer, stole Rambo, and switched our magic. Now I’m like my dad, who’s…” I shrugged. “…you know, an ultimate warrior.”

  “So sexy,” my mom murmured.

  I cringed and glanced over my shoulder. “Mom. Ew. No.” I faced Luucas again. “Anyway, our magic got switched. Norayr Hakobyan kidnapped the girl, and I think he stole Stubby. Henri Boisseau is now able to bypass the spell my grandfather put on him, and he told Norayr everything he knows about my magic. Half the Council is now on their way here to meet with Norayr, who claims to have Eliana Rendon’s magic in his custody. He’s going to use the girl and my magic to weaponize the Immortal State and secure the State’s settlements by force.”