The Necromancer's House

by Christopher Buehlman

She will need to fill a sack, take what she wants, burn the rest.

  She already destroyed the tub in the Thief’s bathroom so the old man could not return.

  She will burn the professor in the hut.

  She will burn the new witch, too.

  Baba drained the new witch close to death to make herself stronger for the fighting, to power the hut and the doll-soldiers without compromising her own strength. As she used to drain the Thief, and many others.

  Now she gets nothing from her—she is unconscious or dead.

  She will also burn the stick-man with the painting for a head.

  It whimpers in the Thief’s bedroom and will not leave. She thought about destroying it, but it is a harmless thing, good for fetching and spying, but unable to think for itself. She will take it apart and smell its magic out before she burns it, though—it is a good spell, one she is unfamiliar with.

  The library is safe now.

  Various booby-traps sprung at her; a drill broke itself on her head, a minor Hand of Glory tried pathetically to punch her, a rubber snake became a real cobra, which she ate. A nasty bug even tried to slither up her privates, but she turned herself caustic and burned it to a crisp.

  She was obliged to play Russian roulette so she could collect the Book of Sorrows; there’s just no getting around the risk of death to handle that book.

  But death is no obstacle to her.

  She’s too good at resisting the pull, at finding another warm body to wedge herself into.

  Most of them don’t know how to fight to hold on to their skin.

  Mostly it’s an easy thing.

  And even a witch can be pushed out if taken by surprise.

  Now she takes up the sack.

  It is heavy—she didn’t stop with her books.

  She will take a French book on shapeshifting and an American text on automobiles and a book by Saint Delphinia of Amiens that claims the Revelation of St. John happened in 1348; that angels and devils fought a second war that destroyed Lucifer and left Mammon in charge.

  She remembers that time dimly, thinks it may well be true that greed and envy replaced wrath and pride as man’s chief evils.

  A pity.

  She hoists her sack.

  She is about to leave the library when she notices a pretty carved box she had not seen before.

  Up on the mantelpiece of the library’s fireplace.

  Beneath a painting of an oak tree.

  She sets the bag down.

  Examines the box, a box of cedar and ivory.

  She tries to open it but finds it locked.

  She spits in the keyhole and the lock smokes, opens.

  A rabbit?

  A stuffed rabbit.

  She sees her reflection in its shiny, convex eyes, and it surprises her. It always surprises her to see herself young. She prefers the body of a crone, prefers to be underestimated and ignored, to make clear decisions because she is not distracted by a quick womb and its siren song of sex and children.

  And she can always make herself look pretty when she needs to seduce.

  What is this rabbit?

  A relic?

  She tries to feel magic, feels only an odd, flat deadness.

  She picks it up.

  When she does, it opens its mouth and, impossibly, an egg rolls out.

  Breaks on the hardwood floor.

  This triggers a memory in her, but too late.

  “Here is the devil!” she says.

  And then it happens.

  • • •

  Andrew Ranulf Blankenship, or his death, or his life essence, or his soul, if you prefer, rushes up from the broken shell and the mess of yolk and albumen on the floor of his library, rushes at the body of his onetime lover.

  If he hesitates, she will become aware of him, will defend herself, and he will be a ghost.

  He doesn’t give her time.

  He pushes for all he’s worth, leaps into her body and crowds it, gives her no room to hide, feels himself in all of her at once.

  For a dizzying moment, both of them occupy the flesh of the unfortunate Marina Yaganishna, but the old witch is surprised. Off-balance.

  She tries to hold on.

  If she gains purchase, he will lose.

  He does something he understands as bracing his foot against her hip bone and straining at her, pushing her up and out through the nose and mouth.

  The mouth of Marina Yaganishna opens and she wails as if in labor. Clenches her fists. But she can’t hold. Momentum and surprise are his, and he pushes her out of the body she stole.

  And takes it for himself.

  121

  Baba Yaga, or her death, or her life essence, or her soul if you prefer, sees the body of Marina Yaganishna from the outside. Sees that it has clenched its muscles, sees that the warlock is breathing slowly out, keeping rigid. She rushes at him, tries to push, but it is an easier thing to defend a body than to take one, provided you know you are under attack.

  She sees herself drop to her knees, clutch them against her chest.

  The Thief has done his reading—if he tried to stand up in that new body, with all his strange muscles twitching and the matter of the brain rippling to accommodate the new thought patterns and the new thinker, he would be vulnerable, and she could push him right back out.

  But he, or she now, drops to the ground and breathes.

  Throws up the pork and apples she had for lunch—nausea is normal.

  Keeps breathing, keeps her muscles tensed so she is aware of her perimeter, so she can inventory all her parts.

  Baba sees this is fruitless.

  She is being shut out.

  For now.

  And then.

  Oh God.

  It comes.

  The light.

  The warm and welcoming light.

  Her son, sweet, weak Misha, went into the light already to play with kittens and sit on the lap of Jesus and play the balalaika or whatever people do there where all are equal.

  To hell with that!

  All are not equal.

  The warm light waits just outside the wall of the library and she knows she could move right through that wall and into it, but then she would not be smarter or stronger than anyone else, and that sounds like hell to her.

  She might even be judged, if the priests are right.

  But she was there before the priests came to her land.

  She was there when the dead were burned in huts on little hills with rings of poles all around.

  She was still a girl when she asked the woman who talked to Chërt, the dark-god, to help her get rid of her mother’s new husband, the sneering one who preferred fucking her, fucked her whenever her mother went out. And he sent her out a lot. How she hated the sight of his teeth as he sneered and grunted over her, sweated down on her. Hated the sound of him standing and pissing outside the hut.

  Mother Damp-Earth never answered her prayers, but dark-god did.

  Her mother’s husband fell in a hole; his brothers saw hands grab him, saw a hand with a rock break his teeth out, saw another hand rip his cock off before the black earth stopped his screams and he was gone forever.

  What was her own name then?

  It was too long ago to remember. She used to write it down, but then she lost it and lost interest in finding it again.

  She thinks she hears Misha’s voice coming from the light.

  Baba. Come to me here. It’s good here.

  Are you my father to tell me what to do? You come here.

  I don’t want to.

  How many sons and daughters and sisters and mothers do you think have tried to get me in there? You tell that light to eat shit and go away.

  Good-bye, Baba.

  Yes, yes. Enjoy the balalaika.<
br />
  But this may just be her mind talking to itself.

  Either way, the light stops tugging at her and fades away.

  That’s when she hears

  With what ears?

  the front door open.

  If she only had a mouth to smile with.

  122

  We have to go back a little now.

  Back to the house of Anneke Zautke, and to the thing she woke up. The thing she told to stay on the bed. It did what it was told—things like that are remarkably compliant at first, that compliance coming from a deep desire to please the maker. But, as with a dog who was told to stay, the desire to be near its master soon overwhelms the memory of the command.

  It hears the commotion outside when Anneke is dragged to the hut; it watches the hut take her. It hides from the witch when she looks back down the trail, then goes back into the house and cries.

  After it cries all it can cry, it decides to follow Anneke.

  Magic brought it to life, so it feels magic.

  It knows where the hut went.

  It follows, walking by the side of the road.

  Barefoot.

  White T-shirt with a red circle, Japanese characters reading Looking for a Japanese girlfriend.

  No bra.

  Holding its blue jeans up with one hand because they are Anneke’s jeans and Anneke is two sizes bigger.

  Because it is a very attractive thing walking by the side of the road alone at night, a man with a port-wine nose and an orange Syracuse Windbreaker pulls his car over and asks it if he can have a date.

  “I want a ride in your car,” it says.

  “Where to?”

  “I don’t know. But I’ll tell you when I get there.”

  He says “I don’t know” is his favorite place.

  He pulls over on a farm road near a cornfield and has sex with it.

  It looks down the road where the magic went the whole time.

  Shaking him and pointing.

  He is taking a long time because the Zoloft delays orgasm.

  Also because he is already composing the words he will use to describe this peccadillo to Father Maldonado on Sunday.

  “Hurry!” it says, slapping his face, which sends him over.

  “Was that even a little bit good for you?” he asks, putting his prophylactic in an empty soda cup, which he puts into an empty McDonald’s bag, which he puts into a plastic Pick & Save bag like the worst nesting doll ever.

  “I don’t care,” it says. “Take me down that road now.”

  “How much do I owe you?”

  Frustrated, it punches his ear and points down the road.

  His anger at the pain quickly morphs into guilt as he realizes he may have taken advantage of a deranged girl.

  The girl-thing makes him drive slowly, pointing.

  “Dog Neck Harbor, eh?” he says.

  “Don’t talk anymore. I don’t like the way you talk.”

  He turns on the radio.

  When they get to Willow Fork Road, the feeling of magic gets strong.

  It smiles, claps its hands a little, laughs.

  “How much farther?” he asks, blowing his nose into a napkin from his Windbreaker.

  Oily smoke from a burned war machine rises from a yard, but he can’t see it.

  Snow falls on the windshield, but he thinks it’s rain.

  His angle on the lower road doesn’t permit him to see the decapitated man or the ravens feeding on him.

  “Here!” the girl-thing shrieks.

  The man in the Windbreaker stops the car, fumbles for his wallet.

  He slides two twenties from his wallet, also dragging out a saved fortune cookie slip like a small, white tongue.

  She is already out of the car and running.

  He reads the slip in his lap, its cheerful red letters proclaiming

  BAD LUCK WILL MISS YOU IF YOU DRIVE AWAY!

  He drives away.

  Anneke’s creation doesn’t know where to go now.

  Magic screams from the house, but also from the woods and from the burning machine. The magic here is much stronger than anything at Anneke’s house.

  It feels her creator everywhere here; Anneke has saturated this place with her presence. But the magic is strongest in the house. The house with the blown-in doorway and the hole in the roof and the dimples where shells hit it and the house re-formed itself.

  The pretty thing in the outsized clothes walks in the front door.

  Hears a woman moaning in discomfort upstairs.

  Barely notices the cold patch it walks through on its way up the stairs to the library.

  The cold patch follows it.

  • • •

  Andrew-in-Marina moans, lying in a fetal position, when he (she) sees the lovely teenaged girl-thing walk into the library, looking confused.

  It sees him (her).

  “Pretty-mole-lady, where is Anneke?”

  It has Anneke’s voice exactly.

  Andrew (Marina) almost understands, would understand completely if he (she) were not busy breathing steadily and keeping muscles half-tensed.

  Then the pretty girl jerks.

  Its life essence is a fragile thing, an entirely new creation, flapping like a pillowcase on a clothesline. The wind that whips it away is a strong, cold wind indeed.

  There is no fight at all.

  The fledgling spirit dissolves as if it never were.

  Unplugged, the girl’s body crumples, hits its head on the floor with a dull thump.

  The girl’s Italianate blue eyes open again.

  The eyes narrow.

  The girl smiles a lupine smile, the upper lip curling a bit too much.

  She vomits abundantly—the pasta shells and white cheese a staple in Anneke’s pantry.

  That is Anneke’s T-shirt.

  It stinks of Winstons.

  Andrew-in-Marina almost understands what the girl was. Knows all too well what the girl is now. Stops breathing and clenching—the old witch has found her host.

  That is Anneke’s T-shirt.

  Andrew-in-Marina understands in a flash.

  Tries to say, “Ah!”

  It sounds more like, “Gah!”

  123

  Anneke has just returned from Michael Rudnick’s quarry, surging, full of power. Knows she has a limited window of opportunity to do this awful thing, knows each time she resists the temptation to do it that she eventually will, that she has to.

  In the basement.

  Seven statues of her teenaged lover, Shelly Bertolucci.

  Most are small.

  The best one is life-sized.

  She knows she will have to teach it to be an actual person, not just stone turned into dying meat.

  She improvises.

  Burns pictures of the actual Shelly and rubs the ashes all over it.

  Takes the lock of Shelly’s hair that she had saved, lays this on the statue’s head.

  Burns a letter of Shelly’s, puts the ashes on the statue’s lips.

  Touches her own moist sex and moistens Shelly’s.

  Kisses the stone lips, leaves her own saliva on the ash.

  Dabs milk on her breast, touches that to Shelly’s.

  Cuts her left middle finger, touches that to Shelly’s.

  When she is ready, she turns a red maple leaf to stone.

  Quickens it again, blows life’s fire from the leaf to the statue, which turns maple-red at first, then to stone again.

  On the third attempt, the red stone glows coal-red, driving Anneke from the basement with its heat, making her fear fire, then cools, softens, goes pink, turns flesh-colored, then turns flesh.

  It breathes in a hitching breath.

  Breathes out.

&n
bsp; It sobs.

  It moves its fingers.

  Its eyes.

  Puts its warm arms around Anneke.

  Says Thank you.

  Anneke laughs and cries.

  Says, “Oh, fuck.”

  124

  Oh, fuck, Andrew-in-Marina thinks.

  This is happening.

  There’s no other way.

  Shelly’s double and Marina both begin to stand, shakily, twitching, muscles misfiring.

  Two foals in new bodies.

  About to fight to the death.

  125

  Anneke wakes up still attached at wrists and ankles, hanging like a hammock in a sinking ship. The hut is on the ground, cracked open, snow falling in. The bearded madman holds his knees, looks out the window, then looks out the window again.

  “She got him,” he says.

  He keeps repeating “she got him” and looking out the window as if he is stuck in some sort of loop.

  She got who?

  Andrew, who else?

  This guy’s bugshit, he’s like Renfield, don’t listen.

  Anneke takes inventory.

  Her shoulder really hurts; must have gotten yanked when the hut went down.

  The snake torque around her neck is no longer draining her.

  Just cold iron.

  She has enough magic in her to will it off her, making it groan and twist and finally fall dead to the floor, which is actually the wall now. She breaks the loop holding her feet; they clunk down. Now her hands; she sharpens the inside of the metal loop, uses it to cut her rope.

  Renfield sees her struggling free, comes over, tries to hold her down, but he doesn’t mean it. All he manages to do is bleed and cry on her. She stomps him in the chest, crawls out the window, and dumps herself in the snow.

  Snow?

  It’s fucking August!

  Ravens form a loud bully-ring around something to her left.

  I don’t want to know what that is, not yet, it’s a deer, just a deer.

  She sees the burning T-34, the strange black rocks around it, sees the scattered debris of the wrecked cars and boulders.

  Steps on a doll with button eyes and it bleeds into the snow.

  Senses she needs to get inside.

  Upstairs.

  Fast.