Victoria Cage Necromancer BoxSet

by Eli Constant

  Liam puts his arm around my waist as I begin to sway. The pain, although gone, has left me exhausted. “Dwarfs can communicate with the earth the way you can communicate with spirits, Victoria.”

  I try to think, blinking slowly. “But wouldn’t the earth always be exposed to those things? Animals die. Factories dump waste where they shouldn’t. Blood is spilled everywhere over this and that.”

  “This is different, Blood Queen.” He walks around us and towards his home. “Come.”

  Mordecai is already at his front door before Liam and I begin moving. I really don’t want to go into his house, so dark with no electric lights to brighten the way. But I have to know what he’s talking about. I can feel it’s important. And Liam knows more about dwarfs than I do.

  He would not call you for something normal, Victoria. I can sense in him that something has affected him deeply. The earth is calling for justice and he is its interpreter. We must hear him out.

  I walk, feet heavy like I’m clad in concrete boots, and when I walk through the door to the little house, I feel my chest constrict. I can feel nothing here. No residual spirit energy. No ghost clinging to the foundation. No ether activity miles away. Complete silence of power. It is both suffocating and freeing.

  Dwarfs have ways of guarding their homes from nearly everything. Liam’s arm is still around my body as we walk through the halls, following the candle flame that Mordecai is now holding.

  Wonder if he’d come over and put the guards on my place. I mean it as a joke, but it sounds serious in my head. There are a lot of days—I mean a lot of days—that I’d like to go about my business without worrying if a body was going to rise on the table or a spirit was going to come out of nowhere to ask for my aid.

  I’m afraid it doesn’t quite work that way. The protection magic is woven directly into the soil of the dwarf’s home. It’s tethered to their feel for the land, their presence. Mordecai would have to live with you for the protection spells to work.

  Ha. Well, I guess I’ll deal with the spirits then. They’re preferable.

  Victoria, I’m very sorry about your Bronco. I could feel how much it meant to you.

  I mentally huddle up inside. I’m trying not to think of the car. It’s like saying goodbye to my father all over again. Liam doesn’t press me and try to get me to answer.

  Mordecai pauses for a moment to allow us to catch up. I think he does it purposefully, to allow the light of his candle to filter past the open door to his right. It’s like a train wreck, you can’t help but look. And when you do look, you’re powerless to look away.

  The room is filled with animals in various forms of taxidermy. The most disturbing are those strung from the ceiling by their feet, little buckets beneath them to catch all the blood that drains out. The glassy, dead eyes of a stuffed fox stares at me. I can feel nothing from it, because everything that it once was, save for its skin and fur, has been removed. It is truly a shell now.

  I wonder, in passing, if that is why I did not sense Timothy’s body beneath the lake when it had finally settled there. The chemical mummification of his corpse plus the freezing water and ice had somehow blocked my power. I wonder if even Hellhole Bay would be somewhat quiet during this winter. I do not have time to reach for it with my power to see. Those bodies, those trapped souls and wraiths, are the ones that often keep me up at night with their wailing and misery.

  The taxidermy room goes dark as Mordecai begins moving again. Liam and I follow, silently.

  We’re walking down the hallway again, headed for a final door at the end. It’s ominous, walking in a tunnel of dull light towards a door in the house of a dwarf that was… what? My frenemy?

  Mordecai opens the door. Stairs. Going down.

  I definitely do not want to walk down them. But I do. You know, because that’s what good little necromancer blood queens do—they walk down scary-ass stairs to listen to dwarf ramblings about how Mother Earth is giving him an earful about pollutants and dying rabbits. Fuck.

  When we reach the bottom of the stairs, I’m surprised to see that the candle flame is nowhere to be seen. I wait for my eyes to adjust and they do, slowly, until I can see a pale glowing all around me, like little stars embedded in the walls.

  Only it’s not walls of a house. It’s rock and earth and stones. The stones glow from within, like they possess they’re own inner lights. Liam gasps beside me, momentarily releasing my waist. It’s a good thing that I’ve recovered the strength to stand.

  “Pierras de dios. God stones. But how?” Liam steps forward, leaving me behind. He turns slowly, taking in the thousands of lights around us. “The last of these were supposed to be destroyed after the final dwarf kingdom fell. King Arracus refused to allow their sacred light to be shared with the fairy community. How?” Liam stops moving, focuses on Mordecai—who I now see is standing with his back to the corner of the room. “How, Dwarf King?”

  “Do you truly think that we would destroy the last of these? They are living, breathing creatures. They are everything. They are us all. We could no more kill the stones than kill ourselves.”

  I raise my hand and it’s a stupid thing to do. “Um, excuse me, newbie here. What are these stones supposed to be?”

  “They’re…” Liam shifts his body so he can look at me. The light is filling the room now, brightening until it is midday without sun, “they are creation, Victoria. They are the beginning and they will be the end.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “These stones,” Liam waves his right arm gently, indication the burning stars around us, glowing with incandescent light the color of pale lemons or fresh churned butter. It is good and right and makes me feel warm and safe, “these are God, Victoria. No… that’s not the right way to put it.” He turns to Mordecai. “Please, Dwarf King, explain it to her.”

  Mordecai steps forward, a somber look on his face. “This is a secret that should never have been told, but you are the Blood Queen. The Blood calls to the stones. It begs you to protect life over death. I saw the darkness in you. I saw the desire to kill me. I tasted my death. That is not the path you should walk. Ever since you came, the stones have grown brighter and brighter. They have seeped their power into the earth and filled it with new life. I feel closer to my past, to my kingdom, than I have in a century’s time.

  “These stones, Blood Queen, are the dice that God rolled, tossing his intention out into the cosmos to create worlds upon worlds and creatures upon creatures. They are pieces of his truths, of his essence, left behind to right the world when things go wrong.

  “They are the voice that called the flood and they will be the voice that calls the inferno that burns this world to bring about a new start.

  “They are,” he pauses, tears in his eyes, “God, Blood Queen. And they call to you and your magic. They call you to do good in the world. To quell the bloodshed that it sees coming once again.”

  “That it sees coming again?” I don’t know what to say, not really, but the question falls from my lips like gossamer. Easily and with purpose. And I know instantly that it is a question that I had to ask. There was no choice in the matter.

  “The Rising. That was not a reaping brought about by God. That was man’s doing. And it hurt the Earth. It weakened her. It almost snuffed out the light.” Mordecai walks forward to the wall of soil closest to him. He presses his body full length against it and he hums softly, a low throaty tune that is wordless and works its way through the air, filling it until Liam and I can do nothing except listen and absorb. “Can’t you hear it?” He says after a moment, pushing his body away from the wall. “Can’t you hear it?”

  I walk forward, passing Liam who is still stood in the center of the room like a man who’s been faced with the lost wonder of the world. When I am but a few inches from the wall, Mordecai reaches for my hand at my side. I flinch away at first, but then I allow him to take my fingers in his and raise my hand upwards and out, until my palm connects with one of the glowing ember
s in the wall. It is warm and fills me with peace.

  “Listen,” Mordecai whispers, “listen.”

  I close my eyes and I focus. There are no spirits to contend with, nothing calling to the necromancer within me. And in the silence that I am unused to, I hear it. I see it.

  I am racing through the soil, my body pushing through stones and past buried rock and root, past earthworms and bugs, until I encounter a stone I cannot pass. It is grey and buried deep. It also reaches high, higher than the ground, higher than I can go. It takes me a moment to realize that it’s a foundation. I have reached a home. A hand touches my shoulder and suddenly my senses are amplified.

  Together, Mordecai and I push through the concrete blocks and beneath the house. Above us, is a basement area, I can feel the furnishings—all once trees, solid wood and expensive materials. We keep moving forward until we emerge into a room with no walls, a room much like the one we are physically standing in. It is only large enough for a small bed and chair. There is a bucket in the corner.

  We move closer to the bed, walking on legs now instead of soaring through soil. There is something lying beneath the sheets. It does not move. When we have reached the edge of the bed, we reach out together, his hand atop mine, and we pull the sheet slowly. Slowly.

  Until we see the first brush of hair against the stained pillow.

  Dark hair, perhaps once shiny and well-cared for.

  The sheet moves further down to reveal the top of a face. Just the forehead. It looks dry, as if the owner has been out in the freezing cold too long and chapped her face. A little lower. The nose. The mouth. The chin.

  I know what I’m seeing before the sheet is pulled further.

  I recognize the set of the mouth, so artificial and forced. There will be wire, forcing the smile.

  There will be wire, forcing her hands to sit just so across her stomach.

  There will be wire.

  And more wire.

  This is not one of the victims we have already found. She is new. No more than a week by the state of the body. I memorize her face. Every facet of it. I memorize her face.

  When I am pulled back from the torture chamber, both for my mind and for the victim’s body, I am crying.

  “Do you know who the killer is, Mordecai?” My voice is soft, more ruined than it has ever sounded.

  “No, I am sorry.” And the once Dwarf King does sound sorry, like he would do anything to help the Earth heal from human atrocities.

  “Thank you for showing me.”

  “It was not by my choice.” He said, leaning forward so his head rested for a short moment against the soil wall.

  Mordecai does not walk us up the stairs to leave. He stays in the basement, communing with the God stones.

  When we are in the car, the doors closed against the bitter cold and the interior still nearly-stifling hot from the engine running, Liam turns to me. “Victoria, the God stones must be obeyed. They are… the ultimate authority in the universe.”

  “I’m going to find this killer, Liam. I don’t need some deity stones to tell me to do it. I can’t believe he’s killed someone else. I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. Timothy disappeared over a year and a half ago. True serial killers will always find another victim. They crave it, like food on an empty stomach. So he… or she… has taken another innocent girl. Woman by the age of her face and size of her body.” I clasp my hands together on my lap, squeezing my fingers tight enough that it’s uncomfortable. “I’m going to find who’s doing this and I’m going to do it for me, for Timothy, for Maggie Smythe. I’m going to do it for the Jane Doe sitting in Doug’s morgue who might never get justice.”

  Liam sits quietly for a moment. “What can you remember about the place you saw, the place the God Stones took you?”

  “Underground, beneath a house.” I bite my lip hard, trying to recall little details I may have missed. “I’d say a very large house. When we pushed through the foundations beneath the basement, it took some time to reach the hidden room. And things above us felt… real. Like expensive real. Animal leather, mahogany, mother of pearl.”

  “Do you remember anything about the journey from the King Dwarf’s basement to the killer’s basement?”

  “Nothing, aside from that it seemed like a long distance. Definitely not nearby.”

  “It could be the Sherwin’s home. The description fits.”

  “I thought you didn’t get inside to see anything.”

  “I didn’t, but I was able to look through the windows of the first level and the basement. Everything is lavish and expensive. The mother of pearl seems unique and the downstairs bar was decorated with it.”

  “That’s enough for me, but not enough for the police I’m afraid.”

  “And I’m afraid that we need them behind us if we’re going to search that house.”

  “We’re not going to do anything, Liam. It’s a stretch for Terrance to even allow me at crime scenes. I get away with it because I’m on file as a consultant now. No, I’ve asked you to do enough already. You could have been caught today.”

  “I would not have been caught, Victoria.”

  “It could have happened. Don’t act all tough guy ‘faster than light’ fae on me.”

  “Not quite faster than light.” His mouth quirks in a smile. “I like that you worry about me, Victoria.”

  “Liam, don’t.”

  “You tell me not to talk about it, to not show you my feelings, but then I hear your thoughts, loud as a scream in my mind, telling me that you know you care for me too. That you love me too.”

  “I can’t help what I think, Liam. And it’s not my fault that you’re constantly trespassing on my thoughts.”

  “Would it help if you could hear my thoughts too?”

  I frown, wondering if I actually would want to hear what he was thinking. Yeah, I would. “At least then it wouldn’t be this one-sided intrusion all the time.”

  And just like that, as if I’m being hit by a truck—but a soft truck, padded like a room for a self-harming patient in a psychiatric hospital. I can see inside his mind. And, because he has allowed me to enter, it is not just words and sentences and conversation. It’s pictures of his past, his present, of the way he sees his future.

  His future with me.

  I pull myself back, trying to exit his thoughts, just as a small child with bouncing mahogany curls runs to him and jumps into his arms, calling him ‘daddy’. The little girl has my eyes.

  Liam seems to sense that I do not want to see what is coursing through his mind. He releases me and my chest is rising and falling rapidly, my breath coming in little surprised gasps. “Is that how it is,” I gulp air, “every time you talk to me. Do you see inside me like that?”

  “I control what I do and do not see, but it would be like that each time, if I allowed it to be.”

  I can’t think of a response to that. If he can see me, so transparently, and still love me… if he can see and accept both the darkness and light within me, and still love me…

  Shaking my head, I dislodge the aftershock of venturing into his mind. I push away the image of the beautiful child jumping into her father’s arms.

  I’m with Kyle. I love Kyle.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Terrance, I don’t think we should wait until Monday to question the Sherwins.” It’s after one in the morning. I’d tried Terrance four times before he’d finally answered. I’d barely waited for him to say ‘hello’ before barking at him.

  “Tori, what the hell time is it?”

  “After one.” I hear him fumbling about, covers rustling, and a female voice murmuring something.

  “Go back to sleep, honey, it’s just Tori.” He’s walking then, I can hear his floors creak and the soft padding of his feet against the wood floors of his room. The master bedroom door whines as he opens it. It’s always sounded like that, from the day they’d moved in. He’s never oiled the hinges. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s a cop thing—the sound wil
l alert him to someone entering. Maybe he just likes creaky houses. After I hear the door cry again and the soft click as it closes, Terrance’s voice comes to life once more. Still whispering though, trying not to wake the kids of course. “Now what are you on about?”

  “The Sherwins. I think they could be the ones killing people and, God, Terrance, I think they might have killed a fourth person. I saw the body tonight. I saw it.” I stop talking, knowing my voice is reaching a note of hysteria. Kyle’s not home yet, tending to Mikey probably. I’d tried texting him to see if he was okay, but he hadn’t answered. Maybe he didn’t have his cell? He was naked when he’d changed back. Had he had his cell on him when he’d busted out of his clothes?

  “Wait, you saw the body?” Terrance’s voice gets loud and two seconds later I hear a child crying. “Shit.” More walking, heavier steps this time and faster. Another squeaking door. “What’s wrong, baby?”

  “I need water, daddy.”

  “If you drink water now, you’ll wet the bed.”

  “I will not!” The voice is belligerent and adorable.

  “Sadie.” Terrance is using his authoritative voice, but it’s toned down and more suited for a four year old. “Go back to sleep now. You can drink as much water as you like once the sun’s up.”

  “Will you read me a story?”

  Got to give the kid credit, she was going for the gold.

  “Bed, Sadie Grace.” And the door squeaks again, settling into the frame with a little thud. “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be. I can’t believe I haven’t seen the kids in so long.”

  “You’ll have to come to dinner, bring that new guy of yours.”

  “Um…sure.” Which new guy? Is what I really wanted to say.

  “All right, Tori. Go slowly and don’t leave anything out. Why should I bring the Sherwins in sooner for questioning?”

  I told him almost everything, minus what Mordecai was and how he, and a couple thousand God Stones, had helped me ‘mind’ travel through soil to the bad guy’s lair. Of course, that meant I had to bend the truth a little.